A man who walks the line between life and death. Victor has learned to harness pain into power, shocking himself with Jumpstart to get his adrenaline rushing and his faulty heart pumping. He welcomes incoming damage with open (albeit mismatched) arms, channeling it into his Pain Battery and granting enemies a taste of the pain he endures. Get too close and risk getting caught in his Aura of Suffering, but hey, at least you'll be suffering together! And just when you think you've taken him down... Think again. - 'They don't have what it takes to kill me.'


With Victor joining us today in the Cursed Apple, that concludes the rollout of our Six Hero Update. Thank you to everyone for participating in voting, we have loved seeing all the discourse and heart-felt campaigns for your favorite heroes over the last two weeks.


Quick Voting Stats:

• Nearly 6 million votes were cast in total by the community
  
• The highest number of votes cast by an individual player was 203
  
• Billy won with the largest lead at just over 30% of the total votes at the time of his release
  
• The Doorman and Paige was the closest contest, with only a 0.85% difference in favor of The Doorman

Something ancient has arrived in New York... a nameless horror known only as the Drifter. Relentless as time, as certain as death, once Drifter sets his eyes on a victim there's nothing they can do to stop him. They can try to run, but his Bloodscent drives him forward, leading him to isolated prey. Even if they manage to escape it doesn't matter, as Stalker's Mark allows Drifter to appear right behind his enemies before lunging in for the kill with a vicious Rend. Soon Eternal Night comes, and a faint whistling in the breeze will be joined by a chorus of screams. - 'Everyone's got weaknesses, but mercy ain't one of mine.'


You'll be able to find the Drifter lurking right behind you in games starting today. We'll be back here on Friday at 2pm PDT for the conclusion of our hero update with the release of Victor. See you then!

It's Monday, and today we're excited to announce the next hero joining us in the Cursed Apple is...

Citizens of Manhattan will learn to appreciate the power of the written word when Paige joins the fight. With the mere toss of a book she can Conjure Dragons that sear enemies who get too close, or bind them to the ground with Captivating Read. Waning allies will find themselves emboldened by Defend and Fight, granting them the courage to fight another day. Fantasy becomes reality with Rallying Charge, summoning an entire cavalry to gallop across the city. - 'We can't wait to see how this story plays out.'


Your votes will decide if Drifter or Victor will be joining us on Wednesday at 2pm PDT, we'll see you then!

He's proper, he's polite, but the humble Doorman of The Baroness Hotel is more than meets the eye. A brisk ring of his Call Bell leaves nearby enemies disoriented, and his high-speed Luggage Cart knocks them right off their feet. Do you find yourself getting lost easily in the streets of Manhattan? Don't worry, The Doorman is here to provide a shortcut with his Doorway whenever the need arises. And only the most special of enemies get to experience the trip of a lifetime to The Baroness Hotel. - Please, stay as long as you'd like.


You can check out The Doorman in game now. Keep your votes coming over the weekend as our next hero will be released on Monday August 25th at 2pm PST.

The votes are in! Today we are excited to announce that the next hero joining us in the Cursed Apple is... Billy!

A white hot ball of rage, furious at the very notion of... something. Billy is a chaotic front-liner who never backs down from a challenge. With Rising Ram he gets up close and personal, before slamming down with Bashdown to create shockwaves through his enemies. Running isn't even an option when Billy can use his ultimate Chain Gang to grapple enemies and pull them back in. A quick swig from his bottle gets him Blasted, and his enemies totally wrecked. - 'The hell are you staring at, buddy?'

Keep your votes coming. The next hero will be released at 2pm PST on Friday. See you then!

[ Shop Redesign ]

- Full shop rework, including many new items.
- Item slots are now all universal, rather than tree specific.
- Total slot count reduced from 16 to 12.
- Item costs are now discounted when you own the component.
- New artwork for all item icons.
- Reworked how tier bonuses work in the shop. They are no longer based on each item you buy, but instead based on your total spend in a tree. Bonuses are not linear (maxing out one tree fully isn't optimal bonus-wise).
- Various item names have been changed.
- Items now glow when there is an upgrade you can buy.


[ Build Authoring ]

- The Build Browser has been reworked and is now its own fullscreen UI.
- Added a "Create Build" button when hovering over a player in post-game. This will create a local unpublished build based on the items the player purchased in that match (including imbue targets and the order in which items were sold).
- Added a new feature: build tags. Build tags are a way to compactly describe the theme of a build. A tag has an icon and a description, and you can assign 3 tags to a build (they don't have to be unique). There are a small number of initial "standard" tags such as Weapon/Spirit/Vitality, but also things like level of complexity, whether the build is melee focused, etc. In addition to the standard build tags, the ability icons of the hero, and icons of items included in a build can also be used as tags.
- Published builds that don't yet have tags will not show up in the public results in the build browser.
- Added the ability to specify a suggested imbue target for items in a build. When using Quickbuy this will be automatically selected. When purchasing normally, the suggested ability will be highlighted in the imbue popup.
- Added the ability to specify a sell priority value (0-100) for items in a build. When using Quickbuy, if you are out of slots, and you own an item with a sell priority, that item will automatically be sold to make room for your next purchase.
- Build Categories can now be marked as Optional, which show up differently in the build UI and will not be added to Quickbuy when queuing a build.
- You can now highlight both items and categories in the build editor, with a dedicated section on the left to edit the properties of the current selection (this replaces right-click context menus to update things like annotation notes and imbue targets).
- You can remove items from a build by dragging them outside of the category UI.


[ Quickbuy Redesign ]

- Added a new larger Quickbuy queue UI adjacent to the shop that lets you remove and reorder items in the queue.
- Added buttons to queue your entire build and to clear your Quickbuy queue.
- The default Quickbuy hotkey has been changed from 'Shift+B' to 'G'.
- Added an option to always queue your selected build at the start of a match.
- Fixed several bugs that would cause Quickbuy purchases to fail.


[ Base and Map Updates ]

- New base design.
- Amber side early development pass at industrial exterior.
- Sapphire side early development pass at museum exterior.
- Interior shape changed to round with a high domed ceiling (both sides using the same interior temporarily).
- Added Patron Throne that moves down into the ground to form the final Patron area.
- Two ventilation tunnels from the player spawn to the final Patron area combined into a single tunnel.
- Shrines moved back closer to the player spawn area and pushed into alcoves.
- Hallways along the Mid Lane entrance to the base changed to rooms with ropes leading up to the high ground.
- Side passages from player spawn area to the Shrines changed to curved stairs.
- Increased areas in front of the Mid Lane base entrances.
- Added Juke Closets in between base entrances on the interior side.

Mid Lane Laning Area:
- Lowered buildings on the corners of the area that have access to Mid Boss.
- Extended the rope from Mid Boss to the rooftop of these newly lowered buildings.

Mid Lane Walker Arena:
- Redesigned Boutique.
- Expanded the rooftop all the way back to the wall.
- Raised building separating the Boutique and the base.
- Continuous interior from jungle area to the walker.
- Stairs dip down into the building.
- Added high building archway behind the Walker.
- Increased the window size in the covered hallway in between the Walker and the jungle areas.

Outer Lane Walker Arena (Amber Park and Sapphire York):
- Removed the Skybridges just below the ziplines from the base side.
- Removed the Pedestrian bridge in between the Walker and the Guardian.
- Reduced width of the street coming from the Guardian.
- Added catwalk on the defender side to connect to the catwalk behind the Walker.
- Added an awning in front of the Cultural Center.
- Changed the Cultural Center interior path to go to the defender side catwalk.
- Removed the high ground side entrance to the interior hallway on the outside of the lane.
- Centered the bounce pad coming out of the interior hallway in between the Walker and the Guardian.

Bull/Bear Jungles:
- Added a rope to access the roof from the jungle side.
- Removed wall shrubs on the jungle side.
- Removed the zap triggers on that rooftop.
- Added breakables on the roof.
- Lowered the tower building in the jungle area across from the connection area.
- Lowered rooftop of the Clinic/Law Office (building next to the Bear/Bull statues).
- Connected the rooftop of the Clinic/Law Office to the lowered roof leading to Mid Lane.
- Lowered one side of the building beside the Fish Market/Nursery.
- Added Juke Closet off the lowered rooftop.
- Added breakables to all newly lowered rooftops.
- Moved and rotated delivery trucks separating neutral camps.

Juke Closets:
- Increased size of doorways of Juke Closets.

Breakable Crates:
- Wooden crates replaced with new design and shader.

Art Pass:
- Skybridges
- Pedestrian Bridges (old Power Up bridges)
- Department Store
- Chapel
- Bell Tower
- Apartment Complex
- Speakeasy
- Gallery
- Interiors
- Broadway Storefronts
- Nightclub
- Theater

Miscellaneous:
- Increased size of all doorways entering interior spaces.
- Removed the veils below the old Power-Up bridges.
- Removed the sign on the top of the Theater.
- Added collision to the chimney pipes.
- Raised interior ceiling of Radio Station/Apartment Complex on outer lanes next to the T1 Shops.
- Removed the columns in the interiors of the Radio Station/Apartment.
- Added lights to the Radio Station/Apartment interiors.
- Removed veil at the front of Dept Store/New York Oracle.


[ Soul Orb Mechanics ]

- Players gain back ammo when claiming an Orb.
- Improved reliability of soul orb claims when experiencing momentary packet loss or latency.
- Reworked visual effects to more clearly communicate when they are claimable or expiring.
- Reworked client feedback when shooting a soul orb prior to being awarded the souls.
- Soul orbs no longer automatically claim when colliding with the world.


[ Game Feel and Optimization ]

- Improved unit targeting logic.
- Networking: Add method to smooth player jitter that may result from non-ideal networking conditions.
- Fixed jittery motion for various in-world UI elements, such as targeting and ziplines.
- Improve fairness in hit registration between high and low ping players during ability use and when shooting troopers.
- Fixed rare bug that would cause melee hits to have an incorrect range on the server.
- Fixed various scenarios causing networking-related jitter when climbing ropes.
- Reduced jitter from mispredictions while ziplining near another player.
- Fixed issues with mispredicting (and bad stuttering) when going around corners on zipline.


[ Movement ]

- Air Acceleration has been increased to improve Wall Jump controls, but only while moving at lower speeds.
- Wall Jump launch has different kick away speed from the wall based on whether you're pushing your movement direction toward, away, or neutral.
- Fixed cases where it was impossible to Mantle Ledges to the left or right of your Wall Jump direction, just after a Wall Jump.
- Fixed/improved control over air dashes just after a Wall Jump.
- Wall Jump fatigue affects the vertical launch only, and recovers at 1.25s instead of 2s. This should encourage long lateral leaps, while keeping chimneying in check.
- Fixed a bug where using Melee on the ground triggered Wall Jump fatigue.
- Wall detection for wall jumps now takes into account all walls in a small radius around the player, not just the last wall touched.
- Changes to Wall Jump behavior have reduced the effectiveness of "Corner Boosting" a bit.
- While Wall Sliding, terminal velocity is in effect (for vertical speeds only). At -600u/s gravity is cancelled out.
- Mantle Glide: Holding Crouch or Crouch Toggle while exiting a Mantle creates a small speed boost, allowing you to slide out of mantles.


[ Camera ]

- Various Fixes for camera positions when characters push the camera into the ceiling in special cases ( Vindicta & Abrams' Ults ).
- Characters, Guardians, Walkers and Shrines will fade to a minimum transparency as they get too close to the camera.
- Soft Camera Collision: As you move, the camera anticipates walls approaching from behind and to the right of your character resulting in less sudden jolts, and smooth near/far camera paths when turning in constricted spaces.


[ Misc Gameplay ]

- Changing the third flex slot unlock from killing all Walkers to killing two Walkers.
- Changing last flex slot from base guardians and shrine to just base guardians.
- Players now start with 400 souls.
- Adjusted the boon reward schedule and added some more levels.
- You now also gain Spirit per boon. Adjusted Spirit on various abilities and items to compensate.
- All hero stats rebalanced alongside the shop rework.
- Adjusted objective health values (as part of damage value changes in the shop).

- Shields have been reworked and are now called Barriers. They are no longer multiple damage types. They also interact normally with resistances now.

- Hero kill comeback values reduced by 15%.
- The losing team now gains up to 25% more souls from troopers, neutrals, vaults, and objectives, based on how behind they are (peaks at 20% max networth delta). First 3k in networth difference is ignored.

- Zipline Boost speed reduced from 130% to 80%.
- Zipline Boost cooldown increased from 280s to 360s.
- Zipline now glows in the world when there is a zipline-boosted player on it.
- Zipline Walker nodes adjusted. When Walker is contested, the last active defending zipline node is now behind the Walker instead of right on top of it.
- Zipline dismount momentum reduced slightly.

- Trooper bounty split from 100/60/35/25/20/16% to 100/60/30/20/15/11 (less effective economy as a large group).
- Side Walkers' HP relative to Mid Walkers HP changed from -22% HP to -40%.
- Decreased the height of Walkers' Stomp ability from 9m to 6m.
- Backdoor protection range check increased by 5m for Walkers and 10m for Base Objectives.
- Distance to attack walkers increased from 32.5 to 35.
- Powerups Now spawn at 5 minutes instead of 10 minutes.
- Breakables now spawn at 2 minutes instead of 3 minutes (they still respawn every 3 minutes).
- Soul Breakables chance increased from 50% to 60%.
- Golden Statue breakables chance increased from 40% to 50%.
- Minimap now shows what kind of powerup is spawned.
- Teleporters now start available at the beginning of the game, rather than at 8 minutes.
- Walkers Resistance based on nearby enemies increased from 0/8/16/24/32/40% to 0/0/20/30/40/50%.
- Bullet and Spirit Resistance for being near Walker value reduced from 25% to 15%.
- Bullet and Spirit Resistance for being near Walker radius reduced from 35.5m to 32m.
- Neutral bounties increased by 6%.
- Healing area turrets' damage increased by 20%.
- Base trooper bounty reduced from 144 to 132

- Powerup Gun: Min Fire Rate reduced from 15% to 12%.
- Powerup Gun: Min Ammo reduced from 30% to 20%.
- Powerup Survival: Min Health reduced from 250 to 200.
- Powerup Survival: Min regen reduced from 0.75% to 0.5%.
- Powerup Casting: Min Spirit Power reduced from 20 to 15.
- Powerup Casting: Min CD Reduction reduced from 15% to 12%.
- Powerup Movement: Min Sprint reduced from 2m to 1.5m.
- Powerups now start scaling up from 5 min rather than from 10 min.

- Debuff Resistance now stacks diminishingly.
- Increased Dash Slow cap from -40% to -50%.
- Upgraded items now share the cooldown of the consumed item (i.e. using Healing Rite before upgrading to Healing Nova no longer resets the cooldown).


[ General ]

- Updated all default builds.
- Net Worth display shows decimals until 10k (instead of only until 5k).
- Updated all targeting in game with new visuals to be consistent for positive targeting AOEs.

- Troopers are visible through walls during the laning phase. Replaces the HUD element showing trooper icon and health.
- Ally health bars visible through walls in addition to X-ray.
- Nearby creep X-rays also visible through walls.
- Added outlines to hero shader.
- Minor update to the "Get Started" tutorial videos to reflect the three lanes and removal of trooper last hits.
- Corrected name of Temple Guardian in the damage report where it was appearing as Mid Boss.
- Added a tooltip to explain the secondary build search language option in Settings.
- Aligned labels of in-world pickup item labels with the corresponding modifiers so the HUD text that appears after picking up an item uses consistent terminology.
- Shrines are now navigation blockers, discouraging troopers from walking through and into them.
- Majestic Leap, Warp Stone, and Phantom Strike can now properly be cast while climbing ropes.
- Sinclair's Spectral Assistant teleport follow-up can now properly be cast while climbing ropes.
- Bots will change their mind less frequently when considering retreating due to low health.
- Bots now use ziplines when returning to base to heal.
- Bots are now much better at ziplining out of base.
- Players will no longer be attacked by nearby Neutrals when attacking the Sinner's Sacrifice in Sandbox.
- Improvements to camera change on rope climb ejection.

[ Sound, Music, and VO Changes ]

- Added sounds for Patron transforming to weakened state.
- Added Patron shock attack sound when in weakened state.
- Adjusted Walker audio mix for greater threat perception when enemy and less threat when ally.
- Improved Guardian activate sound to trigger less often between attacks.
- Updated zipline audio mix so allies and enemies using ziplines are more audible.
- Improved footstep audio sync across all heroes.
- Improved animation audio coverage across all heroes.
- Updated audio mix between footsteps and movement across all heroes.
- New footstep material sweetener sounds, increased overall volume.
- Added more match start conversations.
- Match start conversations are now cancelled by higher priority lines (like ping lines), regardless of which hero is talking.
- Fixed match start conversations to handle game pauses correctly.
- Voice lines that fire when an objective is denied will only be played for those close to the objective.
- Removed shop music in hero test.
- Updated weapon initial reflection acoustics model.
- Damage audio feedback scales with "falloff" - it will be more quiet when damage is least effective.
- Lowered and shortened headshot damage audio.
- Removed some mix settings that were lowering player weapon when receiving damage.
- Added support to play weapon fire from muzzle location.
- Technical groundwork to change sound effects based on surface materials for things like footsteps and bullets with some meaningful performance savings.
- Added unique surface impacts for bullets for various materials.
- Technical groundwork to unify weapon sound and continue reducing fatigue, includes some additional support to include per-weapon low ammo sounds and acoustics.
- Remastered several characters' weapon fire sounds using the new feature set (Wraith, Dynamo, Calico, and Abrams).
- Improved bullet whizby audio detection.
- Ensured technical parity between automatic and animation-driven footstep systems.
- Match Start conversations now have a 50% chance of firing - this reduces repetition as well gives the patron a chance to speak individually to a hero.
- Match Start conversation timings have been adjusted to make them flow faster and more naturally.
- Match Start conversations will no longer partially fire, so if content has not been recorded you won't hear the start of a conversation then no follow-up.
- Green lane is once again referred to as Greenwich by heroes.
- Added a new Ping for "leaving the area" for most heroes.
- Adjusted Patron VO frequency when leveling up so they're a little less chatty.
- Fixed several issues with heroes referring to other heroes with outdated names or not saying their name at all.
- Updated Shopkeeper VO - minor update that adds a few new interactions.
- Turned off/on a handful of stray VO lines to have things be more in line with current iteration of abilities (for instance Holliday no longer says "armor's not going to save you", when in fact, armor could save you).
- Increased volume for hero effort VO sounds (jumping, dashing, mantling).
- Teammates' pain VO will receive a volume boost when their health gets below a certain threshold.
- Changed Hero Death VO to be directional.


[ User Interface ]

- Items now show Spirit Scaling when alt is pressed.
- General visual pass to minimap in concert with map changes to improve its read and usability.
- Objective icons and lanes on minimap have been adjusted for visual and functional clarity.
- New lower "basement" level texture was added to minimap when players traverse into deeper parts of the map.
- All keyboard/controller button glyphs have been unified into a common UI element.
- Keyboard, Mouse, and Button bind stylings have improved, especially in the case of "inline" bindings.
- When an action is not bound to any key button, there is a symbol in its place.
- When an ability or active item button is pressed during cooldown, the related element will shake and glow red briefly.
- Updated and improved search functionality in the shop.
- The cooldown alert message has been removed, but alert messages related to Charges, Silences, etc. remain.
- Objective healthbars now only show for the Patron, Shrines, and Midboss.
- When stunned or disarmed the reticle now changes state and displays a duration meter.
- Hiding gun disarmed FX and generic disarm particles since the reticle communicates the disarmed state.
- Added overhead indicators for disarm abilities.
- Don't show cooldowns on ability icons for the imbue popup.
- Reordered ping wheel messages with lanes so the order matches the left to right order of the lanes.
- Simplified and reworked the menu when you hit ESC while in-game.
- Deadlock loading screens can now animate and show other controls.
- Added charge-up icon and entry in labels in the same way we have cooldowns for items.
- Added "unstoppable" as a status effect to show in tooltips.
- The ultimate icons on the team's bar at the top of the HUD have been updated.
- Added UI indication when an item is upgradeable in the shop (when you already have a component for an item).
- Added purchase messages in the chat feed for T3 and T4 items that allies or enemies purchase.

- Added a corner cap on items in inventory/scoreboard/etc to replace the old tier indicators and give better tree recognition.
- Disabled low/mid health label under crosshair.
- Made it so scaling values below 0.5 shows 2 decimals instead of 1.
- Hovering items in the damage report now shows tooltip for that item.
- Sinner's Sacrifice bonuses now appear faster.
- Added a UI state when Stamina is disabled with a debuff.
- Top bar now uses the new vertical bar graphs.
- Charge-up items (Mystic Burst, Tankbuster, QSR, Ethereal Bullets) now show 'cooldown' timing clock on icon while they are charging up.
- When charge-up items are fully charged the HUD icon at center will show just like items that are refreshed on cooldown.
- Renamed "Move Speed Resist" to "Slow Resist".
- Items in your HUD are organized by cheapest to most expensive from left to right.
- Base Guardians now share a single Icon / HP pool on Minimap.
- Patron now shows an icon for each of its phases.
- Active items are no longer sorted separately from the rest of the items; all items are now sorted alphabetically.
- Range and Duration upgrades are now labeled as “Ability Range” and “Ability Duration” tooltip wise, to help with searching in the shop.


[ Heroes ]

Abrams
- Siphon Life: Added new animation logic support for Siphon Life and items.
- Shoulder Charge: Base duration increased from 1.2s to 1.4s.
- Shoulder Charge: T1 is now "On Hero Collide: +25% Weapon Damage for 8s".
- Shoulder Charge: T2 is now "-12s Cooldown".
- Shoulder Charge: T3 is now "+0.2s Stun Duration and 40% Movement Slow for 4s".
- Shoulder Charge: New cycle and pre cast 'goose step'.
- Shoulder Charge: Added support for shoulder charging while in air.
- Shoulder Charge: New sounds added for hitting heroes, troopers, and walls.
- Seismic Impact: Radius increased from 9m to 10.5m.
- Seismic Impact: Effects revisions.
- Seismic Impact: Fixed crash down sound triggering twice.
- Seismic Impact: New slam animation.
- Seismic Impact: New sounds added for in-air looping sound and descend sound.
- Added new 'out of combat' run and sprint.
- New Crouch animations.
- Improved hipfire animations.
- Added custom jump catapult animation - an alternate jump animation when using fans and Majestic Leap etc.
- Refined jump start to be cleaner.
- Added custom Zipline Boosted loop.
- Added Zipline swinging animation.
- Fixed a regression where Abrams' Siphon Life and Shoulder Charge ping VO were swapped.
- Removed competing camera modifier on Seismic Impact.
- Fixed camera position on client's ground target not using previews, causing it to be jittery.


Bebop
- Exploding Uppercut: Fixed missing uppercut hero impact sound.
- Hook: Reworked code to reduce mispredicts.
- Hook: When Bebop hooks a trooper, only Bebop will hear the hook success sound now.
- Hook: Fixed the hook sometimes not breaking when the target is stuck.
- Hook: Fixed the target sometimes not being positioned in front of Bebop when Bebop rotated.
- Hyper Beam: Effect revisions for projections on vertical surfaces.
- Hyper Beam: Fixed damaging enemies through thin walls.


Calico
- Leaping Slash: Fixed animation getting stuck when stunned during the ability cast.


Dynamo
- New updated model and animations.
- Kinetic Pulse: T1 Fire Rate slow now matches the Move Slow
- Quantum Entanglement: Added small lerp to VFX for the teleport and smoothed out camera transitions.
- Rejuvenating Aurora: Effect revisions to center focus on head.
- Singularity: Updated effects revisions.
- Singularity: Increased tick rate, equals out to roughly the same DPS overall, just smoother.
- Hero pose ambient VFX added.
- Reload effects revisions.
- Fixed announcer match start line to be spoken by the friendly announcer (was randomly picking between friendly and enemy).
- Various tooltip fixes.


Grey Talon
- Base Bullet Damage spirit power scaling reduced from 0.09 to 0.07.
- Spirit Snare: Added physical elements to the AoE visuals.
- Charged Shot T3 Spirit Power scaling reduced from 1.3 to 1.2.


Haze
- VO remastering pass.
- Sleep no longer wakes up from damage over time.


Holliday
- Powder Keg: Fixed being able to spawn barrels on the other side of thin walls.
- Bounce Pad: Fixed a bug where bounce pads might force you back to the ground after use.
- Spirit Lasso: Holliday now plays VO when she lands a hit with her lasso as opposed to when she casts her lasso (so she won't say "shoot them" if she didn't actually grab anyone).


Infernus
- Catalyst: Projectile no longer slides against geometry.


Ivy
- Watcher's Covenant: Fixed not replicating healing from Bullet Lifesteal (it worked with other sources of bullet lifesteal).
- Stone Form: Fixed cast sound being delayed and increased its volume.
- Stone Form: Fixed interaction with air vents and small geo.
- Air Drop: Adjusted visuals to have higher contrast.
- Air Drop: Ally cast range increased from 8m to 12m.
- Air Drop: Slow duration reduced from 4s to 3s.
- Air Drop: Radius reduced from 14m to 12m.
- Air Drop: Combat Barrier reduced from 200 to 150.
- Air Drop: Combat Barrier Spirit Power scaling reduced from 2.5 to 1.5.
- Air Drop: T1 duration reduced from 12s to 8s.
- Air Drop: T2 Combat Barrier reduced from +300 to +200.
- Air Drop: T3 Silence reduced from 4.5s to 3s.


Kelvin
- Ice Path: Reduced how sticky the Ice Path is for allies.
- Arctic Beam: Fixed damaging enemies through thin walls.


Lady Geist
- Life Drain: You're now only slowed when Life Drain is damaging a target.


Lash
- Base Spirit Resist reduced from 15% to 10%.
- Ground Strike: Spirit scaling reduced from 0.05 to 0.04.
- Ground Strike: Fixed a bug that caused Ground Strike to push the victim under the world.
- Flog: Updated ability icon.
- Death Slam: UI lock-on revisions to simplify readability.
- Death Slam: Fixed channel effect on Death Slam to not disappear prematurely.
- Death Slam: New sounds added for lock-on success sounds, in-air looping sound, victim impact sounds, and a 'miss' sound when Lash does not successfully grab anybody or cancels the ability early.


McGinnis
- New updated model and animations.
- Bullet Growth reduced from 0.311 to 0.29.
- Bullet Velocity increased from 590 to 650.
- No longer has +15% Base Bullet Resist.
- Now has +1% Spirit Resist per Boon.
- Mini Turret: Updated DPS tooltip to properly reflect the correct number.
- Mini Turret: Updated ambient, tracer, and muzzle flash effects.
- Mini Turrets: No longer have a 3 second minimum life time. They now spawn with 60% spirit and bullet resist that decays over 6s.
- Mini Turrets: T3 duration reduced from +18s to +14s.
- Medicinal Specter: Effects revisions and improvements.
- Medicinal Specter: Fixed audio buildup when multiple characters are being healed by Medicinal Specter at once.
- Medicinal Specter: Now provides +15% Stamina Regen.
- Medicinal Specter: T3 reduced from 4% to 3.5%.
- Spectral Wall: Fixed missing sound as it travels before deploy.
- Spectral Wall: The last 2 segments on the left/right sides of Spectral Wall will now turn towards a nearby wall if there is one.
- Spectral Wall: Duration reduced from 5s to 4.5s.
- Spectral Wall: Cooldown increased from 46s to 50s.
- Spectral Wall: T2 reduced from -22s to -20s.
- Spectral Wall: T3 reduced from 1s Stun to 0.75s.
- Heavy Barrage: Projectile and ambient effects revisions.
- Heavy Barrage: Now allows full movement while channeling the ability.
- Heavy Barrage: Fixed a bug where the Camera would not zoom out during the ability if user setting was set to QuickCast.
- Heavy Barrage: Now slows your dash usage by 35%.
- Heavy Barrage: Damage per rocket reduced from 30 to 23.
- Heavy Barrage: Minimum distance increased from 7m to 9m.
- Heavy Barrage: Cooldown increased from 140s to 150s.
- Heavy Barrage: Spirit power scaling reduced from 0.35 to 0.25.
- Heavy Barrage: T3 damage per rocket reduced from +30 to +25.
- Heavy Barrage: T3 now also increases spirit scaling by 0.1.


Mirage
- Tornado: Improved camera animations during ability.
- VO remastering pass as well as new VO content.
- Animation for holding and throwing items has been added.


Mo & Krill
- Scorn: Heal reduced from 1.3x to 1.2x.
- Burrow: T2 reduced from +100 Damage to +80.
- Sand Blast: Projectile no longer slides against geometry.
- Sand Blast: No longer deals damage.
- Combo: Bonus health on kill/assist reduced from +70 to +50.
- VO remastering pass.


Paradox
- VO remastering pass.


Pocket
- Base bullet damage increased from 3.9 to 4.1.
- Affliction: No longer removed by Debuff Remover (as this item no longer removes ultimate effects).
- Affliction: Duration reduced from 18s to 14s.
- Affliction: DPS increased from 10 to 30.
- Affliction: Initial damage reduced from 18% to 10%.
- Affliction: T2 now increases duration by +4s.
- Affliction: T2 Healing Reduction reduced from -50% to -40%.
- Affliction: T3 no longer has % Current HP damage.
- Affliction: T3 increased from +10 DPS to +20 DPS.
- Affliction: T3 range increased from +5m to +6m.
- VO remastering pass as well as new VO content.


Seven
- Static Charge: Can no longer be self cast.
- VO remastering pass.


Shiv
- Killing Blow: Threshold reduced from 22% to 20%.
- Killing Blow: T2 threshold reduced from +6% to +5%.
- VO remastering pass as well as updated ping lines.


Sinclair
- Vexing Bolt: Redirect telegraphs correctly on vertical geometry.
- Rabbit Hex: Fixed a bug where Henry and Savannah wouldn't play VO when turning enemies into rabbits.


Vindicta
- Minor rework on animation set.
- Assassinate: Fixed Vindicta Assassinate zoom in sound triggering twice.


Viscous
- Gun: Improved firing effects.
- Gun: Fixed alt-fire weapon thinking it could zoom. It would try if you held right-click and jumped.
- Puddle Punch: Fix a bug where Puddle Punch would sometimes not deal damage when the target was very close to a wall.
- Goo Ball: Cooldown increased from 95s to 105s.
- Goo Ball: Fixed it knocking back heroes with Unstoppable state.


Vyper
- Petrifying Bola: Debuff effect revisions to help identify targets better.
- Petrifying Bola: Adjusted the volume of direct hits and explosion sounds.


Warden
- VO remastering pass.


Wraith
- Gun: Falloff range reduced from 20m->58m to 18m->52m.
- Telekinesis: Revisions to debuff effect.
- VO remastering pass.


Yamato
- VO remastering pass.


[ Item Sound and Visuals]

Arcane Surge
- New sounds added.

Boundless Spirit
- New sounds added.

Crippling Headshot
- Effects revision to show when the item procs.

Curse
- New sounds added.

Decay
- New sounds added.

Ethereal Shift
- Fixed it not playing the correct cast sound.

Guardian Ward
- New sounds added.

Healing Nova
- New sounds added.

Healing Rite
- New sounds added.

Improved Burst
- Now uses charge-up mechanic (recharges its proc strength over its cooldown duration).

Infuser
- New sounds added.

Knockdown
- Updated overhead visual counter.
- Now stops all momentum on Stun so victims fall straight down.

Kinetic Dash
- New sounds added.

Lucky Shot
- New sounds added.

Metal Skin
- Effects revision at start to make it more apparent.
- Added metal footstep sweetener sound when Metal Skin is active.

Mystic Reverb
- New sounds added.

Mystic Burst
- Now uses charge-up mechanic.

Phantom Strike
- New sounds added.

Quicksilver Reload
- Fixed its fire rate buff not being networked, and therefore not showing up in left-hand panel.
- Now uses charge-up mechanic.

Refresher
- New sounds added.

Rescue Beam
- New sounds added.

Restorative Locket
- New sounds added
- Now plays a sound every time a stack is gained.

Return Fire
- Returned Bullets factor in attacker movement and cannot be easily avoided by strafing.

Rusted Barrel
- New sounds added.

Shadow Weave
- Added effect on activation.
- Fixed item not granting +20% weapon power.

Slowing Hex
- New sounds added.

Spiritual Overflow
- New sounds added.

Unstoppable
- Effects revisions for better visibility and separation from other effects.


[ Localization ]

- Fixed jittery health numbers in some non-English languages.
- Adjusted the width of the individual soul count backer in the HUD by language to prevent player soul counts from spilling outside of the bounding box in languages where number formatting and/or length of the abbreviation for thousands results in longer text than English.
- Applied language-specific width adjustments and padding to the team soul count panel to improve readability.
- Localized the loading screen.
- Added localized versions of the Great For New Players screenshot in the new player dialog window.
- Added localized versions of the the Hero Labs screenshot shown at the hero selection screen.
- Corrected HUD images containing text that were still showing up in English when playing in Korean.
- Adjusted font sizing to fix instances of truncated text in the Hero Testing menu in Russian and Indonesian.
- Enabled resizing of the new player dialog window to fit longer or shorter text appropriately in translation and prevent the "Got it!" button from being cut off in languages with longer text.
- Enabled font scaling on the Imbue and Active tag labels and the Report button to prevent truncation in certain languages.
- Fixed multiple instances of single character awkwardly wrapping to second line in Japanese.
- Added localization support for bot hero pings.


[ Bug Fixes ]

- Fixed the base healing sound sometimes getting stuck on.
- Fixed items like Suppressor showing fire rate slow deltas for yourself when it's actually applied to the enemy.
- Fixed crosshairs not always showing the Disarmed state even though you're disarmed.
- Fixed heroes that have weapon attributes that get scaled by spirit not showing in the deltas for weapon attributes on the mod tooltips.
- Fixed Move speed on the HUD always showing Sprint speed included even if you weren't sprinting.
- Fixed hero stats on dashboard page getting updated from the stats in your previous game.
- Fixed not being able to ping while the game is paused.
- Fixed issue with hero stats tooltip. For example, Glass Cannon was showing -20 health instead of -20% health when hovering the stat tooltip.
- Fixed selling items in Sandbox asking if you want to sell for half price.
- Fixed rare bug causing you to get stuck on a zipline until you manually dismount.
- Fixed bug causing nearby other players to appear jittery while on a zipline.
- Fixed issues that were preventing Yamato, Vindicta, and Pocket desperation lines from playing.
- Fixed corrections when granting ammo via modifier.
- Fixed Soul Urn Icon not appearing next to enemies on the minimap if they were Team Sapphire.
- Fixed Shotguns not having their damage properly reduced against Guardians.
- Fixed abilities and items allowing one to circumvent the max speed cap on players holding the Soul Urn.
- Fixed an edge case where a player could claim the Rejuvenator while they were also parried on their attack.
- Fixed some cases of self damage putting zipline usage on Cooldown and/or knocking the player off the zipline.
- Fixed Debuff Reducer reducing Soul Urn and Unsecured Orbs pickup time.
- Fixed a bug causing Lash's Ground Strike impact to be too loud and Flog impact to be too quiet when hitting large groups of enemies with each ability.
- Fixed a bug preventing Dynamo's and Lash's light melee sounds from playing.
- Fixed a bug causing Holliday's weapon firing sound to be too quiet with sustained firing.
- Fixed a bug causing Holliday's Crackshot ready sound to play while dead.
- Fixed a bug preventing ambient cricket sounds from playing.
- Fixed a bug preventing ambient tree sounds from looping correctly.
- Fixed a bug causing some looping sounds to occasionally start with a small delay.
- Fixed a bug causing Lucky Shot's proc sound to play too loud for certain weapon types.
- Fixed match start zipline conversations being too quiet.
- Fixed various Bullet Velocity tooltip issues.
- Fixed Bullet Velocity not working properly when you had multiple sources (it would pick the highest, even if you had a negative source).
- Fixed Stamina Recovery not showing deltas properly.
- Fixed crash when clicking "Take Control" and there's nothing to control.
- Fixed Phantom Strike causing infinite gravity during the duration of the debuff.
- Fix various cases where Magic Carpet would get cancelled if any enemy stepped in to your debuff (IE Viscous Goo, Inferno FlameDash, Ivy Kudzu).
- Fixed a bug where some item and ability interactions were accidentally being reduced by Debuff Reducer, like Viscous' Ball Stun prevention and some kill trackers.
- Fix Vindicta flight and Wraith Full Auto spirit damage not working if the enemy has a barrier.

Today's update introduces a reworked map layout, alongside a variety of improvements and bug fixes.


[ Map Rework ]
- The map has been redesigned around being 3 lanes rather than 4. This has a large range of accompanying map-wide changes regarding visuals, building layouts, pathways, neutral camps, air vents, breakables, powerup buffs, juke spots, mid boss, etc.

- Added a new feature called "Explore Map" where you can run around an empty city to test movement and navigation. You can find this under the 'Play' menu.


[ Soul Orb Mechanics ]
- Troopers no longer need to be last hit by a player in order to generate souls, as long as you are nearby. Troopers no longer have the "near death" flashing behavior.

- Soul Orb lifetime in the air reduced significantly.
- Soul Orb denies changed from 65/35% to 50/50%.
- Soul Orb physical radius increased by 10%.
- Reduced horizontal movement of soul orbs from troopers.

- Gaining souls from kills now shows a visual effect of souls flying towards you.


[ Sprint ]
- Default sprint speed increased from 0.5 to 1.0.
- Sprint disable duration reduced from 5s to 4s when dealing/taking damage with heroes.
- Sprint disable duration reduced from 5s to 0.5s when dealing/taking damage with non-heroes.


[ Sinner's Sacrifice ]
- Sinner's Sacrifice no longer grants a random Golden Statue buff.
- Sinner's Sacrifice now has a looping timing window where if you kill it with a Heavy Melee (there are visual and audio cues), you will receive 3 Golden Statue buffs. Alternatively, a last hit with Light Melee will only give 1 Golden Statue Buff.


[ Game Feel and Optimizations ]
- Added support for DLSS as an FSR2 alternative for temporal anti aliasing and upscaling. Requires an NVIDIA 2x-class GPU or above.
- For Vulkan users, upgraded FSR2 to AMD's new FSR3 temporal upscaler for sharper and more temporally stable output.
- Enabled NVIDIA Reflex and AMD Anti-Lag 2.0 for reduced latency.
- Client performance improvements.
- Bicubic filtering for lightmaps at higher shadow quality settings.
- Improve how we preload units to prevent shader compilation during gameplay.
- Hero shader improvements.

- Various netcode improvements
- Increased tick rate from 60hz to 64hz to improve the precision of certain game calculations.
- Improved client reporting to prevent incorrect prediction offsets to the server.
- Improved accuracy of server lag compensation to prevent bullets from reporting false hit detection against enemies further in the past.
- Improved timing of server lag compensation to engage during the first phase of bullet creation which previously could have resulted in bullets originating from different positions on the server and client.
- Improved accuracy of Soul Orb hitboxes to ensure they are in the correct position during client bullet prediction.
- Improved various close range abilities having casting errors (Sticky Bomb, Soul Exchange, Combo, etc).


[ Misc Gameplay Changes ]
- Increased post-laning trooper bounty to match the previous 4 lane global economy.

- Changed flex slot requirements:

• 1st flex slot changed from 3 Guardians down to 2 Guardians.
  
• 2nd flex slot changed from 2 Walkers down to 1 Walker.
  
• The last 2 flex slots are unchanged.

- Small Neutral Camp respawn time reduced from 4 minutes to 3 minutes.
- Mid Neutral Camp respawn time reduced from 6 minutes to 5 minutes.
- Neutrals soul values reduced by 10% (overall camp count and frequency has been increased).

- Side Walkers HP increased from 5,175 to 7,000.
- Mid Walkers HP increased from 8,000 to 9,000.
- Mid Boss HP and HP growth increased by 30%.

- Outer Zipline speed increased by 15%.

- Breakable soul values reduced by 5%.

- All juke spots now have veils (the dead end closets with the mystery man infront).

- Gun Powerup min/max Fire Rate increased from 10/30% to 15/35%.
- Fixed Gun Powerup not scaling Ammo to 60% as intended.

- Added a new Mid Boss Rejuvenator Symbol with three visual states (not spawned, under 1 min from spawn, and spawned).
- The new large amount of breakables in the mid boss middle area now initially spawn at the same time as mid boss.

- Holliday: Bounce Pad damage reduced from 120 to 90.
- Holliday: Bounce Pad T3 stun duration reduced from +1.25s to +1s.
- Holliday: Spirit Lasso damage reduced from 120 to 90.
- Superior Stamina: No longer gives 7% fire rate.


[ Damage Report ]
- Now visualizes the amount of damage reduced by resistances or shields.
- Incoming Damage UI now visualizes general damage reduction and amplification.
- Now shows the number of instances of damage done by each ability.
- Damage Report no longer clears immediately upon respawn, but instead will keep the data from your previous life with an added "(Last Life)" label.
- Breaking secondary stats out in the client Damage Report. (i.e. Shiv Serrated Knives now shows damage from initial hit and damage-over-time).
- Defaulting damage report to compact mode when you initially take damage.
- A variety of UI bugfixes and polish changes.


[ Quick Buy ]
- Added the ability to right click on the header of a build category to add all items in that category to your Quickbuy queue.
- Quickbuy's default behavior is going back to showing purchase prompts when the item is actually purchased. A settings option has been added to show purchase prompts when the item is queued.
- Fixed a bug where you could queue an item that was a component of an item you already own.
- Fixed several bugs that caused items to be skipped when purchasing items with the Auto Buy option enabled.


[ Builds/Shop ]
- Fixed a bug where purchasing an item would clear the item search box in the shop.
- Fixed Steam profanity filter not being consistently applied to user-authored text in builds (names, descriptions, annotations).
- You can now create builds on the dashboard.
- You can now create ability builds by clicking on the ability icons in the skill build area (which is the only way you can do it on the dashboard) in addition to skilling them up in sandbox mode (where both work).
- Fixed a bug where dragging and dropping items while editing a build would remove the annotation from the item.
- Reworking default builds to assume items are bought in specified order.
- Updated Hero default builds.
- Added Suggested AP path for Haze, Paradox, Shiv, and Yamato.


[ General Changes ]
- Ziplines are now curved.
- If a player abandons a match before the 5 minute mark, the game will now bring up a green hud message: "This game will not be scored. It is now safe to leave." If the abandon occurs after 5 minutes, the hud message will be: "This match can be abandoned without a penalty, but leaving will result in a loss.".
- Updated the Heavy Melee vfx.
- Gun audio system updates attempt to balance powerful feel with ear fatigue more skillfully, also added some experiments for early reflection acoustics in weapon reports.
- Updated regular damage and headshot damage sounds; damage dealt to NPCs is now quieter.
- Players no longer collide with Bosses to prevent some unintended interactions.
- Crouch toggle now ends on a failed dash.
- Added positional tier 1 Guardian death sounds.
- Added sounds for tier 1 Guardian melee swing, melee slam, and melee hit.
- Added sounds for tier 1 Guardian activate from idle and deactivate to idle animations.
- Added positional Walker death sounds.
- Added sounds for Walker beam attack.
- Added sounds for Walker stomp attack.
- Added sounds for Walker rocket barrage attack.
- Adjusted what counts as a headshot when shooting through non-head hitboxes.
- Reduce duration of buff effect for gaining Ability Points.
- Button hints now update when changing keybinds during a match.
- Made bots better at purchasing and upgrading items.
- Made bots better at not getting stuck in walls.
- Adding row indicator if you're on the global leaderboards. Also auto scroll to your position on the global leaderboards.
- Taskbar icon only flashes once when you're about to respawn.
- The Walker's area buff now shows up on the hud's active stats section.
- Adding support for pinging Ability 1-4 to be "almost ready" with supporting vo.
- Hooking up generic "Item is Ready", "Item is almost Ready", and "Item is on cooldown" vo.
- Added missing unique death vo sounds for: Fathom, Trapper, Wrecker, Raven, Sinclair, and Wraith.
- Updated voice lines for having many souls to trigger at 6k, instead of 6.2k.
- Base attack music now starts immediately when an enemy enters the local player's base (previously only when damage was dealt to an objective).
- Damage audio does not play loudly if the player's health is not changing.
- Elevated ability hit confirmation sounds in the mix.
- Players can no longer shoot or reload their weapon while climbing a rope.
- Mix updates to deprioritize NPC, currency, and other sounds in base.
- Protections added to low audio frequencies from building up and clouding the mix.
- Updated volume for Paradox and Viscous' Select/Unselect lines increased to match the rest of the roster.
- So as not to create unintended situations where you give away your position while hiding from combat the "you can't hide from me" vo lines now only play for the speaker.
- At the beginning of a match certain heroes will now chat with each other as they ride to battle. If a hero does not have a recorded conversation the patron will speak to them as they did previously.
- Minor vo bug fixes that address things like missing ability lines, wrong names being called out in pings, etc.
- Ping Update: Pre-match, if you press the ping button your hero will play a random taunt. Not every hero has these lines yet.
- Ping Update: Certain heroes now have several new options that can be added to the ping wheel including "Come with me", "Rejuv's Dropping", "Cover Me", "Nevermind", "Press The Advantage", "Not Ready To Teamfight", "Let's Hide Here", "it's Dangerous Here", "I'll Clear The Troopers", "Let's Meet Here", and "I'll Flank 'Em".
- Ping Update: The Green lane is now alternatively referred to as "Park" instead of "Greenwich".
- Added an effect for when you break bridge Powerups.
- Sprint effects revisions to reduce noise.
- Window materials now feature imposter interiors and improved glass reflection.
- Added new signage to the world.
- Added new railing smartprop to the world.
- Added new oracle building model.
- Added new buildings for the city backdrop.
- Added under construction suspension bridge to yellow lane.
- Improved blending of character and world shadows.
- Improved lighting on city backdrop.
- Added Bull/Bear statues to the jungle lane street for landmark callouts.
- Ability Point effects revisions to reduce lingering noise.
- Powerup spawner gained effects revisions to reduce lingering noise.
- Zipline speed effect revisions.
- Stunned debuff effect revisions.
- Update last hit effects so that it reflects what is shown in the UI.
- Changed minimum bot difficulty for some heroes.
- Added chimes and bird sounds behind park gate.
- Added looping sound to jump pads in the world.
- Added neutral camp spawn sound.
- Added permanent powerup spawn sound.
- Added a global spawn sound for bridge buffs.


[ User Interface ]
- Changed all language around 'Hero Sandbox' to 'Hero Testing'.
- Moved Private and Co-op bots to be bucketed under a single "Play Bot Match" button that splits into private vs co-op via selection modal.
- Added a News Post popup panel to the main menu.
- Added a link to Patch Notes to the main menu.
- Commends are now right-aligned.
- Enemy commends now auto-dismiss after a short duration.
- Fixed both "Leave Match" and "Leave Spectating" showing when you hit Esc while watching a match.
- Fixed a bug where abilities showed their imbued item multiple times.
- Adding Status Effect Panels next to healthbar and in the bottom left to display certain modifier icons in these areas. You can hover them to see what the status effect is.
- Adding Rejuvenator icon in the bottom left next to healthbar when you have the Rejuvenator.
- Adding powerups to the bottom left hud area and removing the progress bar in the middle left of the hud.
- Adding player speaking indicator on the minimap icon.
- Changing default minimap values to make ziplines smaller and other minor adjustments to player icons.
- Adding Health regen to active player stats on the left.
- Updating images on the zipline prompt UI to match new colors.
- Fixing wash-color on new inline glyphs for active items.
- Adding logic to make default build categories double height when they go over 9 items in one category.
- Matches that are safe to abandon now use the "Leave Match" label rather than "Abandon Match" in the escape menu.
- Settings for Custom Matches (such as Enable Cheats, Bot Difficulty, etc.) now default to whatever was last used.


[ Hero Content Improvements ]

Abrams
- Updated playable model with latest art, animation, and vfx content.
- New Siphon run locomotion.
- New stand and crouch idles.
- New book model.
- New run stop animations.
- New shop UI animations.
- New jump animation Set.
- New run locomotion.
- Added new zoomed run set.
- Added new stagger animation.
- Re-authored crouch locomotion to match faster speeds.
- Authored new stand and crouch turn set.
- Improved camera animations during Seismic Impact.
- Updated vo - remastering pass, no new content.
- Added ambient effects to book.
- Siphon Life buff effect revisions to unify theme better.
- Improved Abrams zipline animations.
- Fixed Shoulder Charge acting like it's modifying your movespeed on the hud active player stats.

Bebop
- Disjoints now break hook tracking.
- Uppercut now only locks out player movement until the top of the launch 'arc'.
- Bomb now favors applying to the Hook target for 0.25s after Hooking.
- Weapon changes to scale beam visual impact based on dps of weapon.
- Hyper Beam visual revision to starting point to hook up better to rest of beam.
- Hyper Beam now has updated ground effects.
- Sticky bomb and Uppercut effects revisions to help clarify damage areas.
- Uppercut T2 Perk revision to buff effects to make them more apparent when Bebop has extra gun damage.
- When Bebop hooks an NPC, only Bebop will hear the hook success sound to make it less confusing for teammates/opponents.
- Fixed casting errors that would sometimes happen with Sticky Bomb

Calico
- Gloom Bombs now has updated vfx.
- Leaping Slash now has updated vfx.
- Updated Neutral Soul Orbs location while controlling Ava.
- Return to Shadows now has updated vfx.
- Fix Return to Shadows not breaking boxes on its damage portions.
- Updated vo - largely remastering pass, but some new content including lines to match her updated kit.
- Added new Ava run and jump animations.
- New simulation on cat tail. New upwards and downwards animation.
- New Calico slide animation.

Dynamo
- Improve logic around traces for teleports specifically to address Quantum Entanglement teleporting players out of the map.
- Updated vo - largely remastering pass, but some new content.
- Revision to adjust tracer properties as fire rate increases, simplify impacts.
- Reload effects revisions.

Grey Talon
- Guided Owl accelerate has been updated from M1 to 'W' by default.
- Better visual feedback for Spirit Snare when triggered.
- Fixed Spirit power bonus from Guided Owl always being visible in the active player stats.
- Fixed a bug that caused Grey Talon's Owl explosion sound to not be heard by the caster if they detonated it early with a keypress.
- Updated vo - largely remastering pass, but some new content.

Haze
- Sleep Dagger now has updated vfx.
- Adjusted hitboxes to added backpack.
- Updated to use the new weapon gun audio system.
- Fixed Haze getting stuck during Bullet Dance cast pose if she died during use.

Holliday
- Spirit Lasso now has a cast bar on the hud during wind-up.
- New in-air looping sound added to the first time she uses a bounce pad.
- Updated vo - some new content, including increased variety of Crackshot lines.

Infernus
- Flame Dash speed boost has been updated from M1 to 'W' by default.
- Flame Dash now shows the speed boost in the active stats area.
- Updated vo - remastering pass, no new content.
- Concussive Combustion: reduced chances of ground trace missing ground and improved perf.

Ivy
- Adjusted hitboxes to conform to model.

Kelvin
- Frozen Shelter updated to use triggers rather than cancel, to match behavior of other un-summons.
- Fixed aoe abilities going through Frozen Shelter.

Lady Geist
- Updated vo - largely remastering pass, some new content.
- Tracer revisions to lower visual noise when close to tracer.
- Life Drain is no longer cancellable.
- Life Drain no longer slows you down if it's not draining life from an enemy.
- Fixed Soul Exchange flashing on left of hud for <1s.
- Fixed casting errors that would sometimes happen with Soul Exchange

McGinnis
- Updated to use the new weapon gun audio system.
- Updated vo - largely remastering pass, but some new content.
- New tracer and muzzle flash effects.
- Heavy Barrage launch effects revisions.
- Heavy Barrage effect addition to connect projectiles in space to the hero better.

Mirage
- Updated with new custom animations.
- Coattail sim has been added.
- Fire Scarabs no longer causes Magic Carpet to be cancelled.
- Fire Scarabs now works with "No Cooldowns" set in Hero Testing.
- Fire Scarabs debuff and buff effects revisions.
- Tornado cast delay increased from 0.0s to 0.1s.
- Tornado now destroys breakable props.
- Adjusted Djinn's Mark consume activation sound so it's not too loud if used on many enemies at the same time.
- Added new spawn animation.
- Traveler now has a custom animation on his destination model.

Mo & Krill
- Fixed bonus health not showing from ultimate when hovering Mo & Krill on the scoreboard.
- Fixing Burrow acting like it was modifying movement speed (without casting it) in the active player stats.
- Fixed casting errors that would sometimes happen with Combo

Pocket
- Adjusted hitboxes to conform to model.
- Updated vo - remastering pass, no new content.

Seven
- Fixed sometimes being stuck in skeletal form forever.
- Static Charge effect revisions to make aoe act as a warning for the timing better by ramping up visibility towards the end.

Shiv
- Slice and Dice is no longer cancellable.
- Updated vo - remastering pass, no new content.
- Killing Blow debuff indicator effect revisions to remove arrow and add a brief debuff effect on the victim.

Sinclair
- Updated model with new wand weapon.
- Moved to a new animation set.
- Spectral Assistant now has updated vfx.
- Spectral Assistant's bullets updated to come out of the turret's muzzle position.
- Fixed Sinclair keeping some passive bonuses from stolen ultimates after they've been used.
- Fixed enemy Mo & Krill getting buffs from copied ult.
- Fixed issue if both Sinclair and enemy Mo & Krill are using their ultimates at the same time (when one ended, both would end).
- Added warning sound for Sinclair's rabbit hex when placed.
- Don't show stat changes for abilities that are stolen from using ultimate when previewing items in the shop.
- Fixed Spectral Assistant firing effects to not track with projectile.
- Increased volume of Vexing Bolt projectile loop and redirect.
- Vexing bolt redirect telegraph now displays on vertical geometry.

Vindicta
- Fixed getting stuck zoomed in if you tried to use Assassinate while getting stunned or silenced.
- Updated vo - largely remastering pass, but some new content.

Viscous
- Fixed a bug that allowed you to kill your teammates coming out of The Cube.
- New weapon firing effects and updated projectile.

Vyper
- Updated to use the new weapon gun audio system.
- Updated vo - lots of new content for everyone's favorite sleazebag criminal.
- Petrifying Bola explode and direct hit sounds updated to make it clearer when you get a direct hit.

Warden
- Updated Binding Word visual ring to be more apparent.

Yamato
- Adjusted volume of Power Slash hit confirm sound to give better feedback to the attacker.
- Crimson Slash: adjusted slash effects height to be better aligned to crosshair.
- Update model to show default Yamato body for all effects.


[ Hero Lab Updates ]

Fathom
- Lurker's Ambush: The spit debuff is now a heavy slow rather than an immobilize, and its damage is dealt over the effect's duration rather than all on initial impact.
- Added unique footstep sfx.
- Lurker's Ambush: the active's duration and damage are halved if Fathom is not latched to a wall while casting.
- Lurker's Ambush: shortened the channel time required for max duration/damage.
- Reefdweller Harpoon: fixed it failing to cast if you were sliding while casting.
- Scalding Spray now has new vfx.
- Scalding Spray now has a new animation.
- Remastered sounds for Scalding Spray and Breach abilities for better feedback.
- Fixed a bug that caused Scalding Spray sound to be too quiet for the victim in certain situations.

Raven
- Updated animation set - Polished 8-way sprint, Aims, Parries, Air Dash, Ground Dash, Jumps, Reloads.
- Added sounds to Blindside debuff hit, loop, and end.
- Initial gun weapon audio.
- Fixed bugs preventing his vo from playing as intended.

Trapper
- Reworked Bottled Phantasmicide and Silktrap.
- Adjusted hitboxes to better conform to his model.
- New sounds added for all of Trapper's abilities.
- Now traps new vermin and bought a new coat.


[ Item Content Improvements ]

Active Reload
- Now plays a sound when entering the active window.

Arcane Surge
- Added activation sound.

Debuff Remover
- Added cast and buff sounds.

Fortitude
- Effects revisions.

Healing Rite
- Revision to buff and cast to look less modern.

Knockdown
- Updated vfx.

Magic Carpet
- Fixed a bug that caused the ambient sound to not loop properly.

Majestic Leap
- New sounds added to differentiate them from Holliday's bounce pad.
- Clean up buff effect after launch.
- Fixed showing an extra cancel hint.

Mystic Reverb
- Area effect now applies the intended slow debuff.
- No longer triggers off Pocket's Affliction.

Quicksilver Reload
- Added new sound to proc.

Rescue Beam
- Fixed the UI prompt getting stuck when moving too far away from the other player.
- Fixed heroes sometimes getting dropped to the ground while under the effect of Rescue Beam.

Surge of Power
- Added new proc and end sounds.

Spellslinger Headshot
- Now keeps the Soul Shredder Bullets passive buffs.

Spirit Snatch
- Now has new vfx.
- Fixed a rare case where the cooldown was displaying incorrectly.

Tesla Bullets
- Effect revisions.

Torment Pulse
- Added new proc sound.

Veil Walker
- Added new vfx.
- Added proc sound.


[ Controller Support ]
- Added Switch Pro default configs for [ Standard | Gyro | Gyro + FlickStick ].
- Changed the default suggested SteamInput config to Gyro Enabled (with standard stick controls).
- Minor fix for glyph size inside settings keybinding popup.
- Added option to use regular face button glyphs vs. universal glyphs.
- Camera movement between crouching and standing is smoother and quicker.
- Fixed a performance issue when zipline hint appears.
- Tweaks/remake of mouse button glyphs.


[ Localization ]
- Added Japanese localization support.
- Adding support for keybind glyphs in non-English languages.
- Applied regional number formatting in several areas that were previously not respecting localization language.
- Fixed many instances of truncated text in localization languages.
- Allowed room for 3-line Hero Labs descriptions in languages that needed additional space.
- Prevented zip line boost prompt from wrapping to a second line and being cut off in some languages.
- Fixed an issue in some languages where longer text in the menu that appears after hitting Esc in a match was wrapping to a second line and overlapping other menu items.
- Fixed clipping of chat wheel label text in languages where additional space was required.
- Slightly expanded width of keybinding setting rows to allow more space for the Reset label, which did not previously fit in some languages.
- Added a width limit for popup window titles to correspond to the width limit already present for the body of those messages.
- Fixed issue where text in Asian fonts was being clipped at the bottom of search fields and on the Builds tab label.
- Added missing Spirit Snare, Flying Cloak, and Colossus modifier labels.
- Fixed an issue in the Custom Match lobby UI where the length of certain labels caused the Copy Party Code and Show Party Code elements not to render at all. This was preventing players in Ukrainian, Polish, and Italian from being able to see or share party codes for custom matches.


[ Bug Fixes ]
- Fixed 'Unstick Hero' and 'Suicide' buttons not working properly.
- Fixed a few cases of the camera getting stuck zoomed out.
- Fixed powerups from breakables sometimes not being able to be picked up.
- Fixed not being able to stop death replay.
- Fixed death replay not working if you try to play it right after you die.
- Fixed Pause not working while you're dead.
- Fixed Urn return location looking active on the minimap when no one is holding the urn.
- Fixed players getting killed by Bosses showing "Unknown" in the kill feed.
- Fixed long outstanding bug where sometimes you couldn't drag an item to an active item slot.
- Fixed console getting bound to ` repeatedly.
- Fixed active items sometimes not showing correct cooldown.
- Fixed turrets shooting midboss if it's invulnerable to them (i.e. an enemy or ally was in the pit, they would shoot it but do no damage). It will shoot the mid boss if you're in the pit (which will allow them to damage mid boss). Same treatment for Weakened Patron.
- Fixed a bug with targeting previews for aoes sometimes not showing up.
- Fixed a bug that caused looping audio sources to be inaudible if the listener was too far away when the sound started.
- Fixed tether getting removed then applied every frame if Ivy was above the bridge and target is below the bridge (or vice versa) causing the vfx to flicker.
- Fixed a rare bug where an incorrect voice line would play.
- Fixed a rare bug that could cause a response voice line to not play.
- Fixed Urn return music not playing.
- Fixed Rejuvenator drop music playing in Sandbox.
- Fixed damage audio not playing in replay and for spectator.
- Fixed the case where multiple shields of the same type weren't stacking correctly.
- Fixed Weapon Damage % stats not breaking out Golden Statue and tier bonuses correctly in the tooltip.
- Potential fix for roster getting cleared if your game crashed.
- Bullets now record their lag compensation amount and stay at the same offset rather than tracking the client's latency per tick.
- Fixed Walker stomp sometimes not hitting nearby units on an elevation.
- Fixed Walker backdoor protection sometimes mistriggering from other lanes.
- Fixed a bug where abilities could mispredict a successful cast if the target is dashing past the caster.
- Fixed a bug where abilities could mispredict a successful cast if the target is an ally.
- Fixed an exploit that allowed players to 'secure' their souls by buying and refunding an item.
- Fixed Cancel button not working when waiting to spectate a match.
- Prevented cooldown timers from displaying 0.0 briefly at the end of the countdown.
- Fixed an issue causing extraneous blank lines to be appended to pings when individual lines of ping text were long.

Today's update adds four new heroes to matchmaking: Holliday, Vyper, Calico, and The Magnificent Sinclair.

Expanding our roster is one of our major goals in 2025. While some of these characters have a much higher degree of temporary art than usual, we are excited to see how they perform on the battlefield.

So who are the new faces you’ll be seeing on the streets of New York?

Armed with an heirloom revolver and a spirit lasso, Holliday's investigations have led her to New York... and when she finds the killer she's looking for she's bringing him in dead, not alive.

Did you know that when you slide your gun has infinite ammo? Vyper does. That’s why you’ll find her sliding around the battlefield spraying lead and poison.

Mystify your rivals with combat tricks so vexing that they won’t believe their eyes! Summon a spectral assistant, polymorph foes into rabbits, and turn the enemies own abilities against them! Impossible? Not for THE MAGNIFICENT SINCLAIR…

A feared assassin; Calico uses the shadows to her advantage, weaving in and out of combat to hunt down her enemies one by one. More importantly, you can possess her sphinx Ava and run around as a cat.


This update also marks the conclusion of the Winter Event. Players who participated in it will have a record of their achievements on their profile page.

See you in The Cursed Apple