We’ve just released a new patch for Heroes of the Storm, which marks the end of our Lunar Festival 2016 event, and brings a new Hero to the Nexus, along with Ability cooldown announcements, additional observer slots, and more! Check out the patch notes below.
GENERAL
Lunar Festival 2016
- The Monkey Elder has vanished from the Nexus, and this year’s Lunar Festival event has reached its conclusion, along with several limited-time promotions.
- Lunar Festival Special Event quests are no longer available, and players can no longer earn progress toward, or unlock, the rewards they offer.
- Lunar Festival bundles have been removed from the in-game Shop. Review the Shop section of the patch notes below for details.
NEW HERO
Xul, Cryptic Necromancer, has been added to Heroes of the Storm and is now available for play! Read on for a brief overview of his Abilities.
Trait
- Raise Skeleton
- When a nearby enemy Minion dies, it becomes a Skeletal Warrior for 15 seconds. Up to 4 Skeletal Warriors can be active at once.
Basic Abilities
- Bone Armor (1)
- Activate to gain a Shield equal to 25% of your maximum Health for 3 seconds.
- Spectral Scythe (Q)
- Summon a scythe at target location that travels toward you after a 1 second delay, damaging enemies in its path.
- Cursed Strikes (W)
- Once activated, your Basic Attacks over the next 4 seconds deal damage in a wide arc and reduce the Attack Speed of enemies hit by 50% for 2 seconds.
- Bone Prison (E)
- After a 2 second delay, root target enemy in place for 2 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
- Poison Nova (R)
- After a short delay, release poisonous missiles that deal massive poison damage over 10 seconds to all enemies hit.
- Skeletal Mages (R)
- Summon 4 Skeletal Mages in a line that attack nearby enemies and slow them by 30% for 2 seconds. Lasts up to 15 seconds.
SHOP
Bundles
- New Bundles have been added for a limited time!
- Serpent King Xul Bundle
- Eternal Conflict Bundle
- Eternal Conflict Ultimate Bundle
Heroes
- Xul has been added to the in-game Shop
Mounts
- New Mounts
- Cloud Serpent – Exclusively available through purchase of the Serpent King Xul Bundle. This Mount will become purchasable as an individual item about four weeks from today.
- Mount Removals
- Lunar Dragon – This Mount was exclusively available by purchasing the Lunar Festival 2016 Bundle, and will return as an individual item in the future.
Price Reductions
- Thrall’s prices have been reduced to $8.49 USD and 7,000 Gold.
Skins
- New Skins
- Serpent King Xul
USER INTERFACE
Custom Games
- Observer Slots
- Four more Observer Slots have been added to Custom Game lobbies, which now allow for up to 6 Observers in total.
- This change also affects Replay lobbies, meaning that up to 16 players can now use Watch with Others to view Replays simultaneously.
In-Game UI
- General
- Abilities that use charges will now display charge cooldown timers over the Ability icon.
- Buffs that use charges, such Block or Focused Attack, will now display charge cooldown timers in the Buff bar found next to the Hero portrait.
- Cooldown and Status Announcements
- Players can now press ALT and left-click any of their Ability or Talent icons to quickly indicate their remaining Ability cooldown durations to teammates via chat messages.
- This can also be used to indicate the current number of charges on Abilities like Brightwing’s Phase Shift, or Xul’s Raise Skeleton.
- Additionally, players can now also use ALT + Left-click to indicate when an Ability is not on cooldown, but they do not have enough Mana to cast it.
- Players who are below 25% of their total Health or Mana can now ALT + Left-click their own Health and Mana bars in the lower-left corner of the screen to inform teammates that they are low on the associated resource.
- Take a look at our recent blog post to see how these features will appear in-game.
- Players can now press ALT and left-click any of their Ability or Talent icons to quickly indicate their remaining Ability cooldown durations to teammates via chat messages.
HEROES
ASSASSIN
NOVA
- Snipe (Q)
- Damage increased from 295 (+4% per level) to 310 (+4% per level)
- Snipe Master (Talent)
- Damage bonus per stack increased from 12% to 15%. This effect can still stack up to 5 times
Developer Comments: We are continuing to tune Snipe Master to make it a more attractive choice, assuming you are consistently landing your Snipes.