“Hello, Heroes!
Ahead of a more significant feature update as we go into Early Access, we’re continuing to refine the state of the game’s balance through a series of balance patches where we adjust the stats and abilities of our cards. Our aim is to bring into line any cards that are proving to be too consistently powerful whilst also giving some underplayed cards a nudge towards competitive viability in order to maintain a broad pool of exciting archetypes and decks for you guys to explore.
Scroll down for a full list of changes broken down by Hero, then sound off in the comments to let us know what you think.
Happy chicken chasing!”
- Tom “Wimbles” Wimbush (Lead Designer)
Heroes
Gravedigger:
Buffing Arise, nerfing Cemetery Bannerman.
“Arise has got a bad rep, but it’s also not quite there in terms of its power level compared to other similar effects so we’ve reduced its cost by 1 to make it more of an appealing removal spell.
Cemetery Bannerman meanwhile has proven to be a bit too strong in the early game, which was warping our ability to balance the Gravedigger’s other low cost cards. We’ve toned it down a little while trying to retain its role as a way to maintain board control in the early turns.”
Card changes:
- Arise: Cost reduced from 4 to 3.
- Cemetery Bannerman: Cost reduced from 3 to 2. Number of 1/1 Shamblers summoned reduced from three to two.
Knight:
More support for peasants.
“We’re generally looking to give peasants a bit more support as they’ve not quite been living up to our expectations compared to the more popular midrange Knight decks. In particular, Muster hasn’t been the powerhouse that we thought it might be, so we’re reducing its cost to get it to fit at a more convenient point during a battle.
On the subject of peasants, we also have All Peasant and Correct. Bit overcosted, eh? Oops. It’s better now, I promise.
Even though we want to give peasant decks a bit of extra power, Master of Bacon has proven to be surprisingly strong in combination with Angry Mob, Blacksmith and similar effects. We’re making him more fragile without reducing his potential to snowball the early portion of the game.
Puncture also really doesn’t need to be able to smack your opponent for up to 8 damage on top of already being a very efficient spell, so we’ve restricted it to only hit units. ”
Card changes:
- All Peasant and Correct: Cost reduced from 9 to 6.
- Puncture: Changed possible targets from any enemy to enemy Units only.
- Master of Bacon: Health reduced from 3 to 2.
- Muster: Cost reduced from 6 to 5.
Merchant:
Blockade and Broadside buffs.
“Blockade just isn’t doing what we want it to do for the Safeguard and control Merchant archetypes, so we’ve brought its cost right down. To zero, in fact. Boom.
We overnerfed Broadside way back in the heady days of Alpha, and are restoring some of its former glory to help the Merchant claw back control of the board during the midgame.”
Card changes:
- Blockade: Base cost reduced from 2 to 0. Increased the cost of the Invest option from (+2) to (+3).
- Broadside: Reduced the cost of the Invest option from (+3) to (+2).
Prophet:
The start of something greater.
“The Prophet is one of the most problematic Heroes in the game right now, because he only really does one thing: heal. This allows him to play a long and controlling game quite well, however he has few options if he wants to play anything else. We’re currently testing a whole suite of balance changes for the Prophet internally, but ahead of that we wanted to get some updates out to address some of his more egregious cards.
Healing Beam does too little to warrant a slot in your deck, while Leeching Swarm was too expensive to act as a useful board sweeper. Oasis was far too expensive for what is a very niche effect. Sleeping Sands was an interesting, but ultimately confusing design that didn’t do enough to impact the state of a match, so we’ve redesigned it to help you maintain board control after you’ve already established it.”
Card changes:
- Healing Beam: Cost increased from 2 to 3. Healing increased from 6 to 8.
- Leeching Swarm: Cost reduced from 7 to 6. Healing reduced from 5 to 3. Now heals all friendly Characters instead of just your Hero.
- Oasis: Cost reduced from 3 to 1. Now only heals all Units instead of all Characters.
- Sleeping Sands: Redesigned to (1) “Set an enemy unit's Strength to 0 this turn and remove it from Guard."
Shapeshifter:
Toning down the Predatory Balverine and Good Hero Power.
“Shapeshifter remains on notice for possibly being too strong overall, but we wanted to start by addressing the potency of her Good Hero Power. Right now, once you get reduced to low Health when playing against the Shapeshifter, you’re on an incredibly fast clock as they’re able to chip away at you for 2 damage pretty much every turn just by using their Hero Power. That’s not a fun situation to be in, so we’ve changed the extra damage trigger to use Strength instead of Health, meaning that it’s still a powerful tool for board control but not for slapping your opponent in the face.
Predatory Balverine is a premier Shapeshifter card that stands out as being too strong right now, so we’ve adjusted it to be more of a midgame control unit rather than a lategame powerhouse.”
Hero Power changes:
- Focused Rend (Good): Changed to deal 2 damage if the target has 5/4/3 Strength instead of 5/4/3 Health.
Card changes:
- Predatory Balverine: Cost reduced from 7 to 5. Strength reduced to 5, Health reduced to 4. Rend damage reduced from 3 to 2.
Alchemist:
Making Potion of Youth & Recipe for Success more appealing while making Glassblower & Huckster less oppressive.
“Glassblower is a terrifying card when your opponent manages to keep him alive for more than one turn, so we’ve reduced his Health so that it’s a little easier to deal with on the turn that he’s played.
Huckster was competing with Chesty for the title of strongest turn 1 play in the game, and that really shouldn’t be the case. Less stats for you, sir.
As the Alchemist already has a lot of ways to fill up their hand, Recipe for Success wasn’t really an appealing option at any point in the game, so we’ve kept the hand-buffing effect the same while reducing the card’s cost and ability to draw.
Potion of Youth has seen almost no play so far, and rightfully so: the effect was too difficult to build around. It’s now a much more reliable Health buff which can be comboed with all sorts of units to create a monster, which is rather more fun and effective.”
Card changes:
- Glassblower: Health reduced from 5 to 4.
- Huckster: Strength reduced from 2 to 1.
- Potion of Youth: Redesigned to (2) “Give a unit +5 Health."
- Recipe For Success: Cost reduced from 7 to 5. Number of cards drawn reduced from 3 to 2.
Neutral Cards:
Sir Walter arises! Plus some more support for various archetypes.
“Sir Walter was the prime example of a problem we have with many of our Fabled cards right now: he was just too damn good. Too much value, too consistently, and therefore far too able to take over the game. He also went into every deck that you could fit him into. Not exactly what we were shooting for, so we hotfixed him a while back while we worked on an updated design.
We want our Fabled cards to be exciting. The kind of card that you want to build a deck around, or can use to really spice up an existing deck. Not something that you just put into all decks at all times.
So. Sir Walter now has a Big Entrance that sets the Strength and Health of all units in your hand to 4. We’ve really liked this effect in testing and its indicative of the kind of direction that we want to take our Fabled cards moving forwards, so you can expect more changes of this nature in future updates.
Leaving Sir Walter aside, we’ve also tweaked a few other units. Stampeding Fans and Arms Dealer are supposed to be payoff cards for a deck that aims to quickly complete Quests, but they just weren’t fulfilling that role so we’ve given them some extra power. Wasp Queen, Westcliff Recruiter, Friendly Crone, Malignant Wisp, Magehunter and Potato Farmer were all just slightly under the bar in terms of being playable, so we’ve given them all a slight nudge in the stat department. Greatwood Troll meanwhile was providing too much value in an aggressive deck for what was supposed to be a Safeguard/controlling card, so we’ve toned it down a little.
We also reworked the early game all-star also known as Bandit Ambusher to be more of a midgame value unit. He was just providing too much power too early in the game.”
Card changes:
- Arms Dealer: Cost reduced from 6 to 4. Strength reduced from 6 to 4. Health reduced from 4 to 3.
- Bandit Ambusher: Cost increased from 2 to 6. Strength increased from 3 to 6. Health increased from 2 to 4.
- Friendly Crone: Strength increased from 2 to 4.
- Greatwood Troll: Safeguard damage reduced from 3 to 2.
- Magehunter: Health increased from 3 to 4.
- Malignant Wisp: Health increased from 2 to 3.
- Potato Farmer: Big entrance damage increased from 1 to 2.
- Sir Walter: Redesigned to (6) 4/4 with "Big Entrance: Set the Strength and Health of all units in your hand to 4."
- Stampeding Fans: Strength increased from 4 to 5. Health increased from 4 to 6.
- Wasp Queen: Cost reduced from 4 to 3. Health reduced from 5 to 4.
- Westcliff Recruiter: Cost reduced from 4 to 3. Health reduced from 4 to 3.