Somebody’s balancing the game! (it’s us, we’re trying). Some of you might be wondering why we’re hotfixing a balance patch on a Sunday. We’re still getting into the rhythm of development after going hard at Open Beta, so apologies if we’ve been a little discombobulated when it comes to reacting to balance changes. We’re here, we’re moving fast, let’s get to it.
ALSO: huge shoutout to some of our biggest believers in the community who gave us direct and actionable feedback about the upcoming patch.
Hunters
Hudson
Hudson has been on the top of the list of most frustrating Hunters to deal with since Open Beta started, and is close to the top in strength (even after a few nerfs in the Hotfix patch). Hudson should be strong if you dive into his position, not when he’s diving into yours.
Hover Jets (SHIFT)
- Charges reduced from 2 >>> 1
- Cooldown reduced from 13/10 >>> 11/8 seconds (at levels 1 and 2)
Minigun (LMB)
- Base range reduced from 1400 >>> 1300
- Range while in Spin Barrels (RMB) reduced from 1200 >>> 1150
- Base damage reduced from 30 >>> 27
- AP Ratio damage 8%>>> 5
Barbed Wire (Q)
- Activation time increased from 0.6 >>> 1 seconds
- Activation range decreased from 1400 >>> 900
Brall
We’re going to project forward into the future for a second - say, for example, Wednesday - where we ship a Brall buff saying he’s underperforming across all MMRs (which is true). Future us got a lot of feedback that regardless of math, Brall is feeling oppressive to play against, so future us came back to warn present us, and present us agrees so here we are addressing some combination of bugs and unintended interactions. Future saved. As a high mastery Hunter, we hear you that he should be harder to play.
Blazing Spirit (Passive)
- Empowered duration increased from 6 >>> 8 seconds
Flame Step (Shift)
- [Bugfix] Level 3 upgrade - dodging ally/your own projectiles no longer builds stacks of Blazing Spirit (passive)
Volcanic Rebuke (R)
- Cooldown reduction on Wisp execution reduced from 100% >>> 25% of max cooldown
- Knocking an enemy Hunter to instantly send them to Deathbox still fully resets Volcanic Rebuke’s cooldown
- No longer resets cooldown on minion kill
- [Bugfix] Brall can no longer jump while using Volcanic Rebuke (fixing the launch bug)
- [Bugfix] No longer heals Brall if anti-healed / within the Death Circle
Equipment
Amplifier
We’re aiming to preserve unique builds that Amplifier provides, while limiting some of the extreme edge cases (often times possible due to bugs)
- Abilities with multiple versions (e.g. Kingpin’s Dash) will only benefit from Amplifier’s cooldown reduction for the version being used.
- For example, using Kingpin’s Aerial Dash will only reduce the cooldown of his Aerial Dash, not his regular Dash. You will still keep the stack count though.
- Cooldown reduction benefit is calculated BEFORE increasing the stack count (meaning there is no benefit until you use the ability at least once)
Power User
We like that Power User is an option for Power-loving players to practice with and preserve their Powers, but we believe Exotics should remain as high risk, high reward items.
- Does not Soulbound Exotic Powers anymore
Powers
Mana Cloak
We’ve heard feedback that Stealth is problematic in its current state, and we agree (especially in the ways that Stealth enemies are signaled to you, and in how difficult it is to track/counter stealthed hunters). While we anticipate more changes to the mechanic itself, we’re hitting a current outlier that’s causing significant frustration.
- Increased cost from 10 >>> 30 mana per second
Power Shuffler
Exotics are too prevalent in the game and too easy to come by. We’ll be taking a holistic approach to deal with this, but are disabling Power Shuffler in the interim to prevent extreme outliers.
- Disabled (for now)