The problem with Block-Talents and Multi-Hit Basic Attacks

General Discussion
1

I’ve already do a post like this a long time ago, which have been pretty controversial but Blizzard seemed ignore it, so I’m re-posting it again since it’s very important for the Game Design of the game.

Currently, a large majority of “Block-Talents” in the game are working like this:
“Every X seconds, grants X charges of Block, reducing the damage of the next Basic Attack by X%, up to X charges.”

For those that weren’t here at the end of 2015 + beginning 2016, there was an old talent called “Dampen Magic” that was added to the game. The first Hero to possess it was Stitches on the patch 2015-10-06 (I don’t manage to put links)

It was a level 1 talent and worked like that:
“Every 8 seconds, gain a charge that reduces damage taken from the next incoming enemy Ability by 50%. Stores up to 2 charges.”

We all agree that it works EXACTLY like the current Block-Talents, but Blizzard decided to change it into that:
“Dampen Magic charges now cause all incoming Ability Damage to be reduced by 50% for 1 second.”
With the following comment:
“Similar to Block, Dampen Magic is the first of many efforts we will be making to create more meaningful counter-pick Talents (in this case, against spell casters). We found that the original iteration of Dampen Magic did not truly fulfill its purpose of mitigating spell damage due to how many spell effects are done with incremental damage. This buff should make the Talent more universally viable against enemy spells.”
(on 2016-03-29)

Then they’ve changed it again on 2016-04-12 to be like that:

  • Maximum charges reduced from 2 to 1.
  • Duration increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds.

With the following comment:
“While we feel that Dampen Magic has done its job of mitigating Ability Damage, it also has so much uptime that it can be difficult for enemies to know when is a good time to fire off their full damage output. We’re removing the second charge and increasing its duration, which should make it a bigger moment and help enemies to more easily know when the time is right to attack.”

At this period, a lot of Heroes with Multi-Hit Basic Attack don’t exist yet.
I’m talking about everything like Tracer, Genji, D.Va, Zarya, Lucio, Tassadar, Tychus, Valeera, Kharazim (those last 4 existed already).

Currently, Block-talents work exactly like the old Dampen Magic, but nowadays a lot of Heroes can deal a lot of few damage with Basic Attacks, denying at 100% every charge of Block for an amount of damage prevented ridiculous.

On the other hand, Heroes with every slow Attack Speed and high amount of damage dealt per Basic Attack are totally messed up:
Hanzo, Stukov, Butcher, Greymane, Varian Colossus, Deathwing, the 4th Basic Attack of Raynor, Sgt.Hammer, Thrall (even more with Follow Through) and Yrel.

But the main problem is whenever you got those Heroes in the enemy with a Multi-Hit Hero.

Let’s take for example the following enemy composition:
E.T.C - Stukov - Tassadar - Tracer - The Butcher.

I’d really like to take a Block-Talent against Stukov and Butcher but I cannot cause of Tassadar + Tracer destroying every single stack in 0.25/0.125 second and without even making it profitable.

So, my question is:
What are you waiting to change every Block-Talents preventing a number of charge by a lower amount of Armor, but preventing every Basic Attack for X seconds ?

Exactly like you did for Johanna and Yrel by the way.

Edited for Language by the Moderation Team.
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2

All old stack based Block talents that regenerate 1 stack at certain time intervals, are legacy generic talents from 2015 that should be deleted or reworked into time duration based blocks. It’s odd any of those talents still exist today. They don’t work in todays gameplay anymore.

It’s strange they would universally delete Envenom, Blood for Blood, Stoneskin, First Aid, but for some unexplained reason keep Block in its’ original unchanged form from a time period that has nothing to do with modern HotS (at a time when new heroes can deplete those stacks in a split second).

11 Likes
3

If multi hit heroes remain at 5 range max and block give more than 2 measly charges and give 75armor always i am fine with it.
Yrel’s block talent is OP btw.

4

This doesn’t solve the problem at all, and in which world you’ve seen ranged assassins not focusing melee Heroes ?

1 Like
5

In a world where lots of people think mages and healers should not use their AAs to start with.

6

Since Tassadar needs to Basic Attack to keep his Mana Regen, and considering the fact that what you’ve said is totally wrong on Diamonds/Master/GM, I repeat:

1 Like
7

changing it from somewhat 10% of the cast making block a bad choice to a braindead must-pick because guaranteed value seems not to be necessary considering sonya, butcher, valeera, arthas, malganis have rather high winrates on charge based block

8

“Every 8 seconds, grants 50 Physical Armor for 1.5 seconds, reducing damage received by all Basic Attack by 50%.”

Do you call that “braindead must-pick talent” ?

What should be done as well, and would put the talent in a even better spot for Diamonds/Master/GM is that it could be toggled, like Spell Shield to be able to prevent damage when burst could come out, in that case, the talent should look like something like that:

“Every 8 seconds, grants 40 Physical Armor against the next Basic Attack and subsequent Basic Attacks for 1.5 seconds.
Can be toggled to allow or prevent this talent from triggering automatically.”

1 Like
9

Spell shield is no lv1 talent for a reason, block on lv13 would be a bit late but maybe that’s only me

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10

Tell that to Malthael.

1 Like
11

Block is a level 1 talent because it’s mainly useful during solo lane phase, and this is why a lot of Solo-Laners have this talent. This is as well the reason why this talent has still a so high winrate despite its awful design.

Spell Shield isn’t useful during phase laning because most of the damage is dealt by Basic Attack.

This is why Block should absolutely not be a level 13 talent and still stay at level 1.

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12

Why exactly would it be awful design if it serves its purpose (good winrate) while having a limited but not too narrow set of counterplay? Sounds pretty good to me.

13

It’s a good talent for solo laners, but what would happen if a new Solo Laner is released with 4 Basic Attack per second ? He would alone force all Block talent to be changed.

In addition to that, that’s right that Block is currently a good talent for solo lane, but useless on Teamfight against every Heroes I’ve mentioned above, this is why its design is awful.

The problem isn’t that it has or not a counter play, it is that certain Heroes deny it completely and others are 100% countered without any response possible, exactly like the old version of the level 13 talent of Nazeebo, “Superstition” which left no answer to mages.

14

Roughly 10% of the cast, depending on who you want to count or not.

If we’re talking teamfights there are 4 more possible auto attackers among your ranks who are very well capable of a “possible response” if you ask me.

Comparing solo lane where block shuts some heroes down to teamfights where it’s maybe useless and then generalize to it’s overall all-or-nothing is rather nitpicky. Obviously it’s good in some situations and it’s not in others, just like 50 other talents, builds or even heroes.

15

Imagine Artanis having his block changed to not giving him 1 (or 2) charges against 1 (or 2) AA like now, but the charges would last 1.5 sec.

1.5 sec of 75 physical armor, twice, on top of his shield.
You kidding right?
He can cast his W every 4 seconds. So he would have 1.5 (or 3) seconds of armor, and them 2.5 (or 1 lol) second without armor.

You just made more broken Cassia.

1 Like
16

I agree, but that’s like comparing Artanis to Sonya or Arthas, the latter don’t have a shield trait to make a generic block bonkers OP. I’m not sure what the solution is, but I understand why people complain about this old generic talent when you have heroes like Tracer who can make block meaningless in a team fight, yet it’s still a useful talent in the solo lane.

17

Are you serious ?

All of them have their Basic Attack completely denied by Block, not 10% xD

And I’ve not even counted situations like Alarak’s Lethal Onslaught, Arthas Frostmourne, Azmodan’s Wrath talent, Deathwing’s Fire and Fury talent, Greymane and Samuro Executionner, Illidan’s Blade of Azzinoth, Hanzo’s Flawless Technique (which has been up), Imperius with his Trait, Leoric Third Basic Attack, Muradin lv 7, Nova, Thrall and Sonya Follow Through, Orphea’s Chaos, Ragnaros Blistering Attacks, Tyrael AA build.

Every time a charge of Block denies one of those talents, this is like Heroes don’t even picked it and even if it rarely happens, when it does, it’s just way too much worth for Block.

Because changing it to X amount of Armor for X seconds is “all-or-nothing” ?

I don’t even understand why you hold on to that old talent, it’s a FACT that it’s outdated, its design isn’t anymore appropriated to what the game currently is, it’s as well a fact that Block counters too much certain Heroes and not at all others.

It’s EXACTLY like Cocoon with Disintegrate and in comparison Leoric’s Basic Attack.
Li-Ming just OS the cocoon, and Leoric cannot in any situation breaks it alone (except maybe with a Stim Drone lol)

If Block would be changed like how I said, then yes, or he would get something like 1 second of Block for 4 seconds CD, or they would change the way he gains Physical Armor to look like to his lv 13 Phase Bulwark, and make it a Trait Talent.

18

bit of a communication issue here, roughly 10% of the roster deny block value on their own. tracer, tass, lucio and so on.

  • so you complain about it being maybe too strong in sololane - OK. maybe it is.
  • you also complain about it being useless in teamfights because stacks get consumed by low damage/fast attacks - OK. imho that’s a well balanced downside to a strong talent but maybe it’s too much of it.
  • you also complain about hanzo, butcher, stukov, raynor, hammer who you mostly see in teamfights rather than sololane being countered too hard by current block - ???

sure if you 1v1 them block gets good value, if it’s a teamfight their malf, jaina, tanks and their grandmother will also consume block stacks, it’s not like butcher alone hitting his head into a fully stacked block sonya all fight long

imagine a thing like actually counterpicking talents. everytime I instant-interrupt a moshpit it’s like their ETC didn’t even pick it.

His is neither charge based nor triggered by enemy action. If there’s a fight happening he got value out of this talent mostly until death or disengage.

19

The last Dev conversation I heard on Block was that they are ok with it being situational. There are many other counters to AA builds (Attack Speed Slows, Blinds, etc.). As such, they were ok leaving Block as a “soft” counter.

I disagree with them, but I understand where they are coming from. AA builds are usually situational and/or hard to get value from. Adding another hard counter would hurt AA builds even more.

20

Same goes for iceblock. Every hero who had 3 sec iceblock got it removed but somehow nazebo still have it. And most nazebos fail to use it lol. Use iceblock while getting camped on by 4 heroes then die.

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