Long time forums goers probably know very well at this point Kerrigan is my favorite hero in this game and I have more games on her in HL than most people do on their entire HOTS history combined. The purpose for this thread is reiterate the fact that the intended goals for Kerrigan’s rework were not achieved and it was an overall failure in that regard.
No…I’m not speaking on Kerrigan’s overall power because I do believe she can still be good and has her niche. The intended goals for her rework were to fix the following:
Open up more talent diversity
Put less reliance on hitting her combo
Be more useful outside of more than just Infernal Shrines
In those three aspects not a single one was accomplished. The rework has been live for more than a month at this point and everyone is still using the exact same talent build, shes still frowned upon on most maps, and hitting her combos is more important than ever (while also being super easy to dodge). Not even her winrate has changed since the rework, it’s at the exact same as it was pre-rework.
So I ask…what exactly was the point of this rework as nothing has changed. She has a bunch of mandatory “math” talents and in my opinion still inferior to Alarak who outputs much more damage than her and all while having to take much less risk to do so. Even in the HGC finals games from this weekend, she was only picked on infernal shrines and everyone who played her took the exact same talent build with no variance.
I really hope Blizzard will take a look at her again and try to fix these problems. Most of this stuff can be solved by just make her talents more interesting instead of just well…“this one does more damage so lets pick it.”
She has a 53-54% winrate with a 23% popularity. Alarak has a 50% de for 9%pop.
Can’t say Alarak is better.
Also each time kerrigan was exempt of using her combos to be usefull as she qhpuld bz being a combo hero and all she was broken AF so good thing they nerfed her fast.
At this point i dont know if you are trying to farm likes or you just change your mind easily i mean i tend to read the forums and first when the rework was in the ptr you said: “this rework is horrible, is not good, i dont like it”, after it was live and everyone said she was really powerfull you started with “i like the rework, it was a succeed, she is really good, i will only give her more range to her Q” and even after the nerf she still see some play in good hands, now the question you have to do to yourself is:
Do you have fun when you use her?? you said you have more kerrigan games than some people has as normal games, then, why do you use her in ranked if you think she is in a bad spot? or underperforming?
You think that because the great majority uses one talent build its the only one that is usefull? Before chromie rework everyone used bronze talons at lvl 2, i used the rewind talent for traps, i had a lot of fun and a high win rate with her in rankeds with that build at masters, so what does the talent choices that other people makes a problem for you? i played kerrigan and her Q build mixed with other talents isnt bad.
In resume, stop saying a hero is underperforming or overperforming because of people talents choices, if everyone picks A and you pick B and you have more fun and more winrate than B, is still B a bad thing because you are the only one using it?
The term is rework is disingenuous at this point. They do nothing but adjust older chars that have been left behind by power creep so that people will be tricked into finding them relevant again and either consider reinstalling HotS or not quitting.
Honestly, they’d have had to overhaul her, not just rework her, to fix all her issues. Her entire kit revolves around her pull-stun combo, with Ravage in there mainly for mobility/chase. She is incredibly one-dimensional by design, and I don’t think a rework would be sufficient to change that.
I do like her rework in the sense that shes the exact same hero with the same playstyle, I’m glad they kept that in tact. Like I said though in terms of accomplishing their goals with the rework they didn’t meet any of them and I’m just calling them out for it.
The reality is that it doesn’t matter what talent build I like, especially at GM level I need to take what is good to help my team win the game. I can’t sit here and justify taking Psyonic Pulse at 4 when it’s literally the worst performing talent on that tier now can I? I also like they added a quest for her to complete…sadly it’s also an awful talent that maths out to be worse than everything else.
The problem with Kerrigan is that none of her talents offer flexibility, they are all simply math talents which is the exact reason they wanted her to rework her in the first place because she had one viable talent build for two straight years previously.
Increase tactical depth of her abilities.
In order to get same or even higher value than before, you need to land explosion. For that you got extra Q. Its not more smash buttons and forget.
Raise the impact of Kerrigan talents on her playstyle.
Q build is totally different playstyle than “meta” build, I guess?
Increase compositions and battlegrounds where Kerrigan is powerful
She got the highest popularity since the old broken OP state (compositions), by a huge margin (both ranked and tournaments).
Infernal Shrines is still her best map (God forbid people pick Kerrigan on her best map). Still popular on ToSQ, ToD or DS (so basically rotation heavy maps). Again, her popularity confirms that.
Not sure whats the deal with #2 but rest is totally ok.
So rework didn accomplish your goals.
Her talent diversity is not great, what is not really that unusual, but its much better than before rework.
I’m not quoting their rework video as you did, I’m quoting responses from the devs via QnA and forum responses. These are things they mentioned wanting to do with Kerrigan…not mine. If you want me to link you to those responses, I’d be more than happy to.
Memes aside Alarak ceiling is soooo much higher. He linearly scales up until level 16(i think) then his potential spikes like crazy. He has insane pokes(best pokes in the game that has an additional multiplier to level scaling) and god-like team potential with his setups+silence to shutdown ultimates and save allies.
Kerrigan ceiling is really low, abysmally low. Early game she is strong then overtime she has diminishing team fight and zero poke value. Sure Kerrigan has the potential to blow up a team but it is so situational, a correctly timed focus or repositioning leads to a Kerrigan that is out of the fight.
The rework looks to give Kerrigan some survivability and followup, although I’m not sure if that is what she really needed. Ideally she should have got a D talent(toggle) that let’s her switch between close and long range, at least then she would have got a poke and a safe finisher.
At the end of the day not every hero can have it all, and there is always going to be the anomaly Alarak of mobas - the toppest of tiers. Alarak the team destroyer. Kerrigan the minion eater.
Btw
Maelstorm 55% pop / 49.2% winrate
Ultralisk 45% pop / 61.4% winrate
This basically never happens (TL, DIA/M, after nerf)
7/13/16 have some options, nothing amazing, but Im calling complete BS when it comes to no talent diversity improvement. Numbers are actually bit better in HL.
The rework did what it mean to do, the uprising issue were that they scaled too much her damage and sheild generation making her almost immortal and with an outrageous output on top of her combo.
To properly fix her, they should have just lowered the damage OR the sheild generation ratio. Instead they nerfed both, putting again her down to almost were she was before the rework itself.
Nothing more that a “math buff/nerf” will be ever done to raise/lower her performance since she is extremely one-dimensional as playstyle: two of her skills (W and E) have almost no flexibility and can be properly used only in combo and not alone, while her Q is just an engage tool (a talent build around that will bring you very little value if choosen in substitution of increasing her damage output).
Ultralisk is definitely improved I’ll give you that, even I’m picking it sometimes for the extra stun. The 20 upgrade for it became a lot worse though since you can’t re-summon it.
…and yes options are her 7/13/16 talent tiers are pretty abysmal.
7 - I feel like you can bounce back and forth between Bladed Momentum and Boundless Fury but it seems Boundless might end up being the best talent. Queen of Blades has no practically to it at all which is why it has the lowest pick rate and lowest winrate out of those three.
13 - Psionic Barrier is pointless because whatever incoming spell damage can just be absorbed regardless with Volatile Power since you have to hit a combo for it it work. Chrysalis I want so desperately to be a good talent but it’s so horrendously bad it’s upsetting. Just lower the CD of it from 90 to 70 seconds and make it canceable and it will be a good situational pick but as of right now it just makes Kerrigan a giant target.
16 - Painful spikes if still math wise the best talent on this tier, you land the combo and then finish them off were really hard hitting AAs. Unbridled Energy is good combined with Maelstrom but then you put more reliance on the combo and lose out on the finishing factor and she so needs. Mounting Potency holds no value because your time spent leaping around is after the fact you already spent your combo so again it’s practically isn’t really there.
You can’t see it just as a math talent i mean, you say that the quest talent for Q is the worst, the worst for? if you need to deal with high mobility squishy like genji or tracer, you prefer to have more damage at your W instead of your Q? you have 2 charges, its potentially 200 extra damage at one target, you are not going to land a 5 W all the times to believe that its always the best choice, also you can use the talent to get a free Q against each hero every 10s, thats 3 jumps against one hero if you want to burst against a buffed W that you will have a really hard time to land against high mobility targets.
Her Q quest is good, the ultralisk upgrade at 20 its not worst, it can be used for split push, or stopping push, giving you shield and if it is destroyed you cd is refreshed most of the time, if they dont attack it it puts a lot of lane pressure, making them have to defend the lane while you can do a 4v5, you have versatility, the point is if you know how to use it
