Starting September 27, the pool of Battlegrounds available in all modes, except Custom Games, will be temporarily limited to the following:
Warhead Junction
Braxis Holdout
Towers of Doom
Dragon Shire
Battlefield of Eternity
Cursed Hollow
During this time, players can still select and play on any Battleground they wish using Custom Games. The reduced Battleground pool will remain in effect until the Machines of War event concludes during the week of October 17.
The second tutorial mission has received significant changes to gameplay, user interface, and instruction flow. This mission should now better serve to introduce players to some of Heroes of the Storm’s unique mechanics.
Aleksandra Zaryanova is one of the world's strongest women and was a promising athlete, but all that changed when the Siberian omnium reawakened. As a soldier in the Russian Defense Force, she now proudly uses her strength to protect the ones she loves.
Trait
Energy Each time Zarya’s Personal Barrier or Shield Ally absorbs 10 damage, her Energy is increased by 1. Each point of Energy increases Zarya’s damage by 2%. After 0.5 seconds, Energy decays by 3 per second.
Basic Abilities
Particle Grenade (Q)
Launch a Particle Grenade that deals damage to enemies within a small area. Deals 50% damage to Structures.
Personal Barrier (W)
Gain a Shield that absorbs damage for 3 seconds.
Shield Ally (E)
Grants an allied Hero a Shield that absorbs damage for 3 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
Graviton Surge (R) Launch a gravity bomb that detonates after 1 second and draws enemy Heroes toward the center for 2.5 seconds.
Expulsion Zone (R) Launch a gravity bomb that deals light damage and creates an expulsion zone for 3.5 seconds. Enemies who enter the affected area are knocked back and have their Movement Speed reduced by 50% for 1 second.
Once a testing facility for nuclear weapons, Warhead Junction has since fallen into ruin. However, the site's abandonment hasn't stopped its glitchy adjutant from continuing to produce and hand out nuclear weapons. Join the arms race of Warhead Junction, build up your stockpile, and rain hell on your enemies!
Warhead Deployment
Multiple Warheads will spawn periodically across the battleground.
Collect Warheads
Pick up a Warhead to activate your Nuke. Use it or you will drop it when you die!
Call Down the Thunder
Launch Nukes to devastate the enemy team's fortifications.
All Zerg Units have received the following changes:
Early-game damage scaling significantly reduced
Mid-game damage scaling slightly reduced
Late-game damage scaling moderately increased
Banelings Base damage increased by 20%
Hydralisks Base damage increased by 25%
Guardians Base damage increased by roughly 17%
Ultralisks Base damage increased by 20%
Developer Comments: We’ve noticed a few more one-sided games than we’d like on Braxis Holdout. The battleground plays faster by design, but we think that a few changes to reduce the early game effectiveness of the zerg will put the balance closer to what we’d like after the battleground goes live.
New Bundles Thunder Guard Zarya Bundle – Available until October 11, 2016. Raider Rexxar Bundle – Available until October 11, 2016. Undying Legends Bundle – Available until October 18, 2016. Ultimate Undying Legends Bundle – Available until October 18, 2016.
New Hero
Zarya has been added to the in-game Shop.
Mounts
Returning Mounts Judgement Charger Removed Mounts Lunar Dragon Spectre Phantom Dire Wolf
Skins
Raider Rexxar Thunder Guard Zarya Master Zarya
Price Changes
Diablo’s prices have been reduced to $3.49 USD and 2,000 Gold. Muradin’s prices have been increased to $6.49 USD and 4,000 Gold.
The second Tutorial mission has received updated sound effects to coincide with its overhaul.
Heroes, Abilities, and Talents
Chen has received updated sound effects for his Elusive Brawler Talent and Storm, Earth, Fire Heroic Ability. The Seasoned Marksman Talent has received a new sound effect heard when the active ability awarded by the quest is used.
User Interface
Voiceover will now play on the MVP and Commendation screen when a player receives enough votes to reach Epic or Legendary status.
Triumverate (W) Now reduces the cooldown of Arcane Orb by 50%, instead of 5 seconds Travel distance required reduced from 65 to 50%
Level 7
Zei's Vengeance (W) Added functionality: Now also reduces the cooldown of Arcane Orb by 25%
Developer Comments: Arcane Orb and the Talents affecting it have been slightly underperforming over the past couple months. We are also unhappy with the unpredictably large explosion radius that occurs at close range detonations. To address these concerns, we have made some base size adjustments to the Orb missile while also buffing Zei’s Vengeance to help round out the full build. While the size changes definitely look like a nerf on paper, in actual testing we felt like they gave players tighter control with a lot less early-detonations on unintended targets.
Base Maximum Health increased from 1836 to 1925 Base Health Regeneration increased from 3.8 to 4
Talents
Level 1
Press the Advantage (E) Basic Attack Range bonus increased from 25 to 35%
Combat Tactician (E) Cooldown reduction increased from .75 to .8 seconds per Basic Attack.
Shrug It Off (E) Removed
Commandeer Odin (R)
Added Functionality: Now grants Tychus Resistant for the duration of Commandeer Odin, reducing damage taken by 25%
Developer Comments: After the change the Relentless Soldier in a previous patch, Tychus had 2 different ways to gain Resistant. While we like that Tychus is a “tanky Assassin”, we felt that him having more ways to mitigate damage than some melee Assassins to be too much. We decided to remove Shrug It Off because it felt misplaced on a tier that was primarily about Utility and Mobility. To compensate for the loss of Shrug It Off, we’ve decided to buff his baseline Health and Regeneration and the other Talent options at level 1.
Corpse Spiders (Q) Spiders will now fixate on whatever enemies are hit with the jar, dividing their focus among all available targets. Prefers Heroic targets. Spiders will now only spawn if you hit an enemy with the jar Reduced the travel speed of the jar, mostly at close range Increased the impact radius by 50% Spiders now move significantly faster toward their target Impact damage reduced from 91 to 50 Spider Attack's damage increased from 13 to 35 per attack Mana cost reduced from 60 to 50
Zombie Wall (W) Zombie Health increased from 183 to 225
Plague of Toads (E) Number of Toads spawned reduced from 5 to 3 Now has 2 charges Damage changed from 87 damage on impact to 126 over 6 seconds Multiple instances of this damage effect can affect the same enemy Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds Mana cost reduced from 55 to 30
Voodoo Ritual (Trait) Damage over time effect is now only applied to non-Heroes Duration increased from 4 to 6 seconds Killing an enemy affected by Voodoo Ritual no longer restores Health and Mana New Functionality: You now permanently gain 4 Maximum Health and 1 Maximum Mana if an enemy Minion dies while affected by Voodoo Ritual
Gargantuan (R) Gargantuan now stays near the area where cast and attempts to attack any enemies that come nearby. Prefers Heroic targets. Initial impact damage reduced from 151 to 100 Stomp damage increased from 219 to 240 Attack range increased by 50% Cooldown increased from 60 to 70 seconds
Talents
Level 1
Demolitionist (Passive) Removed
Death Ritual (Trait) Removed
Bribe (Active) Removed
Blood Ritual (Trait) Moved to level 4 New Functionality: If an enemy dies while affected by Voodoo Ritual, heal for 2% of your Maximum Health and Mana.
New Talent: Widowmakers (Q) Quest: After hitting Heroes 100 times with Corpse Spider attacks, their damage is increased by 30%.
New Talent: Pandemic (E) Quest: After hitting 40 Heroes with Plague of Toads, it spawns 2 additional toads.
Level 4
Spider Cluster (Q) Removed
Gathering Power (Passive) Removed
Mercenary Lord (Passive) Removed
Envenom (Active) Removed
Promote (Active) Removed
New Talent: Hexed Crawlers (Q) Corpse Spiders restore 0.75% of your maximum Health and Mana each time they attack an enemy Hero.
New Talent: Big Voodoo (Trait) Increases the Health and Mana bonuses from Voodoo Ritual by 100%.
Level 7
Gidbinn (Passive) Removed
Fresh Corpses (W) Removed
New Talent: Spirit of Arachyr (Q) If your jar of Corpse Spiders hits only 1 enemy, spawn an additional spider.
Level 13
Dead Rush (W) Moved to level 7 Increased zombie damage bonus from 50 to 100%.
Toads of Hugeness (E) Moved to level 7 Bonus reduced from 20 to 15% per hop, and now caps at 60% bonus.
Thing of the Deep (Passive) Moved to level 1 Range bonus reduced from 25 to 20%
New Talent: Guardian Toads (E) If your Plague of Toads explodes on an enemy Hero gain Resistant for 2 seconds, reducing damage taken by 25%
New Talent: Superstition (Passive) You take 50% less damage from Abilities, but 30% more damage from Basic Attacks
Level 16
Specialized Toxin (Trait) Removed
Leaping Spiders (Q) Removed
Infested Toads (E) Removed
Hardened Focus (Passive) Removed
New Talent: Spider Colony (Q) Corpse Spiders recharges twice as fast while you are above 850 (+4% per level) Health.
New Talent: Ring of Poison (W) Increases the duration of Wall of Zombies by 1 second, and now deals 375 damage over 4 seconds. Damage starts small and increases over the duration.
New Talent: Soul Harvest (Active) Activate to gain 3% Ability Power and maximum Health for every nearby enemy, up to 15%. Health and Ability Power bonuses last 15 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
Level 20 Humongoid (R) No longer makes the Gargantuan last indefinitely or increases its Basic Attack damage to non-Heroic enemies New Functionality: Reduces the cooldown of Gargantuan by 50 seconds, and the Mana cost by 50% Bolt of the Storm (Active) Removed New Talent: Vile Infection (Trait) Quest: After reaching 150 stacks of Voodoo Ritual, increase Voodoo Ritual's damage by 200% and cause it to also apply to Heroes.
Developer Comments: Nazeebo is one of the oldest Heroes in the game, and his Talent tree was in dire need of an upgrade. The goal of the revamp was to increase the reward of mastering the Hero’s Abilities, maintain his identity as a zone control and damage over time character, embrace the fun mini-game that was Death Ritual, and provide interesting synergies between Abilities and Talents. We wanted to be sure to reinforce the designed weaknesses of the Hero that are lack of burst and lack of mobility, while still making him viable in the current metagame of Heroes of the Storm. Overall, a lot of his old Talents had to be revamped or replaced, but we find that he still feels a lot like the old Nazeebo, just more interesting!
Level (Tier) Nazeebo Talents 1 (1) (!) Widowmakers (Q) (!) Pandemic (E) Thing of the Deep (Passive) — 4 (2) Hexed Crawlers (Q) Big Voodoo (Trait) Blood Ritual (Trait) — 7 (3) Spirit of Arachyr (Q) Dead Rush (W) Toads of Hugeness (E) — 10 (4) Gargantuan (R) Ravenous Spirit (R) — — 13 (5) Guardian Toads (E) Superstition (Passive) Ice Block (Active) — 16 (6) Spider Colony (Q) Ring of Poison (W) Soul Harvest (Active) — 20 (7) Humongoid (R) Annihilating Spirit (R) Fury of the Storm (Passive) (!) Vile Infection (Trait))
(!) indicates a Questing Talent. Italic text indicates a NEW Talent. Bold text indicates a MOVED Talent.
Regrowth (Q) Cooldown reduced from 7 to 5 seconds Mana cost reduced from 60 to 35 Duration increased from 10 to 15 seconds Periodic heal reduced from 75 to 60
Entangling Roots (E) Increased range by roughly 12% Delay before initial root reduced from .5 seconds to .25 seconds
Innervate (Trait) Added Functionality: Now causes the target’s Basic Abilities to cooldown 50% faster for the duration of Innervate
Talents
Level 1 Harmony (Q) Removed
Level 4 Rampant Growth (Q) Healing bonus reduced from 50 to 40%
Level 7 Enduring Growth (Q) Removed
Developer Comments: While we realize that Malfurion’s talent tree could use some work, and we want to do a deeper dive in the future, we wanted to give him a better niche among our other Support heroes in the meantime. His throughput healing should be higher, and a bigger part of his gameplay should now be rolling his heal-over-time effects among multiple allies to keep them alive. He now also has the unique ability to give allies cooldown reduction in addition to Mana, which should give him a new reason to be considered being added to a team. We’ve also buffed the initial root search for his Entangling Roots, which will enable him to more reliably root enemy Heroes instead of relying on his teammates to secure crowd control.
Storm, Earth, Fire (R) New Functionality: If all 3 Spirits die, Chen is killed Spirit Health increased from 50 to 75% of Chen’s maximum Health Each Spirit grants Chen a special ability: Storm (Q): Increases the Movement Speed of your Spirits by 50% for 5 seconds Earth (W): Fire and Earth Spirits leap at the target, slowing enemies in a large area by 70% for 1.5 seconds Fire (E): Increase the Basic Attack speed of your Spirits by 100% for 5 seconds
Talents
Level 1
Regeneration Master (Passive) Removed
Keg Toss (W) Moved to Level 4 New Functionality: Quest: Hitting a Hero with Keg Smash increases its damage by 3, up to a maximum of 60. Reward: After gaining 60 bonus damage, Keg Toss’s range is increased by 125% and gains a second charge.
Grounding Brew (Trait) Ability damage reduction amount decreased from 40 to 30%
Consuming Flame (E) Removed
New Talent: Accumulating Flame (E) Quest: Setting a Hero on Fire increases the damage over time of Breath of Fire by 2%, up to a max of 60%. Reward: After gaining 60% bonus damage, Breath of Fire grants 1 second of Resistant per Hero set on fire, reducing damage taken by 25%
New Talent: Freshest Ingredients (Trait) Quest: Gathering a Regen Globe increases Health Regeneration by 1 per second, up to a maximum of 30. Reward: After gaining 30 bonus Health Regeneration, 50% of Shields gained from Fortifying Brew are retained indefinitely after drinking.
New Talent: Elusive Brawler (Active) Activate to avoid all enemy Basic Attacks for 2 seconds. Basic Attacks reduce the cooldown of Elusive Brawler by 3 seconds. 20 second cooldown.
Level 4
Swift Reflexes (Passive) Removed
Deadly Strike (Q) New Functionality: Flying Kick now deals 100% more damage if Chen has Fortifying Brew shields.
Amplified Healing (Passive) Removed
Deep Breath (E) Removed
Level 7
Full Keg (W) Removed
Combat Stance (Trait) Removed
Ring of Fire (E) Moved to Level 4 Periodic damage increased from 30 to 50
New Talent: Refreshing Elixir (Passive) All regeneration and healing effects are increased by 20%. This bonus is increased to 60% while channeling Fortifying Brew.
Level 13
Brew Strike (Q) Removed
Enough to Share (Trait) Moved to Level 16
Relentless (Passive) Removed
New Talent: Withering Flames (E) Setting an enemy Hero on fire reduces their Ability Power by 25% for 3 seconds.
Level 16
Bottomless Mug (Trait) Removed
Bolder Flavor (Trait) Moved to Level 7 New Functionality: Grants 50% of your full Shield instantly when you use Fortifying Brew, and causes Shields to persist for 1 second after drinking.
Pressure Point (Q) Moved to Level 13 New Functionality: Flying Kick slows enemy Movement Speed by 40% for 1 second. This effect is doubled if the target is affected by Keg Smash.
Combination Attack (Q) Removed
New Talent: Flying Leap (Q) Increases the range of Flying Kick by 20%
New Talent: Another Round (W) After hitting an enemy Hero with Keg Smash, the cooldown of the next Basic Ability you cast will be reduced by 3 seconds.
Level 20
Untapped Potential (R) New Functionality: Increases Movement Speed of Wandering Keg by 25% Chen gains 50% damage reduction while in Wandering Keg
Elemental Conduit (R) New Functionality: Your Sprits now have 100% of Chen’s Maximum Health. Storm (Q): Also grants Unstoppable to your Spirits for the duration of the Movement Speed boost Earth (W): Also reduces the cooldown of Leap by 3 seconds Fire (E): No longer an Active ability. Spirits now attack 100% faster while the Fire Spirit is alive
Hardened Shield (Active) Removed
Bolt of the Storm (Active) Removed
New Talent: Purifying Brew (Trait) Passively reduce the duration of the next Stun or Silence effect by 75% and reset the cooldown of Fortifying Brew. This can only happen once every 10 seconds.
New Talent: Stormstout Secret Recipe (Passive) Heal for 1.5% of your Maximum Health every time your Basic Abilities hit an enemy Hero.
Developer Comments: We know how much passion our players have for Chen and spent months upgrading his Talent Tree to our newest philosophies. To give you an idea of what we were looking to improve, here were a couple of our goals with this update: Chen should be able to be a solo-tank for your team and not be afraid to constantly soak enemy skill-shots. Chen should be a constant threat to the enemy’s backline damage dealers. Chen should deal low amounts of burst damage while continually applying sustained damage at pointed targets. Chen should be extremely resilient in the absence of enemy stuns. As always, we are listening to your feedback and appreciate everyone taking the time to send it to us. Enjoy the new Talent Tree, and as Chen has said many times before- “It is important to master the Brew and not let it master you!”
Prog Rock (E) New Functionality: Quest: Gathering a Regeneration Globe permanently increases the healing per second of Guitar Solo by 5, up to a maximum of 100. Reward: After reaching 100 increased healing, Guitar Solo also heals nearby allied Heroes for 53 Health every second while active.
Pwn Shop Guitar (E) Moved to Level 16 Renamed to Aggressive Shredding New Functionality: Basic Attacks reduce the cooldown of Guitar Solo by 1 second.
New Talent: Block Party (Trait) Rockstar also grants Allies a stack of Block, reducing the damage from the next Basic Attack by 50% for 8 seconds. Stacks up to 2 times.
Level 4
Double-Necked Guitar (Q) Removed
Mic Check (W) Moved to Level 13 Number of targets hit required to reduce Face Melt’s cooldown decreased from 3 to 2
Pinball Wizard (W) Moved to Level 7 Bonus damage increased from 50 to 150%
New Talent: Crowd Surfer (Q) Powerslide can now travel over walls and unpathable areas.
Level 7
Just Keep Rockin’ (E) Removed
Guitar Hero (E) Moved to Level 1 New Functionality: While Guitar Solo is active, you heal for 30% of the damage dealt by Basic Attacks. Also increases the Attack Speed bonus from Rockstar from 20% to 25%.
Loud Speakers (W) Moved to Level 4
Follow Through (Passive) Renamed to Hammer-on New Functionality: After using an Ability, your next 2 Basic Attacks deal 30% more damage.
Level 13
Groupies (E) Removed
Spell Shield (Passive) Removed
Show Stopper (Q) Moved to Level 16
Face Smelt (W) Slow amount reduced from 80 to 60%
Level 16
Speed Metal (Trait) Moved to Level 4 Movement Speed bonus reduced from 20 to 10%
Echo Pedal (Passive) Moved to Level 7 Damage decreased from 59 to 32. Added Functionality: Now deals double damage vs. Minions and Mercenaries.
Encore (W) Moved to Level 13
Developer Comments: We like E.T.C.’s core gameplay, but wanted to improve his talent diversity. Many E.T.C. players end up picking the same talents in most games, especially at Levels 1 and 4, due to the importance of buffing Powerslide. We’ve streamlined that power, and have given him more options to play up the bard aspect of his kit, which should make him more of a team player.
Level (Tier) E.T.C. Talents 1 (1) Guitar Hero (E) (!) Prog Rock (E) Block Party (Trait) — — 4 (2) Crowd Surfer (Q) Loud Speakers (W) Speed Metal (Trait) — — 7 (3) Pinball Wizard (W) Echo Pedal (Passive) Hammer-on (Passive) — — 10 (4) Mosh Pit (R) Stage Dive (R) — — — 13 (5) Mic Check (W) Encore (W) Face Smelt (W) — — 16 (6) Show Stopper (Q) Aggressive Shredding (E) Imposing Presence (Active) — — 20 (7) Tour Bus (R) Crowd Pleaser (R) Death Metal (Passive) Storm Shield (Active) Bolt of the Storm (Active)
(!) indicates a Questing Talent. Italic text indicates a NEW Talent. Bold text indicates a MOVED Talent.
Discord Strike (Q) Mana cost reduced from 60 to 55
Lightning Surge (E) Mana cost reduced from 40 to 30 Damage increased from 90 to 100 Width increased by 50%
Counter-Strike (R) Damage increased from 250 to 275 Added Functionality: Now grants Alarak Unstoppable for its duration
Talents
Level 1
Power Conduit (E) Mana cost reduction decreased from 15 to 10
Wide Lightning (E) Removed
Level 7
Thunderstruck (E) Slow duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds
Level 13
Hindered Motion (W) Slow duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds
Developer Comments: While we expected Alarak’s win rate to be a bit on the lower side due to how difficult his kit can be to fully execute, we felt that he could use some buffs to make him feel better to play. Across the board Lightning Surge is slightly under-performing, so we’re upping the power of the base ability and its related talents. We hope that this will properly reward Alarak players who take Lightning Surge related talents, particularly those who master the gameplay of clotheslining enemies with the Lightning. When we first designed Counter-Strike, we felt that crowd control was an appropriate counter to the ability since it was so powerful on paper and on a reasonably low cooldown. Since his release, we have seen that Counter-Strike is simply not as reliable as we had predicted since Alarak has 3 potential ways to fail to get value (enemies can fail to damage him, they can dodge the returning skill shot, or they can crowd control him out of his channel). We’ve decided to grant him Unstoppable for its duration to make it more reliable, and we are increasing its damage to further separate it from Deadly Charge.
Reaching Through Time (Passive) Range bonus decreased from 25 to 15%
Developer Comments: Reaching Through Time had a dominating pick rate, for good reason. We’re taking a little bit of that range from the Talent and adding it baseline. While we’re at it, we’re reducing the range on Temporal Loop slightly to require Chromie to put herself more at risk. Temporal Loop isn’t overpowered per se, but the majority of the counterplay required specific Heroes (Medivh, Auriel, Uther) or Cleanse. We’re also buffing her Health so that the sum total of all these changes will result in an improvement to her winrate, since she is slightly less powerful than what we’d like to see.
Life Tap (Trait) Base self-inflicted damage decreased from 234 to 222
Fel Flame (Q) Increased base size by 5%
Drain Life (W) Base healing increased from 43 to 47
Corruption (E) Cooldown reduced from 16 to 14 seconds Mana cost reduced from 90 to 80
Talents
Level 1
Echoed Corruption (E) Quest completion requirement increased from 35 to 40 Heroes hit by Corruption
Level 4
Health Funnel (W) Cooldown reduction gained when an enemy dies under the effects of Drain Life changed from 7 seconds to a full cooldown reset
Developer Comments: Gul’dan’s slightly underperforming compared to other assassins, so we’re giving him some throughput buffs as well as buffing his Fel Flame ability. We know that the Echoed Corruption change may not be positively received as it is a slight nerf, but we believe it is better for the health of his talent tier and for him overall. The intent of this talent was for it to be a relatively large power spike but for it to come very late into the game. Currently it’s still being unlocked earlier than we would like, and it has a slightly higher win rate compared to other talents on the tier. We wanted to buff Corruption by lowering its cooldown, so we felt that it was appropriate to slightly increase its quest completion time to help balance it out.
Vault (E) Damage bonus per stack of Hatred increased from 5 to 6%
Hungering Arrow (Q) Increased base damage from 140 to 151 Bounce damage increased from 80 to 86
Rain of Vengeance (R) Cooldown decreased from 60 to 50 seconds per charge
Talents
Level 1
Monster Hunter (Q) Mana redund amount increased from 30 to 40 Minion and Mercenary bonus damage increased from 100 to 150%
Level 4
Puncturing Arrow (Q) Quest reward bonus damage increased from 50 to 75
Level 7
Death Dealer (E) Bonus damage per Hatred stack increased from 10 to 12%
Developer Comments: We’re seeing a lot of success with Multi-Shot Valla’s builds, but the Basic Attack and Hungering Arrow focused Valla’s aren’t keeping pace. We really want to reward players for keeping their Hatred at high stacks and landing those Puncturing Arrows on their intended targets.
Fixed an issue that prevented players from placing Healing Totems near destructible objects and unpathable terrain.
Heroes, Abilities, and Talents
Abathur: Fixed an issue causing Abathur’s Ultimate Evolution clones to deal damage to nearby enemies on expiration without learning the Volatile Mutation talent. Anub’arak: It is no longer possible to cast Cocoon on Heroic Vehicles, such as the Garden Terror or Dragon Knight. Auriel and Lunara: Fixed an issue causing Lunara’s camera to behave strangely after being resurrected by Auriel’s Resurrect. Diablo: It is no longer possible to cast Overpower on Heroic Vehicles, such as the Garden Terror or Dragon Knight. Nova: It is no longer possible for Nova to target Invulnerable Heroes with Triple Tap.
User Interface
Greymane: Fixed an issue causing Greymane’s “Eager Wolf” talent to fail to display in the shop when viewing talents for Greymane’s Worgen form. Illidan: Fixed an issue causing the tooltip for Illidan’s Friend or Foe talent to display incorrect data.
Feels like they're focussing a bit more on inter hero synergy and battlefield control which allows you to pull off some unqiue plays. Malfs CD reduction, Zarya's shield, Medivh, Alarak's telekinesis are all quite dramatic in this regard and pretty exciting. Zarya sounds like another good buddy for Tracer.
On September 20 2016 05:05 Immersion_ wrote: Feels like they're focussing a bit more on inter hero synergy and battlefield control which allows you to pull off some unqiue plays. Malfs CD reduction, Zarya's shield, Medivh, Alarak's telekinesis are all quite dramatic in this regard and pretty exciting. Zarya sounds like another good buddy for Tracer.
bruh that ETC slide through walls talent... think of the sick ambushes
Tried out Zarya and she seems very interesting though I think her energy drops too quickly to be really useful outside of teamfights (although you could charge it on towers). The ally shield is a little weaker but still decent, shielding about 1000 at lvl 20. Her pull ult is going to be a good setup for wombo combo's (like in Overwatch). Not sure about the other ult, seems more defensive than much of anything else. I suppose you could steal a boss with it?
Her damage when charged up is decent but pitiful when not, though as a tank this isn't her primary concern. I do worry about her being able to peel for much of anything. Sure she can shield a target but if say a Morales is getting focused, just the one shield won't save her and she has no crowd control other than her ult and her Q if you spec into at 16 (gives a 35% slow). Bit like a Tyrael I suppose. Guess we'll have to see how she plays out.
New Nazeebo has crazy Zombie Wall damage. If you spec into it, a single Zombie wall will cut a Fort to 50% health all by itself. Talent diversity is a bit low though, 13 is all defensive talents (and not crazy good ones other than Ice Block) and the Toad talents seem a bit meh compared to what you can do with the Spiders and Zombie Wall.
Bolder Flavor (Trait) Moved to Level 7 New Functionality: Grants 50% of your full Shield instantly when you use Fortifying Brew, and causes Shields to persist for 1 second after drinking.
It's really interesting, I'm not sure if Chen and Nazeebo will be stronger from their existing positions of already strong lane bully with potentially hugely valuable heroic, kill chasing and body blocking + loseebo or weaker... first instinct is that Chen has less utility but is harder to kill? But I have very little experience of playing him so I don't know. Naz seems better.
The only change which confuses me is thso muradin price increase, would have thought they would only decrease the price for the older heroes. Everything else looks pretty good, can't wait to try them out.
Can't wait to play Nazeebo again, I think that he is going to be really good now and fun to play which is important. Also, he is the next tanky specialist after Xul, and with that permanent Spell Shield he will be a nightmare for ability heavy compositions.
They're reworking my 2 favorite warriors, that's really nice (although both didn't need it that bad). ETC needed to get the slide talents baseline as noone ever selects anything else at 1 and 4. It's really part of who he is. Same with brew master's balance for Chen BTW. He's already so strong, and game winner with the Keg ultimate, I just don't know how they can rework him without breaking him.
Can't wait to play Zarya, but I'm too cheap to use 15000 GOLD on her so I guess I'll buy her in 3 weeks. ^^ Thanks Thezzy for the preview.
On September 20 2016 07:01 Thezzy wrote: Tried out Zarya and she seems very interesting though I think her energy drops too quickly to be really useful outside of teamfights (although you could charge it on towers). The ally shield is a little weaker but still decent, shielding about 1000 at lvl 20. Her pull ult is going to be a good setup for wombo combo's (like in Overwatch). Not sure about the other ult, seems more defensive than much of anything else. I suppose you could steal a boss with it?
Her damage when charged up is decent but pitiful when not, though as a tank this isn't her primary concern. I do worry about her being able to peel for much of anything. Sure she can shield a target but if say a Morales is getting focused, just the one shield won't save her and she has no crowd control other than her ult and her Q if you spec into at 16 (gives a 35% slow). Bit like a Tyrael I suppose. Guess we'll have to see how she plays out.
New Nazeebo has crazy Zombie Wall damage. If you spec into it, a single Zombie wall will cut a Fort to 50% health all by itself. Talent diversity is a bit low though, 13 is all defensive talents (and not crazy good ones other than Ice Block) and the Toad talents seem a bit meh compared to what you can do with the Spiders and Zombie Wall.
I think Zarya kinda blows. She's purely a support tank for double tank comps, and she does almost no damage. She also can't kite at all :/. I hate her base kit.
However, I think Expulsion Zone is actually better than Graviton Surge because it can be used to cut off chokes and peel + it does damage + it lasts for a full second longer. That might be her only saving grace.
Yesterday i watch psalm's stream for a while. He tanked core, 1 keep, nazeebo, jaina and malf with chen (same level) and he managed to kill jaina...
New chen is absurdly strong.
Oh.. I really hate Zarya's design. She has 2 different version of same skill. I mean... Shield yourself - Shield Ally.. And we already has Tass for shielding specialist. Where is creativity?
On September 20 2016 21:01 Aceace wrote: Yesterday i watch psalm's stream for a while. He tanked core, 1 keep, nazeebo, jaina and malf with chen (same level) and he managed to kill jaina...
New chen is absurdly strong.
Oh.. I really hate Zarya's design. She has 2 different version of same skill. I mean... Shield yourself - Shield Ally.. And we already has Tass for shielding specialist. Where is creativity?
It's her kit from Overwatch, where can she can shield herself and separately shield an ally. If Tassadar shields himself, he has to wait out the cooldown before he can shield an ally.
I also did notice Zarya's low damage and as mentioned, she doesn't have any real peel other than the Expulsion Zone. She has no mana though and with her shields I can imagine her having an advantage on say BoE where the fights drag out.
The Abilites on Storm, Earth, and Fire all have different cooldowns:
Storm Cooldown: 12 seconds ( movement speed )
Earth Cooldown: 5 seconds ( leaping Earth and Fire )
Fire Cooldown: 12 seconds ( Attack Speed )
If a spirit dies, the player will no longer be able to cast the ability named after said spirit.
Chen’s shield when completing the Freshest Ingredients quest will stack with Bolder Flavor.
When Chen get to lv 17 or higher when completing the Freshest Ingredients talent, the remaining shield will be greater than the 600 hp you would get off of the traditional regeneration master.
Picking up the Deadly Strike @4 talent will cause Flying kick not to cost any brew.
The Freshest Ingredients talent is bugged to where you will automatically gain the quest reward when picking the talent without finishing the quest.
Accumulating Flame and Withering Flames require you set the target "on fire" ( meaning you have to do your W+E combo on the target ) in order to get the benefits of that talent.
Another Round also increased the impact radius of Keg Smash.
The Abilites on Storm, Earth, and Fire all have different cooldowns:
Storm Cooldown: 12 seconds ( movement speed )
Earth Cooldown: 5 seconds ( leaping Earth and Fire )
Fire Cooldown: 12 seconds ( Attack Speed )
If a spirit dies, the player will no longer be able to cast the ability named after said spirit.
Chen’s shield when completing the Freshest Ingredients quest will stack with Bolder Flavor.
When Chen get to lv 17 or higher when completing the Freshest Ingredients talent, the remaining shield will be greater than the 600 hp you would get off of the traditional regeneration master.
Picking up the Deadly Strike @4 talent will cause Flying kick not to cost any brew.
The Freshest Ingredients talent is bugged to where you will automatically gain the quest reward when picking the talent without finishing the quest.
Accumulating Flame and Withering Flames require you set the target "on fire" ( meaning you have to do your W+E combo on the target ) in order to get the benefits of that talent.
Another Round also increased the impact radius of Keg Smash.
On September 20 2016 10:21 Larkin wrote: It's really interesting, I'm not sure if Chen and Nazeebo will be stronger from their existing positions of already strong lane bully with potentially hugely valuable heroic, kill chasing and body blocking + loseebo or weaker... first instinct is that Chen has less utility but is harder to kill? But I have very little experience of playing him so I don't know. Naz seems better.
Loseebo lol. I think "Loseebo" might be way more exciting to play now. The different builds are going to have a higher skill ceiling. I was personally very excited when I read the patch notes.
I am going to buy Chen and try him out, it seems to be a very good change. Chen double tank ftw!
Yeeeh Malfurion definitely needed a buff and a rework. He was suffering from the "Arthas effect" which is where your still half way decent with a good Malfurion but you would way rather have a newer and more powerful hero do the same job. Brightwing/Rhegar massively outclass Malfurion on combat utility and LT/Auriel outclass him on healing at the moment so giving a strong buff to Innervate and his Q is the right move.
Nazeebos rework looks awesome as well, looks like you'll face an interesting choice going for Death Ritual or Thing of the Deep at lvl 1 and he should overall be a bit more high skill cap.
On September 22 2016 04:05 Beelzebub1 wrote: Nazeebos rework looks awesome as well, looks like you'll face an interesting choice going for Death Ritual or Thing of the Deep at lvl 1 and he should overall be a bit more high skill cap.
a variation of Death Ritual is baseline now.
Voodoo Ritual (Trait)
Damage over time effect is now only applied to non-Heroes
Duration increased from 4 to 6 seconds
Killing an enemy affected by Voodoo Ritual no longer restores Health and Mana
New Functionality:
You now permanently gain 4 Maximum Health and 1 Maximum Mana if an enemy Minion dies while affected by Voodoo Ritual
At level 1 he has Widowmakers, Pandemic and Things from the Deep. So far the Frog talents seem really underwhelmingly weak, but zombie wall and spiders have some potential. Ring of Poison at 16 is especially deadly when most people don't kill the zombie wall.
I'm really hoping that after the Machines of War event is over that Blizzard uses the full map pool afterward.
I'm not the biggest fan of Blackheart's Bay and I know a lot of people don't like Garden of Terror, but I think the game is just better the more maps are available.
Haunted Maps obviously being the exception, although I wouldn't even mind seeing that map return if they could ever fix the core issues with it.
Agreed. I think Heroes' huge and diverse map pool is one of its key selling points from other Mobas. That said, I can see their reasoning that it is a lot harder for new players to learn 10+ maps at once while those of us who have played for a while have learned them one at a time.
Having said that, I only started playing just before BoE was released, and I turned out okay. And this was my first Moba. But hey.
I can see them doing a map rotation for each season of hero league and pro play and leaving it completely open for unranked draft and quick match.
It seems Alarak is going to need some sort of buffs to move out of the lowest win rate in the game. Certainly his skill requirements are part of the problem, but he is one of the lowest siege damage non-support heroes in the game just barely above nova. Hero damage is good, but not spectacular and self sustain isn't anything special. There are some initial stat analysis here.
haunted doesn't need a fix, we have a ban system now. But Braxis holdout is basically haunted mines just without the underground part. And you collect until one side reaches 100%.
You even want to time a merc camp on braxis against the objective lol.
On September 22 2016 21:08 Vindicare605 wrote: I'm really hoping that after the Machines of War event is over that Blizzard uses the full map pool afterward.
I'm not the biggest fan of Blackheart's Bay and I know a lot of people don't like Garden of Terror, but I think the game is just better the more maps are available.
Haunted Maps obviously being the exception, although I wouldn't even mind seeing that map return if they could ever fix the core issues with it.
I would still favour a Map Veto System. The more maps there are, the more vetoes every player has. With this, all the maps could be played, but you would not be forced to do so.
Never seen so many players pick support before now with auriel around. Do not remove the self cast imo, for once she isnt a true healbot which is good. If reghar should get self-cast, then add it but dont remove it from auriel.
Yes, Auriel really make people want to play support and that's a great thing. Most Auriel suck at low level though. Which brings me to my point. I hope Chen's rework is not like Valla's (ie a nerf) because I learned him very recently, and he's my way out of gold league:
Promotion game for Plat 3 right now. But it may be over tomorrow if Chen's nerfed (doesn't look like it though). Anyone here tried him ? I know there are a few panda lovers in the forum.
Just had a game with frequent disconnects. Range all from 1sec to 10sec. Average was around 3sec. But when i didnt get disconnects i still had HUGE DELAY between my actions.
"what a pity, the player came back", heard it around 50 times. I dont know but many times this game. Only me? I also did login into wow but the latency there seems fine 100%.
Might be ddos attacks. In general i shouldnt worry but it doesnt hurt to write in case it affected anyone else aswell.
Most of the pro streamers I watched thought Chen was OP on the PTR as their first impressions. Build changes significantly. Bolder Flavor at 7 seemed like the talent of choice for most over Brewmaster Balance, instant shields that persist for 1 second after drinking is exceptionally strong. Of course PTR is notorious for giving slanted opinions of heroes with grand masters potentially playing in the same games with bronze players.
Thank you karazax. Seem very interesting, indeed, but as you said, good Chen players are probably all around the place versus more casual people curious of the ETC rework or learning Zarya. From what I understand, Regen Chen is gone, but I never played him much so if it's only this, it's good. I'm going to go read the patch notes again. ^^
Foxxan > Not the same thing, but I drafted 5 times in a row on Infernal Shrines (2 dodges so only 3 games). Is everyone on the EU server playing IS only ? (I don't mind it's one of my favorites map but looks like a bug) Also around noon the shop was unavailable, which usually means "we're in trouble" in Blizzard language.
On September 27 2016 21:10 Foxxan wrote: Just had a game with frequent disconnects. Range all from 1sec to 10sec. Average was around 3sec. But when i didnt get disconnects i still had HUGE DELAY between my actions.
"what a pity, the player came back", heard it around 50 times. I dont know but many times this game. Only me? I also did login into wow but the latency there seems fine 100%.
Might be ddos attacks. In general i shouldnt worry but it doesnt hurt to write in case it affected anyone else aswell.
Yeah, definitely an issue with EU.
I had a game on Sky Temple where all 5 of my team lagged out (myself included) over a period of 1-2 minutes - at one moment there were 4 bots (we checked the replay). It was lvl 9 to 9, bot temple just came up.
By the time the lag had sorted itself, we were down 16-11 and had lost bot keep. When we checked the replay, it seemed it didn't affect the other team at all. So thx for that, Blizz.
yeah Blizzard seems to have figured out how to make people pick supports. And it sucks. Before you either had someone that played supports and knew how to play. Or the ones that picked support because "you have to have a support". This constant is now missing and you might end up with potatoe supports, that picked support from the start T.T .
All Zerg Units have received the following changes: Early-game damage scaling significantly reduced Mid-game damage scaling slightly reduced Late-game damage scaling moderately increased Banelings Base damage increased by 20% Hydralisks Base damage increased by 25% Guardians Base damage increased by roughly 17% Ultralisks Base damage increased by 20%
Developer Comments: We’ve noticed a few more one-sided games than we’d like on Braxis Holdout. The battleground plays faster by design, but we think that a few changes to reduce the early game effectiveness of the zerg will put the balance closer to what we’d like after the battleground goes live.
Discord Strike (Q) Mana cost reduced from 60 to 55
Lightning Surge (E) Mana cost reduced from 40 to 30 Damage increased from 90 to 100 Width increased by 50%
Counter-Strike (R) Damage increased from 250 to 275 Added Functionality: Now grants Alarak Unstoppable for its duration
Talents
Level 1
Power Conduit (E) Mana cost reduction decreased from 15 to 10
Wide Lightning (E) Removed
Level 7
Thunderstruck (E) Slow duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds
Level 13
Hindered Motion (W) Slow duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds
Developer Comments: While we expected Alarak’s win rate to be a bit on the lower side due to how difficult his kit can be to fully execute, we felt that he could use some buffs to make him feel better to play. Across the board Lightning Surge is slightly under-performing, so we’re upping the power of the base ability and its related talents. We hope that this will properly reward Alarak players who take Lightning Surge related talents, particularly those who master the gameplay of clotheslining enemies with the Lightning. When we first designed Counter-Strike, we felt that crowd control was an appropriate counter to the ability since it was so powerful on paper and on a reasonably low cooldown. Since his release, we have seen that Counter-Strike is simply not as reliable as we had predicted since Alarak has 3 potential ways to fail to get value (enemies can fail to damage him, they can dodge the returning skill shot, or they can crowd control him out of his channel). We’ve decided to grant him Unstoppable for its duration to make it more reliable, and we are increasing its damage to further separate it from Deadly Charge.
Reaching Through Time (Passive) Range bonus decreased from 25 to 15%
Developer Comments: Reaching Through Time had a dominating pick rate, for good reason. We’re taking a little bit of that range from the Talent and adding it baseline. While we’re at it, we’re reducing the range on Temporal Loop slightly to require Chromie to put herself more at risk. Temporal Loop isn’t overpowered per se, but the majority of the counterplay required specific Heroes (Medivh, Auriel, Uther) or Cleanse. We’re also buffing her Health so that the sum total of all these changes will result in an improvement to her winrate, since she is slightly less powerful than what we’d like to see.
Life Tap (Trait) Base self-inflicted damage decreased from 234 to 222
Fel Flame (Q) Increased base size by 5%
Drain Life (W) Base healing increased from 43 to 47
Corruption (E) Cooldown reduced from 16 to 14 seconds Mana cost reduced from 90 to 80
Talents
Level 1
Echoed Corruption (E) Quest completion requirement increased from 35 to 40 Heroes hit by Corruption
Level 4
Health Funnel (W) Cooldown reduction gained when an enemy dies under the effects of Drain Life changed from 7 seconds to a full cooldown reset
Developer Comments: Gul’dan’s slightly underperforming compared to other assassins, so we’re giving him some throughput buffs as well as buffing his Fel Flame ability. We know that the Echoed Corruption change may not be positively received as it is a slight nerf, but we believe it is better for the health of his talent tier and for him overall. The intent of this talent was for it to be a relatively large power spike but for it to come very late into the game. Currently it’s still being unlocked earlier than we would like, and it has a slightly higher win rate compared to other talents on the tier. We wanted to buff Corruption by lowering its cooldown, so we felt that it was appropriate to slightly increase its quest completion time to help balance it out.
Vault (E) Damage bonus per stack of Hatred increased from 5 to 6%
Hungering Arrow (Q) Increased base damage from 140 to 151 Bounce damage increased from 80 to 86
Rain of Vengeance (R) Cooldown decreased from 60 to 50 seconds per charge
Talents
Level 1
Monster Hunter (Q) Mana redund amount increased from 30 to 40 Minion and Mercenary bonus damage increased from 100 to 150%
Level 4
Puncturing Arrow (Q) Quest reward bonus damage increased from 50 to 75
Level 7
Death Dealer (E) Bonus damage per Hatred stack increased from 10 to 12%
Developer Comments: We’re seeing a lot of success with Multi-Shot Valla’s builds, but the Basic Attack and Hungering Arrow focused Valla’s aren’t keeping pace. We really want to reward players for keeping their Hatred at high stacks and landing those Puncturing Arrows on their intended targets.
Lots of big changes from PTR; Alarak buffs are reasonably significant (Also he should be down to 10k gold today?), Gul'dan buffs are significant, Valla looks even scarier, and the Li Li change makes her VERY hard to kill (Only triggers on stuns/roots, but still incredible). Oh, and with Malf back in the meta there's going to be a lot more roots going around
Glad they have buffed Anub health a bit. He was a rather niche pick in pro play. Really situational 5 th pick. When they previously nerfed his health.
We really only saw a decent amount of him in NA. And really was mostly because he was a comfort pick by Srey. I thought his previous health reduction was too hasty.
On September 28 2016 04:27 Cyanocyst wrote: Glad they have buffed Anub health a bit. He was a rather niche pick in pro play. Really situational 5 th pick. When they previously nerfed his health.
We really only saw a decent amount of him in NA. And really was mostly because he was a comfort pick by Srey. I thought his previous health reduction was too hasty.
Anub was being picked by Srey when he was still in the broken area with more health and new dampen. After losing the invulnerability on his E he became absolute dumpster tier tho so I'm happy to see him gain back the health.
Yeah though they removed Anub's invulnerability when burrowing last patch, so probably still a net nerf from where he was a month ago. It's a lot more additional changes than I expected. Interested to see the Braxis Holdout changes in action.
Alarak changes are a start. Not a lot of changes to the build Rich runs other than the mana reduction and seeing how useful the new unstoppable Counter-strike plays out, but maybe the other e talents will be more worth while now. The width increase on Lightning Surge may help his wave clear too.
Butcher and Tychus less used ults both got buffs. For Gul'dan I want to see how big Fel Flame radius is with the level 1 quest now to see if that has any value now.
Chromie buffs while making loop a bit more risky is good.
On September 28 2016 04:27 Cyanocyst wrote: Glad they have buffed Anub health a bit. He was a rather niche pick in pro play. Really situational 5 th pick. When they previously nerfed his health.
We really only saw a decent amount of him in NA. And really was mostly because he was a comfort pick by Srey. I thought his previous health reduction was too hasty.
Anub was being picked by Srey when he was still in the broken area with more health and new dampen. After losing the invulnerability on his E he became absolute dumpster tier tho so I'm happy to see him gain back the health.
I don't think he was anywhere near broken. KR used him seldomly even when he had the health and "stasis" burrow.
Its not like he was ever on par with Muradin or ETC in participation even in NA.
On September 28 2016 07:13 Immersion_ wrote: Got to hand it to the Blizzard team it really feels like the game is heading in a good direction these days.
I second this, they really do a good job with HOTS. Its like a different apartment/Men that learned how to create games are just for this one.
interesting list, funny to see muradin tier 2 as well, probably a good thing for now if its "true". Has been so dominant and a good warrior player picking muradin instead of another warrior is usually a big differnce(was)
edit: damn, kerrigan down to tier 3 or 4, i just bought that new skin with her with the mount and also has played around A TON the last 1,5 months and was my #1 hero actually.
Ok I'm not worried anymore about Chen. He was already great when he was tier 4 in Sreys list, he looks OP as fuck now that he's tier 1... And what's even better is the best assassin is Valla right now, and those two counter each other, so it's going to make for some fun matchups.
I kept my gold for Zarya... so I'll wait for a buff. If they make her energy stay high way longer she can be viable imo.
edit: McIntyre put Chen on S tier so it really looks good, maybe a bit too much (may be banned a lot or picked by noobs).
I think he's strong on Braxis (+ the usual stationary objectives maps), and versus popular divers (Kerri, Butcher, Illidan). That may be enough to explain his success, but it's strange casters don't take it into account.
Gaz is really good on braxis/shrines when he gets to put down 5 towers before the fighting even starts. He can do it on braxis and even soak lanes without taking any damage and push at the same time. The only hero that comes close so far in my experience is chen.
On September 28 2016 18:39 Slydie wrote: Gazlowe is near the top of hotslogs winrates, but still dumpster tier?
Does not make much sense.
Gazlowe has a low pick rate, so he is mostly winning with players who are very experienced with him, which probably explains his spot on the tier list relative to his win rate. Of course any tier list is subjective.
And i really don't respect these tierlists to be honest. Putting Zarya over Artanis or ANY hero? Or putting reworked Chen behind Valla? Still keeping butcher at tier 3?
When they make this tierlists they don't care about winrates. They only care about how they feel. And its plain wrong! For example, rehgar is getting into dumpster tier. Seriously. He cannot sustain heal like he used to do, he cannot engage, he cannot escape.
Same thing applies to illidan too. If you going to pick illidan your WHOLE team have to pick around you. And putting an extreme situational hero to tier 2 plain wrong to me.
Oh and our beloved Artanis... They say Artanis is so bad. Yes Artanis is nowhere near tier 1. But putting him behind Nova, Murky, Dehaka is too much. Meta is changing. In EU HL players tend to pick double tanks. Artanis love playing against double tanks. He may not does his job flashy as tychus but he loves melee engagements.
On September 29 2016 07:40 Foxxan wrote: Havent watched the videos, but one no name saying something means nothing. I can think of one very good reason why zarya has a place in hots.
Makes heroes such as illidan, butcher more available. Instead of 2xsupports for them, they get the traditional support+zarya.
They already have that kinda thing in Tyrael, though.
I've not played with her yet, but I don't think more 'generic' heroes is a bad thing.
She is just not unique at all... I believe we already have enough generic heroes. Also old generic heroes feels unique in game. For example you can say "Valla is just a girl with bow/xbow" But when you play her she is just feels different.
Zarya is "Pick bunch of other heroes skills and put into a hero" type character. Thats the problem. For me uniqueness is probably the best thing about HotS. I mean... Just name a hero that feels like "Hammer, aba, chogall, Johanna, ETC, etc..." in other mobas. Yes there is a Raynor but its fine. Almost all new releases are sooo unique. Alarak, Auriel, Medivh, Greymane... Hell if you count their great job about hero reworks, its getting better and better.
Well, there's surely a limit to how many 'out there' heroes there are. There's nothing massively unique about Gul'dan or Alarak. Zarya has her own gimmick in that her dmg increases the more damage she takes, which is cool. The way she seems to function is in that 'support tank' kinda way, like Tyrael, and I don't think that's bad.
I would have no issue if, down the line in the game, there are multiple heroes with similar roles/styles that can be interchangeable based on preference. I love the uniqueness and creativity Blizz show - and from what I gather, there will be a lot of interesting stuff announced at Blizzcon - but I don't want them to try and make heroes massively weird just for the sake of it. I'd rather more solid options in the hero pool than niche picks.
My first impressions are that Zarya's shields are too easy to work around. They are good for shielding allies, but her personal shield is pretty easy to avoid damaging until it expires. And with no energy her damage is about like an abathur slapping you, so there is low incentive to focus her and give her a chance to build energy with her own shield. Maybe she needs a lower cool down on her shields. It's 12 seconds compared to 5 seconds for Tassadar, but Tass doesn't require the shield to be damaged to get value and he can get Khala's Embrace to make them permanent duration until destroyed.
yeah zarya is pretty generic. I mean there are tons of support tanks in Heroes that have an ranged AoE basic attack.
What I find funny is that Zarya's has the same issues as in Overwatch at the start lol. They can even apply the same buffs to her. Plays same way too. Stay around, peel, boost your damage and then push the enemy away. Just that you can boost your damage before engaging players. Which currently is a must almost.
I like that they added another hero for poke and compositions. Those have been on the weak side and a support tank, that gains a damage boost the longer the fight goes sounds like a good addition. Especially with those 2 zoning ults.
If generic means adding new possibilities I am all up for that kind of generic. Especially if its that unique XD
We're releasing a Hotfix patch in all regions tomorrow to address a few live bugs and to apply the following balance changes to Zarya:
Stats: Increased Basic Attack damage from 20 to 24 Increased Base Health from 2225 to 2336 Increased Base Health Regen from 4.64 to 4.87
Abilities:
Particle Grenade (Q) Increased base damage from 62 to 74 Personal Barrier (W) Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds Energy (Trait) Energy decay rate reduced from 3 to 1.5 per second Graviton Surge (R) Cooldown reduced from 120 to 100 seconds
Developer Comments: We like the way Zarya is playing on live, but her impact is currently lower than we’d like. Her damage is too low and we feel that the rate at which her Energy decays is too quick, so we have adjusted them and will keep an eye on her.
Bug Fixes: Chen: Fixed an issue causing Chen’s Pressure Point talent to also double the duration of Keg Smash’s slow. Chen: Fixed an issue causing Chen’s Storm, Earth, Fire spirits to have permanently increased attack speed while the Fire spirit is alive. E.T.C: Fixed an issue preventing E.T.C. from gaining stacks of Prog Rock when gathering Regen Globes. Sonya: Fixed an issue that prevented Ancient Spear from stunning and dealing damage if used while rooted.
On September 28 2016 20:41 Ej_ wrote: holy crap Warhead Junction is in a dire need of some balance changes or TLV will be a permament 1st ban there
like wtf 5 nukes at the same time on the opposite sides of the biggest map, were they high on bath salts?
dw I lost as TLV on it so they're not OP
My first game there I went vikings and despite us getting our asses kicked for 10 minutes, 1 mule on Malf and nuke split push with vikings was enough to win the late game handily
On September 28 2016 20:41 Ej_ wrote: holy crap Warhead Junction is in a dire need of some balance changes or TLV will be a permament 1st ban there
like wtf 5 nukes at the same time on the opposite sides of the biggest map, were they high on bath salts?
dw I lost as TLV on it so they're not OP
My first game there I went vikings and despite us getting our asses kicked for 10 minutes, 1 mule on Malf and nuke split push with vikings was enough to win the late game handily
tbf the enemy tyrande went mule and actually got insane value from it. I had 2 keeps down to v low health only to be healed right up.
MULE can be worth its weight in gold on maps where the forts tend to survive on low health. On BKB it can actually cost the enemy team quite a few cannonballs by healing the buildings between turn-ins. And ofcourse, it reduces backdooring since you can repair your core.
On September 29 2016 11:49 Larkin wrote: That's probably the fastest buff to a new hero ever, right?
some got ptr changes. And considering they rushed Zarya for the event. I don't think that counts. They should do what Overwatch did, up her minimum damage to 50%. She will probably to good, but thats fine, her skills are based around the opponent messing up, she needs to be a bit on the OP side.
Aside from that same old same old. Warrior release = everyone screams bad. (unless the warrior can solo kill a core vs 5)
The Energy change is insane. Doubt I will ever drop below 70% in heroes now unless I switch lane lol.
And won't take long till people know how much damage they have to deal to kill the fort. So don't get to used to mules. It is harder the on BHB though .
What do I pick to counter Zarya and Sgt. Hammer? Seems like they're everywhere and despite noone seeming to attack Zarya she seems to stay at max energy charge
On September 30 2016 09:45 Zambrah wrote: What do I pick to counter Zarya and Sgt. Hammer? Seems like they're everywhere and despite noone seeming to attack Zarya she seems to stay at max energy charge
Usual stuff that counters hammer still applies, I would assume. Since you can't pick her (Chromie, Li Ming), you should either play around her (Zagara), move her (Stitches), dive her (Medivh) or hard CC her (Thrall, Falstad, Tyrael).
A good Kerrigan will have a field day against a Hammer in QM/HL as long as she has some support. She can close the distance near instantly (especially if you take Ravage range at 13), drag her back and then stun her, taking atleast half of her health at the same time. Any ally near her can then finish her off. Naturally, this does partly rely on Hammer being sieged, which is most of the time in HL.
The other best counter I can think of is Li-Ming. Getting hit by her combo can nearly wipe out Hammer from full health all by itself. Again, requires being sieged though.
On September 30 2016 19:08 Thezzy wrote: A good Kerrigan will have a field day against a Hammer in QM/HL as long as she has some support. She can close the distance near instantly (especially if you take Ravage range at 13), drag her back and then stun her, taking atleast half of her health at the same time. Any ally near her can then finish her off. Naturally, this does partly rely on Hammer being sieged, which is most of the time in HL.
The other best counter I can think of is Li-Ming. Getting hit by her combo can nearly wipe out Hammer from full health all by itself. Again, requires being sieged though.
Agreed, and obviously Chromie loves a stationary target like Hammer as well.
that feeling if you play against Hammer as Kerrigan and you long range jump hammer just to be suddenly to far in the backline for anyone to save you xD. Don't jump hammer as Kerrigan if her team is around and she got thrusters up.
Personally I prefer Chromie against Hammer, but Li Ming and Kerrigan should do better. Or Zarya the must have pick for any poke comp. That was really a rushed hotfix LOL.
That was fucking rushed. And seeing how bad she was on release I used my gold on other heroes like a moron. And ranged damage warrior is going to be hard to balance.
Zarya needed help when she had no energy, but was already good with full energy. They just need to nerf the mid to high end energy damage now to get relatively balanced.
On September 30 2016 19:08 Thezzy wrote: A good Kerrigan will have a field day against a Hammer in QM/HL as long as she has some support. She can close the distance near instantly (especially if you take Ravage range at 13), drag her back and then stun her, taking atleast half of her health at the same time. Any ally near her can then finish her off. Naturally, this does partly rely on Hammer being sieged, which is most of the time in HL.
The other best counter I can think of is Li-Ming. Getting hit by her combo can nearly wipe out Hammer from full health all by itself. Again, requires being sieged though.
You sure? I have jumped hammer before and if she times her push back well kerrigan needs to walks afterwards towards hammer. I can always use more experience.
On September 30 2016 23:01 Larkin wrote: So, now it seems like she is SUPER strong damage wise? They overreacted?
The best builds seem to be damage focused so far.
1) EIther Feel the Heat or Maximum Charge 4) I am the Strongest 7) Pinpoint Accuracy or Explosive Barrier 10) Expulsion Zone 13) Endurance Training 16) Gain Train or Born in Battle, though all are good. 20) Unyielding Defender
As for Sgt Hammer, Chen can barrel her into a kill zone as a decent answer too.
nah Zarya will either be nerfed into the ground or she will continue to stomp. If she is at 100% energy, you either run or know how to win the fight before Zarya kills your team alone. There is no way to balance an hero that gets a damage buff like Zarya. She has to be powerful at full energy, because she is weak without it.
I think the energy drop will be changed a little again. So that you can pull back and go in again before the objective is lost.
But yah screw people that jump trains without thinking and trigger overreactions like this.
On September 30 2016 23:01 Larkin wrote: So, now it seems like she is SUPER strong damage wise? They overreacted?
Massive overreaction, they probably didn't want her to have the Alarak/Gul Dan problem where they started out UP and were buffed again and again to be strong.
I'll just say it plain and simple, she was over buffed, now she melts tanks, melts ranged assassins, melts melee assassins (who do extremely little damage with her anyways) and she's ranged so if you run away she can still attack you.
Yeah well, that was a massive overreaction. Right now I cannot think of a way to counter Zarya. Played as Auriel with a Zarya a few games today and that seemed pretty much unbreakable.
I just wished Blizzard banned new heroes from ranked play for 1-2 weeks after the release.
On October 01 2016 06:46 Swisslink wrote: Yeah well, that was a massive overreaction. Right now I cannot think of a way to counter Zarya. Played as Auriel with a Zarya a few games today and that seemed pretty much unbreakable.
I just wished Blizzard banned new heroes from ranked play for 1-2 weeks after the release.
I've been trying out Alarak since he dropped to 10k gold and haven't really noticed any problems with Zarya. Might just be the level I play at though.
Interesting types of 'unkillable' compositions forming now. Like, Zarya, Tyrael, Medivh, Tassadar etc etc. All heroes that can constantly put out damage protection/mitigation.
I've been out of the mix for a bit, so I figured I'd ask some opinions:
Valla: srey says she is s tier for solo queue on HL, but her winrate says otherwise. What's the deal? I've been wrecking in QM with her, and am just starting to try and pick her in HL. So far as good...but is she overhyped?
Shes very good, her damage is output is great, the way I think Srey is talking about her in is HL, where she has 1. great damage 2. an escape 3. isn't super comp dependent, now I dunno about S-tier (assuming thats the OP tier, a la pre-hotfix-nerf Zarya) but shes definitely a top tier assassin for use in HL. She'll never be bad, her kit is versatile, she has build diversity, she has excellent damage and is just generally very good. So basically she has the potential to do a lot of carry work for your team, and in solo-queue HL that means quite a lot
IMO, anyways.
Anyone think Malf might be getting some nerfs? Maybe 1sec added to Regrowth? Nerf to Tangling Roots maybe?
Most popular pro build is multishot: 1) Hot Pursuit 4) Punishment 7) Arsenal 10) either depending on matchup 13) Gloom unless there is minimal ability damage threats 16) Frost Shot 20) Farflight Quiver
It does rely on good healing and great positioning as you need to stay in auto attack range for stacks to max dmg.
Q build is fairly good if you don't think you can consistently maintain your stacks safely, does good burst and doesn't rely on stacks as much so you can play a bit safer.
1) Monster Hunter 4) Puncturing Arrow 7) Repeating Arrow 10) either depending on matchup 13) Siphoning Arrow or Gloom depending on matchup 16) Frost Shot or Manticore 20) All 4 are potentially good. Vengeance is first pick if you took Strafe at 10.
I haven't tried or watched any auto attack build Valla, my guess is it would be:
1) Hot Pursuit 4) Creed of the Hunter 7) ? 10) your choice 13) Tempered by Discipline or Gloom 16) Manticore or Seething Hatred 20) Rancor or farflight
I think the first build is going to be better than the 3rd build most games where you can consistently auto attack.
On October 02 2016 02:34 karazax wrote: Most popular pro build is multishot: 1) Hot Pursuit 4) Punishment 7) Arsenal 10) either depending on matchup 13) Gloom unless there is minimal ability damage threats 16) Frost Shot 20) Farflight Quiver
Actually I've seen Seething hatred being chosen a lot more often than Frost Shot. It allows you to use Gloom more often, you have more consistent damage even if you didn't attack for some time and also allows you to get Rancor stacks fast when you pick that level 20 talent(today Sake chose Rancor in one of their games against L5).
And yes, when there isn't much ability damage you are going tempered by discipline, in which case Seething Hatred is also better choice as you start healing in team fights much faster and can easily solo camps.
Overall in hero league Manticore is the most popular pick, but also the lowest win rate. Frost Shot is the highest popularity and win rate in Diamond and Master.
On October 02 2016 05:28 karazax wrote: For pro games frost shot has been the only pick since the Alarak Patch: Alarak patch builds Zarya patch builds
That just can't be true because I've seen Seething Hatred a lot of times, I've been even arguing with my friend about that. In those statistics you can see in how many matches we see those builds and we've seen way more matches with Valla than what those numbers indicate.
On October 02 2016 03:21 Beelzebub1 wrote: New hero should be Starcraft, theres still some really good iconic characters that they can put in.
I mean who doesn't want to play dragoon Phoenix? Or Duran?
I do
When I imagine Fenix, I think of him in his Zealot form. All Dragoons look the same, so I feel like it'd be a shame to put Fenix in that shell. That being said, the Zealot archetype already exists in HotS, so I almost feel like there's no room for Fenix, if not in his Dragoon form. And honestly, playing a Dragoon in HotS doesn't sound that fun to me.
On October 02 2016 03:21 Beelzebub1 wrote: New hero should be Starcraft, theres still some really good iconic characters that they can put in.
I mean who doesn't want to play dragoon Phoenix? Or Duran?
I do
When I imagine Fenix, I think of him in his Zealot form. All Dragoons look the same, so I feel like it'd be a shame to put Fenix in that shell. That being said, the Zealot archetype already exists in HotS, so I almost feel like there's no room for Fenix, if not in his Dragoon form. And honestly, playing a Dragoon in HotS doesn't sound that fun to me.
Could you imagine his pathing if he was a dragoon? XD
On October 02 2016 03:21 Beelzebub1 wrote: New hero should be Starcraft, theres still some really good iconic characters that they can put in.
I mean who doesn't want to play dragoon Phoenix? Or Duran?
I do
When I imagine Fenix, I think of him in his Zealot form. All Dragoons look the same, so I feel like it'd be a shame to put Fenix in that shell. That being said, the Zealot archetype already exists in HotS, so I almost feel like there's no room for Fenix, if not in his Dragoon form. And honestly, playing a Dragoon in HotS doesn't sound that fun to me.
Could you imagine his pathing if he was a dragoon? XD
Ultimate, "Shitty Pathing" Dragoon ignores map terrain dealing 250 damage per shot for 10 seconds if they are in range of a target.
Also I look forward to a day where I don't face a Zarya in every QM, but she is pretty fantastic. I think that the Graviton Surge CD is a bit too long, 90 seconds, or 80 would be more appropriate considering it isn't a stun.
I've been using Expulsion Zone more often than not today to some effect.
On October 02 2016 03:21 Beelzebub1 wrote: New hero should be Starcraft, theres still some really good iconic characters that they can put in.
I mean who doesn't want to play dragoon Phoenix? Or Duran?
I do
When I imagine Fenix, I think of him in his Zealot form. All Dragoons look the same, so I feel like it'd be a shame to put Fenix in that shell. That being said, the Zealot archetype already exists in HotS, so I almost feel like there's no room for Fenix, if not in his Dragoon form. And honestly, playing a Dragoon in HotS doesn't sound that fun to me.
Could you imagine his pathing if he was a dragoon? XD
I've literally seen Dragoons miss when shooting over open terrain. I have no explanation.
On October 02 2016 03:21 Beelzebub1 wrote: New hero should be Starcraft, theres still some really good iconic characters that they can put in.
I mean who doesn't want to play dragoon Phoenix? Or Duran?
I do
When I imagine Fenix, I think of him in his Zealot form. All Dragoons look the same, so I feel like it'd be a shame to put Fenix in that shell. That being said, the Zealot archetype already exists in HotS, so I almost feel like there's no room for Fenix, if not in his Dragoon form. And honestly, playing a Dragoon in HotS doesn't sound that fun to me.
Could you imagine his pathing if he was a dragoon? XD
I've literally seen Dragoons miss when shooting over open terrain. I have no explanation.
On October 02 2016 03:21 Beelzebub1 wrote: New hero should be Starcraft, theres still some really good iconic characters that they can put in.
I mean who doesn't want to play dragoon Phoenix? Or Duran?
I do
When I imagine Fenix, I think of him in his Zealot form. All Dragoons look the same, so I feel like it'd be a shame to put Fenix in that shell. That being said, the Zealot archetype already exists in HotS, so I almost feel like there's no room for Fenix, if not in his Dragoon form. And honestly, playing a Dragoon in HotS doesn't sound that fun to me.
Could you imagine his pathing if he was a dragoon? XD
I've literally seen Dragoons miss when shooting over open terrain. I have no explanation.
On October 02 2016 03:21 Beelzebub1 wrote: New hero should be Starcraft, theres still some really good iconic characters that they can put in.
I mean who doesn't want to play dragoon Phoenix? Or Duran?
I do
When I imagine Fenix, I think of him in his Zealot form. All Dragoons look the same, so I feel like it'd be a shame to put Fenix in that shell. That being said, the Zealot archetype already exists in HotS, so I almost feel like there's no room for Fenix, if not in his Dragoon form. And honestly, playing a Dragoon in HotS doesn't sound that fun to me.
Could you imagine his pathing if he was a dragoon? XD
I've literally seen Dragoons miss when shooting over open terrain. I have no explanation.
On October 02 2016 03:21 Beelzebub1 wrote: New hero should be Starcraft, theres still some really good iconic characters that they can put in.
I mean who doesn't want to play dragoon Phoenix? Or Duran?
I do
When I imagine Fenix, I think of him in his Zealot form. All Dragoons look the same, so I feel like it'd be a shame to put Fenix in that shell. That being said, the Zealot archetype already exists in HotS, so I almost feel like there's no room for Fenix, if not in his Dragoon form. And honestly, playing a Dragoon in HotS doesn't sound that fun to me.
Could you imagine his pathing if he was a dragoon? XD
I've literally seen Dragoons miss when shooting over open terrain. I have no explanation.
At least there are no stairs in hots for the dragoon to get stuck on.
Fenix will evolve after each death Templar->Dragoon->Immortal-> whatever these lotv fake templar where-> out of the match. Because you are feeding past 4 death in this game anyway.
On October 03 2016 20:05 FeyFey wrote: Fenix will evolve after each death Templar->Dragoon->Immortal-> whatever these lotv fake templar where-> out of the match. Because you are feeding past 4 death in this game anyway.
I actually kind of like the idea of deaths changing a character's kit in some way.
On October 04 2016 02:07 Fanatic-Templar wrote: I suppose you could have him come back as a Dragoon when he dies, but at the cost of doubling his death timer maybe.
Like Greymane but you have to commit to your melee or ranged form until you die the next time?
On October 04 2016 02:07 Fanatic-Templar wrote: I suppose you could have him come back as a Dragoon when he dies, but at the cost of doubling his death timer maybe.
Like Greymane but you have to commit to your melee or ranged form until you die the next time?
You guys are joking, right? Hero changing each death to fit with sc2 lore, which Blizzard have shown they could not have cared less about (angelic diablo skin? Orc tank hammer?)
I think they could make a decent dragoon hero, long range auto-attacker with slow attack speed but high damage. Talents about AOE on basic attacks, movement speed+whatever spells. Trait about quickly regenerating protoss shield (can't be healed) with a separate HP pool.
On October 04 2016 02:07 Fanatic-Templar wrote: I suppose you could have him come back as a Dragoon when he dies, but at the cost of doubling his death timer maybe.
Like Greymane but you have to commit to your melee or ranged form until you die the next time?
You guys are joking, right? Hero changing each death to fit with sc2 lore, which Blizzard have shown they could not have cared less about (angelic diablo skin? Orc tank hammer?)
? It'd just be something like Greymane and Leoric's traits. I kinda assume it has to be a death trait, he is named Fenix after all.
Not sure why you're upset about skins. They're just alternate universe skins, they have nothing to do with the lore.
On October 04 2016 02:07 Fanatic-Templar wrote: I suppose you could have him come back as a Dragoon when he dies, but at the cost of doubling his death timer maybe.
Like Greymane but you have to commit to your melee or ranged form until you die the next time?
You guys are joking, right? Hero changing each death to fit with sc2 lore, which Blizzard have shown they could not have cared less about (angelic diablo skin? Orc tank hammer?)
? It'd just be something like Greymane and Leoric's traits. I kinda assume it has to be a death trait, he is named Fenix after all.
Not sure why you're upset about skins. They're just alternate universe skins, they have nothing to do with the lore.
Just sounds like very a clunky and unnecessarily complicated design.
Heroes like Murky, TLV, Rexxar, Uther, Diablo and Leoric all have a "death is not that really death anymore" mechanic. Hell, carbot even released a very fun suicide Murky build.
I like Blizzard to keep the fresh ideas coming. Why not a hero who changes with death, and who maybe have a reduced death timer and reduced exp given on death.
On October 04 2016 02:07 Fanatic-Templar wrote: I suppose you could have him come back as a Dragoon when he dies, but at the cost of doubling his death timer maybe.
Like Greymane but you have to commit to your melee or ranged form until you die the next time?
You guys are joking, right? Hero changing each death to fit with sc2 lore, which Blizzard have shown they could not have cared less about (angelic diablo skin? Orc tank hammer?)
? It'd just be something like Greymane and Leoric's traits. I kinda assume it has to be a death trait, he is named Fenix after all.
Not sure why you're upset about skins. They're just alternate universe skins, they have nothing to do with the lore.
Just sounds like very a clunky and unnecessarily complicated design.
Just spitballin', not coming for your 15k gold next week or anything.
On October 04 2016 02:07 Fanatic-Templar wrote: I suppose you could have him come back as a Dragoon when he dies, but at the cost of doubling his death timer maybe.
Like Greymane but you have to commit to your melee or ranged form until you die the next time?
You guys are joking, right? Hero changing each death to fit with sc2 lore, which Blizzard have shown they could not have cared less about (angelic diablo skin? Orc tank hammer?)
? It'd just be something like Greymane and Leoric's traits. I kinda assume it has to be a death trait, he is named Fenix after all.
Not sure why you're upset about skins. They're just alternate universe skins, they have nothing to do with the lore.
Just sounds like very a clunky and unnecessarily complicated design.
I think we might see alarak nerfed. He can use his spells quite alot before running out of mana. He is a good 1v1 hero. Pretty strong.
Good utility, silence+drag. And the drag ability doesnt put him at to much of a risk compared to kerrigan for example while at the same time can be used defensively.
Two good heroics. And a very good damage. He has good burst+pretty good sustain with his E. Ye we might see a nerf pretty soon. Within 1 month or so. Although if he is against a good composition he might have more trouble using his combo and from there he might not do to much damage. Still he feels very strong. From my games so far. I know i have had some game where i felt this was a hard game for him. What you say?
On October 05 2016 01:57 Foxxan wrote: I think we might see alarak nerfed. He can use his spells quite alot before running out of mana. He is a good 1v1 hero. Pretty strong.
Good utility, silence+drag. And the drag ability doesnt put him at to much of a risk compared to kerrigan for example while at the same time can be used defensively.
Two good heroics. And a very good damage. He has good burst+pretty good sustain with his E. Ye we might see a nerf pretty soon. Within 1 month or so. Although if he is against a good composition he might have more trouble using his combo and from there he might not do to much damage. Still he feels very strong. From my games so far. I know i have had some game where i felt this was a hard game for him. What you say?
I think the silence duration will be nerfed at the very least.
On October 05 2016 03:36 Gon wrote: Did everyone see Heroes Brawl coming the week of Oct 17th? Pretty excited for a new game mode and more chances at gold.
Yeah I don't see Alarak being nerfed any time soon, he seems like hes in a relatively tolerable spot. I imagine they're more concerned with Zarya's long term and then Malfurion probably needs a Roots nerf or something.
On October 05 2016 04:03 Zambrah wrote: Yeah I don't see Alarak being nerfed any time soon, he seems like hes in a relatively tolerable spot. I imagine they're more concerned with Zarya's long term and then Malfurion probably needs a Roots nerf or something.
I don't know what you mean, Zarya is perfect and the level one quest talent doesn't need any adjustment whatsoever. It takes a perfectly appropriate amount of time to complete relative to other level one quest talents.
Blizzard is in full crunch mode for Blizzcon it seems. Guess they already have tons to announce at Blizzcon and no time to stop.
And Alarak is also on the OP side, just in other fields. If a lane bully can not only deny exp from the opponent, but also has a good chance to get kills. He might be a bit too good in that role. Especially if he wins the lane against pretty much everyone.
On October 05 2016 01:57 Foxxan wrote: I think we might see alarak nerfed. He can use his spells quite alot before running out of mana. He is a good 1v1 hero. Pretty strong.
Good utility, silence+drag. And the drag ability doesnt put him at to much of a risk compared to kerrigan for example while at the same time can be used defensively.
Two good heroics. And a very good damage. He has good burst+pretty good sustain with his E. Ye we might see a nerf pretty soon. Within 1 month or so. Although if he is against a good composition he might have more trouble using his combo and from there he might not do to much damage. Still he feels very strong. From my games so far. I know i have had some game where i felt this was a hard game for him. What you say?
I felt the same, I can literally 100-0 people from out of sight, and unlike Kerrigan, his combo doesn't put him at risk.
Alarak is strong for those who have mastered him, but he is still one of the lowest win rate heroes in the game. Unless a lot more people get good with him or he starts dominating pro games it's hard to imagine they will be looking to nerf him any time soon.
pro games luckily concentrate on other heroes and I think they want to push Alarak brand a little more. So we might be save for a while, before he gets nerfs.
On October 05 2016 23:30 FeyFey wrote: pro games luckily concentrate on other heroes and I think they want to push Alarak brand a little more. So we might be save for a while, before he gets nerfs.
Too bad Super League ended - Rich would get Alarak nerfed single handedly. Look at his games on his Azubu, it's insane.
I believe your MMR should be roughly based on your preseason MMR if you haven't played since then, but soft reset so your rank will depend highly on your placement games.
On October 06 2016 04:22 karazax wrote: I believe your MMR should be roughly based on your preseason MMR if you haven't played since then, but soft reset so your rank will depend highly on your placement games.
On October 06 2016 10:06 Hier wrote: He is far too mana efficient. His heal cost was almost halved. I'd expect they increase it by 5-10 per cast.
Yea, he's one of my only supports past level 10 and I have to admit, he out heals pretty much everyone except Lt. but with the new and improved root (they need to not nerf this) and the mana reduction (your idea sounds reasonable) Malfurion can be a bit overbearing, you borderline cannot kill the person he's laning with but his root is a constant threat.
They said that Malf was going to get a rework in the future, but yeah I see some nerfs to efficiency and/or roots unless that rework is coming with the next patch.
Not sure why, she has multiple viable builds and overall is really fun to play. She needs only number tweaks and maybe few talents reworked/fused but overall she is in a good spot.
Tassadar definitely needs a rework, and so does Murky. Diablo also should be on the list, hero has like 70% of useless talents and his trait should've been changed a long time ago. Sonya could also use some help, she hasn't been changed for quite some time now and received mostly nerfs, and even when you see her it is one build mostly with very little variety.
Murky & Malf need rework. Tyrande is in a good spot.
Diablo's problem is he's a weak hero, so it's more about him under-performing too much when you don't go standard build, than lack of talent diversity. And he's weakly played too most of the time.
On October 06 2016 17:03 Leolio wrote: Diablo's problem is he's a weak hero, so it's more about him under-performing too much when you don't go standard build, than lack of talent diversity. And he's weakly played too most of the time.
Well that just means that he needs rework asap. I don't have a problem with niche heroes, in fact I love them more than standard over-the-top heroes that are great in every situation, but when you have a hero that is niche and has poor talent diversity and on top of that he sucks even with that one talent build most of the time, then something is definitely wrong.
He is a ganking warrior that isn't really considered a bruiser, has almost no damage mitigation talents but has more HP than majority of others from his trait to compensate for that, except that he loses all that bonus HP once he dies... so he can come back to the fight really quick but even weaker than before, it is just a badly designed trait. And it's not just about the numbers, his talents aren't interesting at all.
Ramiz1989, I agree with that. But you could also just tweak some numbers up and see if it works. I'm not sure he requires a rework. Diablo's biggest problem outside of high level play is that most people playing him yolo all game (I can die, I have souls = I feed like a moron, even without enough souls), or pick him because he's supposed to be the fun to play solo tank (advanced tip: he's not).
On October 06 2016 18:50 Leolio wrote: Ramiz1989, I agree with that. But you could also just tweak some numbers up and see if it works. I'm not sure he requires a rework. Diablo's biggest problem outside of high level play is that most people playing him yolo all game (I can die, I have souls = I feed like a moron, even without enough souls), or pick him because he's supposed to be the fun to play solo tank (advanced tip: he's not).
Depends on the team. I quite like him as solo tank, though I wouldn't pick him in HL unless they force me out all my other main tanks. His survivability against burst comps can be a bit of a problem. He's my highest winrate hero at 60% actually.
Samuro and Varian are both likely candidates for the new hero reveal based on data mined info and the spoiler thread. Those are the only 2 heroes on that list not released yet. Of course Alarek wasn't on the list at all so it seems Blizz has been making a point to change up the order some after a string of perfect predictions, and that thread hasn't been updated since May.
Diablo will come back, now that we are moving towards a sustain meta again don't worry. Muradin players beware our Dwarf Toss change made us really weak vs Diablo.
Samuro, the last remaining blademaster to wear the banner of the Burning Blade, is on a warrior's pilgrimage in search of vengeance and redemption for his fallen clan. It will be a long journey, but he has sworn an oath to restore his clan's honor.
Assassin
Primary Abilities
Mirror Image Create 2 Mirror Images that deal 30% of your damage and have 50% of your current Health. Images last up to 18 seconds, and only two can be active at any one time.
Critical Strike Your next Basic Attack within 10 seconds will be a Critical Strike, dealing 50% increased damage. This also applies to Images, and does not break Wind Walk. Passive: You and your Images deal a Critical Strike on every 4th Basic Attack.
Wind Walk Enter Stealth for up to 8 seconds or until you attack, use an Ability, or take damage. While Stealthed, your Movement Speed is increased by 25% and you can pass through other units. Damage taken within the first 1 second will not break Wind Walk.
Hero Trait: Advancing Strike- Basic attacks against enemy heroes increase your Movement Speed by 25% for 2 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
Bladestorm Become an Unstoppable whirlwind of death, dealing 285 damage per second to nearby enemies for 4 seconds.
Illusion Master Switch places with the target Mirror Image. Passive: You can control Mirror Images separately or as a group, and they deal an additional 15% of your damage.
At least there's a max of two. I not so fondly remember this certain hero called Phantom Lancer. What a pain it was to fight that thing. He looks fun, though I wonder how he'll be different as a Melee assassin vs say Illidan and Thrall. He might have Mirror Images as his unique thing but other than that I'm not sure what really sets him apart or why you want to pick him over the current roster.
Way of the Blade [W] Critical Strike now happens every 3rd Basic Attack and deals an additional 25% of your Basic Attack damage.
Way of Illusion [Q] Quest: Every time one of your Images Critically Strikes an hero, gain 0.5 Attack Damage, up to 20. Reward: After hitting 40 Heroes, gain an additional 20 Attack Damage.
Way of the Wind [E] Quest: Attacking a Hero from Wind Walk increases the movement speed bonus of Wind Walk by 1.25%, up to 25%. Reward: After hitting 20 Heroes, the duration before Wind Walk can be broken by damage is increased to 2.5 seconds.
Level 4
Deflection While Advancing Strikes is active, you take 25% reduced damage from Hero Basic Attacks.
Mirage [Q] Mirror Image grants you and your Images 2 charges of Spell Block, reducing the damage of the next enemy Ability against you by 50%. Can hold up to 2 charges.
One with the Wind [E] While Stealthed by Wind Walk, you take 60% reduced damage from all sources.
Level 7
Crushing Blows [W] Critical Strike now has two charges, and Critical Strikes deal an additional 25% of your Basic Attack damage.
Burning Blade [W] Critical Strikes unleash a burst of flame, dealing an additional 65% of your Basic Attack damage to the target and nearby enemies.
Phantom Pain [W] Critical Strikes deal an additional 40% of your Basic Attack damage for each Image you have active.
Level 10
Bladestorm Become an Unstoppable whirlwind of death, dealing 260 damage per second to nearby enemies for 4 seconds.
Illusion Master Switch places with the target Mirror Image. Passive: You can control Mirror Images separately or as a group, and they deal an additional 20% of your damage.
Level 13
Mirrored Steel [Q] Basic Attacks against Heroes reduce the cooldown of Mirror Image by 1 second.
Kawarimi [E] Wind Walk creates an Image at your location that will continue whatever you were doing
Shukuchi [E] Wind Walk teleports Samuro a short distance in the direction he's currently facing.
Level 16
Press the Attack While Advancing Strikes is active, Basic Attacks increases your attack speed by 15%, up to 60%.
Harsh Winds [E] Attacking a Hero from Wind Walk causes them to take 30% increased damage from you and your Images for 3 seconds.
Merciless Strikes [W] Basic Attacks against Slowed, Rooted, or Stunned targets are always Critical Strikes.
Level 20
Dance of Death Your Images use Bladestorm when you do.
Three Blade Style Your Images gain an additional 50% of your Health, and last up to 32 seconds.
Blademaster's Pursuit Advancing Strikes grants an additional 15% bonus Movement Speed, and its duration is increased by 2 seconds.
Wind Strider [E] Wind Walk's cooldown is reduced by 6 seconds.
1. Way of the Wind 4. One with the Wind 7. Phantom Pain 10: Illusion Master 13: Shukuchi 16: Harsh Winds 20???
I really don't know about 20, I guess Wind Strider and keep in line with the other wind talents. It must have a larger cooldown for this to be level 20.
What I'm hoping for is that he is someone you really don't want to come across 1v1, away from a wall or towers and that these build nicely into a duelist who'll be able to create 4v5 or favorable situations around objectives better than some.
This should hopefully let you use wind walk for escape and disengage.
On October 07 2016 06:40 Fanatic-Templar wrote: Wait, so there's just one StarCraft hero for the StarCraft event?
Yea, they announced everything they were going to release for/during the event before hand. And everything there is released already. I don't know why they went with Zarya. I believe it only runs for one more week anyway.
On October 07 2016 03:10 Thezzy wrote: At least there's a max of two. I not so fondly remember this certain hero called Phantom Lancer. What a pain it was to fight that thing. He looks fun, though I wonder how he'll be different as a Melee assassin vs say Illidan and Thrall. He might have Mirror Images as his unique thing but other than that I'm not sure what really sets him apart or why you want to pick him over the current roster.
Phantom Lancer was my favorite hero in Dota by far. There are so many little tricks and mind games you can do on Dota, especially phantom Lancer.
On October 07 2016 03:10 Thezzy wrote: At least there's a max of two. I not so fondly remember this certain hero called Phantom Lancer. What a pain it was to fight that thing. He looks fun, though I wonder how he'll be different as a Melee assassin vs say Illidan and Thrall. He might have Mirror Images as his unique thing but other than that I'm not sure what really sets him apart or why you want to pick him over the current roster.
He can use stealth while attacking. Thats a new thing. If you have a team with hard to hit abilities or target abilities, will be a hard time vs this hero.
A bit similar to tracer i presume, but still different it feels like. Every hero is pretty much hit and run(the assassins), this one i dont know probably similar in that regard, but can still do stuff in the middle of the fight with his things.
Not sure he can use stealth while attacking. Nova can at level 20. But from what I understand Samuro's stealth is not broken for 1 sec while receiving damage, and up to 2,5 secs on quest completion. Which is already very nice.
Looks very fun to play. I hope they fix Zarya soon, because I cannot 1st ban both of them obviously.
Really like the design that Blizzard takes with the new heroes, they are usually more complex than older heroes and have a lot of flexibility in their kit.
Samuro will probably play closer to Zeratul than the rest, and it seems that he has a lot of ways to outplay opponent, just like Alarak and Tracer he will probably be godlike in a hands of very skilled player.
Talents are awesome, of course we don't know all of the stats yet but just from the description majority of talents seem quite good.
On October 07 2016 03:10 Thezzy wrote: At least there's a max of two. I not so fondly remember this certain hero called Phantom Lancer. What a pain it was to fight that thing. He looks fun, though I wonder how he'll be different as a Melee assassin vs say Illidan and Thrall. He might have Mirror Images as his unique thing but other than that I'm not sure what really sets him apart or why you want to pick him over the current roster.
He can have 3 Images with talent that leaves Image at his place when he uses Wind Walk, which makes his level 7 Phantom Pain talent really good, and crits start to do 120% more damage.
He will be a lot different than Illidan/Thrall, which are both considered among tankier melee assassins because of talents/abilities/HP pool, he will have a lot of escape/avoidance/confusion with his talents and abilities, so he can't have high sustain/high HP pool at the same time.
Considering his talents and abilities, he will probably be a bane for immobile squishy heroes, especially mages like Chromie, KT, Jaina because of level 4 Spell Block, also coupled with the fact that Bladestorm makes you unstoppable for 4 seconds they will have a tough time surviving without healer being close to them. Also, he has almost perma 25% movement speed buff lol.
Jaina should have no problem vs him as she denies his mobility and gets shield value from his mirror images. In addition he will have to take mobility talents to even reach her.
But with stealth and being an assassin everyone will love him on release, till people are used to fight vs stealth again.
On October 07 2016 23:07 FeyFey wrote: Jaina should have no problem vs him as she denies his mobility and gets shield value from his mirror images. In addition he will have to take mobility talents to even reach her.
But with stealth and being an assassin everyone will love him on release, till people are used to fight vs stealth again.
4 seconds of unstoppable says hello. Jaina will probably die before she manages to use 3 spells. I don't think that she will be able to fight him before level 20 and even then depending on what he gets it can be very one-sided in his favor if he takes trait upgrade to have 40% movement speed. Or he can take blink for WW at level 13 and then upgrade WW at level 20.
I mean this is all theorycrafting of course but I am not seeing any mage except for Li-Ming escaping him if he takes Bladestorm.
don't waste an ult to trade with a mage, that gets immune on level to it 20. Especially when your only way to not feed her shields is to take Illusion master. But Jaina was always the mage that could duel mage hunters, because of her talents and with the last changes she got even stronger in that duel.
But mages will be a rare sight anyway so not much reason to think about it. You should rather think about ways to not feed Zarya Energy with your summons that cannot be controled until level 10. And how to burst down sustain damage heroes and supports.
On October 07 2016 17:04 Leolio wrote: Not sure he can use stealth while attacking. Nova can at level 20. But from what I understand Samuro's stealth is not broken for 1 sec while receiving damage, and up to 2,5 secs on quest completion. Which is already very nice.
Critical Strike (W): Your next Basic Attack within 10 seconds will be a Critical Strike, dealing 50% increased damage. This also applies to Images, and does not break Wind Walk (stealth). Passive: You and your Images deal a Critical Strike on every 4th Basic Attack.
On October 07 2016 17:04 Leolio wrote: Not sure he can use stealth while attacking. Nova can at level 20. But from what I understand Samuro's stealth is not broken for 1 sec while receiving damage, and up to 2,5 secs on quest completion. Which is already very nice.
Critical Strike (W): Your next Basic Attack within 10 seconds will be a Critical Strike, dealing 50% increased damage. This also applies to Images, and does not break Wind Walk (stealth). Passive: You and your Images deal a Critical Strike on every 4th Basic Attack.
i think it means that using the ability wont break cloak, but proccing it through AA still would
Is there btw any explanation as to why Blizzard decided to remove "Teams" from Teamleague and introduced an MMR system that is based on individual results? I think this decision was just... well... wrong for a fixed team environment.
1. The system drastically reduces the incentive to play in multiple setups. Have a good rank? Well, better avoid playing with players that might be worse. Got a bad rank? Better look for new people and stop playing with your friends, which are obviously too bad. Playing ranked with four friends who just reached level 40 and might be rather bad? Well, you are out of luck, you better do not play with them.
2. The performance in a Fixed Team Environment is not determined by individual skill but by the team's synergy. Having an individual MMR determining your team's rank therefore strongly distorts the actual rank. I just think it makes absolutely no sense to have an individual rating in such an environment. I play with multiple teams. With some players I dominate pure diamond teams, in other setups I lose to Silver/Gold teams → With the one friends I would therefore probably be placed (at least) in Diamond, with the other friends I would probably be ranked in Silver/Gold. On average that is Plat (Which I am placed right now). So the system works to give me an average rank of my performance, but it fails to give me an accurate rank for the respective lineup. Which is obvious, because the system is based on individual performances over time and not on the specific team's performance.
For Heroleague that is a different story of course, because there is no option to avoid it. For a Fixed Team Environment the problem could be solved quite easily: Allow every player to have multiple teams (→ maybe 3-4?) and allow them to have a number of substitute players per team (→3-4 substitutes maybe?) and the problems mentioned above would be solved immediately. 1. You could have different teams for different friends. New players can play with you in one team, more experienced ones in another one and you would not be stomped with one setup and stomp the opponents with the other one. 2. You would not be matched with people that are on average as good as you and your mates, but rather with people that are as good as you and your mates are as a team .
I see the problem that such a system could be abused to get a higher rank (→ Invite someone to give him the end-season rewards; create a new team after you got placed too low for your liking and do that over and over again until you get lucky during the placements). The first problem could be dealt with by having requirements for these end-season rewards (→ You're only ranked if you participate in a given percentage of games of your team? And: Even in the current system you can be carried to the top, so it would not change too much anyway.). The second problem can be avoided by increasing the cost to create new teams over time (→ Or limit the number of teams you can create/the number of teams you are allowed to be part of during one season).
Somehow I still hope they will switch back to the "team creation" system they once had....
New skins and mounts look great. Not a huge fan of the KT skin, but at least he has another option finally.
As I said in the other thread, Samuro with illusion master is channeling the objective with the illusion while he hides in the bush, then switches places with the other illusion at the end.
Started playing hots like 3 weeks ago and have been enjoying the game a lot so far. Just got enough lvl 5 heroes to get into ranked and went 9-1 in my placement games and ended up in diamond 3 which i assume is pretty good. I was surprised how pleasant the experience was, nobody was flaming or arguing even when my teams were behind which is a rare case in mobas.
On October 08 2016 10:10 Artok wrote: Started playing hots like 3 weeks ago and have been enjoying the game a lot so far. Just got enough lvl 5 heroes to get into ranked and went 9-1 in my placement games and ended up in diamond 3 which i assume is pretty good. I was surprised how pleasant the experience was, nobody was flaming or arguing even when my teams were behind which is a rare case in mobas.
Yeah, the community is a lot smaller than LOL/DotA2 but also a lot more friendly and polite. There will be some games with flamers but overall much better experience than in other mobas. And yeah the game is really enjoyable, I can't even get back to DotA2(that I've played a lot) with how frustrating it is to play the game for 50-70 minutes and lose because of stupid shit or RNG.
Diamond 3 is the best you can get from placements, now the grind to the master/grand master begins.
On October 08 2016 10:10 Artok wrote: Started playing hots like 3 weeks ago and have been enjoying the game a lot so far. Just got enough lvl 5 heroes to get into ranked and went 9-1 in my placement games and ended up in diamond 3 which i assume is pretty good. I was surprised how pleasant the experience was, nobody was flaming or arguing even when my teams were behind which is a rare case in mobas.
On October 08 2016 10:10 Artok wrote: Started playing hots like 3 weeks ago and have been enjoying the game a lot so far. Just got enough lvl 5 heroes to get into ranked and went 9-1 in my placement games and ended up in diamond 3 which i assume is pretty good. I was surprised how pleasant the experience was, nobody was flaming or arguing even when my teams were behind which is a rare case in mobas.
You won 9 games: of course there was no toxicity.
In the game we lost score was 7-31 and nobody flamed or blamed and just tried their best to comeback from crappy early game, that doesnt happen in other mobas from my experience
On October 08 2016 10:10 Artok wrote: Started playing hots like 3 weeks ago and have been enjoying the game a lot so far. Just got enough lvl 5 heroes to get into ranked and went 9-1 in my placement games and ended up in diamond 3 which i assume is pretty good. I was surprised how pleasant the experience was, nobody was flaming or arguing even when my teams were behind which is a rare case in mobas.
You won 9 games: of course there was no toxicity.
In the game we lost score was 7-31 and nobody flamed or blamed and just tried their best to comeback from crappy early game, that doesnt happen in other mobas from my experience
just got lucky, wait for your first cykas and blyats
On October 08 2016 08:18 Ramiz1989 wrote: I find Valla much more fun than pre-work and I really dig the skin. Xul skin is fun as well.
good for you, I really dislike the direction change they did on hero design, so every rework hurts my personal interest. Especially if they hit heroes I like because their talents allowed for different playstyles. And hungering was my least favorite build, but now its the only one outside of pro play. (yeah I know that people go for multishot alot, because pros use it )
I understand the direction change though, most people just pick most used build and go with that. So why make complicated characters if you just can make more one dimensionals. Valla and Zagara where beasts in the right hands, because most of their talents where viable and changed their playstyle so much that many failed playing against them and failed playing them.
On October 08 2016 08:18 Ramiz1989 wrote: I find Valla much more fun than pre-work and I really dig the skin. Xul skin is fun as well.
good for you, I really dislike the direction change they did on hero design, so every rework hurts my personal interest. Especially if they hit heroes I like because their talents allowed for different playstyles. And hungering was my least favorite build, but now its the only one outside of pro play. (yeah I know that people go for multishot alot, because pros use it )
I understand the direction change though, most people just pick most used build and go with that. So why make complicated characters if you just can make more one dimensionals. Valla and Zagara where beasts in the right hands, because most of their talents where viable and changed their playstyle so much that many failed playing against them and failed playing them.
On October 08 2016 08:18 Ramiz1989 wrote: I find Valla much more fun than pre-work and I really dig the skin. Xul skin is fun as well.
good for you, I really dislike the direction change they did on hero design, so every rework hurts my personal interest. Especially if they hit heroes I like because their talents allowed for different playstyles. And hungering was my least favorite build, but now its the only one outside of pro play. (yeah I know that people go for multishot alot, because pros use it )
I understand the direction change though, most people just pick most used build and go with that. So why make complicated characters if you just can make more one dimensionals. Valla and Zagara where beasts in the right hands, because most of their talents where viable and changed their playstyle so much that many failed playing against them and failed playing them.
Valla and Zagara are still beasts in the right hands, Valla especially more so than before, and Zagara really only had one good build with minor variations because most of her talents did fuck all.
On October 08 2016 08:18 Ramiz1989 wrote: I find Valla much more fun than pre-work and I really dig the skin. Xul skin is fun as well.
good for you, I really dislike the direction change they did on hero design, so every rework hurts my personal interest. Especially if they hit heroes I like because their talents allowed for different playstyles. And hungering was my least favorite build, but now its the only one outside of pro play. (yeah I know that people go for multishot alot, because pros use it )
I understand the direction change though, most people just pick most used build and go with that. So why make complicated characters if you just can make more one dimensionals. Valla and Zagara where beasts in the right hands, because most of their talents where viable and changed their playstyle so much that many failed playing against them and failed playing them.
I am really not sure what are you talking about, majority of heroes reworked are better than pre-rework, have more options, better and more impactful talents etc. Some of them have their game play changed and I understand why people dislike them(Butcher, Valla, Tychus for example), but overall I find majority of reworked heroes more rewarding if played correctly than before. They are increasing skill cap constantly and in my eyes that's a good thing.
Also a lot of reworked heroes had very little flexibility when choosing talents, not because others were bad, but because those that 60%+ players pick are way too good to skip. Zagara had very few options, and those that talents that you could change didn't change your play style or had heavy impact on the game. People don't go for Multishot on Valla because pros use it, but because it is just logical after testing, you can see what build performs the best. And what is this supposed to mean "talents allowed different playstyles"? AA Valla, MS Valla and HA Valla are quite different. So is Butcher with different talents.
Most heroes feel excellent after their reworks, Zagaras talent tree was insanely limited before they went ahead with it.
This is one of the most balanced MOBAS ever made at the moment, all the team really has to do is nerf Malfurions health mana cost and maybe tone down the root a weeee bit (it kind of sucked but now it feels OP) and revert the flash buffs on Zarya, she is cancer right now, at least to us below diamond noobs.
reworks are subjective, I thought I made clear its a personal thing for me right in the first sentence. And Zagara usually had 2-3 option per talent before the rework. Of course there was the standard build, but that one also died alot to unusual comps or performed rather suboptimal on some maps. Though old Zagara got talent locked if you decided on your level 1 and 4 talents. Valla was fun once i learned when to use all her different builds and not feed. So now she is a bit boring, because the decisions are so easy. Guess I should be happy people don't suck as much on heroes I like, because it was always painful to see a Zagara or Valla pick horrible talents because they were the most picked. And since they flatout buffed them I maintained my winrate.
My mechanical skill sucks though, so I need other options to win.
What are your guys' thoughts on KT on Braxxis? Empowered nether wind with convection is freaking amazing it seems like, I may have to pick him every chance I get on the map. Living Bombs everywhere.
On October 10 2016 23:28 ThomasjServo wrote: What are your guys' thoughts on KT on Braxxis? Empowered nether wind with convection is freaking amazing it seems like, I may have to pick him every chance I get on the map. Living Bombs everywhere.
I usually pick mana addict on that map. So many globes and the quest is over in no time. Then you have a KT that never runs out of mana and have way better sustain. I've never been a fan of conviction, 80% of the player base seems to pick it, but 90% never complete it, at least at my level plat/diamond. It's a good talent if it works for you, but it seems way too greedy to me and if it doesn't it's simply just a wasted level 1 talent.
On October 10 2016 23:28 ThomasjServo wrote: What are your guys' thoughts on KT on Braxxis? Empowered nether wind with convection is freaking amazing it seems like, I may have to pick him every chance I get on the map. Living Bombs everywhere.
I usually pick mana addict on that map. So many globes and the quest is over in no time. Then you have a KT that never runs out of mana and have way better sustain. I've never been a fan of conviction, 80% of the player base seems to pick it, but 90% never complete it, at least at my level plat/diamond. It's a good talent if it works for you, but it seems way too greedy to me and if it doesn't it's simply just a wasted level 1 talent.
I had to dust off KT, and just read the build more or less verbatim from some site without thinking too much about it. I did manage to finish it, but I like the extra safety of mana addict too.
Clicked the link and there they are, 10min ago it came up. Dont tell me you are a prophet. edit: what a boring patch, damn, anyway i bet they dont want to make any balance changes to heroes this time around to make the focus on the brawl for the players.
We’re about to release a new patch for Heroes of the Storm in order to apply a few balance changes to the Nexus. Check out the full patch notes below.
Battlegrounds
Warhead Junction
Reduced Nuke inner damage bonus from 100 to 50% Time at which Nukes upgrade their damage changed from 14 to 18 minutes
Developer Comments: This is a temporary solution to prevent the Nuke Core rushes at the 14-minute mark. In a coming patch, we’ll likely be making further changes that makes Nukes gradually scale over time, so that they mirror the Core’s scaling over time.
Gargantuan (R) Reduced Gargantuan Basic Attack damage from 195 to 176 Ravenous Spirit (R) Damage increased from 94 to 103 Corpse Spiders (Q) Cooldown reduced from 10 to 9 seconds
Talents
Level 7
Spirit of Arachyr (Q) Increased the number of additional spiders spawned from 1 to 2 Dead Rush (W) Reduced damage bonus from 100 to 75%
Level 16
Ring of Poison (W) Damage reduced by roughly 15% Soul Harvest (Active) Increased bonus per hero hit from 3 to 4%, and maximum from 15 to 20%
Level 20
Humongoid (R) Cooldown increased from 20 to 25 seconds
Developer Comments: Right now Zombie Wall Talents are providing more utility and damage than the alternatives, which isn’t ideal. We’re providing buffs to Corpse Spiders, while also nerfing Gargantuan. In general we expect Nazeebo’s winrate to stay about the same (which is right in the middle), but increase the number of effective Talent options for different playstyles.
Regrowth (Q) Mana cost increased from 35 to 40 Entangling Roots (E) Cooldown increased from 10 to 14 seconds Mana cost increased from 65 to 75 Initial delay increased from .25 to .3 seconds
Talents
Level 4
Rampant Growth (Q) Removed
Developer Comments: We are happy with how Malfurion is now played after his changes, but he has come out a little too strong. We believe that his role as a sustained healing support should still be a primary strength, but we want to limit just how long he can keep his team going if he’s spamming his Regrowth on cooldown. We are also cutting Rampant Growth as it pushed Malfurion towards being a burst healer, which is against the role that he should be filling for his team. We also like that Entangling Roots allows Malfurion to make plays and initiate fights, but it’s a little too good right now at securing kills. We’re slightly increasing its initial delay to be between where it is now and where it used to be, which should give opponents more of a chance to dodge the root.
Basic Attack damage reduced from 24 to 21 Base Maximum Health reduced from 2336 to 2225 Base Health Regeneration reduced from 4.87 to 4.64
Talents
Level 1
Maximum Charge (Trait) Reduced the bonus Energy on quest completion from 25 to 20 Demolitions Expert (Q) Recharge rate reduction increased from .25 to .375, up to a total of 3 seconds
Level 4
Speed Barrier (E) Movement Speed increased from 25 to 35%
Developer Comments: We’re reverting some of the previous Zarya buffs to bring her power level back to where we want. We’re also nerfing the benefits of Maximum Charge, now that getting high Energy isn’t as difficult as it was previously. We’ve also buffed Demolitions Expert and Speed Barrier, as they were substantially underperforming when compared to the other Talents on their tiers.
On October 11 2016 04:35 Garbels wrote: OMG, Artanis E usable while Qing on PTR.
–]BlizzClaudio So we are testing this internally, but it is not intended for this patch and will be reverted before next week (this is a big change to make prior to BlizzCon World Finals).
A change like this requires many accompanying changes (even slight reworks to talents, etc, but needs some art support as well) to be properly done. Although no promises can be made about this, we're trying our best to make this happen! We know you all are/have been excited at the prospect of this change.
Sorry for the pump fake everyone, but there's a lot of work left to do on this. Thank you in advance for your understanding!
Better than the old one where I went, "Was I cleansed?" to my buddy who is healing, just to double check.
I think they should bring back the 'cleansed!' text, only have it like Tracer's heroic on release for all 10 players in game and 3 in random games across the world
Heroes should steal the themed skin idea from LoL. Add a music video with a cg trailer and everyones gonna buy and play. But I guess that is only good if you have a giant playerbase. But I want Magic Girl Chromie T.T.
Samuro seems to be in the situational pick region(to many hard counters imo ), with skill unlocking more situations nice. And if everything fails you can atleast do camps without any effort.
Better than the old one where I went, "Was I cleansed?" to my buddy who is healing, just to double check.
I think they should bring back the 'cleansed!' text, only have it like Tracer's heroic on release for all 10 players in game and 3 in random games across the world
Better than the old one where I went, "Was I cleansed?" to my buddy who is healing, just to double check.
I think they should bring back the 'cleansed!' text, only have it like Tracer's heroic on release for all 10 players in game and 3 in random games across the world
You're joking, but I really wish something like that. I mean, using cleanse is an advanced move and using it should have a high visual impact. Also a few times I see people walk casually out of my Mosh Pits and it always feels odd.
Serious question: Why is Murky not banned from Ranked Play atm? I mean, there are heroes that are bad. Murky has always been one of them. But since the Octograb nerf... murky is not just "bad", he literally does nothing. I hate it when he gets drafted in my team, because it just means you gotta play 4v5 :/
On October 15 2016 21:44 Swisslink wrote: Serious question: Why is Murky not banned from Ranked Play atm? I mean, there are heroes that are bad. Murky has always been one of them. But since the Octograb nerf... murky is not just "bad", he literally does nothing. I hate it when he gets drafted in my team, because it just means you gotta play 4v5 :/
Serious question?
He has a higher winrate than Uther, Abathur, Rehgar, Cho'gall and Medivh - should they all be banned too? Murky can still work in certain comps, he's just not that good. No reason for him to be removed from play just cause he's bad.
On October 15 2016 21:44 Swisslink wrote: Serious question: Why is Murky not banned from Ranked Play atm? I mean, there are heroes that are bad. Murky has always been one of them. But since the Octograb nerf... murky is not just "bad", he literally does nothing. I hate it when he gets drafted in my team, because it just means you gotta play 4v5 :/
Serious question?
He has a higher winrate than Uther, Abathur, Rehgar, Cho'gall and Medivh - should they all be banned too? Murky can still work in certain comps, he's just not that good. No reason for him to be removed from play just cause he's bad.
On another note, people still banning Zarya, lol.
Thats not because she is OP but ppl just dont know how to play against her, triggering her ability all the time. Like with Monks Palm.
Had a match against her as Muradin on Braxis. Whenever we dueled around a cap point and she threw her shield up I just didn't attack and walked a circle around her till it dropped. She barely did any real damage and had to fall back pretty quick.
Some heroes might struggle a bit more with doing that though, especially in a teamfight.
Currently, my main issue with Zarya is that those shields kinda force your team to work together in how to work around them: You either burst Zarya through her shields and kill her, which is very reasonable as the shield isn't that big - OR you stop damaging her and keep her effectiveness relatively low. However, as we can't effectively communicate in teamfights, Zarya usually gets near max value in such situations.
Didnt they want chen to be able to solo tank? Thing is, he cant solo tank for shit. Weak as hell vs stuns as always. Even in a 2warrior composition he doesnt work vs 2 stunners.
Thats my experience the last 10games ive seen chen beeing played, while i also tried him myself. Or is the problem that my chen and others i have seen are rather bad perhaps?
Like i dont know the best first talent for example. What do others say about chen in general?
Over all he is exceptionally strong, but yeah if the other team is stun heavy then it will be much tougher. You can go Bolder Flavor at 7 if you are having problems with stuns interrupting drinking.
I consider Chen to be in a similar position to Illidan. Godly to borderline OP if properly supported and the usual counters aren't available, a potential liability otherwise. If you're up against Chen without a reliable stun/displacement he is hell to deal with, same with an Illidan if you don't have blind/stun. But against a CC heavy composition they just fall apart.
Usually when I see Chen, he is a last pick. Probably being picked since as a last pick, you'd know what he would face. I suppose he is stronger on control point type maps such as Braxis where he can plant himself on the beacon and without CC he's almost impossible to remove.
You can skip ahead watch the game play if you don't want to watch him discuss every talent choice. Default build for him is:
1) Elusive Brawler 4) Deadly Strike or Ring of FIre (single target vs aoe wave clear) 7) Brewmaster Balance unless stuns are a problem 10) Storm, Earth, Fire 13) Pressure Point 16) Flying Leap usually 20) Elemental Conduit
could be many issues. Win 10 ... 32 bit or 64 bit version giving issues. Would check the bnet technical support. If something happens after a patch usually enough people will have the same trouble that it ends up there.
Still on Win 7. I think i had a similar problem with Overwatch, but honestly i never liked over watch enough to figure it out. That might be coming back to bite me now, that its spilled over into Hots.
Oh wow, thank you for tracking down that thread. Glad to know its not just me, and hopefully there will be fix in a few days.
On October 19 2016 03:03 karazax wrote: You can skip ahead watch the game play if you don't want to watch him discuss every talent choice. Default build for him is:
1) Elusive Brawler 4) Deadly Strike or Ring of FIre (single target vs aoe wave clear) 7) Brewmaster Balance unless stuns are a problem 10) Storm, Earth, Fire 13) Pressure Point 16) Flying Leap usually 20) Elemental Conduit
If you're confident in your skill, or in your team, or the enemy has that precious sustain/siege hero (Hammer, Morales) without a teleport, you should go Wandering Keg. Keg 1 enemy into your team (even the enemy tank sometimes), repel the others and enjoy your 5v4. I think level 1, 4, 13 and 16 are flex.
Example with level 1: Elusive Brawler makes you evade AA the Illidan way. Don't go for it if they went double mages but you may well make that Raynor cry. Grounding Brew is spellshield while drinking. Not the best talent here but works well vs burst mages comps obviously. Makes Chromie cry. Even if she ults you and you're low life, just drink, your shield will stay with you as her combo hits. Accumulating Flame is the "I'm not the tank and they have at least 2 squishies I can bully all game" talent. Freshest Ingredients is a very long quest, probably too long. But when it's over you keep half of your shields, which is borderline OP. Reading a build order don't allow you to adapt, you really need a detailed guide for Chen. He can adapt so much now, it's impressive. One of the best reworks in the game.
I agree that McIntyre is too slow on his videos, but every talent tier need a thorough explanation for Chen, because almost every single talent is viable.
edit: Cyanocist, some people reported this bug on reddit yesterday. I guess reinstalling is the only way. edit 2: thanks karazax for sharing the Chen guide, 1 minute in and I already learned a new thing. Elusive Brawler dodges tower shots. Now you can yolo behind enemy forts even more.
Seems the new hero is super popupar, in quickmatch estimated wait time 600sec. And then i looked at two or three other heroes estimate time was around 100sec.
First game of the day gives that new bonus xp, and if you have stim pack left over from pre-patch machines event you can get a ton from that first game.
On the one hand most people haven't learned any of the counters, but on the other hand people are still learning how to play Samuro, and EVERY talent choice has a really high win rate so far.
What's good is that any hero is 30 secs queue in QM, except Samuro. Playing QM to feel what it's like to face Samuro, and to have him on your team is very interesting. Now is a good time to farm that Rexxar level 5 or to learn new heroes.
This hero just never dies, it's annoying. That "unbreakable stealth" for 1 second when you flee is damn powerful. Both Samuro ended with insanely low damage, very few kills, but almost no death too. They were a bit too conservative I guess.
Also, Brawl is the perfect alternative to the "new hero patch day 1 LAG". Had I played in HL today, I'd be whining about how I got robbed by server lag and it how was unplayable.
Yeah it was fun although I don't see myself playing more than the quest each week - certainly not this one anyway. Might be tempted with a team of friends I suppose.
brawl is not so fun. Was fun when it was tied and everyone was thrall but other than that round, playing with no healer/support is just not what this game was made with in mind
Well maybe it can be fun if people have brains, going in 2v5 i saw for example - probably low mmr brains. Felt kinda low while playing hero league as well so brawl might not be bad actually.
Sometimes you get supports in Brawl, it's like quick match. I was in one where I was Lt Morales and team mate had malfurion. Using the increased strength well and killing the opponents well is important. Maybe too important on killing the opposing team's well.
On October 19 2016 23:58 Immersion_ wrote: Yeah it was fun although I don't see myself playing more than the quest each week - certainly not this one anyway. Might be tempted with a team of friends I suppose.
It could be a fun map but more often than not its a snowball fest on it, blackhearts bay. Dont get me wrong i actually like the map but snowball effects are usually boring. At the same time, snowball effects do exist on other maps aswell. Just not as clear as a waveclear map Again, i got reminded about this thing called waveclear
People dont care or think about it, first two picks are bad waveclear, the rest of the team picks bad waveclear and on maps like blackheart bay - its an "auto" lose pretty much. That spidermap as well and such. Many maps that went out of rotation last time are now back.
Had a few brawls. Interesting and a nice change, but not something you want to play constantly.
The random factor is even higher than QM and don't expect your teammates to look at what options your team has as far as picks go. I take a quick look at the player who gets the same group of heroes as I do and try to avoid cases where damage is too low, frontline is missing or damage output is too low.
Some heroes dominate, such as those without mana, high sustain (Tassadar is quite strong) or those with good self-heal/escapes. I've seen Butcher dominate as his counters will often be missing. Gul'Dan is strong as well, never having to go back for mana or health as you can just leech the Punishers for health. Even Tracer worked quite well for me here which surprised me a bit as she has zero sustain but we did have a healer and the wells recharge quite fast.
I also noticed players aren't paying attention to the point counter on top. It was 98 vs 98 and we had a Thrall diving our side. He should have died and given us the 2-0, instead a 1 health Lunara on our side decided to attack him. He threw lightning in her face and it went 1-1 into a 1-2 loss. Also had an Auriel who managed a grand total of 2k healing when she had a Butcher to support. That is an advanced level of fail.
Also had a 10x Illidan match that was surprisingly fun. For some reason, everyone but me and 1 teammate went Metamorphosis. Why? It provides no bonuses any more other than a temporary health boost, which is relatively minor given the level the heroes are set at. The Hunt instead provides a decent stun and can secure kills as well as bring you back into the center faster.
Sadly, also had a few cases where we sorely lacked damage or CC and just got stomped. It's fun, but very random.
I do hope they add a mutator where you can pick talents. Some heroes live by their talents and are a lot weaker without them.
This morning I had the same, even worse, it was 96 for them but all low life and retreating to our 90+ points. The red punisher with like 5% HP, we were all good, high HP, easy win. Our Butcher dived them 1 v 5, full life. Gave them the victory.
Got an all-Gul dan game, which made me realized I never ever played him in 4k games. That was a long, slow brawl, and above all really silly and fun.
I think melee assassins are the kind here, with the usual KT / Jaina. The 2 brawls where I had Illidan and Thrall were no games. About Illidan Metamorphosis, you gain 1 escape, Health boost and a tiny AOE damage. Also, it zones people as they tend to walk away from the huge demonic rune on the ground. I didn't have the balls to go the Hunt, but I don't regret my choice, I think we won 100 to 40 or something like that.
I still think that Meta is too good to skip as Illidan. Especially in all-Illidan matchup, I don't see the reason why would I go in with the Hunt, just to realize I can't escape because I am not reducing my CDs with autos, since every Illidan I hit instantly press Evasion.
To be honest, going for the Hunt makes more sense in actual game on some of the new maps or against certain heroes with global mobility, in a 5v5 brawl? Meta all the way. That 1 second of invulnerability + blink + increased health pool is Illidan that didn't die, Hunt has very limited use in 5v5 fights and if you just use it to engage a backline hero you will be in trouble more likely than not, even if you manage to get the kill.
Also don't know how Butcher dominates the brawl, every time I've seen one he was completely useless. All of the Butcher's power comes from trait and talents, and he gets neither in brawl. He can't even stack trait with hero kills because he is losing more with death than he is gaining with a kill. There is no cleanse, so having Lamb to the Slaughter is something, but he is liability more often than not from my experience.
I used the The Hunt almost exclusively as a finisher on a retreating Illidan or whenever one went to about 20-30% health and popped Evasion. I didn't really use it on Illidans that were already in the backline. The stun and damage finished off a lot of Illidans. Afterwards I'd just go back into the group.
Normally I go Meta myself and take the upgrade at level 20 but just on its own Meta doesn't feel very special. I suppose it does give an escape but then with a 120 second cooldown you can't really use it to start a fight as (even with Illidan's cooldown reduction) it won't be off cooldown by the time you need it as an escape. Next time I'll give it a try though and see how it measures up.
The Butchers I have been up against all had good supports (Auriel or Morales) and went Lamb. Very little that could be done to save whoever got hooked by it. Butcher couldn't touch my Tracer though, as I would just Recall whenever he tried to charge me.
Had people picking double auriel in my brawl ... bad idea since I was the best target for crown as Muradin lol. Got stomped hard x.x. Illidan is interesting at low level prolly Meta best, as no one dodges it. But at high level you get chain stunned by hunt and Meta is mostly the only way to dodge the chain. Someone on our team organized us and pinged the hunt chain target. Was hillarious.
Wish they tweaked/redesigned zeratul. I dont like him being about void prism this much. Not very fun. Its to high cooldown imo. If they dont wanna go away from void prism completely then maybe tweak it so it has less effect and much less cooldown.
Zeratul is more fun to play than samuro imo. But zeratul so niche.
Cool, I woke up this morning excited to buy him, but was obviously disappointed. Was happy about the nerf, but seems like it won't be enough. I'd be curious to see what Blizzard has his win rate at vs. hotslogs.
Is it only me or did everyone forget about Illidan being broken? People don't seem to respect him at all in drafts and he hasn't been nerfed since his status of being permabanned in ranked.
I had some fun with a composition, the backbone of which is Li Li, Auriel where Li Li focuses on her blinds, and Auriel comes more online at 13 with the Blinding Sweep.
We queued up at our most cheesy with Johanna, Auriel, LiLi, and found that even with mages, the double support could deal pretty well with sustaining through the dps, and in cases where we get more auto attack heroes (the best we had was Butcher, Auriel, Diablo, Abathur, Raynor vs.Auriel, Li Ming, Johanna, Li Li, Tychus on Towers. They were basically unable to do non ability damage to our team.)
I think Lili is under-rated but fun as all get out. I think her biggest issue is the stupid w spell and she kind of requires your team mates to be able to recognize when you're blinding to engage vs. blinding to run away.
If you could re-work lili though, what would you do?
EPT
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???
