heroes Maiev PTR Patch Notes: Jan 29

[Stan 5,240]

The latest content patch is available for playtesting until February 5. It brings Maiev, Lunar Festival, target info panels and voice chat to the Nexus. Ranked map rotations remains unchanged and voice chat will be enabled on live servers at a later time.

Blizzard (Source)

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until February 5. During this time, we kindly request your assistance in trying out the new content before we officially release the patch. As always, if you encounter any bugs or other issues during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.

Lunar Festival 2018

Join us in celebrating Lunar Festival this year by completing matches in Versus A.I., Quick Match, Unranked, or Ranked modes, and you’ll pick up some sweet new loot! The event kicks off during the week of Tuesday, February 6, and concludes on Monday, March 5, so be sure to complete the quests below before Lunar Festival comes to an end.

Quests and Rewards

• Part 1: Play 2 Games
  • Reward: Cute Lunar Skyrocket Spray
• Part 2: Play 5 Games
  • Reward: Lunar Warcrest Banner
• Part 3: Play 8 Games
  • Reward: Cute Lunar Guardian Portrait
• Part 4: Win 5 Games
  • Reward: Lunar Skyrocket Mount

You can also stop by the Lunar Festival 2018 mini-site to learn more about the event and find out how you can earn ornate Lunar Festival 2018 Loot Chests just by playing Heroes of the Storm!

New Hero: Maiev

Maiev Shadowsong stood watch over the imprisoned Betrayer for ten thousand years, and hunted him relentlessly after he was released. Some say she’s determined; others say she’s obsessed. Either way, she will stop at nothing to ensure the security of her world.

Trait 

• Vault of the Wardens (D)
  • Leap into the air, becoming immune to all hostile effects for 0.75 seconds.
  • Passive: Maiev has 15 Armor.

Basic Abilities

• Fan of Knives (Q)
  • Deal 180 damage to enemies in a crescent area.
  • Hitting at least 2 enemy Heroes with Fan of Knives reduces its cooldown to 0.5 seconds, and refunds the Mana cost.
• Umbral Bind (W)
  • Maiev’s next Basic Attack cleaves and applies a tether to enemy Heroes hit for 2.5 seconds. If a tethered Hero moves too far from Maiev, they are pulled toward her, dealing 110 damage and breaking the tether.
• Spirit of Vengeance (E)
  • Send a shadow of Maiev outward that will return to its cast location, dealing 100 damage to enemies along both paths. Deals 100% more damage to enemy Heroes.
  • Reactivate to Blink to the shadow’s location.

Heroic Abilities

• Containment Disc (R)
  • Throw a glaive in the target direction. If an enemy Hero is hit, Containment Disk can be reactivated to remove their vision and Time Stop them for 4 seconds.
  • Containment Disc automatically activates 6 seconds after hitting a Hero.
• Warden's Cage (R)
  • Summon 8 Warden Avatars as a cage around Maiev. After 1.5 seconds, enemy Heroes that come in contact with an Avatar re knocked to the center of the cage, and that Avatar is consumed. Warden Avatars last 7 seconds.

User Interface

Voice Chat

• NOTE: While available in the PTR, Voice Chat will not be enabled on the live servers until a later date. 
• Voice chat for Parties and Teams has been introduced to Heroes of the Storm.
  • By default, players will automatically join Party voice chat.
  • Team voice chat is opt-in, but can be toggled to auto-join in the Voice Chat settings. There is a team voice reminder dialog at the beginning of matches that is enabled by default, but can be disabled.
  • If Team voice auto-join is enabled and you are already in party voice, a confirmation dialog will appear that defaults to Join.
• Voice settings can be adjusted in the Voice Chat tab of the Options menu.
  • A voice chat widget is also available in the top left of most screens. This widget lets you quickly change channels or join/leave voice channels.
    • This can be found in the Tab screen while in a match.
  • Microphone and speaker icons can be clicked on to mute/unmute.

Target Info Panel

• Target Info Panels have been introduced to allow players to investigate a unit's gameplay stats in real time.
  • The Target Info Panel will display in the top left of the screen after selecting a friendly or enemy target with left-click.
  • The Target Info Panel will display the following information:
    • Health and Health Regen
    • Mana and Mana Regen
    • Basic Attack Damage
    • Attacks per Second
    • Attack Range
    • Spell Power Modifier
    • Movement Speed
    • Physical & Spell Armor

Battleground Objective Counters

• All Battlegrounds with turn-in mechanics (Blackheart’s Bay, Tomb of the Spider Queen, Booty Coffers Heroes Brawl) will now show a visual indicator when a team’s gathered objective count is high enough to complete a turn-in.

Art

General

• Pings: Ping icons that appear overhead have received updated visual effects.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Abathur: A crown icon will now appear above Heroes’ Minimap portraits when they are affected by Abathur’s Symbiote.
• Ana: An overlay will now display for Heroes affected by Nano Boost.
• Archangel Diablo: Apocalypse visual effects that appear on the terrain have been updated to make them more obvious to players on both teams.
• Falstad: Hinterland Blast visual effects now more closely match the edges of its area of effect.
• Junkrat: Frag Launcher’s targeting reticle has received updated art.
• Leoric: Entomb’s targeting reticle has received updated art to better reflect the Ability’s shape.
• Li-Ming: Magic Missiles have received updated visual effects to make them more apparent.
• Lt. Morales: An overlay will now display for Heroes affected by Stim Drone.
• Tychus: Minigun visual effects have been updated to make the Ability more apparent while it is active.
• Tychus: Overkill’s retargeting icon has received updated art.
• The following heroes have received updated visual effects to coincide with Talent changes:
  • Greymane
  • Malthael

Battlegrounds

Ranked Battleground Rotation

• The Battleground rotation for Ranked Play is unchanged, and remains as follows:
  • Battlefield of Eternity
  • Braxis Holdout
  • Cursed Hollow
  • Dragon Shire
  • Infernal Shrines
  • Sky Temple
  • Tomb of the Spider Queen
  • Towers of Doom
  • Volskaya Foundry

Volskaya Foundry

• Triglav Protector
  • The Protector will gain 10 Armor and 25% increased damage if both the Pilot and Gunner seats are occupied
  • Base Health has been increased from 9500 to 10450
  • Health Scaling has been increased by 10%
  • Pilot: Rocket Fist (W)
    • Duration has been increased from 2 to 4 seconds
  • Gunner: Gatling Cannon (W)
    • Gatling Cannon will now fire immediately, instead of after a short delay
    • Gatling Cannon rounds will now fire 50% faster

Heroes

Assassin

Greymane

Abilities

• Gilnean Cocktail (Q)
  • Mana cost reduced from 70 to 55
  • Explosion area increased by ~15%

Talents

• Level 1
  • Perfect Aim (Q)
    • Mana refund for hitting a Hero reduced from 50 to 35
• Level 4
  • Draught Overflow (Q)
    • Removed
• Level 7
  • Wizened Duelist (Passive)
    • New functionality:
      • Every 6 Attacks against an enemy Hero increases Greymane’s Basic Attack damage by 1%, up to 30%. Gain triple benefit from attacking in Worgen form. These bonuses are lost on death.

Developer Comment: We made these changes in an effort to increase Greymane’s build diversity. Gilnean Cocktail felt a little lackluster without its associated Talents, so made parts of them baseline. While you can still enhance Gilnean Cocktail through talents, we wanted it to feel like a valuable part of your kit if you choose a more Basic Attack-oriented build. We've also redesigned Wizened Duelist to be less of a feast or famine Quest by shifting its requirements to something that a Greymane in a losing game can still accomplish. This also has the added benefit of being a reward that can be accomplished regardless of the lethality of a game (since the average number of deaths can vary greatly between different levels of play).

Malthael

Stats

• Basic Attacks now cleave in a radius of 3.25 in an arc in front of Malthael
• Damage reduced from 117 to 82 

Abilities

• Soul Rip (Q)
  • Healing reduced from 44 to 36 per enemy hit
• Death’s Shroud (E)
  • Width increased from 2.25 to 3
• Reaper's Mark (Trait)
  • Damage reduced from 2% to 1.75% of an enemy's maximum Health
• Tormented Souls (R)
  • No longer applies Armor to Malthael
• Last Rites (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 75 to 65 seconds
  • Malthael can now also gain Quest credit if the enemy Hero dies within 1.5 seconds of Last Rites damage
  • Range increased from 4 to 5

Talents

• Level 4
  • Die Alone (Q)
    • This now once again applies bonus damage if only 1 Hero is marked, even if multiple other non-Heroes are also marked
  • Throwing Shade (E)
    • Reduced the hits needed to complete the quest from 20 to 15
  • Black Harvest (Trait)
    • Quest completion requirement increased from 150 to 180 seconds
• Level 7
  • Massacre (W)
    • Moved from Level 16 to Level 7
  • Touch of Death (Active)
    • Cooldown reduced from 30 to 25 seconds
• Level 13
  • Soul Siphon (Q)
    • Reduced the healing from 4% to 3.75% versus Heroes
  • Ethereal Existence (Trait)
    • Maximum Physical Armor reduced from 40 to 30
• Level 16
  • Mortality (W)
    • Moved from Level 7 to Level 16
    • Damage increased from 4 to 6% of an enemy Hero's maximum Health

Developer Comment: Malthael, while powerful, has relied heavily on Tormented Souls to apply his Reaper's Mark during team fights. By making his Basic Attacks cleave and increasing the usability of Death's Shroud, we're providing more ways to him to apply his Mark to multiple enemies. Not only does this increase his survivability and damage without relying solely on Tormented Souls, it also gives him more options to use Wraith Strike. We've also sought to increase the usability of Last Rites to make it a more enticing Heroic option. Lastly, the ability to apply Reaper's Mark reliably makes it much more powerful, so we've adjusted the tuning of its damage and associated Talents.

Warrior

Tyrael

Talents

• Level 1
  • Salvation (W)
    • Healing on shield destruction increased from 125 to 140
  • Ardent Restoration (Passive)
    • Healing increased from 12.5 to 13.75 per stack over 5 seconds
• Level 4
  • Stalwart Armor (Q)
    • Armor reduced from 25 to 20

Collection

Head over to the latest In-Development blog to catch a preview of all the new cosmetic items coming to the Nexus with this patch.

New Bundles

• Maiev Heroic Bundle – Available until February 19, 2018
• Lunar Festival 2018 Bundle – Available until March 5, 2018
• Lunar Festival Classic Bundle – Available until March 5, 2018

New Announcer

• Maiev

New Skins

• Maiev
  • Darnassian Maiev
  • Dusk Maiev
  • Hellwarden Maiev
    • Bonewarden Maiev
    • Dreadwarden Maiev
    • Hordewarden Maiev
    • Plaguewarden Maiev
• Kael’thas
  • Lunar Kael’thas
  • Jade Lunar Kael’thas
  • Heavenly Lunar Kael’thas
• Sylvanas
  • Lunar Sylvanas
  • Jade Lunar Sylvanas
  • Soaring Lunar Sylvanas
• Cassia
  • Lunar Cassia
  • Azure Lunar Cassia
  • Honored Lunar Cassia
  • Jade Lunar Cassia
  • Midnight Lunar Cassia
• Zul’jin
  • Lunar Zul’jin
  • Ancestral Lunar Zul’jin
  • Cruel Lunar Zul’jin
  • Jade Lunar Zul’jin
  • Ornamented Lunar Zul’jin
• Arthas
  • Royal Mystic Kingdoms Arthas
• Azmodan
  • Lunar Azmodan
• Genji
  • Lunar Genji
• Illidan
  • Dragon Lunar Illidan
• Jaina
  • Jade Lunar Jaina
• Li-Ming
  • Blossom Lunar Li-Ming
  • Heavenly Lunar Li-Ming
  • Imperial Lunar Li-Ming

New Mounts

• Lunar Skyrocket – Unlocked by completing the Lunar Festival 2018 event quest.
  • Golden Lunar Skyrocket – Purchasable using Gold
• Lunar Guardian
  • Jade Lunar Guardian
  • Marble Lunar Guardian

Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed a number of typo and tooltip errors across several aspects of the game.

Art

• Jaina: Corrected some minor clipping affecting Arcanist Jaina’s clothing.
• Samuro: Shadows will no longer appear to flicker behind Monkey King Samuro on the post-match score screen. 

Battlegrounds

• Battlefield of Eternity: Fixed a visual issue that could cause the outlines generated by Natural Agility to dip below the terrain in certain locations.
• Braxis Holdout: Fixed an issue in which A.I. Heroes would pace near an enemy Gate rather than attack the Core.
• Garden of Terror: Fixed an issue in which Structures affected by Overgrowth could stop attacking indefinitely under specific circumstances.
• Blackheart’s Revenge Brawl: Damage will no longer interrupt channeling while Heroes are attempting to use teleportation portals.
• Escape from Braxis Brawl: Bosses can no longer push unpathable terrain created by Tyrael’s Holy Ground Talent.
• Try Mode: The effects of Ana’s Aim Down the Sights Talent are now correctly removed after using the Reset Talents Button.
• Try Mode: Sgt. Hammer’s bonus attack range, granted by the Graduating Range Talent, is now correctly removed after using the Reset Talents Button.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Ana: Shrike Doses after the first will now correctly deal bonus damage when Ana is affected by increased Spell Power.
• Auriel: Basic Attack damage dealt by Auriel’s Bestow Hope target will no longer generate less than the intended amount of Energy.
• D.Va: A.I. Heroes will now attempt to flee the area surrounding D.Va’s Mech during Self-Destruct.
• Junkrat: Will no longer become separated from his rocket when issuing movement commands during Rocket Ride.
• Li Li: Blinding Wind will now correctly deal damage to neutral Mercenaries.
• Li-Ming: The Astral Presence icon is no longer missing its mouseover tooltip.
• Lunara: Leaping Strike can no longer be cast while Rooted.
• Rehgar: Fixed an issue preventing the Hunger of the Wolf Talent from applying bonus damage to Ghost Wolf attacks at level 16.
• Tassadar: The Psionic Echo Talent’s timer bar will now correctly appear next to the Archon timer when both are active at once.
• Valeera: The Cheap Shot tooltip appended to Blade Flurry after breaking Stealth now correctly states it will Blind the target.
• Zeratul: Blink will now correctly break invisibility.

Sound

• Valeera: Thistle Tea activation is no longer audible to nearby enemies while Valeera is in Stealth.
• Settings: Hero voice reactions are no longer audible when the Voices setting is disabled.

User Interface

• Hotkeys: Basic Hotkeys can now be assigned to mouse buttons.
• Loading Screen: Removed an outdated loading screen tooltip relating to Tower Ammunition.

[xevex 41]

And so Malthael became melee Lunara. 

[ArusVicious 156]

I really hope that if Maiev is powerful, Blizzard doesn't do their usual "destroy the hero" type nerf. Maiev is a very iconic character in the Blizzard universe and I would absolutely hate to see her being weak and unusable. 

[xevex 41]

11 minutes ago, Maxkitty said:

I really hope that if Maiev is powerful, Blizzard doesn't do their usual "destroy the hero" type nerf. Maiev is a very iconic character in the Blizzard universe and I would absolutely hate to see her being weak and unusable. 

Shes not powerful. Shes broken.
 

Quote

Naisha's Memento

Activate to make primary Basic Attacks bounce between nearby enemies up to 2 times, dealing 30% more damage to bounce targets. Lasts 8 seconds. Recharge Naisha's Memento by hitting at least 2 Heroes with a single Fan of Knives.

 

Pin Down

Quest: Hit 3 enemy Heroes with a single Fan of Knives. Reward: Increase Fan of Knives damage by 15%. Reward: For each additional time 3 enemy Heroes are hit by a single Fan of Knives, gain an additional 5% damage, up to 30%. Reward: Hit 4 enemy Heroes with a single Fan of Knives to instantly gain all Rewards.
 

Bonds of Corruption

Enemy Heroes pulled by Umbral Bind have their Physical Armor reduced by 25 for 3 seconds.
 

Warden's Cage

Summon 8 Warden Avatars as a cage around Maiev. After 1.5 seconds, enemy Heroes that come in contact with an Avatar consume it and are knocked to the center of the cage. Warden Avatars last 7 seconds.
 

Shadow Armor

Blink grants 25 Armor for 2.5 seconds. Maiev's Basic Attacks against enemy Heroes refresh this duration.
 

Armored Assault

While Maiev has more than 15 Armor of any kind, all Physical Damage dealt is increased by 35%.
 

Shadow Orb: Huntress

Activate to increased Movement Speed and Attack Speed by 40% for 5 seconds. Recharge Shadow Orb by dealing Physical Damage to enemy Heroes 10 times.

 

Edited January 29, 2018 by xevex

[mm7756aa 0]

16 minutes ago, Maxkitty said:

I really hope that if Maiev is powerful, Blizzard doesn't do their usual "destroy the hero" type nerf. Maiev is a very iconic character in the Blizzard universe and I would absolutely hate to see her being weak and unusable. 

...like Tyrande?

[CyberDVonaven 82]

12 minutes ago, Maxkitty said:

I really hope that if Maiev is powerful, Blizzard doesn't do their usual "destroy the hero" type nerf. Maiev is a very iconic character in the Blizzard universe and I would absolutely hate to see her being weak and unusable.

 

5 minutes ago, xevex said:

Shes not powerful. Shes broken.

To Xevex,

 I'm confused o_O, I thought when you called a hero 'broken' that meant they are overpowered? You sound like you're saying the opposite is the case. Or are you being sarcastic and meaning 'She's not just powerful/balanced, she's WAY overpowered/"broken"'?

[xevex 41]

2 minutes ago, CyberDVonaven said:

To Xevex,

 I'm confused o_O, I thought when you called a hero 'broken' that meant they are overpowered? You sound like you're saying the opposite is the case. Or are you being sarcastic and meaning 'She's not just powerful/balanced, she's WAY overpowered/"broken"'?

I copypasted a build i made on an umentioned site. :) Check the talents and youll know what i mean.
Only way she couldnt be broken is if she had a horrible basic attack dmg.

Edited January 29, 2018 by xevex

[SHIMOxxKUMA 2]

5 minutes ago, xevex said:

I copypasted a build i made on an umentioned site. :) Check the talents and youll know what i mean.

Played with and against her in a couple games, she's not bad but I wouldn't call her broken at all. 

[xevex 41]

2 minutes ago, SHIMOxxKUMA said:

Played with and against her in a couple games, she's not bad but I wouldn't call her broken at all. 

In a first 2 hours of PTR. Wait till people learn how to play her.

[Erathis 53]

19 minutes ago, xevex said:

In a first 2 hours of PTR. Wait till people learn how to play her.

By that same token, shouldn't we wait for people to learn to play against her before saying she's broken?

[ArusVicious 156]

18 minutes ago, xevex said:

In a first 2 hours of PTR. Wait till people learn how to play her.

Exactly. A good Maiev should likely be far more than a nuisance. Even if she debuts as 'average', she could be like some other heroes that are great with more experience but not great with lower levels.

[xevex 41]

3 minutes ago, TSRD said:

By that same token, shouldn't we wait for people to learn to play against her before saying she's broken?

I do not disagree. Her basic attack build just appears overpowered. But can be countered very easily with blinds.

[KuraiTakagi 5]

Umbral Bind + Spirit of Vengeance is quite a nice combo.

[Dejo93 1,023]

Get fucked, Genji mains

[Oxygen 446]

Played her a bit on PTR. She's really powerful; an assassin with outstanding control, okay-wish waveclear, a powerful basic attack and base armor is bound to be strong.

[Valhalen 1,484]

Lunar Festival looking good! Much like I said in another thread, I knew we'd get a dog-related content.

Edited January 29, 2018 by Valhalen

[Plergoth 277]

Nanoboost overlay, today is a good day. 

[Undeath 67]

OMG these wisened duelist changes. Why changing a talent no one ever takes when there's a superior choice in the tier.

[SteveFrost 97]

14 hours ago, Maxkitty said:

I really hope that if Maiev is powerful, Blizzard doesn't do their usual "destroy the hero" type nerf. Maiev is a very iconic character in the Blizzard universe and I would absolutely hate to see her being weak and unusable. 

Like Jimmy, Kerrigan,Illidan, Zeratul, Malfurion (until recently) etc and the list goes on (each one in varying degree). Part of me thinks this is to some point on purpose by them-they know players will naturally be drawn to iconic and popular characters, so if they're too powerful, they won't feel the need to get more (at least for a while) they'll be happy with these select few. Personally, I'm the kind who plays their favorites no matter what state they're in (if something's too imbaOPbroken at a time, at least I won't bring it to ranked).

I preferred Last Rites on Malthael anyways, the other heroic requires really good team com, coordination and set-up to execute and these things are really hard to find. The issue with him imho is that he lacks burst for an assassin and he relies more on sustained damage (black harvest + memento mori is still a pretty powerful combo but takes a while to get there) and being a squishy, he's very easy to kill, especially if focused.

[Brutalis 165]

Time to become a filthy Maeiv main.

[Fliits 112]

13 hours ago, Valhalen said:

Lunar Festival looking good! Much like I said in another thread, I knew we'd get a dog-related content.

Didn't get Kerrigan, but oh well.

[Valhalen 1,484]

15 hours ago, Maxkitty said:

I really hope that if Maiev is powerful, Blizzard doesn't do their usual "destroy the hero" type nerf. Maiev is a very iconic character in the Blizzard universe and I would absolutely hate to see her being weak and unusable. 

I don't think she is either overpowered nor underpowered. Blizzard has been doing a great job with balancing lately. Blaze is a prime example. I don't think we ever got a Hero so balanced on launch as him.

19 minutes ago, Fliits said:

Didn't get Kerrigan, but oh well.

Yeah, maybe in a few years... Thinking about it, 2019 will be the Year of the Pig... Maybe we'll finally get the Piggy Bank mount back? And maybe a Zhu Bajie skin for The Butcher (akin to the one Roadhog got in Overwatch?)? Oh boy, I can only dream.

[Dejo93 1,023]

13 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

I don't think she is either overpowered nor underpowered. Blizzard has been doing a great job with balancing lately. Blaze is a prime example. I don't think we ever got a Hero so balanced on launch as him.

Yeah, maybe in a few years... Thinking about it, 2019 will be the Year of the Pig... Maybe we'll finally get the Piggy Bank mount back? And maybe a Zhu Bajie skin for The Butcher (akin to the one Roadhog got in Overwatch?)? Oh boy, I can only dream.

Or maybe a Quilboar hero? Like in Dota 1

 

Those were the days :)

[Valhalen 1,484]

8 minutes ago, Dejo93 said:

Or maybe a Quilboar hero? Like in Dota 1

 

Those were the days :)

That would be awesome! Although I don't think Quillboars are iconic enough to be made as a Hero themselves; although we got a Faerie Dragon and a Dryad as Heroes. Nothing else surprises me.

The only place where you can find Quillboars as bosses in WoW is in Razorfen Kraul, if my memory is correct. The only one I really remember was Ragglesnout because he dropped the X'caliboar.

[SociKraft 1]

16 hours ago, xevex said:

In a first 2 hours of PTR. Wait till people learn how to play her.

Until she is nerfed into oblivion, like Malthael.