by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

Now that we have had a week of Patch 13.0, also known as the Karazim Patch, it is time to continue our tradition of accessing who was helped and who was hurt by these changes.  Frankly, I was initially surprised at the amount of changes when this patch innitially hit the PTR, but I think this will be the norm going forward.  It seems as if Blizzard is sticking to their promise to deliver a new Hero every three to four weeks, with a major patch accompanying every other Hero release.  This means we should expect signifigant changes to be limited to every six weeks, with only bug and exploit fixes in between.

Winners

Kael’thas

How can we not start with Kael’thas?  There was a large segment of the player pool who pronounced him dead as soon as they read that Ignite was being removed.  There was some logic to this, since the current KT build consisted of bidding time until level 16, and then blowing everything up with long range Flamestrikes.  Players who tried Kael’thas on the PTR knew that he was still going to be a strong Hero, and some even whispered that he might actually be better.  Many people still didn’t listen, but no one is saying Kael’thas is dead now.  The Living Bomb build provides great damage, and it is so much fun watching all of those bombs go off.  Pyroblast is also seeing more use now, and the improvements to Gravity Lapse have made KT a legitimate roaming threat.

Zeratul

If it wasn’t for the whole mistaken ‘KT is dead’ narrative, I would have labeled Zeratul as the biggest winner of this patch, simply because he didn’t get nerfed.  In competitive play, he has become first pick or first ban material.  In lower level play, he is the Hero that everyone complains about because he seemingly kills them at will.  Regardless of what level you play at, a good Zeratul player can change games.  As a result, many people expected him to be nerfed during the next round of changes, but he escaped unharmed.  Maybe Blizzard can’t deal with stealth either?  He is on their radar though, so enjoy him now because he might not be so lucky next patch.

Kerrigan

The Queen of Blades was hit hard during the previous patch, and Blizzard acknowledged a short time later that they were working on improvements for her.  It didn’t take long for them to deliver on this promise, and Kerrigan is back in the meta with this latest patch.  She has a higher skill cap than some other Heroes, but she can be an absolute terror when played well.  Queen’s Rush gives her great improvement to her mobility, and her shielding has been greatly improved as well.  She also has the potential for build diversity.  While Assimilation Mastery is currently the more popular talent, there are also some strong builds using Impaling Swarm.

Sgt. Hammer

While Hammer only received a small number of changes, they had a strong impact.  The increase to her health pool, and the ability to more quickly move in and out of siege, increase her survivability and make her much more dangerous.  Hammer also benefits from Ignite being removed from Kael’thas.  Before, KT was a direct counter to Hammer, and since you were assured a Kael’thas in almost every game, Hammer lost favor.  Hammer has seen a nice uptick in popularity this week, and I think she will be even more popular now that the Infernal Shrines map has been introduced.

The Players

In addition to certain Heroes being improved, this patch included several great quality of life improvements for the players.  There were UI changes, additional portraits, a new quest, and of course the introduction of Dynamic Bundles.  This patch also greatly increased the variety in the game, which is another win for the players.  We received a new Hero in Kharazim, who can be played multiple ways.  We also had talent changes to Heroes such as Nazeebo and Azmodan to make new builds viable, without negatively effecting their current builds.

Losers

Leoric

While the Skeleton King has only been in the game for a short time, he has already become one of the most popular, and most successful Warriors.  One of the reasons that Leoric was so strong was his Undying trait, and how quickly he could return back to the battle after being killed.  This patch including several changes designed to lessen the the healing effects during Undying, so now Leoric will stay dead longer.  They also removed the increased damage to structures on Skeletal Swing, so Leoric will be less of a siege threat now.  Don’t let the fact that he is in the loser category fool you.  Leoric is still a top tier Warrior and a great laner.  He just isn’t as strong as he was before.

Brightwing

This patch actually included a slight buff to Brightwing’s Soothing Mist trait.  While this gives her a nice boost to her overall healing, it doesn’t seem like it is enough to move her ahead of the other, more popular, healers.  The introduction of a new Support, in the monk, also doesn’t help her cause.  So while BW is better, she is still like the 4th or 5th best Support, which keeps her on the loser list.  Brightwing is a viable healer, especially if she is one of your favorites, there are just other healers who are considered ‘better’.

Cleanse

The use of Cleanse had gone up substantially since it was added to several Heroes in the previous patch.  Players also learned that it could be used preemptively, which allowed players to negate CC abilities before they were even applied.  Blizzard was not a fan of this, which resulted in the Cleanse changes that we received this patch.  Cleanse will now be much more situational, and will require more skill to use properly.  I think this is actually a good thing.  If every team comp included Cleanse, then the developers would have to design abilities with the assumption that the opposing team would have Cleanse, which then makes it even more necessary for teams take it.  It is better to break that cycle now, than have it escalate into something unmanageable.

Gathering Power

This is a great example of a talent choice that wasn’t actually a choice.  For most Heroes, if you could choose between Gathering Power and something else, the correct choice was almost always Gathering Power.  Not only did it cut down on talent variety, the snowbally nature of the ability could also have a drastic effect on the game.  Imagine a QM game where both teams have Kael’thas players who have maxed Gathering Power.  If one of those players were to die late in the game, it means that the other KT would be much more powerful, and the other KT might never be able to close that power gap.  The removal of the initial ability bonus on Gathering Power makes it so that it can be correct to consider other Talents at that level.  The fact that you retain half of your stacks after death makes it less unbalanced if a Hero dies in the late game.

Chen

Poor Chen.  He has been one of the lowest played Warriors for a long, long time now.  While he received an improvement to his Flying Kick, he needs much more love if he is going to work his way into the top tank rotation.

I was quite please with this patch.  Several Heroes that needed buffs received them, and unlike the previous patch, there were no Heroes who were nerfed completely into the ground.  This is reflected in the Loser list above.  It is more about Heroes who could use more help, than Heroes who were made dramatically less effective.  I am also a big fan of how they are addressing popular builds.  Rather than simply nerfing the top build, they are focusing on improving other abilities to motivate people to try different talents.  I think this mindset is a big part of the reason that there were no major Losers in this patch.  GLHF!