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
  • Garden of Terror

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:
  • Garden of Terror
    • Every 5 seconds, the Core shoots a seed under a nearby enemy Hero. When the seed explodes, Heroes inside are Polymorphed for 3 seconds.

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.

Bug Fixes

• Garden Terror Spawning Vines will no longer get stuck at Gates while trying to path through them

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

• Garden of Terror: Fixed an issue where all three Garden Terrors could spawn in a single lane.

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

Battleground Updates

• Garden of Terror has received significant gameplay and layout changes. Find out more in the Garden of Terror Spotlight video or on the updated Garden of Terror Battleground site.

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

Vehicles

• Vehicle Exit hotkey has been moved to the Trait key (default: “D”), and Vehicle Trait hotkeys have been moved to the Heroic key (default: “R”). This includes:
  • Dragon Knight
  • Garden Terror
  • Triglav Protector
  • Blaze's Bunker Drop

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

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

Bug Fixes

• Garden of Terror: Fixed an issue in which Structures affected by Overgrowth could stop attacking indefinitely under specific circumstances.

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

• Knights
  • Defender Mage Knight
    • Spell Armor Aura amount increased from 15 to 20
  • Laner Mage Knight
    • Spell Armor Aura amount reduced from 30 to 20

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 3 minutes into the match, following a 30-second warning, for the following Battlegrounds:
  • Garden of Terror

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
• Siege Giant Camp
  • Siege Defenders
    • Defending Siege Giant attacks are now telegraphed on the terrain and can be dodged.
  • Siege Laners
    • Attack telegraphing and missile trajectory has been significantly improved.
• Knight Camp
  • Wizard Knight Laner
    • Wizard Knight Laner has a Spell Armor Aura
      • Grants all nearby Allies (Minions, Mercenaries, and Heroes) 30 Spell Armor
        • Spell Armor is immediately removed upon leaving the aura area.
      • This Aura is destroyed when the Wizard is killed
  • Wizard Knight Defender
    • Grants nearby Knight Defenders a 15 Spell Armor aura
      • This Aura is destroyed when the Wizard is killed

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

• AI Heroes controlling the Garden Terror will no longer become unresponsive.

Battleground Updates

Vehicles

• All vehicles, including the Dragon Knight, Garden Terror, and Triglav Protector are now Unstoppable.

Developer Comment: Prior to this patch, crowd control effects on vehicles were reduced by 50%. Initially, displacement effects affecting vehicles were not reduced at all. Over time, we’ve made the decision to make some abilities unable to target vehicles. As our hero roster grew, so did the amount of special rules associated with vehicle interactions. Instead of continuing to maintain a list of special interactions, we’ve opted to simplify the behavior and make vehicles Unstoppable. To compensate for the increased vehicle strength, we’ve also looked at each vehicle’s balance numbers.

Bug Fixes

• Rehgar: Can no longer cast Lightning Shield on allied Vehicles, such as the Dragon Knight or Garden Terror.

Bug Fixes

• D.Va: Fixed an issue that could cause D.Va to become unresponsive when entering the Dragon Knight or Garden Terror after using Lt. Morales’ Medivac.

Bug Fixes

• 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

• Nova – Fixed an issue preventing Holo Decoy from being cast in several locations on Garden of Terror and Infernal Shrines.

• Probius – Fixed an issue preventing Probius from gathering minerals while inside the Garden Terror on Garden of Terror

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

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

• The Butcher: Fresh Meat earned via Hero Takedowns, and collected while piloting the Garden Terror or Dragon Knight, will now correctly increment The Butcher’s Fresh Meat stacks.

Battleground Updates

Layout Adjustments

• The following Battlegrounds have each received a number of minor layout improvements in order to alleviate certain areas that could create awkward gameplay moments.
  • Sky Temple
  • Cursed Hollow
  • Dragon Shire
  • Garden of Terror
• These changes generally consist of small adjustments to the terrain, and some areas of brush have been pruned or removed.
• Battleground art has been updated to match the areas where these changes were made.

Bug Fixes

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

Bug Fixes

• Medivh – Fixed an issue that could cause Medivh to become unresponsive when entering vehicles. (Dragon Knight, Garden Terror, etc.)

Design & Gameplay

Body Blocking Improvements

• Improvements have been made to allied body blocking.

Bug Fixes

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

• Ragnaros: Vehicles piloted by Ragnaros will no longer benefit from Resilient Flame.

Design & Gameplay

Minions

• Minion leash range decreased from 10 to 9.

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

• 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

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

Bug Fixes

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

Battleground Updates

• Garden Terror
  • Terror of the Garden (Passive) now also reduces the duration of Blinds by 50%

Bug Fixes

• Mercenaries: Siege Giants will no longer deal damage if they are killed while in the middle of their attack animations.

• Zarya: The Gain Train Talent can no longer apply a Shield to an ally-controlled Dragon Knight or Garden Terror.

Bug Fixes

• Garden of Terror: Shielding a Structure will no longer prevent a Garden Terror's bonus siege damage from being applied.

Bug Fixes

• Anub'arak: It is no longer possible to cast Cocoon on Heroic Vehicles, such as the Garden Terror or Dragon Knight.

• Diablo: It is no longer possible to cast Overpower on Heroic Vehicles, such as the Garden Terror or Dragon Knight.

Design & Gameplay

Mounts

• Movement Speed reduced from 40 to 30%

Regeneration Globes

• Time before Globes despawn reduced from 8 to 6 seconds

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.

Bug Fixes

• Collision: Heroes can no longer push Neutral and Enemy Mercenaries by walking into them.

• Garden of Terror: Fixed an issue which prevented the Garden Terror’s Overgrowth from being cast if its area of effect would overlap with the opposing team’s Hall of Storms.

Bug Fixes

• Collision: Heroes can no longer be pushed by walking another Hero into them.

• Collision: Heroes who are channeling an Ability can no longer be pushed when another Hero walks into them during the channel.

Design & Gameplay

Core

• Victory determination is now much more precise in situations where both Cores are destroyed within fractions of a second. As a result, Victory will no longer be decided at random in cases where it appears that both Cores are destroyed at the same moment.

Regeneration Globes

• Health Regeneration
  • Previously: Restore 6.24% of maximum Health over 4 seconds
  • Now: Restore 12% of maximum Health over 5 seconds
• Mana Regeneration
  • Previously: Restore 32 Mana over 4 seconds.
  • Now: Restore 8% of maximum Mana over 5 seconds

Developer Comments: Thank you for all your discussion and feedback on our recent Health sustain post! We are still heavily evaluating a lot of it but wanted to get the first round of changes in. Internally, we enjoyed the increased importance on Regeneration Globes and have cleaned up the system a bit. With a larger importance, denying enemies their Globes in lane has a much larger impact.

Healing Wells

• Cooldown increased from 100 to 120 seconds
• Health Regeneration
  • Previously: Restore 41% of maximum Health over 20 seconds.
  • Now: Restore 40% of maximum Health over 20 seconds.
• Mana Regeneration
  • Previously: Restore 20% of maximum Mana over 20 seconds.
  • Now: Restore 30% of maximum Mana over 20 seconds.

Developer Comments: Much like the changes to Regeneration Globes, we wanted to add a larger impact to the moment you click a Healing Well. Again, we cleaned up the system a fair bit (hence the ~41% to 40% Health change) and added a larger impact for heavy Mana users. The increased cooldown should make the decision of when to tap the Healing Well slightly more interesting.

Minions

• Ranged, Melee, and Wizard Minions
  • Now deal an additional 50% damage to Structures.

Developer Comments: Our goal with this change is to make escorting Minions to Towns to be more impactful, such that they can really start to do some damage if left unattended. Before this change, Minions were primarily XP carriers that absorbed some Ammo shots from Towers. Now the armies of the Nexus are a bit scarier when they march down a lane.

• Catapult Minions
  • Attack range increased by 20%.
  • Sight range increased by 17%.
  • Will now fixate on Structures. Catapults will not acquire a new target after fixating until the target is destroyed or the Catapult is killed.

Developer Comments: Catapults would often reach the Core, but have a Minion wave spawn on them, distract them, and allow them to be killed off before doing any significant damage. With increased range and fixation on a Structure once they’ve started attacking, even one Catapult will more consistently punch through a Core’s Shield and do actual damage.

Battleground Updates

• Increased Overgrowth's damage bonus against Structures from 100% to 200%.

Developer Comments: In an effort to reduce the game length on Garden of Terror, we’re increasing the bonus damage that Garden Terrors deal to Structures. We’re not quite happy with the way that Garden of Terror is playing at the moment, and will likely be making larger changes if the current tuning adjustments don’t make it more enjoyable.

Bug Fixes

• Garden of Terror: The Garden Terror's basic attack splash will now correctly deal bonus damage to structures affected by Overgrowth.

Battlegrounds

Healing Well

• 25% of a Healing Well’s maximum Health has been converted into a Shield. Shield Regeneration delay of 8 seconds.

Developer Comments: We’ve noticed some rather un-fun behavior in the form of sniping Healing Wells over time using very long range Abilities. While we’re okay with players doing this to a degree, we found it was too effective given how little counterplay there was. To help solve this, turned a sizable portion of Healing Well Health into a Shield. This means that if you offer your Healing Well some respite from enemy attacks by chasing opponents away every now and then, it will start to regenerate some of that Shield. Only you can protect Healing Wells from those pesky Arcane Orbs!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue in which attacking enemy Walls at certain angles would cause the Hero’s Basic Attack animation to play, but deal no damage.

Bug Fixes

• Issuing a Mount command while holding down the right mouse button to move will no longer interrupt Mount channeling.

Bug Fixes

• Re-issuing an attack order on a Structure in the Fog of War will no longer cause Basic Attack animations to repeat without applying damage.

Battleground Updates

• Garden Terror (Player Controlled)
  • Basic Attack damage reduced by 15%
  • Basic Attacks now deal 50% damage to nearby non-Heroic enemies
  • Basic Attacks now instantly kill Minions
  • Overgrowth (W)
    • No longer affects Minions or Mercenaries
    • No longer deals damage to Structures
    • Garden Terror now deals 100% bonus damage to Structures disabled by Overgrowth
    • Maximum duration increased from 15 to 25 seconds
    • Cooldown increased from 15 to 25 seconds
    • Health increased by 100%

Developer Comments: We don’t like the common (and, usually, optimal) gameplay tactic of playing hit-and-run with the Garden Terror. Chasing it as it ran between lanes dropping Overgrowths wasn’t enjoyable for the defending team, and didn’t fit the spirit of what the Garden Terror was intended to do. The new functionality attempts to create a larger “moment” when Overgrowth is placed, as it gives a huge bonus—provided the Garden Terror can attack—and also makes killing the Overgrowth a bigger deal. Overall, we think Garden Terror combat will be more interesting and tactical.

Bug Fixes

• Towers will now properly fire Ammo provided by an allied M.U.L.E. immediately after 2 Ammo has been restored.

Bug Fixes

• Dying will no longer cause the player’s Healing Well cooldown to reset.

Design & Gameplay

Battleground Monsters

• Battleground-specific creatures are now universally defined as Monsters (ex: Neutral Garden Terrors, Sky Temple Guardians, etc.)
• Several Talents and Abilities have been changed to reflect this new categorization, and the following no longer affect Monsters:
  • Mercenary Lord
  • Johanna's Knight Takes Pawn
  • Lunara's Cruel Bloom
  • Rexxar's Easy Prey and Bird of Prey
  • The Butcher's Chop Meat
• The following now affect Monsters:
  • Anub'arak's Beetle, Juiced
  • Azmodan's Demonic Smite
• Several Talents that could previously trigger against both captured Mercenaries and Minions will now only affect Minions (ex: Seasoned Marksman, Black Soulstone, etc.)

Battlegrounds

Structures

• Towers, Forts, and Keeps now deal 50% bonus damage to Heroes
• Cores will now display an “Invulnerable” message if attacked by an enemy when no allied Keeps have been destroyed.
• Structures can no longer be made Vulnerable

Developer Comments: The scaling changes we released in December made it so Heroes could dive into Structures with impunity during the early game. Increasing the damage that Structures deal to Heroes allows defending players to feel a bit safer. We are exploring other fixes to help Structures feel more meaningful throughout the game and will release them when they are ready.

Bug Fixes

• AI-piloted Dragon Knights and Garden Terrors can now properly follow the player when pinged.

• Diagonally placed shrubs will now properly hide Heroes within them.

• Players punted out of an enemy Hall of Storms will no longer be persistently stunned if an enemy unit blocked the path of the punt.

• Silences will no longer prevent Heroes from entering a Dragon Knight or Garden Terror.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that could cause Heroes to become stuck inside of a Gate after using certain Abilities.

Bug Fixes

• Diagonally placed Shrubs will no longer sometimes fail to properly hide a Hero within.

Design & Gameplay

Scaling Changes

• Health and damage scaling for all Heroes, Battleground Events, Minions, and Mercenaries has been changed from flat, additive values to values that are multiplicative by percentage.
• A large portion of Heroes’ total scaling amounts, which were previously gained over the course of a game, have been added to their base values.
  • Please review our recent blog on scaling and respawn timer changes for more details.

Developer Comments: Due to the way that our old level scaling system worked, early game level discrepancies created a larger difference in power level than we liked. This often led to situations where a team could be up two or more levels early in a game, and use this advantage to create a larger lead. We didn’t feel that games were fun for the winning or losing team in these types of scenarios. As a result of these changes, all Heroes will have more power early, but gain less from each level. Battleground Events, Minions, Mercenaries, and Structures have all been adjusted to compensate for this and should feel close to what they did previously. The aim of these adjustments to the scaling system is to make level differences have a similar impact on your Hero’s statistics at all points in a game. Now, each level offers about 4% Health and 4% damage, which mirrors what late game leads felt like in our previous version of the game. It is important to note, that while being down a few levels will be less punishing than it was previously, Talent tier advantages can and will still have a noticeable impact on enemy engagements.

Respawn Timers

• Respawn timers have been increased for levels 1 – 10.
  • Please review our recent blog on scaling and respawn timer changes for more details.

Developer Comments: In order to reward players for getting early game Takedowns, we’re also increasing the respawn time of dead Heroes at low levels. Now, getting early game Takedowns (and the experience associated with it) won’t give your team as much pure power as it did previously. Instead, early kills will offer a “power play” moment, in which your team can destroy enemy Structures, complete Battleground Events, or take more Mercenaries. These meaningful strategic advantages will position a team closer to victory, without giving them a large stat advantage and the ability to bully the opposing enemy team.

Attack Speed Slows

• Attack speed slows now apply only to Heroes and Summons.

Bug Fixes

• The tooltip for the Plant Terror’s Overgrowth Ability no longer states that it does not disable the enemy Core.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused abnormal Hero movement when a Dragon Knight or Garden Terror was killed or expired nearby.

Design & Gameplay

A.I. Talent Selection

• A.I. controlled Heroes will now select their Talents from a group of preset Talent builds.

Developer Comments: A.I. players will now choose from predetermined Talent builds instead of randomly selecting Talents. This is especially important for players who disconnect as the A.I. will now no longer randomly choose Talents, but instead try to pick builds that are closer to what players would expect. In addition, A.I. controlled Heroes in Versus A.I. games will also have their own Talent builds to choose from.

Vehicles and Regeneration Globe Interaction

• Regeneration Globes will no longer heal Dragon Knights and Garden Terrors.
  • Instead, Regeneration Globe effects will now be applied directly to the Hero inside the Dragon Knight or Garden Terror.
• Players within a Dragon Knight or Garden Terror can now also accumulate stacks for Talents such as Seasoned Marksman, Gathering Power, Regeneration Master, etc.

Summoned Unit Attacks

• Summoned unit Basic Attacks will now miss if that Summon is Blinded or the target is Evading.
• Summoned unit Basic Attacks will no longer consume Block Talent stacks.

Battleground Updates

• Garden Terror
  • Overgrowth (W)
    • Now also disables the enemy Core
    • Health now increases the longer the game progresses

Developer Comments: We didn’t like the gameplay of Garden Terrors being used defensively to slow down an enemy Garden Terror push. Now that the Overgrowth can disable the Core, it will be much less effective to defend as a Garden Terror, encouraging teams to be more offensive with their Garden Terrors.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that could allow A.I. controlled Garden Terrors to briefly continue casting their Abilities after death.

Bug Fixes

• Enemy Heroes within a Dragon Knight or Garden Terror will no longer become unresponsive if that vehicle is killed by Sylvanas’ Unstable Poison.

• Fixed an issue in which certain movement-based Abilities, such as Kerrigan’s Ravage or Chen’s Flying Kick, could not target the Doubloon Chests on Blackheart's Bay, or Plant Terror Overgrowths on Garden of Terror.

Bug Fixes

• Leoric’s Drain Hope will no longer deal more damage than intended to player-controlled Dragon Knights or Garden Terrors after learning the Crushing Hope Talent.

Bug Fixes

• Alerts proclaiming that the Core is under attack will no longer play when an enemy Hero is within range of the Core before a Keep has been destroyed.

• Players will no longer enter an infinite rejoin loop if both Cores are destroyed simultaneously, and victory will be assigned to one team at random.
  • Please note: Randomly assigned victory/defeat is intended as a temporary solution, intended to fix the infinite rejoin loop as soon as possible. A more robust solution for games that end in a draw will be implemented with a future patch.

Bug Fixes

• Player-controlled Garden Terrors can no longer place a Plant Terror Overgrowth within an allied Hall of Storms.

Design & Gameplay

General

• In-game XP Changes
  • The in-game leveling curve has been adjusted slightly to slow down the first 10 team levels, though the amount of XP required to reach level 20 remains the same.

Battleground Updates

• Player-controlled Garden Terrors are now more resistant to disable effects.
• Movement Speed reduced to equal Hero Movement Speed
• Overgrowth (W)
  • Overgrowth Health increased by 25%
  • Now receives additional Health bonuses past the 15 minute mark
  • Now deals 70 (+7 per minute) damage each tick to Minions and Mercenaries instead of 20% of their Maximum Health. This is the same as the Structure damage.

Battlegrounds

Mercenaries

• Mercenary initial and scaling XP has been reworked.
• Mercenary Camp tooltips now indicate which Camps can be Bribed.

Structures

• Gate, Tower, Town Hall, and Wall Health reduced by approximately 10%.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a rare issue in which a Core with less than 1 Health could suddenly be destroyed without taking additional damage.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved a crash that could occur while playing on the Garden of Terror Battleground.

Battlegrounds

General

• Human teams can now begin Coop games on either side of the Battleground, rather than only on the left side.
• Collecting various Battleground items (Doubloons, Skulls, Seeds, Regeneration Globes) should now be more responsive.

Structures

• Core
  • The Core is now invulnerable until both the Keep and Fort in a single lane are destroyed.
    • This is now consistent with the way in which Catapult Minions are spawned.
• Walls
  • Vision provided by Walls reduced by approximately 15%.

Bug Fixes

• Abathur’s Hivemind Talent can no longer benefit the Dragon Knight or player-controlled Garden Terrors.

• Battleground objective units such as Grave Golems, Garden Terrors, and Mercenaries will now become invulnerable while leashing.

• Grave Golems, Mercenaries, and Minions will no longer completely ignore Structures affected by Zeratul’s Void Prison.

Battlegrounds

Structures

• Core
  • Damage versus Heroes increased by 20%
  • Abathur’s Symbiote and Tassadar’s Plasma Shield can once again be cast on the Core.
• Towers
  • The amount of time that towers are disabled while regenerating ammunition has been increased from 20 to 30 seconds.
    • This was done to align with a previous change, in which the rate of tower ammo regeneration was reduced to 1 per 15 seconds. As such, towers will now come back online with 2 ammunition.

Mercenaries

• Grave Golem
  • Root
    • Grave Golems will no longer pause when casting Root.
    • Root will now be cast on ranged Minions.
    • Heroic units will remain the preferred targets.
  • Stomp
    • The post-cast delay on Stomp has been removed.
    • Stomp will now be cast when there are at least 2 Heroic units around the Grave Golem, or at least 3 Minions.
    • Stomp will not be cast unless the Grave Golem is already stationary.
    • Stomp now deals increased damage versus Minions.

Bug Fixes

• Catapult Minions no longer deal half their intended damage, and once again deal area of effect damage around their target.

• Neutral Garden Terrors will no longer drop regeneration globes inside of walls.

Battleground Updates

• Garden Terror (Summoned)
  • Spore Queen’s Curse (Q)
    • Radius decreased by 10%

Battlegrounds

General

• Town Halls no longer contain all of a town’s experience points. While Town Halls retain a majority of the experience, the surrounding towers protecting the town now yield experience as well.

Bug Fixes

• Heroes can no longer be affected by enemy abilities while within the allied Hall of Storms.

• Heroes with a permanent Cloak will now properly Decloak when exiting the Dragon Knight or Garden Terror.

Battleground Updates

• Ready text on a summoned Garden Terror will now start blinking when the Terror is about to expire.

Battlegrounds

General

• Minimap icons for the underground Grave Golem on the Haunted Mines, and neutral Garden Terrors on the Garden of Terror, no longer blink when they are in combat
• Minion damage dealt to opposing Minions has been reduced, allowing for stronger pushes with Minions in unattended lanes

Mercenary Camps

• Knight Mercenary Camp
  • The Healer Mercenary no longer heals other Mercenaries or Minions, and now casts a damaging Arcane Bolt on enemies instead.

Structures

• The Core now regenerates Shields after it has not taken damage for 8 seconds, rather than 10 seconds.
• Towers, Forts, and Keeps now regenerate Ammunition once every 15 seconds, rather than once every 10 seconds.

Bug Fixes

• Attacking a Mercenary Camp at the moment it spawns will no longer cause the defending Mercenaries’ Health to reset mid-fight.

• The Garden Terror is now properly immune to the effects of an opposing Garden Terror’s Spore Queen’s Curse Ability.

Battleground Updates

• This Battleground has received significant updates.
  • Upon collecting 100 Seeds, the Fertile Soil (located near the Core) will automatically grow into a Garden Terror after 15 seconds.
  • Once the Garden Terror has spawned, a 1 minute countdown timer will begin. Right click the Garden Terror to take control of it before the timer expires.
    • If no player takes control of the Garden Terror within 1 minute, it will reset to its Fertile Soil state, and the team will lose the ability to unleash the Garden Terror.
    • 100 Seeds will be automatically consumed whether or not a player takes control of the Garden Terror.
• Infested Servants
  • Experience reward increased from 30 (+1.5 per minute) to 60 (+2 per minute)
• Garden Terror
  • Experience reward increased from 175 (+5 per minute) to 350 (+12 per minute)
    • This specific change refers to the neutral Garden Terror found in the Gardens during the Night sequence.
  • Spore Queen’s Curse (Q)
    • Radius increased from 2.5 to 3
    • The curse is now a persistent effect which continues to pulse once per second for 3 seconds.
  • Garden Terror Overgrowth (W)
    • Health increased from 960 (+55 per minute) to 1250 (+80 per minute)
  • New Ability: Sprint (E)
    • Increases the Garden Terror’s Movement Speed by 30% for 3 seconds

Battlegrounds

Core

• Health Regeneration has been removed from the Core, but Shield regeneration is unchanged.

Siege Giants

• Health regeneration when Siege Giants are out of combat for 8 or more seconds has been removed.

Bug Fixes

• Corrected an issue in which Towers could unintentionally see through certain Line of Sight blockers.

• Forts and Keeps will no longer expend ammo without firing when a player quickly moves in and out of range.

• Mercenary Camps that are captured simultaneously by one team with the Mercenary Lord Talent, and one without, no longer causes the Mercenaries from both Camps to gain the Mercenary Lord buff.

• Pings issued on Mercenary Camps no longer require the player to target an individual Mercenary in order to request assistance with capturing the Camp.

• Uncaptured Mercenary Camps now appropriately reactivate when a player exits a Dragon Knight or Garden Terror.

Battleground Updates

• Mercenary Camps can now be captured at night.
• Garden Terror
  • Health reduced by 20%
  • Spore Queen's Curse (Q)
    • Travel time reduced from 1 to 0.5 seconds.
    • Explosion delay reduced from 1.5 to 1 second.

Bug Fixes

• Casting an "unstoppable" effect on a Hero affected by the Plant Terror's Spore Queen's Curse ability will no longer retain the Plant Zombie's ranged fireball basic attack when the curse expires.

• Flowering Shamblers and Plant Horrors on the Garden of Terror can no longer be Bribed.

Design & Gameplay

General

• The amount of in-game experience required to reach levels 2-19 has been increased by approximately 6%.

Underdog Bonus

• The amount of XP received from Hero takedowns is now more granular.
• This will now have less impact during close games.

Battleground Updates

Garden of Terror, a brand new 3-lane Battleground, has been added to Heroes of the Storm and is now available for play in all matchmaking queues!

• After 90 seconds, Night will fall and Horrors will rise within the garden.
  • Venture into the garden to kill the Horrors and collect the Seeds they drop.
  • Night will persist until all remaining Horrors have been destroyed.
  • Collect 100 Seeds and then return to base to take control of a monstrous Garden Terror!
• Once unleashed, Garden Terrors can use the following powerful abilities:
  • Spore Queen’s Curse (Q)
    • After a short delay, enemy Heroes in the target area are turned into Plant Zombies for 5 seconds.
    • While in Plant Zombie form, Heroes deal reduced damage, have their Movement Speed reduced by 30%, and become silenced.
  • Plant Horror Overgrowth (W)
    • Disables and damages all enemy structures within a large area as long as the Horror Overgrowth remains alive.
    • Deals heavy damage to Minions within its area of effect.
• Check out our latest Developer Insights blog, which offers an in-depth look at the design behind the Garden of Terror Battleground.

Battlegrounds

Core

• Health now scales throughout the game.
• Splash damage radius increased from 1.5 to 2.