Heroes of the Storm PTR Patch Notes - July 30, 2018

[Nerraw]

Heroes of the Storm PTR Patch Notes - July 30, 2018

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until August 6. As always, if you encounter any bugs during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.

Quick Navigation:

• General
  
• New Hero
  
• Art
  
• Design
  
• Heroes
  
• Collection
  
• Bug Fixes

General

• Reduced the amount of bandwidth required to transfer gameplay information between the client and server.
  
• Reduced the size of replay files.

New Hero: Whitemane
As the High Inquisitor of the Scarlet Crusade, Sally Whitemane zealously leads her champions in a never-ending war against the undead. Under her guiding Light, all who have been touched by the plague of death will be purged by her cleansing flame… no matter how much they protest.

Trait

• Zeal
  
  • Whitemane’s Healing abilities apply Zeal for 8 seconds.
    
  • Allies with Zeal are healed for 100% of the damage Whitemane deals to Heroes.
    

Basic Abilities

• Desperate Plea (Q)
  
  • Mana: 30
    
  • No cooldown
    
  • Heal an allied Hero for 145 and gain Desperation for 4 seconds.
    
  • Desperation increases Desperate Plea’s Mana cost by 60 and stacks up to 3 times.
    
• Inquisition (W)
  
  • Channel on an enemy Hero for up to 3 seconds, dealing 53 damage every 0.5 seconds and slowing them by 30%
    
• Searing Lash (E)
  
  • After 0.5 seconds, smite enemies in a straight line for 82 damage.
    
  • If the first strike hits an enemy Hero, a second strike will occur after a short delay.
    

Heroic Abilities

• Scarlet Aegis (R)
  
  • Cooldown: 60 seconds
    
  • Bolster the spirits of nearby allied Heroes, healing them for 250 and granting them 40 Armor for 4 seconds.
    
• Divine Reckoning (R)
  
  • Cooldown: 100 seconds
    
  • After a 1 second delay, consecrate an area for 4 seconds, dealing 50 damage every 0.5 seconds to enemies in the area.​
    

Art

• Hero, Skin, and Mount platforms in the Collections menus have received a visual update.

Design
Summon Abilities

• Summoned creatures (Zagara Roaches, Azmodan Demons, etc.) now deal ability damage which can be enhanced by the Hero’s Ability Power.
  
• Summoned creatures now obey Blind and Evade rules.

Heroes

Assassin

Chromie


Stats

• Basic Attack Range has been increased from 5.5 to 7

Abilities

• Sand Blast (Q)
  
  • No longer gains bonus damage when hitting enemy Heroes
    
  • Range has been decreased from 17 to 15
    
  • Scaling damage increased from 2 to 4%
    
  • Echo scaling damage increased from 2 to 4%
    
  • Cast time decreased from 1 to .8 seconds
    
  • Mana cost decreased from 20 to 15
    
• Past and Future Me (Sand Blast Quest)
  
  • Echo unlock requirements reduced from 60 to 50 Sand Blast hits
    
• Dragon’s Breath (W)
  
  • Mana cost reduced from 70 to 50
    
  • Range decreased from 17 to 15
    
  • Dragon’s Breath’s ground splat is now visible to enemies .5 seconds after cast
    
  • Damage reduced from 480 to 360
    
  • Cooldown reduced from 12 to 9 seconds
    
• Trait Addition: Bronze Talons
  
  • Hitting an enemy Hero with a Basic Ability increases the damage of Chromie’s next Basic Attack by 100%
    

Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Mounting Sand (Q)
    
    • Additional Functionality:
      
      • Now also increases the damage of Sand Blast’s Echo by 40%
        
  • Timewalker’s Pursuit (Active)
    
    • Adjusted Functionality:
      
      • No longer grants Mana Regeneration per Regen Globe gathered. Now grants 1 extra Mana Regeneration on quest complete.
        
• Level 2
  
  • Bronze Talons (Passive)
    
    • Removed
      
  • New Talent: Draconic Barrage (Trait)
    
    • Increase the bonus Basic Attack damage from casting Abilities by an additional 100%. Hitting an enemy Hero with Sand Blast grants 2 empowered Basic Attacks.
      
• Level 5
  
  • Mobius Loop (W)
    
    • New functionality:
      
      • If an enemy Hero is hit by Dragon’s Breath, lower the cooldown by 2 seconds and refund the Mana cost
        
  • Chrono Sickness (E)
    
    • Slow amount reduced from 50 to 35%
      
• Level 11
  
  • Time Out (Active)
    
    • Duration reduced from 7 to 5 seconds
      
• Level 14
  
  • Fast Forward (Q)
    
    • Range requirement reduced from 75 to 70%
      
  • Quantum Overdrive (Active)
    
    • Ability Power bonus increased from 20 to 25%
      

Developer Comment: We’re making a few changes to Chromie to reduce the frustration when playing against her and to reduce her wide power variance between games. A number of these changes are designed to increase counter-play when playing against Chromie, like reducing her range on her abilities and letting enemies see Dragon’s Breath shortly after it has been cast. In exchange, Chromie’s Sand Blast has a shorter cast time, and she will now have a modified version of Bronze Talons baseline, where she can weave in auto-attacks for hitting enemy Heroes with her abilities. The reason we decided to give her the additional Bronze Talons trait is so that Chromie players are encouraged to interact more with their opponents. We’re rewarding them for getting into more dangerous positions with the possibility of increased damage output. This also lets us redistribute her damage away from her high burst, long range abilities, and more into something her opponents have a better opportunity to play around. We like Chromie’s unique place in our game as a long-range, artillery mage that requires enemies to pay attention to their positioning but over time we found that she simply had too much range and burst for players to feel like they had an engaging experience when playing against her. While we’ve had a blast with these changes, we’ll continue to keep an eye on her going forward and are prepared to make additional tweaks as needed.


Support

Stukov


Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Low Blow (E)
    
    • Moved from Level 13
      
    • Bonus damage reduced from 150 to 100%
      
  • Poppin’ Pustules (D)
    
    • No longer has a Quest component
      
    • New functionality:
      
      • Detonating a Weighted Pustule within 1.5 seconds of it expiring increases its damage by 100% and applies its damage and slow in an area
        
    • Explosion radius reduced from 4.5 to 3.75
      
• Level 4
  
  • Biotic Armor (Q)
    
    • Physical Armor reduced from 50 to 15
      
    • Now works on all targets that have Healing Pathogen
      
    • Additional Functionality:
      
      • Now also grants 50 Physical Armor for 2.5 seconds to targets who have Healing Pathogen when Bio-Kill Switch is detonated
        
  • Vigorous Reuptake (D)
    
    • No longer has a Quest component
      
    • New functionality:
      
      • Bio-Kill Switch’s healing is increased by 25% if 3 or more targets have Healing Pathogen on them when Bio-Kill Switch is detonated
        
• Level 7
  
  • Within My Reach (E)
    
    • Removed
      
  • The Long Pitch (W)
    
    • Bonus range reduced from 100 to 50%
      
    • Additional functionality:
      
      • Detonating 2 or more Weighted Pustules with a single cast of Bio-Kill Switch causes the cooldowns of non-Heroic abilities to recharge 100% faster for 3 seconds.
        
  • Growing Infestation (E)
    
    • Moved from Level 1
      
    • No longer increases the cooldown of Lurking Arm
      
    • New functionality:
      
      • Now reduces Lurking Arm’s channel duration to 4 seconds
        
• Level 13
  
  • It Hungers (E)
    
    • Moved from Level 7
      
    • New functionality:
      
      • Increase the range of Lurking Arm by 20%. If Lurking Arm hits enemy Heroes 15 times, reset its cooldown and refund its Mana cost
        
• Level 20
  
  • Push Comes to Shove (R)
    
    • Speed bonus removed
      
    • Additional functionality:
      
      • After colliding with terrain, enemy Heroes are slowed by 50% for 4 seconds
        
  • Top Off (Q)
    
    • Moved from Level 4
      
    • Bonus healing reduced from 50% to 30%
      
    • Adjusted Functionality:
      
      • Increased healing is now applied to all targets that have Healing Pathogen
        

Developer Comment: In the same vein as our earlier changes to Kael’thas, we felt that Stukov could use some love in the talent diversity department. We’ve made a number of functionality changes that should open up new builds and play styles, particularly in his earlier talent tiers.


Collection
New Bundles

• The following new bundles are available for a limited time! Be sure to check out the latest In-Development blog for more details.
  
  • Bow Before Viper Bundle
    
  • Whitemane Heroic Bundle
    
  • Sidewinder Ana Skin Pack
    
  • Imperator Stukov Skin Pack
    
  • Deathfang Genji Skin Pack
    

New Announcers

• Whitemane

New Skins

• Whitemane
  
  • Scarlet Whitemane
    
  • Twilight Whitemane
    
  • Celestial Empress Whitemane
    
  • Galactic Empress Whitemane
    
  • Warpspace Empress Whitemane
    
• Ana
  
  • Sidewinder Ana
    
  • Noxious Sidewinder Ana
    
  • Arctic Sidewinder Ana
    
• Stukov
  
  • Imperator Stukov
    
  • Noxious Imperator Stukov
    
  • Arctic Imperator Stukov
    
• Genji
  
  • Deathfang Genji
    
  • Noxious Deathfang Genji
    
  • Arctic Deathfang Genji
    
• Muradin
  
  • Butterscotch Kandy King Muradin
    
  • Frosted Kandy King Muradin
    
• Lunara
  
  • Emerald Lunara
    
• Murky
  
  • Clownfish Murky
    
• Chen
  
  • Pristine Chen
    
• Chromie
  
  • Obsidian Chromie
    

New Mounts

• Viper Dominator
  
  • Hazardous Viper Dominator
    
  • Noxious Viper Dominator
    

New Portraits, Sprays, and Emojis

• Several new emoji packs and portraits have also been added to the game. You can get a look in our most recent In-Development blog.

Bug Fixes
General

• Fixed a number of typo and tooltip errors across several aspects of the game.
  
• Fixed an issue causing some abilities to repeatedly automatically cast if right-click was held.
  
• Quick Cast: Fixed an issue causing some vector targeted abilities to behave as if quick cast was always enabled.

Sound

• Increased the volume of Alarak’s announcer pack.

Art

• Diablo: Fixed an issue with the geometry of Diablo’s tail.

Battlegrounds

• Alterac Pass: Fixed an issue that could cause the Cavalry’s aura effect to fail to display on low settings.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Hanzo: The Target Practice quest tracker will now differentiate between targets that have been hit 3 times and those who haven’t been hit at all.
  
• Leoric: Fixed an issue causing the visual effect seen on Heroes affected by Ominous Wraith to fail to appear.
  
• Lt. Morales: Healing Beam will no longer heal units affected by Time Stop.
  
• Medivh: Medivh the Black’s raven has been updated to match the theme of the skin.
  
• Medivh: Medivh can now be selected while in Raven Form when attempting to view his target info panel.
  
• Medivh: Portal Mastery portals can now be affected by cooldown reduction.

[ophion1990]

Curious to see what Chromie's winrate'll be like now that Bronze Talons is gone. People were pretty ornery about it's existence but it was the top picked and top winrate talent for a reason. It guaranteed some damage, no matter what. Also helped with push and getting objectives etc.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Ooh, Biotic Armor will actually be worth picking against some comps with that buff to it.

[RH92]

Curious to see what Chromie's winrate'll be like now that Bronze Talons is gone. People were pretty ornery about it's existence but it was the top picked and top winrate talent for a reason. It guaranteed some damage, no matter what. Also helped with push and getting objectives etc.

It is not gone, it is part of her trait now.

[Stormcall]

It is not gone, it is part of her trait now.

But she has to hit someone with her Q to benefit from it. It is no longer guaranteed damage, and it's now useless vs PvE objectives like the immortals on BoE or towers/keeps during pushes. Likewise it does you no good if you just suck at hitting Q, which does mean you prolly shouldn't be playing Chromie, but hey, maybe you QM'ed into a team that had Tracer, Illidan, and Genji so hitting would be hard no matter how good you are.

[ophion1990]

Yup, as Stormcall said, she has to hit the ability. She can no longer do a random Q for a strong AA on an objective, merc, building,... and she no longer has guarenteed hard hits against heroes, even when she misses her Q.

[RH92]

But she has to hit someone with her Q to benefit from it. It is no longer guaranteed damage, and it's now useless vs PvE objectives like the immortals on BoE or towers/keeps during pushes. Likewise it does you no good if you just suck at hitting Q, which does mean you prolly shouldn't be playing Chromie, but hey, maybe you QM'ed into a team that had Tracer, Illidan, and Genji so hitting would be hard no matter how good you are.

Which is a fucking good change.

Finally she has to land an ability in order to deal damage, not just randomly fire and still chunk you down without risking position due the absurd range.

[Stormcall]

Which is a fucking good change.

Finally she has to land an ability in order to deal damage, not just randomly fire and still chunk you down without risking position due the absurd range.

Reducing the range on it would accomplish the same thing, without removing basically all her damage against PvE objectives, merc pushes, buildings, etc.

[RH92]

Reducing the range on it would accomplish the same thing, without removing basically all her damage against PvE objectives, merc pushes, buildings, etc.

Why exactly should she be good at any of those things?

[Stormcall]

Why exactly should she be good at any of those things?

Because heros who don't provide anything but hero damage are generally considered bad choices in every situation(see Nova for another example)? Esp when the hero is reliant on skill shots which can be dodged or body blocked. Why exactly should she be totally useless at everything but fighting heroes?

[RH92]

Why exactly should she be totally useless at everything but fighting heroes?

Because she is extremely safe at doing so.

[Stormcall]

Because she is extremely safe at doing so.

So is Sgt Hammer. Shit ton of damage at long range, and if you do decide to dive her...knockback, wall, she's gone. But she can also siege the shit out of buildings and PvE objectives too. Whereas if you dive Chromie, she's basically dead unless she takes Bye Bye, which then takes her out of the fight anyways.

[RH92]

So is Sgt Hammer. Shit ton of damage at long range, and if you do decide to dive her...knockback, wall, she's gone. But she can also siege the shit out of buildings and PvE objectives too. Whereas if you dive Chromie, she's basically dead unless she takes Bye Bye, which then takes her out of the fight anyways.

Oh, I missed the part where Chromie also lost her Time Traps and became a sitting duck in recent patch. My bad.

[Stormcall]

Oh, I missed the part where Chromie also lost her Time Traps and became a sitting duck in recent patch. My bad.

Time Trap is not much of a defense if you don't run face first into her.

[RH92]

Time Trap is not much of a defense if you don't run face first into her.

Okay, let's revert all the changes and keep one of the worst designed Heroes.

Seriously though, people can bitch about Genji as much as they want. However unlike Chromie his kit comes together very well and depends on execution. Sure he can get resets and wipe out entire teams, but tell me how often you see that in your own Hero League games. Meanwhile old Chromie could get massive results with pure luck and still get a reward in form of Bronze Talons when missing abilities.

They are actually healthy changes for the game. She was one of the most obnoxious Heroes to play against and I don't think she was overpowered.

[devven9]

Okay, let's revert all the changes and keep one of the worst designed Heroes.

Seriously though, people can bitch about Genji as much as they want. However unlike Chromie his kit comes together very well and depends on execution. Sure he can get resets and wipe out entire teams, but tell me how often you see that in your own Hero League games. Meanwhile old Chromie could get massive results with pure luck and still get a reward in form of Bronze Talons when missing abilities.

They are actually healthy changes for the game. She was one of the most obnoxious Heroes to play against and I don't think she was overpowered.

I don't think anyone was saying that she was perfect as she was. It seems like they are just saying that this might be overkill and neuter her ability to be any kind of help outside of team fights. I think a range reduction on her bronze talons auto attacks or some number tweaks would have been a healthier change since now she can be seen as useless unless she lands a Q. Obviously we'll have to wait to see how these changes perform, but I'm not looking forward to feeling helpless when my team wants to do neutral objectives or when I fight an incredibly mobile team.

[Gallahadd]

They are actually healthy changes for the game. She was one of the most obnoxious Heroes to play against and I don't think she was overpowered.

I think this is a very important point to make. A character can be obnoxious AF and terrible to play against without being OP, per se. Chromie was an excellent case of this, because she could fail at everything that her character is meant to do, and still deal decent damage with Bronze Talons. That, to me, seems like bad design and I'm glad it's been changed.