The new Hellbourne strength hero Riptide is an ancient elemental from the bedrock of what became Caldavar. He has emerged from the primordial deep of the Inner Sea, manifesting the enormous power of the cold, black tides that once covered all of Newerth. Our advice: learn to swim.
Riptide unleashes a massive tidal wave to drench all his foes
Target a location to unleash a tidal wave that deals 125 Magic Damage to all enemies hit. The wave leaves behind 250 radius puddles that give Riptide his "In my Element" buff
If Riptide has his Ultimate active then the puddles will also slow Movement Speed by 30% for every enemy inside
There are areas of Newerth even the bravest heroes will not enter-vast expanses of wasteland seething with the pollution of the Lost Civilization, tainted by the tortured souls entombed within the virulent sludge. Now this mire has stirred, coalesced into Toxin, a living embodiment of the foul desecration of nature. He has trudged from the black ooze of the wastelands into Caldavar with the desire to taint everything he touches and leave a swath of infected land and water behind.
The Songkran Water Festival is upon us, and we're ready to cool off and celebrate the New Year by showering the map with water, flowers, and talc! WaterFest leads the blessing of Newerth with beautiful blossom armor and a body coursing with clear blue water, and when he steps into the soothing currents of Caldavar his festive nature grows even larger!
Camera Zoom Distance[ | ]
We've allowed the maximum camera zoom distance to be increased, largely as a quality of life change, to allow players a more valid response to heroes that initiate from off-screen. We are aware that this increases our system requirements and will be keeping a close eye on this change.
The default and maximum ingame Camera Distance has been increased from 1,650 to 1,850 units
Hero Kill Gold changes[ | ]
The formula for gold distribution was largely favoring grouping in the earlier stages of the game. Kills involving 4-5 heroes often resulted in double the amount of team gold compared to a single participant. The primary incentive for grouping should be completing team objectives, not hunting for heroes.
Proximity Hero kill gold lowered from 30+5 per level to 0+7 per level
Lane Creeps[ | ]
Increasing the relevance of the ranged barracks much sooner in the game. Teams will notice a much greater lane progression when destroying only the ranged rax as opposed to the melee.
Fifth melee creep spawns at 45 minutes instead of 33 minutes
Doubled ranged creeps spawn at 33 minutes instead of 45 minutes
Neutral Creeps[ | ]
We've found that the Jungle was giving too much gold and experience relative to lanes. Often times the primary source of income on the map, it became mandatory to farm, which, because of its safety, promoted passive play. The efficiency of the Jungle has been reevaluated reducing the potential benefits. To compensate for the gold and experience reduction, we've reduced the damage neutrals deal to heroes and increased the yield of the easy camp to speed up the early game efficiency of junglers that do not have immediate access to the strong camps.
The positions of the north-east most Legion Medium and Strong camps have been swapped
Lane creeps will now aggro neutrals outside of only the pull camp
Easy Camp: Experience increased by 15% & Gold increased by 10%
Medium Camp: Experience decreased by 15%
Hard Camp: Experience decreased by 15% & Gold decreased by 10%
Ancients: Experience increased by 15% & Gold decreased by 20%
Damage Uncontrolled Neutrals deal to Heroes reduced from 75% to 50%
Vagabonds have been moved from the medium camp to the small camp
Commonly Referred to as "Double Pulling"
Ebulas have been moved from the small camp to the medium camp with a new neutral: Pustula
Pustula has the Kamikaze ability. Kamikaze causes the Pustula to explode, leaving a goo on that ground that slows enemies
Alchemist Ogre has the Transmute ability. Transmute instantly destroys another non hero unit
Towers[ | ]
Towers have been tweaked to keep some late game relevance by implementing armor penetration. We've also reduced the damage received from melee summoned minions and player controlled neutrals to allow for better response time against heavy minion lineups.
Tower attacks now pierce 25% of all Armor
Summoned Melee units damage multiplier against Towers lowered from 70% to 50% (does not affect lane creeps)
Player-Controlled Neutrals damage multiplier against Towers lowered from 70% to 50%
The following heroes and items will be added to Tournament Rules
The goal of this rework is two fold. We wanted to shift Cthulhuphant farther into an initiator role that can cause a lot of chaos in the mix of a team fight. On top of that we realized that we had an opportunity to take advantage of the great theme and lore of this hero to bring you all something truly terrifying......mwhahahaha!
Activate to start an Aura that covers a 1000 radius from Cthulhuphant. Anyone inside this aura that faces Cthulhuphant will receive stacks of Madness. When they reach 4 stacks of Madness they go insane and begin to attack the nearest unit to them for 1/1.5/2/2.5
2 Charges are removed per second whenever looking away from Cthulhuphant
Anyone within a 400 radius of Cthulhuphant are so scared they move 15% slower and attack 10% slower
Shadowblade has a "choose your play-style" fun that a lot of people have come to enjoy. With the following changes, we wanted to give you that feeling a bit more while also making the ultimate less tedious to use. Staff of the Master is also an excellent idea for a hero that is looking to build stats so we took the opportunity to give him a staff that added a lot to his customizing power.
Silhouette is an amazing hero with a ton of synergy, however a lot of that synergy was being held back because she was a 600 range semi-carry. In order to compensate for her range, the power of her abilities had to be continuously lowered until she fell out of favor completely. This was not an intended goal and we felt a rework that lowered her attack range and put a solid emphasis on the synergy of her abilities would allow for her to shine.
The previous change to Artillery reduced the excessive flash farming capabilities of the hero. We are now focusing on adjusting the power and difficulty of LRM making it much more reliable in combat.
Adding to Bombardier's utility kit allows for some creativity with his team. Bombardier may now attach his Sticky Bomb to an ally for some clever team combinations. Bombardment will also deal a portion of it's damage to buildings to assist with his long range sieging and harassment capabilities.
We've increased the cooldown of Kelp Field at the earlier levels. Before, Bubbles has had a significant power spike when first hitting level 6, which made him extremely valuable even when underleveled. Now, he is not able to forfeit lanes as comfortably.
Kelp Field: Cooldown increased from 85 to 115/100/85
We are happy with the concept of Curse of Ages being usable in ganking scenarios. However, we have found that the timer was far too short, which allowed for frequent use in lane scenarios.
Curse of Ages: Automatic countdown timer increased from 5 seconds to 9 seconds
Skillful Self Denies can provide satisfaction from both sides. The lack of input and counter-play from Decay, however, made it unpredictable and random, especially in the scenarios of multiple enemies attacking him. We've added a small window that will prevent the lethal damage from Decay if the Devourer has taken damage from another player recently. This will add a more interesting skill dynamic requiring the Devourer to juke and avoid damage while also creating more tension for the enemy to keep him in combat.
Decay: Can no longer self deny within one second of taking damage from another player
Magnetic Surge's cast time has been cut in half to reduce some of the awkwardness when following up with an auto attack or Release. Flux's input flow will feel much more fluid.
Grinex is a very aggressive ganker in the earlier stages of the game giving good map control to a team. We are keeping this strength relevant to preserve our goals of hero diversity and toning down his late game potential instead to separate him more from his carry focused invisibility counterparts.
Galvanize has had it's power increased at the later levels, offering more to Hammerstorm's team kit to combat Physical Damage. This will also offer a larger incentive to skill Galvanize over bonus attributes.
Galvanize: Armor increased from 3/5/7/9 to 3/6/9/12
Kraken has an above average Movement Speed that allowed for some excessive gap closing. Combined with the utility of his abilities, it was often times difficult to avoid the Kraken's attacks. With a reduction to his Movespeed, it will be easier to kite the Kraken when you avoid his abilities.
We've swapped the cooldowns on Lion's Pride and Golden Salvo to bring back some of Midas's early game team fighting potential. Because of the difficulty of achieving the maximum potential of Lion's Pride, the choice between skilling Lion's Pride versus Golden Salvo was too limited.
Moon Queen is a hero that gains a large amount of free damage from her abilities which allows her to be effective even with a lack of combative items. We've toned down the damage from Moon Finale to reduce her team fight impact and ganking capabilities. The reduction in movement speed will also give enemies a more meaningful opportunity to avoid the full damage from Moon Finale.
We've found Pestilence to be proficient at too many roles. We want to keep his carry potential and chasing play style intact, so we've turned down some of his team fight and initiation impact instead. The stun duration of Impale has been reduced, most noticeably at the later levels. Swarm's Mana cost has also been increased, forcing Pestilence to be more considerate of his frequent use, especially in the earlier stages of the game.
Impale: Stun duration lowered from 1/1.5/2.0/2.5 to 1/1.25/1.5/1.75 (Slow still only lasts for 2 seconds after the stun duration)
The frog has received some mana decreases in his Tongue Tied and Voodoo Wards abilities to help alleviate some of the gold requirements for mana items. The reduced mana cost on Voodoo Wards will also allow for much earlier use of Restoration Stone in his end game build.
Tongue Tied: Mana Cost lowered from 110/130/155/185 to 100/115/130/145
Voodoo Wards: Mana Cost lowered from 200/350/600 to 200/350/500
One Man Riot has been reworked to be something a bit more interesting for the brute. One man Riot will now reach a higher peak of damage when Prisoner uses his abilities, while no longer granting free passive damage.
Starting damage increased from 53-59 to 57-63
One Man Riot: Reworked from 15/30/45/60% Base Damage to 15/20/25/30% Base damage for each of your abilities on cooldown
We've lowered the Base Attack Time of Revenant to assist with his role of semi-carry and lane presence with Defile. Mortification will also prioritize enemies over self when duplicated with Manifestation removing the risk involved with achieving the damage potential.
Base attack time lowered from 1.7 to 1.5
Defile: Slow duration increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds
Slither's attack has been lowered slightly. We wanted to keep Slither's strength against melee heroes relevant however his lane aggression against ranged heroes made him difficult to compete against. Slither will have a slightly increased risk when poking at enemies.
Between the duration and the cooldown, Glyph of Silence had an extremely small window for counter-play. We've reduced the uptime by increasing the cooldown.
The token of life's excessive duration was allowing for extremely passive play from the holder. Killing Kongor should incentivize an engagement with the upper hand soon after the kill, not an extended protected net of safety.
We feel that Alchemist Bones has far too limited use. With the reduction in gold values lowering the potential of the item, we felt this was an avenue to explore combative uses for Alchemist Bones.
We've toned down the amount of hits it will take for summoned units to destroy the courier. Teams will still need to be considerate of their courier usage however the frequency of unresponsive courier deaths will be lowered. We've also reduced the cost of replacing the courier.
Summon Units damage to the courier lowered from 3 health per hit to 1 health per hit
Energizer is promoting the fast paced action that we all enjoy, however we've found that teams are obtaining the item far too early for the amount of benefits it provides. We wanted to keep the impact of the activation of Energizer high, so we've reduced the buildup efficiency of the item and removed some of the passive benefits. We've also added a team activation cooldown similar to Astrolabe to prevent excessive stacking. We are aware that Energizer is a core item on some heroes and we will be watching them very closely.
We've reworked the slow of Icebrand to be something much more noticeable earlier on. Icebrand previously took a maximum of 5 attacks to reach it's potential, which for most heroes wasn't realistic. It's upgraded forms have also been adjusted accordingly.
Slow increased from 3% to 6%, maximum charges lowered from 5 to 2 (now slows up to 12%)
Icon of the Goddess is filling it's role as a snowball item. However we are uncomfortable with the impact of the burst healing and regeneration making it extremely difficult to kill enemies under the effects. We wanted to maintain the high impact so we've increased the amount of time it takes to receive the same health and mana.
Health and Mana regeneration state lowered from 30 per second to 20 per second
Health and Mana regeneration state duration increased from 10 seconds to 15 seconds
Iron Buckler is extremely frustrating to lane against for ranged heroes with inherently lower damage than melee. We want harassment progression to be noticeable so we've toned down the damage reduction amount. To compensate we've also lowered the cost to allow for more interesting starting build diversity.
To alleviate some of the downtime from roaming, reducing some of the frequent fountain trips for supports and roamers, we've added some health regeneration while under the benefits of the Movement Speed bonus.
Now grant 2 HP regen passively while you have charges
Bots[ | ]
Easy difficulty bots now take more creep damage before retreating
This also gives players more opportunity to harass them
The Blight Wraith is a once-beautiful woman who has been infected and corrupted by her desire to supplant Gaia as the true mother of Newerth. Her goal is to reduce all of Newerth to a barren wasteland so she may rebuild it in her vision, which unfortunately for all living things looks a lot like a barren wasteland.
Nuclear Winter Glacius is rumored to be a power-hungry wizard who traveled alone to the blasted lands beyond the Frost Fields, a region so ravaged by the nuclear wars that ended the Lost Civilization that no living creature has ventured in and survived more than a day. He sought the forgotten magic of mankind that allowed them to harness energy from the tiniest particles and transform it into destructive power that could level a city-even a civilization. Now he carries the power of that destruction within him, and he is well aware of the irony that it is the only thing keeping his ruined shell of a body alive.
No region of Newerth is safe when Safari Klanx is on the prowl. Armed to the teeth with various weapons and traps (one of which is carried by his involuntary pack-elephant (or pack-yderm)), the overconfident "sportsman" takes great pride in ending the lives of those weaker than himself. From the sticky Rulian Marsh, to the chilly Frost Fields, the to barren Savannahs, the ultimate hunter has his mind on trophy heads and victory. Once he finds the trail of his prey, there is no escape, no matter where on Newerth they roam.
Master of Arms is all decked out in his Songkran gear, and nobody can protect themselves from the party he is about to unload. Armed to the teeth with water balloons, bottles, and spray guns, this competitive badboy is ready to soak all the ladies with his blaster.
Nobody celebrates the Water Festival better than Songkran Rampage! For the duration of the holiday (and the rest of the year) he's joyously burning rubber, blessing everyone with his water jug and gathering partygoers together with his chain of flowers. You're getting dragged into the Songkran Water Festival whether you like it or not!
Easter is right around the corner, but before you go looking for eggs on the ground, you may want to watch your back! The Rabid Night Bunny is a fearsome protector of all things small and colorful, emerging from his secret lair once a year to scare curious children who might get their greedy little hands on his precious trinkets. He may look cute, but this bunny has no qualms about cracking your head wide open and feasting on the cream filling.
Hailing from the steamy southern regions of the Rulian Marsh, beyond the grasp of the rotten vines and vile parasites, where the sun shines longer and the trees grow fuller without the strife of battle, Keeper of the Green lays back and watches the time fly. His fists are chipped from exploration of the environment and of his mind, but he takes it all in stride. After all, when one lives as long as he does, you learn not to sweat the small stuff, only the sun high over the treetops.
Awoken from his eternal slumber in the lost city of R'lyeh, the tentacled monstrosity known as The Caller rises from the depths to wreak havoc on the mortals of Newerth. Constant battle and strife has finally shaken the waters enough to rouse the mythical beast and, with great disdain, the powerful ancient of ancients trudges beyond the ocean floor to vanquish the disturbances. Calling from the edge of the universe and beckoning the living from beyond time, Newerth may be destroyed by the grotesque titan before either side of the war gets a chance to reclaim it.