by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

It has been a week since the Eternal Conflict began.  In addition to a new map and a new hero, this patch also brought with it major changes to a variety of Heroes, as well as fundamental game play adjustments.  Now that we have had some time to see these changes in action, we can start to see which Heroes have been helped by this patch and which Heroes have been hurt by it.  With that said, lets dive immediately into the winners and losers.

Winners

The Butcher

How can we not start this conversation by talking about the Butcher?  He was the poster boy for this content patch after all.  As is often the case with new Heroes, it was almost impossible to play a game this week and not encounter someone playing the Butcher.  It is fairly common for new Heroes to seem overpowered when they are first released, and the Butcher is no different.  A good Butcher can absolutely wreck the opposing team, but there are plenty of bad Butchers out there as well.  The reality is that the Butcher has a win rate of just over 50% for this first week, so he seems to be a fairly balanced Hero.  While he can be quite strong in the right hands, there are ways to counter and neutralize him.  I haven’t personally tried him, but I have heard that he is also very fun Hero to play.  It will be interesting to see where the Butcher goes as more and more people start to play him.

Malfurion

Like many supports, Malfurion received a substantial rework.  It was obvious just by reading the patch notes that he was going to benefit greatly from these changes.  The first week of play has proven that to be true.  All of his basic abilities and his trait were improved, while most of the talents that he lost were ones that had recently been nerfed.  The addition of Cleanse as a level 7 talent is also a huge plus.  Many people are now saying that Malfurion is the best healer in the game, and they have a strong argument.  If there was a challenger to this title though, it would be…

Rehgar

Of the three supports to receive major changes this patch, Rehgar was probably the one that garnered the least attention.  That is understandable considering how obvious the improvements to Malfurion were, and how drastic the changes to Brightwing were.  While no one was looking, Rehgar has quietly snuck into the top healer spot.  This seems appropriate, since Shadow Wolf at level 4 is a big reason for this jump.  The ability to mount instantly, combined with four second of stealth, can make Rehgar almost impossible to kill.  This mobility, along with an improved Chain Heal (Q), are what makes him so powerful.  Rehgar is going to continue to gain popularity as more and more people realize how good he is now.

Zagara

The big change to Zagara centers around her Hunter Killer (W) ability.  Much like Rehgar, if you simply read about the changes in the patch notes it is easy to overlook how impactful they are.  The improvements to her Hydralisk AI, and the fact that they persist after the death of the original target, provide a massive buff.  Zagara was already an increasingly popular Hero, and now she is even stronger.

Stitches

This one is more of an honorable mention.  There was a time that Stitches was without a doubt the best tank in the game, but then he was hit hard with the nerf bat.  He has been one of the least played warriors ever since.  While he is still far removed from his glory days, Stitches received some nice improvements in this patch, so there may be hope for him yet.

Losers

The Lost Vikings

So many changes, where do we even begin?  On second thought, it doesn’t matter.  The Lost Vikings are dead.  One glance at the patch notes and you will see that they received more changes than all of the other Specialist combined, and almost all of them were nerfs.  The Lost Vikings have traditionally had one of the highest win rates in the game, while at the same time being one of the least played Heroes.  This is due to the incredible amount of skill required to play them well.  The fact that they weren’t more widely played at the lower levels is probably the only reason they didn’t get changed sooner.  The Vikings were probably in need of a change, but Blizzard has over corrected.  It is a shame, because the Lost Vikings were such a unique and interesting Hero.

Brightwing

This is a great example of how difficult it can be to gauge the impact of patch changes just by reading the notes.  It was obvious that Brightwing was receiving a major overhaul, but most people seemed to think that the new Brightwing would only be slightly worse that the old Brightwing.  The reality seems to be that the new Brightwing is just flat at worse at everything.  She now has less healing, less damage, and less versitility.  No Hero took a bigger drop in win rate during the first week of the patch than Brightwing.  We’ll see if she can bounce back as people get more experience playing her new style, but for the time being she is in a very bad place.

Illidan

“You are not prepared!” may be one of the most recognizable catch phrases in all of WoW.  In Heroes of the Storm though, competitive teams were prepared, or at least they tried to be.  Illidan had become the Hero that most drafts centered around.  It he wasn’t banned outright, teams were usually drafting to either compliment their Illidan or to counter the opposing Illidan.  As it turns out, part of what made him so strong were abilities that were not functioning correctly.  He was one of several Heroes who had abilities that would allow them to briefly become unstoppable.  This behavior was not intended, and Blizzard fixed it with this patch.  In the case of Illidan, he was gaining this benefit on both his Dive (Q) and his Sweeping Strikes (W) abilities, which greatly increased his survivability.  His most popular ultimate, Metamorphasis, also took a big hit in this patch.  Illidan was already one of those Heroes where people tended to either be really good at him or really bad.  That skill gap will be even bigger now, as it will be so much harder to stay alive with him.  As a result of these changes, Illidan will be more of a situational pick.  He will be at his best when the enemy team lacks stuns.

Anub’arak

This is an example of a Hero who is still good, just not as good.  Anub’arak has skyrocketed in popularity recently, to the point that he was the most played Hero in the game for the three weeks prior to the patch.  Not only was he the most played, but he also had the highest winning percentage during that time.  He was due for a nerf, and luckily for Anub’arak players, it was a small one.  He received a slight damage reduction in this patch, thru changes to his Scarab Host trait and Locust Swarm (W) ability.  While these changes were minor, they were enough to bring him closer in line with the other top warriors as far as win rate and popularity.  While Anub’arak is no longer clearly the best warrior in the game, he is still top three.

Kerrigan

If you were to look under Kerrigan in the patch notes you might think she got a slight buff, since the only change listed involves being able to retarget her Ultralisk (R) after death.  However, like Illidan, Kerrigan was another Hero who had several abilities that were not functioning as intended.  She was gaining unstoppable on her Ravage (Q) and stuns on her Primal Grasp (E) abilities, both of which were corrected.  She was also hurt more than other Heroes by the changes to Envenom and Blood for Blood, since they were such key talents in virtually all of her builds.  As a result, Kerrigan has lost a lot of damage and survivability.  The good news is that Blizzard has already taken to the official forums to say that improvements to Kerrigan are in the works.

Promote

While it wasn’t as common or effective in random Quick Match games, Promote compositions had been showing up more and more on the competitive scene.  Not only were the Promote comps having success, but they were also drastically changing the way games were play.  As a result, adjustments were made to make Promote more of a PVE  ability, and to lessen its effectiveness against other Heroes.  As it stand now, Promote is no longer a viable talent for most Heroes.  Azmodan is the only Hero who might consider taking it, and only because there are no other talents at level 4 that are drastically better.  It is worth noting that for Azmodan’s version of Promote is known as Bound Minion.

Hopefully you enjoyed this article, but a quick word of warning.  Don’t read too much into all of this.  Heroes is still just a game, and the point is to enjoy it.  Don’t get so caught up in which Heroes are ‘good’ or which Heroes are ‘bad’, that you stop playing the Heroes that you enjoy.  Not only will you have more fun by playing your favorites, but the most people will have better results playing a Hero that they know and like, as opposed to simply choosing the top Hero from some tier list they found on the internet.

The full patch notes can be found here, and insights from the developers on the patch can be found here.

Several times in this article I referenced things such as win percentages and popularity.  This information was gathered from a site called HOTS Logs, which is a great place if you want to crunch some numbers on Heroes of the Storm.  Good luck and have fun!