Will the Devs Ever Address the Issue of Kerrigan?

General Discussion
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For a long time now Kerrigan has been a joke hero. There is no particular reason to draft her. Jaina, Alarak, Maiev, Artanis, Genji, Greymane and many others fulfill various roles and reasons for drafting that Kerrigan would just be sub-par at and part of the problem is that her trait, combo, and basic attack damage need looking at because they are not only undertuned but her combo is still the easiest thing in the game to avoid, not rewarding the skill of the Kerrigan but relying on the lack of skill of the enemy to juke it.

In a MOBA, an all-in hero with no escape is often tougher and more powerful than normal to justify being all-in, but Kerrigan can’t really do much as she gets focused down due to her trait being garbage. Even with constant healing on her, she will probably be the first to die, even if you dived in at the right time. So why not just pick Maiev instead? If you’re going to use a CC support disguised as a melee assassin it might as well be Maiev instead of Kerrigan. A Varian player often goes Shattering Throw against Artanis, Fenix, Imperius sometimes, and even Tyrael, but I haven’t seen a Varian go Shattering Throw against Kerrigan since her trait nerf, because there is no reason to do so, her shields get eaten alive anyway.

Lastly her basic attack damage is lower than most tanks! An assassin should not have less AA than tanks…this is just stupid. Especially not a melee assassin.

Basically Kerrigan is like a horrible version of Alarak, Artanis, and Maiev rolled together. There is no reason to draft her over all of the above mentioned heroes. The balance team needs to give her at least half a new kit and some numbers tweaks. She just doesn’t have a purpose anymore…and of all the hard difficulty heroes to play, she is the most stressful because unlike heroes like Alarak and Kel’thuzad, Kerrigan has to put twice as much effort into landing a combo to get very little reward. The overall damage Kerrigan does isn’t very high and her trait doesn’t protect her well enough for the damage you do…you often eat more damage yourself than what you can dish out. Even Jaina can facetank you and live, especially if she finishes her quest for the iceblock and/or has Ice Barrier which basically turns Jaina into Kerrigan. Same with Zul’jin though mainly because of Taz’dino…Kerrigan use to counter these two heroes…what happened?

Even Kel’thuzad’s combo isn’t as hard to consistently land when you are good with him, but his is more complicated, yet Kerrigan’s is simpler but harder to land? It is not only as I said the easiest thing in the game to juke, but with all the mobility talents and abilities in the game now, she can’t really land it on anything much. It just takes way to long to pop and is extremely telegraphed. That which she can land it on often can eat it with no problem and outrade her anyway.

The Queen of Blades needs another rework like Chromie got…at this point I’ll risk it. She needs a new kit soon. Most of the games Kerrigan wins are against low rank players or a bad draft situation. It’s like the devs designed her overall kit to be a bruiser and melee assassin at the same time, but unlike Sonya and Thrall they failed at it with Kerrigan…or rather than tune her numbers and adjust her combo speed, they overnerf her.

Most ranged assassins can trade into her favorably and win, and her combo can be avoided not just by juking but by running back toward Kerrigan and getting pulled past Impaling blades.

Until major changes are made to her kit then she will remain a pointless hero, winning only against lower ranked players…the old Hero League data showed this before they merged HL and TL into Storm League. Now the data is all over the place.

It’s sad when you see more good Alarak players and Samuro players than Kerrigan players. I don’t hardly see Kerrigan, Yrel, Chen, or Probius. I wonder why that is huh? The queue times for this game are getting longer as more people leave anyway, so maybe it doesn’t really matter anymore. :cry:

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Problem is when she is not combo reliant she is a Q or W mongo spamming 60%+ winrate hero.

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So like Zeratul right now but with Q build…that’s okay though because it’s Zeratul…for reasons. :roll_eyes:

Again, they can change her kit and rebalance her.

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She’s similar to Genji. A finisher, not quite hard dps like Greymane, Maiev, and Alarak like you mentioned. Genji has okay damage, but as the only assassin on a team, he can’t really fulfill that role. Similarly to Kerrigan, she has just as much dive, but less gtfo, which is where her trait/stuns come in. I’ll admit she is quite clunky, but generally has a pretty decent winrate.

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I’ve explained why her winrate is misleading in my post, but Kerrigan is not a finisher, Genji and Tracer are…you never drafted Kerrigan solely as a finisher. Any hero can finish, and Genji and Tracer are drafted for that already exclusively.

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The joke is as follows:

  1. The devs notice she’s useless.
  2. They do a rework that allows her to perform well.
  3. The devs notice she’s performing well.
  4. The devs nerf her until she’s useless.
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There was actually a reddit post that mentioned this is how the balance team balances melee assassins in this game…though lately it just seems to be Kerrigan. :laughing:

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This is why making her stronger but still combo reliant so that she does not get 60%wr by any player each rework may be the answer.
The devs learned nothing from the first rework with the second one.
Getting rid of Q on allies also was a mistake.

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Lowering the range of Q was stupid as well. They also need to speed up Primal Grasp and give it slightly larger width closer to Kerrigan. This could help alot. Also make it where the pull of Primal Grasp is more relative to the distance of the enemy, so they can’t just run toward you and past the Impaling Blades. Someone else in another thread mentioned this, and at first I thought it wouldn’t work, but they might be onto something.

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You either make the combo more responsive or make it bigger not both, the ennemy still needs to have a way to be able to dodge it.

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If I had to choose between the two, I’d choose to make it more responsive…it practically takes forever to actually pull, all things considered.

I didn’t mean make the whole Grasp bigger when I said that, just the area nearest Kerrigan where enemies like to play “see if you can combo me this close to you with that tiny width”. You don’t always have the option to combo at Grasp’s largest width, and it is hell trying to pull with the tiny close range width.

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They did. Last year, when they reworked her. And she was godlike for a brief period until they nerfed her, now she’s just good again. Not the easiest Hero to play or fit in a comp, but powerful enough in her own right.

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Kerrigan is drafted for gank and blow up comps.

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From hotslogs (filters: diamond+, all games since april):

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Where is the joke? :thinking:

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The problem with Kerrigan is simple: She’s what you call an “all-in” hero.

Her success is almost entirely based around getting a kill. There is almost no grey zone of “oh maybe she can scare the enemy team and soak” or “maybe she can push a lane hard while the enemy team isn’t looking”.

Kerrigan has to get a kill. If she doesn’t, she’s dead. If she does, she’s very likely to win. This means that balancing her becomes a “knife’s edge”. She has to be able to secure kills, but not secure kills so much that she kills them greater than 50% of the time. Which is tough, since for some heroes getting a kill greater than 50% of the time is easy, and others, even killing them 25% of the time is tough.

Do you balance Kerrigan based on the 25% she has trouble killing? Or the 50+% she can kill? It’s very much a balancing act.

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Kerrigan cannot do anything by herself, even deleting Chromie isn’t a guarantee unless you spec into your Q quest. She facilitates other heroes in securing kills and disrupting the enemy team, but isn’t a real power house by herself. Her combo is too easily dodged, and the nerf to her Q range means she can be easily outrun. Kerrigan is very dependent on her team to be effective, more so than nearly every other assassin.

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Alarak is much safer to play as a ganker, because with his combo you don’t have to jump at enemy heroes and gamble your life, you pull heroes from miles away (not to mention Discord Strike can deal much more damage than q+w combo on Kerrigan with lots of Sadism stacks).

Alarak can also always escape with Telekinesis. If Kerrigan has no Q targets nearby she is dead if caught even slightly out of position.

He is also a better solo laner and has a self heal. He can also deflect any big burst damage on a 30 second cooldown. I don’t understand why anyone would pick Kerrigan in her current state over Alarak.

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People like you never factor in low pickrate…I’m done arguing with your kind.

Probius has a high winrate too…is he super good?

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some of your concern comes down to just claims and some of them don’t even convey why something is bad, its just asserted to be the case. If there isn’t a compelling path to indicate how something is ‘bad’, then the list falls off, or even unravels if people find holes in the list of claims asserted.

“zomg tanks have a higher aa than her!”
cho & garrosh.

and its so particular to “damage” and not ‘dps’ as a lot of warriors are ‘expected’ to hit hard, but its opportunistic damage that’s usually slower than other roles.

The discontent you have seems misplaced where an alignment of concern deals with combo ‘speed’ or under-tuned numbers, but then it ramps up in a ‘need’ for a rework.

The series of emotional appeals seems more particular to riling yourself up to a somewhat disconnected solution to a problem not very much ‘conveyed’ as a means to carry anyone else along.

Could she use some number tuning?
Sure – I’d rather see the base 15% and having fury of the swarm lose its extra aa/trait component (since its still aoe damage) and I’d also like to see a few more talent options kick in to spruce her tiers to 4 options per pick which is a change some of the concerns could be incorporated without a “chromie level rework”

There’s a hefty bit of simpler fixes that could increase her appeal that could also assist some of her talent variety and build options.
-eg Queen of Blades at 7 (clunky talent name imo <.< >,>) could increase Q range and have it place Kerri at the far side of a hero. The positioning shift would help her land Pulse hits and curb the abilities for heroes to just walk away from the aoe by positioning her to body-block the default escape path. If pulse is easier to land, it increases the appeal of her talent selections, and could shift of the demand on Impale for damage spikes.

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Just wanted say that you’re right. Her talent design isn’t too bad. People obsess too much over her combo. Her pulse build is viable and so is her Q build (bruiser build but a little weaker).

I agree with your Queen of Blades buff but it should be made a toggle, e.g. press 1 to jump and go behind enemy hero. Then this will be a high skill build.

To make her bruiser build more viable, Siphoning Impact numbers at level 1 could use a buff and maybe a slight buff to Sharpened Blades at level 4.

If they buffed Assimilation Mastery shields at level 1, she might be a viable solo laner. Not the best, but viable.

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