heroes Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes: June 4

[Stan 5,246]

The latest Heroes of the Storm patch is now available for playtesting until June 11. The new event rewards faction mounts, we have Yrel and the Alterac Pass Battleground up for testing, so don't forget to submit your feedback on the official forums! Here are the full patch notes.

Blizzard (Source)

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until June 11. As always, if you encounter any bugs during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.

Echoes of Alterac

Catch additional details about the Echoes of Alterac event on the Heroes of the Storm website!

PTR Note: While elements of this event may be visible on the Public Test Realm, any progress or rewards earned during PTR testing will not transfer to the live version of the game when this patch is officially released next week.

An age-old rivalry has flared up as the Horde and Alliance battle for dominance over a strategic pass through the Alterac Mountains. Generals from each faction are rallying Heroes to their banners in an effort to gain the upper hand in the struggle to control Alterac Pass. You must decide whether to side with Vanndar Stormpike and the Alliance, or Drek’thar and the Horde. Choose wisely! Your decision is permanent, and these battle-hardened Generals will not tolerate traitors among their ranks.

Starting the week of June 12, until July 9, those who successfully complete quests for their General of choice will be handsomely rewarded with in-game loot, including a Warcraft Reinforcements Chest, which guarantees a Warcraft Hero of epic or higher rarity.

Alliance Quest Chain and Rewards 

• Reconnaissance: Play 4 games as a Warcraft Hero.
  • Reward: Warcraft Reinforcements Loot Chest.
• Raiding Camp: Achieve 50 Takedowns in winning games.
  • Reward: Alliance Portrait.
• Carry the Banner: Play 6 games with a friend.
  • Reward: Alliance Banner.
• For the Alliance: Win 8 games as a Warcraft Hero.
  • Rewards: Swift Ram Mount.

Horde Quest Chain and Rewards

• Scout: Play 4 games as a Warcraft Hero.
  • Reward: Warcraft Reinforcements Loot Chest.
• Strike Back: Achieve 50 Takedowns in winning games.
  • Reward: Horde Portrait.
• Gaining Drek’thar’s Favor: Play 6 games with a friend.
  • Reward: Horde Banner.
• For the Horde: Win 8 games as a Warcraft Hero.
  • Rewards: Raging Wolf Mount.

Catch additional details about the Echoes of Alterac event on the Heroes of the Storm website!

New Battleground: Alterac Pass

Learn even more about Alterac Pass by visiting the Heroes of the Storm website!

Alterac Pass is a three-lane Battleground where Heroes must free imprisoned allied troops, call in their cavalry, and take down the opposing General to claim the Pass for their faction. In addition to enemy forces, the Alterac Mountains are home to many treacherous hazards! Heroes must remain vigilant, as a simple misstep into a mud pit can prove fatal. As well, teams would be wise to recruit the Armored Gnolls and Ice Giants who inhabit the Pass before the enemy faction can harness the deadly creatures for their own gain.

Cores Replaced by Generals

• Each team’s Core has been replaced by a General who will aid them in fending off attackers.
  • Vanndar Stormpike leads the Alliance (left team) in driving back the Horde forces at Alterac Pass.
  • Drek'Thar has rallied the Horde (right team) to aid in defending the Pass against Alliance invaders.
• Each General receives bonus Armor and damage based on the number of allied Keeps remaining. Destroy enemy Keeps to weaken their General.
• When attacking a General directly, be prepared to finish the job! Vanndar and Drek’thar will regenerate Health once they are out of combat.
• In addition to their Basic Attacks, they can also use two Abilities:
  • Whirlwind: Deals damage in an area around the General.
  • Charge: The General dashes to the target enemy, dealing damage.

Capture Prison Camps to Call in the Cavalry!

• Three minutes after a match begins, a Prison Camp will spawn for each team. Invade enemy territory to reach the opposing Prison Camp, take out the Guards, and free the allied prisoners to call in a Cavalry Charge!
  • Channel an opposing Prison Camp to begin a breakout, and then free the prisoner by preventing the enemy team from regaining control of the Camp for 30 seconds.
    • Watch out for enemy Heroes and Guards! They will attempt to stop any attackers and Channel on their Prison Camp to retake control.
    • Each subsequent breakout will require the capturing team to maintain control for an additional 10 seconds, up to a maximum of 50 seconds.

• Once a team frees the prisoners at an enemy camp, allied Cavalry will charge down all three lanes, attacking any enemies and Structures in their paths.
  • Cavalry units generate an aura that increases nearby Minion and Hero Movement Speeds, and grants a damage bonus to nearby allied Heroes.
    • The aura’s damage bonus will increase based on the number of Prison Camp events completed so far, up to a maximum of 3 events.
      • Cavalry on both teams will benefit from these increases independent of which team won each Prison Camp event.
• Subsequent Prison Camps will spawn at random within a range of time after all Cavalry from the previous event have been eliminated. This range of time is determined as follows:
  • From 110 – (# of game minutes elapsed * 2) seconds to 150 – (# of game minutes elapsed * 2) seconds.
  • For example: If all Cavalry from the most recent event are defeated at the 10-minute mark, the next set of Prison Camps will spawn at random between 90 and 130 seconds later.

Mercenaries

• Armored Knolls – Siege Camp
  • Watch out for the Knolls who inhabit the Pass! They’re formidable creatures who wield a cleaving attack that can shred a Hero’s Armor in no time.
• Ice Giants – Boss Camp
  • The Ice Giants at the northern and southernmost points of the Pass tend to mind their own business, but once provoked, they’ve been known to hurl deadly balls of ice—and even stomp the ground in an effort to Slow or Stun their foes.

Mud Pits

• Combatants who don’t mind where they step can fall victim to one of several mud pits that have sprung up within Alterac Pass.
  • Any Hero who enters a mud pit will find their Movement Speed reduced by 16% per second, to a maximum of 60%, for as long as they remain there.
  • Upon finding solid ground, the Hero will regain Movement Speed at 50% per second.

Please Note: Alterac Pass will become available for play in three stages over the next few weeks:

• Public Test Realm: Alterac Pass is available for play in the PTR from today until June 11.
• Non-Ranked Modes: During the week of June 19, Alterac Pass will enter Quick Match, Unranked, and Versus A.I. matchmaking queues, as well as Custom Games.
• Ranked Play: During the week of July 10, Alterac Pass will enter the Ranked Battleground Rotation.

New Hero: Yrel

Learn even more about Yrel by visiting her Hero page on the Heroes of the Storm website!

After traveling to an alternate Draenor, the forces of Azeroth saved the acolyte Yrel from the Iron Horde. With their aid, she rose to the rank of Exarch and fought back the demonic invasion of her world. Now, she finds herself where time, space, and dimensions converge: the Nexus.

Trait 

• Divine Purpose (D)
  • Activate to instantly charge Yrel's next Basic Ability at no mana cost.
  • Passive: Yrel's Basic Abilities charge up over 1.5 seconds, increasing in effectiveness, but reducing Yrel's Movement Speed by 25%.

Basic Abilities

• Vindication (Q)
  • Unleash holy energy around Yrel, dealing 38 damage to nearby enemies and healing her for 96.
  • Charging up this Ability increases its damage up to 125, and Healing up to 320.
• Righteous Hammer (W)
  • Swing Yrel's hammer, dealing 38 damage to enemies in front of her and knocking them away.
  • Charging up this Ability increases its knockback distance, and damage up to 125. Enemies hit at maximum charge are Stunned for 0.75 seconds.
• Avenging Wrath (E)
  • Leap to a location, dealing 150 damage to enemies in an area and Slowing them by 50% for 1 second.
  • Charging up this Ability increases its range.

Heroic Abilities

• Ardent Defender (R)
  • Surround Yrel in a barrier for 3 seconds, absorbing all damage taken and Healing her for 50% of the damage received.
• Sacred Ground (R)
  • Yrel sanctifies the ground around her, gaining 40 Armor until she leaves the area.

Art

Hero Select Screen

• Starting today, troops will now make their Hero selections among the snowy, picturesque peaks of Alterac.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• The following Heroes have received updated visual effects for their Abilities:
  • Auriel
  • Muradin

Design

Vehicles

• Vehicle Exit hotkey has been moved to the Trait key (default: “D”), and Vehicle Trait hotkeys have been moved to the Heroic key (default: “R”). This includes:
  • Dragon Knight
  • Garden Terror
  • Triglav Protector
  • Blaze's Bunker Drop

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Ragnaros: Empower Sulfuras will now miss when Ragnaros is Blinded, and the Ability’s cooldown will be consumed.
• Abathur: Allied and enemy Symbiote hosts will now display a crown icon above their portraits on the Minimap.

CollectionNew Bundles and Skin Packs

• The following new bundle will soon become available for a limited time:
  • Yrel Heroic Bundle – Available starting the week of June 12 until June 25.
  • Heroes of Warcraft Bundle – Available starting the week of June 12 until July 9.

New Announcers

• Yrel Announcer
• Drek'Thar Announcer
• Vanndar Announcer

New Skins

• Falstad
  • Ironforge Falstad
  • Midnight Buccaneer Falstad
• Greymane
  • Seafarer Greymane
• Rehgar
  • Gladiator Rehgar
• Varian
  • Copper Varian
  • Prince Varian
• Zul’jin
  • Bloodscalp  Zul’jin
  • Frostmane Zul’jin

New Portraits and Sprays

• We've once again teamed up with Carbot Animations to add even more HeroStorm-themed portraits and sprays in their signature art style!

Bug Fixes

General

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

A.I.

• Chromie: A.I. Chromie will no longer cast Temporal Loop on Vehicles, like the Dragon Knight or Garden Terror.

Art

• Abathur: Removed an excess visual effect that could appear after casting Symbiote on a Monstrosity while using the Xenotech Abathur skin.
• Abathur: Ultimate Evolution clones of Lil’ Ragnaros will now use the correct death model when the Ability expires or the clone is destroyed.
• Gall: The Double Back Talent now displays the base Dread Orb icon art the Talent selection pane.
• Genji: Genji no longer occasionally uses a default pose after being affected by a Time Stop effect during Dragonblade.
• Greymane: Hunter Greymane no longer hides his face behind his shoulder pad on the post-match summary screen.
• Leoric: The Consume Vitality Talent now displays the base Skeletal Swing icon art in the Talent selection pane.
• Medivh: The Mystic Assault Talent and Arcane Rift’s quest icon now display the base Arcane Rift icon art.
• Tassadar: The Psi-Infusion Talent now displays the base Psionic Storm icon art in the Talent selection pane.

Battlegrounds

• Try Mode: A.I. Heroes will now ignore Mercenary Camps. However, an allied Hero will still engage a Mercenary Camp if the player attacks it while that ally is following them.
• Volskaya Foundry: Minions can no longer clip through the northern Wall near the Fort in the bottom lane.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Artanis: Purifier Beam is now correctly interrupted if its target is a Hero with a post death effect, like Leoric or Uther, who is killed while the Ability is being cast.
• Deckard: Stay Awhile and Listen’s book model no longer visually persists if the Ability is interrupted by a Taunt effect.
• Deckard: Casting Horadric Cube while on a conveyor belt no longer causes the Ability’s area of effect to disjoint from its visual effects.
• Deckard: Casting Scroll of Sealing while on a conveyor belt no longer causes the Ability’s area of effect to disjoint from its visual effects.
• Deckard: Fixed an issue that could prevent a Healing Potion from being picked up if it was placed between an injured ally and Deckard when Deckard is at full Health.
• Fenix: Offensive Cadence will no longer stop functioning if Fenix is killed when his next Basic Attack would have triggered the Talent’s bonus damage.
• Li-Ming: Fixed an issue causing Disintegrate to deal one less damage tick than intended.
• Ragnaros: When cast on Ragnaros in his normal form, Alarak’s Rite of Rak’shir and Alexstrasza’s Blessing of the Red will not persist after casting Molten Core. However, Ragnaros will regain those marks once Molten Core expires.

Sound

• Abathur: Increased the volume of Xenotech Abathur's voiceover lines during Symbiote.
• Announcers: A number of Announcers’ countdown lines that play at the start of a match will no longer end earlier than intended.
• Hero Interactions: Fixed an issue that prevented unique voiceover lines from playing when a clash between two specific Heroes, such as Arthas vs. Uther, resulted in a kill.
• Leoric: Reduced the volume of Leoric’s Basic Attack sound effects.
• Tychus: Enemy A.I. Tychus was a little too chatty on the battlefield. He’s been ordered to do less talkin’ and more fightin’.

User Interface

• Abathur: Symbiote now correctly creates a crown icon above an allied target’s minimap portrait.
• Artanis: Damage dealt by the Plasma Burn Talent now displays correctly in Death Recaps.
• Stukov: Healing done by the Superstrain Talent no longer displays as “Unknown” in Death Recaps.
• Tychus: The Event Log now correctly displays the yellow Run and Gun icon upon completing the Dash Talent’s quest.

[lChronosl 182]

Only one thing matters... More Carbot portraits!

 

 

Okay, the other stuff is cool too.

@Edit: Yrel arrives on 12 and the event (Echoes of Alterac) on 19. You can't get Yrel in the bonus chest BTW. But it seems playing with friends will yield an extra 50% exp [Source]

Edited June 4, 2018 by lChronosl

[Fliits 112]

Yriel seems really cool and interesting, but maybe too difficult for me. When are they going to make more specialists, we haven't had one in ages.

[VinsX 33]

1 hour ago, lChronosl said:

Only one thing matters... More Carbot portraits!

If only we could have a Carbot mod like Starcraft 2! Imagine how fun it'll be. xDDD

 

21 minutes ago, Fliits said:

Yriel seems really cool and interesting, but maybe too difficult for me. When are they going to make more specialists, we haven't had one in ages.

I don't think there'll ever be another specialist, since they're looking to cancel the role of specialist in the future with a new role system.

[Fliits 112]

6 minutes ago, VinsX said:

I don't think there'll ever be another specialist, since they're looking to cancel the role of specialist in the future with a new role system.

I hope they'll still make characters that specialize in helping the team through experience gathering and utility in the future.

[DimensionDerper 26]

51 minutes ago, Fliits said:

I hope they'll still make characters that specialize in helping the team through experience gathering and utility in the future.

Definitely. I absolutely love playing TLV and Zagara.

3 hours ago, Stan said:

New Skins

• Falstad
  • Ironforge Falstad
  • Midnight Buccaneer Falstad
• Greymane
  • Seafarer Greymane
• Rehgar
  • Gladiator Rehgar
• Varian
  • Copper Varian
  • Prince Varian
• Zul’jin
  • Bloodscalp  Zul’jin
  • Frostmane Zul’jin

Also, where's our destined Goblin Junkrat?

[lChronosl 182]

4 minutes ago, DimensionDerper said:

Also, where's our destined Goblin Junkrat?

I think as it was with the Nexusmania we won't be getting the new skins on PTR, only on the official launch.

[SidonisAntares 290]

2 hours ago, lChronosl said:

Only one thing matters... More Carbot portraits!

 

 

Okay, the other stuff is cool too.

@Edit: Yrel arrives on 12 and the event (Echoes of Alterac) on 19. You can't get Yrel in the bonus chest BTW. But it seems playing with friends will yield an extra 50% exp [Source]

Interesting, the only unpurchased heroes I have left are Cho'Gall

[Peaches9 15]

2 hours ago, Fliits said:

I hope they'll still make characters that specialize in helping the team through experience gathering and utility in the future.

Considering the ongoing effort to not just discourage, but outright punish players for laning (cough...baseline quests...cough), I wouldn't get my hopes up at this point. It's already getting hard just to find a laner who isn't hindered by not being in the midlane brawl all the time, since too many otherwise capable laners like Jaina and Junkrat need to get their stacks up in order to be useful later on.

[Durf24 42]

Some day, I want a Carbot announcer pack

[CyberDVonaven 82]

58 minutes ago, Durf24 said:

Some day, I want a Carbot announcer pack

How would that work?

'Hey guys, It's your best friend, it's Carbot! Get ready to hit each other with stuff!'

It think it would end up being a lot like the TotalBiscuit Announcer pack for Starcraft 2. Silly and great ? And would only be available to purchase with gems ? ? 

Edited June 5, 2018 by CyberDVonaven

[lChronosl 182]

2 hours ago, Durf24 said:

Some day, I want a Carbot announcer pack

You know what would be really cool and impractical? Carbot skins.

Or maybe an Carbot zerg wave on Braxis Holdout.

Edited June 5, 2018 by lChronosl

[SteveFrost 97]

Yrel looks spot on imho (fair and balanced, like Blaze) and definitely meta material. It's always for the best when things get shaken up.

The new Battleground is amazingly well-done. It really captures the essence of Alliance vs Horde. Fighting the Generals as a team gives a boss raid feel, the objective + mercs so harmonized in. It could also serve as a new Brawl idea; each side would have access to only Alliance/Horde Heroes respectively (all unlocked). FOR THE ALLIANCE!

[ShadowerDerek 69]

Why are the hero balance changes not included in this post? Those are pretty significant changes.

[lChronosl 182]

7 hours ago, ShadowerDerek said:

Why are the hero balance changes not included in this post? Those are pretty significant changes.

Agreed, specially Kael'tha's:

 

Quote

Kael'thas

Stats

• Unit radius reduced from 1.15 to 1.0. Kael’thas’ radius now matches Heroes like E.T.C. and Zagara.

Developer Comment: After years of battling in the Nexus, Kael’thas finally learned the reason why puny interlopers could foil his clearly superior plans and went to the tailor to get his cape trimmed.

And the removal of baseline armor from all heroes is probably important too. Poor Johanna, it looks like her new armor is more skimpy than it looks.

Edited June 6, 2018 by lChronosl