Please review Gobbler and his low defense

I understand that Gobbler is a novelty hero that is supposed to fill an unusual niche. I have mine almost maxed and I began using him on raids and noticed he has an almost fatal flaw in his design. His defense (450) is so low that he is unlikely to survive long enough to use his SS. He is not only the lowest defense among all 4* heroes, he is 57 points below the next squishiest hero (Scarlett). His defense is only really comparable to 3* heroes.

Keeping that in mind, the only heroes that spawn minions, as of this writing, are 5* heroes (Thoth, Delilah & Red Hood). The teams that tend to have these heroes are fairly strong, usually TP 3800+. Given the kind of environment Gobbler faces, how could one expect him to be effective? Granted, his health is higher than the average 4* but I looked up the way damage is calculated. Since damage is computed as a function of (attack / defense), an abnormally low defense will result in much higher damage to Gobbler than a typical 4* hero. High enough such that the 1302 health doesn’t seem to matter in terms of his survival. If his defense and health were aligned like a typical 4* such as Little John or Melandor then Gobbler would be a more playable character. Those two heroes have a similar attack strength as Gobbler but don’t have the survival problem. As it stands now, there’s no way to put Gobbler into a fight against the very heroes he’s meant to counter.

I got the Gobbler and tried to use him but had to stop as what your saying is totally 100% correct, he is pretty much useless against those he is designed to come up against never having a chance to use his SS and always the first to be shot down by these 5* heros.

It almost as though they know what he can do and all kill him off first up within a couple of shots.

The only time I use him now is to make up an all green team against a titan other than that, against 5* heros that use minions he is honestly totally useless.

Totally agree with you. Gobbler is a useless hero. I have it but I think I get rid of it because it has no interest. A 4 * hero with average mana and a defense too low to go to the onslaught of heroes 5* as much trying to go on the moon by climbing up a ladder.

Beta failures It happens the same to Lancelot, to bufearr only to close and not to all, to be effective has to be placed in the center or flanks, not in the wings and his defense is too low for that. I also have Gobbler, only to make bulk in titan.

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Survivability is a combination of defense and HP. Gobbler has huge HP, which help offset the low defense.

BUT I agree (and complained about this stat arrangement in beta pre-release). Gobbler could be a highly effective niche hero IF his attack and defense stats were swapped. Or averaged. Or something to shift him to a more tanky build.

His special also doesn’t play to his stat line. Those extra HP will quickly get stripped by his low defense.

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What I don’t get out of this is why Gobbler was made a 4* and not a 5* as the only minions are with 5* heros.
Now I don’t know if there is a 5* minion fighter/defense hero in the mix but what I see is in having a full 5* team would still require you to downgrade a hero to a 4* being Gobbler if a minion fighter was needed.

I might be seeing this wrong that’s what I get out of having this hero.

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Its same to sir lancelot defense so low. I hope smallgiants can up sir lancelot defense to 625

I dont understand why did you lvl up him. Maybe you have a lot of ascending items and other things.But one look and you know it’s bad hero. He maybe will be good in far… very far future, but now ? And switch his stats will not help him.

I leveled him up because he has a unique, although niche ability. He’s a special purpose hero and it intrigued me to see how he performs in real games rather than as a paper exercise. Even if you ignore the minion eating aspect of his SS, the average speed, wide AoE attack makes him interesting. His SS hits a little weaker than LJ or Skittleskull but the speed is also faster. LJ & Skittle also happen to have SS with minor side effects, therefore in my mind Gobbler shouldn’t have been any worse than those two.

Gobbler’s low defense / high health is also interesting in that it obviously looks like a trade off the designers made to balance his offensive power. I think the designers misjudged the degree to which it hampers the usability of Gobbler. And since this particular hero has a special purpose, I think the designers would be more willing to correct the imbalance if it can be shown that the fix would be in the interest of fulfilling Gobbler’s purpose.

Here’s a raid video I did w/ Gobbler. Note Zeline’s SS damage to the rest of my team vs. what Gobbler’s taking. The other heroes each have a defense around 700 vs. Gobbler’s 450. He’s taking about 50% more damage than the others whereas his defense stat is only about 35% lower than the others. This example is a little more favorable to Gobbler as he usually gets one-shotted by a sniper and doesn’t get to fire off his SS at all. BTW, Gobbler has a 4* unleveled troop giving him a 10% defense bonus vs. 15% - 21% bonuses others are getting from their troops.

Example of Gobbler’s defense deficiency

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That’s not at all surprising. The damage formula is built on a ratio of attack to defense, raised to 1.35 power (or about that; there’s a thread on this: Damage Calculation)

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Yeah I saw that study when I was looking up why Gobbler is so fragile. Based on the formula, Gobbler’s health should be around 1500 if he were supposed to have the same chances of survival as the typical 4* with his 450 defense. But, 1500 health for a 4* would be ridiculous.

I actually came up against a fully ascended gobbler yesterday as a tank and I have to say that he did take quite a bit to put down to a point at one stage wondering if I was going to be able to at all.

The down side as you mentioned though was his hits had little affect against my team but I guess if he is paired with good strong offsiders he could be used quite effectively.

With all the current minions producer heroes and all the future one. One great hero to have is gobbler but the problem is that his defense is extremely low. Maybe this should be revise and boost a little 54a4012c56ead4a9cce1a49057ade13ef9dddf9e_1_366x500

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I agree with many of the posters, gobbler is a great idea and concept but very difficult to use with such low defense. Definitely needs a buff

Gobbler’s problem is that his special is designed to fight heroes of 5 *, only. For that you can not have that defense.

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that special should have been on a 5* hero

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I disagree, the utility SS abilities belong in 4* heroes. The really useful ones like Rigard, Melandor, Sonya etc. are widely available to all players and that is an essential part of balancing the game. What the devs should do is put the ability on someone who can survive among a battle of 5* heroes. If they made a Kashhrek twin with the gobble ability instead of the red def buff that would have been ideal.

Thanks for posting this! Very educational. Hopefully more will see. :slight_smile:

Would a buff to 1450-1500 health make him appropriately competitive?

I really like unique hero design… I haven’t leveled gobbler yet, but he’s on my short list for sure!

(Especially with santa and his helpers ready to move into town)

Except that 1500 health would put him way above 90% of the 5* heroes in the game. That seems excessive when a 80-90 point bump in defense puts him below average for a 4* but not ridiculously below average like he is now.