The struggle between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells has erupted out of the realm of Sanctuary, and the Eternal Conflict has begun in the Nexus! Angels and Demons now battle for dominance in their quests to destroy one another, and we’ve brought Heroes of the Storm offline for a period of extended maintenance in order to clean up after the mayhem they’ve wrought. We’ll let you know just as soon as the Nexus is back online, but in the meantime, you can check out today’s the complete patch notes below. Jump to Section
It seems that mischievous Treasure Goblins have snuck into the Nexus alongside the arrival of the Burning Hells. These devious creatures are intent on pilfering as much gold as they can carry, and while their numbers are yet unknown, the fortunes they've scavenged must be returned! Adventurers that manage to slay any Treasure Goblins they encounter during the Eternal Conflict will be handsomely rewarded. A Treasure Goblin will do anything in its power to evade those it deems hostile, so dispose of these timid beings swiftly, lest they open a portal and slip away!
Players will receive a Special Event Quest titled: “Kill a Treasure Goblin!” each day during the Eternal Conflict event.
Before the start of a match, any players with an active Special Event Quest will cause a Treasure Goblin to spawn at a random location near their team’s Core.
Kill the Treasure Goblin before the pregame timer reaches 0, or it will open a portal and escape the Battleground.
Any players with an active Special Event Quest that manage to kill a Treasure Goblin before it escapes will receive 100 Gold for their efforts at the end of the match.
Treasure Goblins may spawn on any Battleground, in any matchmaking game mode (Versus A.I., Quick Match, Hero League, Team League).
This Special Event Quest is available to all players, whether or not they’ve unlocked Daily Quests by reaching Player Level 6.
While players are invited to kill as many Treasure Goblins as they can, this Special Event Quest can only be completed once per day. Incomplete Quests do not stack.
New Portrait Rewards
Facebook Portrait
The Heroes of the Storm Facebook Page has reached 1 Million Likes! To help celebrate this social media milestone, all players who log in to the game before our next major patch arrives will receive a new, Facebook-themed portrait. Thank you for your support!
Golden Tiger Portrait
Any players that redeem the Golden Tiger Mount key found in the Heroes of the Storm Starter Pack will receive an exclusive new Golden Tiger portrait.
This portrait will also be retroactively granted to players who redeemed their Golden Tiger Mount key prior to today’s patch.
The conflict between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells has spilled into the Nexus, breeding a new Battleground that is equal parts righteous and wicked. Angels, Demons, and now Heroes clash in ceaseless combat in their struggle for dominance over the Battlefield of Eternity.
Battlefield of Eternity is a two-lane Battleground featuring two massive Immortals that battle endlessly at its center, and teams must compete to defeat the opposing Immortal.
Once its foe has been toppled, the victorious Immortal will be restored to full Health, and proceed to seek out enemy Structures, attacking down the lane with the most remaining defenses.
An attacking Immortal will also gain a Shield, proportionate to the amount of Health it had remaining at the end of the battle.
The Immortal will perform ranged attacks, which each consume a portion of its Shield. Taking damage will also drain the Immortal’s Shield.
Once its Shield has been expended, the Immortal will only attack at melee range.
New Mercenaries
Fallen Shaman
These malformed demons never stray too far from a pack of Fallen Hounds, and will quickly resurrect any Hounds that are killed in combat. Those who value their souls would be wise to first destroy the Shaman before targeting its Hound companions.
Khazra
The half human, half goat creatures that inhabit Battlefield of Eternity are tough, ranged attackers that won’t hesitate to rain spears on their foes. Defeat the Khazra at their camps to harness their destructive appetite before the enemy team.
New Battleground, More Often
Starting today, the pool of Battlegrounds available in all modes, except Custom Games, will be temporarily limited to the following:
Battlefield of Eternity
Sky Temple
Tomb of the Spider Queen
Cursed Hollow
This has been done to increase the frequency with which players encounter the new Battleground, Battlefield of Eternity.
During this time, players can still select and play on any Battleground they wish using Custom Games.
All Battlegrounds, including Battlefield of Eternity, will once again be made available for play in all matchmaking game modes on Tuesday, July 7.
The Butcher has been added to Heroes of the Storm and is now available for play! Read on for a brief overview of this terrifying new Assassin’s Abilities.
Trait
Fresh Meat
Nearby Minions and Heroes drop meat when they die. Pick up meat to gain a 1% bonus to Basic Attack damage, up to a maximum 25%. All meat is lost upon death.
Basic Abilities
Hamstring (Q)
Deal damage and slow enemies by 50%, fading over 2 seconds. Your next Basic Attack will strike immediately.
Butcher’s Brand (W)
Deal damage to an enemy, and cause your Basic Attacks against the branded target to heal you for 75% of the damage done for 5 seconds. Healing doubled versus Heroes.
Ruthless Onslaught (E)
Charge at an enemy, becoming Unstoppable and gaining Movement Speed. If you reach the target, they take damage and become stunned for 1 second.
Heroic Abilities
Lamb to the Slaughter (R)
Throw a hitching post that attaches to the nearest enemy Hero after a 1 second delay. This deals damage, and chains the enemy to the post for 4 seconds.
Furnace Blast (R)
After a 3 second delay, fire explodes around you, dealing massive damage to enemies in the area. Furnace Blast can be cast while using Ruthless Onslaught.
Even the music that plays while viewing the out of game menus has taken a foreboding turn with the Eternal Conflict’s fierce arrival to Heroes of the Storm.
Enable music in the Sound Options menu (or press CTRL+M) to listen as the sounds of Sanctuary clash with those of the Nexus.
Battlegrounds
New music has been added for the Battlefield of Eternity Battleground.
In-game music for the Sky Temple, Tomb of the Spider Queen, and Garden of Terror Battlegrounds has been updated.
Notifications that appear near the top-right corner of the out-of-game menus, such as party invitations and promotional rewards, have received updated art.
Hero Progression
Several Hero Level rewards have been slightly altered:
Hero Level 9 -- A new 750 Gold reward has been added.
This Gold reward will also be retroactively granted to players for each Hero that reached level 9 prior to today’s patch.
Hero Level 15 -- Reward reduced from 1,250 to 1,000 Gold
Hero Level 20 -- Reward reduced from 2,500 to 2,000 Gold
Players will not lose any Gold that had already been earned by reaching Hero Levels 15 or 20 prior to today’s patch.
In-Game UI
Tab Score Screen
The Healing column on the in-game Stats Screen (TAB) has been reworked, and renamed to the Role column.
The Role column will track healing done by Support Heroes, as well the total amount of damage taken by Warriors during a game.
The Siege Damage column will no longer track damage dealt to uncaptured Mercenaries or other neutral units.
Quest Log
A Special Event Quests section has been added to the Quest Log.
When a Special Event is taking place, any available Special Event Quests will appear in this section of the Quest Log.
Special Event Quests will display any requirements needed to complete them in the Quest Log.
Much like a normal Daily Quest, players will be notified when they complete a Special Event Quest on the end-of-game Score Screen.
In order to better support Special Event Quests, the Quest Log has been enabled for all Heroes of the Storm players, whether or not they’ve unlocked Daily Quests by reaching Player Level 6.
Daily Quests will remain disabled for players that have not reached level 6, but they can still click the Quest Log to view an active Special Event Quest, or their player progress.
Rejoin System
Players will no longer receive notifications via chat messages or announcer voiceover when an enemy disconnects from, or rejoins a game in any matchmaking mode.
However, players in Custom Games will still be notified when enemies disconnect or rejoin.
Players will still be notified when an ally leaves or rejoins a game, though notification frequency has been reduced in situations where a teammate repeatedly disconnects and rejoins a game.
Shop
Featured Tab
The Featured tab will no longer hide items that a player already owns.
The “Hide Owned” checkbox has been added to the Featured Tab, and can be used to hide items on the Featured tab that the player already owns.
Item Preview Panes
Preview panes in the Shop once again indicate Gold prices where relevant.
The “Rare Skin” label has been removed, and Hero Skins are now categorized as follows: Skin, Epic Skin, Legendary Skin.
Item About Pages
Items that a player does not already own will now indicate when they are part of a Bundle Pack that is currently available in the Shop.
Click the View button on an individual item’s page to check out the Bundle Pack associated with that item.
Items and Bundles that have been placed on sale will now list the original price, sale price, and discount percentage on the purchase button itself, rather than above the purchase button.
The difficulty ratings for many Heroes have been updated to better reflect their ease of play.
The rings found under Heroes in-game have been scaled to more closely match their hitboxes.
Skillshots and Abilities that use an arc pattern will now display their range when hovering the cursor over the associated button on the Ability hotbar.
Several Abilities were unintentionally providing brief moments of Unstoppable behavior during use. The following Abilities no longer provide Unstoppable:
Chen -- Flying Kick (Q)
Falstad -- Barrel Roll (E)
Illidan -- Dive (Q)
Illidan -- Sweeping Strikes (with the Unbound talent) (W)
Kerrigan -- Ravage (Q)
A number of Hero Abilities were not intended to completely Stun enemy targets. In these cases, Stuns have been converted to Dazes, which act similarly, but will no longer interrupt Abilities that can be channeled while the Hero is moving.
For example: Dazing Valla will not stop her from channeling Strafe.
The following abilities will now Daze, rather than Stun, enemy Heroes:
Fixed a bug in which certain ranged attacks were not dealing damage to Heroes that entered Stealth after the projectile was already in flight. In these cases, damage will now be properly dealt, and the Hero will be revealed, thus resetting the time needed to re-enter Stealth.
Heroes will now cancel movement commands much more quickly if they are unable to reach the final destination.
Mounted and non-mounted Heroes will no longer experience sudden slowdowns or hang-ups in movement when pathing around Structures or terrain obstacles.
The Countess Kerrigan and Mecha Tassadar Skins will now default to their unique Mounts in regular games after they are purchased.
Please note: Players may still choose another Mount for these Skins during Hero Select.
Graphic settings for the Mac Mini using an ATI 6630M graphics card will now default to Medium, with a 1280x720 resolution.
Several typos and tooltip errors have been corrected.
Art
Visual effects for Abathur’s Spike Burst Ability have been appropriately scaled up when cast while using Symbiote on a mechanical spider Minion.
Structures disabled by Arthas’ Summon Sindragosa will now properly retain frozen visual effects for the full duration.
Fixed a visual issue that could occur when Mecha Tassadar self-casts Plasma Shield while in Mecha Mount form.
Corrected a texture issue on the Spectre Illidan Skin.
Battlegrounds
Tornadoes cast by the Boss on Sky Temple can no longer push trapped Heroes out of Zagara’s Devouring Maw.
Fixed an issue that could prevent Mercenary Camps from respawning appropriately after turning in enough Gems to summon Webweavers on Tomb of the Spider Queen.
Heroes and Talents
Abathur's Toxic Nests once again display activation and expiration timers.
Brightwing Soothing Mist will no longer heal her for double the intended amount.
Fixed several issues affecting Diablo’s Overpower Ability that could cause Heroes to fly out of the Battleground's playable area.
Corrected an issue that could cause Heroes to fly back to their death location upon respawning.
Brightwing's Polymorph now properly interrupts Gazlowe's Deth Lazor.
Using Brightwing’s Phase Shift just as a Core is destroyed will no longer cause the game camera to become stuck at Brightwing's intended destination.
Diablo’s Fire Stomp can now properly damage and reveal Zagara’s Creep Tumors.
Using Diablo’s Shadow Charge on Raynor’s Banshees near the edge of a Battleground will no longer cause Diablo to leave the playable area.
Fixed an issue that could prevent Murky’s Egg from being placed on diagonal paths.
Erik will no longer enter Stealth immediately upon respawning after learning the Spy Games talent.
Lost Vikings that die while casting Longboat Raid will no longer respawn at their death locations.
Fixed an issue that could allow Rehgar to repeatedly cast Feral Lunge.
Sgt. Hammer’s Blunt Force Gun will no longer be placed on reduced cooldown when coming under the effects of Anub’arak Web Blast during Blunt Force Gun’s casting time.
Fixed an issue that could cause Sylvanas’ Wailing Arrow to unintentionally be placed on reduced cooldown under certain circumstances.
Fixed an issue that could cause the Mana costs for Uther’s Basic Abilities to permanently increase under certain circumstances.
Uther’s Holy Radiance will now properly damage Abathur’s Toxic Nests and Zagara’s Creep Tumors.
Sound
Abathur once again plays a digging sound when using his Deep Tunnel.
Allies will no longer hear Mad Martian Gazlowe’s voiceover globally.
Johanna's death audio will no longer play globally.
User Interface
Fixed an issue that could cause players to search for a match in a game mode other than the one they selected.
Fixed an issue that could occasionally cause Mount models to appear in a game lobby.
Players that attempt to purchase a Hero while searching for a match in Hero League will now be warned prior to finalizing the transaction that the purchased Hero will not be usable during the upcoming match.
Players that are already in a game can no longer be invited to join a party until that game concludes.
Fixed an issue that could cause Ability hotkeys to temporarily stop functioning under certain circumstances with Quick Cast set to “On Release”.
Clicking near a Hero’s in-game portrait will no longer center the game camera on the Hero.
The end of game Score Screen will now display an accurate game time if a match lasts longer than an hour.
As I posted in the old general, we're going to try a new thing and restart the general thread with new patches. Lemme know if it makes you want to puke.
Big patch, the treasure goblin idea is cute and I'm looking forward to trying out the new BW.
I thought the buthcer was going to be great but after thinking about it it seems he is just a worse Thrall/Illidan.
He has nice health, but no escape, and most of his survavility is based upon one of his skills, then he need to autoatack the marked target. Heroes with an escape will be very strong agasint him, and just as Illidan he will be very vulnerable to CC... Idk I'll have to see how other play him before I buy him.
Leoric can't come soon enough though, he looks amazing.
On July 01 2015 01:42 [Phantom] wrote: I thought the buthcer was going to be great but after thinking about it it seems he is just a worse Thrall/Illidan.
He has nice health, but no escape, and most of his survavility is based upon one of his skills, then he need to autoatack the marked target. Heroes with an escape will be very strong agasint him, and just as Illidan he will be very vulnerable to CC... Idk I'll have to see how other play him before I buy him.
Leoric can't come soon enough though, he looks amazing.
Butcher is literally a better Thrall. He has an actual closing mechanism and with his post ultimate he can secure any kill if he can pick them off, his heal is more reliable and he does better sustained damage. The only thing he lacks is a pick-off ability like Thrall's lightning.
Thrall can close the gap with wind fury and his wolf too. And I don't think his heal is more reliable as you can simply move or stun him and then it does nothing.
I hadn't noticed that each stack increases his damage by 1%, thats a lot, however they are capped to 25, so 25% damage "increase" Which isn't hard to get really so most of the time he'll have that ammount I belive.
He also has a talent to increase the max stacks to 35. Then at 16 has a talent to add 1% attack speed per stack. So with 150% leech he'll be leeching for Frostwolf's heal every swing. Thrall also has to choreograph his initiate. You Windfury and you pray you land your skillshot and at the same time pray you don't get CC. Butcher is Unstoppable during his close so he WILL get to you. Thrall you just kite.
WTF still no map preference feature in QMs? I can't play this game any more some of the maps are so stupid I don't even have a word for it. I'm like 15-0 in Spider Queen, 2-0 in Battle Field of Eternity, 12-5 in Blackheart, 8-6 in Garden of Terror, 5-5 in Haunted mine, 0-18 in Dragon shire, 0-12 in Lost Temple, 2-11 in Cursed Hollow. I mainly play sgt Hammer and I feel like I can't do jack in the 3 maps I'm horrible with. And the map just come randomly after I picked my hero. If I get a bad map it's like fucking auto lose. I know this is still beta, not everything is balanced, and that's ok with me. But at least give me the option to avoid the really horrible maps please?
On July 01 2015 02:12 HallofPain4444 wrote: WTF still no map preference feature in QMs? I can't play this game any more some of the maps are so stupid I don't even have a word for it. I'm like 15-0 in Spider Queen, 2-0 in Battle Field of Eternity, 12-5 in Blackheart, 8-6 in Garden of Terror, 5-5 in Haunted mine, 0-18 in Dragon shire, 0-12 in Lost Temple, 2-11 in Cursed Hollow. I mainly play sgt Hammer and I feel like I can't do jack in the 3 maps I'm horrible with. And the map just come randomly after I picked my hero. If I get a bad map it's like fucking auto lose. I know this is still beta, not everything is balanced, and that's ok with me. But at least give me the option to avoid the really horrible maps please?
Hum...First of all the beta ended in june, the game is now live.
Now, right now, the only maps you can play in the game are Battlefields of eternity, Cursed Hollow, Sky temple and Tomb of the Spider Queen.
Dragon Shire, Haunted Mines, Blackhearts Bay and Garden of Terror are temporaly unavailable but they will come back.
Now, you say you mainly pick SGT hammer, I would not blame the maps. Sgt hammer is a situational pick, and she is very map dependant, she isnt one of the heroes that are good on every map. Funnily enough I think Dragon Shrine is one of her best maps.
When you get to lvl 30 and you play hero league you can see the map in the draft before making your hero pick, if you see a map that Hammer is bad at, don't pick her. Quickmatch is intended to be the "for fun mode" you just pick a hero and play a game and call it a deal. Blizzard has said that it is posible that as the map grows they will implement veto or maybe move some maps out of the rotation, but that hasn't happened yet.
______________ Now back on topic, my god I want my 4 second blind on Johanna back, the 1.5 second duration ruins SO MUCH of my gameplay, I used to do so many things with it that are not possible now, it makes me really sad :/ Nerf her trait, or her lvl 20 talent, not her blind Blizz pls
•A number of Hero Abilities were not intended to completely Stun enemy targets. In these cases, Stuns have been converted to Dazes, which act similarly, but will no longer interrupt Abilities that can be channeled while the Hero is moving.◦For example: Dazing Valla will not stop her from channeling Strafe.
◦The following abilities will now Daze, rather than Stun, enemy Heroes: ◾Brightwing -- Emerald Wind (R)
She can put out absurd damage when built correctly but I still think other heroes can do what she does better. I think she has a niche place but already they made the cooldown on her WW pretty short anymore that getting knocked out of it wasn't career ending. Her problems seem to be greater than just WW cancels.
On July 01 2015 02:19 Odoakar wrote: No mention of Sonyas immunity to stun while ww'ing?
She isn't immune to stun while WW. It is a movable channel so it isn't effected by Daze effects anymore but stun will still cancel it.
This is actually huge and I didn't think of this on my first read. Sonya meta yet?
She has been needing this for so long, but whether is makes her fotm i dunno. I do believe we might see more emphasis on camps/sieging now compared to before.
I really wish they would add in game voice, if they can put it in sc2 for people playing a 2v2 i don't see why they cant include it for a 5 v 5 team focused game, were communication is vital. It would make things so much easier when playing, especially in hero league matches.
On July 01 2015 05:11 enLighteN wrote: I really wish they would add in game voice, if they can put it in sc2 for people playing a 2v2 i don't see why they cant include it for a 5 v 5 team focused game, were communication is vital. It would make things so much easier when playing, especially in hero league matches.
That's a good idea, although I feel like 5 people talking over each other would be obnoxious x.x Can't you just use Skype/ Ventrilo if you really wanted to?
Anyone else getting a weird lag on heroes EU today? It's like a stutter lag, briefly freezes for a micro second, every 5-10 seconds or so. It's not my card (a GTX 960) It's not running hot, almost cool to the touch even after 4 hrs gaming.
On July 01 2015 02:12 HallofPain4444 wrote: WTF still no map preference feature in QMs? I can't play this game any more some of the maps are so stupid I don't even have a word for it. I'm like 15-0 in Spider Queen, 2-0 in Battle Field of Eternity, 12-5 in Blackheart, 8-6 in Garden of Terror, 5-5 in Haunted mine, 0-18 in Dragon shire, 0-12 in Lost Temple, 2-11 in Cursed Hollow. I mainly play sgt Hammer and I feel like I can't do jack in the 3 maps I'm horrible with. And the map just come randomly after I picked my hero. If I get a bad map it's like fucking auto lose. I know this is still beta, not everything is balanced, and that's ok with me. But at least give me the option to avoid the really horrible maps please?
1. It's not beta anymore.
2. I love Hammer too, but maybe you should try other heroes for the maps that you're horrible with? Especially in HL when you know the maps ahead of time... otherwise, you could play multiple characters in QM?
Hammer is pretty good on all maps though thanks to her versatile talents. But Hammer is so rare that people don't remember how to play with Hammer anymore. Cursed hollow, you will lose if you don't tell your team that you have no mount and might be late.
Also voice will probably be more often muted then chat.
Wait what no Blackhearts bay for some time in QM. It is the best map to play around with talents T.T.
On July 01 2015 06:03 fruity. wrote: Anyone else getting a weird lag on heroes EU today? It's like a stutter lag, briefly freezes for a micro second, every 5-10 seconds or so. It's not my card (a GTX 960) It's not running hot, almost cool to the touch even after 4 hrs gaming.
Also getting it, it is quite random and then just stutters for a few seconds. Annoying as hell when it messes up your abilities, teammates mentioned it as well. I'll blame it on the upcoming patch being delivered and Blizzard derping the servers because of it.
Brightwing is the one hero I hate with a passion, fucking ridiculous dumb passive heal and stupidly high suitability thanks to pixie shit and blink heal. Thank goodness they removed sprint but now his dumb passive heal is going to be even stronger. Seriously this fairy needs to burn in hellfire for all eternity.
On July 01 2015 06:03 fruity. wrote: Anyone else getting a weird lag on heroes EU today? It's like a stutter lag, briefly freezes for a micro second, every 5-10 seconds or so. It's not my card (a GTX 960) It's not running hot, almost cool to the touch even after 4 hrs gaming.
Also getting it, it is quite random and then just stutters for a few seconds. Annoying as hell when it messes up your abilities, teammates mentioned it as well. I'll blame it on the upcoming patch being delivered and Blizzard derping the servers because of it.
Seems quite a common problem, going back a while in to beta
Well in typical Blizz fashion, the Lost Vikings got balanced with a sledge hammer instead of a scalpel. Wonder just how bad it is, guess I'll have to wait until after work tonight to really test it out.
Straight nerfs at pretty much every talent tier plus the removal of their trait. That looks like a complete gutting to me.
I really like the new map... played on it a few times and we would have all-out brawls for minutes at a time, whenever the immortals spawned! It was really fun and different.
Gazlow turrets get ignored by the immortal. Finally he is useful. Defend your boss have Gazlow sneak in a turret.
I dunno I like the new Vikings. They give you an advantage once the first objectives hit, but you won't be running into the enemy team in a 3 viking group anymore to disrupt them and survive it. But not sure we will see them in pro games anymore which is rather sad.
On July 01 2015 05:11 enLighteN wrote: I really wish they would add in game voice, if they can put it in sc2 for people playing a 2v2 i don't see why they cant include it for a 5 v 5 team focused game, were communication is vital. It would make things so much easier when playing, especially in hero league matches.
That's a good idea, although I feel like 5 people talking over each other would be obnoxious x.x Can't you just use Skype/ Ventrilo if you really wanted to?
Thats fine for people playing in a team/group who can login to a team ts/vent server ore skype etc but its not any use when your solo queuing or playing with a friend and the 3 others aren't cant join in.
You could always mute someone on your team should they choose to be a d1ck/rage etc so it doesn't ruin the game. Pinging seems useless sometimes, no body responds half the time, being able to actually say "there taking boss guys" would get alot more of a reaction then gust pinging madly at its location or having to stop, type, get ganked and die
Malfurion is really, really fun -- I'm having more fun with him than I"ve ever had.
The key is being able to take the range and moonfire talents while still being a competitive healer through tranquility, the extra regrowth duration talent (forget the name), and the level 1 talent that reduces the cost of regrowth for each moonfire you cast.
You can never leave lane if you land a ton of moonfires and are smart about when you cast regrowth. Late game, I go for full moonfire (the extra radius) and lunar showers. Malfurion can really poke quite well with this build and he still tosses out some good healing.
I'm curious what others thoughts are, but currently, malf is who I'm having the most fun playing.
Does anyone know the range if any on Lamb to the Slaughter where you can break out of the chain? I tried a full length Haunting Wave and got jerked back, so has anyone tried like a phase shift out of it and what happened?
On July 01 2015 14:17 Valiver wrote: Does anyone know the range if any on Lamb to the Slaughter where you can break out of the chain? I tried a full length Haunting Wave and got jerked back, so has anyone tried like a phase shift out of it and what happened?
I'd hope that there's no escape until timer is up, considering it's an ult x.x
But yeah I'd be interested to see if BW's/ Abathur's/ Falstad's Z or ETC's/ Jo's jump ults could escape it early.
Forcing Vikings to chose between Offense an Defense at level 7 seems quite horrible in light of the fact that they nerfed both Spin to Win and Norse Force quite heavily. I think Blizzard brought a machete to a operation that required a scalpel, apart from the soak and maybe a bit of damage Vikings were in a good spot, now they are most likely shit tier as, outside the XP soak their teamfight contribution will be orders of magnitude lower. If you pick Spin to Win the Vikings have no chance in hell to survive in a team fight without poping your boat instantly, if you pick Norse Force your survivability goes up a tiny bit but your damage is shit.
The new map is very interesting... it feels so much different than any of the other maps. It seems to reward heroes who excel at teamfighting and just throws laning completely out the window. The Immortals don't have much pushing power once they're in lane which is probably good to prevent massive snowballing.
On July 01 2015 14:50 Destructicon wrote: Forcing Vikings to chose between Offense an Defense at level 7 seems quite horrible in light of the fact that they nerfed both Spin to Win and Norse Force quite heavily. I think Blizzard brought a machete to a operation that required a scalpel, apart from the soak and maybe a bit of damage Vikings were in a good spot, now they are most likely shit tier as, outside the XP soak their teamfight contribution will be orders of magnitude lower. If you pick Spin to Win the Vikings have no chance in hell to survive in a team fight without poping your boat instantly, if you pick Norse Force your survivability goes up a tiny bit but your damage is shit.
Agreed that they probably over-nerfed vikings. Their survivability is pretty horrible right now. Maybe people just need to get better with them, I guess we'll see. Basically if you're picking Vikings you might as well just pick Abathur because he's going to do roughly the same stuff just better.
On July 01 2015 14:17 Valiver wrote: Does anyone know the range if any on Lamb to the Slaughter where you can break out of the chain? I tried a full length Haunting Wave and got jerked back, so has anyone tried like a phase shift out of it and what happened?
If you get caught in it there's no way to get out of it except for cleanse (I think). I wouldn't recommend trying to run out of it either because it stuns you every time you get pulled in.
Vikings got hit too hard. They needed a fair nerf but this was harsh. Those individual viking talents you need to take now are just so lackluster.. Don't think they'll be seeing pro play this patch, I feel you pretty much have to take norse force and jump to get some surviveability but you have lousy damage in teamfights with it. Perhaps they are good with a Play Again build and individual viking talents where you just never bring them together and win in a splitpush sort of way.
Making the vikings even worse is the big nerf on brightwing. Many somehow seem to think brightwing is good still but I think the nerf trashed her. Double healing on self gone, damage on Q gutted, polymorph nerfed (the slow is nice but losing 0.5s and the damage hurts more) and some great talents gone. Sure some new talents are nice, the shield at lvl 7 is fine and probably is her style now, have some sort of dive comp and Z on a hero like tyrael/butcher while he charges in and instantly start the fight with massive shield on your vulnerable character. That's nice but gust of healing was godly. Same for the talents on lvl 4, they aren't bad now but shield was great on her as it gave some much needed burst heal. The only talent levels she may have improvement I think are level 13 and 16, losing sprint is a fair loss especially if you play emerald wind but the spell shield on pixie dust is even better I think. At 16 the lengthier polymorph is also really sweet, probably slight improvement over critterize and perhaps the pixie dust talent is even great in a pixie dust build. Overall though her talents still have got slightly worse I think, especially gust of healing was just huge and combine that with the large nerf on her base abilities (especially her splitpushing power is much worse) I think she got trashed.
Support is all malf and rehgar for hero league now I think. Malf got boosted and is #1 in my eyes although you have to be wary that he lacks burst heal so may not be good to run the typical 3 assassins you see in hero league so often. Rehgar is still good and got only a minimal nerf, uther got nerfed quite a bit too with the shield nerf. The other talents at lvl 4 are just too lackluster and the shield stinks on squishies now where you used it most.
For the rest no massive changes, sylv still good just less OP. Anub'arak and johanna do lose a fair bit that I'd prefer muradin and tyrael typically now but they are still ok, although anub does fall quite a bit. Web blast is the way to go now for him I feel which does play a bit different. Then some heroes that relied on neutral talents more lost a bit of power, kerrigan especially but also tassadar who doesn't have a good lvl 4 talent anymore unless you really want more vision.
Overall I like the patch quite a bit though, the DPS/carries got brought closer together with sylv/jaina being brought down a little. Melee assassins are in a bit of a rough patch but zeratul shines and the butcher is looking good too, the others feel unplayable though now. LV sadly gone and azmo quite a bit weaker. Abathur has a new best buddy in the butcher though. I think it will a patch of burst builds though. Blood for blood not so much maybe but burst heal has gone down a lot. Protective shield is effectively gone and malf is great but doesn't heal burst. The secondary healers like tyrande and tassadar losing shield/promote effectively both makes them much less interesting as second healer too to fill that void. I make a bold prediction the metagame will move even more towards double tank or sturdier heroes as a result, if you can't heal/shield as well you can protect your squishies with CC heavy tanks like muradin too.
I'm interested on the support changes. Even if I started this game playing mainly assasins, I'm finding the support work more enjoyable. Both my main supports got a lot of changes (Malf and BW) so it will be interesting to rediscover them again.
Also, no sprint for jaina? That is gonna hurt her for sure.
The old teamfight/ability-heavy style is obviously nerfed. Shield is weaker, talents come later, double the death-timers. Right now I am taken the other ultimate to compensate and it feels pretty decent.
With regards to splitpush-builds, I think the Balrog-based builds might be pretty decent on larger maps. But the issue with this build is that your contribution during teamfights is minimal. And whenever you go for a non teamfighting-based builds it always requires a good amount of coordination from your teammates, which makes those types of style problematic.
I guess the "W-talent that adds 1% extra damage of enemy health" per attack helps a bit, but not sure its enough, and if you take this you can't also go with jump.
Overall, I think LV definitely has become harder to play well, and I think the talent-choices are more interesting now. But my first impression is that they need to be used on larger maps along with "smart teammates" to be viable.
The one bright side for Lost Vikings is that the three smallest maps: Haunted Mines, Dragon Shire and Blackheart's Bay are now out of the rotation so there isn't as much NEED for them to be viable in team fights as before.
They can now function as a utility hero with a lot of lane pressure like Sgt. Hammer and Gazlowe that are weaker in team fights.
Can't imagine how Lost Vikings could hope to survive a game of Haunted Mines in this state.
hey can now function as a utility hero with a lot of lane pressure like Sgt. Hammer and Gazlowe that are weaker in team fights.
They don't have lane-pressure in that sense. They are weak in the laning phase but can obviously soak very well when other players go for objectives. With the Balrog-build you can kill minions fast and you can also take the Erik-talent to deal extra damage vs Towers.
I also think 64kb marathon (at 16) is probably a must with this build.
Unrelated: Now that they nerfed the abilities of the Vikings, I wish they made it possible to use them individually as well. (This doesn't make it harder for new players as you can still use "4 + QWE")
EDIT: After playing even more with them, I've identified where I have an issue with the splitpush style. Unlike Abathur that can splitpush and assist the team, the Viking-splitpush style doesn't really offer the team anything.
Olaf is very lackluster without the old W and Q, and on top of that he also moves slower. If you use him as a tank he quickly dies as he can't retreat in the proces (and dying is extra bad now with longer death timers). Thus you might as well stay with him in lane to soak.
If you take the Balrog-splash talent, then you obviously wanna stay with him in lane too (plus his short range makes it difficult for him to deal damage during teamfights anyway).
This leaves only Erik to assist the team and he really doesn't do a whole lot (relative to how much you need to babysit him). That wouldn't be problematic if it was just temporarily at one phase in the game but it's like that all game long - There isn't any talent you can take to maintain a splitpush threat while actually feeling as if you are contributing to teamfights. Ofc a hero that can splitpush well + soak shouldn't be strong during teamfights, but it should still be obvious that your helping the team (so it's like 4.5 vs 5 rather than 4.1 vs 5).
My ideal solution (from a design perspective) is to replace the level 16-giant killer active talent with a high-CD skillshot. E.g. an ability similarly to Azmodans Q with a 30-60 second cooldown and relatively long range. This makes it possible to contribute briefly to the teamfight -> Then you can go back to splitpushing --> Once CD is back you help team again.
The strenght of the ability could scale with how many Vikings are nearby, which would make it useful both for splitpush-builds and teamfight-focussed builds. This solution still maintains a clear weakness for the splitpush strategy as it is first post-16 you can have a noticeable impact on the team --> Leaving room for the enemy team to get an "objective lead" prior to that. And obviously your not dealing consistent damage over the engagement, which makes it balanceable.
Been playing with Barbed Shot + Ranger's Ambush + Splinter Shot and Cold Embrace and it's working great so far. You can end up with a lot of Withering Fire charges, which then hits two targets, for triple damage against Mercs/Minions. Any Merc camp just vaporizes instantly when you get to unload double Withering Fire with triple damage on Vulnerable targets from Cold Embrace.
It also works quite well against Heroes since you're hitting two targets constantly. With any chase on the enemy team the arrow refill also shines and defensively behind your gates you can just use Hauting Wave for 1 second and get an instant refill.
In a game on Sky Temple I managed to snipe all three Vikings and Valla with it during a teamfight. Wailing Arrow on all three Vikings and then the Vikings were taking both arrows and died fast, granting me more arrows. I mostly just held Q down for half of it and used Haunting Wave to go after Valla and burned her down with it.
I've tried a few builds on BW and although I still find her a ton of fun, she's definitely a lot weaker than she was. I think the shield build is pretty competitive as far as dps and healing go, but aside from that, she seems sub-par compared to the other supports. That, of course, could just be the sting of the patch.
I've been surprised how essential unstable anomaly seems to be. It adds like 10k damage to my stats whenever I pick it, which seems to be a far greater boon than the other lvl 4 talents.
20 seconds on the shield is super-nice. You can actually shield people between going to fountains, it's kind of cool, if a little risky.
I've been trying the healing mists talent at 20 but it's tough to notice a difference at that point to be honest. Going to have to continue to reserve judgement on that one until more games are played.
Tried a few games of BW but I feel she is gutted to Lili-like levels now. Less damage hurts her splitpush options and the damage loss on polymorph is very noticeable too. Besides that the loss of shield at 4 and gust of healing at 7 are hard to replace. Yes the shield talent at 7 is nice and using it to zip into the fight preferrably on some high priority target is quite nice, but you're just getting a slightly better protective shield that is a bit awkward to use. Gust of healing however is sorely missed, with the new talents you can make some build that has higher average healing perhaps but the reliable burst of gust to recover from an aoe is just hard to replace.
Especially with Malf being great now and Rehgar still being very solid I don't see reason to pick others now in hero league. Uther is still okayish too but doesn't really have a good replacement for shield at 4. Perhaps like Rehgar most now, his burst healing is very hard to come by in the metagame. Sure his shield is a little weaker, ult cooldown a little longer and feral heart not as good anymore. He does have the option for cleanse which can be huge and the heal build with all heal talents including the new one at lvl 16 provides a lot of heal for combat. Alternatively I like storm shield build quite a bit on him too. The mana save + increased duration talent at 4 is sweet and I even like empowered charge on butcher or zeratul.
- 10 second cd - 20% movement speed - 1 block charge - HoT at lvl4 - 4 second spell shield on lvl13 - bounces at lvl 16
In addition BW has the strongest shield in game with Phase Shield and on a lower cooldown than the old shield. Not sure if I missed something but BW felt extremely strong, especially when supporting melees.
I think Blizzard made a mistake in the BW nerfs. Every support except for Tyrande and Lili was used regularly in competitive play. They should've buffed those two instead of nerfing other ones. Hopefully BW doesn't become completely unused at high level play.
the new patch is so slow for asia server, it is still not up yet I had been trying out the new map, it is pretty cool but I find it a bit messy with the huge open space at middle and fog of war looks especially unclear on it
BW was nerfed ? I think she got better. Guess if people feel so different about her its only a change ? XD I guess it is important that you now need to use Pixie Dust unlike before. And I ignore the fact that BW is super powerful on the new map lol. Though Zagara Nydus is also epic on this map. Maybe even worth getting it over Maw in some compositions. Funny to nydus near the enemy immortal and Hydra him and then jump back defending your own. I think the Immortals should swap places everytime 50% is reached, feels pretty meh if you are the first one to get 50% and then the opposing team wins a team fight zones you out and takes 100% down. Seems like no reason to be the first one to attack. Just defend your boss and stay in the lanes and have a 3 person roaming squad.
But I like progames were the objective is often ignored.
I just can wait for a random pro to upload a tier list so people on hero league start making stupid decisions like picking malf against a burst comp and stuff.
Every time a tier list is released some people lose 100 IQ and stop thinking by themselves.
On July 01 2015 23:48 ETisME wrote: the new patch is so slow for asia server, it is still not up yet I had been trying out the new map, it is pretty cool but I find it a bit messy with the huge open space at middle and fog of war looks especially unclear on it
Yeah I agree with the fog of war comment. There are smokescreen areas but also it's hard to see enemies at an immortal until you're practically on top of them, which is often walking into a perfect gank opportunity unless your whole team goes together.
On July 02 2015 00:07 FeyFey wrote: BW was nerfed ? I think she got better. Guess if people feel so different about her its only a change ? XD I guess it is important that you now need to use Pixie Dust unlike before. And I ignore the fact that BW is super powerful on the new map lol. Though Zagara Nydus is also epic on this map. Maybe even worth getting it over Maw in some compositions. Funny to nydus near the enemy immortal and Hydra him and then jump back defending your own. I think the Immortals should swap places everytime 50% is reached, feels pretty meh if you are the first one to get 50% and then the opposing team wins a team fight zones you out and takes 100% down. Seems like no reason to be the first one to attack. Just defend your boss and stay in the lanes and have a 3 person roaming squad.
But I like progames were the objective is often ignored.
These pixie dust talents are alright but I miss the damage on Q and W and gust of healing too much. Pixie dust healing is much less in comparison and pixie dust spell shield is nice but so was sprint.
New map not paying too much attention to immortals seems good. It's definately not an objective early you want to avoid soaking lanes for.
The best patch I've seen in my 5 or 6 months of play. By far. Blizzard finally seems to be showing that they might actually understand their game.
First, they nerfed Anub and Jaina, but only a small amount. Good. They are incredibly strong at their roles to the point that they were pushing other heros out. They will both still be used, and are still strong. They dealt with them properly.
Second, they gutted Vikings. Vikings are terrible design. A moba where you don't need to last hit, and where everyone on your team globally shares the rewards of being in a lane... And it is a good idea to put in a hero that can soak 2+ lanes with ease, is very strong in team fights, and barely rewards the enemy at all for killing them? No, they needed to be gutted. While the stats from hotslogs aren't perfect, comparing the 45% win rate of Abathur (#2 soaker) to the 58% of Vikings shows everything. I bet that they will still have a better than 50% win rate after this patch just because their base design is so absurdly strong for the systems in this game. We'll see how it works out, but my money is on >50% win rate, still super strong. Their design is just so, so good.
Third, the 3 healer reworks. Glorious. Blizzard is getting better at the meaningful talent choices. The entire point of this talent system is that you are supposed to have meaningful choices every few levels on how you want to build your hero. There isn't supposed to be one obvious best path, you are supposed to use your talents to adapt to how the game is playing out and to specialize for your team composition. BW, Malf and Rhegar now have multiple talent tiers where they can actually make a meaningful choice. Butcher's talents are also well done for the most part. One of the core mechanics of the game is actually getting filled out, and that makes me happy. I'm hoping that the BW remake also works out as a slight nerf, because she was crazy strong.
Yeeup. Slight nerfs to the overbearing in their role, large nerfs to the game-breaking, fiddle with stuff to make more viable build paths. The game needs more of these patches.
Oh wow, that damage, though it doesn't show the level difference. My only concern with that is how hard it is to avoid the damage and how much it heals him. I'm guessing The Butcher is a bit like Illidan and you'll need to stun/zone him out to deal with him properly or that just happens.
The Butcher is as any melee assassin still dangerous to anyone even if they are low health. Especially to those without a high damage spell. Oh lol it was a Valla thought the video was a Sylv ... well that Valla just derped and thought oh low hp !
Try that against a Jaina on level 16.
Thrall and Sonya are like, we could heal like that too, then we got an nerf arrow to the knee.
I like the Butcher, but he dies really easily but he does need a different set of supports then Illidan or Kerrigan so he might expand on what we see in progames. But since you can lure Butchers really easily with their charge I am not sure we will see him there.
Oh and I think Aba might be better then Vikings again. So I hope they remove a few of the speed debuffs on the Vikings. To increase their survivability.
Most of the time it looks like he can't haha. But sometimes team mates also run into you chased by a Butcher with furnace activated ... And I thought Living bomb friendly fire would be annoying.
Not sure it was mentioned before, but I think Mule lost alot of value on blackhearts bay. With the lowered hp on the towers. 1 pay 1 complete keep gone. So all this damage the towers a little before paying interaction in the early game gone.
Butcher is like thrall in the beginning I think so far. You can make some rediculous videos of him where he 1v1s three heroes in a row or whatever but I don't think he is too strong.
Yes his damage at full stacks is insane and he can take down a squishie very quickly but he's feeling a bit weak to me for 2 reasons: - pretty damn awful at laning, you need to do it a bit to get your stacks up but it's a chore with him. Your charge is slowish so dangerous near towers, as when you cancel it you still have some problems and take same damage. More importantly though, his self heal is annoying to use if you aren't fighting other heroes in combat where you can just hit them. Thrall could chain lightning, heal himself up a bit etc. butcher doesn't do that. Pretty much he needs to be unopposed in lane or piggyback with another hero to easily get the stacks quickly and when people are near towers still he can't do all too much. Mercing with him is alright but an early death on him sucks to have to get back those stacks to be at power for teamfights. - feels too easy to deny his brand, only the branded hero needs to GTFO and he is left helpless. Thrall can switch targets, get healing on range through chain lightning etc. but butcher needs brand to work well or just get nuked. Smart opponents I feel just prevent that with an escape or stuff like ice block when getting branded. You can build to survive nuke a little bit with spell shield or something but you're still going down quickly if that heal isn't connecting. Especially muradin shits on him I feel, just stun him after he charged and take the reduced attack speed on clap, butcher will have trouble getting that healing going.
I don't know thrall never really got off and before he was properly explored perhaps he was already nerfed. Opinions still differ if he ever was too good actually (i think not) but that point is moot now. I just have a feeling butcher will suffer a similar fate, not good in pro play but lots of 'omg rediculous' videos and a nerf afterwards. I like to be wrong though as it does bring something fresh to the table and perhaps with proper (cleanse) support and the right play around him he will shine.
Oh and I think Aba might be better then Vikings again. So I hope they remove a few of the speed debuffs on the Vikings. To increase their survivability
Dno, I think its okay if they have weaker core stats and you instead can customize your talents more with the heroes. E.g. to compensate for their lack of speed you can pick the level 16-marathon talent that increases their movement speed when you press "Z".
It's just that I feel some of their talents aren't as interesting/strong/impactful as they could be. I also have a bit of a difficult time seeing the advantage of picking LV over Abathur (besides the pre-10 soaking).
Zagara creep vision is evil with the Butcher lol. One game we lost 4 and they 3. But thanks to Zagara vision it looked like they wouldn't come to the Tribute. Was QM with 2 Butchers. So their Butcher suddenly made a beeline to the Tribute were i send our Butcher. since I knew the other butcher had vision near the Tribute I was scared he would kill ours. But Creep saw everything. Our Butcher used furnace and just exploded their hurt Butcher the moment he arrived. I saw an amazing save also. Butcher got cornered between the lanes. Screamed "Fresh Meat" and ran towards enemy minions on the lane lol. Was body blocked and slowed, but got away against 4.
Still not as bad as Zombie Wall grief. Nazeboo is not so bad on the new map, hope he won't be used by pros. Don't want people to start using ravenous spirit again and stick to the bad colossus ult.
On July 02 2015 22:20 FeyFey wrote: Still not as bad as Zombie Wall grief. Nazeboo is not so bad on the new map, hope he won't be used by pros. Don't want people to start using ravenous spirit again and stick to the bad colossus ult.
I really disagree with you here, Ravenous Spirit has its uses but it is heavily nerfed and Gargantuan is just straight up better a lot of times with improved AI. Maybe you could use Ravenous on new map as it has a lot of objects that block line of sight so you could channel it from safety, but it is still hard to catch anyone with it unless your team has a lot of CC and even then you could be interrupted easily from range.
One of the strengths that Gargantuan has is that you just cast it and forget about it, occasionally clicking R again for his stomp. Your hero is free to move around, kite, auto-attack and cast spells and with Leaping Spiders and Gargantuan he is doing a ton of damage even when he isn't near enemy. If you pick up Ravenous Spirit, you have to constantly follow whole enemy team, their positioning, you keep "hiding" yourself from them and careful position yourself so you couldn't be interrupted, your other spells have a lot lower range than Spirit which means that you can cast just Spirit from afar, or get closer to the fight to cast all other spells and then Spirit while being in danger of interruption. If you want to cast all of your spells and then get back for Spirit it might take too much time for you to do that. Not even mentioning that if they jump on you, you can still use all 4 spells with Gargantuan, while Spirit ulti is basically useless in that situation.
Later in the game with upgraded Gargantuan, if you aren't reckless you will have him all the time near you, you can clear Mercs in a matter of seconds, your damage against buildings with him is enormous(pretty much like Dragon Knight/Plant in the late game) and doing boss becomes piece of cake.
I don't know, since the patch where Ravenous Spirit is nerfed I've picked it quite a lot at the start but it was very hard to make it work. It didn't have nearly the same effect it had before. Then I start using Gargantuan(that was utter shit before) and it actually was quite alright, a lot better than pre-patch and definitely had more success with him than with Spirit.
Just my opinion but seeing Hots Logs, most played and successful builds on top level have Gargantuan in it.
LMAO, i don't think a thrall or sonya could have pulled that. I think a lvl 16 Jaina, without her ice block, both would have died lol (I still think The Butcher might have a slight chance on killing Jaina though)
Is it just me or is the Immortal (once it's summoned to a lane) really weak? It seems to be far more important to peel and pick off your opponents during the immortal battle than it is to actually *win* your immortal.
Well I had to try it to confirm it : the vikings are basically useless now, unless you want to splitpush all game (something that has never ever worked since alpha...) Losing spin to win or shield is huge, getting the jump only at lvl 13 is huge too, the full rez timer hurts so much... etc etc etc.
The thing I don't like about this rework/nerf is that they lost tons of things but almost gained nothing in return, you have the globe talent by default (yey...) and a bribe at lvl 1 that's only half decent if you split all 3 vikings, then some mostly shitty talents at lvl 4 (or 7? I don't remember). Having bribe on E just seems plain stupid, I wonder what went through the devs head to let such anomaly go live, they probably had no f****g clue as to how to fill that E...
If only they at least gave us good options to replace the active talents the rework might have worked... right now it just looks like very poor design.
My bet is they had no idea how to solve the x3 soak problem and decided to put them into shit tier so this problem doesn't really exist anymore, a bit like how Teemo is always nerfed really hard in LoL if he becomes relevant because they don't want games with mushrooms oneshotting people all around the map.
On July 03 2015 02:55 RouaF wrote: Well I had to try it to confirm it : the vikings are basically useless now, unless you want to splitpush all game (something that has never ever worked since alpha...) Losing spin to win or shield is huge, getting the jump only at lvl 13 is huge too, the full rez timer hurts so much... etc etc etc.
The thing I don't like about this rework/nerf is that they lost tons of things but almost gained nothing in return, you have the globe talent by default (yey...) and a bribe at lvl 1 that's only half decent if you split all 3 vikings, then some mostly shitty talents at lvl 4 (or 7? I don't remember). Having bribe on E just seems plain stupid, I wonder what went through the devs head to let such anomaly go live, they probably had no f****g clue as to how to fill that E...
If only they at least gave us good options to replace the active talents the rework might have worked... right now it just looks like very poor design.
My bet is they had no idea how to solve the x3 soak problem and decided to put them into shit tier so this problem doesn't really exist anymore, a bit like how Teemo is always nerfed really hard in LoL if he becomes relevant because they don't want games with mushrooms oneshotting people all around the map.
Why couldn't they just adjust the exp% from each viking? x.x
The thing I don't like about this rework/nerf is that they lost tons of things but almost gained nothing in return, you have the globe talent by default (yey...) and a bribe at lvl 1 that's only half decent if you split all 3 vikings, then some mostly shitty talents at lvl 4 (or 7? I don't remember). Having bribe on E just seems plain stupid, I wonder what went through the devs head to let such anomaly go live, they probably had no f****g clue as to how to fill that E.
Balrog splash talent is pretty good at level 1 is pretty good if you wanna push lanes (which you can only do if you splitpush). But why wasn't the Erik-stealth talent removed? What's the point of stealthing him? It doesn't fit him at all and is a waste of a talent-spot.
On July 03 2015 04:58 Advocado wrote: Out of curiosity where do you guys go to find a team to play in?
I basically solo QM until I find a team where we win and work together effectively, then I mass-Invite them to Party. And then after 2-3 party games, I Add them as Friends, which makes my list of available partymates grow Then we'll do QM or HL matches... it's nice to not have completely random allies in HL.
so took 2 hours ? x3 Dota 1 was fun but the grind burned me out i think.
Uh just landed on the bad side of Support matchmaking with Nova. Tassadar vs Brightwing/ Reghar. BW always saw me and dehided me even out of vision. Didn't played anywhere near that level of Nova tracking in every other regard. Our team was doing really good though. Their comp had such a good sustain and no one cared about Zagaras tumors. That they always took fights near our boss and I could get pick offs. While well our Gazlow knew about the Immortals weakness.
Wonder if the boss will get a shield soon when no hero is close to him. I personally really like that you can throw minions at the Immortal that get ignored. But its Blizzard, no finer knowledge of something shall give an advantage.
I also really like that they hit like a truck once in lane, but die so super fast.
I guess if they remove Sylvanas ability to explode minions and mercs, possession would become useful. Its better now as you can take over one full minion wave. No real change when it comes to taking over mercs. But it now creates a push that needs to be dealt with, just like promote does. But Sylvanas is just the wrong hero for possession. Maybe if she had no talents against minions it would be something. Because without those she has a pretty bad waveclear.
Did win with it against an Abathur though. But our team was ahead by the time 10 hit. Was less funny then I expected but still canceled out Aba pushing.
I can't decide if I want Falstad or not. I really want an assassin that's a bit more unique and flavourful (especially one that's mobile on big maps) but he's just so vulnerable and volatile. I feel like I just can't stay in the battle or I get instagibbed.
On July 05 2015 05:25 Roe wrote: I can't decide if I want Falstad or not. I really want an assassin that's a bit more unique and flavourful (especially one that's mobile on big maps) but he's just so vulnerable and volatile. I feel like I just can't stay in the battle or I get instagibbed.
As far as casters go he's the one with the most mobility really, but as an auto-attacker he is squishier than others. So it just depends on how you want to play him.
If I'm Zeratul and being charged by The Butcher, how do I escape? Because I've tried blinking away, hitting him first with my singularity spike, going through smoke, running behind walls, and even mounting and galloping but nothing seems to cancel his ruthless onslaught. As soon as I hear "Fresh Meat!", I know I'm about to be chased down and auto-stunned (and hope that I don't get combo'ed/ ganked as a result). What I've started doing to attempt to minimize damage is to basically take the hit and try to blink away asap *after* I get hit, but I'd much rather not get hit in the first place. (And obviously I'm not gonna waste VP on only him.)
On July 05 2015 08:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: If I'm Zeratul and being charged by The Butcher, how do I escape? Because I've tried blinking away, hitting him first with my singularity spike, going through smoke, running behind walls, and even mounting and galloping but nothing seems to cancel his ruthless onslaught. As soon as I hear "Fresh Meat!", I know I'm about to be chased down and auto-stunned (and hope that I don't get combo'ed/ ganked as a result). What I've started doing to attempt to minimize damage is to basically take the hit and try to blink away asap *after* I get hit, but I'd much rather not get hit in the first place. (And obviously I'm not gonna waste VP on only him.)
You can't really evade Butcher's charge. He will hit you and if you are on low hp, or if he timed his Furnace Blast ulti perfectly, you are just dead. On the other hand, if you Blink after the stun, he can't really catch you. Played Butcher quite a lot, and if Zeratul uses blink the moment Butcher's stun ends, he will escape before Butcher's manage to get Lamb to the Slaughter ulti on him.
On July 05 2015 08:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: If I'm Zeratul and being charged by The Butcher, how do I escape? Because I've tried blinking away, hitting him first with my singularity spike, going through smoke, running behind walls, and even mounting and galloping but nothing seems to cancel his ruthless onslaught. As soon as I hear "Fresh Meat!", I know I'm about to be chased down and auto-stunned (and hope that I don't get combo'ed/ ganked as a result). What I've started doing to attempt to minimize damage is to basically take the hit and try to blink away asap *after* I get hit, but I'd much rather not get hit in the first place. (And obviously I'm not gonna waste VP on only him.)
You can't really evade Butcher's charge. He will hit you and if you are on low hp, or if he timed his Furnace Blast ulti perfectly, you are just dead. On the other hand, if you Blink after the stun, he can't really catch you. Played Butcher quite a lot, and if Zeratul uses blink the moment Butcher's stun ends, he will escape before Butcher's manage to get Lamb to the Slaughter ulti on him.
Okay thanks, I just feel like that's kind of bullshit. I've been trying to steer clear of him in the early game by just staying in a different lane (much like when I see a Brightwing so I don't get poly'ed), but sometimes The Butcher just happens to be in smoke or traveling around and I can't do much lol
On July 05 2015 08:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: If I'm Zeratul and being charged by The Butcher, how do I escape? Because I've tried blinking away, hitting him first with my singularity spike, going through smoke, running behind walls, and even mounting and galloping but nothing seems to cancel his ruthless onslaught. As soon as I hear "Fresh Meat!", I know I'm about to be chased down and auto-stunned (and hope that I don't get combo'ed/ ganked as a result). What I've started doing to attempt to minimize damage is to basically take the hit and try to blink away asap *after* I get hit, but I'd much rather not get hit in the first place. (And obviously I'm not gonna waste VP on only him.)
You can't really evade Butcher's charge. He will hit you and if you are on low hp, or if he timed his Furnace Blast ulti perfectly, you are just dead. On the other hand, if you Blink after the stun, he can't really catch you. Played Butcher quite a lot, and if Zeratul uses blink the moment Butcher's stun ends, he will escape before Butcher's manage to get Lamb to the Slaughter ulti on him.
Okay thanks, I just feel like that's kind of bullshit. I've been trying to steer clear of him in the early game by just staying in a different lane (much like when I see a Brightwing so I don't get poly'ed), but sometimes The Butcher just happens to be in smoke or traveling around and I can't do much lol
Zeratul actually can win Butcher in the lane if it is 1v1. The thing is, you can always burst half of his HP down with Q and W, and start retreating, he won't be able to hit you, just with his Q which does pitiful damage at the start, so he won't be able to heal. If he charges you, just blink over the walls or even let him stun you near your towers so he takes few extra hits from them. If he uses his mark then, I am pretty positive that he can't outheal your auto-attacks + towers, let alone your spells. If Butcher took Victuals on level 1, you will probably have a lot tougher time in lane as his sustain is great with it but still same applies, until level 10 he can't burst you as much as you can burst him down.
On July 05 2015 08:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: If I'm Zeratul and being charged by The Butcher, how do I escape? Because I've tried blinking away, hitting him first with my singularity spike, going through smoke, running behind walls, and even mounting and galloping but nothing seems to cancel his ruthless onslaught. As soon as I hear "Fresh Meat!", I know I'm about to be chased down and auto-stunned (and hope that I don't get combo'ed/ ganked as a result). What I've started doing to attempt to minimize damage is to basically take the hit and try to blink away asap *after* I get hit, but I'd much rather not get hit in the first place. (And obviously I'm not gonna waste VP on only him.)
Butcher can't be stopped by anything except for your team's gates.
Yea, it's stupid.
The only way to counter Butcher is teamwork. He can pretty much 1v1 any hero in the game, and I frequently see him 1v2 heroes. If you've going to get charged, make sure you're with teammates, and then Blink away right after he stuns you so the rest of your team can take him out.
Also, in Butcher vs. Butcher if we charge at each other, whose Ruthless Onslaught gets cancelled and whose actually hits? Because I know mine's gotten cancelled multiple times from getting ROed while I'm doing it too, but I can't ever tell who's casting it first/ second.
Hey TLV players, what do you take on Lv1 now? Is Viking Bribery worth taking over Olaf the Stout? I mean sure the survivability isn't that useful, but it helps me when I fuck up and being able to stack only 2 bribes on a hero that probably farms much more sounds kind of meh...
On July 05 2015 21:03 Ej_ wrote: Hey TLV players, what do you take on Lv1 now? Is Viking Bribery worth taking over Olaf the Stout? I mean sure the survivability isn't that useful, but it helps me when I fuck up and being able to stack only 2 bribes on a hero that probably farms much more sounds kind of meh...
The reason why Bribe is great on them is because they can do more with it than other heroes can. What I am trying to say is that with other heroes that have Bribe you still have to go to the camp and use it on Mercs, in which case you can just waste 10 more seconds and kill Mercs anyway. But with Vikings you can just go with Erik and steal their camp in the middle of nowhere while your other 2 Vikings are pushing or doing another camp.
Haven't played them that much after the nerf, but Explosive Attacks or Viking Bribery are the ones that I've been picking from game to game and Viking Bribery turned out to be the most useful. Olaf the Stout is quite solid but Olaf is so slow that he will probably going to die anyway.
On July 05 2015 08:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: If I'm Zeratul and being charged by The Butcher, how do I escape? Because I've tried blinking away, hitting him first with my singularity spike, going through smoke, running behind walls, and even mounting and galloping but nothing seems to cancel his ruthless onslaught. As soon as I hear "Fresh Meat!", I know I'm about to be chased down and auto-stunned (and hope that I don't get combo'ed/ ganked as a result). What I've started doing to attempt to minimize damage is to basically take the hit and try to blink away asap *after* I get hit, but I'd much rather not get hit in the first place. (And obviously I'm not gonna waste VP on only him.)
Butcher can't be stopped by anything except for your team's gates.
Yea, it's stupid.
The only way to counter Butcher is teamwork. He can pretty much 1v1 any hero in the game, and I frequently see him 1v2 heroes. If you've going to get charged, make sure you're with teammates, and then Blink away right after he stuns you so the rest of your team can take him out.
Butcher can also be stopped if you move far away from him if he is charging, as he still has his "leash" range while in charge. If you are using Hearthstone and Butcher charges you on the last second, he won't continue to charge you through the whole map. Likewise if you charge someone with few Blinks, they can escape before they get hit. Valla using 2x Vault + Bolt of the Storm. I can't remember which hero but someone stopped my charge with the move like that, blinking out of range just after I've charged him and I've just stopped in place.
I made that post because I got fed up. One guy post about map hacks and suddenly everyone in b.net and reddit start to say they just played against a map hacker and start to blame their loses on them...it's ridiculous and its being blown out of proportion. It is a problem, but its not game breaking, I bet not even 1% of the playerbase map hack or even know this exist.
yeah but it will spread, especially now that everyone posts about it. Just Blizzard can do something about it really. But since you don't get 10 heroes really fast, it won't be to a problem unless they do 6 month banwaves then no one will care. But if those using the hack now will complain on their shady forums that they get isnta banned, it will just die down.
Butcher is really scary if you like to roam or be a bit away from the rest. I think its nice to have an anti poke hero. And every Melee Assassin has close up to the enemy spells. Melee is hard to balance and they decided to have melees be able to close up the distance.
Or just play Zagara. Easiest Maw target ever, not even I miss that big thing charging at me.
Really a shame, was enjoying the competitive aspect, but if blizz doesn't do anything about this, and they won't, what's the point of playing?
But it doesn't have the same effect since competitive sc is 1v1 while hots is 5v5. Sure, the whole team could get it but thats like screaming "we are scrubs, ban us". We could analyze the whole sport scene from football, MMA to athletics etc.. in every single one of them you could find "cheaters" and yet they are still popular. Counter Strike has cheaters and its still popular, people are still playing. If you dont find a game fun just because there is a chance you might encounter a hacker/cheater then you should probably skip A LOT of games/sports.
freaking love the buff on Hydra. It just plows through a minion wave now. One reason less to use Banelings at all. Also Hydras are good at last hitting, can even leave a lane early now and not lose the full exp of a wave.
Been tearing shit up with my friend as Raynor/Azmo. Played all day, won 21, lost 4. The pushing power in this combo is unreal. The new map is nice too. I'm glad Mines and Bay are gone, but I think having only 4 maps in the rotation is gonna get stale fast. I'd also love for there to be a "veto last map played" option so I don't have to play 3 30 minute+ games on Cursed Hollow in a row.
Butcher seems overly strong in some situations though. The fact you can't avoid his charge is brutal. He can kill pretty much anyone in 4/5 hits.
I'm also noticing more people playing tanks and even fewer people playing healers; I think I encountered LiLi twice and Rehgar once, and that's it. Only Tyrande seems common, and that's just rotation, and she's not even a proper healer. But more tanks is nice. Playing assassins when no one is tanking is a nightmare.
On July 06 2015 07:01 FeyFey wrote: freaking love the buff on Hydra. It just plows through a minion wave now. One reason less to use Banelings at all. Also Hydras are good at last hitting, can even leave a lane early now and not lose the full exp of a wave.
yeah zagara is even sweeter now especially with all the other dps'ers that outclassed her basically being nerfed a bit. Great pick on some maps.
On July 06 2015 13:48 Larkin wrote: Been tearing shit up with my friend as Raynor/Azmo. Played all day, won 21, lost 4. The pushing power in this combo is unreal. The new map is nice too. I'm glad Mines and Bay are gone, but I think having only 4 maps in the rotation is gonna get stale fast. I'd also love for there to be a "veto last map played" option so I don't have to play 3 30 minute+ games on Cursed Hollow in a row.
Butcher seems overly strong in some situations though. The fact you can't avoid his charge is brutal. He can kill pretty much anyone in 4/5 hits.
I'm also noticing more people playing tanks and even fewer people playing healers; I think I encountered LiLi twice and Rehgar once, and that's it. Only Tyrande seems common, and that's just rotation, and she's not even a proper healer. But more tanks is nice. Playing assassins when no one is tanking is a nightmare.
Today I played against Nazeebo/Azmodan/Sylvanas, and even though they didn't have healer on their team they won the game easily.
Yep I can see Butcher nerfed in the next patch.
I'm noticing similar trend in my picks, it's far better to change the outcome of a game by picking solid tank than it is by picking a healer. Anyone can pick Lili and afk/heal (I hate her though, anytime my teammate picks her I want to leave).
This patch I like Reghar more, but Malf is best healer by far this patch IMO. Brightwing was hit by the nerf hammer too hard ...
Alot of tanks have their own heal or do a wild amount of damage to a single target, while you can't kill em that easily. A good tank is an easy win in QM. Not that easy in Hero League though. And well you can be the best tank ever, but if the enemy has "more damage taken" debuffs or blood 4 blood or a giant slayer auto attacker, you can't jump in anymore and pick of their best player and let the rest of the team handle the rest.
B4B got even better against tanks on assassins, it just doesn't work for bursting down someone anymore with your team. Really sad about it. But Spell shield is the OP talent now.
I've played 2 or 3 games against 5 Specialists and lost all of them.
It was prepatch when Vikings were really good, and the games had Murky, Vikings, Nazeebo, Azmodan, Zagara and Abathur. It is really hard to deal with them, when you go to Mines for example to take skulls if they see that all of you went there they just keep pushing and destroy whole lane before you even get all of the skulls, and if some of you stay to defend, if it will slow their push significantly, they just get to the Mines and you have to back off.
I honestly don't know why so many people on this forum have issues with Nova. She isn't a dumpster fire tier hero but she is so incredibly easy to counter she'll never be actually good unless they revert all her nerfs that let her Rewind rotate any hero 100-0.
Has anyone tooled around with the 25% leech Zeratul talent at 4? I went Regen, Vamparic, Follow Through then the usual stuff after that. It was just a QM but it felt pretty solid. Like I wasn't always nervous I was going to get blown up immediately. As Zeratul I constantly have a problem staying alive despite my best efforts and with this build I felt like I made a favorable trade for some burst in exchange for sustainability.
omg Tyrande, Muradin and Butcher, why did the other team let that one happen.
I think Nova would do well if they make her independent of gathering power. Zeratul is so much more scary because of this, even if he is more single target based now. Well Nova has no escape and only single target, so its super risky to play her. And if you know you die alot ... well the other option was envenom.
On July 07 2015 08:18 FeyFey wrote: omg Tyrande, Muradin and Butcher, why did the other team let that one happen.
I think Nova would do well if they make her independent of gathering power. Zeratul is so much more scary because of this, even if he is more single target based now. Well Nova has no escape and only single target, so its super risky to play her. And if you know you die alot ... well the other option was envenom.
Zeratul is much scarier than Nova because he is bursting just as good while also have an utility and escape mechanics in his kit.
thats why it would make more sense to give him the you die you lose damage mechanic and not Nova. Or remove his you are a ranged assassins now talent hehe. Should not complain though Nova has a block single target skill shot button an body block option. Just salty Zera is not bound to Gathering Power anymore and a Nova can die to him if not at full health and full stacks.
Problem with nova typically is total lack of laning power. Waveclearing and soaking xp is highly underrated and you really want enough heroes that can waveclear well imo with nobs it just happens too often that because of her crappy pick another hero like Malf or rehgar is forced to solo lane. Nova can be okayish, though never great, but you really need to watch roles during draft more. It's highly frustrating to get these teams with 3 or 4 people that want to roam but not even having a good stun combo to actually get kills and just fall behind in xp massively. Zeratul at least can lane fairly well if he's alone or work well on a team rotation where you back and quickly clear. Also a reason i think heroes like Johanna and anub'arak do so well, if you play with weak players the best way to compensate for their lack of getting xp properly is to do it yourself i feel. Hence i think good laning/clear heroes do better in soloQ. Muradin is the best tank imo in high level play but in soloQ the fact you're randomly left alone to lane can just make it frustrating with him.
Why do people have a problem with Nova? Because they primarily play Quickmatch and you can't counter her and they aren't very good at dealing with high burst or know how to spot her.
Everyone whines about heroes they aren't good at dealing with, just look at invis heroes in Dota 2 (at the low bracket where nobody buys dust, wards, etc).
On July 07 2015 19:44 Corgi wrote: Why do people have a problem with Nova? Because they primarily play Quickmatch and you can't counter her and they aren't very good at dealing with high burst or know how to spot her.
Everyone whines about heroes they aren't good at dealing with, just look at invis heroes in Dota 2 (at the low bracket where nobody buys dust, wards, etc).
So tassadar isn't considered a counter to Nova? :p
Thats why I take reverb/battle momentum on Mura rather often in QM. Also it keeps the game fair, since you run out of Mana in a fight.
With Nova I am usually stuck on a lane every second game in QM and have to get One in the chamber. Its not pretty but a hero without escape shouldn't push a lane anway. In HL I take Nova everytime I am 5th pick and my team can work on their own. Everything else is really risky anyway, because there are many strong counter picks to cloaked heroes. And unlike Zera, Nova relies on being cloaked to do extra damage. Stupid Malf Meta btw.
What I like about Nova is her global ult though which doesn't work against an organized team, but for everything less one or 2 will dodge it and create enough time for the rest of my team to run or get a pick off.
I hope they will reset the HL alot, really dislike being in the high ranks. To much standard. But the Butcher breaks this up a bit atm.
Edit: He talked about Nova being only used in QM. If you pick Tassadar in QM you usually force 4 others into a healer vs non healer game .
I still think Brightwing is pretty decent. Usually I like going Z build 1-7 but I was in a game against Murky so I knew I had to take Cleanse at 7 so that would remove a bunch of oomph from the Z build. So I tried out a healing focused build. I actually really, really enjoyed it. It seemed to work out wonderfully and it allowed you to take Cleanse at 7 with no real impact to the build. It will probably be my go-to 1-7 build if I am required to take cleanse in the game.
On July 07 2015 23:28 Tenks wrote: I still think Brightwing is pretty decent. Usually I like going Z build 1-7 but I was in a game against Murky so I knew I had to take Cleanse at 7 so that would remove a bunch of oomph from the Z build. So I tried out a healing focused build. I actually really, really enjoyed it. It seemed to work out wonderfully and it allowed you to take Cleanse at 7 with no real impact to the build. It will probably be my go-to 1-7 build if I am required to take cleanse in the game.
Funnily enough in the game I'm referring to we had a Tass on the team as well. He really helped me out when I'd get engaged upon and I needed some extra HP to escape.
What do you guys think about the new map? I've only had stupid stomps on them. I feel like the team that's ahead has so much advantage and really dislike the map
- It's very hard to take a good fight in the narrow corridors around the demonlords - higher level team does more damage, kills demonlord faster - even íf you manage to kill them when they are attacking your demonlord, you cant punish them by taking the objective because the animation pause at 50% health gives them time to respawn - javelin goats push lanes very hard giving you no choice but to defend instead of going for objective, getting you further behind
I actually quite like it. I feel some of the snowball aspect is addressed by the fact that you simply cannot fight around the enemy's Immortal. He just spams stun all the time making it so even if you are 2+ levels ahead you can easily get a full team wipe.
So basically I'd say if you're behind you need to do what is counter-intuative on this map and try and force a fight on your terms next to your Immortal
I'm at about the point where I'm going to stop taking melee heroes (unless its a tank) on Battlefield of Eternity. It's just too much of a mess to fight around. Also, I'm tired of seeing people play it so badly. So many morons lane or otherwise dick around instead of killing the Immortals when the enemy team is down or disadvantaged.
I'm a little torn on what to do when immortals are up. I have tried a 1 per lane 3 defending split to soak for XP and had it work out very well with a good XP advantage and had it fail miserably with the 3 getting wiped. Is there a case for soaking while immortals are up or should the focus be purely on the winning the teamfight for immortals?
I'm also a bit torn on what to do for the first Immortal. It pops when you are like level 4. For the most part everyone abandons lanes and fights the Immortals. But I feel like there may be some value in possibly trying to send 3 to safely chip down some of the enemy Immortal while you have 2 people in lane soaking. You'll lose the first Immortal but it seems to only kill like 2 towers and a gate anyways. I'd say having a 1.5 level lead from waves would be worth it.
On July 08 2015 04:51 Tenks wrote: I'm also a bit torn on what to do for the first Immortal. It pops when you are like level 4. For the most part everyone abandons lanes and fights the Immortals. But I feel like there may be some value in possibly trying to send 3 to safely chip down some of the enemy Immortal while you have 2 people in lane soaking. You'll lose the first Immortal but it seems to only kill like 2 towers and a gate anyways. I'd say having a 1.5 level lead from waves would be worth it.
Why bother sending any to the middle then, if you're considering laning/ soaking for an early level lead? Is the enemy immortal weaker if you take out some of its health during the middle battle (yet still lose)? I was under the impression that the immortal's power was binary (either you have one at its standard spawning power, or you completely lose it), like a dragon knight, rather than like the haunted mines' golems that are proportional/ split in some way (based on number of skulls).
3 people can't possibly kill an immortal faster than 5, so wouldn't you just be wasting firepower that could push lanes harder and faster?
On July 08 2015 04:51 Tenks wrote: I'm also a bit torn on what to do for the first Immortal. It pops when you are like level 4. For the most part everyone abandons lanes and fights the Immortals. But I feel like there may be some value in possibly trying to send 3 to safely chip down some of the enemy Immortal while you have 2 people in lane soaking. You'll lose the first Immortal but it seems to only kill like 2 towers and a gate anyways. I'd say having a 1.5 level lead from waves would be worth it.
Why bother sending any to the middle then, if you're considering laning/ soaking for an early level lead? Is the enemy immortal weaker if you take out some of its health during the middle battle (yet still lose)? I was under the impression that the immortal's power was binary (either you have one at its standard spawning power, or you completely lose it), like a dragon knight, rather than like the haunted mines' golems that are proportional/ split in some way (based on number of skulls).
3 people can't possibly kill an immortal faster than 5, so wouldn't you just be wasting firepower that could push lanes harder and faster?
Hum... I was under the impression that damage done the enemy immortal transferred over if the other team killed yours first.
On July 08 2015 04:51 Tenks wrote: I'm also a bit torn on what to do for the first Immortal. It pops when you are like level 4. For the most part everyone abandons lanes and fights the Immortals. But I feel like there may be some value in possibly trying to send 3 to safely chip down some of the enemy Immortal while you have 2 people in lane soaking. You'll lose the first Immortal but it seems to only kill like 2 towers and a gate anyways. I'd say having a 1.5 level lead from waves would be worth it.
Why bother sending any to the middle then, if you're considering laning/ soaking for an early level lead? Is the enemy immortal weaker if you take out some of its health during the middle battle (yet still lose)? I was under the impression that the immortal's power was binary (either you have one at its standard spawning power, or you completely lose it), like a dragon knight, rather than like the haunted mines' golems that are proportional/ split in some way (based on number of skulls).
3 people can't possibly kill an immortal faster than 5, so wouldn't you just be wasting firepower that could push lanes harder and faster?
Hum... I was under the impression that damage done the enemy immortal transferred over if the other team killed yours first.
If that's the case, then I 100% agree with Tenks's approach of 1-3-1 for the first immortal. I guess it's just hard for me to gauge such a thing.
On July 08 2015 04:51 Tenks wrote: I'm also a bit torn on what to do for the first Immortal. It pops when you are like level 4. For the most part everyone abandons lanes and fights the Immortals. But I feel like there may be some value in possibly trying to send 3 to safely chip down some of the enemy Immortal while you have 2 people in lane soaking. You'll lose the first Immortal but it seems to only kill like 2 towers and a gate anyways. I'd say having a 1.5 level lead from waves would be worth it.
Why bother sending any to the middle then, if you're considering laning/ soaking for an early level lead? Is the enemy immortal weaker if you take out some of its health during the middle battle (yet still lose)? I was under the impression that the immortal's power was binary (either you have one at its standard spawning power, or you completely lose it), like a dragon knight, rather than like the haunted mines' golems that are proportional/ split in some way (based on number of skulls).
3 people can't possibly kill an immortal faster than 5, so wouldn't you just be wasting firepower that could push lanes harder and faster?
AFAIK the Immortal is not binary. I believe the shields it gains is a direct reflection of the amount of HP remaining. Since it is most dangerous when it is ranged (shielded) if you manage to chip off some of it's HP it is less push you are required to deal with once it spawns.
The real danger of sending three is if the enemy team does a 4-1 split, with 1 person attacking their immortal and 4 coming over to gank your 3 while they are sitting under an enemy immortal...
On July 08 2015 05:38 MotherFox wrote: The real danger of sending three is if the enemy team does a 4-1 split, with 1 person attacking their immortal and 4 coming over to gank your 3 while they are sitting under an enemy immortal...
Yeah the strategy seems somewhat dependent upon their spawning locations as well. Like if the enemy spawns on your side of the map (possibly even the North and South positions) 1-3-1 may work. If it spawns on your enemy's side you may need to just 5man ball at the objective.
I don't *think* there is a pattern to their initial spawn locations but possibly I haven't taken great note on them either
Love it, the back and forth of the team fights in the middle over the immortal is a concept that should be applauded.
Fighting by your immortal is indeed the key. When they're up you need to DEFEND first, then when you have 5 up or killed 1-2 of the enemy, then push their immortal. And do not be scared to pull back to the safety of your immortal quickly.
edit: The key is to stay alive, and make sure your immortal doesn't take a lot of damage. Poke.
edit 2: And when you get the immortal it's always nice to send 1 to the other lane for exp, as it dies fast the first few times. Just don't overstay your welcome and all get camps as soon as possible after.
On July 08 2015 04:51 Tenks wrote: I'm also a bit torn on what to do for the first Immortal. It pops when you are like level 4. For the most part everyone abandons lanes and fights the Immortals. But I feel like there may be some value in possibly trying to send 3 to safely chip down some of the enemy Immortal while you have 2 people in lane soaking. You'll lose the first Immortal but it seems to only kill like 2 towers and a gate anyways. I'd say having a 1.5 level lead from waves would be worth it.
Why bother sending any to the middle then, if you're considering laning/ soaking for an early level lead? Is the enemy immortal weaker if you take out some of its health during the middle battle (yet still lose)? I was under the impression that the immortal's power was binary (either you have one at its standard spawning power, or you completely lose it), like a dragon knight, rather than like the haunted mines' golems that are proportional/ split in some way (based on number of skulls).
3 people can't possibly kill an immortal faster than 5, so wouldn't you just be wasting firepower that could push lanes harder and faster?
AFAIK the Immortal is not binary. I believe the shields it gains is a direct reflection of the amount of HP remaining. Since it is most dangerous when it is ranged (shielded) if you manage to chip off some of it's HP it is less push you are required to deal with once it spawns.
Ah, okay then
On July 08 2015 05:57 fruity. wrote: Love it, the back and forth of the team fights in the middle over the immortal is a concept that should be applauded.
I definitely think it's a breath of fresh air, as it's essentially an arena that everyone agrees to brawl in from time to time, rather than heavily relying on guerrilla tactics.
I think the map offers more than just a place to team fight constantly--- teamfights under an enemy immortal are very tricky-but-manageable. I main brightwing whenever I am not a jungler like illidan/falstad, and positioning under an enemy immortal is really fun, even though it is challenging to constantly be healing the team while also not getting stunned.
I prefer to do 1 soak 4 def own immortal. The immortal and his stuns pretty much makes up for the missing teammember and if you have a strong laner (sylvanas) she can easily take forts quicker than the two to three initial immortals.
Yep, if you want to soak you clearly have to def your immortal, the defenders advantage is really strong. This map is reaaaally good for abathur because he can soak 2 lanes AND push while your team defends the immortal, the objective phase is usually pretty long on this map so it gives a lot of room for abathur to do abathur things. It's also a damn good map for zagara as she can get you tons of vision mid with a creep build, allowing you to safely poke/know when to engage, I think I have like 80% win with zagara at rank 1, just spam creep everywhere in the middle. You are also very good at taking down the immortal from afar with banelings.
Overall I really like this map, usually I dislike new maps when they are released (hated sky temple and still hate spider queen) but this one is really fun. Non stop action in the middle, pretty cool concept with the immortals fighting and new mercs (yay). I'm just surprised the immortals aren't dealing any damage to each other, I thought they would slowly take each other out to avoid stalemates.
Why would Blizzard put Blackheart's Bay back into rotation when obviously everyone hates it and doesn't want to play it? We wanted Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror etc back in rotation, not Bay ;;
On July 09 2015 00:02 Larkin wrote: Why would Blizzard put Blackheart's Bay back into rotation when obviously everyone hates it and doesn't want to play it? We wanted Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror etc back in rotation, not Bay ;;
BB is my favorite map and DS and GoT are my two least favorites.
On July 09 2015 01:14 Tenks wrote: Which warrior pairings specifically? Like a true tank and a bruiser tank?
I'm not sure it matters for the most part. Most warriors do at least a decent amount of sustained damage if built for it.
Johanna+Chen best combo
About the meta thing...I don't know if that is going to end up being the "standard" team composition but it definitely seems strong. Still, I think most team comps are viable really.
On July 09 2015 01:14 Tenks wrote: Which warrior pairings specifically? Like a true tank and a bruiser tank?
I'm not sure it matters for the most part. Most warriors do at least a decent amount of sustained damage if built for it.
Yup I like double warrior now. The reason being that burst heal is much harder to come by (because of malf, nerf on shield and promote which make tassadar and tyrande less attractice too) but burst has hardly gone down, only blood for blood basically. Double warrior let's you sustain with the massive heal of malf easier without dying to burst. It's just quite dangerous for 'classic' 3 dps, 1 heal, 1 tank comps with that healer lacking burst and some heroes that are very good against this comp like zeratul being good.
If you get rehgar (or uther perhaps but I don't like him atm) I still like the more traditional comp though, especially if you got one muradin/johanna who can solo tank quite well. If you run malf I like a second tank usually involving tyrael or anub'arak.
Bruisers are in a rough spot, zeratul is awesome as melee assassin with his autoattack build but the heroes like illidan, kerrigan and the butcher are tough to use well i think. Just so squishy if you don't get rehgar and don't like picking an off-support like tassadar now to help them out unless im facing zeratul. Tyrande + butcher is interesting though and quite the roaming squad.
Picked Nazeebo back up since Anub is nerfed *to the ground*. On a 8 game winstreak (HL, single digits), what's up? He didn't get buffed at all except the jumping spiders fix. Only one game I didn't top hero damage, and that's because I died during core push.
My first thought is that too many of the newer players/heros just aren't used to countering zombies that *aren't* a ring around one guy. I (and most other good) Nazeebos use them more like Forcefields from sc2 - control where the enemy can go. So many KT/Jaina/Butcher will dive too far into a teamfight and then just get fielded out and die, seems like that never used to happen when he was en vogue.
Other thoughts - I really, really like Thrall now. His synergy with poke comps is just awesome and he's vicious in triplemelee setups. Also, we've started calling The Butcher "The Feeder". I'd say 80% of the people I've see him just run in and die far more often than is excusable.
* * NOTICE OF ACCOUNT CLOSURE * * * Closure - Heroes of the Storm License Violation: Exploitation/Abuse of Game Mechanics This includes exploiting game design, advertising exploits to other players, automating any aspect of gameplay, or using an unauthorized cheat program (also known as a hack). These programs provide player benefits normally not achievable in Heroes of the Storm. Such benefits include, but are not limited to, increased map visibility, abuse of connection speed, game crashes, etc. These unauthorized programs harm the competitive environment because they offer an unfair advantage over other players and supersede the intended limits of the game. The above game license has been closed following this violation of our in-game policies. As the account holder, you are responsible for the activity associated with this game license. The abuse that took place was an unacceptable detriment to other players and the quality of our service as a whole. Even if this is the result of account sharing, the account owner is still be held responsible for the penalty because of the impact it had on the game environment. No compensation has been provided for real money spent on this account. This action includes a permanent ban on Heroes of the Storm access. If you wish to play Heroes of the Storm you may do so only with a new or separate Battle.net account. We don't take this decision lightly. Our team issued this closure only after a careful review of relevant evidence. Our support staff will not overturn these closures and may not respond to appeals. For information, see our article: http://www.battle.net/support/article/6741 Regards, Customer Support Blizzard Entertainment http://battle.net/support
Get rekt. it's their fault anyway, who needs maphacks when you got superior map awareness.
That's good right? Blizzard will try to get rid of people who just afk all game long? I haven't heard of any actual hackers/ hacks yet though.
They are constantly banning/warning/suspending people who are toxic or AFK, look in reddit and the battle.net forums for people complaining about that xD. But this is specifically regarding to more serious stuff.
* * NOTICE OF ACCOUNT CLOSURE * * * Closure - Heroes of the Storm License Violation: Exploitation/Abuse of Game Mechanics This includes exploiting game design, advertising exploits to other players, automating any aspect of gameplay, or using an unauthorized cheat program (also known as a hack). These programs provide player benefits normally not achievable in Heroes of the Storm. Such benefits include, but are not limited to, increased map visibility, abuse of connection speed, game crashes, etc. These unauthorized programs harm the competitive environment because they offer an unfair advantage over other players and supersede the intended limits of the game. The above game license has been closed following this violation of our in-game policies. As the account holder, you are responsible for the activity associated with this game license. The abuse that took place was an unacceptable detriment to other players and the quality of our service as a whole. Even if this is the result of account sharing, the account owner is still be held responsible for the penalty because of the impact it had on the game environment. No compensation has been provided for real money spent on this account. This action includes a permanent ban on Heroes of the Storm access. If you wish to play Heroes of the Storm you may do so only with a new or separate Battle.net account. We don't take this decision lightly. Our team issued this closure only after a careful review of relevant evidence. Our support staff will not overturn these closures and may not respond to appeals. For information, see our article: http://www.battle.net/support/article/6741 Regards, Customer Support Blizzard Entertainment http://battle.net/support
Get rekt. it's their fault anyway, who needs maphacks when you got superior map awareness.
That's good right? Blizzard will try to get rid of people who just afk all game long? I haven't heard of any actual hackers/ hacks yet though.
They constantly are banning/warning/suspending people who are toxic or AFK, look in reddit and the battle.net forums for people complaining about that xD. But this is specifically regarding to more serious stuff.
2 of my friends got banned and we have no idea why. We're all average players that know each other from other Blizzard games, we spend money from time to time, we usually play together, none of us got suspended/banned in years, etc.
Now ofc I can't guarantee for anyone but myself... still, it seems weird. It would be useful to know at least what caused the ban other than the generic "abuse of game mechanics".
There was a dude on reddit that said his friends got banned for doing AFK stuff
A lot of my friends got banned too. They sent a ticket and got told they got banned because they went afk and attacked something all 30 seconds or so. I think blizzard categorised this as exploiting game mechanics and therefore so many got banned without using actual exploits.
Yeah I read it but that's not the case... I mean, it's possible that someone went AFK for a few seconds for a phone call, or AFK for the last 30 seconds of a bad game (I did it myself a couple times for sure). Repeatedly circumventing the AFK detection seems highly unlikely though, at least I never saw it in the hundreds of games played together.
Just realized that Thrall's Sundering grants him a stack of Frostwolf Resilience for each enemy hit. I was wondering how I went from almost zero to 100 in less than a second without Rehgar, or any healer for that matter, on my team. Shit had me befuddled until I watched the replay.
On July 09 2015 07:48 Big G wrote: Yeah I read it but that's not the case... I mean, it's possible that someone went AFK for a few seconds for a phone call, or AFK for the last 30 seconds of a bad game (I did it myself a couple times for sure). Repeatedly circumventing the AFK detection seems highly unlikely though, at least I never saw it in the hundreds of games played together.
I saw it happen a few times. But so far only one Hammer player did it from level 7 on where the person thought we lost, until the end where we won. Hope that fellar got banned.
Usually people only keep it up for a few minutes before they regret being assholes. Or realize that the other 4 players will continue to play and report them. That behavior kinda vanished the last months. Maybe the block chat button at the beginning of the game does something useful. Apart from creating more players that do their thing even at high level.
Have an Azmodan on the Spider map yay, add in a Jaina that cannot be contacted, while she happily cleans wave after wave with her arcane intellect talent. The result is a stomp with Azmodan getting a grand total of 80 stacks.
Maybe the crying about bans everywhere helped aton. I mean there were even gold farming bots in Beta, haven't seen those in a while as well. Though I don't play at night anymore lol.
On July 09 2015 00:02 Larkin wrote: Why would Blizzard put Blackheart's Bay back into rotation when obviously everyone hates it and doesn't want to play it? We wanted Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror etc back in rotation, not Bay ;;
BB is my favorite map and DS and GoT are my two least favorites.
On July 09 2015 00:02 Larkin wrote: Why would Blizzard put Blackheart's Bay back into rotation when obviously everyone hates it and doesn't want to play it? We wanted Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror etc back in rotation, not Bay ;;
BB is my favorite map and DS and GoT are my two least favorites.
Why?
I feel like GoT is largely redundant when it comes to gathering seeds, because it's just like gathering HM skulls but there's no confrontation (most of the time, one team goes one terror and the other team goes the other terror). And I just get tired of the final objective being "Summon Giant X", whether it's a DK or a Terror or even an Immortal. At least with BB and CH, there are forced battles over objectives that focus on different things.
Double warrior is good because most of the time warriors bring CC. CC is key to secure kills, the better the players are the more you need CC to actually finish that guy and not let him escape at 10%hp.
I'm sure you've had these games where you have on paper a great teamfighting comp but you just lose lanes to a roam/gank squad full of cc and feel like you never had a chance even if the game drags on a bit because you are 2/3 levels behind. This game snowballs VERY fast and early kills can quickly get you a level lead which can mean game over if you don't stop grouping.
Tanks are also more beefy and most of the meta tanks have good escapes so they are less likely to feed early.
On an other note, protip of the day : play Rehgar, max chain heal (every talent related to chain heal, don't even take healing totem at lvl 1, you need the 45 mana chain heal) and acquire free elo. He's also a soft counter to the imba KT because he is basically the only healer that can heal his gigantic poke aoe. At level 16 you have a 45 mana chain heal that bounces to 4 targets on a 6second cooldown. Play it before it's nerfed !
On July 09 2015 00:02 Larkin wrote: Why would Blizzard put Blackheart's Bay back into rotation when obviously everyone hates it and doesn't want to play it? We wanted Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror etc back in rotation, not Bay ;;
BB is my favorite map and DS and GoT are my two least favorites.
Why?
I feel like GoT is largely redundant when it comes to gathering seeds, because it's just like gathering HM skulls but there's no confrontation (most of the time, one team goes one terror and the other team goes the other terror). And I just get tired of the final objective being "Summon Giant X", whether it's a DK or a Terror or even an Immortal. At least with BB and CH, there are forced battles over objectives that focus on different things.
I understand the sentiment. But BB plays so horribly imo. The gimmick - free, indefensible siege damage - is really irritating to me; I have this issue with Sky Temple too, but at least there you can continuously contest the temples.
BB's design, with the multiple lanes in mid etc just adds to it being a bit of a clusterfuck. I'm not massively keen on Cursed Hollow for the horrible fights around the tributes for the same reason. But then again I play ranged assassin/specialists pretty much exclusively, so maybe that's why.
On July 09 2015 00:02 Larkin wrote: Why would Blizzard put Blackheart's Bay back into rotation when obviously everyone hates it and doesn't want to play it? We wanted Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror etc back in rotation, not Bay ;;
BB is my favorite map and DS and GoT are my two least favorites.
Why?
I feel like GoT is largely redundant when it comes to gathering seeds, because it's just like gathering HM skulls but there's no confrontation (most of the time, one team goes one terror and the other team goes the other terror). And I just get tired of the final objective being "Summon Giant X", whether it's a DK or a Terror or even an Immortal. At least with BB and CH, there are forced battles over objectives that focus on different things.
The big trees should be on a timer, so either one comes up first, then shortly after the other, or one is up then the other after the first goes down.
On July 09 2015 17:52 RouaF wrote: Double warrior is good because most of the time warriors bring CC. CC is key to secure kills, the better the players are the more you need CC to actually finish that guy and not let him escape at 10%hp.
I'm sure you've had these games where you have on paper a great teamfighting comp but you just lose lanes to a roam/gank squad full of cc and feel like you never had a chance even if the game drags on a bit because you are 2/3 levels behind. This game snowballs VERY fast and early kills can quickly get you a level lead which can mean game over if you don't stop grouping.
Tanks are also more beefy and most of the meta tanks have good escapes so they are less likely to feed early.
On an other note, protip of the day : play Rehgar, max chain heal (every talent related to chain heal, don't even take healing totem at lvl 1, you need the 45 mana chain heal) and acquire free elo. He's also a soft counter to the imba KT because he is basically the only healer that can heal his gigantic poke aoe. At level 16 you have a 45 mana chain heal that bounces to 4 targets on a 6second cooldown. Play it before it's nerfed !
The only thing that changed to this for rehgar is the cooldown went from 9 to 6 potentially.. And you have the option to take cleanse. Your feral heart mana regeneration, earth shield (usually still better i think) and ult cd all got a fair bit worse though. Don't think he got any better really especially as the old blood for blood was so good on him.
If anything I like him more than before now because BW and Uther got fairly harsh nerfs, but overall I prefer malf over rehgar in good teams now. For public games though I like rehgar best. Malf has more potential power but your team needs to know how to play and draft around him, he has massive sustain and utility but lacks burst so stinks if he is only support and people pick stuff like illidan or butcher which people will do in HL. Also rehgar can reasonably grab xp if needed while malf sucks immensely for that (don't think the moonburn talent is worth taking).
On July 09 2015 00:02 Larkin wrote: Why would Blizzard put Blackheart's Bay back into rotation when obviously everyone hates it and doesn't want to play it? We wanted Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror etc back in rotation, not Bay ;;
BB is my favorite map and DS and GoT are my two least favorites.
Why?
I feel like GoT is largely redundant when it comes to gathering seeds, because it's just like gathering HM skulls but there's no confrontation (most of the time, one team goes one terror and the other team goes the other terror). And I just get tired of the final objective being "Summon Giant X", whether it's a DK or a Terror or even an Immortal. At least with BB and CH, there are forced battles over objectives that focus on different things.
The big trees should be on a timer, so either one comes up first, then shortly after the other, or one is up then the other after the first goes down.
That would be interesting, although I'm afraid that the winner of the fight at the first terror would be guaranteed the seeds from the second terror too, as the losing team would still be on a death timer or at least be behind in levels.
On July 09 2015 00:02 Larkin wrote: Why would Blizzard put Blackheart's Bay back into rotation when obviously everyone hates it and doesn't want to play it? We wanted Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror etc back in rotation, not Bay ;;
BB is my favorite map and DS and GoT are my two least favorites.
Why?
I feel like GoT is largely redundant when it comes to gathering seeds, because it's just like gathering HM skulls but there's no confrontation (most of the time, one team goes one terror and the other team goes the other terror). And I just get tired of the final objective being "Summon Giant X", whether it's a DK or a Terror or even an Immortal. At least with BB and CH, there are forced battles over objectives that focus on different things.
I understand the sentiment. But BB plays so horribly imo. The gimmick - free, indefensible siege damage - is really irritating to me; I have this issue with Sky Temple too, but at least there you can continuously contest the temples.
BB's design, with the multiple lanes in mid etc just adds to it being a bit of a clusterfuck. I'm not massively keen on Cursed Hollow for the horrible fights around the tributes for the same reason. But then again I play ranged assassin/specialists pretty much exclusively, so maybe that's why.
Yeah I like hammer or zeratul on BB Then again, I'm totally fine with having all these maps in the map pool with a simple veto system, even for QM (much like how the SC2 map pool allows you to veto ~3 out of 8 maps). That way, you can veto BB and I can veto GoT
I basically go Johanna 100% on BHB. Knight Takes Pawn and then pretend I'm just farming in an MMO. The map is so boring. Nothing worse than "We're ahead lets completely avoid any interaction with the other team."
On July 09 2015 22:54 Tenks wrote: I basically go Johanna 100% on BHB. Knight Takes Pawn and then pretend I'm just farming in an MMO. The map is so boring. Nothing worse than "We're ahead lets completely avoid any interaction with the other team."
Yup, my teammates have the same opinion. When we get that map they just go full retard, literally, like that they are playing the game for the first time and enemy usually roflstomp us in 15 minutes. They pretty much lose all motivation when playing on that map.
Well, that's the only map where I am at 49% WR, all others are above 60%.
BB's design, with the multiple lanes in mid etc just adds to it being a bit of a clusterfuck. I'm not massively keen on Cursed Hollow for the horrible fights around the tributes for the same reason. But then again I play ranged assassin/specialists pretty much exclusively, so maybe that's why.
What do you mean by multiple lanes in mid on blackheart's bay? I can only think of three lanes, and many maps have stuff above/below/in-between lanes.
I can't wait until a new map is released and we can phase out BHB completely. I hope the ladder rotation follows tournaments and slots old ones out one by one soon.
On July 09 2015 00:02 Larkin wrote: Why would Blizzard put Blackheart's Bay back into rotation when obviously everyone hates it and doesn't want to play it? We wanted Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror etc back in rotation, not Bay ;;
BB is my favorite map and DS and GoT are my two least favorites.
Why?
I feel like GoT is largely redundant when it comes to gathering seeds, because it's just like gathering HM skulls but there's no confrontation (most of the time, one team goes one terror and the other team goes the other terror). And I just get tired of the final objective being "Summon Giant X", whether it's a DK or a Terror or even an Immortal. At least with BB and CH, there are forced battles over objectives that focus on different things.
I understand the sentiment. But BB plays so horribly imo. The gimmick - free, indefensible siege damage - is really irritating to me; I have this issue with Sky Temple too, but at least there you can continuously contest the temples.
BB's design, with the multiple lanes in mid etc just adds to it being a bit of a clusterfuck. I'm not massively keen on Cursed Hollow for the horrible fights around the tributes for the same reason. But then again I play ranged assassin/specialists pretty much exclusively, so maybe that's why.
Yeah I like hammer or zeratul on BB Then again, I'm totally fine with having all these maps in the map pool with a simple veto system, even for QM (much like how the SC2 map pool allows you to veto ~3 out of 8 maps). That way, you can veto BB and I can veto GoT
Zeratul is basically the bane of my existence, so yeah.
Veto system has to come soon. I was crying out even just for a "veto last played map" for the next search, because when it was only the four maps in rotation I played 3 30 minute games on Cursed Hollow in a row and I nearly died.
Ideally search restrictions would allow for balanced games (rather than high MMR of one or two players meaning they match you with a crap team and far superior opponents, or so it would seem) and balanced hero choice in QM, so each team has to have 1 tank and 1 healer, for example. So many games as Sylvanas I see no one but assassins and specialists.
[This is a meta discussion and only tangentally related to this thread -- feel free to delete/move]
Now that the Large General thread is locked where is a catch-all thread to talk about competitive play? I want to talk about this insane TL vs Huron game with Nydus Zag and Robo Gaz.
I love Blackhearts Bay leave it alone. The only map where you can play around with weird talents and still be able to win. It is the only map were I can take uppercut D: . Also next map will most likely be similiar to blackhearts bay haha. And I suppose the Sc2 themed map will be used to grow Sc2 LotV hype ?
On July 10 2015 06:27 FeyFey wrote: I love Blackhearts Bay leave it alone. The only map where you can play around with weird talents and still be able to win. It is the only map were I can take uppercut D: .
Of course, because it doesn't really matter which talents you get to clear the creeps and merc camps huehuehue.
Now seriously, we really don't need PvE maps in this game.
On July 10 2015 06:27 FeyFey wrote: I love Blackhearts Bay leave it alone. The only map where you can play around with weird talents and still be able to win. It is the only map were I can take uppercut D: . Also next map will most likely be similiar to blackhearts bay haha. And I suppose the Sc2 themed map will be used to grow Sc2 LotV hype ?
Yea, I like it as well, since it has a drastically different play style than all of the rest. You don't ever have to attack your opponents' base; you only need to fight over the turn-in point and mercs, which I find different and a lot of fun.
So with today's bug patch Blizzard removed everyone from my friend's list and removed me from my friends' lists. Had to manually re-add people I play with. Anyone else have a similar issue?
On July 10 2015 08:56 Hier wrote: So with today's bug patch Blizzard removed everyone from my friend's list and removed me from my friends' lists. Had to manually re-add people I play with. Anyone else have a similar issue?
Whoa what??? Fortunately, this wasn't the case for me.
On July 09 2015 00:02 Larkin wrote: Why would Blizzard put Blackheart's Bay back into rotation when obviously everyone hates it and doesn't want to play it? We wanted Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror etc back in rotation, not Bay ;;
BB is my favorite map and DS and GoT are my two least favorites.
Why?
I feel like GoT is largely redundant when it comes to gathering seeds, because it's just like gathering HM skulls but there's no confrontation (most of the time, one team goes one terror and the other team goes the other terror). And I just get tired of the final objective being "Summon Giant X", whether it's a DK or a Terror or even an Immortal. At least with BB and CH, there are forced battles over objectives that focus on different things.
I understand the sentiment. But BB plays so horribly imo. The gimmick - free, indefensible siege damage - is really irritating to me; I have this issue with Sky Temple too, but at least there you can continuously contest the temples.
BB's design, with the multiple lanes in mid etc just adds to it being a bit of a clusterfuck. I'm not massively keen on Cursed Hollow for the horrible fights around the tributes for the same reason. But then again I play ranged assassin/specialists pretty much exclusively, so maybe that's why.
Yeah I like hammer or zeratul on BB Then again, I'm totally fine with having all these maps in the map pool with a simple veto system, even for QM (much like how the SC2 map pool allows you to veto ~3 out of 8 maps). That way, you can veto BB and I can veto GoT
Zeratul is basically the bane of my existence, so yeah.
Veto system has to come soon. I was crying out even just for a "veto last played map" for the next search, because when it was only the four maps in rotation I played 3 30 minute games on Cursed Hollow in a row and I nearly died.
Ideally search restrictions would allow for balanced games (rather than high MMR of one or two players meaning they match you with a crap team and far superior opponents, or so it would seem) and balanced hero choice in QM, so each team has to have 1 tank and 1 healer, for example. So many games as Sylvanas I see no one but assassins and specialists.
Yeah I'm definitely with you on the whole "veto last map" option, and I agree with you that both teams should be consistent with the same hero types on both teams. I've read that Blizzard tries to at least give both teams the same number of healers, but in practice I see that that's not necessarily the case.
On July 09 2015 00:02 Larkin wrote: Why would Blizzard put Blackheart's Bay back into rotation when obviously everyone hates it and doesn't want to play it? We wanted Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror etc back in rotation, not Bay ;;
BB is my favorite map and DS and GoT are my two least favorites.
Why?
I feel like GoT is largely redundant when it comes to gathering seeds, because it's just like gathering HM skulls but there's no confrontation (most of the time, one team goes one terror and the other team goes the other terror). And I just get tired of the final objective being "Summon Giant X", whether it's a DK or a Terror or even an Immortal. At least with BB and CH, there are forced battles over objectives that focus on different things.
I understand the sentiment. But BB plays so horribly imo. The gimmick - free, indefensible siege damage - is really irritating to me; I have this issue with Sky Temple too, but at least there you can continuously contest the temples.
BB's design, with the multiple lanes in mid etc just adds to it being a bit of a clusterfuck. I'm not massively keen on Cursed Hollow for the horrible fights around the tributes for the same reason. But then again I play ranged assassin/specialists pretty much exclusively, so maybe that's why.
Yeah I like hammer or zeratul on BB Then again, I'm totally fine with having all these maps in the map pool with a simple veto system, even for QM (much like how the SC2 map pool allows you to veto ~3 out of 8 maps). That way, you can veto BB and I can veto GoT
Zeratul is basically the bane of my existence, so yeah.
Veto system has to come soon. I was crying out even just for a "veto last played map" for the next search, because when it was only the four maps in rotation I played 3 30 minute games on Cursed Hollow in a row and I nearly died.
Ideally search restrictions would allow for balanced games (rather than high MMR of one or two players meaning they match you with a crap team and far superior opponents, or so it would seem) and balanced hero choice in QM, so each team has to have 1 tank and 1 healer, for example. So many games as Sylvanas I see no one but assassins and specialists.
Yeah I'm definitely with you on the whole "veto last map" option, and I agree with you that both teams should be consistent with the same hero types on both teams. I've read that Blizzard tries to at least give both teams the same number of healers, but in practice I see that that's not necessarily the case.
Two same maps in the row happen very very rarely, they've changed that few patches ago. It happened in the last 2 weeks because we had only 4 maps in the pool.
On July 09 2015 00:02 Larkin wrote: Why would Blizzard put Blackheart's Bay back into rotation when obviously everyone hates it and doesn't want to play it? We wanted Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror etc back in rotation, not Bay ;;
BB is my favorite map and DS and GoT are my two least favorites.
Why?
I feel like GoT is largely redundant when it comes to gathering seeds, because it's just like gathering HM skulls but there's no confrontation (most of the time, one team goes one terror and the other team goes the other terror). And I just get tired of the final objective being "Summon Giant X", whether it's a DK or a Terror or even an Immortal. At least with BB and CH, there are forced battles over objectives that focus on different things.
I understand the sentiment. But BB plays so horribly imo. The gimmick - free, indefensible siege damage - is really irritating to me; I have this issue with Sky Temple too, but at least there you can continuously contest the temples.
BB's design, with the multiple lanes in mid etc just adds to it being a bit of a clusterfuck. I'm not massively keen on Cursed Hollow for the horrible fights around the tributes for the same reason. But then again I play ranged assassin/specialists pretty much exclusively, so maybe that's why.
Yeah I like hammer or zeratul on BB Then again, I'm totally fine with having all these maps in the map pool with a simple veto system, even for QM (much like how the SC2 map pool allows you to veto ~3 out of 8 maps). That way, you can veto BB and I can veto GoT
Zeratul is basically the bane of my existence, so yeah.
Veto system has to come soon. I was crying out even just for a "veto last played map" for the next search, because when it was only the four maps in rotation I played 3 30 minute games on Cursed Hollow in a row and I nearly died.
Ideally search restrictions would allow for balanced games (rather than high MMR of one or two players meaning they match you with a crap team and far superior opponents, or so it would seem) and balanced hero choice in QM, so each team has to have 1 tank and 1 healer, for example. So many games as Sylvanas I see no one but assassins and specialists.
Yeah I'm definitely with you on the whole "veto last map" option, and I agree with you that both teams should be consistent with the same hero types on both teams. I've read that Blizzard tries to at least give both teams the same number of healers, but in practice I see that that's not necessarily the case.
Two same maps in the row happen very very rarely, they've changed that few patches ago. It happened in the last 2 weeks because we had only 4 maps in the pool.
We're back to a bigger map pool now, right? Because I'm still getting back-to-back identical maps with a decent frequency.
On July 10 2015 08:56 Hier wrote: So with today's bug patch Blizzard removed everyone from my friend's list and removed me from my friends' lists. Had to manually re-add people I play with. Anyone else have a similar issue?
Whoa what??? Fortunately, this wasn't the case for me.
More specifically my friend list from the European server got wiped. HotS is just where I first saw it. At first I thought it was just a bug with the client not seeing the list, but then I just re-added my friend as if for the first time.
Anyway, more on topic. I wish Gazlowe would have 3 basic abilities like the other heroes. I don't understand why Blizzard would only give him 2... must be an oversight.
On July 10 2015 08:56 Hier wrote: So with today's bug patch Blizzard removed everyone from my friend's list and removed me from my friends' lists. Had to manually re-add people I play with. Anyone else have a similar issue?
Whoa what??? Fortunately, this wasn't the case for me.
Anyway, more on topic. I wish Gazlowe would have 3 basic abilities like the other heroes. I don't understand why Blizzard would only give him 2... must be an oversight.
The removal of Sprint on Jaina really made me wonder, what kind of base-line they have for future assassins. The idea of no escape before 20 really sets an example of how you wanna play this game (and how you don't play it xd).
Played Z build with BW last night with TLV on my team. It felt like I could Z 3+ times per team fight.
We still lost because TLV put out less damage than my BW but the guy controlling them was really competent. Very smart at split pushing with them. Only downside is they're so bad it was basically trying to eek out a kill here and there because every fight would be basically 5v4 because TLV added nothing.
On July 11 2015 03:05 Tenks wrote: Played Z build with BW last night with TLV on my team. It felt like I could Z 3+ times per team fight.
We still lost because TLV put out less damage than my BW but the guy controlling them was really competent. Very smart at split pushing with them. Only downside is they're so bad it was basically trying to eek out a kill here and there because every fight would be basically 5v4 because TLV added nothing.
By z-build do you mean just taking all the z-talents? I have been enjoying taking hypershift and phase shield, but mixing in manic pixie instead of peekaboo.
In general, other than hyper-shift(1) and bouncy-dust(16) it seems most of brightwing's talents are not very synergy-based. This is one design aspect I like on various characters: whenever you are building for synergies that stack on top of each other, it seems like characters end up with one build with little room for deviation. bw is fun precisely because you can play her/him reactively instead of following builds.
On July 11 2015 03:05 Tenks wrote: Played Z build with BW last night with TLV on my team. It felt like I could Z 3+ times per team fight.
We still lost because TLV put out less damage than my BW but the guy controlling them was really competent. Very smart at split pushing with them. Only downside is they're so bad it was basically trying to eek out a kill here and there because every fight would be basically 5v4 because TLV added nothing.
By z-build do you mean just taking all the z-talents? I have been enjoying taking hypershift and phase shield, but mixing in manic pixie instead of peekaboo.
In general, other than hyper-shift(1) and bouncy-dust(16) it seems most of brightwing's talents are not very synergy-based. This is one design aspect I like on various characters: whenever you are building for synergies that stack on top of each other, it seems like characters end up with one build with little room for deviation. bw is fun precisely because you can play her/him reactively instead of following builds.
There was a Zeratul on the team and it was Garden so I was getting good value out of Peekabo. I'd probably take it on tomb as well regardless of if there was a stealther or not. The build was Z 1-7, Blink, E Ability Dmg, Extended Poly, Mist. The extended poly was also a reaction to them having an Anub that loved to BC for initiation and also a Zeratul. Possibly I could have gotten more value at 20 with storm shield but the fights were generally lasting a while.
Don't underestimate Peek, though. It obviously has a non-tangible effect but being able to clearly see the entire battlefield for 6 seconds is often times huge
If there is another support on the team I'll take peek no problem. Without pixie dust I have been feeling my healing coming up short since the patch, though.
edit->
continuing on brightwing topics...has anyone found a decent way to get her to have waveclear again? I tried a flare build once and never went back...lately I've been thinking about unstable anomaly for that purpose, but haven't gotten around to testing it in an actual game.
I'd be extremely reluctant to use my W to clear waves because it has such a long cooldown. You'd have to have a 100% guarantee there is no chance of you getting ganked for the next 15 seconds to use it for wave clear.
I still think the best BW talent at 4 is unstable anomaly -- it essentially adds 10k+ does to your final score. I haven't played with the lvl 4 shield damage talent too much -- how much do you think it adds to BW's heals? I remember trying it for a game and feeling underwhelmed.
the pixie dust heal at lvl 4 essentially gives an extra dose of healing from your passive every time you cast pixie dust. Since pixie dust has a cooldown of 10 secs and your passive bursts every 5 secs, you get about 1 pixie dust for every 2 passive bursts.
So for one particular target it increases your passive's healing by 50% for one target(2 once you get bouncy dust). Seems pretty good to me, since you can keep your pixie dust up almost all the time.
On the other hand, Unstable anomaly doesn't seem like a significant amount of damage at any level-- 90 at lvl 4, 250 at lvl 20, and it's an anti-combo with greater polymorph at 16. I was thinking about waveclear since small amounts of damage can frequently go to this purpose, but those damage levels won't even significantly damage waves of minions at those character levels....so I'm perplexed as to the purpose of unstable anomaly other than revealing cloaked chars. (edit- of course, hotslogs has unstable anomaly as having the biggest win rate right now, so I'm curious how exactly it is used...or if I am just underestimating the value of that damage)
Do people still honestly think TLV are bad this patch? I waited a few extra days on top of the 7 it takes to hotslogs to roll over. My prediction (on page 3) appears to be true. Vikings went from gratuitously, ridiculously OP (58%+ win rate) to being close to balanced, but still a 52% win rate. Even with all those nerfs, they are still winning more games than they are losing. Compare, again, to Abathur the other big soak hero, who still has a 46% win rate.
I know hotslogs aren't perfect stats, but really. TLV have a >50% win rate at every MMR bracket except Bronze, which is to be expected. They are still one of the best heroes in the game.
They just went from being the best soakers in the game, godlike in team fights, great at split pushing, damage immunity+mobility, and not being punished as hard for dying as other heroes to being the best soakers in the game, and mediocre to good at everything else. Yeah, they look bad now if you compare them to the most op hero I had ever seen in a moba ever that they were pre-patch. But they are still amazing.
The thing is, winrates don't tell you everything. They still mantain an above 50% winrate, but see the number of games and compare it to other heroes. Jaina for examples has 116007 games registered, TLV has 6393. And in every league they are one of the heroes with less games played, and less games registered means less accuracy.
I don't think they are unusable, but there are way better picks than them.
Since the patch I have not used vikings unless I have a team of four or five people on voicechat and we are pursuing a very specific strategy. In this context they do very well, but I no longer QM queue them.
Also, after the patch hit random players got really impatient with my playstyle of orb-farming and otherwise not doing much in lanes until I could form them up later. Not sure if that is just anecdotal, or if knowing that TLV got nerfed emboldened people to criticize their play.
edit-> To put the pick-frequency into perspective, the lost vikings went down in # of games played by about 10,000 when the patch when into effect. (!!!!)
On July 11 2015 03:56 MotherFox wrote: the pixie dust heal at lvl 4 essentially gives an extra dose of healing from your passive every time you cast pixie dust. Since pixie dust has a cooldown of 10 secs and your passive bursts every 5 secs, you get about 1 pixie dust for every 2 passive bursts.
So for one particular target it increases your passive's healing by 50% for one target(2 once you get bouncy dust). Seems pretty good to me, since you can keep your pixie dust up almost all the time.
On the other hand, Unstable anomaly doesn't seem like a significant amount of damage at any level-- 90 at lvl 4, 250 at lvl 20, and it's an anti-combo with greater polymorph at 16. I was thinking about waveclear since small amounts of damage can frequently go to this purpose, but those damage levels won't even significantly damage waves of minions at those character levels....so I'm perplexed as to the purpose of unstable anomaly other than revealing cloaked chars. (edit- of course, hotslogs has unstable anomaly as having the biggest win rate right now, so I'm curious how exactly it is used...or if I am just underestimating the value of that damage)
Whenever I play anomaly it is 10k+ damage. I think the splash adds up and because BW casts so often the damage adds up. I'm not exaggerating when I say it adds 10k damage to your final score.
It looks like numbers-wise if you cast polymorph twice per level from 4 to 20 and catch two enemies per casting, you'll end up with an extra 11k damage or so. I may have to experiment with her tonight.
FYI my friends have been unbanned a few hours ago. Apparently the false positive was caused by Asus Xonar's drivers, as documented on multiple discussions on Reddit.
On July 11 2015 04:30 Ritha wrote: Do people still honestly think TLV are bad this patch? I waited a few extra days on top of the 7 it takes to hotslogs to roll over. My prediction (on page 3) appears to be true. Vikings went from gratuitously, ridiculously OP (58%+ win rate) to being close to balanced, but still a 52% win rate. Even with all those nerfs, they are still winning more games than they are losing. Compare, again, to Abathur the other big soak hero, who still has a 46% win rate.
I know hotslogs aren't perfect stats, but really. TLV have a >50% win rate at every MMR bracket except Bronze, which is to be expected. They are still one of the best heroes in the game.
They just went from being the best soakers in the game, godlike in team fights, great at split pushing, damage immunity+mobility, and not being punished as hard for dying as other heroes to being the best soakers in the game, and mediocre to good at everything else. Yeah, they look bad now if you compare them to the most op hero I had ever seen in a moba ever that they were pre-patch. But they are still amazing.
I think the issue with looking at the naked win/rate is that you aren't taking into account if the players playing the hero are exceptionally skilled at it.
LV went from being played - prepatch - around 7% of all games to around 3% of all games - which is the lowest in the game (as I remember it).
Given the mechanical entry barrier and skillcap of the hero its not unreasonable to expect that the type of people who play this hero are more dedicated to master it compared to wat you see from the average valla player (as a counterexample). E.g. if the average LV viking player is lvl 9 and the average Valla player is lvl 5, it should be clear that the win/rates cannot be directly compared.
The real question is what type of win/rate they would have had if they had invested the same amount of time into playing another hero.
We get a bit of an indication of that by only looking at the win/rate in master league where its in the bottom half (though the sample size is so low so the value of the data isn't very high).
But without any "advanced statistics" I think it makes more sense to look at whether they get pick/banned in competetive games as that is a more objective evaluation of their strenght. (even though their ofc might be a difference between soloq and competitive viability).
On July 11 2015 04:30 Ritha wrote: Do people still honestly think TLV are bad this patch? I waited a few extra days on top of the 7 it takes to hotslogs to roll over. My prediction (on page 3) appears to be true. Vikings went from gratuitously, ridiculously OP (58%+ win rate) to being close to balanced, but still a 52% win rate. Even with all those nerfs, they are still winning more games than they are losing. Compare, again, to Abathur the other big soak hero, who still has a 46% win rate.
I know hotslogs aren't perfect stats, but really. TLV have a >50% win rate at every MMR bracket except Bronze, which is to be expected. They are still one of the best heroes in the game.
They just went from being the best soakers in the game, godlike in team fights, great at split pushing, damage immunity+mobility, and not being punished as hard for dying as other heroes to being the best soakers in the game, and mediocre to good at everything else. Yeah, they look bad now if you compare them to the most op hero I had ever seen in a moba ever that they were pre-patch. But they are still amazing.
I think the issue with looking at the naked win/rate is that you aren't taking into account if the players playing the hero are exceptionally skilled at it.
LV went from being played - prepatch - around 7% of all games to around 3% of all games - which is the lowest in the game (as I remember it).
Given the mechanical entry barrier and skillcap of the hero its not unreasonable to expect that the type of people who play this hero are more dedicated to master it compared to wat you see from the average valla player (as a counterexample). E.g. if the average LV viking player is lvl 9 and the average Valla player is lvl 5, it should be clear that the win/rates cannot be directly compared.
The real question is what type of win/rate they would have had if they had invested the same amount of time into playing another hero.
We get a bit of an indication of that by only looking at the win/rate in master league where its in the bottom half (though the sample size is so low so the value of the data isn't very high).
But without any "advanced statistics" I think it makes more sense to look at whether they get pick/banned in competetive games as that is a more objective evaluation of their strenght. (even though their ofc might be a difference between soloq and competitive viability).
The "only good players use him" thing is hard to really talk about when it comes to balance. But I will point out that Chen is played less than TLV, and has a 45ish% win rate. If you want to try to use the whole Master League play thing, he isn't in the bottom half. He is 18th, though he might have been 19th when you posted because they are close. So he is in the top half, but barely. So better than half the heros in the game.
Besides, if you want to go with the skilled player thing, they should be lower in standings as you go down in skill brackets. Which they aren't. They are near the top in win rate at Plat, Gold, Silver and Bronze. In fact, they seem to be better in low skilled games. Which I take to mean they aren't that hard to get to work, and it takes skilled opponents to shut them down from being one of the best heroes to being a solid middle choice.
So, despite nerfs, they are still top 10 in win rate in Bronze, Silver, Gold and Plat. They drop to the middle of the pack in Master. So... they are still a viable pick at Master, and a really strong pick at every other level of play?
The "only good players use him" thing is hard to really talk about when it comes to balance. But I will point out that Chen is played less than TLV, and has a 45ish% win rate.
Chen isn't unique in terms of mechanics. He is clearly played little due to him being relatively boring (no cc, no damage) + UP. But Vikings was played rarely even when they had 60% w/r.
Besides, if you want to go with the skilled player thing, they should be lower in standings as you go down in skill brackets. Which they aren't. They are near the top in win rate at Plat, Gold, Silver and Bronze.
I know where you getting at, but your are actually comparing apples to oranges here.
You need to think about is whether there are players who would be in higher leagues if they invested the same amount of time into a different hero. If they perform similarly with a level 5 Valla as with a level 9 LV, it's an indication of LV being too weak. The correct approach is to look at win/rates for a given amount of experience for each hero.
Without this statistic, the second best approach is to look at master league win/rate. The reason for that is that almost everyone in masters will have tons of experience will all the heros they play --> This makes the assymmetry less significant. Unfortunately, the sample size is way too low to get there.
As an actual example, Riven in League of Legends is a hero that attracts a "special type of player", and while the average win/rate for the champion is close to 50/50, the win/rate for people with less than 50 games with it is very low. But the average win/rate is inflated because Riven - on average - is played by people who has lots of experience with the champion.
LV is definitely a unique hero, and it's very unlikely that the playerbase is significantly different from that of other heroes. Therefore blindly beliving naked win/rates here is a huge mistake. Unfortunately, Blizzards balance department (read Starcraft) has a long track of not properly understanding the factors determining win/rates, which makes them too reliant on naked win/rates.
Thus, I expect LV to remain unviable in competititve play for a long time as it won't be buffed due to maintaining close to a 50% win/rate.
On July 10 2015 06:27 FeyFey wrote: I love Blackhearts Bay leave it alone. The only map where you can play around with weird talents and still be able to win. It is the only map were I can take uppercut D: .
Of course, because it doesn't really matter which talents you get to clear the creeps and merc camps huehuehue.
Now seriously, we really don't need PvE maps in this game.
goodbye sky temple then ? ;( Don't even need to farm monsters there just tank em .
The "only good players use him" thing is hard to really talk about when it comes to balance. But I will point out that Chen is played less than TLV, and has a 45ish% win rate.
Chen isn't unique in terms of mechanics. He is clearly played little due to him being relatively boring (no cc, no damage) + UP. But Vikings was played rarely even when they had 60% w/r.
Besides, if you want to go with the skilled player thing, they should be lower in standings as you go down in skill brackets. Which they aren't. They are near the top in win rate at Plat, Gold, Silver and Bronze.
I know where you getting at, but your are actually comparing apples to oranges here.
You need to think about is whether there are players who would be in higher leagues if they invested the same amount of time into a different hero. If they perform similarly with a level 5 Valla as with a level 9 LV, it's an indication of LV being too weak. The correct approach is to look at win/rates for a given amount of experience for each hero.
Without this statistic, the second best approach is to look at master league win/rate. The reason for that is that almost everyone in masters will have tons of experience will all the heros they play --> This makes the assymmetry less significant. Unfortunately, the sample size is way too low to get there.
As an actual example, Riven in League of Legends is a hero that attracts a "special type of player", and while the average win/rate for the champion is close to 50/50, the win/rate for people with less than 50 games with it is very low. But the average win/rate is inflated because Riven - on average - is played by people who has lots of experience with the champion.
LV is definitely a unique hero, and it's very unlikely that the playerbase is significantly different from that of other heroes. Therefore blindly beliving naked win/rates here is a huge mistake. Unfortunately, Blizzards balance department (read Starcraft) has a long track of not properly understanding the factors determining win/rates, which makes them too reliant on naked win/rates.
Thus, I expect LV to remain unviable in competititve play for a long time as it won't be buffed due to maintaining close to a 50% win/rate.
Going with statistics win rate corrected for MMR is the most logical way to gauge winrates of a hero. Ie you do a logistic regression of the heroes and MMR onto winrate and then you get the winrate for heroes corrected for MMR, this is what blizzard does. Hotslogs could also provide this data with it's own mmr but doesn't and i guess it's a bit cumbersome perhaps. Even with such analysis the statistics don't neccesarily say much, there can be tons of reasons why correlation does not mean much, for example a hero can be very niche so that when he's picked he excels and the other times he just isn't picked. Or a hero can be fine but 'second best' in a role for example the second best healer or tank meaning he's up against the best healer/tank most of the time. Another important influence on heroes winrate is the draft format. Drafting itself sort of autobalances heroes and makes the information muddled. For example assume there are 3 heroes that dominate far above the rest. One of these is the best and is usually picked first, however the other 2 are almost always picked by the other team then and give their team an advantage. In that case the best hero of the game could just have bad winrates. Of course such an example is highly theoretical but there are so many things that could cause winrate not to mean anything that it's foolish to look too much into them. I heard there are cases I believe in LoL where a hero was buffed in patch notes but the exact change was actually not implemented because it was forgotten. Still the hero changed quite a bit in winrates showing how much of it is just perception. For the unpopular heroes the winrates are especially unreliable, because the reasons they are picked are so different. Some unpopular heroes may be picked more because only great players rely on them and want to test them out while others are mostly picked by afk picks (this number makes up a relatively large portion of the plays for very unpopular heroes). Coupled of course with the fact that the variance on low sample sizes is large.
I'm a statistician but I find the statistics on the heroes on hotslogs to be nearly useless as balance goes, for balance I think pro player opinion and pick/ban information from tournaments is more useful than general information. Of course you do have heroes that are never a problem in high level play but they feel they need to tone down anyway for the public. Thrall, the recent Anub'arak and Brightwing are examples of these, Thrall wasn't even played in competitive games when he was 'broken', Anub'arak was decently popular last patch but 3rd/4th warrior and Brightwing was popular but not clear #1 support as she was in pubs.
Zuna's tierlist always seems quite reasonable to me. I disagree with some stuff like azmodan being weaker and murky and nazeebo being better than he thinks but overall it seems solid.
On July 10 2015 06:27 FeyFey wrote: I love Blackhearts Bay leave it alone. The only map where you can play around with weird talents and still be able to win. It is the only map were I can take uppercut D: .
Of course, because it doesn't really matter which talents you get to clear the creeps and merc camps huehuehue.
Now seriously, we really don't need PvE maps in this game.
goodbye sky temple then ? ;( Don't even need to farm monsters there just tank em .
But Sky Temple has a lot of interactions between players when it comes to fighting for the Temple or for the Boss and map is designed that way that you will have a lot of fights.
BHB on the other hand... you can PvE all day every day there.
I'm loving the new Malf. I like going Moonfire at 1, Elune's Grace at 4 and then ideally Regrowth at 7 but sometimes need Cleanse or Mule. With Moonfire and Elunes combo at 1/4 he becomes an absurdly good waveclear.
Going with statistics win rate corrected for MMR is the most logical way to gauge winrates of a hero. Ie you do a logistic regression of the heroes and MMR onto winrate and then you get the winrate for heroes corrected for MMR, this is what blizzard does.
A proper regression analysis - intended to estimate the win/rate whenever a player picks Hero X - would contain at least the following two explanatory variables:
Explanatory variable 1: Hypothetical MMR that excludes games played by Hero X Explanatory variable 2: Amount of games the player has played with Hero X
Technical explanations (note: won't be easy to understand)
The hypothetical MMR will depend on 3 factors:
(1) His average MMR (indirectly) (2) How well he has performed with the non-Zera heroes (3) How many games he has played with non-Zera heroes
Example - Player Y loads a game as Zeratul - He is level 13 with Zeratul - Has no other hero above level 5
If the hypothetical MMR had not excluded his MMR gained by playing Hero the regression analysis would "double-count" as it would ignore that one of the reasons for him being high MMR in the first place was due to playing a lot of games with Zeratul. This is problematic as he then would get a second boost to the estimated win/rate from the second explanatory variable
When you remove games played by Zeratul, his MMR will likely be relatively low. However, the proper way to calculate this MMR isn't that simple. Instead, this is how it should be done:
Non-Zera MMR = MMR with the other heroes that he would have had if had played the other heroes an average amount of games.
This "average" will depend on his MMR/skill-level. So if he is rank 1, the average amount of games for a hero might be 40-50 while if he was rank 30 it might be 15-20.
Final remarks
After you have made these estimations, you can then calculate the estimated win/rate and compare it to the actual win/rate. If estimated win/rate <> actual win/rate, it's a sign that there might be a balance problem. Next you can start to filter for compositions and maps to see whether irrational draft picks can explain the assymetry.
Butcher + Diablo is one scary as shit gank squad. Pretty much everyone gets killed by it. Later on, Apocalypse and Butcher's charge play well off each other.
On July 15 2015 15:15 xDaunt wrote: Butcher + Diablo is one scary as shit gank squad. Pretty much everyone gets killed by it. Later on, Apocalypse and Butcher's charge play well off each other.
I still love Butcher + Tyrande more. Tempo Storm were using it on few occasions and before that me and my friend tried it and haven't lost a game with it.
EDIT: And we have witnessed Butcher + Diablo in one of our Butcher + Tyranda games and we have absolutely destroyed them. It's not a bad combo, but 2 melees without escape mechanic(even though they are tanky) can backfire. You can be body-blocked, you body-block each other and it is easy for every AoE to get both of you. Now I am pretty sure that it is a lot different to play this on very high level, but just stating my experience with 2 melee gankers.
On July 16 2015 02:21 Ej_ wrote: what Heroes should I get for Hero League? atm I have: -BW -Zagara -Valla -TLV -Tyrael -Arthas
I know I'd need more supports for sure (I like Rehgar), I also liked playing Jaina and Zeratul.
The 3 you mentioned are pretty good picks. Jaina and Zeratul are really common bans in pro matches and get played a lot in HL. Malfurion is the best healer in the game right now, but Rehgar isn't bad by any means.
I'd also recommend Sylvanas, just because I play and love her to bits. Raynor can also be played very effectively with a good team (this may surprise some people, but his sustain build is actually really good).
On July 16 2015 02:21 Ej_ wrote: what Heroes should I get for Hero League? atm I have: -BW -Zagara -Valla -TLV -Tyrael -Arthas
I know I'd need more supports for sure (I like Rehgar), I also liked playing Jaina and Zeratul.
Looks like you need 4 more. One of Uther/Rehgar and Malfurion are must adds (frankly, you should have all three). For the remaining two, you have some flexibility. Jaina would be a good addition because you need more ranged damage. Adding another tank -- like Muradin or Johanna -- would also be a good idea to round out your roster. I'd also consider adding someone like Tychus to give you another ranged DPS in case Valla is unavailable.
On July 16 2015 02:21 Ej_ wrote: what Heroes should I get for Hero League? atm I have: -BW -Zagara -Valla -TLV -Tyrael -Arthas
I know I'd need more supports for sure (I like Rehgar), I also liked playing Jaina and Zeratul.
For strong tanks you can add Muradin (2k) and/or Anub'Arak (4k). Healer wise get Malfurion (2k) and Uther or Rehgar (7k) (or Li Li for 2k if you're short on gold). Jaina and Zeratul are both solid picks, do keep in mind Zeratul is hard to play and relies heavily on solid Void Prison placements.
So Zeratul is bound to get nerfed soon. Even if his hots dogs win% is just a shade above 50% we all know that in the hands of a really competent player he is a game changer. Personally I'd like to see his utility stay the same (in other words VP) but probably lower his damage. Since Focused Attacks got a flat buff last patch that seems like the main issue throwing him out of balance. Maybe introduce a nerfed version of Focused Attacks for Zeratul which gives like 50% instead of 75%. Basically make it so he isn't not only the best player killer in the game and not simultaneously one of the best team fight pace dictators in the game.
I'm really sad because Zeratul will get nerfed and he probably doesn't deserve iT. What's wrong with having an impact on the game if you play good? What's wrong with having a hero that rewards skill? Also he isn't even imbalanced imo, he is just a good designed hero his is a versatile assassin with an excellent heroic. Frankly the problem is people don't really know how to play agaisnt heroes like him, and his winrate isn't even that great as you point out. If anything heroes should be buffed and nerfed to be around the level zeratul is
On July 16 2015 05:05 [Phantom] wrote: I'm really sad because Zeratul will get nerfed and he probably doesn't deserve iT. What's wrong with having an impact on the game if you play good? What's wrong with having a hero that rewards skill? Also he isn't even imbalanced imo, he is just a good designed hero his is a versatile assassin with an excellent heroic. Frankly the problem is people don't really know how to play agaisnt heroes like him, and his winrate isn't even that great as you point out. If anything heroes should be buffed and nerfed to be around the level zeratul is
It's not wrong to have impact on the game if you play good, it's wrong to have much much higher impact in the game than most of other heroes if you play them equally well.
He isn't good designed hero when he has almost everything, damage, burst, utility, multiple escape mechanics, even some sort of sustain and you are almost always invisible. I am not even talking about pub perspective, Nova is also amazing pub hero too... but just when you take a look at his kit you understand how he is too strong.
If all heroes would've been buffed to the Zeratul level then we would have too much shit in the game and the game would become way too much frustrating to play(as it is very frustrating to play against competent Zeratul).
On July 16 2015 04:49 Tenks wrote: So Zeratul is bound to get nerfed soon. Even if his hots dogs win% is just a shade above 50% we all know that in the hands of a really competent player he is a game changer. Personally I'd like to see his utility stay the same (in other words VP) but probably lower his damage. Since Focused Attacks got a flat buff last patch that seems like the main issue throwing him out of balance. Maybe introduce a nerfed version of Focused Attacks for Zeratul which gives like 50% instead of 75%. Basically make it so he isn't not only the best player killer in the game and not simultaneously one of the best team fight pace dictators in the game.
I don't know, it's the perfect example of a game very good at high level play but not so special in most pubs. Things like vision control and combo enablers just don't do as much without voicechat / coordinated teams. Also he isn't that super highly regarded either amongst pro's to be a problem yet. He is quite popular and often banned but you also see plenty of times where he goes by without a ban or pick. Since there isn't much complaining about him I don't think he'll get a nerf soon.
As for the nerfed version of focused attacks, that's what Zeratul used to have and it was never picked. Although I do believe focussed attacks was weird at the time that attacking more increased the cooldown on it instead of decreasing it. It is kind of a shame though how he went from having lots of builds to just 1 build again with only some variation at lvl 1 basically.
On July 16 2015 02:21 Ej_ wrote: what Heroes should I get for Hero League? atm I have: -BW -Zagara -Valla -TLV -Tyrael -Arthas
I know I'd need more supports for sure (I like Rehgar), I also liked playing Jaina and Zeratul.
Getting characters you like is never a bad investment. Partially it depends on are you spending real money or gold, and how much you have to spend.
One of the best values for spending real money is the Heroes of the Storm starter pack available at Amazon.com, Gamestop and other retailers.
For $19.99 you get •Five Heroes: Sonya – Warrior, Zeratul – Assassin, Zagara – Specialist, Li Li – Support, and Jaina – Assassin •Ronin Zeratul Skin •Retail Exclusive Golden Tiger Mount
Also unless they fixed it in the last week, registering the Ronin Zeratul skin will unlock Zeratul too, meaning you can give away or sell the plain Zeratul unlock key. Even though you already have Zagara, you get a code for her so you could sell it or give it to a friend too.
That plus the Raynor/Malfurion/Muradin Starter bundle for $4.99 gives you 7 new heroes for $25 to go with what you already have and an extra copy of zeratul and zagara to give away or sell.
It's a good idea to have 2 warrior and support choices that are competitive in case no one else on your team picks one. That way you reduce the chance that the other team already picked the only one you have.
If you are just spending gold, then Malfurion and Muradin for 2k each is a great value. All 3 you enjoy playing are considered good picks so I don't think you will have any buyers remorse with any of them. Get those, then look for other suggestions. Be sure to play all the heroes each week that are free to try them out. Leveling them to 5 for the 500 gold is also generally worth while.
Wow, played as Tyrande for the first time in a while last night. Didn't realize she is such a hard counter to the butcher--- since he's in a large portion of my QM's these days, I got a 5 game winning streak easily as I practically negated him entirely. It's super easy to land the E stun on the end of his charge, and the followup mark on him means he just disintegrates first thing in the fight.
One butcher wised up and kind of just lurked at the back of the team fights instead of charging in, but that meant he practically did nothing.
OMG, we just played an all support troll comp and just wrecked, laughing all the way. Here's the build:
Lili - pure healer, play normally Malfurion - also play normally (mule) Tassadar - psi storm spec and archon (mule) Tyrande - moonfire spec Rhegar - dmg spec and *bloodlust*
In teamfight we almost literally could not die, whoever got focused got healed, shielded, and then lili/malf ults and we all just stay alive while bloodlust/archon/psi storm/hunter mark kill off a couple of them and the rest run from our full health team. It was a bit tricky in the beginning when we had no mana because nobody could take regen talent, but after that it was hilariously awesome. We all were saying "we can't believe this is working" but there was no denying it was working. We added the nova on the other team and he said he was just laughing every team fight as we won again and again, but he also said one of his teammates almost rage quit.
Probably not viable competitively because you can counter pick it but man it is SO much fun in quick match.
edit: also with double mule our buildings stayed up forever too. man that was so fun.
On July 18 2015 16:49 HallofPain4444 wrote: 3 assasins(burst) + 2 warriors(stun) would usually dominate against 5 supports. Imagine what kind of comp the other team had? Nova and 4 specialists?
Or just go with 5 Specialists and destroy their forts before the first objective pops up on any map lol.
On July 18 2015 16:49 HallofPain4444 wrote: 3 assasins(burst) + 2 warriors(stun) would usually dominate against 5 supports. Imagine what kind of comp the other team had? Nova and 4 specialists?
As I said, it was QM, so it's not like they could customize their team to beat 5 supports, 3 assassins and 2 warriors is not really the current meta either...
Their team was Diablo, Nova, Malfurion, Tassadar, Zagara
Final kills was 28 to 8.
edit: Also I love how I said it wasn't viable competitively because you could counterpick against it, and 2 of the next 3 posts are about counterpicks.
since it as QM, it was one support atleast I guess and it wasn't malf (twilight dream).
I would imagine to many melee assassins/warriors and no specialists. (Healers with an exp advantage are to good)
edit: wtf a Zagara and Malf ? x.x okay Tassadar could have stopped Zagara. But lol
Also the treasure goblin is killing my passion. Log in every day or lose 100 gold. Passion restored I hit 4 key maws in a row XD (yeah yeah we had kael and after level 16 the game turned 180 from 3 levels behind)
It's no wonder really. Tyrael has damage despite being warrior as does Muradin with haymaker and Anub'arak with beetle/locust. It counters so many team compositions that rely on burst and you don't really sacrifice any damage..
On July 21 2015 00:10 Sponkz wrote: It's no wonder really. Tyrael has damage despite being warrior as does Muradin with haymaker and Anub'arak with beetle/locust. It counters so many team compositions that rely on burst and you don't really sacrifice any damage..
Actually, you do sacrifice quite a bit of damage picking Muradin (at least until 13/16) and Tyrael over ranged assassins.
The reason why double warrior comps are making a comeback has everything to do with the prevalence of teams building around burst assassin comps (especially Jaina/Kael) instead of AA-centric comps. Warriors, unlike assassins, can easily survive big burst combos and then proceed to maul the enemy back line. What we're going to see (eventually) is teams responding to these warrior-centric compositions with more AA/giant killer comps. Tychus will be back in a big way sooner rather than later.
On July 21 2015 00:10 Sponkz wrote: It's no wonder really. Tyrael has damage despite being warrior as does Muradin with haymaker and Anub'arak with beetle/locust. It counters so many team compositions that rely on burst and you don't really sacrifice any damage..
Actually, you do sacrifice quite a bit of damage picking Muradin (at least until 13/16) and Tyrael over ranged assassins.
The reason why double warrior comps are making a comeback has everything to do with the prevalence of teams building around burst assassin comps (especially Jaina/Kael) instead of AA-centric comps. Warriors, unlike assassins, can easily survive big burst combos and then proceed to maul the enemy back line. What we're going to see (eventually) is teams responding to these warrior-centric compositions with more AA/giant killer comps. Tychus will be back in a big way sooner rather than later.
Wouldn't the double tanks just take imposing presence? Or is that ineffective at countering AA'rs with giant killer?
for AA to work again, they need to nerf Muradin though, he can force imposing on you even if you don't attack him. But I think pro teams already forgot why AA stopped being used. They should give Nova a special giant slayer at 4, so she can do huge damage against tanks. Like Zeratul is good at everything, Nova should be good at killing everything.
Seeing more Zagara again as well in pro games and she always can grab giant slayer and be the worst nightmare of any tank. Even for a Muradin. But its nice if the meta is schifting, because you see alot more different things. Like Arthas being the new Sylvanas, since Sylvanas lost all her burst talents.
On July 21 2015 00:10 Sponkz wrote: It's no wonder really. Tyrael has damage despite being warrior as does Muradin with haymaker and Anub'arak with beetle/locust. It counters so many team compositions that rely on burst and you don't really sacrifice any damage..
Actually, you do sacrifice quite a bit of damage picking Muradin (at least until 13/16) and Tyrael over ranged assassins.
The reason why double warrior comps are making a comeback has everything to do with the prevalence of teams building around burst assassin comps (especially Jaina/Kael) instead of AA-centric comps. Warriors, unlike assassins, can easily survive big burst combos and then proceed to maul the enemy back line. What we're going to see (eventually) is teams responding to these warrior-centric compositions with more AA/giant killer comps. Tychus will be back in a big way sooner rather than later.
The muradin Q-build with haymaker and burning rage does quite a lot of damage. Granted it isn't ranged assassin level, it's still very potent and offers high burst potential to your team (same with tyrael and anub).
The problem with Bribe on BoE is that there's so much posturing and fighting in the middle and so little actual laning that getting stacks for bribe will take a lot longer than on other maps. However the Shaman camps can basically be taken with just one use of bribe since you can use it on the shaman and kill the summons in a few seconds.
There seems to be a theme going on in Grubby's chat saying that Leoric is coming out today. Apparently he might of already been patched in, so there' no need to take the servers down? I did have to apply a patch yesterday though it was downloaded very quickly.
If he is, I feel it's more likely to get implemented overnight when they take the servers down.
On July 22 2015 03:51 fruity. wrote: There seems to be a theme going on in Grubby's chat saying that Leoric is coming out today. Apparently he might of already been patched in, so there' no need to take the servers down? I did have to apply a patch yesterday though it was downloaded very quickly.
If he is, I feel it's more likely to get implemented overnight when they take the servers down.
Leoric was patched into the game the same day as the butcher, he just wasn't active, they just need to flick a switch to activate it.
According to this report he will be released today, probably when the new shop sales for this week change, which typically would have already happened by now, the normal sale change time is 23:30 CEST, which was an hour ago.
oh fuck leoric is on EU already lol. Wow his soul travel is fully controllable o.o; . Freaking 5% giant slayer with heal XD. Thats what I wanted for Nova T.T .
and even easier to kite then Arthas if you ignore the ult haha. Played Zagara and was like sup ? But Maw has a longer cooldown then entombed, so its unfair !
So... are there bots in the game? Got matched with a player called karaknee today and he's REALLY bad. Played for FAR more than 24 hours straight (according to the match history), like... 4 heroes on level 20, >2500 games played and all he did was basically running around and attacking towers all around. Thought he's just trolling. But the amount of games played and the playtime today kinda points towards a bot, imo :-/
Report it. There were farm bots like this in Beta. Haven't seen them in a long time, but I avoid this game at late night. In beta they had a rather similar behavior to Blizzards bots.
i just came back to hots after long break since alph and noticed i have 18k gold, so whats the general opinion on KT is he op and going to be nerfed ? i ask because i dont want to spend 10k gold just before he gets gutted in next patch
Jaina and KT are both strong mages and at 10k if you want to play that type of hero. KT is a one trick pony relying on a massive lvl 16 talent spike, whereas Jaina is a bit more versatile. Once at lvl 16 though, those Flamestrikes + Living Bombs really start to hurt.
Whether he'll get nerfed, I doubt it, but I do hope they'll change him since he literally has one build right now.
On July 24 2015 00:50 kongoline wrote: i just came back to hots after long break since alph and noticed i have 18k gold, so whats the general opinion on KT is he op and going to be nerfed ? i ask because i dont want to spend 10k gold just before he gets gutted in next patch
I think he's OP as fuck and after level 16 almost impossible to counter play but Blizz has said they're pretty happy with his overall winrate. So who knows. Flamethrower needs to be put on level 16.
Kael is a bit meh because you need to get to level 16. But if you like farming and then suddenly rock face he is your dude. Azmodan would be the extrem form of this.
Anyway, always the same with a new Hero, even at Rank one ... people try to get a kill fighting a 1v1 getting super low. And Leoric just reducing his death timer on them already waiting to press that Q for a one hit.
Remember thar Blizzard said they were ok with heroes like Illidan and Valla and that their winrates were good and then nerfed them anyway.
About Kael, I actually don't think the lvl 16 talent is the problem. Yes is a great talent with a big spike in power, but imo, the problem is his lvl 13 one that lets you cast flamestrike from a screen away. Maybe they could put both on the same talent tier so you could either do more damage, or be more safe, instead of dealing damage withouth any sort of way for the enemy team to punish you.
If you put Ignite on 13 it would open the Mana Shield opportunity at 16, which would make Kael even better. He would get a bit worse at poking, but he would get stronger against diving and better in close combat. You would also move his powerspike to 13. Or if the enemy team is behind, Spellshield won't be there.
I think Phoenix will end up on the chopping block though.
On July 24 2015 11:25 karazax wrote: Any body have any links to Korean 3 warrior comp replays? I have heard a lot of talk about them recently but can't find any videos.
I don't know if they uploaded them to youtube or not, but here are the twitch vods for the HCOT Community Open Tournament in KR. You'll have to search through it for games with 3 warrior comps, but I went through one of them really quick and it seems to be fairly common.
I really wish Blizz would re-class Tyrande & Tassadar. These two are not healers, support sure. But there is a world of difference between having lili on your team in QM and Tyrande or Tassadar
I think Brightwing is on the same category as Tyrande and Tassadar now.
System already tryes to avoid Tassadar vs real Healer. But because support vs support is enforced with no way around it, we get many games with more then 1 support on each side. Which results in 1 healer + support vs support often.
Doesn't help that playing Tassadar and Tyrande is discouraged, because there is the chance to get a full healer on the enemy side.
I wouldn't go quite that far FeyFey. Definitely seems to be the least favoured out of the healer classes, I don't think I've seen her picked once in the pro level games I've watched this past month
She also lacks the ability to go for a good damage build, that the other 2 supports have. The Lili of supports ! Can only support. Dunno I love playing BW and Lili. Before her big change it was mostly the bug that made her the most picked healer, because she could ignore poking damage on herself. With just her self heal being fixed, she would not be able to stay around while Kael bombards you.
She is also rather hard to play now, since instead of heals you use shields. Which means you have to apply the healing before the damage. Which won't be counted as healing, your stats will look horrible and player will really hate having her around.
On July 24 2015 22:17 FeyFey wrote: She also lacks the ability to go for a good damage build, that the other 2 supports have. The Lili of supports ! Can only support. Dunno I love playing BW and Lili. Before her big change it was mostly the bug that made her the most picked healer, because she could ignore poking damage on herself. With just her self heal being fixed, she would not be able to stay around while Kael bombards you.
She is also rather hard to play now, since instead of heals you use shields. Which means you have to apply the healing before the damage. Which won't be counted as healing, your stats will look horrible and player will really hate having her around.
Someone on reddit said that shields do count for healing but I never actually tested it to confirm
On July 24 2015 22:17 FeyFey wrote: She also lacks the ability to go for a good damage build, that the other 2 supports have. The Lili of supports ! Can only support. Dunno I love playing BW and Lili. Before her big change it was mostly the bug that made her the most picked healer, because she could ignore poking damage on herself. With just her self heal being fixed, she would not be able to stay around while Kael bombards you.
She is also rather hard to play now, since instead of heals you use shields. Which means you have to apply the healing before the damage. Which won't be counted as healing, your stats will look horrible and player will really hate having her around.
Someone on reddit said that shields do count for healing but I never actually tested it to confirm
Yes it's like with Uther at level 4, you can talent into a shield (which you usually should with Uther), which is the same as a heal - as it mitigates the damage that HP wise a heal could replace.
We really need the large general discussion thread back. Because I have no idea where to post that NickHots has by far the worst possible music playing on his stream everytime I tune in and I have to just immediately close the window.
You could also "heal" as chen before the implementation of the tank stat. Also today I had a no healer vs. double healer QM. No parties on either side. Very strange.
On July 24 2015 23:41 Tenks wrote: We really need the large general discussion thread back. Because I have no idea where to post that NickHots has by far the worst possible music playing on his stream every time I tune in and I have to just immediately close the window.
I thought the same, I think he uses some sort of DJ system? So the twitch users get to pick the tunes. I agree with you though, it's an instant turn off for me. He's a poo poo potty mouth too, full on caps lock raging at other team members sometimes, don't see why he's popular.. Maybe peeps like him for that reason.
And yes to the general thread, or perhaps this one gets a rename. A separate one could be made when there's PTR stuff to debate.
On July 24 2015 23:41 Tenks wrote: We really need the large general discussion thread back. Because I have no idea where to post that NickHots has by far the worst possible music playing on his stream every time I tune in and I have to just immediately close the window.
And yes to the general thread, or perhaps this one gets a rename. A separate one could be made when there's PTR stuff to debate.
Yeah there will be a new thread for any PTR patch for sure.
On July 24 2015 22:17 FeyFey wrote: She also lacks the ability to go for a good damage build, that the other 2 supports have. The Lili of supports ! Can only support. Dunno I love playing BW and Lili. Before her big change it was mostly the bug that made her the most picked healer, because she could ignore poking damage on herself. With just her self heal being fixed, she would not be able to stay around while Kael bombards you.
She is also rather hard to play now, since instead of heals you use shields. Which means you have to apply the healing before the damage. Which won't be counted as healing, your stats will look horrible and player will really hate having her around.
Someone on reddit said that shields do count for healing but I never actually tested it to confirm
Yes it's like with Uther at level 4, you can talent into a shield (which you usually should with Uther), which is the same as a heal - as it mitigates the damage that HP wise a heal could replace.
I meant the shield dust, that gives block and reduces ability damage. Sorry
In other news, Hammer vs Vikings in a pro match x3. Okay TL is involved.
On July 24 2015 23:52 Garbels wrote: You could also "heal" as chen before the implementation of the tank stat. Also today I had a no healer vs. double healer QM. No parties on either side. Very strange.
My understanding was that shields counted as healing only if actually expended rather than timing out. If you soaked 100 dmg on shield, which then timed out with 200 shield remaining, you got a heal stat for 100.
So I saw a Leoric stand in the tower range early on to die and get a full heal .... good thing it gave us a talent ... and me a stack on Nova. Nova is really funny against him, everytime he uses an ult, he usually comes in a straight line at you. easiest kill ever.
I am going to jinx my winning streak now but whatever. Just wanted to clear my daily in coop ... around level 7 I thought, wow that Kerrigan bot is quite agressive and since when do they use envenom and hunt Abathur (me). At around level 9 I realized that this ain't Coop. Can't belief I won that ... but that was one weird game. Nova, Aba, Kerrigan, Jaina, Leoric on both sides. Luckily enemy Aba was an afk slug, which equaled my fun build out. And thank good enemy Aba didn't go for Mule, since at that time I thought its Coop and mule sucks there.
Allright, not sure if this is the right place to ask this, apologies if it's not ^^
I'm looking to pick up either Butcher or Thrall. I generally steer away from Melee heroes (some warrior play aside, but I even prefer to leave that to others), but for versatility's sake and to have some diversity fun in quick matches I'd like to pick up one of these two. Any advice on who to take/their respective strengths and weaknesses? I don't see either much in ranked play, which I don't particularly mind. I'm not necessarily looking for a top pick, but if they are viable that is a plus ofcourse =)
I'd recommend Thrall. Butcher is very weak at the moment. Also, butcher really needs to be paired with a stun hero, otherwise people just walk away after you hook them, and you can't guarantee that in QM without a partner.
I think zlefin is mistaking 'Butcher' for 'Stitches', Butcher is considered at least decent right now (certainly not super weak) and in fact on Hotslogs has a slightly higher win percent than Thrall. Regardless,they both have similar weaknesses in that they need to be attacking/using abilities to stay alive, and thus are both vulnerable to CC. Butcher has a much more reliable engage, but lacks the strong poke in lane that Thrall has. Butcher also has a bit of a snowballing aspect with Fresh Meat stacks if you like stuff like that. I personally like Thrall more because his kit is pretty versatile, however his talent builds are not too versatile. Butcher's kit is a bit more straightforward and honestly I am not sure about how versatile his talent builds are. Hope this helps!
Both are wonderful in Quickmatch for the 2v1 potential, though neither has anything on what Leroic can do with a 20 upgraded ult charging into 3 idiots who don't run.
On July 27 2015 11:07 zlefin wrote: I'd recommend Thrall. Butcher is very weak at the moment. Also, butcher really needs to be paired with a stun hero, otherwise people just walk away after you hook them, and you can't guarantee that in QM without a partner.
On July 27 2015 11:07 zlefin wrote: I'd recommend Thrall. Butcher is very weak at the moment. Also, butcher really needs to be paired with a stun hero, otherwise people just walk away after you hook them, and you can't guarantee that in QM without a partner.
This Diablo in my HL game was so bad you almost cant describe it. He dies solo to leoric. He never teamfights he keeps laning when the whole enemy team is right next to him.
He also uses lightning breath on the towers twice before going to 3v5(with KT and johana) the enemy team on the boss and delivering the most beautiful LB I have ever seen. Catching 4 for almost for the full duration. Joh stealing the boss and winning us the game.
Thanks for the input guys, I ended up going for Butcher. I was pretty much tied on the two, and the people I play with almost all have Thrall so I figured I'd take something different. So far he's certainly good fun, but I'm having a hard time getting a feel for how strong he is in QM since they're usually messy non-tank-non-support games, which makes it a bit weird. The one hero-league game went ok, but without cleanse it did just feel like I just got mass CC'd and blown up most fights that had a normal 5v5 engage. Skirmishes, he just rocks.
On July 28 2015 06:33 Promises wrote: Thanks for the input guys, I ended up going for Butcher. I was pretty much tied on the two, and the people I play with almost all have Thrall so I figured I'd take something different. So far he's certainly good fun, but I'm having a hard time getting a feel for how strong he is in QM since they're usually messy non-tank-non-support games, which makes it a bit weird. The one hero-league game went ok, but without cleanse it did just feel like I just got mass CC'd and blown up most fights that had a normal 5v5 engage. Skirmishes, he just rocks.
That seems to be his thing. I love him as a low-stress pub-stomper. Just queue up QM and wreck some scrubs.
On July 28 2015 06:33 Promises wrote: Thanks for the input guys, I ended up going for Butcher. I was pretty much tied on the two, and the people I play with almost all have Thrall so I figured I'd take something different. So far he's certainly good fun, but I'm having a hard time getting a feel for how strong he is in QM since they're usually messy non-tank-non-support games, which makes it a bit weird. The one hero-league game went ok, but without cleanse it did just feel like I just got mass CC'd and blown up most fights that had a normal 5v5 engage. Skirmishes, he just rocks.
Just to add, thrall gets kited much more easily but it's hellafun to blow up people post 16 when you're low health and they're full. Butcher is a beast for pubs if you're coupled with a good aba.
Am fairly certain I had the displeasure of playing vs. a map hacker last night. He was illidan on BoE, and used the hunt on me, yet had no vision of the map where I was, no wall, fort or minion was close by. Couple of things about this, firstly there is no way to report this guy, even searching battle.net gives me no option, and secondly, whilst searching for somewhere to report this asshole (gg blizz for making it super obvious and easy to help YOU keep the game cheat free) It's apparent that map hacks are common, going on the plethora of vods in the wild.
the report system isn't working for you? press tab, click on the wheel-like thing on the right for that char? that works for me for reporting people; not that it ever tells me if the reports do any good.
On August 02 2015 20:47 zlefin wrote: the report system isn't working for you? press tab, click on the wheel-like thing on the right for that char? that works for me for reporting people; not that it ever tells me if the reports do any good.
I wasn't sure in game, it stuck out as odd, so I watched the replay this morning, and now how do I report? No options to check profile or report from the post replay game score screen, no way to do it through battle.net (no option to report cheating at all).
Like they would do ANYTHING anyway, I lost count the number of times I would report bots in wow, yet never even received an auto reply. Same shit in SC2.
If blizz gave tools to the community (for example: at option to upload XYZ replay to overwatch blizzwatch) The community would police itself, and highlight the stuff blizz needs to take action on.
Yet you cant report cheating post game it would seem, not through b.net or in game. There seems to be little to no evolution of game engine anti cheat, and no overwatch-esq system on the horizon that I've heard about, and blizz don't even fucking respond when you do allege cheating.
I've reported it post-game while coming out of the game (its on some tab, don't remember exactly); not sure if its possible to do if you're looking at an old replay.
It actually seems super hard to report someone after the game. I get tons of bad links on the battle.net support site. For example on this site https://eu.battle.net/support/en/help/article/heroes/7390?search=cheat if you want to go to 'report them to us' you get an apache error. The ticket system also does not want you to actually write a ticket, it just shows you meaningless articles. But if you go back at the right time you can get an ticket form: https://eu.battle.net/support/en/help/ticket/heroes/817
I dont know if the last two are for small time stuff like reporting a player but emailing seems like the best choice. Edit: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/submit/hacks.html is for reporting players but you can't attach a reaplay there. And there is no option for hots.
I just checked, and in post-game results, I can report someone if I go from summary tab to stats tab and click on the wheel-like icon on the far right of the player.
So, I'm new to MOBAs, at this point I've played for about a month and I play with friends who are pretty good so I have an inferiority complex. After a few games playing Tyrande, someone said this:
Yeah tyrande is a very hard hero to play. Good tyrandes are always a pleasure to watch in pro games too
I wanted to know, how do you guys feel about backdooring? WIth recent Browder tweets that say they might do something to change them in general instead of changing just one or two heroes or particular strategies.
A guy proposed shields for the keeps, that's an... interesting idea. Maybe it would also reduce a little the problem we have in the proce scene right now, that because if you die lategame it is GG, games are generally, and surprisingly, less action packed thatn what you'd expect because the teams are so afraid of dying.
Blizzard wants 20 minute games, don't expect any buffs to buildings. And Keeps in the lategame already allow you to lose one fight. Shields would change nothing, because the moment you are at a disadvantage that they could finish your core, they will get the first keep for sure.
On August 03 2015 01:20 Djzapz wrote: So, I'm new to MOBAs, at this point I've played for about a month and I play with friends who are pretty good so I have an inferiority complex. After a few games playing Tyrande, someone said this:
Grats, when I was a newb starting out I only played Co-op and it was after a game where I felt like I was landing all my skillshots with Tyrande that I felt ready to play QM. So she always has a soft spot in my heart for that moment.
Also, Tyrande is hard to play like others have said, plus I get the feeling some people *still* don't know what she is exactly. I got flamed pretty hard playing Tyrande yesterday, nothing specific, just things like 'newb', 'you bad', so I have no idea what they were angry about. Until the very end when everyone was complaining about no heals (cuz I was backing) then it clicked that they thought I was just a shitty healer and not a hybrid... course I only play Tyrande during free week so I'm not the best at her, but I've still never gotten flamed like that *ever* in ~8 months of playing.
On August 03 2015 01:20 Djzapz wrote: So, I'm new to MOBAs, at this point I've played for about a month and I play with friends who are pretty good so I have an inferiority complex. After a few games playing Tyrande, someone said this:
Grats, when I was a newb starting out I only played Co-op and it was after a game where I felt like I was landing all my skillshots with Tyrande that I felt ready to play QM. So she always has a soft spot in my heart for that moment.
Also, Tyrande is hard to play like others have said, plus I get the feeling some people *still* don't know what she is exactly. I got flamed pretty hard playing Tyrande yesterday, nothing specific, just things like 'newb', 'you bad', so I have no idea what they were angry about. Until the very end when everyone was complaining about no heals (cuz I was backing) then it clicked that they thought I was just a shitty healer and not a hybrid... course I only play Tyrande during free week so I'm not the best at her, but I've still never gotten flamed like that *ever* in ~8 months of playing.
I come across a lot of dicks but rarely particularly bad. Far too many people use "get cancer" as an insult but I'm expecting they're probably <18 and don't really understand life very well yet.
That said, last night someone pleasantly flamed me (and everyone else) all game and after we lost (his fault) said he hoped that my "mom" slits my throat while I sleep. Needless to say I reported the person and asked for confirmation from Blizzard that this is being dealt with...no response as yet.
I tend not to mute these people as I like to be able to report the bile they come out with so they are *hopefully* banned.
As long as you don't provoke them. Because if you do they can't take severe actions. Aside from that people that use to flame alot, seem to know what doesn't give them instant bans. Like Racism currently does. Though Blizzard acts a bit different, they just have a large check list for everything. But if you know what keywords to type into the report, they are highly likely to check the chatlog themself and not let their bad word program run over it.
Kinda understandable as ping is something useful. A lot of people even if they rage can make some good decisions or let you know stuff through pings. Sometimes it is abused but I think it's fine.
yeah, it's not that annoying. It might be nice to be able to adjust how often you see pings. (like only accept one every 3 secs from a particular char or something)
Yeah, I mean the trick with Tyrande is you have to understand that queuing as her means giving up getting to pick what kind of hero you're going to play. If you have no healer, you need to take support talents. If you have a good healer, you can elect to do DPS. But you don't get to say "I want to Owl build" unless your team is covered in healing.
That said, yes, flaming is shitty. If you wouldn't say it IRL, don't say it. And it's always good to remember Noobs are generally, in fact, new. So try to be helpful, rather than harmful. I actually generally go out of my way to try to encourage Noobs who get flamed. I've taught enough people to be sympathetic. It's also worth saying that being welcoming can help to get people who are less of the 16-30 white or asian male demographics to pay more vidja games, which is good for all of us.
That said, yes, flaming is shitty. If you wouldn't say it IRL, don't say it. .
For real. Other than heroes, I don't play many computer games--- but I do play lots of strategy board games. I've seen this kind of bad manners maybe once in fifteen years of playing games at game shops.
On August 05 2015 07:11 Yoav wrote: Yeah, I mean the trick with Tyrande is you have to understand that queuing as her means giving up getting to pick what kind of hero you're going to play. If you have no healer, you need to take support talents. If you have a good healer, you can elect to do DPS. But you don't get to say "I want to Owl build" unless your team is covered in healing.
I'e actually not been pigeon-holed playing Tyrande this week. Each time I was against another Tyrande or Tassadar or we had other supports. Haven't played her a ton though.
I have been getting stuck double warrior a bunch when I queued Tyrael though and either I'm worse at Tyrael than I thought of playing off-tanks is a lot different from main-tanks (Muradin is probably my best hero, I still break out Stiches in QM every now and then too, I like main-tanking is what I'm saying).
Just a heads up, the Amazon Nova skin is live, and there is a new bundle with Nova+All her skins for 30 dollars (I think the usual value would be around 50. Leoric is also 10k.
I was waiting for Leoric to have his price reduced (went through today), but now that I've played Nova (f2p) I'm not sure which to buy since she's really fun and I don't really have a hero that counters the spellcaster types like KT and Jaina, although I could almost buy both (19k gold). (mostly considering for HL)
On August 05 2015 10:02 [Phantom] wrote: Just a heads up, the Amazon Nova skin is live, and there is a new bundle with Nova+All her skins for 30 dollars (I think the usual value would be around 50. Leoric is also 10k.
30 dollars seems so much for a hero and some skins, no matter how cool they are. Certainly from my perspective the pricing is off for HoTS compared to say, Hearthstone where I will buy the odd pack or arena pass. But then I've never bought a purely cosmetic in game thing as it feels like a waste of money, mental barrier I guess. I do want nova now but grinding out the 10k for her...
"Infernal Shrines is a three-lane Diablo-themed Battleground featuring three shrines that will periodically gather power. Teams can unleash this power by activating a shrine, defeating its guardians, and summoning a devastating Punisher to fight for them. These powerful bosses will spawn with one of three deadly affixes—Arcane, Frozen, or Mortar— and will hunt down nearby enemy Heroes as well as pushing the lane closest to their shrine."
I really like the rate at which they seem to be releasing content. I only play casually but it seems like something new is coming down the pipe every few weeks and it's fun.
Has anyone noticed a pattern in the gold price reductions? I'm pretty happy to just play free week and the few favorites I've bought but I usually pick up the most recent reductions. Sometimes I miss the announcement if there is one.
I like it too. It's very exciting to see the game take off at ground level like this. I've only been playing for four months and so much content has come out...
On August 05 2015 23:58 MotherFox wrote: I like it too. It's very exciting to see the game take off at ground level like this. I've only been playing for four months and so much content has come out...
During the most recent earnings call, they quoted Destiny, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm as combining for 1 billion in lifetime revenue (odd that they threw Heroes in there, but that has to be a good thing right?)
Course, I haven't seen Blizzard add this much content this quickly in years, so that's another good sign that the game is doing well and getting lots of support from the company. It's all very exciting (even if I haven't had much time to play since Butcher came out =( ).
Well they certainly have my cash. My wife has commented on how I've been more addicted to Heroes than any video game she's seen me play in 10+ years. I trust her judgement on just how obsessed I'm getting with things
On August 05 2015 23:58 MotherFox wrote: I like it too. It's very exciting to see the game take off at ground level like this. I've only been playing for four months and so much content has come out...
During the most recent earnings call, they quoted Destiny, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm as combining for 1 billion in lifetime revenue (odd that they threw Heroes in there, but that has to be a good thing right?)
Course, I haven't seen Blizzard add this much content this quickly in years, so that's another good sign that the game is doing well and getting lots of support from the company. It's all very exciting (even if I haven't had much time to play since Butcher came out =( ).
They also said that Destiny+Hearthstone+Heroes have 70 million users.
They also said Destiny had 20 million. The last info about hearthstone # of users was a little over 30. So that leaves another 20 for heroes. Probably though, Hearthstone has grown much more since the last time they revealed the number of users and heroes is closer to 10. Still not a bad number though. On the earnings call, while they didn't say the specific numbers, they did say that Heroes is doing pretty well in china, and that alongside the new f2p diablo model they released there, are a very big part of why Blizzard increased their profits this quarters even though they lost like 4 million wow subscribers.
So it looks like the game is doing fine which is good to know.
and the 4m wow subscribers lost were no real surprise. They released enough expansions to know about that. I hate everytime WoW releases an expansion. It means around 10% of my guild will be missing for around 2 month till they powered through the content and come back ^^; .
What's wrong with people in this game. I just got call a "mongoloid" after having a really good game with Sylvanas where I did a lot of work in team fights and out and at the end they wanted me to snipe the 10-15% hp core when I had 30% hp and Thrall running after me. If I stopped I died. And then these 2 guys acted like I was the worst of idiots, not understanding how fast Thrall would kill me. =_=
It took a 12 game winning streak and a 1,000+ MMR climb from some very bad initial placement matches, but I finally got to silver on hero league. Gold, here I come!
On a 5-0 run with Thrall right now, and I'm doing serious work with him in each game. I suspect that he's much better than people give him credit for. I also suspect that he's going to see a lot more play as two-warrior comps become more popular.
I've found Thrall consistently good. That said, I'm nowhere near your level and my understanding was that higher up people can shut him down hard with stuns. That not true?
On August 08 2015 23:36 Yoav wrote: I've found Thrall consistently good. That said, I'm nowhere near your level and my understanding was that higher up people can shut him down hard with stuns. That not true?
Sort of, but it's easier said than done. I think that blinds are more dangerous for him than stuns, personally.
hmm slowly there is a bot problem at night in coop. Often got one bot on my team. But I guess the issue will die down if it gets out of hand lol. Blizzards bots base trade strategie superior to the farm bots lol.
On August 08 2015 14:08 xDaunt wrote: On a 5-0 run with Thrall right now, and I'm doing serious work with him in each game. I suspect that he's much better than people give him credit for. I also suspect that he's going to see a lot more play as two-warrior comps become more popular.
Huge burst, some utility, whats not to like?
Try him in PainTrain triple melee comps, it's insanely fun.
On August 08 2015 14:08 xDaunt wrote: On a 5-0 run with Thrall right now, and I'm doing serious work with him in each game. I suspect that he's much better than people give him credit for. I also suspect that he's going to see a lot more play as two-warrior comps become more popular.
It's kind of funny how hard you've been championing Thrall. Even before the nerfs you said he was god-tier when no one would play him. And after nerfs? You still think he's top-tier =p.
On a more productive note, I was reading about how Thrall suffers from slow auto-attack animations that can be canceled, which doesn't really happen with other heroes (I heard Rehgar is the only one). I wonder if that effects his popularity as stutter stepping to stay on target or weaving auto's between spells for follow-through just doesn't work as well/easily on Thrall. Could be like Anub'arak and his painfully delayed skillshots, once those were fixed (and his Beetle AI) then suddenly he wasn't garbage anymore. But the interesting thing is, people who were used to his idiosyncrasies did just fine pre-buff (I recall Anub was often top win-rate in hotslogs Masters pre-nerf but with very few games played).
Maybe Thrall's in the same situation with you and the general public?
the Thrall animations will be fixed soon, according to blue posts on reddit.
Blizzard wrote: Hijacking top comment to step in and mention that we were aware of these issues for Thrall and have a couple of fixes coming with the next patch that should help his Basic Attacks feel more responsive -especially when stutter stepping. As for Rehgar, we're currently investigating.
On August 08 2015 14:08 xDaunt wrote: On a 5-0 run with Thrall right now, and I'm doing serious work with him in each game. I suspect that he's much better than people give him credit for. I also suspect that he's going to see a lot more play as two-warrior comps become more popular.
It's kind of funny how hard you've been championing Thrall. Even before the nerfs you said he was god-tier when no one would play him. And after nerfs? You still think he's top-tier =p.
On a more productive note, I was reading about how Thrall suffers from slow auto-attack animations that can be canceled, which doesn't really happen with other heroes (I heard Rehgar is the only one). I wonder if that effects his popularity as stutter stepping to stay on target or weaving auto's between spells for follow-through just doesn't work as well/easily on Thrall. Could be like Anub'arak and his painfully delayed skillshots, once those were fixed (and his Beetle AI) then suddenly he wasn't garbage anymore. But the interesting thing is, people who were used to his idiosyncrasies did just fine pre-buff (I recall Anub was often top win-rate in hotslogs Masters pre-nerf but with very few games played).
Maybe Thrall's in the same situation with you and the general public?
Release Thrall was god tier. When you can hit a button and do 2k damage AND heal for 2k at the same time, AND THAT BUTTON IS ON LIKE A 3 SEC COOLDOWN, that's retarded OP.
As for where Thrall is now, I wouldn't put him top tier. I do think that he is badly undervalued given that most people presently consider him garbage tier. If you need someone to chew through tanks for you, Thrall is your man.
The animation fix to Thrall will help, but I wouldn't consider it critical. What he could use are some changes that lower his mana consumption and the cooldown on his W. A slight health boost could be in order too, but I wouldn't change him otherwise.
On August 08 2015 14:08 xDaunt wrote: On a 5-0 run with Thrall right now, and I'm doing serious work with him in each game. I suspect that he's much better than people give him credit for. I also suspect that he's going to see a lot more play as two-warrior comps become more popular.
A lot of heroes in this game are much better than people give them credit for. That's just how it goes with online games, parrots and sheep.
On August 08 2015 14:08 xDaunt wrote: On a 5-0 run with Thrall right now, and I'm doing serious work with him in each game. I suspect that he's much better than people give him credit for. I also suspect that he's going to see a lot more play as two-warrior comps become more popular.
A lot of heroes in this game are much better than people give them credit for. That's just how it goes with online games, parrots and sheep.
Another thing I think people don't consider is that in general a relatively poor hero played by a skilled player will come out ahead of a relatively powerful hero played by a less skilled player, especially since HotS is a game largely made of making good decisions and finding the best way to contribute to your team (which doesn't necessarily mean killing enemy heroes).
On August 08 2015 14:08 xDaunt wrote: On a 5-0 run with Thrall right now, and I'm doing serious work with him in each game. I suspect that he's much better than people give him credit for. I also suspect that he's going to see a lot more play as two-warrior comps become more popular.
A lot of heroes in this game are much better than people give them credit for. That's just how it goes with online games, parrots and sheep.
Another thing I think people don't consider is that in general a relatively poor hero played by a skilled player will come out ahead of a relatively powerful hero played by a less skilled player, especially since HotS is a game largely made of making good decisions and finding the best way to contribute to your team (which doesn't necessarily mean killing enemy heroes).
That along with certain picks being better/worse on certain maps and fitting into/against certain teams better than others.
On August 08 2015 14:08 xDaunt wrote: On a 5-0 run with Thrall right now, and I'm doing serious work with him in each game. I suspect that he's much better than people give him credit for. I also suspect that he's going to see a lot more play as two-warrior comps become more popular.
A lot of heroes in this game are much better than people give them credit for. That's just how it goes with online games, parrots and sheep.
Another thing I think people don't consider is that in general a relatively poor hero played by a skilled player will come out ahead of a relatively powerful hero played by a less skilled player, especially since HotS is a game largely made of making good decisions and finding the best way to contribute to your team (which doesn't necessarily mean killing enemy heroes).
That along with certain picks being better/worse on certain maps and fitting into/against certain teams better than others.
Unfortunately, there are very, very few players who grasp this concept. Even at Rank 1, I still find myself shaking my head in disbelief at some of the stupid picks that I see.
On August 08 2015 14:08 xDaunt wrote: On a 5-0 run with Thrall right now, and I'm doing serious work with him in each game. I suspect that he's much better than people give him credit for. I also suspect that he's going to see a lot more play as two-warrior comps become more popular.
A lot of heroes in this game are much better than people give them credit for. That's just how it goes with online games, parrots and sheep.
I think people are quite honest in regards to balancing. Warriors like Chen, Sonya and Diablo have not seen any play for a long time now. Obviously every patch-cycle creates a new FoTM-pool where some heroes are left out, but it's just insane how slowly Blizzard reacts to these sorts of problems. It's one thing to adjust OP heroes but that doesn't entitle them to just ditch certain heroes for 6+ months.
I dunno, I think the meta has a lot to do with why they don't jump to adjust heroes that aren't seeing play.
I distinctly remember when Thrall came out, people debated if he was OP or not (and his numbers could be *insane* and he was tearing up QM), but he was released during a meta where Illidan was completely unplayable, so as a melee assassin he just didn't see play (but Thrall got nerfed anyways). The meta shifted and Illidan became first pick material without any adjustments from Blizz.
Likewise, Chen was seeing periods of play after his nerfs both as solo and second tank along with periods where he just wasn't played. He disappeared again once Johanna came out. Is he going to come back again like in the past (or like Arthas has resurrected himself) or is he too overshadowed by Johanna? Which hero really needs an adjustment in that case?
Falstad was thrown away after his rework, but now a days (~6 months later) is seeing quite a bit of play as another example. Oh, don't forget Jaina was starting to pick up popularity around the time Blizzard buffed the crap out of her and now she's first pick material. So I very much understand why Blizzard is slow on the trigger. Especially since new heroes every month always shakes things up.
Falstad's about to drop out completely with Gathering Power nerf though. But your point is still valid and I agree. I think a line should be drawn at 45%ish win rate and those heroes should be looked at. Right now Hotslogs says that's Kerrigan, Brightwing, Chen, ETC, Tassadar, Stitches. Kerrigan and Brightwing are getting buffs, Tass is getting some small tweaks, and they are fixing a major Chen bug. I think that's enough for a major patch, but they should look at Stitches and ETC if they are still there next time around.
I also don't think they need to rework several unused heroes every time, just a few changes can go a long way.
Yeah, Falstad is about to become trash tier. He needs some help. Stitches could use some improvement to his numbers, but the bottom line is that he should be a hero who lives and dies by the hook. Players that land hooks will always do well with Stitches. Players that can't will always suck with him. That's how it should be. BW should be significantly fixed with this next patch. Tassadar could use some buffing on his damage numbers. He's been over-nerfed, but he's not in a terrible place overall. I think Chen is better than people give him credit for, but he could probably use some love on his damage output given that's not particularly good at peeling unless he's using Wandering Keg. Kerrigan is getting hugely buffed with this next patch and will be a beast.
It feels like bliz tends to go overboard with nerfs by coming up with several ideas and applying all at once. Happened with brightwing, and is happening with gathering power nerf + spell shield buff. Some characters really depended on gathering power to get anything done, meanwhile many top-tier assassins [valla, jaina, zeratul] don't rely on it at all.
Speaking of valla and zeratul--- I feel like the spellshield+GP changes affect them the least by far, so I'm kind of readying myself for them to be pretty hotly contested?
The Imposing Presence nerf, Spell Shield buff, and Gathering Power nerf all make auto-attackers look a lot stronger yes. Valla very well could be back in the meta very soon.
On August 18 2015 04:25 Thezzy wrote: Valla hasn't left the meta, I see her often in pro games, though not every single one.
With the reduced burst damage I think Illidan and Kerrigan will be seen a lot more as well, since they won't be blown up as fast as before.
Don't forget the Butcher!
Valla already made a big comeback with the current 2-3 tanks "meta" as she is doing quite a bit there. It's true that she never really left but she is picked a lot more often than months before where Kael'Thas, Jaina, Nazeebo, Zagara and few others were top picks instead of her.
2 Tank meta just plopped up because of the double Specialist play. And Giant Slayer rocks the double tanks. I am surprised that it was Valla though. Tychus is pretty cool for that with the buffs, but I guess Valla usually dodges the damage and doesn't need heal attention.
As for Falstad, he dropped out because the maps he is good on are played less and that dive comps came back. To much Mura, Anub and Illidan.
But while they buff auto attackers, they nerf Melee alot with cleanse change. So not sure about seeing more Melee Assassins. Well unless you go with Lili and survive until 16.
Anyway after this patch I would be really worried about Zera, if I would like him xD.
Zera's probably the best hero in the game right now, so I wouldn't worry too much about him.
I agree with you why Valla came back over Tychus, because she's always been better at poking and that's what you'd rather have when every heal (other than Lili) has a non-negligible cooldown attached to them.
For some reason I thought Falstad's went AA build now (and he has Giant Killer for those tanks!), so I didn't realize the GP change is going to hit him that hard. Otherwise he offers a lot of the same things Valla does.
On August 18 2015 08:59 FeyFey wrote: 2 Tank meta just plopped up because of the double Specialist play. And Giant Slayer rocks the double tanks. I am surprised that it was Valla though. Tychus is pretty cool for that with the buffs, but I guess Valla usually dodges the damage and doesn't need heal attention.
As for Falstad, he dropped out because the maps he is good on are played less and that dive comps came back. To much Mura, Anub and Illidan.
But while they buff auto attackers, they nerf Melee alot with cleanse change. So not sure about seeing more Melee Assassins. Well unless you go with Lili and survive until 16.
Anyway after this patch I would be really worried about Zera, if I would like him xD.
They directly buffed Thrall and Kerrigan this patch, and as mentioned, Zeratul was left untouched. That's the majority of melee assassins (3/5). The other two assassins are Illidan and Butcher, which I would argue are situationally viable depending on composition and map.
I don't understand how melee were indirectly nerfed with the cleanse change, perhaps you could illuminate your reasoning? If anything, I feel like melee were indirectly buffed because cleanse is relatively less powerful, thereby making the CC abilities of Kerrigan, Butcher and Thrall relatively greater.
On August 18 2015 08:59 FeyFey wrote: 2 Tank meta just plopped up because of the double Specialist play. And Giant Slayer rocks the double tanks. I am surprised that it was Valla though. Tychus is pretty cool for that with the buffs, but I guess Valla usually dodges the damage and doesn't need heal attention.
As for Falstad, he dropped out because the maps he is good on are played less and that dive comps came back. To much Mura, Anub and Illidan.
But while they buff auto attackers, they nerf Melee alot with cleanse change. So not sure about seeing more Melee Assassins. Well unless you go with Lili and survive until 16.
Anyway after this patch I would be really worried about Zera, if I would like him xD.
2 tanks meta has other reasons. It's because warriors in general are quite nice now and the best warriors tend to do better in a duo warrior role. Leoric, anub'arak and tyrael do better as off-tank typically and Johanna can often often use another warrior for engagement quite well. Plus the good warriors have good waveclear so being short on waveclear because of two warriors is not much of a problem. Another big reason are the supports, they lack the burst healing that they had before when protective shield was nerfed/removed so a top support like Malf is not as great in a composition of 3 squishies, 1 tank and malf so double warrior gained ground there. The 'off-supports' tassadar & tyrande are pretty bad now so using them to fill the gap in burst healing is not so ideal. Finally other melee roles except zeratul are all not so popular so instead of warrior + melee assassin it's typically double warrior now. I don't think it has anything to do with double specialist which isn't even more popular now. Zagara is popular, Nazeebo and Abathur soso but the rest not so much, before with sylv as standard first pick they were more popular.
Monk, Kerrigan, tassadar and leoric changes might shake things up. Monk/tassadar may be great in duo support setups (again), Kerrigan looks good again and Leoric might not be as fantastic anymore making other setups than double warrior popular perhaps.
On August 18 2015 08:59 FeyFey wrote: 2 Tank meta just plopped up because of the double Specialist play. And Giant Slayer rocks the double tanks. I am surprised that it was Valla though. Tychus is pretty cool for that with the buffs, but I guess Valla usually dodges the damage and doesn't need heal attention.
As for Falstad, he dropped out because the maps he is good on are played less and that dive comps came back. To much Mura, Anub and Illidan.
But while they buff auto attackers, they nerf Melee alot with cleanse change. So not sure about seeing more Melee Assassins. Well unless you go with Lili and survive until 16.
Anyway after this patch I would be really worried about Zera, if I would like him xD.
2 tanks meta has other reasons. It's because warriors in general are quite nice now and the best warriors tend to do better in a duo warrior role. Leoric, anub'arak and tyrael do better as off-tank typically and Johanna can often often use another warrior for engagement quite well. Plus the good warriors have good waveclear so being short on waveclear because of two warriors is not much of a problem. Another big reason are the supports, they lack the burst healing that they had before when protective shield was nerfed/removed so a top support like Malf is not as great in a composition of 3 squishies, 1 tank and malf so double warrior gained ground there. The 'off-supports' tassadar & tyrande are pretty bad now so using them to fill the gap in burst healing is not so ideal. Finally other melee roles except zeratul are all not so popular so instead of warrior + melee assassin it's typically double warrior now. I don't think it has anything to do with double specialist which isn't even more popular now. Zagara is popular, Nazeebo and Abathur soso but the rest not so much, before with sylv as standard first pick they were more popular.
Monk, Kerrigan, tassadar and leoric changes might shake things up. Monk/tassadar may be great in duo support setups (again), Kerrigan looks good again and Leoric might not be as fantastic anymore making other setups than double warrior popular perhaps.
One point to add to expand on your ideas: the last few tanks have been very good at wave-clearing (Johanna + Leoric), and I think that also has a lot to do with the 2-3 warrior meta being more viable than in the past.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/blog_header/my/MY19C8IFTLKB1434475563610.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/1h/1HE8GMXUA0XI1434414333620.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/NG985DA0UWLQ1417483334267.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/LTMUKLG8D4FC1417483334394.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/2J7BGIC3KXS41417483334398.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/1P2JN07X4Q121417483335002.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/L1FZEBIMXPLI1417483335075.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/C0A9M41RWSJQ1417483335476.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/3NXNLQWMI4YQ1417483335830.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/3PMD0Y6QQOHO1417483333660.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/MPC0MT16C6I91417483333902.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/ALZFYULQAD0J1417483334906.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/O8ZNMK9MAPYM1417483334973.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/gallery/je/JE4LEZAXC5VM1430419017464.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/XTXII3XK20WS1417483334636.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/XJJMXTLU20DP1417483335816.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/PI2CATL8H1IZ1417483333975.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/AVO3T8MOM0SM1417483334438.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/1JZXW9JSV6ZW1417483334684.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/HM0ECRA7F3U91417483335126.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/L326XNRFITE41417483335724.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/V0TGBEY50T4F1417483333676.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/7z/7ZK2EBJRP1ZG1434674893747.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/ZEOLHHWJ9DIF1417483335223.png)
![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/MUSK7R1KG1O11417483335506.png)
I really like that map. 
Then we'll do QM or HL matches... it's nice to not have completely random allies in HL. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/kwFmoM1.jpg)
