Version 2.0.2 Build 22726 PTR Patch Notes

PTR Discussion and Bug Report
148

Wow, thanks for the fixing and buff for Frost Wyrm. At least you’ve been fixing some of the legacy issues.

Btw, could Doom Guard (include Summoned) also get some attention: they have similar bug with anti-air attack (air splash can also effect ground enemies)
Not push but, since Doom Guard can be generated by Pit Lord or Demonic Statue, and they’re also creep, that means this bug could also affect balancing.

Talking about creeps, also many thanks for the adjustment about them, especially the buff for those “uneven-one” such as Skeletal Orc Champion, Apprentice Wizard, Infernal Machine.
But meanwhile, are some of the creeps be nerfed a bit too much resulting in a lack of challenge/usefulness or new “uneven-one”?

Faceless One Terror and Faceless One Deathbringer, are “facing” similar bug like Doom Guard.

Also receptively staff, would we get some fixing and balancing for mighty Dragons in the future? Since part (or maybe “all”) of them have same “air splash” problem like Frost Wyrm, and Red Dragon have no advantage compare to Green Dragon make Red completely inferior to Green, plus the projectile speed bug of Black Dragon.

Btw could someone help me verify that is this bug fixed in latest PTR (I uninstalled the game previously 'cause some glitches and I need more disk space):

  • Air units those transformed or derived from ground units, like Destroyer, Storm Crow, Gargoyle, Phoenix, cannot use Warp Gate.
    (Gargoyle and Phoenix can use it only if they haven’t turned into Stone Form/Egg)
    According to other user’s research, it seems this bug only affects maps with type “Melee”:
    Hippogryph Rider, air units that had been Webbed/Ensnared, are not affected.

Talking about Webbed/Ensnared, could you consider make Possession available on Webbed/Ensnared air units?

About Spiked Carapace, it doesn’t work without being beaten, so the idea is to motivate more player to attack Crypt Lord. How about make Spiked Carapace can also damage nearby enemies similar to Immolation with lower damage?

Personaly, I still perfer Undead T2 dispell by make Skeletal Mages or Shades self-sacrifice to dispell (can also improve Necromancer’s appearances) not by item. If Scroll of Healing (in Tomb of Relics) is deemed unbalanced for Undead, it may consider designing a new Vampiric Scorll.

Just a joke but, with Human have Orb of Slow now (though not finalized yet), Blood Elf can claim Orb of Fire and Naga can claim Orb of Frost.
*Guess Orb of Fire got removed not only because balancing adjustment but also the bug that players can use it make super-fast-regeneration-units and “immortal” Phoenix.

Trifling: there is unused Hero skill called “Water Minion” that its Summons based on Mur’gul Cliffrunner (lv1), Mur’gul Tidewarrior (lv2), Mur’gul Snarecaster (lv3). However Snarecaster had less HP than Tidewarrior which made lv3 Water Minion has less HP than lv2. But now lv3 can have same HP as lv2 — only if Water Minion also got adjusted.

149

please increase holy light cd to 6 seconds

2 Likes
150

Nice changes :slight_smile: love the flamestrike buff. It’s certainly in the right direction. Any love for Mechanical Critters, Dragonhawks and Cannon Towers, perhaps? :slight_smile:

Wisp lumber change might be tricky to balance, but we’ll see.

1 Like
151

The best option to deal with any heavy melee unit is to use magic air units: Gryphons, Frost Wyrms/Destroyers, Chimaera, etc. Otherwise, you may need to spread your units and focus down individual Tauren. All of that remains unchanged whether Tauren have resistant skin or not.

The main point of resistant skin is to weaken crowd-control; and that is fair considering that Tauren are 5-supply units, and thus they are inherently far more vulnerable to crowd control than most ground units.

152

Thanks very good changes

1 Like
153

make knights 5 supply then give them pulverize ability then . now tauren running speed super fast. its like no longer a carrying totem logic with the load of heavy that make them walk slow.

now tauren walk fast + resistent skin + tc aura and blood lust. they are like marathon runner and any guys have no chance to escape

154

How can you complain about Tauren who have been garbage for 20+ years and never viable in 1v1?

These Tauren have not even landed on the live patch servers.
Chill out.

1 Like
156

tauren is not meant to be solo unit type of unit. they are meant to work with other magic buff to work well and get OP, either they spirit walker spam with tauren + unlimited resurrection and + blood lust + witch doctor. its unbeatable. AA use bat. thats all and how cheat tauren is . not many know how to do it.

often tauren is OP against night elf mostly, they kill elf very fast and sometime human.

157

The huntress change will make nelf too strong vs ud, they can just mass tier one units (hunts, archers, a couple of glaives) upgrade to tier 2, upgrade moon glaives and attack, happened to me in the ptr. I’m a bad player but I don’t see a good defense. Gargoyles are tier 2 and have piercing attack vs hunts so no attack bonus vs heavy armor and you nerfed move speed so they will be more easily picked off by archers and potm. Ghouls are horrible vs hunts, fiends were already kind of bad because hunts have attack bonus vs fiends but fiends no longer have it against them when they get heavy armor. So what is UD supposed to do? Tech to tier 3 for destroyers? It takes too long. If you’re gonna keep this change, I think you need to buff UD further.
I may be missing something, I’m not very good, try to be polite if you reply, thanks.

2 Likes
158

Unharrased timing to snowball T2 huntresses limit (7+) with alchemist is 7:48-8 (no shop alchemist lvl 2 max).
What is enough to build banshee or Necro to counter them.
Lich or CL counter them as well.
It is impossible to siege ud base in this case.
But if you lose a lot of aco during the tech and elf is completely free then yes, it is possible.
What was possible on old t1 with aop tower rush.

At the same timing almost (7:43) elf could start doing master bears now if it was unpunished 1 moonwell tech.
So basically it depends from early game and power isnt even - ud is way stronger untill upgrade even on T1 units

159

That would be unreasonable. Pulverize is baked into the Tauren’s stat-line. Without Pulverize, Tauren have lower DPS than Knights, Abominations, and Bears; despite costing more supply than all of those units. Tauren with Improved Pulverize have similar DPS to a knight despite costing more supply. If Knights were given Pulverize or a similar ability, they would require nerfs in other areas to balance it out.

There is this silly little flag in “Advanced Gameplay Constants” called “Gameplay - Movement Speed Bonuses stack”. This flag is set to false in multiplayer, so Tauren only gets one of those speed bonuses (probably the largest one) at any given time.

You need to be playing a modified map in order for speed bonuses to stack.

1 Like
160

Thrive Or Decline: Why the Devs are retreating?

In this PTR we have a very Meaningful change, which is

You know, Compare with PTR 2, the Devs are retreating while they are not completely retreat back to 5.
Why? Because Rationally he know 6 is fine, but Emotionally he like 5.
WHY? Emotionally,the Bloody Pala-R Meta is his child, while Rationally he know his child had crossed all color lines with rifle.

The foundation of Bloody Pala-R Meta was created in reforge era, and most of them(like BS -20 lumber Devotion Aura buff to 2/4/6)
only added in game not too long ago. Which means the foundations Very likely created by current Dev. This is the reason why I called the bloody single Rifle unit meta “his child” his kingdom.

Rationally he know his child must be fixed to average status, but Emotionally he can not give up his lovely child. So this is the most possible reason why you see a change even HUD can not afford.

As parents, I think it’s right never to give up your child even he use rifle broke Neighbor’s window without any proper reason. You need protect your child even he broke the balance that is right as parent. However as Member of Dev team, it would be better to oversee the situation in a higher view.

Even from parent’s view, the real Responsible parents know that his child not only need toys,cards,golds,lumbers and foods but also need some in-controlled setback, challenge and strong opponents to be better. In balance affairs that means you need share some cards and change something Extreme.

Then what is the extreme point of all Bloody Pala-R Meta?
Please note in every layer,there are many alternative options to nerf it, while let’s focus on
The Meta–> Hero–> Blood mage–> Siphon Mana–>Recasting Cool down time -->6 seconds–> The way how this 6s calculated.

Thrive Or Decline: This is the point has to be changed.
In history, we have the following change.
1.31.0 2019-05-28 Wind Walk cooldown now occurs when Wind Walk breaks

So the solution is unexpected simple: Siphon Mana cooldown now occurs when Siphon Mana breaks.

By this way you can save your lovely child Meta and the game balance at same time within Minimum change, not perfectly just in lowest base line though.
And with this change holy light back to 5s will be more reasonable.

Some cards also need to share with Other not be loved children.
For Instance, you had buffed Flame Strike mana cost to 125. This is ok, nothing bad, but some hero with lower mana pool while cost more mana just ignored.

→ Summon Lava Spawn cost 150 mana. A spell from AGI hero who have much lower mana.

A very bad status, shown you have no mercy or interest to weaker side. If you can buff the mana cost of Lava Spawn to 135 at same time, then players will feeling there are some fairness here, and the game would also be better. That is the reason why I believe sharing cards is important in balance change. We need fairness.

And especially basical fairness, it’s hard to say the game is balanced when there is a different in starting food supply. We do need holding core features or characteristic for every race, while the starting line shall be equal.
Like in PTR2 you can share cards llke
1.> Great Hall supply granted increased from 11 to 12
2.> Haunted Gold Mine supply granted increased 0 to 2
3.> Tree of Life supply granted increased from 10 to 12
Result in 12 foods for all race, again we need fairness.

Fairness means you need recover T2 Fortified armor for ALL race not only for ORC.
Which means
1.Advanced Masonry(T2) giving back Fortified armor to all hum towers.
2.Nature blessing(T2) giving back Fortified armor to all uprooting ancients.
3.Change Siege Engine Armor type from Fortified to Medium.
Simple rules: All buliding Fortified/non-building unit should never be Fortified. This is Fairness.

If we have enough fairness,the game will Thrive and the decline process will end.
So in the end why the Devs are retreating? Not enough Fairness.

2 Likes
161

What you said is too damn right. I agree too much. You are a thoughtful player. Applause :sunglasses: :clap:

1 Like
162

Interesting changes and nice tweaking after community feedback… keep up the good work! Some comments:

Holy Light cooldown increased from 5/5/5 to 5.5/5.5/5.5 seconds

  • Note that the HUD does not support decimal cooldowns and will display the cooldown as 6.

I get wanting to go middle ground, but having a value that is not shown in the in-game UI sounds like a bad idea. Either get it back to 5 or 6 seconds.

  • Wind Rider level reduced from 4 to 3
  • Wind Rider movement speed reduced from 320 to 310

I am unsure what the idea with Wind Riders is? In this way, they are buffed in situations where they are massed (so vs UD, where they are already strong enough), while it weakens their scarce support role which they have vs HU and NE. This will not make Wyverns more playable in those MUs (arguably even less), but is risky in the MU vs UD, especially considering the Nova and Gargoyle nerfs.

  • Wisp lumber gather rate reduced from 8 to 7 seconds

NE do have wood issues but in the current iteration this seems way too strong without at least some counter-adjustments. Maybe slightly increase the costs of Tree of Ages / Tree of Eternity upgrades to at least partially re-adjust the tier tech speeds.

Dark Ranger Drain Life can now transfer life to a friendly unit

Great change but I’m not sure it will still see play. Since Blood Mage siphon cast range is staying 600, maybe also buff the cast range of Life Drain from 500 to 600 to help with healing range?

4 Likes
163

Your bonus wood on ptr as NE now is just enough to be equal to other races on t3 (~9 min).
In 12 min game NE needs 600 more lumber then others, ill glad to see 0 wood cost for t2, t3, hh, moonwells and expo but i think this will be too strong in the early game

164

I played some games on this ptr and also saw some games from Grubby here

The only real unplayable thing here is that 2 effects are the same (visual): sorcerer’s slow and orb’s slow.
Orb balance in general seems kinda fine, probably a bit too random. Because if it procs on hero like DH sometimes it is a fight winner but usually it doesn’t proc at all.
But in general everything fine. Will help a lot vs UD to focus destroyers.

We have 2 general militia problems:
they are too strong in early creeping
on some maps they can contest almost any creep camp in the middle

After armor upgrade they have 9 armor now what is still 54% what is crazy strong.
I don’t see any solution how this can be fixed without broken human fun gameplay

Ideally it should be not less then 2 seconds at least. Probably 4-3-2 but not 4-2-0.
In general paly-rifles problem is still there. It works very good vs Orc (especially) on PTR. Nothing changed here. Orcs will die to it for sure.

Nothing changed here. I think the only way to fix this is to increase mana cost or remove critical chance from illusions. Broken ability on lvl 5 especially in AtR

Perfect wood balance now in 12 min game (It is almost like Human now gathering with fast expo to 12 min game)

Balanced. They aren’t OP anymore because of 60 seconds research time and 175 lumber cost.
You have 4-5 huntresses (depends from archer opening) on T2 without upgrade and you lose 1 more minute in AoW to research this.
And also you cannot t3 or expo because of 175 lumber cost (what is fair)
60 seconds seems too much, but will see.

Hippo
Sad that we don’t see any changes for hippo (except lumber buff in general).
The main problem of hippo is that they lose any MU except zeppelin and they don’t help you on the ground. (for example giros also don’t help you on the ground almost (except spotting invis and bombs) but they win every MU (bats are kinda depends from micro)).
Probably if hippo will start with 3(9 after upgrades) armor so they can survive bat without any upgrades at least this will be fair.
Especially when batriders/wyverns lame works vs tier 1 NE on some maps like Concealed Hill (currently there some orcs on wc3 champs and all of them have 70%+ winrate vs elfs and all of their games are just solo BM+air and games with 2200 mmr and higher)
It is strange that hippoarchers will have less starting armor but whatever.

What is NE answer to taurens now? Before it was dryads (poison slowed their attack) or talons (cyclon). Now bears+dryads cannot contest them (i tested, bears just died because poison doesn’t do much) so we need talons. What is very expensive and dispelable (but winable)

Another problem here that you encourage us to use Chims (especially vs new taurens, the only answer almost for the NE) but we cannot use them because Hippo cannot contest air (not vs bats, not vs gargs, not vs human)

Ancient Protector is also needs more love.
I still don’t understand why AP gives 60 exp (lvl 3) (if you didn’t cancel it is 85 exp) what is crazy (tree of eternity also gives 60 exp but this is T3!).
Other towers are lvl 1 (25 exp) and AP is the worst tower in general (you lose wisp (uptime on the main) what is already bad)

Cool thing. Sad that this will help only in a very good UD MU already.
Useful vs human mass giro as well if you have happy micro

Don’t think that changing their abilities cost can help.
The main problem that cripple is a t3 upgrade and without this upgrade they are trash. You never build wagon to support them.

165

if ur doing heavy armor on huntress. then the ancient cannot be attacked while rooted. because all these while elf use building to defend bases because huntress was unarmored. now if have heavy armor. ancient building MUST NOT be able to attack. or must upgrade when T3

1 Like
166

I would say it works well only against Orc, and I like someone’s (Remo’s?) idea of buffing Soul Burn to give Orcs an anti paly-rifles hero. I think that -1 s cooldown may be good enough.

Against HU paly-rifles just does not work (maybe after defend nerf it will do a little better, but I doubt it, and in HU context it is sad, because it would be nice to see the end of endless breakers wars).

Against NE classic tier 2 rifles, caster push is just better, in my opinion.

Against UD it is an issue because it excludes DK (and Lich in some extent) as a viable options, and in general we want wider hero options in each matchup, but against CL, I do not see any advantage of paly-rifles at all.

In conclusion, I think that keeping current moderate nerfs and a little buff for Firelord, may be good enough to try it live.

1 Like
167

sry, but if Ne player say about t2 heavy armor hunts “Balanced” = its completely broken

3 Likes
168

Necromancer needs rework to be viable and not cheese at the same time in my opinion. I would think about Raise Dead redesign in future patches. For example:

  • Raise Dead is a single target dispel
  • deals 250 dmg for summons
  • when the target (own or opponent both) of Raise Dead will be killed in time less than 10s the skeletons will be spawned.
  • (optional if too weak) if used on opponent unit, apply 20% slow for 10s.

Of course numbers are just an example and should be furthered tunned.