Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused Frostmourne Hungers to not display correctly against Blinded or Evading enemies.

Hero Updates

Base

• Quickcast Settings
  • Removed Sacrifice Ghoul.

Stats

• Health Regeneration increased from 5.957 to 6.208.
• Maximum Health increased from 2860 to 2980.

Abilities

• Death Coil [Q]
  • Healing increased from 262 to 285.
• Frozen Tempest [E]
  • Mana cost per second reduced from 13 to 11.

Talents

• Level 4
  • Icy Talons [E]
    • Added to the Buff Bar.
• Level 13
  • Biting Cold [E]
    • Damage increase is now additive.
• Level 16
  • Embrace Death [Q]
    • Now grants an additive bonus to Death Coil's damage.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused Arthas' abilities to not interact with map objects.

Bug Fixes

• Legion of Northrend's bonus healing is now additive.
• Rime now has a Block visual.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Summon Sindragosa [R2]
  • Sindragosa will now reveal targets hit for 2 seconds. Undocumented

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Howling Blast [W]
  • Range increased from 8 to 9.

Talents

• Level 1
  • Frost Presence [W]
    • Bonus range to Howling Blast reduced from 30% to 20%.
• Level 20
  • Death's Advance [Active]
    • Is now an E talent.
    • New functionality: Increase Movement Speed by 10%. Frozen Tempest's maximum Slow and Attack Speed Slow increased from 40% to 60%.

Developer Comment: Howling Blast has been the same for a very long time, almost since the inception of our game. Many things have changed since then, and we believe a range increase is warranted due to how average ranges of various abilities and effects have changed since that time.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Anti-Magic Shell did not display properly on the Death Recap screen Undocumented

• Army of the Dead Ghouls no longer stop following Arthas when affected by certain abilities.

Hero Updates

Stats

• Health increased from 2782 to 2860.
• Health Regeneration increased from 5.80 to 5.96.

Talents

• Level 7
  • Rune Tap [Passive]
    • Healing increased from 4% to 5% maximum Health.
• Level 10
  • Army of the Dead [R1]
    • Tooltip now states how much damage Ghouls do.
• Level 20
  • Legion of Northrend [R1]
    • Additional functionality: Increase Ghoul Basic Attack damage by 50%.
  • Absolute Zero [R2]
    • Root duration increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds.
    • Slow duration increased from 3.5 to 4 seconds.
  • Death's Advance [Active]
    • Active Movement Speed bonus duration increased from 3 to 5 seconds.
  • Anti-Magic Shell [Active]
    • Duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.

Developer Comment: Arthas is slightly underperforming compared to other Warriors, so we're giving him a small baseline Health buff which we feel is appropriate since he doesn't have the mobility that a lot of other Warriors bring to the table. We've also taken a look at his Level 20 talents and beefed them up all be much more epic.

Hero Updates

Talents

• Level 4
  • Deathlord [Q]
    • Additional functionality: Increase the range of Death Coil by 30%.

Developer Comment: We heard you Kyle and Garrett. We're sorry we took it away. Here, have it back.

Bug Fixes

• Updated the Deathlord's advanced tooltip description.

Hero Updates

Talents

• Fixed Arthas's talents so that they appear in the same order as other Heroes [Q, W, E, etc.]
• Level 4
  • Deathlord [Q]
    • No longer increases the range of Death Coil.
    • Additional functionality: If Death Coil is used on an enemy Hero, its Mana cost is refunded.

Developer Comment: Deathlord has been a fairly awkward talent for a long time, providing Arthas with little output and utility, even when going for a Q build. We're changing it to now give Arthas a fairly potent Poke tool by making it possible for him to infinitely drain the Health of enemy Heroes over time if they stay near him, which should only become more powerful as he gets his other Q talents as the game goes on.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Frozen Tempest (E)
  • Mana cost reduced from 15 to 13 per second

Talents

• Level 4
  • Frozen Wastes (E)
    • Mana cost reduction reduced from 4 to 2 per second

Developer Comment: For Arthas' Mana tension, we decided to give him some of the benefit for taking Frozen Wastes at Level 4 baseline. We still like that he has relatively high Mana tension that he can reduce by taking Eternal Hunger or Frozen Wastes, but we feel that he is currently too dependent on taking one of these talents, so we are reducing the opportunity cost for going with other options.

Developer Comment: As we promised in the past, we took a look at the overall Mana tension of all the Heroes in the game. We also have some philosophies about Mana that we want to keep going forward. They are:

1. Mana should be a meaningful part of the game, particularly in the early stages when wave clear is at a higher premium. We believe that as the game progresses, Mana tension should become less important as Heroes gain more base Mana and the game's focus shifts to team fighting.
2. Mana tension doesn't have to be the same for every Hero, but every Hero should feel it to some degree, otherwise it serves no purpose.
3. We like that some talents heavily mitigate Mana tension.

When we took a look at Mana tension in the game, we saw that, overall, things are in a fairly healthy spot, but could be fine-tuned and improved upon. We like the tension that the heroes who are closer to the middle of the spectrum have, with some examples being Malfurion, Tychus, and E.T.C. Our goal with these changes is to bring the outliers closer to the center. We are open to your feedback going forward if you think that the game needs to be stricter or more lenient in this area, or if you believe there are any outliers that we missed.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Summon Sindragosa (R)
  • No longer disables enemy Summons
  • Enemy Summons are now slowed by 60% for 4 seconds

Developer Comment: This change is primarily being made to address cases where Sindragosa would disable high-impact Summons like Jaina's Water Elemental for exceptionally long periods of time. Now enemy Summons who find themselves in the sights of a giant, undead Frost dragon will only tremble in fear instead of being frozen by it.

Hero Updates

Stats

• Base Maximum Health increased from 2650 to 2782
• Health Regeneration increased from 5.52 to 5.80

Abilities

• Frostmourne Hungers (Trait)
  • Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds

Bug Fixes

• Hero Interactions: Fixed an issue that prevented unique voiceover lines from playing when a clash between two specific Heroes, such as Arthas vs. Uther, resulted in a kill.

Design & Gameplay

Armor

• Baseline Armor has been removed from a number of Heroes. Please see the specific changes to individual Heroes below.

Developer Comment: We have experimented with baseline Armor on some of our Heroes for some time, but we've decided to remove this functionality for now. The problem with it that we've found over time is that baseline Armor was difficult to communicate visually. It therefore ended up being a largely hidden power that didn't have any major changes on gameplay. Going forward, we'll prefer to make Armor—and other mechanics that are effective against Heroes and damage types—more interesting when they are tied to game mechanics. To clarify, while we are removing baseline Armor from Heroes, we still like Armor that is tied to a window of time or has an obvious display on the Hero when it is active. Some examples include Greymane in Worgen form and Cho'gall's Ogre hide.

Hero Updates

Stats

• Base Physical Armor removed.
• Health increased from 2,524 to 2,650.
• Health Regeneration increased from 5.258 to 5.52.

Talents

• Level 1
  • Rime (Passive)
    • Physical Armor bonus increased from 60 to 75.

Bug Fixes

• Arthas: After learning the Shattered Armor Talent, Heroes rooted by Frost Presence’s quest reward will now correctly have their Armor reduced.

Bug Fixes

• Arthas: After Arthas completing the Frost Presence Questing Talent the Shattered Armor Talent will now correctly apply Armor Reduction to Heroes who have been rooted by Howling Blast.

Bug Fixes

• Arthas – The attack speed slow applied by Frozen Tempest is now consistent with what is stated in the ability’s tooltip.

Hero Updates

Stats

• Physical Armor decreased from 15 to 10

Talents

• Level 16
  • Remorseless Winter (E)
    • Root duration from decreased from 1.75 to 1.25 seconds

Developer Comments: We’re happy with the performance of Arthas, particularly as a capable solo-warrior that brings something unique to the team with Frozen Tempest. We’ve added a lot of power to this ability, so we’re reducing his Physical Armor from 15 down to 10 to better enable enemy heroes to get more value by poking him down. We’re also reducing the Root duration of Remorseless Winter to be more in line with similar effects.

Hero Updates

Stats

• Health increased from 2404 to 2524
• Health Regeneration increased from 5.0117 to 5.2578
• Basic Attack damage reduced from 99 to 95

Abilities

• Frostmourne Hungers (Trait)
  • Now deals a bonus 99 damage when hitting enemies (is no longer based on his normal Basic Attack damage)
• Death Coil (Q)
  • Heal increased from 238 to 262
• Frozen Tempest (E)
  • Damage lowered from 26 to 20. Now slows enemy movement speed and attack speed by 10% per second, up to 40%. This now stacks over 4 seconds instead of 5.
  • Now functions as an aura (same as Lucio's Crossfade) when concerning Stuns and Silences
    • If Arthas is Stunned or Silenced, he will not be able to toggle Frozen Tempest on or off, but if it is active it will persist for the duration of the Stun or Silence.
• Army of the Dead (R1)
  • Cooldown lowered from 100 to 80 seconds
  • Mana cost lowered from 100 to 80
  • Ghoul attack damage increased from 18 to 20
  • Ghoul Health increased from 960 to 1060

Talents

• Level 1
  • Block (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Eternal Hunger (Trait)
    • New functionality:
      • !Quest: Using Frostmourne Hungers on an enemy Hero permanently increases the Mana it restores by 4, up to 40
      • !Quest: Using Frostmourne Hungers on an enemy Hero permanently increases its damage bonus by 4
  • Frost Presence (W)
    • New functionality:
      • !Quest: Root 5 heroes to reduce the cooldown of Howling Blast by 2 seconds.
      • !Quest: After rooting 10 heroes, increase Howling Blast's range by 30%. Quest: After rooting 20 heroes, Howling Blast roots enemies on its path.
  • New Talent: Rime (Passive)
    • Every 5 seconds, reduce the next Hero Basic Attack by 60%. Stores up to 3 charges.
• Level 4
  • Biting Cold (E)
    • Moved to Level 13
  • Frozen Wastes (E)
    • New functionality:
      • !Quest: After hitting enemy Heroes 150 times with Frozen Tempest, the Movement and Attack Speed slows of Frozen Tempest last for an additional 1.5 seconds against enemy Heroes.
  • New Talent: Icy Talons (E)
    • Increase Arthas’ attack speed by 3% each time an enemy Hero is hit by Frozen Tempest for 1.5 seconds, stacking up to 60%.
  • Deathlord (Q)
    • Increase the range bonus on Death Coil from 25 to 30%.
    • Increase the cooldown reduction from 2 to 3 seconds.
• Level 7
  • Immortal Coil (Q)
    • New functionality:
      • Bonus healing now applies to self-casting Death Coil.
      • Bonus healing reduced from 100 to 50%.
  • Icebound Fortitude (Active)
    • Reduced the cooldown from 40 to 35 seconds
• Level 13
  • Trail of Frost (W)
    • Removed
  • Frigid Winds (E)
    • Removed
  • New Talent: Shattered Armor (W)
    • Enemy heroes rooted by Howling Blast have their Armor reduced by 15 for 4 seconds.
  • Frost Strike (Trait)
    • Slow increased from 40 to 50%.
  • Biting Cold (E)
    • New functionality:
      • Frozen Tempest does 12.5% increased damage per second to enemies, up to 50% bonus damage (over 4 seconds).
• Level 16
  • Embrace Death (Q)
    • Added Functionality:
      • Now also affects the healing of Death Coil.
• Level 20
  • Anti-Magic Shell (Active)
    • New functionality:
      • No longer provides 100 Spell Armor. Arthas now takes 0 damage from Spells instead and heals for 25% of the damage prevented.

Developer Comment: Arthas has long walked the line between being a bruiser and a tank, though we always intended him to be more of a tank as opposed to a bruiser. With Armor coming into the game, we saw the opportunity to really embrace him being that slow-approach-of-death that he encapsulated so well in Wrath of the Lich King. Arthas's crowd control capability and survivability have been significantly increased in this rework. Now he should really shine as the Warrior to bring to battle if the enemy team has multiple melee Heroes, or just a lot of Heroes who are heavily dependent on their auto- attacks. His damage has been reduced to compensate for the extra control he's getting in team fights. Since he won't put out damage as quickly as he did before, his ability to kill enemies will greatly rely on how long he can keep them trapped inside his Frozen Tempest. Once they're in the Tempest, it will be very difficult for them to escape without enhanced mobility.

Developer Comment: We're currently doing a pass on our Warriors, and want to better separate those intended to be able to solo tank for their team from those who are better identified as “bruisers.” With Armor coming into the game, we also saw an opportunity to make our Warriors have unique roles for their team so that the strongest or most survivable few weren't identified and always favored regardless of the enemy team composition. In this patch, we've taken a pass at both Arthas and Anub'arak to better embrace their roles as solo Warriors for their team. They have both received significant changes, largely with the theme of adding control and/or survivability to their kits at the expense of damage. While we know that players enjoy putting out that DPS, we think that moving them away from damage-heavy roles is a healthier direction for the game, and should make the decision of which Warrior to bring to a team more meaningful. We're also hoping that this direction helps push against the trend of it being the “correct” choice to bring multiple Warriors to a team because some can bring both CC and survivability while also doing almost as much damage as our Assassins.

Bug Fixes

• Arthas: Army of the Dead will no longer fail to summon Ghouls if it is cast in the same moment that Arthas is targeted by Auriel’s Crystal Aegis.

Design & Gameplay

Armor & Vulnerability

Developer Comments: With today’s patch you will notice that a lot of our tooltips that used to reference the Resistant/Vulnerable system have been changed. Matthew Cooper detailed the changes on our forums last month explaining a bit about the new system. While the tooltips may have changed, the actual functionality for the system has been in since the Varian patch hit during the week of November 14, so the game itself should not feel any different than what you are currently used to. You will also notice that we have added baseline Armor to three Heroes – Arthas, Anub'arak, and Greymane’s Worgen Form. These are the first of a handful that we are planning to release and would love to hear any feedback you have. We are hoping that the Armor System will open up future design flexibility, increase the depth of strategy (both in game, and in draft), and grant us another knob to help balance the game.

Hero Updates

Stats

• Now has 15 Physical Armor
• Health decreased from 2582 to 2404
• Health Regeneration decreased from 5.36 to 5.01

Bug Fixes

• Damage Reduction: When two damage reduction effects, such as Resistant (25%) and Hardened Shield (75%), are simultaneously applied to a Hero, the larger effect will no longer be overridden by the lesser effect.

Talents

Relentless

• Relentless and similar Hero-specific Talents will now only reduce the duration of Slows, Stuns and Roots. Silence effects will no longer be reduced by this talent.

Developer Comments: With an increasing number of CC effects entering the Nexus we found ourselves constantly asking ourselves “Should Relentless work against this?” which quickly turned into a rabbit hole of ‘what-ifs’ and ‘how comes’. We agreed that the talent was going to continue to become stronger as we moved forward and decided to limit the number of effects that it can reduce.

Hero Updates

Talents

• Level 4
  • Frozen Wastes (E)
    • Mana cost reduction increased from 3 to 4 Mana Per Second
• Level 7
  • Rune Tap (Passive)
    • Heal amount increased from 3% to 4% of Maximum Health
  • Icebound Fortitude (Active)
    • Cooldown reduced from 50 to 40 seconds

Developer Comments: As part of our ongoing process to improve our talent system, we are doing a pass on all heroes in the game to increase the health of their talent trees. We know that there are a fair number of talents that feel like they are either mandatory or insignificant, and this is our first pass on putting in fixes. These fixes take many forms, and can range from simply buffing or nerfing numbers to changing functionality. We’re excited to keep our heroes feeling fresh, and you can look forward to additional changes to more of our heroes in upcoming patches.

Hero Updates

• Health increased from 2382 (+4% per level) to 2582 (+4% per level)
• Health regeneration increased from 4.96 (+4% per level) to 5.37 (+4% per level)
• Regeneration Master (Talent) removed
• Mercenary Lord (Talent) removed
• Spell Shield (Talent) removed
• Relentless (Talent) removed
• Stoneskin (Talent) removed
• Rewind (Talent) removed
• New Talent (Level 7): Icebound Fortitude
  • Activate to reduce damage taken by 25% and reduce the duration of silences, stuns, slows, roots, and polymorphs by 75% for 3 seconds. 50 second cooldown.
• New Talent (Level 20): Death's Advance
  • Passively increases Arthas’ Movement Speed by 10%. Activate to increase this bonus to 30% for 3 seconds. 50 second cooldown.
• New Talent (Level 20): Anti-Magic Shell
  • Activate to reduce Ability damage taken by 100% for 3 seconds, and heal for 25% of the damage prevented. 60 second cooldown.
• Frostmourne Hungers (Trait) (D)
  • Destruction (Talent) removed.
  • Obliterate (Talent) removed.
  • Eternal Hunger (Talent) has been reworked as a Questing Talent.
    • Quest: Using Frostmourne Hungers on an enemy Hero permanently increases the Mana it restores by 4, up to a maximum of 40.
    • Reward: After hitting 10 Heroes with Frostmourne Hungers, its damage bonus is increased to 125%.
  • Frost Strike (Talent) moved from Level 7 to Level 13
    • Now also reduces the cooldown of Frostmourne Hungers by 2 seconds.
• Death Coil (Q)
  • Death Touch (Talent) removed.
  • Immortal Coil (Talent) moved from Level 16 to Level 7
    • Casting Death Coil on an enemy Hero now restores Health equal to 100% of the damage dealt.
  • Embrace Death (Talent)
    • Damage bonus reduced from 20% to 10% for each 10% of Health missing.
  • New Talent (Level 4): Deathlord
    • Reduces Death Coil’s cooldown by 2 seconds and increases its range by 25%.
• Howling Blast (W)
  • Root duration reduced from 1.5 to 1.25 seconds.
  • Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds.
  • Mana cost reduced from 70 to 60.
  • Frost Presence (Talent)
    • Now reduces Howling Blast’s cooldown by 5 seconds if it hits an enemy Hero.
  • Trail of Frost (Talent)
    • Now also increases the range of Howling Blast by 30%.
• Frozen Tempest (E)
  • Damage per second increased from 48 (+4% per level) to 52 (+4% per level)
  • Biting Cold (Talent) moved from Level 13 to Level 4
    • Damage bonus reduced from 50% to 30%
  • New Talent (Level 13): Frigid Winds
    • Frozen Tempest reduces enemy Attack Speed by 8% per second, up to 40% maximum.
  • New Talent (Level 16): Remorseless Winter
    • Enemies that remain in Frozen Tempest’s area of effect for 3 seconds are rooted for 1.75 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 10 seconds.
• Army of the Dead (R)
  • Ghoul Health increased from 799 (+4% per level) to 960 (+4% per level).
  • Legion of Northrend (Talent)
    • Ghoul bonus Heal amount increased from 25% to 50%.
• Summon Sindragosa (R)
  • Damage reduced from 255 (+4% per level) to 230 (+4% per level).
  • Slow duration increased from 2 to 3.5 seconds.
  • Disable duration against non-Heroic enemies increased from 10 to 20 seconds.
  • Absolute Zero (Talent).
    • Slow duration increased from 2 to 3.5 seconds.

Developer Comments: As one of the very first heroes that we created, and one who hasn’t had many changes since his release, Arthas has been on our radar for some time as a Hero whose Talents needed some sprucing up. In addition to giving him some powerful new Talents befitting of the Lich King, we also moved around and modified many of his options so that he has multiple build paths with different playstyles.

Additionally, we’ve received a lot of feedback from players regarding the popular strategy of chaining movement impairing effects, like Stuns and Roots, on an enemy Hero. While we want this to be a viable way to play, we feel it’s currently too prominent and powerful at higher levels of play. As a result, we are reducing the duration of many of these effects in the game. In scenarios where this change nerfs a character we don’t otherwise want to nerf, we’re coupling it with a buff to help offset the difference. While this change hasn’t reduced all effects that might make you lose control of your Hero, we feel these are some of the more egregious ones. As always, we will make further changes if necessary.

Arthas Talents

• (!) indicates a Questing Talent.
• Italic text indicates a NEW Talent.
• Bold text indicates a MOVED Talent.

Talents

Block

• Damage reduction increased from 50% to 75%

Developer Comments: We want to improve counter-pick talents like Block that are meant to be strong against certain hero types. We’re hoping that these kinds of Talents will have a more meaningful impact in games in which they are picked, and that there are more situations where the enemy team’s composition drives intelligent Talent choices.

Other effects similar to Block have been evaluated on a case-by-case basis for all Heroes, with some gaining increased Block damage reduction, while others stayed at 50%.

Bug Fixes

• Regeneration Globes will now properly grant healing and Regeneration Master stacks when collected as a Shield expires.

Design & Gameplay

Battleground Monsters

• Battleground-specific creatures are now universally defined as Monsters (ex: Neutral Garden Terrors, Sky Temple Guardians, etc.)
• Several Talents and Abilities have been changed to reflect this new categorization, and the following no longer affect Monsters:
  • Mercenary Lord
  • Johanna's Knight Takes Pawn
  • Lunara's Cruel Bloom
  • Rexxar's Easy Prey and Bird of Prey
  • The Butcher's Chop Meat
• The following now affect Monsters:
  • Anub'arak's Beetle, Juiced
  • Azmodan's Demonic Smite
• Several Talents that could previously trigger against both captured Mercenaries and Minions will now only affect Minions (ex: Seasoned Marksman, Black Soulstone, etc.)

General

• Damage dealt by splash and cleave attacks will no longer trigger effects that would otherwise require a direct attack to trigger (ex: Block, Spell Shield, Imposing Presence, etc.)

Talents

Block

• Block charges are now tracked in the buff bar next to the Hero portrait, and a timer has been added to show the time remaining until a new charge is generated.

Hero Updates

• Summon Sindragosa (R)
  • Damage increased from 205 (+4% per level) to 255 (+4% per level)
  • Cooldown increased from 80 to 100 seconds

Developer Comments: We are looking for opportunities to increase the impact that some Heroic Abilities have at the moment they are cast. When it makes sense, we are also looking to increase the cooldown in order to keep the big moments more impactful. This is our first pass at doing this and you can expect to see more changes like these as we move forward with this initiative.

Bug Fixes

• Heroes with the Relentless Talent that become Polymorphed will now properly receive damage from Brightwing’s Unstable Anomaly Talent when Polymorph expires.

Design & Gameplay

Summoned Unit Attacks

• Summoned unit Basic Attacks will now miss if that Summon is Blinded or the target is Evading.
• Summoned unit Basic Attacks will no longer consume Block Talent stacks.

Vehicles and Regeneration Globe Interaction

• Regeneration Globes will no longer heal Dragon Knights and Garden Terrors.
  • Instead, Regeneration Globe effects will now be applied directly to the Hero inside the Dragon Knight or Garden Terror.
• Players within a Dragon Knight or Garden Terror can now also accumulate stacks for Talents such as Seasoned Marksman, Gathering Power, Regeneration Master, etc.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that could allow Arthas’ Summon Sindragosa to be placed on reduced cooldown despite being successfully cast.

Talents

Mercenary Lord

Developer Comments: We’ve combined the talent Superiority into Mercenary Lord, and removed the damage reduction from structures to prevent degenerative backdoor strategies. The combination of the damage reduction vs. Mercenaries and the ability to empower these Mercenaries felt like a logical pairing. We hope incorporating the two talents into one will make this level 4 choice an enticing one, as the two talents separated had a low pick rate.

• The functionality of the Superiority Talent has been rolled into Mercenary Lord, which is now available to the following Heroes at Level 4:
  • Anub'arak, Arthas, Azmodan, Gazlowe, Nazeebo, Sonya, Stitches, and The Lost Vikings
• New combined functionality reads: Non-Boss Mercenaries near your Hero deal 50% more damage. Reduces damage taken from Minions and Mercenaries by 50%.

Superiority

• This Talent has been removed, and its functionality has been rolled into the revamped Mercenary Lord Talent

Talents

Regeneration Master

• Initial +4.0 Health Regeneration removed
• Each Health Globe now grants +1.5 Health Regeneration

Spell Shield

• Duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds

Talents

Regeneration Master

• Now grants 4 Health regeneration upon learning the Talent

Rewind

• Has been moved from Level 13 to Level 20
• Has been removed from many Heroes
• Found on the following Heroes:
  • Anub'arak, Arthas, Brightwing, Nova, Malfurion, Muradin, Murky, Tassadar, Tyrande, Rehgar, Zeratul

New Level 20 Talents

Hardened Shield

• Activate to reduce all incoming damage by 75% for 4 seconds; 60 second cooldown
• Found on the following Heroes:
  • Anub’arak, Arthas, Chen, Gazlowe, Muradin, Sonya, Stitches, Tyrael

Hero Updates

• Envenom (Talent) removed
• Frozen Wastes (Talent) moved from Level 1 to Level 4
• Eternal Hunger (Talent) moved from Level 4 to Level 1
• Basic Attack
  • Rune Tap (Talent)
    • Heal amount reduced from 4% to 3% of maximum Health
• Frostmourne Hungers (Trait)
  • Obliterate (Talent)
    • Search radius increased by 25%
• Death Coil (Q)
  • Mana Cost decreased from 55 to 50
• Howling Blast (W)
  • Mana cost decreased from 75 to 70
  • Frost Presence (Talent)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 2 to 3 seconds
• Frozen Tempest (E)
  • Mana drain increased from 12 to 15 per second
  • Radius increased by approximately 15%
  • Initial damage per second increased from 20 to 26
  • Scaling damage increased from 3 to 4
  • Frozen Wastes (Talent)
    • No longer increases Frozen Tempest’s radius
    • Now decreases Frozen Tempest’s Mana cost by 3 per second
  • Biting Cold (Talent)
    • No longer increases Frozen Tempest’s Mana cost
    • Scaling damage increased from 5.5 to 6
• Summon Sindragosa (R)
  • Cooldown decreased from 90 to 80 seconds
  • Slow duration on Heroes increased from 3 to 4 seconds
  • Absolute Zero (Talent)
    • Hero root duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds
    • Hero slow duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds
• Army of the Dead (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 90 to 100 seconds
  • Initial Ghoul heal reduced from 150 to 104
  • Scaling Ghoul heal reduced from 30 to 24
  • Legion of Northrend (Talent)
    • Ghoul duration bonus changed from a 50% increase to a 5 second increase
    • Now increases Ghoul heal by 25%

Talents

Mercenary Lord

• New functionality
  • Siege and Bruiser Mercenaries now deal 50% increased damage.
  • A player with the Mercenary Lord Talent must be within proximity of Siege and Bruiser Mercenaries in order for them to receive the damage bonus.

Resurgence of the Storm

• This Talent has been removed from the game.

Bug Fixes

• Arthas Ghouls no longer instantly die to Anub'arak’s Web Blast

• Fixed an issue which caused summoned units to deal half damage to Heroes with the Superiority Talent.

• Glow effects for Arthas’ Frostmourne Hungers no longer visually persist through polymorph-type abilities.

Bug Fixes

• Activating the Rewind Talent will no longer refresh cooldowns for certain activated Traits.

Talents

Resurgence of the Storm

• Cooldown increased from 120 to 180 seconds

Rewind

• Now refreshes all Basic Ability cooldowns rather than reducing them by 10 seconds
• Cooldown increased from 60 to 90 seconds

Hero Updates

• Frozen Tempest (E)
  • Mana cost increased from 10 per second to 12 per second

Hero Updates

• Rune Tap (Talent)
  • Healing amount reduced from 6% to 4% of maximum Health

Bug Fixes

• Ghouls summoned by Arthas’ Army of the Dead will no longer instantly die when Arthas is caught by Zagara’s Devouring Maw.

Bug Fixes

• Heroes are no longer automatically dismounted when attempting to cast Envenom on a target that is out of range.

• Mercenary Camps that are captured simultaneously by one team with the Mercenary Lord Talent, and one without, no longer causes the Mercenaries from both Camps to gain the Mercenary Lord buff.

Talents

Block

• Has been moved from Level 7 to Level 1

Rewind

• Has been moved from Level 16 to Level 13

Spell Shield

• The functionality of this talent has changed.
• Upon taking Ability Damage, now gain a shield that reduces all Ability Damage taken by 50% for 2 seconds. This can only occur once every 30 seconds.

With the addition of Artifacts, the following generic Talents have been removed:

• Minion Killer
• Path of the Assassin
• Path of the Warrior
• Path of the Wizard

Hero Updates

• Death Coil (Q)
  • Death Touch (Talent)
    • Moved from Level 1 to Level 7
    • Now deals 100% splash damage in small radius around the target Minion

Talents

Regeneration Master

• Health regeneration increased from 3 to 4 per stack

Talents

Path of the Warrior

• Health gained per level increased from 25 to 35.

Hero Updates

• Frostmourne Hungers (Trait) has been changed
  • Can be activated to cause Arthas’s next basic attack to deal 100% increased damage, and returns 30 mana when a target is hit.
  • Supporting Talents have been reworked
• Frost Strike (Q) and its supporting Talents have been removed.
• New Ability (Q): Death Coil
  • Targeted ability, medium range, deals damage if used against an enemy, or heals Arthas if cast on himself
  • New Talent (Level 1): Death Touch
    • Death Coil will instantly kill minions.
  • New Talent (Level 16): Embrace Death
    • Death Coil deals 20% more damage for each 10% of health Arthas is missing.
  • New Talent (Level 16): Immortal Coil
    • Death Coil will now always heal Arthas. If Death Coil is used to heal Arthas, the amount healed is increased by 50%.
• Frozen Tempest
  • Now applies a stacking move speed slow of 6% per second, up to 5 stacks
    • Remorseless Winter Talent previously did this and has been removed
  • Mana cost per second increased from 8 to 10
  • Biting Cold (Talent) is now accessible at level 13 instead of 16
• Army of the Dead
  • Cooldown increased from 80 to 90 seconds
• Summon Sindragosa
  • Cooldown reduced from 100 to 90 seconds
  • Search width increased from 5 to 8
  • Damage gained per level increased from 10 to 15
• Rune Tap (Talent)
  • Health restore reduced from 8% to 6%

Hero Updates

• Basic Attack damage increased from 55 (+5 per level) to 59 (+6 per level).
• Frost Strike damage increased from 60 (+11 per level) to 80 (+15 per level).
• Frostmourne Hungers
  • Basic Attack damage bonus from 20% to 40%.
  • Duration increased from 4 to 6 seconds.
• Rune Tap now requires 3 stacks for an 8% heal, rather than 5 stacks for a 10% heal.