Minion Masters!
Patch 1.32 is coming in hot and with it two awesome cards and a ton of Balance changes to go with it!
Minion Masters Invasion - Season 2
Introducing 2 new cards
A'zog, Voidfiend of Shars'Rakk
Impetus Blast
Balance Changes
Buffs
Mordar
Dev comments: As we promised a couple updates ago, mordar would get a buff after we swapped his perks. By making stuns a less consistent trigger-blocker, countering the resurrections becomes more skill-based, and if they are more consistent, we can balance them a lot better than in the extremely binary, “Do you have a stunning spell?” scenario. We had to be a bit careful with the buff, as Mordar also had a bug where his perk 2 did not work until perk 3 was gained, so that is fixed now as well, which should help him a lot as well.
- Stuns no longer reset timer on tombstones (but cant ress while stunned)
- activation delay 10->15
Demon Warrior
Dev comments: Demon warrior can use a bit of a buff, but we want to take it slow.
- AS 2 > 1.9
Spawn of Fury
Dev comments: Just a small buff to make the card a bit more usable.
- Reduces max health/damage by 33% > 25%
Crystal Construct/Guardian
Dev comments: All the construct variants are underperforming, so we make them all a bit better at tanking.
- HP 800 > 850
Spirit Infusion
Dev comments:Spirit infusion is one of the least played cards, and performing badly when it is. Historically we have seen some balance issues with it though, so we want to see if we can push it a bit more into accursed ascension, to make up for the potential strength of lots of spirits.
- Accursed Ascension count 1 > 2
Gor'Rakk Gate
Dev comments: Gor’Rakk Gate comes with a great cost in health and is not played a lot, and with the set cycle, we are not too afraid of 3 mana being too good. We limited the number of copies to 1 to prevent you from quickly playing 3x the best option in a row.
- Mana cost 4 > 3
- Copies 3 > 1
Mana Puff Madness
Dev comments: While Mana Puff Madness is not a card we would ever want to be in the actual meta, we do want it to be played by some players. This should give it a bit more viability, without making it too strong.
- Mana 3 > 1
- Add mana freeze (2)
Mountainshaper
Dev comments: Mountainshaper was mostly played by wildcarding it, now that you can’t do that anymore, a buff is in order.
- Dam 100 > 125
Bridge Shrine
Dev comments: Bridge shrine is both underplayed and underperforming, so by giving it a decent buff, but not in xp generation we hope to make it more consistent, but not strengthening
- HP 400 > 500
Sapphire Pebble
Dev comments: Pebbles were a very weak released card and have not found a place yet. By increasing their damage and lowering their myriad we hope to make a 2 pebble play worth it, but with the CardCount up to 2 a 4 Pebble play is possible, and we would love to see what you can do with that!
- Myriad 2 > 1
- Dam 40 > 50
- Count 1 > 2
Bats Bats Bats
Dev comments: At high level Bats Bats Bats is both the card with the lowest playrate AND the lowest winrate, so while this buff might not be enough, this is a card, similar to mana puff madness, that should never really be meta, but does deserve some play!
- Mana 5 > 4
QuestingKnight
Dev comments: Avea has not been performing great, with very low playrates and winrates, so we decided on a decently big buff, and we will keep an eye out to see if we overdid it.
- HP 350 > 450
Thunder Shrine
Dev comments: Thunder shrine has been a bit frustrating with massive spawn stun, stunning even the masters! So we decided to reduce the cost, but lower the range, no longer allwing the Thunder shrine to hit the base.
- Range 25 > 20
- Mana 4 > 3
Gambler's Ball
Dev comments: Gamblers ball has not performed well, so making its ability to active easier should help.
- Sacrifice 3 > 2
NERFS
Burn the bridges:
Dev comments: Burn the bridges is a spell with extreme potential, most effectively used in 2v2, and the rage of volco is most effective used in premades. The result of this is that volco has a pretty bad winrate in 1v1, but very high winrates in 2v2. We will be looking into ways to make volco better in 1v1, but we could not have a master be this dominating in 2v2.
- Renamed to Burn the Bridge
- Burn 1 of the 2 bridges (whichever is closest)
Harmful souls
Dev comments: We wanted to give more counterplay against harmful souls, by delaying the souls a bit you have more time to play minions in the area.
- Starts at +0.5s and between souls at +0.1s
Dragon nest
Dev comments: Dragon nest is the main reason Milloween has been dominating at the top level in 1v1, so by nerfing dragon nests duration we hope to solve the 1 master that stood out in 1v1.
- Lifetime 35 >25s
Scott
Dev comments: Scott has been performing really well for a long time, and has pretty insane dps, so by lowering it a bit he should be a bit more in line with other cards
- Damage 65 >60
Incubus
Dev Comments: Now that incubus can’t jump to the base anymore he deserves a little bit off love, and succubus is too busy with the enemy's minions ;)
- Damage 60 >65
Scrap yard
Dev comments: Since Ruby was added to the game scrap yard has been popping off, with the possibility to get a lot of scraps from such an expensive outlander card, that has even more scrap generation potential through the ability card. By removing the base, but also fixing the stun bug that caused it to reset to 0 scraps spent, we hope to get it balanced, but because of the bug, it was hard to see what the actual strength was, so we will keep an eye out.
- Remove base 60
- Fixed the stun bug
Ruby
Dev comments: Ruby has been a staple of the meta this patch, and despite that we like seeing new cards being used, she is definitely being used a bit too much. While her winrates are pretty average, we feel like she has no clear counters, so we wanted to give her a more clear weakness by making her side cannons not hit flying units.
We have heard your complaints about her ability, and will keep a close eye to her in the upcoming patch!
- Can't hit flying
Stormbringer
Dev comments: More of a bug-fix than a balance change, but there was a bit of frustration with Stormbringer, where he would waste arrows more often than death prediction should allow. This might mean he needs a nerf next patch, but we want to see how much of an effect it actually has first.
- Added Stormbringer Death Prediction
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue with the King Puff tips being outdated - Thanks Badasafish80
- Fixed an issue with stuns resetting scrarpyard’s scraps
- Fixed an issue with tombstones not giving haste
- Fixed an issue with tombstones not glowing again after they’ve been stunned - Thanks Matt
- Fixed an issue with Scrat tunnels ability card
- Fixed an issue with Death prediction not accounting for Stonebjorn’s damage reduction
- Fixed an issue with shield guard of light getting triggered when shielded by Sugilite shield - Thanks Me
- Fixed an issue with TTT not stopping its attacks when being stunned - Thanks Doc_Banane
- Fixed an issue with achievements not being synced correctly
- Added the Description to the Mecha suit of Volco
- Fixed an issue with Spawn of Fury and rounding errors - Thanks Jackeea
- Fixed an issue with that searing light using the Valorian skin equipped by your own Valorian
- Fixed an issue with Avea causing FPS drops while in hand after completing a quest
- Fixed an issue with Chain Gang causing FPS drops while in hand