#93 - Into the Nexus: “Title”
• Garrett • Kyle
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Intro: Welcome to Into the Nexus! The Heroes of the Storm podcast!
Hope everyone enjoyed yesterday’s Patron Hangout. Thanks again to everyone supporting the podcast over on Patreon.com/ITN!
News
Reminder, you can go to ITNcast.reddit.com to submit stories or upvote submissions for the next episode.
Xul Next Week
Talking Points
TRAIT
BASIC ABILITIES
HEROIC ABILITIES
Interesting Talents
ON SCYTHE
"We knew we wanted Xul to use a scythe which our art team was excited about. Our next goal was to work the scythe into his kit and we went through quite a few ideas but the one that stuck was the idea of a reverse skillshot." - Jade Martin, game designer, Blizzard
ON SKELETONS
"Whenever a nearby enemy minion dies it will be raised as a skeleton that pushes the nearest lane to Xul. If, for whatever reason, a skeleton is raised outside of a lane it will prioritize attacking nearby enemies before going to the lane. We didn't want Xul running around the battlefield with hundreds of skeletons." - Jade Martin, game designer, Blizzard
INTERACTION BETWEEN XUL AND LEORIC
We do have a voice line taunting Leoric when he kills him in the Nexus! I don't want to spoil the surprise but keep your ears open for it! - Jade Martin, game designer, Blizzard
ON BLOOD GOLEM
"One of the heroics we tried and ended up taking out was Blood Golem. Blood Golem was great but it strongly went against our design goal of bringing a Necromancer into the Nexus with little visual clutter." - Jade Martin, game designer, Blizzard
ON BUILD DIVERSITY
"Xul has great build diversity. He can build himself to be great at sieging a lane, a high-sustain damage attacker, or specialize in cursing the enemy team. If he doesn't go for a skeleton build you will want to focus on making him more about his damage output or increase his ability to debuff the enemy." - Jade Martin, game designer, Blizzard
Links
Additional Balance update coming with Xul this Tuesday
Nova
Developer Comment: We are continuing to tune Snipe Master to make it a more attractive choice, assuming you are consistently landing your Snipes.
Rehgar
Developer Comment: The initial round of Rehgar nerfs weren’t quite enough to bring his winrate down to a level that we think is healthy. We like that his base kit feels powerful, so we are aiming to reduce the synergy between his Lightning Shield Talents. We are also increasing Ancestral Healing’s cooldown to better reflect the healing power it brings to a teamfight. The Bloodlust Mana change is simply a quality of life improvement. Overall, we enjoy how Rehgar plays right now, and are excited to see him bring other Heroes, such as Illidan, back into prominence. With that in mind, we’re aiming to cautiously nerf Rehgar over time as we bring this Shaman in line with other Healers.
New Quick Match Team Compositional Rule
From now on, it will be very unlikely that you will encounter more than one of the following heroes on the same Quick Match team:
As with all of the team composition restrictions we’ve implemented so far, parties can still bend this rule. This means that you may still see heroes like Abathur and Cho’gall on the same team if those players entered the queue as a party.
There are two other exceptions that are worth noting, as well:
Links
More Observers and Ability Ping Cooldowns
EXPANDED OBSERVER SLOTS
In our upcoming patch the number of available observer slots in custom game lobbies will be expanding from two to six! With the option to include four additional observers, games will now be able to support multiple-language casts, utilize a dedicated stats observer, track action all over the map simultaneously, and potentially much more! Check out the screenshot below to get an idea of what custom game lobbies will look like in the near future.
ABILITY COOLDOWN ANNOUNCEMENTS
In the fast-paced, team-brawling world of the Nexus, information is key. To help players communicate vital info quickly, our next patch will introduce a system that notifies your teammates of availability, cooldowns, mana restrictions, charge counts, and other useful ability and talent info using a simple Alt+Click system. On your way to a team-fight and your Heroic Ability just came off cooldown? Alt+Click the ability icon and a message will pop up in chat letting your team know the ability is ready, and it’s a great time to engage!
Links
Sounds of Heroes
Could be fun to play the sounds.
Links
NA Spring Regionals This Weekend
Location: ESL Studio in Burbank, California
February 27:(Opening Matches): 10:00 a.m. PST / 1:00 p.m. Eastern
February 28:(Final Matches): 10:00 a.m. PST / 1:00 p.m. Eastern
Watch and get portraits!
Watch any regional finals event with linked Twitch.tv and Battle.net accounts and receive the 2016 portrait in game
That’s not all! Tune in to Twitch for the Spring Global Championship Finals being held April 1-3 in Seoul, South Korea and earn the actually somewhat cool Thrall portrait.
Links
Dustin Browder Tweets!
Team is looking at reducing Li Mings early game siege damage.
Team is still working on Slyvanas’s Possession
Generic Talents are being slowly removed from the game.
Most of the balance team is in the top 200
Links
Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN
Patron Thanks
Emails
Loveletters
Hey guys, I love the show. I listen religiously every week and sometimes twice a week so I'm really looking forward to hearing this email twice (hopefully) which means I hear Garrett's voice probably more than my own with all the podcasts he is on. Anyway, I wanted to chime in regarding last weeks email about Illidan; specifically the description that he is "in a rough place" and that the statistics on hotslogs are not so great. Well then lets take a look
For clarity, these are all from the last 7 days
All MMR leagues: 49.7% winrate with a 13.2% participation. This is just above Jaina's winrate though her participation is much higher
For Master's & Platinum: 55.5% winrate with a 17.4% participation. He is the 5th highest winrate hero in this category. Generally, as the MMR increases so does his winrate.
In EU tournaments since the Li-Ming patch he has a 71% winrate and picked 22 times. They don't seem to have NA data readily available. (gosugamers.net)
I think this all indicates he is heavily dependent upon what other heroes are doing well. Since Rehgar is top tier at the moment and Tassadar is strong as well this does make him a viable pick. So do people like that this is Illidan's place; a meta dependent hero that will do well in a more finely tuned comp? I personally do but I understand that he isn't nearly as accessible to do well with in your average hero league game unless you are playing with people who understand that.
Sorry this is so long guys, I thought this might kick off an interesting discussion about how heroes are designed and seen differently by different sects of the community
Chad
-Do you have any hobbies or interests that listeners would not expect?
-If you were to guess which video game across all platforms do you have the most time played on?
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
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
Kyle
A-move Radio
Kylefergusson.com
MikeBachmann of Drunks and Dragons
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