The Ragnaros issue. Analysis

General Discussion
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I personally feel that Ragnaros is a badly designed hero. (And no, I’m not talking about the fact that he can’t get skins). Specifically, I feel that blast wave and Molten core are problematic.

  1. Ragnaros the bruiser.
    Ragnaros is one of only two bruisers that doesn’t have any kind of CC on his basic abilities. (The other being Malthael, who also used to be an assassin)

I’m going to just go ahead and say that Rag is a horrible bruiser. His sustain is among the most unreliable. And because it’s tied to hitting an auto attack, he can’t avoid taking damage while he tries to get his sustain. It also means blinds will deny his sustain as well. The reason you never see him picked at high levels is because every bruiser is better than him.

The best kept secret about Molten Core

Molten core is a problem. Because Rag has access to both Molten core and Lava wave, they don’t want to buff him because they want to avoid him being good at too many things. But here’s the thing about Molten core. When Rag activates it, you shouldn’t run away. You should attack it. Molten core has pretty low HP. If your team attacks it, it will cancel in under 2 seconds, and then Ragnaros reappears in the middle of your team. And since he has no mobility, dies.

Molten core was nerfed because it was considered too powerful, and I think they’re too wary of it to buff it.

That damned blast wave

Blast wave is a problematic ability.

  1. It lasts too long to be a reliable source of damage. Your target has ample time to avoid it, and to stay on them, you need to follow them towards their team.

  2. It doesn’t last long enough to be reliable as mobility. That small speed buff is never going to save you when you’re in trouble. Most assassins either can get passive move speed, or they can slow/stun you. Any of which will negate this.

So we’re stuck with an ability that will stop dealing damage if you make it last longer, but will be useless as mobility if you shorten it. I don’t play WoW, but I’m pretty sure the only reason blast wave exists is because Rag had it as a boss there. But I don’t see how anyone would purposely design an ability like that on a character. It’s just flawed.

Ragnaros’ Q, Empower Sulfuras. Has been nerfed over, and over, and over and over. His AA damage has also received nerfs in the past. I think they went a bit overboard since he depends on that damage for his sustain, and he’s such a weak frontline hero that dealing a lot of AA damage would be justified. He can only hit you for so long.

When they made blinds affect his Q, he became the only bruiser who gets denied both his sustain and his burst damage at the same time with one effect.

I really wish they would fix him. All he’s good for now is farming wins in bronze as people will ignore the push lava wave creates, and actually stand in it.

Anywhere else, he’s useless.

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2

Very fair points all around. Ragnaros falls more into what would previously be called a Specialist, even though that title was removed and he was ironically moved from assassin to bruiser. His self sustain, even when talented inward, is extremely unreliable and you’ll often find it wiffing completely since you have to be in enemies faces to even use it properly. Ergo your only defensive sustatin requires putting yourself in extreme danger.

I agree that he’s too clunky but his strengths rely in playing the map. The zerg maps especially, he is a hellion and can single handedly turtle you guys from a loss by burning all the zerg down. He’s definitely a niche pick, but even then I disagree completely to calling him a bruiser.

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YEah I agree, his nerfs to his Q are really uncalled for, especially when they made that weird nerf to blind his Q. It made me scratch my head

By no means Ragnaros is a bad character, but I noticed it is the character that most questions have brought to these forums (Myself included).

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No he isn’t, Garrosh is a poorly designed hero. Ragnaros is just a solid all rounder hero with weaknesses.

He doesn’t need any CC because he already has plenty of good stuff.

-Incredibly strong waveclear
-Great sustain
-Solid poke tool that can deal devastating damage if aimed well
-On-demand movement speed that can also be used on allies
-Very strong trait that when timed correctly can devastate the enemy team
-Amazing survivability in extended teamfights

In addition to those things, his talents can provide even more tools depending on what you need. His lvl4 tier is particularly effective in increasing his survivability or if you don’t need it, just pick the slow on blast wave.

His heroics are both credibly strong, both also providing different benefits depending on what you need.

For a very powerful teamfight ult as well as a super long range CC Sulfuras smash.

For increased map and lane pressure, Lava wave.

Does he need buffs? Yeah. But by no means is he poorly designed. There is a difference between having a bad design and simply being weak in comparison to alternatives. On the contrary he’s one of the best designed heroes in the game. He’s fairly strong, but has clear weaknesses, much like Greymane.

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Actually, Lava wave doesn’t deal THAT much damage to the zerg wave. It’s good AoE, but most of the wave is intact afterwards.

Yeah, I can’t ever agree with that.

Living Meteor is the worse skill shot in the game. It’s the second slowest after Malthael’s E. (But at least he gets value if it hits) The damage dealt is small. It’s too easy to avoid, and even if your target stands completely still, they still take minimal damage.

You’ll have to elaborate on that.

But my question to you would be, if Ragnaros if that good. Why is he completely ignored in Division S ?

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I know it’s not the focus of the thread but can someone give me a quick rundown on this?

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It is another case of identity problem and role in the game. Bruiser with the greatest siege power both offensively and defensively in the game. :smile:

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50 shades of reeeeed

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I don’t know about that, but he is pretty used in TotSQ in high level games. Niche use, but at least he has something going for him.

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I wish he could’ve been designed as a hero that takes place of the core and has global presence like Abathur.

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Ragnaros has several abilities that he uses in the fight, sometimes accompanied by yelling. They are as follows:

  • Spell fire soulburn.png Wrath of Ragnaros — Inflicts 1000 Fire damage to nearby enemies, knocking them back. Used on units in melee. 25 yard knockback (3 sec cooldown)
  • Spell fire flametounge.png Elemental Fire — Ignites the target, dealing 2160 to 2640 Fire damage and 600 Fire damage every 1 sec for 8 sec. Cast on primary aggro target.
  • Spell fire flameshock.png Magma Blast — Inflicts 6000 Fire damage to an enemy. 1 sec cast. Cast on random units if Ragnaros cannot melee anyone.
  • Melt Weapon Randomly deals 1 point of durability damage to weapons inflicting melee strikes on Ragnaros
  • Hammer of Ragnaros — Ranged knockback and damage “By fire be purged!” This attack targets a random player with a mana bar and knocks back all players (excluding the target) within ~20 yards. They are knocked back from the impact point which is at the foot of the target. (20-30sec cooldown)
  • Lava Splash — Localized damage :At various times a lava splash will be triggered which cause large damage to all those hit. It will affect anyone within close proximity to a lava flow. With decent fire resist (150+) it should be partially resisted most of the time. It can be partially resisted with the standard mechanic; every 100FR equals about 25% damage reduction.

Summon Sons of Flame

After 3 minutes of combat Ragnaros will summon 8 Sons of Flame and submerge. After 90 seconds or once they are defeated ( whichever happens first ) Ragnaros will reappear. This process continues after a further 3 minutes until either your group or Ragnaros is dead. Be aware that Ragnaros considers Banished sons as defeated and can resurface prematurely. See below for a detailed Sons of Flame strategy in Phase 2.

Blast wave was a talented spell for the player-character mages if they specced into fire.

Most of your concerns for blastwave are offset by the reality it can be cast on other units. Toss it on a tank that wants to go in, congrats, he has a bit of extra ms, and usually the cc to hold a target down for the boom. That sort of thing works pretty well come, say, lvl 16, when rag can use the tank as a lead-in, get some shields from the first boom, and have extra durability ready for the second.

Rag is less an issue for heroes lounge because they have a particular meta they tend to conform to using in the sort of heroes they favor. Rag doesn’t have safe poke (early), other heroes have globals that suit the rotations they use at that level of play, and his proximity aoe is reliant on needing several targets locked down, rather than just one.

If upper play were so inclined, they could easily combo sulfuras smash into a set, but the lack of easy poke, type of rotation, and a couple other quirks generally means they can build around other types of heroes to not need to work about the particulars of what other heroes provide outside their select types of pools.

That’s part of why there are certain sets of ranged heroes, frontline heroes, and supports taken. as a whole, similar combinations could be made, but it doesn’t fit the same sort of hero-role regulations they generally conform to using.

While some can take a lack of certain heroes in use to be under the radar (cuz min/max) but a hefty bit of what becomes ‘meta’ is based on preference. Heroes that have more particular safeties tend to stand out more for that level of play compared to heroes that have tools to try to survive riskier tactics than they would want to attempt to use.

In which case, maiev, takes advantage of clumped and running enemies like rag could (and is similarly picked for waveclear) but a key difference is the amount of raw safety maiev has compared to in-battle sustain.

Similarly, molten core tends to be thought as a defensive use, rather than offensive, at which point, higher play tends to prefer to ‘play it safe’ and just step out of areas mc would hit, or rather, if they assume a keep is going to fall, they’re not going to linger for the next set to make use of molten core on a pushed lane – they have stuff to rotate and a schedule to keep.

Given some of the lack of details you know about Rag, let alone care to verify, would seem its more indicative that you’re content to blame something as being wrong, rather than really look into if its ‘faults’ as a design flaw from analysis, rather than conformity and assumption.

Big thing is he has lacking jumps/dives/etc and he doesn’t have easy poke compared to other heroes. Some of that could be blamed on power creep (giving some easy-outs for poke/wombo characters) rather than on Rag’s design, but the other bit tends to be that ‘hybrid’ type characters only stand out so much when they’re overpowered as the organized play tends to prefer ‘specialized’ characters for particular roles, rather than pools of mixed sets.

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12

To each his own. Rag is one of my highest win rate heroes. Around 60% over 80ish games. It’s ironic to me that you have such a problem with his E, when that’s the only build I use. When talented it provides the CC, mobility and sustain you say he lacks.

I’d be willing to play him on almost any map other than Hanamura and BoE. I also think both of his Ults are viable, but macro is so strong that lava wave tends to get a lot of value. Rag is just the best wave clear in his role, kinda like Blaze is the best wave clear in the tank category. They have to give up something in return.

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Biggest problem with Rag is that he walks this middle ground between bruiser and assassin where he can’t excel at either

A few ideas to make him a bit more worthwhile

  1. Baeline spell armour or make his level 4 Meteor talent for spell armour baseline
  2. Make a weakened version of Tempered Flames baseline
  3. Buff Sulfuras Smash, its an awful ulti, even when QM gets me on two lane maps I still prefer Lava Wave cus The Smash is just so bad.
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15

So many wrong arguments that its scary.

Rag has NEVER dropped below 50% winrate since I started playing. He is USUALLY in the top 10 or even top 5 heroes by winrate. I also have 70%+ with him on my low dia account.

Rag excels at carrying games by getting exp leads. He had the best clear and he has reasonable cc talent to pick up at 4. All his skills are AOE so he is good in tfs too. Rag will lose just about every 1v1 against other bruisers if he is stupid enough to fight. He is not there to get solo kills, he is there to out exp everyone and win the game in easymode.

Lets just hope blizzard will not take clueless advice on rag. He is fine where he is, comfortably on the stronger side of the hero spectrum.

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16

Very well analyzed I hope this research continues in order to take this to an official audience with the jury.
Never forget that by talking in this forum you are capable of doing great change.
God bless.

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I can’t agree with anything you just said.

I see Rag often in Diamond+ games.
He has a balanced winrate.
He feels awesome to play.
Blastwave can be given to allies.
And diving Molten Core as a team? And where is Rag’s allies? Because MC has a big aoe stun and strong aoes, you don’t want to get wombod there especially if there’s still a fort under him.

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I thought like this too until I made a topic here asking for tips and read a guide by a master level Ragnaros player (google “how to play ragnaros hots” and it’s in the first reddit link). Since following this guide Rag became one of my best heroes and someone I can utterly dominate with. Very often I finish matches with the most siege, hero damage, and XP with few deaths on him.

The best tip I got from that guide was to not duel with him in the solo lane early on because you’re not gonna win. If someone is contesting your lane just let your wave come to you because you’ll clear it ridiculously fast. As you progress into the mid game and you get shields and blistering attacks at 13 and 7 respectively then you can start dueling hard and winning.

The secret to using molten core well is to use it as way to rout an enemy team that is already angling to pull out of a fight because of its immense range. Fighting a molten core with his team around him is going to be disastrous because of that aoe stun.

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19

Ragnaros is not useless, it is not a hero you pick blindly anytime.
It irks me when people say that xul and malthael are useless when they have 0 clue how to play them.
Ragnaros at release was OP with the very same talent tree he has now, if his whole concept was useless that wouldn’t be the case.
Are his numbers not sufficient? Maybe.
Is he not user friendly? Maybe.
Did people climb with him while using his strenghts and abusing people not knowing the hero? Some people sure shared it on the forum.

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Plenty of people are pretty dumb about playing Xul, the only build anyone seems to go is the meme “curse / heal” build which only works in specific situations.

A serious lack of people going a proper Q build.

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Well shouldn’t we consider both builds as memes since Q revolves around people being bad enough to be hit by it.