One good suggestion is to make goblin shaman not a marauder. Would bring some synergy down at least.
I don’t believe that would work well. For every formula you come up with, somebody will find a way to game it. Take your traits calculation as an example, not every trait has the same level of usefulness. The Boar Rider has something like +2 Life for all Beasts as first trait, which doesn’t contribute anything to a Goblin team. A logical move would be to not pick that trait, because doing so would match you against stronger opponents at no additional benefit. You really never, ever, want to fall into that game design trap, giving players an advantage for not advancing and making life harder for those who did, with no way to reverse the effect.
Excellent idea… though unclear what it would be instead… introduce a ‘Caster’ or ‘Magician’ type and make various mage-types follow that I guess…
I sometimes use parallels on the Mac to run Windows. 
I wonder how well this would work on my MacBook Air… the thing tends to freak out.
ON topic, Shaman could totally get away with not being a Marauder. Not the most aggressively inclined troop as it is. But yeah, what would it be…
I also still think Lamia isn’t a Marauder.
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Divine? 
The Shaman though is (similar to the Skeleton) a whole different set of problematic.
Normally gem creators are a gamble: I’ll create gems and should be fine. But I may get unlucky and all the gems will end up set up for match 5s for my opponent.
The FreeMovers lose the risk. And through that they take out parts of the game: yes the risk, but also the counter strategies. I see an enemy fill up his Shaman. My Valkyrie turns all green gems to blue. As a result, when the Shaman fires up, there are no preexisting green gems. They spawn to create a match 5 on the next move. He takes that move, powers up his Hobgoblin and Boar Rider. The cascades half fill up the Shaman. The cascades from the Boar Rider fill up the rest of the Shaman’s mana. SO not only did his risk get removed, but also the counter invalidated.
If it wasn’t for the free move, I think Gem creators could have been balanced by forcing the game to try spawn gems apart from one another - have each gem not be able to spawn adjacent to the previous two. It would stop situations were a Gem creator has 9 gems appear clustered in three rows of 3 gems right on top of each other. But with the free move even a suggestion like that is mood.
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As you look at this, please consider thinking about having every troop have:
Race, Troop Type, City
As more cities and troops get added, this would allow easier planning on how a troop fits in. Having lower bonuses, but more possible combinations, would help adjust other troops to be in line with Goblins. One of the reasons they are an outlier is that they are all the same troop type from the same city, while other troop combinations struggle to gather similar bonuses.
The current system also forces some strange choices, like Goblin Rocket being a construct, Goblin Shaman being a Marauder, Priestess being Divine.
So troops:
Brian the Lucky Human Knight Zaejin
Paladin Human Knight Whitehelm
Dwarf Lord Dwarf Knight Khaziel
Grave Knight Undead Knight Ghulvania
Luther Human Knight Broken Spire
Modify the race, troop type, and city bonus to lower values. So 4xknight might get +4 armor.
So Goblins would be something like: (types adjusted for example purposes)
Goblin Shaman Goblin Shaman Zaejin
Goblin Goblin Marauder Zaejin
Goblin Rocket Goblin Construct Zaejin
Goblin King Goblin ?Leader? Zaejin
Hobgoblin Goblin Rogue Zaejin
Boar Rider Goblin Knight Zaejin
This would allow other Goblin Cities to be added, where the goblin bonus is kept. It allows a bonus for Goblins, allows the bonus for being from the same city, yet shows diversity of rolls the goblins play in the city. So it allows Boar Rider to go out and join a band of fellow Knights, and get the Knight bonus.
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An alternative could be making Boar Rider a ‘Beast’ type. Goblin Rocket is construct, yet still has a clearly visible goblin wearing goggles. Make the Boar Rider the same, what makes him so special? He’s using an easily enraged animal! Not doing much himself.
As for the Lamia comment, could be ‘Monster’, maybe? Though then it’d make Scale Guard and Poison Master the odd men out.
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Excellent idea…
I am actually completely past caring about what type Poison Master is for some reason …
Boar Rider as a Beast works, there aren’t really enough of those. Something tells me, though, that removing one of the Zaejin Marauders is not going to fix the systematic problem - here meaning, a ton of troops with reasonable stats that have easily usable nukes with no conditions and extra turns. The fact they’ve been getting bonuses is icing.
As for Esoxnepa’s take on the multi-type concept … now that we’ve got type/kingdom buffs down to uniques, it wouldn’t hurt as much to have this in the game. Bone Dragon continuing to be the obvious example. The most harm it could do is a team having 2x Undead and 3x Dragon or vice versa, rather than having 4x Undead and 4x Dragon (and 4x Khetar) back in 1.0.7.
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I am getting closer to stop plying the game though nearly reached my 200 th level but those goblin teams that you face repeatedly just wears me down. If out of 10 defensive teams I face less than 7 have goblin teams Iconsider myself lucky. Maybe I just attract goblin teams but for me they are everywhere.
I’ve been wondering if having a “mystic” troop type would be helpful. Goblin shaman being an obvious choice, but several others too, like the Summoner, Star Gazer, Druid, Soothsayer, and maybe Warlock would be other examples. I think the marauders and wildfolk are a bit too much in number right now, though I know fewer people are making wildfolk teams. Having goblin shaman and summoner break up the troop types in their respective kingdoms might help stem the tide a bit (they’re not as common as goblin teams but I’ve seen some pretty scary Orc teams too).
Would a “mystic” troop type get confused with mythic rarity?
Also +1 to boar rider as a beast type. Excellent idea!
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Hmm would Wizard be too generic? And I agree with Boar Rider being a beast.
I just did 30 Invades without dodging any (although I would normally be haggling for a higher payout rather than not vsing something). I sorted the troops I vsed into ‘All Goblins’, ‘Some Goblins’ (1-3 Goblins), and ‘No Goblins’.
Results?
- All Goblins - 4
- Some Goblins - 8
- No Goblins - 18
But, its worth noting… three of the ‘All Goblins’ and two of the ‘Some Goblins’ were the same person for all of them. All of the 18 with No Goblins were unique.
That being said, I’ve definitely felt like there were the aforementioned 50% out there.
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Yes it would. Just happened to me until I read the explanation xD
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The AI for the goblin teams is not good…
- they always take set’s of four (even when they don’t need mana) and could fire off a spell or take a line out/explode a gem in a separate part of the board, then come back to the set of four
- the AI only by chance explodes a gem which results in a gem-match or skull-match (goblin rocket)
- the AI only by chance destroys a line which results in the above type matches or set’s up a four in the shape of a shepherd’s crook (boar rider)
- the AI will launch shaman, even when there is no green on the board
- the AI goes into some sort of defence mode and tries to avoid you matching rather than making its own matches when it gets down to the last member
This lack of AI, is why AI goblin teams, mythic or otherwise, are not difficult to beat - particularly if you have your own goblin team, which as @Nimhain said above, is available to most players. An epic level goblin team can easily take out a mythic goblin team more than 600 levels above. An Ultra Rare/Rare team can probably also do it, but perhaps should focus on PvP matches closer to their level.
Note - if you’re using hobgoblin or goblin king, they are not as useful as goblin rocket. Goblin Rocket allows you to manipulate the board in a way that can usually, if played well, give you an extra move for free (i.e. the fall of gems creates a match or sets-up a four or five match).
All very true @Namour. The holes in the AI when piloting goblins are definitely exploitable. However, the AI also pretty much can’t mess up like it can with others. It would be horribly lethal if it just prioritized spells that don’t end the turn, but instead the AI matches all 4 and 5 of a kinds before even considering spells. This is true for other teams as well. The main thing the AI has going for it on goblin teams is they work fairly well even if you play them largely randomly.
The goblin does decent damage without giving up his turn, so if it sinks into the wrong mob, it really isn’t the end of the world.
The Rocket is random who it attacks anyway, so while the AI doesn’t get the board manip, it does blow a giant hole in the board that every now and then works for it and the damage is assigned no different than a player would.
The Shaman extra turn lets the AI make up for poor decisions of when to cast the spell in the first place.
The Boar Rider gets nothing from the row it destroys and does very nice damage to the first mob meaning the AI is not nearly as hampered by choosing rows poorly and can’t make a “bad” choice of who to hit.
None of these make the AI unstoppable, but it certainly plays the goblin teams better than say the Valkyrie transmuting teams, or the Paladin Crush You With My Armor teams. There isn’t a “trick” to goblins as much as there are to other popular builds. The fact that the AI pilots the goblins semi-well is part of what makes them a popular defense team. The fact that they generally get crushed when on defense if you pay attention is what makes them not severely overpowered.
What we really need are some suggestions from people on other defense decks the AI runs well and don’t require a pile of legendaries (or any for that matter). People log onto the forums and all they see is… goblins are unstoppable machines (except the complainer says they always beat them) they get ridiculous bonuses (except they are the same as any other kingdom) and they are easy to get your hands on (well they actually are). So what do they do? They make a gobby defense deck because we told them to!
If people want to change the meta, then they should change it. Provide alternatives for people. Stop complaining that some team or other is useless because you can’t run it on defense. Build defense team examples peeps can actually build and use and that actually win and we will see more variety. Make it clear that a good defense deck is not necessarily the most powerful player piloted deck. If you need to charge one mob and hold it to charge another, the AI is going to mess that up pretty much guaranteed. If your combo relies on buffing just the right mob in just the right way, it is going to most likely fail. Give the AI less choices, and less horrible options. Who cares if it is boring to play due to a lack of choice. The AI never complains about being bored.
Despite the whole, it is better to lose and revenge, some peeps don’t like losing…ever. They don’t want to build a weak defense team. They want to crush any who come pounding on their gates and the current community is telling them gobbies will do it (and sometimes it is even true).
-Razlath
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Agree - that’s why my defence is currently a non-offence acolyte/alchemist/valkyrie/Orb team with a string of defeats to its name (and plenty of gold earned during the losses). One person however, did manage to lose to it 
I tried to get “crossover” to work until 3 in the morning 
It loads GOW from the steam store and then bam I hear the music…yes…yes…yessssss…noooooooo…graphics don’t work. But I hear the great GOW music perfectly playing in the background
Sigh… why do i have a feeling i will be using the same anti-goblin team for a LONG time?
Lots of stuff looks broken to me and it seem that we have reached a point like yugioh where the only way to beat brokeness… is to be more broken…not to mention like yugioh a large majority of the cards/troops never see the day where they are used.
Very soon the only way to make event troops/weapons more relevent to the game is to make them more broken…which seem to be the case now since someone suggested in another thread that hero weapons have become irrevelent due to traits/mana costs…
The game had balance issues in the past but never like this…