Heroes of the Storm PTR Notes — August 28, 2017

[RH92]

2 shots that have a cast time and a flight time that are easily dodged, you mean? Unless she gets close enough to do the combo, in which case she's close enough to dive and kill.

If this is the way you want to talk, fine go ahead.

[Deleted]

Illidan is sporting 48% winrate on ladder while Dehaka sits at 51%.

In HGC it is the same, yet Illidan was nerfed after two weeks of fun while Dehaka is dominating meta since last year Blizzcon.

Where is the logic then?

Agree, the nerfs for Chen and Kerrigan were dumb, the one for Illidan questionable and the Butcher nerf - while some nerf was needed - way over the top. Overall, I try to give the devs credit, as game design and balancing are in a mostly good state. Just from my point of view, there was and is no objective reason for a Chromie nerf.

[RH92]

Agree, the nerfs for Chen and Kerrigan were dumb, the one for Illidan questionable and the Butcher nerf - while some nerf was needed - way over the top. Overall, I try to give the devs credit, as game design and balancing are in a mostly good state. Just from my point of view, there was and is no objective reason for a Chromie nerf.

I am not saying the nerf for Hunt was controversial, it actually needed a nerf as global on such strong sieging Hero is crazy.

However I am just getting frustrated by them not addressing the stale meta since Genji patch and it is not like before that it was super different. I am just waiting for them address Bruisers being overtuned and globals pushing way too effectively since they have the perk of being globals.

[RadasNoir]

We (read:devs) can't really balance on 'feels' alone.

Unfortunately, I think this was the primary reason for the Chromie nerfs. Regardless of the fact that she sees only situational use in the meta, especially when compared to the other mages, it still doesn't "feel" good to be blown up from half a mile away, sometimes without seeing it coming. Or because a Chromie player got lucky, and wasn't even really aiming for you. Chromie is one of my all time favorite characters to play in HotS, and while I'm not keen on the nerfs either, I can at least understand where they are coming from. Again, even with the dive characters, they at least have to get close to you to get damage done, which can put them in danger of being counter-attacked, if not by you, then your team...if they're around and/or paying attention.

Still, this will make it even harder to justify picking Chromie over other mages, especially in the more competitive parts of the game. That being said, my favorite aspects of Chromie are still her personality and the ability to do damage from a (relative) safe distance. You can't really nerf the former, and even if you reduce the damage, it would still take a complete redesign to remove the latter.

maybe you should Learn to play before you go saying things are bad?

I'm sorry, but when you say stuff like this, you should be aware that people can't be sure if you're actually looking to have a discussion, or are just trying to be insulting for the sake of being insulting.

[Ryme]

https://heroeshearth.com/b/chaosos/r...rales-reworks/

Little math of the storm update with the Chromie and Morales changes.

[apepi]

So after playing Morales for 3 games I am equivocally say that she has been nerfed. She is worse than before. You know her lane pushing power 1v1 sucks right? Even worse. You don't even heal from taking no damage, you have to Q healing on someone else to heal yourself, so if you are solo then you have nothing to get regen, which is a disaster as you have to back up to get energy. It is easier to focus Morales more than ever before, you pretty much have to pick Medivac to not die.

So you might ask "Apepi how is E build?" Honestly if fookin isn't even that good, your damage will still suck and your healing will still be worst. They honestly need to give you a talent where if you hit an enemy hero wit it you get energy or something. They need to buff the grenades damage.

"So apepi how is energy?" It sucks. I basically feel punished for healing people, I lose all my energy then I have to sit in a fucking corner waiting for it to come back up. I don't even have the sustain as another healer does I feel, I feel like I have more sustain as Li Li than I do as Morales. Why would I ever play Morales when I can play Li Li? Li Li has more arguably more healing, damage, mobility and has so much more solo potential, I don't have to sit in a corner waiting for my energy to come back up. Healing Wells are useless, unless you have no energy/no one to heal why would you ever use one as Morales? They honestly need to give her a bit of energy, perhaps 20% or something, a reason to go to it that is not just health.

"So Apepi how is her talents?" Caduceus Feedback? Perhaps the worst talent she has in the game. Not only it is a shit talent that really is not worth it, because her attacks are not worth it in the first place, but if you are auto attacking something is really really wrong. If you have time to auto attack someone then you either aren't positioning well enough or their team isn't focusing you so you are winning anyways. It tries to say that auto attacking as Morales is okay! But that playstyle is wrong and you will get punished for it. Now Life Support? Pretty great actually, this is the kind of playstyle you want to play as Morales and are rewarded for it. This gives you an incentive on playing a play style that is good! Great talent. Trauma Trigger...couldn't they just made this into Safeguard? Sure you would have 5 less armor but it provides you much synergy with your other Safeguard talents, which I think could be worth more. Blast Shield was actually kind of cool, but not sure if it was any good. Her 7 tier is actually pretty good, some situational talents but on pure good talent. Now her 13? Honestly I don't like any of these, they feel too situational to the highest extent, not one good talent that is just good to have. Like tier 7, Tier 16 is pretty great. Now on to level 20....Safe Zone feels to situational. Sure maybe a good team could guess where you are going and kill you or you could use it when a team is fighting a boss and it might be worth it but...Reinforcements when you already have Medivac is pretty great. I mean a 30sec cooldown on it is great and can save you in a fight as the medic many times. Caduceus Reactor 2.0?...Honestly it just not feel that worth it. It still have the same faults as Caduceus Reactor(your trait) has. I could see you taking it perhaps if you go Stim Drone but...It just feels so weak to what it used to be.

Honestly I feel hard pressed when to actually play Morales the way she is going to be. Normally i would pick her when we have a beast frontline and I know that they can protect me. But now? Even when I have that I just go out of energy when as before this build I would have been fine. I did not have to go shit in a corner and make a little safe zone for myself...Not only is her play sytle not worth it, it just isn't fun. Not only now I have shit damage, mobility(with out medivac/rein), and can't even heal myself well, I can't even do the one thing that I actually pick this hero for which is to just heal everyone for a shit ton? Blizzard come on, at least give this hero something more than just being a healbot which she isn't even more! Her grenade needs a baseline buff in damage, this energy mechanic still needs to be worked upon. I really wanted to like it, but it just does not feel like it is their yet, she needs some quality of life improvements, like being able to heal when you have no energy or anyone around her. I mean she is already as bad at 1v1 as it is, why even make it worse?

Hope you guys liked my...review(?) of her changes.

[frogger237]

Wait so if I'm reading this right they expect you to hit 80+ heroes by lvl 11 or are you supposed to potentially screw yourself out of a talent til 18-20? Why wouldn't they put the swap with your sand echo at 18?

[Reza2001]

Damn, she's just as bad as before!

She looks really fun by patch notes , of course that's on paper

[therealstegblob]

She looks really fun by patch notes , of course that's on paper

Apepi actually just did a very good job summing up how shitty the new Morales is. She still has no escape mechanism and received what is basically an overall nerf. Auriel on the other hand is still throwing down multiple 1000+ heals on 2-3 people at once while knocking tanks back, invulning caught out teammates and blinding the enemy autoattacker.

Morales is dogshit who dies the second Illidan jumps on her.

[Reza2001]

Apepi actually just did a very good job summing up how shitty the new Morales is. She still has no escape mechanism and received what is basically an overall nerf. Auriel on the other hand is still throwing down multiple 1000+ heals on 2-3 people at once while knocking tanks back, invulning caught out teammates and blinding the enemy autoattacker.

Morales is dogshit who dies the second Illidan jumps on her.

It is her playstyle , she basically is a "sit-behind-the-tank" hero , Her basic attacks are bullshit so why go near enemy to even think of dealing damage ?

[apepi]

It is her playstyle , she basically is a "sit-behind-the-tank" hero , Her basic attacks are bullshit so why go near enemy to even think of dealing damage ?

Because at level one Blizzard gives her a trap talent that makes people think that it is okay to go and auto attack a hero as Morales. It seems like Blizzard themselves don't understand her own playstyle, if they did they would not give her talents like this.

[therealstegblob]

It is her playstyle , she basically is a "sit-behind-the-tank" hero , Her basic attacks are bullshit so why go near enemy to even think of dealing damage ?

She has no way of peeling enemies off of her and she has no escape. Auriel, for instance, can slap an autoattacker off of her (or knock them into a wall for the stun). She can also blind them with her swipe when it's talented, and she can make herself invulnerable. Lucio can knock people back and wallride away. Rehgar can just straight up fucking kill someone trying to jump on him. Uther? Forget it. Uther simply punishes people for trying to melee him.

What does Morales do? She has one semi-okay knockback and, if she wants to give up Bioshield, she can get 3 charges of Block. 3 charges of Block is pretty powerful, but it just doesn't budget very well. You can still be nuked by magic, and any dangerous autoattacker (Illidan, Greymane, Butcher, Zul'jin, etc) are going to blow through those charges very quickly, not to mention that the moment Morales gets caught out by an enemy tank, she's going to get CC'd and immediately lose all her blocks.

Morales simply needs a better kit. As it is, she relies entirely on her team to protect her. That's fine and whatever, but other supports don't have to rely on their team so hard, which puts them at immediate advantage to Morales. Uther has 3 fucking stuns and is the defacto best Support in the game. Gee, I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact THAT HE HAS THREE STUNS.

[Well]

For Morales, I would say she simply needs a new fantasy, as she serves none at the moment. There's nothing in her kit that makes you enjoy play a healer, and the devs are currently just munching on numbers, trying to make a non-interesting kit work.

[Nerraw]

Chromie's Sand Blast quest will be getting some balance tweaks next week to make it a little easier to complete.

During our testing, we were seeing a lot of Chromie's finishing the quest around 10 to 15 minutes. Every once in a while, they weren't finishing it. Which we actually think is okay, because in order for a quest completion to feel meaningful it probably needs to not be completed every once in a while (looking at Medivh).

We ended up being a little conservative with the numbers on Chromie's quest, but I think that's probably better than making the little artillery gnome oppressive for a few weeks. Our Balance team usually spends about 15 hours a week playtesting new content internally, and Chromie was no different, but even with that amount of testing there's a little margin of error.

[ophion1990]

I don't really understand how they're okay with the quest not completing but add a talent for it at level 11. I think completing it easier, and thus having the "fun" part of it unlocked, but having endless stacking is better. It's the same like Falstad and Mura, requires skill to keep getting Q stacks but it's not like you only unlock BOOMerang after hitting it 100 times or w/e. Heck, even removing the scaling entirely would be fine. That way everyone gets their cool echo but bad players will still have a noodle Q. Though that might feel too punishing on "off" games.