Hello Guildmasters!

Welcome to our most stunning update yet, in which we bring to you:

• Heroes now build up Stun Resistance against repeated enemy stuns

• 5 Heroes now have Stun Immunity while casting their active abilities

• Buffs across the board to Class Modifiers (Ranks A and S) and Event Relic/Item decisions

• Hero updates

• and of course, bug fixes - thank you all for reporting and helping us!

As always,⭐ marks changes inspired by community suggestions.

Now, let's jump into the changes.

Visual Update

• The relic Rift Puppy's Cry now has an icon.

Bug Fixes

• ⭐ Fixed a bug that would cause certain complex interactions between effects to sometimes stop midway of the execution

  • E.g. Assassin’s Elevation Prism should properly generate shards now. 

• ⭐ Revived characters are no longer losing their active effects

• ⭐ Fixed Ratna’s The Fashionable specialization not accounting for all the equipped items

• ⭐ Fixed character freezing after teleporting into a position encircled by enemies instead of simply attacking them

• ⭐ Damage should no longer be distributed to characters that died within the same frame

• ⭐ Fixed characters sometimes dropping aggro instead of dying when dropping below zero HP and regenerating it back within the same frame

• ⭐ Moved Wishlist button so that it doesn't cover hero's mastery star

• ⭐ Added Rift Puppy's Cry relic icon

• ⭐ Kai’s “The Bold” specialization is back to Stall (15). It was set to 20 in the last patch due to a technical error.

• ⭐ The Debuff Channeling Class Modifier no longer triggers more often than intended.

• ⭐ The Acceleration Filigree Relic now works with any enemy death, not just deaths caused by Hero damage (now works on debuff/relic kill).

• ⭐ Fixed wrong and missing icons

  • ⭐ Big Bow (thanks to everyone who reports!)

  • ⭐ Spiked Vest (previously the same as Enlarging Vest)

  • ⭐ Battlemage Robes (previously the same as Robes)

Gameplay Changes

Greetings, Guildmasters! Welcome back to Aleco's design notes.

Heroes will now build up Stun Resistance against repeated enemy stuns, and 5 Heroes have gained Stun Immunity while casting their active abilities. From a balance perspective, the primary goal for this patch was to make Class Modifier and Event Relic/Item decisions more interesting by increasing the number of pickable and powerful options available to both.

I hope that players will find that there’s something for everyone in this patch. There are tons of buffs for people playing across all difficulties to explore, Stun and Hero changes meant to open up new possibilities for Endless Mode players, and a couple of key adjustments for Red Rift gamers to reduce the number of auto-pick options throughout the game.

As a heads up to all the patch enthusiasts out there, I’m going to be out for the next two weeks. This means that the next two patches are likely to include few or no balance changes, and that we’ll be returning to our regularly scheduled programming once I’m back. Without further ado, let’s jump in!

Stun Resistance and Stun Immunity

One of the hardest obstacles for players to overcome in Endless Mode is having their Heroes repeatedly stunned. Once the Snake and Mushroom Tank reach high enough Attack Speed values, they can reach a point where they are capable of stunlocking Heroes out of a fight. Stun Resistance is being introduced in this patch specifically to help curb this problem, and is a pure buff to the player as enemies will not gain Stun Resistance.

A small number of Heroes are now immune to stuns while casting their active ability, which should help abilities with longer wind-up times feel more consistent. Most Heroes (especially Yuuna) will purely benefit from this change, but it’s worth noting that Kai will no longer gain another round of Shields from his active ability if he is stunned while casting and immediately casts again. I expect that the addition of Stun Immunity will be a net neutral change for Kai, but if it ends up having a larger impact on him than expected I’ll quickly follow up with some buffs in a hotfix or future patch.

• Stun Resistance: Whenever a Hero is stunned, they gain a stacking Stun Resistance for 15 seconds. Each stack of Stun Resistance reduces the duration of Stuns received by 25%, and provides full Stun Immunity at 4 stacks.

  • This only applies when a Stun is actually applied to a Hero. Heroes that are currently Stun Immune, for example, do not gain a stack of Stun Resistance. 

  • Heroes can acquire any number of Stun Resistance stacks, and the duration of each Stun Resistance stack is independent of other stacks (similar to how Shields work).

• The following Heroes now have Stun Immunity while casting their active ability:

  • Kai

  • Skorn

  • Yuuna

  • Karsu

  • Tilly

• In-game descriptions have not yet been updated to reflect these changes. We are planning to update descriptions related to Stun in an upcoming hotfix.

⬆️Class Modifiers⬆️

A common piece of feedback I have been hearing from players is that certain Class Modifiers felt much more powerful than others, which could lead to situations where A and S rank-up decisions didn’t really feel like decisions at all. Every change in this section is a buff, and though I don’t expect these buffs to completely solve that problem, I hope they’re a step in the right direction towards making rank-up decisions as interesting as possible.

• Assassin

  • Poisonous Edge

    • Crit bonus: 66% -> 80%

  • Poisonous Eye

    • Crit scaling: 33% -> 50%

  • Lurker

    • Stealth duration: 4 -> 5

  • Enforced Presence

    • Attack and Magic bonus: 12 -> 15

• Duelist

  • Ranger

    • Now gives 40 Attack Speed

  • Scaling Speed

    • Attack Speed bonus: 20 -> 25

  • Poisonous Attacks

    • Attack Speed threshold: 1 per 100 -> 1 per 66

    • Max Poison: 3 -> 6

  • Burning Attacks

    • Attack Speed threshold: 1 per 40 -> 1 per 33

    • Max Burn: 9 -> 10

  • Critical Timing

    • Rush duration: 5 -> 10

• Mage

  • Burning Absorption

    • Burn threshold: 1 per 6 -> 1 per 4

  • Stalled Growth

    • Stall duration: 30 -> 25

  • Stalled Heat

    • Magic scaling: 66% -> 80%

  • Magical Growth

    • Magic bonus: 15 -> 20

• Mystic

  • Stall Enlightenment

    • Mana Regen bonus: 2 -> 4 

  • Arcane Growth

    • Magic bonus: 1 -> 2

  • Shield Formation

    • Base shield: 250 -> 400

  • Shard Weaver

    • Shards gained: 2 -> 3 

• Vanguard

  • Intimidating Aura

    • Max HP scaling: 2% -> 3%

  • Burning Eye

    • Base Burn: 0 -> 30

  • Burning Aura

    • Max HP increment: 1000 -> 800

    • Max Burn: 5 -> 7

  • Aggressive Presence

    • Attack bonus per rank: 40 -> 50

• Tank

  • Poisonous Aura

    • Defense threshold: 1 per 250 -> 1 per 120

    • Max Poison: 3 -> 6

  • The Best Offense

    • Defense threshold: 1 per 3 -> 1 per 2

  • Second Wind

    • Stall duration: 35 -> 30

    • Defense bonus: 20% -> 25% 

• Warrior

  • Ranger

    • Now gives 50 Attack

  • Scaling Attack

    • Attack bonus: 25 -> 33

  • Victorious Presence

    • Attack bonus: 20 -> 25

Relics and Items

I’m lumping the relics and items together this week, as the majority of these changes are focused on improving the overall balance of items and relics offered by events. Similar to the class modifiers, my goal with these changes is to make decisions within events more interesting and less automatic.

• The Altar, The Fallen Beast, and The Abandoned Camp Relics:

  • Poison Bauble

    • ⬆️Poison applied: 5 -> 10

  • Burn Bauble

    • ⬆️Burn applied: 15 -> 20

  • Shield Fluctuator

    • ⬆️Crit bonus: 15 -> 20 

    • ⬆️Mana Regen bonus: 4 -> 5 

  • Shard Resonator

    • ⬇️Shields applied: 600 -> 400

  • Acceleration Resonator

    • ⬇️Shields applied: 250 -> 200

  • Acceleration Accumulator

    • ⬆️Quest requirement: 3 -> 2

  • Deceleration Accumulator

    • ⬆️Quest requirement: 3 -> 2

• The Altar, The Fallen Beast, and The Abandoned Camp Items:

  • Hasty Vest

    • ⬆️Shields applied: 250 -> 300

  • Toxic Shiv

    • ⬆️Poison applied: 1 -> 3

  • Toxic Gauntlet

    • ⬆️Poison applied: 1 -> 3

  • Searing Vest

    • ⬆️Burn applied: 1 -> 2

  • Searing Tome

    • ⬆️Burn applied: 15 -> 20

  • Shielding Flask

    • ⬆️Mana Regen bonus: 4 -> 6

• Guild Banner Relics:

  • Duelist’s Outbreak Banner

    • Notes: This relic was the single biggest outlier in the data this week, outperforming all other banner relics in the game by nearly 10% in winrate. I’m trying out a new design for this relic instead of attempting to salvage what seems like an unbalanceable one. This new design should be much closer in power level to the rest of the Duelist relics than the old design was, and if it doesn’t land there immediately I’m confident that some minor number changes will get us there.

    • 🔄Now reads “Whenever a Duelist auto attacks, they deal 15 bonus damage per type of Debuff on their target.”

  • Duelist’s Toxin Banner

    • ⬆️Poison applied: 1 -> 2

  • Tank’s Poisonplate Banner

    • ⬆️Poison applied: 1 -> 2

  • Tank’s Readiness Banner

    • ⬆️Stall duration: 6 -> 8

  • Tank’s Patience Banner

    • ⬆️Defense bonus: 5 -> 8

  • Vanguard’s Flameplate Banner

    • ⬆️Burn applied: 3 -> 4

  • Vanguard's Flamefists Banner

    • ⬆️Burn applied: 3 -> 4

  • Mage’s Elemental Banner

    • ⬆️Damage per frost: 4 -> 6

    • ⬆️Damage per burn: 2 -> 3

  • Mage’s Inferno Banner

    • ⬆️Magic scaling: 100% -> 150%

  • Mage's Enlightenment Banner

    • ⬆️Magic bonus: 6 -> 10

• Random Event Items:

• Protection Crystal and Force Crystal

  • Notes: I’m very happy with how effective these crystals are at helping players through tricky fights, but with 3 available charges they are currently solving too many problems. One too many, in fact. 

  • ⬇️Charges: 3 -> 2

• Rare Relics:

  • Burn Conduit

    • ⬆️Quest requirement: 600 -> 500

  • Violence Conduit

    • ⬆️Quest requirement: 200 -> 150

  • Poison Conduit

    • ⬆️Quest requirement: 200 -> 150

  • Arcane Conduit

    • ⬆️Quest requirement: 20 -> 15

• Rare Items:

  • Toxic Contract

    • ⬆️Base Mana Regen: 4 -> 6 

  • Searing Contract

    • ⬆️Base Max HP: 200 -> 300 

• Epic Items:

  • Ring of Virality

    • ⬆️Base Max HP: 100 -> 200

Heroes

As with our other changes this week, these Hero adjustments are primarily intended to make each B-rank up moment as interesting as possible by expanding on the number of pickable specializations. There are also a few changes this week, to Funke’s Wildfire and Reyna’s Champion spec, which are intended to make them more powerful in the late game by borrowing a bit of their power in the early game.

• Niklas

  • Notes: Niklas has landed in a great spot after the adjustments to him in the past two patches, and has settled in as one of the more popular and powerful characters across all game modes. I’m happy with how his baseline kit is performing, but both the data and player feedback point towards his Hoarder spec as being significantly more powerful than his other options. I’ve also made an adjustment to The Dealer so that it isn’t so feast or famine - it now consistently creates an item every 4 casts instead of creating one 25% of the time, and comes with a bit more power to boot.

  • The Hoarder

    • ⬇️Added Rush (15)

  • The Dealer (Active ability)

    • 🔄Create an item 25% of the time -> Creates an item every 4 casts

    • ⬆️Base damage: 175 -> 225

• Skorn

  • Notes: The Haughty can be a very exciting and powerful spec, but it can also feel really bad to pick up when you are limited on Stall triggers. This change should help stabilize it a bit more while you’re starting to get the Stall ball rolling while making a minimal difference on its late-game power.

  • The Haughty

    • ⬆️Now provides +100 base Shields per rank.

• Nyx

  • Notes: Nyx’s other specs are looking great, it’s time for The Wild to catch up!

  • The Wild (Active Ability)

    • ⬆️Attack Speed scaling: 33% -> 50% 

    • ⬆️Attack and Magic scaling: 25% -> 33%

• Reyna

  • Notes: Reyna’s Boxer spec was simultaneously her least appealing option for Endless players and her most appealing spec by a wide margin in Red Rift. The reason for this is that most of its power was baked into its base values, and not enough of it was baked into its scaling. With these changes, The Boxer will deal a bit less damage until Reyna reaches ~135 Attack, at which point it will become more and more powerful than it was before.

  • 🔄The Boxer

    • ⬇️Base damage: 150 -> 50

    • ⬆️Attack Scaling: 150% -> 225%

• Funke

  • Notes: Funke has been blasting through Red Rift early games while also being one of the weakest Heroes in the game for deep Endless Mode runs. Just as it was with The Boxer changes above, the goal here is to move some of that early game power to Funke’s late game scaling potential. With these new numbers Wildfire will surpass the Burn of the old numbers at around 130 Magic, which is quite a bit less than the average amount of Magic one would expect to have on Funke by the time he arrives in Endless Mode.

  • 🔄Wildfire (Active Ability)

    • ⬇️Base Burn per fireball: 12 -> 0

    • ⬆️Magic Burn scaling: 66% -> 75%

• Zuri

  • Notes: Small buff to Zuri’s weakest spec. We’ll get there eventually!

  • ⬆️The Cruel (Active)

    • ⬆️+10 Starting Mana

• Karsu

  • Notes: Last week’s mini-rework of Karsu seems to have landed pretty well. I’m going to leave her base kit alone for now, but am giving some love to her lowest performing (and most popular) spec.

  • The Warband

    • ⬆️Attack Speed bonus per cast: 3 -> 4 

• Hoyoung

  • Notes: A little love for the least popular of Hoyoung’s 3 specs.

  • The Conduit

    • ⬆️Mana Regen Bonus: 2 -> 3