X-Mas Nerf Bystanders

Hey all!

As most of you know there is a nerf coming to the X-Mas family pertaining largely to when some people have all the 5’s maxed on one team together.

The way the nerf is being implemented will exponentially impact heroes that have nothing to do with the issue they’re trying to resolve and also render them much less viable. Variety is already becoming a thing of the past in PvP and losing even more heroes for no reason other than clumsy nerf implementation is easily avoidable.

The heroes in jeopardy are Buddy, Carol, Frosty, and Rudolph.

The nerf thread is cluttered with people upset about costume Krampus, so I wanted a spot to get some visibility to the impact this implementation would have on 4 currently usable heroes that would, likely, render many to become additional benchwarmers with non-costumes S1 and S2 3’s and 4’s.

This way we can at least say we tried to maintain variety and keep as many viable 3’s and 4’s as possible!

:beers:

30 Likes

Agree with this. In the attempt to neutralise the efficiency of when the total set is together, they’ve neutered areas where just a few, or just the weaker versions are more heavily impacted.

Yes C-Krampus is very strong (still think I prefer the original version,but that personal opinion), MN is a beast in VF ( outside of that not really though), Pengi is Destructo mode if the minions get going (but just as dangerous with any minion maker outside of the Xmas set)

But there are others like Santa, and those you mention that aren’t really causing huge problems but which are being made the most of by people with more limited rosters. By looking at the family bonus it unfairly impacts on those. I mean I guess Carol is fine because she doesn’t even get to impact family bonus with the no minion, but that’s a whole different SG mistake altogether.

Part of it is that if they had not made the costumes the effect wouldn’t be as bad as there wouldn’t be the inherent stat boost. So the %minion hp would still be ok with the existing family bonus. Thats a genie they can’t squeeze back into the lamp though so it’s the easy option with the sledgehammer

11 Likes

I agree with this. Buddy and Rudolf need beefier minions, not less. Have the minion extended to all allies.

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I mean, even an uncostumed “classic” 5 star Winter hero is being hit pretty hard. Why does my regular Santa need affected? Pretty messed up.

6 Likes

Santa is collateral damage too. He’s not as strong as others even in his costume (outside VF mode) and he gets hit with nerf bat as well. But at least now you know how serious is SGG with their balancing.

Carol isn’t as impacted because she’s not a summoner (there is still family bonus but nobody uses her anyway. How about buffing her, SGG?)

And yes, Frosty and Rudolph. Nerf of 3* was so much needed. I mean there is Treevil, but still.

Why do I have feeling that SGG decided to use an orbital Nuke to kill a single person? And they even failed to kill that single person, as Pengi will still roam unchecked, just with Bera/Freya/Motega/Frosth?

14 Likes

I agree that it is very frustrating that 3* and 4* heroes get collateral nerf! :rage:

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Well, it happened. I ran some missions with Buddy and the reduced minion health was noticeable. In particular it was that much harder to get minions to stack because they couldn’t reliably survive enemy slash attacks, etc anymore.

If he was only emblemed and I could reset him it would be annoying, but less so. Given I took the time to LB him, this is somehow really “sticking in my craw”. How he is now, I would have LB’d different greens. If I strip him of emblems, lord knows I need the ranger emblems, he is even less useful and still sitting there with used aethers.

Here was his pre-nerf version:

Not a single person was calling him broken or demanding a nerf. People with deep rosters probably rarely used him even how he was, but he was certainly a cult favorite and prime F2P target. Also great for people starting. Buddy can carry you far as you progress.

I think the part that irks me so badly is the callousness of it all. The issue was with higher rarity family members, their costumes, and family bonus. A change to the family bonus would have been fine. A change to 5* individual cards would have been just as easy and fine. Them roping in unrelated heroes to the issue to the nerf for reasons I can’t fathom aside from laziness or thoughtlessness is really disappointing. The lower rarity heroes are hindered exponentially by percentage reductions versus higher rarity cards.

I’m not going to say what they do in terms of what is essentially a bait and switch with newer heroes is okay, it’s not. They do also have a proven track record of doing this, so accepting it as a possibility is something you’re inherently accepting as “okay” or at least “tolerable” by continuing to play. For me personally those were never an issue. As a F2P I never had those heroes anyway. If I paid I would be angrier, but also likely would have stopped paying and/or playing.

Generally I thought my heroes were “safe” to emblem and LB. The level of reaction they just took though shows that even a hero that has existed in a completely copacetic way within the game for at least 3, if not 4, years can suddenly be nerfed for reasons entirely unrelated to him. That essentially makes anyone a target because you can’t predict any “corrections” or “balances” will be even remotely targeted in their approach.

Side note, what’s funny is the issue is Mr. Pengi with massed minions. They left him and hurt the Christmas family. There are a lot of non-Christmas minion summoners that are at faster speeds than the Christmas summoners. They have done nothing to correct it because you can pair Mr. Pengi with non-Christmas summoners and still obliterate whole teams. The issue wasn’t the heroes that have existed for 4 years already in the majority of the Christmas family’s case.

Anyways, I apologize for the length. I kind of had to vent. If they can react in such a thoughtless way to their existing hero structure though it kind of makes me think twice for how long I will stick at this. I am aware they don’t care, they only make money off of me from my Mystic Vision views. Losing an MV viewer is nothing to them. I guess by being somewhat active on the forum I perpetuate interest in the game, although that’s a questionable contribution. I will need to think about how/if I react further to this.

I really do appreciate everyone that gave a comment or a like here. There are too many to tag. It was likely never going to sway anything, but we can say we tried I guess :man_shrugging:

Good luck out there. Enjoy your new free flasks and reset buttons! Worth it. :laughing:

:beers:

37 Likes

I think they could have just added to Pengi “removes all minions from all allies” as the first line. Makes him funnier - he literally shoots the minions at the enemy - and makes it easier to recover from his special.

But, yeah, they really need to look again at Buddy and the 3*s. No reason to touch their minions with this

6 Likes

Yup, I posted elsewhere this same point. If you are going to nerf the Christmas 3*, then you need to do something about Kvasir. A fast minion hero that will survive a 3* appocolyps with massive HP, AND the minions are TWICE the HP of what these new values are for Frosty et. al. Even in the original “OP” form, all these x-mass heros lose to Kvasir without some fancy combinations and good tile luck.

Also if you looked at any of the top leaderboard teams from the last 2 3* tourneys, they are dominated by the slayers. It is the ridiculous stack powers (spontaneous ++ attack, def in RIDICULOUS % amounts) that are out of line, so if you go reducing the buffer that can be generated by the x-mass minions HP then those slayers just steam roll over everybody. If they reduce the x-mass minion HP, then the odds to stack for 3* need to go down to something like 2% or 3% MAXIMUM. It’s the only time SG was generous with odds. You get .01% chance at a HOTM, but 50% odds to stack +5% manna AND up to 50 HP per turn on Mave. And that’s when she’s alone. She gets paired with the green slayer and you have SEVENTY FIVE % CHANCE of stacks. So literally she will stack every turn sometimes. You cannot kill these heros in under 3-4 tile turns without ungodly good luck from the tile fairy. So I am not joking - it’s 95% of the tourney leaderboard with Maeve and Noril combined, and maybe 5% with frosty or other x-mass 3*. What does that tell you about who is OP!

4 Likes

Forget Kvasir, Treevil is something. You know it’s bad when you use 3* in 5* VF tournament and you get A ranking for defense. Buuut since Challenge Festival is coming in two weeks, nobody will do a thing (though this is not an invitation to nerf Treevil, SGG).

But honestly, nerfing a 4 years old 3* hero? Is everything all right in your heads, SGG?

7 Likes

I honestly hope someone DDoS’d their servers over what is basically theft by them. You are right that none of those heros were broken if for years people used them fine. I have seen that Treevil nonsense as well. Just haven’t really thought of it as breaking the game, just dressing up a 4-5* debuffer as a 3*. I am all for making the odds of summoning useful heros better, so I would be sad to see them make him a 4/5*, but that’s really where he belongs esp when you figure the cost in terms of emblems and ether to boost Treevil up. His base defense is already very high just shy of what some 4* will max at and on the high side for a 3*.

2 Likes

I have buddy limit broken and emblemed, pengi emblemed, Santa, call, frosty and Rudolph. I don’t use Sandra much… I tried using buddy Santa and pengi together but i didn’t like it…

So my preference is to use pengi with motega and Anastasia… Both of which were buffed, so for me… Zero net sum gain… Actually… I’m probably coming out ahead.

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I’m sorry, but I really have problems processing a linear reduction as exponential :no_mouth:

That being said…
Nobody cares for old heroes.
They want their clients to buy the new ones.
Why? Because you can sell new to every client :woman_shrugging:t3:

Expect all “balance updates” to be calibrated on new heroes, that’s where the money goes and that’s what SG wants: it’s been like this for 5 years now, we should know better :no_mouth:

As for your F2P experience, @Muchacho , I strongly advice you to switch to arcade/toilet mode: since the game is designed to rack maximum profit those who don’t provide it are bound to be left behind no matter how the play.

Cheer up, it’s just a game and I will refrain from making appreciative comments on the fact that you didn’t “invest” actual money in it because - you know - sensitive community on the issue :wink:

1 Like

That’s fair, a more apt term would have been disproportionately if we’re going to be picky. 30% less is 30% less, but when you’re reducing a smaller base number (say Buddy’s HP versus MN’s HP) by 30% the difference is felt much more on the smaller base number than the larger.

Regardless, I think the point was evident.

Being behind isn’t my beef. I’ve been behind for years. I am hardly competitive, case in point, I still use Buddy :laughing:. The only competitive F2Ps I know have to invest much more time than I am willing. More power to them, that’s just not for me.

My issue was SG went out of their way to impact heroes negatively for no reason. They could just as easily have changed just the 5* cards. They actually did more work to change more heroes. It just makes no sense to me.

I don’t know what toilet mode is … but perhaps I will just keep my hand sanitizer with me and call it good?

:beers:

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It’s when you don’t eat enough fibers and need something to do while you spend extra time on the loo :wink:

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I eat plenty of veggies #fiberrichlife

Good luck out there and happy bowels everyone! :+1:

:beers:

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I think my roster is deep. Not whale-deep, but still. I use Buddy all the time and love him. He was in my tournament team with Franz for this VF tourney… I loved using him on titans because of his surivability, too.

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I know it hurts my Viscaros who fights minion summoners. If minion summoners are weaker fewer people use them and my Viscaro has less impact in the game. He is only good if minions are a big thing in the game.

My Carols stunk before and still stink so I won’t lvl them up. My Frosty was good and I was going to lvl him up but won’t now.

I never use Carol, but frosty and buddy, they serve a purpose in the right context. Santa… I don’t care for him much… But i was starting to use him with buddy and pengi and now, i really don’t see the point.

Don’t worry…the 3 kingdom heroes are chock full of minion summoners. Viscaro will be relevant.

1 Like