Genji

Changes

Hi there, ChaosOS again. Today I will be breaking down the 6/28 balance patch. Patch notes can be found here: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20861968/heroes-of-the-storm-hotfix-notes-june-28-2017-6-28-2017 Today's post is going to be a bit of a doozy as there were a lot of very interesting changes with this patch, so I'd suggest flipping through the sections to the heroes you care about the most. I'd personally suggest checking out the Lucio section.Also, spreadsheet of the day can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19BZ7ZQr9uNm33HXnw2xBt0rGbHP_tts-PV1y45qyvX4/edit?usp=sharing

Talents

Level 4 Shuriken Mastery (Q) Bonus damage reduced from 30 to 25 Dragon Claw (Active) Damage required reduced from 375 to 330 Damage dealt increased from 180 to 190

Level 7 Dodge (Passive) Cooldown increased from 8 to 12 seconds



Analysis



Genji has recently climbed from “Good, but not broken” to one of the highest priority heroes in the game. These changes are primarily targeted at his level 4 damage talents and attempting to even them out, as Shuriken Mastery is overwhelmingly preferred both at the professional level and at the Hero League level. The actual damage nerf to his shurikens was relatively small, a 5% nerf that scales down to below 3% by level 20. A competing talent, Dragon Claw, which gives an activateable AOE with a cooldown tied to absorbing damage via deflect, had its damage buffed by 10.5%. Given these changes, it makes sense to do a fresh analysis comparing the relative power of his level 4 talents.

For poke situations Shuriken Mastery is the clear winner, giving a 30% damage buff that scales down to 18% by level 20 to his Q. A different concern is the all-in scenario. There are two situations to consider: The ideal situation has Genji time it so he uses one charge of Q before a fight (for poke/wave clear), then dash in with 2 charges of Q right before the cooldown comes back up. He then throws off 5 more Qs, then if he has Shuriken Mastery can use Cyber Agility to get another 2 charges to use. There is also an alternative play that still accomplishes 7 uses of Q in a teamfight, but it relies on Shuriken Mastery. First, use all 3 charges of Q. Then, before the cooldown finishes, use an Agile-Dismount enhanced Cyber Agility to enter the fight. This gives you two charges of Q, which you then use right before getting another 3. Within 5 seconds Cyber Agility is available again to provide another 2 uses, giving the full 7 uses of Q. A non-ideal teamfight involves only 3 uses of Q, perhaps 5 with Shuriken Mastery reset (but not always). This happens if you cannot prime the cooldown and maybe have to use Cyber Agility for mobility rather than the bonus charges. Thus, a comparison of the damage outputs at level 20

Level 20 Shuriken Damage

Uses of Q Base Damage Damage with Shuriken Mastery 3 1281.6 1505.6 5 2136 2511 7 N/A 3515.4

Note that these are the theoretical max damage outputs from Q, missing shurikens decreases this damage noticeably. The full ideal difference is 1379.4, of 7 uses with Shuriken Mastery relative to 5 uses without. Comparitively, Dragon’s Claw does 416.3 damage at level 20. Ideally you could get two uses of Dragon’s Claw in a fight, one primed and the other from using deflect, equaling 832.6 additional damage. With perfect defense at 7 and getting very lucky you could get 3 uses in a teamfight, equaling 1248.9 damage. Strike At The Heart has seen a little bit of play both professionally and in Hero League, applying (at level 20) 302.4 damage over 2 seconds to enemies hit by the tail end of Swift Strike. Unless you are hitting multiple people with this talent or using resets, it seems to be significantly behind the other two talents.

One caveat to the above analysis: During Dragonblade, Genji cannot use Shuriken. Thus, it may be preferable in that sort of build to select either Dragon Claw or Strike At The Heart. Furthermore, the Dragon Claw analysis assumes that you are able to recharge it in one use of deflect. If the enemy team does not give deflect any value either by not hitting Genji or by CCing him out of it, Dragon Claw returns to being a useless talent. Thus if you combine these situations Strike At The Heart becomes the preferred talent choice.

As for the dodge change, you can see how effective Dodge is by checking out this spreadsheet and my article on Block and its variants here. Remember, Dodge also prevents heroes like Malthael or Lunara from applying their passive DoTs.

Malthael

Changes

Abilities

Tormented Souls (R) Cooldown increased from 80 to 100 seconds



Talents

Level 4 Throwing Shade (E) Cooldown reduction increased from 2 to 4 seconds Added functionality: Now also reduces the Mana cost of Death Shroud on quest completion from 50 to 25

Level 13 Ethereal Existence (Trait) Armor reduced from 15 to 10 per Hero hit Maximum Armor bonus increased from 45 to 50 Inevitable End (Active) Cooldown reduced from 30 to 20 seconds

Level 16 Memento Mori (Trait) Damage bonus reduced from 100% to 80%

Level 20 Reaper of Souls (R) Added functionality: Now passively increases the duration of Tormented Souls by 1 second



Analysis

Malthael has gotten a lot of attention the last few weeks as his win rate has steadily climbed up to the top of the charts. The primary thing I missed in my analysis was how significantly the armor stacking of Tormented Souls + 13 talents contribute to him being un-killable. The Tormented Souls nerf changes it from Sulfuras Smash and Dragonblade level to Pyroblast, meaning that it’s possible to initiate fights on Malthael before he has Tormented Souls back up. Whether you can expect that in real HL or QM games is a very different story. The other survivability nerf was to Ethereal Existence. Rather than type a wall of text I’ll summarize the changes in two tables:



Base

Targets hit Physical Armor (Old) Physical Armor (New) EHP Change 1 15 10 -5.56% 2 30 20 -12.50% 3 45 30 -21.43% 4 45 40 -8.33% 5+ 45 50 +10.00%



With Tormented Souls active

Targets hit Physical Armor (Old) Physical Armor (New) EHP Change 1 35 30 -7.14% 2 50 40 -16.67% 3 65 50 -30.00% 4 65 60 -12.50% 5+ 65 70 +16.67%

These tables demonstrate that against a team that primarily does physical damage and isn’t massively clumping will do a lot more damage against a Malthael.

As for the other changes, the Memento Mori change is primarily a nerf to Malthael’s spread damage. Rather than doing 5% damage per second it now does 4.5% damage, a 10% damage nerf. A single application of his mark with Black Harvest (Such as from Death Shroud) now does 19% of the target’s max HP instead of 20%.

Now, as for the buffs, I’ll just point out that Throwing Shade got noticeably better. Throwing Shade now reduce the cooldown of Death Shroud from 8 to 4, a 50% reduction rather than the old 25% of 8 to 6. Relative to the old talent it is a 6 second to 4 second cooldown, a 33% reduction. What’s more important is the way Throwing Shade now functions with regards to both Memento Mori and Final Curtain. A 4 second cooldown means that if you get any reapplication of his passive (Such as from a follow up Wraith Strike) you can keep up the bonus damage from Memento Mori with a second E. Final Curtain also benefits, gaining permanent uptime rather than 66%, allowing Malthael to consistently zone out enemies if they don’t want to become targets for his Wraith Strike. Finally, the reduced cooldown combined with the already present range increase gives him a way to poke at channels such as Blackheart’s Bay or Towers of Doom.

Thrall

Changes

Abilities

Frostwolf Resilience (Trait) Heal amount increased from 210 to 223



Talents

Level 1 Rolling Thunder (Q) Mana return increased from 10 to 12

Level 4 Feral Resilience (W) New functionality: Heroes hit by Feral Spirit grant Thrall 3 charges of Frostwolf Resilience

Level 13 Spirit Shield (Passive) Cooldown reduction per Frostwolf Resilience stack increased from 5 to 8 seconds

Level 20 Wind Rush (Active) Cooldown increased from 70 to 80 seconds



Analysis

The Frostwolf Resilience change is a 6% buff, but is mostly offset by the bugfix on Frostwolf Grace at 13 which provided a 50% buff. He still suffers from low base HP and this small buff doesn’t do much to change that.

Feral Resilience at 4 is mislabeled in the patch notes; It now provides 3 charges of Frostwolf Resilience AND the two charges of 50 armor, rather than what “New functionality” might suggest of replacing the block stacks. This translates roughly to (223*2/5)=89.2 healing per hero hit by W.

Spirit Shield at 13 is now a much better talent. Previously, even with 4 or 5 procs of Frostwolf Resilience, it would still have a 25 to 20 second cooldown. Now with 4 or 5 procs it gets reduced to a 13 or 5 second cooldown, much more reasonable numbers for getting a second use during a fight.



The other two changes are less significant, an increase of potential mana return from 50 to 60 with Rolling Thunder and a 14% cooldown increase on Wind Rush. The Wind Rush cooldown increase desyncs it from Sundering, meaning Thrall's late game "Ready for a teamfight" time is now 80 seconds instead of 70

Zeratul

Changes

Talents

Level 16 Sentenced to Death (W) Bonus damage decreased from 50% to 40%



Zul'jin

Changes

AnalysisOn the surface, the Sentenced to Death nerf decreases Zeratul’s damage by (1.4/1.5)=6.7%. However, Sentenced to Death does not buff Zeratul’s Singularity Spike damage. So, using Tempostorm Psalm’s rewind guide as a basis of comparison, pre-patch full combo did 4140 damage with either slow or fast combo. Singularity spike does 500 damage, so taking out the two singularity spikes of the reduced damage yields (3140*93.3)+1000=3930.7. This works out to a smidge over a 5% damage nerf. As for thresholds, this means the combo can no longer 100-0 Zul’jin, Auriel, or Gazlowe when both they and Zeratul are level 20. For a full rundown of how level differences affect his combo potential check out the spreadsheet linked at the top of this post.

Abilities

Guillotine (R) Base damage increased from 210 to 350 Damage multiplier at extremely low health decreased from 500% to 300%



Talents

Level 20 Ensnare (Active) Range increased from 7.8 to 10 Cooldown reduced from 60 to 45 seconds Duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds



Analysis

The Guillotine change is a bit complicated to analyze. At 0 health missing the damage is buffed by 66%, while at 1 HP (Say due to passive use) there is no damage increase. Guillotine’s damage is a quadratic function, which is to say being at half health isn’t 2x damage just because 1 health is 3x. Rather, half health is 1.5x damage, and one quarter health is 2x damage. This functions to give ever higher rewards the lower you push your hp. Based on the available data that the correct equations are most likely (1+2*(%Missing)^2)% currently, and were (1+4*(%Missing)^2)% previously. To give a full sense of where the two damage curves lie I've provided a table



Level 20 Guillotine Comparison

Missing HP % Pre-patch damage Post-patch damage % Increase 0 460.1 766.9 66.67% 50 920.3 1150.3 25.00% 75 1495.4 1629.6 8.97% 90 1951.0 2009.3 2.99% 99.9 2300.7 2300.7 0%

As for the ensnare change, it’s a good talent now. There isn’t anything particularly interesting math-wise here, it’s 50% longer duration and 25% shorter cooldown.

Brightwing

Changes

Abilities

Pixie Dust (E) Movement Speed duration reduced from 4 to 3 seconds No longer grants Block charges New functionality: Grants 30% Spell Armor for 3 seconds



Talents

Level 13 Shield Dust (E) Added functionality: Pixie Dust also grants 50% Physical Armor for the duration



Analysis

Lucio

Changes

As I covered previously in my article on block charges, they primarily find value in solo lane matchups. Given that Brightwing is not a solo laner, the block charges on Pixie Dust felt out of place. Replacing them with 30% Spell Armor for 3 seconds feels like an appropriate replacement. However the more interesting change to analyze is the reduction of Pixie Dust’s movespeed bonus duration from 4 to 3 seconds. Over 4 seconds this translates into a reduction of 5.2x to 4.9x one second of movement, making it an overall 22.5% speed increase rather than a 30% speed increase. This is a 5.7% reduction in the total distance covered over the 4 seconds.A caveat to the above analysis: This relied on getting the full duration of Pixie Dust. Previously, wiping out the block charges would wipe out the speed boost, and the spell armor from the 13 talent too. Now everything always lasts a full 3 seconds, meaning in any real situation you are getting significantly more value than before.

Abilities

Healing Boost (W) Amp it Up Healing increased from 14.5 to 15.5



Talents

Level 16 Up the Frequency (E) Cooldown per Basic Attack increased from .35 to .45 seconds



Analysis

The Lucio changes are an attempt at rebalancing his level 16 through direct and indirect changes. The baseline Amp it Up healing is a 7% increase, a solid amount. The more important part is this also increases the bonus healing from Bring it Together by 7%, and makes your additional E’s granted by the now-buffed Up the Frequency (UtF) 7% more effective.

Regarding the UtF change, each time you AA with Lucio you send out 4 pulses. This means that per whole AA you get 1.8s off the cooldown rather than 1.4. Lucio’s AA period is 1.25 seconds, so UtF makes Amp it Up available again after 6 seconds. Attacking 5 times reduces the cooldown by 9 seconds and takes 6.25 seconds, but the first attack can come before 1.25s if your AA is off cooldown when you cast Amp it Up. Previously it would come off cooldown during your 6th AA, which would be between 6.25 and 7.5 seconds after casting Amp it Up. For the purpose of this article I will split the difference on both and assume you AA the first time at .6s after pressing E, meaning Amp it Up will have a 6 second cooldown on live and 6.85s previously. This is a 12.5% reduction in the cooldown of Amp it Up with UtF. Functionally, assuming you took Sound Barrier, this gives Amp it Up 50% uptime rather than 20%, up from 44% uptime pre-patch.

Where does that leave the relative position of level 16 talents for Lucio now? The break-even point for the 45% boost of Bring it Together and Rejuvenescia is 3483.7 HP at level 16. This puts Zul’jin as over this benchmark and Auriel as below it. However, due in part to the shifting of his healing throughput to Amp it Up from passive bonus over the last few patches, in any fight that lasts long enough to get a second cast of Amp it Up (6 seconds) you are better off with UtF. For most of the cast they only need 2 seconds of the second Amp it Up to have received more healing than with Rejuvenescia, with the tanks needing all 3 seconds. Muradin in Avatar and Diablo at Max Souls are the only heroes who Rejuvenescia is genuinely better for, given that the break-even point for them becomes the third amp it up at 12 seconds. If you pick Reverse Amp the story is a little bit different, shifting most melees into needing the third second of the second Amp it Up to break even.

Tassadar

Changes

Not only does UtF give more healing, but it gives more flexibility and more speed boosts. With Bring it Together or Rejuvenescia, your healing throughput drops dramatically if you use Amp it Up on speed boost post-16. UtF gives more uses of Amp it Up, meaning you have more time to choose between a 45% movespeed (60% with Maximum Tempo) and 232 (+4% per level after 16) HPS. The only downside of UtF is you can only benefit from it so long as you can make continuous AAs, but given Lucio’s mobility and ability to attack while moving that should not be a major concern.Misread UtF, you do need to be AAing heroes to get the cooldown reduction

Abilities

Plasma Shield (Q) Lifesteal amount reduced from 45% to 40%



Talents

Level 1 Khaydarin Resonance (Q) First unlock shield value bonus increased from 15% to 20% Second unlock shield bonus increased from 30% to 40% Templar’s Will (Passive) Damage bonus of first quest unlock reduced from 150% to 125%

Level 4 Khala’s Embrace (Q) Life steal amount reduced from 90% to 75%



Analysis

Tassadar has grown into prominence as of late with a build focusing on his basic attacks. The changes in the patch hit those and also buff the passive shielding build.

The buff to Khadarin Resonance increases his shielding by (1.2/1.15)= ~4.3% if you have the first half of the quest done, and by (1.4/1.3)= ~7.7% if you have the second half done.

The nerf to Templar’s will is a (2.25/2.5)=10% nerf to his attack damage, and combined with the base lifesteal nerf a 20% nerf to his life restored during shields. For Tassadars who picked Khala’s Embrace (AKA all of them), it works out to a 25% nerf to his life regained. To put this into context, Tassadar’s base damage is 15 with an attack speed of 4. Templar’s Will now increases his attack damage to 33.75 rather than 37.5. With a base HP of 1426, Tassadar, by applying his shield to himself and continuously attacking with both Templar’s Will and Khala’s Embrace, would restore (37.5*.9*4/1426)=~9.5% of his max HP every second and ~37.9% of his max HP over the 4 seconds. Now he restores ~7.1% of his max HP every second and ~28.4% of his max HP over the 4 seconds.

Uther

Changes

Talents

Level 1 Hammer of the Lightbringer (E) Cooldown reduction per Basic Attack increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds

Level 4 Pursuit of Justice (E) Movement Speed increased from 20% to 25%

Level 7 Guardian of Ancient Kings (Trait) Armor reduced from 75 to 50

Level 16 Benediction (Active) Cooldown increased from 40 to 60 seconds



Analysis

Uther is another hero that was extremely contested at the MSB, boasting the highest banrate in the tournament. The primary reason for this was his Guardian of Ancient Kings talent, which provides bonus armor to stunned, rooted, or silenced allies. There are a few ways of looking at this change. This is a 33% reduction to the armor the talent provides. Uther provides 25 armor baseline to any target he heals, so this is a 50% reduction to the bonus armor this talent provides. However, the most relevant way of looking at this talent is through an effective hit points model. 75 armor means a hero’s effective hit points is 4x, while 50 armor only means their effective armor is 2x. If you CC-chain a target and Uther heals them, you need to do half as much damage as you previously required to kill the target. This is a significant nerf to the talent but still a justified one, as the talent still provides a 50% EHP boost to the target relative to the baseline armor granted by Uther’s passive. However it is more justifiable to go Hand of Protection (Which, by the way, should be named Hand of Freedom) if there is a particular single-target CC you are worried about, such as Varian’s taunt. Another use is on a hero channeling a spell like ETC's mosh pit or Nazeebo's Ravenous Spirit, where pre-cleansing can keep the spell from being interrupted. (Pre-)Cleansing a target who can then use an escape to take no damage is still better than a target who is CC’d but only taking half damage. Previously the 75 armor was so strong you could always just turn a fight by using the damage reduction to dive recklessly, but this nerf puts Guardian of Ancient Kings as a talent that saves allies from stunlocks rather than absurdly punishing any enemy who dared used a stun, root, or silence.

The other meaningful change in the patch is improving the quest reward on Hammer of the Lightbringer. Previously, with continuous AAs and Hammer of the Lightbringer, Hammer of Justice had an effective cooldown of 4 seconds. This gave 75% uptime to Pursuit of Justice and Well Met. Now, with continuous auto attacks, Hammer of Justice has an effective cooldown between 3 and 3.5 seconds. 3 attacks take at most 3 seconds and reduce the cooldown by 3.5 seconds, while 4 attacks take a minimum of 3 seconds and reduce the cooldown by 6 seconds. Given the base cooldown of 8 seconds, depending on how you time your basic attacks after Hammer of Justice, you can improve uptime on other E talents to anywhere from 85% to 100%. Uther’s AA period is 1 second, which gives plenty of time to body block and in general be a melee nuisance. Even if you can only weave in two basic attacks it reduces the cooldown from 6 second pre-patch to 5 seconds post-patch, a ~17% reduction and improving talent uptime from 50% to 60%.

D.Va

Changes

Stats

Mech Basic Attack Damage reduced from 22.5 to 21

Mech Health reduced from 2060 to 2000

Mech Health Regeneration reduced from 4.86 to 4.17

Talents

Level 1 Hit the Nitrous (Q) Damage bonus reduced from 100% to 50%



Analysis :



On their face the D.Va changes are straightforward. Her mech ate a ~3% HP nerf, a ~7% AA damage nerf, and a 14% HP regen nerf. Before I go on, I just want to note this puts D.Va’s mech from being a rule breaker of regenerating to full in 425 seconds rather than the usual 480, to regenerating 100% of its max HP in 480 seconds. Finally, the Hit the Nitrous change is a (1.5/2)=25% nerf to her damage during that first .5s of boost.



The AA and Hit the Nitrous changes appear to be targeted at D.Va's wave clear potential. The damage differential on Hit the Nitrous is (270-202.5)=67.5, or about .75s more seconds of auto attacking. Targeting D.Va's wave clear hurts her rotations by requiring her to spend longer in lanes without having to hit her actual move speed.



An indirect change is how the base HP nerf affects her level 13 talents. Expensive plating suffers the same 3% HP nerf, but Emergency Shielding increases from (210/2060)=10.2% of her max HP to (210/2000)=10.5% of her max HP. A small relative change, but one to consider. Furthermore, this decreases the Ablative Armor threshold from 82.4 to 80. Effectively this puts D.Va one level behind relative to her old self. The following abilities can no longer be mitigated when D.Va is 3 levels ahead: Brightwing’s outer Arcane Flare, ETC’s Power Slide, Lunara’s Basic Attack, Stitches’ Hook, Tyrande’s Starfall.

Dehaka

Changes

Stats

Basic Attack damage reduced from 110 to 105

Abilities

Brushstalker (Z) Cooldown increased from 50 to 60 seconds



Talents

Level 13 Ferocious Stalker (W) New functionality: Increase the damage of Dark Swarm by 40% while the Brushstalker buff is active



Analysis

Dehaka has been a meta powerhouse, using his strong solo laning and global presence to take over games. The basic attack damage reduction is targeting his trading and wave clear power, reducing his AA damage by 4.5%. The more interesting change to look at is Ferocious Stalker, which changed a general 25% ability power buff to a 40% Dark Swarm damage buff. Baseline Dark Swam does 350 damage over 3.5 seconds, so a 25% buff increases that to 437.5 damage. By comparison the new buff increases Dark Swarm’s damage to 490 damage, a 52.5 damage increase. However, the bonus ability power also worked with Drag and Isolation. Drag has a base damage of 160, so 25% ability power was +40 damage. For the rare Dehaka that picked Isolation, the base damage of 200 meant +50 damage. In general though this was a buff to the talent, as the AOE damage multiplies the 52.5 damage increase.

Closing Thoughts

Comparing the level 13 talents is a bit tricky because it relies on a few assumptions, but I will try to give some guidelines. If you expect to primarily be dueling, either through teamfight positioning or because you’re in a solo lane, the basic attack damage on Primal Rage is the best choice. Remember though that Primal Rage is still reliant on holding your essence, if you use it to heal you lose all your bonus damage. For the fastest PvE clear Ferocious Stalker provides a significant buff to your clear speed, while also providing additional AOE damage in teamfights. Primal Swarm is reasonably behind the other two talents for a solo Dehaka, so only pick it if you expect your teammates to capitalize on the vulnerabilityThis patch seemed to have a few good changes, although I personally believe Malthael and Genji escaped the nerf-bat hit they deserved. Furthermore, Anub'arak went wholly unnerfed despite having the highest winrate out of the three most contested heroes at the MSB. The support role saw more significant shakeups, as between the Uther GoAK changes, the Tassadar nerfs, and the buffs to both Lucio and Brightwing, we may see a meta shift from the current dive and burst compositions to more sustain-based ones.