Oh snap! That's awesome!

Edit: Looking at the map now, the river doesn't seem to actually run from or to anywhere. So is it technically a lake?

It could run underground? Haha.

i was watching some of the character profiles on youtube today and this looks better than i originally remember seeing, maybe just seeing it broken down made it make more sense. stuns and other debuffs are more accepted which is kinda cool so instead of one being gamebreaking, most people have CC that's kind of refreshing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyPtllYB-mQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74sEm95006s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP3sIBknY0Q

The models/voices on the three new heroes are pretty amazing. Really happy with how Queen of Pain turned out cause Wretched Hag was one of my most-played heroes in HoN.

Speaking of QoP, apparently if you try to blink beyond your max blink range, you only go 4/5 the distance? What the hell is the reason for a mechanic like this? Supposedly it was like that in DotA as well. This is just a stupid time sink; memorizing the exact range of your blink spell so you know just where to cast it. There's nothing tactical about it. There's no decision involved. If you want to blink your max range, you should be able to do so without practicing. :/

AFAIK that's only the case with blink dagger (If you overshoot the 1200 max range, you'll only blink 800 units in that direction), not any blink skills. It's still stupid though, and I hope it'll be fixed throughout beta.

Their priority as of now seems to be to make the game as close to a 1:1 port as possible, and then work from there.

Also, Blizzard Dota, in case anyone wants to see it.

similar to witch slayer/lion stun in principle. you get more range by risking a missed stun.

with the blink, it does seem like a pretty forced attempt of making it more skill based. still, i've always liked how most of the blinks are handled a bit differently in dota/hon.

if the dota hero has been around for so long some people probably enjoy him a lot. idk, lots of things sound stupid in theory and you just have to play the hero to see if it makes sense in action or not.

Personally, I'd like to see every skill get a distance-targetable ring as in League of Legends -- it doesn't hurt the competitive environment and makes the game much more accessible to new players.

I dunno, League of Legends doesn't have a hero that can deal 900 non-ultimate magic damage as early as level 7 or 8 (Shadow Fiend/Soulstealer). Some hero skills are really balanced around the fact that they have finicky targeting and range, and something like range indicators could push them over the edge. I saw a nice suggestion on Reddit about adding range indicators the first time you played a hero, but slowly fading them out as you played more games with them.

I really like the way they handled Witch Slayer/Lions line stun that Nase mentioned. The trick is that the stun hits well beyond the animation of the skill (I think the actual range is something like 1000), but if you activate it by directly targeting someone, your hero will run within 600 range first before casting it. For newer players, it makes your stun a lot more reliable, but you'll never get the full potential out of it until you start casting it on the ground (i.e. as a skillshot) instead of directly.

I guess in that sense, the blink dagger penalty is somewhat similar to that concept, but I still don't feel entirely comfortable with it.

Also, I think what they do with mana bars is a lot more significant: currently mana bars aren't directly displayed on enemy heroes, but you can see an opponents mana by clicking on their hero. I would prefer if they were either displayed directly, or not displayed at all.

Soulstealer / Shadow Fiend is not a targeted ability -- you press the button and it happens immediately. I only want ranges on things that are targeted. For Lion's stun, why not have the targeting ring show the 1000 range to encourage people to not directly target it?

Mana bars are much more significant, incidentally. I was unaware of that change and don't approve of it. I often base my spot-judgments of "can I dive and get a kill" on how much mana my opponent has remaining -- especially against a hero like Behemoth / Pebbles (I forget the DotA names).