Hi there, ChaosOS again. Today’s article will be going over the 08/23/2017 balance patch, whose patch notes can be found HERE. Due to IRL circumstances known as "Summer Ending and having to move back into University", Part I today will cover the assassin changes while Part II (Hopefully coming tomorrow) will cover the rest of the changes.

Link to today’s spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iV39x8grmL3RmJNMsgFi8QjZxZ4tabHa2UU81HqA4Gk/edit?usp=sharing

Disclaimer: All numbers below are for the base “Level 0” values unless otherwise noted.

Alarak

Change 1:

Level 4

Negatively Charged (E) Damage bonus increased from 3 to 5%that



Analysis:

Alarak's level 4 talent tier provides more damage. Currently on the tier is Chaos Reigns, the Q quest which adds a (large) flat amount of damage to Alarak's Discord Strike based on his level of quest completion. Show of Force deals bonus damage to targets of Alarak's full WQE combo that scales with level. Negatively Charged is a repeatable quest that adds a scaling amount of damage to Alarak's "clothesline" portion of his Lightning Surge per stack. Each of these added damage sources benefits normally from Alarak's Sadism total.



Previously, it took a lot of stacks or levels to for Negatively Charged to provide more damage than two parts of Chaos Reigns. Now, with only 20 stacks of Negatively Charged, (relatively easy), Negatively Charged surpasses a fully completed Chaos Reigns at level 17. At 25 stacks Negatively Charged surpasses Chaos Reigns at level 13. To benefit more than two stacks of Chaos Reigns (+100 damage) Alarak only needs 10 stacks of Negatively Charged and level 13, or at any level by 20 stacks. Ultimately the damage here is now close enough for a more "poke oriented" Alarak build that leverages the strength of Negatively Charged combined with the ability to double cast lightning surge at level 16 would be viable, especially in situations where it seems unlikely that a that getting the triple Q hit will happen in a timely fashion.

Change 2:

Level 13

Blade of the Highlord (Passive) Bonus Sadism increased from 6 to 7%. Cap increased from 30 to 35%



Analysis



This is another attempt to level off a directly comparable tier, as each talent simply offers more Sadism. Blade of the Highlord, after 5 attacks, now offers 35%. Pure Malice offers up to 40% for 5 allied deaths. Finally, Rite of Rak'shir is a fun active that has potentially infinite Sadism gain, but realistically requires quite a bit of work to match the bonuses granted by Pure Malice.



The problem with Blades of the Highlord continues to be that it only benefits your second combo in a teamfight. Because the stacks can only be acquired by attacking heroes and have a short duration, it is impossible to pre-stack the sadism before opening with a combo. Thus, Pure Malice or Rite of Rak'shir are preferable to ensure Alarak has maximum impact in a teamfight. Unless you are completely and utterly crushing a game I would suggest picking Pure Malice over Rite of Rak'shir, as Pure Malice helps more when playing from behind, something Alarak normally struggles with, while Rite of Rak'shir can very quickly be a "win more" talent.



Illidan

Change 1:

The Hunt (R)

Cooldown increased from 60 to 100 seconds

Analysis:

This change is a much smaller increase to the cooldown of "The Hunt" than might initially appear. Illidan's attack period of 0.55 gives him an attack speed of 1.82, and his passive Betrayer's thirst reduces his cooldowns by 1 second per AA. Thus, in a perfect world of continuous AAs, Illidan's cooldowns can be divided by (1+1.82)=2.82. Thus, the "ideal cooldown" on The Hunt went from (60/2.82)=~21.3 to (100/2.82)=~35.5 seconds. The real cooldown increase is somewhere between the nominal 40 seconds and the idealized ~14.2 seconds, based on how many AAs Illidan can make during the time.



Edit: One thing pointed out in the Reddit comments that I missed is that if you hunt in and feed, Hunt will now be on a 30-60 second CD when you respawn rather than 0-20

Kerrigan

Change 1:

Ravage (Q) Damage reduced from 228 to 210

Impaling Blades (W) Damage increased from 251 to 261

Primal Grasp (E) Damage increased from 110 to 114



Analysis:

Kerrigan's full QWE combo took a 4 damage nerf (-18 on Q, +10 on W, +4 on E). However, Kerrigan can usually fit in another Q afterwards, increasing the damage nerf. On the other hand, Kerrigan does more damage if she catches multiple people in her WE combo. Damage nerfs on Kerrigan are doubly important due to her passive converting 10% of the damage she does to shields.



The bigger talking point as noted on Reddit is the impact the Ravage Nerf has for her "AA+Clean Kill" damage breakpoints on killing the skeletal defenders. Conveniently, last week I covered the way Skeletal Defenders scale. The change to Ravage means Kerrigan needs an additional level or two to still be able to one shot the skeletal defenders. This is especially noticeable at the 5 and 6 minute mark, where the requirements change from levels 7 and 8 respectively to 9 and 10, going from "normal gameplay" to "significantly ahead".



As to the Developer Comments' claim of trying to even out some talent pick rates: Sharpened Blades at 1 provides an additional 2.5 bonus damage, while Clean Kill provides 4.5 less bonus damage.

Change 2:

Level 1

Energizing Grasp (E) Removed



Level 7

Adaptation (Q) Removed



Analysis



The Energizing Grasp change seems to be solely targeted at removing what is essentially a trap talent at level 1. The Adaptation change also seems to be targeted a low pick and winrate talent, but also prevents this type of cheese ft. Falstad.

The Butcher

Change 1:

Basic Attack damage reduced from 130 to 125

Fresh Meat (Trait) Meat from Hero kills reduced from 25 to 20 Meat lost on death increased from 10 to 15



Analysis:

The Basic Attack damage reduction scales up to ~11 at level 20, a minor reduction in Butcher's damage solely targeted at his winrate. The more important change is to how Fresh Meat works. When I analyzed the Butcher changes a few weeks ago I noted that Butcher came out ahead even if he was trading kills, as a trade put him up +15 meat, more than a minutes worth of farming in lane. No longer.

Action Old % Completion New % Completion Dying -5% -7.5% Getting a Kill +12.5% +10% Full wave of minions +3.5% +3.5%

Now, while getting kills is more efficient than farming waves, it is not quite as rewarding and dying while doing so (unless you get two kills) certainly isn't more rewarding. This should help even out Butcher's power level and time to quest completion in more clown fiesta games without significantly impacting him in games with lower death counts.



Change 2:

Level 7

Insatiable Blade (W) Adjusted functionality: Removed the bonus healing Increased movement speed bonus from 20 to 25%

Victuals (Passive) Heal increased from 4 to 5% per minion death



Analysis



Insatiable Blade no longer adds 25% lifesteal to Butcher's Brand (Which was doubled against heroes), which was a 33% increase in the lifesteal total. Instead, it provides a 25% MS buff while facing the enemy. This increases the MS buff from (0.2*4.3984)=+0.87968 meters per second to (0.25*4.3984)=+1.0996 meters per second, or an increase of ~0.22 meters per second while the buff is active.



Victuals was buffed from healing Butcher for (2154*.04)=86.16 per nearby minion death to (2154*.05)=107.7 per nearby minion death.



Unchanged on this tier is Meat Shield, which provides 2.5 seconds of 50 spell armor when his charge impacts the enemy hero.



Change 3:



Level 16

Crippling Slam (Q) Bonus duration increased from 25 to 30%

Enraged (Passive) Armor bonus reduced from 25 to 15



Analysis:

Crippling Slam now increases the duration of the slow on Hamstring from 2 seconds to 2.6 seconds and changes it from a 50% slow that decays to a straight up 50% slow. Base Hamstring averages out to a 25% slow over the 2 seconds, or a 50% slow for 1 second, meaning that Crippling Slam went from a 150% increase in the strength of the slow to a 160% increase in the strength of the slow.



The Enraged armor nerf decreases Butcher's EHP during the buff from (1/.75)=133% to (1/.85)=118%, a ~12% nerf to his EHP. This nerf is even bigger if Butcher has any other sources of armor, as explained in my article from earlier this week.

Thrall

Change 1:

Chain Lightning (Q)

Mana cost reduced from 45 to 40

Analysis:

An ordinary 11% mana cost decrease, this changes untalented chain lightning spam from costing (45/7)=6.43 mana per second to 5.7 mana per second. This makes Thrall's regular laning slightly less mana hungry.

Change 2:

Level 1

Crash Lightning (Q) Damage per stack increased from 10 to 12 (Undocumented: Cap raised from 400 to 480)

(Q) Rolling Thunder (Q) Mana return per attack increased from 12 to 15

(Q)

Analysis



This changes are targeted at evening out pickrates for Thrall's level 1 talent tier, which overwhelmingly favors Echo of the Elements for its two charges of Chain Lightning. The Crash Lightning buff is especially interesting in the context of the later Thunderstorm change, but primarily this serves to make running Thrall in a 4 man a real possibility rather than have him strictly as a solo laner. The Rolling Thunder mana changes mean with only proccing 3 of the charges Thrall is gaining 5 net mana from casting Chain Lightning.



Change 3:

Level 4 Mana Tide (Trait) Mana return reduced from 20 to 15



Change 4

:

Level 16 Thunderstorm (Q) Added functionality: Damage from final quest reward now also applies to Chain Lightning bounces



Zul'jin

AnalysisA slight nerf here means that Thrall players are more encouraged to pick one of the other level 4 talents or look at Rolling Thunder's significant improvement to Thrall's mana usage.AnalysisThis change helps out Thunderstorm by applying the 25% damage buff to the bounces, improving the splash damage. This is made especially interesting though if Thrall selected Crash Lightning at level 1, as the Thunderstorm bonus damage does multiply with Crash Lightning's up to 480 added bounce damage. This may help a more poke oriented Thrall build that leverages Crash Lightning+Thunderstorm to win extended poke wars.

Change 1:

Level 1 Boneslicer (Q) Bonus damage increased from 20 to 30%



Analysis:

Currently, AA favored Zul'jin's take "You Want Axe?" (YWA), which provides 1.25 bonus AD per 5 AAs against heroes and increases Zul'jin's range from 5.5 to 6.5 after 120 AAs against heroes, while AP focused Zul'jins take Arcanite Axes. Boneslicer was thus left out of the mix as an AA improving talent that was generally inferior to YWA because YWA provided better damage after the mid game and added the most important stat for a Marksman: Attack Range. However, post-buff Boneslicer provides significantly more damage, requiring an unrealistic amount of YWA stacks to compete damage-wise (see the spreadsheet for the exact amounts). Thus, the question is whether giving up damage and a tiny amount of wave clear is worth the mid-late power spike of the +1 range. I'm inclined to say the range is still too valuable and is worth giving up a bit of damage, but that's potentially wrong.

Closing Thoughts

The Assassin changes overall seem targeted at evening out talent tiers by buffing underused talents, something I commend Blizzard for as the Talent System is the biggest strength of Heroes of the Storm.