Bug Fixes

• Soul Rip updated to heal Malthael for its amount spread over up to 3 effects.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused Shroud of Wisdom to not grant Spell Armor against all sources.
• Fixed an issue that caused Angel of Death to be affected by Spellpower modifiers.

Hero Updates

• Difficulty updated from Medium to Hard.

Abilities

• Soul Rip [Q]
  • Soul Rip no longer reveals the area.

Talents

• Level 13
  • Ethereal Existence [Trait]
    • Ethereal Existence will now display a Block visual at maximum stacks.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused Touch of Death to display floating text for healing prevented twice.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Reaper's Mark [Trait]
  • Damage per second increased from 1.75% to 2% maximum Health.

Talents

• Level 7
  • Touch of Death [Active]
    • Cooldown reduced from 25 to 20 seconds.
• Level 13
  • Shroud of Wisdom [Active]
    • Cooldown reduced from 30 to 20 seconds.
• Level 16
  • Memento Mori [Trait]
    • Damage bonus reduced from 90% to 60%.

Developer Comment: We want Malthael to be a more formidable threat overall, and especially when against high health opponents.

Hero Updates

Talents

• Level 4
  • Throwing Shade [E]
    • Additional functionality: Death Shroud's initial impact deals 2% maximum Health as damage.
• Level 16
  • Memento Mori [Trait]
    • Damage bonus increased from 80% to 90%.

Developer Comment: Malthael's talents and overall performance are in a good place but Throwing Shade and Memento Mori have been lesser picked talents for some time. We're adding some new functionality to Throwing Shade to make it more attractive, and buffing Memento Mori's damage bonus to help it compete against his other Level 16 options.

Hero Updates

Talents

• Level 4
  • Throwing Shade [E]
    • No longer has a quest component.
    • Cooldown reduction reduced from 4 to 3 seconds.
    • Mana cost of Death Shroud after taking talent increased from 25 to 30.
• Level 10
  • Tormented Souls [R1]
    • Cooldown reduced from 80 to 60 seconds.
  • Last Rites [R2]
    • Cooldown increased from 65 to 70 seconds.

Developer Comment: Throwing Shade has not really worked out as an interesting Quest talent, as Malthael is often in a solo lane with only one opponent. Rather than gate the benefit behind what is often an arbitrary time gate, we're going to give him its benefits immediately.

Hero Updates

Talents

• Level 4
  • Throwing Shade [E]
    • Quest requirement reduced from 15 to 12
• Level 10
  • Tormented Souls [R1]
    • Mana cost reduced from 100 to 20
• Level 16
  • Mortality [W]
    • Damage increased from 6% to 8% maximum Health

Developer Comment: We read the feedback that it is difficult to capitalize on the cooldown resets on Wraith Strike due to the high Mana cost of casting the ability multiple times. To compensate for this, we are drastically reducing the Mana cost of Tormented Souls, which should make it much easier to get value.

Hero Updates

Talents

• Level 10
  • Tormented Souls (R1)
    • Additional Functionality: When Tormented Souls is cast and when it expires, reset the cooldown of Wraith Strike

Developer Comment: We promised Tomo00 that we would do this in our last AMA. This is us keeping that promise.

Our reasoning behind this change is that we want to make Tormented Souls more interesting, but due to its ease of use and previous meta-defining power, we are hesitant to give mechanics like more Healing, Armor, or Life Steal that simply add power to the Heroic. Instead, we are giving Malthael the ability to create more options for himself by having more opportunities to move around the battlefield with Wraith Strike.

Bug Fixes

• Malthael: Fixed an issue that caused some of Malthael's spell effects to become visible in the fog of war.

Bug Fixes

• Malthael: Fear the Reaper's icon art in the buff bar now correctly matches its icon art in the Talent pane.

Bug Fixes

• Malthael: After learning Black Harvest, quest progress indicators now correctly appear every second while a target is affected by Reaper’s Mark.

Bug Fixes

• Malthael: Reaper's Mark visual effects will no longer persist if the target is killed just before Reaper’s Mark is applied.

Bug Fixes

• Malthael: Fixed an issue with the size of Death Shroud’s area of effect.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Soul Rip (Q)
  • Mana cost increased from 20 to 25
  • Healing reduced from 36 to 25 per target hit
  • Healing from Heroic targets increased from 3% to 4% of the Hero’s maximum Health
• Tormented Souls (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 100 to 80 seconds

Talents

• Level 4
  • Die Alone (Q)
    • Damage bonus reduced from 75% to 50%
• Level 13
  • Soul Siphon (Q) Undocumented
    • Bonus healing from Heroic targets increased from 3.75% to 4.75% of the Hero's maximum Health
• Level 16
  • Soul Collector (Q)
    • Bonus range reduced from 50% to 25%

Developer Comment: Malthael was designed to be powerful in the solo lane, but his dominance in the game’s early laning phase was unrivaled. We’re reducing this by making him heal less when Soul Ripping Minions, but increasing his Hero-only healing so that he can still keep himself alive in late-game team fights. We’re also reducing the power of Die Alone and increasing his Mana tension to taper some of his early game power. By increasing Soul Rip’s Mana usage, we’re also reducing some of the power Malthael had when double-soaking lanes (especially when combined with On a Pale Horse), as he tends to use Soul Rip twice as often when doing so. The overall goal is to reduce the power of a few particularly dominating builds, while making sure that he still feels powerful past the early game.

Bug Fixes

• Genji: Fixed an issue preventing certain cleave attacks, such as Malthael’s Basic Attacks and Xul’s Cursed Strikes, from removing stacks of Genji’s Dodge.

Hero Updates

Stats

• Basic Attacks now cleave in a radius of 3.25 in an arc in front of Malthael
• Damage reduced from 117 to 82

Abilities

• Soul Rip (Q)
  • Healing reduced from 44 to 36 per enemy hit
• Death’s Shroud (E)
  • Width increased from 2.25 to 3
• Reaper's Mark (Trait)
  • Damage reduced from 2% to 1.75% of an enemy's maximum Health
• Tormented Souls (R)
  • No longer applies Armor to Malthael
• Last Rites (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 75 to 65 seconds
  • Malthael can now also gain Quest credit if the enemy Hero dies within 1.5 seconds of Last Rites damage
  • Range increased from 4 to 5

Talents

• Level 4
  • Die Alone (Q)
    • This now once again applies bonus damage if only 1 Hero is marked, even if multiple other non-Heroes are also marked
  • Throwing Shade (E)
    • Reduced the hits needed to complete the quest from 20 to 15
  • Black Harvest (Trait)
    • Quest completion requirement increased from 150 to 180 seconds
• Level 7
  • Massacre (W)
    • Moved from Level 16 to Level 7
  • Touch of Death (Active)
    • Cooldown reduced from 30 to 25 seconds
• Level 13
  • Soul Siphon (Q)
    • Reduced the healing from 4% to 3.75% versus Heroes
  • Ethereal Existence (Trait)
    • Maximum Physical Armor reduced from 40 to 30
• Level 16
  • Mortality (W)
    • Moved from Level 7 to Level 16
    • Damage increased from 4 to 6% of an enemy Hero's maximum Health
• Level 20
  • Reaper of Souls (R)
    • Bonus duration increased from 1 to 2 seconds.
    • Hero Takedowns will now reset the duration instead of increasing it by 4 seconds

Developer Comment: Malthael, while powerful, has relied heavily on Tormented Souls to apply his Reaper's Mark during team fights. By making his Basic Attacks cleave and increasing the usability of Death's Shroud, we're providing more ways to him to apply his Mark to multiple enemies. Not only does this increase his survivability and damage without relying solely on Tormented Souls, it also gives him more options to use Wraith Strike. We've also sought to increase the usability of Last Rites to make it a more enticing Heroic option. Lastly, the ability to apply Reaper's Mark reliably makes it much more powerful, so we've adjusted the tuning of its damage and associated Talents.

Bug Fixes

• Malthael: Movement Speed bonus visual effects will now correctly appear if Malthael learns On a Pale Horse while mounted.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Reaper’s Mark (Trait)
  • Damage reduced from 2.25 to 2% of enemy Hero maximum Health

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Reaper’s Mark (Trait)
  • Damage reduced from 2.5% to 2.25%
• Tormented Souls (R)
  • Armor reduced from 20 to 10

Talents

• ​Level 13
  • Ethereal Existence (Trait)
    • Maximum Physical Armor reduced from 50 to 40

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Tormented Souls (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 80 to 100 seconds

Talents

• Level 4
  • Throwing Shade (E)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 2 to 4 seconds
    • Added functionality:
      • Now also reduces the Mana cost of Death Shroud on quest completion from 50 to 25
• Level 13
  • Ethereal Existence (Trait)
    • Armor reduced from 15 to 10 per Hero hit
    • Maximum Armor bonus increased from 45 to 50
  • Inevitable End (Active)
    • Cooldown reduced from 30 to 20 seconds
• Level 16
  • Memento Mori (Trait)
    • Damage bonus reduced from 100% to 80%
• Level 20
  • Reaper of Souls (R)
    • Added functionality:
      • Now passively increases the duration of Tormented Souls by 1 second

Developer Comment: Death has arrived, and he’s definitely doing his job (somewhat too well). His winrate has climbed a lot faster (and higher) than anticipated, so the majority of these changes are nerfs. In particular, there was really powerful synergy between Trait focused Talent choices and Tormented Souls. We think that by reducing the power of each individual part, it will bring this angel down to Earth.

New Hero

Once the Aspect of Wisdom, Malthael abandoned heaven after the Worldstone’s destruction. In secret, he had resolved to end the Eternal Conflict by becoming a Reaper of Souls and eliminating everything affected by demonic corruption, including humanity.

Trait

• Reaper’s Mark
  • Basic Attacks afflict non-Structure targets with Reaper’s Mark for 4 seconds. Marked enemies are revealed and take damage equal to 2.5% of their maximum Health every second.

Basic Abilities

• Soul Rip (Q)
  • Extract the souls of nearby enemies afflicted with Reaper’s Mark, dealing damage and Healing Malthael for a portion of the damage dealt to each target hit.
  • Heroic targets heal Malthael for an additional 3% of the Hero’s maximum Health.
• Wraith Strike (W)
  • Instantly teleport through an enemy afflicted by Reaper’s Mark, dealing damage and refreshing Reaper’s Mark.
• Death Shroud (E)
  • After 0.25 seconds, unleash a wave of dark mist that applies Reaper’s Mark to the enemies it hits.

Heroic Abilities

• Tormented Strike (R)
  • Gain 20 Armor and unleash a torrent of souls, continually applying Reaper’s Mark to enemies for 4 seconds.
• Last Rites (R)
  • Apply a death sentence to an enemy Hero that, after 2 seconds, deals damage equal to 50% of their missing Health.
  • (!) Repeatable Quest: Enemies killed while under the effect of Last Rites permanently reduce its cooldown by 5 seconds, to a minimum of 15 seconds.