Hello Holotable Heroes,
We want to clarify the unexpected Galactic Legend Pirate King Hondo changes some players have seen in-game.
From the conception of Pirate King Hondo Ohnaka’s kit, we intended for him to be able to interact with and Steal certain locked buffs. We liked both the gameplay opportunities this created and the thematic idea of Hondo, being the pirate that he is, bending the rules around what could normally be taken from an opponent. We discovered that this interaction was not functioning correctly when Hondo was released so we started working on a solution for it, but that solution was released earlier than intended.
Hondo now Stealing locked buffs in the game has also highlighted an important clarity issue. Not every locked buff is eligible to be Stolen, and we currently don’t have a good way to communicate to players which buffs are valid targets. While the mechanic creates some interesting possibilities, asking players to build counterplay around information they can’t reasonably access isn’t something we’re comfortable with.
Because of this, we will be reverting Hondo’s ability to Steal locked buffs in an upcoming release.
It is worth noting that the underlying issue also reached beyond Hondo’s Steal and affected several other characters as well and these fixes are functioning as intended and will not be reverted:
Pirate King Hondo Ohnaka (Basic ability): Hondo was not correctly counting locked buffs and debuffs on Jedi and Sith enemies when removing Turn Meter.
Cassian Undercover (Unique ability): Enemies who should have been inflicted with Undermine from Cassian’s Unique ability were not being inflicted with it when their allies granted them a locked buff.
Cobb Vanth (Special 2 ability): Defense Up from Cobb Vanth’s Special ability was not correctly tagged as a locked buff
Kelleran Beq (Unique ability): Second Wind from Kelleran Beq’s Unique ability was not correctly tagged as a locked buff
Kleya (Special 2 ability): Both Ability Block and Rebel Network granted by Kleya’s “This Is Do or Die” ability were not correctly tagged as locked debuffs or buffs.
KX Security Droid (Unique ability): Endure gained from KX Security Droid’s Omicron was not correctly tagged as a locked buff
Satele Shan (Leader ability): Satele Shan was not correctly applying Speed Down on enemies who were inflicted with a locked debuff
Scorch (Special 2 ability): Bulwark gained from Scorch’s Special 2 ability was not correctly tagged as a locked buff
Wrecker (Mercenary) (Unique ability): Wrecker was not correctly losing stacks of Soldier of Fortune when inflicted with a locked debuff
Rogue One (Unique ability): Breach Immunity gained from Rogue One’s Unique ability was not correctly tagged as a locked buff
Unstable Energy Modifier (Ben Solo Proving Grounds Event): Was not correctly counting locked buffs towards gaining stacks of Unstable Energy
Because this removal affects some matchups where the issue happened to coincide on characters that were not correctly tagged, Hondo will not be able to Steal the small number of locked buffs that he used to be able to, we will continue to monitor this and will consider further adjustments if necessary.
Thank you for your patience, see you on the Holotable,
SWGOH Dev Team
Capital Games Team
