Patch OB Hotfix

Balance Hotfix | Open Beta | 08.12.24

Somebody’s balancing the game! (it’s us, we’re trying). Some of you might be wondering why we’re hotfixing a balance patch on a Sunday. We’re still getting into the rhythm of development after going hard at Open Beta, so apologies if we’ve been a little discombobulated when it comes to reacting to balance changes. We’re here, we’re moving fast, let’s get to it.

ALSO: huge shoutout to some of our biggest believers in the community who gave us direct and actionable feedback about the upcoming patch.

Hunters

Hudson

Hudson has been on the top of the list of most frustrating Hunters to deal with since Open Beta started, and is close to the top in strength (even after a few nerfs in the Hotfix patch). Hudson should be strong if you dive into his position, not when he’s diving into yours.

Minigun (LMB)

• Base range reduced from 1400 ➜ 1300
• Range while in Spin Barrels (RMB) reduced from 1200 ➜ 1150
• Base damage reduced from 30 ➜ 27
• AP Ratio damage 8% ➜ 5%

Hover Jets (SHIFT)

• Charges reduced from 2 ➜ 1
• Cooldown reduced from 13s/10s ➜ 11s/8s (at levels and )

Barbed Wire (Q)

• Activation time increased from 0.6s ➜ 1s
• Activation range decreased from 1400 ➜ 900

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Brall

We’re going to project forward into the future for a second - say, Wednesday - where we ship a Brall buff saying he’s underperforming across all MMRs (which was true). Future us got a lot of feedback that regardless of math, Brall is feeling oppressive to play against, so future us came back to warn present us, and present us agrees so here we are addressing some combination of bugs and unintended interactions. Future saved. As a high-mastery Hunter, we hear you that he should be harder to play.

Flame Step (Shift)

• [Bugfix] Level 3 upgrade - dodging ally/your own projectiles no longer builds stacks of Blazing Spirit (passive)

Volcanic Rebuke (R)

• Cooldown reduction on Wisp execution reduced from 100% ➜ 25% of max cooldown
• Knocking an enemy Hunter to instantly send them to Deathbox still fully resets Volcanic Rebuke’s cooldown
• No longer resets cooldown on minion kill
• [Bugfix] Brall can no longer jump while using Volcanic Rebuke (fixing the launch bug)
• [Bugfix] No longer heals Brall if anti-healed / within the Death Circle

Equipment

Amplifier

We’re aiming to preserve unique builds that Amplifier provides, while limiting some of the extreme edge cases (often times possible due to bugs)

• Abilities with multiple versions (e.g. Kingpin’s Dash) will only benefit from Amplifier’s cooldown reduction for the version being used.
  • For example, using Kingpin’s Aerial Dash will only reduce the cooldown of his Aerial Dash, not his regular Dash. You will still keep the stack count though.
• Cooldown reduction benefit is calculated BEFORE increasing the stack count (meaning there is no benefit until you use the ability at least once)

Power User

On the topic of Exotics, we like that Power User is an option for Power-loving players to practice with and preserve their Powers, but we believe Exotics should remain as high risk, high reward items.

• Does not Soulbound Exotic Powers anymore

Powers

Stealth Clock

We’ve heard feedback that Stealth is problematic in its current state, and we agree (especially in the ways that Stealth enemies are signaled to you, and in how difficult it is to track/counter stealthed hunters). While we anticipate more changes to the mechanic itself, we’re hitting a current outlier that’s causing significant frustration.

• Increased Mana cost from 10/s ➜ 30/s.

Power Shuffler

Exotics are too prevalent in the game and too easy to come by. We’ll be taking a holistic approach to deal with this, but are disabling Power Shuffler in the interim to prevent extreme outliers.

• Disabled (for now)