I personally believe that the previous update of 4/5 match trait activated traits really hurt certain troops. And what is worse, most of those troops have been considered weak (in bold) even before the update.
The troops affected are:
Jotnar Stormshield Ketras the Bull Plague Sekhma Jarl Firemantle The Great Maw Tesla Queen Mab Kraken
Elemaugrim
Doomclaw
Queen Grapplepot
Emperor Khorvash
Moloch
Venoxia
Sheggra
Dracos 1337
Behemoth
Courage (reminded by @jeno)
EDIT: Sekhma Assassin Class Archer Class
Yasmineās Chosen
Shadow Dragon
(Thanks to @Mithran for reminding these)
From which only a few were considered overpowered (in italic), and even those were considered overpowered because their use with trolls and huge clusters they create (activating the trait numerous times), not the troops themselves. (Kraken, Mab speaking.)
Because of that, the core concepts of certain troops vanished from the most part.
ā¦ Will we ever see any compensation to these troops, especially those highlighted ones (like Ketras and Plague)?
Hopefully glob resolution,cascade luck,trolls+4 is addressed, and the once per board conditions removed. That was what should have happened in the first place.
Plague probably is the biggest loser since so many immunity added in addition to the recent knee capping. Iām in disagreement on the selection symantecs as most of those troops even under current conditions are still very powerful and can be played competitively.
Gog and Gud, not that anyone really used him much. Assassin class and Kruarg maybe, depending on if the number of checks were reduced. Sekhma for sure. Yasmineās chosen took a noticeable hit, but she is spammy enough that you can often still get several entangles out for damage - her biggest hit was the frequency of entangling the first troop, which makes the team more vulnerable. Toss in Shadow Dragonās already useless trait, and the Imps that nobody uses, anything tanky with a size trait or that benefits from it directly (eg., Treant, Tuskar) and some other ones Iām probably forgetting.
Iām especially irritated with Ketras. I had a few setups where I could boost him into one-shot range with his spell for most enemies if he was untouched by the time he was filled, and now he falls a few damage short unless I waste additional turns matching red that I donāt need at the time, which effectively kills the setup. Same with my Maw/Doomclaw skull spam combo where I would be one-shotting the 3rd and 4th troops if enranged before, now they take a double tap (and Maw is less likely to be enraged). This one still works, since I have control to the end and the first 2-3 kills go down easy, but it is so much slower needing to gather a bunch of mana or make half a dozen moves to get that last skull hit which makes me not want to use it.
Not an exhaustive list, but I completely agree that thereās been a lot of side effects to this update.
The one that affected me the most was Sekhma wich isnāt in your list either.
I donāt think Ketras the Bull, Plague, Sekhma, Tesla, or either class are considered weak, even after this change. I still see people using either archer or assassin while itās been a very long time since iāve seen any other class besides these two or deathknight.
personally i think this change should have happened back when they nerfed BD as this was the real cause of that troop being OP. One change i think that needs to be made is if there are two different āglobsā, these should count as multiple matches. if itās all connected, just a single match has been made, doesnāt matter that itās 17 gems.
What itās strange is this nerf was added because of Krakenās 3rd trait. Better than nerfing the trait (ie reduce the damage), devs nerf the whole mechanicā¦
And now, they nerf Kraken! So why not revert the 4/5 match update?
Another issue is randomness: ārandom allyā should be ānon-affected random allyā. So Jotnar and co. could be more useful.
Not sure if we want the same for ārandom enemyā.
conspiracy theory: they have been planning to nerf 4/5 match mechanic for some time but need a scapegoat for it. kraken is the scapegoat. now they can casually forgot to return to normal.