The Claw Dancer tribe of the Pridelands are feared and respected for their speed, agility, and ferocity.
They are a matriarchal tribe, who choose their leader through the age old tradition of Par-Sodo-Blei, which roughly translates to “Epic Dance Off”.
In battle, they will leap high over their opponents, and perform acrobatic manoeuvres with terrifying names such as Clau-Sin-Belli (“Gentle Evisceration”), Stah-Bee-Bak (“Enthusiastic Kidney Trauma”), and Sly-See-Fais (“Delicate Facial Rearrangement”)
As you can imagine, most other tribes leave them well alone.
Please note this Event is on the the XBox One, PS4, PC and Mobile versions of the game.
As it was said in the spoilers thread, this troop is just plain terrible. We recently had an ultra rare with hind that regained mana and had an extra turn chance based on the enemy team’s number of entangled troops. This troop is a berserker with less power and charm. It also is outclassed by numerous troops both equal and below its power weight. Outside of the obvious goblins the satyr is another troop that has an extra turn for free with a better damage. While it is better to not constantly raise the power curve to ludicrous proportions, this troop is like a lightening bolt for 4 mana as a sorcery.
I agree, it may have been better to do one of the new epics. As for this troop, it was spoiled weeks ago but perhaps it will get some love next year in the next major update or round of troop buffs.
Considering balance and effectivity of troops i’ve made up my mind that troops with traits like Fast and Swift would be better served with traits that allows to gain mana from other sources* to better represent their own speed as “spellslingers”.
*Which sources?
“Gaea’s Link”, a trait for elementals, it gives one mana when another elemental casts a spell. (In the sense that all elements are linked together in the big cycle of life, etc…)
“Mana Connection”, a trait which gives one mana when certain colors are matched.
“Mana Rage”, a trait which gives one mana when skulls are matched. (Works when enemies match skulls too.)
With this change they would also benefit from their own “Tribal Lords” with traits that make certain types of troops to start the battle with 50% of mana.
Possibly, I’d just settle for a link trait in mist cases. The traits outside of swift are relatively fine. However traits like fast, swift, and empowered are bad in this case as it’s like Tau. A spell that has its main effects trigger on death has no place for ab empowered troop unless the damage is extremely high, has a bonus multiplier, or other secondary effect. Tau losing impervious was terrible as dealing 24 damage on empowered is pathetic and made him utterly useless as there are far better anti-knight or anti-dragon troops… Meanwhile, keghammer does 28 with triple giant damage and 5 magic reduction.
Exactly my point, sort of…
Let me clarify the general idea: Having certains troops starting the battle with some mana is mostly fine if the spell cost is not too high, so we have things working quite fine in most cases so far. But after the first fastened spell the troops will act just like regular for the rest of the battle, which measn that if their spell don’t have a good effect then it will be plain boring or shameful, much like Tau is right now.
But instead, if Tau would have a “Mana Rage” trait for example (and a better spell) he could be better thematically (he is a brawler, he thrives with combat) and mechanically. My reasoning is that managing the mana cost and the sources of mana a troop can relly on would greatly improve sinergy.
But well, this is a talk for another topic i just felt inclined to share some thoughts about new effects and reworks of troops.
The troop is going to be filler regardless because of how it is designed, but the numbers seem like they were balanced for early 2015 Gems of War, not late 2017. Not everything needs to push up the power curve more and more, but this one only barely edges out Berserker on some fronts and loses on others, and Berserker is already pretty far down the power scale.
One of the larger issues with this troop is not just the low damage per mana ratio, but the fact that most of the time you’ll lose the turn casting it. In order to set up for a guaranteed extra turn, you have to “waste” half your potential damage. Always losing the turn for extremely low damage pokes is not really a valid strategy even in early game or arena unless you are already running away with a good board. If Claw Dancer, for example, always got the extra turn but gained 4 attack when she killed, she would still barely edge out the common “Goblin” early game, as a Ultra-Rare.
But, as I said in the spoiler thread, she looks like a decent fodder blocker covered by a summoner. She has agile, high base attack, and won’t heavily mana block if you want to just put her up front and ignore her spell completely. Then again, this something you could also use Peasant or pre-buff Dwarven Miner for other benefits (jinx on peasant, stone link on dwarf), but using a “real” troop generally ends up being better in pretty much any situation and both red and brown already had viable fodder blockers (fire bomb, lamia, keghammer). Outside of Guild Wars, you would generally be more inclined to just pick an impervious or stoneskin (or a high power legendary like Khorvash where possible) that doesn’t block your general mana flow at all.
I don’t even care that this troop pretty muck sucks, i’m freakin excited that lavas are going to be in the glory packs!! I need a ton. Been saving up, bout to splurge in a few short hours.
