Developer Notes
Balance Philosophy:
In order to create a stable environment, our goal is for balance patches to be infrequent and focused on buffs to under-performing characters rather than nerfs to the strongest characters. However, right now the game is brand new, and we are learning it at the same time as players are, and it is clear that there are some large balance problems. We believe the best option for the long term health of the game is to make large changes quickly, until we have reached a better foundation, and then settle into a slower release pattern for the long term.
Balance Objectives:
The key balance concerns in the current game are:
- The Tank role is outperforming other roles.
- The strategy of using repeated control effects (aka stunlocking) is too effective.
- Area-of-effect (AoE) damage is too effective.
The power of Tanks and stunlocking has led to a game state where it is very difficult for a character to have value if they do not have access to one of these features. We believe that a healthy metagame values heroes of all roles, so changes are needed in order to reach that state.
The reasons that Tank heroes are currently so effective are first, because they often have comparable or near-comparable damage output as compared to non-Tank heroes, and second, because the current meta is very fast and non-Tank heroes often do not survive long enough to take many actions. In this scenario it makes sense that Tanks were so widely played, after all why sacrifice a ton of survivability for only a small edge in damage?
We considered if there was a way to fix these issues without a widespread nerf to Tanks, but that route was not feasible. If we increased the damage of non-Tanks enough to give people a reason to run them, the meta would become even faster. We could respond to that by increasing the survivability of all heroes, but that would incur a monumental amount of work and risk.
In regards to stunlocking, we considered the option of simply nerfing the duration and frequency of available control effects, but decided that there were other options to try first before resorting to that approach. Those options ended up being outside the scope of this patch, so we are aiming on including them in a future patch.
For area-of-effect (AoE) damage, we believe that this issue is being confounded somewhat by the issue with Tanks dealing too much damage, due to how many of them have AoE damage. For now, we are reducing the AoE damage on some non-Blaster characters and taking a wait-and-see approach.
Based on the above reasons, our main objectives for this patch were:
- Significantly reduce the damage output of Tanks, especially Area-of-Effect damage
- Moderately decrease the area-of-effect damage of non-Blaster primaries
- Slightly increase the survivability of non-Tanks
Role Changes:
All role combinations have benchmarks for their basic stats and access to skill mechanics, although individual heroes can deviate from them somewhat.
Following the above objectives, we made some high-level adjustments:
- Created new, higher health benchmarks for melee heroes in roles which are not usually melee. (Ex. Splinter, Donatello)
- Reduced the skill damage of Tanks, especially Area of Effect damage.
- Reduced the Health of the top Health tier Tanks. (Ex. Raphael, Tokka)
- Increased the Health, Defense Cap, and defense generation of Skirmishers.
- Increased the Attack Range of most ranged heroes to 3 to match Blaster-primary heroes like Super Irma. The exceptions are the ranged Tanks (Rocksteady and Traag) and Napoleon.
Hero Changes:
In addition to the high level role changes, we also adjusted some specific heroes. The focus for this patch was on heroes that can be encountered in the early game, either as 2-stars or as bosses in the early acts. As well as balance, the goal for these heroes was to make sure that all skill unlocks up to level 75 were immediately relevant in an early game environment. We will be looking at later-game heroes in future balance patches.
Future Hero Balancing
We don’t plan to do large updates in the middle of a season going forward, to reduce the disruption of your mid-season progress or event rankings. Bug fixes and smaller changes may still be worked on throughout the season, but larger and more impactful changes will be held for after a season ends.
Additionally, we have seen your requests for a feature that would allow you to reset a hero to level 1 and get some of your Ooze back. We agree this would be a positive addition to the game and hope to work on that in the future.
Bug Fixes and Usability Updates:
Available bug fixes were applied regardless of whether heroes were part of the balance focus group for this patch. The primary focus for usability this patch was improving the reliability of line-targeting skills by adding minimum ranges, which should help both players and autoplay avoid choosing targets that have minimal effects.
How To Read Stats:
All power derived stats are listed here using a base power of 100. That includes damage, health, and defense. You can calculate the actual value for a character of given power by multiplying the value by that hero's power, then dividing by base power, which is 100. For example, if a note here says that a character has 250 health, then that character with 1000 power would have 2500 health.
Updates & Changes
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Level 1+ Level 2 |
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Level 1+ Level 2+ |
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Health: 350 -> 300 |
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Bug Fix: Fixed issue where this skill had no effect. |
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Level 1+ Level 2+ Level 3 |
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Level 1+ |
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Health: 200 -> 220 |
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Level 1+ |
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Level 1+ Level 3 |
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Health: 190 -> 230 |
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Level 1+ Level 2 |
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Level 1+ |
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 Rapid Reflexes |
Level 1+ Level 2 |
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Health: 190 -> 220 |
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Swapped level requirements with Intervene Level 1+ |
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 Intervene |
Swapped level requirements with Karate Chop Level 1+ |
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Level 1+ Level 3 |
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Level 1+ Level 2 |
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 Unyielding Spirit |
Level 1+ |
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Level 2+ Level 3 |
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Attack Range: 2 -> 3 |
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Level 1+ |
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Level 1+ |
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Level 1+ |
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Level 1+ |
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Health: 220 -> 230 |
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 Warthog Wham |
Level 1+ Reduced Damage: 40 -> 30 |
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 They Go Boom! |
Level 1+ Level 2+ |
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 Bully Beating |
Level 1+ Removed Effect: When attacking, deal 3 extra damage to targets under 0 strength. Added Effect: Gain +10 strength. Added Effect: When attacking, deal 3 extra damage if at or above 0 strength. |
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Level 1+ Added Effect: After being attacked, gain 2 defense if at or above 0 strength. |
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Health: 230 -> 250 |
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Level 1+ Added Effect: Gain +100 armor for 2 seconds. |
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Level 2 Removed Effect: Gain +10 haste for each enemy at range 2. Added Effect: Gain +20 armor for each enemy at range 1. |
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Health: 150 -> 175 |
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Level 1+ Level 2 |
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Level 1+ |
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Level 1+ Level 2 |
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Level 1+ |
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Level 1+ |
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Health: 350 -> 300 |
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Level 1+ Reduced Damage: 40 -> 30 |
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Level 1+ Reduced Damage: 30 -> 15 |
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Visual Fix: Fixed an issue that could cause Rahzar to face his allies instead of enemies when attacking. |
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Attack Range: 2 -> 3 |
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Health: 200 -> 210 |
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Health: 300 -> 270 |
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Role Swap: Tank Trickster -> Trickster Tank |
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Health: 210 -> 250 |
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Attack Range: 2 -> 3 |
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Level 1+ Level 3 |
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Level 1+ Level 2 |
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Defense Cap: 50 -> 75 |
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 Cut Through |
Changed Targeting: Added a minimum range of 2. | ||
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Health: 200 -> 230 |
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Health: 150 -> 175 |
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Defense Cap: 50 -> 60 |
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