Paragon gets massive changes, new hero and draft mode – This changes everything

Paragon players need to pay attention because Epic is about to make some huge changes to the game.

The v.27 patch will change the game completely. First up is Draft Mode, a feature that was bound to end up in the game. Players will now enter  a lobby and pick their heroes based on seeing what the opposition has picked. This will become more useful as more and more heroes are added to the game. Epic say this is being added now to “eliminate long matchmaking queue times” which can be quite painful.

The update will bring some major hero balancing, especially for casters who will find the range of their abilities has been increased which means they can keep their distance. Most importantly, all heroes have had their passive abilities removed and even basic attacks no longer need to be levelled up. Apparently Epic felt that passive abilities and basic attack leveling “did not provide as much depth or strategic value”. Card point distribution is also changing, especially in the jungle where only the last hitter will receive card points (CP). These changes have been made to discourage players grouping in large packs and stomp around the map ganking. However, this may cause problems with players becoming reluctant to help their teammates if there are already two players in combat.

A major change that I don’t think is a positive move by Epic, is the removal of Inhibitor regeneration. Currently, Inhibitors (final tower) will respawn after a certain amount of time. In .27, these will no longer respawn. The good thing about the current system is it encourages a team to attack before the towers come back, and it brings some strategy to the attack as a team attempts to quickly take down the other Inhibitors. This will now be lost even though they have buffed Inhibitors from  3500 to 4000.

There is a way to add back some of the gameplay to this feature by grabbing the Orb Prime, taking it to your capture point which will bring all inhibitors back immediately.

Minions will now spawn faster, fifteen seconds after the game starts, and there will now only be four per wave and there will be only one Super Minion in the Super Minion waves once an Inhibitor has been destroyed. They have been made the Super Minion wave a little more dangerous however.

Finally, and I’m not sure how I feel about this, Kallari has been given a complete makeover which will make her even more deadly. Kallari will be able to remain in stealth indefinitely until she attacks a target, Blood Dagger has been renamed to Crippling Dagger and now makes the target slow instead of bleed. Her ultimate Death Sentence now reveals all enemy heroes to Khallari and she can pick a target, teleport directly to them and deal damage. Is she going to end up OP? We’ll have to wait and see but she’s becomes a lot deadlier.

It’s hard to tell how all these changes will affect the game when playing against experienced players but I’ll admit there are a few things here that raise some concerns.

The video below shows most of these changes in action and there’s notes below that as well as a blog update from Epic. These changes fundamentally change the way the Paragon plays.

Finally, there is a new hero coming called Khaimera who is a powerful melee fighter and Paragon’s first duelist design to disrupt team fights. He comes with dual axes, has a pounce leap, stacks health regen with basic attacks and his ultimahte is called Cull.You can see him below in the video. He launches into the game on 21 June.

Paragon v.27 Patch – New features and Major Changes

• Added Draft Mode for all playlists.
• Added new camera type to replay: MOBA
  • Camera angle is a more top-down view.
• Chase and MOBA camera now have a foliage mask option. Able to toggle foliage masking on/off in Menu.
• CXP Sharing from Minions
  • Lane minions pay 100% to the Hero that receives the amber. An additional 100% is paid out to nearby allied Heroes, however those Heroes share the amount evently.
  • Jungle minion no longer share CP. Only the last hitter receives CP.
• Prime Orb Guardian
  • Pays CXP directly to killing team.
  • Each player team member receives 800 CXP.
  • Added some time after the special abilities are cast before auto attacks start again.
  • The carrier’s Prime Card is now active while carrying the orb.
• Inhibitor Updates
  • Increased Inhibitor health from 3500 to 4000.
  • Inhibitors no longer respawn.
  • An additional Super Minion is spawned per Super Minion wave after 40 minutes of game time.
• Updated Hero Bounties and Mechanics
  • Hero Kills now pay full bounty to the killer.
  • Amber dropped by player now payout to the entire team when picked up.
  • Reduced the amount of Amber Heroes drop on death.
  • Reduced base bounty from 760 to 470.
  • Dropped Amber is worth ⅓ the Hero’s bounty.
• Shields no longer benefit from armor. Armor is only applied to damage left after shield absorption is calculated.
• Lane Minions now start spawning earlier (15s after the match starts)
  • Updated Buff camps to spawn at 150s.
  • Prime Guardian spawn at 300s.
  • Updated White camp spawn time to 120s.
• Minion updates
  • Reduced number of ranged minions base wave from 3 to 1 per wave.
  • Increased ranged and melee minion XP from 12 to 18.
  • Increased ranged and melee minion coins from 2 to 3 (10 to 15 for last hits).
  • Increased ranged, melee, and siege minion attack rating from 6.08 to base 15.2 and 1.8 per level.
  • Reduced siege minion health from 690 base and 15 per level to 375 base and 17 per level.
  • Increased ranged, melee, and siege minion resists vs. structures to account for change.
  • Updated super minion wave to include 3 regular melee minions, 1 ranged minion, and 1 super minion. Late game waves (after 40 minutes) still include an additional super minion (2 total).
    • Increased super minion health to account for change.
  • Removed melee minion bonus resist against other minions.
    • Increased melee minion health from 375 base and 17 per level to 470 base and 21.2 per level to account for change.
  • Updated minions’ move speed to be a flat 425.

STORE

• New Skins added to the Store
  • Inner Fire Feng Mao
  • Wasteland Howitzer
  • Snakebite Murdock

CARDS

• Weekly Card Pack
  • Honor the Pure
  • Charging Brute
  • Nanodrive

• Changed spelling on Sorcerer’s Ward.
• Fixed Icon for Bump Juice.
• Renamed “Divine Mend” to “Divine Heal” for consistent nomenclature.
• Updated Portal Stone targeting to fix issue where you would teleport without selecting a tower.

ALL HEROES

• As part of a larger design change, all passives have been removed from heroes with some being integrated into their remaining abilities.
• LMB no longer needs to be leveled. It now levels automatically as the player levels up.
  • Base damage now increases per level and card scaling now remains the same.
  • Fighter: 0.8 card scaling. High base damage, low base damage gained per level
  • Shooter/Marksman: 1.0 card scaling. Low base damage, high base damage gained per level
  • Caster: 0.7 card scaling. Low base damage, low base damage gained per level
  • Tanks: All reclassified as Fighters, Minor changes to ability damage, mostly rounding from reclassification.
• Hero health balance for upcoming LMB changes to set new DPS targets for shooters.
  • Fighters and Tanks have had their armor and armor per level increased
  • Casters and ADCs have had their armor and armor per level slightly increased
• Abilities have been updated to reflect removal of Basic Attack [LMB, R2] levels for all heroes
  • Max Level for [Q / SQUARE], [E / CIRCLE], [RMB / R1] abilities is now 4
    • Increase the max level of [RMB / R1] from 3 to 4
    • Reduced the max level of [Q / SQUARE] from 5 to 4
    • Reduced the max level of [E / CIRCLE] from 5 to 4
  • Updated the ability unlock schedule for [Q / SQUARE], [E / CIRCLE], and [RMB / R1] to provide more freedom in leveling choice.
    • Ability level 1 unlocks at Hero level 1.
    • Ability level 2 unlocks at Hero level 3.
    • Ability level 3 unlocks at Hero level 6.
    • Ability level 4 unlocks at Hero level 8.
  • Updated the ability unlock schedule for R to:
    • Ability level 1 unlocks at Hero level 5.
    • Ability level 2 unlocks at Hero level 9.
    • Ability level 3 unlocks at Hero level 13.
• Tweaked some hero difficulty values on the select screen. Roles and range/melee added for Riktor and GRIM.exe.

Dekker

• Passive – Mana Share
  • This ability has been removed.
• Stasis Bomb
  • No longer gains extended stun duration based on range to target.
  • Adjusted stun duration based on ability level : 1.1 / 1.4 / 1.8 / 2.2.
• Containment Fence 
  • Redesigned – Now prevents enemies from walking out of it by applying a small knockback and a low amount of damage when they attempt to leave.
  • Enemies which touch the Fence from the outside will be sucked inside.
  • No longer blocks allies from walking through the Fence, though still stops enemy projectiles.
  • Cooldown increased from 100 seconds to 120 seconds at all levels.
  • Placement range reduced from 1750 to 1200.
  • Containment Fence now supports team colors.
• Polish / Bug Fixing: 
  • Audio added to Dekker’s emote, “Friendly Wave”, recall, level start, and select screen animation.

Feng Mao

• Passive – The Balance
  • This functionality has been moved into the base hero kit – see below.
• Conversion Shield
  • Now activates a shield of a fixed magnitude based on ability level.
  • Shield values reduced from 150 / 226 / 303 to 75 / 130 / 185 / 240.
  • The purple pips on Feng Mao’s right arm now indicate when the shield is available for activation.
• Reaping Dash
  • Reaping Dash  now increases Feng Mao’s next Basic Attack that connects within four seconds. Feng Mao’s blade will glow to indicate the effect is active.
• Polish / Bug Fixing: 
  • Fixed some graphical issues with the chains hanging off his weapon.
  • Audio added to Feng Mao’s emote, Blade Whirl, along with exertion audio.

Gadget

• Passive – Haywire
  • This ability has been removed.
• Seek & Destroy
  • Slightly increased projectile speed.
• Polish / Bug Fixing: 
  • Added sounds to Gadget’s emote, Chill Out, level start, and recall.
  • Gadget now lists her possible roles and range type properly.

Gideon

• Passive – Dark Infusion
  • This ability has been removed.
• Cosmic Rift
  • Placement range increased from 1500 to 2000.
• Black Hole
  • Added an extra pull towards the center when the ability begins.
  • Pull strength has been increased and normalized at all distances from the center of the ability.
  • Removed ability confirmation – now casts instantly.
  • Black Hole no longer pulls jungle creeps.
• Polish / Bug Fixing: 
  • Added sound to Gideon’s emote animation, “Levitate”.

Grim.exe

• Passive – Overcharge
  • This ability has been removed.
• G.T.F.O.
  • This ability can now be stopped by player abilities which block projectiles, such as Steel’s “Force Shield” or Dekker’s “Containment Fence”.
  • Audio has been updated.
• Polish / Bug Fixing: 
  • Updated movement audio.
  • Jump sounds now correctly play while sprinting.

Grux

• Passive – Only the Strong Survive
  • This ability has been removed.
• Smash & Grab 
  • Range increased from 1000 to 1350.
• Polish / Bug Fixing: 
  • Audio added to “Battlecry” emote.

Howitzer

• Passive – Fast Reload
  • This ability has been removed.
• Land Mine
  • Range increased from 1000 to 1250.
• R2000 Missile
  • Range increased from 2000 to 2200.
• Make it Rain
  • Range increased from 1500 to 1750.
  • Cooldown increased from 100 to 115.
  • Damage duration is 4.2 seconds at all levels.
• Polish / Bug Fixing: 
  • Jetpack sounds updated.
  • Audio added to emote, “Why I Oughta”!

Iggy and Scorch

• Passive – Ignite 
  • This functionality has been moved into the base hero kit – see below.
• Flame Turret
  • Cooldown increased from 1 second to 3 seconds.
  • Decreased deactivation time from 5 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Oil Spill
  • Placement range increased from 1500 to 1750.
  • Ignite functionality is now core to Oil Spill.
• Flame Belch
  • Removed ability confirmation – now casts instantly.
• Polish / Bug Fixing: 
  • Adjusted onscreen FX during Flame Belch and Flame Turret.
  • Adjusted Burn screen FX to be less opaque, increasing visibility.
  • Mana Regen has been removed as a recommended stat.
  • Turret stack counter now updates properly.
  • Turrets no longer stay cloaked while firing from a shadow pad.

Kallari

• Kallari has been reworked.
  • Please see below for a detailed breakdown of the changes.
• Passive – Marked for Death
  • This ability has been removed.
• Slash
  • Reduced base damage from 60 to 51.
• Backflip
  • Cooldown increased from 12 seconds to 18 seconds.
• Shadow Walk
  • Stealth duration increased and now scales with ability level.(From 6 seconds to 18 / 24 / 30 / 36 seconds.
  • Cooldown slightly reduced per level.
  • Cooldown now begins when ability is activated, not when it ends.
  • Allied stealth sound has been removed – teammates will only hear when stealth is activated.
  • Enemies will no longer hear Kallari while she is stealthed near them but not visible.
  • Kallari now gets a small attack damage bonus on the first hit of her Slash if she breaks stealth to attack a target.
  • Kallari now has a 2 second fade time at all levels of stealth. During this time, she is still fully visible to enemies.
• Blood Dagger 
  • Ability renamed to “Crippling Dagger”.
  • Damage adjusted  to 100 / 130 / 160 / 190.
  • Bleed has been removed.
  • Now slows target by -70 / -95 / -120 / -145 Movement Speed.
  • Damage scaling reduced from 1.0 to 0.5.
• Death Sentence
  • This ability has been redesigned.
  • Active: Mark all enemy targets for 5/6/7 seconds, giving Kallari and her team full vision of them. During this time, Kallari may choose to  teleport to any enemy after a 1.25 second channel. On arrival, the target takes 1.0 / 1.5 / 2.0 times base attack damage. Cooldown is 125 / 115 / 105 seconds.
• Polish / Bug Fixing: 
  • Fixed a bug where Kallari could activate stealth while channeling recall.
  • Mana Regen has been removed as a recommended stat.

Murdock

• Passive – Hot Pursuit
  • This ability has been removed.
• Shielding Shot
  • Ability renamed to “Move Along”.
  • No longer provides damage reduction.
  • Radius of effect has been increased.
  • Now displaces targets instead of knocking them back.
• Static Lock
  • Now correctly turns invisible on Shadowpads.
• Devastating Blast
  • Damage to minions reduced by 76%.
  • Range increased to global.
  • Damage now ignores enemy target’s Energy Resist..
  • Base damage reduced from 340 / 440 / 540 to 260 / 295 / 330.
  • Audio range of fire sound has been altered to match new range.

Muriel

• Passive – Restoration
  • This ability has been removed.
• Alacrity
  • Shield value adjusted from 180 / 410 / 640 to 60 / 110 / 160 / 210.
• Consecrated Ground
  • Shield value adjusted from 120 / 210 / 300 / 390 / 480 to 100 / 175 / 250 / 325.
  • Increased cast range from 1000 to 1750.
• Reversal of Fortune
  • Shield value reduced from 700 / 900 / 1100 to 350 / 600 / 850.
  • Now only applies soft cooldown if the ability is cancelled by a hostile action. Choosing to cancel the ability still triggers no cooldown.

Rampage

• Now scales as a Fighter.
• Passive – King of the Jungle.
  • This functionality has been moved into the base hero kit – see below.
• Boulder Throw
  • Projectile speed slightly increased.
  • Boulder Throw no longer deals reduced damage to minions.
• Thick Skin
  • Ability renamed to “King of the Jungle”.
  • Now increases Rampage’s regeneration in the Jungle by 4.2 hp/s at all levels while inside the Jungle in addition to its current effect.
• Enraged
  • No longer provides 10% bonus damage.
• Polish / Bug Fixing:
  • Fixed a rare bug where screen FX would persist if Rampage died while enraged.

Riktor

• Now scales as a Fighter.
• Passive – Invigorate 
  • This ability has been removed.
• Shock Therapy
  • Fixed damage numbers and tool tip description to properly reflect how much extra damage is added to Whip.
• Polish / Bug Fixing:
  • Ability icons updated.
  • Bots can now play as Riktor.
  • Added 3 point Lord’s Harvester Key to Starter Deck.
  • Riktor’s emote, “Back to Work!”, should now have the proper name and description in the Master Challenge screen.
  • Corrected an issue where a red flash at the end of Skewer would play on nearby players who were not affected by it.

Sevarog

• Now scales as a Fighter.
• Passive – Soul Tap
  • This functionality has been moved into the base hero kit – see below.
• Siphon
  • Now provides Soul Tap functionality.
• Subjugate
  • Applied slow no longer gradually scales.
  • Slow value adjusted to a static -170 Movement Speed  for 3 seconds at all levels.
• Polish / Bug Fixing:
  • Sound added for Sevarog emote, “The Babe”, and victory emote.

Sparrow

• Passive – Relentless
  • This functionality has been moved into the base hero kit – see below.
• Hall of Arrows
  • Card scaling has been reduced from 1.0 to 0.25.
• Invigorate
  • Ability renamed to “Relentless”.
  • Ability has been redesigned – no longer increases attack speed.
  • Passive : Successive hits on the same target deal an additional 3/7/11/15 Physical. Damage. This effect stacks and is triggered by any damage Sparrow causes.
    • This ability now caps at 10 stacks.
• Polish / Bug Fixing:
  • Added Sparrow death and low health vocal efforts.
  • Corrected a bad interaction with Inner Fire and Bowshot.

Steel

• Now scales as a Fighter.
• Passive – Unstoppable Force
  • This ability has been removed.
• Force Shield
  • Force Shield now removes enemy targets from the Shadowplane when slow is applied.
• Polish / Bug Fixing: 
  • Audio added to Steel’s emote, “Bring it On!”.

Twinblast

• Passive – On a Roll
  • This functionality has been moved into the base hero kit – see below.
• Rocket Dash
  • Travel distance added to tooltip.
• Nitro
  • Rebalanced Q for new LMB damage and updated in tooltip.
  • Mana cost reduced.
  • Increased CD to account for active duration.
• Grenade!
  • Slow duration added to tooltip.
• Barrage
  • Rebalanced ultimate for new LMB damage.
  • No longer has additional movement penalty during activation.

GENERAL CHANGES

• Small FX updates for Hero abilities interacting with water.
• Added invisible collision to prevent players from getting stuck between roots in the jungle.
• Adjusted various collision volumes so that players don’t clip through geometry.
• Removed unwanted collision volume that was letting players perch on arch on Red lane near orb drop off.
• Replaced jungle arches with sloped collision proxy mesh so that players can’t perch on top.
• Slightly lowered collision volume in some areas so that players don’t appear to float.
• Updated collision mesh so that some heroes can properly clear the jump into the jungle at T1 red side tower without getting stuck.
• Updated some environment assets around the red buff areas.
• Fixed a bug where Shadow Pads were not turning all objects invisible.

AI

• Bots should no longer use support abilities while recalling nor on recalling allies.
• Fixed bots sometimes getting stuck when hit with an AoE ability while running away.
• Bots now use the correct minion wave when moving towards the enemy core.
• Bots now move towards enemy waves when defending towers.

AUDIO

• Updated the way the enemy impact sound was being played so that it will now play on the enemy and spatialize properly. Intent is to fix the bug of abilities like Iggy & Scorch’s flame turret causing damage that is heard when you are nowhere near the turret.
• Changed heartbeat sound to only allow one instance per player. Intent is to fix bug where heartbeat is playing repeatedly when taking damage at critical health.
• End of match teleport sound is no longer cut off at the end of the cinematic.
• Heroes should now have some audio during their spawn-in animation on the select screen.
• The core explosion audio should now only play once when the core is destroyed.
• The options menu slider audio should no longer spam when clicked.

REPLAY

• Fixed upgrade animations so that they show up behind the ability icons (rather than in front.)
• Death icons and respawn countdown now properly show again in portraits during Replays.
• Fix crash if loading into a replay while in a party.

UI

• Buff Bar added to the HUD showing you all buffs, debuffs, and status effects active on your character that are applied by Heroes.
• Local player hero indicator is now green. Hero indicators no longer have diamonds in them. Level text fits just fine without them, and diamonds were just creating noise.
• Minion and Hero bars now show 100HP (minor) and 500HP (major) ticks.
• Minor ticks fade out as health scales up because they become irrelevant.
• Friendly indicators now show ticks as white, because it reads better on blue.
• Increased visibility of Travel Mode screen FX.
• Damage numbers now respect DPI scaling (previously they would be too large at low resolutions and too small at 1080p+).
• New tower indicator art that highlights the dangers of having enemy minions under one’s tower or lack of friendly minions when pushing towers.
• Overhead health indicator is now on by default based. The option to toggle this feature is unchanged; only the default value is changed. (UX feedback is that players are not seeing their health and not seeing damage taken.)
• Updated HP bars to show partial pips (every 125 HP).  Also now showing pips on minions.

RECOMMENDED DRIVERS

• AMD: Radeon Crimson Edition 16.6.1 (Driver Version 16.20.1025 – June 2016).
• NVIDIA: Version 368.22 (Release Date: May 23, 2016).

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