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Active: 33906 users

First Impressions: Li-Ming

Forum Index > Heroes of the Storm
Post a Reply
EsportsJohn
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States4883 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-03-14 03:34:38
February 12 2016 17:45 GMT
#1
Li-Ming

First Impressions


Analysis and Pro Opinions
by EsportsJohn


”It’s a generally agreed upon fact of life among the denizens of Sanctuary that wizards and magical mayhem are never far apart. Although she understands people’s concerns, Li-Ming is entirely unapologetic for the destruction in her wake. She delights in unleashing devastating spells on her foes from afar, then teleporting away to frustrate her enemies’ attempts at striking back. Small minds may fear this kind of power, but Li-Ming wields the arcane forces of the universe with confidence and unmatched skill.”



After an exciting reveal of Li-Ming, the Diablo 3 Wizard, she was perhaps the most highly anticipated Hero release since Artanis. Diablo fans raved about the new Hero and looked forward to seeing quintessential Wizard spells such as Disintegrate, Calamity, and Archon translate over into the Nexus, and excitement rose to a new high in several months. When asked about the Li-Ming’s design, Blizz developer Kent-Erik Hagman mentioned that they were looking for a different kind of mage compared to Jaina or Kael’Thas, so the idea of a super mobile reset mage was appealing and exciting. As always, Blizzard managed to implement a completely new Hero design into their growing Hero roster, and Li-Ming lives up to her iconic Diablo lore and design as a high-octane evasive Assassin. In addition, Blizzard did an excellent job of bringing the character to life; her haughty attitude and colorful personality is highly entertaining and fun :D.

[image loading]
”I am so good, I astound myself!”


Unlike the last few Heroes, Li-Ming came out quite overtuned in the PTR with high range, high burst, and near-broken sieging abilities. After testing her for a week, players were expecting some minor tweaks before release, but alas, she stayed untouched. Another week has passed with her in the live version of the game, and many people would argue that she is grossly overpowered and in need of some nerfs. Nonetheless, most agree that she is unbelievably fun to play and, even with a nerf to her damage or some of her talents, her standalone kit is exciting enough to keep her relevant moving forward. Let’s take a closer look at Li-Ming and find out what she’s all about!




Strengths


  • High burst damage
  • Excellent mobility
  • Long-range poke
  • Snowballs in favorable teamfights
  • Funny quotes and attractive personality



Weaknesses


  • Poor waveclear
  • Low health pool
  • Vulnerable to dives
  • Mana hungry
  • Dependent on bursting Heroes down






Abilities


Trait
  • Critical Mass
    • Getting a Takedown refreshes the cooldown on all of your abilities.

Basic Abilities
  • Magic Missiles (Q)
    • Fire three missiles toward an area, each dealing 152.15 (+3.5% per level) damage to the first enemy hit.

  • Arcane Orb (W)
    • Fire an orb that powers up as it travels, dealing 154.50 (+3% per level) damage to the first enemy hit. The amount of damage dealt is increased the further it travels, up to 463.50 (+3% per level).

  • Teleport (E)
    • Teleport a short distance instantly.

Heroic Abilities
  • Disintegrate (R)
    • Channel a powerful beam, dealing 462 (+5% per level) damage over 2.5 seconds to enemies while they are in it. The direction of the beam changes with your mouse cursor direction.

  • Wave of Force (R)
    • Knock away all enemies from an area and deal 168 (+5% per level) damage.





Li-Ming’s playstyle revolves around poking with her skillshots while remaining an evasive threat that can mop up team fights with ease due to her Trait Critical Mass, which resets the cooldown of all of her abilities. Whenever she gets a takedown, she can keep up the momentum to keep chasing, making her a huge threat if she isn’t taken care of quickly. Against characters like The Lost Vikings or Murky, she has the potential for doing huge damage due to constant resets as long as she doesn’t run out of mana. However, she has a low health pool which makes her susceptible to dives, particularly from melee Assassins.

As a typical mage, her basic attack damage is very low. Nonetheless, she makes up for it with Magic Missiles, a basic ability with decent damage and a short cooldown which allows her to spam it and poke away at her opponents. Since it outranges towers and most other Heroes, Li-Ming can poke away forever with this low mana spell and whittle her opponents down.

Arcane Orb adds another layer to her sieging potential by giving her another long-range spell that does more damage the further it goes. At maximum range, especially with talents like Zei’s Vengeance and Arcane Orbit, it deals devastating damage and can easily knock down forts and towers. Currently, a popular strategy is to use her sieging potential to destroy early towers and wells, but a potential damage nerf in the future may render this strategy less effective. Unfortunately, neither ability does well with waveclear, and blocking minions can serve as a real nuisance to Li-Ming players trying to hit enemy Heroes. The combination of these two things makes her significantly weaker in lane and better suited toward gank squads.

The last tool in her basic kit is a short-range Teleport that allows her to hop around the battlefield and dodge skillshots. Although she is very mobile with her Teleport, she is vulnerable to being flanked or caught out of position because her damaging abilities rely on space and time to kite her opponents.Taking talents like Illusionist and Diamond Skin can significantly boost her survival, but come at the cost of potential damage, especially for builds centered more around her Q or W spells.

Li-Ming’s Heroics are unique in that they both have very low cooldowns (20 seconds on both) and can be used often without “wasting” them. Overall, the two Heroics seem interchangeable depending on the situation. Wave of Force is an AoE ability that deals moderate damage and pushes opponents away from the center, allowing her to manipulate the battlefield. It can be used kind of like Tassadar’s Force Wall to push enemies into your team, to separate Heroes from a group, or to push enemies away for a safe retreat, making it a multi-purpose ability for more of a “control” style. On the other hand, the iconic D3 Wizard spell Disintegrate pumps out a ton of damage and can be used to chase down injured Heroes, especially with the paralyzing 60% slow from the Storm talent upgrade Temporal Flux.




Talents



For the third Hero in a row, Blizzard has shown that they are getting a good grasp on making viable and diverse talent trees. Li-Ming has no generic talents, and many of her talent choices are taken directly from D3 runes and abilities, making her feel like she’s been directly ported over from the Diablo universe. The main talent builds for her focus on buffing one of her three basic abilities with various talents.

The most common build at the moment revolves around buffing Magic Missiles to deal maximum damage. Talents like Seeker and Mirrorball significantly increase the damage and give her a powerful poking tool. Using the inward pull of Ess of Johan, Li-Ming can reliably hit all of her Magic Missiles at once on a target, making this build an unbelievably bursty and dangerous build to play against, especially when Li-Ming opts for Glass Cannon to pump out even more damage. The balance team has identified Ess of Johan as a problem talent that requires some tweaks because of the increased control it gives, but number adjustments could also prevent this combo from becoming too powerful.

Another Li-Ming build centers around her Arcane Orb. Picking up Zei’s Vengeance and Arcane Orbit significantly boosts the damage on her W and allows her to deal siege mercilessly. Glass Cannon and Tal Rasha’s Elements can even be picked up as well for a maximum boost in ability power. Paired with Triumvirate, Li-Ming can dish out tons of damage on a relatively low cooldown and crush her opponents in a drawn-out siege. Sometimes the level 20 talent Archon: Pure Power can be picked up with this build for even stronger sieging opportunities -- (plus, it’s just really really cool!).

The final, and probably most fun build, involves investing into Li-Ming’s Teleport talents for an in-your-face, bursty build. The build centers around the damage from Calamity while relying on talents like Aether Walker and Illusionist to provide utility and extra escapes for her. Grabbing Dominance and Diamond Skin makes Li-Ming surprisingly tanky, especially if she starts to snowball takedowns, and keeps her going to deliver more and more damage.

All in all, there are a ton of great builds for Li-Ming players to choose from depending on the compositions and their playstyle, from a hyper aggressive Teleport style to a patient poke build centered on either Magic Missiles or Arcane Orb, and there are several variations and situational picks that branch off from those too. Her kit is incredibly versatile and lends itself to a high skill cap. Plus, it’s fun! Get out there and make some plays!




Professional Opinions


On Kit, Design and Implementation:



Shad, Professional Player

I really like the design of Li-Ming. She's a very fragile caster that deals a lot of damage and rewards good positioning, quick reactions, and skill.


Roflcopter, Team Blaze

Overall, she has one of the best kits in the game. All of her spells work well together, and the whole is greater than the sum. Her passive is what really sets her apart from other mages, as she does not have to manage cooldowns. Meaning that after a kill, she is still as deadly as before, where Jaina or KT would be at a disadvantage.


Gillyweed, Caster

Li-Ming is super strong and crazy fun to play. She suits my playstyle really well because I'm a really safe player, and I love that I can still top damage charts and not die because of the range of her abilities. Sadly, this likely means she's overpowered and needs some changes. In fact, Dustin Browder already tweeted that they're looking into the Ess of Johan talent because it reduces her skill cap. You can throw out Orb with Magic Missiles and ensure that all of the missiles hit the same target, activating Seeker at 7 and doing a ton of single-target damage with Mirrorball at 16. Plus Disintegrate - that combo is pretty likely to net you a kill, reset your abilities, and rinse and repeat.


Nurok, mYinsanity

Li-Ming’s kit reminds me of Katarina from League. She was a Champion who could just one-shot the whole enemy team within 3 seconds if a fitting scenario showed up. Obviously, it didn't happen that often, especially since League is much slower than Heroes of the Storm. Li-Ming is kind of similar, at least with the obliteration-potential and her passive. Additionally, she is limited by her mana pool, at least if you faceroll your spells constantly for quite a time. The Wizard also has a lot talent diversity, which I enjoy a lot. If you want to poke you go for more W talents, if you want to deal a huge amount of damage within a short timeframe you can go for more Q or E talents.

All in all, I think her kit is really fun, but obviously her numbers are a 'little bit' too strong at the moment. She can just one-shot any squishy with almost one Q spell with a certain level 16 talent.


JHow, Caster

I think in Li-Ming's current form, she is exactly as most people are saying: OP. Early signs show the Level 4 Talent, Ess of Johan, to be pretty amazing to land her Magic Missiles, which was deemed to be more of a skill shot (this was already addressed by Dustin Browder on Twitter for potential tweaks). It's not much of a skillshot with that Level 4 Talent. Her Critical Mass Trait is something of a game changer for fights as well. Even if you go down 1-2 Heroes, you can still easily win a fight so long as Li-Ming can secure at least 1 kill. As I'm looking at this, there is a balance patch coming this week, which I imagine will have some minor tweaks to Li-Ming's ability range, Mana, or her Ess of Johan talent. One, or some combination of those, I think are what the community wants after many discussions I've had from lower to high level players.

Her kit in its entirety is quite powerful, as there are already multiple builds that people are enjoying and performing well with. I think it's a matter of time until someone at the top level goes against the grain and performs well with something other than the current "One Shot" build we've seen as the most popular so far. At level 13, there is a large group that really likes Glass Cannon for the extra damage, but I really feel like Illusionist may allow for an extremely aggressive approach from some players, which can really have Li-Ming make or break a fight. Lots of potential for her kit means the best is yet to come.


Kaelaris, Caster

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I would enjoy her kit and design just as much even if it weren’t for the brutal numbers she is executing right now. And yes, I picked the word “executing” for a reason. After playing a lot of games in Heroes, MOBAs, whatever, when you get given a character with such abilities, you know you’re in for a good time. The spells synergise in the most satisfying way, that even if the numbers get tweaked, I’ll still play her a great deal.

Magic Missiles gives a good sense of flexibility, and as much as there are lots of people out there who are big fans of level 16 Diamond Skin, I’m a lover of Mirrorball. Some people like Calamity (admittedly, I too take it sometimes now depending on the situation) at level 7, but my first pick was Seeker. Yes I like to live “dangerously”, if you can call combo-ing from the back line 1 kilometer away dangerous.

I say I like to live on the more hazardous side, but I prefer Illusionist over Glass Cannon at 13. Extra mobility for me is a big deal when it comes to Heroes, especially when that extra mobility can come before the usual pick on other Heroes, level 20 Bolt of the Storm. Illusionist makes Li-Ming feel almost unkillable even without the other Teleport talents, increasing her mobility as a base, then even further if in peril with the instant CD refresh.

It’s already been mentioned by Dbro himself that Ess of Johan for Arcane Orb is going to be looked at, as it allows the combos from an early stage of a game to be hit a little too easily, reducing her skill cap. Ultimately, I have to agree. With the range at which you can cast and combo the abilities, as well as their very low mana cost overall (which probably should be looked at too), you can just throw the synced up spells every other Magic Missile cooldown and almost guarantee yourself 50-60% of a Support or Assassin’s health.

The two abilities above give her a very powerful level of push early against structures. The enemy team needs to pay close attention to which lane Li-Ming is in, otherwise you will lose your towers rapidly. My early game Li-Ming strategy right now revolves around finding vulnerable locations, exploiting the towers, then rotating to get even more if there is the chance to.

I’ve already mentioned a few of the Teleport talents above which are my choices or some that people feel are popular. A lot of people are particularly fond of the Calamity build, which currently works because her base damage is more than enough to make her viable. Teleport, however, gives Li-Ming a very strong and responsive answer to avoiding threats during teamfights and a brilliant resource to allow her to extend that little bit further when sieging. You’re already out of range of Towers and Forts when pushing them solo, then as long as you’re not being flanked, threats emerging from the same lane are neutralized completely by a Teleport, mount up, run away. The Calamity talent can feel like a pretty strong finisher when heading into a 1v1 situation or dealing with a pest that is trying to jump your back line for you. Be wary though, not the best “finisher” when in a tight teamfight situation. Stay at good distance because even an asthmatic child’s cough will knock you down to death-timer town.

Alright, juicy time. Disintegrate being the first of her Heroic abilities, and as you probably know by now, is the most popular choice by quite a margin. With a 20 second cooldown, I observe a lot of Li-Ming’s actually not popping it as often as they should. Even to clear mercenary camps it definitely has a lot of viability. Outside of that utility though, it’s a great follow up to the Arcane Orb, Magic Missile combo. Then at level 20, Temporal Flux makes this spell godlike. Slowing people for 60% movement speed after landing a first kill with a combo, Teleporting aggressively and capturing another person in the beam for your team to swoop in is extremely strong. Initially when I was playing Li-Ming, I thought Tal Rasha’s Elements would be the clear choice, and while it is strong, Temporal Flux allows for so much more kill potential.

Wave of Force is something that has gone completely unnoticed, for the most part. Sadly the level 10 version of the ability doesn’t provide anywhere near the kill potential of Disintegrate unless you are pinpoint accurate with its cast to knock back players in to your combo. But even then, you risk putting yourself in danger because of the range at which you may cast it. I suppose the level 10 version is more for your own safety than anything. If your patience can hold up though, and you manage to get to level 20, Repulsion is surprisingly strong. Bakery and I were theorising the applications of it, and it can actually blow up high hp targets 95% of the time if you cast it correctly behind a target when combo-ing them. Food for thought.

I don’t really need to detail the power of Critical Mass, her trait. Let’s put it this way; Li-Ming is like a snowball -- more like an avalanche -- if the avalanche were made entirely of rusty needles about to implode in on themselves causing severe damage to anything near them.


KendricSwissh, Caster

Li-Ming's Arcane spells look refreshing - she is definitely the missing link of Blizzard's "Holy Trinity" in terms of magic (Jaina representing Ice, Kael'thas representing Fire). Although she looks a little bit darker and more wicked than in Diablo 3, I find her overall looks very appealing.

Her kit is very skill oriented, which means you have to time and aim her abilities very carefully in order to maximise her potential. However, some of her talents (Ess of Johan in particular) negate that factor. Her trait, Critical Mass, is very interesting and makes for flashy plays and, in my opinion, it will really set apart the really good players from the good players.


KilicK, Resurgence

I really love Li-Ming's kit and design. I like when Heroes of the Mtorm moves towards more low CD based Heroes that can maneuver faster and give you a potential to outplay
other players. Right when I saw that she had a teleport, I knew there would be a lot of potential to use it to evade lots of skillshots and enemy abilities, making it so you need to have a decent amount of game knowledge to be effective with her versus other Heroes.


On Professional Play and Meta Changes:



Shad, Professional Player

I believe this is the kind of Hero where the skill of the player really makes the difference. She will most likely see play everywhere, as she seems probably too strong (wouldn’t be surprising to see a nerf to her soon).


Roflcopter, Team Blaze

I think she will be viable in all metas, especially NA. We tend to value mages very highly. I think she will be a little less valued in Europe since Greymane, a popular Hero for EU, is a decent counter.


Gillyweed, Caster

She hasn't been allowed yet in the Spring Championship qualifiers, but in NA she was allowed in the Enter the Storm qualifier and was banned a lot. The one game I saw her played in, she dealt a lot of damage. We'll see if she receives any balance changes before she's allowed at Regionals; otherwise, I think we could be seeing a similar situation with her there.


Nurok, mYinsanity

Since she's insanely mobile, has a lot of damage potential, and on top of that gets CD resets by killing enemies, she will get picked a lot, but all this depends on her number tweaks obviously, and I'm sure those will come very soon. Her only downside is her waveclear, but this gets compensated by high poke damage on enemy structures in the early game due to long range + low CDs.


JHow, Caster

I think we'll absolutely see her in the meta in probably all regions. I think even if there are balance changes, they still intend to have her as a very strong Hero. There was discussion about having a high skill, high reward Hero, and this was intended to be just that. The potential tweaks I think will keep her powerful and very useful at the high end of competitive gameplay, which should hopefully make for some epic, game-changing moments once she's available for competitive play. The interrupt potential from Ess of Johan right now is extremely useful, and just her sheer damage and resourcefulness puts her at the forefront of the current meta regardless of the lack of a hard stun.


Kaelaris, Caster

All regions, 2nd ban or first pick potential in her current state (writing this on 09/02/16, before the potential balance changes this week). I say 2nd ban because right now in the meta, with only 1 ban each early on, being the first team to ban gives you a huge advantage. A common first ban now can be something like Zagara or Kael’Thas for you to them force your opponents to ban either Rehgar or Li-Ming. In which case, you can pick up the remaining member of the cast to be your MVP.


KendricSwissh, Caster

Absolutely. I'm pretty sure that Koreans, who are known to be mechanically strong players, will love using her. The same can be said about EU and NA. We all know how popular Kael'thas and Jaina have become due to their strong burst damage. Li-Ming fulfills a similar role as the previous two and even brings more mechanical skill to the table, comparable to Heroes like Illidan and Zeratul.

However, in my opinion, some players overestimate Li-Ming's power level, since she does have her weaknesses. She is extremely vulnerable to hard-engaging Warriors and Assassins and Heroes like Chen do not really care too much about her damage. Yet, all in all, I am convinced that she will remain a top priority ban or pick in the upcoming tournaments.


KilicK, Resurgence

I think we'll see a lot of play from Li-Ming. Not only does she have a strong kit, but she does a lot of damage too and can be built various ways. I can't wait to see how the competitive community from all the various regions incorporate and utilize her.


On Map and Composition Viability:



Shad, Professional Player

She excels in compositions where she can't be easily focused down. With good front line and/or Supports, she can really shine. She seems to be a good pick for every map, but I especially like her on maps like Battlefield of Eternity to focus down the objective fast thanks to her amazing DPS, or long objectives like Cursed Hollow tributes where she's able to poke and stall with her long range.


Roflcopter, Team Blaze

As she is so versatile in her kit and talents, you can expect her to be above average on nearly any map. However, I enjoy her the most on maps like Battlefield of Eternity, where I can take advantage of both the poke for immortal phases and abuse the Teleport within the confined quarters. Additionally, the Ess of Johan talent, which groups enemies when they are damaged by her arcane orb, can punish overzealous enemies attacking your immortal by pulling them into immortal stuns.


Gillyweed, Caster

I think we'll see her in compositions with strong front lines that can keep her safe. She's weak versus dive compositions, so good comps that can peel for her will be key. I could see Azmodan comps being great against her as well, since her health pool is so low. She actually provides a ton of siege damage with the long range on Orb and Magic Missiles, so I think she's a solid choice on most maps. Dragon Shire would maybe be more difficult for her since there's a greater likelihood of 1v1s.


Nurok, mYinsanity

It depends on a lot of different factors, but she probably fits in almost any composition. She's basically a better Jaina & Kael'Thas, apart from her waveclear problems, which can be solved partly (by using W on from the side on minion waves, which is not optimal obviously in a lot of cases).


JHow, Caster

There's been a few instances where Li-Ming is able to shoot over barriers and destroy healing wells. Towers of Doom, for example, is an easy poke opportunity for Li Ming, as are other maps. It feels like Li-Ming is capable of performing well on any map, but will probably do even better on maps with tighter choke points to really make her Disintegrate Heroic ability shine. From a competitive standpoint, I feel that she'll be chosen on any map and is likely one of the top Assassins banned or chosen in virtually every game (depending on potential short term tweaks).


Kaelaris, Caster

I don’t feel there are any map restrictions for her currently. Her siege potential is so strong and makes up for any inadequacies in objective control that could be an issue.

With her current threat level, Li-Ming can open up a different combination of Heroes and role choices when she actually gets through the initial ban phase of the draft. We’ve already seen Heroes like Cho’gall actually have play this patch, and I could foresee a dream draft where you take as strong a backline as Li-Ming, with a sturdy tank and then off-tank to supplement, which could come in the role of Cho if their comp doesn’t have a correct counter drafted. Admittedly, there are many, but teams are caring less and less about some of them recently.

There are few threats to Li-Ming going into a game when it comes to straight up team fighting. The main one though is flanks and heavy divers. Vision is very important for her to feel safe in the back line and thus pump out as much damage as physically possible without being interrupted. Choices like Zagara and Tassadar to compliment her, providing her that little extra vision, and in Tassadar's case even stealth detection, are very strong additions as her companions. As for dive protection, this comes back to Warriors helping out, peeling and aiding her survival. A well-coordinated stun from a Muradin for example, then a Teleport away from the target, into blowing that target up for over-extending makes for a tasty treat.

Also, pick Rehgar because the reincarnation of Green Jesus is here, even though Thrall isn’t dead yet in the meta. 2 Jesuses are better than 1!


KendricSwissh, Caster

Li-Ming loves maps like Cursed Hollow, Blackheart's Bay or Battlefield of Eternity on which she can launch her Magic Missiles and Arcane Orbs uncontestedly without worrying about objectives that could intercept her abilities (Skeletal Defenders on Infernal Shrine for example). In terms of compositions, I really think Li-Ming needs strong peel, ideally provided by at least two frontliners like Muradin, Johanna, or Diablo. Furthermore, she works really well with crowd-control abilities, another argument for Warrior-heavy compositions. Just like Kael'thas and Jaina, she can be combined with Basic Attack Assassins like Falstad, Raynor or Valla to make it harder for the enemy team to find countermeasures.

Also, I am pretty sure that we will not see a lot of The Lost Vikings and Murky, who have been picked by some teams every once in awhile, when Li-Ming is available. Her cooldown resets would just be too powerful against these squishy Heroes.


KilicK, Resurgence

Well, in NA usually both mages are picked in the first round of drafting. Li-Ming will bring an interesting dynamic to the draft where one mage might be ignored, allowing her to take the place of a KT or a Jaina and put into standard comps. Especially considering the KT nerfs we just had, I'm interested to see how the scene deals with that. So far, with her damage output, I can see her fitting into front line killing comps very well. She definitely struggles a little bit ignoring what's in front of her due to her forward projectile based abilities, whereas a mage like Jaina or KT can volley over targets in front of them. But you can remedy that with a good flank, as she also does pretty well in 1v1 scenarios. Expect to see her take the place of one of the current mages until teams find more unique ways to play her. Tower cheese anyone?


Final Thoughts:



Shad, Professional Player

Even though I found a set of talents that I enjoy playing the most, she really feels like she has more than one viable build and different talents depending on what kind of composition you are playing against.


Roflcopter, Team Blaze

Ming Lee forever.


Gillyweed, Caster

I love her ability and talent art. It's gorgeous! Blizzard did a great job in building Li-Ming. She has a great personality and a lot of viable talents. Plus, Star Princess skin and mount = insta-win.


Nurok, mYinsanity

I will play her a lot and I'm sure we can expect some crazy Li-Ming plays in the next few weeks, let it be in Quick Matches or in major tournaments. On the other side, I'm looking forward to Xul as well. Melee specialists are always very interesting to play.

I'm still waiting for the Gazlowe talent reworks


JHow, Caster

The general playstyle is for Li-Ming to be a momentary high burst Hero with short cooldowns, but also vulnerable to die very quickly as well. I feel with Li-Ming in competition that she will undoubtedly be the ultimate X factor for a lot of games. If she goes down first, then you're likely in trouble. I don't think we'll see her without a double Warrior/Tank composition to allow for a protective barrier between her and potential incoming damage or dives. When played this way, it’s going to put a lot of eggs in Li-Ming's basket to carry the team for damage. At the same time, she can easily break the enemy team in a moment's notice. Expect some exciting plays from Li-Ming compositions for either team when, or if, she's in competitive games.


Kaelaris, Caster

It probably goes without saying that Li-Ming requires a few changes here and there. Ess of Johan, as we already pointed out, is one that will take a blow. Mana cost might be increased a small pinch, damage numbers slightly decreased. Maybe a slight increase on the cooldown of her Heroics so they can’t be used so flippantly outside of a team fight, because there it doesn’t matter about the CD unless we end up in a very sustain-heavy meta.


KendricSwissh, Caster

I cannot stress enough how much I like Blizzard's latest Hero releases. Artanis has always been a personal favorite of mine, I simply love his mechanics and late game strength. Lunara, despite having some issues at release, is now a wonderful Hero with strong mobility and flexible talent builds. Greymane is tons of fun, he combines incredible burst damage with solid wave clear, which have made him a quite popular pick in many competitive games. Each of these Heroes is very enjoyable to both watch and play, and Li-Ming seamlessly fits into that category as well. She is fast, beautiful and requires quick reflexes in order to shine on the battlefield. That is exactly what I, as a Heroes of the Storm caster and viewer, like to see.


KilicK, Resurgence

I'm pretty happy with how Li-Ming feels and plays, setting aside all of her damage numbers and kit. I think one of the biggest things for me when it comes to Heroes is how a Hero feels. I'm talking about the little things like their animations and effects to the sound effects used when you use an ability. I'm happy that she feels "powerful" and I'm hoping Blizzard continues on that trend, as even now, certain Heroes like Rexxar feel bland and boring even if they toned their numbers up. Simply throwing a "hawk" or having your bear charge forward doesn't feel as meaty and awesome as a Hero like Rexxar deserves.





So what do you think about Li-Ming? Do you agree with what the pros have to say? Let us know!

We would like to thank Shad, Roflcopter, Gillyweed, Nurok, JHow, Kaelaris, KendricSwissh, and KilicK for taking the time to share their thoughts and insights on Li-Ming with us for this article!

Writer: EsportsJohn
Interviews: Vaalia, EsportsJohn
Graphics & Format: Vaalia, Valiver
Editor(s): Vaalia
Art Credit: Blizzard



StrategyAllyssa Grey <3<3
hariooo
Profile Joined October 2013
Canada2830 Posts
February 12 2016 19:49 GMT
#2
15k gold/$10 well spent if you didn't pay for this hero you're simply at a disadvantage.
karazax
Profile Joined May 2010
United States3737 Posts
February 12 2016 19:58 GMT
#3
Prior to the needed Ess of Johan nerf, most of her weaknesses are able to be fairly easily mitigated.
  • Poor wave clear can be improved to pretty good wave clear. Mid to late game, you can stand on the wizard mob, cast orb with Ess of Johan which sucks the whole wave in, then calamity teleport on the grouped up mass and wave is gone. One early game orb hit will make a lot of the opponents go from full health to below 50%, and they can't retreat behind or below towers to stay safe because she will just start taking them down from out of range. She can hide in bushes or behind terrain and make it much more difficult to dodge the orbs. Even without Calamity you can kill the left or right side footman, then shoot the orb on the wizard and clean the wave pretty quickly. When I think poor wave clear, I think Nova or Lt Morales, and Ming is no where close to that.
  • Low health pool can be partially mitigated with Diamond Skin, especially with Illusionist, and the bug that allows her to teleport to dodge targeted abilities.
  • Vulnerable to dives, but diving is very dangerous as the diver will have a hard time dodging her full combo from close range and if she has any team mates around there is a good chance the diver will die before she will. Could take Wave of Force to help knock back divers if needed, along with Diamond Skin and Illusionist for better survival.
  • Mana hungry with cheap spells. The only real risk of running out of mana to the point of needing to go back is if you get one or more kill resets and did full ability rotations several times in a row. Otherwise you can spam orb with magic missles regularly and rarely worry about going back if you picked Astral Presence at level 1.
  • Dependent on bursting Heroes down, but you can contribute major damage just poking, and as noted you can spam that major damage and exceptionally long range poke from very safe locations for extended periods of time without running out of mana.

MotherFox
Profile Blog Joined March 2013
United States1529 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-02-12 20:10:54
February 12 2016 20:09 GMT
#4
After having played li-ming for a week now, I feel that she is a very punishing hero. Typically the label "punishing hero" is given to a hero who is difficult to play, but in this case I think she is difficult to play against for people who have not played as her. Frequently when I find myself in games where we are losing somehow, it only takes 1 bad engage/enemy out of position, and if I can blow them up then the rest of the team will follow because of her chain reaction CD reduction.

When playing against her, however, I rarely fear her. While she has her orb or disintegrate up you need to walk gingerly around combat, being prepared to disengage if she tries to do her combo. But once you see that orb go off, you have 10 seconds of freedom. If disintegrate goes off, it's a very similar story. The only hangup is if you see them go off AND you have a teammate who is low: then you still have to proceed carefully or just disengage. A single ally dying is all it takes for everyone to die.

I've said so elsewhere, but having squishies with built-in abilities to dodge the orb is pretty powerful against her in the early game. (falstad, Valla?) It doesn't take much skill to dodge an orb if you are waiting for it. In this way fighting against her is somewhat similar to jaina--- it's all about the timing of when to approach her. Go in against a jaina with all her CDs available and you are in trouble. But once you see her pop blizzard, you kind of have a blank check for diving since she is borderline useless for a few moments.

All that being said, I wouldn't mind ess of johan being sent to level 13+ or astral presence being removed from the game. I think astral presence is the bigger deal, since it removes mana management from her playstyle, which IMO should be something any mage character has to deal with.
Don't Panic
boxerfred
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
Germany8360 Posts
February 12 2016 23:56 GMT
#5
Casual me not buying this since it's a selling strategy to release op heroes. Having fun with having her on my team and against me nevertheless, so many Limings overcommit vs Thrall or something.
Ej_
Profile Blog Joined January 2013
47656 Posts
February 13 2016 00:29 GMT
#6
-super good poke (with talentable CC)
-strong burst
-resets on kills
-blink in base kit


surely not the best hero in the game atm
"Technically the dictionary has zero authority on the meaning or words" - Rodya
EsportsJohn
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States4883 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-02-13 21:52:41
February 13 2016 00:48 GMT
#7
So....apparently people really want me to overtly state that Li-Ming is OP:

Li-Ming is OP as fuck.

I don't think anyone can deny that she has some serious serious problems with her numbers right now. The other night, I calculated that, with the standard Glass Cannon/Mirrorball build, she does around 3900 damage with a single QWR combo at 20, up to around 4500 with Tal Rasha's. I don't have the exact number, but I'm pretty sure that's a one-shot for around 1/3 of the Heroes in the game. These sort of numbers are ALMOST reasonable for a once-in-a-blue-moon type of chance where all five Magic Missiles from Mirrorball hit and the extra damage from Charged Blast is proc'd and someone is locked down for long enough to take full damage from Disintegrate. However, this is not the case because Ess of Johan ensures that all the Magic Missiles will hit, and the 60% slow on Disintegrate at level 20 makes it easy to let someone sit through an entire beam. On top of all this, she can do this combo 5 times over with 0 down time and wipe a team. It's straight up broken.

But it's not just that one build, everything about her damage is tuned way too high for it to even matter what talents she takes. ON TOP OF THAT, she can poke with insane damage for pretty much forever without running out of mana due to Astral Presence. Even if she were weak to dives (but she's not because her poke range is so godly that she can only get dove if she gets flanked really hard and isn't paying attention), her short Teleport cooldown combined with Diamond Skin actually makes her pretty invulnerable. Playing against a good Li-Ming is a nightmare.

Oh yeah, and tower sieging -_-.
StrategyAllyssa Grey <3<3
Ghostcom
Profile Joined March 2010
Denmark4782 Posts
February 13 2016 01:13 GMT
#8
I think it was a good article - I really enjoy these articles with each new hero. I think we have by now fairly well established that her range and damage combined is ridiculous.
karazax
Profile Joined May 2010
United States3737 Posts
February 13 2016 05:02 GMT
#9
I like the article as well, I just thought the weaknesses part was in line with Blizzard's stated design intentions, but not with reality.
Aceace
Profile Joined June 2011
Turkey1305 Posts
February 13 2016 15:07 GMT
#10
On February 13 2016 09:48 SC2John wrote:
But seriously, I don't think you want to read an article bitching about numbers that will be changed next week.


Just 1 question...
Do you really believe numbers will change next week? If the numbers stay same, this article will even more disaster. (I am a journalist. If i write an article with a lot of incomplete information, my executive editor would fire me

Btw, I think they will move EoJ to 16 and take one of 16 talents to 4 slot (with some rework) Thats all.

I don't know about you but i feel disgusted about Li Ming atm. Every single game has 1 Ming Lee. So you can not pick, Hammer, TLV, Murky, and most of range AA assasins. Also adding a Li Ming's "weaknesses" part doesn't feel right. None of her "weaknesses" are real. Its quite opposite. I mean... How many times you needed more mana? 1? 2?? As karazax mentioned before, its completely misinforming.

From my perspective this article is just defending Blizzard for extremely poor balancing (by showing its design philosophies). I don't believe Blizz keeping her "op" status to urn reel money. I just believe HotS development team is really small atm. Even though Browder said 240+ people working on game, HotS have a lot of serious problems. But its completely different topic.

I belive they don't have enough dedicated game designers and/or balance team for HotS atm. Thats all.
Dün dündür, bugün bugündür. (Yesterday was yesterday, today is today)
karazax
Profile Joined May 2010
United States3737 Posts
February 13 2016 16:38 GMT
#11
I think they may remove or reword Ess completely, as it just doesn't fit with a hero who is supposed to be highly skill dependent. Do that, tweak the damage numbers some, rework astral presence and fix the bug where her teleport breaks targeted abilities and she should be still tier one, but not tier S. Or they over nerf her, and change her from best in game to out of the meta.
Goolpsy
Profile Joined November 2010
Denmark301 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-02-13 17:10:03
February 13 2016 16:59 GMT
#12
Funny how Bolt of the Storm (lvl 20 Talent) is must pick for most heroes and balanced with a 60 seconds cooldown.

And someone decided it was good to add that as a basic ability with 6 (?) seconds cooldown. I mean really?

Looking at other MOBAs like dota; it is what makes Anti-Mage and QoP so strong and snowball'y. Even blink Dagger made overly expensive because of how strong the ability to teleport around is AND it is balanced around not being able to jump once you take damage.

Looks like the one designing Li-Ming has foregone everything learned since MOBAs were born :O


That Aside; I'd really like for her teleport to be either:
A) Longer cooldown
or
B) Same cooldown given she hasn't taken damage

Think about B for a second; It means she can still easily jump in and punish someone, or use it to position herself on the battlefield for optimal skillshots - but NOT blink twice, use Z and run away safely from ANY duo ganks..


karazax
Profile Joined May 2010
United States3737 Posts
February 13 2016 17:40 GMT
#13
Zagara does work pretty well against her, relative to the other options. Lots of creeps to absorb her orbs and generally a strong hero anyway.
Ansinjunger
Profile Joined November 2010
United States2451 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-02-13 18:48:24
February 13 2016 18:48 GMT
#14
On February 14 2016 00:07 Aceace wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 13 2016 09:48 SC2John wrote:
But seriously, I don't think you want to read an article bitching about numbers that will be changed next week.


Just 1 question...
Do you really believe numbers will change next week? If the numbers stay same, this article will even more disaster. (I am a journalist. If i write an article with a lot of incomplete information, my executive editor would fire me

Btw, I think they will move EoJ to 16 and take one of 16 talents to 4 slot (with some rework) Thats all.

I don't know about you but i feel disgusted about Li Ming atm. Every single game has 1 Ming Lee. So you can not pick, Hammer, TLV, Murky, and most of range AA assasins. Also adding a Li Ming's "weaknesses" part doesn't feel right. None of her "weaknesses" are real. Its quite opposite. I mean... How many times you needed more mana? 1? 2?? As karazax mentioned before, its completely misinforming.

From my perspective this article is just defending Blizzard for extremely poor balancing (by showing its design philosophies). I don't believe Blizz keeping her "op" status to urn reel money. I just believe HotS development team is really small atm. Even though Browder said 240+ people working on game, HotS have a lot of serious problems. But its completely different topic.

I belive they don't have enough dedicated game designers and/or balance team for HotS atm. Thats all.


That phrase may also be a figure of speech, like it could happen next week.

On a side note Jaina's ice barrier should last longer (been getting it with ice lance build)
EsportsJohn
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States4883 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-02-13 22:10:49
February 13 2016 21:52 GMT
#15
On February 14 2016 00:07 Aceace wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 13 2016 09:48 SC2John wrote:
But seriously, I don't think you want to read an article bitching about numbers that will be changed next week.


Just 1 question...
Do you really believe numbers will change next week? If the numbers stay same, this article will even more disaster. (I am a journalist. If i write an article with a lot of incomplete information, my executive editor would fire me

Btw, I think they will move EoJ to 16 and take one of 16 talents to 4 slot (with some rework) Thats all.

I don't know about you but i feel disgusted about Li Ming atm. Every single game has 1 Ming Lee. So you can not pick, Hammer, TLV, Murky, and most of range AA assasins. Also adding a Li Ming's "weaknesses" part doesn't feel right. None of her "weaknesses" are real. Its quite opposite. I mean... How many times you needed more mana? 1? 2?? As karazax mentioned before, its completely misinforming.

From my perspective this article is just defending Blizzard for extremely poor balancing (by showing its design philosophies). I don't believe Blizz keeping her "op" status to urn reel money. I just believe HotS development team is really small atm. Even though Browder said 240+ people working on game, HotS have a lot of serious problems. But its completely different topic.

I belive they don't have enough dedicated game designers and/or balance team for HotS atm. Thats all.


This is a first impression ^^.

First of all, I don't want to sound smug, but this is NOT a journalistic piece, it's an editorial; it's a first impression. A lot of people seem to be affronted by the fact that I focused more on the design of the character rather than the ludicrous numbers Blizzard applied to her, and that's okay, that's their impression of her. Nonetheless, what I put in the article is how I actually see the Hero. I'm not making stuff up, these are my actual thoughts on her design, and I can make a solid argument for any of the points I put down.

The design of the Hero is actually pretty good and she has a lot of good talents, imo. There should be no surprise that when you make a Katarina-esque character, there are going to be some issues with balance that are going to require some fine-tuning. Right now, she's pants on head ridiculous with her damage numbers, but:

  • Her talent tree is diverse and interesting. She's one of the few Heroes in the game that has 3 distinct build paths that all play very differently from one another.
  • She has some clearly exploitable weaknesses. Sometimes they are mitigated by the extreme numbers she's been given, but there are definitely some perceived weaknesses.
  • She obviously can get her mana drained pretty quickly spamming spells, though this is less of a problem with Astral Presence (because the numbers don't match; either her mana costs are too low overall or 100% mana regen is too high).
  • She has good waveclear right now because she can spam spells that do inordinate amounts of damage without any mana issues, but her design does not emphasize waveclear; when more reasonable numbers are introduced, I think we'll see that her waveclear is pretty poor compared to Heroes like Kael'Thas, Jaina, Sylvanas, Leoric, Johanna, Greymane, Tassadar, Valla, or Sonya.
  • She is weak to dives. The nature of her Arcane Orb and Magic Missiles makes them much weaker at melee range. Added to a relatively low health pool, this makes her a prime target for Heroes like Illidan, Greymane, Zeratul, and Sonya. This is mitigated by the fact that she still trades evenly or better at the weakest point of her spells because her numbers are overtuned.
  • She does significantly less damage when she doesn't get her resets. This really shouldn't even be up for debate. Her Trait is a defining characteristic that allows her to keep pumping out damage. If she doesn't get kills, she does less damage. When numbers are tuned to a reasonable level, getting these resets is going to be a big deal.


If you look at her core design, these are all true facts. They are skewed by obviously overtuned numbers. I mean it when I say that I expect them to get changed next week. It's surprising they haven't already, but they are obviously gathering more statistics. Only moving Ess of Johan to a different tier or removing it will not make her balanced. She needs a straight up nerf on her numbers across the board.

Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate that you read it and took the time to respond, but I do take it very seriously when someone questions my integrity.
StrategyAllyssa Grey <3<3
RouaF
Profile Joined October 2010
France4120 Posts
February 15 2016 10:09 GMT
#16
No need to get angry, it's not our fault if li ming is op as fuck and costs 15k gold . Hopefully blizzard doesn't wait too long to hammer her... or well at least she will go down to 10k soon :-/.

As for balance in general, it's a bit disappointing that when KT, Tyrande, Diablo and Thrall are finally toned down they had to introduce broken rehgar and li-ming to f*** things up again... Heroleague is honestly a mess without bans.
Leolio
Profile Joined April 2012
France633 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-02-15 13:20:41
February 15 2016 13:19 GMT
#17
SC2John wrote:
Li-Ming
First Impressions

Li-Ming is OP as fuck.


I edited your article into a shorter version. :-D

Joking aside it was a goor read. And most of these points will become 100% accurate when she'll be nerfed. She reminds me of Sylvanas when she was released, she was a DPS + Siege machine. I like where she is now.
I think Ming will have to lose DPS or Sieging or Survivability, probably on this week's patch.
Thezzy
Profile Joined October 2010
Netherlands2117 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-02-15 14:29:01
February 15 2016 14:28 GMT
#18
I think if they reduce the raw damage numbers and maybe add a 50% reduction to damage vs structures on Magic Missile that she'd be pretty close to just right. Keep in mind that I'm expecting pros and players alike to learn to deal with dodging her Magic Missiles which won't be that hard once Ess of Johan gets tuned. You would need another hero to set things up which would be fine by me and you still wouldn't get the insta-gib you get now.

The only thing I don't want to see changed on her is the range. Actually having a hero with a strong poke at range with a low mana cost and cooldown is something relatively new to Heroes (in comparison to say flame strikes) and I like it. It meshes well with the short range on her Teleport. I think if the range got reduced she would just get pounced, teleport once, still get re-engaged upon and then get squished. Without Ess of Johan she has 0 crowd control other than the lvl 20 flux talent.
Playing Terran is like flying down a MULE drop in a marine suit, firing a Gauss Rifle
EsportsJohn
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States4883 Posts
February 15 2016 18:55 GMT
#19
On February 15 2016 23:28 Thezzy wrote:
I think if they reduce the raw damage numbers and maybe add a 50% reduction to damage vs structures on Magic Missile that she'd be pretty close to just right. Keep in mind that I'm expecting pros and players alike to learn to deal with dodging her Magic Missiles which won't be that hard once Ess of Johan gets tuned. You would need another hero to set things up which would be fine by me and you still wouldn't get the insta-gib you get now.

The only thing I don't want to see changed on her is the range. Actually having a hero with a strong poke at range with a low mana cost and cooldown is something relatively new to Heroes (in comparison to say flame strikes) and I like it. It meshes well with the short range on her Teleport. I think if the range got reduced she would just get pounced, teleport once, still get re-engaged upon and then get squished. Without Ess of Johan she has 0 crowd control other than the lvl 20 flux talent.


And that other Ult she has that displaces people. Yeah, the one only BKs take :p.
StrategyAllyssa Grey <3<3
Thezzy
Profile Joined October 2010
Netherlands2117 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-02-15 19:10:07
February 15 2016 19:09 GMT
#20
On February 16 2016 03:55 SC2John wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 15 2016 23:28 Thezzy wrote:
I think if they reduce the raw damage numbers and maybe add a 50% reduction to damage vs structures on Magic Missile that she'd be pretty close to just right. Keep in mind that I'm expecting pros and players alike to learn to deal with dodging her Magic Missiles which won't be that hard once Ess of Johan gets tuned. You would need another hero to set things up which would be fine by me and you still wouldn't get the insta-gib you get now.

The only thing I don't want to see changed on her is the range. Actually having a hero with a strong poke at range with a low mana cost and cooldown is something relatively new to Heroes (in comparison to say flame strikes) and I like it. It meshes well with the short range on her Teleport. I think if the range got reduced she would just get pounced, teleport once, still get re-engaged upon and then get squished. Without Ess of Johan she has 0 crowd control other than the lvl 20 flux talent.


And that other Ult she has that displaces people. Yeah, the one only BKs take :p.


I find Wave of Force a bit of an odd duck because it ungroups Heroes rather than groups them, which often is not what you want. It can separate Heroes from their tank/support, but I doubt you'll find the teamwork needed to really take advantage of that outside Team League or pro matches. It is solid to counter channels like Nazeebo's and I have no doubt it brings utility to the table (how long till we see a boss cap steal with it?) but you'd need a certain composition to really take advantage of it.
And Li-Ming has to sacrifice Disintegrate to get it. Does give her more escape/control at the cost of targetted AoE damage.
Playing Terran is like flying down a MULE drop in a marine suit, firing a Gauss Rifle
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