Dallarian

It's been already a year? That's so crazy, time flows so fast. I still am still thinking about the results of the previous survey 😅

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!

• Share your feedback, get two boosters!
Our yearly feedback survey has become a tradition by now. Because Skylords Reborn is a community project, we want to know what our players like about Skylords Reborn, and what could be better. We want to keep improving the game and growing our player base, and your feedback is crucial for us! 
As a thank you, there will be two boosters for everyone who fills in the survey. Your feedback will be anonymous.

• Announcing a new rPvE difficulty
As mentioned in previous Community Updates, we are currently hard at work creating more map-based content, like the much anticipated new campaign maps. But we are also aware that one of the most played game-modes in Skylords Reborn is rPvE, specifically difficulty level 9. Today we are excited to announce we are close to complete a new difficulty for rPvE, sitting between difficulty 9 and 10!
We sat down with one of our designers to share some more information about this upcoming new difficulty. Take it away, RadicalX! 
 
What was the motivation to create rPvE 9.5?
Based on game data, we noticed the difficulty spikes from rPvE difficulty 9 to 10 are too big. The change in win rate is even greater than the difference between difficulty 5 and 9, and the majority of games at the highest difficulty just result in a loss.

What makes rPvE 10 so difficult?
Outside significantly strengthened camps and waves throughout the entire game, early layout changes from single to double camp at the T2 row greatly increases difficulty. These camps also include spawn buildings, resummoning dead units and sending out very early waves towards the players. This requires a different strategy compared to lower difficulties. Getting used to these new threats takes some time, but since none of the other difficulties work in the same way, it’s hard to prepare and practice strategies.
 
What are the goals of rPvE 9.5?
The new difficulty is supposed to achieve two things. First, we want to provide players a more enjoyable experience by adding a more linear difficulty scaling in rPvE. Whereas single player rPvE already functions like that to some extent, 4-player rPvE lacks a proper difficulty scaling, currently generating the same amount of games as all other difficulties combined. Second, we want to provide players an environment that allows them to learn and understand how rPvE 10 works on a structural level.
 
What can players expect from rPvE 9.5?
In order to achieve the two previously mentioned goals, rPvE 9.5 is using the same layout as difficulty 10. To smoothen out the early game experience, all fliers are removed from camps in the T2 row. Starting void was increased towards the level of rPvE 9. The T3 area will not feature spawners, reducing the total wave income in the early game. This makes more methodical approaches viable and removes some of the toughest mechanics rPvE 10 has to offer. Camp density in post T4 camps is reduced a little bit, waves will generally be comparable with difficulty 10.
From that point we did further tweaks based on map tester feedback, to address more specific preset dependent issues. Because rPvE 9.5 is a systematic change, certain rPvE layout issues are inherited. That said, the adjusted unit compositions and wave spawn structures should still help with making these very unforgiving maps appear less frequently. Ultimately, this should give players a new challenge beyond difficulty 9 and also give a better indication on what difficulty 10 will look like.
 
Alongside this new difficulty, we will also be changing the naming of the rPvE difficulty scale. 

New Name      Difficulty according to current scale
Standard           (4)
Standard +        (5)
Standard ++     (6)
Advanced          (7)
Advanced +      (8)
Advanced ++    (9)
Expert               (9.5) New!
Expert +            (10)

As you can see, we will be removing rPvE levels 1, 2 and 3. Data shows us these levels don't see play, and their difficulty and rewards are very lackluster. By using this new logic, the difficulty should also be more in line to the campaign difficulty scaling, giving new players more clarity of what they can expect. 
Difficulty rPvE 9.5 will be available for 1, 2 and 4-player scenario's, and contain all factions, meaning our newly added Nature and Fire factions will also appear in the pool of enemies. This new difficulty will go live alongside our next patch, currently planned for a Summer 2023 release. 
We hope players are looking forward to face these new challenges!

 

• Voice Acting – Update
Last month, we started looking for voice actors who could help us to bring upcoming characters to life. We are about to close the application window for the second wave of voice-acting, so be sure to apply this weekend if you are still interested!  
We are looking for a variety of voices (both male and female), and encourage everyone who is interested (and has a decent microphone!) to apply. You are also welcome to apply if you did so in the original application round in 2021! 
To apply, fill in a brief survey to provide us with some information about yourself and select which characters you are interested in. We will be in touch with you for a trial script, and select our favourites from the provided recordings.  
 

 
• Tournaments and Events
In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
 
 • FINISHED - Official Event #9: Who Dares Wins! 
Ultralord will be hosting a stream to showcase the winners of the last official event. Join us on June 3rd at 19:00 CET on his Twitch channel, which you can find here. 
 

• NEW - Crappy Community Contest #11: Meme-fy BattleForge - Until July 3rd
A non-gameplay event where you create GIF-content for our Discord. Meme content, emotions, ingame scenes – everything is welcome. Help unlock a booster code by participating! More information.



• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizers, @Metagross31, @Minashigo Hiko or @nukie! 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 fuelled 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 have 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: SOON-RPVE-NINE-FIVE
The code is valid until August 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 June 2023

Hello Skyladies and Skylords,

Welcome to another Community Run PvE event!
 
Quick Overview:
Map                          - Encounters with Twilight 
Difficulty                   - Standard
Date                          - 10:30 CET 01.06.2023 until 23:59 CET 11.06.2023
Prizes                        - Boosters
Winner reveal           - Stream and Forum (Stream Date: 16th of June 19:00 CEST)

Rules and Goals:
Win the map in under 45 min
Do not use any ability except Open/Close Gate of the Fortification Wall and the Amii Screaming Stone 
(Abilities are all abilities on units or buildings regardless of power cost. Even if free they can’t be used)
Get the lowest combined power score:
Units give x2 their powercost
Building give x1.5 their powercost
Spells give x1 their powercost  
To check your score you can use Ultralords amazing website: Ultralords amazing Website

How Can I Participate?

Everyone with an ingame account can participate in the event, there is no need to sign up separately.
You just have to send in your best replay, including the player name and the time, to Vornskr on the forum (@Vornskr666).

You can send in your replays until 23:59 CET 11.06.2023
You can find your replays here: Documents=>Battleforge=>replays

What's the Prize Pool?
For the prizes there are a few time categories, you can only win one time category! 😉
Below 10 min
1st Place: 5 Boosters 2nd Place: 3 Boosters 3rd Place: 2 Boosters 4th-5th Place: 1 Booster Below 15 min
1st Place: 3 Boosters 2nd Place: 2 Boosters 3rd Place: 1 Booster Below 20 min
1st Place: 3 Boosters 2nd Place: 2 Boosters 3rd Place: 1 Booster Below 45 min
1st Place: 3 Boosters 2nd Place: 2 Boosters 3rd Place: 1 Booster
Additional Prizes You Can Win:
Armchair commander: lowest action count: 3 Booster
Powersaver: lowest total power (Not affected by the multipliers) spend: 3 Booster
New Star: lowest PVE rank in each time category : 3 Boosters
Poor man's fortune: lowest deck level: 100k Gold
Code Smith: What do I know? I am not in IT: 5 Booster 
 
All players without a prize will be entered into a random draw, there will be up to 10x Boosters up for grabs!
 
When will the winners be announced?

The winners will be announced via a Twitch stream (Ultralord´s Stream) co hosted by Ultralord and Vornskr! The stream will include the 3 most interesting runs, quiz questions (with prizes!) and some interesting data from the event.

Future Events
If you are interested in helping with these kinds of events for the community, or want to host one yourself as I do it here, don't be afraid and simply reach out!
Send @nukie, @Metagross31, or @Minashigo Hiko a PM on the forum, or direct message via Discord (nukie#9354, Metagross31#1103, Minashigo Hiko#1126).
They are happy to assist you with upcoming events and with sponsoring towards your prize pool!
 
We hope you have a lot of fun with this event and are looking forward to seeing all your replays!
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

I am sorry you feel this way, but feedback like this is not constructive. Please give some examples of balance issues you currently have with pvp.
Are there matchups you feel are strongly unfavourable? Cards you consider over or underpowered? Or give some examples of a change from EA that you feel made the card or matchup worse to play.

It is "cringe" but i like it a lot, you care a for the game

Hey everyone! Just ran across a document that I had no memory existed. I don't even remember what its purpose was, yet I'll go ahead and post it for you guys to have a laugh! Let me know what you think and if it awakens some fond memories from the past 😊 I was prompted by no other than @Dutchyto share this with you!
 
 
It was 2009,
But then I was 10,
My brother and I,
Weren’t yet men,
But despite the odds,
A game with gods,
Had found our souls,
And set our goals.
 
But wait a minute,
Those aren’t called gods,
They’re awesome Skylords,
Controlling some squads,
Squads of 6 and squads of 4,
Armed so well,
And ready for war.
 
Monuments and wells,
Creatures and some spells,
Power’s in the cards,
Which everyone sells.
What a great opportunity,
With Auction and community,
To the toxic players,
We’ve developed immunity.
 
And after some time,
Without spending a dime,
My bro and I,
We’ve become so amazing,
With my heals and all of his blazing,
We’ve destroyed every foe,
And continued with the flow, but…
 
Something happened…
Something terrible...
 
The game was shut,
Budgets were cut,
And everyone left,
It felt like a theft,
A theft to gamers,
Skylords and ladies,
It’s like an idea,
By no other than Hades.
 
But we prayed.
And by darkness been taken.
Only for this blessed day to awaken.
To once again have a chance,
To advance, and glance,
It put me in a trance.
The chance to restore,
This ancient romance.
 
And now it’s the time.
With my righteous rhyme,
To win my place and live with grace,
To begin, to sore,
Like never before,
And after falling and falling,
In such a deep gorge,
We can indeed again,
Have a chance with Battleforge.

Map & NPC Changes

[ NPC Balance Changes ]
 Lost Reaver:
1. Reclassify Lost Reaver as a melee-unit instead of a ranged-unit.
Players are likely familiar with the fact that a Lost Reaver will spawn its Lost Crawlers and then stand off to the side while it and its allies are slaughtered. This has now been fixed. Lost Reaver will use its ability and move towards and engage enemies in melee combat. This should constitute a slight buff to the unit's strength as an enemy.
 Lost Wanderer (shield variant):
1. Ice Shield duration: Infinite ➜ 20 seconds
2. Targets: All available targets in a 20m radius ➜ 5 closest units in a 20m radius
3. New passive effect: The duration of friendly Ice Shields is extended indefinitely within a 20m radius around Lost Wanderer.
These changes aim to make the unit more fair through changing Lost Wanderer's Ice Shields to only be conditionally permanent and to have an upper limit on the number of allies that can be shielded at a time. This should enable more counter play on the player's end, as a player can now focus on Lost Wanderers to give the Ice Shields the possibility of wearing off.
 Twilight Evil Eye:
1. Remove passive Pain Link damage reflection ability
Twilight Evil Eye possessed the same Pain Link ability as the player version of Wrathgazer. Pain Link is only supposed to work on Evil Eye's allies, but there is a common bug with the ability which causes it to frequently enemies as well. This would lead to situations where a player would kill their own units by killing an Evil Eye, an issue which disproportionally affected melee unit compositions due to Pain Link's small radius. While this therefore constitutes a buff to players in niche situations, the removal of Pain Link will also make late game Twilight camps more durable by no longer distributing additional damage to Evil Eye's allies.
 Twilight Leech (Siege of Hope Mini-boss):
1. Enemies affected by the unit's teleport ability now have a 10-second immunity to further teleports to prevent infinite teleport ping-ponging of units around camps.
 Twilight Minions:
1. New passive ability: Increase damage of Twilight Minions by +20% for each friendly Twilight Minion nearby.
While Twilight Minions currently claim they deal more damage based on nearby allies, this is not actually true. We are therefore adding such an ability which scales based only on other nearby friendly Twilight Minions. The current numbers and effect are relatively small as we want to ensure we do not potentially over buff the unit in early campaign scenarios.
 Twilight Willsapper:
1. Rework Willsapper's auto-cast paralyze substantially.
   A. Every 4 seconds, up to 2 hostile units within a 40m radius will be paralyzed for 11 seconds upon inhaling it. After the effect wears off, targets are immune against Paralyze for a short time.
   B. Recast timer: 4 seconds
   C. Targets: Closest 2 hostile units not currently paralyzed or immune.
   D. Duration: 11 seconds
   E. Range: 40m
   F. Immunity: 5 seconds
Up to 6 units can now be paralyzed by Willzapper at once, each for 11 seconds. They then have a very short (5 second) immunity period. The effect targets the closest non-paralyzed hostile units because otherwise it would permanently target the 2 closest units and be ineffective. Willsapper should no longer paralyze enemies after its death, and enemies will now have a short window to respond before being re-paralyzed. This is in contrast to the previous implementation, which allowed Willsapper to permanently paralyze up to 5 enemy units at once. We hope these changes will make this iconic enemy building more fair while still providing a substantial challenge when facing the Twilight faction.
 The Red King (Empire Boss):
1. Now casts an Amok ability periodically, causing enemies to attack each other in a large radius around him.
 Bandit Lord (rPvE Boss):
1. Change Name: Bandit Lord ➜ Banzai Lord
2. Add boss immunity
3. Life points: 7000 ➜ 20000
4. New ability, "Bird Calling":
   A. Spawns Banzai Birds, identical to U3 player tainted affinity.
   B. Casts every 10 seconds
5. Add “Flesh Feast” ability from Overlord to description
It is well known that Bandits are the easiest enemies in rPvE by a good margin. One contributing factor to this is that the Bandit Lord enemy is counted as a boss when generating rPvE matches, despite being no more than a slightly beefier and reskinned Overlord. We have decided to change this mini-boss into a real boss, akin to the player and campaign versions of Banzai Lord. This boss will both regenerate life points based on nearby corpses and spawn powerful Banzai Birds to destroy the armies of players. We hope players enjoy this first step towards making Bandits a more fearsome and interesting faction to fight in rPvE. 
 Lost Crawler (Lost Souls rPvE)
1. The non-shielding variants of Lost Wanderer have been replaced by Lost Crawlers in the Lost Souls preset in random PvE.
These are M-sized units that explode on death, which many players have seen before in our Halloween event map Spooky Encounters. This should present a slight increase in the difficulty of early game Lost Souls compared to similar situations prior to the patch. 

[ Systematic Changes ]
Spring Forge has been added to the game. Available via an achievement to win several featured community maps. Random PvE factions have had their probabilities redistributed to account for the addition of Nature rPvE [ General Fixes]
Removed a broken variant of Portal Nexus from the map editor. Battlegrounds: Fixed a typo in the lobby setup screen in English. The Treasure Fleet: Improved localization of the goals to be more consistent: Properly translate "first" to "erste" rather than "nächste" in German. Always lowercase "chariot" in French. Always end goals with a period in Russian. The Guns of Lyr: Fixed a typo in the goal (F) description to find and slay all remaining enemies in English. Slave Master / Mo: Capitalized the gameplay term "Health" for usage in the goal "Mo's Health" for consistency.
[ Campaign Map Changes ]
 Behind Enemy Lines:
1. Auto-destroy top left wall if 50% of barrier modules are already destroyed.
2. Added a Flightblocking / Vision Block to the top left base to prevent the Twilight Dragon from aggroing onto units at the player's T2/T3 location.
3. Line of Sight improvements along the bottom middle Twilight Disciple path.
Blight:
1. Fixed a line of sight issue at the top right starting position, which prevented ranged units from attacking enemies without closing to almost melee range.
2. Added two new bridges connecting the left and right sections of the map on both the top and the bottom.
3. Updated minimap to reflect changes and to be more accurate in general.

 
 Convoy:
1. Command Walker spawn frequency (delay between the spawns of two Walkers) on expert difficulty: 120 seconds ➜ 180 seconds
2. Amii Spell Device effects:
   A. "Area Freeze" (Coldsnap):
      - Maximum number of targets: 7 ➜ 12
      - Fixed description to display correct info, improved the spell preview, and displayed maximum spell range while selecting target area.
   B. "Healing Radiance" (Ray of Light) maximum healing: 3600 ➜ 4400 life points
   C. "Meteor Shower" (Inferno)
      - Scatter radius of meteor impact area: 20 ➜ 15m radius
      - Fixed description to display correct info, improved the spell preview, and displayed maximum spell range while selecting target area.
Convoy on expert difficulty has an 18% successful completion rate, the lowest of any campaign map in the game by far. Part of this is the map's seemingly infinite scaling potential, where attack waves progressively get harder and harder, even very late into the game. Part of this is the unique mechanics of the map, which often confuse players. And part of this is that success or failure on this map, when not cheesing it with Rifle Cultists, Voodoo Shack, or Enlightenment, is RNG. A player can do identical actions from one game to the next, with one playthrough succeeding and the next failing. It all depends on how many units the Command Walker gets attacked by on its way north and how many of these units it fails to kill due to poor target selection. In several test runs, we found that the number of units which congregate to attack the Command Walker, while it itself is attacking the Power Shrine, can range from 7 to 13 without any player intervention. Enemy groups at the lower end of the range are beatable using only the map's mechanics, while enemy groups at the upper end of the range more can kill the Walker, which often led to failure even when the players executed perfectly.
Winning or losing a map due to the target selection of an AI controlled unit is not acceptable. If two players execute well, they should not lose because the map's core mechanic is poorly designed and poorly balanced. To fix this issue, we are increasing the time between Command Walker spawns by 30 seconds. This will increase the total available time for players to prepare by approximately a minute without effecting other portions of the map. We are also strongly buffing the spell effects available to the player when they capture nodes and gather Stonekin spell charges. The Coldsnap effect has had its target count increased to 12, allowing it to freeze all enemies around the Walker in the vast majority of cases, even if the Command Walker has the worst possible target selection. The Ray of Light effect has been buffed by 22%, while the Inferno effect's tightened scatter radius will allow the player to pick off priority targets with increased reliability. Overall, the goal is that a team which has captured and successfully defended 2 nodes, while also having gathered 20 Stonekin charges by the time the 3rd Walker reaches the Power Shrine, should be able to win the Command Walker mini-game with 100% reliability as long as they use the Amii Spell Device somewhat competently. 
 Nightmare Shard:
1. Replace the Twilight Deathglider spawned at the "Shadow Camp" on expert difficulty with Twilight Mindbenders.
Most veteran players approach this map by immediately rushing the spawn buildings of the Shadow Camps on both sides with either Nomad + Eruption or Mana Wings. They do this because it prevents the spawn of several camp defenders, the most notable of which is the Twilight Deathglider. Twilight Deathgliders have an AoE knockback of S and M-units. Additionally, the pathway into the Shadow Camp is incredibly narrow, meaning that a single Twilight Deathglider can, and often does, permanently CC an infinite amount of player units on this map. By changing this singular unit, we allow players to play the map in the normal way without facing an enemy that single-handedly counters every non-Fire faction at T1. At the same time, we do nothing to change the map for veterans and speedrunners.
Nightmare's End:
1. Decreased the pond size at the starting location on the left side of the map (see minimap image), allowing for enough space to build a second tower defending the southern wall.
2. Decreased blocking on the right side of the map (see minimap image).
3. Updated Minimap to reflect changes and to be more accurate in general.

 Sunbridge:
1. Fixed several terrain and water visual issues.
2. Moved the single Power Well on the right side down a bit.
3. Moved the 3 Power Wells and Monument on the right side down a bit.
4. Slightly improved blocking to allow better spawning of units at wells near terrain.
Minor quality of life improvements. The changes to the Wells and Monument on the right side of the map should hopefully prevent the player from aggroing the next camp simply by claiming the Wells and Monument. 

Your vote said Fallen Skyelf so here you go 🙂
Checkout the first post.
And dont forget to vote for the next card

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.

Patch #400042 - Nature's Awakening
Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains our eighth balance patch for the game, a brand-new card, all kinds of quality of life features, and many other changes, enjoy!

Patch Preview
- One new card is now available! Jump in-game to collect Sleet Storm.
- Nature becomes the next faction to join the party in random PvE. 
- The first half of our two-part gold rework for PvE game modes and card upgrade costs.
- The Community Map menu has been completely reworked to increase usability. Also, gold rewards and a new achievement have been added for community maps. 
- Our third balance pass on towers, numerous buffs to well-designed but underperforming cards, and some of our first changes to NPC enemies.
- New quality of life features including a single-player pause feature, key down versus key up interactions, the ability to copy text from the in-game chat, the ability to immediately import a deck when a valid code is pasted in chat, and many more!

General Changes
The Community Map section has been completely revamped. Players can now better filter between maps, rank maps themselves, search for high-rated maps from other players, and receive overtime gold rewards while playing both featured and non-featured community maps. Cards played in featured community maps now also count towards daily quest rewards, and a new achievement to play and beat featured community maps will reward players with the Spring Forge skin. This rework will open up a lot of new content with which players can engage, and hopefully encourage more community members to bless their fellow Skylords with their map making talents. For more information, check out the February 2023 Community Update. Players can now pause PvE matches when they are the only active player in the game, including situations where multiple players were previously active in the match but have since left. The game automatically pauses whenever you open the options menu, showing a pause message while darkening the screen, and automatically unpauses when you close the options menu. Players will still be able to earn progress towards quests and achievements when pausing, but any game where a pause occurred will be removed from the leaderboard. Pausing solo matches can be disabled in the config file by changing the "allow_pausing_solo_games" option under the "application" section to false. The game now handles global key events on key down rather than on key up interactions. BattleForge is an outlier among modern games in that hotkeys are activated when a player releases a key, not when it is first pressed. By changing this, the game now feels much smoother and more responsive. Players can change back to using key up interactions by changing the line "global_key_events_on_key_down" in the config file to false. Gold rewards for rPvE have been changed. Random PvE now rewards players with overtime gold rewards based on map difficulty and whether they are playing 1p, 2p, or 4p. Gold earned from a 4p level 9 match will be roughly identical, while the gold reward for most other levels has been increased. 1p and 2p rPvE matches now reward significantly more gold than previously. Additionally, all rPvE matches now reward 15% of the expected rewards on-loss.  The gold cost to purchase and apply upgrades has been restructured. Previously, the application cost accounted for 28% of the total gold cost; it has now been increased to 40% while the cost to purchase upgrades has been decreased proportionately. Additionally, common and uncommon cards now have higher gold costs, while rare and ultra-rare cards have lower gold costs. The total cost to purchase and apply all upgrades, approximately 5.7 million gold for all cards, remains unchanged. This change is intended to make higher rarity cards easier to upgrade for newer players, while making lower rarity upgrades more valuable. More changes to upgrades and their procurement will be coming in a follow-up patch when we rework and increase the rewards for playing campaign maps.  Card upgrade drop locations are now provided in-game. When upgrading a card, it will now tell players where they can find the other upgrades they are missing. Additionally, each map now has a "Show Upgrades" button where players can filter and search for what upgrades the map provides at each difficulty level. For more information, see the March 2023 Community Update. All card upgrades have had their locations changed. Each map now has a roughly equal amount of commons, uncommons, rares, and ultra-rares. The 12p maps Passage to Darkness and Ascension are unchanged and will continue to only provide gold.  Players now have the ability to compare their profiles. Right now, this feature is limited to just comparing what achievements each player has completed, though it may be expanded to include more details in the future depending on community feedback. The feature is set to "Friends only" by default (meaning only people that you personally have added as a friend can see your profile), but it can be opened to the public or restricted completely in the settings.  Nature has been added as an enemy faction in rPvE. Face iconic Nature units, discover new bosses, battle through enemy root networks, and overcome the ultimate control faction in this newest addition to the random PvE game mode! For more information, and an interview with the designer, see the May 2023 Community Update. Shaman users rejoice, gold chests are now openable in-combat! Two new chat options have been added to the right-click context menu. Players can now copy messages directly from the chat and import decks from any message that contains a valid deck code automatically. Additionally, the context menu now only shows currently available actions instead of every possible action at all times.  Major changes have been made to the global effects system. More than 5 global effects are now shown at the top-left of the match window, with temporary effects, like Shrine of War, taking precedence over permanent effects, like Wheel of Gifts. Players should now be able to see all, or nearly all, global effects currently active in the game.  Twilight Transformation now counts as playing a card for the sake of achievements, meaning it can no longer be used to bypass achievement unit or card restrictions. Does not affect Not Even My Final Form.
New Cards
Sleet Storm  - 60p T3 Frost  
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map Defending Hope.
Two issues plague Frost in the higher tiers of PvE. The first is that the faction's only source of area CC is freeze. Given that a unit or building can only be frozen once, freeze application cards overlap in non-productive ways. The second issue is that while one orb of other factions gives the player powerful tools, the same is not true of one Frost orb. Most good Frost cards are locked behind 2 Frost orbs. We therefore wanted to address both issues at once by releasing a new Frost CC which was fully splashable. We made it an area Gravity Surge effect to synergize with Construct and to give other deck archetypes that lack anti-air easy access to it. For more information, check out the April 2023 Community Update.

low activity cause the chatbox was taken away, never forget forum chatbox, gone but not forgotten 

OMG! He is alive!
Did you check out the 2 year anniversary video yet? It recaps the time since release very well 🙂

Why does X suck... I guess it can be called a series now. To read "Why does Wheel of Gift suck", please click here:   https://forum.skylords.eu/index.php?/topic/9219-why-does-wheel-of-gifts-suck/

Juice Tank is a Tier 2 building (device). It costs 50 power and passive ability that does the following:
"Within a 25m radius the remaining capacity of own and friendly Power Wells takes 40 / 45 / 50 / 55% longer to deplete. Production per time increment remains the same."
To explain in simple terms, if you build a Juice Tank near a Power Well, it will take longer for that Power Well to run out, resulting on more total power gained from that Power Well. Maps that take a long time to clear, or where your Power Wells have low capacity, Juice Tank is a card to consider. The only reason you want to put this card in your deck is if you run the risk of running out of power.
Running out of power on a map is extremely rare. There are only a handful of maps where this is realistically possible, Nightmare's End comes to mind. Because Juice Tank takes a while to get usage out of it, it is not recommended to use in maps where there is a strict time limit. Prime example of this is Random PvE maps. In none of the difficulties will the Power Wells run out before the timer does. This makes Juice Tanks completely useless in Random PvE. To make matter worse, if you build a Juice Tank on all your Power Well clusters, you bind 200 power. This is the equivalent of (almost) a Tier 4 unit. 
Considering all of the aforementioned, I earnestly ask everyone to review their Random PvE decks and remove the Juice Tanks.
Thank you 🙂  



--------------------
Juice Tank can be played in Lost Spirit decks to fuel their ability, destorying the Juice Tank in the process. 

I use Ice Guardian alot in rPvE 9 and i never found him underwhelming. In certain situations he is even better than Frost Mage for example when dealing with Lost Spellbreakers and Manabeasts. Ice Barrier is a must have card for frost t1 anyway so there is absolutely no need to change Ice Guardian.

I swear for a brief moment my smile could be noticed from space.

Definitely hoped for a stream of Midwinters, I mean Battleships, to arrive as well O:)

Wow - this comment is out of orbit 😊thank u

I swear for a brief moment my smile could be noticed from space.

Hello! I noticed there was a section for uploading some community custom maps here on the forums, so I thought I'd put my latest map here!
Introducing,
Prison of Tears
A 1 Player PvE Community Map set in the home world of the Lost Souls. This map is also a sequel to another map I've made called "City of Tears".
The Twilight Curse has not been fully eliminated yet, and Rogan Kayle seeks out the key to eliminating them for good. He believes it is in the home world of the Lost Souls itself. As you venture onward with Rogan, you wander into a strange and eerie prison with Lyrish soldiers trapped inside. Work with Rogan Kayle to free the soldiers and overcome the prisons mysterious challenges.
Free the Prisoners
Work with Rogan to free the prisoners from the clutches of the Lost Souls.

Escort them to the Portal
Once freeing them, you must keep them safe until you are able to escort them safely to the exit portal to their freedom.
Watch out for the Warden
As you roam the prison, be aware of the Warden and do your best to avoid him until you are powerful enough to take him down.

This is my first map I've ever made a post about and I thought it'd be cool to share it with the community! If you guys want to give it a try, its uploaded in the community maps section in the game! I'd attach it here, but it looks like it exceeded the file size. I plan to make more maps in the future, so if you guys can share some of your thoughts and even suggestions to make it better, I would really appreciate it! When looking it up, it's called "Prison of Tears".

I hope you guys enjoy it 🙂 and feel free to check out some of my other maps I've made like the prequel to this one, "City of Tears". They're all on the Community Tab! (If I can find a way to attach them here, I will).

Here is a tutorialvideo of Metagross how to configure vscode and IntelliJ. 
Thx Meta
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyce9Qi4y_Q

As said on Discord, I can't take much credit for my runs. Dutchy was the mastermind in the one group and Sacrifiece in the other one.

It's awesome to see unfamiliar names in top 3, and its amazing so many people attempted this event. It's partly @Volin's fault, though, he played in so many teams 😄
Results
 

Hello Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings.
Welcome to the seventh official PvE event!
It has been a while since the last official event, especially a multiplayer event, but we still hope you will have a lot of fun with this event!


Quick overview:

What kind of event will it be?

PvE - Advanced - Bad Harvest with a point system
For this challenge, we want to see you succeed in playing the map Bad Harvest, while accomplishing several goals of varying difficulty.
The more objectives your team accomplishes, the more points you get, which will lead to greater rewards!
Additionally, the teams with the highest number of points will receive some extra rewards.
But there is more! Similar to the beloved Crappy Community Contests, there will be something the entire community will work towards. Once the combined points of all submitted runs surpasses a certain threshold, the prizes for everyone will be increased.

So gather a team, polish your strategy and go for the Highscore!


How can I participate?

Everyone with an ingame account can participate in the event - there is no need to sign up separately.
You just have to send in your best replay, including the player names, the time of the replay and what objectives you accomplished. [Note: Your entry has to be a victory]
For example:
Low points:        A, C, D; Total:     700
Mid points:         K, L, P; Total:   1500
High points:              all; Total:   3800
Penalty points:          W; Total: -1000
Total points:                                5000

You can send in your replays until the 02.12.2022. 

Please note:
You are allowed to compete with multiple teams, but only your highest score will determine the rewards you win, meaning you can only get rewards for one submission. You are allowed to compete with a team of less than 4 people, or even alone.
You can find your replays here: Documents=>Battleforge=>replays


What are the objectives?

This event will have a point system: points will be rewarded by completing the following objectives. The goal is to get as many points as possible!
You don't have to complete them all, but of course you should aim for as many points as you can in a single run.
It is important, however, that your final score from objectives is greater than zero. Runs with a negative score do not qualify.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Low points:

A: Sharing is caring: 200p
Have at least two different players build the orbs and power wells next to the gold wagon. (One orb and 4 wells per player)
B: Preparing the Turkey: 200p (+100p if the unit used is a Beast-unit)
Fly 3 laps around the small peninsula below the first guild cannon using any flying unit. (See FAQ for a screenshot)
C: Saving the harvest: 200p
Don't let the gold chest next to the gold wagon get destroyed.
D: Saving the tractor: 300p
Don't let the gold wagon take any damage.
E: Fire Mastery: 300p
Have at least one player in your team play a pure fire deck.
F: Shadow Mastery: 300p
Have at least one player in your team play a pure shadow deck.
G: Frost Mastery: 300p
Have at least one player in your team play a pure frost deck.
H: Nature Mastery: 300p
Have at least one player in your team play a pure nature deck.
I: Make love, not war: 400p
Take out all the guild cannons on the map.
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Maximum low points:    2600
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Medium points:

J: Saving the farmers: 400p
Don't let any of the human defenders in-between the walls around the gold wagon die.
K: No grain left behind: 400p
Completely destroy all enemy walls.
L: Only pick the ripe ones: 400p
Do not kill any Bandit Master Healers.
M: Beware of the Tractor: 400p
Run over at least 5 squads of small units with a Thunder Wagon with activated RAMPAGE ability.
N: Getting the harvest home safely: 600p
Do not lose any of the prebuilt Defense Towers in the starting camp.
O: Don't step onto the fields: 700p
Have no player cross the wall in front of the top right Stonekin camp. (See FAQ for a screenshot)
P: Beyond the trodden path: 700p
Have no player cross the line above the camp with the second Stonekin lord. (See FAQ for a screenshot)
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Maximum medium points:    3600
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

High points:

Q: Beware of ergot!: 800p
As a team, do not own more than 5 orbs and 15 power wells in the starting camp at the same time.
R: The real deal:  1000p
Play the map on Expert difficulty instead of advanced.
S: Keeping the barn open: 1000p
Do not build any walls.
T: Hurry, before the rain comes: 1000p
Destroy 12 bandit tents within 30 seconds.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum high points:    3800
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum Total points:    10000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Penalty points:
U: Caring too much: -1000p
Have a player control three or more different monuments in the starting base at the same time.
V: That's not a ... tractor!:  -1000p
Play out Amii Monument.
W: Wait! This isn't the Harvest Festival!: -1000p
Play out Church of Negation.
X: Halloween is already over: -1000p
Play out Necrofury or Mutating Frenzy.
Y: Rounding up the crops: -1000p
Play out two or more overlapping instances of Aura of Corruption at the same time.
Z: Your time has not yet come: -1000p
Play out Santa Claus.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total penalty points:    -6000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Check the FAQ for clarifications.
Since those are a lot of objectives, we prepared a spreadsheet, which you can use to keep track of the objectives you want to complete and which player should complete them. You can find this spreadsheet here. Since this is a public spreadsheet, we recommend creating your own copy of it to not interfere with others.
Time Score:
There will also be points awarded for time. The faster you finish the map, the more points you will get with a maximum of 1500p.
There are no preset time windows that determine your time score, instead your time is compared to all entries.
This means that every second counts when it comes to your time score!
However, you can not lose any points by having a slow time. So it is up to you to decide whether you want to go for as many objectives as possible or if you want to leave some out in the hope of getting a better time.
You do not have to calculate the time score yourself, we will calculate the time score for every entry.
For a detailed explanation on how the time score is calculated, see the FAQ below.
 
FAQ     
In order to reduce confusion about the objectives, we have precompiled a list of questions you might have and answered them beforehand.
If you have any questions about one of the objectives, please check this FAQ first.
If your question is not yet answered in the FAQ, feel free to ask in this thread. That way it can be clarified and added to the FAQ.
Questions about specific objectives:
Calculation of the time score:






Sounds fun! What's the prize pool?

In contrast to past events, this event is less about how you fared in comparison to everyone else and more about how many points you collected overall. Thus, your reward will be directly based on your final score, including your time score. Note, that all rewards listed here are per player.
1000-2499 points: 100 BFP
2500-3749 points: 1 Mini Booster
3750-4999 points: 1 Mini Booster + 100 BFP
5000-5999 points: 1 General Booster
6000-6999 points: 2 General Boosters
7000-7999 points: 3 General Boosters
8000-8999 points: 5 General Boosters
9000-9999 points: 8 General Boosters
      10000+ points: 8 Boosters of your choice + 1 BFP per point beyond 10000
Additionally, the team with the highest total score will be rewarded a promo Harvester (1 per Player).
Furthermore, if the combined score (without time score) of all participating teams surpasses 75.000 points, all prizes will be increased by 50%!

How will the winners be presented?

This is yet to be determined. We will keep you updated about this.




Future events
If you are interested in helping with these kinds of events for the community, or want to host one yourself, don't be afraid and simply reach out!
Send me a PM on the forum, or direct message via Discord (Metagross31#1103).
We are happy to assist you with upcoming events and with sponsoring your prize pool!
We hope you have a lot of fun with this event, and we are looking forward to seeing all your replays!
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

Best regards,
Skylords Reborn Team
 

It's awesome to see unfamiliar names in top 3, and its amazing so many people attempted this event. It's partly @Volin's fault, though, he played in so many teams 😄
Results