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

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Wait, which KT talents require AAing now? Sun King's Fury doesn't affect your AAs as of the new patch.

[Keltest]

I bought KT back in the days where the Living Bomb build was insane and he was OP. I never liked Flamestrike if not for clearing minions. The time between activation and damage is too long in a game full of Tracers, Li-Mings, Vallas and Sylvanas'. Female heroes have kits around escaping cowardly. Triggered.

Now all Living Bomb talents revolve around staying in range and autoattacking the target. NOTHING in his kit (expect Arcane Barrier) supports staying in range or pretending to be an auto attack hero. Yes I know about Sunfire Enchantment. But I feel KT should have two viable builds around his SPELLS as he is a MAGE not his auto attacks. He's squishy enough as is.

Personally I like the use of Flamestrike as a "move you twit" spell. There are a lot of heroes where just being forced to reposition (and possibly forced out of a position entirely, since flamestrike's CD isn't so long that they can just move right back and be safe) seriously restricts them. Plus, its fun to watch the enemy team scatter before you.

[Spore]

Wait, which KT talents require AAing now? Sun King's Fury doesn't affect your AAs as of the new patch.

I think I have checked an outdated talent calc. My bad.

[Gandariel]

Since we might as well, Frog Dragon and I are participating in a little tournament called Heroes Lounge.

We played (and lost) yesterday night, the vods are on twitch ( I am Ciabatta, Frog Dragon is Vasemmasti)

If you don't wanna watch the whole games at least check out this highlight of my Muradin refusing to die 1v4.

We are playing again (and being spectated by Khaldor!) tomorrow night (should be 20:30 CEST, not definitive), you're all welcome to join!

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I think I have checked an outdated talent calc. My bad.

No worries; it's probably up-to-date, but I'm assuming we were talking about KT's changes in PTR.

Sun King's Fury is getting changed from "extra AA damage while you have Living Bomb out" to "Living Bomb deals 30% more damage after spreading". Which honestly is a good change, imo.

[rayquaza]

League of Legends is a easier version of DOTA, then Heroes of the Storm is the easier version of LOL.

[ChaosOS]

New content! Event: Machines of War

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhhaPVdG7fQ

(In Development Video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUZBAOmzBh8

TL;DR New heroes are Alarak (from Starcraft) and Zarya (from Overwatch), new skins are Raider Rexxar, The Butcherlisk, and a new Legendary: Queen of Ghosts Kerrigan

Oh, and POST GAME CARDS! (Like Overwatch)

[Gandariel]

YES to everything!!!!

I'll wait for more data to comment on the maps, but i have to say:


Alarak looks very well designed with interesting and fun abilities, especially his W.

Slightly less happy about Zarya: I would have wanted Winston first, and two of her basic abilities are pretty much the same thing. Also her second ultimate is... Tyrael's Q at level 16.

Maps looks sick, skins look cool and i LOL'd at just reading BUTCHERLISK

[ChaosOS]

Also, I was a little hasty and missed this Battleground Preview video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAXqZIBeS40

[Keltest]

They gave alarak. They can just delete all the rest of the heroes now.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I don't even know where to start with my hype. ALL THE HYPE. Those new battlegrounds look amazing (Terran minions SQUEE), and will add some neat new gameplay. Also, Braxis Holdout seems like a cool rework of Haunted Mines, at least conceptually. I think they did a lot to address some of the complaints about the map.

Heck, I was even impressed by the "In Development" segment for the Zerg Butcher skin; that Furnace Blast rework in particular looks sick.

[Spore]

They gave alarak. They can just delete all the rest of the heroes now.

While I would not be so drastical I certainly enjoy his gleeful sadism.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I forgot how much fun it was to have an Artanis free week. I'm gonna have to actually shell out the gold and buy him one of these days. Now that I'm better at managing his shield cooldown, I'm having a ton of fun with him.

[Gandariel]

Reddit has the full ability breakdowns and talents of Alarak and Zarya.

Alarak seems to be super super cool. HE can pick up the second Ultimate at level 20! OR get a better Rewind! Or a mega blink-that-almost-kills-him!

Also, Valla rework.

Can't judge for sure, but it looks pretty fun. Her new Rain of Vengeance is probably her best ult by a LONG shot

[Gray Mage]

Can someone remind me if Aba's clone ult also copies the effects of passive talents?

[Draken]

Can someone remind me if Aba's clone ult also copies the effects of passive talents?

Aba clone has none of the target's talents.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

On the flipside, Aba does copy passive traits of heroes, like Jaina's chill, which makes certain heroes really good for cloning.

[Draken]

On the flipside, Aba does copy passive traits of heroes, like Jaina's chill, which makes certain heroes really good for cloning.

Copies actives too. I have used Life Tap as Gul'dan clone. Well, it just copies all of the base kit. Q, W, E, D and Z.

Not sure how it goes with Kharazim's trait, however.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

It copies the trait of your Kharazim; didn't used to, but they implemented it a patch or two ago.

[Gray Mage]

Aba clone has none of the target's talents.

So Aba's clone of Alarak has 100% sadism for a total of the 240% of Alarak's ability damage on heroes (Aba has 120% of the base hero's ability damage and 100% sadism doubles that total). Also, two Q abilties eith 1.5 second silence for a team. That sounds scary to me.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

So Aba's clone of Alarak has 100% sadism for a total of the 240% of Alarak's ability damage on heroes (Aba has 120% of the base hero's ability damage and 100% sadism doubles that total). Also, two Q abilties eith 1.5 second silence for a team. That sounds scary to me.

I didn't even think of that. That's terrifying and I love it and I'm gonna pass that suggestion along to my Chair League team for when Alarak comes out. We could absolutely destroy with that.

[ChaosOS]

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/...2016-8-22-2016

Balance updates to Cho'gall, Greymane, Gul'dan, Auriel, Sgt Hammer, Stitches, and Tyrael

[Gray Mage]

So, overwatch-like commendation system. It's cool and at least a reson for me to not lose sanity when dealing with less than cooperative teammates.

[Gandariel]

My ego is very, very happy about the MVP system. :D

Other than that, patch notes are mostly fine.

As i think i already said, we have a team in an amateur HotS league called Heroes_lounge, and our team (Agents007) is doing pretty well.

One of our games (victory!) was actually casted by Khaldor himself, but he hasn't uploaded it yet and i ain't paying for a subscription just to watch his VODs. He did say he would upload to youtube at some point, i'll link when he does.

Lately i've been trying out some Tychus, he's pretty fun but i often have trouble deciding whether to Q or autoattack someone. His annoying chase combo is deadly, though. (And getting In The Rythm stacks is super fun with that DINDINDING)

[CarpeGuitarrem]

As i think i already said, we have a team in an amateur HotS league called Heroes_lounge, and our team (Agents007) is doing pretty well.

Oh, sweet!

(I'm in the NA counterpart to Heroes_lounge, aka Chair League. We start things off next week, I believe.)

So, some really interesting changes in patch notes. I especially dig the new Bribe talents, and I love that Bribe is legitimately competitive on Falstad now. I mean, seriously! 5% bonus AP on his lightning rod ability per merc bribed. Like...mull on that for a bit. If he winds up bribing two Knight camps, that's an almost 50% damage boost on a targeted ability that you can talent for increased range and additional increasing damage. I think that talent might make Falstad one of the best sustained mage damage-dealers in the game. Also, Brightwing is now able to get Bribe stacks ridiculously quickly! In a teamfight, that's 4 stacks every 4 seconds! What! Over the course of a teamfight, you passively stack enough to bribe a merc! By doing nothing! And you can continue to get stacks in lane, and whenever you're following allies around.

Valla rework is awesome, Butcher rework is awesome.

Oh, and I've tried Alarak out a bit, because I'm planning on buying him Day 1 with the gold, since heroes are legal on release week in Chair League. I really like him so far: he's a bursty melee mage! And it's dead-simple for him to combo Telekinesis into Discord Strike, which chunks squishies for a significant portion of their health. And that's not counting his Sith Lightning. It's like Kerrigan combos all over again, but faster. I think he gives up some damage for it, but he can also use Telekinesis for other stuff too. He even seems like he'd be good for delaying channels at objectives.

[Gandariel]

Butcher and Valla rework sound cool, I really want to try New Valla.

I generally used to go for the AA build, and it seems to be still the best. Her W and Q still have some love, though.

Falstad bribe (i think) only counts merc *CAMPS*, not singular mercs.

If it does count each one I agree that it's super strong. Like, "W build is the highest damage " strong.

Edit: oh boy, it's per single merc. Dayum!

Definitely trying that out with the level 4 and 7 talents.

Not sure about Brightwing, but frankly I don't remember what else she has on 1 :P

Nova's is a joke, of course.

Slightly sad to see Anub be only Unstoppable during E, but we had it coming. I guess I'll just have to take more Living Bombs in the face.

[Spore]

In other news I played Pally's zero stress Gazlowe. Regen Master into all Turret talents into Robo Goblin on 10 and 20) and it is a chaotic mess but fun. People do not expect you to have this kind of sustain and they usually underestimate the damage of turrets in QM.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Not sure about Brightwing, but frankly I don't remember what else she has on 1 :P

It's increased range on Soothing Mist (20%, IIRC), Z cooldown reduction when she heals an ally, and Q cooldown reduction when she hits an enemy with it.

Nova's is a joke, of course.

I really liked the idea of giving her Bribe back when it was proposed; gives her something non-PvP to do in the jungle. I don't like this implementation, though. The worst bit is that she actually uncloaks to use the Bribe, which really puts a dent in her operations, especially if she has something like the L1 slow talent.

I don't think it's an awful choice at that level, simply because the other choices are all holograph talents.

[Keltest]

I really liked the idea of giving her Bribe back when it was proposed; gives her something non-PvP to do in the jungle. I don't like this implementation, though. The worst bit is that she actually uncloaks to use the Bribe, which really puts a dent in her operations, especially if she has something like the L1 slow talent.

I don't think it's an awful choice at that level, simply because the other choices are all holograph talents.

I think there are worse ways they could have done it. She gets stacks from hero takedowns, so it at least comes about as a side effect of doing her job. While it does negatively affect Covert Ops, she only needs to be cloaked for 30 seconds to get the full slow charge back, so its not the end of the world.

[Gray Mage]

I think it'll see play as the other talents of that tier are very underwhelming. And that gives her some more utility and it's a great talent vs Murky and Lost Vikings (TLV even see play in higher play).