4.8.6

Version 4.8.6 - 22 September 2020 == New Content ==

New Pharaoh Avatar: Doge Anubis

This higher-definition Pharaoh avatar was taken from the HoN China client. He also happens to look like a dog of the Shiba Inu species, which greatly resembles the iconic Doge!

== Design ==

= Hero Guides (NAEU/International Client Only) =

Every single default hero guide in-game has been updated with `WhatYouGot’s hero guides! Thank you for providing a much-needed update for HoN’s hero guides.

`WhatYouGot is a competitive-level HoN player, Twitch Streamer & Caster/Commentator for the recent HoN Tournaments & was also a competitive HoN player for Complexity Gaming back in 2015.
These updated hero guides are meant to act as a reliable base reference for new players and average players. As players get more experienced, they should adapt their skill builds & item choices to their current game as needed.
All of the old default hero guides written by Zlapped still exist, just not as the current default guides anymore. Zlapped’s guides were solid in the past, but most have been outdated & been replaced with more up-to-date guides for today’s HoN meta.

= Hero Rework - Qi =

Qi (Reworked)

The premise of Qi’s Enlightenment dealing damage based on the target enemy’s Attack Damage is fundamentally flawed on its own. Heroes naturally acquire Attack Damage throughout the game even if they don’t have a single item (due to their primary attribute stat gains as they level up). Most heroes also tend to buy items that augment their primary attribute. The combination of these factors means that Qi’s bonus damage output based on the target’s Attack Damage will always be too weak or too strong against unfarmed or farmed heroes, or unable to be fairly manifested against the intended spectrum of heroes (farmed heroes with high autoattack damage output over time).
A more accurate & fair representation of an enemy’s autoattack damage over time has been implemented for Qi’s Enlightenment ability. This can simply be expressed as “Extra Autoattack DPS” (Damage per Second), and is the difference between the target’s total autoattack DPS and their base autaottack DPS.
Mathematically: Extra_Autoattack_DPS = Total_Autoattack_DPS - Base_Autoattack_DPS
As a result, Qi now properly has a niche role in obliterating farmed autoattack enemy carries, while dealing below-average damage to underfarmed support heroes and not totally obliterating heroes in between that spectrum.
Qi’s scaling is now much more dependent on his enemy’s scaling as a result, so Qi’s overall kit and numbers have been tailored towards being a Support Hero.

Crippling Puncture

Cooldown increased from 12 seconds to 24/20/16/12 seconds.
Movement Speed Slow and Disarm duration increased from 1/2/3/4 seconds to 1.6/2.4/3.2/4 seconds.
SuperiorMagic Damage changed from 100/120/140/160 to 90/160/180/200.

A Thousand Cuts

No longer applies an instance of non-Damage-over-Time (DoT) Ability Damage while the Spirit Shredder is travelling.
The Spirit Shredder now has its DoT effect active starting from its initial launch (rather than only after reaching its initial destination).
Initial Mana Cost changed from 90/100/110/120 to 100.
Upkeep Mana Cost per second changed from 3/6/9/12 to (5/6/7/8 + 0.6/0.8/1/1.2% of your Max Mana).
Magic Damage per second increased from 30/50/70/90 to 45/70/95/120.
A Thousand Cuts no longer deals an instance of non-DoT Ability Damage, as it was proven to provide too much burst damage with Enlightenment. It now only deals DoT damage to act as a zoning tool.

Enlightenment (Reworked)

This ability has 5 levels & starts at level 1 at the start of the game.
Passively deals 20/35/50/65/80% of an enemy hero’s Extra Autoattack Damage per Second (DPS) as SuperiorMagic Damage for each instance of Ability Damage dealt to them. Extra Autoattack DPS is the difference between the target’s Total Autoattack DPS and their Base Autoattack DPS.
Damage over Time effects apply the correct amount of bonus damage per game frame (0.05 seconds).
Staff of the Master: Qi’s autoattacks bleed the enemy’s Chi, dealing 1 SuperiorMagic Damage per second for 2 seconds. This counts as Ability Damage.
Active: Target a position to reposition the Spirit Shredder from A Thousand Cuts (if it is out).
Range: 700
Cooldown: 4 seconds
Mana Cost: 50

Ancestral Assault

Mana Cost changed from 150/200/250 to 100/175/250.
Number of instances reduced from 3/4/5 to 1/2/3.
Impact interval between each instance increased from 0.1 seconds to 0.3 seconds.
SuperiorMagic Damage changed from (20 + 60/67.5/75% of the target’s Attack Damage) to 125.
Now also applies a 1 second Disarm and Perplex to affected enemies upon impact.
Note that Enlightenment is procced from Ancestral Assault’s damage instances now.
Damage no longer tapers based on the target’s distance from your original cast location.

= Hero Rework - Drunken Master =

Drunken Master’s ability usage in teamfights was too linear and 1-dimensional.
This rework aims to fix those issues by introducing factors of decision-making back to Drunken Master, as well as improving his ebb and flow in actual combat.
Healthy elements of the legacy Drink ability has been added back to Drunken Master to make this happen!

Drunken Master (Reworked)

Lunge

Movement Speed Slow reduced from 20/30/40/50% to 15/20/25/30%.
Cooldown changed from 14/12/10/8 seconds to 13/12/11/10 seconds.

Stagger

Cooldown is now reduced to 0.8 seconds when Lunge is finished (instead of being refreshed when Lunge is first cast).

Ability 3: Drink (Reworked)

Mana Cost: 50
Cooldown: 20/16/12/8 seconds
Channel Time: 2 seconds
Channel to Drink, gaining 2/3/4/5 Drunk Charges and reducing the cooldown of Lunge and Stagger by 0.25 seconds per 0.25 seconds of channeling.
Max of 16/24/32/40 Drunk Charges.
Each Drunk Charge grants 1% Evasion and 1% Stun/Debuff Duration Reduction.
Each Drunk Charge expires naturally every 2 seconds, healing you for 5 Health.
When Lunge is used, consumes 6 Drunk Charges to add 20% Movement Speed Slow.
When Stagger is used, consumes 4 Drunk Charges to add +30 Movement Speed.
Using Drink in combat sacrifices immediate attack-time-on-target and mobility for reduced cooldowns on Lunge and Stagger (i.e. increased mobility and damage after a short time). It also grants Drunken Master defensive and mobility bonuses, as Lunge and Stagger now consume Drunk charges.
To make Drink more interesting, Drink now has a low cooldown when the ability is maxed, allowing Drunken Master to consistently upkeep the Drunk charges in and out of combat.
Much like the first iteration of Drink, Drunken Master has more resilience during the laning phase with the healing over time from Drink.
Additionally, there is a slight delay before Stagger comes off cooldown after the Stagger-Lunge combo, allowing enemies to have a slightly larger time window for counterplay to 3 Point Strike.

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

Bushwack

Jungle Toxin

Staff of the Master effect addition (to pre-existing):
Now also grants Sight of the target.

Jeraziah

Sol’s Blessing

Staff of the Master effect addition (to pre-existing):
Now also applies Protective Charm to affected ally non-building units for 2.5 seconds.

Lodestone

Shatterstorm

Staff of the Master effect addition (new):
Can now reactivate the ability after 2 seconds to proc Shatterstorm earlier than its regular detonation time.
Lodestone’s Armor and Magic Armor is now only reduced by 50% (instead of 100%).

Moon Queen

Moon Finale

Staff of the Master effect changes (to pre-existing):
Beams no longer deal area damage.

= Report-A-Player (RAP) System =

Penalties will not include the action of muting players (due to multiple complaints about lack of necessary communication in the picking phase).

Note that everything else in the RAP System for the NAEU/International Client remains the same.

= General =

AFK Timer duration increased from 2.5 minutes to 3 minutes.

= Forests of Caldavar (“New”) =

The warding high cliff tower near the bottom rune on the Legion jungle side has been shifted very slightly to the southeast (makes ward vision of the Legion camps more consistent).
The bottom rune has been shifted slightly towards the southeast in accordance with the previous change.
The top-left corner of the map has been filled in with some untraversable lava (fixes some pathing issues around that area).

= Mid Wars =

Merrick’s Rune now spawns close to the first set of ramps southeast of the middle area of the river.
This should allow Merrick’s Rune to be more commonly contested compared to when it spawned at the boss lair.
Backdoor Protection damage mitigation against heroes increased from 50% to 60%.
Token of Sight now regenerates 15% Max Health and 15% Max Mana over 5 seconds for allies within 900 radius upon being obtained.
This regeneration effect can stack up to 2 times.
Dispels upon taking damage.
Respawn time added per hero level increased from 0.5 seconds to 0.6 seconds.
Respawn time added per missing ally non-base towers reduced from 3.75 seconds to 3.5 seconds.
Overall, respawn time at level 25 increased from 12.5/16.25/20 seconds to 15/18.5/22 seconds.
This adjustment should make early game deaths feel somewhat impactful again, while still increasing respawn times slightly later on.

= Neutral Creeps =

Medium Camp: total Experience per camp reduced from 185 to 170.
Hard Camp: total Experience per camp reduced from 215 to 205.
The jungle changes allowed junglers to level up slightly too fast from the previous patch, so this should slow down their progression slightly.

The Experience changes to each individual neutral creep are as follows:

Vagabond Assassin: 25 → 20 (this also reduces the Easy camp’s experience containing the Vagabond Assassin to 140, which makes camp’s Experience equal to every other Easy camp)
Antlore Necromancer: 45 → 30 (not present in the “New” Forests of Caldavar map)
Ebula: 55 → 50
Pustula: 75 → 70
Fire Ogre: 60 → 55
Ice Ogre 65 → 60
Alchemist Ogre: 60 → 55
Wild Hunter: 93 → 85
Wolf: 55 → 50
Wolf Commander: 75 → 70
Catman Soldier: 100 → 95
Catman Champion: 115 → 110
Goatar: 55 → 50
Vulture Lord: 135 → 125
Skeleton King: 135 → 125
Vagabond Leader: 130 → 125

= Heroes =

Accursed

Fire Shield

Mana Cost reduced from 100/110/120/130 to 100/105/110/115.

Sear

In addition to its passive effects, now also has an active effect: activate to create a Searing Flame on the ground for 4 seconds, dealing 10/20/30/40 Magic Damage per second to enemies and Healing yourself for 8/12/16/20 + 0.4/0.6/0.8/1% of your Max Health per second.
Cooldown: 24/22/20/18 seconds
Mana Cost: 60
Radius: 400
The Searing Flame will naturally proc Sear’s negative effects for enemies and Sear’s positive effects for Accursed when used in combat. This ability also further increases his survivability in the laning phase, particularly as a suicide hero.

Behemoth

Fissure

Mana Cost reduced from 120/130/140/150 to 100/110/120/130.

Bombardier

Sticky Bomb

Cast Range reduced from 800 to 650/700/750/800.
Mana Cost increased from 95/105/115/125 to 105/115/125/135.

Air Strike!

Magic Damage per strike increased from 200/275/350 to 220/290/360.

Bubbles

Intelligence growth per level increased from 2.4 to 2.5.

Take Cover

Can now be autocast.

Cthulhuphant

Trample

Magic Damage dealt by non-hero unit projectiles changed from 20 to 12/16/20/24.

Obliterate

Cooldown reduced from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.

Dreams of Madness

Cooldown reduced from 140/120/100 seconds to 100 seconds.
Mana Cost changed from 200 to 150/200/250.
Forced attack duration changed from 3 seconds to 2/2.5/3 seconds.
Movement Speed Slow increased from 20/30/40% to 20/35/50%.

Demented Shaman

Unbreakable

Primary state can no longer be purged/transferred.
Damage buff state on self can still be purged/transferred.

Glacius

Chilling Presence

Bonus Mana Regeneration per second granted to self increased from 1 to 1.5.

Goldenveil

Perch & Plunge

Perch: Cooldown reduced from 2.5 seconds to 2 seconds.
Perch: Mana Cost for subsequent Perches reduced from 15 to 12.
Perch: While perching, Stun Duration for Goldenveil has been reduced from 3 seconds to 1 second if the tree Goldenveil is perched on becomes destroyed.
Plunge: Stun duration changed from 1.4/1.6/1.8/2 seconds to 1.3/1.6/1.9/2.2 seconds.
Plunge: ability can now used even when not perched on a tree.
However, the Cast Range, Airtime, Magic Damage, and Stun Duration are reduced by 50% when used in this manner.
Goldenveil is now less dependent on trees & not as hard-countered by items like Arcane Bomb.
Goldenveil players who find Plunge unreliable now have a choice of using it while not Perched on a tree, sacrificing range, raw damage & stun duration for sheer reliability and speed.

Grinex

Rift Stalk

Armor debuff value changed from -1/1.25/1.5/1.75 Armor to -0.8 Armor.

Hammerstorm

Mighty Swing

Cleave Damage reduced from 30/40/50/60% to 20/30/40/50%.

Lodestone

Rocket Drill

Bonus Movement Speed granted to self after the second activation rescaled from 100 to 40/60/80/100.

Lodestone Plates

Physical Attack Damage Block value increased from 10/20/30/40 to 15/25/35/45.
While off cooldown, Damage Reduction increased from 30% to 35% for the next instance of hero damage over 150.
Lodestone’s laning performance should be more on par with other solo suicide laners, while slightly increasing his durability in the mid-game

Maliken

Sword of the Damned

Life Essence: portion of healing based on Attack Damage reduced from 5% to 1/2/3/4% of your Attack Damage.

Hellbourne Zeal

Magic Armor gained per 1% Health missing changed from 0.1 to 0.025/0.05/0.075/0.1.

Midas

Primary attribute changed from Strength to Intelligence.
Strength growth per level reduced from 2.2 to 2.
Agility growth per level increased from 1.1 to 1.2.

Myrmidon

Weed Field

Cooldown increased from 10 seconds to 11 seconds.

Magic Carp

Cooldown increased from 10 seconds to 11 seconds.

Nitro

Overdrive

Initial Bonus Attack Speed is no longer set to 400.
Instead, the Initial Bonus Attack Speed is set to 100 and gradually ramps up to 500 over 2 seconds.

Oogie

Kindled Fury

Cooldown increased from 7 seconds to 7.5 seconds.

Pearl

Asphyxiate

Debuffs are now dispelled on an ally upon the initial impact (rather than the delayed bubble explosion).

Rampage

Might of the Herd

Can now be activated to apply -35/50/65/80 Movement Speed to enemies for up to 4 seconds within 300 radius.
Mana Cost: 50
Cooldown: 15 seconds

Solstice

Strength growth per level reduced from 3.2 to 2.8.

Graceful Strikes

Day Time: Bonus Physical Damage per proc changed from 60/80/100/120 to 55/75/100/125.

Vindicator

Final Chapter

Cooldown increased from 110 seconds to 125 seconds.
This ability is incredibly powerful at higher levels of play due to its low overall cooldown, and has been adjusted to increase the window of counterplay against a team with Vindicator.

= Items =

Barbed Armor

Cooldown reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.

Golden Apple

Passive Mana Regeneration per second reduced from 0.3 to 0.25.

Logger’s Hatchet

Bonus Attack Damage against non-hero units reduced from 30/12 to 18/8 when wielded by a Melee/Ranged unit, respectively.
Cooldown increased from 15 seconds to 20 seconds when used on a tree, gadget or ward.
Cost reduced from 200 Gold to 150 Gold.
This change lessens the damage difference gap between opposing Melee & Ranged heroes, allowing for more counterplay opportunities via timing mixups when contesting for last hits.

Lunar Tear

Cost reduced from 90 Gold to 80 Gold.
This change should allow more combinations of starting items to exist.

Runed Cleaver

Recipe Cost reduced from 900 Gold to 550 Gold.
Total Cost reduced from 4400 Gold to 4000 Gold (final numbers here are partially because of the cost change to Logger’s Hatchet).
Bonus Attack Damage against non-hero units reduced from 60/30 to 30/15 when wielded by a Melee/Ranged unit, respectively.
Cleave Damage reduced from 60% to 50%.
This change combined with the changes to some commonly picked Strength melee carries in competitive-level HoN should allow for some agility heroes who farm Runed Cleaver to be more relevant in today’s meta.

== 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 =

Forests of Caldavar (“New”)

The middle medium camp in the Legion jungle can no longer be pulled to the bottom lane.

Neutral Creeps

Riftwalker’s Rift Burn, Emerald Warden’s Overgrowth, and Engineer’s Spider Mines are no longer counted in their periodic nearby unit count check for casting some of their spells (e.g. Minotaurs, Catman Champions, etc.).

Bots

Bots now properly interact with the 2 Consumable Slots.
In other words, they will no longer attempt to spend all of their Gold on Homecoming Stones and other consumable items.

Backdoor Protection System

Tier 2 towers now properly have the Backdoor Protection System disabled for them when at least 1 of their team’s Barracks are destroyed.

= Heroes =

Artesia

Arcane Missile now travels the correct distance if Artesia has a Jade Spire in her inventory.

Calamity

Units can no longer use direct pathing to escape at the vertices of Sunder’s Vault.

Gauntlet

Grapple will now target in the correct direction when you cast it while Gauntlet is very close to a cliff.

Jeraziah

Now uses the correct attack animation when attacking with Righteous Strike.

Kinesis

Telekinetic Control now gets blocked completely by Null Stone and Moraxus’ Arcane Shield (prior to this fix, it was not interacting with it at all).

Moira

Ephemeral Forge mimic can no longer activate Golden Apple or Lunar Tear.
Soultrap and Dreamcatcher now lose charges on the original Moira when consumed by the Ephemeral Forge mimic.

Monkey King

Attack Range is now properly set to be 150 to be consistent with other melee heroes (instead of 128).

Tempest

A timer that represent’s the most recent cast instance’s minion lifetime will now be shown on the Elementals ability icon.
Meteor’s subability hotkey is now properly mapped to the Extra Ability 1 hotkey (default hotkey “D”).

Warchief

Warcry no longer reduces Warchief’s item cooldowns if their original cooldown is 3 seconds or lower (prevents a data type overflow bug).

= Items =

Ophelia’s Pact

No longer triggers its effects upon purchase (i.e. you must use the item manually).
This change is required to fix an exploit that artificially inflates your GPM values (although having no effect on your Gold itself) and an exploit that potentially crashes the game server.

Sand Scepter

Projectile no longer affects an enemy with Magic Immunity if the target gains Magic Immunity while the projectile is in midair.

Tome of Elements

Now correctly excludes terminated players from the calculation of your team’s average Experience.