#292 - Into the Nexus: “The One Ring”
• Garrett • Kyle
Tracking Link: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/
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Intro: Welcome to Into the Nexus! The Heroes of the Storm podcast!
Pre-BlizzCon Balance? No E-Sport no problem! It’s no secret the dudes have been enjoying this years developer communication and balance. Garrett and Kyle run down the ongoing story on the Blitzchung incident before diving into a heafy balance patch. And might we call it handsome? There are some smart moves in here to streamline and slightly adjust many of your favorite heroes. Don’t forget to buy your Bombas socks at https://bombas.com/nexus
Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN
Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H, CheezyBob, Chris K, and Robert M.
Patron Thanks Doc for keeping track
News
Our Ongoing Story
When we think about the suspension, six months for Blitzchung is more appropriate, after which time he can compete in the Hearthstone pro circuit again if he so chooses. There is a consequence for taking the conversation away from the purpose of the event and disrupting or derailing the broadcast.
With regard to the casters, remember their purpose is to keep the event focused on the tournament. That didn’t happen here, and we are setting their suspension to six months as well.
Moving forward, we will continue to apply tournament rules to ensure our official broadcasts remain focused on the game and are not a platform for divisive social or political views.
Other Factors:
Mastery Rings
A lot of you may remember the old 'Mastery Skins' and we are excited to bring back another way for players to show off their mastery of individual Heroes. With today's patch, players will be able to spend 5,000 gold to purchase augmented Hero Rings for any Hero over the levels of 15 (Level 1) and 25 (Level 2). These Mastery Rings are permanent when purchased and will be placed over the top of the normal Hero Ring, becoming visible to all players while in a match. We are extremely excited to know what you think about these and appreciate hearing any feedback you have on them!
We’re adding a new feature to Heroes of the Storm that will allow you to charge into battle with an extra bit of flair: introducing Mastery Rings!
Reaching level 15 with a hero you own will unlock the ability to use gold to purchase a Mastery Ring for that hero, which will be displayed in game as an extra adornment of your hero’s regular selection circle. Additionally, when you reach level 25 with that hero you can then purchase an even more distinct Mastery Ring with gold.
Q: Can I get Mastery Rings for more than one hero?
Q: Do I purchase these rings for each Hero separately?
Q: When will Mastery Rings become available?
Links
Buffs
Diablo
Developer Comment: Diablo, surprisingly, is one of the lowest winning Heroes in the game. That doesn’t mean that he’s not extremely powerful at times or unpopular, so we don’t feel the need to make drastic changes right now. However, we are making a few small adjustments to make him better when he’s behind in a game by increasing his Health until he’s around 75 Souls. To allow Diablo to more commonly attempt to land his entire combo with Apocalypse, we’re reducing the Mana cost. Interestingly, Apocalypse is chosen a lot more often, but is actually a 5% lower win rate, so we want to make the Heroic win more without drastically shifting the perception of its power.
Black Soulstone [Trait]
Level 10 - Apocalypse [R1]
Artanis
Developer Comment: The Movement Speed changes hurt the ability for Purifier Beam to stick to a target a little more than most abilities. When increasing Movement Speed of Heroes, we knew that Abilities would be more difficult to land which would require players to adjust, but Purifier Beam doesn’t allow you to aim differently. That being said, Purifier Beam is still very comparable to Suppression Pulse in terms of pick rate and win rate, so we think a very small adjustment is in order.
Level 10 - Purifier Beam [R2]
Level 2 - Target Purified: Increase the speed of Purifier Beam by 15%. If the target of Purifier Beam dies, it automatically recasts on the nearest enemy Hero.
Deckard
Developer Comment: Our favorite old man is still lagging behind his healer friends, despite the suite of buffs he's seen in the past few patches. Rather than pushing his numbers even higher, we're giving him a boost to general usability by making his potions display their impact location before they land and increasing the area in which his trait will function. Additionally, we're giving the various gem talents a bit of damage to make them more attractive options overall.
Healing Potion [Q]
Fortitude of the Faithful [Trait]
Level 1/4/7 - Gems [Active/W]
Level 4 - Ruby [Active/W]
Level 20 - Perfect Gems [Active/W]
Malfurion
Developer Comment: To help Malfurion be a little more competitive with other Healers, we’re giving him some small base buffs to parts of his kit that motivate teams to pick him over his alternatives.
Entangling Roots [E]
Innervate [Trait]
Junkrat
Developer Comment: From a balance perspective Junkrat’s recent changes have been fairly successful. His talent pick and win rates are in a much healthier spot, and these follow-up changes are meant to even out his talents and slightly increase his power level.
Level 4 - Boom Pow [W]
Level 7 - Big As [E]
Level 10 - Rocket Ride [R2]
Li Ming
Developer Comment: Li-Ming continues to be slightly lower performing than we would like, so these changes are directed at giving her a small survivability buff as well as a couple tweaks to under-performing Talents.
Level 1 - Astral Presence [Passive]
Level 1 - Force Armor [Q]
Level 4 - Triumvirate [W]
Nerfs
Rexxar
Developer Comment: Rexxar, while a niche Hero, is overperforming compared to his competitors. We don’t think we need to nerf him too much (in spite of his 57%+ win rate), but he has room for another small nudge in the downward direction. We’re targeting a few of his Talents that are much more powerful than the other choices on the tier so encourage a variety of Talent selections too (though this is secondary to trying to provide an overall nerf to the Hero).
Level 1 - Easy Prey [Passive]
Level 1 -Flare [Active]
Level 4 - Hunter-Gatherer [Passive]
Off Build Action
Varian
Developer Comment: Twin Blades is outperforming compared to other options, so we’re slightly reducing its power and increasing the power of Taunt to incentivize Varian players to try tanking for their team more often. We’re also buffing a slew of under-used talents which should give Varian players more options to consider when deciding how to build the hero.
Level 1 - Overpower [W]
Level 4 - Taunt [R1]
Level 4 - Twin Blades of Fury [R3]
Level 7 - Lionheart [Q]
Level 16 - Banner of Stormwind [Active]
Level 16 -Banner of Dalaran [Active]
Level 20 - Glory to the Alliance [Passive]
Ana
Developer Comment: Ana was one of the Heroes most affected by the Movement Speed change a few patches ago. We have been waiting to see where she stabilized at and are ready to give her some buffs to help bring her back to where she should be. On top of a small baseline Healing increases, we wanted to remove the awkwardness of the way Vampiric Rounds asked players to constantly target swap after 5 Shrike stacks.
Shrike [Trait]
Healing from Shrike damage from 50 to 60%.
Level 1 - Vampiric Rounds [Trait]
Level 1 - Slumber Shells [E]
Level 7 - Night Terrors [E]
Qhira
Developer Comment: Qhira continues to sit in a really Healthy spot overall, but Finishing Touch was well being well out-performed by her other Level 1 Talents. We are hoping that this buff helps equalize the Talent Tier!
Level 1 - Finishing Touch [Passive]
Retool
Li Li
Developer Comment: Hindering Winds was a bit too effective compared to the other options available at level 4. Rather than nerfing it into oblivion, we're swapping its position with Surging Winds at level 13. This should open up her talent options a little bit and give us room to make further adjustments to the rest of her kit in the future.
Level 4 - Hindering Winds [W]
Level 13 - Surging Winds [W]
Morales
Developer Comment: Prolonged Safeguard was not a very exciting talent pick and its increased duration bonus was redundant against Vanadium Plating’s duration increasing mechanic. We decided to consolidate these mechanics onto one talent and explore offering an entirely new mechanic for the other. This new replacement, Medi-Drone, gives a limited amount of multi-target healing, something Lt. Morales was previously lacking and often requested in your feedback.
Level 7 - Vanadium Plating [W]
Level 7 - Prolonged Safeguard [W]
Level 7 - New Talent - Medi-Drone [W]
Whitemane
Developer Comment: We have been actively listening to player feedback on the recent rework to Whitemane, and are making some changes to her to address them. Overall, her Talent Tree seems to be in a much healthier spot, and with the addition of some new baseline mechanics, we are hoping that she now feels closer to the Scarlet Inquisitor we all know and love!
Basic Attack
Clemency [Active]
Inquisition [W]
Zeal [Trait]
Level 10 - Scarlet Aegis [R1]
Level 13 - Saintly Greatstaff [Trait]
Level 20 - New Talent – Guiding Light [Active]
Links
Blue Posts
Match Making Improved at the High Level
Blizz_Daybringer: We are indeed experimenting with some configuration changes to the Match Maker. We have been running non-stop simulations here in the office and have gained confidence to start slowly migrating them out to certain regions for testing.
I want to emphasize that while we are happy with the results so far, we still have a lot of work to do before we are ready to fully commit to them. That said - the entire team is excited to hear that you are feeling them :)
Thanks to today’s sponsor Bombas
INTRO
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CALL TO ACTION
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Emails
FuzzyPockets
From your recent episode featuring NotParadox, I have learned that it is essential for a team to have both physical and spell damage characters, as well as sustain + burst. It's obvious to me that Jaina covers burst and spell damage, while Raynor is likely a sustain/physical damage character. With some other heroes however, I am struggling to understand what categories they fall into.
For example: Does Lunara count as spell damage because of her poison? And would you argue that Alarak is burst because of his combo? Also, what even is Sylvanas? In general, what's a good rule of thumb?
scaboboboobs
Are there any heroes that you see on the enemy team (or your own) that instantly tilt you before a match begins? For me it’s Sgt Hammer and Murky, I cannot play against or with these heroes and enjoy myself
I’m immediately in a bad mood the second I see the loading screen or draft
Outro
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Thanks to Gorath for our intro music and briangriffithmusic.com (@briangriffith) for our outro..
Personal Stuff
Garrett
Kyle