NEW PATCH RUNDOWN! WHATS IMPORTANT WHATS NOT?
Added 2025-10-16 00:44:59 +0000 UTCThe New Patch on September 30th was a huge patch that changed a lot of fundamental gameplay characteristics in HOTS. Now that everyone has had 3 weeks to experience the new patch and we have 3 weeks of data, I'll go over what changed in the new patch, what is important and what is not and which heroes are doing better and why and vice versa!
Comments
Yeah you want to do the next best available option. If they have already invaded your camp 5v4 then your team has already been outplayed so giving the camp up and clearing it or doing another camp thats not likely to be invaded would be good follow up options.
Fan Yang
2025-10-22 22:55:07 +0000 UTCI belive Fan's explanations make a lot of sense to explain everything that is happening right now. Before explaining my opinions to add my perspective here, I just want to say that I don't like to see games having stuff that benefit low level players or high level players, they are just features. The game is what it is and so high level players will play according to the current system and exploit their features. About the experience part, i think this will simply benefit the player for playing more efficiently than the enemy. You are better at soaking experience you get rewarded for that and, thus, if you are bad at soaking you will get punished more easily. I belive this is good since soaking is one of the most important aspects of the game, if you soak better you play the game better. It doesn't help snowballying the game because the experience resource of the minions is the same. About the fort changes, I don't mind (accept) the minion buffs. It is just an extra advantage you gain for being able to push. If you are able to kill the enemy minion wave and push with it now you will do 35% more damage, that is what can start snowballing the game since it makes it faster to reach the core eventually and gain more levels and talents. The experience source of the structures is the same but will be gained faster, that will make you destroy structures, reach heroics and other talent power spikes faster. What I don't like about the fort changes is that they will no longer retarget the diver. Yes, the defender will receive 35 spell armor but that isn't enough to save him from an outnumbered chase or zoaning which essentially nullifies the presence of the defender. He won't be able to destroy the minions to contest the push and he also won't be able to soak their experience because he is zoaned out. Basically, is as if the defender wasn't even there. I don't like that personally. Finally, about the camps the idea is the same. Not only will they start being available faster but they are also an important source of experience. Once again, the respawn time didn't change so the amout of experience from this resource is the same but you can get it faster meaning you will level faster as well. And also, they help in pushing the lanes which is also a factor that helps snowballing even more. The faster capture of camps and its synergy with the faster pushing of lanes and structure destruction is what is making the game slightly faster. So, to sum up this wall of text... (sorry xD). I think the game is mostly the same, the way to play is the same and the tactical/strategical aspects are the same. What changes is that you get rewarded for soaking better, for pushing waves and structures, and for capturing camps efficiently. The only thing that changes is that if you play efficiently the game will be faster, and also heroes that are strong pushers and campers will be slightly buffed as Fan explained. In the end, the only thing I don't like is the nullification of the defender because he already lost something in the first place, he should at least be able to use his presence to mitigate pushing damage and to collect soak, with the new changes good players will zone them out using their pushing advantage making the defenders presence irrelevant (that's the only thing I don't like). There is my perspective as of today, thanks for input! It is much better when we all can give our opinions to learn together! <3
Matr1x
2025-10-16 15:26:46 +0000 UTCI wonder if some of the difference in experiences with the game being snowbally might be exaggerated or placebo as well given the big changes. While I can definitely see how good players are being better rewarded for strong macro which could make upsets less likely, I'm curious if the first-to-ten winrates have actually changed that much between the patches (although even that wouldn't verify that games are actually "snowballing" more). Largely, it feels to me like the patch hasn't actually done much to effect how an individual would want to strategize for the majority of a match, just made poor play more punishable. Would love to hear other perspectives though.
RoquwellHOTS
2025-10-16 01:42:25 +0000 UTCThanks for the update! Really useful to see what you think about these changes, helps a lot! :) I have a small question regarding the explanation done about the doing camps at 30 sec or not (at around 7min of the video). The explanation was brilliant, I understood your idea. I was just trying to think one step ahead. So, the team that will clear the wave faster and get prio will be able to stop the enemy tram from doing the camp at 30 seconds (they will just provoke a 5v4). If they try to steal it or just pressure the invade to make the enemy not do it I guess depends on the comp/heroes, etc. My question point is, if the team with prio is able to at least pressure so the other team can't do the camp, then what do you do to compensate for that? So we realize we will lose the prio and won't be able to do the camp. So you go do the other camp instead? You conceed a steal on your siege camp and just defend? Perhaps even both at the same time? I do recall from a lot of HGC games where you guys werent doing camps as soon as they spawned, and I guess it might boil down to some of these ideas. I know this is perhaps a little more high level stuff, but I'm curious and interested to know your thoughts on this! Thanks for the guide as always sensei! hugg <3
Matr1x
2025-10-16 01:25:52 +0000 UTC
