#177 - Into the Nexus: “Hail to the Warchief”

• Garrett • Kyle

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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.

Your thoughts on Garrosh

https://psionic-storm.com/en/calculateur-de-talents/garrosh/

• Saw mostly Body Check builds on the PTR
• Lvl 4:

• In for the Kill has Kerrigan potential for Lane Clear and Infernal Shrines
• Thrist for Battle is quite solid with Warlords Challenge
• Indominatable is Unstoppable. Take it when you need to bank or getting targeted.

• Level 7

• Lots of cute choices, but Into the Fray is just so powerful. It gives unstoppable.

• Level 10

• Decimate. Lane clear and aoe control on a walkin warrior.

• Level 13, stack with your build
• Level 16. Undecided
• Level 20, Titanic Might tosses deal damage to eachother.

Interesting Bits:

• Wrecking Ball is really powerful but super finicky. It has no target priority. Groundbreaker as your engage, and isolation.
• Into the Fray is amazing with another tank that lacks engage like Johanna or Arthas.
• Stealth characters remained stealthed while being thrown. (INVISABOMBS!)
• Garrosh cannot throw Terrors
• Throw interrupts allied stationary channels like Nazeebo Ravenous Spirit or Chen’s drinking.
• Throw does not interrupt moving channels like Strafe Valla, Li Li Thousand Cups or Azmodan’s Laser

PTR Patch Notes

The War on Mirror Matches

Quick Match

• Quick Match will now prefer not to make mirror matches, the same hero on both teams, when other options are available.

Versus A.I.

• Removed Mirror Matches: Players will no longer face duplicate enemy A.I. Heroes in this game mode.

General

• Armor Indicators:

• Armor buff and debuff indicators have been added next to Hero healthbars.
• The armor icon only displays pure armor. It does not show spell armor, physical armor or permanent armors like Arthas, Johanna, Tyrael and Anub'arak have.

• Cursor Cooldown Notifications:

• An option to display ability cooldown indicators near your mouse cursor has been added.
• This feature can be enabled or disabled in the options menu

• MVP Banners:

• The MVP player’s Banner will now show in the initial MVP screen.

• In-Game Chat Improvements:

• The in-game chat box can now be moved by clicking and dragging the directional arrow indicator seen when the chat box is open.
• In-game chat history can now be accessed using the ‘Page Up’ and ‘Page Down’ hotkeys.
• A timestamp option has been added to display in-game times before chat messages.
• Hero names will now display as Hero icons to the left of messages in chat.

Ragnaros

Abilities

• Living Meteor (W)

• Damage reduced from 72 to 68
• 5.6% nerf.

• Level 1: Shifting Meteor (W)

• Additional Functionality:
• Each time an enemy is hit by Living Meteor, they take an additional 3% damage from subsequent hits by the same Meteor
• Breaks even with damage nerf. More damage to stacked target, less to glanced targets.

• Level 7: Molten Power (W)

• Damage bonus increased from 15 to 20% per enemy Hero hit.
• Shifting Metor’s 3% is not increased by Molten Power
• Basically 52.6% vs. 49%

• Blast Wave (E)

• Cooldown reduced from 10 to 9 seconds

Talents

• Level 1

• Engulfing Flame (E)

• Adjusted functionality:
• No longer grants cooldown reduction on Blast Wave
• Now also increases the damage of Blast Wave by 75%

• Level 7

• Superheated (E)

• Removed- Gave 100% bonus damage if self cast. Encouragement to speed allies instead.

• New Talent: Blistering Attacks (Passive)

• Every 10 seconds, your next Basic Attack deals 60% bonus damage. Enemies hit by your Basic Abilities reduces this cooldown by 1 second
• Procs off enemies. Shifting Metor counts. Empower Sulferas’s Auto Reset and splash damage could make this super powerful.

• Level 20

• Lava Surge (R)

• Cooldown reduction increased from 10 to 30 seconds
• Now can Lava Wave every 3 minion spawns vs. 4.

The Butcher

Officially a ganker, not a farmer.

Stats

• Basic Attack damage lowered from 140 to 130
• 22 damage nerf at level 20 or 7%. 4% nerf with meat quest complete.

Abilities

• Fresh Meat (Trait)

• Meat required to complete his quest increased from 125 to 200
• Damage bonus per Meat stack decreased from 1 to .5
• Meat dropped by enemy Heroes increased from 5 to 25
• Bonus damage on quest completion increased from 100 to 125
• Once the quest is completed, enemy Heroes continue to drop Meat, giving The Butcher 5 permanent Basic Attack damage per Meat collected
• Minion waves went from 5.6% of your meat to 3.5%
• Hero kills went from 4% to 12.5%.
• Lane farming went from 9 minutes to 14 minutes.
• Now averaging 5 to 6 minutes.

Talents

• Level 1

• Abattoir (Trait)

• Removed
• Always dropping 10 meat now when you die. Get to killing!

• Butcher is getting 25 meat from all heroes. Don’t run Murky or Lost Vikings against him.

D.Va

Talents

• Level 4

• Diverting Power (W)

• Instead of preventing D.Va from moving during Defense Matrix, this talent now adds an additional 50% slow.

Auriel

• Auriel’s resource bar will now glow when at maximum Hope.

Links

• https://heroeshearth.com/b/chaosos/read/patch-270-garrosh-ptr/
• http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20944067/heroes-of-the-storm-ptr-notes-july-31-2017-7-31-2017
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59jgXbrI6bs&feature=em-uploademail
• https://heroeshearth.com/b/chaosos/read/patch-270-garrosh-ptr/

Twitch bits fire up

Currently 3,56,477 bits globally.

Top contributors have spent over $900 dollars and climbing.                 

Links

• https://www.twitch.tv/blizzheroes/esports/hgc-2017
• https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/6qyk55/things_to_buy_with_126/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/6qx6kb/hgc_cheer_is_live/
• https://blog.twitch.tv/watch-and-cheer-during-the-heroes-of-the-storm-global-championship-to-show-support-for-teams-and-7c4a4dafc99d?sf100547494=1

Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN

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

Patron Thanks

• Richard        Hardcastle
• DanK        
• Philip Brissette
• Mathies        Larsen
• Jevan Fleenor
• Domingo        
• Kevin Drongowski
• Grady Stickels

Strategy

Map Analysis: Buy Buy Buy Your Globals!

The Ranked Map Rotation has been updated to include the following:

• Battlefield of Eternity
• Blackheart's Bay
• Braxis Holdout
• Cursed Hollow
• Dragon Shire
• Garden of Terror
• Sky Temple
• Towers of Doom
• Warhead Junction

Out:

• Hanamura
• Haunted Mines
• Infernal Shrines
• Tomb of the Spider Queen

Analysis:

• Garrosh - First pick warrior meta can show up.

• Executioners (Mid-Late game power spike)

• Greymane
• Raynor
• Hammer
• Xul
• Lost Vikings
• Anub’arak - Acid Dripped Mandibles
• Cassia - Martial Law
• Muradin - Give Em’ the Axe

• Being Aware of Poke and how to make a slower engagement.
• We have 4 PVE maps, people will pick bad fights out of eagerness.

• Globals!

• Dragon Shire
• Garden of Terror
• Sky Temple
• Warhead Junction

• Light

• Blackheart’s Bay
• Braxis Holdout

• Vehicles

• Garden of Terror
• Dragon Shire

• PVE - Get in try mode on your favorite heroes. See if and when you can take a giant camp. What about a Bruiser camp?

• Blackheart’s Bay
• Sky Temple
• Blackheart’s Bay
• Battlefield of Eternity

Emails

Jo

“Armor caps at +75 and -25 as a baseline, but some Hero’s talents can change this.”

I was doing some QM with a couple of friends and I got this interesting tip. What do they mean talents can change the caps? Is it just confusing wording? Does it hint at a new hero? The only way I can interpret it is that, for example, Divine Shield gives 100 Armor and unstoppable; Aegis gives 100 Armor and roots you, etc. Any wisdom you can bestow would be much appreciated!

Luke

Suppose you're in draft and you see the enemy team pick into double supporting a single carry; for example, Tassadar + Auriel + some heavy dps like Valla or Greymane. You still have one or two spots left in your draft to try to counter this. What do you pick? What if you only have 1 pick and it's the support?

Silences, Protected and Removal CC: Depends on when you want to power spike for the comp and map..

• Easier

• Silence: Stukov or Sylvanas. Alarak is better vs. front line unless you need a solo lane.
• Removal: Anub’arak Cocoon, Stitches Gorge, Void Prison

• Hard

• Out push. 3 heroes have been invested into a death ball. Try to avoid it.
• Blind or CC stack.

Paul

I am getting back into Heros after a 2 year hiatus. I have been playing quick match and mainly trying to find which heros I enjoy/mesh with. After almost two months back I have found my niche ranged assassins.

I met the hero league requirements so thought I would hop in solo Q and try it out. First game I played  Greymane, we won, life is good. Second game I am last pick and forced to fill with a "melee" based on my teams chat. Now I am not as good on melee, but I wanted to keep good vibes on the team. I picked one of the few melee I have past lvl 5 that wasn't a tank, Kerrigan. After I lock in I get flamed that she is a tier 3 hero, I’m so dumb, stuff like that. Whatever, best foot forward, let’s have a good game. I should also note our draft started with our team first pick being Tyrande and the guy saying he’s not healing anyone else but himself, we'll still need a support. The game goes south fairly quickly and the other teams Illidan is crushing our team, I don't feel like I was doing well on Kerigan either.

Bottom line is, I understand I can't always play my specialty role/Heros and will need to fill from time to time. How many other heroes should I have that I am serviceable at that arent my mains? Like 2 or 3 of each type? Being serviceable at 9 or 12 heros while still maining a few seems a bit daunting.

Dirk

Hi Kyle, Garrrretttt! (did I nail that?)

My two most-played heroes are:

1) the lovable, cuddly and playful marvel that is Stitches the abomination, hooker extraordinaire

and

2) the just, heroic and righteous Sir Uther the Lightbringer, paladin of the Knights of the Silver Hand

Both have been in-and-out of the meta a fair bit over the years, mostly thanks to slam, health or mana regen, or AoE stun builds.

However, it's been very rare that both were top picks. Something which is CURRENTLY the case!

So I'd like to use this email to send a message to anyone and everyone that plays ranked, and prioritizes picking MY HEROES, Stitches and Uther:

STAHP. PLEEZE. STAHP.

That's is all.

Stay awesome,

- Dirk

ps: are you guys happy with the current meta? Does it affect you guys at all, and the heroes you play often?

Outro

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Personal Stuff

Garrett

Follow Garrett @GarrettArt

NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.

The Angry Chicken: A Hearthstone Podcast

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Kyle

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