Heroes of the Storm Balance Patch Notes - March 21, 2018

[Nerraw]

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


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• Battlegrounds
• Heroes
• Bug Fixes

Battlegrounds

Towers of Doom

• Increased the respawn timer of Sapper Camps by 30 seconds.

Heroes

Assassin

Greymane


Abilities

• Razor Swipe (Q)
  
  • Cooldown increased from 3 to 4 seconds

Talents

• Level 13
  
  • Visceral Attacks (Q)
    
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds per Basic Attack

Developer Comment: We’re increasing the cooldown of Razor Swipe in an effort to stem some of Greymane’s effectiveness when taking Mercenaries and clearing Minion waves. Currently, Greymane’s play-style is great, but he does everything a little too well, which makes him a consistently safe pick. To curb this, we’d like to remove some of the PvE-oriented power from his kit.


Maiev


Abilities

• Vault of Wardens (D)
  
  • Cooldown increased from 9 to 12 seconds
• Fan of Knives (Q)
  
  • Damage reduced from 162 to 152
• Containment Disk (R)
  
  • Cooldown reduced from 65 to 50 seconds
• Warden’s Cage (R)
  
  • Cooldown increased from 80 to 100 seconds

Talents

• Level 7
  
  • Blade Dance (Q)
    
    • Damage reduced from 54 to 50
• Level 13
  
  • Shadow Armor (E)
    
    • Armor reduced from 25 to 20

Developer Comment: Maiev is still a powerhouse in the Nexus. To combat this, we’re reducing Maiev’s damage potential by lowering Fan of Knives damage and Blade Dance (which has powerful synergy with Armored Assault, another overperforming Talent.) We’re also allowing opponents more opportunities to punish Maiev by increasing Vault of the Wardens’ cooldown and reducing the power of Shadow Armor.


Thrall


Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Crash Lightning (Q)
    
    • Maximum damage bonus reduced from 480 to 360
    • Quest completion reward requirement increased from 20 to 30 stacks

Developer Comment: With the increased bounce range of Chain lightning, the Crash Lightning talent has become overly dominant. While we enjoy the build, as it allows Thrall to play outside of the solo-lane, in its current state it is simply too powerful. By lowering the maximum stacks, we’re reducing the upper damage limit to lessen the impact of the extreme situations where Thrall is completely stacked. Additionally, with the Quest Completion moving back to 30 stacks, it’s going to be harder for Thrall to finish the talent, pushing this power-spike to later in the match.


Valla


Abilities

• Multishot (W)
  
  • Damage increased from 165 to 172

Zul'jin


Stats

• Basic Attack damage increased from 90 to 94

Talents

• Level 13
  
  • Ensnare (Active)
    
    • Cooldown reduced from 60 to 45 seconds

Specialist

Medivh


Talents

• Level 7
  
  • Arcane Explosion (W)
    
    • Additional damage from enemy damage absorbed reduced from 365 to 350
  • Force of Magic (W)
    
    • Bonus Spell Power duration increased from 12 to 15 seconds
• Level 13
  
  • Reabsorption (W)
    
    • Healing amount increased from 50 to 60%

Support

Auriel


Stats

• Basic Attack damage increased from 57 to 68

Abilities

• Detainment Strike (E)
  
  • Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds
• Resurrect (R)
  
  • Range increased from 5 to 7
  • Cooldown reduced from 100 to 80 seconds

Talents

• Level 7
  
  • Energized Cord (Passive)
    
    • Energy stored from Basic Attacks against non-Heroic targets reduced from 50 to 40%
• Level 13
  
  • Blinding Flash (Q)
    
    • Blind duration reduced from 2.25 to 2 seconds
• Level 20
  
  • Diamond Resolve (R)
    
    • Armor increased from 50 to 60
  • Angelic Flight (Active)
    
    • Cooldown reduced from 45 to 30 seconds

Developer Comment: Auriel has been overlooked in favor of other supports recently, so to increase her self-Hope generation and play-making potential, we’re increasing her Basic Attack damage and reducing the cooldown of Detainment Strike. We’ve also made some Talent adjustments so players feel like they have a greater variety of choices at the various tiers.


Malfurion


Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Nature’s Swiftness (Q)
    
    • Movement Speed reduced from 5 to 4% per Hero affected by Regrowth
• Level 16
  
  • Nature’s Balance (Q/W)
    
    • Bonus Regrowth duration reduced from 5 to 3 seconds

Warrior

Artanis


Abilities

• Blade Dash (Q)
  
  • Mana cost reduced from 65 to 55
• Twin Blades (W)
  
  • Mana cost reduced from 25 to 20

Talents

• Level 13
  
  • Templar’s Zeal (Q)
    
    • Faster cooldown rate increased from 200 to 300%

Blaze


Abilities

• Bunker Drop (R)
  
  • Cooldown increased from 40 to 50 seconds
  • Exit Bunker now has a 1 Second cooldown before it can be used

Developer Comment: While we love the creative uses of Bunker Drop, at the higher levels of play it is slightly too effective. These changes are designed to decrease the overall power of the Bunker when it’s used purely to dodge enemy abilities and clear debuffs. We’d like to ensure that players who get into the Bunker are committed to being inside, if only briefly.


Sonya


Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Furious Blow (W)
    
    • Damage bonus increased from 40 to 50%
• Level 4
  
  • Battle Rage (Active)
    
    • Max charges reduced from 3 to 2
    • Charge use cooldown increased from 5 to 8 seconds
• Level 13
  
  • Mystical Spear (Q)
    
    • Cooldown reduction reduced from 3 to 2 seconds
• Level 16
  
  • Rampage (Passive)
    
    • Ancient Spear cooldown reduction decreased from .75 to .5 seconds

Developer Comment: Sonya is getting a bit too much value out of the combination of all the Ancient Spear talents, so we’re reducing the amount of cooldown reduction she gets to keep these from being the default choices. We’re also reducing the healing potential of Battle Rage at level 4 as it was providing a bit too much generic survivability for an early game talent. Finally, we’re increasing the damage bonus provided by Furious Blows to make it a more attractive damage option against the other two survivability talents.


Tyrael


Talents

• Level 1
  
  • Justice for All (W)
    
    • Allied Shield bonus reduced from 100 to 75%

Bug Fixes

General

• Tyrael: Fixed an issue causing some Mecha Tyrael skins to appear untextured.
• Johanna: Fixed an issue causing a placeholder sphere to appear when using Johanna’s Shield Glare ability with an Enforcer skin equipped.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Heroes can no longer cast Area-of-Effect abilities globally before the gates open.
• Malthael: Fixed an issue with the size of Death Shroud’s area of effect.
• Samuro: Fixed an issue with the Three Blade Style talent that prevented Mirror Images from gaining bonus health.
• Samuro: Fixed an issue causing the Quest Complete fanfare to play every time Mirror Images was cast after choosing the Way of Illusion talent.
• Valla: Fixed an issue causing the Punishment talent to deal less bonus damage than intended.

[DesoPL]

Blaze is still fine.

[ThatsOurEric]

Good, Maiev needed those. She was stupidly overpowered.

[Nikkaszal]

Good nerfs on Sonya. Her spear build is ridiculous atm.

[Igi]

Maiev changes are atrocious. Blizzard keeps balancing this game around player skill. She was already easily counterable, you just had to use your brain, which is something an average hots player doesn't do.

[RH92]

Maiev changes are atrocious. Blizzard keeps balancing this game around player skill. She was already easily counterable, you just had to use your brain, which is something an average hots player doesn't do.

The nerf to her trait is a welcome one, but why keep nerfing her damage when it was fine already.

Blizzard keeps gutting damage of every melee Assassin in the game as if Assassins killing people was a bad thing while most Bruisers can run rampart with same damage and even stronger survivability.

[melzas]

Just noticed unannounced change - you can no longer report for abusive chat someone who didn't say a word in chat during the game (don't ask me how I found out :P)

[AeneasBK]

Maiev changes are atrocious. Blizzard keeps balancing this game around player skill. She was already easily counterable, you just had to use your brain, which is something an average hots player doesn't do.

Haven't they, in a roundabout way, essentially argued that there is a tier of heroes for competitive play, and a tier for more casual play, and if a hero becomes too powerful in the latter, they will nerf them regardless of their effectiveness at the former? The Dev comments around some balance changes are basically "Too powerful in inexperienced hands" - in this case, Maeiv...

[ophion1990]

Haven't they, in a roundabout way, essentially argued that there is a tier of heroes for competitive play, and a tier for more casual play, and if a hero becomes too powerful in the latter, they will nerf them regardless of their effectiveness at the former? The Dev comments around some balance changes are basically "Too powerful in inexperienced hands" - in this case, Maeiv...

Yup, same for Genji and Medivh, even Tyrael, to some extent. Though in Tyrael's case it's more Tyrael being good in a setting where everyone is on voice chat and atleast somewhat familiar with the hero, he's not all that hard to get value out of. Zeratul and Abathur are 2 more heroes that come to mind, though probably to a lesser extent.

[AeneasBK]

Yup, same for Genji and Medivh, even Tyrael, to some extent. Though in Tyrael's case it's more Tyrael being good in a setting where everyone is on voice chat and atleast somewhat familiar with the hero, he's not all that hard to get value out of. Zeratul and Abathur are 2 more heroes that come to mind, though probably to a lesser extent.

Yeah I mean, I'm pretty casual, since alpha I don't think I've done a single Hero league or team league game; strictly Quick Play So I kinda like that; unlike a lot of other competetive or semi-competetive games they don't zealously balance around the top 1%, as HotS is one of my "time to relax" go-to game...

Although I still hate Tracer lol

[Deleted]

Maiev was pick/banned in every single game at Western and Eastern Clash, this idea that she's only overpowered against bad players is hilarious. If anything she's even more broken at the top level where her set up ability is actually exploited.