Thank you for acknowledging. After I post this reply I will close Netscape and reboot into the Nexus.
Have to reboot because I need to boot with the Nvidia boot agent DHCP thing, it takes like 5 minutes to load and I don’t know what it does but I feel more close to Elune and my hair gets all frizzy from the electricity.
I can’t think of single baseline(as in not an actual talent you pick) quest that is really that poorly done. You say ZJ but you’re not picking him unless you know you will be fighting. By the sound of it you made huge mistake in draft or enemy is also using their heroes in very ineffective way. Only really poor quest that existed was Tyrande owl as it was all about spamming an ability that had main purpose of scouting(many talent related quests have same similar problems).
If anything game should have tons more baseline quests as they give way to measure players skill on a character.
I have no problem with base line quests, just they should have limits to how much they can stack. This seems to be the modern trend however since both Chromie and Azmodan have had this done to them. I would not be surprised of Zul Jin gets a minor tweak in the future where his baseline quest is capped.
What made the old Chromie such a pain to fight was no matter how well you played, if your allies fed her Sand Blast hits she became absolutely broken. Sure you might dodge 90% of them, but when they are hitting for 1.5k+ damage it is pretty much GG. New Chromie does not have that.
If all the enemy heroes are hiding, that just means you can easily get camps or mount an assault and setup for free seige.
In other words: If you pick Zul you semi-force the enemy to give you everything you want, camps, obj, … and force them to play macro, even if their team isn’t made to that? You can rotate super aggressively and punish them for soaking that way, making them either split (vulnerable to ganks) or make them lose xp?
Nice.
Some heroes have advantages in certain situations. Baseline quests can be good and can be bad. Zul’s quest is a way of punishing heroes that have to be close for longer periods of time. He can punish certain solo laners so hard (sonya, blaze, yrel,rexxar) thanks to his quest. Sadly having a dps solo lane isn’t common since it leaves the frontline pretty weak for later fights, but that is another problem.
His design works fine in that regard.
Some quests are pretty meh tbh. Mura comes to mind. Butcher is a win-more hero because of his quest.
Some quest’s are pretty nice tho.
Medivh’s quest for example is very good tho, the ability is meant to damage as a constant poke and it encourages not to die.
Dehaka (as his lvl1 quests) is good as well, as it encourages to soak and push like Dehaka is meant to be.
Azmo’s quest encourages rotating, having his teammates help damage the wave and clearing it fast. This is something you should be doing anyway.
Viking makes splitting them more attractive for more globes.
Some baseline quests are bad and some are good. Anyway, dev’s said that they added to many quests at some point so we can expect that they don’t add many quests / remove some of them in reworks.
I think it’s kind of a “double edged sword” with the baseline quest design. On one hand I heavily dislike Zul’jin’s and Nazeebo’s quest (in fact I believe Naz is one of the worst heroes in the game because he’s so gated behind Vile Infection), but things like Medivh’s baseline is very good and I would like to see Convection made a baseline quest on Kael’thas.
In fact a large reason I stopped play both Zul’jin and pre most recent rework Chromie was the infinite stacking baselines.
Baseline quests when implemented right adds a way for skill expression and variety. Medivh’s baseline quest is a matter of skill in the sense you have to be accurate but also be careful of dying as you know the enemy will try to kill you whenever you show up. Zul’jin’s quest is poor in the sense of it gains value depending on if your opponents are ignorant or not.
The difference is that in one case it’s down to you where as the other depends on the opponents.
I also think that certain things that are too core to a character should be a baseline quest for the sake of variety in quest rewards as well as talent diversity. If we’d play with the idea that Convection was baseline it’s basically just Medivh’s baseline.
However we can look at something like Jaina’s baseline which rewards Iceblock. Not only core to the Frost Mage but also very important for Jaina to function in teamfights. The quest can be completed very early by a great Jaina player or late by a mediocre one. Quite simillar to the differences between a great or poor Kel’thuzad player.
For me I would like to see more baseline quests in the style of Medivh, Jaina or Kel’thuzad that either is a “lose on death” type of quest with great reward or something that awards an active ability like Iceblock and Glacial Spike.
Speaking of that, Alarak’s Sadism could work simillarly that you’d need to reach X amount of Sadism from the current baseline to be awarded Rite of Rakshir which then caps Sadism’s lost on death function to prevent him being overly feast or famine. This would also differentiate great and poor Alarak players with the active ability on top of a 13 talent, just like Jaina’s current 20.
Less baselines depending on the enemies ignorance and more baselines promoting skilled play from the individual. Reward being utility/combo enablers will further reward skilled play rather than raw damage.
the problem is more that Zuljin isn’t as great as he could be so his potential in draft isn’t that high in many situations. it’s not really related to his quest. without his quest, he would potentially be in an even worse situation as his base damage wouldn’t be enough to justify going in at low hp (he’d be missing out on the increased damage, the double axes AND the 1.1 range increase). this isn’t counting that said baseline quest also synergizes with arcanite axes due to the eventual “axe rotates twice”.
you kinda sorta see the problem (engaging as zuljin can be a chore, he becomes fairly useless if the enemy team plays smart, etc) but are blaming the wrong thing. it’s more of his kit and how his trait works than infinite stacking. zuljin is best at low hp but has no inherent escape or defense against most CC (like stuns and silences) making even his ults capable of making 0 impact. the infinite stacking actually partially mitigates this by making zuljin more dangerous as the game goes on (at a higher rate than most other heroes) as long as zuljin is trying to engage safely and getting those hits in.
I think diablo was done well. In his rework he now gains souls from multiple sources. Killing minions, hitting heroes. As long as he stays active the souls come at a healthy rate.
HYYAAAHH
FRESH MEAT
Jaina’s quest looks good at a glance, but it’s not actually Jaina’s job to do hero damage until the teamfight starts. Sure if there’s a overextended free kill she should take it, but her job is play safe, clear minions and take the easy camps.
Focusing on your quest is actually playing Jaina wrong.
Fortunately you will still get your iceblock eventually because the requirement isn’t huge. So it’s not a terrible quest. But it’s not a good one either.
I would argue that different heroes do different things and that Zul is a hero who’s base line quest is there to punish team fight comps.
Sure, macro strategy is counter play to Zul, but that’s why you wouldn’t pick him into a team that does that.
There might be problems with Zul’jin’s design, but it’s not that baseline quest.
I never made a point of having to rush for the quest. My point was that the baseline quest for Jaina is just utility that is very core to the character, as it had near a 100% pickrate back when it was a talent if my memory serves right.
I do disagree though, I believe it’s a great quest. You’re getting Iceblock for free by just playing the game normally, as opposed to being forced into the old level 20 talent. Personally I’d like to see more of this for characters that basically require certain utility aspects of their kits in order to even work in a competitive setting.
I like how Everytime I see one of these threads, it’s basically a complaint about a mechanic being too hard, and thus “bad design”
I’m glad because we have baseline questsz because it’s another layer of skill (getting and denying stacks), plus I like the sound of the quest progression and it feels good to getting stronger and stronger.
Personally I like it, it gives a bit more comp difference between zul’jin and other AA heroes like Valla and Raynor.
facing a beefy enemy team with heavy frontline? Zul’jin is going to shine due to having an easy time building stacks. Facing an enemy team with just a less heavy or mobile frontline that you can’t easily build stacks on? Go with another AA.
Baseline quests were made because they were such powerful talents that everyone was always taking them anyways. While the heroes do have to be slightly weakened in order to compensate for the quest, they now get both the quest rewards AND another talent they can take. And yes, the enemy can play to specially deny your quest, but that’s just another level of depth that’s good for the game.
I personally wish they would make Nazeebo’s Vile Infection a baseline quest (powered down for balance of course). Right now, it’s so powerful it’s practically irresponsible not to take it- and I’d love to be able to take another level 20 talent.
I’ve said it before, but making Snipe Master baseline is pretty much the single worst change they could’ve made it. It hurts the Hero for people who didn’t like Snipe Master by adding a random chore just to get your supposed baseline power, and it ruins the talent by making it impossible to get an adequate reward for completing it.
Exactly. Baseline quests are fine. They’re not something that should be on every Hero (Chromie, Nova quests were mistakes imo), but having some of them is not an issue.
Zul’Jins quest is fine, it gives him a clear identity. Pick him on maps where you will skirmish a lot, or have long protracted battles.
all that means is that you don’t first-pick such heroes. You last pick such heroes, and only when you’ve confirmed that the other team’s draft and the map fits the playstyle you need it to.