Valeera needs a BUFF

General Discussion
1

To the layman player and to the unexperienced, Valeera can seem very daunting to play against and may be deemed “overpowered”.

However, that is not the case as her combos are easily dodged or blocked by well-coordinated teammates in serious gameplay. She can also be easily knocked out of stealth and would render valeera 90% useless most of the time which can be extremely punishing.

This is a major hindrance and detriment because in big team fights, against players who know what they are doing she would get shut down out of her smoke bomb and would have no means to escape / do decent damage unlike Zeratul or Nova.

One might argue her utility to reduce SP, Stun / blind, slow, block and 2 ultimates revolving around escape but many people forget is those are linked to TALENTS, and choosing one means giving up the other choices (e.g. block vs slow) (longer blind vs lower spell power).

The issue here is not how “Valeera is Overpowered” but rather how people choose to play against her and her fairly lacking toolkit as an assassin.

I propose making these talent & ability changes:

[D: Vanish]: Now allows Valeera to teleport to enemies instantaneously without the 4 second waiting time. Skills can now be used on allies without the detriment effect as well. Range of skill teleports increased by 50%

[W: Kidney shot]: Kidney Shot’s stun is now restored to the original 1 second stun.

[E: Garrote]: Improved Rupture from level 20 is now baseline and scales accordingly with level

[Level 7 Talent: Mutilate]: Range reduction removed

[Level 7 Talent: Fatal Finesse]: This quest is now baseline

[New Level 7 Talent: Preperation ]: Now instantly resets all non-ultimate cooldowns of traits and abilities (60 second cooldown)

[Cloak of Shadows]: This skill is now baseline, with a quest. Whenever you get hit by 20 abilities with Cloak of Shadows, Cloak of Shadows Duration is extended by 1.5 seconds and now reduces all damage received by 100% for the duration.

[Level 10 New talent: Shadowstep]: Valeera’s abilities and attacks changes to on-click rather than an aimed direction and instantly teleports Valeera behind the player’s back and casts the spell and attack on the selected player automatically. Shadowstep lasts 5 seconds.

[Level 16 Talent: Thistle Tea]: In addition to its original base effects, thistle tea now grants three combo points and resets all non-heroic abilities

[Level 20 New Talent: Sap]: This talent replaces Improved Rupture. Valeera can now target enemies who are out of combat and incapacitates them for 10 seconds during which they are unable to move or act. Any damage received breaks this effect.

These changes add a layer of skill and complexity to Valeera that justly reward good positioning, correct openers on a correct power scale which the current valeera talent and skillset lacks :100:.

7 Likes
2

I like this, what range do you suggest it has baring in mind it’s essencally a maltheal Q on seroids

also

petition to permanently change cheap shot to this name

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The issue with her design is that she is overreliant on the opener but at the same time her mini teleport is completely obnoxious to deal with and too much damage is frontloaded which presents zero opprotunity for counter play, or in best case scenario the victim is forced to abandon the fight entirely the moment the silence or blind expires.

Stealth should be a bonus tool and not the core of a hero.

2 Likes
4

I think it’s fine to be the core of a hero. It’s just that stealth in HOTS is really bad.

2 Likes
5

Valeera doesn’t need buffs. She needs a rework. Her openers should not be limited by builds.

5 Likes
6

Games without healers and tank are “fine” too but you can also agree that we have a problem when she sways between being the most useless or the most oppresive character in the game. All it takes is one Multishot from the other end of screen and you’ve got an unplayable hero.

Unsurprisingly, all the maps where she might be good at, players don’t want them in the ranked queue.

7

Yes, she can be oppressive or really bad depending on the comp, but I also never take into account QM when speaking about how viable a hero is.

Most of the time in a normal comp she won’t be any good because of what you said, one multishot and she can’t do anything.

I think this could be easily solved with her getting a special shield when she becomes invisible. Maybe a blue shield over her health bar. You need to do damage to her and get rid of her shield to de-stealth her. It doesn’t need to be a big shield either, just enough so 1 simple ability doesn’t stop her completely.

1 Like
8

She needs a talent rework and potentially a skill rework. The energy talents become useless once a player becomes accustomed to her while her AA talents are too situational. On top of that Blade Fury is a trap skill that is a source of most of Valeera’s energy usage and is just not that great of a skill in her kit. Then there are her openers with Garote often being the best of the three.

As if not suffering enough, her Storm talents are kinda eh: Adrenaline Rush is another lackluster energy talent, Cloak of Shadows has an amazingly short cooldown so Enveloping Shadows is not necessary, Rupture–while impressive in damage–stil relies on AA and is kind of a win more talent, and finally the Elusiveness–although quite good–could potentially be earlier in the talent tree for her and not be too powerful.

Because she relies so much on her openers it probably wouldn’t hurt for her talents to fit such a narrative: Ambush oriented talents increasing burst/survival/speed, Blind disrupting enemy AA/increase survival (such has having Combat Readiness’ armor block baked into another talent) as well as slowing the target down, and then finally Garote oriented talents could aim to improve skill disruption, spell interrupts, burn the targte’s mana away, and/or increase cooldowns.

Blade Fury could be replaced with another rogue skill entirely such as Adrenaline Rush to then have it increase energy regeneration by some amount and movement speed which are doubled while Stealth. Let’s say an extra 5 energy per second (remove energy oriented abilities to make this skill have more impact and require thought in when to use it) and 20% move speed for three to four seconds as a start outside of stealth. Such a skill would address Valeera’s ability to escape or engage after stealth has been broken. Or replace it with any other utility skill as Valeera is not that great with wave clear and when fighting other heroes Sinister Strike is the go to skill.

At least is my two cents on it. The above would make her similar to Hanzo in how he is locked into a build, but it is potentially better than just having a stabby-stab build for her.

The only alternative I can think of is basically pull a Greymane on her with both stealth and visible being even more drastically different. Such as if pulling off an opener successfully she is partially invisible or surrounded with some type of aura similar to Sylvanas’ Will of the Forsaken with its own unique abilities. However if she is visible (or gets knocked out of stealth) have her with different stats, kit, and playstyle. The former more towards what she is now with the latter leaning more towards a bruiser in terms of performance.

2 Likes
9

I’m sorry but that can’t happen.

For the sake of the forum’s sanity. Remember the curtain of QM complaint threads when she was released? It was newbie Nova all over again.

1 Like
10

She needs a complete re-work. They tried to make her like a WoW Rogue with energy and combo points, but Rogues in WoW do not play like she does.

She needs a rework, or she needs to be left alone. She does NOT need a damage buff in her current state.

3 Likes
11

Negligible gain against battlefield angels, other monsters or even bosses and only a minor boost to killing mercenaries, but generally has no application in wave clearing.

Against players you want frontloaded burst and if you don’t make optimal use of abilities in the first 3 seconds, your target won’t be in danger of dying. There is little to no talent choice to be made because of the limiting factor, which is stealth.

Some tanks can sacrifice their PVP potential for stronger PVE in case your team is lacking in that department but in case of Valeera such a comparison isn’t even possible by how bad the alternatives are.

Flurry is just a filler and I don’t believe anyone ever uses Ambush.

2 Likes
12

Sorry OP but, you need to step your game up. A Good Valera is SCAREY. She has all the tools she needs to wreck things.

If you think she needs a buff or rework? That tells me you need to spend a LOT more time with the character. And it’s ok to get frustrated sometimes. That shows you care.

13

The fact that you think Valeera is scary without counter play tells me all I need to know about your skills.

8 Likes
14

I don’t need you to tell me how to play Valeera -.-

https://imgur.com/a/OsKycQ5

I know very well what I am talking about. If you can’t counter Valeera in a serious 5 man comp something is wrong with you. To the player that is capable of exercising some common sense, it is very easy to counter Valeera.

Valeera’s main weakness is she is extremely punished for wrong positioning and knockouts of stealth, but even with good playstyle and positioning, the reward is much substantially less when playing another character such as a Zeratul. And mistakes on Zeratul aren’t as punishing either.

Shadowstep? Personally I wouldn’t know - but something reasonable I guess…

Woops did I get the name wrong? my bad :laughing:

15

  1. A good Valeera useth camouflage during combat, not before.

  2. In addition, take a garrote build and use it against a tank or bruiser, this is the safest way.

  3. Q is used only for escape.

  4. Besides, if my memory serveth me right, Valeera is one of the thickest MDDs.

16

Wouldn’t that be like giving her a 2nd Ult? It would give her a 2 second Stun, and insta kill 80% of the cast.

17

<user deleted this post, you should report this post for trolling>

3 Likes
18

I wouldn’t consider him a troll. He overstates his abilities but I don’t think he does so to get a rise out of people.

But if you play hammer and azmo all the time, you may have a tough time, depending on your skill vs the valeera.

2 Likes
19

<user deleted this post, you should report this post for trolling>

20

Val main here. I think most of us would agree that at this point almost every hero needs either a small-large rework.

I think the biggest issue for new players and Val, is that to really excel at playing her, you really need to have good understanding of every hero’s kit, including combo rotations and learn when to anticipate other hero’s ability casts, that way you know when to pop either cloak or smoke. There quite a few builds that can do well with this in mind.

My biggest issue with Val’s kit (and where I think you can add to your list) is a rework of Ambush along with the associated talents (death from above/assassinate). Ambush is currently a dead skill that I never use. Garrote and Cheap shot just provide way more value.

4 Likes