I regularly dueled down assassins and terrorized other healers as E-build Whitemane pre-rework (at least starting from late game). Though this isn’t so apparent for peeps but Whitemane’s burst damage was effectively cut by half. My only decent source of burst healing now is her ult which got buffed from near-useless to general utility while Scarlet Aegis is a more specialist ult.
People did claim Whitemane does more healing and damage after the rework but that was because they shifted her power away from burst. And it hurts me quite much. I did learn to like the rework for what it is, it has some merits. But the old E-build Whitemane who can 1v1 most Assassins down from late game does not exist.
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That atrocity is among the worst they did; for me her E was the embodiment of her dynamic damage-driven playstyle as it was cool skillshot which was rewarding for hitting as many opponents as possible. Now it is degraded to be an utility for W and AA buid …
Unfortunately.
Same here; she was not perfect but absolutely superior to what she is now.
I´ve suggested that myself iirc; her basic attacks should support her spells, not the other way around. Say 2% per attack up to 10% or something like that.
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I guess this is the reason why the devs nerfed her. She’s hard to play and most people can’t play her and get oom easily. 
For example I can’t play her either and had a lot of mana struggle, but still she is/was kinda unique and difficult compared to other healers.
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The irony of this the fact that Whitemane became even more obscure compared to before. People actually easily learned the old W-build which was effectively a rhythm game and allowed WM to just YOLO with her mana bar and then recover it all with a single W cast.
She was definitely easier to pick up then compared to now. Currently you run out of mana even faster (Q’s effective mana cost increased while your only mana management is the Divine Reckoning ult) so you need to figure out a fairly specific method to distribute Zeal buffs to 3+ people without bankrupting your mana pool.
And then you need to abuse the hell from your CDR to effectively remain a stationary target via W almost all the time. If you can do this, you win. Except the whole stationary part and how the difference between a poor WM who knows the build and a great WM is mostly down to positioning.
So yeah, WM more accessible? Good joke. She’s even more demanding to play and with much more strict limitations compared to before. The only boon is that she has a solid utility now from level 13 onwards.
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It was just my experience that I had more success with the new one than the old one. Different playstyles I guess.
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A lot of people actually had success with new WM. in spite of the seemingly massive nerfs to her everything, what she gained actually somehow outweighs these benefits. As I said WM has utility now and having W on an effective 6s cooldown is really oppressive when you keep somebody at 50% damage.
Old W build has different weaknesses and played out very differently. So just as you say, perhaps WM’s current style meshes with you more. And again, as much as we complain about WM it’s a fact she’s stronger than she used to be winrate-wise. So in a sense she’s more buffed, even though old players obviously feel the chasms of nerfs that were done to her old playstyle.
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You really had to be special to be oom with release Q build or old cclemency.
At least now you need a brain to not be oom, it may be too much now but at least it is not brainless either.
My personal pet peeve with WM’s current mana tension is that she was meant to have those punishing values with mana return talents that valued proper play. That was entirely the intention. Yet they remove the mana return talent tier entirely rather than toning it down or reworking that portion. I honestly expected to suffer way more for this decision than I actually did, although that’s partially due to Pity the Frail.
Yet there’s an aspect I hate even more. Q’s mana cost change was entirely unnecessary and contrary to the design aim. They increased the base mana cost to 45 while reducing the Desperation stack penalty to 45. Until you crunch number this seems nice until you realize you still OOM nearly just as fast if you use your Qs recklessly while the extra baseline mana outright punishes you compared to before if you try to make use of your abilities the proper way (you bleed mana nearly twice as fast because mana regen prior countered most of the loses).
This is the most frustrating design decision about her, IMO. They only needed to return mana tension yet their idea is to punish people no matter what they do.
Meanwhile Anduin got mana reduction on his Q because people spamming that button still ran out of mana…
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True they went a too far on the other end
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The only problem with the mana return was High Inquisitor, and that could have been easily changed to remove 1 stack/restore 60 mana per second of channel, maybe with a bonus for full channel instead of everything at once. Thats too much for a point-and-click ability.
Old Indulgence was a plain awesome ability and bound to a skillshot.
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Tbh I forgot about Q build, it used to be very strong
Ideal it would be great if all 4 builds are great
W E Q and AA
Or maybe a mix between 2 talents instead of what they do now
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I maintain that having auto attacks be any sort of focus on a character who’s main abilities consist of a 3 second long channel on a shortish CD is just silly, but that’s my opinion.
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Imho E having baby range and having a self root is way worse for the hero than having to AA.
I also love playing support, I guess you would call me a support “main”, and while I like Whitemane she is on the bottom of my list to pick too. I don’t know, I guess I just find her playstyle a little stressful or something. I feel like I get more value out of the other healers with less effort.
I for my part am rather confused why they gave her that stand-around-in-one-spot ability in the first place. It is by far her most boring ability and undermines her dynamic playstyle imo. The only saving grace was always the root combo with E, for me at least.
… And the laughing of course.
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I think it was pretty cool before they reworked her, because it actually dealt pretty substantial damage when it finished or the longer it’s channeled.
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I´m pretty sure there was no bonus damage for full channel, but adding such and/or restoring her damage might indeed help with it.
What I meant was it actually dealt 53 damage before it was nerfed to 50, and that actually felt powerful and meaningful to channel.
My personal idea would include an 1.75s channel for W which deals bonus damage on the finished cast. Self-root and increased sticking range remains. It no longer slows until the cast ends. After W ends its slow persist for 3 seconds and you could trigger the other negative effects.
Numbers may need adjustment but my idea is to shift W’s power towards finishing the cast, shortening the Channel time a bit in return for making the ability more dependent on the lack of interruptions. So increased risks in a sense but slight bit more reward.
Also this significantly reduces the time Whitemane would spend stationary.
Thematically, it matches the priest’s Penance or Mind flay spells in Wow
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