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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
I like the rework, actually.
She now has a clear definition as an offensive support with lots of utility.
She probably has the most utility out of all the healers: she has reveal, armor reduction, stun, slow OR stealth, she can give her allies various boons (armor, speed, damage) and even quasi-cleanse on short CD.
Given all of this, I'm absolutely fine with her not being an assassin.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gandariel
I like the rework, actually.
She now has a clear definition as an offensive support with lots of utility.
She probably has the most utility out of all the healers: she has reveal, armor reduction, stun, slow OR stealth, she can give her allies various boons (armor, speed, damage) and even quasi-cleanse on short CD.
Given all of this, I'm absolutely fine with her not being an assassin.
Agreed. If anybody needs to be converted into primarily DPS, it should be Tassadar. Let the freaking High Executor of the Protoss kill somebody with his psionic might.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Oh, they're re-working Gardens of Terror.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHy4tKEG7yc
I've always found the map to be unwieldy, with both teams getting the Garden Terror it has the same issues that Haunted Mines or the old Hanamura had -- a certain lack of clarification as to what you're supposed to be doing and how the game is supposed to flow. Still, I don't hate getting the map when I do. it could just be better.
I like them making the seeds into cursed tokens, it's one of the better mechanics in the game as a whole. I also like that both sides won't get the same objective at the same time. Both these do much to solve the map's main issues.
Making the Garden Terror into Garden Terrors ala the Web-Weavers is an interesting choice. I'd be curious to know their thinking on that. It probably makes it easier to balance the map, but they're still taking away a unique-ish experience from players and the defining aspect of the map.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
I've always disliked Garden of terror on my side. Maybe it's a quick play problem, but coordinating people going to the objectives was even worse than the other maps, making for a rather irritating match.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
I mean, I can see people forgetting about the third terror and just brawling for an extended period, which is arguably worse- since the terrors disable structures, macro becomes really important.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
I think I would have preferred if they had just toned down the terror and maybe made it require a bit more of a solid victory to get instead of just a flat seed count. I liked the vehicle mechanic more than the lane minion mechanic; there was actual skill and thought that went into who gets the terror.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Ooh, tomb of the spider Hollow.
Meh, not particularly impressed, I didn't really mind the old version.
Anyway, on a roll with Anub. He hasn't been very relevant in a while, which means soon some pros will randomly remember that yes, he is insane, so they will pick him up again and get him nerfed :(
I'll enjoy him while I can, he's amazing. He's one of the best tanks at diving and engaging, and level 20 gives him one of the strongest power spikes in the game. I actually struggle to think of any that compare.
I mean, imagine if he had a talent that gave him the 1 ability: "When you emerge from your next E, cast Mosh Pit" on a long cd.
Insane, right?
And then realize that Rewind is so much better than that:
You can EQQ then E to retreat,
you can EE to do a long chase,
you get 2-4 non-negligible shields,
you deal damage from Q,E,W, AA, burning rage (potentially R too)
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Niiiiice. Now that is some interesting news.
Interesting and fun changes to BW and Kerrigan.
The only thing I don't like is the added effect on Kerrigan's pull, but frankly it's mostly just because I don't like the estethics of it.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
...and now a Kerrigan and Brightwing re-work.
I don't have huge opinions on Brightwing, the only thing I wanted with her was more healing options and now she has more healing options. So long as she isn't prohibitively weak anymore as a solo Support, I'll probably play her again wherever a global can work. I was actually thinking while playing Nazeebo that he should get a similar version to BW's new Ice Block - based on the Witch Doctor's Spirit Walk ability - because it's weird that he has a WoW Ice Mage talent in his kit. It's like Malfurion having Scouting Drone.
They're giving more cleanse options, along with the new Tyrande level 1. CC has become pretty ubiquitous and options to combat it eroded with every Support change. It's nice to see them wanting to curb it somewhat.
As for Kerrigan, having the mana return on Ravage as baseline is very welcome. Just, in general, she's being rewarded more for playing well. Which is I think is vital for harder-to-play heroes, or why not just play Raynor?
I like her getting a self-heal/Ice Block, it's thematically fitting and reeeeeaaaalllly going to come in handy considering how ham you can go with her now.
Aw,. Ninja'd while collecting my though, oh well.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
I definitely like that theyre making the various cleanse abilities all only partial cleanses, so you can pick different supports against different flavors of CC, instead of just whoever has the strongest cleanse.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Blizzard did an AMA on the subreddit about hero design and balance. The TL recap is here in case you want the short version - the long version is linked at the top of the recap
I felt Blizzard did a good job of being responsive, talking about both heroes and larger issues. It sounds like they're really trying to figure out where they want to proceed with matchmaking given that the masters+ population seems to be having issues. As for offlane, I definitely agree Blaze/Yrel are the issue and I'm curious what the result of today's meeting on mana management will be.
Also, for the record, my suggestion that Adam Jackson liked - Mage minions should get a spell they use when they get within ~10 range of a tower. After a 1 second cast the minion sacrifices itself to deal 400 damage to the tower, dropping the health globe. This A. Gives an incentive to push offlane that doesn't really multiply with number of heroes pushing to get the burst of tower damage, and B. Makes it so pushing is less punished by freely giving the globes. At 10 range the globes are still much closer to the defender than pusher, but it becomes reasonable for someone who's pushing to contest those globes.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
10 range is a lot though.
Like, don't most ranged AA have like 5 range?
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gandariel
10 range is a lot though.
Like, don't most ranged AA have like 5 range?
Yes. I don't specifically mind 10 range, but eyeballing it I do think that might be about midlane, so they could just end up popping and passively sieging the enemy forts in a neutral lane.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Towers have 7.75 range, so 10 range is just beyond that. For reference Sgt. Hammer has 11 range in Siege Mode
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Feels like that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to stop the caster from getting the 400 damage off. No hero can kill the caster add in 1 second.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
They really seem to be having issues with Ana. I mean, she certainly has struggles and they could certainly adjust some of her weaker talents and make some touches to her functionality - the healing dart passing through full health targets for one - but I'm surprised they're in for another rework.
Otherwise, I'm glad that they're addressing mana as a resource in their game, or beginning to really address it at some point down the line at least. HotS really needs more consistency here - particularly between old and new heroes - and no Hero should have a vestigial mana bar just because.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
So, I'm not sure whose idea was it to make "Capture Watchtowers" a quest objective for this Event, but removing every single map with a watchtower on it from unranked play seems like kind of an oversight.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
They stealth added Cursed Hollow as an option
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kitten Champion
So, I'm not sure whose idea was it to make "Capture Watchtowers" a quest objective for this Event, but removing every single map with a watchtower on it from unranked play seems like kind of an oversight.
Do the mercenaries on Hanamura count as watchtowers?
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Quote:
Originally Posted by
GolemsVoice
Do the mercenaries on Hanamura count as watchtowers?
Nah. I wouldn't have complained if they were, as I got that map at least a dozen times and cleared out those camps quite a lot.
However, in the last couple of hours - since midnight maybe - the cycle of Alterac Pass, Dragonshire, Gardens of Terror, and Hanamura which I've been going through like Groundhog's Day was broken and I got Cursed Hollow, Sky Temple, and Towers of Doom all of a sudden. I suspect they changed things behind the scenes very recently, or maybe it's a coincidence on my part.
So anyways, I'm done.
I got an Alexstrasza Death Aspect skin in a loot box (though it wasn't the colour I wanted, sadly) and I spent all my remaining shards on a Witch Whitemane skin. Which I don't regret, it's a great skin. Plus there's a cat with it.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kitten Champion
Nah. I wouldn't have complained if they were, as I got that map at least a dozen times and cleared out those camps quite a lot.
However, in the last couple of hours - since midnight maybe - the cycle of Alterac Pass, Dragonshire, Gardens of Terror, and Hanamura which I've been going through like Groundhog's Day was broken and I got Cursed Hollow, Sky Temple, and Towers of Doom all of a sudden. I suspect they changed things behind the scenes very recently, or maybe it's a coincidence on my part.
So anyways, I'm done.
I got an Alexstrasza Death Aspect skin in a loot box (though it wasn't the colour I wanted, sadly) and I spent all my remaining shards on a Witch Whitemane skin. Which I don't regret, it's a great skin. Plus there's a cat with it.
Counterpoint: They do now.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Keltest
Oh, that's good.
...and I'm not bitter at all or anything.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
It's been fun working to beat the various quests; I busted out Vikings in QM for the first time in forever and just barely missed one-shotting the XP quest by about 5k XP. Then I did a beginner AI game and came up 200 XP short. Oops.
All the same, the Alexstraza quest chain seems pretty easy: the spell damage also counts damage done to minions, you can spam beginner AI until you get enough games for watchtowers (now that Hanamura counts), the XP takes roughly two normal wins, and the capstone is dead simple if you pick a strong healer vs beginner AI.
Ps, new BW is super fun. In particular, her L1 talents feel very powerful and fun.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
So, they're releasing Mal'Ganis, evidently. Which, good, he should be. Or rather, a Dreadlord should be and he's the most known for being the first introduced and in the story-line most of us like.
I'm curious as to how they're going to adapt the Dreadlord's WC3 mechanics into HotS -- I can't imagine he won't have some kind of Sleep mechanic though it would be very different and much more interactive compared to the original, and an Infernal as one of his Heroics seems pretty likely given how visually impressive and memorable it is.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
I AM MAL'GANIS...
I AM A TURTLE!!!
Also, interesting that they chose to highlight minions in the teaser. I wonder if he'll have siege specialties.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CarpeGuitarrem
I AM MAL'GANIS...
I AM A TURTLE!!!
Also, interesting that they chose to highlight minions in the teaser. I wonder if he'll have siege specialties.
Could be. The dreadlord was an interesting hero in that it was a melee spellcaster hero that used strength as its main attribute. They were very much about supporting armies by isolating important targets and boosting friendlies.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Honestly, I could see Mal'Ganis filling numerous roles in HotS. A back-line mage, a Malthael-esque solo laner, a Support similar to Medivh with more funky abilities, or something tankier in the style of the Xul main tank that's become a thing.
I'm assuming in all of these there's some focus on life-steal, being a vampire and all.
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
I'm going to admit I need to eat crow on the reveal - I was not guessing the teaser was for a hero, they usually do more lead time for heroes than day before PTR, I thought it was for a follow up event to Fall of King's Crest
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Re: Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ChaosOS
I'm going to admit I need to eat crow on the reveal - I was not guessing the teaser was for a hero, they usually do more lead time for heroes than day before PTR, I thought it was for a follow up event to Fall of King's Crest
I think it's both, or that's my assumption at the moment.
I think Mal'Ganis will be part of the event-concluding comic, which is why he's positioned the way he is in that teaser/reveal. Wrapping up their Hero reveal - which they have to do anyways - and their attempts to build up the Nexus lore into the same package. Which isn't a bad idea. It's kind of what Overwatch does as well.