It’s been a while since patch 55.1 hit the Nexus last February 1. After all these weeks of adapting to the update, the meta has settled up. Did the balance changes work as intended? How have the buffed and nerfed heroes evolved since the release of the patch? Let’s look for some answers for all these questions. As usual, our data comes from Heroes Profile and might have changed since this article was written.

Healers

The most important update in patch 55.0 was Rehgar’s rework. The shaman’s popularity skyrocketed thanks to a slightly overpowered kit. Our beloved wolf used to have a 65.21% win rate. His popularity was also outstanding and he was either picked or banned in more than 9 out of 10 games. With these out of the chart statistics, one could expect some nerfs in patch 55.1, and the dev team delivered. However, these changes were much less drastic than the ones Zagara received during the 54.X patch cycle. Rehgar’s win rate fell, but it’s still the highest one across the whole Heroes of the Storm roster. The 10% drop of the ban rate points out that the hero is in a healthy-ish state right now, though he may receive further nerfs in the upcoming patches. Anyway, the healer hero pool is much narrower than the assassin’s one, that’s why the nerfs need to be gradual in order not to completely turn the role into chaos.



Speaking of healers, Stukov—who had already been nerfed in patch 55.0—received some talent tweaks in patch 55.1. These changes are intended to lower his popularity, which is one of the highest in his role. The immediate results may not look good, as the overall popularity has slightly increased. However, this stat hides a change of trend, as the pick rate is dropping and being compensated with a higher ban rate. The pick-and-ban trends usually have this reactive behavior. First, a few people notice that a hero is strong and spam that hero. After a few weeks, the majority of the playerbase notices and starts banning the hero. Once people can’t play the hero (because it’s banned most of the time), it takes a while realising that it isn’t overpowered anymore, and that’s when the ban rate finally falls.

The last healer affected by patch 55.1 is Malfurion. The Warcraft druid has received some buffs to increase his viability. And they’re working really well. Both his win rate and popularity have risen, so we'll probably see this Stormrage brother more often in our games.

Tanks and Bruisers

The changes to tanks and bruisers in patch 55.1 intend to shuffle the meta a little. Johanna has been the queen of the tank role for a while now. To dispute her crown, the dev team has chosen two characters from the original Heroes of the Storm roster: Diablo and E.T.C. Both heroes have many fans who have kept playing them even if their win rates were far from decent. With the last update both heroes have improved their performance and now have a 48% win rate.



As for bruisers, the role is healthy enough to avoid huge changes. Malthael has received some love and will now be a greater threat for meat chunks. Yrel, who once reigned over the offlanes, has also been buffed.

Assassins

After all the changes he received in patch 55.0, Probius is back to his niche. He has received a few more buffs in patch 55.1, but the probe’s popularity has decreased throughout the patch cycle and slowly gets closer to his usual presence: once every 100 games. Tracer has been the assassin targeted by the patch nerfs. The Overwatch hero was sitting on a 54.87% win rate before patch 55.1. After the update, she has become more of a situational pick, decreasing both her win and pick rates.

On the buffing side of the patch, Azmodan has received some upgrades. His Q baseline damage has been reduced, but the improvements this ability receives from talents have been empowered. The demon seems to be at the end of one of those pick-and-ban trends we mentioned before, so this could be a good time to spam it. Greymane has received some talent-diversity changes. The slight increase in his popularity could mean that people are giving these tweaks a chance. So far, the statistics aren’t meaningful enough to draw any solid conclusions, but we’ll keep an eye on the Lord of the Worgen.



Last but not least, we arrive at the scariest part of patch 55.1: the buffs for Nova and Genji. Nova has received some talent improvements. These could turn her into a QM beast and completely break the low-elo meta. For the time being, it looks like things aren’t out of control, though her overall win and pick rates have considerably improved. Genji’s changes are also focused on his talents. Even the devs commented in the patch notes that he is “a scary hero to buff.” This seems to be the first of a series of buffs throughout the upcoming patches until the Shimada becomes part of the meta without completely destroying it.