(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!Remember, only the heroes whose win rates are highlighted blue/orange with white text have exceeded their margin of error.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.Win rates are shown as a bar indicating their relative distance from 50%. Blue bars shown above the line are win rates that are above 50%, and orange bars below the line show win rates that are below 50%. This gives a visual representation of how the win rate has changed each day. The final column splits the pick rate and ban rate into blue and orange sections, respectively, to show their overall influence on the popularity. The bar above is the original popularity, and the bar below represents the popularity after the designated period.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.This patch featured a number of small numerical changes to several heroes, and we can see the results of those changes having a decent impact on those heroes. Kael'thas received 8% buffs to his Flamestrike and Living Bomb, which led to a fairly strong increase in win rate. Alarak's AA damage got a 7% buff and a corresponding increase in win rate, and Hanzo's 9% AA buff seems to have overcome the nerfs to his Sonic Arrow to also yield an uptick in win rate. On the negative end, Tracer and Fenix both received fairly small nerfs to their AA damage of about 4%, yet this was enough to bring them down overall. Cain lost about 5% of his potion's healing and about 1.8 p.p. of his win rate as a result. And of course, the pinnacle of this is Blaze's changes, which include a larger hero radius and the removal of Neural Stimpack's cooldown reduction for heroics, which are relatively small changes that make a huge difference. This patch really showcases well how much of a difference it can make to give heroes smaller incremental changes over time.The most noteworthy are the changes to Malfurion, who lost his Ice Block talent. There was no measurable impact on his HL win rate, but you can be certain that it will drop his priority in the HGC, where it was often used as a play-making tool to avoid dive and large bursts of damage. Genji also saw a very small change that won't affect most players, but the reduction of his reset window makes him just a bit less threatening in the pro scene. Sgt Hammer will likely remain an HGC staple in some cases, but the loss of building damage on her Blunt Force Gun will remove the "timer" from her Lvl 20 design that often led to teams winning games that they might not have otherwise won. One of the most egregious examples of this was Game 2 of the Tempo Storm vs Team Octalysis series , in which Tempo was only able to make a last desperate push for the core because of an Orbital BFG that took down both Octalysis's fort and keep in the middle lane. This heroic was able to create win conditions that otherwise wouldn't exist, so it's a very welcome removal from the game.It is my personal opinion that Azmodan didn't really need a buff to begin with, at least not a significant one. But it seems that the team felt it was necessary due to the numerous complaints on social media that he was "dead" now. Or perhaps their internal data reflected a much worse performance than we could see on Hotslogs. In any case, it's now fairly safe to say that those responsible have created a monster. Azmodan's new standing is at the top of the Hotslogs charts at a 55.4% WR, replacing the spot formerly held by James Raynor. His globe stacking is now completed significantly more early in the game when done correctly, and the rest of his kit received fairly significant buffs as well. I suspect we'll be seeing a fair amount of him in the HGC soon as a result of this new round of buffs, and I also suspect we'll be needing some nerfs to him in the future as well, as his strength continues to grow to the point where he might become oppressive in standard play.Raynor had slowly crept up close to a 60% WR since his rework, and these changes brought him down significantly, but he remains fairly high in overall win rate at a 54.5%. The nerfs were primarily done to his talents and his Raider heroic, but the Raider remains the stronger heroic in terms of Hero League performance at a 55.9% WR (+4.1 p.p. vs Hyperion). I admit that I'm disappointed that no power was pulled from his base kit, since he seems to be performing a bit too strong across the board, but perhaps the next wave of nerfs will address that. Hopefully they will also address Veteran Marksman's continued poor performance (51.2% WR, -3.4 p.p. vs next highest talent).Maraad's Insight (50.2% WR, -1.1 p.p. vs next highest talent) is no longer the clear winner of her Lvl 1 tier in terms of win rate. Holy Wrath (54.6% WR, +0.4 p.p. vs next highest talent) is still just barely in the lead at Lvl 16. As both talents remain pretty close to the top while maintaining their high popularity (81.3% and 68.7% respectively), they may yet see further tuning. Divine Steed also no longer sits at the top of its tier (49.6% WR, -4.4 p.p. vs highest talent), though it remains one of the most popular choices for obvious reasons. Ardent Defender seems to have survived its nerfs and remains the more successful selection in its tier in Hero League (50.4% WR, +2.2 p.p. vs Sacred Ground).Looking for more of my work? My last HGC article focuses on Yrel's use in professional play. 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!