Beta Patch 308 is out

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- BETA PATCH 308
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2003-APR-16

Undocumented Bug Fixes:

- Mountain Giants now correctly require the 'Hardened Skin' upgrade to gain the benefits of the 'Hardened Skin' ability.

Undocumented Improvements:

- Several units/heroes have improved media (Sound or art or both)

Item Changes:

- Town Portal range to include units to teleport increased to 1100 from
900.
- Scroll of Speed duration increased to 10 seconds from 7 seconds.
- Clarity Potion cost reduced to 70 from 80.
- Healing Salve cost reduced to 100 from 125.

Changes to Neutral Buildings, Units and Heroes:

- Neutral heroes now require an Altar to be purchased.
- Death Coil now heals Pit Lords while Holy Light harms them.
- Pit Lord speed increased to 300 from 270.
- Black Arrow minions once again improve with the level of the skill. For
each level gained, Minions gain 30% hitpoints and slight amounts of
damage.
- Tornado has been reworked. It now creates a controllable unit that does
extreme damage to nearby buildings, light damage to buildings in the
general vicinity, slows units by a large amount, and tosses nearby units
and heroes up into the air randomly. Note that the spell is still a
channel spell.
- Drunken Haze duration reduced to 12 seconds at all levels.

Undead Changes:

- Destroyers are now magic immune.
- Destroyer damage decreased to 1d4 + 20 from 1d5 + 24.
- Orb of Annihilation now adds 20 bonus damage up from 12 bonus damage.
- Obsidian Statue mana pool increased to 600, up from 400, and Obsidian
Statue starting mana is now 400, up from 100.
- Obsidian Statue mana regeneration increased to 3/sec from 2/sec.
- Essence of Blight and Spirit Touch now cost less mana when less targets
are available. 5 or more targets: 10 mana; 4 targets - 8 mana; 3 targets
- 6 mana, etc. Currently, these abilities show up as "2" mana, but this
is a bug which will be fixed soon.
- Essence of Blight now heals 12 hitpoints per casting, up from 10.
- Cannibalize on the Abomination now heals 15 hp/sec, up from 10 hp/sec,
and heals a maximum of 495 hitpoints, up from 330.
- Spiked Carapace armor bonus now 3/5/7 up from 2/4/6.
- Impale cooldown reduced to 9 seconds from 11 seconds.
- Death Pact can now be used on invulnerable units.

Human Changes:

- Spell Breakers are now 3 food.
- Spell Breaker cost increased to 215/30 from 155/20.
- Spell Breaker damage increased to 1d3 + 12 from 1d2 + 8.
- Spell Breaker feedback now deals 20 damage to units, and 7 damage to
heroes (assuming they have mana to feedback).
- Arcane Tower feedback now deals 24 points of damage to units and 12
damage to heroes (assuming they have mana to feedback).
- Polymorph no longer affects summoned units.
- Aerial Shackles now deals 20 damage / sec, up from 10 damage / sec.
- Town Hall cost increased to 385/205 from 385/185.
- Banish duration vs heroes is now 5/7/9 by level, up from 5/6/7.
Banish cooldown is 10 (for reference)
- Mana Siphon now costs 10 mana down from 25.
- Mana Siphon duration and cooldown reduced to 6 from 8, but rate of
drain increased by roughly 20% at all levels.
- Phoenixes now lose 25 hitpoints per second, up from 10.
- Frag Shards now deals 25% more bonus damage than it did previously.
Note that this bonus damage is only effective against unarmored and
normal armor units.
- Gyrocopters now move at speed 400 up from 350.

Night Elf Changes:

- Taunt radius reduced to 450 from 500.
- Rejuvenation can now be cast on units at full health.
- Dryad hitpoints increased to 435 from 380.
- Fan of Knives damage cap reduced to 350/675/950 from 400/750/1075.
- Fan of Knives mana cost reduced to 100 from 110.

Orc Changes:

- Lightning shield range increased to 600 from 500.
- Hex no longer affects summoned units.
- Hex cost reduced to 70 from 75.
- Spirit Link now affects 4 targets, up from 3.
- Researching the Berserker Strength upgrade now requires a
Stronghold instead of a Fortress.
- Berserker Strength cost reduced to 50/150 down from 50/200.
- Troll Berserker hitpoints increased to 450, up from 425.
- A bug which was reducing the effectiveness of Burning Oil has been
fixed.

Other:

- Upgraded casters properly get the +30% mana regen boost that was put
in several patches ago. Up until this patch, casters only got +30%
mana regen to base regen, which ended up being only +15% when fully
upgraded.
- Splash damage units that get a "MISS!" from Curse, Evasion or Drunken
Haze, now deal ½ damage to targets. Previously, they dealt full damage.
- Gargantuan Sea Turtle hitpoints increased to 1250 from 1000.

Destroyers(Black Sphinxes) = Terribly Unbalanced

Also bad name... Black Sphinx sounds much cooler and Destroyer should be a ship...

What the hell, if this is what blizzard considers BALANCING they got issues then.

Destroyer sounds more star wars than Warcraft...

be much cooler if it was called the Obsidian Avenger

I know Black Sphinx sounds better than Destroyer but I think they were changed for copyright issues. But If that's so why don't they call them Dark Sphinxes?

Yeah, both Obsidian Statues and the Destroyers are meant to look like sphinxes, so it's kinda odd that none of them has the word sphinx in their name...

The new tornado spell sounds cool, and I hate to admit that in my early days I did that excat workings with triggers lol.

-Insaniteus-

they arnt balancing changes really they are tests they are seeing what heppens when they overpower units, to see if its assigned counter still works. and that kind of stuff i think.