Stealth in Heroes of the Storm has been problematic for quite some time. They’ve been difficult to balance for all levels of play, from Bronze to Masters, since the inception of the game. At the highest levels, stealth was borderline useless; Most pros and top players were able to easily spot stealthed characters and delete them. Conversely, lower level players often didn’t even know to look for the shimmer or weren’t able to track it effectively.

This explanatory blog post gives the best overview of the core “shader” change. Blizzard had to decide whether or not stealth heroes should be completely invisible or clearly visible. The in-between, or “eye test”, exacerbated the difference between players in high level and in low level play due to the extra skill necessary to detect stealth heroes.

Talk about a “stealth rework” dates back as far as July this year, and finally it has arrived in the latest PTR patch.

The spreadsheet for today’s article can be found here.

Nova

Overview

Nova saw a number of base kit changes, including a new active skill and a baseline Snipe Master quest, but her fundamental playstyle remains the least changed of the stealth heroes. The baseline quest doesn’t change Nova’s play incentives beyond “git gud”. Even though adding baseline movement speed while stealthed and the new Ghost Protocol active are mildly useful, they still don’t change how Nova is played.

The most important change is the interaction of the new baseline 10% decoy damage, the decoy spawned by Ghost Protocol, and Lethal Decoy at 16. The combination of these things all combine to substantially increase Nova’s burst by about a third.

Abilities

• Snipe (Q)
  
  • Damage reduced from 310 to 255.
    
  • Baseline quest added: Hitting an enemy Hero increases the damage of Snipe by 5% stacking 5 times. When at max stacks (5) it gains an additional 25% damage. If Snipe fails to hit a target, all stacks are lost.
  
  
• Pinning Shot (W)
  
  • Damage reduced from 110 to 105
  
  
• Holo Decoy (E)
  
  • Added functionality: Decoys now deal 10% of Nova’s damage
    
  • Improved A.I. functionality
  
  
• Permanent Cloak (Trait)
  
  • Added functionality: Gain 15% movement speed while Stealthed
  
  
• Triple Tap ®
  
  • Damage per shot increased from 338 to 372
  
  
• (New) Ghost Protocol (1)
  
  • Activate to instantly Cloak, leave a Holo Decoy at your feet, and become Unrevealable for .5 seconds.

The primary goal of the stealth rework is to decrease stealth heroes’ “pub stomp” power while increasing their competitive viability. For Nova, tying in Snipe damage to her skill level makes her more like Zeratul, who has been allowed to remain relevant at high levels due to the difficulty and complexity of his burst combo.

Snipe’s base damage was reduced by ~18%, but max stacks on the passive Snipe Master quest increase the damage to 24% higher than before. If Nova misses a shot, it will take at least 40 seconds to build back up to full stacks.

Pinning Shot takes a small 4.5% nerf that is fairly insignificant compared to the other base kit buffs. Pinning Shot does not make up a large percentage of Nova’s total burst damage. As a side note, this nerf equalizes Nova’s Basic Attack and Pinning Shot damage.

Adding damage to Holo Decoy, even at only 10% of Nova’s damage, is the largest buff in these changes. Getting the full burst combo on the ideal burst target is somewhat unlikely, but the Decoy can contribute by dismounting heroes or interrupting channels.

A weaker version of her level 1 talent, Advanced Cloaking, has also been added to her base kit. Permanent Cloak gains a passive 15% movement speed, which improves her movement speed from 4.4 m/s to 5.06 m/s. The bonus speed helps Nova escape and reposition during fights if she steps out of combat for a brief moment.

The Ghost Protocol active is a new escape tool for Nova, which spawns an extra decoy and instantly triggers stealth. This ability makes her much more slippery than before as well as providing some extra utility with a second decoy. The decoy can contribute to burst, block skillshots, and confuse enemies, and the instant stealth combined with the new movement speed can give up to 1.98m extra ground when running away.

Talents

Level 1

• Advanced Cloaking (Trait)
  
  • New functionality: Increase your Stealth movement speed by 5% after remaining stealthed for 2 seconds. While Stealthed, gain 2 additional mana regeneration per second.

Advanced Cloaking was significantly nerfed. The end buff was nerfed from 25% MS to 20% MS, and the extra MS now only kicks in 2s after cloaking instead of immediately. The relative value was also significantly nerfed due to the baseline 15% MS while cloaked. The extra 5% MS represents 0.22 m/s, and only a 4% increase over the base MS while Cloaked.

For level 1, Covert Ops and Longshot continue to be the best talents on the tier depending on your preference of CC versus safety.


Level 4

No changes on this talent tier. Level 4 continues to provide Nova with added utility. Covert Mission provides value when Nova’s team doesn’t have any hero that can consistently take camps. Holo Stability is better for Lethal Decoy builds and for scouting purposes. Rapid Projection synergizes most with One in the Chamber at 7 by providing an extra proc worth 73.5 damage 6 seconds earlier than the base cooldown.


Level 7

• Snipe Master (Q)
  
  • Removed
  
  
• One in the Chamber (Passive)
  
  • Bonus damage reduced from 80 to 70%
  
  
• Perfect Shot (Q)
  
  • Moved from Level 16
    
  • Cooldown reduction on Hero hit reduced from 3 to 2 seconds

This is Nova’s damage talent tier. Perfect Shot increases the DPS provided by Snipe from 47.8 at max stacks to 63.75, an increase of 15.95. However, One in the Chamber adds 73.5 damage per ability use, which in a quick burst (2 seconds) add up to 220.5 damage. Even in extended fights, One in the Chamber outpaces Perfect Shot for total added damage and beats Anti-Armor Shells against all but the absolute tankiest of targets.


Level 10

• Triple Tap (R)
  
  • Damage per shot increased from 338 to 372

Triple Tap’s 10% buff takes the total damage from 1014 to 1116. This puts both Baelog and Pilot D.Va in 100-0 range, which can be especially relevant with the level 20 reset-on-kill talent. Precision Strike continues to do 475 damage in a 4 radius after 1.5 seconds. The 40% slow on Pinning Shot is just enough to guarantee that the target is hit with a perfectly aimed Precision Strike.


Level 13

• Psionic Efficiency (Q)
  
  • Bonus range increased from 10% to 15% (Note: Change is listed in patch notes but was actually a documented change from two months ago)
    
  • Adjusted functionality: Now refunds the cost of Snipe on a successful Hero hit.
  
  
• (New Talent) Ionic Force Field (Trait)
  
  • Gain 25 Armor for 2 seconds after losing stealth

The patch notes are misleading since the range buff on Psionic Efficiency happened much earlier. Instead, it technically receives a nerf. The better talents on this tier are Double Tap and the new Ionic Force Field. Double Tap is the best burst talent on the tier, increasing Nova’s combo damage by 105 or 178.5 with One in the Chamber. Ionic Force Field offers additional protection to Nova, especially if she takes Apollo Suit at level 20.


Level 16

• Lethal Decoy (E)
  
  • Damage bonus from clones increased from 40 to 50%
  
  
• Explosive Round (Q)
  
  • Moved from Level 13

Due to the AI improvements and Ghost Protocol as a baseline skill, Lethal Decoy is now the best talent on Nova’s 16 tier. Lethal Decoy turns Ghost Protocol into a genuine burst tool by giving it 50% of her damage. Alongside Nova’s normal clone, she can quickly set up to burst down isolated targets.

Lethal Decoy represents a 36% damage boost to Nova with one clone, a 66% damage boost with two, and a 92% damage boost with three (via Rewind). Given that the armor reduction from Crippling Shot represents at most a 25% damage boost, in almost all cases it is preferable to pick Lethal Decoy.

As for Explosive Shot, it unfortunately doesn’t offer enough to outweigh the damage boost of Nova’s other talents in this tier.


Level 20

• Ghost Protocol (Trait)
  
  • Removed
  
  
• (New Talent) Apollo Suit (Trait)
  
  • Reduce the cooldown of Permanent Cloak from 3 to 1 second
  
  
• Precision Barrage (R)
  
  • ​Added functionality: ​Now also reduces the cooldown of Precision Strike by 30 seconds.

Nova’s level 20 tier offers multiple, legitimate options. Rewind adds upwards of another 1000 damage to Nova’s full combo, allowing her to full burst even the best supported and most durable targets. Precision Barrage provides significant utility and wave clear by reducing the cooldown to equal the minion wave spawns (30 seconds). Fast Reload is indirectly buffed by the Triple Tap buff and allows for more resets and the likelihood that Triple Tap is even picked in the first place. Finally, the new Apollo Suit offers a significant boost to Nova’s elusiveness—although, given that Nova’s main role is to brutally murder enemy squishies, it would seem the extra damage is preferable.

Samuro

Overview

Samuro’s changes are the most subtle out of the four stealth heroes and include no major functionality changes or new base kit spells. Rather, the development team took this as an opportunity to rebalance Samuro by shifting a significant amount of damage from his mirror images to Samuro himself.

On paper, the damage export is a nerf, which matters for Samuro’s current crown as top Immortal DPS. However, the added control on Mirror Image and baseline Image Transmission expand Samuro’s playmaking ability from the first minute. The decreased power of images for DPS mean Samuro doesn’t need to worry nearly as much about AoE spells killing them and can more comfortably forgo image use against heroes and talents that greatly benefit from hitting multiple heroes per skill use. These functionality improvements should outweigh the raw damage decrease which can be estimated at 3% to 4% across the board.

Abilities

• Mirror Image (Q)
  
  • Samuro will now appear in the direction of the player’s Mouse Cursor when Mirror Image is cast.
    
  • Mirror Image damage is no longer a fraction of Samuro’s Attack Damage. Mirror Image base damage has been greatly reduced to 9.
    
  • Mirror Images are no longer instantly destroyed by Structures
  
  
• Critical Strike (W)
  
  • Cooldown increased from 8 to 10 seconds
  
  
• Illusion Master (R)
  
  • New functionality: Reduce the cooldown of Advancing Strikes Image Transmission to 8 seconds
    
  • Now increases the attack damage of Mirror Images by 100%
    
  • Now also increases Samuro’s Basic Attack damage by 10%
  
  
• Image Transmission (Trait)
  
  • Additional functionality: Activate to switch places with the target Mirror Image, removing most negative effects from Samuro and the target Mirror Image. 25-second cooldown.

The two most important numbers to understand with these changes are Samuro’s percent damage contribution to his total base damage. Samuro’s percent contribution is the measure of Samuro’s damage output relative to the clone damage output. The total base damage is the attack damage sum of Samuro and his Mirror Images.

Samuro’s contribution to his total damage output has been increased from 66% to 85%, but his total base damage has been reduced from 132 to 128, a 3% nerf.

Illusion Master was changed from adding 26.4 total damage to 29 damage, a 10% buff. Illusion Master used to shift the balance to 55% contribution from Samuro, while the new Illusion Master shifts the balance to 77% contribution. However, Illusion Master was overall nerfed relative to pre-patch, and the 33% cooldown increase on Image Transmission (from 6 to 8 seconds) especially hurts his ability to juke and deceive his opponents.

The cooldown increase on Critical Strikes decreases the overall damage output between usage by 2%. The change was made to compensate for his higher damage, but the difference in damage output is nominal.

Talents

Level 1

• Way of the Wind (E)
  
  • New Functionality: Gain 40% Movement Speed for 3 seconds upon entering or exiting Stealth by using Wind Walk
  
  
• Way of the Blade (W)
  
  • No longer grants bonus Critical Strike damage
  
  
• Way of Illusion (Q)
  
  • Mirror Images no longer benefit from this talent

Way of Illusion for more damage, Way of the Wind for movement. The break point for Way of Illusion versus Way of the Blade at level 20 is 20 stacks (+10 damage), which is trivially easy to the point of making Way of the Blade a trap talent. The movement speed on Way of the Wind is worth 5.28 extra meters of movement for each half of the proc and a substantial boost to Samuro’s chasing and escape abilities.


Level 4

• One with the Wind (E)
  
  • Armor gain now also lasts for 3 seconds after being revealed
    
  • Mirror Images now also gain Armor
    
  • Armor amount reduced from 60 to 30

One with the Wind is generally the strongest talent here. The 30 armor outperfoms Deflection’s 25 physical armor, and the 3 seconds is sufficiently long to decide most fights.


Level 7

• Phantom Pain (W)
  
  • Mirror Images no longer benefit from this talent
  
  
• Crushing Blows (W)
  
  • Mirror Images no longer benefit from this talent
    
  • Bonus Critical Strike damage has been removed
    
  • Additional functionality: Samuro’s Basic Attacks against enemy Heroes reduce the cooldown of Critical Strike by 1.5 seconds

Burning Blade is almost always the best talent on the tier. Phantom Pain does provide more single target damage and may be preferable on Battlefield of Eternity but carries the risk of Samuro’s clones dying. Crushing Blows is a trap talent that only helps Samuro’s 1 second burst window with an extra crit. If a fight lasts at least 3 seconds, then Burning Blade and Phantom Pain outperform Crushing Blows.


Level 10

Both Heroics have advantages. Bladestorm provides an Unstoppable and AoE damage while Illusion Master provides more sustained damage.


Level 13

• Kawarimi (E)
  
  • Reduced the time between Samuro issuing a new order after using Wind Walk and the image following it. It should now be harder for the new Image to follow Samuro’s new movements after using Wind Walk.

This tier remains up to preference and game circumstances, although Kawarimi lost a lot of value due to the stealth shader changes.


Level 16

• Press the Attack (Trait)
  
  • Attack Speed bonus reduced from 15% to 10% per stack. Maximum bonus decreased from 60% to 40%
  
  
• Harsh Winds (E)
  
  • Mirror Images no longer benefit from this talent
  
  
• Merciless Strikes (W)
  
  • Mirror Images no longer benefit from this talent

Merciless Strikes is the best on the tier if Samuro has an ally such as an allied Arthas or Jaina to enable it. Otherwise, Press the Attack outperforms Harsh Winds in fights that last longer than 4 seconds.


Level 20

Dance of Death remains the only direct damage boost talent on the tier by improving the images from their base 17 DPS to 58.75 DPS. This talent constitutes a significant buff to the total effect of Bladestorm and to Samuro’s overall output, making it the preferred choice for a teamfight-oriented Samuro.

Wind Strider and Blademaster’s Pursuit offer strong upgrades based on Samuro’s level 16 choices. Wind Strider, along with Way of the Wind, lets Samuro travel at equivalent to mount speed while also remaining permanently stealthed. Conversely, Blademaster’s Pursuit dramatically improves Samuro’s in-fight mobility and makes stacking Press the Attack much easier due to the increased duration.

Unfortunately, due to the decreased importance of Illusions to Samuro’s damage output, Three Blade Style just isn’t a relevant talent.

Valeera

Overview

Valeera’s playstyle has been fundamentally changed this patch, specifically with how she approaches fights. It appears Blizzard is attempting to push Valeera back into more of a stealthy role rather than a front line fighter who uses Vanish just to proc her abilities.

Before the patch, competitive play on Valeera was largely focused on picking off isolated targets with the Ambush build. Death From Above allowed Valeera to close gaps quickly, so the playstyle didn’t rely much on stealth. In comparison, the new Valeera is encouraged to approach fights from stealth now that the teleport is built into her base kit.

The extreme buffs to Garrote suggest that Valeera will be best as a mage or support killer, allowing her to apply a lengthy silence and kill them before they have a chance to respond. Alternative builds include a skirmishing “Q build” that shreds armor and a “Blind” build to nullify enemy hyper carries.

In summary, Valeera’s new design can be described as picking a specific role on the enemy team and ruining their day. Whether each of these builds are equal in effectiveness and popularity is a question mark.

Abilities

• Vanish (D)
  
  • Movement Speed increased from 10% to 20%
  
  
• Ambush (Q)
  
  • Damage reduced from 180 to 130
    
  • Now also reduces enemy Armor by 10 for 4 seconds
    
  • If Valeera is Vanished for 3 seconds, this ability has 5 range and teleports Valeera behind her target.
  
  
• Cheap Shot (W)
  
  • Stun duration reduced from 1.25 to .75 seconds
    
  • Now Blinds the target for 2 seconds after the stun effect ends
    
  • If Valeera is Vanished for 3 seconds, this ability has 5 range and teleports Valeera behind her target
  
  
• Garrote (E)
  
  • Silence duration increased from 2.25 to 2.75 seconds
    
  • If Valeera is Vanished for 3 seconds, this ability has 5 range and teleports Valeera behind her target

Valeera’s base kit was overall buffed. Valeera’s movement speed while cloaked was buffed from 4.84 m/s to 5.28 m/s (mount speed is 5.72), which allows her to close gaps more effectively. Her stealth abilities also gains a teleport when Valeera is cloaked for an extended period of time. The 5 range is equal to Varian’s charge.

Ambush has solidified as a damage spell. If the target takes 500 or more damage in the 3 second window—something Valeera herself can easily contribute—the new Ambush effectively does more damage. Cheap Shot has been transformed into a hypercarry counter by shifting much of its power into the blind. The blind and stun last the same duration as the massively buffed Garrote, but losing the half second of stun on Cheap Shot gives the target an extra 2.2 meters of movement.

Talents

The old “Q build” Valeera gained two important benefits from the talent tree. First, Initiative at 4 meant Sinister Strike was unnecessary for generating combo points. Second, the Q talents at 7 and 13 let Valeera use Ambush to jump to a target within 6m instantly, giving Valeera significant in-fight mobility when combined with freewheeling Sinister Strikes. Valeera could engage from upwards of 10.5m, while the new jump has less than half that range while also requiring her to approach from stealth.


Level 1

• Subtlety (D)
  
  • Adjusted functionality: Now triggers when Valeera teleports to her target with Ambush, Cheap Shot, and Garrote.
    
  • Energy return reduced from 10 to 8 per second.
  
  
• Crippling Poison (Active)
  
  • Slow duration reduced from 5 to 4 seconds.
    
  • Valeera’s poison is no longer removed after the first damaging Ability, but instead is applied by all Valeera's Abilities for 4 seconds. This duration does not start until Valeera damages her first enemy.
  
  
• Combat Readiness (Passive)
  
  • Physical Armor increased from 50 to 60

For fights lasting between 3.33 seconds and 10 seconds, Subtlety is superior to Vigor. Outside of that timeframe, Vigor is superior to Subtlety. However, both talents have further caveats: Vigor requires a globe quest while Subtlety requires Valeera to be able to approach from stealth.

The buffs to Combat Readiness make it a more valuable block talent by adding significant mitigation value. This is most relevant against heroes with big, slow basic attacks such as Hanzo.

The new and improved Crippling Poison offer upwards of 8 seconds of slows, depending on how Valeera times her spells. Garrote’s DoT does not proc her poisons, but the initial 20 damage will. The poisons have the best synergy with Blade Flurry, as that is the one skill that lets Valeera apply her poisons to multiple targets.


Level 4

• Wound Poison (Active)
  
  • Healing reduction duration decreased from 5 to 4 seconds
    
  • Valeera’s poison is no longer removed after the first damaging Ability, but instead is applied by all Valeera's Abilities for 4 seconds. This duration does not start until Valeera damages her first enemy.
  
  
• Hemorrhage (E)
  
  • Bonus damage to targets affected by Garrote increased from 25 to 50%

Initiative remains the most obviously powerful talent at this tier because it enables Valeera to save Sinister Strike for an extra 4.5m of engagement (or disengagement) range.

The buffs to Hemorrhage make it much more appealing, though. The buff adds 39.5 damage per basic attack or 79 DPS. Hemorrhage also synergizes nicely with the Slice and Dice “combo” at level 7.

Wound Poison is a powerful “mortal wound” effect that outpaces Hemorrhage if Valeera is expecting the target to heal for more than 79 HP per second. The three healers who can’t match that level of single target HPS are Rehgar, Kharazim, and Brightwing, but Rehgar and Kharazim both have strong single target healing ultimates that Wound Poison can counter. An important note is that if Valeera is opening with Garrote on a single healer, the silence will do the work of heal denial, making Hemorrhage preferable.

Relentless Strikes remains a poor choice on this tier due to it competing with such strong damage talents.


Level 7

• Slice and Dice (E)
  
  • Valeera's Basic Attacks now restore 2 Energy.
  
  
• Note: Assassinate moved to 16

Slice and Dice is now a tiny bit stronger. Even in an extended, 5 second fight, it provides at most 24 or 28 more energy, which isn’t even a full cast of Sinister Strike. The three attacks come out over 0.6 seconds, which is slightly longer than her normal attack period of 0.5. Functionally, this gives two free attacks which are worth 237 damage in total.


Level 13

• Death from Above (Q)
  
  • New functionality: Ambush reduces the cooldown of Vanish by 4 seconds.
  
  
• Blind (W)
  
  • Now increases the duration of Cheap Shot’s Blind from 2 to 4 seconds.
  
  
• Strangle (E)
  
  • Spell Power reduction increased from 25% to 40%
    
  • Duration reduced from 7 to 6 seconds

The new Death from Above puts Vanish to a 4 second cooldown when used, allowing Valeera to jump in and out of stealth. This synergizes best with Initiative at level 4 by giving Valeera more opportunities to skirmish and build combo points.

Blind furthers Cheap Shot’s role as a way to shut down basic attack characters, with the easiest use being against melee characters such as Illidan or The Butcher. This brings the total CC duration from 2.75s to 4.75s, a 72% duration increase.

Strangle cements Garrote as the anti-healer opener. A 40% throughput cut of any spellcaster is brutal, especially for the now-squishier supports. Valeera can get as low as 2 seconds of downtime if she uses Vanish and Garrote on cooldown.


Level 16

• Assassinate (Q)
  
  • Moved from level 7
    
  • Bonus damage reduced from 100% to 50%
    
  • Now also increases the Armor reduction of Ambush by 10 when the target is isolated.
  
  
• Expose Armor (E)
  
  • Removed

Assassinate now adds 65 damage, down from 180, but adds an additional 10 points of armor shred. The break-even is 1150 damage to the target over the 3 seconds; combined with Ambush, Assassinate requires the target to have at least 1575 HP. This makes Q build much more of a “tank buster” build than before since squishy heroes simply don’t have enough HP for the armor shred to matter.

For the “Garrote Build”, the power of Thistle Tea versus Seal Fate depends on how long Valeera plans to burst the target. For fights lasting longer than 4 seconds, the extra energy from Thistle Tea helps Valeera cast Blade Flurry and Sinister Strike a few extra times, which are worth more than the 50% extra damage.

Seal Fate is specifically powerful in the sub-4 second burst combo that almost completely kills any squishy target within the duration of Garrote’s silence. This advantage goes away if Valeera can expect Blade Flurry to hit two or more targets, as the combo points from Blade Flurry would then be more valuable than the extra combo point against a silenced target. This is an important distinction to make, as videos of players blowing up a try mode bot Greymane can’t account for potential Blade Flurry value.


Level 20

• Nightslayer (D)
  
  • Removed
  
  
• Rupture (E)
  
  • Damage bonus now stacks immediately to 100%, instead of stacking up to 30%.
    
  • Moved from level 16
  
  
• Elusiveness (D)
  
  • Moved from Level 13
    
  • Movement Speed bonus increased from 10% to 20%

The new Elusiveness helps Valeera close distance quickly and rotate by boosting her movement speed to a blazing 6.16 m/s—faster than mount speed! The tradeoff is skipping over the buffed Rupture, which adds 20 DPS to Garrote and an extra 140 damage after Valeera stops basic attacking the target. In Valeera’s 4 second burst combo, this talent offers 80 additional damage, which is less damage than a Stukov Weighted Pustule.

Adrenaline Rush provides up to 150 energy over 5 seconds, essentially invalidating the function of Thistle Tea and dramatically increasing Valeera’s output by letting her freely cast every ability she has available. Enveloping Shadows remains decidedly “meh” compared to Valeera’s other level 20 talents, unfortunately.

Zeratul

Overview

Zeratul saw the most extensive changes out of all four stealth heroes. Combo Slash (Follow Through) was removed and worked into a new Heroic similar to Leblanc’s Mimic. The new Might of the Nerazim offers a damage boost for Zeratul players seeking to burst down and assassinate enemy targets as well as a built-in Rewind at level 20.

However, choosing Might of the Nerazim gives up the exceptionally powerful Void Prison that has been a staple of Zeratul play forever. This choice between these two Heroics will be interesting to watch in HGC as Zeratul players choose between raw damage and utility.

Combo

The old Zeratul combo is best explained in psalm’s video. Note that since this video was released, Sentenced to Death was nerfed, dropping the total combo damage from 4140 to 3920 (level 20 values, which are ~2.2x base values).

The new combo in this patch (credit to McIntyre who’s a very good Zeratul Player) is back up to 4020 damage. The main power of the build is not just the burst damage; Master Warp Blade plus Darkness Descends gives Zeratul a large amount of sustained damage, and with Might of the Nerazim, Zeratul can easily get the 40% bonus damage on almost every basic attack.

Talents

Before getting too deep into Zeratul’s talents, it’s important to understand how various damage bonuses stack. Whenever a talent says “does X% more damage”, all of these bonuses stack additively. That is to say, the raw amount of damage added by each talent is independent of any other percentage bonuses. Damage talents, however, do have synergy with other talents that increase the frequency of that damage being dealt, either through increased attack speed or cooldown reduction.


Level 1

• Vorpal Blade (1)
  
  • Added as a baseline ability. Default Hotkey: 1
  
  
• (New Talent) Move Unseen (Passive)
  
  • Gain 25% bonus Movement Speed while Stealthed
  
  
• Shadow Hunter (E)
  
  • Regen Globe required for quest completion reduced from 20 to 15
    
  • Mana cost reduction of Blink increased from 2 to 3

Shadow Hunter works well with the attack speed provided by Darkness Descends at level 4, reducing the effective cooldown to as low as 3.75 seconds. Without Darkness Descends active, Shadow Hunter reduces the cooldown to as low as 4.75 seconds. The globe quest is both more powerful and quicker to stack, dropping from 20 to 15 globes while the max benefit drops the mana cost on Blink from 50 mana to 5 rather than 10.

The alternatives at this tier, Move Unseen and Greater Cleave, have some potential but are generally not too relevant. While Move Unseen can help with escapes by letting Zeratul almost match mount speed while Cloaked, the reduced blink cooldown from Shadow Hunter will generally allow for both more plays and easier escapes. Greater Cleave has some appeal as a wave clear talent, increasing the radius of Cleave from 3 to 4, but ideally Zeratul will be focused on roaming and getting picks in the early game rather than clearing waves.


Level 4

• Combo Slash (Passive)
  
  • Removed
  
  
• Grim Task (Passive)
  
  • Removed
  
  
• (New Talent) Psionic Strength (Passive)
  
  • Damaging an enemy Hero with Basic Attacks or Abilities increases Zeratul's damage by 6% for 3 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.
  
  
• (New Talent) Darkness Descends (Active)
  
  • Passive: Increase Zeratul’s attack speed by 10%.
    
  • Activated ability – Zeratul gains 40% bonus attack speed for 5 seconds. 30-second cooldown

Darkness Descends is generally the pick here, adding a large amount of sustained damage to Zeratul and letting him leverage his Might of the Nerazim bonus damage procs more frequently. For raw burst, Psionic Strength is the preferred talent. Rending Cleave only does 80 damage over 3 seconds and doesn’t synergize with Might of the Nerazim because the DoT overrides itself rather than stacks.


Level 7

• Wormhole (E)
  
  • Duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds
  
  
• Slip into Shadow (E)
  
  • Removed
  
  
• (New Talent) Warp Skirmisher (1)
  
  • Vorpal Blade now has 2 charges. Casting Vorpal Blade also causes Zeratul's next Basic Attack within 6 seconds to deal 30% bonus damage

While it may look like Warp Skirmisher is the only damage talent on this tier, the extra 30% damage procs actually just make up for the ability not benefitting from Might of the Nerazim. The currently popular Seeker in the Dark remains the best choice for more sustained damage. Wormwhole, freshly buffed back to 3 seconds, is an option for a burst-oriented Zeratul that wants to simply unload damage then leave, as the increased timer comfortably allows a full combo. It is important to note that both the Seeker in the Dark and the wormhole activations count as spellcasts for Might of the Nerazim’s passive which encourages Zeratul players to space out his damaging spells on more durable targets.


Level 13

Zeratul’s only untouched tier is level 13. Mending Strikes remains a powerful form of sustain for Zeratul both inside and outside of fights. Baseline, Mending Strikes heals Zeratul for 44 HP per basic attack. This healing is increased by the new basic attack talents at 4 and 16, with the Might of the Nerazim Proc adding an additional 17.6 HP and Master Warp Blade adding 55 HP. For the fast combo at level 20, Zeratul heals for 660 HP.

The alternatives of Spell Shield and Shroud of Adun (the latter is worth 533 HP at level 20) are generally not competitive. An exception could be made for a build that eschews both Might of the Nerazim and the basic attack talents at 4 and 16, but it seems unlikely that such a build would generally be competitive.


Level 16

• Sentenced to Death (W)
  
  • Bonus damage reduced from 40 to 30%
  
  
• Void Slash (Q)
  
  • Damage reduced from 40 to 30%

Master Warp-Blade is the new preferred talent on this tier, adding 157.5 damage every third basic attack against a target. While this adds less burst than Sentenced to Death, the new Darkness Descends enables a much more sustained damage version of Zeratul.

Void Slash continues to be an underperforming talent that, for some reason, was further nerfed in the most recent patch. There’s simply no reason to pick it.


Level 20

• Rewind (Active)
  
  • Removed
  
  
• Nerazim Fury (R)
  
  • Removed
  
  
• (New Talent) Twilight Falls (R)
  
  • Activating Might of the Nerazim resets the cooldown of all of Zeratul’s Basic Abilities
  
  
• (New Talent) Shadow Mending (Passive)
  
  • Zeratul heals himself for 75% of Ability Damage Dealt to enemy Heroes

For Zeratul players that pick Might of the Nerazim, the upgrade Twilight Falls is Rewind on a 15 second cooldown. The incredibly short cooldown here means that it’s very reasonable for Zeratul to get a second use in an extended teamfight.

Shadow Mending is a fascinating addition which might work well with more sustain-oriented builds. Balancing the healing from Mending Strikes along with Shadow Mending should make Zeratul rather tanky in the late game.

Closing Thoughts

The stealth reworks in the upcoming patch all improve the designs of the affected heroes. The primary goal of the reworks was to help lower level players by changing the stealth shader while improving their kits and talents to make them more useful at higher level play.

Samuro most clearly fits this goal. His raw damage was nerfed but he gained significantly increased control both from the directional Mirror Image spawn and moving the majority of his damage to Samuro himself.

Nova and Zeratul both gained significant amounts of burst. Nova remains fairly unchanged but relies more on Decoy use to get her full burst combo. Meanwhile, Zeratul’s talent tree is a huge tradeoff between damage and utility now. By splitting Void Prison and most of the talents that allowed him to do damage, he now has to pick between one or the other.

Valeera’s changes ultimately are the most impactful. By shifting from the dominant Q build to one more focused on shutting down spellcasters, she’s become a serious back line threat, albeit with a little less burst.