BALANCE

Published on March 21, 2018

Heroes of the Storm Balance Patch Notes – March 21, 2018

Our most recent Heroes of the Storm patch is now live containing a number of balance changes and bug fixes.

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Heroes:

Battlegrounds & Map Updates

Towers of Doom & Haunted Mines

Increased the respawn timer of Sapper Camps by 30 seconds.

Hero Balance Updates (12)

Blaze

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Developer Comment

** While we love the creative uses of Bunker Drop, at the higher levels of play it is slightly too effective.  These changes are designed to decrease the overall power of the Bunker when it’s used purely to dodge enemy abilities and clear debuffs. We’d like to ensure that players who get into the Bunker are committed to being inside, if only briefly. 

Base Abilities & Stats

Bunker Drop (R)

Cooldown increased from 40 to 50 seconds
Exit Bunker now has a 1 Second cooldown before it can be used

Maiev

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Developer Comment

** Maiev is still a powerhouse in the Nexus. To combat this, we’re reducing Maiev’s damage potential by lowering Fan of Knives damage and Blade Dance (which has powerful synergy with Armored Assault, another overperforming Talent.) We’re also allowing opponents more opportunities to punish Maiev by increasing Vault of the Wardens’ cooldown and reducing the power of Shadow Armor.

Base Abilities & Stats

Vault of Wardens (D)

Cooldown increased from 9 to 12 seconds

Fan of Knives (Q)

Damage reduced from 162 to 152

Containment Disk (R)

Cooldown reduced from 65 to 50 seconds

Warden’s Cage (R)

Cooldown increased from 80 to 100 seconds

Talent Changes

Level 7

General

Blade Dance (Q)
Damage reduced from 54 to 50
Shadow Armor (E)
Armor reduced from 25 to 20

Sonya

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Developer Comment

** Sonya is getting a bit too much value out of the combination of all the Ancient Spear talents, so we’re reducing the amount of cooldown reduction she gets to keep these from being the default choices. We’re also reducing the healing potential of Battle Rage at level 4 as it was providing a bit too much generic survivability for an early game talent. Finally, we’re increasing the damage bonus provided by Furious Blows to make it a more attractive damage option against the other two survivability talents.

Talent Changes

Level 1

General

Furious Blow (W)
Damage bonus increased from 40 to 50%
Battle Rage (Active)
Max charges reduced from 3 to 2
Charge use cooldown increased from 5 to 8 seconds
Mystical Spear (Q)
Cooldown reduction reduced from 3 to 2 seconds
Rampage (Passive)
Ancient Spear cooldown reduction decreased from .75 to .5 seconds

Valla

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Base Abilities & Stats

Multishot (W)

Damage increased from 165 to 172

Auriel

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Developer Comment

** Auriel has been overlooked in favor of other supports recently, so to increase her self-Hope generation and play-making potential, we’re increasing her Basic Attack damage and reducing the cooldown of Detainment Strike. We’ve also made some Talent adjustments so players feel like they have a greater variety of choices at the various tiers.

Base Abilities & Stats

General Base Stats

Basic Attack damage increased from 57 to 68

Detainment Strike (E)

Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds

Resurrect (R)

Range increased from 5 to 7
Cooldown reduced from 100 to 80 seconds

Talent Changes

Level 7

General

Energized Cord (Passive)
Energy stored from Basic Attacks against non-Heroic targets reduced from 50 to 40%
Blinding Flash (Q)
Blind duration reduced from 2.25 to 2 seconds
Diamond Resolve (R)
Armor increased from 50 to 60
Angelic Flight (Active)
Cooldown reduced from 45 to 30 seconds

Medivh

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Talent Changes

Level 7

General

Arcane Explosion (W)
Additional damage from enemy damage absorbed reduced from 365 to 350
Force of Magic (W)
Bonus Spell Power duration increased from 12 to 15 seconds
Reabsorption (W)
Healing amount increased from 50 to 60%

Thrall

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Developer Comment

** With the increased bounce range of Chain lightning, the Crash Lightning talent has become overly dominant. While we enjoy the build, as it allows Thrall to play outside of the solo-lane, in its current state it is simply too powerful. By lowering the maximum stacks, we’re reducing the upper damage limit to lessen the impact of the extreme situations where Thrall is completely stacked. Additionally, with the Quest Completion moving back to 30 stacks, it’s going to be harder for Thrall to finish the talent, pushing this power-spike to later in the match.

Talent Changes

Level 1

General

Crash Lightning (Q)
Maximum damage bonus reduced from 480 to 360
Quest completion reward requirement increased from 20 to 30 stacks

Tyrael

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Talent Changes

Level 1

General

Justice for All (W)
Allied Shield bonus reduced from 100 to 75%

Bug Fixes

Heroes can no longer cast Area-of-Effect abilities globally before the gates open.
Malthael: Fixed an issue with the size of Death Shroud’s area of effect.
Samuro: Fixed an issue with the Three Blade Style talent that prevented Mirror Images from gaining bonus health.
Samuro: Fixed an issue causing the Quest Complete fanfare to play every time Mirror Images was cast after choosing the Way of Illusion talent.
Valla: Fixed an issue causing the Punishment talent to deal less bonus damage than intended.

Artanis

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Base Abilities & Stats

Blade Dash (Q)

Mana cost reduced from 65 to 55

Twin Blades (W)

Mana cost reduced from 25 to 20

Talent Changes

Level 13

General

Templar’s Zeal (Q)
Faster cooldown rate increased from 200 to 300%

Zul'jin

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Base Abilities & Stats

General Base Stats

Basic Attack damage increased from 90 to 94

Talent Changes

Level 13

General

Ensnare (Active)
Cooldown reduced from 60 to 45 seconds

Greymane

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Developer Comment

** We’re increasing the cooldown of Razor Swipe in an effort to stem some of Greymane’s effectiveness when taking Mercenaries and clearing Minion waves.  Currently, Greymane’s play-style is great, but he does everything a little too well, which makes him a consistently safe pick. To curb this, we’d like to remove some of the PvE-oriented power from his kit.

Base Abilities & Stats

Razor Swipe (Q)

Cooldown increased from 3 to 4 seconds

Talent Changes

Level 13

General

Visceral Attacks (Q)
Cooldown reduction increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds per Basic Attack

Malfurion

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Talent Changes

Level 1

General

Nature’s Swiftness (Q)
Movement Speed reduced from 5 to 4% per Hero affected by Regrowth
Nature’s Balance (Q/W)
Bonus Regrowth duration reduced from 5 to 3 seconds

Bug Fixes

General

Tyrael: Fixed an issue causing some Mecha Tyrael skins to appear untextured.
Johanna: Fixed an issue causing a placeholder sphere to appear when using Johanna’s Shield Glare ability with an Enforcer skin equipped.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

Heroes can no longer cast Area-of-Effect abilities globally before the gates open.
Malthael: Fixed an issue with the size of Death Shroud’s area of effect.
Samuro: Fixed an issue with the Three Blade Style talent that prevented Mirror Images from gaining bonus health.
Samuro: Fixed an issue causing the Quest Complete fanfare to play every time Mirror Images was cast after choosing the Way of Illusion talent.
Valla: Fixed an issue causing the Punishment talent to deal less bonus damage than intended.