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On January 27 2015 11:42 Brian333 wrote:
And now I just find that insulting. Top teams scrim enough to have a good idea what works and what doesn't work. Not only that but given their game sense and understanding, if there is a hero that is OP and will win them games, I'm sure they'd be all over it.
If you feel like you know the game better, feel free to go educate them. The bulk of them stream and respond to twitch chat. Go tell them how much smarter you are.
You should not, just ask old League of Legends forum dwellers (season 1 and preseason 1), they considered malphite, udyr, corki, anivia, as well as later on garen and garen as one of the best champions when noone even wanted to look at them (and these were the times when league already had competitive teams - TSM, CLG, EG, Dignitas). Like someone said, just because pros are better it doesn't mean they already know everything about this game
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On January 27 2015 10:45 deth2munkies wrote:
Arguing that a hero "dies when focused and cc'd" as a weakness is a horrible argument. Name me one hero that doesn't.
This is incredibly shortsighted..
It's silly to say argue each hero dies to cc and focus fire thus all heroes are equal in this respect. If you cc arthas you typically won't kill him and he can heal and stoneskin afterwards to survive. Also he doesn't miss out on that much damage because of the cc.
Even melee assassins like illidan and zeratul aren't as vulnerable to it as illidan actually gains a good deal of survivability later and zeratul can blink out.
Thrall however when cc'ed on his windfury has a much bigger problem. He has a mediocre healthpool, no good escape and he misses out on a ton of healing and damage because of the cc. Simply put CC is MUCH better on thrall than almost any other hero and hence you can say he is much more vulnerable to it.
The metagame has plenty of CC for him to be a very mediocre pick, tier 3 only. He is only good if he can somehow survive and do his damage (enemy has low damage and few cc's), he counters some other heroes (his ult is great against nazeebo) and/or he has the support to keep him going (uther especially with cleanse and healing, tassadar to shield him also great).
Together these things aren't happening much now, making him a situational last pick for most teams.
It's possible but unlikely that the pro community as a whole has overlooked his viability in a way. Sure some heroes go from out of flavor into hot property without changes like nazeebo but even then it requires a metagame switch as the result of a patch (or bug) typically. The only thing I haven't seen much that could make him better is pairing him with Uther much, that combination just works really well. Cleanse is insane on thrall because it counters that CC which is so critical and everything about uther's kit compliments thrall well. Stunning heroes so thrall get's just that time to heal himself back up is huge and having a shield/heal to survive some burst as well.
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Tier 3 you say? Sure, lets buff him then.
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Until your team is split or until he is the last hero standing in his team vs 2 of you. Then he 1v2's you with ease and you ask yourself "why blizzard why?". Thrall is very strong, just don't play him like a tank. Off-tanks are ignored from "pro" play at the moment because they don't have a clear role and are a bit harder to play, does that make them weak ? I don't think so  .
Strats with offtanks will come sooner and later but you don't need to wait to play thrall he is a soloqueue monster already.
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How useful is it too actually talk about heroes individual strength when team fights are what matters most? I think the strength of a hero varies greatly based on their team, the enemy team and the map.
This is why tier lists feel a bit like asking in SC2: "Hey guys, which is the best unit to build as Protoss?".
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On January 27 2015 21:25 Hildegard wrote:
How useful is it too actually talk about heroes individual strength when team fights are what matters most? I think the strength of a hero varies greatly based on their team, the enemy team and the map.
This is why tier lists feel a bit like asking in SC2: "Hey guys, which is the best unit to build as Protoss?".
the correct answer is probes
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On January 27 2015 20:27 RouaF wrote:Until your team is split or until he is the last hero standing in his team vs 2 of you. Then he 1v2's you with ease and you ask yourself "why blizzard why?". Thrall is very strong, just don't play him like a tank. Off-tanks are ignored from "pro" play at the moment because they don't have a clear role and are a bit harder to play, does that make them weak ? I don't think so . Strats with offtanks will come sooner and later but you don't need to wait to play thrall he is a soloqueue monster already.
This is exactly correct. He's the perfect offtank who can peel for the ranged squishies and kill whomever he's offtanking in 1v1 and 1v2 situations. I absolutely refuse to believe that there is no value there for teamfights. Frankly, I think that he's an ideal fit as an offtank for poke compositions. Just spam chain lightning while screening for someone like Hammer until there's an engagement. When the enemy dives, root the diver and go to town. Or, use sundering to break up the dive and/or interrupt channeling ults.
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On January 27 2015 10:45 deth2munkies wrote:
Arguing that a hero "dies when focused and cc'd" as a weakness is a horrible argument. Name me one hero that doesn't.
Heroes with relentless?
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8751 Posts
wanted to play a few games now that there's a draft mode and... i need to own 10 heroes. they really need an option for draft mode outside of ranked play. the map influences team comp so much and ally picks influence your own pick so much that blind pick becomes a huge joke really fast (and im already way beyond that from how much i played in the alpha). it's just as bad as talent gating, cuz you're forced in to a shitty comp just like you get forced into a shitty build. and im sooooo far from owning 10 heroes it's not even funny. i understand having blind pick for new players and i understand locking away ranked play until you have a lot of experience. but in between that there's a group of people who hate blind pick and are months away from owning 10 heroes. makes me not want to play at all.
certainly doesn't help that part of the process of buying new heroes involves having your hero choice reduced even more ("play a warrior 3 games"). that's just a slap in the face. i've already tried every hero except for the new ones and gave feedback to devs etc, and then my account got reset. and this is the reward now for diligent alpha testing. pretend you're a newb and play a shit version of our game for months or give us money to finally get the draft mode you've wanted forever
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My point is that "X hero dies to CC and focus fire" is the same as "X dies to Doom Blade/Lightning Bolt/etc." in Magic: sure it's true, sure it's relevant, but it's not helpful and incredibly narrowminded. It's more of a truism than any sort of value judgment. The subsequent post about Windfury makes a different case and here's the response:
The issue is simply one of opportunity cost: if you're CCing and focusing one hero, you're using abilities that cannot be used on another hero for that CD period. Heroes that require multiple CCs in order to deal with effectively, therefore, are a design problem because there are only so many CCs on any given team. Thrall alone might not be a problem, but he sets a dangerous precedent due to the raw amount of power in Windfury in particular. If we get more "must CC during X time" heroes, then eventually a team comp could simply overwhelm their opponent by picking them.
Windfury is a completely broken ability in the context of the talents and passive that Thrall has. Thrall himself is a massive pubstomp hero, but requires more work to be good in competitive. I still think that if a team builds around him (Uther with Cleanse for example), he brings a ton of single target burst to the table. Regardless, it's something Blizzard needs to look at.
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My point is if Thrall is so incredibly broken like this thread seems to think he is (and which I disagree) why isn't he an immediate pick/ban in competitive games? The fact of the matter is Thrall has some huge upside but also some huge downside. Probably the only hero which can create those YouTube highlight reels of idiots walking in 1-by-1 to engage him or ranged DPS thinking they can stand toe-to-toe with him and dying a horrible death while Thrall gains HP in the process. But the fact of the matter is if the team goes on Thrall when he presents himself for burst he dies. Basically right away. The CC is really just gravy to make sure his WF doesn't proc off and you can keep him from really doing any damage. I don't understand this argument of "You have to deal with Thrall appropriately and that means he is broken" as an argument. As Brightwing I'm generally the #1 target as well and if I'm left uncontested we can generally win a team fight as well. Maybe not in such an obvious fashion as Thrall but we'll still win.
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On January 28 2015 02:08 Tenks wrote:
I don't understand this argument of "You have to deal with Thrall appropriately and that means he is broken" as an argument. As Brightwing I'm generally the #1 target as well and if I'm left uncontested we can generally win a team fight as well. Maybe not in such an obvious fashion as Thrall but we'll still win.
You probably shouldn't use a hero that is regarded as god tier/best support in the game as part of your argument that Thrall sucks. If you could replace Brightwing in that sentence with say Diablo you would have a point.
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People keep repeating thrall is such a beast 1v1 and that's true but he only becomes a 1v1 beast at later levels. Before that he procs his ability too little and he can't repeat windfury quickly yet. By the time he is a 1v1 beast, 1v1 is not really a thing anymore.
That just makes him mediocre at the moment. There are a lot of 'if you do this'etc. but that doesn't make a hero godly. Just situationally strong but many heroes are. The tier 1 heroes are always strong and the tier2 generally are, as it stands he is a possible latepick just not more. And it's incredibly naive to think the pro's haven't found this yet, they leveled their thrall to lvl 10 and tested him. It could be that a metagame switch wil favor him and make him top pick but not at the moment.
As it is I think the hero is fine, no need for a nerf or buff. Once bw, uther and some other cc beasts get reduced a bit he might well start to shine.
On a sidenote, I wouldn't call brightwing godtier in a pick scenario either. Great hero but uther is close and by spending an early pick on brightwing they can just take uther and be happy still. If you take uther and brightwing together they take away the other good heroes and then take something like malf/lili/rehgar and be happy still. Brightwing is a great 3rd or 4th pick I think but not god tier first pick material.
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I think in the current meta BW is a pretty common ban in competitive
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Can anyone help me out on why most Valla tend to take RoV these days instead of Strafe? I still build Strafe and I feel like a unique snowflake doing it -- which usually means I'm wrong.
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On January 28 2015 02:40 Tenks wrote:
Can anyone help me out on why most Valla tend to take RoV these days instead of Strafe? I still build Strafe and I feel like a unique snowflake doing it -- which usually means I'm wrong.
Strafe is too easy to interrupt.
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On January 28 2015 02:40 Tenks wrote:
Can anyone help me out on why most Valla tend to take RoV these days instead of Strafe? I still build Strafe and I feel like a unique snowflake doing it -- which usually means I'm wrong.
Maybe the other team has like a Muradin or a Thrall and Strafe would get interrupted in one second in every fight those guys are around. There might be other reasons too but thats a big one at least.
Thrall being a new hero and Muradin might have gained some popularity.
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I don't get what is so hard to understand about the problem that Thrall presents. It is a simple numbers game. We all agree that Thrall is the number one priority target who must be killed in teamfights. If he is not killed, he will rip the opposing team apart. That much is obvious. Now let's think about the implications of that fact:
1) The opposing team must allocate a certain amount of CC and burst damage to killing Thrall. In reality, the enemy team almost is forced to engage on Thrall think about for a second. Not only does this makes the opposing team more predictable, but in a way, it allows Thrall to dictate the terms of engagement by choosing when to present himself for enemy engagement. And if the enemy team jumps on someone else instead of Thrall? Well, then there will be an angry orc dropping one of their heroes every 5 seconds until dealt with.
2) Thrall's four teammates will be more free, than on average, to do damage to the enemy team and otherwise play their game in teamfights. This is a big deal. High damage range specialists like Zagara, Nazeebo, and Hammer (throw in Jaina if you want) are sudddenly free to tee off on the enemy team. Zeratul has free shots at the enemy backline squishies. Even ranged carries like Tychus, Valla, and Falstad are able pump out more damage without being under their typical loads of duress. This is all made possible because Thrall must die.
For those who want to make LoL comparisons, the hero that Thrall best compares to is Jax on steroids. The big differences are 1) Thrall has a better ultimate, and 2) Thrall does not need items to be godlike -- just level 16 (not that he is bad before that point).
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Hm I tend to still get good milage out of Strafe but I'm usually very cautious on Valla and normally Strafe from maximum range. I wasn't sure if I was missing some change to the skills.
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On January 28 2015 02:36 Tenks wrote:
I think in the current meta BW is a pretty common ban in competitive
Only on tournaments. But that depends a lot on the team and maps themselves. But hero league doesn't have a ban system, which in my opinion, should be there. The excuse about "not enough heroes" is just complete bullshit.
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