When Paragon first launched in Early Access I mentioned how it had a ton of potential, but all that was unfortunately mired by gameplay mechanics so rough it made battles feel more like a chore than a fun thing to do. Well, apparently Epic Games thought the same because they have recently unleashed the ridiculously massive Monolith Update which has pretty much reworked everything... and I do mean everything!

Hero movement and the general pace of combat has been sped up significantly, each and every single hero has been updated and rebalanced, there is a new and significantly smaller map to explore, and the list goes on. If you would like to read all of the details head on over to the Paragon website, but do be warned, that list goes on for quite a while! On the other hand, if you're just interested in the short version, here's my brief summary of the update and its goals:

• The goal is to make Paragon much faster and more visceral, without losing any of the meta game and strategy that comes with it being a competitive MOBA.

• Travel mode is being removed, and in turn every character now moves a lot faster. The idea is to once again encourage more aggressive play, but also to provide more skilled players a way to juke their opponents and potentially win disadvantaged fights.

• Primary attacks now deal "Basic" damage, while any activatable powers deal "Ability" damage, as such it should be easier to know which items to grab when trying to counter certain enemy heroes.

• "Physical" and "Energy" heroes are no longer a thing. Instead, everyone is now able to equip a unified "Power" stat that increases their "Basic" and "Ability" damage. The idea behind this is to increase the amount of interesting items (aka cards) the team can toy around with, while also keeping the game accessible to all players.

• Cooldown reduction is going away, but don't worry, the heroes that relied on it are being slightly buffed in order to compensate.

• Mana has long since been useless in Paragon, but with the Monolith update its once again going to be an important part of gameplay.

• Instead of using the generic and rather poor "Ranger/Caster/Fighter" hero descriptions, they will now be classified with traits such as: Burst, Assassin, Elusive, Sieger, etc.

• Shadow Pads are going away, and instead we'll be getting giant Fog Walls, quite alike those from Dark Souls. The idea is exactly the same, but these Fog Walls should function in much more organic and interesting ways.

• Once again, there will be massive hero changes coming in with the Monolith Update, but don't worry, the developers won't destroy your favorite playstyles.

So if you feel like giving Paragon a try now would be the perfect time to do so. Not only has it been so significantly shaken up that its basically a brand new game, but its also currently under the icy grips of a holiday event with a whole bunch of new skins to collect! You can download Paragon for free, or just learn a bit more about it, by heading over to the official website. Have fun!