by JR Cook - 4 months ago     show comments

The latest Heroes of the Storm PTR patch is now live for testing, and it’s bringing some changes that should shake up the meta in interesting ways. Haunted Mines is officially coming to ranked play (your mileage on that one may vary), and Storm League is finally letting you queue with unplaced players, which should make it easier to play with friends who are just getting into the game.

The patch also delivers substantial hero updates across the board. Abathur’s getting a complete rework of his Locust mechanic with self-healing and reduced base health, Alexstrasza’s Dragonqueen talents now universally apply to both her forms (which is huge for build diversity), and Chromie’s Time Trap is getting a health nerf that should make it less oppressive in lane.

Map Changes and Quality of Life

On the map front, Hanamura gets additional brush in several locations (always welcome for more playmaking opportunities), and Warhead Junction’s channel interrupt penalty drops from 10 seconds to 5 seconds. That’s a big quality of life change that should make contesting warheads feel less punishing when you get poked off the channel.

Storm League’s new party flexibility is worth highlighting again. Being able to queue with unplaced players removes one of the more annoying restrictions that made it hard to introduce new players to ranked. It’s a small change that should have outsized impact on the social side of the game.

Major Hero Balance Overhaul

The balance section is extensive, touching everyone from Abathur to Genji. Abathur’s Locust spawn is now heal-focused (20% lifesteal on damage, plus 20% max health healing when nearby minions die), but the base health drops from 350 to 225, making them much more fragile. Locust Brood moves from Level 16 down to Level 1, though the cooldown increases from 45 to 75 seconds. The new Level 4 talent Slapathur makes Abathur’s basic attacks stun non-heroes and deal 500% bonus damage, which sounds hilarious for body soaking.

Alexstrasza’s changes are all about unifying her talent tree. Every talent that affects Gift of Life now also applies to Breath of Life in dragon form, and Abundance talents work with Preservation. This should open up way more viable builds since you’re not sacrificing dragon form power when you talent into human form abilities. The tradeoff is that Breath of Life healing drops from 20% to 15%, and Preservation goes from 30% to 25%. Her Dragonqueen cooldown also shifts to start after expiration (down to 130 seconds from 150), which actually makes the ability more predictable to play around.

Cho’gall gets some love with Calloused Hide’s trigger threshold dropping from 60% to 40% health, making the armor easier to access in fights. Gall’s Rising Dread gets toned down (25% to 20% bonus per bounce), but Bomb’s Away loses its stack cap entirely while the per-stack damage drops from 5 to 4. That’s a net win for anyone who likes stacking quests.

Chromie’s getting transparency updates and nerfs. Dragon’s Breath now shows its radius preview to enemies (no more surprise nukes from fog), and Time Trap health drops from 400 to 250. Her Level 1 quest Once Again The First Time cuts the requirement from 40 to 20 stacks but now requires completion without dying, which is a much harder condition. Deep Breathing loses its damage cap but the per-stack bonus gets cut in half (1% to 0.5%).

Diablo gets some love with Shadow Charge and Overpower damage increases, though Fire Stomp takes a small hit. The Level 7 talent Diabolical Momentum gets buffed (1.5 to 2 seconds CDR per basic attack), and his Level 20 talents all get meaningful buffs. Dying Breath goes from 25 to 30 seconds CDR per hero hit, and Lord of Terror’s health steal increases from 10% to 12%.

Genji’s getting quality of life buffs across multiple talent tiers. Swift as the Wind goes from 30% to 40% movement speed, Perfect Defense’s CDR per hit increases from 2 to 2.5 seconds, and Flow Like Water jumps from 3 to 4 seconds CDR per hit. These aren’t meta-defining changes, but they should make his talent tree feel more impactful.

If you’re jumping into PTR testing, the usual reminder applies: report bugs in the PTR Bug Report forum so the team can squash them before this hits live. The patch note text cuts off partway through Genji’s Level 16 talents, but that’s likely just a formatting issue on the source page.

For anyone planning marathon PTR sessions (or grinding ranked when this goes live), a quality headset makes a real difference in catching audio cues. The SteelSeries Arctis Nova 5 delivers clean audio without breaking the bank, while the HyperX Cloud III Wireless is great if you want wireless freedom during long sessions.

Source: BlueTracker HotS