Early Access Balance Patch V0.14.3

The January blues are long gone because February is finally here! What better way to settle into a new month than chewing over a tasty Balance Patch?

Patch Notes 1 feb 2024

Introduction

Champions!

The January blues are long gone because February is finally here! What better way to settle into a new month than chewing over a tasty Balance Patch?

In v0.14.3 you can expect the usual range of bug fixes and QoL improvements for a number of Heroes and Items, as well as some tweaks based on community feedback to the most recent Hero to join the fight, Kwang!

It's an exciting month for Predecessor, not only because we still have our PlayStation Pals with us for Phase 2 of the Closed Beta, but also because the next Omeda original Hero is fast approaching!

Codename: Emerald arrives just a few short weeks from now. We'll be revealing plenty more about this mad mage throughout February, so keep your eyes on our social channels for more!

But enough about all that, let’s focus on the here and now and jump right into the v0.14.3 patch notes.

Store Update

Feng Mao | First Guardian

Let legacy define your fate, with Feng Mao’s First Guardian skin [rare]!

Sevarog | Opaline

Indulge the cosmic urge to reap, with Sevarog’s shiny new Opaline skin [common]!

TwinBlast | Energized

Put some pep in your step with TwinBlast’s new Energized skin [common]!

Dekker | Energized

Skip the catnap with Dekker’s matching Energized skin [common]!

Become an Internal Tester

This week we announced we're opening up applications to our Community Internal Tester program, where dedicated Predecessor players like yourself can take part in early playtests & provide feedback on development.

Specifically, we're looking for up to 1,000 PC players to join us over the coming weeks to feed back on their game experience as we make stability and optimization improvements.

For more details, head over to the blog post and sign up using the google form!

PlayStation Closed Beta Phase 2

Phase 2 of the PlayStation Closed Beta is officially underway, and we couldn’t be more excited to have our PlayStation players here with us as we prep for Open Beta.

In case you missed it, we made the decision to go straight into Phase 2 and keep the battle going for PlayStation users as thanks for their immense support over the past couple of months.

You can check out the blog post here for all the details.

Hero Changes

We’re clearing up some of the confusion surrounding Drongo’s Wastelander Passive by now allowing it to always work against Monsters, not just on his Gag Grenades damage which has raised questions of consistency in the past. Naturally, this makes Drongo’s objective killing potential skyrocket so Wastelander’s damage to Monsters has been set to a lower baseline value to keep it in check.

Wastelander [Passive]:

• [QoL] Description updated to better reflect previous full functionality.
• Now always applies to Monsters, not just with Gag Grenade.
• Damage against Monsters set to 0.5% Max Health over 3s.

Rad Rounds [Secondary]:

• Additional Shot Total Physical Power Scaling decreased from 35% to 30%.

Iggy & Scorch’s Turrets can feel frustratingly bulky for certain non-Carry classes to deal with in the later stages of a match. By reducing their health growth, other classes will have an easier time picking them off should Iggy leave his turrets too exposed.

Flame Turret [Primary]:

• Health changed from 105 (+25 per level) to 115 (+20 per level).
• Melee Damage Taken modifier decreased from 60% to 50%.

Oil Spill [Secondary]:

• Magical Power Scaling increased from 30% to 35%.

Khaimera is seeing a reduction in the potency of his Passive’s healing, especially in the earlier levels where it easily outpaces the damage potential of other Heroes and anti-heal is not yet easily acquirable. Additionally, there are a few larger bugfixes to his Invigorate so that it now works at its intended values, which will have the side-effect of increasing his late-game survivability. As Khaimera is already performing rather well we will be monitoring him for further balance adjustments in the next patch should he still be overperforming with these fixes.

Spirit Hunter [Passive]:

• Health Regeneration per stack decreased from 0.7/0.85/1/1.15/1.3/1.45/1.6/1.75/1.9 /2.2/2.5/2.8/3.15/3.4/3.7/4/4.3 to 0.5/0.6/0.7/0.8/0.9/1.1/1.3/1.5/1.7/1.9 /2.2/2.5/2.8/3.1/3.4/3.7/4/4.3.

Invigorate [Secondary]:

• [Bugfix] Now correctly heals for 1.5x current health regen, instead of 2x.
• [Bugfix] Max Health Healing now correctly increases with rank instead of being locked to Rank 1 values.

Due to the way interactions were set up under the hood, for a while now Kira’s Ultimate and Mercy abilities have been treated as Basic Attacks in order to get them to function as we intended in the case of Critical Strikes and Lifestealing effects. We have since improved some of our engine’s functionality to allow for more flexibility and control over these interactions and can finally move these two abilities back to an “ability” setup. In 99% of scenarios, the abilities will function exactly as before, however many of the inconsistent interactions with items, such as Breach working on her Ultimate or Stonewall not reducing her damage output, will now be resolved.

Mercy [Alternate]:

• [QoL] Now correctly treated as a Hero Ability for the purposes of item interactions, instead of a Basic Attack.

Purge [Ultimate]:

• [QoL] Now correctly is treated as a Hero Ability for the purposes of item interactions, instead of a Basic Attack.

As with many of our latest additions, Kwang is receiving a round of feel and QoL adjustments now that he’s had time to flex his stuff in a Live environment. A large portion of these changes are aimed at increasing the responsiveness of Kwang’s kit in areas such as his Ultimate where we have fine-tuned the animation speed and hitbox further due to the player feedback we have received. Likewise, there are some more minor balance adjustments that we will continue to iterate on in following patches once Kwang has had more time to settle in following this first round of adjustments.

Strike of the Heavens [Passive]:

• Damage increased from 10 (+4 per Level) to 15 (+5 per Level).
• Cooldown refund on-hit increased from 0.5s to 1s.
• Stack Duration decreased from 5s to 4s.
• [Bugfix] Passive Damage no longer triggers Mutilator or Mindrazor ability-effects.

Judgement of the Heavens [Primary]:

• Mana Cost increased from 50/55/60/65/70 to 70 at all ranks.
• Range decreased from 1650 to 1450.
• [QoL] Decal expansion better synced on-impact.

Surge of the Heavens [Secondary]:

• Damage changed from 55/80/105/130/155 to 70/90/110/130/150.
• Cooldown increased from 14/12.5/11/9.6/8 to 14/12.75/11.5/10.25/9.

Light of the Heavens [Alternate]:

• Held Damage changed from 70/110/150/190/230 to 80/115/150/185/220.
• In World Damage changed from 70/120/170/220/270 to 80/125/170/215/260.
• Shield decreased from 80/115/150/185/220 to 70/105/140/175/210.
• Shield Magical Power Scaling increased from 40% to 45%.
• Cooldown changed from 13/12/11/13/9 to 12/11.5/11/10.5/10.
• Hitbox improved.

Fury of the Heavens [Ultimate]:

• Damage increased from 200/320/440 to 200/340/480.
• Cast Time reduced by 15%.
• Hitbox improved.
• [Bugfix] Main Menu Description Slow Amount now correctly states 40%/50%/60%.

Belica has become the undisputed Queen of the Midlane for many, not only scaling exceptionally well into the late-game, but having exceptional push and bullying potential in the lane. To help slow her down we’re pivoting some of her Void Bomb’s damage away from base and into scaling, giving other laners a better chance at matching her pressure.

Void Bomb [Alternate]:

• Damage decreased from 80/130/180/230/280 to 75/120/165/210/255.
• Innovation Max Rank Magical Power Scaling increased from 75% to 80%.

In the past, many Mages were overly reliant on Megacosm as a damage source and had to have their damage output aggressively tuned with it in mind, resulting in relatively low Magical Scalings in the case of Mages such as Morigesh. Now that Megacosm has shifted towards more of an anti-tank option, we can slowly start reintroducing higher Magical Scalings for core damage abilities, starting with Morgiesh’s Hive, better opening up build options for her.

Hive [Primary]:

• Magical Power Scaling increased from 60% to 65%.

Swarm [Secondary]:

• Healing per hit changed from 8/14/20/26/32 to 8/13/18/23/28.
• Healing Magical Power Scaling increased from 6% to 8%.

The Orc has been another benefactor of unintended bugs increasing his potency. In this case, Narbash was gaining twice as much Mana Regeneration from his Passive. We’ve now resolved this issue and have increased the Mana Regen’ to a healthier middleground to ensure the Passive max stacks condition still feels rewarding to play for, but isn’t giving him unfair amounts of Mana sustain.

Beatdrop [Passive]:

• [Bugfix] Bonus Mana Regen Duration decreased from 10s to 5s.
• Base Bonus Mana Regen increased from 2 to 3.
• Ally Detection Radius increased from 750u to 1000u.

Rampage’s Rumble is receiving a bugfix for the issue arising in the last patch, now dealing the intended amount of damage. This fix has large ramifications for his early clear speed and should have him feeling far more menacing in the early game compared to before.

Rumble [Secondary]:

• [Bugfix] Now correctly scales with 90% Total Physical Power instead of 90% Bonus Physical Power.

Sevarog is receiving a slight buff to his Siphon’s cooldown in the early-game, better allowing him to snag a few extra souls early on and get that snowball rolling.

Siphon [Primary]:

• Cooldown decreased from 7/6.25/5.5/4.75/4 to 6/5.5/5/4.5/4.

Steel’s combination of durability, crowd control, and damage leaves him feeling like both an unstoppable force and an immovable object. To combat this, we’re reducing some of the flat damage output of his Shield Bash vs. squishier targets, as well as trimming off some of this efficacy of his Ultimate’s engage distance and Stun duration to make an individual slam less oppressive unless he followed up on a target with additional abilities.

General:

• Base Armor decreased from 34 to 32.
• Base Mana increased from 300 to 320.
• Base Mana Regeneration decreased from 1.6 to 1.45.

Shield Bash [Alternate]:

• Damage decreased from 40/70/100/130/160 to 40/60/80/100/120.
• Max Health damage increased from 4% to 5%.
• Cooldown decreased from 12/11/10/9/8 to 10/9.5/9/8.5/8.

Shield Slam [Ultimate]:

• Range decreased by 10%.
• Stun Duration decreased from 1.5s to 1.25s.

The Fey struggles to keep pace with other laners, lacking both safety from ganks due to her low mobility, while also not having the sustained damage threat to match other Mages. To better reinforce her extended trading patterns in lane and reward her for taking the positional risk when playing aggressive we’re increasing the stacking damage present on her Harvest Nettles ability.

General:

• Base Attack Speed increased from 120% to 125%.
• Base Mana Regen decreased from 1.3 to 1.15.

Harvest Nettles [Secondary]:

• Bonus Damage per stack increased from +20% to +25%.
• Max Stack Bonus Damage increased from +60% to +75%.

Despite his early strength, Zarus has a tendency to fall off in individual strength the longer a match progresses, especially if he does not secure multiple Coliseum. To help him along, we’ve granted him more efficacy on his base abilities, allowing him to scale with experience and be relevant beyond his Ultimate.

Barricade [Primary]:

• Cooldown decreased from 22/20.5/19/17.5/16 to 20/18/16/14/12.

Evade [Secondary]:

• Attack Speed increased from 14%/18%/22%/26%/30% to 15%/20%/25%/30%/35%.

Item Changes

A small but important bugfix for Nex, with its damage to charge conversion now correctly being halved for Area of Effect abilities, better limiting the raw burst it can output from a single ability’s charge.

• [Bugfix] Sow now correctly stores 10% of damage dealt from AoE abilities, not 20%.

Rift Walkers is seeing a reduction in its dash speed to help increase the readability of its effect and reduce how chaotic a Snatch can be.

• Rift Snatcher Dash Speed decreased by 50%.

Buying Multiple Diffusal Canes no longer results in lost stats.

• [Bugfix] Magical Penetration now correctly increases when owning multiple Diffusal Canes.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where Kwang’s Cloth would duplicate on the Hero overview in the Main Menu.
• Fixed a bug where items in the shop would highlight incorrectly.

Note: Additional bugfixes may be added before or shortly after the game update.

That's everything this time Champions, what do you think?

Let us know your feedback over on our Discord server or the Predecessor Subreddit.

Until next time!

Steggs
Senior Community Manager @ Omeda Studios