Dear Tacticians,
It has been fantastic to see the enthusiasm of the community for PvP matches since the launch of Skygard Arena! Both ranked games and tournament matches have provided us with lots of insights on the power level of the various Champions and team compositions. Thank you for playing the game and for providing your very valuable feedback! 😍
Today we are releasing a balancing update in order to maximize the number of competitive team compositions. We are reducing the difference in power level between the various Champions and nerfing some over-powered interactions. In particular, we are nerfing Daerio and Vallya while buffing Jorn, Na Jima, Aiden, Bu Shin, Champei and Seraphine👀
We are also fixing a couple of bugs and improving the experience when playing against the AI. Thank you to all players who reported bugs and provided suggestions!
Enjoy the new patch, we are looking forward to seeing you experiment with new comps!
See you in the Arena,
Team Gemelli
Patch Notes - Version 1.1
Balancing Changes - Champions
Daerio - Duelist 🤺
Health Points: 160 → 150.
Primary Action - Critical Strike: steals 2 ultimate charges → 1 ultimate charge.
Galeblade (Relic): grants +2 → +1 Haste token every time an ally gains an Haste token.
Daerio has been one of the most played and best performing Champions. We are nerfing the Galeblade relic, which was giving an insane mobility and tempo advantage. We are also reducing his tankiness, as he already benefits from great damage potential and excellent mobility. Finally, stealing 2 ultimate charges when dealing a critical strike was a very significant advantage, we think stealing 1 charge is good enough.
Daerio - Renegade💥
Health Points: 160 → 150.
Vallya - Vanguard🛡️
Primary Action: no longer automatically deals a Critical Strike when Vallya is under the effect of a Protection.
Guardian Angel (Ultimate Action): the Undying status no longer applies to Pillars.
Vallya could shield herself with one of her secondary actions, then automatically deal a Critical Strike with her primary action: that was too easy and unhealthy. Her Critical Strike applies a Dazed token, which is very impactful and reduces the strength of any counter attack on her. She's still able to crit and apply this token, but it will no longer be automatic and she will have to be buffed by her allies to crit, which reinforces teamplay.
Rounds during which Vallya would cast Guardian Angel were very frustrating for the opponent: they couldn't do anything meaningful for one whole round, as both Champions and Pillars were protected. With this new version, the opponent can at least neutralize and capture Pillars during this round.
Aiden - Archbishop📘
Primary Action damage: 30 → 40.
Aiden's primary action is his unique source of damage. 40 damage will make him more impactful, in particular to neutralize enemy Pillars.
Champei - Earth Avatar🐼
Primary Action damage: 25 → 30.
Ultimate Action's cost: 8 → 7 ultimate charges.
We think Champei Earth Avatar has a very interesting kit, but some of her basic stats (primary action damage and ultimate charge cost) were too weak for her to be truly competitive, so we are buffing them.
Bu Shin🐈
Health Points: 120 → 130.
Seraphine👼
Health Points: 120 → 130.
We think 120 health points was insufficient given the current level of lethality in the game: Seraphine and Bu Shin could be eliminated too easily. We are giving them 10 extra health points.
Jorn🐊🩸
Movement Points: 2 → 3.
Jorn was the only Champion in the game with only 2 movement points instead of 3 and we think it is no longer justified. Jorn will be much more mobile and should feel better to play!
Jorn - Besieger🐊
Range of Cyclonic Jump (secondary action): 0-3 → 0-2.
To compensate for the extra movement point, we are reducing the range of Jorn Besieger's jump.
Na Jima - Huntress🏹
Primary Action's damage: 35 → 40.
Na Jima Huntress has not performed particularly well recently. Her primary action, which only deals damage to enemies in a line, is difficult to cast: one has to invest resources to position Na Jima correctly to make the best use of the spell. We want to increase the reward (damage) for positioning Na Jima correctly and finding the best angles to cast her spell.
User Experience - Skirmish Games vs. AI
When playing a skirmish game against the AI, your starting side (and therefore your starting order, #1 or #2) will now be chosen randomly. This way, the skirmish experience better mirrors the PvP experience and playing against the AI can help you practice both sides of a map.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that would trigger an end turn when clicking right next to the end turn button.
Fixed a bug that would allow a player to act in the very first frames after the end of a losing round and visually capture their opponent's main pillar, even though it would not impact the actual result of the game.
Fixed a bug that would trigger a - purely visual - double counting of victory points if a Champion was eliminated when receiving two differences instances of damage (such as regular damage and collision damage). This will prevent the rare situation in which games would continue after a player reaches 25 points visually but 23 points in reality.