What was the goal of Whitemane's rework?
In live the current version of Whitemane suffers from problems due to her Level 4 Talents, Clemency and High Inquisitor being almost mandatory.
After her release, the dominating build was Q build, during those times. Before Clemency and High Inquisitor was discovered to bypass Desperation mechanics.
and as well as those time, E build and Pity the Frail build wasn’t considered by the players as an optimal and viable build, perhaps a little less for Pity the Frail.
After a few patches, they nerfed and buffed Whitemane’s mana managing talents.
2018-08-22:
Level 4
- Unwavering Faith (Q)
- Desperate Plea Mana cost reduction decreased from 30 to 15
- High Inquisitor (W)
- Mana return per Desperation stack increased from 60 to 75
- Indulgence (E)
- Secondary lash Mana return reduced from 30 to 25
After days, weeks and months, people have begun to play the ‘Clemency’ Build with High Inquisitor, as it provided mana, Desperation mechanic abuse and safer out of team fight healing.
A few patches after they buffed Righteous Flame, an E build talent, people still considered E build as ‘sub-optimal’, and then Q build were being used less.
After a dev comment about how they’re looking at Whitemane’s mana management talents and how it interacts.
We’ve gotten a response from Blizzard, how they’re planning to rework and make Whitemane’s Searing Lash build even better, and the removal of Whitemane’s mana management talents.
https://heroesofthestorm.com/en-us/blog/22911361/
In the blog post that they made, they talked about how the rework fixes Whitemane’s mana managing problems while also being able to apply ‘Zeal’
Whitemane’s Mana tension (the amount of Mana she has access to versus the amount she needs to spend to meaningfully impact a match) was the primary area we found needed some reevaluation. In our PTR patch available on 9/16, we’re reducing the baseline Mana costs of Whitemane’s abilities. Since she can now use more abilities before running out of Mana, we’ve lowered her damage output to keep her power from spiraling out of control.
We’ve pushed her playstyle toward more interactivity by giving her multiple new Zeal-stacking talents, which heal her allies when Whitemane damages enemy Heroes.
Not once have they mentioned Whitemane having problems keeping up with Zeal, was keeping up Zeal as long as possible Whitemane’s priorities and play-style, why does it last 8 seconds if it was suppose to be so?
While the playstyle you’re accustomed to with Whitemane’s hasn’t fundamentally changed, you should nonetheless keep an eye out for some new synergies she has with aggressive or dive Heroes at the later levels.
If it has not fundamentally changed, then why is Zeal the goal to this rework? As to keep it up as possible, wasn’t the goal about changing her mana and how it interacts or even removing the level 4 mana managing talents?
Please leave a feedback on what you think was their goal as well or comments.
