heroes Heroes of the Storm PTR Patch Notes: July 29th

[Stan 5,240]

The latest Heroes of the Storm patch with Qhira is now available for playtesting. Blizzard reduced the number of placement matches to three, promotion and demotion matches have been removed and rank decay is now limited to players that are Diamond 5 or higher.

Blizzard (Source)

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until the week of August 5th. As always, if you encounter any bugs during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.

GENERAL

On-Fire System

• Hero name-plates will now display that a Hero is On-Fire when they are performing well during a match

Ranked Battleground Rotation Update

• Added to rotation
  • Alterac Pass
  • Volskaya Foundry
• Removed from rotation
  • Dragon Shire
  • Sky Temple
• The full Ranked Battleground Rotation is now as follows:
  • Alterac Pass
  • Battlefield of Eternity
  • Cursed Hollow
  • Garden of Terror
  • Hanamura Temple
  • Infernal Shrines
  • Tomb of the Spider Queen
  • Towers of Doom
  • Volskaya Foundry

NEW HERO: QHIRA, IRESIAN BOUNTY HUNTER

A sworn knight and holder of a singularity shard, Qhira’s only desire is to seek out others who may have escaped the destruction of her doomed home realm, Iresia. While she searches, she gets by as a bounty hunter--- a job she loathes, despite her exceptional skill.

• Trait
  • Grappling Hook [D]
    • Qhira fires a Grappling Hook that pulls her to any terrain it contacts. If an enemy Hero is hit, they take 36 damage and Qhira launches at them, dealing an additional 112 damage on impact. Can be used while Revolving Sweep is active.
      • Cooldown: 25 Seconds
• Basic Abilities
  • Carnage [Q]
    • Unleash your sword in a targeted direction, continuously dealing 31 damage to enemies caught in its path.
      • Cost: 40 Mana
      • Cooldown: 6 seconds
  • Blood Rage [W]
    • Passive: Basic Attack and Ability damage cause enemies to bleed for 46 damage over 4 seconds. Stacks 5 times.
    • Active: Qhira deals 33 damage and heals for 88 health per enemy Hero affected. Damage and healing is increased by 50% per each additional stack on that Hero.
      • Cost: 35 Mana
      • Cooldown: 8 seconds
  • Revolving Sweep [E]
    • Attach your sword to the first enemy Hero hit, Stunning them for .25 seconds. Once attached, Qhira becomes immune to all effects, swinging around the target for 2.75 seconds, and dealing 109 damage to any enemies between you and the target. Reactivate to send you to the target’s location, knocking them back, dealing 112 damage and Stunning them for .75 seconds.
      • Cost: 70 Mana
      • Cooldown: 16 Seconds
• Heroic Abilities
  • Unrelenting Strikes [R1]
    • Deal 46 damage to all nearby enemies every .5 seconds for 2.5 seconds as your sword grows outward. Upon expiring, deal 86 damage to all nearby enemy Heroes and Stun them for .75 seconds.
      • Cost: 60 Mana
      • Cooldown: 75 Seconds
  • Final Strike [R2]
    • After 1 second, strike your sword in a line to deal 432 damage to all enemies in its path. This damage is increased by 25% to any enemy below 50% Health.
      • Cost: 45 Mana
      • Cooldown: 40 Seconds

STORM LEAGUE

Storm League - Season 1, 2019

• Ranked Points are now directly mapped to a player's Storm League MMR.
  • Rank is no longer considered by the matchmaker.
  • Leaving a Ranked Match Lobby or Game results in a 500 Rank Point penalty which can be slowly regained in future matches.
• Placement Matches have been reduced from 10 to 3.
• Promotion and Demotion games have been removed and players will seamlessly transition through Leagues and Divisions.
  • The MMR range has been rebuilt and remapped to handle this.
• A Team Leader (banning player in Ranked Draft) is selected on the highest Rank for placed players, or MMR for unplaced ones. In mixed teams, placed players have priority.
• Rank Decay has been adjusted
  • Only players that are Diamond 5 or higher and that have finished their Placement Matches are eligible for decay.
  • If a player's decay timer is less than 3 days, it resets to 3 days upon playing a Storm League game. If the timer is at or above 3 days, players will gain an additional grace day for each game played (up to a maximum of 30).
• A Ranked Seasonal Questline is now available to players
  • This Questline will be available each Season and must be completed in order to be eligible for both the Ranked Seasonal Rewards and the Grand Master Leaderboards.

MAP UPDATES

Braxis Holdout

• The functionality of the Braxis control-point is now consistent with that of Dragon Shire
• Zerg Waves
  • Make-up and stats of the Zerg Wave units have been adjusted
  • Zergling
    • Health reduced from 750 to 450
    • Health scaling over time increased
    • Damage increased from 5 to 10
    • Damage scaling over time decreased
    • No longer has a 10% damage penalty to Structures
  • Baneling
    • Health reduced from 500 to 450
    • Health scaling over time increased
    • Damage increased from 55 to 150
    • Damage scaling over time decreased
    • Now have a 50% damage bonus to Heroes
    • No longer have a 50% damage bonus to Structures
    • Explosion radius increased from 2.75 to 3
    • Now prefers attacking Structures
  • Hydralisk
    • Health reduced from 1500 to 850
    • Health scaling over time increased
    • Damage increased from 25 to 70
    • Damage scaling over time decreased
    • No longer have a 10% damage penalty to Structures
  • Guardian
    • Health reduced from 2250 to 1000
    • Health scaling over time increased
    • Damage increased from 80 to 110
    • Damage scaling over time decreased
    • No longer have a 25% damage penalty to Structures
  • Ultralisk
    • Health reduced from 6000 to 4700
    • Health scaling over time increased
    • Damage increased from 50 to 100
    • Damage scaling over time decreased
    • No longer have a 10% damage penalty to Structures
  • While attacking, Guardian and Ultralisks now spawn Drop Pods with 3 Zerglings and 1 Hydralisk (can occur once every 13 seconds)

Developer Comment: We've made some changes to Braxis to even out the power curve of Zerg waves and introduce what we've found is a fun new mechanic in Drop Pods. By causing reinforcements of Zerg to periodically appear via Drop Pods, it makes some effects like Planet Cracker and Lava Wave a little less powerful against them. It also provides a stronger focus for single target characters, as removing Ultralisks and Guardians earlier will cause less Drop Pods to spawn, thereby indirectly helping against the massive zerg onslaught. The tuning changes get the zerg in line with most of our other Mercenaries and Minions, which mostly mirror a Heroes power level over the course of a game (though Battleground events tend to get more deadly in the late game to force a conclusion to matches). Overall, we think you'll enjoy these small changes to Braxis. It won't greatly change the way the Battleground feels but introduce a little freshness to the map while helping balance a few longstanding issues with over the top Hero imbalances on the Battleground.

COLLECTION

New Bundles (Limited Time Only!)

• Qhira Heroic Bundle
• Warchrome Commanders Bundle
• Deathranger Nova Bundle

New Skins

• Fearless Qhira
• Jade Qhira
• Scrapper Queen Qhira
  • Berserk Scrapper Queen Qhira
  • Executor Scrapper Queen Qhira
  • Desert Scrapper Queen Qhira
  • Vanquisher Scrapper Queen Qhira
• Deathranger Nova (Limited Time Only!)
  • Mirage Deathranger Nova
  • Rugged Deathranger Nova
  • Dusk Deathranger Nova
  • Ember Deathranger Nova
• Daredevil Roadraider Raynor
• Molten Diesel Speaker Nazeebo

New Mounts

• Daredevil Helldorado
• Scavenger’s Ripper
• Outrider's Ripper
• Soldier’s Ripper

New Announcer

• Qhira Announcer

New Content

• Several emojis, portraits, banners and other items have been added to the collection!

BUG FIXES

• Zeratul no longer auto-acquires targets that walk within range while Cloaked.
• Taking the Snowstorm talent on Jaina in the middle of a Blizzard cast no longer changes the damage value for the rest of the game.
• Learning Yrel’s Seraphim talent while channeling or disabled no longer leaves it permanently disabled.
• Blinding Wind, Shadow Dagger, Seeker Swarm, Frost Blast, Unstable Compound, and Weak Spot Acquired will no longer apply their effects to Heroes in Time Stop.
• Critical Strike, Oil Spill, Lightning Fury, Ravage, Keg Smash, and Particle Grenade are now affected by cooldown reduction effects.
• Sgt. Hammer’s Siege Mode can no longer out-range kill credit for the Salvaging the Stables questline.
• Varian’s Banner of Ironforge now correctly displays the plus-Healing UI when augmented with Glory to the Alliance.
• Uther can now /dance and /taunt during Eternal Vanguard. 

The latest Heroes of the Storm patch with changes to Storm League and a Qhira is now available on PTR.

[lChronosl 182]

3 hours ago, Stan said:

Uther can now /dance and /taunt during Brutish Vanguard.

First, @Stan, a small typo. It's supposed to be Eternal Vanguard (Devotion). Second, this is clearly the most important part of the patch.

Jokes aside, interested on the Braxis' changes. If you decide to ignore the wave it will be an even bigger threat, since the Guardians will be spawning more units outside of tower/fort range.

Edited July 30, 2019 by lChronosl