#159 - Into the Nexus: “Heroes 2: Electric Boogaloo”

• Garrett • Kyle • Jeff

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Intro:  Welcome to Into the Nexus! The Heroes of the Storm podcast!

News

Reminder, you can go to ITNcast.reddit.com to submit stories or upvote submissions for the next episode.

Heroes 2.0

The Big Conversations

• Master Skins and their mystery Epic taunt replacements
• Loot Boxes and gambling

• Cap on 70 free loot boxes based on account level.

• Do new players get more stuff? (yes)

• Hero specific loot boxes will help.

Heroes is getting Cheaper, but you will be left with odd Currency amounts after Purchase

• Basically, 1 cent = 1 gem, but you get a discount for buying in bulk.

Progression system Overhaul

• At the center of Heroes 2.0 is a massive overhaul to progression so that it’s more frequent, meaningful, and rewarding.
• No more level cap means the sky’s the XP limit
• Player level is the total of all Hero levels gained        You get a Loot Chest every time you level up
• Even bigger rewards at leveling milestones

Loot Chests

Heroes 2.0 introduces Loot Chests—packages received through progression or purchase that contain four random items drawn from nearly every awesome reward in the game, including playable Heroes and Loot Chest-exclusive items. Now all the fun rewards the game has to offer will become available to all players, including those who are strictly free-to-play.  

Basic Chests are awarded with every Player Level

• Rare, Epic, and Hero-specific Loot Chests are awarded for reaching specific milestones
• Reroll Loot Chest contents using Gold
• Loot Chest exclusives such as Prime Evil Diablo
• Guaranteed to drop at least one item of that chest’s rarity, or higher
• New Social & Customization Rewards
• Loot Chests will contain a wealth of new cosmetic rewards—taunt opponents with new Voice Lines, joke with teammates using Heroes Emojis, or . . . have Abathur call all the action in a match? Logical decision.  
• Announcers: Let some of your favorite Heroes call out your takedowns, kill streaks, and more
• Voice lines: Cheer on your allies and jeer your opponents with quotable catchphrases
• Emojis: A massive collection of stylized and Hero-specific Emojis make chat much more expressive both in and out of the game
• Banners: Raise a flag whenever you assert your dominance on the battleground
• Sprays: Make your mark on the field of battle by dropping unique icons and tags on the terrain
• Portraits: Show off your personality and expertise on loading screens and in your profile

Collection & Loadouts

The Heroes of the Storm in-game Shop is being replaced by the Collection—a central location for purchasing new items, crafting cosmetics using Shards, and browsing and sorting through just about every item in the game. Customizable Loadouts allow players to  gear up their Heroes so they inspire awe in allies and enemies alike.

• Collection better supports the diversity of new items in the game
• Forge the cosmetic rewards you’ve been dying to get using Shards—a new crafting material        Loadouts lets you outfit your Heroes with preferred skins, mounts, sprays, and more—even Announcers can be set on a per-Loadout basis
• Each Hero can have up to three Loadouts
• updated currency system
• Alongside Gold, we’re adding Gems as a new virtual currency, which combined with Shard crafting provide all Heroes of the Storm players with diverse options for acquiring playable Heroes and cosmetic rewards.
• Gold unlocks new Heroes and rerolls Loot Chests.
• Gems replace real money and are used to buy Heroes or items in the Featured Shop
• Players are awarded 1000 Gems at level 5 and occasionally receive more through progression        Featured items will rotate regularly
• Splitting skins up into their separate color variations makes it cheaper and easier to get exactly the item you want and nothing more

Links

• http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20638783/heroes-of-the-storm-20-open-beta-notes-march-29-2017-3-29-2017
• https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/62bglf/hero_price_drops_with_20/

Cassia

We’ll talk Balance and Map changes in the 2.0 next week.

After shattering the Worldstone, the young Amazon Cassia had changed. She had seen hatred, terror, and destruction firsthand. If the Askari were to survive the coming darkness, they needed an army. She would begin their training immediately.

Trait

• Avoidance

• When moving unmounted, Cassia gains 65 Physical Armor against Heroic Basic Attacks, reducing the damage taken by 65%.

Basic Abilities

• Lightning Fury (Q)

• Hurl a javelin that damages the first enemy hit, and splits into two lightning bolts that deal damage to enemies in their paths.

• Blinding Light (W)

• After 0.5 seconds, Blind enemies in the target area for 2 seconds.
• Passive: Cassia deals 15% increased damage to Blinded targets.

• Fend (E)

• Charge at an enemy and on arrival channel for 1.5 seconds, damaging enemies in front of Cassia every 0.25 seconds.
• Deals 50% reduced damage to non-Heroes.

Heroic Abilities

• Ball Lightning (R)

• Throw a ball of lightning at an enemy Hero that bounces up to 6 times between nearby enemy Heroes and Cassia, damaging enemies hit.

• Valkyrie (R)

• Summon a Valkyrie that rushes to Cassia after 0.75 seconds, pulling and damaging the first enemy Hero hit and stunning them for 0.5 seconds at the end of her rush.
• The Valkyrie knocks back all other enemy Heroes in her way.

Kyle’s Favorite Talents:

• Level 1 - Charged Strikes - Increase Basic attack damage for 8 seconds and attacks bounce to all nearby heroes.
• Level 20 - Titan’s Revenge: Basic Attacks ignore all armor and gives +2 range

Links

• http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20638783/heroes-of-the-storm-20-open-beta-notes-march-29-2017-3-29-2017

Stories from the Summit

• Meant a lot to see all the Heroes podcasters that were invited.
• The devs that work on this game are passionate players
• Uther rework
• MVP Uther
• Shawn Minoux

Heroes Advent Calendar

• April 12th - Heroes Timeline
• April 17th - New Hero and New Battleground
• April 18th - Launch Event
• April 19th - Reddit Q&A
• April 20th - New Bundles and New Program
• April 25th - Cinematic
• April 25th - Nexus Challenge 2.0
• May 4th - New Hero

Links

• http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/heroes20/

March 28th Balance Update

Only the stuff you need to know

For time sake we may just need to go nerf, buff, probius/Tassadar

Cho - Buff

Basic Attack damage increased from 120 to 130

Cho’s Basic Attacks now apply and refresh Consuming Blaze

Consuming Blaze (W)

• Healing amount increased from 30 to 40
• Basic Attack reapplication on Heroes now extends to all targets currently affected by Consuming Blaze

Upheaval (R)

• Damage increased from 100 to 175

Gall - Buff

Shadowflame (Q)

• Damage from 125 to 135

Talents

• Level 4 - Double Back (W)

• Bonus damage to non-heroic targets increased from 100 to 200%

• Level 20 - ​Psychotic Break (Passive)

• Now allows the use of Gall’s Heroic Abilities.

Developer Comments:  We have been actively reading the feedback for our friendly Ogre and cross-referencing it with our internal statistics. We are seeing great talent diversity and are happy with the new design, but feel that we can inject a bit more power into the duo. Today’s changes are focused on increasing Cho’s self-sustain and injecting a bit more damage into both ogres.

Ragnaros - Nerf

Basic Attack damage decreased from 180 to 171

Empower Sulfuras (Q)​

• Damage decreased from 201 to 191

Sulfuras Smash (R)​

• ​Cooldown increased from 60 to 80 seconds

Talents

Level 13

Resilient Flame (Passive)

• Cooldown increased from 10 to 15 seconds
• Armor bonus decreased from 50 to 40

Tychus - Buff

Minigun (D)

• Damage increased from 2 to 2.5% Max Health

Talents - Level 4

• The Bigger They Are (D)

• Damage threshold decreased from 40 to 35% maximum Health

Varian - Buff

Base Health increased from 2150 to 2322

Base Health Regeneration increased from 4.48 to 4.84

Taunt (R)

• Health bonus reduced from 40 to 30%

Level 4 - Warbringer (E)

• No longer increases the slow amount of Charge
• Cooldown reduction increased from 6 to 8 seconds

Level 13 - Juggernaut (E)

• Damage reduced from 5 to 4% of a Hero’s maximum Health

Developer Comments:  We think pushing the cooldown of Charge after taking Warbringer from 6 to 4 will push it further into the hyper-mobile style of gameplay that we want.  We removed the additional slow since it didn’t add much to actual gameplay (most people didn’t move when they were slowed).  Now Warbringer Varians will be zipping around the battlefield applying slows at a high frequency.  By increasing Varian’s base Health but lowering Taunt’s Health bonus, Twin Blades and Colossus Smash will have about 8% more Health through the game, while Taunt will only have a little more Health before 10.

Murky - Buff

Level 1 - Egg Hunt (D)

• Cooldown reduced from 6 to 3 seconds

Level 1 - Fish Eye (D)

• Vision bonus increased from 200 to 300%

Level 4 - Tufferfish (W)

• Bonus damage increased from 35 to 50%

Level 7 - Slippery When Wet (E)

• Movement Speed bonus increased from 40 to 50%
• Now also reduces the cooldown of Safety Bubble by 2 seconds

Level 16 - Wrath of Cod (W)

• Damage increased from 10 to 15% of maximum Health

Developer Comments:  These tuning changes were made to add a greater variety of viable Talent builds.  Overall each of these Talents weren’t performing to Murloc-Standard-Efficiency (MSE), so they’ve been buffed up to regulations.

Probius - Buff

Worker Rush (Z)

• Cooldown reduced from 40 to 30 seconds
• Now automatically activates when Probius is in the Hall of Storms

Warp in Pylon (D)

• Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds

Warp Rift (W)

• Range increased by 15%
• Slow amount increased from 20 to 25%

Photon Cannon (E)

• Damage increased from 95 to 105
• Duration increased from 11 to 13 seconds

Null Gate (R)

• Range increased by 12%
• Cooldown decreased from 40 to 30 seconds

Level 4 - Turbo Charged (Z)

• Cooldown reduction reduced from 20 to 10 seconds

Level 13 - Aggressive Matrix (D)

• Damage bonus increased from 20 to 25%

Level 13 - Shield Battery (D)

• Shield amount decreased by 13%

Level 16 - Interference (W)

• Duration increased from 3 to 5 seconds

Level 16 - Quantum Entanglement (W)

• Duration decreased from 3.5 to 3 seconds

Developer Comments:  We’re making several small tweaks to Probius across the board, largely to make him a little more powerful and, more importantly, more engaging to play.  Many of his abilities have had small tweaks to them to make them more usable, and we’re buffing the damage and duration of his Photon Cannons to make them more threatening.

Tassadar - Nerf

Plasma Shield (Q)

• Duration reduced from 8 to 5 seconds
• Life leech increased from 20 to 30%

Archon (R)

• Damage reduced from 175 to 166
• Splash damage reduced from 87.5 to 83

Level 1 - Khaydarin Resonance (Q)

• 15 Regen Globe quest
• Bonus Shield amount increased from 15 to 20%
• 30 Regen Globe quest
• No longer increases duration of Plasma Shield
• Now lowers the cooldown of Plasma Shield by 3 seconds

Level 4 - Khala’s Embrace (Q)

• Bonus life leech increased from 40 to 50%

Level 20 - Shield Battery (Active)

• Cooldown reduced from 75 to 60 seconds

Developer Comments:  The duration on Plasma Shield has always matched the Cooldown, but we are ready to try separating them. Enemy teams will now have a small window of time to deal meaningful damage between Shield applications (unless Tassadar fully unlocks Khaydarin Resonance). Since he is currently over-performing we are also looking to bring down the damage of Archon slightly.

Arthas - Nerf

Physical Armor decreased from 15 to 10

Level 16 - Remorseless Winter (E)

• Root duration from decreased from 1.75 to 1.25 seconds

Developer Comments:  We’re happy with the performance of Arthas, particularly as a capable solo-warrior that brings something unique to the team with Frozen Tempest. We’ve added a lot of power to this ability, so we’re reducing his Physical Armor from 15 down to 10 to better enable enemy heroes to get more value by poking him down. We’re also reducing the Root duration of Remorseless Winter to be more in line with similar effects.

Leoric - Buff

• Basic Attack damage increased from 138 to 150

Skeletal Swing (Q)

• Damage increased from 116 to 125

Level 16 - Renewed Swing (Q)

• Bonus swing damage increased from 50 to 80%

Developer Comments:  All shall suffer.

Links

• http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20649609/heroes-of-the-storm-balance-update-march-28-2017-3-28-2017

Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN

Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H, CheezyBob, and Mythdol.

Patron Thanks

• Taylor hotchkiss
• David Tsou
• Stephen Crane
• Christian Karrs
• Ollie cooley
• Brooke        Moysey
• Sam Greaves
• Daniel Thrasher

Outro

Patreon Shout Out

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Into the Nexus is produced by Amove.tv and our Patreon producers Declan H & CheezyBob! ITN coffee mugs and glasses are over at bit.ly/amovestore.

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Thanks to Brian Griffith, the musician responsible for our intro music. He can be found at briangriffithmusic.com or @briangriffith on twitter..

Personal Stuff

Garrett

Follow Garrett @GarrettArt

NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.

The Angry Chicken: A Hearthstone Podcast

The Angry Nerd

Kyle

A-move Radio

Kylefergusson.com

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