Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused Hellbats and Gnolls to reduce the Armor of enemies before damage was dealt.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused Hellbats to reduce the armor of Evading targets.

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout's Banelings will no longer be prevented from exploding themselves on impact if they are Blinded. Undocumented

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.

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:

• Rain Storms
  • Braxis Holdout

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.

Battleground Updates

New Core Abilities

• We want fights around the Core to feel like exciting ends to cap off great games, and we feel like we can do more to deliver on that front. To that end, this Seasonal Nexus Anomaly will introduce themed abilities to non-ARAM Battleground Cores:
  • Braxis Holdout
    • Every 4 seconds, the Core will shoot 5 missiles at a nearby enemy Hero, dealing 5% maximum Health as damage per missile.

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.

Battleground Updates

• 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 fewer 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 Hero's 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.

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

• Minions/Mercenaries: Fixed an issue where Heroes could block the movement of Catapults, preventing them from passing through intact gates.

Battleground Updates

• Beacons
  • Now become contested immediately when Heroes from both teams are on the point.
• Zerg Waves Undocumented
  • The baseline zerg wave has been strengthened significantly.
    • This should encourage teams to split up in order to defend against an incoming zerg wave, rather than send all five players to attack with an allied wave.
    • Base wave increased from 6 zerglings to 10 zerglings, 2 hydralisks, 1 guardian, and 1 ultralisk.
• Beacon Progress Bars Undocumented
  • The progress bars in the lower-right corner of the screen have received visual updates to coincide with the above changes.
  • Total beacon capture time increased from 30 seconds to 37.5 seconds.
    • Time between 2% intervals increased from 0.6 seconds to 0.75 seconds.
• Structures Undocumented
  • Damage to zerg waves increased by 75%.

Battlegrounds

Mercenaries

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

Design & Gameplay

Structures

• Fort Tower experience reduced from 500 to 250.
• Fort experience increased from 1,000 to 1,200
• Keep experience increased from 1,650 to 2,050
• Towers of Doom
  • Fort Tower experience reduced from 500 to 250.
  • Fort experience increased from 1,100 to 1,200.
  • Keep experience increased from 1,900 to 2,050.
    • Note: Towers of Doom Forts upgrade to Keeps when the Tunnels open, approximately 12 minutes into a match.

Developer Comment: We're taking some of the experience offered by outer Towers and distributing it amongst other Structures in an effort to keep teams closer in levels for a little while longer. We still want to reward skillful play, but a team that completes the first objective is frequently able take out a lot of the opposing team's outer Structures. Not only did this open up a strategic advantage (Healing Fountains get destroyed, Fortifications provide less safety), but it also pushes the winning team further ahead. Usually, this results in one team reaching level 10 before their opponents, allowing them to snowball to an even greater lead. We'd like to instead slow down early game leads, so that winning teams have to play well for a longer period of time.

Bug Fixes

• Structures: Fixed an issue in which certain Abilities could be used to move Structures.

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout: Destroying a Healing Fountain will no longer cause Minimap icons for Healing Fountains in the top lane to disappear.

Bug Fixes

• Mercenaries: Fixed an issue in which neutral Mercenaries could spawn twice at their Mercenary Camp under specific circumstances.

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout: Fixed an issue in which A.I. Heroes would pace near an enemy Gate rather than attack the Core.

Battleground Updates

Regeneration Globes

• Total Health regen over 5 seconds reduced from 11.7% Maximum Health to 9%
• Total Mana regen over 5 seconds reduced from 7.8% Maximum Mana to 7%

Mercenaries

• Hellbats
  • Defender
    • Armor Shred amount reduced from 5 to 4% per stack
    • Base Health reduced from 4275 to 3420
  • Laner
    • Armor Shred amount reduced from 5 to 4% per stack
    • Base Health reduced from 4700 to 3760
      • Health Scaling (Minutes 1-5) reduced from 50 to 40
      • Health Scaling (Minutes 6-10) increased from 75 to 110
      • Health Scaling (Minutes 11 -15) increased from 100 to 150
      • Health Scaling (Minutes 16-20) increased from 125 to 235

Forts

• Gate Tower Damage to Minions, Mercenaries, Monsters, and Heroes increased by 33%.
• Fort Damage to Minions, Mercenaries, Monsters, and Heroes increased by 33%

Keeps

• Gate Tower Damage to Minions, Mercenaries, Monsters, and Heroes increased by 33%
• Keep Damage to Minions, Mercenaries, Monsters, and Heroes increased by 33%
• Keep Health increased from 16,000 to 17,000

Developer Comment: As expected, our gameplay update for 2018 resulted in large changes to many of our game systems. While we’re overall happy with the direction of the update, there have been some unintended side effects that we’re hoping to remedy. We overestimated how much more powerful unlimited ammo would be for Structures, and as a result pushing mechanics have become too strong, resulting in lower game times on nearly all maps. We’re giving our towers some of their teeth back with this update, which should help teams hold pushes from Mercenary Camps and map events. We’re also making some tuning changes to some of our Mercenary Camps now that we have had some time to see how they have been performing. Hellbats and Knights in particular are pushing harder than we would like, so we’re reducing their power. We’re also taking a look at the Warhead Junction boss and reducing its early and mid-game pushing power, as right now it is too strong when combined with Nukes from the map event. Lastly, we are reducing the power of Regeneration Globes. While we like the new mini-game that Neutral Regen globes provide in the laning phase, we are not comfortable with how much they are currently benefitting the team that is ahead while they are pushing into a defending team. We’re also seeing players picking up more Regeneration Globes in general, so this will help to keep the game’s overall sustain in check. These are some hefty changes, and it’s likely that there will be more needed to be done over time as things continue to settle. We’ll be keeping an eye on things, and are prepared to make more updates as they’re needed.

Battleground Updates

Battleground Objectives

• The first Battleground objective event will now activate 90 seconds into the match, following a 30-second warning, for the following Battlegrounds:
  • Braxis Holdout
    • Beacon events after the first will now consistently spawn 2 minutes and 10 seconds after a previous Zerg wave has been defeated.

Regeneration Globes

• Regeneration Globes will now become neutral (claimable by both teams) if not claimed within 3 seconds.

Structures

• All attacking structures no longer have ammunition.
• Walls will now be destroyed if their connected Towers and Gate are also destroyed. Walls can still be attacked normally.
  • After reviewing community feedback, we’ve decided to revert this change. Destroying the Gate and Towers will no longer automatically destroy connected Walls.
• Tower vision range has been increased by 25%
• Tower damage to minions has been reduced by 25%
• Structures now have a warmup period of .5 seconds before firing and must face their targets completely
  • Structure attack warning responsiveness has been significantly improved
• Standalone Towers (found next to Forts and Keeps) have been removed.
  • The Health, granted Experience, and Damage of Standalone Towers has been redistributed into their surrounding gate Towers, Forts, and Keeps.
• Forts and Keeps now have True Sight, meaning they will reveal and attack Stealthed Heroes.
  • True Sight is disabled while the Structure is disabled by effects such as the Raven Lord’s Curse or Sylvanas’ Black Arrow Trait.

Minions

• Minion base damage has been increased by roughly 10%
• Minion base health has been increased by roughly 10% Undocumented
• The 5 second delay before Minions spawn after the game begins has been removed.

Mercenaries

• Respawn Timers
  • Mercenary Camps will now spawn 60 seconds after the game begins
• Hellbat Camp
  • Respawn times have been doubled
  • Hellbats will now prioritize structures
    • Defender Hellbat Stats
      • Base health increased by 114%,
      • Health scaling increased by 160%
      • Damage increased by 83%
      • Damage scaling reduced by roughly 60%
    • Laner Hellbat Stats
      • Base health increased by roughly 18%
      • Health scaling increased by 25%
      • Base damage increased by 25%
      • Damage scaling decreased by 66%
        • Damage scaling will now stop after 20 minutes (previously 30)
      • Damage taken from structures reduced by 50%
  • Attacks now apply a 3-second stacking -5 Armor debuff to all targets, stacking up to 20 times (structures included)

Bug Fixes

• Structures: Auriel's Blinding Flash and Artanis' Suppression Pulse can no longer Blind Structures.

Bug Fixes

• Melee Lane Units: Melee Minions, Mercenaries, and Braxis Holdout’s melee Zerg units will no longer ignore an enemy Ragnaros in Molten Core form.

Bug Fixes

• Garrosh: Into the Fray will no longer place targeting indicators on attacking Hydralisks on Braxis Holdout.

• The Lost Vikings: Can no longer clip into Gates on Braxis Holdout during the pre-game countdown.

Bug Fixes

• Boss: Captured Bosses will now correctly use their area of effect Abilities when attacking down a lane.

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout: Fixed a rare issue that could cause large units to get stuck on the corners of Structures.

• Mercenaries: Heroes will no longer be pushed when allied Mercenaries path into them.

• Minions: Catapults that are destroyed while their projectiles are mid-air will no longer deal half-damage.

Bug Fixes

• Mercenaries – Fixed an issue causing the Raven Mercenary’s Seeker Missile reveal effect to occasionally persist after the Seeker Missile detonated.

Battlegrounds

Minions

• Catapults
  • Can now slightly overlap with one another to help prevent them from becoming stuck against one another when multiple Catapults bunch up around a Core.

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout: Fixed an issue in which players could be kicked for inactivity while defending the Beacons.

• Mercenaries: Captured enemy Mercenaries will no longer drop Fresh Meat stacks for The Butcher or Mineral stacks for Probius.

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout: Beacon UI that appears below the minimap will now correctly appear neutral if they are not controlled by either team.

• Braxis Holdout: Fixed an issue that could cause players to receive an AFK warning while contesting a Beacon.

Bug Fixes

• Regeneration Globes: Will now play an animation upon expiration rather than suddenly disappearing.

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout & Warhead Junction - Heroes that are revealed by Raven Mercenaries will now display the revealed eye icon over their heads.

Design & Gameplay

Body Blocking Improvements

• Improvements have been made to allied body blocking.

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout: Fixed an issue causing Zerg melee units to crowd around enemy objects that were in the process of arming, such as Toxic Nests or Time Traps, rather than ignore them.

• Observer Mode: Excess Regeneration Globe visual effects will no longer appear for Observers and other neutral players while watching replays or custom games.

Design & Gameplay

Minions

• Minion leash range decreased from 10 to 9.

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout: Fixed an issue that could cause Zerg units to become stuck in the walls of their pens.

Bug Fixes

• Color Blind Mode: Fixed an issue causing Minimap icons for uncaptured Merc Camp to appear very similar in color to Merc Camps that have been captured by allies.

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout: The Archangel will no longer leave its leash range to attack a nearby Murky Egg.

• Structures: Fixed an issue in which the Core could continue to reveal enemy Stealth Heroes in a small radius outside its intended reveal range.

Design & Gameplay

Armor & Vulnerability

Developer Comments: With today’s patch you will notice that a lot of our tooltips that used to reference the Resistant/Vulnerable system have been changed. Matthew Cooper detailed the changes on our forums last month explaining a bit about the new system. While the tooltips may have changed, the actual functionality for the system has been in since the Varian patch hit during the week of November 14, so the game itself should not feel any different than what you are currently used to. You will also notice that we have added baseline Armor to three Heroes – Arthas, Anub'arak, and Greymane’s Worgen Form. These are the first of a handful that we are planning to release and would love to hear any feedback you have. We are hoping that the Armor System will open up future design flexibility, increase the depth of strategy (both in game, and in draft), and grant us another knob to help balance the game.

Bug Fixes

• Diablo: The Hellgate Talent is no longer removed after being struck by the Archangel’s Bulletstorm Ability on Braxis Holdout.

• Minimap: Catapult Minimap icons are now slightly lighter in color to help players more easily differentiate them from other Minions.

Battleground Updates

• Zerg Rush
  • Initial Zergling spawn increased from 3 to 6 Zerglings

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout: XP awarded for destroying the Archangel now correctly scales over the course of the game.

Bug Fixes

• Minions: Catapult Minimap icons will now appear team-colored.

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout/Warhead Junction: XP earned by capturing Mercenary Camps will now properly scale throughout the match.

Bug Fixes

• Braxis Holdout: Fixed an issue in which a captured Archangel could target enemy Heroes with its Bullet Storm Ability.

• Braxis Holdout: Fixed an issue in which Zagara’s Mutalisk could cause a captured Archangel to exhibit pathing issues.

• Braxis Holdout: Neutral Raven Mercenaries will no longer clip into the terrain after being knocked back.

Battleground Updates

• All Zerg Units have received the following changes:
  • Early-game damage scaling significantly reduced
  • Mid-game damage scaling slightly reduced
  • Late-game damage scaling moderately increased
• Banelings
  • Base damage increased by 20%
• Hydralisks
  • Base damage increased by 25%
• Guardians
  • Base damage increased by roughly 17%
• Ultralisks
  • Base damage increased by 20%

Developer Comments: We’ve noticed a few more one-sided games than we’d like on Braxis Holdout. The battleground plays faster by design, but we think that a few changes to reduce the early game effectiveness of the zerg will put the balance closer to what we’d like after the battleground goes live.

Design & Gameplay

Mounts

• Movement Speed reduced from 40 to 30%

Regeneration Globes

• Time before Globes despawn reduced from 8 to 6 seconds

Battleground Updates

The Dominion used the remote and hostile planet Braxis to conduct experiments on ways to turn the Zerg swarm into a weapon they could unleash on their enemies. Though the Dominion's main psi disrupter was destroyed, this space platform's beacons remain fully operational and ready to be used. Capture the beacons and watch what happens when a flood of weaponized Zerg ravages the battlefield.

• Capture the Beacons
  • Two Beacons will periodically spawn near the center of the Battleground. Capture both to fill your team’s Holding Cell with Zerg over time.
• Fill Holding Cells
  • The longer a team holds both Beacons, the stronger and more numerous their Zerg army will become. Once either team has completely filled their Holding Cell, both will open, unleashing Zerg forces into each lane.
• Unleash the Swarm
  • Each team must decide whether to defend against the opposing Zerg rush, or push with their own to lay siege to all who stand in the way of the Swarm.

Battlegrounds

Mercenaries

• Timing Changes
  • Previously all Mercenary camps spawned at 120 seconds. The following adjustments have been made to spawn times:
    • 90 seconds: Sappers, Doubloon Pirates
    • 120 seconds: Siege Giants (unchanged), Impalers (unchanged)
    • 150 seconds: Knights, Fallen Shaman
    • 180 seconds: Grave Golem (unchanged)
    • 300 seconds: Headless Horseman (unchanged)
• Captured Mercenaries will no longer grant Experience when killed.

Developer Comments: We started playtesting with staggered Mercenary Camp spawn times, and quickly began to realize that it added more strategic depth to the game, and coincided with some of our Battleground events. We have been happy with the changes overall, and are listening to any feedback you may have!

Bug Fixes

• Heroes can no longer push captured Mercenaries by walking into them.