April 11 Balance Update, Developer Interviews, Comic

[Nerraw]

April 11th Balance Update

Our most recent Heroes of the Storm patch is now live containing a number of balance changes and bug fixes.


Quick Navigation:

• Heroes
• Bug Fixes

Heroes

Assassin

Falstad


Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Gathering Storm (Q)
    
    • Added functionality:
      
      • Every Hero Hammerang hits also returns 10 Mana.
  • Wingman (Active)
    
    • Added functionality:
      
      • Reduces Lightning Rod’s cooldown by 3 seconds
• Level 4
  
  • Updraft (E)
    
    • Added functionality:
      
      • Removes the duration of Shields granted by Barrel Roll.

Fenix


Stats

• Basic Attack damage reduced from 96 to 86.

Abilities

• Plasma Cutter (Q)
  
  • Damage reduced from 145 to 135.
• Planet Cracker (R)
  
  • Damage increased from 105 to 108.

Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Advanced Targeting (Q)
    
    • Damage bonus reduced from 0.75 to 0.5.
    • Maximum bonus damage reduced from 75 to 60.
  • Arsenal Synergy (W)
    
    • Damage bonus increased from 100% to 175%
• Level 4
  
  • Emergency Protocol (Trait)
    
    • Movement Speed bonus reduced from 30% to 25%.
• Level 7
  
  • Combat Advantage (Q)
    
    • Damage bonus against Slowed targets reduced from 50% to 40%.
• Level 13
  
  • Auxiliary Shields (Trait)
    
    • Shield regeneration reduced from 20% to 15% of Basic Attack damage dealt.
  • Dampening Field (Trait)
    
    • Spell Armor increased from 15 to 20.
  • Rapid Recharge (Trait)
    
    • Shield recharge increased from 20% to 40% of healing received.
• Level 20
  
  • Singularity Charge (W)
    
    • Repeater Cannon bonus Attack Speed increased from 50% to 100%.
  • Unconquered Spirit (Passive)
    
    • Shield amount increased from 600 to 800.

Developer Comment: Fenix has proven himself quite powerful, mainly due to his capability for consistent damage output. While we’re happy with how he plays, we’re making a few changes to bring his damage in line and address Talent imbalances.


Hanzo


Abilities

• Natural Agility (Trait)
  
  • Cooldown increased from 20 to 25 seconds.
• Dragon Strike (R)
  
  • Damage increased from 64 to 70.

Talents

• Level 4
  
  • Serrated Arrows (W)
    
    • Bonus damage granted versus Minions, Mercenaries, and Monsters reduced from 150% to 100%.

Li-Ming


Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Aether Walker (E)
    
    • Reduced the time required after taking damage from 5 to 4 seconds.
• Level 4
  
  • Dominance (Trait)
    
    • Adjusted functionality:
      
      • Takedowns now restore 30% of missing Health.

Nova


Talents

• Level 7
  
  • Perfect Shot (Q)
    
    • Added functionality:
      
      • Each Hero hit also grants an additional Precision Sniper stack.
• Level 13
  
  • Ionic Force Field (Trait)
    
    • Armor duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds.
  • Double Tap (W)
    
    • Added functionality:
      
      • Also increases Pinning Shot’s cooldown by 2 seconds.
• Level 16
  
  • Lethal Decoy (E)
    
    • Holo Decoy damage bonus reduced from 35% to 30%.
  • Crippling Shot (W)
    
    • Armor negation reduced from 25 to 20.
  • Explosive Round (Q)
    
    • Area of effect damage increased from 50% to 70%.

Tracer


Stats

• Health reduced from 1350 to 1280.
• Health Regeneration reduced from 5.625 to 5.332.
• Basic Attack damage reduced from 29 to 28.

Multiclass

Varian


Stats

• Health increased from 1850 to 1924.
• Health Regeneration increased from 3.8554 to 4.0078.

Abilities

• Taunt (R)
  
  • Bonus Health and Health Regeneration reduced from 30% to 25%.

Specialist

Medivh


Talents

• Level 7
  
  • Force of Magic (W)
    
    • Bonus Spell Power increased from 20% to 25%.
  • Arcane Explosion (W)
    
    • Base damage reduced from 90 to 80.
    • Maximum additional damage reduced from 350 to 315.
• Level 13
  
  • Circle of Protection (W)
    
    • Now also increases Force of Will’s cooldown by 2 seconds.
  • Reabsorption (W)
    
    • Heal amount increased from 60% to 70%.

Sylvanas


Stats

• Basic Attack damage increased from 85 to 90.

Abilities

• Black Arrows (Trait)
  
  • Abilities no longer disable Structures.

Developer Comment: As part of our ongoing quest to increase counter-play and curb frustration when playing against certain Heroes, we’re changing Sylvanas’ Black Arrows trait so that her Abilities no longer disable Structures. This effect is incredibly powerful and, in the past, has limited how Battlegrounds can be designed and played. We realize that turning off enemy Structures is an important part of Sylvanas’ identity, so rather than removing this functionality completely, we’re addressing it in such a way that she now has to put herself in danger to get maximum value. This should allow more counter-play for opponents when Sylvanas is pushing, and enable us to improve her teamfight capabilities, which we’re doing initially via a small Basic Attack damage buff. We’ll be keeping an eye on her performance, and are ready to make further tuning changes as needed.


Support

Kharazim


Stats

• Health increased from 1949 to 2027.
• Health Regeneration increased from 4.0585 to 4.2226.

Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Transcendence (Trait)
    
    • Healing increased from 98 to 104.

Malfurion


Abilities

• Regrowth
  
  • Heal amount reduced from 400 to 380.
• Moonfire
  
  • Heal amount reduced from 140 to 135.

Talents

• Level 4
  
  • Strangling Vines (E)
    
    • Heal reduction duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds.

Warrior

Chen


Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Accumulating Flame (Q)
    
    • Adjusted quest reward functionality:
      
      • Gain 15 Armor per Hero ignited with Breath of Fire. This lasts 3 seconds.
  • Freshest Ingredients (Trait)
    
    • Health Regeneration granted by gathering Regeneration Globes no longer caps at 30.
• Level 4
  
  • Keg Toss (W)
    
    • Bonus damage per Hero hit increased from 3 to 4.
    • Bonus damage maximum increased from 60 to 80.
• Level 7
  
  • Purifying Brew (Trait)
    
    • Added functionality:
      
      • Spell Armor persists as long as Chen has Fortifying Brew Shields.

Dehaka


Abilities

• Adaptation (R)
  
  • Cooldown reduced from 90 to 80 seconds.

Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Enduring Swarm (W)
    
    • Spell Armor increased from 40 to 50.
• Level 4
  
  • Lurker Strain (E)
    
    • Slow duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds.
  • Hero Stalker (Trait)
    
    • Added functionality
      
      • Enemy Heroes hit by Dark Swarm grant 1 Essence.
• Level 13
  
  • Ferocious Stalker (W)
    
    • Bonus damage increased from 40% to 50%.

Leoric


Stats

• Basic Attack damage increased from 105 to 109.

Abilities

• Drain Hope (W)
  
  • Cooldown reduced from 11 to 10 seconds.

Tyrael


Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Ardent Restoration (Passive)
    
    • Healing increased from 13.75 to 15 per stack.
• Level 4
  
  • Stalwart Angel (Q)
    
    • Armor increased from 20 to 25.
    • Armor duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Level 7
  
  • Purge Evil (E)
    
    • Basic Attack damage bonus increased from 35% to 45%.
• Level 16
  
  • Burning Halo (Q)
    
    • Damage increased from 15 to 18.
    • Bonus damage after teleporting increased from 100% to 150%.
    • Bonus damage duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
  • Smite the Wicked (E)
    
    • Cooldown recharge rate increased from 100% to 125%.
    • Cooldown recharge rate duration after teleporting reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.

Developer Comment: We’re making adjustments focused on the viability of some of Tyrael’s Talents. In particular, Sword of Justice was not picked very often, and was underperforming. We’re addressing this by taking a few Talents (Stalwart Angel, Burning Halo, and Smite the Wicked) and increasing their synergy with Sword of Justice by increasing the bonuses that Tyrael receives while El’druin is out, but reducing the bonuses for teleporting. This should enhance Sword of Justice’s playstyle, by allowing players to teleport into a fight, but still having an active El’druin’s.


Zarya


Stats

• Health increased from 2225 to 2292.
• Health Regeneration increased from 4.6406 to 4.7750.

Abilities

• Particle Grenade (Q)
  
  • Damage increased from 71 to 75.
• Graviton Surge (R)
  
  • Cooldown reduced from 80 to 60 seconds.

Bug Fixes
General

• Fixed a pair of issues that could cause the game client to crash.

Art

• Johanna: Learning Holy Renewal and casting Shield Glare while using one of Johanna’s Enforcer Skins no longer causes placeholder art to appear at her feet.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Ana: After learning Grenade Calibration, Biotic Grenade’s floating combat text now displays the correct amount of Healing received with each tick.
• Auriel: Bestow Hope’s buff and visual effects will no longer be removed if the target enters a Stasis effect, like Zagara’s Devouring Maw.
• Cassia: After learning Martial Law, Basic Attacks now correctly apply bonus damage against Slowed Heroes.
• Fenix: Fixed an issue that could prevent the Rapid Recharge Talent from providing its Shield recharge effect when Healed.
• Fenix: Plasma Cutter is now correctly interrupted by Stasis effects, like Stitches’ Gorge and Anub’arak’s Cocoon.
• Fenix: Casting Plasma Cutter on an Invulnerable target no longer grants quest progress for the Advanced Targeting Talent.
• Fenix: After learning Singularity Charge, the Talent description that is appended to the Weapon Mode Ability tooltip now states the correct amount of bonus range provided to Phase Bomb Basic Attacks.
• Greymane: The Wizened Duelist Talent’s Basic Attack counter no longer continues to update after achieving maximum quest progress.
• Leoric: Fixed an issue preventing Leoric from casting Hearthstone while in Undying form.
• Malthael: After learning Black Harvest, quest progress indicators now correctly appear every second while a target is affected by Reaper’s Mark.
• Medivh: Fixed an issue in which Medivh could create four Portals at once after learning Portal Mastery.
• Medivh: Is no longer dismounted after casting Arcane Brilliance.
• Probius: Disruption Pulse no longer gains bonus damage from the Particle Accelerator Talent when it passes through non-targetable units, like Gazlowe’s Scrap.
• Varian: Learning Colossus Smash no longer reduces Varian’s Health Regeneration by more than the intended 10%.
• Zeratul: Casting Void Prison on Blaze’s Bunker while players are inside no longer halts their Ability cooldowns indefinitely after Void Prison expires.

Developer Interview - Heroes Reddit Community
The team looking after the Heroes subreddit had a sitdown with developers Kaeo Milker and Matt Villers during PAX East. We've got a few highlights below:

• Scroll of Sealing originally had players draw their own triangle shape
• The team tries not to go too crazy with mobility
• The Live Design team who do final hero testing are Grandmaster-level players
• Hanamura had too many things going on at once, creating a lot of confusion
• No current plans to introduce a "Grounded" status effect to deal with mobility, they would rather do things like Maiev's chain ability to deal with the issue
• Only a question of priorities and time before the stats API will be made available
• Educating the playerbase is a big challenge, a massive undertaking
• Voice chat feedback has been positive
• The Bunker health meme lasted until they actually had to nerf it

Developer Interview - BlizzPro
BlizzPro's Leviathan likewise had the opportunity to speak to Kaeo Milker and Matt Villers. We've gathered a few highlights:

• Deckard originally had an Identify ability that would reveal enemies and reduce their armor
• Horadric Cube started out as an ability that could be thrown on the ground and empowered by other abilities used on it, but this felt too limiting
• The Gem talents retain some of that playstyle however, such as the one that creates an explosion of health potions when hitting enemies
• The sound designers dialed it up to 11 on Deckard, focusing on invoking the Diablo nostalgia; potion sounds, papers, scrolls
• The story of how existing universes came to be represented in the Nexus will have to wait a while longer
• Specialists used to be the bucket for weird heroes, but lately the team has been trying to classify heroes as other roles if possible
• They are actively re-evaluating some role classifications
• Varian's heroic shuffle was due to the fact that he only felt like half a hero until level 10
• Performance-based Matchmaking (PBMM) was disabled because of unrelated problems with the launch of the December 2017 ranked season but is coming back Soon(TM), the team is really excited for it to go live again
• PBMM was running in the background for a long time as a simulation for data comparisons, with the data revealing that players would be placed in their correct ranks faster than without it
• The team is very pleased with the reception of the PVE brawls

Heroes of the Storm Comic
Russian Heroes fansite Tavern of Heroes ran a comic strip contest recently. You can take a look at the winners right here!

[skorpio]

Fenix nerf +
Sylvana nerf +
Tracer nerf +
Secondary tanks buff +

[Darksun80]

Fenix nerf +
Sylvana nerf +
Tracer nerf +
Secondary tanks buff +

Rip Sylvanas

[Deleted]

Educating the playerbase is a big challenge, a massive undertaking

At last it's on the "radar" now... fix QM, change it as in all other Moba games - force the players to adapt to the game. Take the chaos out. Best they can do here.

Also

Specialists used to be the bucket for weird heroes, but lately the team has been trying to classify heroes as other roles if possible

Nice too! There are far too much useless heroes in this game currently. Or call them "niche"-Heroes or "old" or "retro". That adds to the QM chaos and makes the game much worse than it should be. Sylvanas fix is very nice, finally the players who loved her will have to adapt a little bit on how to play her and when to go in. This is what all old heroes need. Especially all the popular ones. Sylvanas was always a niche hero (aka bad by design) but overpowered in her access to disable buildings (which encouraged solo vs PVE playstyles). Now you only want to pick her when you know what to do with her and when the team can use her.

Yet I still hope they cancel their specialists class as hole, it seems they realized the fruitlessness of them too. They ruin the core design of the game.

[Gallahadd]

Tbh, as savage as they are, those Fenix nerfs probably could have been worse, I'm sure he'll still be playable but he wont be quite so laughable now.

[PPN]

Rip Sylvanas

Yeah what i was thinking when i read the changes. Maybe it was powerful in HL? I dont know, but in QM Sylvanas is tough to play, since a lotof heroes just can faceroll her from 100 to 0 in just a stun/silence. Once you move a little to close to a tower to hit it and someone jumps on you its instant dead.

Noe she just aint special anymore...good wave clear or camps that can be provided by many heroes...even faster.

[Deleted]

Cautiously optimistic that Tracer might finally be bearable and tempted to get back to HL after I couldn't stand it for months. My guess is Sylv might actually be stronger outside wood league; I might be terribly off.

Scared of PBMM. Last time it looked like an activity- and click-meter rewarding YOLOing and punishing playing safe.

[NoiseTank13]

Tbh, as savage as they are, those Fenix nerfs probably could have been worse, I'm sure he'll still be playable but he wont be quite so laughable now.

Those Fenix nerfs are a wrist slap, what?

[RH92]

Tbh, as savage as they are, those Fenix nerfs probably could have been worse, I'm sure he'll still be playable but he wont be quite so laughable now.

The Hero is still broken as fuck.

Today I just noticed, his AoE AA buffed by talent (That extra damage after moving) does actually more damage than a Zeratul's Cleave. I think he hit me for around 430 damage at level 13 while my Cleave was doing just 408 damage at the same level. I mean, for real? It has no cooldown and he drops ranged Cleaves on you, on top of that when he switches to that AoE AA, he gets an increased range on AAs.

His damage numbers are still busted and Warp range is obscenly high for having a cleansing effect, even though it has a drawback of being interruptable. He definitely shouldn't be having both.

[NightZero88]

Rip Sylvanas

Played her against AI today and was so confused why nothing was disabling towers. Even against AI it is a big nerf. Once you get close, the tower takes off about 25-50% of your health before you can hit it and the even beginner bots will smash your face in. Oh well, back to not using her for fast AI games again.

[Nikkaszal]

Tbh, as savage as they are, those Fenix nerfs probably could have been worse, I'm sure he'll still be playable but he wont be quite so laughable now.

Heh a small tuning down on his Q build. Now that build is just "strong" instead of "what the fuck is this lunacy"

Meanwhile, the other lvl 1 talent now turns his Phase Bomb into a Phase Nuke. It's fucking huge.

[Nyoken]

Woaa.....that Sylvanas nerf, it's huge....

- - - Updated - - -

That sylv nerf is huge... woaaa

[Gallahadd]

Meanwhile, the other lvl 1 talent now turns his Phase Bomb into a Phase Nuke. It's fucking huge.

Didn't actually notice the buff on that... Yeah, that is fucking monstrous XD.

[Stormcall]

the tower takes off about 25-50% of your health before you can hit it

Not if you play her right it doesn't. You're not supposed to go in and face tank it till you get in range, you're supposed to go in with your group, or if you're solo laning, go in with the minion wave. Also, if you're getting your face smashed in by beginner bots, you...really aren't good at the hero. Like, at all.

[Deleted]

Not if you play her right it doesn't. You're not supposed to go in and face tank it till you get in range, you're supposed to go in with your group, or if you're solo laning, go in with the minion wave. Also, if you're getting your face smashed in by beginner bots, you...really aren't good at the hero. Like, at all.

Yeah but at that point you can also go in with another hero. Sylvanas needs ability stunning towers to return or a major buff, the current version of the hero is a joke.

[minteK917]

Not if you play her right it doesn't. You're not supposed to go in and face tank it till you get in range, you're supposed to go in with your group, or if you're solo laning, go in with the minion wave. Also, if you're getting your face smashed in by beginner bots, you...really aren't good at the hero. Like, at all.

It just means theres no reason to play her anymore. That was her perk as a pusher. Now shes just a bad pusher compared to every other one... Shes just a bad assassin lmao.

[NightZero88]

Not if you play her right it doesn't. You're not supposed to go in and face tank it till you get in range, you're supposed to go in with your group, or if you're solo laning, go in with the minion wave. Also, if you're getting your face smashed in by beginner bots, you...really aren't good at the hero. Like, at all.

I'd respond but the two people below your response said exactly what I was going to say.

[Stormcall]

Yeah but at that point you can also go in with another hero.

Sure you can. But you can't stay there with another hero once the minion wave dies...which will be faster, since she's not shutting down a tower with her attacks and the opposing minion wave with her abilities.

[Deleted]

Sure you can. But you can't stay there with another hero once the minion wave dies...which will be faster, since she's not shutting down a tower with her attacks and the opposing minion wave with her abilities.

Multiple of those other heroes have higher damage or much better survival though. I understand why Sylvanas was a problem for QM and for bronze, but the hero had an OK tradeoff before and now its in the dumpster.

[NoiseTank13]

I'm noticing people are also ignoring the other thing Blizzard said about her nerf- she was hamstringing the developers ability to design new maps.