Lauriel
Nerfed:
Reduced the slowdown effect of her passive. Previously, her second ability’s description didn’t show that she’s invincible for a short period of time while charging towards the target, so we updated the description to accurately reflect the full mechanics of her ability.
Designer’s Perspective:
As a Mage, we believe Lauriel’s value lies in being able to deal continuous AoE damage as well as excel in 1v1 battles. We wanted to keep her as a high-risk, high-reward Mage that can deal significant damage to groups of enemies. By reducing the slowdown effect on the passive, enemies will have more of an option whether or not to engage her during her ultimate. We also added the additional detail to her second ability to help everyone understand her play style more.
Tulen
Nerfed:
Reduced the damage dealt by his passive. Also removed a bug where whenever enemies were by his passive, his ultimate would sometimes refresh.
Designer’s Perspective:
Some of the most notable features about Tulen lie in the power of his ultimate and the mobility granted by his second ability. He is also extremely good at laning and clearing minion waves, putting Mages laning against him at a disadvantage, so we reduced the damage dealt by his passive to make him more reasonable to lane against. Fixing the bug on his passive also acts as a slight nerf for him.
Violet
Nerfed:
Violet’s cooldown reduction on the first ability (0.5 seconds per hit) for every normal attack made by her now only works when hitting heroes. Normal attacks on non-hero enemies will not reduce the cooldown on her first ability.
Designer’s Perspective:
Violet is definitely a powerful Marksman that can make selecting other Marksmen less appealing. In the last version, we slightly nerfed her passive, but unfortunately it didn’t have a strong enough of an impact. We hope that this additional nerf will give other Marksmen more of a chance to see play.
In an ongoing effort to make less popular heroes more appealing to all, the following heroes have been finally buffed, so we hope to see them more on the battlefield!
Kahlii
Buffed:
Increased the damage granted by her passive.
Her first ability’s damage was reduced but also reduced the delay given to the ability after use, making her more flexible overall.
While using her ultimate, wraith speed has been increased and the line of sight around Kahlii has been increased by 40%.
The number of wraiths released during her ultimate has both been increased to match the original ability description.
Designer’s Perspective:
Important Enhancement 1: There was an issue where the actual number of wraiths produced by her ultimate was not the 55 shown in the ability description. After a lot of testing, we found a solution for this. The actual number of wraiths will be consistent with the ability description with damage per hit modified. Please note that the actual total damaged caused by her ultimate has been increased by nearly 50%!
Important Enhancement 2: We hope that more players can try prioritizing placing ability points in her second ability. The second ability increases her movement speed and ability power, allowing her to take advantage of her long-range normal attacks to contribute more to small team fights in the early and mid stages of the game. We also further enhanced her normal attack damage by taking some of the damage from her first abliity and adding it to her normal attack.
Preyta
Buffed:
Damage dealt by Plague Specter starts from base damage up to 300% damage. Damage dealt increases with channeling time.
Overall damage for a fully channeled Plague Specter has been reduced.
Designer’s Perspective:
Currently, Preyta can either only deal double damage or base damage using Plague Specter based on whether it channels for a full 2 seconds or not. Players didn’t seem to enjoy this mechanic, and the time it took to use made it easy to accidentally end it early, essentially halving the damage dealt. These changes reduced the channeling time it takes to deal more damage with Plague Specter, giving Preyta players more overall flexibility in how they initiate fights. We also changed the damage structure of Plague Specter, allowing damage and range based on the total channeling time. We hope that these changes improve the gameplay experience for players, making him a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield!
Skud
Buffed:
Power Glove now has a new effect added:
Power Glove will charge up upon use, giving it increased bonus damage over time.
Every 0.5 seconds it charges will increase its damage by 12% (up to 60%)
After 5 seconds of charging, the charge and damage bonus will go away.
Damage from Power Glove cannot crit.
Designer’s Perspective:
Skud’s main source of damage is Power Glove, but it isn’t working the way we want it to work, so we added a new way of using it. We feel that this change will allow Skud players to deal a lot more initial damage when ambushing enemies. Beware of Skud in the brush!
Kriknak
Buffed:
While Kriknak is in the middle of his ultimate, he can use his first ability. After using the ultimate again, Kriknak can now land faster, however, ability damage is slightly reduced.
Designer’s Perspective:
We have seen that Kriknak hasn’t been too popular in the last few versions, so we improved his ultimate to make him more powerful and fun to play. We hope this will make Kriknak a more flexible and explosive hero. To help balance this out, we reduced the damage on his first ability and the amount of recovery granted by his second ability.
Buffed Heroes:
Kahlii, Natalya, Veera, Krixi, Ignis, Preyta, Jinnar, Aleister, Skud, Kriknak, Astrid, Fennik, Kil’Groth, Slimz, Moren, Raz, Taara, Arthur, Wukong.
Nerfed Heroes:
Lauriel, Tulen, Violet, Ryoma, Lubu, Max, TeeMee.
Source: Arena of Valor Official site.