Our latest update for the Heroes of the Storm 2.0 Open Beta brings a new Hero and Battleground, as well as a host of balance changes and bug fixes, to the Nexus!

Once the carefree youngest scion of the Shimada clan, Genji was cut down by his own brother for refusing to take part in their illegal ventures. Grafted into a cyborg body by Overwatch, Genji walks his own path as one who fights for what’s right.

Trait

Activate to jump to the target area.

Basic Abilities

Dash forward, dealing damage to all enemies in a line. Enemy Heroes who die within 2 seconds after being hit by Swift Strike cause the cooldown and Mana cost to be refunded.

Become Protected for 1.25 seconds. Any damage blocked during this period causes Genji to throw a Kunai toward the nearest enemy, prioritizing Heroes and dealing damage.

Stores up to 3 charges. Shuriken’s cooldown replenishes all charges at the same time.

Throw 3 Shuriken in a spread pattern, each damaging the first enemy it hits.

Heroic Abilities

Perform 2 perpendicular slashes that deal damage and ignite after 1.25 seconds, dealing additional damage to enemies in their area of effect.

Unleash the Dragonblade for 8 seconds. While active, Dragonblade can be reactivated to lunge forward and slash in a huge arc. If any enemy Heroes are killed within 2 seconds after being hit by Dragonblade, Swift Strike’s cooldown is reset.

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Objectives

Deal a total of 7 damage the opposing Core to claim victory!

Destroying enemy Keeps will cause Sappers to spawn with allied Minion waves, which will fire on the Core upon reaching the end of their lanes.

Destroying enemy Forts will cause the next allied Payload to deal additional damage when it arrives at its destination.

Payloads that haven’t been escorted for a period of time will begin to slowly move backward.

Stand near an allied payload to escort it. The more allies who are present to escort a payload, the faster it will move. This effect caps at 3 nearby allies.

The first set of Payloads spawn for each team after 2:30 into the match, and additional waves will periodically spawn throughout the rest of the game.

Payloads must be escorted across the Battleground in order to deal damage to the enemy Core.

Both Cores are protected by a barrier that cannot be attacked by Heroes.

Mercenary Camps

Defeat the Mega Enforcer found at the center of Hanamura to fire 1 shot on the opposing Core.

Restore 35% Health and 23% Mana to you and your allies over 15 seconds.

Place a Turret on the ground or on your team’s payload.

Release 3 Dragon Spirits that seek out enemy Heroes, who are then revealed for 5 seconds. Dragon Spirits are destroyed after finding enemy Heroes or after 10 seconds.

Right-click a power-up to collect it, and then use the “Map Mechanic Ability” hotkey (Default: F) to activate it.

Instead, captured Mercenary Camps will each award one of three consumable power-ups.

Three types of Mercenary Camps exist on Hanamura, and captured Mercenaries will not travel down a lane to attack enemies.

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General

Sprays have received additional polish that should help them feel more integrated with battleground environments.

Visual effects that indicate Movement Speed bonuses have received updates.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

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Open Beta Note

Bundles in the Collection are currently displaying incorrect discount percentages, but the prices are correct. Read additional details here

As a reminder, real-money purchases have been disabled in the Open Beta, and any items unlocked via Gold, Shards, Gems, or Loot Chests will not transfer to the live version of the game when Heroes of the Storm 2.0 is released.

New Items

New items that are only unlockable via Loot Chests and Forging (such as a new version of an existing Skin) will not start at a higher Shard price, or receive a Shard price reduction.

Much like new Heroes receive a Gold price reduction once they’ve been in the Nexus for a few weeks, new skins and mounts that are unlockable using Gems start at a higher than normal Shard price. These items will receive a Shard price reduction a few weeks after they are added to the game.

The items listed below have been added to the Collection, and will be available for Gem purchase for a limited time.

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General

If disabled, attack move concentrates on the closest enemy to your Hero.

If enabled, attack move (default: A + Left-Click) concentrates on the closest enemy to the target point.

Attack Move Target Point has been added to the Gameplay Options menu.

Collection

All Player Level Progression Badge and Portrait Borders have received updated art.

Selecting the Basic Portrait Border in your Collection will now display your current Player Level on loading screens, in the party panel, and the player’s profile.

An “All Heroes” tab has been added to the Heroes page in your Collection.

Item borders have received updated art to make it easier to differentiate between owned and unowned items in your Collection.

Heroes Brawl

Completing the weekly Heroes Brawl quest will now award a Loot Chest, rather than a Portrait and Gold.

In cases where multiple Heroes are used during the same Heroes Brawl, the total XP earned will be divided evenly among them.

Completing matches in Heroes Brawl will now award Hero XP.

In-Game U.I.

The in-game Chat box has been slightly lowered to provide more visibility in the center of the screen.

Mastery Taunts

Read our recent blog on Mastery Taunts for more information.

Additional Hero Mastery Taunts will be added to the game in future patches, unlocking at levels 25, 50, 75, and 100.

Issue an in-game Taunt using the radial emote menu (default: X), by pressing the Taunt hotkey (default: J), or by typing “/Taunt” into chat.

The Hero will also play its taunt animation and voiceover.

Issuing an in-game Taunt using a Hero who has reached level 15 or higher will now display unique “mastery” visual effects.

Loot Chests

Previously, this warning would only appear when re-rolling chests that contained Legendary Items. This will not occur for chests that only contain common items.

Upon re-rolling a Loot Chest that contains a Rare, Epic, or Legendary item, a warning dialog will now appear that asks the player to confirm whether or not they’d like to re-roll the chest.

Score Screen

Lightning bolt visual effects will now display when leveling-up on the post-game Summary screen.

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Abilities

Talents

Cooldown reduction reduced from 4 to 3 seconds per bounce

Damage dealt on activation reduced from 250 to 225

Movement Speed bonus increased from 3% to 4% per stack

Health required to trigger bonus damage increased from 40% to 50%

Passive damage bonus against Blind targets increased from 10% to 15%

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Abilities

Damage increased from 35% to 40% of the enemy’s current Health

Every Basic Attack while Inner Beast is active now reduces its cooldown by 0.5 seconds

Talents

No longer has a restriction on the amount of Mana that can be restored

Now increases the cooldown reduction per Basic Attack from 0.5 to 1 second while Inner Beast is active

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Abilities

Damage increased from 126 to 140 over 6 seconds

Talents

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Abilities

Can now be self-cast

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Abilities

Added a 5 second delay between finishing the cast and the Hero coming back to life

Talents

Now causes the cooldown of Resurrect to recharge 100% faster while previous target is alive

Now also reduces the cooldown by 2 seconds for each enemy Hero hit

Energy stored for damage taken by Bestow Hope’s target increased from 20% to 25%

Cooldown reduction increased from 2 to 3 seconds per Hero hit

Damage bonus for completing the quest increased from 120 to 150

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Abilities

Now displays a range ring around Brightwing that conveys the radius of her heal. This is only visible to Brightwing.

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Abilities

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Stats

Abilities

Talents

Basic Attacks while in Archon form increase Archon’s duration by 2 seconds

Reward: After collecting 30 Globes, increase the Shield amount by an additional 15%

Reward: After collecting 15 Globes, increase the Shield amount of Plasma Shield by 15%

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Stats

Abilities

When Uther heals anyone with a Basic Ability, they gain 25 Armor for 2 seconds. This effect does not stack with itself.

Healing amount reduced from 219 to 160 (now matches damage)

Now also heals Uther for 190 if cast on an ally

Talents

Eternal Devotion's Armor can now stack twice. Each new application will refresh the duration of both armor effects

Hitting an allied Hero with Holy Radiance increases their healing received by 40% for 6 seconds

Hammer of Justice also reduces enemy Hero Movement Speed by 25% and damage by 25% for 3 seconds

Holy Shock still heals Uther for 200 if cast on an enemy

No longer increases the value of Uther’s next Holy Light, but instead refunds 45 Mana when cast on an enemy

Healing from Basic Attacks reduced from 20% to 15% of Holy Light, but is calculated from the combined total of Holy Light’s Ally and self heal

Activate to make target ally Unstoppable for 1 second. Cannot be cast on yourself. 90 second cooldown. Basic Attack reduce this cooldown by 5 seconds.

Healing a Stunned, Rooted, or Silenced Hero with a Basic Ability increases the Armor bonus of Eternal Devotion from 25 to 75

Holy Light recharges 100% faster for 6 seconds when Uther is Stunned, Rooted, or Silenced

Damage reduced from 18 to 16 per second

Casting Hammer of Justice increases Uther's Movement Speed by 20% for 3 seconds

While below 50% Health, Uther receives 200% more self-healing when healing others with Holy Light

!Reward: After reducing 80 sources of Hero damage, reduce the Mana cost of Holy Light by an additional 20 and increase the cast range by 50%

!Reward: After reducing 40 sources of Hero damage, reduce the Mana cost of Holy Light by 20

!Quest: Reduce damage taken from Heroes using Eternal Devotion's Armor effect

!Reward: Basic Attacks also reduce the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 1 second

!Reward: Increase the duration of Eternal Devotion’s Armor effect to 3 seconds

Increased the amount of Mana returned from 8 to 10

Now grants the benefits when enemy Heroes are damaged

No longer has a cap on the Mana return and Cooldown Reduction amounts

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Abilities

A range indicator will now appear to Anub’arak while Locust Swarm is active

Damage per second reduced from 60 to 55

Hovering over this ability will now show the range indicator for distance traveled, as well as the area affected when he emerges from burrow

Talents

Cooldown reduction decreased from 2 to 1.5 seconds per Hero hit

Hovering over the ability button after selecting this talent will now show a range indicator

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Stats

Talents

Healing increased from 40% to 50% of damage dealt by Basic Attacks

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Stats

Abilities

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Abilities

Rate of decay increased from 2.5 to 3 per second

Talents

Energy gained from Regeneration Globes increased from 15 to 20

Damage needed per point of Energy gained reduced from 9 to 6

Together We Are Strong (E)

Cooldown reduction decreased from 0.5 to 0.4375 seconds per 5 Heroes hit, up to 3.5 seconds

Bonus maximum Energy increased from 10 to 15 per Hero hit

Damage increased from 140 to 175 over the duration

Cooldown reduction granted upon completing the quest decreased from 3 to 2 seconds

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General

Mac: Launching Heroes of the Storm using the Mac 10.12 OS will no longer adjust the player’s mouse acceleration setting.

Battlegrounds

Try Mode: Tassadar’s Oracle cooldown will now be correctly reduced by 15 seconds when completing the Mental Acuity quest via the Complete Quests button.

Try Mode: The Reset Talents button will now correctly remove bonus Hungering Arrow strikes earned by previously completing the Puncturing Arrow quest.

Try Mode: The Complete Quests button will now correctly set Zul’jin’s You Want Axe quest to 120 attacks, rather than 500.

Tomb of the Spider Queen: Webweavers will no longer become distracted by Summoned units.

Haunted Mines: Leoric will no longer fail to respawn properly after being killed via damage dealt by a nearby spawning Grave Golem.

Haunted Mines: The terrain surrounding Sapper Merc Camps will now correctly block vision of the camp.

Battlefield of Eternity: Fixed a rare issue in which an Immortal could be awarded to the wrong team if both Immortals were killed at nearly the same time.

Art

Xul: Will no longer appear offset on the Ranked Play screen.

Varian: Will no longer appear scaled-down on the Ranked Play screen.

Valla: Strafe visual effects will no longer continue to play after the Ability expires.

Rexxar: Misha, Focus! now uses the same Ability icon in-game as it does on Rexxar’s detail page in the Collection.

Greymane: Restored missing visual effects during Go for the Throat.

Cyber Ram: Fixed an issue in which the Cyber Ram’s hind legs appeared slanted.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

Quest Talents: Fixed a bug that caused quest talents that track every second to ping continuously. They will now only ping every 5 seconds as intended.

Regeneration Globes: Will now play an animation upon expiration rather than suddenly disappearing.

Spell Shield: Toggling Spell Shield will no longer cancel an active Hearthstone channel.

Abathur: Heroes can no longer push a player-controlled Monstrosity by walking into it.

Auriel: Detainment Strike will now correctly stun enemies who collide with corners of terrain.

Auriel: Fixed an issue that could cause Resurrect’s revive message to appear on the MVP screen.

Chen: Freshest Ingredients will no longer grant 3 Health Regeneration stacks for Regeneration Globes collected during Storm, Earth Fire.

Diablo: Fixed an issue preventing Diablo from using Basic Attacks against his Overpower target if Overpower was interrupted by Zeratul’s Void Prison.

Cho: Twilight Hammer will now deal damage to Murky’s Pufferfish.

Gall: Fixed an issue that could cause Gall to use his base skin on the MVP screen despite using an alternate skin during the match.

Gazlowe: Can now correctly issue commands to active Rock-It! Turrets while dead.

Illidan: Fixed an issue that could cause Illidan to respawn at his death location if he cast Sweeping Strikes in the same moment that he was killed.

Murky: Can no longer call down a Nuke during Safety Bubble on Warhead Junction.

Nazeebo: Corpse Spiders will no longer prioritize Kharazim’s Air Ally or Lúcio’s Boombox over enemy Heroes.

Probius: Pylons and Photon Cannons will no longer be affected by Power Overflowing when Probius is not inside a Pylon’s Power Field.

Samuro: Way of Illusion will no longer continue to generate quest progress icons after its quest is complete.

Tassadar: Prismatic Link will no longer cause Basic Attacks to continue to hit the tertiary target if the primary and secondary targets move out of range of one another.

The Butcher: Victuals will no longer stop functioning after completing Fresh Meat’s quest.

The Butcher: Butcher’s Brand visual effects will no longer persist on a Punisher until it is killed.

The Butcher: Will now properly receive Healing for Basic Attack damage dealt to a Punisher affected by Butcher’s Brand.

The Lost Vikings: Fixed an issue causing Olaf to begin attacking the nearest enemy after using Charge, rather than the intended target.

Tracer: After using Blink, Tracer will now correctly continue to walk in the direction she was originally moving prior to the cast.

Tyrael: Fixed an issue that could cause Archangel’s Wrath to immediately explode on death, and prevent Tyrael from respawning.

Varian: After learning Second Wind, Varian will now correctly earn bonus Healing for bonus damage dealt by Shattering Throw against a Shielded target.

Zagara: Damage dealt by Hunter Killer and Roach summons will no longer be reduced by Armor.

Zeratul: A revealed icon will no longer appear above enemies hit by Rending Cleave.