(banner courtesy of /u/Somber99 Hello again! After each balance patch, I've taken it upon myself to track how the balance changes have affected the Nexus. It's become something of a habit for me, and I thought it might be fun to share my data with the community.In case you've forgotten what changed in the last patch, here's a link All data provided in this post was collected from Hotslogs , which is a database of player-submitted games. Data was collected between 3:30 PM and 4:30 PM EST each day, using the special filter "Last 7 Days (Current Build)" and focusing exclusively on Hero League data (with the exception of heroes like Cho'Gall, whose unique nature requires pulling data from Team League). As usual, keep in mind that my numbers may differ slightly from Hotslogs's "official" figures as the site regularly updates older information as more games are added. Therefore, our data may not match up perfectly, but it should give a generally accurate view of how the week progressed. Here is a link to the spreadsheet with the data I've collected. The spreadsheet contains all of my original data, split into two categories: "Composite" (which represents all data across the entire week) and "Daily" (which represents data from each individual day). It also contains a number of graphs showing how each hero is performing in both win rate and popularity. If you'd prefer a summarized report, read on!Note that the error column assumes a 95% confidence interval. To put it simply, a 95% confidence interval is a numerical way to measure whether the win rate has changed in any significant way. If the change to a win rate exceeds the error, then we can assume that there is approximately a 95% chance that the win rate has changed, and lies somewhere within the range given in the right-most column.In the last column of this table, you can see a small bar chart indicating how much the popularity is estimated to have changed by. For any row in which the popularity went up, the original popularity is shown in black, and the increase is shown in green (blue for the color-adjusted table). For any row in which the popularity went down, the current popularity is shown in black, and the decrease is shown in red (orange for the color-adjusted table). This is to provide a visual representation of how much a hero's popularity has shifted. Keep in mind that the general trend for popularity is that a hero who declines in popularity will often increase in win rate, and vice versa, though there are always exceptions to this rule.The seven-day analysis is below. Please note that while I try to cover all heroes, not all heroes are in need of in-depth analysis of their changes, so some heroes may have short summaries or may even be omitted entirely. Also, be aware that the contents of this section are primarily my own opinion of the changes, albeit backed with data. If you disagree, feel free to explain why in the comments below.His performance overall is slightly below the 50% mark, though not unreasonably so, and he has improved considerably from his first 24 hours (+4.0 p.p. since the 24-hour mark). A lot of this seems to be attributable to the large learning curve. Some key things to remember about Deckard is that you don't always have to pick up his potions right away. This can actually reduce his effectiveness in setting up for objective fights, and also reduces the value of his Super Healing Potion talent. Also, because the heals are not necessarily targeted, it can be problematic when a player who doesn't need the heals is the one to pick them up instead, so it's a good idea to throw the potion on top of priority targets if the healing is more desperately needed on that target, rather than lying them in their path. Try to lead your throws just slightly and you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly.Cain's talent balance has been fairly strong overall, with only a few glaring issues: Ruby is currently the worst performing talent of its tier (24.6% PR, 38.9% WR, -0.4 p.p. in PR and -9.6 p.p. in WR behind the next highest choice), and Lorenado is doing a bit worse than Stay Awhile and Listen (45.4% PR, 44.5% WR, -9.2 p.p. in PR and -4.2 p.p. in WR behind the next highest choice). Sapphire and Emerald are doing okay for their current level of popularity, though Perfect Gems is a bit below the other Lvl 20 talents in WR (-4.7 p.p. in WR behind the next highest choice), so it's possible we'll be seeing some slight buffs to the gem build in the foreseeable future.Genji's overall win rate climbed +2.0 p.p., but his performance in Masters is actually down -4.1 p.p. over the same period. This suggests that the stated goal of making him more viable for regular players while less oppressive at high levels is starting to take shape. This is, of course, just an initial glance at things, and it could very well change further over time, but the early results are looking quite positive. His talent changes don't appear to have made any large waves over the last week, with the least popular talents tending to have the highest win rates, and vice versa (which is generally what you want to see). We don't yet know how this will change his use in HGC play, however, and likely will not know that for sure until the Mid-Season Brawl.Looking for more of my work? Check out my work on covering Fenix's results in the HGC. That article is located here. Or if you'd prefer to discuss the game's meta, I put out an article detailing mobility creep in the game, which is located here. That article is located here. Feel free to let me know your thoughts to this article in the comments section below, or on Twitter at my handle @CriticKitten . I look forward to your replies!Hope to see you again next time!