You think I care? I look for in game stats where the player is good at and what the hero actually does
I suck at Gazlowe but if the site says Gazlowe is the most OP hero atm I say OK, good for him. But I know he is not a ban or a instalock by a teammate
We can use win rate as a metric of balance, but the problem here is everyone here puts it out of context.
Win rate not put into context is meaningless garbage which is exactly what is happening.
Untouchable had a staggering win rate post rework, out of context, Untouchable should be nerfed, in context pro players are abusing a bugged talent and exploiting for their own gain thus inflating win rate. Notice how the win rate now makes more sense now?
Tracer was still nerfed but the talent that everyone pointed fingers at wasn’t because it was instead “readjusted” to do something similar as a way of bug fixing it, like this talent Heavy Handed was also bugged a permanent 15% damage increase because it applied armor first then the melee damage.
So to put it in context as the example I am using for Tracer: It was a complete bugfest of a rework (and still is) which inflated her win rate in the process.
Like I said, they still balance around the highest, ignoring this is plain denial, the tank meta being bland was posted by a master player on a reddit confessing the fact that ETC and Jojo are plain overdominant while the other tanks are simply weak in comparison, and what a surprise the these two tanks nerfed while the others buffed in the process.
This video is great, talks about game balance in general and how you should possibly never balance around the average and below but the highest because highest are just plain exploiters ready to break your game.
The average joe =/= understand everything or have full analysis or theory crafting.
BTW maximus I am still waiting on your proof of Imperius Q not hitting its targets and having jank hitbox, because so far, I’ve seen none, gimme replay bro.
Just make design philosophy like other mobas. If you’re a good duelist, you should be bad in a true 5 v 5 teamfight. Which means qhira and most bruisers would get nerfed for teamfights, but better at waveclearing
Umm, I’m sorry but what is wrong with my username? Didn’t catch the reference…
Do you mean they only balance around Masters or Pros?
No they do not. In fact, they often end up balancing a lot around lower-level players, like the kind who couldn’t spot stealth, or who didn’t understand the importance of soaking exp, or who didn’t understand the importance of proper positioning against KT, Diablo, and Genji, or who didn’t understand that you don’t just try to outrun Tracer.
Hopefully they won’t do the same balancing around low-skill players who don’t understand the importance of “dodge the Q” with Imperius.
They have to juggle all levels of play when making balance changes. As much as some people may want to ignore statistics that (consistently) disagree with them, this game is not balanced around themselves or their own personal experiences, nor is it balanced around the experience of particular streamers or their opinions, nor around just a single rank. You don’t get to ignore everyone but yourself when trying to balance a game no matter what rank you are.
Since apparently it still hasn’t gotta through to so many people on the forums, I’ll say it yet again.
Why is it that whenever we end up arguing over whether or not statistical evidence is more important than personal anecdote you guys always have to resort to strawman arguments?
I have never claimed Malthael is weak. I have explicitly stated that he is balanced overall multiple times, yet you and the others arguing his talents are fine keep inventing this narrative that I think Malthael is weak overall.
Do not assume I base my analysis of balance on personal anecdote and my own singular experience, as Harbinger, AnaBanana, and often Karabars do.
I’ve experience things you haven’t, and you’ve experienced things I haven’t. The difference between us is that I do not make wild generalizations based on those isolated occurrences like you all are so quick to.
Even when I think something “feels” too weak or too strong, I don’t automatically assume that I’m right, which far too many people in our society do. It might be that I’m not using it properly if it feels weak or that I’m just playing against worse players than myself if it feels to strong (either because those players are bad or because I’m better than average).
Yes, like many of the people clamoring for Imperius nerfs, just like they clamored for KT, Genji, Diablo, and Tracer nerfs, even when those heroes were balanced or even underperforming.
THIS IS WHY WE NEED STATISTICS.
Christopher Hitchens stated what has come to be known as Hitchen’s Razor: “That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
A more relevant version of this would be to say, “That which is asserted with only anecdotal evidence can be dismissed with only anecdotal evidence.”
Anyone of us on here can say, “I experienced X,” but someone else can come up and say “I did not experience X,” or “I experienced Y.”
For example:
“Pyroblast is too OP, it needs nerfs!”
“Pyroblast is not OP, and does not need nerfs.”
Just looking at those claims and considering nothing else, who do you believe?
Hopefully, you don’t blindly jump to one side or another, you check Pyroblast’s statistics, specifically its winrate. Then you come back and see which claim most closely reflects reality. In this case, the second claim, that Pyroblast is not OP, is the one that most closely reflects reality.
This is exactly the kind of mindset so many people have when it comes to balance, they just don’t want to admit it because they know no one would take them seriously if they did.
“I actively want this hero I struggle against to be garbage tier so I no longer have to struggle against them. I want you balance the game around my personal enjoyment!”
Who would really want to admit to agreeing with a position like that?
This is what happened with Hanzo, Genji, Diablo, Garrosh, Cho’Gall (twice now), Tracer (also twice now), etc.
Exactly.
“I’m not bad, that hero is just OP!”
This thread is full of diseases.
Not even showing stats nor talking about personal experiences and you are dropping anecdotal evidence argument, lol.
Except that’s how game balance work, this is game design in competitive video games, you not comprehending this is what is embarrassing that you hide behind stats and shallow anecdotal experience, please don’t consider taking such dev role if you cannot comprehend this such simple thing.
You balance around the highest play because they are the best at exploiting your game, not around everyone else at the same time, you have to make sure everyone stays happy but still don’t balance around potatoes or average because they cannot push the hero to the limit in the first place.
The problem is with you using statistics is your inability to put them in context, you just point fingers and say it is fine, with no context your stats are meaningless pile of crap, this is why people here saying as simple as you don’t understand how the stats because you are failing to do so and thus failing to understand the complaining from players who better than you if we considering some of the posters here and other threads who were open about Imperius.
Stats are not everything, if so then Probius should be nerfed according to the same site of yours, because the game is balanced around stats not anecdotal experience where in master Proby does fine and not problematic despite the win rate, but here’s the thing, he’s low picked, without this specific context in mind Probius is OP.
Now Imperius on the other hand is twice picked in masters in comparison to any bruiser, without that in mind Imp looks balance, with that in mind Imperius is so picked/banned more than any other bruiser that the context get changed in the process that there’s something wrong with Imperius.
Imperius is not OP, no one is saying so, he needs adjustments on overall scale regardless of Q or not, but sure hit me up with the anecdotal nonsense when uses no W talents lol.
There’s also a difference between both experience, you are experiencing in low rank tier, they are experiencing in the highest play, so what which to choose here? The lowest where the Imp would underperform, or the highest where people can push him to the limit? Are you sure you are thinking here? You are also assuming wild generalization too over something that doesn’t happen in your level of play, does that make you a hypocrite in the process? 
If you want to die on that hill, then sure go ahead, at least I in comparison to a good chunk here does, keep up with the community here and reddit and much more who make such topics are also high level of play and actually impacting the game too with constructive posts and get actual dev response, but you? Dismissing everything as cry baby complaining and just point finger on stats out of context while thinking everything that happens in your level happens everywhere.
BTW send me that wonky hitbox of yours over Q, because that’s an actual anecdotal, unless you are holding double standards here? Still waiting you know.
This thread got exciting! (Although likewise, full of cancer, lol).
I feel like y’all are arguing the same thing, and agree with each other but don’t realize it
This is quite the mess of projections, false statements, and ad-hominem-laced bait. As such, it has no useful meaning in this discussion, and I am going to ignore it.
This game is not solely balanced around those people, as all these examples I’ve already mentioned
pretty clearly show. This game is clearly balanced around the lowest common denominators just as often as the highest.
It sure would be nice if it weren’t, though. Then we could be confident that Imperius, who remains within the ±2% range that is generally considered “balanced” even in Masters, would not be nerfed because these clowns who don’t know how to dodge his Q keep whining.
That is explicitly not what they were saying.
Harbinger said that heroes can be OP regardless of their winrate.
AnaBanana said that “experience” is what determines whether a hero is OP, not statistics.
Both of these claims are straight up false, and are simply people wishing to put their own opinions before the facts and ignore any evidence that contradicts them.
As for the intricacies of how each of these stats factor into balance, I’ve written many an essay on these forums explaining in depth how all of the statistics and experience play into making balance decisions. I am intricately familiar with how these statistics work, and while what I said in my initial post was a general statement and not the entire picture, it is nonetheless correct.
Winrate is how you tell if something is balanced or not. If the winrate is too high, it’s probably overtuned/OP and needs nerfs; if it’s too low, it likely needs buffs.
This is the only stat that will tell you whether a hero is balanced or not.
Pickrate is how you tell how reliable the winrate is. A higher pickrate means more samples, and more samples means a better reflection of the hero’s actual performance. A lower pickrate means a less reliable winrate and more uncertainty about the hero’s performance.
However, pickrate cannot tell you how a hero is performing. It can tell you how many people think a hero is strong (or even just enjoy playing said hero), but it tells you nothing about how the hero is actually performing.
This is part of why Rexxar, Probius, and TLV have all escaped nerfs despite having some of the highest winrates in the game (formerly, in Probius’ case).
Banrate is completely useless when trying to determine balance state. It is exclusively a measure of opinion, and can actually make it harder to determine how a hero is performing by limiting the sample size.
People who reference banrate when arguing something is “OP” are using a Ad Populum/Bandwagon fallacy.
“Experience” is useful, but only in determining what changes need to be made after you have already confirmed whether they need to be made in the first place. Experience does not give you a clear picture of a hero/talent/build’s performance, but if the winrate indicates that a hero is over/underperforming, and the pickrate indicates the winrate is a reliable measure of performance, then experience allows you to accurately tailor any buffs or nerfs to a given goal.
I certainly would not propose any serious changes to heroes I have not played a decent bit. Genji’s super-low winrate indicates he needs buffs badly, but as I do not play Genji at all (I’ve literally played probably 3 games as him, all in ARAM), I do not know what those buffs should be. Mei’s high winrate indicates she needs nerfs, but as I haven’t even played her once outside of Try Mode I don’t know what those are.
When I consider or propose possible changes for a given hero, talent, or build, I follow a sort of 3-step process.
That third one is a lot more complex than it sounds, as it involves a lot of math, winrate and pickrate cross-comparisons, and checking for and working around potential unintended interactions.
Of course, as TooTon mentioned above, all that goes out the window when it comes to design changes. Those are always trickier.
If someone said, “I would like Imperius to deal less burst damage with Q build,” and proposed converting part of Flash of Anger’s AoE damage into a DoT, then I would be interested in serious and meaningful discussion.
But if people just say, “Q build/Flash of Anger OP, nerf plz!” then they aren’t worth taking seriously because they clearly haven’t done their research and/or are not interested in fact-based discussions.
As I mention in this post, banrate tells you nothing about the hero themselves, only the players and their opinions.
If banrate had any say in determining balance, then Kael’thas’ and Tassadar’s current 44% and 48% banrates would get them instantly Genji’d.
Besides, Imperius’ banrate isn’t that high, only 9%.
The OP, GuardWizard, is. LyrasVulture is. A bunch of non-regulars are as well.
Imperius is quickly becoming the new Genji, Diablo, Garrosh, Kael’thas, etc. Bad players jump on board the “X hero is OP!” bandwagon in order to feel better about losing to that hero. Imperius is clearly the flavor of the month.
QM is not consistent, but that does not mean everybody playing in it sucks. I’d advise you not to assume that you can’t limit-test in QM.
I mean, what did you expect from your typical hero-complaint thread?
This ain’t even half as bad as the old Hanzo-whining threads got. Now that was toxic.
Approximately when were there more complaints? I’ve been in this forum since November last year, so I think it’s too soon. Although I was in the old forum of France and Latin America several years ago but my stay there was short.
Around this time last year and before that, HailFall was making a ton of threads complaining about Hanzo (who had a ~42% winrate at the time). Those tended to get pretty salty.
This example does not shutdown the huge amount of patches that is solely around the highest play for the past 3 years or so.
Uther nerfs 2020? Rehgar bloodlust? Jaina nerfs to her Q build? Zeratul? Samuro’s rework with changes to force his swap limitation which plain OP in the highest play? and much more.
Fair enough, but people should stop merging the clowns with others who are suggesting let alone putting so much analysis and theorycrafting, that would be great IMO.
Again, you are missing the biggest point of these stats or the ones in Master, you once again unable to put these specifically in context and just self repeating yourself, if you fail so your stats is meaningless, anecdotal or not meaningless pile of crap, its not simply looking at pick/bans and aligning the dots, why is Imperius pick rate is so high? Why is he played twice the amount in Master? what is the common build that is being going for in that highest play? Very simple questions should put it in context right away.
Here’s another one:
Tracer post rework, patch, master rank, explain it to me her high win rate in full context, go ahead, should be the easiest one if you paid attention to my huge essay posts back when that rework was live.
Yes, but it’s nothing close to Master/GM league which nothing close to your fiasco mode of people unable to play properly or picking garbage talents like Wraith of the Angiris, Holy Fevor, Orb build, AA Tass and many others.
>Claims overexgaerration
>Uses self experience in a mode that is not close to people who play frequently in master (like GuardWizard is) and has a layer of randomness.
>They are just doing wild generalization
>ancedotal evidence bad
Smh talk about hypocrisy and double standards.
I guess I made judgement quicker here, but let’s be real, Imperius needs changes, on large scale than just nerfing some of his Qs but also buffing his other competitors, simple as put he needs readjustments which as a result nerfing and buffing.
But as of where he is right now, he just snaps his finger in Masters and 70% of your HP is gone over the course of Q and a second or so post 7.
And yes “Dodge the Q”, of course it works, but see the problem is you misunderestimate the Imperius in Master as almost equal in your typical QM game, you know the player who suppose to have higher patience and reflexes of actual timing playing against players with similar skill level of fast reflexes and timing?
This AoE isn’t even hard to land as much as people make it so, so it’s no surprising that a hard AoE is getting more frequent value out in the highest play in comparison to the bottom/QM, yes anecdotal I don’t care. 
It was just a thought that came to my mind during a match, after getting wrecked and getting mad. Of course I don’t want it to be miserable, it wasn’t either before getting buffed (I play Imperius), but now it’s a little over the tip imo, like to the point that only someone with 0 skills cannot take advantage of him, beyond 0 skill, people start wrecking the other team, and even more now with the matchmaking that cannot make a fair match…
I don’t think Imperius needs major nerfs.
Team Maximus
Team Sami
Who will win the inter multiverse nexo weight championship??? Ding ding ding the arguing is on!!!
I’m team no one #trustnoone
oh neither do i im not saying nerf him into the ground just slight nerfs to his sustain and/or damage he will be useless if he is nerfed too much
Plenty of people say the exact same thing about Li Ming.
If you want to employ that “feels too strong” reasoning against Imperius or any other character you find annoying, you’d also have to accept others using it to justify demanding nerfs to Li Ming.