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Katowice25012 Posts
The long awaited patch is now here and is big as all fuck you can read the full thing there. New map, new hero (Sylvanas), extra gold rewards, and balance changes to a bunch of heroes.
New Map Battleground
Tomb of the Spider Queen, a brand new 3-lane Battleground, has been added to Heroes of the Storm and is now available for play in all game modes!
- Spider Minions and enemy Heroes will drop magical Gems of Power upon death.
- Collect these Gems and turn them in to the Spider Queen’s Altars, which can be found in-between lanes at the center of the Battleground.
- Once either team has relinquished enough Gems to the Spider Queen, her Webweavers will descend and travel down each lane to siege the opposing team on three fronts.
- Each team can summon Webweavers by turning in 50 Gems. The number of required
- Gems will increase by 5 for each subsequent wave.
- Be sure to turn in Gems promptly! Gems collected by a player will be dropped upon death, but can be picked up by allied Heroes.
Sylvanas Windrunner has been added to Heroes of the Storm and is now available for play! Read on for a brief overview of her Abilities, and then check her out in Try Me Mode using the in-game Shop.
Basic Abilities
- Withering Fire (Q)
- Shoot the closest enemy for 25 damage, preferring Heroes. Stores 5 charges.
- Shadow Dagger (W)
- Deals 10 damage, and an additional 40 damage over 2 seconds, to target unit. This effect spreads to nearby units.
- Haunting Wave (E)
- Send forth a wave of banshees, dealing 30 damage to all targets. Reactivate to teleport to the banshees’ location.
Trait
- Black Arrows
- Basic Attacks and Abilities stun Minions, Mercenaries, and Towers.
Heroic Abilities
- Wailing Arrow (R)
- Shoot an arrow that explodes for 200 damage and silences enemies for 2.5 seconds. Can be reactivated to detonate the arrow early.
- Possession (R)
- Force an enemy Minion to fight for you. It gains 20% Attack Damage and Health.
Map Battleground Changes Blackheart’s Bay
- Doubloon Chest status bars are now segmented, and each segment represents when a Doubloon will spawn.
Haunted Mines
- The power difference between Lane Golems has been reduced in situations where there is a large skull-count disparity.
- High skull-count Lane Golem Health has been slightly reduced.
- The first round of Lane Golems have had their Health reduced.
Garden of Terror
- Movement Speed reduced to equal Hero Movement Speed
- Overgrowth (W)
- Overgrowth Health increased by 25%
- Now receives additional Health bonuses past the 15 minute mark
- Now deals 70 (+7 per minute) damage each tick to Minions and Mercenaries instead of 20% of their Maximum Health. This is the same as the Structure damage.
Sky Temple
- Temple damage reduced by 10%
Mercenaries
- Mercenary initial and scaling XP has been reworked.
- Mercenary Camp tooltips now indicate which Camps can be Bribed.
Structures
- Gate, Tower, Town Hall, and Wall Health reduced by approximately 10%.
There's also a bunch of stuff about the UI and art and also individual hero changes, of which there are a lot. You can read them here.
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SoCal, USA3955 Posts
Defiantly curious how Sylvanas plays out. :D
Gate, Tower, Town Hall, and Wall Health reduced by approximately 10%.
This seems kinda unnecessary.
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I'm guessing to try and promote split a touch? Dunno. Seems like it'll still just have 5 people zerg it down 10% faster.
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Well I hope that Tomb of the Spider Queen ends up replacing one of the other "collect stuff to summon something" maps.
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Shit. Valla's best talent, Battle Momentum, was just removed.
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Katowice25012 Posts
I'm sad about that too but Valla was so strong it's probably necessary
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8716 Posts
But Searing Attacks is one of the most fun talents and now the choice is easy!
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Alot of people are clamoring on the lack of illidan nerfs, i think blizzard is being more long term focused when not nerfing illidan (assuming its not missing from the patchnotes like thrall last time). Illidan requires 2 supports or atleast 1 support and 1 hybrid to sustain, so you kind of count on illidan to do the dmg of 1and half dps. Sylvanas with 2.5 sec silence hurts illidan alot, increased jaina burst dmg will also threaten diving illidans, and blizzard mentioned introducing new heroes to help debuffing alot of healing (im expecting a warrior like Varian or something with mortal strike that applies healing debuffs). I think blizzard expects illidan to be more or less balanced in the long term, not necessarily in the current meta, if he is OP at all.
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I wonder if since battle mo was taken from Valla if Q build with reset on vault/double vault may be viable.
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I've seen a bunch of people pick Caltrops for Valla's level 7 talent. I've never found it useful though.
Should I use Caltrops or Searing Attacks?
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On March 24 2015 23:49 Icysoul wrote: Alot of people are clamoring on the lack of illidan nerfs, i think blizzard is being more long term focused when not nerfing illidan (assuming its not missing from the patchnotes like thrall last time). Illidan requires 2 supports or atleast 1 support and 1 hybrid to sustain, so you kind of count on illidan to do the dmg of 1and half dps. Sylvanas with 2.5 sec silence hurts illidan alot, increased jaina burst dmg will also threaten diving illidans, and blizzard mentioned introducing new heroes to help debuffing alot of healing (im expecting a warrior like Varian or something with mortal strike that applies healing debuffs). I think blizzard expects illidan to be more or less balanced in the long term, not necessarily in the current meta, if he is OP at all.
They are also adding stuff that persists through Unstoppable. The big dig with Illidan is he could gain unstoppable frames very easily to shrug off damage and effects. I wonder now if Jaina could be a counter play to Illidan first pick.
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And Stitches, the other character I like playing the most, got nerfed too. The change to Slam to remove its stun is actually huge, because Stitches was very good at interrupting channeling heroes while tanking in battles.
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Copying my post from general thread: Wow, some nice changes in this patch.
Like the Murky changes a lot, especially the new talent and Pufferfish's cast time reduced by 75%(!).
Nazeebo took a hit which is ok in my book even though he is one of my most played heroes. However, Gargantuan will remain close to useless as long as you aren't able to control him like Kerrigan and Jaina can control their summons.
Viking's new talent won't do much in my opinion, upgraded Boat or their trait is a lot more valuable. They didn't get a big nerf at all, which is a bit strange.
Stitches got hit quite a bit(and like I proposed his both ultimate upgrades on level 20 got buffed, I don't think that it is enough but it is a good start) and even though he is my most played hero, he definitely deserves it.
Valla is nerfed but it doesn't affect me that much.
Uther and Zeratul nerfs were very much needed, finally!
Some nice stuff like Hardened Shield for ETC, and new Jaina-only talent(didn't play her more than to level 5 so I don't know how much it will affect her gameplay). Can't comment on the rest since I didn't play them much or at all.
Overall really nice patch, I like it.
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Mexico2169 Posts
Wait I thought spider queen was 2 lanes? Now it is 3! That is way better.
I wonder if we'll get a 4 lane map at some point.
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I have to give up Healing Ward and Trueshot Aura to make a Ranger build with Tyrande now? Thanks Blizzard for making the heroes more one-dimensional.
I'm not really sure what they're trying to accomplish. Pre-patch I see three main build variations: Support style with ranger, support style with Ranger's Mark and the less useful auto attack build. Ranger is now less interesting, auto attack is now weaker until level 20 because of delayed and nerfed Trueshot Aura.
Sure they might increase variety on level 7 because the range increase on E might be a bit easier to give up than TA. On level 13 the two strongest talents were Lunar Blaze and Shrink Ray, now only one is left.
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Abathur: I like! But i think the monstrosity, that was already the preferential ultimate for most, was buffed more. Mine changes are great though.
Valla: I saw it coming and i think its good. A clean nerf, just remove the OP talent. Now we have choices on level 7, mine might be caltrops unless i want auto attack stuff (even when playing multishot i think manticore and nexus frenzy are still good) And Q build might be more viable now.
Murky: "cool! meh... uhm... wut a nerf?... mehh...Pufferfish casting time reduced by 75% me...EH?!" its a nice buff.
Uther and Tyrande: will have to play to figure out.
Despite my anxiety to have a more balanced game, i like how they are fixing underused/overused talents and trying to improve talent trees and inconsistencies as a priority. Tychus and Sonya receiving unique names for unique talents are good examples. Same goes for Gargantuan, Ultralisk, Lightining Breath and Lili ultmates improvements. Some things are not supposed to be part of gameplay difficulty or balance matters, that includes lack of control and stupid AIs.
Bugs and UI improvements are always very welcome too, but its something that must be mentioned if its not done. Anyway, nice job.
Monthly patch change mindpuck award goes to... ETC!!! Remove that silly Fury of the Storm that does not fit him, cool. Give hardened shield to help the cow! what? But its ok, consistency and good design comes first.
And nice change to healing ward! is it enough? not sure but i like it anyway.
Random_0: Stitches is a hooker and a tank, if he is able to stun too its prolly too much for one hero. So i like the change.
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I very much dislike the zeratul nerfs, as he was already a niche pick and was pretty useless vs 2+ healer comps, or even healer + tass.
Making hammer more squishy is definitely a good change.
Etc getting storm shield is kinda a buff? If hes running stage dive he doesn't need the blink. Not sure if people were taking the auto attack damage. Stackign storm shields (4+) on a team gets really silly, might see it more with this.
Really surprised about 0 zagara changes/nerfs. She is really really strong right now.
Falstad getting a bit more base damage, meh, the spell casting smoothing change/preventing canceling might be really huge for him, have to play it to find out.
Battle Momentum removed from valla, good change, now wont be quite as strong to just shotgun multishots with no aim.
No Lost Viking exp soaking changes, makes me sad... that hero is just straight up broken. (The change I want to see is each Viking counting as 1/2 a hero for soaking purposes.)
Stiches losing his ministun hurts, also losing some slam damage on that build.
I guess thats why so many diablos ulted in a really bad direction XD.
Nazeebo got nerfed, good, his ult was kinda interupt or lose.
Illidan got no nerfs, kinda surprising, he is really really strong right now, especially vs uncoordinated teams.
Too many uther changes to parse, apparently he got nerfed, meh.
I hate Murky as a concept so I dislike any buffs to him, as people might pick him more.
No Tychus nerfs, makes me sad.
Healing ward nerf good, same healing over more time.
Sylvanas probably going to be OP for a patch or two before they tune her, fun fun.
Anuburak getting cheaper means we will probably see alot more of them, he seems to be unpopular but pretty strong right now, won't be surprised if he starts getting picked alot more.
Mines changes very good, will be nice to stop snowballs.
Delaying time to 10 will make the 2nd temple on sky much less snowbally - usually one team has 10 the other doesnt so they get it for free, now it will be fightable.
Overall, pretty conflicted about this patch.
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With Zeratul getting nerfed, melee assassins are in a rough spot right now overall. The only exception is Illidan, due to all of his damage mitigation. The risk/reward calculations for Zeratul, Kerrigan, and Thrall all seem a little off.
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I don't mind the Slam nerf, a huge AoE stun with low cooldown was clearly OP... but why on earth do they need to nerf his survivability? That's 10% less hp for a tank that doesn't have a reliable escape.
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8716 Posts
I just tried out Sylvanas. She seems like she'll be really fun and possibly OP.
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