Heroes of the Storm PTR Patch Notes — June 06, 2016

Official Patch Notes v 18.4

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just arrived to the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until June 13. During this time, we kindly request your assistance in trying out some of the new content it contains before we officially release the patch to the live version of Heroes. Just like last time, if you encounter any bugs or other issues during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.

Note: This PTR's main focus will be on our new ranked play experience. To help ensure that these new systems receive adequate attention during this testing phase, all modes besides "Ranked" and "Custom Games" have been disabled. Additionally, all heroes, with the exception of Medivh, will be unlocked for playtesting to ensure that all players meet the requirements for ranked play.

New Hero: Medivh

Medivh, The Last Guardian, has been added to Heroes of the Storm and is now available for play! Read on for a brief overview of his Abilities.

Trait (Z)

  • Raven Form
    • Instead of Mounting, Medivh can transform into a raven, increasing Movement Speed by 15%. While transformed, you can see and fly over all terrain, and are immune to all effects. Casting an Ability immediately transforms you out of Raven Form.

Basic Abilities

  • Arcane Rift (Q)
    • Launch a rift that damages all enemies in its path. If an enemy Hero is hit, Arcane Rift’s cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds and 30 Mana is refunded.
  • Force of Will (W)
    • Protect an allied Hero from all damage for 1.5 seconds.
  • Portal (E)
    • Create a set of portals between you and the target location, allowing allies to teleport between them. Portals last 6 seconds.

Heroic Abilities

  • Poly Bomb (R)
    • Polymorph an enemy Hero, suppressing their attacks and Silencing them for 2 seconds. On expiration, Poly Bomb spreads to other nearby enemy Heroes.
  • Ley Line Seal (R)
    • After 0.5 seconds, unleash a wave of energy that imprisons enemy Heroes in Stasis for 3 seconds.

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General

Training Mode

  • AFK Detection has been added to Training Mode games.

Veteran Introduction

  • A new Veteran-level Tutorial has been introduced to the game.
    • The new Veteran tutorial can be accessed through the “Challenges” button in the options menu, or by selecting “Veteran” when first entering the game on a new account.

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System Changes

Matchmaking

MMR Normalization

  • MMRs have been normalized to bring in outliers on both the high and low end of the MMR spectrum.
  • This change should result in faster queue times in all games modes for players at either end of the spectrum without sacrificing match quality.
  • Find out more about MMR normalization in this blog post.

MMR Seeding

  • Players entering Hero League for the first time in Season One will have their Quick Match MMR used as a guideline to determine their initial matchmaking.
    • Future seasons will use Unranked Draft Mode MMR to seed into Hero League matchmaking.
    • Team League incorporates a similar system, using a portion of each players Hero League MMR to find an average before matching them appropriately.
  • Players entering Unranked Draft Mode for the first time will also use their Quick Match MMR as a guideline to determine initial matchmaking.

Performance

  • Significant improvements have been made to the stability of the framerate in all game modes.
  • Improvements have been made to game performance in Versus A.I. games.

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Shop

Bundles

  • New Bundles have been added!
    • Knight Owl Medivh Bundle – Available until June 28, 2016.
    • Multiverse Bundle – Available until June 28, 2016.
    • Ultimate Multiverse Bundle – Available until June 28, 2016.

Mounts

  • Returning Mounts
    • Cyberwolf
  • Mount Removals
    • Billie the Kid
    • Ringmaster’s Pride

New Hero

  • Medivh has been added to the in-game Shop.

Skins

  • Master Medivh
  • Knight Owl Medivh

Price Reductions

  • Lunara's prices have been reduced to $8.49 USD and 7,000 Gold.

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User Interface

General

  • A clock has been added to the Home Screen.

New Play Mode: Unranked Draft

  • Unranked Draft is a new game mode that will feature a pick and ban system identical to Hero League.
  • There will be no party size restrictions in this new game mode.
  • Unranked Draft Mode will have its own unique MMR (Matchmaking Rating).
    • Initial Unranked Draft MMR will be seeded from current Quick Match MMR. Find out more about this in the MMR Seeding section under System Changes.
  • You can find more information on Unranked Draft in this blog post.

Ranked Play Revamped

  • The ranking system in Heroes of the Storm has received a massive upgrade, and is now divided into League Tiers and Divisions, rather than 50 Ranks.
  • There are seven League Tiers in total: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, and Grand Master. Progress through each League Tier can be tracked as follows:
    • Bronze – Diamond: Players are split into one of five Divisions within a League Tier. Earn Ranked Points by winning games to progress from Division 5 to 1 in each of these League Tiers.
    • Master: Instead of Divisions, Master League displays the total number of Ranked Points earned, so that players can more easily track progress against others in Master League.
    • Grand Master: Only the top 500 players in each region will achieve Grand Master status. Grand Master League Badges will display that player’s rank within the top 500 for that region.
  • Play 10 Placement Matches in Hero or Team League to receive a League and Division Placement.
    • For Example: Depending on a player’s performance during placement matches, they may be placed into Gold 3. By consistently winning games this player can then be promoted through the Divisions within their League Tier, up to Gold 1. Winning enough games will present the player with a Promotion Match, which offers the chance to be promoted into Platinum 5.
    • On the other hand, consistently losing games will result in demotion through the Divisions, down to Gold 5. If the player loses enough games, they will similarly be presented with a Demotion Match. By winning this match, the player will retain their standing in Gold 5. By losing, they will be demoted to Silver 1.
  • You can find more information on the Ranked Play Revamp in this blog post.

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Heroes

Tyrael

Basic Abilities

  • El'Druin's Might (Q)
    • Mana cost reduced from 55 to 50
  • Righteousness (W)
    • Mana cost reduced from 65 to 60
  • Smite (E)
    • Mana cost reduced from 50 to 45
  • Judgment (R)
    • Mana cost reduced from 100 to 80

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Bug Fixes

General

  • Fixed an issue causing several Quest talents to not play their sound effects and exclamation popups when progress was made.

Sound

  • Tracer: Basic Attack sounds will no longer play during Polymorph effects.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Heroes to not play unique VO when healed.
  • Fixed an issue that caused specific Basic Attack and ability sound effects to play much louder than intended.

Battlegrounds

  • Towers of Doom: Players should no longer encounter a significant FPS drop when the first round of Bell Towers fire.
  • Garden of Terror: The Garden Terror's basic attack splash will now correctly deal bonus damage to structures affected by Overgrowth.
  • Tomb of the Spider Queen: Fixed an issue that caused Webweavers to spawn at the friendly Core if enemy minions were present.

Heroes and Talents

  • Chen: The leap distances of the Storm Earth, Fire clones should now be consistent.
  • The Butcher: The cooldown of the Enraged talent now accurately matches the tooltip at 25 seconds.
  • Tyrael: Fixed a bug that caused Archangel’s Wrath to explode immediately in specific situations.
  • Kael’Thas: You are now able to cast the free Empowered Living Bombs when you have less than 50 mana.
  • Cho’Gall: Shadow Bolt Volley can no longer be canceled by right clicking.
  • Tracer: The Pulse Rounds talent should now increase the range and charge rate of Pulse Bomb by the amount stated in the tooltip.
  • Abathur: You can no longer use Hearthstone to port back to base while channeling Ultimate Evolution.
  • The Butcher: Hamstring now deals the correct amount of damage to Heroic targets when both the Cheap Shot and Chop Meat talents are selected.
  • Brightwing: The additional pulses created from the Continuous Winds talents will now properly push back enemy Heroes.
  • Brightwing: Fixed an issue that allowed Brightwing to heal allies with Soothing Mist while dead.
  • Dehaka: Shift queuing a command to use Essence Collection will now correctly heal Dehaka.
  • Sylvanas and Xul: Fixed an issue that made Xul uncontrollable if Sylvanas and Xul cast Mind Control and Bone Prison on each other.
  • Abathur: Fixed an issue that allowed Evolve Monstosity to pick up coins and gems, which were then permanently lost upon death.

User Interface

  • Fixed an issue that caused the Draft UI to occasionally disappear in Hero League and Team League lobbies.

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