The Guardian Conundrum

[Fliits 112]

Medivh. The not-so-but-kinda-great healer-dps-specialist. The pros love him and in team league his stats have also been fairly average across the board. It's in below diamond team league, which is, in my opinion, where the majority of ranked players play, where Medivh's stats are below terrible. Any game where someone tries to pick Medivh is most likely either lost or someone bails out in fear of wasting time with a Medivh in their team. So why is this? 

Most people see Medivh as a support, who can save anyone from anywhere at anytime. And that is a great assumption. The best Medivh players can do this and when they do, it can make for some incredible moments. But then why does he have the lowest winrate in all of HotS? It all has to do with his kit. First of all, it's very team oriented, meaning if Medivh isn't always on top of his game and his team doesn't know what his about to do, most of what he does will likely go to waste. The thing is, he isn't that hard to grasp and he isn't a bad character (if you don't include the severe lack of talent variety that he has, which I am.) The problems arise in the fact that playing with Medivh is significantly harder than playing as him. You can never know if he is going to save you, himself or that one nova who keeps feeding all the time. This why his support capabilities amount basically to "save yourself or rely on your allies to accept your saving attempts", which is never a good ideology to have as a support. 

There are some other quarrels that I have with the design choices of Medivh, like the fact his marked as a specialist simply because of his difficulty rating and honestly, everywhere but in the highest rank games, Medivh's kit is really outdated and weak. So why isn't Blizzard doing anything to fix this? The first issue is the difficulty of his kit. Simply upgrading the stats and talents isn't going to help very much, as most people will still see Medivh as an oddball character, that won't ever try to save you when you really need it. The second major issue are the pros. They love Medivh, as he is literally made for a team that communicates well and knows how every character in the game works. And why is that a problem, you may ask? Because Blizzard has really started to care about the e-sport side of HotS, and most likely, reworking Medivh will make the proscene Medivh players extremely salty about it, as any change that helps Medivh fit into the lower tier leagues will most likely hinder his maximum potential, which in the right team can be limitless. 

But until something is done, The Guardian of Tirisfal will always seem in my eyes as wasted opportunities and a reminder, that the Blizzard team doesn't care about their game as much as we do.

[PrivateJoker 27]

I certainly don't think it's fair to say Blizzard doesn't care about HotS as much as you do. They are still releasing new heroes, updating things for balance, and reworking old heroes CONSTANTLY. It makes sense that they aren't touching Medivh right now, because they have a lot of shit on their plate. Medivh is not popular enough to warrant attention, but they can take satisfaction in the fact that there are people who do like him just as he is. He basically functions exactly the way they intended. He's hard, and he requires teamwork and communication. I'm sure they'll update his talents to give him a better variety of builds eventually, but it's understandably low on their priority list. Not because they don't care, but because they literally have better things to worry about. Medivh (and also The Lost Vikings) are such a small portion of the game, which an even smaller portion of the playerbase cares about.

[SirGeorge113 1]

I've been putting off playing Medivh ever since I got him in my Heroes 2.0 loot boxes because of the fear of getting roasted for missing a force of will or throwing out a crap portal. But after playing him over the past few days and getting him to level five I've found that I actually really enjoy the challenge his game play offers. He might not have much talent diversity but he is extremely rewarding to play if you understand his strengths/ weaknesses. I wouldn't say he's a weak hero if played correctly and it's probably due to people having not played him before and understanding how his kit really works that they perceive him as an 'odd' pick and only for higher ranked play. He's made me rethink how I perceive characters and made me want to play ones that I might not have originally thought would be fun/ interesting. It all comes down to character knowledge and the different depths Hots players have. 

[Morcalivan 86]

The portals are pretty good kill finishers. Distance and obstacles mean nothing. But his scouting is just awesome, and having that threat of being struck down without being able to do anything makes enemies a little paranoid thanks to the bird form.