Upcoming Heroes Of The Storm Balance Update — August 24, 2016

[Nerraw]

We're releasing a new patch for Heroes of the Storm later this week in order to apply a few balance changes. Check out the detailed patch notes below.

The expanded free-to-play Hero roster for Training and Versus A.I. games that began in July has now come to an end. We hope many of you got the chance to level-up a few Heroes that you may not have tried before during this temporary promotion.

ASSASSIN

GALL


Talents

• Level 1
  • Shove (Active)
    • Cooldown reduced from 30 to 20 seconds
• Level 7
  • Double Trouble (Q)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 1 to 1.25 seconds
• Level 16
  • Giant Scorcher (Q)
    • Damage increased from 3 to 3.5% of target’s maximum Health

GREYMANE


Abilities

• Razor Swipe (Q)
  • Damage reduced from 159 to 135
• Go for the Throat (R)
  • Damage reduced from 420 to 355
• Marked for the Kill (R)
  • Damage increased from 68 to 190

Talents

• Level 1
  • Wolfheart (W)
    • Cooldown reduction per attack reduced from 1 to .8 seconds
• Level 4
  • Eyes in the Dark (E)
    • Stealth duration reduced from 4 to 3 seconds
• Level 7
  • Incendiary Elixir (Q)
    • Increased the damage bonus per quest stack from 10 to 15
    • Increased the maximum damage bonus from 150 to 225
• Level 20
  • Unleashed (R)
    • Damage bonus per kill increased from 25 to 35%, up to a maximum of 140%

Developer Comments: We’re pretty happy with the way Greymane is playing, but think that he’s doing more burst damage than we want from a Basic Attack focused Hero (at a very consistent rate). We’ve decided to address this by reducing the damage of Go for the Throat and Razor Swipe. We’re also increasing the damage of Marked for the Kill. While the focus of the Heroic is the long term Vulnerable, by increasing the damage we’re reducing the opportunity cost of giving up Marked for the Kill.


GUL'DAN


Talents

• Level 1
  • Echoed Corruption (E)
    • Number of hits required to complete quest increased from 30 to 35
• Level 7
  • Curse of Exhaustion (E)
    • Slow duration increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds
• Level 13
  • Fel Armor (Q)
    • Ability damage reduction increased from 30 to 40%
• Level 16
  • Rampant Hellfire (Q)
    • Damage bonus increased from 6% per stack (30% max) to 8% per stack (40% max)
  • Darkness Within (Trait)
    • Damage bonus increased from 20 to 25%

Developer Comments: While he has an acceptable win rate in the hands of experienced players, we felt that Gul’dan could use a few minor buffs and talent tweaks to help make his talent tiers more competitive. His Echo of Corruption quest ended up being completed earlier than we intended for such a strong effect, so we’re increasing the amount of Hero hits required. We are also are seeing a higher win rate for his Ruinous Affliction talent compared to others on his Level 16 tier. Rather than nerf this talent, we decided to buff the other options to make the tier more competitive and to make his late-game power spike more powerful.

SUPPORT

AURIEL


Stats

• Basic Attack damage increased from 48 to 60

Abilities

• Sacred Sweep (Q)
  • Outer damage reduced from 80 to 75
  • Inner damage reduced from 160 to 150
• Resurrect (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 90 to 70 seconds
  • Range increased from 4 to 5

Talents

• Level 1
  • Increasing Clarity (Q)
    • Lowered the quest bonus damage for each stack from 3 to 2
    • Increased the number of hits required to complete the quest from 20 to 25
    • Quest completion bonus increased from 60 to 70. The total damage bonus will remain at 120
• Level 4
  • Majestic Span (Q)
    • Radius increase reduced from 20 to 15%.
  • Heavy Burden (E)
    • Increased the Slow amount from 35 to 40%
  • Repeated Offense (E)
    • Reduced the number of hits required to complete the quest from 10 to 6
    • Bonus for quest completion increased from 100 to 140. The total bonus damage will remain at 200
• Level 7
  • Empathic Link (D)
    • Energy reduced from 25 to 20% of Bestow Hope target’s damage taken
  • Glimmer of Hope (W)
    • Energy reduction from globes increased from 35 to 50%
  • Energized Cord (W)
    • Increased Energy gain from Auriel’s Basic Attacks from 100%/30% to 100%/50%
• Level 13
  • Blinding Flash (Q)
    • Blind duration reduced from 4 to 3 seconds
• Level 20
  • Diamond Resolve (R)
    • Damage resistance duration increased from 4 to 5 seconds

Developer Comments: Auriel has had a very strong release. We’re happy to see some fresh blood (or hope) in the support scene, but do think that as players continue to master the newest Hero in the Nexus that her winrate will continue to climb. As such, we’re reducing the power of her Sacred Sweep Talents, as well as reducing some of her Energy gain from Empathic Link. We’ve also transferred some of her damage (and consequently her Energy gain) from Sacred Sweep into her Basic Attacks, as we found them more lackluster than we’d like and not worth the risk necessary to use them.

SPECIALIST

SGT. HAMMER


Abilities

• Thrusters (Z)
  • Thrusters are now always active while in the Altar of Storms
• Artillery (Trait)
  • Now also increases Sgt. Hammer’s Basic Attack range by 20%

Talents

• Level 1
  • Lethal Blast (W)
    • Removed
• Level 4
  • Maelstrom Shells (Passive)
    • Removed
• Level 7
  • Hyper-Cooling Engines (Z)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 10 to 15 secondsNo longer makes Thrusters always active while in the Hall of Storms

Developer Comments: We’re planning to do a deeper dive into our favorite Siege Tank down the road, but in the meantime we felt Sgt. Hammer could use a few changes to make her feel more competitive compared to other heroes. Sgt. Hammer was originally designed to be the master of ranged damage, but has since become outshined by other poke heroes like Li-Ming and Chromie. To help her assert her spot again as a scary ranged damage-dealer, we’re making Maelstrom Shells a part of her baseline Artillery Trait, which should also help that tier’s pick rates. We’re also giving her a bit of a quality of life improvement by making her Thrusters always active when she leaves the Hall of Storms, which should help her get back to the game faster from her base.

WARRIOR

CHO


Talents

• Level 7
  • I AM Hurrying! (Z)
    • Duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds
• Level 13
  • Runic Feedback (E)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 1 to 1.25 seconds

STITCHES


Abilities

• Gorge (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 80 to 60 seconds
  • Mana cost reduced from 80 to 70

TYRAEL


Abilities

• El'druin's Might (Q)
  • Cooldown increased from 11 to 12 seconds
• Judgment (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 80 to 70 seconds
• ​Sanctification (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 70 to 80 seconds

Talents

• Level 4
  • Horadric Reforging (Q)Cooldown reduction increased from 3 to 5 seconds
• Level 7
  • Reciprocate (W)
    • Damage reduced from 200 to 170
  • Angel’s Grace (Q)
    • Movement Speed increased from 30 to 40%
  • Searing Attacks (Active)
    • Removed
  • Follow Through (Passive)
    • Added
• Level 13
  • Imposing Will (W)
    • Fixed bug that was causing the Movement Speed slow to inconsistently stack with all other Movement Speed slows
  • Angelic Absorption (W)
    • Increased healing amount from 156 over 3 seconds to 208 over 4 seconds
• Level 16
  • Salvation (W)
    • Increased bonus Shields from 35 to 45% per affected ally

Developer Comments: Tyrael has been trending upward since he last received a Talent update, and has reached a point where we’re ready to do a few nerfs to our Archangel of Justice. The major target points are a few of the over performing Talents, as well as some slight adjustments to a few of his cooldowns. Coupled with these nerfs, we’re also buffing a few of the lesser picked Talents so that he has more compelling options at every tier.

BUG FIXES

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Auriel: Auriel can no longer become polymorphed indefinitely if she exits a self-cast Crystal Aegis in the same moment that she comes under the effects of the Garden Terror’s Queen’s Curse Ability.
• Auriel: The simple tooltip for Auriel’s Energized Cord Talent no longer incorrectly states that it doubles the energy stored by Basic Attacks.

LEGEND

• Orange text indicates an addendum to the patch notes.

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20245464

[Deleted]

My angels

[Belize]

Glad about the Sgt. Hammer changes.

[Deleted]

The lack of Medivh changes (read: buffs) is borderline annoying. They must be terribly scared somebody in the pro scene manages to abuse his skillset after all.

[Deleted]

Aww! They nerfed Greymane and not sure if I like the changes for Auriel.

[Deleted]

The lack of Medivh changes (read: buffs) is borderline annoying. They must be terribly scared somebody in the pro scene manages to abuse his skillset after all.

I am very scared of blizzard reading your post. On streams it's like "uh i know that guy, he can play medivh, tier1 ban"

[Demona3]

Aww! They nerfed Greymane and not sure if I like the changes for Auriel.

I don't like the changes for Auriel. However, for talent 7, I'm starting to like Bursting Light more than the other 3 options. I find it can be very powerful in a huge team fight situation. I think if people started using it more, I have a feeling they'll nerf the living shit out of it. Give it a try, it's a surprising talent.

13: meh, situational.

20: situational

[Nikkaszal]

Change to Auriel Q quest is fine. All they've done is increase the time it takes to finish, for exactly the same payoff. This is OK because due to Auriel's spammy nature, this quest was being finished before level 5.

Empathic Link needed a slight nerf. It's way too good and was basically the only serious option on the tier.

Blinding Flash was just silly at 4 seconds vs an AA team. 3 sec is more reasonable.

Auriel's autos are still too hideously weak to take Energised Cord over anything else. Her range isn't long enough for her lack of escape, and the damage is so low that energy gain is minimal. (EDIT: whoops, missed the line where her autos got buffed by just over 20%)

[apepi]

Auriel's autos are still too hideously weak to take Energised Cord over anything else. Her range isn't long enough for her lack of escape, and the damage is so low that energy gain is minimal. (EDIT: whoops, missed the line where her autos got buffed by just over 20%)

Would the talent be better with a AA buffer? Like Raynor or Etc?

[Nerraw]

The lack of Medivh changes (read: buffs) is borderline annoying. They must be terribly scared somebody in the pro scene manages to abuse his skillset after all.

Medivh has a 57% winrate in Team League. He should absolutely not be buffed further. He has a Very Hard tag for a reason.

[Ryme]

The blind with the CD reduction talent basically gave you 100% uptime on the blind, which broke maps like GoT. I still really want to try Glimmer of Hope with Reservoir of Hope, but otherwise I don't see much changing; fair changes if a little early.

[Nikkaszal]

Would the talent be better with a AA buffer? Like Raynor or Etc?

Not sure. Remains to be seen how it pans out with the hotfix, but as the devs mentioned in the comments you would rarely ever be AA'ing as Auriel as it was not enough payoff to be putting yourself in danger by hanging around and AA'ing.

I still don't think so though. If you have a Raynor with Inspire up, you're gonna be filling your energy superfast off his own attacks during that period anyway. The attackspeed buffs are suited towards sustained autos, and I still don't think that will be a good idea as Auriel.

- - - Updated - - -

The blind with the CD reduction talent basically gave you 100% uptime on the blind, which broke maps like GoT. I still really want to try Glimmer of Hope with Reservoir of Hope, but otherwise I don't see much changing; fair changes if a little early.

Don't Terrors/DKs have reduction in CC effects? Or does that not apply to Blinds?

I honestly never thought of that

[Mormolyce]

Tyrael nerfs??? He's like Rexxar tier...

[Ryme]

Don't Terrors/DKs have reduction in CC effects? Or does that not apply to Blinds?

I honestly never thought of that

I believe it's 'only' stuns, slows, silences, polymorphs, and roots that are reduced.

- - - Updated - - -

Tyrael nerfs??? He's like Rexxar tier...

He's been the highest win rate tank for a few weeks now, I actually quite like the changes too.

[Nerraw]

Tyrael nerfs??? He's like Rexxar tier...

He saw 100% popularity at the games held during gamescom. Korea and EU are big fans of him currently.

- - - Updated - - -

Don't Terrors/DKs have reduction in CC effects? Or does that not apply to Blinds?

I honestly never thought of that

Blinds were removed from that table not too long ago.

[Deleted]

disclaimer A: not all games are being uploaded to hotslogs
disclaimer B: Medivh data is based on 274 games, generally not enough to be statistically relevant
disclaimer C: hotslogs is buggy/ambiguous

Medivh has a 57% winrate in Team League. He should absolutely not be buffed further. He has a Very Hard tag for a reason.

That's misleading and reasonably close to a circular argument if we take a closer look at the data.

Generally less than 1% of all players are in Masters league. As mentioned, we have 274 entries for Medivh in TL. Sorting the available Medivh data by league 41 of those 274 entries are from Masters league players. That would indicate 15% of Medivh players are at Masters league skill level. Sorting by 'all leagues but Masters' we have 202 entries. So 31 players are lost in limbo or of unknown skill level. If we scratch those, 17% of Medivh players are at Masters league skill level.

But even using the lower number and keeping in mind the other inconsistencies of hotslogs, Masters league skill level is overrepresented among Medivh players by a factor somewhere between 10 and 30. So we have insufficient data indicating that overwhelmingly very good players picking a very hard hero and being reasonably successful with him. Nothing more, nothing less. By the way, ahead of him in Masters level TL are among others Malf, Murky, Dehaka - all with about 10 games played.

nb. looking at Gosugamers data, Medivh sits at rank 35 among all heroes with a 14% winrate, at rank 31 with a 6% pick rate, at rank 33 with a 7% contested rate and has zero first picks: http://www.gosugamers.net/heroesofthestorm/hero-stats

Fitting for a math discussion on a videogame forum, in the end we both might be half-wrong. It might be too early to buff him now. It might also be too early to declare he should 'absolutely not be buffed further'.

[Nerraw]

Vikings have a similarly low pick-rate, and everyone knows how effective they can be in the right hands and the right comp. The only difference between these two Very Hard heroes is that Vikings can carry most games alone in public games. Medivh can't.

[Nikkaszal]

Vikings have a similarly low pick-rate, and everyone knows how effective they can be in the right hands and the right comp. The only difference between these two Very Hard heroes is that Vikings can carry most games alone in public games. Medivh can't.

Vikings still require a team who knows how to capitalise on them, just like Medivh. You can be the best TLV player in the world but if your team is not eg roaming as four right from level 1 instead of laning with you, or poking/prolonging objective fights rather than capping them quickly, then you won't be giving your team the exp edge.

[Nerraw]

Vikings still require a team who knows how to capitalise on them, just like Medivh. You can be the best TLV player in the world but if your team is not eg roaming as four right from level 1 instead of laning with you, or poking/prolonging objective fights rather than capping them quickly, then you won't be giving your team the exp edge.

At least with Vikings you can actively swing the odds in your favour. Medivh takes a whole lot more effort to do the same.

[Mormolyce]

He saw 100% popularity at the games held during gamescom. Korea and EU are big fans of him currently.

I can only assume that's some kind of highly specific comp, because Rexxar is horrendous.