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    Exclamation Heroes of the Storm - Blizzcon 2017

    Blizzcon 2017 - The MMO-Champion Discussion Hub

    The time has finally come. The biggest Blizzard event of the year is upon us at last, and it's looking to be a big one. We will be providing coverage all weekend for all those who can't attend or watch live with the Virtual Ticket. Keep checking back to this thread for all the latest from the Nexus!


    Videos






    New Heroes

    We have two new heroes being revealed today! An employee at Blizzard's Chinese branch accidentally pushed the splash art for the new heroes live in the early hours of the morning. It was quickly taken down, but the internet never forgets.

    However, since they are not officially released yet, we'll be using [spoiler][/spoiler] tags until revealed at the opening ceremony. We will also be adding the specific hero threads after the reveal.



    New Features

    • Performance-based matchmaking
    • Voice Chat
    • Gameplay Update
    • New Camera
    • Laning Improvements
    • Stealth Rework
    • Evolved Battleground Mechanics


    Panels

    Blizzcon 2017 Opening Ceremony
    Panel Description: Attention attendees! If you’re joining us in person in Anaheim, this year’s opening ceremony will be spread across more than one stage throughout the show. The live presentation will be jumping between stages as our developers show you what we’ve been working on from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PDT. And of course, everything will be broadcast on screens and stages throughout the convention hall.

    Time: November 3rd, 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern/1900 CET
    Panel Status: Concluded
    Free to watch!


    Heroes of the Storm Community Gauntlet
    Panel Description: Get ready to compete for the glory of becoming the first Nexus MVP! Facing off alongside developers and streamers, contestants from the audience will compete in a series of challenges designed to test their wit, agility, and Heroes game knowledge.

    Time: November 3rd, 1215pm Pacific/315pm Eastern/2015 CET
    Panel Status: Concluded
    Virtual Ticket Required


    Heroes Panel – What's Next
    Panel Description: Take a look into the eye of the storm as we unveil some of the exciting new updates and gameplay changes brewing in the Nexus.

    Time: November 3rd, 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern/November 4th, 0100 CET
    Panel Status: Concluded
    Virtual Ticket Required - Live Recap Thread


    Heroes Panel – Hero Deep Dive
    Panel Description: Join the Heroes of the Storm team as they take an even closer look at the new content coming to the Nexus. Get behind-the-scenes insight, and stick around for a Q&A with the audience.

    Time: November 4th, 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern/2100 CET
    Panel Status: Concluded
    Virtual Ticket Required - Live Recap Thread


    Heroes Global Championship Finals

    The end of the season has arrived. The very best teams in the world will be fighting for honor, glory, money, and the HGC trophy over the next two days! Almost an entire year of games have led to this one moment. Who will take the victory? Will Korea hold on to the title, will NA retake the title of world champions, or will EU finally take it all the way at Blizzcon?

    Finals discussion starting right here!
    Warning: Will contain spoilers!


    Where can I watch?
    https://blizzcon.com/en-us/


    Features Overview

    A New (Camera) Perspective

    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    We are slightly increasing the in-game field of view to help improve team fight clarity and overall visibility.


    Stealth Rework

    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    In order to properly balance Stealth for both casual and high-end play, we're making it easier to spot stealthed Heroes. This is accompanied by buffs to the Stealth Heroes.

    • Stealthed Heroes are much easier to spot
    • Keeps and Forts will reveal stealthed Heroes
    • To offset these changes to Stealth, we will be buffing Samuro, Nova, Valeera and Zeratul:
      • Samuro: Improving Samuro's ability to fake out opponents; Image Transmission available at baseline on a 25s cooldown
      • Nova: Increasing mobility during Stealth and overall damage with Snipe Master added at baseline
      • Valeera: Openers will teleport Valeera a medium distance after being stealthed for 3 seconds; longer silence and blind duration
      • Zeratul: Adding a new Heroic that rewards high mechanical skill; increasing mobility with Vorpal Blade at baseline


    Refining the Early Game

    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    To better showcase individual skill in lane matchups, we're exploring ways to make the laning phase more meaningful without increasing overall game length.

    Changes

    • Removing Ammunition to encourage aggressive play and require more player agency for winning a lane
    • Removing standalone towers and adding True Sight to Forts
    • Regen Globes can be collected by either side for a brief period before expiring, allowing players to win lanes harder
    • Standardizing first objective timers to 1:30 or 3:00, both with a 30-second warning, depending on Battleground



    Mercenary Updates

    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    To create more impactful choices about how, when, and which Mercenary Camps to capture, we are making changes to various Mercenaries.

    Changes

    • Siege Giant Camps - Heroes can now dodge Neutral Siege Giant attacks at all times
    • Knight Camps - The Caster Mercenary in a Knight Camp will now generate an aura that offers increased Armor for units inside its area of effect
    • Hellbats - Hellbats will debuff armor when they attack a Hero
    • All Other Mercenaries - Will receive balance tuning to ensure they are always meaningful.




    Voice Chat

    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    It's about to get easier than ever to coordinate plays with your allies, because we're integrating Blizzard Voice directly into the Heroes of the Storm client! Voice chat in Heroes will be available in the months to come.

    Performance-based Matchmaking

    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    We're further increasing the accuracy of our matchmaking system by taking your individual performance and contributions into account after each match, rather than relying solely on victory or defeat.

    All The Rest!

    Things like hero reworks and other things unrelated to the main features announced will go here.

    Li Li Rework

    Partial ability/talent overview: https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthe...l_patch_notes/

    Zeratul Rework

    https://heroeshearth.com/b/mcintyre/...ent-breakdown/

    Wall Change

    Walls get automatically destroyed when connecting tower + gate are destroyed: https://gfycat.com/ChubbyCluelessFulmar

    Samuro

    https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthe...eam_kent_erik/

    In short: Can swap with images baseline. Mirror Image places the real Samuro at your cursor's direction.
    Last edited by Nerraw; 2017-11-04 at 09:23 PM.

  2. #2
    I wonder if the voice chat will actually be used.... That would certainly make for interesting nights in ranked or QM!

    - - - Updated - - -

    The (hopefully) improvements to matchmaking though, now that's a MUCH welcome change!
    I can teach you how to play, but I can't fix stupid.

  3. #3
    Li Li rework info added to the bottom of the OP.

    @apepi will want to read this.

  4. #4
    The Insane apepi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nerraw View Post
    Li Li rework info added to the bottom of the OP.

    @apepi will want to read this.
    TBH? It seems to be a nerf to how I play her, which is super aggressive.

    Honestly they shouldn't even touch Li Li, she is fine to me.

    13 all E? What? Blizzard missed the great thing about Li Li is that she is so flexible.
    Last edited by apepi; 2017-11-03 at 11:14 PM.
    Time...line? Time isn't made out of lines. It is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round. ~ Caboose

  5. #5
    Added Zeratul rework details to the OP.

    Reminder that the Heroes What's Next panel is starting in 3 minutes.

  6. #6
    Im really disappointed with changes to stealth, I feel like they're destroying part of the concept of stealth by making them visible.

  7. #7
    Sweet mother of LiLi buffs. They actually mad Kung Fu Hustle somewhat baseline? O.O Baseline healing on her Serpent aswell, Cup getting big buffs. Is this Panda Meltdown 2.0?

    Zeratul sounds insane aswell with early rewind (on a 15 sec cd) and baseline Vorpal. Makes me wonder if they'll finally give him the "very hard" tag, imo, he's harder to play than Medivh and I feel like it's gonna be even more true after the rework.

    Like the stealth changes in general, though I'm 99% confident most potatoes still won't see stealth and whine about them in QM. I like the globe changes, worried that it might cause minor snowballing, though it probably won't since most quests require enough globes to complete. Ammo changes look weird, might mean some changes to specialists, granted that we've only recently seen a Xul/Murky rework. It was pretty clear merc changes were coming since Hanamura, I like that they're making some camps a bit more interesting instead of just mobs that push a lane. Camera changes scare me, stuff like that can mess with you after seeing the game in a certain way for, like, 5k games or about 166 hours. Which is an absurdly low amount of time when I think about how many days I have on WoW, goes to show how much time you can waste in that game but that's besides the point, I guess.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zapanth View Post
    Im really disappointed with changes to stealth, I feel like they're destroying part of the concept of stealth by making them visible.
    It was OP against inexperienced players and garbage against people who were used to it, something had to be done. Balancing them around everyone being able to see them makes more sense.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Nerraw View Post
    Added Zeratul rework details to the OP.

    Reminder that the Heroes What's Next panel is starting in 3 minutes.
    Looks beastly, my first love is back!

    Quote Originally Posted by Zapanth View Post
    Im really disappointed with changes to stealth, I feel like they're destroying part of the concept of stealth by making them visible.
    I think that's the intent, at very high level the stealth advantage was small but at lower levels it becomes increasingly powerful. This is something they referenced directly and are against; stealth becomes an eye test rather than a skill test and they'd rather balance around skill.
    I am the lucid dream
    Uulwi ifis halahs gag erh'ongg w'ssh


  9. #9
    Pit Lord RH92's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ryme View Post
    Looks beastly, my first love is back!
    I don't know, the changes seem super hard to judge.

    Chosing between Void Prison and Rewind is huge. I guess he will be stronger in pub games, but I think his viability at highest level will suffer. In late game he was able to make highly influential plays with Void Prison and executing a complicated combo chain with Rewind to instantly blow up a target. Not anymore, you either become a killing machine or just a walking Void Prison.

    He is already squishy enough and getting killed by him never felt cheap as his effectiveness relies greatly on execution.

  10. #10
    Walls get automatically destroyed when connecting tower + gate are destroyed: https://gfycat.com/ChubbyCluelessFulmar

    - - - Updated - - -

    Samuro changes: https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthe...eam_kent_erik/

    In short: Can swap with images baseline. Mirror Image places the real Samuro at your cursor's direction.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Heroes panel starting in 2 minutes. Follow along here!

  11. #11
    RIP E build Lili. Guess that's one less support I can play when I get saddled with the support daily that I already dislike. As it stands, only supports I like playing are aggressive Lili and Stukov, now it looks like all Stukov, all the time.

    Not sure of the point of stealth then, if every fucking person and their grandmother can see it...why even have it?

  12. #12
    Sleep is sooooo good. Now that I feel a bit more rested after a hectic weekend, I want to thank everyone for following along for all the reveals and panel talks! Looking forward to hopefully do this again next year.

    What happens next? Alexstrasza will likely hit the PTR either in a few hours or tomorrow, with her official release on November 14/15. Shortly after she goes live, the PTR will come back up with Hanzo, the rather massive gameplay changes, and the adjustments to the stealth heroes. This PTR will run for 3 weeks to collect as much feedback as possible on the impactful gameplay updates coming. That update is scheduled to go live in mid-December alongside the ranked season reset.

    So, there's still plenty of stuff to come. And as always, we'll be covering it all right here on the forum!

  13. #13
    The Lightbringer DesoPL's Avatar
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    Li Li rework fine okay, but i don't think she could be priority for rework. Priority for rework should be Raynor.
    .

  14. #14


    Few extra details here, particularly on the performance based MMR. Third ban potentially for 2018!
    I am the lucid dream
    Uulwi ifis halahs gag erh'ongg w'ssh


  15. #15
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by DesoPL View Post
    Li Li rework fine okay, but i don't think she could be priority for rework. Priority for rework should be Raynor.
    I see your point but I think that the reasoning is that while there are a truckton of Assassins that you can chose from there are only a handful of supports, so they may aim to rework them so that they can have as many of those as possible viable

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Ryme View Post
    Few extra details here, particularly on the performance based MMR. Third ban potentially for 2018!
    That was a really cool interview, and a lot more in-depth about the inner workings of the new MMR system.

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