#86 - 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 the Wizard & Xul the Necromancer

Li-Ming - Assassin

• Trait - Critical Mass: participating in a kill or assist lowers cooldowns of all skills (including Heroics).
• Magic Missile: skillshot that shoots three missiles at a target point. The missiles come from the sides of Li-Ming - not a conventional straight line skillshot.
• Arcane Orb: moderate speed projectile with very long range, dealing more damage the further away enemies are.
• Teleport: can be used to quickly move around and avoid skillshots - very short cooldown. Lower range than Bolt of the Storm or Valla's Vault, for instance.
• H1 - Disintegrate: channeling wave of energy that is aimed with the cursor (probably like Lightning Breath) and deals damage from long ranges. Good in narrow chokepoints.
• H2- Wave of Force: can detonate a ranged "telekinetic bomb", knocking enemies away from its center and cancelling channeling. Good against powerful backline characters like Morales to disrupt her healing, or Nazeebo to disrupt his Ravenous Spirit.

Basic Notes

• very high skill cap character
• Most of her damage is in her ability to land her skillshot.
• Her abilities already have low cooldowns, so what Critical Mass does is boost her damage potential by just a bit.
• She is definitely mana constraint due to Critical Mass, and that's used as a balancing tool as well. Does have talents for better mana efficiency.

Talent Notes

• There's a pure (safer) Magic Missile build that is a very flexible build.
• There's an Arcane Orb build that's all about long range poking - hard to land but she can deal massive damage from afar.
• There's a Teleport build that makes the skill more aggressive and is all about teleporting into the fray.
• Magic Missile Image: http://media.heroesnexus.com/attachments/thumbnails/2/765/384/240/liming-2.jpg

Xul - Specialist

• Trait - Skeleton Raise: raise up to 4 skeletons from dead minions for about 15 seconds.
• Spectral Reaper: it's a reverse skillshot, create a scythe in a target place and then comes towards him. Can curve as it travels towards him. Gives him some lane clear and poking ability.
• Cursed Strike: enhance his auto attacks so that they deal area damage and slow enemy attack speed by 50%. One of his core counter abilities.
• Bone Prison: targeted ability, not a skillshot. Roots an enemy hero after 2 seconds in a Bone Prison - gives up a warning when cast. Enemy heroes have to decide where they want to be stuck 2 seconds later.
• Bonus Ability (1 Key) - Bone Armor: gives you a shield for 25% of your health for 3 seconds. Gives him some much needed survivability.
• H1 - Poison Nova: big poison explosion that deals massive damage over time to enemies hit. Not very effective if it only catches 1 or 2 frontliners, but a major playmaker if you hit multiple heroes.
• H2 - Skeleton Mages: works similar to Tassadar's Force Wall. Creates a line of mages that slows anybody they hit, allowing Xul to split enemy teams at a safer range. Do not impede movement.

Basic Notes

• Melee specialist character - unique.
• He's not a character like Kerrigan or Jaina, where one skill leads into the next with an obvious combo.
• Talents for Bone Spear and Corpse Explosion
• You can spec his Skeleton Raise to turn him into a siege/pusher character.
• Cursed Scythe build, allowing you to debuff enemies even harder. There's even a talent later on that weakens healing!!!

• Li-Ming releasing BEFORE Xul. No confirmed release date.

Links

• http://www.heroesnexus.com/news/1599-new-diablo-heroes-revealed-wizard-li-ming

Balance Update

Spyrian: We're shooting to release smaller balance changes more often, and today's update is the first of these. While we won't necessarily have balance updates as frequently as every week, you can expect to see them on Wednesdays when we do release them.

Cleanse

• This Talent’s functionality has changed significantly
• Target ally now becomes Unstoppable for 1 second. 60 second cooldown

Spyrain’s Post showing Cleanse’s Floating Text, Sound Effect, Unstoppable and Yellow Swirly Animation.

Developer Comments: We want to give players more options to deal with the chain-stuns that have resurged after the scaling changes went into effect. We believe this increase in power to Cleanse should allow teams some counter-play against stun-heavy compositions.

Kyle’s Mini-Cleanse Strategy

• Cleanse is a level 7 ability
• Brightwing: Phase Shield.
• Kharazim: Echo of Heaven.
• Lt. Morales: Clear! and Irradiate.
• Malfurion: Enduring Growth.
• Rehgar: Earth Shield, Farsight and Forward Momentum.
• Uther: Clairvoyance
• Reference

• https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/420h35/only_certain_supports_can_support_cleanse/
• http://www.heroesnexus.com/talents/1002-cleanse#related:heroes

Lunara

• Health increased from 1300 to 1430
• Health Regeneration increased from 2.7083 to 2.9804 Health per second
• Nature’s Toxin (Trait)

• Damage increased from 32 (+4% per level) to 34 (+5% per level)

Developer Comments: We are excited to see how many players are loving Lunara’s playstyle, but we feel she is under-tuned and somewhat punished by the current meta. Lunara excels when she is free to get basic attacks in, so we’re increasing her survivability to allow that. Also, her damage hasn’t quite met our expectations, so we’re increasing it to give her more impact. We’ve heard concerns about issues affecting her stutter-stepping and have changes planned that will also address this soon.

Raynor

• Health decreased from 1371 to 1302
• Health Regeneration decreased from 2.8554 to 2.7125 Health per second
• Penetrating Round (Q)

• Bullseye (Talent)

• Stun duration decreased from 1.5 to 1.0 second

Developer Comments: Raynor’s damage is a little bit too high for how safe he can be while dealing it. He also has the option to talent into two ranged stuns which, at 1.5 second durations, felt too punishing to play against. These changes should help to slightly increase his overall talent diversity while making him a bit easier to take down when caught out of position.

Brightwing

• Arcane Flare (Q)

• Inner area damage increased from 137 to 274
• Mana cost reduced from 50 to 35
• Cooldown decreased from 8 to 6 seconds
• Arcane Precision (Talent) removed

Developer Comments: Arcane Flare has been in a bit of a tough spot for a while now. We were worried about giving Brightwing reliable damage and waveclear without having to talent into it, but realize we may have been a bit too restrictive. Since the ability does have a decently high skill-cap, we decided to really ramp up the inner-damage component and reward ‘bullseyes’ with a higher payoff. The changes should allow Brightwing to be a bit more active in lane, and enemies caught in the center of an Arcane Flare should definitely feel it.

Malfurion

• Regrowth (Q)

• Initial heal amount increased from 134 to 150 Health
• Periodic healing increased from 67 to 75 Health per tick

• Tranquility (R)

• Periodic healing decreased from 46 to 40 Health per tick

Developer Comments: We feel players are having to rely too heavily on Tranquility in order to successfully keep up with other healers. We wanted to adjust more of Malfurion’s overall healing into Regrowth, which will hopefully allow players the option to explore more hybrid builds, potentially unlocking the power of Twilight Dream.

Tyrande

• Basic Attack damage decreased from 92 to 87
• Trueshot Aura (Talent)

• Basic Attack damage bonus now only affects allied Heroes

• Hunter’s Mark (Trait)

• Ranger’s Mark (Talent)

• Hunter’s Mark cooldown reduction amount decreased from 8 to 6 seconds

• Huntress’ Fury (Talent)

• Attack Speed bonus duration increased from 4 to 5 seconds

• Light of Elune (Q)

• Allied Heal amount increased from 310 to 320 Health
• Overflowing Light (Talent)

• Allied healing bonus decreased from 35% to 30%

• Lunar Flare (E)

• Stun duration decreased from 1 to 0.75 seconds.
• Lunar Blaze (Talent)

• Range bonus decreased from 50% to 40%

• Shadowstalk (R)

• Cooldown increased from 50 to 60 seconds
• Periodic Healing decreased from 16 to 15 Health per tick
• Final burst Heal amount decreased from 100 to 95 Health
• Hunter’s Swiftness (Talent)

• Movement Speed bonus decreased from 40% to 30%

• Starfall

• Damage increased from 64 per second to 69 per second

Developer Comments: Tyrande has been hovering around our radar for longer than we would like, but we needed to take some time to figure out exactly where we wanted to make changes. We are happy with how versatile her kit is, but feel she does everything a bit too well, especially since she thrives in the current stun-driven meta. We have changes targeted at improving her talent diversity while forcing her to rely a bit more on talents for damage or healing output. We are taking a cautious approach here, but are more than willing to make larger changes, if necessary.

Stitches

• Basic Attack damage increased from 74 to 85
• Slam (W)

• Damage increased from 80 to 96

Developer Comments: Getting hit by a giant meat cleaver should hurt, right? Stitches totally agrees.

Links

• http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/19996517/heroes-of-the-storm-balance-update-notes-january-20-2016-1-20-2016

Dustin Tweets!

Doing D2 stuff is a cool idea. So probably not a necromancer. Or it’s a trick!

Going to try nerfs/balance before adding diminishing returns.

Heroes League is getting 2 bans per team.

Heroes League would require 14 Heroes.

Bans will be Decided by highest MMR player.

Greymane will probably get a buff.

The Greymane Check In:

Settled at 42.1% win rate

Cocktail Build takes the lead at 60.3% win rate!

Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN

Patron Thanks

• William B
• Mitchell T
• Chaos5061
• Philip
• Sweedus

Emails

John M.

Hey guys, just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the segment where you guys talked about the 1 man combos that you can land as a single hero! I typically play with my best friend as a 2 man party and was wondering if you had any good advice for some 2 hero combos we might be able to strive for!

Thanks a bunch guys!

I'm now an avid a move tv fan because of itn!

Best wishes,

John M

• Johanna/Azmodan - Knight Takes Pawn into Taste for Blood (Or any other area effect damager)

• Kristen and I use Murky Azmodan
• Zeratul/Azmodan is also popular

• Malfurion/Heavy Spell Caster - Innervate
• Cho’gall LoL
• Abathur/Kerrigan - Or other Pingless Assasin
• Diablo/Tyrande - But also Tyrande/Butcher
• Divines/Divers

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

• david_cl
• Brewdon
• xander_134
• Phin18
• OldManLinus

Into the Nexus is produced by Amove.tv and our Patreon producers Declan H and CheezyBob! 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.

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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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