Patches (latest)	← January 09, 2020 Patch	January 16, 2020 Patch	January 17, 2020 Patch →

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Patch Notes

Disabled 2 of Brewmaster's Cinder Brew cast responses, which no longer fit since the ability no longer applies blind.
Small update to Lich's and Witch Doctor's base model.
Small update to Core of the Serakund Tyrant's and Shearing Deposition's model.
Added unique particle effects to Life Essence and Minotaur Horn, instead of re-using Mekansm's and Black King Bar's effects respectively.
Fixed Nethertoxin's damage sound being located on the caster, instead of the affected enemy.
- Reduced the damage sound's soundlevel from 78 to 75.
- Reduced sound limiter amount from 7 to 5 max instances.
Removed the sound limiter on Repair Kit.
Added a new sound effect for: Arcane Ring, Ex Machina, Havoc Hammer, Minotaur Horn, Magic Lamp, and Phoenix Ash.

Rescaled quite a few challenges:
- Centaur Warrunner - Retaliate damage 5000/10000/15000 -> 3500/7000/10000.
- Earthshaker - Enchant Totem kills 4/7/10 -> 1/2/3.
- Night Stalker - Crippling Fear silence duration 60/120/180 -> 30/60/90.
- Vengeful Spirit - Damage with illusions 2500/3500/5000 -> 1000/2000/3000.
- Snapfire - Deal damage to enemy Heroes during a single use of Mortimer Kisses 2500/5000/7500 -> 2000/4000/6000.
- Glimmer Cape - Glimmer allies duration 55/70/85 seconds -> 30/50/70.
Disabled Huskar's "two Life Breaks within 10 seconds" challenge.
Disabled the "slow enemy heroes for 15/30/45 seconds" Shiva's Guard challenge.
Removed Treant Protector from the "cancel 1/2/3 channels with your hero" challenge.
Removed Earthshaker, Mirana, and Vengeful Spirit from the "deal 8000/16000/24000 physical damage with your hero" challenge.
Removed Pangolier from the "stun two people simultaneously 3/5/7 times" challenge.
Removed Venomancer from the "deal 1000/2000/3000 damage with summons" challenge.
Increased time block after trigger for Rubick's multi-hero Fade Bolt challenge from 1 second to 3 seconds.
Added Naga Siren to the "building damage with illusions" and "enemy hero mana burned" relics.

We’ve removed variability in the amount of MMR you gain or lose from a match. This means that there will no longer be matches that give results like +10/-40.
Instead of matches giving 25 MMR, solo games will now give 30 MMR and party games will now give 20 MMR. We have more confidence in the impact of a player on the game when they are solo compared to in a party, and thus we are willing to move a player's MMR faster/slower depending on that.
We have removed the Fast/Slow queue and replaced it with Ranked Roles and Ranked Classic. To play in Ranked Roles you need to earn Role Queue games by playing matches while selecting all roles--this is unchanged from before. Ranked Classic has replaced the Slow Queue, and it does not let you select roles. We are making this change because the slow/fast queue concept has not been successful in producing good quality games. The end result was slow queue waiting a little bit longer, and then forcing very bad quality matches on the entire player pool. We think it’s a fair requirement to enforce that if you want to have the advantage of playing a specific role, you have to contribute to the matchmaking system by sometimes playing other roles, or just queue role-less as in previous years.