Heroes of the Storm RSS Feed

by Published on 2018-06-27 07:41 PM

Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes - June 27, 2018
*Note: Alongside this week's shop reset, Yrel's base gold price has been reduced to 10000 gold.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)

We’ve just released a new Heroes of the Storm patch to apply a number of balance changes and bug fixes.

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Battlegrounds

Ranked Battleground Pool
  • Volskaya Foundry has returned to the ranked play Battleground pool.


Heroes

Assassin

Cassia


Talents
  • Level 1
    • Seraph’s Hymn (W)
      • New functionality:
        • Reduce Blinding Light’s cooldown and Mana cost by 33%. Basic Attacks against Blinded enemies deal 100% bonus damage.
  • Level 7
    • Impale (E)
      • Bonus damage threshold increased from 50% to 60% of the target’s maximum Health.


Fenix


Stats
  • Health scaling reduced from 4.25% to 4% per level.
  • Health Regeneration scaling reduced from 4.25% to 4% per level.

Abilities
  • Shield Capacitor (Trait)
    • Shield scaling reduced from 4.25% to 4% per level.
    • Shield Regeneration scaling reduced from 4.25% to 4% per level.
  • Planet Cracker (R)
    • Damage increased from 108 to 112.

Talents
  • Level 7
    • Combat Advantage (Q)
      • Damage bonus reduced from 40% to 35%.
    • Warp Warfare (E)
      • Attack Speed increased from 125% to 175%.
  • Level 13
    • Adanium Shell (E)
      • Armor received after Warping increased from 40 to 50.
    • Rapid Recharge (Trait)
      • Shield recharge amount increased from 40% to 60% of healing received.
    • Auxiliary Shields (Trait)
      • Shields regeneration amount reduced from 15% to 10% of Basic Attack damage dealt.


Greymane


Abilities
  • Gilnean Cocktail (Q)
    • Cooldown reduced from 10 to 9 seconds.

Talents
  • Level 1
    • Perfect Aim (Q)
      • Mana refund increased from 35 to 45.
  • Level 13
    • Visceral Attacks (Q)
      • Removed.
    • Unfettered Assault (Q)
      • Now also causes Worgen Basic Attacks to reduce Razor Swipe’s cooldown by 1.5 seconds.


Maiev


Abilities
  • Warden’s Cage (R)
    • Warden Avatar duration reduced from 7 to 5 seconds.

Talents
  • Level 1
    • Pursuit of Vengeance (W/E)
      • Cooldown reduction per Hero tethered increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds.
  • Level 13
    • Shadow Armor (E)
      • Armor duration increased from 2.5 to 3 seconds.
  • Level 16
    • Cruel Chain (W)
      • Damage bonus per stack reduced from 40% to 30%.
      • Maximum damage bonus reduced from 200% to 150%.
    • Vengeful Knives (Q/E)
      • Bonus damage per Hero hit increased from 1.2% to 1.5% maximum Health.

Developer Comment: These changes are directed towards fixing some of Maiev’s lower win-rate talents. We also wanted to address the duration of Warden’s Cage. We like that it is a big moment for Maiev, but we don’t feel it needs to linger quite so long.


Tracer


Stats
  • Basic Attack damage reduced from 28 to 27.

Abilities
  • Blink (Q)
    • Cooldown increased from 8 to 9 seconds.


Zul'jin


Talents
  • Level 4
    • Amani Rage (Active)
      • Amani Rage is now part of Zul’jin’s baseline kit.
      • Cooldown increased from 20 to 30 seconds.
      • No longer grants Armor.
    • New talent: Amani Hide (Passive)
      • Reduce Amani Rage’s cooldown by 10 seconds and gain 10 Armor while regenerating Health.

Developer Comment: Amani Rage has become a staple in almost every build for Zul’jin. We love that it creates meaningful moments and synergizes with his kit, so we made it a baseline ability but had to take a little power out of it to compensate. We’ve created Amani Hide as an upgrade for it that brings back the armor functionality players are accustomed to.


Specialist

Nazeebo


Abilities
  • Plague of Toads (E)
    • Damage per tick reduced from 18 to 17.
  • Gargantuan (R)
    • Attack damage reduced from 150 to 140.
    • Health reduced from 2,185 to 2,000.


Probius


Talents
  • Level 20
    • Probius Loop (W)
      • Required number of Heroes hit to create a new Warp Rift reduced from 2 to 1.


Zagara


Stats
  • Basic Attack damage reduced from 82 to 80.

Abilities
  • Hunter Killer (W)
    • Damage reduced from 68 to 65.
  • Infested Drop (E)
    • Roach damage reduced from 29 to 27.
  • Nydus Network (R)
    • Cooldown increased from 100 to 120 seconds.
    • Cooldown reduction per Basic Attack while on Creep decreased from 0.75 to 0.5 seconds.


Support

Ana


Abilities
  • Shrike (Trait)
    • Now also applies Doses to Structures.


Deckard


Talents
  • Level 20
    • Morenadoes! (R)
      • Cooldown reduction increased from 5 to 6 seconds.


Rehgar


Abilities
  • Chain Heal (Q)
    • Cooldown reduced from 9 to 8 seconds.
    • Healing increased from 240 to 260.
    • Mana cost reduced from 65 to 55.
  • Ancestral Healing (R)
    • Healing reduced from 1475 to 1180.

Talents
  • Level 4
    • Spiritwalker’s Grace (Q)
      • Mana cost reduction decreased from 20 to 15
    • Stormcaller (W)
      • Maximum Mana restoration increased from 40 to 100.
  • Level 7
    • Farsight (Active)
      • Area reveal duration reduced from 10 to 5 seconds.
      • Enemy reveal duration reduced from 4 to 3 seconds.
      • Cooldown reduced from 30 to 16 seconds.
      • Size of reveal area reduced from 10 to 7.
  • Level 13
    • Earthliving Enchant (Q)
      • Healing per second increased from 40 to 45.
    • Tidal Waves (Q)
      • Cooldown reduction decreased from 1 to 0.75 seconds.
  • Level 16
    • Rising Storm (W)
      • Damage bonus per stack increased from 10% to 15%.
      • Maximum stacks reduced from 20 to 15.
  • Level 20
    • Farseer’s Blessing (R)
      • Healing bonus increased from 50% to 75%.
      • Nearby allies healed increased from 50% to 75% of the healing done by Ancestral Healing.

Developer Comment: By increasing the healing potential of Chain Heal, Rehgar will feel more dynamic before level 10. He will also rely less on Ancestral to create the healing output needed from a healer. The cooldown reduction will also make Tidal Waves, Earthliving Enchant, and Blood and Thunder more attractive picks on their respective tiers. We’re reducing the healing of Ancestral some to compensate for his stronger base kit. During internal testing prior to making this change, we found the extra healing it offered frequently resulted in overhealing. As a result, we think this healing reduction won’t feel as impactful as it might initially seem.


Warrior

Anub'arak


Talents
  • Level 20
    • Nullification Shield (Active)
      • Removed
    • New Talent: Hardened Shield (Active)
      • Activate to gain 75 Armor for 4 seconds, taking 75% less damage.

Developer Comment: Now that we’ve removed Anub’arak’s baseline Spell Armor, we’ve also decided to normalize his Nullification Shield Talent. Since Harden Carapace provides him with a healthy amount of Spell Armor, it now shares a lot of the same design space with Nullification Shield. We want to make the use case for his Level 20 Talent clearer, which is to simply press the button when in a lot of trouble to survive burst damage.


Blaze


Abilities
  • Bunker Drop (R)
    • Cooldown increased from 50 to 60 seconds.
  • Combustion (R)
    • Damage increased from 48 to 52.

Talents
  • Level 4
    • Feeding the Flame (Q)
      • Oil Spill cooldown reduction increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds.


Diablo


Stats
  • Health increased from 2,618 to 2,670.
  • Health Regeneration increased from 5.45 to 5.56.

Abilities
  • Apocalypse (R)
    • Cooldown reduced from 100 to 90 seconds.
  • Lightning Breath (R)
    • Cooldown increased from 60 to 70 seconds.

Talents
  • Level 13
    • Cruelty (W/E)
      • Bonus Attack Speed duration increased from 5 to 7 seconds.
  • Level 20
    • Dying Breath (R)
      • Cooldown reduction increased from 20 to 25 seconds per Hero hit


Johanna


Stats
  • Health increased from 2,540 to 2,700.
  • Health Regeneration increased from 5.289 to 5.625.

Talents
  • Level 4
    • Eternal Retaliation (W)
      • Now also restores 2.5 Mana for each enemy hit by Condemn.


Yrel


Abilities
  • Divine Purpose (Trait)
    • Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds.
  • Avenging Wrath (E)
    • Damage increased from 150 to 225.

Talents
  • Level 4
    • Aegis of Light (E)
      • Armor amount increased from 25 to 35.
    • Gift of the Naaru (Trait)
      • Healing reduced from 400 to 275.
    • Hand of Freedom (Active)
      • Bonus Movement Speed increased from 35% to 50%.
  • Level 7
    • Righteous Momentum (W)
      • Yrel is no longer slowed while channeling Righteous Hammer.
      • Bonus Movement Speed reduced from 45% to 25%.
  • Level 16
    • Templar’s Verdict (W)
      • Armor reduction duration increased from 2 to 4 seconds.
    • Divine Favor (Trait)
      • Cooldown reduction decreased from 2 to 1.5 seconds.

Developer Comment: We’ve seen Yrel trending upward strongly since her release, most likely due to players beginning to master her unique playstyle. We’ve seen a large difference between players who have a lot of experience as Yrel (Hero level 10+) and people who are still learning the Hero. This is likely why we’ve seen her rise from her initial winrate of 40% to her current 46%. That said, we would like her to feel a little more powerful and be countered by enemy picks a little less. We’ve increased Avenging Wrath’s damage so she gains a little wave clear (though she’ll have to use her escape to do so), while also allowing her to threaten enemy backlines. By reducing the cooldown of Divine Purpose, Yrel players won’t need to channel as frequently which will result in fewer interrupts. We’ve also made several Talent changes to buff a few that were underperforming, and to offset the lower Divine Purpose cooldown.


Bug Fixes

General
  • Addressed an issue that could cause the game client to crash.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents
  • Alexstrasza: Casting Dragonqueen no longer reveals Alexstrasza’s location to enemies through the Fog of War until she is killed.
  • Alexstrasza: An enemy Alexstrasza’s Dragonqueen model will no longer persist after she enters a vehicle in the Fog of War.
  • Medivh: Placing an item, like a Turret or Biotic Emitter, during Raven Form channeling will no longer allow Medivh to cast Abilities in Raven Form.
  • Thrall: The Feral Resilience Talent’s buff bar tooltip now correctly states that stacks grant 50 Physical Armor.
  • Shields: Talents that deal damage versus Shields, such as Varian’s Shattering Throw, no longer also deal damage to the target’s Health.
  • Yrel: Can no longer cast Bubble Hearth while she is being revived by Divine Palm.
  • Yrel: Bubble Hearth is now placed on a reduced cooldown if casting is interrupted by Divine Palm.
  • Yrel: No longer becomes permanently Invulnerable if she is revived by Divine Palm while casting Bubble Hearth.

User Interface
  • Collection: Backstories have been restored for a number of Kerrigan, Leoric, and Rexxar skins.
by Published on 2018-06-25 06:11 PM

Secrets of the Storm, Orphea
Following Rise of the Raven Lord two months ago, the next chapter of the Nexus comics is upon us. This time, we follow Deckard Cain as he travels the realm of King's Crest, belonging to Raena, the Lady of Thorns. Along the way, he meets up with Orphea, first mentioned in the previous comic. The name may ring familiar, as we datamined several hero icons of her earlier this month. Click below to check out Secrets of the Storm.



Originally Posted by MMO-Champion



by Published on 2018-06-25 05:59 PM

Razorgrin Mount - Last Chance
Today is the last chance to buy the Razorgrin mount before it rotates out. Chances are we'll see it again one day, but there's no way to know for long it'll be gone. If you have 10000 gold and nothing else to spend it on, this might be a worthwhile purchase.



Weekly Hero Rotation
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Free-to-Play Hero Rotation: June 26, 2018
  • Raynor
  • Muradin
  • Sonya
  • Nazeebo
  • Uther
  • Jaina
  • Kerrigan
  • Anub'arak
  • Kharazim
  • Junkrat
  • Alexstrasza (Slot unlocked at Player Level 5)
  • Azmodan (Slot unlocked at Player Level 10)
  • Sgt. Hammer (Slot unlocked at Player Level 15)
  • Valeera (Slot unlocked at Player Level 20)

Weekly Sales
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Our next set of Heroic Deals will begin on Tuesday, June 26! Check out the list of upcoming featured items and Hero discounts below.

Upcoming Hero Sales
  • Tracer — Sale Price: 375 gems
  • D.Va — Sale Price: 375 Gems

The following skins and mounts will be added to the featured item rotation and will become purchasable with gems until this round of Heroic Deals comes to an end:

Upcoming Featured Skins
  • Death Aspect Alexstrasza
  • D.Va the Life-Binder
  • Silver Angelic Valla
  • Dominion Medic Uther
  • Blood Raven Sylvanas
  • Amber Ghost Tracer

Upcoming Featured Mounts
  • Thunder Star Chariot
  • Blessed Judgment Charger

Gold Mounts
The following Gold Mount changes will take place once this week’s round of Heroic Deals begins:
  • Piggy Bank — Will become purchasable for 7,000 gold until July 23.
  • Great Razorgrin — Will no longer be purchasable in the Collection.
by Published on 2018-06-21 09:13 PM

Yrel Concerns - Developer Responses
The newest hero to join the Nexus released last week, and she has drawn criticism towards several aspects of her character. Hero Designer Matt Villers took to the forums and the Heroes subreddit to answer questions and provide some insight into what the developers are currently thinking about both Yrel and other issues.

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
We need a heal number for Yrel
We've heard some feedback to this effect and are currently discussing it. On the one hand, we want to make sure the information we're offering on the scoreboard is actually meaningful, but on the other we realize we're not entirely consistent here and whether or not Yrel should show healing is part of that conversation we're having. (MattVi)


She's a solo lane bruiser who can't waveclear.
To be honest, we've had a lot of discussions around where she fits in a team role-wise. Setting tuning aside for a moment, at her core she has the tools to be a tank or a bruiser, and we're actually really interested to see where players end up using her most often.

I think the claim that she "does no damage" and "can't waveclear" is largely hyperbole, and that numbers-wise she's not nearly as far off as people seem to think she is. She's got a lot of staying power and uses it to do damage over time, very similarly to someone like Blaze.

What is happening with LEFT MOUSE click? Right now it castes all her abilities and there is no way to turn it off!
This is consistent with other abilities that can be charged like on Cho'gall, Gazlowe, etc. The reason is that while charging an ability you're in "targeting mode", and left-click in our game executes abilities that are being targeted.

We have seen reports from some people who use left-click to move that they run into issues here, and that's something we're looking into.

Have you guys considered showing numbers in a more detailed after game screen?
Showing more detailed stats after the game is over is a cool idea and something we'd like to explore, once we take care of some more pressing updates.

As for why we don't show every stat for every hero, there are two main reasons-
  • First, a lot of those stats aren't super meaningful for most heroes, and while small there is a downside to showing unnecessary stats. The more stats we shove into that screen the more it looks like an excel sheet than a scoreboard, and becomes harder to parse at a glance in the middle of a game.
  • Second, showing info that's not relevant to your role could potentially drive toxicity. Suppose we show damage taken for all heroes, and get "oh look Nova took more damage than Arthas", or show healing and get "oh look Yrel's outhealing Lucio".

Neither of these things constitute a hard line where we'd simply refuse to show more stats, but it does give us pause to at least think about it and try to be somewhat picky. There are also things we could do to mitigate it, like re-designing the score screen to display more information in a format that's easier to read. All that to say we're reading your feedback and having discussions around it, and we'll update once we have more info to share =) (MattVi)


As others have said before, her "charge" gimmick feels like it was incorporated just to be a gimmick <...> But that's just my opinion. Maybe that playstyle somehow appeals to others.
I can definitely appreciate your perspective there, but to offer some insight we actually did the charge mechanic not just as a gimmick to be different, but as part of a very specific goal for how we wanted the player to "feel" when playing her.

We looked at this big 2-handed hammer, and how we wanted her to use it, and saw immediate parallels with 2-handed weapon specs in WoW. The feel that goes with those specs is very slow - weapon swing timers are in the 3+ second range, more focus on timing and CD management. It's really rhythmic and deliberate and that's what we wanted to capture with Yrel, and I think we did so pretty successfully.

Now of course, that style's not going to appeal to everyone. There will definitely be people who aren't into that and that's OK, but for the people who do like it it's a breath of fresh air and offers something they weren't able to get in our game previously.

One piece of advice I'll throw out there is that Yrel is a hero you have to play a few games to really get a handle on, as you need to have a feel for which abilities you can get away with using when, and how your Trait factors into all that. Trait management & skill ordering is really critical to playing Yrel effectively, and that's something that's not immediately obvious until you've put some time into her. (MattVi)


As someone who plays a lot of Cho'gall the left click thing hasn't bothered me at all. However, compared to playing Cho'gall I've noticed I accidentally click my talents or character portrait often when trying to cast an ability. Is there any way we can disable that ONLY when an ability is fully charged?
I think this is something we should explore doing in general (disabling clicks on talent UI while in targeting mode for abilities). As I'm not a UI expert I don't know how difficult it would be or if there are any drawbacks I haven't considered, but I'll pass the feedback along to the appropriate team for consideration. (MattVi)


You mentioned not wanting to have the ingame scoreboard look like an "excel spreadsheet" while in-game, have you and the team given thought to the out-of-game results screen looking like a spreadsheet?
Yeah this pretty much captures our feeling as well. When you're not in the middle of a match, we'd like to give you as much data as we reasonably can. I don't have details to share right now, but fleshing out the game stats we share with players (be it through post-game screen, player profile, or API) is definitely on our radar. (MattVi)


That said, as someone who is super passionate about the archetype I really want to play Yrel all the time but that will be hard to do if she is weak. Please, don't let her stay weak for long if the stats show she is.
100% on board with this and we'll do our best. We're going to give her some time to soak so we can get proper data before making changes, but the plan is to make adjustments to help her out if she looks to be under-performing. (MattVi)


Official responses about the state of Yrel on Blizz forums
Thanks for taking the time to summarize all this!

A few quick clarifications-
  • We recognize the inconsistency of giving a Healing/Shielding stat to Probius and not to Yrel, and agree that we should do something here to make it consistent. For now we're still discussing this and should have more info to share in the future.
  • There are a lot of potential problems you think about as a Designer that aren't necessarily deal-breakers. Design is all about trade-offs, and often minor drawbacks are deemed acceptable in exchange for getting something good in return. When it comes to showing more on the scoreboard, all the concerns I listed fall into that "not necessarily a deal-breaker" space. I'm not saying "we won't give you more stats because maybe toxicity", I'm saying "we're thinking about more stats and here are some possible downsides".
  • I want to be clear that my message in this thread is not "We're 100% certain Yrel is perfect and you just need to L2P". We virtually always have to make some adjustments post-release, as we learn things from live servers that we simply can't get from the limited scope of internal and PTR testing. However I can say with certainty that feedback like "she does zero damage" is exaggerated and unhelpful. It's entirely possible she needs some buffs, but we're not going to make that call 2 days after release when people are still learning how to play her. Let's all be patient, get some real data, and see where she lands.

With that I'll leave you all with a piece of Yrel advice: If you want to get better at her, don't forget that you don't have to charge your abilities for the full 1.5 seconds. Releasing them early is often the better play, especially when you see or anticipate an incoming interrupt. Give it a try! (u/BlizzMattVi)

Weekly Hero Rotation
Note: This is a good time to level Abathur to 5, seeing as the period between his free rotations range from 6 months to a year.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Free-to-Play Hero Rotation: June 19, 2018
  • Li Li
  • ETC
  • Zagara
  • Butcher
  • Kael'thas
  • Artanis
  • Cassia
  • Brightwing
  • Zarya
  • Ragnaros
  • Tyrael (Slot unlocked at Player Level 5)
  • Greymane (Slot unlocked at Player Level 10)
  • Chromie (Slot unlocked at Player Level 15)
  • Abathur (Slot unlocked at Player Level 20)

Weekly Sales
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Our next set of Heroic Deals will begin on Tuesday, June 19! Check out the list of upcoming featured items and Hero discounts below.

Upcoming Hero Sales
  • Nova — Sale Price: 312 gems
  • Stukov — Sale Price: 375 Gems

The following skins and mounts will be added to the featured item rotation and will become purchasable with gems until this round of Heroic Deals comes to an end:

Upcoming Featured Skins
  • Rogue Novazon
  • Seafoam Buccaneer Falstad
  • Ghost Admiral Krakenov
  • Neutron Star Lich Kel'Thuzad
  • Frostlord Rexxar

Upcoming Featured Mounts
  • Space Lord's Starbreaker
  • Verdant Magic Carpet

Maiev Gameplay Montage
Maiev has been out for a little while now, and Youtuber Spaßvogel decided to make a case for why she is overpowered.


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