There is this QQ thread about Butcher being OP. And while half of the games he’s actually UP, half of the games he is indeed OP.
Quite situational hero, really. But sometimes he can literally kill heroes before they can do anything. Dealing insane amount of b.a.d., 2 shotting enemies, healing himself for insane amount.
My old idea about how to change him was:
Change his trait to a passive one, giving him 10 b.a.d. for every level, and increasing his attack speed by 25% on some level between 10 and 15.
While collecting meats would kind a work like Dehaka’s essence, but maybe it could give him other stuff like armor / increased damage / move speed (for limited time).
But now I’m thinking of something more like:
After collecting 200 meats, The Butcher starts getting 30-60 HP per hero kill / 10 meats collected.
If it’s 30, then it should scale with level, and if 60, then it shouldn’t scale.
He kind a lacks survivability without Brand, so this wouldn’t exactly be a nerf And ofc the devs can WIB it. He can even get some baseline dmg buff to compensate
EDIT: And 6 months later, I think that:
Maybe his meat could be set to 200 every time he dies after completing his quest. He is plenty of strong once his quest is complete. Let him play more like Untouchable Tracer, or Greymane.
Indeed, but they can’t really buff him, when he has the potential to kill people with 2 basic attacks (and his abilities). And there’s not much counter play to it, as you die just as you leave stun.
So removing the 2 shot potential will allow him to get a baseline buff, that makes him less inconsistent
His “farming” trait should be a bonus, not some elemental part of his kit. Didnt work for Butcher, doesnt really work that well for Zuljin (at least he is ranged). Worked for KTZ, because its a bonus.
On the other hand, admittedly hella long time ago, Blizz said they are fine with Butcher being “bronze-plat” hero. I dont really think he is anywhere on their radar, but who knows.
Funny you mention those, considering butcher is a very good counter to all 3 of those XD. You may not pick him over those 3, but your opponent may just do that after ;). (and of course then forget why they picked him and forget to pick lamb)
Considering how charge functions at the moment, a well timed blink or a swift strike can cause Tracer and Genji to eat the stun but still have a safe distance, all that Kerrigan can do is to time her stun as he’s about to bump into her.
Normally butcher is not the only hero on a team - you can go mura stun->lamb->charge(when lamb is ending) - pretty much unavoidable death if not saved by his teammates. But maybe it’s different in low ranks (but hey, noone is going to do those amazing escapes there either, so butcher can butcher on his own (as can be seen by his top5 winrate there)).
I’ve been on both ends of that matchup (well more on the victim side, since I don’t play butcher much) and I can say it’s really a VERY hard matchup for those heroes.
I do think they should make him less “extreme.” Right now he either hyper snowballs or is just bad. I think they should buff his base stats and reduce the benefits from meat to fix this. Kind of like what MortalWombat said.
Yeah pretty expected when he’s perfectly balanced in Bronze league, I don’t play Rank but even in QM where the stupidity of mistakes that happens from me or the other 9, I never found him threatning.
And most Butchers I play against makes me feel sorry to kill them in the first place, 12 deaths, 50 meat, yawn.
He’s also 60% in Master ;). Niche, as expected but still a beast counter.
People don’t like butcher on their team mostly because he needs babysitting until he finishes his meat (still much more exciting than old azmo stacking for 15 minutes though…), they also need to not forget to help him actually pick up that meat, which is also work.
Yeah, I’ve had this game against: Butcher, Yrel, Uther, Xul… and Muradin? not sure about Muradin…
Anyways, I survived the butcher’s charge, I survived Xul’s bone prison, I survived Uther’s stun, But Yrel just jumped infront of me and pushed me back into their team, and I died regardless. It was hell of a game xD
So how do you find my suggestions in the OP? Do you think they’d work?
Butchers kit has so many problems on the very base level it’s not even funny. He’d need serious rework to make him into a competitive hero. While some you could definitely fix even for current Butcher, he should get new talents and heavy tweaks on current talents.
Few of major problems butcher has:
He is balanced around being able to life leech target with brand, only any kind of CC can stop that easy due to how immobile butcher is. Could be fixed by giving him just general life-drain instead of requiring specific target, only it would be broken against scrubs and he’d still get hit by all the follow-up after charge.
Extremely telegraphed nature of the charge allows too easy follow up and it’s easy to interrupt at start of charge making it exclusive for start of battle(unless you can snowball and have enemy split or on the run). Latter would be easy to fix by making him unstoppable since start or alternatively skip the charge up entirely.
I’d rebuild the entire ability personally. Make it controlled charged ability, you charge it by holding E and after release butcher would follow your mouse till he runs out of energy or hits hero, map wall or building. The longer you held the button the longer the sprint and final speed could be(similar to now as it ramps up) which could be made to also determine stun duration(and make it AoE impact with long charge). At lower speed you’d have more control and tighter turns. It would make butcher more skill reliant hero while also rewarding the said skill rather than point and click it is now. You could dodge things like Naz zombie wall at the cost of potentially not being able to hit the intended target(now only option is to just cancel the charge or run to your death). It would also make the ability less potent on mobile heroes(which shouldn’t be your targets even now realistically) but make him much bigger threat as ganker who can have charged from far away(and you won’t get big warning over your head). If he’s close enough you hear the stomping and noises Butcher might make.
Balanced heavily around getting meat also limits butcher on what he can or rather should do. For example mercs could be made to drop say 5 meat each(25 for boss) so he wouldn’t be as limited in what to do. This is really more of QoL change rather than major balance issue.
Last bigger gripe I have with is the Furnace blast. While the biggest problem would get fixed with the charge change I think it should inflict some 40% slow decaying in next 3s on top of the damage. The ult itself is nice because it requires timing it properly with the charge but the impact is minimal given damage is only about same as his AA with quest(hence nobody picks it over lamb that can win whole TF at 20).
I really wish they would change all infinite-stacking mechanics to function similarly to Alarak’s Sadism.
In essence, make stacking easier for Butcher up to a cap. Once the cap is reached, he may continue to get stacks, possibly at a slower rate. However, if he dies, his stacks reset to the cap again. This allows for some counter-play, as a rampaging Butcher could be killed, which resets him to a manageable level again.
And ofc the devs can WIB it. He can even get some baseline dmg buff to compensate 
