Version 43303 Release Notes for Sins of a Dark Age March 9 2015

New Hero Exclusive Gear

Fellfury Helm When Berserker's Rage expires, Drengar maintains a small amount of Rage.



Bonehollow Blade If Drengar's Lunging Sweep hits an enemy hero, its cooldown is partially refreshed.



Dualcrank Crossbow Torrace fires two Rocket Bolts instead of one, each bolt dealing reduced Physical Damage. Enemies cannot be hit by multiple bolts.



Scattershot Bolts Torrace's Triple Shot deals reduced Attack Damage against the primary target but deals increased Splash Damage to all enemies nearby.



Harvest Horn Serewyn's Seeds of Renewal grant additional Health and Mana over time.



Poisonbriar Talisman Enemies hit by Serewyn's Thorn Barrage ability take additional Magic Damage over time.



Two-Handed Blade Vallamere's first basic attack after activating Might of the Empire deals additional Attack Damage.



Bolstering Shield Vallamere's Chivalrous Defense ability grants his target ally additional Movement Speed.



Blade Vane Ziri's Cut and Run ability has a narrower cone but the knives travel farther.



Shadowburst Shuriken If Ziri's Trick Shot strikes an enemy after the shuriken has split, it deals bonus Physical Damage.



Sunblossom Shell While Renewing Carapace is active Beroth gains bonus Mana Regeneration.



Sunderwood Mauler Beroth's Power Crush ability deals bonus Magic Damage against his target, if no enemy units are in range to take Splash Damage



Echoing Mantle Lithoron's Aftershock ability deals reduced Magic Damage, but triggers twice in short succession.



Shard Plate While Stone Shield is active, basic attacks against Lithoron cause him to deal Magic Damage in radius around himself.



All Heroes will be receiving exclusive gear, the rest just aren't done yet.





All Hero Gear now plays a unique sound when its selected.

Items

Items that grant bonus Critical Strike Damage are no longer exclusive, however Critical Strike Damage no longer stacks cumulatively with itself. In other words, a hero is only granted the largest value of Critical Strike Damage it gains from a single item. For example if a hero had both Tyrant's War Maul (+25% Critical Damage) and Axe of Oblivion (+50% Critical Damage), then their final Critical Damage would be +50% (not +75%).





Added a new AttackDamageBlock ItemExclusivityType for use on items that reduce the amount of damage suffered from basic attacks. The following items have gained this new property:

Ancestral Plate

Chilling Chestplate

Neroth's Hide

Neroth-Slayer's Mail

Vampiric Plate

Revenguard



Belt of Vigor

Now builds from Bracelet of Vigor with a recipe cost of 750 (total cost reduced to 1275 from 1375)

All items building from Belt of Vigor have had their recipe cost increased by the difference



Chilling Chestplate

Recipe cost reduced to 950 from 1000 (total cost reduced to 3800 from 4220)

No longer has a random chance to cause attackers to be Slowed or reduce their Attack Speed

Damage Block reduced to 20 from 30

Added AttackDamageBlock ItemExclusivityType.



Cloak of Protection

Now builds from Hood of Protection with a recipe cost or 425 gold (total cost reduced to 850 from 950)

All items building from Cloak of Protection have had their recipe cost increased by the difference.



Great Sword

Cost reduced to 1840 from 1925

All items building from Great Sword have had their recipe cost increased by the difference.



Long Sword

Cost reduced to 920 from 950

All items building from Long Sword have had their recipe cost increased by the difference.



Mace

Cost reduced to 1110 from 1180

All items building from Mace have had their recipe cost increased by the difference.



Mage Staff

Price reduced to 900 (from 925)

All items building from Mage Staff have had their recipe cost increased by the difference.



Mail Armor

Now builds from Leather Armor with a recipe cost of 610 (total cost reduced to 950 from 1050)

All items building from Mail Armor have had their recipe cost increased by the difference.



Mending Amulet

Cost reduced to 425 from 495

All items building from Mending Amulet have had their recipe cost increased by the difference.



Onslaught Blade

No longer loses stacks when switching targets, but only builds stacks when attacking enemy Heroes or Minions. Attacks against Structures will refresh the duration of the buff but not grant a stack.



Rapier

Cost reduced to 1450 from 1475

All items building from Rapier have had their recipe cost increased by the difference.



Renewing Amulet

Cost reduced to 400 from 450

All items building from Renewing Amulet have had their recipe cost increased by the difference.



Revenguard

Damage Block reduced to 10 from 15

No longer passively shocks enemies for 40 (+0.1 SP) Magic Damage when they attack you.

Now has Active: For 3 seconds enemy hero basic attacks against you will shock them for 100 (+0.4 SP) Magic Damage and push them back.

Added AttackDamageBlock ItemExclusivityType.



Shortsword

Name changed to 'Short Sword'.



Slime Shield

Recipe changed to Leather Armor + Mending Trinket + 930 gold from Mail Armor + Mending Trinket + 685 gold

Total cost reduced to 1500 from 1870

Armor reduced to 40 from 50

No longer has a random chance to cause attackers to be Slowed (but still reduces Attack Speed).



Vampiric Plate

Base Damage Block reduced to 10 from 15

Crit proc Damage Block now increases the normal Damage Block by 5 (instead of 10) whenever you deal a critical hit.

Added AttackDamageBlock ItemExclusivityType.



Wizard Scepter

Price reduced to 1800 (from 1875)

All items building from Wizard Scepter have had their recipe cost increased by the difference.



Heroes

Fixed a bug with Khagas's Heroic Shot not passing through minions.



Vallamere's Might of the Empire: Splash damage will now scale off damage dealt to the primary target BEFORE damage mitigation (instead of AFTER damage mitigation).

Misc Gameplay

Fixed a bug where Tower attack damage wasn't properly ramping up on consecutive attacks vs the same Player owned target.

Front End

Cleaned up layout of Options->Controls



Fixed castle colors and size on region select maps.

HUD and User Interface

Players can now control the quickcast behavior of secondary actions of all abilities that have a targeted secondary action. (e.g. Ziri's Knife Flurry). This can be changed in Options->Controls->Advanced Casting.



Updated Mute Text and Voice buttons on In Game Score Sheet, and adjusted layout to accommodate for the extra button.

Misc

Made various optimizations.



Reduced bandwidth required.



Refined network code to help prevent packet loss.



Fixed bug that allowed twitch streamer to sometimes give rewards to themselves.

Warning

All match making configurations have been reset



All hero picking preferences have been reset (default skin and hero kit page that are set when you pick a hero).

Introducing a new class of Hero Gear that can only be equipped by specific Heroes. Each piece is designed to modify the behavior of one of the Hero's unique abilities adding greater gameplay customization and strategic planning.