EDIT: This is not the big "balance realignment" patch we talked about in the news letter
Version 2.0.11
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- Added a new Intelligence hero: Empath
* Empath has an alternate avatar, The Mage Empath
- Towers have had their damage normalized to have no damage range, dealing the average value at all times.
- Barracks, when they die, will award the killing team 100 gold for each player. The last hitter gets no bonus.
* In Casual Mode, this gives 150 gold to each player.
- Added cast-range indicator support
*When casting an AoE spell, the AoE will be colored green if you are targeting within range of your hero, yellow if you are out of range, or red if you are trying to target an invalid location. *When casting a direct target spell, the cursor will turn yellow if the target is outside of your range. Green and red still represent ally or enemy casts.
-Gauntlet can now double-activate Grapple and it will go in the direction he is facing and pull the target to right in front of himself.
- Debuffs that are flagged for giving assists will now award an assist if they were actively on a target within 20 seconds of it dying.
*Non-damaging abilities such as Voodoo Jester's Acid Cocktail will gives assists correctly now
- Beardulon has been renamed to Booboo (Boo Boo is back!)
- Fixed Swiftblade's Stringtables
- Fixed a bug that would sometimes allow players to change their vote after voting
- Fixed the scoreboard sometimes showing incorrect info when a player is terminated
- Added new account icons, including 8-Bit Heroes by the community's Aviseras
My take:
I see the implementation of Empath as a very good addition to the hero pool, creating a huge possibility of strategies that don't involve trilanes. One of the main reasons is simply because while she is fairly overpowered, she doesn't benefit much from playing the support trilane role and needs early levels fast to be effective. Heroes like Glacius, Behemoth and Myrmidon simply do a lot better with lesser levels.
Although being promoted as a support hero, I see some very solid solo potential in Empath. Maxing Drain alongside her Aura makes her nearly impossible to be outharassed out of lane. Quick levels on her will also be very beneficial as early health aura will allow her lanemates to withstand more punishment, and could give jungling teammates a much easier time.
It's also not the craziest thing to do to give Empath some farm. An early Astrolabe along with some support or offensive intelligence items could prove deadly, as she's pretty much guaranteed being able to use all of her items as she's invulnerable during her ultimate.
Push strats as well could be made more viable due to her skillset. Remember MSI's 1st game in the World Cup final? Imagine Trixi's Soul Reaper being buffed by an Empath, who also has the luxury of walling off an opponent's tower to prevent a defence from being set-up.
I see the implementation of Empath as a very good addition to the hero pool, creating a huge possibility of strategies that don't involve trilanes. One of the main reasons is simply because while she is fairly overpowered, she doesn't benefit much from playing the support trilane role and needs early levels fast to be effective. Heroes like Glacius, Behemoth and Myrmidon simply do a lot better with lesser levels.
Although being promoted as a support hero, I see some very solid solo potential in Empath. Maxing Drain alongside her Aura makes her nearly impossible to be outharassed out of lane. Quick levels on her will also be very beneficial as early health aura will allow her lanemates to withstand more punishment, and could give jungling teammates a much easier time.
It's also not the craziest thing to do to give Empath some farm. An early Astrolabe along with some support or offensive intelligence items could prove deadly, as she's pretty much guaranteed being able to use all of her items as she's invulnerable during her ultimate.
Push strats as well could be made more viable due to her skillset. Remember MSI's 1st game in the World Cup final? Imagine Trixi's Soul Reaper being buffed by an Empath, who also has the luxury of walling off an opponent's tower to prevent a defence from being set-up.
Links
HoN Forums - Patch Notes
