heroes Heroes of the Storm Balance Update Patch Notes: February 27th

[Stan 2289]

This week's balance update has arrived. Check out the official patch notes for details!

Blizzard (Source)

Heroes

Assassin

Alarak

Talents

• Level 13
  • Blade of the Highlord (Trait)
    • Adjusted functionality:
      • Basic Attacks against enemy Heroes grant 2% Sadism, up to 30%.  Sadism gained from Blade of the Highlord is lost on death

Developer Comment: Since its inception, Blade of the Highlord has not performed well compared to the other talents on its tier. With this change, we’re hoping to bring it to a more competitive space by making its bonuses more permanent instead of only lasting for a small window of time.

Gall

Talents

• Level 1
  • Keep Moving! (Z)
    • Movement Speed bonus duration increased from 1 to 2 seconds.  Basic Attacks against Heroes no longer increase the movement speed duration of an active Shove.
  • We See You! (Passive)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 15 to 25 seconds
• Level 4
  • Double Back (W)
    • Additional functionality:
      • The third bounce of Dread Orb now deals 50% bonus damage to Heroes
• Level 7
  • Edge of Madness (Q)
    • Window before damage bonuses are lost increased from 4 to 7 seconds
  • Ogre Rampage (Trait)
    • Additional Functionality:
      • Increase the damage bonus of Ogre Rage by 5%
• Level 16
  • Shadowsnare (Q)
    • Slow amount increased from 10% to 15%, stacking up to 2 times instead of 3
  • Leaden Orb (W)
    • Stun duration increased from .5 seconds to .75 seconds

Developer Comment: While looking at Cho, we saw an opportunity to make some of Gall’s lesser picked talents more powerful or interesting so that they are more competitive against other options.

Li-Ming

Talents

• Level 1
  • Aether Walker (E)
    • Additional Functionality:
      • Casting Teleport causes Li-Ming's next cast of Magic Missiles to deal 10% increased damage
• Level 4
  • Triumvirate (W)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 50% to 5 seconds
• Level 7
  • Zei's Vengeance (W)
    • Arcane Orb cooldown reduction reduced from 2 to 1 second
      • This should increase the total cooldown reduction of an Arcane Orb hitting with the Triumvirate proc from 5 seconds to 6 seconds when Trimvirate and Zei's Vengeance are both taken

Developer Comment: We’re going to get you to want to pick Aether Walker. Just you wait…

Lunara

Talents

• Level 4
  • Blossom Swell (Q)
    • Additional functionality: 
      • Hitting an enemy Hero with Noxious Blossom increases Lunara's Movement Speed by 15% for 3 seconds

Developer Comment: Blossom Swell has been underperforming compared to other talents on its tier since Lunara’s last rework. While her talent diversity is fairly good compared to other heroes in the game, we want to give her Q build some love, and saw this as an opportunity to do so.

Orphea

Talents

• Level 7
  • Mind Devourer (E)
    • Damage bonus reduced from 5 to 4 per stack

Developer Comment: Orphea has been performing very well as of late, with Mind Devourer in particular overshadowing other talents on its tier. We’re slightly reducing its power to reduce her overall effectiveness while hopefully motivating players to try out her other Level 7 talents more often.

Raynor

Abilities

• Raynor's Raider (R)
  • Leash range increased from 12.5 to 14

Developer Comment: There are many cases where due to the leash range of Raynor's Raider, it doesn’t quite do what Raynor wants it to. To make it more consistently do what the player wants and expects, we’re slightly increasing its leash range.

Samuro

Talents

• Level 1
  • Way of the Blade (W)
    • Additional Functionality:
      • Now also reduces the Physical Armor of enemy Heroes hit by Critical Strike by 10 for 2 seconds
  • Way of the Wind (E)
    • Additional functionality:
      • Samuro’s Critical Strikes reduce the cooldown of Windwalk by 1.5 seconds

Developer Comment: It’s not too surprising that Way of Illusion has dominated Samuro’s Level 1 tier since it adds the most direct teamfight power due to buffing his Basic Attack damage. Rather than nerf it further, we’re looking to instead buff up its competing options, which should also add some synergies to his later talent tiers, and hopefully create more diversity on other tiers.

Tychus

Talents

• Level 20
  • Bob and Weave (E)
    • Additional Functionality:
      • Now also grants Tychus 1.5 Basic Attack range

Developer Comment: To make Bob and Weave feel more fun and powerful, we’re adding to the kiting theme of the talent by also providing Tychus with a Basic Attack range increase.

Specialist

Azmodan

Abilities

• Globe of Annihilation (Q)
  • Damage scaling reduced from 3% to 2.5%

Talents

• Level 1
  • Greed (Q)
    • New functionality:
      • Globe of Annihilation deals 20% bonus damage to non-Heroic targets.  Quest: After gaining 200 Annihilation, increase the range of All Shall Burn by 25%, and Demon Warriors gain 20% Movement Speed and Attack Speed
• Level 16
  • Sin's Grasp (E)
    • New functionality:
      • All Shall Burn Slows enemies by 15% during its channel.  If the channel finishes, increase this slow to 45% for 2 seconds, and reduce the cooldown of All Shall Burn by 50%
• Level 20
  • Trample (Active)
    • Cooldown reduced from 60 to 20 seconds

Developer Comment: Azmodan is raining a bit too much destruction on the Nexus, so we’re bringing his late-game power down a notch by reducing Globe of Annihilation’s scaling damage. In addition, we saw an opportunity to help his talent pick rates by adjusting a couple existing talents, which will hopefully motivate more players to pursue builds that don’t involve powering up Globe of Annihilation.

Medivh

Talents

• Level 16
  • Temporal Flux (Q)
    • Adjusted functionality:
      • Cooldown reduction changed from 1 second per Basic Attack and 3 seconds for Arcane Rift hits to 3% per Basic Attack and 9% per Arcane Rift hit

Developer Comment: We like talents that lower Heroic cooldowns, but unfortunately many of the heroes who have these talents also have Heroics with wildly different cooldowns, which makes these talents hard to tune and pick in many cases. Because of this, we’re standardizing these talents to reduce a percentage of each Heroic’s cooldown so that players feel free to pick the talent regardless of which Heroic they chose earlier in the game.

Probius

Abilities

• Null Gate (R)
  • Range increased from 8.5 to 9.5

Developer Comment: While Null Gate is performing well in regards to win-rate compared to Pylon Overcharge, the Heroic is still not picked as much as we would like, and is much harder to use properly. Because of this, we’re buffing its range to make it a little more usable, so that Probius players can more consistently get value out of it.

Zagara

Talents

• Level 7
  • Baneling Massacre (Q)
    • Additional Functionality:
      • Increase the damage of Banelings by 20%
  • Viscous Acid (Q)
    • Slow duration increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds
    • Slow amount increased from 20% to 25%
  • Bile Drop (E)
    • Quest completion requirement reduced from 15 to 12

Developer Comment: Zagara’s Level 7 talents have traditionally been very weak, and these changes are meant to make the tier feel more fun overall. If they blow her win-rate out of the water, we’ll look at base kit nerfs to compensate.

Support

Ana

Abilities

• Eye of Horus (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 45 seconds to 60 seconds

Talents

• Level 1
  • Slumber Shells (E)
    • Adjusted functionality:
      • Hitting an enemy Hero with Sleep dart grants Ana 25% Movement Speed for 3 seconds
• Level 4
  • Debilitating Dart (Active)
    • Duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds
• Level 7
  • Night Terrors (E)
    • Cooldown of Sleep Dart when a Hero is not woken up early changed from 6 seconds to 5 seconds

Developer Comment: We’re buffing up some of Ana’s underperforming talents to make them more competitive with their counterparts. In addition, since we greatly increased its reliability, we’re slightly increasing the cooldown of Eye of Horus to get ahead of potential frustration issues with a globally damaging Heroic being on such a low cooldown.

Li Li

Stats

• Health reduced from 1534 to 1500
• Health Regeneration reduced from to 3.2 to 3.1

Abilities

• Healing Brew (Q)
  • Healing reduced from 181 to 175

Talents

• Level 1
  • Eager Adventurer (Trait)
    • Mana regeneration increased from 100% to 125%
• Level 16
  • Blessings Of Yu'lon (W)
    • Healing reduced from 1.25% max Health to 1% max Health

Developer Comment: For how easy Lili is to play, she is simply too powerful and popular, particularly at the lower and mid-levels of play. These changes are meant to reduce her dominance at those levels, which should free up more options for players wanting to pick other healers that they would like to master.

Whitemane

Stats

• Basic Attack period reduced from .75 to .85
• Basic Attack damage increased from 45 to 60

Abilities

• Searing Lash (W)
  • Damage increased from 78 to 82

Talents

• Level 13
  • Self-Righteous (Q)
    • Healing increased from 125 to 135

Developer Comment: We’ve begun to take a look at some of Whitemane’s underlying issues with Mana management, particularly in regards to how her talents interact with her base mechanics. We don’t know how long this will take, and wanted to push out some small buffs to her to help her play and win rate in the meantime. When looking at her kit, we noticed that she had an abnormally high Basic Attack speed, combined with very low damage. We’re reducing her Attack Speed, as she is not the kind of character that can turret on enemy Heroes like Tychus can, and we’re buffing her damage to be much greater so that those attacks more meaningfully interact with Zeal. We’re hoping that these small buffs better reward aggressive Whitemane players with both increased damage and healing output.

Warrior

Cho

Stats

• Health increased from 2750 to 2850
• Health Regeneration increased from 5.7 to 5.9

Talents

• Level 7
  • Power Surge (Q)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 4 to 5 seconds
• Level 13
  • Surging Dash (Q)
    • Moved from Level 16
  • Twilight Veil (Active)
    • Moved from Level 16
    • Duration increased from 2 to 4 seconds
  • Molten Block (Active)
    • Moved from Level 16
• Level 16
  • Frenzied Fists (Q)
    • Moved from Level 13
  • Runic Feedback (E)
    • Moved from Level 13
  • Runed Gauntlet (Passive)
    • Moved from Level 13
    • Adjusted functionality:
      • Cooldown reduction changed from .75 seconds to 5% of Cho and Gall’s Heroic abilities

Developer Comment: Since our last round of nerfs, Cho’gall has fallen off a little more than we would like. In Cho’s particular case, we feel that his survivability takes a particularly hard hit once the enemy team has access to Heroic abilities which are reliably able to shut him down. To help with this, we’re moving his defensive talent tier from Level 16 to 13 in order to shorten the window of time that the enemy team has to take advantage of this particular weakness.

Diablo

Abilities

• Shadow Charge (Q)
  • Cooldown increased from 12 to 13 seconds
• Overpower (E)
  • Cooldown increased from 12 to 13 seconds

Developer Comment: Diablo, while not winning outside of our normally acceptable bounds, is banned a disproportionate amount compared to other heroes in the game. We’re slightly reducing how available his combo is so that enemy players have a larger window of time to take advantage of his threatening abilities being on cooldown.

Leoric

Talents

• Level 13
  • Spectral Leech (Passive)
    • Moved from Level 20
• Level 20
  • Hardened Bones (W)
    • Moved from Level 13

Developer Comment: Since his rework, Ominous Wraith at Level 13 has largely defined Leoric’s place on a team at more competitive levels of play. Rather than nerf something that we consider to be a fairly cool and unique playstyle, we’re instead looking to buff up the other ways that players can build Leoric. Now all of his key build-around talents will be at Level 13, which should make his Basic Attack playstyle come online much sooner, and give him more options if he wants to build into Drain Hope, as he can now combine Unyielding Despair with Hardened Bones.

Mal'Ganis

Stats

• Health reduced from 2700 to 2600
• Health Regeneration reduced from 5.625 to 5.414

Abilities

• Necrotic Embrace (W)
  • Mana cost increased from 30 to 35

Developer Comment: Like Diablo, Mal’ganis has a huge ban rate, and players have had a tough time dealing with his high survivability. We’re bringing it down a bit, which should force Mal’ganis players to be a bit more mindful of how much they can get away with when diving into the enemy team.

Rexxar

Stats

• Health increased from 1725 to 1810
• Health Regen increased from 3.6 to 3.8
• Rexxar Basic Attack damage increased from 99 to 125
• Misha Basic Attack damage reduced from 62 to 50

Abilities

• Misha, Charge! (W)
  • Damage increased from 59 to 150
• Bestial Wrath (R)
  • Bonus damage increased from 150% to 200%

Talents

• Level 7
  • Aspect of the Beast (W)
    • Cooldown reduction reduced from 1.25 to 1 second
• Level 13
  • Dire Beast (W)
    • Damage reduced from 40% per stack to 15%

Developer Comment: Since his inception, Rexxar has been one of the highest win-rate heroes in our game, never going below 50% at high levels of play. Despite this, we’ve heard consistent feedback that he doesn’t feel as impactful as players would like. While we love that Rexxar depends heavily on his relationship with Misha to be effective, it also limits what we can do with him to make him feel powerful and fun to play. To help in this regard, we’re moving a lot of his power out of the more automatic things that Misha does (mostly Basic attacking enemies), and into things that Rexxar himself is actively doing, such as using his Basic Attacks and commanding Misha to Stun enemies. Since we’re buffing Misha, Charge so much, we’re nerfing some of its associated talents as they are already highly picked by Rexxar players, and this change would otherwise be a dramatic buff to them.

Sonya

Talents

• Level 16
  • Giant Slammer (W)
    • Additional Functionality:
      • Now also Heals Sonya for the damage dealt

Developer Comment: It’s hard to create a competing talent to Nerves of Steel due to the incredible on-demand survivability that it gives her in a team fight. To help its viability, we’re adding survivability to Giant Slammer in hopes that it competes more directly with Nerves of Steel while being unique in that it also gives Sonya more damage in a teamfight.

Tyrael

Talents

• Level 1
  • Ardent Restoration (Passive)
    • Healing amount increased from 15 to 17.5
• Level 4
  • Divine Vigor (E)
    • Healing increased from 50% to 60%
• Level 7
  • Purge Evil (E)
    • Bonus Damage increased from 45% to 55%

Developer Comment: We’re just making some simple buffs to Tyrael’s underperforming talents. Nothing to see here, move along.

Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed an issue allowing Boss mercenaries to be slowed.

Heroes

• Ana: Eye of Horus can no longer hit and heal allied vehicles.
• Ana: Fixed an issue with the Anti-Healer talent increasing the duration of the healing reduction by an incorrect amount.
• Kerrigan: Sharpened Blades now grants the correct amount of stacks on Minion kills.

User Interface

• Added an icon that indicates Limited-Time Offers in the collection menu.

[Kuarinofu 35]

Wow, this new balance team doesn't really know the game so well. I mean, Lunara DOT builds never work and never will work (since huge HDMG numbers in the chart don't mean anything, only kills do), so buffing her DOT talents will not change my mind and I will continue to build her as an autoattack hero cause this is where she excels. Same goes for Diablo, he's banned so much not because his cooldowns are too low but cause he's too forgiving, just a faceroll character with 9k HP, lots of CC and ability damage on closed maps. In Diamond Mal'Ganis is not that big of a deal any more, Varian is much more a pain in the *filtered* now anyway.

Thanks god Ana is still top healer/antihealer slot together with Stukov even after her kit was dumbed down completely. For how much healer balance is *filtered* up in this game, they still manage to be completely oblivious to why Li Li is picked 

Quote

These changes are meant to reduce her dominance at those levels, which should free up more options for players wanting to pick other healers that they would like to master.

In Diamond Li Li is picked only to counter hard basic attack monsters like Zul'jin (who is by the way completely broken, super forgiving character you can rightclick for 15 minues, feed and still deal *filtered* tons of damage late game by standing still). I don't know if Diamond is considered a low level of play by the devs, but even if they talk about the lower levels, I don't see people picking harder to play and less effective healers over Li Li just because they nerf her. I mean, why would a player who just wants to have fun tear his *filtered* off playing as Uther (just because how his armor mechanics work), or constantly die as Morales who doesn't even heal solo target that much any more, Kharazim? Yeah, right. Tassadar is still a support and not a specialist, remember?

 

And by the way, if the only thing Rexxar is good for in the game is holding that top Radar Dish on Braxis and here comes Varian who can lifesteal to heal himself (sustain) over being attacked by both Misha and Rexxar at the same time while killing Misha - you know your hero sucks.

Edited February 28 by Kuarinofu

[ShadowerDerek 66]

2 hours ago, Stan said:

Developer Comment: We’re going to get you to want to pick Aether Walker. Just you wait…

Nice try, sonny.

[ShadowerDerek 66]

3 hours ago, Stan said:

Kerrigan: Sharpened Blades now grants the correct amount of stacks on Minion kills.

RIP Kerrigan Q build.

[lChronosl 135]

Interested on trying Rexxar, Sonya, Tyrael and Leoric changes.

Poor Li Li. At least me and the 3 other people that pick Eager Adventurer keep getting buffs.

[Morcalivan 55]

Huh. Both my Zagara and Azmo preferred builds got huge buffs. I didn't realize they needed them.

Will try out Rexxar, but when his bear isn't easy to kill, his slow but still is. So, yeah.

[Valhalen 1212]

5 hours ago, lChronosl said:

Poor Li Li. At least me and the 3 other people that pick Eager Adventurer keep getting buffs.

I'm one of those 3, and I'm very happy that they keep buffing this talent.

I'm probably one of the few that pick Deckard's Potion of Revival, which also keeps getting buffs.

Edited February 28 by Valhalen

[VegaPl 83]

1 hour ago, Valhalen said:

I'm probably one of the few that pick Deckard's Potion of Revival, which also keeps getting buffs.

Yeah, I don't get that one too. If you have a cramped map, like Volskaya or Infernal Shrines or a few melee heroes, it can work wonders. Also I guess that in the lower levels of play it can have more value. I also found that doing alt + skill to heal yourself and people around at the same time can be very nice and also easy to use. I do the same with Ray of Heaven

[Xaethron 33]

On 2/28/2019 at 6:12 AM, Kuarinofu said:

(who is by the way completely broken, super forgiving character you can rightclick for 15 minues, feed and still deal *filtered* tons of damage late game by standing still)

 

Delete this. My boi Zul Jin been shredding heroes since his inception with his beast range and slows and fire rate. But it takes skill to do so. To this day hes the only hero i can carry with.

[SleepySheepy 39]

While Blade of the Highlord isn't best, it at least isn't as bad as before.
It was such a poor talent before, you don't open up with AAs on hero that while it has significant damage on them, doesn't have any spare gap-closer, it's something you do after you pull them in. (Coincidently when you have no use of that extra Sadism).

I too share the sentiment they don't really know how to balance heroes. Like I said multiple times before, Dibbs will be broken as long as it has combination of both good CC with good reach, huge HP, really good burst (good CC + burst shouldn't even come within same tank) and sustain just to top it off.

[VegaPl 83]

5 hours ago, SleepySheepy said:

While Blade of the Highlord isn't best, it at least isn't as bad as before.
It was such a poor talent before, you don't open up with AAs on hero that while it has significant damage on them, doesn't have any spare gap-closer, it's something you do after you pull them in. (Coincidently when you have no use of that extra Sadism).

I think that it is huge and will see a significant spike in talent distribution. If you have games with low number of kills on both sides and you are not able to dominate enough for Rakshir to see a good payoff, this will be a really good choice. Delivering a couple AAs should be the easiest one to get value from. Unless your team dies all the time. Also, consider low levels of play where this one will be significantly better than Rakshir