So I posted this in the Spoiler thread, and @Annaerith rightfully suggested it go to a new thread (not to be so far off-topic, and perhaps get a bit more input / visibility)…
How about this idea @sirrian as a Bone Dragon counter:
Legendary trait: Repel boarders Whenever an ally’s Armour is broken, immediately deal 3 damage to all enemies and end the enemy’s turn without resolving matches
(Put it on a Pirate Ship troop card, hence the name )
By ‘armour is broken’ I mean reduced to zero.
Dunno how feasible that is to code in… would counter loop teams a bit as well, but can’t fire very often…
Mind - combo with Reinforced would be horrible. Probably needs to be only the first time each troop’s Armour goes down… or only trigger if 10+ Armour (say) was destroyed…
You still having problems with BD? My only problem is Manticore on those teams. I don’t rely on Armor based troops though so is probably reason why those teams don’t faze me.
If I had to see a nerf-rebalance on BD I would like to see mana increased to 18 and the boost fine as is.
With respect, this thread isn’t about nerfing Bone Dragon.
Whilst I firmly believe BD needs re-balancing, there’s plenty of other threads to go post that response, thanks.
Devs have often stated they believe in creating counters, as well as (or often instead of) re-balancing troops. So here’s my suggestion. Feel free to comment on that.
I think the best option would be to add more skull retaliation traits and fix existing ones.
Gloom Leaf: Buff legendary trait to 100% skull return.
Hydra: Buff legendary trait to 5 damage to all enemies. (Especially since Kraken’s trait next patch becomes exponentially better than it.)
New Baic Traits
Retaliation: 50% skull return
Shield Block: Deal 4 damage when taking skull damage and gain 4 armor. (Can be used to replace out the excessive amount of Armor traits, particularly on knights with shields.)
I think those are fine as is. Applying them to the full team would be way too broken. Everyone would just use troops with double immunity and make a full team essentially impervious without the impervious trait, which would be way too OP.
Jokes aside I think your suggestion might be to hard to code in if not even impossible (since it would require a match of 3 or more and multiple of this matches to remain on the board which is contrary to the game mechanics).
Maybe it would be better if that trait gives first ally barrier upon any of your troops loosing their full armor?
Change it to “gain barrier whenever an ally loses 10 or more armor” and you’re on to something. As originally worded, using a 1st troop with Reinforced would abuse your trait mightily.
Impervious protects one troop from Burn,entangle,devour,freeze,stun,web,mana burn,poison,DEATHMARK,silence, hunters mark, and disease. That’s 12 effects that cannot affect one troop.
Making 4 troops protected from just one of those does not seem that crazy.
Yea bone dragon doesn’t care about barrier currently. Barrier is non existent against skull spam, it blocks one match of like 30 that the spam creates.
That’s why they are extra careful who they give that trait to, and what other traits are shared on the same troop. For example, they will not put Impervious and Stoneskin to the same troop, because then it is impossible to stun, devour etc. and so becomes ‘too good’.
The same is true to other trait combination, these are managed carefully to make sure too powerful combinations are not made. Making Thick Head apply to the whole team means you can’t control which trait combinations are made, it can prevent you from countering Granite Skin, Aspect of Famine and other annoying traits. I don’t think that’s a very good idea.
Currently three troops have thick head, Kraken - an already high priority troop because of the devour, Revenant- a basic grunt trash mob, and Winged Bison - I can’t find a point in ever using this troop.
In order to take advantage of said immunity you could have to build with that troop, with its benefits AND disadvantages.
Taking my idea in mind, create a combo that in your words would be “too good.”
Then the new meta will be created, and people will complain about the new meta troops. How is that helping?
There is a good reason why Thick Head is so rare. It has no value of its own unless it is paired with other good traits (and not the pre-battle kind), but pair it with too good traits and you create a broken troop.
i think ending turn without resolving matches is too harsh and could be easily abusable,
how about: reducing enemy attack by half before resolving matches? (if your troop had a lot of defense - enough to have some defense left over after being hit - and skulls were triggered simultanously - the trait could also activate multiple timeswithin same turn)
@yonizaf has been playing this game for a year at least, you can trust that his judgment isn’t as much off. I agree 100% with him, they shouldn’t alow impervious and gorgotha third trait to overlap. That would be absolutely crazy.
Or up his mana cost. I must say I’ve quite had it with his 2-turn casts. He’s able to wipe teams in his own. I don’t get annoyed easily with teams or cards, but the dual manticore/bone dragon is one of them
Another idea is to add ’ your turn ends after the cast’. That lets you get a powerful cast but a possible serious hit in return. So: high risk, high reward
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