Heroes of the Storm is still a very new game, meaning that players are very much interested in a plausible tier list. Tier list help us gauge what strategies are viable, but they also tell us what about the game is important and what isn't. For example, successful team fight initiation is much more important than taking mercenary camps. This is a fundamental we can safely rely on, as the power gap between Stiches and Gazlowe is noticeable and feels true.
A big patch went live semi-recently, and changes in the tier lists were bound to happen. However just very recently, Two of the most respected tier lists in the HotS community were updated to reflect the new patch, and the changes are surprising.
These tier lists, one managed by C9 Zuna and the other by C9 iDream differ drastically. The top 4 spot on both lists is completely different, which is either a large gap in player preference, or that iDreams list seems to reflect hero strength as it relates to the most up to date 5v5 competitive meta and Zuna's list seems more in line with solo queing and raw hero strength in a vacuum.
In an illuminating explanation found in this reddit thread, iDream explains the most surpising aspects of his tier list, most notably Azmodan as the top tier 1 hero in the game while Stiches and Kerrigan are tier 3. He ultimately defends his list with this confident summation of the current meta:
The overall meta seems to be shifting towards stacking healers, stacking melee assassins, and a ranged damage (preferably Azmodan / Nazeebo). Stacking healers makes your melee assassins unkillable, they also make each other unkillable. Your melee assassins can destroy their ranged carries in a few seconds as Azmodan/Nazeebo have great follow up damage for any initates. Carries like Tychus/Valla are worse because the popular assassins (Jaina, Illidan, Zeratul, Sonya) instantly kill them, along with Azmodan keeping them at half health the entire game.
And even though Zuna's list is different, it seems that the power rise of Illidan and healers is something they can both agree on. Illidan has been gathering power (ha...) in competitive play recently: one only has to look at our stats page to find that last week, Illidan was the number one banned hero!
Do you agree with these tier lists? Is Azmodan free week the new Nova free week? Let us know in the comments section or tweet to us @gosugamershots.
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