The original Tech Alpha had Abathur, Gazlowe, Sgt Hammer, and Nazeebo in the category. Specialists suffer misconceptions about their function. The third goal is to separate main tanks from off tanks This is again reinforced by QM rules, which only attempts to match tanks to other tanks, but makes no such attempts regarding bruisers. Heroes like Sonya simply lack the survivability necessary to be the primary initiator until they pick up late game talents. Warriors have a similar issue as Supports with some heroes being "Main Tanks" and others "Bruisers". Thus, the second goal is to separate primary supports from off supports.
Tassadar and Tyrande are not "real healers", which is represented by the QM "Sustain" category that also contains Abathur, Zarya, and Medivh. Supports have a similar issue, with the distinction between solo supports and not-solo supports. So our first goal is to break up the assassin role into its sub-categories. Now, due to the huge diversity in the role, it makes more sense to break it up. The original launch of technical alpha only included 7 assassins, none of them mages, so it can be understood that originally it made sense to group all damage dealing heroes. While Malthael sustains in the frontlines and does his damage over time, Chromie is a long range beam sniper. All assassins do damage, but the variability with which they do it is astonishing. Each of these rules can be broken if necessary to minimize wait times, and any 5-stack is automatically treated as having all roles filled).Īssassins are an overly broad category, as noted by the Blizzard response to our string of "Warcraft Assassins" at the start of the year. This is not a comprehensive listing of the QM rules. (A hero is defined as an option to select in the hero selection screen, so The Lost Vikings are 1 hero and Cho'Gall is 2) This system has clear flaws, as evidenced by the odd nuances of the Quick Match matchmaking system (For those not in the know, there are many rules to QM matchmaking, such as no 1 vs 0 healer matchups, 1 vs 0 tank matchups, or 1 vs 0 "sustain" matchups. Of those heroes, 27 are assassins, 11 are supports, 17 are warriors, 12 are specialists, and 1 is Varian (Multiclass). Heroes of the Storm currently has 68 heroes.
#R HEROES OF THE STORM HOW TO#
Furthermore, this analysis will be useful in future articles when I go through each hero role and do intra-role comparisons.Īs a side note, this article was written before the current reddit post talking about this exact issue ( ), but I felt it would be best to post this blog as a long-form response to the issues cited in the thread.Īs a basis of this article I created the following spreadsheet to compare base stats, a helpful tool when trying to decide how to categorize certain heroes: Specifically, the issues with the current Assassin/Support/Warrior/Specialist and what we can do about it. Instead, today I want to talk about Hero Roles.
#R HEROES OF THE STORM PATCH#
Assuming we get our usual Wednesday balance patch two weeks after a hero release, expect another article Thursday going over those changes. This week's article, in anticipation of a balance patch, will be a little more exploratory and less of a number crunch.