Uh, what?
Azmodan can't stop that kill. And Nova can likely escape any attempt Azmodan could make to kill her back. You gotta be damn close for laser + dunk to get her and that's assuming her team doesn't intervene.
This is the kind of thing I was talking about. The image of Nova is greater than Nova herself. It's tough to tell how long Azmo's laser would have taken to kill Nova because it increases in damage over time, but its base damage at level 15 would be about 170 dps and at full blast it'd be 340 dps. That means somewhere around 7-8 seconds to burn Nova down I guess? In addition, Nova had to use everything she had in order to do that much damage, including her lethal decoy, which she can't control. If Azmo had been there the decoy could have targeted Azmo instead and Falstad would have survived.
All of that boils down to too much uncertainty for Nova to have a successful strike. Maybe she would have attacked and done some damage, but she wouldn't have closed in the way she did in that video, and she might not have scored a kill.
I totally appreciate how frustrating Nova is, but nobody here is acknowledging her downsides. Remember that this Nova had full stacks (I did the math, she'd need them to down Falstad in one cycle), so she's risking a lot every time she decloaks. She needs to be certain of a kill without dying in return. If Azmo had been there I bet things would have gone a lot differently.
Lunara is supposed to be squishier on account of her being faster correct? Or am I incorrectly remembering things?
Given past precedent of the new hero being in literally every single game...nova is just going to have a career day isn't she?
Depends partially on whether Lunara's AOE poison attack affects a cloaked Nova. If it does, then maybe not. Also she can talent her wisp for reveal. But either way Lunara has the speed to chase down Nova and apply an attack that will keep her decloaked for a while, so I think Nova will need to be cautious around her.
I look at healers who can actually protect themselves, and good lord they need to do something with Morales. Besides being unable to heal herself, her defensive measure is an awkward knockback and gaining resistant which honestly is just delaying the inevitable.
I mean, it's so bad that even if her passive was active IN COMBAT she'd probably still be a lackluster support. Well until 20 at which point you would probably be OP as shit.
Lunara is supposed to be squishier on account of her being faster correct? Or am I incorrectly remembering things?
Given past precedent of the new hero being in literally every single game...nova is just going to have a career day isn't she?
Depends partially on whether Lunara's AOE poison attack affects a cloaked Nova. If it does, then maybe not. Also she can talent her wisp for reveal. But either way Lunara has the speed to chase down Nova and apply an attack that will keep her decloaked for a while, so I think Nova will need to be cautious around her.
Are you saying Skybound Wisp reveals cloaked units? The wording is kind of vague, I thought "reveals area 4 seconds after dying" just means that the wisp's effect remained active for a bit after it died. And even if it did reveal cloaked, you'd have to wait 45 seconds for it to die or hope the enemy kills it each time, so I doubt it.
At the very least though yeah I'd imagine her AOE reveals nova, and her trait specifically can be talented to keep units revealed whether they're cloaked/in a bush/out of range, as well as crippling spores slowing them down and keeping the dot/reveal up.
Lunara is supposed to be squishier on account of her being faster correct? Or am I incorrectly remembering things?
Given past precedent of the new hero being in literally every single game...nova is just going to have a career day isn't she?
Depends partially on whether Lunara's AOE poison attack affects a cloaked Nova. If it does, then maybe not. Also she can talent her wisp for reveal. But either way Lunara has the speed to chase down Nova and apply an attack that will keep her decloaked for a while, so I think Nova will need to be cautious around her.
Are you saying Skybound Wisp reveals cloaked units? The wording is kind of vague, I thought "reveals area 4 seconds after dying" just means that the wisp's effect remained active for a bit after it died. And even if it did reveal cloaked, you'd have to wait 45 seconds for it to die or hope the enemy kills it each time, so I doubt it.
At the very least though yeah I'd imagine her AOE reveals nova, and her trait specifically can be talented to keep units revealed whether they're cloaked/in a bush/out of range, as well as crippling spores slowing them down and keeping the dot/reveal up.
In her spotlight, when the wisp does the reveal thing, it looks a lot like the spell effect from Clairvoyance/Peek-a-boo/Foresight, so it might reveal stealth.
Uh, what?
Azmodan can't stop that kill. And Nova can likely escape any attempt Azmodan could make to kill her back. You gotta be damn close for laser + dunk to get her and that's assuming her team doesn't intervene.
This is the kind of thing I was talking about. The image of Nova is greater than Nova herself. It's tough to tell how long Azmo's laser would have taken to kill Nova because it increases in damage over time, but its base damage at level 15 would be about 170 dps and at full blast it'd be 340 dps. That means somewhere around 7-8 seconds to burn Nova down I guess? In addition, Nova had to use everything she had in order to do that much damage, including her lethal decoy, which she can't control. If Azmo had been there the decoy could have targeted Azmo instead and Falstad would have survived.
All of that boils down to too much uncertainty for Nova to have a successful strike. Maybe she would have attacked and done some damage, but she wouldn't have closed in the way she did in that video, and she might not have scored a kill.
I totally appreciate how frustrating Nova is, but nobody here is acknowledging her downsides. Remember that this Nova had full stacks (I did the math, she'd need them to down Falstad in one cycle), so she's risking a lot every time she decloaks. She needs to be certain of a kill without dying in return. If Azmo had been there I bet things would have gone a lot differently.
I don't think Nova is an issue in terms of game balance- her win rate is hardly spectacular.
I just think she's an issue of fun. After the scaling changes, her ability to one shot back line characters just seems too high. Whilst yes in game terms each team losing a character is an equal trade off, for the person playing the ranged carry she annihilates every time it makes for an incredibly unfun game. It goes back tot he point that ultimately, there are areas of design space that may simply be flawed in terms of an enjoyable experience for other people - Nova and Murky both feel like that.
I just think she's an issue of fun. After the scaling changes, her ability to one shot back line characters just seems too high. Whilst yes in game terms each team losing a character is an equal trade off, for the person playing the ranged carry she annihilates every time it makes for an incredibly unfun game. It goes back tot he point that ultimately, there are areas of design space that may simply be flawed in terms of an enjoyable experience for other people - Nova and Murky both feel like that.
100% with you there. I feel like, as a character design, Nova needs to be as deadly as she is, but that doesn't mean it's a good character design for the game.
Only problem with Yrel is that she may not be high priority, as she's a pretty unremarkable character if you're a Horde player(whereas most other Alliance heroes have some significance to both factions). She's basically just "there" at the end of the Horde side expansion and has no other significance.
As opposed to Stitches, the character that was literally in one quest chain for one faction? A character who, as far as I can tell, hasn't even been in the game for a number of years?
Yrel was at least present throughout all of Warlords. She'd also fill in the Prot Paladin niche.
Trust me when I say I don't even know who she is other than that she exists. (Horde)
But on that, Abominations are an extremely iconic part of Warcraft. You're going to add an Abomination to the game - of course you are - but, who's it going to be? Either Stitches, or Patchwerk. You've got two choices for a very specific entity(distinct from class), and their unique circumstances really don't make them comparable to this situation. You're not going to create a HotS-original character or try to dig up something even more obscure than those two just for the sake of doing it. Stitches is a legendary cornerstone to early WoW to the point of internal meme status - like, as mentioned, Hogger. It's a logical progression even if he's not as a whole important to the story.
However, we get into Paladins, if we're really arguing importance, who are we looking at that's more iconic to the story at large and who are we looking at that's more of a fan favorite than Yrel would be? We've got Uther(already in the game), we've got Turalyon(who has his own storied history), we've got pre-wotlk Bolvar(stretching it), we've got (perhaps most importantly) Tirion Fordring. Are we picking Yrel because she's more important to Warcraft as a whole, or simply because she was the most recent character people got to play alongside in the story?
Tirion had a really nice redemption arc in vanilla that both factions could experience, returned to reinstitute the Silver Hand(one of the most iconic factions in Warcraft's history), and was one of the(if not the) most prominent figures of the WotLK expansion - sumbitch even stole the spotlight from Sylvanas a few times. (esp. the final battle with the Lich King)
While I don't doubt that (from reading Wowwiki) she's a prominent figure for the Alliance story for the expansion, she's too divisive to the player base to really justify getting priority unless they wanted to just pull a Sgt. Hammer. Which could certainly be the case - I mean, what are players going to do about it regardless, grumble on some forums for a week or two and then go back to playing the game? (lel)
Don't forget the Tauren paladin. Brightmane. He's been a pretty big deal to the lore since the Sunwalkers faction was added back in Cataclysm or whenever it was.
WINTER VEIL
Snuggle up to the warmth of your computer and get ready to fire up Heroes of the Storm, because Winter Veil has arrived to the Nexus! We’ve got a host of festive goodies that you can enjoy this holiday season, but the celebration won’t last forever. Be sure to check out the treats below before Winter Veil concludes on Tuesday, January 12.
New Special Event Quest: 30 Days of Winter Veil
Play 15 Games – Earn a 4 day Stimpack
Play 50 Games – Earn a 10 day Stimpack
Please note: Each game played during Winter Veil will count toward progress for both Special Event Quests.
Festive Treasure Goblin Mount
All players can ride the brand new Festive Treasure Goblin Mount for free during Winter Veil!
This limited-time Mount cannot be purchased, and will only be available during Winter Veil, so be sure to pick it during Hero Select before readying up!
Winter Veil Items in the Shop
Several new Winter Veil skins and bundles, including Sugar Plum Sylvanas and Greatfather Stitches, have arrived to the Shop for a limited time! Check out the Shop section below for details.
As part of our Recruit a Friend celebration, all brand new Heroes, Mounts, Bundles, and Skins introduced with today’s patch will be available at 50% off their normal real-money prices through the end of the year!
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NEW HERO
Lunara, First Daughter of Cenarius, has been added to Heroes of the Storm and is now available for play! Read on for a brief overview of her Abilities.
Mount
Dryad’s Swiftness
Lunara cannot use Mounts. Instead, you move 20% faster by leaping short distances.
Trait
Nature’s Toxin
Your Basic Attacks and damaging Abilities poison the target, dealing damage each second for 3 seconds.
Basic Abilities
Noxious Blossom (Q)
After 0.5 seconds, cause an area to explode with pollen, dealing damage.
Crippling Spores (W)
Enemies currently afflicted by Nature’s Toxin have its duration increased by 3 seconds and are slowed by 40%, decaying over 3 seconds.
Wisp (E)
Spawn a Wisp to scout an area. Can be redirected once active. Lasts 45 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
Thornwood Vine (R)
Send forth vines that deal damage to all enemies in a line. Can hold 3 charges.
Leaping Strike (R)
Leap over an enemy, attacking and slowing the target by 80% for 0.35 seconds. Can hold 2 charges.
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SHOP
As mentioned above, all brand new Heroes, Mounts, Bundles, and Skins introduced with today’s patch will be available at 50% off their normal real-money prices through the end of the year.
Bundles
New Bundles have been added for a limited time!
Winter Veil 2015 Bundle
Winter Veil 2015 Ultimate Bundle
Sentinel Lunara Bundle
Heroes
Lunara has been added to the in-game Shop
Mounts
New Mount
Champion’s Nexagon
Celebrate Cloud9’s victory at BlizzCon 2015 by riding the Champion’s Nexagon, which features the Cloud9 logo and team colors!
This mount can only be purchased with Gold, and is available until February.
Returning Mounts
Reign-Deer – Exclusively available during Winter Veil
Lunar Tiger
Magic Carpet
Mount Removals
Cyber Wolf
Dire Wolf
Tyrael’s Charger
Price Changes
Zagara’s prices have been reduced to 4,000 Gold and $6.49 USD.
Skins
New Skins
Greatfather Winter Stitches – Exclusively available during Winter Veil
Sugar Plum Sylvanas – Exclusively available during Winter Veil
Master Lunara
Sentinel Lunara
Returning Skins
Great-father Winter Rehgar – Exclusively available during Winter Veil
Winter Veil Jaina – Exclusively available during Winter Veil
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USER INTERFACE
In-Game UI
Score Screens
Kills, Deaths, and Assists have been reordered on in-game and end-of-game Score Screens to read as Kills, Assists, and Deaths.
Social Features
The chat system has been redesigned.
Chat channels are now split into collapsible groupings on the right side of the chat panel.
All players who have joined a chat channel are now listed under that channel’s name on the right side of the chat panel, along with their portrait, Battletag, and current status.
Inactive players will now be automatically removed from public chat channels and will rejoin once they become active again.
Chat navigation
The chat panel can be expanded in height using the arrow button found in the upper-right corner.
Players will be notified in the upper-left corner of the chat pane if they have missed any messages from conversations they are not actively viewing.
Players can now quickly view and switch among all chat channels that they are taking part in by clicking the new arrow button in the upper-left corner of the chat panel.
Additionally, players can cycle through the list of chat channels they have open by pressing Ctrl + Tab and Ctrl + Shift + Tab.
Custom Game Lobby Links
Players in Custom Game lobbies can now create a clickable link and share it in chat channels to allow others to join the lobby.
Create a link to a Custom Game lobby by typing the following (without quotes) into any chat channel: “[lobby]”
Players may also send a message along with their lobby links by typing “/lobbylink” followed by their desired text
Loading Screens
Portrait Border Display
Loading Screens will now only display portrait borders that are relevant to each play mode. Each loading screen will display portrait borders as follows:
Quick Match, Custom Games, and Versus A.I. - Basic border and account level.
Hero League - Hero League rank.
Team League - Team League rank.
Party Indicator Icons
New Loading Screen icons have been added to indicate which players queued together as a party.
Players in the same party will appear next to each other on loading screens.
Parties will be separated by icon color so that it is easier to see how many parties there are, and how many players are in each.
Looking for Party Changes
The Looking for Party feature on the Home screen has been renamed to Party Finder.
The Party Finder will now display any friends who are online in addition to players who are looking to join a party.
Friends who are online but not yet looking for a party will be listed as “online” or “in a party”. When they are looking for a party or looking for more, the text will update appropriately.
Hovering the cursor over player portraits in the looking for party list will now display a tooltip that indicates which chat channel you have in common.
Looking for Party has been added to the Friends list.
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A new Warrior rule has been added to Quick Match that now prevents teams that do not have a Warrior hero from being matched with teams that do have a Warrior.
A.I. Improvements
General
AI players will now move more efficiently on offense and retreat.
Slight improvements have been made to the way that AI players will perform several map objectives.
Difficulty-Specific Improvements
Adept AI will now choose Talents from pre-defined Talent builds, much like Veteran and Elite AI do already.
Elite AI will now focus their attacks on low Health enemies and chase more often.
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HEROES
TASSADAR
Plasma Shield (Q)
Can now be cast on allies located in the Hall of Storms
ARTANIS
Basic Attack range increased by 25%
Phase Prism (E)
Range and speed have each been increased by 15%
Developer Comments: Artanis was having a harder time sticking to opponents than we’d like. This was hurting his ability to disrupt the enemy team and his ability to survive. We feel that a slight increase to his base kit will help alleviate this issue, while maintaining a lot of the playstyle (and counterplay) that we currently enjoy. The increased range on Phase Prism and his Basic Attacks should help him feel better to play, and help him more successfully fulfill his aggressive Warrior role. These changes are intentionally slight, as we feel Artanis is very close to being extremely powerful in today’s game.
CHO
Basic Attack damage increased from 110 to 120
Base Health increased from 3360 to 3528
Base Health Regeneration increased from 7 to 7.35 per second
Developer Comments: Cho’gall’s win rate has been trending up since his release, but it is still a bit lower than we’d like. We have plans to improve Cho’gall with Talent changes in the future, but we wanted to give him a small buff before then.
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BUG FIXES
Heroes and Talents
Azmodan’s Globe of Annihilation will now deal the correct amount of damage while under the effects of Black Pool and the Taste for Blood Talent.
This fix will also resolve incorrect damage amounts for similar Talent interactions, such as Muradin’s Storm Bolt with the Sledgehammer and Perfect Storm Talents, as well as Falstad’s Gathering Storm and Overdrive Talents.
Fixed an issue that could cause Leoric’s Drain Hope to end prematurely.
Fixed several situations in which summoned units could return directly to lane rather than continuing to attack nearby enemies while capturing a Mercenary Camp.
Tychus’ Hero model will no longer disappear after capturing a Fort on the Towers of Doom Battleground.
Artanis’ Purifier Beam will no longer track Murky back to his Egg if Murky was killed just as the Ability was cast.
Fixed an issue that could cause Brightwing’s Phase Shield to be applied to Cho’gall inconsistently.
Diagonally placed Shrubs will no longer sometimes fail to properly hide a Hero within.
Fixed an issue which could allow Cho’gall to regenerate Health after using Consuming Blaze on certain destructible objects.
Punishers on the Infernal Shrines Battleground will no longer fly outside the playable area after leaping into Zeratul’s Void Prison.
User Interface
Allied Minion status bars will no longer appear green when they are missing Health.
Resolved some cases in which Hero League games could incorrectly flag players to receive leaver penalties.
Pressing the Enter key while casting certain Abilities will no longer cause the key to behave as though it is stuck.
Interesting that they just increased cho's health. A lot of people were suggesting lowerig his health and giving him a passive damage mitigation so giant killer doesn't make him so useless.
I am a little concerned about the artanis buffs since I felt prism was pretty strong to begin with. Will be interesting to see how it works out.
Unfortunate that there aren't more changes. A lot of heroes need a substantial amount of help.
I mean, they have given us a lot of info about their plans. They have also said that it will roll out in chunks. It isn't all going to happen at once.
For example, they said that at some point in the future they will be switching to an MMR on a per hero basis. I'm not sure how that will be possible in HL/TL since your hero selection happens after the match has already been made. But they said they were doing that at Blizzcon.
I think a per hero MMR is a good idea conceptually.
0
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
This doesn't seem to be a balance patch at all. These changes were likely pushed through hard as more of a hotfix than anything. Which makes sense for the Artanis changes but not really the Cho'Gall ones.
Acting like Yrel would be a Brightwing is super foolish. She's a major plot character for Warlords. This isn't comparable.
Also, when the game has a character who has never been in a warcraft game, there is seriously no such thing as "not prominent enough." If they need a Warcraft warrior, she's a great choice.
+4
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
So is Yrel a thing that was datamined or are you guys just hoping she gets in?
Nice! I get Lunara and my Sugar Plum Sylvanas today! Also interesting about the portraits and party indicators. No more hiding who you are. Cool! Too bad QM shows account level since it's worthless once you hit 40.
Yeah, in my opinion the QM portraits should show highest rank achieved, whether it's in HL or TL.
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
IMO it should not, because rank is rank. People in QM don't need to know what rank you are in serious play because there is NO guarantee they are serious play in QM. Yet there IS a guarantee people are going to assume an awful lot about something that currently is more a reference to how MUCH you play than it is to how well you play.
The only thing that would really prepare you slightly for what you are facing in QM would be the hero level of the current character they are playing. Then you could see how often you are facing someone just trying to hit level 5 or possibly even just trying to do a quest. It is much more likely to know someone is serious in QM if you see hero level 10+ than if you just see rank 1.
Acting like Yrel would be a Brightwing is super foolish. She's a major plot character for Warlords. This isn't comparable.
Also, when the game has a character who has never been in a warcraft game, there is seriously no such thing as "not prominent enough." If they need a Warcraft warrior, she's a great choice.
Not iconic enough compared to her peers, I'm not sure how that wasn't clear. She's not more iconic to the game as a ret paladin than Tirion(as an example, albeit the most noteworthy one), so I don't believe she should win out given the choice between the two. She merely has the advantage of being fresher in peoples' minds(which may influence the decision, I will admit). When she has the advantage of having purified the tainted history of the Ashbringer and wielding it to shatter Frostmourne, I'd consider it more.
Now, I say this with the condition only of a "first choice" scenario. As more and more heroes are added, I certainly don't rule out the prospect of both of them being added along the line.
And if you're referring to Rehgar, there aren't really any noteworthy resto shaman characters in Warcraft in general. Drek'Thar and Thrall are both considered Enhance/Far Seer, but Drek takes backseat to Thrall because obviously. Rehgar also has the benefit of being tied to product placement, which probably helped.
So is Yrel a thing that was datamined or are you guys just hoping she gets in?
It's just fanwanking right now, neither Tirion or Yrel are even remotely hinted yet(WTB Ashbringer). More likely what will happen is the list of already-datamined heroes will start to run out before we begin to hear anything.
Horde player here. I know literally nothing about Yrel, other than what I saw of her in the WoD cutscenes, which I enjoyed. I'd love to see her added to heroes. I want a troll added more, though.
Horde player here. I know literally nothing about Yrel, other than what I saw of her in the WoD cutscenes, which I enjoyed. I'd love to see her added to heroes. I want a troll added more, though.
Vol'Jin and Zul'Jin have been in the game data to varying extents since early 2014. Trolls be needin' to be in da game already.
+8
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
Acting like Yrel would be a Brightwing is super foolish. She's a major plot character for Warlords. This isn't comparable.
Also, when the game has a character who has never been in a warcraft game, there is seriously no such thing as "not prominent enough." If they need a Warcraft warrior, she's a great choice.
Not iconic enough compared to her peers, I'm not sure how that wasn't clear. She's not more iconic to the game as a ret paladin than Tirion(as an example, albeit the most noteworthy one), so I don't believe she should win out given the choice between the two. She merely has the advantage of being fresher in peoples' minds(which may influence the decision, I will admit). When she has the advantage of having purified the tainted history of the Ashbringer and wielding it to shatter Frostmourne, I'd consider it more.
Now, I say this with the condition only of a "first choice" scenario. As more and more heroes are added, I certainly don't rule out the prospect of both of them being added along the line.
And if you're referring to Rehgar, there aren't really any noteworthy resto shaman characters in Warcraft in general. Drek'Thar and Thrall are both considered Enhance/Far Seer, but Drek takes backseat to Thrall because obviously. Rehgar also has the benefit of being tied to product placement, which probably helped.
So is Yrel a thing that was datamined or are you guys just hoping she gets in?
It's just fanwanking right now, neither Tirion or Yrel are even remotely hinted yet(WTB Ashbringer). More likely what will happen is the list of already-datamined heroes will start to run out before we begin to hear anything.
Yrel also has the advantage of being a Draenei in a game that currently features no Draenei but a BUTTLOAD of humans :P Including one that already kind of looks a little like Tirion (aka Uther) :P
Acting like Yrel would be a Brightwing is super foolish. She's a major plot character for Warlords. This isn't comparable.
Also, when the game has a character who has never been in a warcraft game, there is seriously no such thing as "not prominent enough." If they need a Warcraft warrior, she's a great choice.
Not iconic enough compared to her peers, I'm not sure how that wasn't clear. She's not more iconic to the game as a ret paladin than Tirion(as an example, albeit the most noteworthy one), so I don't believe she should win out given the choice between the two. She merely has the advantage of being fresher in peoples' minds(which may influence the decision, I will admit). When she has the advantage of having purified the tainted history of the Ashbringer and wielding it to shatter Frostmourne, I'd consider it more.
Now, I say this with the condition only of a "first choice" scenario. As more and more heroes are added, I certainly don't rule out the prospect of both of them being added along the line.
And if you're referring to Rehgar, there aren't really any noteworthy resto shaman characters in Warcraft in general. Drek'Thar and Thrall are both considered Enhance/Far Seer, but Drek takes backseat to Thrall because obviously. Rehgar also has the benefit of being tied to product placement, which probably helped.
So is Yrel a thing that was datamined or are you guys just hoping she gets in?
It's just fanwanking right now, neither Tirion or Yrel are even remotely hinted yet(WTB Ashbringer). More likely what will happen is the list of already-datamined heroes will start to run out before we begin to hear anything.
Yrel also has the advantage of being a Draenei in a game that currently features no Draenei but a BUTTLOAD of humans :P Including one that already kind of looks a little like Tirion (aka Uther) :P
That both have the tier 1 paladin armor as their iconic look really does not help differentiate them.
Anyone whose iconic look is the pvp Alliance plate set also could be hard to distinguish though Bolvar at least uses a sword and shield instead of a two handed weapon like both Uther and Tirion.
Acting like Yrel would be a Brightwing is super foolish. She's a major plot character for Warlords. This isn't comparable.
Also, when the game has a character who has never been in a warcraft game, there is seriously no such thing as "not prominent enough." If they need a Warcraft warrior, she's a great choice.
Not iconic enough compared to her peers, I'm not sure how that wasn't clear. She's not more iconic to the game as a ret paladin than Tirion(as an example, albeit the most noteworthy one), so I don't believe she should win out given the choice between the two. She merely has the advantage of being fresher in peoples' minds(which may influence the decision, I will admit). When she has the advantage of having purified the tainted history of the Ashbringer and wielding it to shatter Frostmourne, I'd consider it more.
Now, I say this with the condition only of a "first choice" scenario. As more and more heroes are added, I certainly don't rule out the prospect of both of them being added along the line.
And if you're referring to Rehgar, there aren't really any noteworthy resto shaman characters in Warcraft in general. Drek'Thar and Thrall are both considered Enhance/Far Seer, but Drek takes backseat to Thrall because obviously. Rehgar also has the benefit of being tied to product placement, which probably helped.
So is Yrel a thing that was datamined or are you guys just hoping she gets in?
It's just fanwanking right now, neither Tirion or Yrel are even remotely hinted yet(WTB Ashbringer). More likely what will happen is the list of already-datamined heroes will start to run out before we begin to hear anything.
Yrel also has the advantage of being a Draenei in a game that currently features no Draenei but a BUTTLOAD of humans :P Including one that already kind of looks a little like Tirion (aka Uther) :P
Damn affirmative action. :P
Tirion actually has a very distinctive look as of WotLK, I don't think that would be a problem.
That is a good point though, Draenei are poorly represented at best even within Warcraft - at least outside of the Eredar. Even if only half of the player base actually knows she exists, that's half of the player base more than any other Draenei(yes, even Velen :P )
Seriously, not even the game they come from remembers the Draenei are a thing. Or WoW has been actively trying to forget what the people who made TBC shackled them with. Either way really.
I'm sure Draenei are on that list of upcoming heroes somewhere in the "Sigh, yeah, I guess we have to. At some point." section.
Posts
i'd probably give my left ring finger and pinky if they put Saurfang the elder in hots tho
I want my space goats, dammit
Cleaving for days
Given past precedent of the new hero being in literally every single game...nova is just going to have a career day isn't she?
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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In a sea of largely bleh content, Yrel stands out as a pretty well-handled, solid character who actually sort of has a bit of an arc.
Edit: also please let me wield a Two-hander and shield.
Blz, plz.
Plz, Blz.
This is the kind of thing I was talking about. The image of Nova is greater than Nova herself. It's tough to tell how long Azmo's laser would have taken to kill Nova because it increases in damage over time, but its base damage at level 15 would be about 170 dps and at full blast it'd be 340 dps. That means somewhere around 7-8 seconds to burn Nova down I guess? In addition, Nova had to use everything she had in order to do that much damage, including her lethal decoy, which she can't control. If Azmo had been there the decoy could have targeted Azmo instead and Falstad would have survived.
All of that boils down to too much uncertainty for Nova to have a successful strike. Maybe she would have attacked and done some damage, but she wouldn't have closed in the way she did in that video, and she might not have scored a kill.
I totally appreciate how frustrating Nova is, but nobody here is acknowledging her downsides. Remember that this Nova had full stacks (I did the math, she'd need them to down Falstad in one cycle), so she's risking a lot every time she decloaks. She needs to be certain of a kill without dying in return. If Azmo had been there I bet things would have gone a lot differently.
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Depends partially on whether Lunara's AOE poison attack affects a cloaked Nova. If it does, then maybe not. Also she can talent her wisp for reveal. But either way Lunara has the speed to chase down Nova and apply an attack that will keep her decloaked for a while, so I think Nova will need to be cautious around her.
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I mean, it's so bad that even if her passive was active IN COMBAT she'd probably still be a lackluster support. Well until 20 at which point you would probably be OP as shit.
Are you saying Skybound Wisp reveals cloaked units? The wording is kind of vague, I thought "reveals area 4 seconds after dying" just means that the wisp's effect remained active for a bit after it died. And even if it did reveal cloaked, you'd have to wait 45 seconds for it to die or hope the enemy kills it each time, so I doubt it.
At the very least though yeah I'd imagine her AOE reveals nova, and her trait specifically can be talented to keep units revealed whether they're cloaked/in a bush/out of range, as well as crippling spores slowing them down and keeping the dot/reveal up.
In her spotlight, when the wisp does the reveal thing, it looks a lot like the spell effect from Clairvoyance/Peek-a-boo/Foresight, so it might reveal stealth.
I don't think Nova is an issue in terms of game balance- her win rate is hardly spectacular.
I just think she's an issue of fun. After the scaling changes, her ability to one shot back line characters just seems too high. Whilst yes in game terms each team losing a character is an equal trade off, for the person playing the ranged carry she annihilates every time it makes for an incredibly unfun game. It goes back tot he point that ultimately, there are areas of design space that may simply be flawed in terms of an enjoyable experience for other people - Nova and Murky both feel like that.
100% with you there. I feel like, as a character design, Nova needs to be as deadly as she is, but that doesn't mean it's a good character design for the game.
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Trust me when I say I don't even know who she is other than that she exists. (Horde)
But on that, Abominations are an extremely iconic part of Warcraft. You're going to add an Abomination to the game - of course you are - but, who's it going to be? Either Stitches, or Patchwerk. You've got two choices for a very specific entity(distinct from class), and their unique circumstances really don't make them comparable to this situation. You're not going to create a HotS-original character or try to dig up something even more obscure than those two just for the sake of doing it. Stitches is a legendary cornerstone to early WoW to the point of internal meme status - like, as mentioned, Hogger. It's a logical progression even if he's not as a whole important to the story.
However, we get into Paladins, if we're really arguing importance, who are we looking at that's more iconic to the story at large and who are we looking at that's more of a fan favorite than Yrel would be? We've got Uther(already in the game), we've got Turalyon(who has his own storied history), we've got pre-wotlk Bolvar(stretching it), we've got (perhaps most importantly) Tirion Fordring. Are we picking Yrel because she's more important to Warcraft as a whole, or simply because she was the most recent character people got to play alongside in the story?
Tirion had a really nice redemption arc in vanilla that both factions could experience, returned to reinstitute the Silver Hand(one of the most iconic factions in Warcraft's history), and was one of the(if not the) most prominent figures of the WotLK expansion - sumbitch even stole the spotlight from Sylvanas a few times. (esp. the final battle with the Lich King)
While I don't doubt that (from reading Wowwiki) she's a prominent figure for the Alliance story for the expansion, she's too divisive to the player base to really justify getting priority unless they wanted to just pull a Sgt. Hammer. Which could certainly be the case - I mean, what are players going to do about it regardless, grumble on some forums for a week or two and then go back to playing the game? (lel)
Cut and paste to follow
Snuggle up to the warmth of your computer and get ready to fire up Heroes of the Storm, because Winter Veil has arrived to the Nexus! We’ve got a host of festive goodies that you can enjoy this holiday season, but the celebration won’t last forever. Be sure to check out the treats below before Winter Veil concludes on Tuesday, January 12.
New Special Event Quest: 30 Days of Winter Veil
Play 15 Games – Earn a 4 day Stimpack
Play 50 Games – Earn a 10 day Stimpack
Please note: Each game played during Winter Veil will count toward progress for both Special Event Quests.
Festive Treasure Goblin Mount
All players can ride the brand new Festive Treasure Goblin Mount for free during Winter Veil!
This limited-time Mount cannot be purchased, and will only be available during Winter Veil, so be sure to pick it during Hero Select before readying up!
Winter Veil Items in the Shop
Several new Winter Veil skins and bundles, including Sugar Plum Sylvanas and Greatfather Stitches, have arrived to the Shop for a limited time! Check out the Shop section below for details.
As part of our Recruit a Friend celebration, all brand new Heroes, Mounts, Bundles, and Skins introduced with today’s patch will be available at 50% off their normal real-money prices through the end of the year!
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NEW HERO
Lunara, First Daughter of Cenarius, has been added to Heroes of the Storm and is now available for play! Read on for a brief overview of her Abilities.
Mount
Dryad’s Swiftness
Lunara cannot use Mounts. Instead, you move 20% faster by leaping short distances.
Trait
Nature’s Toxin
Your Basic Attacks and damaging Abilities poison the target, dealing damage each second for 3 seconds.
Basic Abilities
Noxious Blossom (Q)
After 0.5 seconds, cause an area to explode with pollen, dealing damage.
Crippling Spores (W)
Enemies currently afflicted by Nature’s Toxin have its duration increased by 3 seconds and are slowed by 40%, decaying over 3 seconds.
Wisp (E)
Spawn a Wisp to scout an area. Can be redirected once active. Lasts 45 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
Thornwood Vine (R)
Send forth vines that deal damage to all enemies in a line. Can hold 3 charges.
Leaping Strike (R)
Leap over an enemy, attacking and slowing the target by 80% for 0.35 seconds. Can hold 2 charges.
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SHOP
As mentioned above, all brand new Heroes, Mounts, Bundles, and Skins introduced with today’s patch will be available at 50% off their normal real-money prices through the end of the year.
Bundles
New Bundles have been added for a limited time!
Winter Veil 2015 Bundle
Winter Veil 2015 Ultimate Bundle
Sentinel Lunara Bundle
Heroes
Lunara has been added to the in-game Shop
Mounts
New Mount
Champion’s Nexagon
Celebrate Cloud9’s victory at BlizzCon 2015 by riding the Champion’s Nexagon, which features the Cloud9 logo and team colors!
This mount can only be purchased with Gold, and is available until February.
Returning Mounts
Reign-Deer – Exclusively available during Winter Veil
Lunar Tiger
Magic Carpet
Mount Removals
Cyber Wolf
Dire Wolf
Tyrael’s Charger
Price Changes
Zagara’s prices have been reduced to 4,000 Gold and $6.49 USD.
Skins
New Skins
Greatfather Winter Stitches – Exclusively available during Winter Veil
Sugar Plum Sylvanas – Exclusively available during Winter Veil
Master Lunara
Sentinel Lunara
Returning Skins
Great-father Winter Rehgar – Exclusively available during Winter Veil
Winter Veil Jaina – Exclusively available during Winter Veil
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USER INTERFACE
In-Game UI
Score Screens
Kills, Deaths, and Assists have been reordered on in-game and end-of-game Score Screens to read as Kills, Assists, and Deaths.
Social Features
The chat system has been redesigned.
Chat channels are now split into collapsible groupings on the right side of the chat panel.
All players who have joined a chat channel are now listed under that channel’s name on the right side of the chat panel, along with their portrait, Battletag, and current status.
Inactive players will now be automatically removed from public chat channels and will rejoin once they become active again.
Chat navigation
The chat panel can be expanded in height using the arrow button found in the upper-right corner.
Players will be notified in the upper-left corner of the chat pane if they have missed any messages from conversations they are not actively viewing.
Players can now quickly view and switch among all chat channels that they are taking part in by clicking the new arrow button in the upper-left corner of the chat panel.
Additionally, players can cycle through the list of chat channels they have open by pressing Ctrl + Tab and Ctrl + Shift + Tab.
Custom Game Lobby Links
Players in Custom Game lobbies can now create a clickable link and share it in chat channels to allow others to join the lobby.
Create a link to a Custom Game lobby by typing the following (without quotes) into any chat channel: “[lobby]”
Players may also send a message along with their lobby links by typing “/lobbylink” followed by their desired text
Loading Screens
Portrait Border Display
Loading Screens will now only display portrait borders that are relevant to each play mode. Each loading screen will display portrait borders as follows:
Quick Match, Custom Games, and Versus A.I. - Basic border and account level.
Hero League - Hero League rank.
Team League - Team League rank.
Party Indicator Icons
New Loading Screen icons have been added to indicate which players queued together as a party.
Players in the same party will appear next to each other on loading screens.
Parties will be separated by icon color so that it is easier to see how many parties there are, and how many players are in each.
Looking for Party Changes
The Looking for Party feature on the Home screen has been renamed to Party Finder.
The Party Finder will now display any friends who are online in addition to players who are looking to join a party.
Friends who are online but not yet looking for a party will be listed as “online” or “in a party”. When they are looking for a party or looking for more, the text will update appropriately.
Hovering the cursor over player portraits in the looking for party list will now display a tooltip that indicates which chat channel you have in common.
Looking for Party has been added to the Friends list.
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Matchmaking
A new Warrior rule has been added to Quick Match that now prevents teams that do not have a Warrior hero from being matched with teams that do have a Warrior.
A.I. Improvements
General
AI players will now move more efficiently on offense and retreat.
Slight improvements have been made to the way that AI players will perform several map objectives.
Difficulty-Specific Improvements
Adept AI will now choose Talents from pre-defined Talent builds, much like Veteran and Elite AI do already.
Elite AI will now focus their attacks on low Health enemies and chase more often.
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HEROES
TASSADAR
Plasma Shield (Q)
Can now be cast on allies located in the Hall of Storms
ARTANIS
Basic Attack range increased by 25%
Phase Prism (E)
Range and speed have each been increased by 15%
Developer Comments: Artanis was having a harder time sticking to opponents than we’d like. This was hurting his ability to disrupt the enemy team and his ability to survive. We feel that a slight increase to his base kit will help alleviate this issue, while maintaining a lot of the playstyle (and counterplay) that we currently enjoy. The increased range on Phase Prism and his Basic Attacks should help him feel better to play, and help him more successfully fulfill his aggressive Warrior role. These changes are intentionally slight, as we feel Artanis is very close to being extremely powerful in today’s game.
CHO
Basic Attack damage increased from 110 to 120
Base Health increased from 3360 to 3528
Base Health Regeneration increased from 7 to 7.35 per second
Developer Comments: Cho’gall’s win rate has been trending up since his release, but it is still a bit lower than we’d like. We have plans to improve Cho’gall with Talent changes in the future, but we wanted to give him a small buff before then.
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BUG FIXES
Heroes and Talents
Azmodan’s Globe of Annihilation will now deal the correct amount of damage while under the effects of Black Pool and the Taste for Blood Talent.
This fix will also resolve incorrect damage amounts for similar Talent interactions, such as Muradin’s Storm Bolt with the Sledgehammer and Perfect Storm Talents, as well as Falstad’s Gathering Storm and Overdrive Talents.
Fixed an issue that could cause Leoric’s Drain Hope to end prematurely.
Fixed several situations in which summoned units could return directly to lane rather than continuing to attack nearby enemies while capturing a Mercenary Camp.
Tychus’ Hero model will no longer disappear after capturing a Fort on the Towers of Doom Battleground.
Artanis’ Purifier Beam will no longer track Murky back to his Egg if Murky was killed just as the Ability was cast.
Fixed an issue that could cause Brightwing’s Phase Shield to be applied to Cho’gall inconsistently.
Diagonally placed Shrubs will no longer sometimes fail to properly hide a Hero within.
Fixed an issue which could allow Cho’gall to regenerate Health after using Consuming Blaze on certain destructible objects.
Punishers on the Infernal Shrines Battleground will no longer fly outside the playable area after leaping into Zeratul’s Void Prison.
User Interface
Allied Minion status bars will no longer appear green when they are missing Health.
Resolved some cases in which Hero League games could incorrectly flag players to receive leaver penalties.
Pressing the Enter key while casting certain Abilities will no longer cause the key to behave as though it is stuck.
Excited to try them out
Yes
But I really hope that the inclusion of the "Warrior Rule" to their matchmaking is not the improved matchmaker that the prophets have foretold.
I'm concerned that the people that don't care won't notice and the people that really care about it won't think it goes far enough.
This isn't directed at you Lucascraft, you comment just got me thinking about it though.
I am a little concerned about the artanis buffs since I felt prism was pretty strong to begin with. Will be interesting to see how it works out.
Unfortunate that there aren't more changes. A lot of heroes need a substantial amount of help.
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For example, they said that at some point in the future they will be switching to an MMR on a per hero basis. I'm not sure how that will be possible in HL/TL since your hero selection happens after the match has already been made. But they said they were doing that at Blizzcon.
I think a per hero MMR is a good idea conceptually.
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Also, when the game has a character who has never been in a warcraft game, there is seriously no such thing as "not prominent enough." If they need a Warcraft warrior, she's a great choice.
Fun fun fun tonight!
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The only thing that would really prepare you slightly for what you are facing in QM would be the hero level of the current character they are playing. Then you could see how often you are facing someone just trying to hit level 5 or possibly even just trying to do a quest. It is much more likely to know someone is serious in QM if you see hero level 10+ than if you just see rank 1.
Not iconic enough compared to her peers, I'm not sure how that wasn't clear. She's not more iconic to the game as a ret paladin than Tirion(as an example, albeit the most noteworthy one), so I don't believe she should win out given the choice between the two. She merely has the advantage of being fresher in peoples' minds(which may influence the decision, I will admit). When she has the advantage of having purified the tainted history of the Ashbringer and wielding it to shatter Frostmourne, I'd consider it more.
Now, I say this with the condition only of a "first choice" scenario. As more and more heroes are added, I certainly don't rule out the prospect of both of them being added along the line.
And if you're referring to Rehgar, there aren't really any noteworthy resto shaman characters in Warcraft in general. Drek'Thar and Thrall are both considered Enhance/Far Seer, but Drek takes backseat to Thrall because obviously. Rehgar also has the benefit of being tied to product placement, which probably helped.
It's just fanwanking right now, neither Tirion or Yrel are even remotely hinted yet(WTB Ashbringer). More likely what will happen is the list of already-datamined heroes will start to run out before we begin to hear anything.
Vol'Jin and Zul'Jin have been in the game data to varying extents since early 2014. Trolls be needin' to be in da game already.
Yrel also has the advantage of being a Draenei in a game that currently features no Draenei but a BUTTLOAD of humans :P Including one that already kind of looks a little like Tirion (aka Uther) :P
That both have the tier 1 paladin armor as their iconic look really does not help differentiate them.
Anyone whose iconic look is the pvp Alliance plate set also could be hard to distinguish though Bolvar at least uses a sword and shield instead of a two handed weapon like both Uther and Tirion.
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Damn affirmative action. :P
Tirion actually has a very distinctive look as of WotLK, I don't think that would be a problem.
That is a good point though, Draenei are poorly represented at best even within Warcraft - at least outside of the Eredar. Even if only half of the player base actually knows she exists, that's half of the player base more than any other Draenei(yes, even Velen :P )
I'm sure Draenei are on that list of upcoming heroes somewhere in the "Sigh, yeah, I guess we have to. At some point." section.