#63 - Into the Nexus: “Title”
• Garrett • Kyle
Sponsors:
Into the Nexus is proudly sponsored by Doghouse Systems.com. If you use the code ITN at checkout, you will get double memory on your next Doghouse System!
Into the Nexus is also sponsored by TweakedAudio.com. The same code, ITN, will get you 30% off and free shipping on your entire order of noise-reducing earbuds from Tweaked Audio!
Intro: Welcome to Into the Nexus! The Heroes of the Storm podcast!
Join us Saturday at 4pm EDT for the Frogpants: Heroes of the Pants Grand Finals on Twitch.tv/amovetv
Adults with Jobs impossibly solid comp goes up against Spastic Newbs roaming butcher madness.
Both of us casting!
Best of 5!
Pre-show with Scott Johnson!
How is the patch and placement matches treating you garrett?
Placement match pool is the same
News
Reminder, you can go to ITNcast.reddit.com to submit stories or upvote submissions for the next episode.
Kharazim Release
The big thing with Kharazim is his three unique Traits you can pick between at the start of the game.
- Transcendence - Every 3rd Basic Attack heals the lowest nearby allied Hero for 46 (+6 per level) .
- Clearly the hard support Trait.
- Iron Fists - Every 3rd Basic Attack deals 100% bonus damage.
- Insight - Every 3rd Basic Attack restores 12.21 (+0.21 per level) Mana.
- The amount of mana you get from this is ridiculous.
His final skin variant totally has an Airbender blue arrow on his head and the red variant of his Jade Dragon skin looks like the Fire Lord.
Links
Patch Features
That we didn’t discuss last week. Not all inclusive list.
Mounts:
- Treasure Goblin Mount - 20k Gold only (mentions being available for a short period of time)
Price Change:
- Brightwing reduced to 7,000g and $8.49
Skins
- Prisoner Tychus
- Demonic Tyrael Update
- Blood Elf Tyrande Update
Art
- Sonya dance added
- Tychus face fixed
- Murky face update (CREEPY!)
Player Reporting
- Reporting Options have been reworked, and now include categories for Abusive Chat, AFK/Non-Participation, and Intentional Feeding.
Ranked Play
If you want to hear more about the Ranked Play changes listen to episode 62 from last week.
- All players must now play 20 placement matches in order to receive an initial ranking for Hero League or Team League.
Team League
- Team League draft lobbies will still use the First Come First Served draft format.
- Team League will still use a separate matchmaking rating (MMR) from Hero League.
Reworks
I’m highlighting the key phrase in the developer's comment.
Not an all inclusive list.
Kael’thas
Prior to these changes, Kael’Thas had a high win rate, but his win rate wasn’t alarming. Instead, we’re focusing on Kael’thas’ current gameplay, as it feels very set in stone and we’d like players to have the option to be creative. We’re smoothing out his power curve and making Pyroblast a more enticing choice.
- Shield duration increased from 3 to 6 seconds
- Verdant Spheres (Trait) (D)
- Sunfire Enchantment (Talent)
- Damage increased from 78 (+16 per level) to 85 (+18 per level)
- Damage increased from 74 (+20 per level) to 80 (+22 per level)
- Ignite (Talent) removed
- New Talent (Level 16): Fury of the Sunwell
- Casting Flamestrike will cause a second Flamestrike to be cast 1 second after the first explodes
- Damage over time increased from 60 (+18 per level) to 60 (+22 per level)
- Explosion damage increased from 30 (+9 per level) to 30 (+11 per level)
- Fission Bomb (Talent)
- Damage bonus reduced from 75% to 30%
- Now also increases the explosion radius by 30%
- Cooldown reduction increased from 1 to 2 seconds per tick
- Slow amount increased from 40% to 50%
- Slow duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 seconds
- Range increased by 25%
- Gravity Throw (Talent) moved from Level 16 to Level 13
Kerrigan
These changes are intended as a slight buff overall, and to provide Kerrigan with more options. Her level 1 range increase talent was almost always picked, so we made that baseline. Several new talents and mana alterations should allow Kerrigan players to try out some Ravage and Trait based builds.
- Seasoned Marksman (Talent) removed
- Focused Attack (Talent) removed
- Searing Attacks (Talent) removed
- Sprint (Talent) removed
- Blood for Blood (Talent) removed
- New Talent (Level 13): Queen’s Rush
- Activate to increase Movement Speed by 25% for 4 seconds. Hero Takedowns automatically activate this effect.
- New Talent (Level 16): Essence for Essence
- Activate to steal 10% of an enemy Hero’s Health, and gain twice that amount as Assimilation Shields
- Lingering Essence (Talent)
- Assimilation Shield duration increased from 12 to 20 seconds
- New Talent (Level 7): Assimilation Mastery
- Increases Health and Mana Regneration by 100% while Assimilation Shields are active
- Damage increased from 50 (+20 per level) to 60 (+22 per level)
- Mana cost decreased from 75 to 50
- Clean Kill (Talent)
- Now also increases the damage dealt by Kerrigan’s next Ravage by 20%
- Half of Ravage’s Mana cost is now refunded when jumping to an ally
- Range bonus increased from 25% to 40%
- Mana cost increased from 60 to 75
- Range increased by 20%
- Mana cost increased from 50 to 60
- Cooldown increased from 8 to 10 seconds
- Damage decreased from 50 (+13 per level) to 40 (+10 per level)
- Sweeping Grasp (Talent) removed
- Psionic Pulse (Talent)
- Damage per second increased from 12 (+2.4 per level) to 15 (+3 per level)
- New Talent (Level 1): Energizing Grasp
- Refunds 10 Mana per enemy hit, up to a maximum of 60
- Damage per second increased from 25 (+2.5 per level) to 30 (+3 per level)
- Cooldown reduced from 120 to 100 seconds
- Duration reduced from 9 to 7 seconds
- Cooldown now begins once the Ultralisk is killed
- Torrasque (Talent)
- Ultralisk can now be reborn more than once, so long as the egg isn’t destroyed within 8 seconds of the Ultralisk’s death
Buffs
Falstad
Mighty Gust can be a great disengagement tool, but it is often outshined by the pure power of Hinterland Blast. We feel we can bring this Heroic into play more often with some simple tuning changes. Internally, it’s been much more powerful and can even be used as a counter to a hard engagement or aggressive dive teams.
- Cooldown decreased from 50 to 40 seconds
- Slow duration increased from 2 to 5 seconds
Raynor
Overall Raynor’s win rate is low and using Inspire can feel clunky as it resets your Basic Attack period. These changes should help Raynor feel more responsive to play, while also making him a bit more powerful. We also did a pass at shuffling around and tuning up some of his least picked talents.
- Basic Attack damage increased from 35 to 40
- Mercenary Lord (Talent) removed
- Puttin’ on a Clinic (Talent) moved from Level 13 to Level 7
- Relentless Leader (Talent) moved from Level 16 to Level 13
- A Card to Play (Talent)
- Cooldown reduction per Hero killed increased from 10 to 15 seconds
- Damage bonus per target hit increased from 10% to 20%, up to a maximum of 100%
- Bonus damage removed
- Stun duration increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds
- No longer places Raynor’s Basic Attack on cooldown
- Cooldown reduced from 45 to 40 seconds
- Activated Rush (Talent) removed
- Fight or Flight (Talent)
- Now also allows manual activation of Adrenaline Rush
- No longer removes movement impairing effects, and instead reduces damage taken by 25% for 4 seconds after activating Adrenaline Rush
Thrall
- Thrall’s Basic Attacks have received improvements in responsiveness, especially when stutter-stepping
- Thrall’s first Basic Attack after Windfury ends will no longer have an abnormally long weapon period
Abathur
We’ve tuned up some of his weaker talent picks to make them more viable. We really like the level 20 Hivemind talent, but it can feel clunky to use as when allies move out of range, you have to decide whether to cancel and recast it, or stay focused on only a single target. With these changes, Hivemind will be much more fluid to play with and consistent in its effectiveness.
- Volatile Mutation (Talent)
- Damage increased from 36 (+7 per level) to 50 (+10 per level)
- Damage radius increased by 20%
- Survival Instincts (Talent)
- Locust Health bonus increased from 30% to 50%
- Regenerative Microbes (Talent)
- Healing per second increased from 7 (+2 per level) to 9 (+3 per level)
- Now searches for a new Hivemind target every second, rather than only on the first cast
- The secondary Symbiote target’s Stab and Spike Burst deal half their normal damage, and Carapace grants half its normal Shield amount
- Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds
- Envenomed Nest (Talent)
- Bonus damage increased from 50% to 75%
Azmodan
Right now, Azmodan has one competitive build at high levels of play where he stacks Globe of Annihilation (Q) talents. We think this build is a ton of fun, so we didn’t want to negatively impact this build. Instead, we wanted to give Azmodan some other build options. Right now, it’s almost always a mistake to summon one of his Demons and waste your mana. With the new tuning, and the talent changes, the Demons become a legitimate option to use. The Demons start with much more damage than previously, but scale close to what they use to be at higher levels. For players who still plan to go the (Q) build, it’s mostly the same, but we’ve offered a few additional talent choices to make options that best fit your play style. Finally, we are removing some of the Support nature of Healing Ward and Storm Shield from Azmodan. It makes more sense for him to be a greedy character, not someone who can become a hybrid support in the right situation.
- Healing Ward (Talent) removed
- Superiority (Talent) removed
- First Aid (Talent) removed
- Storm Shield (Talent) removed
- Mercenary Lord (Talent) moved from Level 7 to Level 4
- New Talent (Level 4): Sin’s Grasp
- Activate to deal 115 (+19 per level) damage over 6 seconds to the target enemy Hero; can be cast while channeling All Shall Burn
- Minion kills each reduce Sin’s Grasp’s 100 second cooldown by 5 seconds
- New Talent (Level 7): Gluttonous Ward
- Activate to place a ward that restores 25% of Azmodan’s maximum Health and Mana over 10 seconds
- General of Hell (Trait) (D)
- Bound Minion (Talent) moved from Level 4 to Level 7
- New Talent (Level 20): Forced Recruitment
- Reduces General of Hell’s cooldown from 30 to 20 seconds
- Allows Azmodan to store up to two General of Hell charges
- Globe of Annihilation (Q)
- New Talent (Level 13): Hedonism
- Reduces Globe of Annihilation’s Mana cost from 60 to 30
- Demon Warrior damage changed from 20 (+3 per level) per second to 40 (+2 per level) per second
- Enduring Warriors (Talent) removed
- Blazing Demons (Talent) removed
- Army of Hell (Talent)
- No longer increases maximum Demon charges
- Now increases Demon Warrior damage by 20%, and reduces Demon Warrior's Mana cost from 40 to 20
- Hellforged Armor (Talent)
- Now also causes Demon Warriors to deal 10 (+1 per level) damage per second to nearby enemies
- Spare Nothing (Talent) removed
- Master of Destruction (Talent) moved from Level 7 to Level 1
- Now also increases damage against Structures by 25%
- New Talent (Level 7): Infused Power
- All Shall Burn gains an additional charge-up level, increasing its damage by 25%
Nazeebo
We looked at tuning up talents that wouldn’t impact his core Spider build. We’ve reverted some of the Ravenous Spirit nerfs as we saw a large shift from Ravenous to Gargantuan and wanted to see a better mix of the two.
- M.U.L.E. (Talent) removed
- Clairvoyance (Talent) removed
- Sprint (Talent) removed
- Stoneskin (Talent) removed
- Hardened Focus (Talent) added at level 16
- Gidbinn (Talent)
- No longer increases the Plague of Toads explosion radius
- Zombie Wall and Corpse Spider duration bonuses increased from 25% to 33%
- New Talent (Level 13): Thing of the Deep
- Increases the range for all of Nazeebo’s Basic Abilities by 25%
- Health and Mana restoration bonuses increased from 100% to 125%
- No longer increases Zombie damage
- Now permanently reduces Zombie Wall’s cooldown by 4 seconds
- Now also increases Zombie damage by 50%
- Toads of Hugeness (Talent)
- Now also increases Toad explosion radius by 20% each time they hop
- New Talent (Level 7): Toad Affinity
- Each enemy hit by Plague of Toads restores 5 Mana and reduces its cooldown by 1 second
- Animation duration reduced from 1 to 0.5 seconds
- Hovering the cursor over Gargantuan Stomp on the Ability Hotbar will now display a range indicator
- Damage changed from 30 (+8 per level) to 25 (+9 per level)
- Damage radius increased by approximately 22%
Sgt. Hammer
Hammer is one of our lowest win rate characters so we looked at some easy buffs we could make. We feel like she has a great playstyle and wanted to highlight her fantasy more. The increased health will let you be a bit more aggressive and the increased damage will better reinforce her long range, high damage capabilities. Finally, her Siege Mode can be used much more frequently and with less emphasis on securing the perfect location. It’s okay now to Siege up, get a couple shots in, and then get out of danger.
- Health increased from 720 (+140 per level) to 740 (+150 per level)
- Artillery (Trait)
- Damage bonus against distant targets increased from 20% to 30%
- Cooldown decreased from 5 to 2 seconds
- Mana cost reduced from 40 to 20
Brightwing
We like a lot of what the rework did for Brightwing, but overall her healing output went down more than intended. This change will give her back a big portion of the lost healing and should increase her total healing output (tab screen wise) by about 15-20%.
- Healing increased from 25 (+7.5 per level) to 30 (+9 per level)
Malfurion
Player feedback brought to our attention that this particular level 4 talent on Malfurion was an obvious trap at 20%. While we don’t want to give Malfurion a solid burst healing option, we agreed and have tuned this talent up to 50%. At 50%, and in a vacuum, this talent may still be undertuned, but it eventually adds up to a decent additional amount of healing. Over a sustained period of time, this additional 50% outpaces Protective Shield, for example.
- Initial Heal bonus increased from 20% to 50%
Reghar
Bloodlust is rarely picked right now, but we feel like both Heroics are extremely powerful. Without changing anything massive, we’re simply reducing the CD of Bloodlust so it can be used more frequently. We believe if Basic Attack based heroes become more prevalent in the Meta, this Heroic could become dominant, so we’ll be taking a cautious approach.
- Cooldown decreased from 120 to 90 seconds
Tassadar
- Spell Shield (Talent) removed
- Oracle (Trait) (D)
- Cooldown increased from 30 to 40 seconds
- Mental Acuity (Talent)
- Cooldown reduction increased from 15 to 20 seconds
- Mana Cost decreased from 60 to 50
- Minion Bulwark (Talent) removed
- Reinforce Structure (Talent) moved from Level 4 to Level 1
- Mana Cost decreased from 65 to 50
- Psi-Infusion (Talent)
- Mana returned per target hit reduced from 7 to 5
Sonya
- Health increased from 930 (+210 per level) to 950 (+220 per level)
- Fury (Trait)
- No longer dismounts Sonya on activation
- Healing reduced from 25% to 20% of damage dealt
- Healing for damage dealt to Heroes has increased from double to triple
- Life Funnel (Talent)
- Healing bonus decreased from +10% to +5% of damage dealt
Tyrael
Overall, our goal was to make Sanctification a viable Heroic for players. We increased its effectiveness and fixed a few bugs to make the ability more consistent. With the changes, Sanctification can become extremely powerful at countering Wombos or Hard Engage teams, making it an enticing choice over Judgement in certain situations.
- After throwing El’Druin, a timer bar will now display on screen to indicate how much time remains before El’Druin’s Might expires
- New Talent (Level 1): Horadric Reforging
- Reduces the cooldown for El’Druin’s Might by 3 seconds if it hits an enemy
- No longer requires Tyrael to channel the Ability. All Heroes, including Tyrael, will be invulnerable while within Sanctification’s area of effect
- Now has a 0.5 second cast time
- Cooldown increased from 50 to 70 seconds
- Area of effect radius reduced by approximately 53%
- Casting time increased from 0.5 to 0.75 seconds
- Judgment’s target is now briefly revealed upon casting
- New art has been added that will better notify the target of an incoming Judgment
- The distance that an enemy targeted by Judgment must travel beyond the Ability’s maximum cast range in order to interrupt it has been increased by 66%
Nerfs
Jaina
The Jaina changes are a result of her being too powerful right now, and we have a secondary goal of increasing the play of Ring of Frost. By reducing the impact of summoning a Water Elemental, Jaina loses some of her burst potential unless she chooses Ring of Frost. Water Elemental is now more focused on producing sustained damage.
- Cooldown decreased from 100 to 80 seconds
- No longer deals damage or Chills at the Water Elemental’s spawn location
Leoric
- Many of Leoric’s healing effects during Undying are now half as effective
- Reanimation (Talent)
- Health regeneration during Undying decreased from 1.5 to 0.75 Health per second
- Heal amount during Undying reduced from 20% to 10% of Leoric’s maximum Health
- Consume Vitality (Talent)
- Healing reduced during Undying from 2% to 1% of Leroic’s maximum Health per target hit, capping at 5%
- Now restores up to 12.5% of Leroic’s maximum Health during Undying, rather than a flat amount (was approximately 10%)
- Willing Vessel (Talent)
- Now also increases Drain Essence’s healing to 15% during Undying
- No longer deals 100% increased damage to structures
Untouched
Assassin:
- Butcher
- Tychus
- Nova
- Valla
- Illidan
- Zeratul
Specialist:
- Lost Vikings
- Zagara
- Murky
- Gazlowe
- Slyvannas - Loses Unused Mercenary Lord
Support:
Warrior:
- Johanna
- Chen - Flying kick now works as intended
- Anub’arak
- Stitches
- Arthas
- Diablo
- ETC
- Muradin
The Strange
- Bug: Battlefield of Eternity has been removed accidentally from the map pool
- Bug: Tassadar is sometimes visible during Phase Shift.
- Bug Fixes:
- Heroes that are near a Dragon Knight when it is killed will no longer exhibit unexpected movement behavior.
- Anub’arak’s Web Wrap and Stitches' Gorge will now work properly when used against Unstoppable targets, which is consistent with Zagara's Devouring Maw.
- Malfurion's Tranquility will no longer heal him for double the intended amount.
- Tyrael will no longer fly to the enemy Hall of Storms if his Judgment target is killed before the Ability completes.
- Illidan will no longer fly to the enemy Hall of Storms if the target of The Hunt is killed before the Ability completes.
Links
Reddit Developer Q&A
Official-Valmitic: Will we see any changes to Diablo, Chen, Stitiches, E.T.C. and maybe Arthas?
Blizz_Daybringer: Warriors in general are heavily on our radar, especially the first four you mentioned. We have been discussing at length about how we want to tackle them as a whole. Right now we are looking at trying to focus them more towards different roles so teams will have more options to counter-pick heavy mage or heavy auto-attack compositions.
We are also evaluating intended strengths and weaknesses to them and making sure that we aren't throwing the whole kitchen sink into their core abilities and talents. This is a large work in process and I can assure you that we are keeping a very close eye on the present events while remembering (and trying not to copy) some of our mistakes from the past.
Redosabe: What is the general consensus of stitches?
Blizz_Daybringer: Stitches is a crowd favorite and we are spinning our gears on ways to bring him back to competitive play without putting him back on top of the charts. His Hook is arguably the most transformative ability in the game, and we need to be very cautious about what we do.
Our current direction is to point him a bit towards anti-mage and we are diligently working on tweaks to accomplish this. No promises, but I would expect to see changes to him in the near future!
NuclearTacos: There is a lot of discussion about map rotations and how big they should be if limited at all. Where do you see this going in the future when we have say 15-20 maps or more? Will maps ever be "retired" from HL play, and do you imagine that you will ever re-work old maps to make them more appreciated (Haunted Mines comes to mind as one that many feel has problems).
Blizz_JDeShazer: We are definitely planning on creating a map rotation system in the future. We haven't fully committed to any specific design yet, but we have felt around 6 maps feels good. Offers a decent amount of variety. The question that isn't fully understood from my perspective is how often should the rotation change?
As you've seen in the past we've done some map rotations when new maps hit just for the first week. We definitely felt that 4 was too small and definitely saw that from the feedback. So next week with Infernal Shrines we are looking at a 6 map rotation for the first week.
Links
Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN
Patron Thanks
- Adrien D
- Kaleb D
- Jacques M
- dan s
- Ian K
Emails
Jared
Dear Garrett and internet space wizard, I write concerning hero league, and more so soloing, or trying to find people to play with.
I have been starting to play hero league, I am about 10 games in, and had a really bad day yesterday playing.
I played two games as anub'arak, the first we won by a large margin and I felt I preformed great, the next was a loss but not that bad, I then got a friend request I'm assuming from one of the LFG threads I have posted in.
I asked the guy what he liked to play, and I picked the bug king again, we didn't do well, damage wasn't being focused on squishys and the leoric we kept hitting wouldn't die, immediately after the loss without a word the guy removed and unfriended me, I shut down the game and just kinda sat in my room feeling shitty.
I feel like I'm either not good enough for hero league, or need people to play with. But I dont have any friends in real life that play (I don't have friends in general really) and no peoplenive found turn to anything, and no one in the a move channel really talks much.
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
- BenTobyn
- iAmJake: “Their voices and subject matter are both quite alluring”
- chadmbol
- Saberaid: “My mamma always told me “leave them wanting more.” So I was only gunna give this show 4 stas. But ITN is so good, I’m not listening to mamma today. I’m sure Garrett and Kyle will take me in when mamma kicks me out. Won’t you guys?!?
- Slad19
Into the Nexus is produced by Amove.tv and our Patreon producers Declan H. and Edward L.. You can see more about this and all the other A-move shows at Amove.tv. You can also email the show at ITNcast@gmail.com or continue the conversation over at ITNcast.reddit.com.
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
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
Kyle
Stormcast Episode 55 - Gazlowe
Heroes Power Hour Episode 28
Kylefergusson.com
Just because we aren’t running ads at the top doesn’t mean these codes are any less awesome!
Doghouse Systems.com
Our code, ITN, will get you a free 120gb SSD added to your already amazing Doghouse gaming PC.
Tweaked Audio.com
The same code, ITN, will get you 30% off and free shipping on your entire order of noise-reducing earbuds from Tweaked Audio!