NOTE: THIS PATCH WILL NOT BE LIVE UNTIL NOVEMBER 19, 2025 @ 8:00AM PT (edited)
Opening Context
Greetings SUPERVIVERs! Thanks for all your excellent feedback on Tournament mode so far - we’re making some item balance adjustments based on what you’ve shared, and also delivering on a common request to include ranked for this mode (and Arena too!)
This patch introduces our second prototype mode - Domination! It’s a pretty different flavor compared to Tournament, with larger teams, open items, and a focus on defending/attacking specific points. We’re looking forward to seeing what you think!
There’s plenty more to get to, so lets get started.
New Mode: Domination
Domination is our newest prototype mode - inspired by Capture and Hold gameplay. Good luck out there.
Domination Mode is now available in the queue selector
Format
6v6
2 teams
Auto-respawn
Rules
There are 3 Domination Points: A, B and C
Capturing and owning a Domination Point grants your team 1 point every 5 seconds
Teams win by reaching 150 Points
Tournament
Overtime Rules
One consistent pain point we’ve heard about Tournament Mode is that teams getting eliminated after the timer can be sudden and surprising, so we’ve updated the Overtime rules to make them easier to understand.
When normal time expires:
If the Base Camp is owned and uncontested, the team who owns the basecamp wins
If the Base Camp unowned and uncontested, both teams die and lose team health
If the Base Camp is contested, the game enters Overtime, lasting 15 seconds or until a team is eliminated or the Base Camp is no longer contested
Base Camps
These have historically been harder to contest, which can make turning a situation around tougher. We’ve increased the size of Base Camps to make that more possible.
Base Camps are now 2X their previous size
Ranked Modes
One request we’ve seen for Tournament is the ability to see how you stack up against other players, so we’re enabling Ranked in the base queue. We’ve also seen a similar request from Arena players - so since we’re already in there, we’ve made that change too :)
Tournament is now Ranked by default
Arena is now Ranked by default
Rules:
Ante is the same as BR
Bronze: 10 RP
Silver: 20 RP
Gold: 25 RP
Platinum: 25 RP
Diamond: 30 RP
Master: 35 RP
You earn or lose points based on whether you win or lose each round
This averages to around 10 points per round, but with some variance when fighting higher/lower skill teams
You also gain 3.5 RP each round to offset the ante cost at lower Ranks
There is no additional RP bonus for individual performance
Items
Now that these items have gotten more testing in Tournament on Live and PBE, we’re feeling good to extend these item choices to BR. As a reminder, we’re doing some work on Armory items to make item purchasing trade-offs clearer and more understandable at a glance. That also includes new art for these items in this patch!
We’ve also made some balance adjustments since the last patch to make sure these items are more fair overall. Thank you to the Vive Council and all the players who weighed in to help us land these adjustments in a better spot!
New Kicks (Now in BR)
For a long time, Kicks haven’t felt like a build defining choice. Taking a step back and looking at the item system as a whole, we set some new rules to fix that. The first change was simple: all dash and movement related effects now belong to kicks. If a few of them look familiar, that is because some former Relics have found their new home here.
Wildfire Sandals
Decreased Dash Haste from +11% >>> +10%
Decreased Ability Haste from +5% >>> +4%
After Dashing, create a fire zone around your Hunter, dealing 180 damage over 4s and exploding 4 times for 50 damage each
Damage to Armor is significantly increased (2s cooldown >>> 3s cooldown)
Bloodlust Leather Boots
Increased Movement Speed from +25 >>> +35
Decreased MS gain upon hitting enemies from +20 >>> +15 for 5s
Stacks up to 5 times
Combat Leather Boots
Increased Movement Speed from +15 >>> +25
Decreased Primary Attack Damage gain from +10% >>> +8% when near allies
Decreased Primary Attack Damage gain for nearby allies from +5% >>> +4% Primary Attack Damage
Ally buffs do not stack
Infusor Plated Boots
Decreased Health from +500 >>> +250
Dashing heals you for 15% of your missing Health (2s CD) >>> Dashing heals you for 8% of your missing Health (3s CD)
Painkiller Plated Boots
Decreased Damage Reduction from +20% >>> +10%
After Dashing, gain +20% Damage Reduction for 3s (2s CD) >>> After Dashing, gain +10% Damage Reduction for 3s (3s CD)
Rabbit’s Foot Sneakers
+15 Movement Speed
+15% Dash Haste
After dashing, +100 shield to yourself and nearby allies. Duration 5s (2s CD >>> 3s CD)
Cleric’s Sneakers
+20% Dash Haste
+15% Wisp Revive Speed
Touching a friendly Wisp grants Revive (Revive cancelled by enemies stepping on Wisp)
Longshot Striders *NEW*
+8% Ability Haste
On ability hit, gain +5-15% damage and 0-100 Movement Speed based on distance hit
3s Cooldown for activation.
New Grips (Now in BR)
With the global damage reductions from patch 2.1 and recent buffs to defensive and support stats, we had room to raise the offensive ceiling. As a result, we’ve slightly reduced defensive power across Grips and increased overall offensive potential. The goal is to create clearer, more interesting tradeoffs where everyone feels powerful and counterplay comes from smart gear choices.
Marksman Glove
Increased Attack Damage from +6% >>> +12%
Decreased Primary Attack Range from +10% >>> +6%
Gunslinger Glove
Increased Primary Attack Damage from +6% >>> +8%
Increased Primary Attack Speed from +6% >>> +15%
Recon Glove
Decreased Attack Range from +10% >>> +8%
Decreased Attack Speed from +20% >>> +10%
Burning Claw
Increased Ability Damage from +6% >>> +8%
Abilities burn for 10% >>> 6% of target’s Max HP over 3s.
Chrono Claw
Decreased Ability Haste from +10% >>> +8%
Ability hits refund 0.25s on all non-Dash Abilities.
Fey Claw
Decreased Ability Damage from +15% >>> +12%
Glacial Gauntlets
Decreased Inbound Healing Amplification from +20% >>> +10%
Abilities apply a 50% slow for 0.5s
Decreased Max Health gain from 15% >>> 12%
Resilient Gauntlet
Decreased Max Health from +650 >>> +500
+100 >> +75 Health Regen/sec out of combat
Vampiric Gauntlet
Decreased Omnivamp from +20% >>> +10%
Omnivamp generates shield while at full Health
Decreased Max Shield from +500 >>> +300
Deflector Vambrace
Decreased Ability Haste from +10% >>> +8%
+10% Outbound Healing
50% of Healing becomes Shield (Max 200)
Soulbound Vambrace
Decreased Inbound Healing Amplification from +20% >>> +10%
Decreased Outbound Healing from +20% >>> +10%
Decreased Damage redirect from closest Ally to you from 30% >>> 15%
Decreased redirected Damage reduction from 30% >>> 15%
Removed
These Relics have been merged into new Kicks.
Painkiller
Wildfire Drive
Vive Infusor
Existing Item Balance and QoL
Dreadstar
We wanted to make Dreadstar a competitive option against Rewind, Blink, and other end-game Exotics
Cooldown decreased from 120s >>> 60s
Damage increased from 100 >>> 360
Stun Duration increased from 1 >>> 1.2s
Now summons Dual Blade Night Boss instead of a Kaiju Bruite
Summon Lifetime decreased from 60s >>> 30s
Booper
Self-peel outputs on some Hunters felt too strong so we’re adjusting this downwards.
Boop Strength decreased from 20% >>> 15%
Scarab Scepter
Shields were sticking around for a little too long.
Scarab Scepter from 10 >>> 5s
Emergency Bubble
Clearly states the shield value it grants and also applies the shield to nearby teammates.
Pocket Oracle
Removed from Shops
Objective Rewards
We got feedback that Soul of Fortitude was the least useful Soul of the 3 new "Tempo" souls. Giving it a buff!
Soul of Fortitude
New additional effect: When the Soul expires, fully repair and upgrade your existing Armor by 1 Tier.
Game Structure
Unlocked Ability Level 4s
We’ve been looking for ways to re-inject late-game progression over the game session and also wanted to provide more incentives to pursue PvP throughout the game.
You can now choose more than one Level 4 upgrade on your way to Level 15
Drop Update
We’ll be testing a new drop update in some games this patch - you’re likely to see it in about one of every three matches. The goal of this is to improve the initial drop distribution so teams are more spread out across the map and have access to more gameplay variety with drop. Welcome to the donut.
In Drop Phase, teams will now select a drop location along a rotating zone to drop into.
After the zone makes one full rotation, it will auto-launch any remaining teams who haven’t dropped yet.
Hunters
Jin
We wanted to give Jin more of his identity as an assassin - this comes in the form of both burst potential and mobility. We didn’t want to increase his total mobility profile for escapes with but we did want to give him some added flexibility in how he approaches tactical combat.
Backstab (Passive)
Now deals 30% additional damage when hitting enemies from behind
On Knock, clear impulse decay counters
Ash’gara Warblade (LMB)
Dashes from LMB now rotate to follow cursor so you can "curve" your hits to hit backstab
Felix
We felt it was appropriate to adjust Felix’s overall outputs now that he has access to all of his ability Lv.4s. We wanted to bring his total outputs down but give him some QoL in other places.
Heat Shield (Q)
Flame shield bonus damage on Lv.4 removed
Shield bonus from 50 >>> 30%
Now more reliably picks up targets above and below Felix
Embry Bolt (RMB)
Bonus damage on Lv.4 removed
Yaw-restriction reduced from 35 >>> 16%
Zeph
With the addition of more healing oriented grips as well as Zephs’ performance more recently, we felt it was appropriate to adjust his damage and healing down to a better midpoint.
Gale Force (Passive)
Tap
Base damage from 22 > 20
Ratio from .11/.13/.156/.156 >>> .13/.13/.13/.13
Charged
Base Damage 36 >>> 30
Ratio from 0.125/0.15/0.18/0.18 >>> 0.15/0.15/0.15/0.15
Windslinger (LMB)
Base damage decreased from 72 >>> 65
Coefficient decreased from .36 >>> .32
Charge coefficient decreased from .605 >>> 0.55
Second Wind (R)
Base damage decreased from 236/260/290 >>> 217.5/237.2/260
Ratio decreased from 0.38/0.48/0.6 >>> 0.38/0.46/0.55
Oath
Oath has been looking extra tanky with the recent item and time-to-kill changes so we want to reign in both his shield and heal scaling.
Brightshield (RMB)
Base Shield value / Shield Ratio lowered by ~15% (88% effective early, 83% as effective at later ranks / with health items)
Regen Field (Q)
Burst Heal / Heal over Time lowered by ~15%
Saros
Saros has been strong for a couple of patches now - in particular his ability to self-peel has been particularly consistent. We’re taking some of that away from him so getting on top of him creates larger punishes.
Charge Sunfire (RMB)
REMOVED - No longer knocks back struck targets.
REMOVED - No longer scales off of Ability Damage as well as Primary Attack Damage.
Carbine
We want to give everyone the opportunity to pursue the 1vN fantasy of making a big play on the breach, Carbine included.
General
Now has Dash Reset on Knock
Joule
We want to give everyone the opportunity to pursue the 1vN fantasy of making a big play on the breach, Joule included.
General
Now has Dash Reset on Knock
Combat
TTK Adjustments
Given the added stats coming in from the new grips, we wanted to pre-emptively make some adjustments to the outbound healing and damage to account for it.
Global outbound damage from 85% >>> 90%
Global outbound healing from 75% >>> 65%
Map
Land Extensions, Pt. 2
We’re taking some of our learnings from Tournament and Arena and applying them to the BR map. Be on the lookout for larger islands on the maps that make for interesting combat and strategic rotations.
Main zones include:
Right of Chaos Steppes
North of Mana Coils
Right of Desert
North of Kaiju
North of Machine
Customs
Continuing some QoL for Customs with organized competition in mind.
New option: Can choose to select dynamic circle closing to account for different lobby sizes
BUGFIX: Team anonymization fix in