Data provided by Heroes Profile
Published on November 4, 2020
Heroes of the Storm has just been updated with Hero balance changes! Read on for details.
Warhead Junction
Developer Comment: Since the release of the Battleground, we have been hearing two resounding pieces of feedback: the map is very large and teams find it difficult to engage with each other due to the amount of ground needed to cover while picking up Warheads, and very often the game either ends up being a base-race as each team takes a Junk Swarm Host and tries to push opposite lanes to end fastest. To address this we have added a couple of Sewage Tunnels (think teleporters) to the map, one of which replaces the bottom Junk Swarm Host, and added an additional Sight Tower to allow teams to keep an eye on the bottom tunnel. We feel like these changes have been a breath of fresh air for Warhead Junction and are excited to hear your feedback!
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**These are some fairly minor buffs to underperforming talents. We don’t expect huge shifts with these changes, but saw room to make Chen players’ lives a little more fun, so we’re doing it!
Freshest Ingredients [Trait]
Deadly Strike [Q]
Gift of the Ox [E]
**We’re generally very happy with where D.Va has landed since her rework, but Rush Down is still a little too strong and is a large part of D.Va’s power pie, so we’re continuing to tone it down.
Rush Down [Q]
**Mocking Strikes is slightly underperforming compared to other options, so we’re taking its benefit and making half of it more universally available, which should make the talent less risky to take and get value from.
Mocking Strikes [Passive]
**Over the years we’ve nerfed heroes like Dehaka quite a bit due to how effective players became at utilizing the power of their global presence on large maps. Dehaka has had a lower win-rate for quite some time due to this, so we’re looking to give him back some of the power he previously had.
Dark Swarm [W]
Lurker Strain [E]
Paralyzing Enzymes [Q]
Primal Rage [Trait]
Change is Survival [R2]
Apex Predator [Z]
**Leoric is slightly out of the meta and is currently sitting at around a 48% win rate. We’re giving him some small buffs with a focus on his Level 20 talents to make them more interesting and powerful to use.
General Base Stats
Unyielding Despair [W]
Hardened Bones [W]
Burning Despair [W]
Shroud of the Dead King [Active]
**We’re making some functionality changes to some of Lunara’s talents, particularly when it comes to her Q build, with the aim of making their benefits more easily accessible. We’re also giving a small range increase to Lunara’s Basic Attacks to Starwood Spear as a baseline buff for picking the talent. While we know the range increase is small, we are nervous about giving too much of a range increase to a Hero who has a Movement Speed bonus as a baseline feature of the character, so we’ll be keeping an eye on this buff and will increase the bonus more if we feel it is appropriate.
Blossom Swell [Q]
Accelerated Contamination [Q]
Starwood Spear [W]
**We’re taking a look at Orphea’s Level 20 talents and adding some power to them to make them more fun to choose between. While doing this pass, we saw a couple places to improve her overall talent picks, so we adjusted Allegrissimo and Insatiable as well.
Allegrissimo [Q]
Insatiable [W]
Monster Within [R1]
Engulfing Oblivion [R2]
Final Toccata [Active]
**We anticipated that Tychus’s early game talents would have a shake-up with how much power we added to them, but we had a bit of an oversight with Quarterback. While moving a talent from Level 7 to Level 1 would seem competitive in and of itself, the power we added to its alternatives caused the talent to be overshadowed, so we’re adding some more beef to it and to the W build in general to make it more of a compelling way to build Tychus.
Quarterback [W]
**Despite some other recent buffs, Varian is still a bit behind other heroes in regards to his general power level. Since this is true for all 3 ways to build him, we’re giving him a pretty decent Health buff as well as buffing up a few of his talents to help him out.
General Base Stats
Lion’s Maw [Q]
High King’s Quest [Passive]
Demoralizing Shout [Active]
**We saw some feedback that Azmodan’s All Shall Burn felt awkward due to not getting various procs if the target dies while he is channeling on them. This was initially intended by us due to concerns of it being too powerful and resulting in some strange moments when playing against it, but we’ve since come around and agree the lack of usability is hurting these talents and Azmodan as a whole more than it’s helping, so we’re going to try allowing these procs to occur, even if the target dies.
General
**It’s been a long time since we updated Falstad, so we took a look at him and saw a few talents that could be improved. In general many of his talent tiers have two choices that players seem to heavily prefer over the third option, so we’re trying to create a larger incentive for players to think about choosing those talents that they currently aren’t picking.
Gathering Storm [Q]
**Gazlowe is a little bit too powerful after our last round of changes to him, so we’re pulling back a bit on some of our buffs and on some of his overperforming talents. Overall, he’s in a much healthier place, and we both desire and expect that he’ll be a relevant part of the meta, even after these nerfs.
Rock-It! Turret [Q]
Deth Lazor [W]
Big Game Hunter [Trait]
Rock It Sock It [Q]
Superior Schematics [Q]
Ark Reaktor [E]
**Malthael’s talents and overall performance are in a good place but Throwing Shade and Memento Mori have been lesser picked talents for some time. We’re adding some new functionality to Throwing Shade to make it more attractive, and buffing Memento Mori’s damage bonus to help it compete against his other Level 16 options.
Throwing Shade [E]
Memento Mori [Trait]
**We’re doing a small additional buff to Mind Control, as well as trying to give Withering Barrage some functionality that is worthy of a Level 20 talent.
Mind Control [R2]
Dark Lady’s Call [R2]
Withering Barrage [Q]
**We’re making some changes to Anub’arak’s Level 20 talents to make them feel more heroic to take. Currently Rewind is dominating this tier due to being both very powerful on its own and fitting Anub’arak’s kit in a great way. We like this and don’t want to take away from it, so we’re looking to make his other choices also feel great when picked.
Hive Master [R1]
Cryptweave [R2]
Hardened Shield [Active]
New Talent: The Traitor King [Active]
**Mal’ganis is underperforming compared to other Warriors. His talents are in a great place since his rework, so we’re giving back some of his Health so that he can more effectively tank for his team.
General Base Stats
Echo of Doom [W]
**We read some feedback that since our global Movement Speed increase many patches ago, Alexstrasza has a bit of awkwardness where she can outrun her Abundance proc, even when it is cast at max range. We agree and feel she can use a small buff in general, so we’re giving Abundance a range increase.
Abundance [W]
Preservation [W]
**Sgt. Hammer hasn’t seen large changes for some time, particularly to talents like Maelstrom Rounds and Mechanical Know-how. As you’ve probably seen as a theme of this patch, these talents aren’t too popular so we’re helping them out by giving them bonuses that should be more consistently achievable.
Maelstrom Rounds [Active]
Barricade [W]
Pulse Detonation Core [Q]
Graduating Range [Trait]
Mechanical Know-how [E]