heroes Heroes of the Storm Balance Patch Notes: August 20th

[Staff 1,490]

Heroes of the Storm has been updated with Hero balance changes. Read the official patch notes for details.

(Source)

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Heroes

TANK	BRUISER	HEALER	MELEE	RANGED
Stitches	Leoric	Deckard	Qhira	Hanzo
		Lt. Morales		Lunara
				Nazeebo
				Valla
				Zagara

Tank

Stitches

Base

• Health reduced from 3060 to 3020.
• Health regeneration reduced from 6.38 to 6.29.
• Shambling Horror [D]
  • Duration reduced from 5 to 4 seconds.

Talents

• Level 4
  • Tenderizer [Passive]
    • Slow amount reduced from 25% to 20%.
    • Slow duration reduced from 2.5 to 1.5 seconds.
• Level 16
  • Pulverize [W]
    • Slow reduced from 80% to 70%.
    • Armor reduction duration reduced from 4 to 3 seconds.

Developer Comment: We’re overall happy with Stitches’ position, but his stickiness is overshadowing why players pick other Tanks.

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Bruiser

Leoric

Base

• Skeletal Swing [Q]
  • Additional functionality: Skeletal Swing deals an additional 75% damage to Minions.
• Wrath of the Bone King [Trait]
  • Third Basic Attack damage bonus increased from 100% to 125%.

Talents

• Level 4
  • Kneel, Peasants! [Q]
    • Changed functionality: Skeletal Swing deals an additional 75% damage to Mercenaries and Monsters, and they activate Skeletal Swing’s cost and cooldown refund.

Developer Comment: Being the King brings many duties, and being the Skeleton King is no different. Leoric players are often expected to fill a wave clearing role that is dependent on the current Kneel, Peasants! to succeed. We're bringing much of its benefit baseline, and trying something a little weird with Kneel, Peasants! Let us know if you consider it treasonous.

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Healer

Deckard

Base

• Healing Potion [Q]
  • Medium range flight time reduced from .4375 to .375 seconds.
  • Far range flight time reduced from .6125 to .5 seconds.
  • Heal amount increased from 270 to 285.
• Horadric Cube [W]
  • Slow duration increased from 1.75 to 2 seconds.

Talents

• Level 1
  • Scroll of Identify [E]
    • New functionality:
      • Quest: Hitting a Hero with Scroll of Sealing permanently increases its damage by 2.
      • Reward: Hitting 15 Heroes causes Scroll of Sealing to reveal and reduce the Armor of Heroes by 10 for 4 seconds.
      • Reward: Hitting 30 Heroes increases the amount of Armor reduction against Heroes to 15 and its duration to 6 seconds.
• Level 4
  • Potion of Shielding [Q]
    • Shield increased from 122 to 140.
  • Rejuvenation Potion [Q]
    • Healing increased from 108 over 4 seconds to 114 over 3 seconds.
    • Mana restoration increased from 10 to 15.
• Level 10
  • Lorenado [R2]
    • Additional functionality: Deals 20 damage to Heroes hit.
• Level 13
  • Super Healing Potion [Q]
    • Healing bonus reduced from 120 to 100%.
    • Additional functionality:
      • Passive: Potions heal for 25% more against Heroes under 50% health.
  • Potion of Revival [Q]
    • Area healing increased from 50 to 75%.
  • Ancient Blessings [Trait]
    • Cooldown reduced from 60 to 45 seconds.

Developer Comment: Deckard's healing related talents have been underperforming lately, so we're hitting their numbers as well as cutting down some of the travel time on his potions. Scroll of Identify is also getting a blast of ~*spice*~, because why not.

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Lt. Morales

Base

• Health increased from 1515 to 1560.
• Health regeneration increased from 3.16 to 3.25.
• Healing Beam [Q]
  • Energy regeneration per interval increased from 2.5 to 3.
• Safeguard [W]
  • Armor increased from 30 to 35.

Talents

• Level 4
  • Trauma Trigger [Passive]
    • Cooldown reduced from 40 to 30 seconds.
• Level 7
  • Vanadium Plating [W]
    • Armor reduced from 25 to 20.

Developer Comment: When we shuffle a Hero's talents, we often reduce their base power so we can make their talents more exciting. In Lt. Morales' case, we've found we don't have to pay as high a price as we expected.

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Melee

Qhira

Talents

• Level 1
  • Fatal Wounds [W]
    • Quest requirement reduced from 200 to 150 Hero hits.
• Level 4
  • Ensnaring Swing [E]
    • Primary target Slow increased from 40% to 60%.
• Level 13
  • Pulsing Pain [E]
    • Damage increased from 115 to 135.
• Level 16
  • Lingering Ailment [E]
    • Armor reduction increased from 15 to 25.
  • Swing Life Away [E]
    • Spell Armor increased from 50 to 60.
    • Spell Armor duration increased from 2.5 to 5 seconds.
• Level 20
  • Utility Belt [E]
    • Cooldown reduced from 5 to 2 seconds.

Developer Comment: Many of Qhira's Revolving Swing talents have never really captured the attention of Qhira players, as they often leave Qhira spinning out. We're giving these buffs a whirl to see how they play out.

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Ranged

Hanzo

Base

• Health increased from 1323 to 1375.
• Health regeneration increased from 2.75 to 2.86.
• Natural Agility [D]
  • Cooldown reduced from 30 to 25 seconds.

Talents

• Level 7
  • The Dragon Hungers [Q]
    • Duration increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
  • Sharpened Arrowheads [Passive]
    • Armor reduction per stack increased from 2 to 3.
    • Maximum Armor reduction remains 20.
• Level 10
  • Dragonstrike [R1]
    • Center damage bonus increased from 50% to 75%.

Developer Comment: Hanzo has slowly become a less reliable choice for most players, so we're increasing his health and adding some quality of life changes.

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Lunara

Talents

• Level 1
  • Hippity Hop [Z]
    • Cooldown reduced from 4 to 2 seconds.
• Level 7
  • Choking Pollen [Q]
    • Damage against enemies with 3 stacks of Nature’s Toxin increased from 150% to 200%.
  • Wild Vigor [W]
    • Damage bonus increased from 50% to 70%.
• Level 10
  • Thornwood Vine [R1]
    • Damage increased from 176 to 184.
• Level 13
  • Abolish Magic [Active]
    • Cooldown reduced from 30 to 20 seconds.

Developer Comment: Lunara has been doing some weeding, and now some of her lesser picked talents have begun to bloom.

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Nazeebo

Base

• Corpse Spiders [Q]
  • Cooldown decreased from 9 to 8 seconds.
  • Mana cost reduced from 50 to 40.

Talents

• Level 1
  • Widowmakers [Q]
    • New functionality:
      • Enemies hit by Corpse Spiders’ jar are Slowed by 30% for 1.5 seconds.
      • Reward: After attacking Heroes 100 times, Corpse Spiders deal 30% more damage and last for an additional second.
  • Pandemic [E]
    • Additional functionality: After Hitting 80 Heroes with Plague of Toads, it reduces the damage Heroes deal by 5%, stacking up to 25%.
• Level 4
  • Blood Ritual [Trait]
    • Additional functionality:
      • Passive: Takedowns grant 5 stacks of Voodoo Ritual.
• Level 7
  • Spirit of Arachyr [Q]
    • New functionality:
      • Corpse Spiders spawns an additional spider.
      • If Corpse Spiders’ jar hits only one target, spawn an additional spider.
• Level 13
  • Guardian Toads [E]
    • Stack duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds.
    • Max duration increased from 4 to 6 seconds.
  • Superstition [Passive]
    • Additional functionality: Heroic Basic Attacks that cancel the Spell Armor effect spawn a Corpse Spider to attack the Hero.
• Level 16
  • Spider Colony [Q]
    • Additional functionality: Corpse Spider Attacks against Heroes also reduce the cooldown of Corpse Spiders by .125 seconds.
• Level 20
  • Humongoid [R1]
    • Additional functionality: Gargantuan Stomps’ area is increased by 25% and its Slow amount is increased to 50%.
  • Annihilating Spirit [R2]
    • Additional functionality: Heroes hit by Ravenous Spirit have their healing received reduced by 50% for 1 second.
  • Fury of the Storm [Passive]
    • Removed.
  • (New) Bad Medicine [Active]
    • Consume 5 Stacks of Voodoo Ritual to become Unstoppable, gain 20% Movement Speed, and 50 Armor for 2 seconds. 30 second cooldown.

Developer Comment: It's been a hot minute since we touched the Naz man. We like that he's a late-game PvE powerhouse, but we feel there's room for him to have more PvP impact early on. We're adjusting both his Spider and Toad builds to have more of a unique identity and to make them a little more consistent. We're also dumping a pile of jungle spices on his 20s to make them more competitive with the ever-popular Vile Infection.

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Valla

Talents

• Level 4
  • Arsenal [W]
    • Damage reduced from 120 to 100.
• Level 7
  • Hot Pursuit [Trait]
    • Movement Speed per stack of Hatred reduced from 2.5% to 2%.
• Level 13
  • Gloom [Active]
    • Healing per second reduced from 2.5 to 1.25.
    • Healing per second now scales with level.
    • Passive Spell Armor reduced from 20 to 15.
• Level 20
  • Death Siphon [R1]
    • Removed functionality: Penetrating bolts no longer heals Valla for their damage dealt.

Developer Comment: Valla’s damage is nearing close to where we’d like it to be – but her safety while doing so is a bit high.

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Zagara

Base

• Health reduced from 1575 to 1500.
• Health regeneration reduced from 3.82 to 3.12.
• Basic Attack damage reduced from 85 to 83.
• Baneling Barrage [Q]
  • Mana cost increased from 10 to 15.
  • Cooldown increased from 3 to 4.
  • Damage reduced from 86 to 80.

Talents

• Level 1
  • Volatile Acid [Q]
    • Removed functionality: No longer increases Baneling Barrage’s damage.
• Level 7
  • Baneling Massacre [Q]
    • Changed functionality: Gain two additional charges of Baneling Barrage, but increase its cooldown by 2 seconds.
• Level 20
  • Pack Instinct [W]
    • Damage bonus reduced from 25% to 20%.
    • Duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.

Developer Comment: In contrast to our usual ethos, Zagara is seeing her talents pay the price for an increase in power in her base ability. While the immediate effect is Zagara has less impactful Baneling talents, we feel that Baneling Barrage is a more interesting ability than from where we started, and we have more room for future changes.

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Bug Fixes

Heroes

• Valla
  • Gloom's healing per second updates to Hatred stacks when the talent is first chosen.
  • Tempered by Discipline's bonus healing updates to Hatred stacks when the talent is first chosen.
  • Death Dealer's damage bonus updated to reflect its tooltip.
  • Death Dealer now refunds Vault's mana and cooldown when Spell damage kills the target.
  • Caltrops ignore Invulnerable enemies

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[darkgreenwax 412]

That new Nazeebo 20 looks awesome. 5 stacks isn't that bad to make up for. Spider build looks to be more fun too in team fights.

[SidonisAntares 290]

Quote

Developer Comment: We’re overall happy with Stitches’ position, but his stickiness is overshadowing why players pick other Tanks.

Someone make this make sense for me about his 'stickiness' and why that resulted in a nerf to HP, HP Regen, (2) Talents, and a base ability, if players are already picking other tanks over him.

[darkgreenwax 412]

5 hours ago, SidonisAntares said:

Someone make this make sense for me about his 'stickiness' and why that resulted in a nerf to HP, HP Regen, (2) Talents, and a base ability, if players are already picking other tanks over him.

They're probably inferring that he can keep people slowed and his sustain takes him longer to scare away.

I agree the dev notes are becoming increasingly written for insider-hardcores, leaving casuals scratching their heads, lol.

[Arcling 898]

Not sure if this fixes all problems with Zagara. One of main issues was the range of her Banelings and this is still the case. 

[SidonisAntares 290]

15 hours ago, TyZone said:

They're probably inferring that he can keep people slowed and his sustain takes him longer to scare away.

I agree the dev notes are becoming increasingly written for insider-hardcores, leaving casuals scratching their heads, lol.

So he was too good and getting banned a lot in draft?

[darkgreenwax 412]

2 hours ago, SidonisAntares said:

So he was too good and getting banned a lot in draft?

Possibly. I don't have real data, but going off of hotslogs he seems to be the most popular tank picked. If you only include master and diamond league, he's even more popular. I think they balance based off those leagues, anyway. 🤷‍♂️

[Arcling 898]

4 hours ago, TyZone said:

Possibly. I don't have real data, but going off of hotslogs he seems to be the most popular tank picked. If you only include master and diamond league, he's even more popular. I think they balance based off those leagues, anyway. 🤷‍♂️

Must be mostly in these ranks. I've rarely seen him in quick match, also rather unlikely to see him in lower ranks where people prefer "safer picks", like someone with stuns.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Arcling

[darkgreenwax 412]

3 minutes ago, Arcling said:

Must be mostly in these ranks. I've rarely seen him in quick match, also rather unlikely to see him in lower ranks.

This is true, but I also rarely see a tank in quick match 😂

[SidonisAntares 290]

2 hours ago, Arcling said:

Must be mostly in these ranks. I've rarely seen him in quick match, also rather unlikely to see him in lower ranks where people prefer "safer picks", like someone with stuns.

He was always fun to me, just a matter of know how much to lead your target for hook if its moving, requires a feel for it