8.00: Season 8

09 Jul 2021Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

Season 8 Begins

- July 12: Season 7 ends at 8am PDT / 5pm CEST. Ranked disabled. Player ratings are soft-reset.
- July 12: Patch 8.00 is released.
- July 14: Season 8 begins at 8am PDT / 5pm CEST. Ranked re-enabled.

Season 8 has a softer Elo reset to have fairer games early in the season.

2x Hybrid Featured Game Mode

- Build "tiers" instead of fighters. Each time you build a tier, a random fighter from that tier is built. Waves have x2 the number of spawns.
- Limited time from July 12 to 14

Tournaments

Steeni's Summer Cup 2k21
- Solo signup. Signup ends July 15.
- 1st place: 150€, $30 premium essence, and Steenicoin
- 2nd place: 100€, $20 premium essence
- Viewer raffle: 20€ and Steenicoin

LIHL Diamond Division
- Team signup. Signup ends September 3.
- 1st place: Auto-qualification for the LIHL Grandmaster Division. 3200 premium essence
- 2nd place: Auto-qualification for the LIHL Grandmaster Division. 2000 premium essence
- 3rd/4th place: 1000 premium essence

Masters Cup 8
Coming soon...

Unity Engine Upgrade

This patch upgrades our Unity engine, which is necessary for future development. While it has major benefits, there are a few drawbacks:
- Some Mac OS users may be unable to play due to a Unity issue outside of our control. This affects 1% of players. We intend to support the affected Mac OSes as soon as possible.
- 32-bit OS is no longer supported. This affects 0.2% of players. If it affects you, please consider upgrading to a 64-bit OS.
- If your game crashes or has new issues, let us know in Discord, so we can help you.

Translations

- New languages: Czech, Italian, Hungarian, Romanian
- Significantly improved: Traditional Chinese, Polish
- Improved and in progress: Spanish, Turkish, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Bulgarian, Arabic, Persian, Croatian

If you notice incorrect or missing translations, please visit LegionTD2.com/translate. Any improvements you make will show up next patch.

Thank you to the wonderful translators who have contributed.

Maps

Crystal Coast

The 2v2 map Crystal Coast is getting a makeover!

Oasis

Say goodbye to Desert Ridge, and please welcome our new 4v4 map Oasis.

Monuments

Monuments are a special new lane cosmetic. Think of them as a hall of fame or trophy case for your favorite cards. Equip up to 10 cards to show them off in-game. 6 monument slots (pedestals) are unlocked for free. The other 4 pedestals can be unlocked by owning secret cards, each secret card unlocking 1 pedestal. Equip 3 or 10 of the same card to get silver or gold pedestals.

Animated Lobby Backgrounds

Earth King

>> Earth King animated background preview

Yozora

>> Yozora animated background preview

Earth King is gifted to all players for free. Yozora can be unlocked in the shop with premium essence. Beta King remains as a free option as well.

Skins

We're finally releasing our Kickstarter Premium skins to the public.

Kickstarter backers who already own these skins will be gifted premium essence to unlock other skins and future content:
- Brute backers: 1260 premium essence
- Aqua backers: 2520 premium essence
- Zeus backers: 3780 premium essence
- Kraken backers: 5040 premium essence

Progression Improvements

Now that the game is soon exiting Early Access and nearing full release, player XP, guild XP, essence, and cards are receiving a big boost.

Essence
- Players now gain x3-5 the amount of essence on average.
- Essence cost for some items x2-3. Essence cost of cards is unchanged.
- Essence can now be used for name resets, instead of requiring premium essence.
- Essence bonus from Guild Contribution: 1% --> 3%.

Cards
- Card premium essence price: 1250 --> 395
- Bonus card drop rate per Pity Point: 1% --> 2%
- Due to higher essence gain, players can now acquire x3-5 the number of cards from the Card Trader.
- Cards can now be shown off in game as monuments.

Cards were ultra rare items. They are still rare, but no longer like a unicorn or grainy picture of the Loch Ness Monster. Cards are now significantly cheaper at the Card Trader, drop slightly more often, and have more real value. Cards are collectibles that can be used as avatars, shown off in game as monuments, and donated for Guild XP. They also add to your collection value.

Collect one of every card, or collect multiple of the same card for special borders and pedestals.

Leveling
- Players now level up significantly faster (x3 on average).

Guilds
- Guilds now level up significantly faster from levels 1 to 5.
- Guild application cooldown: 6 hours --> No cooldown.
- Due to higher essence gain, it's now 50% cheaper to apply to guilds.
- Players that are booted from guilds now get a partial essence refund.
- It's now much easier to find active, recruiting guilds. Browsing guilds now shows recently active guilds with room for new members, rather than random guilds.
- Bonus Guild XP and Contribution during Guild Wars: x2 --> x3
- Bonus Guild XP and Contribution from donating first card of that type: x2 --> x3

Weekly Challenge
- Players tied in first place each week now receive a Challenger Elite trophy and 2500 essence.
- The “First Place Finishes” leaderboard is still reserved for the first player to reach the top score.
- The Weekly Challenge “Top 20” leaderboard is replaced with “Weekly Challenge Wins” which is now awarded to anyone tied in first place.

Game Improvements & Fixes

4v4 Dual Building
- Enemy tab screen (Tab + Space) now supports dual building, rather than not showing their builds.

Quality of Life
- You can no longer use legion spells on units that have zero effect (Villain/Pulverizer on Soul Gate, Sorcerer on units with no ability damage).

Pathing & Targeting
- Fixed a bug where King wouldn't properly switch targets from its current target if a better target was available.
- All tank mercenaries now spawn slightly less in front to reduce the aggro difference when getting a tank send vs. no tank send.
- Fixed a case where ranged mercenaries would unexpectedly “snipe” backline fighters.
- Fixed a few other cases of pathing behaving unexpectedly.
- Fixed a case in the 4v4 map when catching leaks where fighters would keep trying to turn back when there were enemies in front of them.

Fixes & Improvements
- Fixed unintended interactions with Starcaller/Magician and Kingpin, Infiltrator, and Orchid.
- Fixed some cases where Sea Serpent/Deepcoiler didn’t play their burrow animation.
- Fixed a bug where Classic losses always displayed as 0 or 1 after finishing a game, instead of your actual classic losses that season.
- Fixed a bug where a client wouldn’t connect/reconnect to the Lobby server after finishing a game, which resulted in an unresponsive game client.
- Fixed a bug where alt + clicking a unit to ping it would accidentally select that unit, too.
- UI Scale (Experimental) capped at 200 instead of 300. Reminder that this is an experimental, currently unsupported feature. If you experience issues, set it to 100.
- Merged "Toggle Environment Assets" and "Enable High Quality Terrain" options into a single "Enable Full Scenery" option which provides similar performance, but retains more quality.
- When browsing Collection or Skins, it is now less laggy when scrolling up/down.
- Reduced ping spamming
-- All players have more consistent ping limits. Max 4 pings stored, recovering a ping every 2 seconds.
-- Chat banned players now have much stricter ping limits and cannot ping power score.

Game Balance

King

- Now 20-25% stronger in the early game, 10-20% stronger in the mid game, and 0-5% stronger in the late game.
- Fixed a bug where the king didn’t switch to a higher priority target, most noticeably on waves 10, 15, and 20.
- Upgrade Regeneration: 0.005% missing health + 0.005% max health >> 0.004% missing health + 0.004% max health.

Encouraging early game risk-taking and aggression with king health buffs and power mercenary buffs.

Leak Gold
- Gold gained from enemy leaks reduced by 5%.
- Leak gold is now deterministic, rather than random. 1.5 rounds up and always gives 2 gold, rather than granting 1 gold 50% of the time and 2 gold 50% of the time.
- Players that are behind now gain a larger share of enemy leak gold.

4v4
- Starting workers: 2 >> 1
- Leak gold (all sources) increased by 70% (now same as 2v2)
- 4v4-specific wave buffs on waves 11-21 reverted (now same as 2v2)

4v4 has an insanely bloated economy. Despite cutting leak gold many times, adding 4v4-specific wave buffs, and nerfing the king, 41% of games currently go to wave 21, usually causing lag. The above changes get things in a healthier spot, where worker counts and economy are more comparable to 2v2.

Hybrid

- Gold costs:
-- Tier 2: 44 >> 45
-- Tier 3: 81 >> 83
-- Tier 4: 130 >> 132
-- Tier 5: 180 >> 182
-- Tier 6: 254 >> 256

Hybrid is currently outperforming other builders, especially in low and mid Elo.

Legion Spells

Creditor

- Maximum gold saved each wave: 180 >> 170

Hero

- Damage and damage reduction: 6% >> 5.5%

Magician

- Mana regeneration: 0.3 >> 0.35

Pulverizer

- Stun percent: 32% (16% for ranged) >> 34% (17% for ranged)

Vampire

- Life Steal: 22% >> 23%

Venture

- Maximum gold invested: 115 >> 110

Fighters

Peewee

- Health: 260 >> 250
- Attack speed: 1.03 >> 1.01
- Booster: Attack speed gain: 105% >> 120%

Veteran

- Health: 1420 >> 1400
- Damage: 37 >> 36
- Stimpack: Attack speed gain: 105% >> 120%

Pack Rat

- Damage: 57 >> 58

Oathbreaker

- Health: 1150 >> 1140
- Damage: 36 >> 35

Dark Mage

- Redesigned and improved how Dark Mage prioritizes targets with Mind Warp. Will be smarter overall and easier to make adjustments in the future.

Bone Crusher

- DPS: Unchanged
- Damage: 53 >> 35
- Attack speed: 0.7 >> 1.05

Bringing back Bone Crusher opening by giving it better damage thresholds on waves 2 and 3.

Angler

- Health: 420 >> 400
- Damage: 20 >> 19
- Junior Fisherman: Mana per dying unit: 1 >> 2
- Can now gain mana from Magician and Starcaller

Young lads like Angler learn faster than old timers like Bounty Hunter. Increasing the viability of Angler openings and Anglers being used in the mid game.

Bounty Hunter

- Health: 1700 >> 1660
- Damage: 82 >> 78
- Can now gain mana from Magician and Starcaller

Bounty Hunter is statistically the best opening in the game. It is the #1 most common and #1 highest win rate opening in high Elo.

Zeus

- Power Surge: Damage: 80 >> 170
- Power Surge: Mana cost doubled

This change makes Zeus viable with Magician, Starcaller, Sacred Steed, and Pegasus (Zeus get stuck at max mana less often).

Pyro

- Attack speed: 1.59 >> 1.61

Small compensation buff for changes to waves 8 and 15.

Sky Queen

- Damage 69 >> 72
- Mana synergy with Magician, Starcaller, Sacred Steed, and Pegasus increased by 25%

Ranger

- Damage: 26 >> 27

Daphne

- Damage: 73 >> 75
- Mark Target: Damage amplification against bosses: 0.25 >> 0.5
- Mark Target: Max stacks: 20 >> 10

Bazooka

- Damage: 32 >> 33

Aqua Spirit

- Attack speed: 0.73 >> 0.74

Fire Elemental

- Damage: 33 >> 31 (Combustion damage unchanged)

Fire Elemental is statistically the second strongest opening after Bounty Hunter.

Nekomata

- Attack speed: 0.91 >> 0.92

Golden Buckler

- Attack speed: 0.79 >> 0.77

Royal Guard

- Attack speed: 0.91 >> 0.88

Fun fact: Golden Buckler and Royal Guard were the only fighters never to have been buffed or nerfed after release.

Sacred Steed

- Mana regeneration increased by 5%
- Self buff (when no mana users around): 40% attack speed >> 20% attack speed and 20% damage reduction
- Mana synergy with Magician and Starcaller increased by 100% (Sacred Steed was unexpectedly the worst unit to buff with Magician or Starcaller)

Pegasus

- Mana regeneration increased by 5%
- Self buff (when no mana users around): 40% attack speed >> 20% attack speed and 20% damage reduction

Warg

- Health: 980 >> 960

Alpha Male

- Attack speed: 1.11 >> 1.09

Lioness

- Health: 2360 >> 2300

Warg is currently the premier natural fighter with a 94% pick rate and solid win rate. It has efficient stats and versatility with two upgrade paths.

Gateguard / Harbinger

- +5% mana regeneration

Windhawk

- DPS: Unchanged
-- Damage: 46 >> 35
-- Attack speed: 0.97 >> 1.27

Now perfectly 3-shots wave 1. Bringing back Windhawk as an opening and introducing more openings that leak to Snail to mix up the wave 1 meta.

Infiltrator

- Health: 740 >> 720

Orchid

- Health: 2600 >> 2520

Lost Chieftain

- Gaia Shield: Cast Range: 700 >> 1000 (now the same as Chain Heal, Mind Warp, and Mana Blessing/Miracle)

Honeyflower

- Health: 1330 >> 1350

Deathcap

- Health: 4050 >> 4100

Small compensation buffs for the changes to waves 8 and 15.

Butcher

- Health: 1300 >> 1350
- Attack speed: 0.97 >> 1.01

Head Chef

- Health: 3600 >> 3730
- Attack speed: 0.97 >> 1.01

Making Butcher a more competitive pick with natural tanks like Warg, Antler, and Golden Buckler.

Antler

- Thick Hide: Bonus damage reduction when build next to Whitemane: 15% >> 10%

Antler has a 93% pick rate. Rather than nerf its base stats, we’re nerfing how much free damage reduction it gets with Whitemane. Antler’s insane self-synergy with Whitemane makes multi-tank combos like Whitemane + Golem or King Claw less rewarding than they should be.

Grarl

- Attack speed: 0.87 >> 0.86

Now leaks 1 extra Wale to a Snail on wave 2 when solo

King Claw

- Health: 4350 >> 4450

Ocean Templar

- Resonance: Regeneration: 1.75% >> 2%

APS

- Health: 900 >> 870
- Attack speed: 1.49 >> 1.45

MPS

- Health: 2350 >> 2230
- DPS: 148 >> 146
-- Damage: 99 >> 101
-- Attack speed: 1.49 >> 1.45

Radiant Halo / Arc of Justice

- Attack speed: 1.09 >> 1.07

Starcaller

- Self mana regeneration reduced by 0.1
- Amplify Magic aura: Mana regeneration: 0.5 >> 0.6

Millennium

- Health: 2000 >> 2100

Doomsday Machine

- Health: 4900 >> 5140

Reverting the last hotfix nerfs during the AOE meta, which over-nerfed these units.

Soul Gate / Hell Gate

- Mana regeneration increased by 4%

Mercenaries

Right now, it’s too strong to play safely by income sending and scaling, then all-inning late game. Power mercenary buffs create a leakier, more fun game and reward aggression, especially in the early game. Power mercenaries are now more likely to cause leaks, but with king buffs and bounty changes, those leaks are no longer as game-breaking.