• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 21:10
CEST 03:10
KST 10:10
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Code S RO8 Preview: herO, Zoun, Bunny, Classic3Code S RO8 Preview: Rogue, GuMiho, Solar, Maru3BGE Stara Zagora 2025: Info & Preview27Code S RO12 Preview: GuMiho, Bunny, SHIN, ByuN3The Memories We Share - Facing the Final(?) GSL47
Community News
BGE Stara Zagora 2025 - Replay Pack2Weekly Cups (June 2-8): herO doubles down1[BSL20] ProLeague: Bracket Stage & Dates9GSL Ro4 and Finals moved to Sunday June 15th13Weekly Cups (May 27-June 1): ByuN goes back-to-back0
StarCraft 2
General
Code S RO8 Preview: herO, Zoun, Bunny, Classic Jim claims he and Firefly were involved in match-fixing The SCII GOAT: A statistical Evaluation DreamHack Dallas 2025 - Official Replay Pack BGE Stara Zagora 2025 - Replay Pack
Tourneys
[GSL 2025] Code S:Season 2 - RO8 - Group A RSL: Revival, a new crowdfunded tournament series SOOPer7s Showmatches 2025 Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament Sea Duckling Open (Global, Bronze-Diamond)
Strategy
[G] Darkgrid Layout Simple Questions Simple Answers [G] PvT Cheese: 13 Gate Proxy Robo
Custom Maps
[UMS] Zillion Zerglings
External Content
Mutation # 477 Slow and Steady Mutation # 476 Charnel House Mutation # 475 Hard Target Mutation # 474 Futile Resistance
Brood War
General
BGH auto balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ BW General Discussion FlaSh Witnesses SCV Pull Off the Impossible vs Shu StarCraft & BroodWar Campaign Speedrun Quest Will foreigners ever be able to challenge Koreans?
Tourneys
NA Team League 6/8/2025 [ASL19] Grand Finals [BSL20] GosuLeague RO16 - Tue & Wed 20:00+CET [Megathread] Daily Proleagues
Strategy
I am doing this better than progamers do. [G] How to get started on ladder as a new Z player
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread Beyond All Reason Path of Exile What do you want from future RTS games?
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Wizard Hilton Cybertech Crypto Recovery: Proven Re
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine UK Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Vape Nation Thread
Fan Clubs
Maru Fan Club Serral Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Korean Music Discussion [Manga] One Piece
Sports
2024 - 2025 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion NHL Playoffs 2024
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
A Better Routine For Progame…
TrAiDoS
StarCraft improvement
iopq
Heero Yuy & the Tax…
KrillinFromwales
I was completely wrong ab…
jameswatts
Need Your Help/Advice
Glider
Trip to the Zoo
micronesia
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 27018 users

[HotS] Talking Cleanse with the pros

Forum Index > Heroes of the Storm
Post a Reply
TL.net ESPORTS
Profile Joined July 2011
4 Posts
August 10 2018 13:30 GMT
#1



Talking Cleanse with the pros


Written by: ethyr


With its rise to prominence during the stun meta in early Heroes of the Storm, Cleanse has been one of the most iconic Support talents in the game. By providing your allies a brief immunity to crowd control effects, the talent rewards high level players for quick thinking, teamwork, and preemptive play.

Despite its high skill cap, the talent’s huge playmaking potential has often made it the default choice on any support who can access it. The problem with this lies amongst the lower skilled players whose win rate with the talent has consistently struggled. An example of this can be demonstrated using HotsLogs data for one of the most popular support heroes, Malfurion. While he no longers uses the original iteration of Cleanse, his level 7 talent Nature’s Cure has a similar mechanic. When looking at the success of Nature’s Cure across different leagues, you can see a substantial jump in the talent’s win rate when you move from Bronze (29%) to Master (53.5%). This trend is consistent among other heroes with a Cleanse or similar talent.

As such, less skilled support players have often found themselves frustrated by the lack of alternative options. The response to this was to remove Cleanse from many support heroes or rework its functionality on a hero-by-hero basis.
With this and new focus on releasing non-Cleanse supports, professional play has seen the talent decline in popularity. The graph below displays this downward trend on Cleanse support pick-rates over the last year of HGC.


Data retrieved from Masterleague

To further analyse the current state of the talent, we spoke with three of the best support players in the world: Nurok from Team Liquid, Cursen from Method, and KilluZiioN from Team Freedom.
Do you think Cleanse has dropped in priority over the last year?

Nurok: Overall I think the priority of Cleanse might have gone down a bit, BUT it depends on a) the meta and b) team comps. Back then Cleanse was more important than it is now, but that was mostly because of the very fast and one-shot heavy metas we had. Now we have more tools to answer these kinds of drafts - more bans, more bruisers, and more viable supports.

Cursen: I think that Cleanse has not really dropped in priority on the heroes that have it over time, but rather teams have learned how to draft around the supports of which does not have any Cleanse at all. These heroes are given other tools like CC (Stukov and Deckard) or high numbers (like Alexstrasza). However this makes supports without Cleanse very meta dependent, and currently having “high” sustain is high on the list when picking the right support.

KilluZiioN: I don't think it did. I think most teams/players just got used to playing without it since a lot of supports were losing the ability.



Does Cleanse have a healthy impact on the game?

Nurok: It's a healthy ability but I’m happy it's not baseline for every support. It gives every hero a unique way of dealing with lockdown instead of just Cleanse at level 7. For example, Kharazim accesses his “Cleanse” at level 16 while Ana gets hers at level 13. I believe Blizzard will keep this direction of design which is healthy for the game, otherwise it would become too static and boring.

KilluZiioN: Cleanse is a great support ability and I think the game definitely needs it.


Do you think changes should be made to the talent to improve its win-rate at lower levels of play?

Nurok: The “active“ abilities usually always have lower win-rates at lower levels of play, that's just natural. It's an additional button you have to be aware of and if you use it poorly or not at all, you're missing out on an entire talent tier basically. Thus, for a bad or average player, I suggest picking a different talent if you don't feel confident enough in your ability to utilize Cleanse in a perfect way.

Cursen: Cleanse is the “big play” of the support role, rewarding skill/quick decision making and differentiating players within the role. I think most supports should have another viable option at 7 other than Cleanse and should be balanced accordingly. While I don’t think much about Cleanse itself should be changed, I think adding parts to it for different heroes to have a different feel is a good way to go, like with Malfurion or Li Li, so it reacts in different ways but is still essentially a “remove CC” button, that will always have lower impact in lower skill brackets.


KilluZiioN: I don't think so. If Cleanse is too easy to use, it would be broken. I like where it is at right now. I even wish to see more changes to have more hero specific Cleanses. I really like the idea and I think it should be a thing for every support in the game.


What kind of changes should be made to the talent to improve the experience, especially at a competitive level?

Nurok: I could see Cleanse being given an additional effect, like either removing CC or having another benefit if that’s not the case. These could be mini-heals or hero specific interactions, e.g. Rehgar’s target gets a lightning shield, Malfurion gets a Moonfire proc, or Uther’s passive is applied to the target.
These ideas are spontaneous and could be thought out more properly but I think a change like this could give really skilled players more options, and less skilled players always something else.


Cursen: I think overall Cleanse is in a good spot of rewarding good decision making in competitive. The main issue I can see being worked on is the “wait on my cd” situation. Because most basic cc abilities are on a shorter cooldown than Cleanse, you will sometimes have to use it before the enemy has committed anything beyond short cooldowns, forcing you to wait until your CD is back up.
Rehgar is the most common hero where this situation occurs, due to his low impact basic abilities for saving people. The main way in my opinion of changing this is to introduce ways to reduce the CD, even if it increases the baseline CD.
A good example of this is the current version of Uther’s Cleanse that requires auto attacks yet has a 90 sec CD.
An example of a change for Rehgar would be to reduce the cooldown of Cleanse when dealing damage with W to enemy heroes or biting anything.

KilluZiioN: Somehow make it easier to see for the audience. A lot of insane Cleanses are being missed in the cast of HGC and it’s kinda sad in my opinion. I also think changes could be made to reduce the CD for some heroes, for example, Rehgar could have the CD reduced every time he bites an enemy hero, or Morales could have the same effect with her grenade.



That's what the professionals had to say about Cleanse, but what do you think? Should it be available to more heroes? What changes would you propose to the talent? Share it in the comments below!


Emily ‘ethyr’ Thurgar is an Australian esports journalist and minor region fanatic. She is a guru on all things happening in ANZ, LATAM, SEA, and Taiwan, and is fluent in Google translate. Make sure to follow her on Twitter for updates on minor region HotS, and more!


Check out our latest articles:
Interview with LFM Esports
Who Cares About Whitemane?
In Defense of Quick Match
Lore of the Nexus: Yrel
Music of the Storm: Sky Temple

Follow us on Twitter!



Writer(s): ethyr
Editor(s): Buckingham
Formatting: Phantom
Design: shiroiusagi
Art Credit: Blizzard

TL+ Member
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Online Event
00:00
LATAM SC2 League: Semifinals
CranKy Ducklings66
Liquipedia
GSL
23:00
Replay Cast
Rogue vs GuMiho
Maru vs Solar
PiGStarcraft552
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
PiGStarcraft552
RuFF_SC2 135
Nina 74
CosmosSc2 73
EnDerr 22
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 18991
Rain 1601
Artosis 849
Aegong 61
Icarus 4
Dota 2
LuMiX1
Counter-Strike
Coldzera 413
Foxcn318
Super Smash Bros
hungrybox586
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor160
Other Games
summit1g12321
shahzam1564
JimRising 293
ViBE221
Maynarde126
Organizations
Dota 2
PGL Dota 2 - Main Stream7907
Other Games
gamesdonequick937
BasetradeTV98
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 16 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH264
• Hupsaiya 84
• RyuSc2 46
• davetesta44
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• HerbMon 31
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Doublelift5139
Upcoming Events
Replay Cast
50m
GSL Code S
8h 20m
herO vs Zoun
Classic vs Bunny
The PondCast
8h 50m
Replay Cast
22h 50m
WardiTV Invitational
1d 9h
OSC
1d 11h
Korean StarCraft League
2 days
SOOP
2 days
sOs vs Percival
CranKy Ducklings
2 days
WardiTV Invitational
2 days
[ Show More ]
Cheesadelphia
2 days
CSO Cup
2 days
GSL Code S
3 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
3 days
Replay Cast
3 days
Wardi Open
4 days
Replay Cast
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
RSL Revival
5 days
Cure vs Percival
ByuN vs Spirit
RSL Revival
6 days
herO vs sOs
Zoun vs Clem
Replay Cast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

CSL Season 17: Qualifier 2
BGE Stara Zagora 2025
Heroes 10 EU

Ongoing

JPL Season 2
BSL 2v2 Season 3
BSL Season 20
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 2
NPSL S3
Rose Open S1
CSL 17: 2025 SUMMER
2025 GSL S2
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 7
IEM Dallas 2025
PGL Astana 2025
Asian Champions League '25
BLAST Rivals Spring 2025
MESA Nomadic Masters
CCT Season 2 Global Finals
IEM Melbourne 2025
YaLLa Compass Qatar 2025
PGL Bucharest 2025
BLAST Open Spring 2025

Upcoming

Copa Latinoamericana 4
CSLPRO Last Chance 2025
CSLPRO Chat StarLAN 3
K-Championship
SEL Season 2 Championship
Esports World Cup 2025
HSC XXVII
Championship of Russia 2025
Murky Cup #2
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual
IEM Cologne 2025
FISSURE Playground #1
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.