Heroes of the Storm PTR Patch Notes - October 8, 2018

[Nerraw]

Mal’Ganis Spotlight

Heroes of the Storm PTR Patch Notes – October 8, 2018

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until October 15. 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:

• Battlegrounds
  
• New Hero
  
• Design
  
• Collection
  
• Bug Fixes

Battlegrounds

Unranked Battleground Rotation:

• The Battleground Rotation for all Unranked modes has been adjusted to the following:
  
  • Alterac Pass
    
  • Battlefield of Eternity
    
  • Blackheart's Bay
    
  • Braxis Holdout
    
  • Cursed Hollow
    
  • Dragon Shire
    
  • Garden of Terror
    
  • Hanamura Temple
    
  • Infernal Shrines
    
  • Sky Temple
    
  • Tomb of the Spider Queen
    
  • Towers of Doom
    
  • Volskaya Foundry
    
  • Warhead Junction
    

• Haunted Mines: Haunted Mines has been removed from all gameplay modes. It will still be available to be played in Custom Games.
  
• Mercenaries: Sappers can no longer have their charge attack interrupted by a Silence effect. Silencing Sappers will still prevent them from starting to channel this ability

New Hero: Mal'Ganis (Warrior)

Cunning and intelligent, Mal'Ganis was chosen to bring Arthas Menthil into the Lich King's service. After manipulating the prince into purging Stratholme of life, he finally fell to Frostmourne as Arthas's first act as the Lich King's champion... yet a demon does not die so easily.

Trait

• Vampiric Touch
  
  • Mal'Ganis heals for 45% of damage dealt to enemy Heroes and 15% of damage dealt to non-Heroes.
    

Basic Abilities

• Fel Claws (Q)
  
  • Violently slash in the chosen direction, dealing 78 damage to enemies.
    
  • Reactivate to slash up to 2 more times. The third slash Stuns enemies for 0.75 seconds.
    
• Necrotic Embrace (W)
  
  • Desecrate the air, dealing 119 damage to nearby enemies and gaining 25 Armor for 3 seconds.
    
• Night Rush (E)
  
  • After 0.75 seconds, gain 50% Movement Speed for 2 seconds. While active, Mal'Ganis can move through enemy Heroes and put them to Sleep for 2.5 seconds.
    

Heroic Abilities

• Carrion Swarm (R)
  
  • After 1 second, disperse into an Invulnerable swarm of bats for 3 seconds, dealing 74 damage per second to enemies.
    
  • Vampiric Touch heals for 100% of Carrion Swarm's damage to Heroes.
    
• Dark Conversion (R)
  
  • Channel on an enemy Hero for 0.75 seconds, then swap Health percentages with the target over 3 seconds.
    

Design

Support Heroes

• We've unified certain Support abilities to only work on Heroes (not minions or Mercenaries):

Alexstrasza

• Gift of Life (Q)
  
• Breath of Life (Q-Dragon Form)

Brightwing

• Pixie Dust (E)

Li Li

• Healing Brew (Q)

Rehgar

• Healing Totem (Active - Level 4)
  
• Earth Shield (W - Level 13)

Tyrande

• Light of Elune (Q)

Uther

• Holy Light (Q)

Developer Comment: We're unifying the vast majority of our heals for their intended purpose: healing allied Heroes. We're maintaining the ability for a few heals to affected Minions still where we think it's an important part of their gameplay: Lt. Morales Healing Beam (so that she can heal herself), Rehgar's Chain Heal (to allow bounces travel across Minions), Tyrael's Righteousness (because shielding Minion waves is part of the lane interaction with the ability), and Uther's Holy Radiance (to unify expectations, since it can damage Minions).


Heroes

Support

Ana


Abilities

• Healing Dart (A)
  
  • Healing Dart will now pierce targets at full Health.
    

Collection

New Bundles

• The following new bundles are available for a limited time!
  
  • Mal'Ganis Heroic Bundle
    
  • Death & Undeath Bundle
    
  • Meat Wagon Bundle
    

New Announcer

• Mal'Ganis

New Mount

• Meat Wagon
  
  • Northrend Meat Wagon
    
  • Blackrock Meat Wagon
    
  • Deathguard Meat Wagon
    

New Skins

• Mal'Ganis
  
  • Dreadmachine Mal'Ganis
    
  • Neocarbon Dreadmachine Mal'Ganis
    
  • Master Deadmachine Mal'Ganis
    
  • Infernal Mal'Ganis
    
  • Northrend Mal'Ganis
    

New Portraits, Sprays, and Emojis

• Several new emoji packs and portraits have also been added to the game.

Bug Fixes

General

• AI Heroes: Fixed multiple cases of AI-controlled Heroes incorrectly using their abilities.
  
• Spell Power: Fixed an issue where Spell Power would no longer affect a Hero’s abilities after they died. (For example: Jaina’s Blizzard will now continue to deal bonus damage if she received increased Spell Power but died before the second and third waves.)
  
• Statis/Time Stop: Fixed an issue where player created terrain could move Heroes affected by Stasis or Time Stop.

Battlegrounds

• Garden of Terror: Fixed an issue where all three Garden Terrors could spawn in a single lane.
  
• Minions/Mercenaries: Fixed an issue where Heroes could block the movement of Catapults, preventing them from passing through intact gates.

User Interface

• Fixed an issue where a space would appear before the player’s name in a Whisper.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Ana: Fixed an issue where Ana’s Shrike healing was not accurately reflecting her damage done (via Spell Power or her target’s Armor).
  
• Chromie: Fixed an issue where Temporal Loop’s return location would appear incorrect if a movement ability was used by the target.
  
• Diablo: Fixed an issue where Diablo would not be displaced by knockback and similar effects while casting Overpower.
  
• Gall: Fixed an issue where not all cases of Damage Reduction would work on Gall.
  
• Gul’dan: Fixed an issue where Darkness Within’s bonus Spell Power would not increase the healing of Drain Life.
  
• Kharazim: Can now Radiant Dash to all allied units, including Mercenaries, Creep Tumors, and Toxic Nests.
  
• Li-Ming: Fixed an issue where Tal’Rasha’s Elements would grant bonus damage to Calamity after being twice in a row.
  
• Murky: Egg Hunt’s Slime no longer benefits from Slime talents.
  
• Sylvanas: Targets of Mind Control will now clear their move orders when affected by the ability.
  
• Uther: Fixed an issue where Holy Fire’s damage was affected by Spell Power.

[melzas]

Decent Ana buff. Not like she needed that, but it's pretty big.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

So Chen has to complete a quest to get the same buff that Mal'ganis has as a baseline ability? Poor Chen.

[ophion1990]

Haunted Mines removed again? I wonder what they're gonna change this time. I thought BhB would be next on the list to undergo changes.

[AlmightyGerkin]

Haunted Mines removed again? I wonder what they're gonna change this time. I thought BhB would be next on the list to undergo changes.

Going to have it when were the map is now 3 lanes and once first team to collect skulls it will send a weaker grave golem down each lane.

[skorpio]

Going to have it when were the map is now 3 lanes and once first team to collect skulls it will send a weaker grave golem down each lane.

And there will be only one skull, surrounded by some minions. And you need 3 skulls to summon golems