Hello Champions,
Get ready, the first balance patch notes of Season 3 (V0.11.2) are here!
This update will include some exciting mix-ups to the Jungle, with changes to Camp respawn timers and general Camp durability at the forefront. The broader goal of these Jungle changes is to improve the overall gameplay loop for Junglers in the form of additional pathing choices and a greater opportunity cost when opting for too many ganks - but you can read all about this in further detail below!
While the Jungle changes are the meat of this patch and will require further tuning over-time, you can also expect a range of Hero adjustments and bug fixes, including some light nerfs to the our newest addition, Serath; as well as the ability for Zarus to gain Ultimate stacks on Takedown; and some UI adjustments! The patch is available to download right now.
Let’s dive into it!
~ Import (Game Design)
Revenant Raven Quill Skin
Halloween is just around the corner where all things creepy and spooky come out to play… You can too, with Revenant’s new Raven Quill skin [Rare]!
Stun your enemies with your eldritch good looks, first available in V0.11.2!
Design Time - Developer Livestream
On Wednesday 4th October at 19:00 BST, we’ll be live on our Twitch channel with three members of our design team to discuss topics like balance, gameplay and lots more, as well as answering some community questions submitted on Reddit. If you would like to post a question, just drop it in the comments section of this post here.
You can expect lots more livestreams as Season 3 progresses, ranging from informational streams like this to more play oriented ones. So keep an eye out for a schedule coming soon!
Drongo’s Boomerang allows him to apply a lot of pressure in the early lane stage, granting him the deadly combination of strong wave clear and extreme burst when paired with his Rad Rounds. To help slow him down and give more windows of weakness, we’re increasing Old Rusty’s cooldown in the early stages of a match. Likewise, we’ve remedied a bug with his Ultimate’s Shred effect, and have lowered the Shred to compensate for its overall increase.
Old Rusty [RMB]:
◆ Cooldown increased from 10/9/8/7/6 to 12/10.5/9/7.5/6.
Shrapnel Cannon [R]:
◆ Physical Armor Shred decreased from 35% to 25%.
◆ [Bugfix] Shred now applies for the correct amount. (23% > 25%)
In Offlane, Feng Mao’s ability to take short trades with his Shield and accompanying Basic Attack Reset gives him too much strength in the early game - especially when paired with his high Health Regeneration. We’re pulling back on this early strength to ensure he does not run-down his opponents as easily while being more prone to chip damage as a result of having less inherent regeneration.
General:
◆ Base Health Regeneration decreased from 2.7 to 2.
◆ Basic Attack Timer (BAT) increased from 1.1 to 1.15.
Safeguard [Q]:
◆ Mana Cost increased from 50 to 60.
◆ Shielding changed from 90/125/160/195/230 to 80/120/160/200/240.
Greystone overperforms in the Jungle due to his general durability and capacity to run down opponents and hard reset a fight with his Ultimate’s healing. To help mitigate this, we’re dropping the potency and uptime on his ultimate in the early stages of the match, while granting his Make Way a lower cooldown in the earlier stages of a match to help him keep better pace in the Offlane where he sees far less success.
Make Way [Q]:
◆ Cooldown decreased from 14/13/12/11/10 to 12/11.5/11/10.5/10.
Sacred Oath [E]:
◆ Duration decreased from 6s to 5s.
Stone Forged Soul [R]:
◆ Cooldown increased from 150/125/100 to 160/130/100.
◆ Minimum Healing decreased from 14%/17%/20% to 14%/16%/18%.
◆ Maximum Healing decreased from 42%/51%/60% to 42%/48%/54%.
The health regeneration offered by Kallari’s Shadow Walk can be difficult to utilise as a sustain tool in the earlier stages of a match and can be difficult to extract value from. We’re giving it an extra kick in the earlier stages of the match to feel more meaningful, while ensuring her Regeneration capabilities do not become too overbearing in Offlane with a small increase in Mana cost on the ability.
General:
◆ Base Mana increased from 265 to 275.
Shadow Walk [Q]:
◆ Health Regeneration increased from 6/7/8/9/10 to 8/9/10/11/12.
◆ Mana Cost increased from 50 to 60.
Khaimera’s general durability as a match progresses can become overbearing when he’s allowed to sit in a fight undisturbed. By dropping down the overall healing offered by his Spirit Regeneration stacks in the later stages of a match, Khaimera will find himself more susceptible to burst damage should he dive too deep into the fray.
General:
◆ Physical Armor Growth decreased from 3.6 to 3.4.
Spirit Regeneration [Passive]:
◆ Health Regeneration per stack at levels 1-18 decreased from 0.7-5.5 to 0.7-4.6.
Ambush [RMB]:
◆ Stacks on use increased from 3 to 5.
A quick bump down in Slow duration for Muriel’s Serenity to reduce her ability to set up a run-down scenario for her Allies.
Serenity [Q]:
◆ Slow duration decreased from 2.5s to 2s.
Rampage has fallen out of favor since his previous round of adjustments. While he may benefit from the Jungle adjustments, providing a bit more upfront damage to Pounce will help him better convert his engagements into winning plays.
Pounce [RMB]:
◆ Damage increased from 80/110/140/170/200 to 90/120/150/180/210.
◆ Bonus Health Scaling increased from 8% to 9%.
Riktor’s ability to be an immovable object in lane, in the Support role, offers him too much presence when combined with the threat of his hook. We’re dropping down his Level 1 base stats to make him more punishable should he overstep, while shifting around some of his damage values to ensure he is not overly impacted in the Jungle or Offlane.
Additionally, with the new adjustments to Jungle Camps, Riktor no longer needs his bonus damage to keep up his clear speeds so we’ve opted to remove it.
General:
◆ Base Physical Power decreased from 55 to 52.
◆ Base Health decreased from 610 to 590.
◆ Health Growth increased from 102 to 104.
◆ Base Physical Armor decreased from 31 to 28.
◆ Base Health Regeneration increased from 1 to 1.2.
Shock Therapy [Q]:
◆ Magical Power Scaling increased from 40% to 50%.
◆ Damage increased from 60/95/130/165/200 to 65/100/135/170/205.
Electrocute [E]:
◆ Damage decreased from 110/155/200/245/290 90/140/190/240/290.
◆ 20% Bonus Monster Damage removed.
Serath seems to be performing in-line with her high risk; high reward identity. However, her ability to blow through targets and run down opponents can prove too overwhelming should she secure a gold lead. Alongside decreased movement speed while her Ultimate is active, a reduction in the scalings on Serath’s Heaven’s Fury and Chastise abilities will see her having a harder time securing that all-important reset.
Heaven’s Fury [Q]:
◆ Damage increased from 45/65/85/105/125 to 50/70/90/110/130.
◆ Total Physical Power Scaling decreased from 60% to 45%.
Chastise [RMB]:
◆ Chastise Bonus Physical Power Scaling decreased from 80% to 75%
Heresy [R]:
◆ Movement speed decreased from 15% to 12%.
We’ve fixed a bug on Zarus’ ultimate so that he can now gain stacks from his Ultimate Target, as long as he gains a Takedown on them while in the Coliseum. This will allow his stacking potential to become more consistent and better reward him for using the ability to make plays without needing to personally secure the kill.
Coliseum [R]:
◆ [Bugfix] Now correctly grants stacks on Takedown.
Crests:
A quick shift in stat profile for Nex to make it less pen heavy and more comparable to other Assassin Crest choices.
Nex:
◆ Physical Power increased from 12 to 15.
◆ Physical Penetration decreased from 15 to 12.
Jungle currently falls behind other roles in regards to farming and relies heavily on getting kills and interacting with the map to get any sort of advantage. Our initial pain points are that Jungle Camps are too durable too early relative to Hero and itemization strength. This makes the time investment required to kill a camp relative to its reward very hard to tune.
Our goal is to make the Jungle role play faster and allow for more Jungle versus Jungle interaction in the form of invading and counter jungling, while also allowing for more Hero diversity in the Jungle. Additionally, making Jungle camps less durable allows for other roles to be able to take Jungle Camps more frequently, thereby allowing other roles to interact with Junglers more easily.
We are always looking to improve each role’s general experience and loop, and in the case of Jungle, this is the first of several balance changes aimed at nudging the role’s gameplay loop and diversity in a healthier direction.
Hunt/Wild Hunt:
For those unaware, Hunt provides Junglers with a Burning damage over time (DoT) effect when they damage Monsters as part of its “Jungler” Passive. This damage was previously magical, but we’re shifting it to true damage to normalise its damage against all Monster types while also allowing it to apply on Melee Cleave damage, making it easier to spread and further normalising clear speeds for different Jungler Class-types such as Tanks and Melee Mages.
On top of this, Hunt’s Burn effect now scales with additional stat types, ensuring that all Classes of Jungler can better keep pace in their clears throughout a game, be that a Health and Armor stacking Rampage, or a Magical Power Assassin such as Countess.
◆ Jungler Monster DoT damage type changed from magical to true damage.
◆ Jungler Monster DoT is now applied on Melee Basic Attack Cleave damage.
◆ Jungler Monster DoT Magical Power Scaling increased from 15% to 30%.
◆ Jungler Monster DoT Bonus Health Scaling increased from 3% to 4.5%.
◆ Jungler Monster DoT now Scales with 15% Bonus Physical Power.
◆ Jungler Monster DoT now Scales with 22.5% Bonus Physical Armor.
◆ Jungler Monster DoT now Scales with 22.5% Bonus Magical Armor.
Jungle Scaling/Respawns:
Not only have we adjusted the Base Stats and Growths of various Camps, but the Generic Jungle camps no longer level up their selected base stats as deep into a match, instead stopping at around 22m game-time (level 11), rather than at around 30m game-time (level 15). This further enables all Heroes to more swiftly pick them off for additional gold as a match unfolds into the late-game, and will result in less excessive time commitments needed when clearing camps deep into a match.
Additionally, Normal Jungle Camp respawn timers have been reduced by 15s, and when paired with their general durability changes, farming camps will now feel faster at most stages of a game, as well as allow for new pathing and invading opportunities for Junglers now that the uptime is high and time commitment lower. This will help provide greater parity to the benefits of committing to playing a more farm-heavy style compared to spam-ganking.
General:
◆ Black, Grey, White and Brown Camps now stop gaining Health, Armor and Physical Power at level 11 instead of level 15.
◆ Black, Grey, White and Brown Camps respawn time decreased from 135s to 120s.
◆ Red and Blue Buff Camp Respawn Timers increased from 240s to 250s.
Black Camp (2):
Large:
◆ Base Health changed from 1782 to 1632.
◆ Health Growth changed from 150 to 175.
◆ Base Physical Power changed from 24 to 20.
Medium:
◆ Base Health changed from 1032 to 1072.
Grey Camp (3):
Large:
◆ Base Health changed from 1740 to 1350.
◆ Health Growth changed from 85 to 150.
Small:
◆ Health Growth changed from 60 to 100.
White Camp (4):
Medium:
◆ Base Health changed from 972 to 1112.
◆ Health Growth changed from 130 to 150.
◆ Base Physical Power changed from 16 to 13.
◆ Physical Power Growth changed from 7 to 6.
Small:
◆ Base Health changed from 648 to 718.
◆ Health Growth changed from 70 to 120.
◆ Base Physical Power changed from 10 to 8.
Brown Camp (5):
Medium:
◆ Base Health changed from 1080 to 1180.
◆ Health Growth changed from 100 to 125.
◆ Base Physical Power changed from 12 to 10.
◆ Base Magical Armor changed from 15 to 0.
Small:
◆ Base Health changed from 660 to 705.
◆ Health Growth changed from 60 to 90.
◆ Fixed a bug that increased post-match Main Menu load-in time.
◆ Fixed a bug where EasyAntiCheat could cause issues loading the game after patches.
◆ Fixed a bug where Oathkeeper was scaling with Base Physical Power, not Total Physical Power.
◆ Fixed a bug where Oathkeeper’s description did not state its Total Physical Power Scaling in-game.
◆ Fixed a bug where Warrior Crest was not gaining stacks at level 1.
◆ Fixed a bug where Twinblast’s Vortex Grenades [RMB] was listed as physical damage instead of magical.
◆ Fixed a bug where Zarus would not gain Movement Speed on Ultimate use with Augmentation.
◆ Fixed a bug causing Murdock’s Basic Attack VFX to not play on every shot.
◆ Fixed a bug causing Quick Cast to not function correctly with items such as Wards.
◆ Fixed a bug causing Basic Attack SFX to cut off when shot around walls.
◆ Fixed a bug where Users could join a party that was already in matchmaking queue.
◆ Fixed a bug where Users were listed in an active Party when queuing Solo for a match.
◆ Fixed a bug where the post-match XP bar on the User Interface was misaligned.
◆ Fixed a bug where the post-match XP bar on Hero Unlocks was not displaying the correct progression.
◆ Fixed a bug where Hero Unlock progression was misaligned on the Hero Collection screens.
◆ Fixed a bug where the Heroes Store screen was missing a confirm prompt.
◆ Fixed a bug where Hero Portraits would become squashed on their Purchase Confirmation prompt.
◆ Fixed a bug causing in-game Item icons to shake when bound to specific keys.
◆ Fixed a bug causing online players to appear offline/online incorrectly.
◆ Fixed a bug where the in-game Shop would not display Items correctly on reconnect with Auto-open.
◆ Fixed a bug where Controllers would get stuck in a Basic Attack loop when the in-game Shop opens/closes.
That's all this week!
Let us know what you think of this update over on Twitter, the official Subreddit or our Discord server!