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On December 20 2017 04:23 EsportsJohn wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2017 00:33 Hider wrote:
Been playing quite a bit of zeratul lately and I come to appreciate the new ultimate alot. It's not just about burst damage, but also provides additional waweclar and general more damage over teamfights. More chasing and more escape-opportunities.
This allows you to go into fights a lot more frequently than you otherwise would. Thus in my opinion, this new ultimate - in the hands of a skilled player - is better than VP.
The globe talent is actually surprisingly good as I found lower CD blink helped me tremendously in a ton of different teamfights.
The main issue he has is that stealth doesn't do anything and as a consequence he struggles pre lvl 7 because you can no longer engage without blink. In my opinion his stealth shold be significantly buffed - otherwise they might as well just remove it.
I suggest the following two buffs:
1. Increase movement bonus while stealthed by an additional + 15% - both for mounted and unmounted
2. Reduce stealth activation CD to 1.5 seconds from 3 seconds.
That would make it easier to engage as stealthed - especially if you take the lvl 1 talent for even faster speed on top of that. The combination of these 2 changes should ideally increase his w/r to something like 45-47% from the current 40%. It feels weird to say, but in my opinion, Void Prison is pretty much useless now. So much of Zeratul's damage and utility is wrapped up in Might of the Nerazim to ever make picking Void Prison worth it. He just feels like a significantly worse hero if you go VP.
Zeratul was pretty niche/terrible before so ofc the VP build feels weaker. It's probably still better with Jaina tho.
Overall Zeratul is the only cloak hero that will see play I think, his new R and 20 are crazy, other tiers got buffed as well. Meanwhile Samuro lost most of his damage (clones) and Valeera is most likely getting nerfed into the ground, because this game is designed around Quick Match 
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On the whole, Zeratul was buffed by an incredible amount, and we'll probably see him a lot in pro play
He was definitely nerfed significantly for the average player. A drop of -8 % win/rate is too high. But in terms of skillcap I think he is still very viable/buffed, but only for those who took the time to master him.
And you are right about stand-still invisbility, that's pretty good, but besides that stealth is pointless and could honestly be removed for him without impacting the win/rate noticeably.
Contrast this to the new Nova where stealth feels like it's a part of her kit. Hence why I think buffing stealth (while moving) to make it easier to engage is a good. I don't think that should lead to a dramatic buff for the best zeratul players, but is going to help the average player a good amount.
And the idea that he would be a pub-stomper in QM is absolutely ridiculous given his current 40% win/rate in contrast to Nova's 56%.
So much of Zeratul's damage and utility is wrapped up in Might of the Nerazim to ever make picking Void Prison worth it. He just feels like a significantly worse hero if you go VP.
I haven't played new Zera with VP, but it's probably true. New ultimate just gives a good player so many more options and make Zera much more allrounded.
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Using his current winrate to justify buffs might seem a reasonable idea at face value, however then you realize that there are currently 2 other QM pub-stomp heroes (Nova and Valeera) which should also make you realize that stealth-counters are currently at a premium in QM and more likely to be picked, thus depressing Zeratuls win-rate. Further, you should consider that if there is a Zeratul on one team, the likelihood of there being a Nova or Valeera on the other vastly increases. With those two currently being overtuned for QM (note, probably not for HL), Zeratul who may be appropriately tuned for both is going to suffer a lower win-rate. Lastly, with the revamp at lot of players who haven't practiced Zeratul are now playing him which is obviously going to affect his win-rate. Whilst the same argument could be made for Nova, Zeratul is definitely the more finicky and fragile of the two to play. This means that errors are much harsher punished on Zeratul than on Nova.
To conclude: Win-rate is a very fragily foundation for building an argument. Zeratul is probably in a pretty good spot right now with Nova and possibly Valeera both being slightly overtuned for QM.
EDIT: I think this may be a question of different balancing philosphies rather than much else.
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Stealth was super important for Nova and I don't think the new 1 ability makes up for it. Crippling Shot is still the best talent at high level but Snipe was nerfed by ~18% so you'd need to hit 4 stacks of Snipe Master to have the same power as pre-patch (also I hate how they forced that mechanic onto her... punish you for missing a Snipe, great design). Doesn't help that Bribe was indirectly nerfed cuz the initial objective timers are later now on some of her best maps (Curse for example).
I haven't tested Valeera as much, I thought the cloak nerf would rekt her cuz she relies on getting into melee range but the teleport helps a lot and she's not played the same way now anyway (no more volatile chain stun stuff, you can play more defensive with the silence).
Then again it's hard to test stuff when the system puts you in plat 1.
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Using his current winrate to justify buffs might seem a reasonable idea at face value, however then you realize that there are currently 2 other QM pub-stomp heroes (Nova and Valeera) which should also make you realize that stealth-counters are currently at a premium in QM and more likely to be picked, thus depressing Zeratuls win-rate.
Stealth-counters like what? Because we can easily verify/dismiss all your "theories" by looking at the change in popularity on the "stealth-counters". In my opinion the whole notion that there is a significant increase in counters to stealth becasue of the buffed nova in QM appears like something you just made up in the spot to defend your claim.
On top of that, there is no way that can account for such a drastic job - especially when nova win/rate went the ohter way.
And the thing that makes me somewhat convinced you haven't played a whole lot of new zera is that he isn't about stealth at all. It doesn't do anything. You get spotted immediately before a flank. You only win through raw mechanics. Hence why I suggested the 2 buffs to stealth.
This will make it easier to dodge skillshots while getting into melee range on the opponent.
Zeratul in QM when taking VP as ultimate has a 36% win/rate! To the contrary both new nova ultimate has a 59% win/rate.
So please stop with the whole comparison of new Nova to Zeratul. They are literrally as far apart as possible in QM. Zeratul is one of the worst pick possibly in an average QM game. Nova is the opposite.
Until I started facing GM/high master ranked zeratul players, every Zeratul opponent I ever faced did absolutely nothing in the game.
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EDIT: Actually, it doesn't really matter enough for me to bother.
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United States4883 Posts
LOL Nova got nerfed.
I honestly don't know why.
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On December 21 2017 12:59 EsportsJohn wrote:
LOL Nova got nerfed.
I honestly don't know why.
Because they are balancing stealthies around QM/low HL... but I was 100% sure Valeera would be the first to get nerfed :|
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TBH Nova had the highest winrate for a bit, and that's never a good thing, especially when it's heroes the community is sensible about. You can have Sonya & Greymane be the best heroes forever, but not Nova ! She's still very good though.
edit: she's still good :-) yeah, no votes though ! (it was HL ofc)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/XML7wP6.png)
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On December 21 2017 23:50 Freezard wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2017 12:59 EsportsJohn wrote:
LOL Nova got nerfed.
I honestly don't know why. Because they are balancing stealthies around QM/low HL... but I was 100% sure Valeera would be the first to get nerfed :|
Low-leagues as in diamond/master where she has a 61% win/rate?
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Looking at Zeratul lvl 7 talent choices it appears that there is a good and even competition between the W-talent and wormhole. Similar popularity and win/rate which is great. This way you can kinda get Zeratul players with different playstyles and slightly different strenght and weakness's - while still fulfilling the same role.
With regards to Samuro, Bladestorm has surprisingly tanked in win/rate quite a lot. I guess bladestorm succes also depended alot on flanking squishes from stealth which is a lot harder now.
Statistically speaking, Illusion Master hasn't tanked however from watching Onetrickpony's videos (https://www.twitch.tv/onepricktonyhots/videos/all) it's clear that it is pretty awfull.
He has gone from a 64% win/rate on Samuro and a GM player to a sub 50% Samuro win/rate and less than 1000 point in master in the new season.
For the longest time he used to always "hype" up the new Samuro as being so "lit". And while he has tried to excuse his poor results with "bad matchmaking", he finally "admitted" at the end of his last stream that Samuro seemed bad and wanted to take a break from the game.
Kinda sad how bad blizzard ruined him and for what? They think that more casuals want to play the new Samuro because they can switch between clones pre lvl 10?
Prepatch all I wanted to do was to play Samuro, but right now he is one of the last heroes I want to play. And I keep comparing him to the new Zeratul. Samuro still offers better "map control", but the difference has been reduced as images kill minions slower and zeratul can kill them faster due to the new ult.
And with Zeratul you control your own "destiny" during a teamfight. If you are good enough, you can make plays and secure kills by your self.
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After playing some more Zeratul I definitely think wormhole is the better talent at lvl 7. The problem with the W-talent is that it's hard to get into range with new stealth. You often get spotted before.
Glarung seems to be the only top Zeratul player who uses W-build, but if you watch his stream you see that he often blinks forward just to get into W-range. That allowed for some sick plays but it's definitely a super unreliable way of engaging and very risky. Wormhole on the other hand just allows you for relatively safe engagements.
But ofc you have to remember that you generally shouldn't be flanking with wormhole - unlike the W-build. Instead you need to be able to blink back into safety.
Besides the stealth-changes, the regen change is also a larger buff to wormhole and wormhole was also buffed from 2 to 3 seconds. So it is 3 seperate buffs to this talent over the W-build.
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EPT
