Heroes Of The Storm PTR Notes — January 2, 2018

[Nerraw]

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until January 8. 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.


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New Hero: Blaze

Cpl. Miles "Blaze" Lewis has always been drawn to the flame, but it wasn't until he joined up with Raynor's Raiders that he put his pyromania to good use. He's seen his fair share of battles since then, and has never failed to bring the heat.

Trait

• Pyromania
  
  • Gain 25 Armor and deal 40 damage to nearby enemies every 0.5 seconds for 4 seconds. Each Hero hit by Flame Stream reduces Pyromania's cooldown by 5 seconds.

Basic Abilities

• Flame Stream (Q)
  
  • Fire two streams of flame that deal 83 damage to enemies hit. Flame Stream sets fire to Oil Spills it comes in contact with.
• Oil Spill (W)
  
  • Vector Targeting.
  • Dispense a slick of oil that lasts for 5 seconds and Slows enemies that come in contact with it by 40%. Flame Stream can set Oil Spills on fire for 2.5 seconds, dealing 18 damage every 0.3 seconds to enemies inside. While on fire, Oil Spills no longer Slow enemies. Additionally, Blaze is Healed for 49 Health every 0.3 seconds while standing in flaming Oil Spills. Stores up to 2 charges.
• Jet Propulsion (E)
  
  • After 0.5 seconds, charge forward, colliding with the first enemy Hero hit, dealing 52 damage to them and nearby enemy Heroes. Enemies hit are also Stunned for 1.25 seconds.

Heroic Abilities

• Bunker Drop (R)
  
  • After 0.5 seconds, deploy and enter a Bunker with 1300 Health. Blaze and his allies can enter and exit the Bunker at will. While in the Bunker, occupants gain access to Flamethrower, dealing 179 damage to enemies in a line. Exiting the Bunker grants 25 Armor for 2 seconds. Bunkers last 10 seconds, or until destroyed.
• Combustion (R)
  
  • Channel up to 2.6 seconds. Once Channeling ends, nearby enemies are Slowed by 60% and take 48 damage every 0.5 seconds. Combustion's Slow and damage over time durations are extended the longer Blaze Channels, from 1 second up to 5 seconds. Blaze's Movement Speed is reduced by 50% while Channeling.

Art

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Malfurion has received updated visual effects to coincide with Talent changes.

Battlegrounds

​Battlefield of Eternity

• The Minimap will now indicate upcoming Immortal spawn locations 30 seconds after the game begins.
  
  • Subsequent Immortal indicators will appear on the Minimap shortly after a previously summoned Immortal has been defeated.
  • Swap locations will not appear on the Minimap when an Immortal has been reduced to 50% Health.

​Heroes Brawl

• Dodge Brawl
  
  • Chromie’s Health has been increased from 3 to 5
  • Ghost Chromies now display player names overhead
  • The in-game camera will now lock to Ghost Chromie until a new round begins

Ranked Battleground Rotation

• The Battleground rotation for Ranked Play has not been changed.

Heroes

Support

Malfurion

Stats

• Basic Attack Damage reduced from 64 to 60

Abilities

• Regrowth (Q)
  
  • Mana cost reduced from 45 to 35
  • No longer has an initial heal effect
  • Heal amount per tick decreased from 27 to 20
  • Duration increased from 15 to 20 seconds
• Moonfire (W)
  
  • Mana cost reduced from 15 to 10
  • Damage reduced from 100 to 90
  • Added functionality:
    
    • For every enemy Hero hit with Moonfire, instantly heal all targets with an active Regrowth for 140
• Entangling Roots (E)
  
  • No longer affects non-Heroic targets
• Tranquility (R)
  
  • Duration reduced from 10 to 8 seconds
  • Cooldown reduced from 100 to 80 seconds
  • Mana cost reduced from 100 to 80
  • Added functionality:
    
    • All Heroes with an active Regrowth effect gain 10 Armor while in range of Tranquility

Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Shan’do’s Clarity (D)
    
    • Functionality changed:
      
      • The cooldown of Innervate regenerates 25% faster for each active Regrowth
  • Scouting Drone (Active)
    
    • Removed
  • New Talent – Nature’s Swiftness (Q)
    
    • Malfurion passively gains 5% Movement Speed for each active Regrowth
• Level 4
  
  • Full Moonfire (W)
    
    • Removed
  • Strangling Vines (E)
    
    • Moved from Level 7
    • New functionality:
      
      • Enemy Heroes rooted by Entangling Roots receive 25% less healing for 2 seconds
  • New Talent – Deep Roots (E)
    
    • Entangling Roots grow 25% larger and last 25% longer
• Level 7
  
  • Tenacious Roots (E)
    
    • Moved from Level 16
    • New functionality:
      
      • Root duration is increased by 25%. If Malfurion becomes stunned, refresh the cooldown of Entangling Roots
  • New Talent – Nature’s Cure (Active)
    
    • Activate: Remove all stuns, roots and slows from allies with an active Regrowth. 45 second cooldown.
  • New Talent – Wild Growth (W)
    
    • Every time your Moonfire hits an enemy Hero, increase the duration of all active Regrowths by 1 second
• Level 13
  
  • Shrink Ray (Active)
    
    • Removed
  • Life Seed (Passive)
    
    • Removed
  • Revitalize (Q)
    
    • Moved from Level 16
  • Hindering Moonfire (W)
    
    • Moved from Level 7
• Level 16
  
  • Ysera’s Gift (Q)
    
    • Bonus heal amount increased from 40 to 60%
  • New Talent – Moonlit Harmony (W)
    
    • Increase the heal of your Moonfire by 15% for every active Regrowth
  • New Talent – Nature's Balance (W)
    
    • Increase the area of Moonfire by 25% and the duration of Regrowth by 5 seconds
• Level 20
  
  • Serenity (R)
    
    • New functionality:
      
      • Every Hero hit with Moonfire lowers the cooldown of Tranquility by 3 seconds. While active, Tranquility's healing is increased by 10% for each active Regrowth
  • Storm Shield (Active)
    
    • Removed
  • Rewind (Active)
    
    • Removed
  • Lunar Shower (W)
    
    • Moved from Level 7
    • New functionality:
      
      • Hitting an enemy Hero reduces the cooldown of Moonfire by 1 second and ramps the damage of the next Moonfire by 20%, stacking up to 3 times
  • New Talent – Lifebloom (Q)
    
    • Casting Regrowth on a player instantly heals them for 10% of their missing Health

Warrior

Johanna

Abilities

• Falling Sword (R)
  
  • Johanna can no longer take damage or be targeted while initially casting Falling Sword​

Collection

General

• Items in the Collection have received updated UI colors to improve readability

New Bundle

• Blaze Heroic Bundle – Available until January 22, 2017

New Announcer

• Blaze

New Skins

• Blaze
  
  • Hazardous Blaze
  • Veteran Blaze
  • Fel Reaver Blaze
    
    • Abominable Fel Reaver Blaze
    • Coldfire Fel Reaver Blaze
    • Infernal Fel Reaver Blaze
    • Smoldering Fel Reaver Blaze
• Probius
  
  • Ara Tribe Probius
  • Nerazim Probius

Bug Fixes
General

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

Art

• Abathur: Casting Ultimate Evolution will no longer cause visual effects to persist on the terrain at Abathur’s previous location.
• Valla: The color of Lavendar Deputy Valla’s scarf has been updated to match the rest of the skin.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Abathur: Locusts will now correctly retain their selected skins during Ultimate Evolution.
• Chen: Fixed an issue that could cause Chen to become unresponsive if Wandering Keg’s duration expired while the barrel was too close to unpathable terrain.
• Garrosh: Talent descriptions for Inner Rage and Brute Force will no longer swap when selecting either Talent.
• Junkrat: Total Mayhem will no longer trigger twice if Junkrat is killed by the secondary Basic Attack damaged granted by the Giant Killer Talent.
• Junkrat: Casting Rocket Ride will no longer cause an empty Health Bar to appear.
• Junkrat: Fixed an issue in which Ripper Air could grant cooldown reduction to Concussion Mine if a Summon, such as a Creep Tumor, Healing Ward, etc., was also hit when the Mine was detonated.
• Nazeebo: Gargantuan Stomp can no longer be cast while the Gargantuan is stunned or polymorphed.
• Samuro: Illusion Master can no longer be cast while Samuro is airborne after being hit by an effects like Junkrat’s Concussion Mine detonation.
• Samuro: Issuing a Hold Position command to Samuro’s Mirror Images and then selecting one of them will no longer cause the others to cancel the Hold Position command.
• Zul’jin: Lacerate’s Talent icon is now correctly colored blue, rather than purple.

[melzas]

Really don't understand why they put so much attention to Malfurion, he sees a lot of play and seems rather balanced. Don't get why he would need changes this big. And most of all, they didn't remove drone or replace it with a wisp or something, it's so jarring to have a druid placing drones!

edit: actually they did remove the drone, yay...

[apepi]

Played him a bit....Honestly I feel what Blizzard say/do sometime do match what they seek the game to be. Look what they did to Malfurion. Very hard to get Burst heals now. After the first game playing him I was just wishing "Man I wish we had another healer on our team..." With no burst heals I have no idea how to survive burst....Blizzard keeps nerfing double support/support altogether yet they seem to make you want to play double support more? WTF.

It seems like Malf right now feels like a win more hero. If you are able to Moonfire people which allows you to heal people you are doing fine...but if you aren't/being focused? Your going to have a bad time.

Also Blaze seems too strong right now, he was wrecking me as Malf.

[Nerraw]

I did a thing to the OP.

[dejec1989]

There is a * next to the Johanna change, am I being blind as I can't see the * some where else.

[Nerraw]

There is a * next to the Johanna change, am I being blind as I can't see the * some where else.

Oh, that's an artifact from the converter I'm using. Forgot to check for superfluous *s this time. Many thanks!

[TEHPALLYTANK]

"Abathur: Casting Ultimate Evolution will no longer cause visual effects to persist on the terrain at Abathur’s previous location."

Whoo, an Abathur buff!

[apepi]

"Abathur: Casting Ultimate Evolution will no longer cause visual effects to persist on the terrain at Abathur’s previous location."

Whoo, an Abathur buff!

I thought that was intended? I wish Casting Ultimate Evolution would not give you the status effects of the hero that you copied...being stunned when just using it sucks.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

I thought that was intended? I wish Casting Ultimate Evolution would not give you the status effects of the hero that you copied...being stunned when just using it sucks.

I thought it was intended too, but it apparently isn't since they did list it as a bug fix. Either way I'll take it, even a minor buff to a highly situational tactic on Abathur is welcome considering how hard most other specialists can counter him.

[Deleted]

Malf got like 3 reworks while raynor still stays untouched /confused

[ophion1990]

Malf got like 3 reworks while raynor still stays untouched /confused

They kinda touched upon their reasoning behind reworks in one of the Q&A's. Malf was in a bad spot and basicly unpickable while there were very few supports in the game to begin with, so he got reworked. He became a very dominant healer overall instead of existing as a "sustain" support so they reworked him again. After that we had the great support nerfs of 2017 so they had to give him a new talent in order to compensate for the loss of his wave/camp clear talent. I'm guessing this rework was them reimagining how they wanted a supportive druid to look within the Nexus and will probably be the last one, atleast for a while. Compared to all the other ones who were more of a nescessity for balance reasons.

That said, Raynor is confirmed to be getting a rework, it's just a matter of waiting for it to finally be done.