Patch notes - february 2, 2016

[Lesane]

Sonya was OP. Her damage was assassin level with Warrior tankiness and sustain. The WotB Slam build just deletes people.

In the sub-category of Warriors that include Sonya, Tyrael, Artanis and Rexxar - that is, bruisers rather than true tanks - Sonya was doing the most damage by FAR. Like, not even a small amount. Her output was obscene. With WotB up you basically just globalled squishy casters with Spear - swing - Slam.

She was already replaced by Thrall for the same role in many cases. Those other warriors you mention also tend to be safer/sturdier so it's only natural for her to do more damage.

[Zelendria]

Thrall is an assassin....

[Tenjen]

Rehgar was so fun to play. Like sure, his healing is far improved, but going with lightning shield builds, or wolf builds or totem builds, its just so much fun.

[Lesane]

Thrall is an assassin....

Who gives a shit about labels when they're fulfilling the same purpose?

[Zelendria]

Who gives a shit about labels when they're fulfilling the same purpose?

So basically what you're saying is Sonya, a warrior, does the same amount of damage as Thrall who for the point of this quote is a high burst assassin who has no where near the same survivability as Sonya does.... Thanks for that.

[Deleted]

thrall has mana, is squishier, has worst wave clear, has no gap closer.

why are you even comparing them? Also Thrall's ult doesn't give him Relentless, lmao.

[Mormolyce]

Well there are more balance changes coming to certain outlier heroes (KT cough cough).

GG nerfing Sonya with no reason. Retard.

Is that a joke? Sonya was absurd. I know, I was playing her!

There were far worse offenders in that case though.

Not among warriors.

Damage build Artanis does about as much as Sonya.

In his dreams!

[Lesane]

So basically what you're saying is Sonya, a warrior, does the same amount of damage as Thrall who for the point of this quote is a high burst assassin who has no where near the same survivability as Sonya does.... Thanks for that.

Yet, Thrall consistently gets picked over Sonya in competitive even before these nerfs. I wonder why, if she's basically a Thrall with more survivability? Hint: you're wrong.

thrall has mana, is squishier, has worst wave clear, has no gap closer.

why are you even comparing them? Also Thrall's ult doesn't give him Relentless, lmao.

Thrall is a better 1v1 laner than Sonya, he doesn't need a gap closer because he has WF and wolf and his mana is irrelevant since you only run out of it if you're a retard.

Why I'm comparing them? Because they both fulfill the same role/slot. They both can't tank and they're both taken as melee damage, both providing burst and sustain damage.

[Nikkaszal]

Yet, Thrall consistently gets picked over Sonya in competitive even before these nerfs. I wonder why, if she's basically a Thrall with more survivability? Hint: you're wrong.



Thrall is a better 1v1 laner than Sonya, he doesn't need a gap closer because he has WF and wolf and his mana is irrelevant since you only run out of it if you're a retard.

Why I'm comparing them? Because they both fulfill the same role/slot. They both can't tank and they're both taken as melee damage, both providing burst and sustain damage.

Better 1v1 laner?

Surely you jest. You can't actually believe this is true.

Sonya is one of THE biggest lane bullies in the game. Her early harrass is significant (spear-swing-slam is an enormous chunk) and Whirlwind in the middle of a minion pack clears it out while simultaneously nullifying any counter-harass. Because she does not use mana, she uses her abilities to clear and bully with impunity, whenever she pleases; she doesn't need to wait for the "right" time, she MAKES the right time

1v1 in lane, Sonya can and does shit ALL over Thrall. Her burst is bigger, she heals for more and clears waves much much faster. She doesn't need to go toe-to-toe with him - she Spears in, gets a Slam or two off to rip off large amounts of his HP then goes back to WW'ing minions. Thrall then needs to spend large amounts of mana to heal himself before her Spear cools down and she does it again.

Thrall gets picked because his Sundering ult is a playmaker. Sonya gets picked against squishy CC-heavy teams because she buldozes to the back with permanent Relentless due to WotB and deletes people. They serve different purposes - to say Thrall "replaces" Sonya is insanity.

[Deleted]

If you take a step back, you will see that Lesane is right. Basically any four hero combo that works with Sonya works with Thrall as well, even if they have different means to do their job. Better laning gets less relevant the longer the game lasts and I'm not convinced Sonya has better survivability and utility in team fights.

[Lesane]

Better 1v1 laner?

Surely you jest. You can't actually believe this is true.

Sonya is one of THE biggest lane bullies in the game. Her early harrass is significant (spear-swing-slam is an enormous chunk) and Whirlwind in the middle of a minion pack clears it out while simultaneously nullifying any counter-harass. Because she does not use mana, she uses her abilities to clear and bully with impunity, whenever she pleases; she doesn't need to wait for the "right" time, she MAKES the right time

1v1 in lane, Sonya can and does shit ALL over Thrall. Her burst is bigger, she heals for more and clears waves much much faster. She doesn't need to go toe-to-toe with him - she Spears in, gets a Slam or two off to rip off large amounts of his HP then goes back to WW'ing minions. Thrall then needs to spend large amounts of mana to heal himself before her Spear cools down and she does it again.

Thrall gets picked because his Sundering ult is a playmaker. Sonya gets picked against squishy CC-heavy teams because she buldozes to the back with permanent Relentless due to WotB and deletes people. They serve different purposes - to say Thrall "replaces" Sonya is insanity.

Lol, first of all, it's not about Thrall vs. Sonya in a single lane. It's about either of them vs. the other part of the roster in a 1v1 lane. Sonya cannot bully any half decent ranged character out of a lane. Thrall can. He also doesn't need to put himself at risk/far into the lane in order to bully them out of it. Thrall is definitely in the top 3 1v1's (Chen, Thrall, Zagara).

They both get picked as a bruiser/frontline to go alongside a full maintank. In the overwhelming majority of the cases Thrall will simply be a better pick than Sonya for that spot, provided he's still available.

[ttak82]

Lol, first of all, it's not about Thrall vs. Sonya in a single lane. It's about either of them vs. the other part of the roster in a 1v1 lane. Sonya cannot bully any half decent ranged character out of a lane. Thrall can. He also doesn't need to put himself at risk/far into the lane in order to bully them out of it. Thrall is definitely in the top 3 1v1's (Chen, Thrall, Zagara).

They both get picked as a bruiser/frontline to go alongside a full maintank. In the overwhelming majority of the cases Thrall will simply be a better pick than Sonya for that spot, provided he's still available.

You are correct here, and since there is a lot of complaining in the forums about 'OP Thrall', he will get some nerfs sadly. Basically, many heroes have been nerfed/reworked, with some stuns taken out or shortened, and Thrall (who also happens to be fun) sticks out. There was a time when many people (wrongly) frowned upon Thrall being picked in competitive games, but meta changes have just skewed his popularity towards the higher side., They have adjusted other melee heroes, so we will have to wait a bit for the changes, but I don't have my hopes up of Thrall staying the same as he is. At the very least, devs might give him the raynor treatment: nerf his health and the stun on sunder; I can agree with the health reduction to some extent ass he was squishier before the scaling changes, but definitely not a nerf to Sundering - which is a heroic ability and would mean that his heroic options would just be very limited / situational.

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If you take a step back, you will see that Lesane is right. Basically any four hero combo that works with Sonya works with Thrall as well, even if they have different means to do their job. Better laning gets less relevant the longer the game lasts and I'm not convinced Sonya has better survivability and utility in team fights.

Yes, Sonya has equal damage but lacks the utility; which Thrall brings. (Root, stun, poke).

[Zelendria]

Lol, first of all, it's not about Thrall vs. Sonya in a single lane. It's about either of them vs. the other part of the roster in a 1v1 lane. Sonya cannot bully any half decent ranged character out of a lane. Thrall can. He also doesn't need to put himself at risk/far into the lane in order to bully them out of it. Thrall is definitely in the top 3 1v1's (Chen, Thrall, Zagara).

They both get picked as a bruiser/frontline to go alongside a full maintank. In the overwhelming majority of the cases Thrall will simply be a better pick than Sonya for that spot, provided he's still available.

Thrall can't bully shit without committing himself with Windfury which makes your ranged comment flat out wrong. He has no where near the mana capacity to just Lightning and Feral all day. Not that they're hard to dodge if you're actually standing at range behind your creeps.

I have sat there time and time again as KT, and actually baited him into wolfing me. What comes next... Windfury and a chase almost everytime as he gets Grav Lapse, Flamestrike and LB in his ass before it even hits the ground. I guarantee only a stupid Thrall at that point will still try and chase after losing the majority of his HP.
Sonya on the other hand is much harder to deal with. Spear, couple of slams and your HP is gone. She goes back to the creep wave and Whirlwinds. Now just sits there auto attacking so she has rage to do it all over again.

Play Raynor. Thrall will always try and catch wolf first. If he hits it, most use Windfury to close the gap, and you Penetrating Shot him as he arrives... GG Windfury wears off, and you shoot his ass as he inevitably runs away with his tail under his legs.
Sonya yet again can circle around you dodging Penetrating Shot.

Play Jaina. Thrall catches wolf on you just stick Blizzard in the gap. He'd be pretty fucking stupid to commit

See the trend? Your other stronger assassins so easily countering this apparent bullying Thrall can do.

Thrall has no where near the bullying power of Sonya against ranged.

Thrall vs Sonya in lane is a joke. You're both melee so she will happily sit in the creep wave. You even attempt to 1v1 her in that and you're going to lose. Your lightning poke has no where near the damage to counter his Whirlwind.

[Life-Binder]

outside of Li-Ming, the Lunar Jaina outfit was my favorite part of this update

soo sexy I immediately got it

[caervek]

As a long time Nova player I have to say I am actually enjoying the changes lol.

One of my biggest gripes with her was that her burst was great if you caught a noobish player alone and not standing in their minion wave but her sustained DPS was junk. Now I can't burst people down before they know what's hit them but I am much better in team fights so it's a bit of a trade off. She's rubbish at solo laning, objectives, camps, etc but she always was.

[Nikkaszal]

outside of Li-Ming, the Lunar Jaina outfit was my favorite part of this update

soo sexy I immediately got it

I didn't realise it was a brand new skeleton frame until I compared Lunar and regular

I like it a lot. It's simple, it's elegent and the art is CRISP.

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Lol, first of all, it's not about Thrall vs. Sonya in a single lane. It's about either of them vs. the other part of the roster in a 1v1 lane. Sonya cannot bully any half decent ranged character out of a lane. Thrall can. He also doesn't need to put himself at risk/far into the lane in order to bully them out of it. Thrall is definitely in the top 3 1v1's (Chen, Thrall, Zagara).

They both get picked as a bruiser/frontline to go alongside a full maintank. In the overwhelming majority of the cases Thrall will simply be a better pick than Sonya for that spot, provided he's still available.

Against ranged? The lels. A half decent Sonya who can land her Qs will jump on any ranged and eat half their HP forcing them to either retreat or die. She can withstand all their harass until Q cools down by WW'ing minions - Zagara even more so as all her skills produce more minions for her to leech HP off. Never mind the fact that Sonya can deny her placing creep all game.

[Life-Binder]

I didn't realise it was a brand new skeleton frame until I compared Lunar and regular

I like it a lot. It's simple, it's elegent and the art is CRISP.

yep, it looks great. IMO with this new addition especially, Jaina is easily a contender for the best skins in the game.

now I need to remember at which hero level will I unlock additonal skin colors


I thought I wouldnt even play HotS anymore seriously (took a long break), but now here I am, spent 10 EUR on an outfit, doing dailies to get 7k for Tyrande and waiting on Li-Mings price-drop


pretty excited about the eventual arena and Tracer too

[Lesane]

Thrall can't bully shit without committing himself with Windfury which makes your ranged comment flat out wrong. He has no where near the mana capacity to just Lightning and Feral all day. Not that they're hard to dodge if you're actually standing at range behind your creeps.

I have sat there time and time again as KT, and actually baited him into wolfing me. What comes next... Windfury and a chase almost everytime as he gets Grav Lapse, Flamestrike and LB in his ass before it even hits the ground. I guarantee only a stupid Thrall at that point will still try and chase after losing the majority of his HP.
Sonya on the other hand is much harder to deal with. Spear, couple of slams and your HP is gone. She goes back to the creep wave and Whirlwinds. Now just sits there auto attacking so she has rage to do it all over again.

Play Raynor. Thrall will always try and catch wolf first. If he hits it, most use Windfury to close the gap, and you Penetrating Shot him as he arrives... GG Windfury wears off, and you shoot his ass as he inevitably runs away with his tail under his legs.
Sonya yet again can circle around you dodging Penetrating Shot.

Play Jaina. Thrall catches wolf on you just stick Blizzard in the gap. He'd be pretty fucking stupid to commit

See the trend? Your other stronger assassins so easily countering this apparent bullying Thrall can do.

Thrall has no where near the bullying power of Sonya against ranged.

Thrall vs Sonya in lane is a joke. You're both melee so she will happily sit in the creep wave. You even attempt to 1v1 her in that and you're going to lose. Your lightning poke has no where near the damage to counter his Whirlwind.

Sorry but you have no idea what you are talking about. All Thrall needs to do is CL people on cooldown and eventually you'll be forced to tap or back off. He doesn't need to go in for melee at all, although if he gets the opportunity to do so that's just icing on the cake. Based on your examples I'm pretty sure you're just used to facing terribad Thralls who somehow think that you need to melee people to bully them out of lane.

Also, your examples don't even make sense to begin with. Somehow Thrall gets hit by Penetrating Round vs. Raynor but Sonya miraculously seems to be unaffected by it? If you play against a Jaina you don't have to melee her either, and the Blizzard argument is just stupid. Either she'll use the Blizzard to clear the wave in which case you don't have to worry about it or she can't waveclear for shit which means you can just happily spam CL on her ass and force her out to tap/back off in 2-3 minion waves.

Against ranged? The lels. A half decent Sonya who can land her Qs will jump on any ranged and eat half their HP forcing them to either retreat or die. She can withstand all their harass until Q cools down by WW'ing minions - Zagara even more so as all her skills produce more minions for her to leech HP off. Never mind the fact that Sonya can deny her placing creep all game.

If you get hit by a Sonya Q as a ranged in lane you're just shit tbh. There's absolutely no reason why you should allow Sonya to ever even get into range to Q you, not to mention that you'll have a bunch of minions to hide behind to bodyblock it for you.

[Nikkaszal]

Sorry but you have no idea what you are talking about. All Thrall needs to do is CL people on cooldown and eventually you'll be forced to tap or back off. He doesn't need to go in for melee at all, although if he gets the opportunity to do so that's just icing on the cake. Based on your examples I'm pretty sure you're just used to facing terribad Thralls who somehow think that you need to melee people to bully them out of lane.

Also, your examples don't even make sense to begin with. Somehow Thrall gets hit by Penetrating Round vs. Raynor but Sonya miraculously seems to be unaffected by it? If you play against a Jaina you don't have to melee her either, and the Blizzard argument is just stupid. Either she'll use the Blizzard to clear the wave in which case you don't have to worry about it or she can't waveclear for shit which means you can just happily spam CL on her ass and force her out to tap/back off in 2-3 minion waves.



If you get hit by a Sonya Q as a ranged in lane you're just shit tbh. There's absolutely no reason why you should allow Sonya to ever even get into range to Q you, not to mention that you'll have a bunch of minions to hide behind to bodyblock it for you.

Sonya sits in minions Whirlwinding

As in, she moves right through the pack. Right through them, to close-mid range, where Q is almost brainless to land

What kind of retarded Sonyas are you playing with that cant push anyone besides Azmodan, who has way too much health for his range in lane, squarely out of it before the second wave?

[Zelendria]

Sorry but you have no idea what you are talking about. All Thrall needs to do is CL people on cooldown and eventually you'll be forced to tap or back off. He doesn't need to go in for melee at all, although if he gets the opportunity to do so that's just icing on the cake. Based on your examples I'm pretty sure you're just used to facing terribad Thralls who somehow think that you need to melee people to bully them out of lane.

Is this in the world where you have infinite mana?.... Pushing it on a ranged means it's not chaining so 1 stack of resilience instead of 3. GG.
I would happily see Thrall do some stupid tactic like this as KT and just Fel Flamestrike him everytime he moves to my creeps just to CL me. I know for a fact he'll run out of HP first, and it isn't putting any pressure on the lane at all.

Also, your examples don't even make sense to begin with. Somehow Thrall gets hit by Penetrating Round vs. Raynor but Sonya miraculously seems to be unaffected by it? If you play against a Jaina you don't have to melee her either, and the Blizzard argument is just stupid. Either she'll use the Blizzard to clear the wave in which case you don't have to worry about it or she can't waveclear for shit which means you can just happily spam CL on her ass and force her out to tap/back off in 2-3 minion waves.

What's so hard to understand that Thrall has to run to a ranged to engage. It's telegraphed, it's easy to skill shot en route. Sonya uses Spear now she's right on top of you. Considerably harder to land the aforementioned skill shots if she side steps which a good one does.

If you get hit by a Sonya Q as a ranged in lane you're just shit tbh. There's absolutely no reason why you should allow Sonya to ever even get into range to Q you, not to mention that you'll have a bunch of minions to hide behind to bodyblock it for you.

Sonya is nice enough to let you hide behind your minions... Why isn't she stood at them a 1yd walk from being on your side of the map.