Update 1.8 brings a new high-skill, high-reward hero to the Fold: Skye! Plus, we’re simplifying and strengthening the Karma system, creating a trophy room, starting seasonal play, adding amazing new skins and introducing balance changes that should make a memorable impact on the 1.8 meta. Let’s break down the update …
SKYE BACKGROUND & LORE
Skye is a swift sniper able to dance at the edge of fights or dive deep into the enemy backline to kill key targets. Skye’s unique strafing attacks change the complexion of fights, and her ability to chase down and catch opponents is unparalleled. Start Skye in the lane, mow down minions and build weapon or crystal depending on your playstyle.
Read Skye’s lore:
SKYE EARLY-ACCESS PERIOD
Skye will be unlockable with ICE only for the first 7 days. Afterward, you will be able to unlock Skye with ICE or Glory.
TARGET LOCK (HEROIC PERK)
Skye locks onto and reveals the target she most recently basic attacked. Basic attacks and Forward Barrage on that locked target grant her bonus move speed. This speed bonus is dramatically reduced while moving backward. Target Lock is lost if the target moves too far away from Skye or if she doesn’t attack her target for too long.
FORWARD BARRAGE
Skye fires her guns while strafing. (She can move freely but cannot change her facing direction.) Reactivating this ability will cancel it. Forward Barrage deals damage to her locked target (but less damage to non-heroes). The duration increases with Skye’s crystal power up to a max.
SURI STRIKE
Passive: Each ability point in Suri Strike increases the amount of time Skye can keep her target locked without attacking it.
Active: Skye dashes to a chosen location near her locked target. While dashing, she fires a volley of missiles that lead her target. This ability can only be activated when Skye has a locked target.
DEATH FROM ABOVE
Passive: Each ability point in Death from Above increases Skye’s target-lock range.
Active: Skye fires a salvo of missiles at a chosen location near her locked target. After a brief delay, the missiles rain down on that location, stunning enemies. Enemies still in the area afterward are slowed and take crystal damage. Aiming directly on your locked target rains down the missiles in a cluster. Aiming away from your locked target rains them down in a line across the target’s path. This ability can only be activated when Skye has a locked target.
“Update 1.8 includes a number of hotly requested skins, including Vox Tier 1 and the effects-rich, insanely cool Joule Tier 3. Keep a close eye on the ever-changing ICE Boxes and Glory Boxes in the Market, and grab Joule cards when you can. That’s a skin not to be missed!
“If you’re still waiting for a skin theme for your favorite hero, hang tight … it’s on the way!” —PlayoffBeard
Hero skins new in 1.8:
- Cloud Raider Vox Tier I
- Infinity Skaarf Tier II
- Bug Petal Tier II
- Killa-Joule 9000 Tier III!
KARMA SYSTEM REVAMP
“Karma was always intended to reward good behavior and punish the bad. Our previous system only somewhat achieved that goal. So, based on player feedback and our own observations, we’ve completely redesigned and rebuilt it from the ground up in 1.8. Now, you simply have Bad, Good, or Great Karma. Completing matches, not dodging in Hero Selection, and receiving honors will lead to Great Karma and with it bonus Glory. On the other hand, being reported for toxic play, dodging in Hero Select, going AFK, etc., will lead to Bad Karma which bans you from playing with or chatting with any other players for a period of time. Each ban a player faces gets longer and longer.
“Know that Karma is a fluid value and will change to reflect your recent past as well as current actions. We are more than happy to keep people from playing if their goal is to introduce toxicity to the amazingly positive Vainglory community.” —Kraken
- Karma system has been dramatically simplified.
- Karma levels replaced with three player states: Great Karma, Good Karma and Bad Karma.
- Karma state determined by recent and current player behavior, including thumbs up & thumbs down from fellow players.
- Players with Bad Karma will be banned from playing matches and chatting for a set period of time.
VAINGLORY ‘SEASONS’ & PROFILE TROPHY ROOM
“We are gearing up for Season 1 of Vainglory in lots of ways, but to ensure you can immortalize your tough grind up the skill tiers, we are giving the first piece of what will be an ongoing feature: Trophies. As of 1.8, you’ll see your highest Skill Tier held as a trophy in your Trophies tab in the Profile section of the app. We’ll do more with this over time, but for now, rest assured that when we kick off the first season, you’ll have a record of your hard work leading up to it.
“We’ll talk a lot more about Vainglory seasons as we move into Autumn Season 2015, but suffice it to say we’re building in many benefits over time for casual and competitive players alike, which should create excitement and opportunities to rally for rewards before seasons close.” —Kraken
- Starting with 1.8, Vainglory will remember your highest Ranked skill tier earned and display it in your Trophy Room.
- Update 1.8 will be considered the preseason (Season 0).
- The preseason will end with the release of the following update, and you’ll earn a permanent trophy based on your highest rank achieved. It’s okay if you lose that rank during 1.8. It will remember the best you achieved, so play without fear!
- Each quarterly season will include unique awards and limited-time content.
- Read more about Vainglory Seasons here.
THE HALCYON FOLD
“Once the final two turrets are destroyed, teams are forced into turtling near their base. We want teams to leave the base and take risks — not sit around and delay their inevitable defeat.” —SurpriseBirthday
- Vain crystal regenerates health after not taking damage for 5 seconds.
“Jungle spawn times were a bit over-tuned in 1.7. At 0:20, the laner is actually encouraged to enter the jungle because last hits are not available for another 5 seconds. With the new turret susceptibility in early game, the invaded team have the option of chunking the enemy turret in response to an invade.” —SurpriseBirthday
- Jungle Spawn time up from 0:20 to 0:25.
“This is a slight adjustment to late-game jungle creatures that were being completely walked over.” —SurpriseBirthday
- Jungle camps & bosses defense per level up by ~20%.
“Turrets could be too hard to kill early and too easy to kill late, especially by sustain mages like Celeste/Skaarf. We want to open up opportunity to take turrets early against teams that are investing too much in jungle pressure. In the late game, turrets will scale much harder in defenses, especially shielding. This is because mages have largely solved their energy problems and were melting turrets too quickly.” —SurpriseBirthday
Turret defenses changed from:
- Armor: 110-150 @ 2:00 – 15:00 mins
- Shield: 55- 88 @ 2:00 – 15:00 mins
Turret defenses changed to combined armor & shield stats:
- Vain turrets (final 2 turrets) gold bounty down from 300 to 100 gold.
KRAKEN
“Putting an end to the 15:00 capture cheese! It was fun while it lasted!” —SurpriseBirthday
- Kraken now invulnerable during her spawn animation coming out of the pit.
“Kraken has normally stronger defenses vs. basic attacks than abilities because basic attacks are free, while abilities cost energy. However, in late game, many mages are built for energy sufficiency, allowing them to burn down Kraken too quickly.” —SurpriseBirthday
- Shield up from 100 to 150.
“Killing the Kraken does not guarantee you 10 seconds of massive healing if the enemy team immediately descends upon you.” —SurpriseBirthday
- Ace Buff is cancelled upon taking hero damage.
RINGO
“Ringo’s Twirling Silver was intended to give him a tactical window in which he could deal out significantly more damage to his opponents, but only for a time. With a duration of 7 seconds, his enemies only have a 3-second window of cooldown to attempt to stage a counter attack, which was far more daunting than intended.” —CaptainNeato
- Twirling Silver duration down from 7 sec at all levels to 4-6 sec.
“This compensates for the Twirling Silver duration nerf ,which indirectly hurts crystal Ringo.” —CaptainNeato
- Twirling Silver crystal ratio up from 70% to 80%.
SAW
“SAW frequently finds that by the end of a Suppressing Fire that fights have moved away from him, and he’s unable to participate. This change allows him the mobility to reposition however he thinks is best; he is free to keep his Spin Up stacks if a fight is near, but he can also sacrifice them and join the fight if it’s moved on.” —Captain Neato
- Finishing Suppressing Fire resets the cooldown of Roadie Run.
RONA
“Rona received some more dramatic changes in this update to help give her more options in her item builds and flexibility in her play style. Rona lacked the durability to stay in the heart of a teamfight, forcing players to build her either for high burst damage and then run when focused by the enemy team, or build her with heavy lifesteal to capitalize on the AoE damage of her ultimate. It simply wasn’t viable for her to duke it out in a prolonged fight without devoting most of her inventory to defense items, and we wanted to shift her away from burst damage to sustain damage to help her feel more like the crazy berserker that she is.
“In this update she received two essential changes to her Foesplitter: After her first cast of Foesplitter, she now gains movement speed that allows her to chase a fleeing target or reposition in a fight. Her second cast of Foesplitter costs less Bloodrage and grants her even more bonus attack speed. This attack speed synergizes with a new change to her heroic perk, Berserkers’ Fury, in which any time she reaches maximum bloodrage, she gains a health barrier. Imagine, after you reach max bloodrage, cast Foesplitter twice and start basic attacking the target … Not only will doing so quickly max your Bloodrage and grant you that barrier again, but those basic attacks reduce the cooldown on Foesplitter so that you can do it all over again. And again. And again.
“Lastly, her ultimate was either overpowered or completely useless depending on how much lifesteal a player had the chance to buy. We want Rona to be durable enough to feel confident in casting Red Mist in the heart of a fight, while not necessarily granting her a guarantee of ending the ability at full health. With a lowered cooldown, it also allows the player to enter and exit Red Mist in the midst of a fight to do some great AoE damage while consuming only a little bit of Bloodrage … and with some quick basic attacks, can restore it to full and get that precious health barrier again.” —CaptainNeato
BERSERKERS’ FURY (HEROIC PERK)
- Energy stat no longer increases her in-combat rage gain.
- Weapon ratio down from 80% to 70%.
- Gains 100% more Bloodrage when attacking targets suffering from Mortal Wounds.
- Whenever Rona reaches max Bloodrage, she gains a barrier equal to 8% of her max health.
FOESPLITTER
- First hit grants 1.5 movement speed for 2.0 seconds.
- Second hit consumes only 50% of Bloodrage instead of 100%. Note: This naturally reduces the damage of the second hit because it is amplified by the amount of Bloodrage consumed.
- Second hit grants Rona 30-50% attack speed for 2–4 seconds.
RED MIST
- Cooldown down from 12 to 4.
- Lifesteal reduced by 50% while channeling.
- Rona gains 40/60/80 armor & shield during Red Mist.
VOX
“We feel that Vox is in a much better place, but we are always keeping a close eye on him. With a large resonance bounce range, it made his abilty to spread damage in a fight a bit too effective, so it has been brought down.” —CaptainNeato
- Resonance bounce range down from 4.5 to 4.0
TAKA
“There was a bug. And uh, we fixed it. My bad.” —CaptainNeato
- Fixed a bug preventing Taka from dealing Mortal Strikes after flipping over with Kaiten.
PETAL
“Petal lacked the ability to pressure enemies with the use of her munions’ damage; this lift in damage will help them become a viable threat when chewing on your ankles. Don’t let them chew on your ankles. There is also increased healing on her seeds when buying crystal to force enemies to clear them before starting a fight, rather than ignore their contribution and deal with them later.” — CaptainNeato
- Munion damage crystal ratio up from 40% to 45%.
- Seed healing per second crystal ratio up from 1% to 3%.
JOULE
“Because critical strikes are subject to chance, there are times where they feel useless when they randomly don’t trigger, or times when they feel wholly overwhelming because they’ve triggered multiple times in rapid succession. With Joule’s Thunder Strike, this would create even more crazy moments where she would suddenly do exceedingly well or exceedingly poorly depending on fate. This change helps ensure that Thunder Strike crits in a more balanced distribution — and doesn’t create those times where a single critical strike causes the entire enemy team to explode into confetti.” —CaptainNeato
Thunder Strike critical strikes:
- Now follow pseudo-random distribution. Meaning her crits are still chance based, but more narrowly distributed than true random.
- When striking multiple targets, crit is evaluated independently for each target, instead of critting everyone at once, or none at all.
- Thunder Strike crystal ratio up from 100% to 135%.
ARDAN
“Vanguard is signature to who Ardan is, but it’s cooldown was a bit punishing for him to fullfill his role as a team protector. Now, there will be shields and Ardans flying around eeeevverrryyywhere.” —CaptainNeato
- Vanguard cooldown down from 17-13 secs to 13 at all ranks.
FROSTBURN
“This was still an underused item, with a slow that you didn’t feel enough.” —CaptainNeato
- Base slow up from 15% to 20%. Max is still 40% (a display error in 1.7 showed this as 35%).
PIERCING SPEAR & TENSION BOW
“Piercing is a very strong late-game stat on an otherwise early-game item. This change increases the late-game slump should you choose to dominate the early/mid-game with a Tension Bow rush.” —CaptainNeato
- Armor piercing down from 15% to 10%.
PIERCING SHARD
“Heroes should be doing more than just stacking Piercing Shards.” —CaptainNeato
Piercing down from 10% to 8%.
ARMOR/SHIELD ITMES
“This is a slight price tuning to encourage early-game counter-building. We’re also increasing the price of Fountain of Renewal as the active heal has proved to be far more valuable that what you’re paying for.” —CaptainNeato
- Light Armor / Light Shield defense (tier 1s) up from 35 / 18 or 12 to 40/20.
- Coat of Plates / Kinetic Shield price down by 150 gold.
- Aegis price down by 100 gold.
- Metal Jacket price down by 200 gold.
- Fountain of Renewal price up by 200 gold.
BROKEN MYTH
- Dealing or receiving burn debuff damage does not cause Broken Myth to stack.
IRONGUARD
“We want to expand the roaming support beyond just “really starved for gold.” This has narrowed the itemization strategy for roamers and is generally less fun to play. Additionally, we want to open up the possibility of more duo-laning with increased gold bonuses from lane as well. —CaptainNeato
- Gold bounty up from 30% (50% for Jungle monsters) to 60% for all types.
STORMGUARD BANNER
“Stormguard is now substantially cheaper and more specialized as a counter-jungling and objective-killing item. Because objectives are getting tankier also, Stormguard will be a notable boost to your team’s objective control power.” —CaptainNeato
- 100 Health removed; health regen up from 12 to 16.
- Price reduced from 1150 to 950. (Warhorn and Contraption total price not reduced.)
- Passive: When attacking non-heroes, basic attacks deal +3% of target’s max health per second as true damage; it’s 5x against lane minions & jungle camps.
- With Contraption: Stormguard gains 2.5m AOE.
- With Warhorn: Stormguard has +30% vs. jungle bosses, Kraken and structures).
CONTRAPTION
“With the buff to Stormguard and more charges of vision items, watch out for the new Contraption … or be watched by it.” —CaptainNeato
- Charge time down from 25 to 15 per use.
MORE ANDROID DEVICE SUPPORT
“We have significantly expanded the list of supported Android devices. If you know someone who couldn’t play before, be sure to tell them to try again on 1.8! This is especially good news for owners of the popular Samsung Galaxy S3. We now fully support all S3s that have 4.4.2 Kitkat or higher. And owners of the Sony Xperia Z1 can now play without problems thanks to the memory savings in 1.8.” —BlasterMaster
Newly supported devices:
- HTC Desire 816
- LG AKA (LG-F520, etc…)
- LG G Vista
- LG GX 2
- Samsung Galaxy A3
- Samsung Galaxy Avant
- Samsung Galaxy Grand 2
- Samsung Galaxy Grand Max
- Samsung Galaxy Mega (2, 5.8, 6.3)
- Samsung Galaxy Mega 2 SM-G7508
- Samsung Galaxy S3 (Various)
- Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo
- Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1″ SM-T530
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 7.0″ SM-T230
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 7.0″ SM-T231
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 7.0″ SM-T235
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8.0″
- Samsung Galaxy W
- Sharp AQUOS Crystal
BUGS FIXES
- Fixed a timing issue causing Koshka to have unnecessarily long delays after using abilities.
- Fixed a bug preventing Taka from dealing Mortal Strikes after flipping over with Kaiten.
- Fixed a bug that could cause players to lose their target after using certain abilities.
- Fixed a visual bug causing some hero ability weapon ratios to display incorrectly in the Market. (This was visual only.)
Skye has arrived! We hope you have a blast playing update 1.8 and be please give us your feedback in the forums and vainglorygame subreddit. —PlayoffBeard
