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Heroes of the Storm |OT3| Chromiehounds
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Anytime for you bb.
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On a more serious note, there's a planned hero reveal at IEM Katowice.
I'm checking into how he appears in the co-op missions of SC2, and yeah, based on that, he could definitely be our next 'weird' hero. I never played the co-op levels but it appears he's all about summoning and dropping in units, and infecting buildings, and doesn't appear on the battlefield himself.
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Alexei_Stukov_(Co-op_Missions
I especially like the idea of him putting down buildings that periodically spawn infested Terran units.
My only counter-argument for it being him is that we know Arcturus Mengsk was in development quite a while ago, due to some data-mining, and he fits the idea of a non-battlefield hero even better.
There was recent smoke appearing that suggest Fenix is also on the table. Might as well come down to both being announced.
Stukov's Brood War incarnation was a literally generic Ghost unit with a few more hitpoints and a little more damage. As a unit he didn't even have his own voice lines.
Yah i mean the ghost stuff vs. the hybrid stuff
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
that's a huge varian nerf
Okay. Whilst I approve of practically *everything* in this patch - you cannot release a balance patch 4 days before the Western Clash. You just can't. This fundamentally changes some of the highest priority heroes in the game. Every teams practice just went out of the window.
Now, onto the deails:
1) Tychus. I've said he needed nerfing for some time, but this isn't what I expected them to do. He retains his tankyness, and his Overpower got stronger (shorter cooldown, lower mana), but the reduction on his auto attack range is *huge*. It's what prevented him from being good in the first place, and it will be interesting to see how that works out in the long run. The nerf to his healing talent at 13 is very warranted, as it was insane combined with the longer duration on his trait talent at 4 - they now in some respects work against each other, as you often want the healing asap and not after 8 seconds.
2) Varian - thank gods they bit the bullet and removed the point on click stun. That talent could never be balanced, because it added too much power to the ability. They've removed talents that add stuns to abilities from everyone in the game barring Raynor I think, and for a good reason - it should never have gone live, and I'm glad its removed. Saying that, I do think it will impact his viability because a slow isn't the same as a stun, and in particular it allows Iceblock to be cast. Great change, and appreciate the damage increase for dps specs as well (although Twin Blades probably needs love as well!).
3) Murky: just fucking die you cancerous piece of shit.
4) Lucio - not sure about nerfing his basic E trait. The issue with Lucio is the massive healing boost he gets at 16, and then 20, not his inbuilt healing. I think by nerfing the basic heal he might be too weak pre-16 to be a solo healer, and unlike other dual-healers he doesn't bring damage or CC.
5) Malfurion: Nerf to roots duration is good, I'm glad to see this is the change rather than adding the delay back to the ability which meant it was ridiculously easy to avoid. 2 seconds of root duration with the talent really was obscene. The nerf to mana regen on Twilight Dream is also a great choice - as they say it was a hidden ability that actually made a big difference. Malf goes from being massively mana starved pre-10 to having 0 mana issues once he picks his heroic, and it shouldn't completely remove mana from him like it did.
6) Tassadar - Removal of the perma shield is great. It was a stupid quest, but still practically mandatory at the pro-level, and made for unfun game play. This looks to be really, really strong without being abusive like the old talent was.
Still think in the long run he needs rebuilding to either be a proper support, or not a support at all, but you take what you can get I guess.
7) Rexxar - minor QoL change that seems good to me.
Overall these look to be a brilliant set of nerfs, which I think were definitely needed and will shake the game up a lot. I'm just not convinced they need to hit 3 days before a huge championship.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
western clash is on lucio patch as far as I'm aware.
Big Rexxar micro quality of life upgrade there.
Previously, if you wanted to scout ahead with misha you'd have to constantly D click near max range to keep her out in front while also moving your hero, it was really annoying for instance when your trying to get to a Merc camp or shrine thats contested. Now you can just d click where you want her to go and as long as you keep up with your hero she'll just automatically be out in front.
Essentially it's the difference between playing with camera lock on/off
Previously, if you wanted to scout ahead with misha you'd have to constantly D click near max range to keep her out in front while also moving your hero, it was really annoying for instance when your trying to get to a Merc camp or shrine thats contested. Now you can just d click where you want her to go and as long as you keep up with your hero she'll just automatically be out in front.
Essentially it's the difference between playing with camera lock on/off
I hope so, but previously whatever balance patches have beebn applied to the main patches also get applied. If not then brilliant - all is great, and this patch is excellent all round. Even if I will miss Tychus, have Malf as my first level 10 support and have been playing him since launch, and bought Varian 3 days ago because I was annoyed at not being able to pick him in draft... ;-)
If that's the case, something was very wrong with Varian's design.
Post patch or right now in game? Right now in game he feels abusive. They nerfed the hell out of the stun meta last year, and then reintroduced it combined into one hero which I feel was definitely a mistake. It's a particularly toxic combo in quick match, where people queue with a partner and just destroy you.
It was way too punishing in my opinion for a point and click set of abilities.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Weird, 85% is pretty close to Rehgar's 90% with the talent and that's almost a root.
It's a massive nerf but slow into taunt should still get people.
It's a massive nerf but slow into taunt should still get people.
I wanted to see what the slow would do at this point. I'm thinking he invlun is going to be the go to now. 10% more on a slow doesn't really make a difference, at least not with the comp I just had. They should have hit taunt as well. I never cared playing it. Even when Fury was the go to, I was using Arms at the time. Taunt is probably still going to be the only viable way to play him.
I thought of chen when i read they changed varian's stun into an upgraded root + cd
woops disregard the post jank I had here if you saw it, I was working off wrong info
i thought this page (http://www.heroesnexus.com/talent-calculator/94-varian#eBA) meant that varian would have a 2 sec e w/ warbringer, but this page is alternative facts
WonderRade
Member
I was always of the mindset where taunt should simply be a glorified root, where people could still use abilities and such, but I have no idea if that would improve anything 
zuljin is poised to take over as a front line smasher replacing tychus after this patch, but tychoos still has access to the backline after 10...it's hard to think about since i dunno how to visualize the range changes but I always thought that with this new passive tychus shouldnt have access to heroes that don't come up to him so all in all it's a change I'm happy to see
i think he might end up needing some sort of overpower buff because they nerfed it pretty hard w/ the rework, it'd be really good design imo to have his overpower be the dmg option for mid/long range and his d only really being effective up close
i think he might end up needing some sort of overpower buff because they nerfed it pretty hard w/ the rework, it'd be really good design imo to have his overpower be the dmg option for mid/long range and his d only really being effective up close
There's a cap of 75% on the vulnerability rebuff I think, so this change doesn't increase the damage done to normal targets but does mean he now goes through passive armory like Anubaraks, and also Hardened Shield and other temporary armor talents.
Edit: WRONG! Just re-read the armour blog post, and abilities that specifically go over the caps will go over them. So yeah, double damage to his target, that's insane.
Esit2: DOUBLE WRONG! COOOOMBO! Ignore entire post, was misremembering how smash works... ;-). No change to the vulnerability!
I'm kinda surprised Tychus got nerfed. He had fallen out of favor in pro play and I rarely see him in my games, figured that phase had passed. At the very least it seems like Blizz is a little LTTP.
Murky nerfs seem okay to me. Not sure how the Slime slow change affects him, will have to look, but anything so that he's picked less (as brian! said) would be great. Also, it's funny they nerfed the Rejuv Bubble yet again. I know it's the higher picked talent on 13, but damn people gotta get on the Fish Tank train.
As for Varian, stun into Taunt was disgusting. If I were Blizzard, I'd reconfigure him somehow around making Shield Wall what it should have been - a fucking OP talent - instead of just this thing you misclick or now, perhaps, you take because you don't like the Charge changes. I'm with everyone else on him, though. Good fucking riddance.
Murky nerfs seem okay to me. Not sure how the Slime slow change affects him, will have to look, but anything so that he's picked less (as brian! said) would be great. Also, it's funny they nerfed the Rejuv Bubble yet again. I know it's the higher picked talent on 13, but damn people gotta get on the Fish Tank train.
As for Varian, stun into Taunt was disgusting. If I were Blizzard, I'd reconfigure him somehow around making Shield Wall what it should have been - a fucking OP talent - instead of just this thing you misclick or now, perhaps, you take because you don't like the Charge changes. I'm with everyone else on him, though. Good fucking riddance.
that's pretty much the theme of this patch haha, those malf and tass changes should have occurred ages ago
i feel like blizz has me trained where im just glad that balance changes that everyone wants even makes it into the game regardless of how late it is tho
w/ the tass and malf changes I feel like the game is moving forward again (tho both are still def quite strong)
WonderRade
Member
Has any pro-esque team had any success with this? I have had decent anecdotal success with this one playing with my buddy. It seems pretty good on paper, but I guess varian doesnt bring enough else?
yeah same, it's a change they can balance around too
plus maybe more ppl will actually take bigger they are now like they are supposed to
Based on today's Hotslogs data (yeah yeah, hotslogs isn't perfect), Shield Wall has a 4.2% smaller winrate than pre-patch Warbringer (47.0% vs 51.2%). I feel like that difference is significant enough that a 2-second shorter cooldown on Charge isn't enough. Maybe he'll be fine for my tier of play, but I think we'll see a lot less of him in competitive. As I said though, still a good move on removing the stun. His winrate tanking for a bit until Blizz gives him another buff is still better for the game than him having the stun.
And there's now a slight increase of possibility we'll see one of his other specs in competitive now.
And there's now a slight increase of possibility we'll see one of his other specs in competitive now.