Genji

Change 1

Health reduced from 1600 to 1550

Health Regen reduced from 3.3 to 3.2

Analysis

Change 2

Hi there, ChaosOS again. Sorry that Scaling Part 2 didn't go up, it turned out to be a lot more work than I expected to extract all of the map data. Today's article is looking at the Stukov Balance Patch . I won't go over every single change in the patch, as many changes explain themselves and don't have any interesting mathematical properties.Today's spreadsheet can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qEEywzevVtjogyuqQFPhKBEKWIczmD-9WNDk430acPk/edit?usp=sharing Disclaimer: All damage, health, and healing numbers below are the level 0 "base" versions unless otherwise noted. Also, Henceforth, instead of "units" for distance I will refer to them as "meters". A Rock-it (Gazlowe) turret is 1 meter by 1 meter.FYI: A tick is an instance of healing/damage in a damage over time effect. Effects with a "high tickrate" such as Li Ming's disintegrate feel smoother but can be more taxing on the game engine.A -3.13% HP nerf. Solid enough that he won't escape as often with just a sliver of health.

Abilities

Shuriken (Q) Mana cost increased from 15 to 20

Dragonblade (R) Cooldown increased from 80 to 100 seconds Mana cost increased from 50 to 75



Analysis

Change 3

The shuriken mana cost shifts the break even point from level 9 to level 22. Shurikens come in sets of 3, so this increases the full volley cost from 45 mana to 60 mana every 12 seconds. This potentially gives Genji some mana problems if he endlessly spams Shurikens all game long.The Dragonblade CD increase matches it to similarly impactful ultimates like Malthael's Tormented Souls. The cooldown change is more targeted at competitive, where enemy teams can abuse the new timing window provided by 80 second CD initiation ultimates coming up faster than Dragonblade. The mana change is negligible overall, only seeming to bring it in line with other ultimates of a similar cooldown.

Talents

Level 7 Dodge (Passive) Charges reduced from 3 to 1 Cooldown reduced from 12 to 8 seconds



Analysis

Tychus

Changes

Dodge is now officially worse than default block. Block gives 75% basic attack damage reduction every 5 seconds (Average of 15% per second) while Dodge gives 100% basic attack damage reduction every 8 seconds (Average of 12.5% per second). Block's 2 charges reduce total incoming damage by 150% of the attacking heroes' basic attack damage, while Dodge only reduces total incoming damage by 100% of the attacking heroes' basic attack damage, EG if Genji is attacked by Greymane, who has 140 base attack damage, dodge will provide 140 points of damage reduction, while block would provide 210 points of damage reduction. The sole remaining advantage of dodge is against Malthael or Lunara, where preventing on hit effects provides a large amount of value.Comparing Dodge to what it was pre-patch, the break-even point is 60 seconds of sustained combat. Given that the average value of dodge stacks is so high (See attached spreadsheet for the breakdown), this is a significant nerf to Genji's survivability.

Talents

Level 4 Fully Loaded (D) Cooldown reduction increased from 33% (4 seconds) to ~41% (5 seconds)



Analysis

Xul

Change 1

Fully Loaded now reduces the cooldown of Minigun from 12 seconds to 7 seconds, rather than 12 seconds to 8 seconds. Minigun does not go on cooldown until the duration expires, so Fully Loaded improves uptime from 20% to 30% rather than from 20% to ~27%.

Abilities

Raise Skeleton (Trait) Health reduced from 300 to 270

Cursed Strikes (W) Cooldown increased from 15 to 16 seconds



Analysis

Change 2

Skeleton duration remains unchanged despite the 10% HP nerf, meaning HP degeneration changed from -20 per second to -18 per second. Ergo, AOE now clears skeletons faster than it did before.The Cursed Strikes change moves uptime from (4 second duration/15 second cooldown)=~27% to (4/16)=25%. The extra second may lead to a 1 second slowdown on Xul's double waveclear plan, as with waves spawning every 30 seconds it's impossible to cleanly fit in two uses of Cursed Strikes per wave of minions.

Talents

Level 1 Backlash (Trait) Damage reduced from 15 to 12% of enemy Heroes’ maximum Health



Analysis

Change 3

Grim Scythe (W) Cooldown reduction per attack increased from .5 to .75 seconds Maximum cooldown reduction increased from 10 to 12 seconds



Analysis

Stukov

Change 1

Mana cost increased from 30 to 40

Analysis

Change 2

Pushback distance increased by 50%

Analysis

Change 3

A 20% damage nerf to this talent reduces Backlash's tank busting capabilities.Previously, Grim Scythe required (10 seconds of maximum cooldown reduction/.5 seconds of cooldown reduction per attack)=20 hits with Cursed Strikes to reduce the cooldown to 5 seconds, giving 80% Cursed Strikes uptime. With Xul's base attack speed (AS) Cursed Strikes gives 5 attacks, which requires an average of 4 targets hit per swing.Now Grim Scythe requires (12/.75)=16 hits with Cursed Strikes to reduce the cooldown to 4 seconds, giving 100% Cursed Strikes uptime. Grim Scythe has a new average of 3.2 targets per swing to achieve maximum cooldown reduction.Stukov had the lowest mana consumption in the game out of the mana using healers, this just makes it a little less ridiculous.Digging through some XML files, I was able to figure out that the old knockback distance was 3.5 meters and the new one is 5.25 meters. The radius on each swing is 5/8/11 meters, so now it is significantly more likely an enemy will skip the second swipe if they are caught by the first. However, an enemy caught by flailing swipes will now be flung at least (5.25+8)=13.25 meters away rather than (3.5+8)=11.5 meters away, and up to (5.25+11)=16.25 meters away rather than (3.5+11)=14.5 meters away.

Talents

Level 1 Spine Launcher (Passive) Slow duration increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds (now matches his attack speed) Fetid Touch (W) Quest requirements reduced from 20 and 40 Heroes hit to 15 and 30 Growing Infestation (E) Added functionality: Now increases the Cooldown of Lurking Arm by 4 seconds



Analysis

Change 4

One Good Spread… (Q) Spreading requirement reduced from 4 to 3 Heroes Mana refund increased from 30 to 40

Vigorous Reuptake (D) Healing bonus reduced from 50 to 40%



Analysis

Change 5

Pox Populi (D) Adjusted functionality: Detonating Bio-Kill Switch no longer refreshes heal duration, but instead sets the duration to 3 seconds



Analysis

Change 6

Controlled Chaos (R) Cooldown between casts reduced from 3 to 1 second Cooldown for each charge reduced from 40 to 30 seconds

Push Comes to Shove (R) Duration requirement reduced from 1.5 to 1.25 seconds



Analysis

Uther

Changes

These changes seek to even out Stukov's level 1 talents, notably leaving only Poppin' Pustules unchanged. Spine Launcher's slow duration is a significant upgrade. If Stukov is perfectly stutter stepped, he only stops for 0.1875 seconds while the 20% slow effectively costs the enemy hero he targets 0.2 seconds of movement. Now the slow will effectively cost Stukov's target 0.3 seconds. Base movespeed is 4.3984 meters per second, so Stukov goes from gaining ~0.055 meters per basic attack (With perfect stutter stepping) to gaining ~0.5 meters, an 800% increase in movespeed differential when kiting.The quest Fetid Touch is now significantly easier to complete. The earlier "checkpoint" completion at 15 hits rather than 20 makes the next half of the quest easier by reducing the cooldown, meaning you can find more opportunities to land Weighted Pustule.Growing Infestation now increases the cooldown of Lurking Arm from 8 seconds to 12, or from 1.5 seconds to 5.5 seconds with It Hungers at level 7.One Good Spread is now easier to benefit from, becoming relevant on 3 lane maps that go 1-3-1 lane setup rather than just maps with a 4-1 lane setup (Whether due to having 2 lanes or using a 4 man rotation between 2 lanes + a solo laner). Although the mana refund change keeps this talent in line with the base Healing Pathogen mana cost increase, but is still not the reason to pick this talent.Vigorous Reuptake's bonus Bio-kill switch healing was decreased from 250 hp to 200 hp, making One Good Spread more competitive comparitively. One Good Spread provides an early power spike, while Vigorous Reuptake represents an investment in late game healing.I will note that Biotic Armor and Top Off did not see any changes. Biotic Armor is probably fine as is, but Top Off is just an awful talent and should apply to all allies affected by Healing Pathogen, not just the initial target.Pox Populi lost the last 2 ticks of healing, reducing it from 240 additional healing to 160. This is probably intended to even out talent power, as the Pox Populi simply offered too much additional healing given the ease of use relative to the other 16 talents.Controlled Chaos is no longer a downgrade. Previously, with the small push distance and the 40 second charge cooldown (Plus the 3 second internal cooldown [ICD]), Controlled Chaos actually made Flailing Swipe worse. Full charges now takes 90 seconds instead of 120. A 10 second increase in cooldown is much more palatable given the huge flexibility buff the charges bring, while a 40 second increase was simply too long. The base shove distance significantly helps Controlled Chaos, which can fully benefit from that push distance unlike the base version which now usually skips the middle swing. Finally, the ICD change makes simply blowing all the charges to replicate the base version of the ability actually functional.Push Comes to Shove increases the push speed of Massive Shove from 22 meters per second to 27.5 meters per second. Thus, the old distance required for the 15 second cooldown reduction was (27.5 meters per second*1.5 seconds)=41.25 meters. Now Push Comes to Shove only requires (27.5*1.25)=35.375 meters.

Abilities

Holy Light (Q) Healing reduced from 380 to 360 Self-healing reduced from 190 to 180

Holy Radiance (W) Mana cost increased from 60 to 70



Analysis

Targets hit Wave of Light mana (Old) MPS Wave of Light mana (New) MPS % change 0 60 5.00 70 5.83 16.67% 1 52 4.73 62 5.64 19.23% 2 44 4.40 54 5.40 22.73% 3 36 4.00 46 5.11 27.78% 4 28 3.50 38 4.75 35.71% 5 20 2.86 30 4.29 50.00% 6 12 2.00 22 3.67 83.33% 7 4 0.80 14 2.80 250.00% 8 0 0.00 6 1.50 9 0 0.00 0 0.00

Chen

Change 1

These changes are relatively small tweaks intended to bring Uther's power level in line. The Holy Light change is a small nerf to Uther's burst healing (540 mana to 520 mana for QW, a 3.7% decrease), while the Holy Radiance change is a decent change to Uther's Mana sustain. Untalented, Uther's mana consumption changed from 12.5 mana per second to 13.3 mana per second, a ~6.7% increase (W only went from 5 mana per second to ~5.83 mana per second, a ~16.7% increase). Uther's mana efficiency, measured in points of healing per mana, went from 7 to 6.4 (assuming the self-heal on Q was for full value and W healed 3 targets), or from 8 to 6.857 if with Holy Radiance only.Factoring in Uther's most popular level 1 talent, Wave of Light, this is a major mana nerf depending on how many targets Holy Radiance hit.As seen in the table, the more targets hit with Holy Radiance, the bigger the nerf this was. Thus, this nerf was primarily targeted at the competitive scene, giving Uther a clearer weakness of his sustain.

TL;DR Baseline better but significant nerf to Elusive Brawler



Abilities

Fortifying Brew (Trait) Brew per second reduced from 40 to 30 Chen will now instantly gain 25 Brew upon activation



Analysis

Change 2

This change can best be summarized by a graphTime from 0 to full is the same, but the new brew is an improvement if Chen is at partial brew or is interrupted

Talents

Level 1 Elusive Brawler (Active) Cooldown increased from 20 to 25 seconds Cooldown reduction from Basic Attacks reduced from 3 to 2 seconds



Analysis

Muradin

Changes

Baseline, Elusive Brawler had its cooldown increased by 25%. For a Chen that continuously basic attacked, the cooldown increased from somewhere between (4.5000 seconds for 6 attacks + 0.1875 damage point)=4.6875 and 5 seconds, depending on how you timed the first AA relative to the elusive brawler activation, to somewhere between 7.3875 and 8.2875 seconds (Again, depending on when you time that first AA relative to Elusive Brawler). In the continuous basic attack scenario, averaging out to the midpoints of 4.84375 and 7.8375, this is an uptime drop from ~40% to ~25%.Realistically speaking, Chen is using his QWED to disrupt the enemy team rather than just basic attacking all the time. Thus, assuming Chen weaves in 3 basic attacks every 5 seconds, the cooldown is increased from ~7 seconds to ~11, an uptime decrease from ~29% to ~18%.

Stats

Health increased from 2633 to 2765

Health regen increased from 5.5 to 5.8

Analysis

Stitches

Changes

5% buff to HP and regen. Noice. These types of changes are easy to overlook but will have a noticeable impact on Muradin's winrate, as he frequently tries to barely escape. His Avatar HP increases from 3686 to 3818, a 3.6% increase.

Abilities

Vile Gas (Trait) Damage reduced from 18 to 17



Talents

Level 1 Heavy Slam (W) Bonus damage reduced from 50 to 40%



Analysis

Closing Thoughts

Both changes seek to reduce Stitches damage somewhat. Vile Gas ticks every second and ticks instantly when applied, but a 1 point of damage per second decrease is overall insignificant. The Heavy Slam nerf changes the damage bonus from 52 to 41.6 damage per Slam. Stitches will still be good, but this should take some of the edge off his recent performance.Blizzard has another patch filled with minor tweaks and delicate changes rather than sledgehammer nerfs. The prominence of HGC is clearly factoring into their decisions to only minorly tune down heroes that are perceived as strong rather than the demolitions we have seen historically. Some attempts at balancing out talent tiers seem to have missed radically underperforming talents, which may indicate Blizzard is not happy with the designs of those talents and intends to leave them in the gutter until they come up with something better.