⚖ Hero Balance Discussion: Kettle

Gameplay Help & Tactics
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This thread is for discussing whether Kettle is well-balanced, or whether you think he needs a buff or nerf.

This thread is NOT for general discussion of Strategy or Summons related to Kettle. For that, please see: 👺 Kettle - 5* Ice / Blue from Goblin Village

If you’d like to see more threads like this — or ignore threads like this, please see instructions in: 🔔 Watching or Ignoring Hero Balance/Buff/Nerf Threads

:bar_chart: Poll

  • I think Kettle is reasonably well-balanced overall
  • I think Kettle is excessively weak, and needs a buff (increase of their strength)
  • I think Kettle is excessively strong, and needs a nerf (decrease of their strength)
  • I’m not sure yet
0 voters

:speaking_head: Discussion

  • If you think Kettle is well-balanced, too strong, or too weak — why?

  • Are there specific, concrete suggestions you’d make to the game designers to alter Kettle ? Or are there specific reasons you think they should remain unchanged?

Purpose of this thread:

To provide an aggregate place for the topic here on the forum; thus preventing there being a million threads popping up. And to provide an actual set of impartial votes rather than a Ideas & Feature Requests which has no real voting.

In short, to neaten the forum and to give players and outlet for their thoughts on his balance without bogging down the rest of the forum or the other Kettle thread.

3

A lot has been said about Kettle already. Some buffs that would help him have been discussed in the Hero Thread.

My thoughts:
Could be a great hero, but needs some tuning.

  • Average speed would fit his specials better.
  • Second part would be better if the DoT would become uncleansable or would involve a wither effect (all enemies -400 def).
  • Third part is a b*tch, but can stay. Maybe change the percentage chance of his passive to 100% if third part is activated (90% damage to all plus accuracy drop). Or combine wither & growth:
    Wither: All enemies get -400 defense.
    Growth: All allies get +400 defense.
4 Likes
5

Average speed. Easy solution without reworking anything

2 Likes
6

So yes. He has to be average speed that’s the very first thing( and most important) that needs to happen.

With that, I do think they should take a look at the special. The variety/unpredictability is a unique mechanic, sure. Far far far from my favorite mechanic but I’m sure some find it fun.

What I don’t understand is the “failure” option in the special. Noooo other heros have that mechanic and it seems really dumb/frustrating because the other 2 options aren’t OP by any means and are above average at best.

Fast heros have similar specials to the 1st and 2nd special option….

Why not make it really fun and have the smallest chance to roll on the special not be the dumbest thing ever but make it really strong ? In turn, makes it really rewarding/fun.

Combine the 2 specials or maybe get creative and add a powerful fun option at a small chance rather than being dumb and doing a small amount of damage to yourself and the other team?

Fact it’s like this currently and at slow speed is bonkers. Def one of the most disappointing heros besides boom and fang but have fix for him too :wink:

7

4 months later, a new Goblin gets released and it’s healing and other attributes are way stronger on the defensive end. This is without any possible negative chance. Kettle is the FU to us all. Before we go show how great this hero is, we can do that in the right situation for all heroes. This 1 is the runt of the family

2 Likes
8

This hero never will be buffed and that it’s, we have to agree with this, they don’t care.

1 Like
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Haven’t the typically OP goblins been made powerful enough?

10

Obviously the worst hero released all 2023, I have no idea what the idea behind it was. It is so bad, it would need a complete rework, avg speed would not be a significant improvement. A lot more would have to be changed.
I doubt there is any interest at SG headoffice, so I won´t bother wasting time on suggestions. I see it as the balancing factor in a completely OP portal. AS such he has reason to exist. And of course a big FU for every poor FTP who somehow got “lucky”. But at least they´ll get a second hero that´s actually worth maxing along with him.

1 Like
11

Definitely the worst 5* of the new era

12

Kettle absolutely needs to be adjusted to average speed. His slow runs are more like very slow and given the fact he has a chance to do damage to his own team, he’s far too niche at slow speed to have any relevance beyond his family bonus and curbing overheals with 3 goblins. Which can be enacted with one of the 4s like Goldie running at average attack up and subterfuge truly being a better 3rd otsude if a rush scenario.

There’s nothing like waiting forever for his special and getting the failure with almost no chance of him firing again.

Simply moving him to average would not move him to A territory or disrupt the system of balance but would give him more relevance in everyday gameplay scenarios.

I want to love him but I just don’t.

1 Like
13

Do you know why SG won’t do something about Kettle? Because they already chose to create Grimsteel instead. They can buff or nerf some numbers but a full rework is too much, it’s like admiting they made a mistake.

14

Because they are happy to leave some heroes as stronger than others?

If they weren’t happy with this they could start with all the OG season one heroes, but that would require changing all the season one provinces and stages.

As it is SGG can leave new heroes that haven’t been launched to potentially insane extents of power ‘creep’ as they are. Kettle is still better than many old heroes and its up to players whether to level him.

15

You’re absolutely right but they like old heroes weaker and newer stronger, Kettle has been polled as one of the worst heroes ever. He’s not obeying the power creep rules.

The power creep has to be there but it’s their job to make it subtle so less people will actualy feel it and leave the game, most people will notice it’s there but continue playing since there are wars and challenges, etc., they can compete it; also more people will be able to feel like they can stay up with just a few dollars so they will continue spending as you have to put in a few bucks without insane amounts to see some progress. Basically a lower power creep makes people not feel the need to spend, a higher power creep makes more people ragequit and not spend anything, you have to find the middle point where you maximize profit

The thing is that it doesn’t matter now, if they woke up tomorrow and thought: “omg the power creep is evil, I need to do something about Kettle” or if they thought: “omg the power creep is glorious but Kettle is not attracting more money, I need to do something” to both the answer is the same: they wanted to create an Ice element slow healer goblin that followed a decent power creep and they succeeded… just not Kettle

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the only evidence I see is that they like things that they can sell. they did not make Kettle stronger.

I don’t see that such rules are from SGG but are rules that some players want to force on them.

I don’t see how making all new heroes fit up to a minimum standard of power creep helps with this. I think it might be better for people to warn against pulling in a certain portal because Kettle, Timothy or whoever are duds. Better that we campaign against them designing duds and advocating abstaining from portals when the duds appear. (Oddly, SGG do things like creating specific goblin or whatever coins so we can’t just opt out of portals).

I mainly think that it sends mixed messages.
Community: please don’t run away with power creep.
Also community: please help other shiny new heroes keep up with power creep.

17

No disrespect but it’s difficult to see your point if you’re debating a point I didn’t make, so I’m going to ask you to understand that trying to explain the power creep is not the same as defending the power creep.
Also don’t take stuff like “the rules of power creep” too literal because you miss the point. It’s objectively true that anything you do you can overdo it or underdo it.

Imagine SGG released 10 new heroes tomorrow, if all of them were bad then people would keep their money, if only 5 of them were bad then only some people would keep their money, some wouldn’t, what kind of evidence do you need to agree that good things attract buyers? do people want to buy good heroes or bad heroes? your point that Kettle is a dud is actually my point that Kettle is a dud, but I agree with some people that this dud in particular was particularly bad, and fitting Kettle up to a minimum standrard of power creep doesn’t help this, you’re absolutely right, that’s not my point, my point is that they don’t have to when they already have Grimmsteel, so if you asked SGG: “why don’t you fix it and give us the Slow blue goblin healer that’s good?” their answer could be: “umm… we already gave you the slow blue goblin healer that’s good”

Yes, and they can only sell new heroes or costumes because the old ones you already have them, so new strong heroes and weak old heroes makes more logical sense than new weak heroes.

In my country we have a phrase: “no person can be a little golden coin to please everybody, somebody is always going to complain”, it’s not a mixed message, people are going to disagree and some will say it’s too much and some will say it’s not that bad, you hear both sides and find the sweet spot where both sides are kind of meh.

This is a reasonable request, we know that having NO power creep is not possible, just don’t run away with it

If you grind or spend just $10-20 a month and get a shiny new hero and it’s crap it’s disappointing. We live in a reality where power creep exists, so why is my new hero not good?

Take a moment to reflect on all the heroes that the majority of players don’t complain about, a handful of people will complain about everything but most heroes are not seen as “broken” by thousands of players, when one does you just think “power creep” and dismiss it, but when one hero is really bad and people expecting a certain amount of power creep point it out everybody loses their minds and say stuff like: “oh, so you like power creep now?” no, I don’t, but I know it exists and this is not was I expected.

SGG wants power creep to make money, Players want new heores to be obtainable for hard workers or light spenders, we compromise, when your shiny new hero is bad it feels like the compromise was broken. a Hypothetical compromise, don’t take it literally

18

Exactly. It’s a buyers market. We can choose whether we pull, but then we get what we get.

But we know which heroes are available and we know, in advance, which we want.

When we don’t get the heroes we want, that’s disappointing, but we can already know that Kettle was not be among the heroes we wanted.
All that has happened is that we pulled and got a hero that we didn’t want.

When a portal is introduced I can see validity in arguing for an across the portal balancing of hero powers, so as to nerf some while buffing others, but solely buffing some of the new heroes just adds to and underpins the general trend of power creep.

I still think that SGG would reconsider their prodution of heroes with varying levels of power. Players should be aware that this happens and, in cases where it may help, enter discussions about the desirability of the heroes prior to pulling. In many situations shrewd players may delay or even defer their pulls. I doubt that this is what SGG wants.

19

This is exactly the reason why Belgium (and some other countries) have called this ‘gambling’ and SGG has blocked all in-app purchases for these countries. You buy coins or other virtual tokens, and you don’t know what you will get for it.

1 Like
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That’s wonderful because we have some control on how we play and how much we spend, and in order to keep the weight of our comments we need to save them for outrageous cases, if we complain all the time about buffing or nerfing it’s the boy who cried wolf, but if everybody just makes their personal choice for average cases and speak out more or less depending on the severity of the issue then SGG know it’s for real this time, a slightly OP or slightly dud hero shouldn’t be a big issue