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Heroes of the Storm Technical Alpha Thread: [Artifacts Removed]

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I caught only half of it. Now that it's over I'm rewatching the stuff I missed.

I came just in time to see that they're changing my precious Hammer. Even if I was one of many that often accidentally hit siege mode in a panic situation, it still feels wrong to move it! At least her best anti-personnel weapon is being placed on Q. The increased range talent they plan on releasing also sounds like it makes Hover Siege Mode potentially useful (depends on the spacing between buildings).
 
Proven said:
I caught only half of it. Now that it's over I'm rewatching the stuff I missed.

I came just in time to see that they're changing my precious Hammer. Even if I was one of many that often accidentally hit siege mode in a panic situation, it still feels wrong to move it! At least her best anti-personnel weapon is being placed on Q. The increased range talent they plan on releasing also sounds like it makes Hover Siege Mode potentially useful (depends on the spacing between buildings).
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Mines being able to push back is pretty huge as well for her getting away capabilities.
 
I was going to suggest a Lost Vikings skin for Muradin then I realize they'll probably be playable heroes in the game.
 
So, we're still getting no new patch this week (or at least not today) by the looks of things.

Free Hero Rotation for the Week of Tuesday, May 20, 2014:
  • Diablo
  • Kerrigan
  • Nova
  • Stitches
  • Tyrande
  • Gazlowe (Available after you reach Level 7)

Diablo is back so I can test him to see if I prefer him over Barbarian. I've also been sitting with a Play 2 Games as a Warrior Daily Quest for over a week, lol. Kerrigan is on the list, who I feel like I should go ahead and learn (currently have no melee Assassins I'm familiar with) but I'm a little worried as she should be getting hit by the nerf bat in the next major patch. Tyrande is a pretty decent utility hero who I can't dislike. I might give Nova a shot as while I usually dislike bursty Sniper/Assassin type characters, I also usually like characters who depend on positioning more than the average for survival.

I also may have to avoid playing Hammer because Stitches is free. Dammit. Gazlowe being on the list mean some easier games at the beginning of the week, then looking out for early merc rushes over the weekend. Actually, I'm going to hate playing against most of this list. Maybe I should take a break until the patch hits...
 
Maybe this is a silly question, but I don't remember seeing it explained anywhere in game...can quests only be completed in Versus mode? I have tried some in coop which I thought I should have gotten credit for but didn't...
 
GeeDuhb said:
Maybe this is a silly question, but I don't remember seeing it explained anywhere in game...can quests only be completed in Versus mode? I have tried some in coop which I thought I should have gotten credit for but didn't...
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Only Versus
 
KojiKnight said:
Weak, yes. His auto attack does pretty much nothing and his abilities all have a fairly high cooldown.
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Uther is considered one of the strongest DPS healers in the game.

With the skill to lower his cool down for hand of justice w/ auto attacks and the ability to turn his heal into a holy shock, he is pretty nuts. That along with his ultimate, he can take plenty of dudes out 1v1 fairly quickly.
 
TurtleSnatcher said:
Uther is considered one of the strongest DPS healers in the game.

With the skill to lower his cool down for hand of justice w/ auto attacks and the ability to turn his heal into a holy shock, he is pretty nuts. That along with his ultimate, he can take plenty of dudes out 1v1 fairly quickly.
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playing a dps uther build is a horrible disservice to your team
 
Turdburger said:
playing a dps uther build is a horrible disservice to your team
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I disagree.

I've been in queues where there are two other supports and two tanks or even just one assassin and a tank.

Why in gods green earth would I stay support and leave my team with zero DPS when the matchmaking system leaves us at a disadvantage.

There are scenarios when it is necessary, but saying that it's COMPLETELY unwarranted would be a bigger disservice to anyone trying to learn/play the game.

Likewise, the original argument was that Uther was weak in the DPS department which is totally untrue.
 
From some shots on a new Polygon article.


Talents
Nova - Level 16
NEW - Railgun - Snipe (Q) pierces enemies, dealing 50% damage to subsequent targets hit.
Stitches - Level 13
REMOVED: Spell Shield
NEW - Helping Hand - Hook (Q) can now pulled allied Heroes (but will not damage them).
Murky - Level 7
NEW - Block - Periodically reduces the damage received from Hero Basic Attacks by 50%. Stores up to 2 charges.
NEW - Assault Egg - Spawn Egg cooldown reduced by 25 seconds and egg Health is increased by 200%. [Trait]
NEW - Slimy End - Slime (Q) casts automatically upon death.
NEW - Wrath of Cod - Pufferfish's (W) increased structure damage now applies to all enemies.
NEW - Clairvoyance - Reveal the target area. Enemies in the area are revealed for a short duration.
Uther - Level 13
NEW - Hardened Focus - While above 80% life, your Basic Ability cooldowns regenerate 50% faster.
Arthas - Level 16
NEW - Immortal Coil - Death Coil will always heal Arthas. If used to self heal, the heal is 50% stronger.
NEW - Embrace Death - Death Coil deals 20% more damage for each 10% of life Arthas is missing.
CHANGED - Frostmourne Feeds - Frostmourne Hungers now applies to your next 2 Basic Attacks.
 
I just realized that the Block talent is literally made to be a counter to Focused Attack. I might start taking it more often.

The new Uther talent, Hardened Focus, sounds like something that won't be character specific.
 
This deserves a double post. New patch dropping. I was being pessimistic about it not being the Murky patch, but then I checked the forums and apparently we're going to have to reinstall the game.

Haven't checked the patch notes yet, but here are the links:
Forum post: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/forum/topic/12927002844
New Bundle Packs: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/forum/topic/12926662797
Patch Notes: http://www.heroesofthestorm.com/en-us/news/14227686

Edit: Stuff I noted
  • No Zagara.
  • Mount speed has been increased from 20% to 40% and mounts no longer gain speed per level.
  • Knight Mercenary Camp respawn time has been increased from 240 to 270 seconds
  • Haunted Mines jungle heavily reworked. Skeletons don't auto-target nearest enemy anymore.
  • Dragonknight scales better.
  • Curse no longer reduces buildings' health.
  • Brightwing's only balance change is a Q nerf. A nerf to base values. A nerf to damage per level. A nerf to it's damage boost trait. That makes me mad.
  • Arthas' Frozen Tempest now has a stacking speed debuff by default.
  • Illidan completely reworked. He actually sounds like a character I want to use now.
  • Li Li's Healing Brew will now target herself if she's lowest health, but won't heal mana. Her Cloud Serpent is now more spammable and can have 100% uptime without talents. Blinding Wind no longer has a cast time THANK GOD YES. Water Dragon's damage has been nerfed (I know, lol) but range has increased and has been given a slow, making it the chase weapon I imagine it as.
  • Muradin received some changes that make me wish I tried him out last week.
  • Witch Doctor was barely buffed. Makes me believe in my pet theory that although the 10% base movement speed increase hurt the ability for his moves to hit (especially Zombie Wall), they don't want to change their cast speeds because of human reaction time.
  • Raynor made slightly less tanky. Hyperion overall buffed, but now will not fire all four shots per volley on the same target if able.
  • Hammer... eh. They made the talent choices harder, but removing Maelstrom Rounds and replaced it with a new trait at level 13 means that even more of her damage is locked until post-level 10. However, the new talents also increase her survivability pre-level 10.
  • Tassadar received slight nerfs to his survivability, but kept all his damage.
  • Tychus barely touched. Attack Speed no longer increases per level, but Attack Damage gained per level increased by 50%. I don't know how much Attack Speed increased before (didn't really feel it) but it sounds like it's a major buff for the auto-attack builds.
  • Tyrael's rework makes him a much better chaser and frontliner.
  • Tyrande had her Hunter's Mark nerfed into the ground. Now an activatable trait.
  • Uther's healing and support stuff buffed. He's also been given Path of the Wizard.
  • Demon Hunter has had similar Attack Speed/Attack Damage changes to Tychus. Hatred now grants extra Attack Damage per stack. Strafe now applies 10 stacks of Hatred (WITHOUT A TALENT!).
  • Almost all Generic Talents were touched upon, most of them buffed. Mule now targets a location, not a building, so you can always place it on the opposite side of a fort. Executioner now only gives 40% bonus attack. Focused Attack now has a longer cooldown but gets cooldown reduction for each basic attack (Hello major Tychus buff. Hello minor Hammer nerf). Demolitionist now also does 10% bonus damage to structures, hopefully making it a bit better throughout the game.
 
Going through all of the changes now, all of them look soooo good so far. Up to the new UI.

Since a reinstall is required, may as well uninstall now right?

(edit)

More than 35 minutes of live recorded music have been added across all current Battlegrounds.
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Soooo goooood

Snowballing

Additional efforts have been made to prevent snowballing for teams that are down by 3 or more levels during a game.
Raven Court
The Curse mechanic on this map was a major contributor to snowballing
To reduce the snowballing on this Battleground the Curse no longer reduces building health by 50% when the Curse is active
Click to expand...
 
dimb said:
People are talking about the combat when they say that. Improving the mount speed doesn't really touch on it at all.
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The movement speed in general is part of that. Saying "hey, mounting up is more than a marginal benefit that's annoying to do" at least goes somewhat towards fixing it.
 
kirblar said:
The movement speed in general is part of that. Saying "hey, mounting up is more than a marginal benefit that's annoying to do" at least goes somewhat towards fixing it.
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To me it's a separate issue from the actual combat speed. The way fights play out is still very slow in HotS compared to its competitors, and it comes down to how tanky characters are that diminishes the effectiveness of crowd control.
 
dimb said:
People are talking about the combat when they say that. Improving the mount speed doesn't really touch on it at all.
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I actually think it's movement being the issue cause the combat is fine to me. Once you have a teamfight going the speed that speels and stuff are going off is pretty crazy already.
 
Haven't installed it yet... I imagine the new install probably actually makes it a stand alone game (crash reports were still for SC2, executable was simply called "play.exe") which is probably a very good step towards, you know, releasing it beyond alpha.
 
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