Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes — November 16, 2016

We just released a new patch for Heroes of the Storm, which brings a new Hero, a new Brawl, UI improvements, balance updates, and more to the Nexus! Check out today’s patch notes below.

General

The Nexus Challenge has Begun!

• Take on the Nexus Challenge by partying up with a friend to play Heroes of the Storm from November 16 until January 4, and you’ll be handsomely rewarded!
• Games must be completed in Ranked, Unranked Draft, Quick Match, or Co-op vs. A.I. modes in order to count toward Nexus Challenge progress.
• Play 15 games while partied with a friend to earn the following in-game Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm rewards:
  • Overwatch Rewards
    • Oni Genji Skin
    • Oni Genji Spray
    • Oni Genji Player Icon
  • Heroes of the Storm Rewards
    • Zarya
    • Oni Genji Portrait
• Play 30 games while partied with a friend to receive the following additional in-game Heroes of the Storm rewards:
  • Heroes of the Storm Rewards
    • Auriel
    • Greymane
    • Kerrigan
    • Li-Ming
    • Orochi Hovercycle Mount
    • 30 Day Stimpack
• Learn more by reading our Nexus Challenge blog post.

New Brawl: Blackheart’s Revenge

Captain Blackheart has shoved off in his ghost ship, Blackheart’s Revenge, to blow the docks to smithereens! Attack Blackheart’s ship to stop his assault and send him to a watery grave, or clear the path of enemies to defend him as he carries out his mission.

• Blackheart’s Revenge is a new Arena Battleground that introduces attack/defend-style mechanics and asymmetric gameplay to Heroes of the Storm. Only the attacking team has a Core, and they must stop Blackheart before sails across the battleground to destroy it.
  • Shuffle Pick: Pick one of three randomly selected Heroes, and then duke it out against the enemy team to attack or defend Blackheart. 
  • Attack: The attacking team must gather cannonballs, load them into cannons that line the docks, and fire on Blackheart’s Revenge to sink the ship before it reaches their Core.
  • Defend: Kill attacking Heroes to prevent them from firing the cannons and see to it that Blackheart’s ship reaches the Core in-tact.
• Click the Brawl Info button in the lower-left corner of the screen to learn detailed information about the currently active Brawl.

Revamped Tutorial

• The Heroes of the Storm Tutorial has been reworked and split into two categories: Tutorial and Battleground Training.
  • The Tutorial covers the basics of how to play Heroes of the Storm, including combat, team leveling, Talents, and Mercenary Camps.
  • Battleground Training acquaints players with the importance of Battleground Objectives.
• Players can now play through the Tutorial and Battleground Training using three different Heroes: Jaina, Muradin, and Tyrande.
• Revisit the Tutorials or Challenges at any time by opening the Main Menu (ESC) and clicking the Tutorials or Challenges buttons.

Free Hero Promotion Changes

• The free Heroes offered by a promotion that began earlier this year have been replaced by Jaina, Muradin, and Tyrande in order to better accommodate new players who have just completed the Heroes of the Storm tutorial missions.
• Returning players who did not already claim a free Hero prior to today’s patch will now be able to add Jaina, Muradin, or Tyrande to their collections.
  • Those who already own all three of these Heroes, and did not claim a free Hero prior to today’s patch, will instead receive 4,000 gold.
  • Players who already claimed a free Hero prior to today’s patch will not be able to pick a second free Hero. 

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New Hero: Varian

Few would have expected that the gladiator known only as Lo’Gosh was in truth the missing ruler of Stormwind, Varian Wrynn. Now the High King of the Alliance, his every action shapes the destiny of Azeroth itself.

Trait

• Heroic Strike
  • Every 18 seconds, Varian’s next Basic Attack deals bonus damage. Each Basic Attack reduces this cooldown by 2 seconds.

Basic Abilities

• Lion’s Fang (Q)
  • Launch a shockwave that travels in a straight line, dealing damage and slowing enemies by 30% for 1.5 seconds.
• Parry (W)
  • Parry all incoming Basic Attacks for 1.25 seconds, reducing their damage by 100%.
• Charge (E)
  • Charge to the target enemy, dealing light damage and slowing them by 75% for 1 second.

Heroic Abilities

• Taunt (R)
  • Force the target enemy Hero to attack Varian for 1.25 seconds.
  • Passive: Maximum Health increased by 50%.
  • Passive: Attack speed reduced by 25%.
• Colossus Smash (R)
  • Smash the target enemy, dealing damage and making them Vulnerable for 3 seconds.
  • Passive: Base Attack Damage increased by 75%.
  • Passive: Maximum Health reduced by 10%.
• Twin Blades of Fury (Passive)
  • Basic Attacks reduce Heroic Strike’s cooldown by 9 seconds, and increase Varian’s movement speed by 30% for 2 seconds.
  • Passive: Attack speed increased by 100%.
  • Passive: Base Attack Damage decreased by 25%.

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Art

General

• Alarak: The red and green icons for Alarak’s Sustaining Power and Negatively Charged Talents have been swapped.
• Minions: Catapults have received updated minimap icons in order to better distinguish them from normal Minions.
• Rexxar: Misha now has her own minimap icon.

Battlegrounds

• Dragon Shire: Dragon Shire has received additional optimization improvements.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Kharazim: Kharazim has received updated visual effects to coincide with re-worked Abilities and Talents.
• The following Heroes, Abilities, and Talents have received updated visual effects:
  • Mercenary Lord and Promote Talents
  • Blood Elf Tyrande: Sentinel
  • Johanna: Falling Sword
  • Nova: Triple Tap will now appear team-colored.
  • Raynor: Adrenaline Rush will now better visually indicate when its Healing effects are available.
• The following Hero Abilities have received optimization improvements:
  • Artanis: Purifier Beam
  • Kerrigan: Maelstrom
  • Malfurion: Tranquility
  • Tracer: Basic Attack

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Shop

Bundles

• New Bundles
  • Lo’Gosh Varian Bundle – Available until November 29, 2016
• Removed Bundles
  • Masters of Magic Bundle
  • Ultimate Masters of Magic Bundle

New Hero

• Varian has been added to the in-game Shop.

Mounts

• New Mounts
  • Orochi Hovercycle – Available exclusively by completing 30 games with a friend during the Nexus Challenge, which starts the week of November 16 and lasts until January 4.
• Returning Mounts
  • Magic Carpet
• Removed Mounts
  • Butcher’s Beast

Skins

• Lo’Gosh Varian
• Master Varian

Price Reductions

• Leoric’s prices reduced to $8.49 USD and 7,000 Gold.

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Sound

General

• New sound effects have been added to coincide with the re-worked Tutorial experience.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Kharazim has received updated sound effects to coincide with his re-worked Abilities and Talents. 

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User Interface

General

• AFK Detection Added to Heroes Brawl
  • AFK detection has been added to Heroes Brawl. Players who become inactive during a Brawl will be disconnected from the match.
• New Player Daily Quests
  • Prior to reaching account level 10, players will now receive a “Play 3 vs. A.I. Games” Daily Quest instead of the “Play 3 Games” quest.

Auto Select

• Players can now select their preferred roles when queuing as Auto-Select in Quick Match and Versus A.I. games.
• Pick the Auto Select Hero, and then use the new row of Role buttons added to the Hero Select screen to choose one or more preferred Hero Roles.
  • Instead of choosing by role, players may also queue for Auto Select as the Heroes they’ve selected as favorites.
  • In order to queue as Auto Select in a preferred role or with favorites, the selection must total at least 5 Heroes.

MVP and Commendations

• A number of additional Commendations have been added in order to help recognize a wider variety of in-game achievements. 

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Design & Gameplay

Damage Mitigation Effects

• Resistant and Vulnerable effects now stack additively with one another, up to a maximum of 75% Resitance and 25% Vulnerability.

Developer Comments:   Lead Designer Matt Cooper posted the design team's thoughts on this change in the forums. Click here to read his post.

Stealth

• Abilities that reveal Stealthed/Cloaked Heroes will no longer remove the Stealth/Cloak effect, but will instead temporarily reveal the cloaked Hero.
• The following talents now function while under the effects of Stealth granted by another player (ex: Tyrande’s Shadowstalk):
  • Nova
    • Tactical Espionage
    • Advanced Cloaking
    • Covert Ops
  • Samuro
    • Way of the Wind
    • Harsh Winds

Developer Comments:  Some revealers, like Oracle from Tassadar and now Scouting Drone, are very binary in their ability to reveal Heroes, by design. But their purpose is to provide scouting and position of the enemy, and not to negate the effects of Talents or Abilities that rely on Stealth to provide their benefit. While examining these conditional Talents, we decided that it would be more interesting to allow synergies between external sources of Stealth these Talents. We like that choices like Tyrande’s Shadowstalk or Medivh’s Invisibility become more interesting if you have allies that gain additional benefits from Stealth on your team.

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Battlegrounds

Dragon Shire

• Dragon Knight
  • Rubble Maker (Passive) now also reduces the duration of Blinds by 50%

Garden of Terror

• Garden Terror
  • Terror of the Garden (Passive) now also reduces the duration of Blinds by 50%

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Talents

Scouting Drone

• Now also reveals Stealthed/Cloaked Heroes

Seasoned Marksman

• Basic Attack damage can now be gained past the previous cap of 40 bonus damage
• Activated Attack Speed bonus increased from 30 to 40%

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Heroes

Assassin

Alarak

Abilities

• Lightning Surge (E)
  • Range increased by roughly 10%

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Illidan

Talents

• Level 1
  • Unending Hatred (Passive)
    • Increased Basic Attack damage bonus upon quest completion from 10 to 20
  • Battered Assault (W)
    • Added functionality:
      • Now also increases the duration of Sweeping Strike from 3 to 5 seconds
    • Increased the bonus damage gained from hitting 2+ Heroes with Sweeping Strike from 125 to 150%
• Level 4
  • Unbound (W)
    • No longer reduces the cooldown of Sweeping Strike
    • Added Functionality:
      • Quest: After hitting 30 Heroes with Sweeping Strike, gain a second charge of Sweeping Strike
• Level 7
  • Thirsting Blade (Trait)
    • Increases healing amount of 50 to 60%
• Level 16
  • Marked for Death (Q)
    • Damage reduced from 225 to 180

Developer Comments:  We’re aiming to make a few of the earlier talent choices for Illidan more competitive options, and open up a greater variety of playstyles for Illidan players. By increasing the bonus of Unending Hatred, we think farming Minion waves and Hunting into fights will be enticing on certain Battlegrounds. By allowing Unbound to grant 2 charges of Sweeping Strike, we think that Talents like Battered Assault and Blades of Azzinoth will showcase an Illidan that can dance across an enemy team and do a lot of damage while doing so.

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Raynor

Abilities

• Adrenaline Rush (E)
  • Now displays a visual effect under Raynor's feet to indicate that Adrenaline Rush is off cooldown

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Thrall

Abilities

• Earthquake (R)
  • Added functionality:
    • Now deals 50 damage to Heroes with each pulse (will now trigger Frostwolf Resilience)
• Sundering (R)
  • Stun duration reduced from 1.25 to 1 seconds

Developer Comments:  We have mentioned before that sometimes we will stubbornly hold on making balance changes to some Heroic abilities because we believe they are actually very powerful in their current form, even if they are not currently seeing much play. This has been the case with Earthquake, but Sunder has consistently been the go-to pick since Thrall’s inception. We hope this change will help shake up the pick rates of Thrall’s Heroic abilities.

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Zeratul

Stats

• Base Maximum Health increased from 1545 to 1622
• Base Health Regen increased from 3.22 to 3.38

Abilities

• Singularity Spike (W)
  • Mana cost increased from 60 to 80
• Blink (E)
  • Mana cost reduced from 75 to 50

Talents

• Level 1
  • Vorpal Blade (Active)
    • Moved from level 4
  • New Talent: Shadow Hunter (Passive)
    • Gather Regeneration Globes to lower the Mana cost of Blink by 2.  After gathering 20 Regeneration Globes, your Basic Attacks reduce the cooldown of Blink by .75 seconds.
  • Block (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Regeneration Master (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Rapid Displacement (E)
    • Removed
  • Seasoned Marksman (Passive)
    • Removed
• Level 4
  • New Talent: Combo Slash (Passive)
    • After using an ability, your next auto-attack within 6 seconds deals 40% more damage.
  • New Talent: Grim Task (Passive)
    • Hero Takedowns increase Ability Power by 4%, up to a total of 40%.  This bonus Ability Power is lost on death.
  • Rending Cleave (Q)
    • Moved from level 16
    • Damage is now dealt over 3 seconds from 5
    • Damage reduced from 50 to 40%
• Level 7
  • New Talent: Slip into Shadow (E)
    • Your Blink has 2 charges and its cooldown is increased by 8 seconds.
  • New Talent: Seeker in the Dark (W)
    • Your Singularity Spike takes 50% longer to explode, and can be reactivated while it is attached to an enemy to teleport to them.  After reactivation, your Movement Speed is increased by 30% for 3 seconds.
  • Wormhole (E)
    • Moved from level 13
  • First Aid (Active)
    • Removed
  • Follow Through (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Shadow Spike (W)
    • Removed
  • Searing Attacks (Active)
    • Removed
• Level 13
  • New Talent: Shroud of Adun (Passive)
    • You gain a shield equal to 15% of your Maximum Health over 5 seconds while under Permanent Cloak.
  • Vigorous Strike (Passive)
    • Renamed to Mending Strikes
    • Moved from level 4
    • Healing amount increased from 25 to 40%
  • Giantkiller (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Burning Rage (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Assassin’s Blade (Trait)
    • Removed
• Level 16
  • New Talent: Sentenced to Death (W)
    • You deal 50% increased damage to enemies while they have a Singularity Spike attached to them.
  • Master Warp Blade (Trait)
    • Moved from level 4
    • Damage increased from 100 to 125%
  • Void Slash (Q)
    • New Functionality:
      • Cleave deals 40% more damage and its cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds when it hits more than 1 enemy Hero.
    • Moved from level 7
  • Double Bombs (W)
    • Removed
  • Stoneskin (Active)
    • Removed
• Level 20
  • Protective Prison (R)
    • Renamed to Gift of the Xel'Naga
    • New functionality:
      • Enemies are slowed by 50% for 3 seconds once Void Prison Ends.

Developer Comments:  There were two main goals behind this rework: Upgrade Zeratul’s talent tree and introduce some interesting new choices, and better sell the fantasy of being a Dark Templar. As always is the goal with our Hero reworks, we didn’t want to change the way he is played, but rather amplify and improve upon it. Overall, he has felt the same to play against in our internal testing, but with a couple new tricks up his sleeve. We hope that our current Zeratul fans will find some new toys to play around with, and that new users will feel more like the mobile shadow-assassin you’d expect from a Dark Templar Hero.

• (!) indicates a Questing Talent.
• Italic text indicates a NEW Talent.
• Bold text indicates a MOVED Talent.

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Multiclass

Varian

Abilities

• Taunt (R)
  • Cooldown reduced from 25 to 16 seconds
• Colossus Smash (R)
  • Damage reduced from 187 to 160

Talents

• Level 20
  • Vigilance (R)
    • Cooldown reduction decreased from 1 to .75 seconds per Basic Attack

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Specialist

Abathur

Abilities

• Toxic Nest (W)
  • Abathur is now locked out of casting Toxic Nest for .5 seconds after exiting Symbiote

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Sylvanas

Talents

• Level 7
  • Possession (Active)
    • Can now be used on Catapult Minions

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Xul

Abilities

• Skeletal Mages (R)
  • Is now cast using vector targeting (Click+Drag) 

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Support

Kharazim

Abilities

• Breath of Heaven (W)
  • Healing increased from 280 to 290

Talents

• Level 1
  • Iron Fists (Trait)
    • Added Functionality:
      • Every third Basic Attack now also increases your Movement Speed by 30% for 2 seconds.
• Level 4
  • New Talent: Spirit Ally (Active)
    • Place a Spirit Ally that heals allies in a large area around it for 2% of their maximum Health every second for 10 seconds.  Has 150 Health.  You can Radiant Dash to Spirit Allies.  45 second cooldown.
  • New Talent: Earth Ally (Active)
    • Place an Earth Ally that reduces Heroic Basic Attack damage nearby allied Heroes receive by 50%. Has 400 Health and lasts 10 seconds.  You can Radiant Dash to Earth Allies.  30 second cooldown.
  • New Talent: Air Ally (Active)
    • Place an Air Ally that grants vision of a large area around it for 40 seconds. Has 70 Health.  You can Radiant Dash to Air Allies.  20 second cooldown.  2 charges.
  • Healing Ward (Active)
    • Removed
  • Foresight (Q)
    • Removed
  • Overtake (E)
    • Removed
  • Protective Shield (Active)
    • Removed
• Level 7
  • New Talent: Heavenly Zeal (W)
    • Increases the Movement Speed bonus of Breath of Heaven on other allies from 10 to 25%
  • Blinding Speed (Q)
    • Moved from level 16
  • Blazing Fists (E)
    • Moved from level 16
    • Cooldown reduction per Basic Attack reduced from 1 to .75 seconds.
  • Clairvoyance (Active)
    • Removed
  • Cleanse (Active)
    • Removed
• Level 13
  • Fists of Fury
    • Deadly Reach duration bonus increased from 50 to 100%
• Level 16
  • New Talent: Cleansing Touch (Q)
    • Radiant Dashing to an allied Hero grants them Unstoppable for 1 second
  • New Talent: Dash of Light (W)
    • Radiant Dashing to an ally increases the healing they received from Breath of Heaven by 50% for 3 seconds
  • Echo of Heaven (W)
    • Moved from level 7
    • Delay between heals increased from 2 to 3 seconds
    • Second heal amount increased from 35 to 75%
    • Now also reduces the initial heal amount of Breath of Heaven to 75%
  • Way of the Hundred Fists (Q)
    • Moved from level 7
    • Now deals a volley of 6 Basic Attacks that each deal 50% of your Basic Attack damage.
  • Circle of Life (W)
    • Removed
  • Soothing Breeze (W)
    • Removed

Developer Comments:  Kharazim’s Talents have been updated to create more compelling choices at every tier. To do this, we’ve made sure that Iron Fists / Bruiser style Kharazim is viable by increasing its damage uptime, removed a lot of the generic Talents and replaced them with Kharazim specific options like Mystic Allies, and re-arranged a lot of the tree so that you don’t have to sacrifice as much healing to pick mobility, utility or damage.

• (!) indicates a Questing Talent.
• Italic text indicates a NEW Talent.
• Bold text indicates a MOVED Talent.

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Warrior

Leoric

Abilities

• March of the Black King (R)
  • Will no longer deal damage in a 90 degree arc behind Leoric

Developer Comments:  We realize that we have a lot of Leoric players that are looking for talent changes and calling for buffs (especially to Skeletal Swing). We want you to know that we actively hear you and although this art-driven change came a bit earlier than our other changes, you spooky skeleton players should be able to rejoice in a future patch.

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Bug Fixes

General

• Corrected a number of typos and tooltip errors across several aspects of the game.
• Brawl: Slightly reduced the likelihood that players will receive Specialist choices during Shuffle Pick when playing an Arena Brawl.

Art

• Alarak: The targeting reticle for Lightning Surge will now correctly match the Ability’s casting range after learning Extended Lightning.
• Valla: Visual effects for the Movement Speed bonus gained via the Hot Pursuit Talent will no longer persist after Hatred stacks expire.

Battlegrounds

• Blackheart's Bay: Area of effect indicators and Hero rings will now display properly on bridges.
• Braxis Holdout/Warhead Junction: XP earned by capturing Mercenary Camps will now properly scale throughout the match.
• Mercenaries: Siege Giants will no longer deal damage if they are killed while in the middle of their attack animations.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Spell Shield: A cooldown timer will now properly appear when Spell Shield’s effects are triggered in the same moment that the Talent was activated.
• Alarak: Deadly Charge no longer be cancelled and be placed on full cooldown if Alarak’s destination would place him in terrain.
• Alarak: Fixed an issue that could prevent Counter Strike from dealing damage if Alarak was killed as the Ability’s effects were triggered.
• Alarak: Unstoppable and Invulnerable effects will no longer prevent Alarak from pushing himself via Telekinesis.
• Alarak: Changing Heroes of the Storm’s text language settings will no longer prevent Lightning Surge visual effects from displaying.
• Brightwing: The game camera will no longer become stuck if Stitches uses Gorge on Brightwing while she is casting Phase Shift.
• Chen: 50% of Shields gained by channeling Fortifying Brew will now properly persist after learning Freshest Ingredients.
• Chen: The Buff Bar tooltip for the Freshest Ingredients Talent will now display the correct amount of Health Regeneration gained.
• Chen: Regeneration Globes gathered by Storm, Earth, Fire Spirits now properly contribute to the Freshest Ingredient Talent’s quest progress.
• Gall: The tooltip for Eye of Kilrogg now properly indicates the maximum number of charges it can store.
• Illidan: Fixed an issue that could cause odd movement behavior after learning Unbound and then casting Sweeping Strike.
• Malfurion: The Hardened Focus Talent will no longer reduce Innervate’s cooldown.
• Malfurion: The casting range for Entangling Roots is now correctly increased by 30% after learning Elune's Grace.
• Medivh: Fixed an issue which could allow Medivh to path into the terrain after launching a Nuke on Warhead Junction while in Raven form.
• Nova: After learning Cover Ops, Pinning Shot will now correctly Slow the target’s Movement Speed by 60%.
• Nova/Zeratul: Danger Pings will no longer remain visible over a Hero who enters Stealth.
• Samuro: Way of Illusion Talent stacks now properly grant bonus attack damage to Mirror Images.
• Samuro: Mirror Image Health bars will now reflect the number of Doubloons that Samuro is carrying on Blackheart’s Bay.
• Tracer: Visual and Sound effects will now properly play upon completing the Untouchable Talent quest.
• Uther: Uther’s Health bar will no longer disappear if he is revived via the Redemption Talent after being killed by Devouring Maw.
• Varian: Fixed an issue which prevented the Basic Attack damage bonus offered by the High King's Quest talent from being properly modified after learning the Colossus Smash or Twin Blades of Fury talents.
• Zarya: Fixed an issue that could cause Graviton Surge’s effect to persist indefinitely under certain circumstances.
• Zarya: The Gain Train Talent can no longer apply a Shield to an ally-controlled Dragon Knight or Garden Terror.

Sound

• Voiceover: Fixed an issue that could prevent Heroes’ voiceover lines from playing properly after being clicked on.

User Interface

• In-Game: The Talents tab on the in-game Score Screen will now properly indicate when Valla’s Puncturing Arrow Talent quest is complete.
• Quick Cast: Abilities with global range can now be properly cast using the minimap with Quick Cast set to “On Release”.
• Observer Mode: Beacon progress bars will now update appropriately for Observers on Braxis Holdout.