I’m presently playing at Warlord 1. I started there but my explosion team got wrecked, so I fell back to Hard. I’m back to a small cheap team (hero w/skullcrusher, goblin, rocket and sphinx and back to Warlord 1. Winning about 85%.
What level are you at? And should there be a trophy bonus?
JoeDaddy
I play in “Hard” I dont think Warlord quite worth the effort. Perhabs in a couple of patches and with Mythic troops it would be easier and faster.
Warlord I for invades / defends. I use a goblin deck which is a lot of fun to play and usually quite quick. I still lose every now and then to the really high lvl / full kingdom bonus peeps, but otherwise no trouble. I am considering moving up to Warlord II, but the rewards just don’t seem like enough for the increase in enemy stats.
Hard for Arena. For some reason I am still struggling with Arena after the patch. Prior to the patch I played Arena almost exclusively and went through all 8 without a single loss most times and I think only didn’t get all 8 wins once or twice. Now I feel like I am scratching out each game and haven’t hit all 8 wins since the patch. Not quite sure what changed, but it has made the mode much less enjoyable so now I just focus on invades.
-Razlath
I really enjoy playing in normal mode. I don’t need the extra rewards since I’ve got about 250k souls and normal play generally is quicker. My m.o. is to scout the opposition then use whatever team I think will be best against them. I have ‘anti - webspinner’ for 3 or even 4 spinnys, ‘remove red’ for red dependant troops like sheggers, very high health squads, all round bashers etc etc. I currently use 16 different teams. For me, more fun than slogging against a very difficult opposition is beating 4 webspinners or venoxies whilst retaining a full team…yaaaay 
Normally I play at Warlord II, I usually use my Goblin team (G G G G-Unit) for invades. I’d guess and 95% win ratio.
If I’m feeling really lucky I’ll crank it up to Warlord IV and use my Infinite Screaming Alchemist team (Hero w/ Torch, Alchemist, Valk, and Sheggra). But I usually only have a 50% chance of winning there, one mistake or lucky drop for the AI and it’s over.
Normal all the way, for me. I really hate not having the combo-breaker feature. It would be great if it could be a separate option from the difficulty level, actually. Combo breaker ON/OFF, and then choose your Difficulty.
Also, sure the Arena is a lot more difficult these days, even on Normal difficulty, since you no longer get any bonus as you used to with the previous Kingdom system.
I play on Normal as well. The Warlords are good for invades, but I’m an Arena player and the higher difficulties make the fights almost impossible. You come here with your little troops that rarely have more than 7-10 Life, and the opponents have over 20, not even looking at the other buffed stats… since I don’t care about the rewards that much, and just want to have fun in the Arena, I don’t budge anymore. At firsdt I’ll switch before invades, no I don’t bother because I forget to change before I buy the fee. 
I play normal as well.
I’m currently trying to get my gold stash to 1MM (almost there) and I find that I make more money at normal setting, as a match is quicker at that setting and the bonuses don’t make up for the extra time.
Sooo much faster on normal. Scaling needs to improve drastically before I try the other difficulties again.
Difficulties weren’t intended to replace the normal difficult in ease of reward, but instead offer rewards as a sort of “thanks” for trying it.
It was discussed on another topic before the .7 update, but @Archenassa and I agreed it’d be rather grindy and painstakingly boring if added difficulties scaled appropriately in earnings, making players feel like they HAD to play big or go home.
I’m personally very happy with the way it currently is. It offers a challenge to those who desire it, but doesn’t feel required just to keep up.
Hard 90% of the time …
The Warlords are fun to kill at times of boredom and team testing, but the rewards just don’t scale 
7
Oh, I agree with the rewards / difficulty balance. It’s just that Arena became a bit frustrating. I still think Warlords are more fun for invades. ^^
I’m facing the same thing with Arena. From getting 8 easily to being lucky to get 4. Seeing the opponent get 4-5 cycles out of a rock worm, or do 40+ damage on a single turn from cascades. Had to start playing super defensive as it seems every time a skull could drop that would give them a hit it would.
I’ve stopped bothering with it entirely.
Were you playing Normal or Hard mode during these battles? I personally recommend Normal as it will lock out the opponent from getting long cascades.
One of the main reasons Arena is harder is due to the lack of mana bonuses. Previously I could quickly rev-up my Mountain Crusher from about two ordinary matches to then explode the field, this is no longer as simple, but still possible if lucky.
Without mana bonuses, variety does feel slightly lacking, but doesn’t kill the arena for me personally.
I can probably handle Warlord something, but there are still people out there with 4 Dragon/Goblin defense teams …
Went back to Normal, and easily getting 8 wins again. Really surprised at how big a difference it made.
Not surprising considering Normal actually rigs the board in your favor, while Hard mode leaves everything to luck.
Some people even leave negative remarks or reviews on GoW because they didn’t win 99% of the time. Which is why whenever you start feeling “cheated”, go normal. Want a more fair (as fair as random goes) match, play hard! 
Normal for Invades / Arena. Warlord II for Farming.
Agree with @Archenassa playing Arena on any Warlord difficulty is suicide.
I just dont understand this at all. What do people want? “Always win game?”
People just want to have fun, when playing game.