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:

• Snow Flurries
  • Infernal Shrines

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:
  • Infernal Shrines
    • Every 12 seconds, the Core will spawn 2 volleys of Frozen Orbs that explode, dealing 5% maximum Health as damage and Rooting enemy Heroes hit for 1.5 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.

Battleground Updates

• Mercenary
  • Impaler Mercenary Basic attack damage has been increased from 50 to 65

Battleground Updates

• Re-tuned the damage across all three Punisher types to bring them closer in parity
  • Arcane Punisher
    • Arcane damage increased from 52 to 53
    • Arcane damage scaling reduced from 11 to 8 per minute
  • Frozen Punisher
    • Frozen damage base increased from 110 to 120
    • Frozen area increased from 3 to 3.25
    • Number of Frozen explosions reduced from 6 to 5
    • When Frozen explosions damage an enemy Structure, they are disabled for 3 seconds
  • Mortar Punisher
    • Mortar damage base increased from 90 to 115
    • Mortar damage scaling increased from 5 to 17 per minute

Developer Comment: These changes are designed to bring the 3 types of Punishers more closely aligned in power, while preserving what makes them special. Mortar is now a properly scary amount of damage up front, while Arcane had its damage reduced but maintains the highest damage over a long period of time. Frozen has had structure disabled added to it, further encouraging teams to dive into enemy towns alongside him.

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.

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.

Battleground Updates

Mercenaries

• The Khazra at the southernmost Mercenary Camp on Infernal Shrines now move into lane once they are captured, rather than path around the lane to attack opposing structures directly.

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.

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%

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:
  • Infernal Shrines
• The Minimap will now indicate the next objective spawn location for the following Battlegrounds:
  • Infernal Shrines
    • The first Shrine indicator will appear on the Minimap 30 seconds after the game begins, and subsequent indicators will appear 30 seconds after a Punisher is defeated.
    • Hover the cursor over a Shrine indicator on the Minimap to display whether it will be a Mortar, Frost, or Arcane Shrine.

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

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

• Infernal Shrines: Punishers in mid lane will no longer occasionally become stuck prior to reaching the enemy Keep.

Battleground Updates

Mercenaries

• Impaler and Trooper Camps (Siege Mercenaries found on Volskaya Foundry, Battlefield of Eternity, and Infernal Shrines)
  • Early game health has been slightly decreased.
  • Base damage and scaling values have been increased by roughly 50%
  • Defender Mercenaries can no longer be affected by displacements effects.

Developer Comment: We’ve heard feedback on the lack of strength the Assault Trooper mercenaries possess. We hear and agree with this sentiment so we’ve increased their overall damage to make them more of a threat.

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.

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.

Bug Fixes

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

• The Butcher: Butcher’s Brand visual effects will no longer persist on a Punisher until it is killed.

• The Butcher: Will now properly receive Healing for Basic Attack damage dealt to a Punisher affected by Butcher’s Brand.

Bug Fixes

• Infernal Shrines - Fixed an issue causing the Punisher minion to instantly kill Lt. Morales’ Medivac.

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.

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.

• Infernal Shrines: Punishers will no longer repeatedly attempt to walk into the opposing team’s starting area when lead beyond Keeps to a Protected Core.

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

• Battlefield of Eternity & Infernal Shrines: Fixed an animation pop affecting Towers on the Heaven side of Diablo-themed Battlegrounds.

• Core: Fixed an issue that could prevent the Core on the Hell side of Battlefield of Eternity and Infernal Shrines from playing certain attack sounds.

• 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.

Bug Fixes

• Infernal Shrines: Fallen Shaman Mercenaries will now prioritize attacking enemy Structures over Walls.

Design & Gameplay

Mounts

• Movement Speed reduced from 40 to 30%

Regeneration Globes

• Time before Globes despawn reduced from 8 to 6 seconds

Battleground Updates

• Khazra Impaler
  • Captured Impaler attack damage increased from 40 to 46

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.

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.

Bug Fixes

• Infernal Shrines: Punishers will no longer prefer to attack non-Heroic enemies that are affected by Abathur’s Symbiote over enemy Heroes.

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.

Battleground Updates

• Punisher
  • Punisher starting Health has been increased, and scaling Health has been reduced to compensate.
  • Frozen Punisher
    • Delay between ice trap spawn and detonation decreased from 2.5 to 2 seconds.
    • Root duration while frozen decreased from 2 to 1.5 seconds.

Developer Comments: Although we are very happy with the current tuning of Infernal Shrines, we have been noticing a tendency to under-value the first couple of Punishers. In order to help incentivize players into valuing them, we have boosted their starting Health and decreased their early scaling values to compensate. While early event Punishers should be a bit stronger, any event past the 15-minute mark should be identical to those from the previous patch.

Frozen Punishers are great at zoning enemy teams but we felt they were a bit too easy to avoid without preliminary team initiation. These changes should increase the frequency in which players get rooted, while feeling a little less punishing when this occurs.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue in which a Punisher that leaps to a Hero as that Hero activates Hearthstone could cause it to leap to the opposing Hall of Storms.

• 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.

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.)

Battleground Updates

• The minimap now more clearly indicates when a Shrine is ready to activate
• Arcane Punisher
  • Arcane Sentry damage reduced by 20%

Developer Comments: The Arcane Punishers have shown to be more effective than their Frozen and Mortar counterparts, so we lowered their Arcane Sentry damage to bring them more in line with other Punisher types.

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

• 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.

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.

• Punishers on the Infernal Shrines Battleground will no longer fly outside the playable area after leaping into Zeratul’s Void Prison.

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

• Fixed an issue that prevented Hero vision radiuses from displaying on Infernal Shrines and Battlefield of Eternity minimaps.

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

• Punisher
  • Starting and scaling Health decreased by 10%
  • Now leap to the nearest enemy Hero within range, rather than selecting one at random
• Skeletal Defenders
  • The amount of Skeletal Defenders required to summon a Punisher has been increased from 30 to 40.
  • Skeletal Defenders will no longer take increased damage from abilities and talents that deal bonus damage to minions.
  • The range at which Skeletal Defenders will detect and attack players has been decreased by 25%

Developer Comments: Player feedback has been centered around how hard it is to comeback when falling behind on Infernal Shrines. We agree that the Punishers are overly punishing, so we’re nerfing their Health slightly. Teams that successfully bait the Punishers deep within their base will be able to put an end to this threat sooner.

Bug Fixes

• Corrected an issue that could cause Punishers to prioritize attacking enemy Structures after initially targeting a Hero.

• Fixed an issue that allowed Punishers to attack structures while enraged on the Infernal Shrines Battleground.

• Skeletal Defender Health will now properly scale over time on the Infernal Shrines Battleground.

Battleground Updates

• Infernal Shrines has been added and is now available for play in all game modes.

Battleground Rotation: August 26 – September 2

• For one week following today’s update, the number of Battlegrounds available in matchmaking game modes will be temporarily reduced to six, so that players will have more opportunity to play on Infernal Shrines. The following Battlegrounds will be available for play in matchmaking during this time:
  • Infernal Shrines
  • Battlefield of Eternity
  • Cursed Hollow
  • Dragon Shire
  • Sky Temple
  • Tomb of the Spider Queen
• Blackheart’s Bay, Haunted Mines, and Garden of Terror will not be available in matchmaking game modes during this time, but can still be accessed using Custom Games.
• On Wednesday, September 2, all nine Battlegrounds will become playable in matchmaking game modes once more.

Battleground Updates

• This three-lane Battleground features three Infernal Shrines that will periodically gather power. Only one Shrine will gather power at any given time, and either team can activate it to unleash its might.
• Once activated, the Shrine’s Guardians will pour forth in waves to defend it. The first team to kill 30 Guardians will summon a devastating Punisher to fight for their cause.
• A Punisher is a powerful boss that will attack down the lane that corresponds with the Shrine it was summoned from. Punishers will hunt down any nearby enemy Heroes that cross its path, and can spawn with one of three deadly affixes:
  • Arcane – The Punisher summons beams of arcane energy which rotate in a circular motion, and deal massive damage to enemy targets they pass through.
  • Frozen – The Punisher calls forth frigid ice shards, which explode after a short delay, dealing damage and freezing enemies in place for a short time.
  • Mortar – The Punisher launches a stream of firebombs high into the air, which explode and deal damage to any enemies they strike upon landing.