Update #44 Release Notes June 19 2015

New Hero: Penn the Boy Mage

Shepherd's Flock (Passive)

Penn draws energy from Heroes casting abilities nearby. When enough energy has been absorbed, an ethereal Sheep will manifest, which Penn may collect. Only one such Sheep may exist at a time.

Penn gains bonus Special Power for each Sheep he has collected.



Torchflies (Q)

Penn sends a swarm of torchflies from his staff in the targeted direction, dealing decreasing Magic Damage to any enemies it passes through and granting vision in a larger radius. The torchflies will linger at the end of their path for a short duration before returning to Penn when the effect ends or he recasts the ability.

If the torchflies pass through a Sheep, it will be drawn to them and follow the swarm back to Penn.



Battering Ram (W)

Penn conjures a spectral ram and sends it charging in the targeted direction, trampling minions for Magic Damage, and Slowing and dealing Magic Damage to the first struck enemy Hero.



Drover's Road (E)

Penn creates a Drover's Road in the target direction and quickly travels along it. While traveling he is untargetable.The Drover's Road persists for a short duration. During this duration, an additional allied Hero may also travel through it.



Paddock (R - Ultimate)

Penn conjures a fence around target area, trapping enemies within it. Enemies within the area when the fence manifests are dealt Magic Damage.



Heroes

Torrace

Added Torrace's Lore Book.

Penn

Added Penn's Lore Book.

Added new Hero Gear for Penn:

Ramhorn Staff: Penn's Battering Ram deals more damage but applies a weaker Slow.

Torchfly Lantern: When Penn's Torchflies are recalled to him, a few of them stay at the targeted position and grant vision there for a moderate duration.



Quest Balance

Divine Lost Army

Drop off gold reward increased to 175/195/215/235/255 from 120 for the beacon carrier and to 100/115/130/145/160 from 60 for nearby allies.

Drop off experience reward increased to 450/475/500/525/550 from 250 for the beacon carrier and to 270/285/300/315/330 from 125 for nearby allies.



Path to Ascension

Checkpoint finished gold reward increased to 100/110/120/130/140 from 50 for the ascension candidate and to 60/65/70/75/80 from 30 for nearby allies.

Checkpoint finished experience reward increased to 260/285/310/335/360 from 80/100/120/140/160 for the ascension candidate and to 155/170/185/200/215 from 48/60/72/84/96 for nearby allies.



Raise Your Gryphon

Drop off gold reward per critter meat increased to 5 from 3

Drop off experience reward per critter meat increased to 12 from 5

Design Context: Most quests involving substantial map movement were setting participants disproportionately far behind heroes who remained in lane, so we've increased the rewards for partially completing the quests' objectives. Troll's Treasure was left as is since the majority of the time it is a teamfight oriented quest so less relative disadvantage occurs if greater fractions of each team are participating.

Design Context: Most quests involving substantial map movement were setting participants disproportionately far behind heroes who remained in lane, so we've increased the rewards for partially completing the quests' objectives. Troll's Treasure was left as is since the majority of the time it is a teamfight oriented quest so less relative disadvantage occurs if greater fractions of each team are participating.

Gameplay Balance

Increase Siege mode death timers to 10/12/14/16/18/21/24/27/30/34/38/42/46/51/56 from 10/12/14/16/18/20/22/25/28/31/34/38/42/46/50



Increased death timer scaling after 30 minutes to 4% per minute from 2% per minute (still capped at +60%)



Design context: This change is aimed at reducing game length by lengthening the window of opportunity to take objectives after winning fights, especially in the later parts of the game.

Items

Fixed a bug where transforming Soul Snare or Hungering Blade into their respective upgrade while near max Mana or Health resulted in ending up with more Mana or Health than your maximum of that resource.



Fix a bug where Soul Snare was granting less Mana per stack than intended.

Community

Players can no longer upvote Twitch streamers with vice levels.



A player's Twitch stream rating is now displayed at 0 if the player has vice.

Match Making

Removed match search counts and estimated wait times. An average of extremes isn't very useful and for the most part it was just a source of confusion.



Edit: We will be bringing back the tool tip on the matchmaking bar that shows you what modes you have queued up.

User Interface

In-Game

Fixed a bug where a Hero portrait may not show up in the minimap.



Front End

In-game store now detects if the Steam Overlay is disabled. If so, an error message is displayed that shows you how to enable it in the Steam client.



Last Hit Challenge Mode

Fix bug where you couldn't reload your state properly when returning after a skirmish match.



Centered leader's high score in LHC HUD top bar instead of left align.



Updated high score icons for friends, global topmost and global self.



Updated colours slightly on LHC score sorting icons.



Fixed a crash that could occur when resuming a partially completed Last Hit Challenge.

Misc

Numerous optimizations.



Changed Bloodrop to Blooddrop for consistency.



Tweaked the Horen base healing well visual effect.

Orphaned from a young age, Penn was raised on his uncle’s farm, north of the Imperial Mountains. It was a quiet, bucolic existence, learning to look after the herd, baling hay, caring for his aging aunt. Even with his failing eyesight, Penn’s uncle could sense something special about his nephew. The way torchflies seemed to swarm around him, or how the sheep would calm at his touch. His aunt soon came to rely on Penn’s help around the farm. But it was not long before all of that would forever change.Following traces of lingering magic caught in the summer breeze, the Seeker discovered the mysterious child from the northern dells, and offered him a choice. To remain on his family farm, or to set off on a course for adventure, and learn to use his gifts as a mage.