GAME UPDATE: JANUARY 24

Another big set of gameplay changes! In addition to the typical balance updates, we wanted to address some big feedback points on SHARDS and CROWD CONTROL.





Let's talk about what the new Shards are doing better first. It's a more intuitive system and we see that it's easier for players to interact with this portion of the game. Not only is it easier for players to learn how to capture a Shard for their team, but it also allows for a far wider range of Heros to interact with the objective. There's also exciting moments on capturing the Shard on the last hit, whether it's getting that steal under the enemies noses or successfully outplaying a fight to secure the Shard.

Which brings us to what we are looking to improve. That last hitting mechanic can feel a bit too random. We're looking at ways to reduce that such as making the Shard being able to be affected by Pushes/Pulls or giving Heros more defensive capabilities to help prevent last minute steals. We think adding more areas for skill expression will help reduce the feeling of randomness that can come with capturing the Shard right now. We're also continuing to monitor the team revive. It's a good mechanic for comebacks, but it can also feel very snowbally.

What we want to try out this patch is to make the Shards a little bit more dangerous to take to prevent a single player from taking a shard too quickly without any risk. This way, to get the powerful benefits of the shard, every Hero has to have pay a cost that's a combination of time, health and cooldowns.

⬥Increased range on Shard damage so Ranged Heros will also take damage

⬥Increased HP to 600

⬥Coming up with ways to make the Shard more Skill Expression





Crowd Control (CC) is an ability that restricts control over your Hero including but not limited to: Slows, Roots, Stuns, Knock Ups, Pushes/Pulls. The severity of the CC varies; Slows are typically weaker since you can continue to do most things and Stuns/Knock Ups are typically the strongest because players lose complete control over the Hero.

When diving into an analysis of Fangs, we found that we had our Stun duration was on average too long. The stronger the CC the shorter the duration should be. The serves two purposes: One, to keep abilities fairly balanced and purposeful so that each type of CC is an answer to different scenarios and Two, it's just not fun gameplay to not be able to do anything. With long Stun durations, there were more moments of "I got hit by one Stun, and then I died because I couldn't do anything".

We also found that we leaned too heavily into Stuns and not enough into Roots. This lead to more gameplay moments of random ability interruption. By changing some the Stuns to Roots, we leave in the opportunity for combination attacks while still allowing more skill expression for the Rooted player to fight back.

⬥Lower durations on Stuns and Knock Ups

⬥Replaced some Stuns for Roots






Astrada's spiked in her win rate this past update. With a lot of the damage multipliers reduced in the game, her own damage output was relatively increased. A small nerf to her passive and some adjustments on her more powerful Augments should bring her back to 50%.

⬥ Marked for Destruction (Passive): 50 → 45 Damage
⬥ Flame Cage (SHIFT): 1s Stun → 1.5s Root

[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]

⬥ Life Burst Brooch (Passive): 45 → 50 Heal
⬥ Nailbomb (Passive): 50% → 40% Slow
⬥ Demolisher's Treasure (LMB): 1.2s → 1.1s CDR
⬥ Repulsor Sceptor (RMB):
⬦ Push Distance: 25% → 60%
⬦ 1s Stun → 1.5s Root
⬥ Elsywn's Triband (Ultimate): 225 → 200 Damage



Brutus is in a good place right now. We're giving some power to some of the weaker but commonly picked Augments and taking some power away from the strong commonly picked Augments. He's also getting the CC adjustments.

⬥ Head Splitter (RMB): 1.25s → 0.8s Stun

[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]

⬥ Drakefeather Dirk (Passive):
⬦ Movement Speed: 40% → 30%
⬦ Duration: 3s → 6s
⬥ Chilltooth Necklace (LMB): 0.4s → 0.5s CDR per Enemy hit
⬥ Lifesnatcher Pauldron (LMB): 0.65% → 0.75% Lifesteal per 1% missing HP
⬥ Quakebreak Talisman (Shift):
⬦ 1s Stun → 1.5s Root
⬦ Hitbox increased to match entire area of the Earthquake
⬥ Draining Thorngloves (E): 5 → 4 Shield per 1% missing HP
⬥ The Executioner (Ultimate): 14% → 12% HP Execution



Belroth is also in a good place. He's getting the CC adjustments; the Knock Up will be reduced while the Root will be increased. We also made his Boulder Toss a bit less punishing if you choose not to pick up the Boulder.

⬥ Vicious Lunge (Space): 0.8s → 0.4s Knock Up Duration
⬥ Boulder Toss (E):
⬦ Root: 0.75s → 1.25s
⬦ Cooldown: 17s → 11s
⬦ Cooldown Refund: 70% → 50%

[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]

⬥ Uprooters (Space): 0.4s → 0.3s Bonus Knock Up duration



Mostly just the CC adjustment here. Soulblast Greaves was over-nerfed last patch and since we haven't seen egregious interactions with Soulblast Greaves and the Fountain we'll give it a bit more love here.

⬥ Pummel (Passive): 0.7s → 0.4s Stun
⬥ Shield Toss (RMB): 4000 → 3750 Projectile Speed
⬥ Knightseeker (Space): 0.75s Stun → 1.5s Root

[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]
⬥ Titan's Effigy (Passive): 1.5s → 0.7s Stun
⬥ Soulblast Greaves (Space): 150% → 200% Bonus Range
⬥ Starfall (Ultimate): 1.75s → 1.5s Stun



[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]

⬥ Earthbreaker Pommel (Shift): 1s Stun → 1.5s Root
⬥ Deathly Carnival (Ultimate): 50 → 40 Bonus Damage



⬥ Wraith Slash (LMB): 47 → 55 Damage
⬥ Spectral Dash (Space): 0.75s → 2s Incapacitate

[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]

⬥ Spellstealer Artifact (E): 50 → 150 Energy Gained



Kiona's winrate is on the lower side, so a slight bump to her power in RMB to make her a bit more lethal in fights.

⬥ Hail Wind (RMB): 50 → 60 Damage

[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]

⬥ Serrated Daggers (RMB): 16 → 20 Bonus Damage
⬥ Lifefrost Brew (RMB): 48% → 52% Heal
⬥ Winterclaw Choker (Shift): 0.9s → 0.5s Stun



Sniper Rayo seems to dominate the battlefield. Some power into Storm Shardstring should hopefully promote some more LMB based builds and gameplay.

⬥ Flashbolt (RMB):
⬦ Stun: 0.8s → 0.5s
⬦ Projectile Speed: 4525 → 4125
⬥ Volt Dash (Space): 35 → 55 Damage
⬥ Thunder Blast (E): 45 → 60 Damage

[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]

⬥ Storm Shardstring (LMB): 6% → 8% Bonus Attack Speed
⬥ Twilight Sandles (RMB): 0.3s → 0.2s Stun
⬥ Harrah's Betrayal (E): 0.5s - 2.5s → 0.4s - 0.8s Stun



Rose is another Hero who is on the weaker side. We're giving a fair amount of power in her LMB so she's a better fighter, and a smaller amount of power in the additional hit so that she doesn't just randomly kill people she's not really aiming for.

⬥ Sword Sling (LMB):
⬦ First Enemy Hit Damage: 40 → 50
⬦ Additional Enemy Hit Damage: 35 → 40

[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]

⬥ Shred Polish (LMB):
⬦ Armor Shred: 2 → 3
⬦ Max Stacks: 8 → 10
⬥ Bloodlust Gauntlet (Passive): 20% → 30% Lifesteal



⬥ Dourling Dive (Space): 0.75s Stun → 1.4s Root

[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]

⬥ Heal Sprite (Passive): 70% → 80%s Bonus Heal
⬥ Everflower (LMB): 50% → 35% Reduced Effectiveness
⬥ Siegilblade (LMB):
⬦ Root: 0.6s → 1.25s
⬦ Root Cooldown: 5s → 10s



⬥ Allure (E): 1s → 0.5s Charm

[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]

⬥ Shielding Sash (Passive): 135 → 100 Shield
⬥ Inner Light (Passive):
⬦ Shield: 50 → 40
⬦ Max Shield: 100 → 160
⬥ Healing Sands (RMB): Heal 75 → 60
⬥ Speed Reader (Space): 35% → 25%



⬥ Nourishing Feathers (Passive): 1.25s → 2.5s CD
⬥ Wing Dive (Space): 1s → 0.7s Stun



⬥ Brim (LMB):
⬦ Damage: 45 → 40
⬦ Healing: 75 → 60



⬥ Hand of Acara (RMB): 0.75s → 0.5s Stun on Empowered

[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]
⬥ Peacemaker's Ring (Passive): 40% → 25% Reduced Damage
⬥ Paupers Prayer (LMB): 1s → 1.5s Duration
⬥ Tigerwind Gauntlet (LMB): 3% → 2% Bonus Attack Speed
⬥ Godtooth Charm (RMB): 15 → 10 Bonus Damage
⬥ War Beads (Shift): 10% → 30% Bonus Damage
⬥ Essence Trap (Space): 25% → 20% Bonus Range
⬥ Lionsworn Crown (Ultimate): 25% → 20% Heal



Zoey was a menace in the last update. She was getting a lot of utility from her new Passive, surviving a lot more engages than she previously did. We've toned that down a bit so she'll have a little less survivability from her Passive than before and more on hitting her skillshots.

⬥ Cat Latch (Passive): 20 → 15 Heal per Second
⬥ Spirit Scratch (E): 0.9s Stun → 1.3s Root

[h3]AUGMENTS[/h3]

⬥ Therapeutic Totem (Passive): 15 → 12 Energy per Second
⬥ Binding Witch Hat (LMB): 100% → 75% of Damage as Bonus Max HP
⬥ Bloom's Brew (RMB): 75% → 65% Bonus Heal
⬥ Purr's Paw (Shift): 75 → 60 Damage







⬥ Rejuvenate: 200→ 150 Heal
⬥ Battleprism: 25%→ 30% Lifesteal
⬥ Greathelm: 1.5%→ 2% Heal
⬥ Vanquisher: 25→ 20 Armor Steal



Again, we would like to thank everyone who has played or is interested in playing Fangs during its early access period! Our community continues to surprise and inspire us with their knowledge, memes, and insightful comments about our game—if you have accompanied our development journey so far, you know how much of our players' input goes into each new update.

Make sure to join our Discord server and follow us on Twitter to join the conversation if you haven’t already!

The Hidden Leaf Games Team