Now Im trying to wrap my head around how to play him, and it just isnt working for me. Like I feel like I do little to no damage unless I hit with Q, but then Im jsut a sitting target, and despite having CC Immunity and full plates, I just melt.
SO more savvy DW players, teach me. Cuz I love my big metallic boy.
A lot of deathwing’s kit is zoning orientated. Puddles that slow, large AoE stun, high damage breath attack, e.t.c. All of these can be used to force enemies into a position, or punish them if they do not obey. In this sense he plays mores like a mage than a bruiser and it is my understanding that this is his main play style in PvP.
The melee builds can work but are prone to melting, especially if the enemy counter picks heroes like Leoric, Tychus, and other percentage damage sources. As Deathwing cannot be healed, the melee builds will not work well if he is the only melee character on the team as despite his top tier toughness he will not be able to survive the pressure over an extended period.
In versus AI you go the mage build at spam his breath attack. The breath attack lacks heat map data so the AI face tank it. This is why it is as good as impossible to lose Versus AI elite matches as Deathwing. If you want more fun you can go the melee build as the aura damage causes the AI to run around like headless chickens, but ranged AI will still pose a threat unlike the caster build.
DW basics:
You are indeed a sitting duck, you need to find the right time to use Q, like when your Tank CCs an enemy.
My absolute noob take is that DW’s flight is pseudo global and if nothing else, it’s fun to use offensively landing on someone who has already committed to engaging. If you talent into it and land on enough people the cooldown is pretty much reset and you can go back doing whatever.
I really miss Bruiser Deathwing. Yeah it was insanely overpowered, but he’s so off-fantasy now. Dueling with his Destroyer abilities is so fun, but it almost never works anymore.
DW and Tassadar are in the same boat as in. they are slow and easy to kill heroes that are used to support the heroes around them. They aren’t “support” heroes but their kits are used to zone and wall which can be a boon to any team.
I personally rarely need to go mage build when I’m with my dive partner. At that I’m trading my HP to get kills on the important enemy targets. Because he’s so easy to kill, everyone can’t help but to blow their CD on you they leave themselves open for the rest of your team.
Sure you can go mage build for solo play but get yourself a good dive buddy for some real fun on DW. Tassadar summons walls but with a gank buddy, as DW you are the wall! Ugh! So fun!
You need good predictions on where people will be.
Lots of practice to know your limits. And every single talent, tailored to the matchup.
I agree about the mage build being the only functional.
His entire kit shouts CC chain. (Pick alongside ETC, Anub, …)
If I recall his history correctly, he got the Li treatment. Not for popularity, but difficult to balance.
His body is huge and thus an extremely easy target, also subject to body blocks. I love to wall trap him as Naz, or delete him as Mirrorball Q Ming. Artanis players love to quest on him - also practice godswaps but that’s obviously in DW’s favor.
Since your slow and short abilities don’t work from well behind, you’re all in. See an opportunity, coordinate a dive, win or die. Safer plays or soaking doesn’t seem to pay.
Many of his matches are automatic losses. Point is, don’t sweat.
His abilities should work with CC chains.
If you are filling the tank role, you are royally screwed.
If you don’t have a healer, you won’t sustain your plates.
If you do have a healer, you are inefficient. Also Aba immune.
He has no ult.
He is the 2nd out of 15 heroes to trigger the free win failure question.
(After 3 losses you get a ginormous MMR malus, normally resulting in a landslide win.)
Out of 300 games with DW in my match, he maintains 49% winrate.
Tell me more about this Free Win Failure Question… You have piqued my instest in it, and these 15 other characters.
I appreciate the feedback and tips though.
I love those once in a blue moon games where building Deathwing for melee is the optimal choice. Those games are far too rare, DW by design, is very difficult to balance, but as you say, the fantasy is lost somewhat playing him as some kind of well armored ranged mage.
Like others have mentioned, ranged mode is the better mode for most teamfight related things.
Q should be used more deliberately when you know the enemy’s gonna be stuck in an area for a while.
Using Q on an ally can also a fairly effective way to peel sense it just does that much damage with full Q build.
W and E are to be more or less spammed on cooldown. When using them tho, use them to wall off areas or zone enemies rather putting on enemies to deal damage.
Then with cataclysm, its best used as a win more or lose less ult. By that I mean when the other team starts moving away you chase them to keep the momentum of the fight going or when your team starts losing you gtfo.
Its damage is pretty meh so its way better as a repositioning tool. Also any time you can cast this from fog of war, it will be infinatly more effective.
If you took the fear ult, you can also use cataclysm as follow up to someone elses engage to further split the enemy team.
If your getting blown up constantly in teamfights, its probably because your misusing cataclysm or your just a bit to far forward at first.
Also if you have the luxury of a draft, DW is a great pick against any team that over relies on CC or as part of a big teamfight comp. He can also so some limited split pushing on big maps and can stall the obj on things like cursed hyper safely if the rest of your team likes to split push.
In terms of things to avoid, really wanna look out for hyper mobility and heroes who can make walls.
%hp does hurt if your hit by it but in your ranged form you out range almost all sources of dangerous %hp damage. Leoric being as exception sense he can just noclip past your cc and wall you but tychus will have a hard time even getting in to AA range if you play right.
It’s a semi-joke.
Sometimes the game asks a question after the game: was it fair, fun, cooperative.
It tends to come up in certain conditions.
My Deathwing session is LLWWWLLLL (lifetime 30%). One to go.
The map was my seasonal best.
My seasonal score is 69:80 (46%).
This season whenever I lost 3, the followup was an automatic stomp.
In this last match, I ended up with miracle PvE stats, but a loss nevertheless.
Adding up all the math, there is a problem. Or is there. Let’s ask.
With a bit of confirmation bias involved, the answer seems to matter.
If on a loss I say I still had fun, I tend to get a few more losses. (I enjoy challenge.)
If on a loss I say no, I tend to get a couple favored matches. (I enjoy wins.)
Equally, claiming a stompy win wasn’t fun. (I enjoy challenge.)
Bias aside, the answer can be translated to MMR adjustment. And what better time, than failing a favored match. And truly, these questions are pointless otherwise.
By the way I suspect MM doesn’t understand composition, hence it cannot create fair matches and calculate odds reliably. (Some websites do.) It’s the whole argument behind premade vs solo, too.
Update: conspiracy matched, I was assigned to a mid-bronze match with four players regularly dying to lane minions.
Yep. He is too weak for that now. It was viable at release.
He is a backline mage at the moment which doesn’t fit his lore…
I can see being disappointed if you enjoy that bruiser play style, but I wouldn’t consider it off fantasy. Deathwing ever since Warcraft 2 was a big flying dragon that breathed fireballs. I don’t know how any mature dragon, much less a dragon aspect that would spend the majority of its time on the ground walking around, meleeing their opponent. If anything, that would be more off fantasy and anatomically odd.
Sure, in WOW, Deathwing you were attacking his claw/tentacles but that was only really because Thrall shot him out of the sky and he was purposely staying put in the maelstrom to bring the second cataclysm. I can see a dragon going in to dive and thrashing something quickly and occasionally chomp on something to make use of that beautiful metal jawline and then flying away quickly, or tackling another dragon mid air like he did with Alexstraza but extended in your face fights on the ground is your dragon fantasy?
It was fun until they nerfed his only was of sustain with W. Now he got 0 self healing even if you hit all 5 heroes.
In WoW, until the raid opened, the only time you ever saw Deathwing was when he flew through a zone, torching an entire area, and one-shotting all player characters in his path. There was even an achievement for it!
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/403730096676012032/741535561717907476/unknown.png
So yes, an unstoppable mage fits more closely to how you experienced him in WoW than the melee build.
Although the melee build was far more fun for me.
I got hit in Twilight Highlands lvling my hunter. Good times.
Yeah, that was like a squeal moment amongst your friends and a badge of (dis?)honor when it happened. I loved how that expansion redid the original zones to show Deathwing’s presence. It always felt so weird how so many expansions will have these huge things happening quarantined in these zones but never affect Azeroth.
I can see people enjoying his melee builds (though I think some blur the lines of what they consider fun because it was OP). I’m always in favor of diversity in play styles even if it’s a little funny. I think the Nexus, a place where universes and heroes collide and clash, is perfectly fine for things to get weird. I just find the fantasy angle argument odd and ultimately kind of irrelevant. If you enjoy it, that’s probably what should matter more. And I’m probably extra sensitive to “fantasy” after what happened to Tassadar.
Sounds like you made the mistake of not getting yourself a dive buddy!
lifetime of +800 games at 61% win rate with DW myself it doesn’t have to be a auto loss for your team.
It took me so long to get that achievement back then lol. I remember my friends saying he’s in X zone, and I would rush there in a vain attempt to get scorched.
So happy they brought it back with Fyrakk in Dragonflight: “Still Standing in the Fire.”
My NGS team had a scrim last night, and on Braxis Holdout, our opponents drafted Deathwing in the solo lane, and it actually worked for them fairly well. I had early drafted Blaze for the top lane, and Deathwing’s melee build does put quite a bit of pressure on Blaze on the point in the early game. I had to stay at range and try to whittle him down, or have our Falstad rotate up when they had an advantage bottom lane.
The Deathwing player was stance-dancing depending on whether he wanted to contest the point, wave clear, or deal with the gank attempts. His build was mostly the melee talents, with the energy cost reduction on Q. I can see this being a reasonable way to play him that isn’t the meta “magewing” build.