Ok here's the thread to name out all problems which hold Vainglory back to become the best mobile MOBA

If anything Vox is a T2 bot laner at the moment - you just see him picked a lot because there are so many players out there who are best playing Vox and Vox alone.

Best bot laners are Gwen, Kestrel and Rona.

Vox is easily my best hero and I can attest to Vox being a T2 bot lane / low T1, high T2 mid lane. Recently I’ve taken him out of both and tried to go top but the results are opposite extremes.

Gwen is the top bot laner right now, without a doubt. Then again I was recently schooled with my Gwen bot with a Glaive just a few weeks ago, so what do I know :joy:

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Rona is the top bot laner imo with Gwen being second best. Kestrel is also rlly good, but is a way better mid/top laner since her CP path is way stronger rn. If Rona’s team is also pretty good she can snowball her lane and shred turrets like nothing

They have lower win rate because they are either skill cannon or they are utterly underpowered.

Gwen’s proc build while kiting, and being able to B out of Rona’s slow?

I’m going to stick with Gwen, assuming she is played smart

That is assuming they’re in the same lane. If they’re both in Rona’s bot lane then Rona will have WP buff which is insanely op on her and is what makes her so insanely good in the early game Tho WP buff in general is op and I want it to get changed tbh

When I can’t decide between two high tier heroes, I imagine them squaring off :joy:

But I get what you mean. Just depends on the player - I’m not a very good Rona player, to be honest

Can also be attributed by being popular with unskilled players and disliked by higher skilled

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Addressing some misconceptions regarding balancing in VG
So apart from being a moderator here and the coach of a pro team (Renegades) I am also part of the core testing group, one of two captains in the PBE and a long standing member of Phase 1 PBE (I’ve been playtesting regularly for over 2 years now). I have also visited the Lair and met up with Nivmett and the other folk involved in balance, and was lucky enough to be there the day that a patch dropped and that a hotfix was deemed necessary (Reza - on release was significantly underpowered) so I have seen how that decision was made, and was invited as a playtester to contribute my thoughts on the proposed buffs to make Reza viable.

So broadly speaking, outside of people at SEMC themselves, I think I have one of the better understandings of how balance decisions are made, what the process is, who is involved and so on.

There are actually two balance teams at SEMC - the live balance team and the new heroes/items team. The PBE serves as the intersection of these two groups - with Nivmett at the pointy end of balancing (along with Nightwalker59 who also runs the PBE more directly than Niv now does).

It is worth noting when balancing you have to take into consideration 3 things - the overall game environment (ie if we change the health of turrets what are the impacts of that?), changes to items, and changes both directly to a hero and to heroes who interact with them. So its like a web where changing one node of that web has flow on effects on the rest of the web. Its not as simple as “buff Skye to counter X” because if you do so you will find out that making one of the best mobility heroes in the game strong is very very oppressive…

It is also worth noting that the changes that can be made by the balance team are limited - changes that are basically tweaks to numbers are much preferred to kit changes because these can be tweaked directly by the balance team whereas kit changes cost programming time from elsewhere, require approval from higher up and typically take several patches before they can be implemented. Enviromental changes and item changes are similar - number tweaking is much easier than changing how something works, both are easier than changing how something looks.

So how is hero balancing done each patch?
Firstly the live balance team identifies heroes that may need tweaking - they do this by looking at the data on winrates at all tiers both seperately and together. The broad aim is to have all heroes within 5% of a 50% winrate - with up to 10% for heroes who are primarily counter pick heroes such as Reim or Petal. This is passed onto the PBE team who consults with the new hero, items and gameplay team to get changes from them and the potential flow through of those changes onto other heroes and other aspects of game balance, along with any kit changes which are going to be tested and so on. From this an initial set of changes are developed and then put into the PBE. The PBE members get informed what the changes are and why they are being made and then we playtest with balanced parties to see whether the changes are too much, too little or just right. Based on the winrates, player feedback and observation, the PBE team tweaks the numbers and tries again the following day. This usually starts about a week after a patch drops and continues until a week before the new patch drops, with a new build and playtesting typically 6 days a week.

How about new heroes - there will have been months of tweaking, redesigning and internal playtesting before a new hero hits the PBE. When they do they usually reach Phase 1 testing first - Phase 1 tests not just probably changes to the game, but also things that are being experimented with such as new items etc - so most of the new stuff you see in Phase 1 won’t make it into the game. Phase 1 consists of around 100 players - almost all very high level in terms of their skill level, understanding of the game and dedication to playtesting - many playtest for several hours every day. Its not uncommon for a new hero to hit Phase one without a character model yet (usually they use Rona or Catherine as a substitute) and with a defined kit but with a couple of options on how that kit might be implemented (Flicker for example could have had a much weaker slow + root when it ended on his B and a pool of silence on his A or the kit we all now know). And the initial testing is regarding which kit is “more fun” - so its about how it feels, what roles we can make it work for etc. Then the kit is locked and it becomes about tweaking the numbers to make the hero balanced, working out what they interact with and so on. Phase 2 becomes involved at this stage, bringing in about 500 more players for testing.

It is fundamentally harder to balance new heroes than existing heroes however because you don’t have the data yet to figure out exactly where they sit - take on release Reza as an example - the general feeling in the PBE prerelease was that Reza was a balanced hero - on release 35% winrate… Why? Because he is a high risk high reward hero, so high skill players are much better placed to utilize his kit fully. He needed some buffs to make him a bit more forgiving for lower skill players, whilst also not being too good at higher level of play. Typically balance changes will be made over the next few patches to bring a new hero in line with the target winrate.

Finally balance decisions are made within a nexus of pressures - SEMC don’t want to release a new hero who is deeply UP because it supresses their sales for months even if you hotfix them, likewise they don’t want to release an OP hero because it makes the game less fun and more work for the balance team down the track. However at the same time the hero designer wants to protect their beautiful new creation and keep them to their vision, so changes have to be in line with that.

Balance in VG is actually impressively good - easily on par with Dota2 and LoL and historically has typically been better than them (back in 3v3 only days) probably because of the smaller set of heroes. This can be determined by looking at winrate variance between heroes. Yes sometimes heroes are too strong or too weak - but if thats the case they will usually be addressed within a patch or two.

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Then may I tell you a few things?
Hero win rate may only impact the balancing partly then comes the hero’s own power. They have to take that into consideration. They have to look at the number of strengths of each hero, their counters. E.g BF. He was strong pre 2.10 but then the nerfs came which were understandable. But further nerfs came and I was like: “This guy is utterly weak right now, why would you further nerf him?” Another one is my boi SAW. He’s popular along noobs but when you bring him into T8 and above, he’s borderline unplayable and the devs nerfed him to meet the noobs’ needs. Another one is Petal who is rarely seen nowadays. This is due to her HP and her powers. All of that proved you wrong.

Thank you for a peek behind the curtain.

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Make this a standalone post.

I’ve tried to be polite and subtle. My patience is wearing very, very thin. I highly suggest you take a break from this topic, maybe the whole forums since you quit VG - instead of trying to marry yourself to a specific side of an argument. I normally try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I see no reason to not take Idmonfish’s words at face value over pretty much anyone else due to his track record, involvement, etc.

Most high elo players have significantly biased perspectives both in game quality and game balance. Unless its very, very, very well reasoned and researched (not the half baked stuff people toss in here), I see no reason to take your word over that of Idmonfish. He has vastly larger knowledge and experience in highly applicable areas, much of it direct. I know some people also place a lot of value in articulation, I believe this is unfair, but that wouldn’t help you either.

Your first point is very wrong. Hero Winrates are the ultimately defining factor, for everything but a hero or items max potential. Of which I see no mention. Winrates vary by tiers and take into account the overall power of a champion, how many comps that hero fits into and works against, the skill cap of the hero, the skill floor of the hero, the variance in viable item builds, and so on. So the overall strength of a hero is inherently affecting its Winrate. Alongside other important factors.

To talk about Blackfeather specifically, he was a really strong splitpusher, and in the right hands could survive to his late game scaling more reliably. I don’t think Nivmett talked much about the reasons for the nerfs unfortunately. A lot of high elo people cough @Skieblu cough absolutely hate playing vs competent Blackfeather. So that’s not going to help him when he shines the most in high elo hands.

You answer yourself as to why Saw was nerfed. Though, he was also a really strong lane pusher if supported correctly.

FYI your Blackfeather and Saw examples run counter to each other. Except in one point: BF has primarily been a high skill tier problem, while Saw is the inverse. Nerfing both was primarily about reducing the problem areas. They are stop both viable in proper teams. Just not necessarily in soloque.

You are wrong about Petal. The best junglers do well on a small core of items. They also tend to be strong gankers. Petal is neither. She also lost Frostburn as a core item, which left her with no reliable niche remaining other than basic kiting, in 3v3. In 5v5 with more sources of damage, her own lack of damage is quite apparent where her minions are more vulnerable in team fights. The main peeps you see as melee are Krul/Koshka/Alpha/Rona, with maybe some Glaive and Blackfeather thrown in. Petal doesn’t do spectacularly well against any of them when she doesn’t have Frostburn and can get whacked from many more angles. Her snowball potential is also severely weaker in 5v5. She doesn’t support the rest of her team easily. Her best matchup in Skye is nonexistent due to Skye being unavailable as a strong counterpick and a weaker teamfighter. Meanwhile, CP Vox, Varya, Skaarf, Samuel, Celeste, and both Barons are all very common and obliterate Petal along with her team. So why are you harping on Idmonfish about Petals HP?

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@idmonfish That was actually a brilliant and informative post. I would suggest making it an entire new topic to talk about. Thank you.

@LamDumbasspro I fail to see how you proved him wrong? BF used to be oppressive, and although I miss his rose trail and believes he needs a very slight buff, he is pretty balanced. If you think SAW needs a buff, I am blatantly confused. Second to maybe Skaarf, he is the best lane-pusher in the game, especially in the lower tiers. Unless someone drafts to counter him specifically, he can ruin an entire game. Possibly the reason high tiers make him “borderline unplayable” is that people know how to draft and many of his counters are currently meta for other reasons. Also, why keep mentioning Petal’s pick rate? Glaive is picked almost four times as often with a lower win rate. By your logic, he deserves a buff, but he is also pretty balanced right now. There are some arguments to be made with the logic of some balance changes, but yours were none of them.

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Not a buff but a rework. Slower attack speed faster movement speed.

How would you suggest his stacks work? I’d like to hear this

His ult needs a slight buff, his early game needs to be weaker but stronger late game.

*Perk: Spin Up:

-Attack speed bonus/stack is reduced from 18% to 12% (+0.125% per level)

-Movement speed reduction/stack is reduced from 0.12 m/s to 0.08 m/s (-0.0025 m/s per level).

You do realize in order to add variety to the game, some heroes are made to have varying power spikes. Not only that, but you can’t just say “weaker early game”. How?

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He’s too weak late game but an oppressor early game. I want his late game to be slightly stronger and to compensate that a weaker early game. Matches nowadays cost 20 minutes though.

So a permanent 1/2 Atlas Pauldron in exchange for a .0125 m/s buff?

That’s a nerf, in my opinion. Aren’t you arguing for a buff? Or “rework”