Commanders!
Several months ago, Update 0.22 “Art of War” introduced a complete overhaul of the Commander System.
We’ve carefully evaluated the performance of each commander following his or her overhaul and have decided to introduce a number of changes to the system as a whole as well as to the skills the Armored Warfare players can select for most commanders in the game.
These changes will be accompanied by a free Commander Skill reset (for the affected commanders) that will be a part of the Update 0.25 launch.
The first change we are introducing is the ability to improve the Skill Field interface. Commander Skills are now pre-selectable (up to the amount of your free points), allowing you to see in advance your potential skill configuration without actually committing to unlocking those skills. We hope that this feature will be useful to you in selecting what path to take with your commanders.
The second change concerns the price for skill retrain. In Season 1, the skill reset feature Credit cost will depend also on the rank of each commander. In other words, resetting low rank commanders will be cheap, while resetting a high-level commander will become considerably more expensive. The Gold reset price will remain the same.
Individual commanders are undergoing changes as well, as such:
Viktor is receiving a buff to his defensive skill, making him somewhat more useful, especially in PvE:
- The Tier 3 skill No Deaths in the upper left part (improving crew hitpoints) is being replaced by a skill improving crew statistics
- The Tier 3 skill Retreat in the upper right corner (increasing off-road acceleration when an enemy is spotted) is being replaced by a skill improving turret ring hitpoints (hence the PvE part)
We are removing two skills that are not exactly useful for Philipp’s playstyle. Philipp will be able to deal a bit more crew damage and rotate the turret faster:
- Both Tier 1 skills Driving Lessons to the right from the Basic Skill are being replaced by two additional Tier 1 Giant Killer skills (giving bonus to crew damage)
- Both Tier 2 skills Mobility in the lower right corner (giving bonus to hull traverse) are being replaced by Perception (giving bonus to Turret Traverse and bringing the total bonus to Turret Traverse with both 3 skills from 3.5% to 10.5%)
Sabrina is undergoing a bit deeper overhaul:
- The Ammo Swap Tier 1 skills are changing their positions with the Camouflage Tier 1 skills
- The lower left corner Vigilance Tier 2 skill is moving to the upper left corner and is replaced by Tier 2 Smooth Drive
Overall, it will be more difficult to obtain all the view range extension skills and the camouflage skills at the same time (currently, it requires 5 skill points, it will require 7 skill points) – this is a necessary adjustment to make the commander more balanced.
Furthermore, we are making the Diver skill more useful by switching from a percentage increase to a fixed time boost to allowed underwater time (5 seconds for Tier 1).
This commander is getting a small upgrade – two skills that were deemed not as useful , the Tier 1 Gunner Lessons and Driving Lessons to the left from the main skill are getting replaced by Tier 1 Personal Example skills, improving crew stats by an additional 1% together.
The upper right part of the skill field for this commander is being overhauled to an extent to make it a more suitable for recon builds.
- The topmost line Tier 2 skill No Deaths (boosting crew hitpoints) is being replaced by another Tier 2 Personal Example skill, boosting crew performance by 0.9%
- The two Smoke without Fire Tier 1 skills in the upper right corner are being switched with the left-center Vigilance skills (increasing view range)
These changes make it easier to make a Juan Carlos Miramón recon build with:
- 5 crew skill increases (2 conditional)
- Special Agent Tier 3 skill increasing camouflage if noone else is around
- 3 Tier 1 vigilance skills (total increase of viewrange – 15 meters)
- Eagle Eye Tier 2 skill (reducing bush camouflage for the enemies)
All of that obtainable by investing 10 skill points.
Before the launch of the new Commander system, Ioannis Sanna was known for his love of fire. We are returning to that characteristic with an updated switch of some of his less useful skills to those connected with flames.
- Tier 2 Fire Safety skill to the left from the Main Skill is being split into two Tier 1s, the second one replacing the Assault Tier 2 two fields underneath it
- All the lower left corner conditional skills and the Tier 3 maximum speed increase skill Foot Down are replaced by Tier 1,2 and 3 skills increasing the chance to set the enemy on fire
These adjustments will make Ionnais the firebrand we’d like him to be.
These commanders have identical skill fields and the following changes affect both of them:
First and foremost, the lower left corner Offroad Training Tier 2 skills will not be conditional anymore and will be active at all times if selected, increasing the offroad acceleration by more than 12%.
Secondly, our evaluations have shown that the skills that increase maximum speed are quite useless. We are thus replacing three of them (Tier 1 and Tier 3) with skills that increase wheel and track hitpoints, allowing for a build that will make your vehicle far more difficult to immobilize.
Last but not least, Erin O’Connell is getting a major overhaul. The main reason for that is that the combination of pre-0.25 camouflage mechanics and her pre-0.25 skills made her overpowered and the overhaul is a part of the 0.25 camouflage changes solution.
The initially easily available Tier 2 camouflage and spotting skills are being partially reduced to Tier 1 and partially replaced by off-road acceleration. On the other hand, the Redeployment conditional Tier 3 maximum speed skill is replaced by a conditional camouflage skill. It will be harder to get camouflage factor skills, environmental camouflage and vision range skills at the same time.
And that’s it. We will be carefully evaluating the performance of all the rebalanced Commanders as well as your feedback on these changes. We hope that you will like them.
We’ll see you on the battlefield!
