Thursday, July 23, 2020

Balance Changes & Magma Cannon Visual Update

Minion Masters!

Balance Changes for Version 1.15

We've got another set of balance changes coming up in the next update, and we have a couple we'd like to share with you today. But first, we have some followup news regarding the public Poll of Arcane Golem and Haste's changes. 

Firstly, we want to give a huge thanks to the fantastic amount of participation from you all, Masters! We got a ton of useful data and feedback from your submissions, and we're definitely open to doing that sort of thing again in the future as a result.

Secondly, we've opted as a result of the poll to go ahead with the planned changes to Arcane Golem and Haste as most of the responses supported the idea. Some were worried that they would be too weak following the changes, so we're planning to keep a close eye on them - Make sure to let us know how you feel about them once the changes hit the live servers in Version 1.15!

Black Hole
  • Cast Delay 0.5 -> 0.2
  • Duration 1.5 -> 1.8
  • Developer Comments
  • Black Hole has been difficult to utilize since the nerf, so we're aiming to make it easier to use on reaction against spells to better protect units with.

Stormy
  • Zen-Chi Flow changed: Now grants +100 Health instead of doubling health
    • Effectively, this means an activated Stormy has 225 health now, instead of 250
  • Developer Comments
  • The goal with this change is to make Stormy easier to whittle down with chip damage by narrowing the threshholds required to make him "lose" an attack, as well as less durable in general when combined with effects such as healing by making him easier to burst down. Notably, it's now much easier to time a Fireball to kill Stormy while he's being healed, and a non-healed Stormy can be killed by a 130 damage spell after his first attack.

Combustion
  • Reworked: Now deals 50 damage to the target and nearby enemy minions up to 5 times. (0.2 second delay between each explosion)
  • Units under the Combustion debuff are no longer stunned
Armored Scrats
  • Barrel Shield Health 60 -> 50

Developer Comments
Combustion was still proving to be a problematic card in terms of just how efficient it was combined with swarm at removing... Pretty much anything. This was especially the case with Armored Scrats who would either survive the explosion and thus remain as bodies on the field, or more significantly, be almost impossible to remove on reaction. This change means that swarm units will still be quite efficient when utilized with the card, but toned down to more reasonable levels. It also gave us an opportunity to increase the spell's effectiveness when utilized on larger minions such as Colossus or Living Statue.

There's plenty more changes on the way, naturally, so stay tuned for the patch next week!

Magma Cannon Visual Update

(We had an exclusive reveal for a visual update for Laser Turret on our social media earlier this week, did you check it out yet?)

We've got news of another update coming to one of our older cards coming in Version 1.15, and that's Magma Cannon! We felt that the card lacked a proper visual identity, and didn't really fit in with any of the existing factions as well as needing a model update for a while, so we've given it this fearsome new look, as well as a Faction Change to Voidborne:



As always, let us know what you think!

Sinobii's Tournaments want YOUR help!

Are you looking to get more involved with competitive Minion Masters? Sinobii from Team Mana Frenzy is looking for volunteers to help with his future tournaments! Currently, they're looking for;

2-3 Shoutcasters (Commentators)
1-2 Tournament Administrators ("To work with players via discord in resolving any issues during the event, most particularly helping/making sure everyone gets into lobbies with their paired opponent and start their matches timely, and by extension identifying any tardy or absent players to adjudicate game/match losses, and otherwise minimize any tournament delays.")

Currently tournaments are scheduled to have 1 Xbox tournament per month, and 1-3 PC events. Contact Sinobii_twitch.tv#0976 on Discord if you're interested! 

BadAsAFish80's 2v2 Tournament #8


Got some time on your hands and a reliable friend? Want to get a chance at winning some money by playing 2v2 matches? Then BadAsAFish's next tournament is the place to be - A $100 prize pool multi-day tournament! Check it out here and sign up with your partner:


Cheers from BetaDwarf!