2.5.12 Patch Analysis

Version 2.5.12

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- With our roster hero roster preparing to hit the big 100, this week's free hero pool is a throwback to HoN's youth

* We have expanded the free hero pool to include 24 old school heroes for this week only

* Swiftblade

* Sand Wraith

* The Madman

* Blood Hunter

* Night Hound

* Chronos

* Dark Lady

* Moon Queen

* Puppet Master

* Blacksmith

* Hellbringer

* Torturer

* Wretched Hag

* Pollywog Priest

* Ophelia

* Tempest

* Pharoah

* Magmus

* Maliken

* Hammerstorm

* Pandamonium

* Legionnaire

* Keeper of the Forest

* Pestilence

★ This roster includes all of the original heroes from beta.

 

- Added Night Hound Alt Avatar: Night Hunter

- New taunt: Dropping G's Taunt

- Added a new command /friendlychat or /fc for short

* If a player turns this feature on their client will only accept incoming whispers, game invites, group invites and other similar messages if the sender is in their clan or on their buddy list

- The alt avatar list can now be sorted by release date (suggested by community member iruul)

- UI bug fixes: (Thanks to Elkano for his help with these)

* Right click menu no longer occasionally appears behind other windows

* Fixed bug causing notification icon tooltips to be stuck to the cursor

* Matchmaking window player double click invites no longer occasionally target the wrong player

* Added missing double tap announcer preview

* Improved sub-account drop-down behavior

* Fixed large stat numbers being cut off in post game stats screen

* Fixed bug causing add friend button to disappear in-game

- Matchmaking groups who have a large skill difference among their members will no longer be able to choose the "Fairer Match" option for their match fidelity

* An appropriate message will be displayed to the group leader indicating that the value they had selected is not available for their group should they try to

★ Basically, premade teams that varied largely in MMR ranged that queued together had a really low change to have the perfect team to play against most of the time, so the option was removed.

- Updated RAP interface

- The following Heroes have been removed from the Tournament Rules game mode:

* Artesia

* Bezerker

* Gravekeeper

★ What this means is that pro players can now use these heroes for competitive play. Usually it's to give them time to adjust to new heroes.

- Fixed white textures showing up when you use the "Low" Model setting for:

* Behemoth

* Hammerstorm

* Hellbringer and Malphas

* Kongor

* Moon Queen

* Night Hound

* Pollywog Priest

- The Night Vision of the following heroes have been changed to 800:

* Bombardier (had 1200)

* Bubbles (had 1200)

* Deadwood (had 1200)

* Keeper of the Forest (had 1200)

* Torturer (had 900)

* Tremble (had 1200)

* Valkyrie (had 1200)

★ This change is a step away from "normalizing" vision. Night Vision was different for some heroes in Dota, and had also been carried over to HoN in beta. This attempts to give differences in heroes and to lower the effectiveness of some abilities that are slightly overpowered. Leshrac/Torturer are great examples of heroes with powerful spells that needed some way to balance the incredible amounts of damage they could do. 

- Visual Exploits have been fixed that involve the following heroes:

* Deadwood

* Devourer

* Emerald Warden

* Engineer

* Fayde

* Gladiator

* Madman

* Revenant

* Sand Wraith

* Silhouette

★ These exploits were found when someone released a mod that let them a player know where the enemy placed their invisible skills shots. For example, the mod let you see where Deadwood and Gladiator placed their Rotten Grasp/Pitfall. It also let you know where Madman and Fayde were when they are invisible.

- A new chatserver is needed this patch. You will automatically reconnect to the new one after patching

- Fixed an issue where players could repeatedly invite other players to create a clan even if they were already in a clan or in /dnd mode

- Players will no longer longer receive matchmaking group invites while in /dnd mode

- Fixed an issue where right-clicking the Auto-Join channel button in a chat room was not removing the saved channels from the Auto-Join channel list

- Fixed a display issue where a players MMR shown on the matchmaking interface would appear to be 1 point higher than it should have

- Fixed a "Tooltip Sticking" bug

== Items ==

Astrolabe

- Now does not apply the Astrolabe Immunity to Stormspirit'ed targets

★ This change works in conjunction with the below Stormspirit nerf, making it so that you don't accidentally get Astrolabe Immunity since allies that are Stormspirit'ed don't get healed anymore.

Brutalizer

- No longer works with Split Attacks

★ This change affects Forsaken Archer and Draconis. It used to proc on all units if it proced once. It's more of a nerf on Forsaken Archer because of how she is the go-to ranged carry in competative play.

Null Stone

- Reduced mana regeneration from 200% to 150%

★ A nerf to an item that was a bit too good.

Plated Greaves

- On use, now also grants +2 Armor to nearby heroes

★ Definitely makes the item more viable, and gives it a reason to be picked over Steamboots, the popular pick in competative play. It also gives a buff to Push Heroes, such as Ophelia, Balphagore, and Warbeast.

Ring of the Teacher

- Reduced damage from 6 to 5

★ This item had a terrific effectiveness/gold ratio since it gives Attack Damage, Armor, and Mana Regeneration. This change tones it down a bit so it's not always picked up, and possibly to make Grave Locket more of a choice on Intelligence Heroes.

Savage Mace

- No longer works with Split Attacks

★ Again, this change is more for Forsaken Archer and Draconis.

Sol's Bulwark

- No longer stacks incorrectly with or overrides Daemonic Breastplate

★ The override was because of how Sol's Bulwark was nerfed to 4 Armor a while ago, making it different from Daemonic Breastplate.

Staff of the Master

- Recipe old: Any two 1000g items + Glowstone + Recipe

- Recipe new: Glowstone + Mighty Blade + Quickblade + Neophyte's Book. Auto Assemble

★ This change added a bit more flexibility to SoTM users, since instead of buying the recipe last, you can now buy the 1000 gold stat items first, and save the Glowstone for last.

Stormspirit

- Cast range reduced from 600 to 450

- Increased cost from 600 to 1000 gold

- Now cannot be healed while Stormspirit'ed

★ This nerf received mixed views. This was possibly in order to make the upcoming hero, Kinesis, have the better version, as both use the same animation, and both can be used to save allies. Nevertheless, the item was versatile and could even be used to save allies. Now, it'll be harder to use for that purpose, and a bit harder to focus on farming it.

== Heroes ==

Amun-Ra

- Fixed Pyroclasmic Rebirth from playing in fog

Arachna

- Increased turnrate from 360 to 450

Behemoth

- Fissure increased duration from 5/6/7/8 to 6.5/7/7.5/8 seconds

- Shockwave tooltip update no longer affecting corpses.

★ An unprecedented buff. This will slightly boost his early game traps and promotes more roaming.

Blacksmith

- Fixed Kuznya Avatar so that the icons in Flaming Hammer and Frenzy match the states

- Smoothed Kuznya's attack animations

Cthulhuphant

- Hook 'em can now target Allied creeps only at level 2 and above

★ Makes Cthuluphant a better option to be used as a jungler. Unexpected buff.

Demented Shaman

- Unbreakerable health restored reduced from 150/250/350/450 to 125/200/275/350

★ Slight nerf to a spell that was great to max early in the laning phase.

Drunken Master

- Stagger's bonus Movement Speed and Attack Damage reduced from 20/40/60/80 to 15/30/45/60

- Drink's charges gained from 2/4/6/8 to 2/3/4/5 a second

- Drink's charged gained from enemy death from 2/4/6/8 to 2/3/4/5

★ Big nerfs to this hero. Stagger's(E) bonus damage basically gave him a big item, and the new drink charge gain from enemy death was a bit much on a hero that can reduce 60% of incoming damage. These changes will reign him in a bit, but won't break the hero.

Fayde

- Deep Shadows is now the correct cast type

Flux

- Fixed Discharge and Release from playing in fog

- Release's slow is now transferrable

★Transferable means that Parasite will be able to swap it to Flux with Facehug(R).

Geomancer

- Added Staff of the Master effect:

* Adds a bonus 100/120/140 Magic Damage and 4 Second 50% Movement Speed Slow in a 600 radius to the explosion

* For reference, the normal explosion is 300 radius

- Fixed the Alt Avatar's model from playing Earth's Grasp animation/sound indefinitely if the target creep moves out of range & Geomancer is not aggro'ed/no other orders are carried out after casting Earth's Grasp

- Quicksand won't draw on the minimap anymore

- Quicksand is now a status debuff, meaning it can be dispelled and stolen/transferred

★ A powerful buff. Geomancer now has a late game option that pays off well. The SotM makes up for missing enemies with the ult, since it now slows OUTSIDE the radius in a hefty radius. To picture it better, Engineer's Energy Field(R) is only 450 radius.

Gladiator

- Pitfall effects touched up

Hellbringer

- Starting Strength increased from 16 to 17

- Death Boil reduced manacost from 100/130/160/190 to 100/120/140/160

★ The Death Boil(W) buff was necessary since the damage nerf did not lower the mana cost to match it. It seems S2 wants this hero to be picked up more.

Keeper of the Forest

- Fixed Root from playing through fog

Legionnaire

- Fixed his Alt Avatar's Whirling Blade so it plays the correct model when spinning

Maliken

- Sword Throw teleport is no longer prevented by Immobilized

★ Another of the recent trend of changing movement spells to able to jump out of immobilization, like Magmus. Nerfs spells such as Deadwood's Rotten Grasp(Q) which immobilizes.

Midas

- Fixed Santa Midas' icons so they aren't blank

- Reduced starting agility from 16 to 12

- Reduced agility gain per level from 1.5 to 1.1

- Reduced starting armor from 3.24 to 1.18 (after agility nerf)

- Fixed Lion's Pride from playing through fog

- Lion's Pride reduced ranged from 900 to 800

- Cleaned up Transmute scripting a bit

★ Well deserved nerf. Midas could already farm easily enough with his 3 damaging spells. His big strength now is his good burst damage, without the overwhelming survivability he used to have with his heal, armor, and strength gain combined.

Monarch

- Icon updated

- Alt Avatar sounds fixed

- Crippling Pollen duration reduced from 1.5/2/2.5/3 to 1/1.5/2/2.5 seconds

- Crippling Pollen increased damage per second from 50 to 70

★ A nerf made to lower the immobilize time of Crippling Pollen(Q) , while keeping the overall damage. It makes Glacius a lot more appealing since his Ice Imprisonment (W) holds for 3 seconds.

Myrmidon

- Touched up previews

Parasite

- Infest can no longer target allied creeps until level 2

★ Made it so that Parasite cannot use Infest on a lane's creep at the start of the game. Made to curb his early game dominance on the enemy lane.

Pestilence

- Alt Avatar Horseman sounds updated

Pharaoh

- Reverted creep grab mechanic to only work on other heroes

Slither

- Toxin Ward vision increased from 300 to 600

★ A buff to Slither, giving his toxic wards the ability to be used as scouting wards in the rune spots, or to spot ganks. This was a revert from back in beta.

Succubus

- Fixed icons

Tempest

- Elemental reduced magic armor from 17 to 15

★ Very high magic armor on summoned units that could push easily. A slight nerf, but with the recent Plated Grieves buff, it evens out.

Torturer

- Reduced starting agility from 23 to 16

- Chain reaction damage reduced from 70/140/210/280 to 65/130/195/260

- Agonizing Bonds cast range reduced from 700 to 650

- Agonizing Bonds damage rescaled from 80/140/200/260 to 65/130/195/260

★ Heavy, well needed nerfs to a powerful hero picked up a lot. Only time will tell if he will be used as frequently now.

Tremble

- Shudder renamed to Boris~!

- Terrorform increased gold gain on mounds from 25 to 25/30/35/40

- Boris no longer gains Impalers and instead gains a passive movespeed slow of 10/15/20%

- Increased gold gain from killing Boris from 75 to 75/100/125

- Boris's negative armor on Attack from -2/-4/-6 to -1/-2/-3

- Increased Boris's Attack Damage from 50/75/100 to 60/85/110

★ Initially, [S2]Buro wanted to name the pet Boris, a musical reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWpz2OYf1QU

★ Nerfs his powerful early game. Shudder, now Boris, was quite powerful, even at level 1. Boris lost 10 Attack Damage overall. Also, note that Boris' slow DOES NOT stack with Tremble's. The added gold bounties to mounds and Boris were to award players that had to exert their focus just to destroy them.

Tundra

- Cold Shoulder is now Magical instead of Physical

★ This will make the spell not able to be cast on units affected by Shrunken. Nerfs his late game against carrys that are magic immune that need focusing down.

War beast

- Fixed effects

Wretched Hag

- Increased turn rate from 450 to 500

- Lowered Attack Action Time from 560ms to 500ms

* This is when the Attack Projectile launches

★ A buff/nerf to a good hero, giving her an easier time last hitting creeps since her attack wind up time was long. The turn rate nerf is slight, and it will affect her Bat Blast(R) and Haunt(Q) when casting those behind her.

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