Match of the Millennium

The cost for using BURN to regain a DM has been adjusted: - [25]% reserve normally, [20]% in TOP. This adjustment is being made for the same reasons the SUPER cost of RESOLVE was lowered. -GLaDOS

There is a fairly major update to Normals coming in over the next little while. You will discover the following changes: - The STANDARD normals sets will be retired. If you currently have a standard normals set, it will change at some point over the next few days as follows: Standard -> Brawler Normals StandardWeapon -> Weapons Normals StandardKick -> Kick Normals The Standard Normals sets were always the default way to help get reserve back faster at the cost of less flexible normals. However, with all the changes that have come into CSYS over the years, reserve management has enough other options to integrate into your builds that the extra reserve from Standard normals sets is no longer really necessary. - PL1 Normals are going away. The PL1 normals are really only good for one of two things: Wasting a turn Chipping someone out Ultimately, we're not too interested in having a normal dedicated to chip-out KOs, since that's not really that interesting in a fight choreography sense. And any other time you use them, you're really just wasting time in a fight, which is also not worth having a normal for. - PL7 Normals are going away. PL7 Normals have been problematic because they essentially dish out Super level damage albeit with a lower percentile chance to succeed. The issue is that in a lot of cases, firing off a PL7 normal is a fairly risk free option to take since if your opponent doesn't have COUNTER or a solid interrupt build, you can safely assume they won't want to trade the heavy damage of the PL7 in trying to interrupt it. This means throwing out PL7s is less of a gamble than they should be considering their potential for dealing damage. In addition, with various hitrate and damage stacking options, it's not that difficult to turn PL7s into a more reliable attack with a huge amount of damage behind them. This kind of of burst damage in a fight is intended to come in the form of Supers, not low risk PL7 freebie attacks. - All existing sets will be re-balanced to shift their point budget out from the PL1 and PL7 attacks into new options within the set. As before, sets will retain some unique flavor attacks to them, and we may even see some of the new flag mechanics work their way into the sets. The above changes will happen over time so be sure to check your normals sets for new toys in the days ahead! - GLaDOS

Okay, the major update I previewed earlier this week is now live. The following is the complete list of changes with current numbers and mechanics! Minor Changes/Bug Fixes: ------------------------ - You can no longer avoid being dazed by using Blitz to drop the debuff. Generally, we avoid having Sig Abils that hard counter each other and this one definitely did. Blitz is already strong enough without needing to hard counter Daze. - The interrupt bonus of CLARITY/INTERRUPT no longer stacks with +EX or PARRY. This was just a bug, it was never supposed to be the case. - BOLD no longer stacks with TOP. Stacking To-Hit and React bonuses in round 1 on top of the inherent bonuses in TOP was more oomph than intended. - MIGHTY no longer applies the debuff if it procs off of SHIFT or DASH. This is consistent with how it already interacted with PROJ. - A number of TOP mechanics have been adjusted for balance as follows: - COUNTER - No longer grants +[6]% to COUNTER. Instead, if you fail the COUNTER you take [1] PL in reduced damage. Since TOP already gives +[6]% to hit, this double stacking was too strong. - EM - Dropped the cost reduction from [3]% to [2]%. Just a balance tweak. - IMBUED - Buffed the bonus reserve on Imbued Normals from [1]% to [3]%. - MANIP - Dropped the reserve granted from [10]% to [8]%. Just a balance tweak. Systemically, we weigh Reserve more than Super. - RESTORE - Instead of always being [3]% per tick, it is now +[1]%. This just drops D RESTORE down to [2]% in TOP rather than [3]%. - REFLECT - No longer grants +[6]% to REFLECT. Instead, if you fail the REFLECT, you take [1] PL in reduced damage. Nerfed for the same reason COUNTER was.

VIGOR Related Changes: ---------------------- - EFFICIENT trait retired. This mechanic is simply too strong for a trait. But we like the mechanic, so we found it a new home. I will manually swap everyone who has EFFICIENT to TIRELESS over the next little while. If you want something besides TIRELESS, please submit your revision requests via email. - S VIGOR UPDATE - Loses the 'Recharge' mechanic. Instead, picks up the old EFFICIENT mechanic as follows: - When your attacks fail to connect cleanly, receive a [50]% refund on the reserve spent on them. If the attack was dodged, countered, or reflected, you will get [50]% back. If it was blocked, poked, or projectile interrupted, you will get [25]% back. - NEW TRAIT - TIRELESS Tireless grants the old 'Recharge' mechanic of S VIGOR. It now banks [25]% reserve instead of [20]%, but otherwise works the same as it did when it was S VIGOR, which is to say, you activate it, then throw a normal, and collect the banked reserve. So if you really miss the old S VIGOR, you can pick up TIRELESS to replace it. IMBUED Changes: --------------- - S IMBUED UPDATE - Loses the BURST mechanic. Picks up a new Active Ability called FLUX. - FLUX: Spend [5] super to add [0.5] PL damage and [5]% To-Hit to your next attack. The old BURST was just not particularly appealing. No one used it. It had to go. - SIG IMBUED - NOVA UPDATE - NOVA has been revamped to the following mechanics: - NOVA: Active ability that burns [X]% health in exchange for damage, reserve, and super. Caps at [10]% health burned, which grants +[2.2] PLs of damage, +[10]% super, and +[10]% reserve. Spending less health with lower the bonuses proportionally (so burning 5 health equates to +1.1 PLs, 5 super, 5 reserve for example). The damage bonus does not stack with DM/Power. Can be used on the same turn FLUX is used, in spite being an Active Ability. While I liked the concept behind the current NOVA of increasing risks with increasing potential for big payouts, it was really difficult to use in practice. You either tapped it lightly, which was a meh reward for a Sig Ability, or you went all in and blew yourself up. There really was no middle ground. The new mechanic puts the power to tune your risk vs reward on a round to round basis, which feels like it should be easier to use overall. RUSH Changes: ------------- - A RUSH and S RUSH have swapped places, putting the stacking to-hit bonus from missed attacks on S rank and moving the HASTE proc to A rank. The reason for this change is to make RUSH consistent with EVADE, SMASH, and BRACE, where the S rank is a passive mechanic that provides some part of the ability's Active bonuses when not using the Active. SMASH Change: ------------- - The old A RANK has been retired. You no longer gain [2]% reserve back on SMASHED normals. Instead, there is now a new A RANK: SMASH A RANK: You can now use SMASH when interrupting. CHARGING Change: ---------------- - Charging is no longer blocked by using an Active Ability on your turn. This means that you can do things like BRACE then CHARGE, or RESOLVE then CHARGE. We felt that the restriction in place wasn't really necessary anymore and the experience of forgetting that you popped EVADE and so now can't charge in spite having posed charging is something we're happy to do away with. ANALYSIS Change: ---------------- - FOCUS/DIRECT is no longer blocked by using an Active Ability just like CHARGING for pretty much the same reasons. CONTROL CHANGES ----------------------------- - SIG ABIL - COMMAND: In addition to COMMAND's ability to add damage types to your attacks, it also now gives you access to apply OVERDRIVE flags to your super attacks via CONTROL/ Note that this does not allow you to add additional overdrives above and beyond what the rank of super would normally have, and you do incur the 10 speed penalty for adding an ad hoc overdrive. This feature is more about putting the power to adapt to the situation to summon up whatever OD flag is most needed for you in the moment rather than having them all baked into your attacks. Contrary to my original post on this subject, this use of CONTROL does NOT count against your ability to apply other flags. This means for a super, it is legal to make 4 Ad Hoc changes. For example: control/chi control/assault control/crush modify/atk+ Could all be done on the same turn. Go crazy!

As announced before, a new ability is coming called BURST. It is not available quite yet and the final spec is still being fine tuned. However, as part of BURST's design, RESOLVE underwent some major changes. - ABILITY UPDATE - RESOLVE D RANK: Access to the RESOLVE Active Ability. [Shifted down from C Rank. Note that the BURN active is no longer included in RESOLVE.] C RANK: Gain a bonus of [12]% more super when taking damage. [Shifted up D rank and buffed by [2]%]. B RANK: Gain [2] charges of +EX. +EX makes your next move cost [2] less SUPER, [50]% less reserve, and gain [10]% to hit. [Buffed to be 2 charges of +EX instead of just 1.] A RANK: When your normals land, they gain bonus super based on the Power Level of the normal. So a PL5 normal will gain +[5] super for example. [Replaces old A Rank which is obsolete now that the B rank gives 2 charges of +EX] S RANK: Reduces the Reserve and Super cost of all moves by [1]% for every [10]% health you are below [50]%. [Replaces the old S Rank which got migrated over to the new BURST Ability. Overall, the combined super gain of old D RESOLVE and S RESOLVE was too strong to be packaged into a single ability. Splitting it across two abilities lets me keep the numbers solid instead of having to nerf them.] TOP: No change. GROOVE: In addition to its old mechanics, GROOVE now also grants +0.5 PL in damage and 0.5 PL reduction in damage taken while you are in GROOVE. The intent here is to make GROOVE a bit more competitive next to ECLIPSE. As it stands, ECLIPSE gets several rounds in TOP while GROOVE tends to only get a couple, or may not get any at all if your health window for it gets skipped over due to a big hit. To compensate for the more limited rounds, we've given the rounds more oomph. And there you go. The post with BURST's info will be forthcoming once we do some more testing on it, then you'll be able to start revising into if you would like. As always, Revision Requests that involve dropping anything to make room for something else must be submitted via email. If you're just adding things, you can do that via the dojo. Let us know if you encounter anything strange on the Questions channel. Thanks and enjoy! -GLaDOS

Introducing the new BURST ability! Following a full day of testing and tweaking it, we're happy to release it for public consumption. The following is the final spec on it: D RANK: [BURST] Gain access to BURST. BURST consumes [25]% reserve and restores [1] DM charge. At B Rank BURST, you will also obtain +[1] Burst Stock if you are not already at the cap of [2]. C RANK: [VIM] Gain [1]% Reserve for every [20]% Super gained. B RANK: [ES/SHIELD] Gain access to [2] Burst Stocks which can be used on one of two new mechanics: +ES = Consumes [4]% reserve and [1] Burst Stock to grant [1.5] PLs of bonus damage to your next attack. It also makes the attack cost [5] super less, and grant +[25]% more super for damage dealt than it normally would. The bonus PLs do NOT stack with DM/Guard or the passive from S SMASH, but do stack with all other damage enhancing mechanics. +SHIELD = Consumes [4]% reserve and [1] Burst Stock to reduce the damage of incoming attacks by [1.0] PLs. It also increases your chance to Block by [12]%. The damage reduction does not stack with DM/Guard or the passive from S BRACE, but does stack with all other mechanics. The Block Bonus does not stack with DM/Alertness, but does stack with all other mechanics. A RANK: [AVIDITY] The lower your reserve gets, the more reserve you get back from normals, based on +[1.5]% additional reserve for every [5]% reserve you are under [65]%. S RANK: [ADAMANT] As you get lower in health, the super gained from taking damage goes up: [50]% X (100 - current health), so about +37.5% at 25% health remaining. TOP: BURST costs [20]% reserve instead of [25]%, +ES/+SHIELD cost no reserve to use, and INFUSE costs [6]% reserve. SIG - INFUSE: Start the fight with +[2] additional STOCKS of ES/SHIELD. Gain access to +INFUSE which trades [10]% Reserve and restores [2] Burst Stocks. In addition, you are able to use ES and SHIELD on the same turn in exchange for your Active Ability for that turn. When using +ES and +SHIELD on the same turn, your total reserve cost remains a fixed [4]%. I.e., if you use +SHIELD then use +ES, +ES is free, and visa-versa. In addition to BURST, I also bring you one more present. In the distant past, every time you added more Supers to your attack list, you would gain [10]% more Super for taking damage and dealing damage for each n. When we did the reboot, we kept this concept, but lowered it down to just [5]% bonus super per super, with a cap of [10]% which you would hit when you had a total of [5] Supers in your attack list. Now that Overdrive flags exist, this rarely remembered incentive is no longer needed. However, because I am in a charitable mood, rather than taking this bonus away, I am giving it to everyone! Going forward, if you already had 5 or more supers, you will notice no difference. However, if you have 3 to 4 supers in your attack list, you are now gaining 10% or 5% more Super than you were before. Enjoy this newly granted incredible power! If you want to make revisions to your build to accommodate BURST or any of the other new stuff that we've introduced this weekend, please submit emails like normal. If you are just adding to your current build, you can use the dojo to your heart's (and AP's) content! -GLaDOS