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Heroes of the Storm |OT| Pretty sure that Abathur is AFK
- Thread starter Nirolak
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Turdburger
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what I'm wondering is why they're saying late 2016 when it was playable at Blizzcon
Do they only have like 2 people working on it or something?
I'm just speculating but it feels like with the full matchmaking changes, arena, and even these last two heroes - basically anything "big" (sans the heroes) - that with the increase in manpower they are reverting to a more standard Blizzard approach.
I mean, we've seen a good # of posts here and on Reddit praising Blizz for not being slow as molasses with hero releases and maps and most balance changes...
...but both the last hero and map were delayed, it's still ambiguous on Greymane (but he's likely late due to the holidays which they said wouldn't happen IIRC). Arena is late 2016, and we only got 1/3rd of matchmaking changes. And the simple introduction of grandmaster has been talked about for half a year yet is still not here for whatever reason.
Maybe the influx of new Starcraft help and/or the redistribution of the teams in charge of each facet has caused the delays...or maybe they are just operating like they always have. Like molasses, not realizing that you cannot rest on what you have for long in this genre.
So, I'm looking for opinions. There's a topic on Reddit about how Brightwing is basically booty thanks to the stun/burst meta. A post came up about how she's useless against KT thanks to his CB. However, I disagree. Yes, KT takes off 3 levels before BW can get the bouncing dust, but I feel if you can drag it out long enough to get that + the 50% reduction to abilities it absolutely counters KT. Of course, no one on Reddit seems to think that, regardless of seeing it happen in action.
bw is more of an objective-minded hero to me, like what you lose out in heal # is mitigated w/ things like pre-shielding or getting vision w/ z. she does well w/ things like muradin but there are a lot of ranged characters about atm and her w loses a lot of value because of this (still good tho). she's not useless against kt but she's not great either, like she can dive him w/ whoever your diver is but that's kind of the extent of her interaction w/ kt. the ability reduc is good but only if you're killing him w/ it.
she doesnt do well w/ 5v5 ppl running into each other until one team comes out victorious style play, i mean she's not bad at it but there are better choices for that kind of thing
good to pick against a team w/ bad duelers or waveclear
she doesnt do well w/ 5v5 ppl running into each other until one team comes out victorious style play, i mean she's not bad at it but there are better choices for that kind of thing
good to pick against a team w/ bad duelers or waveclear
I think she's alright against him, but he can literally hit everyone and as BW you have to guess right every time as to who is gonna eat it the most when you apply your dust. She also can't bounce the dust til 16, while he can Chain Bomb everyone's pants off starting at 13. And bouncing only affects 1 other, while the Chain Bomb can hit 3 others.
It's a battle that she can't win over time. He'll just chunk everyone down little by little and she no longer has the "D" burst to bring the team back.
Again, I don't think she's bad at it, but I'd rather have the monk or even Rehgar if it was me.
And I do agree with the premise of the thread - she still needs buffs. They went too far, and while damage (and other heroes' healing) continues to go up, her healing becomes less and less valuable.
EDIT: I'm still all about that BW + Tyrande CC action right now though.
It's a battle that she can't win over time. He'll just chunk everyone down little by little and she no longer has the "D" burst to bring the team back.
Again, I don't think she's bad at it, but I'd rather have the monk or even Rehgar if it was me.
And I do agree with the premise of the thread - she still needs buffs. They went too far, and while damage (and other heroes' healing) continues to go up, her healing becomes less and less valuable.
EDIT: I'm still all about that BW + Tyrande CC action right now though.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
i think its some of that, but (my opinion follows) mostly they want to shake out the bigger issues with the game before they "go crazy" as it were and add entirely new ways to play. they want the core game to be where it needs to be first, and that might change how they match in Arena at the same time.
also, i guess it could cause a thinning of the player pool between Arena/reg unless they do a combo Queue system thing? Also I would guess they want Arena to help bring in returning players, so it could help get them back into the game
Nothing is assured in this game, which is why it's my favorite MOBA (and why I hate seeing people go into full-tilt gg mode merely based on team comp and/or how the first 5 minutes of a match goes.)
Those are good points, and agreed about the combo queue system. They would (theoretically) sort of need some way to let you queue for more than one so that you could keep both queues populated.
I'd be afraid QM would die with Arena mode and HL if I were them...at least until they put draft in QM.
Yeah. I honestly think the matchmaking changes have helped a ton. No more tank vs no tank games has been awesome.
We still get strapped with crap like in that image and you certainly have a drop in anticipated win percentage, but we've won those games same as we've lost them. The way late game works in HOTS you just gotta hang around long enough to get one good wipe and you can steal the victory.
Yeah just one bounce and it only goes to whoever is closest IIRC, so you can't even really target it. Odds are it'll hit someone with the CB on em, but maybe not the one you wanted to save.
Dr. Buni
Member
No such thing as unwinnable games.
jaundicejuice
Member
I like how Brightwing is considered awful because she's not a 5 man teamfight burst heal bot. Her strength is in her mobility and polymorph, she can turn even situations into odd-man fights, and her polymorph can shut down key heroes or assist in ganks.
We all know what she can do well, and that part of her is fun.
But ultimately the game comes down to those 5v5 fights, not how many ganks you can get with a nice teleport early. Like was discussed above, all it takes is one late fight and you can win the game off of it. And the later it goes, the more and more the Kharazim's, Morales', Rehgar's, and even Tyrande's are going to heal their entire team.
Top it off with the fact that the polymorph is not as valuable as it once was when Critterize was an automatic pick. It's still powerful, but you are almost forced into taking Bouncy Dust to make up for the healing nerf if you are the solo healer. They more or less split the pick rate at level 16.
Whatever you think of how healing works in HOTS, the fact is they went overboard nerfing Brightwing and bar a few weeks of relevancy a little while back, she's been an also ran ever since. Her utility is amazing, but if I'm in HL or a competitive game I wouldn't want her being my only support 98% of the time.
I wish that wasn't case because she is one of my best heroes, top 3 favorite to play, and one of my 3 most played heroes to boot...but it is.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
reading what you said, i guess i dont feel bad not doing as well on brightwing as i once did. definitely depends on if there's another healer nowadays.
malf is my main healer now, but i need to learn a new alternate.
malf is my main healer now, but i need to learn a new alternate.
I dunno your situation, but the increased wait time is generally a direct correlation with higher MMR. It also happens with supremely low MMR too, though.
The way the matchmaking works now it's attempting to find closer matches, and as you go upward those matches get harder to find since 70%+ of the playerbase are below platinum level. At the least now it won't just spit out random shit once it hits a certain minute mark.
We've had a little bit of both. Sometimes a minute, sometimes 5 or 6 minutes, but honestly the games have been much better so I don't mind the wait.
If I had any gripe with the state of my QM games right now it wouldn't be with matchmaking, it'd be with games where one side or the other gets stuck with solo queue Abathur and it seems to happen to me every 3rd or 4th game. Feels like he's in a bad spot, and I've never ever liked being down a body in QM with how uncoordinated it is.
<--- Abathur hater. And yes I know we have some Abathur fans and good players here. I just think he's a hero that requires way more effort from himself and the team than pretty much any other in QM setting. I have a 61.7% winrate against Abby after 162 versus to back up my prejudice.
Ironically the only heroes I have winrate below 50% against are Kharazim, Brightwing (mostly pre-nerf), Zeratul, Rexxar (just 9 games), and The Lost Vikings (also pre-nerf).
The way the matchmaking works now it's attempting to find closer matches, and as you go upward those matches get harder to find since 70%+ of the playerbase are below platinum level. At the least now it won't just spit out random shit once it hits a certain minute mark.
We've had a little bit of both. Sometimes a minute, sometimes 5 or 6 minutes, but honestly the games have been much better so I don't mind the wait.
If I had any gripe with the state of my QM games right now it wouldn't be with matchmaking, it'd be with games where one side or the other gets stuck with solo queue Abathur and it seems to happen to me every 3rd or 4th game. Feels like he's in a bad spot, and I've never ever liked being down a body in QM with how uncoordinated it is.
<--- Abathur hater. And yes I know we have some Abathur fans and good players here. I just think he's a hero that requires way more effort from himself and the team than pretty much any other in QM setting. I have a 61.7% winrate against Abby after 162 versus to back up my prejudice.
Ironically the only heroes I have winrate below 50% against are Kharazim, Brightwing (mostly pre-nerf), Zeratul, Rexxar (just 9 games), and The Lost Vikings (also pre-nerf).
I think we'll all be on around then if you guys wanna do some more games.
kirblar! you disappeared for the holidays.
She's a special kind of strange feeling. You do damage and you can even avoid dying, but you feel like an NHL defenseman with a poor shot shooting from the blueline. Very little chance of anything good happening.
She feels like a terrible Nazeebo. (btw, do you take GP on him now? There aren't a lot of great options at 4 nowadays.)
I honestly haven't revisited Nazeebo since those changes. I'm not sure if it's viable on him again now or not. Should try it and update my guide I guess.
WonderRade
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how do i join the channel?
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Today I had the immense pleasure of playing qm with an Illidan who refused to do anything but lane because there was a "kid" on the opposing team playing an OP hero that he claimed would 2 shot him... That OP hero wasn't Albert Einstein, it was fucking Cho'Gall. Masterful trolling really. The entire team was climbing the walls pulling our hair trying to get this fucking prick to participate in team fights. Guy wasn't even killing mercs, just pushing lane solo the entire time. 5-6 shrines later I think he had managed to take down some towers and some walls, while we were barely losing every 4v5 for the shrines. Was planning on playing an hour or two this evening, but this Illidan quickly put an end to those plans.
RumblingRosco
Member
That's great.
Unrelated, but ARAM is super fun. Just blew through three of them (3-0!) in under an hour and man time flies in that mode.
I lol'd.
Yessir. I've done it a bunch. Such a great change of pace...as long as you don't get stuck with TLV anyway.
Game could use more official modes like ARAM. I get tired of the current one that just randomly tosses me into a map that I have zero control over.
Its like wtf I'm the one playin this game. Give me map voting or maybe group maps into sections somehow by their themes and let folks choose.
Sorry guys I'm spoiled by FPS games and other MOBA. granted, LoL just has 1-2 maps but we can choose them from menu (ARAM or Rift)
Its like wtf I'm the one playin this game. Give me map voting or maybe group maps into sections somehow by their themes and let folks choose.
Sorry guys I'm spoiled by FPS games and other MOBA. granted, LoL just has 1-2 maps but we can choose them from menu (ARAM or Rift)
brickwalker0
Member
totally agreed on all points. but we have arena mode coming soon to mix things up.
I'm sure it will have those things in time. HOTS is in a no-win position for now, though. Newcomers from more established mobas want features they had in other games, regulars want new content because they've burnt through the old. Both groups ultimately want both pieces, but Blizzard can't produce either fast enough to satisfy.
If they take time away from general content development to implement systems, they lose people because there are no regular updates.
If they focus on general content (heroes, maps, balance, etc) they have people wondering why the systems don't match up to games that have years of development ahead of them.
Right now they've swayed farther towards heroes and maps and balance and neglected putting in timely updates to hero league and matchmaking and the like. No matter what they do, though, there will be complaints. Nature of the beast.
The game has came a good way, but it's still a hero league update and the rest of matchmaking update apart from feeling like a full release. After they get that in, I'll be happy to see em work on alternative modes.
If they take time away from general content development to implement systems, they lose people because there are no regular updates.
If they focus on general content (heroes, maps, balance, etc) they have people wondering why the systems don't match up to games that have years of development ahead of them.
Right now they've swayed farther towards heroes and maps and balance and neglected putting in timely updates to hero league and matchmaking and the like. No matter what they do, though, there will be complaints. Nature of the beast.
The game has came a good way, but it's still a hero league update and the rest of matchmaking update apart from feeling like a full release. After they get that in, I'll be happy to see em work on alternative modes.
WonderRade
Member
is there a gaf channel? I need to get in these :/
yeah those exists but not nearly as popular as the two I mentioned. But yeah technically there is 4 maps and each one can be chosen from a menu.
There is a GAF channel but it doesn't get much use. /join NeoGAF
Best option is just to /join aram and jump in the games as they are posted, though.
It'll show up as a blue link like [Dragon Shire] and you click it and it puts you into the lobby.
TheCthultist
Member
I just started playing last night, ran a whole bunch of bot matches and about a dozen quick match games so far and I just have to ask... Is Nazeebo as over powered as he seems to be? Death Ritual in particular has been making me practically invincible in most matches so far (as long as I don't try to take on the whole team at once) and both the gargantuan and spirit seem stupidly powerful. I understand I'm probably just playing against people who are equally unfamiliar with the game or something, but does Naz get much use in the more competitive scene?
He's been nuts in solo queue forever because of his sustain, in competitive he comes in and out.
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