Balance Update 13/4

[Muis]

We’re going to release a new Balance Update for Heroes of the Storm on Wednesday, April 13, in order to apply a number of balance changes and a bug fix. We shouldn’t need to bring the Nexus offline in order to roll out the Balance Update, but we’ll be sure to let you know if that changes.

You can find the complete list of adjustments we’ll be making with this week’s Balance Update listed below.

Thank you!

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Talents
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Dampen Magic

• Maximum charges reduced from 2 to 1.
• Duration increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds.

Developer Comments: While we feel that Dampen Magic has done its job of mitigating Ability Damage, it also has so much uptime that it can be difficult for enemies to know when is a good time to fire off their full damage output. We’re removing the second charge and increasing its duration, which should make it a bigger moment and help enemies to more easily know when the time is right to attack.

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Assassin
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Falstad

• Mighty Gust (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 40 to 60 seconds.

Developer Comments: Mighty Gust is an incredibly powerful ability that we had been giving buffs to for a long time in an attempt to get more players to pick it (and win!). It seems that after a long period of time, players have learned how to properly play with and against the Heroic, and now it’s time to undo some of those former buffs. Increasing the cooldown should reduce cases where Mighty Gust is used frivolously, but it should still be a powerful disengage and playmaking Heroic.


Illidan

• Betrayer’s Thirst (Trait)
  • Heal amount granted per Basic Attack decreased from 40% to 30% of damage dealt.
  • Thirsting Blade (Talent)
    • Basic Attack Healing during Sweeping Strikes decreased from 60% to 50%.

• Dive (Q)
  
  • Friend or Foe (Talent)
    
    • Range bonus decreased from 33% to 20%.
  • Reflexive Block (Talent)
    • Block charges granted after casting Dive reduced from 3 to 2.

• Sweeping Strike (W)
  • Battered Assault (Talent)
    • Damage bonus increased from 100% to 125%.
  • Unbound (Talent)
    • Cooldown reduction is now only granted when Sweeping Strike hits non-Heroic enemies.
    • Cooldown reduction decreased from 5 to 4 seconds.

Developer Comments: We’re pretty happy with the Talent diversity and playstyle that Illidan has after the Talent Update, but he’s a little too hard to kill right now. We’re aiming to remove a little of his “snowball” survivability when he’s ahead by reducing the healing from his Trait and nerfing a few of his over-performing survivability Talents.

We’re also providing small buffs to a few Talents that we think add fun and interesting gameplay decisions to Illidan, but aren’t winning as much as they should (such as Battered Assault and Unbound).


Kael’thas

• Health increased from 1465 to 1520.
• Health Regeneration increased from approximately 3.05 to 3.17 Health per second.
• Flamestrike (Q)
  • Range increased by 10%.
  • Damage increased from 213 (+4% per level) to 320 (+4% per level).
  • Flamestrike damage is no longer increased when empowered by Verdant Spheres.
• Living Bomb (W)
  • Damage dealt over time increased from 228 (+4% per level) to 252 (+4% per level).
  • Explosion damage increased from 114 (+4% per level) to 138 (+4% per level).
• Gravity Lapse (E)
  • Cooldown decreased from 13 to 12 seconds.
  • Mana cost decreased from 85 to 80.
  • Nether Wind (Talent)
    • Mana restored after hitting an enemy Hero decreased from 85 to 80.
  • Gravity Crush (Talent)
    • Bonus damage taken by enemies hit increased from 25% to 30%.

Developer Comments: We’re happy to see that there is now more counter-play to how Kael’thas delivers his damage, and his Talent pick rates have dramatically improved. However, he has a lower win rate than we would like. We intended Kael’thas to be weak against enemy Heroes who dive on him but feel that we may have gone too far.

The changes to Flamestrike’s range should help him poke enemies from a safer distance (and build those Convection stacks!), and Living Bomb’s changes should help him be more threatening to enemies who want to stand toe to toe with him.

The change to Flamestrike’s base damage should help motivate players to use empowered Gravity Lapses more often, as they won’t lose potential Flamestrike damage when hitting stunned enemies.


Li-Ming

• Dominance (Talent)
  • Health restoration decreased from 25% to 20% of maximum Health.
• Arcane Orb (W)
  • Damage reduced by 10% overall, from 150 (+4% per level) to 135 (+4% per level) initial damage, and 450 (+4% per level) to 405 (+4% per level) damage at maximum range.
  • Cooldown decreased from 10 to 8 seconds.
  • Mana cost reduced from 50 to 40.
  • Triumvirate (Talent)
    • Cooldown reduction decreased from 6 to 5 seconds.
  • Zei’s Vengeance (Talent)
    • No longer causes Triumvirate to deal reduced damage to enemies that are close to Li-Ming.
• Teleport (E)
  • Calamity (Talent)
    • Area of effect reduced by 10%.
  • Illusionist (Talent)
    • Minimum amount of damage taken in order to refresh Teleport’s cooldown increased from 15% to 20% of maximum Health.
• Disintegrate (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 20 to 30 seconds.

Developer Comments: Li-Ming has settled into a fairly healthy win-rate, and we are mostly happy with her overall performance in the Nexus. Now that we have a good chunk of data we are pushing a few changes to help level out her talent pick rates, which should increase her already amazing build diversity. We are also making a few balance tweaks in order to lower her burst potential, while also increasing the appeal of some of her Arcane Orb talents.

Disintegrate’s low cooldown is allowing players more lane-clear versatility than we are comfortable with. We have increased the cooldown to make players think a bit more about how and when to use the ability.


Thrall

• Sundering (R)
  • Stun duration reduced from 1.5 to 1.25 seconds.

Developer Comments: We want to make some basic improvements to a lot of the lesser-picked/lower win-rate Heroic Abilities. Most of these are pretty simple changes to make them more enticing, like adding more damage, reducing cooldowns, or lowering Mana costs. We realize that the primary use case for Abilities like Li Li’s Water Dragon or E.T.C.’s Stage Dive is not damage, but having more of it might help them feel more effective. We’re trying to do something a little bit different with Brightwing’s Emerald Wind and Malfurion’s Twilight Dream by compensating for some of the Support capability you miss out on by picking these Heroics. We’re excited to see how these go! In Thrall’s case, Sundering was a little too strong, so we’re reducing its stun duration.


Tychus

• Health increased from 1669 (+4% per level) to 1836 (+4% per level).
• Health Regeneration increased from approximately 3.48 to 3.83 Health per second.
• Master Assassin (Talent)
  • Attack Speed bonus per stack decreased from 2% to 1%.
  • Maximum number of stacks increased from 10 to 15.
• Minigun (Trait) (D)
  • Damage bonus increased from 1.5% to 2% of the target’s maximum Health.
  • The Bigger They Are. . . (Talent)
    • Damage bonus increased from 3% to 4% of the target’s maximum Health.

Developer Comments: We’re generally happy with Tychus’ new role as the destroyer of high-health enemies. His new talent options are mostly providing good talent diversity. Master Assassin is a bit overtuned and players are finishing the quest too quickly, so we’re nerfing it and adding to the time it takes to complete.

Overall, Tychus is too weak, so we’re sharpening his role. Increasing his trait damage from 1.5% to 2.0% will make sure he shreds those high health warriors even further, while the health increase will let him turret on his target longer and trade better.


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Specialist
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Abathur

• Evolve Monstrosity (R)
  • Maximum Minion stacks increased from 30 to 40.
  • Health increased from 931 (+4% per level) to 1000 (+4% per level).

Developer Comments: Please see Thrall’s Developer Comment above.


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Support
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Brightwing

• Emerald Wind (R)
  • Now passively increases Soothing Mist healing by 8%.

Developer Comments: Please see Thrall’s Developer Comment above.


Li Li

• Water Dragon (R)
  • Damage increased from 192 (+4% per level) to 318 (+4% per level).
  • Mana cost decreased from 100 to 50.

Developer Comments: Please see Thrall’s Developer Comment above.


Malfurion

• Twilight Dream (R)
  • Now passively increases Malfurion’s Mana Regeneration by 1.5 Mana per second.

Developer Comments: Please see Thrall’s Developer Comment above.


Tyrande

• Starfall (R)
  • Damage per second increased from 69 (+4% per level) to 91 (+4% per level).
  • Cooldown reduced from 100 to 80 seconds.
  • Mana cost reduced from 100 to 75.

Developer Comments: Please see Thrall’s Developer Comment above.


Uther

• Divine Storm (R)
  • Stun duration increased from 1.5 to 1.75 seconds.

Developer Comments: Please see Thrall’s Developer Comment above.



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Warrior
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E.T.C.

• Stage Dive (R)
  • Damage increased from 201 (+4% per level) to 330 (+4% per level).

Developer Comments: Please see Thrall’s Developer Comment above.


Johanna

• Falling Sword (R)
  • Damage increased from 251 (+4% per level) to 365 (+4% per level).

Developer Comments: Please see Thrall’s Developer Comment above.


Muradin

• Haymaker (R)
  • Damage dealt to secondary targets increased from 25% to 100% damage of Haymaker’s primary target damage.

Developer Comments: Please see Thrall’s Developer Comment above.



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Bug Fixes
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Heroes and Talents

• Fixed an issue which allowed Kael’thas to repeatedly cast Living Bomb for free under certain circumstances.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Kerrigan from casting Ravage on Earthbind Totem and several other summoned units.
• The tooltip for Sgt. Hammer’s Siege Mode will no longer reference a nonexistent Talent.

Surely one of the mods can make this proper blue quote :P Damn straight!

[Venaliter]

I read these notes, and read them over again slowly.

Feels like they missed the boat entirely on on most changes, except perhaps Illidan and Mighty gust nerfs. Tychus still seems a joke. Overkill needs base range more then anything. I'm not sold on probably about half of the lesser-taking ultimate changes in general. Malfuion's change in particular is almost insulting.

[Fabray]

I read these notes, and read them over again slowly.

Feels like they missed the boat entirely on on most changes, except perhaps Illidan and Mighty gust nerfs. Tychus still seems a joke. Overkill needs base range more then anything. I'm not sold on probably about half of the lesser-taking ultimate changes in general. Malfuion's change in particular is almost insulting.

The Brightwing buff seems great.

[Zelendria]

Don't see the KT bug fix in there. So they dangled the carrot with more changes, but still have him locked out lol

[NoiseTank13]

Buffed Li Ming.

For fucks sake.

[Deleted]

Don't see the KT bug fix in there. So they dangled the carrot with more changes, but still have him locked out lol

Fixed an issue which allowed Kael’thas to repeatedly cast Living Bomb for free under certain circumstances.

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/forum/topic/20742939675

At the bottom

[Zelendria]

Ah cool it isn't in the OP.

Buffed Li Ming.

For fucks sake.

How? HP gain on Dominance nerfed
Orb dmg nerfed
AOE on Calamity nerfed
Illusionist proc nerfed
Disintegrate nerfed

The only buff is a decreased CD on Orb

[Deleted]

The Brightwing buff seems great.

Indeed. Might actually the only one tipping the scales on what (R) to chose.

The KT changes are insane, he's already not quite as bad as Tychus, but gets much more extensive buffs. Yeah, I am biased by now, but really don't wanna see him in every game for months to come.

Same goes for Tyrande and, to a lesser extent, Uther. Both have been ubiquitous for ages and need buffs like a fish needs a bicycle. Should have done something for Li Li and Malf instead. Status quo of supports is quite okay and these are small steps, but questionable ones.

Overall very meh.

[Nikkaszal]

"Increased damage on Falling Sword? Oh hells yes, I can't wait to start using that ult now!"

Said no-one ever

I mess around with DPS Johanna every now and again in bot games and FS is still absolutely rubbish unless the bot team has TLV neatly clumped with them that I can pad the meters with.

[Ryme]

Honestly, I don't think Li Ming doesn't needed nerfs to anything except her trait. I don't think she's very OP, she just feels crappy to play against because of how hard and fast she can snowball a fight.

I like that they're trying to increase the pick rate on lesser heroics, time to bust out my spreadsheets once I get into work

[PosPosPos]

I read these notes, and read them over again slowly.

Feels like they missed the boat entirely on on most changes, except perhaps Illidan and Mighty gust nerfs. Tychus still seems a joke. Overkill needs base range more then anything. I'm not sold on probably about half of the lesser-taking ultimate changes in general. Malfuion's change in particular is almost insulting.

Malfurion has mana issues when going aggressive without sacrificing healing, especially with no Conjurer's or many notable mana reduction talents.

[Nikkaszal]

Malfurion has mana issues when going aggressive without sacrificing healing, especially with no Conjurer's or many notable mana reduction talents.

Sacrifing one of the best oh-shit healing ults in the game for 1.5m/s is not worth it.

[Venaliter]

Sacrifing one of the best oh-shit healing ults in the game for 1.5m/s is not worth it.

Would have been better off to remove the mana cost of Moonfire perhaps? This is completely ignoring the usability issues of Twilight dream, the ones that will rarely EVER make it a viable choice, in the first place.

[Nikkaszal]

Would have been better off to remove the mana cost of Moonfire perhaps? This is completely ignoring the usability issues of Twilight dream, the ones that will rarely EVER make it a viable choice, in the first place.

Not really. If you're going for a Moonfire Cannon build, Full Moonfire knocks the cost in half anyway and you spam that shit all day without going OOM.

[PosPosPos]

Sacrifing one of the best oh-shit healing ults in the game for 1.5m/s is not worth it.

It's actually one of the worst "oh-shit" healing ults in the game, when the only healing ults in the game other than Tranq are: Ancestral Healing, Divine Palm, Jug of 1000 Cups, Shadowstalk, Blink Heal. All of which(exception of Blink Heal) are either specifically made to stop burst damage in its tracks, or have better utility/hps to facilitate fallbacks/burst healing.

Tranq is good because it can't be interrupted and has the best sustained/total healing out of all the healing ults in the game.

And there are much better reasons why Twilight Dream isn't taken, such as the range of the spell requiring the user to hold hands with the enemy team as a squishy ranged support.

[Nikkaszal]

Tranq is good because it can't be interrupted and has the best sustained/total healing out of all the healing ults in the game.

Ding ding ding we have a winner

This is why it is strictly better than J1000C, and saves more lives than Ancestral/Palm. Those save one person. Tranq saves your entire team. Even as a HoT, its strength is incredibly hard to burst through.

[PosPosPos]

Ding ding ding we have a winner

This is why it is strictly better than J1000C, and saves more lives than Ancestral/Palm. Those save one person. Tranq saves your entire team. Even as a HoT, its strength is incredibly hard to burst through.

Prior to the shift in meta, this is hardly true.

If you can't "burst" through Tranq + Regrowth, then it isn't burst damage anymore, sorry.

Tranq is first and foremost a counter to attrition, not an "oh-shit" ultimate.

[Nikkaszal]

Prior to the shift in meta, this is hardly true.

If you can't "burst" through Tranq + Regrowth, then it isn't burst damage anymore, sorry.

Tranq is first and foremost a counter to attrition, not an "oh-shit" ultimate.

Regardless how you label it, we've strayed away from the original point, which I believe we both agree on:

Twilight Dream could give 20m/s and it still wouldn't be taken because it's an almost unusable ult and denies you Tranquility

[Muis]

Ah cool it isn't in the OP.



How? HP gain on Dominance nerfed
Orb dmg nerfed
AOE on Calamity nerfed
Illusionist proc nerfed
Disintegrate nerfed

The only buff is a decreased CD on Orb

The KT and Kerrigan bug fixes were added after I posted here, sorry :P

[Nerraw]

I think these changes to the "damage heroics" might prompt more double-support setups in competitive play. Li Li is already seen as a good counter to Illidan. Imagine her with a super-slow that just got insanely buff, full damage build, and a full-time healer next to hear. I fully assume this isn't the last we've seen of this kind of changes.

- - - Updated - - -

I added the late addition bug fixes to the OP.