Events and Features By: ChaosOS

2017 was a heck of a year for Heroes of the Storm.

Heroes 2.0 breathed new life into the game with a marketing push that kickstarted a nearly continuous stream of content. 61 patches, 15 new heroes, 26 hero reworks, and 3 mini hero reworks flowed out of the development team. On top of that, Blizzard implemented a whole host of UI updates, 11 events, 2 maps, and a variety of gameplay and other updates.

Simply put, Blizzard put tons of work into this game last year.

Heroes 2.0 launched in late April and revamped the entire progression, cosmetics, and currency systems. Hero levels and rewards were significantly expanded, and free-to-play players were given the ability to buy skins without spending a dime. This event marked the “official re-launch” of Heroes of the Storm and made it significantly more appealing to new players.



Special events this year have varied in size and quality. The Cho’gall-centered Two Heads are Better than One! Event barely even registered for most players while the Nexus Challenge 2.0 and Winter Veil events provided a plethora of cosmetics and rewards for all players. Learning from both Overwatch and player feedback from the Sun’s Out Gun’s Out event, more recent events have included at least one seasonal item in loot chests.

As for the UI, Blizzard’s design team knocked it out of the park. An updated look at the top of the screen, the Kill Feed (later turned into the Event Log with the Kel’thuzad patch), Armor and Healing indicators, chat improvements, and better objective indicators all make keeping track of the complexities in a match of HotS much simpler.

Blizzard also released a variety of quality of life updates including Tournament Draft, ranked battleground rotations, and a higher placement cap for ranked play. Performance Based Matchmaking (PBM) also made a brief appearance at the start of the 2017 Ranked Season 4. Due to placement match bugs however, the dev team ultimately had to shelf PBM temporarily.

The strongest aspect of Heroes of the Storm is its iconic characters locked in battle. 2017 added a score of heroes and major villains from the Blizzard multiverse, including Genji, Malthael, Stukov, and Garrosh. Overwatch heroes saw a significant boost in representation at six new heroes, and a recent patch added a “Play Overwatch Heroes” quest to the daily rotation. While the general mobility of Overwatch heroes is frequently questioned, the incredible popularity of Overwatch and the unique gameplay of each character has enriched both the Heroes community and the game itself.



Blizzard also worked hard to bring old heroes up to speed. Of the heroes released prior to 2017, a whopping 47% saw a major rework this year, and over half saw at least a mini rework. Not shying away from more recent heroes, Zul’jin saw a rework under a year after his release. Even heroes that were considered balanced like Johanna received significant changes as Blizzard sought to elevate their design across the board.

A common thread throughout the reworks has been the addition of quest talents, exemplified in the Thrall and Chromie reworks. Whether “wasting” skills on enemy heroes qualifies as high quality gameplay is questionable, but Blizzard has been relentless in using quest talents as way to give individual heroes their own power spikes independent of levels.

Balance-wise, Kael’thas was ironically the only hero to avoid balance patches this year. On the other hand, Tassadar was tweaked almost monthly since his rework in late January. His partner-in-crime Tracer received significantly fewer changes this year, but the Tassadar/Tracer duo were a key feature of Heroes of the Storm in 2017.

The addition of base armor to warriors and Bolt of the Storm nerfs took a look at two issues holistically embedded in the game and addressed the holes and flaws in them. Two new battlegrounds have also made an impact on the game and revealed Blizzard’s future design goals. Hanamura unfortunately failed miserably, but Volskaya remains untested.

The 2018 gameplay updates have been the largest changes to Heroes of the Storm in two years since the scaling changes went into effect. Blizzard’s commitment to constantly improving the game design and pushing it forward with ever-increasing intensity shows how committed they are to creating a truly competitive (but fun) experience.

Last year was a banner year for Heroes of the Storm, but 2018 may even top that. The 2018 gameplay update will undoubtedly create a more competitive atmosphere, and new heroes will continue to evolve the professional and amateur metagames. Even players who just log on to play a few games with their mates will be met with more content and more exciting choices on how to play the game.

Hopefully, 2018 will bring Performance Based Matchmaking and in-game voice chat. There’s also hope for improved tutorials, more specific hero roles, and the mythical stats API alluded to a long time ago. In any case, 2018 is going to be a great year for Heroes of the Storm fans.

Metagame By: EsportsJohn

2017 could be considered the "Year of Supports". Four major supports that each added a substantial amount of depth to the game’s support roster were released, and double support compositions became standard during the last half of the year. Many supports lived and died on the back of various reworks, but throughout it all, Tassadar maintained an impressive 80% involvement rate and cemented his place as the quintessential secondary support.

The advent of HGC and consistent competitive play allowed the metagame to evolve much more steadily in 2017 compared to 2016. Instead of growing in spurts during live events, players and fans alike were involved in the shaping process on a weekly basis, and it was rare that large changes made an immediate impact on the game. However, the beginning of this story starts in late 2016 before the HGC even debuted.

At the end of 2016, the prevalence of important disengage tools such as Mighty Gust, Earthquake, and Horrify made long, drawn out engagements the norm. Several heroes with absurd power curves took turns in the spotlight including release Ragnaros, Raynor’s bugged Hyperion, and Earthquake Thrall, but every one of them eventually fell to the nerf hammer.



A series of heroes releases with powerful sustain including Medivh, Zarya, and Auriel enabled the rise of hyper carry compositions with “battery” heroes like Valla, Gul’dan, Tychus, and Lunara. At the same time, powerful global heroes like Dehaka, Brightwing, and Falstad also rose to prominence amid last year’s minion changes. The result was a flexible metagame reliant on big teamfights and global pressure.

Much of that changed after constant buffs to Varian. The rise of Taunt Varian led to an extremely volatile stunlock metagame that many would probably consider to be the low point of the year. Heroes like Thrall, Diablo, Varian, and Anub’arak made it very easy to engage with their Heroics while offering almost no counterplay unless your team had a powerful disengage like Gust or Horrify. Even then, the low cooldowns of these engagement heroes often beat Cleanse and disengage abilities on the cooldown timer.

This worrying trend was exacerbated by insane damage tools. Tychus, Ragnaros, Tyrande, Li-Ming, Zeratul, and Valla became unbelievable sources of damage when stacked on top of each other in a composition. Aided by the control provided by CC-heavy tanks and powerful supports, everything that got stunned instantly died.

Supports without Cleanse suffered during this time period. Malfurion, Rehgar, and Kharazim saw a sharp rise in usage while traditionally powerful supports like Uther (until the rework), Brightwing, and Morales fell to the wayside. It was a bleak time period, but after repeated nerfs to Varian’s engage ability as well as many of the supporting cast, the stunlock meta was burned away to reveal a fresh new underbelly: a weakness to pure damage dive.

Genji changed everything.



Instead of targeting the front line and anyone who ventured close enough to the tank to be taken out, Genji introduced a new way of playing: ignore everything and kill the target in the back line. Suddenly no one was safe. Dive was insanely powerful, takedowns were brutally quick, and damage numbers were out of this world. Later hero releases like Malthael, Stukov, Garrosh, and Junkrat reinforced this hyper dive/displacement meta that grew in the latter half of 2017 and helped it to grow into a monster.

When traditional disengage tools started to fail, the meta shifted heavily toward heroes that could do a better job of saving people. Utility heroes like Falstad and Zeratul fell off hard due to their lack of sustain and burst damage, counter-dive tanks like Arthas and Stitches increased in priority over traditional engagement tanks and bruisers, and most importantly, secondary supports started to become the norm.

Double support compositions had been toyed around with plenty during the first half of the year, but they weren’t ubiquitous until shortly after the Mid-Season Brawl. Disengage Heroics like Twilight Dream, Emerald Wind, Crystal Aegis, and Sound Barrier became the primary tools for countering dive. Healers that would have otherwise disappeared due to numerous nerfs became staples in the competitive scene. Mages all but disappeared, and the mage players often pivoted to the secondary support role.

Full double support compositions went from a strange little curiosity to a commonplace event in less than a month, and they stayed that way from June until the end of the year. Despite a somewhat predictable template for compositions, the metagame thrived during this time period. Several heroes moved in and out of the meta, and each role (tank, healer, DPS) had several options each game depending on the situation. Game times grew a little longer, and teamfights were often more intricate.



All in all, the metagame we had during the fall of 2017 was a fairly stable, healthy metagame with plenty of options and perhaps the most cerebral drafting ever in the history of HotS. A few particularly ugly mini-epochs reared their head after the release of Hanamura and Garrosh, but for the most part, the game was particularly enjoyable to play during the latter half of the year.

However, Blizzard felt like the double support trend was getting out of control. Staying true to their word, the developers reduced healing numbers to compensate for the armor changes they made at the beginning of the year—then they took it a step further with damage, health, and waveclear nerfs across the board for almost every support. The fell swoop delivered, Blizzard had made it clear that the Year of Supports was over.

As we head into 2018, the metagame has guided itself back toward single healer compositions. Even if there are doubts about the efficacy of the support nerfs, the massive battleground changes seem to render those doubts inconsequential. Pushing power is at an all-time high with super buffed minions, radically altered mercenaries, and double globes per wave. Waveclear and lane dominance stand above everything else.

However, we won't know exactly where the metagame goes until we experience it ourselves. As we head into 2018 and remember the sometimes infuriating moments we've experienced in Heroes history, it's hard not to be astounded by the amount of ground we've covered in only one year.

Esports By: PROlane

As the bristling cold of January swept across the northern hemisphere in 2017, anticipation was at an all-time high for the first year of organized Heroes of the Storm esports. For the first time ever, fans from around the globe could tune in and watch their favorite teams locked in battle on a weekly basis.



Everyone expected an exciting year after Fnatic bested MVP Black in the semifinals of BlizzCon 2016. It was a year of anticipation in the ever-growing storyline of Korea vs the world. Would 2017, after seeing Europe grow in strength, be the year the baton was passed?

North America

At the start of the year, the hopes of NA rested on the shoulders of Tempo Storm and Gale Force eSports, two teams locked in a fierce rivalry. Tempo and Gale Force held their own throughout the year and created some exciting matches, but they were eventually usurped by underdogs Team 8, now Team Twelve. Although Team 8/Roll20 did better at international events, it was overall a pretty bleak year for North America.

At the Mid-Season Brawl, both NA representatives made it to the playoffs on the backs of minor regions and visa-plagued Chinese teams. Unfortunately, the only victory in the elimination bracket for NA was a teamkill with Roll20 eliminating Tempo Storm before falling to MVP Black 3-1. BlizzCon was equally disappointing. All three representatives made it to the quarterfinal playoffs before being eliminated in quick succession at the hands of MVP Black, Fnatic, and Ballistix in humiliating fashion.

That isn’t to say that North America hasn’t made some strides. For the first time in HotS history, NA managed to maintain stable rosters throughout the year and improve together as a group instead of individuals. This stability has definitely led to more refined gameplay and shotcalling and boosted North America well above its original skill level at the end of 2016.

Europe

Europe was ruled by “The Big Three”—Fnatic, Dignitas, and Misfits (now Team Liquid)—at the beginning of the year. After tossing wins back and forth the year before in every major event, it looked like we were in for another year of excitement in the struggle to claim the European crown.

As expected, Fnatic and Dignitas performed admirably, but Team Liquid fell short during the Western Clash and never fully recovered. Luckily, the Fnatic-Dignitas rivalry extended and became hotter than ever with both teams trading blows. Every time these two duked it out, it became an instant must-watch match. Their most memorable matches by far came from the finals of the Western Clash and again in the finals of the Mid-Season Brawl. Dignitas took the first punch to become the Western Clash champion, but when all the pieces were laid out, Fnatic stood victorious as the first European Global Champion at the Brawl.



Claiming the title of "best team in the world" was not a flash in the pan for Fnatic. Racking up a near-perfect record and a flawless victory at the second Western Clash, rode their momentum from the Mid-Season Brawl into Phase 2 with astonishing gameplay. Unsurprisingly, they found little resistance at BlizzCon until their semi-finals face-off with Korean powerhouse MVP Black. With godlike precision, Black struck down Fnatic 3-1 and left them mere mortals once again.

Korea

Korea is Korea. They're the best.

But Korea faced a different problem than the rest of the world. Instead of fostering internal growth, the HGC basically lined up a bunch of dummies for the regional giants MVP Black and Ballistix to clobber. This lopsided structure led to an undeniable attitude of complacency in the Korean scene which ultimately caused them to bleed during international competition against Europe in the Mid-Season Brawl.

The combination of a weak competitive atmosphere and the retirement of MVP Black's Rich, the greatest player on the planet, cast a lot of doubts on Korea's future moving forward. Could Black ever regain their status as the best team in the world? Did Tempest and MVP Miracle have the ability to rise to the challenge and overtake their long-time regional champions?



Black continued to vie with Ballistix for regional champion, but both seemed to falter when facing EU at the Mid-Season Brawl. For almost half a year, Korea suddenly looked vulnerable, mortal. But then Rich returned. With the greatest player in the world at the helm once more, Black tore through Phase 2 with a perfect record and brutally annihilated their competition at BlizzCon. Korea in 2017 is the story of redemption for MVP Black, and Rich is at the center of that story.

Tempest and MVP Miracle made a few dents in the armor of Black and L5 and even now look poised to threaten the top two teams, but at the end of the tunnel looms the final boss, as always: MVP Black.

China

China has always been known to be the craziest region in HotS, but this year was especially crazy for them. At the end of 2016, a huge amount of players departed for better opportunities in Chinese esports, and some of the key players that held together the scene such as xia0t and NccCc. The remaining players were shuffled around in a massive roster swap that left every team looking topsy-turvy with no clear favorite.

From these ashes arose a renewed Super Perfect Team (SPT) and newcomers ChallEnge (CE) to dominate the scene. Their storied rivalry produced blows on both sides with SPT coming out the victor in most circumstances, but more than that, it helped revive a region that was close to death. SPT's Misaka, like xia0t before him, has become a figure of stability and helped usher Chinese HotS into a new era. SPT relies heavily on his shotcalling, and other teams fear and respect him as a player. As a result, competition picked up quickly in the far east.

On the international stage, however, China could not find its feet. Constant visa issues maimed the Chinese at every global event by forcing them to play with several subs from other teams. Not a single tournament in 2017 included the complete roster of a Chinese team.

Minor Regions

There isn't much to say about the smaller regions in 2017 except that they struggled. The increased monetary incentives and higher level of competition in major regions was reciprocated in minor regions with smaller prize pools, fewer LANs, and an overall decrease in skill level. The only outlier was ANZ's Nomia, which showed up strong to the Western Clash and nearly beat Misfits in a Bo3.

The biggest point of note for minor regions in 2017 would be the institution of cross-regional transfers without time restrictions. This rule was a major gripe for many of the top players in minor regions such as JSchritte, Arcaner, and robadobah, and unsurprisingly, all three players jumped on the opportunity to move north and join the ranks of their major region peers. This will inevitably injure the minor regions even more in 2018, but there's always the chance that another Nomia will appear from out of nowhere.