This is another mid-month balance patch aimed at addressing the evolving meta while we work towards a much larger patch due at the end of the month. These mid-month balance patches are intentionally small and number-focused.
⚙️ General
Components
Weakness Analyzer effect reduced from 1s to 0.5s
Design Note: Last patch we mentioned we were evaluating Weakness Analyzer and in particular its strong synergy with tanks like Alecto. We experimented internally with making it a percentage-based reduction, but that made it incredibly strong on tanks like Arbalest and Tempest, which we felt wasn’t in the interest of the broader game, so we abandoned that plan. We have another change in the works for our larger end-of-month patch, but we felt it was important to alleviate the strong Alecto + Weakness Analyzer scenarios that can happen in the meantime. We don’t normally like to hobble components like this, but hang tight for the more future-facing Weakness Analyzer change.
🛞 Tanks
Ark
Increased ability cooldown from 7s to 14s
Design Note: We’re continuing to keep an eye on Ark and its ability to snipe undetected. One area that felt out of line was its ability to repeatedly bush to conceal itself when it was getting spotted out. Increasing this cooldown should give more windows of opportunity to players pursuing Arks and make Arks think more carefully about when to deploy their ability.
Atlas
Increased base reload from 13s to 14s
Reduced the reload tech node from -0.3/0.6/0.9/1.2/1.5 to -0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8/1.0
Reduced both health tech nodes, from 40/80/120/160/200 and 50/100/150/200/250 to 30/60/90/120/150 and 40/80/120/160/200 respectively
Design Note: We started seeing and hearing that Atlas was getting picked to the exclusion of other heavy tanks, and a clear outlier was the damage output, which was the highest among all heavy tanks when including the tech tree. For all our tanks, we like to outline where they should be strong and where they should be weak. In Atlas' case, the clear strength should be its armor. Its weaknesses should be mobility and camouflage. Since DPM (damage per minute) isn’t a core part of Atlas' strengths and identity, it having the highest DPM of all heavy tanks felt like a clear area to address.
Ikarus
Aim speed bonus in flight form increased from 30% to 40%
Shell Damage tech node increased from 1/2/3/4/5 to 2/4/6/8/10
Design Note: If you’ve been with us for a while, you’ll know that Ikarus has been through a bit of a saga. We made a large change a number of patches ago to deal with a problematic tactic it could pull off (looping divebomb strafing runs) that we felt crossed the line in terms of reasonable counterplay. While that tactic was tilting opponents off the face of the earth, Ikarus' overall win rate performance was actually quite low. Our hope was to address the problematic case, which would then allow us to give Ikarus some power elsewhere. Now that the dust has settled, we feel like that change was quite successful, and we’re now working to get Ikarus onto firm footing. We chose these changes specifically because stealth Ikarus, by comparison, is already doing well, and we wanted to target the attack build directly.
Ranger
Regenerative Suspension: Energy gain increased from 2 to 3
Design Note: We don’t know if this needs much explanation. The feedback from you guys has been loud and clear: “meh.” The usage rates for this keystone have similarly been loud and clear: “party ramp is clearly better.” This change aims to make the keystone selection for Ranger a bit more competitive.
🐛 Bug Fixes
Fixed Fuse's armor not aligning with the visualizer
