Is kraken really that bad?

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I am not trolling here i want serious discussion. I have a 90% win rate this week and part of my 8 losses were due to me testing GW teams.

I understand my experience may be vastly different than the experience of others so i am sincerely asking, what is everyones win rates? How many losses are due to testing GW/game crash/ non-kraken teams or anything other than kraken meta? Has anyone tried counter teams?

I am just confused at how much anger is displayed on here directed at troll/kraken since i personally dont have any issues with it.

Thanks

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Kraken is generally easy to lock down. The issue comes with how much burst damage it has when looping.

My win rate is normally around 95%, not counting teams I randomly test for videos/streams. This is lower than what it was before Kraken, Wisp, etc., which was around 98%-99%.

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kraken combined with mab freeze and ai miracle cascades is the prob

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I get “miracle cascades” at least as often as AI so those cancel out imo

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I think the problem with these discussions is that people refuse to understand that complaints about OP teams come from different motivations. Everyone that complains isn’t complaining because they have a" bad win rate" or because “they can’t beat the team”.

  • Some think the team is “broken” and unbalanced. (This could be because of the troops own stats or because of a bugged mechanic or code algorithm.)
  • Some think that the team is seen too much in PVP and that it is making PVP extremely boring.
  • Some actually have a hard time fighting it and hate to lose.

Some complainers have all, one or none of those three motivations.

Personally, I can beat Troll/Kraken and Wisp/Krys/Mab with my eyes closed at this point. But, I still think the Trolls are broken because of the change in blob calculations after the change to Unity and that Wisp does too much for its rarity.

Also, I do find fighting the same two teams in ranked PVP extremely boring. I like to see defense diversity. I like to figure out the optimal team to destroy a certain defense. Well, needless to say, there is no more mystery to solve with those two meta defense teams.

Are you going to hear me whine about any of this over and over? No. But, those are my thoughts on it.

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I think it gets magnified, but I can talk about it in terms of a problem I’m having in early/mid-game: The Dragon Soul PvP. Or a problem I’m having in Arena: Dawnbringer proliferation.

First, let’s be clear about something and disqualify some arguments: GoW has a lot of luck associated, so for some % of your games you’re just going to lose. We’ve all had rounds that seem to stick to JUST the colors we don’t need. No team should ever have an expected win rate of 100% on offense or defense because of this factor, no matter how skilled you are. So we always expect to lose some games to luck. Let’s pick 20% because we have to pick a number.

That said, very powerful teams can exacerbate the luck effect. “Having a bad board” isn’t always a loss, sometimes it means you’re slow to start. Good teams can dig themselves back out of holes. But this is why people don’t like excessive looping teams: they dig a hole so deep so fast “a slow start” is the same thing as “an unlucky board”. Now the “20%” we were OK with can expand to “50%” or more. That’s frustrating.

But that’s one argument, there are more.

It’s not completely broken, because there are teams you can build to counter it. The anti-Kraken team, when played properly, has the win rate you’d expect when we adjust for luck. But the anti-Kraken team is expensive to build, and it’s nowhere near as effective if you haven’t maxed it out. So there’s one complaint: “Kraken makes end-game harder”. I don’t think that’s a super good argument.

You can say similar things about TDS in PvP at mid-level. Whatever, the game’s about grinding so you have to grind out anti-“good things” teams. It’s hard to not have that happen. I do think Dawnbringer is an interesting point here because it’s both ridiculously expensive and you don’t get to “build an anti-Dawnbringer team” in Arena. You get what you’re given.

But whatever, in the context of Kraken I don’t think that argument holds water. (laugh track)

Probably the best argument is “it’s boring”, and I feel this about TDS teams. If I have 10 PvP matches, 8 of them are going to be vs. a TDS team. I think people argue this is a problem with Kraken at higher levels. If it’s “the best defense team”, you’re going to see it a very disproportionate amount.

I think a lot of people figure if they get 20+ team slots, there ought to be a mode of the game where you’re constantly switching between teams. They want 10 games to go like:

  • True damage vs. this armor team.
  • Tank vs. this very aggro team.
  • Submerge vs. this AoE team.
  • Anti-Kraken
  • Anti-Mab
  • Anti-Golem
  • “LOL how is this guy my opponent?”
  • “Shit. I don’t have a counter for this yet.”
  • Anti-Kraken
  • “Who the hell uses Ranger at this level?”

See how 8 of those 10 matches were unique and required shuffling the team around? I think people are complaining because their 10 PvP matches are going like this:

  • Anti-Kraken
  • Anti-Kraken vs. non-Kraken
  • Anti-Kraken
  • Anti-Kraken vs. non-Kraken
  • Anti-Kraken
  • Anti-Kraken vs. non-Kraken
  • Anti-Kraken vs. non-Kraken
  • Anti-Kraken vs. non-Kraken
  • Anti-Kraken
  • Anti-Kraken

I’m level 300. I only have about 2 “good” PvP teams. So all day long, I play those 2 teams. I’m bad at some matchups, but I’m still trying to build the hate teams for them. So I just have to play my “best” team and hope.

I sure as hell don’t want to reach level 1000 and say the same thing. “I’ve got 8 “good” teams, but anti-Kraken destroys everything so it’s not worth my time to switch. I’m not sure why I bothered traiting other troops.”

I think that is a valid complaint. Having a more diverse meta means you are constantly retooling your teams to try and adjust to what’s working. Having a meta where Kraken is the best defense means the only adjustments you make are “Eh, this team’s a little better for the oddball non-Kraken fight and still beats Kraken”.

The threads do spiral out of control, though, because some people want to grind PvP the same way they grind Explore. Those people don’t want a varied experience, they want a 75%+ win rate so they can play 100 matches with their brain turned off. I don’t think they’re “bad players” or “doing it wrong”. But they don’t want a game where they have to spend an extra 20-30s between matches contemplating their deck.

So every thread ends up as several parallel arguments:

  • “I don’t want luck in the game.” vs. “I just think the RNG needs some ‘not random’ tweaks.” vs. “You can’t design a Match-3 without luck.” vs. “Git gud nub.”
  • “I don’t think there are enough counters for Kraken.” vs. “I think you should be patient.” vs. “Git gud nub.”
  • “I just think there should be more than 1 meta team.” vs. “I don’t want to think that hard about this game.” vs. “Git gud nub.”

The only people who are objectively wrong are the ones that populate every thread with 10-character “lol u suck” comments.

In short, “Yes, it’s that bad, but some players’ “bad” is what other players want out of the game.” This combined with, “At this point, I’m worried if the devs try to change Kraken, they’ll introduce a bug that deletes my GoW account.”

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I enjoy seeing dragon teams in PvP, because there’s enough good dragon troops to allow for a wide range of effective teams. Krystenax, TDS, and Sylvanimora are all very common, but many teams won’t have all three and even if they do there’s still one wild-card troop. I also see a lot of Elemaugrim, so it’s fair to say that there’s one particular meta dragon team. Even so, battles against them aren’t as formulaic as with troll/kraken/Mab.

The same goes for goblins and giants. There are a few core troops which are near always present (Fizzbang, Nobend, Firemantle), and also a nice spread of viable secondary troops to support the heavy lifters.

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As far as I am concerned - it’s not really the Kraken that I consider strong. That has never been Kraken.

I have always found trolls to be overpowered ever since their buff. The problems have always started with them. If the board has 11 gems (which is lower than most of the gem requirements for the cast, 13), you are most probably ending up with 2 mythics fully charged on mana. With a cost of 11 mana.

And Kraken was just abusing that huge cluster of cascades, not to mention it filled that troop and never stopped doing this. Kraken was never the problem for me.

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Thank godness, I neither think there is currently enough room for more whiners than it already is. :joy::sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

musehalehahaha

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That’s the reason I complain about that team. I don’t lose to them much I just get sick of fighting them every 8 out of 10 battles.

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I would say for most people, end-game PvP is about speed. Plain and simple which is why troll/kraken team piss so many people off. Because they can make each battle longer.

As for traiting other troops… The traits go towards your kingdoms power levels which is very important. It is never a waste of time to trait troops unless you use up all your traitstones on troops you dont or wont use and not on the troops you do use.

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And this is the point of disconnect i assume. I agree it happens for both sides, but i despise winning by miracle cascades and random luck just as much as i hate losing to it.
So whether i win or lose to this bs, there is no joy for me in those games regardless of high winrates.

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Good and entertaining thread brudda! Guess who is with us today? Hyneman ofc.

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Thats a valid point but i dont mind it because it isnt every battle as much as ppl would make it sound like it is…

On the occasion i lose to miraculous skyfalls i think “well that escalated quickly lol” and when i win by them i think “nice… On to the next”

One thing i wont do is come on here bemoaning every loss i get…

There is enough of that already

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I think its all about that some cant handle defeats in Guild Wars. Its of course not many who wants to admit it has something to Guild Wars to do with at all, but thats another story. My opinion is however, if one cant handle a few losses one should not have played any games at first place.

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Kraken meta in GW is another thing entirely…

I lost 2 battles on tuesday both to the same goblin team against the same person… I beat 3 kraken teams

Yesterday i won all 5 battles but only 2 were against kraken teams and both had double kraken which made me chuckle because they lost defense bonus points by putting up 2 kraken each and i still smoked them…

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hehe, so where is your whining thread from Tuesday? I cant see it anywhere… :+1:

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I really despise all insta-kill and infini-loop type troops. I’ve adapted to the current “meta” but don’t like it…give me Luther and Valkyrie type troops where I feel like my abilities mean more than RNG luck any day.

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Its either invisible or i didnt make one…

I believe i had a bit of a profanity laced rant on discord tho lol

I however was pissed at myself because i expect better of myself than 3-2 on any GW day… I didnt complain about goblins…

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Exactly, brudda.

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