Taunt
- Cast time removed
Items
Courier
- Will now be attacked by Towers and the Well
Geometer's Bane
- Grants 0.1sec invulnerability on activation
Hellflower
- Damage increased from 40 to 45
Plated Greaves
- Will no longer apply it's buff to Wildsoul's bear
Puzzlebox
- Recipe increased from 1100 to 1250
Shrunken Head
- Added to the tooltip that it cannot be dispelled
Steamstaff
- Price lowered to 800 from 900
Stormspirit
- No longer silences or perplexes, just stuns
* This allows you to queue up orders while under it's effects
Heroes
- Maliken, Warbeast, and Wildsoul transformations will no longer act stupid when Dark Lady Ults
- Valkyrie Arrow, Devourer Hook, and Voodoo Casks will no longer hit couriers
- Added new Legion Strength hero, Tundra
* Based on Rexxar the Beastmaster from DotA
Accursed
- Fire Shield dispels stuns once again
- Flame Consumption will no longer automatically activate below 400hp. Must be cast manually.
* This means that silences/stuns/etc will prevent Accursed from triggering his ult
- Staff of the Master now lets Accursed use Flame Consumption while silenced
Arachna
- Spiderling will no longer stand there like a dummy if a hero blinked while the projectile was midair
Behemoth
- Initial 200/275/350 Magic damage on the ult is now Superior Magic, meaning it will go through magic immunity
Bubbles
- Shell Surf vision increased from 600 to 800 units and now keeps granting vision if it goes the max distance for 3.34 seconds.
- Fixed a bug with Shell Toss that was resetting the cooldown incorrectly
- Song of the Sea now hits units in fog and invisible units
- Take Cover no longer perplexes
- Kelp Field will no longer deal damage or stun magic immune heroes
Chipper
- Attack time increased from 350ms to 450ms
Corrupted Disciple
- Electric Tide now is now correctly displayed when originating from a position within fog
Deadwood
- Base strength increased from 23 to 25
- Base Armor increased from 2.24 to 2.74
- Creeps will no longer dispel the tree
Engineer
- Fixed the Turret's attacks eating Nullstone
- Tinker cooldown increased from 15 to 20
- Tinker manacost increased from 25 to 50
Forsaken Archer
- Skeletons will no longer trigger neutrals to use their abilities
Hammerstorm
- Mighty Swing can now be toggled on and off
Hellbringer
- Base armor lowered from 2.4 to 1.4
- Life Void cooldown increased from 7 seconds to 10 seconds
Magmus
- Volcanic Touch now correctly deals damage to Mechanical units
Maliken
- Fixed tooltips
- Possession manacost lowered from 150 to 100
Nymphora
- Number of people taken with her Teleport increased from 0,1,2 to 1,2,3 additional targets per level
Pandamonium
- Slow from missing a Cannonball lowered from 4s to 2s
Pollywog Priest
- Max distance of Jolt lowered by 200
Pyromancer
- Phoenix Wave can now target both units and the ground
Sand Wraith
- Using Manifest no longer kills all active illusions
Soul Reaper
- Added to the ult tooltip to correctly state the cooldown changes to 70s at all levels with it
Soulstealer
- Fixed the "being knocked down" while using an item bug
Succubus
- Fixed a bug causing sleep to sometimes be removed instantly by a creep
- Succubus' Hold cooldown lowered from 120s at all levels to 120/110/100
Swiftblade
- Base movespeed increased from 300 to 305
- Returned attack no longer triggers responses like Corrupted Disciple's Static Discharge
Valkyrie
- Javelin will now leave lingering vision if it hits nothing
- Tweaked Prism to correctly hit invulnerable allied heroes
Wildsoul
- Damage when the bear dies now properly goes through immunities
- Updated his tooltip to reflect that he takes damage when his bear dies
- Beardulon abilities reworked very slightly
* Gains Return at level 1
* Gains Entangling Claws at level 2
* Gains Demolish at level 3
* Gains Magic Resist at level 4
- Wild cast time removed, letting him cast it on the run
- Base movespeed while in Bear form increased from 270 to 285
Wretched Hag
- Bat Blast can now target both units and the ground
Zephyr
- Cyclone damage halved against non-hero units
As far as a pre-emptive analysis goes, there are a few things that really stand out in this patch. First of all, Geometer's Bane and Puzzlebox now perfectly emulate their DotA counterparts. Steamstaff being priced at 800 effectively lessens the overall cost of the items it is involved, which is a needed buff to both Wingbow and Hellflower.
More important are the hero changes. S2 is taking a clear and hard stance that they want ganking to be rewarded in the current metagame. This is obvious with another port of a ganking hero (Beastmaster) and is also obvious is some of the nuances of the change. Let's examine these changes.
First of all, Zephyr may finally be balanced for both competitive and public play. Halving the damage his cyclones do to creeps makes farming jungles in seconds much more difficult than previously, yet he retains his high early game AOE magic damage to heroes, making him just as valuable in ganks and teamfights.
Next to consider is the buff to Wildsoul. Finally he is a relevant ganker to be feared coming out of the jungle. With his bear having a chance to proc entangling claws at level 3, he will be able to keep pressure on the sidelane much the same as tempest can. He also receives his critical strike to buildings at level 5, which may also see early pushes attempted by him.
There were also some minor but noteworthy changes made to other heroes to further increase this. Pandamonium now barely has a drawback to using his stun if he misses. Using Manifest will allow your Sand Wraith illusions to linger, improving your damage output and perhaps allowing for more clutch jukes and the like. Finally Deadwood has received a couple of buffs that help him survive the powerful ranged harass that the HoN laning phase currently offers.
Clearly S2 is serious about making HoN an exciting and balanced game for spectators and players alike, and this patch only further shows the seriousness with which they are taking that duty. Naturally we all have gripes about what else should be changed. Why not leave a comment below with some of your own?
