heroes Heroes of the Storm Balance Update: June 27

[Zadina 923]

The most noteworthy targets of this balance patch are Yrel, who receives some much needed tweaks, and Rehgar. The Volskaya Foundry battleground has also been re-enabled in Ranked games.

Ever since her release, Yrel has been considered a problematic hero. She's been the subject of a lot of debate and in Oxy's latest meta tier list, she managed to rename the infamous The Lost Vikings tier after her own name. The team acknowledged that she needed some help, buffing Avenging Wrath and some of her lowest performing talents. On the other hand, they can see that she can be powerful in the hands of a capable and experienced player (something that has also been noticed by our readers here in Icy Veins), so perhaps this is the reasoning behind the nerf of Gift of the Naaru. And don't forget, her price is reduced to 10k gold this week, so it's a very good chance to try her!

Lastly, we should mention that a planned change to Yrel's channel time reduction didn't make it in this patch. Here's why, according to Matt from the Heroes team:

MattVi

Just a quick heads up that the channel time reduction actually didn't make it into today's patch, and has been removed from the patch notes.

The required art & animation tweaks made it too risky to squeeze into a balance patch, and Yrel's actually been trending up pretty strongly, so we're going to see how these other changes play out. We'll continue watching both her performance and player feedback, and still have the option to go ahead with a shorter channel time in a future patch if it feels needed (whether that be for balance or for gameplay reasons).

(source)

Rehgar also received some exciting changes, Johanna was buffed and some of Maiev's lower win-rate talents have been made more desirable. In contrast, Fenix and Zagara were toned down a bit. The rest of the heroes that received changes in this update are Ana, Tracer, Casia, Graymane, Zul'jin, Nazeebo, Probius, Deckard, Anub'arak, Blaze and Diablo.

Lastly, as already mentioned in the introduction, the Volskaya Foundy Battleground - which was deactivated in Ranked Play due to a bug - is available to play again.

Here are the patch notes:

Blizzard Entertainment

We’ve just released a new Heroes of the Storm patch to apply a number of balance changes and bug fixes.

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Battlegrounds

Ranked Battleground Pool

• Volskaya Foundry has returned to the ranked play Battleground pool.

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Assassin

Cassia

Talents

• Level 1
  • Seraph’s Hymn (W)
    • New functionality:
      • Reduce Blinding Light’s cooldown and Mana cost by 33%. Basic Attacks against Blinded enemies deal 100% bonus damage.
• Level 7
  • Impale (E)
    • Bonus damage threshold increased from 50% to 60% of the target’s maximum Health.

Fenix

Stats

• Health scaling reduced from 4.25% to 4% per level.
• Health Regeneration scaling reduced from 4.25% to 4% per level.

Abilities

• Shield Capacitor (Trait)
  • Shield scaling reduced from 4.25% to 4% per level.
  • Shield Regeneration scaling reduced from 4.25% to 4% per level.
• Planet Cracker (R)
  • Damage increased from 108 to 112.

Talents

• Level 7
  • Combat Advantage (Q)
    • Damage bonus reduced from 40% to 35%.
  • Warp Warfare (E)
    • Attack Speed increased from 125% to 175%.
• Level 13
  • Adanium Shell (E)
    • Armor received after Warping increased from 40 to 50.
  • Rapid Recharge (Trait)
    • Shield recharge amount increased from 40% to 60% of healing received.
  • Auxiliary Shields (Trait)
    • Shields regeneration amount reduced from 15% to 10% of Basic Attack damage dealt.

Greymane

Abilities

• Gilnean Cocktail (Q)
  • Cooldown reduced from 10 to 9 seconds.

Talents

• Level 1
  • Perfect Aim (Q)
    • Mana refund increased from 35 to 45.
• Level 13
  • Visceral Attacks (Q)
    • Removed.
  • Unfettered Assault (Q)
    • Now also causes Worgen Basic Attacks to reduce Razor Swipe’s cooldown by 1.5 seconds.

Maiev

Abilities

• Warden’s Cage (R)
  • Warden Avatar duration reduced from 7 to 5 seconds.

Talents

• Level 1
  • Pursuit of Vengeance (W/E)
    • Cooldown reduction per Hero tethered increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds.
• Level 13
  • Shadow Armor (E)
    • Armor duration increased from 2.5 to 3 seconds.
• Level 16
  • Cruel Chain (W)
    • Damage bonus per stack reduced from 40% to 30%.
    • Maximum damage bonus reduced from 200% to 150%.
  • Vengeful Knives (Q/E)
    • Bonus damage per Hero hit increased from 1.2% to 1.5% maximum Health.

Developer Comment: These changes are directed towards fixing some of Maiev’s lower win-rate talents. We also wanted to address the duration of Warden’s Cage. We like that it is a big moment for Maiev, but we don’t feel it needs to linger quite so long.

Tracer

Stats

• Basic Attack damage reduced from 28 to 27.

Abilities

• Blink (Q)
  • Cooldown increased from 8 to 9 seconds.

Zul'jin

Talents

• Level 4
  • Amani Rage (Active)
    • Amani Rage is now part of Zul’jin’s baseline kit.
    • Cooldown increased from 20 to 30 seconds.
    • No longer grants Armor.
  • New talent: Amani Hide (Passive)
    • Reduce Amani Rage’s cooldown by 10 seconds and gain 10 Armor while regenerating Health.

Developer Comment: Amani Rage has become a staple in almost every build for Zul’jin. We love that it creates meaningful moments and synergizes with his kit, so we made it a baseline ability but had to take a little power out of it to compensate. We’ve created Amani Hide as an upgrade for it that brings back the armor functionality players are accustomed to.

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Specialist

Nazeebo

Abilities

• Plague of Toads (E)
  • Damage per tick reduced from 18 to 17.
• Gargantuan (R)
  • Attack damage reduced from 150 to 140.
  • Health reduced from 2,185 to 2,000.

Probius

Talents

• Level 20
  • Probius Loop (W)
    • Required number of Heroes hit to create a new Warp Rift reduced from 2 to 1.

Zagara

Stats

• Basic Attack damage reduced from 82 to 80.

Abilities

• Hunter Killer (W)
  • Damage reduced from 68 to 65.
• Infested Drop (E)
  • Roach damage reduced from 29 to 27.
• Nydus Network (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 100 to 120 seconds.
  • Cooldown reduction per Basic Attack while on Creep decreased from 0.75 to 0.5 seconds.

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Support

Ana

Abilities

• Shrike (Trait)
  • Now also applies Doses to Structures.

Deckard

Talents

• Level 20
  • Morenadoes! (R)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 5 to 6 seconds.

Rehgar

Abilities

• Chain Heal (Q)
  • Cooldown reduced from 9 to 8 seconds.
  • Healing increased from 240 to 260.
  • Mana cost reduced from 65 to 55.
• Ancestral Healing (R)
  • Healing reduced from 1475 to 1180.

Talents

• Level 4
  • Spiritwalker’s Grace (Q)
    • Mana cost reduction decreased from 20 to 15
  • Stormcaller (W)
    • Maximum Mana restoration increased from 40 to 100.
• Level 7
  • Farsight (Active)
    • Area reveal duration reduced from 10 to 5 seconds.
    • Enemy reveal duration reduced from 4 to 3 seconds.
    • Cooldown reduced from 30 to 16 seconds.
    • Size of reveal area reduced from 10 to 7.
• Level 13
  • Earthliving Enchant (Q)
    • Healing per second increased from 40 to 45.
• Level 16
  • Rising Storm (W)
    • Damage bonus per stack increased from 10% to 15%.
    • Maximum stacks reduced from 20 to 15.

Developer Comment: By increasing the healing potential of Chain Heal, Rehgar will feel more dynamic before level 10. He will also rely less on Ancestral to create the healing output needed from a healer. The cooldown reduction will also make Tidal Waves, Earthliving Enchant, and Blood and Thunder more attractive picks on their respective tiers. We’re reducing the healing of Ancestral some to compensate for his stronger base kit. During internal testing prior to making this change, we found the extra healing it offered frequently resulted in overhealing. As a result, we think this healing reduction won’t feel as impactful as it might initially seem.

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Warrior

Anub'arak

Talents

• Level 20
  • Nullification Shield (Active)
    • Removed
  • New Talent: Hardened Shield (Active)
    • Activate to gain 75 Armor for 4 seconds, taking 75% less damage.

Developer Comment: Now that we’ve removed Anub’arak’s baseline Spell Armor, we’ve also decided to normalize his Nullification Shield Talent. Since Harden Carapace provides him with a healthy amount of Spell Armor, it now shares a lot of the same design space with Nullification Shield. We want to make the use case for his Level 20 Talent clearer, which is to simply press the button when in a lot of trouble to survive burst damage.

Blaze

Abilities

• Bunker Drop (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 50 to 60 seconds.
• Combustion (R)
  • Damage increased from 48 to 52.

Talents

• Level 4
  • Feeding the Flame (Q)
    • Oil Spill cooldown reduction increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds.

Diablo

Stats

• Health increased from 2,618 to 2,670.
• Health Regeneration increased from 5.45 to 5.56.

Abilities

• Apocalypse (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 100 to 90 seconds.
• Lightning Breath (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 60 to 70 seconds.

Talents

• Level 13
  • Cruelty (W/E)
    • Bonus Attack Speed duration increased from 5 to 7 seconds.
• Level 20
  • Dying Breath (R)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 20 to 25 seconds per Hero hit

Johanna

Stats

• Health increased from 2,540 to 2,700.
• Health Regeneration increased from 5.289 to 5.625.

Talents

• Level 4
  • Eternal Retaliation (W)
    • Now also restores 2.5 Mana for each enemy hit by Condemn.

Yrel

Abilities

• Divine Purpose (Trait)
  • Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds.
• Avenging Wrath (E)
  • Damage increased from 150 to 225.

Talents

• Level 4
  • Aegis of Light (E)
    • Armor amount increased from 25 to 35.
  • Gift of the Naaru (Trait)
    • Healing reduced from 400 to 275.
  • Hand of Freedom (Active)
    • Bonus Movement Speed increased from 35% to 50%.
• Level 7
  • Righteous Momentum (W)
    • Yrel is no longer slowed while channeling Righteous Hammer.
    • Bonus Movement Speed reduced from 45% to 25%.
• Level 16
  • Templar’s Verdict (W)
    • Armor reduction duration increased from 2 to 4 seconds.
  • Divine Favor (Trait)
    • Cooldown reduction decreased from 2 to 1.5 seconds.

Developer Comment: We’ve seen Yrel trending upward strongly since her release, most likely due to players beginning to master her unique playstyle. We’ve seen a large difference between players who have a lot of experience as Yrel (Hero level 10+) and people who are still learning the Hero. This is likely why we’ve seen her rise from her initial winrate of 40% to her current 46%. That said, we would like her to feel a little more powerful and be countered by enemy picks a little less. We’ve increased Avenging Wrath’s damage so she gains a little wave clear (though she’ll have to use her escape to do so), while also allowing her to threaten enemy backlines. By reducing the cooldown of Divine Purpose, Yrel players won’t need to channel as frequently which will result in fewer interrupts. We’ve also made several Talent changes to buff a few that were underperforming, and to offset the lower Divine Purpose cooldown.

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Bug Fixes

General

• Addressed an issue that could cause the game client to crash.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Alexstrasza: Casting Dragonqueen no longer reveals Alexstrasza’s location to enemies through the Fog of War until she is killed.
• Alexstrasza: An enemy Alexstrasza’s Dragonqueen model will no longer persist after she enters a vehicle in the Fog of War.
• Medivh: Placing an item, like a Turret or Biotic Emitter, during Raven Form channeling will no longer allow Medivh to cast Abilities in Raven Form.
• Thrall: The Feral Resilience Talent’s buff bar tooltip now correctly states that stacks grant 50 Physical Armor.
• Shields: Talents that deal damage versus Shields, such as Varian’s Shattering Throw, no longer also deal damage to the target’s Health.
• Yrel: Can no longer cast Bubble Hearth while she is being revived by Divine Palm.
• Yrel: Bubble Hearth is now placed on a reduced cooldown if casting is interrupted by Divine Palm.
• Yrel: No longer becomes permanently Invulnerable if she is revived by Divine Palm while casting Bubble Hearth.

User Interface

• Collection: Backstories have been restored for a number of Kerrigan, Leoric, and Rexxar skins.

(source)

[Erathis 53]

A nice collection of moderate buffs and nerfs.  Zuljin getting Amani Rage baseline and Ana getting Doses on structures are both pretty big changes for their respective heroes.  Yrel is...  Unclear?  Her trait and E got buffed which is good but her best talent (Gift) got nerfed which is bad.  I'd say she's overall in about the same place she started (though IMO she wasn't as bad off as it was made out to be) but I don't see this as the buffs people were expecting her to "need" to be "good."  We'll have to see.

[mada7 29]

13 minutes ago, KSDT said:

A nice collection of moderate buffs and nerfs.  Zuljin getting Amani Rage baseline and Ana getting Doses on structures are both pretty big changes for their respective heroes.  Yrel is...  Unclear?  Her trait and E got buffed which is good but her best talent (Gift) got nerfed which is bad.  I'd say she's overall in about the same place she started (though IMO she wasn't as bad off as it was made out to be) but I don't see this as the buffs people were expecting her to "need" to be "good."  We'll have to see.

There were lots of ways they could've taken her to make her good. Making her not a support makes sense so the nerf to her healing is justified. The rest actually covers at least partially what I was hoping to see, damage up, something to mitigate that awful slow, a buff to her trait since she's still quite dependent on it, and a way to punish just ignoring her. She actually seems like she would have a reason to exist now beyond people who wanted to play a worse version of ETC for a lot more gold.

Edited June 27, 2018 by mada7

[SMOrcMan 76]

4 hours ago, Zadina said:

Basic Attack damage reduced from 28 to 27.

Was tracer even being played? She kinda felt weaker with the rise of characters like fenix

[Erathis 53]

1 hour ago, SMOrcMan said:

Was tracer even being played? She kinda felt weaker with the rise of characters like fenix

Yes?  Whatever would make you think otherwise?  She is still very popular.  She sees a ton of competitive play (very first pickable on the double pick side) and has plenty of games pick/banned in hero league as well.

[gamerk2 20]

7 hours ago, mada7 said:

There were lots of ways they could've taken her to make her good. Making her not a support makes sense so the nerf to her healing is justified. The rest actually covers at least partially what I was hoping to see, damage up, something to mitigate that awful slow, a buff to her trait since she's still quite dependent on it, and a way to punish just ignoring her. She actually seems like she would have a reason to exist now beyond people who wanted to play a worse version of ETC for a lot more gold.

Yeah, I HATED Yrel as she was built initially, and these changes seem to make her more viable.

Seriously, the fact her best talent was a heal kinda underscores how badly miscast she was.

[Morcalivan 86]

Quote

Talents

• Level 7
  • Warp Warfare (E)
    • Attack Speed increased from 125% to 175%.
• Level 13
  • Adanium Shell (E)
    • Armor received after Warping increased from 40 to 50.

'o.0'

...da fk just happened?

Quote

Abilities

• Shrike (Trait)
  • Now also applies Doses to Structures.

What next? Putting towers to sleep? Lame.

Quote

Abilities

• Bunker Drop (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 50 to 60 seconds.

Last time I played Blaze I think it was at 40 seconds, lol.

Quote

Yrel

A little more glad I bought her now. Never used her Gift of Naruu to begin with so everything just went way up for my builds. Going to have to play her more now.

[CyberDVonaven 82]

9 hours ago, Zadina said:

 [Yrel's Basic Abilites channel time has been reduced from 1.50 secs to 1.25], the channel time reduction actually didn't make it into today's patch, and has been removed from the patch notes.

I REALLY hope they add this nice change back into her soon in a future patch then. I saw it was there before they removed it from the notes and was very happy about it. It's a bit too long of time channeling in the middle of a team fight not being able to do anything other then be a body blocker in it. Or being focused to death while waiting for it to finish your channel up so you can get out or get the enemy away so you don't die. I'd honestly prefer if they just made it a flat 1 sec to max channel her abilities but maybe that would be a bit much. We'll see if (or hopefully when) they lower it to the 1.25. I do like the rest of the changes.

One other thing they should do though is increase the range on the jumping E lvl 4 talent that grants armor to your allies around you when you land. It's a bit too small range. The range on the lvl4 D heal talent is VERY wide, I think the range 7 vs the armor talent is maybe a range 2 or 3. So even with the nerf to the heal it's still FAR more likely to get value then the armor is in any team comp rather then a team tailered more to diving in with you.

[SteveFrost 97]

I already utilized the Warp build before and imho, it was very heavily criticized- reset on takedowns is pretty good, especially since they upped its cd, the increased attack speed from Warp Warfare is great and helps you generate shields faster via Auxiliary Shields (which was a heavy nerf imho, it already had the trade-off of reducing your HP to get it but if it's not gonna get Tyrael's Imposing Will treatment I'm fine). Lastly, Adanium Shell already gave a large amount of Armor and don't forget, Armor also mitigates damage done to shields so it's more than a viable alternative.

[Sombra 28]

I actualy dont get that zul jin change

 

instead of giving zul the ability baseline, you could make the talent tree more interesting

[Morcalivan 86]

Yrel's buffs are pretty nice. She can still get focussed with CC and armour bypass, but overall her massive waveclear damage with her ability to heal and resist damage along with stuns/knockbacks and chase/flee, just add too much value in too many situations for her not be a good pick.

Throw in some Medivh or other support to counter team focus on her and I think it'll be a great regular character.

Solo laning is pretty easy. She just minions creatures out too fast that also deals damage to players.

Group play is not too hard for diving. Dauntless and Sacred Ground are musts for me. As is the avenging cooldown to 1 second and divine favour cooldown. More hammers, more leaps. Repeatedly. Area damage your heal in between. Simple but effective.

The speed boost clense for 50% isn't half bad either.

[Valhalen 1,485]

Oh boy, I love when they drop those unexpected patches with lots of tweaks.

14 hours ago, Zadina said:

Level 1

• Seraph’s Hymn (W)
  • New functionality:
    • Reduce Blinding Light’s cooldown and Mana cost by 33%. Basic Attacks against Blinded enemies deal 100% bonus damage.

Finally some changes to Cassia. She is a really fun to use character, but the current state of the meta has little place for her. Hopefully this will make her more active even against teams that don't feature a lot of Basic Attackers.

14 hours ago, Zadina said:

Level 4

• Amani Rage (Active)
  • Amani Rage is now part of Zul’jin’s baseline kit.
  • Cooldown increased from 20 to 30 seconds.
  • No longer grants Armor.
• New talent: Amani Hide (Passive)
  • Reduce Amani Rage’s cooldown by 10 seconds and gain 10 Armor while regenerating Health.

Yes, I LOVE THIS. I always play with the Twin Cleave build, where Amani Rage is a must. Being able to have it and Voodoo Shuffle at the same time is fantastic.

Following this line of thought, they could do the same to Kel'Thuzad and make Glacial Spike baseline, but heavily nerfed, while adding a talent that restores it to its current state. Since this talent is a staple of any Kel'Thuzad build, makes a lot of sense.

14 hours ago, Zadina said:

Shrike (Trait)

• Now also applies Doses to Structures.

I've been wanting this ever since she was released. Every single damage over time ability can affect structures, but why Ana's Shrike couldn't? It is great because now she can self-heal by attacking walls and such.

[SenatorBinks27 16]

On 6/28/2018 at 3:42 AM, Sombra said:

I actualy dont get that zul jin change

Yeah, I don't follow pros or anytbing, but who the hell ever took Amani Rage? It always seemed like an unecessary and dangerous trap talent to me - is it really a staple of most builds like the devs said? That's just nuts to me.

On the subject of my girl: The trait cooldown is kinda nice but otherwise she doesn't feel too different to me.

And also I still miss classic Chain Heal build Rehgar. This patch got my hopes up but he's still not quite there yet. 

[Valhalen 1,485]

4 hours ago, SenatorBinks27 said:

Yeah, I don't follow pros or anytbing, but who the hell ever took Amani Rage? It always seemed like an unecessary and dangerous trap talent to me - is it really a staple of most builds like the devs said? That's just nuts to me.

Yes, it is staple, specially for the Guillotine Build. A good Zul'jin will be always scouting the enemy team to check on who has the lowest health, then pop Amani Rage followed by a well placed Guillotine for an easy kill. Zul'jin is one of my main Assassins and that talent has always been a first pick, no brainer.

Amani Rage can also be used very effectively in the Basic Attack build, to maximize his DPS. You pop it and then Taz'dingo! to have him at the lowest health possible to attack as fast as possible.

Even outside of those team fight scenarios, Amani Rage is quite useful to pump up his damage for various tasks (sieging, mercs), assuming you have a frontline to protect you and that there are no enemies nearby.

Also, you can always pair Zul'jin with someone like Uther (for Divine Shield) or Kharazim (for Divine Palm) to make sure Zul'jin won't die when using Amani Rage. But once you get the hang of it, you won't die even without those two.

Edited June 29, 2018 by Valhalen

[SenatorBinks27 16]

3 hours ago, Valhalen said:

Yes, it is staple, specially for the Guillotine Build. A good Zul'jin will be always scouting the enemy team to check on who has the lowest health, than pop Amani Rage followed by a well placed Guillotine for a easy kill. Zul'jin is one of my main Assassins and it has always been a first pick, no brainer.

It can also be used very effectively in the Basic Attack build, to maximize his DPS. You pop Amani Rage and then Taz'dingo! to have him at the lowest health possible to attack as fast as possible.

Even outside of those team fight scenarios, Amani Rage is quite useful to pump up his damage for various tasks (sieging, mercs), assuming you have a frontline to protect you and that there are no enemies nearby.

Also, you can always pair Zul'jin with someone like Uther (for Divine Shield) or Kharazim (for Divine Palm) to make sure Zul'jin won't die when using Amani Rage. But once you get the hang of it, you won't die even without those two.

Funny. I ironically always found myself most effective on Zul'Jin when not close to death. I'll have to take my time relearning him to adjust to this new tool, but I wanted to focus him as one of my Top 6 Assassins anyway.

[Valhalen 1,485]

9 minutes ago, SenatorBinks27 said:

Funny. I ironically always found myself most effective on Zul'Jin when not close to death. I'll have to take my time relearning him to adjust to this new tool, but I wanted to focus him as one of my Top 6 Assassins anyway.

Oh, definitely. The Twin Cleave build is so damn good because its damage does not depend on Zul'jin being close to death except when using Guillotine. Whenever I play Zul'jin I find myself doing eye-watering damage by the end of the matches without losing any health. I've managed to reach over 250 stacks of Arcanite Axes because the enemy team featured Rexxar and Samuro; therefore I was farming the shit out of Misha and Mirror Image.

The addition of Amani Rage as a baseline shouldn't impact your gameplay and learning process, though, but rather add an extra layer for it. You don't have to use it, but will definitely reward you well if you do.

Edited June 29, 2018 by Valhalen

[Plergoth 277]

Another Shrike buff to Ana is always welcome. Makes her less of a cheerleader while pushing with her team. 

[Kayusa 2]

On 6/28/2018 at 4:09 AM, KSDT said:

Yes?  Whatever would make you think otherwise?  She is still very popular.  She sees a ton of competitive play (very first pickable on the double pick side) and has plenty of games pick/banned in hero league as well.

The pickrate in HL and TL is mediocre to low at best. Her winrate is decent in those low amount of games she's played but I wouldn't call her ban and pickrate 'plenty' based off that. She is, yes, popular in proplay because people build a comp completely around her to boost her damage and survivability. This is more aimed for the pro scene than anything else.

Edited July 1, 2018 by Kayusa