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Final Balance Changes for April 2023 (Season 46)

April 2, 2022 · 7 min read

Based on your feedback, here are the final balance changes for April 2023.

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Work-in-progress Balance Changes - Clash Royale 2023-04 Season 46 Update

Based on you feedback, here are the final balance changes for April. Compared to the work-in-progress version, Supercell has made three changes:

  • Mega Minion Hit Time change reduced. Now increasing DPS by +7% only
  • Miner Hit Points will stay the same, but his Crown Tower Damage will be reduced by 17%
  • Rascal Girl First Hit Time will be 0.3 sec sooner instead of 0.6 sec.

Here are the rest of the changes.

Table of Contents

Rascals (Rework)

Rascals’ usage rate has always been low, mainly due to their inclusion in Log Bait decks, which have suffered from the Rocket nerf. Being a 5-elixir unit, the bubble-gum-chewing trio is only seen in Log Bait, and nowhere else.

Before After
Rascal Boy Hit Points +6% 715 758
Rascal Boy Hit Points Level 11 1830 1940
Rascal Boy Hit Points Level 14 2423 2569
Rascal Girl First Hit Time -37.5% sooner 0.8 sec 0.5 sec
Spacing +58% 1.9 tiles 3.0 tiles

There are three main changes for Rascals:

1. Rascal Boy will have higher hit points.

The Rascal Boy’s HP buff provides it with the necessary tankiness to compete with that of the Valkyrie, but it will still deal less damage than the Knight.

2. Units will space further apart

It now takes better timing and placement to hit all 3 units with one Fireball, as they have expanded further apart. However, the feat is still achievable.

3. Rascal Girl faster first hit

The Rascal Girls’ faster initial attack speed enables them to act swiftly and cause damage before they are defeated.

  • WIP version: 0.8 sec to 0.2 sec
  • Final version: 0.8 sec to 0.5 sec

Video Preview

Here’s a quick video showing before and after so you can see the spacing difference:

Furnace (Rework)

Furnace has had low usage and win rates for some time. Due to a lack of counters for the fire spirits it spawns, it can be annoying to play against. Personally, I find this card to be challenging to play against, but after checking the opponent stats in my player profile, I find that I actually win against it most of the time, which is a surprise. Our card stats reflect this reality similarly — it has poor usage and win rates in Grand Challenges, even if it’s generally annoying to face.

Before After
Spawn Delay 20% faster 6 sec 5 sec
Lifetime 15% sooner 33 sec 28 sec

The cooldown between waves has been reduced, but the furnace will expire sooner, resulting in the same total number of fire spirits spawned. Supercell intended this as a buff, but it might depend on the play style of the player. This change presents an opportunity to adjust strategies.

Tip: Use the Opponent Stats feature in our Player Profile to check what your opponents play most and your wins against them. You can access this feature by going to Player Profile > Stats > Opponent. We added this feature a year ago, but have yet to promote it - until now!

Mega Minion (Buff)

Since Phoenix’s addition to the game, Mega Minion usage has declined. This is due to Phoenix’s ability to respawn after defeat and its effectiveness in dealing with swarms. An upcoming buff to Mega Minion may bring it back into the spotlight, providing an alternative to Phoenix for competitive deck building. Having cards with similar roles to thrive simultaneously is helpful — Duel Mode’s rising prominence in esports makes this a particularly important change for Clash Royale.

Before After
Hit Time 0.1 sec sooner 1.6 sec 1.5 sec
Hit Time +6% sooner 1.6 sec 1.5 sec
DPS +7% DMG / 1.6 DMG / 1.5

In the final balance version, Mega Minion’s DPS will have a +7% increase, and a corresponding Hit Time of 6% sooner.

  • WIP version: 1.6 sec to 1.3 sec
  • Final version: 1.6 sec to 1.5 sec

WIP version: I believe the buff for Mega Minion makes the card too powerful. We have seen the effect of the Archers buff, and its 23% DPS increase could make it even stronger. If the balance team allows it, we would very well see the return of the Meta Minion, coined at the time when the card was initially released.

Spear Goblins (Buff)

Spear Goblins have previously seen low usage, mainly in Miner Cycle decks with cheaper cards. The new buff from Supercell is aimed to improve their ranking among other ranged support units, granting them a slightly larger attack range to out-rank some of them.

Besides the Spear Goblins, the change will be seen in the Goblin Hut, Goblin Gang, and in Goblin Giant Spawns.

Before After
Attack Range +10% 5 tiles 5.5 tiles

Archers (Nerf)

Archers received an impressive speed buff two months ago, resulting in a 22% DPS increase. This made them a crucial part of every archetype. We conducted an analysis of the decks used by the Top 1000 players at the end of the last season, and our findings show that Archers are indeed overpowered.

Clash Royale Meta: Season 2022-12 vs 2023-02

The use of Archers has increased by over ten times since the previous meta.

Clash Royale Meta: Season 2022-12 vs 2023-02

Some players have requested that the buff of Archers be halved to maintain their effectiveness while not dominating in the meta. However, the balance team opted to lengthen their First Hit time from 0.1s to 0.5s (like Valkyrie), to make it easier for opponents to eliminate them before they can mount a defense.

Before After
First Hit Time +400% slower 0.1 sec 0.5 sec

I’m uncertain if these nerfs are sufficient to address the high DPS of Archers. With a suitable tank, they can quickly deplete towers. Using Miner to tank for low-health Archers crossing the bridge deals so much damage that it’s possible to reduce tower health in half very quickly. Professional players may be able to use them more effectively. Only time will tell if the nerfs are successful.

Miner (Nerf)

Our top leaderboard decks analysis shows Miner has been strong for a long time now. His effectiveness when players don’t anticipate his placement makes him challenging even for top players.

  • WIP version: health reduced by 7%
  • Final version: crown tower damage reduced by 17%

After balance changes, his health will be diminished by 7%. (WIP version)

After balance changes, his Crown Tower Damage will be reduced by 17%.

The balance team hopes that his change will lessen Miner's effectiveness as a mini-tank when tanking for low-health units crossing the bridge.

Before After
Crown Tower Damage -17% 48 40
Crown Tower Damage Level 11 58 49
Crown Tower Damage Level 14 77 64

Clash Royale Math Deep Dive

Crown Tower Damage -17% is drastic, but why was it done this way? Can’t it be set to -8% instead? Why not?

🤓 Warning: super nerdy stuff ahead.

Crown Tower Damage configurations are set as percentages of the troop’s damage. These values are internally known as “character debuffs”, and are always set at 5% increments.

So the actual configuration for the Miner nerf is:

  • Before: -70% (or x 0.3)
  • After: -75% (or x 0.25)

I have never seen the configurations for damage debuffs set to anything less than the 5% increments. There are a few possible explanations:

  • The game does not support any increments lower than 5%.
  • They want to work with relatively fixed numbers — it can be tricky to work with debuffs that are all over the place.
  • The game could internally have debuffs written as 20 discrete sub steps, so anything less than that value cannot be supported.
  • They want to reduce possible errors due to floating point calculations.

The reasons above are purely my speculation. I’ll ask Supercell if I find a good time in the future.

Whatever the reason may be, this +/- 5% “rule” means that if they want to nerf the Crown Tower Damage, then the 17% is the minimum amount that can be configured. Nerfing Miner this way also means that his Crown Tower Damage % will be the same as the Rocket’s after the balance changes.

Golden Knight (Nerf)

Golden Knight's range of vision has been increased from 180 to 360 degrees and his mechanism nerfed for more predictable behavior. However, he remains capable of almost-guaranteed tower damage with his ability. As such, Supercell is reducing his dash distance from 6 to 5.5 tiles, making it harder for him to reach his targets.

Before After
Dash Distance -8% 6 tiles 5.5 tiles

Phoenix (Nerf)

After its balance, Phoenix will experience a 10% death damage reduction. Supercell hopes this, alongside a slight buff to Mega Minion, will create competition when deciding between these cards. They want to reduce Phoenix’s effectiveness, but still keep it as a reliable air damage dealer.

Before After
Death Damage -10% 150 135
Death Damage Level 11 181 163
Death Damage Level 14 240 216

Feedback

What are you thoughts about the final version of the balances? Let us know in the comments below.

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Author: SML
SML (See-ming Lee) is the Founder of RoyaleAPI. He made this site because he loves Clash Royale. Read about the History of RoyaleAPI
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