The issue with troop leads

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#1

Hello, been playing for a little while, at lvl 300ish and what seems to be very apparent at higher lvls (but prior to getting all cities to 5 stars). Only a small subset of troops are good at leading your team.

Attack stats are high enough that most troops are 3 skull matches from being eaten. This isn’t the end of the world per say but those with stone-skin as so much better than other leads. Of those with this trait there are really only:

Emperor Korvash****
Lava elemental**
Knight Cornet**
Treant**
Golem
Gorgon (maybe)**

Of these Emperor is so so much better than the others, once you get him you will never use the others (except maybe Treant)

With just a small change you can add a huge number of troops to the lead position and create all kinds of interesting team creations.

All you need to do is this:

Armored: Reduce ALL damage dealt to the troop by 25%
Regeneration: Regenerate 2 life each turn.

These two changes would make so many more troops viable as leads, especially the first one. There are a number of situations where armored might even be better than stone-skin against some teams. And yet it wouldn’t be op.

Luther***
Lion Prince*
Herald of Chaos***
Morthani’s Will***
Carnex****
Deep Borer*
Armored Boar
Griphon Knight*
Winter Knight*
Templar*
Thorn Knight*

All of these would be real choices in both defense and offense

Kruag****
Flesh Golem**
Berzerker**
Black Beast**
Priestess
War Sphinx**

You might even consider these for real as well.

Thoughts?

#2

Use a troop with Stun. It nullifies traits and thus Stoneskin and the like become useless for a short period of time.

#3

Anything with abilities that are not impervious can be stunned, that is not the issue. When invading there really are only a few troops that can take a beating. The changes I am suggesting both increase the number of attractive invading leads AND increases the number of potential defensive leads. Stunning and Emperor Korvash in particular is a catch all answer to any lead (which is probably a bit too good), but it would definitely help diversity and give newer player a lot more viable tools to work with. Luther for instance becomes a great tank for early player to use. Lion Prince is a dialed down emperor korvash with gem generating potential, winter Knight becomes an incredible goblin answer, both to the spell damage and also to preventing extra turns. Armored boar gives much newer players a reasonable tank outside of golem that actually can do some damage.

I don’t see how buffing abilities on troops that are rarely used, AND ONLY improves defensive capability, could be bad for the game.

Oh, and I have 5 emperors, lvld and fully traited. I post this because I am bored with him being the best lead I can come up with. I’d like to use all these other troops for different situations to break up the monotony. It would make defeating defenses a little harder which is probably a good thing, most of my matches only last around 2 or 3 min. That is probably a little too fast imo.

Cheers,
H.G.

#4

If using a board control team then there’s also:

Behemoth *** (massive trait +4 health on 4 way match and immune to stun)

Abhorath (can heal fully)

And that’s not to mention using entangle spells as a counter to skull damage.

But other than that, I like the idea of a trait to reduce all damage, not just spell damage. I doubt the devs would make such a big change to a trait but hope it’s something we could see with future legendaries.

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#5

All of those are Legendary **** and you are suggesting fully traiting them. Most of the player base can’t do that (even if I can). The new dragon is the only troop with entangle that seems good enough. Green sear entangles but isn’t really used for that ability.

Changes like the one I am suggesting I think would improve new player’s confidence when fighting harder opponents. I don’t think adding new troops or traits is the solution, It would be much better to make changes like these to accessible lower level troops.

#6

While I agree that the variety of troops in the first slot is limited, I’ve led with all of the following successfully:

  • Anointed One
  • Dark Maiden
  • The Great Maw
  • Jarl Firemantle
  • Manticore
  • Queen Mab
  • War

Many of those troops can self-heal, which is similar to tanking, if a bit more active than passive.

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#7

Entangle, keep the turn/board control with size traits, barrier, healers, most things that gain self life, armor, or attack, and even having a summon to fill in as backup can turn most troops into viable front slot troops. Also, Great Maw.

Regeneration and Reinforced would be extremely obnoxious at low end if buffed, but I agree they could be better at high end.

I don’t really see Armored needing a buff. True, stoneskin is 100% better, but so is fast > empowered and any resistance trait > impervious and the ones given armored were probably done so for balance reasons (though it may not seem like it now, but they are older troops).

Also, one big point of contention - Black Beast in particular is a very solid front slot troop, and its not his near-worthless regeneration trait that makes this so, but his spell. Especially (but not necessarily) combined with summoners on the team.

I will say, though, that treant was the one troop that game me the ability to hang in PvP when building up, still leveling my kingdoms, and occasionally running into opponents with over twice my stats. In this kind of one-sided fight, having a stoneskin lead can be make or break (in that case, combined with additional tankage from his spell just to be able to survive random hits). Also, with manticore everywhere on defense, as it is now, my old team that relied on this would most likely have been readily crushed. However, this was in the old PvP matchmaking system, being at a lower progression than I should have been at level 200 and getting matched with level 1000s. Once you have every kingdom to level 10 and start five starring, it is much less important to have a skull resistance trait. Mostly because you can curbstomp the enemy out of the gate before one troop dies, anyway.

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#8

I imagine most of those are viable starters when you have 5 star kingdoms. but for newer players that may have only just lvled up half of their kingdoms to 10, really have to use stoneskin or something like it or risk getting one shotted. Not one of those started as a rare, in fact I suspect that few higher lvl players use any ascended rares or commons as leads. There really aren’t any that are attractive that scale into the late game.

The changes I suggest, specifically to armored would make many of them viable for play at any stage of the game.

To be clear, I am present this observation objectively as I have nearly all troops legendary or higher, have all kindoms at lvl 10 and have fully traited teams with korvash, mercy, maw, manticore, etc.

I don’t need help, but I know its frustrating for newer players who are trying to compete in pvp. A number of friends have all said the same who picked it up recently.

Cheers,
H.G.

#9

Potentially so. As far as that goes, Dark Maiden (and Serpent, perhaps) are decent pre-UR tanks, but once you hit UR, there are a lot of troops that can get Stoneskin – provided you have the stones for it.

#10

having stoneskin isn’t the only issue, its also that most of the abilities on troops with good defenses are very weak even for troops of the same rarity. A number of troops with armored have great abilities but lack in damage reduction. Same is true for regeneration. Would love to rock Priest as a lead with regeneration giving 2 health a turn, it would make the troop last a lot longer.

#11

That doesn’t sound particularly thematically appropriate, though. I kind of like that the game encourages you to put a sturdy troop up front, or to make a call between that and putting a more fragile, harder-hitting troop there.

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#12

I’m lvl998 and my current lead is Deep Borer?

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#13

We need a can opener trait. Does double full skull damage against any troop that has reduce skull damage lol

#14

My lead troops in order have been Hero, Luther (once traited), and now Herdmaster (with and without traits). I’m now lvl 304 or so.
But I haven’t encountered many 8000+ teams yet.

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