Heroes Of The Storm PTR Patch Notes — February 6, 2017

[Mormolyce]

Lots of heroes added in the past year have absolutely trashed him in terms of having a place in the meta. I guess this is meant to remedy that.

There's certainly been power creep and I could see some buffs, but there was nothing wrong with Murky's kit.

[KrazyK923]

That fake Murky egg is totally an homage to Jesse Cox.

[DesoPL]

I wonder if now in tournaments murky will be more popular choice?

[apepi]

What the fuck are they doing to Murky??? Slime Advantage nooooooooo!!!

Yeah, I am sad that talent is gone, that made him so strong.

[Mormolyce]

He's by far the worst hero in the game right now, he desperately needed a redesign/major buffs.

I'm sure he's not popular in ranked, but that's not true at all.

[Deleted]

You hoped it was over but murky is back!
Heard he is in all games on ptr now :P
I like the changes to march of murlocks, will be fun to try it out.
And the trolling one can do with fake eggs

[Thelxi]

The infinite R channel seems so cool. It will allow for some interesting sieging.

[Nerraw]

The infinite R channel seems so cool. It will allow for some interesting sieging.

It'll also allow for complete lockdown of a path to an objective. I've enjoyed March on Towers of Doom because you can complete negate an entire approach for several seconds. Now you can keep it going indefinitely!

[Nerraw]

Live patch notes: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/...2017-2-14-2017

Changes are outlined in orange! QoL changes, Tassadar and Rexxar fine-tuning.

[apepi]

I have won 4 games in a row with Murky in a row. LET MY REIGN MRRGRLGRLGRRLLL!

[Nikkaszal]

That Tassadar level 1 talent change is veeeeeeeery interesting

[ttak82]

It'll also allow for complete lockdown of a path to an objective. I've enjoyed March on Towers of Doom because you can complete negate an entire approach for several seconds. Now you can keep it going indefinitely!

It is counterable as it comes with the downside of him being vulnerable to being jumped on.

That sad, Murky's win rate actually climbed just before the patch at least on HOTSLogs. I reckon it's because of a placebo effect, with many players excited because of the rework, and Valeera as she lacks waveclear and Murky can punish teams that lack that.

[Nerraw]

It is counterable as it comes with the downside of him being vulnerable to being jumped on.

That sad, Murky's win rate actually climbed just before the patch at least on HOTSLogs. I reckon it's because of a placebo effect, with many players excited because of the rework, and Valeera as she lacks waveclear and Murky can punish teams that lack that.

It's like the argument for "bad" specs in WoW. None of the good players play them, thus making the specs appear lower on the logs than they might otherwise have been.

And yeah, you can jump him. But you either need to force yourself through tiny murlocs and take some fishy damage, or go around and waste time! In the meantime, your team can cap the altar. ^^

[apepi]

It's like the argument for "bad" specs in WoW. None of the good players play them, thus making the specs appear lower on the logs than they might otherwise have been.

And yeah, you can jump him. But you either need to force yourself through tiny murlocs and take some fishy damage, or go around and waste time! In the meantime, your team can cap the altar. ^^

I don't fill like that talent is worth it, the health buff is just so nice.

[Nikkaszal]

I don't fill like that talent is worth it, the health buff is just so nice.

The health buff is good, but have a go at the Slime build and Making Inky at 20. I usually take Egg Shell, 3k effective HP while retaining the shorter death timer means you're juuuust durable enough to get in there, own the hell out of someone in a fight and either make a miracle escape with bubble or die and re-enter the fight 8 sec later.

His hero damage output becomes ludicrous. Like, beyond crazy.

Also, Fake Eggs are the best wards in the game. Hands down.

[Raugnaut]

Haha, just checked and this is actually true!
Not sure why though, as I was under the impression that this a zero-sum system, so for someone to win more, somebody else should lose more.

Anyway, point is Valeera is not a one-trick pony, and if opponents counter her stealth-based openers with Reveal (which is what usually happens in high MMR games), she has tools to play around it.

There's two reasons for this - The fact that its 5 ppl vs 5 ppl, so winrates can become REALLY mixed up (Its not the winrates of Rag vs. Murky, its a huge combination of 5 different heroes vs 5 different heroes at any time), and the fact that the MM tool for blizz WILL match Master ranks against players as low as Plat, which can result in skewed winrates towards master players.

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It is counterable as it comes with the downside of him being vulnerable to being jumped on.

That sad, Murky's win rate actually climbed just before the patch at least on HOTSLogs. I reckon it's because of a placebo effect, with many players excited because of the rework, and Valeera as she lacks waveclear and Murky can punish teams that lack that.

Not really that vulnerable - On towers, for instance, both of the top altars can be Marched from within the relative safety of Murky's fort. The middle Altar can be fished from your sides sapper camp. The bottom one is more vulnerable for Murky, yes. But Endless March turns Murky into an extremely powerful backline mage - If you are taking Endless March, take Living the Dream for 15% more march damage.

I don't like Endless March because it more or less removes the value of the rest of Murky's kit - Making Inky is far stronger.

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What the fuck are they doing to Murky??? Slime Advantage nooooooooo!!!

I mean some of these things are cool (eg fake eggs), but I really don't get why Murky needed a major redesign.

Its not really a major redesign - Murky still wave clears the same, takes camps at a decent rate if he can survive. The greatly increased power of Slime easily makes up for the PvP damage loss. Sure, PvE boss damage is lowered by ~25% due to loss of Slime Advantage, but the lvl 4 slime talent makes up for that loss at the 15 quest mark.

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That Tassadar level 1 talent change is veeeeeeeery interesting

It gives Tassadar very solid AA damage - 150% increase on his 40 baseline is 100, which is among the higher lvls for support AA. Now, does it stack with his Archon damage boost? Because if it does, thats scary damage on Tass right there.

[apepi]

The health buff is good, but have a go at the Slime build and Making Inky at 20. I usually take Egg Shell, 3k effective HP while retaining the shorter death timer means you're juuuust durable enough to get in there, own the hell out of someone in a fight and either make a miracle escape with bubble or die and re-enter the fight 8 sec later.

His hero damage output becomes ludicrous. Like, beyond crazy.

Also, Fake Eggs are the best wards in the game. Hands down.

I go the bubble heal. I never seen the slime cd talent help that much, actually being alive and have survivability will help you do so much more damage.

Tip, I have found that the merc camp in Towers of Doom might be able to kill the Murky Pufferfish?

[Nikkaszal]

I go the bubble heal. I never seen the slime cd talent help that much, actually being alive and have survivability will help you do so much more damage.

Tip, I have found that the merc camp in Towers of Doom might be able to kill the Murky Pufferfish?

Shield puts his effective HP at levels more comparable with regular assassins, and Making Inky pushes his damage capability into absurd levels. It's outstanding against backline assassin's when you can flank and burst them down.

Obviously each match is situational, but try it out with a Slime build. You'll be surprised how fast you rip through people.

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@Raugnaut

Doesn't work with Archon, as far as I can tell. It buffs Distortion Beam specifically, not "auto attack", and Archon attacks are a separate instance.

Still allows him to do pretty respectable damage. Won't approach AA assassin levels of damage, not by a long shot, but it makes him much more significant as a secondary support and he can actually do more than tickle in fights.

[Raugnaut]

I go the bubble heal. I never seen the slime cd talent help that much, actually being alive and have survivability will help you do so much more damage.

Tip, I have found that the merc camp in Towers of Doom might be able to kill the Murky Pufferfish?

Making Inky allows you to use twice as many Slimes in the time frame you are alive. BTK allows the time you are alive to double. They both have the effect of double slimes though.

[apepi]

Making Inky allows you to use twice as many Slimes in the time frame you are alive. BTK allows the time you are alive to double. They both have the effect of double slimes though.

Not if you die before you even get to be able to use it. :P AT level 20 so many people have such a high dps/ccs and can just murk Murky so hard.