Kith's Zul'jin Review + Rework

General Discussion
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Hello, friends. My name is Kith and I like videogames.

When I was a kid, my dad, my brother, and I were enormous Wacraft II fans - I remember spending hours on end watching my dad play through the campaign and reading the manuals. Before Warcraft II came along, my only real exposure to Fantasy had been the Rankin/Bass animated adaptation of The Hobbit, and it was pretty jarring to go from this:

To this:

Of course, being a young boy, I was all about it. It was not only something I had never seen before, but the artwork captured my imagination. However, nothing interested me more than the Troll Axethrowers and their leader, Zul’jin. I was so used to the idea of “ranged weapons” meaning bows or guns that the idea of a unit that threw axes blew my mind, and the rogue Troll who managed to unite the warbands under his daring leadership and skill became my favorite character before the game had even finished installing.

When Zul’jin was announced for HOTS, I was beyond hyped - and that he came out on my birthday was even cooler. Today, Zul’jin is one of my favorite Heroes and my absolute go-to pick for when I have the opportunity to play a Ranged Assassin. Unfortunately, despite being one of my favorites, I have more than few problems with Zul’jin’s design - not least of which being that playing Zul’jin feels unfair.

The Review will cover Visual Design, Unit Stats, Abilities, Talents, Overall Gameplay Issues, and culminate in a Final Grade. After that, I will present the Rework aimed at solving whatever issues the Review reveals as the second post in the thread.

From a strictly HOTS-centric perspective, Zul’jin’s visual design communicates his role and functionality just fine: he’s obviously not focused on durability because he’s nearly naked, he’s bulging with muscles so he’s implied to be a damage-dealer, and he’s a Troll, so it’s implied that he’s capable of bouncing back from the brink of death (assuming you’re familiar with Warcraft Trolls). All of his attacks are axe-oriented and his buffs are Troll-sourced, so he functions exactly how you would expect with only minor prior explanation.

However, from the perspective of the greater Warcraft lore, HOTS’s Zul’jin is in name only.

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here Let me show you what I mean by that:

This is the original Zul’jin artwork from the Warcraft II Manual. Zul’jin is depicted as being somewhat skinny and gangly (compared to the tree-trunk limbs of the other characters in the same book, anyways), wearing a wrapped scarf and what appears to be leather belly-armor. He’s also notably depicted without tusks, which is a unique detail considering that almost every other Troll has them. Additionally, thanks to his appearance as a Hero Unit in the campaign, we know that his scarf is teal/cyan and his hair similarly colored:

As you may have noticed from the banner, HOTS Zul’jin looks nothing like him.

In HOTS Zul’jin is absolutely jacked, his scarf has been replaced by a long cloth mask, he’s covered in tattoos, and he’s got enormous tusks. I can give a pass on the white hair because if Xul and Cassia caught The Old™, there’s not much stopping Zul’jin from catching it too, but everything else is just… wrong.

“But Kith,” you might say, “that’s the Warcraft II Zul’jin! He appeared in World of Warcraft, so maybe that’s what his appearance is based on!”

Alright, theoretical person with your theoretical question - we’ll play that game:

WoW Zul’jin is missing an eye, an arm, the typical Troll tusks, and his patience. He’s old, angry, and has given up being a long distance axe murderer and has instead turned to using a bladed tonfa and the spirits of some animal gods that he ate. I won’t argue that there are a lot of elements that are taken from his WoW incarnation - the purple cloth mask is clearly inspired by the cloak that WoW Zul’jin wears and his tattoos and white hair are obvious imports - but they’re pretty clearly different in fundamental ways.

So if HOTS’s Zul’jin doesn’t look like his Warcraft II version or his World of Warcraft version, then what does he look like? The closest answer is the unit artwork for the Troll Berserker:

This irritates me, because Zul’jin’s flavor text in the manual stated that he was a “rogue” that united his people with inspiring leadership and daring raids, not because he was a mighty berserker (which, additionally, Berserkers were the result of Goblin Alchemists experimenting on Troll Axethrowers, not a natural evolution). Sure, Zul’jin was renowned for his deadliness with an axe, but the emphasis of his character was that he was clever and skilled, not someone on par with Garrosh in terms of Bicep Radius.

“But Kith,” you might say, “there was that other Elf vs Troll artwork! What if that was Zul’jin, and that’s what the HOTS design was based on?”

Sure, I could see it - he’s got a similar build to HOTS Zul’jin and a similar aversion to clothes, and he’s got no tusks just like the actual Zul’jin artwork. However, he’s missing the trademark scarf and, even if it was Zul’jin, the HOTS version would still be off-model for depicting him with huge tusks.

But ultimately, it doesn’t matter - Zul’jin’s HOTS design communicates what it should even if it only has a superficial resemblance to previous incarnations of the character, so it gets a good grade despite the inaccuracy.

Zul’jin is pretty tanky for a Ranged Assassin and his DPS is reasonable. Part of his Trait is that his Attack Speed increases as he takes damage, allowing him to overtake the damage output of many characters as he loses health.

Zul’jin gets an absolutely insane amount of stuff for free: a toggle, a passive, an active, an endless Basic Attack Quest, and two very powerful Quest Rewards. ONE of those effects would typically be enough for a Trait or for most characters, but Zul’jin gets SIX.

Zul’jin is touted as having a Risk vs Reward kind of playstyle, and that’s sort of true - the problem is that the risks aren’t really that great if you know what you’re doing and the rewards compound themselves very quickly, easing reliance on the “risk” portion and providing “reward” in increasing amounts. There’s also the potential to snowball out of control under the right circumstances, something that has the potential to happen at most stages of the game.

Grievous Throw is an extremely strong DPS booster and one of the primary methods by which Zul’jin can magnify his damage output: because it increases the damage taken, it factors in the damage bonuses of You Want Axe? and Berserker (which also factors in You Want Axe?, double-tapping the double-tap), effectively increasing the value of their bonuses by half as well his base damage.

Twin Cleave is a great ability - it’s effective, it has a unique mechanism, and it has a variety of applications. It’s also a solid work-around to Zul’jin’s greatest counter: Blinds.

Regeneration is a very strong ability, but it’s reasonably balanced by how easy it is to interrupt it. While it almost necessitates being out of combat to use, it’s possible to get value out of it mid-combat if used cleverly.

Taz’dingo is a very powerful and very versatile Heroic that smoothly enables and emphasizes all of Zul’jin’s strengths.

As a contrast to Taz’dingo playing to Zul’jin’s strengths, Guillotine covers Zul’jin’s weaknesses, providing him the potential to round out his damage-dealing options with a long-range, heavy burst damage attack. Although “Mage’jin” talents can improve Guillotine’s performance, all you really need for it to deal devastating damage is Amani Rage - which Zul’jin gets for free.

Boneslicer completely solves every drawback that Grievous Throw has with the added benefit of making it into an even more powerful tool for smashing apart important targets. It’s the go-to pick for maps that feature powerful Objective monsters, such as the Immortals of Battlefield of Eternity, or any of the various Bosses.

Recklessness is a very versatile Talent that benefits both of Zul’jin’s primary builds and is a solid choice regardless of the situation. While Headhunter is the stronger talent when completed, Recklessness has a much more consistent performance and is the perfect fall-back plan for when you’re facing a composition that’s unlikely to allow you to get complete value from Headhunter.

The only reason that Headhunter isn’t S is because, sometimes, it’s hard to score a kill against characters like Abathur or Medivh. Outside of those edge cases where someone stubbornly refuses to die, Headhunter is practically the default choice at 1 because of just how much it does. The damage bonus it provides works for both Physical and Ability damage and the increased Basic Attack Range is so strong, I find it difficult to put into words. It’s basically another stage of You Want Axe?, with all of the ups and downs that implies.

It’s important to mention that Troll’s Blood increases the healing of Regeneration by 25%, not increases the percentage of health restored by 25%. In clearer terms, it increases Regeneration’s healing from 30% of Maximum Health to 37.5% of Maximum Health. While it’s not the 55% of Zul’jin’s Maximum Health that some people expect, it’s still a pretty nice bump in the overall value of the talent.

However, the real meat of Troll’s Blood is in its secondary effect: Zul’jin’s Maximum Mana at Level 1 is 500, so at base stats Troll’s Blood will refund 50 Mana - a full two thirds of the cost. This makes full-channel Regenerations incredibly cheap and is, overall, a massive boost to Zul’jin’s staying power if you can take advantage of it consistently.

Additionally, since it’s based on Zul’jin’s Maximum Mana (which goes up as he gains levels), the Mana Restoration portion actually gains value as the match progresses, culminating at 69 Mana restored at Level 20 - nearly eliminating the cost of Regeneration altogether.

Voodoo Shuffle would have been okay if it was just the mini-Cleanse - it makes Zul’jin surprisingly slippery and the mere 10 Second Cooldown ensures that he’ll always have it available unless you deliberately chain CC on him.

However, for some reason, it was decided to add on the brutally powerful Cost/Cooldown reduction to Regeneration, bringing its Mana Cost to 45 and its Cooldown to 9 seconds. Troll’s Blood is nice enough, but you’re required to fully channel it to get real value out of it, making it less versatile than Voodoo Shuffle by a wide margin.

Amani Hide used to be Amani Rage, and it used to have a better grade when it was. Y’see, Amani Rage was the absolute go-to choice at this tier because it was an Offensive option (despite what the Armor may suggest) among Defensive talents, and we all know that if you’re an Assassin, you want to take as many Offensive talents as possible.

However, now that Amani Rage is part of Zul’jin’s Trait polyhedron and Amani Hide has been split off into a talent that restores Amani Rage to its former glory, there’s significantly less of a reason to dedicate a Talent to it. The primary use case of Amani Rage (the Talent) was to cut yourself before throwing Guillotine to increase its damage. However, since Amani Rage (the Ability) has a cooldown that’s shorter than Guillotine, the Cooldown Reduction that Amani Hide offers is unnecessary for that task.

The cooldown does enable more consistent use of Amani Rage if you’re into that sort of thing and the Armor decreases the Effective HP Cost of Amani Rage when used in a combat situation, so it’s not like it’s a bad talent, it’s just that it’s become massively devalued with the addition of Amani Rage to Zul’jin’s baseline.

Vicious Assault is… well, vicious. Increasing the damage bonus of Grievous Throw to 85% is utterly terrifying on its own, but pairing it with Boneslicer makes Grievous Throw into an utter monster. An 85% damage bonus (that also multiplies the bonus damage from You Want Axe? and Berserker) with a 9 second duration is almost beyond words.

Granted, you have to mark something first, but the majority of high-priority targets in HOTS aren’t known for their mobility.

I think Arcanite Axes is the best example of what’s wrong with Zul’jin on the whole: it’s a reasonable effect in a vacuum, but the issue lies with how well it directly synergizes with other effects.

For example, Headhunter and Recklessness are basically permanent damage bonuses that magnify the strength of each Arcanite Axes stack you have. Additionally, the second reward of You Want Axe? makes Twin Cleave rotate twice, doubling the value of Arcanite Axe’s damage bonus and doubling the opportunities you have to generate stacks for it.

Arcanite Axes is an excellent choice for when you’re not leaning into a full Grievous Throw build. It grants Zul’jin a reliable method of increasing his damage outside of Basic Attacks while also directly synergizing with his other damage-boosting effects, making him more versatile and resistant to being hard-countered.

Ferocity isn’t necessarily a bad talent, it’s just:

  1. Going up against Vicious Assault, which is either a tactical masterpiece or merely an incredibly strong DPS booster
  2. Going up against Arcanite Axes, which is a very safe method of increasing damage output and a good counter against Blind-heavy comps
  3. Increasing the power of something that’s already relatively sufficient as-is

I can see the theoretical value of Ferocity, especially paired with Taz’dingo, but it just doesn’t measure up to the other options.

Taz’dingo plays to every strength that Zul’jin has and has unique defensive potential.

The capstone to the “Mage’jin” build is extremely usable outside of it thanks to Amani Rage being baseline. Pair with Recklessness or Headhunter and laugh.

Makes Twin Cleave’s slow go from good to great. A 30% slow is nice, but a 50% slow is nasty, and it practically guarantees keeping targets still for easy Arcanite Axes stacks.

If you’ve got the extended range from You Want Axe?, Headhunter, or both, Eye of Zul’jin basically hands you a permanent 30% Movement Speed bonus during skirmishes or teamfights, which is important to consider when Zul’jin has no native Movement ability. It also basically ensures that nobody will be able to flee you without some form of Crowd Control (which, incidentally, Voodoo Shuffle can undo two major forms of).

Ensnare is nice for when you want to make sure someone can’t run away from your Basic Attacks or dodge your Skillshots. It’s insanely strong for what it is, but the cooldown keeps it in check. Kind of.

While an amazing effect on paper, No Mercy! is actually fairly niche. The massive damage bonus of Q Build can typically smash through whatever Armor the enemy has unless it’s over 50, and even then Armor effects in that range that last for any kind of duration aren’t very common. No Mercy! is the best option against extremely armor-reliant Heroes (Garrosh) or someone who uses any derivative of Hardened Shield, but otherwise can be skipped for the other options at this tier.

Like Arcanite Axes, Wrong Place, Wrong Time is one of those talents that seems okay in a vacuum, but actually massively magnifies Zul’jin’s power when factoring in other Quests and/or Quest Rewards, with the bonus rotation for Twin Cleave from You Want Axe? in particular.

The extra You Want Axe? progress for triggering it is, honestly, excessive. However, it’s important to note that the extra stacks are only generated if the bonus damage is triggered by a Hero - unfortunately you cannot get You Want Axe? stacks from using Wrong Place, Wrong Time on a building.

If you’re feeling lazy and don’t really want to aim Wrong Place Wrong Time, then Let The Killing Begin is the talent for you. It’s great for suddenly turning an enemy’s mistake into a disaster and the 12 second duration is pretty generous for popping a few minions and then wandering around.

If you took Taz’dingo, you probably took it to counter dive attacks and/or to guarantee that whoever you’re focusing will die at any cost. Amani Resilience makes Taz’dingo an even better counter for dives and no longer leaves Zul’jin vulnerable at the end of the duration, possibly healing him to full depending on how much work he accomplished during Taz’dingo.

Buzzsaw makes Guillotine much more versatile and vastly more dangerous while also providing Zul’jin significant anti-burst potential (because we all know you used Amani Rage before casting Guillotine).

I like Forest Medicine. It’s a cozy feeling to walk around at full health no matter what the situation is or to heal 30% of your health with no questions asked. It synergizes nicely with Troll’s Blood (making Regeneration basically free to cast) and Voodoo Shuffle (vastly increasing the healing throughput thanks to the Cooldown Reduction) and can’t really compete with the raw offensive playmaking power of the Heroic upgrades, but it’s a great general sustain option.

  • Core kit is so versatile it hurts, only genuine weakness is lack of a mobility skill
  • INSANELY prone to Snowballing and can Snowball much more safely than other Snowball characters (Alarak, Butcher)
  • Comes with an extremely powerful Quest and can get two more Quests that directly synergize with the base one
  • Has an extremely powerful Extra Ability for free and can get two more that are also extremely powerful
  • It’s possible to pick up a Quest Talent or a new Ability at every tier except for Level 16 and Level 20 and isn’t some form of gimmick build to do so
  • Fairly to extremely resistant to traditional Ranged Assassin hard counters (Blinds, Root Lockdown, 1v1 duels, Dive attacks)
  • Visual design so inconsistent with both sources that HOTS Zul’jin is basically a different character

Zul’jin has so much going on that he’s basically fully Talented right out of the box, but then you get Talents anyways and he goes crazy. Or maybe it’s that he’s fine when his Quest isn’t complete, but then you finish it and everything gets multiplied so much that his power levels get out of control.

You can just do so much with Zul’jin: pick up additional Quests and Extras to turn him into a writhing mass of stack dings and spare buttons, turn him into an objective-shattering siege machine, pick up Guillotine to put a Chromie in your pocket, or even feed the beast and go Taz’dingo to turn dives inside out.

And what’s worse is that none of that costs anything - Zul’jin can have his cake and eat it too on levels other Heroes could only dream of. The optimal “Mage’jin” build is hardly limited to his Ability Damage because You Want Axe? makes his Basic Attacks hit like a train and once he’s got his strength, there’s no losing it like there is with Butcher or Alarak.

Zul’jin is, in a word, overdesigned. He doesn’t always overperform, but it’s easy to put him in a situation where he can because he has so many tools available to him.

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All concepts discussed in this Rework are free to use by Blizzard without credit.

So now we’re on the part where I make suggestions on how to fix all of these problems that I’ve pointed out. My goals are thus:

  • Condense gameplay elements into something more cohesive
  • Reduce the potential for snowballing via Quest cross-contamination
  • Reduce the potential to resist Counters via stronger gameplay focus
  • Bring greater emphasis on the concept of Risk vs Reward
  • Provide several Nice Things™ to make up for the loss of versatility and power
  • Introduce nothing that would require the development of new assets

Notable changes (such as tooltip updates, cost/cooldown adjustments, ect) will be listed in italics.

This is because of what I did to Berserker.

I condensed Amani Rage into Berserker for several reasons:

  • The “cut and heal” concept is a much stronger incarnation of Risk vs Reward than “small health sacrifices for moderate damage bonuses”. My issue with the current Berserker toggle is that it’s very easy to get large amounts of value for very little cost, especially with high You Want Axe? bonuses.
  • The Active provides a clearer indication of when Zul’jin wants to be attacking. This goes for both the player themselves and for their opponents - it’s much easier to take note of Zul’jin suddenly losing half of his health than it is to see if his tattoos happen to be glowing.
  • The Active provides greater counterplay opportunities. Healing Reduction is now an exceptional counter instead of being something that Zul’jin only rarely has to deal with. Additionally, abilities and effects that deal additional damage based on missing health (such as Malthael’s Last Rites or Raynor’s Executioner) will gain additional value.
  • The Passive requires a greater gameplay investment from the player. Since the toggle is no longer present, if the player wants to get real value out of the passive Attack Speed bonus, they’re going to have to play very aggressively and take some damage - something that closely fits Zul’jin’s original characterization as a daring raider.
  • The fewer Extra Abilities Zul’jin has, the better. Piano Uther and Piano Brightwing got reworked out of existence for having too many buttons, so Zul’jin should get the same treatment.
  • The overall concept pays a much better homage to the regenerative properties of Trolls. Encouraging the player to cut their health often will leave Zul’jin in a state of healing more often than not, lending him a unique flavor.

Anyways. Since Berserker is losing its damage toggle effect, the Passive portion is getting a bump in strength - specifically from 1% to 1.25%.

And finally, last but not least, Zul’jin no longer has an innate quest. You Want Axe? has been divested into Talent choices at Level 1, all of which favor a specific playstyle and provide Zul’jin with multiple Nice Things™ to make up for no longer coming for free.

Given that Zul’jin is now reliant on a 10-second Amani Rage to fuel his Berserker Passive, I felt Regeneration could use a Quality of Life boost that makes undoing the health cut possible. Doing so is expensive, though - Regeneration has had its Mana Cost bumped up to 80 to compensate for the new functionality. It shouldn’t be a noticeable difference for most users, but people who use Regeneration often (likely to undo their reckless cutting) will find themselves starved of Mana quickly.

Finally, Regeneration gets a slight reduction in Cooldown, from 15 seconds to 12.

The primary focus of the Rework involves moving the power of You Want Axe? into Zul’jin’s Talents and spreading out some of his more powerful effects. As such, his Talent Tiers have been pretty heavily shuffled:

  • Level 1 Talents: Quest Tier
  • Level 4 Talents: Defensive Tier
  • Level 7 Talents: Tactics Tier
  • Level 10 Talents: Heroic
  • Level 13 Talents: Mobility Tier
  • Level 16 Talents: Boost Tier
  • Level 20 Talents: Storm Tier

While the Rework strips Zul’jin of his baseline Quest, all three of his Level 1 Talents are Quests that grant rewards at 75 and 150 stacks. With that in mind, there’s every reason to re-use the You Want Axe? UI elements.

As for visual indicators, my plan was to utilize the current “quest complete” glowing axes for the first stage of the Quest Reward and the Berserker toggle visuals for the second:

This gives all players a clear indication of Zul’jin’s escalation of power as he goes through the steps of his chosen Quest.

You Want Axe? is now completely Basic Attack focused, featuring the Nice Thing™ of increasing Basic Attack Range out of the box and continuing to do so as the quest progresses.

However, because You Want Axe? focuses entirely on Zul’jin’s Basic Attacks instead of Basic Attacks and Twin Cleave, he’s far more vulnerable to Blinds than he used to be.

Flick o’ da Wrist is the generalist Quest, playing to both the Axe’jin and Mage’jin mindsets and leaves the potential for Zul’jin to fulfill the role of Objective Smasher as well. Used properly, it has a far greater damage potential than either of its peers.

However, Flick o’ da Wrist relies entirely on landing Grievous Throw on Heroes. If you can’t land your Qs, then you’re not going to get much value from it.

Arcanite Axes is Mage’jin’s bread and butter, featuring a combination of the original Arcanite Axes’ stacking damage bonus, an altered version of Wrong Place, Wrong Time, and the original You Want Axe?'s double rotation reward. The Cooldown Reduction passive will allow the player to cast Twin Cleave more often if they can manage to hit multiple targets consistently, lending the Quest a heavy skill requirement.

However, Arcanite Axes does nothing for Zul’jin’s Basic Attacks. While his Basic Attack DPS is much better than most caster-types, it’s not impressive compared to the likes of Raynor or Valla, who also have solid caster builds that don’t require sacrificing their Basic Attack performance.

The new Troll’s Blood makes Regeneration easier to use by causing it to heal over 3 seconds instead of 4, lowering the overall amount of time required to gain maximum value and increasing the value of short-channel heals.

The new Amani Hide is a Block/Spell Shield hybrid that gives Regeneration mid-fight defensive utility. It can also provide reasonable defense against long-range skillshots fishing for kills behind walls or in retreat paths.

It’s important to note that Amani Hide’s Armor is removed after reducing damage or after Regeneration ends - it’s intended to be a safety net, not a tool for sustained defense.

Voodoo Shuffle has been both buffed and nerfed. On one hand, it now provides a short-lived Unstoppable, making it more effective against a wider variety of effects. On the other hand, its cooldown is now over four times what it used to be - and I wouldn’t hesitate to make it a full minute, either.

One of my major problems with Voodoo Shuffle is that it basically invalidates Roots to Zul’jin unless you have more than one. The major Root abilities have cooldowns equal to or greater than 10 seconds - Arthas’s Howling Blast (10 seconds), Malfurion’s Entangling Roots (14 seconds), Deckard Cain’s Scroll of Sealing (16 seconds), ect - and being able to press a button and undo them pings those distinct feelings of being unfair that I had previously mentioned.

Recklessness is fine, it just needed a new home after all of the Quests moved into Level 1 neighborhood.

Ferocity got an adjustment in strength in context of the increased value that Berserker’s Passive got, but the main attraction is how it influences Zul’jin’s Mana Sustain, giving players who keep Zul’jin alive at low health for extended periods a bit more Reward for their Risk.

Headhunter is now a gradual, additive augment to Zul’jin’s chosen playstyle instead of a win-more multiplier. Incidentally, the Takedown to Stack conversion would be retroactive, so you won’t have to worry about missing out on value by killing people too early.

It is still Taz’dingo, my dudes.

It is still Guillotine, my dudes.

Lacerate’s extra Crowd Control provides value to all three Quest builds, so there’s no reason to change it.

Eye of Zul’jin has been tweaked a bit to include all damage rather than just Basic Attacks to give it some extra usability for caster builds. As a tradeoff for the increased flexibility, its stack value has been cut from 6% to 3%, requiring twice as many stacks as before to reach the full bonus.

Ensnare is perfectly fine as it is.

No Mercy! gets a fancy Cooldown Reduction upgrade, giving it up to 6 seconds’ worth of Cooldown Reduction for non-Flick o’ da Wrist builds and adding a substantial potential for extra Grievous Throw output for Flick o’ da Wrist users.

Since Wrong Place, Wrong Time was condensed into the Arcanite Axes quest, Twin Cleave gets a new 16 to play with. Similarly to No Mercy!, Man Opener is intended to be a flexible damage booster that can provide value to all builds.

Let The Killing Begin is fine for what it is and doesn’t need changes. It synergizes well with both You Want Axe? and Flick o’ da Wrist, although it can also provide value to an Arcanite Axes build that wants some extra juice on their Basic Attacks in the event of being frequently Silenced.

Amani Resilience is unchanged. While still very strong, making Zul’jin less versatile by focusing his builds and damage types makes Amani Resilience significantly less dangerous.

Buzzsaw is still good and still the same 'cause it’s not too strong.

Condensing an adjusted version of Voodoo Shuffle into Forest Medicine makes it much more competitive with the other Level 20 Talents. It doesn’t have the same level of playmaking potential that the Heroic upgrades do, but it’s a very powerful sustain tool that will undoubtedly see a great deal of use.

Shifting You Want Axe? and various Talents into three different Quests forces players to choose what they want to be good at instead of being able to be good at everything and snowballing. At the same time, having those three distinct Quests allows Zul’jin to get his hands on the Nice Things™ that make the various Quest Rewards feel distinctive and impactful.

Additionally, the Rework puts a much greater emphasis on Risk vs Reward - not only by reworking Berserker’s Active portion, but also in a meta sense by making the player go all-in on their chosen playstyle via the various Quests.

Overall, I feel I met my stated goals rather well. I hope you liked it and, if you didn’t, I hope you’ll tell me why.

Thank you for reading. :wave:

hey blizz if you hire me you can pay me in balance patches!!! real money!!! there planar, you happy now? : P

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This would take a very long time to stack up to 75, but if you hit 75 you have the ability to completely melt everything. A bit too polarizing. Especially with your level 16 that boosts the duration.

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I was very, very confused how you manged to get your hands on the previous incarnation of that quest until I actually looked and realized that I had posted the wrong version of the Rework.

The following changes have been made to the rework post:

I agree that the original draft had too much of a power spike, which is why I had intended these changes to be part of the final proposal. Unfortunately, mistakes like these are easy to make when you only have one Draft Preview space to work with and your only backups are on Notepad.

5

New Zul’jin level 30 talents.

They see me [D]

  • They hatin’
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I generally like seeing these but personally, I don’t see much wrong with zuljin in the first place, so I don’t really have much to review. The quests are interesting but oversaturating a hero with quests can be frustratingly polarizing, you either do too well and your quests snowball you into winning without many counters or you don’t get quests done and you’re pitiful.

Similar to the KTZ or butcher situation (butcher definitely being on the more polarizing end) it’s not fun having your entire purpose being based on quests, that being said, zuljin is as you said; doesn’t cost anything to get his quests out there.
Zuljin being a quest assassin that can do alright without his quest, seems like a win win to me. Adding more quests seems redundant and ironically, as much as I like questers and how well zuljin does with and without, I don’t think adding more quests is a good idea. It’s probably just me and I don’t have a very solid reason for or against it, I just don’t like it. Soz.

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First of all, a thought:

Why is it a review AND a rework thread?

When I’m reading all about how he looked in the canon and how he was described, I’m thinking: What does this matter? Why am I reading this? What am I supposed to discuss about that?

Others and me as well probably also think “why should we care about what this guy thinks about the canon vs current zuljin?”

A lot of people might just go CBA when they’re reading all that as they have no idea when it gets to the point.

Furthermore reading the review on his abilities is also quite unnecessary for the rework part. The ones who you would want to discuss with, the ones that know and understand zuljin, shouldn’t need to read about his basic abilities and what they do and what not.

When it comes to the rework, I think the most important part to begin with, is the “Why does Zul’jin NEED a rework”?

For that you explain zuljin as a Hero that has lots of counters that he can counter-counter by picking the correct talents and that he is borderline OP because he’s very snowbally and easy to start snowballing with and unstoppable once he starts snowballing.

I feel like this isn’t true.
He can either be dived upon or bursted down. Since Zuljin lacks proper defensive measures aside from a mostly out of combat self heal and talented slow/root removal and a net, so is he relatively easy to harrass out of a fight, to some extent.
His only other defensive mechanic is his damage in itself, since his strategy is to take someone down before they take him down. This is what makes him pretty strong in 1v1’s.
But this aspect is countered by a dedicated attack on him or heroes that can avoid his damage.

His quest leveling is also easy to counter. The simplest counter is avoiding unnecssary engagements and focusing Zuljin so he doesn’t have the leeway to just wail on the tank, getting stacks.

And the obvious counter of Blinds, since it negates him getting quest stacks, which inhibits both AA build and magejin, since he’ll have a harder time getting the double-W upgrade.

This is why he is so strong on ARAM, since you can’t avoid fighting, so him stacking is inevitable and the enemy will often be clumped in the same direction allowing for easy level 7 W stacks… Even if the enemy has blinds, there’ll be enough fighting that he wont care and he’ll get mad stacks on W and get early double W that he can ignore blinds.

So if you’re facing a team of people who avoid unnecessary fights, focus Zuljin and throw blinds at him, his strength is significantly reduced.

This makes him a hero that requires good positioning and a good team to perform well on. He only snowballs if he has been allowed to stack like crazy, at which point it’s more of the enemy’s fault at not playing against Zuljin correctly.

Also, I find that a rework should only be something that should be done if the hero is way too obnoxious/frustrating (Like how many perceived Chromie Time Trap build to be)or if the Hero is too easily countered by the majority of the cast in an easy manner, such as Chen.
Or if the hero’s base kit is essentially just boring.

I don’t feel like Zuljin is any of that. He feels pretty balanced. You seldom see anyone crying for Zuljin nerfs either or for him to be reworked or have talent changes.

Furthermore I was not aware that Voodoo Shuffle removes AA-speed reducing talents,
The talent doesn’t really mention this and I haven’t tested it myself, so … are you sure it removes AA-speed reducing functions?

Regarding his Grevious Throw Build
I haven’t played with Grevious Throw build much myself. I usually only go for it if I want to counter an armor-heavy hero, like you mentioned, Garrosh, or Cassia, or others, with the level 16 talent.

I feel that Grevious Throw builds too much around ‘focusing a single target’. All of the talents go into putting the hurt on the targets you hit with Q, as opposed to regular AA build where he can shuffle around who he is hitting and then use Grevious Throw to try to finish someone or scare someone away with the increased damage
Which also makes you lose a lot of combat power if you miss your Q for whatever reason

Comments on the rework talents

As for your 3 new level 1 talents, they feel very varied in power and usability. I think if that went live, the vast majority would pick the Twin Cleave, simply because it’ll be much much much easier to stack. Both because it can, in the absolute optimal cast, instantly grant 10 quest dings, as well as how you can stack it with a very hit-and-run strategy with very little risk to oneself, not much different to how you would stack the level 7 quest once you’re done with the baseline quest in the current zuljin

Your new level 4 “Troll’s Blood” seems a bit redundant. You use Regeneration when you’re in a safe situation, so reducing it’s duration is somewhat unnecessary. At best it’ll be used to leave a fight quickly when low on health, heal up, go back in, and save a tiny bit of time doing so. But you’re already losing a lot of time just by moving to a place where you’re safe to regenerate it up without it being interrupted.

It should probably also increase the overall healing by some amount.

Amani hide also seems too weak in my eyes.

One stack of magic block or physical block wont make much of a difference, especially if it forces one to use one’s out-of-combat selfheal. I think the armor could stay for 1 second after being cancelled, whether by choice or by damage

As for the new Voodoo Shuffle, it feels very contradictory

You preferably shouldn’t use your offensive-health reducing ability when you need to go on the defensive and you preferably shouldn’t waste your defensive ability when you intend to go on the offensive by reducing one’s health.

“Oh no, I’m getting caught by the enemy tanks and I’m about to get stunned… time to remove half of my health for a while!”

If you misjudge them throwing the stun and they didn’t, then 0.5 a second later you get stunned by with much less health for a while.

I’m getting pretty tired and I need to sleep, so I’ll end this now, but I’ll continue tomorrow later in the day.

2 Likes
8

Like I said in the Review, it’s not so much that Zul’jin is overpowered or underpowered, but that he’s overdesigned: he has so many things (and he can pick up so much more). For example:

  • You Want Axe? does a lot. It buffs his Basic Attacks significantly, then gives him extra range (further buffing his Basic Attacks), then makes his Ability Damage/Crowd Control tool twice as strong (which makes him more resistant to Blinds, his primary counter).
  • The Trait Polyhedron also does a lot. Berserker’s Passive is great, but the toggle is amazing - it interacts directly with You Want Axe?'s damage bonus, gets multiplied by the damage vulnerability from Grievous Throw, and is empowered by the Passive increasing Attack Speed (multiplying the impact of the Attack Damage effect further). And oh and by the way, the increased Attack Speed makes You Want Axe? easier to stack.
  • Then you’ve got Amani Rage which does more or less the same thing that Berserker’s Active does, except on a greater scale, so now you don’t have to choose between small health sacrifices and large health sacrifices - you can have whichever suits the situation instead of having to plan ahead or take risks.

That’s a lot of synergy before you even get to the character’s Basic Abilities or Talents, which only complicate things by adding more multipliers and more versatility and more methods to overcome counters.

I’m not sure if you’re talking about the current Zul’jin (who can have three Quests at once - You Want Axe?, Headhunter, and Arcanite Axes) or the Reworked Zul’jin (who can only have one Quest, but has three to choose from).

He doesn’t do “alright” without his quest, though - You Want Axe? is integral to his performance. There’s an enormous threat difference between a Zul’jin who has it and a Zul’jin who doesn’t.

It’s not adding more quests, it’s replacing already existing ones (and then restricting them so you can only have one instead of up to three). I respect your right to not like something “just because”, but the reasoning you’re using to justify it isn’t accurate.

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narha i love you for writing all of this feedback, i just want you to know

A few reasons.

  1. I tend to believe that if you’re going to point out a problem, then it’s also your responsibility to offer a solution method. If the authority in question chooses to not do as you suggest, then at least you tried to solve the issue instead of merely complaining.
  2. An in-depth review is a good way to prove that you understand the subject if you don’t have a reputation to fall back on. While I love HOTS very much and I consider myself to be pretty okay at it, I’m hardly a recognizable name as far as skilled players go. Detailing every part of a character shows that, at the very least, I can prove that I know how they function - something that tends to reduce the complaints that I clearly don’t know what I’m talking about.
  3. The Review portion can serve as a teaching tool to help players unfamiliar with the subject. While it’s hardly a detailed gameplay guide, pointing out the strengths of a character and why they’re strong can go a long way towards building a better understanding of the Hero in question.

Because the entire point of HOTS is playing as specific, recognizable characters from the various Blizzard properties. If a hero isn’t characterized or designed properly in the translation from their source material to HOTS, then the core premise of HOTS isn’t being done proper justice.

In short, it’s wrong, and therefore worth pointing out.

Because you clicked the collapsible and subjected yourself to it. I very clearly indicated that all of my complaints about Zul’jin’s appearance had no impact on gameplay, and I went so far as to shove those complaints under an optional section. If you’re upset about the time you spent reading about the artistic inaccuracies, you have only yourself to blame.

That’s up to you. It’s unlikely to change, and I’m doubtful I’ll be able to get enough support going for a Classic Zul’jin skin. This is a great example of my previous response to your question about why it’s specifically a Review and Rework thread - I didn’t offer any kind of solution to my complaints, so now you’re left wondering what to do about a problem.

Hopefully because you care about my opinions. I mean, the fact that you took the time to read the thread and then pop open an initially hidden and optional part of the thread for extra reading implies that you care.

I’m aware. That’s why I link to the second post so people who don’t need that information (either to prove that I know what I’m talking about or to learn about the Hero in general) can skip it entirely.

Your feeling about that being untrue is correct, because that’s not my position. My position is, in the plainest and most simple terms:

Zul’jin has too much and can get more.

His trait is loaded with a whopping six unique effects (three of which are Quest-related), his Talents make him a very versatile damage dealer, he can become very resistant to most of his counters, it’s very possible for him to scale out of control under the correct circumstances, and his extra scaling has no way to be denied once he has it.

Now, you are correct that one of my concerns is that he can snowball, but my actual problem with Zul’jin is the big picture. That’s why in the Conclusion, I state the following:

It’s not just about snowballing. It’s about everything.

Harassing Zul’jin out of a fight gets a lot harder once he gets his extra range. 75 Basic Attacks against enemy Heroes isn’t that hard to accomplish, and almost every game with evenly balanced teams and no outliers like Abathur or Medivh result in every player dying at least once, giving a fair chance for Headhunter to enter the fray as well. 7.7 range gives Zul’jin a lot of leeway on positioning and allows him to attack many characters very safely.

Also, diving Zul’jin gets a lot harder when he takes Taz’dingo. If your diver lacks lockdown (Greymane, Illidan, Furnace Blast Butcher), then Zul’jin can just become Unkillable and potentially turn the dive inside out. It’s pretty hard to use Go For The Throat when Zul’jin decided to take advantage of having no health and 2.0 Attack Speed to murder you. Granted, you can just chain CC him to prevent Taz’dingo, but that’s hardly a specific counter to Zul’jin himself.

He also has Taz’dingo as a defensive mechanic, as I noted above. Dedicating efforts to eliminating him only works if those efforts have a way to deal with Taz’dingo or a way to endure his damage output until it ends.

“Just don’t engage” isn’t very viable if Zul’jin’s team is enabling aggressive behavior. Also, y’know, he’s ranged, so your teammates are going to have to respect a 5.5 radius bubble around Zul’jin for a fair portion of the game to make that particular tactic work - something that’s incredibly unlikely.

This is true! However, Arcanite Axes and Guillotine are still pretty dang strong, and if Zul’jin manages to get the double rotation (which isn’t likely to be impossible unless you’re facing 3 or more Heroes with Blinds), that’s an enormous power spike.

This goes for most - if not all - heroes, though.

I disagree. Zul’jin generates stacks too easily for it to be entirely the enemy team’s fault. You cannot reasonably expect an entire team to focus on denying Basic Attacks from a single player unless you’re in some kind of league.

And that’s your prerogative. Honestly, were HOTS a game that I was actually working on, you’d probably see me focusing on characters that are in desperate need of updates more often than improving “acceptable” into “better”. However, since the HOTS team does a pretty good job of putting out the big fires, I have the luxury of picking my battles and flexing my design skills.

That said, I didn’t do the Rework for giggles - I do genuinely believe Zul’jin would benefit from it. While his current performance is fine, his gameplay is loaded down with a bunch of unnecessary junk that could be drastically condensed into a better experience.

I would’ve told you an hour ago that it absolutely did without question, but after popping into Try Mode, apparently it doesn’t. I swear I’ve used it to that end and gotten the desired effect in the past, but I don’t know if I was just being misled by Zul’jin’s substantial Attack Speed or if I’m just remembering wrong. I will amend the relevant section, thank you for pointing that out for me.

Give it a spin on BoE. It’s nuts what it’ll do to an Immortal.

This is true. The Q Build is pretty reliant on you hitting those skillshots, and if you don’t, well… you’ve missed out on a lot of power. That’s fine, though, because it’s about the only thing keeping Q Build balanced.

I’ll cover your Rework feedback later - I’m pretty interested in getting some sleep right about now.

1 Like
10

Well. You put in a lot of effort into working this out, but I think zuljin is perfectly fine as he is. I think the balance is OK.
And I don’t think his ult is that strong. A decent anubarak or most other bruisers can easily outplay it…

You say you can’t expect an entire team to deny stacks? Ridiculous. That is the thing that is wrong with HOTS in general. Compare it to other MOBAs and you’ll see that HOTS already has a very low skill level in mechanics with its players… In every MOBA you will have noob stomper champions that are a problem for beginners but not for experienced players.

11

About the visuals: thanks goodness that Zul uses his “prime” form and not his old, shattered form (which btw -unlike most trolls- unable to regenerate).

About the reason for the rework: I don’t see why it’s a problem that Zul’s kit is “overloaded”. The thing that he has a:

  • baseline quest in trait
  • a passive
  • an activeable “passive”
  • an extra (key1) ability

I don’t want Zul to be changed much.

12

You’re right that his balance is OK. His design is not.

Which is true for most Assassins. However, most Assassins don’t have an ultimate that’s basically a guaranteed death-or-retreat for, say, a Greymane dive.

You can certainly expect an entire team to play cautiously around Zul’jin, but expecting the entire team to avoid getting hit by his Basic Attacks period? That’s excessive. There’s still four other players on his team that can create opportunities for him to stack.

Don’t get me wrong, I am totally okay with an older Zul’jin - I just wish that HOTS Zul’jin was closer to either design visually, particularly in his manner of dress or in the manner of not having tusks.

The primary issue is that it obfuscates his performance and makes properly evaluating his balance very difficult. I’ll compare the Basic Attack DPS calculations of several characters to show what I mean:

These are all pretty simple calculations. Then Zul’jin appears!

And remember, M is an arbitrary value that can be anywhere from 1 to 99 when the DPS calculation starts.

Also, for every Basic Attack calculation that includes D as a value, M increases by 2 and you need to make a new calculation for the next Basic Attack.

Additionally, M can be influenced by another ability with an arbitrary effect based on Zul’jin’s Current Health when used (Amani Rage).

Furthermore, E is another arbitrary value that can increases by 1 per 5 Basic Attacks and requires new calculations to be made.

On top of all that, this is not including Talents! Sure, you can muddy the waters by adding Falstad’s Seasoned Marksman or Greymane’s Wizened Duelist to make their calculations more complex, but Zul’jin’s purely out-of-the-box situation is more complicated than that and has the potential to get worse by including the 2% to 10% damage bonus from Headhunter or the contextual 20% damage bonus from Recklessness.

That is why it’s a problem.

What’s funny is that, if the Rework went forward, he wouldn’t really play that differently. All of his core abilities and talent functionalities are still there, you just have to be a bit more picky in what you end up using.

13

He’s not old. White hair =/= being old.
They just chose that haircolour for his base colourtint, which looks better imo than the mosshair he had.

And I like that he has tusks.
And the scarf would make him look like a male troll Mikasa (from Attack on Titan), lol.

14

hello again friend i am risen

Usability, certainly - they’re designed to enable very specfic playstyles, all three of which are very different. I disagree that they’re varied in power, though - I feel that their cost/benefits are all relatively equal to one another.

Maybe. I would personally gravitate towards You Want Axe? because I looooove increased Basic Attack ranges. I wouldn’t take Arcanite Axes unless the enemy team is super heavy on burst that made sustained attacking extremely dangerous or if they had a ton of Blinds.

Troll’s Blood provides two benefits:

  1. It allows Zul’jin to return to the action 25% faster after retreating to heal, which is a HUGE difference.
  2. It increases the value of an incomplete Regeneration by 25%.

Increasing the overall healing would multiply its strength, something that I’m trying to deliberately avoid.

Tell you what, I’ll meet you halfway and tack on a 0.5 second duration so something like Living Bomb doesn’t eat the effect and leave Zul’jin vulnerable to the impending Flamestrike.

That’s the point. Zul’jin is supposed to be a Risk vs Reward kind of character, and right now there’s basically no Risk involved in Voodoo Shuffle for a pretty significant Reward. I jacked up both aspects of Risk (being tied to a health cut) and Reward (providing Unstoppable instead of just canceling Roots and Slows) to make it more thematically appropriate and more tactically interesting.

15

I didn’t say he was old, I said that I’m okay with him being old. As in the concept of it doesn’t bother me if that’s what they decided to go for.

Also, I like the teal-on-green color scheme - it’s a rarely seen color scheme and therefore much more interesting to me than the Thanks Doc that he became.

I don’t - not when he was deliberately depicted without them multiple times. It’d be like Raynor or Uther showing up without a beard.

So?

16

So I’m currently a Zul’jin main, so I’mma gonna throw in my two cents (okay, more like 5 bucks) on this too.

Arguably, it’s actually only 4. Berserker’s active and passive, Amani Rage, and You Want Axe? is like Thrall’s Crash Lightning and Windfury Weapon with incremental rewards and then larger ones at certain thresholds. However, this is still significantly more than almost any other heroes, as Crash Lightning and Windfury Weapon both require talents, rather than being baseline like Axe?.

That being said, these do not actually make Zul’jin a monster like one might assume. The reason for this is that you have to balance each aspect against almost every other.

Do you want more damage at greater risk to yourself by popping Amani Rage and Berserker at the same time, or only just one? Or would you rather wait on both because you’re already fairly low on health?

Do you want to get kills for your team by burning down an enemy with Berserker active at the same time as Amani Rage? Or would you rather deal less damage in exchange for hopefully stacking faster?

It’s very easy for someone to improperly balance these 3 aspects (Amani Rage, Berserker, and Axe?) if they don’t have much experience with Zul’jin, and even more experienced ones like myself trip up fairly often in the thick of things.

Zul’jin is very high-risk/high-reward early game. If you play poorly, you can fall behind and struggle to catch up, as much of Zul’jin’s power lies in his quest. His talents cannot make up entirely for not completing Axe? in a timely manner, and even many non-late-game heroes can outpace him until he does.

However, if he plays well and picks the right build for a given situation he can min/max that risk/reward aspect to an absurd degree. Axe?'s first reward grants extra attack range on top of the extra attack damage, which subtracts from the risk. Throw in Headhunter’s own extra attack range, and his basic attack range gets longer than release Hanzo’s.

Again, that requires that you play well early-game and balance out the risk and reward, but if you do well enough the risk shrinks and the reward grows.

I would strongly recommend triggering Berserker even when low on health while attacking a marker target because of this multiplicative effect. Turn it off once you’ve made your 3 attacks, though.

I do think you’re overestimating this ability a little bit at baseline. It not only hits 2 targets, but it only grants that extra damage on the next 3 attacks. Unless you get Boneslicer for the unlimited attacks, this is ability is useful almost exclusively as fairly quick burst damage or zoning threat, not overpowering sustained damage.

It is very tricky to get the hang of, though. It’s a very counter-intuitive skillshot for most people used to playing with linear skillshots or circular AoEs.

For example, it instantly gives a pulse of healing equal to 7.5% of ZJ’s max health. I’ve just barely gotten away from pursuing enemies by tapping this key briefly then resuming running. Enemies will underestimate the additional damage they need to do to finish you, and be confused by where the extra ~150 health you still have left came from.

This is especially effective against poke damage meant to finish you off from afar and sustained damage in general.

It works best with Zul’jin’s standard basic attack or Grievous Throw builds, obviously, but can still be useful with Twin Cleave build, especially at level 20 with Amani Resilience.

This is a great ability if your team lacks finishing power. If you get good with this ability, you can annihilate most, if not all, of an enemy hero’s remaining health. This ludicrous level of burst damage makes this great for both finishing fleeing targets and forcing enemies to reconsider their positioning.

It also has a very short cooldown for an ult, only 40 seconds (note that this has not been fixed on the HotS wiki article for Zul’jin), so don’t be afraid to use Guillotine to clear stacked minion or merc waves or to chip off that last bit of a Fort/Keep’s health if you don’t think you’ll be teamfighting in the next ~30 seconds.

Also, that last bit about Amani Rage is huge. Because Guillotine’s damage scales at a rate of y = (x^2)/50, where x is % of health missing, using Amani Rage at low health grants significantly more damage than using it at high health. Using Amani Rage at 100% health increases Guillotine’s damage by a flat 50%, but using AR while already at 50% health increases Guillotine’s damage by 112.5%.

Basically, whenever you go to cast Guillotine, always cast Amani Rage right beforehand, no exceptions.

For the talents from here on, I’ll only be touching on the ones I have something to add, emphasize, or disagree with.

This talent deserves a much higher grade than C, especially considering that you gave Voodoo Shuffle an S.

Guillotine’s cooldown is actually 40 seconds, not 30, so the cooldowns are not actually synced up. Picking Amani Rage for the lowered cooldown actually syncs them up better now, so you can use Amani Rage once for non-Guillotine purposes and then again for Guillotine 20 seconds later as Guillotine comes off its own cooldown.

Amani Rage allows for a sudden burst of attack speed, but it also gives your opponent a chance to burst you down before you fully heal.

Amani Hide helps offset this with its 15 armor bonus, which increases Zul’jin’s effective health pool by about 18%, reducing the negative impact of that health loss. Instead of losing 50% of his current health, it’s more like he loses 32% of his current health, which is a pretty significant improvement.

There’s a good reason this talent has consistently had a higher winrate than both Troll’s Blood and Voodoo Shuffle over the past couple weeks.

This needs a higher grade as well. Being able to run down enemies trying to escape is huge on a hero with otherwise no mobility whatsoever.

One of Zul’jin’s biggest issues with his basic attack builds is that he has trouble finishing off enemies due to his relative lack of burst damage. He can get them low, but they’ll usually notice and begin running away. Being able to run them down for the finishing blows is a huge improvement on that.

That’s all the big ones I can see.

After reading through the rework, all I can say is nope. Zul’jin is in a pretty good place. A couple talents could use some tweaking, like No Mercy, Troll’s Blood, and Forest Medicine, and he could use a third level 20 talent option, but a full overhaul like what you’re suggesting is neither necessary nor healthy for ma boi ZJ.

17

I look forward to it!

Raynor’s increased Basic Attack Range was a Trait all on its own for the longest time, and it was a minor effect that had a big impact. Every facet of Zul’jin’s Trait is either a minor or major effect that has a big impact on his gameplay (including a range buff just like Jimmy had), so I feel it’s fair to count each part as its own effect and leave the headcount at 6. I’d be willing to go as low as 5, considering that Amani Rage is literally useless without Berserker’s Attack Speed bonus or Guillotine, but that’s still way more than any other hero gets.

I don’t think I’m overestimating it at all. Three hits of a 50% total damage boost is very, very strong - especially given how it interacts with all of the other multipliers.

Most skillshots in HOTS require some form of “getting the hang of it”, so I don’t think that’s much of a point.

I fix!

While this is true, the primary use case for Amani Rage is still empowering Guillotine - something that the base form can do very easily without needing Amani Hide in the mix.

Fair enough. I’ll bump up the grade and amend that section.

I don’t see Eye of Zul’jin as being significantly more powerful than any of the other talents at the tier. You’re not wrong that it’s very good, but it’s also just as good as a 50% slow and/or gaining access to a Root.

It would be really nice if you explained what aspects you felt weren’t necessary instead of merely saying “nope” - maybe explain what you feel works about the current design and/or why you feel it’s “not healthy” to change.

18

The slow and the root are temporary, so you need follow-up burst damage to get any value.

However, if you’ve gone for his basic attack builds you won’t be able to deal that burst damage too well, as you’ve focused on sustained damage.

Eye of Zul’jin allows Zul’jin to constantly run down any enemy without mobility available on hand. It can be constantly refreshed, giving him a chance to get real value out of his basic attack DPS.

Basically, you’re breaking the, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” rule all across the board.

Zul’jin has a couple issues, specifically Troll’s Blood (which is mostly pointless when compared to Voodoo Shuffle and Amani Hide), No Mercy (which is so niche I almost never pick it even against Garrosh, it just isn’t worth passing up WPWT), and Forest Medicine (which is completely pointless to pick compared to Buzzsaw and Amani Resilience).

While I like the proposed fix for Forest Medicine and the direction you’re taking Troll’s Blood, I don’t like that you’ve practically replaced all of his talents and his trait entirely. You’ve less reworked Zul’jin and more recycled him into an entirely new hero, with only some of the most basic components left over. Changes that broad are a huge no-no in my book because they make the character way too different from how they used to play, which is something that should be avoided in reworks whenever possible.

Then there are the specifics of the changes, which are a whole other mess.

The change to his trait effectively removes the balancing act of using Berserker alone, Amani Rage alone, both, or neither by removing one of the active effects entirely and massively buffing the remaining active and the passive. You’ve dumbed him down way too far with this change.

You’ve also talent-gated Zul’jin’s most interesting mechanic by making You Want Axe? a talent.

Having 3 quest talents at the same level is something I’m not a fan of, especially so early on in the game where they effectively lock you into a specific playstyle rather than allowing you to be more adaptable.

I’ve already covered why Amani Hide is fine as it is. Your change seems like it’s basically a really brief spell shield I have to waste my heal for.

Tying Voodoo Shuffle to Amani Rage’s old effect basically means you’re letting the enemy team kill you faster. If you’d be in danger because you’re CCed, you’re going to be in just as much or more danger if you throw away half your health to stop being CCed. I can think of no time I’d use a 0.5 second self-Cleanse for the Cleanse alone if it also makes it 100% easier for the enemy team to kill me.

You nerfed Ferocity’s value as a talent. Ferocity currently increases Berserker’s attack speed bonus from 1% to 1.4% per 1% of missing health, which is a 40% increase (as its description says). Your version only increases the bonus from 1.25% to 1.5% per 1% of missing health, which is only a 20% increase.

The Eye of Zul’jin change is a big nerf, as it is now harder to stack with basic attacks and is not as useful as Lacerate for his Twin Cleave playstyle.

No Mercy’s change is a nerf even to the already hyper-niche talent and a huge nerf to his Grievous Throw build overall. You’ve moved one of the main reasons to pick Boneslicer, its piercing effect, all the way to 16, and the new CDR effect you’ve added is useless considering that your Flick o’ da Wrist quest already increases GT’s duration to 1 second longer than its cooldown.

Man Opener’s armor reduction duration would likely not get much value on Zul’jin due to his relatively low burst damage, especially with You Want Axe?'s range bonus being necessary for him to reach targets near the apex of Twin Cleave, creating conflict between his TC and basic attack builds.

Overall, the only things I actually like about your rework concept is the idea behind the change to Troll’s Blood (the reduced duration is a clever touch, but probably needs to be increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds) and the buff to Forest Medicine making it actually worth picking compared to his ult upgrades.
My opinion on everything else varies from, “This isn’t really necessary…” to, “Absolutely not.”

19

Yes, I know. I typically use it whenever I play Zul’jin, so I’m very familiar with how it works. That’s primarily out of a personal preference, though - I don’t consider any of the other options at that tier to be stronger or weaker than Eye, just to have different applications.

Last Hitting wasn’t broken, and yet it was fixed.
Individual Levels weren’t broken, and yet they were fixed.
Tower Ammo wasn’t broken, and yet it was fixed.
Paino Uther and Piano Brightwing weren’t broken, and yet they were fixed.
Raynor wasn’t broken, and yet he was fixed.

I could keep going, but I feel like six examples is enough for now. My ultimate point is that design problems are not necessarily balance problems, and you yourself admitted that Zul’jin gets more by default than any other character:

In this instance, given the intended role of Zul’jin’s design and the greater context of HOTS in general, I believe that Zul’jin has a design issue - and that belief is backed up by the evidence that I have provided (both in the Review itself and in some of the replies I’ve posted, particularly HAVE LAYER).

Unfortunately, there is no hard and fast rule about what constitutes a design issue - they can be (and often are) relative and subjective, meaning that everyone’s view of what is a problem (and what should be done to solve those problems) differs. There’s even an immediate example available: there are just as many praising the Chen Rework as there are demanding it be reverted.

The moral of the story is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” doesn’t really fly as a complaint. Designs can almost always be improved upon, and there’s nothing wrong with trying to make things better.

No, I haven’t. His core kit, aside from the removal of the Berserker Toggle and an adjustment to the Mana Cost/Cooldown of Regeneration, is identical. On top of that, many of the currently existing effects are still in existence or only slightly modified. Out of the entire Rework, the only genuinely new effects are:

  1. Having to choose a focused quest instead of getting one that does a bit of everything
  2. Flick o da Wrist’s Passive enabling Grievous Throw to be activated by Basic Abilities
  3. Arcanite Axes’ Cooldown Reduction
  4. Troll’s Blood
  5. Amani Hide
  6. Voodoo Shuffle
  7. Headhunter’s Takedown to Stacks conversion
  8. No Mercy’s Cooldown Reduction
  9. Man Opener’s Armor Reduction

Past character reworks have been just as or more drastic (Abathur, Kerrigna, Chen, even Zul’jin himself).

Given HOTS’s history of doing exactly that, I’m not worried about it.

I don’t appreciate them being referred to as a “mess”. I can live with you disagreeing with them, but it’s pretty rude for you to disparage the work that I’ve done.

That’s one way to look at it. Another way to look at it the Rework forces you to carefully balance how much damage you intentionally take (aka Risk) to generate increased Attack Speed (aka Reward) instead of being able to more or less safely manage it yourself by alternating between big steps and little steps with Berserker and Amani Rage.

You’ll have to clarify what you consider to be Zul’jin’s “most interesting mechanic”.

That’s part of the Risk vs Reward concept, just on a meta level - you are taking the Risk of locking yourself into a specific playstyle and you will be Rewarded by using that playstyle effectively.

Yes, the goal is to give it some level of combat utility as a panic button to block powerful attacks. It’s basically designed to enable that in-combat Regeneration usage you mentioned previously:

The 50 Armor would go a long way towards allowing Zul’jin to survive something like Flamestrike or Pyroblast, for example.

It depends entirely on when and how you use it and what Heroic you took. Taz’dingo in particular would get absolutely amazing value out of it.

That’s one way to look at it. You could also say that I increased the end value of a Ferocity user by 10%.

Regardless of what was done to it, it’s still a more than viable pick, so what does it matter?

Is that really such a problem to you when you consider Eye of Zul’jin to be so much better than the other two options at 13?

Yes, I did - and I did so intentionally. Flick o’ da Wrist has absolutely insane damage potential against both Heroes and Objectives, so I felt that making Grievous Throw significantly easier to land was something that could wait until 16.

Edit: Planar made a good point about the Armor Ignoring properties not necessarily being beneficial in all cases, so I put it back into No Mercy! and put the piercing back into Flick o’ da Wrist.

Nah. There are a variety of uses for it:

  • Allowing players to regain the cooldown of Grievous Throw if they hit the wrong target (like say a Tank instead of a Support or Assassin) or just spread more marks to create more targets of opportunity
  • Allowing players the opportunity to supplement their DPS with the damage from Grievous Throw (made more useful with Flick o’ da Wrist allowing Basic Abilities to trigger the damage bonus as well)
  • Allowing players to easily refresh marks against targets (although this isn’t SUPER useful given the increased duration making this unlikely to be necessary)

I think you’re confusing this with Wrong Place, Wrong Time on some level - Man Opener doesn’t require an enemy to be in a specific spot, just get hit by Twin Cleave in the first place. Man Opener would be plenty viable for You Want Axe? builds regardless of range, and while Flick o’ da Wrist’s Armor-ignoring properties would conflict with Man Opener a bit, it’s not like -20 Armor isn’t useful to the four other members of your team.

Most reworks have not been, strictly speaking, necessary - and they happened anyways - so I’m not really worried about such a complaint.

I’m not really sure I can do anything about your “absolutely not” stance, though - a couple of your positions have been inconsistent or contradictory, so I’m starting to think that you’re opposed to the concept of a reworked Zul’jin because you’re comfortable with how he is rather than actively disliking the concepts I’ve put forth.

20

not hired!
That is something that might actually have legal issues “paying” you in that way.
Figuring out how to “reward” someone who assists but doesn’t actually work for you is apparently complex enough to not have an easy solution.

Anyhow, this is a post I’ll actually quote and respond and stuff…

Mostly my opinion overall “Why”. The hero is fine. Minor nerfs to a solid kit to bring him into a more balanced state seems like a smarter thing to do.

But, ignoring that and looking at the changes will be tomorrow (for me!)