After the Prismatic Orb nerf, I ended up switching back to a variant of an old school team of mine:
Carnex
Orion
Templar
Paladin
Green/Yellow
I recently learned that hunter’s mark also increases the damage of destroyed skulls. Since exploded skulls count for 100%, it can allow Carnex’s explosion to do around 16+ to marked enemies on top of all the cascading. Orion stacks up his magic and keeps marking the first enemy. Templar protects Carnex, helps with extra turns, keeps mana up, and helps cover the red if Carnex dies. Paladin either picks off Orion taps or just one shots everything. This build does take a bit longer than my previous 2 minutes, but this build can easily reach 3-4 minutes average. The RNG factor of Carnex, red and green alignment, and Orion hits is usually what determines a 2 minute match from a 5-6 minute.
If I had to replace Carnex, it would probably be for Hero with Sands of Time. The main purpose of the first slot in this build is to tank, for only Orion and Paladin are important. The heal on Sands of Time would also prevent true damage poison teams from wiping through all the armor. It also has no down time due to the extra turn.
I see. I just played against a team with an Orc and I find the Orc to be pretty tanky as well as have the ability to destroy multiple skulls. This would proc the hunters mark effect. Thoughts?
Yes, but Templar will block his red gems. Anything that goes first slot in this build has to be either purple/red or just purple. Having just red won’t work.
I’m running a very similar team, except with Shadow Hunter instead of Behemoth. So far it’s very quick and effective. Carnex/Gorgontha/Shadow Hunter/Orion
My first team on ps4 was actually hero with whatever newbie weapon I had carnex behemoth and Orion. Don’t think ps4 orion has hunters mark buff yet. It was frustrating at orion being inconsistent so these days I’m running carnex gorgotha behemoth war and peace for steady AE damage and pretty much constant refills with orion/gorg. GE nerf will hurt that team but I like it for now.
Exploders are still working fine. I don’t tend to see them refill themselves on cast anymore, but they might refill the other exploder. So its back to the ye-olde Carnex + Gorgotha combo for continuous explosions.
Or Herd Master + Ragnagord. They’re just not as good.
That’s true. He’s also squishier though. Also, I honestly like not being given a choice on something that is still going to be fairly random. The few times I’ve used Ragnagord, I’ve stared at it (like an idiot) for ages trying to figure out where there might be an extra turn …
I personally think Ragnagord is superior to Gorgotha. Since it explodes only gems of a certain colour which results in a more “even” distribution of exploded gems. With Gorgotha it happens too often that it explodes three, four or even more gems in one corner of the board. On average you destroy more gems per exploded gem with Ragnagord.
Out of the four main exploders, they all use Red/Brown/Purple/Yellow mana. Blue and green pretty much don’t exist. There’s Eggsplosion, which is strange, and green. And Mountain Crusher, which … yeah.
Gorgotha is the better one to combo with Carnex due to color coordination. And Carnex is basically the best since it is very easy to predict, not use when it will be bad, and do high damage with the skulls - plus the armor gain, which I used to think should have been lower back when we were using 20-30hp legendaries instead of 35-45hp.
Of course, Herd Master and Ragnagord have their focuses. And higher damage. And share a troop type.
Between Grogotha and Canex it’s a tough call who is “best” I love carnex, he was my first legendary and I used the crap out of him for a long long time, then I got Gorgotha, and I really appreciate not having to have skulls on the board for him to be useful! Carnex is great, but when there is 4 or less skulls on the board not AS great. As a team though they pretty much rock.
One team I always had fun with was:
Carnex
Gorgotha
Hardmaster
Hero with Eggspolsion
Disclaimer: Personal oppinion and highly subjective!
I do not like Carnex at all. It does not do much and is counter-productive in many ways.
It removes skulls and deprives you of a main source of damage. With the changes heading towrds more and more life, destroying skulls (not matching them) is becoming increasingly weaker. You need at least two explosion rounds with maximum number of skulls each to be on par with a simple skull match.
It is limited to explode only one kind of gem (well skulls; what is the technical term von board pieces which are no gems?). If there are no skulls it is a dead skill. If there are less than the maximum number of explodable skulls it is at Gorgotha/Ragnagord level or weaker.
Carnex is virtually bound to the first slot because of its tankiness and armor gaining ability, therefore limiting your team building.
At first Carnex seemed to me a wonderful troop to have but after I got it and was experimenting a lot with it and different setups I can’t find any use for the cat-catcher.
I think I was just too busy to play much that week or something.