#89 - Into the Nexus: “Title”
• 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.
Li Ming Released
Trait
- Participating in a Takedown refreshes all of your Ability cooldowns.
Basic Abilities
- Fire three missiles toward a location, each damaging the first enemy it hits.
- Fire an orb that powers up as it travels, damaging the first enemy it hits. The amount of damage dealt is increased the farther the orb travels, up to 300%
- Instantly teleport a short distance.
Heroic Abilities
- Channel a powerful beam of energy, dealing heavy damage over 2.5 seconds to all enemies in its path. The direction of the beam follows your cursor.
- Damage and knock all enemies away from the targeted area.
Releases at 55.5% and climbing
Quite a few talents have become baseline
http://www.heroesfire.com/hots/wiki/heroes/li-ming/abilities-talents
Patch Changes: General
- Murky and Leoric have received unique death sound effects.
- Killstreak Flames have been removed to improve clarity during gameplay.
- Battleground objective UI for Blackheart’s Bay and Tomb of the Spider Queen will now indicate the total number of Doubloons and Gems each team currently has in its possession.
Focused Attack
- Basic Attack damage bonus reduced from 75% to 60%
Developer Comments: The talent is doing a bit too much damage over the course of the game. We like that it is a highly contested pick on Basic Attack Heroes, but want to bring its overall power down a bit.
Floating Combat Text
- Floating combat text has been visually reworked so that damage, healing, and other important numbers are easier to differentiate during battle.
- Floating combat text numbers now fire away from the target in staggered directions, rather than stacking on top of one another.
- Critical strikes have received updated art to make them more visually apparent.
- Floating combat text numbers are now color coded to better indicate their sources:
- Basic Attacks – Orange
- Ability damage – Purple
- Healing – Green
- Shield – White
- Mana Restored – Blue
- XP – Gold
Ping Spam Reduction
- Reduced the frequency at which players can issue pings before they become unable to issue additional pings for a period of time.
- The duration that ping-spamming players will be prevented from issuing additional pings has been increased.
Battleground Monsters
- Battleground-specific creatures are now universally defined as Monsters (ex: Neutral Garden Terrors, Sky Temple Guardians, etc.)
- Several Talents and Abilities have been changed to reflect this new categorization, and the following no longer affect Monsters:
- Mercenary Lord
- Johanna's Knight Takes Pawn
- Lunara's Cruel Bloom
- Rexxar's Easy Prey and Bird of Prey
- The Butcher's Chop Meat
- The following now affect Monsters:
- Anub'arak's Beetle, Juiced
- Azmodan's Demonic Smite
Structures
- Towers, Forts, and Keeps now deal 50% bonus damage to Heroes
- Structures can no longer be made Vulnerable
Developer Comments: The scaling changes we released in December made it so Heroes could dive into Structures with impunity during the early game. Increasing the damage that Structures deal to Heroes allows defending players to feel a bit safer. We are exploring other fixes to help Structures feel more meaningful throughout the game and will release them when they are ready.
Dragon Shire
- Damage reduction from Structures increased from 50% to 60%
- Savage Charge (W)
- Channel time reduced from 1.125 to 0.75 seconds
- Cooldown increased from 8 to 10 seconds
Developer Comments: Since the Dragon Knight is flagged as a Hero, the increased structure damage was doing too much damage; Increasing Rubble Maker’s effectiveness to compensate felt appropriate. Savage Charge felt like a dead button a lot of the time due to the Ability’s long channel time. This change has made the button feel a lot better to press.
Infernal Shrines
- Arcane Punisher
- Arcane Sentry damage reduced by 20%
Developer Comments: The Arcane Punishers have shown to be more effective than their Frozen and Mortar counterparts, so we lowered their Arcane Sentry damage to bring them more in line with other Punisher types.
Patch Changes: Buffs
Gall
- Shove (Talent) moved from Level 16 to Level 1
- Cooldown increased from 15 to 40 seconds
- Can no longer be used while Cho is mounted
- Cast range increased by 33%
- Maximum charge count increased from 2 to 4
- Cooldowns for Shadowflame (Q), Dread Orb (W), and Gall’s Heroic Abilities are now cleared and can be cast immediately upon death
- Now provides a passive, permanent 5% Ability Power bonus
- Now also increases the initial Movement Speed bonus to 70%
- The functionality of this Talent has changed
- Shadowflame’s cooldown is reduced by 1 second if it hits an enemy Hero affected by Cho's Consuming Blaze
- Shadowflare (Talent) moved from Level 1 to Level 16
- Enemies hit are now slowed by 25% for 1 second
- Siphoning Runes (Talent) removed
- New Talent (Level 4): Runic Persistence
- Runic Blast no longer destroys Cho’s Rune Bomb
- Damage increased from 342 (+4% per level) to 415 (+5% per level)
- Slow amount increased from 40% to 50%
Developer Comments: A few months of data have given us a good idea about which of Gall’s talents are under and over performing. We have made some balance changes and talent swaps to help these issues.
Cho
- I AM Hurrying! (Talent) moved from Level 13 to Level 7
- Duration of Gall’s Hurry Up, Oaf! (Z) increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds
- Surging Fist (Q)
- Frenzied Fists (Talent) moved from Level 7 to Level 16
- Attack Speed bonus increased from 50% to 100%
- Now lasts for 4 seconds instead of the next two Basic Attacks
- Surge of Stamina (Talent) redesigned and moved from Level 16 to Level 13
- Surging Fist now grants 50% Relentless for 5 seconds
- Seared Flesh (Talent) redesigned and no longer tied to Consuming Blaze
- Every third consecutive Basic Attack against the same target deals 75% bonus damage
Developer Comments: Similar to Gall, a few months of data have given us a good idea about which of Cho’s Talents are under and over performing. We have made some balance changes and Talent swaps to help these issues.
Illidan
Basic Attack damage increased from 74 (+4% per level) to 78(+4% per level)
Lunara
- Lunara's Basic Attack has received responsiveness improvements
- Ranged Basic Attack animation speed increased by 50%.
- Melee Basic Attack animation speed increased by 300% to match the ranged animation’s new speed
- Wisp (E)
- Mana cost reduced from 50 to 30
- Cooldown decreased from 45 to 30 seconds, but its duration has not been changed
Butcher
- Invulnerability and Unstoppable now suppress the chain effect, rather than remove it
- Stasis effects no longer remove the chain
- Enemy Heroes affected by Lamb to the Slaughter can no longer enter the Dragon Knight, Garden Terror, or Lt. Morales’ Medivac, and Tyrael can no longer cast Judgment
Developer Comments: We really like what Lamb to the Slaughter brings to The Butcher’s kit, but felt there were too many hard counters to it. These changes should help make The Butcher’s target feel more like they should when bound to a stake: scared and helpless.
Zeratul
- Damage increased from 189 (+4% per level) to 200 (+4% per level)
- Range increased by approximately 37%
- A range indicator will now display while Shadow Assault is active, and when hovering the cursor over the Ability icon
- Duration reduced from 6 to 4 seconds
- Mana cost reduced from 100 to 50
- Cooldown decreased from 100 to 45 seconds
Developer Comments: Being able to cast Shadow Assault more frequently and stick to his target better should help make Zeratul a lot more lethal when he chooses to give up the massive amount of utility that Void Prison brings.
Abathur
- Damage increased from 108 (+4% per level) to 113 (+4% per level)
- Damage increased from 106 (+4% per level) to 111 (+4% per level)
Developer Comments: Buffs. Acceptable.
Azmodan
General of Hell (Trait)
Will no longer dismount Azmodan on use
Gazlowe
- Will now dismount Gazlowe on activation
- Clockwerk Steam Fists (Talent)
- Duration bonus for active Rock-It! Turrets increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds per Basic Attack
- Additional charge level damage bonus increased from 25% to 50%
- Mana cost reduced from 70 to 60
Malfurion
- Mana return increased from 15% to 20% of the target’s maximum Mana
- Bonus to Innervate’s Mana return increased from 25% to 30% of the target’s maximum Mana
Developer Comments: We really like that Malfurion can act as a partial Mana-battery to teammates and that he has great synergy with heavy Mana-users. We wanted to play this up while also making Versatile a more attractive Talent pick.
Patch Changes: Reworks
Nova
- Conjurer's Pursuit (Talent) removed
- Gathering Power (Talent) removed
- Envenom (Talent) removed
- Headshot (Talent) removed
- Spell Shield (Talent) removed
- Overdrive (Talent) removed
- Bolt of the Storm (Talent) removed
- Permanent Cloak, Sniper (Trait)
- Advanced Cloaking (Talent) redesigned and moved from Level 13 to Level 1
- Now increases Nova's Movement Speed by 30% while Cloaked
- New Talent (Level 1): Tactical Espionage
- Regenerate 4 Mana per second while Stealthed
- New Talent (Level 20): Ghost Protocol
- Activate to gain Stealth for 2 seconds. Taking damage, attacking, or using Abilities will not break Stealth during this time
- Damage reduced from 335 (+4% per level) to 268(+4% per level)
- Cost reduced from 65 to 60 Mana
- Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds
- Psi-Op Rangefinder (Talent) removed
- Ambush Snipe (Talent) removed
- Railgun (Talent) removed
- Explosive Round (Talent) moved from Level 7 to Level 13
- Area of effect radius increased by 75%
- Perfect Shot (Talent) redesigned and moved from Level 4 to Level 16
- Hitting an enemy Hero with Snipe reduces its cooldown by 4 seconds
- New Talent (Level 7): Snipe Master
- Hitting an enemy Hero with Snipe increases subsequent Snipe damage by 5%. Stacks up to 10 times. All stacks are lost if Snipe misses an enemy Hero
- New Talent (Level 13): Psionic Efficiency
- Increases Snipe range by 10% and removes its Mana cost
- Range increased by approximately 18% in order to match Nova’s Basic Attack range
- Tazer Rounds (Talent) removed
- Covert Ops (Talent) moved from Level 7 to Level 1
- Bonus to Pinning Shot’s Movement Speed slow increased from 1% to 2% per second
- New Talent (Level 1): Longshot
- Pinning Shot range increased by 30%
- Pinning Shot also increases the range of the next Basic Attack by 30%
- New Talent (Level 13): Double Tap
- Pinning Shot now stores up to two charges
- Double Fake (Talent) removed
- Remote Delivery (Talent) has been changed
- No longer reduces Holo Decoy's cooldown
- In addition to providing 100% increased cast range, now also grants a 50% vision range bonus to Holo Decoys
- Lethal Decoy (Talent) moved from Level 13 to Level 16
- Holo Decoy damage increased from 25% to 40%
- New Talent (Level 4): Rapid Projection
- Reduces Holo Decoy's cooldown and Mana cost by 40%
- New Talent (Level 4): Holo Stability
- Increases the duration of Holo Decoys from 5 to 12 seconds
Developer Comments: Nova is a crowd favorite, and always at the top of our most played list. When we sat down to talk about what we wanted to do for her, we quickly realized that a slight Talent shuffle was not going to be possible. We wanted to keep her playstyle as similar to live as possible while also addressing some of our core concerns with her, which were:
- She can be very frustrating to play against for newer players.
- She isn’t viable in competitive play.
- Her Talent pick rates were not great.
This new direction for Nova addresses the first two issues by lowering her overall burst potential, while increasing her damage output overall. The most noticeable way we did this was through lowering both her Snipe cooldown and damage. For the third concern, we decided to do an overarching sweep of her Talents, removing the ones that weren’t working, and created some new ones that should offer interesting choices that promote Nova’s roaming and ganking nature. We realize that this is a slight departure from her long history of burst damage, but feel it is a better direction for her in the long run. We are watching her very carefully in order to react quickly and tune accordingly.
Reghar
- Forward Momentum (Talent) removed
- Spell Shield (Talent) removed
- Healing Totem (Talent) moved from Level 1 to Level 4
- Cooldown reduced from 60 to 30 seconds
- The following activated Talents will now dismount Rehgar when used in Ghost Wolf form:
- Blood for Blood
- Cleanse
- Healing Totem
- Rewind
- Basic Attacks while in Ghost Wolf form now gain the effects of Feral Lunge, causing Rehgar to lunge toward the target, dealing 100% bonus damage
- Casting Bloodlust no longer causes Rehgar to leave Ghost Wolf form
- Feral Lunge (Talent) removed
- Shadow Wolf (Talent) removed
- Healing Surge (Talent) removed
- New Talent (Level 1): Wolf Run
- Increases Ghost Wolf Movement Speed bonus from 30% to 40%
- New Talent (Level 7): Blood and Thunder
- Basic Attacks while in Ghost Wolf form reduce Basic Ability cooldowns by 2 seconds
- New Talent (Level 16): Hunger of the Wolf
- Basic Attacks while in Ghost Wolf form also deal 5% of target's maximum Health as damage and heal Rehgar for 5% of his maximum Health
- Primary target Healing increased from 297 (+4% per level) to 372 (+4% per level) Health
- Mana cost reduced from 70 to 65
- Chain Reaction (Talent) removed
- Spiritwalker's Grace (Talent) moved from Level 1 to Level 4
- Mana cost reduction decreased from 25 to 20
- Tidal Waves (Talent) redesigned and moved from Level 16 to Level 13
- Now reduces Chain Heal’s cooldown by 1 second for every Hero hit
- New Talent (Level 13): Earthliving Enchant
- When Chain Heal heals an allied Hero that is below 50% Health, they are also healed for an additional 200 (+4% per level) Health over 5 seconds
- Damage increased from 31 (+4% per level) to 36 (+4% per level) per tick
- Empowering Charge (Talent) removed
- Reactive Spark (Talent) removed
- Lightning Bond (Talent) moved from Level 16 to Level 1
- The Lightning Shield automatically granted to Rehgar no longer benefits from Talents
- Earth Shield (Talent) moved from Level 7 to Level 13
- Target now gains a Shield equal to 15% of their maximum Health, instead of a flat value
- New Talent (Level 1): Electric Charge
- Increases Lightning Shield radius by 33%
- New Talent (Level 16): Rising Storm
- Lightning Shield's next damage effect is increased by 20% every time it damages an enemy Hero. Stacks up to 10 times
- Area of effect radius increased by approximately 16%
- Mana cost reduced from 60 to 50
- Earth Shield (Talent) moved from Level 7 to Level 13
- Now targets gain a Shield equal to 15% of their maximum Health, instead of a flat value
- Earthgrasp Totem (Talent)
- Increases the initial Slow duration from 1 to 1.5 seconds
- New Talent (Level 7): Totemic Projection
- Reactivate Earthbind Totem to relocate it. The totem maintains its current Health and duration
- Cooldown increased from 70 to 80 seconds
- Gladiator's War Shout (Talent) redesigned
- Each ally affected by Bloodlust now heals for 30% of their Basic Attack damage dealt to their primary target
Developer Comments: Rehgar was usually brought to teams as a main support, which meant players were heavily incentivized to pick every healing option available to him. We tried to rectify this by placing healing Talents against each other on the same Talent tier. Of course, this removes some of his healing power as players cannot stack each Talent, so we also increased his base power to compensate. Our hope is that these changes will allow Rehgar players to be a more aggressive while supporting their team, which was always his design intent.
Patch Changes: Nerfs
Sonya
- Primary target damage reduced from 192 (+4% per level) to 176 (+4% per level)
- Splash damage decreased from 48 (+4% per level) to 44 (+4% per level)
Developer Comments: Overall, we are really happy with Sonya, but her burst potential was a bit higher than we were comfortable with.
Links
New Rank 1 Rule
Two-part improvement for the Heroes of the Storm matchmaker
Thanks in large part to player reports, we discovered an edge-case scenario in which those with very high matchmaking ratings could be matched with one or more lower-ranked players, and the first part of today’s change greatly limits the likelihood that this will occur in the future.
The other half of our improvement today adds a new rule to ranked matchmaking that’s intended to tighten up the range of skill that Rank 1 players can be matched with and against. With this rule, Rank 1 players will now be more consistently matched with and against others between Ranks 1 – 4.
As with many of our matchmaking restrictions, please keep in mind that this new rule can be relaxed under certain conditions. For example, it’s still possible that Rank 1 players will occasionally see allies and opponents between Ranks 5 – 7 in their games and, in rare cases, may even be matched with or against Rank 8+ players. However, situations like these should be infrequent after today’s update.
Links
Chair League Shoutout
Links
Dustin Tweets!
Fenix is not being worked on
Tychus rework coming.
Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN
Patron Thanks
- Lyan
- Ryan D
- Jim W
- Darkrhin0
- Jared B
Emails
Danny
Fellas,
We’re in the thick of a new year of Heroes esports and I’ve got a dilemma. Team rosters are a mess and my favorite player, Dreadnaught, has stepped back from competing and has joined the caster’s desk. At this point, I don’t feel particularly inclined to follow and root for a particular team, which helps me enjoy events more.
I’m the kind of guy that likes to support local teams but I’m finding this hard to do in Heroes. Then I had an idea – what if ITN picked up a competitive team? How great would that be?! Kyle already does a lot of coaching so he could naturally be the team’s coach. Garrett is a talented artist and manages multiple podcasts so he could come up with great marketing/branding and manage the team in his sleep.
What do you guys think? Can you make my dream a reality?
On a more realistic note, do either of you have a team that you are excited to follow this year? What draws you to them?
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
- Bosox1149
- GregsAndHam
- Li Li Stormstout
- Pat Busu
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
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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