Based on feedback, we’ve lowered the brightness of units in Classic HD graphics
The team is aware that portraits still appear overexposed, and are working towards a solution
World Editor
Fixed an issue with Summoned Units window displaying incorrectly
Fixed an issue with Variables window column width not saving after closing the window
Added a new Animate Dead ability code [AUa2] to preserve the old Animate Dead functionality
Hotkeys
Added Entangled Gold Mine to Night Elf Buildings
Fixed Ctrl Group and Menu commands not working with mouse buttons
Enabled Fog of War and Auto Cam hotkeys in regular observer mode
Previously they were only enabled in advanced observer mode
Fixed side mouse buttons for camera controls
Fixed side mouse buttons not being able to be bound while watching a replay
Removed Ally and Enemy Health Bar keybinds
The team has decided to remove this keybind while we work on finding a solution to make it work properly
Multiplayer
Fixed an issue with placement matches displaying incorrectly in the post-game screen
Added a Makrura Snapper portrait
General
Fixed an issue where orbs were not working properly on ranged units
Night Elf
Huntress movement speed increased from 340 to 350
Archer health increased from 255 to 275
Moon Glaives upgrade time decreased from 60 to 50
Undead
Units resurrected by Animate Dead will now properly have any passive abilities they had when killed
The team is aware of an issue where the new Animate Dead does not inherit upgrades like in the previous patch, this will be fixed for the live patch
Neutral
Brewmaster Breath of Fire initial area of effect increased from 25/25/25 to 60/60/60
Brewmaster Breath of Fire final area of effect increased from 125/125/125 to 175/175/175
Brewmaster movement speed reverted from 320 to 290
MASTER CHANGELIST
Game Servers
Custom Game lobby advertisements now properly timeout 15 minutes after the most recent player has joined or left
This timer resets every time a player joins or leaves
Fixed an issue where some players with classic keys were having licensing problems
Fixed an issue where custom game invites were not working properly
General
Added a countdown timer to the UI for construction and training
Fixed an issue where some triggers would sometimes not be saved correctly
Existing saved games may still have this issue, but any new ones should now be saved correctly
Fixed an issue where going into a single player custom game would sometimes put you into a multiplayer lobby
Performance
Optimized AI functions for finding build locations
This should optimize how AI players look for places to build structures, resulting in better performance in games with a high number of AI players
Please watch for and report unexpected behavior changes
Optimized heavy particle counts of some Reforged VFX
Improved performance for rendering terrain
Visuals
Updated Reforged shaders. Players should see improved intensity of shadows and lighting
Based on feedback, we’ve lowered the brightness of units in Classic HD graphics
Replaced the classic main menu and campaign .webm backgrounds with .mdl renders
Fixed certain VFX appearing as white squares in Classic HD mode
Tree idle animation now enabled in Reforged environment
Added options for ambient occlusion and bloom in the options menu
Note that these settings will lower performance when enabled in 4K resolution
Fixed an issue where units with transparency were less transparent than intended when on water
Fixed an issue where custom unit portraits were incorrectly inheriting a portrait from their base units
Fixed an issue where icons for custom skins would sometimes show their base icons
Fixed an issue where units would sometimes be invisible after loading a saved game
Existing saved games may still have this issue, but any new ones should now be saved correctly
Fixed a few model files which were not correctly being included with the game
Audio
Fixed an issue where map music would sometimes continue playing at the end of a map, or during a cinematic
Fixed an issue where music would overlap with music from a saved game
World Editor
Custom campaigns may now use MDL files for mission select backgrounds
Fixed an issue with weather effect [RAhr] triggering permanent rain
Fixed an issue with the model viewer window being incorrectly scaled
Fixed an issue with the Summoned Units window being incorrectly scaled
Fixed an issue with Variables window column width not saving after closing the window
Fixed an issue where [AIsb] was not respecting the cooldown of its attached ability when used on an item
Fixed an issue where [AIf2] had hidden bonus damage and attack index data fields
Fixed the following natives:
The following changes affect many natives and fields, and are an attempt to fix some broader systems instead of individual bugs. Please report any bugs (or new fixes!) related to these changes:
Fixed dozens of broken BlzSetAbility____Field natives
BlzSetAbility____LevelField natives now attempt to forcibly refresh the ability’s data so changes are reflected. For example, orb of fire (AIf2) now has its damage bonus properly updated due to this change
BlzSetUnitIntegerField now supports UNIT_IF_PRIMARY_ATTRIBUTE
BlzSetUnitWeaponIntegerField now supports UNIT_WEAPON_IF_ATTACK_WEAPON_TYPE
BlzSetUnitWeaponIntegerField no longer causes a crash when trying to set a field related to an attack type the unit didn’t originally have
BlzSetUnitWeaponIntegerField now works properly with the following fields:
UNIT_WEAPON_IF_ATTACK_MAXIMUM_NUMBER_OF_TARGETS
UNIT_WEAPON_IF_ATTACK_DAMAGE_NUMBER_OF_DICE
UNIT_WEAPON_IF_ATTACK_DAMAGE_SIDES_PER_DIE
UNIT_WEAPON_IF_ATTACK_DAMAGE_BASE
BlzSetUnitIntegerField(unit, UNIT_IF_MOVE_TYPE, 2) now properly allows a ground unit to fly
Added a new field UNIT_RF_FLY_MAX_HEIGHT (ufmh)
BlzSetUnitBooleanField now properly sets UNIT_BF_HIDE_MINIMAP_DISPLAY
BlzSetUnitStringField now immediately updates the unit’s shadow when using UNIT_SF_SHADOW_IMAGE
BlzSetUnitRealField now correctly sets UNIT_RF_CAST_POINT and UNIT_RF_CAST_BACK_SWING regardless of when you spend your first skill point
The following features can now be found under Map Options
Added the ability to force players to use a specific zoom level
Added the ability to remove the ‘!’ from denying appearing
Added a new ability [Amgi]. This ability prevents bouncing missile attacks from bouncing to and from structures
Added a new ability [AUa2]. This ability is the new version of Animate Dead that allows units to carry over their abilities
Hotkeys
Significantly increased the amount of bindable keys
Added new bindable commands for Menu, Game, Replay, and Observer commands
Added a Conflicts section in the hotkey menu to display any key conflicts
Clicking on a conflict will bring you the relevant hotkey
Added support for non QWERTY, non English keyboard layouts while using grid keys
Removed hotkeys for passive abilities
Hotkeys for learning passive abilities still exists
Unlinked Peasant and Militia hotkey conflict detection
Changed the ordering of mercenaries so that it is possible to assign QWER to every camp without conflict
Removed Pocket Factory from the list of Neutral Buildings
Removed Select Unit ability from the Tavern
Fixed an issue where Hero Select and Inventory keys were not detecting conflicts
Added Nether Dragon Roost to Neutral Buildings
Added Entangled Gold Mine to Night Elf Buildings
Multiplayer
Added a Makrura Snapper portrait
Fixed an issue with Arranged Team badges not displaying correct info
Fixed an issue with MMR and level not being displayed on loading screens
Fixed an issue with placement matches displaying incorrectly in the post-game screen
Added MMR data to Solo and Arranged Team Badges
Adjustments were made to how MMR gains and losses are calculated
Players have a hidden stat that is called variance. The higher the variance, the bigger the MMR swings (When a player starts their placement matches they have high variance, after many games, the variance bottoms out). In team games, the current system adds every players MMR and variance together. For example, in a 2v2 game, where one side is a 4500 arranged team, and the other side is a 4000 and 4200 rated random team, the system views it as a 9000 MMR side against a 8200 MMR side. We are changing this so that instead of taking the sum, the system now takes the average MMR and variance, so now the system will view the match as 4500 vs 4100
In addition to the above change, we are also doubling all MMR gains and losses
We are hoping these changes reduce the occurrence of extreme MMR gains and losses in some situations, while also spreading out the distribution of MMR. The team will continue to monitor this and make adjustments as necessary
Balance
General
All attacks with a ground area of effect attack have the Ward unit type added to their list of area of effect targets
Piercing damage against Heavy armor decreased from 100% to 90%
Orc
Pulverize can now target Wards
Burning Oil can now target Wards
Night Elf
Archer health increased from 255 to 275
Pick up Archer, Mount Hippogryph, and Dismount cooldowns decreased from 30 to 5
Huntress glaives will no longer bounce to and from structures
Huntress movement speed increased from 340 to 350
Moon Glaives upgrade time decreased from 60 to 50
Undead
Units resurrected by Animate Dead now have access to their abilities they had when they were alive
Lich Frost Nova range increased from 700/700/700 to 750/750/750
Neutral
Pitlord Cleave can now target Wards
Dark Ranger Drain Life mana cost decreased from 50/50/50 to 25/25/25
Dark Ranger Drain Life self damage type changed from Magic to Universal. This will allow Life Drain to continue to transfer while the caster is magic immune
Tinker Pocket Factory spawn interval decreased from 5/4.5/3.5/3 to 4.5/4/3.5/3 per Engineering level
Tinker Cluster Rockets max damage per interval increased from 105/195/300 to 200/250/300
Cluster Rockets contains 4 damage intervals, so if a unit stays in the area for the whole duration of the spell, it will take 4 instances of damage. This change increases the max damage that can be spread across multiple units per interval.
Brewmaster Breath of Fire damage increased from 65/125/170 to 80/130/180
Brewmaster Breath of Fire max damage increased from 480/800/1200 to 600/900/1200
Brewmaster Breath of Fire initial area of effect from 125/125/125 to 25/25/25
Brewmaster Breath of Fire initial area of effect increased from 25/25/25 to 60/60/60
Brewmaster Breath of Fire final area of effect increased from 300/300/300 to 125/125/125
Brewmaster Breath of Fire final area of effect increased from 125/125/125 to 175/175/175
Previously, Breath of Fire could hit units that were significantly farther away than the visuals of the spell suggested. These changes make it so that the area of effect are brought in line with the visuals. The area of effect parameter controls the initial width of the Breath, while the final area of effect controls the radius at the tail end of the spell. To compensate for the nerf to range, overall damage of the spell has been increased.
Brewmaster Breath of Fire damage over time from 7/14/21 to 10/15/25
Brewmaster movement speed from 290 to 320
Removed Vampiric Aura and Death Coil from Level 3 Skeletal Orc
Fixed an issue where the neutral variant of Brilliance Aura was not displaying decimal values in the tooltip
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue with Tinker stacking the effects of regeneration from items when killed in Robo-form
Fixed an issue where Demon Hunter Immolation would continue to drain mana when turned off if Immolation is leveled during Hex
Units that are hexed will no longer have a short window where their items bonuses do not apply to them
Orb effects will now properly proc when units auto acquire targets.
Orb of Slow and Orb of Lightning will now function properly if bought while silenced
Just saw the patch hit on my Bnet client and I saw this.
Great changes. Archer change is especially welcome. Moon Glaive upgrade time is also appropriate.
Will have to test. It’s understandable to want to nerf the AoE since the animation was so small compared to what was actually hitting, but on the previous build the box was so small that it was actually not lining up with the animation anyway! Movespeed being reverted is also a good decision.
Thank you for listening. Patch is shaping up.
EDIT: After mulling it over, the Archer buff is not good for the health of the game. The potential of Archers being a little more relevant in the early-mid game isn’t worth the potentially unfun gameplay at the opening phase of the game.
Moon Glaive and Huntress buffs & changes are fine.
How out of touch are the buffs to Night Elf? Night elf as a whole race is MASSIVELY overperforming and over represented.
If you are going to buff them anymore we will soon have over 50% of the playerbase playing Night Elf, which sits at around 35-40% right now depending on MMR bracket.
I am pretty sure we are all getting fatigued with seeing Night Elf getting buffs over and over while they need nerfs in the first place.
Demon Hunter, Keeper of the Grove and Druids of the Claw are still not significantly nerfed to bring them more in line with the rest of the races strength levels.
I urge you STRONGLY to start considering taking a good look at the state of the game.
I’m sorry, but what is going on here? The community is clearly in outcry - and backed up by actual analysis on number - that elf is insanely dominating. In addition: undead is severely underwhelming. No joke: amongst top players a mean centred MMR was determined and elf scores like +110 of this baseline. Whereas undead is -100 under it. Additional analysis showed a similarity in of these races being over- and underrepresented similarly in the top level compared to a more organic base group of players: hinting that indeed elves make it to the top, and undead doesn’t.
Why on earth is Elf still receiving buffs? Why isn’t undead receiving major buffs? Who is manipulating things behind the scenes here? Does crying like mad really help? Does the dev himself play elf and just hate undead? Elf has a ex ante expected winrate of a whopping 64%. Nobody that ever lived or is alive considers that balanced.
Please, nerf that race “into the ground” - and do the opposite for undead. We clearly see a greater divergence in MMR variances, Winrates and Race distribution in 2.0.2 compared to 1.36.2. And contemporary patches do not really address this: in fact they enhance the drift of the gap that objectively exists between races.
what is up with constantly buffing NE? They are absolutely overperforming in every metric and they are definetly due for some nerfs, WITHOUT COMPENSATION: on w3champions, at above 2200 mmr they have 58% and 57% winrate vs orc and ud, respectively.
In season 21 of w3champions (played on patch 2.02) there were 21 NE in the top 50 (thats 42%) on w3champions ladder. Sources: w3champions. com/OverallStatistics/winrates-per-race-and-map, w3champions. com/rankings
So it is absolutely a fact that NE is dominating top ladder play.
Lets have a look at how NE is doing in competitive tournaments where real life money is at stake. In a recent tournament featured on back2warcrafts twitch channel we have the B-cup season 19 with a first price pool of $3000 USD. In the group stage 14/32 players were NE. In the playoffs (totaling 16 players) there were 8 NE. So as the tournament has progressed the share of NE players has actually gone up, now reaching 50%. Source: liquipedia. net/warcraft/B_Cup/19
More statistics (the most accurate statistic into how the NE race is doing): Using the ELO system we can accurately assess the skill difference between players. Using this system it is found that 10 out of the top 25 players in the whole world are NE (40%). Whereas only 3/25 are UD (12%). Source: warcraft3. info/stats/elo_ranking?race=)
NE race is unilaterally dominating all parts of high level play. As a fan of the competitive scene i cant tell you how boring it is to see NE mirror matches every single day: i basically lost interest in much of the scene.
The NE race is also dominating lower levels of play. Althought we dont have the easy statistics at hand we can make some quick arguments: The race is extremely easy to play. Never is more than 2 heroes picked and you simply build 2 units in every game and in every matchup: the bear and the dryad. Both of these units you can A click onto the opponents army with little thought into focus fire which leaves you with all the time in the world to play DOTA with your Demon Hunter (arguably the best and tankiest hero in the game).
It is a common belief that NE is getting a slight nerf in the next patch (something that has yet to be proven btw). And to compensate for this slight nerf you preemptively buff the NE race? Is NE not allowed to not be the strongest and easiest race?
I guess it is true what they say: the singluar person in charge of balance was caught in the NE discord and is quite clearly biased in making balance changes.
I do think it’s a little silly that Night Elf consistently gets buffs to counteract nerfs. However Huntress buff and Moon Glaive research time are appropriate buffs.
I still feel the thing that makes Night Elf overpowered is their economy. Killing Wisps just doesn’t set back an economy enough and capable players can make the extra lumber that adds up over the course of a game for predictable, strong, non-dynamic timing pushes.
I would love to see a bugfix for the prioritize ability of gargoyles.
issue 1:
select a gargoyle with prioritize active as well as another one with prioritize DEactivated
press the hotkey for prioritize
BOTH toggle, meaning the one which was already on prioritize is now on “no prioritize”
same applies for any number of gargs of course. you can have 1 on non-prio and 11 on prio, you press the prioritize button, thinking you put all of them on prio, but suddenly ONLY ONE is on prio
issue 2:
changing button position via customkeys.txt does not work
42% of the top 50 in w3champions are NE players and only 8% were UD players. Source: w3champions. com/rankings
It has been known for a long time that UD has been getting nerfed to target 1 (one) player: Happy. Happy has been dominating pro play with little resistance for a long time. Why havent other players replicated his success? Why dont they simply swap to UD if the race is the reason he is winning? Occams razor: Happy is simply the most gifted warcraft 3 player to ever exist. Indeed, this is proven over and over when random tournaments are hosted (players get random races and each hero is randomly selected): happy always wins these, even when other top players like fortitude and lyn are invited.
Using the ELO system we can accurately assess the skill difference between players. Using this system it is found that 10 out of the top 25 players in the whole world are NE (40%). Whereas only 3/25 are UD (12%). Source: warcraft3. info/stats/elo_ranking?race=)
Is it fair the an entire race is butchered because of 1 (one) player? I dont know. Lately Happys 100 games winning streak versus was NE was broken. And he has been going from winning 100% over 100+ games to losing 50% of his recent games. The balancing team succeeded: they nerfed UD and buffed NE to the point that happy is now losing to NE consistently.
Maybe UD should be the weakest to keep happy down? Maybe. But one thing is for sure. NE is heavily due for some nerfs. The dominance is just disgusting at this point.
I’ve did this a bit more thoroughly. I’ve assessed the influx of new players and their race distribution (like N=900) and compared that race distribution with the top. And we clearly see a decrease of the likes of Orc, and mostly Undead. While there is a very steep increase for Elf players. This is a bit more grounded as you can’t fully expect each race to be 25% - as organically there might not be a 25% base line. So its saver to determine that baseline and then measure the deviation towards that baseline.
And that deviation is in style with the MMR I measured. I took 70 (Grand) Master players from patch 1.32.2 and 2.0.2; determined the average MMR per race and thus the average MMR for the sample. Then checked the variance per race towards this average MMR and translate the MMR gap towards an ex ante winrate using Chess ELO. This provides that Elfs in the top, when assumed that overall there is no notable deviation between race players on average, will win about 64% - because of their race selection. It is equally terrible for undead: its like 25%. Orc is like 47% and human like 56% iirc. And although Orc got a bit closer in 2.0.2: Elf and Undead both drifter further way; reflecting the balance was bad in 1.36 but got objectively worse in 2.0.2.
Regardless, it is atrocious balance. And these suggestions are not even close to fixing the gap.
Thank you guys for continuously listening to our requests/feedback the new animate dead ability is a great way to ensure older works aren’t affected by unintended bugs!
Allright, it’s either giving up on W3 or switching to NE. Let’s make top of the ladder from 40% of NE to 60%! You keep ruining the game for 99,9% of playerbase for the sake of 3 players at the very top. This is a joke. Orc will never win Global T1 tournament again. They haven’t won any in 6 years and it won’t change because 1 player still can make decent runs in some tourneys.
Surely all of us can’t wait to watch all those tournaments consisting of 3/4 NE players with multiple NE Mirrors.
The new Animate Death ability is replaced in campaign heroes - Deathknight Arthas, for example.
Also, it has different button placement when learnt:
(1,1) instead of (3,2) as normal Animate Death has.
Btw. I would recommand to whoever is responsible for those garbage changes to leave the cesspool called NE discord and stop watching Remo’s suggestions that are so out of touch it’s crazy.
Why on earth NE is getting compesation for Piercing dmg nerf if Orc is the race that relies on Piercing the most?? vs HU they open with mass headhunters, vs UD it’s either wyverns and/or headhuners. Even Kodos deal Piercing damage
People losing their minds for archers getting extra hit points to counterbalance the damage reduction is a bit weird, but seems expected. I am observing too much anti NE bias.
As for the other changes, it seems like people just look at a big list (like 4 in this case) and say “oh, why so many buffs for the NE”, when in reality its always been about the quality of the buffs, not the quantity. Rest of the changes here do not matter. Huntresses will be in a worse position than they were before the 2.0.2 (previous patch), since their base race role is being removed from them. Hippos are just bad. Nothing can save them.
In general, its important to look at the quality of the changes and not the quantity. The only change that matters here is the health buff for the archer, and this is only being done to counterbalance the damage nerf, since archer use piercing damage.
Everyone has their own biases, but its important to look at the things as objectivity as possible. Most of the these complains about the buffs are not rooted in reality.
Dear Mr.Dinglizzard,
You are now trying to open a box full of chaotic energy.
While I believe you have gathered enough information about how danger the box is.
I will respect your arbitrary right to balance the game
therefore change my stance to Neutral in this PTR3.
It does not mean I have changed my idea to this change.
The reason why I no longer oppose the change is simple → Most people can not understood how bad the change is, so they need suffer from this change to see the reality.
You are advancing in a LINE with your own style.
From my personal view, it’s hard to draw a certain conclusion in one word.
This is not an epilogue for balance change as an ordinary PTR3.
Just a prologue for wave of changes due to the opening box.
the new animate dead ability is a great way to ensure older works aren’t affected by unintended bugs!