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Heroes of the Storm May 9 Patch Reworks Kael'Thas, Nerfs Fenix

The latest balance patch for Heroes of the Storm takes aim at a handful of the MOBA's characters, including reworking some of Kael'Thas' talents.

Ozzie Mejia

May 9, 2018 2:05 PM

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Heroes of the Storm is in the middle of a big lore push. But as Blizzard pushes forward with the Dark Nexus, it's also taking a moment to issue a few balance tweaks to some of the game's heroes. That includes the recently-released Deckard Cain.

"Deckard’s foray into the Nexus has been incredibly successful from a balance perspective," read the May 9 patch notes. "He's sitting at a healthy win rate of anywhere between 47% and 51% in high level play, depending on the experience of the Deckard player. Many of his Talents are also looking to be in good shape. We're making some tuning changes intended to adjust under and overperforming Talents without impacting his overall win rate too much.

Deckard Cain

• Abilities
  • Lorenado (R): Cooldown reduced from 45 to 40 seconds.
• Talents
  • Level 1 - Sapphire (Active): Bonus Slow amount increased from 25% to 30%.
  • Level 4 - Ruby (Active): Lesser Healing Potion Heal amount increased from 190 to 205.
  • Level 13 - Ancient Blessings (Active): Damage reduced from 76 to 72. Healing reduced from 114 to 106.
  • Level 20 - Bottomless Flask (Q): Healing Potion recharge rate increased from 5 to 6 seconds.

One of the biggest changes goes to Fenix, who got whacked hard with the nerf bat. While his health and stats took a hit, it's the nerf to his abilities that are much more noteworthy, as they'll significantly impact his effect on the battlefield.

Fenix

• Stats
  • Health reduced from 1200 to 1140.
  • Health Regeneration reduced from 2.50 to 2.38.
  • Shields reduced from 800 to 760.
  • Shield Regeneration reduced from 80 to 76.
• Abilities
  • Weapon Mode: Phase Bomb (W): Basic Attack range bonus reduced from 1.5 to 1.25.
  • Warp (E): Cooldown increased from 15 to 17 seconds. Range reduced from 11 to 9.

The other noteworthy change goes to Kael'thas, who has been a Heroes staple for years. He's getting a few of his talents reworked, something Blizzard notes comes after a long evaluation period.

Kael'thas

• Talents
  • Level 4 - Energy Roil (E): Additional functionality - Passively reduces the Mana cost of Gravity Lapse by 70.
  • Level 7 - Sunfire Enchantment (Trait): Spell Damage reduced from 165 to 115. Number of empowered Basic Attacks increased from 1 to 2. If both empowered Basic Attacks hit enemy Heroes, gain 15% Spell Power for 10 seconds.
  • Level 13 - Pyromaniac (W): Cooldown reduction applied per tick of Living Bomb damage decreased from 1 to 0.5 seconds.
  • Level 16 - Arcane Dynamo (Passive): Removed
  • Level 16 - New Talent: Ignite (Q): Flamestrikes that hit enemy Heroes also afflict them with Living Bomb. Only 1 Living Bomb can be applied per Flamestrike cast.
  • Level 20 - Presence of Mind: Hitting enemy Heroes with Pyroblast no longer reduces its cooldown. New functionality: Heroes who are hit by Flamestrike or have Living Bomb spread to them reduce the cooldown of Pyroblast by 10 seconds.

Other items of note include Gul'dan losing his Glyph of Drain Life Level 1 and Devour the Frail Level 7 talents entirely, Hanzo getting a few abilities reigned in a bit, and Tracer's Recall destination now becoming visible to enemies.

Those looking for the full analysis can check out the full patch notes on the Heroes of the Storm website.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?