Update 1.17 Notes: Battle Royale Public Game Mode Hits! :: Vainglory discussion on VaingloryFire

For the first time ever, Vainglory is introducing a new Public Queue game mode: Battle Royale! Plus, find six new hero skins, a Killer Bunny Rona card event, important balance changes & more. Read on…

New Game Mode: Battle Royal Public Queue

Battle Royal Highlights

Random hero. Fun for everyone!
Fast-paced lane-only battle (avg. game length 7-10 mins)
Play with Vainglory’s entire hero roster — even the heroes you haven’t unlocked!
Become skilled with a wide range of heroes through epic teamfights
Includes re-roll option and skin selection
You will receive Spoils of War (Glory and Fame) from Public Queue matches.

Battle Royal Improvements

If you tried Battle Royale in Private Match beta, you’ll notice some new improvements. We made the action-packed gameplay much smoother at all stages, so you’re not rushed into buying, and dying isn’t as much of a punishment. —SurpriseBirthday

Re-roll your random hero in Public Queue matches for 30 ICE.
Select skins in the pre-match lobby.
Death clocks are shorter at every stage of the game
Speed boost from Ace bonus increased.
Persistent gold trickle increased from 10 to 15 per second.
Gold trickle start time changed from 0:10 to 0:30 to not conflict with starting purchases.
Travel Boots buff is always active for everyone when out of combat for 5 seconds. You’ll still need to buy boots if you want the sprint activate.

'Killer Bunny Rona’ Spring Skin & Card Event

Killer Bunny Rona hops into the fray in Update 1.17 as a limited-edition Spring skin, giving her a new, frightening presence in the Fold. Best of all, you can unlock this skin simply by playing daily matches, with no ICE necessary! Read all the details here.

Skin Highlights

Most animation-rich skin ever made!
New Into the Fray animation (butt-bumping the ground)
New Foesplitter first-activation animation (skips and runs in style)
New Red Mist animation (furious war-twirl you won’t forget)
New obsidian axe blades with chips flying away at every hit
And more!

'BoneCruncher Phinn’ Tiers I, II, & III

All three tiers of this immense new skin theme will be released during Update 1.17, so keep an eye on the in-game Market.

'Cloud Raider Vox’ Tier III

The long-awaited end to ‘Cloud Raider’ Vox’s skin series comes with all-new tech to match his rebuilt look!

Boost Gifting

Want to accelerate your guild’s progress toward big end-of-season payouts? Want to let a friend know you appreciate them as an ally? Gift a boost!

You can now gift a Fame Booster to a guildmate.

GAMEPLAY CHANGES

Scoreboard

In Vainglory’s future, your first item purchased will be more meaningful, with more choices. This is an anticipatory change that makes it impossible to counterbuild until you’ve earned the right to know what your enemy bought. It also increases the importance of vision. —SurpriseBirthday

The Scoreboard will only update enemy item builds when you have vision of enemy heroes.
As the match continues, you’ll need to regain vision to see how enemy item builds have progressed.

Kraken

For too long Kraken has been a bit of a pushover in the later stages of the game. She has gained some ferocity to strike down silly heroes roaming around The Fold. —Zekent

Neutral Kraken late game damage up slightly

Minion Mine
While this does allow games to be accelerated, there shouldn’t be a large downside to taking your opponent’s Minion Mine early in the match. —Zekent

Gold bounty is always 150 gold

HERO CHANGES

"These changes to Alpha accentuate her different styles of play. Crystal Alpha will be able to focus on using her combo to burst down enemies, while Weapon Alpha relies much more on sustained basic attacks and Core Charges. —Zekent"

Base weapon down from 83-138 to 83-125
Fixed a bug where Alpha could move while rebooting

- Base damage crystal ratio up from 80% to 90%
- Damage per Core Charge stack crystal ratio up from 60% to 90%
- Fixed a bug where this ability would lock Alpha’s basic attack for longer than intended

"The damage that Alpha was dealing to herself with Core Overload was making it far too difficult for her to properly take fights against her enemies early on. —Zekent"

- Core Overload
- The negative % health per second debuff has been removed
- Each stack now increases the health cost of Core Charge by 2.5% per stack up to a maximum of 3 stacks
- Using Prime Directive still removes all negative stacks of Core Overload
- Base % health cost of this ability down from 10-10-10-10-0% to 2.5%
- Heal/stack changed from 4-6-8-10-12 + 1% weapon ratio to 5-6-7-8-10 + 2% WR
- Heal/stack reduced to 25% against minions
- Base damage changed from 40-60-80-100-120 + 120% CR to 20-35-50-65-80 + 80% CR
- Damage/stack percent increase also applies to the weapon portion as well

"Alpha will no longer come to a complete stand-still. Instead, she will continue to move … very slowly. —Zekent"

- Minimum move speed up from 0% to 30%

"The reflected damage coming out from this ability is now considered buff damage (similar to Hellfire Brew and Gift of Fire’s burn). This means that it will now interact with various things differently — from Kestrel’s Active Camo to being less likely to accidentally steal a jungle camp from an ally while Ironguarding. —Zekent"

Reflected damage is now considered buff damage

"Allowing Celeste to pack a bit more power early on and properly utilize her novas late in the game. —Zekent"

Cooldown changed from 3.0-2.6-2.2-1.8-1.4 to 2.8-2.4-2.0-1.6-1.2

Base weapon damage down from 80-157 to 73-157

"Leaning a bit more into what Fortress is all about: helping his team close gaps to get on top of his enemies. Additionally cleaning up some inconsistent numbers on this ability. —Zekent"

- This ability is now a basic-attack reset
- Lifesteal down from 3 to 2-2-2-2-3 seconds
- Damage down from 60-120-180-240-360 to 60-120-180-240-300
- Speed boost up from 1.7-1.8-1.9-2.0-2.5 to 2-2-2-2-3
- Lunge duration up from 2 to 2-2-2-2-3 seconds

"Smoothing out the scaling on this ability in addition to a slight decrease in power. While using this ability for the upfront damage is great, it really shines when you are able to proc the bleed. —Zekent"

- Bleed proc changed from 12-13-14-15-20% + 6% CR to 10-12-14-16-20% + 5% CR

"Prevents Fortress from gaining a pile of health from simply using his ultimate, along with reducing its power when paired with other heroes' defensive buffs. —Zekent"

- Bonus health gained by Fortress changed from 250-450-650 to 300-425-550 fortified health (15-second duration)
- Wolves health down from 300-450-600 to 300-425-550
- Fixed a bug where the wolves waited to find a new target when their target died.

"Joule’s Heavy Plating perk now visually makes sense and applies to every instance of damage that is applied to her. However, this means that she now relies much more heavily on it and needs to be able to quickly readjust her positioning to prevent her from taking too much damage. —Zekent"

- Now applies directional defense to ALL damage types & sources.
- Shield down from 22-133 to 0-55 (same as her armor)
- Joule gains 55-150 armor and shield when facing the source of damage

"Kestrel was able to crush most foes with a handful of arrows regardless of the opposing item builds. These changes force her opponents to build properly against her or risk taking huge damage from well-aimed arrows. —Zekent"

- Weapon ratio up from 95-105-115-125-135% to 100-110-120-130-140%
- Armor pierce down from 10-10-10-10-20% to 5-5-5-5-10%

"We wanted to give Crystal Kestrel a bit more of that slippery playstyle. She should now be able to more easily drop traps in key locations to surprise enemies. —Zekent"

- Stealth duration up from 1.2-1.2-1.2-1.2-2.0 + 2% CR to 1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-2.0 + 3% CR

"Giving this ability a bit more consistent scaling so it doesn’t become an overwhelming power spike at each rank. —Zekent"

- Armor pierce changed from 0-20-40% to 10-20-30%

"Crystal Ozo was intended to be played as a tanky bruiser — not a burst assassin. His numbers have been adjusted to reflect that playstyle. While Ozo may take significant damage during Acrobounce, he will be able to quickly heal it back up with Three Ring Circus. —Zekent"

"By building Crystal, Ozo gains significantly more health when hitting heroes with this ability. —Zekent"

- Energy cost of this ability down from 50-60-70-80-90 to 50-55-60-65-75
- Crystal ratio on 1st/2nd/3rd hit changed from 30/60/120% to 50/75/50%” var3=“Heal per hero hit crystal ratio up from 20% CR to 25% CR

"The base damage of this ability has been increased and the crystal ratio has been decreased to accommodate for more of a bruiser build. However, building Crystal will still allow Ozo to increase the burst that he is able to dish out. —Zekent"

- Bounce damage changed from 50-80-110-140-200 + 120% CR to 60-120-180-240-300 + 50% CR
- Final damage changed from 50-80-110-140-200 + 120% CR to 80-160-240-320-400 + 50% CR
- Additional damage per bounce down from 25-40-55-70-100 + 60% CR to 10-20-30-40-50 + 50% CR

"Ozo will now be able to cover distances much more quickly to catch unsuspecting foes before they manage to Reflex Block or outrun it. —Zekent"

- Speed of this ability has been increased from 9 to 12
- Roll duration down from 1.2 to 1 second

"Giving Petal a bit more reason to put points in Trampoline over her other abilities. —Zekent"

- Crystal amp up from 15-20-25-30-35% to 15-20-25-30-40%
- Weapon amp up from 8-12-16-20-24% to 10-15-20-25-30%

"While this ability is impactful, it was difficult for Petal to justify taking extra points in this ability. Now, there will be a much more sizable increase in health with each rank. —Zekent"

- Heal changed from 70-90-110 + 25% CR to 60-100-140 + 20% CR

Armor and shield up from 25-47 to 30-52

"Reim is very good against melee enemies. Maybe a bit too good. —Zekent"

- Fortified health gain from basic attacks down from 50% to 25%
- Damage over time crystal ratio down from 125% to 90%
- Damage over time base damage down from 20-54 to 15-54

"Relieving a bit of the early-game punishment Reim is able to dish out along with reducing his tankiness. Not being able to dodge the second instance of damage on Winter Spire will be a bit less punishing. —Zekent"

- Second-hit damage changed from 120-160-200-240-280 to 100-145-190-235-280

"Reim should be using Chill Winds as a utility skill to set himself up for a clean combination of skills. We’re removing base damage from this ability to ensure his enemies live to see the combo."

- Damage changed from 75-125-175-225-325 to 80-120-160-200-280
- Damage to minions up from 75-87-99-111-135 to 80-95-110-125-140

"Far too powerful in mid/late-game fights. Valkyrie comboed with Winter Spire wiped whole teams. This is meant to be more of an engage tool with some damage since Reim can easily follow this up with Winter Spire, which does the bulk of his damage. —Zekent"

- Damage at Valkyrie’s center down from 360-540-720 + 160% CR to 250-375-500 + 125% CR

"A bit less damage from Spitfire to dampen long-range siege action. Additionally, our favorite little dragon has been munching on minions far too easily. —Zekent"

- Damage down from 75-125-175-225-325 to 75-120-165-210-300
- Damage to minions crystal ratio changed from 70% to 50%

"Skaarf now needs to combo Spitfire with Goop for maximum damage. However, this puts him in a bit more danger. The combined changes of Spitfire and Goop make it so that Spitfire itself will do less damage (it still packs a punch when building significant crystal power). However, at level 4, the Spitfire + Goop combo will do more damage than in 1.16. At level 5, Goop does a bit less than in 1.16, but it can be comboed more often, making it a more effective tool than Dragon’s Breath when actually kiting. —Zekent"

- Ignite damage changed from 40-65-90-115-290 + 65% CR to 50-80-110-140-200 + 70% CR
- Damage per second changed from 25-35-45-55-115 + 110% CR to 25-40-55-70-100 + 100% CR

- Lock-on damage bonus crystal ratio down from 18% to 15%

"Allowing Vox’s opponents a bit more chance of counterplay. —Zekent"

- Fixed a bug where Vox would sometimes throw out an extra basic attack if he used this ability near a target affected by Resonance.
- Silence moved to the second shockwave.

ITEM CHANGES

Recommended Items

We decided to revamp our Recommended Items to give players a more in-depth understanding of a hero’s kit. Instead of simply recommending full item builds, we have really spent time to break it down to each level. This means that you will be able to feel the hero development as you level up and ultimately lead to understanding when to buy items efficiently. —ROAM

All recommended items have been updated

"While they may look flashy, Flare Guns were moving a bit too slowly and have been upgraded. —Zekent"

- Projectile speed increased

"The slow projectile speed made Fountain a bit too difficult to properly time for clutch saves. This speed boost will help it feel much snappier and more effective. —Zekent"

- Projectile speed increased

"Historically, Lifespring was able to keep you a bit too healthy in the jungle. While you will now heal up much more quickly at low health, it won’t top you off quite as easily. —SurpriseBirthday"

- New Passive: After being out of combat with enemy heroes for 5 seconds, regenerate 2.5% of your missing health per second.

"We’re returning the weapon power granted by its build components to keep you moving in the right direction. —Zekent"

- Base weapon power up from 30 to 50

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