New Nexus Anomaly: Call for Help!

Hello everyone!

We, the collective Heroes of the Storm team, would like to introduce “A Call for Help!”, the second Seasonal Nexus Anomaly of 2020. This new anomaly will consist of two sets of changes that both focus on the structures found within the Nexus. The first will change how you’ll interact with the various combat structures on a Battleground (Towers, Forts, Keeps, Cores, etc). The second will focus on powering up the Core by adding new abilities that are automatically deployed to defend against enemy Heroes. As with the previous anomaly, we will be continually monitoring your feedback to evaluate whether to keep these changes beyond the end of the season.

Tower Defense and Aggression

  • We’ve heard feedback over the years that a lot of you would like to feel more protected by nearby friendly structures. Currently, minions, summons, and non-heroic units can hold a structure’s attention for so long that defending players feel that they’re offered no additional protection when taking refuge under their Cannon Towers, Forts, Keeps and Cores. To address that, we’re implementing a system where Heroes will automatically “Call For Help!” from their nearby structures.
  • With this change, if a Hero is damaged by a member of the opposite team while within range of a friendly combat structure, that structure will automatically seek out and attack the offending enemy Hero. Additionally, non-Core structure attacks will now progressively reduce the Armor of Heroes, even in situations outside of tower diving. In order to counter-balance these increased defensive measures and to allow attackers the opportunity to swiftly engage and disengage under towers, we’ve removed the Movement Speed and Attack Speed Slow from Fort and Keep attacks. We hope that this system can strike a balance between feeling safe under your own structures while not overly punishing aggressive plays. For a full list of detailed changes please see the patch notes.

Core Abilities

We want fights around the Core to feel like exciting ends to cap off great games, and we feel like we can do more to deliver on that front. To that end, this Seasonal Nexus Anomaly will introduce themed abilities to the majority of non-ARAM Battleground Cores. Want to watch your enemies turn into plant shamblers on Gardens of Terror? How about dodging walls of tornadoes on Sky Temple? Maybe just sit back and watch the Nukes fall on Warhead Junction? We don’t want to spoil all of what we may have in store, but we can’t wait for you to find out for yourselves what new tricks the Cores have up their sleeves!

Current Nexus Anomaly: Experience Globes

Now that we’ve showcased “A Call for Help!”, let’s talk about what we plan to do with the current active anomaly, Experience Globes. Since their addition at the beginning of the last season, we’ve introduced various changes aimed at improving interactivity and playability, such as automatically granting Experience Globes to Heroes that kill a Minion, addressing some globe expiration issues, etc. With these changes now in place, Experience Globes appear to be an overall positive addition to the game, so we’ve decided to keep them! We like how they visualize the process of gaining experience in a way that is easy to understand. Also, by opening small windows of opportunity to deny experience without overwhelmingly changing how the game works, we’ve seen that Experience Globes add some exciting new player interactions. We will still make changes as necessary, so please continue providing feedback to help us improve!

Big changes like revamping structure priorities and adding Experience Globes are exactly what the team hopes to test out with Nexus Anomalies, which are currently planned for release alongside each new Ranked season. Stay tuned for what may be coming next!

Thanks for reading, Heroes. We’ll see you in the Nexus.

15 Likes

idk how I feel about the cores getting abilities with each new anomoly, it makes it seem like it will add way too much to them over time and can make playing this anomaly feel pointless.

Everything else with the anomaly a great though. I watched a high level match the other day on the PTR and it was the most exciting match ever cause of the tower and fort changes. One time I was like “wow look at that dive by that tower! I wonder if I can pull that off too?” Game needs more of that!

The changes are in the right direction.

Yay another update! Ty Cyndra

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These sound like some amazing and very interesting changes, can’t wait to try them out in full swing on the live servers! Also glad that exp globes stay, I enjoy having a more interactive solo lane and a more interactive exp collecting system in general.

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I cant wait to see people stand on circles and die to the core yay

cmon man!
i wish you remove that exp. globe thing.
i never liked that globe thing.
for the new changes i like them a lot.
but these changes should not be permanent.
or at least give players options to choose them.
for example: in sc2 we can choose mutations (anomalies) in “custom mutations” section.

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What do you dislike about the exp globes?

These changes are exciting! They add a layer of complexity to HoTS that appeals to seasoned players. I appreciated the first anomaly Exp. Globes because it introduced zoning tactics to deny opponents resources (Ragnaros’ Lava Wave is the only poor interaction – press R to gain huge amounts of XP). This was a needed swing in the direction of melee Heroes for the laning phase. Before, ranged Heroes could level with little to no risk because their extended positioning reduced chances of a successful gank.

With the second anomaly, the changes to Core mechanics sound chaotic. More things to dodge? Let’s go! As for the Tower mechanics, it seems to promote aggressive yet thoughtful play, which I love. That being said, I come to HoTS over other games to brawl with my favorite Blizzard characters. Hopefully this change will be well tuned so games do not drag on by promoting hyper-defensive strategies (looking at YOU Abathur – who for some reason still uses the Terran unit MULE).

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-i like the new exp metode that we have now
-and i think the change to the core makes winning a game that much more epic(it
was the thing that made me really like the wow map)
-altho i really dont like the tower change one thing that i like about that game and
made it unique under other moba was the fact that tower made strategic place
to defend rather then places to hide and take an assisted kills when the time is
right
-overall i like the fact that the dev team is trying new things but it could be
concerning to see on and off features i think that putting the PTR more in front
like a game mode so that we dont have such feature come and go in the actual
game

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Hi Cydra,

I’m seeing a new pattern with the AI bots effective since the patch. In a recent Quick Match game, a disconnected player left us with a BOT. The bot does not move out of spawn unless clicked.

Was this intentional? In other words, unless someone actively pings the AI player, the BOT will remain in spawn indefinitely. It does not wander in lanes, defend incoming waves. Nothing.

I understand the game has just barely been patched, just needed to leave feedback on this problem.

Thank you!

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Let me just start by saying I LOVE Heroes of the Storm. I am making this post to help let everyone (and the developers) know what I do not enjoy about the recent update.

First- Games are far too long! I love heroes because the games are only 18-23 minutes. But with these new changes, MOST of my games are over THIRTY MINUTES!! I had a game on Volskaya that lasted 34 minutes because every time we got the objective, we could not push the keep because it does too much damage and forget about pushing the core, the damage is INSANE.

Second-These new changes make pushing buildings impossible, and now you need to wipe the ENTIRE enemy team to even THINK about pushing the core, and even THEN its still difficult to push core.

I enjoy the concept of the changes, and the core abilities look cool. But they NEED to be TONED DOWN. Lower the amount of damage the towers do, increase the cooldown for when the cores activate their abilities. Me and my friends enjoy the game because the matches are fast and fun, but now every game is 35 minutes and it is impossible to push any building unless you wipe the entire enemy team.

Again, I love the game, through and through, but at this rate, me and my friends will rarely play any matches anymore. Please give these changes a nerf :slight_smile:

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2 things that are game breaking.

1 the armor shred is too much. 40% is way to high of a cap. I would rather have the slow and attack speed slow.

2 if they are targeting heroes that are not targeting objectives. If your smart yout team can target the other and the objective takes no damage for 5 seconds where your team juat took 1 tower shot each. Whcih is nothing really.

One thing i enjoyed about hots was towers dont foucus you. If i wanted that i would play lol.

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Please retract this anomaly.

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So… forts and keeps now behave like LoL?

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Absolutely disgusting change designed to pander to the league/dota player base that has problems adapting to hots. Instead of helping them learn the ropes and how things are played, they are instead encouraging them to maintain their old playstyles that they used in the past.

You are required to leave your base to attend objectives, do merc camps, and be aggressive. All this is going to do is make it so people believe there is a false safety net by sitting next to their turret. That all the game is, is generating exp and ‘getting ahead’ for that sick build you saw on a three year old youtube video because no one makes content for this game anymore.

Spoilers, that’s how you lose. You can literally see who is a dota or lol player based on their play style. LoL players always sit under the turrets and dota players obsess about farming and you’ll see something like a tank in a lane alone while a objective is going on because he thinks he needs to farm experience because you’re behind. It’s a giant trap. This is all a giant trap and it just encourages people to pretend that they’re helping, by hiding under a tower while an objective is ticking and they lose the game, then blame the person with the most deaths, who consequently attended objectives.

Lets also talk about the fact that the towers haven’t been rebalanced. Do developers play tanks or bruisers? Do you think ranged units don’t already have enough of an advantage especially after the changes to movement speed last year? Oh, wait, no the turrets haven’t been rebalanced and you basically have another nail in the coffin for CQB classes. Nothing quite the same like chucking orbs like Li at long range so you can stroke your KD when it’s all over and you’re looking to play the blame game. Meanwhile bruisers and tanks just get lots of… bruises.

This is going to make the game more bland and boring in addition to making new players think the game is just like lol. Just sit under towers and watch the time tick away, what fun.

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They said recently that this will be an intended change - to prevent the bot from feeding uncontrollably.

Pretty sure that was not the intention.

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Since the update I have 300-350 ping.
I was barely 50 before. It’s unplayable now. I can no longer play a game for which I spent a lot of money. I’m done with activision.

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Ok so I kinda like the core changes, they add flavor to the maps and I think it is an interesting thing to play around.
As for the the aggression changes on forts and keeps, they’re god awful in my opinion. The whole thing that made HOTS better for me when compared to another MOBA like LOL is that it is less static and that base hugging isn’t a good option. By introducing this feature, not only are you punishing aggresive playstyles hard and killing the flow of the game, you are also allowing boring exp gathering heroes to stall freely. While punishing heroes that use any form of aoe while pushing, especially melee heroes, I was pushing a very passive rexxar back into his fort after defeating him hard in lane, but because I hit his bear with 1 q from my qhira and because he was able to stun me, I got destroyed from 90% to 0 in seconds. That is not fun gameplay.
This change makes it virtually impossible for people to harass while pushing and turns this game into a very action packed moba where people are able to move beyond a small piece of map into a very boring farm simulator where pushing is pretty much never worth the cost.
Terrible change, I’m going to check out DOTA 2, let me know when you fix it.

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at least in lol you only have 1 turret focussing you down, this game now has 3 that all focus you down at the same time and with equal power to the ones in lol, it’s an absolute disgrace.

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