Experimental Balance Changes for upcoming Milestone #6 (Updated 08/16)

@ = Added in update on 08/16
^ = Added in update on 08/14
* = Added in update on 08/05

A new experimental balance patch is here! On PC ONLY, players on the experimental branch now have access to some new mechanics and parameter adjustments. We welcome your thoughts, your feedback, and your playtesting! I encourage dedicated coaches to join us in our Discord community to discuss these changes live with other players.

How to Access

Right click Beastieball in your Steam library > Select "Properties" > Go to the "Game Versions and Betas" tab > Select "experimental" from the dropdown menu.

Your savedata is not be at risk when changing to different game branches. If your Beasties have plays on the default branch which they do not have access to in the experimental branch, they will be removed. Or, if you use new plays which are introduced on the experimental branch, they will be removed upon switching back to the default branch.

Plays which have been added or changed will be completely free to tutor to your Beasties at the Beastierball Academy on the temporary experimental build. Take this opportunity to try out new tools and let us know how they're feeling!

⭐New Stuff

There are a couple new experimental feature items we want players to be aware of, and welcome testing/feedback on these during the experimental period. All of these are now available in the SportNet menu.

• Beastie Analytics: From here, you can browse detailed analytics on Beastie popularity, as well as commonly used traits, plays and teammates. There's data for matches played since the previous Milestone update, and historic records for every single Bigmoon Bash event too. Going forward, Bash analytics will appear here automatically without us needing to post a new blog post/spreadsheet.
• Leaderboards: This lists the top-scoring players in each Bigmoon Bash. In the future we'd like to expand this to be able to show your individual ranking on the list, but those features are still in development.
• Trading: You can now create private lobbies to trade Beasties with another player.

🔧 Balance Changes

This follows the trend set by the previous Milestone, featuring a minimal set of changes meant to address only a few key standout points. Still, each change is one we've considered carefully and there are some fun new toys here... I hope players enjoy them!

⚙️ General Mechanics Changes

💧 WEEPY

A Beastie overcome with WEEPY now loses 50 STAMINA (down from 100). We've been overall really happy with Weepy's impact on the game, giving some teams a way to slow down offense and pressure tagouts. Weepy's 100 damage has been very punishing, though, and it can make the afflicted player feel many lines are closed off to them and their agency is reduced to an unfun level. The reduced damage here keeps Weepy as a big potential threat, but afflicted players have a bit more optionality in whether they choose to tank the damage and continue their offense VS. pivoting out to conserve their bench health later on.

👨‍👨‍👧‍👧 Rally

RALLY now boosts the damage of only one team at a time. After attacking, any RALLY crowd on the attacker's side will move to the opposing side. This small change means that in practice, RALLY is almost identical to before; but, after scoring a point with a RALLY-boosted attack, your subsequent serve can't be boosted by RALLY, which reduces the ability of this field effect to snowball damage for a team already in advantage.

🍄 Traits

• (NEW) Enchanter: Net-boosted attacks make the target 1 SHOOK.
  • 🔄Given to Conjarr in place of Precise Precise was an imperfect fit for Conjarr, and wasn't used much by players, especially after sources of redirection were reduced in the previous Milestone. We decided to give Conjarr something brand-new and custom tailored to them. This trait synergizes nicely with Conjarr's numerous net plays and attack options, giving them a way to control the opponent's tempo.

• (NEW?) Fearless: Immune to NERVOUS. Doesn't experience negative effects from their own attacks.
  • 🔼Given to Daredillo in place of Self-Assured Daredillo has been one of the most-used Beasties since we finished their animation in December, and their popularity spiked particularly after we gave them Dodge Roll in the previous Milestone. Daredillo's ability to gracefully hit and run with Dodge Roll combined with their Acrobat trait has made for a very fun playstyle, but it made their already-strong offense feel a little too difficult for opponents to manage. We're tweaking some things in Daredillo's kit to mitigate the power of Acrobat, and changing Self-Assured to something which enables their offense just a bit more effectively to compensate.

• Power Up, High Spirits and Full Focus:
  • 🔄New effect: Corresponding type attacks do +50% damage when STAMINA is below 34 (from +15) This reverts a change we applied in Milestone 4 in March. The goal at the time was to normalize the power level of the 3 starters by increasing the value of the damage boost for weaker hitters like Bandicraft while reducing its value on Kasaleet. Having now collected analytics and observations across a couple Milestone seasons, we found this change did not have the intended effect. Kasaleet was as dominant as ever, and Hopra/Bandicraft both struggled to succeed with more aggressive gameplans even more than they had before. With that in mind, we're rolling this change back and addressing the slight imbalance in other ways.

• Confident:
  • 🔼Gets +1 Body POW Boost and +1 ALL DEF Boost when TAGGED IN. (Prev: Body POW +1 and Body DEF +1) Supilero has generally seen good success with their other trait, Scavenger, and recently gained some traction using High Five in tandem with Confident to efficiently pass boosts to an ally. That combo was deemed a little too strong by some players, but outside of it Supilero wasn't getting much use with Confident... so we're taking High Five away from them and making them more competent with Confident, to better distinguish their two traits' playstyles.

• Slippery:
  • 🔼Removed the damage reduction from this Trait This reverts a change we applied all the way back in Milestone 1 in June 2025. Since that change, Gremlur has found some success and popularity with their secondary trait, Adaptation, but has struggled to be as effective with their original Slippery gameplan. In the time since that change was applied, we gradually applied many other changes to other interactions around Slippery, including more traits and plays which can circumvent it, and also took away its ability to interact with a TOUGH ally. We want to try letting Gremlur out of its cage and see if it is still as evil as we remember more than a year ago.

• Momentum:
  • 🔼Added to Blitzwift as a recessive Trait Blitzwift has always been near the bottom of usage stats, owing in part to their high-skill niche. We figured it was about time we gave them another way to play that might help them fit onto more teams.

• ^Galaxy Brain:
  • 🔼Now activates when receiving any attack, not just MIND This came in as a player suggestion and after considering some other ideas we found we liked this one. Galaxy Brain is a very, very old trait from development day 1 which we never really gave a second thought to. This small change makes it much more relevant. We're a bit nervous about giving more offensive tools to a Beastie as explosive as Psylusc, but we also recognize it's challenging to keep a Psylusc healthy on the field long enough to get the benefit of this trait, so its gameplay ought to be interesting.

🏃 Plays

• (NEW) Kick: BODY Attack, 70* POW. Always targets back row. Can use without volleying.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Kasaleet, Garood, Opposur

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Lunaptra, Magpike/Maraptor, Goofsder

  
  This is a new semi-generic midgame body play that can have some fun use cases, but mostly is here to fill what we saw as a gap in flavor.

• (NEW) Flying Kick: BODY Attack. 95 POW. Only used when the ally has the ball. SHIFTs to ally row before hitting.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Kasaleet

  
  Of the 3 starter Beasties, Kasaleet has been the most lacking in playstyle that sets them apart from other Beasties, and that's been reflected by their lack of a signature play. Flying Kick is our answer to that, and it gives Kasaleet a completely unique way to attack that still feels very uniquely "Kasaleet." Because this always moves Kasaleet to its ally's row, this play is inherently weak to sideways offense pressure, but when used in tandem with other attacks it means Kasaleet can just about always get a strong hit no matter where they are or who receives the attack. There are a lot of fun synergies and combos here - I can't begin to list them all, but I hope players enjoy discovering the new options this gives to Kasaleet.

• 🔄 Burnout: Renamed to Explosive Spirit

• (NEW?) Burnout: SPIRIT Attack. 100 POW. -15 STAMINA.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Daredillo, Scauldra

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Froofulks

  
  We've renamed Burnout to Explosive Spirit, and created a new iteration of Burnout that is better matched to Daredillo's particular kit, as well as fitting with a couple other less-appreciated Spirit attackers.

• (NEW) Squeeze: SUPPORT. Can target allies or opponents. Advances target's FEELINGs by 1 turn.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Diggum, Duggout, Mistic

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Mudslee, Froofulks, Scauldra*, Hydrolm

  
  This strange new play and effect has a surprising diversity of use cases that we want to see players mess with. It can function as a soft heal, ticking down bad FEELINGs from allies. But it can also function as an insidious passive aggression tool, juicing more damage out of SWEATY opponents or pushing stacks of WEEPY.

• (NEW)* Stretch: SUPPORT. Restore 10 STAMINA. Feel 1 JAZZED.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Kasaleet, Broslidon, Musselbound

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Hydrolm, Servace

  
  This is a similar addition to Kick in that it feels like a sort of obvious basic support action which fits with many Beasties. We see it as a corollary with Flex which sacrifices ramping over time for a more Body-thematic self care.

• (NEW)^ Catwalk: SUPPORT. SHIFT forward. If successful: nearest opponent gets -1 B/S/M DEF.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Bindiva

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Servace, @Gremlur

  
  This is a flavorful new tool meant to help slightly redirect Bindiva's gameplay without taking away its most fun elements. We've got more thoughts on Bindiva in the section below.

• High Slam
  • 🔼POW to 110 (from 80). Always targets straight ahead.
  • 🔻No longer can hit without volleying

• Tracker
  • 🔼Now ignores BLOCK This is a very small and un-flashy change, but it means Tracker has additional utility to reduce opponent action economy and force them to volley. With BLOCK being so common, we thought there ought to be some more ways to mitigate it for teams that want to slow the game down.

• Precision Strike
  • 🔼Now ignores shields and Boosts Another light touch to a rarely-used low-power play. This is a subtle extra utility that might make this play a bit more attractive on slower teams.

• Inspiring Defense
  • 🔻Applies 3 ANGRY to the user (from 2). We want this play to keep pace with Shield as far as the ability to loop TOUGH over consecutive turns/attacks. It's not a fun interaction to play into and we don't want it to be a defining strength of Servace over other attackers.

👹 Beasties

• Kichik, Ostrisigh, Kasaleet
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Tough Front
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Launch, Shake Off*, Flex* Launch on this Beastie has been a constant fixation among top-level players for a while, with it serving as a high benchmark for offensive power and utility. We love the power of this play and don't see it looking too overtuned on other Beasties as much as it has been on Kasaleet, so we're trying out giving Kasaleet a more unique and technical SHIFT attack in Flying Kick. *With the addition of Flying Kick, Kasaleet has newfound flexibility in leveraging their Support actions. This prompted us to take a closer look at those and make some additional edits to their kit. We want Kasaleet to hit a healthy sweet spot where they get incredible burst power and efficiency but without the ability to ramp themselves as far and high as other top-tier attackers over longer matches.

• Rookee, Garood
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Bump They can Kick now

• Shooga, Supassum, Supilero
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Shake Off, Quick Breath
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: High Five, Deep Breath

• Radillo, Daredillo
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Explosive Spirit (formerly Burnout)

• Wottle
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Net Rush, Fall Back, Hum
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Beginner Effort, Raw Fury, Tough Front
  • 🔄 Adjusted level-up plays Wottle is still not seeing too much use, so we've decided to clean out some of the lesser-used plays from their kit and gift them some more new toys. Net Rush and Fall Back let them take more advantage of their unique positioning trait to get more bulk or offense as needed, with Hum giving them a way to power themselves up while they camp the net and eventually become a second offensive threat.

• Turogue, Turtaneer, Tortanchor
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Daring Pass We feel Tortanchor lost something essential with this play cut in the previous patch. Although they already have plenty of top-tier support plays, we figured they deserve to have this one back too. This helps diversify the Beasties that work together on Spirit-focused teams. Although we generally enjoy Daring Pass being on frail, high-risk Beasties, adding it back to Tortanchor also means they get a unique role as the sole bulky Daring Passer.

• Gremlur
  • 🔻 @81 MPOW (from 90)
  • 🔻 @45 BDEF (from 70)
  • 🔻 @70 SDEF (from 80)
  • 🔼 @89 MDEF (from 45)
  • 🔼 Plays Added: @Reign, @Goo-Goo Eyes
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: @Nettle We're interested in making Slippery's gameplay effective and fun in a way it hasn't been since its nerf last year. Its greatest advantage is how it enables Gremlur to use extra support actions, so their support action pool has to be carefully curated... and Nettle is one of the best in the game, so it follows that it feels oppressive on Gremlur. We're trying out what Gremlur is like without Nettle, but with new plays that can fill similar gaps or expand Gremlur's options in other directions. We've also adjusted their stats in a few key ways; their Mind POW is lower, but their damage is still higher than it was with Slippery previously. To compensate for the stat adjustment, we've made them overall more bulky. We also changed how their defenses are allocated such that Mind is their best defense and Body their worst. 4+ years ago, we created Gremlur with a Mind weakness to exacerbate their weakness into Sideways offense. With the many shifts and changes since then, this matchup theory proved to be mostly irrelevant. We think it makes more sense for the "smartest Beastie" who is bullied by Opposur to excel in Mind and be fragile in Body.

• Bindiva
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Heartbreaker^
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Net Rush^, Spitball^ Bindiva (with Thief) has always been intentionally designed around easily getting the net and hitting Dumps, making them a frail but scary point-scorer. Over the last couple milestones, more players have turned their attention to Bindiva and we've seen them optimized more, often positioned to get a quick and surprising checkmate that's very hard to react to. We want Bindiva to still succeed with this linear and aggressive style, but we're tweaking their kit so that they have to respect their opponents in more scenarios, as any glass cannon should. Net Rush + Thief is a combo that gave Bindiva too much versatility, and Spitball is one of the underappreciated best disruption plays in the game; together both let Bindiva shut down many opponent lines and mitigate a lot of their risk. The new additions of Heartbreaker and Catwalk introduce some fun new synergies in their place.

• Proteos, Hydrolm
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Flex* They can Stretch now.

🚧Other Fixes and Changes

• Many more small fixes and tweaks, but I don't want to write them all out right now.... stay tuned for full patch notes in the Milestone Update!