Troll Mom disscussion

[Mordeth Kai]

So I made a Troll Mom my hero and I'm experimenting with it, figured I'd compare notes with anyone who has more experience with em.

In solo they seem like an ok unit to use, just takes time to get the babies out and let them get to work. In the pit doing co-op the first time I took a Troll Mom in she got surrounded and died in the second round, I chalked that up to a tactical error thinking a huge monster taking up 3 slots would be able to tank like a beast, turns out they die pretty easily. In the next couple of matches I kept the Troll Mom at a reasonable distance with a gorgon and a cupcake, and while it was effective, it was also time consuming to kite everything and I was unable to help my partner on account of trying to keep the Troll Mom alive, basically the fight dragged on with the babies and gorgon taking forever to kill anything and just avoiding getting surrounded. Did a couple more co-op rounds and it places a huge burden on the partner as they have to carry my team which is unable to tank or kill. Even with 3 cupcakes it wouldn't matter since the troll can easily die in a single round at full health. I honestly can't justify 3 slots for it. The babies die as soon as they come out, making them only useful near the end of a fight when your cleaning up and are barely even a distraction at the beginning.

Pros-
lots of babies is great DPS potential, and make a tiny distraction
minor health regen
easily blocks enemy paths, can keep a cupcake out of harm's way with ease
decent in solo

Cons-
Can't tank (being large means more enemies can hit it and ranged attacks miss less, can easily die in a single round)
Babies die quickly if your team is outnumbered which is likely, negates their usefulness at the start of a fight.
personal damage is mediocre
can't move very far
a liability in co-op

Part of the problem is the change in dynamic from solo to co-op which takes it from being useful to being a liability. Personally I think it would be good if it either A: ) used only 2 slots (might be power creep with a team of 3) B: ) had twice its current health (not recommended as we saw what happened with Hair Trolls and invincibility, but with the trolls limited mobility it would increase emphasis on using it as a wall, might end up a different dynamic) C: ) Popped out 2-3 babies a round (would likely make it too powerful on solo) D: ) The babies were harder to kill

Of course my problem could also be that I suck and am using it wrong. Any thoughts?


Edit: Managed to do some co-op on the open world map, and it’s a hell of a lot easier than the pit. In co-op most of the time one player goes one way while the other goes the other way instead of trying to work together and at first that’s how my partner tried to play. We learned very quickly that the troll mom can be useful if we build our strategies around her, often leaving both cupcakes healing her, using her as a way to get units away from enemy hard counters or units near death out of the fray. While her large size often got in the way, it was also a tool and she made the fights more interesting. The things that stood out most was if we had to protect something that was close to our starting position the troll mom made it easy, but any timed objectives or anything to protect that was not nearby was nearly impossible. The other problem was that fights dragged on 2-3 times longer than normal because of the starting damage of the troll mom and because of her short move distance. I don't think the move distance needs boosted as it feels right, but the starting damage is an issue. Bonzai might have hit the nail on the head with the idea of starting fights with 2-3 troll babies already on the field. There is also the issue of how difficulty ramps up in the pit, this may make balancing an issue as the troll mom didn't die anywhere near as quickly in the open world as in the pit, she was just tanky enough, but her size makes the amount of tank needed in the pit much larger than what she needs in the open world. The 3 slots isn't the only issue that makes balancing tricky here, it's also the size and the number of characters that can attack her at once.

Oh yeah, and positioning each turn took a lot longer since the troll mom is harder to sort out if both players cluster together, that was also a factor in fights dragging on longer than normal.

TL:DR
In the open world she isn't easily killed like in the pit, but fights are much longer as a result of trouble getting troll babies on the field fast enough to help with the damage.

[Bonzai101]

Fully agree she needs a rebalance including making her harder to kill

Going through your options..........
A) I think they should balance her as is, taking 3 slots
B) She needs to be worthwhile taking 3 slots and double hp isn't going to help that imo
C) 2-3 a round would be to much, but maybe starting with 2-3?
D) Babies would need to be rebalanced along with mum

[BaronZen]

I am agree too that Troll mom (normal) should:

1. or have more HP/resistances
2. or being reduced to 2 slots instead of 3.

[Lily Hooper]

2 slots and Troll Mom would be top tier. Dont even need to change anything imo.

[DragonHunter54]

I think the problem with troll mom is that her utility feels a little too dependant on the map. Troll mom actually rocks on maps with plenty of terrain as your allies units can set up a barricade while she flings her babies over walls to flank the enemy from behind. If there is too much terrain however (the map with all the pillars in the middle) she can be easily be kited by units running into places she cant go.

Interestingly my greatest successes with troll mom in the pit have been by taking 2 of them with my ally taking a more balanced list. If your friend can stop the moms getting surrounded then the 1-2 troll babies per round can really swing the match in your favour.

[danpaladin]

I should note that this thread was started when Troll Mom values were different than they are now, and so there's going to be a blend of both old and new feedback. Might be better to start a new thread to avoid confusion or just keep this in mind!

[Jatea]

well troll mom seems pretty good right about now after update 2 (they gave her and the babies more hp)

but you still have to really build around her, so I use her as part of a swarming team
-Troll Mom
-4 kobolds
-1 human (hero) with a medium shield and a shock mace

if I wasn't using the shock mace on my human, then I could probably use a heavy shield to better block arrows and other ranged attacks (even with hero, putting on a heavy shield makes him overweight)
but he's using a shock mace and not any other mace because I want pixies to stay as far away from my troll mom as possible
(he also doesn't use a shock sword because I always want at least one anti-helmet unit on my teams)
he also has 4 movement, so he can help the kobolds out with surrounding units

I mark key targets (cupcakes, archers, pixies, and the like) with the autobattler command menu so the troll babies know what to target (and they usually end up being the 6th unit to help me surround a stray unit)

the babies are expendable because the mom will keep spawning them, but your kobolds and human are not, so keep them as alive as possible

and mushrooms will be the end of your kobolds so either stay away from them or find out some way to take them out quickly

[!?!]

The only thing that truly irritates me is the 75% spawn chance for babies.
What's with the needless coin flipping on vital abilities, just make that 100% and don't balance her around the unfun mechanic of having a 25% chance to do nothing.

Otherwise, she seems in a good place.

[Chk Chk Boom]

i do well with troll mothers, just fall back and spawn all the babies before you go into battle, you battle too early

[-<{AfroBob}>-]

Actually, I went in an co-op 2v2 with a team of 3 troll-moms, a hair troll and 2 zombies and absolutely REKT the other team.

We probably got REALLY lucky on the map and the enemy team, but the baby troll would make it so the enemy could not get trough the choke-points to the troll moms and they just got slowly slaughtered by the constant stream of baby trolls blocking their way.
And the Hair troll/ zombies where there to fill in the gaps, and a little tactical decision making since you cant move the babies yourself.

But this is heavy situational:
1. We got a map with a wall in the middle with just a few choke-points to hold.
2. The enemy only had a Frog human garandeer (dont know the actual name) as AoE.

[itssirtou]

We ran into a 4 mom team when my friend and I were trying 11 pixies. MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

Originally posted by Jatea:

but he's using a shock mace and not any other mace because I want pixies to stay as far away from my troll mom as possible
(he also doesn't use a shock sword because I always want at least one anti-helmet unit on my teams)

Do you still 2 shot pixies with the shock mace in pvp?

I'm not convinced maces are all that worth it. As long as you don't rely too heavily on swords, that is. They do so little damage to non-helmeted enemies, and the bonus damage on helms isn't that much more than, say, a vamp swing.

I know the Pixie Slayer brings them to like 1/4 health. Which means if you pile, like 2 other guys (or 3 babies) on it you can OTK it. I would think the trolls would handle helmeted enemies just fine.