Arena Balance Patch Notes

This patch makes an attempt to balance for competitive play where we are still seeing a lot of builds around Nature and the Taipan line in particular and Air kicking Water out while Fire and Earth are left behind. Furthermore, we'd like hitting a Tier 5 Stage 3 to be more of a moment for players across all play. We're starting by buffing Phosphorus, Rhamphyre and Titanor in various ways. This patch also includes some reverts or steps in the opposite direction from steps taken in the previous patch.

Illuvials

Taipan: Taipan has been the go-to carry for a long time in competitive because it scales so well with almost any item. We're lowering its base damage so its strength comes more from building around it (and from Arcanite at 3 stacks) than from raw stats.

• Phyri Attack Damage: 115 → 100
• Phyriox Attack Damage: 120 → 110
• Scoriox Attack Damage: 165 → 150

Titanor: Almost nobody reaches Titanor, and when they do it arrives late and takes too long to do anything. It now casts sooner and stays protected longer.

• Energy Cost: 300 → 250
• Omega Damage Reduction duration: 4s → 6s (still 25%)

Rhamphyre and Phosphorus: Tier 5 at Stage 3 should feel special when it hits the board.

• Rhamphyre (Pterodactyl S3) Attack Damage: 240 → 250
• Phosphorus (Terror Bird S3) Attack Damage: 220 → 230
• • Its Omega also uses Attack Damage, so the Omega goes up from 545 → 555.

Water Buffalo: Last patch's resistance cut went too far and we're cutting in Toxic instead. Reverted

• Carablu Physical / Energy Resistance: 30 / 35 → 40 / 45
• Caradulo Physical / Energy Resistance: 35 / 40 → 45 / 50
• Cardulox Physical / Energy Resistance: 55 / 60 → 65 / 70

Dodo: We're making a hit to Air units and remedying a long standing complaint that Dodo's stun locked down key units for too long, especially at Stage 3.

• Omega stun duration: 3s / 3s / 4s → 2s / 2.5s / 3s

Ant Eater: Ant Eater's Omega damage is lower to leave room for Rhamphyre. Its Omega Power reduction on enemies is unchanged to keep it Air and have an unique Omega.

• Omega damage: 500 / 750 / 900 → 450 / 650 / 800

Augments

Legendary

• Zenith Bloom: Omega Power gained per Omega (holder and all allies): 5 → 3

Illuvial Omega Power reactors were the clear top picks among the strongest players. We're lowering them across the board.

• Amplifying Omega Reactor: Omega Power: +20 → +15
• Exsolve Omega Reactor: Omega Power gained: 60 → 50 (still steals 10 Omega Power from each of the 3 closest allies)
• • The tooltip now states the numbers clearly instead of saying "twice as much".
• Trinity Pulse Reactor: Attack Damage: +20% → +10%

Synergies

Nature: Nature teams are extremely resilient in the competitive meta. We're tackling their healing again to make the game less healing based. Note that Nature units still heal double compared to other units.

• Team healing per second (% of missing Health): 1 / 1.5 / 2 / 2.5% → 0.5 / 1 / 1.5 / 2%
• Nature units: 2 / 3 / 4 / 5% → 1 / 2 / 3 / 4%

Aegis: Aegis proved to still be extremely high on the bang for buck axis after the synergy rework

• Stats shared and gained: 6% / 8% → 5% / 7%
• (3) Max Health shared and gained: 8% → 7%

Toxic: Toxic is still winning more than it should given it is one of the easiest synergies to complete, we'd like to see more players pivot away from this synergy while using it to strengthen their mid and early games. So Poison and the explosion are weaker. The explosion damage is lower at (2) and the radius no longer grows at (3).

• (3) Poison: 4% → 3% of target's Max Health per second
• (2) Explosion damage: 3% → 2% of Max Health
• (3) The explosion radius no longer doubles. It stays at 20 hexes (was 40).

Air: Last patch made Air (6) too punishing for Omega-based teams. We're bringing part of that back down.

• (6) Enemies lose Omega Power at combat start: 40 → 30

Earth: Earth (6) gets a stronger answer to damage-heavy teams.

• (6) Enemies lose Attack Damage at combat start: 20% → 30%

Fire: Fire has fallen behind, so the 6-unit reward hits harder. We've been here before in other times, but those times mostly involved the infamous Rogue metas

• (6) Fire attacks deal bonus Pure Damage: 1% → 1.5% of target's Max Health

Arcanite: We would like Arcanite (3) to now be a real payoff. (2) is slightly weaker, so the big reward comes from completing the set.

• Attack Speed converted into Omega Power: 55% / 75% → 50% / 80%
• Energy Cost converted into Attack Damage on Omega: 55% / 75% → 50% / 80%
• (3) Resistance Piercing: 25% → 40%

Phantom: The (3) bonus was supposed to heal Phantom units for part of their Omega damage, but it never worked. We've replaced it with something that fits Phantom better.

• Removed: (3) Heal for 5% of Omega damage (never actually worked)
• New: (3) Each Omega permanently grants +5% Crit Chance and +5% Crit Amp. Stacks with every cast.

Bug Fixes and Tooltips

• Phantom (3) now has a working effect (see above).
• Kukka (Dodo S1): the stun tooltip was showing the shield duration. It now shows the correct stun duration.
• Toxic: the tooltip now gives the exact Poison damage at (3) instead of saying "doubled".