Which one is next

After Crimson Bat, now Webspinner. Which troop is going to be nerfed next? Place your bets please.

Hobgoblin perhaps?

That would be really bad, he’s perfectly balanced now (IIRC got adjustment right after release).

You skipped Sheggra in the nerfiness… Maybe Goblin King, afterall he is the STRONGEST legendary card :slight_smile:

Sheggra and Gloom Leaf… two troops I’d be happy not to see any more. :stuck_out_tongue:

Goblin Shaman babys :smile:

Ha! Cheater, this has been practically confirmed already. :stuck_out_tongue:

Dwarven Minor.

Way OP. And child labor laws forbid them working in mines anyway. OSHA is going to come down hard on Khaziel.

Fascinating, but potentially unhelpful topic, really…

How are we defining ‘nerf’ I wonder?

Nerf = a change that breaks a troop someone relies on, making their favourite team not work any more, and resulting in them quitting the game in childish pique?

or

Nerf = a logical term for any change that has a net decrease in a troop’s power - i.e. just the opposite of ‘buff’?

or

Nerf = a considered attempt by the devs after much testing (and 30+ years’ game development experience) to re-balance a troop that crosses a (slightly ambiguous) line into being broken and unbalancing, reducing fun and/or variety

So my problem with this topic is that we interchange between all of these meanings, and it’s hard to separate reasoned debate from emotive whingeing. Nerf as a word also has too many negative connotations.

Also, which I admit peeves me, the whole tone is slightly extracting the urine - as if the devs have no right to make balance changes to the game once troops are published. Don’t get me wrong - no harm in a little fun here, and dev-baiting - but I have to challenge a topic that seems to suggest that nerfing troops is the wrong thing for the devs to be doing.

Just to pick up on a few historic points:

  • Crimson Bat wasn’t nerfed, it was fixed - dealing 5 AOE true damage and gaining 20 Life in one cast was broken
  • Silent One was part fixed, part nerfed - its ability was too strong - it was in every PVP team and games weren’t fun - the devs addressed this - but I think the reductions in its stats were a bit too harsh
  • Sheggra wasn’t nerfed - the devs fixed a serious coding bug that meant skull damage was overflowing down the team and hitting too many targets at once - it was only ever intended to hit the first enemy on the first skull matches

I think a topic making a list of troops the community considers un-balanced is useful. I also think that list will currently be pretty short.

My list has nothing I see that currently, urgently, needs attention, but could include (based on card comparison, mainly):

  • Sunweaver - still feels strong in comparison to other buff troops
  • Goblin Rocket - too many, too good effects, for the mana cost
  • Hobgoblin - mostly okay now, still slightly high damage for the mana cost
  • Druid - too high damage for the mana cost by comparison to most
  • all other Goblins - not too bad, but commonly among the best in their rarity, and recent team bonuses may be helping them too much
  • Peasant - well, no, just seeing who’s still reading
  • Webspinner/Venoxia/Jarl/Celestasia - I think may now be okay, but need to see dust settle and what trends emerge from the recent changes

If none of those were fixed, the game would still be broadly fine - but for the sake of fairness and general parity and variety - a few tweaks would be good.

I disagree that some other troops currently being slated need attention - Sheggra, Gloom Leaf, Keeper Of Souls, Shadow Dragon - I think are all fine.

A better list might be of troops that would benefit from being re-designed to be better. Buffing them, or re-working them, whatever. I’d include:

  • Moloch
  • Goblin King
  • Gar’Nok
  • most of the Epics
  • but especially Tyri and Tau
  • Nymph (utter rubbish compared to Cockatrice)

Improving these sub-standard troops, especially the Legendaries, would surely help mix up the meta and improve variety - adding new ideas all the time.

I look forward to being attacked by the anti-nerf brigade :smiley:

4 Likes

The Goblin King should summon extra Goblins even into empty slots on the enemy team. Can’t stop the Goblin Horde swarming all over! See how people would use him if that way they ended up with 5 or 6 troops :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes

@jainus
Nerf is a term that i personally see as a dev doing somthing that makes the unit less powerful than it was before → nerfed
It IS a direct opposite of the buff, which would make units stronger overall (more powerful).

As for the brokenness, that is just your personal opinion… Like its mine that every single unit should get a magic point when it maxes out (lvl 15). Do you think thats a good idea? No. But i still like the concept of having to max a unit for max power (simpsons reference anyone? :smiley: )

You mentioned silent ones ability, but you “forgot” that they changed unit recovery rate as well, it used to be random, but it was changed to % based on number of turns…

Also dont bash Sheggra she was really hard to beat before they NERFED it…

1 Like

@Jainus here here. Great way to put it. It’s obvious by the response however that your first description of “nerf” holds more water with some people than the others.

To think that fixing the multi-hit bug was a nerf is ridiculous.

Hmm, I wonder. The thread title could suggest either a complaint that the devs are nerfing too many troops (and/or that people are too prone to request nerfs from them), or simply a tongue-in-cheek discussion about OP troops in general. Given the opening post is a one-liner, I think the latter. :smile:

@Jainus is reading far too much into this, I think. “Nerf” is no arcane term subject to various interpretations. It’s a change to something in the game which leaves that something worse off than it was before the change. Exactly like a buff is a change to something in the game which leaves that something better off than it was before the change. I also see neither as having a negative connotation; they’re both pretty objective descriptors, at least in their common use among gamers and developers these days. There you go. :wink:

In the most basic sense: “+1 attack” = buff. “-1 attack” = nerf.

Then, of course, you can have updates or balance changes that are a combination of both, or that change something to its core so that it’s tough to compare what it used to do and what it does after the change and call it either a nerf or a buff.

In the context of this particular game and topic, Shadow Dragon comes to mind. Traditionally, it was always a troop that poisoned the entire enemy team + did some true damage to one of them at random. At one point, it was changed to no longer give Poison to anyone, but do significantly more True Damage to a random troop, AND become a gem transformer (which feeds itself mana in the process). Such a makeover was neither a buff or a nerf, or it was both and also a complete change.

Of course, on the next day, after a strong backlash from the community, calling this change a nerf and complaining about it, it was given back its Poison All ability, while keeping its brand-new gem transformer and +DPS boost. So all in all, he was buffed beyond any doubt. ^^

A fix is another beast entirely. It should typically apply to bugs, exploits or technical issues, not to legitimate parts of a game. I wouldn’t expect devs to say “we fixed this troop”, unless they fixed some issue like it was doing something else than it was supposed to, or its text was incorrect, etc.

Honestly, right now, there’s no troop I’d say would need a nerf per se. There are insanely powerful troops, and there are near useless troops, and everything and anything in between, as always, but I generally don’t see nerfing the top “flavor of the month” as a good way to keep game balance in check. See HearthStone for perfect examples of what NOT to do.

It’s generally much more interesting for the game as a whole to add new counters (Order and Chaos, DragonSlayer, Dark Song, Bear Totem, Bone Dragon…) or to buff things that seemingly don’t work (Musketeer, Goblin King, the pre-buff Gloom Leaf…) than to just turn something powerful into something useless (Silent One) or even just “meh” (to an extent, the nerf to exploders, although I think they were actually overpowered before and are still pretty good now). The Silent One could have been countered by anti-silence mechanics, rather than making take hours to take his aim, and then only to shoot himself in the foot, for instance… :sweat_smile:

Sheggra WAS techincally nerfed at some point, but it was insignificant, especially considering all the troops and weapons that were added since to facilitate her board clear more than ever. The fix to the skull avalanche bug did make her no longer broken, but it wasn’t a nerf per se, it was indeed a fix, since this was literally a broken game mechanic: something not working as intended.

The Druid is overpowered as all hell, especially in The Arena, and it’s been the case since his release, as his spell is considerably more bang for your buck compared to most AOE, especially in his rarity slot.

Still, I’d rather not cry for nerfs, and I’d rather people refrained from doing that, but pushed more creative suggestions to vary and balance the game more. First and foremost, I wish more people scratched their own heads and tried their damnedest to come up with a solid counter line-up themselves when confronted with a strong, popular combo, rather than moving on to the next strong, popular combo bandwagon (again, see HearthStone for what NOT to do ^^).

I’ll leave you with a prediction, though, since this was the original game/joke in this thread. My “Dragon Lords” team will likely come to the good pitchfork-bearing folks’ attention soon enough. Mark my words. :wink:

1 Like

Yeah, but since they don’t get any same kingdom only bonus, you should be safe my dear. :wink:
Also, I agree with all that you just said, you saved me a lot of typing! :heart_eyes_cat:

I am happy with nerf having its simple logical meaning… just unsure that was what everyone had in mind when they’ve accused balance changes as being nerfs…

I think I was overdue a rant about unfair criticisms of changes by the devs - it is their privilege, and their job, to make balance changes as they see fit - and with any luck our debates on here can influence their agenda a bit.

Agree that Shadow Dragon was buffed by the succession of (slightly odd) changes. But he was under-powered compared to other legendaries before, and is now at the higher power end, but not (in my view) unbalanced. As an aside, the recent huge gains in Life (from all those level 10 kingdoms in the late game) have also affected true damage dealers the worst.

Also, Sheggra was subsequently technically BUFFED The Summoning – Gems of War afterwards (so there! being petty here…)

I’m also using the same Dragons team. It’s strong but so far has enough hit-or-miss nature about it that I wouldn’t be campaigning for the nerf brigade yet. It’s also fast, fun and rather chaotic - just as a team should be :smiley:

That’s why you keep pet giraffes after all.

Oh nooooooooooo! My secret is out! To the zoomobile!

Seems to me that when somebody complains about a troop being broken, more often than not it just means they haven’t figured out a way to beat it yet.

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Though sometimes Mrs. Pond, it isn’t :smile: Othertimes it is just that.

@melkathi: That’s Mrs. Doctor to you ;).