heroes The Current State of Yrel (Blue Posts)

[Stan 5,248]

We have a bunch of blue posts from Game Designer Matt Villers, dealing with the current state of Yrel.

• The team's not sure if Yrel's healing done should be part of the scoreboard.
• They've seen reports from players running into issues while using left-click to move, and it's something they plan to fix.
• The charge mechanic is not just a gimmick, but part of her kit and Hero fantasy.
• Disabling clicks on talent UI while in "targeting mode" for abilities is something they want to explore in the near future.
• Blizzard agrees that Yrel's currently weak, but they plan to make adjustments when they collect more data (usually two weeks after a new patch goes live).

Blizzard (Source)

Yrel is a fun warrior. She can sling people around and is so hard to kill. However, she also can heal allies... a lot. Uther gets a damage taken number and Medivh gets a healing number, so I think Yrel needs a healing number too.

We've heard some feedback to this effect and are currently discussing it.

On the one hand, we want to make sure the information we're offering on the scoreboard is actually meaningful, but on the other we realize we're not entirely consistent here and whether or not Yrel should show healing is part of that conversation we're having.

She's a solo lane bruiser who can't waveclear.

To be honest, we've had a lot of discussions around where she fits in a team role-wise. Setting tuning aside for a moment, at her core she has the tools to be a tank or a bruiser, and we're actually really interested to see where players end up using her most often.

I think the claim that she "does no damage" and "can't waveclear" is largely hyperbole, and that numbers-wise she's not nearly as far off as people seem to think she is. She's got a lot of staying power and uses it to do damage over time, very similarly to someone like Blaze.

What is happening with LEFT MOUSE click? Right now it castes all her abilities and there is no way to turn it off!

This is consistent with other abilities that can be charged like on Cho'gall, Gazlowe, etc. The reason is that while charging an ability you're in "targeting mode", and left-click in our game executes abilities that are being targeted.

We have seen reports from some people who use left-click to move that they run into issues here, and that's something we're looking into.

Have you guys considered showing numbers in a more detailed after game screen? 
On topic, I don't really see why all hero's don't get the baseline numbers we have now- damage taken, and healing done shouldn't be limited to warrior/support roles. Everyone does damage and it's shown, everyone takes damage but it's only shown for warriors....

Showing more detailed stats after the game is over is a cool idea and something we'd like to explore, once we take care of some more pressing updates.

As for why we don't show every stat for every hero, there are two main reasons-

• First, a lot of those stats aren't super meaningful for most heroes, and while small there is a downside to showing unnecessary stats. The more stats we shove into that screen the more it looks like an excel sheet than a scoreboard, and becomes harder to parse at a glance in the middle of a game.
• Second, showing info that's not relevant to your role could potentially drive toxicity. Suppose we show damage taken for all heroes, and get "oh look Nova took more damage than Arthas", or show healing and get "oh look Yrel's outhealing Lucio".

Neither of these things constitute a hard line where we'd simply refuse to show more stats, but it does give us pause to at least think about it and try to be somewhat picky. There are also things we could do to mitigate it, like re-designing the score screen to display more information in a format that's easier to read. All that to say we're reading your feedback and having discussions around it, and we'll update once we have more info to share ?

As others have said before, her "charge" gimmick feels like it was incorporated just to be a gimmick <...> But that's just my opinion. Maybe that playstyle somehow appeals to others.

I can definitely appreciate your perspective there, but to offer some insight we actually did the charge mechanic not just as a gimmick to be different, but as part of a very specific goal for how we wanted the player to "feel" when playing her.

We looked at this big 2-handed hammer, and how we wanted her to use it, and saw immediate parallels with 2-handed weapon specs in WoW. The feel that goes with those specs is very slow - weapon swing timers are in the 3+ second range, more focus on timing and CD management. It's really rhythmic and deliberate and that's what we wanted to capture with Yrel, and I think we did so pretty successfully.

Now of course, that style's not going to appeal to everyone. There will definitely be people who aren't into that and that's OK, but for the people who do like it it's a breath of fresh air and offers something they weren't able to get in our game previously.

One piece of advice I'll throw out there is that Yrel is a hero you have to play a few games to really get a handle on, as you need to have a feel for which abilities you can get away with using when, and how your Trait factors into all that. Trait management & skill ordering is really critical to playing Yrel effectively, and that's something that's not immediately obvious until you've put some time into her.

As someone who plays a lot of Cho'gall the left click thing hasn't bothered me at all. However, compared to playing Cho'gall I've noticed I accidentally click my talents or character portrait often when trying to cast an ability. Is there any way we can disable that ONLY when an ability is fully charged?

I think this is something we should explore doing in general (disabling clicks on talent UI while in targeting mode for abilities). As I'm not a UI expert I don't know how difficult it would be or if there are any drawbacks I haven't considered, but I'll pass the feedback along to the appropriate team for consideration.

You mentioned not wanting to have the ingame scoreboard look like an "excel spreadsheet" while in-game, have you and the team given thought to the out-of-game results screen looking like a spreadsheet?

Not to compare HOTS to other MOBAs, but I personally would appreciate getting all the data imaginable, and I think a lot of people would be alright with spreadsheets once the game is over.

Yeah this pretty much captures our feeling as well. When you're not in the middle of a match, we'd like to give you as much data as we reasonably can. I don't have details to share right now, but fleshing out the game stats we share with players (be it through post-game screen, player profile, or API) is definitely on our radar.

That said, as someone who is super passionate about the archetype I really want to play Yrel all the time but that will be hard to do if she is weak. Please, don't let her stay weak for long if the stats show she is.

100% on board with this and we'll do our best. We're going to give her some time to soak so we can get proper data before making changes, but the plan is to make adjustments to help her out if she looks to be under-performing.

 

[Dejo93 1,023]

I posted on Reddit a couple of days ago on what can be done to improve her. Here's the link :

 

What do you guys think?

[Erathis 53]

I personally think she's really good and most of the "underwhelming/under powered" talk is coming from people who are A) expecting her to play a certain way (that she isn't good at) and B) insist on charging her abilities too much/often.  That and simply misinformation.

The misinformation part is both obvious and hilarious.  People are stating with certainty that she does no damage/wave clear and can be ignored, yet the fact is she actually has good damage for a warrior class character.  High AA damage (third highest out of warriors) and wave clear on par with or better than Johanna in fact.

As for the other two issues:  Honestly people seem to be expecting her to be Muradin.  Just jump into a team and charge up your hammer.  No prob right?  Likewise they see her charge times and the sparkly stun on her fully charged hammer and they have to get it!

If people gave her a week to really try her before knee jerk crying out how under powered she was they would likely start seeing her positive aspects.  Like how she heals like a full support with Gift of the Naaru.  Or how she has amazing peel for protecting your squishies (uncharged hammer is very effective).  Or how her self sustain is absolutely amazing with uncharged Qs and Maraad's Insight.

That said if Blizzard wants to buff her by all means.  I'm happy with her now so giving me more isn't going to be a burden.  Heck I'm living in fear that her healing/trait will get nerfed so all aboard the buff train.  Play up those weaknesses (real or imagined) it works for me.

[Misuteri 26]

I saw her a lot Tuesday and Wednesday but she’s already disappeared from most AI games I run for dailies.

She never topped any MVP lists and I don’t recall her being any thing more than average.  She’s a Warcraft character so she’ll be underwhelming.

It’s Heroes of Overwatch, remember?

Edited June 14, 2018 by Misuteri

[lChronosl 182]

I wholly agree with @KSDT here. Even thought I have only played with her on the PTR, I feel she is a very useful and versatile hero. Not only almost all her talents are useful, and she has multiple paths and possibilities to adjust to the game, but she is really sturdy and fun to play. The problem is that people are judging her too harshly before understanding how to play as her. I believe she is not an initiator warrior, but a defensive warrior, something we are not used to in HotS. Despite her jump, she is most useful as a second tank staying close to her team and peeling for the squishies. It doesn't help that the charging mechanic is something new. The most important thing is timing and rotation with her, and those are mechanical skills that might be difficult to adapt. And you don't have to fully charge every time, and there is at least one fun and powerful build (Maraad's Insight + Holy Wrath) that actually benefits from spamming.

I like most of your suggestions, @Dejo93 , but they should probably not make all those changes. Her charging will probably stay, since it's a core feature of hers, but maybe if they removed her movement speed reduction it would make a difference.

I really like how the devs have patience and are (apparently) not rushing to change her with all this whining.

Edited June 14, 2018 by lChronosl

[ExorionAether 11]

Just to quote a reaction I had with a friend in UD while we had a Yrel on the enemy team:

"Watch out! There's no damage coming your way!"

I can't say how good/bad she is. I think I do not have enough playtime on her. That said so far I had no problem with Yrels on the enemy team. Also I did not feel much of an impact from her while she was on our team. Not gonna say she is SomethingSomethingPowered but at the moment I honestly can't say that I see her neither as a asset not a treat.

Maybe the community just needs more time to adjust. Maybe I should pick her up myself full-time and see what she can truly offer. I can just speak from my experience so far. And at the moment I see her quite often but do not feel like that she does provide a great impact for either team.

[SteveFrost 97]

Got her in the brawl today, others insisted I played her cause nobody else wanted to go tank and they wanted me to pick her, told her it was my first time. She's really good, tanky, fun to play, Thing is, if you try to go in without follow-up vs a sht-ton of cc ;it's not like I did that all the time, mostly wanted to make plays/help the others. Probably should have gone for the unstoppable talent at level 20 (man, when I saw that cd) and not the ult upgrade (team was almost always scattered up, hard to benefit) but oh well..

[ArtVandelay 24]

The point about toxicity is a valid one.  I had a Junkrat that did not help the team at all (did not even poke Alters once entire game), but then when everyone calls him out he points to his dmg numbers to show that he is the best player in the game.  Some people like to use stats to verify their ussefulness

I might even suggest that people can't see any stats (or maybe only their own) in game.  How is it helpful?  I have been guilty of looking at the stat board, seeing some mage that has no hero dmg and called them out.  Are they suddenly going to get better?  No.  So why even show it in game?  All it does is foster toxic behavior.     If you want to show it at the end, by all means, but there isn't much use to it in game, aside from the talent screen.

[XeaKon 23]

She has waveclear and a ton of merc stealing and utility/peel/healing. Plus she is more or equal in resilience to Johanna.

[DimensionDerper 26]

Make her skins cost shards. Easy!

Skins imbue the character with POWER, you know?

[mada7 29]

12 hours ago, ExorionAether said:

Just to quote a reaction I had with a friend in UD while we had a Yrel on the enemy team:

"Watch out! There's no damage coming your way!"

I can't say how good/bad she is. I think I do not have enough playtime on her. That said so far I had no problem with Yrels on the enemy team. Also I did not feel much of an impact from her while she was on our team. Not gonna say she is SomethingSomethingPowered but at the moment I honestly can't say that I see her neither as a asset not a treat.

Maybe the community just needs more time to adjust. Maybe I should pick her up myself full-time and see what she can truly offer. I can just speak from my experience so far. And at the moment I see her quite often but do not feel like that she does provide a great impact for either team.

The community kinda has adjusted to her in the sense that you just rarely see her anymore. Usually with a new hero release day 1 you see them in constant mirror matches in QM day 2-3 youll still see regular mirror matches but it starts to drop off. Yesterday I played a bunch of games and only saw her at all once and she was completely useless on a map that she is well suited for, volskaya. The way basically every fight went was we just ignore/avoid her and go straight for her teammates then when we had nobody else to kill we killed her 3-5 v 1. You'd never be able to do that against any other tank. Every other tank demands at least some attention and will punish you for trying to focus someone else. Imagine trying to walk past Garrosh, Diablo or ETC, it'd be a disaster but Yrel that's just the smart thing to do and you'll never get punished for it

[lChronosl 182]

42 minutes ago, DimensionDerper said:

Make her skins cost shards. Easy!

Skins imbue the character with POWER, you know?

Her skins are meh. The Mad Jester one doesn't even have a maniac laugh or anything.

Edited June 15, 2018 by lChronosl

[Kurosu 58]

23 hours ago, XeaKon said:

She has waveclear and a ton of merc stealing and utility/peel/healing. Plus she is more or equal in resilience to Johanna.

Not even close my friend,unless you have only met bad johana players so far.

[XeaKon 23]

40 minutes ago, Kurosu said:

Not even close my friend,unless you have only met bad johana players so far.

Maybe you met bad Yrels because she is resistant,heals herself and has the escape of Muradin.

[Kurosu 58]

19 hours ago, XeaKon said:

Maybe you met bad Yrels because she is resistant,heals herself and has the escape of Muradin.

 /casts interupt
/yrel cries

/johana laughs cause  se has no channels

[XeaKon 23]

14 hours ago, Kurosu said:

 /casts interupt
/yrel cries

/johana laughs cause  se has no channels

You know she has an instant in her trait, right ? Plus I like my tank soaking CC and damage.

[gamerk2 20]

I've only got a handful of games, and I see some issues.

The first off is lack of immediate impact.  Yes, she does a very good job zoning, but so do a lot more impactful heroes you don't see right now.  She has OK sustain and damage, but is outdone here as well.  She has a soft engage/escape, but so do plenty of other tanks, and often better. 

To be impactful, Yrel is almost dependent on her trait.  When it's on recharge, her tools are subpar at best.

My opinion: She's a decent secondary tank for a team that needs some extra zoning, but otherwise mediocre at best.  Anything Yrel can do, some other hero can do better.

[Erathis 53]

9 hours ago, gamerk2 said:

The first off is lack of immediate impact.  Yes, she does a very good job zoning, but so do a lot more impactful heroes you don't see right now.  She has OK sustain and damage, but is outdone here as well.  She has a soft engage/escape, but so do plenty of other tanks, and often better.

I'm very interested in hearing which of these "other heroes/tanks" have so much more impact, zoning, sustain, damage, and escape that they overshadow her so completely.  There are warriors who do more damage than her yes (though it's not as many nor by as much as most seem to think), but far fewer who can match her sustain, zoning, or escape.  As for impact, well that's going to depend on what kind of impact you're looking for.

9 hours ago, gamerk2 said:

Anything Yrel can do, some other hero can do better.

Really?  Please let me know what warrior or hero with her durability/mobility/utility has anywhere close to the same healing ability (self or others) as she does.  ETC is the closest warrior when it comes to actual healing (as he is the only one even able to heal allies) but Gift of the Naaru blows Prog Rock completely out of the water.  If you include shields as healing then she competes with Chen, Tyrael, and Zarya and again blows them out of the water.  Heck you can even go into listing Supports here and she still manages to compete well with them.  Gift of the Naaru heals for more than Uther's Holy Light (on his target, this does not include Uther healing himself) on a shorter cooldown and for no mana (obviously Uther has his other heal, his trait, and talents so she doesn't replace him but those raw numbers are still significant).  I would certainly say this is one nitch that no other Warrior (and given her durability and escape/disengage tools, Support either) can match and this is just one aspect of the character.  Certainly seems to me that she has things she can do that no other hero can do better.

[lChronosl 182]

I think it is because Yrel ended up as a jack-of-mixed-warrior-support-trades. She is good at many things, including zoning, healing, chasing, peeling and disrupting. But she is not the best on any of them. She should be used as a "support", meaning that she should help your main healer, main tank and main damage dealer. She should not be expected to lead to be at her best( she is a generalist), but she can fill other shortcomings  on your team and help overall. And her talents allow some specialization on these roles.

Edited June 18, 2018 by lChronosl

[gamerk2 20]

On 6/18/2018 at 9:00 AM, KSDT said:

I'm very interested in hearing which of these "other heroes/tanks" have so much more impact, zoning, sustain, damage, and escape that they overshadow her so completely.  There are warriors who do more damage than her yes (though it's not as many nor by as much as most seem to think), but far fewer who can match her sustain, zoning, or escape.  As for impact, well that's going to depend on what kind of impact you're looking for.

The problem is she does nothing well, and gets absolutely destroyed by anything that interrupts her abilities charging.  And improving one area of her kit typically make sacrifices elsewhere.  And as for her zoning, outside of some very specific maps like Cursed Hollow, the impact area is small enough where it's easy to simply walk around it's area of effect.

She also doesn't do a ton of DPS.  Yes her AA hurts, but it's slow a la Leroic.  Her abilities don't even do that much DPS either; the only advantage is they can hit more then one target at a time.  Problem is, the charge process can easily be interrupted by one of MANY heroes in the meta right now, and heaven help her should that happen.

And again, her potential is very much limited by her traits uptime.

On 6/18/2018 at 9:00 AM, KSDT said:

Really?  Please let me know what warrior or hero with her durability/mobility/utility has anywhere close to the same healing ability (self or others) as she does.  ETC is the closest warrior when it comes to actual healing (as he is the only one even able to heal allies) but Gift of the Naaru blows Prog Rock completely out of the water.  If you include shields as healing then she competes with Chen, Tyrael, and Zarya and again blows them out of the water.  Heck you can even go into listing Supports here and she still manages to compete well with them.  Gift of the Naaru heals for more than Uther's Holy Light (on his target, this does not include Uther healing himself) on a shorter cooldown and for no mana (obviously Uther has his other heal, his trait, and talents so she doesn't replace him but those raw numbers are still significant).  I would certainly say this is one nitch that no other Warrior (and given her durability and escape/disengage tools, Support either) can match and this is just one aspect of the character.  Certainly seems to me that she has things she can do that no other hero can do better.

Keep in mind Gift of Naru has a VERY small trigger zone, and if you want Yrel to zone then that means she isn't going to be close enough for that heal to effect allies.  In theory it can work decently when paired with "passive" healers like Lucio and Brightwing to give an additional burst heal those heroes lack, but that's not really what you want your tank to be doing.  HotS is VERY specialized, and heroes that typically don't do one thing really well typically aren't used that much.

If Yrel didn't have to charge every single ability, she might be decent.  As she is currently built, I honestly don't see a point ever picking her.  I play tanks almost exclusively, and my first reading of Yrel: She's meh at best.

[Erathis 53]

3 hours ago, gamerk2 said:

She also doesn't do a ton of DPS.  Yes her AA hurts, but it's slow a la Leroic.  Her abilities don't even do that much DPS either; the only advantage is they can hit more then one target at a time.  Problem is, the charge process can easily be interrupted by one of MANY heroes in the meta right now, and heaven help her should that happen.

3rd highest AA DPS of the Warrior class (note, having a slow attack speed but high base damage is generally a good thing in hero fights since in a normal fight you don't have the luxury to sit on the target and swing multiple times) and better AoE damage/wave clear than Johanna if I remember correctly.  That doesn't make her the scariest thing on the field sure but for a Warrior character?  She isn't lacking DPS.

Also, I think an issue you might be facing is that you're expecting her to charge her abilities regularly (and thus doing nothing/getting interrupted regularly).  Once you play her a while you realize, no that is not how she plays.  You charge her abilities only in certain situations (generally only at the very beginning/end of fights) and instead largely use her abilities on cooldown uncharged with Traits and AAs in between.

3 hours ago, gamerk2 said:

Keep in mind Gift of Naru has a VERY small trigger zone, and if you want Yrel to zone then that means she isn't going to be close enough for that heal to effect allies.

I have played the hero extensively, no it does not have a small trigger zone.  It's actually a fairly decent range heal.  Comparable to heals like Lili's Tea Toss.  I'm not sure why you would want to be further than that away from your allies in general and either your front or back line (as needed) specifically.

3 hours ago, gamerk2 said:

I play tanks almost exclusively, and my first reading of Yrel: She's meh at best.

That might be the problem.  You seem to have a very specific definition of what "works" (which I'm not sure is entirely accurate given some of the reasoning you're basing your judgement on seems inaccurate) and Yrel doesn't seem to fall into it.  I've noticed that many of the people who like Yrel consider themselves Support mains and they find her quite effective.

As I've said elsewhere, I personally see her as a tough, mobile, disruptive support character rather than someone who is trying to replace a Garrosh or Muradin (trying to play like them will only get her killed).  I don't think she should be the main tank for a team or the main support but she handles both of those roles as a secondary exceptionally well.  Considering having two warriors on a team is already quite common I don't think she has any issues filling the secondary slot on a team looking for more healing, disruption, disengage, wave clear, solo lane survival, and/or rotations all of which she does very well.

Edited June 20, 2018 by KSDT

[lChronosl 182]

Agreed. Also, weighting the pros and cons of charging up instead of instant casting is also part of playing Yrel. Of course, her abilities are stronger when fully charged, but they are only worthless if cancelled. If you instant cast them you get around 50% utility, I would say. If you end up in a position when you know the enemy can interrupt you (and they know it, too), then don't charge up. Or even better, play mind tricks with them. All of Yrel's abilities got only a 6 second cooldown, and since you shining all gold and mighty in the middle of the fight will call a lot o attention, use it to your team advantage. Friendly ETC is ready to cast Mosh Pit? Bait an enemy's Storm Bolt to interrupt your Vindication, wasting their cooldown. Need to run away, but oponnent Maiv is hot on your trail with Umbral Bind off cooldown? Let it interrupt your Righteous Hammer instead of your Avenging Wrath. The hero is too new (and not that popular) for us have seen all of it's possibilities. And playing with this level of coolheadedness is already hard enough with old and tested heroes.

Also, her talent tree is flexible enough to allow you to build up according to the enemy team. They have both Johanna and Anub'arak? Well, assume you will never be able to charge up completely and pick talents such as Maraad's Insight, Dauntless, Aegis of Light, and Holy Wrath that don't require you to charge up to get value. The enemy has no hard CC, or maybe only a Jet Propulsion? You can safely pick Holy Avenger, Aldor Peacekeeper or Velen's Chosen and fully charge most of times. Even if the enemy has three melee heroes with interrupts you can still make some strategic picks such as Light of Karabor, Aldor Peacekeeper, Divine Favor and every time use Divine Purpose with Vindication during team fights.

And talking about her role, she is that 5th pick to round up your team. Already have a burst assassin, a strong frontliner, an efficient healer and someone to put constant pressure? Yrel can help on all of those roles, even if she can't fulfill them every time. Pair her to your squishes to guard them. Follow your frontliner to further disrupt the enemy team. Give healing, armor and cleanse to your allies from time to time to help them stay alive. Bait enemy's dangerous abilities or ultimates. That is her role.

In a similar way to Tyrande, she falls under the generalist stigma. People don't like her at first because they don't immediately get her purpose and effectiveness. As I posted before (or maybe another thread), she is a "true support" (support ≠ healer), capable of assisting every role on most situations.

Edited June 21, 2018 by lChronosl

[Kurosu 58]

On 6/18/2018 at 12:46 AM, XeaKon said:

You know she has an instant in her trait, right ? Plus I like my tank soaking CC and damage.

check her current tier.Thats right BOTTOM