[Round Table] Yrel Hero Release

We are joined today by a variety of players from Heroes Lounge, to discuss the release of Yrel into the Nexus!

bust3r: soon to be gold (3 years later),tilted illidan main, second place DIV 5 and 4 and now PiST captain

Deathknight: Memer, (apparently) Garrosh one-trick, always winning division 1 and then clowning in playoffs, grandmaster player, famous streamer, Robb's favourite player in Lounge and captain of MMM - twitch

Hazeti: Master player struggling in platinum. Ultimate flex player for Deported Support and NEWT before being pushed out to solo lane to contain the damage I could do to a single lane. Which team will I sink next? Watch this space.

BreadBucket: AKA Bread - made of flour, water and yeast mixed together and baked. GM Offlaner for Don Our Fedoras

Denker: Tank and Captain for Griefers on Safari, explorer of Africa and active lounge memer

Epixors: Offlaner for Minion Genocide, former captain and now sub for Don Our Fedoras, occasional toxic streamer - twitch

Thank you all for joining. To start off, how do you guys feel about Yrel in the current meta? Is she only viable as an offlaner? Or is there a situation where you would pick her as a main tank?

Epixors: I could see her as a tank in Aba solo supp comps on Sky where all you really care about is raw trading, and you have Abathur mines and maybe a Genji for vision control. Her peel is reasonable, her damage sponging is fine, she just struggles to engage and ward because of how slow her E is.

As an offlane she is incredibly dominant, with only very few niche counters, a pretty reasonable team fight and insane rotation power.

Denker: Yrel almost has all the tools needed for a main tank except a reliable engage. Her warding can be fine with Divine Steed, but you generally would want other ways to provide vision there as well.

I agree with Epixors that she could maybe be drafted as main tank in very specific situations but overall, she just brings too much to the table in the offlane to be worth being drafted as tank. Her wave clear, duelling, point control and rotation power just outclass most of the meta offlaners at the moment, so in pro play she has been drafted exclusively as offlane as far as I know.

BreadBucket: For offlaners, they all have a niche they are drafted for (mostly):

- Global

- Bunker / High Impact Ultimate

- Damage reduction

- Strong Team fight

Yrel fills the "I own this lane so piss off" niche. She has strong wave clear and rotations on top of this, incredible self-sustain, damage and can chase you down to the ends of the earth. She can bully almost anyone.

Her teamfight is not spectacular, but it is enough to get by.

But, Yrel as a main tank? I don't buy it. Just feels like you're trying to fit a circle into a square hole. Like what the others have said, there are many downsides that need to get covered for her to shine in that role, so let her do what she does best: running it down on the enemy offlaner.

Deathknight: In the Current Meta she is really good since she wins a lot of solo lanes and can even trade vs ranged heroes pretty nicely. If you want a solo laner that just holds a spot, she is the way to go. She also rotates faster than other offlaners with her level 7 while having decent wave clear. And she has the best voice line “KRONA KI CRISTORR”.

I mean everything can work in a cheese comp (I never cheese, so I would take Epixors answer over mine). Outside of that I don’t think she is a good main tank. She has a bit of Muradin and ETC, just not on the level they do it like knock backing people or just hammering stuff in the backline while being unkillable.

Can we talk about Garrosh now?

bust3r:  I personally like Yrel in the offlane because of the entirety of her kit, she has good wave clear, strong sustain, and the divine steed talent brings the benefit of faster rotations for double soaking also makes her much harder to gank in a coordinated setup since of the instamount speed boost and also on maps like Braxis and Dshire with sacred ground it is really hard to move her off a point unless being displaced or multi heroes responding which in turn gives benefit elsewhere. as for running her as a main tank I am not particularly believer in it since the kit is made for offlaning and you might find yourself in an odd situation trying to engage with your E since that will be her only tool and they will CC you down.

Hazeti: I think blizzard probably tried to make her viable as a main tank. As some of the others have said she does have some elements that fit that role. Her main problem is a complete lack of any way to engage a fight.  The slow when charging means her E doesn't really go anywhere compared to just walking in. Even her stun pushes people away, unless you manage to get on the other side. I just don't see why you would do it unless you were running some sort of never fight ever comp. She's pretty good at protecting the backline; I wonder how she would do against a dive comp.  I think there are still better main tanks.

It's worth mentioning that the current meta is a bit of a flux meta I think. I have no doubt we will see both Yrel nerfs and Raynor nerfs. It's hard to know exactly where she will end up in her solo lane matchups.

Seems fair and balanced to me

You have all talked about how good she is in the solo lane, why is that? Are there any match ups she struggles with?

Deathknight: She is so good because she takes the opponents solo laner and puts him in the trash can

Thrall can win after lvl 7

not sure about others since I don’t play her

Why after 7?

Epixors: Both Ancestral Wrath and Follow Through are insane damage spikes, though in the Thrall matchup you can just wave clear and stun him during Windfury to still run him over outside of point fights and healing up after one Ancestral Wrath lets you win trade again.

Deathknight: Are you saying that Athero is wrong?

Epixors: She primarily stomps the lanes because she has reasonably high clear since the E damage buff, fat auto-attacks and insane sustain with Maraad's Insight and her Q.  You're dealing with someone who can grind out basically any 1v1 trade, clears faster than average and has a really high health pool, CC and an escape (especially) after 7 so she basically can't be ganked.

Nearly ungankable offlane that wins almost every 1v1, has above average clear and rotates faster than most heroes is pretty good

bust3r: I did go toe to toe with an Yrel as a Malthael and she tends to struggle post level 4 because of die alone so if she finds herself overstepping in lane you can whittle her down quite fast.

Epixors: Yrel vs Malthael is still Yrel favoured at every level, but the execution is harder on Yrel because the approach to the lane isn't immediately obvious

BreadBucket: Things you need as an offlaner:

- Sustain

- Be ungankable

- Reasonable wave clear

- Strong rotations

Yrel has:

- Incredible sustain (that is only partly dependant on having something to AA) and rarely will run out of mana

- Especially after 7, she is nearly ungankable outside of a full team rotation.

- Great wave clear (which goes to insane after 16)

- Very strong and fast rotations

On top of this, she has a good balance of ability and AA damage.

So, who stops her? From what I have found:

- Thrall (after 7)

- Dehaka (after 7 you can go toe to toe with her, but mostly because you can use your global to out rotate her)

- Be a good solo laner with an Abathur hat

Denker: Hat is cheat

bust3r: Cheat is cheese and cheese Is good.

Hazeti: At the current situation there are very few they can compete with her. She can run down many lanes, but she can also freeze the lane on her side and is amazing art zoning out the player from xp (or in maps like tomb, gems). I feel like Malthael would be a skilled match up. Artanis wins a 1v1 after 4. But loses the lane pretty hard.

I'm not sure how she'd do against a ranged laner like Fenix? I've not seen or played that matchup.

bust3r: I think ranged laners in general give melee a hard time, although it is very dishonourable.

Hazeti: There are other fast clear heroes which don't lose as hard against Yrel. Blaze for example can clear quickly and won't take too much tower damage. Good luck holding a point though.

BreadBucket: Unless the ranged laner has a knockback or insane range, I don't think they can beat her.

If you can't stop her E-ing on to you, you lose the lane. For example, if you manage to jump on a Fenix, you can cut through his shield and do lasting damage to his health bar because he cannot warp away (you can interrupt his warp). You, however, can heal up your health. Repeat until lane is won.

I think the best ranged laners vs her would be Hammer, Raynor or Zag, but this is just conjecture.

Epixors: Hammer is very annoying after 4, because Barricade actually stops you from getting on her. Zagara doesn't have enough damage. I have yet to see the Raynor matchup since rework.

BreadBucket: Zag not having enough early game damage. What a time to be alive.

Hazeti: I feel that's the case with most ranged. But for Fenix I feel it's different. Use warp when she Es. Then be free to do some damage on her. With the level 1 you can both clear fast and focus her. But I'm not convinced you can do enough damage.

Denker: She just is too good at everything at the moment in the offlane. Most matchups usually have one hero who wins in terms of wave clear and one who wins the 1v1 point fight. This brings an interesting back and forth where capping point might lose you xp and vice versa. Yrel can win on both fronts against most meta offlaners and on top of that she can also double soak efficiently to empower the 4 man.

Epixors: On top of that she can also jump over terrain on Dragon Shire and Braxis Holdout which just further solidifies her advantage in lane there.

Hammer Time!

Do you think Yrel is overturned then? If so, what would you change to balance her?

Hazeti: Yes.

I would start with her wave clear. I actually don't mind that her solo lane sustain is crazy. But she clears the lane way too fast. Remove the ability for her to double soak efficiently.

BreadBucket: I think she is far too forgiving. You can heal yourself whenever, you can do a lot of damage, so you can take silly trades and come out on top.

Funnily enough, I like her wave clear and I would change her laning ability. Here's what I would change:

- Lower E damage, increase W damage. This means it is harder for you to trade in to someone but still gives you the ability to wave clear effectively

- Make Q healing is less when not damaging an enemy (can be a minion). Just increase counter play and let her trade less favourable in some match ups (particularly vs ranged heroes).

Epixors: Personally, I'd want Blizzard to get a clear idea of what the hero is supposed to do first.

Right now, she has parts of her kit designed to help the team and be selfless, like her entire level 4 talent tier, but also has ults that only help her. She has the ability to sort of support, but you'd rather be running it down to Africa.

Depending on whether they want her to play more like Sonya or Blaze, they can start shifting stats around.

Hazeti: I actually like Epixors point. I'd love to see her as a sort of support tank.

BreadBucket: I'd like the idea of a support tank if her ults were not so selfish, she doesn't have a Sanctification or a Bunker (and I'm glad in her current state she does not!) and that ruins the fantasy of a support tank.

Hazeti: What if her absorb had the level 20 functionality (rebalanced of course).

BreadBucket: Maybe, if it healed her for 0% and only healed allies.

Epixors: Shifting her to a support wouldn't take too much. Nerf her damage by a lot, add all her level 4s baseline in a nerfed version and let talents upgrade, give Ardent a weakened version Word of Glory, make Sacred Ground give armour to allies as well.

Anything that makes it so your playstyle goes from staying in Africa to staying with your team.

bust3r: Would she not be just a better version of Zarya than?

Hazeti: “add all her level 4s baseline in a nerfed version”

I don't like that at all. That would totally overload her abilities. Level 4 is fine. It should be a choice on how you want to support your allies. Not a case of a bit of everything.

Epixors: Zarya is basically a raw pile of stats right now, actually a lot of sustain and a high amount of damage. Yrel could be very support focused, or alternatively very run-down focused, her kit is very bland so her numbers kind of dictate how you have to play her.

BreadBucket: Yrel would offer CC, wave clear and an offlaner. Zarya would offer damage and push.

Denker: She is definitely over tuned at the moment. Some of it can probably be solved with number adjustments but I think functionality changes are needed to bring her in line with other offlaners. It kind of feels weird to me that she has an entire talent tier devoted to support allies which is literally useless in the offlane. From her kit and talent tree she feels more like a support tank to me even though her heroics affect only herself. I think blizzard needs to first think about what role Yrel should have in the game and then balance accordingly. If they keep pushing her into the offlane I would like changes to the lvl4 tier, if they want to push her into a tank direction, her E needs to be buffed. I don't mind either way as long as it gives her a clear balanced role.

bust3r: In all honesty I feel Yrel is a bit too strong at the moment , even if a character is over tuned that does not mean you will be able to utilise his/her/its full potential if not played right. A nerf is certainly due cause right now she just stomps on everyone, maybe if they nerf the numbers for wave clear it might slow her roll a little bit.

"Faith is my mirror!"

Yrel just received some small nerfs, does this change your opinion of her at all? Do you think the nerfs go far enough?

Hazeti: On recent nerfs: they are welcome, but I don't think the other talent buffs will make a significant impact; we'll see.

bust3r: I don’t think it will have a substantial impact overall on her kit, but reducing the healing from Maraad's insight might give incentive to players to play her more with a careful approach then going ham, also the divine steed talent now goes from 80 to 60% so the rotations will still be faster than your enemy in lane but there will also be a chance for your opponent to catch up and not simply beat the game by out macroing them in the early game. Overall, I think it is a good nerf and brings her into the other offlaners range.

BreadBucket: They made her self-heal less which means she is weaker early game is a good nerf, since it makes her much less forgiving and easier to punish.

Her Ardent Defender CD increase is HUGE. It was already a long cooldown and now it is TWO MINUTES long. It is not uncommon to see players burn their ultimate after being caught out, so it is now much easier to punish in team fights now.

Weaker in lane, weaker team fight (albeit slightly). Although, good Yrels will probably stay good, it may weed out the trash Yrels somewhat.

Hazeti: So, the situation in which Ardent Defender was used was you would go in super deep create havoc and pop your ult. This may no longer be the correct play style which may make Sacred Ground more desirable

Epixors: The Maraad's nerf is reasonable, but hardly changes how any matchups are played after some testing. The Ardent Defender nerf is pretty much irrelevant as you were saving the cooldown for objective fights anyway, and it will still be up for every objective. The change to Divine Steed and Holy Wrath will bring her rotation power down to a more reasonable level, but they still feel good to play with.

Overall, she feels pretty similar, but I think light touches like these are fine.

Deathknight: I don’t like to comment on notes because I'm ALWAYS wrong

BreadBucket: Comment on them, then we know the opposite is true

Deathknight: No

Denker: I like the recent nerfs to her. Tuning her sustain and rotation power down certainly weakens her in a lot of matchups. Personally, I expect some more adjustments in the future, but I like that Blizzard is taking small steps to not over nerf her. Since her mechanics are a pretty new thing in the game, the player base might still improve more when it comes to deal with her, so maybe the changes even prove to be enough.

Live footage caught at the time of Yrel nerfs being announced

Have you got any final comments about the Yrel release we haven't covered above?

bust3r: Not for me no, thanks for letting me participate and also gain insight and knowledge from higher level players.

Hazeti:I think Yrel is the clearest indication yet of the heroes team releasing over powered heroes to bring in the money and then nerfing then after. Classic Blizzard. One thing I really like, is the new UX direction. She has UI indicators for both Maraads and Wrath. I find these great, if you think of older talents that have an effect after every ability (Follow Through) that don't have these; I hope Blizzard start bringing these older talents up to the same UX standard.

Denker: I like that idea behind Yrel a lot. The charge mechanic together with her trait leads to a lot of strategic decisions that an Yrel player needs to make all the time to utilize the hero in the best way possible. Obviously, her balance is a big issue and probably needs to be addressed more, even after the recent nerfs. The nerfs bring her a bit in line when it comes to the solo lane matchups, but I think she needs some actual talent adjustments as well to really solidify her role in the game. Other than that, I consider Yrel to be one of the more successful releases when it comes to overall hero design.

Thanks for reading! Time to bubble-hearth out of this blog post, but as always, we welcome any feedback you may have, so feel free to drop me a message on discord!