Good riddance I say. The mages could use a overall nerf at the moment.
at higher levels of play, KT’s strength is flamestrike’s oppressive range when he picks up the whopping +50% range increase to it at 13, and the stupid amounts of damage it does when it hits.
losing ignite at 16 means those flamestrikes no longer apply living bomb if they hit you.
the nerf to gathering power means he doesn’t get a free 5-15% damage tacked onto those flamestrikes.
fission bomb is also getting a damage nerf, though it gains aoe range now.
living bomb with fission bomb goes from doing 483.75 damage at lv10, to doing 425.7 damage. if the explosion is 30% bigger i think that is pretty close to compensating for it.
so three out of five of his must-take talents are getting hit. he’ll still have oppressive range, it’s just going to do somewhere like 40-45% of the damage it used to… which sadly means he’ll still outdps any of the other heroes who can safely poke from that range, which is why i’d still expect him to be top 2. you just have to actually play like you’re playing a poke comp in a real moba instead of waiting for KT to land ONE flamestrike and then go in.
he’ll also be free to spec into gravity lapse (which is getting a speed/range buff, btw) and take arcane barrier, which makes the zeratul counterpick more bearable and makes his actual teamfighting a bit better.
Jaina was debatably just as good or better than KT as is, this will probably solidify that.
Ah yeah the flamestrike/ignite talent was super powerful and something you take everytime. I didn’t remember the level (don’t have kael thas though I’ve played him during a free week), so I missed that in the listed changes.
Still it sounds like they are making him a much more flexible character with various viable builds, rather than one super build. I think that is something to shoot for in all characters, it is a lot more interesting if there are multiple routes, multiple choices to go with a character without gimping yourself horribly.
I think early on itll be damaging to him until some buids are figured out. As is though with the range buff at 13 the double flamestrike could make for an awesome poking tool or combo with anything that groups up the enemy team.
+1 for Stitches love and Chen fix. Also would toss in some small buffs to Diablo and ETC, I have no idea how to build ETC these days. Just basically buff power cord all day and hope for the best.
Also a question for you guys: will the gathering power changes effect Nova drastically? Or will she more or less function the same?
Been enjoying her on free week and like her roaming assassin play so thought about getting the bundle.
As I said with Zeratul, I think Nova is also a true assassin. Maybe even more so, she really seems to suck at laning or taking camps, she’s all about ganking. I still like Zeratul substantially better, and I feel Zeratul is less reliant on good teammates. However Nova is still fun.
Chen…I probably have no idea how your supposed to play him, but by far he is my least favorite hero that I’ve played. I greatly disliked playing as him. However I’m sure there are many who love him, so if he is weak Blizzard needs to make him stronger. I’m for Stitches getting better as well, he’s a lot of fun but unfortunately is very bad at least according to the stats.
I think gathering power change effects Nova a lot, that is the talent to always take on her. She can also rack up the kills through sneak/ganking and really build up her power. So she is often getting more (sometimes much more) than that initial 5% boost on abilities.
It’ll hurt. A lot.
A few things about the gather power implications
-
No quick Ramp Up. A roaming Nova could, if lucky, have max gathering power by like level 7. Now? She’ll be lucky if she is at max stats by 16. It’s going to destroy her early game, where she is the LEAST vulnerable.
-
The retention on death doesn’t really mean much. A good Nova is not like a Zeratul who has to risk going in. A good Nova Player should die maybe once all game. She should always be well positioned behind her team or flanking for cleanup
3)Peeps will get wise. A side effect of taking forever to get max stacks is that you need to be more actively attacking the lanes to get to max. By your fifth takedown, the enemy team should be on the lookout. For Gathering Power max at 5, not a big deal. But if they STILL aren’t looking for you after 15 kills? You probably didn’t need it in the first place.
- Nova’s only other talent that’s worth anything at 4 is Envenom, which we know is rather bad right now.
That actually helps a lot, thanks. I hope it doesn’t hurt her substantially but it might, just been digging her design and play style.
Nothing like sniping down a target in seconds then shaking dat Nova ass.
Nova might be the worst character in the game with the GP nerf, she was already bad as it was.
I wouldn’t be shocked. Why play Nova when Zeratul is a thing?
But she’s a professional scrub killer, so she always pulls higher numbers than she should
Also, probably not the worst. Stitches is still a thing
The only viable Nova build is hologram build now and let us be honest, it is not very good. Zeratul indeed does everything Nova does but better and can clear lanes and has a better escape.
Don’t forget best Ult in the game
A cancellable 4 second time lapse that lets you either pick off the remaining team or setup combos on the people in the VP, yeah it is pretty busted.
Well used right sure, but I see a higher tendency of VP being used in highly stupid ways. Only as good as the player using it really.
Free week Abathur and Murky, god help us all.
Murky got changed to BW because of there being no supports, so there are still no supports.
Finally, I can knock Abathur out of my ‘get to 5’ quota
Also, they should just rebrand Brightwing, Tassadar, Kharazim and Tyrande as ‘Utility’ instead of ‘support’ so they aren’t matched up against true healers in Quick Match. Plus, then they’d be more appropriately titled.
Nah, just buff them so they can compete. If tyrandes hunters mark could cause others to deal more damage than your average healer support could put out, then it’d be viable no?
To force a healer on each team as the “correct” way to play is bad
That’s the way it’s been in nearly every game that involves numbers representing life though. The team with the healer will do much better than the one without.
Every team that wins on the regular has this healer, that is just how it works.
tbh i liked QM more when it didn’t guarantee equal number of supports.
QM’s a randomfest anyway and yet everyone has the expectation of QM giving you balanced matches, and then gets ultra bent outta shape when it doesn’t