Bug Fixes

• The prisoner can no longer be moved out of the cage by using Hogger's Loot Hoard.

Design & Gameplay

Building Changes

• Healing Wells
  • Additional Functionality: Healing Wells are now invulnerable, and are destroyed when their nearby Fort or Keep are destroyed. Stand alone Healing Wells on Battlefield of Eternity and Braxis Holdout are destroyed when both Keeps are destroyed.
• Forts
  • Health increased from 12900 to 15450.
• Keeps
  • Health increased from 17000 to 20050.

Developer Comment: We're happy with how Healing Wells function in our ARAM game mode, so we're giving it a try everywhere. Additionally, Forts and Keeps now have additional health as they've absorbed the health of their nearby Healing Wells.

Bug Fixes

• Mountain Giant Boss Camps will search for enemy Core units in a larger area.

Design & Gameplay

• Map
  • Tower, Fort, and Keep damage to enemy Heroes increased by 10%.

Developer Comment: We've given our tower changes some time to settle, and while we like how their current targeting mechanism works, we believe we went a little too far in lowering their damage. We're giving them some of their teeth back so that enemies who tower dive have a little less time to hang around in their opponent's base before they have to disengage.

• Healing Fountains
  • Health and Shield values swapped. The Shield value now accounts for 75% of the total Health.
  • Shield regeneration rate increased to 10% of total Shields per second.

Developer Comment: We've heard feedback that players dislike how their Healing Fountains can be sniped by the opposing team early in the game. While we agree that this can be frustrating, we don't want to completely remove alternative strategies for creating an advantage. We're experimenting with a change to move the total Health of the Healing Fountains to be much more in favor of a Shield that quickly regenerates instead of Health. This should make it riskier for players to snipe Healing Fountains, as they will not get any value unless they destroy the building, while also rewarding players who are able to protect their Healing Fountains early in the game.

Design & Gameplay

• Nexus Anomaly - A Call For Help

Developer Comment: Firstly, thank you all for the overwhelming amount of feedback related to the Call for Help Anomaly. We appreciate the time you took to write out your responses, and it greatly helped us make a decision on where to go going forward. In regards to the changes, we decided to keep the tower aggro system with some adjustments. To help reward aggression in the laning phase of the game, we are removing both the negative Armor debuff that front towers used to provide and also reverting their aggro systems to no longer prioritize Heroes who attack other Heroes in their range. Forts, Keeps, and the Core will still prioritize enemy Heroes who attack other Heroes, which will make them stand out as important structures to both defend and take down. We will continue to monitor how these changes play out, and will adjust these systems more in the future if we believe it to be necessary.

Battleground Updates

• New Nexus Anomaly - Climate Phenomena

Strange weather disturbances have been spotted across the Nexus, with realms experiencing rain storms, snow flurries, and foggy mists! Mei's arrival is just in time to help analyze and study these strange weather conditions that have begun occurring. Climate Phenomena is our newest Nexus Anomaly, bringing a variety of fun weather effects to the game. Each battleground has a specific type of weather event that will occur every 4 minutes, with the first event starting at the beginning of the match. Each weather event lasts for 2 minutes before clearing up. This cycle will repeat periodically until the game ends. While these weather events are active, Heroes can gain a unique buff based on the type of active weather. These buffs are:

• Rain Storms
  • Periodically Strike all heroes with lightning every 25-40 seconds, increasing Movement Speed and granting a Lightning Shield that damages nearby enemies.
    • Movement Speed increased by 15%.
    • Damage nearby enemies for 46 damage per second.
    • Buff lasts 8 seconds.
• Snow Flurries
  • Heroes accumulate a small shield over time while out of combat.
    • Heroes gain 28 Shields every 0.5 seconds, stacking up to 224 (8 stacks total).
    • Shield lasts until destroyed or until the Snow stops falling.
• Foggy Mists
  • Allows Heroes to gain Stealth after standing in shrubs for a few seconds.
    • After standing in a shrub for 1.5 seconds, Heroes gain Stealth.
    • Stealth lasts 40 seconds or until attacking, taking damage, using an ability, or until the Foggy weather dissipates.

Weather events will be active on these Battlegrounds:

• Snow Flurries
  • Alterac Pass

Design & Gameplay

• A Call For Help - Balance Update
  • Tower, Fort, and Keep damage to enemy Heroes reduced by 10%.
  • Maximum Armor reduction from Structures reduced from -40 to -20.

Developer Comment: Thank you for your discussions and feedback regarding the Call For Help system. We've seen a trend that players believe towers are still too punishing to dive under for lengthy periods of time, so we're going to reduce their damage as well as how powerful their Armor debuff is so that players are more incentivized to make aggressive plays when pushing. We'll be continuing to keep an eye on how these changes unfold, so please continue to give us your feedback.

Design & Gameplay

• Nexus Anomaly - A Call For Help
  • Tower, Fort, and Keep structure damage reduced by 10%.
  • Structures will only focus their attacks on enemy Heroes if they attack an allied Hero who is also in their range.
  • Self-damage from Heroes will no longer cause structures to focus them.
  • Periodic damage over time will no longer cause structures to focus Heroes.

Developer Comment: We're making some changes to the Call for Help system that should help the overall player experience. We believe that currently Towers are punishing aggressive play too much, so we're lowering their damage to give diving Heroes more time to make plays before they have to escape. Our goal overall with the system is to still have aggressive play be possible and rewarded, but to also give the defending team a way to punish prolonged Tower dives, which is primarily due to the stacking Armor debuff. We're also changing the A.I. of structures to require that both the attacking and defending Hero be in their range in order for them to switch aggro onto an aggressor. This means that the defending Hero needs to also be near their structures in order to be defended, and it removes some unintuitive situations where a Hero can get aggro from attacks that are happening in far away places. Lastly, periodic damage will no longer cause structures to focus Heroes, so Heroes like Lunara will no longer pull aggro for the entirety of their DoT effects.

Design & Gameplay

Nexus Anomaly - A Call For Help

We've heard feedback over the years that a lot of you would like to feel more protected by nearby friendly structures. Currently, Minions, Summons, and non- Heroic units can hold a structure's attention for so long that defending players feel that they're offered no additional protection when taking refuge under their Cannon Towers, Forts, Keeps and Cores. In order to address this issue, we will be making the following changes to structures:

Cannon Towers, Forts, Keeps and Cores

• A beam is now created from these structures to their targets, making it easier to see what is being attacked at a glance.
• Allied Heroes of the structures who are being attacked by enemy Heroes will cause the structure to focus the offender until the offender is dead or leaves tower range.
• A bright beam indicates that the structure is defending an ally Hero and is focusing on the beam target.
• Structures reset targeting when the Call for Help target becomes invalid.
• Structures reset targeting logic when they recover from being disabled.

Cannon Towers, Forts and Keeps

• Damage to Heroes increased by 10%.
• Attacks reduce Hero Armor by up to -40.
• Cannon Tower attacks reduce enemy Hero Armor by 5.
• Forts and Keeps attacks reduce enemy Hero Armor by 10.
• Forts and Keeps no longer slow enemy Heroes.

Battlegrounds

Experience

• Floating Combat Text for experience earned from killing blows now has a unique purple color and displays at the position of the killed unit. Floating Combat Text from experience earned from Experience Globes remains unchanged.

Experience Globes

• Pickup Radius increased from 1.5 to 1.75.
• Experience Globes that are actively travelling to a Hero will attempt to follow more closely.

Developer Comment: We're making some small improvements to Experience Globes to make them more readable and to improve how they feel to pick up by adding a unique purple text that displays where they are killed. With these changes, players should more clearly see when they gained experience via a killing blow. We also found that sometimes picking up experience globes while mounted could be a bit of a hassle due to the pickup radius of the globes as well as how quickly they travel to players, so we are slightly buffing both of these aspects to make them a little easier to collect in these instances.

Design & Gameplay

• 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.

Design & Gameplay

Nexus Anomaly - Experience Globes

Nexus Anomalies are seasonal gameplay changes that directly affect all game modes in Heroes of the Storm. These events will last the entire season, allowing us time to receive feedback on them. Depending on this evaluation, some of them may become permanent additions to the game, while others may just be a limited time event.

The first Nexus Anomaly has arrived! In order to make collecting experience more satisfying and intuitive, we're changing how experience is collected from Minions in the Heroes of the Storm. Players will no longer get experience from simply being nearby, but instead need to gather an Experience Globe dropped by dying Minions.

Experience Globes

• Minions no longer give Experience by killing them, but instead drop an Experience Globe that must be collected.
  • Footman and Archer Minions (and their equivalent on different Battlegrounds) drop an Experience Globe that lasts for 6 seconds and awards 80 experience (plus 2 every minute).
  • Wizard Minions no longer give Experience, but Experience Globe values have been increased to compensate.
  • Experience Globes slowly move toward the closest allied Hero within 6 range, and are collected when an allied Hero comes within 1.5 range.
  • Experience Globes will not move toward Heroes that are hidden in bushes or Stealthed, but they can be still collected by these Heroes if they move within 1.5 range.
• A few Heroes have special interactions with Experience Globes.
  • Ragnaros Lava Wave will now instantly collect Experience Globes as it passes by.
  • Abathur's Symbiote is treated as a Hero for the purposes of collecting Experience Globes.
  • Hallucinations like Samuro's Mirror Images or Nova's Holo Clones are treated as a Hero for the purposes of collecting Experience Globes.

Bug Fixes

• Removed Minion flag from Mercenaries and Monsters.

Design & Gameplay

Catapults

• When a team destroys a Fort, they'll now gain a Catapult in every 3rd Minion wave.
  • NOTE: In order to keep early-game Catapults from being too devastating to defending teams, Catapult attack splash size, attack range, and damage/health will gradually increase as the game progresses.

Experience Changes

• Removed all Experience earned from destroying a Fort or Keep
• Destroying a Fort or Keep will now provide your team with a stacking 20% increase in Passively-earned Experience
  • NOTE: Towers of Doom is exempt from all Experience and Catapult changes.
• Decreased Experience earned from destroying Towers by 50%
• Passive Experience gain increased by 15%
• Increased Experience gained by defeating defending Mercenaries by 100%
  • ​Hanamura Temple and Volsksaya Foundry Item Camps are excluded from this change.
• Laning Mercenary Experience
  • Defeating Laning Mercenaries will now grant 100% of Defending Mercenaries Experience.

Developer Comment: Thank you so much for all of the feedback regarding the 2019 Gameplay Updates. While there is still a lot of community speculation about the outcome of these changes, there has been a resounding amount of concern about the loss of Fort and Keep XP. We agree that the complete loss of XP from Forts and Keeps may reduce the incentive to kill them to unhealthy levels, especially at higher levels of play. In response, we have reintroduced XP to the structures in a way that will reward players for taking them early while granting a gradual increase in power instead of large bursts. This should reinforce our goal of making matches closer while also rewarding teams for destroying enemy structures as quick as possible.

Developer Comment: After listening to feedback, we have decided to pull back the laning Mercenary change outlined in our 2019 gameplay updates in order to give winning teams more opportunities to pull ahead.

Mercenaries

• Boss Camps, Sentinel Camps (Hanamura Temple), and Support Camps (Volskaya Foundry) will now be flagged as Elite.
  • Elite Mercenary Camps are Unstoppable & Unbribable

Unit Radii

• The unit radius values for most Heroes has been reduced by 5-15%

Developer Comment: In an effort to improve visual clarity when many heroes are on-screen, we've updated the art for the Hero Ring displayed underneath heroes. To reinforce this effort, we've also done a pass on the Unit Radii for all heroes. We understand that these radius adjustments will have a minor but intended impact on landing and dodging abilities, and as a result, felt that the 2019 Gameplay Updates were the best time to make these changes.

Battlegrounds

• Experience gains from Mercenary Camp captures have been unified. All Mercenary Camps now grant all Experience on capture.

Bug Fixes

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

Battleground Updates

• Ice Giants
  • Attack speed reduced by approximately 30%.
  • Neutral Ice Giant Attack damage increased from 240 to 312.
  • Captured Ice Giant Attack damage increased from 400 to 520.
• Cavalry
  • The damage bonus provided by Cavalry units is now a flat 10%, and no longer scales with each completed event.

Battlegrounds

Mercenaries

• Heroes can no longer Heal, Shield, or target allied Mercenaries with Abilities unless an Ability specifically states that Mercenaries are valid targets.

Battleground Updates

• Generals
  • Health reduced from 24,000 to 20,000.
  • Now gain 405 maximum Health every minute until minute 21 (excluding minute 1).
• Cavalry
  • No longer gain additional Armor for nearby Heroes.
  • Health reduced from 10,000 to 8,000.
  • Health scaling increased by 19%.
  • Damage reduced from 85 to 65.
  • Damage scaling increased by 22%.
• Reaver Minions
  • Damage scaling increased by 50%.

Developer Comment: We're making a few changes to Alterac Pass to reduce the frequency that one team can run away with an early lead, while still keeping the average game time roughly in line with our other Battlegrounds. We're removing the mechanic that grants Cavalry additional Armor for every allied Hero in their aura, since we feel that multi-Hero pushes are already strong enough. We've also made Health scaling adjustments so that Vanndar and Drek'thar (the Core replacements) won't be demolished as quickly by late game Heroes that have outscaled them and reduced their Armor. However, we are increasing the scaling of Cavalry and Reavers (Catapult replacements), so that games still end in a timely fashion. This should only come into play during games that become prolonged.

Battleground Updates

Please Note: Alterac Pass will become available for play in two stages during the coming weeks:

• Non-Ranked Modes: During the week of June 19, Alterac Pass will enter Quick Match, Unranked, and Versus A.I. matchmaking queues, as well as Custom Games.
• Ranked Play: During the week of July 10, Alterac Pass will enter the Ranked Battleground Rotation.

Learn even more about Alterac Pass by visiting the Heroes of the Storm website!

Alterac Pass is a 3-lane Battleground where Heroes must free imprisoned allied troops, call in their cavalry, and take down the opposing General to claim the Pass for their faction. In addition to enemy forces, the Alterac Mountains are home to many treacherous hazards! Heroes must remain vigilant, as a misstep into a mud pit can prove fatal. Teams would also be wise to recruit the Armored Gnolls and Ice Giants who inhabit the Pass before the enemy faction can harness these deadly creatures for their own gain.

Cores Replaced by Generals

• Each team's Core has been replaced by a General who will aid them in fending off attackers.
  • Vanndar Stormpike leads the Alliance (left team) in driving back the Horde forces at Alterac Pass.
  • Drek'Thar has rallied the Horde (right team) to aid in defending the Pass against Alliance invaders.
• Each General receives bonus Armor and damage based on the number of allied Keeps remaining. Destroy enemy Keeps to weaken their General.
• When attacking a General directly, be prepared to finish the job! Vanndar and Drek'thar will regenerate Health once they are out of combat.
• In addition to their Basic Attacks, they can also use two Abilities:
  • Whirlwind: Deals damage in an area around the General.
  • Charge: The General dashes to the target enemy, dealing damage.

Capture Prison Camps to Call in the Cavalry!

• Three minutes after a match begins, a Prison Camp will spawn for each team. Invade enemy territory, take out the Guards, and free the allied prisoners to call in a Cavalry Charge!
  • Channel an opposing Prison Camp to begin a breakout, and then free the prisoner by preventing the enemy team from regaining control of the Camp for 30 seconds.
    • Watch out for enemy Heroes and Guards! They will attempt to stop any attackers and Channel on their Prison Camp to retake control.
    • Each subsequent breakout will require the capturing team to maintain control for an additional 10 seconds, up to a maximum of 50 seconds.
• Once a team frees the prisoners at an enemy camp, allied Cavalry will charge down all three lanes, attacking any enemies and Structures in their paths.
  • Cavalry units generate an aura that increases nearby Minion and Hero Movement Speeds, and grants a damage bonus to nearby allied Heroes.
    • The aura's damage bonus will increase based on the number of Prison Camp events completed so far, up to a maximum of 3 events.
      • Cavalry on both teams will benefit from these increases independent of which team won each Prison Camp event.
• Subsequent Prison Camps will spawn at random within a range of time after all Cavalry from the previous event have been eliminated. This range of time is determined as follows:
  • From 110 – (# of game minutes elapsed * 2) seconds to 150 – (# of game minutes elapsed * 2) seconds.
  • For example: If all Cavalry from the most recent event are defeated at the 10-minute mark, the next set of Prison Camps will spawn at random between 90 and 130 seconds later.

Mercenaries

• Armored Gnolls – Siege Camp
  • Watch out for the Gnolls who inhabit the Pass! They're formidable creatures who wield a cleaving attack that can shred a Hero's Armor in no time.
• Ice Giants – Boss Camp
  • The Ice Giants at the northern and southernmost points of the Pass tend to mind their own business, but once provoked, they've been known to hurl deadly balls of ice and even stomp the ground in an effort to Slow or Stun their foes.

Mud Pits

• Combatants who don't mind where they step can fall victim to one of several mud pits that have sprung up within Alterac Pass.
  • Any Hero who enters a mud pit will find their Movement Speed reduced by 16% per second, to a maximum of 60%, for as long as they remain there.
  • Upon finding solid ground, the Hero will regain Movement Speed at 50% per second.