Happy Tuesday, Champions! The Community Hunt may be over but Patch V.0.5 continues with our upcoming balance update! Balance Patch 0.5.4 brings with it the usual smattering of balance changes as well as a couple of snazzy new skins for you to find in the shop. We had initially hoped to sneak a few bonus features into this patch but decided instead to hold off until V.0.6, which is shaping up to be a doozy of an update! See you then!
- alex, Lead Game Designer
New Skins
As promised, we’re continuing to add new skins with every major game update.
This week’s new skins are:
◆ Autumn Fire Sparrow [Common]
◆ Obsidian Rampage [Rare]
Find them in the store and let us know what you think!
Early Access Feedback Survey Ends
We want to thank everyone that took the time to fill out our recent feedback survey. We’ll be closing the survey on Tuesday, so if you haven’t filled it out yet you have until then!
Community Event - The Hunt
Last Friday we launched our first ever community event, pitting Kira against Countess in a battle to see who could score the most kills. The event wrapped up just a few hours ago, resulting in a landslide victory for newcomer Kira!
Over the 7 day event period Kira killed 176,862 other Heroes - that’s over 25,000 per day! It’s been fantastic to see so many of you taking to the battlefield with our first original Hero.
With Kira winning The Hunt, we’ll be adding a new Profile Icon featuring the Shadow Huntress herself to the game in a future game update (on top of the Season 1 reward icon)!
Thank you all for taking part in this event. As with everything during Early Access we look forward to expanding and improving on community events in the future and we hope you’ll take part in the next one!
Drongo’s definitely fallen into a better place since his previous nerf, but we feel he’s still a bit too tricky for melee Heroes to tackle. We’re making his Gag Grenade a little easier to disengage from and position around to grant other players more opportunities to outplay Drongo in all-in engagements.
Gag Grenade [Q]:
◆ Radius decreased from 400 to 350.
As the meta shifts certain Heroes inevitably pick up strength. Howitzer has combined the safety of Gideon with some high burst gameplay, raining down rockets from afar. We’re flicking some switches on his mech to crank down the production of Land Mines, keeping Howitzer on his toes - especially during the laning phase.
Land Mine [E]:
◆ Cooldown increased from 20/18/16/14/12 to 22/20/18/16/14.
Slow Grenades [RMB]:
◆ First Grenade Scaling decreased from 25% to 20%.
◆ Grenades beyond the first Scaling decreased from 6% to 4%.
Kira came in swinging for Countess and ended up being charged for collateral damage. Following your feedback, we’re going to shift her Dusk scaling down significantly to decrease the potency of both her Purge combos and her finisher potential in the mid-late game. We’re also decreasing her ultimate damage to minions to prevent nasty interactions with sustain and to decrease the potential surprise wave clear. She’ll also be impacted by some of the item nerfs below, so we’re not swinging too harsh a bat yet.
Dusk [Q]:
◆ Scaling Per Stack decreased from 30% to 20%.
Purge [R]:
◆ Now deals 30% damage to minions.
Muriel continues to be a safe pick who continues to scale well. We’d like to keep her general laning strengths safe due to her lack of hard CC, so instead we’re opting to decrease her mid-late game shielding potential a bit with a small bump down on Alacrity builds.
Alacrity [RMB]:
◆ Shield Magnitude decreased from 50/80/110/140/170 to 40/65/80/105/130.
The King of the Jungle has been showing off his crown a bit too much these past few weeks. We’re looking to decrease his early-game damage potential and mobility so he doesn’t feel too overwhelming in the earlier stages of the game.
General:
◆ Base Physical Power decreased from 57 to 54.
Pounce [RMB]:
◆ Cooldown increased from 18/17/16/15/14 to 20/19/18/17/16.
T2:
Stalwart Gauntlets:
These handy gauntlets have been a bit too powerful of a curve for Tanks in the laning phase. Combined with Titan Crest they can lead to a significant sustain boost that creates non-interactive laning. To address this we’re bumping down the regen - just a smidge.
General:
◆ Health Regeneration decreased from 125% to 100%.
Carry:
Lightning Hawk:
The Hawk got a healthy bug fix last patch that led to a slightly unhealthy scaling problem. We’re bumping it down alongside the Slow Duration to lessen the run down potential when ADCs acquire this item early.
Chilling Zap [Passive]:
◆ Scaling decreased from 100% to 75%.
◆ Slow Duration decreased from 0.75s to 0.5s.
Tainted Rounds:
Blight items are always tricky to balance due to the fine line of wanting to keeping them open while also maintaining a strong reason to purchase them. Tainted Rounds have fallen off that line and are a bit too cost efficient, especially when combined with crit oriented builds, so we’re taking it down a notch.
General:
◆ Physical Power decreased from 30 to 25.
Wicked Strikes [Passive]:
◆ Critical Strike Scaling decreased from 30% to 25%.
Terminus:
Terminus has been a bit too potent of a sustain option for our ADCs, relative to Kingsbane. We’re bumping down the lifesteal and power to decrease the amount of situations ADCs can power through, particularly in the early game.
General:
◆ Physical Power decreased from 50 to 45.
◆ Lifesteal decreased from 15% to 12%.
Vanquisher:
Vanquisher has led to absurd amounts of burst, especially as a first or second buy for heroes like Murdock or Revenant. We’re bumping down its all-in burst potential through its passive and penetration.
General:
◆ Physical Penetration decreased from 12 to 10.
Annihilate [Passive]:
◆ Execute decreased from 7% to 6%.
Viper:
Viper is a great all-rounder for ADCs and currently provides a few too many stats alongside its powerful Shred effect. We’re keeping it a little more specialised by knocking down its power a tad.
General:
◆ Physical Power decreased from 40 to 35.
Tank:
Galaxy Greaves:
Moon Boots are a super fun item to pick up sometimes, but they also have a lot of practical application. Currently tankier Heroes and supports often lose out on a few too many stats to justify picking this up relative to full tank items. So we’re bumping up the physical armor a bit to keep it an open option for games where the effect could just turn a situation around.
General:
◆ Physical Armor increased from 30 to 40.
Raiment of Renewal:
Raiment has become too strong of an initial pickup for offlaners and supports. It ends up becoming a very snowball heavy option that causes poor interaction during the laning phase. We’re going to shift its numbers around a bit to decrease its early strength particularly on sustain/scaling heroes such as Rampage and Sevarog.
Synthesis [passive]:
Percentage of Health Regeneration gained from Bonus health decreased from 1% to 0.5%.
Regenerator [Passive]:
Percentage of health Regenerated from damage taken over 5s from 12% to 10%.
◆ Fixed some specific scenarios where inputs could sometimes stop working.
◆ Fixed a visual issue impacting how certain key icons are displayed in-game.
◆ Fixed an issue where Kira's Ultimate ability was not working correctly with Spellbreaker.
◆ Fixed some clipping issues with Kira's coat.
◆ Improved the way that some loss of connection scenarios are handled.
◆ Fixed a few bugs with camp vision after dying/respawning.
Additional bug fixes/patch notes may be added to this post once the update is live.
That's all this week!
Let us know what you think of these changes over on Twitter, the official Subreddit or our Discord server!