Balancing

Quick Navigation

Balancing is a game design concept to change gameplay elements and features to make the game's components similarly desirable and effective.

In Skylords Reborn, balancing mainly focuses on tuning the playable cards. When balancing, influences on the different game modes (PvE and PvP) have to be kept in mind and the principles of the philosophy documents have to be employed.

Current Iteration

May contain speculation or statements that later turn out differently.
Please remove this notice once the content has been published.

Certain over- and underperforming cards have been proposed for balancing via the Forum Balancing Section and/or the Balancing Discord and will be tested over multiple iterations on the test server (initially English only).

Shown below are all changes of the currently available iteration compared to the live servers. Keep in mind they can change any time and are not official live server patch notes. If not specified, these card changes apply to all upgrade versions of the cards, if background information or context was provided, it is displayed as a quote.

The last balancing update of the test server happend on 18 December 2021 and the current iteration 19 now includes the following changes including mid-iteration hotfixes:

Systematic Changes

These are changes that affect a bigger number of cards in a similar fashion:

Adjustment of PvE entities orb and power costs:

Spawned in NPC units in PvE maps now also use their assigned orb and power costs. This means that certain abilities, like  Nightguard's  Swap will not work anymore.
This will not yet be included in a live server patch.

Card Changes

Amok:

Still contains 2 additional affinities that are equal to the old version of both affinities before Patch #400031.

Avatar of Frost:

Added the following changes to a shadow affinity for easier comparison:
Added a new active ability  Aegis:
Activate to shield up to 5 nearby friendly units without an ice shied in a 20m radius with an Ice Shield that absorbs up to 1500 damage for 30 seconds. However it instantly loses 1100 strength when being applied. Has a 30 seconds cooldown.

Grove Spirit:

Added the following changes to a nature affinity for easier comparison:
Increased the unit's movement speed to the default 6.4 of L/XL units.
Increased the unit's life points from 1100 on all upgrades to 1700 on all upgrades.
Active ability  Healing Song:
Removed and replaced with active ability  Bond of the Dryad:
Grove Spirit connects herself with a friendly unit. As long as the bond exists Grove Spirit and her target will be immune to any kind of crowd control. Lasts until Grove Spirit or her target dies or when they move more than 50 meters apart from each other. Grove Spirit can only create a bond with one unit. Can still move and act during the bond. Reusable every 10 seconds. Cannot be cast on Grove Spirit.
Reduced activation cost from 90 on all upgrades to 80 / 80 / 60 / 60.

Imperials:

Added the following changes to a fire affinity for easier comparison:
Decreased the unit's attack value of total damage dealt over 20 seconds from 660 to 510.
Decreased the unit's life points from 690 / 720 / 780 / 840 to 930 / 960 / 1020 / 1110.
Changed counter damage from bonus against M-sized to L-sized units.

Nether Warp (Frost) / Nether Warp (Nature):

Added the following changes to a shadow and fire affinity for easier comparison:
 Blessed Teleport /  Gifted Teleport:
Can now port every unit only once during its runtime.
Interactions with cards that enable units to ignore Teleport Immunity do no longer work.
Other means of teleportation are no longer prevented by Nether Warp's Teleport immunity.

Noxious Cloud:

Added the following changes to a nature affinity for easier comparison:
Intoxication:
Changed damage type to piercing damage.
This damage can neither be increased nor decreased by incoming damage modifers on affected targets.

Strikers:

Added the following changes to a fire affinity for easier comparison:
Removed the passive ability  Looter.
Added a new passive ability  Plunder:
As long as the unit attacks enemy non-amii buildings, they gain piles of spoils depending on the damage they deal to that building.
Added a new active ability  Drop the Loot:
Once they collect enough piles, they are able to cash out a certain amount of piles at an own power well by draining 20 of the stored power from the power well and adding it to the power pool. Can be used every 5 seconds.

Wasteland Wing (Fire):

Contains an unfinished prototype of the upcoming new card.

Non-Player Card Entity Changes

None

Map Changes

General

None

PvE

None

PvP

Danduil:

Removed the 4  Fortification Walls surrounding the  Monuments on both sides (✖).
Added 1  Power Well of 600 power capacity at each of the 4 monument positions in the corners as depicted below (1).
Adjusted terrain textures to match the changes.
Fixed an issue where it was not possible to spawn non-S-sized units by the ground presence soley provided by the outer power wells (2 and 3).
Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry.
Changed the type of the players to Human in the map settings.

✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖
 > 
11112233

Fyre:

Increased the construction cost of the 4 outer  Fortification Walls from 25 to 50 energy (🡩🡫).
Decreased these wall's distance to the  Power Wells. This way these walls can no longer be built by enemies if the opposing team owns the power well closest to the wall.
Additionally, slightly narrowed the layout of the respective area around the wall in the bottom left to enable the same effect there.
Added flying blocking at the 2 big lakes in the center to prevent sieging across them with long-ranged flying units (☁).
This is now visualized by permanently present clouds in the area.
The power wells in the top left of the upper starting base now provide spawn presence for units and buildings (1).
The power wells in the bottom right of the lower starting base now provide better spawn presence for units and buildings (2).
Fixed various other minor blocking issues.
Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry.
Changed the type of the players to Human in the map settings.

🡩🡩🡫🡫12
 > 
☁☁

Gorgash:

Increased the construction cost of the  Fortification Walls at each starting position from 25 to 50 power.
These walls are no longer pre-built at the start of the game.
Increased all player's starting void power from 400 to 425.
This results in the same starting void as before if the player immediately destroyed the wall.
Decreased the power cost of the walls at the central northern and southern bases at the border of map from 75 to 50 energy (1).
Adjusted the position of the  Monuments and  Power Wells in all 6 bases in the north and south of the map to decrease distance to the wall.
This way these walls can no longer be built by enemies if the opposing team owns the power well or monument closest to the it.
Removed the 2 walls around the northern and southern bases in the center of the map (2).
Changed the layout of power wells and monuments in these bases by rotating each cluster by 180 degrees.
Moved the power wells and monuments in these bases outwards, hence further away from the center of the map.
Removed the northern and southern power well in the well cluster in the middle of the map (3).
Moved the 4 power well clusters near the outer left and outer right bases closer to the center (4).
Adjusted terrain textures to match all the changes.
Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry.
Changed the type of the players to Human in the map settings.

11223🡪🡪🡨🡨
 > 
4444

Koshan:

Each player's starting position, including  Monument and  Power Wells, was exchanged with the monument located in a straight line outwards.
Swapped the starting positions between players, whilst preserving previous symmetry.
Added 2 ramps to the sides of the new start positions, granting access to the plateau behind.
Opened up the plateaus in the corners by creating connecting ramps towards the diagonal of the map.
Adjusted the positions of wells, so that they are further away from the nearby wall, and thus hostile units mounted on the wall cannot attack the wells anymore (1).

🡫🡫🡪🡪🡨🡨🡩🡩🡮🡬🡭🡯🡬🡮🡯🡭
 > 
11111111

Nadai:

Added 1  Power Well of 1200 capacity at each side of the center  Monument position (1).
Adjusted the positions of monuments and walls, so that these 4 walls cannot be taken anymore if an enemy has taken the adjacent monument (2).
Adjusted the positions of monuments, so that they are further away from the nearby wall, and thus hostile units mounted on the wall cannot attack the orb anymore (3).
Adjusted terrain textures to match the changes.
Swapped the starting positions including the starting power wells and monuments only within teams for consistency, whilst preserving map symmetry.
Changed the type of the players to Human in the map settings.

22223333
 > 
11

Turan:

Opened up the middle of the map by creating 4 connecting paths between the  Power Well clusters and the central  Monument.
Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry.
Changed the type of the players to Human in the map settings.

🡮🡯🡬🡭
 > 

Yshia:

Adjusted the positions of the 4 outer  Fortification Walls to prevent offensive walling, by moving them outwards and thus closer to the  Power Wells and  Monuments there (🡭🡮).
Opened up the plateaus by adding 2 ramps to each of them as depicted below (1).
Widened one of the ramps leading up to the two small plateaus (2).
Increased the cost of these walls from 25 to 50 (3).
Moved these well clusters more towards the center of the plateau, but keeping them close to the wall to prevent offensive walling (4).
Moved the monuments previously located next to (2) off the plateau to (5).
Adjusted terrain textures and added objects and blocking to match the changes.
Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry.
Changed the type of the players to Human in the map settings.

🡬🡭🡯🡮111122334455
 > 

Zahadune:

Added flying blocking at various places at the borders of the bodies of water to prevent sieging across them with long-ranged flying units (☁).

 > 
☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁

Halted Testing Changes

A few changes have been removed from the test server for now. They were disenabled to focus testing on other subjects or due to implementation issues and might see a return in some form at a later date. The respective latest form of these cases is listed below:

System Changes

Adjustment of squad knockback interactions:
The following attacks' damage radii were changed to no longer be applied at the center of squads but on the unit hit. Thus even if split up enough, targets will always receive at least some damage and no longer become invincible to these attacks:

 Bandit Sorceress (Fire) /  Bandit Sorceress (Frost): Autocast ability  Bandit Sphere
 Grim Bahir (Fire) /  Grim Bahir (Nature): Autocast ability  Infectious Spit
 Infected Tower (Fire) /  Infected Tower (Frost): Autocast ability  Slime Cannon
 Ironclad (Fire) /  Ironclad (Frost): Autocast ability  Snowy Bomb
 Lost Spirit Ship (Fire) (incl. Revenant) /  Lost Spirit Ship (Nature) (incl. Revenant) : Autocast ability  Torpedo Gun
 Lost Vigil (Nature) /  Lost Vigil (Shadow) (incl. Revenant): Autocast ability  Celestial Blast
 Satanael (Fire) /  Satanael (Shadow): Autocast ability  Crystalline Shock
 Shadow Insect: Active ability  Soul Shock
 Skycatcher (Frost) /  Skycatcher (Nature): Autocast ability  Twisted Wake
 Swamp Drake /  Swamp Drake (Promo): Autocast ability  Acid Breath
 Twilight Creeper (Fire) /  Twilight Creeper (Shadow): Autocast ability  Infused Spit /  Tainted Spit
 Viridya /  Viridya (Promo): Autocast ability  Power Flux
 Windhunter (Nature) /  Windhunter (Shadow): Autocast ability  Wafting Spit

Adjustment of healing stacking:
The following regneration effects are now stackable:

Card Changes

Amok (Fire):

Disclaimer: New placeholder affinities are already on test server.
Infused: Friend or Foe?:
Confusion affects only hostile units now.
Increased the number of affected targets from 5 to 10.
Added the following additional changes to a nature affinity for easier comparison:
Increased the card's charges from 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 to 4 / 6 / 7 / 8.
Infused: Friend or Foe?:
Increased the duration of the effect from 15 to 20 seconds.
Affected units additionally gain a buff to deal 20% increased damage.

Ward of the North:

Protective Ice:
Increased the area of effect from 15m to 20m.
Affected units are now Steadfast, meaning they cannot be knocked back.

Map Changes

Defending Hope:

Added 2 gold chests to match the standard 4 chests per each single player map.
Chests were added in the top left and bottom right corner of the map as depicted below.

◯◯

Introduction:

Added 1 gold chest so that the tutorial also introduces new players to the concept of gold.
Chest was added in the camp south to the camp before the final boss as depicted below.

◯

Ocean:

Removed 2 of the 6 gold chests to match the standard 4 chests per each single player map.
Chests were removed on the island with the concealed mines and on the one in the top center as depicted below.

✖✖

The Soultree:

Added 1 gold chest to match the standard 4 chests per each single player map.
Chest was added at the other side of Titan's wall as depicted below.

◯

Patch History

So far there have been the following balancing iterations:

Iteration 1: 14 July 2020 - 21 August 2020
Iteration 2: 21 August 2020 - 5 October 2020
Iteration 3: 5 October 2020 - 7 November 2020
Iteration 4: 7 November 2020 - 26 November 2020
Iteration 5: 26 November 2020 - 12 December 2020
Iteration 6: 12 December 2020 - 01 January 2020
Iteration 7: 01 January 2020 - 07 January 2020
Iteration 8: 07 January 2021 - 01 April 2021
Iteration 9: 01 April 2021 - 06 April 2021
Iteration 10: 06 April 2021 - 24 April 2021
Iteration 11: 24 April 2021 - 03 May 2021
Iteration 12: 03 May 2021 - 19 May 2021
Iteration 13: 19 May 2021 - 29 May 2021
Iteration 14: 29 May 2021 - 9 June 2021
Iteration 15: 9 June 2021 - 16 July 2021
Iteration 16: 16 July 2021 - 08 August 2021
Iteration 17: 08 August 2021 - 02 September 2021
Iteration 18: 02 September 2021 - 18 December 2021
Iteration 19: 18 December 2021 - today