News: Changes to Jackson, Butter and Nightingale

We are making some significant changes to Jackson, Butter, and Nightingale in the 0.7 update, and we expect these changes to have a big impact on how these heroes fit into your teams. Because of this, we wanted to take a few moments to explain to you what to expect and a few reasons why we feel these changes are necessary.


Jackson


Jackson’s TL: DR

  • Jackson is now a Mechanical unit
  • New Silver ability, Grenade Launcher
  • New Gold ability, Concussion Missiles

We feel one of the most radical changes come to Jackson. He was intended to be a DPS unit, but we didn’t feel like he really hit his potential. As one of the first heroes you get we want him to feel good and set your expectations for future heroes. We started this change in 0.6 when we swapped his first Bronze and Silver skills. Having Missile Barrage as his primary just makes playing Jackson much more rewarding.

The first change to come was Jackson was converted from an Energy unit to a Mechanical unit. The main reason for this is primarily to give the starting line up more elemental diversity. Previously you would have started with 3 Energy units and 1 Biochem unit. This change also allows users to get exposure to our elemental resistance system earlier, which we feel is an important core element to gameplay.

To unify Jackson’s purpose in the team, making him a great choice for dealing with large groups of weak enemies we felt his Silver skill needed an update. Jackson’s Silver ability has been changed from Charged Lance to Grenade Launcher. As you might expect, this powerful ability lobs a grenade at your target for a significant AoE blast of Mech damage.

Jackson’s first passive and Gold ability, previously Combat Drone, seemed inconsistent with his new direction. Having the drone made Jackson feel more complex and less focused. As a result of this, we’ve changed his Gold ability to be a passive buff on his Bronze ability, Missile Barrage. His new ability Concussion Missiles improves Missile Barrage by adding bonus damage and disorients enemies who are out of cover. We think this makes getting to Gold feel much more rewarding and focuses Jackson’s skill set significantly.


Butter


Butter’s TL: DR

  • No longer has a team shield
  • New Bronze ability, Draw Fire
  • New Silver ability, Defender Shield
  • Gold Skill Refinement

Butter’s high star rating and powerful skills made him a formidable force in the early game. This made him a requirement in every team and made the use of any other early game tanks feel somewhat less than ‘awesome’. To address this concerns, we are adjusting Butter’s role within a team.

The primary change is Butter’s brand new Bronze ability, Draw Fire. This ability gives Butter a personal shield and taunts enemies into attacking him. Draw fire is for taking fire away from allied Heroes. This allows Healers to focus their healing on a single at-risk Hero and allows Attackers to freely engage enemy targets without fear of reprisal.

Butter’s Defender Shield is replacing his old Silver ability. While Defender Shield will no longer shield himself, it provides his teammates with a much stronger shield and will also refresh the duration of Draw Fire if it is currently active. By combining both of his abilities, Butter can effectively negate damage for the rest of your team. This allows butter to continue to fulfill his previous role as team shielder while providing the basis for more skillful gameplay and simultaneously allowing deeper strategic play in PVP to work around Butter’s protection.

Additional adjustments to his Gold ability improve Butter’s survivability further. Damage Eater now provides a always active damage conversion from any active shields he may have. The shield can be provided by any allied Hero, not just himself. This provides Butter with innumerable synergistic opportunities within a team composition which will encourage more experimentation with the Hero going further into the late game.


Nightingale


Nightingale’s TL: DR

  • Faster rate of fire
  • New Bronze ability, Heal Pulse
  • New Silver ability, Locked In

Nightingale was the third hero to see significant change this release. She is, and was, a great support hero. Her heals were vital to the survival of your teams and made it possible to survive through the Gauntlet. However, we felt her gameplay was not very exciting. Her reloads were long, skill charges were slow and her moment to moment gameplay did not feel action-y. One thing you will notice immediately when you play this hero is that her rifle feels much more satisfying and fast paced.

We’ve changed her heal a bit in this update. She has a single target heal with a small heal over time to help with damage mitigation, so she no longer heals the entire team but she can more easily able to keep a single hero alive. When you combine this with Butter’s update these two make a natural synergetic link, Butter will take the damage and Nightingale will keep him on his feet.

Her second ability “Lightning Strike” is being removed completely and replaced with “Locked In”. Lightning Strike was a damage dealing ability and didn’t fit well with Nightingale being a support hero, it gave her a lack of focus. Her new skill will not only buff the whole team by increasing Base Damage and increasing Critical Chance but also put a “Mark” on the targeted enemy. This “Mark” dramatically increased aggro towards the targeted enemy forcing your AI controlled teammates to focus fire that unit. If you haven’t already checked out Savage you should, he’ll make a great teammate.

What do you think of these changes?

1 Like

Butter’s team shield should stay and nichtingale heal should heal everybody
Why: butter at later levels and pvp dies really fast making the shield nessicary(sorry for bad english) To his survival

Nightingale even with her slow play her heal is Crucial as it heals everybody changing it To only healing one teammate wil Make her feel like a Weaker version of operator or hardscope his drone (as far as healing Goes)

Jackson should stay as a energy heroes it would be weird changing his element and i think there are way too much mechanical heroes even though Some others dont really notice

So no dont change these 3 ,the other changes doesn’t really matter i think they should come in gunrise the (charge Lance becomes weak at later levels) Maybe Make it so you get butter with less stars but with his fragments in campaign and oh please give a new character his drone if you gonna remove by Jackson i think it is prettig satisfying To hear that drone spawn To help you( knowing that it sounds the same as hardscope his drone) (making operator a character wil Make it happen but that is another story)

Really love that Nightingale can mark an enemy like commander. I feel AI’s dont really coordinate their attacks and just shoot the closest or weakest opponent so a way of directing all that is nice to have.

About that heal pulse change tho… I think healing the whole team is crucial because butter is often not the only targeted hero. By changing it to single heal it is more likely to replace her by Moss for a lot of people.

As for Butter and Jackson I’m fine with the changes. One question: does grenade launcher explode on impact or does it have a delay?

@Lucky, the grenade launcher explodes on impact.

Why is bulldozer being removed you guys didn’t explain this forget what i Saïd about Jackson because heckler is similar To him so if people want something similar To Jackson but energy based they Can choose him

Iike nightingale but Can you guys Make it so heal pulse heals herself as Well?

Love the new update! Why was Ryker’s name changed?

This post is 3 years old.

3 Likes

this is necrophilia
stop it

The secret lore! It must be hidden away!

(closing post since it’s 3 years old)

7 Likes