I was inspired by (see ripped off) this thread and so I started to ponder which heroes have consistently been viable, but rarely were too strong or weak. I’m going to exclude bugs that may have temporarily increased a hero’s power.
So as not to stifle any discussion I’ll list just one hero I believe has always been reasonably meta, but rarely felt oppressive or too under-powered, Jaina.
Jaina was my first DPS hero, all the way back when she still bizarrely had envenom at level 4. Despite her lack of mobility, her trait based around constant slows and her impressive burst, I think her basic kit has always kept her consistently viable and balanced. I know she has fallen out of the meta from time to time, but never so much as to become niche. Her reworks have never been completely radical that it changed fundamentally how she is played. She has mostly only needed some slight adjusting to talents and damage numbers to keep her viable, a testament to her solid design.
I don’t use Hero’s Profile, so this obviously wasn’t a thoroughly researched take, but rather my impressions and experience to open up a broader conversation. I’m happy to receive corrections and please share you thoughts on the most balanced heroes through the years.
Malganis, I believe is one of the most balanced characters. You could argue his CC is unreasonable, but many characters gain anti heals which is his predominant weakness. On average he does not do enough dmg to solo people, but can get out of most situations if play carefully. He has long sustain, but burns through mana quickly to counter that. On average i believe he is slightly above average, but the most well rounded character in the game
It was really hard to go through the list of heroes and think of one who has never really been complained about in the last 6 years.
Dehaka is a pretty good candidate. Never heard of anyone complaining about him, ever.
Arthas for the most part has been perfectly balanced. Not really meta, not bad, just playable.
Probius is probably the perfect hero (balance wise, but his pick rate is pretty bad, so he is too niche), he is godly in high MMR hands and useless in low ones, and nobody has yet to air any complaints about him.
The only time I can remember people complaining about him, is when he got an update so he can set up infinite Null Gates, but the setup time needed to do that is so high it’ll never be seen in normal games anyway.
Leoric, Yrel and Dehaka come to mind. Reasonable damage, durability, cc and mobility. I suppose it goes a long way to be perceived as balanced when you don’t skewer people for days or spam your abilities for ridiculous damage with barely any effort.
Old Sylvanas was pretty busted. Old Valla was fine, the current one not so much. Rehgar has been the dominant meta hero more than once, although I wouldn’t call him OP.
She was, that perma Black Arrow trait on structures made it so the Devs had to try to balance all maps around her pushing potential because of this one ability.
Mei. For quite a while after her release, the majority of her changes were buffs to underperforming talents. Lately, her nerfs have generally been tone-downs on other buffs she received. The only really “problematic” thing on her kit was the launch version of Crystallize, and even that wasn’t like, broken broken.
The problem with “balance” is that there’s an element of subjective decision-making by the game developer.
For example, are heroes with high-winrates but low pick-rates balanced?
What about heroes with low win-rates but high pick-rates? Or high pick-rates with high win-rates, but are considered “essential” towards balanced gameplay?
In regards to your question, I believe saying a hero with “moderate” pick rates, and “middle of the road” winrates in place of “balanced” heroes.
I would say that traditionally, ETC or Johanna have been seen as the most “balanced” of heroes over a long period of time.
Alexstrasza is the most balanced hero in the games history. Mechanically, she is exactly the same as her day one inception. And since her launch, she has always been balanced. No other hero in the game can claim this. She has had a few slight number tweaks to keep up with shifting metas – but its been just that: slight number tweaks.
Not only is she balanced, but she has SEVERAL viable builds; all of which are balanced, but distinctively play different from each other! Whoever designed Alexstrasza, nailed it! Give that person a cookie.
Not necessarily, from what I understand sometime during his initial time he wasn’t the strongest hero. Now I don’t know if it was his release, or after his release, but he had a significant period of time where he was considered underpowered.
There’s also the time period where he was considered OP because of cocktail build.
The most balance overall of entire history was Sonya, Nazeebo, Diablo, and Tyrael all of that is Diablo heroes.
Jaina is perhaps became most of it’s rework and balance and one of my main heroes in the game, outside of Warcraft and Diablo heroes Tychus have been a bits of balances, both Genji and Hanzo have underperformed.
In my opinion Muradin, Jaina, Anub’Arak, Thrall, Li-Ming and Gul’dan has been consistently pretty balanced throuout history.
The other heroes has had moments where their talent’s and scalings has been waving up and down in terms of too effective and impactful or had too low effectiveness and impact.
But these heroes imo has always been right in the middle.