Heroes of the Storm

Whitemane Rework: Goals, Playstyle, Outcome

HeroesoftheStorm 1 - Whitemane Rework: Goals, Playstyle, Outcome

1: Stated goals of Whitemane's Rework from the HotS developers:

*Adjust her Mana-juggling gameplay loop *Remove and replace her level 4 Talents *Update her talent tree to increase build diversity 

Adjust her Mana-juggling gameplay loop

The gameplay loop of managing mana was, in Whitemane's first iteration, a failure. The sole reason? High Inquisitor. This talent single-handedly removed all meaningful mana management from Whitemane. The other talents on the same tier, Unwavering Faith and Indulgence, paled in effectiveness. These two talents could be considered decent mana management, and indeed, Unwavering Faith was used almost exclusively on release before it was adjusted. Indulgence, on the other hand, could vary wildly in effectiveness. It generally ranged from being sufficient to overly effective mana management.

In terms of design, Indulgence had the most interactivity of the three, while High Inquisitor was next with some minor Desperation juggling, and finally Unwavering Faith's flat -15 mana cost and shield upon reaching 3 stacks. While passive mana management is not bad, the fact that there was incentive to create a gameplay loop while playing Whitemane caused both High Inquisitor and Unwavering Faith to be poorly designed for her skillset. A more active approach via Indulgence would have been preferred, tying mana return to player versus player interactions.

Remove and replace her level 4 Talents

Her level 4 talents, as discussed above, were made obsolete solely by High Inquisitor. The vast majority of games played were played with High Inquisitor as the talent of choice. I can only speculate as the reason the developers wanted to remove all of her level four talents, but I believe it to be because of the complete sidestepping of mana management on her. When a gameplay goal of a hero is completely negated by a player's talent choice, these talents must be looked at.

As for the developer's decision to remove the talents altogether? This feels akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Indulgence encouraged interactivity and rewarded skill on landing Searing Lash hits. There was a very slight tension regarding High Inquisitor if a player mistimed or miscast Clemency/Inquisition, and could feel devastating if improperly used. Unwavering Faith did have some tension, as stack and mana management were important. So even though her level four talents were dominated by High Inquisitor, there was definitely room for increasing the mana management tension on this tier.

Update her talent tree to increase build diversity

The first five talents of Whitemane were pretty much set in stone. Clemency, High Inquisitor, Fanatical Power, Scarlet Aegis, and Harsh Discipline. Her level 16 talent was varied, lots of people took Radiance, others took Shared Punishment if extra crowd control was needed. Lashing Out was good for maps with lots of choke points where Searing Lash could be used repeatedly. Finally, her level 20 depended on her level 16: Players generally took Subjugation if they took Shared Punishment, and Purge the Wicked otherwise.

In terms of diversity, her level 16 talent tier was probably the most successful, with the level 20 coming in next. If the enemy team had an abundance of crowd control, Intercession at level 7 might have been taken, along with Scarlet Crusade at 20.

The worst offenders were level 1, 4, and 13. Clemency was too valuable to not pick. It allowed Whitemane to juggle her High Inquisitor Desperation stacks without an enemy and gave her much needed healing outside of team fights. The combination of these essentially allowed for Whitemane to slowly heal her team outside of fights with no fear of running out of mana.

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Examining her level 1 talents shows that these were all designed to increase her healing through various means. Martyrdom had a focus on stacking your Q casts, Righteous Flame encouraged team fighting with CC to increase damage and heals, and finally, Pity the Frail increased healing to allies with low health. What stands out is that all of these abilities were designed for a specific spell and purpose. Excluding Clemency, (which was almost always picked due to reasons discussed above) these could have encouraged build diversity depending on how these could be changed. If your team had a lot of CC, Righteous Flame might have been a good choice. If the enemy team had a lot of sustained damage, Pity the Frail could be used. Martyrdom would be more of a generalist pick.

The level 4 talents were discussed previously, so the next tier would be at level 7. The majority of games were played with Fanatical Power as the pick, though Intercession was seen occasionally. Even if the enemy team had CC, Fanatical Power was picked over Intercession most of the time. Healing and damage numbers spiked when this was activated, allowing Whitemane to keep allies alive during sustained damage periods. It allowed her to duel some assassins and assist in pushing through kills with her team. Intercession, on the other hand, was chosen when there was CC on the enemy team that would result in an instant kill (Garrosh stun/throw, etc). And finally Zealous Spirit wasn't really seen outside of Desperate Prayer builds, which weren't generally played. I see this talent tier as the one that needed to be redesigned the most. Fanatical Power was so key to her identity that even against teams with CC, you'd still pick it. In general, it was better to get stronger damage and heals on the target than to try and cleanse it.

Her two level 10s could be shifted around to make them more desirable, as the rework proved. The lower cooldown on Divine Reckoning and the higher one on Scarlet Aegis definitely were needed to making both choices viable.

At level 13, her talents became more utility focused. However, having an on-demand root through Harsh Discipline was so important that it completely outclassed the other two talents. Rooting a target would more often than not lead to a kill if you could catch an enemy. It also allowed you to duel someone, escape, and assist your allies with peel. Guiding Light and Self Righteous were, in effect, ignored due to this. Guiding Light, on paper, seems to be a strong talent. 2 seconds of 20% movement speed is very good, in fact. The self healing on Self Righteous is less useful, however. Rooting an enemy and kiting them is more effective than healing yourself while running. Still, it might have had its place.

Whitemane's Playstyle, pre and post rework

Pre-rework, Whitemane was a caster. Damaging enemies through spells was where the majority of her healing came from. Juggling your cooldowns and assisting on team followup allowed you to significantly assist your team in bursting down targets if needed, and occasionally catch out someone with a root for team followup. It was not uncommon for her to have a very high hero damage at the end of the game. She specialized decent sustain healing with burst healing when necessary.

Currently, she is now an attacker. Her most coherent build is to specialize into extending zeal and auto attacking enemy heroes in order to heal your team. This build focuses on sustain healing but lacks almost any form of burst healing outside of her ult.

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Overall, her identity has fundamentally changed. There are a few things contributing to that. One is the loss of Fanatical Power. This skill is what made her able to contribute to damage in team fights and also land her burst healing. Another is the lack of cohesive talents that enhance her caster fantasy. Only one of her talents increases her damage through casting spells. Reducing the cooldowns of spells is an increase in damage/healing of course, but in terms of healing you are generally better off taking the auto attack talents.

Outcome

*Adjust her Mana-juggling gameplay loop 

In this sense, the update was successful. The Mana-juggling loop was removed entirely, and now mana management is nonexistent. There is no more 'Mana-juggling' as much as running out of mana. Whitemane players are forced to spend mana at a rapid pace. During the laning phase, your mana will quickly decrease and you will find yourself needed to restore mana at the fountain or base. During team fights, your mana will be spent even faster. Getting Zeal on your team and then patching up burst damage while auto attacking enemies is your general goal. This will drain your mana incredibly fast, resulting in being unable to heal your team after a few moments.

*Remove and replace her level 4 Talents 

The team successfully removed and replaced her level 4 talents.

*Update her talent tree to increase build diversity 

This remains to be seen. Currently, I have found one build that has an overarching goal. Note that I consider this build to be non functioning. The lack of any form of mana sustain prevent her from prolonged team fights, as well as her inability to effectively save characters from burst damage without decreasing your healing output even further (more burst healing means more mana spent, equalling less healing). I have been unable to get her builds focusing on her spells to function at a satisfactory level. Her autoattack build seems to have the highest healing throughput, but it remains to be seen.

I am thinking that the autoattack build will end up becoming the only viable build, however, so I think this point was a failure.

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