Death timers and snowball prevention
Heroes of the Storm is about to get the Medic and Artanis heroes, but there’s a few big changes on the way for the core game. The first adjustment is death timers. Blizzard feels like they were way too low early on in a match, so they’ve increased them (for level one heroes, by six seconds). For mid to late game play the timers are roughly the same — Blizzard says this change is because players have issues capturing objectives early on, so punishing enemies with deaths will be more meaningful.
Next up on the docket is snowball prevention. Levels are going to be more equalized so that teams can’t just completely steamroll their enemies with instant burst damage. Of course, talent level disparities (particularly 9 to 10, when the latter team has their Heroics) still matter. This change is inline with the spirit of the game, where anyone can always make a comeback. Of course, it doesn’t really play out that way in Quick Match, as I’ve seen many games where it simply wasn’t possible.
These might sound like small tweaks for people who don’t play Heroes, but they’re bound to shake up the meta quite a bit for casual players. I’m anxious to try out the Medic in a live environment myself to see how viable she is.
Test Map [Battle.net]
