I’ve been playing this game since July 2016 and I can say I am one of the few that is disappointed in the Bone Dragon nerf that will happen in the future. The reason being is that, from my gameplay view, I barely encounter him and when I do, he’s only shockingly killed my entire team maybe 2 or 3 times. However, in the meantime, this game has increasingly been overrun with “extra turn” teams. In the beginning it was the goblins. Then it was the guild guardians. Now its a combination of Justice, Valkyrie and Queen Mab. I’ve personally have lost count to how many times I’ve loss to “extra turn” teams. Since Freeze seems fickle at times, I actually had to resort to using Bone Dragon just to break up the monotony of those teams. One lucky (or unlucky) cascade and you can basically sit your controller or keyboard/mouse down and walk away. Still all I hear and see on the forums is “Please, nerf Bone Dragon.”
The Bone Dragon was ‘fine’ 8 months ago but Armor has increased to the point where BD has become disproportionately powerful as a result. Add in the on-skull-proc Traits and you see how out-of-balance it’s gotten.
The devs are not “nerfing” the Bone Dragon, more like bringing it’s performances at the highest level of the game down to something more reasonable, which everybody is agreeing is a good thing.
People at all levels of progression in the early- mid- and even late- game will still get to enjoy the bleep out of the Bone Dragon !
The other issue you raised of Extra Turns I have some feelings about, but I don’t think I should speak to it since I do not play on Console and this is a Console thread.
Out of interest, what level are you and what armour boost do you get? I get a +20 armour boost, so if he hits a mythic troop and there are 2 courages in the team, he often takes out 3-4 members of my team with one cast from cascades and extra turns, plus then any troop in that team can usually one hit kill any of my troops that are left
I understand what BD can do and why BD is being changed. I’m ok with it, just disappointed. That’s not my issue. I think I’m just surprised that everyone, apparently, has gravitated towards the BD issue all the while something else is lurking in the shadows ready to replace it and I felt like I was the only one who noticed. Thus I made this thread, inquiring about my fellow comrades’ views on the subject.
Believe me, I see what is lurking too. However I do not feel the issue is Extra Turns. IMO (do not shoot me) is that there has been a gradual expansion of unskilled builds and play-styles. Over-reliance on Explode-y teams and the slot-machine-style Guardian spam teams are a manifestation of this.
It’s not really a “bad” thing as I see it; one of the primary strengths of GoW is how adaptable it is to individual play-styles and preferences. It has led to some imbalances, which I imagine will be gently brought into line with some tweaking.
I hear what you’re saying, but an explode-y team is the perfect antidote to “extra turn” teams. Never lost to mab with a dragon team, but with colour changers one unlucky freeze and you’re fairly stuffed.
I respect you though Krudler for your craving for strategic calculated winning! You are a sniper making headshots; TDS and Gorgotha are shotguns
Good point about explode being a good by-pass to Freeze, absolutely.
As you might have seen with my most recent videos, I do respect Explode very much. I put in a subtle edit to my above comment too.
The real reason I don’t talk about Explode teams much in my videos is because it’s a subject very-well discussed by others and I try not to cover old ground too much.
When invading, justice and courage are the only guardians that I’ve found troublesome tbh. And courage mainly because of bone dragon; justice because of mab.
The guardians are powerful but we already had lady anariel, jarl firemantle and venoxia that could do extra turns for themselves, and they don’t cause too many people problems.
Personally, I think that after the bone dragon is nerfed it won’t be the guardians that are the new meta.
Also, Sirrian talked about the AI combo breaker that is in place; plus the AI just isn’t that good at playing extra turn teams. Obviously this may well all change when we get the defence AI settings that the console players already have
My only dislike for playing against Guardians in PvP is the experience of sitting there for 120 seconds while the AI spins in circles and accomplishes nothing lol
I have no hate on for Guardians or anybody that uses them, just the excruciating slowdown that seems to come with them.
I just began playing on pc also and noticed there wasn’t any defense AI settings. Perhaps that is the difference. They don’t seem to miss a step when it comes to playing extra turns on console. AI still seems to just miss 5 gem moves in favor of 3 or 4.
Definitely no hate for the people that use those troops or techniques. I agree that sitting there is getting pretty bad. It seems a game that you’re suppose to be “playing” is evolving into a “waiting” game more and more every reset, in just pvp of course.
For me, the difference between the Guardians and Bone Dragon boils down to this:
If I am very careful about when I cast my Guardian and pay attention to the color saturation of the board, I can take a considerable amount of the “risk” out of it. That means I can’t just cast my Guardian as soon as it charges without thinking about it because not only am I giving up my turn, I’m likely setting up the enemy with a great board saturated with not 1 but 2 colors.
On the other hand, BD requires literally no thinking at all. Fill him up, cast him, destroy 2 or 3 enemies and then fill him up again.
I know you’re not fond of the Guardian-based teams and if you play them like many do, you have a good reason for that. It’s just more gem spam. But if you slow down, think about it, and apply some good old @KrudlerTheHorse-esque tactics to it, the Guardians can be extremely fun to play.
Also, my previous post shouldn’t be construed that I don’t think Guardians are not overpowered. Courage and Justice are very overpowered. It’s just not the gem generation that is the cause. In Justice’s case, it’s that the spell buffs two attributes. And Courage’s 3rd trait is ridiculous, especially when stacked with more Courages.
My views on extra turn teams is that they are annoying when the AI acts up. The AI is just annoying. I use troops that can give you an extra turn but the way AI uses them compared to a human in horrendous. So, my point is that it’s not the team itself for me, it’s just the AI. I don’t know, I guess that would be typical right? The AI being able to do anything better right? What could you do, I just play on to not let anything in this game get to me.
