Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision

[ChaosOS]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiLiBMcXxj0&t=0s

Hopefully this answers the speculation

[Spore]

I really like his alternate skin, the Night Elf-ish golem look is cool.

It looks more generally shamanistic/druidic to me. It reminds me of Princess Theradras and Maraudon.

[Keltest]

The description on the website says its a generic "Nexus" themed skin, not a night elf skin. Although its very clearly night elf reminiscent.

[Kitten Champion]

That looks exactly like - and the website where I got the image agrees - the Hearthstone logo. Though, I guess it's just a nod.

The fluff text is

Deep in the Nexus’s primordial wilds, the land itself births beings of vine and stone. Imbued with the spark of life, the ruinwalkers wander the wreckage of civilizations long forgotten, guarding secrets that they have never known.

Though, to me, if Moonwells were made to come alive and move around like the Ancients structures, I imagine they would look like this.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Sick stuff! I love the use of the classic Dragoon death animation.

[ChaosOS]

https://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/21594629 Patch notes (Tracer, Varian adjustments)

https://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/21619852 In Development (Carbot portraits!)

[Spore]

Ef yeah, Carbot Portraits!

[Kitten Champion]

Oooh~ they've done a bunch of pretty necessary balance adjustments. Like bringing Maiev down to mortal-esque levels. Which is great for me, I really do want to play her for her kit is fun - as well as the comfy blanket she gets to wear to work which I covet - and not for objectively game-dominating strength.

I'm somewhat hopeful for Auriel as well, now that she's been thrown a bone.

Also nerfing Bunker and the Bunker-related hijinks, Greymane's wave-clear, Sonya, and Thrall.

They're slowly ebbing towards widening the meta up quite a bit with some flat nerfs for S-tiers and various adjustments for the more humble Heroes in their shadows. Combining this with trying to make Protected into something less offensive and it's been a good few months. Though Maiev's and Blaze's probably should have been done a few weeks ago, still, there is always Hope.

[Gandariel]

I will never not be happy for Auriel buffs

[ChaosOS]

https://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog...2018-3-21-2018 patch notes for the curious


Anyways, I think their new trend of "normalization" is a really important one to take. While it was cool and novel to have so many character designs push boundaries, bringing things back to a centerpoint helps make the game less draft dependent. The Xul changes, the Tracer changes, the Varian changes, the Medivh changes, plus hopefully more in the future will make it so there's less frustration from hypermobility/splitpushing/protected BTW. Next targets should either be Genji or some of the specialists, depending on whether they want to help out pubs or competitive play more.

[Kitten Champion]

I'd like them to look at Sylvanas, if Specialists are indeed their focus.

She's going to take some significant retooling to make her less trait-dependent and more of an all-round character. As she is, she either succeeds wildly or flounders about, even at pro-play.

[Keltest]

Oh man, Planet Cracker is the most gloriously dumb ult in the game now. So many combos to choose from.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Oh man, Planet Cracker is the most gloriously dumb ult in the game now. So many combos to choose from.

Got wrecked by an Entomb -> Planet Cracker combo in QM, and they sometimes threw an Apocalypse in there too. It was pretty sick.

[Kitten Champion]

I think Planet Cracker could be really useful as a 4.sec cross-map wall to put in front of fleeing enemies - similar to how I look at D.Va's self destruct as an area-clear defensive ability - rather than just a Hinterland's Blast with global range.

I also want to test it with the Battle Momentum talent as an off-brand Lava Wave. See if I can angle it just so to get maximum lane clear, particularly on Tomb of the spider-Queen where the lanes are all scrunched up.

[Keltest]

I think Planet Cracker could be really useful as a 4.sec cross-map wall to put in front of fleeing enemies - similar to how I look at D.Va's self destruct as an area-clear defensive ability - rather than just a Hinterland's Blast with global range.

I also want to test it with the Battle Momentum talent as an off-brand Lava Wave. See if I can angle it just so to get maximum lane clear, particularly on Tomb of the spider-Queen where the lanes are all scrunched up.

With a 100 second cooldown, I think that's really a waste, especially on Tomb where just killing the waves with your AA isn't that hard. Ive only ever seen lava wave used in that manner as a counter-split-push to begin with, and Fenix's kit makes him much better suited to just hanging out and beating the crap out of the split pusher directly.

[Kitten Champion]

With a 100 second cooldown, I think that's really a waste,

You can reduce that with Battle Momentum at 16 though. 0.5 seconds reduction per attack, plus attack speed talents at 7 and 20 can increase Repeater Cannons already fairly fast attack by about... double, I think. It's within reason to get that down to about a minute.

especially on Tomb where just killing the waves with your AA isn't that hard. Ive only ever seen lava wave used in that manner as a counter-split-push to begin with, and Fenix's kit makes him much better suited to just hanging out and beating the crap out of the split pusher directly.

With Rag, if you wipe them out minions quickly in preparation for the turn-in you can either effectively stall out or empower a Webweaver push with a simple R-click. You just need to get the timing right and suddenly the map objective is decidedly in your favour. I've done it myself after seeing it in HGC, it works well enough.

While of course you can AA them to death, having a tool for easy map control that doesn't require you to put yourself in potential position for a ganke and lets you - for instance - also commit to a boss or knights camp while doing it, is worth it.

[Keltest]

You can reduce that with Battle Momentum at 16 though. 0.5 seconds reduction per attack, plus attack speed talents at 7 and 20 can increase Repeater Cannons already fairly fast attack by about... double, I think. It's within reason to get that down to about a minute.



With Rag, if you wipe them out minions quickly in preparation for the turn-in you can either effectively stall out or empower a Webweaver push with a simple R-click. You just need to get the timing right and suddenly the map objective is decidedly in your favour. I've done it myself after seeing it in HGC, it works well enough.

While of course you can AA them to death, having a tool for easy map control that doesn't require you to put yourself in potential position for a ganke and lets you - for instance - also commit to a boss or knights camp while doing it, is worth it.

I dunno, I feel like youre looking at Fenix and trying to find the most complicated way of doing his job. he's a fantastic lane bully already with excellent wave clear and great damage both in duels and teamfights. Yeah, I guess you can burn an ult to clear lanes, but really, why would you?

[shadow_archmagi]

Fenix feels like a hybrid Tracer+Sgt. Hammer- Pursuit and siege in one package. Horrifying.

[Binks]

The absolute madmen. They went and did it...

New Hero Announcement - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx0sZIIJ5Bc&t=0s

Spoiler: Thoughts

Show

Seems great to me, but then I never played D2 so my exposure to Cain is from D3 only. Trait seems pretty good, the armor is kind of worthless, but the recharge is a great way to encourage staying near allies without really having any powers that depend on it.

Q is awesome and I love it. That is all.

W and E both seem pretty cool, and the visuals are great. Will have to play with them for a bit to get a real idea of how they play.

Talents can be found here, seem pretty good. The 3 gems seem like they could be really powerful for a less heal-oriented build. All 4 lvl 20s seems great, rest all seem fine, will need to try them out to see which build to go (which is better than most heroes that kind of telegraph the 'correct build' off the bat).

Ults seem alright, both comedic and reasonably powerful. Doesn't seem like he's an ult-focused character like some, but both seem perfectly fine.

All in all, seems like a great addition, and a good way to handle one of the most requested heroes of all time. Fingers crossed for an announcer too :).

[shadow_archmagi]

If a hero had a 100% popularity, would they by definition have a 50% winrate?

[Keltest]

If a hero had a 100% popularity, would they by definition have a 50% winrate?

No, because they cant appear on both teams in draft modes, and QM also tries very very hard to avoid that as well.

[Kitten Champion]

Well, Carbot already has an adorable Deckard Cain ready to go. They even threw in the Respect the Elderly bit on his Storm Talents.

No, because they cant appear on both teams in draft modes, and QM also tries very very hard to avoid that as well.

Also, with bans, you can have 100% popularity and no one actually play you. At least competitively.

[Spore]

The first thing on my mind was: "How does an old man move as fast as all the charging warriors and tanks and whatnot?" followed by an: "The scroll animation time is very slow." into an "Let us just hope this is not a joke character like Murky or TLV".

[Gandariel]

Yeah, Deckard is awesome. His W and E have an amazing visual effect.

His sleep ult with the 20 upgrade looks honestly busted. Is it just me? Full team sleep dart + Suppression Pulse + Twilight Dream?

[Kitten Champion]

It's occurred to me that Cain's level one quest "Identify" is also - probably - a reference to Carbot's idea video.

The first thing on my mind was: "How does an old man move as fast as all the charging warriors and tanks and whatnot?" followed by an: "The scroll animation time is very slow." into an "Let us just hope this is not a joke character like Murky or TLV".

TLV were pretty strong until the mobility meta produced too many convenient Viking hunters. Still, whether his aoe abilities can actually hit anyone worth hitting in practical circumstances is the question mark over his head.

That, and how survivable he is. It doesn't look like it would be too difficult to CC him and quickly burst him down for a quick kill. You're not encouraged tot play him too far back because his trait loses its value.

Yeah, Deckard is awesome. His W and E have an amazing visual effect.

I really like the Horadric Cube personally.

I also like the use of D2's gems as a theme for his abilities, it's a neat touch.

His sleep ult with the 20 upgrade looks honestly busted. Is it just me? Full team sleep dart + Suppression Pulse + Twilight Dream?

It looks a lot easier to interrupt than a Mosh, though.

I actually thought some kind of team sleep effect should've been Ana's secondary Heroic. It's neat to see the Sleep effect again anyways. I hope to see it on a Dreadlord character some day.

[Kitten Champion]

So, they're finally adding a third ban slot, soon-ish. I would assume around the time of Cain's release if they're at the stage of openly announcing it in a Developer Update.


It's going to be interesting to see the repercussions from this. If you don't have to Sophie's Choice between existing S-Tiers and the newly released unbalanced/bugged Hero, it'd be a lot more fun to play and watch.

[Spore]

Guis? Are you there?

Last week in HotS for me was:

1) I love Diablo. He is a siiiick QM warrior.

2) I loooove Tyrande. Competing on hero damage while actually being a support sustain hero.

3) Deckard is incredibly ...meh. He is like a hero designed for high level play, with comps designed around him. I really should buy Alextrasza already.

[Keltest]

The un-hype for Deckard is real. Its like somebody looked at a possible April Fools joke and said "you know, we could do this for real!"

[Kitten Champion]

2) I loooove Tyrande. Competing on hero damage while actually being a support sustain hero.

Ah. As I said, she's my favourite Hero in HotS simply because I love playing the Tyrande quest stacking mini-game and zooming around with Shadowstalk is incredibly fun.

Hopefully she'll be in a much more logical place game-wise in the not-too-distant-future once they implement a new role system and free up the conceptual boxes they've been stuck in somewhat.

3) Deckard is incredibly ...meh. He is like a hero designed for high level play, with comps designed around him. I really should buy Alextrasza already.

Can't say much given that I haven't played him. He does add further anti-mobility options without being oppressive, and as someone who plays Alexstrasza quite a bit I can appreciate the play-style of how to best position your heals on the battlefield to keep your team alive... but I like lane clear (especially in QM) and he doesn't have it, which puts him pretty low on my priority list at the moment.

I will say, he's the first Hero in a bit which hasn't ruined QM though. Hopefully they won't throw huge buffs on top of him to peke interest in him ala Hanzo.

[Keltest]

Ah. As I said, she's my favourite Hero in HotS simply because I love playing the Tyrande quest stacking mini-game and zooming around with Shadowstalk is incredibly fun.

Hopefully she'll be in a much more logical place game-wise in the not-too-distant-future once they implement a new role system and free up the conceptual boxes they've been stuck in somewhat.



Can't say much given that I haven't played him. He does add further anti-mobility options without being oppressive, and as someone who plays Alexstrasza quite a bit I can appreciate the play-style of how to best position your heals on the battlefield to keep your team alive... but I like lane clear (especially in QM) and he doesn't have it, which puts him pretty low on my priority list at the moment.

I will say, he's the first Hero in a bit which hasn't ruined QM though. Hopefully they won't throw huge buffs on top of him to peke interest in him ala Hanzo.

I think its more likely they'll throw buffs on him because he's sitting in the mid 40s in terms of winrate right now.