Nazeebo as a hero has a fairly well-designed core moveset, as well as a focused gameplan. His basic abilities are intentionally hard to land, but have major payoffs when executed correctly. That said, over time his character has drifted in a problematic direction, and this was seen to in his August 2021 rework, which...
did not seem to understand what the problems with Nazeebo were.
Simply put, all the team really did was buff him. They gave every other talent he had some extra boons, just so that he'd have a higher winrate, not realizing that when a character like this has a less-than-ideal winrate, it's usually because the character kit was simply too problematic to be given straight buffs. Today, Nazeebo is generally despised in QM and other lower-level environments, and his dependency upon Vile Infection is still one of his most defining characteristics. The problem with Nazeebo wasn't that his talents needed buffing, no, but rather that his entire talent tree needed reshuffling, and didn't provide adequate payoffs for Nazeebo stacking high with Voodoo Ritual outside of Vile Infection. Part of why Nazeebo doesn't receive much compensation for acquiring stacks is because it comes almost entirely from PvE, and rewarding a player too much for a relatively risk-free part of the game is always going to lead to problematic balance.
As such, this rework aims to...
A) Give Nazeebo ways to stack Voodoo Ritual in teamfights
B) Give Nazeebo more immediate payoffs to stacking high with Voodoo Ritual
C) Reel in Nazeebo's lategame talents while still making him a lategame hero
Heroes of the Storm Build Guides
Baseline Q changes make it impossible for spiders to ever deal damage to moving targets. They currently move slightly faster than Mount Speed (130%). This rework makes them almost thrice as slow. This ability does not deserve such an insane nerf. It currently only gets dangerous with both [Widowmakers] and [Vile Infection] completed.
New LVL1 has the same issues as the old one. Why ever pick [Big Voodoo] that became weaker with the passive bonus being nerfed when you can select [Thing of the Deep] for greater range or [Vile Infection] to actually deal damage?
[Dead Rush] granting Voodoo Ritual stacks on Takedowns does not fit its purpose. This bonus feels out of place due to other talents granting stacks from the abilities themselves. It would have been better if it made the zombies that uproot grant 2 stacks with every Basic Attack against Heroes.
[Hexed Crawlers] being moved to LVL7 with Q changes makes it very weak. There is no reason to ever pick over [Blood Ritual] that can now make you survive the impossible.
How much Health does the [Voodoo Block] totem have?
[Superstition] does not even grant 1 Attack Range. It does not deserve to be nerfed.
[Spider Colony] was not strong, the other talents were weak, especially [Soul Harvest]. This nerf makes [Ring of Poison] the only viable talent.
[Bargain with the Beyond] summons Nazeebo at the Hall of Storms... right? Because otherwise it is absurd. No, wait, it is absurd either way, as it makes it impossible to ever win a fight or push against Nazeebo due to him constantly returning at almost no cost. This talent needs at least a 60 second cooldown.
Baseline Q changes: I think you may have misread the changes. The spiders start slow (at roughly half mount speed, not a third), and accelerate. This does decrease the number of bites they perform against a speedy opponent, but at the same time makes them a bit better at chasing down foes with burst movement options. Overall the goal was to normalize spider damage by making them have similar effectiveness against mobile and non-mobile heroes, while punishing heroes who are sedentary or slowed. I want spiders to reward players who can force the enemy hero to double back or hold their ground, rather than the effectiveness being on a per-hero basis.
Big Voodoo's usefulness: So I think here you only looked at the talent in isolation. In current HotS, Big Voodoo is a talent that cannot be taken alongside Nazeebo's self-healing talents, all of which are % based. So in this rework, Big Voodoo increases the effectiveness of his level 7 talents. If you have 1000 extra health from Big Voodoo, then that's an extra 20 health per enemy minion killed using Blood Ritual.
Dead Rush stacks: You know what? I agree with this. Not sure if 2 stacks is the right number, but I think letting the zombies do the stack-granting themselves is more than fine.
Hexed Crawlers: Beyond the 'takedowns heal Nazeebo' effect and being pushed to level 7, these talents were unchanged? But number adjustments are something you can play with. A 1.25% heal would probably do nice things for Big Voodoo, I suppose.
Voodoo Block: Hard to say, honestly. Less health than Kerrigan's chrysalis, probably.
Superstition: The change was a lateral one because the current spider-summoning effect is not good design. Punishing players who properly navigate the ability's counterplay? No thanks. The number could be bumped up to 20%, but the goal was to make performing the talent's counterplay a bit harder while synergizing with his level 1 talents (Vile Infection is obvious, Thing of the Deep normalizes Nazeebo's effective range, and Big Voodoo already synergizes with the spell armor).
Spider Colony: You might be right, I might adjust this talent tier.
Bargain with the Beyond: It's at the Hall of Storms, of course. I actually consulted with some higher level players on this one, since I kept going back and forth on giving it a cooldown. A 30 second one just to prevent Nazeebo from having a single-person one-man-stand... but playing through the math it was suggested to not be worth it. After just 3 uses, the ability costs 100 stacks to activate, for a total of 250 stacks total, all the while reducing Nazeebo's effectiveness. The feedback I received talked me down from the starting cost being 50, since it was thought to not be strong enough, but I might reinstate that, so reviving just two times costs a whopping 125 stacks.
I did not. Making the spiders extremely slow while also making them reset their Movement Speed every time they land an attack renders them almost useless.
Maybe this change would have been decent without the MS reset. This ability is not even strong to begin with.
>I think here you only looked at the talent in isolation
I did not. There is no reason to pick it because there is no reason to have more Health over much more Range and Damage on a Ranged Assassin.
>these talents were unchanged?
They were:
[Blood Ritual] was buffed, although it was already the best option most of time.
[Hexed Crawls] was already questionable at LVL4, and with the nerfs to [Corpse Spiders] it will never give the same value as the other two options.
>The number could be bumped up to 20%
Just make it increase Attack Range by 1 instead of 15%.
>It's at the Hall of Storms, of course
This actually does need to be specified.
>After just 3 uses, the ability costs 100 stacks to activate, for a total of 250 stacks total, all the while reducing Nazeebo's effectiveness
I do not know what "higher level players" you consulted, but they might not be as experienced as you thought.
Just so you could realise how broken this effect is:
[No One Can Stop Death] takes 3 MINUTES to recharge and has a drawback.
[Phylactery of Kel'Thuzad] requires 12 Regeneration Globes and has to be selected over one of the few defensive options.
These two talents are still considered some of the best for these characters.
If you could not win the game after your Nazeebo skipped the death timer 3 times, then you did not deserve to win in the first place.