heroes Balance Update: July 26

[Stan 5,244]

Blizzard just released a balance update with plenty of Hero changes and bug fixes.

Blizzard (Source)

Assassin

Genji

Stats

• Health reduced from 1600 to 1550
• Health Regen reduced from 3.3 to 3.2

Abilities

• Shuriken (Q)
  • Mana cost increased from 15 to 20
• Dragonblade (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 80 to 100 seconds
  • Mana cost increased from 50 to 75

Talents

• Level 7
  • Dodge (Passive)
    • Charges reduced from 3 to 1
    • Cooldown reduced from 12 to 8 seconds

Greymane

Abilities

• Cursed Bullet (R)
  • Damage reduced from 40 to 35% of enemy Heroes’ current Health

Tychus

Talents

• Level 4
  • Fully Loaded (Q)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 33% (4 seconds) to ~41% (5 seconds)

Specialist

Xul

Abilities

• Raise Skeleton (Trait)
  • Health reduced from 300 to 270
• Cursed Strikes (W)
  • Cooldown increased from 15 to 16 seconds

Talents

• Level 1
  • Backlash (Trait)
    • Damage reduced from 15 to 12% of enemy Heroes’ maximum Health
• Level 4
  • Grim Scythe (W)
    • Cooldown reduction per attack increased from .5 to .75 seconds
    • Maximum cooldown reduction increased from 10 to 12 seconds

Support

Stukov

Abilities

• Healing Pathogen (Q)
  • Mana cost increased from 30 to 40
• Flailing Swipe (R)
  • Pushback distance increased by 50%

Talents

• Level 1
  • Spine Launcher (Passive)
    • Slow duration increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds (now matches his attack speed)
  • Fetid Touch (W)
    • Quest requirements reduced from 20 and 40 Heroes hit to 15 and 30
  • Growing Infestation (E)
    • Added functionality:
      • Now increases the Cooldown of Lurking Arm by 4 seconds
• Level 4
  • One Good Spread… (Q)
    • Spreading requirement reduced from 4 to 3 Heroes
    • Mana refund increased from 30 to 40
  • Vigorous Reuptake (D)
    • Healing bonus reduced from 50 to 40%
• Level 16
  • Pox Populi (D)
    • Adjusted functionality:
      • Detonating Bio-Kill Switch no longer refreshes heal duration, but instead extends it by 3 seconds
• Level 20
  • Controlled Chaos (R)
    • Cooldown between casts reduced from 3 to 1 second
    • Cooldown for each charge reduced from 40 to 30 seconds
  • Push Comes to Shove (R)
    • Duration requirement reduced from 1.5 to 1.25 seconds

Uther

Abilities

• Holy Light (Q)
  • Healing reduced from 380 to 360
  • Self-healing reduced from 190 to 180
• Holy Radiance (W)
  • Mana cost increased from 60 to 70

Warriors

Chen

Abilities

• Fortifying Brew (Trait)
  • Brew per second reduced from 40 to 30
  • Chen will now instantly gain 25 Brew upon activation

Talents

• Level 1
  • Elusive Brawler (Active)
    • Cooldown increased from 20 to 25 seconds
    • Cooldown reduction from Basic Attacks reduced from 3 to 2 seconds

Muradin

Stats

• Health increased from 2633 to 2765
• Health regen increased from 5.5 to 5.8

Rexxar

Talents

• Level 1
  • Flare (Active)
    • Cooldown reduced from 25 to 20 seconds

Stitches

Abilities

• Vile Gas (Trait)
  • Damage reduced from 18 to 17

Talents

• Level 1
  • Heavy Slam (W)
    • Bonus damage reduced from 50 to 40%

Bug Fixes

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Diablo: Casting Shadow Charge on Sgt. Hammer while she is in Siege Mode will no longer cause Diablo to pass through her.
• Malfurion: The Moonburn Talent will no longer cause Moonfire to deal bonus damage to Mercenaries and Monsters prior to reaching 25% bonus damage against Minions.
• Malfurion: Casting Astral Communion now properly consumes 100 Mana.
• Nazeebo:  Fixed an issue that could prevent Voodoo Ritual from gaining stacks after scoring the killing blow on a Minion.
• Stukov: Fixed a typo in the tooltip for Fetid Touch.
• Stukov: Stop, Hold Fire, Taunt, and Dance commands can no longer be issued while casting or channeling Lurking Arm.
• Stukov: Fixed an issue that could cause FPS to drop to 30 when targeting Lurking Arm.
• Stukov: Massive Shove will no longer be cancelled when used on Sgt. Hammer while she is in Siege Mode.
• Tyrande: After learning Huntress’ Fury, Basic Attacks against targets with Hunter’s Mark will now correctly splash to nearby enemy Mercenaries.
• Tyrande: Fixed an issue causing Sentinel to benefit from increased width prior to learning the Ranger Talent. 

[Laragon 269]

FINALLY a sizable Genji nerf. Now his mana "might" matter, and his survive clearly took a huge hit.

The rest seem to totally make sense, small number crunches to shake the tiers up a bit but nothing heavy handed.

I'm curious how the Stukov ones work out. I don't know him well enough to really know the talent adjustments.

[bluesbreaker 0]

Thank you very much Blizzard for Chen strong nerf! It was very needed!

[Erathis 53]

The Lurking Arm nerf is super annoying.  Sad.  I didn't even take it because I wanted the expanding area so much as I didn't like any of his other level 1s.  Even if they had nerfed its effects into oblivion (making it take longer or reduced the area) I probably still would have taken it but when it actively penalizes the skill to take it?  Ugh.  I might still take it just because the other level 1s are just that meh, but it makes me sad...  Or maybe I'll just take one of the W quest(s) and ignore the fact that they still do practically nothing for him, but at least don't hurt him for taking them.

Edited July 26, 2017 by TSRD

[Valks 2,377]

2 hours ago, Laragon said:

I'm curious how the Stukov ones work out. I don't know him well enough to really know the talent adjustments.

I really didn't think they were necessary. 

[Valhalen 1,484]

12 minutes ago, Blainie said:

I really didn't think they were necessary. 

I hope Blizzard realizes it and revert some of these nerfs; they are indeed unnecessary. 

[Erathis 53]

16 minutes ago, Blainie said:

I really didn't think they were necessary. 

Honestly the rest of the changes, while I agree were not necessary, don't really amount to anything.  In the games I've played with him today literally the only thing I noticed with these changes was the nerf to Lurking Arm's level 1 talent, that's it (and yeah, wen't through the other level 1 talents in games again and they're still worthless...  Grr, why nerf the only level 1 talent I could stand?).

Edited July 26, 2017 by TSRD

[Plergoth 277]

5 minutes ago, Blainie said:

I really didn't think they were necessary. 

I think they set out to change one or two things, but decided on changing more things to encourage a lot more talent diversity and see how it goes from there. Lurking Arm is an annoying ability, made more annoying by talents, starting with level 1. With the nerf, it becomes less of a throwaway no brainer to pick up and actually something to think before using. I personally preferred Spine Launcher since the first time I played him due to the unique positional requirements of the hero, and the buff to it will be significant for me, but I will equally be more tempted to go for the quest at level 1 more now too if I feel I can get value from it... but a mini snare that requires nothing but a click on top of a noticeably meaty bit of basic attack damage appeals to me for both it's simplicity and value from the gate. Just wish I got to have a melee animation for it in melee range!

One Good Spread will be something else I will be more keen on picking up, and the change to Pox Populi makes sense; it will still be decent, but it won't be my go to anymore either.

I don't think he maybe needed so many changes right away either, but I think they'll be good for Stukov players and his opponents overall in the long run. 

 

[Valks 2,377]

15 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

I hope Blizzard realizes it and revert some of these nerfs; they are indeed unnecessary. 

I don't think we'll see any reverts any time soon, but I just would have liked for more gradual changes to someone that, realistically, is only starting to settle into the game now.

[Valhalen 1,484]

Quote

• Detonating Bio-Kill Switch no longer refreshes heal duration, but instead extends it by 3 seconds

In-game the tooltip says "bit instead sets its duration to 3 seconds". I'm not sure I understand this.

[Valks 2,377]

32 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

In-game the tooltip says "bit instead sets its duration to 3 seconds". I'm not sure I understand this.

What does it do when actually used?

[Valhalen 1,484]

1 hour ago, Blainie said:

What does it do when actually used?

Oh, indeed. Instead of refreshing the HoT to 4.5 secs it adds a HoT with 3 secs.

[Valks 2,377]

On 26/07/2017 at 7:21 PM, Valhalen said:

Oh, indeed. Instead of refreshing the HoT to 4.5 secs it adds a HoT with 3 secs.

So we're looking at a tooltip being written wrong rather than the actual skill being wrong.