heroes Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes: August 7th

[Stan 5,243]

The latest content patch is now live with Whitemane, talent updates for Chromie & Stukov, and new Viper Skins!

• Sally Whitemane Build Guide
• Sally Whitemane Talent Calculator
• Sally Whitemane Overview
• New Viper Skins & Bundles

Blizzard (Source)

We’ve just released a new patch to Heroes of the Storm to introduce Whitemane, some balance adjustments, bug fixes, and a number of other changes.

Note: Orange text indicates a difference between the Live and PTR notes.

GENERAL

• Reduced the amount of bandwidth required to transfer gameplay information between the client and server.
• Reduced the size of replay files.

NEW HERO: WHITEMANE

As the High Inquisitor of the Scarlet Crusade, Sally Whitemane zealously leads her champions in a never-ending war against the undead. Under her guiding Light, all who have been touched by the plague of death will be purged by her cleansing flame… no matter how much they protest.

Trait

• Zeal
  • Whitemane’s Healing abilities apply Zeal for 8 seconds.
  • Allies with Zeal are healed for 100% of the damage Whitemane deals to Heroes.

Basic Abilities

• Desperate Plea (Q)
  • Mana: 30
  • No cooldown
  • Heal an allied Hero for 145 and gain Desperation for 4 seconds.
  • Desperation increases Desperate Plea’s Mana cost by 60 and stacks up to 3 times.
• Inquisition (W)
  • Channel on an enemy Hero for up to 3 seconds, dealing 53 damage every 0.5 seconds and slowing them by 30%
• Searing Lash (E)
  • After 0.5 seconds, smite enemies in a straight line for 82 damage.
  • If the first strike hits an enemy Hero, a second strike will occur after a short delay.

Heroic Abilities

• Scarlet Aegis (R)
  • Cooldown: 60 seconds
  • Bolster the spirits of nearby allied Heroes, healing them for 250 and granting them 40 Armor for 4 seconds.
• Divine Reckoning (R)
  • Cooldown: 100 seconds
  • After a 1 second delay, consecrate an area for 4 seconds, dealing 50 damage every 0.5 seconds to enemies in the area.

ART

• Hero, Skin, and Mount platforms in the Collections menus have received a visual update.

USER INTERFACE

• Checkbox options have been added to profiles to filter results by game mode.

DESIGN

Summon Abilities

• Summoned creatures (Zagara Roaches, Azmodan Demons, etc.) now deal ability damage which can be enhanced by the Hero’s Ability Power.
• Summoned creatures now obey Blind and Evade rules.

HEROES

ASSASSIN

CHROMIE

Stats

• Basic Attack Range has been increased from 5.5 to 7

Abilities

• Sand Blast (Q)
  • No longer gains bonus damage when hitting enemy Heroes
  • Range has been decreased from 17 to 15
  • Scaling damage increased from 2 to 4%
  • Echo scaling damage increased from 2 to 4%
  • Cast time decreased from 1 to .8 seconds
  • Mana cost decreased from 20 to 15
• Past and Future Me (Sand Blast Quest)
  • Echo unlock requirements reduced from 60 to 50 Sand Blast hits
• Dragon's Breath (W)
  • Mana cost reduced from 70 to 50
  • Range decreased from 17 to 15
  • Dragon’s Breath’s ground splat is now visible to enemies .5 seconds after cast
  • Damage reduced from 480 to 360
  • Cooldown reduced from 12 to 9 seconds
• Trait Addition: Bronze Talons
  • Hitting an enemy Hero with a Basic Ability increases the damage of Chromie’s next Basic Attack by 100%

Talents

• Level 1
  • Mounting Sand (Q)
    • Additional Functionality:
      • Now also increases the damage of Sand Blast’s Echo by 40%
  • Timewalker's Pursuit (Active)
    • Adjusted Functionality:
      • No longer grants Mana Regeneration per Regen Globe gathered. Now grants 1 extra Mana Regeneration on quest complete.
• Level 2
  • Bronze Talons (Passive)
    • Removed
  • New Talent: Draconic Barrage (Trait)
    • Increase the bonus Basic Attack damage from casting Abilities by an additional 100%. Hitting an enemy Hero with Sand Blast grants 2 empowered Basic Attacks.
• Level 5
  • Mobius Loop (W)
    • New functionality:
      • If an enemy Hero is hit by Dragon’s Breath, lower the cooldown by 2 seconds and refund the Mana cost
  • Chrono Sickness (E)
    • Slow amount reduced from 50 to 35%
• Level 11
  • Time Out (Active)
    • Duration reduced from 7 to 5 seconds
• Level 14
  • Fast Forward (Q)
    • Range requirement reduced from 75 to 70%
  • Quantum Overdrive (Active)
    • Ability Power bonus increased from 20 to 25%

Developer Comment: We’re making a few changes to Chromie to reduce the frustration when playing against her and to reduce her wide power variance between games. A number of these changes are designed to increase counter-play when playing against Chromie, like reducing her range on her abilities and letting enemies see Dragon's Breath shortly after it has been cast. In exchange, Chromie’s Sand Blast has a shorter cast time, and she will now have a modified version of Bronze Talons baseline, where she can weave in auto-attacks for hitting enemy Heroes with her abilities. The reason we decided to give her the additional Bronze Talons trait is so that Chromie players are encouraged to interact more with their opponents. We’re rewarding them for getting into more dangerous positions with the possibility of increased damage output. This also lets us redistribute her damage away from her high burst, long range abilities, and more into something her opponents have a better opportunity to play around. We like Chromie’s unique place in our game as a long-range, artillery mage that requires enemies to pay attention to their positioning but over time we found that she simply had too much range and burst for players to feel like they had an engaging experience when playing against her. While we’ve had a blast with these changes, we’ll continue to keep an eye on her going forward and are prepared to make additional tweaks as needed.

JAINA

Abilities

• Summon Water Elemental (R)
  • Damage reduced from 78 to 62
  • Damage now benefits from Frostbite
  • Damage now counts towards Frostbite’s quest

SUPPORT

STUKOV

Talents

• Level 1
  • Low Blow (E)
    • Moved from Level 13
    • Bonus damage reduced from 150 to 100%
  • Poppin' Pustules (D)
    • No longer has a Quest component
    • New functionality:
      • Detonating a Weighted Pustule within 1.5 seconds of it expiring increases its damage by 100% and applies its damage and slow in an area
    • Explosion radius reduced from 4.5 to 3.75
• Level 4
  • Biotic Armor (Q)
    • Physical Armor reduced from 50 to 15
    • Now works on all targets that have Healing Pathogen
    • Additional Functionality:
      • Now also grants 50 Physical Armor for 2.5 seconds to targets who have Healing Pathogen when Bio-Kill Switch is detonated
  • Vigorous Reuptake (D)
    • No longer has a Quest component
    • New functionality:
      • Bio-Kill Switch’s healing is increased by 25% if 3 or more targets have Healing Pathogen on them when Bio-Kill Switch is detonated
• Level 7
  • Within My Reach (E)
    • Removed
  • The Long Pitch (W)
    • Bonus range reduced from 100 to 50%
    • Additional functionality:
      • Detonating 2 or more Weighted Pustules with a single cast of Bio-Kill Switch causes the cooldowns of non-Heroic abilities to recharge 100% faster for 3 seconds.
  • Growing Infestation (E)
    • Moved from Level 1
    • No longer increases the cooldown of Lurking Arm
    • New functionality:
      • Now reduces Lurking Arm’s channel duration to 4 seconds
• Level 13
  • It Hungers (E)
    • Moved from Level 7
    • New functionality:
      • Increase the range of Lurking Arm by 20%. If Lurking Arm hits enemy Heroes 15 times, reset its cooldown and refund its Mana cost
• Level 20
  • Push Comes To Shove (R)
    • Speed bonus removed
    • Additional functionality:
      • After colliding with terrain, enemy Heroes are slowed by 50% for 4 seconds
  • Top Off (Q)
    • Moved from Level 4
    • Bonus healing reduced from 50% to 30%
    • Adjusted Functionality:
      • Increased healing is now applied to all targets that have Healing Pathogen

Developer Comment: In the same vein as our earlier changes to Kael’thas, we felt that Stukov could use some love in the talent diversity department. We’ve made a number of functionality changes that should open up new builds and play styles, particularly in his earlier talent tiers.

COLLECTION

New Bundles

• The following new bundles are available for a limited time! Be sure to check out the latest In-Development blog for more details.
  • Bow Before Viper Bundle
  • Whitemane Heroic Bundle
  • Sidewinder Ana Skin Pack
  • Imperator Stukov Skin Pack
  • Deathfang Genji Skin Pack

New Announcers

• Whitemane

New Skins

• Whitemane
  • Scarlet Whitemane
  • Twilight Whitemane
  • Celestial Empress Whitemane
  • Galactic Empress Whitemane
  • Warpspace Empress Whitemane
• Ana
  • Sidewinder Ana
  • Noxious Sidewinder Ana
  • Arctic Sidewinder Ana
• Stukov
  • Imperator Stukov
  • Noxious Imperator Stukov
  • Arctic Imperator Stukov
• Genji
  • Deathfang Genji
  • Noxious Deathfang Genji
  • Arctic Deathfang Genji
• Muradin
  • Butterscotch Kandy King Muradin
  • Frosted Kandy King Muradin
• Lunara
  • Emerald Lunara
• Murky
  • Clownfish Murky
• Chen
  • Pristine Chen
• Chromie
  • Obsidian Chromie

New Mounts

• Viper Dominator
  • Hazardous Viper Dominator
  • Noxious Viper Dominator

New Portraits, Sprays, and Emojis

• Several new emoji packs and portraits have also been added to the game. You can get a look in our most recent In-Development blog.

BUG FIXES

General

• Fixed a number of typo and tooltip errors across several aspects of the game.
• Fixed an issue causing some abilities to repeatedly automatically cast if right-click was held.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from responding to whispers from other players with the “Only allow friends to send me messages” option enabled.
• Quick Cast: Fixed an issue causing some vector targeted abilities to behave as if quick cast was always enabled.
• Quick Cast: ‘On Release’ commands are now immediately fired when the hotkey for another ability is pressed. This should prevent some ‘lost keypress’ issues when firing abilities in rapid succession.

Sound

• Increased the volume of Alarak’s announcer pack.

Art

• Diablo: Fixed an issue with the geometry of Diablo’s tail.

Battlegrounds

• Alterac Pass: Fixed an issue that could cause the Cavalry’s aura effect to fail to display on low settings.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Abathur: Fixed an issue causing Abathur’s Monstosity to fail to gain damage when nearby enemy Minions are slain.
• Chromie: Fixed an issue that could cause Chromie’s next attack after landing a Sand Blast hit to fail to gain the Bronze Talons effect if she was attacking from maximum range.
• Hanzo: The Target Practice quest tracker will now differentiate between targets that have been hit 3 times and those who haven’t been hit at all.
• Jaina: Fixed an issue that allowed the Water Elemental’s attacks to progress the Frostbite quest progress against unchilled targets.
• Leoric: Fixed an issue causing the visual effect seen on Heroes affected by Ominous Wraith to fail to appear.
• Lt. Morales: Healing Beam will no longer heal units affected by Time Stop.
• Medivh: Medivh the Black’s raven has been updated to match the theme of the skin.
• Medivh: Medivh can now be selected while in Raven Form when attempting to view his target info panel.
• Medivh: Portal Mastery portals can now be affected by cooldown reduction.
• Stukov: Fixed an issue that could prevent Virulent Reaction from rooting targets if the Poppin Pustules talent was chosen.

[Valhalen 1,484]

Damn, I was expecting some minor buffs to Whitemane. While she is extremelly powerful in the right circumstances, the lack of out of combat heal really hurts her, more than it does for Auriel. Sure, you can pick Clemency (which in my opinion should be baseline), but even that isn't enough, since Inquisition has a quite lengthy cooldown, as well Zeal only healing through damage against Heroes.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Valhalen

[Warper 12]

24 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

Damn, I was expecting some minor buffs to Whitemane. While she is extremelly powerful in the right circumstances, the lack of out of combat heal really hurts her, more than it does for Auriel. Sure, you can pick Clemency (which in my opinion should be baseline), but even that isn't enough, since Inquisition has a quite lengthy cooldown, as well Zeal only healing through damage against Heroes.

While I see what you mean I disagree. Her Q is viable outside of combat. If you’re looking to save mana, then you can use it similarly to Li-Li’s Q. Q is her only ability to cost mana don’t forget and management of it isn’t all that difficult.

of course, getting some real games may change my opinion on this, but currently I don’t think she really needs a numbers buff, at least on Q of out of combat healing.

[Ssheuss 5]

R.I.P Chromie ? my ex most favourite hero ?

[Plergoth 277]

As a Disc Priest in WoW, I must say it feels... odd to see Sally's basic kit be more in depth and fun to watch and play than the 8.0 version ?

[lChronosl 182]

51 minutes ago, Warper said:

While I see what you mean I disagree. Her Q is viable outside of combat. If you’re looking to save mana, then you can use it similarly to Li-Li’s Q. Q is her only ability to cost mana don’t forget and management of it isn’t all that difficult.

of course, getting some real games may change my opinion on this, but currently I don’t think she really needs a numbers buff, at least on Q of out of combat healing.

Maybe not. From mid to end game, you can usually heal with Q twice every 4 secs even when out of combat without compromising your mana. I say she is like Yrel, we need more time to learn how to play her and manage her manapool.

[Valhalen 1,484]

3 hours ago, Warper said:

While I see what you mean I disagree. Her Q is viable outside of combat. If you’re looking to save mana, then you can use it similarly to Li-Li’s Q. Q is her only ability to cost mana don’t forget and management of it isn’t all that difficult.

of course, getting some real games may change my opinion on this, but currently I don’t think she really needs a numbers buff, at least on Q of out of combat healing.

Divine Plea don't heal enough; I wouldn't even call viable. And her damage output is not strong enough to top the entire team with her trait. Whitemane is not a bad character (I've been doing twice of any healer in the enemy team so far in the few matches I had with her), but I feel she is really undertuned at the moment.

Considering that she is at her best when paired with another Support is strong sign they need to buff her; either her direct heals or her damage (or both).

Maybe it is just because I expected much more from her, but I don't know... She feels very weak to me.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Valhalen

[CyberDVonaven 82]

8 hours ago, Stan said:

BUG FIXES

Quick Cast: ‘On Release’ commands are now immediately fired when the hotkey for another ability is pressed. This should prevent some ‘lost keypress’ issues when firing abilities in rapid succession.

Oh my gods, Yes! Thank You! I really hope this has fixed the problem I've ALWAYS had using Quick Cast 'On Release' vs 'On'. If you press and release the key too fast, nothing happens. Or use another one too soon it would just not cast one or the other or both. So HOPEFULLY this 'bug fix' will fix this issue that has always been a problem with On Release that made it near unusable on many heroes abilities. Especially in a rapid casting situation like team fights. So I'm gonna have to test it out on many of the heroes (like Jaina, Ming, Stitches) that I would prefer to be using 'On Release' with. So I'm hopeful, but we'll see. ?

Edited August 8, 2018 by CyberDVonaven

[Warper 12]

11 hours ago, Valhalen said:

Divine Plea don't heal enough; I wouldn't even call viable. And her damage output is not strong enough to top the entire team with her trait. Whitemane is not a bad character (I've been doing twice of any healer in the enemy team so far in the few matches I had with her), but I feel she is really undertuned at the moment.

Considering that she is at her best when paired with another Support is strong sign they need to buff her; either her direct heals or her damage (or both).

Maybe it is just because I expected much more from her, but I don't know... She feels very weak to me.

Like you, I’ve seen her get consistently higher healing than other people, I don’t think pushing those numbers is the key there. If you’re seeing her getting twice the healing of others, don’t you think that maybe healing isn’t her problem. It takes most heroes a significant amount of time to top people off and lots of resources. She needs a weakness to her healing like everyone else does and having no escapes doesn’t count for double healing numbers. Whitemane’s Q is definitely viable, with it she can counter burst damage obsurdly well and still have healing off cool down. Perhaps her out of combat healing isn’t superb, but again, double healing numbers is ridiculous. 

My mistake, when I said not a bad character I was only thinking of her healing. I feel I need to wait to personally judge her good or bad. 

[Valhalen 1,484]

25 minutes ago, Warper said:

Like you, I’ve seen her get consistently higher healing than other people, I don’t think pushing those numbers is the key there. If you’re seeing her getting twice the healing of others, don’t you think that maybe healing isn’t her problem. It takes most heroes a significant amount of time to top people off and lots of resources. She needs a weakness to her healing like everyone else does and having no escapes doesn’t count for double healing numbers. Whitemane’s Q is definitely viable, with it she can counter burst damage obsurdly well and still have healing off cool down. Perhaps her out of combat healing isn’t superb, but again, double healing numbers is ridiculous. 

My mistake, when I said not a bad character I was only thinking of her healing. I feel I need to wait to personally judge her good or bad. 

I don't know. I still think she needs a tweaking. So far I don't think she feels as impactful as other healers. She is kinda just there. Eh, maybe I just suck with her. Hahaha.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I didn't imply 

[Warper 12]

24 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

I don't know. I still think she needs a tweaking. So far I don't think she feels as impactful as other healers. She is kinda just there. Eh, maybe I just suck with her. Hahaha.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I didn't imply 

Well, she doesn’t really bring any cc to the table and has abysmal waveclear. She has no disengaging tools and yet needs to be aggressive. She requires your allies to make sure to fill in a lot of gaps which isn’t good on a main healer. I feel she needs some sort of ice block talent but Blizzard seems to hate those. Maybe an ice block that removes desperation and heals people with zeal. Or perhaps more than one talent with harder cc I don’t know.

In other news I love the new chromie! I love how easy her W is to dodge. I really feel like I can bully that dam little girl more. Now maybe I won’t have to see her or waste ban slots so much.

[Valhalen 1,484]

32 minutes ago, Warper said:

Well, she doesn’t really bring any cc to the table and has abysmal waveclear. She has no disengaging tools and yet needs to be aggressive. She requires your allies to make sure to fill in a lot of gaps which isn’t good on a main healer. I feel she needs some sort of ice block talent but Blizzard seems to hate those. Maybe an ice block that removes desperation and heals people with zeal. Or perhaps more than one talent with harder cc I don’t know.

I'd rather them pumping her damage. If she has little utility, that should be compensanted by making her more of a threat. Because Kharazim can play pretty agressively even with Transcendence and still deal respectable damage.

34 minutes ago, Warper said:

In other news I love the new chromie! I love how easy her W is to dodge. I really feel like I can bully that dam little girl more. Now maybe I won’t have to see her or waste ban slots so much.

I don't play Chromie, but I have a friend who mains her, and he is crying a lot. He says she is completely ruined now, and is pissed that she got that treatment while "Azmodan is dealing eye-watering damage with that sludge bomb", hahaha.

[Warper 12]

9 hours ago, Valhalen said:

I'd rather them pumping her damage. If she has little utility, that should be compensanted by making her more of a threat. Because Kharazim can play pretty agressively even with Transcendence and still deal respectable damage.

I don't play Chromie, but I have a friend who mains her, and he is crying a lot. He says she is completely ruined now, and is pissed that she got that treatment while "Azmodan is dealing eye-watering damage with that sludge bomb", hahaha.

I can agree on the damage increase, she has nothing else going for her so she should be pretty good at it.

Edit: Your friend should burn, the chromie infestation onto the nexus made me rage more than rush hour traffic. ? 

Edited August 8, 2018 by Warper

[Morcalivan 86]

I like tge new healer. Can get top healing and damage compared to healers and assassins alike in one game. But like Azmo that is due to uptime.

Q build only sees top healing. W build is risky. E build can miss. All in all I like her balance in talents even if she can't really diversify and must choose 1 of 3 locked in talent sets.