A while ago, Rehgar wasn't doing so well and was rarely picked. Then Blizzard reworked him, and he became a living god of supports. Has Blizzard gone too far with the latest PTR patch notes for Malfurion?
It's been a very long time since Malfurion has been relevant in competitive play, or even in HL for that matter. So clearly some buffs and balance changes were warranted for him. But he did not have a winrate equal to Chromie on release, yet Blizzard treated him as if he did. Let's take a look at what the changes were and why it might be too much.
The New Innervate
In addition to its current effect, Innervate now increases the recipient's cooldown reduction on abilities by 50% while Innervate is active on the target. This means that it now has real value in combat, as the recipient will have their abilities come off cooldown up to 2.5 seconds sooner. The full ramifications of this change are discussed in this article, which theorycrafts about which heroes could benefit the most from this change. Considering that Innervate can have its own cooldown reduced by talents, it is hard to underestimate just how big a buff this is for Malfurion. And we're just getting started.
Regrowth gets a massive buff
One of Malfurion's biggest problems was that Regrowth cost way too much mana and its cooldown was too long for Malfurion to really have Regrowths rolling on multiple targets, which was the initial intent of Malfurion's design. By reducing its mana cost to 35 from 60, and increasing its duration to 15 seconds from 10 seconds, Blizzard took a massive step toward solving Malfurion's healing output issues. Obviously this meant that the numbers were tweaked, and that means that the periodic heal has been reduced by about 20%.
Free Level 7 talent
The changes to Regrowth meant that Enduring Regrowth wasn't necessary anymore, so the talent was removed. Since that was pretty much an auto-pick talent for Malfurions everywhere, Malfurion got a somewhat nerfed version of Enduring Regrowth for free. This means he can pick Cleanse without sacrificing a huge amount of healing power for it, which is a massive buff. The sudden rise of Sgt. Hammer from forgotten to viable meta pick after Maelstrom Rounds became baseline testifies to that.
What's a 0.25 second delay difference mean?
It wouldn't be surprising if the change to Entangling Roots got lost in the shuffle, especially since everyone will be talking about the Innervate and Regrowth buffs. But having only a 0.25 second delay before activating, as opposed to the 0.5 second delay it has right now, is an absolutely massive buff. This makes Roots a crowd control that can be used to initiate on enemy heroes, as opposed to the follow up cc that it is now.
The Bottom line
Any one of these changes alone represents a massive step in the right direction for Malfurion in Heroes of the Storm, as they significantly address some of his biggest weaknesses and greatly increase his utility. All three changes together is just straight up overkill. I'm afraid that Malfurion still won't see any play in Hero League or competitive - not because he's not viable now but because he'll be always banned or insta-picked if he's not banned.
After this rework, his only weakness will be burst healing - he will now have reliable AoE CC on demand with strong damage potential, will provide free mana and cooldown reductions to an ally of his choice, and heal multiple allies with ease. Plus, the new Malfurion plays well with a 2nd support, so the problem of burst healing can be mitigated, too. He kind of reminds me of his wife Tyrande, back when she was a dominant force.
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