Ragnaros In Comparison To Other Melee Assassins

General Discussion
1

Recently I started a challenge to play every hero 5 times for multiple reasons but mainly because I mostly play tanks and wanted to try other characters for fun and to see who I would like and just played ragnaros and either I just suck as him (completely possible) or he is just not very good.

A common theme for melee assassins is survivability through either Lifesteal (examples being Kerrigan with assimilation and chrysalis at lvl 13, Malthael’s soul rip and Butcher’s Brand) or abilities that make you harder to kill either through effect or just simply moving you further away from enemies (examples being Illidan’s evasion and sweeping strike, Thrall’s Wind fury and Alarak’s counter strike and telekinesis.)

Ragnaros in comparison doesn’t have great lifesteal through his empower sulfuras 20% damage healed (or 40% if target is a hero) when compared to butcher’s brand which heals for 75% of damage dealt (also doubled if enemy is a hero) which lasts the entire time it would take rag to do another empower. Another example of a better lifesteal is Kerrigan’s assimilation because while less than rag’s healing at 10% damage dealt (20% if target is enemy hero) she has the means to close the gap and it stacks on all abilities.

On the other hand he doesn’t have great movement or evade type abilities because the 25% movement speed boost from blast wave is decent it is 1. not fast enough to get away from “sticky” hero’s like illidan and isn’t enough to counter a lot of other slowing abilities and 2. doesn’t last long enough at 1.5 seconds (can be increased to 3 if you take the lvl 16 talent blast echo). A good example of a slow that counters the speed boost is orphea’s dread which slows for 25% so he is moving at normal speed but dread lasts for half a second longer, another example is kel’thuzad’s frost nova which slows by 35% so he is slowed regardless.

As for increasing survivability there are a couple of options you can take but overall feel a bit lacking in actually making a difference in the outcome of a fight, there is the lvl 4 talents, catching fire which I will say is pretty decent for a regen globe quest or alternatively fire ward which is also decent but since you can only living meteor every 12 seconds in a match of sustain will just rip you apart.
Lvl 13’s talents all increase his survivability but only one is good because Tempered Flame makes it so you lose the option of running if used in an offensive manor and Resilient Flame only activates on stun so if they don’t have a cc heavy team is next to useless. Cauterize Wounds is a good choice but because of the cooldown on empower sulfuras is rarely saving (Hand of ragnaros does counter-act this point slightly but if you are in the meat of 2 or more people they are probably going to just burst you down anyway)
And lastly the lvl 20 talent submerge which its only purpose seems to be avoiding an attack like mephisto’s consume souls or kael’thas pyroblast because the heal isn’t enough to counter act the fact the enemy is positioning themselves better and is not very good in comparison to the other 2 choices you will have at the time.

To finish off I would like to clear up a couple things. When rag was first released I really liked him but small nerfs over time especially to empower sulfuras have made him a worse choice over a lot of other assassins and I will say molten core does have its uses and its quite fun to take over a fort or keep and slam down on enemies but molten core is with its faults first is its damage isn’t great for good reasons because if they were he would be too good especially on braxis and secondly it can negate a push but only because it can kill minions quickly not because it scares off people too bad because over my many molten cores it didn’t really feel like I was doing much but mitigate a slight bit of damage on the fort/keep and kill minions which as rag you can already do pretty well.

I think there are a couple of choices to make him better whether these are good or not is entirely up to you but I would like to know what would be wrong with these if anyone reads this far.

Empower sulfuras heal is 30% (60% on heroes) would increase it just by that little bit that could help him out quite a lot.
Living meteor (or maybe just meteor bomb) and blast wave heal for 20% doubled on heroes.
Lava wave is only visible within sight so the audio is still a que that he has ulted and when it kills minions it comes up for a second just so it isn’t blatantly obvious which lane its going down.
And last idea would be a base increase to health because then he could be classed more as a brawler who in my opinion makes more sense considering who he is and that he does have all those rocks to increase his sturdiness.

Edit: Thanks to all the people who replied giving me some great insight as to how to do better as him and things to keep in mind when playing him.

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Who does Number 2 work for?

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In reference to what?
edit: first post ever so don’t know how any this works.

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You’re either hitting a single target too much, or the crowd of targets seem to be less than three minions.

Work on your micro and stutter step AA. Don’t be blind with illidan’s evasion bar and kite as much as possible.

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E build is best.

Q build sucks without proper comp and even then it still sucks since rag is too squishy.

W build is only good in aram.

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Oh god no. Have you ever chunked a backline squishie for almost all their HP with meatball build? It’s silly when you’re good at aiming it.

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He’s one of the few characters I can completely carry with. Tanky, assassin, specialist, melee, ranged, global, stun, MOLTEN CORE, giant killer, speed boost. Like he really isn’t lacking anything. If he got an additional % to healing, I’d be very afraid that would make him OP. I generally go ‘Q’ build as it clears well, heals more, the giant killer aspect if you need it. All in all he is a very well rounded hero. Of course, all in my own opinion.

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You’re not entirely wrong, Rag is indeed much different from traditional melee assassins, and heroes in general. Usually, for a melee to operate, they need both a way to close the gap against ranged opponents as well as a way to keep them there – Rag has neither gap closer, nor baseline slows or stuns. His damage is solid, and his Q build can deal some real pain against clustered opponents, but he’d need a lot of setup to do that safely, and Kael’Thas would be able to do the same thing with less risk.

However, believe it or not, Rag is still very potent – he just expresses it in different areas.

His meatball is actually amazing poke, and is an excellent finisher if built for, which is uncommon for a melee to have (Thrall also falls in this category). Good skill with the level 1 redirect makes it a nuisance to get away from, and because of its move speed, it deals more damage to fleeing opponents.

Then there’s his unusual slew of ults. Sulfuras Smash is so strong, the Varian/Rag combo was considered broken, since Varian charge stun into taunt into Smash could pop almost anybody. While that combo is no longer nearly as easy to pull off and Sulf Smash was nerfed a few times, they never touched either its damage nor its range – Sulf Smash still hits like a freight train on a bullseye, making Rag very much capable of gibbing people. Lava Wave, in exchange, I’ve always seen as a bad ult – but with good timing [hint: use it at :15 or :45 on a big map, :20 or :50 on a smaller one or a middle lane], it can annihilate 2 minions waves with the power of a global character, more if you’re behind. It’s true, with Lava Wave you sacrifice having a real ult, but macro pressure is no joke, and can negate all the pressure done from a lone specialist trying to push the other side of the map against you. Macro ults are uncommon, and Rag’s is particularly potent - there’s a good reason why it got nerfed.

Then there’s Rag’s trait. Rag may be mediocre as an actual assassin, but that’s because a lot of his utility is being funneled into his trait. You do not fight a Rag’d fort unless you outnumber him 3 to 1, and even then, most people would rather wait it out. The damage is high, ults are fully useable, the range is crazy enough to reach objectives, and the only real downsides are that it’s situational due to the need for a destroyed fort and that there’s a wait time for Rag to go rejoin a fight after he uses it. Even adding a single ally to the fray makes assaulting a Molten Core fort so much more dangerous – almost no range heroes get this kind of defensive power, let alone melee ones.

Rag is not a “quantity” assassin, he doesn’t constantly throw damage all over the place and top the charts every game, leave that to the Lunaras or the Chromies or the KT’s. Even in terms of “quality” damage, he’s a bit lacking due to his high cooldowns and rough aim, unlike Genji who can go right in and execute low targets. That being said, Rag’s high cooldowns have the power to justify them, and his ability to gib people is very high, giving him great synergy with anyone who has a stun or root that lasts 1 second or longer.

Try pairing Rag with anyone who has a nice, predictable stun or root. Xul’s one of my favorites since Bone Prison leads into Sulfuras Smash and a meatball quite easily, but Deckard Cain and Leoric are also good partners for the same reason. Rag being a ‘sub par’ hero when he’s on cooldown is not a problem when the opponent is down a hero because of him, either because they had to send someone to clean up his Lava Wave mess, or because he blew someone up.

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It’s unreliable damage imo. The cooldown is too long to justify just sitting back spamming it when your Q and E are so underwhelming they might as well not be there.

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Enemies also need to keep running in the same direction as the meatball, or it doesn’t work, even if you can aim it :stuck_out_tongue:

But yeah… Ragnaros is more of a “specialist” than an assassin. He does indeed lack the survivability of other assassins, but makes up for it with superb waveclear, and the ability to replace a keep, making it a lot harder for the enemy team to push, or fight near that location.
He can also clear a whole 100% zerg wave alone, which makes him one of the best heroes for Braxis. And which also shows why Braxis is a bad map the way it is now.

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Ragnaros is a hybrid caster. Yes he is technically melee but a lot of his damage is ranged. A good meteor roll is over 500 damage late game, without any talents on it. He can use his wave on allied heroes, such as melee warriors, to deal damage with it. His entire kit when in molten core form has good range.

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Lava wave is unbelievably braindead. Remove that ability and replaces it with another lava wave that function similar to Hanzo’s dragon arrow. Aka one that requires brain cells to use.

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FRESH INSECT

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You compare Ragnaros to Butcher and Illidin who are more single target focused.

I always find that Q build is amazing against melee and W build for backliners

He isn’t the best for damage until 16 if you are going Q

He has 25 armor basically all the time when the quest is done.

Ragnaros is the best hero IMO to stop pushes. rag is good againest groups of Heroes and is not the best in 1v1’s

Think of him like Xul

Both heal of enemies when they attack them with certain abilitys

and both can push pretty well

The main differences between Xul and Ragnaros is Xul is a little tanky

But Ragnaros has more mobility options then Xul.

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Best not to compare Rag and Butcher. Butcher is an AA burst, and Rag is an AA- get ready for those who didn’t know- Mage.

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That’s actually a bad comparison.

Rag is far better at enabling divers and dealing AoE damage while nullifying pushes and holding a lane with his poke and splash.

Xul is far better at condemning one person to death with his root and cleaving down lanes.

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Rag can’t dive so shouldn’t ever be picked for such a task but can be built to counter a tank engage comp. Sadly if you queue Rag in QM and get put against a ranged heavy team you become a traitbot that can poke a bit with W but that’s about it.

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never go Q build its terrible blizzard nerfed it like 3 times in a row that it’s complete garbage, even when you get 3 melee on you it still sucks u can’t even survive or dish out enough damage, which makes no sense cause thats what Q use to be good at is when ragnaros was being ganked by melee/ multiple units and ragnaros always sucked 1v1.

E build is best vs melee now, go that, but in the end ragnaros is a crap hero he is a old teir hero who was nerfed mutiple times and just left that way, on top of that he is one of the worst heroes in this game 1v1 and one of the worst assassins in this game vs range hero’s, he is really only good at siege damage and push power.

best not to play him, hes a dead hero with to many weaknesses. blizz can’t even get his class spec right, he’s not assassin material he is more spec.

also have fun in QM blizzard did a terrible job with him in QM he goes vs alot of range which ragnarous escape is terrible and his ability to catch people is also bad, making him suck even more now.

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What’s with all the Rag Necros? Burn baby burn!

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Melee assassin is misleading. He isn’t melee assassin in the likes of Kerrigan, Butcher, Ilidan, and so on. He is more of a old fashioned specialist.

Ragnaros’ power is great solo laning, fantastic wave clear, good aoe damage. He isn’t a finisher or diver like all those assassins you mentioned in the OP, it’s not his job to go in for the kill and shred squishies (well, generally speaking at least).

I recommend meteor build and playing him more like a backline with decent peel and anti diver, focusing on soaking xp and using molten core smart.