Note: This balance update will go live on 2024-05-30T11:00:00Z.
When we take big swings on innovative new game features such as Insanity, we do our best to calibrate and test the feature before launch. Nothing beats real-world testing to find scenarios in which a new feature performs far better or worse than planned and to suggest ways we can carefully adjust the feature to be more reliable without sacrificing the original vision.
Today, we’re making one such adjustment to Atwood, one of the first Secret Heroes we released with the all-new Insanity mechanic. As subsequent Heroes with Insanity have entered the game, their synergies with Atwood have risen to unintended levels. To address this, we are subtly adjusting the balance of Insanity his Special Skill distributes to enemies and to himself. It’s crazy to think that someone afflicted with such levels of Insanity would play so well with others!
So that the other Secret Heroes are not disproportionately affected by this change to their synergy with Atwood, we’re also buffing Dolores, Omen, and Melancholia with stat increases.
While we’re at it, we heard your concerns that some members of the Owl Family were overlooked in our last balance update, and we’re happy to correct that. Fulvia and Ommodus are both receiving buffs this time around.
This update also includes increases for familiars’ HP caps, selected costume bonuses, and a couple of Construct Heroes.
Full details of the changes are as follows:
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Atwood
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Direct damage increased: 350% → 380%
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Insanity inflicted to enemies reduced: 55 → 45
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Insanity inflicted to self increased: 45 → 55
Mega Minions, Minions, and Fiends
Maximum HP increased for double Limit Broken heroes
- Mega Minions: 2000 → 4000 HP
- Minions and Fiends: 1000 → 2000 HP
Costume bonus increases
Legendary Toon Costumes
- OLD: +40% attack/+40% defense/+65% health/+5% mana generation
- NEW: +50% attack/+50% defense/+70% health/+5% mana generation
Legendary Costumes of Atlantis, Lagoon, and Sakura families
- OLD: +7% attack/+7% defense/+13% health/+5% mana generation
- NEW: +10% attack/+10% defense/+15% health/+5% mana generation
Hero changes
Investigator family
Dolores
Stats increased:
- Attack: 1087 → 1093
- Defense: 1054 → 1062
- Health: 1771 → 1790
Cultist family
Omen
Stats increased:
- Attack: 1089 → 1106
- Defense: 1025 → 1042
- Health: 1751 → 1800
Melancholia
Stats increased:
- Attack: 1009 → 1023
- Defense: 1071 → 1083
- Health: 1884 → 1921
Construct family
Carta
Stats increased:
- Attack: 1011 → 1025
- Defense: 1023 → 1038
- Health: 1969 → 2010
- Mana generation buff increased: +24% → +33%
Hornfel
Stats increased:
- Attack: 964 → 1021
- Defense: 1052 → 1110
- Health: 1699 → 1872
Owl family
Fulvia
- Moonrise Strike damage increased: 1240 → 1440
- Mana decrease over time increased: -10% → -15% per turn
Ommodus
- Moonrise Strike damage increased: 1700 → 2000
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We hope the adjustments above will help you field these Heroes in a wider range of situations. If you feel that your favorite Hero could really use a buff, please remember to let us know here (Hero Balance - Empires & Puzzles Community Forum) on our Community Forum.
As always, we will continue to keep an eye on all Heroes affected by this update in case further adjustments become necessary. Please refer to our Hero Balancing FAQ (Hero Balancing FAQ) for why we occasionally make post-release balance adjustments. If you wish to share your feedback and discuss this update with fellow players, please feel free to join the discussion: May 2024 Balance Update 2 - Discussion
Thank you for your continued interest and support. Best of luck in the battles!