Warcraft 3: Reforged artwork for the Crypt Fiend

[Update]: After a lengthy period of testing, Warcraft 3: Reforged has now unleashed Update 1.33 alongside player profiles, leaderboards and ranked play.

Even though Warcraft 3: Reforged's major content-filled update is still in development, Blizzard has thankfully continued releasing smaller balance patches in order to shake up the meta. The most recent Update 1.32.9 is exactly that as after listening to community feedback and watching some of the newer tournaments, Blizzard found that there was definitely room for improvement when it comes to faction balance.

As you'll quickly see, the focus of this update is on making Human players less prone to early-game harassment, as well as to hopefully push them towards quickly expanding. Because of this peasants have received more health, Undead's early game aggression has been toned down, while the Pitlord's level 1 rain of fire range has been reduced specifically to help weaken rush strategies against Human players.

In order to help out with the Orc vs Night Elf matchup, Blizzard has made wisps drain slightly less mana, as well as reduced the health of archers from 260 to 255. On the Orc side of things Blizzard has increased the Great Hall supply from 10 to 11, as well as reduced the cost of the Blademaster's Mirror Image ability to help out with the recently rediscovered lightning shield strategy. On the surface none of these changes are massive, but when the battles are already fought at the razor's edge, any small advantage will come in handy.

The update has also buffed a variety of underpowered items such as the Helm of Valor and Medallion of Courage, as well as reduced the amount of charges the Wand of the Wind can carry since it offered far too much crowd control for a single hero. Perhaps most interestingly, the cost of the Tome of Retraining has been reduced from 300 to 200, which might just result in some rather interesting hero builds throughout the match.

As is tradition, Update 1.32.9 has also brought in plenty of bug fixes, most of which are art related. You can check out what exactly they are, as well as go through the full list of balance changes, over at the official website.

Have fun!