Underlords nerfs Primordials and reworks Arc Warden

Dota Underlords found itself in a very peculiar meta: The Primordial alliance turned out to be extremely effective. A recent patch had made their “disarm” effect applicable to ranged units, and synergy was found between Arc Warden and Mage unit Crystal Maiden. “Disarming” in Underlords is dangerously effective: Your unit cannot attack and only generate mana through receiving damage. Easily shutting down units and team compositions such as Hunters, Razer and Tiny both found themselves extremely valuable for enabling disarming very early in the game. Of course, things got a lot crazier when Arc Warden was thrown in the mix.

Arc Warden’s ability is similar to what he does in Dota 2, creating clones of himself to increase his damage. However, in Underlords his spawns start at 100% health but regenerate mana slowly. Players quickly found that to be little trouble by slotting in Crystal Maiden to passively generate mana for the whole team. Combined with Refresher Orb, situations like this happen:

Watch Surviving 113 damage from Shiburizu on www.twitch.tv

Players have been reporting hundreds of damage stemming from a careful combination designed to create as many clones as possible. Valve has stepped in, with a rework for Arc Warden himself and the Primordial alliance as a whole. Let’s check out the patch notes:

GENERAL

• We have found more code that caused crashes and told it to behave
• Updated Slark’s ability description to match the gameplay – he is not intended to reduce enemy attack speed
• Added Rich Presence when finding a match
• Fixed lack of glow in Roshan’s “Vs.” image
• Quality of Life and look improvements have been done to the Season Info UI
• Fixed win/lose streak particles sometimes not showing up
• Many particle effects optimizations have been done
• Tweaks to foliage and other visuals on the Path of Sunbreeze custom board
• Fix Thunderhides’ ability tooltip referring to Ogre Magi
• Fix an issue where a unit that has two units Tiny Tossed against it in rapid succession would only take damage once
• Fix Warlock alliance not correctly choosing low health units to link to
• Fix Desperate Measures not applying to summons
• Don’t allow player interaction while the map is loading
• Units prefer to target heroes rather than summons with their abilities, but if no heroes are available they will still target summons

HERO CHANGES

• Arc Warden:
  • Attack Speed changed from [0.59, 0.67, 0.77] to [1.0, 1.0, 1.0]
  • Maximum Mana changed from 100 to 0
  • Maximum Health changed from [600, 1100, 2650] to [700, 1400, 2800]
  • Gold Cost changed from 3 to 4
  • Draft Tier changed from 3 to 4
  • Tempest Double:
    • Cooldown changed from 60 to 0
    • Mana Cost changed from 100 to 0
    • Now reads: Arc Warden creates a copy of himself with the same health he currently has. The clone can use all of Arc Warden’s current items and will attempt to attack the same enemy as his summoner. Whenever this clone dies, Arc Warden will create a new one.
• Clockwerk:
  • Armor changed from [5, 7, 10] to [10, 13, 15]
  • Maximum Health changed from [800, 1600, 3200] to [950, 1800, 3500]
• Medusa:
  • Attack Damage Minimum changed from [50, 100, 200] to [75, 150, 300]
  • Attack Damage Maximum changed from [60, 120, 240] to [80, 160, 320]
• Tinker:
  • Attack Speed changed from 0.67 to 0.77
  • Armor changed from 10 to 5
  • Attack Damage Minimum changed from [50, 100, 225] to [60, 120, 270]
  • Attack Damage Maximum changed from [60, 120, 275] to [72, 144, 330]
• Treant Protector:
  • Leech Seed:
    • Projectile Speed changed from 600 to 800
    • Leech Damage and Heal changed from [80, 110, 150] to [100, 150, 200]
  • It’s likely that Druid becomes a much more prominent alliance with Lone Druid being significantly more powerful thanks to the recent patch. Treant Protector is already a great value unit, and these buffs are likely to highlight the overall strength of Druid.
• Lycan:
  • Alliance changed from Human Warrior Savage to Human Hunter Savage
  • Lycan’s Wolves are Hunter Savages
  • Pairing Lycan with Human was never a sensible decision. Hunter synergy will make him much deadlier with units like Drow Ranger.
• Juggernaut:
  • Juggernaut Attack Speed changed from 0.91 to [0.91, 1.0, 1.25]
  • Juggernaut Min Damage changed from [65, 130, 260] to [65, 140, 280]
  • Juggernaut Max Damage changed from [70, 140, 280] to [70, 150, 300]

ITEM CHANGES

• Font of Creation:
  • Eidolon HP changed from [300, 400, 500] to 300
  • Eidolon Max Damage changed from [70, 80, 90] to [60, 70, 80]
  • Font of Creation only exacerbated the Arc Warden dilemma by distracting units while they multiplied. This should make them much more manageable.

ALLIANCE CHANGES

• Primordials:
  • Level 1: Enemies attacking Primordial units have a 25% chance to have their attack speed slowed by 50 each attack. This effect is applied at the start of the attack and lasts for the duration of the attack.
  • Level 2: Enemies attacking friendly units have a 25% chance to have their attack speed slowed by 50 each attack. This effect is applied at the start of the attack and lasts for the duration of the attack.

Primordials no longer shut down attackers but still counter Hunter compositions. It’s worth noting Razer and Tiny are still great value, and it’ll be interesting to see new meta picks.