Duelist Charge Changes | Patreon Weekly #254

Hey Patrons, in this weekly I’m sharing some upcoming balance adjustment to the Duelist! A lot of info here was previously shared in Shattered Secrets #34.

Also, v2.4.0 is getting very close to a semi-playable state. I can’t make any promises just yet, but Golden+ Patrons might see a second post this week with Alpha details!

Lastly, here are the results from Patreon Poll #52!
Mimic Tooth:                             81%
Wondrous Resin:                      62%
Plant Growth Trinket:              58%
Eye of Newt:                              42%
Exp Trinket?:                              35%
A Satiety-Based Trinket?:         23%
Another Combat trinket?:       15%
Another Equipment Trinket?: 12%
The more definite ideas did much better here, which is predictable, but I also see a strong preference toward more risk/reward or strategy altering trinkets, and for trinkets that don’t interact with things other trinkets already interact with. Both the mimic tooth and wondrous resin also open up entirely new gameplay possibility, and so did really well.

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I’ve been watching the Duelist closely since v2.0’s release. Her overall winrate is still slowly creeping up but seems to be settling well behind other heroes. Additionally, one thing that’s not quite feeling right while playtesting is the overall charge speed and per-charge power of her abilities. I wanted weapon abilities to be quite strong, but also somewhat situational and have less uptime than wands or artifacts. With those things in mind, I’m making some big changes by scaling back her weapon ability charge speed quite a bit, but am also buffing weapon abilities across the board.

Every single weapon ability has been made stronger, received mechanics changes, or had its charge cost reduced. Here’s a quick summary of the biggest changes to weapon abilities:

• All abilities that used to cost 2 charges now cost 1. Heavy Blow now deals no bonus damage if it fails to surprise, instead of costing 2 charges.

• All damaging abilities now deal more damage, show damage ranges in their description, and give flat damage bonuses instead of a % bonus. Flat bonuses give more consistency.

• All abilities that don’t boost damage now have some other component that scales with upgrades, usually duration or magnitude of an effect.

• Cleave and Retribution are now instantaneous if they kill an enemy.

• Harvest now always deals a set amount of bleed, making it great for consistent kills.

• Block can now last for many enemy hits, it ends early if the hero attacks after blocking.

• Combo strike now works more like gladiator combo, any hit in the last 5 turns refreshes combo duration.

• Lash now grants a little bonus damage and is guaranteed to hit every target.

• Brawler’s Stance now grants bonus damage and reduces ability recharge speed instead of costing charge each hit.

I’m also taking this chance to streamline the champion a bit. Her two weapons will now share a single charge meter, but with a bigger cap and faster charge speed. The secondary charge talent is also being replaced with a new talent that rewards using varied weapon abilities with even more charge boosts. This should hopefully make the champion a bit more straightforward while still encouraging varied and frequent weapon ability use.

My hope for these changes is that they are an overall buff, while simultaneously making weapon abilities feel much more impactful and fun.