1.17 Beta Patch 404 Notes | 8/14/2004 5:09:35 AM GMTDT           
 
 
FEATURES

- Two new Neutral Heroes, the Firelord and the Goblin Alchemist, have been
added to the game. For further information on these exciting new Heroes
and a listing of their abilities, visit http://www.battle.net/war3 .
- A "Profile" button has been added to the Battle.net toolbar. You can now
look at your profile from the Battle.net news page without ever entering
chat.
- Replays now display their version number in the Replay selection screen.
- Designating a new clan chieftain now includes a confirmation dialogue.
- 9 maps from our Bonus Map program including (8)Funny Bunny's Egg Hunt,
(8)Shamrock Reef, (8)Dragon Falls, (8)Deadlock, (8)Gold Rush, (8)Slalom,
(6)Copper Canyon, (6)Rolling Hills, and (4)Predators.

FIXES

- Fixed an issue that could cause the Orb of Annihilation's splash damage
to ignore armor.
- Fixed a problem that could cause Metamorphosis to cancel the effects of
a Staff of Teleportation.
- Fixed Devour such that devoured units now give experience to the owner of
the Kodo Beast if it gets polymorphed/hexed and instantly digests the unit.
- Fixed rally points such that friendly units will no longer cancel rally
orders to Heroes that teleport, Blink, or Mirror Image.
- Fixed illusions so they now get correct damage, armor, life, and mana
bonuses consistent with the original units.
- Fixed an issue with morphed units that could cause them to cost food when
revived by Animated Dead if they had died in their morphed form.
- Fixed the Storm Pandaren (from the Pandaren Brewmaster's ultimate) so it
now correctly displays Wind Walk's backstab damage.
- Fixed a problem with Flame Strike that wouldn't allow Blood Mages to
become invisible after they finished channeling the spell. Prior to this
fix, the Blood Mage would become visible for as long as damage was taking
place, despite the fact that he was no longer casting the spell.
- Fixed upgrading buildings such that they now receive the correct hit point
bonus from the Masonry upgrade.
- Fixed a problem that could cause manually cast arrow abilities to
occasionally fail.
- Fixed racial shops so they no longer block line of sight.
- Fixed multiple units' casting the same spell so they now distribute the
load more efficiently.
- Fixed creeps so that missile spells no longer wake them when launched.
Instead, the creeps now wake when a spell hits.
- Fixed channeling units so they will auto-queue orders issued to the entire
selection except for Stop and Hide. Orders issued to the selected subgroup
will break channeling (so you can teleport out of the area while
channeling).
- Fixed units in the middle of a non-channeling spell such that they will now
auto-queue all orders until the spell is complete.
- Fixed Hero icons so their order is now consistent throughout the game.
- Fixed replay speeds so they can once again be changed while the replay
is paused.

MAPS

Expansion - Frozen Throne
- (4)Turtle Rock - Top right and bottom left creep camps now drop equivalent
items.
- (4)Twisted Meadows - Added some trees near the south Mercenary Camp
to prevent mercenary purchase without engaging the creeps. Also added
some trees to prevent item purchase from Goblin Merchant without
engaging creep camp.
- (6)Demon's Crossing - Removed the two Dragon Roosts and their accompanying
creep camps from both sides of the map, then altered the creep camp
guarding the remaining Dragon Roost. Rebalanced most of the creep camps to
be more player friendly.
- (6)Monsoon - Added some trees near the water line to prevent units from
moving behind them.
- (6)Typhoon - Added some trees near the expansion gold mines to prevent the
creeps from harassing players when they pass by. Added some trees to start
locations and moved bottom middle start location closer to trees to help
with initial harvesting.
- (6)Upper Kingdom - The two center creep camps that are guarding gold mines
have been pushed back from common pathing areas.
- (8)Mur'gul Oasis - Center creeps pushed further back away from common
pathing areas through the middle.
- (8)Gold Rush - Fixed missing Tavern from the bottom left corner.

Classic - Reign of Chaos
- (6)Dark Forest - Cleaned up some trees to provide wider areas for larger
groups to path through. The creep camp guarding the top middle expansion
gold mine no longer attacks units that path nearby.

BALANCE CHANGES

General
- Haunted and Entangled Gold Mines are now indicated on the minimap.
- The experience bonus for having a single Hero and owning a tier-2 or
tier-3 town hall has been increased to +15%/+30% from +10%/+20%.
- Line damage spells such as Shockwave, Carrion Swarm, Breath of Fire, and
Breath of Frost no longer damage a targeted friendly unit.
- Default autocast spells (like Abolish Magic or Bloodlust) that require
research will now activate when the research completes.
- Arrow abilities set to autocast now override Orb effects.
- Repairing an upgrading building now uses the repair time and cost of the
original building.
- Harvesting, building, and repairing workers are the only units left
behind by a teleport.
- Hexed and polymorphed units now have the same statistics as the normal
units except for movement speed and the model. Previously, these abilities
were changing the armor type and hit point regeneration type.
- Constructing Peasants are now included in group selections. A
constructing Peasant will automatically queue all orders unless it is
the only unit selected, or until it receives a Stop order.
- Channeling ultimates now cancel invulnerability. If an invulnerability
spell is used while channeling, channeling will end.
- Damage-capped AOE spells now have a seperate cap for friendly, enemy,
and neutral units.
- Enemy units now take damage from Lightning Shielded illusions.
- If a unit is rallied to a unit/Hero that dies, the rallied unit will
now continue to move towards the last spot the rally target occupied.

Human
- Defend has been reworked. Piercing damage is still reduced by 50%, and
there is now an additional 40% chance that a defending Footman will
reflect the attack back on the source for full damage.
- Siphon Mana has been reworked. It now transfers mana from an enemy to the
Blood Mage, or from the Blood Mage to an ally. Additionally, Siphon Mana
can push the Blood Mage's mana up to as much as twice its normal maximum
value, though mana gained in this way drains off rapidly if not used.
- Blood Mage attack speed increased by 30%.
- Flame Strike damage cap set to the equivalent of 6 targets, up from 5.
- Banish now costs mana 75/50/35 by level, and has a 0-second cooldown at all
levels, down from 5/3/1 seconds.
- Knight hit points increased to 835 from 800.
- Arcane Towers now deal 20 bonus damage per attack to summoned units.
- Divine Shield can no longer be deactivated.
- Phoenixes no longer regenerate life from a Fountain of Health.

Undead
- Death Knight base armor reduced to 3 from 4.
- Banshee attack range increased to 600 from 500.
- Units raised by Animate Dead are now invulnerable to dispels as well as
damage.
- Destroyers no longer regenerate mana from a Fountain of Mana.
- Unsummoning an upgraded building now provides resources for the original
building in addition to the cost of the upgrade (was just the cost of the
upgrade).
- The Nerubian Towers' frost attacks now properly affect magic-immune units.
- Devour Magic now dispels the owl summoned by Sentinel, but does not give
mana to the Destroyer.

Orc
- Tauren Chieftain base Intelligence increased to 15 from 14.
- Troll Batrider build time increased from 25 to 28.
- Experience granted for killing the Spirit Wolves summoned by the spell
Feral Spirit increased by approximately 40%.
- Spirit Link can now be used to affect illusions.
- Wind Walk now allows the Blademaster to walk through units.
- Spirit Walkers now appear before Raiders and Kodo Beasts in the group
selection.
- Troll Batriders can no longer use Unstable Concoction while Banished.

Night Elf
- Faerie Fire armor debuff reduced to 4 from 5.
- Archer hit points increased to 245 from 240.
- Faerie Dragon damage increased to 14-16 from 13-14.
- Level-1 Entangling Roots base duration reduced to 9 seconds from 12, but
level-3 Entangling Roots damage increased to 25 per second from 15 per
second.
- Ancient Protector's attack now uses a homing missile.
- The Huntress' bouncing attacks will no longer bounce back to the initial
target.
- Shadow Strike is no longer removed by Banish.
- Taunt now affects only the 10 closest units. It is also now disabled by
Banish.

Neutrals
- Naga Sea Witch speed reduced to 270 from 300.
- Cluster Rockets mana cost reduced to 70 from 75.
- Voidwalker mercenaries now cost 2 food, up from 1.
- Hydras spawned from a splitting parent are no longer considered summoned
units.

Items
- Targeting an unwalkable location with a Scroll of Town Portal will now
try to place units as close to that location as possible. If no valid
location can be found, the units will be teleported to an area around
the town hall.
- All Orbs now affect magic-immune units.
- Orb of Corruption debuff can no longer be dispelled.
- Orb of Fire now deals Spell damage instead of Magic damage.
- Mechanical Critters are no longer displayed on the minimap.
- Mechanical Critters no longer teleport with you.
- Amulet of Spell Shield no longer blocks physical skills (e.g., Ensnare).

NOTES: Replays are incompatible between major game revisions (1.16 replays
cannot be viewed with the 1.17 version of Warcraft III). Custom save games
will not load from version 1.16.