OK I am level 1000 so at the end game. Not sure what people experience at lower levels but;
9 out 10 games are now great maw builds.
Many times all three of my battle options are Maw builds.
After the Queen Mab nerf (of 13 gems to extra turn instead of 10), I am myself am using Maw on both offensive and defensive because frankly it’s the most overpowering build.
Sure I’m seeing a lot more famine and plaque but always with maw.
Before the (13 Gem Nerf) I was seeing some true damage builds, more dragons, Mab builds, etc. Now it’s just Maw, Maw, Maw and more Maw.
I understand trying to insert counters into the game but they don’t really counter me.
It’s not even uncommon for me to fire off a Mercy/Maw combo and win the game in 1 to 3 turns. I don’t think any build should be able to win the game in less than three turns.
In my humble opinion (and this is coming from someone that has played that game 1862 hours) maw really just needs a nerf.
Like for real; It’s really is OK to nerf something when it completely starts to dominate the whole game. Diversity is good!
There are whole bunch of great options to balance it;
Get ride of the third trait change to devour. I know it’s just “15 percent” but it’s not uncommon for me to win a game and devour three or all four of my enemies troops. It really does seem to me to devour more than 15 percent of the time, but maybe I am just lucky.
or
Make it so It can only devour once so that you get the devour from skull damage or get it from casting but you only get one.
or
Remove Devour from the game .
or
Make devour only give health instead of armor and attack. I mean really, why does eating someone give me their armor and attack power but not their magic? It actually makes no sense that eating someone would give you their armor or give you their attack.
As a few side note;
I would love for you to actually remove the level cap. You lose to feeling of progress at 1000.
Create an options so people can have more than one character. I would love to start over and experience the lower level game without have to fight MAW, MAW, MAW & more MAW but I’ll be damned if i’m going to delete my level 1000 tune when i put 1800 hours into it.
i like the idea of more than one char… one of my kids doesnt play much, so i setup a 2nd pc account and a new steam account and setup his gems of war on my pc… yeah its a pain having to sign out of my pc and sign in on his account… BUT… i get to play both sides. (and he gets to play too on his tablet and his pc)
I agree, Maw is hugely unbalanced. Even Indigestible/Impervious is a joke against it. So what if I can’t devour your Behemoth? I’ll just eat whatever other troop is there, and now your Behemoth has to go through twice the stats.
Maw’s 3rd trait is just silly. No game should be entirely decided on a lucky 3-skull match falling on the board for your opponent and a 15% diceroll.
Maw laughs off almost every mechanic in the game.
Moloch Suppression doesn’t matter when you can double all stats.
Famine and Plague’s 3rd trait 2-3 stats don’t matter either, and if Maw fires first there’s no mana left to boost Famine’s spell.
Gorgotha? Eaten, or plowed through with 50+atk.
Web/Stun/Entangle/Freeze? Yeah, because no Maw teams run Mercy.
And as icing on the cake, someone decided Devour should also steal Barrier.
The ONLY big threat to Maw in the entire game is another Maw getting lucky. Valk/double Mab used to threaten, but that got nerfed.
Maw’s spell is ok, the issue is Maw’s third trait.
Once they fix Impervious to be…well…Impervious, then you can allow a frontline Maw to take the skulls (inevitably) and instead focus on depriving Maw of the spell, to which there are many options…kill maw first, mana drain, board control, gem colour deprivation etc etc
I haven’t used Maw in an Invading team for a month or two, and never skip the battle worth 3 trophies. I do however need to have either Mercy or Soothsayer in my invading team to ensure that the AI does not get access to a burst of yellow gems.
I wish we could go back to pre-Mab nerf because at least my Queen was an amazing counter and I hardly ever lost to maw. And we saw more variety with PvP battles than maw spam.
Now Mab is no more and Maw is running rampant.
I wish the requirement for an extra turn was tuned down to 11 or 12 rather than 13. Then we’d have another counter.
And for the record, my Mab team was almost never faster than my maw team so I’m not understanding why that was nerfed and not Maw… And on top of that people can be completely immune to Mab’s skill… Which throws a wrench in your comp. whereas it doesn’t matter for maw unless you run full impervious team (which isn’t very good)…
I do agree that Maw needs a nerf. Devour is broken when it comes to the opposing team.
Personally I think that Maw should only get HALF the stats of the devoured troop. That would be a good starting point. Because as it is right now, if maw fires first I just quit the match because I already know it’s not worth the struggle trying to win (and most likely failing).
It’s getting really annoying only going against Maw and being forced to use a Maw team to more easily combat the Maw team. And I miss being able to use my Valkyrie team for pvp but that’s pretty much impossible right now
Yep I agree…I was actually sort of shocked when Mab was nerfed instead of maw. Honestly, I thought maw would be nerfed three updated ago when people were really complaining about it.
I bet Maw is the single most complained about troop in the history of the game. There was a point where it was webspinner that everyone complained about. It got nerfed and all but disappeared. The game was actually better because of it.
All I can figure is the Devs are just bound and determined not to nerf this guy but instead keep injecting “counters” into the game. It seems like several things have been added to the game to potential nerf him; Mab with frozen and potentially being very dangerous to troops with high mana, spirit fox, stun, impervious upgraded. Problem is, none of the counter works.
I have noticed that the AI often heavily weights the gems towards the AI build on the board. So whenever you fight a team that has Maw/bone dragon, more often than not there is a ton of purple and gold on the board.
This is where firing off Mercy first fills up maw and leads to a game that ends in just a few turns.
I just find it annoying that Mab got nerfed because it was the “easy” button and not because
It was actually troublesome to go against… And apparently that was more of a priority than the troop that is actually a huge threat and super frustrating to go against.
Things can’t be too easy, but a troop can be so frustrating to go against and barely be touched?? I hope the devs have a plan that we don’t know about yet or I am concerned for the variety in this game.
I agree that Mab got the short end of the stick, while Maw got away with mainly a slap on the wrist. That said, Mab is still a very powerful troop. Maw’s third trait will continue to be problematic for balance until it is changed (if it is ever changed). It’s much too strong to be an “incidental” effect on skull hits. His spell is fine, and has many counters.
I think his spell needs to be nerfed as a byproduct of what I think is the real problem with Maw.
Devouring and capturing an enemy troop’s entire stats is brokenly OP and completely frustrating.
It should be half the stats for devour, and keep his third trait for now just to see if that is enough of a counter.
And that should be a precedence if they ever add another skill that devours an enemy. Half stats for enemies and full stats for allies.
Just my opinion though. Maw would still be good because his skill would be an instant death and he’d still get a good amount of stats.
Or they could simply change his mana color to something other than yellow (or blue) so he doesn’t work with mercy. I don’t think mercy should get a nerf just because of one broken troop in the game.
The more troops with stun that come out,you can just remove his 3rd trait from the equation,barring the unknown of whether a viable team can be made with said troops.
It seems that the real ‘counter’ to Maw is power creep… And more spells/effects that can insta-kill, i.e. Death mark, assassin class.
I think that so long as high-level players are seeking FAST games & avoiding slower teams, it’s pretty logical for the devs to make troops that can give a fast game high stakes, a real sense of risk and threat.
(and he gets to play too on his tablet and his pc)