Xamos

It messed up a lot of decks I guess, but that change was long overdue in my opinion. The best void return as the only one requiring one orb just doesn't make any sense design-wise.
If you want to stay with Shrine of War, for many decks this also forces people to use the faction-specific sustain options (e.g. Bloodthirst) instead of going Fire-Shadow-Shadow-Nature all the time to slap Regrowths, Equilibriums and Revenges onto already powerful decks.

Another thing to note about Behind Enemy Lines is that the changes to tower targeting, which mostly affected T1 towers, now allow these to reliably hit the Twilight Disciple when being built at the top of the plateau.

Card Balance Changes

Global Balance Changes
Random PvE Boss Leader Immunity:
   - Added Steadfast to all rPvE bosses.
Ranged attack delays re-randomized:
   - Towers and ranged units are now assigned a randomized 0.3-0.7 second delay on a per-attack basis instead of a standardized 0.5 second delay on spawn. This only modifies cards affected by the bug, many ranged units and towers will be unaffected by the change. 
Last patch, we changed the randomized attack delay assigned on spawn from ranging between 0.1-1.1 seconds to a standardized delay of 0.5 seconds. While this successfully achieved our goal of making each unit and tower a player spawns equal, it introduced other problems. The chief concern reported by the playerbase was an aesthetic one. While previously battles in BattleForge felt very alive, with units and towers on each side attacking continuously, with the standardized delay combat started to feel more turn-based. Your units would attack, their units would attack, then your units would attack again. This also led to easy kiting of enemies, particularly NPC enemies, because you could play around the standard delay to unleash volleys of attacks then retreat until the next volley was ready. Given the widespread and consistent feedback we received that something unique to the BattleForge experience had been lost by this change, we decided to pursue a few alternative solutions that would fix both the old and the new problems. The solution we settled on was to re-add the attack delay with a smaller range and to make it apply on a per-attack instead of a per-spawn basis. This means each affected unit or tower will have a slightly different attack speed for each attack, but will on average have the same attack speed over a long enough period. The chaotic nature of combat should also return, with both sides continuously attacking instead of engaging in a semi turn-based encounter.
Revenant's Doom Costs Standardization:
   - Standardize Revenant's Doom costs by tier, with an increasing discount as the tiers progress: T2: 75%, T3: 65%, T4: 50% of unit's normal power cost
NPC Building Power and Orb Cost Fix:
   - All NPC buildings now have an assigned power and orb cost. 
Similar to how we fixed the missing power and orb costs for NPC units several patches ago, we have now given each NPC building its own power and orb cost. One motivation for this change is to allow us to add new cards and card abilities that can be limited in terms of which buildings they can and cannot be taken over, which would otherwise not be possible. A second motivation is to create consistency between NPC buildings. Prior to this change, buildings added with Fire rPvE had properly assigned costs, which is also true of the new Nature rPvE buildings, while the original buildings did not. This created a major inconsistency between and within game modes in regard to Matter Mastery, making it difficult or impossible to know when to bring one or the other affinity. A third motivation was to create a real distinction between the two existing affinities of Matter Mastery. Previously, before this change, the nature affinity could overtake every building in the game, meaning there was no real reason to use the tainted affinity or for it to exist. At the same time, we do not want to strongly nerf the nature affinity, which we do not view as inherently problematic. As such, as part of this change, we are also changing the nature affinity of Matter Mastery to work on T3 buildings, up to a power cost of 140p. Below, we have listed each building affected by this change and what will be its new tier and power cost.
Tier 2 - 100p
Bandit Launcher, Stonekin Hurler, Twilight Infected Tower, Lost Launcher
Tier 3 - 140p
Bandit Sky Defender, Bandit Waystation, Bandit Wizard Tower, Stonekin Deepgorge, Stonekin Launcher, Stonekin Shatterer, Twilight Fleshbender, Twilight Hatecaster, Twilight Skyscorcher, Lost Banestone, Lost Converter, Lost Disruptor
Tier 4 - 200p
Bandit Artillery, Stonekin Hammerfall, Stonekin Shredder, Twilight Bombard, Twilight Willsapper
XL-unit Turn Speed Increase:
   - Increased the turn speed of all player XL-units based on category.
Ground XL: 25% faster turn speed
Flying XL: 40% faster turn speed
Worm XL: 200% faster turn speed
Global Disenchant Hostile versus Friendly Root Distinction:
   - Disenchant's immunity no longer prevents the application of the Immobile, Immobileroot is still prevented.
BattleForge has two types of root effects, one called Immobile and the other Immobileroot. The distinction between them is that Immobile is only applied by friendly effects, while Immobileroot is applied by hostile effects. This change makes it so that a friendly effect which causes a unit to be rooted in place is no longer prevented by Disenchant's immunity effect. The primary reason behind this change is that effects which self-root a unit or its allies are baked into the balancing considerations of a card and its effects. The ability to bypass this downside, which has become easier as we have added, and likely will continue to add, more ways to apply Disenchant, has therefore become a constant balance consideration for both upcoming and existing cards. We are forced to ask ourselves if we can really buff Forest's Vim if we have to account for a Razorleaf that can walk around at normal speed, attacking the entire time. As we work on campaign maps with longer T4 sequences, we have to consider that a player can summon a Dreadnought and have it permanently stay in its Pledge of the Giants mode while walking around, trivializing vast portions of the map with ease. In such cases, do we nerf the Dreadnought and the Razorleaf, or do we nerf the mechanic which is causing the issue? Our decision was to nerf the Disenchant interaction.
Squad Position Fix:
   - Game now checks and updates the Squad position to the unit position if they are too far away from each other.
Any unit has two positions. A squad position and a unit position, which is equal to what we see on screen. This position tends to be close or equal to the units position itself but seems to behave slightly different for some actions. For example,. a Magma Hurler will shift his squad position slightly behind himself when attacking. This is not problematic. But some actions lead to only the unit position being updated while the squad position remained stationary. Prime candidates for this are hold position orders or rooting effects. The squad position can remain at the initial spot while the unit including its unit position can move to attack. Squad position is used by many abilities and spells to check if they should apply to the corresponding unit. Meaning, a unit with a squad position far away from its unit position would no longer be hit by things like CC or AoE attacks targeting the unit position. The fix going live now checks and updates the Squad position to the unit position if they are too far away from each other. Worms are not included here due to issues with worm movement.

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 ]
 Banner of Glory:
1. Life points: 500 ➜ 300
2. Void return percentage: 33% ➜ 40%
Higher percentage void return will allow more efficient cycling of lower tier units into real power. The life points were lowered to avoid situations in PvP where it becomes too strong, such as offensively inside an Aura of Corruption.
 Decomposer:
1. Void return percentage: 50% ➜ 60%
 Frost Mage:
1. Remove knock back from damage cone
2. Add non-damaging cone with reduced range, that applies knock back. A 33m knock back cone should result in Frost Mage consistently applying damage to squads she attacks, fixing the issue where units are knocked outside of her damage range, but she continues to attack them anyway.
 Imperials:
1. Add passive, "Protected Rush:" While under the effect of an Ice Shield, the unit gains significantly increased movement speed.
   A. Only works while Defensive Stance is active
   B. Movement speed while shielded = 4.8 m/s
Improve Frost Sorceress and Ice Shield Tower synergy with Imperials. 
 Scorched Earth (p):
1. Tainted Deconstruction (p):
   A. Damage debuff: 50% ➜ 75%
   B. Remove “The erection of buildings that are presently under construction will be interrupted and it will not be possible to repair anything.” from functionally and description.
The increase of Scorched Earth(p)'s debuff allows it to become a semi-suppression of buildings in a large area (20m) and to protect your fragile Fire units in PvE. We removed the construction-suppression effect to reduce double-scorched usage in PvP, which also gives each affinity a role in either PvE or PvP. 
 Snapjaws:
1. Remove Splash Damage: 5 damage, up to 9 in total ➜ 7 damage
Snapjaws have an abysmal splash radius of only 3m. This is so small it effectively does not exist and only serves to reduce the unit's damage against squad units. We are removing the splash and changing the unit's damage to single-target. This increases the unit's single-target damage from 138 to 193 dp20, a +40% increase in total effective damage. This will change the damage of Satanael's Snapjaws from 414 dp20 to 579 dp20.
 Tunnel:
1. Power cost: 40p ➜ 35p
2. Life points: 880 ➜ 600
Encourage Tunnel play by slightly lowering cost. HP reduction to prevent issues with an overly health efficient Tunnel.
 Witchclaws:
1. Power cost: 65 ➜ 70
2. Damage: 630 ➜ 680
3. Add passive, "Corpse Gathering:" Harvests energy from nearby corpses equal to their former maximum life points to enable more powerful explosions. A maximum of 3000 life points can be stored at once.
4. Infiltration Rework:
   A. Damage (both affinities): 330, up to 1650 in total damage + up to 600 damage per target, up to 5 targets in total based on the number of corpses gathered
   B. Enable splash overflow fix for ability.
   C. Both affinities now damage units and buildings.
   D. Explosion radius: 20m ➜ 15m
   E. Fire affinity: Additionally, when 3000 corpses have been gathered, Witchclaws deal 50% more damage after teleporting.
   F. Shadow affinity ➜ Frost Affinity: Additionally, when 3000 corpses have been gathered, Witchclaws take 50% less damage after teleporting.
[ Tier 2 ]
 Breeding Grounds:
1. Power cost: 70p ➜ 90p
Breeding Grounds is one of the stronger cards in the game and has some of the best scaling of any T2 card or building. At only 1 Nature orb and available as easy as T2, it grants a permanent -25% discount to all own and allied units. While the card is something of a third rail due to its popularity, now that we have significantly buffed nearly all parts of Nature, we believe it is time to give the card a minor nerf. When considering what to do with the card, we considered several options, such as making the discount scale upwards or downwards with tier (i.e. 15% discount if player is T2, 20% if T3, etc.) or just nerfing the -25% discount outright. In the end, we settled on a slap-on-the-wrist nerf, at least initially. The increased bound power will delay players initially in T2, but only cost them 2 extra permanent power if they destroy the building. At the same time, the increased bound power cost should encourage players to actually destroy Breeding Grounds made obsolete by map progression, and it will provide a much needed nerf in the PvP game mode as well. 
 Burrow Ritual:
1. Orb cost: 1 Nature, 1 Neutral (T2) ➜ 1 Nature (T1)
Reducing the card's tier should allow more synergy with Tunnel, allowing for more strategies to emerge and helping to better justify Burrow Ritual's inclusion in a deck.
 Defenders:
1. Crossbow Attack damage: 9 per shot (540 dp20) → 10 per shot (600 dp20)
2. Life points: 810 → 750
Stat realignment to make Defenders more viable offensively and a more attractive option. Life points are worth less than damage when considering stat efficiency, particularly amongst ranged units in PvE.
 Earthkeeper:
1. Fixed a bug which allowed Earthkeeper to make connected units immune to all damage while also not affecting Earthkeeper. 
 Lost Priest:
1. Exhaustion:
   A. Cast range: 30➜ 40m
   B. Total targets: 5 ➜ 10
   C. Debuff Timer: 20 sec ➜ 30s
   D. Jump speed increase
   E. Debuff strength: 30% ➜ 40%
Improvements to Lost Priest's support capacity will help its viability in PvE, particularly in combination with other units such as Lost Shade and Lost Dancer. 
 Matter Mastery (g):
1. Gifted Takeover (g): maximum of 2 orbs and 100 power costs ➜ maximum of 3 orbs and 140 power costs
See Global Balance Changes above for more details. We are also considering more substantial changes to the tainted affinity in a future update. 
 Revenant's Blessing:
1. Charges: 8 ➜ 12
2. Radius: 20m ➜ 25m
3. Gifted Immortal healing: 15 ➜ 30 life points per second
4. Infused Immortal damage: 25% ➜ 30% more damage
5. Bugfix: Allow overlapping Revenant's Blessings to reapply the effect without requiring the unit to exit and re-enter the area.
We are working towards improving the current use case of Revenant's Doom through direct buffs to it and through improving its support tools. With this change, Lost Shades are usable without needing Viridya and the spell scales better into the higher tiers for those you want to use revenants. More support to the faction and to revenants in particular will come in the next patch when we finish the rest of the upcoming Lost Souls rework. 
 Root Nexus:
1. Orb cost: 1 Nature, 1 Neutral (T2) ➜ 1 Nature (T1)
2. Life points: 850 ➜ 650
Moving Root Nexus to T1 gives Treespirit a much-needed support card. Life points reduced to prevent too health efficient blocking options in T1. 
 Spikeroot:
1. Waves per root attack: 2.5 spike waves ➜ 2 spike waves
2. Damage per wave: 100, up to 150 in total ➜ 125, up to 190 in total (+25% increase)
Overall damage remains identical. Spikeroot now always deals the same damage at each point in its attack, instead of having high and low points. 
 Sunken Temple:
1. Added Mode-change, "Hibernate:" Pest Creepers enter a state of dormancy and are no longer summoned.
2. Pest Creepers now aggro against enemies in an area around the Temple.
The new mode change will allow the player to temporarily turn off Pest Creepers. This will be especially helpful when using a large number of Sunken Temples, which quickly fill up the unit population limit, and you want to summon new non-Creeper units. The other change will make it so that Pest Creepers no longer stand around waiting for enemies to either attack them or move within a short distance. They will now actively aggro on enemies that come within a moderate radius around the Temple which spawned them. Overall, these changes should make the card function much more fluidly. 
 Unholy Power:
1. Stored Strength (ammo): 2000 ➜ 3000
2. Ammo is refreshed whenever Unholy Power is recast on a unit already affected by another instance of Unholy Power.
3. Bugfix: Unholy Power no longer decays all remaining ammo when a previous instance of the spell expires. 
Unholy Power is a highly inconsistent spell, and a lot of that regards bugs in its original implementation. By fixing the decay issue, new applications of Unholy Power existing concurrently with previous applications should no longer be removed by older instances expiring. Additionally, new applications, in addition to continuing to stack additively, now refresh the card's ammo pool back to full. On top of these important changes to the card's functioning, we also increased its total strength pool by 50% from 2000 to 3000 which should help it to scale better into T3. With all these changes, Unholy Power should become a significantly stronger and more consistent buff spell.  
 Viridya (normal and promo versions):
1. Viridya’s Blessing is now able to restore lost squad members
 Wallbreaker:
1. Orb cost: 1 Fire, 1 Neutral (T2) ➜ 1 Fire (T1)
Opens up several early use cases for the card on Titans, Dwarven Riddle, and Sunbridge. 
[ Tier 3 ]
 Abyssal Warder:
1. New Active ability for large and medium-sized golems, "Reassemble:" Bond with two other Abyssal Warders of the same size in a 20m radius to reform into an Abyssal Warder of a larger size.
2. Frost affinity effect, Ice Shield duration: 15s ➜ 30 seconds
There is a large disparity between the usefulness of the two Abyssal Warder affinities in terms of effects. The fire affinity (r) provides a permanent buff, while the blessed affinity (b) only grants an Ice Shield for 15 seconds. In an attempt to partially remedy this issue, we have doubled the length of the smaller Warders' Ice Shields to 30 seconds. Additionally, we have finally been able to add a new effect to the small and medium sized Warders which will allow them to rebuild themselves into a larger Warder. Reassemble requires 3 Warders to work, meaning that it is not inherently efficient, though it provides another strong synergy with Promise of Life and builds on the buffs to Abyssal Warder last patch. 
 Blood Healing:
1. Charges 12 ➜ 16
 Thornbark:
1. Melee damage: 1400 dp20 ➜ 1550 dp20
 Mutating Frenzy:
1. Sacrifice cooldown: 15 sec ➜ 5 sec
 Santa Claus:
1. Blue Gift, Red Gift, Christmas Peace cooldown: 60 seconds ➜ 40 seconds
 Satanael:
1. Fealty (both affinities):
   A. Cannot be activated if the player is at or above 125 population. 
   B. Summoned Snapjaws damage: 200% ➜ 120%
Removing all instances of infinite spawning in the game due to the attendant performance issues they cause. Buffing Snapjaws individually as compensation. Overall, the damage of each summoned Snapjaws squad is increased slightly. 
 Shrine of Martyrs:
1. Void return per frozen unit: 12% ➜ 18% of current void pool
2. Bugfix: Void return effect is no longer triggered multiple times per entity.
Regular users of Shrine of Martyrs know that the void return effect is often inconsistent. The same group of enemies could provide wildly different void return rates when frozen due to the fact that the effect would switch between applying once or multiple times per enemy. We fixed this inconsistency, but it left the shrine, which is likely already the weakest of the four standard options, even weaker. As such, we have given it a large +50% buff to its void return percentage in compensation for removing the existing bug. This change will allow players to develop an intuitive understanding of how much void is actually returned per frozen enemies. The percentage we chose is a bit of a guess and is subject to change based on the feedback we receive from player testing.  
 Shrine of War:
1. Orb cost: 1 Fire, 2 Neutral (T3) ➜ 2 Fire, 1 Neutral (T3)
When we first began nerfing cards, many people asked us when we were planning on touching Shrine of War. We previously delayed any changes to the card due to its importance to the rPvE game mode at all levels and because other factions, such as Frost and Nature, lacked sufficient methods of void return, an aspect we think is integral to the balance of all factions. Now that all factions have a viable method of void return, we have decided to give Shrine of War a nerf. We were between the two ideas of nerfing its void return percentage or increasing its orb restrictions. While Shrine of War has by far the most efficient void return when accounting for multiple players out of all the available options, we decided that we did not think its efficiency was outside the line of acceptability, but that the Shrine was too splashable compared to the other options. As such, we choose to leave Shrine of War as the best void return shrine in the game, but to require the player to invest into 2 Fire orbs to access it. 
[ Tier 4 ]
 Altar of Chaos:
1. Change Nether Bomb cast range to work like spells instead of like units & buildings. Still limited to own ground presence only.
This seemingly small change substantially increases the positioning capacities of the Nether Bomb and allows own units to be much farther away when placing bombs. 
 Battleship:
1. Barrage damage per shot: 550, up to 3300 in total ➜ 800, up to 2400 in total
Battleship's ability has a long range of 50m and can be used to snipe out enemies far into the enemy's backline while remaining safe itself. The ability has a very large amount of splash damage, able to fully damage up to 6 enemies in its target radius. At the same time, the target radius is only 12m making it very unlikely there are 6 enemies to damage. Additionally, despite its long animation and unleashing 5 shots, the single-target damage is not even able to destroy a large spawn building. We are reducing the total splash damage in favor of higher single-target damage, increasing the damage dealt to one target from 2750 to 4000 in total. 
 Cluster Explosion (p):
1. Tainted Burst radii per successive explosion: 25m / 20m / 15m / 10m / 5m ➜ 25m / 20m / 15m / 12m / 10m
Increased the radius of the explosion for the 3rd and 4th waves of Cluster Explosion (p). These radii were so small, they often failed to hit any enemies. By increasing them, we hope to give a slight buff to this affinity in ideal situations with a lot of closely clustered enemies. 
 Earthen Gift:
Earthen Gift Redesign
1. Charges: 4 ➜ 8
2. Infused Earth (r) ➜ Blessed Earth (b):
   A. Damage buff: 30% ➜ 50%
3. Tainted Earth (p) ➜ Gifted Earth (g):
   A. Affects Elemental units, not structures
   B. Remove "Every hostile building in the current game will deal 50% less damage."
   C. Damage buff: +50% more damage
   D. Healing per second: 10% ➜ 5%
Earthen Gift is one of the worst cards in the entire game. Before Reforging, its normal price was 3 BFP despite being a Rare spell. As Stonekin's Pure T4 spell, it ought to be one of the reasons why a player goes 2 Nature and 2 Frost orbs, but right now it is a waste of a card slot. The card's existing identity is as a combined buff and healing card, but it is restricted to only work on structures. Even on structures it is not useful.
Instead of completely rejecting the card's initial design, we are attempting to improve on it for the one affinity by increasing the damage buff where it may prove useful upon the release of defensive rPvE. For the other affinity, we are swapping its effect from structures to elemental units, which includes all Stonekin units, and modifying its heal and damage buff accordingly. The idea is to potentially allow the spell to replace Regrowth while also giving Stonekin access to a minor damage buff for itself and any other friendly elemental units. Between this and the Grinder buff, Stonekin's T4 should feel significantly stronger.
 Evil Eye:
1. Damage now ticks every 0.5 seconds instead of every 1 second. Rage still takes the same amount of time to activate.
2. Initial damage delay for Evil Eye's Searing Sight has been removed. Damage will now starts as soon as Evil Eye targets an enemy.
 Grinder:
1. Harmony: Added a yellow bar akin to Mountaineer showing when the healing effect will next occur.
2. Provoke (both affinities): Single target ➜ All enemies in a 15m radius
   A. Infused Provoke Buff: 50% more damage ➜ 75% more damage
Quality of life change to Grinder's harmony ability. Added some increased strength and flexibility to Grinder's taunt by allowing it to affect multiple targets in a small area. This will also allow Grinder (r) to taunt the empty air versus bosses, allowing it to still generate the personal damage buff, which has been increased to +75%, regards of whether or not any enemy units are actually taunted. Stonekin struggles against strong single target enemies such as bosses and this is one step in an attempt to remedy that without damaging the faction's existing identity.
 Lost Evocation:
1. Charges: 4 ➜ 8
2. Cast time reduction: 2 seconds ➜ 0.8 seconds
3. Infused Revenant damage buff: 50% ➜ 100%
The charge increase allows Lost Souls to get access to its primary support spell without having to use two deck slots on Rifle Cultists + Offering. The cast time reduction prevents the use of both Evocations simultaneously, while the buff to the fire affinity (r)'s damage buff makes it a more compelling option for a faction whose main damage dealing occurs through units.
 Shadow Worm:
1. Increase turn rate of disintegration turrets: 200 ➜ 260
 Tempest:
1. Whirlwind splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
 Twilight Pestilence:
1. Damage: 44 ➜ 64 life points per second
2. Healing (both affinities): Both affinities now heal friendly Twilight units by equivalent damage as they deal to enemies.
3. Change Gifted Affinity (g) ➜ Infused Affinity (r)
   A. Add +30% damage buff for friendly Twilight units
Improvements in nearly all aspects of Twilight's marquee spell. Previously, the blessed affinity (b) was the only one worth using due to the damage reduction it provides. We decided to roll the healing effect of the gifted affinity (g) into the base spell and create an alternative damage buff variant instead. The goal with this change is to allow Twilight Pestilence to be a more flexible spell, one able to provide a supportive effect while also clearing minor enemies and recovering chip damage to player units that might otherwise prompt the player to cast an additional healing spell. 
 Void Maw:
1. Void Shear ability cost: 75p ➜ 60p
[ Tower 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 towers up 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. 
Tower Targeting Fixes:
1. Changed the damage delay of the auto-attacks for a large range of towers to the standard delay of 0.1 sec. These towers should now have an easier time hitting moving targets, including swift units. 
   A. Affects the following towers, including both affinities when applicable: Artillery, Hammerfall, Defense Tower, Lifestealer, Northern Keep, Primal Defender, Twilight Bombard, Tower of Flames
 Blaster Cannon:
1. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
2. Tainted Magma: 15m ➜ 20m
 Defense Tower:
1. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
 Howling Shrine:
1. Essence Bolts firing arc: 90 degrees ➜ 135 degrees
2. New passive, “Restoration:” Regenerate 30 life points every second.
To truly fulfill its role as a fortress and to provide a meaningful choice between itself and Razorleaf, Howling Shrine must be a self-sufficient defender able to justify the massive amount of space it occupies. The restoration effect will allow the tower to persist even absent player attention or when facing continuous attack waves that prevent repair. The increase to the firing arc of its main weapon is a much needed change. Prior to this, Howling Shrine could only target most enemies with one turret at a time and XL units with two turrets only if the tower was positioned perfectly with respect to the XL unit's path. The tower should now be able to target units of all sizes with two turrets in most cases. 
 Lifestealer:
1. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
2. Still alive regeneration: 5 life points per second ➜ 8 life points per second
3. Sacrifice cooldown: 15 seconds ➜ 3 seconds
 Lost Disruptor:
1. Damage: 300, up to 330 in total ➜ 300, up to 450 in total (3000 dp20)
2. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 10m
3. Disruption cost: 50p ➜ 20p
Increase Lost Disruptor's effectiveness against multiple enemies. Also, Lost Disruptor's ability is one of the better counters to Shrine of Memory in 2v2 PvP. By decreasing the cost, we better enable players to make use of the card simply for its ability effect.
 Northern Keep:
1. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
 Primal Defender:
1. Earthstrike splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
2. Cloudstrike:
   A. Damage (add splash): 225 ➜ 250, up to 375 in total (2030 dp20)
   B. Splash radius: 0m ➜ 8m
Buff to Primal Defender's anti-air capacity. This leaves it as a middle ground between a non-raged and a fully raged Blaster Cannon, and should hopefully allow the tower to better aid Nature T1 in dealing with anti-air threats, particularly those which can counter small and medium units.
 Rocket Tower
1. Orb cost: 2 Fire ➜ 1 Fire, 1 Neutral
2. Power cost: 80p ➜ 70p
3. Life points: 2000 ➜ 1480
4. Rocket Barrage:
   A. Total rockets: 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 ➜ 4 on all upgrade levels
   B. Attack speed: Every 5 seconds ➜ every 4 seconds
   C. Damage per rocket: 85 ➜ 90 (900 dp20)
Fire T2 currently lacks a splash tower, while Pure Fire T2 has 2 towers. We think Pyromaniac sufficiently fills the slot of T2 tower for Pure Fire, so we are transitioning Rocket Tower into a splash card. As part of this change, we will be cutting down on its large pool of life points while otherwise increasing the consistency of Rocket Tower, both in terms of knockback and damage dealing. Even with the cost decrease, this change will make Rocket Tower mildly less stat efficient against large groups in exchange for a lower start up cost and the ability to consistently knockback multiple enemies due to the fixed targeting and increased rate of fire. These changes should allow Rocket Tower to fulfill its role as a knockback-centric tower while its high damage allies provide the necessary fire power. 
 Skydefender:
1. Damage: 128 up to 192 in total ➜ 153 up to 230 (2300 dp20)
2. Life points: 1400 ➜ 1600
3. Range: 40m ➜ 50m
4. Splash Radius: 5m ➜ 8m
Substantial buff to Skydefender to give it more teeth against the T3 and T4 air threats it is designed to counter. The range increase will make it able to fight back against Raven Battleships, which are one of the most common flying enemies in the campaign. 
 Time Vortex (p):
1. Tainted Void Shock (p), attack speed increase void levels: Above 150, 300, 600, 1200 void ➜ Above 100, 200, 400, 800 void
Improve the efficiency of the tainted affinity (p) by decreasing the amount of void which is required to trigger each attack speed increase.  
 Volcano:
1. Power cost: 150p ➜ 200p
2. Damage: 581, up to 872 (3990 dp20) ➜ 766, up to 1149 (5270 dp20)
3. Life points: 4390 ➜ 5690
4. Infused Eruption (r) Rage:
   A. Rage scaling: 100% 1st stage, 200% 2nd stage ➜ 75% 1st stage, 150% 2nd stage
   B. Rage reset timer: 7 sec ➜ 10 seconds
5. Lava Sea:
   A. Radius: 25m ➜ 30m
   B. Bugfix - Lava Sea now works as described
   C. Added a new visual effect
The goal is to make Volcano more "dense" by increasing its power cost and then adjusting its stats accordingly. Making each Volcano more powerful helps to mitigate the tower's large size and also makes it a better target for building buff effects such as those provided by Frost's Skyelves. Total damage when enraged is slightly increased despite the Rage nerf (12,000 dp20 ➜ 13175 dp20). Overall, Volcano loses a very small amount of total stat efficiency, but gains in total strength by having an ability that actually works. The old Lava Sea provided zero value to the tower because it did not work. The new Lava Sea, which functions as described on the card, turns this Fire fortress into a terrifying strongpoint capable of wiping out hordes of enemy units.  

PvP Balance Changes
[ Tier 1 ]
 Life Weaving:
1. No longer affects buildings.
Life Weaving changes are made to weaken its scaling potential into higher tiers considering most shadow splashes tend to be fairly strong at later game stages anyway. Buffed single unit attacks with straight well focus are very easy to execute and fairly annoying to play against when any damage on the target also increases the damage against your Power Well.
 Sunstriders:
1. Suppression Fire ability cost: 25p ➜ 10p
In PvP, Suppression Fire's most relevant applications arise on higher tech levels, where a 50 energy investment for a fragile T1 unit is already enough of a restriction. As a result, there is room to buff the ability power cost for those niche cases.
[ Tier 2 ]
 Bandit Launcher:
1. Power cost: 60p ➜ 50p
2. Firebug ability cost: 40/35/30/25p ➜ 40p on all upgrade levels
The addition of a weaker building with reduced construction time led to some rather unique T2 strategies, but the high bound power requirements restrict its relevance. This change should open up some more room for creative usage of Bandit Launcher and the Fire Bug ability.
 Bandit Minefield:
1. Mine spawn speed reduced by 0.25 seconds per mine. 
Bandit Minefield has been a fairly controversial topic. The spell was very powerful and played an important role in every game mode. Based on play rates and general feedback, our PvP faction overhaul succeeded in making Bandits more viable and fun to play, but there was a lot of frustration when playing against the faction due to an overly dominant Minefield. After recent tweaks, play rates have dropped by about 20% and Bandits seems to be in a very healthy position based on global faction popularity and high ELO presence ever since. However, the experience of playing against Minefield continued to be perceived as frustrating by many of our players. The intended goal of this set of changes is to keep the faction at a similar level of strength, but distribute its power more evenly across Bandit T2 cards and strategies.
Mine spawn speed will be reduced to enable counter play without removing its zoning power and damage potential upon being ignored. The design direction of allowing placement under units is absolutely intended, crucial for the faction viability, and differentiates the card from basic trap card design. Due to a lack of crowd control and building protection, Bandits needs a tool to defend vs melee unit well focus consistently. A major issue in PvP is that outside of its intended design direction (melee unit zoning and S unit denial), Minefield generates too much trading value as its damage is almost guaranteed. The spell tends to trade up against anything except for swift unit micro. This should be addressed.
In return, we will buff Commandos, Sniper, and Bandit Launcher in compensation. As Warriors Death came up to the discussion for compensations: The card design is not healthy for PvP due to a lack of counterplay, as such we will just leave the card as is since its mechanic is also powerful in end game PvE content.
 Bandit Sniper:
1. Damage: 75 dmg per hit (750 dp20) ➜ 78 dmg per hit (780 dp20)
Slight damage increase to compensate for Bandit Minefield nerfs.
 Commandos:
1. Power cost: 75p ➜ 65p
2. Concentrate ability cost: 10p ➜ 20p
After some testing, we think it is safe to make Commandos a little stronger, as long as the upfront cost of mode-switching remains the same. This should be beneficial for the card in all game modes.
 Gravity Surge:
1. Cooldown: 20 seconds ➜ 15 seconds
Allow Gravity Surge to be more functional as a niche counter for air unit heavy strategies.
 Lyrish Knight:
1. Damage: 400 dp20 ➜ 800 dp20
2. Life points: 980 ➜ 900
3. Surge of Strength:
   A. No longer increases damage by 100%
   B. Now increases damage dealt to frozen targets by 50%
While we had the intentions to give Lyrish Knight a more meaningful role in the game, finding a healthy buff for the card just by tweaking the stats has not proven easy. The extraordinarily high health ratio makes the unit very powerful when combined with health scaling mechanics like Nasty Surprise. Furthermore, the card is easily spammable and can take over games. As a result, we will allow the card to interact more with Frost's spell arsenal rather than just adding value through raw stats.
 Mauler:
1. Power cost: 75p ➜ 70p
After Mountaineer fell out of the meta, Mauler lost its main purpose in PvP. A slight cost reduction should help him shine more in niche situations.
 Mountain Rowdy:
1. Tainted Ice Block damage (p): 25 dmg/sec ➜ 20 dmg/sec
2. Blessed Ice Block (b):
   A. Damage reduction: 25% ➜ 30%
   B. Now affects friendly air units.
With the previous changes, Mountain Rowdy (p) played a strong role in pure Frost due to its high damage potential, which made it a little too effortless to shut down T2 aggression. While Frost should be strong at deflecting attacks around own structures, we want to give players a fair chance to punish the faction when a player acquires a strong tempo lead. Mountain Rowdy (b), on the other hand, has been rather underwhelming, so we will buff the damage reduction percentage a bit.
 Shadow Mage:
1. Sacrifice range: 30m ➜ 40m
2. Foul Play:
   A. Damage percentage: 300% ➜ 400%
   B. Duration until explosion: 20 seconds ➜ 12 seconds
   C. Cast range: 30m ➜ 40m
   D. Now deals half damage to buildings
Despite her great stat efficiency, Shadow Mage's abilities have been rather underwhelming in relation to what the card is supposed to do with them. By adding a burst limit against structures, we open up a lot of room for Foul Play buffs in order to make this ability more rewarding in unit combat.
 Spirit Hunter (p):
1. Tainted Bow Attack poison damage: 20 dmg per second ➜ 25 dmg per second
The current damage loss compared to the green affinity does not get compensated by the additional piercing damage. This change should grant Spirit Hunters purple some better niche uses.
 Stone Shards (b):
1. Blessed Fury ➜ Shatter Ice
   A. No longer deals increased damage to demons and undead
   B. Now deals full damage to frozen targets
Stone Shards (b) are currently unused across all game modes. The affinity effect being effectively useless plays a big role here. This change is supposed to enable alternative strategies in Stonekin (Shards (b) + Spirit Hunters (p) + Coldsnap) without overbuffing the already powerful T2.
 Stone Tempest:
1. Stone Rest healing: 20 life points per second ➜ 40 life points per second
This change is supposed to give the self-heal ability a more meaningful role given that the self-cc almost always outweighs the benefits of using this mechanic. As many of the factions received more tools to counter the unit (i.e. Burning Spears release), we think it is safe to enable more ways to use the card without directly strengthening patterns that have been perceived as oppressive in the past.
 Twilight Curse:
1. Cooldown: 15 seconds ➜ 2 seconds
Allow Twilight Curse to scale into high energy T2s without increasing card efficiency.
 Warlock (r):
1. Infused Witchcraft damage buff: 15% ➜ 25%
We agree that the previous buff reduction was unnecessary when we reduced unit power cost. This has now been reverted.
[ Tier 3 ]
 Drones:
1. Life points: 1760 ➜ 1840
The recent changes for Drones did not help the card as much as we had hoped. Stat efficiency will be increased a bit further.
 Nox Carrier:
1. New passive, "Push the Cart:" Increase movement speed to 6.4 m/s when at least 3 friendly units are within a 25m radius
Based on some previous suggestions by the community in the balancing discord, we will add a conditional movement speed increase to Nox Carrier in order to make sure it actually reaches its destination.
 Sandstorm:
1. Charges: 8 ➜ 12
 Shield Building:
1. Cooldown: 20 seconds ➜ 30 seconds
Shield building has been very powerful for a long time, and a card nerf has been requested by the community rather frequently. We agree. 100% uptime on a shield, strong enough to outlast XL unit focus, is too much value even if you invest a full deck slot for a purely defensive spell.
 Timeshifter Spirit
1. Healing per jump: 275 / 220 / 165 / 110 / 55 life points ➜ 300 / 240 / 180 / 120 / 60
 Tremor:
1. Ground Slam:
   A. Ability cost: 30p ➜ 40p
   B. Cooldown: 15 seconds ➜ 20 seconds
2. Tremor's walk speed (2.4 m/s) is now half of its normal speed (4.8m/s), instead of being identical. 
Tremor is one of the most popular and most powerful siege units in T3. We will be making some minor changes to the ability in order to bring it more in line with other T3 options.
 Unstable Demon
1. Demonic Rage:
   A. Bonus movement speed: 25% ➜ 60%
   B. Cooldown: 20 seconds ➜ 15 seconds
After the initial round of changes, Unstable Demon is not being used as much as we had hoped. As the card is very difficult to use, we will strengthen it to reward good unit management a little bit more.

@T1421 (Ultralord) has crafted a showcase-video of @Hirooos run, that will premiere on his stream on Monday, 10.04.23, 19:00 😃

Will investigate

Oh boy, here we go 🙂

Hi old friends!
I run a tech startup now and I was telling my team how EA allowed you guys to work on this codebase and how you actually pulled it off. They were blown away. We're impressed!
Sadly, I don't have a minute to work on this game but I'm VERY tempted to come back and start playing every now and again.
As I was looking through this site I noticed WindHunter & Wolven my old buddies from WAAAAY back on here. And RadicalX is still here? Very cool!
 
Trivia! Do you know the xNTx from my username can from Wolven? Tell them bud! My original account was just FarRock. He convinced me to join his PVE clan.
 
Anyhow, life updates:
Four kids, bought a house Run a career coaching business Have a YouTube channel for career coaching Wrote a book for entry level professionals in finance Run a tech startup. We're going live in a month and then will be raising for our first public round, so that's super exciting!  
How have you all been? Excited to catch up! Any other old buddies of mine here? MaranV still around?
 
EDIT: Just checked out that video I posted 4 years ago. Wow so many of you really wanted me to come back. Makes me nostalgic. I'm gonna download!

Love y'all,
Mark
 

Some interesting thoughts. Cannot say I agree with everything, but the orb changes (especially) for healing spells could be nice to see, as it would promote some more interesting and original decks. Also, other spells with healing capabilities would get more spotlight. At the same time, I can see this being reeaaaally unpopular. 
As for the rarities, I generally agree that at least some seem off-place. Ice Fang Raptor, Forest's Vim, etc are on my mind the msot. Though, I think it might be a bit controversial if the rarities of original cards were to be changed. Personally, I would support some changes in this regard, since some cards are currently, at least for me, just instant sell/reforge fodder. 
All in all, the most interesting discussion could be, if the healing spells, as the core faction utility, should be more restricted Orb wise. As well as some of the T3/T4 faction cards. 

I cannot understand this drama every time you personally do not like a change. Yes, I don't like all the changes either, but it would be sheer insanity not to note that the changes in general are simply obvious improvements and are met with great goodwill. After all, the annual surveys show this very good.
But let's stick to very specific examples:
I have always been one of those who thought the old Batariel deck was good the way it was. I always saw the inventory as the Fundus described above. I have been vocal about this. Was this opinion ignored? Not at all.
Yes, Bata was eventually nerfed, but there were always different voices. There was a goal set by the team to include as many opinions as possible and to tone down the deck while keeping it open for speedruns and 10s.
After the Bata nerf came out, the deck was pretty much ruined and there was nothing left of the core. Many, myself included, complained and argued. After some back and forth, the new feedback was taken and corrected, with the result:
The deck is no longer the undisputed #1 fast deck, and the meta has opened up a bit, but it still has a solid place in the speedrun meta.
Sure, I could cry because something has changed, and weep for the beautiful camp one-shots the deck has sometimes shown in good hands - but I could also look at it with a little more perspective and say, "Too bad, but it's still one of the fastest decks, and speedruns have become a little more varied and colorful for it.
 
The balance changes alone have given SR dozens of fun and sometimes very strong new strategies. The fact that some people are talking about the end of the world because some niche strategy has fallen by the wayside, I really can't hear anymore.
 
Let's take the Watcher: Yes, it was always a nice card, but it couldn't really do anything. Yes, there was a valid Amii deck with it, but that was more "how can I make the card useful" - I really liked playing it that way, but honestly, how many times did you see that? Once in a thousand games? I NEVER saw this deck played by anyone else at the time. I'm sure someone did, but that just goes to show how rare it was.
The current Watcher has become an obvious improvement and one of the key cards in Pure Nature, and is really fun to play now. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way: I'd rather have a Watcher that does one thing right than a Watcher that's nice but fills niches.
Of course, I wouldn't complain if it went back to 2 natural and 2 colorless - but if I had to choose, I'd definitely go with the new one!
Do you have to see it that way? Of course not! But again, just because someone does not like a change does not mean that the change may not be seen as positive by others.
The possibility of expressing one's opinion and the approval of one's own personal opinion have been confused in social and political discourse for some time now - the one has nothing to do with the other.

tl;dr
Just because you (feel) you are not listened to does not mean that no one is listened to.

Will be going on next patch.

It is ridiculous hyperbole to call Primeval Watcher a "trash tier" card which really cannot be taken seriously. Its chaining attack with Siege has huge damage potential and Stasis Field is more versatile than ever. It got stronger in every way, except the orb requirement changes. That alone makes it bad?
I would be in favor of moving it to since it left this orb combination without a payoff unit from natures side given that Spore Launcher is dedicated to its own deck archetype. Since that Siege doesn't really fit Primeval Watcher thematically anyway, like are the fairies it spits out carrying away the bricks or something, I'd just give that up in order to make it more flexible once again.
Bloodhorn is so powerful that realistically it should be a pure Bandit card or at least have hybrid orbs instead of flex. The fact that it still retains its requirements despite its power is already a concession.
Enlightened Bata was ludicrously OP and everybody knew it. Claiming that the new Bata, despite it being a very powerful carry deck, is in any way weak just underlines how the existence of complete outliers warp and twist the perception of power. Imagine if Bata never had an uncapped damage aura that is affected by buffs. Just a steady 100 DPS. People would be blown away by its 300 DPS aura right now.
Decomposer straight up broke the game by throwing any conventions about economy out the window. BH farming was just a symptom of that, although it did heavy damage to progression. In any case the mechanic is planned to make a comeback through a dedicated mode. Addressing the issue was a priority though.
All of that was talked to death though, so focusing back on the topic at hand I think the weakspot of pure Nature is still T2. Fire can just continue to roll with its incredibly T1s, Shadow has Phoenix and Frost also gets a sturdy arsenal. Nature T2 feels wonky in comparison.
T1 was always good although somewhat monotonous but at least there is a semi-viable Werebeasts + Amazon + Fountain of Rebirth combo now. Still heavily suffers from being melee though. T3 is also good and even got a really fun toy with Abyssal Warder + Promise of Life. T4 is buttery smooth with Forest Elder being amazing, Primeval Watcher shredding and Mind Control being both good and fun. I am still unconvinced by Sanctuary but changes to Willzapper might help there.

There was a lot of discussion! Mostly because bad harvest turned into this at some point:

Oh wow these times again, well played guys ! Was great fun, thanks for hosting Kapo 🙂

And I wasn´t that bad apparently, top 10 out of the 68 MagmaHurler-runs and Top15 in total. I tried both once because at first my little Ashbones were sad that I didn´t take them in the first place, tho I can´t help and like Magma Hurlers better 😄 That´s why I send my Hurler entry even tho I kinda knew after I tried both once that Ashbones are faster and if I would have done a second run with Ashbones I might have had an even better time than 9.40, because my first Ashbone run was already 10.17 and there I didn´t tryhard ^^ while my first casual run with hurlers was like 10.52. But I wanted Hurlers to win so I did a second and third try there.

There are a couple of cards that I feel like discussing, but I don't like collection topics and somehow this card bothers me the most recently. 
I have to mention that I currently don't play pvp, though this card is clearly a pvp card. I used to play some pvp back in the day though.
The old Battleforge wiki even mentions that it is useless in PvE as is
With this out of the way, does anyone use that card?
I honestly can't imagine anyone does.
The Card

The cards basic function is to block enemy players from spawning more of the same unit
-> shadow affinity makes it permanent (which is nice for a change considering permanents are pretty rare), well until the unit dies
-> nature affinity is limited to 30s but does 50dmg per second

 
What's wrong with it?
The utmost problem here is that it is a T3 Fire spell with 120 energy cost.
Being T3 already limits its use in pvp, especially as spell, especially for what it does. Now the price is what kills it.
Just to put this into perspective, imagine you play against someone who you know really loves Ashbones, maybe it's even his only t3 unit. So you spent 120 energy to block his Ashbone from procreating. What an act of genius, he is devastated, humiliated even, until, he sacrifices his Ashbone to call another Ashbone...
Net loss to you 120energy
Net loss to him 100energy
Even if he couldn't sacrifice his unit, even if he could never call another Ashbone ever again, that would barely justify the price. Skylords is not a game were amassing a single unit is usually a great strategy. Ironically the more expensive a card is, the less likely your enemy can play out multiple anyway (essentially anything above t3 120 energy are XL units).
As a T3 spell you might as just make it free and it would still be pretty reasonable.
Now I focused on affinity to Shadow. The Nature affinity card is an interesting one, it is quite different by doing 1500 damage to a unit which overshadows its main effect. That's quite a lot for single target damage, but it is still far from great, as it's really slow and there are many cheap option to counter it (passive building heal reduces that ~650 damage (1000HP unit, above 1500HP it will out-heal the damage)
Solution?
The thing is, I really appreciate the general idea of that card, I think Skylords could use some meta (no the other meta) strategies.
Like aforementioned I don't play pvp yet and I suspect it can be applied in PvE, so the following are just some unfunded ideas (not necessarily meant to be used in conjunction)
reduce orb requirement to T1 or T2 reduce energy cost to ~60 (Shadow affinity) permanent, affected unit can't be sacrificed, but the spell can only be applied to one type of unit at a time (Shadow affinity) unit can't be healed (Nature affinity) 30seconds, affected unit permanently looses 2% of their health (max 20) every 2.5 seconds I think those suggestions match the idea pretty well the name 'dying breed' very well. One makes sure the creature can't 'reproduce' while the other marks it inevitable death.
The last one sounds maybe a bit overpowered at first, even viable for pve, but it would take 2minutes to kill a creature, even longer for anything above 2000 health and obviously wouldn't work on bosses. Another idea with a different standard ability
T2 as long as the affected creature is alive, every other unit of the same kind (same card) played do not recover from summoning sickness (Shadow affinity) permanent, affected unit looses 10 health every second if there is not another of the same kind 50m around it (max unit cost 100 energy) (Nature affinity) after 5 seconds, for 30 seconds, all other units of the same kind 50m around the affected will loose 40 health every two seconds The concept here is that one punishes the player indirectly from summoning more of it. Shadow affinity card should be a minor poison like sapping spell, that is less useful if the enemy has already summoned more than one or might encourage him to summon a second ) the energy cost should prevent it to be used on creatures that rarely get played more than once. Nature affinity card does the opposite by punishing the player from having already played more than one. The damage can be avoided though by separating the affected unit temporarily. but both shadow affinity and nature affinity can be used in combination to create a bit of an predicament.
Damage and price is debatable, price should be somewhere around the same as the units its used against, so immediate sacrificing them is about even or slightly favorable to the spellcaster.
This might give the card some value as a counter to wind weaver spam for example

Talked with @Volin a bit about it a bit in Discord.
Resource Booster is probably not even needed. Also, if you have both editions of WBG, you can probably even ditch Rifle Cultists+Offering.
This offers slots for Frenetic Assault 🙂

Feedback is always welcome! I didnt consider your comment negative at all, and as long as feedback is brought in a constructive way, we are always happy to hear it. Its impossible to make all players happy with our descision (my poor 50p shadowmage 😪), but we take feedback to heart. 

Yeah I like it, because I like to express my opinions on such things as well 😄 But I´m not sure if you guys like to read all opinions on such things, bec they can be quite ngative like mine 😄 I literally have plenty ideas I´d like to see implemented ingame but its always a bit of a letdown if others don´t like these ideas at all, although I can totally understand that everyone has different opinions and mine wont be liked by everyone for sure, thats just life ^^ 

The issue here is that the whole reason we designed the card was to put it on walls. With our defensive rPvE finally moving towards an endpoint in the foreseeable future, we are trying to add units which can be used in the game mode. The other issue is that design-wise we were intending to have it leave a pool of magma on the ground which burned enemies, but with 4 to 6 small worms this cluttered the screen. So, many small issues with the card, which is not that uncommon, but the community usually does not see the "failures."
Yes, I agree. Also as a hint towards some coming changes to the upgrade system, we have redistributed all upgrades in the game across the maps evenly by rarity. So every map now has more-or-less the same number of Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Ultra Rare cards.  

And my second Entry to the Card Design Contest: Allyria (tho I changed the abilitys a little) -  An T2 Archer Hero, the beloved wife of Rogan Kayle (they would´ve just recently married, as it didn´t come up in the story yet ^^)
Name: [Allyria] 
Tier & Orbs: [T2, Neutral]
Type: [Unit] - based on the Model of a single White Ranger, but recolored to be gold and white to maybe look like a girl princess
Power: [80]
Hit points and Size: [790] [ S ] ( single S unit, able to mount Wall Segments) 
Attack value and Type: [960] [ranged and XL] 
 
Passive Abilities:
[Inspiring Archery]: Allyrias presence inspires other Archers in an area of 25m around her to deal 10% increased damage and gain an additional +10m range!  [Long shot]: Allyria herself has a long range of 30m Active Abilities:
[Coat of Swiftness]: Allyria and other S units next to her gain 40% incresed speed for 15 seconds and can't be knocked back during the duration]  
Reasoning: I love archers and love the idea of having a princess for Rogan in the game. Also I think Small Units are lacking support in the game and get left behind. This card would enable fun and maybe even viable S-Unit strategies (at least in T2). And with that XL-Counter she would maybe have some nice niche usecases.
 
Note: She should have a longer range than normal Archers, but not too long to still be in range for her passive. Her passive should be strong to justify her use because she is a legendary card that can only be in play once, but restricted to Archers (S-units) to not be op.
PS: Numbers might have to be changed to fit the game properly. Maybe her active ability could also make s-units ignore unit-collision. Or if the steadfast would turn out to strong, instead of the steadfast a damage-reduction could be added.
 
Story: Allyria was not a princess by birth, but a daughter of simple rangers. Her parents named her after the 'Lyr of Old' to remember all it's glory. She learned to use the bow already in her childhood from her uncle and she was a natural talent. However, as she was a girl, she wasn't really noticed by anyone to be of good use in a real battle and even her parents held her back (because they wanted to protect her). That's why she wasn't noticed at first after the humans of lyr came back to the surface after the Twilight infestation. She moved with the people who followed Rogan Kayle. One day the got attack by Twilight Insects. Sadly her dad was killed in the ambush, but he left her a magic bow with which she was able to shoot far away and still hit. With said bow she saved Rogan Kayle's life during the ambush. He thanked her and one thing led to the other and they fell in love.

I did miss quite a lot there as its hard to keep up reading, but do you know what happened to the idea someone had to give Moloch an active ability to spread lava all around him? Even Moloch´s Card-Art suggests that he can spit fire from his back 😮 

I suppose it's probably just for the fun/synergy but been playing a similar deck (still quite different, but half of the cards are the same and most of the others I don't have).
Curious whether ethereal storm really manages to scale up to a point where it is worth taking here over something like soulshatter (less orb requirements same power cost)
Especially given the lack of void return, and on that note it seems like you could get into a pickle with necroblaster without cultist master so I might favor lost launcher there.

Hi, here are some fun decks based around a certain card-synergy:
Bandits Indestructable irrepressible: (PvE allrounder, with an properly adjusted name)
(hoping this one doesn´t gets copyright-striked by Kapo lol)
Synergys:
- Commandos+RiotersRetreat. Super-fun T2. +Bandit-Lancer on T3
- Waystation+Oracle-Mask. Quickly deploy stations to make your Units indestructable when activating the Mask´s ability.
- T4 Buffing Up your Banzai-Lords with unity OR Bloodhealing (as I read somewhere they don´t work properly together) and use birds to be indestructable.
MEUaFCNGahUhKlUUZFZgYcYmUqUkYMUHaPaGNxU2S

Orcs Going Ham: (PvE allrounder)
- play all Orc cards and let them group up.
- use Twilight-Minions to buff up your small units b 65% more atk - use on slayers at T3
- at T4 you use Wintertide to make you TwilightSlayers immune to knockback and give dmg reduction.
- Play Construct because this card goes ham by itself
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RockSolid: (PvE, for Dwarfen Riddle f.e. but consider using GiantWyrm on T4 if you want this deck for that map xd)
- def deck to try out Earthkeeper
- build T2 Army for fun and use Earthkeepers ability on the go (on Rogan f.e. so he stays save)
- use Razorleaf as defender and activate Earthkeepers ability on him while he stays in the back besides healing Well, Razorshards and Crystal Fiend so they stay alive
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WeWillStillStand:
- different Version of aboves deck
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RootingPower: (rPvE root-deck, slow and fun)
- use a lot of treespirits, keep them, use Razorleaf on T3 and use them to clear the map while moving the connection forward with Sylvan Gates
- play incredible Mo´s third ability to insta-root dazed units
MZFULzMSPsXuLcM-KDXFYgGvVYTGQoR_W5VvMqYWa

FireRoot_rPvE: (rPvE fire-root deck, bit on the weak side but fun nevertheless)
- use treefiends because they disable enemies
- use fire spells to get rid off anything annoying (earthquaker for buildings, cluster for minions)
MFYvVZFuLXUYTcM-KPSGQoYRXSPDX5VZYsXGNzMWL

This Eliminates: (PvE allrounder)
- using Eliminatoooor. Buffs (almost) everything. also damages stuff, so use viridya to keep units alive
- using Fire Crystal because it is somewhat viable and bec its fun to enrage (almost) all your units ^^
McZSUvERSTP7YFW7TIXKKyIWYjLrYXX7HRVhXzIqO

ShatterTheRainbow: (PvE allrounder)
- (try to) use Warlock (blue) in PvE, keep the until T3 because Red-Aff Rageflame doesn´t reduce dmg take on frozen units (Blue would be redundant with Warlock)
- (try to) use Girl-Power as long as the card still exists and doesn´t get gendered, make Sure you use it on moon once a game for fun and on Bloodhorn. Also Gladiatrix is in the deck to have more targets for the spell
- On T4 use Tempest, because nobody else does (and bec he shatters ice) but be careful, his freeze on spawn has a very small radius
MEUaFCN6M8XiR8W_KRZEYYF6TqSUUKZYURUsSRIzM

ShadesOfFlame:
- double Eliminator, because he buffs Shades. GG
MgEvFsFvYiSYFdZcZ7TDW8MrYLZYGHYGWXXxIhXBa

 
KoboldsFireTricks:
- Fire Frost fun. Use Skyelf-Sage on Infernal Machine & build Northstar next to it to let buildings burn hard.
- not the best orb solution yet (Fire-Frost-Frost-Fire) -> Infernal on T4, I just put all the cards in I thought would work funny together (probably needs void-return)
MEUCNlOfI8WhKiS_K8KcTyFdGPIIUMSkYJQCG2VGN

StoneRage:
- Play Rageflame the way he was meant to be: Enraged! To do so, use fire crystal (and then more fire-aff cards to actually make use of the crystal)
MzTvFgEVMTMvY7YUTlYjYvUsP_TdYUUYUDNOLhX9M

 
 
Twilight Instand Noodles:
MEUCNeIQaSYOXAZGMRXpLHNOTZYKTmXPTZXIPyWkY
Stones Shatter:
MtFvFgETM6MVMvYLSmYzU0UOMgRqSfSqLAUTUsStL
Stonekin Structures:
MgEvFvYNMmY-T4UyF5SHN6T9X9TPIOIbT6SEMIPyW
FrostRage:
M7YzTgEvF6MVMTMvYUTfRlFoL_T_UqLDNqKpWqOEa

Hi, here are some fun decks based around a certain card-synergy:
Bandits Indestructable irrepressible: (PvE allrounder, with an properly adjusted name)
(hoping this one doesn´t gets copyright-striked by Kapo lol)
Synergys:
- Commandos+RiotersRetreat. Super-fun T2. +Bandit-Lancer on T3
- Waystation+Oracle-Mask. Quickly deploy stations to make your Units indestructable when activating the Mask´s ability.
- T4 Buffing Up your Banzai-Lords with unity OR Bloodhealing (as I read somewhere they don´t work properly together) and use birds to be indestructable.
MEUaFCNGahUhKlUUZFZgYcYmUqUkYMUHaPaGNxU2S

Orcs Going Ham: (PvE allrounder)
- play all Orc cards and let them group up.
- use Twilight-Minions to buff up your small units b 65% more atk - use on slayers at T3
- at T4 you use Wintertide to make you TwilightSlayers immune to knockback and give dmg reduction.
- Play Construct because this card goes ham by itself
M4F-DaFiFFTUWkWRXTZSaJTOTMUYUhEKTGNyYJQrL
 
RockSolid: (PvE, for Dwarfen Riddle f.e. but consider using GiantWyrm on T4 if you want this deck for that map xd)
- def deck to try out Earthkeeper
- build T2 Army for fun and use Earthkeepers ability on the go (on Rogan f.e. so he stays save)
- use Razorleaf as defender and activate Earthkeepers ability on him while he stays in the back besides healing Well, Razorshards and Crystal Fiend so they stay alive
MiIFYWKZFvYnF8TpSiYmYvUtIsPGQHQ5VjGsSzMBN

WeWillStillStand:
- different Version of aboves deck
MZFsPzMiIFYWKuLrIvYUMcVmYiYnFpSGQHQ5V8EEL
RootingPower: (rPvE root-deck, slow and fun)
- use a lot of treespirits, keep them, use Razorleaf on T3 and use them to clear the map while moving the connection forward with Sylvan Gates
- play incredible Mo´s third ability to insta-root dazed units
MZFULzMSPsXuLcM-KDXFYgGvVYTGQoR_W5VvMqYWa

FireRoot_rPvE: (rPvE fire-root deck, bit on the weak side but fun nevertheless)
- use treefiends because they disable enemies
- use fire spells to get rid off anything annoying (earthquaker for buildings, cluster for minions)
MFYvVZFuLXUYTcM-KPSGQoYRXSPDX5VZYsXGNzMWL

This Eliminates: (PvE allrounder)
- using Eliminatoooor. Buffs (almost) everything. also damages stuff, so use viridya to keep units alive
- using Fire Crystal because it is somewhat viable and bec its fun to enrage (almost) all your units ^^
McZSUvERSTP7YFW7TIXKKyIWYjLrYXX7HRVhXzIqO

ShatterTheRainbow: (PvE allrounder)
- (try to) use Warlock (blue) in PvE, keep the until T3 because Red-Aff Rageflame doesn´t reduce dmg take on frozen units (Blue would be redundant with Warlock)
- (try to) use Girl-Power as long as the card still exists and doesn´t get gendered, make Sure you use it on moon once a game for fun and on Bloodhorn. Also Gladiatrix is in the deck to have more targets for the spell
- On T4 use Tempest, because nobody else does (and bec he shatters ice) but be careful, his freeze on spawn has a very small radius
MEUaFCN6M8XiR8W_KRZEYYF6TqSUUKZYURUsSRIzM

ShadesOfFlame:
- double Eliminator, because he buffs Shades. GG
MgEvFsFvYiSYFdZcZ7TDW8MrYLZYGHYGWXXxIhXBa

 
KoboldsFireTricks:
- Fire Frost fun. Use Skyelf-Sage on Infernal Machine & build Northstar next to it to let buildings burn hard.
- not the best orb solution yet (Fire-Frost-Frost-Fire) -> Infernal on T4, I just put all the cards in I thought would work funny together (probably needs void-return)
MEUCNlOfI8WhKiS_K8KcTyFdGPIIUMSkYJQCG2VGN

StoneRage:
- Play Rageflame the way he was meant to be: Enraged! To do so, use fire crystal (and then more fire-aff cards to actually make use of the crystal)
MzTvFgEVMTMvY7YUTlYjYvUsP_TdYUUYUDNOLhX9M

 
 
Twilight Instand Noodles:
MEUCNeIQaSYOXAZGMRXpLHNOTZYKTmXPTZXIPyWkY
Stones Shatter:
MtFvFgETM6MVMvYLSmYzU0UOMgRqSfSqLAUTUsStL
Stonekin Structures:
MgEvFvYNMmY-T4UyF5SHN6T9X9TPIOIbT6SEMIPyW
FrostRage:
M7YzTgEvF6MVMTMvYUTfRlFoL_T_UqLDNqKpWqOEa

Patch #400033 - Force of Nature
Welcome to our newest patch, titled "Force of Nature"!
This update contains our fifth balance patch for the game, brand-new cards, and many other changes, enjoy!

Patch Preview
 - Three new cards are now available! Jump in-game to collect Wasteland Terror, Burning Spears, and Transcendence.
 - Major changes to the PvP game mode, including PvP Happy Hours, reward reworks, hiding player loses, and more. 
 - Added 18 new, primarily PvE achievements for both beginners and veterans alike. Including one to earn the new promo Mana Wing!
 - Rebalanced Fire RPvE to provide a still challenging but less frustrating experience
 - Rebalanced over 40 cards, with a large focus on Nature cards. 
 - Changed several PvP and PvE maps to improve player experience 

General Changes
Updated in-game player banner colors for GM accounts to represent the current roles. Added ability to search for missing copies and charges in the Auction House. For example, writing `(charge=2 & copies<2) | (charge=1 & copies<3) | (charge=0 & copies<4)` in the textbox will show you all the cards you can still potentially buy to get a fully charged collection. Added ability to play cards by clicking on the upgrades in the upgrade scroll view or the upgrades in the upgrade window. Added ability to change the play speed in the forge, or to pause and unpause it. New hotkeys are available in the options menu. The default hotkeys are J, K and L for decreasing speed, toggling pause, and increasing speed. Added a responsive deck counter to the decks window that shows how many decks the player has, relative to the maximum number of allowed decks. Improved the UI that displays what is remaining to complete an achievement. Previously, players could hover over the progress bar to see a tooltip, but this was unclear. Now, there will be a clearly visible (?) icon next to the progress bar that has the tooltip instead. Added ability to press the Space button in the reforge window to reforge the current cards in the window. This removes the need to press the Reforge cards button.   Increased unit icon (dot) size on in-game minimaps from 4x4 to 5x5 pixels. Added the new Force of Nature loading screen. Added ability to change how the automatically generated replays are named. There is an extra setting in the GUI section of the configuration file at `/Battleforge/config.json` called `savereplaysnameparts` for this.
New Cards
Burning Spears - 80p T2 Pure Fire
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map Oracle. 
S-unit designed to counter Large and Extra Large units. For more information, check out our design spotlight below in the PvP Balance Changes, section as well as Community Update #23.
 
Wasteland Terror - 260p T4 Pure Bandits  (Fire and Nature Affinity)
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map Blight (Fire Affinity) and Raven's End (Nature Affinity).
Bandit dragon for those Bandits players who want other options besides Tortugun. Its ability acts as a mass Disenchant to let your army continue to more forward through crowd control. For more information, check out Community Update #14. 
 
Transcendence - 90p T4 Amii Spell 
You will find the upgrade for this card on the map Sunbridge. 
Our first Amii spell is castable on both enemies and allies, with different effects depending on the target. When cast on enemies, it buffs one unit and debuffs all of its surrounding allies. When cast on allies, it debuffs one unit and buffs and its surrounding allies. In both cases, it rewards careful target selection and micromanagement from the player side. For more information, check out Community Update #20.

Mana Wing - New Promo Card 
While not a new card, we have also added a new promo to the game. Every player will be able to get a promo Mana Wing by completing the new achievement "A Force of Nature". The promo will not be available in boosters, but it will be trade-able. For more information, check out Community Update #24.
 

PvP Game Mode Changes
[ New Player Protection ]
To protect new players from facing top players when they are just getting started in ranked play, it is no longer possible to get matched with players with a base ELO above 135.000 if your own base ELO is below 102.000.
[ Made Player Names Anonymous ]
To prevent players from dodging bad match-ups, player names have been anonymized in the ranked lobby. This does not affect the sparring lobbies. 
[ Losses are Now Hidden]
It has been proven in other competitive games that showing losses on the ranked ladder results in demotivation and higher entry barriers. We have therefore removed losses from the ladder. The information is still accessible on your profile if you want to look it up. 
[ Updates to the Free PvP Decks ]
We have made some changes to the cards contained in the free PvP decks to compete with the new meta. If we made updates to the free PvP decks you have currently selected, you will now have the option to either swap to the new cards, or keep your current set up. Changes have been made to Pure Nature (Parasite over Shrine of Memory), Twilight (Twilight Minions over Ghost Spears), Pure Shadow (Executor over Nightguard) and Pure Fire (Burning Spears over Scorched Earth). 
[ Improved Rewards ]
We have removed the gold penalty that was currently active for playing sparring games. Quests that require you to play 2vs2 games, now also count 3vs3 games for completion. 
We have also allowed you to drain the reserve while looking for ranked a match. If you queue for at least 5 minutes, even if you don't find an opponent, you will earn BFP as if you were ingame, meaning you get BFP not just for playing, but also while searching for matches. 
[ Happy Hours ]
Happy Hours are specific time periods where players will receive additional gold and BFP for playing PvP. The daily boost / reserve will drain at a factor of 1.5x, while you will also get 1BFP per minute extra for queuing. For Happy Hours, there will be an in-game announcement, and the icon on the world map will indicate Happy Hours are active. 

Happy Hours will take place during the following times:
- 1vs1 happy hours: 7pm-9pm CET
- 2vs2 happy hours: 9pm-10pm CET
- 1vs1 happy hours: 4am-5am CET
By clustering players together during certain time frames, players will have an easier time finding matches more frequently. 

New Achievements
Skylords Reborn currently faces primary two issues in terms of content: early game progression is too steep, and endgame content is nearly nonexistent. These achievements are intended to make the first step in tackling both issues. Smaller, more digestible progressive achievements will mean a player will no longer finish the campaign on standard, with the next goal in sight being to play all the maps again on advanced before being rewarded. New players will now be slowly guided through the campaign and RPvE, allowing them to steadily accumulate cards along the way. 
At the same time, we are adding our first set of endgame achievements to the game. This will provide more content for our veteran players and give them a reason to replay old maps, often with a twist. We hope you all enjoy these new challenges, and we will continue to expand the endgame content into the future.  
[ Infinitely Scaling Achievement ]
Reborn in Fire  [1 Mini-booster]
Reforge Cards (Unlocks every 20 reforges, scales infinitely)
[ Beginner Achievements ]

Just a Story  [1 Twilight booster]
Complete Viridya and Brannoc's story on standard difficulty or higher (Encounters, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Soultree, Crusade, Sunbridge, King of the Giants, Titans, Ascension)
The Most Dangerous Game [1 Bandits booster]
Complete Mo's story on standard difficulty or higher {Mo, Ocean, Oracle, Slave Master, Convoy, Blight, Raven's End, Empire)
A Debt Unpaid  [20,000 gold]
Complete the story related to the Treasure Fleet on advanced difficulty or higher. (Bad Harvest, Treasure Fleet, Mo, Blight, Slave Master, Convoy) 
A Mile in His Shoes  [2 Stonekin boosters]
Complete Rogan's story on advanced difficulty or higher (Encounters, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Crusade, King of the Giants, Titans, Dwarven Riddle, Guns of Lyr, Empire)
A Wrinkle in Time  [250 bfp]
Win the 4-player map Empire spawning at least 5 different Lost Souls cards from a deck containing only frost, shadow, and Lost Souls cards.
Godslayer  [250 bfp]
Win the 2-player maps Sunbridge and Insane God on any difficulty. 
Apprentice  [1 booster]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 5 or higher. 
[ Veteran PvE Achievements ]

The Road Not Taken  [3 boosters]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 9 or higher.
Turn Back All Ye Who Enter Here  [6 boosters]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 10.
Nevermore  [2 Bandit boosters]
Complete Blight's story on expert difficulty (Blight, Raven's End, Slave Master, Ocean, and Oracle)
Make it Double  [2 Amii boosters]
Complete all 2-player maps on expert difficulty. (Crusade, Sunbridge, Nightmare Shard, Nightmare's End, The Insane God, Slave Master and Convoy)
Never Thought of Him  [100,000 gold]
Complete the story of Mo becoming the new king of the fire tribes on expert difficulty with all players in the map using decks containing only Fire cards.  (Mo, Ocean, Oracle, Slave Master, Convoy, and Raven's End)
The Long Journey Home  [2 Frost boosters]
Complete the story re-establishing the Kingdom of Lyr on expert difficulty using decks containing only frost cards. (Encounters with Twilight, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Bad Harvest, Dwarven Riddle, and Guns of Lyr)
Not Even My Final Form  [Rogan Kayle Card]
Win the 1-player map Encounters with Twilight on expert difficulty without using T3 or T4 cards.
Forest for the Tree  [Viridya Card]
Complete the 1-player map The Soultree on expert difficulty using only Nature cards from T1 and T2.
A City Strongly Compact  [Stronghold Card]
Win the 1-player map Defending Hope on expert difficulty with a deck containing only spell and building cards.
A Force of Nature   [Promo Mana Wing]
Complete all 1-player and 2-player scenarios on expert difficulty with all players in your team using decks containing only Nature cards.

Those who complete "A Force of Nature" will be rewarded with a Promo Mana Wing! This promo is unique to this achievement and will not be available from boosters, but it will be trade-able. We hope you look forward to the challenge!