Greetings, Champions!
It’s patch time again already, and this one’s all about tightening the screws!
We’re making a range of changes across the board with this update, with a focus on Augment balance, nudging some outliers back in the right direction and giving Midlane Mages a little more agency, especially against melee targets.
Whether you're theorycrafting your next Augment combo, or just looking to win your lane a little more cleanly, there’s something here for you!
Let’s dive in.
Store News
New Skin
Bunny Yin [Rare]
Don’t let the ears fool you, Yin’s not here to play. She’s serving green glam and high-voltage style, with a look as sharp as her strikes.
New Bundle
Bunny Yin Bundle
- Yin [Hero]
- Bunny Yin [Skin]
- Onyx Bunny Yin [Variant] (timed-exclusive)
- Red Bunny Yin [Variant]
- Fawning [Spray]
- Bunny Yin [Banner]
- Bunny Yin [Icon]
Balance Changes:
- Health Growth decreased by 2%-7% for various Melee Heroes.
- Health Growth reduced by 1%-3% for various Ranged Heroes.
- Magical Armor Growth for all Melee Heroes reduced by 22%.
- Magical Armor Growth for all Ranged Heroes reduced by 14%.
- As a result, Mage Midlaners should find themselves finding more success against a wider range of Classes.
- Various Melee Magical Damage dealers have received small damage nerfs to offset the burst potential gained from these Health and Magical Armor changes.
- Various Augment Quality of Life and Balance Adjustments.
- General Balance outlier adjustments.
Nitro Mode:
We're generally happy with where Nitro has landed but we feel that too many games are lasting too long. All of the changes listed below are aimed to bring the average game time down to around 20 minutes. While trying to ensure only a small percentage of games last more than 25 minutes, and no game lasts longer than 30 minutes. We want Nitro to be reliable in terms of game length so you can always get one more game in.
Passive Experience Points (XP)
We are adding a small amount of passive experience from 8 minutes into the game, we have taken some of the xp out of siege minions to allow this. The goal is to ensure you are not too punished from roaming around the map.
- From 8 minutes players gain 2 xp every 3 seconds
- From 15 minutes players gain 4 xp every 3 seconds
Passive Gold
Slight increase to passive gold income from 8 minutes to support players getting to the right amount of items at the right time windows.
- From 8 minutes gold drip increases from 4.5 to 5
Kill Gold
Small increase to early gold income and reducing some of the gold paid out on shut downs. We saw some teams were having too much success from getting shut downs and other teams were not getting far enough ahead from early kills.
- Kill gold based on bounties adjusted for -1 bounty to +8 (Was 310, 350, 390, 590, 735, 870, 1000, 1200, 1350, 1500 Now 320, 370, 400, 600, 735, 870, 1000, 1100, 1250, 1350)
Tower Plating
Small change to make Tower plating a bit easier to take.
- Armor and Magical Armor buff based on remaining plates reduced from 0, 10, 25, 35 to 0.5, 10, 15, 20
- Fortification Armor and Magical Armor based on heroes attacking reduced from 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 to 100, 150, 200, 250, 300
Minions
Related to adding passive xp changes above.
- Siege minions level 6+ xp reduced from 144 to 120
Objectives
We are making changes to all of the big objectives. Increasing the gold they grant to push the teams taking objectives further ahead. We are reducing the respawn time of Fangtooth so its offset from Orb Prime to prevent continuous object trading that pushes games to stall. Lastly we are increasing the power of the buffs to ensure they provide an adequate advantage to the team able to secure them.
Fangtooth
- Respawn timer reduced from 210 to 180
- Gold increased from 200 to 300
- Buff for 1st and second fangtooth increased from 4% to 6%
- Fixed a bug where the 3rd Fangtooth was giving additional power
Primal Fangtooth
- Respawn timer reduced from 210 to 180
- Gold Increased from 600 to 700
- Primordial Blaze increased from +2 per min of gametime to +4
- From 20 minutes onwards Primordial Blaze does 200% damage to heroes below 25% hp up from 150%
Mini Prime
- Gold Increased from 300 to 400
- Increased Minion buff by 10%
Orb Prime
- Gold Increased from 800 to 900
- Increased Bonus Physical Power granted from 15,15,15,15,25,28,31,34,37,40,43,46,49,52,55 to 15,15,25,28,31,34,37,40,43,46,49,52,55,58,61
- Increased Bonus Magical Power granted from 20,20,20,20,40,45,50,55,60,65,70,75,80,85,90 to 20,20,40,45,50,55,60,65,70,75,80,85,90,95,100
- After 20 minutes the buff grants a 20% stronger Minion buff
Minor Augment Balance Changes:
Voracity:
Voracity is receiving a small reduction in its healing factor to ensure it does not outshine other Minor Augments in its pool that are also being impacted with nerfs this pass.
- Healing decreased from 4% to 3.5%.
Regenerator:
Regenerator is currently allowing too many Heroes to stall out through a lane and is in need of a slight reduction in efficacy. This is primarily being done through an increase to its Healing duration which results in an overall Healing per second decrease, meaning Heroes that keep up the pressure will have an easier time fighting through the Healing and securing kills on their target.
- Total Health Regen decreased from 3 (+2% Missing Health) to 2 (+3% Missing Health)
- Duration increased from 5s to 8s.
Technocrat:
Technocrat reducing Ultimate Cooldowns would contribute to too many disparities between Ultimate Cooldowns and all-in attempts for certain Heroes, with many of its users no longer possessing meaningful windows of downtime between Ultimate uses. As a result, Technocrat will no longer reduce Ultimate Cooldowns.
- No longer reduces Ultimate Cooldowns.
Farmer:
Farmer is seen as difficult to forego for many Junglers due to its overall efficacy. A small reduction in Monster Damage should have the gap in clear speeds between Farmer and non-Farmer users feeling less noticeable, better allowing Jungles to consider other alternatives in the Pool. Likewise, the Minion Damage aspect of Farmer is typically only appreciated in specific matchups, so a small increase is being offered to make it more appealing to various Laners that are looking for some additional shove.
- Minion Damage increased from 7% to 8%.
- Monster Damage decreased from 7% to 6%.
Alchemist:
Much like Regenerator, Alchemist is seeing an increase to its Regen Duration, meaning Heroes that kit dump in trades will restore less mana than those that spread out their ability casts over time.
- Max Mana Regen increased from 2% to 2.5%.
- Duration increased from 4s to 5s.
You can find full patch notes including Hero Balance Changes, Item Changes and Bug Fixes here.