TLV quality of life changes

Greetings.

I would like to propose 3 changes.

  1. New trait. Current trait (collect globes for minor regen) is very uninspiring and other heroes have talents that are way better versions of Vikings trait. What Vikings currently lack is protection from the AoE damage creep over years. Basically if all 3 Vikings get hit by AoE, they take 3x as much damage as other heroes.

Solution - trait that reduces the AoE damage Vikings receive when they are together. Exact numbers up for discussion, but I would say 20% when 2 are together, 40% when all 3 together.

Considering Erik has only 1840 hp, which is 240 and 340 more hp than Murky or Abathur respectively, this would greatly improve his survivability in a cluster AoE spam teamfights where currently 2 AoE spells would be enough to kill him and almost kill Baleog too.

  1. Select 2 Vikings at once. Very often I want to seperately control Olaf - melee group and Eric/Baleog - ranged group. I need Olaf to be in face and tank, then micro ranged vikings. Currently you can drag and select them, but it is not reliable.

Solution - pressing 2&3 at once selects both. Same as 1&3 at once should select Olaf + Eric etc… as simple as that. No extra buttons, but would allow to select any combination of Vikings in an instant and with ease.

  1. Idle retreat mechanic. This would be a simple quality of life change that would let you set up a seperate retreat point for every viking (D key toggle perhaps? ). If you currently do not control that viking and there appears a hero in his vision, he automatically pings you to alert you and runs back to the set retreat point (eg. Fort).

Why? With CC and damage creep over time, a single player can gank the viking while you are focusing on micro of another viking and you cannot even blink before he is dead. This would allow you to quickly react or else the viking would at least attempt to run away to safety by himself. No crazy AI. Just if enemy is visible is in X range -> go to Y. Current shift que commands allow for some strategy, but not enough.

Thank you for reading, you can now start throwing tomatoes and boo’ing.

4 Likes

Which is compensated by the part that combined they have quite a large HP pool, and can talent into shields/invuln.

And with that, as the globes are applied to all 3 heroes, they can get a massive regen with it. 3x20=60.

Select all to move away, then select olaf to seperate him. Its basic micro that happens in plenty of games. Sure, faster methods would be nice, but its not mandatory.

This issue purely started when the vikings had to move out to collect the XP. Bush soaking would solve this issue.

And to solve 1 and 3. The trait could simply get the following feature added:
Increased and invisible XP soaking range.

Allow 1-3 keys to instantly switch to Olaf, Baleog or Erik please.

Sucks double pressing them all game.

2 Likes

It is in fact very poorly compensated because they have total health pool of 7797 hp, which may seem like a lot.

Lets take flamestrike, talented it can deal up to 1000 pure dmg (no % or living bomb).

Getting hit by 2 of them would leave Vikings with ~1800 total health (deal 3Ă—2Ă—1000dmg) and dead Eric which is around 40% dps loss for the vikings.

Any other hero besides abathur and murky would survive that and continue pumping 100% dps.

My proposed solution is as simple as it gets.

I would rather make Vikings interact and actually do something, not just sit invisible in bushes hidden and afk, but I see your point. That is what used to be done previously.

Always thought they deserved a baseline kit but whatta I know.

I think at the least their trait could use a touch up.

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In the same game where we have Nordic Attack Squad? :sweat_smile:

Both their scaling and potential is already so messed up that no one in the game can contest your guys together 1v1 after level 13.

Except the vikings only lose 1 of the 3 bodies (which can still split soak), and only grant the enemy 25% of the xp a kill normaly gives.

And if you play properly with the vikings, your team should have a significant level lead. Enough to grant 8% bonus health (2 levels ahead) compared to the enemy.

If the vikings are being denied on this aspect. The rest of the team can still go for a 4 man push, where there can only be 3 defenders (as 2 others are busy keeping the vikings away). Even if there are only 2 vikings alive, that push potential is still there, so thats a decent fallback strategy anyway.

And the vikings arent resistless against kaelthas at all. If they are about to get exploded like that, its very likely they would already use jump to get away. They dont have to be afraid of a pyroblast either. As killing a viking that way is a waste of such ulti, so they can use this to get away.

But its very likely the vikings player would just avoid kael in the first place because of living bomb. As thats a far more hazardous ability to them because of the micro requirement.

Geez how exagerate, I just don’t agree and that’s all.

It’s your job to be keeping eye on them and keeping them safe. You can move them back as you take control of another vike or you can use waypoints to run them around. People rarely go for vike if they think you are actively controlling him unless you send him way out of position. TLV being micro intensive hero is like the entire premise of the hero.

This is something I both agree and disagree. It would need smart functionality so it doesn’t move the screen if they are on my screen currently or let’s say range of 20 from center of screen. Otherwise TF micro as TLV would be pure nightmare with screen constantly moving. When it comes to globally selecting viking elsewhere I would love this so it doesn’t need double click.

I suspect this is not viable. The only “acceptable” solution would be something like armor if Viking are close… but that isn’t just AOE.

Extra buttons would likely be a smarter way to do it. Game operates on ticks. .0625 seconds. Some people might not be able to click that similar together to select both.

I think most people could. Idk how you would add it either way.

Perhaps a 4th button up top that when held subtracted a Viking from the ones you have selected? Seems like a bad idea also coming from me there.

But I think once medallion is gone, they could simply put pairs in 4/5/6.

No. This is just making the Vikings easier for absolutely no reason.

The micro required isn’t that much. Watch your minimap. Train your reaction times. This benefits you not just on Vikings, but on all heroes!

I like current TLV’s trait. Having high HP regen at the late game is always good.

I got used to double-clicking TLV so Idk.

50/50

Its also the reason so few people play it. In my last 100 games, I have never seen any Vikings except the few rounds I played them myself.

At least a warning could do, because usually I only hear the death sound with no cry for help before that. Enemies can appear in LoS and kill a viking in around 2-3 seconds. Auto retreat + ping would give the crucial time to react. (Mind you 4 years ago TTK was way longer than now for many heroes)

This also contradicts with players that want Vikings to be just invisible afk soak bodies that dont even attack wave. Not much micro there eh?

Non issue. Nothing to do with tickrate. (I am a developer myself, I know these things are not hard to do) Extra buttons would be worse. You would need 3 more in that case which is piano.

Its bad. You get less regen for every globe than similar lvl1 talents. You gain no additional completion benefits. You have to farm globes in 3 lanes at the same time to have any impact. Olaf does not care about the regen (has inbuild 10x stronger regen), Erik can talent to also get way stronger regen making this obsolete (just shift que for him to run around and he regens while you micro others), only Baleog benefits. Even they I can get maybe 60hp/s late game which is mediocre at best. Early game there is close to 0 value which is when you need the regen the most.

Basically, it sucks.


It seems to me that I am really in the minority here that sees a problem with Vikings. Everyone in this forum defends their current state religiously yet noone plays them.

The winrate is not the issue, because they have a good winrate (as has any unpopular hero, because only one tricks play them)

The problem is they they have not seen many changes while the game has evolved and left them behind. Meanwhile we get reworks for heroes that dont even need them left and right.

Hell, we even get new heroes noone asked for while heroes that were voted as wanted dont get added (Time for new OW hero, right? Really, Mei? In every poll there was Reinhardt on top)

All I wanted was some vikings QoL changes, yet there is always only one answer in HotS forums - everything is fine, just LTP. Not even a discussion. Hero never gets played - its fine. Hero useless vs high AoE - fine. Hero useless on 2 lane map - fine. Hero has wonky select controls - fine. Hero has a cheap mans lvl1 regen talent as trait - fine. No baseline abilities - fine.

Oh right. The one answer to every problem the game has - LTP. Why even update the game, ever? Someone is OP - ban them in draft 24/7, QM - noone cares anyway about the gamemode 90% of people play. Someone is underpowered and noone wants to play them - frick it, just LTP dude.


P.s. I dont need these changes to be imediately implemented, I just wanted to share some ideas for an underplayed hero, 2 of which are really easy to implement and are QoL changes, not buffs or nerfs, but apparently he is “OP already” and has 0 problems with controls. Well now I know… I just need to LTP more.

Sorry for being pissed, but damn HotS forums suck. So many other threads that I have read, all of them are the same. OP gets shut down, noone wants any new changes, nothing is over or underpovered, its fine, shut up and LTP.

I guess vikings are just meant to stay rotten and forgotten. Thank you all for the “discussion”.

Lol, I play TLV in masters for several seasons and calling them “rotten and forgotten” is kinda pathetic. It’s kinda sad to hear especially from someone, like you, who says “I play them”.


https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/607752734246043757/756893043717570560/unknown.png

I play them from time to time, not as a main, while you are probably one of the rare good TLV mains that boost their WR.

Even then, I really dont see HOW would the change Nr.2 not benefit you as a TLV player. It is literally a small QoL change thay makes micro easier.

You being a good TLV player does not mean that they dont have problems.

Sure, I can share screenshots with 80% Uther and Malfurion WR, that does not make any point as that is a single player from thousands.

I never had any issue related to that aspect before.

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Then how do you select 2 of the 3 vikings when they are clumped up?

My winrate shows that TLV are playable. After last buffs and changes TLV became strong (buffs to Olaf/Erik at 1, StW buff of dmg vs heroes at 7, changing % dmg at 13 and Baelog’s 7 lvl).

I honestly don’t care they don’t have baseline abilities at this moment. Sure, devs can add Spin to Win, Jump and other abilities as baseline. But, considering how devs nerf abilities if they becone baseline… I prefer to get my abilities later to be stronger with each lvl instead having them from the start but they can’t do peck.

By the frame or 1-3 buttons.

So if one player has good WR on a hero, it is good enough proof, that he is fine?

The buffed spin to win and the lvl13 % are amazing. Together they give great damage vs heroes.

Adding baseline abilities would free up talent slots for more upgrades.

1-3 does not let select 2 out of 3 atm. By frame is wonky, thats why I proposed an instant way of selecting 2 at the same time that does not require extra buttons.

If you want me to have 70% winrate - sure, go ahead.

I don’t want them to touch Lost Vikings after their last round of buffs. Vikings are a blast to play and are now much better on smaller maps than they were, and after seeing how they gutted Gazlowe into another generic bruiser, I don’t want the same thing happening to the Vikings.

2 Likes