I like that many of the heros have reduced AOE damage, this will definitely help balance PvP to not favor lich so heavily but I don't like that all the resource generating abilities have been removed, resources are already super scarce later on in the game I feel the game should be adding more ways to acquire resources rather than removing them.

DRAFT

Changes, corrections and addtions will come later. When I set out to write this, I forgot how many freaking characters their are.

I will list the changes, and then my thoughts on each change

RUFIO

Chopping Blade
Changed from area of affect damage to high single target damage with a small amount of splash damage.
Developer’s Note: Previously this ability did area damage, which meant the average damage per enemy unit was relatively low and it rarely led to killing blows. Now the target unit takes the brunt of the attack and is more likely to be killed.

Destructive One
No longer reduces the number of troop groups that Rufio can lead into battle. Damage multiplier slightly adjusted.
Developer’s Note: Previously players would hesitate before learning this ability because it reduced the number of troops that could be deployed. Removing that downside resolves this problem.

Chopping Blade: Good direction, creates a distinction between this hero and bane. The old ability seemed to only be a way to draw damage away from units that you did not want to take any losses with (I.E expensive Gold uinits)

Destructive one: I was never a fan of this ability reducing troop count, the damage increase seemed negligible when you considered that rufio would normally drop pretty quickly if he was targeted by a group of units.

AVRIL

Ice Vortex
Changed from area of affect damage to high single target damage with a small amount of splash damage.
Developer’s Note: Previously this ability did area damage, which meant the average damage per enemy unit was relatively low and it rarely led to killing blows. Now the target unit takes the brunt of the attack and is more likely to be killed.

Blizzard (Active)
Unlocks at level 4 (was 5), freezing damage slightly increased, costs 3 mana (was 2).

Gifted Mage
Unlocks at level 5 (was 4).

Rapid Cast
New ability, unlocks at level 10, replaces “Double Cast”.
Allows all of Avril’s spells to be cast twice, and when upgraded, reduces the cooldown time of Avril’s spells.

Ice Vortex: this was a throw away ability, with the change, it has the potential to be viable, however this is dependent on the actual damage.

Rapid Cast: This ability was pointless before, it still continues to be pointless. Their is not enough time in an engagement to utilize all of ones abiliteis, let alone cast 6 times from one hero. Couple that with the changes to costs and and makes you wonder how Avril would have enough mana to get away with casting all of her abilites twice.

Vallari

Crackling Flames
The chance of an attack splitting into multiple flares has been reduced to 25% from 100%.

Rain of Fire (Active)
Fireball damage increased, now costs 3 mana (was 2).

Burning
New ability, unlocks at level 5, grants a damage over time burning effect to all of Vallari’s fire attacks.

Fire Dance (Active)
Costs 4 mana (was 3)
Removed her “Energy Potion” ability
Developer’s Note: Previously, Vallari’s damage output was a bit too high, affecting the overall balance of the game. To address this, we weakened her “Crackling Flames” ability accordingly and added a new “Burning” ability to accentuate her defining characteristic.

VALLARI
As a note, she was one of the few Hereos that could actualy do a decent amount of damage, however this was rarely fully realized due to the fact that she was mostly used a energy potion mule.

Crackling Flames:The reuction is significant on this ability, I would have suggested a smaller nerf. Maybe 25-50%

Rain of Fire: as with all the mana increase changes, I'm not a fan of anything that forces the purchase of more packages. Because the increase in mana with the current state of the game has no other effect. Abilities are a way to win a fight without losses, which with the increase in mana, it menas less usage. So more losses, which means more motivation to purchase packages. Or to prevent those said losses, their will be more purchases of packages to get mana potions.

Burning: Dot damage can be viable, however until the patch is released and we can see actual numbers then I reserve my opinion on the addition of this ability. As I noted earlier this character was an energy pot mule, I'm personalty unhappy with this change, however I'm waiting to see what the direction of the new meta is to counter the loss of 5 energy potions a day.

Fire Dance: The viability of this ability hasn't changed, ultimate's only become viable when maxed out, so putting points into something that increases the dps of other abilites is only realized when the toon is either max level, or has been treated as your main hero( receaived all your ability cards/totems).

Avalon

I will not be listing out his abilities, he had one use, and that was natural leader. Even with the changes, he continues to have one use. Making it harder to access his main ability NATURAL LEADER, is not balance. He now has more use to human armies, however none of these have any use to a lich army.

Elena

Strategic Retreat (Active)
Unlocks at level 1 (was 5), can be casted for free (used to cost 1 Energy).
In battle, Strategic Retreat has a standalone cooldown timer.
Developer’s Note: You can now use Strategic Retreat whenever you see fit, without having to worry about an energy cost. This change is intended to underline the strategic purpose of this ability.

Call the Cavalry (Active)
Unlocks at level 2 (was 1), costs 1 Energy (was free)
Elena summons a group of Lancers to assist in battle. The higher the level of your stronghold, the higher the level of the troops summoned. The greater the hero’s Command, the greater the number of troops summoned.

Saving Lives
Unlocks at level 3 (was 2)

Ready and Willing
Unlocks at level 5 (was 3)

Magic Resistance
New ability, unlocks at level 10. When Elena is deployed, the magic damage taken by all allied units is reduced by a certain percentage.
Removed her “Royal Treasure” ability

ELENA

As a note, this toon was either used as a mithril mule (exceptionally valuable) or to reduce true loss of troops. Combined with vega, you could reach a 84% recovery rate with troops, when considering the cost of each unit, this was potentialy a very valuable portion of the meta.

Strategic retreat:
I have no experience using the abliliy before, however this is a decent way to mitigate losses due to the overall nerf to ability usage.

Call the Cvalary: This was a powerfull ability if you treated Elena as a main and dumped all of your command points into her. However with this change, I dont see it being used much anymore.

Magic Resistance: The viablity of this new ability is completly dependent on the numbers. It has the potential to be a Cleo/Gazgul counter, which I personaly agree with. The problem with Cleo/Ghazgul was not how much damage they could do, it was that their was not counter to it.

Vega

Mana Barrier (Active)
Greatly increased the health of the Mana Barrier.

Favor of the Sun God (Active)
Costs 5 mana (was 3).

VEGA

Mana Barrier: this ability was useless before, and it continues to be useless. It has potential to counter Cleo/Ghazgul, however her two only abilites that matter still continue.

Favor of the Sun God: This change of all the changes is the most painfull, next to Cleo this one ability is what will decide if you have losses during a fight or not.

Virion;
I will comment at a later point about this hereo, as he was mostly useless before, and looking at the changes I dont see anything that changes this.

Gan: Changes to this hereo are currently irrelevant as he currently cannot be purchased. The changes are however positive.

Tiadrin: She was either used as a hero healer or a undead wall breaker. I dont see anything that changes that with the current patch.

Gazul

Fearsome Aura
Unlocks at level 2 (was 3).

Skeleton Sacrifice (Active)
Unlocks at level 3 (was 4), and can now be casted for free (was 2 mana). Greatly increased the summoned Skeleton Titan’s health and damage.

Skeleton Mastery
New ability, unlocks at level 4. Gazul excels at leading skeletal troops into battle. When he takes to the battlefield, all allied Marauders, Ravagers, Stalkers,
Acolytes, Occultists, Warlocks, and Pikemen have their damage and max health increased.

Immortal Strength
New ability, unlocks at level 5. Gazul’s immortal power grants extra power to undead units around him. When he is on the battlefield, all allied undead units have their max hit points increased by a certain percentage.

Soulless Scourge (Active)
Slightly increased the damage dealt. Costs 5 mana (was 3).
Developer’s Note: As the only necromancer hero, we wanted to highlight Gazul’s ability to lead undead armies. To achieve this, we added the “Skeleton Mastery” and “Immortal Strength” ability auras. At the same time, we weakened his active ability “Soulless Scourge”.

Removed his “Soul Rip” ability

Removed his “Necromancy” ability

GAZUL
I can see what their attempting to do with this Hero, however no one uses undeads in the current meta. Making Undead types better will not affect the META as it does not address the one reason why no one uses them, and thats true loss after battle. All the other changes follow along this attempted meta change.

CLEO, their was only ever one way this was going to go with her. Both nerfs is a bit excesive (cost and damage output)

WRAXIUS: once again, another hero not avaialbe, so I reserve my comments for when he is available.

Rose: Increasing this ability has a potential for her to be used as a CC hero. However the slow leveling of her and Jaques makes them fall behind the other heroes in use.

GRIMMS: Siege mastery, only change that matters. Also probably the most positive change of the entire patch.

GAFGAR: I'm do not have a dwarf army so I will refrain from commenting, however the changes were neglible.

NORA: see GAN and WRAXIUS comments.

Jacques: I'm not inclined to go into depth with this character at this time, as much like Rose, his value is neglible. Requiring 3 stam per fight means their used a handfull of times a day at most, meaning that inless you give them massive damage output, they will always be just another character you dump command into.

BANE: Will comment later.

Jamus wrote:

Vallari has been nerfed into oblivion with this change. First, you nerf her damage by 75%, a ridiculously over the top nerf. Second, you remove her utility by erasing her stamina potion skill.

Virion, all heroes really, already blows up the moment they are focused. The bubble nerf will make him another stat stick, only there to buff your units(and less effective at that since you're also nerfing his morale boost.)

The mana/energy changes to all heroes is just you wanting people to spend money on mana/energy potions. It's a shameless cash grab.

Let me repeat that, removal of resource/potion generation on top of adding/increasing usage costs is just a cash grab.

I've spent some money on this game, but your actions here(severe nerfs coupled with increased cost) are stopping me from doing that in the future.

Didn't think about it this way, but it is very suspicious. A higher price could be a way to balance to an extent but it was more of a blanket change which looks scumy. Really enjoying the game thus far but it seems to be drifting toward pay to win more and more

I feel that this hero rework is a big kick in the groin for those of us that invested considerable time and money into heroes that have not been tweaked, but completely reworked. I bought one thing yesterday only to have it completely change over night.

I sure learned my lesson to not spend any more money on this game.

Brokenhawk wrote:

I sure learned my lesson to not spend any more money on this game.

Yep - thats how I feel. I researched and thought about which Heros I was going to buy before I made the purchase, and now there are a few that are having certain skills removed that were the entire reason I purchased them. Not tweaked, or balanced - just removed. So unless there is some kind of hero exchange program or something, I guess I learned my lesson when it comes to buying hero. Even minor tweaks are tolerated for the sake of balance - but there needs to be some sort of significant reimbursement for those that laid down between 60 and 100 USD for a hero. Thats no small amount of money to invest in a 2 month old game and was a leap of faith in the devs to keep the game going solid.

I feel like the mana and energy changes are a HUGE crash grab try. I almost feel bad to see where it's going, sadly, seems like you guys always try to aim for more p2w and this is exactly what makes a game fail.

OIO wrote:

Avalon

I will not be listing out his abilities, he had one use, and that was natural leader. Even with the changes, he continues to have one use. Making it harder to access his main ability NATURAL LEADER, is not balance. He now has more use to human armies, however none of these have any use to a lich army.

I, as a human player can say that the Avalon changes will buff human PvP by alot, and regarding lich, the arrow ability he has deals massiv amounts of dmg if you decide to stack might on him. Having 2 usefull abilitys on a hero that isnt even especially for your race isnt that bad.

OIO wrote:

ELENA

As a note, this toon was either used as a mithril mule (exceptionally valuable) or to reduce true loss of troops. Combined with vega, you could reach a 84% recovery rate with troops, when considering the cost of each unit, this was potentialy a very valuable portion of the meta.

Strategic retreat:
I have no experience using the abliliy before, however this is a decent way to mitigate losses due to the overall nerf to ability usage.

Call the Cvalary: This was a powerfull ability if you treated Elena as a main and dumped all of your command points into her. However with this change, I dont see it being used much anymore.

Magic Resistance: The viablity of this new ability is completly dependent on the numbers. It has the potential to be a Cleo/Gazgul counter, which I personaly agree with. The problem with Cleo/Ghazgul was not how much damage they could do, it was that their was not counter to it.

I dont think you can call call the cavalary dead before you know how they scale with your city lvl / command.
I think the amount of magic resistenz will be big enough to make a difference.

OIO wrote:

VEGA

Mana Barrier: this ability was useless before, and it continues to be useless. It has potential to counter Cleo/Ghazgul, however her two only abilites that matter still continue.

Favor of the Sun God: This change of all the changes is the most painfull, next to Cleo this one ability is what will decide if you have losses during a fight or not.

Manar barrier was useless,and it will continue as you said.
The favor of the Sun God changes are just not understandable for me, they are basically nerfing the spell for everyone but the people that have enough mana potions because they buy them. What kind of balance is that? And that considering that it is pretty much THE most important ability for ever race.

OIO wrote:

CLEO, their was only ever one way this was going to go with her. Both nerfs is a bit excesive (cost and damage output)

GRIMMS: Siege mastery, only change that matters. Also probably the most positive change of the entire patch.

The thing with cleo is the same as with vega, i think the dmg nerf would have been enough.
Grimms siege mastery change is just great overall. I agree.

Hi guys, appreciate you giving feedback here. If you bought heroes and is not satisfied with the changes your hero will get please be patient as we are working on something. Thanks!

Great to hear that you are working on something like that, looking forward to see what it is!

Tom wrote:

Gairten wrote:

Hero Rework-wise:
Given the scale and scope of these hero changes, will we have all of our ability points refunded for each hero? This would be very reasonable given how many abilities have been swapped out or significantly re-balanced.

You can already do this for free every 48 hours on the ability screen of each hero. Look for the orange button on the bottom right.

I realize this can be done for free every 48 hours. But that is per hero. Why should I need to wait 12+ days to get my abilities updated when the rules have completely changed?