heroes Balance Update Patch Notes: Dec 20

[Stan 5,246]

Blizzard released a new patch today to apply balance changes and bug fixes. Groundbreaker no longer pulls enemy Heroes to Garrosh and more!

Blizzard (Source)

We just released a new patch for Heroes of the Storm to apply balance changes and a few bug fixes.

Alongside this patch, we’ve also manually corrected rankings and matchmaking ratings for a small number of Hero and Team League players who rose or fell more than 1 League (5 Divisions) higher or lower than where they ended 2017 Ranked Season 3. Read our recent forum post for more details.

Heroes

Assassin

Hanzo

Abilities

• Dragonstrike (R)
  • Damage increased from 58 to 64

Nova

Stats

• Health reduced from 1350 to 1300
• Health Regeneration reduced from 2.81 to 2.71

Abilities

• Snipe (Q)
  • Damage reduced from 255 to 245

Talents

• Level 16
  • Lethal Decoy (E)
    • Holo Decoy damage bonus reduced from 50% to 40% of Nova’s damage

Thrall

Stats

• Basic Attack damage increased from 165 to 173

Talents

• Level 13
  • Spirit Shield (Active)
    • Cooldown reduction granted by Frostwolf Resilience increased from 8 to 10 seconds

Specialist

Nazeebo

Abilities

• Corpse Spiders (Q)
  • Damage increased from 36 to 38
• Ravenous Spirit (R)
  • Damage increased from 103.4 to 108
• Gargantuan (R)
  • Health reduced from 2300 to 2185

Talents

• Level 4
  • Hexed Crawlers (Q)
    • Health and Mana return increased from 0.75% to 1%
• Level 20
  • Vile Infection (Trait)
    • Damage bonus reduced from 200% to 150%

Support

Alexstrasza

Abilities

• Lifebinder (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 75 to 60 seconds
  • Mana cost reduced from 100 to 80
• Cleansing Flame (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 90 to 100 seconds
  • Damage reduced from 150 to 135

Talents

• Level 16
  • Draconic Discipline (Trait)
    • Dragonqueen duration bonus reduced from 9 to 7 seconds

Brightwing

Abilities

• Polymorph (W)
  • Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds
  • Mana cost reduced from 60 to 50

Li Li

Abilities

• Cloud Serpent (W)
  • Health restored per attack increased from 15 to 20

Talents

• Level 1
  • Wind Serpent (W)
    • Cooldown reduction granted per Hero hit by Blinding Wind increased from 3 to 4 seconds
• Level 4
  • Serpent Sidekick (W)
    • Cloud Serpent duration bonus granted per attack increased from 0.5 to 0.6 seconds
  • Safety Sprint (Trait)
    • Duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds
• Level 7
  • Let’s Go (Active)
    • Range increased from 4 to 6
• Level 13
  • Gale Force (E)
    • Bonus Basic Attack damage against Blinded Heroes increased from 50% to 75%

Lúcio

Abilities

• Amp It Up (E)
  • Healing per second reduced from 120 to 114

Stukov

Talents

• Level 4
  • One Good Spread (Q)
    • Mana restoration reduced from 40 to 30

Warrior

Artanis

Talents

• Level 7
  • Chrono Surge (E)
    • Attack Speed bonus increased from 50% to 75%
• Level 13
  • Templar’s Zeal (Q)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 150% to 200%
  • Phase Bulwark (Trait)
    • Spell Armor increased from 40 to 50

D.Va

Stats

• Basic Attack damage in Mech form increased from 21 to 24

Garrosh

Stats

• Health increased from 1970 to 2060
• Health Regeneration increased from 4.102 to 4.293

Abilities

• Groundbreaker (Q)
  • Groundbreaker no longer pulls enemy Heroes to Garrosh
    • Instead, Groundbreaker now knocks enemy Heroes into the air, Stunning them for 0.75 seconds, and then Slowing them by 30% for 2 seconds
  • Talent tooltips for Warbreaker, Defensive Measures, Rough Landing, and Mortal Combo have been updated to reflect this change
• Wrecking Ball (E)
  • Cooldown reduced from 16 to 14 seconds
  • Mana cost reduced from 70 to 65

Talents

• Level 16
  • Mortal Combo (Q)
    • Cooldown reduction granted to Wrecking Ball decreased from 10 to 8 seconds
    • Window of time to throw enemies increased from 2 to 3 seconds

Developer Comment: While he is well balanced with regard to his win-rate, Garrosh has been widely considered more punishing than other Warriors compared to the amount of counter-play he offers. While we love his playstyle and the epic moments he can create, we wanted to reduce the amount of frustration he can cause opponents. We’ve added a window of time between being hit by Groundbreaker and being thrown into the enemy team, which should help players have more opportunity to outplay him. We’re also looking at other Heroes who are lacking in counter-play, or are overly frustrating to play against, and are planning to make similar changes to them in the future.

Bug Fixes

General

• Quick Cast: Fixed a bug causing Heroes to repeatedly cast Mount or other self-cast Abilities if the initial cast was interrupted by issuing another command using Quick Cast On Release.
• Quick Cast: Fixed a bug in which holding right-click to move while attempting to cast Abilities using Quick Cast On Release could interrupt movement or prevent those Abilities from casting.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Brightwing: Phase Shift can now be correctly cast on the entirety of an allied Hero’s Minimap portrait.
• Hanzo: Coming under the effects of Zarya’s Graviton Surge while casting Storm Bow will no longer prevent the player from using Hanzo’s Abilities after Graviton Surge ends.
• Hanzo: Rejoining a game while AI Hanzo was casting Storm Bow will no longer prevent the player from using Hanzo’s Abilities.
• The Butcher: Fixed an issue preventing The Butcher from using consumable items such as Healing Pulse or Turrets on Volskaya Foundry.

[SleepySheepy 41]

Interesting change for BW, but I would still prefer Q damage buff.

[ArusVicious 156]

I've tried the changes for garrosh and they aren't too terrible. Sure they are a large nerf but he's seeming quite powerful still! And playing against him is finally more pleasant.

[Leadblast 28]

More and more nerfs for Nova, way to beat up a dead horse there.

[Hanz39 53]

Nova is the hero with highest winrate in the game, if Nova is the dead horse what Hanzo is?

That said those nerf aren't enough and need much more to bring her to a reasonable level of power, she's just unkillable with that ghost protocol at lv 1, a talent that they deemed be a lv 20 tier now is free and even spawns a clone that does damage and retains talents... 

and unlike the other stealth heroes she is basically unaffected by the fact that you see her since she is always out of range of any skill and ghost protocol is totally broken to be baseline with a joke CD of 60 means that it saves you like 20 deaths in a game if the game last 20 minutes... seems fair playing like an idiot and nobody can kill you regardless of how bad you are.

I'm not the best Nova in the world but I used her and i was always godlike heavy carrying my team in any match I used her not to mention I won all the game I used her with ease.

Also I'm surprised they haven't buffed Hanzo scatter shot damage since it's completely useless and noone take talents for it for a good reason

[MZLICH 43]

We asked blizzard for a shorter cd for dragonqueen and we just got a nerf for that R which most of people use.... so sad

and we may say goodbye to pulling garrosh since that older ability was great to pull people from between minions and then press E immediately to shoot people at base or behind team :D

[Plergoth 277]

[Fliits 112]

5 hours ago, Maxkitty said:

I've tried the changes for garrosh and they aren't too terrible. Sure they are a large nerf but he's seeming quite powerful still! And playing against him is finally more pleasant.

It wasn't really a nerf, more of a rebalancing. Garrosh was way crazy man, it's good that Blizzard finally did something about it.

[Aglommon 21]

Not sure about Garrosh, I feel that the his talent to become Unstoppable will become needed in order to be able to throw people but we'll see.

I'm kinda sad not to see a nerf to Valeera's silence, this stuff is scary.

[Valhalen 1,484]

RIP Garrosh. I know his gameplay was considered "toxic", but changing that pretty much kills the entire concept of the character. Now he's just another tank with stun. But let's see how this play out.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Valhalen

[Othello 2]

I think that Garrosh could be more dangerous now.

Talents like Warbreaker & Intimidation are now more effektiv in connection with the stun and the slow of Groundbreaker. Getting a stun every 5 seconds after complete the quest of Warbreaker is pretty strong!

Also...Garrohs ban-rate will hopefully sink right now.

BTW: More health mean more self sustain.

I'm very excited to try the new Garrosh :-)

[Leadblast 28]

9 hours ago, Hanz39 said:

Nova is the hero with highest winrate in the game, 

I don't know where you get your data from, but it appears to be shoddy. Next to no one uses her in comp, and that was BEFORE her nerfs.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Leadblast

[Leadblast 28]

10 hours ago, Hanz39 said:

she's just unkillable with that ghost protocol at lv 1, a talent that they deemed be a lv 20 tier now is free and even spawns a clone that does damage and retains talents... 

and unlike the other stealth heroes she is basically unaffected by the fact that you see her since she is always out of range of any skill and ghost protocol is totally broken to be baseline with a joke CD of 60 means that it saves you like 20 deaths in a game if the game last 20 minutes... seems fair playing like an idiot and nobody can kill you regardless of how bad you are.

Dude, you're utterly and completely wrong on all accounts. Please kindly take your bullshit off this forum. I'm asking you nicely to.

Ghost Protocol itself has a HUGE cooldown. And, it doesn't ALWAYS save her ass from death. Try it against a warrior like Arthas for instance. Try against a Lunara who goes Natural Perspective at 1. Try against Johanna, or against Malthael, or Zeratul... just to name a FEW. All those enemies can EASILY reveal her and/or mark her for death and there's little or nothing Ghost Protocol can do about it.

Nova cannot do ANYTHING against certain heroes. Against Johanna? She sees Nova's silhouette walking around, and all she has to do is flashing a Shield Glare in her direction, and then Nova gets fully revealed and has to flee or get stunned and die. Trying to burst Johanna down from your "safe range"? Nope, not gonna work, she is beefy enough to shrug off Nova's damage with her blinding skill and her trait and you have failed your purpose anyway.

Against Arthas? Good luck dodging a Howling Blast. You will need it.

etc etc etc.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Leadblast

[xevex 41]

Dragonstrikes buff was expected, the ulti feels pretty weak in general. 

I wonder what prompted the D.Va basic attack buff when just few weeks ago they were saying her winrates are good. 

10 hours ago, Hanz39 said:

Also I'm surprised they haven't buffed Hanzo scatter shot damage since it's completely useless and noone take talents for it for a good reason

Eh. Scattershot talents arent taken not because Scattershot is completly useless but because how much Storm Bow defines Hanzo as a Hero. On the contrary Scattershot is perfect in PvE situations and situationally even better then Storm Bow in teamfights. 
Altough i must admit Simple Geometry is a pretty weak talent because the additional shots just make the Scattershot wider to the point that its questionable if its even useful in PvE not to mention teamfights.
But imo we will see more Jungler/Scatter Shot Hanzos in the future, altough i dont think Simple Geometry is mandatory for that.

Also Nova was trash tier before, then recieved a Nerf/Rework and now comes another nerf. So nope. She isnt a magical child with magical winrates. 

Edited December 21, 2017 by xevex

[Valhalen 1,484]

6 minutes ago, xevex said:

Eh. Scattershot talents arent taken not because Scattershot is completly useless but because how much Storm Bow defines Hanzo as a Hero. On the contrary Scattershot is perfect in PvE situations and situationally even better then Storm Bow in teamfights. 
Altough i must admit Simple Geometry is a pretty weak talent because the additional shots just make the Scattershot wider to the point that its questionable if its even useful in PvE not to mention teamfights.
But imo we will see more Jungler/Scatter Shot Hanzos in the future, altough i dont think Simple Geometry is mandatory for that.

Scattershot actually can surpass Storm Bow's damage (on paper), but only under very specific conditions, which are highly unlikely to happen often. Overall I don't think it's worth to invest on Scattershot when Storm Bow has way more value. If anything, Scattershot is a great surprise attack or a quick way to take down enemies fleeing at low health (provided you have the aim and the walls to ricochet it).

Edited December 21, 2017 by Valhalen

[xevex 41]

2 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

Scattershot actually can surpass Storm Bow's damage (on paper), but only under very specific conditions, which are highly unlikely to happen often. Overall I don't think it's worth to invest on Scattershot when Storm Bow has way more value. If anything, Scattershot is a great surprise attack or a quick way to take down enemies fleeing at low health (provided you have the aim and the walls to ricochet it).

Just hitting 3 ricochets deals about the same dmg as storm bow which isnt very hard. Then in some situations it deals much more.
I dot agree that trading Simple Geometry for Target Practice is a bad trade but i do not think so about the other Scattershot talents.
Serrated Arrow, Never Outmatched, Mounted Archery, Piercing Arrows make Hanzo one of the best Junglers in the game.
These talents can be taken with Target Practice but you have to give up Flawless Techniques single target dmg buffs for Piercing Arrows AoE dmg buff, The much more reliable waveclear of Exploding Arrow (Altough i would argue that late game its weaker then Scattershot waveclear). Overall Scattershot build (aside from Simple Geometry) makes Hanzo much more versatile in a compositions but you sacrifices his single target dmg for easy and fast camps (But you get AoE dmg so its not that bad).

[ArtVandelay 24]

16 hours ago, SleepySheepy said:

Interesting change for BW, but I would still prefer Q damage buff.

I mostly play the Q build.  Esp vs double tank meta.  If you land the Q with CD reduction and slow, then you can generally have your dps in the range of most tanks.  That also synergizes with mystified nicely.  More Q's means more healing (I am usually out healing the other healer, even without the bonus healing on the E talent).  But as a BW main, I would not mind a buff to Q.  I would maybe rather have it buffed on the ability to land it.  Like take away the "inner circle" requirement on Dream Shot, or buff the cast speed.  It can be hard to land without CC.  I think a dmg buff to it might be too much, as he would have too much wave clear maybe (since minions don't move really).

Edited December 21, 2017 by ArtVandelay

[VegaPl 88]

On 21.12.2017 at 9:55 AM, Aglommon said:

Not sure about Garrosh, I feel that the his talent to become Unstoppable will become needed in order to be able to throw people but we'll see.

I'm kinda sad not to see a nerf to Valeera's silence, this stuff is scary.

I fully agree, that eternal silence really grinds my gears; it seriously feels like 30 sec.

[Erathis 53]

On 12/20/2017 at 9:22 PM, Hanz39 said:

Also I'm surprised they haven't buffed Hanzo scatter shot damage since it's completely useless and noone take talents for it for a good reason

That's what I thought when I first started playing the hero too.  "Man it's so hard to hit this reliably..."  Then I practiced and watched what other people (including some pros I watch streams of) do with the skill.  Now frankly I consider two of the Scattershot talents mandatory on most maps with a decent case being made for two more.

Serrated Arrows and Never Outmatched turn Hanzo into a jungle god.  They're so good, I've seen solo Hanzo burn down bosses before it could even make it to the first fort on some maps.  Camps like Ogres and Firebats fall in only a few shots and even Knight camps fall quickly.  Outside of Jungle, Never Outmatched gives Hanzo nearly constant access to Scattershot for team fighting spread damage and opportunistic hero shotgunning.

Simple Geometry and Piercing Arrows are both situationally on the menu as well for me.  Against teams that clump both are unbeatable choices and of course they help even more with jungling.  But if neither of those interest you both other talents on those levels can easily be picked alongside the two scattershot talents (I'm partial to Redemption myself in most situations, his auto attack is just unbearable slow for me otherwise).

[Leadblast 28]

They released a new patch, 29.6, but no one knows what the deal is about since they forgot to release patch notes along with it.

 

Probably some other stealth nerfs for Nova or something.

[positiv2 953]

8 hours ago, Leadblast said:

They released a new patch, 29.6, but no one knows what the deal is about since they forgot to release patch notes along with it.

 

Probably some other stealth nerfs for Nova or something.

According to Heroes Patch Notes, it's just a hotfix.