So that is why my Summer Imps aren’t keeping my turns going as well as they used to.
Im curious how this works when the board has a decent amount of a color and a unit adds 10+ of that same color.
From what I can tell, squares that will not make a run of 4+ are weighted more heavily when it randomly chooses which get changed. They still happen, just not as often. Unfortunately this swings the pendulum too far the other way since it makes it Much more likely to not get an extra turn and give the opponent a board with multiple free matches.
Boar Rider has really been shining at the front of this team. I’m starting to think I should change my banner to green/purple and prioritize those colors at the start instead of red. Here’s some features:
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You can use BR to erase not-yet-matchable skulls from the board in the early game. Before you’ve cast Sunweaver’s buff these are much more of a threat than a resource. Your primary goal is to survive long enough to cast that buff a couple times. Then you can focus on doing damage.
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You can often use BR to set up a match-4 on your next (free) action. Between the cascade matches that occur on BR’s spellcast, the cascade matches that occur on the match-4 you set up for the next action, and other opportunities to make or intentionally chain into match-4s, this is a lot of incidental mana gen, not to mention board manipulation and damage advantage.
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You can often use BR to change a board state consisting of 2 match-3 skulls that you’d
have to trade with the opponent – either erasing one while you then complete the other manually, or claiming both for yourself. -
Don’t use BR just to complete a vertical match-3 mana by removing a row through it (unless it’s that very mana that enables your next critical spellcast). However, do blow BR for no benefit at all just before casting a transform that will seriously mess with the board, since you have a good chance of filling it up again.
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BR’s benefits are magnified on a transform team due to the incidental mana generation of partial board clears, and the rarefied color environment making it easier to set up match-4s.
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BR is accelerated by the +6 mana from Sunweaver. This is a big deal on a “Take another turn” spell.
Disclosure: I didn’t read most of OP and none of the other posts… Let me just violently disagree with the proposition. Leave transformes alone please.
Yes, they are powerful. With the proper player skill. Yes, we can have many different teams that get support from them.
That is the POINT of the game, for …'s sake. Neither valk or alk is interesting in the AI’s hand so the game is not broken in any way if left alone. And if OP or anyone else is bored of playing that particular team or endless streak of win – why change the game instead of him picking any other team (or take any other relevant action)?
A strategy game shall value things that require skill to use well instead of cutting them.
3 Likes
The opening post was too much of a chore for someone already experienced with the game, but I got the gist of it. It’s a weird mixture of complaining about a certain mechanic being supposedly too strong, along with a request to nerf it (how original for this forum ^^), and a very detailed and frankly, quite a bit pompous description of how to win a game using a classic farming line-up (with some variation).
1/ QQing for transformers to be nerfed: NO, thank you! @Pasa fairly much summed up my exact thoughts on that.
2/ Detailing “your” strategy: Well, no offense, but this exact style of playing is about as old as this game itself. It’s common enough to have its own name. You’re basically describing a farming line-up, only you seem to be considering it as a potent fighting line-up instead, possibly because of the addition of SunWeaver, and your odd and frankly quite a bit risky decision to amass as many Skulls as possible on the board.
A farming line-up, if you get any kind of a decent start and you know what you’re doing, CAN indeed win most battles. The reason most of us stopped doing that is because it’s arguably the least time-efficient line-up to fight with. That’s the idea: you normally use a team of transformers in order to rack up as many Souls and/or as much Gold as possible in the course of a long, tedious fight. If, as your post would appear to suggest, you’re using it solely in order to win the match, then I think you’re wasting a lot of time. This might have a lot to do with your burnout, as well.
Are you familiar with Emperina? She’s always been a prime enabler/support troop (my personal favorite, to this day), and has been successfully included in farming line-ups in order to give them a bit more oomph long before you did it with SunWeaver. Other combination of troops can also do the trick, of course, and it’s been in use for a while.
My own farming line-up has been Finlay, Templar, Valkyrie & Banshee for a long time, as it’s a perfectly mana-efficient and self-sufficient team (your version is more “all for one”, so if SunWeaver is killed, you’re done). The Alchemist is great in a pinch, but those four can actually enable each other IN A LOOP when done right. It hasn’t been doing as great with the new team bonuses, though.
3/ My advice and conclusion: Being able to win most fights should not be the single goal of any given line-up. Yes, if you’re observant and patient enough, transformer-based, farming line-ups will give you a better overall win rate than many. However, the downside greatly outweighs the upside. During the amount of time it takes to gingerly 4-turn loop your way into one win; a more punchy or balanced line-up could have given you three or four wins instead; yes, possibly along with a loss or two, but it’s well worth it in the long run. The “Retreat” option exists for a reason, and besides the Arena, there’s no need to avoid losses at all cost.
Much more importantly, please understand that, for the reasons I’ve just detailed, transformers are by no means “too powerful” AT ALL. They are perfectly balanced. What they give in terms of win rate (and extra rewards per win), they take away in terms of free time and overall enjoyment. And then some! So please, leave them alone. Stop playing with them for a while, and you’ll probably start having much more fun soon. 
Last but not least, not to say “I told you so”, folks, but… It sure didn’t take long for people to start crying for other classic troops to be nerfed after the devs finally gave in about the gem spammers. 
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Hey @LegendMaker, my (unsolicited) thoughts (well actually, you post on a forum, I think that counts as soliciting feedback…!):
- I mostly agree with your observations on the team - and farming line-ups are, indeed, hardly new - and I’d commented above too that many well-built line-ups could win as reliably and much faster
- I have never (for the record) been one of those whining for gem-transformers to be nerfed - using them takes skill, both building combos and using them at the right time.
- I have been among those asking for gem-spawners (assume you get the difference, and sorry, not meaning to be patronising) to be re-balanced, so they don’t make so many gems
- on your last point, I think the ‘I told you so’ is unfair, and a bit misplaced - as (1) the devs haven’t ‘given in’ on gem spammers, they’ve re-balanced them after their own testing and study (this was a long time coming, the team were aware of Webspinner et al issues many months ago, but only have so much time to work fixes…) and (2) I’m not aware of many other demands for other classic troops to be nerfed at this time - see a few whines about Sheggra (which I think is fine, since the skull-damage-bug was corrected) and goblins, but nothing game-breaking
- overall, perhaps you could watch the tone - @mattlistener may be new to the game but has clearly given it a lot of thought, and his post may not be news to you, but may be to others new to the game - you could be a little more encouraging, else you risk sounding the pompous one
@Jainus Thanks. So, let’s agree to… agree? ^^
The “I told you so” was to be taken with a pinch of salt, obviously, as well as how I happened to phrase my mention of the decision the devs made to nerf certain troops that some people had been complaining about for months. People will always complain about the troops and/or line-ups they have difficulty facing, and the knee-jerk reaction of many will be to ask for a nerf. It’s important that the devs keep things balanced beyond the bias of those taking bad beats.
In this particular instance, seeing such a long argument being made to obliterate such classics as the Alchemist, I felt the need to fight this argument thoroughly, as it would clearly cross that line beyond proper balancing territory and into something else entirely.
I appreciate your feedback, but I honestly think my reply to @mattlistener was appropriate. We probably perceive things a bit differently where it comes to written communication. Remember, the last time it was the other way around, and I was the one taking issue with one of your posts, which you assured me meant no harm. I’m sure we both mean well, though. 
Agree to ‘agree’… with you and/or the lovely @Archenassa? darn it, must try to avoid that… 
Go read the post I made just now in the ‘what next’ topic - Which one is next - #8 by Tard_Carnival
- you’ll hopefully hate that
Having absorbed the feedback, I retract the nerf call. The team described may be near-maximal in terms of wins per game and resources per game, but not in terms of wins or resources per time since the games take more turns (and more thought). I hadn’t been accounting for that.
I do think I deserve some credit for calling for a nerf of the team I was playing, as opposed to a team I was playing against. :-P
Thanks for the support, @Jainus.
@LegendMaker –
12 days ago: OP.
6 days ago: 1.0.7 Patch Preview part 1
Today: [quote=“LegendMaker, post:26, topic:971”]
It sure didn’t take long for people to start crying for other classic troops to be nerfed after the devs finally gave in about the gem spammers.
[/quote]
@Jainus haha To be fair, it’s not like we’re sworn enemies or anything; but in the interest of friendly rivalry, I’ll do my best to disagree with you soon. 
@mattlistener I’m glad to hear that! Thanks for taking the feedback in. And you’re right, it’s a nice change of pace to see someone complaining that their own line-up is overpowered, as opposed to their opponents’. =)
I must add that I can relate to your burnout feeling, which also explains why I wrote such a long response. I’ve been down that route before, as I had decided to use my farming line-up exclusively for all Quests & Challenges, hoping to maximize my income. Unfortunately, this proved to be a mistake, as it was so long and boring that, to this day, I haven’t completed all of them. Meanwhile, @Archenassa took a more fast-paced approach, and all of her troops and cities are maxed out. ^^ In retrospect, I wish I had done the same much earlier than I did.
And yes, I hadn’t noticed this thread was a bit older than I thought when I originally replied. Still, the devs had already announced they would nerf WebSpinner and a few similar troops at that time, and people had been complaining about it for many months. And this follows an overall pattern that I’m weary of; we saw the same thing happen to the Silent One (which I’m always tempted to call Silencer - probably due to DOTA ^^).
Anyway, hope you keep enjoying the game, and I’m curious which archetype you will move on to, now that you’re “saved” from the boredom of farming line-ups! 
Cheers,
LM
Hey, as I keep saying, no point in playing if you don’t gave fun.
Also, as a side note, I’m in the same boat with @Jainus.
To be honest, and to derail the thread, there are very few games that are challenging against the AI if you do everything you can to win (exploiting the AI).
The only way they generally make it challenging is to increase the health/damage/stats of the enemies or increase the number of enemies. The only game I had a hard time beating doing everything in my power to do so was Dark Souls.
All of the puzzle quest series were really easy vs the AI if you were being a tryhard/win at all costs. @mattlistener personally I try to win with less than optimal troops. My current line up is Tyri, Deep Borer, Dwarven Lord and Bombadier. There are a ton of lineups that can win 99% of the time I’ll bet. Unsure at the highest difficulty level what the highest win percentage decks would be.