Orphea Struck By Nerf Bat Prior to Release
by JR Cook - 6 years ago show comments
The Blizzard Gear panel at Blizzcon included the announcement of several new Blizzard-themed Nerf products. One item that was not mentioned was the Nerf Bat but we know that it exists because Orphea was hit with it today.
Orphea, the first Hero inspired by the lore of the Nexus, looked as if she was going to make a very strong debut based on impressions of how she played at Blizzcon and on the PTR. The recent trend has been for Heroes to have fairly high win rates upon release before eventually being tuned down so this wasn’t a huge surprise. Even with this trend, the Dev Team was apparently concerned that Orphea was still too powerful because she was released along with several fairly large nerfs.
You can see the full changes in the Patch Notes below here is the TLDR version. Her Health and Health Regen were both reduced. Shadow Waltz, her Q ability, had it’s cooldown and mana cost increased and it’s mana refund on hit reduced. The damage bonus of her Level 7 Ravenous Hunger talent was reduced as was the Spell Power bonus of her Level 20 Eldritch Conduit talent. I still wouldn’t be surprised to see her initial win-rate above 50% but who knows? With everyone who attended Blizzcon or purchased a Virtual Ticket receiving Orphea for free, there will be a wide range of skill levels trying her out. Expect to see Orphea is almost every game this week, and with so many players eager to try her out I would also expect a fair amount of mirror matches. Orphea combos well with Heroes who have good crowd control. She is also countered by Heroes with good crowd control so plan accordingly if you venture into Quick Match.
Speaking of Orphea, Twitch Drops have returned along with new Orphea inspired rewards. This three-week promotion, which is live now, will reward players with loot for watching four hours of Heroes of the Storm on Twitch each week. The Week 1 reward is a Chomp emoji pack, the Week 2 reward is a Baby Chomp portrait, and the Week 3 reward is a Chomp spray. You can learn more about this promotion, including how to link your Battlenet and Twitch accounts, in this blog post.
Also in this patch is the conversion of Stimpacks to Boosts that was mentioned at Blizzcon. Having an active Boost will still provide the player with all of the same benefits of increased XP and Gold that having an active Stimpack used to grant. The big change is that now Boosts will also provide 5% bonus XP to the other players in the game as well. This bonus stacks, up to 45%, so if every other player in your game has an active Boost you will receive a 45% XP bonus. This is in addition to the XP bonus provided by your own Boost if you have one active.
Other changes in this patch include Spell Power modifiers to several Heroes and abilities, an art update for Dragon Shire, and a minor Gul’dan buff. One thing that sadly seems to be missing is the Janitor Leoric skin. Expect this to be released during the upcoming Raven Crest High School themed event.
Continue scrolling down to read the full patch notes.
HEROES OF THE STORM PATCH NOTES – NOVEMBER 13, 2018
Our newest patch, featuring Orphea, is now live! Read on for a detailed breakdown of what’s new in the Nexus.
NOTE: Orange text indicates a change between the PTR and Live notes.
Quick Navigation:
General
- Boost
- What was once called a Stimpack is now a Boost, and in addition to buffing your own experience and Gold gains at the end of a match, all players will receive 5% bump in experience for each player in their match who had an active Boost. That mean players can receive up to a 45% XP bonus if all 10 players in game have a Boost active!
- In addition to stacking Boost XP buffs, you’ll now be able to retroactively Boost your Gold and XP gains at the end of a match by applying a Boost from the Score Screen.
Design
- Channeled Healing Abilities
- Alextrasza’s Lifebinder (R) and Rehgar’s Ancestral Healing (R) abilities are no longer cancelled under any conditions other than enemy abilities that remove the target from play (Devouring Maw, Gorge, Cocoon.)
- Spell Power Modifiers
- The following abilities and talents have been updated to have any percentage-based spell power modifiers stack additively when calculating damage: (This is the default behavior for all other abilities and talents unless otherwise stated in the tooltip)
- Zul’jin’s Buzzsaw (R) talent
- Hanzo’s Dragonstrike (R) center damage effect
- Gul’dan’s Rampant Hellfire (W) talent
- The following abilities have had their tooltips updated to reflect that percentage-based spell power modifiers will stackmultiplicatively when calculating damage:
- Kael’thas’ Phoenix (R) ability
- Nazeebo’s Vile Infection (Passive) talent
- Li Li’s Lightning Serpent (W) talent
- Li-Ming’s Arcane Orbit (W) talent
- The following abilities and talents have been updated to have any percentage-based spell power modifiers stack additively when calculating damage: (This is the default behavior for all other abilities and talents unless otherwise stated in the tooltip)
Battlegrounds
- Experience gains from Mercenary Camp captures have been unified. All Mercenary Camps now grant all Experience on capture.
- Dragon Shire:
- Dragon Shire has received updated Battleground art (including an updated Dragon Knight)
New Hero: Orphea (Assassin)
Rejecting the dark power her father had begun to consort with, Orphea tried to run away from the Raven Lord’s influence. But after witnessing King’s Crest fall to his machinations, she was convinced she needed to stand and fight. She now vows to protect the innocent – as a Hero of the Nexus.
Trait
- Overflowing Chaos (Trait)
- Hitting an enemy Hero with a Basic Ability grants 1 Chaos. Chaos can stack up to 3 times.
- While Orphea has Chaos, her Basic Attacks against Heroes consumes all Chaos, dealing 50% increased damage per stack, and healing for 100% of the damage dealt.
Basic Abilities
- Shadow Waltz (Q)
- After 0.5 seconds, deal 150 damage to enemies in a line.
- Hitting a Hero with Shadow Waltz sets its cooldown to 2 seconds and causes Orphea to dash a short distance upon moving.
- Chomp (W)
- After 0.6 seconds, deal 285 damage to nearby enemies in front of Orphea.
- Dread (E)
- Release a wave of dread that deals 85 damage to enemies hit.
- Dread erupts 0.75 seconds after reaching the end of its path, dealing 175 damage and Slowing enemies in the area by 25% for 2 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
- Eternal Feast (R)
- After 1.5 seconds, deal 210 damage in an area.
- Eternal Feast repeats every 1 second as long as it hits an enemy Hero.
- Crushing Jaws (R)
- After 1.25 seconds, pulls enemies in an area towards the center, dealing 275 damage and Stunning them for 0.75 seconds.
User Interface
- Additional space for Heroes has been added to the Hero select screen.
- Battlegrounds with mechanics that add additional (default hotkey: F) buttons (Warhead Junction, Snow Brawl, etc.) have had the appearances of their panels unified.
- A new “Bundles” page has been added to the Collection tab.
Heroes
| ASSASSIN |
|---|
| Gul’dan |
| Orphea |
Assassin
Gul’dan
- Level 16
- Rampant Hellfire (W)
- Damage bonus increased from 8 to 10%
- Rampant Hellfire (W)
Orphea
Stats
- Maximum Base Health reduced from 1750 to 1662
- Health Regen reduced from 4.09 to 3.46
Abilities
- Shadow Waltz (Q)
- Base cooldown increased from 5 to 6 seconds
- Mana cost increased from 25 to 40
- Mana refund on hit increased from 25 to 40
Talents
- Level 7
- Ravenous Hunger (W)
- Damage per Minion kill reduced from 3 to 2
- Damage per Hero kill reduced from 60 to 40
- Ravenous Hunger (W)
- Level 20
- Eldritch Conduit (Trait)
- Spell Power per stack reduced from 5 to 3%
- Spell power max stack bonus reduced from 50 to 30%
- Eldritch Conduit (Trait)
Collection
- The following new bundles are only available for a limited time!
- Orphea Heroic Bundle
- The following bundles have been added to the collection:
- Welcome to the Nexus Bundle
- Heroic Reinforcement Bundle
- Orphea
- Ka
- Neithis
- Raven Runner
- Haunted Raven Runner
- Bloodmoon Raven Runner
- Orphea
- Hallowed Orphea
- Verdant Orphea
- Slacker Orphea
- RCHS Slacker Orphea
- Spoiled Slacker Orphea
- Several new emoji packs, sprays, and portraits have also been added to the game.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue that caused some Shielding and Healing values to track improperly on the score/stats screen.
- Fixed an issue allowing some summoned units to grant vision of Heroes inside brush if placed at the edge of the brush.
- Fixed an issue causing new item counts to appear over the wrong category.
- Fixed an issue causing some spell effects associated with taunt animations to appear after the animation was canceled.
- Whitemane: Fixed an issue causing Witch Whitemane’s custom mount animation to cease playing after she died once in a match.
- Fixed a number of tooltip issues and inaccuracies across the game.
- Fixed an issue with the Boost button being one pixel lower than the adjacent end-of-match buttons.
- We gathered the team, pooled resources, and after a lot of squinting at our monitors and a brief search for a magnifying glass, we’ve located the issue and boosted up the boost button to be in line with its neighbors. Thanks for paying such close attention!
- Kerrigan: Fixed an issue that disabled Health and Mana regeneration during Chrysalis.
- Stukov: Fixed an issue preventing Lurking Arm from revealing damaged targets if they were at the edge of its area of effect.
- Tyrande: Fixed an issue preventing Elune’s Chosen from healing allies if damage was dealt to Shielded/Protected targets.
