Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused Zombie Wall's Zombies to lose health after uprooting with Dead Rush.

Bug Fixes

• Updated zombies to face inside the Zombie Wall when created.
• Fixed an issue that caused Annihilating Spirits healing reduction to display floating text multiple times.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused Voodoo Ritual to stack off of Possessed minions.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused Plague of Toads to hit Invulnerable enemies.
• Fixed an issue that allowed targeted abilities against the Plague of Toads unit.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused Soul Harvest to not increase healing dealt. Undocumented

• Fixed an issue that caused Thing of the Deep to not increase healing dealt. Undocumented

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Plague of Toads [E]
  • Damage over 6 seconds increased from 119 to 125.

Talents

• Level 1
  • Widowmakers [Q]
    • Slow amount decreased from 30% to 25%.
    • Slow duration decreased from 1.5 to 1 second.
    • Quest reward bonus damage decreased from 30% to 25%.
  • Pandemic [E]
    • Heroes needed to be hit to unlock Tier 1 quest reward decreased from 40 to 35.
    • Heroes needed to be hit to unlock Tier 2 quest reward decreased from 80 to 70.
• Level 4
  • Blood Ritual [Trait]
    • Bonus Voodoo Ritual stacks per takedown decreased from 5 to 3.
• Level 13
  • Guardian Toads [E]
    • Armor duration per Hero hit increased from 2 to 3 seconds.
• Level 16
  • Spider Colony [Q]
    • Cooldown reduction for Plague of Toads and Zombie Wall reduced from .25 to .125 seconds.

Developer Comment: The entire team has become extremely arachnophobic lately, and we believe its directly due to Nazeebo. We are trying to exterminate a few of the unholy critters while at the same time show his less bite-happy toads some love.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Corpse Spiders [Q]
  • Cooldown decreased from 9 to 8 seconds.
  • Mana cost reduced from 50 to 40.

Talents

• Level 1
  • Widowmakers [Q]
    • New functionality:
      • Enemies hit by Corpse Spiders' jar are Slowed by 30% for 1.5 seconds.
      • Reward: After attacking Heroes 100 times, Corpse Spiders deal 30% more damage and last for an additional second.
  • Pandemic [E]
    • Additional functionality: After Hitting 80 Heroes with Plague of Toads, it reduces the damage Heroes deal by 5%, stacking up to 25%.
• Level 4
  • Blood Ritual [Trait]
    • Additional functionality:
      • Passive: Takedowns grant 5 stacks of Voodoo Ritual.
• Level 7
  • Spirit of Arachyr [Q]
    • New functionality:
      • Corpse Spiders spawns an additional spider.
      • If Corpse Spiders' jar hits only one target, spawn an additional spider.
• Level 13
  • Guardian Toads [E]
    • Stack duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds.
    • Max duration increased from 4 to 6 seconds.
  • Superstition [Passive]
    • Additional functionality: Heroic Basic Attacks that cancel the Spell Armor effect spawn a Corpse Spider to attack the Hero.
• Level 16
  • Spider Colony [Q]
    • Additional functionality: Corpse Spider Attacks against Heroes also reduce the cooldown of Corpse Spiders by .125 seconds.
• Level 20
  • Humongoid [R1]
    • Additional functionality: Gargantuan Stomps' area is increased by 25% and its Slow amount is increased to 50%.
  • Annihilating Spirit [R2]
    • Additional functionality: Heroes hit by Ravenous Spirit have their healing received reduced by 50% for 1 second.
  • Fury of the Storm [Passive]
    • Removed.
  • (New) Bad Medicine [Active]
    • Consume 5 Stacks of Voodoo Ritual to become Unstoppable, gain 20% Movement Speed, and 50 Armor for 2 seconds. 30 second cooldown.

Developer Comment: It's been a hot minute since we touched the Naz man. We like that he's a late-game PvE powerhouse, but we feel there's room for him to have more PvP impact early on. We're adjusting both his Spider and Toad builds to have more of a unique identity and to make them a little more consistent. We're also dumping a pile of jungle spices on his 20s to make them more competitive with the ever-popular Vile Infection.

Hero Updates

Talents

• Level 13
  • ​Guardian Toads [E]
    • Adjusted functionality: Hitting enemy Heroes with Plague of Toads grants 30 Armor for 1.5 seconds, stacking up to 4 seconds.

Developer Comment: Guardian Toads wasn't beating out Superstition in terms of continuous value, or Ice Block in terms of immediate value. We think this will help it compete while playing more into Plague of Toads gameplay.

Bug Fixes

• Thing of the Deep now appends to the tooltip for Voodoo Ritual Undocumented

• Crowd Control effects on Nazeebo's Zombie Wall with Dead Rush no longer causes Zombie Wall to become unresponsive.

Hero Updates

Talents

• Level 10
  • Ravenous Spirit [R2]
    • Damage increased from 108 to 115.

Developer Comment: Yep.

Hero Updates

Talents

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

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

Hero Updates

Talents

• Level 1
  • Widowmakers [Q]
    • Additional functionality: Reduce the Mana cost of Corpse Spiders by 10.
    • Additional functionality: Upon quest completion, reduce the cooldown of Corpse Spiders by 2 seconds.
  • Thing of the Deep [Passive]
    • Additional functionality: Quest: After reaching 50 stacks of Voodoo Ritual gain 10% Spell Power. After reaching 100 stacks of Voodoo Ritual, gain an additional 10% Spell Power.
• Level 7
  • Dead Rush [W]
    • Bonus damage increased from 75% to 100%.
• Level 20
  • Annihilating Spirit [R2]
    • No longer increases the Movement Speed of Ravenous Spirit.
    • Additional functionality: Each time Ravenous Spirit deals damage to an enemy Hero, its damage during that cast is increased by 5%.

Developer Comment: We saw an opportunity to make some of Nazeebo's lesser-picked talents more powerful, and more importantly, more fun. So we took it!

Design & Gameplay

Spell Power Modifiers

• The following abilities have had their tooltips updated to reflect that percentage-based spell power modifiers will stack multiplicatively when calculating damage:
  • Nazeebo's Vile Infection (Passive) talent

Bug Fixes

• Stasis/Time Stop: Fixed an issue where player created terrain could move Heroes affected by Stasis or Time Stop.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Plague of Toads (E)
  • Damage per tick reduced from 18 to 17.
• Gargantuan (R)
  • Attack damage reduced from 150 to 140.
  • Health reduced from 2,185 to 2,000.

Bug Fixes

• Ice Block: Fixed an issue in which certain Abilities remained castable during Ice Block.

Bug Fixes

• Ice Block: Fixed an issue in which certain Abilities remained castable during Ice Block.

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: Choosing the Superstition Talent while Nazeebo is dead will no longer cause Spell Shield visual effects to persist on the terrain after subsequent deaths.

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: Using a mine entrance or exit on Haunted Mines during Gargantuan’s summoning animation will no longer cause Nazeebo to lose control of the Gargantuan.

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: Fixed an issue causing Vile Infection to deal bonus damage after choosing certain talents.

• Nazeebo: Gargantuan Stomp can no longer be cast while the Gargantuan is stunned or polymorphed.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Corpse Spiders (Q)
  • Damage increased from 36 to 38
• Ravenous Spirit (R)
  • Damage increased from 103.4 to 108
• Gargantuan (R)
  • Health reduced from 2300 to 2185

Talents

• Level 4
  • Hexed Crawlers (Q)
    • Health and Mana return increased from 0.75% to 1%
• Level 20
  • Vile Infection (Trait)
    • Damage bonus reduced from 200% to 150%

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: Fixed an issue preventing the Superstition talent effect from being removed by Hero basic attacks after Nazeebo died with this talent.

Bug Fixes

• Stukov: Nazeebo will now correctly be pushed if he is hit by Massive Shove while channeling Ravenous Spirit.

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: The Superstition Talent’s visual effects will no longer persist after Nazeebo is killed.

Hero Updates

Stats

• Health reduced from 1638 to 1502
• Health Regeneration reduced from 3.4125 to 3.1291

Abilities

• Corpse Spiders (Q)
  • Damage increased from 35 to 36
• Plague of Toads (E)
  • Damage reduced from 20 to 18
• Voodoo Ritual (Trait)
  • Health per stack of Voodoo Ritual increased from 4 to 6
• Ravenous Spirit (R)
  • Cast range increased by 1

Talents

• Level 13
  • Superstition (Passive)
    • New functionality:
      • Gain 40 Spell Armor, taking 40% less damage from Abilities. Basic Attacks from enemy Heroes remove this bonus for 3 seconds
• Level 16
  • Spider Colony (Q)
    • New functionality:
      • Every time a Spider attacks an enemy Hero, reduce the cooldown of Wall of Zombies and Plague of Toads by .25 seconds

Developer Comment: We want to shift more of Nazeebo’s Health into the amount of Voodoo Ritual stacks he has, as the reward for Voodoo Ritual was mostly felt in unlocking Vile Infection at level 20. We’re changing Spider Colony to no longer reduce the cooldown of Corpse Spiders, because the synergy between the Spider Talents were so high that if you picked any one of them the rest of your Talent choices were locked in. Since we are changing the level 16 Talent to now affect Plague of Toads instead of Corpse Spiders, we’re shifting some of the damage out of Plague of Toads into Corpse Spiders. For Superstition, we wanted to get most of the spirit of what the old Talent did, but have more gameplay interactions. Often the only counter play to Superstition lied in what the enemy team composition was, and we’d rather have more counter play relying in decisions made during the course of the game.

Hero Updates

Talents

• Level 7
  • Toads of Hugeness (E) Undocumented
    • Damage and explosion radius bonus per hop increased from 20 to 25%
    • Maximum bonus increased from 80 to 100%
• Level 16
  • Soul Harvest (Active) Undocumented
    • Ability Power and Health bonus increased from 5 to 7% for each enemy hit
    • Maximum bonus increased from 25 to 35%

Bug Fixes

• Stasis: Fixed an issue in which cooldowns for self-cast Stasis effects, such as Ice Block, or Chromie’s Time Out, would not count down until respawn if the Hero was killed immediately after that Stasis effect concluded.

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: Fixed an issue that could prevent Voodoo Ritual from gaining stacks after scoring the killing blow on a Minion.

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: Silencing the Zombies that were created by Zombie Wall with the Dead Rush Talent will no longer prevent them from uprooting.

• Nazeebo: The tooltips for Nazeebo’s Voodoo Ritual Trait now properly indicate that it contains a Quest.

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: Corpse Spiders will no longer prioritize Kharazim’s Air Ally or Lúcio’s Boombox over enemy Heroes.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Plague of Toads (E)
  • Damage increased from 126 to 140 over 6 seconds
• Gargantuan (R)
  • Basic Attack damage reduced from 175.5 to 150
  • Health reduced from 2500 to 2300

Talents

• Level 13
  • Superstition (Passive)
    • Spell Armor reduced from 50 to 40
• Level 20
  • Humongoid (R)
    • Cooldown reduced from 45 to 40 seconds
  • Vile Infection (Trait)
    • Voodoo Ritual stacks required increased from 150 to 175

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: The targeting indicator for Plague of Toads will now visually increase in size after learning Thing of the Deep.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Plague of Toads (E)
  • The targeting indicator now more accurately reflects the Toads’ travel path

Talents

• Level 7
  • Dead Rush (W)
    • Cancelling Zombie Wall will now also provide up to 5 uprooted Zombies

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: The Corpse Spiders vase will no longer fall through the terrain when the Ability does not hit any enemies at its landing location.

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: The Camera will now properly follow Ravenous Spirit while Camera Follow is enabled.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Corpse Spiders (Q)
  • Missile speed increased by roughly 20%

Talents

• Level 7
  • Toads of Hugeness (E)
    • Bonus per hop increased from 15 to 20%
    • Maximum bonus increased from 60 to 80%
• Level 16
  • Soul Harvest (Active)
    • Ability Power and Health bonus increased from 4 to 5% for each enemy hit
    • Maximum bonus increased from 20 to 25%

Developer Comments: These changes are designed to increase the accuracy of Corpse Spiders, since landing it precisely on isolated targets is so important. We’re also increasing the effectiveness of Toads of Hugeness and Soul Harvest, as the Talents weren’t competitive enough against the other options. Together, these changes should make the Spider and Toad builds more enticing.

Bug Fixes

• Damage Reduction: When two damage reduction effects, such as Resistant (25%) and Hardened Shield (75%), are simultaneously applied to a Hero, the larger effect will no longer be overridden by the lesser effect.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Gargantuan (R)
  • Reduced Gargantuan Basic Attack damage from 195 to 176
• Ravenous Spirit (R)
  • Damage increased from 94 to 103
• Corpse Spiders (Q)
  • Cooldown reduced from 10 to 9 seconds

Talents

• Level 7
  • Spirit of Arachyr (Q)
    • Increased the number of additional spiders spawned from 1 to 2
  • Dead Rush (W)
    • Reduced damage bonus from 100 to 75%
• Level 16
  • Ring of Poison (W)
    • Damage reduced by roughly 15%
  • Soul Harvest (Active)
    • Increased bonus per enemy hit from 3 to 4%, and maximum from 15 to 20%
• Level 20
  • Humongoid (R)
    • Cooldown increased from 20 to 25 seconds

Developer Comments: Right now Zombie Wall Talents are providing more utility and damage than the alternatives, which isn’t ideal. We’re providing buffs to Corpse Spiders, while also nerfing Gargantuan. In general we expect Nazeebo’s winrate to stay about the same (which is right in the middle), but increase the number of effective Talent options for different playstyles.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Corpse Spiders (Q)
  • Spiders will now fixate on whatever enemies are hit with the jar, dividing their focus among all available targets. Prefers Heroic targets.
  • Spiders will now only spawn if you hit an enemy with the jar
  • Reduced the travel speed of the jar, mostly at close range
  • Increased the impact radius by 50%
  • Spiders now move significantly faster toward their target
  • Impact damage reduced from 91 to 50
  • Spider Attack's damage increased from 13 to 35 per attack
  • Mana cost reduced from 60 to 50
• Zombie Wall (W)
  • Zombie Health increased from 183 to 225
• Plague of Toads (E)
  • Number of Toads spawned reduced from 5 to 3
  • Now has 2 charges
  • Damage changed from 87 damage on impact to 126 over 6 seconds
    • Multiple instances of this damage effect can affect the same enemy
  • Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds
  • Mana cost reduced from 55 to 30
• Voodoo Ritual (Trait)
  • Damage over time effect is now only applied to non-Heroes
  • Duration increased from 4 to 6 seconds
  • Killing an enemy affected by Voodoo Ritual no longer restores Health and Mana
  • New Functionality:
    • You now permanently gain 4 Maximum Health and 1 Maximum Mana if an enemy Minion dies while affected by Voodoo Ritual
• Gargantuan (R)
  • Gargantuan now stays near the area where cast and attempts to attack any enemies that come nearby. Prefers Heroic targets.
  • Initial impact damage reduced from 151 to 100
  • Stomp damage increased from 219 to 240
  • Attack range increased by 50%
  • Cooldown increased from 60 to 70 seconds

Talents

• Level 1
  • Demolitionist (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Death Ritual (Trait)
    • Removed
  • Bribe (Active)
    • Removed
  • Blood Ritual (Trait)
    • Moved to level 4
    • New Functionality:
      • If an enemy dies while affected by Voodoo Ritual, heal for 2% of your Maximum Health and Mana.
  • New Talent: Widowmakers (Q)
    • Quest: After hitting Heroes 100 times with Corpse Spider attacks, their damage is increased by 30%.
  • New Talent: Pandemic (E)
    • Quest: After hitting 40 Heroes with Plague of Toads, it spawns 2 additional toads.
• Level 4
  • Spider Cluster (Q)
    • Removed
  • Gathering Power (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Mercenary Lord (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Envenom (Active)
    • Removed
  • Promote (Active)
    • Removed
  • New Talent: Hexed Crawlers (Q)
    • Corpse Spiders restore 0.75% of your maximum Health and Mana each time they attack an enemy Hero.
  • New Talent: Big Voodoo (Trait)
    • Increases the Health and Mana bonuses from Voodoo Ritual by 100%.
• Level 7
  • Gidbinn (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Fresh Corpses (W)
    • Removed
  • New Talent: Spirit of Arachyr (Q)
    • If your jar of Corpse Spiders hits only 1 enemy, spawn an additional spider.
• Level 13
  • Dead Rush (W)
    • Moved to level 7
    • Increased zombie damage bonus from 50 to 100%.
  • Toads of Hugeness (E)
    • Moved to level 7
    • Bonus reduced from 20 to 15% per hop, and now caps at 60% bonus.
  • Thing of the Deep (Passive)
    • Moved to level 1
    • Range bonus reduced from 25 to 20%
  • New Talent: Guardian Toads (E)
    • If your Plague of Toads explodes on an enemy Hero gain Resistant for 2 seconds, reducing damage taken by 25%
  • New Talent: Superstition (Passive)
    • You take 50% less damage from Abilities, but 30% more damage from Basic Attacks
• Level 16
  • Specialized Toxin (Trait)
    • Removed
  • Leaping Spiders (Q)
    • Removed
  • Infested Toads (E)
    • Removed
  • Hardened Focus (Passive)
    • Removed
  • New Talent: Spider Colony (Q)
    • Corpse Spiders recharges twice as fast while you are above 850 (+4% per level) Health.
  • New Talent: Ring of Poison (W)
    • Increases the duration of Wall of Zombies by 1 second, and now deals 375 damage over 4 seconds. Damage starts small and increases over the duration.
  • New Talent: Soul Harvest (Active)
    • Activate to gain 3% Ability Power and maximum Health for every nearby enemy, up to 15%. Health and Ability Power bonuses last 15 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
• Level 20
  • Humongoid (R)
    • No longer makes the Gargantuan last indefinitely or increases its Basic Attack damage to non-Heroic enemies
    • New Functionality:
      • Reduces the cooldown of Gargantuan by 50 seconds, and the Mana cost by 50%
  • Bolt of the Storm (Active)
    • Removed
  • New Talent: Vile Infection (Trait)
    • Quest: After reaching 150 stacks of Voodoo Ritual, increase Voodoo Ritual's damage by 200% and cause it to also apply to Heroes.

Developer Comments: Nazeebo is one of the oldest Heroes in the game, and his Talent tree was in dire need of an upgrade. The goal of the revamp was to increase the reward of mastering the Hero’s Abilities, maintain his identity as a zone control and damage over time character, embrace the fun mini-game that was Death Ritual, and provide interesting synergies between Abilities and Talents. We wanted to be sure to reinforce the designed weaknesses of the Hero that are lack of burst and lack of mobility, while still making him viable in the current metagame of Heroes of the Storm. Overall, a lot of his old Talents had to be revamped or replaced, but we find that he still feels a lot like the old Nazeebo, just more interesting!

• (!) indicates a Questing Talent.
• Italic text indicates a NEW Talent.
• Bold text indicates a MOVED Talent.

Hero Updates

Talents

• Level 1
  • Bribe (Active)
    • Removed

Developer Comments: In our ongoing pursuit to create meaningful and Hero-specific generic Talent choices, Bribe was a Talent that got caught in our crosshairs this patch. We have removed it from a few Heroes and have added new flavorful versions to a few others. We have always liked the design and gameplay behind the Talent, but also realize how much players had to give up in order to pick them. Wingman, Pixie Charm, and Covert Mission are being reintroduced to Falstad, Brightwing, and Nova, respectively, with design mechanics more suited to each Hero’s unique style of play.

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: Zombie Wall will no longer attack Murky’s Pufferfish.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Zombie Wall (W)
  • Abilities that allow Heroes to move through units can no longer be used to escape Zombie Wall (Valla’s Vault, E.T.C.’s Powerslide, Sonya’s Whirlwind, etc.)

Developer Comments: Nazeebo has been around for quite a long time. Back in the early days of Heroes, there were very few that could escape his Zombie Wall, and it was something that everyone in the Nexus greatly feared. Since then we have added a lot more heroes with various mobility options that allow them to get out. We’re making a change to give his Zombies collision, which will greatly reduce the number of heroes who can easily escape them.

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: Stomp will no longer be placed on cooldown while the Garagantuan is in Stasis.

• Nazeebo: The player will no longer receive a Stasis overlay when Nazeebo’s Gargantuan is affected by Zagara’s Devouring Maw.

Hero Updates

Abilities

• Gargantuan (R)
  • Basic Attack damage reduced from 151 to 130

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo: The Toads of Hugeness Talent no longer causes Plague of Toads to deal more damage than intended.

Talents

Bribe

• New Functionality:
  • Nearby Minion kills grant 1 stack of Bribe. Spend 20 charges to instantly defeat a non-Boss Mercenary. 100 Charges maximum.
    • Raynor’s Raiders' Recruitment Talent also increased to 100 maximum charges.
    • Viking Bribery Talent increased to 200 charges maximum, but each use costs 40 charges.
  • If a Mercenary Camp is completely captured using Bribe, the camp respawns 50% faster.

Talents

Hardened Focus

• The Health bar next to the Hero Portrait will now display a marker that indicates whether the Hero is above or below 80% Health.
• Will now display an icon in the Buff bar next to the Hero Portrait while its effects are active.

Bug Fixes

• Casting Dehaka’s Isolation on a summoned unit or Heroic pet, such as Misha, Gargantuan, or a Holo Decoy, will no longer also cause the Hero who owns that unit to lose allied vision.
  • Additionally, if one of The Lost Vikings or Chen’s Storm, Earth, Fire Spirits are hit by Isolation, only the affected unit will have reduced personal vision, but the player should retain allied vision.
  • Alternatively, if the only living Viking or Spirit is hit by Isolation, the player will have reduced personal vision and lose allied vision for Isolation’s full duration.

Hero Updates

• Gargantuan (R)
  • Basic Attack damage reduced from 274 (+4% per level) to 219 (+4% per level).
  • Stomp damage increased from 151 (+4% per level) to 181 (+4% per level).

Developer Comments: We streamlined Gargantuan’s damage a few patches ago to no longer deal bonus damage to non-player targets. In the process, he ended up clobbering enemy Heroes a bit harder than we liked. We’re lowering his base attack damage to bring it more in line, and buffing Stomp damage to make activating this ability more impactful.

Hero Updates

• Gargantuan (R)
  • Basic Attack damage increased from 228 (+4% per level) to 274 (+4% per level)
  • No longer deals bonus damage to Minions or Structures

Bug Fixes

• Enemy Minions that have been picked up by Nazeebo’s Gargantuan will now be killed when the Gargantuan expires.

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.)

Talents

Gathering Power

• Hero takedowns now increase Ability Power by 2% per kill, up to a maximum of 30%. All stacks are now also lost upon death.

Developer Comments: We wanted to make Gathering Power a more high risk, high reward talent that encouraged specific gameplay. Now, with a much higher cap, the reward for this talent is much higher. The counterplay becomes the burden of the opposing team, as they’ll need to focus the Hero who has Gathering Power to reset their stacks.

Bug Fixes

• A Hero that activates Ice Block while simultaneously coming under the effects of Stitches’ Gorge will now properly retain Ice Block’s visual effects for the duration of the Talent’s effects.

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo’s Corpse Spiders and Zombie Wall Abilities will now deal damage to Immortals on the Battlefield of Eternity battleground.

Design & Gameplay

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.

Hero Updates

• Corpse Spiders (Q)
  • Spiders attack damage decreased from 10 (+1 per level) to 9.5 (+0.95 per level)
  • Leaping Spiders (Talent)
    • Spider attack damage bonus decreased from 25% to 15%
• Ravenous Spirit (R)
  • Vision radius granted by the Spirit increased by approximately 66%

Developer Comments: Nazeebo was dealing a little more damage than we’d like, specifically when looking at his spiders. We’ve tuned his base spiders and their leaping talent down to bring him more in line.

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo's Gargantuan will no longer continue to follow an enemy Leoric that has entered Undying form.

Design & Gameplay

Ability Power Gains

Developer Comments: This change was aimed at removing odd gameplay where a Nazeebo player may actually want to sacrifice his or her Gargantuan for a more powerful one. This occurred if players kept a summon alive for a very long time and gained Ability Power via Talents, like Gathering Power, as this increase in Ability Power was not passed onto the Summon. Short term summons or persistent effects will still take a snapshot of your current Ability Power at the time they are cast, and apply the bonus for the complete duration of the effect.

• To clarify the rules for temporary Ability Power gains, the following rules have been added:
  • For permanent or very long duration pets or persistent effects, their damage and maximum Health will now update dynamically when Ability Power is modified. This includes:
    • Abathur's Monstrosity
    • Nazeebo's Gargantuan (with the Humongoid Talent)
  • For short duration pets or persistent effects, their damage and maximum Health should snapshot based upon the Ability Power of the character when they are cast. This includes:
    • Jaina's Water Elemental
    • Sgt. Hammer's Blunt Force Gun
    • Tychus' Drakken Laser Drill

Talents

Bolt of the Storm

Developer Comments: We love this talent and think it can create a lot of really interesting moments, but the cooldown was just too short. At 70 seconds we think this talent is still a great level 20 pick, but now players will have to be more strategic with how they use it. Forcing someone to use their Bolt to avoid a gank can now be a meaningful moment with this increased cooldown. We hope this also entices players towards choosing their Heroic upgrades instead of Bolt when the situation calls for it.

• Cooldown increased from 40 to 70 seconds

Gathering Power

Developer Comments: Gathering Power was simply too good and was considered, by many, a mandatory pick on certain characters, which often lead to snowballing. We liked the ‘quest’ aspect of this talent, but it was far too easy to reach the cap and the quest didn’t feel meaningful to complete. Now, choosing this talent should no longer be mandatory, and the quest is much longer. Player’s will keep half of their stacks upon dying, which will help act as a ‘check point’.

• The 5% starting Ability Power has been removed
• Percentage gain from killing a Hero reduced from 2% to 1%
• Instead of losing all stacks on death, players will now only lose half their stacks (rounding up)

Mercenary Lord

Developer Comments: We’ve combined the talent Superiority into Mercenary Lord, and removed the damage reduction from structures to prevent degenerative backdoor strategies. The combination of the damage reduction vs. Mercenaries and the ability to empower these Mercenaries felt like a logical pairing. We hope incorporating the two talents into one will make this level 4 choice an enticing one, as the two talents separated had a low pick rate.

• The functionality of the Superiority Talent has been rolled into Mercenary Lord, which is now available to the following Heroes at Level 4:
  • Anub'arak, Arthas, Azmodan, Gazlowe, Nazeebo, Sonya, Stitches, and The Lost Vikings
• New combined functionality reads: Non-Boss Mercenaries near your Hero deal 50% more damage. Reduces damage taken from Minions and Mercenaries by 50%.

Superiority

• This Talent has been removed, and its functionality has been rolled into the revamped Mercenary Lord Talent

Hero Updates

Developer Comments: We looked at tuning up talents that wouldn’t impact his core Spider build. We’ve reverted some of the Ravenous Spirit nerfs as we saw a large shift from Ravenous to Gargantuan and wanted to see a better mix of the two.

• Calldown: MULE (Talent) removed
• Clairvoyance (Talent) removed
• Sprint (Talent) removed
• Stoneskin (Talent) removed
• Hardened Focus (Talent) added at level 16
• Gidbinn (Talent)
  • No longer increases the Plague of Toads explosion radius
  • Zombie Wall and Corpse Spider duration bonuses increased from 25% to 33%
• New Talent (Level 13): Thing of the Deep
  • Increases the range for all of Nazeebo’s Basic Abilities by 25%
• Voodoo Ritual (Trait)
  • Blood Ritual (Talent)
    • Health and Mana restoration bonuses increased from 100% to 125%
• Zombie Wall (W)
  • Fresh Corpses (Talent)
    • No longer increases Zombie damage
    • Now permanently reduces Zombie Wall’s cooldown by 4 seconds
  • Dead Rush (Talent)
    • Now also increases Zombie damage by 50%
• Plague of Toads (E)
  • Toads of Hugeness (Talent)
    • Now also increases Toad explosion radius by 20% each time they hop
  • New Talent (Level 7): Toad Affinity
    • Each enemy hit by Plague of Toads restores 5 Mana and reduces its cooldown by 1 second
• Gargantuan (R)
  • Gargantuan Stomp (R)
    • Animation duration reduced from 1 to 0.5 seconds
    • Hovering the cursor over Gargantuan Stomp on the Ability Hotbar will now display a range indicator
• Ravenous Spirit (R)
  • Damage changed from 30 (+8 per level) to 25 (+9 per level)
  • Damage radius increased by approximately 22%

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that could cause the Gargantuan Stomp button to persist on Nazeebo’s Ability Hotbar after his Gargantuan had been killed.

• Nazeebo’s Gargantuan Stomp tooltip now properly reflects a 5 second Ability cooldown for the Ability.

Talents

Envenom

• Duration increased from 5 to 10 seconds, but damage has not been changed

Promote

• Minions no longer gain 300% increased Health and 100% increased damage
  • Instead, the targeted Minion now takes 75% reduced damage from non-Heroic targets, and deals 100% bonus damage to non-Heroic targets

Hero Updates

• Corpse Spiders (Q)
  • Leaping Spiders (Talent)
    • Improvements have been made which will help Corpse Spiders better leap to their targets, as well as stick to their targets more effectively

Talents

Clairvoyance

• Now breaks units within its radius out of Stealth, rather than revealing them

Ice Block

• Ice Block can now be reactivated to cancel its effects early

Promote

• Buff duration increased from 15 to 30 seconds

Bug Fixes

• Baleog and Erik can no longer walk through Nazeebo’s Zombie Wall.

• Fixed an issue which could allow Nazeebo to summon a second Gargantuan while the first was still alive.

Talents

Ice Block

• Cooldown reduced from 80 to 60 seconds
• Now dims out affected Heroes’ status bars

Hero Updates

• Gidbinn (Talent) no longer increases the duration of Voodoo Ritual
• Voodoo Ritual (Trait)
  • Specialized Toxin (Talent)
    • Damage bonus from 200% to 100%
• Plague of Toads (E)
  • Toads of Hugeness (Talent)
    • Bonus damage per hop increased from 10% to 20%
• Gargantuan (R)
  • Initial damage increased from 35 (+15 per level) to 100 (+20 per level)
  • Initial health reduced from 1400 (+140 per level) to 600 (+220 per level)
  • The Gargantuan A.I. has been improved.
  • The Gargantuan no longer uses Stomp Ability automatically. Instead, Stomp can now be cast manually by pressing “R”, and has a 4.5 second cooldown.
• Ravenous Spirit (R)
  • The Spirit’s area of effect radius has been reduced by 25%.
  • Damage changed from 25 (+9 per level) to 30 (+8 per level)

Talents

Calldown: MULE

• Multiple M.U.L.E.s can no longer repair the same structure.
• Duration reduced from 60 to 40 seconds; Cooldown remains 60 seconds
• M.U.L.E.s now restore ammunition more quickly.
• M.U.L.E. Health is now 140 (+43 per level), rather than remaining at 500 Health for the duration of the match.

Gathering Power

• Initial Ability Power amount reduced from 8% to 5%
• Maximum Ability Power bonus reduced from 20% to 15%

General

• All Heroes (including Murky and The Lost Vikings) now count as full credit toward Talents which require Hero kills (such as Gathering Power).

Ice Block

• Ability cooldowns will now continue to run, and persistent auras will continue to take effect, throughout Ice Block’s duration (this was added with the previous patch).

Swift Storm has been removed

New Level 20 Talents

Fury of the Storm

• Every 5 seconds, the next Basic Attack will deal an additional 200 damage to the primary target, and 500 damage to each nearby Minion or Mercenary.
• Found on the following Heroes:
  • E.T.C., Gazlowe, Nazeebo, Sgt. Hammer, The Lost Vikings, Zagara

Talents

Calldown: MULE

• MULE intelligence has been increased!
  • MULEs now prioritize repairing Structures over replenishing ammunition (if a building has ammunition, its ammunition will still be replenished while it is being repaired.)
  • MULEs will now prioritize Town Halls and Towers, then Gates and Moonwells, and then Walls.
• If two Structures with equal priority are in range of the MULE’s placement, it will begin repairing the one it was dropped closer to.
• After all Structures in range are healed, a MULE will then prioritize based on their need for ammunition.

Mercenary Lord

• New functionality
  • Siege and Bruiser Mercenaries now deal 50% increased damage.
  • A player with the Mercenary Lord Talent must be within proximity of Siege and Bruiser Mercenaries in order for them to receive the damage bonus.

Bug Fixes

• Bolt of the Storm and Zeratul’s Blink can no longer be cast while rooted.

• Heroes that activate the Ice Block Talent can no longer queue Abilities until Ice Block has expired.

Talents

Promote

• Now heals the target to full Health
• Now has a 15 second duration
• Charge cooldowns have been reduced from 60 to 30 seconds

Hero Updates

• Voodoo Ritual (Trait)
  • Death Ritual (Talent)
    • Units other than lane Minions no longer grant permanent Health/Mana when killed while under the effects of Voodoo Ritual.
    • Permanent Health/Mana gains increased from 4/2 to 5/3

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo’s Ravenous Spirit beam is now properly visible to enemy players.

• Nazeebo's Corpse Spiders now properly damage Zagara's Creep Tumors on impact.

Talents

Promote

• Health gain increased from 200% to 300%

Bug Fixes

• Heroes are no longer automatically dismounted when attempting to cast Envenom on a target that is 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.

• Right-clicking an enemy while using Sonya’s Whirlwind or controlling Nazeebo’s Ravenous Spirit now causes them to move toward the target.

• The Calldown: MULE Talent can no longer be cast at locations in which the player does not have vision.

Talents

New Talent (Level 4): Gathering Power

• Passively grants +8% Ability Power
• Each Hero takedown grants an additional 2% Ability Power, up to a maximum of 12%. This bonus is lost on death.

With the addition of Artifacts, the following generic Talents have been removed:

• Minion Killer
• Path of the Assassin
• Path of the Warrior
• Path of the Wizard

Hero Updates

• Mercenary Lord (Talent) added at Level 7.
• Voodoo Ritual (Trait)
  • New Talent (Level 16): Specialized Toxin
    • Increases the damage Voodoo Ritual deals to enemy Heroes by 200%

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo’s Gargantuan now appropriately follows Nazeebo after capturing the Dragon Knight.

Talents

Demolitionist

• Ammo destruction reduced from 2 to 1 per Basic Attack to compensate for Attack Speed changes.

Minion Killer

• Now also deals 25% additional damage to Summons.

Hero Updates

• Zombie Wall
  • Delay between casting and creation of the Zombie Wall reduced from 1 to 0.9 seconds

Bug Fixes

• Nazeebo’s Death Ritual Talent will no longer award permanent Health or Mana gains after destroying neutral destructibles.

Talents

Calldown: MULE

• Changed from target structure to target point
• The MULE now repairs the closest structure when cast. If the structure reaches full health, the MULE will seek out another structure to repair.

Demolitionist

• Now also increases basic attack damage dealt to structures by 10%

Promote

• Now stores up to 2 charges

Swift Storm

• Hearthstone cast time reduction has been removed.
• New effect: Taking damage no longer causes the hero to dismount

Hero Updates

• Death Ritual (Trait)
  • Permanent Health/Mana gains increased from 2/1 to 4/2
• Gargantuan
  • Now deals AOE damage around it when summoned
  • Gargantuan takes 50% reduced damage from structures
  • Humongoid (Talent)
    • Causes the Gargantuan to remain until it is killed
• Ravenous Spirit
  • Movement speed increased by 10% (to compensate for hero movement speed increase in the last patch)

Bug Fixes

• The game camera no longer snaps to Abathur’s location after a cloned Witch Doctor’s Ravenous Spirit expires while Camera Lock is enabled.

Talents

• General
  • Calldown: MULE duration reduced from 90 to 60 seconds.

Bug Fixes

• Calldown: MULE can now be cast when the casting hero is underground on the Haunted Mines.

Hero Updates

• Voodoo Ritual changed from 20 +1 Health per level and 5 Mana restored to 1% Health and Mana restored.
• Gargantuan Health increased from 1000 + 100 per level to 1400 +140 per level