Patch #400048 - 21 September 2024

[WindHunter]

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.

Edited September 21 by UltDragon

[UltDragon]

Hotfixes

21 September 2024

• Fix progresses on multiple achievements that requires completing a single map
• Fix quests rerolling not working
• Move Umbabwe from Fire to Bandits booster
• Fix forge themes not unlocking when completing achievements
• Adjust ranking filter "Since #400048" to the proper patch date and time
• Add UV and ITJ maps to achievement A Force of Nature (Note: players won't get a second reward by completing the achievement again)
• Fix progresses on achievements complete all campaign maps (Note: players won't get a second reward by completing the achievement again)

 

22 September 2024

• Fix not being able to open chests on Into the Jungle
• Fix server crash on certain circumstances
• Fix crash when adding/removing friends when having more than 200 entries
• Fix crash when clicking on the info icon on ranking range filter
• Fix map of the day done today indicator on daily rewards
• Fix progress showing as 1/2 on the achievements "I Believe I Can Fly" and "Ruthless Green Plague"
• Fix progress on achievements that needs multiple maps or community maps
• Fix missing maps tips on achievements "Force of Nature" and complete all campaign maps, after the addition of the new maps (Note: players won't get a second reward by completing the achievement again)
• Removed orb cost from Stone Launcher that Bedrock spawns, fixing its interaction with Enlightenment

 

23 September 2024

• Fix Battle Arena 2v2 and 3v3 crash when theres is a script error about unit already existing
• Fix previously done achievements not showing as completed with the new maps and cards additions
• Fix not being able to build orbs on Passage to Darkness and Ascension
• Fix missing ranking entries for Unexpected Visitors
• Fix map of the day done not being updated on daily rewards
• Fix storybook pages for Unexpected Visitors and Into the Jungle being unlocked before the maps are completed
• Update Into the Jungle minimap

 

24 September 2024

• Fix wrong total card count on statistics, should be 573
• Fix some player having no progress on achievements complete all campaign maps
• Fix some server problems

 

26 September 2024

• Add cards to Mini booster: Energy Core, Skydancer, Amii Sentinel
• Fix achievements not progressing or completing in certain circumstances

 

28 September 2024

• Second try fix achievements not progressing or completing in certain circumstances

 

29 September 2024

• Third try fix achievements not progressing or completing in certain circumstances
• Fix command /exportdeck not respecting the current order of cards
• Fix deck cover being reset when moving the cover card
• Fix my auctions and watchlist sort being reset when doing an action

 

03 October 2024

• Remove random generated maps from PvP daily quests
• Add missing translations to Amii Monument, Amii Paladins (NPC), Amii Skydancer, Amii Skydancer (NPC)
• Lost Manabeast: On death regeneration is no longer stackable with itself
• Skydancer: Spirit of Hope: Fixed an issue that could negatively impact performance (cause lag on high unit count).
• Tempest (+NPC variant): Aligned frozen damage radius with normal one
• Into the Jungle:
  • Fix outcry "SEEK AND DESTROY"
• Unexpected Visitors:
  •   Added construction blocking on sites where the Ritualists perform their invocation.
  •   Adjusted blocking at the defensive ramparts in the main citiy to prevent wall objects disappearing.
  •   Added a victory ending + cutscene
  •   Added ritualist animation when they summon a revenant
  •   Small adjustments to blocking around wells/orbs at the passage between banestones to prevent accidentally trapping own summoned units
  •   Improve vision blocking towards south at teleporter for enclave

 

06 October 2024

• Unexpected Visitors: Fix not being able to rebuild T1 orb on position 2.
• Into the Jungle: Delayed the time until the player gets power from 0 to 7 seconds and aligned wall construction with it.
• Add "Don't show again" to mail full warning.
• Minor:
  •   Fix typo in Rebirth Booster description.
  •   Fix typo in the Russian translation of the "Evacuation Expert" achievement.
  •   Fix message when you select too many free PvP decks being cut off in low resolutions.

Edited Sunday at 11:26 PM by UltDragon

[Dutchy]

HYPE!

[Majora]

Patch is currently being implemented, downtime is expected to be 30 minutes. 

[Cocofang]

Massive props to the voice actors and audio editors. I implemented some of those and was really blown away by the professional-level quality. They fit extremely well and sound amazing, adding so much personality. Great voices, great effects.

[Hrdina_Imperia]

So much work has gone into this. Props to everyone, and enjoy the content! Hype! 

[Bini Inibitor]

Quote

Grove Spirit has found itself a niche in a deck which uses it alongside Offering to cycle Mind Control.

I wonder who is responsible for this.

[Majora]

We are deploying a hotfix regarding the map Into the Jungle and being unable to build monuments on them. Downtime should be minimal. 
Edit: and done!

[DDrazard]

Awesome as always. ^^

[NegativeZer0]

"Consider also that nearly all PvE maps are functionally finished before the player ever reaches T4."

Considering this fact - most t4 cards shouldn't exist and you should stop making new t4 cards.   You just made it so t4 is significantly less useful combinded with releasing nothing but t4 new cards.  I would go as far as to say now that this change has been made a ton of t4 cards should be redesigned and rebalanced  into t3 cards so they actually can see play. 

Note - I'm not against the change even though it may come across that way.  I just want to see even more done since this decision is now official to factor in how unplayable t4 cards are. 

Edited September 21 by NegativeZer0

[WatcherOfSky]

 

Will be playing tonight 🙂

[Cocofang]

3 hours ago, NegativeZer0 said:

"Consider also that nearly all PvE maps are functionally finished before the player ever reaches T4."

Considering this fact - most t4 cards shouldn't exist and you should stop making new t4 cards.   You just made it so t4 is significantly less useful combinded with releasing nothing but t4 new cards.  I would go as far as to say now that this change has been made a ton of t4 cards should be redesigned and rebalanced  into t3 cards so they actually can see play. 

Note - I'm not against the change even though it may come across that way.  I just want to see even more done since this decision is now official to factor in how unplayable t4 cards are. 

T4 cards are bad from what perspective exactly?

[Majora]

For everyone trying out the new maps; dont forget to submit your replay for Ultralords event to win some nice prizes! 

 

[StrunPS]

Спасибо за проделанную работу!

 

Thanks for the work done! 

[Stippy]

Really cool! Love the work you do. The new maps are really cool to play. Although I think the second one (Jungle?) has a bit high quantity of nature towers around the boss. But that's just me, so ignore my opinion and keep making awesome new maps* 😃
I thought of the Energy Core being T3 before the release. Was a bit confused why it is also T4. I love the style of the unit and dig the idea of it. Just in my head it made sense to be T3.

*Please, pretty please

[Immortal Skylord]

Is the Legacy Server same as back in old EA time? I remember you can stack wheel of gift and get crazy att and def stats. I used to run wheel and LS ship on pve and that is the main highlight fun that I remember from old days. I like all the new addition added to the game. Thank you all for the hard work!

[Cocofang]

The legacy server is a time capsule locked to the point where the original BattleForge shut down. There are just some features like Reforging and overall progression on there, all of which unnecessary because everything is unlocked by default.

Like other bugs/exploits known at the time, Wheel of Gift stacking was fixed during Phenomic days. So it is not on the legacy server.

[UltDragon]

On 9/23/2024 at 9:01 PM, Immortal Skylord said:

Is the Legacy Server same as back in old EA time? I remember you can stack wheel of gift and get crazy att and def stats. I used to run wheel and LS ship on pve and that is the main highlight fun that I remember from old days. I like all the new addition added to the game. Thank you all for the hard work!

Apparently you can stack them on legacy
 

[WindHunter]

1 minute ago, UltDragon said:

Apparently you can stack them on legacy
 

Stacking and their effects stacking are very different things. We changed them to no longer stack like this because it does nothing, but the effects do not stack and it was Phenomic who changed that, not us. 

[This Is Halloween_2]

So after a few days, my opinion on the balance changes & rework :

Quote

 Amii Monument:
1. Power Cost: 250p ➜ 125p
2. Ability Cost: 140p ➜ 100p

As I feared, ability cost is too much. When we're in T3, we do not have the luxury of paying a 125 fix cost monument + 100 additional energy cost. There's no void return in cpve except until late part of some maps.

Quote

 Dying Breed:
1. Power cost: 100p ➜ 90p
2. Orb cost: 1 Fire, 2 Neutral (T3) ➜ 2 Fire, 1 Neutral (T3)

The reasoning behind in my opinion is skewed : 

Quote

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

This is the case because SoW is by far the best void return tool in the game. Complaining about the fire player "responsability" to build SoW misses the fact that it is build because it's clearly superior to the others. I've seen fire players refusing to rely on shrines of martyr or FoF+cultist and building their SoW anyway because it is so much superior.

For Shrine of memories, I've sometimes seen fire players complaining about how "slow" they find it & thinking they should have been the one to build a shrine (but they more easily agree to rely on this one though).

So the idea of behing 300 power behind misses the fact that fire player often eagerly pay that price for such a strong void return.

Furthermore fire rarely rely on a great number of creatures. Now I'm not speaking of plain old bata, but I do play moloch, emberstrike & bata+fire drake deck, and you often makes 2-3 moloch, 2 bata with 2-3 drakes or 8-12 emberstrike at most by the end of the game. Fire has strong spells & has been build this way as a faction (in the same way that nature is more a creature based faction in T4 which is why it has all these tools to manipulate the bind power cost of its units). So the binding cost of shrine of war is rarely a big problem.

So outside of a nerf to the void return of SoW, I don't understand your reasoning on fire energy generation.

On the mechanic of dying breed : 

1) You removed looter from the game for a good reason : it was decided that power should always come from wells, in the same way that each faction needed void return & self sustain. that's the whole reason looters was removed from thugs, shrine of martyr, dreadnought, bloodthirst & decomposer reworked, buffed or nerfed. This change goes against the mentality instigated at the start of the project.

2) It's overly complicated. Cards needs to have a design as simple as possible. Here the effect is quite unclear : you need to kill a unit to get allied nearby to gain an effect to generate more energy by doing more killing... That's too far streched, irrelevant of the fact that the card might work as you intend meta wise.

If you truly want to make fire stronger with power generation (which I doubt is necessary at all), better make something like this :

-->target 1 ennemy creature / multiple ennemies creature in an area with dying breed --> for each % of dmg done to this, you get x% void return back / you get % of energy transfered from your current reserve pool from your wells to you.
 

In term of design keep it simple, either choose if the requirement is to kill 1 creature or multiple to get benefit from the spell, and then make it aoe or not (not this you must kill creature to get ally to kill others to get energy to blablabla..).

And then either make the spell void return if you want to give non SoW void return to fire, or accelerate power generation by additional transfer of energy from your wells.

But looters should go away & rest in peace with the old BF. Really.

Card Design wise, this rework is terrible (not talking about balance here).

 

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 Fire Force (Formerly Girl Power):
1. Change name: Girl Power ➜ Fire Force
2. Power cost: 50p ➜ 80p

Again I find it overly complicated for what is supposed to be a buff to melee units :

- the champion stuff is pointless : it's here to make the buff kind of permanent while not allowing stacking of the 2 affinities & not allowing the target to get the buff because you seems too afraid of the spell being strong while wanting it to be strong in pve for t3&t4.

- why add an additional condition for the buff. What purpose does it serve ?

 

Again complex design for a card that is supposed to be straightforward : buff melee units.

A simple : "target own melee unit. Friendly melee unit with x meters, including the target, deal y% more / take z % less damage. Last 30 (or whatever) seconds. reusable every 30s."  does the trick. Then you can balance out bonus here & there. But this champion of fire & conditioning for increased buff is pointlessly complex for the goal you want to achieve, which is to make the spell give buff to melee units.

 

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 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

Good. You should give the speed buff to winter witch, that's the only thing she's truly missing to be ok in rpve.

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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.

The problem with grove spirit isn't its abilities per se, it's the way they are implemented :

- she has to channel for the heal & it's only around her, making the range of the effect limited. Make the zone ranged (not centered around her) & grove not having to channel it (a cast & forget healing zone). It's just a strong heal ability, and  these 2 problem make it useless.

-she has to channel to paralyze her target, so it's 1 target at a time paralized while having to channel 10s ... Just make her shoot a paralizing lightning, like howling shrine (G) every 2s. her paralisis only last 10s already, so it will not be broken. After all, winter witch is basically casting a frost ray every 2s (2s channel is not a real problem).

 

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 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. 

Good one. The dmg she dealt to human had not changed with the previous patch (80 + 100% so 160 total before to 100 + 50% so 150now), but the +10m ranged allowed her to stay too far from the current counters other factions had against her (some of these being humans...). Furthermore, lost souls is already strong in PvP.

Now she'll dealt 130 base vs humans. Should be more manageable.

 

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 Lost Manabeast:
1. Immortalize requirement: 7 enemy life essences ➜ 3 enemy life essences

Good. The hard requirement meant the card was useless & unused.

Edited September 25 by This Is Halloween_2

[Immortal Skylord]

18 hours ago, WindHunter said:

Stacking and their effects stacking are very different things. We changed them to no longer stack like this because it does nothing, but the effects do not stack and it was Phenomic who changed that, not us. 

Can you make the wheel effects stack again legacy? Lol, maybe not, anyway thanks for the clearing up my misunderstanding.

[Jodekoek]

Just wanted to say: The new patch is sick! For me personally at least it has been the most exciting patch since the big Christmas one a few years ago when the reforge was released. The new Unexpected Visitors map feels like the quality of other campaign maps, I tried to tackle it solo and every time I ran into a new mechanism it was challenging enough to make me alter my strategies and think of new ways to tackle problem yet not so challenging it was literally impossible. Now I am off to try the other new map. Cheers and kudos to the team!

[iRoDiieK]

One suggestion for the update is that Sentinel be an ultra-rare card, I think it fits better with the card's standard.

[Stippy]

Really cool update. Currently playing to get the bfp for the AMII units. And really excited to get a new T3 unit in future, too! Really like the playstyle you are trying to get with the AMII units. The paladins are my favorite unit in the game currently 😃