AZJackson

I’m not going to give away everything, but I can answer this question.

We get raw data on basically everything that’s happening in the game across all modes based on win/pick rate, as well as things like damage dealt/taken etc.

We are able to parse through this data to look at it through many lenses. This is where raw statistics become less useful and the skill and experience of a designer come into play more so that we can draw meaningful conclusions from the data, and decide what changes we want to make based on the results.

To get a full picture of what’s going on in the game, for example, I can and do look at things like win/loss data that’s filtered by different leagues and game modes. I can also see hero pick and ban popularity with this kind of granularity, which lets me see, for example, what the meta is looking like in the Bronze - Silver range as well as the Diamond - GM range.

While incredibly useful, I want to emphasize that it’s not just th...

Thanks for taking the time to type this.

I think your premise makes sense. As for your solution, adding a seperate cooldown reduction mechanic on top of the increasing duration mechanic feels like a bit much in regards to the talent having too much stuff going on, I think we can just get away with just lowering the cooldown to get the same effect. We could also just add cooldown reduction to the existing mechanic, so you want to hit people to get both benefits.

I made a note to think on it. Thanks for the post!

There are a lot of good ones. When you’re picking Diablo as a tank your initial best strategy is to kill one enemy very quickly when they’re out of position. Therefore, heroes who bring follow-up CC to his initial burst of offensive power are generally the best.

Healers that i’m happy to see when i’m Diablo are:

1. Tyrande - There’s a reason this is a tried and true combo. Tyrande provides both follow-up CC and vulnerability on the target he charges. The combo does take coordination to pull off though, so unless you’re on the same page this won’t work well.
2. Uther
3. Malfurion
4. Deckard (his CC is a little slow though so it’s best to have someone else who can more reliably follow up Diablo’s Stun)
5. Anduin

Really anyone who has reliable CC is optimal. You can get away with soft CC like Stukov, or other useful debuffs like Ana’s Grenade as well, but it’s not as easy to pull off as simply CC-chaining Diablo’s target and ki...

Very cool!

I do think it would be neat for some more analysis on your end of what this data means. You did a little with Ragnaros and Xul, but I’m sure there are more cool, interesting gems you can find in there.

In any case, I think it’s awesome that you took the time to get this data.

Johanna is a generally powerful tank and is more meta right now, so you’re good picking her pretty much any time. She does shine more on maps where waveclear is more powerful. She’s particularly valuable on maps with two close lanes that consistently need to be cleared, like Tomb of the Spider Queen and Dragon Shire.

Diablo has traditionally been more powerful on certain maps. He can absolutely dominate games on maps where teams fight in small corridors such as Cursed Hollow, Infernal Shrines, and Towers of Doom.

Everything being equal, Johanna is the safer pick more often, but Diablo can completely win the game for you, particularly if you are more skilled than your opponents and are reliably taking advantage of their mistakes in positioning.

Thanks for the find. Will fix!

Hey Calcaz!

We get enough data, even with a massive ban rate. Of course, as more data comes in we’re more confident with where things sit, but we have always had enough data to make educated changes before the first balance patch after a new hero release. After the first balance patch, we always have an even more clear picture of where things stand since we have that much more time for data to come in.

Balance patch is looking good!

For Deathwing, more general nerfs across the board, particularly to Destroyer form. Also some Worldbreaker buffs and talent tuning.

Can’t confirm dates. Confirming dates is the path to the dark side.

On my computer right now it’s fixed. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

We get enough data over time in draft modes to balance new heroes. Even Deathwing.

For the record, your assertion that we are told where and when to post or not post is false. We have the autonomy to post in whatever threads we wish to.

There are a lot of reasons why we choose to post where we do. As a general rule of thumb, the more constructive the criticism, the more likely it will receive an answer.

I’ve Level 31 with The Lost Vikings, and they are my second most played hero in Hero/Storm League over the history of the game (this is my external data, dunno about my internal stats with them).

Multi-unit control heroes have always kinda been my thing since I come from a background of playing many RTS games like Starcraft.

In regards to my take on them, I believe that over time the Vikings have become fairly problematic in how much they warp games that they’re in to generally be much less fun for everyone else involved. It’s a complicated problem to solve that would likely require big changes to how they work if we wanted to live in a world where it’s ok for them to be seen as much as more standard heroes like Valla or Li-Ming.

I predict:

Whitemane buffs
Lunara doesn’t dodge the patch
Junkrat RIP-Tire nerf
Nazeebo lvl 1 talent changes

I’ll bite.

One of the things that sometimes makes me sad as a developer, and I think any person who works in a public, creative space can attest to this, is when people assume that we’re completely incompetent or have the worst intentions with a change that we try to make to improve the game.

It can be saddening to work on a project for a long time to only see discussion devolve into assuming we have the worst intentions or haven’t put any real care into what we put out. The people here are incredibly passionate and our internal discussions almost always come back to what we think will make the most fun, best game possible, and seeing those efforts be translated into statements like “they just don’t care about the game” can be disheartening.

Anyone who knows me can attest that I have pretty thick skin, but even i’ll admit that the job at times is harder than expected due to how easy it can be to be sucked into negativity, particularly if you spend too much time...

Thank you. I appreciate that you noticed.

Thanks Kemordia, this is a great suggestion. I played her the other day and didn’t realize that this changed and it felt like poopy. We brought up an old build and you’re totally right, it used to work this way. It won’t make this balance patch, but i’ve made a note to fix this.

Thanks!

Counters are generally what you would expect. Percent based damage is great against him, so things like Malthael and Tychus give him a hard time.

A more surprising one in my experience are fast-moving, auto-attack based heroes like Valla and Lunara. Because Deathwing has long wind-ups, when he’s fighting out in the open against these kinds of heroes they run circles around him and have an easy time dodging his stuff while killing him. His best bet in those scenarios is to run away a bit then suddenly turn around and catch them with an Onslaught > Auto Attack combination.

He’s also a little weak to poke, things like Hanzo and Chromie can whittle him down.

He’s great against teams with lots of Melee, since his abilities all pierce and generally do damage in wide areas. He’s also uniquely good against heroes like Garrosh and ETC since he doesn’t have to respect their normal areas of threat that they control.

More than excelling against certain heroes I f...

While it’s true that Deathwing doesn’t benefit from allied abilities, I think you’ll find that he still relies on his team to be effective. We made a lot of design decisions to ensure that he doesn’t go too far in the direction of being completely self-reliant.

As one example, while he can’t be healed by allies, he very much designed around excelling during big teamfight engagements.

Because his abilities have such long wind-ups, he combos very well with his allies when it comes to receiving help in setting up a good Molten Flame, which can simply win engagements when done correctly. He also helps allied CC chains happen due to having fairly good follow-up CC, particularly when in Worldbreaker form.

When played optimally, I think Deathwing is absolutely at his best when fighting alongside his team. In 1v1 settings he isn’t nearly as potent due to his abilities being easily dodged due to their long wind-ups.

However, like many have said in this thread, ...

Great thread. I’ve been pretty passionate about making more Level 20’s feel epic and game-breaking, so I got a lot of notes from the replies here.

I can confirm, Mastery Rings are purely cosmetic and don’t change the size of a hero’s hitbox in any way.

For reference, Malthael has a 54.0% win rate and is the 8th highest winning hero in the game.