Patch 54.3 hit the Nexus more than a week ago. It’s the fourth patch of the 54.X cycle. As ranked season is scheduled to end later in September, this will probably be the last iteration of this game version. This third balance patch breaks the usual cadence of content-balance-balance we’ve had since the first post-Deathwing game version was released.

The most notorious balance change of the current patch is Zagara’s nerf after her colossal buff in 54.2. Was the Broodmother unplayable before the buff? Was she completely broken afterwards? How viable is this Starcraft hero right now? Let’s explore the Zagara case.

Disclaimer: all data used comes from Heroes Profile. You can check it here. Statistics from current patch may have changed since this article was written.

Dissecting a Broodmother

As usual, we need to discern first the elo we’re talking about when speaking of numbers. For this analysis we’ve divided the Storm League ranks into three blocks: Bronze to gold (low elo), platinum and diamond (mid elo) and master and above (high elo). We’ve checked Zagara’s winrate, pickrate and banrate throughout the different patches of this game version cycle, that’s from 54.0 to the current 54.3.



In the beginning the Broodmother was a regular hero: sometimes picked, almost never banned and with a wide winrate window from 42.98% in bronze to 52.15% in master. When 54.2 hit, master players quickly noticed how strong Zagara was. Her pickrate in high elo skyrocketed from 3.3% to 51.62%. Her banrate also rose up to a 31%, turning her into one of the most contested characters in the whole Heroes of the Storm roster. Mid elo players followed their example, though they were a little more reluctant and only picked or banned Zagara in half of their games. Most of the low elo players—who had the highest ratios before the buffs—didn’t notice the changes at all. In the wild bronze leagues, Zagara only appeared once every six games.

News travel fast, and soon the bronze to gold players acknowledged the huge power of this ranged assassin. Unfortunately, in some cases it was right after the nerfs hit her. In patch 54.3 Zagara’s pickrate dropped in most Storm League divisions… but not in bronze, where it kept rising.



So far we’ve observed similar trends in our three blocks, though they’re usually much more steep in high elo. However, there are huge differences in Zagara’s banrate throughout the patches. Many master players stopped banning the Broodmother once she was nerfed, but mid and low elo players banned her even more. In bronze to gold the zerg is currently banned in half of the games, as if everybody suddenly realized how strong she used to be and panicked.



Zagara’s current winrate is worse than it used to be before all these changes began, so she’ll presumably receive tiny buffs in the future. Were the initial buffs a mistake? Time will tell, but her current popularity may be a sign of a successful—a bit out of control at first—balance. Has the Broodmother been unplayable at any point of this process? Zagara’s kit is quite unique. She grants vision, pokes well, and can have global presence with Nydus or a teamfight-changing heroic with Maw. That’s why, unlike other heroes, Zagara will probably keep being viable, even if she only fits in very specific situations.

More 54.3 Changes

Besides Zagara’s nerf, patch 54.3 has brought us some more balance changes. It features talent buffs for heroes such as Qhira, Deckard, Lunara or Nazeebo. Some of these changes try to improve the build diversity of these characters, and they’ve been quite successful so far.

Deckard’s builds used to rely on Field of Study at level 1. After the recent buffs to Scroll of Identify we find a great diversity at the first talent tier. Something similar happened to Lunara. Picking Splintered Spear at level 7 seemed to be almost mandatory. Now the dryad players can also choose Choking Pollen as a good alternative, thanks to its damage increase (from 150% to 200%).

The most remarkable talent changes are Nazeebo’s. The witch doctor had become a PvE machine, and that’s why the dev team wanted to buff his toads and spiders, so he could “have more PvP impact early on.” And they’ve succeeded. The spider build is now the main Nazeebo build, outshining most of the alternatives. Its winrate has risen from a marginal 27.85% to about a 50%, in its different versions.