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Heroes8 years agoGosu "GosuGamers" Gamers

Leoric and Medivh made stronger while Anub'arak feels the pinch of a nerf.


Leoric used to be a dominant force in Heroes of the Storm, but the last series of patch updates have left him in the halls of hero pick obscurity. Can these upcoming changes be a hint for more?

 Official Patch notes: 

When Leoric was first released, he was "release Kael'thas" levels of powerful. He routinely 2 vs. 1'd enemy heroes and his ability to clear waves, infinitley siege buidings and unkillable nature made him every hard to play against. What followed was inevitable-- nerf after nerf.

As the Skeleton King grew out of favor, new heroes joined the Nexus and most people stopped playing as Leoric. If you are one of the select few that stuck around with Leoric than you are in luck. He's finally been buffed:

Abilities

  • Drain Hope (W)
    • Damage has been increased from 20% to 25% of target's maximum Health
    • Healing has been increased from 20% to 25% of Leoric's maximum Health
    • Healing in Undying form increased from 10% to 12.5% of Leoric's maximum Health

Level 4

  • Willing Vessel (W)
    • Healing increased from 25% to 30% of Leoric's maximum Health
    • Healing in Undying form increased from 12.5% to 15% of Leoric's maximum Health
       

Base improvements to already strong abilities are the best type of improvements a weak character can get. Skeletal Swing is usually the first suggestion people have to helping out Leoric, but Blizzard has insteaded focused on Leoric's survivability and percentage damage potential with Drain Hope. In a meta where Muradin and E.T.C are king, a stronger Drain Hope may be just what Leoric needed to start sharing the tournament glory again.

Other than Leoric (and a very small nerf to Anub'arak's base HP) Medivh has the longest list of changes. Over all, the developers sought to make Medivh less dependent on his team and able to do more things on his own. Buffs to the base damage of his Arcane Rift and Basic Attack will go a long way to making Medivh feel more independent:

Stats

  • Basic Attack damage increased from 65 to 80
  • Attacks per second increased from 1.0 to 1.11
     

Abilities

  • Raven Form (D)
    • Movement Speed bonus increased from 15% to 20%
  • Arcane Rift (Q)
    • Mana cost reduced from 60 to 50
    • Cast delay decreased from .15 to .06 seconds
    • Base Damage increased from 182 to 200
    • Mana refund from hitting a Hero increased from 30 to 50
       

(see patch notes for full list of changes)

Developer Comments:

 While we are still excitedly waiting to see what competitive teams will be able to do with this unique Hero, we have gathered enough data to see that Medivh could benefit from some strategic buffs. We realize Medivh’s success is typically reliant on how much the rest of his team capitalizes on his abilities - so we have given him a bit more baseline power, which we hope will allow him to make a greater individual impact on a game’s outcome.

With Medivh and Leoric buffs that tempt us to try and play him again, this balance update is pretty small considering if a new hero doesn't come next Tuesday then Blizzard will have broken their 2-3 week release window they've kept for over a year now.

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