Hello,
I really enjoy playing HOTS since beta and while I am not any kind of pro or relatively good (last time I had friends to play storm league (team and solo) was some time ago and I was on high platinum level - maybe small diamond) but I think some heroes could benefit from change.
Lets start with one of my favorite but in my opinion lacking healer - Alexstrasza. I like concept of her being percentage based healer but a lot of her kit is kinda of weak. Her main heal (gift of life) depends on her max HP (so when she is close to death she lose value as healer), her burst heal (abundance) is countered by half of character roster and can be used as double edged sword for another while not being insanely powerful. Her attack ability is kinda mid (since she needs to constantly focus on same target/targets and if she manages to hit her slow 40% decays over 2 second meaning that it is mostly as effective as 20% slow for 2 seconds, with minuscule damage). Her trait is ok, and fact that her regen is bit higher is nice. How to fix weaker abilities:
- Gift of life - rather than sacrificing 15% of Alexstrasza current HP and recover that amount + 50% more make it as follows: “Alexstrasza sacrifices 10% of her to heal that amount+10% of max hero hp+100(increased by 4% per every hero level). Alexstrasza can use this ability on herself” That way Alexstrasza not only will have heal that is effective even on low hp, but she will also have wain to effectively sustain herself.
- Abundance: From current version I’d rather change into: Plant a seed of healing that blooms after 3 second, healing nearby allied heroes for 2.5% every second and 15% when blooming". This way even if bloom itself got countered heroes will get some value of it.
Next Hero is Tychus. Generally it is very solid hero but I hate how they ruined old combo of lvl 4 and lvl 13 talent (“in the Rhythm” and That’s the Stuff"). Right now the better benefit you get from lvl 4 talent the more risk it poses since you need to wait longer for lvl 13 healing. My suggestion is as follows: “Minigun heals Tychus for 30% of damage dealt, and 60% after it expires”. This way Tychus will get some of lost sustain that he lost when patch occured long ago and talents will play more nicely with each other (back then he had even more power since level 16 talent also was increasing power of Minigun).
Another hero I would like to suggest to change a little is Deckard Cain. Only thing I’d change would be his potions. Instead making it a bit random, who will receive healing, I’d rather change healing potion ability into: Deckard has 10 potions that he can throw and that they can be collected by heroes (max amount 3 - Deckard would get potion back after 5 sec only if it has been used). It appears on hotbar (you know 1, 2, 3 etc) talents as last with 3 max charges and they can be used in any moment by the hero. Due to convenience it provides I’d reduce its power to 250 hp on lvl 0 (so 260 on lvl 1).
Murky - Murky is cool fish (as you can see on current main menu screen). but I’d say making his HP the lowest is bit unfair. I’d rather shuffle HP of Abathur/Eric and Murky as follows - Eric lowest, Aba second lowest, Murky third lowest mostly because murky is pure melee hero and considering currently can be bursted by one sjilled character (E.g. Li - Ming) before being able to cast bubble is bit unfair - he should be able to come out with SMALL amount of HP to bubble himself to safety rather than being constantly bullied as easy counter (and I am not talking from me being Murky perspective but me literally almost simu casting magic missiles and arcane orb than teleport and 1 basic attack, in many cases I was being able to land all 3 in less than 0.5 on Murky insta killing him). Another suggestion is for those who would prefer turning Murky into proper hero. Lvl 10 talent addition - Swords(fish)man Talent that would give Murky Passive of 15 armor, increase healing received by Murky by 15%, increase Murky attack speed by 30% and cause each attack to decrease cool-down of each ability by 0.25 sec.
If you like these suggestions or have your suggestions feel free to propose them here. I enjoy discussion.