Heroes of the Storm New Hero and Balance Changes in 2.26.3 Update

Heroes of the Storm patch 2.26.3 is now live, bringing new hero Stukov, balance changes, tweaks and bug fixes. After more than a week of testing on PTR, players will now have a taste of the new changes without the bugs included in their testing zone. The heroes that have gone through balance changes are Xul, Malthael and Tyrande.

HOTS 2.26.3 Patch Notes

The content of the patch notes is the same one that people could test on PTR since the start of July. The additional changes that are added to this live version concern Malthael, Tyrande and Anub’aral, with, of course, the addition of several bug fixes.

The full list of changes, as always, is posted on the official page.

To avoid double content, the notes underneath will not cover the new hero skills, as we’ve covered them in our Alexei Stukov preview abilities list. Here are the cliff notes about Alexei Stukov: he comes from Starcraft, he’s a melee support hero, his abilities spread viruses to either friendly targets (healing them over time) or to enemy heroes (dealing damage and slowing them down), with an AoE ability that silences and damages enemies inside. One of his signature heroic abilities is Massive Shove that can basically move an enemy hero from one side of the map to the other, as it only stops on terrain collision. If you want to know more about him, you can find him in the new StarCraft Remastered or Free version.

Some of the patch content that was already posted in the July PTR patch notes, like the hefty notes about Xul talent changes. In this one, we’ll keep it short, so you can take a glimpse into the new changes without reading it for far too long. As always, visit the official page for the full patch notes.

Xul abilities

• Spectral Scythe (Q) – Mana cost reduced from 65 to 55
• Cursed Strikes (W) – Mana cost reduced from 65 to 60
• Bone Prison (E) – Now causes all active Skeletons to fixate on the target.

Ragnaros abilities

• Molten Core (D) – When Molten Core expires, the camera will now snap back to Ragnaros if he is not on screen.

Malthael abilities and talents

• Reaper’s Mark (Trait) – Damage reduced from 2.5% to 2.25%
• Tormented Souls (R) – Armor reduced from 20 to 10
• Level 13 Talent Ethereal Existence (Trait) – Maximum Physical Armor reduced from 50 to 40

Tyrande Stats and Talents

• Stats – Basic Attacks per second increased from 1.25 to 1.33
• Level 4 Celestial Attunement (Q) – Free cast window increased from 3 to 4 seconds
• Level 13 Quickening Blessing (Q) – Movement Speed increased from 25 to 30%
• Level 16
  • Mark of Mending (D) – Heal amount while a target is Marked reduced from 3 to 2% of attacker’s maximum health
  • Elune’s Chosen (Active) – Cooldown reduced from 40 to 30 seconds
• Level 20 Eyes of the Huntress (R) –

Anub’arak Stats, Abilities and Talents

• Stats – Basic Attack damage reduced from 95 to 91 / Base Maximum Health reduced from 2003 to 1925
• Locust Swarm (R) – Damage increased from 50 to 62 / Heal increased from 17 to 21 / Duration reduced from 8 to 6 seconds
• Cocoon (R) – Range reduced from 9 to 6 / Missile Speed reduced by 33%
• Level 16 Epicenter (E) – Bonus area reduced from 85 to 60%

Collection

• New Bundles – Available for a limited time: Stukov Heroic, Admiral Krakenov Skin and Terran It Up Bundle.
• New Skins – Stukov (9), Auriel (2), Chromie (1), Diablo (3), Illidan (1), Johanna (1), Kerrigan (2), Li-Ming (1), Muradin (1), Rexxar (1), Tyrael (1), Xul (6).

Art

• Mounts – Run animations for Battle Raptor and Epic Battle Raptor Mounts have been updated.
• Heroes, Abilities, and Talents – Xul has received updated visual effects to coincide with Talent updates.

User Interface

• General – If the Heroes of the Storm client is minimized, or not the current focus window, it will now retake focus in certain situations.
• Disable Screen Shake Setting
• Emoji Autocompletion
• Team League

Battlegrounds

• Map Rotation Update – The Ranked Map Rotation has been updated
• Hanamura
  • Core Life increased from 7 to 8
  • Sapper Minions will no longer spawn for the enemy team after a Keep is destroyed
  • Map Objective and Mercenaries changes