Paladins Chronicles are short stories meant to enrich the world of Paladins & serve as context for future events. This is a part of Series 2, which is focused on expanding players’ knowledge of the Realm. please provide us your feedback on socials!
The Item Shop since Season 7 has been getting closer to a state we’re happy with, however we still feel the pacing of matches has been a bit slower in the middlegame than we’d like. Armor Plating is a strong Item, but rather than make it Haven’s weaker cousin we’d rather keep it distinct and make it costly like another impactful Item Chronos. This should help matches have a bit more push and pull between objectives and pressure those who want to live a tanky fantasy to invest more. Alongside that, Sentinel is a bit too pricey for players to feel comfortable picking it up for only 1 of its 2 effects, so now it’s equal to Unbound and those who benefit from both are getting a bargain. Lethality is also the only Item on a different Elim timer, which makes its synergy lower and unnecessarily limits its fun, so it is being brough up to 5 seconds of speed!
Corvus has always been a very powerful pocket as well as defensive duelist. His Pistol can deal some of the highest DPS in class if wielded properly, however he also is not as sturdy as other options. We slightly shifted his weapon to deal more damage at a slightly slower rate, leaving it feeling nearly identical but averaging his output a bit. After PTS, we’ve decided to keep his healing value the same and see how he shakes out in correlation with the other Supports.
Furia has seen a lot of changes over the past 2 years, with that in mind we aimed to not shift her too much compared to others in the class, however her damage output is being restored to her values prior to Keywords. Wings of Wrath has also often had its damage output ignored, so we’re giving it a bump in lethality to encourage aggressive usage. With these changes, Furia should remain a strong hybrid healer option that relies on acting in specific moments to help swing fights.
Grohk’s totem change surged him to the upper bounds of what Supports could output in healing, and while we feel his Totems should stay potent, we want to tune him down alongside others to keep his identity as a deployable-focused Champion with Talents allowing for pocket and core healing options. His damage is also being brought up to its pre-Keywords state, allowing him to still hold his own when caught in fights & Maelstrom meant to only push him over the top of certain breakpoints.
Grover has seen himself grow beyond his aggressive hybrid roots to a stint as the go-to core healer for a lot of compositions, and while we feel that playstyle should be an option, it has proven very potent. Alongside the removal of his Keywords, we’re adjusting Blossom further down to push Grover to not rely as much on the passive healing & instead look for the best moments to burst his allies. His Ultimate has also been strong in the hands of skillful players, consuming portions while holding onto charge for multiple small bursts throughout the match. We want to reward this aspect of his kit but expect players to do so in the most optimal moments, so we’re raising the cost on initial activation. His Axe is also seeing a buff to its base damage, which scales quite nicely over distance to give him strong zoning. After PTS, we’re toning down his Rampant Blooming buff to give his other Talents some more room and will keep our eyes on him in case he swings too far the other direction.
Io is experiencing one of her strongest moments since her Dog Cap era, and while we want Luna to feel like an integral part of her kit, the combination of her healing output with Moonlight has led Io astray from her hybrid background. We’re bringing Moonlight back down to compensate for Luna’s healing being base kit and have given both Moonlight Bow and Guardian Spirit damage buffs. More than ever before, Io’s game plan should be to place Luna down and support her as she both dishes out damage and heals her allies. Begone has also had some underwhelming moments whenever not used to toss players off ledges, so we’re giving it some more oomph on impact to let Io use it more aggressively.
Jenos has been struggling to keep up with his other Supports in both healing output and utility, mainly due to his reliance on Cards. We are flipping the astral script on him by putting Astral Cycle and Retrograde into base kit as midpoint buffs to his Astral Mark, giving some breathing room in how he manages his team and their mark status. These cards instead will now offer Jenos new utility in Shields and Movement Speed to allies on initial cast, meaning Jenos can choose either bounce Marks across his team for optimal healing, or focus a single ally to consistently provide impactful pocketing. Void Grip has often been frustrating for players caught without an escape, but those with one basically go unaffected by the ability. To encourage Jenos to grip whoever he wants to, we’re shifting some of the damage into the initial grab so even the slipperiest of foes have a downside. Finally, Binary Star has long gone feeling weak compared to other damage boost Talents in the Support class, but no longer as it is seeing its damage brought back up to be a DPS increase.
Lillith is by far one of, if not the most, complex Champions in Paladins. This is both what makes her fascinating to master, but frustrating to fight when she will not die and can seemingly place infinite Swarms. Her Blood System has flaws for both herself and enemies that didn’t make sense compared to her peers, so we’re revising it to feel a lot more approachable yet still unique. Her Health values are coming down, so while she’s still top of class in HP she’ll be asked to be careful about casting more often. Blood Hex’s damage and Blood regeneration have both been slightly adjusted, making them more consistent and intuitive while still incentivizing allied casting. Death Wings is now cheaper but stays proportionally similar as to before, while Swarm is seeing significant changes. Her charge meter will now cost her more Blood as she charges it, and the overall effectiveness has been brought down to encourage her to either focus on weak but plentiful placements or large impactful ones. Her Cards were also a source of wild variance and complication for her that while interesting, led to too many balance states for players to account for. We’ve reworked various cards to normalize her healing and damage output on Swarm, while offering new effects to augment them instead that will feel right at home for Support players. After PTS, we are preserving Wings of Terror and have rolled back part of Cursed Accord but decided to drop her changes to output but instead make her wait a bit longer on her casts.
With our previous changes to Mal’Damba, we sought to make him a bit closer to his contemporaries in ability to sustain teammates while preserving his unique balance of healing versus utility. We heard feedback from those who miss the ability to stack his spirits more actively, so we’re partially moving him back to the slower ticks over time but lowering his cooldown so he can stay just as active while still getting to stack his effects.
We removed his Keywords. Oh…suppose we should write more than that! Pip has always been in a pretty stable spot, sporting build diversity on all 3 Talents and never falling too far behind of the pack. When approaching this pass, we waivered on whether he need changes but after PTS we heard Catalyst was in need of help. We’re giving it a bit of a bump to keep up with other Damage Talents across the class and will keep our eyes on him for future buffs if needed as he navigates his way through the meta without Keywords.
Rei’s goal has always been a nice mixture of light team healing and pocketed buff effects, so while we are adjusting her healing similar to others in the class, our main focus is on enabling her expression through Talents and Cards. Extension is getting a rework that makes it a proper healing uptime Talent but after PTS we swapped the penalty to directly impact her uptime and ask her to think how she utilizes them.
Seris’s foresight may have seen this coming, but we felt it time to address her lackluster performance at higher levels. Rend Soul is a potent ability that has a lot of customization giving strength, but we wanted to make those stacks hurt a bit more when detonated. Convergence has always had a little tap of damage on the pull, but now it’ll instead deal enough to offer some interesting breakpoints in burst options. As we explored the Support class, we discovered Agony is actually functioning very differently than we expected. Instead of adjusting it to the listed effect, we feel the actual behavior is more interesting and viable than the prior description, so we are instead updating the description to guide players better.
Ying has settled a bit down since her brief time with Anti-Heal immunity, but we wanted to still push her to be a bit more aggressive. Life Exchange is how many players utilize her in a single-healer composition but also was providing a little too much value for such high uptime. We want to watch how she performs across her Talents and gauge her identity moving forward as both a core healing option as well as her more aggressive playstyles, while keeping her new focus as an Ult centric Support. After PTS, we decided to hold off on her damage and healing changes to ensure they are the right direction to take her after all the other class shifts.
Our resident trickshot has had a tumultuous history with her Talents and pip economy. She’s bounced between being a fun spam queen to an infuriatingly experience lacking any autonomy in how she maintains uptime on her abilites. This is only compounded by the fact that she isn’t allowed the holy grail that is Chronos, making her pips feel less like a boon and more like a curse. We wanted to take a look at her pip system similar to how we did for Lillith’s Blood above, and have made adjustments to make her feel more active and purposeful with how she hits her next claim to fame. Pips now regenerate whenever Saati hits an opponent, their shields, or her Ricochet - meaning she should weave it into her normal gameplay to increase her access to other abilities. Costs for Ricochet and Blast Back have gone up to accommodate the new economy, as well as her passive regeneration slowed to emphasize this new mechanic. As a part of this, Heads or Tails has struggled to find a healthy identity so we wanted to make a Ricochet Talent more focused on rapid uptime of abilities as opposed to overtly buffing the coin.
Skye has swung a lot up and down after the Illuminate changes earlier this year, but we feel she’s close to a healthy spot now. Smoke and Dagger is an outlier after its buffs, however, as it allows certain compositions far too many opportunities to sustain themselves even when their Support falls. We’re reverting this healing buff to curb this and ask her to invest more in Cards if she wants to cover her team as best she can.
Omen has been sulking in the Abyss for a while since we took away all his fun (imbalanced) toys, but we don’t want to see him suffer any longer. We’ve updated his Aphotic Reaver to function much closer to other shotgun-based Champions, with his damage scaling based on number of pellets hit being half or full. We also discovered his range values were slightly smaller than intended and have adjusted them to match what was conveyed in-game. Umbral Lance also now returns a bit closer to its former glory now that his base weapon is more consistent. He wouldn’t let Jenos get buffs without his own, it’s not about hi-.
Many players feel Corvus' healing is far from the most contributing factor to his niche yet potent strength, so we've opted to not disturb this aspect of him and instead look to more focused changes in the future.
Similarly, Furia is in a weaker spot than last time we reduced her healing and while we have concerns over her potency, feedback guided us to let her maintain current Kindle Soul values. In conjunction, we're being a bit less bold on the buff to Wings of Wrath.
Grover may be the Support taking the deepest reductions this update with both Keywords and base kit nerfs being done, and after PTS we have shifted these even further. We want to watch him with a new status quo and give focused buffs as needed but considering his dominance for over a year we'd rather be sure he's back at a healthy baseline prior.
We loved seeing Jenos be a lot more consistent and threatening on the PTS, however we want to take him a bit down to prevent the brief mania we saw last year when we buffed him. These reduced damage changes still leave him much more potent but give us room to adjust better based on future data and feedback.
While we were happy with the general premise of the Lillith adjustments, we heard ample feedback on how heavily it would weaken her and how much of her identity had been entrenched in some aspects of her we were adjusting. The above changes are designed to give Lillith back more potency and identity while still simplifying aspects of her design that caused conflicts with other aspects of the game. The final collection of changes should feel much closer to a shift than a nerf now!
Some players were caught aback when we said we felt Pip would be in a good spot even with Keywords removal and no adjustments beyond that, so we took some time to listen to feedback and are adding this small change to keep Catalyst interesting compared to his other Talents. We'll continue to listen and think on additional changes he may need after this update has been out in the wild.
Rei is already in a strong spot in Banners Fall, so we decided to listen to the feedback that she didn't need the damage bump we were considering. We also saw Ambidextrous have too much synergy and uptime with Rei's cards so we're putting a longer cooldown on both charges to shift this new Talent to flexibility at the cost of efficiency.
This change wasn't fully implemented on PTS, and based both on feedback and internal discussions we felt it best not to push Seris even further into survivability. In the future, we'll take some time to look at her Talents and general gameplan to allow higher skilled players more expression on her while preserving what makes her an approachable option for all Support players.
Similar to Rei, Ying is already in a strong spot right now and while we do want Life Exchange to feel less essential, these base kit adjustments did little to change Ying's general gameplan and customization. In the future, we'll look to give her a bit more diversity between her Talents while still preserving this parity she has between her own damage and her Illusion's healing.
Moji's original fire rate served two purposes: allowing her to pressure targets with a fairly quick projectile as well as making it suboptimal to hold both buttons to pop Magic Mark at max efficiency. Both due to wanting to preserve existing Moji muscle memory as well as ask people to think better than holding both weapons down, we're shifting her weapon back to that speed. We’re also adjusting the projectile speed to be faster to keep some of her original intention of a strong-poke while still bringing it more in line with its new power level.
Sparkle having a resource meter allows us more control of how potent and frequent it can pump out damage, so we felt comfortable shifting it a bit closer to her original amount of aggression
Due to changes to how Scamper functions, Bunny Hopping will be weaker at base than it was prior. In order to feel similar to how it did on Moji prior, you'll want high levels of both Boop and Morning Breath to allow those same flings across spaces.
Moji's original Barrier is too strong to also shield allies, however we heard feedback that she was far too vulnerable both when dove as well as attempting to sustain how she used to. We're giving her significantly more self-shielding and slightly reducing the shield timers to keep this healthy but allow Moji more options with this.
With the below changes to Jubilation, we decided to move Morning Breath's slow focus from enemies to Moji herself, allowing players to opt into faster movement while utilizing Sparkle. We also saw Glimmer performing very well, but don't want to ICD it and punish the new Jubilation Talent so instead we are bringing down its strength by half.
Spit Shine is receiving a minor bump to its healing capacity for those Moji hopefuls concerned about her ability to support allies at range. Meanwhile, Jubilation is now reworked to provide a close experience to current Moji, tuned down slightly to make up for her new utility and tools we've added. Moji mains should feel pretty familiar with this option, and we'll continue to watch how she performs and ensure we honor her past as we move her into a brighter future!
The Item Shop since Season 7 has been getting closer to a state we’re happy with, however we still feel the pacing of matches has been a bit slower in the middlegame than we’d like. Armor Plating is a strong Item, but rather than make it Haven’s weaker cousin we’d rather keep it distinct and make it costly like another impactful Item Chronos. This should help matches have a bit more push and pull between objectives and pressure those who want to live a tanky fantasy to invest more. Alongside that, Sentinel is a bit too pricey for players to feel comfortable picking it up for only 1 of its 2 effects, so now it’s equal to Unbound and those who benefit from both are getting a bargain. Lethality is also the only Item on a different Elim timer, which makes its synergy lower and unnecessarily limits its fun, so it is being brough up to 5 seconds of speed!
Corvus has always been a very powerful pocket as well as defensive duelist. His Pistol can deal some of the highest DPS in class if wielded properly, however he also is not as sturdy as other options. We slightly shifted his weapon to deal more damage at a slightly slower rate, leaving it feeling nearly identical but averaging his output a bit. In addition, we’re slightly toning down the burst heal at the end of Abyssal Reconstruction to ensure he stays focused on balancing his Mark & keeping allies alive long enough to get the burst.
Furia has seen a lot of changes over the past 2 years, with that in mind we aimed to not shift her too much compared to others in the class. Her damage output is being restored to her values prior to Keywords, but we’re rolling back one of the healing buffs she received to make sure she’s not too strong at both options. Wings of Wrath has often had its damage output ignored, so we’re giving it a significant bump in lethality to encourage aggressive usage. With these changes, Furia should remain a strong hybrid healer option that relies on acting in specific moments to help swing fights.
Grohk’s totem change surged him to the upper bounds of what Supports could output in healing, and while we feel his Totems should stay potent, we want to tune him down alongside others to keep his identity as a deployable-focused Champion with Talents allowing for pocket and core healing options. His damage is also being brought up to its pre-Keywords state, allowing him to still hold his own when caught in fights & Maelstrom meant to only push him over the top of certain breakpoints.
Grover has seen himself grow beyond his aggressive hybrid roots to a stint as the go-to core healer for a lot of compositions, and while we feel that playstyle should be an option, it has proven very potent. Alongside the removal of his Keywords, we’re adjusting Blossom further down to push Grover to not rely as much on the passive healing & instead look for the best moments to burst his allies. His Ultimate has also been strong in the hands of skillful players, consuming portions while holding onto charge for multiple small bursts throughout the match. We want to reward this aspect of his kit but expect players to do so in the most optimal moments, so we’re raising the cost on initial activation. His Axe is also seeing a buff to its base damage, which scales quite nicely over distance to give him strong zoning. Ferocity can now hit people for 1000 damage if Grover is smart about his placement while still supporting his team.
Io is experiencing one of her strongest moments since her Dog Cap era, and while we want Luna to feel like an integral part of her kit, the combination of her healing output with Moonlight has led Io astray from her hybrid background. We’re bringing Moonlight back down to compensate for Luna’s healing being base kit and have given both Moonlight Bow and Guardian Spirit damage buffs. More than ever before, Io’s game plan should be to place Luna down and support her as she both dishes out damage and heals her allies. Begone has also had some underwhelming moments whenever not used to toss players off ledges, so we’re giving it some more oomph on impact to let Io use it more aggressively.
Jenos has been struggling to keep up with his other Supports in both healing output and utility, mainly due to his reliance on Cards. We are flipping the astral script on him by putting Astral Cycle and Retrograde into base kit as midpoint buffs to his Astral Mark, giving some breathing room in how he manages his team and their mark status. These cards instead will now offer Jenos new utility in Shields and Movement Speed to allies on initial cast, meaning Jenos can choose either bounce Marks across his team for optimal healing, or focus a single ally to consistently provide impactful pocketing. Void Grip has often been frustrating for players caught without an escape, but those with one basically go unaffected by the ability. To encourage Jenos to grip whoever he wants to, we’re shifting some of the damage into the initial grab so even the slipperiest of foes have a downside. Finally, Binary Star has long gone feeling weak compared to other damage boost Talents in the Support class, but no longer as it is seeing its damage brought back to one of its peaks.
Lillith is by far one of, if not the most, complex Champions in Paladins. This is both what makes her fascinating to master, but frustrating to fight when she will not die and can seemingly place infinite Swarms. Her Blood System has flaws for both herself and enemies that didn’t make sense compared to her peers, so we’re revising it to feel a lot more approachable yet still unique. Her Health values are coming down, so while she’s still top of class in HP she’ll be asked to be careful about casting more often. Blood Hex’s damage and Blood regeneration have both been slightly adjusted, making them more consistent and intuitive while still incentivizing allied casting. Death Wings is now cheaper but stays proportionally similar as to before, while Swarm is seeing significant changes. Her charge meter will now cost her more Blood as she charges it, and the overall effectiveness has been brought down to encourage her to either focus on weak but plentiful placements or large impactful ones. Her Cards were also a source of wild variance and complication for her that while interesting, led to too many balance states for players to account for. We’ve reworked various cards to normalize her healing and damage output on Swarm, while offering new effects to augment them instead that will feel right at home for Support players.
With our previous changes to Mal’Damba, we sought to make him a bit closer to his contemporaries in ability to sustain teammates while preserving his unique balance of healing versus utility. We heard feedback from those who miss the ability to stack his spirits more actively, so we’re partially moving him back to the slower ticks over time but lowering his cooldown so he can stay just as active while still getting to stack his effects.
We removed his Keywords. Oh…suppose we should write more than that! Pip has always been in a pretty stable spot, sporting build diversity on all 3 Talents and never falling too far behind of the pack. When approaching this pass, we waivered on whether he need changes but after testing, he felt right at home among all his peers as a versatile option for almost any composition especially with the wider shifts. We’ll continue to watch him after and see how he holds up!
Rei’s goal has always been a nice mixture of light team healing and pocketed buff effects, so while we are adjusting her damage and healing similar to others in the class, our main focus is on enabling her expression through Talents and Cards. Extension is getting a rework that makes it a proper healing uptime Talent, while adding a bit of nuance to how she can utilize her chains.
Seris’s foresight may have seen this coming, but we felt it time to address her lackluster performance at higher levels. Rend Soul is a potent ability that has a lot of customization giving strength, but we wanted to make those stacks hurt a bit more when detonated. Restore Soul struggles at higher levels of play due to the tradeoffs of a channeled heal can have, so we are giving Seris some DR during the ability to make up for it. Convergence has always had a little tap of damage on the pull, but now it’ll instead deal enough to offer some interesting breakpoints in burst options. As we explored the Support class, we discovered Agony is actually functioning very differently than we expected. Instead of adjusting it to the listed effect, we feel the actual behavior is more interesting and viable than the prior description, so we are instead updating the description to guide players better.
Ying has settled a bit down since her brief time with Anti-Heal immunity, but we wanted to still push her to be a bit more aggressive in how she generates her Ultimate and ask her to be a bit more active in Illusion placement to keep her team alive. Life Exchange is how many players utilize her in a single-healer composition but also was providing a little too much value for such high uptime. We want to watch how she performs across her Talents and gauge her identity moving forward as both a core healing option as well as her more aggressive playstyles, while keeping her focus as an Ult centric Support.
Our resident trickshot has had a tumultuous history with her Talents and pip economy. She’s bounced between being a fun spam queen to an infuriatingly experience lacking any autonomy in how she maintains uptime on her abilites. This is only compounded by the fact that she isn’t allowed the holy grail that is Chronos, making her pips feel less like a boon and more like a curse. We wanted to take a look at her pip system similar to how we did for Lillith’s Blood above, and have made adjustments to make her feel more active and purposeful with how she hits her next claim to fame. Pips now regenerate whenever Saati hits an opponent, their shields, or her Ricochet - meaning she should weave it into her normal gameplay to increase her access to other abilities. Costs for Ricochet and Blast Back have gone up to accommodate the new economy, as well as her passive regeneration slowed to emphasize this new mechanic. As a part of this, Heads or Tails has struggled to find a healthy identity so we wanted to make a Ricochet Talent more focused on rapid uptime of abilities as opposed to overtly buffing the coin.
Skye has swung a lot up and down after the Illuminate changes earlier this year, but we feel she’s close to a healthy spot now. Smoke and Dagger is an outlier after its buffs, however, as it allows certain compositions far too many opportunities to sustain themselves even when their Support falls. We’re reverting this healing buff to curb this and ask her to invest more in Cards if she wants to cover her team as best she can.
Omen has been sulking in the Abyss for a while since we took away all his fun (imbalanced) toys, but we don’t want to see him suffer any longer. We’ve updated his Aphotic Reaver to function much closer to other shotgun-based Champions, with his damage scaling based on number of pellets hit being half or full. We also discovered his range values were slightly smaller than intended and have adjusted them to match what was conveyed in-game. Umbral Lance also now returns a bit closer to its former glory now that his base weapon is more consistent. He wouldn’t let Jenos get buffs without his own, it’s not about hi-.