Ok i think the first person to really mention this on this forum was @Slypenslyde a few months back, but nobody really said anything else about it.
But the real problem with Divine Team’s is not the dreaded INFERNUS or the new double killer Kitty Ubastet. The true problem is Divine Ishbaala and her third trait Radiant Aura (“All Divines start the battle with 50% mana”)
This trait alone is what make Divine’s a nightmare to play against and breaks the “small” amount of balance that is in GoW. What balance you ask? Well in exchange for doing absurd amounts heavy damage most divines have higher mana cost which slows the team down. But with Divine Ishbaala third trait, Divines fill as fast as lower level rare troops do. When one lucky 4 or 5 gem match, on the first turn can fill half the team of the strongest troops in the game THERE IS A PROBLEM.
My suggestion ,of course, is to change Divine Ishbaala third trait. Too what i don’t know you guys can make suggestions. But Radiant Aura needs to go. Without Radiant Aura divine teams will still be powerful but manageable and counterable.
TLDR: Divine Ishbaala third trait is what make Divine teams over powered and needs to be changed.
I agree her trait greatly contributes to it, but is not the only or even the one real issue.
50% startmana traits exist for several troop types, and none of them are perceived as a problem right now and while that may change in the future if those trooptypes get similarly powerful troops and synergies as Divines have right now, it shows that the problem with Divines is not the 50% trait alone, rather how fantastically well they synergize and how absurdly strong some of the Divine mythics are…which isn’t all that surprising since apparently most mythic troops that get released happen to be Divine.
That being said, as mentioned at the start the 50% trait does contribute here and and in general this kind of trait is potentially problematic in how it interacts with troops whose spells are based on great power for great manacost, which includes all stronger mythic troops along with a couple of legendaries.
Edit: Just to be clear this is not me advocating for nerfs, though they would be warranted, what i’d much rather like to see is the Devs put some serious work in other trooptypes, get off their base mythic=Divine train and start putting Giants, Raksha, and all the other trooptypes on the same Level as Divines.
It is just absurd that a new fantastic mythic Raksha troop comes out and will probably never really be played in Raksha themed teams because it works so much better with Divines.
Divine teams might be tough, especially when the AI gets some lucky matches, and perhaps downright irritating to lose to. But they’re not over powered and they’re certainly counterable.
And seeing that most of the divines are mythic these teams shouldn’t cause a problem on defense for anyone but higher mid-gamers to end gamers who don’t have the counters. You’re not going to have many players under level 400 forming top notch divine defenses.
That’s highly debatable. Infernus was hands-down the strongest Mythic. Until Ubastet arrived. Worldbreaker is similarly powerful to Infernus but costs 30 mana to cast, not 11.
Copy @vanyel. These troops was also tested carefully by the Devs before they was released. They are indeed strong troops but that was the intention. These threads is the reason why I might quit the game one day. Whenever we get something useful and fun to use these threads is spreading like fire on dried grass. Don’t forget that whenever the game get good troops people also find reasons to spend money trying to get those troops. It’s a reason why we not only get medicore troops.
@Gouki I agree its definitely not the only issue but do believe it is one of the main issue. The issue most ppl have with Divines is they tend Hit very hard and in the case of Infernus re- fills themselves. but starting with 50% mana is what puts DIvines over the top in terms of being very OP.
When divine’s did not start with 50% mana, you could at least counter them via mana drain troops. thats what mana drain troops are good for is to stop high mana cost, heavy hitting troops. But with 50% mana you will be very lucky to get one of those mana drain troops up before the enemies divines fill up. Basically it comes down to PURE Luck.
Basically the only strategy is to hope you can start a loop before the divines fill up, or use another divine team against them.
So i would say Divine Ishbaala third trait is a hugh problem. I dont think heavy damaging troops like Ubastet need to be nerfed, cause they have there place and sometime a challenge is good, but starting at 50% mana is just ridiculous.
as an example on this forum ppl are always posting for good counters to teams. well last week somebody posted looking for couters to the divine Infurnus team. and there were only 4 replies. usually the replies for something like that are in the in the double digits. this tells me nobody really has any counter because there are no true counters for Divines teams at this time except “loop faster”
@eika you’ve been here this long and you still think troop designs are tested carefully by the devs before release? That might have been the case three years ago when @sirrian and @nimhain put their experience and skills personally into it, and they spoke and listened here. They gave their reasons and even changed broken or unbalanced stuff fairly quickly and with thought. Now stuff might get changed eventually if analytics data suggests it’s too prevalent.
Once upon a time troops were made with love. Now I feel they’re cranked out by a machine run by cold economics and business process. GoW got too big to be the thing of love it once was. Decisions and designs were made by brains with instinctive understanding for it. Now I guess they’re made by committee and then over-ruled by the latest short term financial metrics.
Sob…
Aside: Ubastet. My children could tell that was overpowered. Anyone with base literacy and enough numeracy to grasp that 80 is bigger than 40 could tell that. If they stopped for mere minutes to make the comparison to anything extant. And my neighbour’s five-year-old, who I babysit after school and watches our PS4 account, told me I should use Ubastet with Ishbaala and not with Raksha ‘cos she’s sick and Raksha aren’t’. So I surmise this design launched on us on Friday was hiked up because the previous Mythic wasn’t silly enough to trigger enough $ transactions.
Back to the opening post: I think Ishbaala would be okay in isolation. The issue as @gouki says is the simplistic design obsession that any super-power mythic must be Divine type. I suggest Divine types should be kept to those troops that are holy and heavenly, or spiritual or otherwise power-that’s-not-a-daemon. Divine doesn’t need to be slapped onto so many mythics just because they’re big. Euryali, Infernus, Jotnar, Ketras, Skadi and Ubastet could all easily lose it. That one edit would make a great improvement to the meta.
I thought from the lore all of these were gods. Hence the divine type. Purely from a thematic standpoint how much more divine can you get than being a god? And also purely from a thematic standpoint, it makes sense that gods be powerful, more so than any other mere mortal. So extrapolating divine types should be the most powerful set in the game.
I certainly won’t agree hands down all these troops are tested fully & properly (there are a LOT of interactions & combinations to test at this point & growing every week). But I stand by that they’re stopable and counterable.
Divine teams for invade are also not brainless to run. They loop nicely (with some sweet RNG assistance) but they take more thought & time to pick your proper move to keep things going and not hand the AI the game. And with high dependence on exploders they can bite you in the ass pretty easily like glacyon teams do if RNG says screw you. Powerful but volatile, requiring skill to play them (and more skill & some luck to play against them).
dont even give the dev’s that idea… ALL i can see is Famine at 50% every match. Oh the Horror!!!