We agree, it's on the short list of Talents that are being redesigned. We don't like that it removes the skill cap of the ability, similarly to how Ess of Johan drastically raised the skill floor of Magic Missiles.

Gilnean Cocktail is designed to be an ability that can do lots of damage when you hit enemies behind a target, and is being balanced around that fact.

Nothing big, sorry :(

There was a lot of fallout from the scaling changes that came out with Cho'gall. The game state in general did change, as lethality increased at low levels and a lot of Heroes that relied on late game scaling saw improvements (as more of that power was given to them early).

I'm not sure that Leoric, Valla, Arthas, or Sylvanas were especially hurt by the scaling changes exactly, but more by the plethora of other changes and shift in the metagame that happened in the patch.

As far as what's coming, Arthas is seeing an smaller update to his Talents in the future, but there aren't any large changes planned for Leoric at this time. The Skeleton King will probably see smaller number changes to his Talents and lesser picked Heroic, but overall we think his Talent tree design is something that can be fixed without any sort of rework.

Whew! What a question samurinja!

When our Design team starts looking at creating new Heroes, or when we're looking to do a Hero update, we definitely try to make sure that a good variety of strategies, playstyles, and counters are present in the game for players to choose from.

We do have spreadsheets that detail what each Hero is designed to be good at, what they're designed to be bad at, and what they're designed to counter. A recent example was us identifying that we lacked Warriors pointed at countering mage Heroes, but had a plethora that could counter Basic Attackers. We felt Stitches base kit was pointed toward being strong against mages, so we tweaked his Talents such that he was even more pointed toward it. Anub'arak is another Warrior that is going in this direction in a future patch.

In general, we get excited about thinking about draft implications when designing or updating Heroes (I'm sure the Hero Designers down the hall would love for me to clarify that it isn't the only thing that we look at when making kits though). It's important as our roster grows that we don't just make "better Vallas" and "better Muradins", but instead create a more diverse and complex roster to promote new and unique synergies and counters, so we don't have a revolving door of "who's on top this patch" in your Heroes games.

We're definitely monitoring it. Going into the patch it was a concern, as obviously removing something as powerful as Bolt of the Storm from her could be very upsetting to her balance.

Right now we're happy to see that after a day of data since the patch, she is actually showing higher win rate than before, and is actually one of the higher win rate Assassins in Hero League.

Whether this keeps up or not, we'll see! We're ready to make quick number changes if we have to.

Artanis is seeing some pretty cool stuff in the future with part of Zealot Charge becoming baseline. We think that that will make him feel a lot more active and dynamic from the get go.

Kerrigan has been trending downward in terms of popularity since the scaling changes, mainly due to a lot more Heroes gaining early ganking potential (which was what she was known for). While there are no immediate plans to rework her, she could probably use a few number adjustments or Talents changes to make sure that she has a fitting place in the current metagame.

Echoing what Dustin posted on Twitter, in general we're okay with having varying amounts of power of different Abilities, Traits among them. It isn't anything flashy or special, but we don't think it's the type of thing that needs to be replaced or reworked.

Hey Zeruijin!

We're always looking at characters that haven't seen any love in a while and providing attention when necessary. A few of our specific criteria for finding Heroes we think are in need of updates (big or small) are:

• Talent tiers that are dominated by a Talent (pick or win rate)
• Particularly low or high play rates
• Particularly low or high win rates
• Heroes that have a playstyle that isn't fun to play with or against

Arthas and Anub'arak have updates coming soon™. These won't be as large as the recent updates to Heroes like Kael'thas or Illidan, but should help make them feel fresh and give them more distinctive roles. Artanis is going to have part of Zealot Charge be made baseline in the same release. Rexxar does have changes on the horizon, but it's a little farther out and we haven't decided the scope needed for him yet. We have no active plans to make any large changes to Leoric right now, but we're watching him and will always make number adjustments as necessary.

Concerning Supports, we do have a small update coming out in a few weeks that should help low pick rate Heroics on them (as well as a few other roles).

Thanks for the question Trainzebra!

We've always viewed Artanis as somewhat of a hybrid, who is a capable of withstanding a lot of punishment as long as he is aggressive. His Trait is probably his defining feature, and we think it's what makes him special. In the big picture, he should slightly less damaging than someone like Sonya, but when the right situations arrives he is a lot harder to kill.

The most recent changes to his Talents were primarily to help create more diverse options by buffing the ones with lower pick and win rates. It so happened that a lot of his less picked Talents were tankier options (since that's not how the majority of players were playing Artanis). While it wasn't designed to directly buff the Hero (he was sitting at around a 47% win rate at the time), we thought that doing a few small changes would create less "traps" for the Hero, and create a better experience overall.

Going forward, we are planning to make part of Zealot Charge baseline for Artanis (it will have reduced range). We think that this was a fun part of the kit, and helped really bring it all together. This should provide big buff to the Hero, while at the same time helping his Talent diversity overall (now that Zealot Charge won't be a must pick).