I hope this sort of thing is permitted round these parts. I’m genuinely curious which approach to fighting people prefer now that we’ve had a lot of time to try both. I started off liking action points for fighting the KD, as it gave me time to plot my course and cast in between moves, but I ultimately switched back because I couldn’t get a fast enough start to hang with our Tier XX dragons for the long haul. Thus, I’m back to exclusively using the timer for everything.
Drop your thoughts. Are you Team T, Team AP, or Team Switchy-Switchy?
I’m all for AP on my personal account, I get stressed out with the timer sometimes . Although with the timer you can get a good run of a heap of matches!
Definitely do prefer AP mode, makes me plan out my moves… which I am also terrible at
But would love to see everyone else’s thoughts and for those who do switch between, keep dropping where you find AP vs Timer more beneficial and why
I use AP for Kingdom Defense and if I want to use auto-play to increase the chance of casting spells
Timer for PvP
Then whatever it was last on usually for the rest
I think AP has more tactical options for some setups/spells, Timer is more power/brute force setups
@Jeto Any chance switching between AP and Timer between turns (rather than battles) would ever be a thing?
Timer for PvP as it gives you far more matches in the first round. Everything else AP, especially if your speed score is over 300 it gives you more matches and can almost guarantee you 10 AP rounds the second round. With a high speed score it seems to me AP is also better then timer for autoplay
When APs were implemented I was highly sceptical about them, since I could see no benefit over timer. In fact, the timer mode was one of the features I liked best from this game when I started. However, the more I tried AP mode the more I liked it.
In my opinion the only advantage of Timer over AP is the ability to make tons of matches, which helps having much stronger starts and getting heroic effort easily. However, I believe the ability of AP to cast spells between moves is much stronger, at least for my way of playing. AP gives me enough moves to get what I need.
Also, at the beginning I liked the “plan ahead and move fast” way of playing with timer, I really enjoyed the challenge of trying to do all possible matches. However, the more I play timer the more tiring it becomes. Now, I prefer the more relaxed “one match a time” way of playing with AP.
Therefore, I use AP for everything with the exception of PvP. There I use Timer to increase my chances of getting heroic effort.
Timer always for PvP - if you want that turn one win timer beats action points every time.
Action Points always for Kingdom defence - Depriving the enemy of mana is the most important thing for me in Kingdom defence battles. Action points give me the best possibility to deprive the dragon of mana.
As for any other format of the game I could play in either timer or action point mode. I’m strong enough that I can play one way or the other. As it turns out I normally play in action point mode because I am often doing something else while doing my daily tasks and action points is more forgiving, slower and easier to play. Not to mention I don’t want to be going to settings and changing the mode of play back and forth all the time.
In saying that I do actually miss playing in timer mode. I really do enjoy playing in that format more. That’s part of the reason I fell in love with the game is because of the frantic matches you made each turn. It was unlike any other match three-game I had played. You would have to study the board and plan a mass of moves to achieve your goal. With action point mode you can move a couple of gems then re plan and move a couple again. I liked the puzzle/challenge of having to plan everything first in one go which could take a minute or more sometimes working out how to get that big V gem by itself to match with some other gems.
This brings me right back around to the first line of this post and PvP. I’m actually quite happy that in its current form PvP forces the use of timer mode. It makes me use timer mode and I enjoy it.
Yup. That’s all me. If I want to “limit” a turn (like on KD when you don’t want to eat up all the gems and risk it raining the dragon’s color) I just stop matching. But, more importantly, I can get a running start.
An interesting perspective to me. I feel like the timer gives me a better chance to steal the dragon’s gems. Granted, I have to plot my course well ahead of starting, but I’m then not limited in stealing his gems and then matching up my own gems and skulls. Perhaps it’s the strength of my gear perks as they add time to the timer while I play. I’m often done matching and watching the timer run–or just finishing all the available matches. On one of my other builds, I don’t have that luxury and constantly feel hurried by the timer.
There are clear advantages and disadvantages to both modes.
And that’s the one big vulnerability with AP Mode, which is a dealbreaker with me.
Once a skilled player gets going, AP Mode allows some serious 4D chess moves that make it so much superior to Timer mode.
BUT… those opening turns can sink a run so fast if either the opening board is bad and/or the AI decides to play defense and skyfall decides to hate the player, especially if the opening hit from the opponent misses the player’s shield (and worse if it crits).
With few AP on the opening turns, it’s not possible to clear a bad starting board…
… which is the huge advantage of Timer mode.
With Timer mode, a player with decent Speed can fully resolve the game board. This gives the advantage of both clearing out bad boards and usually all-but-guaranteeing Heroic Efforts in the process. Yes, the full board clears are far more inefficient than with AP Mode, but the sheer volume of matches + skyfall usually makes up the difference and then some.
When playing actively… Timer.
When passively farming boxes/XP… AP Mode. No contest, here. AP mode in AutoPlay is at least a full order of magnitude more effective than playing in Timer mode.
I prefer timer mode but tried both modes and feel its still NOT balanced.
AP mode perform better in many situations since it provides so many tactical choices, which vastly overwhelmed timer mode. Even modes heavily depend on turn 1 play can be done with AP mode under the help of proper gear.
MY SUGGESTION:
Keep AP mode as a mode of TACTICS. It works well and many players like it.
give timer mode a completely different approach: SPEED AND POWER.
Timer mode should focus on benefit of swift manipulation of board, and gain extra bonus from matching skill and calculate. here’s my idea about that:
Give timer mode an unique damage multipler that based on cascades done. Every cascade made after the first one give bonus. Skyfall won’t be counted.
example: If you do 1 cascade, your attacks will deal normal damage. If you made 8 cascade, both your skull attack DONE CURRENT TURN and your spell casted NEXT TURN gain 4% stackable damage buff from 2nd to 8th cascade, which means +28% damage bonus. This bonus will stack with heroic effort.
Give timer mode a Blitz Bonus. when an player made more than certain numbers of moves and end the turn before timer ends(or the turn end automatically due to no more moves available), which give them bonus mana for spells and ultimate.
example: If you have 225 speed(which means 5 starting AP in AP mode), you must do 7 or more moves to active Blitz Bonus. It give you extra mana depends on time remaining.
autoplay AP > event/pvp T > KD T or AP totally depending on color and the expense to fill the convert spell to deny the dragon
. Although with the timer you can get a good run of a heap of matches!