New Balance Patch Released For June 21, 2016
by JR Cook - 8 years ago show comments
A new Balance Patch was released today, one day earlier than expect thanks to a bug involving Tracer and her Pulse Bomb. While the list of changes is short, one of the most popular Heroes in the game is once again on the hit list.
Kael’thas has received yet another nerf, this time centered on the damage over time component of his Living Bomb (W) ability. The explosion damage has been increased however, so at the lower levels, where players are less apt to spread out and avoid bomb damage, this might actually be a bit of a sideways buff. Despite many changes, Kael’thas always seems to rise from the ashes so there is no reason to expect this time to be any different.
Next up is Chromie, with a slight buff to her Time Trap (E) ability.
The last Hero on the list is another staple of these Balance Updates. Rehgar is receiving a nerf to his Chain Heal (Q) and a slight buff to Lightning Shield (W) with the goal of making him a little more of a scrappy, in your face type of healer.
Continue below to read the full changes, as well as associated bug fixes.
We’ve just released a new patch for Heroes of the Storm in order to apply balance changes to Rehgar, Chromie, and Kael’thas, and to address a few live bugs. Check out the detailed patch notes below.
HEROES
| ASSASSIN | SUPPORT |
|---|---|
| Kael’thas | Rehgar |
| Chromie |
ASSASSIN
KAEL’THAS
Basic Abilities
- Living Bomb (W)
- Damage over time reduced from 84 to 50.
- Explosion damage increased from 138 to 200.
Developer Comments: Kael’thas’ damage is a bit too high, so we’re nerfing his single-target Living Bomb damage by 10%. While we were successful at giving him some weaknesses by reducing his survivability and removing Bolt of the Storm, he is still able to put out more single-target damage than we’re comfortable with. We want to point him towards being more of an AoE mage, and this is the beginning of that process. Expect to see some tweaks in the future to continue pointing him in that direction.
CHROMIE
Basic Abilities
- Time Trap (E)
- Mana cost reduced from 50 to 25
- Cast range increased by 50%.
- Time Trap Base Health increased from 200 to 300.
Developer Comments: We want to play up the strategic positioning that Chromie uses to stay alive. As such, we are making Time Traps less of a Mana drain and increasing their range so Chromie players are encouraged to reposition the traps where it will offer the best benefit.We are also increasing the Health of the traps so that they don’t die as frequently to incidental damage. These buffs will make it easier for Chromie to protect herself from the enemies that she knows are coming…or will know were coming… time dragons are confusing.
SUPPORT
REHGAR
Stats
- Basic Attack damage increased from 95 to 99.
Basic Abilities
- Chain Heal (Q)
- Primary heal amount reduced from 372 to 334.
- Secondary bounce heal amount reduced from 186 to 167.
- Lightning Shield (W)
- Damage increased from 60 damage per second to 64 damage per second.
Talents
Level 4
- Stormcaller (W)
- Mana return increased from 3 to 4 per Hero hit.
- Maximum Mana returned increased from 30 to 40.
Developer Comments: Rehgar is still performing too well in competitive play. We agree with the majority of the community that we’d rather see him being a more aggressive support, so we’re offsetting some of the healing nerfs by increasing his damage potential. This should be an overall nerf to Rehgar, but he is almost universally regarded as one of the best supports at all levels of play and with all team compositions. These should bring him in line while also rewarding those behind-biting plays that everyone loves.
BUG FIXES
- Fixed an issue causing the Hero League screen to fail to update with Placement Match results after a game completed.
- Rehgar: The untalented Lightning Shield gained from the Lightning Bond talent will no longer increase the damage dealt by Rising Storm when both talents are taken.
- Tracer: Fixed an issue causing Pulse Bomb to deal unintended additional damage when certain talents were chosen.
- The Profile Statistics page will now show the highest rank earned for current and previous seasons, instead of current rank.
- The Profile Summary page will now show lifetime player and Hero stats instead of the current season’s stats.
