Blizzard continues to outdo themselves! The PTR servers are live, bringing the newest assassin Ragnaros, but even bigger: reworks for Haunted Mines, Dehaka , Artanis, Diablo, and much more!
There’s a lot of great new things headed to the Nexus! Let’s highlight some of the big changes you can expect to go live next week. You can read the full patch notes here.
NEW HERO: RAGNAROS
A new assassin is on his way to the Nexus. Ragnaros, lord of Azeroth’s fire elementals, is on the PTR for testing now. Suffice to say, it’s hard to imagine these abilities NOT shaking up the meta. You can see all the detail of his kit here.
Trait: Molten Core (D) - Channel on an Allied or destroyed Fort or Keep to replace it with Ragnaros’ Ultimate Form, temporarily gaining new Abilities, and a significant amount of Health that burns away over 18 seconds.
Empower Sulfuras (Q) - Ragnaros’ next Basic Attack is instant, dealing Ability Damage in an area around the target, and healing Ragnaros for 20% of the damage dealt. Healing is doubled for damage dealt to Heroes.
Living Meteor (W) - Summon a meteor at the target point that deals damage on impact, and then rolls in the target direction and deals additional damage every second for 1.75 seconds.
Blast Wave (E) - Ignite Ragnaros or a target Ally, granting 25% bonus Movement Speed for 1.5 seconds before exploding, dealing damage to nearby enemies.
Sulfuras Smash (R) - Hurl Sulfuras at the target area, landing after 0.75 seconds and dealing damage to enemies hit. Enemies caught in the center of the impact area take triple damage and are Stunned for 0.5 seconds.
Lava Wave (R) - Release a wave of lava from the allied Core that travels down the target lane, dealing massive damage every second to non-Structure enemies and instantly killing enemy Minions in its path. Damage doubled versus enemy Heroes.
HAUNTED MINES REWORK
We’ve been without Haunted Mines for quite some time. Many players will have some nostalgia for the underground split level, or the horrible snowball death-push a few minutes in. Either way, it sounds like Blizzard has kept all the style while balancing out what made Haunted Mines so horrible to play on.
- Grave Golems now switch lanes each time they are summoned.
- The layout of the Underground has been reworked, with the neutral Grave Golem found at its center.
- The upper level’s center area has been reworked.
- Two additional mine entrances have been placed.
- A Mercenary Camp has been placed near each Mine Entrance, featuring Siege Giants at the East and West Entrances, and Sappers in the North and South.
REHGAR REWORK
Will there be a new support in town? It’s hard to tell with so much happening at once but these Rehgar changes just might inspire some new picks and some new plays!
- Increased Basic Attack damage from 99 to 120.
- Lightning Shield (W) - Increased damage from 64 to 70 per second.
- Bloodlust (R) - All affected allies now heal for 30% of Basic Attack damage dealt during Bloodlust!
ARTANIS REWORK
These PTR changes seem to make Artanis a lot more flashy, with bruising abilities getting buffs and tanking skills getting slight nerfs. We will have to see what all our Artanis fanatics have to say very soon.
- Blade Dash (Q) - Now reduces the cooldown of Shield Overload by 1 second per enemy hit, and 2 seconds per Hero hit.
- Twin Blades (W) - Charge range is now checked against the edge of target units, instead of their center. This increases the effective range of Twin Blades and should generally create more consistent behavior.
- Phase Prism (E) - Now lets you cast Phase Prism during Blade Dash! Also, the cooldown increased from 14 to 16 seconds
- Shield Overload (Trait) - Cooldown increased from 20 to 24 seconds, with the activation threshold increasing from 50 to 75% Health. Shield value reduced from 449 to 360.
Developer Comments: The goals with this Artanis update were twofold: Increase his playmaking and increase his solo lane capabilities. We think that with these changes, Artanis will be a strong choice on a lot more Battlegrounds and with more team compositions.
DEHAKA REWORK
Seasoned Dehaka fans may not rejoice at all these changes at first. We see things like being able to move while burrowed and extra healing from Adaptation, but we also see Brushstalker cooldown time increased.
Brushstalker (Trait) - Cooldown increased from 40 to 50 seconds, but Dehaka also gains 15% Movement Speed while in a Bush and for 1 second after exiting a Bush.
Burrow (E) - Burrow can now be canceled early by pressing the hotkey again.
Adaptation (R) - Heal amount increased from 60 to 100% of incoming damage.
Developer Comments: We started doing some small changes to Dehaka’s talent tree in order to increase diversity and fix some talent pick issues. Base movement speed on Brushstalker helps meld his design while some brand new talents should open up some fun new ways to hunt your prey.
DIABLO REWORK
The Diablo changes look interesting, for sure. With things like Fire Stomp now including Firestorm and Shadow Charge getting Resistance baked in, we may have a whole new Diablo coming to the Nexus. By the looks of it, Diablo can decide where fights happen and displace everything around him.
Shadow Charge (Q) - Base damage from 94 to 75 and Diablo gains 25% resistance for 2 seconds after charging. If Diablo’s target collides with terrain they take an additional 150 damage!
Fire Stomp (W) - Base damage from 106 to 60 with fireballs returning to Diablo, dealing 90 damage.
Black Soulstone (Trait) - Bonus max Health per Soulstone stack from .2 to .4% with new talents that give Resistance for each Black Soulstone stack Diablo has.
Developer Comments: Diablo reenters the Nexus with an updated talent tree focusing on maintaining and amplifying his identity. He should still excel as a gank-oriented Warrior, punishing out-of-position enemies, but also brings along some new survivability options. While we had to lower his damage slightly, the baseline addition of Firestorm and larger payoff for Shadow Charging enemies into collision should heavily reward opportunistic Diablo players.
CHROMIE CHANGES
Chromie also had some slight changes, such as gaining talents 2 levels sooner, instead of 1. She also gets reveal with Timewalker’s Pursuit at level 1. This could be big.
Timewalker (Trait) - Increased the level reduction for getting Talents from 1 to 2 levels
KAEL'THAS CHANGES
Pyroblast just got a little better.
Pyroblast (R) - Cast time reduced from 2 to 1.5 seconds and its cast range increased by roughly 30%
Leaver penalties to bring drafting justice!
The community has been up in arms about this for a while now. Many people on the right side of this argument will rejoice as this enforcement and penalty system enforces healthy play, both before and during the match. This just might affect the meta as well, seeing that so much is decided at the draft and people can no longer cheat their way out of their team’s drafting mistakes.
- Much like Hero League, players who repeatedly leave Unranked Draft and Team League games or draft lobbies will now be flagged to receive leaver penalties.
- Players with active penalties for leaving games can no longer queue for Unranked Draft or Team League games.
Odds and Ends!
There are a lot of minor changes also coming to The Nexus this patch.
- New Mounts - 2016 Fall Champion’s Mount.
- MVP and Commendations polish. Skip the MVP screen, finally!
- Brawl Healing Fountains will now be Invulnerable. No more "snipingthe fountain" cheese.
- Warhead Junction nukes scale as you would expect. No more nuke damage spike!
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