heroes HotS Balance Patch: October 11, 2017

[Zadina 834]

The Heroes of the Storm team pushed out an extensive balance patch.

This patch brings to live servers most of the balance changes that were introduced in the Junkrat PTR patch. These changes affect Genji, Kel'Thuzad, Lunara, Malthael, Abathur, Probius, Nazeebo, Zagara, Ana, Brightwing, Kharazim, Lt. Morales, Stukov, D.Va, Garrosh and Johanna. There was also a small tweak for Cho. Therefore, the only elements of the Junkrat patch, that are still on PTR, are the new hero himself and the Zul'jin and Muradin reworks. They are expected to be released next week, along with the Halloween event.

Today's patch also contains some bug fixes.

Blizzard Entertainment

We just released a new patch for Heroes of the Storm in order to apply balance changes alongside a few bug fixes.

 

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Heroes

ASSASSIN	SPECIALIST	SUPPORT	WARRIOR
Genji	Abathur	Ana	D.Va
Kel'Thuzad	Nazeebo	Brightwing	Garrosh
Lunara	Probius	Kharazim	Johanna
Malthael	Zagara	Lt. Morales
		Stukov

 

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Assassin

Genji

Talents

• Level 20
  • The Dragon Becomes Me (R)
    • Duration increase per swing reduced from 1 to .75 seconds

Kel'Thuzad

Abilities

• Frost Blast (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 80 to 70 seconds
  • Mana cost reduced from 70 to 60

Talents

• Level 4
  • Strip Shields (E)
    • Shield amount increased from 112 to 120
• Level 13
  • Icy Grasp (W)
    • Increased slow duration from 1.5 to 2 seconds
  • Chain-Link (E)
    • Added functionality:
      • Also refunds the Mana cost of Chains Of Kel’Thuzad

Lunara

Abilities

• Wisp (E)
  • Move cooldown reduced from 5 to 1 seconds
  • Number of attacks required to kill the Wisp increased from 1 to 2

Malthael

Abilities

• Reaper’s Mark (Trait)
  • Damage reduced from 2.25 to 2% of enemy Hero maximum Health

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Specialist

Abathur

Abilities

• Spike Burst (W)
  • Damage increased from 116 to 120
• Ultimate Evolution (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 50 to 70 seconds

Nazeebo

Stats

• Health reduced from 1638 to 1502
• Health Regeneration reduced from 3.4125 to 3.1291

Abilities

• Corpse Spiders (Q)
  • Damage increased from 35 to 36
• Plague of Toads (E)
  • Damage reduced from 20 to 18
• Voodoo Ritual (Trait)
  • Health per stack of Voodoo Ritual increased from 4 to 6
• Ravenous Spirit (R)
  • Cast range increased by 1

Talents

• Level 13
  • Superstition (Passive)
    • New functionality:
      • Gain 40 Spell Armor, taking 40% less damage from Abilities.  Basic Attacks from enemy Heroes remove this bonus for 3 seconds
• Level 16
  • Spider Colony (Q)
    • New functionality:
      • Every time a Spider attacks an enemy Hero, reduce the cooldown of Wall of Zombies and Plague of Toads by .25 seconds

Developer Comment: We want to shift more of Nazeebo’s Health into the amount of Voodoo Ritual stacks he has, as the reward for Voodoo Ritual was mostly felt in unlocking Vile Infection at level 20. We’re changing Spider Colony to no longer reduce the cooldown of Corpse Spiders, because the synergy between the Spider Talents were so high that if you picked any one of them the rest of your Talent choices were locked in. Since we are changing the level 16 Talent to now affect Plague of Toads instead of Corpse Spiders, we’re shifting some of the damage out of Plague of Toads into Corpse Spiders. For Superstition, we wanted to get most of the spirit of what the old Talent did, but have more gameplay interactions. Often the only counter play to Superstition lied in what the enemy team composition was, and we’d rather have more counter play relying in decisions made during the course of the game.

Probius

Abilities

• Warp in Pylon (D)
  • Health increased from 380 to 400

Talents

• Level 1
  • Gather Minerals (Passive)
    • Damage bonus increased from 25 to 35%
• Level 13
  • Shield Battery (D)
    • Shield duration after leaving Pylon field reduced from 4 to 2 seconds
    • Shield amount increased from 12 to 14

Zagara

Stats

• Base Maximum Health reduced from 1643 to 1575
• Health regen reduced from 3.4 to 3.3

Abilities

• Devouring Maw (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 100 to 80 seconds

 

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Support

Ana

Stats

• Basic Attack Damage increased from 30 to 33

Talents

• Level 4
  • Overdose (Passive)
    • Adjusted functionality:
      • No longer applies to Biotic Grenade
      • Sleep Dart now applies 3 Doses to targets hit

Developer Comment: Ana has had an incredibly successful launch into the Nexus, and seems to be falling into a great place balance-wise. We are still light on high-level data for her, so our changes this patch are very light. We realize that she has some synergy concerns and wanted to get a small jump on the largest catalyst to those – Overdose. While playing her internally before launch, we knew she had the potential to single-handedly shift the meta, not to mention increase the amount of double-support we see. Rest assured that we are keeping a close eye on both of these concerns and are prepared to act accordingly if the need arises.

Brightwing

Abilities

• Pixie Dust (E)
  • Spell Armor reduced from 30 to 25
• Emerald Wind (R)
  • Soothing Mist bonus healing amount reduced from 8 to 5%

Talents

• Level 7
  • Phase Shield (Z)
    • Shield amount reduced from 400 to 350

 

Kharazim

Talents

• Level 1
  • Transcendence (Trait)
    • Healing increased from 96 to 103 per 3 Basic Attacks
  • Insight (Trait)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 1.5 to 1.75 seconds per 3 Basic Attacks

 

Lt. Morales

Stats

• Base Maximum Health reduced from 1605 to 1550
• Health regen reduced from 3.34 to 3.23

Talents

• Level 1
  • Clear (E)
    • Cooldown Reduction from first quest unlock reduced from 4 to 3 seconds
• Level 4
  • Blast Shield (E)
    • Shield amount reduced from 8 to 6% of maximum Health
• Level 13
  • Second Opinion (E)
    • Cooldown reduction for hitting 2 Heroes increased from 1 to 2 seconds

Stukov

Stats

• Health reduced from 1682 to 1590
• Health regen reduced from 3.5 to 3.31

Abilities

• Healing Pathogen (Q)
  • Heal amount reduced from 40 to 37

Talents

• Level 1
  • Spine Launcher (Passive)
    • Damage reduction increased from 30 to 40%
  • Poppin Pustules (D)
    • Added functionality:
      • Now increases the final damage of Weighted Pustule by 50%
• Level 16
  • Superstrain (Q)
    • Added functionality:
      • Now also applies to targets who are Rooted while under the effect of Healing Pathogen
  • Universal Carrier (Q)
    • Heal reduction decreased from 60 to 50%
  • Eye Infection (W)
    • Removed

 

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Warrior

D.Va

Talents

• Level 1
  • Rush-down (Q)
    • Cooldown reduction from avoiding dealing or taking damage increased from 5 to 7 seconds
  • Crash Course (Q)
    • Number of Heroes hit to complete Quest reduced from 25 to 20
  • Pro Moves (Passive)
    • Duration of the Movement Speed bonus increased from 1.25 to 1.5 seconds
• Level 4
  • Diverting Power (W)
    • Movement Speed penalty reduced from 50 to 30%
• Level 7
  • Nuclear Option (E)
    • Damage bonus increased from 50 to 70%
• Level 20
  • Stop and Pop (R)
    • Damage bonus increased from 150 to 200%
  • Concussive Pulse (Active)
    • Cooldown reduced from 8 to 7 seconds

Garrosh

Talents

• Level 20
  • Death Wish (R)
    • No longer increases the duration of Warlord’s Challenge

 

Johanna

Stats

• Base Maximum Health increased from 2179 to 2350
• Health regen increased from 4.5 to 4.9

Abilities

• Falling Sword (R)
  • Slow duration increased from 2.5 to 3 seconds

Talents

• Level 1
  • Hold Your Ground (D)
    • Additional Shield amount increased from 20 to 30%
• Level 13
  • Roar (Q)
    • Damage for hitting 2 or more Heroes increased from 125 to 150%
  • Blessed Hammer (Active)
    • Damage increased from 80 to 84

 

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Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed a number of typo and tooltip errors across several aspects of the game.

AI

• AI Heroes controlling the Garden Terror will no longer become unresponsive.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Brightwing: The channel for Phase Shift will now properly cancel if the allied target dies.
• Brightwing: The channel for Phase Shift will now properly cancel if Brightwing is Rooted.
• Johanna: Fixed an issue causing the Shield Glare to lower the cooldown of the Blinded by the Light talent by an incorrect amount.
• Kel’Thuzad: Shadow Fissure can now be cast on the minimap.
• Kel’Thuzad: Shadow Fissure can now be cast between map levels on the Haunted Mines battleground. 
• Leoric: Fixed an issue causing enemy Heroes affected by Leoric’s Entomb ability to lose allied vision after Leoric had chosen the Buried Alive talent.
• Lunara: Fixed an issue preventing Lunara from Leaping over several different friendly units after choosing the Boundless Stride talent. 
• Rehgar: Fixed an issue that drastically reduced the attack range of Feral Lunge.

User Interface

• Right clicking a player in your friends list and choosing the Whisper option will once again open the chat input field. 

 

[Yridaa 417]

One thing that stands out to me in particular is that survivability has been decreased almost across the board for these heroes. Max health reduced, shield strengths reduced, slightly more damage here and there.

 

I remember LoL back in beta and the first year of launch where supports were really able to heal their targets really easily - LoL shifted away from the "restorative" path ever since and rather tries to focus on the "pro-active" paths (Shielding before damage, soraka heal nerfed by like 80% but also adding on a ton of armor/mres for example)

 

Overall it did the meta in LoL a LOT of good. No longer were people passive because "well any damage I deal will get healed off anyway, no need to risk it". Perhaps this is also the route for HotS to take in due time. However, ofcourse we can still say that there are supports in HotS that can heal targets from 1% to 100% in mere seconds.

[Plergoth 242]

As a Support / Tank main I'm curious to see how the slight nerfs and changes on several of the supports pan out; on paper they make them less able to snowball in a double support comp unless played well due to the specific targets of the nerfs; making them easier to focus early on in rotations, removing the sheer sustain power that makes them virtually impossible to beat without direct counter picks and comps or a double support yourself without making them useless to solo support with, while reducing the number of answers to everything nature in the talent trees for some, such as Stukov, who, along with several newcomers to the Nexus recently was making it extremely tedious and unhealthy for many melee assassins to even think about being drafted; when you consider the nerf to Malthael in the same balance patch, taking some of the power away from many of the sustain batteries in the roster makes sense. 

I could, of course, be entirely wrong and watch everything go tits up. 

Good change to Ana. Definitely one to watch in coming weeks if she shows up at Blizzcon. Overdose still feels quite powerful but not quite as mandatory now or as obnoxious to play against when coupled with her grenade talent at 1 that just spread around a flat 20% spellpower debuff to any enemy heroes (and a dot to everything else) in a wide area straight off the bat, while also nerfing essentially her only wave clear; this is fine to me, considering how efficient she is when you are landing your shots - both healing and offensive. Q is still usable even without any mana left otherwise, albeit on a 2.something (think it's half a second? Not sure.) which is simply something the other supports, even the ones that don't use mana, can't boast about. I am already picking her on Volkskaya as my go to support for the map (comps allowing) due to the nature of the protracted objective, the relatively small map, the frequent stacking and the way the conveyors can really ruin someone's day with a good sleep dart. Replenishing nearly half of someone's else mana on a 50 second cd with a 30% sp and recharge buff with a virtually free way to bush check built into the Q is also something else I am thoroughly getting a lot of mileage from as well. 

Also a fan of the DVA changes. While not huge at first glance, and her damage and robustness debatable, any buff is a good buff. More mobility is good and helps her peel a surprising amount of damage with Diverting Power which now synergies very nicely with Pro Moves and Dazer Zone, but is so big it works with other talents on the same tier too. It's also big and shiny and distracting which is always good for a sheer psychological boon in a game where big shiny things normally mean death. Still not sure where exactly she fits into the meta and not sure she can compete with the mobility in higher tiers either, but hey, a step in the right direction. 

 

[Fliits 112]

I'm still confused on why they released this now and not when they told they would release it, which is during the Junkrat patch.

[Plergoth 242]

3 hours ago, Fliits said:

I'm still confused on why they released this now and not when they told they would release it, which is during the Junkrat patch.

This is just a balance patch that would have been ready to roll out regardless of a new hero, there's still the Mura and Zul reworks to come with Junkrat plus any further changes. 

[Fliits 112]

2 hours ago, Plergoth said:

This is just a balance patch that would have been ready to roll out regardless of a new hero, there's still the Mura and Zul reworks to come with Junkrat plus any further changes. 

But why did they trick us by first telling the patch was coming with Junkrat and then released it separately?

[Yridaa 417]

37 minutes ago, Fliits said:

But why did they trick us by first telling the patch was coming with Junkrat and then released it separately?

 

[SteveFrost 96]

42 minutes ago, Fliits said:

But why did they trick us by first telling the patch was coming with Junkrat and then released it separately?

Same reason they tricked pretty much everyone into thinking Deathwing was coming and then.. SURPRISE! D.Va

Guess they wanted to get these changes on quick since they had made up their mind on them while maybe still iterating on some stuff with Junkrat and the 2 talent tree updates. Perhaps they want to make additional new changes- usually, a patch that brings a new Hero tends to be big.

[Fliits 112]

I think Vile Infection should be a baseline quest. I know, "baseline quests are unimaginative and dull", but leaving it at the level 20 talent tier almost completely removes any other options at level 20. And yes, making it baseline would make Nazeebo horridly strong if he got it before level 20, but that could be fixed by making the required Voodoo Ritual stack amount a round 200. Nazeebo's level 20 talents require some tuning in general. When's the last time you've picked Fury of the Storm with Nazeebo?

[Xaethron 24]

On 10/15/2017 at 7:16 AM, Fliits said:

I think Vile Infection should be a baseline quest. I know, "baseline quests are unimaginative and dull", but leaving it at the level 20 talent tier almost completely removes any other options at level 20. And yes, making it baseline would make Nazeebo horridly strong if he got it before level 20, but that could be fixed by making the required Voodoo Ritual stack amount a round 200. Nazeebo's level 20 talents require some tuning in general. When's the last time you've picked Fury of the Storm with Nazeebo?

or maybe have nazeebos siege damage or exp soakage give some stacks

 

[Fliits 112]

9 hours ago, Xaethron said:

or maybe have nazeebos siege damage or exp soakage give some stacks

 

That would be much better than farming minions for the entire game just to get one of your talents working.

[Blainie 2183]

On 10/17/2017 at 1:31 PM, Fliits said:

That would be much better than farming minions for the entire game just to get one of your talents working.

You could make it baseline, get the count higher, then add hero kills as a part of it too. 250 stacks for it to complete the quest, but a hero kill grants 5-10 or so. Would make it so Nazeebo doesn't spend all game pouring spiders on minions, yeah.

[Fliits 112]

44 minutes ago, Blainie said:

You could make it baseline, get the count higher, then add hero kills as a part of it too. 250 stacks for it to complete the quest, but a hero kill grants 5-10 or so. Would make it so Nazeebo doesn't spend all game pouring spiders on minions, yeah.

Then I would probably finally play Nazeebo.

[Blainie 2183]

3 minutes ago, Fliits said:

Then I would probably finally play Nazeebo.

They just need to give him some sort of incentive to get into the fight. At the moment, any kind of bad start or difficult lane ends up meaning you have to spend those precious minutes later farming it up again. Some sort of catch-up mechanic could also work, based on time elapsed, or number of minion deaths in the game. After a certain point, he gains 2 per minion kill up to 175 stacks.