Before this patch, the amount of damage a first-hit projectile did depended on how much distance it traveled before hitting. Each projectile (that I know of) had a threshold distance, beyond which it would do half the damage that it would do from up close. There was also a strange bug where if you pressed a button while it hit, it would do the up-close damage from anywhere on screen.
I seems that’s not the case anymore; first-hit projectiles now do their full damage from anywhere on screen. This obviously acts as a buff to any character with a fireball. For example, in most cases Aganos’ rocks used to do 25 hit points of damage. Now in all cases, they’ll do 50. Jago’s uncharged fireballs now always do 32 instead of 16, and his charged fireballs will always do 50. Omen’s and Glacius’ projectiles now do 16… though previously doing 8 seems really, really low to me (can someone verify that?) Also, I don’t know how non-traditional projectiles like Pyrobombs and Swarms worked, so maybe someone can give input on that.
It might not significantly change anybody’s zoning strategy (except for maybe Aganos because the damage increase is huge), but now zoning should have a bit more of an impact on your opponent’s lifebar.
It’s also possible that they made this change a while ago and I just noticed it now, but I don’t remember seeing this in any patch notes…
Maybe I’m wrong here, but there was a way to increase projectile damage at max range in the previous patch just jabbing when the projectile was about to hit. @FengShuiEnergy posted something about that
It’s funny, because this maybe benefits Gargos, but since his PP is a homing projectile, I don’t know if it gets benefits from this. If it does, this patch nerfs his autodoubles, but buffs the opener pp
Pyrobomb damage does base damage no matter the distance (as long as they are stuck to the opponent), so I don’t think your observations on this matter affect his zoning much, if at all. I think it’s just a victim of damage scaling when used mid combo like with the juggle unbreakable. Otherwise, it’s never really been subject to the same projectile rules as endokukens, plasma bolts, etc.
However, there may be damage discrepancies as whether they stick to the opponent or are detonated in flight and still hit the opponent. That one may be worth testing later…
Oooooh, I was in a Match yesterday where i realized this glacius wasn’t guarding against aganos projectiles, so i stole a few extra. Before he or i realized it, he jumped, i shadow bionic armd and he died and i think we were both like “wtf!? He JUST got that life bar!”
There’s no real way to check now, unless you know off-hand how much damage it used to do. If it does apply, then a skull into teleport mixup will have a bit more damage up front than it did before.
