Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Too bad really enjoyed his sylvanas play.
NVT did just pick up a 6th
NVT did just pick up a 6th
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Heroes of the Storm |OT2| Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
- Status
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
It's kinda funny and/or sad that seemingly there are more top tier melee carry players than the rest of the scene can support with top tier teams.
Fan to GFE is cofirmed on Beyond the Nexus, wording is acquired interestingly.
I wonder if it's just simply part of the flaw in the design of the game. Melee carry is like the one role that you can regularly "be a star" so to speak when performing. That's doubled by how games go in solo/duo HL queues, where a lot of the heroes they gravitate to are the ones that also allow them to win despite whatever shortcomings their team has. In that light, of course the bigger egos or better players would gravitate to it.
I've always wondered why none of them branch out of that mold, though. If you are capable of being an S-tier or A-tier melee carry, you can sure as hell be an S-tier support by my reckoning. One is much easier than the other. Granted the timing and positioning may be foreign and it may *gasp* be not as fun for you as an individual...but if you are winning as a team and actually competing internationally? Seems like something I personally would consider.
You could make a hell of a super team out of Mac, Fan, Glau, and Udall. They are four of the most skilled players in NA, but they all step on each other's toes. Egos and all that, but it's a cool what if to me. If I was Fan and I really wanted to win as much as he says, I might train a different role and fill that hole on GFE or Denial (let's hypothetically assume they actually were as good as expected), for example.
EDIT: Holy shit. Fan did go to GFE. Maybe he's already taken my advice without me even giving it.
I've always wondered why none of them branch out of that mold, though. If you are capable of being an S-tier or A-tier melee carry, you can sure as hell be an S-tier support by my reckoning. One is much easier than the other. Granted the timing and positioning may be foreign and it may *gasp* be not as fun for you as an individual...but if you are winning as a team and actually competing internationally? Seems like something I personally would consider.
You could make a hell of a super team out of Mac, Fan, Glau, and Udall. They are four of the most skilled players in NA, but they all step on each other's toes. Egos and all that, but it's a cool what if to me. If I was Fan and I really wanted to win as much as he says, I might train a different role and fill that hole on GFE or Denial (let's hypothetically assume they actually were as good as expected), for example.
EDIT: Holy shit. Fan did go to GFE. Maybe he's already taken my advice without me even giving it.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
JayPL is like that and Udall seems kind of laid back. He might have an ego underneath that but I could see him take a step back to Fan on certain heroes.
Though that said Mac never felt right on the roles they were juggling him around.
Though that said Mac never felt right on the roles they were juggling him around.
I think Mac's was more lack of experience than anything. It was kinda like being at work and your boss firing someone and then telling you to go do their job, but you've never even been in their wing of the building before.
He played a pretty large variety of heroes on ladder during his downtime prior to NVT, but playing them there and then going into competitive with them is different. Not to mention there was a good gap between when he'd last played them at any length and when he was asked to.
He played a pretty large variety of heroes on ladder during his downtime prior to NVT, but playing them there and then going into competitive with them is different. Not to mention there was a good gap between when he'd last played them at any length and when he was asked to.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
If Fan was bought out it at least now means there are 3 orgs that actually invest into HotS
Ad Mac. He was definitely made look worse than he is by constantly filling in for the rosters shortcomings but he was their tank + Kerrigan player for a good while. Long enough to look better than he did on them. It's always the first go to for some reason, if you play melee go tank even though the roles should be fundamentally different.
Ad Mac. He was definitely made look worse than he is by constantly filling in for the rosters shortcomings but he was their tank + Kerrigan player for a good while. Long enough to look better than he did on them. It's always the first go to for some reason, if you play melee go tank even though the roles should be fundamentally different.
must have been tomster's persistent need for attention
https://twitter.com/Ayy_Hero/status/762811484552335361
https://twitter.com/Ayy_Hero/status/762811484552335361
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
didn't most of us?
Nah, I just think certain people like playing melee. Khroen has made a name for himself by playing ranged DPs, and lets not forget for a while Mac was known for his Falstad more than anything else. similarily Dharmi was on greymane wrecking faces.
For some reason, melee dps is a role that appeals to a ton of people - even raiding in WoW, you always had more melee dps players than anything else.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Bakery went from ranged assassin to support. Can't fucking believe he only started playing support when he created Bob?, he was locked in a contract w/o a team for awhile so must have trained it in the meantime.
Vox Nihilis. They won chair league and did an upset by beating GFE for their groups first seed, then proceeded to getting curbstomped by Murloc Geniuses
Vox Nihilis. They won chair league and did an upset by beating GFE for their groups first seed, then proceeded to getting curbstomped by Murloc Geniuses
He wasn't ever their tank though. He got thrown on it in some games, and not in others, and then got strongarmed into it at one regional. That's part of why it looked so bad. He pretty much only played it when they could get Muradin from what I remember. He also played it when Zuna felt like they were cornered. Add to that the fact that anytime he had a tank other than Muradin the team was already on tilt from a loss or several losses or maybe even sandbagging it (such as the run at the end of regional #2 where he was on a bunch of diff tanks against GFE).
Just in regional #1 for summer on NVT, Mac played:
Tassadar (Zuna was ETC),
Sonya (Zuna was Muradin),
Tassadar (Zuna was Johanna),
Thrall (Zuna was Muradin),
Muradin (Zuna was Zeratul),
Tassadar (Zuna was Muradin),
Xul (Zuna was Muradin),
Illidan (Zuna was Muradin),
Thrall (Zuna was Muradin),
Muradin (Zuna was Zeratul),
Illidan (Zuna was Tyrael),
Johanna (Zuna was KT),
Muradin (Zuna was Falstad)
In regional #2 Mac played:
Illidan (Zuna was Muradin)
Sonya (Zuna was ETC)
Thrall (Zuna was Muradin)
Muradin (Zuna was KT)
Johanna (Zuna was Xul)
ETC (Zuna was Falstad)
Muradin (Zuna was Greymane)
Muradin (Zuna was Tychus)
Muradin (Zuna was Greymane)
Muradin (Zuna was Tychus)
Anub'arak (Zuna was KT)
Muradin (Zuna was Greymane)
I can't find anything from the summer championship for NVT, but it's pretty clear that after/during the group stages of the regional #2, that's when Zuna dumped tank on him. He didn't really get a month of anything. It was basically just one bad tournament that colored the whole perception of Mac as a tank and NVT as a whole.
They followed it up with a piss poor showing at HGC, as well, but it seems like even then he got bounced around a bit beyond just tanking from what I remember.
I don't ever recall Mac being known for his Falstad. When was this? Mac has always been known as a melee carry. He played mainly Kerrigan, Illidan, and Zeratul when he was Barrelboys and Complexity. Not even sure he touched a ranged assassin back then. He played Falstad on stream, but I don't remember him being lights out with it after joining NVT or anything. I remember him getting stuck on Zag a whole lot, mainly cause Familie always got his jimmies rustled about Mac's maws.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
you're right it was basically just 2 months, seemed longer to me. In that amount of time can't really be expected to master a new role at that competitive level. Look at dignitas they might have won but pretty much off the back of having JayPL tank again.
I jokingly said so during the regional didn't expect it so soon though. The Jason thing did make the rumour mill go round.
Fan vs Udall 1v1 Illidan's on Udall's stream:
https://www.twitch.tv/michaeludall
EDIT: Fan won in like a minute. ROFL.
https://www.twitch.tv/michaeludall
EDIT: Fan won in like a minute. ROFL.
On one hand, fan to GFE is great. I already really like GFE - khroen and Michael udall are two of my favourite players, and Fan joining Them makes the team even better to support. But they already have a melee dps player, so unless something is changing someone is going to have to shift role which never seems to go well.
Edit: and if the two warrior meta isn't valid at blizzcon, Dignitas are fucked.
Edit: and if the two warrior meta isn't valid at blizzcon, Dignitas are fucked.
No clue on that. I likened it to Rocky vs Apollo for NA in the chat. If there's already been one instance, this would be round two. The third will have to happen behind closed doors and 20 years later one of their sons will have to discover the outcome from the other.
EDIT: Shade from NVT owner?
EDIT: Shade from NVT owner?
Agreed, she feels great, and you can easily see where to tweak her if they need to bump a winrate (there are a few talents that could easily go baseline.)
In practice, it's not.
I'm kind of ashamed to admit that I haven't even played her. And I'm a support main. We've played that other game every night. There's just so many folks playing that are on everyone's collective friend lists that we literally have to turn people away and/or form second groups. It hasn't been like that in HOTS since the glory days of the GAF channel in late Alpha/very early Closed Beta.
I did purchase her, though, so I will at some point. I'm kind of in wait and see mode news-wise. I want to hear what's next, now. I also am curious if they've completely scrapped Arena mode as the time when that should be ready is fast approaching from the info they gave us.
I did purchase her, though, so I will at some point. I'm kind of in wait and see mode news-wise. I want to hear what's next, now. I also am curious if they've completely scrapped Arena mode as the time when that should be ready is fast approaching from the info they gave us.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
The ice block looks way better in action.
Arena isn't scrapped, but after the success of Tavern Brawl in OW and HS they decided to make it more similar to those and it got delayed.
Is the brawl that popular in OW, though? Lucioball seems to have been, but I can't recall seeing people playing it much otherwise since they never tied a reward to it.
I do agree that it'd be a wise move for HOTS to go that route, though I'd suggest they do it on ARAM style maps and not in full games.
I do agree that it'd be a wise move for HOTS to go that route, though I'd suggest they do it on ARAM style maps and not in full games.
To be honest arena always sounded terrible simply because of the lack of talents. Similar modes in other games still have talents, and the idea of not having them just sounded stupid. Certain classes just don't work without talents, and it removes a huge amount of the games depth and fun by taking them out.
Turdburger
Member
Watching TI6 makes me depressed for HOTS
The hero design is just so much better. Winter Wyvern and Oracle are two of the best designed support heroes in all of MOBA. Yet in HOTS you have Uther and Rehgar whose Q is just a left-click heal.
Every hero at every position has the potential to make huge game-changing plays. That's just not the case for HOTS.
They need to get rid of cleanse and bake it into an ability in every support's base kit somehow. They need to add secondary effects to all healing abilities so that they can be more than just healing abilities. They need to rebalance health regeneration around supports only having a maximum of one healing ability. They need to give supports increased mobility options.
Winter Wyvern can turn games with a single Curse, can save teamfights with a perfect Cold Embrace timing, and can participate with autoattacks with his Q.
An ability like Cold Embrace would be totally broken in HOTS though because there's no differential between physical and magical damage. So they don't even have that design space to begin with.
And I haven't even talked about Shadow Demon, Wisp, Dazzle, all supports that are better designed and have more playmaking potential than any support hero in HOTS.
At this point I'm not sure it's anything other than the gameplay and viewership experience itself not being very compelling as the reason for HOTS's sinking viewership. The most impactful support skill, Cleanse, can't even be easily seen by spectators and even commentators often can't tell when a target has been cleansed. Meanwhile every time a shadow demon defensively disruptions off a kunka torrent incoming on his ally it's the most obvious play in the teamfight. Even the Diffusal Blade purge is fifteen times easier to see than a HOTS cleanse. What a joke.
It's a lot like Cold Embrace as I mentioned above but the difference being it's on a 60 second cooldown versus a 15 second cooldown and magic damage can still hurt a Cold Embrace'd target so there are obvious draft counters.
I think Auriel is the only well-designed support in the game. And one of the few well-designed heroes in the game overall.
The hero design is just so much better. Winter Wyvern and Oracle are two of the best designed support heroes in all of MOBA. Yet in HOTS you have Uther and Rehgar whose Q is just a left-click heal.
Every hero at every position has the potential to make huge game-changing plays. That's just not the case for HOTS.
They need to get rid of cleanse and bake it into an ability in every support's base kit somehow. They need to add secondary effects to all healing abilities so that they can be more than just healing abilities. They need to rebalance health regeneration around supports only having a maximum of one healing ability. They need to give supports increased mobility options.
Winter Wyvern can turn games with a single Curse, can save teamfights with a perfect Cold Embrace timing, and can participate with autoattacks with his Q.
An ability like Cold Embrace would be totally broken in HOTS though because there's no differential between physical and magical damage. So they don't even have that design space to begin with.
And I haven't even talked about Shadow Demon, Wisp, Dazzle, all supports that are better designed and have more playmaking potential than any support hero in HOTS.
At this point I'm not sure it's anything other than the gameplay and viewership experience itself not being very compelling as the reason for HOTS's sinking viewership. The most impactful support skill, Cleanse, can't even be easily seen by spectators and even commentators often can't tell when a target has been cleansed. Meanwhile every time a shadow demon defensively disruptions off a kunka torrent incoming on his ally it's the most obvious play in the teamfight. Even the Diffusal Blade purge is fifteen times easier to see than a HOTS cleanse. What a joke.
It's a lot like Cold Embrace as I mentioned above but the difference being it's on a 60 second cooldown versus a 15 second cooldown and magic damage can still hurt a Cold Embrace'd target so there are obvious draft counters.
I think Auriel is the only well-designed support in the game. And one of the few well-designed heroes in the game overall.
The problem is that hots entire design philosophy from the beginning was to be easier to understand and execute then other mobas like league and dota. They wanted to attract the casual crowd... And they did a good job for a long time. But now I think they are trying too hard to "increase the skill cap" which is actually just means making new additions to the game more complicated and harder to understand or execute. and now what they're in this weird place where these two design philophies are clashing hard and really complicating the balance of the game.
It really feels like they don't have a coherent vision for what they want the game to be. Like, this whole thing where they don't want to change the supports, but still adjust numbers to make healing from globes and fountains more meaningful..... Which has me asking do they want healing to be meaningful? Or readily available on every supports Q button? It's just feels like those two things conflict.... Or cleanse getting added to every support, but a new support which is meant to be able to solo doesn't have it for some reason. Like, what does that say about how the designers value cleanse? To me, it says they aren't sure.
There's no ice frog for hots, but they really need one.
Turdburger
Member
Agreed
They have no idea what they're trying to do on a macro level. They've made a big push for talent diversity which is very important as the talent system is what makes this game what it is. But that's about the only good thing they've done.
But supports the way they are .... cleanse is an auto pick almost always. Their kits are boring to play and watch. There is so little individual playmaking. They nerfed stuns across the board rather than re-evaluating their placement in the kits of heroes. For example, Kael'Thas's E should have just been replaced and his damage increased and made to require more setup from his team. No hard carries in DOTA have a stun without significant drawbacks. For example Sven has no mobility. He still can't hit anyone even with his stun without setup and help. Meanwhile Kael'Thas is ranged AND has Arcane Barrier! The best stuns in DOTA like Tidehunter and ES have counters built into the game with BKB and those stuns are placed on utility heroes which gives utility heroes a huge value in setting up kills rather than carries being able to always go get their own.
HOTS needs to re evaluate its entire gameplay ecosystem with regards to how it handles setup/playmaking abilities, damage output and healing output.
But judging how they handled their recent support examination I have complete confidence that they will do nothing and continue to develop an experience that is inferior to both players and spectators.
They have no idea what they're trying to do on a macro level. They've made a big push for talent diversity which is very important as the talent system is what makes this game what it is. But that's about the only good thing they've done.
But supports the way they are .... cleanse is an auto pick almost always. Their kits are boring to play and watch. There is so little individual playmaking. They nerfed stuns across the board rather than re-evaluating their placement in the kits of heroes. For example, Kael'Thas's E should have just been replaced and his damage increased and made to require more setup from his team. No hard carries in DOTA have a stun without significant drawbacks. For example Sven has no mobility. He still can't hit anyone even with his stun without setup and help. Meanwhile Kael'Thas is ranged AND has Arcane Barrier! The best stuns in DOTA like Tidehunter and ES have counters built into the game with BKB and those stuns are placed on utility heroes which gives utility heroes a huge value in setting up kills rather than carries being able to always go get their own.
HOTS needs to re evaluate its entire gameplay ecosystem with regards to how it handles setup/playmaking abilities, damage output and healing output.
But judging how they handled their recent support examination I have complete confidence that they will do nothing and continue to develop an experience that is inferior to both players and spectators.
Turdburger
Member
As they should -- it ruins talent diversity. But having cleanse in the game is necessary as counterplay has to come from the talent system since there are no items. Cleanse really just needs to be worked into an ability on every support hero's base kit OR that support hero has to have ridiculous amounts of utility to make up for it.
For example: make BW Polymorph castable on allies OR enemies and have it cleanse and allow allies to move themselves while sheeped. BW has less healing output, but has higher utility with Emerald, a cleansing sheep and global map presence. At the same time, Karazhim could simply have cleanse removed from his kit but would instead have so much healing and damage output that picking him against heroes poke heroes like Lunara makes sense.
HOTS needs more heroes like Elder Titan and Shadow Demon which don't do damage, don't heal and can't carry but provide such stupid amounts of utility and/or initiation potential that they cannot go unpicked. The problem with this right now is that HOTS has always been such a poke game because there's such an overall lack of strong synergy between heroes, initiation, stun and kill potential. If supports didn't have the healing output that they do the game would basically be broken, and they failed to fix that when they "re-evaluated" supports.
As a whole, Blizzard instead needs to carefully re-evaluate how much "healing" is valued versus "utility" and what kinds of "utility" (vision, cleansing, stuns/disables, displacement effects) are the most and least valuable. Then distribute them evenly amongst heroes such even if one hero doesn't have as much of one thing, they more than make up for it in another. And beyond that, they need to make direct "healing" less valuable by increasing the power of utility effects.
Saying that no hard carries in DOTA have stuns doesn't make sense (also untrue), because in dota the game doesn't decide which heroes are hard carries. It just has the hero and their abilities and its up to the player to figure it out. For example, the hero you brought up, sven, has also been played as a support in the past. Naga and kunka are kind of similar. Vengeful spirit is traditionally a support but was pkayed as hard carry in one of the games.
Hots' big push for talent diversity should have been in an attempt to achieve something similar, but it feels like they're afraid to really make it work. Like, for example, why isn't dps monk viable? The whole point of his lvl 1 talents was to allow him to be played in multiple ways, but it's not really true in practice. Something similar maybe seen in KT's talents aswell. Like he's got a build which focuses on his stun, which would allow him to get multiple 3 man stuns off per fight. In DOTA that would make him an amazing support but in hots it's completely not viable in any competitive sense.
I think both of these issues can be blamed on how supports and healing in hots works. You don't need three man stuns or really any utility when you can just heal everyone up to full all the time. And you'd never forfeit the ability to heal everyone up to full everytime just to do damage.
So you end up in a situation where multiple talents on heroes are completely useless, there's very limited room for creativity, and the optimal way to play a hero is transparent. THEN that's when having a stun on a hard carry actually becomes a real balance problem because there's no solutions that aren't immediately apparent because if you talent anything that's not optimal you sacrifice way too much.
Which means cleanse and healing (and big support ultimate abilities) are too often the only answer to whatever the situation is because they're the only answers truly available.
Like you would never say: well counter this illidan by going stun build on KT. But an amazing counter antimage is a carry vengeful spirit.
Hots' big push for talent diversity should have been in an attempt to achieve something similar, but it feels like they're afraid to really make it work. Like, for example, why isn't dps monk viable? The whole point of his lvl 1 talents was to allow him to be played in multiple ways, but it's not really true in practice. Something similar maybe seen in KT's talents aswell. Like he's got a build which focuses on his stun, which would allow him to get multiple 3 man stuns off per fight. In DOTA that would make him an amazing support but in hots it's completely not viable in any competitive sense.
I think both of these issues can be blamed on how supports and healing in hots works. You don't need three man stuns or really any utility when you can just heal everyone up to full all the time. And you'd never forfeit the ability to heal everyone up to full everytime just to do damage.
So you end up in a situation where multiple talents on heroes are completely useless, there's very limited room for creativity, and the optimal way to play a hero is transparent. THEN that's when having a stun on a hard carry actually becomes a real balance problem because there's no solutions that aren't immediately apparent because if you talent anything that's not optimal you sacrifice way too much.
Which means cleanse and healing (and big support ultimate abilities) are too often the only answer to whatever the situation is because they're the only answers truly available.
Like you would never say: well counter this illidan by going stun build on KT. But an amazing counter antimage is a carry vengeful spirit.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Naventic will meet Arthelon's team in quarterfnals. Denial has to go through AA to meet Vox Nihili in semi finals.
- Status
Similar threads
- Poll