Heroes of the Storm patch notes - January 4th, 2017

[Well]

yeah happened to me too, tell him to switch mode between AI/Quickmatch/whatever and go back to the original one and it will fix it

We tried everything, and nothing worked. We switched between modes, we restarted the game and the b.net client, we swapped his regions, but the QM ready button and the AI button does not work. He can queue for Brawls & Unranked though...

[Nerraw]

Just did an AI game during breakfast and found one more, the fat viking (Olaf?) now also has an armor attribute.

That is interesting. Will check it out when I get home in a couple of hours.

[Nikkaszal]

Diablo has had his Resistant from Q re-classified as Armor. Says "reduces damage by 25%" so I guess it's both physical and spell. His ability damage redux talent at... 4 I think it is? 4 or 7... has also been reclassified to Spell Armor.

Also, changes have been made to matchmaking for VS AI. It will attempt to match you with people like normal, but after a rather short time (2 minutes maybe?) it just throws you into a solo all-AI game.

[Dizzeeyooo]

Diablo has had his Resistant from Q re-classified as Armor. Says "reduces damage by 25%" so I guess it's both physical and spell. His ability damage redux talent at... 4 I think it is? 4 or 7... has also been reclassified to Spell Armor.

looks all block/resistant/damage reduction from talents is removed and replaced with an equal amount of armor

[Frozen Death Knight]

After playing 3 games with Anub'arak in QM, I just can't like the changes at all. He is among the least effective tanks as of now according to hotslogs, yet they decided to take out 10% of his health pool in favour of being more effective against ability damage? Do the balance team not understand how much they have pushed Anub'arak into a corner where he now has to pick Dampen Magic to even function as a Hero at all?

What's sad is that no other top tier Warrior has to sacrifice a strong health pool for decent utility and damage mitigation, so now Anub'arak will become even more niche than he has ever been, which is such a darn shame since he once was in a pretty good spot without being broken when Burrow Charge still had Invulnerable. This is by far my least favourite iteration of the Hero since Alpha.

[Deleted]

After playing 3 games with Anub'arak in QM, I just can't like the changes at all.

...in QM...

That's part of the problem I think - if there were no healers in those QM games. You can find some simple math on the patch here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthe...uff_or_a_nerf/

It's a good post, but there are several aspects of the changes he fails to mention, two of them important.

First the reaction of the opposing team; during draft - if applicable and Anub'arak gets chosen early - the other team can draft AA heroes. During game the opposing team can focus fire with the changes in mind. AA'ers focus on him and ability damage dealers focus away from him. This works like a slight nerf.

Secondly healing. Looking at net numbers (incoming damage - incoming healing), against AA, Anub'arak is equally hard to keep alive, i.e. you need the same hps as before to keep his health constant. However he is much easier to keep alive against ability damage. This works like a significant buff.

[Kjalar]

What's sad is that no other top tier Warrior has to sacrifice a strong health pool for decent utility and damage mitigation, so now Anub'arak will become even more niche than he has ever been

I'm actually all for Anub being a niche pick, but only as long as he's a very hard counter to something (magic heavy comps in his case).
So my problem with the recent Anub changes is not that he's weaker than most other tanks overall, but the fact is that he's not a magic damage nullifier. At least not yet.

[Ryme]

Undocumented Brightwing nerf: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/hero...2519073?page=1

[Nerraw]

Blizzard has investigated and determined that it is a tooltip error. The talent functions as it did pre-patch!

https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthe..._nerf/dc32vyn/

[Kjalar]

What do you think about the recent (Jan 6) nerfs? Do you think it's enough to bring down the popularity of Thrall, Diablo and Rehgar?

[Ryme]

Probably not the popularity, but it should affect the winrates. I still think that quake + apoc is the best initiation in the game though, so we'll see.

[Deleted]

My guess was, that Dehaka and Rehgar were hit a bit harder than Thrall and Diablo. As usual I was wrong: looking at the current patch numbers, Thrall lost almost 4%, while the other three lost between 2 and 3. Biggest winner by far is Anub with +6%, with Artanis and him lightyears ahead of all other warriors.

edit: the two most played assassins are still Ming and KT, that kinda explains it

[Kjalar]

This is interesting. Personally, I did't feel any difference playing Thrall after the nerf. I mean, of course you can no longer casually cast EQ just to get away from a gank, but that's minor. EQ is still a great teamfight tool and it's still available for every big teamfight. So I don't understand why Thrall's winrate dropped so significantly.

[Frozen Death Knight]

What do you think about the recent (Jan 6) nerfs? Do you think it's enough to bring down the popularity of Thrall, Diablo and Rehgar?

Diablo will probably continue to be a solid pick (honestly, I find him to be a bit too strong still). As for Thrall, he has been pretty solid for a long time, but Blizzard just simply overbuffed Earthquake the same way that they did to Falstad's Mighty Gust by having such a low CD. At least he has two viable ultimates now when Earthquake actually does more than just slow people.