Heroes of the Storm

[Jonathan]

Early levels used to be a slugfest until anyone dies, it became so much more lethal, miss steps are punishable so much more... Playing well from minute 0 and juking skills, landing your own becomes really rewarding.
Jaina exploding another squishy in one rotation, AA heroes can harass melees out of lane in no time, it feels awesome.

Hmm

Here's Muradin's health on PTR Scaling Test vs. Live.

http://i.imgur.com/w6YYlzU.png

I definitely like the idea of the lead more easily flip-flopping between teams pre-10. Pre-10, I think the games tend towards one-sided. After 10, it's definitely easier to teamfight with a level deficit.

I also like the idea of emphasizing the differences between classes earlier. The more varied the heroes feel in the early game, the better.

http://www.gosugamers.net/heroesofthest ... t-stronger

The death timer change is fine, except I think the level 1 should be pretty close to live. A fight over an objective is gonna be at level 3 unless your team completely ignores soak. I guess they don't want to incentivize anti-soak, but still I'd like to see a little early-game allowances for bad lane-matchup. We'll need a ping to rotate, but we needed that anyway.

The 'lethality' thing is... a concern. It's true that the early game feels like a different game than the late game on live right now. I dunno. I guess I'll try it out next week.

[Jonathan]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... g&sle=true

Somebody tried to put together a spreadsheet with everybody's abilities to compute the ratio between live and scaling test. He is claiming the balance point was taken from 20, so the power level at 1 will be the same as at 20. Not sure if that has been confirmed or not.

The colored ratios tries to indicate who is benefiting and who is losing. For example, Abathur becomes so much more squishy so his HP ratio is red. Diablo becomes significantly more tanky, so his HP ratio is green.

Looks like Thrall and Rehgar are the biggest beneficiaries. Stitches, who doesn't scale well, seems like he will lose out.

Diablo is kind of weird: he gets tankier and his AA and Firestomp hit harder, but the damage on his CC is weaker. About half the roster feels like they AA harder, and the rest should feel no worse (except Stitches and Chen).

[Dave]

So we get Artanis if we get the deluxe too?

I have 71k on my main account and 74k on the XP buff bot.

[Dave]

Tyrael’s prices have been reduced to 4,000 Gold

Totally buying Tyrael today!

[Jonathan]

Artanis is free for buying LoV. You get him a week early for preordering.

The Vulture is free for with the deluxe.

[Jonathan]

I had some flu or something so I played the patch already a little. Stitches is a good time. Still missing hooks. Lt. on your team means you get topped off relentlessly, since there's no cooldown. Didn't see the medic ults yet. The UI QoL stuff is pretty baller. You can see your team's portraits now, which I knew from the patch notes but didn't appreciate it meant I could discern how noob folks are now. Portraits now OP.

I also did Scaling Test against bots (since you can only do custom games). It doesn't really feel different after 10. Before 10, though:
1. Raynor Q is a force to be reckoned with. How about deleting 20% of Nova's health with one ability?
2. AI will push straight up into your towers and drain them at level 1.
3. Diablo still doesn't feel good despite having literally twice as much health as an assassin.
4. I didn't try to jungle.
5. AAs are srs bsns.

I experimented with Diablo builds in try mode. I definitely can do the Q E Q combo trivially with the new talent, but if that displacement is what I want from a hero I'd look at Stitches, who can do it much safer from level 1. Diablo can dive the backline in a way that Stitches cannot, of course. Essence of the Slain remains crap. I got excited experimenting with Life Leech dps until I realized the dummy HP was 60% more than Arthas's. Hmm.

[Jonathan]

I guess what I'm thinking about the scaling test is it didn't give any room for the tide of battle to swing. It's hard to live until your cooldowns pop again.

[Dave]

Bah, I confused Arthas with Tyreal. I dont need to fancy pants!

[Alan]

It seems like for several patches in a row that AA heroes have been getting progressively stronger. With the Stitches changes and increasing popularity of multiple warrior comps I anticipate even more of a shift away from Jaina/KT to Raynor/Valla/Sgt Hammer.

[Alan]

Medic seems very vulnerable to dive comps since she can't heal herself. One way to mitigate that might be double support with Tyrande.

OTOH if you have a double warrior vs a Valla/Raynor poke comp, she could be a pretty good counter against Giant Killer builds.

[Alan]

Chen is looking really strong too.

[Jonathan]

If this was Chen week, I would have tried. As it is, I couldn't be bothered last week.

Fishing Hook puts the F-U in FUN.

[Jonathan]

If you want to be nominate yourself as shot caller in solo, play medic and get dropship.

[Jonathan]

Just did Elite AI all night with Stitches to explore his new talents. So I'm basically doing two different Stitches, I think.

Basic tank w/healer:
Hungry For More
Amplified Healing
Tenderizer
Gorge
Relentless
Fishing Hook
Hungry Hungry Stitches

Mines/Temples/Shrines/Tomb/Garden (anything I can Last Bite and need to split):
Dampen Magic/Hungry For More depending on enemies/map
Vile Cleaver(/Amplified Healing with dual support)
Last Bite
Gorge
Indigestion
Fishing Hook
Hungry Hungry Stitches

The trap with Chew Your Food is you don't need it for sustain with Last Bite, and for burst during a fight it doesn't help.

Last Bite on shrines is a monster. Just sitting there eating up objectives and having all the health.

[Alan]

Played Tyrande two games yesterday, used Shadowstalk. It nowhere near as strong as the ults of solo healers in terms of healing, but the HoT is more useful than the reveal was, and I think the short cooldown makes it viable overall. It still seems mostly to be a disengage/gank set-up ult - I had a game on Dragon Shire where we pushed down a Keep with DK, right after DK expired I popped Shadowstalk. We retreated (they tried to follow us), then coming out of stealth (with all of us at/near full health) we 5-0'd them and ended the game.

I don't think she's viable as a solo support in ranked play, but you can probably get away with her as a solo support in QM now.

[Alan]

https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthesto ... edictions/?

With every patch and hero release, I like to check how win rates evolve on HotsLogs. By looking at trends in individual heroes and win rates by skills, you can extrapolate to predict where win rates will settle at the end of the week. Obviously, HotsLogs isn't everything, but their win rates are very useful for newer players looking for a new hero and a decent build.

Using these numbers, here are a few predictions as to where heroes should stand once the dust settles. Again, this is based entirely on win rates, not on personal preference, the meta or anything else, but this method has been accurate in the past.


Hero

Old Win%

New Win%

Difference


Leoric 57% 52% -5%
Nazeebo 57% 54% -3%
Johanna 53% 50% -3%
Zeratul 51% 50% -1%
Tyrande 47% 53% +6%
Rexxar 50% 52% +2%
ETC 41% 52% +11%
Sonya 47% 51% +4%
Chen 49% 50% +1%
Diablo 40% 50% +10%
Stitches 39% 47% +8%
Lt. Morales X 42% X

Trends:
•Warriors except Leoric/Johanna: +2-3%
•Specialists/Assassins: No change
•Supports: +1-2%

Top 5:
•Li Li - 56%
•Nazeebo - 54%
•Raynor - 54%
•Vikings - 54%
•Tyrande - 53%

Bottom 5:
•Illidan - 46%
•Tychus - 46%
•Tassadar - 45%
•Abathur - 43%
•Lt. Morales - 42%

It seems like the balance part of the patch was a success. The top was brought down without being destroyed, and the trash was buffed to viability. That said, Lt. Morales doesn't seem fit for solo queue. She has the lowest day 1 win rate of any new Hero, lower than the very buggy Rexxar on release. Expect her to get buffed/fixed in the near future.

On another note, Tyrande has the potential to have the highest win rate for the current patch. She was already popular on the competitive scene, and her new Heroic is apparently very good. Expect Tyrande to be 1st pick material in HL, as numbers indicate dual support should be strong again, and Warriors are much closer in power.

Speaking of Warriors, Blizzard apparently knows what they're doing. Even Diablo, dubbed Lord of Weakness, seems much stronger than people give him credit for, according to early numbers. ETC seems even better, so newer players who don't main Warriors won't have to fork over 10k gold for Leoric/Johanna anymore to cover their bases. Stitches also has potential, but it will take longer to reach it, as his builds are currently a mess.

On the other hand, Chen and Tassadar seem to be largely unaffected, meaning Tassadar will still be a liability in QM, and Chen will be an unimpactful but viable bruiser.

Overall, this patch might be the most balanced we've had in a while in terms of numbers. Obviously, the competitive scene doesn't follow these rules, and Tyrande might be 1st ban material, but with so many viable Warriors, drafting should be very interesting at Blizzcon!

Diablo with a huge increase in win rate. Tyrande also looking very strong.

[Jonathan]

The only party I see getting to play Diablo is with Nova plus an initiator. Which I doubt we will play often. I don't think anyone mains another gank hero?

Solo, I am going to main Stitches for a while. Diablo really wants some dang gank allies and a initiator in his party.

If you draft, say, Hammer Morales Johanna Tyrande, Diablo seems like he's a natural. I argue he's better than all the alternative warriors in that comp and probably better than an assassin.

1. You certainly wouldn't draft Diablo first, though, which says something.

2. The problem I have is you cannot build him to soak sustained damage, which is a problem specific to QM. The QM rules mean Diablo has a significant chance of being the sole warrior, which I just don't think works. That's my complaint. The QM rules dictate certain match ups but his talent selection doesn't permit a fun game in that situation.

[Jonathan]

Fun fact: when ETC power slides into a shadow charging Diablo, Diablo is stunned and ETC is unharmed.

The More You Know!

[Jonathan]

It seems to me if you want to queue with a friend for QM, one of you should be a warrior and the other a support.

Some random Reddit poster claimed that one of you should always have damage (Assassin, specialist, or bruiser) and try queuing with a support or tank. I think this is definitely much closer to my experience than the above old theory crafting.

I lost a game as Muradin recently where I isolated the enemy Nova and Kael several times but couldn't do anything with it due to lack of follow up.

Diablo feels better in that regard.

[Jonathan]

The QM rules mean Diablo has a significant chance of being the sole warrior, which I just don't think works.

Fun fact: Diablo's highest HL master/diamond comps are with Leoric/Sonya double bruiser, but the second highest are him as solo warrior, with Lili or Kharazim, and three ranged DPS. Judging from the talents stats, my guess is they're building Fire Stomp, same as pre-patch. I wonder when you draft that.