4.9.2 - Patch Discussion

[ElementUser 839]

 

 

Feel free to discuss the 4.9.2 patch, now that you are able to play games on this patch version of HoN  

[GiyuTamioka 1]

Good afternoon, I would like to know what happened to the taunt, ward, tp effect miku? why did he leave the store?

[ElementUser 839]

13 minutes ago, _ChrisM said:

Good afternoon, I would like to know what happened to the taunt, ward, tp effect miku? why did he leave the store?

 

[Lunarios 65]

I love the Cthuluphant change, it allows the hero to Jungle as well (for those who like it), while strengthening his identity as a Tank that handles punishment very well.

The Adrenaline change feels on point, giving him stronger 1v1 laning presence, more reliable late-game magic DPS, and more comfortable farming ability; all while trading for his ability to engage successfully and dominantly against multiple opponents. This in turn increases Adrenaline's dependency on items, and helps define his role as more of an Initiator/Semi-Carry.

I saw a discussion regarding Circe's mana issues, while I have to disagree with the points raised in the discussion saying that Circe has mana issues. Circe's mana issues are quite easily solved by purchasing Chalice and Manatube (early preparation towards a Stormspirit), or perhaps even Ioyn Stone while being active with guarding runes. I believe that with proper gold management and accurate last-hits, as well as utilization of the Pull camps for self-gain, Circe's issues will dissipate.

Pandamonium QoL changes are very appreciated.

Kraken's Ultimate restrain is a very welcome change.

Plague Rider Extinguish cooldown reduction buffs his Offlane presence, while the cooldown reduction on his Ultimate allows him to be more active in teamfights.

Rampage buff is very well felt, allowing him to have greater impact in the right hands with the right items.

A very interesting take on Shadowblade's E form, perhaps even artistic in nature. Turning a mechanic into an entity of its own, by increasing the mana cost of a double usage of the INT form; basically allowing a double-stun with extra magical damage at a greater mana cost. In addition, a welcome buff to Shadowblade's STR form.

I personally like the positive armor value reductions on auras, as it increases the value of armor and weakens heavy push strategies - strategies which have a tendency to be heavily one-sided in their outcome.

I am rather uncertain about the price tag on the Sacrificial Stone, but perhaps the price tag was too low beforehand. 

The restrain on FWS activation is a much needed buff to a less picked item.

The +30% spell damage on grimoire activation feels somewhat...less likely to be effective, to me, personally. As in my view - the item will be picked in the more later stages of a game, and at that point, damage is abundant - while cooldown is the more limiting factor. Perhaps, if it were possible at a later time, to change the +30% spell damage into something such as "Activate to instantly reduce all ABILITY cooldowns by 30%" in addition to the passive 20% global cooldown reduction (in a multiplicative manner which totals 44% reduction together) with a, let's say, 240 second cooldown (192 after passive) (The activation portion allows a more controlled cooldown reduction component, limiting the options for the item to spiral out of control with certain abilities); the item would have a more defined role with a very strong incentive to be picked with certain heroes in certain builds.

Orb of Zamos, Grave Locket and Ultor's Heavy Helm - very welcome buffs.

Those are my opinions regarding this patch; a patch which, to me, is very well-thought of and cleanly done.

 

 

 

As an additional note, I feel there is much room for minor fixes and changes towards existing content that could greatly smoothen and improve the overall Heroes of Newerth experience; so patches like this that focus on current content are really good.

Edited April 3, 2021 by Lunarios
Corrected grammar and spelling

[Jetddos 6]

There's a tooltip bug about Kraken's ultimate. It says you are restrained while in the center of Release the Kraken!, but the restrain applies even if you are not in the center 

[Physiker 5]

Hi all,

 

as said before very nice patch. But the PR buff is way too much - 15seconds on E is crazy. You deny way too much gold with E early on - just keep the medium camp warded ofc. Besides you can permantly stack and take ancients while being available in the game. Please reset the values in between something of old and new. 

[Ladonien 15]

This patch was pretty good so far. Kinda reminds me of what playing hon was like for a year ago or two, basically it felt stable in a way that you did not for example pick something just because it would guarantee the win but instead pick in terms of counterplay/what you like to play

 

Even though Grimore of Power is in the right direction with its new activation, it just feels a bit awkward that you have to activate it I think. Just thought the legacy version of Grimoire of Power was pretty awesome on a hero like Pebbles or Pyromancer, but now on Pebbles for example, it seems pretty meh that you have to have some downtime for that 30% extra ability damage. 

 

Usually patches like these usually bring back heroes like Ravenor or Legionnaire, who are usually considered OP when most of the heroes that have been OP got nerfed hard. 

 

But if there would be anything in this patch that I did not like, then it would be the Ghost Marchers change. Kinda thought they were the speedboots but they are the same passive ms as Steamboots, and they were also nerfed from before (correct me if I'm wrong), the Phased effect was like 6 or 7 seconds before and now it is like 3 or 4 seconds. Seems like the Steamboots meta is coming back like it used to be in 2012/2013 era except that you buy it on heroes where you want the Phased effect like Zephyr. The Damage nerf I don't mind, but still its high damage was kinda the selling point of choosing those over Steamboots. 

[AgentZer0 18]

14 hours ago, Ladonien said:

This patch was pretty good so far. Kinda reminds me of what playing hon was like for a year ago or two, basically it felt stable in a way that you did not for example pick something just because it would guarantee the win but instead pick in terms of counterplay/what you like to play

 

Even though Grimore of Power is in the right direction with its new activation, it just feels a bit awkward that you have to activate it I think. Just thought the legacy version of Grimoire of Power was pretty awesome on a hero like Pebbles or Pyromancer, but now on Pebbles for example, it seems pretty meh that you have to have some downtime for that 30% extra ability damage. 

 

Usually patches like these usually bring back heroes like Ravenor or Legionnaire, who are usually considered OP when most of the heroes that have been OP got nerfed hard. 

 

But if there would be anything in this patch that I did not like, then it would be the Ghost Marchers change. Kinda thought they were the speedboots but they are the same passive ms as Steamboots, and they were also nerfed from before (correct me if I'm wrong), the Phased effect was like 6 or 7 seconds before and now it is like 3 or 4 seconds. Seems like the Steamboots meta is coming back like it used to be in 2012/2013 era except that you buy it on heroes where you want the Phased effect like Zephyr. The Damage nerf I don't mind, but still its high damage was kinda the selling point of choosing those over Steamboots. 

I second the Ghost Marchers point. At the very least rebuff phased effect to 5-6 seconds and/or increase MS addition to 65 to still hold a speed niche over Steamboots.

Edit: Just to explain myself more thoroughly, I've always been a diehard advocate for Steamboots because as a mid player I truly believe its raw strength + stat-swap paired with bottle/power supply makes Steamboots the significantly better boots choice for the majority of the hero pool. Imo this was still true when Ghost Marchers offered good competition with +70MS, +24 damage, and at least 4s of phase. So, following this line of thought, nerfing Ghost Marchers to not offer any base speed upgrade v.s. Steamboots doesn't feel the right way to go. That being said, I don't anticipate its usage to seriously drop - many players that have preferred Ghost Marchers will still opt for it, but from a competitive balance standpoint (to the extent I watch comp. games and play in a reasonably high bracket) there's now almost no reason to pick up Ghost Marchers over Steamboots. 

Edited April 5, 2021 by AgentZer0

[AgentZer0 18]

8 hours ago, Diabetis said:

Yet ghost marchers vs steamboots ratio in higher games is still 9-1 or higher...

I basically took a random sampling of players from a high bracket game - https://hon-stats.herokuapp.com/match/161264747 - and guesstimated their boots preferences from their last 20+ games:

https://hon-stats.herokuapp.com/player/shorkan - looks like 7-3 split in favor of steamboots

https://hon-stats.herokuapp.com/player/_AP0CALYPSE_ - 9-1 split in favor of ghost marchers

https://hon-stats.herokuapp.com/player/Bazooi - 6-4 split in favor of steamboots

https://hon-stats.herokuapp.com/player/AKUM4` - all ghost marchers

https://hon-stats.herokuapp.com/player/CaptainHuGGe - 5-5 split 

https://hon-stats.herokuapp.com/player/LilRedPanda - 6-4 split in favor of ghost marchers

https://hon-stats.herokuapp.com/player/RaketLeffe - 6-4 split in favor of steamboots

https://hon-stats.herokuapp.com/player/Y - all striders

https://hon-stats.herokuapp.com/player/`Command - 9-1 split in favor of ghost marchers

Playing initiator/carry roles mostly I'm pretty biased towards Steamboots, but it looks like in general ghost marchers seem to be significantly favored at least from this sampling so I'm off the mark. A nerf was clearly warranted, so I'm curious now to see how much players will shift their boots preferences. Another thing I noticed from the sampling was how fairly balanced boots choices were with significant representation from striders, mana boots, and plated greaves as well. 

 

[Lunarios 65]

I think it mostly depends on the hero and the preferred playstyle. With some heroes I like striders, some heroes I like ghost marchers, and some I like steamboots. Usually, the heroes that I pick striders have some sort of innate gap-closing ability + the heroes are required to move a large distance in a short amount of time on a regular basis (Deadwood offlane with his tree-walk, Fayde offlane with her invisibility, sometimes I even pick striders on Night Hound for a quick gank and return to off-lane for exp/gold). If I pick steamboots, either the hero has a teleportation ability, or I'm probably going to buy a Portal Key on that hero - as it's really difficult to close gaps with steamboots. Ghost Marchers is my preferred choice for heavy gankers and heroes that benefit greatly from a quick initiation from the fog - as in, they do not need the bonus speed to travel to the target location as in with striders, but they need the extra movement speed from the moment they are seen until primary contact with the enemy / or a few extra seconds of chase speed advantage after contact (Ghost Marchers being 3 seconds is just about the right amount of time for the speed boost) (Solstice, Rampage, Adrenaline, Rally)

Edited April 6, 2021 by Lunarios

[ElementUser 839]

Balance hotfix patch notes are released for 4.9.2.1: 

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by ElementUser

[w3_StarBoy 12]

Grinex: Why me ?

[Ladonien 15]

Thanks for the 4.9.2.1 patch ElementUser! Good decisions once again similiar to 4.9.2. 

[hydraraid 2]

I know it does not come to the topic but I would like to know if you have information on a new hero

 

[Lunarios 65]

Just a little note regarding Cthuluphant - I read in the forums regarding a "bug" that relates to Cthulu Ulti not activating correctly through fog, which was said to be fixed internally.

That combined with an increased radius of 2000 from 900 basically means that with a SotM + Barbed, you have a 2000 radius legionnaire taunt that goes through fog, that is very likely to hit all the enemy team.

As much as I would like it to happen because I'm probably gonna do that every second game, my conscience tells me that I should at least write about it to point it out before it does come out.

(I suppose this wasn't a very popular topic before because of the low range + lack of activation through fog, but this is going to be pretty nuts) 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Lunarios

[Mr`Cactus 47]

5 minutes ago, Lunarios said:

Just a little note regarding Cthuluphant - I read in the forums regarding a "bug" that relates to Cthulu Ulti not activating correctly through fog, which was said to be fixed internally.

That combined with an increased radius of 2000 from 900 basically means that with a SotM + Barbed, you have a 2000 radius legionnaire taunt that goes through fog, that is very likely to hit all the enemy team.

As much as I would like it to happen because I'm probably gonna do that every second game, my conscience tells me that I should at least write about it to point it out before it does come out.

(I suppose this wasn't a very popular topic before because of the low range + lack of activation through fog, but this is going to be pretty nuts) 

Maddening Revenge is his 3rd ability, not his ultimate

[Lunarios 65]

2 minutes ago, Mr`Cactus said:

Maddening Revenge is his 3rd ability, not his ultimate

Oh ok then, then everything is good!

Maybe I need to play Cthuluphant more to remember that

Edited April 14, 2021 by Lunarios