Today Ragnaros rode into the Nexus on a hot wave of popularity. Perhaps one of the most anticipated Heroes to date, Ragnaros has already seen tons of play time and enjoyment for Heroes of the Storm enthusiasts, but today’s monumental patch included more than just the Firelord. Several holiday skins and mounts, as well as significant balance and ranking system changes, were also implemented.

Shop Specials

The Winter Veil Classic Bundle from last year , which includes favorites such as Winter Veil Jaina, Greatfather Winter Stitches, and Sugar Plum Sylvanas, is back. In addition, Blizzard has released some new cosmetics for the Winter Veil 2016 Bundle:

• Winter Veil Lunara
• Gingerbread Nazeebo
• Special Snowflake Mount

You can also buy an exclusive bundle which contains Ragnaros and the Lil’ Ragnaros skin at a $5 discount. The 2016 BlizzCon Championship Nexagon for Ballistix is also available for purchase.

By far the coolest looking Nexagon to grace the Nexus!

Balance Changes

As the year winds down and the premier tournaments come to a close, the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene enters its offseason. During this time, Heroes of the Storm will undergo some necessary changes to gameplay and balance, as Blizzard shapes the gameplay going into 2017. That said, it’s no surprise that today’s update contained a few major balance changes, some of which were quite literally insane—like, someone at Blizzard must have gone mad while coming up with these changes.

Artanis, Dehaka, and Diablo all received complete reworks that not only boosted their viability but probably made them the most downright broken Heroes in the game. In addition to baseline survivability buffs, their damage and lockdown capability is through the roof. In an effort to break the main tank trio (ETC, Muradin, Johanna) that has dominated the scene for over a year, it appears that Blizzard is trying to push bruisers as the new flavor of tank.

Chromie got some long-awaited love too. She was quite often ignored because of her clearly telegraphed spells and weak siege damage, but a change to her trait now allows her to get her talents two levels early instead of one. It may sound like a small change, but it is actually a huge buff to her viability in competitive play, as she can now become very dangerous by level 8. With earlier access to quest talents, her damage stacks much earlier in the game and does brutal damage.

Going along with the theme of “more damage”, Rehgar also got some huge buffs. Many will remember when Rehgar dished out insane amounts of damage after his rework then subsequently got neutered again; this patch undoes a lot of those changes. Along with a Lightning Shield damage revert, Rehgar also received a 20% buff to his basic attacks. As one of the highest damage supports, that’s nothing to scoff at.

All in all, it looks like there are a lot of changes in store for HGC 2017. Ragnaros’ abilities are already reshaping the way players look at the game, and we’re in store for even more changes through late December and into January.

Ranking System Changes

The ranking system has never been perfect in Heroes of the Storm, and it appears Blizzard is still searching for the right formula. After today’s patch, Hero League will be restricted to solo queue only, meaning that only players who exhibit individual skill will climb to the top of the leaderboard.

Competitive group play has been moved entirely over to Team League, where teams of two, three, or five can compete against one another. Team League still requires players to be within one league of each other, but friends will now be able to play ranked games together much more easily than before, where they had to round up a full group of five to play Team League.

The patch notes state that Team League will still utilize First Come, First Serve (FCFS) during Draft Mode, meaning that anyone on the team can lock in a Hero at any time. While this definitely provides more flexibility for teams compared to an ordered draft, there have already been several community outcries against it. “What if someone just trolls and first picks something terrible? How do I properly coordinate with random people in the allotted time period?” Their concerns may be unfounded, but only time will tell if the FCFS system creates more team rifts than than bonds.

League Changes and Matchmaking

As a minor point, Blizzard also plans on adjusting the league population sizes. Silver and Gold leagues will now contain a similar amount of players while Diamond will now have about half as many people as before. The reasoning for this is probably to smooth out the MMR by making upper divisions more exclusive and creating more room in lower leagues to balance it out.

With the addition of another soft reset, hopefully matchmaking will become more accurate for all players.