heroes Balance Update: Feb 27

[Stan 5,240]

A new balance patch has hit the Nexus with changes to Murky, Tychus, Malfurion's Entangling Roots, Tassadar's Khaydarin Resonance talent and more.

Blizzard Entertainment (Source)

Assassin

Tychus

Stats

• Basic Attack Range decreased from 5.5 to 4.5

Abilities

• Overkill (Q)
  • Cooldown decreased from 15 to 13 seconds
  • Mana Cost reduced from 75 to 65
• Commandeer Odin (R)
  • Attack range increased from 8.8 to 9

Talents

• Level 1
  • Press the Advantage (E)
    • Range increase reduced from 1.9 to 1.5
    • Duration reduced from 4 to 3 seconds
• Level 13
  • That’s the Stuff! (Trait)
    • New functionality:
      • Minigun heals Tychus for 100% of the bonus damage done to Heroes after the ability ends.
        • This will show a Heal preview during Minigun's duration that will heal Tychus as soon as the ability goes on cooldown.
  • Neosteel Coating (Active)
    • Increased Spell Armor from 50 to 75

Developer Comments:  Tychus has proven to be just as good at Assassin-busting as he is at Tank-busting, which was never our intention. This has made drafting him a good choice against just about any enemy team composition, which has led him to be one of the highest contested Heroes in HGC. We would like to see him gain the most value from sticking to front-line targets so we are lowering his Basic Attack range to limit his options while allowing other ranged Heroes to trade a bit more favorably against him.

Multi-Class

Varian

Abilities

• Charge (E)
  • Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds
• Colossus Smash (R)
  • Damage bonus increased from 75 to 100%
• Twin Blades of Fury (R)
  • Basic Attack damage penalty reduced from 25 to 20%

Talents

• Level 4
  • Warbringer (E)
    • Now increases Charge's slow from 75% to 85%, instead of adding a stun
• Level 13
  • Juggernaut (E)
    • Damage reduced from 6% to 5% of the target's maximum Health.

Developer Comments:  The frequency and power of a ranged point click stun was too powerful from Warbringer. While it may have been “balanced” in terms of winrate, its potency wasn’t healthy or fun for opponents. It didn’t offer many options for opponents that were stunned and then Taunted for over 2 seconds, greatly increasing the reliability of other abilities (like Sulfuras Smash). By making Warbringer a massive slow instead of a stun, it allows enemies to use abilities to defend themselves (or forces a Varian to use Taunt early, greatly reducing the duration of his opening crowd control). We’ve shifted more of the power of Warbringer over into the mobility aspect to compensate (since Warbringer makes Charge a 6 second cooldown now). The other part of these changes is providing some buffs to the Assassin focused Heroics to bring them up to par with Taunt, so that Varian can frequently opt into any of the Heroic choices to really fulfill the multi-class Hero fantasy that makes him unique.

Specialist

Murky

Stats

• Murky Base Maximum Health reduced from 761 to 730
• Base Health Regeneration reduced from 30.43 to 29.20

Abilities

• Slime (Q)
  • Slow duration reduced from 8 to 6 seconds
  • Slime slow amount reduced from 25 to 20%
• March of the Murlocs (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 80 to 110 seconds

Talents

• Level 1
  • Fishy Deal (Active)
    • Number of Bribe stacks needed to bribe a Mercenary increased from 7 to 8
    • Maximum stacks increased from 30 to 32
  • Egg Hunt (Trait)
    • Vision range of Fake Eggs reduced by 1
• Level 4
  • Slime Time (Q)
    • Slow reduced from 35 to 30%
• Level 7
  • Slippery When Wet (E)
    • Movement Speed bonus increased from 35 to 40%
  • Time to Krill (Passive)
    • Slow reduced from 8 to 7%
• Level 13
  • Rejuvenating Bubble (E)
    • Healing reduced from 50 to 40% of maximum Health

Developer Comments:  Murky slimed his way back to the top of the Nexus, and we’re all still cleaning the gunk out of our shoes as a result. His release pushed him much further than intended, so we’re targeting a series of nerfs at some of the frustrating aspects of the Hero. Overall, his effectiveness will be less reliable, and his ability to slow and zone opponents will be less powerful. Nerrrrfgggle Mrrggl.

Support

Lúcio

Abilities

• Amp it Up (E)
  • Healing Boost reduced from 16.5 to 15.5

Talents

• Level 4
  • Boombox (Active)
    • Duration increased from 20 to 30 seconds
  • Party Mix (W)
    • Bonus range decreased from 25 to 20%

Malfurion

Abilities

• Entangling Roots (E)
  • Root duration reduced from 1.5 to 1.25 seconds
• Twilight Dream (R)
  • Mana regen reduced from 1.5 to 1.25

Talents

• Level 16

• Tenacious Roots (E)
  • Root duration bonus decreased from .5 to .25 seconds

Developer Comments:  Malfurion has seen a lot of play at all levels to the point that he is crowding out other Support heroes. While we like his established place in the Nexus, his Entangling Roots is much stronger for its consistency relative to the CC that other heroes in the game provide, particularly when he takes the Tenacious Roots talent. We’re also happy to see that Twilight Dream is so highly valued considering it’s against a strong Healing heroic, but wanted to lower some of the hidden power that it provides in its Mana regeneration to make the decision of which Heroic to take a little more thoughtful.

Tassadar

Talents

• Level 1
  • Khaydarin Resonance (Q)
    • New functionality:
      • Quest: Regeneration Globes grant an additional 50% Mana.
      • Reward(1): After collecting 15 Globes, increase the value of Plasma Shield by 20%.
      • Reward(2): After collecting 30 Globes, increase the duration of Plasma Shield by 100%.

Developer Comments:  One of our major goals with Hero reworks is attempting to keep as many of the current builds and playstyles that exist for a Hero, trim out older or unhealthy ones, and hopefully open doors for new ones to emerge. When shifting the old Khala’s Embrace to a questing talent (Khaydarin Resonance), we had hoped to lock the immense power that it brought behind a barrier that was difficult to overcome on a lot of maps. In theory, this would make it feel rewarding to take on certain maps, but rarely the most powerful choice. Instead, we found that locking this kind of potential behind an extremely difficult Globe-collecting talent made for a more frustrating experience than a fun one. When taking a step back and considering our options, we felt it best to remove the permanent shielding capabilities and replace it with a less-powerful questing talent.

Warrior

Rexxar

• Now has a visual indicator for Misha’s leash range.
• Can now issue Misha commands outside of her leash range. Misha will run to the edge of her range and leash if she attempts to go beyond.

Bug Fixes

General

• Replays: Fixed an issue that could cause an error while scrubbing the timeline during Replay playback.

[Valhalen 1,484]

No more stun on Charge was too much...

[PumpkinRow 18]

3 hours ago, Valhalen said:

No more stun on Charge was too much...

No, that was totally busted, good riddance. I'm sick of facing a stunlock Varian in every single match. Personally, I wish they reduced the charge slow to 25%, decreased its range to 1, and boosted the cooldown on Taunt to 120 seconds.

[Hanz39 53]

Without stun Varian isn't better tank than Sonya (that has 2 stuns), he's forced to interrupt with R that he can't use without charging enemy first to be in range, back to  twin blades of fury again phase like when taunt was bad.  If they want keep Varian tank viable they shoulda have reduced stun time (or taunt time) not deleting it turning him in Illidan n°2.

Estimating Varian going soon to bottom of heroes list joining Medivh winrate.

[Laragon 269]

1 hour ago, PumpkinRow said:

No, that was totally busted, good riddance. I'm sick of facing a stunlock Varian in every single match. Personally, I wish they reduced the charge slow to 25%, decreased its range to 1, and boosted the cooldown on Taunt to 120 seconds.

So... remove the hero entirely from the Meta and any viable build. Cool.

The removal of stun makes him really weakened. Be nice if they could have just changed it to a root rather than a true stun, then you could use things like recall or portals to avoid the chain CC, but actually still give it some viability as a engagement and set up move for picks. Now they must be truly out of position for it to have any effectiveness.

[Plergoth 277]

2 hours ago, PumpkinRow said:

No, that was totally busted, good riddance. I'm sick of facing a stunlock Varian in every single match. Personally, I wish they reduced the charge slow to 25%, decreased its range to 1, and boosted the cooldown on Taunt to 120 seconds.

Most of the Warriors that are highly contested picks have at least one stun in their arsenal. There was nothing wrong with Warbringer having a stun; it was the combo with Taunt that led into deeper cc chain follow ups that was frustrating to play against that was the problem. 

He already had a dismal early game performance, and this nerf will emphasise that. Removing the stun also harms the other two builds for him, as it means that, unlike most other Warriors, he has no way to interrupt channelled casts on enemies. That puts him on the same boat as Leoric, but he still has a niche to fill due to the way he can swallow hp from other high health Heroes, whereas Varian has had some notable competition overtake him on those specs recently; Sonya in particular is performing really well, and can solo camps far quicker, more safely and with less downtime than him as well. 

On top of that, the change literally makes no sense. The change of someone moving from 75% to 85% slower for one second will be barely noticeable. We all expected some kind of nerf, because yes, the combo was obnoxiously strong when it had follow up, but this just completely overshot the mark. 

It's a shame, because the last patch that swapped his Banners for tools like Mortal Strike and Shattering Throw felt great.

[MurkyFelix 51]

10 hours ago, Plergoth said:

Most of the Warriors that are highly contested picks have at least one stun in their arsenal. There was nothing wrong with Warbringer having a stun; it was the combo with Taunt that led into deeper cc chain follow ups that was frustrating to play against that was the problem. 

He already had a dismal early game performance, and this nerf will emphasise that. Removing the stun also harms the other two builds for him, as it means that, unlike most other Warriors, he has no way to interrupt channelled casts on enemies. That puts him on the same boat as Leoric, but he still has a niche to fill due to the way he can swallow hp from other high health Heroes, whereas Varian has had some notable competition overtake him on those specs recently; Sonya in particular is performing really well, and can solo camps far quicker, more safely and with less downtime than him as well. 

On top of that, the change literally makes no sense. The change of someone moving from 75% to 85% slower for one second will be barely noticeable. We all expected some kind of nerf, because yes, the combo was obnoxiously strong when it had follow up, but this just completely overshot the mark. 

It's a shame, because the last patch that swapped his Banners for tools like Mortal Strike and Shattering Throw felt great.

The combo with Taunt was certainly very bad but yeah, maybe getting rid of the stun entirely did overstep the mark. I feel like it would have made more sense to get rid of Warbringer's cooldown reduction on Charge, and increase the cooldown on Taunt. That way the combo would still be there and still rek stuff but it would have to be used a bit more cleverly since it wouldn't be available as much.

On the other side of things, if the combo was so consistent that Blizzard felt it needed to be addressed, how about buffing Cleanse....?

 

Edit: Had a typo </3

Edited February 28, 2017 by MurkyFelix

[Iginis7 2]

I remember when Varian launch, people complaining about the Warbringer, that was to op for 1s of stun every 6 seconds. So I presume Blizzard took this and nerf the talent. And to be fair it´s was annoyng to deal with Charge stun plus Provoke, not fun especially if you have follow up damage like Li-Ming, Ragnaros or even Chromie. The problem is, early game Varian its not good, the only thing that makes Varian scary it was this stun, so removing this its like " ok, they have Varian, nothing to worry about".

But with all that, i think i agree with developer commentary about Varian. Even if they reduce the duration of stun or taunt the combo will be the same

Edited February 28, 2017 by Iginis7

[Skyewalker 20]

HORRIBLE change. The stun was basically the only reason Varian was picked and sought after. He now is just a weird earlygame hero with a lvl 10 choice between a 1) tank with no cc and nothing special. Why take a Varian tank now? 2) Illidan the second, minus the major mobility and damage avoidance (or an inefficient Sonya) 3) a clunky melee burst damagedealer who dives and dies (ok, he killed the lunara.. oh no wait, the stun is gone and so is his strong engage-followup). Go pick a Thrall, Greymane or Zeratul.

Thanks Blizzard! At least I had fun for a while playing Varian after lvl 10. I guess playtime is over. Good luck catching dust Varian, see you next year :DDD

[FirstBlood 7]

And it's sad that there were so many other viable solutions to the Varian dilemma.  He wasn't exactly OP, he just had a playstyle that destroyed the possibility of counter play.

Option A)  Make Charge a skillshot that stuns the first person he connects with, which keeps him viable but makes him more like Muradin.

Option B)  Longer cooldown on the stun and taunt, since cleanse has a 60 second cooldown

Option C)  Shorten cooldown on cleanse since the game is so lock-down heavy right now.  Dropping it 45 seconds effectively nerfs Varian

It's like they got upset that his assassin builds weren't viable at higher levels of play, so they ruined the only viable build he had.

[Valhalen 1,484]

6 minutes ago, FirstBlood said:

Option A)  Make Charge a skillshot that stuns the first person he connects with, which keeps him viable but makes him more like Muradin.

This is a very good idea, making Charge a skillshot would solve a lot of problems. It would also give Varian a escape mechanism, which is something he severely lacks.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Valhalen

[Plergoth 277]

13 hours ago, MurkyFelix said:

On the other side of things, if the combo was so consistent that Blizzard felt it needed to be addressed, how about buffing Cleanse....?

I've been wondering if they'll buff Cleanse (or similar effects), but it seems they are more focused on controlling the amount of mez that can be landed in any one game and for long they can lock players out of actions, which is fine by me as well. Buffing Cleanse - even a small one - would have knock on consequences for not just the Supports that have them, as it's already an invaluable asset to have, but double Supp comps, Heroes with unique self cleanse or resistance to mez effects, or other heroes such as Kharazim with Cleanse built into their kit at a later stage of the game for a notable power spike. It'd also affect heroes that rely heavily on landing a mez effect to secure a kill, such as Kerrigan and the Butcher. I think it's best left alone for now. 

 

3 hours ago, Skyewalker said:

1) tank with no cc and nothing special. Why take a Varian tank now? 2) Illidan the second, minus the major mobility and damage avoidance (or an inefficient Sonya) 3) a clunky melee burst damagedealer who dives and dies (ok, he killed the lunara.. oh no wait, the stun is gone and so is his strong engage-followup

Exactly. It was already possible to juke a Charge by casting something like Barrel Roll very precisely, and then have Varian comically Flash-run towards you from a mile away into towers. I don't know if it was intentional, but this just means that any Hero that might have been a priority target for a Smash before, but has any mobility whatsoever, can bait a Charge and then simply kite Varian without taking any real amounts of damage. It hasn't just hurt Tank Varian, who *may* still have a niche to fill on teams that need something to deal with a Shield comp, but it makes his assassin builds even less effective and riskier to play. 

[Hanz39 53]

Making charge a skillshot won't fix Varian, because you are giving him an escape pratically instead of a engage tool, nobody will use charge to solely engage that should be the reason of the word 'Charge'. Also will be a terrible engage tool in the form of a skillshot even if it stun for 4 seconds instead of 1 because it can be easy missed like Storm Bolt of Muradin especially at max range and will be a worse Muradin because if you Charge not stunning anything you probably die there for your mistake since Varian has no mobility or defensive tools. At least if Muradin miss Storm bolt isn't severely overextended.

To fix the issue the only solutions are nerf the stun time to like 0,5 sec or increase Charge cd so he can't repeately spam it in tf like was before that you coulda stun the same person 2 times in a row since cd was so short.

Cleanse and related don't fix it also, if Varain charge the support he can't cleanse himself making cleanse completely useless, and if you keep your distance as support you probably can't cleanse the stunned target anyway because you are too far. And anyway Varian spam stuns every 6 secs while your cleanse will be never less than 30 sec cd after the first usage so he can try again shortly after.

In the current state Varian is bad as Li Ming with nerfed teleport and not worth being used.

[MurkyFelix 51]

10 hours ago, Plergoth said:

I've been wondering if they'll buff Cleanse (or similar effects), but it seems they are more focused on controlling the amount of mez that can be landed in any one game and for long they can lock players out of actions, which is fine by me as well. Buffing Cleanse - even a small one - would have knock on consequences for not just the Supports that have them, as it's already an invaluable asset to have, but double Supp comps, Heroes with unique self cleanse or resistance to mez effects, or other heroes such as Kharazim with Cleanse built into their kit at a later stage of the game for a notable power spike. It'd also affect heroes that rely heavily on landing a mez effect to secure a kill, such as Kerrigan and the Butcher. I think it's best left alone for now. 

True. Though the meta is just stunlocks now (to use Oxygen's analysis), Blizzard do seem intent on letting stunlocks happen, just less consistently than it has been (hence this nerf). The only real issue I have with Cleanse is the long cooldown when you'd use it to stop 2 seconds of CC. I realize the significance of those seconds but the view on paper always feels less impactful, especially when the CC is back up in ~8seconds. Also there's me wandering into Malfurion's root when trying to Cleanse my ally out of it but that's me failing as a Brightwing. But I do feel like it could do with a buff, it just isn't worth it since so many heroes would be affected. 

Also for clarity, I took "mez" as meaning CC but I don't know what it actually means.

2 hours ago, Hanz39 said:

Cleanse and related don't fix it also, if Varain charge the support he can't cleanse himself making cleanse completely useless, and if you keep your distance as support you probably can't cleanse the stunned target anyway because you are too far. And anyway Varian spam stuns every 6 secs while your cleanse will be never less than 30 sec cd after the first usage so he can try again shortly after.

In the current state Varian is bad as Li Ming with nerfed teleport and not worth being used.

To be nitpicking; supports can't self cast Cleanse anyway, so any CC on them is as bad. And there is a middle ground where you are close enough to whoever got hit to Cleanse them. I get it isn't viable in a longterm against Varian (pre-patch) but it's better than nothing. Plus if he Charged someone who get's Cleansed, that's no stun, no Taunt and Varian can't really get away, so a lot of the time he'd be too low health by the time Charge is back or he'd be dead.

And that is very sweeping, that last statement. Li-Ming is very worth being used, her resets can just snowball (more like avalanche) the game plus her damage is brilliant along with mobility. Plus yes, Varian isn't as good now but a 75% slow is nothing to sniff at and slow is still CC (hello Rexxar) and can be followed up on with a Taunt. Now, the targets just have an chance to get away but it's a very slim chance

Edited March 1, 2017 by MurkyFelix
Typo

[Benzyne 1]

On 2017-03-01 at 5:17 AM, MurkyFelix said:

 Also for clarity, I took "mez" as meaning CC but I don't know what it actually means.

I believe it comes from the MMO EverQuest. It had a class called the Enchanter that could cast a spell named Mesmerize, which would stun or sleep a target.