I have been making these balance wishlists consistently every season. I pay close attention to how things develop and I want to reflect that. So a change I decided to make this time was to express how card stats have been developing over the recent weeks, instead of just taking a snapshot of them before clicking the "POST" button. I've also decided to use bold-italics when I make the most important points since so few people read the essays I write. But if you want the details of why I changed cards the way I did, you should still read the whole thing. Or hit me with a comment if you want to discuss further, I usually respond.

Spell Cycle nerf

All spells: Reduced crown tower damage (35% --> 33.3%)

A 4.3% reduction of crown tower damage.

Spell Cycle is a fundamental part of Clash Royale. My main deck relies on it a lot. Spells are a way to respond to incoming threats and ensure interactions, but when used repeatedly on your tower by someone who plays very defensively, they get really really frustrating. This makes it so the balance philosophy tries to avoid having it as a viable strategy. But I have noticed that some Spell Cycle decks have actually been working too well recently...

B-Rad: I apologize in ADVANCE for using 3 Spell Cycle

CWA: 8,000+ TROPHIES WITH SPELL CYCLE DECK! INSANE!

SirTag: WINNING with ONLY SPELLS?! 6 SPELLS DECK!

This is not saying that spells need a major nerf like the one from 40% to 35% back in the day. That change wasn't as impacting as people imagined and this change is three times smaller. While remembering the new numbers is a bit of a mess, making spells deal one third of their damage to crown towers is better in the long run because:

+ Is a lot more intuitive for new players (I have noticed a lot of people don't even realize spell damage is a consistent 35%);

+ Makes it easy to calculate crown tower damage mid-battle if you know the damage;

+ Earthquake's stats now make sense with the rework below;

+ Improves gameplay for the majority of us.

Earthquake rework: Damage +11.5% (61-->68), Damage to buildings -16.5% (244-->204)

Use 17-23%, Win 52-59%

Everybody I've asked unanimously agreed that Earthquake should have a smaller damage multiplier for buildings. I am nerfing it from 4 to 3 (204=68x3 instead 244=61x4). Paired with the rework to spells, Earthquake's crown tower damage now makes sense. It's the same as that to troops because the building multiplier multiplies it by 3, but the spell damage reduction divides it by 3.

The intention is neither a buff nor a nerf. The reasons for reworking Earthquake are consistency and a fairness of matchups. It promotes a Rock-Paper-Scissors meta and it's broken how stupidly well it does against X-Bow and Pump. Earthquake is useless in some matches and broken in others. The matchup-dependance of some EQ decks vs. X-Bow in grand challenges is as bad as Tornado+Poison against Clone. All of the popular Earthquake decks have matchups against X-Bow of between 75-25 and 90-10. In comparison, other matchups I looked up that are commonly considered unfair never exceeded 75-25. When I played my level 12 Earthquake against max X-Bow, it felt much more fair.

Earthquake now:

+ Takes down all regular shields

+ Kills skeletons in one tick

+ Kills ice spirits and heal spirits

+ No longer grinds down a Cannon by itself

+ Earthquake is still an inferior 2-elixir The Log to ground troops and a superior 4-elixir Fireball to buildings.

Minor change to skeletons and bats

Skeletons & Bats: Collision radius reduced (0.5-->0.4)

Skeleton Army: Now has a symmetrical deployment pattern and behaves the same on both lanes.

Besides looking better visually, this also tweaks some cards that need balancing. You might have never seen the hitbox used as a balancing tool, but bear with me.

Graveyard: Nerfed. The skeletons need to walk a slightly longer distance to approach a tower. An ignored Graveyard now gets about 2 less skeleton attacks on average. However, that this is a smaller nerf than removing even a single skeleton. Graveyard has been considered rather balanced for a long time, so I am not willing to hand over a big nerf yet.

Bats and Night Witch: Nerfed. Bats aren't so much about distraction, so the offset makes them weaker.

Skeleton Barrel: Nerfed? Same reason as Graveyard. Some of the skeletons will need to walk a little longer to approach the tower. But it's somewhat questionable because skeletons won't need to push each other as much.

Skeleton Army: It depends. While more skeletons can attack at once, the entire army is easier to cover with a 2.5 radius spell and address with splash.

Witch/Skeletons/Tombstone: The change is not significant.

SOURCE: I changed skeletons' hitbox in this engine by u/ScholarlyGamer for Graveyard and Skeleton Barrel and played lots of them in different positions to test them.

Royal Recruit buff

Royal Recruits rework: Count reduced to 5, Distance between recruits reduced (2.6-->2), Hit speed +18% (1.3sec-->1.1sec), Hitpoints +16% (440-->510)

Use 0%, Insufficient data for Win%

Instead of spreading over the entire battlefield, Royal recruits will now spread over a single lane. This retains their status of an ultimate split-lane attacker but you can now split them in every possible way, including all of them on a single lane! Moreover, with an odd number of them, you will be forced to decide which lane you want to focus on. This is going to create more variety in how you can play them and ultimately end their status of an obnoxious lowest-skill card.

Overall, this should net to a 10% buff.

+ Recruits and barbarians are fairly similar, but this change would end the similarity between them. A single recruit is now about 35% stronger than before.

Royal Delivery buff: Royal Recruit hit speed +18% (1.3sec-->1.1sec), Royal Recruit hitpoints +16% (440-->510), Area of effect changed to a square (r=3 --> w=5)

Use 0%, Insufficient data for Win%

The main setback of Royal Delivery is how lame the recruit inside is. If the card were worth 3 elixir, the recruit inside would be worth about 1. While this isn't an inherent problem, I think it needs to change to make gameplay with the card enjoyable. Increasing the damage or deploy time of the box doesn't change this, so instead I buffed the recruit.

The change to a square AoE is just an idea, but I think it makes sense for this card, especially with how it can't be cast after the river. And it makes it cooler! The total area the box covers is reduced from 28 to 25 tiles.

Overall, this should net to about a 10% buff.

Other changes

Bowler buff: Boulder speed increased (2.8 tiles/sec --> 3.3 tiles/sec)

Use 1%, Win 35-50%

Just wanted to include this. The boulders would miss less often and kill enemies at a distance earlier.

Magic Archer buff: Hitpoints +4% (490-->510), Projectile radius increased (0.25-->0.3)

Use 1-2%, Win sub-30%

The annoying Magic Archer is dead! Okay, time to celebrate for a month, but then let's fix him. With the range change, Magic Archer isn't much worse at sniping a tower, but he is worse in a lot of interactions. So I designed this change to be the opposite. A change to his projectile radius helps him to be a lot more consistent against groups of troops, but barely affects his tower-sniping abilities. I figured this might not change him in enough situations, so I also buffed his hitpoints a little to match those of Flying Machine (survives one extra attack from Knight, Dart Goblin, Royal Recruits, Goblins, Minions).

Fisherman buff: Cost increased (3-->4), Hitpoints +10% (800-->881), Hook cooldown time reduced (1.5sec-->1sec), Hit speed +50% (1.5sec-->1.2sec), Bugfixing

Use 0%, Insufficient data for Win%

This video by ErnieC3 summarizes how I feel about Fisherman (albeit a bit outdated). Fisherman needs to go back to a 4-elixir cost. To summarize, we've got a good taste for the fact that 3 elixir isn't a good cost for the way his special mechanic initially was and the troop's stats need to be nerfed out of proportion in order for it to stay at a 3-elixir cost.

I feel that what Fisherman really needed when he costed 4 was an increased DPS. After all, why would he hook units to himself if he isn't a formidable melee fighter? The new Fisherman would be nearly identical to the last 4-cost version, but would deal a 25% greater DPS.

Bugs that need to be fixed:

+ Hooking a unit ends its deploy timer prematurely

+ Stops bandit mid-dash

+ Ranged attack range reduced by 0.2 when him or the unit he hooks are close to the river

Goblin Hut nerf: Hitpoints -15% (1293-->1100)

Use 30-34%, Win 55-58%

This is a smaller nerf than it seems, but I still needed to make sure it strikes the card. Goblin Hut was already difficult to break through with damage, but this change aggravated this too much. Now even more of the damage dealt to it has to be through its lifetime decay, and since some of the value isn't even from the huts' life but from their death, spells are way too bad of a counterplay. Also, it's become a good reaction even to the likes of Hog Rider. I am changing this by reducing the hitpoints. Ignored, a Goblin Hut would behave exactly the same, but it will be a lot easier to whittle down if you get to hit the building itself.

Battle Healer nerf: Passive healing removed, Active healing happens in a single tick (21x4 --> 84)

Use 9-16%, Win 49-58%

Quality of life! I have a few strong reasons to believe this change needs to happen before doing anything else to her.

Firstly, reasons I removed her passive healing

- Battle Healer's most obnoxious ability is how long she can remain on the battlefield, becoming impossible to kill. The passive healing just fuels this ability.

- It meddles with how interactions in the game work

- TBH it's pointless, unnecessarily complicates Healer and no one seems to like it.

Secondly, reasons I "buffed" her active healing the way I did

- Healing happens in a single moment. Less HP-Damage interactions

- You can know EXACTLY when the healing is going to happen and by how much instead of only having a general idea like "Healer is over there about to attack, she'll be doing some healing overtime"

- Fixes issues with heal ticks overlapping when Battle Healer is raged

- Fixes "issues" with heal ticks only affecting units that were initially in the radius

- No longer questionable if the aura should follow the Healer when she moves.

I dunno how this would work out, but I hope solidifying her interactions makes her a lot more enjoyable to fight!

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