Heroes of the Storm Balance Update Notes — April 28, 2016

We’ve just released a new patch for Heroes of the Storm that applies a few balance changes and bug fixes. Check out the patch notes below.

Heroes

Assassin

Kael'thas

• Verdant Spheres (Trait) (D)
  • Mana Addict (Talent)
    • Regeneration Globes required to complete the Quest have been reduced from 25 to 20.
  • Fel Infusion (Talent)
    • Bonus Ability Power decreased from 5% to 4%.
• Flame Strike (Q)
  • Convection (Talent)
    • Bonus damage on Quest completion increased from 150 to 175.
• Living Bomb (W)
  • Sun King’s Fury (Talent)
    • Bonus damage decreased from 190 (+4% per level) to 171 (+4% per level).

Developer Comments: Fel Infusion is doing a little bit too much, too well compared to other Talents on its tier for how low-risk it is, so we’re giving it a slight nerf and buffing the others. Mana Addict should feel more consistently achievable in an average game, and Convection’s reward is now more worth the risk of taking the talent.

We’re a little uncomfortable with how much single-target burst damage Kael’thas is able to put out with Sun King’s Fury, so we’re toning it down. He threw a fit about it, but we’re sure he’ll manage to find some other way to be a little too powerful. He always does.

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The Butcher

• Enraged (Talent)
  • Cooldown reduced from 30 to 25 seconds.
• Hamstring (Q)
  • Chop Meat (Talent)
    • Bonus damage to Minions and Mercenaries increased from 50% to 100%.
• Butcher’s Brand (W)
  • Insatiable Blade (Talent)
    • Bonus Healing from Basic Attacks increased from 25% to 50%.
• Ruthless Onslaught (E)
  • Cooldown reduced from 20 to 15 seconds.
  • Mana cost from 75 to 55.
  • Unrelenting Pursuit (Talent)
    • Cooldown reduction decreased from 40% to 33%.
• Furnace Blast (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 90 to 80 seconds.
  • Damage increased from 456 (+4% per level) to 500 (+4% per level).

Developer Comments: There are a lot of ways for enemy teams to shut down our favorite meat-cleaving demon friend. We want to give him some more opportunities to engage enemies by reducing the cooldown of Ruthless Onslaught, which we feel is appropriate since he puts himself at risk when diving opponents. While taking a look, we saw an opportunity to buff up some of his weaker Talents, which should make him feel more compelling to play.

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Specialist

Nazeebo

• Gargantuan (R)
  • Basic Attack damage reduced from 274 (+4% per level) to 219 (+4% per level).
  • Stomp damage increased from 151 (+4% per level) to 181 (+4% per level).

Developer Comments: We streamlined Gargantuan’s damage a few patches ago to no longer deal bonus damage to non-player targets. In the process, he ended up clobbering enemy Heroes a bit harder than we liked. We’re lowering his base attack damage to bring it more in line, and buffing Stomp damage to make activating this ability more impactful.

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Warrior

Rexxar

• Basic Attack range increased by 22%.
• Health increased from 1643 (+4% per level) to 1725 (+4% per level).
• Health regeneration increased from 3.42 (+4% per level) to 3.59 (+4% per level) per second.
• Throwing Axes (Talent) removed.
• Misha (Trait)
  • Leash range increased by approximately 12.5%.
• Misha Charge! (W)
  • Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds.
  • Aspect of the Beast (Talent)
    • Cooldown reduction earned from Misha’s Basic Attacks reduced from 2 to 1.5 second.

Developer Comments: We’re currently looking at doing a larger pass on Rexxar in the future, but wanted to give him some love in the meantime to help make him more rewarding to play. It should now be easier to stick Misha to targets with her increased Leash range, and Rexxar should be able to both zone and survive against enemies better with increases to his Health and to his Basic Attack range. We’re listening to your feedback on him, and are looking forward to bringing out something more substantial in the future.

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Bug Fixes

General

• Issuing a Mount command while holding down the right mouse button to move will no longer interrupt Mount channeling.

Heroes and Talents

• Murky’s Egg location will no longer be revealed if he is killed by Tracer’s Melee Ability.
• Regeneration Globes will no longer grant 200% Health Regeneration to Tracer after learning her Untouchable Talent.
• Fixed an issue causing Malfurion to receive an inconsistent amount of healing when casting Tranquility. Additionally, the tooltip for the Serenity talent should now reflect the correct amount of bonus healing provided.
• Fixed an issue causing Tyrande’s Starfall to deal lower than intended damage, and have a higher than intended Mana cost and cooldown after learning her Celestial Wrath Talent.

User Interface

• Corrected several Hero Skin names in tooltips that display when hovering the cursor over another player’s portrait in draft lobbies.