Jaina

Baseline Quest

Change

!Quest added: Deal 15,000 damage to Chilled enemy Heroes

!Reward: Gain the Improved Ice Block ability Improved Ice Block: Activate to place Jaina in Stasis and gain Invulnerability for 2.5 seconds. When this effect expires, nearby enemies are Chilled. 40 second cooldown



Level 1 Talents

Change:

Conjurer’s Pursuit (Passive) Removed

(New) Fingers of Frost (Passive) Gathering Regen Globes increases your Mana Regeneration by .1 per second, up to 2 per second. Reward: After gathering 20 Regeneration Globes, the damage bonus of Frostbite is increased by 10%.



Fingers of Frost

Winter's Reach

Lingering Chill

Level 4 Talents

Level 7 Talents

Change

Level 7 Frostbitten (Passive) Removed Ice Floes (E) New Functionality: Doubles the width of Cone of Cold. Hitting Chilled enemy Heroes with Cone of Cold reduces its cooldown by 2.5 seconds, up to a 5 second maximum reduction. (New) Icefury Wand (Passive) Your basic attacks against Chilled targets deal 75% bonus damage and reduce the cooldown of Blizzard by 1 second.



Ice Floes

Frostbitten

Icefury Wand

Level 10 Talents

Changes

Summon Water Elemental (R) Cooldown reduced from 80 to 60 seconds Mana cost reduced from 75 to 60



Ring of Frost

Water Elemental

Level 13 Talents

Level 16 Talents

Level 20 Talents

Change:

Level 20 Improved Ice Block (Active) Removed Arcane Power (Active) Removed (New) Ice Blink (Active) Activate to teleport a short distance and Chill nearby enemies. 60 second cooldown. Cold Snap (R) Now also reduces the cooldown of Ring of Frost by 10 seconds per enemy Hero hit. Deep Chill (Trait) Moved from Level 1 New Functionality: Frostbite’s slow amount now stacks a second time, slowing enemy Heroes by up to 40%.



Leoric

Base Kit Changes

Hi there again, ChaosOS here. Today is a continuation of yesterday's article , which covered the Chromie and Lt. Morales reworks. This article will go over the Jaina and Leoric reworks which are on the latest PTR Patch /. After reviewing some feedback on yesterday's post I'm trying a slightly different format by including the Jaina changes, as they were less extensive, and then for the Leoric rework I will simply list the talents on each tier. If it seems like this format is better I'll go back and edit it into yesterday's post.Today's spreadsheet can be found here Usual disclaimer: All health and damage numbers below, unless otherwise noted, are for level 0 "base stats".Before I go over the Jaina changes, I'd like to first establish the mathematically optimal combo (Such as if the target is facechecking a bush Jaina is in). Jaina's passive, Frostbite, adds 50% damage to her spells against chilled targets. Essentially, every source of spell damage after the first will deal 50% more damage. This means Jaina should prioritize using her lowest damage method of chilling the target to maximize her damage. The answer to that is Blizzard should be the opnening spell to her combo, as it has the lowest base damage out of all her base spells. While Blizzard's overall damage is rather high, it is split between 3 waves, and each wave does less damage than a frostbolt. Once Jaina has her level 10, if she picked Water Elemental, each attack from the Water Elemental does less damage than a wave of blizzard, meaning that the water elemental should be the preferred method of applying chill. Finally, once Jaina gets to 20 and has access to Ice Blink, that is the preferred way of applying chill, as the blink itself does not do any damage. Even with Northern Exposure at 16 this does not change, as Cone of Cold is Jaina's highest damaging basic ability by a large margin, meaning that it is more important to get the chill bonus on Cone of Cold than it is to get the vulnerable bonus on the first tick of Blizzard.AnalysisJaina's new baseline quest to do 15k damage to chilled heroes. This quest becomes easier to do as Jaina gains in levels, as all of her abilities start to do more damage. At level 0 her abilities account for ~1.5% to ~2.5% of quest completion, which scales up to ~3% to ~7% by level 20. Actual completion time is highly dependent on how much PvP action Jaina gets into. It is worth noting that the max duration relative to the level 20 version was nerfed from 3 seconds to 2.5, a potentially relevant change given Jaina's need to ice block while she waits for cooldowns.AnalysisCompared to the current Conjurer's Pursuit,provides the same amount of added mana regeneration per globe. However, rather than capping at 25 globes and adding 100 max mana, Fingers of Frost improves her passive from adding 50% more damage against chilled targets to adding 60% more damage against chilled targets. This represents a 6.67% damage buff to spells used against chilled targets, which is the upper limit for the total PvE damage added.andremain unchanged. Deep Chill was transformed into a level 20 talent, simplifying the level 1 talents by removing the passive upgrade competition.This tier remain unchanged. Frost Shards continues to be an option for "Q Build" jaina, Arcane Intellect is an alternative mana talent if you chose Lingering Chill over Fingers of Frost, and then Frost Armor represents a way for Jaina to protect herself against dive heroes such as Greymane or Illidan.Analysisnow caps out after hitting two chilled heroes rather than 5 total targets. This improves the talent in almost every PvP situation while weakening it for PvE, with the primary exception being against a single target that is surrounded by minions, monsters, or summons.was partially rolled into Fingers of Frost, delaying the damage boost but providing more utility and power per talent relative to Conjurer's Pursuit + Frostbitten.The newimproves Jaina's DPS against chilled targets from 60 to 105, and with continuous AAs halves the cooldown on blizzard from 15 seconds to ~7.5. The important part of the Blizzard CD reduction is that with 5 AAs Jaina can line up the cooldowns on her Cone of Cold and Blizzard at 10 seconds, significantly improving the traditional issue with Jaina of the extremely long cooldown on Blizzard.Ice lance remains unchanged, doubling the DPS output of Frostbolt and somewhat compensating for the added mana usage (Mana consumed per second goes up because the mana cost cut is only 33% but the cooldown is reduced by 50%).Analysisremained unchanged (The level 20 upgrade will be discussed later), but the important feature in this scenario is thatnow has a reasonably spammable cooldown of 60 seconds. Water Elemental lasts for 20 seconds, so this buff improves the uptime from 25% to 33%. The mana cost minorly helps, reducing the Qx2+W+E+R total mana cost from 250 to 235.This tier remains unchanged. Storm Front increases the range on Blizzard from 7 to 14. Ice Barrier provides significant shielding, causing a W-E-Qx2 combo on a single target (with no other talents from Jaina), which does 1438 damage, to provide 360 points of shielding. Icy Veins reduces the cooldown of Frostbolt to 1.33 seconds, Cone of Cold to 3.33, and Blizzard to 5 seconds.This tier was similarly unchanged. Snowstorm increases the radius of Blizzard from 2.5 to 3.25 (Actually a 33% increase in radius rather than 30%). Northern Exposure significantly improves Jaina's combo damage by reducing the targets armor, and finally Numbing Blast adds a 1 second root.AnalysisThe buff to Cold Snap is unlikely to matter much, as the base 80 second cooldown would require 7 total hero hits to make it a relevant reset down to 10 seconds. Getting even 4 heroes in Ring of Frost, which would halve the cooldown, should be game ending giving Jaina's AOE and burst capabilities. While it is a nice addition to a lackluster talent, the only real appeal of Cold Snap continues to be the second explosion it adds.Jaina's new "Ice Blink" (Which, incidentally, is named "Frigid Transmission" in the .xml files, a much cooler name IMO) has a range of 4 and a cooldown of 60 seconds. While this is in most senses a much weaker blink than we're used to, a blink that applies chill allows Jaina to go from "Edge of Cone of Cold" range to "In their face with the bonus chill damage even applying to the Cone of Cold", a noticeable improvement to Jaina's burst combo and ability to catch enemies.Moving Deep Chill to level 20 is an interesting design choice, and is a powerful option for Jainas that are looking for more control in extended fights. I primarily see it as competing with the unchanged Wintermute upgrade to Water Elemental, both of which strengthen Jaina's that seek to kite out long fights with a Frostbolt build. A 40% slow is extremely powerful, especially given Jaina's ability to apply her Chill for extended periods of time, but is also competing against powerful talents at this tier.

Changes

Stats

Basic Attack Damage reduced from 150 to 105 New functionality – Wrath of the Bone King Leoric's first two Basic Attacks cleave for 100% damage. His third Basic Attack deals 100% additional damage to his main target



Abilities

Skeletal Swing (Q) No longer deals bonus damage to non-Heroic targets Cooldown increased from 8 to 14 seconds Mana Cost increased from 50 to 80 Damage increased from 125 to 150 Additional Functionality: If Skeletal Swing hits a Hero, refund 50% of the Cooldown and Mana Cost

Drain Hope (W) Lowered damage and healing from 25% to 20% of the target’s maximum Health

Drain Essence (W) Lowered healing from 12.5% to 10% of target’s maximum Health Lowered cooldown from 11 to 9 seconds



Analysis



The Leoric base kit changes are a complicated ball to unravel, so I'll go piece by piece. First, we see that Leoric is the first hero in the Nexus to gain an autoattack pattern. For readers that have ever played Smite, all the gods in smite have an AA pattern that helps add to the unique feel of each god. Overall, Leoric's damage against a single target is nerfed by these changes, as three attacks on live deal (150*3)=450 damage, while three attacks on the PTR deal (105+105+105*2)=420 damage. However, if he hits anyone else with the cleave, (which has a splash range of 3.5, a very generous range), then his total damage does become higher.



However, these AA changes cannot be considered alone, as they are balanced against the changes to Skeletal Swing. Against heroes, Skeletal Swing was buffed significantly. The cooldown went from 8 to 7 seconds (a 12.5% decrease), the mana cost went from 50 to 40 (A 20% decrease), and the damage went up from 125 to 150 (a 20% increase). Against non-heroes, Skeletal Swing was solidly nerfed. The cooldown went from 8 to 14 seconds (A 75% increase), the mana cost went from 50 to 80 (A 60% increase), and the damage was decreased from 250 to 150 (a 40% decrease).The PvP damage buffs do not totally make up for the single target damage loss, as the three attack pattern lost 30 damage while Q was only buffed by 25. As for Leoric's wave clear, it is overall buffed. Skeletal Swing hits in a 5 range semicircle in front of Leoric, while the cleave hits in a 2/3 circle around the target (the 120 degree opening faces Leoric. Skeletal Swing+Cleavex2 does (150+105*2)=360 damage to each target, while the old Skeletal Swing would only do 250 damage + 150 to two different targets.



In terms of direct gameplay implications, Leoric now benefits much more from trading in minion waves. The Skeletal Swing changes and the Cleave changes both give Leoric free, improved wave clear while he attacks the other hero in their minion wave. Even if the enemy hero isn't standing in their wave, Leoric is encouraged to use the first two attacks in the pattern to wave clear, then threaten a trade with the double damage swing.



Now for Drain Hope: This skill was nerfed. The damage was cut by 20%, and the healing over time was changed from 25% of Leoric's HP to 20% of his HP. The patch notes are slightly misleading in this regard, as the Drain Hope healing has always been a percentage of Leoric's HP and not based on the target's HP in any way. This nerfs the healing from (2468*.25)=617 health over 4 seconds to (2468*.2)=493.6 health over 4 seconds.



The Drain Essence change in part keeps the theme of "Leoric's Healing is half as effective while a ghost". If the death timer reduction is averaged out, the old Drain Essence provided a 1.13% reduction in death timer per second, while the new one only provides a 1.11% reduction per second. The reality is that the change is a nerf or a buff depending on the length of the death timer; If Leoric doesn't get an extra cast of Drain Essence from the cooldown decrease then his death timer is net longer, but if he does get an extra cast then his death timer will be shorter. It does reduce the impact of missing a Drain essence cast, however, as each individual cast means slightly less.

Level 1 Talents

Consume Vitality

Fealty Unto Death

Ossein Renewal

Consume Vitality

Fealty unto Death

enemy

The health restoration is only better than Consume Vitality if Leoric lands at most 1 Skeletal Swing on an enemy hero per minion wave, as each minion wave restores 172.76 HP and 35 mana (not accounting for the regeneration globe).

Ossein Renewal

This is better than Fealty unto Death, which only heals Leoric for 7% of his maximum HP. The downside is this requires using a burst healing tool that can act as a pocket ace during a trade or gank for sustain, and furthermore misses out on the mana restoration value from Fealty unto Death.

Level 4 Talents

Ghastly Reach:

Paralyzing Slow:

Kneel, Peasants!:

Ghastly Reach

Paralyzing Slow

Kneel, Peasants!

Level 7 Talents

Willing Vessel:

Drain Momentum:

Hopelessness:

Willing Vessel

Drain Momentum

Hopelessness

Level 10 Talents

Changes

Entomb (R) Cooldown increased from 50 to 75 seconds Mana cost increased from 75 to 90

March of the Black King (R) Cooldown reduced from 80 to 50 seconds Mana cost reduced from 100 to 75 Damage increased from 183 to 250 Heal increased from 7% to 12%



Entomb

March of the Black King

Level 13 Talents

Unyielding Despair:

Hardened Bones:

Ominous Wraith:

Unyielding Despair

Hardened Bones

Ominous Wraith

Level 16 Talents

Crushing Hope:

Royal Focus:

Mithril Mace:

Crushing Hope

Royal Focus

Mithril Mace

Level 20 Talents

Buried Alive:

Death March:

Spectral Leech:

Burning Despair:

Shroud of the Dead King:

Buried Alive

Death March

Spectral Leech

Burning Despair

Burning Despair

Shroud of the Dead King

Closing Thoughts

: Skeletal Swing's cooldown is reduced by 2 seconds. Enemy heroes hit heal Leoric for 4% of his maximum HP: When a nearby friendly or enemy Minion dies, Leoric restores 1% of his maximum Health and 5 Mana.: Activate to heal Leoric for 30% of his maximum Health over 5 seconds. Regeneration Globes lower the cooldown of this Ability by 20 seconds. (120 second cooldown)reduces the cooldown of Skeletal Swing to 12 seconds against non-heroes and to 6 seconds against heroes, a ~16% reduction. Furthermore, it heals Leoric for (2468*.04)=98.72 HP per enemy hit. This talent acts as the start of the "QE build" which is later improved up at levels 13 and 16 with Ominous Wraith and Royal Focus.restores 24.68 HP and 5 mana whenever a nearbyminion dies, improving Leoric's sustain in lane.TIL that Fealty Unto Death is friendly or enemy minions. This makes Fealty Unto Death unquestionably stronger in laning phases, restoring 345.52 HP and 70 mana every 30 seconds, but of course the benefits from the talent only apply in lane.adds a significant amount of burst healing to Leoric, healing him for 740.4 HP over 5 seconds. Assuming Leoric collects a globe from a single lane every 30 seconds, that reduces the effective cooldown of this talent to somewhere between 80 and 90 seconds, depending on the timing of the globes and how close it is to being used every time it is available. If we peg Ossein Renewal to being available "every 3 minion waves", then the 30% heal can be averaged out to 10% per minion wave.Not true, Fealty Unto Death also applies to friendly minions. Ossein Removal is only good for burst healing, equalling 7.5 targets hit by Consume Vitality Q's.Increases the range of Skeletal Swing by 25%.Increases the Slow of Skeletal Swing by 20%.Skeletal Swing deals 75% more damage to Minions and Mercenaries.increases the range on Skeletal Swing from 5 to 6.25, putting the majority of ranged characters (who have range 5.5) within range of Skeletal Swing if they get in range to AA Leoric.upgrades the slow on Skeletal Swing from 40% for 2.5 seconds to 60% for 2.5 seconds. This improves the MS reduction from (4.3984*0.4*2.5)=-4.3984 meters to (4.3984*.6*2.5)=-6.5976 meters. While a 20% increase in the slow value may not seem like much, Skeletal Swing's slow has a very long duration at 2.5 seconds which makes every point of slow count for a lot.improves Skeletal Swing's damage from 150 to 262.5 against non-heroes. This is worth slightly more than one additional cleaving AA. Given the strength of the other two talents on this tier I would not recommend taking this talent.Increases the healing from Drain Hope to 25% of Leoric's maximum Health. If Drain Hope lasts its full duration, Leoric instantly heals for an additional 5% of his maximum Health.Drain Hope no longer Slows Leoric. If Drain Hope lasts its full duration, gain 30% Movement Speed for 4 seconds.Increases the range of Drain Hope by 25%.offers an additional 123.4 healing over the 4 seconds of Drain Hope and, if Drain Hope finishes, a total heal of 246.8removes the 20% self slow on Drain Hope, which is worth (4.3984*0.2)=-0.87968 meters, but also adds a move speed buff which is worth (4.3984*0.3)=1.31952 meters. Another way to evaluate the MS buff is that it has 36% uptime given the 4 second duration and the 11 second cooldown on Drain Hopeimproves the range on Drain Hope from 8 to 10, which is better than Drain Momentum for keeping enemy heroes in range of Drain Hope (Especially if Leoric is casting Wraith Walk while Drain Hope is active, as the Drain Hope slow does not apply to Wraith Walk). However, it does not help Leoric after Drain Hope finishes, unlike the MS boost from Drain Momentum.Analysis's 50% cooldown increase transforms it from an ultimate that could be used essentially whenever in hope of a pick and kill to one that requires a little more thought and consideration. The 15 mana increase is pretty minor, equal to 3 to 4 seconds of regeneration.has been significantly improved in basically every respect. The cooldown was cut by 37.5%, the mana cost reduced by 25%, the damage increased by 36.6%, and the healing improved by 71.4%. The healing is a percentage of Leoric's max HP, so the healing was improved from 172.76 HP to 296.16 HP.Drain Hope's cooldown is reduced by 0.5 seconds for every 1 second it is active. It Drain Hope lasts its full duration, its cooldown is reduced by an additional 2 seconds.Gain 20 Armor while Drain Hope is active. If Drain Hope lasts its full duration, retain the Armor bonus for 3 seconds.Increase Wraith Walk's duration by 100%. Enemy Heroes that come in contact with the wraith deal 50% less damage for 4 secondsprovides up to 2 seconds of cooldown reduction for maintaining the full 4 seconds of Drain Hope, and then provides an additional 2 seconds for actually completing the duration. This reduces the cooldown of Drain Hope from 11 to 7 seconds, a 37% reduction and 57% increase in the healing/damage throughput of Drain Hope over extended durations. When combined with Drain Momentum at level 7 the movespeed bonus improves to 57% uptime from the base 36%. For an extended teamfight the MS bonus from Drain Momentum will cover the 3 seconds of downtime on Drain Hope plus the first second of the next cast of Drain Hope.provides 20 armor for the duration of Drain Hope, and upwards of 3 seconds extra if Drain Hope finishes. 20 armor is a 25% EHP boost, amplifying both Leoric's base HP and any incoming healing. The max 7 second duration and 11 second cooldown represents 63% uptime.improves the duration of Wraith Walk from 2.5 seconds to 5 seconds and allows Leoric to apply a 50% damage debuff to affected enemies. Leoric's Wraith Walk accelerates from a 10% MS boost to a 50% MS boost over the first second, meaning that this talent more than doubles the distance that can be covered during a Wraith Walk. In fact, Ominous Wraith improves the distance that can be covered during Wraith Walk from ~15.5 meters to ~32 meters (Regular walking covers ~11 meters over 2.5 seconds or ~22 meters in 5 seconds, while mounted movement covers ~14.3 meters in 2.5 seconds or ~28.6 meters in 5 seconds).If Drain Hope lasts its full duration, it instantly deals an additional 15% of the target's maximum Health as damage. This damage does not heal LeoricWraith Walk increases the damage of the next Skeletal Swing within 5 seconds by 50%. Each enemy Hero hit by this Skeletal Swing reduces the cooldown of Wraith Walk by 7 seconds.Increase Leoric's Attack Speed by 20%. Repeatable Quest: Nearby enemy Minion deaths grants 0.3% permanent Attack Speed, and Takedowns grant 3% permanent Attack Speed, up to 30%.adds an additional 15% of the target's max HP as damage to Drain Hope, a 75% increase in the total damage from the ability. The best synergies for this talent are Hopelessness at 7, which decreases the likelihood that the target can break Drain Hope, and Unyielding Despair at 13 to increase the number of Drain Hope casts Leoric can get in a teamfight.bears the same name as the core talent for Leoric's double soak on live, but has its intended use completely change. Rather than rewarding a reduced E coolldown for not getting hit (AKA PvE situations), Royal Focus is a teamfight talent intended to give additional uses of Wraith Walk to synergize with Ominous Wraith at 13. The bonus damage (improving Skeletal Swing damage from 150 to 225) is worth 71% of a single AA. The cooldown refresh returns half the cooldown of Wraith Walk if Leoric hits a single hero and fully refreshes Wraith Walk if he hits two heroes. This talent allows Leoric to reach 100% uptime on the damage reduction from Ominous Wraith, with a pattern of Wraith Walk and spook entire enemy team -> Position and cancel E, cast Q hitting at least two enemy heroes -> E again to spook people, waiting for Q to come back off cooldown.improves Leoric's abysmal AA speed, baseline increasing it from 0.77 attacks per second to 0.924 attacks per second and capping out at 1.155 attacks per second. Ignoring Spectral Leech and any other AA enhancers besides his hit pattern for now, Mithril Mace improves Leoric's AA DPS from 100 to 150. To be equal to one proc of Crushing Hope on a 2000 base HP target would require 6 seconds of continous basic attacks, which is doable given that Crushing Hope also requires Leoric to stay engaged with the target. As for Leoric's attack period, Mithril Mace reduces Leoric's attack period from 1.4 seconds to 1.08 seconds baseline and to 0.866 seconds at full stacks.The duration of Entomb is lowered by 1 second, but enemies trapped inside are Silenced and take 50 damage every 1 second.The final swing of March of the Black King also applies Drain Hope to nearby enemy Heroes.Basic Attacks against enemy Heroes deal bonus damage equal to 2.5% of the Hero's maximum Health and heal Leoric for twice that amount.Deal 40 damage per second to nearby enemies. The damage and area is increased by 100% while Drain Hope is active.Activate to become Protected for 3 seconds, preventing all damage. (75 second cooldown)The newis a powerful upgrade, decreasing the duration of the walls from 4 to 3 seconds but silencing each hero in the affected area and dealing 150 damage over 3 seconds. Given that the primary way of answering an Entomb is an escape skill, the silence from Buried Alive should be devastating.now applies a talented Drain Hope to each hero within 7.25 range of Leoric. This synergizes with just about every single Drain Hope Talent in some fashion, although it is worth noting that neither the slow nor MS boosts in Drain Momentum stack for additional targets beyond the first.saw a damage nerf from 5% of the target's max HP to 2.5% of the target's HP, but due to the doubled healing remains the same amount of healing. Spectral Leech does not work with either part of Leoric's new AA pattern. While Mithril Mace does synergize with Spectral Leech, the combined effect of 50% damage nerf and 50% increased attack speed only comes out to 75% of Live's damage per second. However, since the healing was not nerfed, this still increases the healing to 150% of Live's.provides 40 damage per second in a 2.5 radius around Leoric, which doubles to 80 damage per second while Drain Hope is active. To equal Spectral Leech on a single target, without accounting for the damage doubling from Drain Hope, the target would need (40/0.025)=1000 base HP. During Drain Hope the target would need 2000 base HP. to be equal. It is clear that in a single target scenario Spectral Leech not only does more damage, but also heals Leoric with each AA. However, as soon as Leoric gains value on multiple targets withthe added damage quickly outpaces that provided by Spectral Leech. However, unlike every other talent on this tier, Burning Despair only adds damage and does not add any survivability, something that must be considered as Leoric transitions into the late game.provides 3 seconds of Protected on a 75 second cooldown. For a Leoric that is worried about dying before providing any value to their team and wants some guaranteed survivability (Or escape in combination with Wraith Walk), Shroud of the Dead King is an unparalleled defensive tool. To compare Shroud of the Dead King to Hardened Shield, which is 75 armor for 4 seconds, the two talents are equivalent if damage is steady and constant. However, if damage can be easily protected, the shorter duration but greater intensity of Shroud of the Dead King is preferable. If instead Leoric was seeking to simply keep up damage mitigation to discourage a mage opponent from blowing their cooldowns, Hardened Shield is superior as no mage wants to dump their CDs into 75 armorThe new reworks, while not to heroes the community had been crying out for changes to, certainly improve the depth and diversity of the affected heroes' talent trees. Jaina may find it easier to survive in a meta where she has access to ice block before level 20, while Leoric's new talent tree is much more exciting than his old one. I'm glad Blizzard and the Heroes Team take the time to go over new heroes and tune them up with what the team has learned since those heroes releases. Tune in next week when I cover Kel'thuzad and answer questions like "How does the default 4% scaling compare to Kel'thuzads 2.5% scaling and +75% ability power?"