First off I would like to point out that I am not talking about ranked, auto attack heroes are easily countered in ranked (Artanis, Li Li, Varian, you name it). I am talking about when Valla ques into no anti-auto attacking heroes and just stomps the entire game. Valla does way too much dmg with just her autos. She needs a flat dmg reduction to autos and more dmg needs to be put into her abilities. Raynor does fall into this category as well, but he is not as busted as Valla. He is a strong pick with no auto-attack reduction, but when he is countered, he is useless. Give Raynor back his Q build, allow him to exist in games where he can’t auto. ZJ is similar to Raynor but he can just run ability based if he can’t auto, unlike Raynor. Valla is strong regardless of who is on the enemy team, the problem with her, is how much dmg she can put out, if there is no one in the game to stop her autos.
TDLR: Nerf Vallas auto dmg, put more dmg into her abilities (She is too strong in QM when there is no anti-auto heroes). Give Raynor back his Q build (talents), he becomes absolutely useless with anti-auto heroes in the game.
What if we don’t balance perfectly fine heroes around QM though? Valla is in a great spot. Viable but not a must-have. She’s not even overpowered in ideal situations. But like, if you are having issues, that’s what draft mode is for.
Actually, increasing Valla’s spell damage would make her more dangerous in competent hands, as it would increase her macro abilities, which are how you really stomp QM. It’d also make her considerably more burst-heavy, making her less able to be responded to from a lower time-to-kill.
The actual issue at hand with Valla is long-term speed increases making her inescapable, an issue shared with Lunara and Twin Blades Varian. There’s very few Heroes that can survive being chased by these characters, and in QM this happens constantly.
More people play QM than the Draft modes. Low mechanical toxicity in QM is of far higher value to the bottom line than keeping the upper ranks balanced. Valeera is fine when you’ve got reflexes to instantly CC or peel her. If things aren’t coordinated, she and Nova are absolute hell. Kel’thuzad’s garbage if he isn’t deleting enemies outright with a full combo, and the Butcher’s only marginally better.
A lot of the roster is poorly balanced for how the game is designed, and I honestly wish they didn’t make skins quite so open-ended so they could turn the game to “blind draft” with teams being able to have overlapping Heroes. The original “Blizzard DotA”, back when HotS was planned to be on the SC2 Arcade, would have been able to do this because the Heroes had different skins based on which side they were on.
Then there actually wouldn’t be nearly so many issues with balancing the game primarily around QM to keep the game enjoyable and only doing emergency nerfs for the sake of draft, because there’d be fundamentally minimal difference between stacking 5 in QM and drafting. Yes, it makes things more of a crapshoot, but HotS was always supposed to be casual, so designing the competitive mechanics to not be at odds with the casual matchmaking wouldn’t have stood out.
I agree with you mostly, but there are a few heroes that simply do too much damage right now and Valla is near the top of that list for me. Jaina and Li Ming can pull just as much as her, but they have to actually land their skill shots (and people can avoid their damage quite easily). Vallas damage is a given, only taken away by being countered with blinds. In QM you are not able to prepare yourself for who you may play against, so if you were unlucky enough to que into a Valla with little to no way to deal with her, rip. In decent hands she will carry the game, her damage output is too strong, and it takes little to no effort to play her well. Zul’Jin is in a similar boat but at least he does have damage windows and several things you have to manage (it can take awhile to learn how to play ZJ comfortably). Valla is in my opinion one of the easiest ranged assassin in the game play, and for some reason she is the hardest hitting, with the least amount of effort. All I am suggesting is that her damage is adjusted so that right clicking isn’t where 80% of it comes from. Hammer also falls into this boat for me, but that’s a whole other rant. Hammer is what I consider an “anti-fun” hero to play against. Hammer changes the game dynamic enough that it is frustrating to play against, and knowing from an outside how simple it is to play hammer, is not fun.
And I agree, at this point the player base is more than likely made up of 90% Quick Match only players (Sprinkled in with brawl). Blizzard has already thrown the pro scene to the way side, so most if not all of their focus should be on making the Quick Match experience better. The only reason I don’t play draft myself, is I am very impatient and I dislike being forced into a role I don’t feel like playing. I attempted to play a few games with the new role que system, and everyone in the lobby ignored them. Half of the lobbies I managed to get into, someone ending up not picking a hero at all. It seems like draft needs more than a little bit of love to make more feasible for someone like me.
Again, it isn’t that Valla does too much damage, it’s that it’s assured damage in an uncoordinated setting.
It’s the last that’s the source of the first, her raw amount of damage is fine. Pay attention in team fights, the amount she’s putting out isn’t too far outside the normal ballpark of an Assassin. But once she’s 1v1, or when she’s focusing targets down, she’s dealing a LOT of damage for how low effort and risk it is.
Actually, most of the melee auto attackers have a higher raw DPS, even some of the Bruisers grind enemies away faster than Valla (at high levels and with the right builds). But Valla’s range and movement speed leaves her a lot safer, and not really able to be run away from (granted, the same can be said of a level 16 Artanis or level four Varian).