I don’t think it’s poorly designed. Just because it’s point and click? What’s wrong with that? Actually creates a counter to heavy mobility.
It’s a point-and-click gap closer that can kill people, on a hero that already has a point-and-click gap closer.
Bad design to counter bad design should never be the answer. Both Varian and Overwatch heroes should be dumpstered until they’re unplayable. At the very least, they shouldn’t get any buffs.
I think colossus smash is way more powerful than winblades tbh.
It’s just deleting enemies without giving them much time to react. I like it a lot, i think winblades has about the same pve potential but an inferior burst potential so i just take colossus smash.
Talking about sustain, you like winblades probably because of the second wind talent i think its called?
when u get some hp back per basic attack.
Well i take victory rush on colossuss smash and it feels awesome, i have 100%hp for each fight and if i kill one guy, then i get to heal again.
I just think it’s very fine.
Colous > TB < Taunt
7 Likes
Fixed that for you…
He is a glorified lane minion until that though.
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Winblades is like a worse version of Illidan. Same dps, but less mobility.
Collossus smash is way better. At least at MMR where people know how to kite/blind/slow.
Literally all he can do is AA and run fast. Countered very easily.
Colossus Smash benefits team with targeted -20 Armor and high burst damage.
Also double engage.
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Yes. A 2% winrate difference is okay, and so is a 10% popularity difference. As long as the overall numbers are decent (and in the case of Smash they are, as you helpfully demonstrated) this is not a problem.
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Smash is the already the best varian, by far. That’s literally the only varian I play, minus times when I desperately need taunt. TB is just for memes and for winning some solo lanes (assuming you’re OK sacrificing TF performance for that, because TB varian is utter crap in TF).
10% health is nothing
Tell that to Deathwing. 10% definitely makes a difference. It’s why you don’t fight when you are down levels.
Another thing, -20 armor on a point and click at lvl 4 is nuts. Target takes 20 percent more damage from everything pair that with another burst character and you can shred anything. (I also believe it works on vehicles).
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I like being able to counteract a Varian colossus smash with Tracer, it’s fun to see how he can’t hit me basic attacks even using his point & click skills.
I couldn’t resist pointing this out.
Varian gets access to his ults at level 4, not level 7.
Just goes to show how little you actually know about this issue.
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I think this comparison is not complete enough. Since there are many heroes who can make such combo if given the time:
Alarak:
165 + 48 + 62 (and maybe an additional 62 if center of beam) + 275 = 550 (or 612).
And if we double that because sadism, thats also doing 1.1k damage, except potentialy within a second.
The problem isnt damage.
Sure, the +100% AA damage sounds nice, but twin blades effectively gives about 50%. Which means that collusus is effectively only adding 33% damage on top of twin blades (yes, the damage of 1 collusus hit is completely countered by 1 additional reset of his trait). A insignificant ammount in exchange for losing your self sustain.
Its that there is barely any effective CC with this ulti, or self sustain which allows much longer dueling. After varian does his combo once. He is often going to be forced back for 10s because there is no real follow up for him, and since his self sustain is crippled, he can be easily forced back.
There are better heroes for this task which can deal similar ammounts at range. And even if he does this, twin blades usualy just performs the same task.
Armor reductions are nice, but 20% is simply not going to do enough. Especialy towards weaker heroes like li ming, its not like the 20% is going to matter that much if they are remaining with 300hp anyway (thats like 1 basic ability).
Colussus needs a much better effect with it to make it worth it. And i think it should increase the CC that varian can apply by for example extending the duration of all the CC by 50%. This makes him better likely to stick. And even if he doesnt, his basic abilities are still going to apply the hindrance a bit longer.
And during his combo this would mean 3.75s worth of slowing compared to twin blades with 2.5s. This extra 1.25s would be enough to nearly guarantee the combo to hit.
This adds reliability, and that can definitely help, even if its still the team making the kill instead of varian.
Don’t want to sound rude, but twin blades was nerfed in 3 patches while the other ults were left untouched. They even added a dev comment that twin blades had a significant higher winrate than the others across all leagues.
You could say that “fail blades is a meme” is itself a meme.
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I remember the times people would monitor the talent window at level 10 just to make sure they didn’t see me pick Twin Blades, and instantly become enraged once I did.
Alarak’s combo’s maximum damage output against heroes at base level is 612. That includes Sadism’s baseline +100% bonus damage. Factor in the extra basic attack or two you can usually get off at the end of that, and that climbs to 912, tops.
You want to do more than that, you need factor in talents, get additional Sadism, or start including casts outside his combo, such as Deadly Charge or Counter-Strike.
And of all of that, only 1 of those abilities, Lightning Surge, is point-and-click. Except it’s still not that simple or easy, as a third of its value comes from hitting enemies with the center.
It deals less damage and takes more skill to pull off. Alarak’s strength comes from the added CC he can bring and his Sadism scaling allowing him to be a serious threat late-game. Colossus Smash with a half-finished High King’s Quest allows Varian to one-shot Valla and Li Ming at level 4.
You don’t see people asking for buffs for Alarak’s combo, but here Blubblez is demanding some for Colossus Smash and Varian.
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I think who should be buffed is urgently Illidan. Increasing a little more damage and duration to his E would be fine.
Well, you also don’t see colossus varian getting picked like Alarak is picked. So clearly as data suggests there is a big difference. The reason why Alarak is effective and Csmash varian isn’t is because Alarak has range. he can position his enemies how he wants them, and he has range on them to do it with making him safe. he also silences directly after making him safer and destroying an enemies means for escape after the follow up.
So maybe Alarak doesn’t hit as hard… damage has never really been a big enough cause to make anything overly powerful. It’s all about the tools and utility at a heroes disposal.
Alarak was a heavily contested assassin for ages.
C-smash has a 14% pickrate.
Can you even compare?
I don’t recall ever seeing Varian banned and when he does get banned he gets banned for taunt and not for c-smash
You don’t fight when down levels because of talents. Plus when down levels there is more scaling than just health. There is damage on all your abilities and healing. Plus 10% hp buff on one target is nothing, but 10% hp buff on everyone in the enemy team? That makes more of a difference.
Deathwing’s problem was not just the health. His sustain was insane, he had a global that healed him, he was immune to all cc, and he did a lot of damage for a bruiser, sometimes dealing more than most assassins.
Even after blanket nerfs across the board his winrate is still very high and he is still getting first banned in nearly every game. So no, it’s more of a kit functionality problem that makes him op rather than just the health.
Deathwing was a hero that excelled in nearly everything. Good teamfight, good at soaking damage, had great waveclear, had a global. He’s insane.
I still see it as:
Taunt = Tank
TB = Bruiser
CS = Melee Assassin
And I really believe win rates are strongly affected by the people who don’t understand that.
They pick CS when a melee assassin is a bad idea, or think TB is bad when it really isn’t.
I still don’t think CS needs a buff, but if it did give it a change I don’t think increasing its base survivability and just making it safer and better than TB is the way to do it.
It has a weakness for a reason, and part of the reason is sacrificing some durability and sustain you’d get in TB for some burst.
But if a change were made, I’d rather see it increase options and make his heroic choices stand out from each other more rather than just make CS better.
Which is why I said that if I were to make a change I’d make CS affect his ability usage.
Making it sustain better by changing Q’s base healing to a % of damage done, and making it buff AP would give it another option besides suicide dive, and would make it stand out from TB’s auto-attack focused sustain or Taunt’s raw health durability.
Though Banner of Dalaran may be a bit strong with it.
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None of that is what a CS player wants though. The playstyle is fine he’s just incredibly squish. Again, taunt is just better CS right now and the winrate and pickrate proves it.
Honestly, I think Taunt should be tank, and the other two roles should be bruisers. Why? Well, not that I play Qm much, but Varian in Qm is always counted as either a tank or bruiser. if you have a Varian, you will more often than not have an enemy bruiser or tank. This makes it to where it is nearly impossible to safely go CS varian in QM because you will be the only option your team has for a durable front-line and picking an option that reduces his health by 10% doesn’t make him efficient at the role.
If you look at Qm data alone, CS is very rarely ever picked, and it has the lowest winrate by far of the three.
Now I know nothing is balanced around Qm but it is still a problem and most of the playerbase does play Qm. I don’t find it very fair that the Qm que basically punishes you for ever wanting to play Csmash.
Colossus Smash is literally the best option. Coordinate with DPS and take Shield Wall, and Varian is a frontline monster.
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