HONicle : 2.2.0 Patch Analysis

Sexy new Magebane is sexy

To start, I just want to say thank you to S2 games for really stepping up their game with listening to the community and for recognizing their own mistakes and handling them well.  Now, on to the details.

Version 2.2.0  

Kongor Changes

There are several relatively large changes here that make Kongor much more of a threat, even as the game draws on and the heroes become more powerful.  Most notably is that his armor increases doubly fast and cannot be reduced in any way.  While this makes it much more difficult to defeat the giant monkey at level 1, although not impossible.  It does mean that a team built to take Kong early will be plainly obvious and likely quite rare.  It also means that Pestilence will no longer be able to hit level 6 and just laugh at Kongor.   


Items and Shops

S2 changed 5 items in this patch, and they are arguably the five that needed the most work.  Three of the changes represent a fairly significant shift towards making melee carries viable again, most importantly the change to Frostwolf Skull's effect on ranged heroes.

While not as significant of a change as many players expected, the change to Frostwolf Skull is the type of small incremental change that has been prevalent in the last few balance patches and is a solid and necessary nerf to the item.  With the change, if a melee carry and a ranged carry are facing off against each other in a right-click battle, once the melee carry gets a hit on the ranged carry it is unlikely that the ranged carry will be able to kite away effectively.  Additionally, the base stats on Frostwolf Skull have been reduced by a total of 15, although the total strength granted has been increased by 5, making it gain strength above the total of its component parts rather than losing a point of strength from the components.  The decrease to agility and intelligence further decreases the potency of FWS on agility and intelligence carries and makes it most useful on strength carries, which are all melee at this point in time. 

The damage increase and cooldown reduction on Runed Cleaver are a much more minor buff to melee carries, as only a few of them utilize this item regularly.  This change primarily affects Swiftblade, Scout and most of all The Dark Lady.  The latter two haven't seen competitive play for a very long time and, while this buff is quite minor, combined with other changes in this version we may see The Dark Lady played competitively quite soon, a potentiality that I am quite excited to see.

Tablet of Command has, since beta, been one of the most potent and underused support items in HoN and one of the best ways to escape from most melee heroes, especially those with slowing abilities such as Predator, The Dark Lady, Chronos and Madman.  While this nerf is relatively minor, the increase in cooldown makes it unlikely that Tablet of Command will be able to be used more than once in a team fight while making it still available after the fight to chase or retreat.  The increase in mana cost is negligible on many heroes, as the item still gives a good amount of mana and mana regeneration thanks to the significant intelligence bonus on the item.

The change to the pricing of Sol's Bulwark and the compensation change to the recipe cost of Demonic Breastplate are another example of incremental change in the right direction.  Like Frostwolf Skull, this change is not nearly as big as many players expected but is definitely necessary.   The increased recipe cost for Sol's Bulwark will likely only slow down it's construction by about a minute on many heroes that use it, even less on jungle heroes that can utilize it most efficiently.  I, personally, would have liked to see a numerical change to the item's stats instead of a price change.   

Hero Changes  

Melee Hero health regeneration increase

This is one of the most mathematically extreme changes in the patch.  Base health regeneration for melee heroes has been increased to 500% of what it formerly was and what it still is for ranged heroes.  Just for clarification, base health regeneration is the amount of health gained each second on a hero with a strength score of zero and no items. This change, it seems, is primarily targeted at low-strength heroes in the early game and, because base regeneration isn't modified by much, it won't affect heroes with high strength scores very much.  Once again, this is a big buff for melee carries with weak early game presence, notably Scout, Sand Wraith, The Dark Lady, Night Hound and Madman.  It will also help out the early melee junglers Zephyr, Predator, Parasite, Legionnaire, and Keeper of the Forest.  

Specific Hero changes Agility Heroes


 

Harden Carapace received a buff to it's duration at levels three and four and a nerf to it's duration at level one.  This simply adjusts the skill back towards where it was when it was six seconds at all levels.

The cost reduction on Time Leap makes it almost possible for Chronos to use it twice at level one.  Not a significant buff to Chronos overall, but definitely helping him move back up the scale.

The radius of Reflection's clearvision was reduced at level one and two of the skill.  This isn't huge.  The change to Burning Shadows however, is pretty big.  At level one the skill now stuns longer and does more damage than Graveyard, is almost the same numerically as Dragonfire but can be targeted to cast, and as an added bonus, grants clearvision of the target for a short duration.  In my opinion, Burning Shadows is now the best level one stun in the game.  Even better than Comet, considering that Burning Shadows is an AOE spell with a stun duration only 0.15 seconds shorter than Andromeda's powerstun.

Flare got a slow nerf at higher levels.  Yet another instance of weakening ranged carries. 

Piercing Arrows now creates an illusion of Forsaken Archer that channels the spell, allowing Forsaken Archer to continue attacking and moving around the battle.  This is a pretty potent buff to her carrying ability, as Piercing Arrows was directly counterproductive to Split Fire, forcing her to take time out from the fight to channel while she could be utilizing her attack modifier(s).  This change opens up a lot of options for her.  Especially promising is her ability to use Crippling Volley after starting the channel for Piercing Arrows.  Hopefully this will put her back on the competitive map.

Night Hound got a buff to his base intelligence score.  Hooray for more Smoke Bomb spam!

Big changes to Sand Wraith, the hero who fell the hardest in the last balance patch.  He will not, by any means, become god-tier again with these changes, but with a significant cooldown buff to Mirage as well as a mana cost and slow buff to Desert's Curse, he may actually be useful again.  The duration change on Mirage is a bit of a nerf, but really highlights the purpose of the spell, which is being pushed towards positioning and map control over damage application.

I don't know why they did it, but S2 buffed the early levels of Vanish.  This is probably the change I dislike the most in the patch, although I cannot quite put in to words why, exactly, it seems like such a big deal to me.

Silhouette received a much needed nerf to her two escape abilities and her steroid skill, weakening her in the areas that needed it most.  None of the individual changes are very big on their own, but as a whole the hero's power has been significantly reduced.  It's still fairly likely that she will see competitive play, but perhaps this was enough to remove her from the autoban/autopick level that she has been at recently.

Portal Key Swiftblade!  I'm so excited!  'Nuff said.

The nerf to Terror Mounds a few months ago really took Tremble off of the majority of player's radar.  Returning two of the three aspects of the mounds may bring this unique hero back in to the limelight.

As soon as Syllabear's Spirit Bear received the "Blink Dagger/Portal Key" cooldown in DotA, the HoN forums basically begged for the change to be carried over to Wildsoul.  Thank you S2 for implementing this in spite of your "Take nothing else from DotA" stance.  

Intelligence Heroes 
 

The damage value on Crystal Field is now worth the delay after casting it.  High risk = high reward.

Hellbringer was, and likely still is, one of the most consistently strong heroes without necessarily being overpowered.  Toning down Death Boil just this tiny amount shouldn't hurt that status too much.

After bringing Plague Rider up to the movespeed level of other epically hasty heroes as Moon Queen and Magebane he quickly became one of the most powerful support and solo lane heroes.  The minor speed reduction in this patch is not going to kill that powerful aspect of him, and neither is the removal of a movement speed debuff from Cursed Shield.  Ultimately, the changes to Cursed Shield are a further power increase to melee right-clickers. 

Pollywog Priest, one of the top tier solo mid heroes, has received a mana cost increase to his early game nuking power.  This is in line with the recent nerf to Bombardier's early nuke power.

Allowing the target of Defile to maintain a charge beyond the former five second time limit makes Revenant's role as an initiation setup hero much more obvious.  Not a major change overall.

The change to Rhapsody reminds me of the change that sent Zephyr into AOE Purgatory.  I'm expecting a change up to 75% damage to creeps in the near future.  If not, the disco push has been seriously weakened, as well as one of the strongest anti-pushers.

Clearvision on Succubus' Hold is nice.  Not a major buff, but still useful for ganks in the woods.

The mana cost increase on Elemental and decrease on Glacial Blasts is definitely intended to increase the viability of Tempest as a ganker that jungles rather than a jungler that ganks.  Definitely good.

Torturer has, since the cast time reduction on his spells, been an automatic pick or ban in nearly every game at the competitive level.  With a reduction in the radius for Chain Reaction, he may actually remain untouched at some point in the future.  

Strength Heroes
 

At first I thought the change to Spine Burst was a nerf, but then upon reading it, I realized that the change actually increases Armadon's late game potential while decreasing his early game damage output.  From levels one to five he is significantly weaker, while at levels six through ten he's essentially the same, after level eleven he's stronger and after level 16 he's significantly stronger, slamming everyone for 40 damage plus 40 damage per spine.  That's around 280 damage every three seconds if he's able to keep six charges up on a target.  This is great for Armadon, taking in to consideration that Amun-Ra fulfills almost the same role as Armadon as a strength survival carry but does it better.  Further strengthening Armadon, his damage reduction area is significantly larger.

The decrease on fissure's duration at lower levels can be considered a static move in pub games, while it is definitely a nerf at the competitive level.  In pubs, on one hand, we'll see less rage on the frequently poor fissure placement since they won't last nearly as long, while in competitive games Fissure trapping will become less powerful at early levels.  In addition to this, the cooldown decrease on Enrage at later levels will increase the usefulness of Behemoth after he blows his spells, somewhat mitigating the suicidal tendencies that the hero generally has had.  A 1.5 second stun to everything near Behemoth every four seconds is not to be taken lightly, especially when he cracks you for 200% base damage every time he stuns you.

The check radius change on Cadaver Armor seems pretty drastic at a nearly triple radius.  I'm not sure how much more this will make his strength score grow in games, but it may make Devourer more than the pubstar that he is now.

Like the old Forsaken Archer and the current Engineer, Hammerstorm's Mighty Swing ability never really got a lot of love.  Now with the significant range increase and moderate percentage increase maybe the competitive players will run him with more of a carry/semicarry focus rather than the support/ganker that he has been for so long.

This much needed nerf for Kraken reduces both his 'tankiness' and his early game damage output, potentially taking him out of the autopick/autoban status that he was in without making him completely useless.  Unfortunately, the reduction to his base armor is completely negated by the increase to health regeneration that all melee heroes got.  He is definitely still top tier in a majority of situations.

Last and probably least, is Warbeast.  He now can cast Summon Hellhounds multiple times without needing to reapply Battle Cry each time.  This clears up some of his early game mana issues, but with the nerf to summoned creatures when fighting Kongor, he's still pretty weak in the current competitive metagame.  

Overall Changes

As a whole, this patch did something for the game that a lot of players have been asking for for a long time by reducing the effectiveness of movement speed slows against melee heroes.  Melee carries may not be as good as they once were, but they are again viable in a number of situations.  The only major issue I take with the patch is the change to health regeneration.  Magic armor, base mana and health regen and (melee) attack range are currently the only things that are static among all heroes from the start of the match.  The change buffs certain heroes and MEGABUFFS certain other heroes.  In a lot of cases this is a good thing, but among the 'tankier' strength heroes, especially those who output damage based on how much they get hit (Amun-Ra and Armadon), the change is quite significant to their pre-6 utility.  

Power Creep

Power creep is a known phenomena in any game that changes regularly, but the most distinct analysis that I can find for it comes from the designers of Magic: The Gathering.  I ranted about how power creep was taking over HoN on the forums a few weeks ago and am surprised and impressed by this patch and the number of changes that were downward-facing.  It is more sustainable to balance down than balance up, even though it feels less exciting, and the balance team at S2 has done a decent job at incorporating the hardest part of game balance - the treatment of power as a cause rather than a symptom. Since the patch just came out and a lot of us haven't had much opportunity to really get a feel for the changes, I would like to keep this discussion alive for the next week or two while everything settles in to the community mind.  Drop a comment here or on my home blog, Escapism, or email me at theWigglyFace@gmail.com. As always GL:HF.