Balance Blog: Patch v1.72 - v1.73

[RedHydra]

A lot of changes have been done within these two patches. Without any real explanation, many of you have been worried about the direction we’re taking with the game. When it comes to balance, always keep in mind that we’re doing our best to make everything viable as much as possible, especially for the inhouse community. Here I’ll be explaining some the changes that many of you have been concerned about.

 

Assist is Back: As most of you know, the objective is to encourage players to play different roles other than DPS without needing to worry about their score. Taking away Assist was one way, but it confused the progression. We brought it back in a short time but in a different order to make Assists feel equivalent to Kills (Kill/Assist/Death).

 

Hang of Mengsk: Taking a look back, 8% was potentially game-breaking. It reminded us the days when Masamune was around, which was much powerful back then. The change in 1.73 is a reversion (with a slight buff), meaning it’s a quick fix that will be looked back again.

 

Resizing Heroes: It didn’t feel right to see Heroes being the same size as a zealot creep, so we decided to make them feel more superior by adjusting their size. Most of them were resized well, but there were a few that went over the top. Some adjustments were made as a result.

 

Arcbound Ravager: Changing the Unique on Arcbound was the right direction to us. Arcbound gave good Move Speed and Crit, but it greatly relied on other items to become potential. Adding bonus Weapon Damage was our fix to resolve that issue.

 

Respawn Timer: From time to time, I received suggestions about Respawn Timer needing to be a little longer mainly for two reasons: Suicide split-pushing felt too effective since revive is 60 seconds or less, and Heroes generally had a difficult time pushing after a team battle, resulting in longer games. This is probably one of the toughest changes we made since it severely affects everyone’s gameplay.

 

Tassadar: Tass is a difficult Hero to play, but he offered so much power. This was especially shown in the last tournament, SLP Masters. While providing moderate DPS, he was able to absorb a lot of damage, which was almost equivalent to any other tank. We did give Tass the choice to be tanky by stacking INT, but that appeared to be too much, so we lowered the scaling to 50% from 80. At the same time, his Ultimate has been refined to make more sense. Instead of 6/9/12u, we gave it 7/10/13. The early level feels much better to use.

 

 

Here are the Heroes we’ll be potentially changing for the next update:

 

- Balrog

- Biotron

- Shadow

- Tosh

- Zyrkhan

 

 

I hope this helps you understand why these changes were made. As always, your feedback is greatly appreciate, and will continue to help us improving Aeon of Storms.

[Destroyer]

A post like this would help with every largish patch. It would help stop a lot of the complaining.

[MOTHER]

Re Assists: They never will be equivalent because the overall game does not favor support roles. The scoreboard is really the tip of the iceberg, there are a lot of elements at play that simply motivate the use of DPS heroes over supports and it would be naive to assume that re-arranging 3 words on a scoreboard will change that to be honest.

 

Re hero resizes: Some heroes, like stukov for example still needs to be resized. The new sizes are not proportionate to one another let alone to structures and the map size. They also take away some of the realism of AoS, replacing it from the tried and old cartoonishness we are so used to in other mobas.

 

Re The new respawn time: It really slows the pace of the game down and reduces the frequency of action. Also consider that it is unfair that AGI heroes get a unique that reduces their respawn time but all other heroes are left out. Here you are again saying that this game is for DPS heroes.

 

Anyway, posts like this are valuable to the community and I hope you continue with these for every patch. Thank you for your clarification.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Jessika

[John]

@ HOM: Make the time unique so HOM so ppl don't stack it?

 

@ Arcbound: Personally I really enjoyed the move speed buff from arcbound, I'm not saying that the item was viable on many heroes as I mostly got it on boros. However I really had a lot of fun with arcbound on him.

 

@ Heroes: The bigger heroes the easier skillshots I guess, not to mention the game feels slower, just something to keep in mind while adjusting them. Quite frankly I never heard anyone complain about the heroes being to small.

Edited March 31, 2014 by John

[ANARCHY]

have to agree with jessika about the respawn times;

it also seems odd if not counteractive that in the same patch that you buff HoM you also increase respawn time... this doesnt really make sense

why not instead make towers stronger & apply a debuff effect for each enemy hero attacking a tower so that if 1 hero is solo split pushing its quite difficult for him to inflict dmg & on the flipside add X regen to a tower for every ally near it

 

arcbound movement unique was good but it wasnt enough to make it balanced, the wep dmg has somewhat achieved that but now there is no item with that cool unique, its the weapon speed on the item that becomes useless, why not just nerf that abit

 

hero size, im just going to say 1-2 things about this;

tanks are meant to absorb dmg for their team, they should be as big as possible, whilst carries and casters should be harder to hit, making them large seems very counteractive to the idea of having a tank

[zeeeend]

Can you please just give jakk a tiny nerf on weaponspeed q ? Lets start at 2% across the board and see what happens, because now he just caps to flobing fast as INT hero.

[vad]

Need to be revised downward objects on a critical hit, but it turns out if you're in a team tank, the tank becomes useless hero, as these are to die for a few bumps and often no time to do anything ie ceases to be Tanks

Edited March 31, 2014 by vad

[TaxHaven]

Hero aura and size:

Make them the same, if you wish to target a hero you have to click on the aura which is smaller than the hero itself

 

Just change it back I dont think many people were complaining about this compared to sah Shadow

[Indo]

Can we add a bloodstone pls?<3 would be the int/support hero thingy of respawntime reduction

[Spooky]

@Assists - nice they are back :) but why on tab screen they are at 2nd position when on score screen at 3rd?

 

@Arcbound - I really like that change. Movement speed was too strong. Items shouldn't provide such a strong utility available to everyone. I'd like to see utility more on heroes side, less on items. So I really wish some new hero will get active which can increase movement speed on target for some specific duration of time. Besides there are already 3 other items with nice movement speed bonuses

 

@Hero size - the only concern I have about that change is that I have feeling clickbox haven't changed at all. Sometime I have problem with targeting hero

 

@Next update:

- What is wrong with Tosh and LZ? I would say they are in the right spot on strong side. With some compositions they are very strong, in others barely useful. They are very often considered as first pick because there is lack of good support heroes in the game.

- Biotron definitely needs some buff. I hope u will bring back his old ultimate

- Balrog needs lower cooldowns and/or mana cost on his Q/W. As support he is really weak, almost completely useless. As bruiser still can be strong but only if ahead in farm. So some buff would be great

Edited March 31, 2014 by Spooky

[OPReN]

wtf why no mention about egon

[vad]

it is not even discussed! It simply can not let the game t.k.igra loses all meaning and all proceeds to try to kill EGON

[NeVeRWiN]

It's nice knowing intended changes for the future.

 

Assists: I don't think much can be done here. A few options would be what Jessika said, maybe try and change the name of assists into Team Ganks. People seeing those words, might group up more, knowing that there is a number representing how many times they have contributed to a team gank. Of course a better option would be creating larger roles for support hero's.

 

Hand of Mengsk: Has no foothold in any standard agility line up, let alone any item builds. Only situationallly, I've used it, and that's because I was Zeratul, my team was turtling, and it cut down the respawn time if I died. I could hold the base if needed and take advantage of the push potential, whenever they got team wiped. Needless to say, it has no real use curently. Brings me to another topic, Agility items. I miss the days of Agility heroes with 1800-2500 armor, and going an agility build route. Lets be real, the builds for every character class are pretty linear. Maybe for HoM something like 74 agi, 5%TS, (Active) 25% Weapon speed/weapon damage for 5 seconds, 90 second CD, or put the TS as a Unique. Maybe I just want something similar to the original HoM?

 

Hero resize: Meh, doesn't bother me too much, just seems a bit slower paced now.

 

Respawn Timer: I'm not sure how I feel about it. One on hand, it's nice being able to take advantage of the extra spawn time and push if your team is being beat down by a push comp. However it seems counter productive when your on the receiving end from that push comp and are dead, waiting for you yourself to respawn. So I'm not sure here, maybe going about it a different manner and adjusting towers in general would be a better fit?

 

Balrog: He needs help desperately. Such potential to be used a lot more, be a tank, or bruiser, the potential is there. I rarely see him in public matches, let alone in-house matches, and when he is I see him on the losing team...Anyways maybe lower his CD times, and mana costs, to make him more bruiser, but still able to tank with his Ulti and W abilities. Although some new strength items would be nice to compliment him, and other bruisers. Either way, this guy is good, but overall a weak hero with strong potential.

 

Biotron: Needs a small buff, a lesser picked hero, due to lack of strength in general imo.

 

LZ: Not in a bad place, but he's flobing boring as hell. The old LZ was loads of fun, Strength DPS or bruiser whatever you wanna call him, but the old LZ was fun as hell. I don't think one person here prefers this new LZ. He works great in certain IH compositions but otherwise is rarely picked in pubs, which is a shame, it'd be nice to see the hero pool increased just by changing the current heroes around, so the hero's are picked more often. Would even bring some more variety to a game without having to add new heroes, just adjust existing ones.

 

Shadow: If your trying to get him away from the common pick of new players, or the OPness of him it can't happen. He has this reputation of being newb friendly, and sometimes I think everyone rags on shadow, not because he is op, but because of how easy he os, and people just hate dying to a right click hero. Not to say though, he could be reworked a smidge, but you know, now that he's been tweaked, I personally don't have any problems fighting against shadow players. I think stepping strikes is the issue, I don't give a shap about his vortex or ulti, they're part of his character and unique to him. But that's just my sebtiment, and I don't even use the guy.

 

Tosh: ???

Edited April 2, 2014 by NeVeRWiN

[HarryHootie]

 

Here are the Heroes we’ll be potentially changing for the next update:

 

- Balrog

- Biotron

- Shadow

- Tosh

- ZYRKHAN

 

 

I hope this helps you understand why these changes were made. As always, your feedback is greatly appreciate, and will continue to help us improving Aeon of Storms.

I hope it means that Zyrkhan will go back to the old lz but more balanced

[Figgonson]

I hope it means that Zyrkhan will go back to the old lz but more balanced

 

lol no

[EterNity]

Red can be paying people on the forums money and they will still complain regardless.

 

However, I agree with most of reason behind the recent changes.

[gabrielmcg]

have to agree with jessika about the respawn times;

it also seems odd if not counteractive that in the same patch that you buff HoM you also increase respawn time... this doesnt really make sense

why not instead make towers stronger & apply a debuff effect for each enemy hero attacking a tower so that if 1 hero is solo split pushing its quite difficult for him to inflict dmg & on the flipside add X regen to a tower for every ally near it

 

arcbound movement unique was good but it wasnt enough to make it balanced, the wep dmg has somewhat achieved that but now there is no item with that cool unique, its the weapon speed on the item that becomes useless, why not just nerf that abit

 

hero size, im just going to say 1-2 things about this;

tanks are meant to absorb dmg for their team, they should be as big as possible, whilst carries and casters should be harder to hit, making them large seems very counteractive to the idea of having a tank

 

Towers are already strong enough, if anything they should be nerfed.

 

HoM spawn time reduction was not buffed. the time scale was nerfed. and the agility was buffed.

 

OK a tank has more health, that's why it is a tank. What about brine? Should he be as big as drake? or what about lz or akasha. they were not that much bigger than boros or zera. so some tanks aren't big, therefore bigger doesn't necessarily man tankier. And if they are moving slow its just a matter of increasing there animation speed.

 

Arcbound was already nerfed in the beta from 100 to 60 total damage added for 5 secs, and the item still gives movement speed.

[jamescossey]

You do know when you took assist away and called them kills. the player got the last hit still got minerals like the kill and everyone else only got assist money. so how does that make sense. glad you changed it back though. unless you go to what Heroes of the storm is doing and make everyone on same team share xp. no reason to take out assist. which by the way im kinda liking the way that share xp stuff works. lets players gank with out having the chance of losing to much xp waiting for the right time to jump in.

[TaxHaven]

Except most people only come to gank for the money not the xp.

 

How's UFAM?

[CoolNoob]

why not having Assists/Kills/deaths? hope you see the point on having them in the front :)

 

people will appreciate you more for your assistance and team game player..

Edited April 7, 2014 by CoolBluE

[highdrater]

I can't tell if troll or not

[John]

^ Red or who?

[thomulf]

Very nice explanations/changes, especially assists (nice to bring more focus on your ratio of kills vs. assists as opposed to kills vs. deaths) and arcbound- now arcbound can be the backbone of crit builds the need some early damage.

 

It's great of you to do these explanations, definitely should come either before or after every update.

 

Eagerly waiting for some balrog/LZ change-ups

[BestZeratul]

why not having Assists/Kills/deaths? hope you see the point on having them in the front :)

 

people will appreciate you more for your assistance and team game player..

 

No they will ignore the assist and use K/D if they are too stupid to care about assists in the first place. K/D/A doesn't even tell the whole story anyway so why even bother arguing about these stats. Stats like hero damage, structure damage, cs, kill participation and number of spell used (especially big ultis) are way more interesting anyway if you want to know how well you are doing.