Less than a day ago · January 25, 2026 · 2 min read
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://royaleapi.com/blog/season-80-balance-wip-february-2026?lang=en
Less than a day ago · January 25, 2026 · 2 min read
They should buff base pekka… Along with 20-30 cards nobody uses..
At least Pekkalorian will be happy with these changes
Evo witch need at least 10% nerf she is insanely broken for so long.
Pekka need like 10% buff she is extremely weak for so long as people have been saying.
(The base as well need a 6%hp buff because it is the main issue with card, it dies quickly on offense and even on defense or just give her longer range. The buff is actually a necessity). The least you can do is buff base pekka 6%hp with a 7% healing buff for the evo.
The obvious balance changes needed:
Other weak cards definetly in need of a buff:
Nerfs: evo megaknight, evo skarmy, bait cards and bait decks, buildings (especially cannon and tesla).
Please add more card changes to the balance this month as you can.
Holy moly, what are these changes???
Just 7 cards??? Hello???
Three Musketeers, finally a nerf, but they should have nerfed the hitpoints instead.
Hero Mini P.E.K.K.A, who is even complaining about his cooking time speed??? This is the wrong way to nerf the card. It doesn’t change anything. I would have nerfed the damage healed again to 25 percent, or probably nerfed the base Mini P.E.K.K.A attack speed by 0.1 or 0.2.
Hero Wizard, honestly a good change. The hero is pretty weak or mid at the moment.
evo Witch, she needed a nerf, but I would have nerfed the max overhealth. I guess this works though
Graveyard, honestly a good change. It should bring it down a bit
Evolution P.E.K.K.A, this evolution is terrible right now. Good change, it should hopefully bring this card back at least somewhat.
Hero Musketeers - so we basically killed the hero. I understand all this hero needed was just an HP or hit speed nerf. Good luck with Hero Musketeers having a 0 percent usage rate
Missing some cards here:
Nerf Hero Knight again, but nerf his ability range or shield HP
Nerf Furnace, but nerf its damage.
Buff Little Prince again, but to the Guardian ability damage or attack speed.
Nerf Ice Golem Hero
nerf 3 musketeers hit points
Rework/buff rune giant
Buff phoenix
Buff void
Overall not to bad, although the hero musketeer nerf seems a little extreme. I don’t know how minions still have not received a nerf, considering they have been A to S tier for multiple seasons in a row and still have an 18% usage rate in the top 1000, which is crazy. All they need is a 0.5 tile range reduction and they will still be stronger than pre-buff but not overpowered like they are now. Glad to see evo witch finally getting another nerf, although it still might not be enough. I would also add that the hero wizard’s tornado effect should not do hundreds of damage to towers, which it currently does right now. It allows a wizard to take over two-thirds of a tower if it locks on for the three shots while in the air, which is absolutely not balanced. One other thing with tornado effects that confuses me is that it appears that the evo valk’s tornado appears to do enough damage to allow towers to take down goblins in one shot, but the tornado card does not, which has made it an extremely weak card. I don’t know if this inconsistency is an accident, but it definitely shows just how weak tornado can be in a variety of situations compared to how it used to be.
Mega knight range nerf of melee medium to melee short and a hp nerf of 10%
Buffs pekka 6% hp and damage 6&
Buff ruïne giant with a damage buff with 5%
Nerf fire crak recoil range from 1 tile to 0.75 tiles to match spary recoil
Buff lumberjack that it can break the log
Mega knight is like C tier maybe low B right now. If anything it needs a buff.
Do you like my fire cracker nerf p.s mega knight is the most hate troop in the game
I agree that sparky and firecracker should have the same recoil range, but I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing sparky get her recoil range set to 1 tile to make it feel more unique from cards without recoil. Sparky needs a buff anyways, but not sure if that will do the trick. Fair enough that mega knight is hated, but judging by the fact that the base mega knight literally has a 0 percent usage rate in the top 1000 it is definitely not in need of a nerf currently.
Kinda of a meh set of balance changes in my opinion, but not horrible. here are my thoughts:
Hero Musketeer: great rework, I think this is definitely going to make it balanced and remove its ability to be a secondary win condition, but I hope it’s not a bad card after this- we shall see
Hero Wizard: definitely a needed change, but the issue is obviously the Wizard itself being hot garbage (pun intended) and not really the hero per say; I know they aren’t going to rework the Wizard though, so I would advocate for a bigger buff- make it so it’s tornado can kill skeletons and bats
Hero Mini P.E.K.K.A: good change, but I would nerf it to 25 seconds instead of 22; I think 22 isn’t a big enough nerf (but I hate that card so I’m biased)
Three Musketeers: somewhat bad nerf, as don’t think they need this change in the first place; they were relatively balanced before the hero ice golem was released, and the evo royal hogs are also too strong atm. I would nerf the hero ice golem first and then see how the three musketeers do- I don’t really know how they could nerf the evo royal hogs in any major way without killing them so I’m not going to propose any changes there
Graveyard: Good nerf, no complaints there, hope it’s balanced after this. They could maybe increase the initial delay before they spawn but just a suggestion
Evo P.E.K.K.A: good buff, but I would also buff the normal P.E.K.K.A. since it’s really bad as well- a 3% health buff (3716-2827) would allow it to take one-two extra shots from a princess tower to take out. This is just an example though, not necessarily the best option
Evo Witch: Good change as well, I hope it can get to a position where it’s used but not too annoying and/or broken to face, the witch honestly deserves it (why they gave her such a fundamentally toxic evolution I don’t know)
Overall thoughts: this isn’t the worst set of balance changes, but I think it leaves a lot to be desired. Where are some buffs and/or reworks to long term underused cards, like barb hut, rune giant, goblin machine and goblin curse and goblin giant, void, clone, spirit empress, and little prince (again) they’ve been reworking cards every 3 months since last May (goblin hut/GK/cannon cart, then furnace, then 3M) so what about in February?
Just my thoughts though, I hope it wasn’t too long and boring to read (it certainly wasn’t to write it) and have a great day y’all!
Also I agree rune giant needs a buff, maybe able to enchant more troops or more base damage or something. If the firecracker needs a nerf, which she absolutely does, I think the more important issue is the splashback range rather than the recoil. Firecracker’s splashback range allows her to hit the tower from literally the other side of the arena, a trait that is supposed to be for legendary cards like princess and magic archer. Not only that, but she can do significant damage even when she barely grazes the tower after hitting a troop that is placed basically anywhere except the bridge or river. The evolution is even worse because the splashback lasts longer and damages troops and towers even more. If I were to nerf the firecracker, the splashback range would be reduced by 1.5-2 tiles (I think it is 5 or 5.5 tiles right now). This is mainly because the firecracker has become more of a win condition over time than a ranged support unit, which shows just how broken the mechanic is. For only 3 elixir, it eliminates about 85% of the tiles that you could place cards on if it was any other ranged unit. Literally anywhere except the bridge or the river will allow the firecracker to get tower damage, which is ridiculous.
ladder mk have a 9% use without the evo with the evo it is 22% use rate
Sorry, I meant to add that I was looking at the top 1000 leaderboard usage rate, which I find to be a more accurate reading of what cards are strong in the meta. Ladder can be anywhere from 0 to 12000 trophies, and in my experience ladder players tend to use less skillful cards such as mega knight, which adds to the higher usage rate. If you go to cards→top 1000→usage rate, you’ll see that mega knight has an almost non-existent usage rate on top ladder.
The balance changes are good, but I would add something. 1 - Reduce the Hog Rider’s HP by 3%, the main problem is that he runs to the tower with literally 100 HP and hits even if you throw all your cards at him, and it often happens that at the beginning of the battle you don’t have any cards in the cycle that can stop him and it’s very annoying when he gets through the defense with a sum of 10 elixir. 2 - Goblin with darts, you need to reduce his attack radius from 6.5 to 6 cells because even after the previous weakening, he is the most important component of the hyperbait that took over the game a year and a half ago, the Goblin with darts constantly stands in front of the bridge and reaches your building with def, which makes it almost impossible to defend against the same barrel with evo skeletons with the help of a building, since the Goblin will destroy it, and even if you play without a building, he can simply stand on the bridge and destroy your units. You also need to reduce the HP of the Royal Giant by 5%, if the opponent knows how to play, then this tower killer is almost unstoppable, especially when he is covered by a monk, or two Royal Giants, which often happens on a double elixir.
DO NOT NERF MY MUSKETEERS I USE HERO MUSKETEER AND THREE MUSKETEERS IN MY DECK AND IS GOING TO BE USELESS NEXT SEASON PLUS I CANNOT AFFORD MORE LEVEL 16 CARDS, DON’T NERF THEM ![]()
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Dude, your deck will still be strong, but it won’t be as imbalanced as it was before the nerf.
Cards I want to talk about:
hero knight: needs a big nerf. Both the shield hp and ability range are broken (it can retarget troops and buildings and allow hog rider or other win conditions to get insane damage to towers, it can be used on defense and is broken also. For example It can prevent grave yard and gob barrel attacks on defense. It is most broken hero ability in my opinion and from my experience.
Evo witch: from my experience those last months in using evo witch and playing against her she has very op healing and lives forever (even when you have splash counters to her). She need at least 10% nerf. She is insanely most annoying card last 3 months.
pekka/evo pekka: the base card need an hp buff (6%) or range buff. As people has been saying It is extremely weak dies quickly and need more damage. She is an expensive defensive card that cannot provide real value on offense (unlike mini Pekka which is cheaper). She is also the least strong card even in the very few decks the use her.
The healing of the evo is far from enough that is why no one use her evo and they instead use other evos in pekka decks. And the suggusted 5% buff is far from enough to fix her. She need 15% at least (really) because the healing is really really weak (this is from my experience and all other players who say the same every month, we tested and faced evo pekka for a long time and she is terrible).
The base card is even worse than the evo by far (base card more necessarely need a buff, but both reallly need a buff). Base pekka used to have 3960 hp but was reduced to 3670 years ago when supercell overnerfed pekka after she became op after they gave her a range buff with an hp nerf. They reverted the range buff but did not revert the hp nerf. Since then pekka always used to be weak
tornado: the damage buff is needed to fix the card it is unfunctional against swarms and can work only in few splash decks (even those decks became weak after the tornado nerf). The tornado other aspect (pull strength) is the one that need a nerf instead.
wizard/evo wizard: just every clash royale player now can tell you the definetly the base wizard is so weak and in need of a buff. Any buff would help bring the card back (small hp buff is ideal since wizard survivability is way worse than other relative 5 elixer and ranged cards like witch. Survivability of wizard and being 5 elixer that you have to spend more to protect is the main problem with the card).
The evo is bad as well, an hp buff to the shield (266 hp or something like that is necessary and ideal. It used to have that and was necessary. But any buff to the evo is viable, the card is really weak and any buff can help bring it back).
ram rider: after the last nerfs ram rider now very weak and need an hp or charge damage buff. Or ideally I would like charge tiles buff. The problem is ram rider does not connect as often now and does not do enough damage and cannor survive enough.
barb barrel: the last deploy nerf was enough to balance it out. But the damage nerf that was applied made it even weaker. I suggest its damage nerf to be reverted (that nerf made it really terrible in general as a spell card and especially against recuirts and evo wall breakers). The deploy time also could be adjusted to 0.75 seconds instead of 1 second (it is less harsher and better in my opinion since barb barrel now usually dies in that 0.5 seconds of deploy time when spawned between swarms and skeletons).
mortar/evo mortar: base mortar a 4.5 seconds or 4 seconds attack speed could be better to buff it since it is very weak and is really slow in shooting and against most swarms. And the evo mortar could see a 4.5 seconds hitspeed in order to nerf it since it is op.
cannoneer and chef tower: they were over nerfed and they suffer because of low hp and nobody uses them because of that so give them slightly more hp (70hp more hp at level 11). This should help bring them back without them being really broken as they used to be. Or at least give the canonner more damage since it has not so good damage now compared to being bad against swarms.
void need a buff
Gob barrel need first hit speed buff on defense only, they are weak on defense (they can help on defense but are not good against swarms). The card is weak if used in decks that don’t use bait.