Lance? He can’t survive lol, what people do (even the pros) is just focus him to take him out quickly (and they did it, Lance didn’t even survive more than 5s), right now he feels like a backline support, but he needs to go in the middle of the combat to apply all this cc.
It will make balancing simpler. Balancing will be based on 3v3 and the Talents here are like buffs at 2.12 for the heroes to make the transition between 3v3 to 5v5
Put in a word the next time you talk to them? 
I quite like peanut butter Lance. His playstyle has always been about smart transition from early aggression to mid/late-game team utility, which I think fits 5v5 match progression very well. But you’re right, he can’t survive in the middle of a full squad teamfight in the late game, unless he’s done his part to roam, lock-down laners, and give his team an early advantage. This way, his tankiness scales to match the reduced damage output of a stunted enemy team. Granted, I’m playing below T9, so this might not sync up with the top-level meta, but I think he’s slightly underrated.
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How his kit works, he needs to completely render the enemy with roots and stuns, the problem for that is that he needs to dive, and right now, unless you can dive root + stun + reposition yourself to use the GW against the most enemies possible + get out of combat in less than 5s, you are dead, which is what happened when he was used in competitive play: the enemy focused him so he was out of combat, when a team decides to focus a roam who is supposed to tank instead of whatever jungler/carry is next to them means that this supposed tanky roam it’s not tanky enough, but lance can’t do anything, he is not a backline support, he is a tank/disruptor who needs to be in combat. Why would you pick a tank that can’t tank? What SEMC said was that he has damage reduction and all this, while this is true, it’s not realistic, you are not going to have the maximum damage reduction as cp is not viable in lance, you are not going to be always with the active damage reduction of GW or even the passive as using abilities cancels it, so realistically, he is not able to use that damage reduction that is supposed to make him tanky, and due to it, he is not tanky enough for a melee roam. Before the health changes, he had the second highest health pool of all the game (1º in based health) and it was for a reason, right now he has one of the lowest from all the roams, similar even to some warriors, which made him worse. All this plus the nerfs to defense.
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Idmonfish I was a pro player for a short period but Team Horizon got to Semi-Finals in VGL. =) God that was a long time ago. I am no Foojee though. Thats for sure lol. All the above people give feedback though.
(Only game I could find of my short time as a pro lol)
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Hmm I believe I answered you on how balanced the game is on another thread. Sorry I am getting to these late. If you would like me to pull the answer from there. I would be more than happy to. =D
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Well that I did not know, I stand corrected and you are more of a former pro than I was then since I think we reached the top 16 only in the SEA equivalent.
Welcome aboard the forums!
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Hahaha it was only for 1 VGL so like I said. Quite short. I got hired by SEMC shortly after this.
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Yes but also not -100%. that’s the problem. Remember Varya? She was OP, they nerfed her into the ground. She’s ok now but she was unplayable for an update. but then there’s things like Glaive, who they literally buffed by 0.1% (ok it was per stack, but 0.1x20 is still only 2%). They need to find the happy medium.
Some changes are stronger armed due to the severity of the issue. If you don’t remember Varya (Which btw I didnt balance her.) was a nightmare. We needed to make sure she was tuned down and then brought back up vs tuning down only slightly and having players rage quit. Glaive has been in the game for a long time and has had his ups and downs. He dips down then we slowly raise him back up. We have time to “tune”. As for balancing as a whole you should understand you will NEVER have a perfectly balanced moba. There will always be a meta. There will always be some hero that is preferred and some hero people say “sucks”. Thats part of life of a moba is the fluctuating meta. People will say A is OP and then will figure out counters to A with B but then they need C to work with A or counter B and the cycle continues. Thats what keeps things interesting and fresh. =)
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You can’t just say “Hot patch it!” Thats not how those work. Hot patches are a last resort and should be reserved for game breaking issues like crashes and in very extreme cases, balance. Hot patches are dangerous and expensive. A single bad hot patch could mean the game going down for 3-5 days across the world. Why? Because a hero was slightly to strong? =/
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One off those extreme situations was Reza, the first hero to be buffed in a hot fix XD
That probably had game breaker fixes in it so they through him in
Fair point, I understand. I just feel that often there’s a single hero that lies above the others (Like Varya on release) Although in that case it may have been due to the fact she was just released and noone knew how to counter her… Of course, it is a game that is possible to balance perfectly, and to an extent that’s what makes it more interesting and allows a constantly changing meta.
I like what you’re doing with Lance though. Slowly bringing back his WP path, as you said. And Ozo for that matter.
There was actually a hot patch already happening so we did decide to fix him. In addition he was the only hero that got little to no testing. He only had 2 days on PBE.
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Its become more and more clear that Lance isnt a great support in 5v5 due to the distance between walls BUT he makes for a great tanky utility top laner. (o^_^)b
Funny enough weapon Ozo was the original design intent for that hero lol
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That was the patch where Ardan and Ozo could use their abilities to attack their allies and even kill them. Guess what was actually being hotfixed there?
Often the process is opaque from the outside - I happened to be visiting the Lair the day that patch dropped and I saw them go into crisis mode over that bug (which was in itself impressive to watch) I was also impressed that when the buffs were being discussed several options were discussed (based on what was possible to change server side) - and how widely those changes were consulted on and that they bought me into the discussion as an experienced pbe tester who happened to be on site. A buff like that is always a hit and hope - but they did everything tbey could to minimise it being an over buff given the short time frame.
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That gives me a wicked idea for a brawl mode. . . lol
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