Can we get Cho to be flagged as a bruiser instead of a tank in QM? It would help balance matches a bit better, since he can’t really be played like a tank.
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I highly disagree. Cho is a Tank due to his unique way above average durability (ehp) on top of his dmg and (partial) CC immunity. I think he, as Varian are better tanks for the QM MM.
While the argument for classifying Cho as a tank is understandable due to his high hit points and partial crowd control immunity (which only applies to Gall and doesn’t really aid in being able to function as a tank), several factors strongly support the idea to classify him as a bruiser.
It’s true that Cho has a big health pool, surpassing bruisers and assassins. However, health pool alone does not define a tank. Tanks typically combine high health with strong damage mitigation and CC, something Cho lacks compared to traditional tanks. His health pool, while large, is still about 20% less than the combined health of the squishiest bruiser + squishiest assassin.
Cho’s ability kit, while offering partial CC immunity (for Gall) and respectable damage, lacks the tools usually associated with tanks. Other tanks offer extensive crowd control and initiation abilities, designed to disrupt enemy formations and protect allies. Cho’s abilities are more geared towards sustained damage dealing and poking, which are characteristics of bruisers. This differentiates him from tanks who have more focus on team protection and engagement control.
The optimal playstyle for Cho involves a significant amount of poking and opportunistic engagement, waiting for enemies to expend their abilities. This style is more characteristic of bruisers, who excel in wearing down opponents and choosing the right moment to engage, rather than tanks, who typically lead charges, sustain frontline engagements, and typically want to be the target of enemy abilities. This strategic difference in engagement is key in distinguishing bruisers from tanks. As a 2-in-1 character, 20% less health than the squishiest bruiser + assassin combined makes him too easy/valuable of a target to focus down if he tries to initiate as a tank normally would.
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Not only that, there’s more risk involved so the decision making is different. As a tank, I wouldn’t mind engagements that would result in my death in exchange for the death of an enemy team’s critical hero, whether that be high damage, healer etc. I also don’t mind risking my life for a teammate in order to save them.
When your death counts for 2 and not 1, you’re most likely not going to take those risks that are typical of tanks and your allies will feel that.
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Cho is an absolute unit. Trying to bring him into a role that someone like Thrall shares is ridiculous.
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Cho as a Bruiser would be unfair to Thrall, Xul, Malthael, Ragnaros, Chen, Dva, Deathwing, Rexxar and Gazlowe. Probably even to more. Since they could not compete with him on the frontline. These are almost the enterity of the Bruiser category. Tanks and the more tank-esque Bruisers could handle him, which is the reason why Cho is best as a Tank.
Cho is unfair against Bruisers, Tanks are not unfair against Cho.
Everything else is just fluff, since Roles are actually just lables.
(Sidenote I personally have 63%+ wr as Cho, if I wouldn’t face Tanks this would be even higher, I don’t want that tbh.)
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Can you explain your reasoning for feeling this way? I compared health, abilities, and playstyle of Cho to those of tanks and bruisers to show why he would be more fairly matched against bruisers. Ayeziza also made a great point that the decision making process is very different for Cho and your teammates obviously feel that because he can’t be played as a frontline tank. Saying it would be unfair without providing any support or reasoning for your stance gives me nothing to consider.
You saying that a single bruiser can’t handle a 2-in-1 hero isn’t really a viable argument. No bruiser would be able to handle any other bruiser + ranged assassin combo either.
2 Likes
You see, you think I provided no arguments because you failed to see my actual point. Being a frontline has nothing to do with 1v1s (2v1 in Cho’Gall’s case).
Cho has better engage, CC and a lot tougher, than those Bruisers. It doesn’t matter that the squishiest Bruiser and Squishiest Assassin combined has less EHP (effective HP) than Cho’Gall (if that’s true at all considering they have baseline 25 Armor), because the Ranged Assassin doesn’t take “engage dmg”. R.Assas only take dmg once the Tank is dead or of the enemy has Divers who can ignore the Tank.
What about melee assassin? Would be the most relevant in a ranked setting I think. 
Edit: Ofcourse the QM setting does not equal the SL and might make him more of a tank I guess, but would not say 100% tank.
Of the bruisers you listed, Xul, Rag, Malth, and Thrall are treated as melee assassins by the QM matchmaker. Rexxar and D.va are ranged and their kits are geared around them not spending as much time in the frontline. I personally feel like Deathwing has better CC, zoning, and engage (with actual CC immunity) and Chen most certainly has better sustain and engagement. Gazlowe… I agree with. I don’t think Gazlowe should be classed as a bruiser.
Cho is middle of the pack or slightly below average in terms of CC and engagement among bruisers and way behind tanks. If you divide his health pool between a bruiser and ranged assassin, he is way below average.
I want to respond to this, but I’m not sure I understand the message you’re trying to convey. First, there is a cost to using Cho’s armor - a massive penalty to Gall’s damage. You’re right that with ogre hide buff up, his effective health pool is that of a tank and ranged assassin combined, but no other tank constantly reduces the damage of another assassin by 25%. Most other tanks have mitigation abilities and shields as part of their kit, whereas Cho only has orge hide, which just barely brings him up to the baseline health of a tank + assassin.
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Cho is like Blaze, where he has too much CC and bodyblocking potential for a bruiser in QM, but not enough for a main tank in a ranked game. It makes them undefinable, but given the options and the health of QM I think it’s better off this way.
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Sometimes. It’s not a set rule, there are matches when they’re matched against Bruisers. They’re just Bruisers, that are not entirely bound to be mirrored.
But that means nothing, since as I told you before, Ranged Assassins don’t exist in the frontline. So their HP do not add up to the Tanks hp, while Cho’Gall is on the frontline together.
Let’s say there’s a team of a Bruiser + 4 Assassins against Cho’Gall + 3 Assassins. The frontline is the Bruiser vs Cho’Gall. So Cho’s team has way more beef on the frontline, which makes it unfair.
And Cho’Gall has also way more CC than almost every Bruiser. And has better engage than most.
He is truly a Tank. Just a weird one.
His Role only matters in QM, and in QM he would be the most broken against no Tank teams.
I think it’s less that Cho is a tank, and more that it’s a handicap given to the opposing team because it is QM. While some bruisers can frontline, they also tend to solo lane, and cho’gal doesn’t “solo” lane like a bruiser would, so the value/formation a cho’gal pick has skews the responses on the map played.
Draft/organized play usually take a tank with them (minus opportunity in say, metamadness if the tanks are pick/banned out) because cho is a lopsided pick.
Downside for HotS is it didn’t quite enough oddballs to help round out qm accordingly
Yes, tanks tend to be hard to kill but being hard to kill is not what makes you a tank.
Tanks are better defined by their ability to easily CC, protect, or control space (especially with their basic abilities). There are plenty of bruisers who are harder to kill then tanks and some tanks who are squishier then bruisers.
For example neither ETC and Anub aren’t all that tanky but they are unquestionably still tanks because of the above mentioned characteristics.
While heroes like Artanis, Sonya, and Leoric are very poor tanks as while they are nigh unkillable, they have very limited tools for doing the real duties of a tank.
This is also why deathwing, imperius, maiev and uther are occasionally run as tanks or have been ran as tanks in the past.
I also want to point out that having a good engage does not make you a good tank. There’s someone in every role whos got a good engage.
Bruiser is more defined by their ability to dive/pressure the enemy backline in a fight and usually also their ability to take the solo lane. They also have generally good sustain, often better then the tanks and they also generally have good damage output. In a way, you can think of the bruiser role as a bunch of big stat stick heroes with good numbers all around and tend to be very self sufficient.
There is some amount of overlap between the 2 roles and even a couple tanks can build to fill this role so it can be easy to confuse the two. Funny enough, blaze in particular is considered a better busier then he is a tank because of how good he is in lane and due to his E not being a reliable enough CC.
I say Chogall leans significantly more in the bruiser direction. His biggest weakness as a tank is very meh CC. Q sux and while his upheval is like top 10 engagement tools in the game, you don’t get it till half way in to a game and thats not what defines you as a tank as every role gets good engage tools in various heroes.
Cho’s hammer and Gall’s stunny balls are the closest he gets to being a good tank. However while hammer can be great for protecting people and keeping enemies at bay with, its pretty much all Cho’s got and you don’t get it till 10. Stunny balls are something every tank in the game would love to have but you don’t get them until 16 and that’s way to long to wait until you have a tank when waiting until level 10 is already pushing it.
As a bruiser, while Chogall isn’t quite fit for the solo lane (mostly because hes 2 players and its not a solo lane anymore. otherwise hes got a great kit for being in the solo lane) hes got every other bruiser thing covered. Almost as mobile as genji, lots of damage and hard to kill all make him idea of pressuring a backline if not outright one shotting them. Yrel is another good example sense when she was released, they wanted her to be a tank but she ended up being a better bruiser for similar reasons.
All that being said tho, I still think chogall should be treated as a tank in qm match making. Not because he is a tank but because dealing with chogall if you dont have a tank would be a nightmare.
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Cho’Gall has insane CC (just not baseline) on top of high dmg and durability and ways to ignore enemy CC and burst.
Other similar cases are (old Varian who had his Taunt and lvl 10, but having it at lvl 4 is also somewhat similar,) Tyrael, Arthas and Stitches.
Certain comps can enable certain things. This just means that even if Cho is not the posterchild of “being a Tank”, he can still be drafted into one, thus I see it’s better to leave him at being a qm-tank, then to let Bruisers face him alone.
Don hate me but Cho’s Q is not insane CC and I don’t think having a team with no real tank until level 10 is a very safe strategy. I think thats why they changed taunt to be at 4 instead of 10 so that varian could actually be a tank.
These are qualities shared by both bruisers and tanks. Plus, chogall is 2 heroes, you would get similar advantages by playing sonya and anduin together. Cho’s kit is extremely poor for tanking until 10 where he kinda becomes tank like.
But also so does sonya + anduin if not more so.
Arthas and tyreal are proper tanks beacuse they excel at protecting their team. Arthas is slow and root hell against heavy melee meaning hes a wall your ranged can hide behind.
Tyreal protects your team with low cooldown shields and the best movespeed buff in the game. Hes a little unique in that its not CC thats doing the peeling and just really good buffs.
Granted, your are right to an extent that tyreal can struggle to tank when hes not built around which is why hes more niche.
With stitches, hes…
Actually your right in that stitches is just straight up a bad tank. Funnily enough, the best way to play in to a stitches is to run him and his team down beacuse he straight up cant protect them.
Not to say hes a bad hero. Hooks oneshot people and thats valuable.
Im surprised you didnt bring up johanna as a counter argument. Shes obviously a tank but only has bearly passable CC until 10. Some healers have better tank tools then jo pre 10. Shes a much better comparison then Arthas.
(I still say jo is a tank)
I did mention this, i just didnt go in to annoying detail about it. Yeah synergy is op but you wouldn’t call genji a tank because he has deflect and can deliver light bombs would you? Gall’s attachment doesn’t make cho more of a tank. If anything, gall’s damage helps cho be a better bruiser.
What makes someone a tank is more about what they can accomplish on their own. Blaze can tank pretty well if you can help him land Es and yrel can tank if all you need your tank for is peel and making space and you never want a real engagement where you’d want a more standard tank.
But it’s also not fair to the other team if the Cho’Gall team has a tank post-10 and their team doesn’t. That’s why he’s a matchmade like a main tank for QM but isn’t played as one for ranked. No one’s saying that Cho’Gall is pickable as a main tank, just that it’s better this way for QM’s health.
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Before 10 Cho has less CC than the large majority of bruisers. Once you hit 10 he’s about on par with other bruisers at 10 for ability to CC and zone. Even with his heroic he’s not even close to other tanks in terms of CC, engage, and mitigation.
We’re ignoring the main point which is that Cho is supposed to be played like a bruiser. You even admit that Cho is not supposed to be a main tank, but QM places him as one. When you hit 10, you still shouldn’t play Cho like a main tank, you should still play him like a bruiser. Matching him as a tank gives an unrealistic expectation for players who are new to using the character and teammates who are not used to playing alongside him. This is the exact same logic as to why Rag, Xul, Thrall, and Malth don’t get matched as bruisers in QM.
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This is not true.
Mostly because as others also mentioned here, the way how you play certain Heroes, and what roles they fill in certain comps, can and do differ.
Cho doesn’t need to played as a Bruiser. (Sidenote: Bruisers and Tanks often play similarly.)
What Tanks do? They anchor, they peel, they stand in the frontline, they soak dmg.
What Bruisers do? They dive the backline? That’s what Melee Assassins do. They soak or do the sololane? Cho shouldn’t do that. They act like pseudo-tanks? Cool, so they act like Tanks.
HotS has a lot of things I admire, one of them is the fact that Roles are just… they’re just…
The only place where the labels’ Roles mean anything, is QM MM.
And this is the only topic which should matter.
Should Cho’Gall be matched against:
Sonya, D.va, Rexxar, Artanis, Chen, Xul, Malthael, Ragnaros, Dehaka, Leoric, Thrall, Imperius, Yrel, Deathwing, Hogger
or
Arthas, Tyrael, Malganis, Varian, Garrosh, Diablo, Johanna, Etc, Anubarak, Blaze, Mei, Muradin
?
Which is more fair? Which is more balanced?
Playstyles, labels don’t matter, outcomes matter and chance.
3 Likes
we also have enough bruisers and want as many tanks as possible. It also makes sense to pair a tank with a dmg dealer in one hero to complement each other as opposed to a bruiser and a dd