The champion select screen didn’t look quite right to an obsessive compulsive like myself, so I’m glad we’re up to an even number of heroes. May it never change, and may it never change us. Let’s take a look at the changes that happened around Rona, as well as what her impact will be on the game.

Rona has a very interesting perk, and a slew of powerful and unique abilities. Honestly, her A, B, and C skill don’t have a huge impact on the game, but her heroic perk is something everyone should be familiar with. Rona’s perk makes her attack about 50% faster than a standard hero, but she only deals 80% of the damage that she should. It’s an interesting trade-off, but could result in some awesome combinations. She also uses Bloodrage rather than Energy, which she generates with basic attacks, abilities, and taking damage. Now you know why she’s doing so much damage to you–because she’s taking damage!

cards

Cards are here! Players can now unlock card packs in the store. Just to sum this up:

Each box has 80 cards

You can buy 4 cards at a time from either the Glory box or the ICE box

Cards are not restocked until either the box runs out of cards the time for that box expires

ICE boxes have mostly rare cards, but also include Epic and Legendary cards

Glory boxes have mostly common cards, but also include all rarity of cards

Both kinds of boxes are necessary, as ICE boxes don’t include common cards

queues

The old queue was split into two queues; casual and ranked. Ranked queues affect your skill tier and have a level, karma, and champion ownership requirement, while the casual queue is like the old queue, but it doesn’t affect your skill tier. These are, in essence, two new queues.

Both queues have separate elo ratings associated with each. It appears the casual queue either places you near or slightly below your old queue’s rating, and your ranked queue assimilates your old ranking.

profile

Player profiles have been split up until gorgeous new sections. Probably my favorite feature is seeing how much precious ranking I just lost after a soul-crushing defeat in a close game. I’ll be watching how this bar moves very closely over the next couple of weeks so we can provide detailed information about the new look into the elo system that Vainglory is using!

Be careful with your up and down votes, as they are no longer fake internet points… for now. If you abuse the downvote feature at the end of matches your vote will count as much as a Democrat’s ballot in Utah. If you abuse the system SEMC explained that your votes will no longer impact other players’ karma score.

gameplay

The game’s Ace buff was adjusted slightly so if a player takes turret damage (diving for the last kill and the ace!!!) the active ace buff will drop off that hero. This helps prevent teams from tanking through the turrets on one swift ace. We’ll see how it feels in the wild. I noticed that if you get the ace and run from the turret shot that is chasing you, there’s a good chance you’ll heal enough during the travel speed to survive. Maybe.

hero balance

Petal really needed some love, and they buffed her in the best way possible–with math! Her munions are smarter, attack faster, level up in a better way, and are more responsive. How the math factors in is the pets hit for less damage, with a lower crystal power ratio, but at a higher rate. Brilliant! They’re also more likely to attack, rather than just stand around or Catherine bug themselves to death. You know, when they stop moving, but then don’t attack, and then rush to get into range again, only to not attack, and then attempt to move. It’s a vicious cycle that usually results in the teleportation of a tablet into sheetrock.

Skaarf needed some love. The overweight sea horse hero had been keeping SAW company at the bottom of the totem pole for long enough. They adjusted what his Spitfire could collide with, as well as increased the damage of Spitfire in the middle ranks. The biggest change was the Taka maneuver, which is fixing a perk that should potentially be strong, but hasn’t been working due to bug. Now it properly scales with crystal power, so CP Skaarf can be a thing. Maybe.

Joule’s Big Red Button was dealing all of its damage in three ticks that occurred at 0.0, 0.5, and 1.0 seconds. With some quick math (1.0 – 0.0 = 1.0) we see that Joule was dealing ALL of her burst damage in one second. That stings. They smoothed the damage application by spreading it over six ticks, so it properly spreads itself out over the full duration of the spell, rather than over one second.

Fortress has a harder time making people bleed and his level one isn’t as “gg no re”. Now he needs six stacks to trigger Meat in the Seat (or whatever it’s called) rather than five. I love making up names for Fortress’ abilities ever since WickedJThias called one of his abilities “Attack of the Snack” or something ridiculous like that.

Adagio is a better support, but scales dangerously. I think his numbers are busted. If his base numbers get too high he’ll need to get nerfed or he’ll be top tier support in no time. An 85% CP ratio on Agent of Wrath seems like Korean levels of overpowered, but we’ll see how it pans out.

SEMC tried to buff Vox’s early game, but consequently skimmed down his late game attack speed. This was the smallest slap on the wrist for a tier one since the Koshka debacle. I guess we’ll wait to see Vox nerfs in 1.7?

Taka also had his heroic perk lifesteal percentage lowered from 30% to 20%. He still has 100% crit chance and boatloads of damage, mobility, and fun tactics, so I imagine he’ll still be meta.

Catherine and SAW are both still in the game. They both had abilities that granted them armor, but now they have abilities that grant them armor and shield!

items

Minion Candy no longer affects Petal munions so that her level two is a controllable monster, rather than Hulk on steroids.

Fountain of Renewal was problematic because of how often it was picked. It will still be a popular pick, but you’ll notice that once you’ve been healed by a Fountain, you have a counter tracking how much heal you’ve received in the last ten seconds. Once you reach 600 total health restored the active is only 66% effective for the next ten seconds. Seems fair. At least it’s a step in the right direction. I think 50% effective would have been more reasonable, but I think that should be standardized across the board for heroes like Taka and Fortress who cause healing/shielding debuffs.

Book of Eulogies was SO good. I should look back through my screenshots of my games, but it was probably still in my first 50 games that I read what Book of Eulogies did and tried my best to build it on every laner I played (especially Krul) and just not mention the book-shaped elephant in the room. It’s still completely ridiculous. I should get used to not building it, but it’s still just so strong!! They lowered it from 35 to 30 health restored for each last hit. Not a typo.

Bonesaw was a really great item for penetrating armor by quickly applying stacks. Bonesaw is now a really great item for penetrating armor by quickly applying stacks, but now you only get 10% per stack, or 50% total, down from 12% per stack and 60% total.

Flare Guns now shoot team-oriented colors so you don’t blow boots when your allied support flares on your head. You owe me a few boot cooldowns ApolloEverest!

android

This was almost over-looked, but the Android launch is a huge deal. The Android market is massive and really enables the game to have better competition, more support, better production and growth, etc. I’m really excited to see more people play and join our growing community!

bug fixes

This article was done, but I had to add this section.

What you write in game is now in a place where you can see it. I loved how SEMC handled this bug fix report in a jovial and apologetic manner and said “What a concept!” Good for them. They’re a cool group of guys, and they do their best to deal with the smallest of issues in Vainglory. I sure hope that Catherine’s stun bug is fixed this patch!