4.8.3.1

Version 4.8.3.1 - April 14, 2020

== Design ==

= Hero Balance =

Gemini

Fire and Ice (Staff of the Master effect changes):

Fire and Ice’s “Together in Bright Spirit” subability now place Lightning Form’s passive ability on cooldown when the spellcast finishes.
Lightning Form: max Movement Speed granted to Light reduced from 750 to 650.
Light: now suffers a 67% Damage Penalty (i.e. deals 33% Damage) if both Fire & Ice are within 900 radius of Light.

== Bug Fixes & Optimizations ==

= General =

Fixed a hero slot quantity bug so that Witch Slayer now shows up properly in the hero pick screen.
Fixed missing Plinko textures for the Spring theme.

= Heroes =

Gemini

Fixed visual trail effects for Light’s Light Fang ability.
Light now properly relays experience to Gemini.

= Items =

Ophelia’s Pact

Fixed so that the item can be purchased while away from the item store.

Welcome to Heroes of Newerth

Version 4.8.3 - April 7, 2020 == Design ==

= Staff of the Master & Master’s Legacy Changes =

Gemini

Fire and Ice

Staff of the Master effect addition (new):
Cooldown reduced from 45 seconds to 20 seconds.
Now also splits Gemini into a third elemental form, Light.
Light’s life essence is still tied to the other elementals, i.e. Gemini still dies if either Fire, Ice or Light dies.
For Fire & Ice, their Rebirth ability now also requires Light to be nearby for them to all recombine.
For Fire & Ice, their Rebirth ability now sets Gemini’s Health and Mana percentage to the highest of all 3 elemental forms.
Fire gains a subability:
Ability 3b - Together in Bright Spirit: After a 3 second cast time, teleports Fire to Light’s location.
Shares cooldown with Together in Spirit.
Default activation hotkey: D
Ice gains a subability:
Ability 3b - Together in Bright Spirit: After a 3 second cast time, teleports Ice to Light’s location.
Shares cooldown with Together in Spirit.
Default activation hotkey: D
Light’s abilities are as follows:
Ability 1 - Light Breath: Unleashes a cone of light that deals 100/175/250 Magic Damage and applies a 40/60/80% Miss Chance to enemies for 3 seconds.
Has the same general parameters (Cast Range, Mana Cost, Cooldown) as its analog ability on Fire and Ice.
Ability 2 - Light Fang: Shoots Light at target enemy, making him invulnerable during the process. Deals 60/120/180 Magic Damage and applies a 0.5 second Stun.
Has the same general parameters (Cast Range, Mana Cost, Cooldown) as its analog ability on Fire and Ice.
Ability 3a - Together in Fiery Spirit: After a 3 second cast time, teleports Light to Fire’s location.
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Shares cooldown with Together in Icy Spirit.
Ability 3b - Together in Icy Spirit: After a 3 second cast time, teleports Light to Ice’s location.
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Shares cooldown with Together in Fiery Spirit.
Default activation hotkey: D
Ability 4 - Rebirth / Lightning Form:
Passive: While 1200 units away from enemy heroes, Light becomes an an agile elemental also known as Volt, gaining 10/50/10000% Movement Speed. Max Movement Speed is set to 750. This effect is disabled for 12 seconds when Light uses an ability, attacks, or takes damage.
Active: Activate to begin casting for 1.25 seconds. Upon finishing the cast, recreates Gemini at the current location with Health and Mana Percentages equal to the highest of Fire, Ice, and Light. Disabled if Fire, Ice and Light are more than 300 units apart.
Light also serves as an agile scouting elemental. This rewards skilled Gemini players that can micromanage all 3 elementals optimally, all while taking advantage of Light’s out-of-combat speed to scout and set up a constant global roaming presence in the late game.

Geomancer

Crystal Field

Staff of the Master effect addition (to pre-existing):
Now also applies a 35% Movement Speed Slow to enemies within 600 radius before the initial explosion occurs.

Magebane

Flash

Staff of the Master addition (new):
Enemy units within 600 radius of Magebane’s blink location have Mana Feedback applied to them for 6 seconds. Active abilities cast by these affected targets will deal 110% of that ability’s Mana Cost to the caster.

Mana Rift

Staff of the Master effect change (complete replacement of the previous one):
Mana Rift’s Damage dealt to the main target now propagates to 1 other enemy hero within 800 radius with 60% power.
Enemies affected by Mana Rift within the inner 225 radius will not be affected by this new effect, and will still take full damage.

Martyr

Sol’s Conviction

Staff of the Master effect addition (new):
Allows Martyr to cast the ability on willing ally heroes within 600 Cast Range.

Ophelia

Command

Staff of the Master effect change (to pre-existing):
Ability now only grants 0.25x the Movement Speed bonus to her Ancient creeps.

Soul Reaper

Demonic Execution

Staff of the Master effect addition (to pre-existing):
Demonic Execution’s Damage dealt to the main target now also chains to enemy heroes within 500 radius with 60% power each time, up to 5 times.
The chaining effect cannot apply to a hero that is already hit by the same cast instance of Demonic Execution.

= General =

On the hero pick screen while selecting an avatar, clicking on an unowned avatar’s “Need Coins” button will now redirect you to the HoN Store.
If players are lacking Gold Coins to purchase an avatar, they can now navigate to the HoN Store and click on the “Buy Coins” button there.

Forests of Caldavar (“New”) - Neutral Creeps

Slightly reduced the max chase time & chase distance for the 2 bottom-left-most Legion neutral camps and the top-right-most Hellbourne neutral camp.
Greatly mitigates the unintended behaviour of pulling the nearest lane creeps with these neutral camps.
Note: this change also makes the double stack timings a bit more strict.
This change is considered to be temporary until proper map changes can be made.

Towers

Aggro check duration against enemy-player-controlled units that attack nearby ally heroes reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second.
This does not affect the actual aggro duration of the tower against the targeted unit (i.e. after the tower has locked onto the target). It only affects the time in which it checks whether it needs to switch aggro or not.
Mitigates cases where you damage an enemy hero when you are outside the tower’s attack range & then proceed to go within tower range to last hit a creep and having the tower lock onto you.
A more thorough remedy may be investigated in the future when time permits.

= Heroes =

Adrenaline

Rush

Max number of Dread Stacks reduced from 12/20/28/36 to 15/20/25/30.

Death’s Halo

Number of Dread Stacks applied changed from 12/24/36 to 14/22/30.
When playing against Adrenaline, it is simply too frustrating to be almost literally any hero with any amount of farm and be solo killed by Adrenaline with relatively less effective items as a solo ganker with maybe just a touch of ally support.
No, hanging back and waiting to react with Stormspirit is not the ideal counterplay against Adrenaline, as it is not always feasible nor reliable.
With these changes, Adrenaline’s solo kill potential requires a little bit more ally assistance or proper itemization.

Andromeda

Attack Range increased from 450 to 475.

Void Rip

No longer deals a negligible amount of damage (to interrupt Portal Key, for example).

Bushwack

Crippling Dart

Movement Speed Slow duration reduced from 1.5 seconds to 1.25 seconds.
Cooldown reduction of this ability per autoattack lowered from 0.4 seconds to 0.2 seconds.

Side Step

Mana Cost increased from 20 to 30.

Berzerker

Mark of Death

Attack Speed bonus against marked targets changed from 40 to 30/40/50/60.

Corrupted Disciple

Electric Tide

Minimum Magic Damage per hit reduced from 40/60/80/100 to 35/55/75/95.
Maximum Magic Damage per hit reduced from 90/140/190/240 to 70/110/150/190.

Corrupted Conduit

Cast Range reduced from 600 to 550.
Leash range adjusted accordingly.

Electrician

Cleansing Shock

True Damage dealt to summoned enemy units rescaled from 1000 to 700/850/1000.

Ellonia

Flash Freeze

Total Magic Damage is now capped at 550.
When coupled with Staff of the Master, Flash Freeze’s effect on her Absolute Zero ability dealt excessive area damage if Frosted Stacks were accumulated on enemies ahead of time (particularly when coupled with ally crowd control).
Implementing a cap on the total Magic Damage in these circumstances & for long wars of attrition will prevent Ellonia from 1-shotting a hero with a large number of Frosted Stacks on them.

Engineer

Primary Attribute changed from Agility to Intelligence.
Agility growth per level reduced from 2.3 to 2.1.
Intelligence growth per level increased from 2.1 to 2.5.
Engineer is underperforming and most of his item build consists of Intelligence items. This small change should help his performance significantly by increasing his damage by mid/late game compared to other support heroes.

Goldenveil

Perch & Plunge

Plunge: delay before Goldenveil lands to apply the Magic Damage & Stun increased from 0.8 seconds to 0.85 seconds.

Hellbringer

Summon Malphas

Malphas Max Health reduced from 900/1400/1900 to 900/1350/1800.
Malphas Attack Damage reduced from 80/125/170 to 80/120/160.
Malphas Health Regeneration per second reduced from 15/20/25 to 10/14/18.

Ichor

Transfusion

Link duration reduced from 6 seconds to 4.5/5/5.5/6 seconds.

Saint’s Blood

Base Damage Reduction lowered from 10/15/20/25% to 3/6/9/12%.
Damage Reduction increase per debuff active on Ichor increased from 8% to 8/9/10/11%.
No longer requires the damage to exceed 15% of Ichor’s Current Health for the Damage Reduction to take place.
Max total Damage Reduction changed from 40/45/50/60% to 25/35/45/55%.

Martyr

Strength growth per level increased from 2.4 to 2.5.
Intelligence growth per level increased from 2.4 to 2.5.

Retribution

Mana Cost reduced from 95/105/115/125 to 90/100/110/120.

Moira

Shards of Harkon

Cast Action Time reduced from 300ms to 200ms.
Cast Time reduced from 600ms to 200ms.

Ephemeral Forge

Cooldown increased from 60/55/50/45 seconds to 95/90/85/80 seconds.
Max duration increased from 10/14/18/22 seconds to 12/18/24/30 seconds.
The cooldown of Ephemeral Forge caused Moira to be able to assist allies in ganks and teamfights without any risk far too frequently.
Increasing the cooldown of Ephemeral Forge will force Moira to use this ability more wisely. Otherwise, she will have to put herself at risk more often if she uses this ability too haphazardly.

Myrmidon

Attack Range increased from 450 to 500.

Weed Field

State duration increased from 1/1.33/1.6/2 seconds to 1/1.4/1.8/2.2 seconds.

Magic Carp

Mana Cost reduced from 95/100/105/110 to 80/90/100/110.
Now applies a 30/40/50/60% Movement Speed Slow for 0.6 seconds if the target is not moving at the time of impact.
The change to Magic Carp only ever so slightly makes it easier to ensure that Weed Field hits your intended target. The change looks stronger on paper than it is in practice.

Pandamonium

Flick

Cast Range reduced from 400 to 350.
Mana Cost changed from 50 to 60.

Parasite

Infest

Infested creep’s bonus damage received from player-controlled enemy units reduced from +50% to +25%.
Consume subability can no longer be used while the Infested creep is Silenced or Stunned.
Parasite should not be able to break out of crowd control early from his Infested creep. This was a big oversight for most of the HoN’s lifetime.
As compensation for this adjustment, the previous nerf has been toned back.

Predator

Venomous Leap

Now also applies a Restrain effect for the first 2 seconds of the debuff.

Terror

Movement Speed bonus granted to attackers increased from 15% to 20%.
Buff duration granted to attackers increased from 3.5 seconds to 4.25 seconds.

Ancestral Assault

Damage now deals less damage as the distance becomes larger between the target and the ability’s original cast location.
300 Range and below: starts at 100% Damage
Max Range: scales down to 40% Damage

Sapphire

Unstable Shards

Area Magic Damage upon hitting the Unstable Shard increased from 110/115/120/125% to 115/120/125/130% of the Attacker’s Attack Damage.

Scout

Electric Eye

Effect type of the Silence application changed from SuperiorMagic to Magic.
Silence duration reduced from 3/4/5/6 seconds to 2/3/4/5 seconds.
Placement restriction for the minimum distance from a tree increased from 75 units to 100 units.
Cast Range increased from 100 to 150.
Vision radius and reveal radius changed from 800 to 700/800/900/1000.
Proximity detection range (for enemies to see the Electric Eye) increased from 200 to 300.
Scout’s Electric Eyes have been a fundamentally broken tool since his inception. The ability has been made more reasonable (and more importantly, unable to pierce Magic Immunity as a non-ultimate ability) and simultaneously made less aggravating to play against if the Scout player uses Electric Eyes mostly to block neutral camps from spawning, while focusing more on the scouting/vision aspect of the Electric Eyes.
If Scout needs buffs in the future, he will receive them in the appropriate parts of his kit. Until then, these adjustments should make playing against Scout a little more bearable without affecting his actual power much.

Skrap

Mousetrap

Magic Damage upon exploding increased from 80/100/120/140 to 80/105/130/155.

Zoomerang

Magic Damage per hit increased from 60/80/100/120 to 60/85/110/135.

Unleash Vorax

Gold Bounty amount increased from 40% to 65% when Vorax kills an enemy (non-player-controlled) creep and if Skrap is more than 1500 units away from Vorax.
The distance value has also increased from 1000 units to 1500 units in the above change.

Tarot

Far Scry

State type changed to Debuff (making it purgeable).
State will still be unable to be transferred by abilities like Parasite’s Facehug for technical reasons.

Bound by Fate

Tether state type on both affected targets changed to Debuff (making it purgeable).
State will still be unable to be transferred by abilities like Parasite’s Facehug for technical reasons.
Purging 1 of the debuff states on a target will purge the tether state on the other target.

Luck of the Draw

Critical Strike chance increased from 20% to 25%.

Thunderbringer

Lightning Rod

Procs now occur when Thunderbringer deals Ability Damage to a target (rather than when he casts a spell).
Bonus Magic Damage based on the target’s Current Health now deals 0.5x damage if the target is farther than 1000 units from Thunderbringer.

Torturer

Chain Reaction

Mana cost reduced from 120/135/150/165 to 105/120/135/150.

Impalement

Mana cost reduced from 115/130/145/160 to 95/115/135/155.

Warchief

Intelligence growth per level increased from 2.7 to 2.8.

Wildsoul

Summon Booboo

Swipe: cooldown increased from 8 seconds to 11 seconds.
This change also applies to Wildsoul while in Bear Form.

Xemplar

Fractal Field

Each subsequent explosion affecting a target past the third explosion within the last 2 seconds now deals 0.7x Damage of the previous explosion.

= Items =

Blight Stones

Cast Range increased from 100 to 135.
This is mostly to resolve issues where players cannot seem to target trees near them.
Keep in mind that sometimes the tree actually does end up falling & a charge on Blight Stones is properly consumed, but you will not see the tree fall in fog. This is an intended feature, as it prevents enemies from seeing when trees fall in fog.

Bound Eye

Active effect now also reveals all enemy gadgets in its detection radius (even those in fog).

Shrunken Head

Cooldown increased from 65 seconds to 75 seconds.

== Matchmaking Maps & Modes ==

Champions of Newerth (CoN)

Map: Forests of Caldavar (“New” for NAEU/International region, “Old” for SEA region)
Mode: Ranked Pick

Mid Wars

Hero Ban
Single Draft

== Bug Fixes & Optimizations ==

= General =

Fixed a MMR exploit where players intentionally made every player’s MMR behave as 1500 (and making everyone’s MMR change +/- 5 for the game) by switching game modes before entering the matchmaking queue.
Players who abused this bug should be ashamed of themselves.
Remember to report big game exploits to the Senior Game Masters (SGMs) when possible! The players will be suspended in these scenarios.
MvP Show/Hide button no longer displays at the beginning of a subsequent game.
Water tile definitions near the middle lane ramps were adjusted to more accurately match the water’s visual location for the purposes of abilities dependent on the presence of a water tile (e.g. Riptide’s In My Element ability).

= Heroes =

Berzerker

Chain Spike timer is now properly readjusted when the initial state is applied on an enemy (particularly when used against an opponent that reduces debuff durations).

Geomancer

Slightly increased sight radius while Geo Stalk is active.
Fixes a corner case scenario where Geomancer cannot see a target within the Geo Stalk detection radius at very specific angles.

Grinex

Fixed a minor tooltip error with Nether Strike when the Staff of the Master effect is on Grinex.

Hellbringer

Malphas can no longer attack buildings if Hellbringer isn’t within 925 units.
Summon Malphas visual effects at the target location are now displayed properly for Batllebringer and Arimane the Pit Lord alternate avatars.

Lodestone

Lodestone Plates visuals now show the appropriate cosmetic for all alternate avatars.
Lodestone Plates visuals are now properly shown when the ability timer reaches 0.

Moira

Mana Sunder no longer causes single target spells cast by the affected targets to apply Mana Sunder to that spell’s target for 1 second.

Myrmidon

Forced Evolution now propagates the area effect properly to illusions with 33% power when they attack (when boosted by Staff of the Master)

Nitro

Tesla Cannon Nitro now plays her attack sounds properly when using Ballistic.
Tesla Cannon Nitro’s textures are now displayed properly on Low and Medium graphic settings.

Swiftblade

Counter Strike (Counter Attack, when boosted by Staff of the Master) active ability state now properly disappears when used to proc a Null Stone or effects similar to it (e.g. Moraxus’ Arcane Shield)

Xemplar

Illusions spawned from Schism now have properly have their attack animations synchronized with the actual attack impact time.

= Items =

The following items can no longer be transferred to other units or be dropped on the ground to fix an exploit where more than 1 completed of the item can be owned by a particular player in their hero’s inventory at any given time:
Alchemist’s Bones
Jade Spire
Restoration Stone
Note that there is still 1 way to attempt to bypass this, but the player is in for a gold loss surprise (and/or just flat out being inefficient) if they try to go that far. So just don’t even try to exploit this, it will only hinder you.
This was an unintended exploit. Please use RAP to report players if you see them repeatedly performing any kind of exploit that bypasses an item’s intended limit per player.

Flying Courier

Can no longer perform a gold pooling exploit by dropping a shareable item with charges & picking it up again with the Flying Courier to change the item’s ownership.
This was an unintended exploit. Please use RAP to report players if you see them continuously performing any kind of gold pooling exploit in the future, as they will be suspended if they continue to do so.

Hypercrown

Damage is now sourced properly from the original owner of Hypercrown if the procs from its Charged Up state ends up damaging & killing enemy units.
This properly gives gold bounty to Hypercrown’s owner when the Charged Up state kills an enemy unit.