Heroes of the Storm Live Patch Notes - August 6, 2019
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)

The next Heroes of the Storm patch has arrived! The update brings a new Hero, Qhira the Iresian Bounty Hunter, alongside bug fixes, new bundles, new skins, and much more! Dive on in for more information.


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General

On-Fire System
  • Hero name-plates will now display that a Hero is On-Fire when they are performing well during a match


New Hero: Qhira, Iresian Bounty Hunter

A sworn knight and holder of a singularity shard, Qhira’s only desire is to seek out others who may have escaped the destruction of her doomed home realm, Iresia. While she searches, she gets by as a bounty hunter--- a job she loathes, despite her exceptional skill.

Trait
  • Grappling Hook [D]
    • Qhira fires a Grappling Hook that pulls her to any terrain it contacts. If an enemy Hero is hit, they take 36 damage and Qhira launches at them, dealing an additional 112 damage on impact. Can be used while Revolving Sweep is active.
      • Cooldown: 25 Seconds

Basic Abilities
  • Carnage [Q]
    • Unleash your sword in a targeted direction, continuously dealing 31 damage to enemies caught in its path.
      • Cost: 40 Mana
      • Cooldown: 6 seconds
  • ​​Blood Rage [W]
    • ​Passive: Basic Attack and Ability damage cause enemies to bleed for 46 damage over 4 seconds. Stacks 5 times.
    • Active: Qhira deals 33 damage and heals for 88 health per enemy Hero affected. Damage and healing is increased by 50% per each additional stack on that Hero.
      • Cost: 35 Mana
      • Cooldown: 8 seconds
  • Revolving Sweep [E]
    • ​Attach your sword to the first enemy Hero hit, Stunning them for .25 seconds. Once attached, Qhira becomes immune to all effects, swinging around the target for 2.75 seconds, and dealing 109 damage to any enemies between you and the target. Reactivate to send you to the target’s location, knocking them back, dealing 112 damage and Stunning them for .75 seconds.
      • Cost: 70 Mana
      • Cooldown: 16 Seconds

Heroic Abilities[/b]
  • Unrelenting Strikes [R1]
    • Deal 46 damage to all nearby enemies every .5 seconds for 2.5 seconds as your sword grows outward. Upon expiring, deal 86 damage to all nearby enemy Heroes and Stun them for .75 seconds.
      • Cost: 60 Mana
      • Cooldown: 75 Seconds
  • Final Strike [R2]
    • After 1 second, strike your sword in a line to deal 432 damage to all enemies in its path. This damage is increased by 25% to any enemy below 50% Health.
      • Cost: 45 Mana
      • Cooldown: 40 Seconds


Storm League

Storm League - Season 1, 2019
  • Ranked Points are now directly mapped to a player's Storm League MMR.
    • Rank is no longer considered by the matchmaker.
    • Leaving a Ranked Match Lobby or Game results in a 500 Rank Point penalty which can be slowly regained in future matches.
  • Placement Matches have been reduced from 10 to 3.
  • Promotion and Demotion games have been removed and players will seamlessly transition through Leagues and Divisions.
    • The MMR range has been rebuilt and remapped to handle this.
  • A Team Leader (banning player in Ranked Draft) is selected on the highest Rank for placed players, or MMR for unplaced ones. In mixed teams, placed players have priority.
  • Rank Decay has been adjusted
    • Only players that are Diamond 5 or higher and that have finished their Placement Matches are eligible for decay
    • If a player's decay timer is less than 3 days, it resets to 3 days upon playing a Storm League game. If the timer is at or above 3 days, players will gain an additional grace day for each game played (up to a maximum of 30).
  • A Ranked Seasonal Questline is now available to players
    • This Questline will be available each Season and must be completed in order to be eligible for both the Ranked Seasonal Rewards and the Grand Master Leaderboards.

[NEW] The Storm League pool is now:
  • Alterac Pass
  • Battlefield of Eternity
  • Braxis Holdout
  • Cursed Hollow
  • Dragon Shire
  • Hanamura Temple
  • Infernal Shrines
  • Sky Temple
  • Tomb of the Spider Queen
  • Towers of Doom
  • Volskaya Foundry

The Quick Match pool is now:
  • All maps that are available in Storm League
  • Blackheart’s Bay
  • Garden of Terror
  • Warhead Junction

[NEW] Dev Comment: Due to player feedback about their favorite Battleground being removed or least favorite added, and also us questioning the value that we were gaining by having a Battleground rotation, we’ve decided to get our Storm League pool to 11 Battlegrounds and probably leave it there for the immediate future. The original idea behind a rotation was to facilitate a different metagame and make the game feel fresh and different, but we found that this wasn’t really panning out this way and in fact created more confusion and volatility than enjoyment. We still think that altering the game from season to season is important to keep things feeling fresh, and we’ll be exploring ways to do this beyond our regular Hero updates and new Heroes in the future.


Map Updates

Braxis Holdout
  • Functionality of the Braxis control-point is now consistent with that of Dragon Shire
  • Zerg Waves
    • Make-up and stats of the Zerg Wave units have been adjusted
    • Zergling
      • Health reduced from 750 to 450
      • Health scaling over time increased
      • Damage increased from 5 to 10
      • Damage scaling over time decreased
      • No longer has a 10% damage penalty to Structures
    • Baneling
      • Health reduced from 500 to 450
      • Health scaling over time increased
      • Damage increased from 55 to 150
      • Damage scaling over time decreased
      • Now have a 50% damage bonus to Heroes
      • No longer have a 50% damage bonus to Structures
      • Explosion radius increased from 2.75 to 3
      • Now prefers attacking Structures
    • Hydralisk
      • Health reduced from 1500 to 850
      • Health scaling over time increased
      • Damage increased from 25 to 70
      • Damage scaling over time decreased
      • No longer have a 10% damage penalty to Structures
    • Guardian
      • Health reduced from 2250 to 1000
      • Health scaling over time increased
      • Damage increased from 80 to 110
      • Damage scaling over time decreased
      • No longer have a 25% damage penalty to Structures
    • Ultralisk
      • Health reduced from 6000 to 4700
      • Health scaling over time increased
      • Damage increased from 50 to 100
      • Damage scaling over time decreased
      • No longer have a 10% damage penalty to Structures
    • While attacking, Guardian and Ultralisks now spawn Drop Pods with 3 Zerglings and 1 Hydralisk (can occur once every 13 seconds)​

Developer Comment: We've made some changes to Braxis to even out the power curve of Zerg waves and introduce what we've found is a fun new mechanic in Drop Pods. By causing reinforcements of Zerg to periodically appear via Drop Pods, it makes some effects like Planet Cracker and Lava Wave a little less powerful against them. It also provides a stronger focus for single target characters, as removing Ultralisks and Guardians earlier will cause fewer Drop Pods to spawn, thereby indirectly helping against the massive zerg onslaught. The tuning changes get the zerg in line with most of our other Mercenaries and Minions, which mostly mirror a Hero's power level over the course of a game (though Battleground events tend to get more deadly in the late game to force a conclusion to matches). Overall, we think you'll enjoy these small changes to Braxis. It won't greatly change the way the Battleground feels but introduce a little freshness to the map while helping balance a few longstanding issues with over the top Hero imbalances on the Battleground.


Collection

New Bundles (Limited Time Only!)
  • Qhira Heroic Bundle
  • Warchrome Commanders Bundle
  • Deathranger Nova Bundle

New Skins
  • Fearless Qhira
  • Jade Qhira
  • Scrapper Queen Qhira
    • Berserk Scrapper Queen Qhira
    • Executor Scrapper Queen Qhira
    • Desert Scrapper Queen Qhira
    • Vanquisher Scrapper Queen Qhira
  • Deathranger Nova (Limited Time Only!)
    • Mirage Deathranger Nova
    • Rugged Deathranger Nova
    • Dusk Deathranger Nova
    • Ember Deathranger Nova
  • Daredevil Roadraider Raynor
  • Molten Diesel Speaker Nazeebo

New Mounts
  • Daredevil Helldorado
  • Scavenger’s Ripper
  • Outrider's Ripper
  • Soldier’s Ripper

New Announcer
  • Qhira Announcer

New Content
  • Several emojis, portraits, banners and other items have been added to the collection!


Bug Fixes
  • [NEW] Interrupting Brightwing’s Intensive Winds cast will now set the cooldown to 5 seconds.
  • [NEW] Fixed various Movement Speed bugs that had occurred with the increased Movement Speed patch.
  • Zeratul no longer auto-acquires targets that walk within range while Cloaked.
  • Taking the Snowstorm talent on Jaina in the middle of a Blizzard cast no longer changes the damage value for the rest of the game.
  • Learning Yrel’s Seraphim talent while channeling or disabled no longer leaves it permanently disabled.
  • Blinding Wind, Shadow Dagger, Seeker Swarm, Frost Blast, Unstable Compound, and Weak Spot Acquired will no longer apply their effects to Heroes in Time Stop.
  • Critical Strike, Oil Spill, Lightning Fury, Ravage, Keg Smash, and Particle Grenade are now affected by cooldown reduction effects.
  • Sgt. Hammer’s Siege Mode can no longer out-range kill credit for the Salvaging the Stables questline.
  • Varian’s Banner of Ironforge now correctly displays the plus-Healing UI when augmented with Glory to the Alliance.
  • Uther can now /dance and /taunt during Eternal Vanguard.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Heroes of the Storm Live Patch Notes - August 6, 2019 started by Nerraw View original post
Comments 26 Comments
  1. KainneAbsolute's Avatar
    Qhira is an interesting hero and the push/stun she brings
  1. ThatsOurEric's Avatar
    At first I thought, oh I guess this may fix some of the matchmaking problems it had before.

    After a few games, nope, it's still really really bad.

    At least they have that quest now. It helps a bit and eases a little bit of the losses with the bad
    games.
  1. melzas's Avatar
    I've always been a fanboy of hots, for me it's the best moba despite being unpopular.

    But I just can't stomach Qhira. Orphea was an experiment and had some lore behind her so I was ok-ish with her, but now, when hero releases are so spare, getting next Nxus original hero is a big turn off for me, sadly.
  1. Nerraw's Avatar
    @Twen Your movement speed bugs are fixed it seems!
  1. shade3891's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by KainneAbsolute View Post
    Qhira is an interesting hero and the push/stun she brings
    Yeah i played her quite a bit on the PTR she is really fun to play, she might be even my favorite melee.
    The AoE stun talent is really good awell!

    I dont care she is a OC, actually like it. Because her ability kit wouldn't fit on an existing hero/villian. Rather have a new good working hero then a halve baked one that feels gimpy because they needed to colour inside the box.
  1. skorpio's Avatar
    "Hero name-plates will now display that a Hero is On-Fire when they are performing well during a match"

    Cool, I've missed this.

    "This Questline will be available each Season and must be completed in order to be eligible for both the Ranked Seasonal Rewards and the Grand Master Leaderboards."

    Dislike. It forces to play ranked, but it's 50 WINS each season to get rewards.
  1. Nerraw's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by skorpio View Post
    "This Questline will be available each Season and must be completed in order to be eligible for both the Ranked Seasonal Rewards and the Grand Master Leaderboards."

    Dislike. It forces to play ranked, but it's 50 WINS each season to get rewards.
    The amount of wins needed for the end-of-season rewards can be tweaked, agreed.

    For qualifying as Grandmaster? I feel it's totally fair that you need to put in at least some effort to show up there, instead of doing just doing your 10 (now 3) placement games and then not having to do anything for the rest of the season because you got your GM portrait and mount immediately anyway.

    And for both aspects, the requirement for it being wins hopefully cuts down on a few of the freeloaders that usually show up around the start and end of a season. I'm overall in favor of the change, but I'm the sick frak who puts in 400+ games per season anyway despite being in low/mid-Diamond.
  1. Twen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nerraw View Post
    @Twen Your movement speed bugs are fixed it seems!
    Looks like it, thanks for the heads-up. Not only it didn't go ignored, this was also pretty fast fix, how nice.
  1. sam86's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by melzas View Post
    I've always been a fanboy of hots, for me it's the best moba despite being unpopular.

    But I just can't stomach Qhira. Orphea was an experiment and had some lore behind her so I was ok-ish with her, but now, when hero releases are so spare, getting next Nxus original hero is a big turn off for me, sadly.
    i agree that hots is best moba
    and i also agree on f8ck Qhira, she make no sense
    But check her video, they can't even afford anymore someone to voice a video... i played lot of hots last year and i feel so sad of how deserted the game is
  1. therealstegblob's Avatar
    Qhira is overpowered and stupid. I know that they work on heroes months in advance and everything, but what absolute god damned dipshit thought it was a good idea to make a hero like this when the game is in such a state of decline lol. Yeah, this random boring character with no established lore is going to really get the masses in the door.

    It's such a shame too, because if there's one thing HotS could really do to blow people out of the water, it'd be procuring outside-franchise characters. Imagine how much hype and attention would be generated if they got characters from other IPs?

    ...Nah, this lame OC is a much better idea, I guess.
  1. breadisfunny's Avatar
    this is extremely disappointing to say the least that we waited all this time and instead of a blizzard property character we got.....a oc nobody. admit it her lore was made up on the spot. even an overwatch character would have been preferable.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by sam86 View Post
    i agree that hots is best moba
    and i also agree on f8ck Qhira, she make no sense
    But check her video, they can't even afford anymore someone to voice a video... i played lot of hots last year and i feel so sad of how deserted the game is
    if they can't even budget for a voice actor for a couple minute video.....then yeah this game is headed to death row.
  1. Not Againnn's Avatar
    her portrait isnt even animated. its just a screencap of her face
  1. Twoddle's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by therealstegblob View Post
    Qhira is overpowered and stupid.
    New heroes generally do appear op and experienced players can use it straight away because they have the gold.
  1. tankbug's Avatar
    Hm, not a big fan of the HOTS universe, I think. The only thing that kept me interested was to see how they would implement characters that I know from the other franchises.
  1. iosdeveloper's Avatar
    and i thought overwatch characters are out of place
  1. therealstegblob's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Twoddle View Post
    New heroes generally do appear op and experienced players can use it straight away because they have the gold.
    It isn't that she's overpowered (just) due to numbers (as most new heroes tend to be). She's also overpowered because of her mobility (as many new heroes have tended to be).

    Mobility creep and CC bloat have been killing HotS.
  1. Nikkaszal's Avatar
    Qhira is fucking nutty, the amount of damage you can put out is absolutely absurd.

    She is suffering from "mandatory talent" syndrome though. At this point you're either taking the bleed build or you're doing it wrong. There's no reason to take any of the Q talents because it's little more than a bleed applicator and vastly outshined by the other options.
  1. Snorri's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nikkaszal View Post
    Qhira is fucking nutty, the amount of damage you can put out is absolutely absurd.

    She is suffering from "mandatory talent" syndrome though. At this point you're either taking the bleed build or you're doing it wrong. There's no reason to take any of the Q talents because it's little more than a bleed applicator and vastly outshined by the other options.
    Yeah she looks fun and I want to buy her. But she's definitely gonna get a nerf or two, and probably some talent reworks too. I'll wait for that first.
  1. RadasNoir's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Snorri View Post
    Yeah she looks fun and I want to buy her. But she's definitely gonna get a nerf or two, and probably some talent reworks too. I'll wait for that first.
    I wait until the gold price for a new hero drops to 10,000, even though I no longer need to. It seems like any sort of major nerfs, buffs, or reworks tend to occur around the same time, or slightly before. Plus, with everyone else rushing to play the new character, one can still get a sense of how they should (or should not) be played.
  1. Nerraw's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by RadasNoir View Post
    I wait until the gold price for a new hero drops to 10,000, even though I no longer need to. It seems like any sort of major nerfs, buffs, or reworks tend to occur around the same time, or slightly before. Plus, with everyone else rushing to play the new character, one can still get a sense of how they should (or should not) be played.
    Plus, it's damn near impossible to actually get a game with her. EU had bonus xp on tanks, healers, and ranged assassins last night.

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