Naughty & Nice: Troop Balance

NAUGHTY & NICE: TROOP BALANCE

Troop Balance

The Dev Team’s made a list and we’ve gone and checked it twice,
We’ve found some Troops and Weapons who’ve been Naughty or been Nice…
The Nice Troops got some buffs to help them rise and shine,
But the Naughty Troops got nerfed to help bring them back in line.

Nice

Death

  • Base damage increased from 15 to 25
  • Mana cost reduce from 24 to 20

War

  • Mana cost reduce from 22 to 20

Plague

  • Mana cost reduce from 22 to 20

Tian Yi

  • Mana cost reduce from 24 to 20
  • Base damage increased from 7 to 15

Champion of Anu

  • Mana cost reduce from 24 to 22

Champion of Gaard

  • Mana cost reduce from 24 to 20

Elemaugrim

  • Gems created increased from 8 to 9

Ishtara

  • Gems created increased from 8 to 9

Stonehammer

  • Mana cost reduce from 24 to 22

Gloom Leaf

  • Mana cost reduce from 16 to 14
  • Attack steal increase from 4 to 5

Borealis

  • Mana cost reduce from 16 to 14
  • Base damage increased from 8 to 18
  • Spell now targets the weakest Enemy
  • Now gains Magic at Levels 3, 16, 18

Carnex

  • Spell will now create 5 Skulls before it explodes Skulls
  • Armor gain now scales off 1.5 Magic

Urskula

  • Mana cost reduced from 16 to 15
  • Attack buff increased from 5 to 6

Venoxia

  • True damage now scales off Magic
  • Spell no longer gives Attack

Shadow Dragon

  • Boost ratio increase from 2:1 to x3

Naughty

King Gobtruffle

  • Mana cost increased from 17 to 18
  • Number of mixed Gems created reduced from 16 to 14

Bandit

  • Mana cost increased from 8 to 11

Life and Death

  • Mana cost increased from 15 to 18

Skeleton Key

  • Mana cost increased from 14 to 15
  • Boost ratio reduced from 2:1 to 3:1

Jar or Eyes

  • Mana cost increased from 14 to 16

Fixes and Changes

  • We have fixed an issue where the Familiar Trait and the Backup talent could trigger more than intended.

  • We have fixed Warhawk’s spell so that it will earn the extra turn even if the Enemy dies.

  • We have fixed Domovoi’s spell so he will give positive status effects to Allies.

  • We have fixed Matron Velenne so she boosts off Cursed Enemies correctly.

Refunds

King Gobtruffle and Bandit will be available for refunds for the next 7 days.
Currently we do not offer refunds for Weapons.

28 Likes

Hate it.

10 characters.

6 Likes

Finally backup is fixed!!

5 Likes

When was the last time we had a refund for ANY troop?

2 Likes

The last time we had balance changes @EliteMasterEric.

2 Likes

Love most of it. But L&D needs more, need to remove the bless.

The Skeleton key is a shame for newer players, but Plunder & Peril unchanged so an easy swap.

8 Likes

very curious assortment of troops buffed, not what i expected since there are less used troops/mythics in worse shape than these.

Elemaugrim, Stonehammer, and Carnex were already pretty strong and fairly widely used. interesting to see those here.

Tian Yi was already strong but not used much before, this could bring him into the light.

Truffle nerf makes me sad but honestly it was deserved :smiley:

Bandit nerfed :rofl: hysterical.

i consider L&D change a correction and not a nerf, this is the appropriate mana cost to align with other weapons of this power.

very strange to not see some of the troops/weapons just as powerful as truffle on this list… i wonder how the devs go about deciding balance changes. :thinking:

9 Likes

I like this, a lot. Not a fan of the rest. Still, good to see some effort being put towards troop rebalancing, it’s been too long :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes

This is a good start. Some of the nerfs will hurt players but they were a bit OP.

4 Likes

Most of these are pretty fair, but the skeleton key nerf is… frustrating. An incredibly anti-player move to just kill the main gold farming team entirely. It’s not as if the SK team is dominating the meta or anyone needed it nerfed for guild wars related reasons. It’s just useful, especially with the huge amounts of gold we’ve been expected to have since epic tasks were introduced.

While I do like the rest of the changes, it should also be said that these tweaks around the edge of things, mostly to mana costs, can be really frustrating. In many cases the change a troop actually needs is to its traits, and the change a weapon actually needs is to its upgrade effects, but these are for some reason never in scope for any patches, no matter how much people bring them up (e.g. Doomed weapons having a “create a gem” effect that actively makes them worse when it overwrites a skull and causes a backfire).

The most significant example here is that L&D needs to have either the bless or the enchant removed before it becomes even remotely fairly balanced. Changing the mana cost isn’t enough.

8 Likes

FYI, refunding a troop means you can end up with a low-level + no traits gold-elite troop. Collector’s item! Might be valuable some day :rofl:

3 Likes

I hate most of it but when folks have the expectation that they have to win every match this is what happens. Of course they will now be complaining about some of the troops that got a buff. Someone said life death needs bless removed lol. How about using the mechanic in the game to do that your self. Life death used to be one of the top DEF but now most folks know how to beat it pretty easily. Does it get lucky from time to time and get you? Yes but it no longer can be used in Guild wars and get more than 1 or 2 wins. Outside of wars I don’t care. I skip the fire bomb team nonsense in pvp because I don’t want to keep changing my pvp team not because it’s any good. That Def hates OBS.

2 Likes

For the buffs, yay. Not things I use much, but buffs are always a yay. For nerfs… bleh. Always and forever bleh. This is never a good road to go down. If something is out of whack, then buff the resistance or invent a counter. Resist the urge and calls for nerf. Every game I have ever played that started nerfing things… died hard and fast. It’s the lazy way. This is pretty soft core as far as nerf bats go, so there is that, at least. But Mmmm two of the nerfs really hit early mid gamers more than late. Not a good look at all. Not cool

Bandit and Spider summon rates were broken all this time!? What a shocker…

Thanks for the fix

11 Likes

There were situations where a hero took zero damage but summoned a troop anyway. My hope is that this was fixed.

2 Likes

Oh, I was hoping they fixed that 35% working like 99%

3 Likes

Love the Ishtara and Elemaugrim change!

Champ of Gaard, Champ of Anu and Stonehammer are all pretty good too.

Carnex change is really good. Venoxia looks useable now.

I don’t agree with Jar of Eyes and Skeleton Key.

Skeleton Key: You left Plunder and Peril untouched, so reducing SK without touching PaP is weird.

Jar of Eyes getting nerfed to 16 is weird when you have

Spoilers

The Engineer’s Drill coming soon that is also Green/Blue, explodes Brown Gems, is 14 mana and summons!

Overall, I like the changes and hope we can have more balance changes more often.

5 Likes

Pretty much agree with the list, but SKELETON KEY?!?! That was the new players go to team for almost everything. The low level player base will be pissed with this one. Also gobtruffle but NOT beatrix?

9 Likes

I don’t think most people ever bothered using Plunder and Peril even though it has higher potential damage than pre-nerf Skeleton Key. I guess the random targeting and lack of extra turn made it inferior in most people’s estimation. I personally never saw it in a pvp or a guild wars team ever. That could be why it was left alone.

I do agree 3:1 ratio is too big a nerf. Maybe they should be less rigid about using “neater looking” boost ratios and use something like 5:2 or something.

3 Likes

i love all the changes except for skeleton key… it’d make newer players harder to catch pets and do explores…

is it possible to have it nerfed to 7:3 or 5:2 ratio?

1 Like