Notparadox said something that made me think.
He claims that Fenix is too difficult and you get the same value as Raynor with half the skill.
So is Raynor too good or is Fenix too difficult?
Fenix is a bit up right now yes. I think raynor’s fine for his skill.
In theory a super skilled player should be able to be more successful with a hard to play hero than with an easy one? If that’s not the case it doesn’t make sense to play a difficult hero unless he has a unique niche.
What’s so cool about Fenix anyway? Why would someone play that hero?^^
Teleport resets?
Fenix isn’t that hard as long as you pick his 1 accordingly.
Memeing with stutter step is good if you have the skill for it but it’s not his only viable build, and with talents he really sets himself apart from Raynor.
I’d say the strongest case of “twice the effort, half the results” is Samuro. You need to be really good at him to see actual value out of the pick. It’s really frustrating to see a Sam pick on my team and all he really does is Sonya-tier PvE except he can’t even really contribute to teamfights unless one of the enemy squishies has awful positioning.
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He has a shield for half of his life.
Now on topic. Fenix is kinda hard to play but he does a lot thanks to his shield and lack of mana. He is a very diferent hero compared to raynor but he’s talent tree is not good righ now and mostly depends on E build to compete other assassins.
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That’s totally subjective.
I’m not a pro and I play much better Fenix than Raynor.
Fenix has no mana and his shield regenerates, the slow on Q and the teleport.
Usually i get the att speed boost and the auxiliary shields at 13.
Melts tanks, and with Jaina/Arthas/Mei… his purification salvo is team wide.
I think Fenix and Raynor are fine.
Fenix requires more skill, but you can tear through entire teams if you play properly.
Raynor requires less skill, but his impact is much more even and spread out and you’ll rarely pop off like Fenix can.
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Let’s be real, neither does Raynor.
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You get better value if you one trick Fenix than Raynor. Vice versa.
Fenix’s difficulty lies on his W swap mechanic for AA resets while Raynor gets it easy with Exterminator.
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Raynor is pretty baseline strong without too much skill demand. Fenix definitely feels more risky to play with less value when played well. I would say Raynor feels fine while Fenix seems to be in an odd spot. I think Fenix could use some kind of buff but I’m not sure what. Perhaps adjusting his teleport?
I mean lets be honest the people who one trick raynor have all died of boredom to some degree. So those stats aren’t fair even if they do manage to get in a game.
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a similar thing also happens with rag actually. its not as obvious as samuro, but the amount of ppl who misuse his diverse kit is astounding. even as a rag main i get many struggles from having pathetic health for a bruiser to picking the correct build to cater for each comp. but the results are worth it.
It’s not really that Fenix is too difficult. Problem is there not being reward for picking him, the reason to take him. Ray has godlike PvE which is his reason of existing. He also has bit of anti-dive and interrupt with his Q which is more than most AA heroes have baseline.
Fenix has shields that only work in solo lane(for 4 man/TF their regen gets interrupted by billion little things as side effect and makes interacting with your own healer non-existant). For solo he can’t hold point. He will win most lanes over super long time period, but enemy will hearth so you can only hold the lane for 15-30 seconds while enemy holds it rest of the time. His warp is easy to interrupt by most top tanks and he is ineffective jungler. All in all there is no reason to pick him over bunch of other AA heroes.
Despite having well designed talents, his talent diversity is in reality abysmal. Game has moved so heavily into burst and CC that despite most talents technically being well designed they just have no place in the game anymore in the last 3 years. He is all about getting 16 to come online with kiting, warp and giant killer [T3121113,Fenix].
On Braxis you might take planet cracker and divert power given how snowbally the map can be and solo lane being so isolated that ganking it is bad idea for most heroes. At 20 you could go extra AS if you’re sure you will survive without the shield. You build anything else and you’re just sub-par generic ranged AA hero. His Q build was good when he was released and got nerfed to ground never to be touched again. Also if you play ARAM and go Q build(which is fine for that mode) for the love of god do not pick the goddang Q at 7, that talent is absolutely awful even for Q build. Please stop picking that garbage 
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I’d say Fenix’s skillcap is almost as high. He is very hard to play correctly and with high impact. But when he is, he is IIRC the #2 winrate ranged assassin at master/dia. (edit - had to check- Orphea slightly edged him out and he’s #3 now @ 10 last patches master/dia when Gall doesn’t count)
It also takes a lot of courage to utilize his teleport resets pre-emptively, i.e. knowing when going in and teleporting will lead to a kill and reset & when it wont. If you misjudge that and die, your team may lose and you also get reports.
His AA speed also gets really, really high with various talent interactions.
But yeah, Sam is a special kind of painful to play even compared to him.
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Lol. Raynor may as well have a Snorlax skin. I do admit he gets stale after a while, even if you mained him for years as I did and were an original Starcraft fan. There’s zero depth to playing Raynor except microing Banshee (I never take Hyperion) and stutter step.
Sure microing him can take a bit of skill and interrupting stuff with his shotgun takes some skill, but that’s about it.
I’d say Fenix is the hardest assassin in the game by leaps and bounds. I’ve tried to get the hang of him (naturally, as a SC fan) and I can’t do it yet. I’m also kind of unsure when to switch weapon modes and when to pick the various talent trees.
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Definitely too hard as of now for the value in talents you’re getting, but I find myself feeling a lot more rewarded if I do good with Fenix as opposed to Raynor.
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That’s the gist of it. If I do well with Raynor I kill two players at once, or pepper away their Mura/Stitches so our other players can start getting some kills done.
If you do well with Fenix it ends up with him getting constant 50% armor, 175% AA bonus, teleport resets and 5 player kills. And he does it surprisingly fast.
I’ve only been on the receiving end of that so far though. But it is awe inspiring if pulled off.
PS. I love playing Raynor just for the ability to micro Banshee. I’m still grateful for that. I usually never let it die, I micro it like a Misha as a pet.
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His talents need a passover, but he’s manaless with baseline shields as others have said. He’s gated by less mechanically.
His talents just need to be looked at, really, I don’t even think they need crazy changes… a lot of them are plenty good already.
I think the issue is also that his skill ceiling is extreme. Most people are playing in leagues from bronze 5 to gold so they are likely not going to see a good one in their life time any more than a good Medivh or a good Vikings.
That skews some people’s opinion to thinking “he’s just a boring auto attacker”. Playing him as a cautious backliner who throws in a few lasers and autos every now and then is the bronze way to play him.
I’m not smart enough to maintain a positive winrate as him but I really like it when a teammate who is good at him, picks him. His impact outweights most heroes not only due to his damage but his great macro capability (soaking, clearing lanes and camps) and survivability.
He also never needs to go back for mana (since he has no mana), and with correct shield management he doesn’t even need to go back for HP.
tldr; It’s just way easier to pick up Raynor, sit back and click stuff. Less risk, lower reward, but safer and easier.
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The other half of his life…
…is for Auir
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