Too many strength heroes

Competitive Multiplayer
1

Title says it all. There are too many strength heroes available from the total hero pool compare to the agility and intelligence ones

Strength:
1 Mountain King
2 Paladin
3 Tauren Chieftain
4 Crypt Lord
5 Death Knight
6 Drealord
7 Pit Lord
8 Pandaren Brewmaster
9 Beastmaster
10 Alchemist

Agility:
1 Blademaster
2 Shadow Hunter
3 Demon Hunter
4 Warden
5 Priestess
6 Dark Ranger
7 Firelord

Intelligence:
1 Archmage
2 Bloodmage
3 Far Seer
4 Lich
5 Keeper of the Grove
6 Naga
7 Tinker

Looking at all of the strength heroes in its current form, it will be too much re-work changing any of the existing strength heroes into agility or intelligence. Except for one.

Dreadlord.

The very fact that dreadlord is a strength hero is hilarious and misleading. They are not really a melee type of hero like Mountain King or Tauren Chieftain. Attempting to bring them into the melee fray without a death coil backup will result in them swiftly being sent back to the altar. A death knight is a pretty much mandatory choice if you have a dreadlord as one of your heroes, just because of how shockingly fast they die when focused, while others like crypt lord or draw ranger can survive and even thrive without a coil backup. Making dreadlord a strength hero was also a major lorelol by blizzard, as dreadlords really prefer to stay out of direct combat, and instead manipulate the events from a distance, jumping into the fray either when its comparatively safe to do so, or when absolutely necessary. Having big claws and best aura for melee range units does not really warrant rushing headfirst into the front lines, where the likes of Demon Hunters run the show. [Warcraft encyclopedia](https ://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Nathrezim) also explicitly states, that dreadlords are exactly that: Intelligence agents, not the abominations with a lifesteal that blizzard has made them to be in melee games. But because a dreadlord has that little fist displayed as his primary attribute, in team games, standing behind the front lines on hold position usually warrants teammates whining about “not doing anything”, even though his aura is really helping those grunts to press on. But nope, in order for the mouthbreathers to continue struggling, a sleek vampire must make their way to the front, and risk bolt + holy light, or whatever it is that may come their way, or else their teammates will stop trying and start feeding. Its as funny as it is sad, because nobody expects tinker to engage the front lines, as his intelligence gives him sort of ranged status, even though at level 6 he is a literal tank, probably with more survivability than mountain king. But being intelligence hero, I have never witnessed people telling tinker to go to front lines.

So there you have it. Two very similar sets of stats. Upper-middle strength, lower-middle agility, upper-middle intelligence. Tinker and Dreadlord. 40+ strength and intelligence, mid 20 agility. Both are really not made for the front lines until level 6. But one cops it from level 1, and gets called a useless bat if ignoring the yelps, and the other is cherished as a master inventor and pooled until 6 when they are expected to carry the game, and often do. Yet its a rare occasion that team gives up when tinker just stands back and shoots rockets or pops clockworks, while a sight of an aura specced dreadlord holding the ground usually results in a s**tstorm, trolling and leaving. It would be really nice to see if changing the primary attribute of a dreadlord from strength to intelligence had any profound impact on the players response. I’m sure we all could live with 2 less minimum and max damage, 22-32 instead of 24-34 at level 2, 32-42 instead of 34-44 at level 6 and so on. Or removing 2 strength and adding 2 intelligence could be in order to keep the damage factor unchanged. Or removing 1 strength and adding 1 intelligence. Either way, it would be such a minor change, that it would have nearly no impact on the dreadlord combat effectiveness, but it would definitely have an impact at how players perceive the character, because treating thal’kituun as kung-fu panda warriors is just wrong and has been wrong for a very long time, causing them to be grossly misunderstood and neglected, and those few players who know how to exactly use dreadlords properly are too scarce in numbers, those who know, that a dreadlord fits a role much closer to a lich, than to a crypt lord, are usually left out to do a boring 1v1, since most teammates when seeing a melee strength hero on hold position will automatically assume their ally is a noob, and either will start talking down to them, sometimes in all chat, and just throw the game, and only realising what they’ve done after leaving and checking the stats and chatting with them, but that does not make any difference after they left, and realistically it does not worth the time convincing every new crab otherwise, while tinker never had that problem because of their intelligence primary attribute shields them from their teammates abusive sergeant mentality, while a dreadlord player is often ridiculed, abandoned, or both. And changing dreadlord primary attribute to intelligence will bring the overinflated strength heroes number to 9, while lifting the intelligence heroes number to 8, keeping the agility heroes number at 7.

What do ya’ll think?

3 Likes
2

It doesn’t really matter how many heroes have each primary attribute. You don’t get to pick things like which stat tomes and items drop from creep camps, nor do the three attributes have any sort of “rock paper scissors” relationship that demands that they all be equally represented. There is no particular balance issue that arises from the presence of more heroes of a given primary attribute.

3

Yea, but in most ladder maps loot tables, the stats tomes are equally represented, with around 33% chance of drop each stat: strength, agility or intelligence. With 10 strength heroes in place out of 24, statistically that provides a greater level of competition among players’ strength heroes for them, and even in 1v1 with no allies to compete for drops against, chances are you will also pause for a second, thinking who should use that tome between your two or three strength heroes. One way to mitigate it would of course be to increase strength tomes drop chance from 33% to 41%, and decrease the agility and intelligence tomes drop rate from 33% down to 29% each respectively, but that would require considerably more work to change the loot tables on all the maps, than changing one of the rarely used heroes to even the scales a little bit, while also achieving the greater lore alignment of said hero in the process. I suspect most players will not even notice the change, just because how close the strength and intelligence stats of a dreadlord are, as its really just -2 min dmg and -2 max dmg if changed to intelligence, but they surely will notice and appreciate it when the blue book drops, and nobody but them really needs it, making up those 2 dmg, and maybe more as the game goes on, while the red ones are gone the moment they touch the ground

4

The thing is, all stat tomes are useful regardless of which hero you use. The difference the primary attribute makes is tiny. You’re not going to not pick up a stat tome because it’s not the primary one.

5

Yea, but you still generally prioritise the primary attribute hero picking the corresponding ones up. Every little bit counts when boosting that attack damage, afterall there is a reason why its tied to an attribute, and not to a level or any other sort of stat. If you could chose the drop, you would almost certainly always pick a tome boosting your main stat, would you not? And strength tomes are often quickly snatched even by non-strength heroes because everyone needs an extra health, while intelligence tomes are largely ignored by non-intelligence heroes except maybe healers, so there is little competition for them

1 Like
6

Interesting, I could have sworn the Dreadlord was agility.

8

He should be.

9

You’re obviously trolling. Agility dreadlord would be the most inferior hero in game. 27-37 dmg at level 10? 0/10 my dude, try again

https ://i.imgur.com/Oi3gune.jpg

And even if you increased Damage Number of Dice and Damage Slides per Die to bump up his initial damage at level 1, his abysmal agility growth with every level would still barely get his max damage past 40 at level 10. Noone would ever pick him with a serious intention to win. Without some major re-work like giving him a ranged attack of at least 400, while his aura giving him lifesteal effect even with ranged attack, this is just not going to work. And that would be a big change, with some drawbacks, and is not going to happen.

Making his primary attribute intelligence however would align his role closely with lore, with no drawbacks, and reduce the overinflated amount of strength heroes, all while doing the least amount of work possible. A lot of people would not even notice the change, and even if they do, I’m sure they will find a way to adjust with minimum effort to a tiny plus-minus 1 str-int-point. Much bigger balance tweaks have occurred in the past, and were absorbed and successfully adapted to by playerbase. And this one is long overdue, due to grossly inaccurate attempt to pigeonhole this hero into a tank role, which is implied by strength being his main attribute. He is not a tank. Never was. And never will be. Its not even a question he is not fit for the ‘Strength’ role. The real question is, why was he strength in the first place for so long?