Search the Community

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! • Season #1 - Primordial Fire - Month #2 Last month, we released a patch that kicked off our very first Season, and the reception has been largely positive! Player numbers have gone up, and Skylords are enjoying the fresh challenges the season brings. This season will last for four months: June, July, August, and September. Unfortunately, with so many moving parts, some bugs were inevitable. Our team has worked hard to fix as many of them as quickly as possible. We've addressed these issues through several hotfix patches, which you can find in the patch notes here. Some of these hotfixes include minor touch-ups related to the season, such as description clarifications and small UI improvements. The update from June 29th also included minor balance changes, so be sure to check out the patch notes. We'd like to take this opportunity to address a few topics that have come up frequently since the season's release: Connection Problems for Russian Players We've noticed that some Russian players are experiencing issues connecting to our server, which is located in Germany. Although these issues began around the time of our patch release, they are actually the result of sanctions outside of our control. We're currently exploring alternatives, such as hosting a VPS in another region to forward traffic. We expect to have more information within the next 1 to 3 months. In the meantime, we advise affected players to use a VPN to connect. Nightmare Challenges We’ve seen some players expressing frustration about not being able to complete certain challenges or finding them too difficult. We want to emphasize that Nightmare challenges are intended for the highest-level players and are not required to earn the top rewards. You will be able to unlock Promo Sunderer this season without completing any Nightmare missions. However, you will need to complete the second and third batches of challenges (along with most repeatables), which will be released today and in August. We highly advise players not to burn out on a specific challenge if you are not having fun. We’ve tried to include content for everyone this season. That means some challenges may feel too easy, while others may feel too difficult, depending on your playstyle. But remember: you don’t need to complete everything. We do encourage you to try strategies outside your comfort zone, but at the end of the day, it’s all about enjoying the game. And if you do want to conquer a particular challenge, the community is more than happy to help. Be sure to check out our Discord if you're looking for advice or teammates! Dwarfen Stronghold Challenge 2.5 requires players to complete two community maps. It reads: Win the 4-player featured community maps Dwarfen Stronghold Rework and Twisted Legends on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members using decks that contain 10 or more Fire, Twilight or Bandits cards. Some players experience a crash or error when trying to host the map Dwarfen Stonghold Rework. To fix this, close the game, go into your doc/BattleForge/map folder and delete all instances of Dwarfen. After restarting the game, you should now be able to download the correct map and host your match. Filtering for Twilight Edition Challenge 2.8 has caused some confusion among the player base. It reads: Complete 5 different campaign maps or featured community maps on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members using decks that contain only Fire, Twilight or Bandits cards, none of which are from the Twilight edition. Back when the original BattleForge came out, cards were released in expansions, with the base set being called the Twilight Edition, and cards were purchasable in boosters from specific expansions. When we overhauled the economy to free-to-play, we actually removed those edition-boosters, and replaced them for faction-boosters instead. While this was a great improvement, it also means that non-veteran players were never really exposed to the "Twilight Edition'' naming. This was an oversight on our part when we created this challenge. To clarify; cards from the Twilight Edition all have the Sunrise Icon, are only Nature, Shadow, Frost and Fire (so no hybrid/neutral), and have no affinities. Even though the name might imply it, the Twilight Edition contains no cards from the Twilight faction. For this specific challenge, there is actually a filter you can use to exclude every card from the Twilight Edition. If you write the following text into the search bar of your inventory, you are left with all cards that are not included in the Twilight edition: !(edition=twilight) Just remember that challenge 2.8 also restricts you to Fire, Bandits or Twilight (the faction, not the edition!) cards, though you can easily filter for those with the elemental buttons on the left. If you want to know more about filtering options, have a look at our Advanced Filtering document. It goes into detail what is possible with the search bar, and how it came to be. Fire Wormlings Fire Wormlings, unfortunately, hold the questionable honor of being the most problematic card in the history of this project. Initially intended as a new type of archer to be placed on walls, it had to be completely redesigned after model issues made that original concept impossible. Then, after finally being released, the card caused lag spikes when played for extended periods. Thankfully, we were able to fix those lag issues relatively quickly, but soon after, another problem surfaced: players began reporting widespread desync issues. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to identify and fix the root cause of these desyncs. To better understand the complexity of the situation, consider the following: - Fire Wormlings is a resized version of an XL model. - It's a squad unit, based on a model that was never originally intended for use in a squad. - Its attack lays down a unique visual effect that deals damage over time. - It has a buff that checks for specific unit classes nearby, activating and deactivating accordingly. - It uses the worm model, which moves in a very unique way, basically teleporting across the map while appearing to burrow underground. - Desyncs are reported in most matches where Fire Wormlings are played. - In single-player matches, the desync warning does not appear, but replays are often out of sync with the actual match. - None of our tests so far have been able to pinpoint the issue with certainty. We’ve been testing a variety of solutions, including removing the passive ability, resizing the worm, or converting it to a single unit. While we still lack a definitive answer, current evidence suggests the desyncs are related to the movement behavior of the worm model. Similar reports have occurred for the original XL worms in the past, but those units are played less frequently, and later in matches, due to them being Tier 4. Additionally, those issues have been rare and hard to reproduce consistently. We suspect that the combination of smaller size and squad mechanics increases the likelihood of movement-based desyncs. For instance, if the squad moves over uneven terrain or is knocked around, parts of the squad can get separated or stuck, increasing instability. We considered temporarily restricting the card in multiplayer, until we discovered the same issue also affects single-player matches. Adding to the challenge is the open in-game market. While Fire Wormlings is part of the season rewards, some players have paid a significant amount of BFP to acquire it. Simply removing the card and refunding players isn't viable, since that also raises questions about how to handle those who sold the card. We obviously don't like players not being able to use their new cards. At the same time, players are currently asking each other to stop using the card, basically banning it from play anyway. We considered replacing the model entirely and reworking the card from scratch, but this would also require new artwork, effectively meaning we’d need to remove the Wormlings and create a completely new unit. This would be a months-long process and would seriously disrupt our planning. Fire Wormlings is also heavily featured in our marketing for the season, so removing it is something we hope to avoid. So, where does that leave us? We are currently testing a version of Fire Wormlings that removes the squad mechanic, and results so far have been promising. However, we still haven’t found a consistent fix for the desyncs, and we’re increasingly concerned that the worm model itself might be inherently problematic. Because of this, we’re also exploring the option to rework the burrow movement, potentially replacing it with a more generic movement style while maintaining a similar visual through existing animations. However, we are limited in our options here, considering we don't have the source code and can not create new models or animations yet. We hope this breakdown helps players understand why Fire Wormlings is still not fixed and why solving the issue has been so challenging. Due to our limited testing capacity, we are now considering deploying the most promising version of the card to the live server soon, to collect feedback and data from the broader player base. We would also like to expand our internal testing, so if you want to help out as a tester, consider reaching out. With your help, we hope to finally identify the exact cause and deliver a stable version of the card for everyone to enjoy. Changes mid-season Many of you have already shared what you like and dislike about various aspects of the season. From challenges and rewards to UI and descriptions, your feedback is incredibly valuable in helping us determine whether we’re on the right track. While we’ve already been able to implement some quality-of-life improvements based on your input, not all suggestions can be incorporated mid-season. That said, we are carefully observing what works and what doesn’t, and we will take this into account for future seasons. Common feedback includes the option to play Standard difficulty on certain challenges, less restrictive deck-building, and the concern that neutral/legendary cards are not playable in any future season with the current setup. We’ll definitely keep this feedback in mind as we prepare for Season 2. Non-seasonal content We’re also hard at work on a new patch unrelated to seasonal content. While we believe it’s important to offer exciting rewards through the seasonal track, you can still expect new cards and new map releases through content patches, just like we did before the introduction of seasons. While we don’t have anything concrete to share just yet, we expect to have more to announce soon! • Seasonal Challenges Batch #2 As we enter the second month of this season, a batch of additional challenges is now available! The following challenges are now active: 20+10 1 3.1 - Survive until the end on the survival community map, The Last Soultree on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members playing only Fire cards. 20+10 1 3.2 - Win the 1-player scenarios Behind Enemy Lines and Siege of Hope on advanced difficulty or higher, with you playing only Fire cards and no building cards. 20+10 1 3.3 - Win the 2-player scenario, Crusade and the 1-player featured community map Spooky Encounters on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members playing only Fire cards of Tier 2 or below. 20+10 1 3.4 - Win the 4-player scenarios Empire and Raven's End on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members playing only Fire or Neutral cards, with units of Tier 2 and above being Neutral units. We hope you enjoy the current batch of challenges! The final set of challenges (including new Nightmare missions) will release in August. Players will then have the entire month of September to complete any remaining challenges before we wrap up this first season. After the season concludes, players will be able to use the new Relic resource to purchase any missed seasonal cosmetics rewards, including the Promo Sunderer, through the Relic Shop. Relics can be earned during the season by completing challenges and by beating the weekly map affected by a map modifier. The Fire Boosters and the cards Fire Wormlings, Hellhound and Treasure Wagon will not be purchasable with relics however. The new cards will drop from boosters after the season has concluded. Our next season will also feature relics that can be used to purchase rewards from Season #1 – Primordial Fire. • New Card Reveal - Amii Ashrider While players continue with the first season, we are constantly working on additional content and are once again able to give you a sneak peek into a future new card. We have already expanded the Amii unit roster with various new cards: Amii Paladins, Amii Sentinel, Skydancer and Energy Core. Now that Elkondo has settled into our art department, we are able to create a new tier 2 unit for the faction. Let's take a look at Amii Ashrider! Please note: We are still working on the card. While we are generally happy with it, numbers and effects might still change before release. Ride of the Amii When the unit is surrounded by 3 other friendly Ashriders in a 25m radius, it moves at high speed (8.0 m/s) and knocks back small and medium units dealing 25 damage, up to 100 in total. Elusive Units with Elusive have the duration of the immobilizing effects of Freeze and Paralyze reduced by 10%. Design notes: There are several cards in the game with movement knockback mechanics that deal damage. These are mostly confined to the higher tiers and besides the reworked Colossus are found on ranged units like the Worms or the hybrid melee-ranged unit Thunderwagon. When we were thinking of a new Amii T2 unit, we thought it was time to finally put the movement damage effect on a lower tier unit. Particularly, we thought it would fit with a horse-based Amii unit, therefore allowing players to simulate performing a cavalry charge. As can be seen with the new Treasure Wagon card, having a perpetual M-sized trample effect in T2 provides a substantial amount of crowd control. Ashrider is our first non-T4 Amii unit made specifically for PvE. Other Amii units, towers, and spells are on the way to flesh out the faction's T2 and T3 arsenal in PvE and allow players to enjoy a full Amii deck from T2 onwards. Amii Ashrider will release in an upcoming content patch, date to be announced. • Art Spotlight - Amii Ashrider Amii Ashrider was drawn by our artist Elkondo. Below, he will share what went into creating the new unit. Take it away Elkondo! "The first challenge was to come up with a clear and distinct pose for the unit. Since Skylords Reborn already features multiple horseback units, it was important to differentiate it with a unique silhouette as well as colors." "After some exploration, the pose was quickly decided, and with a quick paint-over, the general vision for the artwork became clear." "At this stage all that was left was cleanup. The 'Ride of the Amii' skill causes the unit to leave behind a trail of green smoke - this was something we wanted to show in the artwork." "As cool as it was, however, it looked too much like flames. At the same time, we wanted to simplify the background to make the unit stand out a bit more. It took a few attempts to finally find contrast that works best." "With the background done, it was time to polish the main subject a bit and add some much-needed details. We realized the attempted strong perspective on the rider didn't really work any more. The green flames were also removed to try a different look later." "Lastly, alongside additional polish and new smoke effect, the lance was simplified and moved, as the previous intricate design didn't really fit the Amii aesthetic." And that is how our latest Amii unit got its artwork! We hope you are looking forward to Amii Ashrider! • Team Changes We are happy to announce that two new members have joined our volunteer team! First off, VicRattlehead has joined our team as a Discord Moderator, while also showing interest in helping out with development in the future. Secondly, Arphox has already offered a lot of help in regards to improving our updater, and has now properly joined the team as a Tool developer with the goal of making more improvements. Thank you both, and welcome to the team! • Contribute to Skylords Reborn Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 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! Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member. • 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! Current events: • STREAM - WINNER REVEAL: Battle of Tactics #9: The Great Mage Magician - 04.06.2025 Find out who is the greatest of the Great Mage Magicians and their mighty generals in the winner reveal stream of this 3-player event. Join Ultralord on July 4 at 7:00 PM on Twitch. • FINISHED - The Skylords Reborn Spring Cup 2025 The Spring Cup was our second PvP tournament of the year, and it included some great matches. The tournament was hosted and livestreamed by Ultralord, and you can watch the action here. • NEW - PvP Tome Tournament - 06.07.2025 15:00 CET Tome was a PvP game mode in the original BattleForge where players had to build their decks with cards from boosters. With everyone playing with random cards, there are bound to be some unconventional strategies! Please sign-up in advance. • COMING SOON - Crystal Solid Defence - PvE Event - Starting 11.07.2025 until 27.07.2025 While we arent ready to reveal this event just yet, be sure to check back in on the 11th for a new PvE Event! • Host your own tournament / event Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers @Metagross31 or @Ultralord. 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. • 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 Fire booster: HEAT-LAVA-FIRE-CARD This 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 2025

Shadow T2 issues in PvE : As you all know, shadow in PvE is in a really weird place in the T1-T2 phase. Past T3, shadow has access to plenty of tools to equal the playing field with other factions. At T1, shadow is in a hard place. But PvP balance & shadow identity make it hard to assure a good T1 in PvE. It is however still viable, with access to sustain, good range units, a global damage buff, and a viable tower in def scenario. Considering how careful balancing T1 require, owing to PvP, I'm going to concentrate on T2 viability. T2 shadow is defined by 2 cards : harvester and shadow phoenix. All other options are clearly inferior. Shadow mage foulplay + chaos knight neither warp TP is too cluncky, and impossible to scale up (you can successfully & with a limited range TP 1chaos knight for a good explosion, but more than one and they kill each other, so you can't scale the combo, & by itself it isn't enough). Nightcrawler suicide rush and eliminator + rippers simply don't work well enough outside of really specific situations. Harvester is overall in a good place. It benefit from lifeweaving for increased survivability, and can use stocked corpses from soulsplicer to insure the 1st use of it's ability. Then we got shadow phoenix + embalmer's shrine combo. A combo that has always been problematic because it allows to basically crush any land armies while unbounding your army. Now, I don't think having strong card combo is a problem in the game. After all, synergies are good to push payers toward complex deck building, and combo of cards also cost precious deck slots, a resource that was always at a premium, and a downside that is even more costly in the post amii monument era we are in. Having said that, phoenix + embalmer combo is a clear outsider compared to others (Time vortex + FoF, viridya + lost shade, strikers + Fire Force, commandos + rioter's retreat, ...). Contrary to all those, the phoenix + embalmer combo allows not only quick nuking of entire group of ennemies, but also the full unbouding of your army. That last part is what really make the combo stands out compared to all others. It's also the reason why shadow hasn't received any PvE T2 support from the team. It's too strong, hence you can't up the rest of the faction. For the short term, it's also a combo that is used as a short gap for the almost non-existent T2 amii. On the long term however, it will also keep the rest of the faction from evolving, like T2 shadow. Now let's talk about the other options, should we ever do something about it. 1st the limits : 1) The unbounding part is almost impossible to remove, with phoenix in it's current iteration. 2) We do need to offer compensation, but also an alternative, to shadow T2, and to a lesser extend to amii & maybe even bandit & lost soul. 3) We should avoid destroying the combo, & more importantly the cards themselves. 4) We need to offer alternative to the affected factions. The last point 3 points is what has motivated me to write this long post 😅. Many ideas have been thrown around to solve the phoenix issue. There's basically 2 big side : make shadow phoenix spawn smaller phoenix or phoenix with less damage (the reduce damage per iteration solution), or increase corpses requirement after each resurection iteration. It is the last one that has made me realise 1 of the biggest issues of the combo : embalmers shrine insanely high level of corpes increase +220% or x3,2. It basically divide by 3,2 the resurrection cost of the phoenix. But outside of phoenix, the card is never seen. So we got a card that trully enable the combo, but is never used anywhere else. Right now, a phoenix can do up to 2200 dmg. Add dmg to buildings not generating corpses, ennemies shield, and overkill, and it's hard for a phoenix to pay for it's own corpse cost. With embalmer, it's 625. 2 unit in the area is already 1100 dmg. even with shields & overkill, it allows easy resurection. So my idea is this : rework embalmer shrines to reduce its combo potential with phoenix, while opening the card to combo with others shadow corpses based cards, like FoF, necro-blaster, shadow insect & altar of chaos. To do that, it means reducing the bonus significanty while giving a better reason to play the cards in any other situations, introducing flexibility. We need to"de-couple" a bit the 2. My idea is then to make the shrine passive, moving it to T2 &increasing itscost in compensation while cutting by more than half the bonus : Orb cost: Shadow, Neutral (T2) Power cost: 70-90 range Charges : 4 Description: Passive : all corpses in the current game will grant (55-65 / 60-70 / 70-80) 80-90% more life points when being gathered At 80% bonus, phoenix resurrection cost increase to 1111 instead of 625, meaning that at least 3 units per phoenix must be hit to trigger its effect. Additional testing must be done with the numbers of course (& maybe resurected phoenix will need to have an increased cost to 2500-3000 if trully needed), but this change is a step that allows us to both keep the combo with a slap on the wrist, while giving a new tool to shadow to combo with other cards. FoF basically becomes 9% void return, but at a cost of 1/1.5 less cultist master at T3 bounded power in the shrine). It "gives" back to casual players a solution to automate their necro-blaster defense, so without cultist, but at a cost of an additional card slot (which in this case is alright, again a solo tower is problematic, a combo of card isn't, the player will have to sacrifice something else, like cultist). Now for the compensation : we need something to help shadow T2 units (mage, knight, rippers, nightcrawlers, eliminator). I already made post on the subject. What shadow T2 needs is a healing/sustain spell. There's 2 theme for shadow : corpses & lifesteal. Lifesteal is out of the question for T3-T4 scalability reason (thx Cocofang & Hrdina Impéria). Furthermore, as pointed out by Tristan in previous conversations, we need to be carefull not to allow the new card to enhance harvester (PvP & PvE considerations). After much iterations, the best idea I have than can work is to introduce a sustain shadow spell using the special effect from rippers; allowing units or the spell to consume corpses. Since many sustain options are 1 orb restrictive (nature heals but also bloodhealing), & in the idea to also help amii, I think it's faire to make the spell 1 orb restrictive : Soul Feast Orb cost: Shadow, Neutral (T2) Power cost: 90p (more ?) Charges : 16 Description 1 : Summon a 25m radius corpse collecting aura in a chosen area. For the next 30 seconds all corpses in that area will be consumed to regenerate 35-45 life points every seconds to every friendly unit in the area. Reusable every 30 seconds. Description 2 : Summon a 25m radius magical aura. All friendly unit in the aura consume nearby corpses to regenerate 35-45 life points every second. Last 30 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds. I feel the correct regeneration rate is somewhere between 35 & 45hp/s. The new card will combo with our reworked embalmer's shrine, but most of all shadow mage doubled with a frontline of chaos knights or rippers. This spell will give an alternative to shadow at T2 that doesn't enhance harvester. I'm still not 100% on how to make the effect work in relation to range units (I prefer description 2, easier to implement, but the question for me is whether ranged units will have enough range to gater the corpses for regeneration). The spell doesn't combo that much with ashbone, who tends not to kill things 1 by 1 but often all at the same time due to their flamethrower, & then moving away. Viridya already offer a 45hp regen every 2s to them, unconditionnaly. Big XL units at T3 don't gain much with this. Only magma hurlers could be a bit of a problem (& even there unity G might be better so i'm not too much afraid). The big upside of this spell is that it allows shadow to use both shadow mage at T2, and cultist master at T3, in an offensive way (blood healing with cultist master is impracticale). To resume : 1) To nerf phoenix + embalmer combo, & open embalmer to other possibilities, make it passive in exchange for Tier & cost increase, & massive corpses buff decrease. 2) Give shadow/amii/bandit/LS a new sustain tool using rippers effect. To me it is strange that only rippers & overlord use this considering how shadowy the effect feels. This tool open shadow to shadow mage + frontline rippers/chaos knight combo, & use of cultist master offensively (shadow mage needs 35hp/s min to regen between 2 shots). These changes should open more possibilities for shadow at T2, while starting to put in check the phoenix combo. Your though ? https://discord.com/channels/604212371828899851/739437604914855996/1388891178920837333

As someone who loved to play with root-Units and building since original Battleforge i think the way you changed how the root-support works to “only get support from not in combat units” generally an interesting change which makes playing roots a little more challenging, even if you more or less force the users to put Thornbark to the deck. One problem with this change is, however that the Treespirit-units became worthless. The ability of the rooted Treespirits of firing a volley which deals 75 dmg /max 115 an this every 10 seconds compared with lets say Dryad (50 dmg/max 70 every 2 sec) or the Windweavers (6x10dmg all 2,5sec / 12x10 if two enemy units are in range) is simply put not worth the effort. And since on most, if not all maps you’ll have to quickly make a t1 army with enough punch to challenge whatever the map throws at you treespirits are simply a not usable since you lack the time and power to make a decent attack army with them AND make the necessary support for them to be actually usefull To make them an actually quite interesting unit I would suggest tree changes for treespirits 1. Make it, that the Root support of the Treespirits works the way it used to, they provide support to the Root network even if they are in combat 2. Let them provide two Support per unit and give the support to all units in the range BUT they only support units and Buildings which are effectively in their own range, not in the complete Root network 3. Reduce the range of the Root support they give by roughly 50% or probably even reduce to only 25% of the original Support range The benefits I’ll see in this changes would be as follow: Regarding change 1: this way you are actually able to use this unit from start since now they can support themselves even I combat. A fully supported a treespirit’s damage becomes a little better than the damage of similar t1 range units from nature but not massively better and from orb two and rising the damage they deal in combt becomes more and more only “background noise” Regarding change 2 and 3: giving two support per unit would make a decent alternative to the Thornbarks as support units since from midgame on one of the, if not the most valuable resource is Unit-Cap and a Thornbark with 3 support at 5 Unit-Cap cost vs Treespirit with 2 Support at 3 Unit cap means you’ll get full support at nearly the same Unit-Cap cost (10 Thornbark vs 9 Treespirits) By allowing the Treespirits to support every unit even in combat, but only the Units/Towers who are effectively in range of the rootsupport of tis specific treespirit and not supporting over the whole Rootnetwort you’ll also create a new way to “Focus Support” a specific unit or building in the Root network without the need to cut this entity from the rest of the Root network. It gives the possibility to greatly strengthen a specific area but with the reduced range (lets go with only 25% Supportrange) you can support more than one Unit but not to many and only in this exact location. And since you only have limited unit Capacity you wont doo this on a Wide area. I think with those changes Treespirit would become a quite fun unit without becoming overpowered and it gives the player a support alternative to the Tornbarks so players can decide: go with Thornbark for Complete network wide support or go with Treespirit for focus support

Regarding Gemeye, I think it makes more sense to consider his dp20 as 4250, not 5250. It's not always easy to keep many enemies in poison for the entire duration of the poison. "bypass any protection" part is quite niche and it is rare that you will be able to get good value from it. While you think I underestimate him, I think you overestimate him. And I think the percentage of Gemeye's usage is more on my side. Regarding the Nightshade Plant as an example of good changes... I don't think that's a good argument. I didn't see him much more often than the Deepfang. About 3 games out of 200+. I think he needs another 500 hp and a buff to the twilight transformations (as a whole) to be a good option. Now about my version of Gemeye. You need to invest quite a lot of power to scale his defense that high. It's more of an option for people like "Devs changed the only good card I enjoyed playing and now I'm uninstalling the game." For the same reason, I didn't touch the attack number, but yes, perhaps the poison damage could be reduced. And along with this, we can raise his power cost to 300. But we really can't touch his other stats and abilities. Otherwise, many players will be unhappy and/or he will also lose the competition. I agree that this concept of attack and hp distribution is not very suitable for a stonekin unit. But there's nothing we can do about it, in my opinion. I could change his new ability to +300 hp instead of +6% defense to make it look better (f it's technically possible to implement it in the game), but nothing more than that. Regarding "wrong cards for comparison". So if you want a fast army, Deepfang is bad. If you plan on defending or slow pushing, Razorleaf can do the same thing, but better. If you have enough power to summon two Deepfangs, then Enlightenment + t4 unit will be better economically (If you don't plan on keeping Deepfang in your t4 army, which doesn't seem so bad). Of course there are situations when you have about 250 power and you have to act now, but they are quite rare. Even in the case where you need to push from T3 to T4 in rPvE, Deepfang is not very good because of how its damage is split between targets. You can right click a spawning building and start dealing 0 damage to it in half of the games. So generally, you can use other cards that cost the same amount of orbs and get a better result. I guess that's what competition is. No? And now I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to force myself to play a stonekin deck with Deepfang and I will take every opportunity to test him out. And after that I will find 3 slots in the deck to put a Razorleaf with the root system. And I'll be completely honest about the outcome of this test. And god forbid if it turns out Razorleaf is better than Deepfang in a stonekin deck... But this test will not take less than a week I think. In the meantime we can continue our discussion =D Edit: I was wrong. I have revised my views on some individual things and the situation as a whole.

No I did understood you (mostly ^^, see B), I just disagree with what you said and gave you the reasons : A. Deepfang was not great until recently. He got significantly buffed on 22th decembre. It takes time for people to try new things they have previously discarded. It took something like months before people realise how strong plague was after the rework, and over a year to realise that emberstrike was actually meta in rPvE. Deepfang got reworked a month ago. And I've experienced that people playing stonekin are even more loath to try new things. As said, deepfang isn't really in the same bath as root defense, this thing is really map dependant. Stone launcher & deepgorge are more in competition with root defense for the same slots in your deck than deepfang is. As explained, deepfang compete for space in your deck with enlightment & stonewarrior + rageflamme combo (& the 2 color worms), and particularly with enlightment in rpve. And until his buff, he was a lesser option. Now, he competes seriously (meaning it is not longer an obvious choice). But people need time to start integrating him back into their decks. B & C. Sorry I misunderstood deepstone fusion as bonus dmg instead of bonus armor. But the point I made stand. You can't keep gem eye P & G passive effect on its attack at T3. Again, when you see 3250 DP20, the truth is that gem eye P is 5250 dp20 with 50m range & 100% true damage (bypass any protection). You simply can't keep that at T3, it's T4 power level. And the damage reduction you gave him allows too much scaling at T4. You're creating a 5250 / 4700 T3 creature at T4. You're making a T3 unit better than a good number of T4 range units. The power level difference between T3 & T4 is supposed to be the biggest power level jump in the game, and you are basically making a T4 creature at T3. And at T3, your unit has almost twice the effective dp20 than it has effective health. For a stonekin unit, it is not part of the faction design, where your units (outside buff & combo) effective dp20 should be inferior to its effective health. D. Deepfang is dependant on an ability for that damage boost (you can get silenced, you can leave the area of effect, ...). Active effects > passive ones in the game, for obvious reasons. So you're comparing a 3300/3500 L counter slow creature with short range and a damage buff ability to a 5250/2340 true damage creature with 50m range, which can scale into a ~4700 equivalent hp creature into the late game. That is the problem. Just to give you an idea, when nightshade plant was moved from T4 to T3, its cost stayed the same, but its stats went from 6380/5800 to 4100/3400. It did gain siege & a transformation cost reduction, but still it lost ~2300~2400 stats of attack and defense for moving down 1 tier. Right now, both cards are fine. Gem eye main attack could use a small buff at most (650 -> 700 , so 3250-> 3500), and even there I'm not sure it is necessary for its viability.

I disagree with your analysis. Both cards are fine in their tier right now (talking with recent deepfang buff in mind) : 1) Deepfang : contrary to what you say, deepfang is not in a competition with thornbark and razorleaf. These 2 are great in root network defense, and outside of slow razorleaf push with sylvian gate and a thornbark battery in some Cpve situations, are really not good on the offense. In rpve root network is just too many card slots for some defense. In offense, deepfang main weakness is his speed. So in T3 Cpve scenario where your army needs to move, he will be replaced by stonekin warrior + rageflamme. But deepfang has a place in rpve where he’s adapted for the T3 push to T4. His speed is no longer a problem in this situation. In term of damage, the red one offers you 5940 dp20 with L counter. Few things can hit that hard in T3 for 250 power. He is in competition with enlightment, as well as deep coil worm and the frost worm. Vs the worms, deepfang outperform them completely. With enlightment, I used to prefer it instead of deepfang, but since the buff it’s the contrary. Deepfang will come faster, and if it’s not enough, by the time you can accumulate the power to cast enlightment + stonekin T4 , I’ll have 2. He’s better vs an eventual boss at your T4 orb. He’s a bit worse if your facing a close camp to your T4 and need to snipe the spawner in the back. Overall, in stonekin T3 Rpve, where before enlightment > deepfang , now it is no longer the case and the choice is ~50/50. 2) Gem Eye : You are overlooking a number of facts when analyzing the card. 1st, in the case of gem eye, the 2 affinities are really different. In term of stats, you are overlooking the massive part the poison plays with the overall damage of the card. If the damage dealt by it is included, then the P one has a dp20 of 5250, not 3250. And it is true damage, which can be exceptionally powerful in some situations (some boss, moloch vs rpve fire, …). And the poison effect stack. Gem eye P is considered a good range damage dealer overall. Another thing you’re missing is the range, 50m ain’t no joke. That allows you to snipe building easily. For your rework, remember stonekin identity is tankiness, you should not give your units more damage than they have health/ resistance. 1) Gem eye : No way you keep a 5250 dp20 unit with 50m range in T3, even more with the potential damage buff you are giving him. And no way you give a stonekin unit that much more damage than health. Overall a terribly bad rework. 2) I don’t like the passive damage buff based on numbers of units/deck slot, it is not in stonekin identity. The ability is cool, though 35m is too much, it would be 25m if implemented.

Stone Warrior (b) works well together with Timeless One, especially in PvP, since TO has a super cheap freeze and the lance oneshots Juggernaut. Tbf, I also don't see the green affinity being all that useful now, since there are barely any paralyse effects in the game, one being Creeping Paralysis, which has to compete with Oink for slots and has awkward orb requirements, and most others are at T4, where Stone Warrior is most likely outshined anyways.

[ Card Changes ] Amii Monument: 1. Power Cost: 250p ➜ 125p 2. Ability Cost: 140p ➜ 100p 3. Orbs granted by Amii Monument no longer increase a player’s tier. Players still gain access to cards within their current tier that require the orb granted by Amii Monument. For example, if a player has 3 Fire orbs via normal Monuments, and builds a Nature orb via Amii Monument, they will still be T3, but will be able to summon Juggernauts and heal them via Equilbrium. A. Description - “Switch into this mode to gain one tierless Shadow Orb. This orb will not increase a player's tier, but will allow the player to play cards within their current tier that would require this Orb. The Orb will be ready and functional after 10 seconds. It cannot be switched back for 30 seconds.” Amii Monument in its existing state is a cheat card. It breaks a map's design, allowing players unfettered access to T4 cards when the map is balanced around the player only having access to T3 cards and creating a persistent toxic effect on the normal game experience. Amii Monument removes an entire tier from the game. This has a disruption impact on the game experience by changing deckbuilding at its core. In decks without Amii Monument, the player needs to consider how many cards they can budget for each tier and choose accordingly. With Amii Monument in a deck, the player can simply remove all T3 cards from their deck besides Amii Monument itself (spells like Infect which scale well into T4 are the exception), opening up more deck slots for T1, T2, and T4 cards. Consider also that nearly all PvE maps are functionally finished before the player ever reaches T4. Combined with the fact that T4 cards are significantly stronger than T3 cards (the power difference between T4 and T3 cards is the single largest increase in card strength between tiers) means that the player requires fewer T3 and T4 cards in their deck, allowing the use of more card slots for T1 and T2. This heavily warps the game experience by making the player stronger than the map is designed to account for at all tiers, not just once the player reaches T3. There is also the psychological effect Amii Monument has upon players. Since we first started balancing cards in Skylords Reborn, players have asked us to nerf Amii Monument, not just because of the balance issues, but because they felt compelled to always include it in their deck regardless of the situation. This is unsurprising as many game studios have recognized that players in general will choose the most efficient option, even to the detriment of their own enjoyment. And who of us have not experienced this? How many of us have not used mind-numbingly boring methods to grind in games just because it is the fastest way to procure loot, even if it ends up making us hate the game? Who has not included Amii Monument as a default deck option at some point in their time playing Skylords Reborn? To briefly summarize, Amii Monument undermines map design, deckbuilding, and possesses a factor that makes players feel compelled to include it in their decks, even when they know it undermines their own enjoyment. While designing our new maps, including not just the two maps releasing with this patch but the multiple additional maps currently in development, we found ourselves face to face with these issues in a way that made the card's problems no longer ignorable. For all these reasons and more, we felt that the time had finally come to nerf Amii Monument. Yet we do not want to destroy the card. The new design is tailored towards enabling unique, previously impossible, deckbuilding possibilities, in direct opposition to its previous design. We also realized that many T3 cards were not generally strong enough to be satisfying to use, so we dedicated almost the entire last patch to adding new T3 options through buffs, reworks, and new cards, and we are dedicated to continuing this project next patch. Lastly, we understand that this change will upset many people, but we hope you will see that we did not make this choice lightly. We do not enjoy nerfing cards players like, but we do it because we think it is the best choice for the game. At the same time, we think that the time of major nerfs is now at an end with these changes to Amii Monument, and we as a team commit to no further nerfs on the scale of Amii Monument or the previous Batariel nerf from 2 years ago to existing cards going forward. NP : However the bug where you build amii monument & orb, then try to make an orb switch but the game require you to pay 300 power instead of 100 still exist.

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! • Yearly Feedback Survey Every year, Skylords Reborn has a Feedback Survey. While it is typically released in the summer, we decided to give players more time to explore our new Campaign Maps before inviting you to share your invaluable feedback. Because Skylords Reborn is a community project, we want to understand what our players enjoy and what could be improved. Your input is vital to helping us refine the game and expand our player base. We hope you’ll take a moment to answer the survey questions, as your responses will directly shape our development priorities. As a thank-you, everyone who completes the survey will receive two boosters. Your feedback will be anonymous. • Christmas Event & Anniversary This year, we have something very special planned to close out the holidays. Check back later this month for the official announcement of our Christmas celebration! We are hard at work finalizing the challenge, but the special reward is already prepared. Players who complete the achievement will receive a new Promo Frost Mage card! More information is coming soon, so stay tuned! The 4th anniversary of Skylords Reborn is also coming up. Traditionally, we celebrate this milestone with an announcement stream and a large content patch. But with a significant patch in September, the Halloween Event in October, and our plans for Christmas in December, it has been an incredibly busy period, and we are not sure if this will be feasible this year. Rest assured that we are still hard at work on the second batch of new campaign maps, new cards and other features we are sure you will enjoy, but we feel rushing ourselves to release a content patch just to fit the anniversary window this year, is not the right approach. We would still like to celebrate this milestone with you however, so we will explore our options and let you know. • New Card Spotlight - Molt We already talked a bit about Molt in our Twilight deep-dive last month, and are now ready to reveal the latest spell coming to the Twilight faction. Lets break down the card and share some of the thoughts behind its design. Shed Trigger a unit’s latent capacity for transformation. Target an own Twilight unit and trigger its transformation effect as if it had used Twilight Transformation. Reusable every 40 seconds. Design notes: Twilight Transformation has seen a number of improvements, such as reduced transformation time and a built-in cost reduction. At the same time, we have been steadily adding more transformation effects to the Twilight units to give the ability more strategic depth. Still, we are largely restricted by the fact that we cannot lower transformation costs without also lowering bound power costs in units. So as units scale in costs, our only choice is to make transformation effects scale in strength. We do not think this efficiency arms race is rightly achievable, so we are moving in a different direction through the introduction of Molt. For a low fixed cost, Molt will be able to trigger the transformation effect of any Twilight unit, meaning we can now design transformation effects with Molt in mind and not solely based on bound power costs. This also allows for more flexibility as players can now trigger transformation effects quickly and easily without having to make use of the often clunky Transformation process. Molt will release alongside our next content patch, date to be announced. • Art Spotlight - Molt The artwork for Molt (originally called Evolution during development) was created by SpiritAlpha. He envisioned Twilight creatures shedding their old skin, transforming into even greater monstrosities. SpiritAlpha quickly produced two early sketches: We liked the early concept, and work continued on the one involved the Mutating Maniac. To ensure the artwork fit well within the card frame and kept the focus on the main design, we removed the extra characters. At one point, we considered depicting old skin transforming into new body parts, but we quickly discarded the idea, as it didn’t enhance the artwork. We were pleased with how the artwork was progressing but concerned it wasn’t clear enough that this was a spell rather than a unit. We explored several options but weren’t satisfied with the results. The first attempt made the card feel like a binding spell, while the second clarified it was a spell but faced contrast issues when displayed in the deck bar. Wherever possible, we aim to ensure players can quickly identify cards at a glance. We spent some time tweaking the base artwork, experimenting with various intensities of the blue glow to emphasize the spell aspect of the card. We also ensured the toxic Twilight clouds, iconic to the faction, were present to highlight the transformation effect being triggered. Ultimately, we chose a strong blue contrast against the creature and mirrored the artwork to further distinguish the card from its creature counterpart when viewed in the deck bar. We are happy with how the artwork turned out and would like to once again thank SpiritAlpha for his incredible work and contributions to the game. Our art department is severely understaffed, and it’s almost entirely thanks to him that we’re still able to add new cards to the game. If you’re an artist or know someone who can create art in a style fitting for BattleForge, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us! You can apply directly here, or contact Majora or Dutchy on the Forum or on Discord. • "How Does It Work" series - BFP We recently launched a new video series on our YouTube channel, How Does It Work, where we dive into various topics that often raise questions. So far, we’ve released a video on Void Power, the Root Network and a guide on how to install the game. Another topic that often comes up is ''How do I earn BFP?", the topic of our latest video! We’d love to hear feedback from the community on this series. These videos take quite some time to create, but we’re more than happy to continue if they’re appreciated. Are the videos clear and interesting to watch? Are there any other topics you would like to see covered? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below! • Contribute to Skylords Reborn Expanding on a game like BattleForge requires a lot of enthusiastic and skilled volunteers. While we are very happy with how the game shaped out to be, over the years we have struggled filling certain roles that are now truly becoming a problem for the health of the project. We would like to highlight a couple of positions that we could really use (more) people for. Critical: Artists Despite multiple calls for help, we have unfortunately not received any applications for the artist role. Due to the remote nature of our team and current global challenges, both of our artists have been heavily impacted, with one now completely inactive. This has significantly slowed the release of new cards and placed immense pressure on our sole remaining artist. We would like to stress our appeal: if you know any skilled artist who might be willing to contribute to Skylords Reborn, please forward them our way. Your support is vital to keeping the game alive and thriving! For more information, click here. Critical: Marketeer One of the most common pieces of feedback we receive from players is, “You should market the game more.” While we completely agree, this is easier said than done. Our options are greatly limited—paid marketing is off the table—and more importantly, we currently don’t have a dedicated marketer. Unfortunately, no one with the necessary skills or experience has applied for the role. If you’re motivated, have a strong network, and believe you can help us spread the word about Skylords Reborn, we’d love to hear from you! For more information, click here. Map Testers With our increased focus on map-related content, we are looking for more Map Testers to help identify bugs and ensure balance. As a Map Tester, you’ll gain early access to new maps and game modes, with the responsibility of playtesting and providing valuable feedback to the map development team. This includes evaluating the balance and fun factor of maps, identifying exploits, suggesting areas for visual improvements, and ensuring overall quality. The availability of dedicated Map Testers not only improves the game’s quality but also significantly speeds up the release of high-quality content. This is a non-staff contributor position. Tasks for these roles come and go, and they are a great way to help without receiving too much responsibility. For more information, click here. Other roles Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 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! Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member. • 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! Current events: • FINISHED - Seven Strategy Showdown 7 - Egg ball The last SSS-event finished past Friday, and was one of the most unique events we have seen in Skylords Reborn. Find out the winners in the event stream, or play it yourself in a versus mode that is being developed in the future! More information. • COMING SOON - Christmas Challenge While not technically an event, be sure to check in for our Christmas challenge later this month! • SECOND PHASE - PvP AI programming contest Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! Players are still able to join this programming contest. More information. • Host your own tournament / event Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizer @Metagross31. 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. • 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: GIVE-FEED-BACK-TIME Please note: Filling out the feedback survey also rewards you with 2 boosters. The code is valid until January 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 November 2024

That's really interesting game you uploaded. It was exactly the seed that would give me trouble. It's also quite the sight to see that you didn't use Inferno more often at tier 4, i would use it in fear of running out of charges on other cards. I see that you used Cluster to clear Willzappers and Earthshaker would be plenty helpful there. I wonder, did you count the number of camp till end to use Cluster Explosion efficiently or was it just a feel through thing? Regarding Halloween answer, I use Werebeasts often to trap wave from Tier 3 easily, I'm still not expert at that and need to do that quite attentively. Morkley Trap is great, at least for me, to advance to Tier 3 fast and it doesn't eat too many card slots. Going from Tier 1 is not that difficult, so i don't seem to need more buffs from things like Dryad. Also I have problem with Abominations with Bloodthirst, what they should exactly be attacking? It's clear to target XL units, but do I need to target lesser units when they're gone? Or what to do when there's so little space to move around? Skycatchers get their health easily but my Abominations tend to die out over time. I have noticed that you use Curse of Oinks more often that me, my sin, is it useful throughout whole match? Like it's good idea to use all its charges till the end? Or the damage in last camps just make it redundant? I'm gonna watch the replay some more times, to see what i would do differently and how you solve some of the map problems. Cheers both.

i recently retook this game on and after playing a few games with each elements and faction my head is full of ideas for new cards, most are meh but i finally think i got a few decent one. probably OP right now but still it'll be fun to share them. my ideas stem from a stray thought i had, why not give each base elements a T2 xl units like the harvester? ones that each embody the elements core mechanic like how the harvester is a units that work using corpse and hordes of temporary summon. but also shore up some of the elements weak spot. so i did a bit of brainstorming and come up with three cards to pitch, tell me what you think. first is ice : Bear Bastion 2 frost orbs / 300 power a giant polar bear (using forest elder model) carrying four section of walls as a castle on its back, it cannot attack itself but small units can climb on the walls on its back like on normal ones getting all the usual advantages, those units can then attack enemies even while the bear bastion move like how battleship or corsair can. the bear Bastion has three passive abilities and one active. >>>passive x Lumbering step: knock back and damage small and medium enemy units around it when moving, only affect ground units. x slow: this units is 50% slower x rally: units summoned within 25meter of this units are not dazed. >>>active x the new frontier: the units turn into ice making it into a static building and cannot move anymore 'but mounted units can still attacks) until the power is deactivated, it is now a valid target for of spells and effect applied to or around buildings. this power can only be deactivated after 30 second. cost 50 power to activate / 30 second cooldown after turning off. 0 attack / XL 4000 hp second is nature: cornucopian monolith 2 nature orbs / 300 power a moving temples (using the construct model) made of green stone and tick brown roots its tower is replaced by a small livestream that create healing rays (like church of negation) but targets both enemy and allies, stealing health from enemy to heal allies continuously at about 15 hp per second drained per enemy units then spread across all allies in range. the cornucopian monolith has three passive abilities and one active. >>>passive x selfless: this unit cannot heal itself, it also cannot be healed by any other mean while in combat. x organic flow: wells within 25 meter of this units will produce 25% slower but deplete 100% time slower x slow birth: this units does not appear instantly and instead need to be constructed over 30 second. >>>active x feast aplenty: drain a friendly well of 300 power sending it to the void pool and shutting it down for 30 second. cost 0 power to activate / 60 second cooldown after use. -------attack / XL 3000 HP third is fire: sunspear vessel 2 fire orbs 300 power a flying ship built around a small sun, (death ray model with a fire orb inside the brazier and the skull replaced by banners and the prow of the ship by the shrine of war skull) this ship attack is an active ability athat affect all units and structure in front of it in a 25 meter range 45° cone but said damage is very low at first and ramp up the longer it attack. the catch is that it also hurt allies and has limited fuel that recharge when out of combat. the sunspear vessel has three passive and one active. >>>passive: x explosive: when killed this unit explode dealing 2000 damage to all units allies and enemy in a 25 meter radius knock back small medium and large units. x siege: deal 50% more damage to strucutres. x astral mass: this unit is slower the more fuel it is holding. fully empty it is swift and completely full it is slow. >>>active: x liquid sunlight: the ship store the fire of the dwarf star it carries as fuel to attack it appear with an initial capacity at 1500 and can store up to 3000 and recharge at a rate of 50 per second, consume 150 per second to attack all units and structures into a 25 meter long 45° cone in front of the ship, the first second of attack deal 50 damage to all units and buildings in range and increase by 100% pf the base damage every second for a total of 1000 damage for the last second after 20 second of continuous attack, the sunspear vessels cannot move or cancel its attack once it start firing. cost 15 power / 20 second cooldown.

Problem is having 10 target for 40s within 20m. Realistically if you do 4k damage with this it, you've already maximised quite a lot the effectiveness of the spell. The spell duration is a bit too high, & it's dps a bit too low for it to really be considered in most decks. But it has a niche in a thunderwagon deck. The theoretical behind the spell was to have a short recast time (15s) & to apply it to multiple target to have high aoe clean. In practice it doesn't work in term of meta, so you only see the spell on thunderwagon because there's some free slots in the deck for more dmg spells, so people fill it with this one.

Wish granted, but the playerbase becomes so large that we have to do major server updates because of a too small capacity. I wish all nice wishes in this thread would come true once and for all.

Patch #400048 - Echoes of the Amii Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains our fourteenth balance patch for the game, 4 brand-new cards, 2 new campaign maps, a new PvP mode, four new achievements, and much more! Patch Preview Four new cards are now available! Jump in-game to collect Amii Sentinel, Skydancer, Energy Core, and Umbabwe! Added two new campaign maps! Continue the story of Skylords Reborn in the first two maps of our new campaign. BattleArena has arrived! Play against your friends in 2v2 or 3v3 battles in this casual PvP mode. Four new achievements and cosmetics to go along with the new maps and game mode. A few balance changes and major card reworks mostly to previously unviable cards. General Changes The Shadow enemies found on the summoning menu in the Forge have been swapped with their NPC versions. Amii enemies have also been added to the Forge's summoning menu. A new section has been added to PvE leaderboard to account for potential speedrun changes arising from changes to Amii Monument without wiping the rankings. Upgrades have been redistributed, you can find more information in-game by using the "Show Upgrades" option on each map. All Rebirth edition cards have had their U2 and U3 upgrades moved to the new maps. The Lost Souls Forge skin is now available. Complete the new achievement "After All These Years" on expert difficulty to unlock it. Deleted players are now displayed as <deleted> rather than empty. New setting "Force create unit group when holding SHIFT key" added to options. Reverted previously undocumented changes to attack-move command (shortcut Q), that were causing issues with unit responsiveness. Added Map of the Day info to the "Daily Rewards" section. When a player completes the Map of the Day in a given day, the flame on the world map will be grayed out. This change is to help players remember if they have already completed a particular Map of the Day for achievement progress. Players can continue to play the Map of the Day for extra upgrade rewards as normal. Re-enabled the chat command export collection. Re-enabled the explore replay button. New Campaign Maps At long last the Skylords Reborn story continues with the addition of two brand-new fully-voiced (in English) campaign maps. These maps continue the story after Dwarven Riddle and are the product of hundreds of hours of our team's artists, designers, community map testers, translators, and voice actors. Both come with new achievements and rewards to encourage you to dive-in and explore. Unexpected Visitors, 2-player campaign map Journey into the northern wastes to find the secrets hidden within the Riddle of Gnaur. Discover the last enclave of the elusive Amii and save them from certain destruction. Into the Jungle, 2-player campaign map Brave the jungles of Viridya's island to find a new home for your Amii allies. New Cards Amii Sentinel - 260p T4 Amii Unit You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Into the Jungle." Our goal for Amii's T4 is to create a micro-intensive deck where most of the damage is unit-based. With Amii Sentinel in particular, our goal is to create a frontline tank that functions as a perfect conduit for Shadow's single-target buff cards. Volatile Body's 120% reflect turns Sentinel's health into a damage resource, which synergizes perfectly with cards like Regrowth, Transcendence, and Skydancer. Energy Core - 140p T4 Amii Unit You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Unexpected Visitors." Energy Core's original design came from the Community Card Contest we held over a year ago. The idea behind Energy Core is to create a unit which is more of a mobile spell than it is a traditional unit. It has no auto-attack, but it has two active abilities. Both abilities damage Energy Core, one more significantly than the other, requiring the player to pay close attention to unit health and weigh their options over what is possible for them and whether or not risking losing the unit is worthwhile. Skydancer - 120p T4 Amii Unit You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Unexpected Visitors." While Sentinel and Energy Core fit the roles of tank and damage dealer respectively, Skydancer functions as the supporter. Skydancer has two different mode-changes, one debuffing enemies and one buffing allies. The debuff functions as a kind of anti-rage effect, while the buff increases allied life points by a set amount. The health buff effect directly synergizes with Sentinel and Energy Core who both has health-based damage mechanics. Umbabwe - 200p T4 Legendary Unit You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Into the Jungle." Blight's infamous witch doctor is finally making his player card appearance. As a standalone legendary unit, he is intended to function as a spellcaster type unit. To accomplish this, the card has a lot of built-in flexibility via its spells. Umbabwe has an auto-attack which is a meteor from Inferno, the ability to cast his signature spell Oink, and an active ability to summon a fiery tornado which applies a painful burn effect. BattleArena - New PvP Mode For a long time, we have been developing an alternative PvP mode called BattleArena which we feel is finally ready to release. In this game mode, players do not use cards from their deck. Instead, they are given spell devices and progressively stronger creatures which they must use to overcome their enemies. The mode can be played 2v2 or 3v3 and comes with a new achievement to reward players for trying it out. Go to Sparring Grounds in-game to play BattleArena. Voice Actors Many of the above new features would not be nearly as enjoyable without the help of our volunteer voice actors. In this patch, the following players have lent their voices to liven up the Skylords Reborn universe. We thank them greatly for their help! Vox - Gaeron (new Frost Skylord) Ultralord - Burning Spears Edgelord - Skydancer Edgelord - Amii Phantom (includes the card's voice lines and the unit's appearance in the new maps) Elijah - Amii Sentinel Dreamlord - New map loading screen narration Achievements As part of the release of the two new campaign maps and BattleArena, we have released four accompanying achievements. There is a normal achievement just for beating the new maps, which rewards the player with the new Amii Sentinel on advanced and the Lost Souls forge on expert, as well as two achievements for mastering the maps. BattleArena has a new progressive achievement for playing the mode. We are also adding new Amii borders to the existing endless achievements for playing Amii decks in PvE and PvP. [ New Achievements ] After All These Years [Card: Amii Sentinel; Forge: Lost Souls] Win the 2-player scenarios Unexpected Visitors and Into the Jungle on Advanced / Expert difficulty or higher. Evacuation Expert [Progressive Banner: Bronze rank ➜ Ember rank] Win the 2-player scenario Unexpected Visitors on Expert difficulty in under 35 / 33 / 31 / 29 / 27 minutes. Earth, Wind, Fire [Avatar: Tribal] Win the 2-player scenario Into the Jungle on Expert difficulty after defeating all 3 bosses in a single match. Honor Bound [Booster: 1 General; Avatar: Mo Ocean] Play BattleArena [3 matches & 10 matches] [ Existing Achievement Changes ] Giver and Taker of Life (PvE) & Path of Insight (PvP) Both achievements now grant progressive Amii borders in line with the requirements of other faction borders. Borders will be added to the player's account retroactively based on achievement progress. Legacy Server While we are happy with the game's development since its revival, we understand that there are some parts of old BattleForge that players might miss. In response to this feeling, we have created a legacy server. This legacy server is equivalent to BattleForge the day it was shut down, with none of the balance changes, new cards, or new maps that have occurred as part of Skylords Reborn's continued development being included. The legacy server functions similarly to the public test server in that the player already has all cards and upgrades. To access the legacy server navigate to the game folder, in standard installations the game folder is be found at C:\Games\Skylords Reborn, and start StartBattleForgeLegacy.bat. From there, you login with your normal account information. Game Balance Changes [ Global Balance Changes ] Amii faction passive scaling: Amii's faction passive Elusive now scales based on the unit's tier. Tier 2: 10% less Freeze and Paralyze duration. Tier 3: 20% less Freeze and Paralyze duration. Tier 4: 30% less Freeze and Paralyze duration. Legendary building restrictions: Legendary buildings are now one-per-player, not one-per-team. Random PvE 1p starting void power: Starting void power has been changed to account for the Amii Monument changes. Standard / Standard+ (Difficulties 1-2): 600 starting void power Standard++ to Expert+ (Difficulties 3-8): 700 starting void power [ Card Changes ] Amii Monument: 1. Power Cost: 250p ➜ 125p 2. Ability Cost: 140p ➜ 100p 3. Orbs granted by Amii Monument no longer increase a player’s tier. Players still gain access to cards within their current tier that require the orb granted by Amii Monument. For example, if a player has 3 Fire orbs via normal Monuments, and builds a Nature orb via Amii Monument, they will still be T3, but will be able to summon Juggernauts and heal them via Equilbrium. A. Description - “Switch into this mode to gain one tierless Shadow Orb. This orb will not increase a player's tier, but will allow the player to play cards within their current tier that would require this Orb. The Orb will be ready and functional after 10 seconds. It cannot be switched back for 30 seconds.” Amii Monument in its existing state is a cheat card. It breaks a map's design, allowing players unfettered access to T4 cards when the map is balanced around the player only having access to T3 cards and creating a persistent toxic effect on the normal game experience. Amii Monument removes an entire tier from the game. This has a disruption impact on the game experience by changing deckbuilding at its core. In decks without Amii Monument, the player needs to consider how many cards they can budget for each tier and choose accordingly. With Amii Monument in a deck, the player can simply remove all T3 cards from their deck besides Amii Monument itself (spells like Infect which scale well into T4 are the exception), opening up more deck slots for T1, T2, and T4 cards. Consider also that nearly all PvE maps are functionally finished before the player ever reaches T4. Combined with the fact that T4 cards are significantly stronger than T3 cards (the power difference between T4 and T3 cards is the single largest increase in card strength between tiers) means that the player requires fewer T3 and T4 cards in their deck, allowing the use of more card slots for T1 and T2. This heavily warps the game experience by making the player stronger than the map is designed to account for at all tiers, not just once the player reaches T3. There is also the psychological effect Amii Monument has upon players. Since we first started balancing cards in Skylords Reborn, players have asked us to nerf Amii Monument, not just because of the balance issues, but because they felt compelled to always include it in their deck regardless of the situation. This is unsurprising as many game studios have recognized that players in general will choose the most efficient option, even to the detriment of their own enjoyment. And who of us have not experienced this? How many of us have not used mind-numbingly boring methods to grind in games just because it is the fastest way to procure loot, even if it ends up making us hate the game? Who has not included Amii Monument as a default deck option at some point in their time playing Skylords Reborn? To briefly summarize, Amii Monument undermines map design, deckbuilding, and possesses a factor that makes players feel compelled to include it in their decks, even when they know it undermines their own enjoyment. While designing our new maps, including not just the two maps releasing with this patch but the multiple additional maps currently in development, we found ourselves face to face with these issues in a way that made the card's problems no longer ignorable. For all these reasons and more, we felt that the time had finally come to nerf Amii Monument. Yet we do not want to destroy the card. The new design is tailored towards enabling unique, previously impossible, deckbuilding possibilities, in direct opposition to its previous design. We also realized that many T3 cards were not generally strong enough to be satisfying to use, so we dedicated almost the entire last patch to adding new T3 options through buffs, reworks, and new cards, and we are dedicated to continuing this project next patch. Lastly, we understand that this change will upset many people, but we hope you will see that we did not make this choice lightly. We do not enjoy nerfing cards players like, but we do it because we think it is the best choice for the game. At the same time, we think that the time of major nerfs is now at an end with these changes to Amii Monument, and we as a team commit to no further nerfs on the scale of Amii Monument or the previous Batariel nerf from 2 years ago to existing cards going forward. Dying Breed: 1. Power cost: 100p ➜ 90p 2. Orb cost: 1 Fire, 2 Neutral (T3) ➜ 2 Fire, 1 Neutral (T3) 2. Tainted Plunder (p): A. Description - Target enemy unit is filled with plunder. If the target enemy dies within the next 30 seconds, all friendly fire units in a 25m radius gain Looter for 25 seconds. Units with Looter harvest the bound power of enemies. Up to 10% of an enemy's original power costs can be harvested relative to the amount of its maximum life points received as damage. Reusable every 30 seconds. 3. Gifted Plunder (g): A. Description - Target enemy unit is filled with plunder and takes 30 damage per second. If the target enemy dies within the next 30 seconds, all friendly fire units in a 25m radius gain Looter for 25 seconds. Units with Looter harvest the bound power of enemies. Up to 7% of an enemy's original power costs can be harvested relative to the amount of its maximum life points received as damage. Reusable every 30 seconds. 4. New FX to go with the new card effect. One of our long-term design projects is trying to give other factions besides Pure Shadow, with its Resource Booster, the ability to accelerate their power in higher tiers. We started this with changes to Nature's power flow via Forest Elder and Promise of Life, and now we are turning our eyes to Fire. Most Fire players are responsible for building 2 Shrines of War as soon as they get T3, immediately putting them behind by 300 power. Combined with high power cost units in T4, this gives Fire a painfully slow start with a frequent reliance on hoping your allies brought a Breeding Grounds for you to use. After carefully considering our options to accelerate Fire's power gain, we decided to bring back the Looter mechanic, but have it applied only temporarily with moderate percentages. We choose Dying Breed as the rework target because its previous effect was unsalvageable. The changes should allow Fire to use Dying Breed in early T3 to accelerate the transition into T4, or to payoff the bound power invested into Shrine of War, without being so strong as to cause Fire's power gain to grow out of control. Fire Force (Formerly Girl Power): 1. Change name: Girl Power ➜ Fire Force 2. Power cost: 50p ➜ 80p 3. Blessed Morale (b): A. Description - Target own melee unit will be designated the champion of Fire. All friendly melee units in a 30m radius will take 20% less damage. If at least 2 enemies die within a 30m radius of the champion within a 10 second period, the damage reduction increases to 50% for 15 seconds. Lasts until the champion dies, or until a different champion is chosen. There may only be one champion of Fire per player at a time. Reusable every 60 seconds. 4. Infused Morale (r): A. Description - Target own melee unit will be designated the champion of Fire. All friendly melee units in a 30m radius will deal 25% more damage. If at least 2 enemies die within a 30m radius of the champion within a 10 second period, the damage buff increases to 50% for 15 seconds. Lasts until the champion dies, or until a different champion is chosen. There may only be one champion of Fire per player at a time. Reusable every 60 seconds. 5. New FX to go with the new card effect. Girl Power was an odd card that did not fit within the game. It was never clear to the player what cards were men, which were women, and which were neither. We did not see a way to salvage the card as it was, so we reworked it into a tool to enable new melee based strategies in Fire decks. The newly minted Fire Force is a permanent spell effect that you apply to a single unit which transforms that unit into a leader type unit. Allies around the leader are buffed, either with increasing damage reduction or increasing damage dealt, when enemies around the leader unit die. Our hope is that this card enables previously niche T2 and T3 melee units to become viable options in PvE. Grove Spirit: 1. Movement speed: 4.8 m/s ➜ 6.4 m/s (normal L/XL-speed) 2. Life points: 1100 ➜ 1600 3. Healing Song cost: 90p ➜ 60p Grove Spirit has found itself a niche in a deck which uses it alongside Offering to cycle Mind Control. The idea of this deck is to use Grove Spirit as ground presence while you build yourself an army out of your enemy's units. The issue is that Grove Spirit itself is slow and dies in one-shot to artillery buildings. We have given the unit a booster shot of life points and made her undulate her tentacles faster, alongside a discount to the Healing Song ability. Pending any further rework to the unit, we hope in the meantime that this helps the unit in the one niche it has found for itself. Lost Dancer: 1. Tainted Blast affinity effect: 50% more damage against humans ➜ 30% more damage against humans Lost Dancer has proven too strong in PvP and we are toning down the extra damage against humans to bring her back in-line. Lost Manabeast: 1. Immortalize requirement: 7 enemy life essences ➜ 3 enemy life essences Immortalize's enemy requirement is too strict, making it overly difficult to make good use of the ability. We are substantially reducing the requirements to hopefully give Lost Manabeast a better synergy with Revenant strategies. [ NPC & Map Changes ] Spearmen (NPC): 1. Toggle ability Defensive Formation: 25% damage reduction now applies properly Fire Emitter (Slavemaster version): 1. Power cost: 2000p ➜ 200p New NPC Entities: Available for use by official and community mapmakers. Added Frost NPC entities: Units: War Eagle, Tremor, Mountain Rowdy, Northland Drake, Icespike, Avatar of Frost, Construct, Dreadnought, Core Dredge, Dredgling, Mountaineer, Tempest, Winter Witch Buildings: Ice Launcher, Frost Crystal, Frontier Keep (large spawner), Kobold Inc. (small spawner) Added Amii NPC entities: Amii Crossbowmen, Amii Paladins, Amii Phantom, Amii Sentinel, Amii Keep Bad Harvest: Both orbs near the Treasure Wagon now spawn when a player in position 3 is playing solo. The Soultree: The map now requires all 5 normal orbs to be built or under construction to fulfill the map's victory requirement. Amii Monument no longer counts towards this goal. [ Bugfixes & Miscellaneous Changes ] Fixed card descriptions in various languages. The longstanding issue which caused players' games to slowdown substantially when they destroyed multiple frozen air units at once, has now been fixed. The most well known occurrence of this bug was connected to Shatter Ice. Dropdowns for rankings are no longer scrollable.

Ironclad looks absolutely dope on the artwork but in-game it has a bunch of muted, muddy and ugly colors. Unfortunately, with limited capacity for artworks, it's a bit tricky to squeeze that inbetween some other priorities. But Ironclad specifically has been my pet peeve for a long time.

Nerfing the power cost does not solve the myriads of design issues the card introduces. All it would do is introduce extra waiting time. You could continue to increase the cost, adding more and more waiting time, until you reach a tipping point and the card becomes too slow to use at all. There is a difference between nerfing a card and punishing the player with boredom for using it. Unlike typical RTS games, Skylords is much more momentum based. Blocking void return could lead to a straight up match loss. And if you can disable Amii Monument to avoid that after playing your T4 army, then you'd still not have much incentive to play any T3 units and still stomp the T3 sections of a map with T4 units. A huge roster of cards remains overshadowed. And you'd still not fully address the problem of warping T1, T2 and T4 power because of the ability to free up deck slots and bulk up thanks to Amii. The core issues with the card are that it allows for a tier skip, with all the effects this has on deckbuilding and global card viability, and that it is neutral in combination with that. What would a poll regarding that matter tell you? That people don't universally enjoy nerfs? Mind-boggling revelation. Can you name me some other games that balance based on polls? Or any interview/presentation with a dev or designer that advocates for that practice? Could you think of any reason why that's not very common?

I was semi joking because he was rambling about bugs/abuse of mechanics and then referring to amii monument with the argument: you can ignore it, i thought starting my next paragraph with ,,but seriously'' made that clear. It is of course a stupid argument, if you wanna have anything resembling balance, ,just ignore OP stuff'' is not an argument. What is more alarming is definetly subjective. A lot of people consider amii monument gamebreaking. If you consider amii monument gamebreaking, it's defeintly more important because a lot more people use it day to day in every PVE there is. Mine to T2 wouldn't be too crazy considering how strong it is. But the crucial difference is that mine isn't a neutral card wich let's you skip T1 completly and you have 19 slots for T2-T4 cards, there's levels to imbalance. Playrate is still a good indicator if something is too strong, one card leading to 30% of players discarding a whole tier of possibilies is just sad.

I think you might be misunderstanding the new Amii Monument design. The situation you are describing is possible with the new design; say you build 4 regular fire orbs on the map, you can set the Amii monument to nature. Enlightenment is a double nature card compared to a neutral card that slots into every deck. It also is different in the sense that it does not freely allow another color, but rather forces you to spend it on single cards every time you activate it. While some players will opt to switch, the play patterns are different enough to warrant changing one but not the other. While we did consider changing enlightenment as well, community feedback was heavily in favor of nerfing monument, but not Enlightnement. As for speedrunning, except for Soultree and Bad Harvest, the top runs don't use Amii monument.

Firstly, 1) Are the Energy Core's abilities going to be usable from U0, or was the plan to lock one away behind an upgrade? 2) Will they have an additional power cost to activate, or just the lifepoint cost? Do they start on cooldown, or will they be able to be activated the moment the card is summoned? 3) Aesthetically, the Amii buildings tend towards a bronze/brass/stone appearance, why so much black on the units? Secondly, 1) Amii Monument is ruined, ruined I tell you! /dramatic 2) It was well worth sacrificing a card slot to switch orbs without destroying and rebuilding a static Monument, say, for example, a temporary second Nature orb to throw down some WoGs, before pivoting to Fire for Fire Dragons and Regrowth. Less bound/lost power too. With the reworked card being in addition too, rather than instead of, that feels like a net loss. 3) With Deck slots already being at a premium, any 'unique, previously impossible, deckbuilding possibilities' would have to be significant outliers to justifying including both a full T3 and a reworked AM.

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! • Echoes of the Amii Nearly 15 years have passed since the original BattleForge story concluded. When we revived the game through Skylords Reborn, two questions kept coming up: Will we get new Amii cards, and will we see new story or campaign maps? One of the final cards released for the original game was Amii Phantom, offering a glimpse of what might have been. Over the years, our team has carefully expanded the mysterious Amii faction with new cards like Amii Paladins, Tranquility, and Transcendence, gradually shaping a distinct faction identity. With our upcoming patch, we're accelerating this effort by introducing three late-game units: Amii Sentinel, Skydancer, and Energy Core. These new units provide players with exciting options for building a dedicated Amii deck. We are incredibly proud of how far this project has come, and we're grateful for the opportunity to expand the Amii faction with these new cards. Rest assured, we have more cards in development for the faction, some of which you can expect to see before the end of the year. In addition to new cards, our next patch marks a significant milestone by adding new campaign maps. And what better way to do so than by properly integrating the Amii into the story? These new maps take place during the original story's timeframe, filling in some of the gaps and answering lingering questions, while also introducing a new Skylord and bringing the ancient Amii into the present-day narrative. Our next patch will feature two new maps, with more in development. We've dedicated significant time and effort to these campaign maps, carefully refining the balance, map art, story, and gameplay. We hope players will appreciate the passion that went into their creation. After all this time, we want to ensure that these maps stand proudly alongside the original campaign. These maps are the product of hundreds of hours of our team's artists, designers, community map testers, translators, and voice actors. We hope you are looking forward to them! We are excited to announce Echoes of the Amii will release on September 21st. • New Card Reveal - Energy Core With the patch release imminent, we have another new card to show you that will be included. Crackling with energy, Energy Core is powerful, but unstable. By overloading the core, it can deal massive amounts of damage, but doing so comes at a heavy cost. Let's break down the card! Please note: We are still finalizing the card. While we are generally happy with it, numbers and effects might still change before release. Pulse Activate to unleash an electric shock through enemies in a straight line that deals 1200 damage to enemies in a 20m radius, up to 3000 in total. The shock damages Energy Core by 1150 life points points. Must have at least 1000 life points to activate. Reusable every 15 seconds. Overcharge Activate to overload the unit, dealing 2000 damage to enemies in a 25m radius, up to 6000 in total. The overload damages Energy Core by 2300 life points. This self-inflicted damage ignores damage modification and cannot be warded off with the help of damage reducing abilities because it is able to circumvent every buff or protective shield. Must have at least 2000 life points to activate. Reusable every 30 seconds. Elusive Units with Elusive have the duration of the immobilizing effects of Freeze and Paralyze reduced by 30%. Sharp eyes might have noticed a change in the percentage of the Amii passive ability "Elusive". Starting with our next patch, the Elusive ability will be different depending on the tier of the unit. The current cards, Amii Phantom and Amii Palladin, and any future tier 2 Amii units will remain at 10%. Meanwhile, tier 3 will move the percentage up to 20%, and tier 4 units will have a 30% reduction to the duration of Freeze and Paralyze. Design notes: Energy Core's original design came from a player in the Community Card Contest we held over a year ago. At the time we were fleshing out the basic design of Amii's T4 and we thought that Energy Core was the perfect fit for what we envisioned regarding this faction's playstyle. The idea behind Energy Core is to create a unit which is more of a mobile spell than it is a traditional unit. It has no auto-attack, but it has two activatable abilities. Both abilities damage Energy Core, one more significantly than the other, requiring the player to pay close attention to the unit's health and weigh their options over what is possible for them and whether or not risking losing the unit is worthwhile. It synergizes directly with Skydancer, whose buff increases a unit's base health, allowing Overcharge to be used without directly killing Energy Core. The damage to enemies is modifiable by Shadow's buffs, allowing the card to work directly with Shadow's buffs and Nature's healing spells. Energy Core will release alongside our next content patch on the 21st. • Art Spotlight - Energy Core As the creators of Monuments and Powerwells in Nyn, the Amii seemed like the perfect faction for a unit embodying the essence of a monument's core. For the initial concept of the card, our artist, SpiritAlpha, took the model of Magma Spore, and incorporated faces in its design—a direction we've explored before with the spell Tranquility. From the start, we knew we wanted to move away from the iconic chains of the Magma Spore, aiming to make the design feel more distinctive. While we're limited to the models from the original game, it was important to us that this unit didn’t come across as just another simple reskin. We were drawn to this next concept art, evoking the feeling of soldiers stumbling upon an ancient construct in a temple-like setting. However, we were concerned that it resembled a spell too closely and weren’t entirely convinced by the facial design. To refine the concept, we revisited other Amii structures in the game for inspiration. We noticed that the Amii Shrines featured a unique eye in their design, which we felt was worth exploring further. We paused work on the card art to ensure this idea could be executed well in the model. Once the model was finalized, we resumed work on the card artwork. We were thrilled with the direction we took. The core not only looks powerful, but it also brings a distinct personality to what could have been a rather plain model. With its ominous eye watching over the battlefield and its rhythmic hum, the Energy Core is something truly unique in the lineup. We hope you love it as much as we do! • Amii Monument Changes One of the most anticipated—or depending on your perspective, feared—changes will be implemented in our next patch. After careful consideration and years of discussion, we have decided to change the card Amii Monument. We are fully aware of the controversy surrounding this topic, so we want to take the time to explain our reasoning and the thought process behind it. The following changes will be made to the card: 1. Power Cost: 250p ➜ 125p 2. Ability Cost: 140p ➜ 100p 3. Orbs granted by Amii Monument no longer increase a player’s tier. Players still gain access to cards within their current tier that require the orb granted by Amii Monument. For example, if a player has 3 Fire orbs via normal Monuments, and builds a Nature orb via Amii Monument, they will still be T3, but will be able to summon Juggernauts and heal them via Equilbrium. New Description - “Switch into this mode to gain one tierless Shadow Orb. This orb will not increase a player's tier, but will allow the player to play cards within their current tier that would require this Orb. The Orb will be ready and functional after 10 seconds. It cannot be switched back for 30 seconds.” 4. Once built, Amii orbs attack as if they were a normal orb. 5. Legendary buildings are now one-per-player, not one-per-team. Reasoning Amii Monument in its existing state is a cheat card. It breaks a map's design, allowing players unfettered access to T4 cards when the map is balanced around the player only having access to T3 cards and creating a persistent toxic effect on the normal game experience. Amii Monument removes an entire tier from the game. This has a disruption impact on the game experience by changing deckbuilding at its core. In decks without Amii Monument, the player needs to consider how many cards they can budget for each tier and choose accordingly. With Amii Monument in a deck, the player can simply remove all T3 cards from their deck besides Amii Monument itself (spells like Infect which scale well into T4 are the exception), opening up more deck slots for T1, T2, and T4 cards. Consider also that nearly all PvE maps are functionally finished before the player ever reaches T4. Combined with the fact that T4 cards are significantly stronger than T3 cards (the power difference between T4 and T3 cards is the single largest increase in card strength between tiers) means that the player requires fewer T3 and T4 cards in their deck, allowing the use of more card slots for T1 and T2. This heavily warps the game experience by making the player stronger than the map is designed to account for at all tiers, not just once the player reaches T3. There is also the psychological effect Amii Monument has upon players. Since we first started balancing cards in Skylords Reborn, players have asked us to nerf Amii Monument, not just because of the balance issues, but because they felt compelled to always include it in their deck regardless of the situation. This is unsurprising as many game studios have recognized that players in general will choose the most efficient option, even to the detriment of their own enjoyment. And who of us have not experienced this? How many of us have not used mind-numbingly boring methods to grind in games just because it is the fastest way to procure loot, even if it ends up making us hate the game? Who has not included Amii Monument as a default deck option at some point in their time playing Skylords Reborn? To briefly summarize, Amii Monument undermines map design, deckbuilding, and possesses a factor that makes players feel compelled to include it in their decks, even when they know it undermines their own enjoyment. While designing our new maps, including not just the two maps releasing with this patch but the multiple additional maps currently in development, we found ourselves face to face with these issues in a way that made the card's problems no longer ignorable. For all these reasons and more, we felt that the time had finally come to nerf Amii Monument. Yet we do not want to destroy the card. The new design is tailored towards enabling unique, previously impossible, deckbuilding possibilities, in direct opposition to its previous design. We also realized that many T3 cards were not generally strong enough to be satisfying to use, so we dedicated almost the entire last patch to adding new T3 options through buffs, reworks, and new cards, and we are dedicated to continuing this project next patch. Lastly, we understand that this change will upset many people, but we hope you will see that we did not make this choice lightly. We do not enjoy nerfing cards players like, but we do it because we think it is the best choice for the game. At the same time, we think that the time of major nerfs is now at an end with these changes to Amii Monument, and we as a team commit to no further nerfs on the scale of Amii Monument or the previous Batariel nerf from 2 years ago to existing cards going forward. • Battle Arena Next patch will also bring the release of a new PvP mode called Battle Arena. In this game mode, players do not use cards from their deck. Instead, they are given spell devices and progressively stronger creatures which they must use to overcome their enemies. The mode can be played 2v2 or 3v3 and will come with a new achievement to reward players for trying it out. • 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! Current events: • UPCOMING - Release Event Once the patch is out, we will have an event to celebrate the release of the new campaign maps. In this special event, you'll have a chance to win some of the new cards or boosters! More details will be shared on patch day. • NEW - Seven Strategy Showdown 3 - Wrecking Time The 3rd event in the series is now live! The tables have turned, and this time Skylords are the ones destroying buildings. Destroy as many buildings as possible within the time limit and win some great prizes. More information. • IN PROGRESS - Seven Strategy Showdown Every two weeks there will be a new event in this series of seven events, each bringing a fun handcrafted challenge or mechanic! Be sure to check them out, as there are some great prizes to be won! More information. • FINISHED - Seven Strategy Showdown 1 - The Salesman Problem For this event players had to kill all the units on the event-map as fast as possible. It wasn't long before people broke the one minute mark, but after that the real competition kicked off. You can now watch the winners on Twitch. More information. • FINISHED - Seven Strategy Showdown 2 - The Last Fortress One building is all that stood between players and the leaderboard. Watch how the fierce competition concluded in the winner reveal stream on Twitch! More information. • SECOND PHASE EXTENDED - PvP AI programming contest Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! Players are still able to join this programming contest. More information. • Host your own tournament / event Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizer @Metagross31. 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. • Team Changes Two team members have concluded their roles; Piskr as Client Developer, and Xanatoss as Card implementer. We would like to thank them for their contributions to Skylord Reborn. Meanwhile, Titan has transitioned to help us with audio, alongside the role of 3D-artist. • Contribute to Skylords Reborn Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 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! If you have any experience with e-mail newsletters, we could especially use your help as we move towards the release of our latest patch. Please take a look at this new role. Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member. • 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 an Amii booster: ISPY-WITH-AMII-EYES The code is valid until October 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 August 2024

Interested in joining the team? Be sure to read this first. Below we go into detail about this specific position. Audio Editor Bring our new cards to life by adding unique voice lines and sound effects. We already have some great voice actors and are looking for someone for post-production and quality control. You will work closely with our voice actors and help them along the way. As an Audio Editor, you will be responsible for selecting and extracting the best takes, doing post-production and making sure the overall quality is high enough to be implemented into the game. If you have more skills, you will also be able to design new sounds for the game as Audio Producer. Responsibilities • Work with and guide our voice actors to create new English voice lines for the game. • Post-production and quality control of new sound files and voice lines. • Post-production for video voice-overs • If able: design new sounds for the game. Desired traits • Basic knowledge of a sound editing tool like Audacity. • Knowledge of audio effects. Especially compressor, equalizer, and de-esser. • Audio engineering knowledge with reference of past voice mixing works. • Experience with voice recording, being able to guide the voice actors in the recording process. Bonus traits • Experience with creating new sound effects. • Owning a sound-editing tool + audio effects (minimalistic home studio setup). Please note: We currently have enough capacity in our audio department for the time being. That being said, feel free to apply and we will consider you when more tasks opens up.

Patch #400047 - Summer Swarm Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains our thirteenth balance patch for the game and two brand-new cards! Patch Preview Two new cards are now available! Jump in-game to collect Swarm and Icespike! A large amount of balance changes, mostly to T3 cards, in preparation for our release of the new campaign maps later in the year. General Changes Synced Map of the Day reset with Daily Quests, the achievement tip for Map of the Day now displays the full date with time when last completed. Added the statistic "time spent in matches" to the in-game profile. Using the text search in the achievements window will now also look for missing maps and missing cards. For example, if you search "Crusade," it will return all achievements related to the PvE map Crusade that are still incomplete. Added friend list and ignore list capacity indicator to the UI. Increased the friend list limit from 200 to 300 total accounts. Added more information to logs when getting errors or crashes, which should help us better diagnose the cause of game instabilities. Added "Don't show again" to multiple Yes/No dialog boxes in the game. General Fixes Fixed game connections not being properly closed when the match ends. This should hopefully improve game stability. Fix AFK players BFP reserve drain considering more playtime than up to the last action. Fixed context menu items showing as white when clicked. Fixed visual bug of charge count not decreasing when removing upgrades. New Cards Icespike - 110p T3 Frost Unit You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Siege of Hope". Active - Frozen Blanket: Activate to bestow up to 5 friendly units within a 20m radius with an Ice Shield. Each Ice Shield absorbs up to 620/620/680/800 damage for 30 seconds and can be strengthened to absorb up to 2000 damage. Reusable every 30/20/20/20 seconds. Passive - Brrrr!: Attacked units are frozen for 15 seconds. After freeze wears off, targets are immune against Freeze for 10 seconds. For more information, check out Community Update - May 2024. Swarm - 90p T3 Nature Spell You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Titans". Spell - Beetle Infestation: Summons a swarm of 4 Burrowers at the target location. The Burrowers have a lifetime of 20 seconds and do not provide ground presence to play out cards or claim structures next to them. Additionally, they are immune to revive effects and cannot be infected with the Twilight Curse. Reusable every 25 seconds. For more information, check out Community Update - June 2024. Card Balance Changes [ Tier 1 Changes ] Mark of the Keeper: 1. Removed enemy player card play block. Since the introduction of Tectonic Shift, Mark of the Keeper + Tectonic has become a PvP combo capable of completely disabling the enemy player's ability to respond and defend themselves. We are removing the card block ability to allow players to still summon cards inside a MotK aura. This will have no effect on PvE and this change does not affect the NPC version of Mark of the Keeper. Thugs & Strikers: 1. Add "Marauder" tag to the game and add to Thugs and Strikers. 2. Change "Gang Up!" from "orcs" to "marauders." We have been quite happy with the Gang Up! ability on Strikers and Thugs, but it currently has some weird interactions with Twilight Minions who are orcs but not part of the gang. We would also like to expand the Gang Up! ability to other cards, so we are swapping the effect from the species tag "orcs" to the new "marauder" tag both Thugs and Strikers already possess. [ Tier 2 Changes ] Banditos (incl. Corsair summons): 1. Alliance friendly unit requirement: 3 per stage ➜ 2 per stage 2. Blessed Alliance Rework: A. No longer based on nearby enemies B. Now grants increasingly more damage reduction based on number of friendly units nearby. C. Description - The unit will be incited to resist more damage when being surrounded by friendly units within a 25m radius. Per every 2 friendly ground units around them Banditos will receive 20% less damage up to a maximum of 6 units that will spur them on. Part of our focus in the next 2 patches is to enable melee-based PvE strategies in the lower tiers. As part of this, we are enhancing Banditos' swarm identity by reducing the total number of Banditos needed to activate their bonuses. This will also indirectly buff Corsair. The new Frost affinity will grant scaling defensive bonuses, allowing Banditos (b) to act as a powerful frontline for Bandit armies. Befallen's Curse: 1. Power cost: 100 ➜ 90 2. Tainted Disease (p) damage reduction: 25% ➜ 40% 3. Both affinities: Fix the last infection's damage to properly match infection duration (180 dmg ➜ 200) Burrower: 1. Active ability Tunneling: - Change availablity from only U1/U2/U3 ➜ all upgrades. 2. Active ability Acid Spit: - Decreased damage from 850/850/1000/1100 (2550/2550/3000/3300 in total) ➜ 800/850/950/1100 (2400/2550/2850/3300 in total). - Fixed incorrect handling of overkill damage. - Fixed missing damage against mounted units on affected wall segments. - Added a preview of the ability radius that is displayed on hover over the activation button. - Changed display order on card visualization and tooltip from first ability to second ability to match activation icon order. Deep One: 1. Tainted catch debuff strength: 25% ➜ 40% Gladiatrix: 1. Sobering (both affinities) cooldown: 20 seconds ➜ 10 seconds Icefang Raptor: 1. Blessed Reserve (b) damage reduction: 30% ➜ 35% 2. Infused Reserve (r) damage reflection: 35% ➜ 60% Knight of Chaos: 1. Chaos range increased 20m ➜ 25m 2. Life Points: 900/900/950/950 ➜ 970/970/1020/1020 3. Fixed an issue where the aura would not affect units currently already affected by another instance of the debuff. 4. Added a preview of the ability radius that is displayed on hover over the unit, but only while the ability is active. Pure Shadow is on the weak side in the current PvP meta. As a result, we are buffing Knight of Chaos to provide more reliable crowd control and to function as a better high health target for spell/ability combinations such as nasty surprise, mage bomb, and corpse explosion. Lost Dancer: 1. Blast damage: 80, up to 120 in total (670 dp20) ➜ 100, up to 150 in total (830 dp20) 2. Blast auto-cast range: 30m ➜ 40m 3. Tainted Blast human damage: 100% ➜ 50% 4. Infused Siege: 50% ➜ 30% The +10m auto-attack range increase and +25% damage increase should improve Dancer's viability in both PvP and PvE. We reduced affinity specific damage bonuses to compensate for these other buffs, though the specific damage to structures and humans relative to each affinity remains largely the same. Lyrish Knight: 1. Surge of Strength frozen damage buff: 50% ➜ 80% more damage Rageclaws: 1. Class: "Human Soldier" ➜ "Human Marauder" 2. Add "Gang Up!" to Rageclaws 3. Add “Group Pressure” to Rageclaws Rageclaws now have Gang Up! and combo with Thugs and Strikers. Revenant's Blessing: 1. Infused Immortal (r) damage buff: 30% ➜ 50% more damage 2. Bugfix: Now properly stacks with Lost Manabeast's Immortalize ability. Previously Revenant's Blessing, when combined with Manabeast's Immortalize ability, would cause Lost Wanderers and Lost Shades to instantly die. While we have fixed this instant-death issue, we have introduced an alternative issue where Immortalize, when combined with Revenant's Blessing, now makes the revenants of Lost Wanderer and Lost Shade live forever. While neither issue is ideal, we think it is better for the bug to benefit the players until we can figure out a permanent solution to the problem. Stone Shards: 1. Blessed Fury: Ignore freeze damage reduction ➜ Ignore freeze damage reduction and deal 50% more damage to frozen targets Stone Tempest: 1. Stone Wrath damage: 30/32/36/41 (45/48/54/62 in total) [840/890/1000/1140 dp20] ➜ 35/37/41/46 (52/55/61/69 in total) [870/920/1020/1150 dp20]. [ Tier 3 Changes ] Aura of Pain: 1. Power cost: 100/100/100/90 ➜ 90/90/90/80 2. Duration: 30 seconds ➜ 40 seconds 3. Card charges: 6/8/10/12 ➜ 10/14/17/20 Slight changes to Aura of Pain to encourage stacking the spell on own melee units. Backlash: 1. Power cost: 120p ➜ 110p 2. Cooldown: 30 seconds ➜ 25 seconds Small buff to Backlash to allow Fire decks to counter Swarm in T3. Corsair: 1. Assistance cooldown: 90 / 90 / 60 / 60 seconds ➜ 45/45/30/30 seconds. - Toggle ability Concentrate of summoned Commandos (Shadow): - Increased the activation cost from 10 power ➜ 20 power. Infect: 1. Total targets: 7/7/10/10 ➜ 6/6/8/8 enemies affected Infect is one of the strongest spells in the game. We are slightly reducing the total targets to reduce its strength in ideal scenarios. Lost Banestone: 1. Bugfix: Everlasting: No longer extends the lifetime of other temporary entities, but only Revenants. Lost Manabeast: 1. Bugfix: Increase attack speed to 3 seconds Lost Manabeast has a slower attack speed than listed on the card, making the card deal around 25% less damage than originally intended. Lost Vigil: 1. Celestial Blast damage: 90, up to 135 (1125 dp20) ➜ 108, up to 162 (1350 dp20) 2. Invigoration damage: 135, up to 200 (1675 dp20) ➜ 162, up to 243 (2025 dp20) Lost Vigil has languished ever since its nerf soon after the release of the Lost Souls edition in Phenomic times. It was nerfed at the time due to being overpowered in PvP. Since then, we have significantly buffed T3 anti-air units in PvP, so we now feel safe to give her a 20% damage buff. Magma Hurler: 1. Life points: 975/1000/1130/1270 ➜ 900/940/1020/1140 Slight tamper down on Magma Hurler’s life points. Magma Hurler has long been the go-to unit for Fire in T3 and it became more so when we buffed its damage several patches ago. While we are buffing up other Fire options in this and the next patch, we are slightly nerfing Magma Hurler to make space for those other options without killing the card. Northland Drake: 1. Tornado general changes: A. Duration: 15 seconds ➜ 8 seconds B. Damage per second: 108, up to 162 ➜ 232, up to 348 C. Tornado length: 30m ➜ 35m 2. Blizzard power cost: 70p ➜ 50p 3. Blessed Blizzard (b) freeze speed: Every 3 seconds ➜ Every 1.5 seconds 4. Infused Blizzard (r) extra damage: 100 damage ➜ 200 damage. The goal with these changes is to double the speed of the tornado and to adjust the other numbers accordingly to maintain existing damage and freeze numbers. The hope is that this will make the tornado more usable through higher responsiveness. Nox Carrier: 1. Infused Necrostrike (r) Ripper count: 2 ➜ 3 Rippers summoned 2. Tainted Necrostrike (p) poison damage 40 ➜ 50 damage per second Sandstorm: 1. Power cost: 140p ➜ 100p Sandstorm remains well outside of general viability despite the previous buffs. Instead of increasing card damage, we have reduced the card’s power cost again to encourage using it as a crowd control alternative. Shadow Insect: 1. Damage: 1200 dp20 ➜ 1440 dp20 Sleet Storm: 1. Spell duration 10 seconds ➜ 15 seconds Soulhunter: 1. Minefield damage: 80/80/100/100 against units and 21.25/21.25/25/25 against structures (240/240/300/300 in total) ➜ 160/160/200/200 against units and 20/20/25/25 against structures (480/480/600/600 in total). Buffing up Soulhunter's ability to not be outcompeted by its T2 spell equivalent. Spitfire: 1. Ground Bomb damage: 270/290/320/350 (405/435/480/530 in total) [5510/5610/5760/5920 dp20] ➜ 376/396/426/466 (565/595/640/700 in total) [5880/5980/6130/6330 dp20] 2. Siege: 100% ➜ 50% Move damage out of siege and into the ground bomb itself to improve Spitfire’s usability outside of building siege situations. Damage to buildings remains identical while damage to non-buildings increases by 33%. Stronghold: 1. Power cost: 200p ➜ 230p 2. Passive ability To the Last!: A. Both stages of internal damage buff and damage reduction are now stackable with external sources of damage modification. B. Both stages of internal damage reduction can no longer be disenchanted. Since the buffs and the release of Tectonic Shift, Stronghold has been too strong in both PvP and PvE. We are slightly increasing its cost to fit its new strength. Tectonic Shift: 1. Initial spell application timer (cooldown): 20 seconds ➜ 10 seconds A. This is the spell application timer, not the teleport ability timer. Allow players to apply Tectonic Shift to multiple towers more quickly. Transcendence: 1. Orb cost: Shadow, Nature, Neutral, Neutral (T4) ➜ Shadow, Nature, Neutral (T3) Give players access to Transcendence earlier, enabling more T3 army strategies. Unity: 1. Card charges: 6/8/10/12 ➜ 8/11/14/16 Unstable Demon: 1. Demonic Rage: A. Movement speed bonus and acceleration 60% ➜ 100 B. Duration 5 seconds ➜ 4 seconds C. Cooldown 15 seconds ➜ 5 seconds 2. Critical Mass damage : 560/700/900/900 (2000/2500/3000/3000 in total) ➜ 560/700/900/900 (4000/5000/6000/6000 in total) - Fixed incorrect handling of overkill damage. Virtuoso: 1. Trumpet of Jelicoo building damage: 600/675/750/825 (1700/1800/2000/2200 in total) ➜ 600/675/750/885 (1700/1800/2000/2200 in total) We are currently reworking Girl Power into a melee-support card, and once it releases, it will, alongside this minor buff, allow Virtuoso to one-shot small spawn buildings with its ability. Vulcan: 1. Flamethrower damage: 120 per second (2400 dp20) ➜ 140 per second (2800 dp20) 2. Conflagrate damage: 265 per second ➜ 280 per second Wrathgazer: 1. Power cost: 220p ➜ 200p 2. Disintegration speed: 150/150/150/165 ➜ 170/170/170/185 life points per second [ Tier 4 Changes ] Colossus: 1. Thunderous Roar Rework: A. Releases a bloodcurdling roar that riles up Colossus. The unit will deal 75% more damage for 25 seconds. Additionally, Lumbering Step is activated for 25 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds. 2. New ability, "Lumbering Step": A. Turn Speed - Increase turn speed by 50% for the duration. B. Damage: 200, up to 1000 in total. D. Description: "While moving around unit knocks back small and medium units dealing 200 damage, up to 1000 in total to enemies. Affects ground units only. " 3. New Ability, "Colossal Birth": When being spawned the unit is undazed and displaces the earth, knocking back small, medium, and large units. Can be spawned nearby enemy units and structures excluding walls. Affects ground units only. Colossus's rework design was previously decided upon with community help, but the final implementation never managed to happen due to a lack of implementation capacity and a later shift in priorities towards other factions. This rework will finally see the light of day and provide the long promised melee-partner for Forest Elder (b). Colossus's Roar gives it a major self-damage buff, allowing it to kill bosses quickly, while the Lumbering Step gives it a Thunder Wagon-esque ability to damage enemies just by walking through them. Kobold Inc.: 1. Orb cost: 3 Frost, 1 Neutral ➜ 2 Frost, 2 Neutral 2. Blessed Speed-up (b): A. Speed-up & Description: 50% faster ➜ Construction time is reduced by 66% 3. Tainted Speed-up (p) drawback: 400 damage ➜ 25% of maximum life points lost on spawn 4. Add Construction Hut cost reduction effect (-25% power cost) to both affinities. 5. Initial cooldown: 60 seconds ➜ 0 seconds As part of our continual focus on creating a new building archetype, we want to propose several changes to Kobold Inc. As a T4 Frost building, Kobold Inc. should be the ultimate building support. One issue is its orb requirements. All other Frost buildings and their support requires only 2 orbs (this is similar to how all root network cards are available for 2 orbs), but Kobold Inc. uniquely requires 3 orbs. We think this unnecessarily constrains the card and limits what is actually available to use with Kobold Inc, which right now it really only Stronghold or WBG unless Kobold Inc is enlightened. After this change, other cards like Volcano, Deepgorge, Hatecaster, Artillery, or Comet Catcher when player's orb swap for Sages will become available for use with Kobold Inc. Next, we want to equalize the different affinities. We are increasing the frost affinity's speed-up while making the shadow affinity's penalty percentage based. This will make it a choice between rapid construction or instant construction with health loss. It also removes edge cases like U0 Altar of Nihil which is instantly destroyed by Kobold Inc. because it only has 400 life points. Additionally, we are adding Construction Hut's discount to Kobold Inc., which seems like an obvious addition. T1 cards shouldn't outcompete T4 cards in the same role. Last, we are removing the initial cooldown from the card as it functions as an unneeded time penalty. This is only step one of the changes to Kobold Inc., as we have more changes planned for the frost affinity to ensure it is a compelling choice instead of players defaulting to the shadow affinity. Lost Evocation: 1. Power cost: 140p ➜ 110p 2. Blessed Revenant damage reduction buff: 50% ➜ 60% 3. Infused Revenant damage buff: 100% ➜ 120% 4. Affected units can now receive the buff again if they re-enter the area of effect and the previous buff's duration has expired. Lost Warlord: 1. Add affinity effects to revenant's spawned by Revenant's Doom. Spore Launcher: 1. Remove slow, now moves at normal XL speed (6.4 m/s). 2. Remove Siege, add XL-counter 3. Add L-knockback to Explosive Spores We are trying out a minor identity change for Spore Launcher, making it more mobile with stronger built-in crowd control. We realize this is unlikely to make it the preferred choice for root network absent changes to Razorleaf. Tortugun: 1. Eruption: A. Remove affinity effect from Eruption, change both Eruption affinities to current Fire affinity with the Fire affinity description (50m range). 2. New Devour Affinities: A. Blessed (b) Devour: "Additionally, unit receives 50% less damage for 20 seconds after consuming a unit." B. Infused (r) Devour: "Additionally, unit deals 100% more damage for 20 seconds after consuming a unit." Tortugun's affinities are wildly unequal with one having 30m range and the other having 50m range. We are making both affinities have 50m range and moving the affinity effects to Devour. Players are now encouraged to strategically time feeding their Tortuguns to gain access to a large damage reduction or damage increase buff for a short time. Map Changes Uro (PvP Map): Removed both red-colored fortification walls (incl. official spectator version of the map). King of the Giants (PvE Map): 1. The unlikely event of Jorne dying now results in game over instead of soft-locking the players into the map. 2. Increased the detection range for both Rogan and Jorne near the final cave to end the map by 15m. This should decrease instances of players failing to complete the map despite successfully guiding Rogan to his objective. Blight (PvE Map): Fixed a rare crash that occurred when players were destroying the objective spawn buildings as the timer ended.

As per the design documents, Bandits has always had problems with the identity of their cards and splash redundancy. Skyfire Drake is to Windhunter, Gunner to Ashbone Pyro, Frenetic Assault to Amok and further. Banditos faces the largest redundancies in the lineup as a S->S type, which even T1 unit cards are outperforming. This post is made as a long standing Bandit's player, and isn't meant to be any sole verdict on the state of cards within Battleforge, nor any effort to change the game beyond Banditos themselves*. First let us look at the card itself: Banditos are a swarm/anti swarm unit through their passive, Alliance. Swarms being within the Bandit archetype. Banditos have a Complexity Calculation of 2, having only passives, with Alliance containing external dependencies (sum of surrounding enemy/ally units). While Alliance stacks multiple times with itself, the function of the passive remains consistent and straightforward (though it may be interpreted as more complex or multi-stage, Alliance requires no further game knowledge). Banditos lack synergy with other Bandits cards, which is contrasted by other Bandits cards granting them a factional synergy. Banditos has the highest health value among Bandit unit cards in T2 at 840 HP (beating Bandit Spearmen by 30 HP). Banditos has a low attack power for a T2 melee unit at 660 ATK, which rises with 3 surrounding units up to 990 ATK, and a maximum potential of 1650 ATK at 9 surrounding units (comparable with Nightcrawler's Frenzied 1630 ATK). Banditos can be summoned four at a time by the T3 Corsair (Nature) for 120 power, a design choice seemingly made for Gifted Alliance to be active without needing the Corsair itself nearby, or for Motivate/Blood Healing to be more easily used underneath a supporting Corsair. Within PvE, Banditos can grant a significant advantage when swarming, but in practice suffers from a lack of support options such as Nature's healing spells. Earth Crystal and Ice Crystal appear to be heavily encouraged within Bandits, as many cards have a Nature or Frost affinity available, but these neutral buildings just help an already ahead player get further ahead. Banditos require a large power pool to make a difference, and only when they're not being knocked down or facing area damage. For PvP, Banditos face significant use-case issues: Army deterioration near immediately disables Alliance. Bandit's limited sustainability and high offense exasperates Banditos' lackluster statistics, especially when contrasted with Bandit Spearmen (who do not rely upon a conditional effect) having nearly the same statistics of a Banditos with Alliance active (without factoring in Bandit Spearmen's weapon change ability). Banditos (Nature) requires a significant lead to utilize fully, and in the situations 7-10 units can be massed up (and not lost to spells) the match has likely been decided first by other cards. Banditos (Frost) is a counter to swarms (without any ability to intercept said swarms). Banditos (Frost) are not useful against any swarm cards. Banditos do not counter Sunken Temple and its Pest Creepers, nor Undead Army or Harvester, while Thugs will always beat an equal power's worth of Banditos if Gang Up is active alongside proper targeting. Fire/Shadow has other S->S counter units, which Banditos offers no play advantages over. Thugs are more durable when swarming in T1 saving you a deck slot, Rippers will bounce back from spells and counter corpse use, while Dark Elf Assassins are already one of the most power-effective S->S units; and happen to be ranged. The primary issue with balancing Banditos is that they are produced by Corsair (Nature) for 30 power each, without binding power. While I personally believe the impact of buffing Corsair (Nature)'s Banditos will not shake PvE's balance, there may be significant problems in PvP if Banditos' are over tweaked. Corsair drops (especially Banditos) are currently in an okay spot balance wise for T3 PvP, but this is about the T2 unit, Banditos, not Corsair! So what can be done? Tweaking the units combat statistics to better compete with other cards in Fire/Shadow which are S->S unit counters. Again, this could be an issue with Corsair, but Banditos are not winning games outside of being the ability of another card. Raising Banditos' complexity, since the unit has a budget as an uncommon card for new effects. Maybe something which will support a swarm playstyle earlier for Bandits than T3 (as admitted to be the case by the Bandit Design documents). Perhaps a controversial take, but lowering Banditos power cost (maybe below 50 even) may grant the card some space in a deck without altering Corsair's functionality. Thugs are already outperforming Banditos with their Gang Up ability, but its questionable whether this approach would actually enable swarms, instead encouraging smaller trades over and over. Another route (which may be better as its own card) may be for Banditos to include a rapid constructing building, and over time it resummons these Banditos or has an ability which you can spawn another for a price. Again this isn't an effort to change the game beyond Banditos themselves, with Corsair it's a tricky subject to approach. The state of play for Banditos is defined by other cards in a deck of limited slots, and currently Banditos don't have a role alongside other Fire/Shadow cards.

I agree, that Frost is at an advantage in the matchup against pure Shadow right now. A few considerations for the matchup: - Nightguard is still very good against War Eagle. She will neutralize a lot of the pressure a Frost player can throw at you. Assuming you can make good use of Netherwarp to get your hands on some of the unbound eagles, it might open up a direct win condition too. - The main reason I mentioned Nox Carrier is the value that comes from stacking unbound unit counts over time against the low dps of Frost on T3. This is a different playstyle from building a lead through kicking powerwells, which can be tough due to Amii Ritual. In order to execute the strategy you prioritize getting a lot of rippers and keep them alive for some time so you can launch a major attack once void returned to your power pool. There will be a few buffs to some of the cards pure Shadow wants to use on T3 next patch, Nox Carrier is one of them. - A possible move to cheese Frost or hyperscaling players in general is to handshake a lot of bonus wells in the early game (ideally you want 8 or more). This opens up an economy which not only allows a fast T3, but also makes T4 an actually realistic move. Frost does not really get map control, so by contesting the center in the early game you can secure the orb spots for such a strategy. Pure Shadow has quite a few flex slots, so there is space to prepare for this without really sacrificing too much early game strength.

Most people play rpve not for beating a challenge but for simply farming gold and bfp. And why bother with spending way more time and effort on beating lost souls when you can simply restart? Same with incredible Mo and global warming. Why waste deck slots for a potential encounter when you can simply restart with an additional deck slot? And even if you don't have that mentality, when you play with randoms, it's almost guaranteed that at least one of them will either quit immediately or isn't experienced enough to beat the map. But the root of the problem is that Lost Souls is simply stronger than the other factions.