Lok'tar ogar! That's Orcish for "Closed beta"! The iconic Horde warchief, Thrall, is finally Here in the Nexus as a vicious high damage, self-healing, but limited utility melee assassin. He brings with him the first incarnation of a ranked matchmaking system, a tonne of hero changes, graphical improvements and other goodies. Let us dive right into the general game play changes.
Cloak reveal duration increased from 2 to 3 Seconds
If Nova wasn't hit hard enough with the Jaina patch, this is sure to put the proverbial nail in her coffin, given that much of her survivability was based on remaining, well... Cloaked, as much as possible. As for our friend the Dark Templar, he should not be so bothered by the nerf, given that he has more tools at his disposal to survive while uncloaked.
Core
Damage versus Heroes increased by 20%
Abathur’s Symbiote and Tassadar’s Plasma Shield can once again be Cast on the Core.
While admittedly true that the Core's damage never really felt like a threat to Heroic targets (given that it had to be balanced around the large Health pool discrepancy between Heroes and lane Minions), this change will also serve to further thwart, on top of last patch's Health buffs, some of the unpleasant Core-rushing tactics that have been more prevalent as of lately.
As for shielding the structure, it certainly is an interesting niche that should not make much of an Impact when considering Abathur or Tassadar as picks.
Grave Golem
• Root
Grave Golems will no longer pause when casting Root.
Root will now be Cast on ranged Minions.
Heroic units will remain the preferred targets.
• Stomp
The post-cast delay on Stomp Has been removed.
Stomp will now be Cast when there are at least 2 Heroic units around the Grave Golem, or at least 3 Minions.
Stomp will not be Cast unless the Grave Golem is already stationary.
Stomp now deals increased damage versus Minions.
All of these changes ultimately aim to buff the Grave Golem by reducing the amount of time it remains immobile as well as preventing undue long term damage that it used to take as a result of being unable to shed ranged minions off. No more stalling means more pushing!
Resurgence of the Storm
This Talent Has been removed from the game.
You'll be hard pressed to find anyone to disagree with this. This is a huge nerf to every Hero that had access to Resurgence (and, really, who didn't pick it, ever?), and incidentally, a small buff to Diablo, who still gets to revive instantly. But most importantly, it just makes the game better. Talk about efficient changes!
MULE
• MULEs now prioritize repairing Structures over replenishing ammunition (if a building has ammunition, its ammunition will still be replenished while it is being repaired.)
• MULEs will now prioritize Town Halls and Towers, then Gates and Moonwells, and then Walls.
I wanted to develop this a bit more than my last comment regarding Resurgence, but there really isn't much to say here - MULE was frustrating to use, and this solves it.
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.
Mercenary Lord's pre-patch power lay in its ability to independently apply an inexorable amount of pressure to whatever lane was being pushed by the affected mercenaries. Given that the Heroes who had access to the talent are some of the best "junglers", it made little sense to ever really kill a mercenary camp and then hand over its capture to your team's Mercenary Lord. The new version of the talent, being what is essentially an aura, means that you need to accompany them to accomplish anything. This makes merc'ing sprees less effective and opens you up to potential ganks. All in all, this is just a big nerf to a talent that did not see any competitive play.
Abathur has received a major overhaul.
Okay, the list of changes for Abathur is the longest we've seen any Hero get, ever. I can't seriously paste everything here. However, it'll certainly be a pleasure to review what I feel are the most important changes.
• New Ability (R): Evolve Monstrosity
Turn an allied Minion or Locust into a Monstrosity for 60 seconds.
When enemy Minions near the Monstrosity die, it gains 4% Health and 4% Basic Attack damage, stacking up to 30 times.
Using Symbiote on the Monstrosity allows Abathur to control it, in addition to Symbiote’s normal benefits.
We've been waiting for that second Heroic choice, and here it is. Is it good? So far, I'd say it is. That thing is terribly potent at pushing down lanes, and unlike Ultimate Evolution, even allows Abathur to keep "existing" while it is online. Note that this fact in itself could also be seen as a weakness versus Cloaked Heroes. I still expect this to become the de-facto choice for him. We'll find out why right below:
• Ultimate Evolution (R)
Ultimate Evolution clones no longer inherit the host’s Heroic Ability.
Ultimate Evolution clones now provide a small amount of XP when they are killed.
Cooldown reduced from 120 to 80 Seconds
The inability to use the cloned target's Heroic is a huge nerf, given that it was single-handedly the best aspect of this skill. However, the newly reduced cooldown certainly is an interesting aspect to consider. In most cases, a clone still remains stronger, raw power wise, than a Monstrosity, really just coming down to choosing your strengths and drawbacks.
• Assault Locust (Talent)
Explosion damage reduced from 60 (+12 per level) to 50 (+5 per level)
• Survival Instincts (Talent)
In addition to the 30% bonus to Locust Health, Locusts now last an additional 10 seconds.
• New Talent (Level 20): Locust Nest
Activate to create a nest that periodically spawns Locusts. Only one Locust Nest can be active at a time.
In a nutshell, Locusts aren't going to be as strong as they used to be, though not necessarily due to the nerfs to the Trait and related Talents themselves, but rather, because are available now some other very competitive choices at the relevant Talent tiers. A Loci-centered build can certainly still be a thing, though, because that new Locust Nest is just incredible. Just as we thought Abathur's passive pushing couldn't get any better.
Symbiote (Q)
• New Talent (Level 4): Adrenal Overload
Symbiote’s host gains 25% increased Attack Speed.
• New Talent (Level 20): Hivemind
Casting Symbiote now creates an additional Symbiote on a nearby allied Hero. This Symbiote mimics the commands of the first. If the second host moves too far away, it is destroyed.
• New Talent (Level 4): Adrenal Overload
Symbiote’s host gains 25% increased Attack Speed.
• New Talent (Level 20): Hivemind
Casting Symbiote now creates an additional Symbiote on a nearby allied Hero. This Symbiote mimics the commands of the first. If the second host moves too far away, it is destroyed.
A reliable, long-lasting and significant buff that gets to be shared to an ally later on? Two Symbiotes at once? This opens up the prospect of running two heavy basic attack damage dealers - something you almost never see, as you'll typically have one plus a caster-esque assassin - and being able to protect them all whilst improving their damage output. I need to see this in action.
• New Talent (Level 7): Networked Carapace
Using Symbiote’s Carapace (E) on a Minion or Mercenary also applies Carapace to all nearby allied Minions and Mercenaries.
We've already established that Abathur was going to be even better at pushing than he's ever been, and now, he gets to shield (and potentially heal, through Microbes) an entire minion wave, including Mercenaries! It does compete with MULE as a talent choice, so it's really a matter of offense vs. defense.
All in all, I'd say that this overhaul is a success. With several interesting and impactful build paths, Abathur sets a precedent for some of the best Talent design we've seen to date.
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.
Globe's long range and short cooldown made it a frustrating skill to deal with when trying to secure click-objectives, such as Tributes on Cursed Hollow, justifying the cooldown nerf. The new scaling, however, adds up to a 10% loss in damage per cooldown at level 20, a rather strange decision given that Azmodan isn't exactly the hardest of hitters. Taste for Blood is also to conserve its spot as one of the worst Talent in the game. Why? It just takes too long to ramp up for it to have any impact. That's it, really. The bonus needs to be much larger to justify trying to last hit Minions with a skill that's basically Azmodan's bread and butter. And it replaces Sieging Wrath, a significant potential 50% damage increase. The irrelevant buff at least shows that they're aware of how bad this is.
As for the Demonic Invasion changes, the skill was hit or miss. Hit, against Heroes with slow attacks (Nova) or limited area of effect skills (Raynor) that had to deal with the Grunts, and miss against Heroes with easily applied damage over time or low cooldown area of effect skills (Stitches, Tassadar). In effect, turning the Grunts' health to an actual amount, as opposed to a set number of hits, normalizes everyone's capacity to handle the summons.
CHEN
• Storm, Earth, Fire (R)
Now Has a 1 second Cast time, during Which the Ability can be interrupted.
We've all been there: Enemy Chen is about to die, and then goes invulnerable for a second before splitting up to apply a second (or third) round of pressure all while being as hard to catch and kill as it gets. This new cast time opens up some serious counter-play opportunities.
Falstad has received a major overhaul.
Coming off as a bit of a surprise, Falstad has acquired some new toys to play with. Although...
• Bolt of the Storm (Talent) removed
• Rewind (Talent) removed
• Stoneskin (Talent) removed
All of these Talents were staple picks on Falstad, especially the former two. It should be noted that to make up for Bolt's removal, Barrel Roll has a new choice to reduce its cooldown by an impressive 6 seconds (35%). Stoneskin also sees a similar shielding effect take its place with the new Static Shield Talent (Gain a stacking Shield worth 5% of Falstad’s maximum Health after every Lightning Rod strike. Lasts for 4 seconds.). We'll have to see if the other Talents make up for Rewind's eviction.
• Aerial Blitzkrieg (R) removed.
• New Ability (R): Mighty Gust
Pushes enemies away in a gust of wind, slowing them by 60%. This slow decays over 3 seconds.
• New Talent (Level 20): Wind Tunnel
Mighty Gust creates a wind tunnel for 4 seconds. Enemies caught in the tunnel will be pushed back periodically over the duration.
From Blizzard's own path notes addendum blog post:
"We heard a lot of feedback that Aerial Blitzkreig was just utterly misplaced on Falstad – a point-blank area-of-effect stun with a long windup time is not really something that a ranged Assassin with a low Health pool wants to risk."
Blizkrieg certainly had its fun moments for me, but design-wise, I'm more than inclined to agree with our devs (yes, it does happen!). Besides, Mighty Gust has so much potential (extreme disengages, preventing Mercenary capture, preventing escapes...) for hot plays that I'm feeling giddy just thinking about it.
• Thunderstorm (W) removed.
• New Ability (W): Lightning Rod
Damages an enemy and deals additional damage over 4 seconds if Falstad remains within proximity of the target.
I wouldn't call this a new Ability as much as I'd call it a rework, which does two things: One, it removes Thunderstorm's random passive damaging effect. Two, it allows Falstad players to focus a specific target rather than hoping for useful strikes. Overall, the skill just feels a lot more clear in what it's supposed to do.
• Hammerang (Q)
• Stormhammer (Talent) removed
• Wildhammer (Talent) removed
• New Talent (Level 1): Power Throw
Increases Hammerang’s range by 40% and its slow duration by 25%.
• New Talent (Level 7): Secret Weapon
Basic Attack damage increased by 80% while Hammerang is in flight
• New Talent (Level 16): Hammer Time
Falstad’s first Basic Attack against a target slowed by Hammerang will now stun them for 0.75 seconds.
And what we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is our very own version of a basic attack oriented Falstad build. This is quite clever, as the focus remains on his strong skills all whilst providing very strong incentives for attacking. I like it! We just have to see if the values are appropriated, which they felt like they were during my test runs.
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%.
Our first passive Heroic choice is turning out to be a questionable design decision. Why? It shows a bit of a disconnection with the way that Robo-Gobo Gazlowe was being played at a high level. How? Let us begin by reminding ourselves what Gazlowe's Trait is: "[...] your Rock-It! Turrets drop scrap. Collecting scrap restores 30 Mana and causes his Abilities to cooldown twice as fast for 3 seconds." What this means is that efficiently scrapping Turrets allows you to brute force your cooldowns down to zero. Essentially, Robo-Gobo was, given proper play, never on cooldown when you needed it. Therefore, the skill being passive is a small upside (notably, there's no "wasting" the skill anymore, and it can be admittedly useful at simply killing Minions and lane Mercenaries) whereas losing 100% damage bonus is quite significant for your structure and Merc ripping speed.
JAINA
• Frost Bolt (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)
• 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)
Don't let the damage trades fool you - this is a nerf. Cone of Cold and Water Elemental's initial explosion are much more situational (longer cooldowns, harder to use...) than Frostbolt and our frosty friend's basic attacks. Why they would do this is quite puzzling, given Jaina's general unpopularity. They must know something that I don't!
Do note that the Water Elemental's attack does now deal a 50% bonus against chilled targets. This change is undocumented and was recently discovered, and may be what justifies the other nerfs.
KERRIGAN
• 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.
A small surge in Ultralisk's popularity seems to have made some of its more blatant issues surface, notably the frustration behind being unable to re-target (which is now fixed!) and the fatc that Torrasque was more or less unkillable (which is now fixed!). Counter-play is always nice.
Li Li has received a major overhaul.
To call Li Li's changes a "major overhaul" is quite the overstatement. One of her skills was slightly altered, and some of her Talents were shuffled around. Still, let's have a look at some of the more notable changes.
• Protective Shield (Talent) removed
• Envenom (Talent) removed
• Stoneskin (Talent) removed
While Stoneskin wasn't all that popular on our Pandaren support, Envenom and Shield will be missed given that her new tier 2 choices just aren't as impactful. However, the removal of these generic / shared Talents appears to be a trend: just look at how many Heroes no longer have Rewind as a choice! Why is this occurring? Most likely that, as stated, these typically stronger Talents went against the game's design goals by feeling mandatory. And I agree.
• New Talent (Level 20): Kung Fu Hustle
Abilities recharge 3 times as fast when Fast Feet is active.
What we're looking at here is a reversed Battle Momentum. Quick reminder of Fast Feet's effect: "Trait. Upon taking damage, gain 10% Movement Speed for 1 second." I'm not sure what mad genius came up with this Talent idea, but it promotes trying to find small damage taking opportunities - and trust me, one third'ing your cooldowns is massive. I mean, just see for yourself:
Isn't this nuts?
• Fast Feet (Trait)
Movement speed bonus decreased from 15% to 10%
• New Talent (Level 7): Shake It Off
Reduces the duration of the next Stun or Root by 75%. Can only trigger once every 15 seconds.
• New Talent (Level 16): Safety Sprint
Increases Fast Feet’s Movement Speed bonus 10% to 20% while Li Li is under 50% Health.
A small nerf to a frustrating Trait with indirect buffs through Talent choices make it feel rather stripped. Still, Shake it Off seems like a very competitive choice, especially given the new "hit me" play-style Li Li's got going for her. We'll really have to wait and experiment here in order to truly assess the power (or lack thereof) of these new Talents.
• Cloud Serpent (W)
Cloud Serpent functionality has changed.
Cloud Serpent now automatically attacks nearby enemies. Only 1 Cloud Serpent can be active on a Hero at a time.
Cost decreased from 40 to 30 Mana
Starting damage increased from 15 to 20
Timeless Creature (Talent) moved from Level 16 to Level 1
• Lightning Serpent (Talent)
Damage dealt to targets after the first increased from 25% to 50%
Search range increased by 20%
• New Talent (Level 4) : Mending Serpent
Cloud Serpent heals its host each time it attacks.
• New Talent (Level 16): Serpent Sidekick
Li Li gains her own Cloud Serpent after casting Cloud Serpent on an ally.
I'll just go ahead and say what everyone is thinking: Li Li felt very passive, given the automatic aiming style of her abilities. Which is mostly why everyone was looking forward to her rework, and yet, now, Cloud Serpent doesn't even require you to attack anymore! Cast and forget! Yes, this makes the skill more useful on Heroes that don't necessarily use their Basic Attack. But perhaps it is simply time to let go of the skill's idea altogether.
As for the skill's Talents, they remain rather... unimpressive, in that they tend not only to be weak (does anyone really care for 20 damage bounces?), but also, compete with much stronger choices. I highly doubt we'll see a "double Serpent" build become a thing, but hey! I've been wrong in the past.
• Blinding Wind (E)
Number of Basic Attacks missed increased from 1 to 2
• Lingering Blind (Talent)
Increases the number of Basic Attacks missed from 2 to 3
• New Talent (Level 13): Surging Winds
Li Li gains 5% Ability Power for 8 seconds per target hit by Blinding Wind. Additional enemies hit refresh the buff duration and further increase Ability Power. Stacks up to 4 times.
That's probably enough blinding to justify Li Li as a potential double Basic Attack Heroes counter pick, though we'll have to wait for the competitive scene to react to the patch before making that call. As for Surging Winds? That'll make Healing Brew deliver some pretty high numbers. Given two stacks (which would be typical), we'd be looking at 473 Health per cast, every 3 sec. Compare to Uther's Holy Light, at 935 Health on a 12 sec cooldown. Yes, that is twice the healing output. Of course, you have to consider things such as burst and targetability as factors.
• Jug of 1,000 Cups (R)
Cooldown increased from 60 to 70 seconds
Initial heal amount decreased from 35 to 20
Scaling heal increased from 4 to 6.5
• Water Dragon (R)
Starting damage increased from 130 to 200
Scaling damage increased from 13 to 20
Slow amount increased from 40% to 70%
Late game buffs to 1,000 Cups, and large buffs to Water Dragon are making it clear that our devs are just trying to rawly make Li Li better.
So, there you have it. She lost a bit of healing, but her damage potential went way up - to potentially ridiculous levels at level 20, given her new Kung Fu Hustle choice. I hate to say this, but we'll just have to wait and see.
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
Fixed an issue in which Muradin’s starting Health regeneration was much higher than intended.
Muradin's Health regeneration was "nerfed" (read: fixed), but then situationally improved. Still, it turns out to be much worse than it was pre-patch, making our dwarven friend sad because even when he had that godlike regeneration, he was still rated lower than other Warriors. With this patch, he's sure to just be going back to his old unplayed state. The Dwarf Toss buff is neato, however irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
NOVA
• Basic Attack
Anti-Armor Shells (Talent)
Damage and Attack Speed slow reduced from 300% to 250%
Nova received quite a few irrelevant changes with this patch, but this, along with the Cloak nerf discussed above, is all you need to know. This nerf now makes Anti-Armor Shells a damage per second loss, which makes sense given that you gain a lot of burst and survivability (less necessary uptime) out of this talent.
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.
This is both a buff and a nerf. A buff, because it lets you instantly deal a bit of damage. A nerf, because pre-patch, you didn't have to attack for a constant 1.5 sec in order to get to Tychus's full potential - merely initiate Basic Attacking. Let's just call it even.
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.
There's been a definite lull in Zagara's popularity due to her tier 1 Talent changes, as well as Chen's arrival. Might these additions breathe new life unto her? Corpse Feeders is going to be a staple pick now. A roach's primary purpose is to tank stuff, and this makes it... tank stuff 30% better! As for Endless Creep, I think the buffs made it good enough to situationally overtake Rapid Incubation. Who doesn't want to have a Scarlett-esque creep spread, anyway? Bile Drop's tier is too crowded for such an underwhelming Talent to be viable, unfortunately. The Pod tends to be hard to use effectively in team fights, and Zagara's lane clearing needs no help.
Bonus: hidden changes!
We're used to it now - every patch comes with a number of undocumented changes. Turns out, you can't hide anything from me, Blizzard!
Envenom nerfed from 7 to 6 damage ticks resulting in a reduction of the total damage from 210 (+35) to 180 (+30).
Good. Envenom is one of those talents that turns something that shouldn't be dealing a lot of damage into something that does a lot of damage. Which tends to be problematic because it voids other choices and goes against the concept of specialization, key to diversity in the AoS genre.
ABATHUR
• Bolt of the Storm Talent removed.
• Locust Strain
Locust Health decreased from 300 (+35) to 230 (+20)
Locust damage decreased from 25 (+5) to 15 (+3)
Locust spawning period reduced from 20 to 15 seconds.
• Ultimate Evolution's duration has been reduced from 45 to 30 seconds
Weaker Locusts that spawn faster makes the Locust Brood Talent much less appealing (and ridiculous, if I may) without actually killing the Talent or Abathur's typical pushing power. This is definitely the way you want to proceed with such changes. As for Ultimate Evolution's duration, I'll have to retract my earlier statements - it's just too short to really compete with the Monstrosity now.
NOVA
Blood for Blood Talent removed.
B4B wasn't a very popular Talent choice on Nova in the first place, (Crippling Shot is pretty much mandatory) though it feels like we're just beating on a dead horse now.