Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!
• QoL Patch
Last week, we released the long-awaited quality of life patch, resolving various minor bugs and improving the Forge's performance to ensure smoother gameplay. Additionally, this update now allows you to watch outdated replays, although replays impacted by patches will still experience desync issues. Check out the full patch notes here.
We are also still hard at work on our next content patch. We apologize for announcing the Lost Souls changes too early. Our bottleneck in card descriptions has been underestimated, as all cards in Skylords Reborn require translation into English, German, French, and Russian. This translation process, especially for the changes made to cards, can significantly impact our progress when translators are occupied or inactive. If you would like to assist with this effort, please check the contributor roles available for translators.
• Cinematic Trailer
A few months ago, we released a video showcasing the significant changes and improvements made to Skylords Reborn compared to the original BattleForge over the past 2 years. As part of our ongoing effort to attract more new Skylords, we have now created a cinematic trailer designed for RTS players unfamiliar with the original game.
Please support the game by sharing it with your friends who might be interested in the game!
• Card Rework Spotlight - Stronghold
While new cards usually get the spotlight, reworking existing cards can be just as exciting and impactful. Skylords Reborn has a lot of unused and underpowered cards, which, if reworked, would functionally constitute an entirely new tool for players to use. Stronghold is one such card. The T3 Frost tower is beautiful and imposing, promising an unconquerable fortress, a powerful and immovable bastion able to hold off hordes of enemies by itself. Unfortunately, anyone who has used the card knows this description is fantasy. We have been working on Stronghold for a while now, and are happy to showcase our new design, which we think will make the card worthy of its name and image.
To help Stronghold become a fearsome fortress, we intend three major changes to its existing design. First, we are increasing Stronghold's single-target damage from 2420 dp20 to 4000 dp20. Second, we are giving Stronghold two new abilities. The active ability will allow the player to defend against 50m siege units like Lost Dancers without needing an additional unit or building, and “To the Last!” will make Stronghold more deadly as it loses life points. This will synergize well with Frost building supports like Glacier Shell and Shield Building, allowing the player to keep Stronghold at a lower health threshold without endangering their defenses. The idea of "To the Last!" is to tap into the image of Frost as a faction which does not easily give up. Instead of losing hope in difficult situations, the Lyrish defenders manning the Stronghold dig in their heels and fight even more tenaciously in the face of danger.
Cannon Turrets
Every 3 seconds, turrets deal 164 damage each to enemies in 10m radius, up to 246 in total.
Bombardment - Active Ability
Cost: 40p
Activate to shoot a mortar shell that deals 800 damage to enemies in a 15m radius around its target, up to 3200 in total. Knocks back small, medium, and large units.
To the Last! - Passive ability
If the fortress has equal to or less than 3000 life points left it will deal 25% more damage and take 25% less damage.
To the Last! - Passive ability
If the fortress has equal to or less than 1500 life points left it will deal 50% more damage and take 50% less damage.
Slowed Construction - Passive ability
Construction time is increased by 50%.
We also added a new visual indicator to show the various states of "To the Last". Below, you can see the Bombardment ability in action:
We hope you are looking forward to these changes coming to Stronghold! They are planned for release alongside our new content patch. We are not able to share a release date yet, so stay tuned!
• Survey - Update
A big thank you to the 1500 Skylords who have already submitted their feedback in our yearly survey! The survey will close at the end of the week, so if you haven't shared your thoughts yet, please take a moment to do so. Your feedback will be anonymous.
As Skylords Reborn is a community project, we value knowing what our players like and what could be improved. Your feedback is crucial for our continuous game improvement and player base growth! As a token of appreciation, everyone who fills in the survey will receive two boosters.
• Voice Acting – Update
A quick update on our search for new voice actors: We're thrilled to announce that we've received 24 trial takes, offering a diverse selection of voices to choose from.
Now, our Audio Editor will carefully assess the sound quality of each file, followed by selecting the voices that best match the characters. We're excited to bring these unannounced characters to life and can't wait to share what we have in store for you!
• Fire-themed Forge
As we progress with the development of upcoming campaign maps, we have also been working on a new Fire-themed Forge skin as a side project. Although it is not officially a Summer Forge, players will soon have the option to select from the default Forge, the Winter Forge, the Spring Forge, and the upcoming Fire-themed Forge. Check out the teaser below:
Players automatically have access to the Winter and default Forge, while the Spring Forge is initially locked behind the "Outsourced Content" achievement, which requires completing 8 different community maps on Expert.
The Fire-themed Forge will also be associated with an achievement called "Never Thought of Him," which tasks the player with completing the Mo campaign using only Fire cards on the maps Convoy, Mo, Oracle, Ocean, Raven's End, and Slave Master. We have received feedback that the current reward for this achievement feels insufficient, and we plan to enhance it to provide a more appealing incentive for completion.
Players who have already completed this achievement will receive the additional reward once the Forge is released. Please note that the Forge is not yet available, but you are able to start working on the achievement in advance.
• Mapmaking fundamentals
We always strive to keep the playerbase informed about upcoming changes and the rationale behind them, whether it's through Community Updates, balance discord discussions, or Deep Dive documents detailing our design decisions. Originally intended as an internal guide for our current developers of new campaign maps, we decided to share the following guide with interested players, hoping it will also serve as a useful tool for aspiring community mapmakers. Don't forget, every Skylords Reborn download includes the Map Editor!
BattleForge campaign maps have a particular feel to them, and this feel is a fundamental component of the unique experience which is playing BattleForge. The goal of this design guide is to use existing campaign maps, particularly the best campaign maps, to understand and to categorize the distinct features of the camps in BattleForge’s campaign, such that we can better design future campaign maps. This guide is therefore intended to categorize the design choices of the original devs and to act as a reference for future development for both community and official map development.
Click here to check out the mapmaking fundamentals guide.
• Team Changes
Nukie has decided to step down from his role as Event Manager to allocate more time to his new job and personal life. Despite this change, he will continue to support the project with Moderation duties. We are grateful for his dedicated work during his time as Event Manager!
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31 or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you.
• Contribute
Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 40 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to take a look at our open positions!
• In Conclusion
That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a General booster: THAN-KYOU-SKYL-ORDS
The code is valid until September 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update.
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here.
Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update July 2023
Also a special shout out to Ultralord who celebrated his 1 Year of Streaming on Twitch! 🥳
He spend the last 12 months with over 160 hours on 100 streams, showcasing 22 events, 120 replays and was joined by over 40 co-hosts. So go show him some love 🙂
Global Balance Changes
Ranged attack delays standardized:
- Towers and ranged units are now assigned a standard 0.5 second delay on spawn instead of a semi-randomized number between 0.1-1 second in 0.1 second increments. This only modifies cards affected by the bug, many ranged units and towers will be unaffected by the change.
If a tower or ranged unit's attack has a longer resolve timer than its attack speed, a number is assigned to said tower or unit on spawn between 0.1-1 seconds, which is permanently added to its attack speed. For examples, this means that while a certain tower might be capable of attacking every 2 seconds, if it is affected by this mechanic any particular instance of this tower spawned has an actual attack speed of between 2.1 seconds and 3 seconds. This means all affected towers are not created equal, even among towers of the same kind, and can have widely varying performances. Ranged cards with high attack speeds are impacted more strongly than ranged cards with low attack speeds, but all affected towers and units are inconsistent. Given that we have already begun to balance around the average attack speed of each ranged attack after we previously discovered the discrepancy, we did not want to simply remove the attack delay as it would potentially require us to once again rebalance all affected cards. Instead, we have opted to standardize the delay timer to 0.5 seconds, which is on average a slight buff to all affected cards, and which will henceforward make all ranged cards consistent with themselves.
Card attack speed descriptions do not currently reflect the change. We will work to slowly remedy this over time as we continue our work to fix existing descriptive issues.
PvE Balance Changes
While changes are split here between PvE and PvP sections, many of the changes have important consequences for both game modes. Our PvE and PvP balance teams work closely together to ensure that the impact of all changes are evaluated for both game modes. Below, we have listed both the changes and our reasoning behind them.
[ Tier 1 ]
Nightguard:
1. Damage: 60 damage (450 dp20) ➜ 90 damage (675 dp20)
2. Add "Swift" ability to both affinities.
3. Gifted affinity ➜ Infused affinity:
A. Add "Infused Fury" - Deals 50% more damage against elementals.
Give swift to both affinities and make their difference be in species damage type. Substantially increased combat stats to make the unit more valuable when unable to immediately swap, but still primarily useful for swapping.
Amazon (g):
1. Wildlife Protection healing amplification: 50% ➜ 65%
Minor buff intended to make combinations like Amazon(g) + Werebeasts more rewarding.
Strikers:
1. Remove "Looter" ability
2. Add new passive "Gang Up!": When being surrounded by at least 3 friendly orcs in a 25m radius, all incoming damage will be spread among all gang members relative to each unit's current life points. Additionally, affected units take 15% less damage.
3. Add new passive "Group Pressure": Unit is immune to Unity and its effects.
We are giving Thugs' "Gang Up!" passive to Strikers and changing both Strikers and Thugs' abilities to work based on friendly orcs instead of just friendly Thugs. This will allow Strikers and Thugs to form a gang together, creating a new Fire T1 combo. Additionally, we are fully removing "Looter" from Strikers.
Our balance team is currently in the beginning stages of reintroducing a rebalanced Looter ability to the game for higher tier units as part of a project to allow each faction to have a power acceleration mechanic. Shadow's Resource Booster is the most obvious example of such an acceleration mechanic. Nature also has existing acceleration tools in the Breeding Grounds effect (unit cost reduction) and Promise of Life (unbinding units). We think Looter could be a good tool to enable a unique acceleration mechanic for Fire. More details will be announced on this topic when proposals become more concrete.
[ Tier 2 ]
Earthkeeper:
1. Back Up ability rework:
A. Can now be knocked back while ability is active.
B. Duration: 30 seconds ➜ Until interrupted
C. Power cost: 0p ➜ 25p
Earthkeeper has a very powerful ability, particularly the blessed (b) affinity. By making it last indefinitely absent interruption, Earthkeeper can be used by Stonekin decks to set up incredibly durable defenses that do not need to be constantly maintained. We removed immobile to allow Earthkeeper to be knocked back, requiring good positioning, and added a 25p cost to increase initial set up cost in exchange for the indefinite duration.
[ Tier 3 ]
Abyssal Warder:
1. Power cost: 250p ➜ 240p
2. Crystal Spikes ability damage: 725, up to 2175 in total ➜ 800, up to 4800 in total
3. Class change: Giant Destroyer ➜ Ancient Destroyer
Abyssal Warder has been much more viable since the buff to Promise of Life. Players can send Abyssal Warder on a suicide mission, cast Promise of Life just before death, and be rewarded with 2 L-sized warders and a new XL-sized one. This same Promise of Life can then be used in T4 to quickly unbind the player's initial Forest Elder. Even so, Abyssal Warder remains a weak option, and it struggles greatly against masses of weaker enemies. We are over doubling the total damage of its Crystal Spikes ability to allow it to clear crowds of weak enemies quickly and slightly decreasing its power cost to make it more efficient.
Deepfang:
1. Damage: 150 damage per second (3000 dp20) ➜ 165 damage per second (3300 dp20)
2. Life points: 3200 ➜ 3500
3. Stonekin Critter (unit):
A. Damage: 60, up to 90 in total (500 dp20) ➜ 72, up to 108 in total (600 dp20)
B. Life points: 550 ➜ 750
Deepfang is currently underwhelming, particularly as a good portion of its strength relies on the continued existence of two weak support units. Once they die, Deepfang has worse stat efficiency than the almost pure support unit Rageflame. We are giving a general buff to the damage and life points of both Deepfang and its Stonekin Critters. In the future, we also intend to rework the unit's summoning mechanic and to allow Deepfang to cast Union even if its Critters have died.
Rageflame:
1. Frostshower (both affinities):
A. Now able to target air units.
B. Freeze duration: 10 seconds ➜ 15 seconds
2. Blessed Frostshower (b) new affinity effect: Units frozen by this ability will receive full damage when attacked.
3. New passive, "Shatter Ice" (both affinities): The unit is able to ignore the usual damage reduction of frozen targets.
Rageflame is meant to be a hybrid damage and support unit, but it does neither well. We are leaning more into its support aspects, while also removing the card's built-in anti-synergy by allowing it to always deal full damage to frozen targets. The unit's freeze duration has been increased, and it can now target air units, removing one of its major weaknesses. Additionally, the blue affinity's freeze allows all units to continue dealing full damage, giving players a choice between ignoring freeze's damage reduction or disabling buildings when choosing between affinities.
Unity:
1. Gifted Sharing (g) regeneration: 40 life points every 2 seconds ➜ 50 life points every 2 seconds
2. Blessed Sharing (b) damage reduction: 25% ➜ 20%
After the recent Fire changes, Unity(b) has proven too strong. The damage reduction double stacks (once when the initial unit is attacked, once when the remaining damage is transferred). This means that the actual damage reduction granted by the blue affinity is often substantially more than 25%. On the other hand, the green affinity has been the weaker of the two since the beginning. We are giving it a slight boost to hopefully make the decision between which affinity to bring more meaningful.
Ward of the North:
1. Units under the effect of this spell can no longer be knocked back.
Minor buff to the card to give players a reason to use it over its competitors Revenge and Stone Shell.
[ Tier 4 ]
Batariel:
1. Stage Duration (both affinities):
A. Stage 1: 4 sec ➜ 5 sec
B Stage 2: 4 sec ➜ 5 sec
2. Stage Threshold Value (both affinities):
A. Stage 1: 1200 damage ➜ 800 damage
3. Damage per Stage Batariel (fire affinity):
A. Stage 1: unchanged (100 dmg)
B. Stage 2: 150 dmg ➜ 200 dmg
C. Stage 3: 200 dmg ➜ 300 dmg
Follow-up on previous changes which left Batariel's fire affinity too weak.
Death Ray:
1. Leech Guns ability:
A. Damage buff: 100% more damage ➜ 150% more damage
B. Stored life point cost: 1 additional damage per 1 stored life point ➜ 1 additional damage per 0.66 stored life points
Death Ray is a well-designed card which currently demands a substantial amount of deckbuilding cost and in-game micromanagement to make it work. While decent, Death Ray should give more to justify its high investment costs. This change increases Death Ray's damage buff while charged with life points, without otherwise increasing the amount of life points required to be harvested via Leech Guns. This should leave the current experience of the deck unchanged, except that it is now stronger.
Fire Sphere:
1. Cooldown: 10 seconds ➜ 20 seconds
The last round of buffs left Fire Sphere too strong. Instead of taking away from the aspects of the card that have quickly made it a top tier option, we are reverting a previous change to its cooldown. This should reduce the ability to spam the card, making its initial 10 second wind-up a more important factor to account for when using the spell.
Forest Elder:
1. Pest Plants is now a basic ability that exists on both affinities of Forest Elder.
A. Radius: 30m ➜ 20m
B. Damage: 30 damage per second ➜ 40 damage per second
2. Forest Charm ability rework:
A. No longer applies an effect to allies. Now functions more like a mobile Regrowth.
B. New ability description: "Activate to release the power of the forest, creating a regenerative zone of 30m radius. Every 2 seconds, friendly units within restore up to 300 life points, up to 3000 in total. Also affects the caster. Lasts for 30 seconds. Reusable every 60 seconds."
3. Gifted Flower Power: The +25% damage buff now also applies to Forest Elder itself. Also affects Pest Plants.
4. Shadow Affinity (p) ➜ Frost Affinity (b):
A. Blessed Flower Power effect: Friendly units now ignore slow caused by unit collision in a 30m range. Also applies to Forest Elder itself.
5. Class change: Beast Dominator ➜ Beast Commander
Our testing found that Pest Plants was an essential component of Forest Elder's ability to clear early T4 camps and for all melee army compositions to succeed. As such, we added it to both affinities as a basic ability and adjusted its power level accordingly. To enable the all melee deck styles that arose during our testing, we added the ability for the new blue affinity Forest Elder to enable its allies and itself to ignore unit collision based slows. This makes melee armies substantially more dynamic. In general, the green affinity Forest Elder works best combined with Primeval Watcher, while the blue affinity Forest Elder works best when combined with Colossus and Grimvine. Finally, we reworked the Forest Charm healing ability. It is now substantially stronger than previously, as well as much more consistent in terms of expected healing. With these changes, the changes to Mind Control, and the release of Sanctuary, Pure Nature should be comparable in strength to other pure deck archetypes.
Gemeye:
1. Damage: 550, up to 825 in total (2750 dp20) ➜ 650, up to 975 in total (3250 dp20)
2. Tainted Spit (p):
A. All damage is now piercing
B. Contamination damage: 55, up to 165 in total every second ➜ 50, up to 150 in total every second
3. Gifted Spit (g):
A. Paralyze targets: 4 ➜ 5
B. Paralyze duration: 10 seconds ➜ 15 seconds
Minor buff to Gemeye in general. Gemeye's two affinities widely vary in usefulness. The purple affinity can deal up to 3300 additional damage over 20 seconds, increasing its actual attack value to 5450 dp20. This damage also stacks if there are multiple Gemeyes. By contrast, the green affinity can paralyze up to 4 targets after a 5 second wait period for up to 10 seconds. 10 seconds is already a short duration for crowd control in T4 and the 5 second wait timer makes it even worse, as it is actually much longer when accounting for Gemeye's attack animation and projectile travel time. Additionally, paralyze effects cannot stack, and they quickly run afoul of crowd control's diminishing returns penalty if the player casts spells such as Curse of Oink or a freeze effect. Overall, this leads to the situation where in the vast majority of situations the purple affinity is far superior.
The goal here is to break the two affinities into two different deck paths. By allowing the purple affinity to always pierce through damage reduction, it means that its damage will not be reduced when attacking frozen targets. On the other hand, the green affinity's built-in crowd control will synergize with splash options lacking CC and Noxious Cloud which deals a lot of damage but needs time to work. The changes should also allow the green affinity to do a better job when utilized as part of static defenses for its built-in crowd control.
Grimvine:
1. Strangling Vines ability radius: 20m ➜ 25m
Quality of Life change intended to make Grimvine's ability slightly better.
Mind Control:
1. Power cost: 300p ➜ 250p
2. Charges: 4 ➜ 8
3. Takeover limit: 300p ➜ 350p
4. Allow to be used past population limit
5. Now cleanses all debuffs and makes mind controlled unit immune to all major debuffs for 15 seconds after cast.
Mind Control is one of those cards which initially seems awesome because it enables you to take over your favorite enemy units, but soon after results in frustration. NPC enemies mostly lack abilities making them no more than stat sticks, charges are extremely limited, the card becomes useless when you hit population cap, your ally's Incredible Mo permanently debuffs the unit even when it becomes yours, and taking over major threats inside a camp usually results in almost instant crowd control into death. We have tried to address all of these issues at once. After the changes, Mind Control should provide a strong incentive to use 3 Nature orbs as well as provide a means by which Nature can bolster its unit-based strategy without binding power in the process.
Shadow Worm:
1. Damage: 400, up to 600 in total (4000 dp20) ➜ 440, up to 660 in total (4400 dp20)
2. Life points: 3500 ➜ 4400
3. Mass Disintegration ability targets: May only disintegrate units ➜ May now disintegrate units and buildings
4. Earth Dive ability damage: 250, up to 1000 in total ➜ 325, up to 1300 in total
Shadow Worm is the only T4 Pure Shadow unit in the game. While the previous buffs helped the card a lot, Shadow Worm remains by itself an insufficient payoff to give up a splash orb. It also, despite the buffs and its high orb restrictions, remained one of the lowest stat efficiency units in T4. With these changes, we are both giving a general buff to Shadow Worm's stats and making some changes to enable the two unique aspects of the card, its Mass Disintegration and its Earth Dive mechanic.
Mass Disintegration will now be able to target buildings (but not spawns which have building immunity), giving the ability much needed flexibility. Shadow Worm's life points increase will also allow the unit to survive 5 seconds longer when disintegrating the maximum number of targets simultaneously. Additionally, the 30% damage increase to Earth Dive damage will enable a particularly unique playstyle given that Life Stealer also affects Earth Dive.
Thunder Wagon:
1. Remove "Tainted Death" from shadow affinity
2. Change Shadow affinity (p) ➜ Frost affinity (b)
A. Blessed Flamethrower (b): Now able to target air units.
[ Building Changes ]
It is the general principle of the faction design team not to change abilities or introduce complex mechanics needlessly. Cards should generally perform a single function and perform that function well. A lot of the buildings in the game are already well-designed, but lack sufficient stats or possess too strict of requirements. As such, we have opted wherever possible to introduce simple changes to bring the tower to the appropriate power level. If you would like to learn more about our thought process behind the tower changes, please head to Skylords Reborn Documents to read our design Deep Dive on Towers, as well as other design documents.
Artillery:
1. Range: 50m ➜ 60m
2. Increased turret turn speed.
Allow Artillery to damage siege units even when placed behind a wall.
Bandit Launcher:
1. Flame Arrow splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
2. Life points: 1500 ➜ 800
3. Add "Fast Construction" - Construction time is reduced by 50%.
4. Firebug:
A. Radius: 20m ➜ 25m
B. Power cost: 20 ➜ 25 Energy
C. Infused Firebug damage: 400, up to 1200 in total ➜ 600, up to 1800 in total
D. Tainted Firebug damage: 600, up to 1800 in total ➜ 800, up to 2400 in total
Differentiate Bandit Launcher from its more defensive oriented brother Rioter's Retreat by focusing it around attacking and using its suicide ability to quickly and cheaply clear enemies.
Deepgorge:
1. Cold Clutch radius: 25m ➜ 30m.
Deepgorge has substantially increased in strength since the most recent changes, particularly in connection with North Star(b) with which it naturally synergizes. Unfortunately, due to the tower's large size, its ability radius is still too small when the tower is placed behind a wall making it difficult even for a well-placed Deepgorge to hit all melee attackers on long walls.
Fire Bomb:
1. Damage: 715 up to 1650 in total ➜ 720, up to 1800 in total
2. Add "Fast Construction" - Construction time is reduced by 50%.
3. Allow to hit air units & enable splash overflow fix.
Small buff to Fire Bomb that should allow it to be used more aggressively.
Hammerfall:
1. Increase turret turn speed.
2. Breeze of Life (g) / Breeze of Strength (b):
A. Maximum capacity: 1500 ➜ 3000
B. Recharge rate: 15 per second ➜ 40 per second
C. Radius: 20m ➜ 25m
3. Breeze of Strength, Ice Shield cost: 495 capacity ➜ 600 capacity
Increased turret turn speed should increase damage output due to faster target tracking. Change to affinity effects: Higher maximum capacity should make both affinity effects better, but especially Hammerfall (g) which is only drained as required. Higher recharge rate means that a new Ice Shield can be bestowed every 15 seconds instead of every 33 seconds, even with the higher cost. Radius increase will make it easier to place units around it. Total charge time is now 90 seconds. Additionally, Hammerfall's shields do not decay while within the aura. This makes them a stable source of extra health for allied units. Hammerfall's recharge and healing is still less than Healing Well's, a T2 60p card, with the same maximum capacity.
Howling Shrine:
1. Essence Bolts damage: 600, up to 900 in total (3000 dp20) ➜ 750, up to 1125 in total (3750 dp20)
2. Crowd control duration (both affinities): 10 sec ➜ 15 seconds
Howling Shrine is feeling better after the buffs both to itself and to the root network in general. When the initial changes were proposed, some people suggested larger buffs to the card, but we urged caution due to the difficulty to account for how things would change once the full set of root network changes came through. Now that we can evaluate the changes more fully, it appears that Howling Shrine is still on the weak side. To remedy this, we are giving it a +25% damage increase and increasing the duration of both its root and paralyze to help it keep dangerous melee units at a safe distance.
Infected Tower:
1. Damage: 114, up to 172 in total (1215 dp20) ➜ 138, up to 207 in total. (1466 dp20)
2. Splash Radius: 5m ➜ 8m
A +20% damage increase and small splash radius increase. Changes to Infected Tower's ability have been postponed until we can properly rework it.
Lost Converter:
1. Add Soul Splicer's "Soul Suction" ability to the card, allowing it to gather corpses outside its passive range.
2. Corpse cost to freeze: 200 ➜ 250 stored life points
All corpse support buildings should have a way to gather corpses from further away. As such, we are adding Soul Splicer's Soul Suction ability to both Lost Converter and Waystation, as well as any future buildings of this type.
Morklay Trap:
1. Enable splash overflow fix
2. Explosion Blast total damage: 2640 in total ➜ 4400 in total
Increase total targets from 3 to 5 and enable splash damage properly transferred even when units die. This should make Morklay Trap a viable option to clear T3 camps or defend against incoming waves.
Stone Hurler:
1. Damage: 100 damage, up to 150 in total (834 dp20) ➜ 120 up to 180 in total (1000 dp20)
Align actual damage with stated damage on the card through an approximately +20% damage increase.
Twilight Bombard:
1. Remove "Siege" from Infused affinity
2. Add "Rage" to Infused affinity.
A. Stage 1: +25%; Stage 2: +50% damage
B. Attacks per stage: 3
C. Reset timer: 10 seconds
3. Increase turret turn speed.
The red affinity of Twilight Bombard has Siege as its affinity effect, which is largely useless. By changing it to Rage instead, we make the choice between the two affinities one of increased damage versus crowd control.
Waystation:
1. Add Soul Splicer's "Soul Suction" ability to the card, allowing it to gather corpses outside its passive range.
2. New passive, Fast Construction: Construction time is reduced by 50%.
3. Infused damage buff: 30% ➜ 40%
4. Tainted poison damage: 30 life points every second ➜ 40 life points every second
5. Corpse storage: 2500 total ➜ 4500 total
6. Corpse cost per potion/poison (both affinities): 180 ➜ 400 stored life points will be used up.
7. Radius: 25m ➜ 30m
The first step in what will eventually be a full rework of Waystation. For now, the addition of fast construction means it can be set up offensively as its name suggests and the addition of Soul Suction means it should be able to easily gather corpses to fuel itself. Gave a small boost to both affinity effects and increased the radius to require ranged units to enter its effective radius to damage it.
Worldbreaker Gun:
1. Life points: 4500 ➜ 5400
2. Descriptive: Add "Has a long range of 50m" to its Ground Attack description.
WBG is the best defense in the entire game, but that is achieved primarily through its Heavy Snowball ability augmented by Skyelf Sage. In terms of functions as a tower, it is still good, but has uncharacteristically low life points for its cost and tier. We are giving it a slight bump in total health, which should help it when functioning as a tower, while leaving it unchanged as a long range artillery piece.
PvP Balance Changes
[ Twilight Follow-up ]
After the first round of Twilight buffs and the new introduction of Twilight Crawlers, the faction did not reach the level of performance for which we had hoped. Making good use of Twilight cards and transformation mechanics in a dynamic environment turned out to be too difficult. We will buff some cards to add further incentive of mastering Twilight decks. This might not be the last Twilight iteration as we will continue to monitor the situation moving forward.
Slaver:
1. Life points: 780 ➜ 820
Increased durability to make Slaver better when used on open ground, where the unit is prone to kiting.
Twilight Brute:
1. Life points: 780 ➜ 820
2. Bloodlust ability duration: 20 seconds ➜ 25 seconds
Increased stat efficiency and also extended buff duration upon Transforming, making it a little easier to utilize.
Twilight Crawlers:
1. Damage: 940 dp20 ➜ 1000 dp20
2. Chitin Shell ability damage reduction: 20% ➜ 30%
Whereas Twilight Crawlers scale decently well into high energy game stages, they don’t provide enough stability in early game. They had problems dueling some units they were supposed to counter making it incredibly difficult to play from behind. Increased stat efficiency and higher absorption rate on their passive should settle this and make Twilight Crawlers a worthy S-counter.
Twilight Minions:
1. Incentive ability duration (both affinities): 20 seconds ➜ 25 seconds
Extended buff duration upon Transforming, making it easier to make use of the effect.
Vileblood:
1. Power cost: 130p ➜ 120p
2. Damage: 1400 dp20 ➜ 1250 dp20
3. Life points: 1350 ➜ 1250
4. Transformation ability cost: 111p ➜ 102p
5. Infused Liquids (r) ability: 130 damage per wave (520 total) ➜ 150 damage per wave (960 total)
6. Gifted Liquids (g) ability: 250 healing per wave ➜ 300 healing per wave
Reduced unit cost and adjusted stat efficiency to reward multi-unit set-ups and transformation effects. The decreased damage ratio will limit the impact Vileblood has on its own, but with less bound power, there are many more options to combine it with other cards and abilities.
[ Tier 1 ]
Executor:
1. Burnout ability:
A. Damage buff: 60% more damage ➜ 80% more damage
B. Damage debuff: Now 60% less damage on all upgrades
C. Damage buff duration: 20 seconds ➜ 30 seconds
D. Damage debuff duration: 30 seconds ➜ 20 seconds on all upgrades
After Nightguard received nerfs, Executor's performance as a compensation tool has been a bit underwhelming. These changes should address early L-counter issues and diversify Shadow’s defensive options in T1.
Forsaken:
1. Frenzy ability initial cooldown: 0 seconds ➜ 7 seconds
With this patch, we intend to distribute the power of Shadow T1 more evenly and improve faction design overall. Shadow T1 is very Forsaken centric against Fire T1 and in the mirror matchup. The Frenzy ability allows them to be good in skirmishes, defense, and siege at the same time. While this can’t be changed fundamentally for slot reasons and due to available design options, we can shift a bit of Shadows' defensive strength from Forsaken to Wrathblades and Executor. This should add a bit more depth to the mentioned matchups and goes more in line with what would be expected from the counter system.
Thugs:
1. Damage: 720 dp20 ➜ 750 dp20
2. Gang Up! ability: Now works based on nearby friendly orcs, not just friendly Thugs.
As newly buffed Wrathblades will have a certain impact on skirmishing against Fire T1, Thugs will receive a slight damage increase as well.
Warden's Sigil (g):
1. Gifted Sigil Ice Shield regeneration: 25 strength per second ➜ 35 strength per second
Providing clear identities to both Sigil affinities and granting more reasons to pick anything besides the frost one.
Wrathblades:
1. Burnout ability:
A. Damage buff: 60% more damage ➜ 80% more damage
B. Damage debuff: Now 60% less damage on all upgrades
C. Damage buff duration: 20 seconds ➜ 30 seconds
D. Damage debuff duration: 30 seconds ➜ 20 seconds on all upgrades
[ Tier 2 ]
Moon:
1. Necroshade ability cost: 50p ➜ 40p
Moon has access to fairly strong abilities, but very high upfront costs put her into a very niche position, especially for a legendary card. Necroshade cost being reduced should add more room for skill expressive gameplay and reinforce her identity as an assassin type unit.
Ripper:
1. Cannibalize ability regeneration: 25 life points per second ➜ 35 life points per second
Buffed the corpse interaction for increased card value in extended combat and better survivability of dazed summons. This change will also affect the Rippers spawning from Nox Carriers.
Viridya:
1. Damage: 90, up to 135 in total (750 dp20) ➜ 108, up to 162 in total (900 dp20)
2. Unit's attack radius now applied around the unit hit instead of the squad's center.
Viridya’s autocast is nothing but frustrating to use. Attacks apply such a widespread knockback against squad units, to the point where she stops dealing any damage to them after a single attack. These changes should alleviate the mentioned issue and add a fair reward for utilizing her as an S-counter overall.
[ Tier 3 ]
Amii Ritual:
1. Power cost: 150p ➜ 80p
2. Duration: 20 seconds ➜ 25 seconds
3. Cooldown: 60 seconds ➜ 100 seconds
In the past, Amii Ritual has been underwhelming as its high cost made it fairly difficult to use the spell when needed the most. With this change the drawbacks of the card will be shifted to a long cooldown instead. This puts more emphasis on good strategic usage. Payoff can be significantly higher, but additional time between activations makes it easier to punish a mistimed use.
Mo:
1. Mo's Better Blues ability:
A. Duration: 20 seconds ➜ 30 seconds
2. Group Hug ability:
A. Minimum healing: 500 life points ➜ 1000 life points
B. Maximum healing: 3000 life points ➜ 4000 life points
Whenever Mo sees occasional play, it is due to Stampede being one of the most valuable abilities in the game. More often than not, the cost and cast animation of his remaining abilities make it better to just not use them at all. These buffs should address this without reinforcing his base-nuke oriented play pattern.
Nox Carrier:
1. Power cost: 180p ➜ 80p
2. Charges: 8 ➜ 16
3. Life points: 1500 ➜ 1050
4. Necro Strike ability (both affinities):
A. Initial cooldown: 10 seconds ➜ 15 seconds
B. Damage: 3400 damage ➜ 900 damage
5. Tainted Necro Strike (p) poison duration: 15 seconds ➜ 10 seconds
Nox-Carrier has been fairly problematic due to its one-dimensional design. The ability to destroy full health orbs turned the unit into a raw stat check, especially when combined with cards that can remove the downside of heavily reduced movement speed. In order to buff this card to a viable state, we needed to get rid of this pattern. As a result, we strictly nerfed the siege ability followed by a drastic cost reduction. This puts higher emphasis on Ripper spawns instead of ability damage. With Rippers also getting buffed, this should add a lot of room for creative card usage and remind everyone that Nox Carrier is actually carrying something.
Queek Queek:
1. Damage per attack: 76 (610 dp20) ➜ 80 (640 dp20)
2. Attack range of normal Queek Queek: Now always 9m
3. Superpig ability damage buff: 120% (1340 dp20) ➜ 150% (1600 dp20)
Pushing unit stats to at least match other flying units in T3. The opportunity has also been used to clean up damage numbers.
Shadow Insect:
1. Soul Shock ability damage: 500 ➜ 600
Shadow Insect is a strong unit with a rather unique ability design, but often requires too much micromanagement to outweigh the cons of having weaker stats compared to most other T3 units. We will strengthen the ability a little for that reason.
Vulcan:
1. Conflagrate ability cost: 50p ➜ 30p
With buffs to many T3 units across the board, Vulcan was left somewhat behind in comparison. With lowered ability cost, it should be easier to make use of his strong damage spikes.
• Patch date: 14-01-2023
Greetings Skylords,
We have a patch date!
Our upcoming patch will be releasing next Saturday, January 14th! This patch will release the new cards Sanctuary and Raven Archwalker, as well as our first promo building: Worldbreaker Gun. There will also be new achievements to complete, the introduction of player cosmetics, and a ton of balance changes.
You can find the patch notes here.
Alongside the patch, we will also release a special recap video of everything that was added to Skylords Reborn since the release, voiced by Dreamlord. Catching up on Skylords Reborn should be easier than ever, and we hope we can count on you to spread the word about this great game.
We hope you are looking forward to it!
Hello Skyladies and Skylords,
PvE League is starting soon!
When?
Start: February 6, 2023
End: April 3, 2023
Duration: 8 weeks
What if I start when the season has already started?
Please feel free to join us at any time during the season, you will still be eligible for end of season, achievement and bonus challenge prizes. Late participants will not be able to make up for missed challenges.
What is it?
Compete against other players of similar abilities and ranks in a series of challenges consisting of campaign and rPvE maps. All info about the challenges and rules can be found on our website HERE!
Who can participate?
We have 4 league divisions, to determine which one suits you best each division is summarized here:
Rookie League - Restricted to newer players with PVE ranks 10 (gold 2) or below*
Pro League - Open to everyone PVE rank 11 (gold 3) or above, challenges will be at an expert level.
Elite League - Open to everyone, PVE rank 13 (platinum 1) or above is recommended, challenges will be at an expert level. Elite league challenges are designed to be difficult; our objectives are designed to block most traditional speed running strategies, players will be required to think outside the box.
Master League - Open to all, however we highly recommend a minimum PVE rank of 15 (platinum 3) because it requires an in-depth knowledge of all cards & maps. Masters league challenges are the same as Elite League but with an added twist.
League admins reserve the right to reallocate you to a different division if we feel your capabilities and skills does not fit the division you registered for.
*deadline is on league start, you're allowed to progress your rank afterwards
What are the prizes?
Lots of in game prizes will be awarded to each League, including some promos! The exact prize pools can be viewed on our web page in the info tab under the information and rules.
Rookie League info/prizes - HERE!
Pro League info/prizes - HERE!
Elite League info/prizes - HERE!
Master League info/prizes - HERE!
How do I register?
Visit our website (HERE!), click on "Register for PvE League Here" and follow the instructions.
Can I participate if I don't have Discord?
Yes, you are able to participate without a Discord account. All information & challenges will be on our website and replay submissions will be done via the website too.
Join our PvE League Discord Server
Join us for all the fun and frivolity whilst getting to know other participants in your division.
https://discord.gg/kQfnfGheNZ
QUESTIONS?
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact @Little_Ducky (DaDuck#5103) or @nukie (nukie#9354). We look forward to meeting you all for Season 2 of PvE League.
