Heroes of the Storm Balance Patch Notes - October 15, 2019

Official Patch Notes v 2.48.2

Heroes of the Storm has just been updated with Hero balance changes and bug fixes! Read on for details.

General

  • The Scarlet Heist: Daily Quests
    • Mobsters are back! After completing the Scarlet Heist quest line, a set of three new daily special event quests will be available.
    • Using a Special Event dialog, you can choose one of those three quests and complete it for a Scarlet Heist Chest reward, once a day, until the event ends on December 3rd, 2019, PST.
  • New Feature: Hero Mastery Rings
    • A lot of you may remember the old 'Mastery Skins' and we are excited to bring back another way for players to show off their mastery of individual Heroes. With today's patch, players will be able to spend 5,000 gold to purchase augmented Hero Rings for any Hero over the levels of 15 (Level 1) and 25 (Level 2). These Mastery Rings are permanent when purchased and will be placed over the top of the normal Hero Ring, becoming visible to all players while in a match. We are extremely excited to know what you think about these and appreciate hearing any feedback you have on them!

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Heroes

TANK BRUISER HEALER MELEE ASSASSIN RANGED ASSASSIN
Diablo Artanis Ana Qhira Junkrat
Rexxar Deckard Li-Ming
Varian Li Li
Lt. Morales
Malfurion
Whitemane

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Tank

Diablo

Stats

  • Health increased from 2670 to 2825.

Abilities

  • Black Soulstone [Trait]
    • Bonus Health reduced from 0.4% to 0.3% per Soul.

Talents

  • Level 10
    • Apocalypse [R1]
      • Mana cost reduced from 100 to 50.

Developer Comment: Diablo, surprisingly, is one of the lowest winning Heroes in the game. That doesn't mean that he's not extremely powerful at times or unpopular, so we don't feel the need to make drastic changes right now. However, we are making a few small adjustments to make him better when he's behind in a game by increasing his Health until he's around 75 Souls. To allow Diablo to more commonly attempt to land his entire combo with Apocalypse, we're reducing the Mana cost. Interestingly, Apocalypse is chosen a lot more often, but is actually a 5% lower win rate, so we want to make the Heroic win more without drastically shifting the perception of its power.

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Bruiser

Artanis

Talents

  • Level 10
    • Purifier Beam [R2]
      • Movement Speed increased from 3 to 3.2.

Developer Comment: The Movement Speed changes hurt the ability for Purifier Beam to stick to a target a little more than most abilities. When increasing Movement Speed of Heroes, we knew that Abilities would be more difficult to land which would require players to adjust, but Purifier Beam doesn't allow you to aim differently. That being said, Purifier Beam is still very comparable to Suppression Pulse in terms of pick rate and win rate, so we think a very small adjustment is in order.

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Rexxar

Abilities

  • Mend Pet [E]
    • Mana cost increased from 55 to 60.

Talents

  • Level 1
    • Easy Prey [Passive]
      • Damage bonus against Mercenaries and Minions reduced from 200% to 150%.
    • Flare [Active]
      • Cast range increased from 15 to 25.
  • Level 4
    • Hunter-Gatherer [Passive]
      • Bonus Healing Regeneration reduced from 1.25 to 1 per second per Regeneration Globe.
      • Maximum stacks increased from 20 to 25.

Developer Comment: Rexxar, while a niche Hero, is overperforming compared to his competitors. We don't think we need to nerf him too much (in spite of his 57%+ win rate), but he has room for another small nudge in the downward direction. We're targeting a few of his Talents that are much more powerful than the other choices on the tier so encourage a variety of Talent selections too (though this is secondary to trying to provide an overall nerf to the Hero).

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Varian

Talents

  • Level 1
    • Overpower [W]
      • Bonus damage increased from 30% to 40%.
  • Level 4
    • Taunt [R1]
      • Health and Health Regeneration bonuses increased from 30% to 40%.
    • Twin Blades of Fury [R3]
      • Base Attack Damage reduction increased from 20% to 25%.
  • Level 7
    • Lionheart [Q]
      • Healing bonus increased from 50% to 75%.
  • Level 16
    • Banner of Stormwind [Active]
      • Cooldown reduced from 45 to 25 seconds.
    • Banner of Dalaran [Active]
      • Cooldown reduced from 45 to 25 seconds.
  • Level 20
    • Glory to the Alliance [Passive]
      • Banner cooldown reduction changed from 20 seconds to 50%.

Developer Comment: Twin Blades is outperforming compared to other options, so we're slightly reducing its power and increasing the power of Taunt to incentivize Varian players to try tanking for their team more often. We're also buffing a slew of under-used talents which should give Varian players more options to consider when deciding how to build the hero.

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Healer

Ana

Abilities

  • Shrike [Trait]
    • Healing from Shrike damage from 50 to 60%.

Talents

  • Level 1
    • Vampiric Rounds [Trait]
      • Bonus Shrike Heal from stacking 5 Doses from 1.5% to .75%.
      • Added second reward:
        • Increase Shrike's Heal by .25% for every Basic Attack against Heroes that have 5 Doses.
    • Slumber Shells [E]
      • Additional functionality: Reduce the cooldown of Sleep Dart by 4 seconds.
  • Level 7
    • Night Terrors [E]
      • No longer reduces Sleep Dart cooldown.
      • Modified functionality: Gain 25% Movement for 2 seconds for every Hero hit by Sleeping Dart. When a Hero wakes, they take 10% of their maximum Health in damage.

Developer Comment: Ana was one of the Heroes most affected by the Movement Speed change a few patches ago. We have been waiting to see where she stabilized at and are ready to give her some buffs to help bring her back to where she should be. On top of a small baseline Healing increases, we wanted to remove the awkwardness of the way Vampiric Rounds asked players to constantly target swap after 5 Shrike stacks.

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Deckard

Abilities

  • Healing Potion [Q]
    • Now displays its impending AoE to allies while the missile is in flight.
  • Fortitude of the Faithful [Trait]
    • Radius increased from 5.5 to 6.5.

Talents

  • Level 1/4/7
    • Gems [Active/W]
      • Added functionality: Increases the damage of the unleashing Horadric Cube by 100%.
  • Level 4
    • Ruby [Active/W]
      • Cooldown reduced from 30 to 20 seconds.
      • Trigger radius of Lesser Healing Potions increased from .5 to 1 (matching base potions).
  • Level 20
    • Perfect Gems [Active/W]
      • Now reduces the cooldown of all Gem talents to 5 seconds, instead of a flat 25 second reduction.

Developer Comment: Our favorite old man is still lagging behind his healer friends, despite the suite of buffs he's seen in the past few patches. Rather than pushing his numbers even higher, we're giving him a boost to general usability by making his potions display their impact location before they land and increasing the area in which his trait will function. Additionally, we're giving the various gem talents a bit of damage to make them more attractive options overall.

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Li Li

Talents

  • Level 4
    • Hindering Winds [W]
      • Moved to level 13.
      • Slow duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds.
  • Level 13
    • Surging Winds [W]
      • Moved to level 4.
      • Cooldown reduction reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.

Developer Comment: Hindering Winds was a bit too effective compared to the other options available at level 4. Rather than nerfing it into oblivion, we're swapping its position with Surging Winds at level 13. This should open up her talent options a little bit and give us room to make further adjustments to the rest of her kit in the future.

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Lt. Morales

Talents

  • Level 7
    • Vanadium Plating [W]
      • New Functionality: Increases the duration of Safeguard by 1 second. While the target is Stunned or Rooted, Safeguard's armor value is increased to 50.
    • Prolonged Safeguard [W]
      • Removed.
    • New Talent - Medi-Drone [W]
      • Allies with Safeguard receive 50% of the healing done by Healing Beam on other targets.

Developer Comment: Prolonged Safeguard was not a very exciting talent pick and its increased duration bonus was redundant against Vanadium Plating's duration increasing mechanic. We decided to consolidate these mechanics onto one talent and explore offering an entirely new mechanic for the other. This new replacement, Medi-Drone, gives a limited amount of multi-target healing, something Lt. Morales was previously lacking and often requested in your feedback.

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Malfurion

Abilities

  • Entangling Roots [E]
    • Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds.
    • Mana cost reduced from 75 to 65.
  • Innervate [Trait]
    • Cooldown reduced from 30 to 25 seconds.

Developer Comment: To help Malfurion be a little more competitive with other Healers, we're giving him some small base buffs to parts of his kit that motivate teams to pick him over his alternatives.

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Whitemane

Stats

  • Basic Attack
    • Damage increased from 55 to 62.

Abilities

  • Clemency [Active]
    • Mana cost removed.
    • Additional functionality: Removes 1 stack of Desperation.
  • Inquisition [W]
    • Additional functionality: Removes 1 stack of Desperation.
  • Zeal [Trait]
    • Added functionality: Activate to increase your Spell Power by 25% and reduce your Armor by 25 for 5 seconds. 60 second cooldown.

Talents

  • Level 10
    • Scarlet Aegis [R1]
      • Cooldown reduced from 90 to 70 seconds.
  • Level 13
    • Saintly Greatstaff [Trait]
      • New functionality: Hitting an enemy with Searing Lash marks them for 3 seconds. Basic Attacks against a marked target deal an additional 75 damage and consume the mark.
  • Level 20
    • New Talent – Guiding Light [Active]
      • Activate to grant target ally a permanent Zeal. Only one target can have this at a time.

Developer Comment: We have been actively listening to player feedback on the recent rework to Whitemane, and are making some changes to her to address them. Overall, her Talent Tree seems to be in a much healthier spot, and with the addition of some new baseline mechanics, we are hoping that she now feels closer to the Scarlet Inquisitor we all know and love!

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Melee Assassin

Qhira

Talents

  • Level 1
    • Finishing Touch [Passive]
      • Modified functionality: Gain 15% Basic Attack damage. When you Basic Attack a Hero below 50% Health, gain an additional 15% Basic Attack damage and 35% Attack Speed for 3 seconds.

Developer Comment: Qhira continues to sit in a really Healthy spot overall, but Finishing Touch was well being well out-performed by her other Level 1 Talents. We are hoping that this buff helps equalize the Talent Tier!

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Ranged Assassin

Junkrat

Stats

  • Health increased from 1350 to 1425.
  • Health Regeneration increased from 2.813 to 2.969.

Talents

  • Level 4
    • Boom Pow [W]
      • Cooldown reduction increased from 8 to 9 seconds.
  • Level 7
    • Big As [E]
      • Armor reduction increased from 10 to 15.
  • Level 10
    • Rocket Ride [R2]
      • Damage increased from 815 to 890.

Developer Comment: From a balance perspective Junkrat's recent changes have been fairly successful. His talent pick and win rates are in a much healthier spot, and these follow-up changes are meant to even out his talents and slightly increase his power level.

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Li-Ming

Stats

  • Health increased from 1232 to 1270.
  • Health Regeneration increased from 2.57 to 2.65

Talents

  • Level 1
    • Astral Presence [Passive]
      • Removed.
    • Force Armor [Q]
      • Additional functionality: Mana regeneration is increased by 100% while below 35% maximum Mana.
  • Level 4
    • Triumvirate [W]
      • Additional functionality: Max range Arcane Orbs also refund 40 Mana.

Developer Comment: Li-Ming continues to be slightly lower performing than we would like, so these changes are directed at giving her a small survivability buff as well as a couple tweaks to under-performing Talents.

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Bug Fixes

General

  • Many abilities that were incorrectly incrementing Healing or Self Healing scores have been fixed.
  • Protected now contributes to Healing or Self Healing Score.
  • A.I. should no longer become stuck in a logic loop while attempting to capture Merc camps that have enemy structures nearby.

User Interface

  • Fixed additional issues that caused Gem purchase dialog show blank screen.
  • Fixed typos in Boost tooltips.
  • Fixed an issue where player names are cut off when they have a Boost active.

MAC

  • Fixed an issue that would cause mouse hover outlines for some objects to render solid black.
  • Fixed an issue that would cause area of effect circles to render with an incorrect color.

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