For the most part, Heroes of the Storm is a very balanced game, but that isn't to say it is perfect. Our editorial staff offers up their views on which heroes are in need of a makeover.
Dorazion
Stitches isn’t very fun to play anymore. He used to be powerful (admittedly, a little too powerful) but, in a way, it felt right. Stitches is the terror of darkshire, and he used to play like one. Nowadays, Stitches doesn’t bring anything to the table that warrants his selection.
It’s similar to what Blizzard did to Shamans during Hearthstone’s release. They fundamentally misappropriated the value of Wind Fury and Overload, causing all of the Shaman class cards to be very undertuned. In their testing, Blizzard must have felt that Wind Fury was an extremely strong mechanic that threatened the balance of the game.
This same thing must have happened with Stitches’ hook. It’s iconic, it’s fun, but it isn’t nearly as powerful as Blizzard seems to think it is. At high levels of play, no one gets hit by hooks. It’s too easy to stand behind tanky targets that WANT to get hooked and hook speed is slow enough to dodge on reaction anyways.
On top of all of this, there isn’t much reward to hooking a hero, and that is my biggest gripe with Stitches. A solo hook does nothing, meaning unless allies on totally on point, the enemy hero will just run away. What if a hooked hero gets a debuff or is temporarily vulnerable? Give Stitches something at least!
As long as hook is underwhelming, Stitches will be underwhelming.
Hexagrams
With Tassadar second to last in all Hero League games according to HotsLogs.com, with an abysmal 41.3% winrate, it is time to re-examine our gray-skinned hero. The problem lies mostly in the fact that the role which he fills is, much like his skin, very gray. Is he a support? Is he a specialist? Is he a hybrid of both?
Suffice to say that Tassadar currently occupies the role referred to as ‘soft support’, much like Tyrande. In fact, Tyrande and Tassadar together can fill the role of a single support and offer great damage output. However, such a composition is extremely situational and quite frankly, not very useful in serious games. While his Archon heroic ramps up his damage in the late game, talents which really allow it to shine, namely Static Charge, must be picked forgoing some of his other more support oriented talents along the way. As sad as it makes me to say, I think the best way to fix Tassadar in the short term is to remove the Archon heroic. This would allow players to build him as much more of a support than currently. If we change the focus from his damage spike at level ten, then we allow for increased shields and healing on the path to Heroic talents. However, this begs the question; what do we replace Archon with? First; I think we need a rework of forcewall.
Forcewall: This talent, in the right hands, is absolutely game changing, and like his Protoss companion Zeratul’s Heroic, allows for huge advantages in team fights if the force wall is used to segment off parts of the opposing team. However, the range is lackluster and the wall’s angle placement and size make it unwieldy to use properly. Replacing the Forcewall with two charges of StarCraft style Force Fields would be a welcome improvement. Two charges of a Heroic ability is nothing new (Azmodan), and this would allow more micro oriented play as Tassadar would be able to cast one force field offensively then another to cut off a flank route or an escape. If this seems too overpowered, perhaps the force fields could be destroyed by the enemy team. In StarCraft force fields are destroyed by Ultralisks, Colossus, Thors, and ironically enough, Archons.
Dimensional Shift: This is a great talent to have as a third basic ability, as it offers great escape and survivability. However, in its current state, it is an entirely selfish talent, and the antithesis to a support Hero’s ethos. Dimensional shift being a basic ability also encourages playerss to take talents which upgrade it along their build path, again resulting in the neglect of support talents. Moving Dimensional Shift to the Heroic tier, and allowing it to be cast on teammates instead of only Tassadar himself would improve Tassadar’s support role immensely. It could be used to save a hero, much like other heroics such as Ancestral Healing, but would also allow for great fight initiation when cast on Heroes with great crowd control initiations (E.T.C, Johanna). Balance wise it may seem too strong, but adding a downside of one second of silence after Dimensional Shift wears off would make for some high risk high reward plays.
JamesDickens
Chen just needs the love. I don’t care what his rework is, I just want it to push him to the top. In the old Dota days I enjoyed playing Pandaren Brewmaster, not because I liked his kit, but because I was literally a drunk panda that breaks your face. Now that Heroes of the Storm is what takes most of my time I want to be able to dominate the Nexus while chugging some sweet brew in the middle of fights.
A few ideas of changes is to make his Barrel heroic really unstoppable (right now forts slow it) and buff his flame breath talents. I don’t want him to be an unkillable tank, I want him to be a ruthless bruiser that jumps on the backline and crisps Jaina’s face. In order to do that I demand more flame breath damage and a buff-ed trait giving more shield per second.
Broeder
This is probably not a popular opinion, but I wish Nova would be a competitive hero. In low MMR matches Nova can feel like the most overpowered hero but as soon as you learn to play more careful and look for the shimmer of stealth she offers no more threat. This is a polar opposite of the other stealth hero in the game: Zeratul. Newer players will not have the timing and aim down with Zeratul’s abilities, but as we all know he is the most banned hero in the highest level of play. This is because Zeratul’s strength does not come from his stealth, but from his burst damage supported by his mobility. And he even is a decent laner, as such having value in every phase of the game. On top of that, Zeratul has the arguably most powerful Heroic in the game in the form of Void Prison.
So then what does Nova miss? She has the burst, she has the stealth but she lacks the mobility and she definitely lacks the ability to do anything else but hunt people. Her Holo Decoy ability is partially aimed to assist in escaping from chasing opponents, but does not fool good players. And her abilities are focused on single target damage, as they should be, and are useless to clear minion waves.
What do I propose to make Nova more viable? The first thing I would like to suggest is a way for Nova to become perfectly invisible. No more shimmer. This does not have to be a permanent thing, but could happen in the form of an activatable talent that removes the shimmer for a decent number of seconds. This would allow Nova to become the sniper that she wants to be, and makes it so that even the best of players can get surprised by her.
Coming back to the point of Nova missing mobility, what if she had the capability to infiltrate the enemy camp in the same way that snipers often infiltrate bases in the movies. Perhaps by allowing her to move through the enemy gates with her trait, Nova could play the high risk high reward game even more. Infiltrating the opponent's camp to take out that Abathur would mean that Abathur suddenly had a hard counter. Of course balancing this kind of behavior would take a lot of focus, but I feel that if done properly it would add a new level of skill to the game.
ManMode
Gazlowe is in a very strange spot right now. He’s only picked up in very niche situations and he is used by the majority of people as a lane pusher. I don’t think his current kit reflects what he was truly meant to be: a zone defense character with demolition-style pushing power. Sure, we have the robogoblin, and that does fill the fantasy of a one man wrecking crew, but it does nothing for zone control which is where he shines the brightest.
I think a good start would be reworking his lazer to make it a type of turret he sets down that charges up. This would make him safer, allow him to zone with all three of his basic abilities at once, and make his ‘tickle cannon’ actually good for something. Second, I think that instead of being a passive non-heroic damage buff, Robo-Goblin should allow him to control better, while still being an ultimate that says, “I got the keep in my sights”. The change I propose is to slightly nerf the attack damage bonus on Robo-Goblin, but allow you to activate it onto objects you’ve placed. for instance, you can ‘go to work’ on a turret you’ve placed to upgrade its attack speed, damage, or whatever works best for balance. You can use it on the new lazer turret to make it split, covering more ground. Interesting things like that, to retain the feel of being a master engineer hell-bent on tearing down buildings, but also very much interested in being alive. After all, what good is your gold if you’re dead?
