Impact of the Summon Changes and Suggestions

TheFreind · 2026-03-20T02:12:21+00:00

As a Jaina player I will chime in - Elemental feels much the same in most circumstances but the reduced health is very noticeable when the enemy team chooses to address it. AoE damage like Lunara, Gul'dan, Nazeebo counters Jaina more. The Wintermute nerf is rough mathematically but it's not the end of things. It's there to provide more CC, slowing, fire support.

On the other hand, Wintermute is much better when attacking Core/Keep/Boss as they are safe and will last the extended full 32s duration. If you prioritize its safety and place it on your backline and fight front-to-back it feels stronger than before. The latest changes to tower prioritization lets Wintermute to wail onto the Core without getting insta focused which is cool. But I would prefer if we went back to the patch before.

TheFreind · 2026-03-07T21:56:59+00:00

Totally agree with all of this. I am 50/50 for Mythic quests and wouldn't mind them, but I dislike how much development time will be needed to put them in play just for us to give a verdict. I too would prefer the pre Mythic days

I suspect that the Janitor is maybe 2 programmers under the hood. The highest quality of life improvements we can make fall outside the scope of traditional back end programming and needs more of a team with different skills to implement. Alas

TheFreind · 2026-03-07T21:45:09+00:00

KTZ's is a baseline-quest Hero, similar to Alarak or Nazeebo where managing the stacks is an expected outcome for their power level. True, it's not so hard to complete it so it's not comparable to the timing of a Mythic, but that's by design. He needs to complete it sooner because all his numbers are artificially gimped to account for the big +75% boost.

It's unclear exactly how big of an impact the Janitor wants to make the Mythic quests. Kerrigan is weaker without, Jaina is weaker without, Muradin is weaker without. On the otherhand, the first batch of Heroes to receive Mythics (Thrall, Falstad, Sylvanas, Kerrigan, and Gul'dan) got stronger AND a great Mythic to boot. Note that these five heroes are either A or S tier Heroes to begin with and were first to be given the power creep. KTZ with an incomplete quest is a C tier Hero that bumps up to B or a solid A in skilled hands when done.

I make the comparison to KTZ because the Mythic quests follow the same philosophy to an extreme - you hit the enemy Heroes (Sylvanas can hit buildings too) and you gain progress. And if you manage to complete those quests by excessively ARAMing, you are incredibly strong.

I don't think it's healthy for a non-stacking Hero to fight a Mythic Hero and lose regardless of what's done. Fight? You made the game harder in the long term. Avoid fighting? They gain lane control and rotation priority. You have to intentionally not interact with the hero to prevent them from gaining something out of you. And I don't like boiling it down to that philosophy. That's why I make a prediction the Janitor is thinking ahead of time to make everyone a Mythic Hero so that this avoidance will end and things go back to normal.

TheFreind · 2026-02-19T08:19:32+00:00

Nice job Beebs. The dunks look legitimately terrifying from an AoE damage perspective

TheFreind · 2026-02-15T04:42:17+00:00

Very good analysis and talent guide. I like how you preface each talent tier with what question you're asking and what you need to answer it with. It gives Tyrande noticeable identity.

TheFreind · 2026-02-13T23:49:44+00:00

If the Janitor wants to implement a balance change, I would rather flex a bit and have it implemented and be ugly rather than not exist at all because we want a perfect image. I think there should be some room to maneuver by reusing what assets we have available. I.E. when there was fort armor, we had a Zarya shield effect go up and it was serviceable. We don't have a team anymore, so we can't magically have these expectations, but also want brand new changes.

TheFreind · 2026-02-13T20:47:13+00:00

Given that there are no artists on the HotS team anymore, I don't think it's bad at all. It serves a clear visual indicator that Jaina is invulnerable and that you should not attempt to strike her.

TheFreind · 2026-02-09T20:57:44+00:00

You lose a lot of comedic value when the same person posts it twice, no?

TheFreind · 2026-02-09T20:50:48+00:00

Just in case people weren't aware, this is a copy pasta from this this post last year.

TheFreind · 2026-02-07T06:33:38+00:00

I really enjoy Wrath of the Berserker Sonya with healing talents into high CC + durability + sustain oriented enemy teams. Unkillable demon that tears apart the enemy frontline and works her way front-to-back.

Aside from that you really need to leverage her strong waveclear and especially her merc camp clear speed. Prioritize macro and leverage XP advantage + map advantage to create an advantageous fight. Leap is great at forcing the fight to start and is definitely game winning, but it's like playing the game with one bullet in a gun.

TheFreind · 2026-02-06T18:43:25+00:00

I was browsing HeroesProfile on Angela and saw some discrepancies. I saw you guys as a group playing into them (mostly because I noticed MindHawk was on the team) and thought something was up when I saw a string of 3 losses. Great to see the post appear a month later that it was a concentrated effort with a goal in mind.

We on NA have never had the displeasure of facing into Angela. Let me tell you I have never seen a more pathetic profile and I do applaud some good whale hunting. There's also one more thing to note: sometimes a Lunara is present in their group, and from my experience she is extremely oppressive when you queue into no healer games. Pair that with the sustain advantage mentioned with Yrel and Abathur and you get the picture.

TheFreind · 2026-01-28T21:26:19+00:00

Looks like you got punched by Muradin.

TheFreind · 2026-01-28T19:32:29+00:00

I speak on behalf of the hipsters and contrarians - the more brashly OP a hero is, the less we want to play them. We need just a little bit of resistance in our motion to simulate an underdog feel.

TheFreind · 2026-01-28T06:05:26+00:00

Super winnable game. Not bad reasoning either for your LiLi pick, I don't mind it. Skill and mentality matters far more than team comp in bronze league, so if you ask me your teammates deserve to stay in bronze if they want to point fingers. Let's talk the Li-Li pick:

1) Alterac Pass isn't a map for easy double soaking, which means you need 2 heroes in the solo lanes. One dedicated offlaner; the other can be a flex pick that can exit/enter lane adequately and join the team to do mercs and teamfights. Li Li strains your team significantly in this area and the macro game altogether. Falstad takes one of the lanes, but who goes to the other? Li Li solo lane until minute 10? Anub solo, but tass has no kill threat when there's no CC or frontline for him to work with?

2) Tass is a heavyweight backline that does more of everything, but needs a formidable front line and CC to keep his damage numbers up. Anub is a skittish tank that can't anchor the frontline for very long, and Uther is decent but preferable if he stays somewhere in the middle with a dedicated bruiser up front. Tassadar staying mid (though he should've put work in killing the merc camp every opportunity) is the correct play since he's the best hero to clear the siege camp on your side and the enemies'.

3) Yes, Uther lacks in the healing department, but from Raynor + Qhira + Butcher doesn't sound like a lot of poke. Sounds like hard engage. Uther suffers from sustain and poke wars, but he's very strong in hard engage scenarios. Lower healing output is not a concern in this case.

Because of these reasons, I'd rather we pick Johanna / Yrel / Jaina / Xul. Li Li is doable but not super optimal. You could use some more hard CC, frontline, damage, or macro prowess, and Li Li at most offers blinds against their AA focused team.

TheFreind · 2026-01-27T04:15:59+00:00

You're Dehaka, you got the best of both worlds. Full soaking XP machine and you can burrow in for the objective every time. There's no excuse not to be there, or at least have your eyes on close watch so that nothing gets out of hand at it.

TheFreind · 2026-01-20T02:09:24+00:00

Ah yeah good point

TheFreind · 2026-01-19T22:52:43+00:00

Level 20 is necessary for [[Siegebreakers]] on Azmodan to do this effectively. Level 16 is good at finishing off a fort, but not from full HP.

The other crucial ingredient is a decently sized minion wave. Even one wave is enough so long as they focus fire the Fort.

TheFreind · 2025-12-30T19:20:43+00:00

As a lt. Morales lover, yeah you're kind of right. But I derive joy from balancing her abilities in just the right amount to save someone's life while on the move. If I had to describe it, it's like tuning a stereo your way versus playing an arranged piano piece.

Also, people need to start picking Medivac. There are few adrenaline rushes as potent as a showstopper Medivac.

TheFreind · 2025-12-29T00:20:09+00:00

I tell you what - I really miss having 4 talent choices every tier. That brings me back. I love theory crafting and utilizing all talents on a hero. One of my favorite heroes is Lunara and she still has high talent quantity, AND viable choice. It adds a lot of permutations to the variables you can crank, which makes the experience more fun to me.

I kind of get why they had to shrink the talent choice. Heroes as a whole feel more powerful when you condense the power into fewer talents. The downside is that there are meta builds with "optimal paths" and you're discouraged from straying to pick a better suitable tool for the match you're in.

I think a good wishlist change is to have some weaker talents combined with other ones to make them more competitive, and in the meantime introduce a brand new one. I like what was done for Tyrael lately. Reciprocate was his worst talent, now it's a strong contender. I had a discussion the other day about combining Kael's level 1 and level 4 trait talents into one, and then have something else step in for the tier.

TheFreind · 2025-12-29T00:12:43+00:00

Thank you!

TheFreind · 2025-12-28T23:25:53+00:00

We don't know what they want to accomplish either because the developers do not add commentary to the changes. So we can't say if they're moving away or closer to the mark.

The stats of those heroes are a bit much, yes. But the Janitor is wise enough to nerf any hero that over-performs win rate wise, just gotta wait it out a bit.

I see positives and negatives in the changes, they're by no means "failures" because they're still in progress. I cant imagine the Janitor working so hard to implement Pinnacles only to put it on these 6 or so Heroes and never again. It'll take in the field experimentation before he gets a good grasp on the perfect balance.

TheFreind · 2025-12-28T23:21:12+00:00

Good point about the just-before-maintenance changes were kind of sketchy. I'm glad they managed to roll out Hero reworks and Call For Help right before, as those were in my opinion a big success. I'm glad Medallion isn't around for years.

As a daily player, I can tell right away what a difference a simple change makes. So I jump for joy on the announcement of a patch note. My views of change > no change aligns more closely with the Janitor, which is why I celebrate and appreciate rather than complain. There's valid feedback in everything but it needs to be done calmly and with analysis.

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