Heroes of the Storm Forums

WTF DID THEY DO TO MY HERO?! quick access for concerned parents ! + - ! ~ ~ ! ! + ! ~ ~ Abathur Azmodan Chen Falstad Gazlowe Jaina Kerrigan Li Li Muradin Nova Tychus Zagara ! = Rework+ = Buff- = Nerf~ = Mixed

Highlights New Battleground: Sky Temple New Hero: Thrall Hero League (Ranked) Talent Updates Other Changes

New Battleground: Sky Temple

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Sky Temple, a brand new 3-lane Battleground, has been added to Heroes of the Storm and is now available for play in all game modes! Temples at the center of each lane will activate after 90 seconds, and can be captured to fire devastating beams of energy at enemy Structures. Beware! Once a Temple has been captured, its Guardians will rise and attempt to remove players by force. Defeat them to maintain control of an active Temple. A Temple will cease firing shortly after all players have left its grounds, and can then be recaptured by either team. Be ready to fend off enemy players who seek to wrest control of the Temples for their own benefit. One, two, or three Temples will activate at a time, and Temple activation will occur periodically throughout a game. Temples will deactivate once their Ammunition is depleted.

New Hero: Thrall

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Check out Thrall's hero page and talent calculator for more info! There are already some Thrall guides up!

Frostwolf Resilience (Combat Trait) Cooldown: 15 seconds Dealing damage with Abilities grants 1 stack of Frostwolf Resilience. At 5 stacks, Thrall is instantly healed for 240 (+4% per level) Health.

Chain Lightning (Q) : 40 ChargeCooldown: 7 seconds Shock an enemy with lightning, dealing 170 (+4% per level) damage. The lightning then bounces 3 times to nearby enemies, dealing 85 (+4% per level) damage to each enemy hit.

Feral Spirit (W) : 40 Cooldown: 10 seconds Unleash a Feral Spirit that deals 153 (+4% per level) damage to enemies in its path and Roots Heroes hit for 1 second. Each Hero hit increases the distance traveled by 25%.

Windfury (E) : 60 Cooldown: 12 seconds Increase Thrall's Movement Speed by 30% for 4 seconds. His next 3 Basic Attacks occur 100% faster and generate stacks of Frostwolf Resilience.

Earthquake (R) Heroic Ability : 90 Cooldown: 100 seconds After 0.5 seconds, summon a massive Earthquake that pulses every 4 seconds. Each pulse lasts 2 seconds, Slowing all enemies in the area by 50%, and deals 50 (+4% per level) damage to enemy Heroes. Does 3 pulses.

Sundering (R) Heroic Ability : 75 Cooldown: 70 seconds After 0.5 seconds, sunder the earth in a long line, dealing 290 (+4% per level) damage and shoving enemies to the side, Stunning them for 1 second.

Hero League

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• Requirements to queue: Reach Level 30 or higher and own 10 or more Heroes.
  
  
• Draft Mode: alternate hero picking, no bans
  Details

  • A coin toss will determine which team will pick first. The team that wins the coin toss will be prompted to pick one Hero on the first turn, after which, teams will alternate picking two Heroes per turn until just one player remains on the team that lost the coin toss.
    
    
  • Players may only choose from the pool of Heroes that they already own.
    
    
  • Each player will have 30 seconds to select a Hero during their turn. If no selection is made, a Hero will be locked in automatically.
    
    
  • Once locked in, a Hero can no longer be selected by any other player.
• Points and Ranks: Start at Rank 50, highest rank is Rank 1, win to rank up, but if you lose too many games you may be demoted (cannot go below 50)
  
  
• Game Abandonment
  • A player that leaves an in-progress Hero League or Quick Match game will not be allowed to queue for Ranked Play until a new Quick Match game is completed.
  • Leaving a Hero League game during Draft Mode will result in a loss of 300 ranked points in addition to the above penalty, and all of that player’s party members at the time of Draft Mode abandonment will also receive these penalties.

Talent Updates

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• Resurgence of the Storm has been removed from the game
  
  
• Calldown: MULE is now less dumb
  
  
• Mercenary Lord
  • Siege and Bruiser Mercenaries now deal 50% increased damage.
  • A player with the Mercenary Lord Talent must be within proximity of Siege and Bruiser Mercenaries in order for them to receive the damage bonus.

Other Changes

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• Custom games enabled! The “Lobby Mode” dropdown found at the top-right corner of Custom Game lobbies has been enabled. Standard and Draft Mode options.
  
  
• LOTS of model, texture, icon, visual effect, and animation updates.
  
  
• Weekly sales are coming to Nexus, starting with today’s patch.
  • Three items per week will be placed on sale.
  • Weekly Sales will start and end on Mondays at 2:30 p.m. PST.
  
  
• New Bundles, Skins and Mounts in the shop (will add them as we put them in!)
  
  
• A ton of bug fixes

Hero Updates

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ABATHUR

Abathur has received a major overhaul... yeah just look at the talent selection. Jump to Abathur change details.

AZMODAN

• Globe of Annihilation (Q)
  • Cooldown increased from 8 to 10 Seconds
  • Scaling damage increased from 13 to 15 damage.
  • Taste for Blood (Talent)
    • Damage bonus per kill increased from 1 to 2
  
  
• Demonic Invasion (R)
  • Demonic Grunts now have real Health, rather than Doubloon Chest-style Health.

CHEN

• Storm, Earth, Fire (R)
  • Now has a 1 second cast time, during which the Ability can be interrupted.

FALSTAD

Falstad has received a major overhaul which you can see in our talent calculator. Quick jump to patch note details.

GAZLOWE

• Robo-Goblin (R)
  • Is now a passive Heroic Ability that is always active. Gazlowe is still able to mount after choosing this Heroic Ability.
  • Damage bonus reduced from 250% to 150%.

JAINA

• Frostbolt (Q)
  • Damage reduced from 50 (+16 per level) to 45 (+14 per level)
  
  
• Cone of Cold (E)
  • Damage increased from 40 (+13 per level) to 50 (+17 per level)
  
  
• Summon Water Elemental (R)
  • Initial explosion damage increased from 50 (+6 per level) to 65 (+7 per level)
  • Basic Attack damage reduced from 65 (+6 per level) to 50 (+6 per level)

KERRIGAN

• Summon Ultralisk (R)
  • The Ultralisk can now be re-targeted using the “R” key.
  • Torrasque (Talent)
    • This talent has been reworked. Duration and Health increases have been removed.
    • The Torrasque now morphs into an egg when it dies or expires. If the egg is not killed within a short time, a new Torrasque is spawned. This effect can only occur once.

LI LI

Li Li has received a major overhaul which you can see in our talent calculator. Quick jump to patch note details.

MURADIN

• Second Wind (Trait)
  • Heal increased from 1% to 1.5%
  • Third Wind (Trait)
    • Heal increased from 1.5% to 2%
    • Critical heal decreased from 5% to 4%
  
  
• Dwarf Toss (E)
  • Base range increased from 6 to 8
  • Dwarf Launch (Talent): Bonus range and area decreased from 75 to 50%
  
  
• Haymaker (R)
  • Mana cost reduced from 100 to 80
  • A cast bar has been added during the 0.5 second wind-up to make the cast more apparent.
  • Grand Slam (Talent): Now also reduces the Mana cost of Haymaker from 80 to 40

NOVA

• Basic Attack
  • Anti-Armor Shells (Talent): Damage and Attack Speed slow reduced from 300% to 250%
  • New Talent: Headshot (Level 13): Reduces Ability cooldowns by 4 seconds after killing an enemy Hero
  
  
• Cloak (Trait)
  • Cloak reveal duration increased from 2 to 3 Seconds
  • Advanced Cloaking (Talent)
    • Basic Ability cooldown regeneration removed
    • Nova now regenerates 2% Health per second while cloaked.
  
  
• Pinning Shot (W)
  • Covert Ops (Talent) functionality has changed
    • Mana reduction component removed
    • Now increases Pinning Shot’s slow amount by 1% for every second Nova is cloaked, to a maximum of 50%. This effect expires if Nova is decloaked for more than 1 second.
  
  
• Holo Decoy (E)
  • Holo Clones no longer have collision.
  • Holo Clones now have movement AI as part of their base functionality.
  • Cast range increased by 25%
  • Digital Shrapnel (Talent) removed: Digital Shrapnel’s 2 second cooldown reduction has been added to the Remote Delivery Talent
  • Double Fake (Talent): The AI movement component of this Talent has been removed.

TYCHUS

• Minigun (Trait)
  • Tychus no longer has to wind-up his Minigun to attack. Instead, it now instantly attacks, beginning at a slow rate of fire, and increases to its previous maximum speed after 1.5 seconds.

ZAGARA

• Creep Tumor (Trait)
  • Zagara can now see the duration remaining on her Creep Tumors.
  • Endless Creep (Talent)
    • Creep spread speed increase removed
    • Creep spread area increased from 25% to 50%
    • Now also doubles Creep Tumor Health
  
  
• Infested Drop (E)
  • Bile Drop (Talent): Now deals the 100% bonus damage on impact, rather than damaging over time.
  • Corpse Feeders (Talent)
    • No longer increases Roachling duration
    • Now decreases the damage that non-Heroic units deal to Roachlings by 30%
  
  
• Devouring Maw (R)
  • Tyrant Maw (Talent)
    • Cooldown reduction from this talent is no longer dependent on Zagara killing a Hero inside of Devouring Maw. This is now a passive bonus. Anytime Zagara is credited with a Hero takedown, Devouring Maw’s cooldown is reduced by 25 seconds.

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This is a condensed version of the original patch notes, meant to highlight the most important changes. If you want to see every change please read the full patch notes.

Awesome post

Also under Nova/Zera would be cloaking at 3 seconds instead of 2. Playing Nova a lot, its a noticeable difference.

Oh that wasn't mentioned in the official patch notes, ty!

Another thing not mentioned in the patch notes but confirmed by Spyrian is that Jaina's Blizzard damage is no longer bugged on the scoreboard.

Edit: Oh, I noticed they added it in the patch notes under "User Interface".

Ty Sev! :)

Got a question about the Hero league:

Does a solo player always get matched with opponents that are soloing as well?
Judging by the low number of player in Heroes, im guessing no...

I saw someone on twitter saying they queued up solo and got matched against a team of 5, though that might have been speculation on their part. I will see if I can find a more definite answer!

I know when they were talking about it at BlizzCon the final vision is definitely to match solo vs solo and duo vs duo etc, but yeah there may be too few players for that right now.

Right now there are numerous posts about the group size failing to match :(