[2019] Heroes of the Storm Balance Patch Notes – December 19, 2018

We’ve just released a new Heroes of the Storm patch to apply a number of balance changes and bug fixes. 

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• Bug Fixes

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Heroes

Assassin	Specialist	Support	Warrior
Gall	Sylvanas	Auriel	Cho
Orphea	Zagara	Deckard	D.Va
Samuro		Lt. Morales	Mal'Ganis
		Uther	Stitches

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Assassin

Gall

Abilities

• Runic Blast (E)
  • Damage from 233 to 210

Talents

• Level 1
  • Taskmaster (Z)
    • No longer reduces the cooldown of Shove by 10 seconds
• Level 4
  • Bomb’s Away (E)
    • Bonus damage now caps at 200
• Level 7
  • Double Trouble (Q)
    • Quest unlock cooldown reduction decreased from 1 to .5 seconds

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Orphea

Stats

• Maximum Health reduced from 1662 to 1525
• Health Regen reduced from 3.46 to 3.18

Abilities

• Crushing Jaws (R)
  • Damage reduced from 275 to 250
  • Stun duration reduced from .75 to .5 seconds

Talents

• Level 1
  • Ancestral Strength (Trait)
    • Damage bonus reduced from 25 to 20%
• Level 4
  • Fright (E)
    • The slow effects no longer stack
  • Backbiter (W)
    • Added functionality:
      • Passively increase your maximum Health by 10%

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Samuro

Abilities

• Illusion Master (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 8 to 10 seconds
  • No longer grants Samuro bonus Basic Attack damage

Talents

• Level 1
  • Way of Illusion (Q)
    • Bonus Attack Damage per quest stack reduced from .5 to .25

Developer Comment: Samuro has become a bit of a nuisance for many players to deal with, particularly when playing against people who are competent in using Illusion Master. We’re reducing the power of Way of Illusion and Illusion Master, which should generally reduce the overall damage that Samuro can deal throughout the game.

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Specialist

Sylvanas

Stats

• Maximum Health increased from 1550 to 1650
• Health Regeneration increased from 3.23 to 3.44

Abilities

• Shadow Dagger (W)
  • Damage increased from 29 to 32

Developer Comment: We are still gathering and evaluating data on Sylvanas, but her win rate is looking a little low, so we are giving her some small preliminary buffs while people figure out how to play with her updated kit and talents.

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Zagara

Stats

• Basic Attack Damage reduced from 80 to 76

Abilities

• Hunter Killer (W)
  • Cooldown increased from 14 to 16 seconds
  • Damage increased from 65 to 71
  • Health increased from 420 to 450
  • Mana cost increased from 60 to 75
• Nydus Network (R)
  • Cooldown reduction per Basic Attack reduced from .5 to .4 seconds

Talents

• Level 13
  • Hydralisk Transfusion (W)
    • Life Leech reduced from 75 to 60% of damage dealt

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Support

Auriel

Talents

• Level 1
  • Increasing Clarity (Q)
    • Damage bonus upon quest completion increased from 150 to 180

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Deckard 

Talents

• Level 1
  • Field Study (E)
    • Spell Power bonus increased from 15 to 20% per stack
• Level 4
  • Ruby (Active)
    • Healing increased from 205 to 220
• Level 13
  • Potion of Revival (Q)
    • Healing increased from 35 to 45%
  • Super Healing Potion (Q)
    • Healing increased from 80 to 100%
• Level 16
  • Safety in Numbers (Trait)
    • Armor bonus increased from 10 to 15

Developer Comment: After the last round of changes, Deckard’s win rate has fallen more than we would like.  Rather than put more power back into his base kit, we are buffing some of his talents on various tiers to make his talent choices more impactful and to increase his power growth throughout the game.

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Lt. Morales

Talents

• Level 7
  • Physical Therapy (W)
    • No longer grants cooldown reduction when removing Slows with Safeguard
      • Additional functionality:
        • Reduce the cooldown of Safeguard by 2 seconds

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Uther

Talents

• Level 7
  • Armor of Faith (Q)
    • Now has a 20-second cooldown
    • Additional functionality:
      • Now also restores 90 Mana when Uther is Stunned, Rooted, or Silenced

Developer Comment: There was a large disparity of the value that Uther could receive when taking Armor of Faith against various heroes who have small stuns that proc often against enemies (such as Johanna.) While we still like the idea of this talent turning crowd control against Uther into a boon for him, we want to be able to control its frequency so that his output isn’t drastically different when facing off against certain heroes. To compensate for the loss of uptime in these situations, we are giving him a fairly significant Mana return, which should offset the cooldown reduction that he receives on Holy Light when this talent activates.

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Warrior

Cho

Stats

• Maximum Health reduced from 2950 to 2750
• Health regeneration reduced from 6.15 to 5.73

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D.Va

Stats

• Mech Basic Attack damage increased from 24 to 26

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Mal'Ganis

Talents

• Level 4
  • Fueled by Torment (W)
    • Healing reduced from 12 to 11

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Stitches

Stats

• Base Maximum Health increased from 3000 to 3060
• Health Regen increased from 6.25 to 6.38

Talents

• Level 4
  • Chop Chop (W)
    • Attack Speed increased from 4 to 5 seconds
• Level 13
  • Digestive Juices (E)
    • Damage reduction bonus increased from 40 to 50%
    • Duration increased from 4 to 5 seconds

Developer Comment: Overall, Stitches is faring well with his new toys. There are a few places we think could stand some numerical changes, but we’d like to give him a bit more time to settle in with all the other changes that went out with this patch. We will continue to monitor the large lad, but felt there were some easy wins on talents that were obviously underperforming.

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Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed a number of tooltip issues across the game.

Heroes

• Sylvanas: Fixed an issue preventing Banshee’s Curse from working against Battleground event monsters.

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