The long sought after balance changes update is finally here! After the first season just ended, it is expected to come with an update to add some freshness to the game. Most of the changes that happened are focused around balancing damage and healing values for most characters.
Patch notes are taken from the official Brawl Stars Reddit page.
New Brawler – Gene
- Gene is a versatile supporter who can engage enemies at any range!
- Gene’s Super launches a magical hand from his lamp, dragging an enemy to his location!
New Character Models
- Spike (Pink Spike skin replaced with Sakura Spike)
- Darryl
- Poco
- Rico
- Colt
New Skins
- Dumpling Darryl
- Lion Dance Brock
- Royal Agent Colt
- Football Bull
- Serenade Poco
- Popcorn Rico
Lunar New Year Brawl Event (Coming soon!)
Brawl Ball
- Brawlers now spawn inside the Goal
- Kicking the ball without Super now consumes ammo
All Brawl Ball maps now have their goal posts built into the edge of the map. No more sneaking and camping behind the goal post! This makes the games a lot more competitive, and gives teams a better chance to make goal saves. The changes to make each ball kick consume an ammo slot has made some big changes to how quickly you can move the ball around the map as well as how quickly you can annihilate the other team.
Showdown
- Player names are now empty instead of “???” at over 300 Trophies
- Poison doesn’t deal damage instantly when it spawns or grows
The instant poison damage was something that killed a lot of players prematurely. An obstacle in your way meant certain death if you had to touch some poison. Now, it will wait until you’ve been standing in the poison long enough to receive damage from it.
Bounty
- Game mode length reduced from 2m 30s to 2m.
Let’s be honest, this is one of the longest lasting game modes. Even if you were destroying the other team, it felt like it dragged on because of the huge time limit for the game mode. Reducing it by 30 seconds is going to make this game mode funner to play(especially for people who are just looking to get their tokens).
Raid Boss
- Now shows when the next Boss rage stage is triggered
- Added one more rage stage
- Show in-game which difficulty you are playing
- Respawn time increased by 2 seconds
Duo Showdown
- Respawn time increased by 2 seconds.
Another one of the longest playable game modes. This mode was prolonged due to players always just being able to hide away in a bush until their teammate came back after 15 seconds. This is usually met with a last second respawn time. Increasing the respawn time should make this method a little bit harder to achieve.
Heist
- Safe health increased from 30000 to 36000
The health of the safe seemed to melt away if a good enough team got to your base. Even if you came back to defend yourself, the health of the safe would have been completed depleted before you had a chance to do anything about it. Increasing the health of the safe will give players a second chance to make a comeback.
All Modes
- Green bushes no longer grow back after 35 seconds
- Explosion and other things that destroy the environment don’t leave 1 tile gaps anymore (hard to move through them with the joystick)
One of the biggest changes in the game. Bushes are used by many players for survival or sneak attacks. It has become a very common technique to destroy bushes so that other players cannot take advantage of the invisibility that it grants. Even if you destroyed it, it would just grow back after some time and be usable again. This update makes it so the grass will not grow back.
Character Changes
- Many new visual effects for Brawlers and skins
- Mortis VO added
- Bo VO added
- Brock VO added
Miscellaneous:
- Performance improvements
- Chat – Game room chat is still visible when other people have left the room
- Clubs – Search clubs while in a club “button” added
- Shop improvements
- Change your leaderboard location in Settings
- Ability for Club Presidents and Vice Presidents to change Club location
- When playing solo in a friendly game room you can now quit from the friendly game (faster to practice and try out things)
Although the patch updates don’t mention what the shop updates mean, we can only speculate by examining the shop over the next few days. One of the most noticeable changes is the amount of power points you can purchase. Normally, you can expect to see enough points to get your brawler 5-10% closer to their next level. After this update, you can see that some brawlers have enough points available for almost an entire level up!
Economy
- Star Power gem price lowered from 266 to 233
- Player’s token limit increased from 100 to 200
Probably one of the most understated changes in this update. You can now earn twice as many tokens in a single gaming session! You will still need to wait to replenish your tokens, but you can hold twice as many!
Maps & event rotation
- Bounty and Heist now share event slot 3
- Added four new Bounty maps, kept three old Bounty maps
- Added four new Heist maps, kept three old Heist maps
- Tweaked the remaining old Heist maps to increase Brawler variety
- Brawl Ball and “Showdown with event mods” now share event slot 4
- Added one new and one previously removed Showdown map
- Added one new Brawl Ball map
- Showdown is now the only game mode with event modifiers
- Removed Life Leech event modifier
- Removed Gem Grab, Bounty and Heist maps that were rarely in rotation
Character Balance
Nita:
- Increased Star Power Healing from 300 to 500
Brock:
- Increased Star Power Damage per second from from 240 to 300
Bo:
- Decreased Star Power visibility range from 6 tiles to 4 tiles
- Increased Main attack damage from 420 to 480
El Primo:
- Increased Star Power Damage from 600 to 800
Barley:
- Increased Star Power Healing from 200 to 300
- Increased Main attack damage per second from 600 to 640
- Increased Super damage per second from 480 to 640
- When throwing the Super close to Barley the spread of the bottles is now much larger. Also the damage from the Super’s different bottles do not stack anymore.
Poco:
- Increased Star Power Healing from 400 to 500
Darryl:
- Increased Star Power shield protection from 30% to 40%
- Increased Main attack damage per shell from 260 to 280
Tara:
- Increased Star Power Pet damage from 200 to 400, Increased Pet health from 2000 to 2400
Leon:
- Decreased Super invisibility time from 10 seconds to 8 seconds
- Decreased main attack damage from 500 to 460 (at close range)
Mortis:
- Increased Main attack and Super damage from 800 to 900
- Star power no longer leaves a green skull, instead when Mortis defeats a Brawler he instantly gains 1800 health.
Frank:
- Star power no longer leaves a purple skull, instead when Frank defeats a Brawler he instantly gains a buff that increases his damage by 40% for 10 seconds.
Rico:
- Increased Main attack damage from 280 to 300