Updates

Talents

• Level 20
  • Rebirth
    • Now has 3 charges.

Bug Fixes

• Level 10
  • Phoenix
    • Attack damage is now affected by Defense Matrix when Kael'thas is under its effects.
    • Attack Splash no longer reveals targets hit.
    • Attack Splash now reveals the area it hits.

Bug Fixes

• Level 7
  • Sunfire Enchantment
    • Fixed an issue that caused an active Sunfire Enchantment Spell Power buff to be removed when Kael'thas is killed.

Bug Fixes

• Difficulting updated from Hard to Medium.
• Fixed an issue that caused Gravity Lapse to hit Invulnerable enemies.
• Burned Flesh will now display as a critical effect.

Updates

Base

• Vitals
  • Health increased from 1520 to 1595.
  • Health regeneration increased from 3.17 to 3.32.
• Gravity Lapse [E]
  • Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds.

Talents

• Level 4
  • Energy Roil [E]
    • Cooldown reduction for hitting and enemy Heroes reduced from 9 to 8 seconds.
  • Mana Tap [Trait]
    • Mana restore from activating Verdant Spheres increased from 4% to 5%.
• Level 10
  • Phoenix [R1]
    • Damage increased from 78 to 84.
    • Splash damage increased from 39 to 42.

Developer Comment: It's been a hot-minute since we showed our resident fire mage some love, so we are making a few baseline changes to increase his survivability, as well as tweak a couple of underperforming talents.

Updates

Talents

• Level 16
  • Twin Spheres [Trait]
    • Additional functionality: Gain all level 7 talents.

Developer Comment: Empowering abilities is fun, but we feel Twin Spheres struggled to pack the punch it needed to compete as a Level 16 talent. We hope this provides the power it needs while retaining its flexibility in choosing which ability to empower.

Bug Fixes

• Both Fel Infusion and Sunfire Enchantment now properly increase Kael'thas's healing from Fel Infusion.

Updates

Abilities

• Flamestrike (Q)
  • Damage increased from 320 to 345
• Living Bomb (W)
  • Explosion damage increased from 200 to 215

Updates

Stats

• Unit radius reduced from 1.15 to 1.0. Kael'thas's radius now matches Heroes like E.T.C. and Zagara.

Abilities

• Living Bomb (W)
  • Periodic damage increased from 40 to 42.

Developer Comment: After years of battling in the Nexus, Kael'thas finally learned the reason why puny interlopers could foil his clearly superior plans and went to the tailor to get his cape trimmed.

Updates

Talents

• Level 4
  • Energy Roil (E)
    • Additional functionality:
      • Passively reduces the Mana cost of Gravity Lapse by 70.
• Level 7
  • Sunfire Enchantment (Trait)
    • Spell Damage reduced from 165 to 115.
    • Number of empowered Basic Attacks increased from 1 to 2.
    • If both empowered Basic Attacks hit enemy Heroes, gain 15% Spell Power for 10 seconds.
• Level 13
  • Pyromaniac (W)
    • Cooldown reduction applied per tick of Living Bomb damage decreased from 1 to 0.5 seconds.
• Level 16
  • Arcane Dynamo (Passive)
    • Removed
  • New Talent: Ignite (Q)
    • Flamestrikes that hit enemy Heroes also afflict them with Living Bomb.
    • Only 1 Living Bomb can be applied per Flamestrike cast.
• Level 20
  • Presence of Mind
    • Hitting enemy Heroes with Pyroblast no longer reduces its cooldown.
    • New functionality:
      • Heroes who are hit by Flamestrike or have Living Bomb spread to them reduce the cooldown of Pyroblast by 10 seconds.

Developer Comment: We're taking passes at some older Talent trees that, while not in need of a full rework, could use some design tweaks. The changes to Kael'thas in particular went through quite a bit of iteration. We're happy to report that, unlike some of the insane Talents we tried internally, we managed to re-imagine and restore the power of Ignite!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue in which Sun King's Fury could deal bonus damage to targets who were already affected by Living Bomb.

Updates

Abilities

• Pyroblast (R)
  • Cast time reduced from 2 to 1.5 seconds
  • Cast range increased by roughly 30%

Developer Comment: Pyroblast has been underperforming compared to Phoenix. We like where its damage is at, and that a lot of Heroes have ways to negate or mitigate it. Instead, we're buffing the consistency of the Heroic to make it more competitive.

Updates

Talents

Level 7

• Sun King's Fury (W)
  • Increased damage bonus from 30 to 35%

Updates

Talents

• Level 7
  • Gravity Crush (E)
    • Removed
• Level 16
  • Sun King's Fury (W)
    • Moved to level 7
    • New Functionality: Now increases the damage of Living Bombs that spread to enemy Heroes by 30%
  • NEW TALENT: Arcane Dynamo (Passive)
    • Casting a Basic Ability causes you to gain 3% Ability Power for 5 seconds, stacking up to a total of 15% Ability Power
• Level 20
  • Arcane Power (Active)
    • Removed
  • NEW TALENT: Flamethrower (Q)
    • Increases the range of Flamestrike by 40%. When you hit two or more enemy Heroes, reduce the cooldown of Flamestrike by 4 seconds

Developer Comment: As we had mentioned in previous patches, we wanted to make a niche for Kael'thas as an area-of-effect mage who punishes teams that clump together. Our earlier changes to him succeeded in helping his talent diversity, but we failed in pointing him enough in the direction of an AoE mage. We've decided to cut Gravity Crush and change Sun King's Fury to be a mechanic more fitting of our intended design for Kael'thas.

To replace Sun King's Fury at Level 16 we've created Arcane Dynamo, which rewards Kael'thas players for spacing out their abilities and properly balancing their Mana consumption. We also removed the generic talent Arcane Power, and replaced it with Flamethrower, a finisher talent for Flamestrike oriented builds.

Bug Fixes

• The visual effects displayed upon completing the Mana Addict Talent Quest will now correctly appear after gathering 20 Regeneration Globes, rather than 25.

Updates

Abilities

• Living Bomb (W)
  • Damage over time reduced from 50 to 40

Updates

Abilities

• Gravity Lapse (E)
  • Cooldown increased from 12 to 14 seconds
  • Mana cost increased from 80 to 90

Talents

• Level 1
  • Convection (Q)
    • Damage bonus on Quest completion increased from 75 to 100
• Level 4
  • Energy Roil (E)
    • Cooldown reduction increased from 7 to 9 seconds
• Level 7
  • Sunfire Enchantment (Trait)
    • Damage reduced from 183 to 165
  • Gravity Crush (E)
    • Bonus damage reduced from 30% to 25%
• Level 20
  • Rebirth (R)
    • The Rebirth casting range will now center on the Phoenix itself instead of on Kael'thas
    • This can now be re-positioned globally

Developer Comment: As part of our ongoing process to improve our talent system, we are doing a pass on all heroes in the game to increase the health of their talent trees. We know that there are a fair number of talents that feel like they are either mandatory or insignificant, and this is our first pass on putting in fixes. These fixes take many forms, and can range from simply buffing or nerfing numbers to changing functionality. We're excited to keep our heroes feeling fresh, and you can look forward to additional changes to more of our heroes in upcoming patches.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue which prevented Phoenix from being self-cast using ALT + R.
• AI Kael'thas will now properly receive a reduced cooldown timer after cancelling Pyroblast.

Updates

Basic Abilities

• Living Bomb (W)
  • Damage over time reduced from 84 to 50.
  • Explosion damage increased from 138 to 200.

Developer Comment: Kael'thas's damage is a bit too high, so we're nerfing his single-target Living Bomb damage. While we were successful at giving him some weaknesses by reducing his survivability and removing Bolt of the Storm, he is still able to put out more single-target damage than we're comfortable with. We want to point him towards being more of an AoE mage, and this is the beginning of that process. Expect to see some tweaks in the future to continue pointing him in that direction.

Updates

• Living Bomb (W)
  • Sun King's Fury (Talent)
    • Bonus Basic Attack damage reduced by 20%, from 171 (+4% per level) to 137 (+4% per level).

Bug Fixes

• Bonus damage from the Sun King's Fury Talent will no longer be applied when Kael'thas's Basic Attacks miss due to Blind or Evasion effects.

Updates

• Verdant Spheres (Trait) (D)
  • Mana Addict (Talent)
    • Regeneration Globes required to complete the Quest have been reduced from 25 to 20.
  • Fel Infusion (Talent)
    • Bonus Ability Power decreased from 5% to 4%.
• Flame Strike (Q)
  • Convection (Talent)
    • Bonus damage on Quest completion increased from 150 to 175.
• Living Bomb (W)
  • Sun King's Fury (Talent)
    • Bonus damage decreased from 190 (+4% per level) to 171 (+4% per level).

Developer Comment: Fel Infusion is doing a little bit too much, too well compared to other Talents on its tier for how low-risk it is, so we're giving it a slight nerf and buffing the others. Mana Addict should feel more consistently achievable in an average game, and Convection's reward is now more worth the risk of taking the talent.

We're a little uncomfortable with how much single-target burst damage Kael'thas is able to put out with Sun King's Fury, so we're toning it down. He threw a fit about it, but we're sure he'll manage to find some other way to be a little too powerful. He always does.

Updates

• Health increased from 1465 to 1520.
• Health Regeneration increased from approximately 3.05 to 3.17 Health per second.
• Flamestrike (Q)
  • Range increased by 10%.
  • Damage increased from 213 (+4% per level) to 320 (+4% per level).
  • Flamestrike damage is no longer increased when empowered by Verdant Spheres.
• Living Bomb (W)
  • Damage dealt over time increased from 228 (+4% per level) to 252 (+4% per level).
  • Explosion damage increased from 114 (+4% per level) to 138 (+4% per level).
• Gravity Lapse (E)
  • Cooldown decreased from 13 to 12 seconds.
  • Mana cost decreased from 85 to 80.
  • Nether Wind (Talent)
    • Mana restored after hitting an enemy Hero decreased from 85 to 80.
  • Gravity Crush (Talent)
    • Bonus damage taken by enemies hit increased from 25% to 30%.

Developer Comment: We're happy to see that there is now more counter-play to how Kael'thas delivers his damage, and his Talent pick rates have dramatically improved. However, he has a lower win rate than we would like. We intended Kael'thas to be weak against enemy Heroes who dive on him but feel that we may have gone too far.

The changes to Flamestrike's range should help him poke enemies from a safer distance (and build those Convection stacks!), and Living Bomb's changes should help him be more threatening to enemies who want to stand toe to toe with him.

The change to Flamestrike's base damage should help motivate players to use empowered Gravity Lapses more often, as they won't lose potential Flamestrike damage when hitting stunned enemies.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue which allowed Kael'thas to repeatedly cast Living Bomb for free under certain circumstances.

Updates

• This Hero has received significant Talent changes
• Gathering Power (Talent) removed
• Envenom (Talent) removed
• Clairvoyance (Talent) removed
• Arcane Barrier (Talent) removed
• Bolt of the Storm (Talent) removed
• Mana Addict (Talent)
  • Upon gathering 25 Regeneration Globes, Kael'thas gains the Arcane Barrier Ability.
  • Activate Arcane Barrier to receive a Shield equal to 100% of Kael'thas's maximum Mana for 4 seconds. 45 second cooldown
• Verdant Spheres (Trait) (D)
  • Fel Infusion (Talent)
    • Now also increases Ability Power by 5%
  • Mana Tap (Talent) redesigned
    • Activating Verdant Spheres restores 4% of maximum Mana
  • Sunfire Enchantment (Talent)
    • Damage reduced from 203 (+4% per level) to 183 (+4% per level)
  • New Talent (Level 16): Twin Spheres
    • Verdant Spheres gains an additional charge
• Flamestrike (Q)
  • Damage reduced from 237 (+4% per level) to 213 (+4% per level)
  • Damage (empowered by Verdant Spheres) reduced from 356 (+4% per level) to 320 (+4% per level)
  • Flamethrower (Talent) removed
  • Convection (Talent) redesigned
    • Now increases Flamestrike's damage by 5 for each enemy Hero hit by Flamestrike, up to 100 damage. Lose all bonus damage on death.
    • Once Flamestrike reaches 100 bonus damage, gain an extra 50 bonus damage and keep all damage bonuses permanently.
  • New Talent (Level 7): Burned Flesh
    • Hitting more than one Hero with Flamestrike causes each to take damage equal to 8% of their maximum Health
  • Fury of the Sunwell (Talent)
    • Delay between Flamestrike casts reduced from 1 to 0.5 seconds
• Living Bomb (W)
  • Explosion radius increased by 10%
  • Explosions now spread Living Bomb to all nearby enemy Heroes not already affected by it
  • Can no longer be cast on targets already affected by Living Bomb
  • Chain Bomb (Talent) removed
  • Pyromaniac (Talent)
    • Cooldown reduction decreased from 2 seconds to 1 second
  • Fission Bomb (Talent) moved from Level 7 to Level 13
    • No longer increases Living Bomb damage
    • Bonus to Living Bomb's explosion radius reduced from 30% to 20%
  • Backdraft (Talent) moved from Level 16 to Level 13
    • Movement Speed slow reduced from 50% to 30%
  • New Talent (Level 16): Sun King's Fury
    • Basic Attacks deal 190 (+4% per level) damage to targets affected by Living Bomb
  • New Talent (Level 20): Master of Flames
    • Living Bomb can now spread indefinitely between enemy Heroes
• Gravity Lapse (E)
  • Using Verdant Spheres to empower Gravity Lapse now also increases its Stun duration by 50%
  • Tri-Optimal (Talent) removed
  • Gravity Throw (Talent) removed
  • Energy Roil (Talent) redesigned and moved from Level 1 to Level 4
    • Hitting an enemy Hero reduces the cooldown of Gravity Lapse by 7 seconds
  • Nether Wind (Talent) redesigned
    • Increases Gravity Lapse range by 30%. Refunds 85 mana when an enemy Hero is hit by Gravity Lapse
  • New Talent (Level 7): Gravity Crush
    • Gravity Lapse causes enemies hit to take 25% additional damage from Kael'thas for 4 seconds

Developer Comment: Kael'thas has had a lot of problems with his Talent pick rates. Chain Bomb has also evolved into a core part of the fantasy of playing the Hero, but was tied to a level 13 Talent. We decided to embrace this aspect of Kael'thas while introducing more counter-play to how he explodes Living Bomb so that it's less frustrating to play against. Kael'thas should now be very effective at punishing enemy teams who clump together.

We also added many Talents to promote Flamestrike as his primary source of damage, as well as a few higher skill-cap Talents which allow players to better show off their mastery of the Hero.

All of this power comes at a price, however, and for Kael'thas it's his survivability. He no longer has access to Bolt of the Storm, and Arcane Barrier's Shield amount has been lowered and tied to a quest on Mana Addict. While Kael'thas can dish out a ton of damage in teamfights, he should be a much more viable target for enemy teams to focus down.

Kael'thas Talents

• White text indicates a NEW Talent
• Blue text indicates a MOVED Talent

Updates

• Basic Attack damage reduced from 87 (+4% per level) to 65 (+4% per level)
• Arcane Barrier (Talent)
  • Shield amount decreased from 200% to 150%
  • Duration reduced from 6 to 4 seconds
• Gravity Lapse (E)
  • Stun duration reduced from 1.5 to 1.0 seconds
• Phoenix (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 40 to 60 seconds
• Pyroblast (R)
  • Damage increased from 730 (+4% per level) to 810 (+5% per level)
  • Cooldown increased from 50 to 100 seconds
  • Presence of Mind (Talent)
    • Cooldown reduction for Pyroblast increased from 10 to 25 seconds per enemy hero hit

Developer Comment: Kael'thas is a powerful hero with too few downsides. We're nerfing several aspects of his kit, and are still planning a Talent overhaul coming soon™. The stun duration of Gravity Lapse is too long and guarantees kills more often than we would like. Reducing the stun duration makes it less frustrating to play against and adds a bit more counterplay for the enemy team. Phoenix is the drastically favored Heroic Ability right now, and it's up far too often. By nerfing its cooldown, while also pushing Pyroblast to create more impactful moments, we expect there will be more situations where Pyroblast is the optimal pick.

Bug Fixes

• The damage over time preview for Kael'thas's Living Bomb will now more accurately reflect the burst damage amount at the end of its effect.