Heroes of the Storm PTR Patch Notes - January 6, 2025

Heroes of the Storm PTR Patch Notes - January 6, 2025

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting.

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11 Likes

You suck for that auriel nerf.

ā€œRay of Heaven deals damage to enemies in the area equal to 30% of the energy consumed.ā€

Now, the heavens only see heroes; if you wanted people to choose other talents, make them good, not worsen the characters.

7 Likes

That ZJ nerf is enormous, possibly one of the biggest nerfs Iā€™ve ever seen

I like Auriel changes cause I like proactive talents like the AA range one

Also, this was fast! Three months? A sign of change it seems

5 Likes

Can you add for Zeratul 7lvl talent - WORMHOLE different indicator that is distinguishable (Like the icon with red color on E or Alarak 20 teleport Icon) that you are using E to go back, instead of using next blink. Right now with stacked lvl 1 E you are able to get new cd on blink almost the same time as wormhole is getting off, meaning sometimes you want to go back and you use next blink, because you didnt notice that small window when it falls off

1 Like

Not needed tbh, Zeratul is very effectiive mele assasin and it should be hard to play. Best regards

an Auriel change? really? I thought she was fine
very well Iā€™ll see how this change feels

Chromieā€™s changes areā€¦ wellā€¦ they exist! there we are chromie changes exist

Ahā€¦ the shield glare mana change is gonna cost me (pun not intended)

Tracer now has even smaller survival chance is the enemy gets a CC on her now. yayā€¦ dont really feel like playing her now that her survivability is like a gnat with a lung problem. I donā€™t like it if you can tell.

and oh wow they slapped zulā€™jin pretty hard, oh well less whitemane mana wasted on the little fool now.

1 Like

Got rocked by an Auriel who went Q CDR + Q Blind recently, could try that. Yea, less DPS and less (visible) healing, but blinding even one dangerous assassin is worth leagues of extra healing.

2 Likes

Ooph, Zulā€™jin looking he just lost an eye and an arm with that nerf.

The increased baseline damage means ZJ would have to have his quest completed at lvl 0 to deal more damage in current version compared to ptr. (itā€™s 120 stacks for damage parity, but then new version has extra damage, so to exceed itā€¦ yadda yadda yadda)

Heā€™s going to be getting more damage per level (4% base) which means his Q-talents will deal that much more damage too.

Yea, for aram games that let him get ridiculous amounts of stacks, itā€™s a nerf, but for ā€˜normalā€™ games, it is a buff and might ā€“ by implied intent ā€“ actually see his talent variety improve.

3 Likes

Brawls are back???

WOHOOO!!!

12 Likes

Oh my, how did I miss that!

NEW: Brawl Mode added! Brawls will rotate on the 1st and 15th of every month.

I love this build for Auriel vs heavy hitting AA heroes like Valla/Raynor/Zuljin, as you say, itā€™s surprisingly effective in mitigating damage.

8 Likes

Not a huge fan of patches that are mostly nerfs with few major buffs, but I am very excited to be getting another patch so soon. Also, brawls!

Donā€™t give me hope, Blizz. Donā€™t make me think something is happening with this game again.

2 Likes

Searing Light
Now only deals damage to enemy Heroes.

Aww please donā€™t do this one! All this is going to do is shackel Auriel to her hat target even more. This is what lets her be in control of maintaining her own energy to an extent.
If you insist on nerfing this one, reduce the damage or have it also reduce the energy you get from your hat a bit.

I donā€™t know how I feel about nerfing her 16 quest either. I think the choice between the spell power and the quest has always been pretty balanced. People just took the quest more because itā€™s a really fun talent.
Imo, the attack damage one is the only one that falls behind on that tier.

Also the ZJ buffs are spicy!

5 Likes

About Johanna, Iā€™m ok with the nerfs, but l think that it could be a good opportunity to buff level 13 Holy Fury (underperforming talent).

About Auriel I like Energized Cord change, but I think making Searing Light just apply to heroes is a bad idea. It hurts her waveclear or potential in maps like Infernal Shrines. It could make sense to apply damage to non structures instead, since itā€™s a light ability.

3 Likes

Searing Light now only deals damage to enemy Heroes.

Only a week ago I have pointed out how her wave clear is way above that of other supports. Itā€™s a positive change but requires a small compensation elsewhere. I donā€™t see how the remaining patch notes fully help achieve this.

As for Tracerā€™s Jumper adjustments; the devs are forgetting that mobility is her main defense. A small 0.5 or net 15% reduction to her absorb wonā€™t change things, but not being able to dodge skillshots and aoe as often will hurt her performance and make her much more awful to play.

Sheā€™s at 55% WR right now in draft mode, sure that is a lot but the sample size is awfully low. QM stats however drag her down by 5% as she is played much more over there so thereā€™s nothing to panic about. Sheā€™s a mid of the pack pick and much less popular heroes are doing better than her with even fewer games.

Are we banning Kerrigan or Alarak down from their 57% next? I bet you that a third of their games are premade stomp groups and Iā€™m afraid you canā€™t fully tell.

1 Like

IĀ“Ā“m quite impressed the of the frequency of patches coming out honestly. Thanks to whoever is still working on this game (even though i do not agree with all changes).

NEW: Brawl Mode added! Brawls will rotate on the 1st and 15th of every month.

I need some more details here. Is those actually the brawls we had before ARAM overtook completely?

Energized Cord
    Now increases Basic Attack range by 1.1.

I assume this is in addition to the damage increase? Otherwise this would be very bad.

Wrath of Heaven

Armor reduction increased from 10 to 20.
Spell Power increased from 10% to 15%.

Nice!

Guillotine

Cooldown reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
Mana cost reduced from 70 to 60.

Also very nice.

I already never picked ā€œRay of Heavenā€ as the other talents already are way better. So i agree there needs to be a buff ā€¦ to Ray of Heaven.

2 Likes

Itā€™s an overwhelmingly popular pick with almost 65% so that would be a hard case to make.

Great synergy both with globe talent at 7 and reservoir at 16.

Even the damage from the ray gets converted into energy after cast, essentially resetting your energy back to 100% or 30% if you didnā€™t cast globe-empowered.

3 Likes

When people were saying Searing Light should be baseline, I always knew the would be ridiculous.

But I was hoping theyā€™d buff the other sweep talents on the first tier to give more value without needing to hit heroes and maybe reduce the effect of Searing Light on minions by half than eliminate it altogether. The reduced wave clear definitely sucks, but I think Iā€™ll be more annoyed at how landing good Ray of Heavens on minion/heroes wonā€™t reward you with better energy generation. One of my favorite things about Searing Light is not having to start from zero if you were smart with your heals which is also important in the laning phase before you can get more reliable hat in team fights or bigger synergy with reservoir.

Maybe they can add a passive buff to Searing Light where your energy will always start with a baseline of 15% of your energy.

With Searing Light nerf, Reservoir is going to scale slower by default, so that substantial of a nerf at 16 also seems like overkill.

1 Like

I believe that Auriel should not be a universal healer. CD at W is too low. This meaneth that either the CD must be increased and made her a burst healer, or the quest must be reduced by 16 so that she becometh a tunnel healer. And as I already said, other talents at 16 are too weak. Although I hate the philosophy of minimum efforts to nerf talents instead of more efforts to buff weak ones.

P.s. Talents at level 7 also need to be redone. Empathy hath no alternatives.

1 Like

They are. I predict Escape from Braxis will be one of the first, if not the first, in the new rotation.

2 Likes