I’v been thinking and over the past several months or so, Melee assassins have been falling off left and right. It feels like they just don’t have a place in this game anymore because why pick them when you can pick range heroes that deal high burst/area damage or even cced and is a lot safe which makes them easier to play and makes it more frustrating for melee not to mention cced also seems to be dominating this game.
Since ranged damage dealers seem to have the most heroes in the role and seem to have the most valuable heroes I rarely see people pick a melee assassins now and the only thing I see people pick that’s close to melee damage dealing are bruisers which makes sense because they just supposingly have better serviveability. I feel that melee assassins need more sort of buff in terms of servivability.
Heroes like illidan, thrall, samuro, and even miave seem to have been fallen off and the only melee assassin I feel is still really valuable is valeera. lets not even get on zeratul, I can’t even remember the last time I have seen a zeratul being played. Illidan is pretty much just dead now and you cant play him the way your supposed to for the ammount of high burst damage and cced that ranged DPS can put out.
it was no were near as bad as it is now and in draft I acutally see more people piking valeera now a days and if it’s a melee its usually a bruiser. melee it seems that the more ranged assassins they add the worse the role gets. they need to stop adding ranged assassins in my opinion and start adding in more melee and buffing the old ones.
I actually forgot about alarak and varian which alarak is ok but isn’t varian classified as bruiser ? so I don’t think he counts as a melee damage dealer despite the high serviviability he can bring out. I’m talking about the heroes that are classified and melee assassins. alarak has always been in a weird spot but he’s only good in the right hands.
I can also understand why they nerfed varian which was smash right ? but alarak I don’t think needed a nerf because it did took skill to play him.
I think the real issue with melee damage dealers is their just isn’t enough options compared to range which makes counter play against ranged a bit weak. The butcher is a good melee but can easily be countered if your team actually pays attention and just kill him.
Some melee assassins indeed have hard times, especially Illidan. Illidan lately is being played more as solo laner with “The Hunt” Ultimate he can join in the team fight in the right time and make the difference AKA Genji style. But if you want to sit in the chaos of the team fight with all the AOE damage and focus and CC that gonna rain on you, you will quickly die or be forced to pull back. If babysit right with the right healer/tank or support, and in capable hands, Illidan can do a lot and can seem unstopable, OP even. Buut in the most cases things dont end well for the team with Illidan in it :D. For a while im on the believe that Illidan needs a rework so he can come on foot with the other assassins. I dont believe he have been changed other then nerfs/buffs, since Season 1 or so, which is a long long time ago.
For the rest melee assassins Thrall is pretty alright as he is. Samuro as a split lane pusher is alright and if played right also can do much. His only problem comes from heroes that have Quests talents for hitting heroes since his clones do count for the quest . Maive is also in a good state.
Alarak was just monster biffed for his higher risk playstyle. They only reverted the buff to his babymode playstyle that basically was a death sentence on maps with hallways on objectives. Chaos Reigns and Show of Force were massively buffed.
E build is still great for late game power and when your team can handle the early game without your damage since it scales super hard and doesn’t lose power from dying as much. He’s a bit ridiculous RN in my opinion. At least when I play him it feels ridiculous.
His mechanic of getting fed and shutdown is super nice and I recommend him.
Thrall is a bruiser and he’s glad you asked, he’s fine.
Alarak, Zeratul, Maiev are all really good.
Samuro and Kerrigan are niche but strong.
Murky and Gazlowe are niche and fine.
I find Illidan the nichest but even he can shine in good hands.
They’re in an interesting spot. It’s a weird line between bruisers and melee assassins, almost on a continuum with tanks. Often the bruisers can be built and played to have about as much damage as melee assassins, but they have more options for defense/sustain, fewer options for escape, more sustained damage, and fewer ranged poke abilities. Bruisers seem generally better in 1v1 situations if they’re built for it, which is interesting.
So I don’t know that melee assassins are bad, or if it’s just challenging to know when to go bruiser or melee assassin in any given scenario, and making the wrong choice can be quite bad. Maybe bruisers just have a more committed play style and work if the enemy team can’t effectively lock you down, otherwise a “melee” assassin might be better. Looking at team comp statistics on hotslogs, it seems tank + bruiser and bruiser + bruiser comps tend to have the highest win rates.
Zeratul/maev are must picks/bans in highe rleagues. As someone playing in gold i see butcher, varian, quite frequently. Thrall has always been a decent hero and rises/ returns to above avg over time. Illadin has always just needed a rework and kerrigan/valeera have always been niche picks. Melee assassins are generally hit or miss where they can be very powerful or a waste of a draft depending on comp/player ability. They fell of massively in era of dounle support but have returned to be semi-decent or good picks since then.
They kept trying to force team fights at the objective by reducing the effectiveness of split push.
Guess which class has the most trouble when all of the damage is grouped up.
They got their wish.
Maybe it is more correct to say there is a fairly big disparity between the few melee users out there. If you compare the best melee out there they are easily first ban material, e.g. Maiev, Zeratul, etc. Whereas on the other side of the spectrum you have extremes like Butcher, Murky, and Illidan.
It is not so much that the role of melee assassin is terrible it is just that there is such a lack thereof options and when part of those options are first ban material or very niche you’re left with less to work with – more so when some of those melee migrated to becoming bruisers (which incidentally do generally cover more ground than melee assassins in terms of team composition in terms of providing competition for the front line role).
They require lots of training and dedication to be able to be played decently and you also often need some macro sense too.
Whereas you can pick random poke ranged hero and stay in the 4 man and somehow have some value at a basic level.
Few players actually take the time to even persevere playing a melee long enough.
Op seems like 1 textbook exemple of it saying that valeera who is a backseat hero type at the most basic level seem to be his go to melee.
![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d3rakab8gpdsa3.cloudfront.net/en/heroes/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")
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