I’ve noticed that Orphea has a pretty strong base kit, but her heroics are the worst 2 in the game.
The result is a pretty balanced hero.
But I’m not sure if it would be good to shift some of that power from base kit to heroics so that her heroics are actual heroics that give her a big power spike at 10 but she is less strong before that.
I actually don’t mind it either way, just thought it’d be interesting to talk about.
Thoughts?
Its okay for different heroes to get their value from different parts of their kit, I think as long as her heroics are equally useful it’s fine.
There are other heroes with less impressive Heroics. Raynor is 85% AA, 10% W and E, and 5% “I guess other buttons exist”. Gul’dan has Horrify, which is nice but nothing to write home about, otherwise his basic abilities are quite impressive. Actually, a lot of mages follow that format - better than average basic skills, but worse heroics. Orphea even gets a special pass since she doesn’t suffer on her AA like most do.
Oh Contraire
Ults that can be good but are genrally considered a “bad pick”
Both of Orphea’s Ults are viable and she is fine.
I think his point was more that Orphea was two meh options, as opposed to one bad option and one good option like most bad Heroics.
I actually do agree with the OP in theory - I think that if you paired either of her choices with something like Ring of Frost or Slowing Sands, either of her current Heroics would be seen as the meme “bad pick”. It’s circumstantial: they’re both viable because there’s no better options.
It’s just that, it’s not like Orphea’s winrate is suffering because of this. It’s totally fine, especially since the two abilities are actually competing (no matter how small a space they may be competitive within).
The thing is Crushing jaws is a really good follow up to a CC-chain as it has a big hitbox and comes out fairly quick. Moreover, Orphea can actually set up Crushing Jaws on her own with her level 4 talent Fright and Dread, and if the placement on the map happens to favor it well. It’s more or less okay and it has a very good combo potential as compared to the above mentioned by GuardWizard. It also is fairly useful as an emergency peel for Orphea when she is being dived and needs to retreat.
Whereas Eternal Feast requires a much stricter / coordinated set-up as you want them to remain rooted / stunned for more than 1 second so as to get the most out of the chomps. But Eternal Feast is a potent heroic against piloted objectives due to the hitboxes of the Dragon Knight / Volskaya Mech being so large, allowing you opportunity to better burn and defend against it. So it does have that value, which arguably quite a strong one at that. Although it has great value as well in killing enemy momentum, as it will force them to retreat.
Crushing Jaw is strong and makes her kit a whole with giving her a CC which gives her a personal wombo-combo.
Eternal Feast is a low CD zone/wombo follow up. Like, imagine it with Entomb or Moshpit.
Then what are you asking for? Purposefully sabotage a good hero for absolutely no reason?
The problem is that if you make her heroics stronger, they will be completely broken when used properly in combination with other heroes in a team fight. Balancing heroics in a vacuum, assuming they will only be used on their own, is short-sighted. Buffing them would be like saying “Apocalypse is useless, better add a hefty chunk of damage to it!”
Ok, I am fairly certain that Orphea’s heroics don’t even make it in the top 10, let alone the absolute worst in the game.
Crushing Jaws is honestly super useful, because it’s a spell that gives her some peel. Either for herself, or her support. Plus it moves anyone hit to the centre, so you can slap them with all your other stuff easily. The level 20 upgrade is really useful too. I’d honestly say it’s a B+ tier ult, comparable in usefulness to the likes of Cleansing Flame, or Wailing Arrow. (Although both of those have better alternatives. Life-Binder is especially strong.)
I haven’t had much luck with Eternal Feast, but I’ve seen others put it to work.
Eternal Feast combo’d with Maiev’s Cage is glorious.
Don’t fix what ain’t broke.
Both of Orphea’s ults are generally sort of team-reliant or setup-reliant on account of how independently beastly a kit that can be fully specced for resets is.
I promise you the munchy is basically the worst time you can have in HotS once you fall into a Mosh Pit or a Zarya ult. Don’t forget she doesn’t need to channel either so she can still independently move and damage you from her ult.
If her ults were powerful without any setup kind of like the rest of her kit is, it would be too overbearing.