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Heroes8 years agoGosu "GosuGamers" Gamers

Enter the Stats: HTC Heroes Brawl

More in this series: Enter the Storm #3, Americas Championship, Europe Championship.

It is currently the calm before the storm. The Regional Championships have all concluded, and Blizzcon is coming up in 2 weeks. As such, a lot is going on in the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene. A lot of teams are restructuring their teams, while the teams that managed to qualify for Blizzcon are busy preparing. Because of this, not a lot of tournaments were and are being organized at this moment. Luckily, we had Heroes Hype fill in the void with their HTC Heroes Brawl. Eight NA teams participated in this tournament that lasted for 3 weeks, with the playoffs concluding last weekend. In this Enter the Stats, we will take a look at how the meta has involved after the recent Warrior buffs and other changes. As always, all statistics mentioned have been compiled and shared by @Dthehunter2510.

Battlefield stats

With a total of 40 games being played throughout the Heroes Brawl, Haunted Mines was never picked while Cursed Hollow was by far the most popular. When we last looked at an NA tournament (Americas Championship), we saw a similar focus on Cursed Hollow as well as a highly favored Dragon Shire. Interestingly, Dragon Shire was far less popular this time around, only being played in 10% of all matches.

Cursed Hollow was played in 30% of all games, with Tomb of the Spider Queen the nearest second at 20%. Sky Temple rounds out the top 3, picked in 17.50% of all games. These 3 maps were used significantly more than the other battlefields, and together made up 67.50% of all games played.

In terms of the least popular, Haunted Mines (0 games), Garden of Terror (1 game), Blackheart's Bay (2 games), Battlefield of Eternity and Infernal Shrines (3 games) and Dragon Shire (4 games) fill up the rest of the list.

First Pick teams again showed to have advantage in games. Being FP won you 57.50% of the games. In fact, none of the maps showed to favor the Second Pick team, the team that would have chosen the map. The maps that SP teams had the biggest success on were surprisingly some of the more popular maps, with both Tomb of the Spider Queen and Cursed Hollow showing an even split in wins between FP and SP.

Hero stats

No surprise to many is that Jaina is again the most contested hero. With an involvement rate of 97.50%, Jaina was way more popular than both Kael'thas (82.50%) and Zeratul (77.50%). Out of all Assassins, Jaina had the second highest win rate (56.88%). Only Kerrigan outperformed the ice mage, with a solid 66.67% win ratio over 6 games. Kael'thas is performing worse and worse in this meta, with teams being able to play and draft around his chain bombs effectively. He managed to drag out a 42.86% win rate.

Raynor dropped the most, both in popularity and win rate. While the European teams made him win 2 out of every 3 games he played in Prague, he lost all of his 8 games in the HTC Heroes Brawl. His total involvement rate therefore never climbed higher than 22.50%.

In the category of Heroes feared the most, both Kael'thas and Zeratul were banned over 25% of the drafts. Zeratul has not been hit badly by his recent nerfs, and is still considered dangerous for good reason. He pulled out a respectable 53.85% win rate.

Falstad and Tychus also recorded 0% win rates in their respective 3 and 1 games. The only Assassin left on the bench was yet again Nova, a hero that has not had a place in the meta for a long, long time. 

After our Assassins, let's have a look at the performance of the supports. Out of the 9 support heroes currently in the game, again Li Li was the one that got no screen time. More surprisingly perhaps, is that Lt. Morales was only played once. The competitive scene has quickly identified how vulnerable she is, and how easily she can be the weakest link. As such, even with her superior healing capabilities she was ignored for most of the tournament. The only game she ever played she even ended up losing. Hopefully, with the upcoming buffs to her health, she will soon find a spot in the meta.

A common pattern did resurface for this event: Uther was again involved in 100% of all games. Banned in 62.50% of all games, he still managed to impress in the 15 games that he did play. With a win rate of 66.67% he isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Brightwing was actually the full support hero played in most matches (19), a feat unimaginable just weeks ago. Still, the Faerie Dragon's win rate ended at 42.11%.

After seeing what EU is doing with Kharazim, it seems that NA has caught up. After Uther, Kharazim showcased the highest win rate at 61.54%, far higher than the more traditional supports Malfurion (41.18%) and Rehgar (28.57%).

Tassadar provided the biggest surprise. A Support Hero that many dismissed after seeing major nerfs to his damage in a recent patch, is now seeing play because of his superior shielding capability. His ability to basicly keep a person shielded at all times, along with his survivability, proved valuable to many a composition. He was played in even more matches than Brightwing (22), but always in combination with a more dedicated support hero.
The other semi-support hero Tyrande was another heavily contested hero, being banned in 45% of all drafts. Because of the importance of Support/Tyrande, an average of 1.3875 Support heroes per team per game was observed.

After the announced reworks to Warriors, we were expecting a major resurgence for both E.T.C. and Stitches. However, it seems that the small nerfs to Johanna and Leoric did not free up enough space for other Warriors in the meta. In the HTC Heroes Brawl E.T.C. and Stitches were only played in 1 game each. The biggest winner of the rework could be considered Diablo, a warrior that was at the bottom of the pile for a long time now. He managed to win 80% of his 5 games.

Leoric and Johanna were still involved in respectively 80% and 70% of all drafts. Because of their superior waveclearing capabilities, they remain popular picks even with their winrates being less than spectacular at 48.15% and 47.83%. The Warrior with the highest involvement rate was however Muradin. With his tankyness, and ability to decrease the potential of auto-attackers, he was involved in 85% of all drafts. Though his win rate was also <50%, at a similar ratio of 48.28%.

Speaking of auto-attackers, Sonya was banned in 37.50% of all drafts. This highest banrate of all Warriors means that the barbarian only played in 25% of all matches. However, she still managed to win 60% of those 10 games and thus deserves the banrate. 

All Warriors were played during the HTC Heroes Brawl, with Tyrael and Anub'arak being the least popular besides before mentioned E.T.C. and Stitches.

In the last Enter the Stats, we reported on the lack of Zagara and overabundance of Nazeebo in the Europe Championships. It seems like NA does not agree with that distribution, because Zagara was involved in 50% of all drafts while Nazeebo was not seen even once. Zagara also managed to win 53.85% of the games she did play in, a very good achievement.

The other most popular Specialists were Abathur and Sylvanas. Abathur was the most contested Specialist at a 52.50% involvement rate, but only won 38.46% of his games. Meanwhile Sylvanas is back in the meta with a 63.64% winrate over her 11 played games.

Murky, Azmodan and The Lost Vikings each saw short but successful periods of glory. These heroes managed to win all of the games they played in, but did so because of their highly specific picks. It is good so see that heroes like these can still make a difference when used appropriately. 

Gazlowe was again ignored for the whole event, while more surprisingly both Sgt. Hammer and Nazeebo as well were not played even once.

In the end, 37 out of the available 42 Heroes were played at least once. This seems to be the highest amount of variety that has ever showed up in an event. It seems like our prediction of last Enter the Stats came through, because 88.10% of all Heroes were used in the HTC Heroes Brawl. The 5 Heroes that were not played or banned even once were: Gazlowe, Li Li, Nazeebo, Nova and Sgt. Hammer.

Finally, we can take a look at the Heroes with the highest winrates. When looking at all Heroes that played at least 5 games, the following numbers show up:

  • Diablo – 80.00%
  • Uther – 66.67%
  • Kerrigan – 66.67%
  • Sylvanas – 63.64%
  • Kharazim - 61.54%
  • Sonya – 60.00%
  • Chen – 60.00%
  • Tassadar – 59.09%
  • Jaina – 58.33%
  • Zagara – 53.85%
  • Zeratul – 53.85%
  • Tyrande - 52.94%
  • Valla - 50.00%   
     

Talent stats

Because Dthehunter got access to the replays of all matches, thanks to the HTC Heroes Brawl organizers, we are able to look at talent choices of some of the most popular heroes that were played: Muradin/Tassadar/Brightwing/Tyrande. Let's have a look at the health of their talent choices.

Starting off with Muradin, we see a talent tree with fair but few alternatives. While Avatar is the only talent picked in 100% of all games, most other tiers show a very strong favorite along with one or maybe two viable alternatives. Reverberation at level 1 is particularly strong in the current meta (picked 89.66% of all games), made even stronger by follow-up picks Thunder Burn (79.31%) and Thunder Strike (65.52%). The Level 7 and Level 13 are the healthiest, while at Level 16 Stoneform is picked almost exclusively (93.10%). His Level 20 sees a split between two very strong talents (Hardened Shield and Rewind), with Rewind being picked 3 times as often because of the importance of both his stun and escape.

In the end, the most popular build for Muradin was:
 

Level 1Level 4Level 7Level 10Level 13Level 16Level 20
ReverberationThunder BurnPiercing BoltAvataThunder StrikeStoneformRewind


Tassadar is a hero that now has very different strengths, and this is shown in his new talent choices. Conjurer's Pursuit is deemed vital for his mana management, and Prescience at Level 13 is also so important in keeping Tassadar alive. But his other tiers offer fair choices. At Level 4, both Mental Acuity and Leeching Plasma were picked 50% of the time. The choice of this talent seems to be heavily dependent on the battleground, with the Oracle reduction being extremely vital on maps like Cursed Hollow while the shielding buff is optimal for maps with many regular team fights like Tomb of the Spider Queen and Sky Temple.

His Level 7 talents, Khala's Embrace and Static Charge, show an equal distribution of about 50/50 and even his heroic can now go either way. Because of the nerf to Archon's damage, Force Wall is now picked regularly because of its potential for both isolation and disengaging.

At Level 20, all of Tassadar talents seem viable. In a meta where Heroic upgrades are not often picked up, it is good to see that the Archon upgrade is most often picked up to add to its damage dealing potential.

Because of the mentioned health of Tassadar's talent tree, no single build can be identified as the best. But the build that proved most successful in the HTC Heroes Brawl was as follows:
 

Level 1Level 4Level 7Level 10Level 13Level 16Level 20
Conjurer's pursuitMental AcuityKhala's EmbraceArchonPrescienceDimensional WarpTwilight Archon


Brightwing seems to be back in the meta. A hero that was very popular before because of her global presence and access to Promote was quickly nerfed to the ground. Now, she is a hero that has good synergy with melee assassins like Illidan and is still very viable due to her global presence. Sadly, she only has minimal options in her build. Besides her Level 4 and Level 20, all other tiers seem to have 1 clear choice. This shows us the following build:
 

Level 1Level 4Level 7Level 10Level 13Level 16Level 20
Hyper ShiftManic PixiePhase ShieldBlink HealShield DustGreater PolymorphRewind


Finally, Tyrande is an example of a hero that has excellent build variety as well. Besides her 100% pickup rate of Ranger's Mark at Level 1, all other choices aren't so clear cut. After Shadowstalk got changed to include healing, this Heroic is now seen in 47.06% of all of her games. The health of her talent tree is made clear when looking at the numbers below:

Surprisingly her most popular build is pretty different from her most successful build. Both builds can be seen below:

Most popular build:
 

Level 1Level 4Level 7Level 10Level 13Level 16Level 20
Ranger's MarkSearing ArrowsLunar BlazeStarfallShrink Ray

Trueshot Aura

Nexus Frency


Most successful build:
 

Level 1Level 4Level 7Level 10Level 13Level 16Level 20
Ranger's MarkSearing ArrowsBattle MomentumShadowstalkHuntress' FuryTrueshot AuraNexus Frenzy


In closing

All of these stats were compiled by @Dthehunter2510, and made public by him on Reddit. Many more interesting things can be deduced by taking a look at the complete set of numbers. You can find his sheet on overall stats, his sheet on Team stats and his sheet on Talent stats.

More in this series: Enter the Storm #3, Americas Championship, Europe Championship.

Follow us @GosuGamersHotS for more eSports news.

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