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Published on August 7, 2018

Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes – August 7, 2018

We’ve just released a new patch to Heroes of the Storm to introduce Whitemane, some balance adjustments, bug fixes, and a number of other changes.

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Heroes:

General Updates

Reduced the amount of bandwidth required to transfer gameplay information between the client and server.
Reduced the size of replay files.

Hero Balance Updates (3)

Jaina

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Base Abilities & Stats

Summon Water Elemental (R)

Damage reduced from 78 to 62
Damage now benefits from Frostbite
Damage now counts towards Frostbite’s quest

Stukov

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Developer Comment

** In the same vein as our earlier changes to Kael’thas, we felt that Stukov could use some love in the talent diversity department. We’ve made a number of functionality changes that should open up new builds and play styles, particularly in his earlier talent tiers. Return ### Collection New Bundles

Talent Changes

Level 1

General

Low Blow (E)
Bonus damage reduced from 150 to 100%
Poppin’ Pustules (D)
No longer has a Quest component
New functionality:
Detonating a Weighted Pustule within 1.5 seconds of it expiring increases its damage by 100% and applies its damage and slow in an area
Explosion radius reduced from 4.5 to 3.75
Biotic Armor (Q)
Physical Armor reduced from 50 to 15
Now works on all targets that have Healing Pathogen
Additional Functionality:
Now also grants 50 Physical Armor for 2.5 seconds to targets who have Healing Pathogen when Bio-Kill Switch is detonated
Vigorous Reuptake (D)
No longer has a Quest component
New functionality:
Bio-Kill Switch’s healing is increased by 25% if 3 or more targets have Healing Pathogen on them when Bio-Kill Switch is detonated
Within My Reach (E)
Removed
The Long Pitch (W)
Bonus range reduced from 100 to 50%
Additional functionality:
Detonating 2 or more Weighted Pustules with a single cast of Bio-Kill Switch causes the cooldowns of non-Heroic abilities to recharge 100% faster for 3 seconds.
Growing Infestation (E)
No longer increases the cooldown of Lurking Arm
New functionality:
Now reduces Lurking Arm’s channel duration to 4 seconds
It Hungers (E)
New functionality:
Increase the range of Lurking Arm by 20%. If Lurking Arm hits enemy Heroes 15 times, reset its cooldown and refund its Mana cost
Push Comes to Shove (R)
Speed bonus removed
Additional functionality:
After colliding with terrain, enemy Heroes are slowed by 50% for 4 seconds
Top Off (Q)
Bonus healing reduced from 50% to 30%
Adjusted Functionality:
Increased healing is now applied to all targets that have Healing Pathogen
The following new bundles are available for a limited time! Be sure to check out the latest In-Development blog for more details.
Bow Before Viper Bundle
Whitemane Heroic Bundle
Sidewinder Ana Skin Pack
Imperator Stukov Skin Pack
Deathfang Genji Skin Pack
Whitemane

Level 4

Whitemane

Scarlet Whitemane
Twilight Whitemane
Celestial Empress Whitemane
Galactic Empress Whitemane
Warpspace Empress Whitemane

Ana

Sidewinder Ana
Noxious Sidewinder Ana
Arctic Sidewinder Ana

Stukov

Imperator Stukov
Noxious Imperator Stukov
Arctic Imperator Stukov

Genji

Deathfang Genji
Noxious Deathfang Genji
Arctic Deathfang Genji

Muradin

Butterscotch Kandy King Muradin
Frosted Kandy King Muradin

Lunara

Emerald Lunara

Murky

Clownfish Murky

Chen

Pristine Chen

Chromie

Obsidian Chromie

Viper Dominator

Hazardous Viper Dominator
Noxious Viper Dominator
Several new emoji packs and portraits have also been added to the game. You can get a look in our most recent In-Development blog.

Chromie

Hero Balance Adjustments

Stats Builds Impact

Developer Comment

** We’re making a few changes to Chromie to reduce the frustration when playing against her and to reduce her wide power variance between games. A number of these changes are designed to increase counter-play when playing against Chromie, like reducing her range on her abilities and letting enemies see Dragon’s Breath shortly after it has been cast. In exchange, Chromie’s Sand Blast has a shorter cast time, and she will now have a modified version of Bronze Talons baseline, where she can weave in auto-attacks for hitting enemy Heroes with her abilities. The reason we decided to give her the additional Bronze Talons trait is so that Chromie players are encouraged to interact more with their opponents. We’re rewarding them for getting into more dangerous positions with the possibility of increased damage output. This also lets us redistribute her damage away from her high burst, long range abilities, and more into something her opponents have a better opportunity to play around. We like Chromie’s unique place in our game as a long-range, artillery mage that requires enemies to pay attention to their positioning but over time we found that she simply had too much range and burst for players to feel like they had an engaging experience when playing against her. While we’ve had a blast with these changes, we’ll continue to keep an eye on her going forward and are prepared to make additional tweaks as needed. Return

Base Abilities & Stats

General Base Stats

Basic Attack Range has been increased from 5.5 to 7

Sand Blast (Q)

No longer gains bonus damage when hitting enemy Heroes
Range has been decreased from 17 to 15
Scaling damage increased from 2 to 4%
Echo scaling damage increased from 2 to 4%
Cast time decreased from 1 to .8 seconds
Mana cost decreased from 20 to 15

Past and Future Me (Sand Blast Quest)

Echo unlock requirements reduced from 60 to 50 Sand Blast hits

Dragon’s Breath (W)

Mana cost reduced from 70 to 50
Range decreased from 17 to 15
Dragon’s Breath’s ground splat is now visible to enemies .5 seconds after cast
Damage reduced from 480 to 360
Cooldown reduced from 12 to 9 seconds

Trait Addition: Bronze Talons

Hitting an enemy Hero with a Basic Ability increases the damage of Chromie’s next Basic Attack by 100%

Talent Changes

Level 1

General

Mounting Sand (Q)
Additional Functionality:
Now also increases the damage of Sand Blast’s Echo by 40%
Timewalker’s Pursuit (Active)
Adjusted Functionality:
No longer grants Mana Regeneration per Regen Globe gathered. Now grants 1 extra Mana Regeneration on quest complete.
Bronze Talons (Passive)
Removed

Level 2

New Talent: Draconic Barrage (Trait)

Increase the bonus Basic Attack damage from casting Abilities by an additional 100%. Hitting an enemy Hero with Sand Blast grants 2 empowered Basic Attacks.
Mobius Loop (W)
New functionality:
If an enemy Hero is hit by Dragon’s Breath, lower the cooldown by 2 seconds and refund the Mana cost
Chrono Sickness (E)
Slow amount reduced from 50 to 35%
Time Out (Active)
Duration reduced from 7 to 5 seconds
Fast Forward (Q)
Range requirement reduced from 75 to 70%
Quantum Overdrive (Active)
Ability Power bonus increased from 20 to 25%

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed a number of typo and tooltip errors across several aspects of the game.
Fixed an issue causing some abilities to repeatedly automatically cast if right-click was held.
Fixed an issue that prevented players from responding to whispers from other players with the “Only allow friends to send me messages” option enabled.
Quick Cast: Fixed an issue causing some vector targeted abilities to behave as if quick cast was always enabled.
Quick Cast: ‘On Release’ commands are now immediately fired when the hotkey for another ability is pressed. This should prevent some ‘lost keypress’ issues when firing abilities in rapid succession.

Sound

Increased the volume of Alarak’s announcer pack.

Art

Diablo: Fixed an issue with the geometry of Diablo’s tail.

Battlegrounds

Alterac Pass: Fixed an issue that could cause the Cavalry’s aura effect to fail to display on low settings.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

Abathur: Fixed an issue causing Abathur’s Monstosity to fail to gain damage when nearby enemy Minions are slain.
Chromie: Fixed an issue that could cause Chromie’s next attack after landing a Sand Blast hit to fail to gain the Bronze Talons effect if she was attacking from maximum range.
Hanzo: The Target Practice quest tracker will now differentiate between targets that have been hit 3 times and those who haven’t been hit at all.
Jaina: Fixed an issue that allowed the Water Elemental’s attacks to progress the Frostbite quest progress against unchilled targets.
Leoric: Fixed an issue causing the visual effect seen on Heroes affected by Ominous Wraith to fail to appear.
Lt. Morales: Healing Beam will no longer heal units affected by Time Stop.
Medivh: Medivh the Black’s raven has been updated to match the theme of the skin.
Medivh: Medivh can now be selected while in Raven Form when attempting to view his target info panel.
Medivh: Portal Mastery portals can now be affected by cooldown reduction.
Stukov: Fixed an issue that could prevent Virulent Reaction from rooting targets if the Poppin Pustules talent was chosen.

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