Balance Update: Kushala and Chee'lth

MCOC TeamMCOC Team Administrator, Admin [en] Posts: 612
edited March 28 in News & Announcements
Hey all,

Balance Team here again with an update on the latest round of Champions up for review, Kushala and Chee’ilth!

Kushala

As the 3rd Ghost Rider and the 5th Sorcerer Supreme in the Battlerealm, Kushala immediately made a mark on the Contest. Kushala thrives in Buff heavy matchups, which, with her Ignition Buffs, is nearly every fight. Players quickly picked her up to counter Maestro with her Soul Barb, but she has settled into more of a generalist over time. On top of that, Kushala’s Blessings provide a strong set of utility to help Kushala mitigate potential threats across the Battlerealm. So far we’re happy with how Kushala has performed in her target matchups and game modes and she will be staying as is!

Chee’ilth

Armed with her trusty Adze Axe, and with the help of Brother Grizzly and Sister Eagle, Chee’ilth joined the Battlerealm with a flexible playstyle and powerful Skill utility in Cleanse and Tranquilize. So far we’re happy with Chee’ilth’s matchup spread in Alliance War and Battlegrounds, as her most effective matchups consist of high performing Science Defenders such as Jessica Jones, Spot, and Void. As a Defender, we’re seeing players adapt to her threats in Cleanse and her Bleed through Block ability as her defensive win rate has stabilized over time. All in all, we’re happy with how Chee’ilth has been performing so far!

What’s Next

In previous Balance reviews, when neither Champion under review required Rebalancing, we added updates to older Champions to the Champion pipeline. Over the last year, these updates ranged from full kit Overhauls (Hulk, Spider-Man), Moderate updates (Red Skull, Luke Cage) and Value-Only updates (America Chavez). These Champions were selected for a variety of reasons, for example:
  • We targeted Red Skull for a moderate update as we identified that the Tech class needed additional support defensively in PvP game modes (Battlegrounds and Alliance Wars).
  • We saw that America Chavez was close to where her initial targets were and needed some small tuning changes to get there.
  • Nightcrawler was chosen for his update as he provided a unique defensive threat for the Mutant class in his Evades, while his attacking abilities could be updated to align with a traditional Mutant ability in Prowess. These factors alongside the theme of our first Saga led to Nightcrawler entering the update pipeline.
Moving forward, we’re going to tweak how we cadence our Champion Updates, as we’re looking to target Champions who require bigger kit changes than a Value-Only update, and are candidates for updates closer to the Overhaul level.

Since these are larger-scale updates which require additional time to design and develop, we plan to continue working on Champion Updates separately from our monthly Balance Reviews. Our current target is to release 1 update every Saga (3 months), starting with an Overhaul to Superior Iron Man releasing later in our second Saga.

This change to the cadence means that we’ll be looking to release 1 update per Saga regardless of any Rebalances planned. Additionally, to make sure our team has enough runway to keep both initiatives going, future Champion uUpdates and Rebalances will no longer go through a CCP Beta phase prior to their releases.

A reminder of what’s incoming!
  • 44.0 (April): Gladiator’s Rebalance releases
  • 44.1 (May): Mister Sinister’s Moderate update releases
  • Saga 2, Release build TBD: Superior Iron Man’s Overhaul releases
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