Revenge of the Neutrals Series: Snot Keeper

This crotchety old hermit has spent years away from society, choosing to pass the days with his tame pet Snotters instead. But now that the Legion and Hellbourne have refused to stay off his lawn, he's out for payback!

Added new Gravekeeper Alt Avatar: Snot Keeper

Keep the Snot Away!

All over stores now!

Revenge of the Neutrals Series: Orge Blacksmith

A little luck comes a long way! Two is better than One isn't it?

Blacksmith Alt Avatar: Ogre Blacksmith

Brilliant, but lacking common sense; lazy, but compelled to forge; the Ogre Magi is a walking contradiction, and he likes being that way! If he didn't also hate being that way, of course. Infusing elemental magic into his hammers, this tiny monster brings the pain to his enemies with a frozen blast. Or a fiery barrage. Or with a little luck, total annihilation... Not that he believes in luck, or anything.

When fire meets ice!

In stores now!

Revenge of the Neutrals Series: Earthroc Pebbles

Rock and Roll this October! When the mythical power of Sylvia was awaken.. So did something else.

Pebbles Alt Avatar: Earthroc Pebbles

The south of Caldavar is littered with the remains of monasteries and forgotten architecture long lost to the sands of time. From the remains of an ancient Temple of Sol, hidden in the dense forests on the way to Sang-La, emerges Earthroc Pebbles: a titan of the jungle -- brought to life by Sylvia -- who has survived the erosion of millennia.

Get Crushed!

In Stores now!

Circe the Deceiver - The Dread Goddess

Circe watched the horizons grow bright with an unnatural glow. Storms of ash swept over her island and massive structures made of stone and shattered glass floated on the tides. Charred corpses washed ashore by the hundreds. As Circe had foreseen in the explorer’s mind, the waters surrounding her island fell away, evaporated by the unholy flames that spread beneath boiling black clouds. After thousands of years a prisoner, Circe walked off her island toward what remained of mankind, for her island was now the entire world...

 Circe the Deceiver

* Entrapment - Target a location to throw an orb in that direction. The first enemy hero hit by the orb is dealt 60,120,180,240 Magic Damage and Immobilized for 1.5/2.0/2.5/3.0 Seconds. Once Entrapment ends, it will jump to another nearby enemy dealing the same damage and immobilize.

* Doppelganger - Target a hero to create an illusion of them under your control for 15/20/25/30 seconds. The Illusion receives 350% damage and deals 33% damage. If cast upon an enemy, applies a 20% Movement Speed Slow to them for 2 seconds.

* Deceive - Activate to immediately stealth and leave an illusion behind for 4/6/8/10 seconds.

* Twisted Visage - Target an enemy hero to channel for 2 seconds. After channeling completes, you become a copy of the enemy hero including items and abilities for 15 seconds. While in this form, you deal 70/85/100% damage.

 Poison Circe

The Deceiver takes many forms, and her appearance known as Poison Circe is rumored to have been born in the Garden of Eden, a land she considered her own before those two interlopers arrived. Since then her toxic charade has been the downfall of many utopias. 

Iron Maiden

When the ship's wreckage washed ashore on Circe's island prison in the 8th century, the one item that held her fascination seemed to be a sort of man-sized jail cell lined with iron spikes. She mimicked its form and function and eagerly awaited the opportunity to enjoy it with a human. The next sailors who set foot on her sands did not savor it nearly as much as she did.

No Man's Mercy

In Stores Now!

Patch 3.2.4 - Revenge of the Neutrals

The wrath of Mother Nature has caused the spirits of the calling in the Wild to have gone astray! Seeing that the Forest of Caldavar have been trampled on and the peace have been disturbed, the Guardians have risen again once to reclaim what is rightfully theirs!

Circe the Deciever

* Circe is a support hero who specializes in deceiving the enemy through the use of illusions and clone mechanics. Her ultimate allows her to copy an enemies items and abilities:

* Entrapment - Target a location to throw an orb in that direction. The first enemy hero hit by the orb is dealt 60,120,180,240 Magic Damage and Immobilized for 1.5/2.0/2.5/3.0 Seconds. Once Entrapment ends, it will jump to another nearby enemy dealing the same damage and immobilize.

* Doppelganger - Target a hero to create an illusion of them under your control for 15/20/25/30 seconds. The Illusion receives 350% damage and deals 33% damage. If cast upon an enemy, applies a 20% Movement Speed Slow to them for 2 seconds.

* Deceive - Activate to immediately stealth and leave an illusion behind for 4/6/8/10 seconds.

* Twisted Visage - Target an enemy hero to channel for 2 seconds. After channeling completes, you become a copy of the enemy hero including items and abilities for 15 seconds. While in this form, you deal 70/85/100% damage.

* This Hero will be released with 2 avatars. One is a Premium Alt Avatar and the other is a Debut Edition. Debut Edition Alt Avatars are sold for a limited period of time after the release of a hero. They are not exclusively limited to that period of time and may reappear within the store at a later time.

Added new Circe the Deceiver Premium Edition Alt Avatar: Poison Circe 

The Deceiver takes many forms, and her appearance known as Poison Circe is rumored to have been born in the Garden of Eden, a land she considered her own before those two interlopers arrived. Since then her toxic charade has been the downfall of many utopias. 

 Added new Circe the Deceiver Debut Alt Avatar: Iron Maiden 

When the ship's wreckage washed ashore on Circe's island prison in the 8th century, the one item that held her fascination seemed to be a sort of man-sized jail cell lined with iron spikes. She mimicked its form and function and eagerly awaited the opportunity to enjoy it with a human. The next sailors who set foot on her sands did not savor it nearly as much as she did. 

Added new Ophelia Ultimate Alt Avatar: Sylvia

Daughter of Circe the Deceiver, mother of Ophelia, and bane of Maliken Grimm, the mystical shapeshifter Sylvia has emerged from the darkest forests of Caldavar to stand with her Beasts and her cherished bloodline against the Hellbourne. 

 * Upgrade her model throughout the game with the following items: 

* Weapon Horns: Codex / Stormspirit / Sol's Bulwark / Daemonic Breastplate 

* Head Horns: Puzzlebox / Tablet of Command / Abyssal Skull 

* Wings: Staff of the Master / Kuldra's Sheepstick / Barrier Idol / Shaman's Headdress 

* Stripes: Power Supply / Energizer 

* Legs: Boots / Upgraded Boots 

* Arms/Tail: Astrolabe / Ring of Sorcery / Nome's Wisdom / Sacrificial Stone 

* You can also modify her effects by owning the following avatars: 

* Snot Keeper (Gravekeeper) 

* Earthroc Pebbles 

* Ogre Blacksmith 

* Owning these three avatars will give Sylvia these effects: 

* Glowing tips on her horns (after she gets her horns) 

* Blood dripping from her claws (after she gets her claws) 

* A chiprel who follows her around 

Added new Gravekeeper Alt Avatar: Snot Keeper 

This crotchety old hermit has spent years away from society, choosing to pass the days with his tame pet Snotters instead. But now that the Legion and Hellbourne have refused to stay off his lawn, he's out for payback! 

 Added new Pebbles Alt Avatar: Earthroc Pebbles 

The south of Caldavar is littered with the remains of monasteries and forgotten architecture long lost to the sands of time. From the remains of an ancient Temple of Sol, hidden in the dense forests on the way to Sang-La, emerges Earthroc Pebbles: a titan of the jungle -- brought to life by Sylvia -- who has survived the erosion of millennia. 

Added new Blacksmith Alt Avatar: Ogre Blacksmith

Brilliant, but lacking common sense; lazy, but compelled to forge; the Ogre Blacksmith is a walking contradiction, and he likes being that way! If he didn’t also hate being that way, of course. Infusing elemental magic into his hammers, this tiny monster brings the pain to his enemies with a frozen blast. Or a fiery barrage. Or with a little luck, total annihilation… Not that he believes in luck, or anything.

Circe the Deceiver: Designer Insight

Circe, the Deceiver: Dev Blog

Hey everyone, Buro here! Earlier this week we released Malloc's blog post on how the concept of Circe the Deceiver was conceived, I would like to go into a bit more depth and detail about some of the design iterations that she went through prior to becoming the hero she is today.

Before Circe was put into SBT for testing, she went through quite a bit of iteration. With a concept as interesting as deceiving the enemy, we had to make many adjustments in achieving something that was fun to play, without adding a large amount of frustration to play against. This proved to be quite the challenge. As an example, one iteration of her ultimate was to change the appearance of all allied heroes to that of the deceiver for a duration so the enemy would not know who was who. This was a neat ability in concept, but turned out to be terribly frustrating for the opposing team -- removing interesting decisions for the enemy team while not providing any tangible satisfaction for the user.

Once Circe made it to SBT for testing, it was apparent her first and third abilities did not mesh well with the rest of the hero and needed to be looked at again. The original first ability was a single target stun that reduced the primary stat of the target hero. The stat reduction, while effective, didn't feel impactful at all in use and limited the options of whom you could effectively target. Since we wanted something that needed to feel good to the player to use we decided against this initial design.

After reworking the first ability, we turned our attention to the other outlier, Circe’s E. The third ability became something that we really enjoyed and will likely put on a future hero, but just didn't work with Circe's skill-set and overall feel. Here was the initial concept:

Shrouding Mist

-Target area to spawn a cloud of mist for a duration. Within the mist, allies are granted stealth with a fade time and all terrain walking.

After trying a few iterations of this concept, it turned out to not have enough synergy or effectiveness with Deceiver’s other abilities and was changed out for the ability - Deceive. This ability was suggested many times throughout the design of Circe and really fits well into the theme of the hero.

Circe's second and ultimate abilities have been essential in solidifying her unique role in HoN. Her (W), Doppelganger, allows her to deceive the enemy with illusions of other heroes and her (R), Twisted Visage creates those exciting and memorable moments that make Circe a truly fun hero.

Immediately when Circe hit SBT, there was a lot of great feedback about her ultimate and concerns regarding its balance, but above all, it was fun. We've since added the channel time requirement to the ability, a break range, as well as the damage reduction. Much feedback focused on Circe copying items, but in the end, we wanted to keep the fun aspects of the hero and went the route of reducing overall damage instead of removing that functionality. Even after doing all of that we will be keeping a close eye on the balance of this ability when it goes live.

I hope you enjoyed this little insight into the development process of Circe, the Deceiver. Look for her to deceive Newerth on September 25th!

Elder Evil Ultimate Avatar: El Diablo Ravenor

 Long before, Ravenor ruled out to be a sadistic creature carved from the ashes of burnt souls in the fire pit conjured by the Daemon Lords themselves to take charge of all the torments in Hell. Made emotionless, he knows neither mercy nor empathy and takes pleasure in tormenting souls that were placed in Hell.

Ravenor Ultimate Alt Avatar: El Diablo

If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself! Furious at his Hellbourne minions for keeping the souls of the slaughtered Legion to themselves, the daemon king El Diablo surfaces in a tempest of fire and fury to punish the disobedient and collect the souls which are rightfully his.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here! In Hellbourne Now!