Feedback on Rynshi's Consecutive Nerfs, Passive Mechanisms, and Metric-Driven Balancing

[Frozen_Shrimp]

Hello, Bonfire developers. I am a tester from the South Korean region on the Asia server who has been playing Arkheron and maining Rynshi for nearly a year.

I am truly glad that this forum exists, providing a direct channel to share feedback with you. I sincerely appreciate your hard work in creating a game that is so engaging and rewarding to dive deep into.

As a Rynshi player, I hesitated quite a bit over whether I should change “was rewarding” to the past tense.

Currently, after a series of patches and changes to his passive conditions (specifically the combined 100 limit), Rynshi’s unique playstyle and core identity have been severely diluted.

Although I continue to research and play him out of sheer dedication, Rynshi currently lacks competitiveness in almost every aspect—skill value, base stats (EHP), and risk-to-reward ratio—when compared to other Eternals in similar roles (brawlers/chargers). The high-risk playstyle that was once unique to Rynshi has completely vanished. I am certain that a situation where playing a beloved Eternal makes a player feel guilty toward their teammates is far from healthy. I would like to offer this feedback based on the system mechanism conflicts and quantitative data that have accumulated over recent patches.

1. Structural Issues: Metric-Driven Patches and the Release of Tsubo

From my perspective, the current downfall of Rynshi’s viability stems from adjustments made during v0.16, which were heavily reliant on metrics from a very specific meta environment.

• Balance Issues Arising from Shared Risk Mechanisms

  Rynshi’s core mechanic—“high return conditioned on maintaining low HP”—was identically applied to the new Eternal, Tsubo. This created a specific synergy line (“Tsu-Shi”) that proved overly dominant when paired together. However, in the process of tuning down this specific combination, Rynshi’s individual passive conditions and base stats were heavily penalized. Consequently, solo Rynshi players suffered a massive hit to both their fundamental durability and the fun of playing him.

  You might wonder why I am bringing this up only now. Having played the “Tsu-Shi” combination myself back then, I am fully aware of how destructive it was. The v0.16 hotfix was entirely understandable, and as a Rynshi player, even if it felt a bit disappointing, it seemed like a necessary sacrifice for overall game balance. Even though solo Rynshi was already difficult to run at that point, I fondly remember continuing to research various builds out of affection for the character.

• Metric Illusions Caused by the Absence of Counter-Eternals

  The reason Rynshi’s metrics appeared inflated during v0.16 was largely due to environmental factors: Leodin and Lava, who directly counter Rynshi with basic attack armor penetration, were temporarily excluded from the rotation. Because nerfs were executed based on metrics recorded in an environment lacking his natural counters, Rynshi’s standing has severely collapsed now that those counters have returned, alongside additional weapon nerfs and weakened passive values.

2. Mechanical Conflicts Proven by Objective Data

I am attaching a link to a detailed Notion page prepared in Korean. While I am unable to provide a full translation due to AI context limits, it should be easily readable using browser translation tools:

[Notion Link: https://app.notion.com/p/ac64ba9f19e94a50858f08363aca234e?t=new] (Korean language, translated views available via browser)

Rynshi’s current passive structure (the combined 100 HP+Fortitude restriction) creates a logical contradiction: it demands extreme risk-taking through “low HP maintenance” without offering any proportional return.

• Insufficient Return for Maintaining Low HP

  In a 3v3 environment dominated by heavy focus-firing, holding under 100 HP while engaging in combat is an extraordinarily difficult task that carries constant lethality risk. Even if a player manages to pull off a flawless low-HP infusion play at 50 HP—taking on a 1.5-second cast time and extreme vulnerability while using health potions—the maximum payoff reaches 1,000.0 EHP, which is exactly equal to Leodin, who achieves the same stat without any risk conditions at all.

  If the reward for executing high-risk mechanical acrobatics is merely “parity with a zero-risk character,” there is no reason for players to maintain low HP, nor any value in picking Rynshi. The core mechanic of low-HP maintenance can only function if accompanied by an overwhelmingly high return.

3. Performance Gap Compared to Same-Role Eternals

In the past, even if Rynshi’s Eternal Skill value was noticeably low, he could maintain his identity and survivability by leveraging the synergy between set bonuses and weapon performance to pull off his high-wire playstyle.

However, as passive and set bonuses have been nerfed and standardized, the inherent limitations of his Eternal Skill have been fully exposed.

• Gap in Ultimate Performance: Compared not only to other brawler Eternals but to almost all Eternals in the game, Rynshi’s ultimate severely lacks impact in terms of teamfight influence, variable creation, and overall return. In the Korean community, there is even a running joke that buying two Crown of Fortitude items is identical to Rynshi’s Eternal Skill.

• Utility and Quality of Life (QoL): His basic skill set provides relatively inferior value in utility—such as post-engagement survivability, CC chaining, and overall combat convenience—compared to other characters.

Conclusion

Currently, Rynshi is facing a clear design flaw.

His reworked set bonus (passive) yields low returns relative to the amplified risks. Even when pulling off high-efficiency, high-difficulty plays, the reward offers little difference compared to the bonuses of zero-risk Eternals.

Comparing his Eternal Skill to those of Dalla, Grimworld, or Leodin highlights just how underwhelming his current impact is.

Navigating a perilous low-HP tightrope now yields the same durability as zero-risk characters, while his unique playstyle centered around Fortitude Shards has been effectively sealed. This structure completely strips away Rynshi’s unique fun and reason to exist.

Sharing a unique high-risk mechanic with a new Eternal—resulting in stacked returns for the combination—was a design oversight that disrupted the game’s broader balancing ecosystem. I strongly request that future character design processes thoroughly evaluate such systemic ripple effects, and that Rynshi’s original identity—an overwhelming high-return playstyle built on low-HP maintenance—be restored as soon as possible.

I genuinely love this Eternal’s design and playstyle, and I still believe that you, the developers, can make Rynshi fun to play once again. Personally, I would love to see his previous passive rolled back, but it is completely fine even if that isn’t the case. However, I firmly believe that separating his activation condition from Tsubo’s is the right direction. Having two returns sharing the exact same risk will always cause balance issues whenever they aren’t strictly separated by rotation.

Feeling a sense of guilt simply for picking my main Eternal is truly painful. I deeply appreciate all the hard work you put into this game, but as gamers, once players feel that the game has become hostile toward them, it becomes very difficult for them to stay. Because I trust you, I know it won’t come to that for me, but the sentiment among the player community around me is becoming increasingly concerning. If you could pay closer attention to preventing these systemic mechanism conflicts and refining overall balance design, I am certain it will bring about a very positive response from the community.

Wishing you the very best in the successful development and balancing of the game. Thank you for reading.

(P.S. As this feedback was translated from Korean to English, please kindly understand that there may be slight nuances or translation inaccuracies, though I have tried my best to convey my thoughts as clearly as possible.)

[SunsetLion]

Thanks for taking the time to write this up, we really appreciate the thoughtfulness of the post!!

First off, we’ve been talking about changes to Rynshi’s set bonus. The simplest version is raising the THP threshold (Total Health Pool = Fortitude + Health) from 100 to 150. That would bring the passive effects much closer to where they used to be, and gives Fortitude a real way to maintain high damage mitigation at low health.

On his Eternal Ability, I think we need to look at its effectiveness relative to others. Possibly to the point of a redesign, but we still need to figure out how far we want to take that. Either way, we want to be careful not to push players toward going full Eternal just to chase the Eternal Ability.

Last thing, worth talking about how we approach balance in general. Our goal is that a full Eternal build and a Shattered build are as close to equally viable as possible in most situations. Every build type is going to shine more or less depending on what Eternal Kits are in the lineup and what the current meta looks like. Some builds will be top tier, some bottom tier, at any given point. But we want that to come down to preference, not data forcing your hand.

On the Tsu’Shi build specifically, I liked that people pick that over full Irenna (or any Eternal, really). Shattered builds are where the combat creativity and theorycrafting shine the most for in our minds, and we want mixed builds to always feel like an exciting option since we’re not exactly a hero game. Set Bonuses are an obvious entry point for shattered build synergies, and Tsu’Shi highlighted that well, but it had some issues and was over-tuned. As for the shared “low health” mechanic between those two Eternals, we initially viewed that as a plus, a clear direction for a shattered build. That said, we’ll keep looking at synergies like that to make sure they feel fun and fair. More to come and thanks again for the feedback!

[Frozen_Shrimp]

Hello SunsetLion,

Thank you again for such a detailed and sincere response. Hearing your thoughts on the THP 150 adjustment, the potential redesign of Rynshi’s Eternal Skill, and the underlying design goals for Shattered builds gives me a lot of hope. I am responding to share some additional feedback regarding the points you raised.

First and foremost, I want to emphasize how much I admire what your team has built. The core mechanics, combat feel, and the foundational framework of Arkheron are nothing short of brilliant. It is precisely because the game’s underlying systems are so exceptionally well-crafted that it breaks my heart to think that over-engineered balancing might dim that brilliance.

To be completely honest, as someone who loves this game deeply, I think it’s easy to underestimate the entry barrier of the Shattered system. To even begin theorycrafting a functional Shattered build, a player needs to fully memorize and understand all 40 pieces of equipment currently in rotation. Arkheron has a steep learning curve, and since the game is still in beta, the overall player base is naturally in a learning phase—organic build discovery naturally takes time. Because of this, it might have felt from your end as though very few players were deeply engaging with the Shattered system.

This brings me to the “Tsu-Shi” combination. Regardless of the internal intention, from a player’s perspective, pairing identical low-HP risks felt like a slightly too explicit “guided direction”—as if the game were gently pointing players toward how Shattered builds should be used. While I understand the intention to highlight the system, this approach can inadvertently dilute the core satisfaction of discovery.

To draw a parallel: what makes item-driven games like League of Legends so inherently replayable is the euphoria players feel when they discover an unintended, high-watermark build on their own that the developers didn’t explicitly spell out. Even if that build eventually gets targeted with a heavy nerf, players often laugh it off with a sense of pride: “The developers recognized how powerful my idea was!”

Preset synergies like “Tsu-Shi” are ill-suited for fostering this genuine excitement of exploration. What felt most disappointing was seeing the release of Tsubo result in an overly dominant combo, which inevitably necessitated set bonus adjustments. As a result, Rynshi became difficult to utilize in most Shattered builds unless paired in a 2+2 set with Tsubo. (While niche builds like Hollow-Rynshi—focusing on Cleaver interactions with Hollow’s Sneklan—still remain, watching the other creative builds I had thoroughly researched lose their viability was naturally disheartening. I completely understand why the team had to make those balance adjustments at the time, but I feel the root issue ultimately stems from how Tsubo’s design synergy was initially introduced.)

When these over-tuned preset combinations trigger broad, metric-based nerfs, it shrinks the overall potential of the system before players even get a chance to explore it freely. This is precisely why I argue that combinations shouldn’t feel like dev-guided “answer keys,” and why sharing the exact same risk mechanisms is inherently problematic.

Furthermore, looking at the structure of a 2+2 Shattered build, players trade a full Eternal Skill (Active) for an additional Set Bonus (Passive), ultimately maintaining a similar overall skill budget. Because both paths are essentially a choice of how to construct item sets, a baseline level of balance standardization between Set Bonuses and Eternal Skills is absolutely necessary.

I deeply resonate with your stated goal that “a full Eternal build and a Shattered build should be as close to equally viable as possible, coming down to player preference rather than data forcing your hand.” However, for this vision to actually work in practice, ensuring a balanced skill budget between Set Bonuses and Eternal Skills is an indispensable prerequisite.

We could already see this structural issue in the meta of this past beta test: Eternal Skills for characters like Dahla or Grimwold possess overwhelming value that easily outshines not only other Eternal Skills, but almost any Set Bonus combination. When a few tier-1 Eternal Skills retain such disproportionate power while Set Bonuses are uniformly nerfed or flattened, creative mixed builds that rely on Set Bonus synergy simply lose their viability. If specific Eternal Skills remain this dominant, players will inevitably be “forced by data” to pick full Eternal builds rather than following their preferences, making it structurally impossible for the diverse and creative Shattered builds you envision to ever emerge.

In my view, the system you’ve built is already so well-structured that the development team doesn’t need to overly prescribe or guide how players should approach it. The team’s role is most effective when reining in builds that show truly game-breaking performance, while occasionally breathing new life into neglected items. Doing just that is more than enough to maintain a healthy ecosystem without hurting the intrinsic fun of discovery.

Arkheron shines brightest when players are given the freedom to discover their own high-wire playstyles and limits within the magnificent sandbox you’ve created. I hope the team continues to trust the foundation you’ve built and the creativity of your players. I can’t wait to see how Arkheron evolves in the next phase!

Best regards,

[GG_Bolbi]

Since you are advocating for shattered builds here, in your opinion would you want passives to be buffed or changed and eternal abilities to be nerfed to some degree or what are are you wanting to happen?

[Frozen_Shrimp]

Hello, GG_Bolbi.

To clarify, I am not a developer, nor do I intend to dictate how they should balance the game. I respect their balance philosophy; I simply shared feedback on elements that felt frustrating or difficult to understand from my perspective as a player. How they process this feedback is entirely up to them.

However, if you are asking what I would personally look at under the assumption that I had to handle the balance for the current version, there are two primary issues that feel most urgent:

1. Addressing the Over-Tuned Individual Kit Performance of Dahla and Leodin
   Rather than just their synergy when paired together, each of these two Eternals individually possesses CC and engagement capabilities that leave virtually zero room for counterplay. This leads to unavoidable deaths before the opponent can even reactivate Anchor.

• Dahla: Between her Eternal Skill and Thrust skill, Dahla alone can reliably lock someone down for up to 3 seconds—providing more than enough time for even solo-queue teammates to focus fire and delete a target. To address this, her Eternal Skill range/area should be narrowed or its delay increased to allow counterplay. Alternatively, rolling back the removal of damage immunity on Twisting Thorn (from Patch 0.16.0) could be considered.
• Leodin: His Eternal Skill lets him bypass walls, gain invulnerability, and function almost like stealth—all while allowing him to manually time his drop without giving enemies a visual landing indicator. Since enemies have to purely rely on guesswork, combining this with his Hammer skill to peel or push enemies into his team creates an uncounterable combo on his own. The landing timing should be fixed, or a visible landing zone indicator should be added so enemies can react.

2. Restoring Rynshi’s Identity and Separating Him from Tsubo
   As I noted in my detailed Notion breakdown, Rynshi currently suffers from high risk with disproportionately low return. Both his Set Bonus and Eternal Skill fall low on the overall skill budget compared to someone like Leodin, who gets similar returns with zero risk alongside a game-changing Eternal Skill.

• The Patch 0.20 set bonus adjustments for Rynshi could be rolled back from 100 HP to 40% damage reduction (excluding Shards of Will), while reworking Tsubo’s set bonus to differentiate them.
• Since Tsubo’s high-risk playstyle is thrilling in its current state, rather than prematurely tweaking him and ruining that fun, simply keeping Tsubo and Rynshi out of the same rotation for now would prevent forced overlap.
• Additionally, allowing Rynshi’s Eternal Skill cooldown reduction to apply to skills already on cooldown would give him a competitive edge (with proper numerical tuning, of course).

Overall, I don’t think the current patching direction is bad. However, dominant Eternals—like Grimwold in previous versions or Dahla in the current meta—tend to stay at the top for far too long. Balancing these outliers while keeping risk and reward proportional is key to a healthy meta.