Hello Warriors! Welcome to this installment in our ongoing series of State of Balance, where the Fight Team analyzes the results from the just-completed season and discusses where we are headed in the future.

In this blog, we will share data on the Win Rates and Pick Rates of our heroes with you, the community. We will also look at the data to discuss our perspective on certain balance issues, and where we see it heading over the coming seasons.

(To read more about the methodology of the data presented, click here.)

Now, let’s get to the data!

DUEL

DUEL FULL POPULATION WIN RATE

DUEL PLATINUM AND ABOVE WIN RATE

DUEL PICK RATE

DUEL VIABILITY VS PLAYSTYLE TABLE

Note: In this State of Balance, we use the version of the “Viability vs Playstyle Tables” that was posted on 2019-October-30. These Viability Tables are the community-created tool to replace the Tier Lists, and you can find the latest version here.

Hitokiri and Raider perform highly in Duels across both Full Population and Platinum-or-Above. This Player Data is in-line with the Community’s Viability Table – both Hitokiri and Raider are listed as being Strong in Duels. Hitokiri is especially high, sitting at 68% win rate in Full Population and 61% in Platinum-or-Above. They both received nerfs in Year 3: Season 4 (Raider’s Stunning Tap change, Hitokiri’s Uninterruptible Stance timing nerf, damage nerfs to both), and as such we will be closely monitoring to see where they end up after their changes.

Uninterruptible Stance / High Damage Heroes appear to have a large presence at the top of the Player Data. Most heroes who appear at the top of the Player Data Charts seem to have one or both of these traits. This seems to suggest that these properties (especially when combined on heroes such as Raider or Hitokiri) are very strong when used in the context of Full Population or Platinum-or-Above play in Duel. The main outlier is Berserker, who has an Uninterruptible Stance but appears quite low in Full Population play.

Raider, Hitokiri, Lawbringer, Black Prior and Conqueror all show up roughly at similar locations high up in the Player Data and the Viability Table. This suggests that these heroes are both strong in competitive gameplay as well as Full Population. We’ve already made changes to Raider and Hitokiri this season, and we’ll monitor how these changes affect their viability and see if we need to further act on other heroes as well.

Jormungandr appears rather high on both sets of Player Data, but low on the Viability Table. We’ve seen that, at a competitive level, Jormungandr’s gameplan is inconsistent as top level players are able to react to more threatening attacks. At the Full Population level, this becomes much more difficult, and frustration with the hero remains high as players struggle to deal with the melee attacks. In Year 3: Season 4, we have adjusted the recovery timing of the opening lights, in order to fix an issue where it would be impossible to dodge the melee finisher in certain cases; we’ll see what repercussions this will have in the future.

Warden, Berserker and Shaman show up much lower in both sets of the Player Data than in the Viability Table, where they are placed as Strong. One theory for Full Population players is that they might approach Duels much like they approach 1v1s in Dominion, which makes them throw out big attacks much more often and take more risks, whereas competitive players tend to play it safe and are much more patient.

Reflex Guard Heroes appear at the bottom of the lists. Orochi is leading the pack in both sets, despite being listed as Weak in the Viability Table. We’re keeping an eye on this situation.

DOMINION

DOMINION FULL POPULATION WIN RATE + TOP 4% Win Rate

   

DOMINION VIABIBILITY VS PLAYSTYLE TABLE

The top half of the Player Data for Dominion for Full Population and Top 4% is essentially the same, with some minor position switches. This shows a high similarity at these different levels of play. Similarly to Duels, we see that heroes with Uninterruptible Stance and/or high damage perform at the top of these Player Data sets.

Raider and Hitokiri appear near the top of the Player Data for Dominion (just as they did in Duel), and we shall see how the nerfs applied at the start of Year 3: Season 4 affect them.

Reflex Guard Heroes appear to be having a difficult time in Dominion. All Reflex Guard heroes currently appear at the bottom of the Player Data. We’re keeping an eye on this as it is a trend that is problematic.

Mid Heroes (a role defined in the Community’s Viability Table as a hero that maintains control over the minion lane) fall into a rather similar rank in both the Player Data and Viability table, with the exception of Aramusha, who still ranks higher in the Player Data. This, similarly to Roaming heroes, shows that control over the minion lane is generally well-understood.

Side Point Heroes (a role defined in the Community’s Viability Table as a hero who is strongest at taking and holding side points) are generally defensive heroes that are able to stall at points and hold them for long periods of time. The overall ranking of these heroes is similar in both the Viability Table and the Player data with the exception of Jormungandr, who is higher in the Player Data. Typically this also indicates that Side Point gameplay is understood, but most Side Point heroes are in the middle to bottom of the Player Data. We’re keeping an eye on this as we want to ensure that we have heroes that are still viable on Side Points.

Roaming Heroes (a role defined in the Community’s Viability Table as a hero that rotates around the map and helps as needed) has a high similarity in heroes that perform at the top of the Player Data and the Viability Table. It appears as if Roaming is a role that is well understood at all levels of play.

Ganker Heroes (a role defined in the Community’s Viability Table as a hero that can quickly kill a single opponent with the help of a teammate) appear to be much stronger in organized competitive play than in solo queuing. The Community Viability Table defines Shaman and Gladiator as Strong in that role, but Player Data had both appearing very low. While this difference in behavior makes intuitive sense, owing to the difference in team cohesion and coordination between full population games and competitive play, there is quite a large discrepancy between the results of the Player Data and the Viability Table when it comes to Shaman and Gladiator.

BREACH

BREACH FULL POPULATION WIN RATE + TOP 4% WIN RATE

    

Generally, it appears that Breach Player Data appears quite similar to Dominion. The one major difference is that Nuxia appears to fall considerably more in Breach Top 4% Win Rate than in Dominion, presumably because her fight kit and Caltrops are much less effective in a context with Pikemen.

Note: There is no Community Viability Table for Breach – so it’s not included in this blog for that reason.

CLOSING NOTE

We would love to hear more from you on the results of the Player Data for Full Population, Platinum-or-Above, Top 4%, as well as the Community Viability Tables. Please remember that we look at all this data, information, feedback, and a whole lot more when we make our decisions.

Keep sending us your feedback, and we look forward to sharing the next installment of the State of Balance!

• The Fight Team