Don’t forget the fact that on top of all that he also has access to a stacking qust which while not super awesome is still pretty bonkers in ARAM
I got to one point where taking the double hit for it at 16 combined with Icy Talons made me burst through half of a mages health pool within a second thanks to the attack speed boost. Once.
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Azmodan should be S tier. His globe kit is pretty much made for ARAM and is one of the reasons he was removed from the mode for a long period. Although not able to stack damage infinitely, it does heavy consistent damage which is very hard for the enemies to dodge. Unless they have a high sustain comp with 2+ healers, he will likely win purely from the globe damage. Sure he has other builds, like cheesy demonic invasion rush. However these are optional based on circumstance and his core globe build is pretty much a strong carry (justifies S ranking).
Chromie is another S ranked hero. Although she is talent reliant she has access to them early game due to her trait. When she gets slowing sands she denies the enemy huge mobility, amplifying her own and most other S rank heroes. At 18 she gets piercing sand blast in which case enemy minion waves are no longer a problem, enemy tanks cannot shield their back line anymore and fighting near enemy towers and walls is advantageous to her due to free damage to them from hitting nearby heroes.
Deckard Cain should be S rank. People underestimate how unbelievably broken he is in ARAM. Not only does he offer good sustained healing, but he acts as a mage as well due to Sealing Scrolls and Horodric Cube spam, especially if there are multiple healers. Multiple of him is pretty much GG against most comps since once they hit level 16 they will explode any squishy hero by repeated chain roots.
Uther should be B tier. Although he is very powerful in some ways he has huge problems in others. His mana sustain is basically trash tier, in a mode where there is no hall of storms to regenerate mana. This automatically means he is one of the worst healers from a pure healing perspective, especially since his allies are unlikely to line up for optimal Holy Radiance casts to get the most out of his very limited mana. His ultimates are also entirely ally/enemy dependent, with Divine Shield acting as an enabler for heroes like Butcher and Divine Storm needing a melee/clustering heavy enemy team (which most A and S tier are not). He does offer tank like CC but lacks the toughness of a proper tank as well as the engage of proper tanks to execute his stun. If you are using him for stuns you will often be better off with a proper tank like Blaze or Garrosh while if you are using him for healing you will be better off with healers like Stukov, Alexstraza or Brightwing. If you want him as a hybrid of the two then Deckard cain is better since he has roots (which act like stuns for comboing off of), much better mana sustain, much better healing and even much better damage.
Anubarak should be B tier. He is entirely reliant on having a healer in a mode where there is no guarantee that there will be a healer. He has lower health than most other tanks and very limited self regeneration capabilities leading to him dying very easily. His damage and mana sustain is also mediocre at best meaning that he is entirely reliant on allies to kill his enemies. Even cocoon, which is situationally one of the best ultimates in HotS, is entirely reliant on allies to take advantage of the time it buys since he certainly cannot do much during that time. Without a healer he will likely have to take locust to keep up anyway.
Thrall should be A+. His chain lightning is very good and reliable poke damage, and he has a very well rounded kit including life sustain, burst damage, CC and even reasonable mana sustain. Only reason he is not S is because S heroes usually hurt or do a lot more.
Alexstraza should be in A somewhere, possibly +. She makes a very good second or more healer as her base kit is moderate at both healing and damage with good sustain, becoming high DPS and healing when in dragon form. She is pretty much all about getting to level 20, at which point she becomes functionally equivalent to a high end S tier hero, giving massive permanent slow to all her enemies, dealing huge damage (500+ per attack in a huge AoE), healing allies at the same time and being extremely durable due to massive self regeneration (up to 50% of her health per attack) and other resistances that permanently being in dragon mode give. She is not S tier for a similar reason Junkrat is not, as Junkrat also needs to reach level 20 and progress a slow quest for his grenade build to peek in power.
Zagara should be A+ tier. She still has access to Nydus Network which gives her infinite mana and health sustain on a map that a high damage hero with poor mana sustain is usually not able to have. Her endless summons also work very well at countering some of the S tier heroes such as Li Ming as they can body block skill shots, giving them value even if they do not deal much damage. Most of her damage comes from endless baneling spam and auto attacks, which has good zoning, and her summons can do a good amount as well against targets that lack the means to kill them. As she can heal herself, she works especially well in rolls without healers. Not S tier because of a lack of reliable long range damage (banelings are poke and zoning), is a big target, needs level 10 and can run into issues with excessive splash damage (like Xul).
Nazeebo is A+ tier purely due to frog spam. Late game his DoT trait and frogs effectively disables enemy minion waves (melts them) and gives insane zoning. Very few heroes, such as Murkey, are capable of dealing with it. If he completes the level 20 quest the damage usually becomes impossible for most heroes to handle. His other kit also does very high damage, and a single un-upgraded spider jar to Li Ming will leave her low health. He also has decent sustain, both from his trait and spiders returning mana percentage, which can be reliably landed on tanks just for that purpose.
Zarya is A tier as well. She is one of the highest DPS heroes in HotS when charged, in a mode that keeps her charged most of the time. Her shields allow her to act as a secondary healer on top of as a primary damage dealer. Her grenades are functionally S tier at level 20 due to no cooldown. Even has ETC tier lockdown ability to combo enemies. No mana to worry about but has no self life sustain outside shields. Even has shields to hard counter mage users (most of the S tier).
Ragnaros is A- tier. Mostly about the Molten Core wombo combo (Molten Swing into Sulfuras Smash + Rune + Explosive Rune + Meteor Shower and whatever your allies throw out). Although this cannot push directly, it can stop an enemy push literally dead by nuking out their key heroes, especially other A and S tiers. His damage is also very high with his own life sustain options and moderate mana sustain. In worst case he can fall back to meteor poke build for between Molten Core uses, but usually Blast Wave works well enough if with other melee heroes. He very heavily punishes clustering and melee comps. Main reason for low A is due to long range vulnerability of Molten Core, but against newbies you can often catch them with a surprise Molten Core and still nuke them.
Sylvanas is B tier at least, if not A-. Infinite stacking AoE damage, high mobility, CC options and the like. Her vulnerability and low range is the only thing holding her back. It is very common to see Sylvanas run up high end damage, competing with pure damage S tier heroes if comps allow it.
Murky is high C or low B. He carries a lot of risks to use but is very powerful due to high damage, CC and inherent infinite sustain. Main risk is if you face a Butcher or many other burst heroes (who are usually low tier) since they can repeatedly explode Murky for advantage.
Nova is A- tier. Her snipe build makes her basically like a weaker Li Ming or Chromie. Has some CC, has some AA damage but mostly its about spamming those snipes every 2 seconds for high damage (close to 1k late game). Could be ratted higher but is too heavily talent locked. Also lacks any sort of health sustain so getting chipped at can be a problem due to her range not being the best.
Xul is A+ tier, borderline S tier. He is one of the few heroes that can single handily carry games due to Scythe spam due to the zoning, damage and skeleton body block. Once it starts reducing the healing enemies receive he will usually win as their healing supports all go to low/trash tier. Also has very powerful zoning ultimates, good options to reduce enemy damage, options for sustain and can even take a beating.
Greymane is pretty much C or D tier. He has good melee damage, but absolutely no health sustain at all. If you do not get a high tier healer you are pretty much forced to spam bottle and stay at a range most of the game, in which case most S and A tier heroes will out damage him.
For similar reason to Greymane, Maiev is also C or D tier. Her kit is very strong against clustered enemies, but she has absolutely no health sustain and lowish health. If the enemies spread out she does not even have decent damage.
Malthael is pretty much C or D tier as well. Trash tier mana sustain (possibly worst in game) heavily restricts his damage potential. Although he can be reasonably effective in no healer matchups due to his sustain percentage damage, this is nothing more than a weaker and less agile Lunara. His life sustain suffers the same problem Whitemane and Aurial have with their healing but worse, in that he must deal damage in melee range to heal. In comps with Malfurion or Ana to boost him and combat his trash tier mana sustain he can become quite dangerous and even high tier, but this is not reliable and usually other heroes will be a better pick.
In case people were wondering…
Leoric was A tier due to his kit and trait. This is not counting his cheese at all, but actually using him as intended. Drain Hope would hard counter any tank that engaged him by either forcing them to break off or take huge percentage damage. He also had entomb which combos very well with allies. Potential builds to lower damage to trivial levels also exist. His own damage is also towards high end making him capable at dueling most heroes. His trait also meant he had less down time than most other heroes.
Sgt Hammer was originally S tier due to Orbital BFG causing structure damage. But with the removal of that she fell to C or even D tier. Most of the A and S tier “instant pick” heroes hard counter her meaning that in most matches you pick her there would be at least 1 enemy hero to hard counter you. Blinds null her damage as good as completely while skill shots and long range abilities are pretty much guaranteed hits against her. The only games she won was where she managed to get a level advantage and so her allies could keep her enemies away from her while she slowly destroyed fortifications. If she was at a level disadvantage her allies usually left her exposed to quickly die before she could ramp up any significant damage.
The Lost Vikings were D tier. Suffering from Murky’s weakness but even strong and without his redeeming strengths. Many S tier heroes could gain advantage from killing TLV, or even out right kill part of TLV through collateral damage against other targets. Best option you could do as TLV was to go longboat raid and try to poke with them or burst misplaced targets. Pretty much entirely relied on allies to deal any reasonable sort of damage as they would need to lock a victim in a place where TLV could auto attack safely.
Honestly i feel like this list is kinda hit or miss. Some of my critics are mostly about KT, Chromie and gazlowe are kinda S-tier, if not A+++ tier. Sylvanas is also quite strong with her W quest as she can stack it a lot and one shot almost any backline hero in the late game. Almost every AoE healers (lucio, stukov, brightwing, Auriel if you have a high dmg output hero) are S-tier or at the very least A-tier but healers with low healing output like uther/reghar are kinda bad if they are solo heals but strong in double heals (just like in the real game). Deathwing and azmo are also quite powerful and should be a bit higher. So, in my opinion, i think you had the right idea for most of it but some things are a bit off. But of course you’re entitled to your opinion. Poke and sustain are what really matters because hearthstone is disabled and death timer are so short.
Probably because Kaelthas is extremely strong in ARAM. There’s no room to split so LB doesn’t just gib the team. His ulti basically takes someone out of the fight for the next minute or more since outside of fringe cases, it always connects, etc.
And he’s entirely click+forget in terms of casting his most powerful spells in ARAM. Very, very little skill is required to use him well in the mode.
I’m not going to write out an evaluation or amended take on the whole roster, but i think there are a few qualities that are left out on the current discussion:
- talent variety. some heroes have more viable picks, which helps them adapt in aram settings, or make better use of aram compared to other modes.
- Duplicate heroes. Some heroes do significantly better when there are multiple copies of those heroes. This effect can be more pronounced for some heroes that have better variety, so they can combo or fill better due to said variety.
zag, zul’jin and zarya are pretty much top tier imo. A team generally does better the more of them there are, and they have some talent picks that do help with other potential compositions.
arthas and jaina i would rate fairly high as well. While arthas doesn’t have multi-garrosh throws (seen in highlight vids) his potential to poke and siege and increase his damage get more powerful as the game progresses while other tanks become less scary once structures start to fall. multi jaina in particular can be played akin to a azmo and outrange/seige enemy teams or force wombocomboes and out trade enemy teams.
so heroes are hurt by quest-itus where players fall into traps of taking builds they won’t complete, or avoid obvious counters, or negating their own weaknesses cuz ‘muh orbs’ or ‘quests are king in aram’ (and they aren’t.). i would rate valla higher than some other heroes, but functionally, she’ll do worse because bad-pick players are going to run her into the ground.
Murky tends to get a bad rep in aram, but i think it’s a much better pick than several heroes, and they tend to be a decent ‘anti-meta’ hero where highly rated/picked heroes may not do so well against a competent murky.
Since push momentum in aram is largely limited by ranged spells or summons, heroes that can mitigate poke and/or summons can help stall games for late-game heroes that have decent turn-around potential in aram.
so i’d almost say you’d want to lists; one for potential tier (what heroes should be good or situational) and a list for what you’re more likely to encounter on average – heroes that have unreliable winrates because bad talents really hurt their ability to aram
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Stacking doesn’t really matter in this game
What about ZJ tho! He gets almost half his damage from stacks.
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As someone who has gotten 400+ stacks and still lose, it goes to show how little those stacks mean. ZJ can’t save a lost teamfight when ktz bursts two of his teammates down. Same with ktz mains can’t carry if two of his teammates suicide off the bat. He can only hope to play his best (and still lose)
I mean, no hero is totally invincible but its hard to argue that most quests are easier to complete in aram and faster quests means earlier power.
also stacks really have nothing to do with whether or not the player decides to walk in to towers.
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Even considering infinite quests (the strongest type of quest), I still hold the idea it doesn’t mean a difference in normal games. You can have a 2 hours game and probably make a difference with ZJ but that’s not realistic. The early power still isn’t worth it even in aram. You can’t carry
Just because its not strong enough to carry doesn’t mean its not notably stronger then the other options :s
An uther finishing his Q or W quest with in the first 2 minutes of a game is stronger then one that takes 5 minutes to complete the quest. If we need extreme exaggerations to get our points across then a hero who wins the game in 5 seconds is stronger then one who wins it in 15 minutes.
Time does matter.
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I would agree that Medivh, Maiev and Hanzo deserve to be higher. Medivh can be very annoying, Maiev can topple teams with good chains or fan resets, and Hanzo can win games with high damage poke with huge value ultimates. Arthas and Rag seem to be rather low. I would’ve expected them to make it to at least C tier. I’m surprised to see solid tanks like Blaze, ETC, Joh, Mura and Mal in C tier. There’s some strong damage down there too: Alarak, Raynor and Valla…
Moved Arthas up. Will read through the rest of the thread and maybe change a few other things. I’m probably also moving azmo to at least A, B+ is too low for sure.
but that is just nonsense.
i’ve had aram games as butcher before TLV were removed were i was hitting for 800 dmg with autos by the end.
last week i had an aram game and a tychus on the enemy team with the stacking minigun duration quest had 12 second minigun and our team had 3 tanks.
saying minigun lasting 3x longer “makes no difference” is nonsense.
the new broken falstad Lightning Rod build is another example of how ridiculous stacking can get.
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