Ascension

New

• Ascension: every top-tier tower of all eight races has a spectacular new look. Fire's Hellmouth breathes rolling walls of flame, Frost's Shatterpoint freezes its target white before it bursts, Storm towers arc lightning to each other, Light's Hammerfall drops a hammer of light from the sky, and many more. Reaching the top upgrade now really shows
• Acts: the game is now told in acts. Act I, The Gathering Dark, covers waves 1–25; clear it and your lives are restored before Act II, The Long Night, begins
• Daily medals: earn Bronze for clearing the Daily, Silver for keeping most of your lives and Gold for a flawless, fast run. Your medals show on the Daily card, in the debrief and on the leaderboard
• Heroic Daily: the same daily challenge on Hard with only 12 lives, with its own leaderboard, streak and a bigger score. New titles: Flawless, Heroic and Dreadbane, plus the Laurel nameplate

Balance

• Act I is harder on Normal: lazy builds start leaking around wave 10 and the late waves of the act bring more flyers and a tougher Void King. Easy is unchanged
• The toughest daily matchups get a head start in gold, so every Daily stays beatable
• Arcane: the Glimpse attacks faster

Improvements

• Pets now always pick spots you can see, on every map and theme, and keep out of props, rocks and spawn gates
• Banners and flags sway calmly in the wind, even late in a long game
• The debrief and the players board name leaked creeps and bosses as they looked on that wave
• A "Reduced shot effects" option for slower computers