Posts Tagged ‘patch’

Patch 0.3.3

The Chipper has been added to the hero pool.
Summoning saws that deal out huge damage in an line, tar tossing, and rocket firing.. these are just some of the cool things this hero can do.
Before Heroes-Newerth.com starts getting hordes of trolls arguing amongst themselves over which hero The Chipper resembles most from DotA,
we would like to say: The most prominent elements come from Bat Rider and Tinker.

Omg it must be Techies!

You can check out his hero page by finding his icon here -> HoN Heroes

Alongside the new hero a few changes have been made to the game dynamics.
Here are the most notable ones:

Stacking Ancients: From now on can only be stacked twice, for a total of 3 stacks. Those of you converting creeps and using them to mass stack ancients are going to be sorely disappointed.

Devourer: Hook cast time has been slightly reduced

Token of life: Can no longer be ninja looted by means of flying courier, sigh.

Heroes of Newerth Patch 0.3.0.2

It has been awhile since Heroes-Newerth.com’s last post, this is mainly because there wasn’t much going on
in terms of updates to the game. But now, the patch that the HoN community has been waiting for is here.

UPDATE: For those of you having problems installing the patch, you need to uninstall heroes of newerth including the
user data and download this version http://dl.heroesofnewerth.com/HoNClient-0.3.0.exe.

So, what can i expect to see when i log in and update to this patch?

The first thing you will notice is a shiny new login screen, a much wanted improvement over the previous.
As you log in you may notice 2 unwinding cogs, any guesses as to where the inspiration came from?
OK , so besides the lack of originality (cough), once logged in you will be greeted by a picturesque backdrop.
The contrast between volcano and the full moon with the flock of birds who seem to fly around pointlessly in a
circle, is actually rather easy on the eyes. We like it.

The bottom half of the screen is now focused on the chat window, which by the way is now open by default.
Above the chat window are several game buttons:

Start Tutorial – Match Making – Public games – Create Game – Player Ladder – Match Stats -  Hero Compendium – Options

If you’ve played HoN before do not click on start tutorial. Upon clicking start tutorial a loading bar will appear which can only be canceled after a certain amount of time. Loading the tutorial can take anything up to a minute depending on the speed of your computer.
If somehow you unfortunately load the tutorial, there is no immediate escape, you will be given a bunch of options to choose from. Unless you are familiar with the console you will have to click on one of them.
Then you’ll endure 2 minutes of an overly exaggerated narrator voice telling you about things you figured out from your first game of HoN/DotA.
Once he has said his piece, dodge message boxes that pop up on your screen, then reach for the disconnect button and end this nightmare.
What i liked about HoN was that it stayed true to the community of DotA players who made HoN what it is today, after witnessing the cheesiness of the tutorial i ponder whether s2 games are selling themselves short to the target market of League of Legends players, or maybe I’m getting too old for this.

Match Making: Unfortunately match making is currently limited to solo play, I’m not sure whether s2 developers intend to implement group play or if they are pushing for a divide between pub stomps and people wanting to play with a bunch of randoms. Either way, match making seems to be functioning well, i’d probably play this myself if none of my homeboys were around.
You can also select the region(s) to match with, game mode is Banning Pick.

Player Ladder: Afraid to say another disappointment. When i first saw this button i thought it would be a ladder system like in Warcraft 3. It just seems to be an integrated version of player statistics, extremely useful if you don’t have a browser… or are motivationaly challenged, that was if it actually worked.

Hero Compendium: In this section you can view pictures of all the heroes with minor details about what they do. Not really useful as of yet.

Options: Finally, players don’t have to log out of the game to change sound or graphical issues, what is surprising is that it took the developers this long to figure out the nuisance involved with doing having to  do that.

From this patch we can see S2 games are gearing up for pre release, the addition of “noob” friendly tutorials and hero compendium are a slight giveaway. The players you now know to be noobs are actually pro’s compared to the onslaught of noobs that will be playing in your games once HoN goes retail.
It will be interesting to see how the community will react to new players.

Alongside the new interface were several updates to ingame mechanics i will list the most notable ones, the full changes can be found here > HoN patch notes.

The recipe for Nullstone is now 2/3 of its original price, additionally its mana regeneration has been
increased by 50% and it now grants a passive +10 Damage.
Much to the knowledge of S2 games this item was definitely under-appreciated, with this buff we can
guess more players will be buying it, so watch out spell casters!

Upon being destroyed, Ward of sight gives 50 gold to the attacker who lays the finishing blow.
We like this, it is a good incentive for players to actively seek out and destroy wards, a crucial part of the game overlooked by many.

Blood Hunter: Now reveals stealthed units with Blood Sense…. this is a huge buff, one that will almost certainly be taken advantage of this season.

Chronos: After many complaints from players Chronos has had the so called nerf stick thrown his way. All four of his spells have been nerfed in some way or another.

The Dark Lady: Her turn rate has been allmost trippled ! This means godlike micro, enough said.

Demented Shaman: Stats nerfed quite hard

Legionnaire: Terrify changed to Terrifying Rage allowing Legionnaire to charge towards his enemies and deal instant
damage Terrifying them in the process.  Good buff,  however hope this doesn’t discourage players from buying Portal Key.

Madman: Snare on Stalk removed, it was obvious the previous patch had hit madman  hard with this snare business. Beserk has also been buffed, mana cost effectively halved at all levels. Very nice!

Valkyrie: Turnrate increased to 960! Javelin of light buffed massively ie makes no sound when cast, hit radius decreased, glow removed, reveals 800 units around targets hit by javelin for 3.34 seconds and shows timer on stun.
I will definitely be giving this vixen a test drive sometime soon.

Zephyr: Ultimate nerfed pretty badly, instead of spawning max cyclones instantly, it now spawns one every second for the duration of the spell.

Banning pick is here

Patch 0.1.66 came out today. The patch includes various hero buffs/nerfs, bug fixes and a new mode!

The long awaited “Banning Pick” mode is here. Similar to Captains mode from dota, each captain will get  3 bans per team then each player has 60 seconds to pick a hero from the pool , taking turns alternately.

It might sound similar to banning draft, however, you can pick from the full list of heroes.

With this new mode aimed at competitive play, there have been a few hero changes:
Zephyr has largely been remade (for the umpteenth  time). His ultimate now a Typhoon that reaps destruction to enemies the closer they are to the epicentre. This definitely synergies well with Tempest’s ultimate, making zephyr a useful hero now.

Electrician has been buffed, his ultimate having its cool-down reduced and the ability to jump to multiple targets if in possession of Staff of the Master. Other changes are viewable in the change-log on this site.

Personally, as a dedicated Valkyrie player i was glad to see that her ultimate has been improved(cool-down and mana cost reduced), enabling me to skill prism earlier without concerns about mana consumption.
The sound that Valkyrie’s arrow makes has been quietened, making it harder for enemies to hear that distinctive sound. Although minor, this can mean the difference between winning/loosing a gank/battle.

These are just a few hero changes, other heroes including Pyromancer (new DoT effect on fervor), Jeriziah(repel nerf), devourer, Madman and more have been updated.

Lastly, most heroes with aura’s now gain the ability to toggle them on or off. We think this is a nice idea especially when some aura’s effect lane control, namely pushing the creeps too far into enemy towers making it difficult to farm or gank.

Flavours of the month

After being blessed with patch 0.1.63, HoN players are switching up their play styles accordingly.
Here is a list of heroes that have been effected by this patch, starting with those that have been buffed.

Recent buffs:
Devourer
Engineer
Glacius
Hellbringer
Moon Queen
Night Hound
Nymphora
Ophelia
Pandamonium
Pebbles
Rampage
Slither
Soulstealer
Swiftblade
Torturer
Wretched Hag

And those that have been nerfed:
Corrupted Disciple
Deadwood
Forsaken Archer
Madman
Magebane
Puppetmaster
Sand Wraith

Most of the buff/nerfs are subtle, however a few heroes have had noticeable changes. Here are a couple we thought might make some noise in the weeks to come.

Devourer:

With his hook now 1100 range at all levels, Devourer players have the option to skill level 1 hook instead of rot. This in our opinion is a huge advantage, especially if he is laning with a partner who has a stun/disable, opening up the possibilities of level 1 tower hooks (where you hook a player into the vicinity of a nearby tower). Level 1 rot is still viable as an early ganking spell.

Engineer:

Having had channeling removed completely from Tinker, Engineer is now a great support hero. Making defending/pushing a much easier job.

Glacius:

Glacius can now cast Ice Imprisonment on allies reducing ALL damage taken from enemy’s up to 80% at level 4! (the draw back being they are immobilized for the duration). We think this is great throughout the game and especially late game when facing farmed carries or just before a player gets nuked by a big damage dealing spell.
Special tip: Try ice imprisoning yourself when playing Glacius just before you cast your ultimate.

Hellbringer:

Deathboil now jumps to a total of 4 targets at level 4…. need say anymore ?

Rampage:

Not the most viable pick in high level games, but for the players who enjoy Easy Mode games Rampage has had cool-downs on both his spells significantly reduced, nice.

Slither:

Slithers attack range has been increased by a whopping 50, this may not sound like much but it makes a huge difference in terms of lane control and ganking.
His Passive now impairs the health regeneration of players under the effect. Possibly making him more of a viable pick in higher level games.

Sand Wraith:
Those fond of Sand Wraith will be sad to realise his dispersion is not doing nearly half as much as the damage it used to do. This is because the damage type has been change to Magic (from True) making it less effective the more magic armor enemies have.

Tempest:
Early farming for tempest has become a difficulty: with the new creeps implemented in the last patch, and purge getting buffed in this patch, his spawns will have a tough time lasting  in the jungle.

To sum things up
So, we’ve given you some advice on picks of the month, its up to you how you go about countering the newly buffed heroes.

Good luck!