Nu Wa Patch 5th December 2013

What's confusing about the Arachne buff? She has gone without Magical Protection scaling for a long time and it was a major weakness for her, among other things. She was the only Assassin without Magical Protections scaling. Adding that scaling to her is a huge change that should have been added much earlier.

Honestly, I have despised Chang'e from the moment she was released. Her invulnerability is disgusting, her Ult is obnoxious, and now she is being changed so much that no one knows what to do with her. If there is a God that I would love to see removed, it would be her. If anything, make some major changes to her kit.

I have to admit, she's been a balancing disaster. The biggest problem with her is that her ultimate is ridiculous, but everything else is subpar (especially compared to Hel).

I don't want more flashy and powerful ultimates, I want a god I can play with multiple brain cells. Chang'e OP/UP; please buff/nerf Hirez.

The problem with Chang's 2 in comparison to other jumps is that she has such good mobility while using it. It lasts longer than most jumps as well, and there's also no reason that it shouldn't be affected by cripple. I think her 2 is just annoying more than anything else though; it's not the problem. I'd personally like the dance to go back to its original 1.4 seconds with only 1 second of immunity, but there are bigger problems to worry about.

I'm not sure why you would think that she's not strong though. I'm repeating myself, but the fact that she's first pick/ban in ranked says a lot. She's a monster to deal with if she's even a little fed. Her waveclear isn't weak, she can chunk the minions with her 1, then kill with her 3 and heal her own wave. This pushes the majority of solo laners back to their tower. It gets even worse once you're pushed back to tower since Chang's poke game is so good. She's going to force you out of lane consistently if the jungler doesn't come over to punish her for playing aggressive.

They didn't nerf the scaling on her 3 (unless I'm missing something,) so it's literally just 20 points of healing at rank 5. They didn't even change the base numbers at level 1. I'm confused why this is looked at as such a big nerf.

It's not that she has a great early game, just that it's such an easy early game for a dominant late game character. She still had a great late game when she was considered trash and no one played her, just no one could get her there consistently. Now it's easy to survive early.



It's not that she was buffed as much as she wasn't nerfed at all. She can have the standard assassin stats, just don't make her such a solo queue stomper. She introduces kinks into a game that most players don't know how to deal with. She's such a dominant early game fighter that she can walk right into your side of the map and cripple the jungler unless your team collapses on her to protect buffs. Good luck with that in most matches.

Her ult is a whole different issue. Making her easier to play just makes the problems with her kit/design easier to see.

It's confusing to me because HiRez seems determined to balance around casual play, and no one dominates casual play like Arachne.

I wouldn't say she's first ban/pick. Typically, I see Zeus, Agni, or Mercury go there. I rarely see Chang'e banned, but she is picked pretty often.

I'm honestly not sure why her waveclear is so great. In my experience, she can be easily countered by other sustain based soloers like Ra, or simply outpushed by Ao Kuang, especially when they can push with one skill and she needs two. If you aggressively push, especially early game where her healing isn't great, you can force her under the tower. Against melee solo laners, she's scary, but that applies to nearly every melee vs ranged solo in the game.

The healing nerf is bad because she relies on quick multiple heals with CDR, since unlike Hel or Aphro she doesn't heal enough in one burst. Unlike Aphro or Hel, who can heal once or twice in a teamfight before trying for damage, Chang'e has to heal 5-6 times, precisely because her heal was so ****py in the first place.

I'm not sure I've seen Agni banned once outside of tournaments over the last few weeks. He's deserving of it considering how much better he is than all other mids, but he doesn't break the game like a lot of other gods currently do. Mercury and Zeus are the two top bans at the moment, but Chang'e is definitely #3.

Ra might do fine against Chang, but no one plays Ra. The solo lane is primarily bruisers, none of whom can really stomp or outpush Chang. She's not great at pushing, that's why she's not played mid very often where gods like Ao Kuang usually reside. She has good enough clear (especially with HoG,) to match pretty much any solo laner though. If she can't push to tower and poke you out, she can at least safe farm and get to late game, where she's a monster. Mages like He Bo are okay in the solo lane against her since they can burst her, but she punishes so hard with her low cooldowns that you need to play really well to not die.

I look at Chang's heal like a better version of Guan's, personally. If you want massive team wide healing, pick Hel (Aphro's heal is just as negligible since it's single target and requires a set up 1 that may either be on CD, or impossible to hit with other gods around.) Chang is about damage and utility. Her heal debuffs enemy heals while still healing a noticeable chunk late game. 30% isn't high scaling, but that's still a big chunk once you have Rod and a full build. When you look at the damage she can put out, she really doesn't need to heal that much.

Why would Zeus be a top ban? He's nearly never picked competitively and for good reason. His harass is unreliable and based entirely around landing one ability (the other two cannot harass at all without it or a lot of AA's), he has NO good waveclear at ALL (shove lane GG), and he has 0 escapes.

But Agni and Merc I totally agree with.

ATM she's countered by any high burst-in-stages mages (rhymes are awesome) who can initiate, force her to dance, and still be able to do damage. Stop Time-->Time Rift / dance / Accelerate is a very good example, from Chronos.

She's also countered by good sustain mages, like Ra (who has a place in competitive play, but in very specific fights), Anubis (trust me....she gets close to harass, cocoon is killing her, and lifesteal passive OP), or Zhong Kui.

I don't understand the nerf. Literally nerf the ult from 1/2/3/4/5 second stun to 1/1.5/2/2.5/3 second stun for progressive targets. She's not broken anymore. GG. Give her back her healing and increased healing to allies and harass and whatnot. This is ridiculous. I used to like her but, as people have said, she's old hel. As a matter of fact, name one reason to pick Chang'E over Hel now outside of a very small immunity.

Hel has the same *CC* immunity, and for her WHOLE TEAM.
She has better healing
She has a better waveclear (even if it's a little shorter ranged)
She has a linear skillshot mininuke, which Chang'E doesn't have.
She only lacks a heavy CC like Chang'E, but her teamfight presence otherwise is at least double what Chang'E brings. CC immunity for the entire team is arguably better than an unreliable CC on their team (you'll never ever land it on everyone)

I'm not sure if I've just had a few weird matches. Since the new season, I've played 6 ranked matches, and Zeus was banned twice, Merc was banned five times (ikr?), Agni was four times, and Chang'e was banned once.

Um, I'm really not sure what you're talking about with Zeus. He got buffed consistently over the last month, and he's possibly the most broken god in the game at the moment. He used to not get played very much because of his waveclear, then he got a stun, a hit progression, auto 4 bounces on his 1, an insane amount of protections on his 2, an ult that starts ticking damage before you hit the 4 button, all in addition to his burst damage, which was already among the highest in the game. He's played or banned in pretty much every ranked or tournament game.

He's not a good pusher, but he can clear waves just fine, especially in the solo lane where he's not against auto clearers like Ao and Ra. Just auto attack to build up stacks and detonate. They're starting to nerf him back down a little, but, he's been unleashed big time. He was only an arena menace for a while, now he's a conquest menace.

Chang'e and Hel have different roles. Chang'E is about consistently harassing the enemy team while never dying, while Hel is more of a primary target who you need to kill fast, otherwise she's going to heal and buff the enemy team to a win. If you're playing Chang'E as a character who just sits back, heals and supports your team, you're playing her wrong. She's a damage mage on the frontline.

Chang'e puts out a ton of damage between all of her skills, and she's so mobile and tanky that you have to overcommit to kill her, which lets the enemy team collapse on you and clean up. Hel can put out damage, but she dies way easier than Chang, and her skillshots are a lot harder to hit (well, they're not free like chang's.) If a Hel is using her abilities for more than clean up, or without serious disruption, just turn on her.

Hel is very good, but she's not a safe pick with so many good assassins and bruisers in the meta. All you need to do is hard engage on her when she's in dark stance (or even light if you're someone like Tyr who can juggle her to death,) and she'll never get that cc immunity off, or anything. Chang can dance to safety and wreck you.

For Chang matchups, Ra can do alright, but I don't see how it counters anything. She can debuff his healing, and he'll never hit her with an ult because of her 2. If a Ra is sitting at a Chang's tower, all you're getting is an end game Chang and a fed jungler.

I don't know the Chronos matchup, but Chronos is really weak early game. Chang will never get stunned (and she avoids the second damage tick,) because she can 2 after eating the first hit of his 3, and Chronos has no kill potential without that. Chang will poke the hell out of a Chronos.

Anubis may counter her, but he counters himself by being Anubis. She can dance out of his 1 and 3 as well. He can wrap > ult, but she can beads > dance.

He Bo is the best counter among mages since he can burst her down and punish the hell out of her when she tries to clear the wave if she starts to fall behind. It's still a close matchup though; mess up early and you're done. She'll just out-trade you and heal.

I prefer Tyr against Chang, but Tyr's just kind of silly in any matchup. Sun Wukong can kill her if he builds offensive as well. Really though, the true counter is camping her lane. She can't survive ganks and tower dives.

Im just super sad face about the eye of providence and sun wukong nerfs :(

Meh. Eye needed it; it completely outclassed the normal wards.

But I'm not happy about Sun Wukong's nerf, either. It feels like HiRez is disconnected with the playerbase.