#62 - Into the Nexus: “Title”
• Garrett • Kyle
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Intro: Welcome to Into the Nexus! The Heroes of the Storm podcast!
Picking winners for the Heroes Funko mystery figures tomorrow. So become a Patron or edit your pledge now. Some Patrons have said that they want to keep their pledge the same, you can change it and switch it back to ping our email. That’s all it takes.
NEWS
Reminder, you can go to ITNcast.reddit.com to submit stories or upvote submissions for the next episode.
Release Schedule Datamined
- Monk: August 19th 2015
- Rexxar: September 8th 2015
PTR is Live!
- Items may now be purchased from the PTR Shop using real money.
- Anything you buy on the PTR will transfer to your Heroes client when they go live.
- You can select which region you want to make the purchase for. It defaults to the region you usually play in.
- Gold purchases are not supported on the PTR.
Battleground Pool
- Infernal Shrines will be the only playable Battleground on the PTR in all modes except Custom Games during this phase of PTR playtesting.
- Please note: Infernal Shrines is available for playtesting on the Public Test Realm, but will not be added to the live version of Heroes of the Storm immediately on patch day.
Diablo Tie-Ins
- Add Diablo to Your Hero Collection
- Diablo III and Diablo III: Reaper of Souls players who log in to Heroes during the three weeks following the release of the upcoming patch will permanently receive Diablo in Heroes of the Storm.
- Starting with Season 4, Diablo III players who reach level 70 with a Seasonal character will receive Malthael’s Phantom in Heroes of the Storm.
- Diablo Season 4 launches August 24th
- Portrait Border & Pennant
- Diablo III players who reach Player Level 12 in Heroes of the Storm will receive a new Heroes-themed Portrait Border and Pennant in Diablo III.
- A new Special Event Quest has been added: Kill 50 Treasure Goblins
- Any player who manages to rid the Nexus of 50 pesky Treasure Goblins during the Eternal Conflict event will receive a special portrait reward for their heroism!
- No your progress on this in the PTR doesn’t count towards your live account.
First Impressions: Monk
- Learn Transcendence, Iron Fists, or Insight using the Talents panel to select your Trait.
- Every third Basic Attack heals the lowest nearby allied Hero.
- Every third Basic Attack deals 100% bonus damage.
- Every third Basic Attack restores Mana.
Basic Abilities
- Jump to an ally or enemy. Enemies are immediately hit with a Basic Attack. Stores up to two charges. 12 second cooldown per charge.
- Heal nearby allied Heroes, granting them a 10% Movement Speed bonus for 3 seconds.
- Your next Basic Attack increases your Attack Speed and Attack Range by 100% for 2 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
- Become Invulnerable, striking 7 times over 2 seconds in a large area. Each strike deals 7% of the target’s maximum Health as damage, and prioritizes the Hero with the highest remaining Health.
- Protect an allied Hero from death. The next source of fatal damage within 3 seconds is prevented, and the target is instead healed for a large amount.
First Impressions: Infernal Shrines
Infernal Shrines
- This three-lane Battleground features three Infernal Shrines that will periodically gather power. Only one Shrine will gather power at any given time, and either team can activate it to unleash its might.
- Once activated, the Shrine’s Guardians will pour forth in waves to defend it. The first team to kill 30 Guardians will summon a devastating Punisher to fight for their cause.
- A Punisher is a powerful boss that will attack down the lane that corresponds with the Shrine it was summoned from. Punishers will hunt down any nearby enemy Heroes that cross its path, and can spawn with one of three deadly affixes:
- Arcane – The Punisher summons beams of arcane energy which rotate in a circular motion, and deal massive damage to enemy targets they pass through.
- Frozen – The Punisher calls forth frigid ice shards, which explode after a short delay, dealing damage and freezing enemies in place for a short time.
- Mortar – The Punisher launches a stream of firebombs high into the air, which explode and deal damage to any enemies they strike upon landing.
General Changes
Ability Power Gains
- To clarify the rules for temporary Ability Power gains, the following rules have been added:
- For permanent or very long duration pets or persistent effects, their damage and maximum Health will now update dynamically when Ability Power or Hero levels are modified. This includes:
- Abathur's Monstrosity
- Nazeebo's Gargantuan (with the Humongoid Talent)
- For short duration pets or persistent effects, their damage and maximum Health should snapshot based upon the Ability Power/level of the character when they are cast. This includes:
- Jaina's Water Elemental
- Sgt. Hammer's Blunt Force Gun
- Tychus' Drakken Laser Drill
Bonus Effects from Kills
Talents and Abilities that gain bonus effects from kills will now only trigger from Minions and Mercenaries, and will no longer gain benefit from killing neutral Mercenaries, map event creatures, summoned units, etc.
Seasoned Marksman
Overall, we like the way Seasoned Marksman is playing but wanted to tune up its effectiveness to reward those able to secure a healthy number of takedowns, while simultaneously tuning the talent up due to prior changes. Ideally, this will become a great talent pick when facing The Lost Vikings or Murky players.
- Stacks earned by killing enemy Heroes increased from 2 to 3
- Only Minions, captured enemy Mercenaries, and Heroes will grant stacks upon death
Battlefield of Eternity
When Immortals that are battling at the center of the Battleground swap locations for the first time, the Heaven Immortal will now always travel to right, and the Hell Immortal will always travel to the left.
Tomb of the Spider Queen
Increased the damage and Health scaling of Webweavers and their minions by 50% past the 15 minute mark. This was done to cut down on rather long Tomb games.
General Talents
Bolt of the Storm
- Cooldown increased from 40 to 70 seconds
Focused Attacks
- The increased damage effect will now only trigger when hitting Heroes
“You can still reduce the cooldown by attacking Minions, but won’t accidently waste a burst of damage on an unintended target. This talent will no longer be as effective at sieging, but it should be significantly better at harassing in lane.”
Gathering Power
- The 5% starting Ability Power has been removed
- Percentage gain from killing a Hero reduced from 2% to 1%
- Instead of losing all stacks on death, players will now only lose half their stacks (rounding up)
Imposing Presence
- Attack Speed slow reduced from 50% to 40%
- The Attack Speed slow will now be removed when attacking a target that has not learned the Imposing Presence Talent
“Statistically, it was almost never wrong to choose Imposing Presence. With this nerf, it’s still a great counter in the right situation, and as a result, we’re hoping we’ll see more play from our Basic Attack assassins.”
Mercenary Lord
- The functionality of the Superiority Talent has been rolled into Mercenary Lord, which is now available to the following Heroes at Level 4:
- Anub'arak, Arthas, Azmodan, Gazlowe, Nazeebo, Sonya, Stitches, and The Lost Vikings
- New combined functionality reads: Non-Boss Mercenaries near your Hero deal 50% more damage. Reduces damage taken from Minions and Mercenaries by 50%.
Hero Changes First Impressions
Everything is subject to change on the PTR. When the patch is officially released, we will run down the reworks, buffs and nerfs in our usual style. For now, any impressions from the patch notes or heroes you got to play?
I’ve played
- Kael’thas
- Kerrigan
- Azmodan
- Raynor
- Hammer buff
- Jaina water element no longer chills or does damage
- Thrall basic attack fix
- Holy heck Abathur buff
- Nazeebo Great talent diversity
- Leoric loses push power
- New Tyrael Sanctification rework
Ranked Play V2
- We’re getting Placement Matches next patch
- Our Ranks in Hero and Team league are getting reset. But not our hidden MMRs.
- “After playing your placement matches, the system will rank you near your true rank by combining your placement performance and past play results. This initial placement may be slightly more conservative to ensure we don’t overshoot your rank and create a poor experience.”
- Rank 1 is getting some changes
- Points awarded and lost in Rank 1 are being brought in line with Rank 40-2. This needs to happen so that Grandmaster Rank can be added later.
- So it will not be as easy to stay in Rank 1 as it has been.
- Reminder: after this patch Hero League is only available for solo play, or for parties up to 4 players.
- All 5-man premades will play in Team League.
- Named teams are going away. You will just select Team League and go. If you spent gold making a named team it will be refunded.
The Medic
- The Medic StarCraft Support was previewed at Gamescom
- Medivac can be summoned anywhere on the Battlefield.
- Range has changed throughout time as they balanced the hero.
- The travel distance is quite big - not from top to bottom in Sky Temple, but still pretty far.
- Despite being called a Medivac, it's more of a Dropship - has no healing capabilities.
- The Medic and all 4 allies can hop into the Medivac and move from one place to the other.
Shop Changes
Dynamic Bundles are coming. Meaning if you own one or more items that exist in a bundle that you will not pay the full bundle price.
Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN
Patron Thanks
- Arden N
- Ryan M
- Darcie F
- Dirk
- Welcome to Comics
EMAILS
Bloodanubis87
Hey guys love the show, its helped me be a better player WHILST also entertaining me. Quick question, so i've seen a lot of people annoyed or even upset that Zeratul didn't receive any changes or nerfs. I like playing Zeratul he's cool and was my first lvl 10 hero, but i not up on the meta enough to understand this annoyance. Would you mind briefly going over the ire?
Thanks!
Loyal Hero fan
Tralamin
I was wondering if you will ever do an event on the European servers and or during evening time in Europe (and not in the middle of the night as it is know)?
I would like to participate in the after show games but I will only have access to Valla and the free to play rotation and as the shows are in the middle of the night I'm either sleeping or working.
Now to some more personal questions.
1. How did you meet and started podcasting?
2. How old are you?
And now to the question which might be the most important of them all.
3. Who is the tallest of you? (If you state your height please use the superior metric system and not the useless imperial system.)
http://www.thecalculatorsite.com/conversions/common/meters-to-feet-inches.php
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
- TheGambino
- Valorienh3r035: Seriously one of the kindest reviews we’ve ever received. Thank you.
- Beavenge: “Paragon Points!”
- Hawk4520
- The Male Dany T.
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.
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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
Kyle
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