I had a look at some of the past threads on Combo Breakers, but I didn’t find anything current. I’ve been playing some PVP and just watched several teams just loop over and over until I was dead.
I thought Greed/Egg Thief/Skeleton Key/Cedric teams were bad so I made one and have been using it. But these gobtruffle/goblin teams holy sh**balls. When a team, on it’s second turn loops over and over until you are dead, surely something is broken?
So I was curious if there was a combo breaker anymore. I saw that there used to be one, but it doesn’t appear to exist anymore. Unless it affects your own team and not the AI.
Breakers seem to still exist, but are unable to take into consideration the Extra Turn that Goblins incorporate into the equation
As an example of how inadequate the breaker is when it comes to Goblins: killed more than 300 towers in last week’s event, and the opponents did not get to cast a single time during the whole event
I see, it is goblin teams I’m seeing do it mostly. So I guess the breaker is there on the cascades/4 matches but doesn’t do anything for the extra turns the goblins get for being annoying little blighters.
My goblin team was pretty good at not handing control of the board back to the AI, but it still did. Mind you, I don’t have gobtruffle. Maybe it would have been different with him in there.
This is purely from my observation but there is little or no reference to support my theory so please take this with a pinch of salt.
• The combo breaker exists.
• The combo breaker only works for 4 or 5 matches that the AI makes without a spell break.
• Casting a spell seems to reset the combo breaker.
This is based off watching a number of looping and non-looping teams.
The looping teams like Rope Dart or Goblin teams tend to loop to infinity and once they get going most games tend to end up as a loss.
This can also be supported by some of the videos we’ve seen lately where the Gobtruffle teams will loop with no end against troops that are submerged and will only stop once there are nothing more to match or they kill the troop with skulls.
As for the non-looping teams in a number of occasions i’ve watched the AI take a series of 4 or 5 matches and when no troops are available for spell cast, even with a 4 or 5 match on board, they would end up taking a 3 match and passing on the turn.
The Combo Breaker was implemented at a different time to solve problems that were being caused by empowered exploders, cheap mana generators, and power creep leading to troops that generated mana PLUS other things.
After the devs implemented it, they kept implementing those troops, so now they’re backed into another corner: the troops that can overpower the current CB are even better at looping than the other troops. But if they update the CB to make it stronger, then previously-acceptable teams will be hindered and life will get more miserable for newbies and endgamers.
A harder solution might’ve been, “Rebalance the game to avoid the scenarios that lead to this degree of looping”, but I think they’ve figured out we all have more fun if that degree of looping exists. That can mean a player with a certain set of troops might be “stuck” for a while and at the mercy of looping teams.
I feel your pain, every now and then GoW goes through this phase. Within a few months, we’ll probably get something or other that makes it easier to freeze multiple troops every turn to counter it, then we’ll get stuck in the place where everyone’s mad because THAT is too powerful, etc.
It kind of stinks because extra turns aren’t a thing that can have a strategic, progressive counter. You either get an extra turn, or you don’t. Freeze turns it on or off, and in general it’s the caster of Freeze who is at the mercy of probability, not the person with the looping team. Can you freeze 2-3 troops before they start looping? Often not. You can sort of slow mana generators down with web or disease, but again, you have to be able to hit specific targets both fast and reliably. And it won’t work vs. Goblins because they still get free turns with ability casts.
I’ve been asking, for ages, for an experimental mode that simply doesn’t have free turns. It’d be interesting to see if people liked it. I’m not 100% sure I would, but I want to play a few dozen rounds of it to see if there’s enough strategic depth to make it interesting.
Thanks everyone for the replies, I edited the title because after playing some more I did see some evidence of a combo breaker, although sporadic. One chain going for 9 moves, most quite a bit less.
However, a few more attempts at some of the goblin teams… what can be used as a goblin breaker? That is also effective.
Something that is Empowered, freezes all enemies, and Impervious. I know, wishful thinking, but that’s what it would have to be in order to beat some of these goblin teams. Otherwise, I’ll do what I did with the Skeleton Key teams I couldn’t beat…and join them.
