A summoner of the undead joins the game, along with BARK nerfs

Leoric won’t be the only master of the undead in the game, fans got a closer look at Xul's talent options, along with a balance changes incoming.

In a recent interview from Blizzard game designer, Jade Martin, fans got a little deeper look at his basic abilities, along with talent tier.

Some notable ones include:
 

• All LVL 1 talents are activated abilities related to Bone Armor, either effects after activating, or effects after expiring.
   
• LVL 7 talents are more focused on healing abilities, healing for each enemy Hero hit or gaining health when a skeleton is summoned.
   
• His summoned warriors at LVL 13 can be given “Corpse Explosion”, causing them to explode on death dealing double damage to non-heroic enemies, which will prove extremely useful when pushing for late game XP.
   
• LVL 20 has two of the most interesting Storm talent choices, Raised Mage and Bone Spear. Raised Mage will cause a Frost Mage to rise after a nearby enemy Hero that dies. Could be a huge advantage turning team fights completely around just after one enemy Hero death.
   
• Bone Spear can also be a game changer, another activating ability, damaging enemies in a line, would actually make a specialist viable on a team fight.

Xul is the first specialist (although could be seen as more of a bruiser) released in a while. With his versatile abilities and talents he could bring the class back to glory. 

Along with Xul will be another balance change in this update.

Developers are STILL working on Nova even after the complete rework and the latest patch with her. In this patch, Snipe damage gets an increase, and an increase to her stacks.

We are continuing to tune Snipe Master to make it a more attractive choice, assuming you are consistently landing your Snipes.”

The church of Rehgar has been holy ground for a lot of support players lately, being the most contested, banned, and first-picked since the last February Balance Update. Developers are realizing this.

The initial round of Rehgar nerfs weren’t quite enough to bring his win rate down to a level that we think is healthy. We like that his base kit feels powerful, so we are aiming to reduce the synergy between his Lightning Shield Talents.”

While Lightning Shield is getting some nerfs, Bloodlust is getting a mana cost reduction from 125 to 75 as “simply a quality of life improvement”.

The Hero and Balance Patch comes just days before the European Spring Regional in Katowice on Saturday.

While the Nova patch most likely won’t affect anything, and we won’t be seeing Xul get any action (new heroes are usually banned from major events two weeks after their release), the Rehgar change will affect teams the most. Thankfully they still have over a week to adjust.

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