General

• Fixed an issue where one of his achievements read stanked” instead of stacked”

General

• The Mayan hero twin has had some very interesting balance developments over the past season. After some interesting changes in the past Season Xbalanque has settled into the lower end of the Hunter roster. With Branching Bolas and his Ultimate now feeling to be at great spots, we looked at his movement ability. Rising Jaguar used to be a key source of damage in the old days, but has crazy low scaling for today’s standards. We are increasing this damage scaling by a considerable amount to give Xbal more options in combat.

Rising Jaguar

• Increase Physical Power Scaling from 30% to 50%

General

• No stun no problem. Xbalanque has maintained some of the consistently highest win rates and pick rates since his Branching Bolas buff earlier this year. Even without a stun, his Ultimate is one of the strongest in the game. That ability feels well-tuned, so instead we are looking to make smaller adjustments to Branching Bolas. We are partially reverting the damage increase to a safer place in between, as well as increasing the mana costs. Bolas mana management used to be a huge part of the kit, and is now nearly ignored. This middle area should take a toll on Xbal players without being overly oppressive.

Branching Bolas

• Decreased Damage on Branched Bolas from 40% to 35%.
• Increased Mana Cost per Shot from 3/6/9/12/15 to 5/8/11/14/17.

General

• Xbalanque was a go to hunters for some time, providing an ultimate that turned teamfights on their head. While we saw some memes that nobody was hit by the stun, we have seen the fall off in his overall performance due to the improved counterplay. Darkest of Night can return to a more standard ultimate cooldown. In addition we are bringing up Branching Bola, allowing for stronger lane clear and poke to help him get to the late game.

Branching Bola

• Increased damage on Bola that branch off of the initial hit from 30% to 40% of the initial hit damage.

Darkest of Nights

• Decreased Cooldown from 110s to 90s

General

• Fixed an issue where his achievements text would not appear in the Steam UI.

General

• Xbalanque was defining the meta for most of the year, but a big change to his ultimate has brought him to a more reasonable place. His blind is weaker yet still a valuable asset to teams, but the community helped point out a strange weakness in his kit. Poison Darts slows for surprisingly small amounts until it's ranked up. We want each ability to feel impactful and so the slow is being boosted on the lower ranks to ensure Xbalanque can follow up after this ability.

Poison Darts

• Increased Poison slow from 4/8/12/16/20% to 20% at all ranks.

General

• For the final balance adjustment of this update we have a controversial change. Xbalanque has been overperforming (high win%, pick%, and ban%) at all levels of play, including normal, ranked, and competitive. His ultimate brings a unique aspect to the game. It deals no direct damage yet dramatically impacts a teamfight through confusion. This effect is especially potent when on a member of the Hunter Class, who generally lack effects like this and instead get large skillshots to deal additional damage.
• Perhaps the most unique effect of this ability is the CC at the end that can be avoided if the afflicted player stops moving. This effect is difficult for opponents to learn without reading the text of Xbalanque, or experiencing a high degree of trial and error, likely resulting in many failures. This effect also punishes players for trying to play through Darkest of Nights, and encourages passive play and hard disengages. With the way it was conveyed, its impact on counterplay, and its inability to be learned outside anything but explicitly reading the text; we have made the difficult decision to remove the stun if moving from the end of the ability.
• We discussed potential solutions and visual or audio FX treatments that could properly convey what players needed to do, but we felt no amount of additional FX could clearly convey the intended action and possible incoming punishment for failing that action.
• The stun simply removed counterplay options, forcing players to run as the lack of information and the inability to react to burst with their movement skills made it too risky to stay forward against a team. With this adjustment we are giving counterplay options against this ultimate, assuming they can battle the muscle memory that tells them to stop moving. It will certainly take a few games to get used to.

Darkest of Nights

• This ability no longer stuns gods who are moving at the end of this effect.
• Adjusted audio of this effect to help players be aware of the change.

General

• Fixed an issue where players could experience framerate issues while playing this god.

General

• Since Xbalanque's Passive change and other adjustments, the god has been performing extremely well and his pick/ban % has increased drastically. We are applying the same fix to his passive as Shaman's Ring, which will slow down his power ramp slightly while also providing much clearer feedback. His Ultimate is also being increased in Cooldown to be consistent with other global Ultimates. This ability might not seem immediately impactful to some as it deals no damage and can be very situational, but the blind is a very powerful effect. The advantage gained over a blinded team can quickly end games and it should have a Cooldown that matches its effect.

Dead of Night

• Damage required to stack is now counted post-mitigation.
• Adjusted buff bar icons to show difference between damage counter stacks and Physical Power buff stacks.

Darkest of Nights

• Increased Cooldown from 90s to 110s.

General

• Xbalanque has been really stacking up against his opponents with the latest change to his passive. The consistency the change brought really helped his performance, but it came online too quickly. We are increasing the amount of damage needing to be dealt by 50%, causing his power curve to more closely match the original intent. Additionally, Poison Darts is getting an important fix. Abilities should not go on cooldown until they have provided some effect, but Poison Darts could get interrupted and consumed even if no darts were fired. With this adjustment Poison Darts will need to fire at least 1 dart before interrupting it will cause it to go on cooldown.

Dead of Night

• Xbalanque now needs to deal 1500 damage to gain 1 stack of Dead of Night (Up from 1000).

Poison Darts

• This ability no longer consumes mana or the cooldown if interrupted before any darts are fired.

General

• Xbalanque relied on getting kills to activate his passive which resulted in very high variability and frustration if teammates happened to take the last hit. Xbalanque should have control over his ability to stack his passive through his own play. Dawn Of Night now stacks off Xbalanque's player damage dealt, allowing him to more reliably reach his maximum stacks assuming he can aggress the enemy team successfully. Rising Jaguar is also getting a mana cost reduction in the late game when he wants to spend more mana on Branching Bolas.

Dead of Night

• This ability now stacks off of player damage dealt instead of kills. Every 1000 damage dealt by Xbalanque will provide him with 1 stack.

Rising Jaguar

• Decreased Mana Cost from 60/70/80/90/100 to 60/65/70/75/80.

General

• Late Game Hunters are notoriously sensitive to balance adjustments. When looking at Xbalanque, who was under-performing, we wanted to make sure we didn't push him over the edge and instead gave him a few tools to better enable him to reach late game.
• Branching Bolas is getting an early Mana Cost decrease to give him cheaper wave clear, while Rising Jaguar is getting an increase to make his damage combo more threatening.

Branching Bolas

• Reduced Mana Cost from 6/8/10/12/14 -> 3/6/9/12/15 Mana per Shot.

Rising Jaguar

• Increased Physical Power scaling from 20% -> 30%.
• Increased Bonus Damage on Poisoned targets from 20% -> 30%.

General

• Xbalanque's Mana Costs can be very punishing if not managed properly, even in the late game. With these changes the Hidden Jaguar will now have more freedom to cast and use his abilities. He will still blow through his Mana if he spends it needlessly, but players will have a bit more mana to play with when it comes time to commit to a fight.

Branching Bola

• Reduce Mana Cost from 8/10/12/14/16 -> 6/8/10/12/14.

Poison Darts

• Reduce Mana Cost from 70/75/80/85/90 -> 60/65/70/75/80.

General

• Fixed an issue where Xbalanque could sometimes get stuck in a state where he could no longer fire abilities or basic attacks.

General

• Xbalanque has long performed at the top of the competitive Hunter pack, and has been one of the most dominate late-game carries. His high ability damage has also made him potent through the early and mid-game, and combined with his reach very difficult to deal with.

Poison Darts

• Reduced damage per Dart from 30/50/70/90/110 -> 30/45/60/75/90.
• Reduced Physical scaling on additional Poison Damage from 20% -> 10%.

Branching Bola

• Fixed the fx turning off after recalling.

Dead of Night

• Fixed visual issue with passive stacks showing incorrectly if disconnected.

General

• Fixed untextured assets at Defeat screen.

Branching Bola

• Fixed a case where sometimes the FX would turn off.

Poison Darts

• Addressed issue where Xbalanque would not be able to attack after casting ability.

General

• Fixed some Shinobalanque sound fx heard on Standard skins.

Branching Bola

• Fixed missing glow effect on the Shinobalanque skin.

General

• Adjusted some lobby fx for the Footballer skins.

Rising Jaguar

• The animation on Rising Jaguar has been updated to reduce the height that Xbalanque jumps during the animation to remove the illusion that he is doing an actual leap.
• Adjusted targeter preview to closer represent the lower height.

General

• Base attack speed reduced from 1 to 0.95.

General

• Base Attack Speed increased from 0.88 to 1.

Branching Bolas

• This ability no longer toggles off when under the effects of crowd control.

General

• Fixed an issue with his animation locking up in the lobby.

Dead of Night

• Passive meter added.

General

• Fixed issue with Feathers on Xbalanque’s shoulders

Poison Darts

• Fixed German futbol skin showing black futbols when Particle Detail was below max.

Branching Bola

• Being CC'd while Branching Bola is active will now deactivate it, and force it to be recast.

Poison Darts

• Updated targeter to show 10 darts.

Branching Bola

• Updated tooltip.

Poison Darts

• Post-Hit delay reduced from 0.21 to 0.1.

Branching Bola

• Toggling this ability will no longer interrupt basic attack refire times.
• Right-click no longer cancels the toggled on status.
• Fixed an issue with multiple buff icons showing up.

Branching Bola

• Fixed an issue where the branching bolas potentially hitting the same target twice.

Rising Jaguar

• Fixed issues with targets not highlighting properly, and the ground target not centering on him after he fires.

Poison Darts

• The ground target was incorrectly smaller than the actual ability and has been fixed.

Branching Bola

• The mana cost per shot on this ability has been reduced from 11/13/15/17/19 to 8/10/12/14/16.

Rising Jaguar

• The additional damage done to poisoned enemies has been reduced from 30% to 20%.

Dead of Night (Passive)

• Fixed an issue in which Xbalanque's Ultimate did not stun enemies.

General

• Some FX have been updated.

Rising Jaguar

• The leap portion of this ability is no longer interrupted by crowd control.

General

• XBalanque’s model has undergone visual improvements.

Branching Bola

• Fixed an issue where the branching bola’s were doing slightly more damage than intended.

Poison Darts

• Slow by 4/8/12/16/20% for 3s.

Darkest of Nights

• Movement speed is increased by 20/30/40/50/60%.
• Stun for 1.5s at all ranks.

General

• Base attacks per second has been reduced from .91 to .88.

Dead of Night (Passive)

• Anytime he kills an enemy he gains 5 physical power permanently, up to a max of 30 physical power.

Rising Jaguar

• Physical power contribution has been reduced from 40% to 20%.

General

• His basic attack was unintentionally shorter than other ranged gods and has been fixed.

Dead of Night (Passive)

• His passive now also grants a kill stack when the enemy is killed while stunned.

Rising Jaguar

• Bonus damage against poisoned enemies has been reduced from 50% to 30%.

Darkest of Nights

• Enemies are no longer stunned when they respawn during this ultimate.
• Passive no longer proc with Vampiric Shroud and Hydra's Lament.

General

• Base attack speed has been reduced from .95 attacks per second to .91 attacks per second.

Poison Darts

• Updated the description to properly display the increase in the slow duration per rank of this ability.

Darkest of Nights

• Fixed issue with hitching when activated.
• Addressed stun going off too early. Still need to visually improve timing with last stone locking in.

Darkest of Nights

• Auto skill will now train his ultimate at level 5.