Blizzard
Hello pet battlers!We've seen some discussion around pet battle changes coming in Visions of N'Zoth, and we'd like to discuss those, as well as changes we currently have planned for a future content update.
The Weather Outside is Fight-fulWeather effects have always been intended to slightly change the rules of pet battles.
Tempestade de Areia is great against pets that do weaker attacks,
Luz do Sol is great for healing abilities, and
Chuva Purificadora is great for aquatic abilities. However,
Avalanche de Lama and
Nevasca both fell by the wayside in terms of being impactful or rule-changing outcomes. So in Visions of N'Zoth, both of these weather effects are being updated with new added effects in addition to their existing effects:
- Nevasca
Now also increases all elemental ability damage by 25%.
Avalanche de Lama - Now also increases all critical damage dealt by 25%.
To be really clear about the
Avalanche de Lama change: Critical strikes usually hit for 150% of normal damage.
Avalanche de Lama will now increase that to 175% of normal damage.We've also been thinking for a while that we should add a new weather type to the game, so Visions of N'Zoth will also introduce a new weather type:
Emanações Tóxicas. This deals
Draconiano damage to the current enemy pet and applies the
Emanações Tóxicas weather effect.
Max No MoreIn Visions of N'Zoth, all of the new outdoor pet battle
Missões Mundiais in
Uldum and
Vale das Flores Eternas will scale their level to match the highest level pet currently slotted on your team, instead of always being a level 25 enemy pet. This will also be the case for
Nazjatar and
Gnomecan – all of the pet battle World Quests there are being updated. You can check them all out with a team of three level 1 pets!
Stat ChangesIn Visions of N'Zoth, we're also changing how percent-damage reduction abilities stack with each other. Currently, if you're fighting a pet like
Unidade 17 in
Gnomecan (a Boss pet that passively takes 50% less damage), and
Unidade 17 uses
Agachar,
Unidade 17 becomes immune to damage because the two 50% damage reduction effects are added to each other. In Visions of N'Zoth, the plan is to cap damage reduction at -75%. Using Unit 17 as an example, while
Agachar is active, it will take 75% reduced damage instead of 100% reduced damage. This will smooth out the challenge with some enemy bosses.Please note that abilities like Dodge or
Deflexão will continue to avoid all damage. Those will not be impacted by this change.
What the Future HoldsIn a future update, we're targeting a number of balance changes we want to make, which will amount to lowering the effectiveness of some pets and strategies. Again, these changes will not be happening in Visions of N'Zoth, but we wanted to give you ample warning time that changes are coming. While we don't have specific numbers or details to share right now, here are some examples of abilities that we're going to take a close look at:
Of course that last one isn't an ability, but
Caranguejo Ermitão incorrectly has a higher stat budget than it should, and it will have its stats reduced to bring it in line with other similar pets.A goal we have when making many new pet battle
Missões Mundiais or encounters is to create puzzles that players can counter and “solve”-- ideally with the option to use a variety of pets and tools to do so. When a few pets have such strong synergies that they can deal massive damage in just a few rounds and almost trivially beat these enemies, it becomes problematic. Do we make new challenges only beatable by the highest damage combos, or do we make them generally solveable and therefore immediately smashed by massive damage?We don't want to ruin the feel of combination abilities, so we aren't going to make
Garra Negra no longer interact with
Grupo de Caça or
Revoada, but we want to make sure these abilities are dealing appropriate damage. And we want to make sure that secondary effects such as
Defesas Estilhaçadas are being accounted for with regards to balance.When we have further specifics, we will be sure to let you know.