heroes Medivh & Sonya Rework Meta Tier List (March 2018)

[Valhalen 1,484]

11 hours ago, Maxkitty said:

I figured since Fenix has come out that we could start predicting where he belongs on this tier list. I haven’t played him yet (only on PTR) but for those of you who have, what do you think about him? What tier do you think he belongs in?

Looking at his current win-rates, I'd assume he is a tad bit overtuned, even after his on-release nerfs.

I strongly believe Fenix is Prime. Specially with Blaze being on the top as well (as they have a lot of synergy due to Fenix's Combat Advantage, Purification Salvo and Secondary Fire). But by himself he's definitely on top because:

• Strong self-sustain thanks to Shield Capacitor.
• Does not use mana, meaning less travels to the Healing Fountain or Hall of Heroes.
• Strong area damage and single target damage thanks to his adaptable Basic Attack.
• Fantastic waveclear, mercenary clear and sieging (!!!!). If anything, he is pratically a Specialist (I'm surprised they didn't make Plasma Cutter deal 50% damage against structures).
• Great teamfight presence.
• Both his spell damage and physical damage are good, so there are no real counters to him (even if gets blinded he can still dish out consistent damage).
• Has a teleport ability.
• Fits in pretty much any team composition.
• HE IS ADORABLE. "StarCraft? No, I'm from Aiur."

Edited March 29, 2018 by Valhalen

[ShadowerDerek 69]

I really hate to say it, but I think Varian is borderline unplayable right now.

Taunt Varian has pretty much no survivability before Lv 10. No damage mitigation against spell damage, meaning that he is extremely vulnerable to burst damage; no escape mechanics, which means that he can't disengage from a fight, and no way to dodge skillshots; very little self-sustain: Lion's Fang's self-heal is unimpressive, because its AOE is too thin to reliably hit multiple heroes, and even if you hit multiple heroes, the self-heal is still not gonna save you from focus-fire; the new talent, Lionheart, is underwhelming compared to Second Wind: the increased heal is equal to 3 basic attacks from Second Wind, meaning that if you attack 3 times in 8s, Second Wind outclasses Lionheart.

Even if you pick up Shield Wall at Lv 10 to mitigate burst damage, there're still problems. The most significant one is that, you simply cannot follow up your Taunt with a Parry anymore. With only 1 charge left, it's your only mean of survivability; you can't just use it to get the Heroic Strike reset of Overpower. Using the Parry will leave you with no damage mitigation and escape for 3.75s: that's more than enough to kill you if they have their burst damage available.

Colossal Smash has similar issues: very little survivability, on top of being very fragile. He has the health pool of Illidan, but doesn't have the self-sustain and mobility to dodge skillshot. 

In short, Varian is very fragile that makes him borderline unplayable. Even if you have more potential with the early heroics, these potentials cannot be unleashed when you don't have the survivability to support them. Expect a 10-20% health buff for Varian.

[ArusVicious 156]

5 hours ago, ShadowerDerek said:

I really hate to say it, but I think Varian is borderline unplayable right now.

Taunt Varian has pretty much no survivability before Lv 10. No damage mitigation against spell damage, meaning that he is extremely vulnerable to burst damage; no escape mechanics, which means that he can't disengage from a fight, and no way to dodge skillshots; very little self-sustain: Lion's Fang's self-heal is unimpressive, because its AOE is too thin to reliably hit multiple heroes, and even if you hit multiple heroes, the self-heal is still not gonna save you from focus-fire; the new talent, Lionheart, is underwhelming compared to Second Wind: the increased heal is equal to 3 basic attacks from Second Wind, meaning that if you attack 3 times in 8s, Second Wind outclasses Lionheart.

Even if you pick up Shield Wall at Lv 10 to mitigate burst damage, there're still problems. The most significant one is that, you simply cannot follow up your Taunt with a Parry anymore. With only 1 charge left, it's your only mean of survivability; you can't just use it to get the Heroic Strike reset of Overpower. Using the Parry will leave you with no damage mitigation and escape for 3.75s: that's more than enough to kill you if they have their burst damage available.

Colossal Smash has similar issues: very little survivability, on top of being very fragile. He has the health pool of Illidan, but doesn't have the self-sustain and mobility to dodge skillshot. 

In short, Varian is very fragile that makes him borderline unplayable. Even if you have more potential with the early heroics, these potentials cannot be unleashed when you don't have the survivability to support them. Expect a 10-20% health buff for Varian.

Agreed. I feel like this change to him was really a significant nerf to his power and one that was not needed at all. There is no doubt that buffs are incoming for Varian. It just surprises me that these terrible changes could have gone through PTR.

[ArusVicious 156]

I’ve seen so many other tier lists place Maiev down to tier 2 (Core Tier). As a Maiev main, I’m in disagreement with her falling down from Prime Tier.

While her damage may be lower than it once was, it is still very respectable. I’ve also taken a liking to the Elune’s Wrath talent, which I’ve found dishes out a lot of AOE damage in teamfights. What makes her powerful though is her utility through her tether and the cage. 

She’s also become harder to play in general, due to her being squishier than before. With good use however, she is still very hard to kill imho. 

I’m holding at about a 57% winrate with her in Unranked Draft alone, out of around 200 games. While I might be in agreeance that she may (for the general playerbase) have fallen to Core Tier, I strongly believe that in the right hands she is without a doubt a Prime Tier hero. I still think she is worthy of first pick/bans.

[ArchangelOfHope 0]

On 3/28/2018 at 12:19 PM, Valhalen said:

Oh, I guess I didn't understand his question, then.

Yes, I definitely agree with you. Auriel is one of my mains, and I really love her kit. In fact, I tested her yesterday with Fenix as the Bestowed, and BOI, he grants some sweet Energy in no time.

Both of you answered my question at the same time to be honest. Auriel is my main I have her at level 90 with close to 600 games as her so I do hate saying she's fallen out of the meta. But with the arrival of Fenix I think she'll make a good team with him as an energy resource. I agree that she needs a soft rework though; my idea is make Bestow Hope a passive trait, the area in which her crowned ally must remain for her to get energy from them, why not make it so all allies within that same range give her energy? Say, 25% of all their damage is passively absorbed as energy? She could have new talents to increase this factor too. Her 16 talents could be active abilities too - activate to make all allies in Bestow Hope's range gain the buff for 5 seconds maybe? 

[Valhalen 1,484]

6 hours ago, ArchangelOfHope said:

Both of you answered my question at the same time to be honest. Auriel is my main I have her at level 90 with close to 600 games as her so I do hate saying she's fallen out of the meta. But with the arrival of Fenix I think she'll make a good team with him as an energy resource. I agree that she needs a soft rework though; my idea is make Bestow Hope a passive trait, the area in which her crowned ally must remain for her to get energy from them, why not make it so all allies within that same range give her energy? Say, 25% of all their damage is passively absorbed as energy? She could have new talents to increase this factor too. Her 16 talents could be active abilities too - activate to make all allies in Bestow Hope's range gain the buff for 5 seconds maybe? 

In my opinion Reservoir of Hope could become baseline. But instead of increasing the energy by 75, could be like... 5. Or less. It is easy to exploit this talent, though.

[ArchangelOfHope 0]

7 hours ago, Valhalen said:

In my opinion Reservoir of Hope could become baseline. But instead of increasing the energy by 75, could be like... 5. Or less. It is easy to exploit this talent, though.

That's a god idea, it's easily exploited yes but it's the least picked talent at 16 since you need the buff to help your allies get you energy. Maybe it could increase the energy capacity by 25 or something. It should be baseline anyway really since they've nerfed her maximum energy multiple times and 16 is too late game for it to be impactful. 

[Valhalen 1,484]

3 hours ago, ArchangelOfHope said:

That's a god idea, it's easily exploited yes but it's the least picked talent at 16 since you need the buff to help your allies get you energy. Maybe it could increase the energy capacity by 25 or something. It should be baseline anyway really since they've nerfed her maximum energy multiple times and 16 is too late game for it to be impactful. 

Actually, I always pick Reservoir of Hope. By the end of the match I'm usually healing over 2k per cast, haha.

[ShadowerDerek 69]

10 hours ago, Valhalen said:

In my opinion Reservoir of Hope could become baseline. But instead of increasing the energy by 75, could be like... 5. Or less. It is easy to exploit this talent, though.

I'd rather move it to Lv 4 instead to make this tier more diverse. 

Also, I'd consider bringing back Bursting Light to replace Angelic Flight at Lv 20. I haven't seen anyone pick that strange talent at all. 

These two changes can give Auriel a pretty interesting new build -- the Ray of Heaven build.

[Valhalen 1,484]

1 minute ago, ShadowerDerek said:

I'd rather move it to Lv 4 instead to make this tier more diverse. 

Also, I'd consider bringing back Bursting Light to replace Angelic Flight at Lv 20. I haven't seen anyone pick that strange talent at all. 

These two changes can give Auriel a pretty interesting new build -- the Ray of Heaven build.

Angelic Flight is a very situational talent but I can see it being very useful; but it has to compete with Shield of Hope, which is absurdly powerful.

[ShadowerDerek 69]

2 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

Angelic Flight is a very situational talent but I can see it being very useful; but it has to compete with Shield of Hope, which is absurdly powerful.

I can't see it being useful at all tbh. It's 2s delay pretty much prevent you to ever use it during team fight. You could argue that it gives her global mobility, but why would you want to split when your whole kit is based around staying with your team to generate healing output from your team's damage.

[MurkyFelix 51]

17 hours ago, ShadowerDerek said:

I can't see it being useful at all tbh. It's 2s delay pretty much prevent you to ever use it during team fight. You could argue that it gives her global mobility, but why would you want to split when your whole kit is based around staying with your team to generate healing output from your team's damage.

It's quite quite niche. I find it useful on Dragon Shire for late game grabbing of shrines but even then; I'd usually choose something else unless we're a bit ahead. The odd time it's saved a game for me by flying back to the enemy core and ressing someone to finish the core but that's even more rare and dependent on picking rez in first place. The global mobility is nice but as you said (and as she was designed) she should stay with the team for healing, hope etc. Dragon Shire I believe is the only kinda useful application of the talent and mayybe getting back to your team if you got popped during a teamfight/skirmish early on (though that far into the game you probably would only get the chance to do that if your team won the fight)

[ShadowerDerek 69]

16 minutes ago, MurkyFelix said:

It's quite quite niche. I find it useful on Dragon Shire for late game grabbing of shrines but even then; I'd usually choose something else unless we're a bit ahead. The odd time it's saved a game for me by flying back to the enemy core and ressing someone to finish the core but that's even more rare and dependent on picking rez in first place. The global mobility is nice but as you said (and as she was designed) she should stay with the team for healing, hope etc. Dragon Shire I believe is the only kinda useful application of the talent and mayybe getting back to your team if you got popped during a teamfight/skirmish early on (though that far into the game you probably would only get the chance to do that if your team won the fight)

These situations are too niche to ever happen in HL. Even if they actually happen, you might still want a storm talent that can help you win team fight.

[ArchangelOfHope 0]

22 hours ago, Valhalen said:

Actually, I always pick Reservoir of Hope. By the end of the match I'm usually healing over 2k per cast, haha.

I do pick it sometimes, and the highest I've gotten is around 2.7k energy, but that was before all her energy nerfs. I rarely pick it now though :/

[ArchangelOfHope 0]

22 hours ago, Valhalen said:

Angelic Flight is a very situational talent but I can see it being very useful; but it has to compete with Shield of Hope, which is absurdly powerful.

I've played hundreds of games as Auriel and I've only picked Angelic Flight once. Shield of Hope is simply too strong, and the only other storm talent I take is Light Speed which is also pretty powerful. Back to back Resurrects in the late game make a huge difference sometimes. 

[50m8r4 11]

On 3/29/2018 at 6:27 AM, Valhalen said:

 

• HE IS ADORABLE. "StarCraft? No, I'm from Aiur."

Is that him Chatting with dva or something?

[Valhalen 1,484]

On 01/04/2018 at 1:15 AM, 50m8r4 said:

Is that him Chatting with dva or something?

Yeah. Haha.

On a side note. I think Varian and Morales will rise in the Tier List should Fenix become meta (which he will), as they can become direct counters to him with Shattering Throw and EMP Grenade, respectively.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Valhalen

[ShadowerDerek 69]

On 2018年4月1日 at 10:52 PM, Valhalen said:

Yeah. Haha.

On a side note. I think Varian and Morales will rise in the Tier List should Fenix become meta (which he will), as they can become direct counters to him with Shattering Throw and EMP Grenade, respectively.

Really?

Varian has his own problems right now, mainly survivability. Taunt is pretty much the only viable build, and he can't even solo tank now imo.

I've never seen anyone pick EMP Grenade. This talent is very underwhelming compared to the other 2 options.

[Valhalen 1,484]

10 hours ago, ShadowerDerek said:

Really?

Varian has his own problems right now, mainly survivability. Taunt is pretty much the only viable build, and he can't even solo tank now imo.

I've never seen anyone pick EMP Grenade. This talent is very underwhelming compared to the other 2 options.

Double Warrior compositions will always rule the meta, so all in all, Varian still is viable. His early game survivability was a bit hindered because of Shield Wall moving to level 10. He still is very hard to kill, the difference is that he can't 1v5 anymore and leave unscathed.

EMP Grenade is indeed very niche, but when drafted against Fenix it is a very powerful talent that can get him offguard.