Valeera and new Sandbox Mode live on the Heroes PTR

General

Celebrate Lunar Festival 2017!

• Lunar Festival Quests and Rewards:
  • Quest: Complete the Rooster Race once.
    • Reward: 200 Gold.
  • Quest: Complete the Rooster Race 25 times during the 2017 Lunar Festival event.
    • Rewards: Lunar Rooster Portrait and the Lunar Rooster Mount.
• Lunar Festival Quest Details
  • Each day during Lunar Festival, players will receive a new event quest to complete the Rooster Race.
  • If any players on a team have not yet finished that day’s quest, there’s a chance that the Lunar Rooster, and many festive items, will appear in the team’s starting area.
  • Collect the required items and return them to the Rooster to advance his position. Return 4 items before time runs out to complete the Rooster Race!
• PTR Note: While elements of the Lunar Festival event may appear on the Test Realm, players will not be able to make progress toward quests or rewards until the patch is released to the live version of Heroes of the Storm next week.

Sandbox Custom Games Now Available

• A new version of Cursed Hollow has been added to Custom Games that will allow up to 10 players at once to use a wide variety of “cheats” to test the absolute limits of their Heroes in multiplayer, sandbox-style gameplay.
• A cheat menu will appear along the left side of the screen in-game.
  • By default, only Player 1 will have access to the cheat menu.
  • However, Player 1 can check the “Share Cheats” box at the top of the menu to give access to all other players.
  • Players may close the cheat menu by clicking the “X” in the top-right corner of the panel. The menu can be restored by clicking the “Show Controls” button.
  • All players will receive an in-game chat notification whenever a cheat is used.
• The cheat menu features a wide variety of different options:
  • Set Game Speed: Change game speed among Slower, Slow, Normal, Fast, and Faster.
  • Toggle Minions: Enable or disable Minion spawns for each team.
  • Reset Structures: Restore all Structures to full Health. If a Structure was destroyed, it is rebuilt.
  • Toggle Tribute Spawning: Enable or disable Raven Lord Tribute spawns. This button is only enabled before the first Tribute event begins.
  • Move Here: Instantly moves the player’s Hero to the camera location.
  • Reset Talents: Reset all players’ Talent selections.
    • If “Share Cheats” is enabled, this button will only reset Talents for the player that pressed it.
  • Reset Cooldowns: Reset all players’ Ability cooldowns. Can be used once every 5 seconds.
    • If “Share Cheats” is enabled, this button will only reset cooldowns for the player that pressed it.
  • Set Team Level: Adjust each team’s level from 1 up to 30. This will also affect the strength of Minions and neutral Mercenary Camps.
  • Toggle Infinite Mana: Enable or disable Ability costs for each team.
  • Set Damage Dealt: Adjust each team’s damage output from 0 up to 300% of normal damage.
  • Set Damage Taken: Adjust the amount of damage received by each team from 0 up to 300% of normal damage.

Performance Improvements

• Improved the performance of a rendering system that is used across most Hero Abilities and environment effects. This should improve framerates during team fights on many systems.

New Hero: Valeera

Trait

• Vanish (D)
  • Valeera vanishes from sight, becoming Stealthed and increasing her Movement Speed by 10%. For the first second, she is Unrevealable and can pass through other units.
  • Using Vanish grants Valeera an alternate set of Abilities that she can use while Stealthed.

Basic Abilities

• Sinister Strike (Q)
  • Dash forward, dealing damage to all enemies in a line. If Sinister Strike hits an enemy Hero, she stops dashing immediately and the cooldown is reduced to 1 second.
  • Awards 1 Combo Point.
• Blade Flurry (W)
  • Deal damage in an area around Valeera.
  • Awards 1 Combo Point per enemy Hero hit.
• Eviscerate (E)
  • Consume all stored Combo Points to Eviscerate an enemy, dealing increased damage per Combo Point spent. Valeera can store a maximum of 3 Combo Points.

Vanish Abilities

• Ambush (Q)
  • Ambush a target, instantly dealing damage to them.
  • Awards 1 Combo Point.
• Cheap Shot (W)
  • Deal a small amount of damage to an enemy and stun them for 1.5 seconds.
  • Awards 1 Combo Point.
• Garrote (E)
  • Garrote an enemy, instantly dealing a small amount of damage to the target, as well as a larger amount of bonus damage over 7 seconds, and Silencing them for 2 seconds.
  • Awards 1 Combo Point.

Heroic Abilities

• Smoke Bomb (R)
  • Create a cloud of smoke. While in the smoke, Valeera is Unrevealable, can pass through other units, and gains 25 Armor, reducing damage taken by 25%. Valeera can continue to attack and use Abilities without being revealed. Lasts 5 seconds.
  • Using this Ability does not break Vanish.
• Cloak of Shadows (R)
  • Valeera is enveloped in a Cloak of Shadows, which immediately removes all damage over time effects from her. For 1 second, she becomes Unstoppable and gains 75 Spell Armor, reducing Ability damage taken by 75%.
  • Using this Ability does not break Vanish.

Art

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• The following Heroes have received updated icon art to coincide with their reworks:
  • Tassadar
  • Rexxar
• The following Heroes, Abilities, and Talents have received updated visual effects:
  • Blood Elf Tyrande: Sentinel (W)
  • Malfurion: Innervate (D)
  • Rexxar: Misha, Focus! (D) Will now display visual effects above Misha and her target or target location when cast. Only the Rexxar player will see these effects.
  • Tassadar: Basic Attacks in Archon (R) form will now display splash effects more prominently.
  • Zagara: Envenomed Spines (Active Talent)

Shop

Bundles

• New Bundles
  • Demon Hunter Valeera Bundle – Available until January 31, 2017
  • 2017 Lunar Festival Bundle – Available until February 14, 2017
• Returning Bundles
  • 2016 Lunar Festival Bundle – Available until February 14, 2017
• Removed Bundles
  • Luxorian Nights Bundle
  • Ultimate Luxorian Nights Bundle

New Hero

• Valeera has been added to the in-game Shop

Mounts

• New Mounts
  • Felsaber – Available by purchasing the Demon Hunter Valeera Bundle
  • Nimbus Cloud – Available by purchasing the 2017 Lunar Festival Bundle
  • Lunar Rooster – Awarded for completing the Rooster Race 25 times during the 2017 Lunar Festival event
  • Golden Rooster – Available for gold purchase only
• Removed Mounts
  • Nexus Charger
  • Judgement Charger

New Skins

• Demon Hunter Valeera
• Master Valeera
• Monkey King Samuro – Available by purchasing the 2017 Lunar Festival Bundle. Available individually starting January 31, 2017
• Lunar Li-Ming – Available by purchasing the 2017 Lunar Festival Bundle. Available individually starting February 7, 2017

User Interface

MVP and Commendations System

• Hover the cursor over MVP and Commendation icons that appear next to players’ names on the end game score screen to view a brief description of each award.

Observer Mode

• The first level of camera zoom (Z) for Observers has been lowered slightly in Replays and Custom Games.

Tutorial and Training

• Gameplay tips that appear during Tutorial and Training games can now be accessed at any time while playing in those modes by clicking the new “Show Help” button added near the top-left corner of the screen.
• Clicking “Show Help” will display a Tutorial Tips panel that lists all of the tips the player has received so far, organized by category.

Heroes

Lunara

Talents

• Level 16
  • Starwood Spear (W)
    • Will now generate an Indicator displaying Lunara’s new attack range while active

Varian

Talents

• Level 1
  • Overpower (W)
    • Added functionality:
      • Can now trigger multiple times per Parry
      • Now also increases the damage of the next Heroic Strike by 25%

Developer Comments:  These simple changes should allow Varian players to “live the dream” and get multiple Overpower triggers more often, particularly when combined with Live by the Sword or Twin Blades of Fury. We want Overpower to allow Varian to gain a lot of value when used at just the right time, and found even the best cases of the old Talent design didn’t compare to the other options on the tier. By also allowing it to increase the damage of Heroic Strike baseline, we think it will an additional vector that will make it an enticing option for all 3 builds.

Li Li

Talents

•   Level 13
  • Elusive Feet (Trait)
    • Now displays a button on the hotbar showing the cooldown
• Level 16
  • Shake It Off (Passive)
    • Now displays a button on the hotbar showing the cooldown

Tassadar

Stats

• Basic Attack
  • Damage reduced from 69 to 10
  • Attack speed increased by 400%
  • Added Functionality:
    • Your basic attacks are channeled and slow the target’s Movement Speed by 20%

Abilities

• Oracle (Trait)
  • No longer costs Mana
  • Cooldown reduced from 40 to 30 seconds
  • Radius decreased by roughly 16%
• Plasma Shield (Q)
  • Cooldown increased from 5 to 8 seconds
  • Duration increased from 5 to 8 seconds
  • Mana cost increased from 40 to 50
  • Shield amount increased from 342 to 510
  • Removed Functionality:
    • No longer gains 50% strength on allied Heroes
  • Added Functionality:
    • Now grants the target 20% Life Steal on Basic Attacks (while Shielded)
• Psionic Storm (W)
  • Damage decreased from 55 to 42
  • Added Functionality:
    • Damage increases by 10% for each consecutive instance of damage
• Dimensional Shift (E)
  • Cooldown increased from 20 to 30 seconds
  • Duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds
  • Added Functionality:
    • Now grants 25% Movement Speed for the duration
  • You can now cancel out of Dimensional Shift early by re-activating the hotkey (Default: E)
• Archon (R)
  • Attack Damage increased from 111 to 175
  • Duration decreased from 12 to 10 seconds
  • Added Functionality:
    • Your Basic Attacks slow enemies by 40% for 1 second
  • Added Functionality:
    • Passively refreshes the cooldown of Dimensional Shift on activation
  • Removed Functionality:
    • No longer grants a generic Shield on activation
  • Added Functionality:
    • Now grants Tassadar a Plasma Shield on activation
• Force Wall (R)
  • Range increased from 8 to 10
  • Added Functionality:
    • Passively increases the slow amount of Tassadar’s Basic Attacks from 20 to 30%

Talents

• Level 1
  • Conjurer’s Pursuit (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Reinforce Structure (Q)
    • Removed
  • Overload (W)
    • Removed
  • Psi-Infusion (W)
    • New functionality:
      • Quest: Restores 1 Mana for every non-Structure enemy damaged by Psionic Storm
      • Quest Reward: After restoring 500 Mana, increase the area of Psionic Storm by 20%
      • Quest Reward: After restoring 1000 Mana, increase the damage of your Psionic Storm by 20%
  • New Talent: Templar’s Will (Passive)
    • Quest: Attacking enemy Heroes restores 4 Mana per second
    • Quest Reward: After slowing Heroes for 30 seconds, increase your Basic Attack range by 20%
    • Quest Reward: After slowing Heroes for 60 seconds, increase your Basic Attack range by an additional 20%
  • New Talent: Khaydarin Resonance (Passive)
    • Quest: Regeneration Globes grant an additional 50% Mana
    • Quest Reward: After collecting 20 Regeneration Globes, 50% of your Plasma Shield’s value remains after expiration
    • Quest Reward: After collecting 40 Regeneration Globes, your Plasma Shield’s no longer have a duration
• Level 4
  • Leeching Plasma (Q)
    • Removed
  • Healing Ward (Active)
    • Removed
  • Promote (Active)
    • Removed
  • Mental Acuity (Trait)
    • Moved to Level 7
    • New functionality:
      • Quest: Each takedown lowers the cooldown of Oracle by 3 seconds, to a max of 15 seconds
      • Quest Reward: Upon reaching 15 seconds of cooldown reduction, increase the sight range of Oracle by 50%
  • New Talent: Khala’s Embrace (Q)
    • Increases the Life Steal of your Plasma Shield by an additional 20%
  • New Talent: Khala’s Light(Q)
    • Upon the expiration or breaking of Plasma Shield, grant the target 25 Armor for 3 seconds
  • New Talent: Khala’s Celerity (Q)
    • Plasma Shield grants 25% Movement Speed for 5 seconds
• Level 7
  • Khala’s Embrace (Q)
    • Removed
  • Static Charge (W)
    • Removed
  • Calldown: MULE (Active)
    • Removed
  • Deep Shift (E)
    • Moved to Tier 5
    • New functionality:
      • Dimensional Shift’s Movement Speed and duration are increased by 50%
  • New Talent: Psionic Projection (Q, W)
    • Increases the range of your Plasma Shield and Psionic Storm abilities by 40%
• Level 13
  • Distortion Beam (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Prescience (E)
    • Removed
  • Scryer (Trait)
    • Removed
  • Shrink Ray (Active)
    • Removed
  • New Talent: Nullification (Active)
    • Activate to reduce target Hero’s damage by 75% for 3 seconds
  • New Talent: Adun’s Wisdom (Trait)
    • While Oracle is active, your Basic Abilities cooldown 50% faster
• Level 16
  • Evasive Shielding (Q)
    • Removed
  • Dimensional Warp (E)
    • Removed
  • Resonation (W)
    • Moved to Level 7
    • New functionality:
      • Distortion Beam’s slow amount is increased to 40% while attacking an enemy affected by Psionic Storm
  • Second Strike (W)
    • Renamed to Psionic Echo
    • The window to cast the second Psionic Storm has been reduced from 3 to 1.5 seconds
  • New Talent: Phase Disruption (W)
    • Enemies affected by Psionic Storm have their Physical Armor reduced by 25
  • New Talent: Focused Beam (Trait)
    • While Oracle is active, your Basic Attacks deal an additional 1% of an enemy Heroes maximum Health
• Level 20
  • Storm Shield (Active)
    • Removed
  • Rewind (Active)
    • Removed
  • Twilight Archon (R)
    • New functionality:
      • Basic Attacks while in Archon refresh the duration of Archon
  • Force Barrier (R)
    • New functionality:
      • Decreases the cooldown by 50% and increases the range by 100%
  • New Talent: Shield Battery (Active)
    • Activate to grant all nearby allies a base version Plasma Shield
  • New Talent: Prismatic Link (Passive)
    • Basic Attacks can now bounce to two nearby enemy targets for 50% damage

Developer Comments:  We absolutely love releasing reworks and this one was a long-time-coming, as Tassadar has had a bit of an identity crisis from the moment he stepped foot into the Nexus. We knew that the design direction and changes were going to need to be a bit more expansive in scope compared to most of our other reworks, but we did our best to keep him as true to his High Templar heritage as possible. Our goals were to embrace him as a true utility-based support mage. The new “Distortion Beam” Basic Attack should allow you to help peel for your allies as well as secure kills that would be otherwise unobtainable. Plasma Shield has gained baseline utility that will continue to empower Basic Attackers, while also offering more diverse talents in order to better react to enemy and ally compositions. Archon has been surgically buffed and given a passive reset for Dimensional Shift which should be great news for our old-school fans as we fully expect to see a resurgence of back-line infiltration play. Overall, we hope the changes reinvigorate our steadfast Tassadar players while integrating many new ones into the Khala. En Taro Tassadar.

Rexxar

General

• Misha
  • Movement Speed has been increased from 100% to 115% when Misha has been issued an order to attack targets or when she is by Rexxar’s side.

Abilities

• Misha, Attack! (D) / Misha, Follow! (D)
  • Removed
• Misha, Focus! (1)
  • Moved to the Trait button (Default Hotkey: D)
  • Self-casting Misha, Focus! now calls Misha to Rexxar.  Once she reaches Rexxar, she will go to her neutral state.

Talents

• Level 1
  • Survivalist Training (Passive)
    • Removed
  • Grizzled Bear (Passive)
    • Moved to Level 4
    • Renamed to Grizzled Fortitude
    • Added functionality:
      • Block charge gain rate increased from 5 to 7 seconds
      • Added functionality:
        • Rexxar now gains the Block charges in addition to Misha
  • Hunter-Gatherer (Passive)
    • Moved to Level 4
    • Regeneration Globes required to complete the quest decreased from 30 to 20
    • Rexxar’s Health Regeneration amount increased from 1 to 1.25 per second
    • New Functionality:
      • Upon Quest completion, Rexxar and Misha now gain 10 Armor
  • Flare (Active)
    • Cooldown increased from 20 to 30 seconds
    • Reveal duration increased from 5 seconds to 20 seconds
  • Bird of Prey (Q)
    • Bonus damage reduced from 200% to 150%
    • Now only does bonus damage to enemy Minions
• Level 4
  • Easy Prey (Passive)
    • Moved to Level 1
  • Crippling Talons (Q)
    • Slow amount increased from 40 to 50%
  • Taking Flight (Q)
    • Added functionality:
      • If Spirit Swoop hits an enemy Hero, the cooldown is also reduced by 2 seconds
  • New Talent: Animal Husbandry (Passive)
    • Rexxar and Misha gain 2 Maximum Health every second Rexxar remains alive. These bonuses are lost on Rexxar’s death.
• Level 7
  • Blood of the Rhino (E)
    • Removed
  • Bird of Prey (Q)
    • Moved to Level 1
• Level 13
  • Bear Necessities (W)
    • Removed
  • Barkskin (W)
    • Removed
  • Aspect of the Hawk (Q)
    • Added functionality:
      • Misha Basic Attacks now increase the duration of the Attack Speed buff by 0.5 seconds
  • New Talent: Dire Beast (W)
    • Rexxar and Misha’s Basic Attacks increase the damage of the next Misha, Charge! by 40%, stacking up to 400% bonus.
• Level 16
  • Critical Care (E)
    • Removed

Developer Comments:  Our goals for Misha Rexxar were twofold: to streamline his control scheme as much as we could and to give his talents some love. All of Misha’s controls should now be centralized on the D button, which should make it easier overall to play the hero. While this does result in a tiny loss of control (Rexxar no longer has the ability to recall Misha to his side and to keep her in a passive state), we felt that overall this functionality was not that huge of a loss for Rexxar and was worth the gain of making his controls centered around one button instead of two. We also made Misha’s Movement Speeds during her various states more consistent so that she feels better when being commanded by Rexxar, and we’ve added some talents that should help better sell the fantasy of Rexxar and Misha working together to take down their prey. We’ve had a blast playing with the new and improved Rexxar, and hope that you enjoy it as much as we have!

Bug Fixes

General

• Display: Fixed an issue that prevented some laptops with Nvidia graphics cards from using Fullscreen mode.
• Display: Fixed an issue that could cause the game client to switch to Windowed Fullscreen on startup.
• Fixed a number of typos and tooltip errors across several aspects of the game.

Art

• Diablo: Fixed a visual issue affecting Diablo’s tail during certain animations.
• Li-Ming: Fixed a minor animation issue affecting Li-Ming’s ball that could occur after exiting Archon form.
• Muradin: Fixed an issue causing Magni Muradin’s leg plates to appear to clip into his thighs.
• Try Mode: Grassy terrain will no longer appear inside of the allied Storm Portal.

Battlegrounds

• Braxis Holdout: The Archangel will no longer leave its leash range to attack a nearby Murky Egg.
• Haunted Mines: The Neutral Grave Golem will no longer chase an invulnerable Hero beyond its normal leash range.
• Structures: Fixed an issue in which the Core could continue to reveal enemy Stealth Heroes in a small radius outside its intended reveal range.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

• Fixed an issue in which certain debuffs could still be applied to Invulnerable Heroes, including:
  • Greymane: Marked for the Kill
  • Li-Ming: Charged Blast
  • Thrall: Rolling Thunder
  • Zul’jin: Grievous Throw
• Scouting Drone: Will now properly reveal Creep Tumors and Toxic Nests.
• Alarak: Telekinesis will now correctly interrupt a Hero who is channeling to launch a Nuke on Warhead Junction.
• Alarak: The targeting reticle for Deadly Charge will no longer persist on the terrain if Alarak is killed while channeling.
• Anub’arak: Burrow Charge will now correctly allow Anub’arak to escape Zarya’s Graviton Surge.
• Arthas: Army of the Dead will no longer fail to summon Ghouls if it is cast in the same moment that Arthas is targeted by Auriel’s Crystal Aegis.
• Auriel: A.I. Auriel can no longer cast Resurrect on Murky after he has already revived at his Egg.
• Brightwing: Polymorph will now properly interrupt an enemy Hero who is channeling on the Dragon Knight.
• Brightwing: The Critterize Talent’s negative effects will now be correctly removed if the target is Cleansed.
• Brightwing: The negative effects of Critterize will no longer persist beyond Polymorph’s duration.
• Diablo: Shadow Charge will now be properly interrupted if it would cause him to enter E.T.C.’s Mosh Pit.
• Gazlowe: Gazlowe’s Nuke Ability icon on Warhead Junction will no longer be visually replaced with a lock icon after casting Rock-It! Turret while carrying a warhead.
• Greymane: The tooltip for the Block buff granted by the Thick Skin Talent now correctly states that it reduces the next incoming Basic Attack by 50%, rather than 75%.
• Kael’Thas: The Burned Flesh Talent will now correctly deal damage equal to 8% of targets’ maximum Health, rather than 5%.
• Kael’thas: Fixed an issue in which Sun King’s Fury could deal bonus damage to targets who were already affected by Living Bomb.
• Kharazim: Air Ally will now properly reveal Creep Tumors and Toxic Nests.
• Kharazim: Fixed an issue that could prevent Kharazim from automatically acquiring a new target after activating Deadly Reach outside of his attack range.
• Li-Ming: Casting Disintegrate a moment before Li-Ming would be hit by Abilities like Falstad’s Gust of Wind will no longer cause a short delay before she is pushed.
• Medivh: The second Portal granted by the Portal Mastery Talent can no longer be self-cast.
• Nova: The Holo Decoy’s Pinning Shot will no longer reset Nova’s Covert Ops Talent stacks.
• Raynor: Killing Samuro’s Mirror Images after learning A Card To Play will no longer reduce Raynor’s Heroic Ability cooldowns.
• Rehgar: Fixed several issues affecting Rehgar’s pathing while attempting to attack in Ghost Wolf form.
• Rehgar: Becoming Rooted while attacking an enemy from maximum lunge range in Ghost Wolf form will no longer cause Rehgar to continue the lunge when the Root effect expires.
• Rehgar: Fixed an issue causing Rehgar to become stuck in an attack animation when attempting to attack a moving Medivac Dropship while in wolf form.
• Rehgar: Fixed an issue causing Rehgar to exit wolf form if he deals damage with a Ragnaros Blast Wave.
• Rexxar: Fixed an issue with using the Hold Position (Hotkey: H) command causing Misha to move in an unintended way.
• Tracer: Fixed an issue prevent Tracer from attacking a revealed stealth Hero.
• Tracer: Fixed an issue preventing Tracer from changing directions immediately when using Quick Cast Blink (Q) while holding Right-Click to move.
• Uther: Benediction can no longer reduce the cooldown of two abilities if used in rapid succession.
• Valla: Fixed some inconsistencies with abilities that would reveal Valla at the edges of Fog of War or from Brush.
• Varian: Can no longer be selected through Autoselect – Support.
• Zagara: Fixed an issue causing the Creep Tumor tooltip to display an incorrect value.
• Zarya: Fixed an issue preventing the “Drop and give me Twenty” quest indicator from disappearing after the quest was completed.
• Zeratul: Fixed an issue preventing Zeratul from using Wormhole after casting a Blink gained from the Rewind talent.

Sound

• Mounts: When ridden by a Hero in Stealth, mechanical Mounts will no longer play sound effects that are audible to nearby enemy Heroes.
• Quest Talents: Kharazim’s Insight will now properly play its quest completion sound effect.
• Tassadar: Distortion Beam will now correctly play sound effects when attacking enemy Walls, Gates, and Towers.

User Interface

• Profile: Fixed a visual issue that could cause Hero Kills to double after switching from an individual Hero’s stat page in the Hero Collection to the Profile’s Statistics tab, and back again.