Probably the same reason tyrande is a healer.
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And yet he is an infuriating wad of bullsh!t when paired with Abathur.
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Varian, Muradin, Tracer, Genji are far worse.
Ha, that’s actually pretty accurate.
But then, the rule breaker; LEORIC with his almighty rework that stands above the rest, had actually gotten buffs but has always been balanced after said rework!
The thing is, we can’t know this for sure. Arguments based on statistics can provide some information but a sound conclusion from them is impossible to reach using inductive reasoning alone. There simply are not enough premises presented.
So the only conclusion we can really draw from the evidence we have of the winrate and pickrate is those statistics are, to the best of our knowledge, what they are. What we can do is infer possible other premises and ask questions to bring us closer to being able to form a conclusion through abductive reasoning.
- Who is playing these heroes with low pickrates? Just a few regular players, with a high personal pickrate for a hero? Or all sorts of different players, with a low pickrate across the board?
- What exactly are the drafts that these heroes are being picked into, and on what maps?
- What builds are being used, in which scenario (draft/map), and by which players, are providing the best, most consistent results per player per scenario that those builds are being used?
OT: Illidan is one of the few heroes whose stats I chalk entirely up to L2P. I hope he receives no changes, I think he is in a great place. Battered Assault every game 4 lyfe
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Illidan is not fine. Having a melee assassin squishier than ranged while doing less than them is not fine.
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I think a lot of people don’t know how to play illidan which makes me very happy. I think he’s quite balanced, in a risk/reward kind of way. He’s me highest win rate hero and lvl 60ish with him. If you think he’s supposed to have big numbers you’re wrong, but if played correctlyI can promise either the enemy backline will hate the game OR a constant push of camps all game with occasional hunt-stuns.
Personally, I think a well played illidan is hots best secret.
Unpopular opinion, but I don’t think the abby illi combo is all that good these days with all the burst/cc, since a good illidan is waiting on the sides to flank (more like a zera) or playing the map. I think winblades abby is insane tho.
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he has evasion and lifesteal though. not to mention he actually hits like a monster with Battered and scales extremely hard 7-20. so he’s definitely not just “squishier than ranged while doing less damage.” Not even mentioning superior macro
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Leo doesn’t count, he is not an assassin.
This is describing how they mostly handle melee assassins. 
The concept behind Illidan is that he is meant to be enabled to be a monster therefore he is baseline weaker…the problem with this nowadays is that you can just enable an already good hero without needing to specifically build an Illidan comp.
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Illidan is very fine. I will never understand this complaining about difficult heroes.
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The biggest problem with Illidan is how oppressive he is in QM without a counter. Same with a few other heroes as well, like TBVarian, especially when they’re hyper-enabled by other heroes.
It’s not an issue in draft modes because you have control over your comp and can draft counters to any of the really oppressive heroes.
Since more people play QM than any other mode, it is an issue, but I’m not sure it’s one you can fix. QM games against Illidan without a counter are usually not fun at all and require very little skill to dominate.
I’m sure QM is where most of the complaints about him come from… but you can’t balance him in QM without making him worthless in draft.
Well I see Illidan all the time and he’s always the OP one. He and Vanareal or what ever her name is.
What could be done, is remove them then remake them. He’s a melee so he should be fast (movement speed), though he’s a light melee so low health armor and attack damage (Though faster attack speed). He needs to survive being light melee, so evasion is still realistic, the question is how to make his hero work as if he were evading attack? Maybe give him an option to dodge attacks, left or right players choosing. Say every 3rd attack he can store an evade point up to two. He’s also in need of being a supported hero in team fights, so maybe give him some health shield so he does loose health, instead take it off of heal over time (as long as he has some, this is a trait ability?).
There’s an idea of the hero remake, I haven’t played more than maybe 3 or 4 times, so I can’t really say what makes him so popular.
Or unless you need stunners to deal with him. Honestly picking a character that stuns every game you play, will counter him better. He’s such a BS hero against Orphea. Her character is 100% more quality than his, though he’s able to beat her with little problems. That needs to change I agree. This game is dependent on team play they say, they say team up to win (they didn’t say against Illidan) which is lame and makes this game equal in quality to Dota 2, not anywhere better or different than it. I find I like to play to many heroes. It’s obvious that game is meant to be played, with a strict lineup of disablers and pushers. I like Moba in a sense, though there’s 3 of them which offer little to know variation, and level objective isn’t enough to justify it.
It comes down to this, guys. Illidan and Tassadar, in my opinion, have the same fundamental flaw in design. Their power as individuals are scaled down because of their interactions with other heroes. Make Tassadar’s plasma shield leech too strong, and combos with Valla and Tracer become too strong. Make him weaker, be you virtually shoehorn him into a role where that is his only propose in the metagame.
Illidan’s strength depends entirely on too many factors. Make sure you’re playing with an Abathur. Make sure you pick him late so you aren’t countered like crazy. Pick battered assault so he can actually do meaningful damage in teamfight but completely screw your pve capabilities as a global hero…
He’s a hero that depends on everything falling into place in his favor. His trait has always been terribly designed where he’s either broken or a liability.
Also, is it just me, or is he ridiculously stale for a demon hunter? Dive has to be one of the more unimpressive looking abilities in the game. Where is the fel?
Illidan is crazy when enabled. My friend plays a really solid Illidan and I love playing Tass/Aba with him (I prefer Tass honestly because your earlygame AND lategame are both insane instead of just monster scaling)
Thing is, though, my friend is a big Felewin follower and in some communications with the guy learned that Illidan doesn’t need to be enabled to be a god, and in fact that said enablement makes Illidan more niche than he is otherwise. So we’ve laid off the whole “Illidan Comp” thing and just run Illidan in regular comps.
Our favorite combos are Illidan + KT/KTZ/Junkrat/maybe Jaina, and Hanzo only when it’s our other friend playing (he’s a god), and tanks-wise you just need someone who is very threatening like Diablo or ETC. Garrosh I’m not sure logistically works the right way for Illidan despite being threatening. Then it’s just a matter of Illidan makes space for the mage and the tank to get huge engages, and a matter of the tank and the mage making space for Illidan. Because they’re all individually very threatening and if they can balance it right, the enemy is just stuck with bad choices of > pop cds/reposition to survive the ranged damage+tank while you die to Illidan or the other way around. Winrate in Diamond/Master MMR games with my friend last season was almost 70%. With Illidan every game
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This guy gets it.
20 characters limit
Some shields would be nice 
But he does’t though. He’s really good at what he does. He just can’t be played in every comp.
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The problem is compounded further by the fact that Bruisers usually fit the same role that Melee Assassins do except better.
There aren’t a lot of situations where picking a melee assassin is the right thing to do they are niche by their fundamental design.