Heroes of the Storm received a new hero with Greymane, and Cortyn tested him diligently and – oh wonder – is quite dissatisfied.
Because new isn’t always better
Since the night before last, the latest character Greymane in Heroes of the Storm is available. Since I had 15,000 gold saved up, I treated myself to the wild king of Gilneas right away and, after an intense study of his talents (Well, okay – 5 minutes during the waiting time), jumped straight into a handful of matches. And what can I say: Someone, please make me a Worgen, this guy isn’t much fun.
While I often thought about characters like Kael’thas, “He’s quite fragile,” Greymane takes this feeling to another level (Ha! Crown! Because king! You get it?). Although he is touted as the “great tactician” in his spotlight, his playstyle can be summed up in one sentence: “All or Nothing.” Either he wins and secures his target, or he dies trying. There is no middle ground, such as an exciting chase or a nail-biting escape.
Even though this may sound like nonsense, switching between forms simply doesn’t feel “right”. It doesn’t go smoothly, and especially switching from “Now I’m going to attack the opponent” to “Help, I prefer to roll backwards” rarely worked for me.
Blood Trail – the strangest heroic ability in the game
Another point that extremely frustrates me is his skill shots. While the “Gilnean Cocktail” is quite useful when you invest almost every single talent point into it, I find the effect of the heroic ability “Blood Trail” extremely obscure. Not only does the projectile move so slowly that you can even dodge it while walking backwards with a walker, but it also deals less damage than his normal abilities. Now one might say, “But the target suffers 25% more damage for several seconds,” and that is indeed correct. But such an effect already exists in the game! Tyrande has it – as her passive ability “Mark of the Hunter,” every 20 seconds.
“But you can jump on the target for up to 5 seconds!” one might still argue. Sure, one could. But after a brief thought: Enemies know that too. Whoever gets hit by the projectile just stands in the middle of his allies. When the Worgen jumps in, he falls faster than he can send one last howl to the moon.
It’s not you, darling little Worgen, it’s me … or is it?
Maybe it’s simply because I have played relatively control-oriented heroes like Zagara, Abathur, and Kael’thas, but Greymane feels fragile. Fragile is even the wrong word, he just feels useless. In matches without a healer, the king of the Worgen might as well sit in the corner crying – at least when I control him. I find him even more boring and worse than Lunara, who is currently considered the weakest character in the game among professionals. Greymane can switch forms, and that’s it.
He looks impressive when switching back and forth. Other than that, numerous characters do it better. He deals less damage, falls in three seconds just by being looked at, and has no self-healing abilities. And there’s one more thing he simply can’t do: provide fun.
I may be wrong in this assessment, and it just takes a few weeks before I rage with Greymane on the battlefields – but so far, it doesn’t look like it.
