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'Overwatch' will test weekly hero bans in competitive matches
Many Overwatch players have been hoping for some time that Blizzard would bring in a hero ban system to keep the game from stagnating. The likes of Rainbow Six: Siege, Dota 2 and League of Legends allow players to vote for characters the opposing team can't use in a given match, but Blizzard isn't quite taking that approach with Overwatch. It'll trial a system called Hero Pools, in which a few characters will be disabled in competitive matches each week.
The first 'Division 2’ eight-person raid is delayed until May
Developer Massive Entertainment and publisher Ubisoft had planned to release a major update for The Division 2 next week, bringing with it the game's first eight-person raid, called Operation Dark Hours. However, Massive wants a little more time to fine-tune the game and make sure the experience is as enjoyable as possible. As such, it's delaying the update until sometime in May.
'Apex Legends' Battle Pass and new character Octane arrive tomorrow
Apex Legends has exploded in popularity since the battle royale game arrived last month, and EA and Respawn aren't wasting much time in making the first seasonal Battle Pass available. The Wild Frontier pass arrives March 19th for 950 Apex Coins ($9.50). If you buy it, you'll unlock three themed character skins immediately, for Lifeline, Wraith and Mirage. You can earn more than 100 additional rewards each time you level up, including weapon skins, banner frames and XP boosts.
Diablo III patch improves pets, Greater Rifts, and Witch Doctors
The latest patch for Diablo III is out now for players in North America, and it's a big one for pets. Area damage now hits pets for less damage than before, some pets have had their health increased, and in general there's a play philosophy focus that pets should be roughly as durable as the class that summoned them in the first place. It's good news if you tend to take part in the game with a companion creature or two. The update also makes a variety of adjustments to Greater Rifts, altering the behavior of enemies found within the rifts and removing certain maps form the rotation. Witch Doctors have also received a variety of buffs, with several fetishes getting substantially more life and improved functionality. Take a gander at the full patch notes to see how much has changed.
How your Guild Wars 2 class will change in September
When Guild Wars 2's second feature pack crashes down on our heads next month, there will be none of us unscathed from its impact. A new dev diary posted today reveals that the feature pack will contain balance changes for all of the game's classes. Among the changes are a rework of Elementalist and Thief grandmaster traits, love for Engineer kits and elixirs, an improved Spirit Bow ability for the Guardian, a revamp of the mimic skill for the Mesmer, improved survivability for the Necromancer, more flexible pet choices for the Ranger, and tweaks to the Warrior's adrenaline resource. Overall, it all sounds pretty positive, although there could be a nerf or two lurking in the mix.
Heroes of the Storm Balance Updates and Hero Rotation
This week, in celebration of the launch of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, two new skins have been added -- demonic Tyrael and Angelic Valla. What's more, the free-to-play hero rotation has some of the most exciting heroes available for free to players, including the recently added Tychus. The rest of the heroes are as follows: Week of Tuesday, Mar. 25 – April 1, 2014: Tyrande Stitches Diablo Tychus Kerrigan Nova Along with the latest free-to-play hero rotation, we're getting some balance changes to certain heroes. There aren't a huge number of changes but many are significant, including a lot of nerfs to Uther! Hit the break for all the changes.
The son also rises in Guild Wars 2's Blood and Madness content update
Remember when the citizens of Tyria thought Mad King Thorn was just a goofy old legend, and he rose up from the Underworld through a portal beneath the Lion's Arch fountain to prove us wrong? Good times! On October 15th, the Thorn family will be returning to wreak havoc in Guild Wars 2's Halloween content update, bringing their uniquely psychopathic touch to our holiday festivities. King Thorn's son, Bloody Prince Edrick Thorn, has taken over part of his father's realm -- and he's following in his footsteps by being scary and evil. We thought kids were supposed to rebel. Couldn't he have grown up to be a veterinarian or something? Players will see several popular activities returning as well, such as Lunatic Inquisition, haunted door trick-or-treating, the legendary Mad King's Clock Tower jumping puzzle, and the proud tradition of doing whatever an undead tyrant tells you to so he'll give you a hat. In addition to the new and improved Halloween content and spooky rewards, this release will contain a number of highly anticipated profession balance changes and quality of life improvements. ArenaNet will be offering a preview livestream on Monday, the 14th at 3 p.m. EDT (noon PT).
New developer diary explores Minstrel improvements for Lord of the Rings Online
You might think that bringing a lute to a swordfight sounds ridiculous, but any Lord of the Rings Online player knows better than to downplay the importance of a Minstrel. Unlike some of the other classes whose changes have been previewed for the upcoming Riders of Rohan expansion, Minstrels aren't receiving any sweeping changes, but they still are getting an update pass. The latest development diary on the official site covers these improvements, all of which should help Minstrels be more effective and fun to play. Small changes rule the day here, with improvements to buffs and a new area attack mimicking a single-target debuff. A few mechanical shifts, such as ensuring that Minstrel attacks which apply buffs to allies will always apply those buffs even if the attack itself is unsuccessful, should also help the class. Players looking for all the details on how their instrument-playing life is going to get just a little bit easier should look at the full diary for the fine details.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Upcoming Blaster changes
Not every game faces the mage problem, but a lot of them do, and it starts back in classic Dungeons & Dragons. The core of the issue is pretty simple to understand: Because mages have so much phenomenal offensive power, they need some staggering weakness to balance that out. As a result, the class is very physically weak and lacks any real defenses. But the counter to that is that this creates many situations in which the mage is just plain useless because he or she has no effective defenses to weather an initial assault. Blasters aren't mages. Unless they are, anyhow -- City of Heroes is kind of resistant to pigeonholing. Whether your Blaster is an arcane caster or just a guy with radioactive hands isn't important because the class still suffers from the mage problem. Blasters are one of the most powerful classes in the game when it comes to raw damage, but they're also one of the hardest classes to solo, and they're one that goes from hero to zero the fastest.
Champions Online rolling out Role and Stat changes
Like many MMOs, Champions Online is at its heart a game of numbers. Your character type focuses on certain stats, and you want to make those stats go higher. But sometimes the way those stats work together is a bit less than intuitive in the live game, hence some recent changes to Super Stats and regular stats on the test servers. The biggest change assigns one primary and two secondary, rather than two Super Stats, to players, which alleviates the current problems with Super Stats (certain pairs of Super Stats work poorly together and are poorly represented in itemization). Individual stats have also seen some tweaks: Strength is no longer hard-capped for melee damage, Presence has had its threat component removed and a soft-cap introduced, Ego is now solely a ranged stat, and Dexterity has seen improvements to its critical benefits. Roles are also being balanced differently, giving more consistent stat benefits that are more in line with what players in a given role will actually need to do. It's a pretty sweeping set of changes, but the end goal is to give Champions Online players a more straightforward numbers game to play.
League of Legends patch preview describes Dominion balance changes
Last week, Riot Games gave League of Legends players a sneak peek at upcoming ranged damage-dealing champion Graves. In a new patch preview video this week, Riot explains all of the balance changes and updates that will be released alongside the new champion. Skarner's crystal slash ability is having its mana costs reduced to ensure it remains a viable attack in late game, his autoattack speed will be increased and his ultimate will now last longer. Champion Corki's gatling gun is also being redesigned to give it more consistent damage output. A series of changes are heading our way for LoL's new Dominion game mode. Popular item Hextech Gunblade turned out to be far too powerful in Dominion games, and is due for a nerf. In addition to tweaking the item's stats, Riot is removing the ability to stack several of the item to multiply its spell vamp. The personal score system is being modified to better reward players for team-based accomplishments rather than just kills, assists and attacking points. Due to the popularity of late-game carries in Dominion, developers are adjusting the rate of XP gain to make late-game dominance of those champions less inevitable. Skip past the cut to check out the video and find out the full details of all the changes coming to League of Legends in the next patch.
New Final Fantasy XIV producer's letter covers balance changes, guildleves
Square Enix's Naoki Yoshida popped by the Final Fantasy XIV forums today to present the community with the latest Final Fantasy XIV Producer's Letter. The post deals with the game's upcoming patch 1.18 and the changes that it will bring. In particular, the letter addresses upcoming balance reforms, which will see Final Fantasy XIV's "shift from being a grind-centric game to one that offers enjoyment for all playing styles and circumstances with its ever-expanding variety of content." Yoshida also discusses the changes coming to guildleves, noting that at the game's launch, "it was stated... that guildleves [would] form the heart of the game." That claim has now been retracted, as Yoshida notes that central content "isn't a static thing" and that it's "new content that we continually develop for our fans' enjoyment, with no one item indefinitely bathing in the spotlight." All-in-all, the letter seems promising for the ongoing adjustments to the game. For the full text, head on over to the Final Fantasy XIV forums.
Warhammer Online bringing 1.4.1 out for testing
Scenarios have formed one of the PvP cornerstones for Warhammer Online, leading to a large-scale overhaul of Scenarios several months ago. Certain Scenarios were placed on a weekend rotation, while others were permanently available at different level bands for players to enjoy. Patch 1.4.1, which is due to hit the public test server, Warpstone, tomorrow, is making some alterations to which Scenarios may be played at all times, with some cycling into a permanent slot and others entering retirement for a time. While the shifting lineup is certainly one of the big elements of the patch, it's not the only one. Balance changes have been made for several Skaven abilities, including several overhauls for the Packmaster class. A number of item sets have had their Renown Rank requirements lowered, as well, to give players easier access to the items; there has been a new set added to fill the newly created gap between the Warlord and Sovereign sets. Warhammer Online players can examine the current patch notes and take part in the testing starting tomorrow.
The Final Fantasy XIV beta will tell you everything
The start of a new phase of Final Fantasy XIV testing is always good news for the game's fans, but this particular phase has brought with it even better news. Those of you not in the beta can now regale us non-beta testers with tales of your adventures, as Square-Enix has officially announced that most everything may be spoken about freely. This coincides nicely with a long list of changes that have come in the most recent build, including several system updates and balance tweaks to the engine. The team at FFXIVCore immediately set to remedy one of the major omissions from Square's PR -- namely, the experience of crafting. This step-by-step diary of working as a crafter should answer many questions about how much depth the crafting and gathering classes possess... even though it raises several more. As always, it isn't the same as getting to play around in the Final Fantasy XIV beta yourself, but it's the next best thing to being there.
Starfall and Nature's Grasp PTR changes
Yesterday was a very good day to be a balance druid in the World of Warcraft. While things seemed a bit rocky at the start of the PTR, the most recent build held two changes that are certainly going to benefit all of our feathery friends out there. The first of these changes was an increase in the damage and scaling of Starfall, the second was a change to the way in which Nature's Grasp functions. To start with Starfall, the updated patch notes do not tell the entire story of this change. In order to clarify things, Ghostcrawler made a few statements on the Damage Dealing forums about it. Although there have been several posts on the matter, the most important was this: The Starfall change is difficult to patch note because of the nature of the spell, but I'll share the numbers so that the theorycrafters among you can plug them in. It's a significant boost to the spell's damage. Initially, we had designed the spell to be more AE focused, but that hasn't been super useful for a class that also has Hurricane. Rather than adding another nuke we thought it made more sense to make the 51 pointer something that really delivers on damage. Yes it can be countered. PvP is designed with the intent that things can be countered. Main shot Base points 432 -> 562 Coefficient 0.21 -> 0.37 Splash damage Base points 77 -> 100 Coefficient 0.12 -> 0.13 . source
