Season 15 (Halo Wars 2)

Previous:	Season 14
Season 15
Start date:	August 13, 2020
End date:	Ongoing
Includes content for:	Halo Wars 2

Season 15 is the fifteenth season of Halo Wars 2 to launch (not including the Yappening in-game event), beginning on August 13, 2020. The season followed Season 14, representing the first update to Halo Wars 2 in eight months, and is the currently-ongoing season of Halo Wars 2. The season's emblem is represented by an Infused Scarab. The season's accompanying balance patch mostly saw balance changes for the new Pavium and Voridus leaders, among other tweaks.

In February 2021, 343 Industries announced that it had no plans to provide further post-launch support for Halo Wars 2. Although it committed to keeping the game and its servers running as expected, it would not produce any further content updates or balance patches for the game. As a result, Season 15 is expected to be the game's last, and will likely continue indefinitely.

Season 15 Title Updates

The launch of Season 15 saw the launch of two accompanying Title Updates for Halo Wars 2.

August 13 patch

Halo Wars 2 Patch Notes - August 13, 2020

Good Afternoon Friends,

Today we have rolled out a new balance patch and are updating to Season 15. Below is a complete breakdown of the balance patch. If there is feedback on this patch, please let us know here in the forums as you get more time with this update.

Bug Fixes

Alice-130 Phoenix Log now displays the correct date in Italian.

Global Changes

To help increase the usability of turret drops and bunkers, we have reduced the amount of damage mines do towards buildings Mines: Building damage has been reduced by 50%.

UNSC Units

Vultures

Vultures have been dominating a bit too much and are too effective directly vs. the units that are meant to counter them. Some changes are being made to help reduce their dominance.

• Vulture Changes: Phoenix Missile damage reduction vs. anti-air Units through creating a new weapon type for it vs. ground units. A power cost increase from 75 to 100.

Marines

In the early game, grenades have a hard time landing on well controlled scout units. We are making a change to help improve this interaction.

• Marine Grenade Ability: Velocity increased to 70.

Scorpions

Scorpions are weaker compared to other tanks in game. Damage is being increased to help make them more viable.

• Scorpion Tank Change: 5% damage increase to both machine guns and cannons.

UNSC Leaders

Jerome

His hero unit along with Time For Heroes buffs would outrun most units. We have moved to reduce the units base speed by 25% to compensate this buff.

Forge

His hero unit is still difficult to kill, so he is getting a nerf to Health and Shield increases on the tier 2 and 3 upgrades.

• Forgehog: Health and Shield upgrade increases for tiers 2 and 3 have been reduced by 20%.

Serina

Frostravens are continuing to struggle in Serina’s toolkit. To help improve their viability we are reducing their cost and cooldown of their ability to help better this unit.

• Frostravens: Cost reduction reduced from 250/100 to 200/80. Cooldown reduction on their ability reduced from 45 to 30 seconds.

Isabel

Isabel is a bit weak compared to other leaders in the early game. To help compensate we are moving leader powers on the leader power radial to help her in the early game. In addition to this, MAC Blast is receiving a damage buff to make it more viable.

• Leader Power Swap: Lotus Mines switched with Heavy Metal on the leader power radial.
• MAC Blast: Damage increased by 10%.

Captain Cutter

Cutter’s Hero unit struggles with fighting squad units and dealing damage overall. Increasing its AoE effectiveness to help combat this flaw.

• Jerome: Impact ring now does 105% weapon damage and damage normalized with other spartan hero units.

Kinsano

Hellcharge investment does not reward players compared to other options in Kinsano’s leader power wheel. We are improving each tier to make the investment more worth it.

• Hellcharge Upgrades
  • Death explosion weapon type changed to be more effective.
  • Effect radius increased per tier: From 15/22/29 to 20/30/40.
  • Duration increased per tier: From 20/20/20 to 25/40/55.
  • Speed buff increased per tier: From 15%/15%/15% to 25%/30%/35.
  • Damage increased per tier: From 20%/25%/30% to 25%/30%/35%.

Johnson

Getting bunkers out earlier for Johnson to make use of them has been problematic. These changes will help increase their viability.

• Bunker Changes: Cooldown on Bunker Drop Reduced by 30 seconds. Digging In now reduces the Cooldown of Bunker Drop by 20 seconds per tier, up from 10 seconds per tier.

Anders

Protector Sentinels are more a nuisance early game and difficult to really utilize as intended. To make them easier to use in strategies we are changing their price. Anders’ hero unit Douglas is a bit too strong when acquiring his rocket launcher upgrade.

• Protector Sentinels: Cost reduction on Protector Sentinels from 250/30 to 200/15.
• Douglas HeroUnit: Rocket Launcher damage reduced by 10%.

Banished Units

Shield Generators

Shields on Banished bases are a bit too hard to break through at the moment when attacking Banished bases so we are bringing their effectiveness down slightly

• Base Shield: Shield amount reduced by 10%.

Suicide Grunts

These units stun buildings for a very long time when they attack them and stops production on the attacked building. We are reducing this effect.

• Stun on buildings: Reduced stun duration by 50%.

Ghosts

These units have a slow ram speed from when the ability is initiated to impact so we are making adjustments to improve their effectiveness at ramming.

• Ghost Improvements: Acceleration and Turn Speed increased by 10% to improve ram effectiveness.

Choppers

These units cause too much damage with their ram ability currently, so we are reducing that base damage.

• Chopper Changes: Ram damage reduced by 10%.

Wraith

Banished tanks currently overpower their counter units, so a reduction in effectiveness vs. Anti-Vehicle units is being applied to their damage type.

• Wraith Changes: Plasma and Scorch Mortar damage is reduced by 20% against Anti-Vehicle units.

Banished Leaders

Voridus

When players get caught in Voridus infusion, slow moving infantry is punished too much and can be denied areas with infusion for too long.

• Infusion Changes:
  • All Infusion Pool durations reduced by 15%.
  • Infusion Damage vs Light Infantry reduced by 5%.
  • Grenadier damage vs Light infantry reduced by 20%.
  • Grenadier veterancy damage buff reduced by 10% per veterancy tier.
  • Grenadier veterancy damage reduction buff reduced by 10% per veterancy tier.
  • Grenadier Infusion Siphon damage reduction buff reduced by 5%.

Pavium

Pavium is not performing as we want him to. To help bring him up we are making changes to his Hero units’ slow and moving around some leader powers to help early game.

• Hero Unit: Paint target ability slow increased: From 20%/40% to 40%/60%.
• Leader Power Changes: Wraith Invaders have been swapped with Ultra Mines to be similar to other leader’s transport vehicles locations.

Yapyap THE DESTROYERR

Yapyap’s turret drop ability is abusable with chaining the stuns on armies and this ends NOW!

• Shade Turret Drop: No longer stuns enemy units when dropped near them.

Colony

The Hunter Captain can be very hard to kill in most situations. We’re making a subtle change to this.

• Hunter Captain: Reducing base health by 5%.

September 4 patch

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Hello Friends, After monitoring our telemetry and collecting player feedback from our last balance patch, we have decided to update Kinsano's Hellcharge ability.

Kinsano

With our latest balance patch, Hellcharge was proving to be more effective in-match than we had initially anticipated. To address this, we are slightly reducing the effectiveness of the Tier 2 and Tier 3 versions of her Leader Power.

• Hellcharge
  • Target Radius reduced for all tiers to 13
  • Tier 2: Death explosion damage reduced from 700 to 600, duration reduced from 40 to 30, speed buff reduced from 30% to 27% and damage buff reduced from 35% to 17.5%.
  • Tier 3: Death explosion damage reduced from 900 to 800, duration reduced from 55 to 35, speed buff reduced from 35% to 30%, and damage ]buff reduced from 40% to 20%.

The update to Hellcharge should now be live in Halo Wars 2 across all platforms. Thank you for providing your feedback on the recent balance changes and we'll continue to address other outliers or issues as they emerge. Game on!