Heroes of the Storm PTR Notes — November 6, 2017

[Nerraw]

Heroes of the Storm PTR Notes — November 6, 2017
Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until November 13. During this time, we kindly request your assistance in trying out the new content before we officially release the patch. Just like last time, if you encounter any bugs or other issues during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.


Jump to Section:

• General
• New Hero
• AI
• Art
• Battlegrounds
• User Interface
• Heroes
• Collection
• Bug Fixes

General
Dragons of the Nexus Event Quest
A host of new portrait rewards are ready to swoop into your collection as our Dragons of the Nexus event takes flight! The event kicks off Tuesday, November 14, and lasts until December 12, so be sure to login and complete the quests below to start claiming your rewards.

• Login Reward
  
  • Quest: Log in to Heroes of the Storm during the Dragons of the Nexus event.
    
    • Reward: Stained Glass Alexstrasza and Hanzo Portrait
  
  
• 3 Part Quest Chain
  
  • Play Heroes of the Storm in Versus AI, Quick Match, Ranked, or Unranked to advance quest progress. Only one part will be active at any time, and each quest must be completed in order.
  • Part 1: Play 5 games
    
    • Reward: Dragonqueen Alexstrasza Portrait
  • Part 2: Play 5 games
    
    • Reward: Dragonstrike Portrait
  • Part 3: Achieve 90 takedowns in winning games
    
    • Reward: Stained Glass Alexstrasza and Hanzo Portrait
  
  

• PTR Note: While elements of this event may be visible on the Public Test Realm, any progress or rewards earned during PTR testing will not transfer to the live version of the game when this patch is officially released next week.

New Hero: Alexstrasza

Alexstrasza, the queen of dragons, was empowered by the titans to be the guardian of all life on Azeroth. She has aided mortals time and again, even at great personal cost. Now, she soars across the Nexus, protecting life wherever she finds it.

Trait

• Dragonqueen
  
  • After 1.25 seconds, transform into a dragon and gain 500 Health. While Dragonqueen is active, Alexstrasza's Basic Abilities are empowered, her Basic Attacks deal 143 damage and heal allied Heroes for 43 in an arc in front of her, and the duration of incoming Slows, Roots, Blinds, and Stuns is reduced by 50%. Lasts 15 seconds.

Basic Abilities

• Gift of Life (Q)
  
  • Sacrifice 15% of Alexstrasza's current Health, healing an ally for 150% of that amount.
  • Dragonqueen: Breath of Life cooldown greatly reduced and does not cost Health.
• Abundance (W)
  
  • Plant a seed of healing that blooms after 3 seconds, healing nearby allied Heroes for 20% of their maximum Health.
  • Dragonqueen: Preservation heal area and amount greatly increased.
• Flame Buffet (E)
  
  • Launch a fireball, Burning enemies hit for 75 damage over 5.5 seconds.Hitting enemies that are already Burning deals 125 bonus damage upon impact, Slows them by 40% decaying over 2 seconds, and refunds the Mana cost.
  • Dragonqueen: Wing Buffet damage and Knockback enemies in an arc.

Heroic Abilities

• Life-Binder (R)
  
  • Bind Alexstrasa's life force with an allied Hero. After 2 seconds, the Hero with a lower percentage of Health is set to the same Health percentage as the other Hero..
• Cleansing Flame (R)
  
  • After 1.25 seconds, take to the sky and drop fireballs at the position of your mouse cursor every 1.2 seconds for 6 seconds. Each fireball restores 300 Health to nearby allied Heroes, and deals 150 damage to nearby enemies.2 seconds after dropping all fireballs, Alexstrasza lands at the position of your mouse cursor.

AI

General

• Made improvements to Battleground strategies used by Elite AI Heroes.
• Several additional Heroes have received tactical AI improvements, including:
  
  • Greymane
  • Johanna
  • Ragnaros
  • Rehgar
  • Rexxar
  • Valeera
  • Zarya

Art

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Li Li has received updated visual effects to coincide with Talent changes.
• Sgt. Hammer's Basic Attacks during Siege Mode now better convey area of effect damage.

Battlegrounds

• Haunted Mines
  
  • Issuing a move order between levels will now have the player automatically use the entrance or exit that is the closest distance to their issued order
  • Summoned Golem
    
    • Attack speed is no longer reduced by Fort and Keep attacks
    • Will no longer interrupts its attack mid-swing to cast Slam or Roots
    • No longer stops to crush player created walls, but will now pass through them effortlessly
• Bloodlust Brawl
  
  • All Minions, Mercs, and the Dragon Knight now have permanent Bloodlust.

Developer Comment: When looking at this Brawl, we really love the Bloodlust buff. By powering up the Players and the Dragon Knight so much, the poor Minions really struggled to provide much value during the Brawl. In order to bring them up to speed with their Mercenary buddies, we’ve decided that all Minions could use permanent Bloodlust as well.


Ranked Battleground Rotation Update

• Added to Rotation
  
  • Battlefield of Eternity
  • Infernal Shrines
• Removed from Rotation
  
  • Haunted Mines
  • Garden of Terror
• The full Ranked Battleground Rotation is now as follows:
  
  • Battlefield of Eternity
  • Braxis Holdout
  • Cursed Hollow
  • Dragon Shire
  • Infernal Shrines
  • Sky Temple
  • Tomb of the Spider Queen
  • Towers of Doom
  • Volskaya Foundry

User Interface

In-Game UI

• Capture Points
  
  • Volskaya Foundry objective UI will now display “Contested” text when members of both teams are actively fighting over a capture point.
• Core
  
  • Notifications that indicate when the allied Core is under attack have been made more apparent.
• Talent Tier Advantage Callouts
  
  • In-game chat messages will now automatically appear for all players when a team reaches levels 10 and 20 in order to more clearly indicate when one team has a Heroic Ability or Storm Talent tier advantage over the other.
  • A follow-up message will appear when the second team reaches levels 10 and 20 to indicate that Heroic Abilities or Storm Talents are now available to both teams.

Heroes

Support

Li Li

Abilities

• Fast Feet (Trait)
  
  • Added Functionality:
    
    • Basic Ability Cooldowns recharge 50% faster while Fast Feet is active.
  
  
• Healing Brew (Q)
  
  • Cooldown increased from 3 to 4 seconds
  • Range reduced from 7 to 6
  • Mana Cost reduced from 30 to 25
• Cloud Serpent (W)
  
  • Mana Cost increased from 30 to 40
  • Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
  • Attack Speed reduced from .75 to 1 attacks per second
  • Damage increased from 25 to 27
  • Added Functionality:
    
    • Each time a Cloud Serpent attacks, the hero it is attached to is healed for a small amount.
  
  

• Blinding Wind (E)
  
  • Cooldown increased from 9 to 12 seconds
  • Duration reduced from 2 to 1.5 seconds
  • Mana Cost decreased from 35 to 30
• Jug of 1,000 Cups (R)
  
  • Cooldown reduced from 70 seconds to 20 seconds
  • Jug of 1,000 Cups can now be cancelled early
  • Added Functionality:
    
    • Each time an ally is healed by Jug of 1,000 Cups, its cooldown is increased by 2 seconds, to a maximum of 50 additional seconds.

Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Conjurer’s Pursuit (Passive)
    
    • Removed
  • Pro Toss (Q)
    
    • Removed
  • Timeless Creature (W)
    
    • Removed
  • Gale Force (E)
    
    • Moved to Level 13
    • New Functionality
      
      • Increases the duration of Blinding Wind from 2 to 3 seconds. Lili’s Basic Attacks against Blinded Heroes deal 50% more damage.
    
    
  • (New Talent) Free Drinks (Q)
    
    • If Healing Brew heals a target under 50% health, its Cooldown is reduced by 1 second and its mana cost is refunded.
  • (New Talent) Wind Serpent (W)
    
    • Cloud Serpent’s Cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds each time you hit a Hero with Blinding Wind.
  • (New Talent) Eager Adventurer (Trait)
    
    • Increases the duration of Fast Feet by 50% and Mana Regeneration is increased by 150% while Fast Feet is active.
• Level 4
  
  • Healing Ward (Active)
    
    • Removed
  • Mending Serpent (W)
    
    • Removed
  • Mass Vortex (E)
    
    • Moved to Level 13
    • New functionality:
      
      • Blinding Wind hits an additional target. If all targets hit are Heroes, they take 75% increased damage from Blinding Wind.
  • Lingering Blind (E)
    
    • Removed
• Level 7
  
  • Pitch Perfect (Q)
    
    • Removed
  • The Good Stuff (Q)
    
    • New functionality:
      
      • Healing Brew heals for an additional amount over 3 seconds. While Fast Feet is active, this amount is increased by 100%.
  • Lightning Serpent (W)
    
    • New functionality:
      
      • Cloud Serpent attacks bounce to 2 nearby Heroes for 50% damage.
  • Cleanse (Active)
    
    • Removed
  • (New Talent) Let's Go!
    
    • Activate to heal allied Hero for a small amount and make them unstoppable for 1 second. 40 second cooldown. The cooldown of this ability is affected by Fast Feet.
• Level 13
  
  • Elusive Feet (Trait)
    
    • Removed
  • Hindering Winds (E)
    
    • Moved to Level 4
    • Slow amount increased to 30%.
  • Surging Winds (E)
    
    • New functionality:
      
      • If at least two targets of Blinding Wind are Heroes, gain 10 Spellpower for 10 seconds and reduce the cooldown of Blinding Wind by 3 seconds.
    
    
  • Shrink Ray (Active)
    
    • Removed
  
  
• Level 16
  
  • Shake It Off (Trait)
    
    • Moved to Level 20
    • New functionality:
      
      • While Fast Feet is active, gain 8 Armor per second, to a maximum of 30 armor.
    
    
  • Safety Sprint (Active)
    
    • Moved to Level 4
    • New functionality:
      
      • Activate to gain Fast Feet and increase its movement speed bonus to 30% for 2 seconds. 30 second cooldown.
    
    
  • Serpent Sidekick (W)
    
    • Moved to Level 4
    • New functionality:
      
      • Each time a Cloud Serpent attacks a Hero, its duration is increased by .5 seconds.
    
    
  • (New Talent) Pick Me Up (Q)
    
    • Healing Brew heals for 33% more if the target is under 50% life.
  • (New Talent) Blessings of Yu'lon (W)
    
    • Cloud Serpent attacks heal its bearer for an additional 1.5% of their maximum life.
  
  
• Level 20
  
  • Kung Fu Hustle (Trait)
    
    • Removed
  • Storm Shield (Active)
    
    • Removed
  • (New Talent) Mistweaver (Active)
    
    • Activate to heal all nearby Allies. 30 second cooldown. The cooldown of this ability is reduced by 1 second each time you or your cloud serpent attacks.

Collection

Hero Price Reduction

• Li-Ming’s prices have been reduced to 7,000 Gold and 625 Gems.

New Bundles – The following new Bundles and Skin Packs are available for a limited time!

• Alexstrasza Heroic Bundle
• Alexstrasza Skin Pack
• Heroes of Luxoria Bundle
• Superheroes of the Storm Bundle
• Team Spirit Bundle

New Announcers

• Alarak
• Alexstrasza

New Skins

• Alexstrasza
  
  • Ascendant Alexstrasza
  • Jade Alexstrasza
  • Saronite Alexstrasza
  • Snowfall Alexstrasza
  • Dark Queen Alexstrasza
    
    • Divine Queen Alexstrasza
    • Ice Queen Alexstrasza
    • Iridescent Queen Alexstrasza
    • Molten Queen Alexstrasza
  • Dragon Aspect Alexstrasza
    
    • Death Aspect Alexstrasza
    • Kaldorei Aspect Alexstrasza
    • Timeless Aspect Alexstrasza
    • Wild Aspect Alexstrasza
• Azmodan
  
  • Three-peat Azmodunk
• Cho’gall
  
  • Fel Warlord Cho'gall
  • Highmaul Cho'gall
• Chromie
  
  • Elegant Dream Genie Chromie
  • Verdant Dream Genie Chromie
  • Violet Fel Queen Chromie
• Greymane
  
  • Blackwald Hunter Greymane
• Kael'thas
  
  • Spectre Cyberhawk Kael’thas
• Kharazim
  
  • Sanguine Tiger Kharazim
  • Wildstone Tiger Kharazim
• Medivh
  
  • Arcane Medivh
  • Emerald Knight Owl Medivh
• Samuro
  
  • Midnight Monkey King Samuro
• Varian
  
  • Obsidian Lionheart Varian

Bug Fixes
General

• Fixed a number of typo and tooltip errors across several aspects of the game.

AI

• Ana: AI Ana will no longer attempt to Heal allied Garden Terrors, Dragon Knights, or Triglav Protectors.
• Haunted Mines: Fixed an issue in which AI Heroes would “B-Step” after the neutral Grave Golem was killed, rather than completing their Hearthstone casts.
• Melee Lane Units: Melee Minions, Mercenaries, and Braxis Holdout’s melee Zerg units will no longer ignore an enemy Ragnaros in Molten Core form.

Art

• Malthael: Movement Speed bonus visual effects will now correctly appear if Malthael learns On a Pale Horse while mounted.
• Mounts: Visual effects that appear around the Golden Nexus Charger will now correctly animate while using Low graphic settings.
• Varian: Will once again leap toward his Colossus Smash target.

Battlegrounds

• Cursed Hollow: Sgt. Hammer’s Spider Mines will now correctly attack enemy Structures affected by the Raven Lord’s Curse.
• Dragon Shire: Removed two targeting indicators for Dehaka’s Brushstalker that appeared in locations where no Brush was present.
• Try Mode: Kel’Thuzad’s Master of the Cold Dark Trait Quest will now correctly apply its cooldown reduction bonus after using the Complete Quests button.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Abathur: Casting Ultimate Evolution on Jaina will no longer cause Abathur’s Calldown: MULE Talent icon to permanently switch to the icon for Improved Ice Block.
• Abathur: Attempting to cast Toxic Next in an area that is already densely populated by existing Nests will no longer consume a charge without placing a new Toxic Nest.
• Alarak: Learning Counter-Strike or Deadly Charge at level 20 will now correctly append that Ability’s description to the Sadism Trait tooltip.
• Azmodan: All Shall Burn’s tooltip has been updated to clarify that its bonus Structure damage is a flat amount, rather than percentage-based.
• Ana: A targeting indicator will now correctly appear when using Healing Dart charges granted by Active Reload.
• Chromie: Fixed an issue in which certain Abilities, like Artanis’ Blade Dash, could prevent Temporal Loop from returning the target to its original location.
• Brightwing: Arcane Flare’s targeting indicator will no longer visually persist on the terrain if cast outside the Gate during the pre-game countdown.
• Garrosh: Stukov’s Weighted Pustule will no longer be removed from targets hit by Wrecking Ball or Into the Fray.
• Gazlowe: Fixed an issue preventing Deth Lazor from being cast with less than 60 Mana after learning Hyperfocus Coils
• Johanna: Blessed Hammer can no longer be activated during Falling Sword.
• Junkrat: Fixed an issue in which certain Abilities, like Genji’s Dragonblade and Stitches’ Hook, could hit Junkrat during Rocket Ride just before he makes impact.
• Kel’Thuzad: Glacial Spike will now correctly deal bonus damage granted by Ability Power gains.
• Kel’Thuzad: The Hungering Cold Talent will now correctly deal its bonus damage to non-Heroic enemies rooted by Frost Nova.
• Lt. Morales: Fixed an issue in which Lt. Morales could become immune to certain Stasis effects like Void Prison and Devouring Maw until death.
• Lt. Morales: Casting Reinforcements in the allied Hall of Storms will no longer permanently remove Heroes inside the Medivac within from the Battleground’s playable area.
• Lúcio: Learning Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop and then walking over Junkrat’s Steel Trap will no longer cause that trap to visually persist on Lúcio’s model.
• Stukov: Nazeebo will now correctly be pushed if he is hit by Massive Shove while channeling Ravenous Spirit.
• Tassadar: The Prismatic Link Talent will no longer cause Tassadar’s Basic Attack to chain to Kharazim during Seven-Sided Strike.
• Tassadar: The Templar’s Will Talent’s second reward will no longer increase Basic Attack range in Archon form.
• Uther: After learning Divine Protection, Devotion Armor will now stack correctly when Healing an allied Hero using Flash of Light during Eternal Vanguard.
• Uther: Will no longer be teleported back to the allied Hall of Storms if Redemption’s cooldown completes while in Eternal Vanguard form.
• Valla: Manticore will no longer deal its bonus damage to Valla’s Basic Attack target while Valla is Blind or the target is Evading.
• Zagara: Nydus Network can no longer prevent Heroes from walking out of their Hall of Storms.

User Interface

• Death Recap: The Ability icon and description for Gazlowe’s Rock-It! Turret will now correctly appear on the Death Recap screen.
• Hotkeys: The Move command’s Quick Cast hotkey is no longer customizable.

[RH92]

Holy shit, finally!

Alarak announcer!

[Nerraw]

PTR client just started updating.

[apepi]

If everyone plays Alex and lets me play Li Li, I will be happy.

[DesoPL]

ALARAK MY LORD PLEASE! INSULT ME MORE!

At long last! xD

[ophion1990]

Li-Ming price reduction? What year is it, 2016?

Love the Alarak announcer, even though it's probably gonna be legendary. Love the new BG rotation aswell, 2 of the shittiest maps replaced by the best 2-lane map and one of my all around favorites. Not really surprised we don't get any other new skins, just got Hallow's End and we'll probably get another bigger batch of skins for Winter Veil aswell.

[Nerraw]

and we'll probably get another bigger batch of skins for Winter Veil aswell.

I fully expect the next patch to be absolutely massive.

[RH92]

Love the Alarak announcer, even though it's probably gonna be legendary.

It costs 1600 shards on PTR.

[RadasNoir]

It costs 1600 shards on PTR.

Whelp, there goes the shards I've been saving up. Hopefully I'll be able to stock up again prior to the Winter's Veil event.

Nice to see that Li Li's getting some changes, too. She used to be one of my favorite supports, but had kind been left in the dust with the arrival of newer, more mechanically interesting support characters.

[DesoPL]

But Li-Ming price reduction is highly unexpected. But since 2.0 release there was none price reduction for older heroes.

[apepi]

So thoughts....Li Li's damage feels like it was nerfed, but now with Eager Adventurer her mana is great. I think I only had to hearth for mana once? She is less verastile, which I don't like, and while the 13 level talents are great, I don't like that they are all E based. For guiding which is the best, Mass Vortex has the most potential to do the most damage or no more damage if you don't have 3 targets, but it is useful clearing waves and mercs, Gale Force is pretty much a straight 70dps boost to a single target, and single target is lower than Surging Winds but it has a chance to heal more and deal more damage with AOE damage from W builds and another person getting his by another E. I really can't test aoe capabilities in try mode, perhaps I'll get excel out to math it.

Li Li is somewhat a lot more tanky, which can be very fun to play at 20.

[Ryme]

Holy shit, finally!

Alarak announcer!

Mmmm, acceptable.

[Nerraw]

"Your keep has been taken. Oh, the irony."

Day 1 purchase.

- - - Updated - - -

Looks like they adjusted the battleground rotation on the blog, so I've edited the OP to match. This rotation is looking sweeeet!

[Arrowstormen]

I love my Brightwing announcer, but John de Lancie announcing your game as a trickster jerk ain't bad either.

[Nikkaszal]

Alarak announcer is clearly the best thing to be added to the game ever

This is it, boys. This is the peak

[nVIDIA]

camera improvements coming with this patch?
nothing about camera in notes!

[Fabray]

camera improvements coming with this patch?
nothing about camera in notes!

Think all (most?) of those system changes are coming with the next ranked season in December. They said there'll be a three week PTR with all that stuff at the end of this month.

[AlmightyGerkin]

98% happy cause of alarak announcer finally here 2% for the rest cause meh.

[Ryme]

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/...017-11-14-2017

Live notes, no changes from PTR.

[Nerraw]

Does Sgt. Hammer need a rework?
She could use one...