Happy Sunday, Heroes!
We’ve got another comprehensive update coming soon so we wanted to share the details before the changes kick in.
This next update is primarily focused on Heroes and their Spells after seeing trends in data and community feedback. To make sure these changes have the proper effect and to understand the outcome and bigger picture adequately, we’re introducing a more comprehensive update instead of smaller patches across the board.
To give more context and reasons behind the specifics of the update, continue reading for developer comments coming straight from the team who worked on these changes:
While we will share a more detailed commentary together with the complete patch notes at the beginning of next week, we will talk briefly about some of the biggest changes. Firstly, we’ve changed the way most Spells scale. Instead of 10, they will now have 13 levels, and also, most damage spells will scale by 10% per level, down from the previous 20%. This will make Spells follow scaling of Minions, rather than them being one way on early levels, and then something completely different on level 10. These changes will be applied to all players across all Arenas. Every player will keep their current Spell/Hero levels.
Starting levels of Spells by rarity remain the same.
This made it natural to make one more change - account levels will now also be able to go up to 13. Account levels affect the HP of your Portal in battle the same way they did previously. All players with maxed out level 10 accounts and excess experience points will have their account level increased accordingly.
On top of these changes, 5 Spells from different Heroes have been reworked, in some cases with new names. You will notice most of these are Epic spells. Some of them had less than 0.1% usage in battle. We wanted to make sure every hero had a cool epic spell that fit their character but was also on par with other abilities in terms of power.
Soul Burn (previously Prey On, Ruul’s epic Spell)
Description: Slowly decays the health of enemies down to near death. Ignores shields.
Evolution 1: Affects the whole lane.
Evolution 2: Instantly decays the health of enemies down to near death.
This spell will target an area of enemies and put a slow burning dot which will attempt to deplete the HP of enemies down to 1 without killing them and then dissipate. Soul Burn is based off of unit’s max health %, meaning it will burn Skeletons and Abominations at the same rate. Evolutions will make the area lane wide, and make the burn almost instantaneous. The spell will scale through levels by having its cooldown reduced. The spell will have a completely new visual as well.
Divine Protection (Valen’s epic Spell)
Description: Reduces the damage done to your Portal and allies near it by x %.
Evolution 1: Enemies attacking the protected allies or Portal will take damage in return.
Evolution 2: Protects all allies in the lane.
In addition to its previous effects, this spell will now also protect units near your Portal with the same type of shield, reducing the % of damage they were taking significantly.
We will be swapping the visuals from Holy Shield, while Holy Shield will have a completely new awesome visual ! We understand this might take a while to get used to for veteran players, but ultimately we felt this change was natural, since Holy Shield’s visual always resembled the Divine Protection’s VFX, and we wanted to associate appropriate effects. First evolution will be similar, adding reflecting damage to protected targets - although with improved numbers, while the final evolution will make the effect protect all allies in the lane, allowing you to use it offensively as well.
Frozen Heart (Noella’s rare Spell)
Description: Spawns immobile ice obstacles in all lanes. When destroyed, obstacles explode for area damage.
Evolution 1: When obstacles explode, they also stun enemies for a brief duration.
Evolution 2: Spawns an additional obstacle for every X enemies on the field.
Instead of coming from your fallen allies - obstacles now instantly spawn across the battlefield, spreading them equally between all 3 lanes (positions in lane are still random). Obstacles decay over time as they did before, and upon being destroyed will explode for a small area damage which will briefly stun units with the first evolution. The second evolution will spawn more obstacles depending on the number of enemies.
Deep Freeze (Previously Ice Sheath, Noella’s epic Spell)
Description: Deep freezes enemies, making them take x % extra damage for the duration.
Evolution 1: Affects the whole lane.
Evolution 2: Enemies take x% extra damage while frozen.
This spell will now put enemies in a deep freeze, freezing them and making them take increased damage from all sources for the duration of the spell. Evolutions will make the area lane wide and significantly increase the damage intake for the duration.
Spirit Call (Alay’na’s epic Spell)
Description: Next cast Minion summons its spirit copy in another lane that has reduced health and damage. Spirit health decays over time.
While we liked the way Spirit Call worked, we mostly kept its mechanics and even numbers similar. The one change we’ve added is that the spirits will slowly decay - putting them on a timer. This will make sure that there is a cap to how much you can actually achieve with it, while still allowing for powerful offensive plays. We got lots of cool community suggestions surrounding Spirit Call, which played a major part during our rework! When weighted against many other options we’ve considered and tested we figured this felt like the most natural way to make Spirit Call more balanced.
Due to scaling changes, all other spells had their numbers changed - the exact info will be shared together with the patch notes.
Thank you and have a nice weekend! 