I. Battlefield Adjustment

Date posted : July, 3rd 2022

A. Dark Slayer Gameplay Optimization

For a long time, the positioning of Dark Slayer gameplay has not been clear and effective, so we have optimized the relevant mechanism of summons, and made its summons to break the defense tower, making the ability to help advance more intuitive.

Slayer Vanguard

New: The killing party will summon a Slayer Vanguard to the lane; replacing the original extra damage to the tower.

Vanguard can break the high defense state of the tower, which is consistent with the creep.

Dark Slayer

New: The killing party will summon two waves of Vanguard to the lane.

Adjustment: Summoning will choose the lane closest to the summoner and start attacking from the base; instead of summoning at the summoner's location.

Infinite Slayer

Infinite Slayer will combine the powers of Infinite Slayer and Holy Dragon to strengthen its finishing ability.

New: After killing, the killing party will summon three waves of Vanguard to the lane; killing heroes of the enemy team will grant a one-time 40% maximum HP shield and intermittent damage to enemy heroes from the Holy Dragon effect of 5% of the target's maximum HP.

Removed: Physical defense, magic defense, and HP regeneration bonus.

Adjustment: Summoned Infinite Slayer will choose the lane closest to the summoner, and start the attack from the base instead of starting from the middle of the base as before.

B. Jungle Creep Revamp

Owlgriff

After several adjustments to the Spirit Sentinel, we found that the power and appearance itself was out of place, so we replaced it with an Afata Forest's new creature. This replacement may open the door for more and more new creatures.

REMOVED: Spirit Sentinel

ADDED: Owlgriff

HP: 4000

Attack: 150

Kill Reward: 35 gold, 100 XP, the killer restores 5% of maximum HP

No longer has the Iron Body effect.

C. New Creep Models

We were concerned that the extra-gold creeps in the first four minutes of the Abyssal Lane would not be well-recognized, so new models were made for them.

D. Jungling Equipment Passive Stacking Adjustment

In scenarios where teammates assist in clearing the jungle creeps, the jungler does not always get the last hit, thus missing the passive stack. This situation increases the cost of cooperation, and also makes the passive stack slower than normal. Therefore, we added a new passive into the original stacking rules.

New: When a hero kills a jungle creep, the nearby friendly heroes within 10m will accumulate the passive stacks.

E. HP Bar of Tower and Jungle Creeps Optimization

We added a HP display for the Towers, and now when Towers and Base are attacked, there will be a blood drop effect similar to that of heroes.

Similarly, we have added blood drop effects to special jungle creeps such as epic ones, sage golem, and might golem, hoping to help players compete more intuitively.

F. Additional Highlight Broadcast

In the new version, we have added more targeted optimizations for the highlight behavior of players, showing players' dazzling performance from multiple perspectives such as jungle gank, riverbed resource competition, and support.

G. Battlefield Art optimization

We have iterated on the art performance of the battlefield and optimized the art performance under low image quality setting without increasing performance pressure.

H. In-Game Smart Tactical Communication System Update

In this version update, we have added more shortcut signals for battlefield events, so that players can share battlefield information with their teammates more quickly.

The new battlefield event signals include:

- The enemy invades the jungle area in the first 10 minutes

- The enemy hero in the lane disappears

- Enemy hero has low HP

- Ally towers are being attacked by enemy heroes

- Clear the lane prompt when the creep line is piled up

- Jungle equipment does not share the economy tips in the early stage

- The enemy's might/sage buff situation within 1 minute of the start of the game

- Enemy [Punish] talent usage

- Enemy [Flicker] talent usage

- Enemy [Purify] talent usage

- Enemy [Frost Orb] equipment use

- Enemy [Blade of Eternity] equipment use

-Enemy [Mother Earth: Cleansing] equipment use

II. Battle Experience Optimization

A. Control Optimization

1: For the skill "follow camera option", some of the skills of 34 heroes such as Capheny, Toro, Yan, Aoi, Enzo, and Yue have been optimized to improve the control experience of the camera follows.

2: Add special skill indicators for Yorn skill 2, Violet's ultimate, and Qi's ultimate.

B. Clarity Optimization

1: Optimize the clarity of attack cast range of Abyssal Dragon: Match the actual and increase the effect performance.

2: Optimize the performance of Tower in the state of the steel line.

3: Add a performance tip for heroes revealing vision while invisible:

Yellow exclamation mark when exposing an invisible state.

Red exclamation mark when an invisible enemy is detected.

III. System Optimization

A. “Career” System

The "Career" system is a function that integrates multiple goal-related gameplay, making it easier for players to focus on tasks and receive rewards.

• Daily Tasks

Participate in standard PvP match or ranked match to complete specific tasks to get task rewards and accumulate activity. When the activity reaches a certain value, you can receive special rewards.

• Brave Challenge

After the new season starts, complete a specific number of ranked wins for rich rewards, with rank star protection for promoting faster.

• Season Challenge

We relocated the Season Challenge entrance to the career system, and kept the original entrance in Rank UI.

B. Skill Demonstration Optimization

In this update, the display system has been optimized for transforming and multi-type heroes, so that the demonstration is closer to actual battle performance.

The modifications involved below heroes：

Liliana, Tachi, Thorne, Yena, Laville, Cresht, Aya, Volkath, Superman, Wonder Woman, Dirak Iggy, Sinestrea, Rouie, D’Arcy, Enzo, Y’bneth, Lorion, Yan

C. Equipment and Rune Description Optimization

We have optimized the equipment and rune's description for better and faster understanding.

• Standardized the description of some equipment effects, rune effects, and CD;

• Used different colors to represent skill effects, such as red for physical damage;

• Added some explanation of special effects such as resistance.

D. Ranked Season theme-The Afata Forest

We have added the Afata Forest theme for the new ranked season theme.

E. Spectator Optimization

We have added some optimization to the spectator function:

• Real-time spectator;

• Supports video saving;

• Optimized some logic of jumping to continuous viewing.

F. Match History Display Update

The interface has been revised, and all official data will be enabled next season.

G. Popularity Value Performance and Description Optimization

We have added some optimization to the popularity function:

Added the special effect of likes

Add a description of popularity acquisition

H. Leaderboard Entry Changes

Click the button above the lobby's friend list to switch the leaderboard entry.

I. One-click Preparation in the Lobby

• Hero Package Set

Heroes equipment, Rune, Arcana, and Talent will be accessible via one-click setting from system recommendations, Popular set, and High-rank players.

There will be 5 custom sets by default: 3 automatically unlocked and 2 from Codex.

If you need to customize the package set of equipment or rune, you could also manually select the set from the detail configure setting page.

• Data Migration

The equipment, rune, and arcana setting from old version will transform the new package set 1, other package sets will assign to 2.3

The old custom arcana page will be moved as well, and can be found and edited it in "My arcana page" - "More package set"

J. Select the One-Click Interface to Equip Preparation

In the hero selection process, the preparation entry is also integrated into one.

After choosing, you can still change the Rune and Arcana individually, and be synchronized to the set settings.

K. Lane Pre-select Optimization

We have modified the entrance display of the pre-selection to make it easier to understand.

L. Team-related Optimization

We have optimized the team invitation. If the player is the only one in the team, he can directly join other teams.

IV. Hero Revamp

A. Background Story

Helen was the last elf born in the World Tree before the Second Dark Invasion and was discovered and raised by Payna. Payna wants to train Helen to be the guardian of the sea of flowers, but Helen is born with a quirky personality, which is not suitable for the lonely responsibility of guarding the sea of flowers. Finally one day, Veera invaded the sea of ​​flowers by opening the abyss crack but was not discovered in time due to Helen's dereliction of duty. Payna, who hurried back to the sea of flowers, had to fight with her life to force Veera to retreat. Facing the death of her master, Helen blamed herself so much that she finally reaps the growth and shoulders the responsibility of guarding the sea of ​​glade.

B. Design Ideas

In this adjustment, we have concentrated Helen's performance on the "healing ability". Payna's healing ability can make herself and her teammates have strong survivability in the state of residual blood, while Helen's healing ability is more inclined to Make it easier for yourself and your teammates to stay in a safe state with high blood volume and be more friendly.

C. Skill Introduction

V. Hero Balance Adjustments

Capheny, The Gunner (NERFED)

Design background:

After fixing the bugs in Pulse Shot form, Capheny now has a mid-to-high win rate at all Mastery Levels, and she is even outperforming other heroes at the advanced Mastery Level. We are now implementing some adjustments to target this problem.

Skill 2: Piercing Shot

Removed: The slow effect removal mechanic.

Cooldown: 9.0/8.4/7.8/7.2/6.6/6.0 seconds → 10/9.6/9.2/8.8/8.4/8.0 seconds

Lorion, Nightmare Incarnate (NERFED)

Design background:

As a mage who has excellent sustainability in combat, Lorion's projectile is too powerful at wearing down enemies, and the combination of his ultimate's control and damage makes his enemies unable to fight back. Therefore, we have reduced the damage of his projectile and removed its HP recovery effect. At the same time, we've enhanced the projectile's damage and HP recovery effect when it is inside Lorion to encourage Lorion to enter the battlefield more.

Passive: Eternal

Shock damage: 155 (+22/Lv.) (+35% AP) → 155 (+30/Lv.) (+0.35% AP). [When the Orb is inside Lorion]

Healing amount: 36 (+6/Lv.) (+15% AP) → 30 (+18/Lv.) (+15% AP). [When the Orb is inside Lorion]

Shock damage frequency: 0.5 → 0.75 seconds

Halved the damage of shocks and removed their healing effect when the Orb is outside Lorion.

Skill 2: Darkness Falls

When the projectile is out of Lorion, he gains iron body instead of becoming untargetable when the projectile is on its way.

The charging time of skill 2 now benefits from the cooldown reduction attribute bonus.

Murad, The Wanderer (BUFFED)

Design background:

When we redesigned Murad, we made it easier to unseal his ultimate but also slightly reduced its damage to limit its power. According to the data, Murad has become weaker after these changes, so we've increased the damage of his ultimate again slightly to make him stronger. At the same time, we've reduced the cooldown of his skill 1 in the early game to help Murad level up faster.

Skill 1: Thorn of Time

Cooldown: 8-6 seconds → Fixed at 6 seconds

Ultimate: Temporal Turbulence

Base Damage: 250/325/400 (+60% extra AD) → 250/325/400 (+75% extra AD).

Diminishment rules: Reduces the damage by 10% for every enemy focused on, up to 40% → Reduces the damage by 10% for every enemy focused on, up to 20%

Xeniel, The Immaculate (ADJUSTED)

Design background:

Xeniel has a unique full-map support ability, but he has been unpopular for a long time. We believe that the mechanism that the ult does not follow the target's position is difficult to deal with the frequent move when a team fight ensues. Instead, making it difficult for teammates. It is the main reason for its poor ease of use, so we focus on following the target mechanism as the core adjustment, and iterating the mechanism of his ult; in addition, the passive mechanism is relatively marginal in Xeniel's skill. In order to make a small combo, to strengthen his early-stage clearing and confrontation ability. We hope Xeniel can have unique selection value and reasonable confrontation strength in the Slayer Lane and support positions.

Passive: Holy Brand

The third normal attack will add 4~8% of max HP as magic damage → The next enhanced normal attack will add 5% of max HP as magic damage and 50% slowdown for 1 second, with a 5-second cooldown.

Skill 1: Divine Protection

When the shield is canceled early, deals magic damage and slows down to enemy → When canceling the shield early, deals magic damage and refreshes passive enhanced normal attacks' cooldown.

When the shield is broken, deal no damage → When the shield is broken, it deals 50% magic damage and refreshes the passive enhanced basic attack's cooldown.

Ultimate: Angelic Splendor

The landing point takes the target position when casting the skill → The landing point takes the target real-time position.

Increases target and self 40% damage reduction before teleporting → Add a shield to the target that absorbs 700/1000/1300 (+0.4MP) (+6/8/10% of Xeniel's max HP) damage when casting. When the shield expires or is broken, it will cause 500/750/1000 (+0.4MP) magic damage to the enemies around the target.

Restores 15% of the max HP of self and surrounding teammates when landing → Restores 10% of the max HP of self and surrounding teammates when landing.

Removed: Magic damage caused by the landing range to the enemy, acceleration effect added to teammates.

Added: If the target dies during the teleport, the teleport is interrupted.

Added: Skill 1 can be used in advance during teleportation.

Baldum, The Monolith (ADJUSTED)

Design background:

Because of the special characteristics of his ult, he has a frequent appearance rate in AOV, but it also makes it difficult for the enemy to counter. In this optimization, we have modified the cast targeting from a designated area to a designated target. At the same time, the cooldown stagnation feature and redundant slowdown effects have been removed to improve the hit rate, allowing Baldum to have a relatively stable ability to defend and allow the enemies to have enough space for confrontation.

Passive: Hulking

Removed: 18% bonus physical defense

Modified: Baldum's normal attack comes with magic damage → Enemies hit by Baldum's skills gain a vulnerability debuff for 3 seconds, and the damage received during this period increases by 5%.

Normal Attack

Range: 2.8 m → 2.5 m

Skill 1: Wild Charge

Removed: Slow effect on hit targets

Modified: Mana cost: 60/65/70/75/80/85 → 40/48/56/64/72/80

Skill 2: Wild Stomp

Removed: Hit reduces the cooldown of this skill

Double damage to jungle creeps

Modified: Landing a hit will reduce the damage dealt to Baldum by 20% for 1 second → Every time Skill 2 hits the enemy, Baldum will get 6.0/6.5/7.0/7.5/8.0/8.5 % damage reduction for 2 seconds, and stack up to 4 stacks

Hit the enemy to cause slowdown by 30% for 1 seconds → 2 seconds

Mana cost: 50 → 40

Cooldown: Starts after Cast, 9 seconds → Starts after effect is ended, 5 seconds

Ultimate: Wild Prison

Modified: Cast method: Initial target area → Real-time target area

Cast distance: 10m → 6.5m

Ultimate speed: 15m/s → 12m/s

Added: The enemy is knocked into the air by 0.5 seconds after escaping.

Removed: When removing the summoning circle, the path slows down, and the circle slows down.

Removed the slow effect from the circle

Removed the 2-second 50% slowdown after leaving the circle

Removed cooldown stasis effect on enemies in the circle

VI. Mode Optimization

New Mode: Ultimate Tome

1.Mode overview：

A wave of Hex power sweeps across Athanor once every year, and the heroes of the land have started to study this power to harness it and use it in battle.

2.How to play：

Map mechanism：

• Use 5v5 classic mode of map and rules.

Extra Ultimate Mechanic:

• Each player will get an extra ultimate. The usage and cooldown logic of the extra ultimate is the same as the normal ultimate.

• Players will be able to select an extra ultimate after all players finish selecting a hero.

• When selecting an extra ultimate, each player will be randomly assigned 3 extra ultimates (excludes the ultimates already selected by ally players).

• Players will have 20 seconds to choose 1 ultimate out of these 3 extra ultimates.

• The extra ultimate starts off at Level 1 and has no skill cost. The extra ultimate automatically levels up when the player reaches Level 8 and Level 12.

Extra Ultimate Damage Conversion Mechanic:

• When calculating the damage of the extra ultimate, the player's higher attributes will be automatically factored into the calculation.

• If Tel'Annas uses Krixi's Starfall ultimate, the hero's physical attack attribute will be used to calculate the damage dealt.

• Adjustments will be made to the damage bonus proportions of some skills.

Mode Balance Adjustments:

• Shortened the resurrection time in the early game.

• Increased the growth speed of creeps.

• Increased gold/EXP gains.

• Brought forward the refresh time of the Dragon/Slayer and the alternation of day and night.

VII. Graphics Quality Improvements

1.Quality Updates

We constantly strive to improve the graphics of Arena of Valor. After taking in a lot of feedback from players, we have improved Krixi and Tel'Annas from the previous version, upgraded the display of their character models in the Lobby, and completely reset Krixi's in-game skill effects.

2.Quality Improvement

We have also improved the in-game special effects of heroes, such as Mganga, Butterfly, Batman, The Flash, Superman, and Wonder Woman to varying degrees. In future versions, we'll try to work faster to upgrade more heroes.

3.Improved the quality of some Rune special effects and the quality of Talents

To give players a better combat experience, we've improved the special effects of Runes such as Explosive Shield, Forest Wanderer, Enhanced Restore, Nature’s Rage, etc., and the quality and clarity of all Talents.

4.Mini-map signal special effects upgrades

VIII.Bug Fixes

1. Fixed a bug that caused pre-orders of equipment to automatically be canceled after a period of time if the pre-order was made while equipped with a full set of equipment.

2. Fixed a bug that caused the halo effect of the Genesis to take effect after the hero equipping it has died.

3. Fixed a bug that caused heroes' physical and magic defense to remain for a short period of time after leaving Genesis' range.

4. Fixed a bug that caused super creeps in the side lanes to have slightly slower movement speed.

5. Fixed a bug that caused the skill indicator to not move up or down when a hero is knocked up.

6. Fixed a bug that caused the exclamation mark special effect above the hero's head to appear abnormally when the hero is discovered by the Vision Sprite generated by the Seagle.

7. Fixed a bug that caused normal attacks to increase 2 stacks of the Devil's Handshake buff when attacking at a fast attack speed.

8. Fixed a bug that caused the actual damage range of Explosive Shield to look bigger than it really is.

9. Fixed a bug that allows ranged heroes to attack the Slayer from behind it without making it leave combat in certain situations.

10. Fixed a bug that caused the Slayer summoned by players to be unable to attack the base or tower in certain situations.

11. Fixed a bug that caused Tachi's speed to increase by an abnormally high amount when he unseals his mark.

12. Fixed a bug that caused Taara's skill 2's damage range to be abnormally large and not move with her.

13. Fixed a bug that caused the direction of his skill 2 to be abnormal after the second stage of Volkath's ultimate is cast automatically.

14. Fixed a bug that caused Ryoma's passive's enhanced normal attack to have abnormally low damage when it hits an enemy from an extreme distance.

15. Fixed a bug that caused Kriknak's normal attack's range to be abnormally big.

16. Fixed a bug that caused the performance of Yan's skill 2 to look abnormal to the red side in 3v3 mode.

17. Fixed a bug that caused Yan's enhanced skill 1's damage range to be abnormally large during his ultimate.

18. Fixed a bug that caused Capheny's ultimate and Grakk's skill 2 to have missing special effects at low and moderate graphics settings.

19. Fixed a bug that caused Dextra's skill 1's enhanced normal attack to have an abnormal range and not slow the enemy properly.

20. Fixed a bug that caused Dextra to receive abnormally low healing from her skill's conversion effect during her ultimate.

21. Fixed a bug that caused the resurrection-time-reduction effect of Sinestrea's passive to not take effect when she has less than 7 stacks of her passive.

22. Fixed a bug that caused the disappearance of Qi's marks to be inconsistent with her enhanced normal attack.

23. Fixed a bug that caused Bright's skill 1's increased movement speed effect to not take effect when it hits an enemy at a rather far range.

24. Fixed a bug that caused Wiro's skill 1's 3rd enhanced attack to stun the tower.

25. Fixed a bug that caused Omega's skill 1 to not deal damage to epic jungle creeps.

26. Fixed a bug that caused the mark of Wiro's resurrection passive to appear on walls.

27. Fixed a bug that caused the description of invisibility conditions to be incorrect in Krizzix's skill 1 and ultimate.

28. Fixed a bug that caused the description of the skill cooldown to be incorrect in Arum's skill 1.

29. Fixed a bug that caused the damage value to be incorrect in the description of Grakk's ultimate.

30. Fixed a bug that caused Zip's character model to appear abnormally after Zip is hit by Baldum's ultimate while using an ultimate.

31. Fixed a bug that caused Zip's skill 2 to suck allies hit by Baldum's ultimate.

32. Fixed a bug that caused the invisibility effect of Krizzix's skill 1 to look different from the invisibility effects of the ultimate to enemies.

33. Fixed a bug that caused Quillen's ultimate's skill indicator to be quite small and cause the screen to lag.

34. Fixed a bug where the healing reduction effect of Max and Mganga caused recovery to become abnormal.