Hello, Raiders! We know many of you have asked for clarification about the balance changes coming to the Hydra, Shield buffs, and Trunda Giltmallet. In response, our Community Managers have gathered up some of the most frequently asked questions and passed them to our development team, so you can get answers directly from them. We’ve compiled all their answers in a comprehensive Hydra Balance Update FAQ! Check it out! The mentioned rebalances will be applied starting from the next Hydra rotation on October 16. Thank you for taking a look! We hope that the introduced changes will make Hydra a fair mode in the long run. However, we are ready to consider further tweaks if necessary.
Hydra Rebalance FAQ
Hydra just seems to become a harder boss for everyone, especially due to the modified Devouring mechanic, 100% DMG decrease for the [Serpent’s Will], and limited HP bar for Hydra heads. Why did you decide to increase the level of difficulty?
These changes are intended, first and foremost, to cap the performance of teams that endure very long battles by abusing specific Hydra vulnerabilities, especially by decapitating new heads as soon as they grow back. Also, we intended the battles to finish with all the Champions either dead or devoured instead of reaching the turn limit. Thus, avoiding Champion devouring becomes increasingly more difficult. By the way, the limited HP bar for an exposed neck creates a good opportunity for Champions whose DMG scales up based on the enemy’s Max HP.
My modest Hydra teams might be severely affected. Will I be able to achieve even minimal Hydra rewards?
The changes are specifically designed to cap immense amounts of damage certain teams dealt by far surpassing 100 turns, roughly speaking. It is the competitive aspect of Hydra Clash that we aspire to make fairer with these rebalances. If your team manages to deal enough damage for a certain Chest, we expect it to continue doing so with minimal adjustments.
Why not just nerfing one single specific Champion instead?
We consider the issue of overpowered Hydra teams a complex one. By changing the boss’s mechanics, we want to prevent new overpowered teams from appearing in the future. We aim for a better balance in this game mode in the long term.
Will Trunda become useless?
We want Trunda to remain a good and useful Champion, but at the same time, we want to bring her damage output against Hydra in line with that of other Champions.
Why change Shields?
We think that infinite Shields bring imbalance to the battle gameplay to such a degree that some cap is necessary. Still, we decided on a cap that would allow Wixwell to shine when fighting Demon Lord. However, we will be closely monitoring in case the Shield cap or any other change listed here needs any adjustments.
Why Change the way Taunt interacts with Mark of the Hydra?
As is briefly mentioned above, we intended Hydra battles to finish with all the Champions either dead or devoured instead of reaching the turn limit. That is why, for considerations of consistency, we are going to change the interaction between Taunt and Mark of the Hydra and also to make sure there are no specific strategies that provide a large advantage over the others or pave the way for abusing Hydra mechanics.
We might need to readjust some gear on our Champions after the rebalance goes live on October 16. Will there be anything to help us with it?
Yes, we decided to reschedule this month’s Free gear removal event to October 16-20 so that you will have an easier time tweaking your Hydra teams, if necessary.
Will you reset Badge achievements after the rebalance is activated?
No, all your badges and achievements will remain in place.
Will there be changes to milestones for Hydra Chests or Hydra Clash Chests?
Most of the changes are designed to make a larger impact on the later stages of a battle, so it is scoring hundreds of millions of damage that is going to become more challenging. We expect that securing Hydra and Hydra Clash chests won’t become considerably harder for those who have already been able to earn them. However, we are ready to reconsider Hydra Clash point multipliers if necessary.
Will the excessive damage dealt to an exposed neck count toward the total score?
Yes, if you manage to deal more damage to an exposed neck than it has HP in one blow, all the damage will count toward the total score.
In light of new changes, some players think Trunda will remain overpowered. Alternatively, others presume she will become nearly useless. What fate awaits Trunda, actually?
We never wanted to make Trunda irrelevant, but instead, we wanted to make her DMG capabilities correspond to those of other Champions across the board. For instance, we expect her A3 to become more relevant against Hydra due to HP burn, not dependent on Stun, and also in PvP due to an increased effectiveness against Stone Skin. If her damage is still far beyond the reach of any other champion, we will take further action to rebalance her.
Will the rebalanced [Serpent’s will] with 100% DMG reduction make it harder to cease devouring a Champion by a newly grown Head, especially considering that devouring becomes increasingly more difficult to stop over the course of battle?
No. The [Serpent’s will] buff lasts only one turn, and swallowing a Champion requires the Head to make a turn, after which it loses the protection of the [Serpent’s will]. If two new Hydra Heads appear at once, only one receives the [Serpent’s will] buff. But what if I manage to kill more Heads at the same time? – If you cut down 3 exposed necks at a time, 2 of the 3 new Heads will have the [Serpent’s will] buffs. If you dispose of 4 necks at once, still only 2 of the new Heads will have the [Serpent’s will] buffs. If you kill exposed necks one by one, this rule doesn’t apply, and they might all end up with the [Serpent’s will] buffs. However, we expect that facing all the 4 heads at once with the buffs will be a rare occasion.
Developers’ Comments On Hydra Mechanics Changes (17 Oct 2024)
Greetings, Raiders! Thank you all for providing us with your thoughts and extensive feedback about your experience with what has recently changed in the mechanics of Hydra boss. In appreciation of your feedback and active involvement into the matter of designing a better balance, we’ve sent you a gift today.
Now that the changes have been activated and you have started testing them on your own, we’d like to address the most pressing concerns that remain.
The primary purpose of the introduced rebalance was to bring all players onto equal terms in the long run when competing in Hydra Clash. We wanted to achieve that by reducing the dominance of particular overpowered teams via systematic and structural changes that would prevent the arrival of new possible imbalanced tactics in the future and would put all players on equal footing.
Clearly, old pre-rebalance teams and tactics might appear not as efficient in the new state of things if compared to previous selves. However, many more players now can forward more diverse teams that are able to compete more fairly and compare with each other instead of applying just a few tactics which by far dominated the rest.
Speaking of Trunda, we still want her to remain a good and valuable asset, maybe one of the best, but just not overpowered. However, if she remains too strong against Hydra even after the rebalance, we are ready to consider further changes to her in the future.
We admit that some players managed to fight Hydra under the old pre-balance rules and so brought their results into this round of Hydra Clash. Unfortunately, due to technical considerations, resetting this round of Hydra Clash or any parts of it (like Hydra Keys or Hydra Clash points) is problematic and might lead to additional technical issues. Therefore, we had to make a decision to leave this Hydra Clash as is. However, future Hydra Clash rounds will unfold on more fair terms.
Due to some bugs in AI behavior, Champions might now perform rather poorly against Hydra on Auto (like not targeting an Exposed Neck or a Head that digests a Champion by default), so we plan to fix those in future updates. Many players have put forward good suggestions as to further tweaks of AI when fighting Hydra that we will take into consideration. Thank you all for your constructive comments.
Rebalances are a necessary part of a game as complicated as RAID. Sometimes bosses might become a bit more and sometimes a bit less challenging to fight (like in the case of Iron Twins, Phantom Shogun and Sand Devil), but the changes we introduce are directed at making battle mechanics more consistent in the long run. In the case of Hydra in particular, it requires a few more Hydra resets for us to evaluate the state of things, and if it doesn’t reach the desired balance for large swaths of players in the long term, we are ready to make further tweaks.