heroes Balance Update Patch Notes: Sep 20

[Stan 2635]

A new patch will be released later this week in order to apply balance changes and a few bug fixes.

TL;DR

• Chromie's Sand Blast quest is easier to complete and her Time Trap [E] has an increased cast range.
• Expected Kel'Thuzad nerfs.
• Butcher's late-game health has been increased.
• Brighting's Soothing Mist range has been increased and she received tweaks in order to increase parity amongst her talent tiers.
• Leoric's Entomb cooldown has been reduced.
• Garrosh's mana costs have been adjusted.
• Chen's Grounding Brew has been removed and its functionality has been added to Purifying Brew. The cooldown of Purifying Brew has been drastically decreased.

Full patch notes:

Blizzard (Source)

Assassin

Cassia

Stats

• Basic Attack damage increased from 125 to 130

Abilities

• Blinding Light (W)
  • Passive damage bonus to blinded targets increased from 15 to 20%

Talents

• Level 1
  • Thunderstroke (Q)
    • First quest reward damage bonus increased from 75 to 100
  • True Sight (W)
    • Removed
  • Seraph’s Hymn (W)
    • Moved from Level 13
    • Cooldown reduction per basic attack against Blinded Heroes reduced from 3 to 2 seconds

Chromie

Abilities

• Sand Blast (Q)
  • Reduced the number of Sand Blast hits required to unlock the Sand Blast echo from 80 to 60

Talents

• Level 2
  • Timely Surprise (E)
    • Now also increases the cast range of Time Trap by 33%

Developer Comment: Only about 40% of Chromie players were unlocking the echo over the course of a game, and among players that did it was occurring later than we’d like. By reducing the requirements for completing Chromie’s quest, we won’t increase her late game power at all, but make her output a little more consistent.

Kel'Thuzad

Abilities

• Frost Nova (W)
  • Mana cost increased from 45 to 50
• Chains of Kel’Thuzad (E)
  • Mana cost increased from 45 to 50
• Frost Blast (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 100 to 80 seconds
• Shadow Fissure (R)
  • Damage reduced from 440 to 400
  • Cooldown increased from 15 to 20 seconds
  • Mana cost increased from 50 to 60

Talents

• Level 4
  • Phylactery of Kel’Thuzad (Active)
    • Quest requirement increased from 10 to 12 Regen Globes
• Level 7
  • Accelerated Decay (Q)
    • Bonus damage increased from 20 to 25%
  • Glacial Spike (Active)
    • Damage reduced from 220 to 60
    • Delay before the spike spawns increased from .5 to 1 seconds
• Level 13
  • Chains of Ice (E)
    • Slow duration reduced from 1.25 to 1 second
    • Slow amount decreased from 70 to 60%
• Level 16
  • Hungering Cold (W)
    • Bonus damage reduced from 60 to 55

Developer Comment: As expected, there is a fairly large discrepancy between Kel’Thuzad’s performance across the entire game vs. players who are getting experienced with him at a higher level. His win-rate has climbed more than most of our other releases as players get used to his kit, so most of our changes are aimed at talent balance and toning his power down. While we like the sharpness of his power spike due to Master of the Cold Dark, we’ll continue to keep an eye on his burst potential and his overall strength going forward.

The Butcher

Stats

• Basic Attack damage increased from 125 to 130
• Health scaling per level increased from 4 to 4.5%
• Health Regeneration scaling per level increased from 4 to 4.5%

Developer Comment: While we’ll be continuing to keep an eye on it, we believe that the Butcher’s quest tuning is appropriate. He has seen a significant drop in win rate in Hero League since our last round of changes, so we felt it was appropriate to increase his late-game Health so that he can keep up with other heroes, who often get many tools to survive his initial damage in teamfights.

Thrall

Stats

• Base Maximum Health increased from 1787 to 1876
• Base Health Regeneration increased from 3.7 to 3.9

Developer Comment: FOR THE HORDE!

Support

Brightwing

Abilities

• Soothing Mist (Trait)
  • Healing aura range increased from 6 to 7
• Blink Heal (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 10 to 9 seconds

Talents

• Level 1
  • Dream Shot (Q)
    • New functionality:
      • Increases the range of Arcane Flare by 50%
      • Hitting an enemy Hero in the center portion of Arcane Flare reduces the cooldown of Arcane Flare to 1 second
  • Hyper Shift (Z)
    • Cooldown reduction per Hero healed increased from 2 to 3 seconds
  • Unfurling Spray (Trait)
    • Removed
• Level 4
  • Arcane Barrage (Q)
    • Removed
  • Peekaboo (Z)
    • Revealed area radius reduced from 20 to 15
    • Added functionality:
      • Pixie Dust is now applied to the target of Phase Shift
• Level 7
  • Phase Shield (Z)
    • Added functionality:
      • Now applies Shield to Brightwing and her target

Developer Comment: While Brightwing has been seeing a bit more play recently, her talent tree had some low-hanging fruit that we wanted to trim. Granting her a slightly larger range of Soothing Mist baseline will free up a more impactful choice at level 1. The addition of Arcane Barrage’s functionality into Dream Shot should also make that talent a bit more exciting to pick up. Overall, we were looking at giving the Faerie Dragon a few minor buffs and adjusting some talents in order to increase parity amongst her talent tiers.

Lt. Morales

Stats

• Base Maximum Health increased from 1528 to 1605
• Base Life Regen increased from 3.18 to 3.34

Abilities

• Healing Beam (Q)
  • Energy Regeneration cooldown reduced from 3 to 2 seconds
  • You can no longer redirect Healing Beam to a target that is already being healed by your Healing Beam

Talents

• Level 1
  • Caduceus Feedback (Passive)
    • Now increases Basic Attack Range by 1.1 and only generates Energy from Basic Attacks against Heroic targets.

Stukov

Talents

• Level 1
  • Spine Launcher (Passive)
    • Basic Attack damage reduction decreased from 50 to 30%

Tyrande

Talents

• Level 7
  • Huntress’ Fury (D)
    • Added functionality:
      • Now also increases the range of Hunter’s Mark by 50%
• Level 13
  • Empower (W)
    • Base cooldown reduction decreased from 4 to 2 seconds

Warriors

Chen

Talents

• Level 1
  • Grounding Brew (D)
    • Removed
• Level 7
  • Purifying Brew (D)
    • Cooldown reduced from 45 to 15 seconds
    • Added functionality:
      • Chen now gains 30 Spell Armor while channeling Fortifying Brew

Developer Comment: We realize how difficult it is for most Chen players to pass up Brewmaster’s Balance on Tier 3. We moved a powerful level 20 down to compete with it a couple patches ago but the data is still showing it as an underperformer. Lowering the cooldown drastically and granting it the functionality of Grounding Brew should incentivize players into choosing it when playing against certain team compositions.

Dehaka

Stats

• Basic Attack damage reduced from 105 to 100

Abilities

• Dark Swarm (W)
  • Damage per tick reduced from 50 to 47

Garrosh

Abilities

• Groundbreaker (Q)
  • Mana cost increased from 30 to 35
• Wrecking Ball (E)
  • Mana cost increased from 60 to 70
• Decimate (R)
  • Mana cost decreased from 30 to 25

Talents

• Level 1
  • Body Check (Active)
    • Cooldown decreased from 20 to 16 seconds
• Level 7
  • Into the Fray (Active)
    • Cooldown increased from 30 to 40 seconds

Developer Comment: These changes are a response to community feedback about Garrosh’s Mana costs. We initially kept them relatively low, as he is a fairly low impact Warrior when his combo is not available to him, however we agreed with the feedback and felt that he could use more Mana management.

Leoric

Abilities

• Entomb (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 75 to 60 seconds

Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed a number of tooltip issues across the game.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Alarak: Casting Counter-Strike will now display a silver healthbar to indicate Protected status. 
• Chromie: The Deep Breathing talent’s completed damage bonus will now match the tooltip located below her unit frame. 
• Jaina: The Frost Armor talent will no longer cause Jaina’s damage to ignore armor. 
• Leoric: Fixed an issue that could cause Leoric to become invisible after exiting Zagara’s Devouring Maw. 
• Lt. Morales: Fixed an issue that caused Lt. Morale’s Displacement Grenade to reduce healing dealt after learning the System Shock talent. 
• Uther: Fixed an issue causing Uther to gain extra damage and healing on consecutive casts of Wave of Light.
• Uther: Uther's Hammer of Justice will no longer apply a 30% slow after the Stun effect fades.

Sound

• Valla: Fixed an issue causing the Creed of the Hunter talent to not play quest sound effects when progress was earned. 

User Interface

• Lt. Morales: The Cellular Reactor talent will now display an incoming heal indicator on the nameplate healthbar. 

[Fliits 112]

What a patch. But where was the mana cost increase to Garrosh's abilities taken from? Tyrael, anything to say?

[Valhalen 1280]

1 hour ago, Stan said:

Level 1

• Spine Launcher (Passive)
  • Basic Attack damage reduction decreased from 50 to 30%

Meh... That still won't make the talent more appealing. One of the fun things about Stukov is slapping the fuck out of anyone fool enough to think "Oh, he is just a harmless Support".

 

Edited September 18, 2017 by Valhalen

[ArusVicious 155]

1 hour ago, Stan said:

• Frost Nova (W)
  • Mana cost increased from 45 to 50

• Chains of Kel’Thuzad (E)
  • Mana cost increased from 45 to 50

I don't think this will be that bad. It's really just a small nerf to his mana management. He ends up dealing with mana a bit better than some other mana hungry heroes too imo, even though he struggles. 

1 hour ago, Stan said:

• Frost Blast (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 100 to 80 seconds

A nice change to a somewhat underwhelming heroic. Probably not enough to make it better than Shadow Fissure, even after it's nerfs.

1 hour ago, Stan said:

• Shadow Fissure (R)
  • Damage reduced from 440 to 400
  • Cooldown increased from 15 to 20 seconds
  • Mana cost increased from 50 to 60

Even with the damage reduction I'd say Shadow Fissure does more than enough damage to decimate an enemy team. The mana cost is a bit hefty but not bad. The real change here would certainly be the extra 5 second cooldown. Even with that longer cooldown however, it still looks like an ability that is often regularly used.

1 hour ago, Stan said:

• Phylactery of Kel’Thuzad (Active)
  • Quest requirement increased from 10 to 12 Regen Globes

This might hurt KT's ability to revive and sustain himself, especially into the late game when regen globes are more difficult to collect, but it's such a good talent that it's unlikely to become worse than the other two options. I'd say it's more in line with the other options, but still probably better.

1 hour ago, Stan said:

• Accelerated Decay (Q)
  • Bonus damage increased from 20 to 25%

Nice for newer players who may want to go with a Q build. Meh for advanced players.

 

1 hour ago, Stan said:

• Glacial Spike (Active)
  • Delay before the spike spawns increased from .5 to 1 seconds
  • Damage reduced from 220 to 60

Certainly one of the more impactful nerfs here. The damage reduction isn't a huge deal if you can execute your combo correctly, but the increased delay could certainly give opponents a chance to react to it, and deny you an obstacle to chain them to. It seems far more in line with the other talent options now, but still very rewarding in some cases.

1 hour ago, Stan said:

• Chains of Ice (E)
  • Slow amount decreased from 70 to 60%
  • Slow duration reduced from 1.25 to 1 second

I still see this being more than enough to follow up with a frost nova and then some more. Still likely the best choice on it's row by far.

 

1 hour ago, Stan said:

• Hungering Cold (W)
  • Bonus damage reduced from 60 to 55

Blizzard basically took a busted talent and made it slightly less busted but not enough to make it not busted. Still an absolutely devastating talent that is far too good to overlook.

Pretty much my take on the KT changes. Butcher is now replayable... again lol.

Edited September 18, 2017 by Maxkitty

[SteveFrost 97]

KT nerfs. Why this isn't surprising, I wonder...

And really insightful dev comments on Thrall ecks dee

[Fliits 112]

Heroes in line to get reworks ASAP:

Tyrael (weak in general)

Medivh (weak in general)

Sgt. Hammer (problems w/ variation)

The Butcher (problems w/ variation)

Lost Vikings (problems w/ variation)

Tyrande (what is she even supposed to be?)

[Blainie 2278]

18 hours ago, Maxkitty said:

Even with the damage reduction I'd say Shadow Fissure does more than enough damage to decimate an enemy team. The mana cost is a bit hefty but not bad. The real change here would certainly be the extra 5 second cooldown. Even with that longer cooldown however, it still looks like an ability that is often regularly used.

Definitely. As soon as you get an early or mid-game quest completion, Shadow Fissure just becomes a way to finish off someone that has already hit 20% HP from your combo. Can't see it doing anything too major to KT.

[Valhalen 1280]

1 hour ago, Blainie said:

Definitely. As soon as you get an early or mid-game quest completion, Shadow Fissure just becomes a way to finish off someone that has already hit 20% HP from your combo. Can't see it doing anything too major to KT.

The KT nerfs were very minimal, imo. Increasing the mana cost of his abilities by 5? Seriously. Decreasing the damage of Shadow Fissure by 40? The most significant nerf was lowering Glacial Spike's damage.

[ArusVicious 155]

1 hour ago, Valhalen said:

The KT nerfs were very minimal, imo. Increasing the mana cost of his abilities by 5? Seriously. Decreasing the damage of Shadow Fissure by 40? The most significant nerf was lowering Glacial Spike's damage.

Don't forget the delay too. Also I'm pretty glad with what they've did with KT recently. It seems they want him to be very powerful... in a certain niche. I think that's really nice to have heroes good for different things and have counters rather than an all star that is extremely OP (take Ragnaros when he was released for example). 

Butcher looks playable... again, but his last nerfs hurt him too much.

As for Ana coming up, now she looks like the ultimate double support hero. I can't wait to try her on PTR.

Edited September 19, 2017 by Maxkitty

[SteveFrost 97]

10 hours ago, Fliits said:

Heroes in line to get reworks ASAP:

Tyrael (weak in general)

Medivh (weak in general)

Sgt. Hammer (problems w/ variation)

The Butcher (problems w/ variation)

Lost Vikings (problems w/ variation)

Tyrande (what is she even supposed to be?)

Man, talk about Tyrael being in need; I'd say ER.

I'd add Nova- her first "update" didn't actually help her, they just took most of her burst damage away, and her burst was the only thing she had going for her, every other stealthy assassin (heck, even Samuro) is better than her in all aspects, she still suffers from being a "feast or famine" Hero imho. And they have revisited Heroes who have gotten a rework in the past (Arthas, Anub', Kael'thas, ETC)

and everyone's favorite Marshall Jimmy- I get that he is meant to be a simple-to-use Hero (that didn't stop Valla from getting a rework, others as well), but he has some pretty weird stuff like talents meants for Specialists and he too suffers from "always same build" syndrome, which is one of the key reasons a Hero should get a talent tree rework.

Edited September 19, 2017 by SteveFrost

[Fliits 112]

10 minutes ago, SteveFrost said:

Man, talk about Tyrael being in need; I'd say ER.

I'd add Nova- her first "update" didn't actually help her, they just took most of her burst damage away, and her burst was the only thing she had going for her, every other stealthy assassin (heck, even Samuro) is better than her in all aspects, she still suffers from being a "feast or famine" Hero imho. And they have revisited Heroes who have gotten a rework in the past (Arthas, Anub', Kael'thas, ETC)

and everyone's favorite Marshall Jimmy- I get that he is meant to be a simple-to-use Hero (that didn't stop Valla from getting a rework, others as well), but he has some pretty weird stuff like talents meants for Specialists and he too suffers from "always same build" syndrome, which is one of the key reasons a Hero should get a talent tree rework.

I was going to add both of those, but wasn't sure about either of them.

[Valhalen 1280]

2 hours ago, Maxkitty said:

Don't forget the delay too. Also I'm pretty glad with what they've did with KT recently. It seems they want him to be very powerful... in a certain niche. I think that's really nice to have heroes good for different things and have counters rather than an all star that is extremely OP (take Ragnaros when he was released for example). 

Butcher looks playable... again, but his last nerfs hurt him too much.

As for Ana coming up, now she looks like the ultimate double support hero. I can't wait to try her on PTR.

I still think KT needs more impactful nerfs. His combos are way too powerful.

As for The Butcher, he is my favorite Assassin, but his nerfs were needed. Under the right conditions he can snowball the entire match easily with his ever growing power.

Ana will be so fun in any double support team. It is ironic because Blizzard has been tuning healers to decrease the effectiveness of the Double Support Meta, yet Ana's addition will make it stronger than ever.

[ArusVicious 155]

23 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

I still think KT needs more impactful nerfs. His combos are way too powerful.

As for The Butcher, he is my favorite Assassin, but his nerfs were needed. Under the right conditions he can snowball the entire match easily with his ever growing power.

Ana will be so fun in any double support team. It is ironic because Blizzard has been tuning healers to decrease the effectiveness of the Double Support Meta, yet Ana's addition will make it stronger than ever.

What makes me think is why they thought a 50 sec cooldown on her 'mage type stim drone' ult would not be brokenly powerful with heroes such as Kael and Jaina. Imho it should be at least 80 sec like stim drone, as it's impacts are about the same, if not better. That's broken on paper and ingame. How they thought that was fine, I have no damn clue. 

Edited September 19, 2017 by Maxkitty

[Blainie 2278]

On 19/09/2017 at 8:14 PM, Valhalen said:

I still think KT needs more impactful nerfs. His combos are way too powerful.

Even after the nerfs, I still see no problems in heading into fights 1v2 and that shouldn't be the case. As soon as that root lands, if the enemy is a non-tank aside from Azmodan (only post-nerf, pre-nerf it didn't matter), I know the fight is over and won.

I shouldn't be able to comfortably walk into a team doing boss and then take that boss alone without them knowing what is happening before they are all low or dead.

[Valhalen 1280]

5 minutes ago, Blainie said:

Even after the nerfs, I still see no problems in heading into fights 1v2 and that shouldn't be the case. As soon as that root lands, if the enemy is a non-tank aside from Azmodan (only post-nerf, pre-nerf it didn't matter), I know the fight is over and won.

I shouldn't be able to comfortably walk into a team doing boss and then take that boss alone without them knowing what is happening before they are all low or dead.

Exactly. Launch Kael'thas had a similar problem, where his bread and butter combo W > E > Q (and all it's variants) was pretty much a one shot like Kel'Thuzad. They nerfed the crap out of him, but he is still playable, carrying a respectable impact during team fight, and still is VERY annoying, but doesn't break the game anymore.

I know the main flavor of Kel'Thuzad is to have those powerful combos as well, but tuning them down wouldn't make the character unplayable. The damage nerf to Glacial Spike was a good start.

[Blainie 2278]

23 hours ago, Valhalen said:

Exactly. Launch Kael'thas had a similar problem, where his bread and butter combo W > E > Q (and all it's variants) was pretty much a one shot like Kel'Thuzad. They nerfed the crap out of him, but he is still playable, carrying a respectable impact during team fight, and still is VERY annoying, but doesn't break the game anymore.

I know the main flavor of Kel'Thuzad is to have those powerful combos as well, but tuning them down wouldn't make the character unplayable. The damage nerf to Glacial Spike was a good start.

I wonder if bigger indicators for the spells might work - something that perhaps acts as a warning before things hit, either with a longer delay or a "ghost trail" that shows where it will hit for all abilities. Either the combo needs to do less damage, or should be far harder to pull off. Maybe even some kind of increased GCD so you can't spam spells.

[Valhalen 1280]

1 hour ago, Blainie said:

I wonder if bigger indicators for the spells might work - something that perhaps acts as a warning before things hit, either with a longer delay or a "ghost trail" that shows where it will hit for all abilities. Either the combo needs to do less damage, or should be far harder to pull off. Maybe even some kind of increased GCD so you can't spam spells.

I think that a bit of both (nerf his damage and make it harder to pull off), much like Kael'thas and Jaina are right, where they truly shine when having the aid of their team to set up and/or follow up the Skill Combos, but not being very effective when doing it alone. I think that would solve this issue of Kael'thas carrying the entire team.

[Blainie 2278]

On 9/23/2017 at 4:50 PM, Valhalen said:

I think that a bit of both (nerf his damage and make it harder to pull off), much like Kael'thas and Jaina are right, where they truly shine when having the aid of their team to set up and/or follow up the Skill Combos, but not being very effective when doing it alone. I think that would solve this issue of Kael'thas carrying the entire team.

Yeah - being capable of winning a 1v1 is fine. Perhaps introducing a damage reduction when his spells hit a certain amount of heroes? If it's more than one, then the damage is split between all hit.