Valiant Force Forum

As many of you know, Summoner Heroes have recently been more commonly used in the Arena and many players are taking advantage of the current summoner mechanics to manage the cooldowns of the skills for their team (more pets = more moves = more cooldown in one cycle). As a result, the dev team has been focusing on the task of balancing summoner heroes. Here are some of the concepts we have been testing

• Pet death = 5 points: We have been testing this and it currently seems to be a feasible choice as it gives value to the other team whenever a pet dies. There are currently 3 ways for a pet to die: sacrifice, killed by other team, or its summoner is killed. 
• Pet death = summoner loses 20% max HP: This is another possible way to add value for the other team when a pet is killed. 
• Reduce Arena pet limit to 2: Limiting the number of pets that can be summoned in the Arena will help reduce players abusing summoners to get more turns in each cycle.
• Pet moving will not trigger CD on your team: When a pet attacks, it will not cool down the moves on your own team.

Other Alternative Ideas
Of course there were several other possible solutions that have been proposed.

1. Summoning sickness: Pets will not be available for action once summoned. We find that this will hurt the summoners’ value too much, as the 1 or 2 summoners in the team are sacrificing their turn to do nothing in the first cycle.
2. Pets cannot capture flag points: This solution was thought to prevent pets from simply gaining points by blocking the tiles, but it resulted in overly lengthy games which lasted up to 30-40 rounds when facing other summoner teams. We want to shorten your gameplay, not lengthen it! 
3. Skill delay on summon/sacrifice: We also tested out skill delays on the caster when pets are summoned/sacrificed. When they are summoned, the extra turns will still allow you to cycle back to the summoner to re-summon. When they are sacrificed, simply using other units will render this solution unviable.
4. Turn-sharing between pet and summoner: This turn-sharing mechanic was thought to be the best solution, but instead, it either does not solve the issue of cooldown (if there is no summoning sickness), or it made the summoners overly disadvantaged (when pet sacrifices, summoner’s turn ends)

A combination of the ideas have also been tested and thus, after the first few rounds of testing, these solutions proved to be not as effective as the first 4 ideas written above.

The Testing Continues
All the balancing solutions that we have listed above are still undergoing developer realm testing. We are still looking for the best balance to keep summoner heroes fun and exciting in the new Arena meta, but not overpower the hero pool that we had already put in place. It is still too early to tell whether or not there may be another meta that can break through without summoners being essential. We are still monitoring the meta changes closely to ensure balance in the Arena.

Which balance solutions do you think are the most effective? Do you have any of your own ideas on balancing the Arena meta?

We will continue to watch the forums and fan page for more ideas and feedback from the community. Thanks for reading this dev blog, and we will see you in the Arena!

(*) These possible changes will only affect PvP and not PvE

As many of you know, Summoner Heroes have recently been more commonly used in the Arena and many players are taking advantage of the current summoner mechanics to manage the cooldowns of the skills for their team (more pets = more moves = more cooldown in one cycle). As a result, the dev team has been focusing on the task of balancing summoner heroes. Here are some of the concepts we have been testing

• Pet death = 5 points: We have been testing this and it currently seems to be a feasible choice as it gives value to the other team whenever a pet dies. There are currently 3 ways for a pet to die: sacrifice, killed by other team, or its summoner is killed.
• Pet death = summoner loses 20% max HP: This is another possible way to add value for the other team when a pet is killed.
• Reduce Arena pet limit to 2: Limiting the number of pets that can be summoned in the Arena will help reduce players abusing summoners to get more turns in each cycle.
• Pet moving will not trigger CD on your team: When a pet attacks, it will not cool down the moves on your own team.

Other Alternative Ideas
Of course there were several other possible solutions that have been proposed.

1. Summoning sickness: Pets will not be available for action once summoned. We find that this will hurt the summoners’ value too much, as the 1 or 2 summoners in the team are sacrificing their turn to do nothing in the first cycle.
2. Pets cannot capture flag points: This solution was thought to prevent pets from simply gaining points by blocking the tiles, but it resulted in overly lengthy games which lasted up to 30-40 rounds when facing other summoner teams. We want to shorten your gameplay, not lengthen it!
3. Skill delay on summon/sacrifice: We also tested out skill delays on the caster when pets are summoned/sacrificed. When they are summoned, the extra turns will still allow you to cycle back to the summoner to re-summon. When they are sacrificed, simply using other units will render this solution unviable.
4. Turn-sharing between pet and summoner: This turn-sharing mechanic was thought to be the best solution, but instead, it either does not solve the issue of cooldown (if there is no summoning sickness), or it made the summoners overly disadvantaged (when pet sacrifices, summoner’s turn ends)

A combination of the ideas have also been tested and thus, after the first few rounds of testing, these solutions proved to be not as effective as the first 4 ideas written above.

The Testing Continues
All the balancing solutions that we have listed above are still undergoing developer realm testing. We are still looking for the best balance to keep summoner heroes fun and exciting in the new Arena meta, but not overpower the hero pool that we had already put in place. It is still too early to tell whether or not there may be another meta that can break through without summoners being essential. We are still monitoring the meta changes closely to ensure balance in the Arena.

Which balance solutions do you think are the most effective? Do you have any of your own ideas on balancing the Arena meta? We will continue to watch the forums and fan page for more ideas and feedback from the community. Thanks for reading this dev blog, and we will see you in the Arena!

Woah, incoming balancing!

Btw for Summoning sickness, "We find that this will hurt the summoners’ value too much, as the 1 or 2 summoners in the team are sacrificing their turn to do nothing in the first cycle."
I think it's easy, just use 1 summoner that fits your team composition. It's only hurt for people who spam summoners. 

And for skill delay, Talissa and Matilda is just fine. But IMO Sven is just too destructive for 2 turns CD.

Thanks for listening to us Devs! :>

I only have one wish:
Increase Sven's Skill Cooldown to 4 turns, same with all other summoners.

• Pet death = 5 points: We have been testing this and it currently seems to be a feasible choice as it gives value to the other team whenever a pet dies. There are currently 3 ways for a pet to die: sacrifice, killed by other team, or its summoner is killed. 
• Pet death = summoner loses 20% max HP: This is another possible way to add value for the other team when a pet is killed. 
• Reduce Arena pet limit to 2: Limiting the number of pets that can be summoned in the Arena will help reduce players abusing summoners to get more turns in each cycle.
• Pet moving will not trigger CD on your team: When a pet attacks, it will not cool down the moves on your own team.

Why not all of 4 above? Summoners and their pets indeed are really strong, but let's make it like a double-edged sword.

rebalancing the whole arena system

-as we know that now the turn per round is longer why not limiting the turn, limit the turn of the round to 5 ( non summonner team have 5 unit anyway) so player have to choose to activate their summoner or normal unit in that round
-this will also make sleep/stun/debuff better in arena

but it may lengthen the arena which is not so good (but will not much)

As many of you know, Summoner Heroes have recently been more commonly used in the Arena and many players are taking advantage of the current summoner mechanics to manage the cooldowns of the skills for their team (more pets = more moves = more cooldown in one cycle). As a result, the dev team has been focusing on the task of balancing summoner heroes. Here are some of the concepts we have been testing

• Pet death = 5 points: We have been testing this and it currently seems to be a feasible choice as it gives value to the other team whenever a pet dies. There are currently 3 ways for a pet to die: sacrifice, killed by other team, or its summoner is killed. 
• Pet death = summoner loses 20% max HP: This is another possible way to add value for the other team when a pet is killed. 
• Reduce Arena pet limit to 2: Limiting the number of pets that can be summoned in the Arena will help reduce players abusing summoners to get more turns in each cycle.
• Pet moving will not trigger CD on your team: When a pet attacks, it will not cool down the moves on your own team.

Other Alternative Ideas
Of course there were several other possible solutions that have been proposed.

1. Summoning sickness: Pets will not be available for action once summoned. We find that this will hurt the summoners’ value too much, as the 1 or 2 summoners in the team are sacrificing their turn to do nothing in the first cycle.
2. Pets cannot capture flag points: This solution was thought to prevent pets from simply gaining points by blocking the tiles, but it resulted in overly lengthy games which lasted up to 30-40 rounds when facing other summoner teams. We want to shorten your gameplay, not lengthen it! 
3. Skill delay on summon/sacrifice: We also tested out skill delays on the caster when pets are summoned/sacrificed. When they are summoned, the extra turns will still allow you to cycle back to the summoner to re-summon. When they are sacrificed, simply using other units will render this solution unviable.
4. Turn-sharing between pet and summoner: This turn-sharing mechanic was thought to be the best solution, but instead, it either does not solve the issue of cooldown (if there is no summoning sickness), or it made the summoners overly disadvantaged (when pet sacrifices, summoner’s turn ends)

A combination of the ideas have also been tested and thus, after the first few rounds of testing, these solutions proved to be not as effective as the first 4 ideas written above.

The Testing Continues
All the balancing solutions that we have listed above are still undergoing developer realm testing. We are still looking for the best balance to keep summoner heroes fun and exciting in the new Arena meta, but not overpower the hero pool that we had already put in place. It is still too early to tell whether or not there may be another meta that can break through without summoners being essential. We are still monitoring the meta changes closely to ensure balance in the Arena.

Which balance solutions do you think are the most effective? Do you have any of your own ideas on balancing the Arena meta? We will continue to watch the forums and fan page for more ideas and feedback from the community. Thanks for reading this dev blog, and we will see you in the Arena!

for now i only can agree to the point that state limit the summoner fo arena into 2 summoner;) 
For Sven specific, i will not tell how to nerf it, but i will give some of my insight: if u guys nerf the cd usually in my experience when sven survive until 3rd turn+ he will render useless for a while until healer heal them, maybe other than cd u can add the hp sacrifice to 40%? for example. 
to @JeForceX, it seems i can't agree if i see from my POV, because it will render sven ultimately almost useless, bcs most of time AI will aim for sven first, & the postive of JeForceX idea it will make my vincent eligible again, why? because vincent have more useful aura, even he's targeted, but before he die he will give dmg boost to my shadow, if he survive the 3rd turn, his skill dmg is frightening even he die after that bcs of blood lost, but i am not telling that JeForceX not right, i just need some more analysis before i can be sure what kind of nerf suitable for Sven

As many of you know, Summoner Heroes have recently been more commonly used in the Arena and many players are taking advantage of the current summoner mechanics to manage the cooldowns of the skills for their team (more pets = more moves = more cooldown in one cycle). As a result, the dev team has been focusing on the task of balancing summoner heroes. Here are some of the concepts we have been testing

• Pet death = 5 points: We have been testing this and it currently seems to be a feasible choice as it gives value to the other team whenever a pet dies. There are currently 3 ways for a pet to die: sacrifice, killed by other team, or its summoner is killed. 
• Pet death = summoner loses 20% max HP: This is another possible way to add value for the other team when a pet is killed. 
• Reduce Arena pet limit to 2: Limiting the number of pets that can be summoned in the Arena will help reduce players abusing summoners to get more turns in each cycle.
• Pet moving will not trigger CD on your team: When a pet attacks, it will not cool down the moves on your own team.

Other Alternative Ideas
Of course there were several other possible solutions that have been proposed.

1. Summoning sickness: Pets will not be available for action once summoned. We find that this will hurt the summoners’ value too much, as the 1 or 2 summoners in the team are sacrificing their turn to do nothing in the first cycle.
2. Pets cannot capture flag points: This solution was thought to prevent pets from simply gaining points by blocking the tiles, but it resulted in overly lengthy games which lasted up to 30-40 rounds when facing other summoner teams. We want to shorten your gameplay, not lengthen it! 
3. Skill delay on summon/sacrifice: We also tested out skill delays on the caster when pets are summoned/sacrificed. When they are summoned, the extra turns will still allow you to cycle back to the summoner to re-summon. When they are sacrificed, simply using other units will render this solution unviable.
4. Turn-sharing between pet and summoner: This turn-sharing mechanic was thought to be the best solution, but instead, it either does not solve the issue of cooldown (if there is no summoning sickness), or it made the summoners overly disadvantaged (when pet sacrifices, summoner’s turn ends)

A combination of the ideas have also been tested and thus, after the first few rounds of testing, these solutions proved to be not as effective as the first 4 ideas written above.

The Testing Continues
All the balancing solutions that we have listed above are still undergoing developer realm testing. We are still looking for the best balance to keep summoner heroes fun and exciting in the new Arena meta, but not overpower the hero pool that we had already put in place. It is still too early to tell whether or not there may be another meta that can break through without summoners being essential. We are still monitoring the meta changes closely to ensure balance in the Arena.

Which balance solutions do you think are the most effective? Do you have any of your own ideas on balancing the Arena meta? We will continue to watch the forums and fan page for more ideas and feedback from the community. Thanks for reading this dev blog, and we will see you in the Arena!

for now i only can agree to the point that state limit the summoner fo arena into 2 summoner;) 
For Sven specific, i will not tell how to nerf it, but i will give some of my insight: if u guys nerf the cd usually in my experience when sven survive until 3rd turn+ he will render useless for a while until healer heal them, maybe other than cd u can add the hp sacrifice to 40%? for example. 
to @JeForceX, it seems i can't agree if i see from my POV, because it will render sven ultimately almost useless, bcs most of time AI will aim for sven first, & the postive of JeForceX idea it will make my vincent eligible again, why? because vincent have more useful aura, even he's targeted, but before he die he will give dmg boost to my shadow, if he survive the 3rd turn, his skill dmg is frightening even he die after that bcs of blood lost, but i am not telling that JeForceX not right, i just need some more analysis before i can be sure what kind of nerf suitable for Sven

I agree with JeForceX, I think the AI won't aim him so much if you put him on the back line (Also see several players with backliner sven which is far cancerous that frontline sven).
I coupled my Sven with my GR Kane Aura which proves quite effective. And he's still effective as archers team killer with the Attack trigger if you build the right team composition around him

The purpose of this upcoming balancing is to bring more diversity in Arena without needed to causing the Summoners less usable in PvE content..
Please keep that in mind..

I only have one wish:
Increase Sven's Skill Cooldown to 4 turns, same with all other summoners.

He has the shortest CD because he does not have any added effect to his allies nor his enemies upon summoning..
If his CD lengthen to 4 (same as Taliisa) he will death before even summoning due to Talissa's Poison..

@devs, these rebalancing is only for PVP, right?

The 5 points per pet death seems feasible. I think this encourages people to strategize more. Summon or not? Use pet skill or not? These choices may vary depending on the arena state.

Limiting to two summoned units is good too. Though this can't be the "only" option, as this would still allow Ronan's missile be casted if you go 2nd turn in arena.

Pet action not decreasing skill CD for party is also a must. This prevents the situation stated above, as well as prevent other short CD skills to be casted before you can even do something lol

I +1 to @Munilet, which for @gunfrey, maybe u right, but i don't think that's what make Sven OP, & as Munilet said Sven aura doesn't have much used especially if the summon not summmoned yet(especially if u put Sven at the back), yes indeed i agree if u combine with archer the trigger will be a bit frightening, but still not making it OP, 

in my subjective POV, taliisa is closer to OP, in term of summoner hero, & double talissa is really a way to tell you what despair really is xD the reference try Bams squad