That’s something ragnaros doesn’t otherwise have. If you think that giving a double soaker (yes, rag is one of the fastest double soakers, faster than xul and similar to yrel) bruiser hero an ability to also 1-shot ppl in teamfights is “weak”, then you really don’t understand this game.
There’s 1 thing to have high burst on a hero that’s literally built for that (and in some cases - just that), there’s quite another thing to have that on a hero that is not really even meant or picked for that.
You’ll have your jaina or ming in draft, but you’re probably rarely going to pick 2 or 3 jaina’s (that would be a very abusable and weak draft). While you can easily throw in a rag or two to your 1 jaina.
Smash is literally the only reason why I like rag and why he’s so powerful and versatile. If he didn’t have smash I would pick double soakers with better utility (e.g., it would be really hard to pick rag when you can just get yrel; but when rag can 1-shot ppl… yeah that’s a worthy argument for not picking yrel sometimes (yrel defends better, rag kills better - pick your poison)).
Fact is that smash was literally always the choice for rag in competitve. Not that rag was ever a popular pick though (very rare). As I said, without smash, there’s little reason to pick rag (well the fun factor is always at play ofc - rag is arguably one of the most fun heroes in the game).
As for ‘stats’? Most ppl can’t hit smash. L2p issues.
Lava wave makes life a lot easier. That’s true. And that’s a fine argument for ppl who don’t like tryharding or are just not in the mood to overthink game flow and are prone to doing macro mistakes. But that doesn’t mean it increases your chance to win. It just alleviates the burden on mistakes you shouldn’t make in the first place.
P.S. Lava wave would be a strong choice for heroes that are inherently terrible at waveclear - that would allow them to (undeservedly) fit a lot more drafts (imagine nova with lava wave). But for rag, who is already at the pinnacle of waveclearing with his base kit? It does very little extra.
Sadly, but yes. Actually I played them yesterday. They did not neccesarily feel unimpactful, rather just weak for most of the game. The soaking changes made them harder to play and require more risky playstyle. I am not a pro Viking or anything but would rate myself around 7/10 as Vikings.
I really like the buffed Spin to Win. Can really delete some unexpecting enemies late game.
But it is time they got a real passive. I would love a passive that gave them AoE damage resistance when clumped up together as that is their main weakness right now.
The steady mage/AoE damage and quest creep indirectly nerfed them over time. Nowdays Vikings have sooo many counters.
im not into competitve, but i AM a rag main, and i agree.
actually idk, shes the only hero i couldent beat. ive taken lanes from imperius, xul ( alot of times, back when he was “OP OMG” ) and even illidan ( a secret rag counter ) but zagara is very ranged and her ranged damage is higher than rag’s W sadly.
Rag has 3 ways to clear the creep, so she never has any. And then you get close with E, slow, Q, aa, meteor when she starts runnnig and finish with smash.
Zagara pretty much has to stay way back to even survive, as if she gets caught by E once - she’s almost certainly dead. Meaning zagara has absolutely no chance to take any objective from rag.
And it doesn’t help her case that her skills also give rag things to heal off.
then im just soooo lucky to be against zagaras nearly always half the lane away and know what they’re doing. XD ( ps many comps i faced , last i remember before quitting, were mostly melee and it was wrong not to pick Q build since they would have some CC mitigation so its not always E build for me. )
Personally I like E build, because 75% on E is just incredible and you clear waves fast from beginning while Q takes too long to get the effect. But I also see that Q build is better in the mid and lategame, but you need to finish the quest and it feels too exhausting for me. I take the easier part and go for E.
OK, here I disagree. I love W build, especially when I see enemys have strong poke heroes and it takes a while until Rag gets more tanky and in addition W build feels like dmg wise the strongest build rag got, at least in my personal experience.
Lava Wave does its job to an extent, but it doesn’t necessarily contribute to winning the game. Its no different than having one player on TLV covering the map and it doesn’t revolve over how good he is but rather how well your team can compensate for the deficit of warm bodies.
Otherwise as Biochemikas says, Q will most of the time not work due to CC and the clear benefit of building E is simplicity of use and speed boost. If you’re able to run ahead of the enemy and block their retreat, you’re that much more useful.
Ok, that’s a new one. Still, I’ll try my best to be impartial and try to understand.
You talking about lava wave? Honestly it’s by far the most overrated part of Rag–sure you can soak a ton of xp but you give your opponents just as much xp due to ur minions killing themselves on towers. Still, Rag is one of the best double soakers in the game (pretty much every build is) but most good Rags (especially in ranked) take Sulfaras Smash due to the huge damage.
This is true but he’s very squishy especially if you can’t land Q.
This is true, lane control is like, his niche imo. But then again, his burst damage is entirely reliant on enemy reactions, his sustain damage is entirely reliant on him wasting his (quite pitiful) escape tool, and as you rightly said, he’s very fragile.
Ragnaros is a true specialist like TLV or Abathur–he completely radicalizes how the game is played against him, and due to that I at least can understand why someone would call him op. But he’s not.
Honestly yeah, I’d love to see his, well, bruiseriness, buffed in exchange for another ult.
they all have scenarios to be activated. E build just is the most generally good build due to comps these days.
If you’re in a premade and you all decide for rag to be a pure dmg dealer then he can with W build become ranged assassin. it deals alot of damage but the general comp does not need more ranged assassins lol and it can be even better than E build if you already have good frontline and weaker ranged.
Q build is crazy against frontline comps, some of the best heroes he can duel with this build are Johanna, Dehaka, Garrosh, and Imperius, none of which can be approached with E build. Q DEALS 9% damage + the easy lvl 1 quest that can be done before 1st obj, giving you a MASSIVE early game boost, on a 2 second CD, + armor talents and lvl 20 submerge. you just become unstoppable. you just need 2 melee heroes and you’re set for Q.
I am pretty sure Jaina, among many heroes, captures them faster due to her very high burst splash damage. Opening with Blizzard and Cone of Cold will knock out most of the life off some mercenary groups.
Braxis is too congested for Qhria to be able to dive past Misha, plus Rexx can just out clear her and force her to stay back or else risk an EXP lose
While yes she can beat him and any other bruiser save for Beserker Ultimate Sonya in a strict 1v1 but a decent Rexxar shoudln’t be forcing the fight with Qhira he’s got so many tools to screw her in ways that exploit her biggest weaknesses in wave clear.
I don’t believe for a second you play Qhira if you can say this with a striaght face, or you’ve just never met a halfway decent Arthas
I take the easier part and go for E.