Summary of all the info released so far on the next hero, probably coming to the PTR on Monday with the Brawl patch, and then for live release on Oct 18th. Samuro Hero page is up now
Samuro, the last remaining blademaster to wear the banner of the Burning Blade, is on a warrior's pilgrimage in search of vengeance and redemption for his fallen clan. It will be a long journey, but he has sworn an oath to restore his clan's honor.
Assassin
Primary Abilities
Mirror Image Create 2 Mirror Images that deal 30% of your damage and have 50% of your current Health. Images last up to 18 seconds, and only two can be active at any one time.
Critical Strike Your next Basic Attack within 10 seconds will be a Critical Strike, dealing 50% increased damage. This also applies to Images, and does not break Wind Walk. Passive: You and your Images deal a Critical Strike on every 4th Basic Attack.
Wind Walk Enter Stealth for up to 8 seconds or until you attack, use an Ability, or take damage. While Stealthed, your Movement Speed is increased by 25% and you can pass through other units. Damage taken within the first 1 second will not break Wind Walk.
Hero Trait: Advancing Strike- Basic attacks against enemy heroes increase your Movement Speed by 25% for 2 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
Bladestorm Become an Unstoppable whirlwind of death, dealing 285 damage per second to nearby enemies for 4 seconds.
Illusion Master Switch places with the target Mirror Image. Passive: You can control Mirror Images separately or as a group, and they deal an additional 15% of your damage.
Way of the Blade [W] Critical Strike now happens every 3rd Basic Attack and deals an additional 25% of your Basic Attack damage.
Way of Illusion [Q] Quest: Every time one of your Images Critically Strikes an hero, gain 0.5 Attack Damage, up to 20. Reward: After hitting 40 Heroes, gain an additional 20 Attack Damage.
Way of the Wind [E] Quest: Attacking a Hero from Wind Walk increases the movement speed bonus of Wind Walk by 1.25%, up to 25%. Reward: After hitting 20 Heroes, the duration before Wind Walk can be broken by damage is increased to 2.5 seconds.
Level 4
Deflection While Advancing Strikes is active, you take 25% reduced damage from Hero Basic Attacks.
Mirage [Q] Mirror Image grants you and your Images 2 charges of Spell Block, reducing the damage of the next enemy Ability against you by 50%. Can hold up to 2 charges.
One with the Wind [E] While Stealthed by Wind Walk, you take 60% reduced damage from all sources.
Level 7
Crushing Blows [W] Critical Strike now has two charges, and Critical Strikes deal an additional 25% of your Basic Attack damage.
Burning Blade [W] Critical Strikes unleash a burst of flame, dealing an additional 65% of your Basic Attack damage to the target and nearby enemies.
Phantom Pain [W] Critical Strikes deal an additional 40% of your Basic Attack damage for each Image you have active.
Level 10
Bladestorm Become an Unstoppable whirlwind of death, dealing 260 damage per second to nearby enemies for 4 seconds.
Illusion Master Switch places with the target Mirror Image. Passive: You can control Mirror Images separately or as a group, and they deal an additional 20% of your damage.
Level 13
Mirrored Steel [Q] Basic Attacks against Heroes reduce the cooldown of Mirror Image by 1 second.
Kawarimi [E] Wind Walk creates an Image at your location that will continue whatever you were doing
Shukuchi [E] Wind Walk teleports Samuro a short distance in the direction he's currently facing.
Level 16
Press the Attack While Advancing Strikes is active, Basic Attacks increases your attack speed by 15%, up to 60%.
Harsh Winds [E] Attacking a Hero from Wind Walk causes them to take 30% increased damage from you and your Images for 3 seconds.
Merciless Strikes [W] Basic Attacks against Slowed, Rooted, or Stunned targets are always Critical Strikes.
Level 20
Dance of Death Your Images use Bladestorm when you do.
Three Blade Style Your Images gain an additional 50% of your Health, and last up to 32 seconds.
Blademaster's Pursuit Advancing Strikes grants an additional 15% bonus Movement Speed, and its duration is increased by 2 seconds.
Wind Strider [E] Wind Walk's cooldown is reduced by 6 seconds.
On October 07 2016 06:42 Fanatic-Templar wrote: It's amusing to me that Orcs have three Assassins, one Support and zero Warriors, given how I usually imagine Orcs.
Technically they have 1/4th of a Warrior considering Rexxar is half orc, and Rexxar is only half of a hero.
Cool that mirror image in that clip with illusion master is channeling objective, (real Samuro is in the bush at the start, then switches places at the end)
New Xul skin doesn't look like standard skin but it also doesn't look like anything else so even without the minimap everyone will know who that guy in front of them is.
Butcher's fel green furnace blast (not sure if normal skin but a different color, of course) confused me at first. I get many of the archers mixed up sometimes--some of the Tyrande/Valla/Sylvanas skins. Valla's new skin is very Miss Fortune, cleavage and all. It appears the unstoppable description for Bladestorm is also literally describing the ability, as Jaina's slow has no effect.
On October 07 2016 06:42 Fanatic-Templar wrote: It's amusing to me that Orcs have three Assassins, one Support and zero Warriors, given how I usually imagine Orcs.
Technically they have 1/4th of a Warrior considering Rexxar is half orc, and Rexxar is only half of a hero.
On October 09 2016 02:22 ETisME wrote: The new skins look quite unrecognizable, especially xul
I'm worried about that too, especially because there has already been confusion in drafts and matches between certain skins/ faces.
I regularly confuse Greymane and Uther's portraits. I almost drafted a Tassadar into an Uther once by mistake .
Thank god I'm not the only one. Unfortunately, however, I once did not "almost" draft a supporter into an Uther, but I really did.
Why can't they just show the standard skins during the draft? Ingame skins can be confusing, because you'll most likely still see which hero it is, but during the draft? Especially since it is completely useless to have the skins in the draft; or at least I see no reason.
On October 07 2016 06:42 Fanatic-Templar wrote: It's amusing to me that Orcs have three Assassins, one Support and zero Warriors, given how I usually imagine Orcs.
Technically they have 1/4th of a Warrior considering Rexxar is half orc, and Rexxar is only half of a hero.
Rexxar is 75% of a hero. The rest is far beyond my maths skill, do what you like with this information. ^^
About draft confusion, we almost drafted no warrior into our Falstad (who looked like Muradin to us). Happened 2 times. Diablo 's Apocalypse with angelic skin is blue, so "hey a friendly blue zone on the ground, let's step there" is very confusing too. Angelic Valla + Tyrael + Auriel = who the fuck did I just saw ?
I really like sexy cowgirl Valla. I might sound dumb but I like sexy skins. :-) Too bad I don't play her.
I've got to say that Blizzard is betting much better at making more interesting heroes with higher skill caps. The skins also look great imo (even KT's). And for those of you getting heroes confused, all you have to do is read. The name is there.
On October 09 2016 02:22 ETisME wrote: The new skins look quite unrecognizable, especially xul
I'm worried about that too, especially because there has already been confusion in drafts and matches between certain skins/ faces.
I regularly confuse Greymane and Uther's portraits. I almost drafted a Tassadar into an Uther once by mistake .
Thank god I'm not the only one. Unfortunately, however, I once did not "almost" draft a supporter into an Uther, but I really did.
Why can't they just show the standard skins during the draft? Ingame skins can be confusing, because you'll most likely still see which hero it is, but during the draft? Especially since it is completely useless to have the skins in the draft; or at least I see no reason.
Not even trying to be mean, but why can't you just read the heroes name if you're not sure? At least when the portrait appears next to the name in the lobby you get used to identifying that particular hero skin so you're not deceived in game.
On October 15 2016 06:20 ClanRH.TV wrote: I've got to say that Blizzard is betting much better at making more interesting heroes with higher skill caps. The skins also look great imo (even KT's). And for those of you getting heroes confused, all you have to do is read. The name is there.
Unless they've changed something, pre-picked heroes don't have their real names appear until they're actually selected afaik.
On October 15 2016 06:20 ClanRH.TV wrote: I've got to say that Blizzard is betting much better at making more interesting heroes with higher skill caps. The skins also look great imo (even KT's). And for those of you getting heroes confused, all you have to do is read. The name is there.
Unless they've changed something, pre-picked heroes don't have their real names appear until they're actually selected afaik.
P sure they do. I remember mousing over to see 'Tempest Regalia Jaina' the other day.
On October 15 2016 06:20 ClanRH.TV wrote: I've got to say that Blizzard is betting much better at making more interesting heroes with higher skill caps. The skins also look great imo (even KT's). And for those of you getting heroes confused, all you have to do is read. The name is there.
Unless they've changed something, pre-picked heroes don't have their real names appear until they're actually selected afaik.
P sure they do. I remember mousing over to see 'Tempest Regalia Jaina' the other day.
I think that I haven't lost a game against Vikings with new Butcher yet. You gain meat so fast if you keep rotating and gaining pick offs from Vikings, or you can even just pressure one lane and call for 1 mate to help you kill the Viking. Literally every game against Rexxar and Vikings I keep finishing my quest like 2 minutes earlier. Rexxar always gives you 10 meat stacks unless Misha is already dead.
And then since you usually get Abattoir, after you finish the quest early you snowball out of control with at least 80-100 damage just from Abattoir. You keep deleting everything.
Here is a discussion on counters for Samuro to consider for his launch today posted on Reddit by RYTEDR Overview of some of the tips
Illusions are revealed with any ability or talent that reveals. (I.E. Tassadar's Oracle, Malfurion's Moonfire, Medivh's Dust of Appearance, Tracer's Tracer Rounds, Lunara's Natural Perspective, Brightwing's Peekaboo!, Gall's Eye of Kilrogg, Greymane's Scented Tincture, Rexxar's Flare and Unleash the Boars, any Clairvoyance-esque ability, Scouting Drone, etc.)
Almost 100% reliance on auto-attack damage makes blind very strong against him. Likewise Imposing Presence and abilities that slow attack speed like Muradin and Arthas have.
Most effects, mainly DOT damage or Abilities like Living Bomb, are self-cleansed on Samuro when he casts Mirror Image. Some effects, remain on Samuro even when he splits, revealing who the real Samuro is. Of all the categories, this list may be the most incomplete, as testing each Ability interaction is very time consuming. Effects that persist on Samuro through Mirror Image:
Chromie - Temporal Loop
Falstad - Lightning Rod
Johanna - Sins Exposed
Greymane - Marked for the Kill
Leoric - Drain Hope
Tassadar - Static Charge (not viable)
Xul - Bone Prison
Zagara - Hunter Killer (Hydralisks will continue to fixate on the real Samuro after he uses Mirror Image)
Zeratul - Vorpal Blade
In general single target non-dot's seem to stick to the real Samuro. Need to test Kael'thas Pyroblast for example.
Block and evasion talents can be strong against Samuro as he has no poke abilities, just auto-attacks.
Illusions count as "heroes" for talents that gain stacks every time you hit a hero. Medivh, Kael'thas, Chromie, and Gul'dan for example.
In game tips vs Samuro
Samuro is a poor gank target with multiple escapes. Play defensively when facing against him and wait for him to make a mistake or dive in. He has to dive in to do any damage, so wait until he commits and then counter his Illusions and focus him down.
Stay close to your towers and keep them alive if you can, as they are extra valuable against Samuro. Samuro risks a lot with tower diving, so if he tower-dives you, try to blow up any enemy minions in range of your towers so they will focus on him and his Illusions. Illusions die from one shot from structures.
The jungle areas between lanes are where Samuro is strongest, as his Illusions will have a clear target to focus pre-Illusion Master and escaping Samuro is very difficult once he's on you. Try to stay in lane or travel with at least one teammate when rotating to reduce his ganking potential.
Bladestorm makes Samuro Unstoppable but he is still very easily blown up by damage, and Samuro using Bladestorm immediately reveals the real Samuro pre-20 so feel free to focus all you can on taking him out or forcing a retreat.
Do not feel discouraged about Samuro never dying. A skilled Samuro player with Illusion Master has so many escapes and ways to disengage that he may very well never die. This doesn't matter, as Samuro only affects the teamfight with his DPS, and if he's being forced out of a fight, that means he is not contributing and your team has the advantage. If you blow up his Illusions and force him to disengage every fight, then he is a non-factor.
AOE is your friend. Use it to quickly clear his Illusions and zone him out.
Falstad should try to mark Samuro with his Lightning Rod, as the effect will persist through Samuro's Mirror Image and continue zapping the real Samuro. Remember to do this safely, however. Xul's Bone Prison is also very effective at forcing Samuro's hand, as Mirror Image will not cancel the delayed effect.
You do not have to kill Samuro to force him out of a fight. The more damaged Samuro becomes, the worse his Illusions will be able to tank damage for him, so in longer sustained fights Samuro loses more and more opportunities to engage. Samuro thrives in high-speed, momentum-based teamfights that end quickly and decisively. Poking him down and whittling at his HP means that he will never be able to reliably dive as his Illusions will be too weak to be of any use to him.
Pre-Illusion Master, Samuro's Illusions will often move in similiar directions as one another, so try to be aware of this and focus the Samuro who is performing the most unique action.
Have at least 1 Hero on your team with some way to Reveal, and use it as soon as Samuro pops Mirror Image so you can see the real Samuro. This either forces him to back off or catches him out of position to get quickly focused down.
Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes — October 18, 2016
We just released a new patch for Heroes of the Storm, which brings a new game mode, a new hero, UI improvements, and more to the Nexus! Check out today’s patch notes below.
NOTE: Red text indicates an addition that was made between the Public Test Realm and final versions of the patch notes.
50% XP Bonus! The Nexus will be haunted by a 50% XP bonus from October 25 until Hallow’s End concludes during the week of November 8!
Hallow’s End Event Quest Quest: Play 15 games during Hallow’s End in any mode except Custom Games, Training, or Heroes Brawl. Reward: Deputy Valla Portrait
New Game Mode: Heroes Brawl
Heroes Brawl is an action-packed new game mode that breaks all the rules and offers a fresh take on Heroes of the Storm's gameplay each week. Learn more by visiting the Heroes Brawl website.
Heroes Brawl offers three distinct match types, with endless possibilities for twisted rulesets and wild mechanics each week:
Arenas: Pick one of three randomly selected Heroes, and then duke it out against the enemy team to complete objectives. The first team to complete the objective twice will claim victory.
Mutators: Wild rulesets and unique mechanics change the way you play on Battlegrounds you’re already familiar with.
Single-Lanes: One-lane Battlegrounds with no objectives, Mercenaries, or Hearthstone to distract you from destroying the enemy Core.
Click the Brawl Info button in the lower-left corner of the screen to learn detailed information about the currently active Brawl.
How to Brawl
Find Heroes Brawl in-game by heading to the Play screen, click Brawl on the far left side of the navigation bar, then queue up and have a blast!
Anyone can dive into the action! Heroes Brawl is not restricted by account level or the number of Heroes owned, and you can queue up alone or in a party of any size.
The current weekly Brawl will also be available through Custom Games - though replays, observer mode, and score screens may not function as expected for some of the unique Brawl types.
Heroes Brawl custom games will also discard Hero drafts and pre-selections once players enter the match.
Reap the Rewards
Participate in three Brawls each week to receive in-game rewards!
Hover the cursor over the Weekly Rewards icon in the lower-left corner of the Brawl screen for a breakdown of the available rewards each week.
Hellblade Samuro Bundle – Available until November 1, 2016
Hallow’s End 2016 Bundle – Available from October 25 until November 8, 2016
Hallow’s End 2016 Ultimate Bundle – Available from October 25 until November 8, 2016
The following Bundles will be added to the in-game Shop on October 18 and have no planned end-date:
Nexus Challenger Bundle
Nexus Conqueror Bundle
Removed Bundles The following bundles will be removed from the in-game Shop on October 18:
Starter Bundle
Triumph Bundle
New Hero Samuro has been added to the in-game Shop.
Mounts New Mounts
Hellboar
Eye Pad – Available exclusively with purchase of either Hallow’s End 2016 bundle. This mount may return to the game as an individual item at a later date.
Returning Mounts
Marshal’s Outrider
Removed Mounts
Crimson Hare
Skins
Hellblade Samuro
Master Samuro
Scarecrow Xul – Available starting October 25
Deputy Valla – Available starting October 25
Price Reductions
Greymane’s prices have been reduced to $8.49 USD and 7,000 Gold.
Rexxar’s prices have been reduced to $6.49 USD and 4,000 Gold.
A “New Player Chat” channel has been added. New players will automatically join this channel upon logging into Heroes of the Storm until they reach account level 20.
Daily Win Bonus
The first game that players win each day will now award 50% bonus XP and Gold for that match.
This bonus applies to all game modes except Brawl, Custom Games, and Training.
A First Win of the Day icon has been added to the top navigation bar, which will activate whenever a First Win of the Day bonus is available.
In-Game UI
Hover the cursor over the VS icon found in the top-center of the screen to display the amount of XP earned by each team from various sources, including: Takedowns, Mercenaries, Structures, and more.
XP Bonuses
Friend Bonus
Playing Heroes with a friend will now award 25% bonus XP.
Party Bonus
The XP bonus earned by playing in a party now scales based on the number of party members:
2 Players: +25%
3 Players: +33%
4 Players: +42%
5 Players: +50%
Game Mode Bonus
Playing ranked games will now award an XP bonus:
Hero League: +25% XP
Team League: +50% XP
XP Bonuses Stack Additively
Playing in a party with one friend will still award a total of 50% bonus XP, just as it did before, but playing with additional party members will now award even more XP.
Playing Team League in a full party with at least one friend and an active Stimpack will now award a total of 225% bonus XP.
The “Available XP Bonuses” icon in the top navigation bar will activate when players are receiving any of the bonuses mentioned above.
Hover the cursor over this icon to display a tooltip that offers a full breakdown of all active and inactive XP bonuses.
Play Screen
Hovering the cursor over each game mode on the Play Screen navigation bar will now display a tooltip that briefly describes that mode.
Versus A.I.
Training mode has been moved into Versus AI on the Play screen.
A “Versus A.I. Options” interface has been added to the left side of the Versus A.I. screen.
Use the buttons to switch between Training, A.I. Teammates, or Co-op modes.
Use the Difficulty Slider to select the desired skill level of A.I. allies and opponents in A.I. Teammates and Co-op modes.
Training mode A.I. difficulty is set to beginner, and cannot be changed.
Suggested Play Mode
The Play Screen navigation bar will now suggest a game mode to new players.
Level 1 – 10: Versus A.I.
Level 11 – 20: Quick Match
Level 20+: Heroes Brawl (If the weekly rewards have not yet been earned.)
Hover the cursor over the suggested mode icon to display a tooltip that explains why a mode is suggested.
Profile
Match History
The Match History tab can now be filtered by Heroes Brawl matches using the dropdown menu in the upper-right corner.
Each game in the Match History list will now display Hero names and portraits for each Hero selected during that game.
Profile Summary
Heroes Brawl stats have been added to the Profile Summary screen that will track the number of Brawls won and weekly rewards earned.
Statistics
The Statistics tab can now be filtered by Heroes Brawl stats using the dropdown menu in the upper-right corner.
MVP and Commendations
MVP and Commendations can now be skipped using the new Exit button added to the lower-left corner of the screen. The duration of the MVP and Commendations screen now lasts 50 seconds. A timer has been added to the lower-right corner of the screen that will count down the final 10 seconds of the MVP and Commendations screen. Commendations Bulwark will now take the number of deaths into account in order to focus this Commendation on the efficiency of damage soaked, rather than total damage taken. The tooltip for Bulwark will now display the player’s total deaths during the match in addition to damage soaked. Slight adjustments have been made in order to better balance the Dominator and Painbringer Commendations. Abathur was previously a little too likely to receive the MVP award. Slight adjustments have been made to bring him in line with other Heroes.
Corrected a number of typos and tooltip errors across several aspects of the game.
A.I.
Medivh: Enemy AI players will now avoid teammates that are under the effects of Medivh’s Polybomb. Lt. Morales: Can now properly detonate Displacement Grenade near enemies.
Art
Chen: Keg models that appear when casting Storm, Earth, Fire using any of Chen’s Skins are no longer missing certain visual effects. Illidan: The visual effects for The Hunt will now properly display on the Ability’s target during replays. Greymane: The Worgen model will no longer remain on screen while viewing end-of-game Stats and Talents pages.
Battlegrounds
Braxis Holdout: Neutral Raven Mercenaries will no longer clip into the terrain after being knocked back. Braxis Holdout: Fixed an issue in which Zagara’s Mutalisk could cause a captured Archangel to exhibit pathing issues. Braxis Holdout: Fixed an issue in which a captured Archangel could target enemy Heroes with its Bullet Storm Ability. Garden of Terror: Shielding a Structure will no longer prevent a Garden Terror's bonus siege damage from being applied. Infernal Shrines: Fallen Shaman Mercenaries will now prioritize attacking enemy Structures over Walls.
Heroes, Abilities, and Talents
Damage Reduction: When two damage reduction effects, such as Resistant (25%) and Hardened Shield (75%), are simultaneously applied to a Hero, the larger effect will no longer be overridden by the lesser effect. Anub'arak: The Cocoon overlay will now display correctly for enemies affected by Cocoon. Auriel: The Piercing Lash Talent tooltip now correctly states that Detainment Strike will only pierce Heroes, rather than all enemies. Auriel: Enemy Heroes will no longer occasionally be Stunned by Detainment Strike when knocked away from terrain. Auriel: Quest progress for the Repeated Offense Talent will now be correctly tracked in the Stats panel. Azmodan: Globe of Annihilation’s range indicator is now visually consistent with indicators used by other long-range Abilities. Greymane: The Go for the Throat indicator will no longer visually persist above Heroes who have post-death forms, such as Uther or Leoric, after they are killed. Illidan: Fixed an issue that could occasionally cause Illidan to fly back to his death location if he was killed while using Dive. Kharazim: Will no longer automatically resume attacking enemies after using Radiant Dash to dive to an ally. This fix also applies to Illidan’s Friend or Foe and Kerrigan’s Adaptation Talents. Leoric: Minions will no longer path around Leoric when he is in Undying form. Medivh: The damage over time effect from Xul’s Poison Nova will no longer be visually removed from Medivh’s Health bar after traveling through a Portal with the Mage Armor Talent. Rexxar: A delay will no longer occur between repeated Misha, Focus! casts. Sgt. Hammer: Re-casting Orbital BFG just as the first missile re-enters the Battleground will no longer cause the new missile to follow the previous path. Sylvanas: The Death Recap tooltip for Wailing Arrow now correctly displays the Ability’s description. The Butcher: Hamstring will now correctly deal bonus damage to non-Heroic targets after learning the Cheap Shot Talent. Zagara: The Stasis overlay will no longer appear on the screen when Zagara’s Mutalisk enters Zeratul's Void Prison.
Sound
Illidan: Voiceover that plays while casting The Hunt is now only audible for Illidan and his target. Illidan: High pitched ambient sounds that play while casting The Hunt are no longer audible for the target’s allies. Lower-pitched ambient sounds will still play for all players and observers.
User Interface
Death Recap: Fixed an issue in which a Heal effect could occasionally appear to be the killing blow in Death Recap notifications. Replay: Selecting a Hero during a Replay will no longer prevent the Hero Portrait and Status Bars from switching correctly when attempting to view a different Hero’s perspective using hotkeys. Observer: Warhead counters will now update properly in the Observer interface on Warhead Junction.
On October 19 2016 04:29 Swisslink wrote: So, no new Gold Purchase mount for this event? Pity. Got 30k Gold left and don't know what to do with it.
But the guy from the Screenshot at least hasn't got all the heroes... i really don't know what to do with my gold, especially because most of the master skins are rather... underwhelming, imo. They are - with a few exceptions - either pretty much the same as the standard, or in some cases just way worse, imo. Some gold sink would be really much appreciated. Especially now with the Brawl and therefore an even bigger Gold Income from now on.
Regarding Brawls: We are now seriously only got to play this Punisher Brawl on the One Lane Map for the next 10 days? I played it twice and I'm already bored. I like the idea behind the Brawls and it could be interesting. But with only one Brawl at the time, it takes away all the diversity Heroes brings compared to any other MOBA. i really think they should have a Brawl rotation same as they have a Map Rotation in all the other game modes. Otherwise the mode gets kinda stale and boring really fast.
Samuro looks pretty balanced right now. 70% winrate on hotslogs with master filter.
I can see him countered pretty hard by Johanna + KT, but he's countered way harder by 1st ban power. Someone on reddit pointed that Diablo Apocalypse on 3 images makes a huge stun zone and can counter him hard. But Diablo... ^^
I just played Brawl mode for the first time, and it was 5 Sonyas vs. 5 Sonyas and it was the dumbest- yet most hilarious- game I've ever played in HotS. Everyone just kept Leap frogging lmao. Brawl seems pretty fun so far... It's definitely not as frustrating for me to have a bad team throw in Brawl as it is to have a bad team in a real game.
The only downside is that Brawl doesn't count towards traditional DQs. Oh well.
On October 19 2016 19:01 Leolio wrote: Samuro looks pretty balanced right now. 70% winrate on hotslogs with master filter.
I can see him countered pretty hard by Johanna + KT, but he's countered way harder by 1st ban power. Someone on reddit pointed that Diablo Apocalypse on 3 images makes a huge stun zone and can counter him hard. But Diablo... ^^
So, instead of Zarya+Malf first bans, it's now Samuro+Malf? Dat ban-meta switch!
I like the new XP contribution tally when you mouse over the levels at the top of the screen
Crazy thing with Samuro's win rate so far is that EVERY single talent at every tier currently has above 60% win rate. The win rates suggest that it's practically impossible to pick a bad talent. That leads me to believe it will take nerfs to his core abilities or damage to fix him. A real challenge to balance.
Wow, I didn't notice that xp thing until now. Cool.
He's way stronger than I thought he would be. More survivable than Zeratul by a LONG way, which was kinda how I thought he'd be - a pubstomper, but limited in utility (since his heroics aren't on a level with Void). Seems like he's better than that.
I wouldn't mind a small amount of xp for killing his apparitions, like Aba's clone.
He can be beat, but in general win rates increase over time as players get better with the hero and a "best" build is settled on. We shall see. I don't expect Blizz will change him early like they did with Zarya which kind of backfired with a follow up nerf. No full patches scheduled until after Blizzcon.
On October 20 2016 04:59 karazax wrote: He can be beat, but in general win rates increase over time as players get better with the hero and a "best" build is settled on. We shall see. I don't expect Blizz will change him early like they did with Zarya which kind of backfired with a follow up nerf. No full patches scheduled until after Blizzcon.
Hmm, I wouldn't be shocked to see a small nerf before Blizzcon, else the competition would be a bit stale there.
Well blizzcon is in almost 3weeks isnt it? Blizzard usually make balance adjustments after 2weeks~ rougly so before blizzcon, sure wouldnt be surprised if they did
I think Samuros winrate will actually drop as people get used to invisibility again. My Danger button is used alot more atm, because people are that blind and careless, so each game has 2-3 team mates feeding if you don't watch out where they are going. But the crit combo setup with Medivh Portal is annoying.
Picking Chromie atm if there is already a blind or slow ready vs Samuro. If he isn't banned that is. To bad reveal talent is on the same level as her quest talents.
He cuts well into the meta though, strong against almost everything people like to go for atm and his weaknesses are used rarely.
If you want to troll Samuro use Medic btw ! Everyone gets a soft imposing presence, shields and pushbacks for days. And Morales doesn't care about autoattacks.
Blizzard said Samuro isn't going to be eligible to be played at Blizzcon and the devs said there were no balance changes in the Samuro patch because they didn't want any more changes before Blizzcon started. Week 1 Matches start next Wednesday Oct 26th at 9 AM PST Here is the schedule..
On October 18 2016 01:02 Ramiz1989 wrote: I think that I haven't lost a game against Vikings with new Butcher yet. You gain meat so fast if you keep rotating and gaining pick offs from Vikings, or you can even just pressure one lane and call for 1 mate to help you kill the Viking. Literally every game against Rexxar and Vikings I keep finishing my quest like 2 minutes earlier. Rexxar always gives you 10 meat stacks unless Misha is already dead.
And then since you usually get Abattoir, after you finish the quest early you snowball out of control with at least 80-100 damage just from Abattoir. You keep deleting everything.
As a Vikings main, I am not afraid of Butcher players at all. Butcher has no real way to lock down Vikings long enough to kill them and if he tries he's going to be exposing himself a lot to my teammates later on and if he's chasing them around on his own he isn't contributing to helping his teammates out with objectives.
Butcher doesn't scare me. Zeratul, Samuro and Falstad scare me because they can follow me around all over the map and it's hard for me to keep track of where they are.
Kael'Thas and Li Ming scare me because they can vaporize all of them in a breath and Li Ming can then turn around and wipe my team out.
the new Nova scares me because she has bribe and can fuck up my merc camp roaming very easily.
As a butcher player, I would never chase a viking. Its pointless. GOGOGO gives absurd amount of speed. Invul is annoying too. If they have Vikings that means they have 1 less body to prevent me to getting my meat. I prefer 4v4 battle over 5v5.
Btw vikings main enemy is Tracer imo. Free Untouchable stacks, GOGOGO doesn't stop her...
On October 20 2016 16:41 Ej_ wrote: the butcher has the highest winrate vs tlv out of all heroes in the game
Yeah, people don't realize this. It's not the point about his kill potential, because he is weaker than before in that regard, but the fact that he gains A LOT more than other heroes against Vikings and Rexxar. I will gank with a team mate, and make sure I get as much Viking kills as I can. Also, you can kill Vikings alone if you are smart enough and watch mini-map and attack one of the VIkings when other Vikings are in trouble as well, you usually need 2-3 hits and then even if he realizes and use GoGoGo, you can charge and get the kill(Olaf might get away, he is too fat). Later in the game, every Viking kill is 5 more damage, and with completed quest it is just so easy to farm them.
I've been following win rates every week on hotslogs(yeah it's not the best way to tell since a lot of replays don't get uploaded but it's what we got), and since the Butcher rework Vikings just kept falling down in win rate while Butcher went up. Before that Vikings were always in top 5, now they are not even in top 20(!), and Butcher was on 3rd place yesterday.
On October 20 2016 16:41 Ej_ wrote: the butcher has the highest winrate vs tlv out of all heroes in the game
Yeah, people don't realize this. It's not the point about his kill potential, because he is weaker than before in that regard, but the fact that he gains A LOT more than other heroes against Vikings and Rexxar. I will gank with a team mate, and make sure I get as much Viking kills as I can. Also, you can kill Vikings alone if you are smart enough and watch mini-map and attack one of the VIkings when other Vikings are in trouble as well, you usually need 2-3 hits and then even if he realizes and use GoGoGo, you can charge and get the kill(Olaf might get away, he is too fat). Later in the game, every Viking kill is 5 more damage, and with completed quest it is just so easy to farm them.
I've been following win rates every week on hotslogs(yeah it's not the best way to tell since a lot of replays don't get uploaded but it's what we got), and since the Butcher rework Vikings just kept falling down in win rate while Butcher went up. Before that Vikings were always in top 5, now they are not even in top 20(!), and Butcher was on 3rd place yesterday.
Well Vikings' winrate took a big nosedive during the Machines of War event because several of their best maps were taken out of the pool.
Garden of Terror, Sun Temple and Infernal Shrines were replaced with Braxis Holdout and Warhead Junction as well as a greater percentage of games played on Battlefield of Eternity, Dragon Shire and Tomb of the Spider Queen. That's going to hurt viking winrates too IF the players were still picking them on it.
The Vikings are IMO one of the most map dependent heroes in the game, when you take 3 of their best maps away for a long period of time, their winrate is going to suffer for it.
Now that the event is over, let's see if it climbs back up again.
I can only imagine the bosses spawning the first time and the Vikings instantly capping both at the same time. The enemy team suddenly seeing double boss ping on the minimap. Quite gamebreaking.
Not impressed by the hero samuro so far. Anyone can point out what's OP about him? 1. Might be bad drafts for him that ive seen. Everytime i picked him i got like BW healer against extreme stun/burst composition. 2.I and others might suck with him.
He's pretty hard to kill if he knows how to use Mirror Image and Windwalk properly. Unless you have a way to detect his images, he can still win a fight at like 30% health by just using his Mirror Image and attacking. You won't have time to figure out which one is real and he can use the time to Windwalk or wait for it to come off cooldown. His single target damage and body blocking is also very strong and I don't think many heroes can really duel him.
As with Illidan, he dies to a lot of CC but is a monster when CC is lacking and he has a healer to keep him going.
Hotfix rolled out now for this. Also Blizzard Voice Chat is live for battle.net, but not an in game option for HOTS yet. It can be used with friends, but not with random team mates at this time.
Heyo! I've been testing some stuff in Try mode as there seems to be some misconception about some abilities and other stuff that I wasn't sure about, so I went into try mode for about half an hour testing some stuff
Illusions DO NOT soak Exp, only if they last hit (like summons).
Summons originally targeted on Samuro will still target the real samuro after he has used his Q
Using E (With teleport) will remove all incoming projectiles.
Illusions count as heroes (you can stack quest talents off of them)
Advancing Strikes and Windwalk DO NOT stack.
Illusions Target Priority is: Nearest Target
EDIT: Further Findings: Issueing an attack command RIGHT AFTER you Q will issue an attack command for the illusions. The illusions will go to the target, attack once, and then attack the nearest target (which can still be the original target if its still the closest target).
If you dive Samuro right as he clones, you will end up diving the real one
If you target the real samuro, and then he clones (Q's), your hero will still be targeting the real samuro.
Switching to an illusion (with illusion master) replenishes the illusions health to your current health
Using Q near a wall has a chance of placing yourself or an illusion on the other side. Useful when trying to escape, especially with illusion master, but can also get you killed if you get placed on the inside of a fort or keep.
MAJOR FIND: Illusion master has the same exact benefits of casting Q, a self cleanse being one of them in this case, but on a 5s CD! This is actually really powerful.
Working on Testing more
Use this knowledge when using and facing Samuro! Some of this is very powerful to know!
He doesn't really seem all that bad until his ult comes into play, Blade Storm rips apart squishies and tanks alike, couple it with some hard CC like Ring of Frost or Mosh and your entire team will be incinerated wombo combo style
His escape seems pretty noob as well, as soon as he is about to die he cloaks and gains movement speed? Talk about high reward low risk engage/escape mechanics.
He's not broken like Ming or Leoric were on release but he's definitely a bit above the point of balance.
It's the escape that's the problem. Melee assassins are meant to be about positioning and going in at the right time, knowing that if it works well they can destroy a squishy but if not they are likely dead themselves. Nova/Zeratul have an easier time with positioning due to stealth but have to be very careful with their engagement as if they mess up they can easily get torn apart.
Samuro gets a freebie - free stealth that is unbreakable (and a self cleanse), movement speed that can be used to chase or escape, and on a very low cooldown (especially after 20). Imagine if Zeratul could go into stealth during a Shadow Assault, or if Nova could remain stealthed while Triple Tapping? Both of those have a tradeoff Samuro doesn't. Yes, usual cloak counters apply, and blind/block is effective. But the uptime on his stealth needs to be reduced, as does the self cleanse and movement speed.
Idk if he needs a nerf in his uptime on stealth since if we compare them to zeratul and nova just like you did, they can do some daamge immediately. Autoattack->spell->Spell.
Whereas samuro cant do that, he only have autoattack + his illusions, ive seen him in far to many games where he just cant do much in fights and if we think about it further, there are quite alot of heroes that work great vs his illusions.
They designed this hero with this in mind i think, i mean, he works a bit different compared to other melee assassins WHICH IS GOOD. He can run around in combat and do his tricks, i dont really see what is wrong about it.
EDIT: although, samuro can crit immediately, yeah i dont know just some thought. On top of something else, samuro makes me wanna play warcraft4. Its such a cool concept with heroes imo in RTS game.
On October 22 2016 12:43 Beelzebub1 wrote: He doesn't really seem all that bad until his ult comes into play, Blade Storm rips apart squishies and tanks alike, couple it with some hard CC like Ring of Frost or Mosh and your entire team will be incinerated wombo combo style
His escape seems pretty noob as well, as soon as he is about to die he cloaks and gains movement speed? Talk about high reward low risk engage/escape mechanics.
He's not broken like Ming or Leoric were on release but he's definitely a bit above the point of balance.
Thankfully Zarya is more balanced now so we can use 1 of our 2 ban slots on him. the Leoric and Li Ming days (and all of the others for that matter) were especially bad because we couldn't ban them at all.
On October 22 2016 20:08 Foxxan wrote: Idk if he needs a nerf in his uptime on stealth since if we compare them to zeratul and nova just like you did, they can do some daamge immediately. Autoattack->spell->Spell.
Whereas samuro cant do that, he only have autoattack + his illusions, ive seen him in far to many games where he just cant do much in fights and if we think about it further, there are quite alot of heroes that work great vs his illusions.
They designed this hero with this in mind i think, i mean, he works a bit different compared to other melee assassins WHICH IS GOOD. He can run around in combat and do his tricks, i dont really see what is wrong about it.
EDIT: although, samuro can crit immediately, yeah i dont know just some thought. On top of something else, samuro makes me wanna play warcraft4. Its such a cool concept with heroes imo in RTS game.
But the difference is if you hit Zera/Nova while they are stealthed you break their stealth and, short of Zeratul having blink (a very long cooldown) up, you can kill them. Samuro (especially post 20) can go in, disrupt, kill, chase, and get away without much difficulty.
Samuro should be punished for a bad engage. If I jump in as a Zeratul or Kerrigan and it ends up going south, I'll probably die on the spot. Samuro can just Windwalk away if his Q alone doesn't suffice. Nova can only do instant damage and run away from the one hero she tried to kill. If she tries something and a teammate is next to you, she might already be dead. Samuro can just keep trying to kill you and resort to Windwalk to get away free. I think the 1 second immunity in cloak needs to go so that a counter engage has a decent chance to kill him. He still gets the usual cloak and improved movement speed.
I still dont see any argument why its necessarily wrong about it. Ye i get it, in general this is how hots heroes work but as i said cool with a few if just a very tiny amount of heroes can work a bit different. Right now, detection counters his stealth and also visiblity talent picks such as tracers lvl 1. So this hero gets a new strength not seen in any other hero and also a new "weakness". Zeratul and nova has the same weakness but they dont relie on stealth as much as samuro.
Those aside i still found it pretty cool that a hero can actually move around in combat, atleast in theory.
Ban person slept, we decided to hard counter Samuro with the first pick. Enemy picked him anyway. Damn was that game done fast lol. I wish heroes had more decent players, so they could release heroes that are niche but really good at their niche. But it takes to much drafting coordination I guess.
On October 24 2016 03:04 Foxxan wrote: I still dont see any argument why its necessarily wrong about it. Ye i get it, in general this is how hots heroes work but as i said cool with a few if just a very tiny amount of heroes can work a bit different. Right now, detection counters his stealth and also visiblity talent picks such as tracers lvl 1. So this hero gets a new strength not seen in any other hero and also a new "weakness". Zeratul and nova has the same weakness but they dont relie on stealth as much as samuro.
Those aside i still found it pretty cool that a hero can actually move around in combat, atleast in theory.
I don't really have a problem with his being able to walk 'through' people. That's kinda cool. The self cleanse and unbreakable stealth is too much. His 65%+ winrate demonstrates that.
On October 24 2016 03:34 FeyFey wrote: Ban person slept, we decided to hard counter Samuro with the first pick. Enemy picked him anyway. Damn was that game done fast lol. I wish heroes had more decent players, so they could release heroes that are niche but really good at their niche. But it takes to much drafting coordination I guess.
It also makes Quick Match an even bigger cluster fuck since the automated matchmaker doesn't give two shits about countering niche heroes.
On October 24 2016 03:34 FeyFey wrote: Ban person slept, we decided to hard counter Samuro with the first pick. Enemy picked him anyway. Damn was that game done fast lol. I wish heroes had more decent players, so they could release heroes that are niche but really good at their niche. But it takes to much drafting coordination I guess.
* Second best hard counter luck: if the guy who picked Samuro is a noob, you can win this. (had this 10 death feeding Samuro in HL on my team, fun times)
* Average counters Johanna because she's an anti-auto attack machine, stun and blind with CD reduction possible Lili, Auriel for blinds but it's kinda meh. Artanis, for blind ulti but you waste 1 ultimate versus a guy who'll disengage safely and come back 10 seconds later. And reveal heroes. Kharazim and Tassadar being by far the most powerful.
I guess KT makes the green guy go boom, but he'll probably kill him 1v1 each time.
Well, I for one haven't seen a Samuro losing yet in my games. If we get him, we win, if they get him, we lose. So far 100% of the time. (although he was of course banned most of the games and the sample size is rather small, probably around 8-10 games.) I just don't see a way to protect the backline against Samuro, because there is almost no risk involved for Samuro to dive. Therefore he dives -> Kills 1-2 heroes -> disengages and the rest of the team kills the remaining 3-4 heroes (and of course he can join the fight again shortly after).
I personally think samuro is overrated over seeing him 30+ games or something. At masters+ level. Usually i dont really care to ban him.
Johanna because she's an anti-auto attack machine, stun and blind with CD reduction possible Lili, Auriel for blinds but it's kinda meh. Artanis, for blind ulti but you waste 1 ultimate versus a guy who'll disengage safely and come back 10 seconds later.
Samuro can self-cleanse these blinds with his Q.
Blind isnt the way to go vs him. Its rather bad imo. Go stun, Crowdcontrol. He cant do shit against crowd control as many other heroes. He is super weak. He has good escape but he has no Crowdcontrol, he brings like no utility to the team.
Johanna bad hero vs him. Go muradin, etc. My main is kerrigan and i found her good vs him. Sometimes when he uses Q i use combo and hit all 3.
I just don't see a way to protect the backline against Samuro, because there is almost no risk involved for Samuro to dive. Therefore he dives -> Kills 1-2 heroes -> disengages and the rest of the team kills the remaining 3-4 heroes (and of course he can join the fight again shortly after).
Killing 1-2 heroes at what level? Cuz in masters i have never seen this happen. In fact, i have a hard time seeing him solo any hero as well since that hero will run and even with his extra movementspeed when attacking he cant really fully 100% him down before he is gone.
illidan is the best hero for this. Samuro even with his trait, not so much. In theory it should work right, thats what i thought aswell but in practice it dont.
In my opinion Samuro is really strong. I think his overall strenght lies in many different aspects of the game.
-His escape mechanism ( already said) -The tankyness of his illusions (especially with the level 20 Talent) + With the second Ultimate he can control his illusions, making them MUCH stronger. U can use them as Wards, or just to distract the enemy team, wasting their cooldowns, their time, without taking ANY risks. +dont underestimate his Juke potential his Ultimate cooldown is really low. i Think its something like 10 seconds for swapping with his illusions
As mentioned before, if his get out of jail free card is taken away it'll look a lot better. Right now he can dive so many targets almost risk free, making him massive at constantly securing kills. Otherwise his Q needs to be more detectable in what his images are and what the real one is.
It's not that hard to figure out the real Samuro if you have any AOE, or simply have a good sense of how much damage your AAs do. He's got a lot of other really broken strong stuff, but I appreciate the finesse of the guessing game as to which Samuro is real
Any reveal talents show which Samuro's are illusions. That includes the lvl 1 talents for Tracer and Lunara. 90% of my games have had Sumaro banned, but did win a few with Gul'dan. Get stacks on Corruption fast from clones, fel flame can hit all the clones, and drain life can help stay alive long enough to get a heal or peel.
Samuro is surprisingly dull to play. Without illusion masters, he plays nothing like the wc3 blade master. But the biggest drawback is that there is no item system imo.
On October 25 2016 07:38 karazax wrote: Any reveal talents show which Samuro's are illusions. That includes the lvl 1 talents for Tracer and Lunara. 90% of my games have had Sumaro banned, but did win a few with Gul'dan. Get stacks on Corruption fast from clones, fel flame can hit all the clones, and drain life can help stay alive long enough to get a heal or peel.
I also completed my Convection quest on Kael'thas in record time. And putting Living Bomb on his Mirror Images is hilarious, at least at my level where they won't split. I don't even care which one is the real one.
I know he is pro, but i dont know how good he is. But feels good a pro says what i have said. The "they got samuro we are dead". "What, you didnt first pick samuro"
is getting tiresome, i have been happy for a few days in a row if the enemy team first pick samuro.
The thing is, Srey speaks mostly from pro team's perspective, and everything what pros say you should take with a grain of salt. Few weeks ago ADRD made a post on reddit how new Butcher is way way worse than the old one and how they were picking old one a lot but new one is garbage because it doesn't fit their playstyle and comes online "way too late".
Now to me that doesn't say much, it is way too vague, as new Butcher is way more niche than before and can't work in every situation where he was working before when he was early-mid game monster.
Pros also tend to jump to conclusions way too much. I've seen quite a few of them complaining about something only to change their opinion literally 1-2 weeks later. So until I see a bunch of Samuro games played by top teams I won't say how good or bad he is for pro play. He is still really good in HL/unranked as people aren't organized, fights are chaotic and it is easy to lose focus while he can still dish out a ton of damage and still gets out alive. Good Samuro player should almost never die in these unorganized and chaotic games. Plus the fact that most of my Samuro games people were trying to counter me with LiLi and Johanna and blinds just don't do crap against him.
Its common sense to take what things say with a grain of salt and its always good to use your own brain. Ye i know ramiz, this is not something new. I might change my opinion later with more data from my own experience, i dont blindly look at winrates.
Well for hero league, i say no if you are masters+, dont ban or fp him. If you are below masters, then pick samuro, fp, ban him and so on.
I say it again, in my experience at masters+ he has trouble. And some games big trouble.
Samuro is still new so some stuff is still up in the air. So far all we have to work with is winrates (and Samuro's is through the roof) and personal experience.
Now a high winrate is a decent indicator since we've also seen new heroes have crap winrates on release so it's not that new heroes always have a high winrate. Counters still need to be learned but from personal experience this is where Samuro's problem lies in that he has a ton of escapes and mobility. As he can avoid dying relatively easily, he can dive targets much more freely that other heroes, granting his team a constant advantage.
The normal counters to a melee assassin such as Blind or bursting them down don't work on Samuro due his stealth and self Cleanse. As such, he can continue to do his thing with the opponent wondering how to deal with him.
We do need to see a few solid pro games with him to really nail it down though. If he is first pick/ban material there and dominates in matches where he gets to play I think one can make the OP call.
On October 24 2016 03:04 Foxxan wrote: I still dont see any argument why its necessarily wrong about it. Ye i get it, in general this is how hots heroes work but as i said cool with a few if just a very tiny amount of heroes can work a bit different. Right now, detection counters his stealth and also visiblity talent picks such as tracers lvl 1. So this hero gets a new strength not seen in any other hero and also a new "weakness". Zeratul and nova has the same weakness but they dont relie on stealth as much as samuro.
Those aside i still found it pretty cool that a hero can actually move around in combat, atleast in theory.
I don't really have a problem with his being able to walk 'through' people. That's kinda cool. The self cleanse and unbreakable stealth is too much. His 65%+ winrate demonstrates that.
Not "walk through" peoplem, thats called unitwalking and whats not what i meant. Ex, thrall do his thing and then moves back. Samuro works a bit different than most heroes in this regard atleast in theory, instead of moving back he can move around in the Battlefield with his illusions and W skill.
Samuro's win rate is 63.4% even at masters level and his popularity is 79.5%. He banned over 5 times more than he is picked. A hero doesn't have to be unbeatable to be OP. I agree that it's possible to counter him with a coordinated draft, but I don't think any one hero is going to hard counter him. If it was as easy as Sreyz suggests his win rate wouldn't remain so high at every skill level including Masters. I also expect Samuro players will get better if he is banned less, as it's hard to get hero league practice with him right now and his builds are still being optimized and people who aren't good with him first pick him just because he is "OP". Still I support waiting 2 weeks to get as much data as possible before making a snap judgement on what to do to balance him.
Hallow's End starts today +50% XP on all games except Training and Custom. Play 15 games in any mode except Custom, Training or Brawl to earn the new Deputy Valla portrait. The new Valla and Xul skins will be available as well as the new Halloween Bundles:
Mirror Images (Q) Cooldown increased from 16 to 18 seconds Mirror Image timed life increased from 16 to 18 seconds
Windwalk (E) Movement speed bonus reduced from 30 to 25%
Illusion Master (R) Illusion damage bonus reduced from 20 to 15%
Talents
Level 20
Three Blade Style (R) Mirror Image timed life increased from 32 to 36 seconds
Developer Comments: The Blademaster has been loosed, and is busy carving up a healthy win-rate. We are looking to bring him down a notch with these changes.
Chen – Fixed an issue causing Fortifying Brew shields to not persist indefinitely after completing the Freshest Ingredients quest talent.
Samuro – Fixed an issue causing Mirror Images to deal an extra swing of Samuro’s full damage if their attacks landed just as the Mirror Images expired.
Samuro – Fixed an issue causing Samuro to deselect himself after entering Lt. Morales' Medivac Dropship.
User Interface
Fixed an issue causing an "Unmet Requirements" message to pop up when in a party queued for Heroes Brawl.
Removed an inaccurate line from the Punisher Arena's Info Panel at the queue screen.
Fixed an issue causing Heroes Brawl score screens to incorrectly display Hero level ups and gold grants when certain conditions were met.
Miscellaneous
Fixed an issue where players could receive an "Installation Damaged" error message when launching the 64-bit client.
On October 25 2016 10:20 ETisME wrote: Samuro is surprisingly dull to play. Without illusion masters, he plays nothing like the wc3 blade master. But the biggest drawback is that there is no item system imo.
This game wouldn't work with items or shops. How would a hero like Abathur or the Lost Vikings ever work with items?
On October 20 2016 16:41 Ej_ wrote: the butcher has the highest winrate vs tlv out of all heroes in the game
Yeah, people don't realize this. It's not the point about his kill potential, because he is weaker than before in that regard, but the fact that he gains A LOT more than other heroes against Vikings and Rexxar. I will gank with a team mate, and make sure I get as much Viking kills as I can. Also, you can kill Vikings alone if you are smart enough and watch mini-map and attack one of the VIkings when other Vikings are in trouble as well, you usually need 2-3 hits and then even if he realizes and use GoGoGo, you can charge and get the kill(Olaf might get away, he is too fat). Later in the game, every Viking kill is 5 more damage, and with completed quest it is just so easy to farm them.
I've been following win rates every week on hotslogs(yeah it's not the best way to tell since a lot of replays don't get uploaded but it's what we got), and since the Butcher rework Vikings just kept falling down in win rate while Butcher went up. Before that Vikings were always in top 5, now they are not even in top 20(!), and Butcher was on 3rd place yesterday.
Well Vikings' winrate took a big nosedive during the Machines of War event because several of their best maps were taken out of the pool.
Garden of Terror, Sun Temple and Infernal Shrines were replaced with Braxis Holdout and Warhead Junction as well as a greater percentage of games played on Battlefield of Eternity, Dragon Shire and Tomb of the Spider Queen. That's going to hurt viking winrates too IF the players were still picking them on it.
The Vikings are IMO one of the most map dependent heroes in the game, when you take 3 of their best maps away for a long period of time, their winrate is going to suffer for it.
Now that the event is over, let's see if it climbs back up again.
Just checking back in on this point. Lost Vikings winrate is now up almost 5% from where it was during the Machines of War event. If it keeps rising it'll be back to its natural 55% by next week.
Looking forward to what news comes out of Blizzcon at the end of the week. Hopefully we get news for the option to swap picks in drafts and a draft UI that allows pro play to draft in game instead of thru some other website. In game voice also seems likely this year. And of course new heroes.
On October 31 2016 22:14 karazax wrote: Looking forward to what news comes out of Blizzcon at the end of the week. Hopefully we get news for the option to swap picks in drafts and a draft UI that allows pro play to draft in game instead of thru some other website. In game voice also seems likely this year. And of course new heroes.
Why do we even need in game voice? We have the client's voice chat which is really good now.
You can add anyone on your friends list to a channel. Do you seriously think we need voice chat in solo queue or quick match? I don't.
I definitely think we should have the option for voice chat in solo queue. It should have easy to find options to mute individuals or disable it all together if you want to, but voice chat has the potential to greatly increase random team's organization and reduce one of the biggest advantages pre-made groups often have.
Are we allowed to remove Samuro from the game yet? I honestly hate playing against this Hero, he's so boring. I haven't hated a Hero this strongly since Zagara (and if you know me, I HATE Zagara with a passion).
Honestly I haven't had Samuro not banned in a game since his nerf, so for all practical purposes he has been removed from the game for hero league for me. According to hotslogs he has only been played in 5,037 out of 69,482 hero league games in the last week. His high ban rate hasn't really given them much additional data to make balance changes with, so I wouldn't be surprised by an over nerf in the near future to the point where he is removed from the meta all together.
I took a break for a few days following samuro release (coincidence). I have played say 20-30 games in the last few days at master level and he has been banned every time. If I'm first ban I try to get my guy to pick malf so I can ban bw and then auriel on second ban phase as few people want to take support in first phase except malf who is known as op. Either way I have no idea if samuro is op, I've never played against him. Not saying he isn't but the herd mentality over certain heroes is always amusing.
Played a Jaina since I hadn't played her in a while. Samuro shat all over me in ways I didn't think possible. Slow? Root? Ring of Frost? Ha! Here's my Unstoppable Bladestorm aaaaaaaaaaaaand you're dead.
Oh you actually landed your combo on me? Ah ha, but I have a constant spell shield from my Q, so it doesn't hurt that much. And if it does, let me just E away and come back to kill you later. Assuming I didn't kill you already. I might also solo the boss later on for fun. Because you know...I can.
Imagine Butcher or Kerrigan with this kind of mobility and escape. Eep. Atleast Illidan has to deal with Blind and actually risks something diving in.
On November 01 2016 04:30 Immersion_ wrote: I took a break for a few days following samuro release (coincidence). I have played say 20-30 games in the last few days at master level and he has been banned every time. If I'm first ban I try to get my guy to pick malf so I can ban bw and then auriel on second ban phase as few people want to take support in first phase except malf who is known as op. Either way I have no idea if samuro is op, I've never played against him. Not saying he isn't but the herd mentality over certain heroes is always amusing.
He's ridiculous. I almost had a comeback yesterday from 18% core and only top keep vs 3 forts up on Dragon Shire and our support being starfall Tyrande just because Samuro at 20 can move at mount speed with permament cloaking while also being able to bop every non-warrior in the game.
It's weird, I've played three Hero League games where Samuro wasn't banned. One game the enemy picked him, and despite playing Kael'thas I never felt threatened by him. On another we relied on him to be our diver against a bunch of ranged damage and he got completely creamed. Third game nobody banned him and nobody picked him.
I've seen how monstrous he can be in Quickmatch, but that's Quickmatch, a place where Nova is actually good, so it's not the same. I just haven't seen him in enough real matches to understand how he's supposed to work. I've been expecting him to function like a Greymane or Kerrigan and he's massively underperformed those expectations. With the tiny amount of actual games I've played, I don't know if I just happened upon some terrible Samuro players or if I'm just assuming the wrong role for Samuro.
He is more Zeratul than Greymane or Kerrigan I think. Single target get in and burst and get out again. In general reveal talents and AoE are strong against him to reveal and eliminate the clones. He can almost always escape, but if he isn't auto attacking he isn't doing anything at all. I think Tracer and Illidan are good against Samuro, but both are heroes that the average player isn't good with. Likewise Gul'dan, Kael'thas and Medivh if you can keep them alive can stack quest talents quickly against him. Still, at this point he is much more difficult for unorganized teams to deal with relative to the skill needed to be effective with him.
On November 01 2016 22:41 karazax wrote: He is more Zeratul than Greymane or Kerrigan I think. Single target get in and burst and get out again. In general reveal talents and AoE are strong against him to reveal and eliminate the clones. He can almost always escape, but if he isn't auto attacking he isn't doing anything at all. I think Tracer and Illidan are good against Samuro, but both are heroes that the average player isn't good with. Likewise Gul'dan, Kael'thas and Medivh if you can keep them alive can stack quest talents quickly against him. Still, at this point he is much more difficult for unorganized teams to deal with relative to the skill needed to be effective with him.
I suppose that makes sense. Also, I completely shot our draft in the foot in that game then. Whoops.
Cant say i like when my team picks him. I never ban him myself cuz i never see him being as useful as other heroes. Dont understand whats so OP about him and i even felt this before his nerf kicked in.
He is really strong, but all he has is autoattacks, which makes it easy to counter him. So he is scary last pick material. While first pick, screams for a loss. Will be scary when the long term Samuro lovers will take these opportunities in a draft.
It's hard to say picking him first is screaming for a loss when his win rate is so high and his ban rate is insane. Part of the problem is many players pre-lock in their choices and refuse to change regardless of what their team or the other team is drafting.
On November 03 2016 00:47 karazax wrote: It's hard to say picking him first is screaming for a loss when his win rate is so high and his ban rate is insane. Part of the problem is many players pre-lock in their choices and refuse to change regardless of what their team or the other team is drafting.
Yea but that's a problem with the playerbase not the hero pool. Blizzard can't be balancing the game around the stupidity of the community.
Biggest problem that I have with him that his clones + windwalk are just so incredibly unfun and frustrating to play against. Zera / nova are screwed why you unstealth them. Zera can blick but you can chase him. Samuro just pops his clones, and windwalks out and you just have to watch him do it.
Learned today that Arthas is quite good against Samuro.
With his Immortal Coil talent on 7 for additional self heal, the attack speed slow on 13 and the root on 16, Samuro has a hard time engaging Arthas without getting slowed/rooted and having his damage neutered. He probably could still solo Arthas but in a teamfight it makes a huge difference. Went for Ghouls for additional self heal and didn't regret it.
He can still Bladestorm out of it but that is unlikely to kill Arthas and if he blows that on Arthas just to escape, that's a good thing for the team.
Impressions are the same as stated above, he plays very similar to Zeratul: You go in, blow all CDs and get out while hopefully killing a target/ making a difference. Main difference beeing: Zera has better selfsustain, Samuro can jungle Wombo-Combo potential is quite huge when someone sets you up (ETC, Zarya, Jaina, ...) and you can bladestorm 3+ targets
On November 03 2016 00:47 karazax wrote: It's hard to say picking him first is screaming for a loss when his win rate is so high and his ban rate is insane. Part of the problem is many players pre-lock in their choices and refuse to change regardless of what their team or the other team is drafting.
he is a stealth hero, of course his winrate is high with people not being used to play against invisible heroes and his counters being non common picks. Also explains his ban rate. "Don't wanna learn to play against a situational pick." But do you really want to put your game on the line hopeing the enemy has no idea how to deal with him ?
Usually first pick games feel easy vs him. While last picks can end up a huge struggle. But I found out its incredible fun to play Morales vs him. Fun not easy !
I expect Heroes team to make him standard at some point, so enjoying unique games while I can.
His win rate is just as high at masters so I don't think it's as simple as players not being used to playing against invisible heroes. I do think that many players don't realize that reveal talents show you which ones are the clones. No single hero has a positive win rate against him, which suggests there isn't a single reliable counter. It takes multiple counter picks to significantly reduce his win rate. And of course if you don't pick or ban him then he can be drafted when it's too late to counter draft.
Thanks for the feedback, we agree that Leoric could use a couple of adjustments. We're exploring some options and should be able to look towards getting something out our focus on BlizzCon concludes.
Leo gets picked a reasonable amount of the time at pro level, no? No doubt his talent diversity sucks a bit but not every tank needs to be a solo tank and I always fine leoric picks interesting.
On November 04 2016 04:04 Immersion_ wrote: Leo gets picked a reasonable amount of the time at pro level, no? No doubt his talent diversity sucks a bit but not every tank needs to be a solo tank and I always fine leoric picks interesting.
He is a 2nd tank to bust tanks though.
On November 04 2016 04:19 Foxxan wrote: More warriors should be able to solo tank imo, atleast with a very specific talent build. ONly sonya in team? then go for tank build.
Would just be nice to get some more 'standard' tanks in, rather than omg so creative unique tanks that aren't really tanks (like Zarya).
Ultimately the meta hasn't shifted from Muradin/ETC/Johanna/Tyrael forever. People said supports were in need of help, now we have more viable options there than in the tanks. Issue being if you buff certain solo tank talents for Arthas/Anub/Diablo/Sonya etc they might become way too strong.
I'm hoping Aiden (The Diablo 1 Warrior) will be able to solo tank. His default weapon kit is a Sword and Shield so it'd fit beautifully.
Otherwise there's a shit load of good lore characters from WoW that would work great as a solo tank: Bolvar Fordragon, Varian Wrynn, Highlord Saurfang, Cairne or Baine Bloodhoof, Darion Morgraine etc etc.
They just have to be committing to making them and pushing them out instead of so many fucking assassins.
On November 04 2016 07:51 Larkin wrote: Would just be nice to get some more 'standard' tanks in, rather than omg so creative unique tanks that aren't really tanks (like Zarya).
Ultimately the meta hasn't shifted from Muradin/ETC/Johanna/Tyrael forever. People said supports were in need of help, now we have more viable options there than in the tanks. Issue being if you buff certain solo tank talents for Arthas/Anub/Diablo/Sonya etc they might become way too strong.
You forgot Chen. Right now as a solo tank he's doing good, especially if you're the team with dive.
Well, I have some success in the lower leagues with him (mid plat : /) and Sreyz consider him OK as solo tank so I'll keep doing that.
edit: what I meant is, he's not necessary a perfect fit for solo tank, but he does it very well on certain circumstances (3 or 4 ranged squishies in the other team for example). He's good if they don't dive / stun lock. I agree with karazax below.
Genji is just a skin for Overwatch you can earn by playing HOTS with friends, no doubt to get Overwatch players trying HOTS and giving them a solid starter kit of heroes for free.
Honestly, at this point I'd be willing to let him through just to finally see how powerful he is, but people pull the plug whenever I let him through the ban phase.
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