heroes Heroes of the Storm Balance Patch Notes: December 16th

Stan · December 16, 2019

Here comes the latest Heroes of the Storm balance patch with changes to multiple Heroes, Experience Globes, the Toys 2 winter event, and more.

Patch Highlights

Toys 2 is now live and the winter event comes with new Toy Loot Chests that will be available until the week of March 3. The chests can also contain items from previous years' winter events, and most importantly, you can now buy the toy train mount!
Gaining Unstoppable now prevents and removes Blinds.
Experience Globes should now be easier to collect and Heroes that kill Minions with abilities or basic attacks will now automatically collect the experience from the Minions.
Cho'Gall received some love in this patch.
Johanna's Health has been decreased and the Condemn buff reverted.
Deathwing received significant nerfs, mainly Cataclysm and Burn Beneath My Shadow are affected.
Yrel's level 16 talents have been buffed.
Auriel's Resurrect has been reworked. She can now see her own ghost and if she presses R while dead, she will cast the ability on herself.
Uther's level 20 talents have been buffed to bring them on par with Redemption.

More details are available in the full patch notes listed below.

Blizzard (Source)

Heroes of the Storm has just been updated with Hero balance changes! Read on for details.

General

Toys 2 Event Quests
- Toys 2 is the winter event for Heroes of the Storm running from the week of December 16 to the week of March 3, PST. Roll dice, complete quests, and join Tickle Mephisto on a board game adventure in the Nexus for awesome rewards... and sweet revenge!
Loot Chests
- During the Toys 2 event, all Loot Chests you earn through progression, Heroes Brawl, or by spending gold will be New Toy Loot Chests. (Except Hero-specific Chests, which will remain unchanged.) Most limited-time items shown above have a chance to drop from New Toy Loot Chests only. You can also score Items from previous years’ winter events limited-time loot chests!
Balance
- Gaining Unstoppable now prevents and removes Blinds.
Developer Comment: We’ve read recent feedback that it is strange that Silences are removed by the Unstoppable behavior, but Blinds are not. While Unstoppable has traditionally been primarily intended to remove effects that cause a hero to not be able to control the movement of their character, this philosophy gets a little grey when it comes to Silences, as heroes can still freely move, but they lose their ability to use movement abilities. In the past we decided that it was better for Silences to be removed, but understand the argument that Blinds are effectively Silences for auto-attack based heroes. We’re trying this change to see how it pans out, as Blinds have traditionally been very powerful forms of soft CC in our game and this can help out heroes that are heavily shut down by them.
Experience Globes
- Heroes who kill Minions with Abilities or Basic Attacks will automatically collect the experience from the Minions.
- Experience Globes will no longer time out while travelling to a hero.
- They will still expire if the hero moves out of range of the Experience Globe before it reaches them.
- Removed a .5 second delay before Experience Globes can be collected.
Developer Comment: While we’re excited for the experience globes and the increased clarity that they offer in regards to how experience is gained, we’ve read the feedback that it can be too difficult for many heroes to gain the globes. While we think there are some good reasons to keep them as a pick-up only mechanic, we overall agree with the sentiment, and are going to allow heroes who kill Minions to get the experience from them. We still believe that this change will allow for more interesting hero interactions overall, and are excited to see how it pans out over the course of the rest of the season. We’re also including some quality of life changes that should make Experience Globes feel generally better to collect.

Collection

Many seasonal items will be returning to the Collection, and will be available for crafting and in Loot Chests for a limited time!

New Bundles (Limited Time Only!)

Toys 2019 Bundle
Toys 2018 Bundle
Cosmonaut Qhira Bundle
Tickle Mephisto Bundle
Green Army Bundle
Train Bundle

New Skins

Tickle Mephisto
- Grumpy Tickle Mephisto
- Crazed Tickle Mephisto
- Shocking Tickle Mephisto
- Cuddly Tickle Mephisto
- Unlucky Tickle Mephisto
Cosmonaut Qhira
- Commander Cosmonaut Qhira
- Blazing Cosmonaut Qhira
- Explorer Cosmonaut Qhira
- Eternal Cosmonaut Qhira
- Super Cosmonaut Qhira
Green Army Deckard Pain
Green Army Commandant Varian
Green Army Raynor
Bitter Bear Stitches
Shabby Bear Stitches
Fuzzy Bear Stitches
Galactic Force Valeera
Proto Force Valeera
Ferocious Dehakasaurus Rex
X-Treme Dehakasaurus Rex

New Mount

Toy Train
- Speedy Toy Train
- Blazing Toy Train
- Cosmic Toy Train
- Royal Toy Train
- Grimrail Toy Train
Galactic Lion
Proto Lion
Gloomy Plush Unicorn
Shabby Plush Unicorn
Mellow Snowflake
Periwinkle Snowflake

New Content

New portraits, sprays and other items have been added to the collection!

Heroes

Tank

Anub'arak

Talents

Level 10
- Locust Swarm [R1]
  - Damage increased from 62 to 68.
  - Healing increased from 21 to 24.
Level 16
- Debilitation [E]
  - Spellpower reduction duration increased from 4 to 5 seconds.
- Beetle, Juiced [Trait]
  - Additional functionality: Increase the Health of Beetles by 20%.

Developer Comment: These buffs are to some of Anub’arak’s talents that have been lagging behind their competitors for some time. Beetle, Juiced in particular should now be more consistent in its benefit to round out a Beetle-oriented build, even if Anub’arak isn’t able to get a lot of Basic Attacks off on enemy Heroes.

Cho

Base

Surging Fist [Q]
- Channel time to charge maximum distance reduced from 4 to 2 seconds.

Talents

Level 1
- Calloused Hide [Trait]
  - Additional functionality: While Ogre Hide is active, Cho gains 15% Movement Speed.
Level 7
- Enraged Regeneration [Trait]
  - Additional functionality: While Gall’s Ogre Rage is active, enemy Heroes who are hit by Gall’s Dread Orb have their Healing reduced by 35% for 4 seconds.
Level 13
- Twilight Veil [Active]
  - Armor bonus increased from 100% to 200%.

Developer Comment: It’s been awhile since our Old God worshipping Ogre has had some love, so we’re both buffing up some of Cho’s weaker talents as well as reducing the time that Surging Fist needs to be channeled in order to get a significant charge. This should help make Cho’s Q build more viable as well as allow him to better reposition himself during teamfights.

Johanna

Base

Health reduced from 2700 to 2625.
Health Regeneration reduced from 5.625 to 5.469.
Condemn [W]
- Damage reduced from 58 to 55.

Developer Comment: Johanna’s become a dominant force in the tanking world, and is currently the #1 most picked hero at high level play. Because of this, we’re slightly reducing her Health, as well as reverting her previous Condemn buff.

Bruiser

Deathwing

Base

Health reduced from 3200 to 2920.
Health Regeneration reduced from 6.67 to 6.08.
Incinerate [W]
- Damage reduced from 85 to 80.
Onslaught [E]
- Damage reduced from 42 to 40.
- Damage at the end of the lunge reduced from 80 to 75.
Cataclysm [R]
- Periodic damage reduced from 12 to 11.

Talents

Level 1
- Draconic Might [Trait]
  - Healing reduced from 40% to 30%.
Level 7
- Skyfall [E]
  - Healing reduced from 5% to 3% maximum Health.
Level 10
- Burn Beneath My Shadow [R1]
  - Bonus damage reduced from 150% to 100%.
Level 16
- Elementium Plating [Active]
  - Shield amount reduced from 35% to 30% missing Health.

Developer Comment: It turns out that Deathwing has lived up to his name, and has been destroying the Nexus since his release. Cataclysm and Burn Beneath My Shadow in particular have proven to be incredibly powerful, so we’re reducing their effectiveness by a fairly significant amount. In addition to these changes, we’re reducing the power of some overperforming talents as well as slightly nerfing his Destroyer form. Even with these changes, we expect Deathwing to continue to be a powerful addition to any team that he’s on.

Thrall

Talents

Level 1
- Rolling Thunder [Q]
  - New functionality: [Passive] Increase the number of Chain Lightning bounces by 1. For 8 seconds after hitting an enemy with Chain Lightning, Thrall’s next Basic Attack against them grants him a stack of Frostwolf Resilience. If the target is an enemy Hero, then he also deals damage to them equal to 2% of their maximum Health and healing for the same amount.

Developer Comment: Echo of the Elements and Crash Lightning are both fairly solid talents that have different use cases for when to pick them. Rolling Thunder has been less successful, so we’re trying something new with the talent. We’re still keeping its theme of marking targets with Chain Lightning and then hitting them for a bonus, but now this bonus will allow Thrall to deal bonus damage to enemy Heroes while also interacting with Frostwolf Resilience.

Varian

Talents

Level 20
- Frenzy [R3]
  - No longer increases Varian’s Attack Speed by 15%.
  - Additional functionality: Increase the damage of Heroic Strike by 25%.

Developer Comment: We weren’t super happy with the power of Frenzy’s buff, as well as that it asked Varian players to learn a new Basic Attack cadence after being used to one speed the whole game. Instead, we’re turning the Attack Speed bonus into a bonus to his damage over time by buffing Heroic Strike instead.

Yrel

Talents

Level 1
- Dauntless [Passive]
  - Physical Armor duration increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds.
Level 7
- Holy Avenger [E]
  - Additional functionality: Hitting an enemy Hero with Avenging Wrath at maximum charge also increases its damage by 25%.
Level 16
- Templar's Verdict [W]
  - Damage increased from 6% to 7% maximum Health.
- Divine Favor [Trait]
  - Cooldown reduction increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds.
- Holy Wrath [Passive]
  - Bonus splash damage increased from 20% to 30%.
Level 20
- Word of Glory [R1]
  - Additional functionality: Increase the amount that Yrel heals from damage received from 50% to 75%.
  - Range of allied healing increased from 8 to 12.

Developer Comment: These changes are mostly looking to buff Yrel’s late-game by adding more power to her Level 16 talents. We want her to be more relevant without dominating the solo lane too much, so we’re opting to make her Level 16 tier to be an exciting spike for her to hit in her games.

Healer

Auriel

Talents

Level 10
- Resurrect [R1]
  - Resurrected Hero’s Health increased from 50% to 100%.
  - Delay before resurrection reduced from 5 to 3 seconds.
  - Additional functionality: Auriel can now see her own ghost. If she presses R while dead, she will cast Resurrect on herself.

Developer Comment: We’re trying some fairly significant buffs to Resurrect in order to help it better compete with Crystal Aegis. Auriel can now Resurrect herself, which should help if she is the focus of the enemy team, and her targets will now come back faster and with all of their Health.

Brightwing

Talents

Level 1
- Greater Polymorph [W]
  - Adjusted functionality: Increase Polymorph’s range by 30%. If Brightwing hits an enemy Hero with Arcane Flare’s center within 2 seconds of being Polymorphed, then reduce Polymorph’s cooldown by 7 seconds and gain 50 Mana.

Developer Comment: Our last changes to Brightwing have better rounded out her talents, however Greater Polymorph was a little too hard to consistently proc. Instead of requiring her to hit a Polymorphed target, she now has a slightly larger window of time to get the cooldown reduction proc. We’re also increasing the cooldown reduction bonus from 6 to 7 seconds.

Uther

Base

Health reduced from 2156 to 2075.
Health Regeneration reduced from 4.49 to 4.32.

Talents

Level 20
- Bulwark of Light [R1]
  - New functionality: Divine Shield is also applied to an allied Hero with the lowest Health near its initial target, and its duration is increased by 1 second.
- Divine Hurricane [R2]
  - Cooldown reduction increased from 20 to 40 seconds.
- Divine Protection [Trait]
  - New functionality: Increase Devotion’s Armor to 40, and its duration by .5 seconds.

Developer Comment: Uther is in a bit of a strange spot at the moment, as he has recently had a spike in his win rate, and at higher level play we’ve been seeing him flexed into the main tank role. We think it’s pretty cool that heroes can sometimes splash into other roles, but in general Uther is overperforming, so we’re lowering his Health a bit. On an unrelated note, similar to Greymane, Uther’s Level 20 talents have long been dominated by one choice, in this case Redemption. We’re giving the other talents on the tier some significant buffs so that they can better compete. We hope that this won’t increase his win rate significantly as Redemption has always been a fairly powerful talent, and are prepared to make adjustments if this ends up not being the case.

Melee Assassin

Illidan

Base

Health increased from 1650 to 1725.
Health regeneration increased from 3.44 to 3.59.

Talents

Level 16
- Fiery Brand [Passive]
  - Damage increased from 8% to 9% maximum Health.

Developer Comment: It’s just a little more Health on Illidan. What could go wrong?

Samuro

Base

Basic Attack damage reduced from 110 to 102.
Mirror Image [Q]
- Cooldown reduced from 18 to 14 seconds.
- Duration reduced from 18 to 8 seconds.
- Images now have their duration increased by 1 second each time they or Samuro use a Basic Attack against an enemy Hero.
- Mirror Image Basic Attack damage increased from 9 to 11.
Wind Walk [E]
- Additional functionality: Samuro is healed for 1% of his maximum Health every second that he has Wind Walk active.
Image Transmission [Trait]
- Cooldown reduced from 25 to 14 seconds.

Talents

Level 1
- Way of the Blade [W]
  - Physical Armor reduction reduced from 10 to 5, stacking up to 3 times.
  - Physical Armor debuff duration increased from 2 to 2.25 seconds.
  - Additional functionality: Mirror Images now also apply the Physical Armor reduction.
- Way of the Wind [E]
  - No longer grants cooldown reduction to Wind Walk when attacking enemy Heroes.
  - Additional functionality: Casting Windwalk heals Samuro for 5% of his maximum Health.
Level 7
- Burning Blade [W]
  - Fixed an issue where Illusions did not deal bonus splash damage with Burning Blade when Illusion Master was picked.
- Phantom Pain [W]
  - Bonus damage reduced from 45% to 35%.
  - Additional functionality: Now also reduces the cooldown of Image Transmission by 10% when Samuro Critical Strikes an enemy Hero.
- Crushing Blows [W]
  - No longer gives Critical Strike 2 charges.
  - Cooldown reduction increased from 1.75 to 2 seconds.
  - Additional functionality: Critical Strikes against enemy Heroes increase Samuro's Basic Attack damage by 15% for 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.
Level 10
- Bladestorm [R1]
  - Cooldown reduced from 110 to 25 seconds.
  - Damage reduced from 47 to 36.
  - Duration reduced from 4 to 3 seconds.
  - Removed functionality: Bladestorm no longer grants Unstoppable.
  - Additional functionality: Bladestorm now also grants Samuro 25 Armor for its duration.
- Illusion Master [R2]
  - Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds.
Level 13
- Mirrored Steel [Q]
  - Cooldown reduction reduced from 1 to .75 seconds.
Level 20
- Symbiote [R1]
  - Damage increased from 25% to 30%.
  - Additional functionality: If Samuro hits enemy Heroes at least 25 times with Bladestorm, then reset its cooldown.
- Three Blade Style [R2]
  - Mirror Image duration reduced from 36 to 16 seconds.

Developer Comment: These changes are intended to limit Samuro’s split-pushing capabilities, particularly with Illusion Master, as well as increase his presence in teamfights. A good Samuro player can be a bit of a pain to deal with, particularly when he’s spending most of his time macroing and not engaging with the enemy team except to swap to a far away clone. These changes should make this scenario happen less often, while also giving Samuro more rewarding tools for engaging and fighting the enemy team.

Ranged Assassin

Gall

Talents

Level 1
- Keep Moving! [Z]
  - Additional functionality: Increase the Movement Speed bonus of Shove from 25% to 35%.
- We See You! [Passive]
  - Additional functionality: Increase the number of Basic Attacks required to kill Eye of Kilrogg by 1.
Level 7
- Edge of Madness [Q]
  - Bonus damage increased from 8% to 12% per stack.
Level 13
- Twilight Nova [W]
  - Additional functionality: Reduce the cooldown of Dread Orb by 1 second.
Level 16
- Leaden Orb [W]
  - Stun duration increased from .75 seconds to 1 second.
- Shadowsnare [Passive]
  - New functionality: All of Gall’s Basic Abilities Slow enemy Heroes by 15% for 4 seconds. This effect can stack up to 2 times.

Developer Comment: Similar to Cho, we took a look at Gall and we’re giving him some talent love. The buffs to Leaden Orb and Shadowsnare should hopefully cascade into other talents in his tree becoming more powerful as well.

Greymane

Talents

Level 7
- Incendiary Elixir [Q]
  - Adjusted functionality: Reduce the cooldown of Gilnean Cocktail by 2 seconds. Upon quest completion, reduce the cooldown of Gilnean Cocktail by an additional 2 seconds.
Level 20
- Unleashed [R1]
  - New functionality: Increase the damage of Go for the Throat by 25%. If Go for the Throat kills an enemy Hero, reset the cooldown of all of Greymane’s abilities.
- Gilnean Roulette [R2]
  - New functionality: Reduce the cooldown of Cursed Bullet by 20 seconds and its damage to 30% of the enemy Hero’s current Health.
- Tooth and Claw [Trait]
  - Additional functionality: Increase the damage of Razor Swipe by 100%.

Developer Comment: For Greymane, we’re giving part of Incendiary Elixir’s cooldown reduction bonus baseline so that the talent gives him some baseline power, as well as making it easier for him to complete the quest. In addition to this change, we’re addressing his Level 20 talent diversity, which has not been the best. We’re giving 3 of his talents significant buffs so that they can compete with Hunter's Blunderbuss, which has traditionally been the go-to option. Unleashed now makes it easier to proc Go for the Throat, as well as causing those procs to give him significantly more mobility and damage due to resetting his cooldowns. For Gilnean Roulette, we’re trying the idea of the talent changing Cursed Bullet to be more like a 4th Basic Ability that can be used multiple times in a teamfight or as a potent poke tool. Finally, Tooth and Claw is now also turning Razor Swipe into a significant source of damage.

Nazeebo

Talents

Level 1
- Thing of the Deep [Passive]
  - Spell Power bonus reduced from 10% to 5% for each quest completion.

Developer Comment: We went a little overboard with Thing of the Deep, so we’re pulling back on the Spell power bonus that it provides.

Zagara

Talents

Level 16
- Jagged Barbs [Trait]
  - Attack damage bonus increased from 30% to 40%.

Developer Comment: Yay buffs.

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed an issue where enemy XP Globes could be visible through fog of war.
Fixed an issue where placed and unplaced accounts could not queue together in Unranked games.
Current Ranked Season has been renamed to 2020 Season 1.
Seasonal reward portraits for 2019 Season 3 now have the year 2019 (rather than 2020) on them.

Heroes

Samuro
- Critical Strikes' bonus is now properly applied for 50% increased damage when cast with Merciless Strikes.
Whitemane
- Casting Zeal no longer interrupts channeled effects.

The latest balance patch with changes for multiple Heroes has arrived in the Nexus!

Arcling · December 17, 2019

Some serious nerfs here for Deathwing, which is reasonable. He wrecked many QM games.

Edited December 17, 2019 by Arcling

lChronosl · December 17, 2019

Not that big nerfs IMO to DW.

I am more interested in the heroic changes for Uther, Auriel, Greymane and Yrel.

Samuro's mini rework seems cool at first, needs some more testing.

darkgreenwax · December 17, 2019

All I saw was 25 SECOND cd BLADESTORM, WOOOOOOO SPIN 2 WIN

*gets stunned*

*dies*

Edited December 17, 2019 by TyZone

gamerk2 · December 17, 2019

3 hours ago, Arcling said:

Some serious nerfs here for Deathwing, which is reasonable. He wrecked many QM games.

Hasn't moved the needle; being CC immune leaves him OP if a team doesn't have a hard counter. He's still oppressive.

EDIT

I'm pretty much nearing the point where if DW isn't outright removed from the game, I'm done. I play CC heavy heroes, and if someone exists that hard counters me to this extent, then I'm not going to bother.

Edited December 17, 2019 by gamerk2

Morcalivan · December 17, 2019

Deathwing's inability to be symbioted has ruined Abathur for me. QM is Abathur's home. He needs it to get steady game time. Me sad.

deftmonk · December 17, 2019

After seeing this patch, I am convinced the dev team has no idea what to do with this game anymore. As a long time Samuro player I’ve always felt any small changes they did were just to keep players from picking illusion master and go for a build that promotes burst from Stealth instead. As this build won’t make new players feel overwhelmed. These changes are too much imo and totally remove Samuro’s identity as a character with no cc but is very difficult to cc. Even what is the point of this 25 sec bladestorm that gets rooted? Also minimizes his merc / boss soloing ability as he will have to tank them himself when clones expire.
All of the changes to this game seem to be just to dumb it down(look at deathwing). Except for these horribly designed regen globes. If I pick a ranged hero and play with random players... they constantly push the lanes far too deep into the opponent’s side without doing significant damage to towers. Now with regen globes, this can be a huge problem if you can’t ever get globes cuz some guy pushed the lane into range of their towers for literally no reason whatsoever. The new change where range still gets xp for last hit is a step in the right direction but I never thought I’d see last hit in hots. I’m sure new players won’t understand the important of this as well.

Dumbing down heros for new players and adding mechanics that those same players will never grasp seems to be the current direction of this game. RIP.

Edited December 17, 2019 by deftmonk

Arcling · December 17, 2019

11 hours ago, gamerk2 said:

Hasn't moved the needle; being CC immune leaves him OP if a team doesn't have a hard counter. He's still oppressive.

EDIT

I'm pretty much nearing the point where if DW isn't outright removed from the game, I'm done. I play CC heavy heroes, and if someone exists that hard counters me to this extent, then I'm not going to bother.

Indeed, if there is no hard counter for him on your team, then he is very strong and annoying. Usually having hero with %hp damage ability/talent may be enough to counter him, same weakness as other high hp heroes, like Cho'Gall, Muradin and so on. That is, if enemy's team isn't cc-heavy, which with how messy matchmaking is, can quite often be an issue, then it's hard to get near him as assassin for long enough to deal enough damage.

Morcalivan · December 19, 2019

That train turned out to be not so fun. No one can apparently afford it so you get it and you can't use it. :/

lChronosl · December 19, 2019

55 minutes ago, Morcalivan said:

That train turned out to be not so fun. No one can apparently afford it so you get it and you can't use it. ?

I was not able to test it yet (neither afford it), but you are saying that both players need to have the train active to be able to attach to each other?

Morcalivan · December 19, 2019

20 hours ago, lChronosl said:

I was not able to test it yet (neither afford it), but you are saying that both players need to have the train active to be able to attach to each other?

I thought so, but some say you just right click on someone with a train.

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heroes Heroes of the Storm Balance Patch Notes: December 16th

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Stan 5,240

Blizzard (Source)

General

Collection

Heroes

Tank

Anub'arak

Cho

Johanna

Bruiser

Deathwing

Thrall

Varian

Yrel

Healer

Auriel

Brightwing

Uther

Melee Assassin

Illidan

Samuro

Ranged Assassin

Gall

Greymane

Nazeebo

Zagara

Bug Fixes

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