Illidan vs varian. unbalance and suggestion how to fix it

General Discussion
1

Hello everyone and blizzard,

I am making this post to show how unbalanced the game currently is. and the most noticable one is illidan.

in this patch he is by far the WEAKEST melee assassin. purely because of how a twin blade varian plays is quite similar to illidan but if you compare the two a illidan can never beat varian.

just as a startpoint their DPS/HP in several levels.

Varian

Varian lvl 1 hp : 2201
Varian lvl 4 hp : 2476
Varian lvl 10 hp : 3134
Varian lvl 13 hp : 3526
Varian lvl 16 hp : 3966
Varian lvl 20 hp : 4640

DPS

Varian lvl 4 non High king’s Quest : 335-347
Varian lvl 4 1/3 High king’s Quest : 352-360
Varian lvl 4 3/3 High king’s Quest : 495-502

Varian Lvl 10 non High king’s Quest : 431-438
Varian lvl 10 1/3 High king’s Quest : 453-459
Varian lvl 10 3/3 High king’s Quest : 584-595

Varian lvl 20 non High king’s Quest : 688-696
Varian lvl 20 1/3 High king’s Quest : 713-726
Varian lvl 20 3/3 High king’s Quest : 868-878

illidan

Illidan lvl 1 hp : 1717
Illidan lvl 4 hp : 1931
Illidan lvl 10 hp : 2444
Illidan lvl 13 hp : 2749
Illidan lvl 16 hp : 3093
Illidan lvl 20 hp : 3619

DPS

Illidan lvl 4 immolation : 250 -+
Illidan lvl 4 unending hatred : 320-+

Illidan lvl 10 immolation : 351-+
Illidan lvl 10 unending hatred : 383-+

Illidan lvl 20 immolation (META) : 538-+
Illidan lvl 20 unending hatred (META) : 622-+

Now as you can see the diffrences are so extreme that you would handicap yourself if you would choose a illidan over a varian if both options are open. As someone that loves to play illidan it really saddens me that we are at a patch has some heroes just unplayable. illidan is squishy, weak and borderline unviable in ranked play. not to mention he does have a higher skill cap then varian. which makes this even worse.

Hopefully blizzard can make some changes to illidan to make him more viable for ranked play. at the moment he is so weak it pains me that i just can’t play ranked without having someone flame me for picking him.

Q: illidan has 2 mobility abilities and a evasion, so why compare illidan with varian?
A: Varian as twin blades is extremely similar to illidan when it comes to his basic attacks. furthermore he has parry which does pretty much the same thing as evasion. Varian can also go for a pseudo escape aswell with his charge on lvl 10.

Q: What changes would you make for illidan?
A: Rework and buffing. i’d like to see a HP buff for illidan or a baseline dmg reduc like maiev had when she was released.

Increases HP from 1717 to 1870.

rework suggestions : Unending hatred baseline. but for balancing purposes 15 / 30 instead of 20 / 40

Talent tree lvl 1 :

Immolation : buffed by 10%.
Battered assault (CHANGED) : extra dmg from 125% to 90%.
(Alternative : When you hit an enemy hero increase extra dmg from 35% to 70%.)
(NEW) No escape : Diving a target deals 30% extra damage and deals damage to enemies nearby.

Lvl 4 :
Rapid chase buff : from 15% to 20% movement speed.
Unbound (CHANGED) : Sweeping strike can go over terrain. Also increases distance by 15%.

Lvl 7 :

Thirsting blade MOVED / CHANGED : Moved to baseline. but instead of 50% to 40%.
Hunter’s onslaught MOVED / CHANGED : moved to baseline. but instead of 25% to 20%. doubled against heroes.
Nimble defender (Moved from level 13, CHANGED) : when sweeping strike hits an enemy(not hero).
Sixth Sense (Moved from level 13)

Lvl 10 :

Metamorphosis (CHANGED) : Transform into a demon at the target location. Granting 10% increased health and 20% attack speed. Lasts for 20 seconds.
Cool reduced to 110 seconds.
The Hunt (CHANGED) : cooldown reduced to 90 seconds. Now also reduces armor by 10%.

Lvl 13 :

Elusive strike REMOVED.
No escape (New talent) : Dive gains a second charge. But reduces damage by 20%.
(Alternative : Dive gains a second charge. But increases cooldown by 2 seconds.)
Elusiveness : while evasion is active reduce the duration of all crowd control abilities by 25%.
Double strikes : Sweeping strike gains a second charge. But reduces damage by 20%.
(Alternative : Sweeping strike gains a second charge. but increases cooldown by 1 second.)

Lvl 16 :

Marked for Death : Buffed by 10%.
Fiery brand (CHANGED) : from every 4th basic attack to every 3rd. from 6% additional damage as health to 4%.
Blades of azzinoth (CHANGED): Activate to increase basic attack damage by 50%. Cooldown 90 seconds (affected by betrayer’s thirst.)

Lvl 20 :

Demonic form (CHANGED) : reduces the duration of stuns, slows and roots by 50%. To : “Reduces the duration of all crowd control effects by 40%).
Nowhere to hide (CHANGED) : now increases decreases armor by an additional 10%.

Now it does seem like alot. but this allows for more synergy in between talents and more choices. This does seem a bit overtuned for what illidan would do. can be retweaked to make it more balanced. but this would make everything alot better for illidan and allows for a more viable illidan.

This is a long post. thanks for reading! :).

2 Likes
2

Although i disagree with the premise, i find it weird that your point is that Illidan and Twin Blades Varian are so alike that you can directly compare their health, dps and mobility, and then don’t make any significant changes to make them more unique. If a hero doesnt have any advantages over another hero since their kits are so similar, what is needed isnt a buff in stats, but a change in gameplay.

As i said at the start, i disagree that Illidan and Twin Blades Varian are so alike, but ill admit that my experience is limited to QM where you can splitpush with The Hunt, which likely isnt as viable in more organized game modes. In teamfights they’re alike enough that they both tend to get shut down by the same counters to such a degree that both arent very viable.

3

you can’t really base that on QM. and another thing, varian twin blades is one of the strongest in the game atm.

4

dude im not gona read all that post.

but varian and illidan are completely different heroes, so no way you compare them 1-1.

for example illidan has an escape - varian doesn´t

tb varian is not super strong - he is just in low elo because people draft bad and play terrible (vs him).

comparing random things does not prove a point:

lets say im an ana player - so my autoattacks do like 70 or sthg at level 1.
so there is stukov in the game aswell - he is a support aswell - his aa deal 200 or sthg like that on 1.

so ana is so underpowerd - give her 200 aa dmg.

i hope you can see this is just a joke.

1 Like
5

your example is bad. and twin blade varian works in higher elo aswell. and its not random.

how is ana and stukov a example even? they are healers not dps. shit point.

6

I can actually slightly agree that varian could use number play.
I am not saying he is OP, I am though saying has an unfair advantage 1v1 against pretty much everything on the same level, that being said, why would you fight 1v1 against a hero that is pretty much a hybrid of tank and high sustain dps ?

First of all as you pointed out Varian has parry which is by far better than Illidans evasion because Illidan only affects physical damage and projectiles while Varian’s gains a protected status which is only weak to CC and needs to be timed (iirc it lasts 1 sec while illidans can last up to 2,5 iirc).

Varain has several counters in Twin Blade build and can be easily outmanouvered, first of all if varian locks on you you move away from him all the time, make him chase you, he loses time because of that which benefits you in several ways, smart varian player will not chase, not worth it, I mean, I was able to kill him with Whitemane just by making him chase me it’s not really that difficult.

Second of all, why fight Varian solo ?
You want to prove something ? cuz teh only thing you can prove is lack of intellect, Illidan is not suited to fight enemies that are equal to him and before you say anything yes Varian is equal in combat prowess with Illidan.

Illidan has mobility advantage so giving him more hp would result in heavy unballance against the rest of heroes, keep in mind that more hp would give him more sustain because sustain is based on max hp % not on a specific amount, that would mean there would be a need to lowering his sustain which in turn would be unballanced towards his sustain because it would be too low (look at malganis right now, his HP is too high for 4% hp sustain and should be lowered to 3% or lower his HP pool)

Balancing sustain is very difficult and the optimum was set on 4%, however the more HP one has the more sustain they get, so the obvious solution would be to lower the damage dealt to gain sustain %.

This too will not work correctly without adjusting health pool because lets face it, if you increase HP, you must lower the sustain % or the damage dealt, which in both cases will leave an unballanced feeling because if you increase HP and lower damage the sustain is dropped drastically, even a slight 1% damage drop will lower the sustain gained by a significant amount.

So how to fix it better ? you could give all heroes 5 armor, but that would be unfair with some heroes that deal MASSIVE damage and are highly mobile like tracer, she can deal a LOT of damage and is highly mobile, giving her 5 armor is already a significant boost for her survival.

What else can you do ?
Well, Illidan could use a longer evasion, but then again, it already lasts longer than parry, any longer and he becomes OP.

Buffing abilities won’t help because if he becomes more equal against Varian, he will be OP against other heroes.

You want to make him far more OP than he already is in some situations and that is not a good thing, he’ll be auto-banned from draft modes.

None of your suggestions is actually working in favor.
The only thing I might suggest to make varian easier to kill is increasing parry cooldown by 1 second, that’s it.

7

thanks for the reply. you make some good points. but you seem to be misinformed about illidan.

his sustain isn’t HP based. rather it heals you for 30% ( 50% while talented ) of your basic attacks. you could also go for some ability sustain. but that depends on the enemy composition. you would know that if you had done some research and some ranked.

you claim that i have a lack of intellect. if anything it is you who lacks intellect, illidan is supposed to be a superior duelist but against any melee assassin he would lose. on top of that your early game damage is severely lacking.

Also, illidan is supposed to be high sustain dps that sticks onto his enemies. he is supposed to not let players escape. i also never said that he should rival varian in damage. if anything i want his power spikes being moved to early game. after completing quest and getting lvl 16 he actually has a good change of killing people 1v1. which is what he does. thats the design of illidan.

The reason why i say he needs more HP is due to the nature of his playstyle. at present thrall can pump out much more burst heals for himself than illidan and has mobility. has more damage aswell. he also doesn’t need to be in the face of enemies to do damage.

Varian at lvl 10 can pick up warbringer which makes him just as annoying as illidan when it comes to being sticky to an enemy. something you forgot. it can also be used to charged to allies giving him an escape now aswell. reduced cooldown and you basically got a superior illidan.

and again, you base illidan around %hp sustain which he doesnt even have. all his healing comes from his basic attacks which is already difficult against so many heroes that can cc good now. with introduction of new heroes.

Also, i never said illidan should rival varian in damage. however if varian can do 240 dps more by just auto attacking is ridiculous. adding in abilities it can be over 300 dps more. it does not sound like alot but it is. if you are talking 900 dps on a 3k target vs a 600-630 dps on a 3k target who do you think would win?

Varian does not need nerfs. he is fine as he is now. illidan needs changes.

8

how are you comparing dps???
do you think targets stand still and let themselfes hit. varian can close the gap 1 time, you cant escape from illidan.

9

if you are playing varian correctly you can easily lock someone down long enough to get a kill. especially with warbringer.

10

MOBA’s are not a place to make 1v1 comparisons. You also do yourself a disservice by comparing abilities rather than the entirety of their pros/cons. For example:

Varian has mana, Illidan does not. Varian is multi-class, Illidan is not. Illidan has global, Varian does not. Varian has no inherent escapes without blowing his gap-closer on an enemy target, Illidan has an equivalent that also works on friendly targets (as well as a targetless dash). Illidan has less ‘deeps’ due to him being stickier than Varian in a 5v5 situation – no, Varian having a charge/slow cannot be compared to an Illidan hopping all around a team-fight to stick to the target of choice during chaos, body-blocking, friendly assistance or enemy interference. Many people could provide many other variables. It goes way beyond “X can hit dummy for Y damage - this isn’t right”.

There are too many variables to consider, hence you learn nothing by putting 1v1 in a vacuum in a 5v5-based game. There is a time and a place for Illidan and a time/place for Col or TB Varian. They do not share the same time/place, because variables.

11

Illidan is unbalanced for sure, he needs serious nerf. He is nearly immortal. You can’t deal any dmg to him because of his broken E. You also can’t run from him as he has 3 closing gap abilities (1 is semi global which often leads to 5v4/2v1 fights).

12

I will try and see if your numbers are correct but you should know that Unending Hatred can double Illidan’s damage or more(at 68 stacks it does double Illidans aa as this quest scales with lvl).

13

@Dollebrekel

Never in my post did I write about sustain being HP based, I wrote that it’s % based on max HP which it is in most cases, Illidans is % DAMAGE based which is pretty much the same amount of %HP based in other cases.

You read only a part of my post.

14

You have no clue. His strengths are offlaning and finishing-chasing other heroes. Illidan can take bruisers even at lv1, he can come in like dehaka with a stun to tf which is very strong on a hero who can waveclear fast, duel, self heal and do great structure damage when left alone. Its not only designed to gain experience lead, illidan annihilates a good deal of split pusher with one click. Illidan also can do in-out then in and out again in tf. Varian cannot escape. He isnt the best hero but he is outclassed by noone.

15

I agree on illidan being weak. The hero sees no tournament play whatsoever. People seem to mainly focus on varian comparison which i dont think is all that relevant. Illidan used to be high risk high reward hero. But now it is too hard to make him work and rarely worth it if ever. I remember blizzard admitting illidan being hard to balance because of his trait. But still leaving the hero in dust for years is too much.

16

Illidan vs varian is pointless because they bring different things to the table. Illidan has more tournament play than varian btw. And twin blades varian is exactly zero. Abuse illidan in sky temple for example or watch him destroying zagara both on lane and in nydus game. He is definitely situational but not outclassed. There are more heroes illidan cant beat on lane and thats it I think.

17

Varian is completely ridiculous.
It is a character that should not exist.