#91 - Into the Nexus: “Ess of... GONE!”

• Garrett • Kyle 

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• Patreon.com/ITN

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

Check out Games Bond #3 where Kyle and I started Heroes smurf accounts

Reminder: Heroes Charity Brawl Announcement!

February 20th, 12pm Mountain Time!

Live Streamed on the Frogpants Twitch Channel!

http://twitch.tv/frogpants_scott

heroescharitybrawl.com

THE CORE PODCAST, INTO THE NEXUS, LORDS OF THE STORM and STORMCAST have joined forces to host the first ever HEROES CHARITY BRAWL! An event where we play the game, talk about the game and raise money for a Worthy Cause, The Make A Wish Foundation!

For FUN GAMES!

We will CLOSE the campaign on February 21st, 2016!

We thank you so much for your support! See YOU at the BRAWL!

News

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

Kael'thas down 10.6% since last week.

Balance Update

LI-MING

Astral Presence (Talent)

• Mana Regeneration bonus now only triggers while below 25% Mana, rather than 50%

Diamond Skin (Talent)

• Shield amount decreased from 25% to 20% of maximum Health

Tal Rasha’s Elements (Talent)

• Ability Power bonus decreased from 20% to 10%

Magic Missiles (Q)

• Damage reduced from 147 (+3.5% per level) to 147 (+3% per level)

Arcane Orb (W)

• Ess of Johan (Talent) removed

Triumvirate (Talent)

• Distance traveled requirement reduced from 80% to 65% of maximum distance

Developer Comments: Li-Ming is a little too strong right now. Her ability to deal incredible damage is awesome, it was just happening too often, too easily. We’ve nerfed Astral Presence and Diamond Skin to preserve a couple of her core weaknesses: Mana tension and fragility. We’ve also removed Ess of Johan, because we found that it made landing Magic Missiles too easy. While we know that a lot of players really enjoy Ess of Johan, we think that it will be better for Li-Ming in the long run to preserve her high skill cap.

Li Ming fell 7.8% yesterday.

REHGAR

Lightning Shield (W)

• Rising Storm (Talent)

• Damage bonus reduced from  20% to 10% per stack

• Maximum stacks increased from 10 to 20

Developer Comments: Rehgar is still doing too much damage with his Lightning Shield. We like the high potential for damage output in this Talent, as chasing the dream is fun! However, we found that Rehgar players were reaching high damage values too fast, and reaching maximum stacks early became the rule rather than the exception.

Reghar fell 0.4% yesterday

ANUB'ARAK

Hardened Carapace (W)

• Shield amount increased from 242 (+4% per level) to 260 (+4% per level)

Developer Comments: Anub’arak’s survivability is a little low right now, though not by much. We think that increasing it by buffing his low cooldown Shield helps him feel unique, and will give him a slight nudge toward becoming another enticing Warrior option at all levels of play.

Anub’arak fell 1.3% yesterday

STITCHES

• Devour (E)

• Last Bite (Talent)

• Cooldown reduction on kill decreased from 15 to 12 seconds

Developer Comments: We started to notice a few situations where Stitches, after selecting Last Bite, would feel nigh unkillable when fighting near Minion waves or around Battleground Events that featured lots of small Monsters, like Infernal Shrines. We think this smaller nerf will embrace those situations without allowing them get out of control.

Stitches fell 0.2% yesterday

Links

• http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20038832/heroes-of-the-storm-balance-update-notes-february-17-2016-2-17-2016

Current State of Matchmaking

Report since Phase 1 Update

• 97% of games are falling within the 45%-55% win category.
• Only 5/10,000 pit Veterans against new players.
• Only 3/10,000 games have support vs. no support or Warrior vs. no Warrior.
• Solo Players have only battled a full team 29/10,000 matches.
• Queue Times have Increased from 80 seconds to 130 seconds average.

Distinctive Heroes in Quick Match

New rule that will stop the following heroes from being grouped together in QM outside of a premade party.

• Abathur
• Cho’gall
• Lt. Morales
• Murky
• Nova
• The Lost Vikings

Links

• http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20034041/the-current-state-of-matchmaking-2-17-2016

Dustin Tweets

Team is looking at Arthas’s Talents

Cho’gall will not count towards your 14 heroes needed in Hero League with bans

Stitches Bug is under investigation. No ETA

Death Recap in Playtesting

Future: Li Ming might not be able to teleport out of Pyroblast

Future: Muting someone will mute their pings

Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN

Patron Thanks

• Geno M
• Brandon B
• Halverine
• 2Ham
• Haakon E

Strategy

Laning Specifics - Most Valuable Lane and Tips

Dreadnaught put together a great video describing map basics.

• This is the main information. We will state this as facts, but preface that there are always exceptions.

• This a tip about the map

Towers of Doom: 1-1-3

• Most Valuable Lane: Bottom You have 2 mercs down there that can deal up to 3 core damage each if the opponents' bottom fort is destroyed. For this reason it is best to cap those mercs when they can shoot straight for the core.
• Top lane is the safest, bottom lane the most dangerous.

• Sieging is irrelevant, so xp soak is the name of the game
• If you destroy all 3 of the opponents' forts, their core will take 1 damage every few seconds.

Infernal Shrines: 1-1-3

• Most Valuable Lane: Top Only Shamans matter for mercs.

• Punishers are the worst objective Monster. Don’t die for them. Bait Punishers over the wall.
• Skeletons at objectives take forever to kill, so sustain comps will have an easier time contesting objectives.
• If you kill one opponent, get back to completing the objective

Battlefield of Eternity: 1-4

• Attack their immortal, do not defend yours. If they come defend, nope the hell out of there. When they leave, go back to their immortal. The reason for this is that because of proximity, they'll be doing less damage to your immortal than you will to theirs. Losing the race is still better than defending (immortal's shield will be weaker).
• 4 players push/defend with/against the immortal, 1 must soak.

• Be at the objective when it spawns, not after it has spawned

Tomb of the Spider Queen: 1-4 (Top and Mid Rotate)

• Most Valuable Lane: Top Push this out with Spider Queens so you have Boss Control. Use bosses to safely turn in afterwards.
• Bottom lane is the safest, solo goes there.

• Mercs don't matter at all.

Sky Temple: 1-3-1

• Most Valuable Lane: Bottom (Boss + bot shrine activates the most often)
• Mid shrine is slightly more valuable since it fires on towers first, equalling more XP quicker than fort attacks.

• The team to get on the shrine first almost always wins.
• Do not contest mid shrine without controlling sight.
• Destroy the enemies bottom well before that second bottom objective pops.

Blackheart's Bay: 4-1

• Most Valuable Lane: Top for boss.
• At 1:55 one of the 4 players separates to jungle.
• As the game starts, clear the top lane wave first then rotate to mid as chest spawns at 0:50.

• If opponents react to mercs you turn in, if they don't you get value out of mercs.
• Turn in with a talent tier advantage if possible.

Cursed Hollow: 1-1-1 (with 2 roam)

• Get the giants camp at 1:50 (it will start split pushing as the first objective spawns)
• Get mercs after you have finished fighting over tributes, they will start split pushing as the following tribute spawns.

• Once you get the curse, NEVER go get mercs or start fighting a boss right away.

Dragon Shire: 1-3-1

• Put your best laner top
• Put your best Waveclear mid
• Put your support bottom

• Push out mid and bottom first so you control the “Bermuda Triangle”

Garden of Terror: 1-1-1 (2 Roaming)

• Top is easier to gank if you're the blue team, bot is if you're the red team.
• Always go for objectives the second that they spawn.

• Never let your tank or support take the terror. Squishiest/most useless hero in team fights should take it.

Dread Breaks Down Every Map

Emails

Chad

We can all agree the only time and place to pick Illidan is never. I went full CSI and found out he only has 60 more starting hit points than Jaina....JAINA! The stat that really put the icing on this was this: Zeratul has more hit points than Illidan. 126 more starting hit points and 386 more hit points if you were ever able to get to level 30. Illidan is one of my favorite Heroes to play but hes simply unusable right now. How can he not at least have as many hit points as Thrall? If you were Lord Browder what would you change about Illidan to make him playable again?

Outro

Patreon Shout Out

ITN is supported by our badass Patrons. You can become a ITN Patron by going to Patreon.com/itn.

iTunes Thanks

• Name

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

Catch the live show Thursday nights at 8pm Eastern on Twitch.tv/Amovetv. Mobile live stream provided by Alpha Geek Radio. Go to mobile.alphageekradio.com.

Follow the show on Twitter @ITNcast, Facebook.com/Amovetv, And ITNpodcast.reddit.com.

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

Personal Stuff

GAMES BOND!

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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