If you’ve been frustrated by units like the X-Bow and the Tesla, you can now go into your next Clash Royale (Free) match feeling slightly relieved as the update that just hit the servers has nerfed both of those units and made some other significant changes, too. As we wrote about a few days ago, the Tesla’s hit speed has decreased to 0.8 sec from 0.7 sec and its lifetime dropped from 60 to 40 seconds. That should make the unit easier to counter or avoid. The Prince also saw a nerf as his charge speed decreased by 13% in order to give the opponent time to react and counter. The X-Bow range dropped to 12 from 13 so your opponent can’t park an X-Bow across the river and hit your towers with relative impunity. There are also other changes like a buff to the Valkyrie, a damage increase to the Giant (which should make him a more viable attacking unit), and more that you can check out here.

This patch is the first since global launch and is part of Supercell’s attempts to stick to its core design principle of “offense over defense," a principle that makes for more entertaining matches. The developers decided these nerfs and buffs based on both playtesting and looking at stats, particularly use rates and win rates across all levels all plays. According to Supercell, we should expect monthly balance changes to keep gameplay fine tuned and as fun as possible. So, what do you think of the changes? Do they address “a few frustrating defensive combinations" as Supercell claims, or would you rather the developers had gone a different way?