What a steal though, you know the enemy team is dissatisfied with how they handled that.

Notes being discussed: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/19893628


Heroes

Lt.Morales:
Looks pretty good so far, wont really know for sure how good the medic is going to be until actual gameplay goes down. I'm really liking the passive trait.

The Butcher:
I like these changes, now he can actually finish the job on low squishies instead of doing 15% of 10 hp, now he'll do 10% of their total life pool. So anyone with low hp is going to need to watch their shit, instead of simply enduring savage charge and escaping.
Still though, he'll probably remain as a champ great in quick match against low elo players. Because high skill teams wont be caught out enough to worry about him.

Zeratul:
I main zeratul, but I agree with this nerf. He is too powerful right now, he's definitely a top pick/top ban hero right now. I've been saying that his void prison is the best heroic in the game, just because of the sheer possibilities of plays that can happen from it --for league players think bards ultimate, except not shit and not on a shit character-- It should be nice to see if he merely stays top tier and becomes less contested and to see if people will start using shadow assault. Because shadow assault isn't bad, it's just that right now void prison is too good to say no to.

Abathur:
Who gives a fuck? Fuck abathur.

Nazeebo:
Hell it's about damn time he got nerfed. Good work blizzard, now I'll actually have to worry about being good while practicing him. Instead of just building spiders and doing rapey levels of damage to anyone I throw them at.

Tassadar:
This change is retarded, all of it, you never nerf a hero with that low of play/win rate. Also he'll never be any good as a healer so they should just give up on that. His kit has no natural heals in it.
What they need to do is get some duct tape and a sharpy, write specialist on it and slap that shit over the top of support. He's a high fucking templar, not a goddamn cleric. He's no fun as a support anyways, would you rather run around clicking one button to shield people --because he has no fucking heals, probably because he's a high fucking templar-- or actually doing something?
Because as a sieger and a Zeratul counter he's great! Just let him be special instead of worrying about making him mediocre enough that new players wont feel bad about being their teams only support.
Make his ass a specialist to fix that, because now people are still going to be bitching at these players, except instead of it being that they didn't pick a legit support. It will be because they picked a useless hero that doesn't do anything well.

Tryande:
Retarded for the same reasons, she's not designed to be a top pick main healer. Just forget about it blizzard.

Chen:
If Chen is going to be legit now then I'll get him. But honestly I could see him being Doctor Mundo levels of toxic. He already just sort of runs around invincible and gets a ton of free harass. With these changes I'm worried.
But I never liked Chen from the get go, he always struck me as having no risk.

Diablo:
About time this guy isn't shit

E.T.C:
Oh cool, looking forward to womboing with my hammer.

Johanna:
Thank god. She also needed a nerf. Another top pick hero here, she's too good, she can win team fights and hold down a lane solo.
Honestly not sure if this nerf will be enough

Leoric:
Again, thank god. Still not sure if this nerf will be enough either, I think the problem was less that he can clear any lane with one Q, so much as there is no risk in doing so. Seeing as how his escape is unstoppable, sort of feel like that's the ability needing nerf, or full on removal from the game.

Muradin:
Glad they left him alone, he's in a good spot. He's good.

Rexxar:
Don't care at all, wont play his ass until they've got all his problems worked out.

Stitches:
Oh is he going to be decent now? I hope so! My friend and I have been practicing ambush hammer with ally pull stitches, it's dirty.
It would be cool if stitches was actually viable instead of it being a gimmick composition.

Kael'thas:
They didn't do anything to this fucker. If Zeratul is OP, Kael is broken! He's a constant top ban/top pick.
All I know is with the nerf to his natural predators, Zeratul, Johanna and Leoric our Kael'thas player is going to be perma-locked as KT in team league. Because on any map with area objectives, Kael'thas shits on everyone else already, let alone after the nerfs that have been handed out. Look forward to him being insta-banned in any tourney matches.
Lord have mercy on our souls.

Maps
Battlefield of Eternity:
I'm not sure the immortals really needed a late game boost so much as an early game boost. Early immortals are mostly useless, and fighting over them is pointless. Most teams only fight over it so that the enemy team wont get it for free. When most good teams wipe the enemy team early, instead of trying to capture the immortal they'll just grab a camp or push lanes, because that's all the time they have before the enemy team re-spawns. Maybe if the early immortals didn't die in a nano second and did some real damage, late game immortals wouldn't feel so week.
But I'm not really sure.

Garden of Terror:
I agree with this change, should have been that way from the get go.

Infernal Shrines:
Hallelujah they're nerfing the punisher! This thing is stupid good against heroes right now and there's almost no warning of when it will jump on you which is almost guaranteed death against a sieging team with cc. Also I'm glad they're increasing the time you have to spend in the shrines.

Sky temple:
WOO!, that three temple spawn was pretty much ending the game for any team that was on defense at the time it spawns. This map just went from sucking an entire buffet of dicks, to maybe being a decent map. Can't wait to see how these changes effect the game.


Closing reaction:
Mixed bag, a lot of good and some of me wondering what the fuck they're doing. But with the upcoming heroes and everything considered, this is shaping up to be the biggest patch of all time. And whatever the outcome is, it looks like HotS is just going to get more exciting.

I just got this game. It lags a lot though and it's probably because my computer is shitty. I run league at 50 fps and this game I'm lucky if I pull out 30. It looks fun though. My only issue with the experience. It's Kind of dumb how your whole team gets xp no matter where you get it from. Theres no point to lanes then and theres no risk in roaming because if you leave you will get the same amount of xp. I dont mind there not being items, that's why I don't care for dota. The items in that game are fucking attrociously complicated, and the ones in league are too if you dont invest time into it.

My biggest issue is there is no reward for being good and getting kills. It's an interesting game, but I don't know, something about getting fed in league is just super satisfying. I do like how comebacks are very possible though. Don't really think it's going to steal leagues fan base though. It's different, but it looks like this will cater more to blizzards massive fan base as a fun free alternative to WoW and Diablo when they get sick of questing. Over all a really fun game though.

Quote from Cruel

I just got this game. It lags a lot though and it's probably because my computer is shitty. I run league at 50 fps and this game I'm lucky if I pull out 30. It looks fun though. My only issue with the experience. It's Kind of dumb how your whole team gets xp no matter where you get it from. Theres no point to lanes then and theres no risk in roaming because if you leave you will get the same amount of xp. I dont mind there not being items, that's why I don't care for dota. The items in that game are fucking attrociously complicated, and the ones in league are too if you dont invest time into it.

My biggest issue is there is no reward for being good and getting kills. It's an interesting game, but I don't know, something about getting fed in league is just super satisfying. I do like how comebacks are very possible though. Don't really think it's going to steal leagues fan base though. It's different, but it looks like this will cater more to blizzards massive fan base as a fun free alternative to WoW and Diablo when they get sick of questing. Over all a really fun game though.

Lanes don't really work that way, you can't just roam all over the map, actually lanes are one of the most integral aspect to playing heroes of the storm. If you get out soaked, you'll most likely lose. So it's important to make sure you have people soaking those lanes at all times until level ten, which is when grouping and team fighting begins, so if you don't soak you're putting your team at a tremendous disadvantage. Because of this the only snowballing that can be done is cumulative as a team, so there's no imbalanced hyper carries like in league or dota.

No reward for getting kills? I mean there is experience, but early game the exp is so low and the respawn times are so fast that the reward doesn't come directly from killing them. The reward of killing enemy characters early game is that they aren't in lane to soak exp or to stop tower pushes. Which will apply pressure to all the enemies lanes and alleviate pressure on your lanes. The reward of killing an enemy hero late game is that they'll be respawning. So they can't contest an objective. God forbid you get a pick and leave their team in a helpless 4 vs 5 until they spawn.
If anything the reward is even sweeter, knowing that I'm not just going to get so powerful that they can't face me after a few cheap picks. Because I'll actually have to be consistently good all game and not slip up, instead of nuking people with one auto attack and three huge items, because one of their players was worse than me.

Quote from Jutsu

Lanes don't really work that way, you can't just roam all over the map, actually lanes are one of the most integral aspect to playing heroes of the storm. If you get out soaked, you'll most likely lose. So it's important to make sure you have people soaking those lanes at all times until level ten, which is when grouping and team fighting begins, so if you don't soak you're putting your team at a tremendous disadvantage. Because of this the only snowballing that can be done is cumulative as a team, so there's no imbalanced hyper carries like in league or dota.

No reward for getting kills? I mean there is experience, but early game the exp is so low and the respawn times are so fast that the reward doesn't come directly from killing them. The reward of killing enemy characters early game is that they aren't in lane to soak exp or to stop tower pushes. Which will apply pressure to all the enemies lanes and alleviate pressure on your lanes. The reward of killing an enemy hero late game is that they'll be respawning. So they can't contest an objective. God forbid you get a pick and leave their team in a helpless 4 vs 5 until they spawn.
If anything the reward is even sweeter, knowing that I'm not just going to get so powerful that they can't face me after a few cheap picks. Because I'll actually have to be consistently good all game and not slip up, instead of nuking people with one auto attack and three huge items, because one of their players was worse than me.

Oh I get it with the xp thing, that makes sense. I'm clearly new to the game though. So explain jungle camps to me. Out of nowhere the enemy swarmed my lane with fucking huge ass near invincible monsters and took two towers. You kill them in the jungle and then they push your lane for you, but why are they so damn strong? The heros just defended them and they ripped towers apart.

camps are uber important. It's how you get map control in the game so you never want the other team to get your camps or be getting them more frequently than your team. Camps aren't uber OP depending on who you have on your team. For example, the way I build Sylvanas will absolutely wreck camps off of her passive alone (it paralyzes minions and structures). I always talk about how camps win games because if you have even one camp pushing bot lane, you can sit your whole team top lane and start pushing structures. Since a team will push faster, the enemy team will obviously come up to contest against you which means your camp can push for free in a lane. If they split their team then it's easier to either wipe them up top or get a pick or two which is also devastating. The game comes off as more simple than League because it doesn't have a shop or last hitting, but it's more complex in other areas too. Talents pretty much are the shop in HotS considering you have to know how to build against other heroes or on specific maps. It's so hard to win a team fight if your team is down a talent, and if you're down two talents against the right team then it's probably GG.

For example Arch and I just played a game on sky temple and our strategy is thus; instead of going for the second temple spawn early in the game --which only spawns one temple on bottom lane-- you'll have someone capture your camp on top lane as it's about to spawn and push down lanes.
The exp and damage you'll get from tearing down structures is more worth it than fighting over the temple and at low level heroes destroy structures better than the temples do.

Of course mid to late game you'll want to fight over every temple though. But that's why you want the exp advantage, beating them to ten on that map means they'll have to be defensive to catch up especially if you pull way ahead. And the defensive team is going to get their butts broken on that map.

Quote from Jutsu

Lt.Morales:
Looks pretty good so far, wont really know for sure how good the medic is going to be until actual gameplay goes down. I'm really liking the passive trait.

The Trait? I thought it was bit underwhelming, since it's really just Muradin's trait with different numbers.

Quote from Jutsu

Zeratul:
I main zeratul, but I agree with this nerf. He is too powerful right now, he's definitely a top pick/top ban hero right now. I've been saying that his void prison is the best heroic in the game, just because of the sheer possibilities of plays that can happen from it --for league players think bards ultimate, except not shit and not on a shit character-- It should be nice to see if he merely stays top tier and becomes less contested and to see if people will start using shadow assault. Because shadow assault isn't bad, it's just that right now void prison is too good to say no to.

Shadow Assault has been getting some underground love and maybe this is what it needed to get picked a bit more. The only problem is that Shadow Assault Zeratul requires a completely different playstyle and build-path that you have to commit to from lvl 4 or even 1. Probably 1 with the AA damage nerfs.

Quote from Jutsu

Abathur:
Who gives a fuck? Fuck abathur.

Why the hate? :(

I actually see Abathur combo'ing really well with both SA Zeratul and the Medic with Stim Drone on Illidan/Butcher/SA Zeratul(?).

Quote from Jutsu

Nazeebo:
Hell it's about damn time he got nerfed. Good work blizzard, now I'll actually have to worry about being good while practicing him. Instead of just building spiders and doing rapey levels of damage to anyone I throw them at.

Nazeebo changes are definitely going to make his toad build - that was already on the rise - a lot more popular, which is nice to see because I find the toads some more fun of an ability than tossing spiders, despite how metal both are.

Quote from Jutsu

Tassadar:
This change is retarded, all of it, you never nerf a hero with that low of play/win rate. Also he'll never be any good as a healer so they should just give up on that. His kit has no natural heals in it.
What they need to do is get some duct tape and a sharpy, write specialist on it and slap that shit over the top of support. He's a high fucking templar, not a goddamn cleric. He's no fun as a support anyways, would you rather run around clicking one button to shield people --because he has no fucking heals, probably because he's a high fucking templar-- or actually doing something?
Because as a sieger and a Zeratul counter he's great! Just let him be special instead of worrying about making him mediocre enough that new players wont feel bad about being their teams only support.
Make his ass a specialist to fix that, because now people are still going to be bitching at these players, except instead of it being that they didn't pick a legit support. It will be because they picked a useless hero that doesn't do anything well.

Exactly that. All we needed to fix his QM viability is a fix to his QM problem: his classification and how it affects the queue.

Quote from Jutsu

Tryande:
Retarded for the same reasons, she's not designed to be a top pick main healer. Just forget about it blizzard.

Sad to see Shadowstalk go like this. It was a very unique ability that fell in line perfectly with the hero's fantasy and provided great utility, now it's "the healing ultimate".

Quote from Jutsu

Chen:
If Chen is going to be legit now then I'll get him. But honestly I could see him being Doctor Mundo levels of toxic. He already just sort of runs around invincible and gets a ton of free harass. With these changes I'm worried.
But I never liked Chen from the get go, he always struck me as having no risk.

Chen is "no risk" in the same way that Illidan and Sonya are borderline OP if you don't have cc. If you interrupt his shield he's toast. Raynor makes a really good counter-pick and a good pick in general with his displacement.

Quote from Jutsu

Johanna:
Thank god. She also needed a nerf. Another top pick hero here, she's too good, she can win team fights and hold down a lane solo.
Honestly not sure if this nerf will be enough

If they're gonna nerf her again after this that's cool and all but I would love it if they wait because I'm using her to climb out of this MMR shithole and it's slow enough already.

More seriously, and continuing the above topic, being able to single-handedly win a teamfight by being unkillable and chain-stunning their whole team while making waves disappear is a bit on the ridiculous side.

Quote from Jutsu

Garden of Terror:
I agree with this change, should have been that way from the get go.

I don't know about this, the one thing I like about this map is the flexibility and playmaking potential that lies in being able to do whatever the fuck you want with the terror, and the way Blizzard writes this out sounds like they want to push it into being a more offensive Massive Hero, a la Dragon Knight. This also means that late game the defensive team get fucked a lot harder, especially if the terror split pushes. What this means is that a lot of the close, turnaround-after-turnaround games that I've played and loved on this map wouldn't be possible anymore. Or maybe I'm just overestimating this but really it depends on how the lack of scaling on Overgrowth works out. With Blizzard not releasing numbers publicly it's hard to tell.





This wasn't spoken about in the PTR Patch Notes but the abilities/talents and numbers (besides aa damage gains) have been found for Artanis and are available for viewing at Heroes Nexus. http://www.heroesnexus.com/heroes/60-artanis?filter-ptr=1 His Hero Spotlight is also out and can be viewed here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozAnM0n2UGg

Trait: Gains a shield if he drops below half health. 20 sec cd that gets reduced by 4 secs with every AA @ 1 AA per second.

The shields numbers are pretty significant and he has plenty of talented options for it outside of the base AA cdr. It lasts 5 seconds. This means with an unbuffed AA spd you will get just enough cdr so that your shield will chain perfectly. However, he has an ability that resets the cd of two AAs. This means you could potentially proc the shield twice again during the duration of the first one, even without cdr talents. If these shields stack, multiple shields can be procced to give this guy an obscene amount damage mitigation but given that it only procs when under 50% health I could see this getting fucked up real bad. For sure gonna fun to play with, especially if you've played shield-build Kerrigan - or Chen I guess, except instead of nursing your shield up out of combat and keeping the duration up, you give violent birth to it in the middle of a teamfight. This ability alone makes him a dangerous duelist.

Q: Dashes forward and then returns to your original position, dealing a decent amount of total damage both ways. 10 sec cd, 65 mana
The initial dash does lighter damage so the meat is on the return. The AoE is also rather large, like a Gazlowe lazer on the second to last charge phase more or less. Looks like it could be used to finish a runner and return quickly but would generally serve the purpose of a Zeratul wormhole poke combo but w/ less single target damage.

W: 4 sec cd, 25 mana
A very spammable ability that resets the cd of your next AA and makes it hit twice. So if you time it right you effectively land 3 AAs where you could've landed one. Which is also 12 seconds off your trait's cooldown. Fairly straight forward ability. Can be talented for 3 instant AAs at 13 or a mini-Shadow Assault dash (the famous Zealot Charge) at lvl 13 while at 16 this can be talented for a vulnerability on the last instant AA or for buffed AAs to deal an extra 2.5% of the target's max health in damage.

E: fires a thin skillshot (about the same area as an uncharged Gazlowe lazer) that switches your position with that of the enemy hero it hits and also does damage. 14 sec cd, 70 mana

Can be talented at lvl 1 for cdr and mana returns if you miss, a 25% AA-spd self-buff at 4 (note that AA spd both increases Artanis's damage by quite a bit and also allows his shields to recharge faster), a 30% slow at 7 and a pull+damage on two heroes instead of one.
Both gets Artanis into position and takes an enemy out of postion (unless you hit an Arthas/Muradin/whoever, in which case rip in pepperoni your team). Looks like a real fun and heavy impact ability, really looking forward to this.

Ultimate 1: 50 sec cd, 40 mana

Large AoE, good amount of damage and Blinds for 4 seconds.
Counters Bloodlust in every way imaginable. Demolishes, Illidan/Butcher or anything remotely reliant on AAs.
Can be talented for 2 charges with 10 secs of cd in between them.

Ult 2: 80 sec cd, 80 mana

Targeted DoT Precision Strike/Single-Target Maelstrom but can be talented for an automatically retargeted Triple-Tap Reload.
This looks like it's going it's going to be my new favorite ability, for sure.


Notes:

Could be a counter-pick to Leo?

Definitely counters Jaina with the mobility and shield. Ice Block and Frost Armor will help her a lot but a) you're forcing her to be more defensive and b) she still doesn't really threaten you while you can still threaten her.

Enemy drafts multiple Warriors? Pick Leo and this motherfucker, watch them crumble.

Get a tank and throw him in there with a full damage build for some sonya-type fun/bullshit.
Especially good in multi-warrior setups with the blind to shut down GiantKillers™

Hardcore dives with warp on the backline.

He looks pretty big so body-blocking with him I expect to be nice.

Artanis + Abathur is going to be utterly hilarious. Simply not going to die.

And medic too considering she can probably top him off in his shield.

Bloodlust on this motherfucker is going to be straight up retarded.

Holy fuck you're stupid. Artanis hard counters everyone but Illidan because he's going to sit behind his wall and wait for the enemy to push his shit so he can swap places with them and Q their eye balls out. I would definitely not pick him for a main tank, but he would be an amazing counter to bulky teams. Have a Thrall use Earthquake on them and Rhegar have 90% slowing totems and watch them burn because you're smart and drop the laser beam on a tank. Holy shit the plays are going to be real with this guy.

Quote from Damian

Shadow Assault has been getting some underground love and maybe this is what it needed to get picked a bit more. The only problem is that Shadow Assault Zeratul requires a completely different playstyle and build-path that you have to commit to from lvl 4 or even 1. Probably 1 with the AA damage nerfs.

I don't agree about the whole "dedicated build" snippet. I mean, I could literally just pick shadow assault on my build instead of void prison and it would function fine.

Quote from Damian

Why the hate? :(

I actually see Abathur combo'ing really well with both SA Zeratul and the Medic with Stim Drone on Illidan/Butcher/SA Zeratul(?).

Because 9/10 times missing the extra body in team fights will cause your team to lose. It's just nice to have a teammate that actually participates on the map, instead of risklessly sitting behind base all game watching their team fail from above.

Quote from Damian

Nazeebo changes are definitely going to make his toad build - that was already on the rise - a lot more popular, which is nice to see because I find the toads some more fun of an ability than tossing spiders, despite how metal both are.

Yeah like he really needs a nerf, along with leoric he had a really high win rate over the last few weeks.

Looking forward to building him in creative ways instead of just razing their whole base with spiders.

Quote from Damian

Exactly that. All we needed to fix his QM viability is a fix to his QM problem: his classification and how it affects the queue.



Sad to see Shadowstalk go like this. It was a very unique ability that fell in line perfectly with the hero's fantasy and provided great utility, now it's "the healing ultimate".

I would rather hear that they're focusing on what makes these heroes special and their lore, than placating to knew players that don't understand basic nuances like healing.

Quote from Damian

Chen is "no risk" in the same way that Illidan and Sonya are borderline OP if you don't have cc. If you interrupt his shield he's toast. Raynor makes a really good counter-pick and a good pick in general with his displacement.

Chen is not OP, that's not what I meant. Actually he's shit right now.

He does what he does really well, it's just that what he does "run around invincible" doesn't really do shit for his team.

Quote from Damian

More seriously, and continuing the above topic, being able to single-handedly win a teamfight by being unkillable and chain-stunning their whole team while making waves disappear is a bit on the ridiculous side.

What's even nastier is her ability to combo Leoric. If you're picking heroes and they get both Johanna and Leoric, you're in for a world of hurt.

Quote from Damian

I don't know about this, the one thing I like about this map is the flexibility and playmaking potential that lies in being able to do whatever the fuck you want with the terror, and the way Blizzard writes this out sounds like they want to push it into being a more offensive Massive Hero, a la Dragon Knight. This also means that late game the defensive team get fucked a lot harder, especially if the terror split pushes. What this means is that a lot of the close, turnaround-after-turnaround games that I've played and loved on this map wouldn't be possible anymore. Or maybe I'm just overestimating this but really it depends on how the lack of scaling on Overgrowth works out. With Blizzard not releasing numbers publicly it's hard to tell.

I've noticed that late game garden terrors kind of have a hard time finishing the job. Note that any fight against the terror is supposed to be lopsided, the real battle takes place over who gets a terror.

It should be nice now that it can stop the core from shooting it, but the health bump may be a little much.

This just in: phase prism is a displacement and not a teleport so you can NOT warp people behind your gates. That Arch, is why I wanted to wait and see how it worked out before going off saying shit like "he hard counters everyone" and "holy fuck you're stupid". But I understand, the hype is real.

Quote from Arch-Angel

Holy fuck you're stupid. Artanis hard counters everyone but Illidan because he's going to sit behind his wall and wait for the enemy to push his shit so he can swap places with them and Q their eye balls out. I would definitely not pick him for a main tank, but he would be an amazing counter to bulky teams. Have a Thrall use Earthquake on them and Rhegar have 90% slowing totems and watch them burn because you're smart and drop the laser beam on a tank. Holy shit the plays are going to be real with this guy.

That's like saying stitches counters everyone because he can do the same thing with a longer range and has gorge to complement the ability. Sure, his presence is going to make people watch themselves so they don't get fucked but it's not like every encounter with the enemy is going to happen at your gates. Not to mention you can recreate the same exact thing by just body blocking them in your team. I recognize the obvious the obvious playmaking potential in this, I just want to see how the ability works in practice before saying much.

Quote from Jutsu

I don't agree about the whole "dedicated build" snippet. I mean, I could literally just pick shadow assault on my build instead of void prison and it would function fine.

It'd work but chaining AAs with follow through is a loss of potential dps and without picking some talents you'd be missing out on some of the highest dps in the game. And generally people want to milk SA for what it's worth since you're missing out on VP.

Quote from Jutsu

It should be nice now that it can stop the core from shooting it, but the health bump may be a little much.

Health bump? The change being made in regards to health is that the health of the plant pots won't scale anymore. So the pot freezing your core earlier should be as easy to kill as the ones freezing your forts earlier.

On Abathur: I am a firm believer in the slug but I may be biased considering I tend to play heroes that are good hat targets and I've seen him at his best. But with certain comps, Abathur is a fantastic pick. If you're building dive with a Tyrael, you could pick Sylvanas to do your pushing and drop silences and do fine but having Abathur to soak while you rotate (because such a comp is naturally going to have great gank potential) and hat Tyrael with talents like Battle Momentum, Vamp, Absorption, Nexus Blades and all of a sudden your comp as a whole meshes together better and your dives are going to be a lot more effective. So he's situational but when he's in the right place he's a beast. An abomination, if you will.

Also mark my words, New ETC + Artanis will be the duo.

Quote from Damian

It'd work but chaining AAs with follow through is a loss of potential dps and without picking some talents you'd be missing out on some of the highest dps in the game. And generally people want to milk SA for what it's worth since you're missing out on VP.

Well allow me to show you my current Zeratul build before you make big judgement calls on it.
1: Seasoned marksman
I find that I usually don't have a big enough mana pool to use regen master and rapid displacement can be resolved by solid positioning. I'll take rapid displacement on super early game maps.
4: Focused attack
No brainer, you spend so much time cloaked.
7: Follow through
I take this trait because it's not going to gobble up my mana the way searing attacks does, also it doesn't have a 25 second cool down. Meaning the damage by follow through is more consistent throughout the whole match.
10: VP
Because it's too good.
13: Assassins blade
I'll take wormhole if they have lots of cc and I'll pick giant killer if they try to counter with tanks. This talents speed bump is underrated, especially at higher levels of play where it's useful for juking in stealth mode.
16: Rending cleave
Unless you're playing magetul, this level is the least significant IMO. But it's still a pretty big bump to my cleave damage.
20: Rewind
This should be no surprise, especially considering follow through.

You're talking about what is optimal and to a certain extent you get it. But only hypothetically.
You aren't considering the fact that Zeratul is seldom going to get the chance to do more than throw down a cleave and an auto attack before he becomes the focus target and has to blink away from combat immediately.
It's a nice idea to take searing attack + Shadow assault, but the truth is by level 10 at a competitive level no one is going to step out of line long enough for you to chain auto attacks on them, and even if they do I'd rather have the reliable damage from my build than running the risk of being gassed and missing out on a large portion of it.
It could be worth the risk to build specifically for that, but searing attack is a dead give away for shadow assault. Meaning a good team will know what you're up to by level 7. Also considering how low his health pool is, unless you have another prime focus target on your team if you go for an auto attacker build you're likely to simply get chain CC'd and nuked before you get to unleash your damage.

Sneak in, do your damage and blink out. That's the proper way to do it against most team compositions.

Quote from Damian

Health bump? The change being made in regards to health is that the health of the plant pots won't scale anymore. So the pot freezing your core earlier should be as easy to kill as the ones freezing your forts earlier.

Incorrect

Garden Terror
Overgrowth (W)
Now also disables the enemy Core
Health now increases the longer the game progresses

SA can be picked with whatever build you want and it'll still be effective because it gives Zeratul tools that complement his natural assassination power. However, SA is just 20% att spd on a 100 sec CD. So if it is picked, it's because they've decided go for a more sustained AA build Zeratul that plays somewhat differently and is a lot riskier. This is obviously not always the best choice and it's something you tend to build a comp around. For your day-to-day Zeratul needs a burstier FA/FT and double bombs or whatever your preference is. I'm not saying your build is wrong because that would be a beyond stupid thing to say. Just that the meta around Shadow Assault is weird. Blame Korea.

As for your build, well I've seen it before. Anyway, when I say FT is a dps loss I mean only when SA or Berzerk is active. Of course, it's generally the superior choice outside that rare scenario.

And now that we touch on builds, I have a completely unrelated inquiry. At level 16 double bombs is not strictly a mageatul choice. I've seen it picked frequently for e thextra slow and Follow Through proc on melee Zeratul but I haven't tested vs Rending despite how much I love dots in my assassinations. Thoughts/Observations?

Terrors: yeah, for some reason I read it and thought it was the other way around. Don't mind that snippet of derp.

Well, I've gotten over the fact that they nerfed the cooler play style in tassadar, because he's going to be great this patch either way.
Don't get me wrong I still think that if you look at the heroes lore an archon dominant style makes more sense. But man, they buffed his shields to god levels, I clocked ten games in as new tassadar already in the PTR.
So I'm fresh ready to stomp on the coming free week novas this patch.

Quote from Damian

SA can be picked with whatever build you want and it'll still be effective because it gives Zeratul tools that complement his natural assassination power. However, SA is just 20% att spd on a 100 sec CD. So if it is picked, it's because they've decided go for a more sustained AA build Zeratul that plays somewhat differently and is a lot riskier. This is obviously not always the best choice and it's something you tend to build a comp around. For your day-to-day Zeratul needs a burstier FA/FT and double bombs or whatever your preference is. I'm not saying your build is wrong because that would be a beyond stupid thing to say. Just that the meta around Shadow Assault is weird. Blame Korea.

As for your build, well I've seen it before. Anyway, when I say FT is a dps loss I mean only when SA or Berzerk is active. Of course, it's generally the superior choice outside that rare scenario.

And now that we touch on builds, I have a completely unrelated inquiry. At level 16 double bombs is not strictly a mageatul choice. I've seen it picked frequently for e thextra slow and Follow Through proc on melee Zeratul but I haven't tested vs Rending despite how much I love dots in my assassinations. Thoughts/Observations?

I agree with most of what you said about shadow assault in this post, I feel like you're reiterating some of my points though. A purely dedicated auto attack zeratul is too easy to see coming during game by looking at what talents he picks and like that play style could be easily countered during hero draft. Because of this I will probably be playing the exact same build this patch as last patch.

I feel like it's the double bombs themselves that make zeratul into mage-tul, I mean you would never go mage-tul without it. Still though, mage-tul is viable and we might see him more often during this next patch, it's the type of thing I build against blinds and cc.
As for rending cleave, I tend to take it unless they have AoE heals, I could see taking double bomb or berserk instead depending on if you're leaning towards mage-tul or AA. But in most situations it's nicer to have all that residual cleave damage instead, because it's too risky to assume you'll have the chance to chain another auto off of double bomb. Like I said, he has a split second to get his business done and then split.

If they lack blind and CC auto attacker is swaggy, if they do have those things, then mage-tul is swaggy.
But in most situations it's best to strike a balance and just trust you'll scale into late game like a god.

Actually it looks like a lot of people are going to be leaning more towards Rending Cleave over Double Bombs for the Z regardless, since you only have a 2 second window with wormhole now and you won't get as much out of DBombs anyway. I completely forgot about that nerf in our discussion, especially since we both favor Assassin's Blade anyway but I'll keep an eye on AB and RC/DB's popularities now, see what peeps come up with.

Anyway, does anyone here have the Medic? I haven't been able to play the new patch yet, so how's that been? Is the new Sonya as amazeballs as I hear?