I wanted to see what others think of for patch 3.9.
I would generally write my own opinions in a lengthy fashion, but I feel they are not fully formed yet and lack proper arguments.
In a TL;DR fashion:
Most Captains are ok, but I feel like they should adjust Phinn’s perk if they want to kick him out of the meta and stop buffing Lance cause his kit is simply not suitable for the 5v5 environment.
Anka is just too relevant. For me personally, I think they should nerf the damage on her A’s on-hit damage and Blink damage, so she has to use her B before landing a basic attack to finish her target off.
Baron nerfs in 3.9 really took CP Baron down decently. I haven’t seen much of him in Blitz spamming his A with his Epic Talent. Good riddance to a near uncounterable annoyance.
Magnus I feel was already in a good spot prior to his buffs. The certainly buff parts of him I think we’re already good. It’s not his late game that should be buffed, it is his wave clear that needs attention I feel. But hey, guess we’ll see how this will go down as we head to 4.0.
Blackfeather is still nowhere to be seen despite his buffs. I feel he is like Lance - good kit but overall unsuited to the 5v5 landscape after his B lost its slow.
Same can be said for Kestrel. Where is she? Haven’t seen her past the previous One for All game mode last weekend.
I feel they should tweak Ozo’s B a bit. Something to make him a bit more relevant. Other than that, he seems pretty balanced overall.
Petal… well poor her. She’s just doesn’t seem to be loved by anyone nowadays.
Well, those are what I feel like saying.
What do you think of the current state of heroes or of your favourite hero? Let’s discuss!
I agree that Ozo needs to be seen more, but the last game I played against an Ozo I got whooped, so any advice? He seems too sticky and his damage is too good.
Secondly Petal isn’t too bad. She’s still a good counter against Krul in 3v3, but I haven’t seen her any other time.
Also about Blackfeather I think they want to be careful not to buff him too much to that level of toxicity a few patches ago.
I want to see the day where Petal and SAW become a priority ban in T10 ranked.
Okay but seriously, as much as I despised the massive Crucible nerf, I feel like it put captains in a decent spot in 5v5. Yeah Lorelai, CW, and Yates are top tier, but Ardan, Phinn, and Catherine are still game-changers. Grace, Flicker, and Adagio are also good but less versatile (and they’re likely to be played in the top lane). Heck, even Lyra is decent. She gets outclassed by other captains, but she isn’t a potato.
What I straight-up don’t see anymore is Fortress. Where is he??
They need to return his full kit (maybe tweak the rose trail to be slower boost or only for him or slower for the teammates while normal for him). The B slow, rose trail, etc. Then tone down the values of the effects to make him fun to play and viable. After all there is 5s slow and 0.5s slow with any given % number.
The reason they stripped his kit is that it’s easier to balance… it’s the lazy fix as everything can be tweaked from dmg, ratios, %, effect durations and so on. If they return his kit he will be a lot more useful to match the new heroes and be viable while a lot fun to play as the combos on the old days BF were so many and satisfying to pull off (both wp and cp).
Usually, I see Ozo’s picking up the ramping items alongside the sustain items (meaning the combo of Dragon’s Eye + Eve of Harvest/Breaking Point + Serpent’s Mask). Then either defense or piercing or cooldown items to aid with the strategy. A neat thing that could work if the Ozo is good is using the Capacitator Plate to boost the self-sustain.
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@Xhaos I think they nerf his only good feature (which was his chase potential) too much. Inara’s ult is basically better but it lacks the hyper-focus effect that Fortress’ A had.
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@TadashiN Lyra’s still pretty good. Played her well as carry and captain and won most of them.
@cha0z I don’t know. Old BF was ok but kind of oppressive to me from memory.
I think he only really needs either a return of the slow on his B (because his targets escape him most of the time when he uses his B) or better attack and movement speed.
His Rose Trail simply can’t retun. They nerfed Fortress’ one so why would they return something similar on a carry?
I think he has ok combos now, just that players don’t really diversify his build path to utilise items that can apply effects through his kit.
This is only a matter of tweaking values - as I said, you can tweak the duration of a slow for example or how strong it is. You can tweak everything for a balanced hero. The things is, instead of balancing him, they took the easy way to remove a lot of his kit = simplified hero = easier to balance in the future.
Edit on your edit: Rose trail can be a lot less affecting. Can has a super low value of speed boost = you have to have the same boots and even then be not that far to chase with any effect. They can remove the chase for allies and only apply it for bf, they can do +0.1 or +0.2 for allies. They can do whatever they want with the values to be there, has some effect, but be balanced. Also making a hero work or having an ok combos won’t compensate for few times more combos variations he got in the past. His kit is 2/3 of what he once had or even less, this is not 2/3 combos of the ones before, it’s a lot less combinations of combos. This topic about bf is really deeply discussed one so I won’t continue, let’s just say that 90% of the forums wan’t the old BF in a balanced values, kit skills durations/effects.
Can be done, but it’s easier to balance a hero that has half the kit than to balance every patch a hero that has a lot going on. Also the skill cap of old BF was a lot higher as the executable combos were a lot more = harder to balance among the tiers. There is that too.
Perk that enables a CP path.
A ability that was free Warthreads, true damage execute and gap closer.
B ability that was a barrier and a powerful slow.
C ability that was a free Crucible and immunity.
Now, most of that’s gone.
Personally, his B to me was perfect. His other parts was overloaded.
Yeah. I can see a return of the old BF. But what is done is done. Only time will tell if we can get it back.
They are one of the reason bruisers aren’t used. Why use them when those captains have more damage, more utility, need less good and tank more.
There is a reason why the 4 bans and the first 3 picks were captains (except with kinetic) in worlds. @Orikson
I’ve met one that went classic CP glass cannon that dodged like a pro, one that went Captain and survived like mad, and just today - a weapon Malene (granted, I was supporting as best as I could as Lyra and we had a Skaarf with his Rare Talent at level 2 in ARAL.
The two Malenes aside from the wp one was on the enemy team.
/offtopic