Can I just say that, while controversial, this has been one of the most polite and thoughtful debate threads I’ve seen in a while? It’s so cool seeing a bunch of people who love the game trying to make it better and not making our fellow players out to be the Big Bad Enemies.
I’ve also loved Kafka’s engagement in both the major and minor updates we have been getting !
Rock on folks! 
@Kafka Here’s an idea….if a defence team has elementalist as a class or wand of stars as a weapon or more than 1 Takshaka….then give it the same chance to be a selected Opponent as the Hoard Mimic appearing ?
I would prefer the previous version of the journey troops and would sacrifice almost ALL of the rewards for it while keeping the requirements tbh. 
I gave my weekly community report this morning about 2 hours before you posted this comment (short verbal report) and I absolutely mentioned this as well. That we’re getting a lot of PVP feedback but, sparing the details of the feedback for a more official report, it was just so great to see so much constructive community engagement over the game features itself.
I feel like everyone has started the new year on a much better note and it’s been so fantastic to see the discussions with different opinions (or even the same opinions) in a more constructive way than we have seen some of these discussions historically. This despite the issues that have popped up so far this year.
It is making it much easier for team members to jump in and read what is going on directly and for me as a CX Agent to jump in and be more part of the discussion with you because while I know I have to be careful with my wording (see me putting my foot in my mouth on that one point earlier), it’s far easier to just talk here like a regular person with you all in an environment like this and I’m really enjoying being more involved and also being able to confer with you back and forth over things 
I think the Guild Wars post Nim made is a good example of how we’d like to communicate on a more regular basis by sharing what’s behind the scenes and asking your opinions so we can discuss together and hopefully involve you all more in the dev process when possible. The development schedule is fast paced but this was one of those times we have a good lead in to include you in the discussion a bit. We still will have to say “no” for various reasons sometimes, and we can’t make everyone happy all the time but I think this way of communicating is a step in the right direction and this constructive environment helps foster that.
So TLDR I’m just echoing this sentiment:
Thank you all <3
While not strictly PvP it’s time the Pet Gnomes were set loose.
The fact they are only available in dead Arena and PvP seems well out of date especially given the current state of ‘PvP’
Wouldn’t this just make the vastly overpowered team of each region (like Wand/Stellarix) even more overpowered and omnipresent? It would no longer meet its natural counter when attacking, the very same team, so win rate and popularity would go up even further. And everybody unable to field that team would basically be guaranteed to get matched against it over and over again.
@Kafka PLEASE DO NOT NERF WAND OF STARS OR ELEMENTALIST. Nerfing isn’t a solution to this problem. How about just dumbing down the AI a bit (just barely) so they won’t loop as easily. I know this can be done because the enemy AI and gem placement in the previous GW vs other modes was clear as day to favor the enemy AI.
It’s PvP, though, not PvE. The opposition is not meant to be dumb. There needs to be wider acceptance of the fact that these are over-powered.
The only reason people are complaining about them being overpowered is now there are rewards being walled by them. The new pvp design, not the troops, is the problem
Yeah, 18 mana all-colors weapon with free bless/curse on deman and VERY high loop potential is nothing like OP. Quite like the paid kingdom weapons, about the same tier.
Game balancing is a thing. Anything can be nerfed or buffed. Some things might be OP just because gamedesigner forgot to actually play the game hes working on. It’s never a mistake to put the light on it.
Its op when its all that you fight like right now. However its also very very helpful in pve. DO NOT nerf anything to appease the pvp crowd.
BUT. Something needs to be done about the mode itself. Right now its not pvp. Its wvw. Wand vs wand. And thats the fault of not the wand. But the devs dumb choice to make defenses our last attack
No? Because that team might show up in one of the opponent slots but not all 3, so the attacker would have more options. Also this code doesn’t restrict which team you use as an attacker, so if you want to use that team you still can, it just means you will show up less as someone else’s opponent which doesn’t impact your own gameplay.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the behavior. It’s attempting to pick 3 defense teams that are different to each other, not 3 defense teams that are different to what the attacker is using?
Ah, yes! That’s correct, the code tries to select 3 opponents who have teams that are different from each other - what the attacker is using isn’t factored in 
2 or 3 or 4 THE GREAT MAW work as one (Devour an Enemy. Create 8 Yellow and 8 Brown Gems. One cast only.)
If this happens, then people will just move on to the next META team and we start the circle from the start. Nerfing troops/weapons is not a solution.
It is pretty clear people just want an easy mode where they can press buttons and win stuff and get dem good feels. The solution is to remove hero from the defense teams and change the name of the game mode from “PvP” to “Ez Battlegrounds”, because if you call a game mode PvP you should except some difficulties as you are then dealing against a human made teams and not some weak random trash teams.
I’m just saying that leaderboards now again have familiar names in the top position. You can clearly notice the win/loss ratios have changed, so everybody get their fair share of some shafting, and they aren’t moaning about it. They accept that is the name of the game now.
You play PvP - Gotta expect some losses too.
On a serious note though, I think one solution could be that we should be able to set defense teams with four unique troops. Not too OP, and cool folks could set easier teams if they feel like it.
My suspicion/guess is that setting up of defenses was removed, in favour of attack teams becoming defense teams, because it would be time-consuming for people to set up 10 (okay, 9+1 central spire) defenses with new restrictions every week, so they wouldn’t do it, or do only one or two regions, and then stop, do maybe one more on Wednesday, depending on the restrictions and blood frenzy regions. Especially if the game, as it does now, clears the teams if restrictions change. In GWs, we have the entire Monday to set up defenses. There’s no time allowed for that in PvP, to make the playing field equal to everyone.
Some losses. Yes. Emphasis on some. But this is so painful to start a battle, take one move, and just watch AI play; over, and over, and over. If I wanted to watch AI play, I’d go to explore and turn on autoplay. The only difference is that PvP AI playing display is at 4x speed, while explore is cut down to 1.5x. 
Of course this defense team thingie could be automated, the game choosing 4 random troops from the restricted pool at default, then players being able to change them if they want to. With this simple move devs would hand out the keys to the playerbase if they want to keep the game easy or if they want to make it hell to their opponents.
I definitely miss setting ridiculous [but easy] PvP defense teams. I always put up 3x Pet Gnomes and 1x Dragonite Gnome [help players get that achievement for DG encounters] during Vault events.
Yeah I used to set Bomb, Coin Purse or Gnome teams during Vault events aswell.