Play The Objective #2: A Dance of Faeries

This week in Play The Objective (PTO) I look at the true healing value of Lili vs. Uther, explore the land of faeries and as always provide a summary of happenings around the scene.

Thought(s) of the week

In last week’s PTO I had done a F2P of Uther, commenting that Uther is the more rounded and overall solid choice, but Lili is the better pure healer. The first part is obvious. Uther has a pick/ban rate of something like 2000% and his versatility is great for any lineup. The second part though, is questionable. After I made the posting, Heroes senior editor Dorazion sent me a skype message praising Uther’s burst healing ability. In summary he made the below points:

  • Lili’s heal is untargetable (going to lowest health hero)
  • Uther has two heals and huge burst healing
  • After level 16 trait, Uther’s cooldown potentially can fall by 50%

Firstly, Dorazion made me feel like a fool. I mean it’s Lili, I thought, how can anyone out heal Lili. But I thought about the above points, and began to question myself. My main issue with Uther was the cooldown. The 12 second CD between heals, plus he’s a melee so he’s in the frontline, no guarantee he’ll live for the next heal and don’t forget he’s a slow old man too. Compare that to the highly elusive Lili and her 3 second CD. Every pubstar can attest to how annoying it can be vainly hunting Lili down.

So here’s a comparison of the two. Their healing ranges are both very similar. Now let’s crunch the numbers. They both have 500 mana. Uther’s primary heal is 90 mana, Lili’s is 30. Uther has 12 second CD, Lili has a 3 second CD. Essentially, Lili heals for half of Uther though Uther’s scales better (at level 1 it’s 88 vs. 175, at level 20 it’s 430 vs. 935). When factoring in the cool downs, it’s apparent that Lili is a healing monster.

If you just look at a 30 second engagement where healing is cast instantaneously, the pure numbers are all for Lili. At level 1, Lili will provide about 101% more health points in heals, at level 20 it scales down to roughly 84%.

So is Lili really a better healer? Actually not really. Her pure healing numbers are better and she is more mana efficient (that is how many health point heals per point of mana). At level one, for each mana point, Lili heals for 2.9 health points, for Uther it is 1.94. At level 20 it’s 14.3 and 10.4 respectively. Over the course of the game, Uther becomes relatively more mana efficient than Lili by roughly 3% each level. And there’s the real difference maker. Yes Lili can heal more over time, but in the latter stages, you would rather have heals in larger bursts as the pace of fights increase and heroes are more liable to get blown up instantly. In that sense, Uther becomes a more valuable commodity with his 935 one time heal.

So we can conclude two things: Lili is the best raw healer in the game, but Uther provides far superior burst heal, and his heals scale better into the late game. When you factor his stun and team fight oriented ultimate, it’s clear Uther is a superior support.

Do keep in mind there is no mention of healing wave nor Lili’s ultimate. To simulate those in would cause my brain to explode.

Free to Play of the Week: Brightwing

Ahh Brightwing. There was a time when Brightwing was considered a tier 1 level hero, but after a couple nerfs, the age of the farie dragon seems to have passed. I’m not sure why though. At one point I played five straight games with her and went 5-0, and never doubted my team’s outcome.

She is certainly an interesting hero. Her design is team fight control. She has an AOE nuke, polymorph, and a hero buff that provides movement speed and ability block. Her ultimate is either a blink-heal ability, or an AOE nuke that pushes heroes back.

Aesthetics: In design, Brightwing seems most closest to Murky. It’s not that they look similar, but as I was playing Brightwing, I noticed how she seemed diminutively smaller compared to other heroes. I mean, she has a lot going on, with the wings, antennas, but as I glided around the battlefield I couldn’t shake how her model size, like Murky, just seemed small. Still an overall pleasing hero, a cross between a butterfly and a frog is my assessment (One thing is certain, she does not lend herself to cosplay very well).

Skillset: I really did enjoy playing Brightwing, but I do have serious misgivings about her skillset. First the positives. She has a special mount that lets her teleport to any hero. If you think about, this is essentially ETC’s teleport ultimate. It’s useful in every map, but I found it especially strong in Cursed Hollow. The biggest challenge with that map is being out of position when the tributes come up, for Brightwing, such problems just fly away (literally). Her nuke I found obscenely hard to hit as the cast range is poor and there’s delay before it hitting the target. And then I noticed the nuke doesn’t actually seem to do any damage. Even when I tried to build that skill, I swear

Therein lies the issue with Brightwing, she does a lot of great stuff, but it’s like she doesn’t do any one thing amazingly. Take her polymorph. Turning a hero into a sheep is always a good idea. But the polymorph is essentially a two second silence. Until you skill the slow at level 16, there is no speed hinderance. So you can’t catch up to a hero with it, and with the tiny cast range, you never even get into range anyway. That’s the thing, she’s a crowd control hero who can’t lockdown a hero, she’s a healer who doesn’t really heal all that well, and she’s a pusher (if you build her that way) with slow attack speed and poor wave clear.

Yet, I still really like the hero, like really like the hero. The global teleport cannot be understated, if you level the “Gust of Healing” talent it actually provides a great AOE heal, and Rewind or Storm Shield are both great level 20 abilities. She’s versatile and the most exotic hero in the game, which has to mean something.

My favorite build.

Difficulty: Hard. As mentioned, the nuke is impossible to hit, and the skills are very active so you need quick decision making and good map awareness. Really a satisfying hero.

Verdict: At 10,000 gold she’s expensive. Look, she’s very strong, and is one of the most fun heroes to play. But still, 10,000 is a lot of gold so the verdict is out. If you love support and don't need to be killing directly, then yes buy if not then definitely pass.

Around the Storm (Any news, interesting articles, current & upcoming tournaments)

  • The big news this week was the launch of GG’s own Heroes of the Storm tournament. The tournament is a true Free to Play with open entry for all teams. With an $18,000 total prize pool it is one of the biggest tournaments around. There will be 3 cup series (planned so far) that will run well into April/May. You can find all the information and registration details here.
  • Heroes Big League from Afreeca TV launched last week. Beyond enjoying Korean teams, the highlight is Tastosis. They are a very newb friendly cast, clearly both of them are learning the game so not too much insights on talent and meta discussions (for better or worse). Click here for the tournament.
  • The weekly $250 Go4Heroes cup series continues from the good old ESL. I do have a serious complaint to lodge against them: Their website is completely, utterly impossible to navigate. I had watched this week’s final on Khaldor’s stream but could not find any portal on VODs, weekly results, very cumbersome to navigate between the other tournaments that ESL runs.
  • ESL Major League tournament continues as always with two sets every Tuesday and Thursday. Team LDLC won again, improving their record to 8-0. Gamers2.Hots (formerly 3DMAX) has also not dropped a three game set all tournament.
  • Titan Arena, hosted by SchAmToo of Town Hall and sponsored by MLG, finalized this week with C9 Maelstrom defeating TempoStorm. Congratulations to C9 Maelstrom, it’s quite clear them and Tempostorm are the premier North America Teams. The bracket and VODs (I believe) can be found here.
  • Have only had one game so far with Lost Vikings. Not too impressed, the player didn’t understand micro and had the three heroes grouped the entire match. I found that killing all three was pretty impossible, but they also didn’t provide much in team fights.
  • And Illidan remains completely overpowered.

As always, thanks for tuning in. Don’t agree with something I’ve written? Let me know in the comments!

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