Post-Balance Changes, Pre-Rework Xul

Post-Rework Tychus

Cassia

Conclusion

First, let's get a working definition of niche. Without getting overly technical, a fair starting point would be something along the lines of "the situation in which a hero performs best." Generally, we understand why niches for heroes are important. If one hero could do everything well and performed best all the time, we would only play that hero. Niches, therefore, are critical in assuring that you have reasons to play many heroes, and in terms of a viewing experience, they help make sure that things stay fresh and we aren't watching the same drafts over and over again.So what's the problem? Well, it has to do with what makes Heroes of the Storm a great game for many of us. Generally speaking, the issue is this: Heroes have to be balanced around their niche scenarios so that they are not too oppressive, even in those spots. If too much of their power is in their niche scenarios, they are going to be woefully underperforming outside of them to compensate. Relatedly, if I love the hero because of who they are within the Blizzard universe, that hero being fundamentally designed as an overly niche hero is devastating, and undermines the main appeal of Heroes of the Storm.So, how niche is too niche? Let's examine a few.Based on one of the most beloved Blizzard characters ever, Xul came into the Nexus with a hype that I do not believe has ever been replicated. Putting aside the question of how faithfully his kit replicated the Diablo 2 Necromancer experience, how did he fare on the niche side of things? Originally, Xul was an absolute monster. His scythes hit like a truck, his skeletons marched down towers, and he enjoyed one of the highest winrates the game has ever seen. Appropriately, he was roundly nerfed, again and again, until he remained a decent pick only on Tomb of the Spider Queen and Blackheart's Bay. Over time, even Tomb fell out of favor, and with the release of Gul'dan, his dual soaking top and mid strategy of Blackheart's Bay became less and less effective as there was a clear counter.How did this happen? From early on it was clear that Xul's primary strength was his trait. Almost all of Xul's power budget remained locked in to this area of his kit. His best talents, his only real talents, all concentrated on empowering his skeletons. As a result, Xul's viability - his niche - was restricted to situations that could adequately make use of the trait. Slowly but surely, his weakness in all other respects crowded him out of all other circumstances in the game. Not only was he less than ideal in situations other than Blackheart's Bay, he was astoundingly awful.Still, some argued that Xul was fine. He had a place in the game. On Blackheart's Bay, if picked in the right draft, he not only did well, but he excelled. It didn't matter that he was essentially useless in every other conceivable situation in the game. This was enough.Perhaps clear from my tone, I view this as woefully and clearly insufficient. Being viable on one map failed fans of Xul's kit and failed fans of the Diablo 2 Necromancer. Blizzard agreed, and gave him a rework that concentrated on strengthening his overall kit. Talents that gave him power beyond just his skeletons left him feeling a more complete hero overall. When they needed to balance him downward, they have largely concentrated on lowering the strength of his skeletons, trying to preserve the more general power, and limit the strength of his niche.While I think his fundamental design does no justice to the Diablo 2 Necromancer, I commend and applaud the balance direction of Xul post-rework. Having a generally strong hero with a mildly strong niche scenario is infinitely better for all involved than a terrible hero with an insanely strong niche scenario. Fans of the kit can play him more often, and it creates less "rock paper scissors" draft scenarios where the lottery draft has decided the game before it began. But how about the other direction? What happens when the rework goes the other way?The Heroes team was faced with a problem. A hero with a designed niche was being overplayed. As we discussed earlier, niches are important. You don't want a hero to appear in every single game. It's boring to play. It's boring to play against. It's boring to watch.Tychus was one of those heroes, particularly in competitive, who just seemed to fit everywhere. He was durable enough that he didn't need an excessive front line or multiple supports. He had a variety of meaningful damage, ability, auto attacks, and percentage-based. Combined with two excellent heroics and doing it all from range, it was hard to identify what Tychus was supposed to be bad at. Pros agreed. He was never particularly dominant or overbearing, but he was always present. Something had to be done. The goal? Make this hero more niche.How'd they do? Well, Tychus is almost non-existent now. Sporting some of the lowest pick rates and win rates that you will ever see, he went from riches to rags in the blink of an eye. The goal was clearly stated. Preserve, and even strengthen, the "tank buster" identity of Tychus. In exchange, make him worse in nearly every other conceivable way. This would help ensure that he would only be picked in situations that made use of his trait, percent damage, and we would stop seeing him quite so often in others. If you pick him against a huge, beefy frontline that can't interrupt your Minigun and just lets you free fire into their health pools, a better assassin you will not find. If you pick him almost any other time, he will leave you wishing you'd picked somebody else.In competitive, a few teams do still run him and China in particular isn't quite ready to let go, but North America and Europe have largely moved on. Still, he has enough of a presence that if you were a fan of watching Tychus, you aren't completely left in the cold. The real issue is if you were a fan of playing Tychus. His Hero League and Quick Match play rates alongside his win rates plummeted to the depths. This would tend to suggest that for the average player, he simply is not as fun to play anymore. It could also suggest that whatever Tychus's specifically designed niche is supposed to be, the average player is not good at recognizing it (explaining the discrepancy between an acceptable competitive presence but an unbelievably bad Hero League winrate).Some people consider this to be a success. Once again I would argue to the contrary. If you are fan of Tychus Findlay, or maybe you love how his kit feels, you're extremely underwhelmed. You sit through draft after draft, hoping, waiting for the chance you can finally play your hero again. This feels like a profound mistake to me. And yet, it was not an isolated incident. Some characters are designed like this from the ground up.Like many of you, I grew up on Diablo 2. I loved exactly two classes in that game: the Necromancer, and the Amazon. When Xul came to the Nexus, I was crestfallen at how his kit felt. Melee. Huge scythe. Passive skeletons. Regardless of if it was the best they could do at importing the Diablo 2 Necromancer into this style of game, it was disappointing to the extreme. When Cassia arrived, and I got my hands on her kit, it worked for me. I've seen others say it didn't work for them, but for me, it felt right. I finally had my Diablo 2 hero.Or did I? Well, the fun of playing Cassia took a significant hit when I came to realize that my opportunities to actually play Cassia were limited by her design. So much of her power budget was placed in her niche, her trait, rather than her general power. Due to the passive damage increase against blinded targets, even Blinding Light would not have felt overly specific. She may not be able to blind an enemy mage, but the act of doing so still increases her damage against them. In this respect, they took care to protect against the fact that Blinding Light would have felt overly niche without the passive component of it.However, then you get to her trait, and you quickly realize that a significant amount of her health pool is sacrificed for the power of the physical armor during movement that her trait represents. This means that she is essentially immortal against physical attackers as long as she can remain moving, but is operating with a laughably low health pool against ability based damage. Ultimately then, if you queue her up in Quick Match you're flat out rolling the dice. If you're drafting her, you're hoping and praying that the enemy team picks Greymane so that you can justify picking her. Similar to Tychus, is this a success? Is this interesting or fun design?If you are skilled at playing Cassia, or just love the hero, it should always be an option that selecting her does not feel irrecoverably wrong so long as you are in need of a ranged assassin. Heroes should have niches. She would do well against physical attackers anyway just due to the blind in her kit. But the power spike of picking a hero into their niche should never be too high, for that means their general power is likely too low. Cassia is an unfortunate example of this. She is absolutely insane when she is good, definitely awful when she is bad, and little to no middle ground otherwise.One of the draws of Heroes of the Storm is the attachment to the characters that get added to the game. But that draw only works if you can actually play them. Niches are power spikes. They are your reward for properly picking a hero into the right composition, against the right composition, on the right map, or some combination of the three. But like all power spikes based on draft, care needs to be taken to ensure that they don't become oppressive. Not only because the feeling of playing out a "lost draft" is awful, but because if a character's niche situation is too effective, it likely means they have been balanced around this, and that their general power level is much lower to compensate. This creates heroes that you simply cannot play, and enjoy, often enough.In a game like Heroes of the Storm, where we are largely enjoying fantasies of characters we already love, that seems a disappointing fate for any hero.