I’ve been trying to figure out some cool and easy reworks to make the gnolls playable for any level range while trying to keep them unique by themselves or together. The ideas:
Gnoll
Current Spell:
Savage Swing (9 Green/Red)
Deal [Magic + 3] damage to a random enemy. Deal triple damage if they use Brown Mana.
Changes:
Spell: Savage Swing (9 Green/Red)
Deal [Magic + 3] damage to an enemy. Boost the damage by my Attack if they use Brown Mana.
Boost Ratio: 1:1
Savage Hunter
Current Spell:
Hunting Season (7 Green/Brown)
Deal [Magic + 5] damage to a random enemy. Deal triple damage if they have a Hunter’s Mark. Place Hunter’s Mark.
Current Traits:
Wildfolk Bond, Monster Slayer, Grudge
Changes:
Spell: Hunting Season (7 Green/Brown)
Deal [Magic + 5] damage to an enemy. Deal double damage and reduce their attack by [Magic] if they have a Hunter's Mark. Place Hunter's Mark.
Traits: Wildfolk Bond, Monster Slayer, Beast Slayer
Wild Fang
Current Spell: Primal Fury (11 Blue/Red)
Deal [Magic + 4] damage to a random enemy. Deal triple damage if they are a Centaur.
Changes:
Spell: Primal Fury (11 Blue/Red)
Deal [Magic + 4] damage to an enemy. Deal double damage if they are a Centaur. Deal True Damage if they use Yellow Mana.
Reasons behind the buffs:
Gnoll: “The more brutish kind of enemy, relies on their strenght, fury and violence to end battles quickly. They work well as front troop because of their natural aggressivity.”
Removing the random aspect of the spell and allowing extra damage based on their attack, that increases with Frenzy and Grudge, seems like a perfect choice for the troop. This puts them a little above the Savage Hunter on the start of the battle, but the Gnoll can’t change the color of the enemies while the Savage Hunter can place Hunter’s Mark while also providing some “aggressive support” to the team.
Savage Hunter: “Weaker on body, but with a cunning and sharper mind than the regular Gnoll, these hunters are an important part of any pack with their skills on tracking and wearing down preys.”
Removing the random aspect of the spell works better for the gameplay and also with the lore behind the troop. What kind of respectable hunter would aim at random? The gnolls would starve (and lose all battles) if they suck so hard at focusing on one enemy. The Savage Hunter plays an “aggressive support” role rarely being in the front of battle. The Hunter’s Mark will help the first troop (Gnoll probably) dealing more damage and if targeting an already marked enemy they help bringing the prey down faster. Reducing the enemy’s Attack seemed like a logic step to represent the “dirty hunting tactics” that also works fine for the gameplay allowing the first troop to not get killed so soon. The change from the trait Grudge to Beast Slayer serves the lore’s purpposes mostly, being great hunters they can kill Beasts and Monsters with their expertise instead of the sheer brute force provided by Grudge.
Wild Fang: “Even among the gnolls there are few ones with a ferocity and hatred so intense…” Removing the random aspect of the spell, as in the others cases, provides way more playability to the troop, the bonus of damage being reduced from Triple to Double made me feel like something was missing to keep the troop unique and relevant, because only a few centaurs are used on teams. Going by the premisse that in Wild Fang’s story his parents were killed by a Centaur Scout, and because we have this troop in game, i came up with the idea that Wild Fang would hate everything about that Centaur Scout, even his Mana color. So, with my suggested change Wild Fang would be reliable against any troop with yellow mana, would one shot any current centaur in the game except two that generally see some gameplay (Stargazer and Dragotaur), but he would be a very normal troop against all the other troops.
Well these are my suggestions and considerations for the troops that i love, because of my expericence playing RPGs, and want to play in Gems of War but had frustrating results due the random targeting aspect of their spells.
I have a final thought on two other troops from Wild Plains that i would like to share:
Skeleros: For an Epic Troop he is consistently worse than a Skeleton, a Common Troop.
How to make him relevant: Doubling the number of skulls is worse than creating since we would need seven skulls to generate the same as the Skeleton does. Interchanging the spells from each troop, Skeleros and Skeleton, would probably reflect their rarity better, but this is a poor solution and would compromise the gameplay of new players that will get Skeletons easier than Skeleros.
So i thought about turning him into a summoner and at first it doesn’t sounds very creative, but i thought that Skelero’s spell could be:
Summon a [Magic] level Skeleton boosted by Skulls (1:1). If there are 13 or more Skulls, destroy them and Summon a Skeleros instead.
Of course it would require that Skeleros get some magic as he levels up. In the end Skeleros would summons a Skeleton wich provides the resources, skulls, Skeleros needs to keep summoning better Skeletons or another Skeleros while dealing some damage if there are 13 skulls or more. From the lore perspective seems like the classic battle against an army of skeletons that keeps reassembling themselves. I think this would lead to some cool teams with undeads and skull generation.
Gorgon: Changing the random targeting of his spell to first troop targeting and a spell damage reduction would help a lot. It would be like a better Boar Rider because of Stone Skin, but without the extra turn, maybe changing Fire Heart for Nature Heart to make a better sinergy with the other Green Tauros (Soothsayer and Tauros) keeping the whole kingdom with two good and playable tribes (Gnolls and Tauros) with distinct characteristics.
Well, i must admit that i didn’t had any idea to change Hydra to make it better without making it broken…
But thanks for the attention and i hope this helps the dev’s team in some way.