The Public Test Realm (PTR) has been updated with a new build of version 2.0.4.
New Changes in Build 23364
Human
Rifleman attack cooldown increased from 1.35 to 1.4
Sorceress Master Training research time reduced from 75 to 60 seconds
Priest Master Training research time reduced from 75 to 60 seconds
Level 2 Water Elemental base damage from 31 to 30
Orc
Shaman Master Training research time from 75 to 60 seconds
Witch Doctor Master Training research time from 75 to 60 seconds
Spirit Walker Master Training research time from 65 to 60 seconds
Healing Salve duration from 45 to 40 seconds.
Amount healed is unchanged
Night Elf
Druid of the Talon Master Training research time from 75 to 60 seconds
Glaive Thrower build time from 48 to 42 seconds
Undead
Ghoul base damage from 9 to 10
Ghoul attack cooldown from 1.3 to 1.35
Banshee Master Training research time from 75 to 60 seconds
Wand of Negation cost from 150 to 120
Wand of Negation charges from 4 to 3
Wand of Negation now has a 5 second cooldown
Frost Wyrm build time from 65 to 60 seconds
Neutral
Abolish Magic damage from 250 to 150
Troll Shadow Priest stock delay from 120 to 180
Troll Shadow Priest stock replenishment from 110 to 160
Brewmaster Breath of Fire initial area of effect from 60/60/60 to 90/90/90
Beastmaster starting strength from 22 to 24
MASTER CHANGE LIST
Matchmaking
Unlocked matchmaking in 3v3 and 4v4 for Arranged and Random teams.
Arranged Teams in all game modes have a small MMR weight applied when searching.
Players are now able to queue in 3v3 and 4v4 in Arranged Teams smaller than the game mode.
For example, you will be able to queue into 3v3 as an Arranged Team of 2.
Leaderboard now supports smaller arranged teams in their respective game mode. For example, an arranged team of 2 can now appear in the 3v3 AT leaderboard.
Players in an Arranged Team are now prompted by a Ready Up message before queuing.
Performance
Improvements and optimizations have been made to the Lua garbage collector.
World Editor
Users are now able to add additional cliff types.
Fixed a issue where imported tilesets would crash the editor.
Using % characters in Lua script will no longer crash the World Editor.
Human
Rifleman attack cooldown increased from 1.35 to 1.4
Sorceress Master Training research time reduced from 75 to 60 seconds
Priest Master Training research time reduced from 75 to 60 seconds
Level 2 Water Elemental base damage from 31 to 30
Orc
Shaman Master Training research time from 75 to 60 seconds
Witch Doctor Master Training research time from 75 to 60 seconds
Spirit Walker Master Training research time from 65 to 60 seconds
Healing Salve duration from 45 to 40 seconds.
Amount healed is unchanged
Night Elf
Druid of the Talon Master Training research time from 75 to 60 seconds
Glaive Thrower build time from 48 to 42 seconds
Undead
Ghoul base damage from 9 to 10
Ghoul attack cooldown from 1.3 to 1.35
Banshee Possession now has a new VFX when channeling.
Banshee Possession Caster and Target VFX have been adjusted so they appear above health bars.
Banshee Master Training research time from 75 to 60 seconds
Wand of Negation cost from 150 to 120
Wand of Negation charges from 4 to 3
Wand of Negation now has a 5 second cooldown
Frost Wyrm build time from 65 to 60 seconds
Neutral
Abolish Magic damage from 250 to 150
Troll Shadow Priest stock delay from 120 to 180
Troll Shadow Priest stock replenishment from 110 to 160
Brewmaster Breath of Fire initial area of effect from 60/60/60 to 90/90/90
Beastmaster starting strength from 22 to 24
Dark Ranger Life Drain mana cost from 25/25/25 to 35/35/35
Dark Ranger Life Drain cast range from 500/500/500 to 600/600/600
Dark Ranger Life Drain tether range from 800/800/800 to 700/700/700
Cast range and tether range have been changed to match Siphon Mana.
Not bad change, letâs strengthen together. I think itâs more competitive. Can you optimize the performance again? For example, game crashes caused by scripts? This is too important for AI, thank you. Oh, by the way, regarding the skins of undead heroes, KelâThuzadâs voice, and also, can we add the classic Alsace skins to the next live version? Thank youđ
The panda aoe is still so tiny it canât hit anything. I donât think the guys understand the rather absurd difference between new carrion swarm and every other aoe in the game. Its so small its often easier to land a melee attack with the panda. Carrion swarm hits up to 1100 range, covering 496k area. Panda live patch hits 560 range with 100k area. Old breath of fire hit 800 range with 325k area. With this new change on PTR, panda will hit 590 range with 118k area.
Troll priest change will disproportionally affect elf who uses DH to tank creeps and has just 1 archer as dps. And we get nothing in return. What are we supposed to do on maps like EI? Creep the gold mine with DH and 1 archer and lose 400 hp? Stock delay must stay unchanged or itâs over for elf.
Orcs can already creep like the other 3 races. Orcâs problem isnât its early game, if anything thatâs where it is at its best. Orc has some of the strongest harassment ability, which easily buys them the time and money they need for later game. Unfortunately that later game is whatâs lacking and the longer a game goes on the less likely orc seems to be to win.
Some changes are good, some I think could use some improvement. Priest Master Training should not be buffed just to keep the research time equal over all races, thatâs a bit unimaginative. It already is one of the strongest upgrades in the game.
Orc need a few other simple buffs. Just a few simple damage, HP, build/research time, etc buffs. These very small buffs listed here arenât gonna do anything.
Please, please, buff Panda a bit more. The range has been nerfed to like half previously and this has been way too much. From strong hero it went to virtually unplayable. This very minor buff doesnât address the current issue with the hero. Just buff the range (a lot) again. Virtually all races can make use of the Panda and especially NE requires some additional viable options.
And of course, but not that important, most other neutral heroes have been untouched. Tinker, BM, Pit Lord and Iâm probably forgetting some others, are not seeing virtually any play currently. Some simple small buffs are required.
As an UD player, Iâd really love to see the Dreadlord play a bit more often.
I guess, the hero himself is rly good, but only when it reaches lvl 5 and has the carrion swarm lvl 3 ability - this is a breaking point of the hero, but on other lvls itâs rather weak and mana dependant.
My suggestion: slight or quite substantial buffs to the hero:
icrease damage cap on the carrion swarm- 550/900/1300 (!) damage from 400/700/1200 damage so the swarm has a lower damage cap and can damage a bit more units, not just 5 but 7 at all levels. This might be compensated for by decreasing lvl 3 ability damage - like 185 damage with the 1300 dmg cap (7 units).
This buff could allow DL have bigger impact on low lvls and the same at high ones, but not gamebreaking when 1 DL can counter the whole army, if it doesnât have AOE healing. On the other hand the hero wonât be countered that easily with riflepushes with the alchemist healing or the shadow hunter healing wave.
Slight rework to the Vampiric aura - make it add melee damage +5%/+10%/+15 % so the DL can compete with such heroes as Demonhunter, which burns the mana of this mana-dependant hero. OR you could basically choose the Aura instead of the carrion swarm or the sleep. This ability would make the DL a bit better against night elf/orc or the Crypt lord undead play.
Lvl 3 sleep buff-rework - make it work as AOE- really small or make it work targetally and adding 1 random enemy unit into the sleep or make it work on magic immune units OR even make its cooldown 3 seconds (it anyway has a cooldown - invulnerability of the slept unit, but in this case you can use the sleep on several units in a sequence). This buff would add some variability to the hero, as lvl 3 sleep is always WORSE than all other abilities.
Dl is great hero and vamp aura is kind of useless currently. But buffing carrion seems strange. Lvl 5 dl solo wins, itâs balanced by not being op early on. If dl becomes strong early while maintaining late game strength it will just be broken. Dl biggest problem is lich and other ud heroes being too good so it is played rarely over them. Labby used it several times just yesterday with great results
In the previous PTR I said credit where credit is due. I wonât say this doesnât deserve credit, but it does so less. And there is coherent motivation underlying that.
Coherency in Master upgrades is generally a lovable idea. Consistency in âlike for likeâ upgrades such as adept and masters upgrades is actually great. The game is easier to understand and to maintain balance wise if the game is internally consistent on such similar ârace equivalentâ mechanics. The current suggested changes seem flawed from two angles: the first is that it is incomplete. Night elf remains an outlier, with shorter upgrade times. Although I acknowledge that in general the discrepancy decreases. Secondly this hinges around the occamâs razor: when multiple solutions are presented, the easier solution is preferred. Rather than decreasing the adept and master upgrade times from human, orc, and (partially) undead: why not forgo this and increase that of elves? You incrementally introduce the same change by moving a lot fewer parts in the machine.
Ambiguity in long term goal is becoming an issue. Prior patches, for better or worse, were somewhat coherent: decrease damage (claws nerfed, crit no longer stacks, nova range decreased, less damage to heavy armor) and easier expansions. In turn, rings got buffed, tauren more sturdy, moonwell increased generation. It became a bit more new-player friendly. Your stuff will live longer. Get an expo, let the game last. These current changes oppose that implicit framework by stating: you can now more easily get tier 3. I get you want to open options. I bet casters will love this, but from a more dry ârunning the numbersâ perspective, such options create a lot of volatility in player performance - not due to the players but due to the changes introduced. This does not loosely tie back the previous point: really consider the opportunity cost changes currently introduced.
Neutral changes are out of the blue at least to the degree one can genuinely ponder: why? What pain does this address. Who was really having issues with the beast master? Unpopular, sure, but equally this buff doesnât seem to allow the beast master jump into a clear skewed situation? Same for the priests, we increase and decrease various stock replenishment. However, that is a bandage fix: the underlying issue seems to be the accessibility to the merc camp which often lies very adjacent to someone his base. In fact: even in between the main base and the expo. Does this fix the issue, or the symptom?
Matchmaking opinion remains unchanged: this is great. Love the reduction in queue time and the offset should address the most heard issue: balance skews between the teams. Love it.
Iâm a little concerned theyâre being too conservative about it when they say âsmall weightâ but weâll see. Numbers can of course be changed.
I suppose theyâre worried about more casual team-ups geting decimated, but the premade fear factor is real. While it was a thing people would leave almost every RT vs AT match no matter how good the individual opponents actually were.
We are still missing adjustments to the Demon Hunter and Druids of the Claw, they are too powerful and need some nerfs. DH agi needs to be nerfed to the same level as the blademaster and his mana burn needs to be reworked. For bears damage and adept + master upgrade research time needs to be put in line with other races. 25seconds on adept and 35 on master is way too short compared to 45 and 60 for the other casters.
A 5 second faster heal salve doesnt do anything, perhaps reducing the cost of the item or increasing charges would help. Realistically orc much more help, please look at Grubbyâs suggestions for directions.
Also please dont blindly take suggestions from a so called summary of pros suggestions that has no sources listed and conveniently contains nerfs for ud, orc and hu but not for ne. Cheers!