Hey everyone and welcome to patch 2.13.1! Don’t be confused, this patch has some massive amounts of awesomeness in it, and as always, we’re excited to be bringing it to you! Keep an eye out for new skins, new balance improvements and put in some play time on Danger Zone. We all want to be on that highway soon, but we would love some more feedback from you. For now enjoy the new patch!

New Skins

• Tengu Koji – Ka kaw! Ka kaw!
• Swashbuckler Asuri – Seven seas, nine lives. Plenty of time.
• Darkheart Katars – Every nightmarishly twisted blade has its thorns.
• Darkheart Hammer – We know not from whence it came, but in the quiet hours, it whispers of smashing.

Test Maps – Danger Zone

We’ve made a few adjustments to the Danger Zone test map and are looking for continued feedback from our players before fully implementing it. Let us know what you think!

• The side platforms on Danger Zone now have a lower peak and a higher valley.
• Removed the majority of chains in the Danger Zone map background.

Balance Improvements

Sword

• Sword Neutral Light has a very old hitboxing that no longer matches how our powers get hitboxed. Updating it to correctly extend Hit Windows to match the animation made it a little too strong, so we’ve dialed back some of its overhead coverage.
• Sword Neutral Light: Extended Hit Window on first swing from 1 to 3; Extended Hit Window on second swing from 1 to 6; Extended Hit Window on third swing from 1 to 4; Decreased Hitbox Height, especially on the second swing; Recover Time on Hit changed from 24 Variable to 2 Fixed 19 Variable; Recover Time on Miss changed from 10 Variable to 15 Variable.

Spear

Spear Neutral Light’s combination of speed, coverage, and mixup potential with the Down Light makes approaching the Spear very difficult. We’ve made it slightly slower and more precise to leave more room to approach it, while making the Spear’s own grounded approach a little faster.

• Spear Neutral Light: Increased Time to Hit from 4 to 5; Decreased Hitbox size on the first three frames of the Hit Window to match the smaller hitboxes after them.
• Spear Side Light: Decreased Time to Hit from 14 to 13.

Hammer

Hammer Neutral Light is tied for the fastest startup in the game and is now taking Spear Neutral Light’s place at 4 Time to Hit as that moves to 5. The Down Air is a little too safe to repeatedly fish with from overhead, and has gotten a combination of Cooldown and Recovery on miss. While Hammer Recovery is a very strong move, its extremely low Damage can make landing it in some situations give almost no reward. It has received a minor Damage increase.

• Hammer Neutral Light: Increased Time to Hit from 3 to 4.
• Hammer Recovery: Increased Damage from 10 to 12.
• Hammer Down Air: Increased Recover Time on miss from 1 fixed 13 variable to 1 fixed 17 variable; Increased Cooldown Time from 5 to 10.

Blasters

Blasters Recovery has some unique properties that make it ideal for disengaging on a miss. We’ve decreased steering acceleration in the later phases of the power to limit how far one can retreat after committing to an attack.

• Blasters Recovery: Decreased steering acceleration after the initial kick from 100% to 80%. Decreased backward acceleration during Recovery Time from 100% to 70%.

Katars

This is primarily a cosmetic fix to address a mismatch between animation and hitboxing. It should have fairly minor implications for gameplay.

• Katar Neutral Light: Compressed and hitboxed an animation frame that read as active, increasing the Hit Window of the first slash from 5 to 6.

Bow

In fixing issues related to Bow hitboxing, a few Hit Windows have increased to accurately match the moment arrow fx start to dissipate. The Bow still has a few remaining cases that would require similar treatment, but we’re addressing a few cases at first to measure how strongly they affect Bow’s balance.

• Bow Side Light: Decreased Recover Time on Miss from 2 Fixed 17 Variable to 1 Fixed 17 Variable.
• Bow Down Light: Increased Hit Window from 4 to 5.
• Bow Down Air: Increased Hit Window from 4 to 5.

Vraxx

Vraxx’s Down Blasters have both low Damage and Force for a signature, and is getting a slight increase.

• Vraxx Down Blasters: Increased Damage From 20 to 22; Increased Variable Force from 45 to 46.

Queen Nai

Nai’s Side Katar is an extremely potent tool for early knockouts, and a common source of complaints. We’ve dialed back its Force slightly.

• Nai Side Katar: Decreased Variable Force from 63 to 61.

Hattori

Hattori’s Neutral Sword has a lot going for it. Very low Recover Time, can be comboed out of the Sword Down Light, and unusually high Force for Hattori and for a spike. We’ve decreased this last part.

• Hattori Neutral Sword: Decreased Variable Force from 61 to 57.

Lucien

We haven’t seen much of Lucien lately, after some aggressive reductions to him several patches ago. He’s getting a couple of small buffs.

• Lucien Side Blasters: Decreased Time to Hit from 18 to 17.
• Lucien Neutral Katars: Increased Variable Force from 46 to 48.

Ulgrim

Ulgrim is the least used legend at all levels. We’re starting with some conservative speeding up of his Down Lance Recover Time to allow for easier punishes.

• Ulgrim Down Lance: Decreased Fixed Recover Time on miss from 34 to 31.

Ember

Ember is notorious for her strong Katar signatures and weak Bow ones. We’ve shifted some power from one set to the other.

• Ember Side Bow: Decreased Time to Hit from 17 to 15; Slightly Increased Hitbox size of the wolf bite.
• Ember Down Bow: On the aerial version of the shot – Extended Hit Window from 9 to 10, Adjusted Hitboxes to follow the arrow shot more closely and extend farther downwards, Increased Damage from a range between 22 and 16 to a range between 24 and 19, Force falls off more slowly during the Hit window; On the ground version of the shot – Increased Damage from 22 to 24.
• Ember Down Katars: Increased Recover Time from 17 to 19.

Diana

Diana’s Down Bow seems awfully fast at first, but spends a few frames at a very small hitbox size before starting to bloom to its full threat.

• Diana Down Bow: Decreased Time to Hit from 14 to 13.

Gnash

Gnash’s Down Hammer had almost no Recovery whatsoever when performed off of a ledge. We’ve increased this slightly.

• Gnash Down Hammer: If no ground collision – Increased Recover Time from 2 to 14.

Thatch

Thatch’s Neutral Blasters leads off with a very small, precise Hitbox that makes it difficult to land with its slower Time to Hit. We’ve sped it up some.

• Thatch Neutral Blasters: Decreased Time to Hit from 19 to 16.

Timing / Hitboxing Fixes

For this patch, we’ve decided to cut back on the number of large balance changes and focus more on auditing the game’s hitboxing. There’s still plenty to go, but we’ve hopefully made some small progress in fixing places where animation and hitboxes are ambiguous or misaligned. Any adjustments that resulted in gameplay changes should be listed above. Thanks to Dobrein for reporting many of the issues fixed in this list.

• Unarmed Neutral Air: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Unarmed Down Air: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Unarmed Neutral Heavy: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Unarmed Side Heavy: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Sword Neutral Air: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Sword Neutral Light: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing; Swoosh fx adjusted to read less ambigiously like hitboxes during dissipation.
• Lance Side Light: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Lance Side Air: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing; Removed an animation frame of unhitboxed startup that could read as part of the hit window.
• Lance Recovery: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing; On Exhausted version: Better matched animation of standard power to replace a startup that looked like it should be hitboxed.
• Lance Down Air: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Hammer Side Light: Removed an animation frame of unhitboxed follow through that could read as part of the hit window.
• Spear Neutral Light: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Spear Down Light: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing; Removed an unhitboxed frame of swoosh fx.
• Spear Neutral Air: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Spear Side Air: Removed an animation frame of unhitboxed follow through that could read as part of the hit window.
• Katar Side Light: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Katar Down Air: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Katar Recovery: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Bow Side Light: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing during the bow swing.
• Bow Down Light: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing; Adjusted explosion fx to better match hitbox timing.
• Bow Neutral Air: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing during the bow swing.
• Bow Side Air: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing.
• Bow Down Air: Fixed a timing issue with the animation that caused it not to match hitbox timing; Adjusted explosion fx to better match hitbox timing.
• Bow Recovery: Adjusted final grab position of target to fix some jitter in target location.

Drop Fixes

• Vraxx Side Lance: Fixed a case that could cause the target to be dropped before the final hit. Credit: JimBenDoto
• Brynn Side Axe: Fixed a case that could cause the target to be dropped before the final hit. Credit: Skroyan

New Legend Rotation

This week’s legend rotation features Asuri, Barraza, Cassidy, Gnash, Koji, and Orion.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed crash that would happen occasionally when joining custom lobbies.
• Fixed bug causing your characters rating change to not correctly update when viewing the elo change screen.
• Fixed a display bug where the legend tier/notches were showing the wrong value.
• Fixed a bug that caused strikeout to ignore blind pick mode, showing hero choices.
• Fixed a bug where your selection would show up in the party menu on the left in blind pick.
• Best Elo Rating is now properly displayed.
• The value under “Best Legend” now correctly displays your best legend’s current rating instead of best legend’s best all time rating.
• Fixed a bug where accessing the store from the training room would incorrectly show that you owned all of the sidekicks.
• Fixed incorrect colors on Barraza’s base and Toxic hands.
• Fixed a bug where if your controller disconnected mid-game your legend would continue running in the last direction you were holding when you disconnected. They will now stop moving.
• Fixed a bug where a player could unselect their character right as the host was starting the game which could result in a client crash.