Alliance War Season 19: Updates to Path Identities and New Nodes! [ June 30]

Summoners,

After his defeat at the hands of the Summoner and Carina, the Grandmaster has been an elder without a calling. Despite the problems and conflicts that the Grandmaster and The Collector have caused, they are still Carina’s family, and she loves them very much.

Instead of banishing them to a far off land, she’s worked with her council to create a plan to keep the two of them busy, and out of trouble.

The Universal Gamesman

Carina knows that a game with changing rulesets and unpredictable pieces is the perfect distraction to keep En Dwi Gast out of trouble. Under her supervision, The Grandmaster will transform Alliance Wars into his tournament, where he seeks the strongest Alliances every season to crown as his victors!

Recreating the Battlefield

The Grandmaster has never been shy about wanting to mould the Contest to his vision, and making sure his presence is noticed. He’ll be starting with the Maps on which you fight.

So first, we’re going to take a look at the new Nodes, Path Identities, and Layouts of the Grandmaster’s New Maps. All Map Changes will take effect on June 24th!

New Maps

First, we've got 2 Brand New Maps! One for Alliances playing on Easy and Normal, and one for Alliances playing on Intermediate, Hard, Challenger, and Expert. If you'd like to take a closer look, we've attached the High-Resolution versions of these maps to this post.

These new more simplified Maps eliminate Portals and bring the entire Battlegroup back together and key points throughout the Map.

Easy and Normal:

Intermediate, Hard, Challenger, and Expert:

New Local Nodes

The Grandmaster has crafted the following nodes for Alliances on the Intermediate, Hard, Challenger, or Expert Maps.

Path Identities

If you like to plan ahead, the Grandmaster is happy to provide you with a list of all buffs on all nodes across the Maps. There are lots to look at, so we've attached the lists of Nodes in the next post.

Matchmaking Updates

The Grandmaster wants to ensure that his tournament stays as competitive as possible. To do so, he is updating the parameters of Matchmaking. Matchmaking will now emphasize your Alliance's War Rating above all else. This will ensure that Alliances vying for the crown will be competing against other top Alliances.

This will be a big adjustment for a lot of Alliances. Currently, many Alliances are either have an inflated War Rating or a Deflated War rating due to the current system. To expedite the process of Alliances finding their "true" War Rating, we will be reducing every Alliance's War Rating by 50%. This will affect every Alliance in-game and will accelerate the rate at which Alliance's find their true position faster because of the concentrated War Ratings of all Alliances.

The Change to Matchmaking and the War Rating reduction will occur on July 8th.

What's Next?

There's still so much to reveal about Season 19 and beyond. Next week, we'll cover:
- Reward Changes
- Defense Tactics and Attack Tactics
- Alliance War Solo Events

Remember, Alliance Wars Season 19 Starts on July 7th, and there will be no war starting on July 5th!

Stay tuned for more information on everything else about Season 19!

Comments

zuffy

Where are the new global nodes? I still see Crush and Dodge and no Stubborn.

Amadeo01

Where are the new global nodes? I still see Crush and Dodge and no Stubborn.

The new defense tactics aren't coming live until next week.

zuffy

Oh, that is dumb. Why introduce new map and not the new global nodes too.

Worknprogress

So picture Doom as a defender with Stubborn. Don't even put any extra nodes on him! This is how OP this tactic is. Remember you can't use Ghost or Quake for this fight. You push Doom over a bar of power, he throws his sp1 at you. You HAVE to evade it because it's unblockable. Now Doom has three charges on him. Now you have to take 3 blocked hits to remove the 3 charges. Well when Doom hits into your block, he shocks you and Heavies you in the face! And that's without ANY NODES lol!

Now put him on node 49! 200% Champion Boost, 300% health, Stun immune, Shifting hazards Incinerate/Poison, debilitate. So now you will need a shock, poison, and incinerate immune (remember, can't use Ghost). Your one and only champ that has those immunites is Emma Frost. And she's only immune to those in diamond form so you will likely time out! Way to promote diversity!

Get rid of the defender tactics!
It's not unblockable when he has slow or petrify on him... also capiw shrugs debuffs with a skill on the team and places petrify with a tech.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking forward to the node but outside of the agg fury/oscillate and maybe one or two more fights, it will be manageable
You can't retaliate against specials. So have to keep blocking before you hit. Or take the specials on block. Also, majority of the annoying defenders come under this. If we have to resort to taking block damage every fight, it's basically an item fest to heal.
This node is basically limiting playstyle even more than Flow.

Uhhh, I retaliate against specials all the time against certain fights with dex off with flow. Just like flow you'll have to change your playstyle up to counter it, oh no

gohard123

So picture Doom as a defender with Stubborn. Don't even put any extra nodes on him! This is how OP this tactic is. Remember you can't use Ghost or Quake for this fight. You push Doom over a bar of power, he throws his sp1 at you. You HAVE to evade it because it's unblockable. Now Doom has three charges on him. Now you have to take 3 blocked hits to remove the 3 charges. Well when Doom hits into your block, he shocks you and Heavies you in the face! And that's without ANY NODES lol!

Now put him on node 49! 200% Champion Boost, 300% health, Stun immune, Shifting hazards Incinerate/Poison, debilitate. So now you will need a shock, poison, and incinerate immune (remember, can't use Ghost). Your one and only champ that has those immunites is Emma Frost. And she's only immune to those in diamond form so you will likely time out! Way to promote diversity!

Get rid of the defender tactics!
Iceman and Mephisto. Still not enough counters though
Neither are shock immune

eh.. you don't need a shock immune to fight Doom. Also if you are dexing, you might as well bring in Ghost.

KnightZero

So picture Doom as a defender with Stubborn. Don't even put any extra nodes on him! This is how OP this tactic is. Remember you can't use Ghost or Quake for this fight. You push Doom over a bar of power, he throws his sp1 at you. You HAVE to evade it because it's unblockable. Now Doom has three charges on him. Now you have to take 3 blocked hits to remove the 3 charges. Well when Doom hits into your block, he shocks you and Heavies you in the face! And that's without ANY NODES lol!

Now put him on node 49! 200% Champion Boost, 300% health, Stun immune, Shifting hazards Incinerate/Poison, debilitate. So now you will need a shock, poison, and incinerate immune (remember, can't use Ghost). Your one and only champ that has those immunites is Emma Frost. And she's only immune to those in diamond form so you will likely time out! Way to promote diversity!

Get rid of the defender tactics!
It's not unblockable when he has slow or petrify on him... also capiw shrugs debuffs with a skill on the team and places petrify with a tech.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking forward to the node but outside of the agg fury/oscillate and maybe one or two more fights, it will be manageable
You can't retaliate against specials. So have to keep blocking before you hit. Or take the specials on block. Also, majority of the annoying defenders come under this. If we have to resort to taking block damage every fight, it's basically an item fest to heal.
This node is basically limiting playstyle even more than Flow.
Uhhh, I retaliate against specials all the time against certain fights with dex off with flow. Just like flow you'll have to change your playstyle up to counter it, oh no

Please show me how. Have no idea how to do it, so will be able to learn something. Also, flow playstyle just needed you to play slower. Or have the right counters like power lock champs etc. Stubborn is a whole new thing. Just because you may be able to do it or find everything easy like how you always do, doesn't mean that the lower end of the player base facing the node feels the same.

Amadeo01

Summoners,

After his defeat at the hands of the Summoner and Carina, the Grandmaster has been an elder without a calling. Despite the problems and conflicts that the Grandmaster and The Collector have caused, they are still Carina’s family, and she loves them very much.

Instead of banishing them to a far off land, she’s worked with her council to create a plan to keep the two of them busy, and out of trouble...
FWIW, I hate the nodes on the new map, a lot. Not sure what you were thinking, Kabam. But it feels like we did something wrong and you're punishing us. And I understand that my ally's tier level isn't even getting a rewards buff. So thanks for that. I'll no longer be joining AW I suppose.

Yea honestly I'm looking at defender placements right now and it literally looks like they took last iteration of war, found the pain points, put them on steroids, and adjusted it so that the viable counters/playstyles would be screwed over.

For example: Aegis heavy is now replaced with ebb and flow knockdown WITH heavy hitter so heavy countering will be much more problematic. Aegis intercept is now replaced with ebb and flow intercept. Champs like Rhino and Nova were always problematic there but you could try to work around it by slowing rhino or staggering nova. But wait! In this new war map, those intercept nodes have tenacity and rapid metabolism so the slow and staggers will wear off super fast!

Just what the heck...seriously...

KnightZero

Also, one of the most painful node i.e Aggressive Fury/tunnel vision/Oscillate HAS to be fought. I don't remember previous pre mini's having the nodes of health that a mini had and they could be avoided. Facing a 200k health champ on that node is completely bs.

Worknprogress

Also, one of the most painful node i.e Aggressive Fury/tunnel vision/Oscillate HAS to be fought. I don't remember previous pre mini's having the nodes of health that a mini had and they could be avoided. Facing a 200k health champ on that node is completely bs.

That is is node combination I agree is absolute garbage. It's probably my biggest gripe with the new map honestly.

Worknprogress

So picture Doom as a defender with Stubborn. Don't even put any extra nodes on him! This is how OP this tactic is. Remember you can't use Ghost or Quake for this fight. You push Doom over a bar of power, he throws his sp1 at you. You HAVE to evade it because it's unblockable. Now Doom has three charges on him. Now you have to take 3 blocked hits to remove the 3 charges. Well when Doom hits into your block, he shocks you and Heavies you in the face! And that's without ANY NODES lol!

Now put him on node 49! 200% Champion Boost, 300% health, Stun immune, Shifting hazards Incinerate/Poison, debilitate. So now you will need a shock, poison, and incinerate immune (remember, can't use Ghost). Your one and only champ that has those immunites is Emma Frost. And she's only immune to those in diamond form so you will likely time out! Way to promote diversity!

Get rid of the defender tactics!
It's not unblockable when he has slow or petrify on him... also capiw shrugs debuffs with a skill on the team and places petrify with a tech.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking forward to the node but outside of the agg fury/oscillate and maybe one or two more fights, it will be manageable
You can't retaliate against specials. So have to keep blocking before you hit. Or take the specials on block. Also, majority of the annoying defenders come under this. If we have to resort to taking block damage every fight, it's basically an item fest to heal.
This node is basically limiting playstyle even more than Flow.
Uhhh, I retaliate against specials all the time against certain fights with dex off with flow. Just like flow you'll have to change your playstyle up to counter it, oh no
Please show me how. Have no idea how to do it, so will be able to learn something. Also, flow playstyle just needed you to play slower. Or have the right counters like power lock champs etc. Stubborn is a whole new thing. Just because you may be able to do it or find everything easy like how you always do, doesn't mean that the lower end of the player base facing the node feels the same.

Just block or space yourself accordingly to avoid an attack. Are there nodes/champs that make this more difficult? Absolutely. That's kind of the point though, is coming up with counters to problems.

We don't have the tactics in play yet so I don't know how well anything I theoretically think will work will actually play out but I guess we'll all find out next week.

I'm not.gonna sit here and say I saw the new nodes and tactics and jumped for joy but trying to counter the truly difficult stuff in game is actually fun for some people. I've had wars that left me flat out infuriated (more often than not at myself but sometimes the game or my matchup) but there isn't much else that gets me as invested in a specific fight as war does. Any other game mode, you drop a revive and/or some pots and move on. War has legitimate consequences if things go wrong. It makes things interesting when everything else is boring honestly

KnightZero

Like I have no idea how to get through that node. Can't do 5 hit combo to remove fury. Oscillate means they'll just stay there holding block. And gain fury. Obviously the one minute you decide to heavy to get a fury off, they will retaliate and kill you. Makes no sense.
They should just roll the Map to the old one, and decide on proper nodes. Pre mini bosses DO NOT need the same health as mini bosses. Go and read the defender tactics, and actually play them. And buff rewards down low as well, rather than just cater to the top folks. This Map requires such a huge diversity in ranked champs even for T4, that not everyone has. And that's just for nodes.Champs bring a whole new ballgame and then you keep defender tactics. Doesn't make war fun at all and more alliances will just drop out instead.

Mcord11758

Just wait. The new map is out. No new tactics but tomorrow should be entertaining

KnightZero

So picture Doom as a defender with Stubborn. Don't even put any extra nodes on him! This is how OP this tactic is. Remember you can't use Ghost or Quake for this fight. You push Doom over a bar of power, he throws his sp1 at you. You HAVE to evade it because it's unblockable. Now Doom has three charges on him. Now you have to take 3 blocked hits to remove the 3 charges. Well when Doom hits into your block, he shocks you and Heavies you in the face! And that's without ANY NODES lol!

Now put him on node 49! 200% Champion Boost, 300% health, Stun immune, Shifting hazards Incinerate/Poison, debilitate. So now you will need a shock, poison, and incinerate immune (remember, can't use Ghost). Your one and only champ that has those immunites is Emma Frost. And she's only immune to those in diamond form so you will likely time out! Way to promote diversity!

Get rid of the defender tactics!
It's not unblockable when he has slow or petrify on him... also capiw shrugs debuffs with a skill on the team and places petrify with a tech.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking forward to the node but outside of the agg fury/oscillate and maybe one or two more fights, it will be manageable
You can't retaliate against specials. So have to keep blocking before you hit. Or take the specials on block. Also, majority of the annoying defenders come under this. If we have to resort to taking block damage every fight, it's basically an item fest to heal.
This node is basically limiting playstyle even more than Flow.
Uhhh, I retaliate against specials all the time against certain fights with dex off with flow. Just like flow you'll have to change your playstyle up to counter it, oh no
Please show me how. Have no idea how to do it, so will be able to learn something. Also, flow playstyle just needed you to play slower. Or have the right counters like power lock champs etc. Stubborn is a whole new thing. Just because you may be able to do it or find everything easy like how you always do, doesn't mean that the lower end of the player base facing the node feels the same.
Just block or space yourself accordingly to avoid an attack. Are there nodes/champs that make this more difficult? Absolutely. That's kind of the point though, is coming up with counters to problems.

We don't have the tactics in play yet so I don't know how well anything I theoretically think will work will actually play out but I guess we'll all find out next week.

I'm not.gonna sit here and say I saw the new nodes and tactics and jumped for joy but trying to counter the truly difficult stuff in game is actually fun for some people. I've had wars that left me flat out infuriated (more often than not at myself but sometimes the game or my matchup) but there isn't much else that gets me as invested in a specific fight as war does. Any other game mode, you drop a revive and/or some pots and move on. War has legitimate consequences if things go wrong. It makes things interesting when everything else is boring honestly

Well that's what my point was. Taking block damage on a special is basically an unnecessary tactic. Especially when the game revolves around not taking damage.
Coming to the point about countering, yes it's fun. But most people who find it fun don't like the limits of AW. And obviously, there are people like you who like to challenge finding counters to such nodes in war, but I'm sure that's a minority. Or it'll probably be amongst players at the top who can handle such nodes with wider rosters than others. I'm no scrub, done with 6.1 100% and one run through Abyss and the rest of Act 6. All Variants and LoL done without throwing units. But I know that I don't have the roster to go through a few nodes, let alone champs on those nodes. The Map just punishes such players. If they wanted, they could give higher points to players playing on the new map and keep the old one as well. Rewards aren't game changing down low, but the punishment is.

unknown

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Worknprogress

Also, one of the most painful node i.e Aggressive Fury/tunnel vision/Oscillate HAS to be fought. I don't remember previous pre mini's having the nodes of health that a mini had and they could be avoided. Facing a 200k health champ on that node is completely bs.
That is is node combination I agree is absolute garbage. It's probably my biggest gripe with the new map honestly.
Ye I’m looking forward to stubborn doom on that node not gonna be fun at all

I think Nick will be worse

Pharted

Good to know the CCP was able to get across what 10 pages of posts saying "These revamped AW maps, nodes, defense tactics, and rewards suck" apparently were not able to do.

Worknprogress

Good to know the CCP was able to get across what 10 pages of posts saying "These revamped AW maps, nodes, defense tactics, and rewards suck" apparently were not able to do.

To be fair you have absolutely no idea what feedback was given on what information. I'd bet on it being unrelated to your post though

unknown

This content has been removed.

Goken2345

Not gonna lie. The bright blue background on the war map hurts my eyes. Anyone else?

unknown

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diRtyShaft

To be fair, Steady Buildup-Fury's Fury Passive and Ebb and Flow-Knock Down's Fury passive should grant same % of attack and duration of Fury Passive. Especially when the Defender already has the Attack increase on the node.

Doomsfist79

Good to know the CCP was able to get across what 10 pages of posts saying "These revamped AW maps, nodes, defense tactics, and rewards suck" apparently were not able to do.

The info that is being delayed is the roadmap for War/Alliances etc.. the topic of this thread is about s19.. so it's two separate pieces of information.
The picture below is the information which is being delayed from the 25th to the 29th..

DNA3000

First of all, I wanted to address the delay announcement. This announcement felt like a kick in the teeth. This announcement states that 'the CCP has had a preview of the AW roadmap and pointed out their concerns of the content'. There is no mention of this 26 page long thread full of this negative feedback or any other feedback they received through other sources. That is disgraceful. What that means is that if you are not part of the CCP, your opinion can and most likely will be ignored. This post of mine will probably be ignored. They don't care about any of it and that saddens me. I can't trust that Kabam will listen to any feedback, let alone learn from it.

To be fair, the feedback from this thread can only address the Season 19 changes, not the contents of the roadmap that addresses alliance war, because that road map hasn't been made public yet. Only the CCP has seen it, and so only their feedback could address concerns in it that would delay it.

We should reserve judgment on the roadmap until it is released and its details can either be seen as ameliorating S19, or amplifying the concerns about S19. I personally do not want to see Alliance War continue in the direction S19 takes it, but Kabam hasn't publicly stated yet where Alliance War goes beyond S19 yet.

I wish they would acknowledge that not just war, but the very way they iterate war, is something that isn't consistent with their vision for war in the future. We shouldn't be making it ever more difficult and ever more stressful to the players, and S19 even goes so far as to say if you're in tier twelve you're ready for Ebb and Flow. And we shouldn't use the players as guinea pigs and try stuff out and see how many people have nervous breakdowns as the metric for whether to change things or not. We shouldn't make alliances that participate war something to avoid at all costs if you aren't insane. That's what I think war is now, and that's what I want an about-face from Kabam to address. But I'll wait for them to release the roadmap publicly for all to see first, and then judge it fairly on its contents. I know that wasn't going to come from S19. S19 is a flaming pile of fertilizer, but it doesn't have to be the future of alliance war. We just have to see what that future actually is.

Ezziedog

Rewards still need to be buffed for the middle tier players, top tier players are not the only people that are getting burnt out.

Maverick75

The new background pictures are too much flashy (in my case light orange). They makes it difficult to see the paths that is not thick.
Moreover it makes much more difficult to read the texts that all are in a grey background and in a sober color.

Mcord11758

Man this map looks so much worse when you can scroll through it and start to see placement

Stagedear85

I made a post on this last night, and we've gotten new info since then so I'll leave my feedback again. As I said before, I am a gold 3/2 player and I love AW. Unfortunately, I may start to hate war after this season. This time, I will be going into more depth since we have seen the new map. I am also going to talk about the delay announcement.

First of all, I wanted to address the delay announcement. This announcement felt like a kick in the teeth. This announcement states that 'the CCP has had a preview of the AW roadmap and pointed out their concerns of the content'. There is no mention of this 26 page long thread full of this negative feedback or any other feedback they received through other sources. That is disgraceful. What that means is that if you are not part of the CCP, your opinion can and most likely will be ignored. This post of mine will probably be ignored. They don't care about any of it and that saddens me. I can't trust that Kabam will listen to any feedback, let alone learn from it.
.

I agree with you it sucks that they listen to a few CCP and ignore most of us in the forums , Im always on Youtube and from what i see most of the CCP members only talk about things that bother them and their alliance and most of it don't relate to the average player base to be honest, Most of the CCP members are in a master alliance or "END GAME" and most of their concern is about personal interest, when i look at this new AW outline all i see is a slap in the face for GOLD alliances and a big Hi 5 to the plat3 to Master bracket alliances . I understand Kabam cant please everyone but the CCP member's don't speak for majority of the players just a selective few, i understand that they promote your content for free and also gain from making content on youtube so its a win win for both side but these changes will drive alot of everyday players like myself to quit.

zuffy

You can’t even tank war to avoid the bs nodes. It’s in tier 6 and even at tier 12. Lol

Anujkewl

Y cant u get rid of defence tactics just pike before, wars were fun before war tactics, the war tactics are super super annoying

adramelch

War seasons have been the biggest mistake in this game ever since they were initiated. I can't remember a single iteration of seasons that wasn't somehow flawed one way or another. It's been 18 seasons and we are about to enter the 19th. How hard can it be to finally realise it's never going to work. If you want to fix wars and make that aspect of the game fun again, you need to think outside of the box and stop trying to fix something that never actually worked properly