Blizzard has released the latest patch notes for Heroes of the Storm. In terms of general changes, the party size of enemies is no longer shown during the match loading screen. The patch also removes all party-size restrictions during the matchmaking process.
According to the developers, this change was made in order to address two issues. The first is to address both queue times for certain party sizes. The second reason is to remove any pre-game bias that forms when a team is facing another party with players larger than their own.
Take for instance a match having one side composed of five people as a team and the other five different individuals queued to be one team. In order to have a more balanced game, the patch could have the team of five have a lower MMR compared to the individually composed team.
For the heroes, the biggest change in the latest patch has to be the mana tension. According to the developer, "mana should be a meaningful part of the game." This should be evident in the early part of a match, and as the game itself progresses, mana tension is expected to be less important since heroes now have more base mana. While it is not the same for every hero, the developers added that the mana tension should be felt at some degree, otherwise it would have no purpose.
Arthas, for example, has his mana tension adjusted. Mana cost for his Frozen Tempest has been reduced to 13 per second. Meanwhile his Level 4 Frozen Wastes has mana cost reduction lowered to 2 per second.
For the Bruiser hero Dehaka, changes were done on some of his less popular talents to allow players chances to try out new build paths. Mana cost for Level 10 Isolation has been reduced to 70, with Level 10 Adaptation mana cost also lowered to 70. Enduring Swarm, meanwhile, has the duration of the Dark Swarm increased by 0.5 seconds with the cooldown of Lurker Strain's Burrow lowered by four seconds.
Overall, the patch makes changes to the mana cost of the heroes abilities, increasing some and lowering others. The patch also tweaks abilities of heroes in order to allow for a variety of plays. Imperius, for example, did not have the talents generally nerfed. Rather, his other talents have been buffed instead.
A complete list of the hero changes can be viewed here.
