Heroes of the Storm patch adds Zagara, the Broodmother of the Swarm

A new patch for Heroes of the Storm Technical Alpha has been released. As discussed previously, the patch removes the bonus trickle experience and implements the new "Underdog Bonus."

But there's much more to this patch as well, including a new hero: Zagara, the Broodmother of the Swarm. Additionally, the update includes all of the fixes, tweaks, and balances you'd expect to see from a patch in Alpha. All of the changes can be seen in the patch notes below:

GENERAL

International Invites Coming Soon!

We’re nearly ready to expand Heroes of the Storm Technical Alpha testing to players in regions outside of the United States, and Tech Alpha invite waves will soon include many more international players. Additionally, purchases will soon be enabled for many additional countries, and the Heroes Shop will accept purchases from the following regions using the currencies listed below:

• Europe:
  • British Pounds (GBP)
  • Euros (EURO)
  • Rubles (RUB)
• Latin America:
  • Brazilian Real (BRL)
  • Mexican Peso (MXN / MXP)
  • Chilean Peso (CLP)
  • Argentine Peso (ARS)
• Australia:
  • Australian Dollars (AUD)
• Southeast Asia, North America, New Zealand, and other Latin America:
  • US Dollars (USD)

Experience and Snowballing

• Experience earned by killing Minions in-lane has been increased by 20%.
• Bonus trickle experience granted to a team that is behind by 3 or more levels during a game has been removed.
• Early implementation for the “Underdog Bonus” has been added.
  • A team that is behind in levels – the “underdog” – now earns bonus XP whenever an enemy hero is killed, while a team that is ahead in levels receives reduced XP for killing enemy heroes.
  • The amount of bonus takedown XP granted to the underdog team, as well as reduced takedown XP for the team that’s ahead, scale significantly up based on the level difference between teams.
  • The Underdog Bonus starts at a 1 level difference, and caps off at a 4 level gap.
  • The Underdog Bonus continues until team levels become even.

New Hero

Zagara has been added to Heroes of the Storm and is now available for play!

• Abilities:
  • Baneling Barrage (Q)
    • Launch a stream of Banelings that explode on contact with enemies.
  • Hunter Killer (W)
    • Unleash a Hunter Killer Hydralisk to attack and chase an enemy.
  • Infested Drop (E)
    • Bombard an area with a Zerg Drop Pod that spawns Roachlings.

• Trait
  • Creep Tumor (D)
    • Spawn a Creep Tumor, which generates Creep and allows Zagara and her minions to move faster.
• Heroic Abilities
  • Nydus Network (R1)
    • Zagara can place Nydus Worms and use them to quickly traverse the Battleground.
  • Devouring Maw (R2)
    • Summon a giant Maw to engulf enemies in an area, disabling and damaging them.

USER INTERFACE

Character Portrait

• A Zagara portrait has been added to Character Portrait Select.

Score Screen

• Right clicking a player’s Hero image on the end-of-game Score Screen displays options for communicating with, or reporting that player.
  • Teammates will display the following options: Whisper, Invite to Party, Add Friend, Block Communication, and Report Player.
  • Enemies will display: Block Communication, and Report Player.

In-Game UI

• General
  • Many aspects of the in-game UI have received size reductions and layout changes in order to provide more vision of the game world and reduce the possibility of accidental clicks on UI elements.

• The in-game Tab Screen has been reworked.
  • The Tab screen will now remain on screen after pressing the Tab key.
    • Dismiss the Tab screen by pressing Tab again, or clicking the X in the top right corner.
  • Clicking the speech bubble next to a player’s name on the Tab screen now blocks communication with them.
    • A player can be unblocked by clicking the speech bubble again or from the Social tab in the Options menu.
  • In addition to takedowns, deaths, and Battleground objectives, the Tab Screen now also includes tracking for siege damage, Hero damage, and healing done, as well as team levels, and hero kill totals for each team.
  • Click the “Show Talents” button at the bottom center of the Tab Screen to view all Talents and Heroic Abilities selected by each player during a match.

• Talent Selection
  • The detailed Talent Select and Quick Select panes have been combined into one compact interface.
  • The new Talent Select pane includes detailed descriptions for each Talent, and tier selection has been moved from the left to the bottom of the pane.
  • Talents can still be quickly selected via hotkeys by pressing “Ctrl” and the corresponding number key.

• Kill Streaks
  • A kill streak meter has been added next to the in-game Hero portrait.
    • Notifications are displayed at the top of the screen when a player achieves kill streaks of 5, 10, 15, and 20.
    • Players’ nameplates now light up or catch fire to show off when they’ve achieved lengthy kill streaks.
    • Kill streaks are reset upon death.

• Notifications
  • Notifications that appear at the top of the screen now focus on Hero takedowns.
    • Top notifications now also indicate team kills, and feature a counter near the top left corner of the screen which displays the time remaining to continue a multi-kill streak.
    • Towns destroyed and Mercenary Camps captured are no longer announced via top notifications.
    • Battleground-specific notifications have been moved above the minimap.

SHOP

General

• Many items in the Heroes of the Storm Shop have received price changes with today’s patch.

Heroes

• Zagara has been added to the Shop.

Skins

• Insectoid Zagara has been added to the Shop.

Bundles

• The Insectoid Zagara Bundle has been made available in the Shop for a limited time.

ART

• Several Hero models and skins have received visual improvements, including:
  • Arthas and all of his Skins
  • Raynor and all of his Skins
  • All Stitches skins have been updated with the visual improvements previously added to his base hero model.

SOUND

• New Music has been added to Battle.net menus
• Updated Battle.net UI sounds
• New voiceover has been added for all Mercenaries
• New voiceover effects have been added which play on Hero death

BATTLEGROUNDS

Blackheart’s Bay

• Treasure Chest Health has been increased to account for changes to Hero Basic Attack Speeds.
• Skeleton Camp respawn time increased from 120 to 150 seconds

Dragon Shire

• Player controlled Dragon Knight duration now increases by 2 seconds for each minute of elapsed game time.​

MERCENARIES

General

• Mercenary Camps now scale up to 30 minutes of elapsed game time.
• Captured Mercenaries now scale up to 60 minutes of elapsed game time.

Grave Golem

• Captured Mercenary Grave Golems are now roughly equivalent in strength to a 30 Skull Grave Golem on the Haunted Mines.
• Mercenary Grave Golems now seek out structures and ignore Heroes, Minions, and Mercenaries in their path.
• Mercenary Grave Golems no longer only stomp Minions.
  • Increased the number of Heroic targets required for a Mercenary Grave Golem to issue a stomp from 1 to 2.

Knights

• Sorcerer
  • No longer shields other Knights
  • Damage aura has been removed
  • Now heals other Knights and surrounding minions.

Siege Giants

• Defending Siege Giant attacks can no longer be dodged.
  • Siege Giant Attack Damage has been reduced from 100 to 80 in order to compensate for this change.

TALENTS

Berserk

• Attack Speed bonus reduced from 50% to 40% to compensate for changes to Hero Attack Speeds.

Demolitionist

• Ammo destruction reduced from 2 to 1 per Basic Attack to compensate for Attack Speed changes.

First Aid

• Healing amount increased from 20% over 4 seconds to 35% over 6 seconds.

Minion Killer

• Now also deals 25% additional damage to Summons.

Regeneration Master

• Health regeneration increased from 3 to 4 per stack

Searing Attacks

• Mana cost reduced from 20 to 15 per Basic Attack.

HEROES

General

• All Heroes now have flat Attack Speeds that no longer scale with level.
  • Basic Attack damage has been adjusted for all Heroes so that their damage output will remain the same as they were in previous versions of the game.
  • Many Talents, Abilities, and mechanics that were affected by faster Attack Speeds have been updated in order to account for the absence of scaling.
• All Heroes and Talents have received substantial tooltip updates for increased clarity.

[Blizzard]