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The future of work is changing fast. Future Focus cuts through the noise with three trends each week that matter most to HR and business leaders. When everything else is in flux, stay focused with Future Focus.

How People Feel About Vaccines Is Now Largely Political (Time) 

What to Know: A new survey of 5,000+ Americans shows vaccine attitudes are sharply polarized: 59% don’t plan to get the latest COVID-19 shot, including 83% of Republicans versus 44% of Democrats. Awareness of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s updated COVID-19 guidance is low, and support for school vaccine mandates — especially among Republicans — has fallen despite most still agreeing that vaccines’ benefits outweigh risks.  

Where to Focus: Vaccine sentiment is now a political signal, not just a health preference, making it a potential flashpoint in workplace interactions.  Political differences are among the top 5 sources of workplace incivility, according to the SHRM Q3 2025 Civility Index. This means that vaccine-related health communications and policies can trigger polarized reactions. 

Why Is It So Hard to Pay Cross-Border Employees In Europe (Fast Company)

What to Know: Hiring Europeans remains administratively complex: national labor, tax, and social security rules differ. Layer on inconsistent EU directives and misclassification risks amid the persistent talent shortage, and the hiring regulatory landscape just got a little more complicated. 

Where to Focus: Growth increasingly depends on accessing global talent, yet the operational drag of entity setup, social security coordination, and tax residency rules can erase speed-to-hire advantages. With EU labor shortages expected to worsen and demand for specialized talent up 112% in three years, organizations will need to upskill teams and draw from domestic untapped talent pools to close critical gaps.

Research: The Global Skills Mismatch

How Campbell’s Leaked Audio Turned a Pantry Staple Into a PR Crisis (Fortune)

What to Know: A leaked audio recording of a Campbell executive mocking Indian workers, disparaging customers, and referencing “bioengineered” or “3D” meat triggered swift public backlash over Thanksgiving weekend. The company confirmed the recording’s authenticity and removed the leader, but allegations in a related lawsuit suggest deeper questions about internal reporting culture and leadership oversight. 

Where to Focus: This moment highlights the direct link between leadership conduct and organizational trust. Leaders should revisit reporting pathways along with escalation protocols and prepare for the reality that unguarded moments can shape brand trust in seconds. Reinforcing crisis communications and training leaders on values-aligned behavior are essential steps to prevent isolated misconduct from escalating into an enterprise-level crisis.

Be the First to Know What’s Next 

Get Future Focus delivered weekly through Tomorrowist, your shortcut to smarter decisions in a changing world of work.

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch is live! Read on for more information.

NOTE: Orange text indicates a change between PTR and Live notes.

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Quick Navigation:

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General

• New Skin: Warthog Gear Head Thrall

• Players will now receive an announcement when a quest milestone is reached. This will only announce to the player who achieved the milestone.
• Ranges of abilities on numerous Heroes have been updated to be more consistent. This may cause certain abilities ranges to reduce or increase.
• Brawl

  • Starting January 2026, Brawls will only be open the first 5 days of every month.

• Updated Homescreen and Startup Music.

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Map Updates

• General
  

  • A new Fallback Tower has been added to the longer lanes on each of the following battleground maps. This new tower will die when its corresponding Fort dies: Alterac Pass, Battlefield of Eternity, Blackheart’s Bay, Braxis Holdout, Cursed Hollow, Dragon Shire, Garden of Terror, Hanamura Temple, Infernal Shrines, Sky Temple, Tomb of the Spider Queen, Volskaya Foundry, and Warhead Junction.
  • Attacks from the Core, Keeps, Forts, Fallback Towers, and Towers near Keeps will now reduce Hero armor, and the reduction has been increased from -10/-20 Armor to -20/-40 Armor.
  • Fallback Towers have the same HP and Attack Damage as Keep Towers.
  • Forts, Keeps, and the Core will no longer grant Allied Heroes that take damage in their radius 35 Armor for 4 seconds.
  • The comeback system has been slightly magnified, particularly at wide level gaps.

• Alterac Pass

  • Objective capture timer reduced by 5 seconds in each phase. The first phase only spawns a single defending unit.
  • Cavalry now gain more health in the later stages of the game.
  • Cavalry now take 60% damage from structures (up from 50%).

• Braxis Holdout

  • Early objectives have lowered in health by 15%, but scaling has been increased significantly after 15 minutes.

• Garden of Terror

  • Garden Terror health scaling increased.
  • Garden Terror structure disabling plant bulb now damages itself at 10% per second (up from 6%).

• Infernal Shrines

  • Early objectives have lowered in health by 15%, but scaling has been increased significantly after 15 minutes.

• Warhead Junction

  • Nuke damage has been changed to flat, scaling damage. Scaling is updated when a Warhead is picked up.
  • Nukes now deal double damage versus Forts, Keeps, and the Core.

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Balance Update

General

• Pinnacle Rewards have been added to mutiple Heroes. These will be hard to obtain but provide powerful rewards.

Heroes

Falstad

Base

• Lightning Rod [W]
  

  • Cooldown reduced from 13 seconds to 12 seconds.

Talents

• Level 1
  

  • Dishonorable Discharge
    

    • REWORK: No longer reduces CD. Bonuses are now provided at 20/45/75 hits. At 20 hits, gain 30% damage. At 45 hits, gain an additional 75% damage and reduce the cooldown by 2 seconds. Pinnacle Reward: At 75 hits, Lightning Rod provides 2 additional strikes and Stuns for 1.25s on its last strike.

  • Frequent Flyer

    • REWORK: Reduced attack speed bonus from 40% to 25%. Now provides 1 stack per minion and 5 stacks per Hero. At 50 stacks, gain 20 Attack Damage. At 125 stacks, gain an additional 50 Attack Damage. Pinnacle Reward: At 300 stacks, gain an additional 125 Attack Damage.

  • Gathering Storm

    • REWORK: Bonuses are now provided at 30/80/150 stacks, rather than incremental gains. At 30 stacks, gain 30% damage. At 80 stacks, gain an additional 50% damage. Pinnacle Reward: At 150 stacks, gain an additional 70% damage.
    • REWORK: Lose 8 stacks on death, but can not lose milestones that have already been completed.

• Level 7

  • Charged Up

    • Moved to be a Level 13 Talent.
    • No longer provides additional hits, but instead provides cooldown refresh on Hero takedowns.

• Level 13

  • Thunderstrikes

    • Moved to be a Level 7 Talent.

Guldan

Base

• Corruption [E]
  

  • Mana cost increased from 80 to 90.

Talents

• Level 1
  

  • Echoed Corruption
    

    • Increased stack requirement to 60. Pinnacle Reward: At 100 stacks, Corruption now heals for 50% of the damage dealt.

  • Pursuit of Flame

    • Increased radius from 10% to 15%.
    • Reworded to say “Fel Flame’s area is increased by 33%”.
    • Progress is now reset upon death and can not lose progress upon completion.

Johanna

Base

• Punish [Q]
  

  • Slow on enemies reduced from 60% to 50%.

  
  

Talents

• Level 4
  

  • Subdue
    

    • Slow on enemies reduced from 80% to 70%.

    
    

Kael’thas

Talents

• Level 1
  

  • Convection
    

    • REWORK: Every 20th Hero hit permanently increases Flamestrike damage by 150 and Kael’thas’s maximum Health by 50.

    
    

Kerrigan

Base

• Primal Grasp [E]
  

  • Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8.
  • Delayed damage reduced from 195 to 165.
  • Initial damage increased from 25 to 40.

• Ravage [Q]

  • Damage reduced from 130 to 115.
  • Now includes a baseline quest: Kill enemies within 1.5 seconds of hitting them with Ravage. Minions grant 1 progress and Heroes grant 5. At 75 stacks, Ravage gains 125 damage. Pinnacle Reward: At 125 stacks, Ravage gains 200 additional damage.

• Impaling Blades [W]

  • Cooldown reduced from 12 seconds to 9 seconds.
  • Damage reduced from 165 to 140.
  • Radius increased from 1.5 to 1.65.
  • Stun duration reduced from 1 second to .75 seconds.

• Assimilation [D]

  • Increased the amount of shield gained from Basic Attacks from 10% to 20% of damage dealt.

Talents

• Level 1
  

  • Fury of the Swarm
    

    • No longer increases shields gained from Basic Attacks.

• Level 4

  • Sharpened Blades
    
  • Ravaging Ferocity

    • NEW: Gain 25% attack speed for 3 seconds after using Ravage.

• Level 7

  • Boundless Fury

    • Cooldown increased from 10 seconds to 12 seconds.

  • Queen of Blades

    • Cooldown reduction increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.

• Level 10

  • Summon Ultralisk

    • Damage reduced from 250 to 225.

• Level 13

  • Chrysalis

    • HP lowered from 750 to 650.
    • Reduced the amount of health regenerated from 5% max health per second to 4%.

• Level 16

  • Painful Spikes

    • Damage reduced from 70 to 60.

• Level 20

  • Omegastorm

    • Increased extended duration from .25 seconds per hit to .4 seconds per hit.

Sylvanas

Base

• Black Arrows [D]
  

  • Black Arrows now refers to what was previously called “Banshee’s Curse”.
  • New Baseline Quest: Deal damage to Heroes or Structures with 3 stacks of black arrows. At 250 stacks, increased the damage bonus of Black Arrows to 50%. Pinnacle Reward: At 400 stacks, heal for 25% of damage dealt against enemies with 3 stacks of Black Arrows, doubled against Heroes.
  • Reduced base damage bonus of Black Arrows to 15%.
  • Activatable portion of Black Arrows has been removed.

Talents

• Level 1
  

  • Unfurling Shadows
    
    
  • Unrelenting Torment

    • NEW: Increases the damage of Shadow Dagger by 20% and increase its duration by 1 second.

• Level 4

  • Haunting Arrows

    • NEW: You can now activate Black Arrows to cause all damage dealt to stun non-heroes. 90 second cooldown, reduced by 3 seconds when attacking a structure.

  • Possession

    • Now a Baseline ability. 25 seconds to restore each charge, 2 seconds cooldown. Max 4 charges.

• Level 7

  • Barbed Shot

    • Bonus damage increased from 350% to 400%.

  • Lost Soul

    • REWORK: Reduces the cooldown of Shadow Dagger when attacking non-minions with 3 stacks of Black Arrows by .75 seconds, doubled against Heroes.

• Level 13

  • Windrunner

    • Recast window reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.

Thrall

Talents

• Level 1
  

  • Crash Lightning
    

    • REWORK: Bonuses are now provided at 15 and 30 stacks. At each milestone, Chain Lightning gains 270 damage. Lose 6 stacks on death, but can not lose milestones that have already been completed.

  • Echo of the Elements

    • REWORK: Bonuses are now provided at 20/40/100 stacks. At 20 stacks, reduce mana cost of Chain Lightning by 20. At 40 stacks, Chain Lightning gains an extra charge and will bounce one additional time. Pinnacle Reward: At 100 stacks, Chain Lightning will fork to an additional target each time it bounces.

  • Rolling Thunder

    • Moved to be a Level 7 Talent.
    • No longer increases Chain Lightning bounces by 1.

• Level 7

  • Maelstrom Weapon

    • Moved to be a Level 1 Talent.
    • REWORK: Bonuses are now provided at 20/40/100 stacks, rather than incremental gains. At 20 stacks, gain 20 damage and increase the movespeed bonus to 40%. At 40 stacks, gain an additional 40 damage and Thrall permanently gains 15% increased movement speed. Pinnacle Reward: At 100 stacks, Frostwolf Resilience now provides +200% Healing.

• Level 16

  • Tempest Fury

    • No longer provides additional quest stacks.

  • Thunderstorm

    • Increased damage bonus provided at max stacks from 25% to 30%.

• Level 20

  • Wind Rush

    • Cooldown increased from 80 seconds to 90 seconds.

Tyrael

Talents

• Level 1
  

  • Ardent Restoration
    

    • Maximum healing stacks reduced from 10 to 8.

    
    

• Level 4

  • Reciprocate

    • Damage reduced from 190 to 170.

    
    

• Level 7

  • Burning Halo

    • Damge per second reduced from 15 to 12.

    
    

• Level 10

  • Sanctification

    • Cooldown reduced from 90 seconds to 85 seconds.
    • Mana cost reduced from 75 to 70.

    
    

• Level 20

  • Aspect of Justice

    • Cast time reduced from 1.5 seconds to 1.25 seconds.
    • Cooldown reduction per enemy Hero hit increased from 10% to 15%.

    
    

Zul’jin

Base

• Basic Attack Damage decreased from 96 to 94.
• You Want Axe? [D]

  • No longer has a cap on stacks.
  • Now causes Zul’jin to lose 3 stacks (15 hits) on death.

Talents

• Level 1
  

  • Headhunter
    

    • Increased damage bonus per hero kill from 2% to 2.5%.

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Bug Fixes

Map

• Blackheart’s Bay
  

  • Fixed an issue that caused the Battleground Objective to not start if a particular chest is the last destroyed chest.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the help text for attacking the Treasure Chest to not disappear if a particular chest is attacked.

• Warhead Junction

  • Fixed Warhead Junction Nuke Damage Dealt tracking.

Heroes

• Cho’gall
  

  • Base
    

    • Eye of Kilrogg [Skill 1]
      

      • Fixed an issue that caused the Eye of Kilrogg’s cast range indicator to be slightly larger than the ability range.

  • Level 1

    • We See You!

      • Fixed an issue that caused We See You’s range increase tooltip value to display incorrectly after being selected.

• D.Va

  • Fixed an issue that caused D.Va’s Mech to not respawn with the correct amount of Blackheart’s Bay Doubloons.
  • Base

    • Defense Matrix [W]

      • Fixed missing icon in D.Va’s Quick Cast setting for Retarget Defense Matrix.

• Gazlowe

  • Level 16

    • Firin’ Mah Lazors

      • Fixed an issue that caused Firin’ Mah Lazorz’s warning to not display correctly.
      • Fixed an issue that caused Big Top Gazlowe’s Firin’ Mah Lazorz to create permanent visuals.

• Kael’thas

  • Base

    • Living Bomb [W]

      • Living Bomb will not activate its effects on a target that becomes immune to Living Bomb.
      • Living Bomb will now apply its effects if the target dies with Living Bomb.

• Raynor

  • Base

    • Adrenaline Rush [E]

      • Fixed an issue that caused Adrenaline Rush to not display the base duration in its tooltip after selecting Give Me More.

• Stukov

  • Level 1

    • Reactive Ballistospores

      • Fixed Reactive Ballistospores tooltip.

• Tychus

  • Base

    • Overkill [Q]

      • Overkill retarget can now also be targeted in a direction. When clicking near or on a target, it will attach to that target, but if no targets are nearby, Overkill will start firing in that direction. If Overkill hits a target while firing in a direction, that target will become Overkill’s primary target.
      • If Overkill is active when there are no possible targets, Overkill will no longer be cancelled, and instead will start firing in the direction of the last primary target.
      • Fixed an issue that caused mounting to not interrupt Overkill.

• Valla

  • Base
    
  • Level 20

    • Storm of Vengeance

      • Fixed an issue that caused Storm of Vengeance to not grant 2% Attack Speed per Hatred stack.

• Zagara

  • Level 1

    • Infest

      • Fixed Infest active current bonus tooltip.

  • Level 16
    

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