Raynor & Azmodan Reworks

[Frozen Death Knight]

Raynor changes look pretty baller, some of those talents are going to make him INCREDIBLY hard to kill (looking at Fight Or Flight specifically). Not sure how I feel about the new Banshee ult seeing as it will probably just get insta-killed, and doesn't synergise with basically any of his kit, but could be good if it allows proper move micro to keep it safe and raise its skill cap.

All in all, really looking forward to playing Raynor + Morales again =)

The way I see it, Raynor's two ulties will enable two types of play: 4 man/team fights with Hyperion and solo lane/1v1 fights with Raynor's Raiders. His rework is definitely going to enable him to go into the solo lane and could potentially be quite oppressive to popular solo laner picks such as Sonya and Malthael by bullying them out of the lane with his range, self-heal, and ability to push away people quite far when in melee. The Banshee is going to make him more dangerous in 1v1 situations, while Hyperion has too long of a cooldown to be a reliable tool for that type of game play.

- - - Updated - - -

Interestingly, Raynor is LOSING single target base damage with the new trait, compared to live, since his base AA damage is being reduced.

At level 1 with the rework, with base damage 92, he will deliver 483 damage total over four attacks to a single target (taking into account the empowered fourth shot).

On live, with base damage 122 at lvl 1, he deals 488 damage over 4 shots.

His AA damage has been nerfed by almost 25%, with all of that nerf then funnelled into the powered shot.

If you only look at the changes in a vacuum, yes. However, he gets some really powerful dps tools immediately at lvl 1 (i.e. Executioner which is a lvl 16 talent for other Assassins). He also has superior scaling to other Heroes (5% instead of 4%), which will make him deal absolutely insane amounts of damage in the late game as well being quite sturdy with lots of health (he even has a talent that increases his health pool at lvl 4 which also scales based on the amount of Trait procs).

Raynor's rework is quite scary when you consider his huge scaling potential as well as the talents backing those base stats up.

[NoiseTank13]

Yeah, Azmodan does not look good currently.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/hero...ic/20765506978

Azmodan changes: numbers courtesy of https://www.invenglobal.com/articles...-and-abilities below will be a brief breakdown of the impact of the numbers differences outlined for ease of understanding.

Baseline:
Max health reduced by 10%

Opinion: Making him notably less survivable in teamfights is an interesting way to try to push him into being in more teamfights.

Globe of Annihilation / Black Pool: (Assuming Taste for Blood and Pride maxxed)
Classic: 525% damage over 30 seconds (100% per globe +75% for three pools)
New: 350% damage over 30 seconds (100% per globe +50% for one tide of sin)
33% overall damage lost
Classic: 3 globes with 3 pools = 4,000 damage to a single target
New: 3 globes with 1 tide = 2,700 damage to a single target
New Azmodan does 2/3rds the damage of current Azmodan at 10
Per single globe casts New Azmodan does 14% less damage than classic Azmodan when ulting.
Infernal Globe has been removed, taking 66% more time to reach its target in a Q build.
Max range reduced by 14% and Sieging Wrath range bonus removed.
Battleborn removed.

Opinion: With an earlier warning circle and the fact that infernal globe has been removed, landing a Q on anything except CCed targets will be near impossible.
To give a near direct comparison, a fully stacked New Azmodan with Pride does 200 more damage than a Sieging Wrath Azmodan over 30 seconds. An increase of 9% damage only at max Annihilation stacks and Pride taken at level 20. At all points before level 20 or if you only have 399 Annihilation stacks New Azmodan's damage is reduced by 100 compared to Sieging Wrath.

General of Hell:
Cooldown doubled to 60 seconds.
Duration reduced by 33% to 20 seconds.
No longer provides minion damage buff aura.
Minion damage buff aura can be returned at the cost of a level 13 talent.
Demonic smite is now baseline, but only procs twice per cast instead of four times and no longer procs on mercs.
Bound Minion talent removed.

Opinion: General of Hell has been effectively removed of any meaningful impact it had previously. Azmodan's ability to push globally in a notable way while still participating with his team has effectively been removed thanks to base Q range being smaller, Sieging Wrath being removed, and General of hell given a 33% up time compared to its previous and the effective removal of its damage aura.

Summon Demon Warrior:
Health increased by 6%
2ed stack removed, reducing the amount of "demon warrior HP" you can summon at one time by 340 baseline and more than halving the amount of damage Azmodan can inflict with demon warriors in early duels or when pushing lanes.

Opinion: It is impressive to take one of the worst skills in the game and make it worse.

All Shall Burn:
Cooldown increased by 33%
Range decreased by 14%
Infinite channel removed, max channel 2.5%
Bonus damage to structures removed.

Opinion: Aside from the drama of "lazors being removed!" nerfing All Shall Burn in this way does actually, effectively, remove one of Azmodan's strongest tools when it comes to pushing down undefended structures. Without the tool of All Shall Burn to ramp up his damage against buildings Azmodan is actually one of the least equipped heros to damage structures.

Demonic Invasion:
Health increased by 100%, but loses 13% hp per second.
Summons have pre-buff health after 4 seconds.
8 seconds max duration, down from infinite.
Attack damage decreased by 20%
Cooldown reduced by 10 seconds.
Explosion is now baseline.

Opinion: In attempting to make Demonic Invasion have greater teamfight utility they have removed one of its strongest advantages, being able to pop what is effectively a bruiser camp into a lane of choice when desired to help secure pushes or depush a lane automatically and they have made it effective at nothing. An Azmodan that wanted to focus on teamfight contribution would have taken Black Pool anyway and that does not change with the patch.

Additional note: Azmodan's Q at 500 stacks does less baseline damage than Kael'Thas Q untalented with a significantly greater cooldown. Azmodan is not as effective as a pure damage dealing mage, this is why he's always had his split pushing to supplement what he does not bring to a teamfight.

Making him significantly worse at teamfights in every conceivable way and removing his ability to effectively split push while still being with his team will essentially delete him from the game. He will be the worst character in HotS. Period.

[Gallahadd]

I don’t understand how they can do so well with one rework, and so badly with the other.

Raynor looks solid. They’ve seemingly made him more viable, while keeping his old playstyle very much alive.

Azmodan is just... no. They’ve based his whole kit around dunking, and totally gutted all his other builds, especially the laser of doom build, which was my favourite.

[Stormcall]

They’ve based his whole kit around dunking

...while reducing it's damage, range, removing the talent that increases it's speed, and increasing the time that it's landing zone is telegraphed, basically making sure you will never hit dunks except at point blank range.

[Gallahadd]

...while reducing it's damage, range, removing the talent that increases it's speed, and increasing the time that it's landing zone is telegraphed, basically making sure you will never hit dunks except at point blank range.

Oh shit, I didn’t even NOTICE the speed removal... I mean, I suck at dunking on him, and even I know how important that talent is... fucking hell, this is the worst hatchet job I’ve seen since they “reworked” Jojo.

Welcome to the club Azmofans! It’s awful.

[Deleted]

Azmodan used to be a lot of fun before they changed him over a year ago.

Blizzard are trash developers.

[caervek]

I don’t understand how they can do so well with one rework, and so badly with the other.

Raynor looks solid. They’ve seemingly made him more viable, while keeping his old playstyle very much alive.

Azmodan is just... no. They’ve based his whole kit around dunking, and totally gutted all his other builds, especially the laser of doom build, which was my favourite.

In fairness they have also based Raynor's whole kit around his auto attacks, and totally gutted his Q build, so it's not like they have approached either of the differently, in both cases they have just picked the most popular build and redesigned the character around it.

[Stormcall]

In fairness they have also based Raynor's whole kit around his auto attacks, and totally gutted his Q build, so it's not like they have approached either of the differently, in both cases they have just picked the most popular build and redesigned the character around it.

Yeah, Raynor Q build is gone, now he only has one build. Admittedly, that build is essentially "if you do not have blinds I am a fucking GOD walking the earth" but it's still just 1 build.

[Gallahadd]

and totally gutted his Q build.

I wouldn’t call it gutted. There are still solid picks at almost every level that support a Q build.

I mean, I’m no HoTS master, but from waht I can see, a semi decent W build would look something like:

Level 1: Ace in the Hole. More damage against slowed targets, while this doesn’t DIRECTLY effect Q, but it increase his overall damage, which isn’t a bad thing.
Level 4: Behemoth Armor. More health is always good.
Level 7: Heavy Slugs. Increased range on Q and increased duration of slow (for longer uptime on Ace.)
Level 13: Debilitating Slugs. More Q’s and stronger slows while Inspired.
Level 16: Paint Them Red. 50% increased damage, and heal against heroes.

Combine that with either 10/20 talent and you’ve got a build which is probably as viable as Raynor’s W ever was.

[The Stormbringer]

R.I.P. laser build. I will miss burning illidan or stealthers to death.

;~; Laser build was also good for tearing down forts, since you could get the range expanded and slip back out of the turret's range.

[Stormcall]

I wouldn’t call it gutted. There are still solid picks at almost every level that support a Q build.


Level 7: Heavy Slugs. Increased range on Q and increased duration of slow (for longer uptime on Ace.)

If you take Unstable Compound at 7 you get permanent uptime on Ace.

[Nikkaszal]

If you take Unstable Compound at 7 you get permanent uptime on Ace.

Shit I didn't even realise that

Seems pretty legit

[Stormcall]

Shit I didn't even realise that

Seems pretty legit

Yeah it's insane. Ace in the Hole, (your pick, Fight or Flight seems to be the go to pick), Unstable Compound, Raider(which IS buffed by Ace, currently), Giddy Up, Bounty Hunter, Execute. Melts someone with HP like Arthas in under 2 seconds.

[Gallahadd]

If you take Unstable Compound at 7 you get permanent uptime on Ace.

Yeah, that works too, I just wanted to show that there were talents for Q at almost every level, so I picked the one that increased Q’s range. If I was really playing this build, I’d probably go for Compound.

[Deleted]

That raynor skin is soooo cheap, i will buy em all *smirk*

[Nerraw]

After having watched videos and previews of Raynor's rework, I think the consensus is that he's going to be absolutely busted unless he gets the nerf-bat before release next week. The Executioner at level 1 seems pretty crazy on its own. And then you combine it with the slow talent at 7 and you're a god in terran form.

[Frozen Death Knight]

After having watched videos and previews of Raynor's rework, I think the consensus is that he's going to be absolutely busted unless he gets the nerf-bat before release next week. The Executioner at level 1 seems pretty crazy on its own. And then you combine it with the slow talent at 7 and you're a god in terran form.

Imagine if Greymane could slow Heroes on his own to proc his Executioner talent, but on steroids. That's the new Raynor rework in a nutshell, since he can do this at lvl 7 instead of 16 like many other Assassins with a similar talent. Plus, he has superior scaling to all other Heroes in the game, which makes him very dangerous in the late game. I have no idea why they thought giving him 5% instead of 4% scaling was a good idea.

Raynor looks like he is going to be very fun to play and makes me excited to play him next week, but yeah, he will with 100% certainty get nerfed in the future.

[caervek]

lol

[NoiseTank13]

lol

The prophecy has come true.

[Super Kami Dende]

I kind of wish they added a Q talent that was something like "Punch-through": Penetrating round goes right through targets, no longer pushing them back but leaving a Bleed on them for 100% of the damage dealt over 3 secs.

So if you had a good peel team you could sacrifice some of your escape for more damage and so I could use Q and not push people out of my teammates range.