Balancing

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 focusses on tuning the playable cards. When balancing, influences on the different game modes (PvE and PvP) have to be kept in mind.

Current Proposals

Certain over- and underperforming cards have been proposed for balancing and will be tested over multiple iterations on the test server (initially English only). If not specified, these card changes apply to all upgrade versions of the cards. Below are those monthly iterations of testing archived:

This page or section documents upcoming content.

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

• Iteration 2 (Live on Test Server)
• Iteration 1

This iteration went live on the test server on 21 August 2020 and included the following balancing changes relative to the main server. Changes from previous iterations remain on the test server, adjustments to those are indicated with an asterisk (*):

• Bandit Stalker (Nature)*:

• Decreased units health points from 790 to 740

• Bandit Stalker (Shadow)*:

• Decrease units health points from 790 to 740
• Added new passive ability "Piercing Bite": Attacked units may only move at walk speed for 5 / 7 / 10 / 15 seconds.
  • This new ability replaces the old "Tainted Piercing" temporarily, but might end up getting merged.

• Battleship:

• Changed orb requirements from 2 Frost + 2 Neutral to 4 Frost
• Cost down from 300 to 260
• Ability cost down from 100 to 20
• Added new passive Ability "Full Speed ahead!": When under the effect of an Ice Shield the unit gains fast movement speed (8).

• Deathglider (Frost) / Deathglider (Nature):

• Autocast ability "Blessed/Gifted Shriek": Knockback pattern changed to that of the frost mage.

• Defense Tower:

• Autocast ability "Frost Bolt": Increased damage from 50 / 55 / 60 / 68 (75 / 80 / 90 / 102 in total) to 60 / 65 / 70 / 78 per hit (90 / 95 / 105 / 117 in total)
• Respectively adjusted the card attack value from 640 / 670 / 740 / 850 to 750 / 800 / 875 / 975

• Emberstrike*:

• Active ability  Fire Lance:
  • Decreased cooldown from 30 to 20 seconds
  • Decreaded energy cost from 50 to 20 energy
• Passive Ability "Firey Birth":
  • Unit is now always being spawned undazed
  • Minimum distance to be spawned near enemy buildings reduced from 10 to 0 (still 10 for walls)

• Fire Sphere*:

• Increased total card charges from 8 to 16 on U3
• "Massive Explosion": Reduced cooldown from 20 seconds to 10 seconds

• Grimvine:

• Active ability  Strangling Vines: Reduced activation cost from 100 to 25 energy
  • The ability's (hidden) cap on how many units can be affected has been removed

• Mutating Maniac (Fire) / Mutating Maniac (Nature)*:

• Active ability "Toxic Cloud": Increased activation cost from 30 to 50 energy

• Nomad (Fire) / Nomad (Nature):

• Active ability  Sky Scare: Reduced activation cost from -- / 100 / 100 / 90 to -- / 70 / 70 / 60

• Northern Keep (Fire) / Northern Keep (Frost):

• Autocast Ability "Glacial Shot": Splash damage on upgrade 3 reduced to 108 from 180 (Bugfix)

• Noxious Cloud:

• Decreased energy cost from 290 / 275 / 250 / 250 to 240 / 225 / 200 / 200

• Plague:

• Changed the number of targets the parasites may pass over to from 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 to 7 on all upgrades
• Added effect: All parasite infected units receive a temporary debuff for as long as the parasites infect them, that increases their damage taken by 100% / 130% / 160% / 200%

• Shrine of Martyrs*:

• Reverted previous changes to orb requirements, back to 2 Frost + 1 Neutral
• Active ability  Shield of the Martyr reworked to active ability  Blessing of the Martyr:
  • Whenever an enemy is frozen 6% / 6% / 8% / 10% of the current void power will be added to the actual power pool. Lasts for 20 / 30 / 30 / 30 seconds. Has a 60 seconds cooldown after the building was built. Reusable every 60 seconds.

• Soul Splicer (Fire):

• Passive ability "Infused Necromancy": Increased the granted damage buff to units from 25% to 50%

• Tunnel:

• Decreased energy cost from 40 to 30

• Twilight Hag (Fire) / Twilight Hag (Nature)*:

• Active ability  Infused / Gifted Femme Fatale: Adjusted effect radius to match the animation radius (Radius increased from 20m to 30m)

• Winter Witch*:

• Active ability  Gift of Winter:
  • Tooltip cleaned up to mention that a targeted area is affected
  • Cooldown increased to 30 seconds
  • Shield duration changed from 60 to 30 seconds
  • Shields' strength set from previous iteration's 2000 on all upgrades to 1350 / 1500 / 1800 / 1800

This iteration went live on the test server on 14 July 2020 and included the following balancing changes relative to the main server:

• Bandit Stalker (Nature) / Bandit Stalker (Shadow):

• Decreased power cost of the card from 70 energy to 60 energy
• Increased the damage dealt over 20 seconds from 750 to 900

• Boom Brothers:

• Active ability  BOOM: Increase damage from 1100 (2640 in total) to 2400 (3200 in total)

• Curse Well:

• Increased power cost of the card from 150 to 200

• Emberstrike:

• Active ability  Fire Lance: Increased damage from 1100 (1650 in total)

to 1300 (3250 in total)

• Passive Ability "Firey Birth": Increased damage from 500 (750 in total) to 900 (2700 in total)

• Fire Sphere:

• Changed damage from 2900 (8600 in total) to 6000 (8000 in total)
• Changed orb requirements from 3 Fire + 1 Neutral to 2 Fire + 2 Neutral

• Mortar Tower:

• Active ability  Mortar Attack: Added an initial cooldown of 20 seconds until the ability can be used for the first time, after construction of the tower has finished

• Mutating Maniac (Fire) / Mutating Maniac (Nature):

• Change power cost of the card from 140 to 120
• Active ability "Toxic Cloud": Reduced activation cost from 90 to 30 energy
• Bug Fix: Twilight Transformation now properly costs energy and the transformed unit properly binds power

• Phase Tower:

• Autocast "Shadow Bolts": Decreased damage from 110 (160 in total) to 95 (140 in total)

• Primeval Watcher:

• Autocast "Gaze of the Watcher": Increased damage to first target from 500 to 600
  • The damage reduction formula on subsequent targets is left unchanged (from 500 => 240 => 160 => 106 => 71 to 600 => 288 => 192 => 127 => 84)

• Shrine of Martyrs:

• Increased orb requirements from 2 Frost + 1 Neutral to 2 Frost + 2 Neutral
• Active ability  Shield of the Martyr:
  • Increased Shield Strenght from 700% of Void Power to 1500%
  • Increased damage absorption from 50% to 70%

• Thugs:

• Removed passive ability "Looter"

• Twilight Hag (Fire) / Twilight Hag (Nature):

• Increased units health points from 785 to 850
• Active ability  Infused / Gifted Femme Fatale: Reduced activation cost from 100 to 50 energy

• Winter Witch:

• Changed orb requirements from 3 Frost + 1 Neutral to 2 Frost + 2 Neutral
• Increased her total health points from 1350 to 1700
• Active ability  Gift of Winter:
  • Reduced activation cost from 100 to 65 energy
  • Increased the shield strength from 1500 to 2000
  • Winter Witch can now cast the shield at a location 30 meters around her, the shield application area lasts for a maximum of 60 seconds or until 15 shields have been applied, during that time the Winter Witch can now move around freely