Heroes of the StormMar 21, 2018 3:34 pm CT

Maiev nerfed again in latest Heroes of the Storm patch notes

By Alex Ziebart
Editor-in-Chief, Emeritus

Heroes of the Storm released its latest balance patch today and Maiev is once again on the receiving end of the nerf bat. Despite having her power reduced in previous patches, she’s still proven quite strong, which might put into perspective just how powerful she was at launch. Even after her initial nerfs, today’s patch nerfs both her damage and survivability, pulling power out of her core abilities and extending the cooldown on Vault of the Wardens.

Maiev isn’t the only hero receiving changes in this patch, however. A variety of heroes are receiving less dramatic nerfs, such as an increased cooldown on Greymane’s Razor Swipe, Sonya’s Spear, and Blaze’s Bunker. However, among all of the nerfs, support hero Auriel is receiving some much-needed buffs. Her basic attack damage has been increased to improve her self-generation of Hope, and she now has a shorter cooldown on Detainment Strike. Auriel has fallen out of favor ever since the big nerf the double support comps, so hopefully these buffs will bring her closer to viability again — but only time will tell.

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment (Official Post)

Battlegrounds

Towers of Doom

Increased the respawn timer of Sapper Camps by 30 seconds.

Heroes

Assassin

Greymane

Abilities

Razor Swipe (Q)
- Cooldown increased from 3 to 4 seconds

Talents

Level 13
- Visceral Attacks (Q)
  - Cooldown reduction increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds per Basic Attack

Developer Comment: We’re increasing the cooldown of Razor Swipe in an effort to stem some of Greymane’s effectiveness when taking Mercenaries and clearing Minion waves. Currently, Greymane’s play-style is great, but he does everything a little too well, which makes him a consistently safe pick. To curb this, we’d like to remove some of the PvE-oriented power from his kit.

Maiev

Abilities

Vault of Wardens (D)
- Cooldown increased from 9 to 12 seconds
Fan of Knives (Q)
- Damage reduced from 162 to 152
Containment Disk (R)
- Cooldown reduced from 65 to 50 seconds
Warden’s Cage (R)
- Cooldown increased from 80 to 100 seconds

Talents

Level 7
- Blade Dance (Q)
  - Damage reduced from 54 to 50
Level 13
- Shadow Armor (E)
  - Armor reduced from 25 to 20

Developer Comment: Maiev is still a powerhouse in the Nexus. To combat this, we’re reducing Maiev’s damage potential by lowering Fan of Knives damage and Blade Dance (which has powerful synergy with Armored Assault, another overperforming Talent.) We’re also allowing opponents more opportunities to punish Maiev by increasing Vault of the Wardens’ cooldown and reducing the power of Shadow Armor.

Thrall

Talents

Level 1
- Crash Lightning (Q)
  - Maximum damage bonus reduced from 480 to 360
  - Quest completion reward requirement increased from 20 to 30 stacks

Developer Comment: With the increased bounce range of Chain lightning, the Crash Lightning talent has become overly dominant. While we enjoy the build, as it allows Thrall to play outside of the solo-lane, in its current state it is simply too powerful. By lowering the maximum stacks, we’re reducing the upper damage limit to lessen the impact of the extreme situations where Thrall is completely stacked. Additionally, with the Quest Completion moving back to 30 stacks, it’s going to be harder for Thrall to finish the talent, pushing this power-spike to later in the match.

Valla

Abilities

Multishot (W)
- Damage increased from 165 to 172

Zul’jin

Stats

Basic Attack damage increased from 90 to 94

Talents

Level 13
- Ensnare (Active)
  - Cooldown reduced from 60 to 45 seconds

Specialist

Medivh

Talents

Level 7
- Arcane Explosion (W)
  - Additional damage from enemy damage absorbed reduced from 365 to 350
- Force of Magic (W)
  - Bonus Spell Power duration increased from 12 to 15 seconds
Level 13
- Reabsorption (W)
  - Healing amount increased from 50 to 60%

Support

Auriel

Stats

Basic Attack damage increased from 57 to 68

Abilities

Detainment Strike (E)
- Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds
Resurrect (R)
- Range increased from 5 to 7
- Cooldown reduced from 100 to 80 seconds

Talents

Level 7
- Energized Cord (Passive)
  - Energy stored from Basic Attacks against non-Heroic targets reduced from 50 to 40%
Level 13
- Blinding Flash (Q)
  - Blind duration reduced from 2.25 to 2 seconds
Level 20
- Diamond Resolve (R)
  - Armor increased from 50 to 60
- Angelic Flight (Active)
  - Cooldown reduced from 45 to 30 seconds

Developer Comment: Auriel has been overlooked in favor of other supports recently, so to increase her self-Hope generation and play-making potential, we’re increasing her Basic Attack damage and reducing the cooldown of Detainment Strike. We’ve also made some Talent adjustments so players feel like they have a greater variety of choices at the various tiers.

Malfurion

Talents

Level 1
- Nature’s Swiftness (Q)
  - Movement Speed reduced from 5 to 4% per Hero affected by Regrowth
Level 16
- Nature’s Balance (Q/W)
  - Bonus Regrowth duration reduced from 5 to 3 seconds

Warrior

Artanis

Abilities

Blade Dash (Q)
- Mana cost reduced from 65 to 55
Twin Blades (W)
- Mana cost reduced from 25 to 20

Talents

Level 13
- Templar’s Zeal (Q)
  - Faster cooldown rate increased from 200 to 300%

Blaze

Abilities

Bunker Drop (R)
- Cooldown increased from 40 to 50 seconds
- Exit Bunker now has a 1 Second cooldown before it can be used

Developer Comment: While we love the creative uses of Bunker Drop, at the higher levels of play it is slightly too effective. These changes are designed to decrease the overall power of the Bunker when it’s used purely to dodge enemy abilities and clear debuffs. We’d like to ensure that players who get into the Bunker are committed to being inside, if only briefly.

Sonya

Talents

Level 1
- Furious Blow (W)
  - Damage bonus increased from 40 to 50%
Level 4
- Battle Rage (Active)
  - Max charges reduced from 3 to 2
  - Charge use cooldown increased from 5 to 8 seconds
Level 13
- Mystical Spear (Q)
  - Cooldown reduction reduced from 3 to 2 seconds
Level 16
- Rampage (Passive)
  - Ancient Spear cooldown reduction decreased from .75 to .5 seconds

Developer Comment: Sonya is getting a bit too much value out of the combination of all the Ancient Spear talents, so we’re reducing the amount of cooldown reduction she gets to keep these from being the default choices. We’re also reducing the healing potential of Battle Rage at level 4 as it was providing a bit too much generic survivability for an early game talent. Finally, we’re increasing the damage bonus provided by Furious Blows to make it a more attractive damage option against the other two survivability talents.

Tyrael

Talents

Level 1
- Justice for All (W)
  - Allied Shield bonus reduced from 100 to 75%

Bug Fixes

General

Tyrael: Fixed an issue causing some Mecha Tyrael skins to appear untextured.
Johanna: Fixed an issue causing a placeholder sphere to appear when using Johanna’s Shield Glare ability with an Enforcer skin equipped.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

Heroes can no longer cast Area-of-Effect abilities globally before the gates open.
Malthael: Fixed an issue with the size of Death Shroud’s area of effect.
Samuro: Fixed an issue with the Three Blade Style talent that prevented Mirror Images from gaining bonus health.
Samuro: Fixed an issue causing the Quest Complete fanfare to play every time Mirror Images was cast after choosing the Way of Illusion talent.
Valla: Fixed an issue causing the Punishment talent to deal less bonus damage than intended.

Beyond the changes to Maiev, perhaps the largest change in this patch is the longer respawn time on Sapper Camps on Towers of Doom. Only very recently did players catch on to how powerful Sapper Camps can be on that map, creating enormous pressure for the opposition — to the point it became the de facto strategy to focus exclusively on the bottom lane with its double Sapper Camps. Whoever won the bottom lane likely won the game regardless of what was going on elsewhere. Hopefully, the increased respawn timers will cause the bottom lane to be less impactful, making the other lanes worth contesting again.

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