heroes Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes: February 12th

[Stan 5,242]

The latest Heroes patch is now live. Ana and Abathur have been reworked, players can now purchase individual skins directly using Gems, and more!

Patch Highlights

• Abathur and Ana have been reworked. You can find more details in the patch notes below.
• New skins are available for Blaze, Deckard, and Hanzo.
• All skins and most mounts in the Collection can now be purchased with Gems or Shards.
  • The plan is to continue offer Gold-only mounts in the future.
  • All existing skins and mounts that were previously only purchasable with Gems have been added to the Collection for individual purchase or Shard crafting, meaning you no longer need to purchase them bundled.
• All skins and mounts have had their price/rarity adjusted to match the new Gem and Shard pricing tiers.
• Boosts will continue to be purchasable with Gems only.

Blizzard (Source)

No snake will be spared the flame... We’re introducing new Skins, Mounts, and much more with our new Heroes of the Storm update. Join the resistance and assist Firestorm Blaze, Deckard Pain, and Delta Hanzo in eliminating Viper and reclaiming the Nexus!

Below are the updated patch notes.

Blizzard (Source)

Heroes of the Storm has just been updated with Hero Reworks, new Collection Items, bug fixes, and more! Read on for details.

NOTE: Orange text indicates a change between PTR and Live notes.

General

• Mac
  • Improved compatibility with latest Mac OS versions.
• A.I.
  • Made several improvements to Hero A.I. behavior.

Heroes

Specialist

Abathur

Abilities

• Carapace (E)
  • Cooldown reduced from 12 to 6 seconds
  • Duration reduced from 8 to 6 seconds
  • Additional functionality:
    • Shield now persists after Symbiote ends
  • Additional functionality:
    • Shield now Heals allied Heroes for 22 Health per second while Carapace is active
    • This heal now also has an initial application of 22 Health when Carapace is cast
• Locust Strain (Trait)
  • Duration reduced from 25 to 16 seconds
  • Damage increased from 34 to 40
• Evolve Monstrosity (R)
  • No longer takes 50% reduced damage from non-Heroic enemies
  • Now shows a warning indicator showing where it is going to burrow to
  • Additional Functionality:
    • Now has the ability to Deep Tunnel to a visible location every 80 seconds
    • The Monstrosity can now be healed by Carapace

Talents

• Level 1
  • Regenerative Microbes (E)
    • Removed
  • New Talent: Reinforced Carapace (E)
    • Increase the Shield amount of Carapace by 40%
  • Survival Instincts (Trait)
    • No longer increases Locust duration
    • Additional functionality:
      • Increase Locust attack damage by 40%
• Level 4
  • Ballistospores (Trait)
    • Removed
  • Sustained Carapace (E)
    • Removed
  • Needlespine (Q)
    • Moved from Level 7
• Level 7
  • Calldown: MULE (Active)
    • Healing per second reduced from 100 to 90
• Level 13
  • Assault Strain (Trait)
    • Removed
  • Bombard Strain (Trait)
    • No longer increases Locust attack damage
    • Additional functionality:
      • Increase the duration of Locusts by 50%
• Level 16
  • Volatile Mutation (R)
    • Additional functionality:
      • Damage dealt by Volatile Mutation against enemy Heroes heals the host for 50% of the damage dealt
• Level 20
  • Evolutionary Link (R)
    • Additional functionality:
      • Increase the duration of Ultimate Evolution by 50%
  • Evolution Complete (R)
    • No longer gives the Monstrosity the ability to Deep Tunnel
    • New functionality:
      • Now increases the Monstrosity’s Basic Attack damage by 100%

Developer Comment: For a long time Abathur has had a unique place in Heroes, being a powerful force at high level play while having a relatively low win-rate across the board. These changes are meant to spruce up his talents while streamlining his gameplay and introducing more counter-play to the hero. Carapace, particularly with the Sustained Carapace talent, created some awkward gameplay where it was much more efficient to use Symbiote on cooldown, even when the desire was to stay on one target, due to the cooldown refresh that it gave Carapace. In order to clean this up, Sustained Carapace is baseline and the cooldown of Carapace has been reduced, so Abathur no longer has to continuously remove Carapace to be efficient. In addition, Abathur’s Locusts are now more potent, but they last for a shorter duration, meaning Abathur players will be more rewarded for positioning themselves aggressively and punished when they overextend too much.

Support

Ana

Abilities

• Healing Dart (Q)
  • Heal reduced from 205 to 195
• Shrike (Trait/D)
  • New Active - Aim Down Sights
  • No longer grants Sight or Attack Range
  • Cooldown from 3 to 4 seconds
  • Self-slow increased from 20 to 25%
  • New functionality:
    • While active, Sleep and Healing Dart ranges are increased by 25% and pierce one target
• Eye of Horus (R)
  • Heal reduced from 285 to 225
  • Damage reduced from 166 to 135
  • Added functionality:
    • Shots now pierce all targets (but still impact and cease on structures)

Talents

• Level 1
  • Piercing Darts (E)
    • Removed
  • Grenade Calibration (W)
    • Removed
  • Contact Healing (W)
    • Moved from Level 16
  • New Talent – Slumber Shells (E)
    • If an enemy is affected by Sleep Dart, Ana gains 25% movement speed
  • New Talent – Vampiric Rounds (Trait)
    • Quest: Each time you stack max Doses on a target Hero, increase Shrikes self-heal by 1.5%
• Level 4
  • Air Strike (Active)
    • Removed
  • Aim Down Sights (D/Trait)
    • Removed (New Trait Addition)
  • Debilitating Dart (Active)
    • Moved from Level 7
  • New Talent – Biotic Enhancements (W)
    • Increase the bonus healing duration of Biotic Grenade by 50% and reduce its cooldown by 4 seconds
• Level 7
  • Temporary Blindness (E)
    • Removed
  • New Talent – Anti-Healer (W)
    • Biotic Grenades area is increased by 100% and the duration of the Healing debuff is increased by 25%
  • New Talent – Night Terrors (E)
    • Upon waking, enemy Heroes take 8% of their Maximum Health in damage. If a Hero is not woken up early, set the cooldown of Sleep Dart to 6 seconds.
• Level 16
  • New Talent - Active Reload (Active)
    • Activate to gain 3 charges of Healing Dart (60 second CD)
• Level 20
  • Ballistic Advantage (R)
    • Removed
  • Dynamic Shooting (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Somnolent Doses (Trait)
    • Removed
  • Custom Optics (Trait)
    • Removed
  • New Talent – Dead-Eye (R)
    • The healing and damage of Eye of Horus is increased by 4% for every Hero hit. This resets after all shots have been fired.
  • New Talent - Armored Stance (D/Trait)
    • Increase Shrike’s damage by 50%. Gain 25 Armor while Aim Down Sights is active.
  • New Talent – Dynamic Optics (D/Trait)
    • Basic Attacks increase Attack Speed by 10% for 3 seconds, up to 100%. While Aim Down Sights is active, increase your Basic Attack Range by 4.

Developer Comment: Ana came to the Nexus during the ‘Quest Revolution’ where we were adding them in as many places as we could. We have learned a lot since that time, so we spent some time re-designing and re-organizing Ana’s talent tree. Bringing Aim Down Sights into her base Shrike functionality gives us a design solve for the powerful yet flawed Piercing Darts quest. The rest of the talent changes and shuffles were directed at opening up some new builds while keeping all of her current beloved capabilities!

Rehgar

Abilities

• Ancestral Healing (R)
  • Rehgar can now self-cast Ancestral Healing

Whitemane

Talents

• Level 4
  • High Inquisitor (W)
    • Mana return per stack reduced from 75 to 50

Collection

Purchasing and Crafting Changes

• All Skins and most Mounts in the collection are now available for purchase with Gems or crafting with Shards
  • Seasonal and Limited-Time Offers will be purchasable and craftable with Gems and Shards when available
  • NOTE: We will continue to offer Gold-only Mounts (Money Pig, Blackheart’s Doubloon, etc) and will continue to add new Gold-only mounts in the future
• There will no longer be Skins, Mounts, or Bundles that can only be purchased with Gems
  • All existing Skins and Mounts that were previously only purchasable with Gems have been added to the collection for individual purchase or Shard crafting
    • NOTE: Boosts will continue to be purchasable with Gems only
• All Skins and Mounts have had their price adjusted to fit into new Gem and Shard pricing tiers
  • This will result in a price reduction for many items, with some exceptions
• Some skins have had their rarity adjusted to match the new Gem and Shard pricing tiers

New Bundles

• The following new bundles are only available for a limited time!
  • Join the Resistance Bundle
  • Viper Returns Bundle
  • Firestorm Blaze Skin Pack
  • Deckard Pain Skin Pack
  • Delta Hanzo Skin Pack

New Skins

• Firestorm Blaze
• Red Hot Firestorm Blaze
• Atomic Firestorm Blaze
• Deckard Pain
• Infiltrator Deckard Pain
• Desert Ops Deckard Pain
• Delta Hanzo
• Blackout Delta Hanzo
• Veteran Delta Hanzo
• Badlands Imperator Stukov
• Badlands Sidewinder Ana
• Badlands Deathfang Genji
• Cryo Imperator Stukov
• Cryo Sidewinder Ana
• Cryo Deathfang Genji
• Paramour Pajamathur Abathur

New Mounts

• D.E.R.P.A.
• Commando D.E.R.P.A.
• Desert D.E.R.P.A.
• Badlands Viper Dominator
• Flirty Cloud

New Portraits, Sprays, and Emojis

• Several new emoji packs and portraits have also been added to the game.

Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed an issue causing Shields applied to non-Heroes to be applies towards Healing Score.
• Super Cleanse effects (Abolish Magic) will no longer remove delayed damaging effects (Consume Souls, Last Rites)
• Fixed an issue causing Time Stop and Stasis effects to remove Armor Vulnerability effects.
• Fixed an issue that could cause a player’s ready state to become locked if Ready and Cancel were pressed in rapid succession.
• Fixed an issue that could occasionally prevent players from pressing the ready button when using the Call of the Nexus Quick Match system.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Ana: Fixed an issue allowing cooldowns to tick down during Time Stop if the Hero is affected by Nano Boost.
• Cassia: Fixed an issue causing Lightning Fury to be invisible if it pierced a Hero at melee range.
• Cassia: Fixed an issue causing Fend to immediately cancel if cast immediately after Lightning Fury.
• Chromie: Slowing Sands will no longer slow Battleground vehicles (Dragon Knight, Triglav Protector).
• Deckard: Fortitude of the Faithful’s range indicator now matches the actual range of the ability.
• Deckard: Fixed an issue with how Potion of Revival benefits from spell power. (should now heal for more)
• Kerrigan: Fixed an issue preventing Sharpened Blades from granting kill credit against Heroes with post-death effects.
• Li Li: Fixed an issue that caused healing from Cloud Serpent to temporarily fail if the Blessing of Yu’lon talent was chosen while a Cloud Serpent was active.
• Maiev: Fan of Knives will now refund the correct amount of Mana.
• Maiev: Fixed an issue with Blade Dance’s visual effects blocking command inputs.
• Muradin: Fixed an issue preventing Thunder Burn from creating the secondary thunder clap if it lands the killing blow on the affected Hero.
• Nova: Fixed an issue causing Holo Decoy’s Snipe projectile to be destroyed mid-flight if the Decoy died.
• Nova: Triple Tap will now immediately cancel if the target becomes invalid immediately after starting the Triple Tap cast.
• Ragnaros: Fixed an issue allowing Ragnaros to immediately complete the Catching Fire quest if it was chosen during Molten Core.
• Rexxar: Fixed an issue preventing Rexxar from controlling Misha while silenced.
• Stitches: Fixed a number of issues caused by using Helping Hand on an allied Hero using a Channeled ability that grants Unstoppable.
• Stitches: Fixed an issue that could prevent Stitches’ Hook from landing at point blank range.
• Tyrande: The Shooting Star talent will no longer attempt to target Sand Tornadoes created by the Boss.

User Interface

• Fixed an issue preventing critical healing effects from showing the Crit UI indicator.
• Adding and Removing favorite emojis will no longer cause the chat panel and emoji picker to close.

In the latest update, skins can be purchased individually with Gems or Shards.

[lChronosl 182]

Whether its too late or not, I thank the devs for the price changes on cosmetics. Gonna jump right into some Ana and Rehgar games now.

[mada7 29]

Just now, lChronosl said:

Whether its too late or not, I thank the devs for the price changes on cosmetics. Gonna jump right into some Ana and Rehgar games now.

What did they change the prices to?

[Arcling 898]

1 hour ago, mada7 said:

What did they change the prices to?

In Europe (so no patch yet), but some people on reddit have posted that several legendaries had their prices reduced to 1200, and epics to 300. Even previously gem-only skins are now unlockable as separate tints with shards or gems. Overall this patch is looking great! Also, thought this time we aren't getting a cinematic, yet here it is.

[lChronosl 182]

1 hour ago, mada7 said:

What did they change the prices to?

The new pricing is (source) :

Common (40 shards, no gem equivalent) Example: most Emoji packs, portraits

Low rare (75 shards, 120 gems) Example: (all?) master skins

High rare (100 shards, 160 gems) Example: Frost Wyrm Arthas

Low epic (300 shards, 250 gems) Example: Fel Reaver Blaze

High epic (400 shards, 350 gems) Example: Az'guldan

Low legendary (1200 shards, 600 gems) Example: Buccaneer Falstad

High ("True") legendary (1600 shards, 750 gems) Example: Azmodunk

The pre 2.0 "super legendary"-type skins, like Mecha Tassadar (or from post 2.0, Prime Evil Diablo is an example) were all converted to high legendaries, while the 'shittier' ones (such as Mecha Dehaka) were converted to low legendaries.

Epics and rares were also divided, but this divide isn't as obvious. The amount of "features" (such as voice over, themed abilities/animations, etcetera) seem to factor into their pricing now, which is very nice.

Also, the +50% shard price on launch is still the same, so for example the Resistance Skins are all actually 1800 shards, so they are "low legendary", or 1200.

Edited February 12, 2019 by lChronosl

[VegaPl 88]

2 hours ago, lChronosl said:

Epics and rares were also divided, but this divide isn't as obvious. The amount of "features" (such as voice over, themed abilities/animations, etcetera) seem to factor into their pricing now, which is very nice.

In one of the AMAs the art developer said that making a legendary skin (I think he meant the real-deal-2400-shard-actually-legendary-looking-skins) takes pretty much the same amount of time spent on a completely new hero.

[Lovestud500 2]

I can see  other players names in the ranked draft is this intended or bugged?

[Rookie876 0]

In the Viper returns bundle all of the skins are there expect for the ''Cryo'' ones. They added the badlands to the collection but Cryo skins are not there. Who should I contact for this?

[CyberDVonaven 82]

17 hours ago, Lovestud500 said:

I can see  other players names in the ranked draft is this intended or bugged?

On the enemy team or your team? Cause if it's the enemy team then that sounds like a bug. Enemy team names should be hidden till after drafting is finished.

Edited February 13, 2019 by CyberDVonaven

[benOwar 20]