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

Amadeo01

So...with hazard shift and cold turkey, if it isn't a typo, it looks like the incinerate and poison only does 0.30 damage over 7 seconds, so basically it does no damage, but puts a debuff on you, and if you purify it, then cold turkey does degen damage to you. Does being poison/incinerate immune count as purifying?

KnightZero

So...with hazard shift and cold turkey, if it isn't a typo, it looks like the incinerate and poison only does 0.30 damage over 7 seconds, so basically it does no damage, but puts a debuff on you, and if you purify it, then cold turkey does degen damage to you. Does being poison/incinerate immune count as purifying?

Might be a typo. Description in the thread says 30% attack damage. Also, the purification is a big thing. Removes Rulk. Hope that Claire doesn't count as purifying.

Sensei_Maat

So...with hazard shift and cold turkey, if it isn't a typo, it looks like the incinerate and poison only does 0.30 damage over 7 seconds, so basically it does no damage, but puts a debuff on you, and if you purify it, then cold turkey does degen damage to you. Does being poison/incinerate immune count as purifying?

Its not a typo
Its 30% of attack value so while there is no champ on it it displays 0.3 as thats what the calculation uses.
the need to potentially reword the description better but as an empty node with no champion on it it cannot display a correct value.
i assume once we get into attack phase and we are facing a champ we will be able to see the true value.

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Amadeo01

@Sensei_Maat @KnightZero so any idea if being immune counts as purifying? for example, if emma frost goes into diamond and shrugs off the debuffs, does that count as a purify?

KnightZero

@Amadeo01
No idea. Going to have to test everything ourselves. I don't think being naturally immune like Iceman and Mephisto will count, but Rulk definitely doesn't work with Cold Turkey. Just not sure how Emma and Claire will work.
Basically Kabam made the Map and left it up to us to figure it all out. 27 pages and we come to know what Cold Turkey and few other nodes are when the new Map started yesterday. And we still don't know how some nodes work, what Stubborn Tactic is properly or why tf they decided to make such rubbish nodes when people hated war already. Like this Map is tons worse than the last one.

Amadeo01

@Amadeo01
No idea. Going to have to test everything ourselves. I don't think being naturally immune like Iceman and Mephisto will count, but Rulk definitely doesn't work with Cold Turkey. Just not sure how Emma and Claire will work.
Basically Kabam made the Map and left it up to us to figure it all out. 27 pages and we come to know what Cold Turkey and few other nodes are when the new Map started yesterday. And we still don't know how some nodes work, what Stubborn Tactic is properly or why tf they decided to make such rubbish nodes when people hated war already. Like this Map is tons worse than the last one.

Yea, totally agree. It really does seem like they designed 1 node, and then designed a second node to pair with it just to screw with counters for the first one. Hazard Shift + Cold Turkey is the perfect example of that thought/design process. Same with the Ebb and Flow knockdown + heavy hitter and Ebb and Flow Intercept + tenacity/rapid metabolism. It's really disheartening that this is what they think counts as fun.

KnightZero

@Amadeo01
No idea. Going to have to test everything ourselves. I don't think being naturally immune like Iceman and Mephisto will count, but Rulk definitely doesn't work with Cold Turkey. Just not sure how Emma and Claire will work.
Basically Kabam made the Map and left it up to us to figure it all out. 27 pages and we come to know what Cold Turkey and few other nodes are when the new Map started yesterday. And we still don't know how some nodes work, what Stubborn Tactic is properly or why tf they decided to make such rubbish nodes when people hated war already. Like this Map is tons worse than the last one.
Yea, totally agree. It really does seem like they designed 1 node, and then designed a second node to pair with it just to screw with counters for the first one. Hazard Shift + Cold Turkey is the perfect example of that thought/design process. Same with the Ebb and Flow knockdown + heavy hitter and Ebb and Flow Intercept + tenacity/rapid metabolism. It's really disheartening that this is what they think counts as fun.

The funny thing is that the nodes look terrible. And they have to be faced even by people below who are probably not going to have champs to face such stuff. And for the people above, we still have to add defender tactics to this ****.

Bwest289

@Kabam Miike , I dont have any feelings one way or the other on nodes or rewards for AW but could you PLEASE tell the design team to never use that background again? It is the WORST. It is so hard to see things and navigate the map. I hated it in act 5.1 and I still do. PLEASE?! or give us the option to change the background color.

Chrisco66

The aw rewards have to “outweigh” the pot & item usage. Willing to give it a chance & thoroughly try aw in off season (potion free of course) & see how it goes. If it feels like a nightmare then aq only here I come

KnightZero

First war with new nodes just started. No idea how to plan lanes with counter to nodes, champs and then flow. Going to be fun during season.

SoulOfDarkness

Change the background. eyes are leaking out.

zuffy

OK, how the hell do I counter Darkhawk in node 2 with ebb and flow knockdown? I tried corvus, knock him down but the window too small to do any damages on top of DH’s ability from knockdown. Only the first node, and war suck so bad alresdy.

Gregdagr8

I haven't gone in yet, I have a DH on the same node. I'm going to try Medusa. DH will be on that node every war this season. Oh and DH is #defense so he's going to be Stubborn too! So much fun these horrible designs.

Speeds80

Q.o.L suggestion already, why the need for two empty steps here, it just means someone has to have two checkins for the second section #stopthegrind

Menkent

Q.o.L suggestion already, why the need for two empty steps here, it just means someone has to have two checkins for the second section #stopthegrind

If it's a shared path is there some possibility to split those empty nodes between two people? Definitely wish we could choose how far to move up to make that kind of thing easier. Same in AQ.

zuffy

OK, how the hell do I counter Darkhawk in node 2 with ebb and flow knockdown? I tried corvus, knock him down but the window too small to do any damages on top of DH’s ability from knockdown. Only the first node, and war suck so bad alresdy.

Alright, I took it down with capiw using parry heavy and then l3 for the big damages. Not a fun fight. Mordo is actually worse.

Carmel1

node 15 in challenger map (aggression armor + enhanced armor), shouldn't a well time block with Corvus remove the passive armors against IMIW?
i fought him on that node and well time block didn't remove any armor (it remove the flow so i know my block was fine). he got up to 22 armors!!
i'm quite sure that it used to work on the previous map when IMIW was the middle mini on the same node.

KnightZero

@Amadeo01 Claire doesn't work on Hazard Shift with Cold Turkey. Her shifting the states counts as purification. Just great. Another counter down.

Kevo9513

Idk why y’all think the hard map wouldn’t need a timer increase as well. Just putting this picture here from Lane 5 first fight.

Literally almost timed out. Balancing baiting and heavying with powergain? Oh Lordy. Not to mention it’s only a 6 second fury

Gregdagr8

@zuffy yeah medusa worked.

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zuffy

@zuffy yeah medusa worked.

Thanks. Capiw actually do well. Build up an l3 and 5 charges. Throw a heavy for the knockdown and then throw l3. That was enough to take 45% health off DH. I was able to KO mordo with the l3.

Amadeo01

@zuffy yeah medusa worked.

Does Medusa actually shut off the 90% damage reduction?

Amadeo01

@Amadeo01 Claire doesn't work on Hazard Shift with Cold Turkey. Her shifting the states counts as purification. Just great. Another counter down.

Looks like ppl better r5 iceman I guess...thanks for the update

KnightZero

@Amadeo01 Claire doesn't work on Hazard Shift with Cold Turkey. Her shifting the states counts as purification. Just great. Another counter down.
Looks like ppl better r5 iceman I guess...thanks for the update

It's so stupid. The only way to use Claire on that node is stay in one phase. Preferably incinerate and keep throwing Sp2. But then you get cornered at one point. I faced Massacre there as well, so couldn't stay in incinerate or I'd die. But waiting for poison phase, you just get cornered.

Raganator

Let's just say, this new map and defensive tactics are not exactly building any goodwill (which you desperately need right now).

KnightZero

Bottom tiers like T4-T3 etc will have it even worse. Up top, they care about diversity. Because they k ow that somehow everyone will solo or barely die. Down low, noone gives a f***. Throw 10 Mojo, 10 Doom, 10 Void etc on the new Map and even without Stubborn, you'll be throwing items. Or just throw Flow champs and we'll have it rough.

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KnightZero

@Amadeo01 Claire doesn't work on Hazard Shift with Cold Turkey. Her shifting the states counts as purification. Just great. Another counter down.
Looks like ppl better r5 iceman I guess...thanks for the update
Just confirmed Iceman takes burst damage from cold turkey, It's beyond ridiculous.

How? What is he purifying? Who were you fighting? Because I didn't take damage as Claire when I didn't shift modes.