Today, patch 1.30 was pushed live onto the official Warcraft 3 battle.net servers. Now with improved latency and an ever-growing player base that routinely logs on to play games, Warcraft 3 has effectively risen from the dead, once more emerging as supported RTS for the now niche, but growing community.

Warcraft 3's Twitch presence has notably improved since the last major patch. The pillars of the community, Back2Warcraft, Grubby and ToD are still the driving forces behind new viewers, but smaller pro streams are beginning to gain real traction. Professional players Foggy, Sonik, Hawk, Happy and the recently reported on MaDFroG are getting consistently higher stream numbers and followers. Game updates like this are a big reason why.

The Patch

You can find the full list of balance changes here, but here are the biggest changes even the most casual of Warcraft 3 players can appreciate:

Neutral Hero Pit Lord

- Increased starting agility from 14 to 15

Cleaving Attack
- Increased AoE for all levels from 200 to 250
- Level 1: Increased splash damage from 30% to 40%
- Level 2: Increased splash damage from 55% to 65%
- Level 3: Increased splash damage from 80% to 90%

Human Rifleman
- Decreased attack cooldown from 1.5 to 1.35

Orc Headhunter
- Increased gold cost from 135 to 140
- Increased range from 450 to 550

Orc Raider's Ensnare
- Reduced duration for units from 12 seconds to 10 seconds
- Reduced cooldown from 16 seconds to 15 seconds

Undead Necromancer
- Increased base damage from 7 to 9 (8-9 damage to 10-11 damage)

Nightelf Huntress
- Increase base damage from 15 to 16 (16-18 damage to 17-19)

Nightelf Mountain Giant
Taunt
- Now activates a second time after 3 seconds
- Cooldown increased from 15 to 16 seconds

More experienced players reading through the entire patch changes may notice the problematic inclusion of two Boots of Speed in the item shop (that spawn at the beginning of the match) as well as the re-inclusion of Wand of Lightning Shield as level 2 creep drop on certain maps. Both of these changes have received scrutiny over the potential of imbalance, but per a Back2Warcraft stream, Blizzard is apparently aware of the concerns regarding Boots of Speed and are working on a fix.

The Warcraft ripple

Warcraft 3's enduring legacy lives on with another successful PTR to live servers patch for one of the greatest RTS games ever made. Revolutionizing gaming forever with its hero system, Warcraft 3 was the birthplace for multiple game genres that are among the most popular in the world. Everyone knows about MOBA games and the meteoric rise of Dota, but the Tower Defense genre (massively popular on mobile devices) also owes it's thanks to Warcraft 3's map editor, as it defined the tropes of the genre.

You can watch the mentioned Warcraft 3 streams here:

https://www.twitch.tv/lookhawk
https://www.twitch.tv/ToD
https://www.twitch.tv/yesitshappy
https://www.twitch.tv/madqfrog
https://www.twitch.tv/hazyfoggy
https://www.twitch.tv/back2warcraft
https://www.twitch.tv/followgrubby