So my issue with this was less about the exact change and more with the greater principle of the matter (brightwing needed buffs and instead got a change that arguably made her worse). Why did they think this was a buff to greater polymorph? Landing a q on a polymorphed target is incredibly difficult and even more so if said target has to be ploy morphed while they are hit. Even if you fulfill these two requirements its still less valuable with half cooldown than a full cooldown on kill. Finally because brightwing is often picked to counter squishy divers, the old talent would allow you to blow up diver then refocus unto another target. So an optimal brightwing pick would get those resets. Any other thoughts about changes? Maybe im just being nitpicky because i think very little of the other talent that gives you a small amount of additional healing on anability with a 120 second cooldown. (Again assuming that you dont get a talent which buffs brightwing’s autoattack of all things)
Fully agree on the greater polymorph criticism. Yes, it’s more consistent now… Because you almost never get the reset anyway.
First, as you said, it’s incredibly difficult to hit the polymorphed target in the first place. The most success I had was with first firing the flare at the target and THEN morphing it in flight. And with most success I mean around twice per match.
Second, the cdr is miniscule compared to the effort that’s needed to achieve it. I get it, they couldn’t give full refund, because then you could get infinite cc, but this is nothing…
Third (and to me, the worst part), it requires me to keep flare ready just in case I need to polymorph someone. Think about it: Polymorph - like almost all cc - should be held back for the right moment. Flare on the other hand should almost be spammed to get the most heal for your team. The chance that flare is on CD when I polymorph is sky-high. So what should I do? Keep flare as well and heal less? Or spam polymorph as well and hit the target? Even then 6 seconds CD is still to high to react to a threat.
It’s a shame that so few people play Brightwing. The Whitemane rework gets thread after thread after thread with complains, but this change goes almost unnoticed even though it’s a massive nerf.
Regarding critical most though, I need to disagree with you. Even before, I picked it (with magic spit) in some situations to good success (against Jaina, Arthas, Deckard). It’s not something for every day, but the change did increase consistency, I like it.
Edit: Please learn to paragraph your wall of text. You bring good points, would be a shame if people didn’t read it due to formatting.
???
Landing a skillshot on a slowed target that can’t use abilities is incredibly difficult? That’s the ideal time to hit a target.
Also, this fits Brightwing’s role much better. You want Polymorphs to disrupt enemies, not necessarily to get kills. You can control when you disrupt someone and combo, but it’s unpredictable when someone will die.
Please keep in mind that a) flare is incredibly delayed and b) polymorphed targets have a tendency to move erratically.
However, the difficulty of hitting is not the main criticism, please see my post above.
It is a bit disapointing that lulwings gets so few while giving that sweet DW skin.
Reminds me of giving that beautiful archangel diablo skin after gutting the hero.
At least mephisto got some interesting little things.
Yeah I agree with you, though I never really picked the talent before. I did try it for a couple of games with my Q build. I only got 1 or 2 off and didn’t find the CDR that helpful.
Yeah I actually like this change. I don’t use it very often but if I go talents above then I find it does just a little bit extra.
Please consider REVERTING the change to Greater Polymorph. It was one of my favorite talents and was extremely helpful in team fights. I can’t tell you how many games have been saved because of that talent. I’m not sure why you felt the need to change it when it worked great. The current version is ridiculous to land and just not fun. It takes almost a second just to throw a flare. Every time I score a hit, it feels more like luck than skill. It’s definitely a nerf to her kit overall.
Did we mention that with greater polymorph, both skills have different range? How beneficial.
Since the 10% movement speed change BW’s Q needs a slight change in cast speed. I’d argue it needed it before the change, it’s as slow as molasses in January and where is Dr. Meade?
Personally i hate brightwing now-a-days. I find her healing subpar and easily inflated.
I don’t think she needs much work to make better either, just a better talent rework. Like perhaps having your Q hit an allie to give then a shield and if center shield is greater.
I think she just needs a way to mitigate dmg as well imo like other healers have since she has very little burst heals other than through Z.
Even tho old talent was my fav on its tier, Im ok with the change. It was extremely situational and binary in its results. Plus, a definition of win-more.
That said:
- Wouldnt mind if they changed it to enemy heroes hit by Q within 0,5-1 second after polymorphed.
Pretty much. Im bit confused why they dont change her more. Her kit is solid and offers a lot of room to improve. There is a lot of cool stuff you can do with her.
I admit that I haven’t played BW after the changes yet, but before the changes, hitting morphed enemies with Q wasn’t the easiest task in the world, unless they were attempting to retreat or engage and thus were moving in a predictable pattern.
However, if they wanted “more consistent value” couldn’t they just make the talent also passively reduce Polymorph’s cooldown by 2-3 sec, instead of making it rely on an unreliable skillshot? 
Liked her old “Gust of Healing” talent on lv7. Made Mist pulse 5x so you can burst heal teammates.
Right now it feels a bit bad when your well-intentioned teammate picks her early in draft, only to be met by heavy burst opponents whom she can do nothing against with her little AoE heal that only really works vs. poke damage.
IMo, she’s pretty solid in general. Good cc, global presence, aoe heal on no Mana. I like her potential for disruption on flare build. But yeah her lack of burst heal huuurts. The shield helps against ability dmg, but you have to have really good reflexes for that if they all gang up.
I think even a small buff to her heal would do a lot. A small actual shield on pixie dust would also be amazing.
Just lessening the delays on her abilities a bit would help her so much.
The change feels indeed pretty pointless and also cluncky to use properly. Considering the current spot of BW, I don’t understand what was their intention when implementing this: what should this accomplish?
Meh.
I feel the same way. But i don’t wish to boost her passive trait up, just enhance her abilities thru her talents so they can mitigiate dmg and give her more oomph. She supposed to be hard, so keep her that way.
Small things like could be:
-landing Q can shield, heroes in middle recrive a bigger shield or
-gust of wind now has a passive that evetytime you Z in, it create a 50% smaller version of it which reduces her Z cd per enemy hit by .5 second, that way she can teleport in on a dibbles without insta death, or
-when an enemy polymorphed hero receives dmg, allies within range receives a 10% of total dmg dealt shield for 2 seconds
Just something so that she can be useful from further ranges and doesnt require to stay within the vicinity of the team all the time so she can walk away to go heal that lunara and still be useful for that Arthas who is taking a beating.
It was pretty rare that you’D get the refreshed cd on kill. I think that part of the ability didn’t matter.
And it’s a lot easier to land a Q on a polied target than a non polied one.
I disagree. You could use polymorph as a kill confirm and then have it ready a moment later. Especially with the arbour reduction at 16 you could chain-kill low hp enemies.
You are correct though, the major benefit is and was the range increase.
Yes and no. Poly’d opponents have a tendency to move erratically which can throw off your aim.
Still, a major concern ist that you basically need to keep both poly AND flare ready if you want to benefit from the talent. See point no 3 in my first post here in this thread.
Which also means that you have to chose between disrupting en engage/ ability, and keeping Poly off cd to potentially get the reset.
So you sacrifice something either way.