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Heroes of the Storm |OT3| Chromiehounds

F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
Why would Illidan hit a Sonya?

Yuuj talked it up in his stream just now as well, he ran the math a while back in just straight up does more damage if you hit every Q and that was supposedly before it got buffed.
 
A

Alavard

Member
Familienoberhauptvogel said:
Sonya needs a rework too, her talents 1 through 7 are great but 16 and 20 give no variety at all. It's always nerves of steel and her hardened shield variant.
Click to expand...

I sort of agree, even though I'm a weirdo and actually always take Furious Blow at 16. Combined with Aftershock at level 13, chaining Ws just tears enemies apart. It does make her rather paper-thin on defenses though.
 
M

Maledict

Member
Sonya shouldnt have nerves of steel or her hardened shield variant at all. They were put in the game when they still envisaged all warriors being able to tank, but with her kit and the direction she has been pushed in those talents are just abusive and unfun. Bruisers like her shouldn't have the hard tanking talents that even half the warriors in the game don't get - it makes her late game power spike ridiculous, and incredibly unfun as she basically becomes impossible to kill.
 
A

Alavard

Member
Maledict said:
Sonya shouldnt have nerves of steel or her hardened shield variant at all. They were put in the game when they still envisaged all warriors being able to tank, but with her kit and the direction she has been pushed in those talents are just abusive and unfun. Bruisers like her shouldn't have the hard tanking talents that even half the warriors in the game don't get - it makes her late game power spike ridiculous, and incredibly unfun as she basically becomes impossible to kill.
Click to expand...

Very good points. Her defensive abilities in her kit are based around lifesteal, so giving her straight-up shields and armor aren't even in keeping with her theme. Maybe they should replace them with some crazy high-powered regen or lifesteal talents on large cooldowns instead - that way she can still sustain like mad, but could actually be bursted down.
 
K

Ketch

Member
sonya's a late game monster specifically because of those talents. And while I'm not a fan of generic talents, I do think that Sonya has a good spot in the meta and doesn't need to be nerfed. They could rework those talents into quest rewards for early game talents... but that's mostly just a buff.
 
B

brian!

Member
I actually think she should be up for some balancing, like itd be cool for example if she gave up base healing on her e and more power was put into the talent that ups it. She's s/a tier to me currently on her maps

Her spike 16/20 is also way stronger than it should be
 
K

Karsticles

Member
Rizzi said:
It's okay when you have team mates that actually go down to the mines, but when two people on your own team fart around up above things get kind of painful.
Quick match woes.
Click to expand...
Is it common to not go down the first time? I've played a lot on this stage, and I noticed that in the instances where my team goes down and the opponent stays up, we fall behind in as much as a whole level. The golem takes forever to kill the first time because everyone is so weak, and he hits like a truck if you're low level.

Mobius and pet octopus said:
Gotta love those games where your team is losing every early game team fight over the objective. Then when things seem pretty bleak, down to 2 keeps, you win your first team fight and get the objective. Then you're not only back in the game you're ahead in player count and they still try for the objective and dashingly lose every player including the straggling respawn.

They got overconfident for sure. I don't know why they'd try to 4v5 but it turned a game where we were finally getting back into it into a sure win.
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I am never in your position. I am frequently on the other side. :(
 
B

brian!

Member
It's pretty common to give it up if you dont have the initiative/advantage, esp. since they made all the camps close to each other in this version. It's also a lot easier to get random skulls due to the new entrances, but if you are giving the obj up you should have ppl soaking/mercing during this too. The obj also doesnt add to the enemy teamfight beyond tanking buuldings and stunning ppl not paying attention so if you are able to get a talent ahead during mine phase you can pretty much jump whoever is assisting their golem and snowball off of that


Oh haha weird coincidence, someone asking about passive/active stacking on reddit and it looks likely that yeh imposing stacks the same way gloom or laws of hope does, they didn't prove it or anything in the thread tho
___

https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/6czdum/discussion_diagnosing_competitive_na_hots/

This post is pretty good, he posits that a lot of na weakness stems from an overemphasis on macro-level decision making and low ability to shape/disrupt teamfights. Personally i agree with the latter but imo na doesnt emphasize the macro enough, or at least play it as aggressively as they should.

One thing he doesn't take into account are the power spike/team comp dynamic, which would add to his argument. A lot of the time pro na hots revolves around optimally Safe plays; that is, when at a talent or number disadvantage you will rarely see attempts at playmaking or initiation. Ppl in na wait too long to feel comfortable before they fight i think, compared to high lvl korean play where they think less broadly and instead think more along the lines of "ok we are 4v5 but if we act decisively we can get a quick pick and then we can see where we are at after that", like in general they seem more cognizant of risk/reward stuff. Nvt and team 8 are the only teams that i see kind of aware of this, tempo too at times, but nvt's execution fukkin sucks (plus they fold when met with similar aggression, like for some reason they cant understand that other ppl can do it too, just a lot of random disrespect) and team 8 also dont really know what to do if things go wrong. Ppl praise glau's shotcalling as they should, but as a team they have issues recognizing risk/reward during the actual fight...but often being the aggressor will just flat out win them the fight and they often draft to make up for poor initiation which is pretty smart
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
so you kinda just point and shoot with Nova huh?

and then you run the hell away :3
 
M

Maledict

Member
I sort of agree but at the same time some of the best team in the worlds play like that on occasion. Particularly on cursed shrines, I've seen entire games when a top eu team falls behind early on, plays defensively the entire time until 20, and then comes back and wins. Just feels like NA teams don't have the macro to pull that style of play off.

Edit: overall completely agree on what he's saying. I hadn't thought about it in that way, but NA is basically still stuck in the mindset we had 18 months ago in the game whereby rotations are everything. That's how Cloud9 won many of their games - build up an advantage early on, and run that to the end. It also highlights why I think tempostorm doing so well in NA is bad for the region as a whole - because they get crushed on the international level. Team8 and GFE are both capable of a more adaptive, flashier style of aggressive play that is necessary at the international level to success.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
Part of that is many EU teams drafting Nazeebo comps with his insane lvl 20 spike. They whole gameplan is just not to loose until lvl 20 and then roll them no matter how far they are behind structurally.
 
B

brian!

Member
Yeah i agree, eu style often feels like they take it to the other extreme. They are better mechanically too so it's weird. I think most of the comeback complaints (lack of comeback in 2 lane maps, etc.) i hear stem from teams that play this way too, ppl like cattle and bakery. But i will say that a lot of the eu standoffs make sense to me in their contexts, you just see less stuff like "oh we are 14 and they are 15 and the map obj is coming, maybe we should try to force something so we dont have to give obj for free"

I do feel like ppl are kind of taking liberty with what "rotation" means, like it feels like they explicitly think it means moving from lane to lane when it means making predictive/reactive moves via map positioning, like it pretty much refers to macro play in general. Macro play should be high lvl on any serious team and id def disagree that na has a great handle on it.

For example, na feels like theyd automatically value taking knights on sky temple before 2nd temple spawn but i hardly see invading attempts or drafting for invading those spots. So taking knights at that time is bare minimum macro whereas using the knowledge that you know where a team will be at a certain time is higher lvl macro and a higher lvl rotation
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
Also it appears Fan was the primary or at least final shotcaller for GFE and he's happy to be rid of that to once again focus on his micro play wholly like he did on C9 and NVT

He does genuinely think Khroen underperformed but still considers him one of the best ranged in the scene just on somewhat of a slump.

He expects or at least hopes to be more on ranged heroes again in the coming roster as well.
kirblar said:
Korea just showed the world what to do about this (just gank Nazeebo relentlessly pre-10)
Click to expand...
I've not been keeping up with the scene recently.
 
B

brian!

Member
I feel like the k1/caff transfer rumor makes a lot of sense for them, but i kinda suspect that it wont affect the team dynamic well. Like k1/caff def will bring in ego issues and i suspect fan respects them more than udall/aka, but udall/aka have been on the better team so that's in the back of their minds...

But it gives me more hope for kure->nvt in order to create the saltiest team so that's good...tho i dont feel like it's in the bag for nvt to even make it out of relegation lol
 
A

Alur

Member
Wait there's a rumor k1 and Caff are gonna join GFE? How many more shotcaller-less experiments are we gonna give caff? I mean, he was great once, but it's been a long gat damn time since he's shown it and the hallmark of all of his teams is that they are rudderless going back to c9 because he doesn't do that kind of stuff.
 
M

Maledict

Member
Yeah, I think that's a very good point Brian. I remember watching one game with Dignitas where they had drafted a Tyrande comp, and they *hunted* the enemy team all over the map. It was insanely aggressive, invading play - and it was fantastic to watch. I wish they would play Tyrande more often tbh, I think bakeries Tyrande is hugely underestimated and a good secret weapon they have in their back pocket.
 
B

brian!

Member
Yeah, to me tyrande is one of the hardest characters in the game, but i feel like she might be lowkey op atm which sounds ridiculous in this meta

That 30% dmg reduc talent that can hit multiple ppl...
 
A

Alur

Member
He's never been a real shotcaller. C9 was by committee, and presumably his teams since then have been as well because they suffered from the same issues only things went even worse.

I'd rather see new blood, too, or at least players who have been performing but on lesser teams move up. What have caff or k1 done since returning to the scene with Denial and Bstep? Always felt k1 was pretty one note and caff himself was also pretty narrowly focused with his tank pool which I've seen some here claim is part of their struggle. Mostly, though, I'd put it down to him not being a shotcaller and GFE need a shotcaller badly.

brian! said:
Oh i thought caff was the shotcaller lol. If he is, i feel his calls are pretty on point usually
Click to expand...

Watching Bstep you felt their decision making was good on a consistent basis? They'd have a game where they looked great and Dread would go "LOOKS LIKE BSTEP HAS FIGURED IT OUT" and then immediately they'd go out and just poop the bed and Dread would be like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. And there was more pooping than greatness.
 
B

brian!

Member
Oh yeah i forgot c9 was like that, gfe def showed huge improvement once they picked up equinox for calls. But on paper it still makes sense from their pov i think since they are trying to more strictly define the roles on their team and probably dont want to train ppl up with no pro experience. I still think the two players are good and bstep suffers from synergy and a couple of weak links mostly

@alur i think the ideas behind what they do are fine but as a team they just dont play well with each other, same with nvt. It might be a communication issue because the image of caff muradin jumping on the enemy while his team sits around feels kinda vivid to me lol

In general na suffers from a low pool of warrior/support players and those are arguably the most important in this meta
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
man I fed hard this game, im glad we won, or I would feel terrible. Fuck Johanna I luv u bae , like its easy to say "dont focus johanna" which is true, but meanwhile shes running around being immortal and disrupting everyone :(

Also, am I wrong in assuming that once caught, Nova is basically fucked, unlike Zera/Val/Samuro. That decoy is fooling noone for escapes.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
Alright this is a curveball but how about Srey. He had his one shot with bastard Tempo Storm which didn't work out all too well and then came in to pick up where Glaurung left off with Brain Power, which has worked out within reason.

I don't think he's among the best tank players in NA or shotcallers for that matter but he probably has the requisite skills to grow into both given the right environment.


Focusing Johanna is perfectly viable if you actually got it in you to kill her. If you're wasting everything on her just to get her low that's wasteful. There's also the option to simply walk away since Johanna is real bad at engage.
 
K

Ketch

Member
brian! said:
Yeah i agree, eu style often feels like they take it to the other extreme. They are better mechanically too so it's weird. I think most of the comeback complaints (lack of comeback in 2 lane maps, etc.) i hear stem from teams that play this way too, ppl like cattle and bakery. But i will say that a lot of the eu standoffs make sense to me in their contexts, you just see less stuff like "oh we are 14 and they are 15 and the map obj is coming, maybe we should try to force something so we dont have to give obj for free"

I do feel like ppl are kind of taking liberty with what "rotation" means, like it feels like they explicitly think it means moving from lane to lane when it means making predictive/reactive moves via map positioning, like it pretty much refers to macro play in general. Macro play should be high lvl on any serious team and id def disagree that na has a great handle on it.

For example, na feels like theyd automatically value taking knights on sky temple before 2nd temple spawn but i hardly see invading attempts or drafting for invading those spots. So taking knights at that time is bare minimum macro whereas using the knowledge that you know where a team will be at a certain time is higher lvl macro and a higher lvl rotation
Click to expand...


It sounds like what you are describing is aggressive rotations. I think of macro play as the general idea of playing for the long game, winning at 20 after accruing advantage through out the game. Like if you're going for the macro play you generally wouldn't aggressively rotate to invade a camp specifically because invading to take a camp is typically not going to win you the game on its own and is an inherently risky proposition if you are planning on winning eventually because you're playing "the macro game".

That being said, I don't think "playing the macro game" is correct way to play all the time. It's important in a lot of situations sure, but this isn't a game solely about accruing lot of advantage over a significant portion of time. This is a game about taking advantage of timings and winning team fights. The macro game can get you in advantageous situations to do those things. But, solely playing the macro game, or just going for the long game in generally seems to only give the other team more opportunities to hit a timing to make a comeback.

In this sense I do think that NA HGC plays way too much of a macro game in general. I think Dread calls it out all the time while casting. NA doesn't take the risk of aggressively rotating to invade for example when they have the advantage, they play macro instead and it often results in clown fiestas.
 
A

Alur

Member
brian! said:
@alur i think the ideas behind what they do are fine but as a team they just dont play well with each other, same with nvt. It might be a communication issue because the image of caff muradin jumping on the enemy while his team sits around feels kinda vivid to me lol

In general na suffers from a low pool of warrior/support players and those are arguably the most important in this meta
Click to expand...

Agreed on seeing caff do that from time to time, but we don't know if that's because he said let's go and they didn't follow, or because no one says definitively what to do so that shit happens way too often.

Based on what we learned from the lack of C9 shotcalling and the fact that BStep is basically just C9 part deux, it's hard for me to make the leap in logic that Caff has suddenly became a real shotcaller. If he is doing it, one would argue he's either not very good at it decision wise or just not very good at convincing his team...either of which makes him not a good shotcaller. If your team doesn't trust you, there's probably a reason. I mean, more than half the team has played with him for years now so it's hard to believe they wouldn't follow him if he was really shotcalling unless there's a lack of trust in the approach.
 
B

brian!

Member
As far as i understand it macro play refers to playing the map, which yeah does include strats like playing for the late game. In all mobas the best way to play is to take over the map, the resources, and starve your opponent of their resources, it's basically consume consume consume, and the actual game is reckoning with the 2 teams trying to do this to each other.

@alur i dont disagree, but i do hope gfe does well if they do swap this way
 
A

Alur

Member
I def want GFE to do well, even if only for Fan since he's one of the few we know who want it baaad.

More than anything, though, I want Team8 to get a badass sponsor. And pronto.
 
A

Alur

Member
Nope, by committee. He was just the face. That was why most people felt they kept losing to Tempo late game - they'd dominate all game and then there'd be a decisive team fight late and Dread would help his team pull it out because he was the only voice instead a sea of voices pulling in different directions. It's still amazing they won Blizzcon, though granted at the time their roster was considered pretty stacked.

I really bet Bakery kicks himself over it considering how they've played against NA since.
 
K

Ketch

Member
brian! said:
As far as i understand it macro play refers to playing the map, which yeah does include strats like playing for the late game. In all mobas the best way to play is to take over the map, the resources, and starve your opponent of their resources, it's basically consume consume consume, and the actual game is reckoning with the 2 teams trying to do this to each other.
Click to expand...

Yea I agree, I just don't think it works nearly as well in hots. There's just not enough resources and the resources aren't as powerful. And everything is compressed. Like you'll never have the disparity that's present in other mobas from large differences in networth. It less consume, consume, consume and more like playing king of the hill and the circle is just constantly getting smaller.

What you get is periods of time when one team has the advantage, you can prolong the advantage of owning the hill, but eventually if you don't end the game everything is going to be even. Which is pretty unique to hots.

I don't know what other people mean, but when I say NA is very macro focused to me that means they spend more time trying to play the map to get or maintain an advantage and not enough time actively trying to end the game.
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
Nova feels so useless when its a bad game / matchup feelsbadman.

Just had game vs a Hammer with 2 supports (auriel / uther), Zarya (hey more mitigation) and Guldan. The fuck was I suppose to do? I couldnt burst shit between all the shields and healing :(

I am strangely entranced by Nova tho, and after Chromie, that must be im actually a terrible terrible person inside.
 
M

Maledict

Member
I really like both Fan and Khroen (I'm a Khroen sub as he plays at EU friendly times), and it's a shame they aren't in a team together anymore. Both have a no drama, salt free attitude to the game and are enjoyable to watch.

I fear for GFE if they take on K1 and Caff. Nothing about their play has impressed me much in HGC. They might improve simply because they will all be in set roles for once - but they should have done that long ago, rather than fuck over Khroen and Equinox in this way. I mean, people were saying Equinox, Fan and Udall all had the same hero pools back when the team formed!
 
B

brian!

Member
I think we agree even if we dont have the same definitions of terms. Not finishing a game or failing to push an advantage is a macro error in my book, but i agree that in hots there are just less things to take usually (no wards for example). My point for saying na macro is weak is mainly that they play standard; dont engage down a man or talent, make sure you soak everything, etc. Very little breaking of standard hl mold, and very little gambling.

As for gfe, i actually cant think of better players for them to take on as there arent really many standout warrior players with pro experience, on paper it feels like a coup to me because of this if they cant get kure to play warrior for them (im reading hed prefer to play ranged in the comments on reddit)
 
M

Maledict

Member
Alur said:
Nope, by committee. He was just the face. That was why most people felt they kept losing to Tempo late game - they'd dominate all game and then there'd be a decisive team fight late and Dread would help his team pull it out because he was the only voice instead a sea of voices pulling in different directions. It's still amazing they won Blizzcon, though granted at the time their roster was considered pretty stacked.

I really bet Bakery kicks himself over it considering how they've played against NA since.
Click to expand...

To be fair, Dignitas were in complete melt down at that point. It is a miracle they made the final given how bad the team dynamic was - ADRD was literally refusing to speak to people on comms or shotcall during matches. If you think Tempostorm's team dynamic was fucked, Dignitas's sounded far worse.
 
R

Rizzi

Member
You know what is fucked about Hanamura? Sgt Hammer can part right in the middle of the fort just booster away without a care in the world. This map is so fucking bad.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
I really wanna see iakona go to NVT if they restructure w/o Kenma and Bkid.
Maledict said:
To be fair, Dignitas were in complete melt down at that point. It is a miracle they made the final given how bad the team dynamic was - ADRD was literally refusing to speak to people on comms or shotcall during matches. If you think Tempostorm's team dynamic was fucked, Dignitas's sounded far worse.
Click to expand...
I never could completely buy this, Adrd was their mage player at the time.
 
K

Kioshen

Member
All this strategy talk is pretty awesome but I guess I'll never be good at mobas because I went residentsleeper in the middle of it. Probably explains why I was kicking myself yesterday after a hard fought team fight that Proto went out soon after and wailed on the core while I was so concentrated on doing the objective in the mines with Rick that I realized too late we could finish the game and win instead.

Yesterday's matches were weird.
 
B

brian!

Member
Im pretty sure that nvt are bros and dont really want to leave each other but i do think they need a swap. Realistically i think kure, arth, kenma, zuna, tomster is a possibility, but now im reading kure wants to play ranged? So im not sure...if replacing kenma was a possibility itd be nice but like i said i see no available supports, maybe apm if bstep die out

Kioshen said:
All this strategy talk is pretty awesome but I guess I'll never be good at mobas because I went residentsleeper in the middle of it. Probably explains why I was kicking myself yesterday after a hard fought team fight that Proto went out soon after and wailed on the core while I was so concentrated on doing the objective in the mines with Rick that I realized too late we could finish the game and win instead.

Yesterday's matches were weird.
Click to expand...

Nah that's the normal reaction to walls of text on video games lol
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
Leaving the tank player aside for GFE I'm actually more curious who they are going to be picking up in the flex role.

Either Fan or Udall will have to be melee flex considering they didn't just have Equinox switch roles again. Fan assumes he's going back to range so presumably Udall will cover this with Fan probably still playing Zeratul and Udall Falstad as their comfort picks. This constellation covers a pretty wide range of heroes already so what's missing?

Udall would be on thrall, sonya, zarya, dehaka, probably Arthas and such.

Fan would be Tychus, Li Ming, Genji, Chromie, Guldan, etc.

What's missing is a Vikings and Medivh player. throw a little bit of Ragnaros into it and some overlap with Fan and Udall. Fan covers great as abathur, but Fan never appeared to care for these and Udall was unconvincing whenever he tried. I don't actually know of any player that'd be available to cover these roles. I was thinking faye but her heropool conflicts with Fan's again.

I got the solution to all of GFE's troubles, get adrd a visa.


stealth edit: the last time GFE played Leoric was with bkid...

Maledict said:
Not sure what his team role has to do with it - he was always Dignitas's shotcaller, and has been the shotcaller for every team he was in?
Click to expand...
I completely buy that Athero basically took that over but do you really think Dignitas would have gotten that far with their Kaelthas player not communicating at all? Though otoh everything up to semis were Bo3 at the time.
 
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