I’m done complaining about it. It isnt just me, it’s dozens of people and hundreds of posts.
My question is this:
Are there any plans to change Bone Dragon?
Thanks in advance.
Perhaps they could adjust vanilla troops as well? Vanilla legendaries like Goblin King desperately need brought up to speed since nobody uses them at all! There’s no point in using them currently.
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I suspect that the Server Move has taken many of the development resources over the last couple months.
I’m hoping we will see a rework of at least one old kingdom in between new kingdom releases.
Just around a year ago we had that major balancing patch. I’m hoping for reworks, because troops like Courage and Humility are so much more powerful than Sacrifice. Bone Dragon breaks the gem creation scaling that they have worked to fix.
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Short answer… yes - simply put, a troop that can consistently scale the gems it puts down as skills get higher cannot continue without a change
Longer answer… Bone Dragon is tricky. We need to balance him so he’s still a good pick early-to-mid game, where he CAN punish bad choices of the caster… a great pick in mid game as armor is scaling up, but once again, requiring timing to cast well… and still a viable pick late game, but NOT infinitely scaling with armor!
We have a couple of things in mind, which we’re not ready to share yet, but they require our next update to happen.
Things we’ve rejected:
- A mana cost increase… this would help, but ultimately the problem remains, and it just kills him early game, while having minimal effect in late game where surges happen more often
- Boost ratio lowered… this can actually make him tougher in late game as he creates less “blocks” of skulls
- A complete spell rework… we like his spell. His identity is great. He just doesn’t scale the same way other troops do, and it’s causing the problem
- Creating flat numbers of Skulls and stealing the armor… balancewise not a bad suggestion, but it just doesn’t feel like “Stripping the Flesh” to me, so it’s kind of an identity issue.
Anyway, stay tuned as we approach 3.0 Guild Wars and we’ll have more info on Bone Dragon + a few other over-achievers, as well as some UNDER-achievers. Now that the bulk of the server migration is done, we’re going to be full steam ahead on Guild Wars so it won’t be too long I hope!
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Note, I’m not asking them to CHANGE Bone Dragon.
I’m asking them if they’ve even discussed it.
This is not only EXACTLY what I was wanting to hear regarding Bone Dragon but you offered info well above and beyond what I asked.
Cheers, Sirrian! Great news.
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Fantastic news. This paired with a buff to Gloom Leaf would be great.
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Any hints on the other troops you consider OP? I don’t want to get too attached to a troop that’s gonna get nerfed.
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Khorvash is the other most complained about troop, with courage and justice joint third. Famine is possibly next, but I’ve seen moans about the dragon soul, forest guardian, kraken and Kerberos all being OP.
Hopefully the devs will be using data to assess over/under power, not just moaning forum posts!
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I just killed EK, Valk, and a Crimson Bat all in one turn with Bone Dragon. I’ve changed my mind. DO NOT NERF.
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Holy schnikes, ROFL! 
Yes, it needs to be based somewhat on objective data but you can’t discount customer feedback either. Number of complaints absolutely should be one of many factors to consider.
To that end, I gotta think Khorvash is much more “eligible” for a rework than say Forest Guardian.
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just thank you
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I wonder if the boost portion could be logarithmic.
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The late-game “problem” from my perspective is that the AI is counting large “blocks” of skulls as 10+ matches when it really should be only one, I think. The way multiple gem matches was calculated from a block was changed early in the game history, as I recall, and I have yet to see the math behind the current algorithm. This is why BD has become so deadly in combination with Courage.
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how about
skull spawned “boosted by enemy armor destroyed minus my armor” ?
just tossing an idea, ill see can i come up with a better one later
edit:
another idea:
skulls spawned boosted by armor destroyed boost ratio [magic+4:2]
i have no idea what numbers to put there but you get the idea 
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While this is true, the Devs also suggested when they changed Sheggra back in the day that they don’t want a board full of skulls. BD needs to work more like Sheggra - powerful but not broken.
Here’s a thought:
You say you want it to feel like stripping FLESH, why does it damage armor at all?
Drop the overall damage and change it to True Damage, that way it’s bypassing armor and hitting, you know, flesh.
To balance it out, you can change Khorvash’s spell to regular damage since there’s really no reason (story-wise at least) that it needs to be True Damage.
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i think “stripping the flesh” means you rip through all the layers of armor destroying it, true damage is like if u do internal damage but keep the armor intact, that doesnt feel like it
ps. i updated my previous entry with a 2nd idea
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ii think thats worst possible interpretation of his idea 
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