Data provided by Heroes Profile
Published on April 17, 2019
Heroes of the Storm has just been updated with Hero balance changes! Read on for details.
Developer Comment: These changes should help address both queue times for certain party sizes while also removing the pre-game bias that forms when facing parties of players that may be larger than your own. In order to ensure fair matches are created, one of the variables used to determine whether a match has an acceptable win probability is the party size. In the event the party sizes across both teams aren’t equal ([5]vs[1-1-1-1-1] for example), other variables will be weighted differently to make sure the match created is balanced. One example of this is that a team of [5] may have a lower MMR vs a team of [1-1-1-1-1] to help balance out the advantage.
**While we are very happy with Ana's new direction since her rework, her early level talent diversity is not as great as we would like. We’re improving some of her other options to better compete with Biotic Grenade-focused talents and slightly nerfing the Grenade build, which we’re hoping will open up new ways to play her.
General
**In addition to reducing Cursed Strikes Mana cost to more normalize Xul’s Mana usage compared to other Heroes, we are also buffing Reaper’s Toll, which has been underperforming compared to other talents on its tier.
Cursed Strikes (W)
General
**With these changes, we're trying to buff up Yrel’s lesser-picked talents to compete with their counterparts. I’m trying to think of ways to fluff up this dev comment but there’s not much more to say here… so yeah, that’s it! ### Healer
General
**We’ve gotten feedback from players that they missed the old Quick Mind talent that existed before Alarak’s rework, as it allowed them to use Telekinesis in more creative ways since they felt more free to cast the ability when it was on a shorter cooldown. We agree, and we're using the Ruthless Momentum talent to allow this to happen. Instead of reducing all of Alarak’s cooldowns, we're instead specializing the talent to greatly reduce the cooldown of Telekinesis. This should allow players who pick this talent to reposition themselves, peel for their allies, or fish for initiations on the enemy more often.
Discord Strike (Q)
General
**For Arthas' Mana tension, we decided to give him some of the benefit for taking Frozen Wastes at Level 4 baseline. We still like that he has relatively high Mana tension that he can reduce by taking Eternal Hunger or Frozen Wastes, but we feel that he is currently too dependent on taking one of these talents, so we are reducing the opportunity cost for going with other options.
Frozen Tempest (E)
General
**We took a look at some of Dehaka’s less popular talents and are making some changes that should open up new build paths for everyone’s favorite Primal Zerg.
General
**Lúcio’s rework has turned out to be pretty balanced so far. We're seeing both decent win rates and talent pick rates across the gathered data. There were a couple outliers that we have made some small changes to, especially the higher Mana cost of High Five. We will continue to monitor and make additional tweaks as necessary!
General
**While we felt that the talent offered some cool gameplay for Rehgar, we removed Lightning Bond in the past due to its ability to make Rehgar incredibly powerful at clearing Minion waves and taking Mercenary Camps at a time in the game where these aspects of a Hero are incredibly powerful. We’re giving him back that power, but introducing it at Level 16, where its primary focus will more often be on improving his team fighting potential.
General
**An unintended side-effect of buffing the damage of Misha, Charge! to be much more meaningful was its interaction with Easy Prey. We intend Easy Prey to be the better talent when taking Mercenary Camps, while having a smaller effect of buffing Rexxar’s general wave clear. When this talent also becomes the best Wave Clear option, it encroaches too much on Bird of Prey’s design space, so we’re removing that functionality.
General
**In order to improve the pick and win rates of Reactive Ballistospores and Poppin’ Pustules, we're switching the talents with one another. This should open up new talent synergy possibilities for Poppin’ Pustules and offer the considerable strength of Reactive Ballistospores earlier in the game. We’re also buffing Biotic Armor to be a fairly significant Physical Armor buff when Bio-Kill Switch is activated, which should make its moment of power feel much more meaningful.
General
**In addition to bringing Varian’s Mana costs in line, we are slightly increasing the power of Lion’s Maw and reducing the power of High King’s Quest. Currently High King’s Quest is outperforming other options on the tier, and is the go-to talent when going Twin Blades, which we are also seeing perform a little too well at the lower to mid-levels of play.
Parry (W)
General
**Abathur has been performing fairly well since his rework. However, his non-Carapace related talents could use some love compared to other options. We're giving Abathur some buffs to play styles that focus more on controlling the map and taking some power out of Carapace to compensate. ### Melee Assassin
Locust Strain (Trait)
Carapace (E)
General
**To promote some build diversity away from Globe of Annihilation, we're moving around some of Azmodan’s Mana costs. We are increasing the Mana cost of Globe of Annihilation, but reducing it from Summon Demon Warrior and All Shall Burn. This should make Azmodan think a little more in the early game about casting optimal Globes to stack properly, while leaving him freer to use his other abilities when necessary. In the later parts of the game, this should also be a buff to other non-Q centric talents like Hell Rift and Sin’s Grasp.
Globe of Annihilation (Q)
Summon Demon Warrior (W)
All Shall Burn (E)
General
**We’re pretty happy with how Chromie’s rework is playing, though there is a small amount of space to buff her up overall (even with the understanding that her winrate will go up as players get used to her new playstyle). We’re trying to give a small buff to her base kit, while also balancing out a few of the Talent tiers. In particular, we’re changing Blessing of the Bronze to be an activated ability, so that opponents have greater counterplay. Chromie (and the community) saw this one coming, so we were ready to pull the trigger quickly on this change.
General Base Stats
Sand Blast (Q)
Dragon's Breath (W)
Time Trap (E)
General
**Despite our recent buffs, Deckard is still underperforming compared to other Heroes. While before we generally targeted his later talents, this time we are targeting his base kit and earlier talents, which should have a greater impact on his performance over the entire game.
Healing Potion (Q)
Horadric Cube (W)
General
**Imperius is performing exactly where we would like him to, with a win rate of exactly 50.0% at high level play. While we love basking in this balance nirvana, Imperius does suffer from some pick rate issues, particularly in his earlier tiers. Rather than only nerfing the talents that are often picked, we are instead looking to buff up the alternatives in hope that they see more play.
Solarian's Fire (W)
Molten Armor (E)
General
**We promised Tomo00 that we would do this in our last AMA. This is us keeping that promise. Our reasoning behind this change is that we want to make Tormented Souls more interesting, but due to its ease of use and previous meta-defining power, we are hesitant to give mechanics like more Healing, Armor, or Life Steal that simply add power to the Heroic. Instead, we are giving Malthael the ability to create more options for himself by having more opportunities to move around the battlefield with Wraith Strike.
General
**Possession provides Sylvanas a significant swing in pushing power while also outperforming other talents in its tier. To bring both of these in line, we're increasing its cooldown so that she has to think more about when she wants to use its effect.
General
**Since his last round of changes, Anub'arak has been performing a little too well. We're knocking him down a peg with small nerfs to his overall damage, Legion of Beetles, and Cocoon.
General Base Stats
Impale (Q)
Burrow Charge (E)
General
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