In an unprecedented move by SEMC, the 1.11 update arrived a mere two weeks after 1.10. We hardly got to enjoy 1.10, but I didn’t care because I got Tier III Death Metal Krul. Instead of my usual full coverage of all of the update changes, I’d like to do a reaction of the major developments and go in-depth on very specific parts of the update. This detail is something I think you would all appreciate. So, without further ado, let’s jump right in.

New Hero – Blackfeather

We welcome a new hero to the Fold, Blackfeather. He’s officially a lane assassin, which is where Taka started out as well. Blackfeather has quite an interesting kit. He has a barrier (from his B ability, On Point), team movement speed buff (from his A ability, Feint of Heart), and an execute (more damage against enemies with low HP, like SAW’s Roadie Run).

His ultimate also has a new mechanic of “charges” so that it limits how often it can be used. For good reason, because his ultimate makes him invulnerable to all stuns, slows, etc. and gives him up to 300 shield and armor! He is also unique in that his burst damage comes from a weapon power (red) build, while he does more sustained damage via a crystal power (blue) build.

He’s still got that new car smell, so take him for a spin! Check out some of these VaingloryFire guides for inspiration on builds and have fun!

Skye

Skye received some much needed changes. She was dealing way too much damage to objectives, so now she does less (70% to objectives). They also wanted her to be viable both with weapon power (WP) and crystal power (CP), so her A can now critically strike. In my conversations with SurpriseBirthday, we both felt that Skye was doing too much damage early because of her full reset on her A ability, especially at level two in the jungle. This was changed so now it starts at a 40% reset up to a full reset, when her B ability is overdriven. To compensate, they made her deal much more damage late game by giving her A ability a CP ratio (18%) for the damage amplification on locked on targets.

Petal

A possibly true story about Petal’s energy system in 1.10…



Me: “So, I think Cooldown Speed affects her seed recharge”

CaptainNeato: “Really? I don’t think so. It shouldn’t”

Me: *tests* “Yep, it does”

Her energy system in 1.10 was confusing and sometimes frustrating. Things like cooldown speed affecting her seed recharge may not have been intended. Gadianton explained it all in his excellent article. To make things better, they’ve revamped Petal’s energy system back to blue energy. She now starts with 1200 energy and each seed costs 200 energy. However, energy and energy regen will now work on her as it does on other heroes. Also, she will regain full energy with the ace buff (a big change!). This should make managing her energy better overall, and she feels a lot better and less confusing.

Koshka

GreenRanger from Ardent had reported a bug on Koshka’s Twirly Death buffed attack animation being very slow. I think anyone who played Koshka a lot felt this issue, especially in the lane. It turns out he was right. This has been fixed, allowing Koshka to attack at full speed with Twirly Death stacks. This is a secret buff for Koshka and opens up new possibilities for her, especially with attack speed. For example, I’ve immediately noticed that starting with a Swift Shooter on Koshka gives you a faster jungle clear at level one.

Phinn

Phinn was having some trouble in the early game. The devs decided that meant his A ability needed to be stronger. It now does ridiculous base damage with a high crystal power ratio. We already saw some Lane Phinn from ShinKaigan in 1.10 and I am sure someone will abuse the damage on his A ability in the coming future. In the China Invitational, we saw some Phinn from team DMG, and even a Phinn ban against this team!

Adagio

As if Adagio needed to get stronger, the projectiles from his A and B abilities now move faster. This has increased Adagio’s early-game strength has lead to the rise of a new “Zerg Rush” team composition of WP Saw, CP Adagio, and Roam Ardan. I have seen this comp win matches in six minutes. In draft mode, it’s not nearly as good, but we did see Predators win with it in VGL. It’s an incredibly strong pick in blind pick, and if you lack hard CC (e.g. stuns), it is very difficult to counter.

Ardan

Ardan had an interesting bug related to his A ability, Vanguard. It was intended to increase his Vengeance every time his ally was damaged while shielded. What actually was happening, was that he was gaining Vengeance for every hit his ally did while shielded. High Elo players were taking advantage of this with Skye’s A ability, which hits about 1,000,000 times, allowing Ardan to punch faces every second or so. This was fixed, thankfully, and it is now working as intended.



Stormguard Banner

We all remember Stormguard carries being a terror in 1.9, running around stealing jungle camps. SEMC took steps to prevent it being abused on non-supports in 1.10 by only awarding bonus gold to the ally with the least amount of gold. They took this one step further in 1.11, by introducing a new mechanism for the bonus damage on Stormguard: it now deals damage based on how much gold you’ve acquired through Ironguard Contract. This essentially eliminates the usefulness of this item for anyone but the Support. Good job, SEMC! By the way, I made this suggestion, so if you hate it…





Reflex Block

You can now use Reflex Block when you are stunned. This was likely added to reduce the effectiveness of triple stun comps that made the game no fun for whoever was on the receiving end. The only issue I can see with this is for instances when you miss your reflex block by a fraction of a second. For example, you want to block Koshka’s ultimate, but you press it 0.1 seconds too late. You’ve now wasted your Reflex Block. Get good, I guess.

Jungle Experience

One of the concerns many players had was that there was too much invested in the double back camps. In 1.10, they were worth 25 XP each, or a total of 50 XP (For full experience system details, check out this article). That means that stealing these camps was a 100 XP swing in your favor (denying 50 XP and gaining 50 XP). That’s an entire level advantage and thus was creating balance issues. To make this better, the double big camp now provides 13 XP each (26 total), the heal camps now provide 29 (up from 17), and the small camps remain the same at 10 XP each (20 total).

I love this change as it creates many more possibilities for new rotations and jungle starts. You have to choose between gold (double backs), or more XP (healers), or clear speed (getting to shop quickly, even without hitting level two). I believe we will see optimal rotations soon in the upcoming VGL Live Finals in December! I can’t wait.