First of all please dont consider this a salty post, thank you.
Now I have started playing HotS again after a short brake and started out with my favorite hero Valeera. This led me to once again think about the stealth mechanic in this game.
I liked it on her and on other heroes in the beginning of the game but could also understand how it was punishing to weaker players the way it was. The new way on the other hand I feel renders it almost obsolet and turns it more into a gimmick than a real mechanic.
Firstly there arent a lot of heroes who actually use stealth as part of their kit, mainly Zeratul, Nova and Valeera with only one of them performing quite well with Nova struggeling a bit and Valeera being in a difficult niche. Other heroes just use stealth on a very smal scale like Greymane and Tassadar as a way to escape. For those I believe the gimmick works very well since its not defining their gameplay.
On the three main stealth heroes stealth is in Zeratuls case a nice way to set up ganks without being noticed too early for Nova a good way to get in position or escape and for Valeera literally what defines her as a hero since it opens up her second skill set. This leads to Zeratul doing fairly well out of stealth, just not having the element of surprise on his side, Nova in a difficult spot if out of stealth since she has lower mobility and Valeera in a tough spot since she relys on opening out of stealth and going into close combat.
Now the problem with the setup as it is right now is that its a nice advantage on Zeratul and for the others a heavy blow to their utility once they lose stealth by being revealed. This happens fairly often since they are very easy to spot and a lot of aoe damage is being thrown around. For being a main part of their kit this means its quite easy to counter since Valeera for example doesnt really bring much to the table outside of her openers with follow up.
This left me thinking what Id like to see stealth transforming into and I have come up with two things:
Remove stealth as a main feature of those heroes and keep it as a gimmick on other heroes. Then rework those three a to balance out losing stealth which should not be that hard outside of Valeeras kit.
Transform stealth into a more active ability instead of a passive one. For example put it on a timer (kind of like Samuro) and rework it accordingly, like being more unrevealable or letting Valeera keep her openers for 1.5 seconds after breaking etc.
I would be fine with either or a completely different solution I just think I am tired of the way it currently works. Let me hear what you think about all this and thank you a lot for reading this. Have an awesome day.
Unrevealable is already triggering people with samuro and buffing zeratul’s health would make people go mental.
Just leave us alone with that semi useless gimmick already and buff nova and valeera already.
Nova being in that sorey state for so long is getting old.
How I think stealth should behave is you should be near invisible at the edge of hero vision range (which is 12) and become gradually more visible until the stealthed unit comes within 4 range of any hero.
So if you’re more than 8 range away, you should be very opaque, and when you’re about 6 range, you become about 75% visible.
Thats a good idea actually. It doesnt fix the problem for Valeera that being revealed renders you close to useless but you actually arent that easy to spot from miles away.
I think stealth should stay like it is.
It is tiresome having people moan because they are " handicapped "and can’t see it.
Current stealth is great even someone blind can see it and thus no one can complain about it. It should stay like this.
So you nerf both heroes by removing stealth and you give them zero compensation for removing some power budget.
Nice balance, can you go balance ranged dps so we may have an enjoyable game too?
I never said dont compensate for that, in fact I said the opposite but I do remember someone complaining about giving him more health.
Oh yeah there it is. And compensating would only be needed if they completely removed stealth. On Zeratul it is actually pretty good, like I said in my original post.
Btw if you dont want to contribute anything you dont have to, feel free to do anything else with your time.
Stealth was changed so that everyone can see it.
Current stealth does that there is no point in changing it again to have someone with the newest impairement ask to see it again which they would be entitled to.
Nova is a terribad hero because her numbers are terribad if you undo her 3 last nerfs she would actually be a playable hero.
Let’s buff struggling stealth heroes numbers and talents and leave the functionnal ones where they are.
Makes you untargetable (Ability and AA as well = no point’n’click value).
Hides you from the minimap (hidden rotation on gankers).
Enables you to became true invisible.
We have 3 Melee Stealth, all which have movespeed, teleports (and some other gapclosers), and one Ranged with p’n’c CC.
Zera and Sam are top tier Heroes.
Valeera is a decent niche (who needs a rework but only cuz her talenttree is horrible).
And Nova who -tho viable- struggles to find her distinguishable identity.
Zera and Sam doesn’t care that much about losing stealth, that’s true.
But the same is true for Nova.
The only one who heavily relies on it is Valeera, but it’s not that easy to just reveal her, because she can either teleport behind your back (which can be also used to dodge certain abilities if timed right), or can engage normally and Stealth from melee with her unrevealable.
And complaining about how “Stealth changed” is weird tbh, because a lot of ppl saw stealth the same way as they see it now. It only changed to ppl who were unskilled or had problems with their eye (or computer?, referencing the graphic setting argument from the old days).
While I also don’t like stealth the way it is now, I must say that Leera can still do pretty much whatever she wants, as she has an instant blink on her openers, which usually works like this:
You approach a hero
He sees you
He attempts to reveal you with a skill shot
The skill shot has a cast time and a travel time
By the time the missle is fired, you are already behind him
You can easily kill him, or at least bully him to retreat.
It’s really hard to reveal a Valeera, that is actively attempting to engage you.
As Karabars said, it’s true that stealth still holds value. However i do agree that stealth lost a lot of its fantasy from this change.
If anything, I’d love for stealthies to get true invisibility during their unrevealable frames (e.g. when valeera first stealths).
This at least allows the stealthy to change direction and create minor confusion for a brief period.
I mean, tassadar used to have this when he phase shifted. I thought it was awesome.
What kind of dark templar does not have stealth?
What kind of ghost , rogue or blade master doesn’t?
Stealth is going to be here for those heroes, it would make no sense not to…
That is a neat idea but I reckon it’ll require a bit of visual model to get people to understand because stealth description is like describing a negative lol. However I do wonder what would happen to stealthies like Valeera who’s melee and has to get close to do her openner.
