April 2017 Tuning Discussion - PRELIMINARY

[Jofer16]

I fully agree with your analysis, man. Hell, people were even rightly predicting that if the Prisoner got neutered via nerfs and the blue bat/DD remained untouched, that the blue bat/DD would become the next OP toon. You can't nerf one of those two without nerfing the other.

Side note: Jofer, I noticed that it said you were inactive for 2 days on the trooper list yesterday. Considering how you were actively PVPing like the terminator you are, this led me to theorize that maybe the trooper list only shows activity based on the last PVE run someone does.

Sparton, would you be able to confirm this if possible?

Good observation, and that would make sense, didn't do my dailies/secrets yesterday and maybe the night before. You might have just solved one of their bugs

[Sparton_LOTB]

And I need to add, just got a rare G/A soul from Kingdom of the Sands normal secret. Don't remember the last time that happened!

Yeah, Rare Souls, Rare Gun/Assassin Souls, and even Skill Shards are all possible rewards from every secret location. They're just damn rare is all.

Side note: Jofer, I noticed that it said you were inactive for 2 days on the trooper list yesterday. Considering how you were actively PVPing like the terminator you are, this led me to theorize that maybe the trooper list only shows activity based on the last PVE run someone does.

Sparton, would you be able to confirm this if possible?

Yeah, that's actually something that's been bothering me for a while. I've never been 100% sure if it was inaccurate or not, but what you and Jofer are describing means that whatever is tracking that is probably looking for some kind of action that not necessarily everyone will do each time they play the game. I'll make sure to pass that to the team when I'm back in the office on Monday.

[Jofer16]

I fully agree with your analysis, man. Hell, people were even rightly predicting that if the Prisoner got neutered via nerfs and the blue bat/DD remained untouched, that the blue bat/DD would become the next OP toon. You can't nerf one of those two without nerfing the other.

Side note: Jofer, I noticed that it said you were inactive for 2 days on the trooper list yesterday. Considering how you were actively PVPing like the terminator you are, this led me to theorize that maybe the trooper list only shows activity based on the last PVE run someone does.

Sparton, would you be able to confirm this if possible?

Wanted to add, also found Blue Bat is waaaay more dangerous than DD. Siege is tough enough, but if you're not prepared Blue Bats other moves like the AOE coupled with not being able to have void shields is like being tossed into the meat grinder.

I feel sorry for people with no Prisoner against him. I've made sure to purchase every talisman available from the arena store so far, so can manage, but there's really zero counters for people that cant stack them to the sky. Blue Bat > Prisoner in a vacuum by a long shot.

[Tritium]

Yeah, that's actually something that's been bothering me for a while. I've never been 100% sure if it was inaccurate or not, but what you and Jofer are describing means that whatever is tracking that is probably looking for some kind of action that not necessarily everyone will do each time they play the game. I'll make sure to pass that to the team when I'm back in the office on Monday.

Awesome! This will help move us one step closer to solving the Trooper activity issue.

Wanted to add, also found Blue Bat is waaaay more dangerous than DD. Siege is tough enough, but if you're not prepared Blue Bats other moves like the AOE coupled with not being able to have void shields is like being tossed into the meat grinder.

I feel sorry for people with no Prisoner against him. I've made sure to purchase every talisman available from the arena store so far, so can manage, but there's really zero counters for people that cant stack them to the sky. Blue Bat > Prisoner in a vacuum by a long shot.

Yeah man, blue bat teams sometimes make me want to chuck my phone out the window. It can be so frustrating watching helplessly as your team gets mutilated. Now I have to disconnect my emotions before PVPing so I don't blow up. Either that, or I need to do more pull-ups & push-ups after PVPing for a bit to de-stress haha.

[Jofer16]

Yeah, Rare Souls, Rare Gun/Assassin Souls, and even Skill Shards are all possible rewards from every secret location. They're just damn rare is all.

And 3 more rare souls! 1 in each of the underworld secrets, my lucky day

Edit: and after reset ANOTHER G/A soul, wow.

[Silentknight]

Wanted to add, also found Blue Bat is waaaay more dangerous than DD. Siege is tough enough, but if you're not prepared Blue Bats other moves like the AOE coupled with not being able to have void shields is like being tossed into the meat grinder.

I feel sorry for people with no Prisoner against him. I've made sure to purchase every talisman available from the arena store so far, so can manage, but there's really zero counters for people that cant stack them to the sky. Blue Bat > Prisoner in a vacuum by a long shot.

Thus all the 'prisoner nerf is great but dont touch the AoP' posts. They think we're stupid...apparently some of us are

[HomemLivre]

Thus all the 'prisoner nerf is great but dont touch the AoP' posts. They think we're stupid...apparently some of us are

Agreed with you, I'm out of discussion about this patch. But I miss what you said, I don't even remember someone complaining about the AoP nerf, the only Angel that people (including me) complained about the nerf was the AoF.

Good luck in the arena for all of you guys.

Cheers

[Nicko]

Ding ding ding! Winner! This was my biggest finding through all this, and I was shocked. Now that the meta has shifted to Talismans being more essential than passives, Blue Bat is the truely OP toon, Prisoner not in the slightest. I could only think up 1 team build to do well, you have to stack immunity like crazy, toons like Red Pyro that have a 3 round buff.

I think most of the complaints from prisoner must come from Blue Bat users who don't realize this. He's the only easy counter where Prisoner has tons of possible teams that will take him down. So to Blue Bat users, I can see why they say this, he takes away that OP factor for them.

Now I do agree Prisoner dumbs the game down killing passives, but he's not even close to OP. He could use an adjustment to open the game up more but if this is coupled with any sort of nerf/overall power reduction, I'll be upset. Simply because it means the devs are giving into the mob.

Change his mechanics to open up more passives and create diversity, don't make him weaker. I've had zero issues facing Prisoner while I've not been using him and my point accumulation speed hasn't changed much. In some cases it's gotten even faster because I swapped him out for more overall damage so I'm killing stuff faster.

And I need to add, just got a rare G/A soul from Kingdom of the Sands normal secret. Don't remember the last time that happened!

Interesting observation about immunity. I was in Underworld taking on Blue Bats and brought my Green Droid since I know nerfs are coming. Wanted to test the waters. His immunity from talismans gets squashed - and then he had to cast his shield every turn because the duration of his shield was cut in half. Red Pyro doesn't have a shield - but his immunity certainly looks like a better bet because you can get a couple rounds out if it.

Contrary to the complaining, I definitely don't think the Blue Bat is dead with the upcoming nerf. Once second round hits - with likely little damage to either side thanks to Troll shields and Shell talismans - he'll be a real pain to face

[HomemLivre]

Contrary to the complaining, I definitely don't think the Blue Bat is dead with the upcoming nerf. Once second round hits - with likely little damage to either side thanks to Troll shields and Shell talismans - he'll be a real pain to face

Agreed with you, some of the new shilds to, like the thorns, cyclone and even the void. With some variety of toons and mix on damage types (not only true) maybe this shields will be a little hard to face.

[Silentknight]

I really, really like this new changes! FINALLY the Prisoner gets his deserved nerf, its almost hard to believe in that hahaha!
Prisoner fanboys will be a little pissed, but hey, we will finally get a mixed pvp with many more toons!
Visions Eddie, you guys know that Im waiting to use him for so long, so my thx again, you devs rocks in this future update!
The only thing I really dislike here is the change on Siege, begin to work only in the second turn puts the AoP on the trash when the decisive actions are taken in the first turn.

Anyway I appreciate this update, thanks Kaz and Sparton.

Just at 1st glance