[Updated] Alliance Wars Season 27: Attack Tactics, Scoring Changes, Schedule Update and More!

Summoners,

We’re excited to announce a number of updates and changes coming to Alliance Wars, starting in Season 27! From empowering Summoners Rosters to a number of Quality of Life Updates, there’s plenty to go over, so make sure you read on!

Foreword

Before we begin, we want to note that we’re making some major changes here that will improve the experience of Alliance Wars for a wide group of Alliances. We understand that War can be stressful on Summoners, and we are striving to address that. We know that these particular changes are not an answer to every stressor affecting every Alliance, especially those in the top tier.

Wars in the Top Tiers are vastly different from Wars in even Tiers 3 and 4. Addressing the concerns of those Alliances requires a different approach than other Tiers.

Recently, we’ve made some big changes in the way that we’ve structured our teams that work on Alliance Wars and Quests, and are committing to making more changes more often. We want to make sure that there are changes to Alliance Wars every Season. While the size and impact of these changes will vary, we want to increase the frequency of updates to not only react to player feedback faster but reduce content stagnation Season over Season.

Now, let’s start with some Quality of Life changes that we’ve already mentioned in our recent Roadmap Dev Diary.

Quality of Life Changes

• Loyalty Store
  
• AW Boosts are now available every 3 days with a purchase limit of 1
  

Energy

• Alliance War Energy cap increased to 6
  
• Alliance War Energy refresh rate decreased to 45 minutes
  
• Alliance War Starting Energy increased to 4
  

Scoring Updates

• Increased Exploration points per Node to 200- Encourages players to fully explore their maps, not go down a single section all the way down to the boss
  
• Removed bonus points for Defenders Remaining - The remaining Defenders rewards points for opponents. Instead of rewarding points directly for remaining Defenders, we want to encourage Alliances to explore more through increasing the Exploration Points per node.
  
• Season War win bonus reduced to 30,000 - Decreasing the season win bonus so that losing a single war during a Season will not put your alliance too far behind
  

Tier Updates

Tier 3 Alliances move to Challenger Map. Now, Tiers 3-5 will be playing on the Challenger Map. While alliances at the top of Tier 1 are comfortable playing on the Expert map, Alliances at the bottom of Tier 3 struggle.

Map Updates

Node Changes

Node 30
Vigor + Indomitable changed to…
Vigor + Outlast

Node 33
Spite + Powerful From Afar changed to…
Spite + Rise to Power - 2

Node 34
Buff Imbalance - Weakness + Redoubled Determination - 3 changed to…
Buff Imbalance - Weakness + Feat of Indestructible 2

Node 37
Ebb and Flow - Intercept + Redoubled Determination - 3 changed to…
Ebb and Flow - Intercept + Mighty-Charge 1

Node 39
Ebb and Flow - Intercept + Redoubled Determination 3 + Crumbling Armor changed to...
Ebb and Flow - Intercept + Mighty-Charge 1 + Crumbling Armor

Node 40
Buffet - 3 + Lionheart changed to...
Buffet - 3 + Indomitable

Node 43
Aspect of Evolution + Kinetic Transference 3 changed to…
Aspect of Evolution + Kinetic Transference 2

Introducing: Attack Tactics

Attack Tactics are a brand new mechanic we’ll be adding to Alliance War. We’re going to be replacing the bonus that the Defense tactics currently give to attackers with a new pool of selectable buffs that you’ll choose when you select your team.

Attack Tactics are separate from Defense tactics and each individual player will pick them.

We’re hoping this is going to let players use a new set of champions to deal with some of the common and most troublesome fights currently in Alliance War.

Attack Tactics will be available to Alliances playing on the Hard, Challenger, and Expert Maps, while Defense Tactics will remain only on the Challenger and Expert Maps.

Damage Over Time

We’re going to be splitting “Regenerator” into two parts, Attack and Defense. Effects and pool will stay the same but now you can use it in any war regardless of what your opponents choose.

Description:
If the Attacker is #AW: Damage Over Time, while the Defender is inflicted with 2 or more Damaging Debuffs, they become Passively Heal Blocked. New Damaging Debuffs re-apply the Heal Block.

Champion Pool:
Black Panther, Black Widow (Deadly Origin), Blade, Carnage, Elsa Bloodstone, Gwenpool, Hit-Monkey, Hulkbuster, Hyperion, Iceman, Killmonger, Masacre, Medusa, Mole Man, Namor, Nebula, Night Thrasher, Old Man Logan, Ronin, Sasquatch, Squirrel Girl, The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, Tigra, Venom

Slow your Roll

Introducing slow to a whole slew of new characters to help take out those pesky Thing bosses and other challenges you may find in your path to Masters.

Description:
If the Attacker has at least 1 Armor up Buff, or the Defender has at least 1 Armor Break Debuff, Striking the Defender with a Heavy attack will apply a 10-second Slow Debuff.

Champion Pool:
Guillotine 2099, Colossus, Venom, Guardian, HulkBuster, Doctor Octopus, Silver Surfer, Heimdall, Medusa, Magneto Marvel Now!, IronMan Infinity War, Sentinel, Cull Obsidian, Vision Timely, Punisher 2099, Angela, Venom the Duck, Terrax, Thor, Red Goblin, Annihilus, Black Panther Civil War, Airwalker, Civil Warrior, Vulture

Power Down

Arm yourself to deal with those pesky power gain paths and Champions with some brand new power control!

Description:
Finishing a 5 Hit combo with a different attack from the previous will apply a Wither Debuff to the opponent, reducing their Ability Power rate by 20% for 15 seconds. Each Prowess effect on the attacker or non-damaging Debuff excluding Wither on the Defender will apply an additional Wither Debuff.

Champion Pool:
Havok, Wasp, Professor X, Jubilee, Magneto (House of X), Apocalypse, Storm (Pyramid X), Emma Frost, Gambit, Proxima Midnight, She-Hulk, Luke-Cage, Ant-Man, Captain America, Invisible Woman, Green Goblin, Thing, Yondu, Dr. Strange, Red-Guardian, Yellow-Jacket, Spider-Man, Spider-Man (Symbiote), Sentry, Spider-Ham

New Defense Tactics

High Ground

Description:
Every 20 seconds the Defender gains one Altitude charge. When the Defender has any Altitude charges, they will do a burst of 500 Energy Damage per Altitude Charge, when Blocked. While under the effect of Altitude Charges, the Defender Gains True Accuracy. Altitude charges are unaffected by Ability Accuracy, and every 10 hits on the Attackers combo meter will remove 1 Altitude Charge.

Champion Pool:
MODOK, Airwalker, Nova, Ironman (Infinity War), Magneto, Professor X, Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, Storm (Pyramid X), Guardian, Ebony Maw, Wasp, Human Torch, Magneto (House of X), Silver Surfer, Symbiote Supreme, Red Goblin, Green Goblin, Captain Marvel, Rogue, Vulture, Blackbolt, Storm, Phoenix, Yellowjacket.

Untouchables

Description:
Whenever the defender Triggers a Miss or Evade they gain a Resistance charge granting a 30% Damage Resistance Passive effect lasting indefinitely and stacking up to 3 times. Intercepting the opponent will remove 1 Resistance Charge. Additionally, all evade abilities gain a flat 15% Ability Accuracy.

Champion Pool:
Guillotine 2099, Domino, Hit-Monkey, Mr.Fantastic, Nightcrawler, Ultron, Professor X, Invisible Woman, Black Widow (Deadly Origin), Darkhawk, Mysterio, Stryfe, Black Widow, Mordo, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man, Spider-Man (Miles Morales), Spider-Man (Symbiote), Spider-Man (Stark Enhanced), Spider-Man (Stealth Suit), Spider-Ham, Wasp, Quake, Ebony Maw, Hood.

Rewards Update

YES! There will be one, but we have not finalized this yet. We’re still working on this, but didn’t want to postpone the announcement of these changes any further. Stay tuned for more information on Rewards changes coming your way soon!

Extended Off-Season

To implement these QOL changes and other updates and to give you all more time with them in the off-season, we’re extending this Off-Season to 4 Weeks. That means that Season 27 will kick off on Wednesday, June 23rd!

All of these Quality of Life, Map and Scoring changes as well as Attack and Defense Tactics will go live on Wednesday, June 9th.