#102 - Into the Nexus: “Title”

• 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!

Call in episode next week.

Go to Patreon.com/ITN for details.

CreateCon

News

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

Thank you to m_Takeshi who has started a weekly show discussion thread.

Balance Update

Lots of little UI updates, particularly for Drafting. We’ll skip these, but it’s all in the right direction.

Let’s use these as talking points instead of reading it all.

Quick Match

• The matchmaking system will now account for each player’s Hero level in order to better define match quality and calculate win probabilities more accurately when attempting to create Quick Match games.

• Players should now be matched with and against players of slightly lower skill when playing a Hero for the first time, and slightly higher skill when playing Heroes with which they have extensive experience.
• Encourages players to try out a greater variety of Heroes in Quick Match games.

Score Screen

• A “Mute Player Pings” button has been added to the in-game Score Screen (TAB) to the left of the “Mute Player Chat" button.
• Additionally, “Mute Pings” and “Mute All” options have been added to the player context menu, accessed by clicking the Cog button to the right of the “Mute Player Chat” button.
• Blocking a player will now automatically mute that player’s in-game pings so long as they remain on the Blocked Communication list.

Hotkeys

The Hold Position Hotkey (Default: H) now also functions as a Hold Fire command.

Issuing a Hold Fire command (H) will now immediately stop the Hero from using Basic Attacks, cancel the current movement command, and prevent the Hero from acquiring a new target until another order is issued.

The Butcher’s prices have been reduced to $8.49 USD and 7,000 Gold.

Impressed by Real Dream Team’s Heroes of the Dorm 2016 victory, Azmodunk has donned a maroon and gold uniform as his third Skin Variation.

Infernal Shrines

• Punisher

• Punisher starting Health has been increased, and scaling Health has been reduced to compensate.

• Frozen Punisher

• Delay between ice trap spawn and detonation decreased from 2.5 to 2 seconds.
• Root duration while frozen decreased from 2 to 1.5 seconds.

Developer Comments: Although we are very happy with the current tuning of Infernal Shrines, we have been noticing a tendency to under-value the first couple of Punishers. In order to help incentivize players into valuing them, we have boosted their starting Health and decreased their early scaling values to compensate. While early event Punishers should be a bit stronger, any event past the 15-minute mark should be identical to those from the previous patch.Frozen Punishers are great at zoning enemy teams but we felt they were a bit too easy to avoid without preliminary team initiation. These changes should increase the frequency in which players get rooted, while feeling a little less punishing when this occurs.

Towers of Doom

Events in which three Altars spawn at once will now only occur twice per game, during the first and fifth Altar events.

Developer Comments: We wanted to remove the triple Altar spawns when they are more likely to be game ending events. We still feel that triple Altar events offer interesting gameplay moments that ask teams to fight over 3 locations at the same time, but we don’t feel it’s a good experience when a team's Core Health is low and they don’t think they can contest the Altars to prevent a loss.

GREYMANE

• Gilnean Cocktail(Q) (D)

• Incendiary Elixir (Talent) has been redesigned as a Quest Talent that reads as follows:

• Every time you damage an enemy Hero with the splash damage from Gilnean Cocktail, increase the impact damage by 2 and the splash damage by 6 (stacks up to 20 times). Once you’ve hit 20 Heroes, also reduce Gilnean Cocktail’s cooldown by 2 seconds.

Developer Comments: The idea behind Gilnean Cocktail is that it can do a lot of damage, but the downside is that the primary target takes a lot less. It’s designed to be a poking tool to kill the backline. The old version of Incendiary Elixir completely blew out that concept, and instead made the ability a simple area of effect nuke that wasn’t special anymore. We’ve replaced it with this new Incendiary Elixir that rewards players who can show mastery of this skill shot’s unique aspects, while preserving the skill cap of the ability.

 ARTANIS

• Health reduced from 2335 (+4% per level) to 2245 (+4% per level).
• Health Regeneration reduced from approximately 4.86 (+4% per level) to 4.67 (+4% per level).
• Twin Blades (W)

• Artanis’ next Basic Attack now also causes him to charge forward a short distance, equal to approximately half the distance provided by the previous iteration of the Zealot Charge Talent.
• Zealot Charge (Talent)

• Now increases charge distance by 100%.

Developer Comments: Artanis’ survivability directly scales with how much uptime he has, which made a Talent like Zealot Charge incredibly powerful. The effect brought his entire kit together so well, that we’ve decided to provide part of its former benefit into baseline Twin Blades. Whereas sometimes we feel the need to cut Talents to fill a hole in a Hero’s kit, in this case we think that this is a hole that Artanis’ should be able to partially circumvent from the start. Since this is a substantial increase in his power at the start of the game, we’ve decided to revert the Health increase that Artanis received recently.

Kyle’s Favorite Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue in which a Punisher that leaps to a Hero as that Hero activates Hearthstone could cause it to leap to the opposing Hall of Storms.

• Illidan’s Betrayer’s Thirst Trait will no longer provide cooldown reduction for Basic Attacks that miss due to Blind or Evasion effects.
• Sylvanas’ Mind Control will now properly cancel Abilities that are being channeled by the target, such as E.T.C.’s Mosh Pit and Li Li’s Jug of 1,000 Cups.
• Fixed an issue that could cause Mind Control's graphic effects to persist until death when two Sylvanas players simultaneously cast Mind Control on one another.

New Bugs said to be getting fixed tonight:

• Tychus has Melting point cooked into his grenade ability.
• Update Login Spam
• Z-Mounting cancellations on early clicks

Tracer is out! (For Pre-Orderers)

She actually got a trailer and a spotlight

• The STUCK animation will be decreased in size in an upcoming hotfix
• Tracer will not be available for play at Dreamhack
• Main Counter: Raynor

Releases at 54.0% win rate

Keal’thas taking #3 spot, up 9.8%

Links

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzaMOGjKMXw
• http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20081853/tracer-zips-into-the-nexus-4-19-2016
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlbWKyc3JZA

Spring Champion’s Mount Gives Money to MvP

Celebrate MVP Black as the reigning Heroes of the Storm World Champions by picking up this esports-themed mount, emblazoned with the MVP team logo, for $4.99 USD. When you purchase the 2016 Spring Champion’s Mount you’ll also be helping to directly support MVP Black, as a portion of each sale will be shared with the team. If you’d like to add the 2016 Spring Champion’s Mount to your collection, it will be available for purchase until a new champion is crowned during the 2016 Summer Championship this June.

Links

• http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20099323/2016-spring-champion%E2%80%99s-mount-incoming-4-18-2016

The Worst Talents per Tier

Posted by Nintales

Lv1 : Winner : Zeratul : Rapid Displacement : 36.3% winrate.

Second place : Tyrael : Protection in Death : 37.6% winrate.

Third place : Rexxar : Flare : 37.9% winrate.

Lv4 : Winner : Zagara : Infest : 36.8% winrate.

Second Place : Arthas : Mercenary Lord : 37.4% winrate.

Third Place : Sgt.Hammer : Excessive Force : 38.7% winrate.

Lv7 : Winner : Tassadar : Calldown : Mule : 35.7% winrate.

Second Place : Tyrael : Searing Attacks : 38.1% winrate.

Third Place : Anub'Arak + Falstad : Shed Exoskeleton + Free Roll : 38.3% winrate.

Lv10 : Winner : Anub'Arak : Cocoon : 43.0% winrate.

Second Place : Tychus : Commandeer Odin : 43.6% winrate.

Third Place : Muradin : Haymaker : 43.8% winrate.

Lv13 : Winner : Rexxar : Bear Necessities : 33.2% winrate.

Second Place : Tyrael : Angelic Might : 36.2% winrate.

Third Place : Cho : Surge of Stamina : 39.2% winrate.

Lv16 : Winner : Arthas : Embrace Death : 42.7% winrate.

Second Place : Tassadar : Resonation : 43.0% winrate.

Third Place : Sgt.Hammer : Executioner : 43.1% winrate.

Lv20 : Winner : Anub'Arak : Cryptweave : 48.2% winrate.

Second Place : Lt.Morales : Medbay : 51.6% winrate.

Third Place : Zeratul : Protective Prison : 52.3% winrate.

Bear Necessities' winrate is hilarious. It's literally the worst talent in the entire game.

Links

• https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/4f18qo/got_bored_once_more_did_worst_winrates_per_tier/

Dustin Browder Tweets!

Team League might get weekend only quests

Considering adding a stat that says how long you were dead in the game.

Tyrande and Tassadar have no planned updates

Future maps will encourage splitting up more.

Clans are next after the Rank and Season update

Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN

Patron Thanks

• Daniel Flores
• Ryan
• adam thielbar
• Chris Bonsall
• Brian Hornbeck
• Joonas Häll
• Fredrik A
• Tea Time with Tig

Strategy

New Meta Buyers Guide

Stilgar

I played the Heroes Beta for like a day then life hit and I haven't played since. I fired it up again this past weekend with a buddy of mine and it's been great! However, I have no idea what characters to spend gold on.

Basically I feel like I need some sort of new player guide! But one that isn't from 2014. Any ideas?

Also, the community seems a little rough. I got chewed out my first day back and some guy in quick match swore up and down he was going to report me for trolling...

My favorite heroes from what I've played are:

• Johanna
• Sonya
• Sgt. Hammer
• Kael'Thas

Kyle’s list of discount heroes that won’t get you yelled at, or might because people are angry about anything

• Avoid heroes with the highest ban rates
• Avoid heroes that alarm and confused your team
• Contribute effective CC because your team will prob pick cool characters

14 Heroes to Play Hero League

3 Warriors - 2 Tanks, one Bruiser or off tank

• ETC - 2000 (Most Pit Wombo)
• Muradin - 2000 (Anti Melee)
• Johanna - 4000 (Blind)

• Sonya - 4000

• Anub’arak and Tyrael are both 4,000, but unpredictable

3 Support - 2 Healers, one Support

• Li Li - 2000 (Blind)
• Malfurion - 2000 (root)
• Uther - 7000 (Stun, Divine Shield)

• Tyrande - 7000 (Stun, Sight, Hunter's Mark)

6 Assassins - 2 Burst, 3 Sustain, One Ambush

• Jaina - 2000 (slow)
• Kael’thas - 10,000 (Stun)

• Raynor - 2000 (Push)
• Valla - 2000 (Stun)
• Falstad - 7000 (Push)
• Thrall - 7000 (Root, Stun)

2 Specialists -

• Zagara - 4000 (Maw)
• Murky - 7000 (octo)
• Nazeebo - 10,000 (Zombie Wall)
• Sylvannas - 10,000 (Mind Control)
• Xul - 10,000 (Root)

Emails

Matthew

First love the show. Always looking for Heroe's streamers to watch but I find this one the most fun. (Good honest attitude)

Well first I was curious if you guys would be willing to play some Azmodan on a stream. He's my favorite hero and curious how you guys would make him work and what maps you prefer him on. (Can't wait to get the Azmodunk skin lol)

Do you guys plan on ever doing like a mini tournament?

Then who are your top 3 picks for Overwatch heroes to join?

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

• Borrachita
• Jim Wisinski: Garrett and Kyle are like Cho’Gall but much nicer smelling.

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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