Patch 2.0

**Patch 2.0** is one of the Patches from the game Orcs Must Die! Unchained.

## Prologue

A few months ago, we decided to focus work on OMDU toward larger scale
changes to some core systems.

### The Good

The game itself is just “better” and “more.”

We added bosses.
 There is an entirely new weaver model. Heroes level and become more powerful
 during matches. Combat is more interesting and is easier to parse. Hero
 abilities have been reworked. Players can now customize their Heroes with
 trait builds. The maps have been refined. Ranged combat is far more
 rewarding. Card packs and gibs have been replaced with a simple, direct
 “purchase with skulls” system. There are numerous new Traps. The offensive
 and defensive jobs are split up now, allowing far more control and strategy
 around Trap-building and Minion-leading. The Minion model is brand-new. A
 large number of uninteresting choices (particularly with some Minions,
 items, and Traps) have been replaced by things that are interesting.

And on and on. If you don’t read through all of the notes, trust me –
 there’s a lot of new stuff and the game is fun.

### The Bad

The original plan was to use this time to do a little work on the core
 game and a lot of work on the supporting “stuff.” Stuff like tournaments and
 making it easier to chat or find games.

Instead, we ended up
 spending the majority of our time on the core game. Which is great. But it
 means many of the “support” things have not been implemented or improved.

A very noticeable absence because of the work we decided to tackle
 will be the heroes. There are no new heroes. In fact, we have disabled some
 of the heroes we had in play before. We simply did not have time to rework
 all of them the way we wanted.

These things are still planned,
 they’ll just take some more time.

### The Ugly

There are a number of things in this build that are somewhat broken or
 wrong. (Remember: This is a real beta.) In the end, we had a decision to
 make – update the game with those things broken or tell you guys that you
 were going to wait a few more weeks. We decided it was better to deliver and
 fix the problems later.

Some of these issues will be mentioned in the
 notes below. If you happen to find yourself talking to someone who is
 perplexed by something that is broken, you can help us out by explaining
 things.

Remember: We’re still in beta.

Thanks for the patience
 and have fun, we look forward to seeing you in the Phase 2 test --

- Ian Fischer, aka “Mother”, Lead Designer on OMDU

## Gameplay Changes

### Separation of Heroes into offensive and defensive roles

* We have seen new OMDU players have difficulty trying to manage
 offense and defense. Many players have a hard enough time dealing with
 either of these and often make things worse when they attempt both. For
 example, many defenders have choice words for offensive players who stop
 by to spew random Traps around their kill-box….
* All Heroes now have a suggested role. This role determines their
 starting resources.
* The total starting resources are the same for every game, no matter
 how many offensive or defensive heroes are on a team. Hero role just
 determines the split of the resources. If you’re the only “defense” Hero
 on a team, for example, you’ll get 100% of the starting Coin. If you’re
 one of five “defense” Heroes on a team, you’ll each get a fifth of the
 starting Coin.
* Resources are now less shared. Players earn more Coin or earn more
 Leadership by “doing.” If you’re defending, you’ll see more Coin. If
 you’re leading Minions, you’ll have more Leadership.
* Trap and Minion caps are team-shared. Players no longer have
 individual Trap limits, nor does each member of a team have a dedicated
 slot at a war camp. One player could (technically) place all of the
 Traps or all of the Minions.
* This gives players more focus. Defenders can concern themselves
 primarily with defense and need not worry about sending waves. In
 addition, players have more control within their role. Defenders, for
 example, start with and earn most of the Coin, so they place most of the
 Traps, which gives them a lot more say in how those Traps are organized.
* This does not mean you are limited to playing any one Hero in a
 specific way. The assigned role is just our suggestion.

### Traps

* You no longer need to have multiple Traps in your inventory. Traps
 do still have placement limits, but you only need one Trap card to place
 multiple copies of a Trap.
* Normal Traps are no longer triggered by players. These did little
 damage before, so having them not trigger on players isn’t much of a
 loss in terms of damage, but it does cut down on visual noise and lame
 strategies like running around in an enemy Trap box to set off
 everything ahead of a wave.
* Glory Seeker Traps are still triggered by players.
* Overall, Trap disable has been greatly reduced in effectiveness
 (this is primarily available from certain Hero upgrades now too). We
 didn’t want disable to be a required strategy and we don’t like players
 working to make a good Trap box only to then see the entire thing
 disabled.
* Selling Traps is more punishing. Sold Traps now return 50% of their
 cost instead of 75%. (This is because we felt selling and replacing
 Traps was too common and not enough of a decision.)
* Current Trap set:
	+ **Anti-Magic Field** – This Trap removes glyph effects from Minions
	 that cross it and silences passing enemy Heroes briefly.
	+ **Arrow Walls** – A number of the old variants have been removed.
	 The normal Arrow Walls, Fire Arrow Walls, and Glory Seeker Arrow
	 Walls are active.
	+ **Ballistae** – A number of the old variants have been removed. The
	 normal Ballista, the Cursed Ballista, and the Glory Seeker Ballista
	 are active. All Ballistae target in a full 360 degree arc now,
	 rotation does not matter.
	+ **Barricade** – An old favorite that makes a huge difference in the
	 design of your killbox. Be careful using too many of these and not
	 enough damage Traps. Original versions and the Great Wall (2x1) are
	 in the game.
	+ **Boulder Chute** – Triggered and does more damage with higher
	 placement. The damage is a shorter duration now. The default version
	 and the Iceberg version are in the game.
	+ **Brimstone** – Variants have been retired, only normal Brimstone is
	 currently in the game.
	+ **Cursed Ground** – No more Greater Cursed Ground but this one still
	 does Arcane damage to Minions atop it. This Trap now uses charges.
	+ **Floor Scorcher** – Directional, pop-up floor Trap that does fire
	 damage. (Note that it does not flip Minions atop it when it fires.)
	+ **Floor Spikes** – All variants of this Trap have been retried but
	 the default spikes are still around (and fairly important in many
	 early games).
	+ **Grinder** – Anything close gets a good grinding.
	+ **Hammer Drop** – This Trap requires a 2x2 ceiling space to place
	 but only does damage in a 1x1 corner of the Trap. Good against
	 larger, higher health Minions.
	+ **Healing Well** – Allied players near this Trap regain health.
	+ **Ice Vent** – Floor Trap that does frost damage (remember, frost
	 stacks and can freeze enemies).
	+ **Mana Well** – Allied players near this Trap regain mana.
	+ **Pounder** – Normal and concussive pounders are currently in the
	 game.
	+ **Powerups** – These Traps occasionally drop powerups that can be
	 picked up by allied players. There are shield (armor) and attack
	 (damage) variants of this Trap.
	+ **Shock Zapper** – The regular and Glory Seeker versions of the
	 Shock Zapper are currently in the game.
	+ **Speed Pad** – This is a support Trap. When charged, allied players
	 moving across it gain a movement speed increase for a brief time.
	 Excellent for speeding up movement between lanes.
	+ **Steam Vent** – Slows larger Minions but launches smaller Minions
	 skyward.
	+ **Swinging Mace** – As before, but now capable of hitting things and
	 doing damage.
	+ **Tar Trap** – Normal and Viscous variant are currently in the game.
	+ **Wall Blades** – Normal Wall Blades and the Charged (electrical
	 damage) variant are currently in the game.
	+ **Web Spinner** – Wall Trap that fires webs, slowing enemy Minions
	 much like a Tar Trap.

A note on Trap-Minion balance: Traps and Minions have been through a lot
 of changes in the beta. Originally, a lot of balance work was around
 elemental damage types (i.e., fire does more damage to Ogres). This was bad
 because it relied on luck – if you had the right Traps in your deck and
 built them, you’d do very well. If you guessed wrong, you had no hope.

In the current balance, there are still Traps or damage types that are
 better or worse against certain Minions, but the most important factor is
 the overall strength of your Trap setup. How well you set up your Traps and
 how many Traps you have. You need to keep building a deeper and deeper Trap
 setup to stay ahead of the enemy’s Minions.

### Bosses

* You’ll notice a new slot at the war camp for boss minions.
* At the start of a game, the boss slot is locked. When a team first
 levels a war camp to three, the Captain will appear in this slot. One
 wave later, he will spawn.
* The Captain now only spawns once. He no longer spawns automatically
 at every war camp or at both level three and level four.
* Once the Captain has spawned, the boss slot is available at all
 camps that are at least level three. A team can only slot one boss at a
 time and bosses take one round, after they are slotted, to arrive.
* Bosses do not repeat like other minions. They spawn one time, and
 then the boss slot is emptied.

### War Camps

* Teams can now choose which war camp opens at the start of a match.
 If a selection is not made, the default camp is opened after 30 seconds.
* After camps are opened, there are 30 more seconds before the wave
 begins. This is to give the teams some time to set traps before the
 Minions arrive.
* There are changes coming to this, but for now your camp selection is
 revealed to your opponent as soon as it is made (it should be hidden and
 both revealed at the same time) and your gate becomes attackable as soon
 as you make your selection. The time provided to set up traps is also
 probably too short. These will be changed. Soon.
* Wave time has been changed to 100s, up from the previous 90s. We
 found adding just a little more time made things easier for players to
 manage.
* There are no longer hero-assigned slots at war camps. There are
 simply three slots at a camp for minions. Any player with the leadership
 required can slot waves.
* If you see an eyeball above a slot at the war camp, it means one of
 your teammates is looking at Minions to go in that slot. Once a Minion
 is slotted, it’s locked until it spawns once (to prevent players from
 stomping on each other’s cards.)
* Cards you have placed in a slot may be removed via the ‘Sell’
 button, which refunds your Leadership at full value.
* Your Minion cards are kept in your Spellbook, which will pop up when
 you select a slot at the War Camp. The correct War Camp level will
 automatically be displayed. You cannot slot lower level cards in a War
 Camp any longer.
* Decks only allow two Minion cards of each War Camp Level now.
 (Remember also that you don’t need duplicates anymore.)
* Boss Minions are also in your Spellbook and will appear when you
 select the boss slot at a War Camp.
* War Camps cannot be upgraded for a few seconds after they are
 leveled to prevent accidental overspend. If you’re wildly clicking the
 button, don’t worry, you won’t lose Leadership by accident.

### Minions

* We stripped down all the Minions. (Not like that! Sheesh you guys!)
 I meant that we re-balanced Minions as well as Traps, and how Minions
 and Traps interact.
* All waves are mono-type now. With three slots, this means that there
 will never be more than three different types of Minion in a wave.
* Minion Armors have been removed. No minions have any special
 resistances anymore.
* Each type of Minion/wave (Including Bosses!) now has specific
 modifiers based on how they behave. We did this partly to simplify how
 you formed your offense strategy, like sending all Fast Minions down a
 freshly opened lane before the enemy team has a chance to counter them,
 and also partly to allow defenders more fluidity in creating their kill
 boxes. If you know they are sending Fast Minions at you, you can place
 down Traps that are good at countering them.
* There is some clunky “Incoming Wave” text in the bottom left... its
 temporary, we have something swanky up our sleeves for how that is
 displayed. You’ll know what bosses are coming due to their warning in
 the center of the screen, and the fanfare when they actually spawn.
* Here is a complete list of Minion Keywords:
	+ **Swarm** – Wave Produces an Unusually Large Number of Units
	+ **Fast** – Minions are fast and do not trigger some Traps
	+ **Steady** – Unit cannot take more than 50 damage from a single
	 attack
	+ **Ranged** – Minions Will Stop to Fire at Enemies From a Range
	+ **Glory Seeking** – Targets Enemy Heroes
	+ **Leaping** – Can Climb over Barricades
	+ **Vindictive** – Healed When Nearby Allies Die
	+ **Large** – Cannot be displaced
	+ **Protecting** – Casts a Shield, reducing all damage on Allied
	 Minions
	+ **Blocking** – Takes No Damage from Frontal Attacks
	+ **Healing** – Casts Heal on Allied Minions
	+ **Regeneration** – Heals When Out of Combat
	+ **Phasing** – On Hit, Gains 2-Second Shield. (20s Cooldown)
	+ **Stun** – Has a Stun Attack
	+ **Maim** – Has a Slow Attack
	+ **High Damage** – Is Capable of Hitting for High Damage
	+ **High Bounty** – Gives Extra Coin/Leadership On Killed
	+ **Barricade Bash** – Can Attack and Destroy Barricades
	+ **Shockwave** – Can Slam the Ground to Disable Traps and Knock
	 Enemies Into the Air
	+ **Fire Resistant** – Takes Reduced Damage from Fire
	+ **Replication** – Splits into Multiple Units on Death
	+ **Snare Resist** – Takes Reduced Duration from CC Abilites
	+ **Snare Immune** – Cannot be CC’d.
	+ **Player Heal** – Casts Heal on Nearby Allied Players
	+ **Life Drain** – Steals health over time from enemy Heroes
	+ **Resurrection** – Can Resurrect Fallen Minions
	+ **Trap Resistant** – Takes significantly reduced damage from Traps

### In-Game Economy Changes

* Scoring volumes are gone. Previously, Minions would award leadership
 to the team that owned them when they were spawned into the world and
 then again if they managed to get through enemy gates. This is no more.
* Bonus coin for kills before the first volume are gone. Previously,
 defenders would earn more coin if they killed enemy Minions before the
 Minions made it through their gate. This is no more.
* Minion value is now based on minion level. Previously, every
 individual minion had a fixed bounty value. Every Minion card now has a
 bounty value at each level and this is divided amongst the Minions
 spawned by the card.
* There is now a coin and leadership trickle. This largely replaces
 the work that was done by the scoring volumes, only in a way that is
 vastly easier to understand. (Also, in a way that doesn’t make the first
 three waves of the game boring and make everyone have 40,000 leadership
 and coin in the late game.)
* The leadership earned from escorting minions now scales with the
 number of minions killed. With only one Minion remaining, for example,
 escorting is worth only half of what a full wave provides.
* Escort leadership now depends on the number of heroes escorting in
 any one lane. Previously, this was based on the total number of players
 on a team escorting, anywhere. This means that escorting in multiple
 lanes is worth more leadership than pushing one lane together.
* The item dropped when a player is killed has been changed to a
 Medallion and is a bonus reward. Half of the kill reward is immediately
 granted to the player who earned the kill. The other half is in the
 Medallion and can be picked up or denied as before.
* Combo rewards are now linear instead of exponential.

### Damage Types

* There are no longer damage-type armors. There is no fire armor, for
 example. You will see Magic armor and Physical armor. Magic armor
 protects against everything except for Physical damage, so, all the
 elements (Arcane, Frost, Fire, and Lightning).
* The elemental damage types were revised:
	+ **Arcane** is much as it was but the stacking is slightly weaker
	 than before.
	+ **Fire** damage is much as it was but now picks the strongest fire
	 DOT to apply (as it still does not stack).
	+ **Lightning** no longer reduces regeneration. It will cause enemies
	 killed by it to explode and chain damage around them.
	+ **Frost** now applies stacks of Chilled on enemies and these will
	 cause targets to become Frozen.

### Guardians

* Guardians now have mana and an AOE attack called Whirlwind. As long
 as they have mana, they will periodically perform this attack, damaging
 everything around them. The guardian will wind up and show a red ring
 just before this attack – we suggest moving away. Guardians do not
 regenerate mana and will not use this attack when they are out of mana.
* Guardians do not wander as far and can no longer be stunned or CCed.
* Guardians at the front of lanes are now weaker than the guardians
 closer to the rift.

### Battle Levels and Weavers

* Heroes now level. Your Hero will start at Battle Level one and can
 advance to Battle Level eight. Each level up increases health and
 damage.
* The old weavers are no more.
* Each Hero is designed to have their own unique weaver. Every two
 Battle Levels, the player gets to pick one of three possible upgrades
 for that level.
* Not all of the unique weavers are done – Stinkeye, Gabriella, and
 Cygnus are using a generic weaver. These Heroes will get their unique
 weavers soon.
* The weaver selection will automatically appear when an upgrade is
 available. You can use the hotkeys ( T, G, and B ) to select an upgrade
 quickly or hold control to select with the mouse.

### Gear Changes

* Most Gear will no longer slow you when cast.
* Many pieces of gear have had their mana costs, damage, and cooldowns
 revised.
* Gear has been narrowed to the following (conceptual changes are
 bulleted):
	+ **Arcane Bubble Blower**
		- No Longer disables Traps.
	+ **Anti-Trap Vambrace**
		- Disables a single Trap. Short cooldown.
	+ **Fire Bracers**
	+ **Flame Wall Bracers**
	+ **Greater Freedom Trinket**
	+ **Ice Amulet**
	+ **Lightning Cloud Ring**
		- Damage is now less random.
	+ **Lightning Ring**
	+ **Mages Clover**
	+ **Mages Picnic**
	+ **Mending Root**
		- Restores health over 1 second
	+ **Gnomish Repair Kit**
		- Resets and fires and single Trap. Short cooldown.
	+ **Ring of Last Stand**
		- Much longer cooldown.
	+ **Teleport Ring**
		- Now has a 4 second cast time. May be used in-combat. Taking
		 damage will cancel the cast.

### Hero Trap Armor Aura

* Heroes now have an escort aura. Each Hero provides some armor to
 friendly minions nearby, protecting them from enemy Traps. This armor
 stacks. A group of allied Heroes sticking close to their minions can
 mitigate a lot of enemy Trap damage.

### Morale

* The morale system is gone. This did not perform as we wished
 (primarily, it was too brief and too difficult to plan around having
 it).

### Core Combat Changes

We spent a lot of time looking at combat and listening to feedback from
 players in the beta. In the end, we determined that our pace was just too
 frenetic. The vast majority of players found it very difficult to follow
 combat and also felt that the speed and implementation made combat feel
 random. Combat has been reworked:

* Overall, Heroes move somewhat slower.
* Melee characters no longer trigger a period of slow movement when
 they attack. They do stop to attack.
* Ranged characters only slow movement while attacking. (Note that
 backpedal is currently incorrect and much too slow – fixed soon.)
* Actions no longer fire simultaneously. You cannot fire off all of
 your attacks and abilities atop one another, rather one blocks another.
 (Note that feedback for this is not as good as we want and this still
 lacks some polish pieces – it works but is a bit rough.)
* Many actions have wind-ups. Ivy’s root, for example, takes time to
 cast. This gives players time to see what is happening and also to
 consider counter-play.
* The melee attack system has been improved. Previously, targets in an
 arc were set at the time of attack and then dealt damage as the attack
 progressed. This worked perfectly when everyone stood still, which
 happened approximately never. When players were moving, this caused
 strangeness like damage being dealt to a person behind you (because he
 was in front of you when you launched the attack and thus marked for
 damage). We no longer pick targets at the instant of attack. If you’re
 moving around during an attack, you’ll notice targets being damaged
 appropriately.
* The ranged attack model has been improved too. Vastly improved.
 Like, you can now hit things with ranged attacks.
* Overall, combat now deals with high latency far better, making all
 targeting less frustrating in higher latency conditions.
* There are range rings around abilities with an Area of Effect,
 making it much easier to see what you will hit and what your opponents
 are doing.
* A lot of animations and effects have been added to attacks and
 abilities.

### VO Changes

* We are trying having the announcers split into two voices, one voice
 for messages about things happening in our fortress and another voice
 for things happening in the enemy fortress.
* A lot of things (and trust me when I say ‘a lot’) are missing VO. It
 will be folded in over time. Don’t be alarmed if some things (like
 bosses) are kind of quiet at the moment.

### Bots

* Bots can play and are best on two-lane, but they have not been
 changed fully for the new game systems and will do un-good things – this
 will get better soon.

### HUD Changes

* The center UI is in the middle of some rework.
* Rift score has moved to the sides and does not display until someone
 has pushed minions into a rift.
* The guardian flags on either side show the overall defensive
 strength of both teams (the bar is the sum of all guardian health
 remaining). We are experimenting with some different ways to show game
 progress.

### Post-Game Sequence

* There is a new reward sequence at the end of the game, parts of
 which are getting pretty slick.
* A larger scale change to post-game, involving this and stats and
 social elements, is in the works.
* This is incorrectly showing XP earning as part of the advancement to
 next level, not as a measure of potential XP for the game played. This
 will make the display look a little odd at higher player levels.

### Miscellaneous

* Shift Key for Walking has been removed.
* Zoom has been removed.

### Quests

* An early implementation of the quest system is in place.
* Eventually, the quest system will grow to support a variety of
 different quests. For now, only the Daily Quest is in place. While this
 system can assign a random quest, we’re also only using the one test
 quest for now.
* The daily quests grant a solid Skull reward.... Just sayin’.
* Not really a proper quest but the “Daily First Win” bonus is still
 in too.
* Quest notification is fairly…missing. Quests don’t update as you
 progress yet and you won’t see any information about the time remaining
 to complete or get a new quest. Soon. (Quest completion is called out in
 the post-game rewards sequence.)

### Hero Victories

* There is a new hero victory system in place.
* When you win a game, you earn a victory with the hero you played. At
 certain victory levels, you’ll get rewards.
* Every 10 victories, you earn a rank icon for the hero. You’ll see
 some of this on the hero cardbacks, but it isn’t yet displayed anywhere
 in the game.
* At 100 victories with a hero, you earn a unique skin for that hero
 (only available by earning the 100 victories).
* At five, 10, 50, and 100 victories, you earn Skull rewards. These
 are sizeable rewards – 2000 skulls at five and 10, 4000 at 50, and 8000
 skulls at 100 victories.
* You do not need to own a hero to earn victories or rewards with
 them. You will earn victories from playing guest heroes. Your progress
 will not be reset if the hero cycles out of guest rotation before you
 can achieve a victory.
* This system will be fleshed out more in the future, but even now it
 provides some good Skull rewards just for trying different heroes.

## Hero Changes

* Mana costs have been rebalanced. We wanted to make using your
 abilities a little more of a thoughtful exercise, so we changed how much
 Mana abilities cost versus how much Mana you have.
Increased Hero
 Speed while dead.
* Heroes have titles. That’s cool, right? You may have noticed that we
 changed some of the names, too. The Master is now Cygnus, Master of the
 Order. Prospector is now Dobbin, the Claim Jumper, Sorceress is now
 Gabriella, the Redeemed Sorceress, and War Mage is now Maximilian, The
 War Mage.
* All hero abilities have been rebalanced. Overall, most abilities
 were fairly weak (in some cases, you were better off using the default
 attack) and other changes to the combat model made this even worse. We
 felt abilities should be powerful. They all have more impact now.
* Each Hero gets a unique, Hero-specific Trap (defense Heroes) or
 glyph (offense Heroes). This ties in to the separation of offense and
 defense roles.
* Heroes have unique Weaver trees (except for Stinkeye, Cygnus, and
 Gabriella). Disclaimer: Some abilities that were part of these heroes
 before are now upgrade options in their weavers. For example, Midnight
 no longer disables traps when in stealth…unless she takes that upgrade.
* Just kidding about the Hero Speed while dead thing lol just seeing
 if you were paying attention.
* People no longer start with any specific Heroes, but there is a
 rotating free set. (If you are a founder, you still own the Heroes
 granted by the founders pack.)
* We reduced the playable set of Heroes down to 10. The others will be
 returning in future updates.

Heroes have undergone balance and ability changes, detailed below:

### Blackpaw, Vindicator of the Dead

* Blackpaw’s kit has been specialized to encourage players to play
 more like a Gnoll. Players can focus their attacks for high damage on a
 single target.
* Removed “Ignore Pain” ability.
* Completely new look and FX for Spirit Gnolls.
* New Ability! – “Wound the Prey.”
	+ Blackpaw stabs an enemy, wounding the target. Damage Blackpaw
	 does to the wounded enemy is increased for 7 seconds. The percentage
	 of increased damaged scales over time to a max of 40%.
	+ Wound the prey causes a massive threat level for the Spirit
	 Gnolls, making them more likely to attack the wounded target.
* Swapped Bite and Wound the Prey. Bite is now E, Wound the Prey is
 Secondary.
* Removed cooldown and damage from “Leap.”
* Unique Glyph: Glyph of Blood. Minions that cross this glyph get
 bonus damage.

### Hogarth, Frozen Shield of Deg Itan

* Shifting Hogarth more into an icy CC character who does low damage
 but is constantly disrupting the enemy.
* New Ability: Shield! Hogarth freezes himself and his shield reducing
 incoming damage.
	+ Note: Minions/Allies are no longer automatically buffed (this is
	 a Weaver upgrade).
* “Charge!” is now called “Ambush!” and has been moved to the E key.
	+ “Ambush!” deals damage but no longer stuns but provides a bonus
	 stack of Frost making it more likely to freeze enemies.
* “Hatchet” is now called “Catch!” and has been moved to the Secondary
 attack.
	+ Ability has been overhauled so Hogarth throws his main axe.
	 Moving it to the secondary attack puts the axe related abilities all
	 on the mouse for a more intuitive interface and cooldown icon
	 feedback.
	+ “Catch!” slows enemy more dramatically but for a shorter
	 duration.
* New passive: “Mana!” Gives you mana when you damage a Stunned,
 Slowed, Immobilized, or Frozen enemy.
* Unique Glyph: Glyph of Mage Armor. Gives mInions Magic resistance.

### Gabriella, The Redeemed Sorceress

* Gabriella is now about dealing a lot of damage with primary attacks
 and avoiding engagement through effective use of “Blink” and “Devious
 Allure” (formerly Mesmerize).
* Added damage to “By My Command” (formerly Shockwave), but it no
 longer sets off enemy Traps.
* Updated Passive: Due to the difficulty of communicating which
 minions are Unchained, her passive now uses the minion keyword system.
 She can no longer be attacked by non-Glory Seeking minions.
* Unique Trap: Summoner Trap, summons a tiny ghostly paladin that
 draws agro and attacks minions.

### Stinkeye, Shaman of Oasis

* Trying to simplify Stinkeye’s abilities to make him an easier to
 learn and play Hero as well as making him a more dynamic but still
 strategic Hero during combat. Also the Time Control Totem was way OP!
* You can only have one Totem of each type out at a time.
* Speed totem (formerly Time Control Totem) now only affects ally and
 enemy movement speed.
* Totems no longer have a warm-up time before they function.
* Totems now have a 15 second cooldown.
* Increased damage from Battle Totem projectile (formerly “Attack
 Totem”).
* Reduced cooldown of Arcane Anomaly (formerly Arcane Bomb).
* Arcane Anomoly no longer disables traps.
* Unique Trap: Arcane Orb.
	+ Fires a large arcane projectile at regular intervals.

### Maximilian, The War Mage

* Removed “Trust Me” and “It Was Him!” abilities. These two abilities
 were difficult to use and very situational. Moving the design of
 Maximilian to a more focused and easy to learn ranged Hero.
* New E Ability: “In Your Faces!” Maximilian fires a bundle of
 electrified crossbow bolts that deals a large amount of damage to the
 first target it hits. The bundle then bursts dealing a secondary blast
 of damage to all enemies within a short range behind the first target.
* New Ability: “Can’t Touch This”. Max electrifies his body. Incoming
 damage is reduced by 65% and reflected back at the attacker as Lightning
 damage.
* Unique Trap: Decoy. It distracts enemy minions. (There’s a weaver
 upgrade to make it explode, too!)

### Dobbin, Claim Jumper

* “Mineshaft Shortcut” (formerly “Underground Roads”) no longer has a
 cooldown but now takes 1 second to use before arriving at the new
 location.
* Dust Devil (formerly Dust Storm) no longer reduces Lightning armor.
* Passive: Short Stack now takes advantage of the Minion keyword
 system. Prospector cannot be attacked by minions who have the Large
 keyword. Large minions are also tall, how convenient!
* Unique Trap: Coin Forge. Improves bounty of minions killed on it.
* Spare Dynamite no longer disables traps.

### Ivy, Warden of the First Grove

* Trap Disable was removed from Penetrating Arrow, but is now
 available as Weaver upgrade.
* Unique Glyph: Glyph of Healing. Minions get healed.
* Health and Damage tweaks.

### Cygnus, Master of the Order

* Unique Trap: Pylon. Buffs Traps near it.

### Midnight, Twilight’s Razor

* Trap disable while in stealth is now a weaver upgrade.
* Unique Glyph: Glyph of Speed. Makes minions speedy.
* Only character who can perform melee attacks will moving.

### Smolder, The Fireborn

* “Incinerate” (formerly “Inferno”) now deals all of its damage within
 1 second instead of it creating a long duration DOT.
* “Heart of Flame” (Fire Form) reduces Movement Speed while Active,
 but makes her immune to knockback/knock-up.
* “Heart of Flame” no longer disables Fire Traps.
* Unique Trap: Naptha sprayer. Sprays enemies with Naptha, which makes
 them more vulnerable to Fire damage.

## The Dashboard, Deckbuilding, and Cards

### The Dashboard

* The Dashboard is in the middle of a reorganization. There are old
 pages and new pages and half-new pages and….
* The Home Page contains links at the bottom to your Deck Builder and
 Traits (wherein is located your collection), to the Play menu, to the
 Store, and one day to your Profile. The Profile option is disabled
 (coming soon).
* Your navigator is still at the top right corner, which contains a
 link to the home page, social panel, twitch, and options.
* Your account info is now at the top left corner, and includes your
 account level, total wins, gold, and skulls.

### Deckbuilding

* You are no longer need to put multiple copies of anything in a deck.
* Decks are now limited to 10 Minions (two of each level plus two
 bosses), 7 Traps, 2 gear. The End. That’s a deck. We did this because
 the amount we had before didn’t create interesting choices (you could
 just bring everything) and deck creation became onerous. This is
 streamlined and it requires interesting tradeoffs.
* You no longer take Weavers in your deck. Each Hero has their own
 unique Weaver. See [Link to section about Weavers]
* Hero-unique traps or glyphs do not need to be included in decks and
 are automatically added when a hero is selected.
* Glyphs are no longer slottable in decks. These are now included only
 as unique items for offensive heroes.

### Card Backs

* We re-designed the backs of the Hero Cards. There are now several
 tabs for different Hero information, including Lore (coming soon!) and
 your personal Hero stats.
* This is also where you will be able to set your preferred skin by
 selecting it on the Hero back.

### New Player Experience and Tutorials

* There is now a Weaver that will point things out in the Dashboard.
 This will (we hope) help new players learn how to navigate.
* There is an optional (Basic Controls) and a mandatory tutorial
 (Learning OMDU). These have been tirelessly worked on to be (we hope)
 both functional and effective.
* There’s also a coached game (optional) after this – this is designed
 to help players along by allowing them to experience a real game while
 still receiving hints, without the constrained structure of a scripted
 tutorial.
* You can then move to the practice games. This is the first
 opportunity new players will have to make their own choices.
* All of this is available from Play -> Practice at any time.
* BTW - The first three give good skull rewards. Hint Wink.

### Dynamic Help

* An early version of a dynamic help system is place. You will notice
 some messages giving you pointers when you have (for example) a lot of
 unspent Leadership. These can be reduced or turned off completely in the
 in-game options menu.

### Traits

* Some time ago, we mentioned working on a leveling model that would
 allow players to customize their heroes. The first version of this is in
 place and can be accessed from the Trait Builder in the dash.
* Traits unlock when you hit account level five, at which point you
 will get five points. After five, players get one trait point per level,
 up to the maximum 40 points.
* Players can create a build in the trait builder, assign their points
 to the five different attributes there, and then save this off. Traits
 are selected from a dropdown in pregame, like decks. (PS – Sorry it is
 taking so long to make deck / build / skin selection nicer. It will
 happen.)
* In addition, there are trait cards (they drop in chests and can be
 purchased for skulls at the store). Right now, players can slot up to
 four of these.
* Trait cards have requirements, so a certain minimum number of points
 in the listed attributes are required to slot them.
* The bonuses from the traits and attributes set in a build can be
 applied to any hero you play and they are activated at the start of a
 game.
* This UI is very early and things like filters are not in place yet –
 sorry. A number of things also present bad information… (Like % symbols
 in the Trait cards where they shouldn’t be… don’t get excited).

## Out-of-Game Economy

### Card Packs

* Card packs are gone. There are no more card packs.

### Chests

* The basics of the chest model are in place. The current
 implementation is “early.”
* Chests (kinda) replace the old cards packs.
* There are no duplicates. You no longer need more than one of any
 card (there’s no trap count anymore, for example). If you would have
 received a duplicate in a chest, you’ll get a skull reward instead.
* There are (right now) three tiers of chest – Oaken, Iron, and
 Rune-Bound.
* Right now, chests contain only one item.
* Only the most common (Oaken) can be purchased right now. The other
 two are disabled. This is because (as mentioned above) the current
 implementation is early. These chests aren’t doing what we want right
 now, so we do not want players to purchase them.
* Oaken chests can be purchased for skulls (and only for skulls). They
 have a good chance of dropping a set of things that will help new
 players flesh out their decks. However, they can drop anything in the
 game except for vanity and heroes, so you can get lucky.
* Some of the rewards in the oaken chests are not what is intended.
 (It is not intended that you buy a chest for 250 skulls and open it to
 find 150 skulls, for example.) This will be fixed soon.
* You have a chance of getting a chest as a reward in any matchmade
 game. The chances of a chest drop improve roughly along the lines of
 your base XP reward, so winning games (or losing but putting up a good
 fight) and playing unranked PvP give the best chances.

### Store

* Gibs are gone. There are no more gibs.
* The gib store is kinda gone. It’s just a store now.
* EVERYTHING in the game, except for vanity, can be purchased at the
 store for skulls. All of the traps, all of the heroes, all of the
 minions, all the gear, all of the bosses.
* Except for heroes and vanity, all of the things at the store can
 ONLY be purchased for skulls.

### Guest Hero Rotation

* The idea of the starting hero set is gone – there are not five
 heroes that are the “starters.”
* Instead, there are now five guest heroes available to all players.
 Heroes will rotate in and out of the guest set on occasion.

## Maps and Levels

### Cliffside Clash

* Fixed some visibility issues.
* Face lift! Better lights and shadows and textures, oh my!
* Trap Grid has been re-gridded, including more space for players to
 place traps
* Added a rock. A very important rock. A rock that blocks you from
 going straight from offense to defense. (You can still jump down from
 defense to offense though)

### Highlands (Out of Rotation)

* This map has been temporarily removed from this update. We are
 working on making the map more combat-friendly with the new Phase 2
 gameplay changes. It will return soon.

### NEW MAP! Unchained Fortress (Alpha)

* More and different pathways and kill boxes, with wider spaces for
 more interesting barricade setups.
* New fancy ‘Orc Fortress’ style of living
* **STILL IN ALPHA** – Does not fully support Bots. Bots WILL do broken
 looking things on this map.

## Matchmaking Changes

* I saved this part for last just to keep you on your toes! We changed
 it so you now get rewards for Matchmade, Co-op, AND Custom games. We
 like giving you guys stuff.
* Co-op rewards about 75% of a matchmade and custom rewards about 50%.
 (Co-op rewards are still adjusted by difficulty selected.)
* To get rewards from Custom Games, there must be at least three human
 players in the game and at least three players (human or otherwise) on
 each team.
* We no longer use bots to fill any games.
* You can search as solo or group. You are no longer put in a special
 matchmaking pool when you search as five player group or the like, which
 we did before. The concept of 5 player and 3 player and small group is
 gone. We just match players. We do give preference to like groupings (to
 do things like match a 3 player team against a three player team).
* (Custom games don’t match at all and launch when the players click
 “launch.”)