Added 3 more extra buildings to each base (for a total of 7 extra base buildings).
Slightly helps slow down being pushed by upgraded creeps.
The entire upper-left area of the map has been filled with trees.
Prevents the Legion team from having numerous approach options vs. Hellbourne top lane when ganking.
Top lane and bottom lane's side path tree line has been adjusted such that lane wards have more visibility and flexibility.
The tree space above Hellbourne's top lane Tier 1 tower has been adjusted so that its layout is more similar to the tree space below Legion's bottom lane Tier 1 tower.
Each of the above points have been adjusted to make lane performance more symmetrical between both teams.
Fixed a small pathing issue in a small tree patch to the bottom-right of Hellbourne's middle lane Tier 1 tower.
The side paths near Legion's top lane Tier 2 tower and Hellbourne's bottom lane Tier 2 tower have been completely removed.
There still exists a small side path near their respective Tier 1 towers to reward their opponents for destroying those Tier 1 towers and obtain a small edge in ganking near the respective Tier 2 towers. The level of ease to gank Tier 2 towers has been drastically reduced with the above change, however.
Overall, these changes lead to less areas with mass juking.
Concede Mechanics[ | ]
Under regular game conditions, time threshold for requiring 4 votes to pass a Concede Vote has been reduced from 30 minutes to 20 minutes.
End Result: 15 minutes for 5 votes required to pass a Concede Vote, 20 minutes for 4 votes required to pass a Concede Vote.
Activate to spew out spores in front of you for 2.5 seconds, dealing up to 100/175/250/325 Magic Damage over 3 seconds. Damage effect lingers for 0.5 seconds.
After 2.5 seconds, anyone within the cone will be Stunned for 1.75 seconds.
Target an Ally (or self) to enshroud them with shrubbery for 3/4/5/6 seconds. Enemies around the target receive a 30% Movement Speed Slow.
While affected by Ensnaring Shrubbery, taking hero damage Heals the target and all allies in a 400 unit radius for 40% of the damage taken.
Also spawns a trail that grants yourself and allies 40/50/60/70 Movement Speed and Unitwalking while they are on the trail. Each part of the trail remains on the ground for 6 seconds after spawning.
The ability can be double-activated to cast on self.
Bramble's previous iteration did not have a clear role. With the return of Ensnaring Shrubbery (while also having the ally speed boost effect of Enhanced Shrubbery) and Spore Breath, Bramble can now gank more frequently without his ultimate while serving as a durable frontline hero with the niche of mitigating Area of Effect damage through Ensnaring Shrubbery, all while maintaining reasonable damage with his current Chomp passive.
Note that some numbers on Ensnaring Shrubbery were reduced due to how powerful this skill is after the rework.
Deploys a Steam Turret at target position facing the vector direction. The Turret fires 10 shots per second in a 800 distance, 400 radius cone while the Turret is active.
The Turret lasts 5 seconds.
Each bullet deals 10/20/30/40 Magic Damage, pushes 10/15/20/25 units away from the Turret, and applies a charge of Suppressed for 3 seconds.
Suppressed is capped at 10 charges and each charge has its own duration.
Each additional bullet (i.e. charge of Suppressed) causes the damage and push to be reduced by 10%.
The Turret provides 1000 day and night vision and is destroyed in 3 hits.
Places a gadget at the Engineer's location that lasts 6/8/10 seconds.
The gadget takes 4 hits to destroy, and creates an Energy Field in a 475 radius around itself.
Enemies who enter or exit the field has their buffs dispelled, takes 100 True Damage, and receive a 2 second Silence & Perplex with a tapering 100% Movement Speed Slow.
Enemies inside the Energy Field take 50/75/100 Magic Damage per second.
Engineer's pre-4.5.0 kit was more versatile, enabled him to be one of the most viable support heroes, and gave him a good reason to be picked in a game. By reverting to this iteration, adding in some number adjustments, and adding a mechanic to Spider Mines that discourages stacking all of them into one general location (while still allowing for Spider Mine kills on enemy heroes that are injured enough), this iteration of Engineer aims to be the best one possible.
The reduced power of Spider Mines at level 1 should discourage Engineer players from stacking them up early on as well, and should encourage them to be used as a scouting and harassing tool early game instead of a kill tool.
As an additional note, the post-4.5.0's Steam Turret iteration was incredibly difficult to balance for a variety of situations. The pre-4.5.0 Engineer was much more stable for balance.
Creates a Crystal Field at target area, which is visible to all players. After 2.5 seconds, the field explodes and deals 300/450/600 Magic Damage to enemies in radius and Stuns for 2/2.5/3 seconds.
Staff of the Master effect: Deals an additional 100/120/140 Magic Damage and applies a 50% Movement Speed Slow for 4 seconds in a 600 radius.
Geomancer's post-4.2.0-patch Crystal Field was too inflexible and was too easily counterplayed.
By reverting Crystal Field to its legacy iteration, Geomancer can take advantage of newly available tools (e.g. Sand Scepter, Stormspirit).
This can be combined with his Geo Stalk ability to grant Geomancer much more potential and overall flexibility in his kit and performance.
Target an enemy unit to fire a bolt that deals 75% of your Attack Damage + 30/60/90/120 Physical Damage and applies a 60% tapering Movement Speed Slow for 4 seconds to all units around the initial target within radius.
The Bolt will bounce up to 2/4/6/8 times to nearby enemies within the bounce radius, dealing 10/20/30/40 + (6 x Bounce #) in Physical Damage.
If Luck of the Draw is leveled, the initial impact and bounces can apply Critical Strike from Luck of the Draw.
Killing one of the 2 Bound units will once again snap the Bind to apply the pull, Stun and Magic Damage to the other Bound unit.
Killing the Bound unit to snap the Bind will only apply 50% of the Magic Damage and Stun Duration to the other Bound target if the killed unit is a non-hero unit.
Stun duration reduced from 1.6/1.9/2.2/2.5 seconds to 1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds.
Critical Damage Multiplier reduced from 2/3.25/4.5x to 2/2.75/3.5x.
Tarot gains a lot of power and utility by doing this partial revert to her old iteration.
Far Scry is now back to its vanilla iteration with some tweaks that actually doesn't let it lose out on an extra attack on another target if Tarots attack her main target (instead of forcing her to attack a different target to maximize its use).
This makes the ability actually intuitive compared to its vanilla iteration.
Tarot also gains some of her utility in Bound by Fate for laning power, except the effectiveness of the Stun is drastically reduced if she kills a creep to forcibly snap the Bind. This is a fair reward for the skill requirement to pull off - it was too ridiculous at 100% Stun Duration in the past.
Some of Tarot's power elsewhere in her kit has been reduced in power in exchange for better overall reliability, utility and damage scaling.
Heroes[ | ]
Most of the content in this section is maintenance numerical balance, with a few exceptions.
Note that some mechanical or hero ability reverts just aren't the best for HoN's current and future state. As much as certain players want those back, they cannot be brought back for the greater good of HoN.
Staff of the Master change only: in addition to its current effects, Risky Cast! can be activated to spend 60% of your Current Mana to cast an instance of level 4 Fireball on an enemy unit.
Area Physical Damage increased from 40/60/80/100 to 45/70/95/120.
Area Physical Damage dealt is now 1.75x against non-hero units.
Now also grants 5/10/15/20 Movement Speed for 4 seconds.
This bonus does not stack with Magic Brew's Movement Speed bonus. Whichever one grants more Movement Speed will take priority.
Attack Damage bonus changed from 40/60/80/100 to 35/50/65/80.
Cooldown reduced from 8 seconds to 7 seconds.
Drunken Master's older skill iterations cannot be reverted because they caused a huge amount of frustration for the opponents. Drunken Master is already a hero that is versatile in laning and performance throughout the entire game and has a lot of utility in his kit, so his kit cannot be overloaded any further without a compromise.
That being said, Drunken Master's Stagger now brings back some of his out-of-hero-combat mobility and improved damage against creeps. These general adjustments facilitate his creep farming rotations, but not to the extent of breaking his kit.
The delay to activate the self-destruct ability (default hotkey "D") on the overgrowth after it spawns has been reduced from 1.5 seconds to 0.4 seconds.
Cast Range reduced from 900 to 600.
Magic Damage per second reduced from 125 to 90.
Now deals 1.5x Magic Damage per second to non-hero units.
Cooldown increased from 5 seconds to 9 seconds.
No longer blocks neutral camps from spawning.
Emerald Warden now has his old 2 wolves on Hunter's Command back, as well as having the manual Overgrowth proc mechanic return to a realistically usable on-demand immobilize ability. There is still a small delay when activating Overgrowth manually to allow for a small amount of counterplay.
Note: Emerald Warden is still in a net buff state when compared to Patch 4.4.0 (where the wolf count on Hunter's Command was reduced from 2 to 1) and Patch 4.4.3 (before the overgrowth kill subability had a large delay before it can be activated after spawning an overgrowth).
In addition to its current effects, now deals 40% of the damage dealt to the primary target as a 250 radius True Damage Cleave to enemies around the primary target.
Now applies a 20% Movement Speed Slow for 2.5 seconds to the primary and cleaved enemy targets.
Bonus True Damage changed from 50/80/110/140% to 60/80/100/120%.
Cooldown reduced from 8 seconds to 7 seconds.
Illusions now deal 33% damage from this ability (instead of 100%).
Missing Health Regeneration on the Defensive Might aura and Missing Mana Regeneration on the Offensive Force aura reduced from 1.5/2.5/3.5/4.5% to 1/1.5/2/2.5% of the unit's Missing Health and Mana, respectively.
Cooldown increased from 45/35/25/15 seconds to 45/39/33/27 seconds.
Note that this is still a net buff from version 4.7.0, as Retribution still has the very slight scaling with Martyr's Intelligence for the Health Threshold to obtain max effectiveness.
Skrap only gains 40% Gold Bounty when Vorax kills an enemy (non-player-controlled) creep and if Skrap is more than 1000 units away from Vorax.
Skrap historically has high win rates throughout his lifetime in HoN. The amount of general reward he gains for splitpushing away from Vorax has been drastically reduced to help keep his numbers statistically balanced.
Cast Range changed from 600/900/1200/1500 to 800/1000/1200/1400.
Meteor now becomes disabled for 3 seconds when receiving damage from another player-controlled source.
This mechanic is not applied to the new subability, Meteor Strike. The mechanic is only applied to the base Meteor ability.
Now has a subability (File:Tempest Meteor Strike.jpgMeteor Strike) that has a 100ms cast delay (instead of a 1.2 second cast delay) that spawns a Meteor at the target location without Tempest travelling there.
Default hotkey is "D".
Shares cooldown with the base Meteor ability.
Staff of the Master effect: for Meteor Strike only, allows the ability to be cast without breaking channeling.
The Cold Shoulder state on the target (the one that lasts 8 seconds) no longer applies a Movement Speed Slow to them when the target receives an attack.
Instead, Cold Shoulder now applies a 40% Movement Speed Slow for 2 seconds upon its initial impact.
Cooldown reduced from 35 seconds to 35/32/29/26 seconds.
Magic Damage per second increased from 5/10/15/20 to 6/12/18/24.
Magic Damage applied every 4 seconds increased from 10/20/30/40% to 16/24/32/40% of total Health lost by the target since the initial infliction of the state.
A charge is gained every time an enemy within 1200 radius casts a spell.
Active: When activated, all charges are removed.
Restores 10 Health and 15 Mana per charge consumed.
Max of 15 charges.
Cooldown: 17 seconds
On death, heals allies within 1200 radius for 50 Health.
Sacrificial Stone glows after getting a hero kill or assist.
While glowing, Sacrificial Stone grants +2 Strength, +2 Agility and +2 Intelligence, and reduces death timer by 8 seconds upon death.
The glow dissipates after death.
Death timer reduction does not occur in Mid Wars.
Sacrificial Stone returns in the form of the legacy Grave Locket with a few small extra touches, such as the increasing amount of Healing Done (from the second iteration of Jade Spire), as well as an area heal on death (tribute to the legacy Sacrificial Stone).
Its general purpose is to be a cost-and-slot-efficient early game stat item. It is slightly more expensive than legacy Grave Locket due to the improved baseline stats on it, having Power Supply's active, as well as having a few bonus perks on top of that.
Passively applies Poison to enemies you attack for 3 seconds, applying a 12% Movement Speed Slow and dealing 6 Magic Damage per second.
Poison only applies a 4% Movement Speed Slow and deals 3 Magic Damage per second when wielded by a ranged hero.
This effect propagates to illusions for 33% of the duration.
This item has a Freeze modifier, preventing its Movement Speed Slow state from stacking with the Icebrand line of items.
Toxin Claws is a cheap early game item to be picked up by melee heroes who could use the extra Movement Speed Slow and Magic DoT effects to either harass or help kill their foes.
Passive Magic Lifesteal vs. heroes reduced from 25% to 15% (10% to 5% vs. non-hero units)
Active additional Magic Lifesteal vs. heroes reduced from 50% to 35%.
Active additional Magic Lifesteal state duration reduced from 8 seconds to 5 seconds.
Searing Magic Damage per second reduced from 35 to 30.
Now only grants Ravenor 0.75x the Magic Lifesteal.
This was the only hero of whom Grimoire of Power's effects were too polarizing on (not even Oogie was this polarizing), so a proper adjustment had to be made to make Ravenor's performance fair with this item.
Bonus Attack Damage while synchronized reduced from 5 to 4.
Bonus Movement Speed while synchronized reduced from 10 to 5.
Bonus Gold obtained from killing an enemy unit and granted to your synchronized partner reduced from 10 to 8.
Orb of Zamos has been improving the performance of supports, although it has been doing so a little too much such that supports are generally the highest statistical performers.
As a result, Orb of Zamos is receiving some minor adjustments for the laning phase. This also allows for a better reason for heroes to upgrade to Grave Locket earlier if they wish to maximize the rewards of the synchronization mechanic throughout the game.
The bonus damage values against creeps have been changed from +60%/20% of your Attack Damage to +60/20 damage if the wielder is melee/ranged, respectively.
Addresses a numerical inconsistency when upgrading Logger's Hatchet to Runed Cleaver.
Note that this bonus damage value still does not apply to the Cleave damage. The only number that gets changed is the damage dealt to the primary target.
Units can no longer traverse through the cliff area to the east of the Top Lane Legion Tier 1 tower without cliffwalking or cliffwalking-like properties.
General[ | ]
The Ladder button has been disabled due to players abusing an exploit.
Results on the ladder are meaningless since a few years ago anyway, so this change does not negatively affect players.
SEA Client only: MMR values visibility has been removed.
The NAEU/International Client will still have MMR value visibility.
Players should be able to 4-man queue again with the Old UI.
Disclaimer: this is one of the only bugfixes that will ever be made regarding the Old UI.
Fixed a bug with charging-related abilities from Deadlift, Legionnaire, Nomad and Solstice where using items that can target another entity and insert their action at the front of your action queue (instead of the back of your action queue) will change the target of the charge ability to the entity targeted by the item usage, when done after the charging-related ability has activated but before the hero has reached their initial target.
As a result, these heroes are Perplexed while these skills are active.
To players exploiting these bugs: please stop exploiting these bugs, as doing so has the potential to gimp certain heroes/items/mechanics every time these are fixed. Some of them could have unintended consequences like nerfing your favourite heroes.
Power Rune now properly applies the Mystic state to the hero that picked it up.
Heroes[ | ]
The following Heroes are now properly enabled in Tournament Rules:
Broodlings (Spider Sting, when boosted by Staff of the Master) now have the models properly corresponding to its alternate avatar for all of the additional Spiderlings spawned.
If War Beast's Summon Hellhounds ability is copied using Thoughtsteal, the Hellhounds now properly die if Kinesis dies or chooses to forget the Summon Hellhounds ability.