I figured the small text and lack of proper sentence grammar was a clear enough indicator of a joke. Although I certainly wouldn’t say no if Blizzard extended me an offer…
Because the design itself could be better, something that minor action can not and will not solve. Number tweaks will not change that he can have up to seven different variables influencing his Basic Attack DPS at any given time, or that he can have three different Quests at once (all of which work off of each other), or he can have three Extra Buttons (which was why Paino Uther and Piano Brightwing got reworked), and so on and so forth and all of the points I’ve already covered in the OP and in replies.
Don’t misunderstand: I do not think that Zul’jin is an immediate concern. Very rarely will I do a Review + Rework on a character that I think is, primarily because I am not a fan of having my efforts get instantly invalidated when an official rework gets released and crushes me under its Blizzard-branded heel. However, just because Zul’jin isn’t causing problems doesn’t mean his gameplay cannot be improved, so that is “why” I have done this (and pretty much any other Review + Rework thread I hammer out).
I still feel like including statistical things like HP and DPS is not what you want to focus a unit’s stats on.
Or rather, I dislike how easily people can misunderstand it and try to use that as “how good as a hero”.
YOU do not, and there isn’t a way to fix it. Just venting a bit here, I guess.
Why does this get a red X?
This is a positive–increasing the hero’s skill ceiling without causing their skill floor to change.
This, and similar heroes (Butcher, KTZ) I fully understand–and am personally always wrestling with if I hate the design 100%, or am okay with it.
I think you understate his “risks” slightly.
A big risk is the enemy simply not giving you good targets to stack on, and actively avoiding you.
I don’t know how you could ever balance around that, but I’ve experienced it 2-3 times playing as Zul’Jin.
It is probably additive damage, not multiplicative.
I have not checked, but this does make a difference technically.
hm. While it’s not fully reliable (at all) HotSlogs shows for Masters QM (other gamemodes lack games uploaded, even with all weeks selected) Amani hide having a noticably higher winrate.
just an observation–and given how inaccurate hotslogs can be, it could be 100% incorrect to real data.
seems like an odd comment to make given your next comment basically says he can snowball. If you fail to stack, well. There is a weakness.
Although again, it requires a lot of effort from the other team to do this.
seems like damage or this might need a tiny buff still. Damage output (Baseline) is only equal to current zul’jin baseline at <10% hp remaining (90% missing HP is almost equal to the 25% damage it used to give).
But I dunno if there is a reddit/forum post by a developer stating what you said.
Might make more sense to make it 60 mana? It does add a bit more mana pressure to Zul’jin reducing CD % more than mana %.
Not always a reward.
This means any hero with negative armor, well. They don’t take extra additional damage from negative armor.
This seems to be something which completely changes the dynamic of a talent in a way that could negatively impact you, and makes the “focus someone down easily” synergize worse with heroes that reduce armor to let you focus someone down.
I feel like I’m explaining myself poorly here.
Why doesn’t this just say at each apex/the apex?
You’re never going to be able to get hit by both axes at once unless you’re at the apex?
Just seems like you choose odd wording.
feels like a filler talent.
feels like you’re putting too much utility into his trait.
Which will make these talents less valuable.
Given you’re seperating out AA and spell damage Zul’jin, this seems out of place. It doesn’t look there is a middle ground.
Uh, this is a nerf?
It used to increase it by 40%?
1% → 1.4%?
Now it is 1.25% → 1.5%?
40% more of 1.25 would be 1.75.
I imagine just a matherror, or was there a reason for this?
Dunno if this is a thing they want in designs, as potential for confusion.
Both for Zul’jin and for the other team.
I don’t think this would cause such confusion, but, just a heads up.
good change!
Eh, feels like you should keep the old version, and make this the final reward for the old talent.
Possibly with a lower CDR per hit/a limit CDR?
Right, but it’s not? It’s worthless for Grievous Throw build. Assuming you’re actually getting the quest done.
hm. I’m not sure if this is an additive or multiplicative bonus for Zul’jin trait. If it is additive, this is fine.
If it is (currently) a multiplicative talent, it needs to be nerfed probably? As otherwise it gets an innate buff from trait buff.
It’s kinda against the feel of talent design in general.
You lack the ability to adapt to enemy choices because you’ve gotta pick at level 1.
That could/might be fine. But that is something to think about.
Honestly, Kith, I kinda dont agree. Zuljin is in a fantastic spot dps wise, his design, while not lore accurate, is a good summary of ‘Beserker Troll’ (just like Johanna is a good summary of D3 Crusader, etc). He’s very good atm, has a high skill cap (managing all six of those traits for example), and punishes early mistakes for himself and his enemies. There are other characters (Tass and Nova in particular) that need far more attention than Zuljin, who honestly only really needs at most, some fine number tuning.
The Hero’s stats are an important part of their balance, though - how they perform without Mana, for example, is an important metric to keep track of.
It’s also (yet another) safeguard against people accusing me of not knowing what I’m talking about. For example, I’ve been told that it’s obvious that I think that Kael’thas functions similarly to Raynor when I mentioned Sunfire Enchantment. It’s kind of depressing to think about how much I do just to head off confrontations like that, but it keeps me sane.
Cons are just drawbacks, not necessarily genuinely bad things. Regardless of how you look at it, increased complexity makes a character harder to play, which is a drawback of increased complexity. It’s the same logic behind Melee being considered a drawback compared to Ranged - the former is inherently less flexible than the latter when it comes to connecting Basic Attacks.
The same can be done to pretty much any other character, though. I will grant that it impacts Zul’jin uniquely because of how reliant he is on his stacks, but avoiding the Assassin so they can’t deal damage effectively isn’t a new concept.
“Damage Taken” increases are multipliers because they multiply the end result. In this particular instance, it multiplies the damage that Zul’jin deals to the target by 1.5.
An example of an additive damage bonus would be You Want Axe?, which adds damage in small increments rather than working off of any other value.
That’s because it’s an offensive talent at a defensive tier. When you get good enough at Zul’jin to not need the defensive buffs from Troll’s Blood or Voodoo Shuffle, the reduced cooldown that it offers allows you to use Amani Rage more often and put out more damage. For most people it’s going to be the worse choice because Zul’jin is hard and getting killed with him is easy when you’re cutting your health a lot, but for people who know what they’re doing, it’s very much a “win more” talent.
Zul’jin isn’t completely worthless if he can’t stack, though. He’s not great, but he can still put out a fair chunk of damage without relying on stacks. Mage’jin in particular is a good example of this, especially Guillotine.
It’s partially accounting for all of the Nice Things™ I gave as part of the Level 1 overhaul, such as the increased range from You Want Axe? or the Cooldown Reduction from Arcanite Axes.
If my memory serves me, it was explained in an AMA that the developers were unhappy with the concept of Piano builds because they didn’t like giving characters more than two Extra Buttons to press unless they were deliberately designed to be complicated, high-micro experiences (like Samuro and TLV). While the statement for Piano Uther in those patch notes doesn’t come out and say that Piano Uther was bad, the Uther Rework that either removed or condensed the majority of his remaining Extra Buttons into Talents lends credence to the idea, especially given that Brightwing got a similar treatment in a previous patch.
I feel that Zul’jin’s Mana Tension is more or less fine as it is - I just reduced the Mana Cost to make it more smoothly reduce by half with Forest Medicine.
You’re not, and it’s a good point. I’ll switch “pierces all enemies” with “ignores armor” for Flick o’ da Wrist and No Mercy!. At some point I realized that You Want Axe? and Arcanite Axes both give major usability increases for their 150 rewards, and it’d be out of line to not do the same for Flick o’ da Wrist.
Simpler wording. “The apex” implies that it’s only at one end and “an apex” is much more awkward, especially for a tooltip. This clearly communicates when it’s supposed to happen and that it can happen for both ends.
It definitely isn’t. Sometimes the simplest upgrades are the strongest. A mere +1 Basic Attack Range can make or break a hero, after all.
How do you mean?
Ferocity is actually the odd man out here - Headhunter’s stacks benefit all builds, Recklessness’s damage bonuses benefits all builds, but Ferocity only truly benefits You Want Axe? and Flick o’ da Wrist.
The amount that Ferocity increases Attack Speed went down, but the end result of taking Ferocity went up.
Although since enough people have complained about it, I’ll go to my backup plan and add Mana Regeneration per missing Health, which will make Ferocity stronger overall while also addressing that it’s the odd man out at Level 7.
I’ll worry about that when I get an official response. If retroactive stack conversion is out of the question, I can just swap the Level 4 and Level 7 tiers so it comes into play earlier.
Thank you!
Like I said, I’m going to switch the Armor Bypass/Piercing effects. I’ll keep the CDR, though.
It’s additive.
It’s not unheard of. Arthas, Varian, Kharazim, and Cassia all have to make major build choices at Level 1, and those are just the ones off of the top of my head - I’m sure there are others if I thought about it a bit more.
My issues are more that there is much more to it than that!
But, like I said, it’s more of a general thing where many people will conflate those two numbers as the end all be all.
You do not–and I don’t think that there is a better way to present it concisely.
Eh, I still disagree that it’s a drawback–as it positively impacts the design.
But that’s not really relevant… or rather this is not the best place to debate it.
Well, indeed it appears to be on my quick testing–good to know!
A better example would be Li Ming’s aether walker, which after teleporting gives magic missile 10% extra damage, which do 50% damage to buildings…
But the 50% and 10% are both additive, so you end up dealing 60% of the damage to buildings.
i imagined it was something like that…
Anyhow, both of them can talent a trio of talents onto the bar anyhow, which isn’t as crazy as the old brightwing, is near the same as paino uther.
I would state the removal has more to do with wanting to remove generic talents, than the desire to kill “piano brightwing”.
I mean, you lowered his baseline DPS, and moved his quest into multiple options at level 1.
Grievous Throw/You Want Axe? are both weaker than before (taking relevant talent + current trait) imo.
And while Arcanite Axes is better, that’s purely for mage, who cares less about AA DPS.
So why increase it?
Given they choose apex, I imagine that it was probably though about and apex worked better when translating–but this isn’t a meaningful knock on the rework!
It’s unfun, and it probably won’t feel good to use.
A lot of times it’s going to be a meaningless choice, as if there is heavy CC you’ll save it to pre-empt that, otherwise you won’t?
It also means you’re “unable” to fire up to attack if you take this ability. It limits how you use your trait.
And that’s not always a bad thing–but here I think it would just makes his kit more complex and less enjoyable to use.
I mean, yes, but overall it still makes your AA damage be about equal at 65% HP missing, compared to before.
That’s including your baseline attack buff.
Actually, now that I’m looking/thinking more about it, that makes it weaker with this rework, I think. At least in terms of how much increased attack speed it gives you.
But that’s math I’m not touching this week. Mostly because it’s a pain to do. And not really a large concern regarding this–it could be tweaked up/down slightly easily.
Arthas isn’t really locked in to a build, at least I don’t feel I am.
I don’t see how Cassia does make a major choice, or rather, only 1 of 3 is a “major” choice.
Kharazim was designed with that design, I do agree.
Varian… I mean, I want to just point and go “here we see multiclass doesn’t work”. But I don’t think that’s a reasonable point–as this design isn’t treading into multiclass territory at all.
that being said, Varian’s also had his whole talent tree designed around being able to have this major switch. Where there are clearly talents that are meant for certain “ults”.
This theory rework has many talents that fit “everything”.
HOTS characters are a composite between all incarnations of - not only the character - but also the things that character represents. Zul’jin is filling in himself in Warcraft II (having both arms and eyes) himself in WoW (the general colour scheme) the berserker unit (his gameplay) and the Amani clan in general (being beefy). That last one is important because if we get another troll, it’ll be either a Darkspear or Zandalari - a skinny troll. This keeps his silhouette unique and showcases his specific culture.
Zul’jin has tusks because he’s the troll representative. It’s entirely possible he’s the only troll we get (and he was the first), so of course they wanted to make him as trolly as possible.
Zul’jin is filling the role of the classic Berserker unit, the same way Jaina is a Frost Mage despite being a multi-element master, or Whitemane is a Disc Priest, or how Fenix is both a Dragoon and a Stalker. It lets them port a non-NPC unit without inventing a person to play them.
But, that’s typical of the Amani. Like I said in the preamble, it’s one of the defining Amani physical features, and Zul’jin in the Nexus represents the Amani.
That’s been retconned out now. Trolls have unstable genetics and beefy trolls (and Dire Trolls for that matter) are genetic mutations they can have. I personally prefer this, because it makes a lot of sense. Trolls are the progenitor race of Azeroth. They are the only natural sapient species, with everything else being titan-forged, Old God-related, born of the Wild Gods, or mutated from trolls. This is off-topic, though.
In summary, don’t think of Zul’jin as being taken from any particular point. He’s an adaptation. Personally, I love how they took little pieces from all over and turned it into the ultimate composite Amani Berserker.
(Also, this version of Zul’jin seems to be canon now, or at least preferred by Blizzard if his Hearthstone card is anything to go by. He’s beefy but missing his arm and eye, and is a Hunter card.)
They were never part of HotS in the first place, so they weren’t even there to be fixed in the first place.
“Fixed” is definitely the wrong word. That change ruined game balance for literally over a year.
I have no idea what either of those are, and so cannot comment.
Yes he was.
There’s improving an already solid design, which I would always welcome. Addressing the issues with Troll’s Blood, No Mercy, and Forest Medicine would be great.
Then there’s scrapping the most central part of his base kit and 75% of his talents to make something almost entirely new, which is only okay in extreme circumstances where a hero’s design is truly flawed to the core, such as pre-rework Raynor.
Zul’jin’s design is not inherently flawed, and yet your concept is the latter of those two. This is why I have a problem with so much of your rework concept.
Except you’ve moved You Want Axe?, the central part of Zul’jin’s kit, to his talents, which forces players to choose between an exclusively Mage build and an exclusively ADC build, which is runs counter to Zul’jin’s intended role as an ADC first who can flex into Mage if necessary.
You have also moved or removed, replaced, or overhauled almost all of his talents, the only exceptions being LtKB, Ensnare, Lacerate, and his ult upgrades.
I AM, because in case you hadn’t noticed, that history isn’t exactly a stellar record. Just because they’ve done it in the past does not mean that’s a good thing. They’ve already ruined 3 of my old favorite heroes, Malthael, Hammer, and Lucio, and I do not want to see Zul’jin added to that list.
See, you seem to be making this rework concept for Zul’jin just to make the concept. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with Zul’jin, but because you just want to make this concept him.
And if that’s all this is, a fun idea and a way to express your creativity, great! I’ll offer my opinion and then move on.
But if you actually want a rework like this to happen, then there are going to be people like me who will strongly disapprove of any attempt to mutilate their favorite heroes like this. And if you claim that such a rework would be a positive change for the hero, as you seem to be doing here, we will point out why it may/will not be.
Except I can already do that to a greater degree now than with your suggestion.
You’re taking control away from the player. Part of the skill of playing Zul’jin is balancing Berserker and Amani Rage with each other. You’re just taking Berserker out of the equation entirely, which lowers his skillfloor and makes him less engaging to play for the people who already play him.
It’s literally right there in front of you:
False equivalency. Those are not the same kinds of “risk vs. reward” at all. One is momentary and can be managed on the fly, and the consequences are fairly temporary. The other is a one-off, permanent choice, and the consequences can make or break your effectiveness over the entire rest of the match.
Also, flexibility of playstyle is pretty important, and you’ve practically stripped him of those with these new level 1 talents.
You probably shouldn’t be Regenerating within range of Flamestrike or Pyroblast anyway, especially if you don’t have Taz’dingo available, and there is a such thing as being able to too easily counter something.
And it does just fine as it is. I see no reason to change it if it isn’t broken, especially since this change effectively would break it.
You could say that, but it wouldn’t matter, because that isn’t why people pick talents.
Talents are picked because of their impact. You’ve reduced Ferocity’s impact by increasing Berserker’s base value and decreasing Ferocity’s own value. I’d have a hard time justifying picking Ferocity now because the extra bonus it grants is so small.
For example, Recklessness would be a no-brainer pick over Ferocity. At 50% health, I could choose between increasing my attack speed by another 12.5%, or I could choose to get 10% additional spell power and 20% additional attack damage.
One of those is clearly superior to the other, and the other is now a borderline troll-pick.
Yes, because you’ve taken another good talent and effectively gutted it.
So you’ve made a talent that is only useful when paired with the already high-skillfloor Guillotine?
That sounds rather pointless.
If you want the full -20 armor for the full 2 seconds, you have to land them simultaneously. Otherwise, it’s just -10 for ~0.5-1 second, -20 for >1 second, and then back to -10 for ~0.5-1 second.
Zul’jin is not one of those. He would fall into the camp of “heroes who are perfectly fine but the devs are bored,” with Lucio and the like.
Bonus points because the majority of the reworks we’ve seen over the past couple years have been poorly thought-out and/or executed upon.
Such as?
Oh that’s definitely part of it, and it’s a perfectly good reason not to redesign a hero. He’s a machine with a few squeaky parts, but if you start moving parts around carelessly because you feel like it you’re far more likely to make things worse.
Oh. Yeah, that’s… a bigger problem than the format can tackle, I think.
If it makes you feel any better, I agree with you that it is a positive thing for the character overall - I just have a differing opinion on presentation.
Oh, that’s what you meant. Then yes, you’re correct.
Not Brightwing - she’s got Pixie Charm and Phase Out at the most. Uther does have three with Hand of Protection, Spell Shield, and Benediction, but Spell Shield only barely counts given that it’s usually supposed to be left on.
For some, yes. Shrink Ray being condensed into Well Met! and Scouting Drone being condensed into Peekaboo! track that thought process, but there was no replacement on Uther for Protective Shield and no replacement on Brightwing for Promote or Mule (although that’s understandable given how those particular talents have been treated over the course of the game’s lifetime).
I’ll bump up the rework’s Basic Attack damage, then. I’m not trying to deliberately nerf Zul’jin, I’m just being trying to be a bit cautious in case someone decides to get up in arms about how I only want my favorite character to be overpowered so I win more.
Technically it’s only an increase if the player uses Regeneration at every available opportunity.
It can be that, yes, but “the apex” also implies that it can’t also happen at the point of casting. I actually avoided WPWT for a while because I thought it only happened at one end after reading the tooltip for the Talent.
See, I disagree. In my mind, I envisioned it as something that Zul’jin could use to turn pick attempts inside out - it’s a lot more difficult to dogpile someone when they’re alive and also killing you. It’s not an ideal situation because you’re suddenly at half health on your enemy’s terms, but it’s also not an ideal situation for them because suddenly you’re attacking at least 62.5% faster and possibly bringing Taz’dingo into the mix.
I’m debating on adding in a Passive component that causes Regeneration to instantly restore any remaining Healing from cutting your health - what do you think?
This is the part where I realized that I don’t actually know if Let The Killing Begin as it is right now is additive or multiplicative. Regardless of what it is, what it’s supposed to be in the Rework is unchanged.
You’re correct that it’s not locking you into a build, but it’s still a pretty substantial investment towards one (or at least, I think so). For example, Bruiser Arthas feels pretty bare without Frostmourne Hungers giving him a big D to smash people with and Tank Arthas has a much easier time of generating picks and doing Crowd Control with Frost Presence.
I feel that Thunderstroke practically guarantees picking up Thundergod’s Vigor and Pierce. Similarly, I feel Seraph’s Hymn and Charged Strikes are what you pick when you want to take Grounding Bolt and Martial Law. Granted, none of these Level 1 talents set in stone that you will take any of the 13/16 talents, but I do feel they substantially influence Cassia’s overall build just by the bonuses that they give.
Something I’m well aware of, given that I’ve been working on a Review + Rework for several months
As it should. Talents are meant to be able to have builds made out of them, but also they’re intended to be flexible - otherwise there’s not much point in having multiple tiers’ worth of them.
I’m able to handwave everything else as being Zul’jin from a different time period in Warcraft II - after Tides of Darkness but before Beyond The Dark Portal, for example - but the tusk thing still bothers me. It was specifically stated by a developer (although I cannot find for the life of me where) that Zul’jin was in his Warcraft II incarnation and wasn’t a composite like Gul’dan was, so it just seems off-base (especially when WoW Zul’jin didn’t have tusks either).
How could you forget Nazeebo’s dedicated companion?!
Of course I’m joking, but I reserve my right to be indignant about it.
Huh. Neat.
I wouldn’t complain so much if there was some official statement, like “Zul’jin grew tusks after Tides of Darkness because he hit Troll Puberty during the ransacking of Quel’thalas but then they got broken off when the High Elves were torturing him and didn’t grow back along with his arm and eye” because then it would explain why he’s got them in HOTS but not in WoW.
But there isn’t, so…
I saw that, actually. Hearthstone is in a weird space of extra-canon where it can more or less do what it wants, so it doesn’t bother me as much there (like Jaina with Frostmourne, or Jaraxxus killing and replacing the player’s Hero).
They’re part of the standard MOBA formula. While they might have never been part of HOTS (it could’ve been part of Blizzard DOTA, I don’t remember), it was a deliberate decision to avoid using either when Blizzard decided to make a MOBA - and that deliberate decision was the “fixing” part.
That’s one way to look at it, I suppose. Although, even as someone who absolutely adored the concept of Tower Ammo, I can’t say that I feel that its removal “ruined” anything.
No, he was not. Pre-Rework Raynor’s winrate fell well within acceptable winrate levels - there was nothing “broken” about him.
I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Personally, when I see an absolute nightmare calculation like that with all of its variables and notes and asterisks and "oh by the way"s, I trend towards thinking that there’s a problem. When a character gets exponentially more base effects than any other, I usually view it as an issue. When a concept that’s supposed to be focused on one thing (Basic Attacks) also happens to vastly empower an unrelated thing (Twin Cleave) for no reason in particular, I feel that something should probably be done to separate the two unrelated effects because Quests are typically supposed to have a relation between their requirements and their rewards.
But that’s just me, apparently.
You Want Axe? is not central to Zul’jin’s kit - if it was, it would’ve been part of his initial release instead of being added later. What’s actually central to Zul’jin’s kit is the concept of trading Health for power, either in the form of Attack Speed (from Berserker) or damage (for Guillotine), something I retained.
That’s not Zul’jin’s “intended role”, that’s just Basic Attack oriented Ranged Assassins in general. Valla has a Q build and a W build, Raynor has a Q build, Falstad has a Q and W build, and even Fenix and Tychus have Ability Damage-oriented builds as well (although to a lesser extent). Zul’jin’s intended role is Risk vs Reward, and I’m quoting directly from the Hero Spotlight video from his release here to support that claim:
Which the Rework maintains. I will grant that the Berserker toggle is no longer in play, but neither is Sylvanas’s original Mind Control or Black Arrows.
Swinging back around to the original point, though: the Rework does not rob Zul’jin of the ability to become a Mage with stronger than average Basic Attack mechanics, it just forces him to put more focus on the Mage part rather than the Basic Attack part and it forces him to make the choice a bit earlier. For that matter, it doesn’t even force him to choose between a Basic Attack focus or an Ability damage focus - if the player decides to choose Flick o’ da Wrist, they’ll be able to have both in spades (as long as they can land Grievous Throw first, anyways).
So?
We’ll have to agree to disagree again, I think. I’ve never been happier with Lucio, and Hammer has never been stronger. Malthael I can’t speak to because playing as an edgy bedsheet has never appealed to me, but outside of Tormented Souls being memes, he seems to be doing pretty okay, so I’m starting to think that the problem isn’t necessarily with the heroes.
I’ve already gone over (multiple times, and over multiple posts if you happen to read the rest of the thread) what I feel Zul’jin’s issues are. While you are welcome to disagree with me on what you feel is and is not an issue, I should clarify that I never do anything “just because”. I know that there are people like you who enjoy the experience that they’re familiar with and I’m not actually that fond of butting heads with people over nothing, so I tend to avoid making changes for sake of it.
And in turn, I’m giving the player a greater degree of control by drastically lowering the cooldown of the health-cutting effect that used to be Amani Rage - primarily because having both makes it too easy to manage Zul’jin’s health, taking the majority of the Risk out of the equation.
I was just making sure what you meant. In this case, we’ll have to agree to disagree once again - a per-hit Seasoned Marksman that adds some range and buffs an ability at arbitrary stack values is hardly “interesting” to me.
It would be a false equivalence if I tried to compare the two directly. What I actually did was specifically clarified that it wasn’t the “same kinds” when I said “on a meta level”, so it’s not a false equivalence at all. It’s the same kind of meta Risk vs Reward that you encounter when picking a Hero for Quick Match or Draft - you’re locking into a long-term choice and running the Risk that it can be countered, but you will be Rewarded (with damage, kills, wins, ect) by properly managing that Risk.
Now, I will grant you that it’s not the “on the Axe’s edge” kind of Risk that the Spotlight mentioned, but it’s still a legitimate incarnation of the Risk vs Reward concept - one that follows the same kind of logic that got You Want Axe? added to Zul’jin in the first place.
Depends on how you look at it. It’s arguable that I’ve made Zul’jin’s design more flexible by giving him stronger methods of resisting his traditional counters while also giving him a build that does the same thing he currently does (flexibly deal large amounts of Physical and Ability damage) with a slightly different requirement.
Perhaps not, but the concept would make doing so a viable tactic, therefore increasing the flexibility of Regeneration.
I’m well aware. It’s one of the reasons that this topic exists in the first place.
Part of it is cutting down on Extra Buttons. I’m curious to know why you think it would be broken as a result, though.
The end result is exactly why people pick talents - their relative power doesn’t actually matter in the big scheme of things. If a comparatively “weak” talent wins them games, they’re going to go with what wins them games - just like Amani Hide, which does nothing for Zul’jin’s Sustain despite sharing a tier with two Sustain-oriented Talents.
Or Ferocity’s increased Attack Speed would allow you to generate stacks of You Want Axe? and Flick o’ da Wrist faster, generating additional value for your chosen Quest and/or allowing you to reach the various breakpoints faster.
I mean, it’s a moot point because I went with a fallback plan of adding Mana Regeneration to Ferocity so it wasn’t the odd one out anymore, but the point stands.
You’re the only one I’ve heard that from so far, honestly. Everyone I’ve shown the Rework to privately was excited about the prospect of being able to trigger Eye with ability damage - specifically Twin Cleave.
No, I was refuting your point that Zul’jin lacks burst damage - a statement that is obviously wrong because Guillotine exists. However, If you really want to argue that Man Opener’s duration is too short for Zul’jin to take advantage of, we’ll talk about Sylvanas for a moment.
Cold Embrace, Sylvanas’s level 13 talent for Shadow Dagger that reduces the primary target’s Armor by 25 and spread targets’ Armor by 10, happens to have a duration of 2.5 seconds. Cold Embrace is a reasonably popular talent with a 34.5% pickrate as of this time of writing and has a winrate of 59.1% when filtering to Diamond+ on HOTSLogs. Sylvanas is not known for her Burst Damage outside of Wailing Arrow, but her DPS can get pretty high between Basic Attacks and Withering Fire.
Now that we’ve talked about Sylvanas, we’ll talk about Zul’jin again. Man Opener reduces enemy Armor by 10 for 2 seconds, stacking up to 20 (and refreshing the 2 second duration when doing so). Considering that Twin Cleave is very likely to hit the target twice, it’s safe to assume that the actual duration of Man Opener is probably closer to 2.5 seconds - possibly upwards of that when paired with the double rotation upgrade. Zul’jin is not known for his burst damage outside of Guillotine, but his DPS can get pretty high between Basic Attacks and Grievous Throw (and it’s very possible to attack three times within 2.5 seconds as Zul’jin to get the full benefit of an untalented Grievous Throw, Rework or no). The Armor Reduction effect would also benefit the damage of Twin Cleave itself: while the first hit wouldn’t deal any extra damage, the second would - as would the third and fourth if there’s an additional rotation in the mix.
On top of all this, Armor Reduction is not something you can look at in a vacuum: there’s usually going to be at four other players who can take advantage of it at any given time. Even if Zul’jin didn’t have any genuine burst damage to take advantage of the “short” Armor Reduction, he’d still be empowering his teammates.
That’s not how stacking properties in HOTS work. The first hit would apply -10 Armor for 2 seconds and then the second hit would replace the -10 Armor effect with a -20 Armor effect (that also lasts for 2 seconds). Further hits after that would refresh the 2 second duration of the -20 Armor effect. It’s the same logic that Twin Cleave’s Slow uses:
If you pop into Try Mode and hit the Target Dummy with a Twin Cleave and the Target Info Panel open you’ll see the Movement Speed be reduced to 85% for the first hit, 70% for the second hit, then then pop back up to 100% after the slow duration ends.
We’ll have to agree to disagree, because I feel the vast majority of the Reworks have been fantastic.
Off of the top of my head, your feelings on Eye of Zul’jin: first you complained that I didn’t rate it higher because you felt it was the strongest option at that tier, but then you complained when I adjusted it to not stack as quickly without the use of Abilities (arguably bringing it more in-line with Lacerate and Ensnare). If it’s stronger than the other options at the tier, why complain about it being nerfed?
There’s also some stuff about You Want Axe? in there somewhere, but this post is getting long enough as it is.
Nah.
He’s a machine with a few squeaky parts that’s compensated by a few that go well beyond their intended function. The overall effect is, of course, a machine that works just fine to above average - but that doesn’t mean that the machine doesn’t have fundamental flaws in its design.
I’m more partial to “Making things better is always an achievable goal”.
That seems like a bug to me, although I could see it being intended too. I dunno. I don’t think it’s necessarily unfair if it’s public knowledge that Buzzsaw can double-tap - stepping to the side instead of parallel to its cast direction would’ve prevented that.
I’m not claiming that it’s fair or unfair, I’m just saying that it might not be a bug depending on the intent behind Buzzsaw’s design. It might be a bug because a 75% damage increase to a burst ability of that power is… pretty up there, but then again, there’s precedent for something like that: Sylvanas’s Deafening Blast increases the damage of Wailing Arrow by 50%, for example. Additionally, avoiding the second hit is as simple as stepping to the side instead of running into the path. The dev team is pretty good about not letting things double-tap unless they’re supposed to, so maybe it’s supposed to happen.
The best advice I can give you is to report it. If it gets changed, it wasn’t intended. If it stays the same, then it was - and you just got really unlucky.
IF you’re trying to pick a full HP hero, you probably have 2+ heroes…
And if his HP is already low, so you only send a single hero, I don’t imagine that it would be enough to save you.
I mean, at that point, if they have multiple heroes they would be able to stop you from using Taz’dingo with or without this change.
And just in general outside of these “picking” type of plays… in a fight holding it because they have someone who has a stun/disable… it sounds like it would just feel bad.
Could you provide an example? I don’t understand what you mean.
Funny, I find myself taking the other talent, for mana, when I’m tanking as Arthas, because mah heals and AOE slow.
I imagine what you write is more popular. Just interesting to see how people approach it.
to be more clear: I think more an issue of it feels like a combination of talents will simply end up as a math issue–where one will clearly be better in almost all cases.
hahahahahahaha!
It is intended!
It is a separate instance of damage from the landing blow.
The casting… I’ve no idea why it cannot be interrupted actually. Or rather, it could cast as he died.
Seems like you could just make him unstoppable when he is casting it–of course, giving unstoppable on such a short cooldown that can be used purely for the unstoppable could have issues.
I like the design he has now, I really do not want the old Zul’jin. He just wouldn’t look as cool, Especially considering how he got really ganked by the Alliance.
Agreed. I’m a warcraft and wow vet and general lover of trolls and I like his hots look. It’s probably the most representative of Amani trolls given where blizz is at now with their eventual troll depictions (see below) , and given this inception came after zul in WoW, you could argue its how they’ve eventually decided he should look (the arm thing is a different question). Wouldn’t be the first time blizz has retconned an established race and decided on the latter presentation (see draenei)
Regarding troll depictions in the wow universe (and wow sits as the most authorative base of warcraft lore currently) were currently at this stage:
Gurubashi are tall, hunched, wiry, and come in shades of blue, teal, purplish and almost grey. Fairly large tusks. Females have tusks. Dire trolls are an exception, being massively muscular and broad.
Amani are represented as being (if we look to male models, which most of them are) broader and more muscular than Gurubashi. They are not thin or wiry. They’re hunched, green skin, tusks tend to be shorter than Gurubashi. In this way Zul’jins WC2 representstion is closer to a tuskless Gurubashi than Amani as depicted now. Thus “beefing up” zul’jin but retaining a still relatively lithe figure captures his Amani bulk but retains his slippery cunning roots.
Farakki are built like slightly smaller and thinner Gurubashi but their skin ranges from pink to yellow to brown. Their tusks tend to be darker than other trolls.
Drakkari are built very large, amongst the tallest trolls if we take their unhunched height. Bulkier than Amani, blue skin, short tusks with fur on parts of their bodies.
Zandalari were initially pinkish purple trolls whom resembled slightly taller Gurubashi. Blizzard retconned this in Mists of Pandaria where the Zandalari became very tall, upright trolls whom had skin that ranged between grey, blue, white, black and green. They have glowing blue eyes and scales on their skin. Tusks are average size, slightly shorter than Gurubashi. Blizzard said since the retcon this is always how they imagined the Zandalari should always have looked given their position as the original troll race, so this is now Canon.
I imagine a similar thing could be done for Zul’jin, in that he maybe looks like he does because this is closer to how Blizzard wanted him to look “now”. I mean it never made sense for him to have no tusks once it was established in wc3 that trolls all have tusks unless they remove them. His hots appearence is certainly more consistent with the Amani overall, he’s just a lithe specimen.
His arm regrowth, who knows. I’m not sure it’s ever explained why he didn’t regenerate his arm, given trolls can regenerate limbs as a standard deal. Maybe he chose not to to remind him of how much he hates the elves. It could be argued he grew it back? And de ided to stop filing his tusks? I mean the fact the hots zul’jin has grey hair (like wow) at least shows there’s some consistency going on regarding depiction of his age. Seems a bit wierd both games have used the same hair colour for any other reason (original Zul’jins hair was green I believe)
And half of them looks undead too, just looking at Zul’farrak.
Ah yes, also they usually have red eyes if we go on ingame models. Or atleast glowing eyes. It’s just something that seems they have a lot of.
Also you forgot Darkspear trolls, also known as Island Trolls, which is a speices of Jungle Trolls, but Darkspear are just super thin and boi are they tall.
And blood Trolls, that is important too. But they are kinda newly-ish introduced troll Race.
