Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting.
5 Likes
I am slowly and painfully reading these patch notes and I honestly in a long time, I have to say I have honestly never been so disappointed in while from reading patch notes.
They nuked Echoes of the Elements on Thrall. 
I cannot tell if these just an elaborative joke, masterful gambit.
9 Likes
On one hand, I see some of these changes and think: If I were making a new HotS, and I wondered if some idea was good or not, wouldnāt it be nice to have a way to test it and get hard data?
On the other hand, this might just be the way they want things to go.
1 Like
The concept of Pinnacle Rewards sounds incredibly stupid for a game that has never addressed any of the problems with matchmaking and is constantly bleeding users at a rapid rate.
Objectively it takes quite a while to earn the reward but with this in mind I believe that a group of randoms playing against premade can completely forget about turning the game around later in the match. It turns into an even harder stomp.
On the other hand, the rewards are so powerful that many players will be incentivized to keep farming, often goes against best interest of their team which will inevitably create even more tension.
The comeback system has been slightly magnified, particularly at wide level gaps.
Again, the problem with the game lies with lack of basic matchmaking. Itās been bad for over half a decade but the most recent adjustments have made it even worse (which are now being recalled LOL).
Expecting stats to slightly shift in favor of underdog teams by going all-in on a well-timed disconnect is not how you go around fixing the game. If you want to do it right, try spreading the catchup numbers better over the full length of the match.
4 Likes
A new Fallback Tower has been added to the longer lanes on each of the following battleground maps. This new tower will die when its corresponding Fort dies: Alterac Pass, Battlefield of Eternity, Blackheartās Bay, Braxis Holdout, Cursed Hollow, Dragon Shire, Garden of Terror, Hanamura Temple, Infernal Shrines, Sky Temple, Tomb of the Spider Queen, Towers of Doom, Volskaya Foundry, and Warhead Junction.
-2025-11-03 PTR Patch Notes
Who is this going to protect??? 
80% LIFE STEAL ON SYLVANAS?? (Trait maxed + Life Drain), the tooltip is wrong, like it heals 2 HP per hit which then jumpst to 200ā¦ super weird even I have NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE!!! (obviously a bug) but I cannot even believe this is a CHANGE!
(Undocumented) Posession got super nerfed for reasons???
It only restores 1 charge, this is silly.
This has to be a meme, the double stack was really what it was picked for, its also super unrealistic to see thrall minion laning for 10+ minutes with this quest.
IDK, I am just at a loss for words the deeper I test these things I hope it gets undone.
4 Likes
Iām convinced these changes were made by AI
6 Likes
Iām excited at this direction. Numerical balance aside, I think the power fantasy of pinnacle quests is very cool, and Iām glad to see some further iteration on things like Zulājinās baseline quest and the fort protection system.
Iāll probably leave some more constructive feedback with my bug reports, since Iām seeing lots of issues cropping up with some brief testing on PTR.
1 Like
100 stacks for Thralls quest? 150 for Falstad? What kind of mind-altering substance are these people on? In a game that is constantly shifting mechanics to ensure <20 minute games, these changes defy all logic and understanding.
Stitches was given a lvl 1 quest with a 100 stack limit years ago and Iāve NEVER seen it done past 30-40 stacks. What wild and wacky world is this!?
4 Likes
Current PTR impressions/summary:
Falstad
Dishonorable Discharge: quest-based Reset-on-kill reward has been switched for the two extra hits (Switching functionality with his switched 7/13 talents)
Losing the extra strike procs means itāll become that much harder to complete this quest. I donāt think I have successfully gotten the 75 quest reward in an actual game before, so bumping the end goal to 150 seems awkward to me if the quest is still progressed by getting more than 3 strikes on a heroic target without those extra strikes.
Kerrigan
Theyāre adjusting Fury of the Swarm and her baseline trait 
Clearly I should quote all my previous posts suggesting that change be made as a means to improve her talent variety. The baseline cdr on her w & e will help it be less a slog for aram Kerrigan 
Sylvanas
If Iām reading this correctly, sheās losing the active portion of her trait (stunning minions and structures) and is getting a baseline quest to improve the passive effect when attacking units debuffed with 3 stacks. The current active part of her trait is then becoming a lvl 4 talent choice.
The new lvl 1 dagger talent seems silly to me if she has her other lvl 1 talent choices as is.
Thrall
All-quest Thrall build has been nerfed 
No quest on lvl 7 now.
The PTR notes read Crash adds bonus damage to Chained Lightning, so thatās losing the auto-targeting quest reward (for dealing more damage on bounces) and is instead boosting the main targeted damage.
So that makes Crash a single-target finisher for Q, while Echo becomes the mindless spam with extra bounce and extra casting. Provided people can even remotely stack that since, it doensāt specify that Thrall gets extra stacks on takedowns.
Meanwhile, Maelstrom Weapons looks like itās losing the movespeed bonuses, so the overall chase/poke of all-quest thrall has lost its majesty 
So Thrall and Kerrigan can join the roster of heroes that pve farm for quest goals now 
2 Likes
Itās a hard Murky nerf. Blizzard, why you hate proxying?
4 Likes
How could one type so much nonsense? Bad matchmaking has never stopped League of Legends from retaining playersā¦
3 Likes
The way these ānewā Towers are placed on maps genuinely hurts my soul. They are placed in terrible spots both visually and practically. Some of them even INTERRUPT MINION WAVES.
4 Likes
The changes to forts/keeps/towers over the last few years have proven to be inconsequential since they removed the stacking slow. Removing enemy hero agro from them just made them even weaker and now they remove the armor buff they just recently implemented? What exactly is the goal here with structures? It seems like they dont want forts/keeps to make much, if any, impact past lvl 10 or so. Even now, enemies with any form of sustain/mobility can storm towers while tanking shots and get away scott free.
Meanwhile, they add pinnacle rewards that will take 12-15 minutes of uninterrupted laning in order to reap a benefit that the player can take advantage of for 2 to 3 minutes of play time before the game ends. 100 stacks for Thralls 2nd charge of chain lightning? Seriously? How many times will anyone even be able to cast that 2nd charge before the game is over?
1 Like
Dont get why they nurf Sarah , its not that popular hero like Thrall lol . āReworkā was ugly, now thisā¦
1 Like
Pinnacle talents are cool but some of the things sacrificed to add them in are too extreme. I wanna see this tried on alot more heroes. Justā¦ have a gentler touch next time.
The extra turrets are fine I guess. I dont think it will negatively impact anything.
That being said, it still doesnāt feel like enough of a tradeoff for losing forts and keeps defending heroes even while minions are present but weāll see i guess.
4 Likes
Undocumented
Raynor got full blown Trait and Level 1 rework
A lot of these have tooltip typos and inconsistencies, I understand that this is a PTR but thereās like 0 quality assurance in this.
8 Likes
It cannot be this difficult to check what has been writtenā¦ right?
Donāt know, this patch just reeks LLM usage.
3 Likes
That would explain the āqualityā of this updateā¦
1 Like
wtf is this patch . . .
3 Likes