Opening Week at BlizzCon is in the books, and Tychus has a 33% winrate despite being one of the most popular hero picks. What is going on?
There always seems to be one ranged assassin that pros heavily prioritize in draft yet struggle to win with in game. First, it was Li Ming after she was in a balanced state. Then it was Valla after her most recent rework. Surprisingly, that hero is now Tychus, despite the fact that he used to be having a lot of success. What is going on?
The most recent balance changes affecting Tychus
Whenever a hero suddenly starts struggling, one of the first places to look is the most recent balance changes. In Tychus's case, the most recent change was a buff his baseline hitpoints and health regeneration, but removed his level 1 talent Shrug it Off. For those that don't know, Shrug it off made Tychus resistant for 3 seconds after using his Run and Gun ability.
This is actually a big change to Tychus, and the most likely explanation for Tychus's disastrous performance during BlizzCon opening week. This change was made a month ago, but outside of the Super League Finals and the Nexus Games, not many competitive Heroes matches have been played since. This meant there wasn't enough data available before to determine how much these changes would affect Tychus.
Why is this change so impactful? First of all, Shrug it off was Tychus's go to talent at level 1, so obviously its removal was going to have an impact on how Tychus plays. More importantly, Run and Gun is an escape/chase ability, so Tychus nearly always used it when he was either getting aggressive/chasing (which means that he would likely take more damage from the enemy team as a result of his positioning and lack of escape for the next couple of seconds) or when he was being focused by the enemy team (in which case he is going to take a lot of damage).
In competitive play where focus fire is much more prevalent, having 25% resistant in a situation where you are taking a lot of damage is much better than a roughly 5% health increase. Even though Blizzard's balance change did not seriously affect Tychus in solo queue, it has had a much greater impact on his competitive play.
The Statistics
When Tychus first became a major player in the competitive scene after his rework, he was mainly picked for these reasons:
- The enemy team had lots of high health heroes (multi-warrior composition) and Tychus's trait shreds them.
- The enemy team had Muradin, and Tychus's trait is a counter to Muradin's go to heroic in competitive, Avatar
- Tychus's team has a lot of crowd control, which means that Tychus can safely tee off on an isolated target
The statistics for BlizzCon Opening Week show that he is no longer effective in any of these situations.
- He is 4-9 (31%) vs. multiple warrior compositions.
- He is 4-8 (33%) vs. Muradin.
- He is 1-6 (17%) vs. ETC
- He is 4-7 (36%) with multiple warriors
- He is 8-16 (33%) overall
What can be done?
It's pretty clear that it is far too easy to blow up Tychus in competitive play in his current state. It's also unrealistic to expect Blizzard to reverse their removal of Shrug it off at level 1, as it was a far too commonly picked talent at level 1 that they clearly viewed as overpowered relative to the rest of his kit. However, Blizzard will have to do something for Tychus that will fix his problem in competitive play, without making him overpowered in solo queue.
Perhaps high skill talent at level 1 that allows him to mitigate incoming damage, without it being so easy to properly use that it becomes Shrug it off's equivalent. Alternatively, Blizzard could just bring back a nerfed version of Shrug it off.
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