Hey all,
Balance Team here again with an update on the latest round of Champions up for review, Falcon (Joaquin Torres) and Arnim Zola!

Falcon (Joaquin Torres)

The Battlerealm’s newest Falcon in Joaquin Torres was designed to be a well-rounded Attacker, using a wide range of Debuffs to mitigate incoming Damage, counter his Opponent’s threats and enhance his damage output. While his kit features 2 distinct modes to choose from, Joaquin Torres thrives once he reaches Peak Performance, allowing him to benefit from both his Offensive and Defensive themed modes at the same time. Equipped with a few abilities targeted at annoying Mystic opponents (Slow, Debilitate, replacing the Precision Buff from Dexterity with a Trauma Pause), we’re happy to see his matchup spread reflect his targets, albeit with varying performance depending on the game mode. While Falcon’s performance is in a good spot in Quests with longer encounters and a wide range of opponents, we’re seeing Falcon struggle to get his loop going in encounters with shorter runway and higher pressure (e.g. Battlegrounds), and will be looking to make changes to address this. Changes incoming for Joaquin!

Arnim Zola

Arnim Zola entered the contest armed with a new spin on Tech Power Control with his combo of Special Lock and Combat Power Reduction, while also leveraging damage mitigation and loop disruption as his core Defensive identity. In PvP modes, Arnim Zola has landed and continued to make an impact as a powerful stall threat, with one of the highest average Defending fight times in Battlegrounds across recent seasons. Since release, we’ve seen summoners adapt to Arnim Zola’s unique defensive kit with a variety of strategies, and are happy with his impact on the meta. As an Attacker, the burst of Direct Damage granted by his Signature Ability has proven to be an important piece to his Damage reach, and is overall in a healthy range for a kit that heavily leans on Damage Mitigation and Power Control. Overall we’re happy with how Zola has landed and will not be making any changes to his kit!

What’s Next

Falcon (Joaquin Torres) will be a part of Batch Update #2 - slated for our 54.1 (January) build!

So far, the 2 confirmed Champions in Batch #2 are:

• Vision (Deathless)
  
• Falcon (Joaquin Torres)
  
• Champion TBD
  

You can expect communication on JEAN GREY & BASTION toward the middle of AUGUST!