Patch Notes For October 6, 2015
by JR Cook - 9 years ago show comments
It is Patch Day in the Nexus, and that means a new Hero and a variety of balance changes. Rather than go over all of the changes line by line, I will point out some of the more interesting items and provide a link to the full patch notes at the end of the post.
The latest Hero is a Starcraft support named Lt. Morales. While it remains to be seen if she will be a viable solo healer, she does have one of the most interesting Heroes in the game. Known as Medivac Dropship, it calls down a transport capable of carrying your entire team to a distance location. Another note worth aspect of the medic, is that she cannot use her healing ability on herself.
In addition to a new Hero, this patch also contains a sweeping overhaul to Heroes in the warrior role. Johanna and Leoric are getting tuned down a bit, and most other warriors are being tune up. If these changes work as intended, we should see more variety in warrior play. Stitches and Chen have both been substantially reworked, and Rexxar has received some new tools for controlling Misha.
Tassadar and Tyrande have also been strongly affected by this patch. Tassadar’s Archon Heroic received a fairly substantial damage reduction, but his Q ability, Plasma Shield, and associated talents have been improved in hopes of making him a viable healer. Tyrande also received changes intended to increase her healing ability. Instead of revealing allies, her Shadowstalk Heroic will now grant allied Heroes a large heal over time. These changes should make it much easier to play Tassadar or Tyrande in Quick Match, since they will both now have legitimate healing potential.
This patch is also significant in that it includes balance changes to several Battlegrounds. Late game damage from Immortals on Battlefield of Eternity has been increased, which should make them scale better and lower game times. Changes have also been made to Garden Terror to discourage players from using the Terror defensively. The Overgrowth ability will now disable the enemy core, and the health will now increase the longer the game lasts. Infernal Shrines has also received changes. Teams will now have to defeat 40 skeletal defenders in order to summon a Punisher. The Punishers have also had their damage reduced, so they should now be less punishing. Lastly, there will no longer be situations on Sky Temple where all three temple events spawn at the same time. It was often quite difficult for the trailing team to contest three shrines simultaneously, which meant the team with the advantage was often able to secure the victory in these situations.
There are also several cosmetic and quality of life improvements included with this patch. My favorite is the addition of player names and the Heroes they are playing to the Load Screen. Several new items and bundles have also been added to the shop, including the Marshal Raynor bundle.
These items are just the tip of the iceberg. Continue scrolling down to real the patch notes in their entirety.
We’ve just released a new patch for Heroes of the Storm, which brings a new Hero, art and user interface updates, balance changes, and much more to the game. Maintenance is ongoing, but don’t worry; we’ll let you know just as soon as the Nexus is back online.
You can check out the patch notes for today’s update below.
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GENERAL
New Maximum Graphic Settings for 32-bit Operating Systems
- Players who do not have sufficient addressable memory to effectively run Heroes of the Storm using High or Ultra graphic settings will have their settings redetected and reset to Medium or lower upon logging in to Heroes of the Storm after downloading today’s patch.
- These players will no longer be able to select graphic settings above Medium
- This will primarily affect players who use 32-bit operating systems.
- Please read our recent support article to learn more about this change.
NEW HERO
Lt. Morales has been added to Heroes of the Storm and is now available for play! Read on for a brief overview of this new Support Hero’s Abilities.
Trait
- Caduceus Reactor
- Regenerate 3% of your maximum Health per second after not taking any damage for 4 seconds.
Basic Abilities
- Healing Beam (Q)
- Heal an ally for 20 Health per second as long as they are in range. Reactivate to switch targets, or activate your Trait to cancel channeling.
- Safeguard (W)
- Grant target ally Resistant, reducing damage taken by 25% for 3 seconds.
- Displacement Grenade (E)
- Fire a grenade that explodes on the first enemy hit, dealing damage, and knocking enemies away.
Heroic Abilities
- Stim Drone (R)
- Grant an allied Hero 75% Attack Speed and 25% Movement Speed for 10 seconds.
- Medivac Dropship (R)
- Target a location for a Medivac transport. For up to 10 seconds before takeoff, allies can right-click to enter the Medivac.
ART
General
- New visual effects have been added which will better alert players when they are targeted by an enemy structure.
- Range indicators have received visual improvements across the board and should now be much easier to distinguish across all Battleground tilesets.
- Various Try Mode Battleground assets have received additional optimization to help improve load times.
- A number of Mercenaries have received additional animation and effect polish.
Heroes
- A unique new Egg overlay has been added for Murky. This overlay will be displayed for Murky players when they receive a reduced death timer as a result of respawning from a living Egg.
- Kharazim has received various animation updates.
- Uther has received updated cloth physics.
Hero Abilities
- The following Hero Abilities and Talents have received additional visual polish:
- Jaina – Water Elemental (R)
- Kael’thas – Living Bomb (W), Gravity Lapse (E)
- Murky – Slime (Q) debuff
- The Butcher – Ruthless Onslaught (E), Lamb to the Slaughter (R)
- Tyrael and all Tyrael Skins – Archangel’s Wrath form (Trait)
- Uther and all Uther Skins – Eternal Devotion form (Trait)
- Rexxar – Misha’s model has received updates.
Skins
- Centurion Johanna has received updated cloth physics
- The following Hero Skins have received additional visual polish for certain Abilities and Talents, which more closely match that Skin’s theme:
- Angelic Valla – Multishot (W), Vault (E)
- Betrayer Malfurion – Moonfire (W), Entangling Roots (E)
- Chef Stitches – Hook (Q), Slam (W)
- Magni Muradin – Storm Bolt (Q), Thunder Clap (W), Dwarf Toss (E)
- Spectre Nova – Basic Attack, Snipe (Q), Pinning Shot (W), Triple Tap (R), Precision Strike (R)
SHOP
Bundles
- New Bundles
- Apothecary Morales Bundle – Available for a limited time.
- Marshal Raynor Bundle – Available for a limited time.
- Altered Fates Bundle – Available for a limited time.
- Altered Fates Ultimate Bundle – Available for a limited time.
Heroes
- New Hero
- Lt. Morales has been added to the in-game Shop.
Mounts
- New Mounts
- Marshal’s Outrider
- Void Speeder – Available exclusively by purchasing the StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void Collector’s Edition.
Price Changes
- Chen’s prices have been reduced to 7,000 Gold and $8.49 USD.
- Tyrael’s prices have been reduced to 4,000 Gold and $6.49 USD.
Skins
- New Skins
- Apothecary Morales
- Lt. Morales Master Skin
- Marshal Raynor
USER INTERFACE
End of Game Surveys
- Players now have a chance to receive a one-question survey following Hero League, Team League, and Quick Match games.
- Survey questions will ask players to give a rating from one to five stars on a variety of game-related topics.
- These surveys will help us to continue making improvements to Heroes of the Storm with future updates.
In-Game UI
- Buffs & Debuffs
- A new Healing Fountain icon has been added to the right of the Hero portrait to indicate whether Healing Fountains are available for use, or on cooldown.
- Buffs granted via Talents have been reworked, and now appear underneath the player’s Health and resource bars, to the right of the Healing Fountain icon.
- Buff icons for Talents such as Seasoned Marksman, Focused Attack, Regeneration Master, etc., will also indicate the number of stacks earned.
Loading Screens
- Loading Screens will now display the players on each team along the left and right edges of the screen, and include the following information:
- Player name, portrait, and portrait border
- Loading progress
- Selected Hero for that game
- Objective descriptions on Battleground Loading Screens have received visual improvements, and can now be found near the bottom-center of the screen.
Looking for Party
- The Looking for Party panel will no longer list players who are marked as Away.
Replays
- A new Watch with Others button has been added to the Watch tab, which will allow multiple players to view Replays together.
- Clicking Watch with Others will open a replay lobby. The replay host can then invite up to 11 other players to view that replay simultaneously.
- Only the host will have access to replay controls, which will determine playback for all viewers.
- If the host exits the replay, another player will become host and gain access to playback controls.
Shop
- The Featured Item pane in the Shop will now only be displayed on the first page of items under each Shop category.
- Additionally, the mouse wheel can now be used to scroll through item pages in the Shop while the cursor is hovering over the Featured Item pane.
DESIGN & GAMEPLAY
A.I. Talent Selection
- A.I. controlled Heroes will now select their Talents from a group of preset Talent builds.
Developer Comments: A.I. players will now choose from predetermined Talent builds instead of randomly selecting Talents. This is especially important for players who disconnect as the A.I. will now no longer randomly choose Talents, but instead try to pick builds that are closer to what players would expect. In addition, A.I. controlled Heroes in Versus A.I. games will also have their own Talent builds to choose from.
Vehicles and Regeneration Globe Interaction
- Regeneration Globes will no longer heal Dragon Knights and Garden Terrors.
- Instead, Regeneration Globe effects will now be applied directly to the Hero inside the Dragon Knight or Garden Terror.
- Players within a Dragon Knight or Garden Terror can now also accumulate stacks for Talents such as Seasoned Marksman, Gathering Power, Regeneration Master, etc.
Summoned Unit Attacks
- Summoned unit Basic Attacks will now miss if that Summon is Blinded or the target is Evading.
- Summoned unit Basic Attacks will no longer consume Block Talent stacks.
BATTLEGROUNDS
General
- The Dragon Shire and Sky Temple Battlegrounds have received several A.I. improvements.
- A.I. controlled Heroes can now travel long distances more effectively, and will travel to take part in objectives from anywhere on the Battleground.
- A.I. controlled Heroes will now wait near an objective until enough allies have arrived that they can commit to a team fight at that objective.
Try Mode Updates
- The allied Hall of Storms has been moved much closer to the Gate.
- The size of the Try Mode Battleground has been increased to accommodate a new playable area below the lane.
- Siege and Bruiser Mercenary Camps have been added.
- A Target Dummy has been added.
- When attacking the Target Dummy, a new panel will display on-screen that will track damage per second and total damage dealt to the Dummy.
- The Try Mode in-game controls have been reworked and moved to the left-hand side of the screen. Additionally, several new Try Mode controls have been added, and others have been updated:
- Toggle Ally – Enable or disable Malfurion in-lane
- Toggle Cooldowns – Enable to remove Ability cooldowns
- Set Level – Drag the slider to select the desired level, up to 30.
- Reset Talents – Click to reselect all Talents
- Try Mode will now remember which settings were selected during the previous game, and will apply them when entering a new Try Mode game.
Battlefield of Eternity
- Immortal
- Basic Attack damage increased from 360 (+22 per minute) to 360 (+25 per minute) after 11 minutes have passed, and 360 (+30 per level) after 16 minutes
Developer Comments: Matches on Battlefield could occasionally go quite long as the Immortals weren’t scaling high enough into the late game. With this slight damage increase they’ll be more of a threat as the game progresses.
Garden of Terror
- Garden Terror
- Overgrowth (W)
- Now also disables the enemy Core
- Health now increases the longer the game progresses
- Overgrowth (W)
Developer Comments: We didn’t like the gameplay of Garden Terrors being used defensively to slow down an enemy Garden Terror push. Now that the Overgrowth can disable the Core, it will be much less effective to defend as a Garden Terror, encouraging teams to be more offensive with their Garden Terrors.
Infernal Shrines
- Punisher
- Starting and scaling Health decreased by 10%
- Now leap to the nearest enemy Hero within range, rather than selecting one at random
- Skeletal Defenders
- The amount of Skeletal Defenders required to summon a Punisher has been increased from 30 to 40.
- Skeletal Defenders will no longer take increased damage from abilities and talents that deal bonus damage to minions.
- The range at which Skeletal Defenders will detect and attack players has been decreased by 25%
Developer Comments: Player feedback has been centered around how hard it is to comeback when falling behind on Infernal Shrines. We agree that the Punishers are overly punishing, so we’re nerfing their Health slightly. Teams that successfully bait the Punishers deep within their base will be able to put an end to this threat sooner.
Sky Temple
- Events in which all three Temples activate simultaneously will no longer occur.
Developer Comments: While the three temple event could be fun, it didn’t leave the defending team with many options. It almost always meant whoever had the advantage at that point in time could secure the majority of the temples and win the match with little for the other team to do.
