The pro-scene is ruining hots by making everything more bland and generic for balancing purposes. The pros define “what the meta is” and now all of us are SHOVED into it.
Look at the most recent reworks. Look at Stitches! Making everything play more generic so they can have their meta.
Yes you are right, we Don’t care about the pro they are like 1% the player base of the game, the game need to be adjusted to the majority, when i see the yrel nerf, i ask myself why ? Because some random “pro” figure out that was OP on some configuration ? Did they test yrel after the nerf ? Because its garbage, no self sustain on lane, you can’t do merc anymore, you are USELESS.
The game is bad because of poor decision, this game got HUGE POTENTIAL, its sad.
While I agree that “trickle down” balancing is detrimental to the quality of gameplay for everyone below diamond, I would pose the question that:
Wouldn’t making heroes more “generic” be better for the game, since you’re no longer forced to play “the most OP hero” if you want to win, you’d simply play the hero you enjoy the most and adapt their talent to the situation?
And here we have a genji main lol
Problem is, we lost real " adapt their talent to the situation" more then year again, and its mostly due to ‘balance.tm’.
Genji even more cancer for casual play, so i doubt it.
If you actually knew how to play the heroes to their full potential you wouldn’t have anything to worry about. Obviously the hero isn’t as generic as you think it is… its “generic” (for you) because its limited to your personal skill with it.
This is horse poo. Go into HL and watch every other player first pick Nova or Gaz or Tassadar… anyone below diamond is just playing whatever they want to play.
lol. This made me legit spit up good bourbon laughing.
Back in Alpha, every hero I “mastered” and loved got systematically nerfed.
“Hey I figured out the REAL way to Illidan”
nerf
“Ok, I really like this Kerrigan. She’s got the melee, wreck everything if I spec it right and have the team support”
le nerf
“Ok… I do like Nova, she seems to have a versatile toolkit and make up for the lack of waveclear with my spec”
ahem nerf/complete change
“Whoa, guess I’m stuck healing on Malf. 100+k heals are pretty rad and I can frustrate the hell out of the other team!”
hyper nerf
All of those heroes mentioned and even more since then have had the SOUL sterilized from them because of what I can only imagine is “competitive” play.
Let me hunt/gank people with Illidan again.
Let me AoE the hell out of everything with Kerri again (especially since I have no direct self heal now).
LET ME DAMAGE MINIONS WITH ENTANGLING ROOTS AND HAVE A REAL HOT AGAIN!
Give me Nova builds where I can erase people on my own again or to where the talents aren’t full of exceptions. “What? You thought your CRIPPLING SHOT talent would work with your decoy? NOT ANYMORE CUZ COMPETITIVE!”
Anyhow, I’m drunk and you triggered me so deal with it. 
Bourbon is good. Glad you had a good laugh. Think I might craft me a salted caramel apple hot toddy.
Its true about the heroes though. Thinking about heroes as being balanced “at the pro scene” is not how to think about it but only as their full potential to be used. Has nothing to do with those players and only what is capable to do with those heroes.
P. S. Are you still an illidan player? I love a good illidan player.
I used to prefer mixed drinks in my youth but bourbon was the all encompassing light that my ignorant self never knew soon enough. All I want now is unaltered, single-barrel bourbon, and some ice and I’m a happy Volsong. XD
I might have been a bit rash about the “competitive” scene as I put it but I’ve never really seen a pro game that struck me as “WOW THIS IS HOW YOU PLAY HOTS!”. It’s always been “ok, consistent group of players form a team… cool, they will stomp everything because they are used to each other’s playstyle”. That shouldn’t affect gameplay or, dare I say, ENJOYMENT of this game because then it stops being a fun game and it becomes a surgical, “can you out-math the other team?” game. You know, like watching American Football and you think there’s 1:40sec left in the game but they just down the ball a couple times.
Alas, I digress. I want the game to have multiple viable builds for ALL heroes. Most of the player base as I recall (obviously from my perspective) has always questioned nerfing because heroes who performed beautifully were broken rather than fixing already broken heroes.
This is coming from someone who religiously scoffed at AoE Novas and Rewind Novas because I actually played her the way I felt she should be. Like a FREAKING sniper!
Edit: I still play Illidan occasionally but not in PVP. I feel he’s missing the initial burst needed for a Hunt build or a synergistic team fight build so I mostly see hunt as a “split push full commit at 20” thing now. =\
Honestly, I’ve felt this way for quite a while now.
I go out of my way as of recent (mostly because I have to), to get as proficient with as many characters as possible. Often times I’ll become better with some of the less used character (at least according to the HL suggestions), and things always seem to happen like clockwork. Get good with a particular hero after quite a bit of effort, and then all the sudden some major nerf wave rolls through, while all the heroes I think badly need a nerf, get buffed.
And sadly, yes, it actually is starting to feel like all heroes are being pushed into ‘generic’ tiers a little to strongly. I typically would play support (since no one else ever wanted to), and with each passing patch, I become less and less able to do anything other that be a giant healbot the whole, to the point where I’d be just as useful just DCing and letting the computer run it, because there’s nothing else needed to do, compared to before, where I was able to control the battle field somewhat and do at least a minor amount of damage.
All of this always seems to happen, according to Blizzard, at the whim of the ‘meta’ that is always pulled from the HL (the big thing that’s making them money, so I can’t say I’m surprised), while ignoring a lot of complaints from a majority of people quite a bit. I’ve watched some patches go through, that seem to only happen because one team in the HL didn’t like something, and the general majority of the fan based disagreed, and Blizzard just shrugs, because it seems like the money is doing the talking.
To bad to, seem if this keeps up to much longer, that a lot of the game will lose its appeal for each hero being individualized to match what the hero would be in the game, in favor of a meta they get from a seemingly tiny percentage of the top tier players. Oh well, I suppose all things must start to die eventually, we’ll just have to hope for the best.
I totally get that.
The same thing happens with players requests for buffs however. I’ve played with some of my master friends so I can see what is capable with some heroes so when I see players want X hero buffed when I know that same hero is capable of great power and making key plays it can be questionable for me as well.
Yea I’m still a “noob” when it comes to this. Still have to train my palette and learn to appreciate the better bourbons (without making it part of a mixed drink).
I won’t lie about my “skill” as I took about a year off around 2016/2017 to focus on my personal life (aka I wanted to be GM IRL as I like to think ). When I came back, the game felt like it had been neutered and I had a really hard time adjusting to it. Illidan was understandable (considering how often he’s changed), Nova felt absolutely soulless (and still does), Kerrigan was still enjoyable but needed a small QoL buff (imo) and now she’s been reworked within reason but immediately nerfed into oblivion, and Malfurian was at the gallows with his rework and I absolutely refuse to play him now (though I’m sure he’s super kawaii in the competitive scene).
Now I can’t see myself playing any of them in PVP without a coordinated team that I can trust (lol) or it’s a YOLO pick at best (I won’t contribute to this so you’re welcomed fam). It’s likely that my skill level has simply hit a low that I can’t recover from in ranked play but it makes me miss better days. This is just from my perspective which is very likely in a minority now. Believe me, I envy those of you who can’t relate to this because it’s kind of like someone telling me to dig them a swimming pool with only a spoon and MAYBE a couple people will stop by to throw cement and water wherever they feel like but no guarantees and you’re being graded on it! Cool man, I can do some stuff with this spoon but I won’t get MVP, my team mates will likely question why I’m not Michelangelo, and I’ll just resent the state of the game even more than I sadly do.
Anyhow, I’m Volsong and thanks for coming to my drunken Ted Talk or whatever. >.>
PS:
I was the same way with bourbon. I love Wild Turkey 101 and I mostly used it in whiskey sours or with Real Sugar Pepsi until a friend of mine just handed me a glass of Wild Turkey Forgiven with only ice lol. I just drank it, and started to notice how much flavor was in bourbon in general. I mean hell, once I found out how to buy vodka that tastes better, made from better ingredients, and is somehow CHEAPER than the crap that is marketed on the regular… it’s like rediscovering it all over again lol. Everything is an adventure mate! 
LoL did the opposite, they decided to make everything balls to the wall. To much damage, to much mobility, to short a game, snowball, massive decrease of a single players ability to carry.
What is it with HotS and LoL going full you know what mode and just completely tossing out the larger % of the player base? Its arsine imo. An I am getting pretty tired of it. Frankly I HATE and despise esports because of how it warps and twits the games that end up in it.
Yea I’m not a fan of the new Malfurion either. He is too reliant on doing damage to heal. He was the first hero I played 4 years ago and yea the changes are pretty drastic but I know why they did them (I think) to make them more appealing to people who want to do damage and heal. Still we’ve seen in a famous pro match how Malfurion can be drafted against (by using heroes he can’t damage - stealthies). Was an awesome game to watch BTW.
In any case. yea Illidan is really team dependent. I’m a huge fan of the hero/lore etc… I raided mythic as a demon hunter player in wow last expac… but still I can’t seem to play Illidan himself in this game… so I just always support the hell out of anyone who does.
In my opinion Ilidan is borderline OP af. Seriously… played well and supported well he does great and that’s why they don’t touch him much. That’s not to say he couldn’t use a makeover… I’d love to see some of his wow abilities xferred here to HOTS. things like Eyebeam, stun on his Meta, maybe even chaos nova, and immolation aura.
I don’t play Kerrigan because she’s my master friends main and so well I just can’t haha. He is too critical of everything I do with her.
Nova… i played her to death when this game came out so I’m bored of her now… she has her place but still team dependent also in more ways than one. You need a decent comp and players who know what they are doing with it… so its not a game i like to play. And stealth changes overall not a fan of them really so there’s that.
Don’t be hard on yourself. You sound like you are still skilled just have to get used to the new heroes as they are or just play new ones. And yes the whole trust team other players thing… that is HUGE… and I have problems with that myself in every game mode. This is a huge skill disparity issue Blizzard has yet to really address well enough for me so I just play more occasionally now on alts. I resent the state of the game as much as you do believe me.
Back to balancing… Blizzard has been slowly getting to tighter balancing of old heroes and considering them in overall picture. I know that much. I have a feeling they are also trying to prevent one-tricks as well given the future announced (i don’t have source, another poster said this) names revealed again in HL. Still they also force just moving onto to new ones… so you feel compelled to buy them etc.
Ill have to try that Wild Turkey now 
P. S. I so get this. Im trying to do that in my life as well. It’s why I quit mythic raiding in wow. I just have to get my head out of this game and other games too.
Agree:
Disagree:
I’d rather they do something about those “zero situational awareness /deficit types” Thats what makes the game so unfun and down to the team trust thing… its the major reason why you simply cannot play heroes who are team dependent if you want to move your mmr up anywhere. So it forces a certain type of hero. I’m playing the same high win rates all the time just to get away from the “zero” players who are now playing well into platinum now. It wasn’t always like that. Used to be you got away from that type of player by the time you hit high silver mmr.
P. s. if you guys both meant that we should be able to carry more then I agree but I meant this if you meant “we shouldn’t” sorry if confusion.
No I think you misunderstood, I was more complaining about LoL with the damage and snowball. HotS has better comeback imo, and the damage is FAR more fair here in HotS then it is LoL (not counting Kalthus, he is still disgusting when it comes to his burst. Mostly its his point and click living bomb, that I hate.)
Really was complaining about both games weird hard on for pro play, and for balancing everything on esports to the determent to the larger player base. Frankly I am tired of esports infesting and twisting and screwing up games I like.
I mean I am mostly into hero’s again, because Riot (LoL’s dev) has decided to go full all in on esports with everything (and there is some conjecture a lot of the changes are also done to be more preferable to china and korea). Damage isnt insaine in hero’s, you can at least last more then a second or two unless your are hard focused as a squishy by 3 or more people; damage is my biggest issue in LoL. something HotS doesnt seem to have. Also while hero’s has some busted heros, there aren’t nearly as many of them as there are in LoL.(frankly as insaine as this sounds, I think hero’s is better balanced then LoL. Some hard counters excluded of course: Genji and Tracer, and certain supports being able to shut down entire classes.
Both have the mobility issue; but I think HotS has a better chancer to take care of it, because most of it stems from Genji and tracer, with D.VA being slightly in it too.
To be honest, if Blizzard will just get their head out of their butt, they could give LoL a run for its money(by giving people what they want, its really that simple. give the player base what they asked for and what benefits the MAJORITY of the player base.). LoL is losing an ton of people who are tired of Riots BS. The only regions growing at all in LoL are China and Korea (kinda funny that; them rumors saying the games being changed to suit them and the population grows because of it. Yah totally just a coincidence.)
Edit: Now, when I say majority, I dont mean the majority of one country; china (Korea too) is who I mean. Just because they have something like 4 billion people, doesn’t mean you should go balancing the damn game around them and changing how the game plays to suit them and their net cafes and basically say: “screw everyone else!!!”
Then play dota 2. I played faceless and won 1 vs 4 in that game.By that i mean they all had full hp and i was the only enemy in their sight. Nothing holding you back there.
Can still kill ppl in 1 aa if fed to the brink.The core of dota that when you are fed you can be a god is still strong there.