heroes Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes: October 31st

[Stan 5,240]

Blizzard released a new Heroes patch with balance changes for Falstad, Mal'Ganis, Tyrande, Dehaka, and more.

Blizzard (Source)

We're about to release a new Heroes of the Storm patch to apply a number of balance changes and bug fixes. Read on for details.

Heroes

Assassin

Falstad

Abilities

• Flight (Z)
  • Cooldown increased from 60 to 75 seconds

Talents

• Level 20
  • Epic Mount (Z)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 30 to 40 seconds

Kel'thuzad

Abilities

• Frost Blast (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 70 to 60 seconds
  • Mana cost reduced from 60 to 50
  • Root duration increased from 1.5 to 1.75 seconds

Talents

• Level 1
  • Barbed Chains (E)
    • Armor reduction decreased from 15 to 10
• Level 7
  • Ice Cold (Passive)
    • Damage bonus increased from 250 to 300%
• Level 13
  • Icy Grasp (W)
    • Frost Nova slow increase changed from 10 to 15%

Lunara

Talents

• Level 7
  • Choking Pollen (Q)
    • Damage bonus to enemies afflicted by Nature’s Toxin increased from 75 to 85%
    • Damage bonus to enemies afflicted by 3 stacks of Nature’s Toxin increased from 125 to 135%

Specialist

Zagara

Abilities

• Nydus Network (R)
  • Maximum number of active Nydus Worms reduced from 10 to 4

Support

Li Li

Abilities

• Healing Brew (Q)
  • Base healing amount reduced from 190 to 181

Talents

• Level 4
  • Hindering Winds (E)
    • Duration reduced from 2 to 1.5 seconds

Lucio

Abilities

• Crossfade (W)
  • Speed Boost Movement Speed increased from 15 to 20%
• Amp It Up (E)
  • Cooldown reduced from 15 to 13 seconds
  • Mana cost reduced from 100 to 90

Talents

• Level 1
  • We Move Together (W)
    • Removed

Tyrande

Abilities

• Light of Elune (Q)
  • Heal amount reduced from 265 to 255
• Lunar Flare (E)
  • Cooldown increased from 12 to 13 seconds

Talents

• Level 1
  • Kaldorei Resistance (Q)
    • Spell Armor duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds
• Level 4
  • Ranger (W)
    • Bonus maximum range damage increased from 150 to 250%
• Level 20
  • Iceblade Arrows (Passive)
    • Basic Attack Speed increase reduced from 25 to 20%

Uther

Abilities

• Hammer of Justice (E)
  • Stun duration increased from .75 to 1 second

Warrior

Artanis

Abilities

• Phase Prism (E)
  • Cooldown reduced from 16 to 14 seconds
  • Mana cost reduced from 70 to 60

Talents

• Level 13
  • Graviton Vortex (E)
    • Mana cost reduction decreased from 35 to 30

Blaze

Abilities

• Oil Spill (W)
  • Slow amount increased from 40 to 50%
  • Ignited Oil Spill damage reduced from 18 to 16
• Jet Propulsion (E)
  • Cooldown reduced from 10 to 9 seconds
  • Mana cost reduced from 50 to 45
• Pyromania (D)
  • Armor amount increased from 25 to 35

Dehaka

Abilities

• Brushstalker (Z)
  • Cooldown increased from 60 to 75 seconds

Talents

• Level 20
  • Apex Predator (Z)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 25 to 35 seconds

Mal'Ganis

Abilities

• Fel Claws (Q)
  • Damage reduced from 72 to 69
• Vampiric Touch (Trait)
  • Healing against non-Heroic targets reduced from 15 to 10%
• Carrion Swarm (R)
  • Healing against Heroes reduced from 100 to 75%

Talents

• Level 16
  • Plague Bats (W)
    • Damage reduced from 85 to 81
  • Frenzied Assault (Passive)
    • Bonus Physical Damage increased from 10 to 15%

Bug Fixes

General

• Banner: Fixed an issue with the Roll 20 Esports Banner textures.
• Announcer: Fixed an issue that caused the Mal’Ganis announcer pack to change to Malfurion after loading into a game.

Heroes

• Ana: Fixed an issue that caused Ana’s Level 13 Healing Dart talents to fail to apply to Heroes that were at full health.
• Mal’Ganis: Fixed an issue that could grant Mal’Ganis vision from summoned units while the Blind as a Bat talent was active.

User Interface

• Fixed an issue causing Level 5 and Level 15 progression reward icons to appear as white squares.

[Valhalen 1,484]

What kind of nerf to Mal'ganis is that?

[Laragon 269]

7 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

What kind of nerf to Mal'ganis is that?

Right? This doesn't look like NEAR enough to bring him in line. MAYBE he's not an auto-ban now. but he's absolutely still top of draft material.

[Twych 24]

They made his basic attack talent stronger and nerfed a niche talent...why? A lot of this nerf seems misplaced. The carrion swarm nerf was good though. Everything else seems too minor to matter.

[Gildomari0 2]

Just now, Valhalen said:

What kind of nerf to Mal'ganis is that?

totally expected...i think a new hero that is nerfed one day after its cost becomes 5K cheaper is not a real coincidence...besides, in some meta list mal ganis already is the first pick/ban, just look

http://hotsbrasil.com.br/tierlist/

http://www.tentonhammer.com/articles/heroes-of-the-storm-tier-list

[Twych 24]

5 minutes ago, Gildomari0 said:

totally expected...i think a new hero that is nerfed one day after its cost becomes 5K cheaper is not a real coincidence...besides, in some meta list mal ganis already is the first pick/ban, just look

http://hotsbrasil.com.br/tierlist/

http://www.tentonhammer.com/articles/heroes-of-the-storm-tier-list

I bet he will be meta pick tier when Icy Veins finally gets around to it. He has an 83% popularity rate and 55% winrate. That's the highest for any hero.

[Valhalen 1,484]

1 minute ago, Twych said:

I bet he will be meta pick tier when Icy Veins finally gets around to it. He has an 83% popularity rate and 55% winrate. That's the highest for any hero.

I think Maiev reached 70% winrate and over 80 popularity when she launched. Or was it Fenix?

[SleepySheepy 41]

Maiev was nerfed on release day, 2 days later, week later and several other times.

And yes, WTH is this balance change?
Falstad, which is only ban material on maybe some maps and in pro play and Mal'Ganis nerfs barely touched him.
For 2 weeks wait this is abysmal.

[SleepySheepy 41]

Reading game forums, this isn't even complete list. Come on Blizzard, step it up!
"

As Blizz has trouble telling us what changed, i took a look at the live version to see if i can detect differences:

Kel´Thuzad´s armor reduction is down to 10%, his spike damage seems to have gotten a buff (300% increased damage, i think it was 200% before).

Lunara´s Choking Pollen now deals 85% more damage on targets with trait, 135% on targets with three stacks. The problem with the Q build is the lackluster radius/range talent, this one should just have gotten an intermediate for two stacks.

EDIT: actual notes now up it seems."

[Stan 5,240]

Hey everyone. It seems Blizzard updated the patch notes. I updated the article to reflect the latest changes.

[Twych 24]

9 hours ago, Valhalen said:

I think Maiev reached 70% winrate and over 80 popularity when she launched. Or was it Fenix?

Both. JK but for real I'm pretty sure it was Maiev. Fenix's was really high but her's was better if memory serves.

[XeaKon 23]

I think they should also reduce the healing vs. heroes and the time window between fel claws casts. This way it won't have as much Tracer mobility and super self-sustain. They could also increase his cooldown on Fel Claws.

Oh, and see those Lili nerfs ? I always said Lili is a top tier healer even when you said she can only heal one person at a time(I never noticed this problem, she was always a high octane reliable healer).

[Aasgier 36]

2 hours ago, XeaKon said:

I think they should also reduce the healing vs. heroes and the time window between fel claws casts. This way it won't have as much Tracer mobility and super self-sustain. They could also increase his cooldown on Fel Claws.

Oh, and see those Lili nerfs ? I always said Lili is a top tier healer even when you said she can only heal one person at a time(I never noticed this problem, she was always a high octane reliable healer).

Li Li has no burst prevention outside of her ultimate. Her Q is nice, but her lack of targeted heals and stuff make her kinda iffy. Stukov and Deckard outclass Li Li in pretty much everything, especially Deckard, and this becomes more visible the moment a team improves skill-wise (Deckard is kinda iffy when the wrong people pick up the potions all the time ? ).

13 hours ago, Valhalen said:

I think Maiev reached 70% winrate and over 80 popularity when she launched. Or was it Fenix?

Maiev was up there, was nerfed one day later in an emergency patch. Fenix had a huge pickrate and 60% WR until his nerfs brought him in line (and even after several conscecutive nerfs he is still too strong). Lastly, there is Diablo has been at 80+% popularity and 55% WR before his rework (and he was there for months), too.

Edited November 1, 2018 by Aasgier

[SuperKaioken 0]

Love the lucio buffs, he was less effective as a healer due to simply not being as good as the other healers, but now with less mana cost and lower CD on his amp he can heal more often and needs mana less frequently. Being able to take accelerando and still having the 20% speed on speed boost mode is also nice.

Can someone explain to me why the large nerfs to global travel abilities (i.e. falstad flight, dehaka brushstalker) were necessary? Im not super familiar with the highest levels of play.

[ArusVicious 156]

21 hours ago, SuperKaioken said:

Love the lucio buffs, he was less effective as a healer due to simply not being as good as the other healers, but now with less mana cost and lower CD on his amp he can heal more often and needs mana less frequently. Being able to take accelerando and still having the 20% speed on speed boost mode is also nice.

The buff to his speed is really nice having baseline, like you said, and the fact that it frees up that first talent option makes it really impactful. However, that buff to Amp It Up is actually a massive buff to his total healing capabilities, especially with Rejuvenescência, which was already the best talent in its row. Being able to use the ability much more often with a smaller mana cost means Lucio doesn't have to back as much and he can keep his team healed up much easier. I'd say those buffs single probably put him back into viable territory, but I'm not sure how he'll continue to fare versus the current top healers like Whitemane. 

22 hours ago, SuperKaioken said:

Can someone explain to me why the large nerfs to global travel abilities (i.e. falstad flight, dehaka brushstalker) were necessary? Im not super familiar with the highest levels of play.

You know, I'm not very sure why they nerfed those abilities. In high play, these nerfs were highly unnecessary because people could handle the split pushing that those globals enabled. I think the nerfs are more for low level play, where they enabled significant advantages over the enemy. Still, I'm stunned why they though it was a good idea to nerf a core aspect of these heroes without giving any other buffs to compensate.