#258 - Into the Nexus: “Ban-aid”

• Garrett • Kyle • Jeff or Guest

#Heroes #of #the #Storm #HotS #Blizzard #Entertainment #Warcraft #Diablo #StarCraft #Overwatch #Hearthstone #WoW #Garrett #Kyle #Weinzierl #Fergusson #Video #Games

http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/

Balance made to change your bans! This Into the Nexus tackles the huge pile of hero changes, many of them breaking old esports laid plans. Like Leoric, Cho’gall, Whitemane? We got good news for you. Like Diablo, Mal’ganis, Li Li or Azmodan? We’ll try to let you down easy. Garrett and Kyle close out the episode with a peak at the grassroots esports happening and an email from the community.

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Intro:  Welcome to Into the Nexus! The Heroes of the Storm podcast!

News

Buff

Probius

Developer Comment: While Null Gate is performing well in regards to win-rate compared to Pylon Overcharge, the Heroic is still not picked as much as we would like, and is much harder to use properly. Because of this, we’re buffing its range to make it a little more usable, so that Probius players can more consistently get value out of it.

Null Gate (R)

• Range increased from 8.5 to 9.5 [+11.7%]

Whitemane

Developer Comment: We’ve begun to take a look at some of Whitemane’s underlying issues with Mana management, particularly in regards to how her talents interact with her base mechanics. We don’t know how long this will take, and wanted to push out some small buffs to her to help her play and win rate in the meantime. When looking at her kit, we noticed that she had an abnormally high Basic Attack speed, combined with very low damage. We’re reducing her Attack Speed, as she is not the kind of character that can turret on enemy Heroes like Tychus can, and we’re buffing her damage to be much greater so that those attacks more meaningfully interact with Zeal. We’re hoping that these small buffs better reward aggressive Whitemane players with both increased damage and healing output.

• Basic Attack period reduced from .75 to .85 [+13.3%]
• Basic Attack damage increased from 45 to 60 [+33.3%]

Searing Lash (W)

• Damage increased from 78 to 82 [+5.1%]

Level 13 - Self-Righteous (Q)

• Casting Desperate Plea on an ally heals Whitemane for 125 (now buffed to 135). Does not grant Zeal.

Cho

Developer Comment:Since our last round of nerfs, Cho’gall has fallen off a little more than we would like. In Cho’s particular case, we feel that his survivability takes a particularly hard hit once the enemy team has access to Heroic abilities which are reliably able to shut him down. To help with this, we’re moving his defensive talent tier from Level 16 to 13 in order to shorten the window of time that the enemy team has to take advantage of this particular weakness.

• Health increased from 2750 to 2850 [+3.6%]
• Health Regeneration increased from 5.7 to 5.9 [+3.5%]

Level 7 - Power Surge (Q)

• Cooldown reduction increased from 4 to 5 seconds [-25%%]

Level 13 - 16 Switcharoo

https://heroeshearth.com/hero/cho/

Rexxar

Developer Comment: Since his inception, Rexxar has been one of the highest win-rate heroes in our game, never going below 50% at high levels of play. Despite this, we’ve heard consistent feedback that he doesn’t feel as impactful as players would like. While we love that Rexxar depends heavily on his relationship with Misha to be effective, it also limits what we can do with him to make him feel powerful and fun to play. To help in this regard, we’re moving a lot of his power out of the more automatic things that Misha does (mostly Basic attacking enemies), and into things that Rexxar himself is actively doing, such as using his Basic Attacks and commanding Misha to Stun enemies. Since we’re buffing Misha, Charge so much, we’re nerfing some of its associated talents as they are already highly picked by Rexxar players, and this change would otherwise be a dramatic buff to them.

• Health increased from 1725 to 1810 [+4.9%]
• Health Regen increased from 3.6 to 3.8 [+5.5%]
• Rexxar Basic Attack damage increased from 99 to 125 [+26.2%]
• Misha Basic Attack damage reduced from 62 to 50 [-19.3%]

Misha, Charge! (W)

• Damage increased from 59 to 150 [+154.2%]

Bestial Wrath (R)

• Bonus damage increased from 150% to 200% [+33.3%]

Level 7 - Aspect of the Beast (W)

• Cooldown reduction reduced from 1.25 to 1 second [-20%]

Level 13 - Dire Beast (W)

• Damage reduced from 40% per stack to 15% [-62.5%]

Nerf

Azmodan

Developer Comment:Azmodan is raining a bit too much destruction on the Nexus, so we’re bringing his late-game power down a notch by reducing Globe of Annihilation scaling damage. In addition, we saw an opportunity to help his talent pick rates by adjusting a couple existing talents, which will hopefully motivate more players to pursue builds that don’t involve powering up Globe of Annihilation.

Globe of Annihilation (Q)

• Damage scaling reduced from 3% to 2.5% [-16.6%]

Level 1 - Greed (Q)

The increased window to gain Annihilation is gone. The 20% bonus damage to non-Heroic targets is now passive and not locked behind the quest. Also Demon Warriors now get a 20% move/attack speed bonus.

• New functionality: Globe of Annihilation deals 20% bonus damage to non-Heroic targets.
  Quest: After gaining 200 Annihilation, increase the range of All Shall Burn by 25%, and Demon Warriors gain 20% Movement Speed and Attack Speed

Level 16 - Sin’s Grasp (E)

Old functionality: Increase the range of All Shall bun by 20%. If All Shall Burn Channels for its full duration, its cooldown is reduced by 50%

• New functionality: All Shall Burn Slows enemies by 15% during its channel.  If the channel finishes, increase this slow to 45% for 2 seconds, and reduce the cooldown of All Shall Burn by 50%

Level 20 - Trample (Active)

• Cooldown reduced from 60 to 20 seconds

Ana

Developer Comment:We’re buffing up some of Ana’s underperforming talents to make them more competitive with their counterparts. In addition, since we greatly increased its reliability, we’re slightly increasing the cooldown of Eye of Horus to get ahead of potential frustration issues with a globally damaging Heroic being on such a low cooldown.

Eye of Horus (R)

• Cooldown increased from 45 seconds to 60 seconds [-33.3%]
• Eye of Horus can no longer hit and heal allied vehicles.

Level 1 - Slumber Shells (E)

This now gives you a guaranteed 3 seconds of increased move speed. Previously the bonus ended if the target woke up.

• Adjusted functionality: Hitting an enemy Hero with Sleep dart grants Ana 25% Movement Speed for 3 seconds

Level 4 - Debilitating Dart (Active)

• Duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds

Level 7 - Night Terrors (E)

• Cooldown of Sleep Dart when a Hero is not woken up early changed from 6 seconds to 5 seconds

Li Li

Developer Comment: For how easy Lili is to play, she is simply too powerful and popular, particularly at the lower and mid-levels of play. These changes are meant to reduce her dominance at those levels, which should free up more options for players wanting to pick other healers that they would like to master.

Health reduced from 1534 to 1500 [-2.2%]

Health Regeneration reduced from to 3.2 to 3.1 [-3.1%]

Healing Brew (Q)

• Healing reduced from 181 to 175 [-3.3%]

Level 1 - Eager Adventurer (Trait)

• Mana regeneration increased from 100% to 125% [+25%]

Level 16 - Blessings of Yu'lon (W)

• Healing reduced from 1.25% max Health to 1% max Health [-20%]

Diablo

Developer Comment: Diablo, while not winning outside of our normally acceptable bounds, is banned a disproportionate amount compared to other heroes in the game. We’re slightly reducing how available his combo is so that enemy players have a larger window of time to take advantage of his threatening abilities being on cooldown.

Shadow Charge (Q)

• Cooldown increased from 12 to 13 seconds [+8.3%]

Overpower (E)

• Cooldown increased from 12 to 13 seconds [+8.3%]

Mal’ganis

Developer Comment:Like Diablo, Mal’ganis has a huge ban rate, and players have had a tough time dealing with his high survivability. We’re bringing it down a bit, which should force Mal’ganis players to be a bit more mindful of how much they can get away with when diving into the enemy team.

• Health reduced from 2700 to 2600 [-3.7%]
• Health Regeneration reduced from 5.625 to 5.414 [-3.5%]

Necrotic Embrace (W)

• Mana cost increased from 30 to 35 [+16.6%]

Talent Incentivization

And additional functionality

Alarak

Developer Comment: Since its inception, Blade of the Highlord has not performed well compared to the other talents on its tier. With this change, we’re hoping to bring it to a more competitive space by making its bonuses more permanent instead of only lasting for a small window of time.

Level 13 - Blade of the Highlord (Trait)

• Adjusted functionality: Basic Attacks against enemy Heroes grant 2% Sadism, up to 30%.  Sadism gained from Blade of the Highlord is lost on death

Gall

Developer Comment: While looking at Cho, we saw an opportunity to make some of Gall’s lesser picked talents more powerful or interesting so that they are more competitive against other options.

Many changes, but let’s talk about orb build

Level 1 - Keep Moving! (Z)

• Movement Speed bonus duration increased from 1 to 2 seconds.  Basic Attacks against Heroes no longer increase the movement speed duration of an active Shove.

Level 1 - We See You! (Passive)

• Cooldown reduction increased from 15 to 25 seconds

Level 4 - Double Back (W)

• Current functionality:

• Activate Dread Orb before the second bounce ends to reverse the direction of the third bounce.
• Passive: The Third bounce of Dread Orb deals 50% more damage to Heroes and 200% more damage to Non-Heroic targets.

• Additional functionality:
• The third bounce of Dread Orb now deals 50% bonus damage to Heroes

Level 7 - Edge of Madness (Q)

• Window before damage bonuses are lost increased from 4 to 7 seconds

Level 7 -Ogre Rampage (Trait)

• Current functionality:

• Gall's Basic Abilities cooldown 75% faster for 5 seconds after Cho activates Ogre Hide.

• Additional Functionality:
• Increase the damage bonus of Ogre Rage by 5%

Level 16 - Shadowsnare (Q)

• Slow amount increased from 10% to 15%, stacking up to 2 times instead of 3

Level 16 - Leaden Orb (W)

• Stun duration increased from .5 seconds to .75 seconds

Li Ming

Developer Comment: We’re going to get you to want to pick Aether Walker. Just you wait…

Level 1 - Aether Walker (E)

• Current Functionality: If Li-Ming haven't taken damage in the last 3 seconds, Teleport costs no Mana and its cooldown is decreased by 2 seconds.
• Additional Functionality: Casting Teleport causes Li-Ming's next cast of Magic Missiles to deal 10% increased damage

Level 4 - Triumvirate (W)

• Cooldown reduction increased from 50% to 5 seconds

Samuro

Developer Comment:It’s not too surprising that Way of Illusion has dominated Samuro’s Level 1 tier since it adds the most direct teamfight power due to buffing his Basic Attack damage. Rather than nerf it further, we’re looking to instead buff up its competing options, which should also add some synergies to his later talent tiers, and hopefully create more diversity on other tiers.

Level 1 - Way of the Blade (W)

• Current functionality: Critical Strike now happens for Samuro and his Mirror Images every 3rd Basic Attack.
• Additional Functionality: Now also reduces the Physical Armor of enemy Heroes hit by Critical Strike by 10 for 2 seconds

Level 1 - Way of the Wind (E)

• Current functionality: Gain 40% Movement Speed for 3 seconds after entering or exiting Wind Walk.
• Additional functionality: Samuro’s Critical Strikes reduce the cooldown of Windwalk by 1.5 seconds

Tychus

Developer Comment:To make Bob and Weave feel more fun and powerful, we’re adding to the kiting theme of the talent by also providing Tychus with a Basic Attack range increase.

Level 20 - Bob and Weave (E)

• Current functionality: Run and Gun and Odin's Thrusters gain 2 additional charges and reduces Run and Gun's Mana cost from 50 to 25.
• Additional Functionality: Now also grants Tychus 1.5 Basic Attack range

Zagara

Developer Comment:Zagara’s Level 7 talents have traditionally been very weak, and these changes are meant to make the tier feel more fun overall. If they blow her win-rate out of the water, we’ll look at base kit nerfs to compensate.

Level 7 - Baneling Massacre (Q)

• Currently functionality: Gain 2 additional charges of Banelings.
• Additional Functionality: Increase the damage of Banelings by 20%

Level 7 - Viscous Acid (Q)

• Slow duration increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds
• Slow amount increased from 20% to 25%

Level 7 - Bile Drop (E)

• Quest completion requirement reduced from 15 to 12

Leoric

Developer Comment:Since his rework, Ominous Wraith at Level 13 has largely defined Leoric’s place on a team at more competitive levels of play. Rather than nerf something that we consider to be a fairly cool and unique playstyle, we’re instead looking to buff up the other ways that players can build Leoric. Now all of his key build-around talents will be at Level 13, which should make his Basic Attack playstyle come online much sooner, and give him more options if he wants to build into Drain Hope, as he can now combine Unyielding Despair with Hardened Bones.

Level 13 - Spectral Leech (Passive)

• Moved from Level 20

Level 20 - Hardened Bones (W)

• Moved from Level 13

Sonya

Developer Comment:It’s hard to create a competing talent to Nerves of Steel due to the incredible on-demand survivability that it gives her in a team fight. To help its viability, we’re adding survivability to Giant Slammer in hopes that it competes more directly with Nerves of Steel while being unique in that it also gives Sonya more damage in a teamfight.

Level 16 - Giant Slammer (W)

• Current Functionality: Seismic Slam and Basic Attacks deal 1.25% of the target’s Maximum Health as damage
• Additional Functionality: Now also Heals Sonya for the damage dealt

Tyrael

Developer Comment:We’re just making some simple buffs to Tyrael’s underperforming talents. Nothing to see here, move along.

Level 1 - Ardent Restoration (Passive) - 14% pick rate

• Healing amount increased from 15 to 17.5

Level 4 - Divine Vigor (E) - 29% pick rate

• Healing increased from 50% to 60%

Level 7 - Purge Evil (E) - 22% pick rate

• Bonus Damage increased from 45% to 55%

Minor changes to single talents for

• Lunara
• Orphea
• Medivh

Lunara

Developer Comment:Blossom Swell has been underperforming compared to other talents on its tier since Lunara’s last rework. While her talent diversity is fairly good compared to other heroes in the game, we want to give her Q build some love, and saw this as an opportunity to do so.

Level 4 - Blossom Swell (Q)

• Current functionality: Increase Noxious Blossom's range by 25% and its radius by 20%.
• Additional functionality: Hitting an enemy Hero with Noxious Blossom increases Lunara's Movement Speed by 15% for 3 seconds

Orphea

Developer Comment:Orphea has been performing very well as of late, with Mind Devourer in particular overshadowing other talents on its tier. We’re slightly reducing its power to reduce her overall effectiveness while hopefully motivating players to try out her other Level 7 talents more often.

Level 7 - Mind Devourer (E) - 70% pickrate

• Damage bonus reduced from 5 to 4 per stack

Medivh

Developer Comment:We like talents that lower Heroic cooldowns, but unfortunately many of the heroes who have these talents also have Heroics with wildly different cooldowns, which makes these talents hard to tune and pick in many cases. Because of this, we’re standardizing these talents to reduce a percentage of each Heroic’s cooldown so that players feel free to pick the talent regardless of which Heroic they chose earlier in the game.

Level 16 - Temporal Flux (Q)

• Adjusted functionality: Cooldown reduction changed from 1 second per Basic Attack and 3 seconds for Arcane Rift hits to 3% per Basic Attack and 9% per Arcane Rift hit

Links

• https://blizztrack.com/patch_notes/heroes_of_the_storm/latest
• https://heroesofthestorm.com/en-us/blog/22911361/heroes-of-the-storm-balance-patch-notes-february-27-2019-2019-2-27/

AMA Announcement and Expectations

• Wednesday March 6th 10:00 am – 12 noon PST – Ranked Play, Balance, and Matchmaking AMA
• Thursday April 4th 10:00 am – 12 noon PST – Art and Design AMA
• Thursday May 9th 10:00 am – 12 noon PST – Hero Design AMA

We will be posting the threads a day in advance to gather questions ahead of the AMA, so keep an eye out and have your questions ready!

Heroes AI

Additionally, we have seen the concerns about the impact some recent changes have had on the state of the Heroes AI. Our goal was to make some improvements, but as with many things in game development, things don’t necessarily go as planned. We apologize for the trouble and are working on hotfixes to repair the AI while keeping as many of our original improvements as possible. We are going to continue iterating on ways to improve AI, but we’ll provide updates when we have more information to share.

Links

• https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/heroes/t/heroes-of-the-storm-reddit-ama-schedule/15703

Eye on esports

Upcoming Heroes Tournament in Korea

After HGC KR caster Gclef hinted at potential HotS tournament in Korea, Tempest Hide provided some details about the upcoming tournament in his stream.

It will be sponsored by a corporation, not just an individual. The name of the sponsor is currently confidential (hint: it's not Blizzard), but Hide thinks many fans will be surprised by its name. The prize money will be quite significant, at least in Hide's personal opinion.

There will be about 6 teams and players will be drafted by the teams in order. The player roster has been already finalized, mainly comprised of former pro players.

The league games will be played in online setting, but the finals will be played at a physical location. Depending on how successful it is, there could be subsequent tournaments.

There will be official announcement of the tournament soon.

Mixer runs interview with Heroes Lounge Founder

Five Support Team run in Division S

All Spots have been decided for Division S

Khaldor announces another meta madness tornament

Links

• https://old.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/av6v1f/tphide_provides_details_about_the_upcoming_hots/
• https://old.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/auw5aa/5x_healer_in_heroeslounge_division_s/
• https://old.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/augxhq/congratulations_to_the_winner_of_the_4th_na/

Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN

Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H, CheezyBob, and Pythagos.

Patron Thanks Doc for keeping track

• Starbuck
• Andy Wohlfarth
• Will Porta

Q&A

Feralfish

A couple of shows ago you asked how the smaller regions are doing post HeroesApocalypse. Well I can report from ANZ that things have definitely changed.

Last season, before everything hit the fan, everyone was on TL and it was glorious, but this season for some reason only HL has players, and what's more the HL queues are 10 minutes long and popping rainbow games even in gold and silver.

My own HL rank has crashed from high gold down to low silver, which could be all my doing, but also I think HL picked up my TL rank after I left HL alone last season, plus the crowd left in HL is very try hard and rather bitter and tilted. which I find hard to deal with.

I've given up on ranked for now, and mainly play QM to wind down after Apex Legends. Maybe after they merge TL and HL, things will pick up, but in a small region, a multiplayer game lives or dies on maintaining decent popularity.

Cheers and thanks for keeping the dream alive!

Outro

Patreon Shout Out

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Thanks to Gorath for our intro music and briangriffithmusic.com (@briangriffith) for our outro..

Personal Stuff

Garrett

• Follow Garrett @GarrettArt
• NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.
• The Angry Chicken: A Hearthstone Podcast
• R2-T2

Kyle

• Twitch.tv/kylefergusson
• Kylefergusson.com

For YT Clips

Jeff Cannata joined Garrett and Kyle for Into the Nexus this week and conversation turned to life in the lower leagues. The trio talked about the overabundance of Kael’thas and thoughts toward

For the full unedited podcast episode go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e23zDBi27YA

Into the Nexus is supported by our wonderful patrons via Patreon! If you would like to help support the show go to http://Patreon.com/itn. The ITN Patrons are responsible for many improvements to the podcast including the addition of monthly contributers Jeff Cannata and DunkTrain.

Don't forget to check out the ITN subreddit at ITNcast.reddit.com to submit stories or upvote existing submissions. Follow http://Twitch.tv/amovetv for the live show and game streams. All VODs of the live recording can be found at YouTube.com/amovetv.

Into the Nexus is a Heroes of the Storm podcast. Garrett Weinzierl and Kyle Fergusson will be taking you through the Nexus every week. Segments include news, strategies, and plenty of community interaction.

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