Greetings Summoners!
Here is another of our recent Dev Diaries, this time covering Adrenaline thanks to our recently reworked Cyclops (Blue Team). Take a look!
Adrenaline
Adrenaline has existed in the Contest for over seven years now (after typing this I took a break to stare out the window for a few minutes because how has it possibly been that long). It was originally announced in the post below, and has mostly lived on quietly in the background, improving the survivability of 6 and 7-star champions and allowing Summoners to clutch out fights that otherwise wouldn’t have gone their way. With the rebuild of Cyclops (Blue Team), though, we’re breaking new ground in what exactly Adrenaline means in the Contest, so we’d like to offer a refresher.
Adrenaline: What is it, and How Does it Work?
As a quick reminder, usually Adrenaline is gained as a 6 or 7-star Attacker is struck by or Blocks an incoming hit. Damage is taken as normal, but a portion of that hit damage is stored in the Health Bar as a white subsection of the larger Bar. Only hit damage is stored, so “red numbers” such as Regeneration reversal or damaging effects do not factor in. “Maximum Adrenaline” is equal to your maximum Health (or effectively your maximum Health minus 1), and you cannot store more Adrenaline than you have room for in your Health Bar, meaning you cannot have more Adrenaline than your missing Health. Additionally, any Health recovered from Regeneration or similar abilities will be subtracted from your stored Adrenaline.
Adrenaline is then converted back into Health when you deal damage to the Opponent. The amount converted is not based on the damage dealt, but instead on what level of attack you are throwing (eg; Light, Heavy, Special 3) and on your Champion’s Base Attack Rating.
Neither the initial storage of Adrenaline nor the conversion back into Health are affected by Regeneration Rate or abilities that block Healing (as it is not technically healing). Additionally, because Adrenaline is not itself Health, it cannot prevent a knockout if your Health is reduced to 0, and it does not persist into the next fight if you have any left over when a fight ends.
All of the above rules are unchanged and still apply. But going forward, we also have some new toys mechanics that may find their way to Champions in the future.
For starters, you may see Champions that increase or decrease their Combat Adrenaline, which is the familiar method of storage via hit damage. Until now, this rate (when not 0) has always been 30%, or 35% for those 7-stars whose Summoners haven’t yet changed their Stat Focus selections, but now more is possible. Note that anything that increases Combat Adrenaline will be a flat increase, meaning that increasing a 6-star’s Combat Adrenaline by +20% will cause 50% of incoming hit damage to be stored, rather than 36%. For 1 through 5-star Champions, Combat Adrenaline is 0%, but this can be increased by other effects!
We can also now grant Adrenaline in other places, which will be referred to as Ability Adrenaline. As you may have picked up on, this is very similar to the split between Combat and Ability Power Rates. On the conversion side, you may also see Champions that convert more Adrenaline with certain attacks, or in lump sums on other triggers! Lastly, to help you better process all of this more easily, we’ve changed the display of Adrenaline conversion to show up as blue numbers, rather than green, so you can better distinguish this health gain from traditional Regeneration.
To look down the road a bit, if you’re starting to worry about us interfering with the Adrenaline you’re used to, let me assure you that is not the goal here. What we want here is to be able to start building more Champions that hook into this unique and powerful resource, and to let you interact with it in ways that feel familiar from other parts of the game. For now, Cyclops dips a toe into these new waters with a pretty simple interaction in his Signature Ability, but keep an eye out for future Champions that expand on these mechanics in bewitching new ways!