The Capitalist's HoN Blog

It has been an on-going discussion in the DotA community on the nature of overpowered heroes in the game and how to balance them. DotA has many problems due to its large variety of heroes and items and thus has a large discussion on imbalances, however HoN has had it’s own hiccups with large imbalances prompted flaming from the forums.

The discussion has encouraged me to write on the same topic, only from a HoN perspective. However, this topic is too complex to cover all at once, and requires a base of mutual understanding and knowledge to cover everything, so instead I’ll handle it piece by piece. Hopefully this will prevent people getting confused and frustrated, allowing them to follow a linear track of thought. Since I’m still writing things out, I can’t promise anything, but these are the parts for now:

Part 1: What does overpowered mean? What does it mean for a hero to be overpowered in the context of a MOBA game? Examples?
Part 2: Examples of questionably overpowered heroes/items. Can items be overpowered?
Part 3: Should MOBA games allow OP-ness? The nature of imperfection in games and how imbalances make MOBA smarter games that are more diverse, competitive and enjoyable.

Part 1- In gaming, overpowered means a part of the game, whatever it may be, gives a clear and decisive advantage over the opposing player with little repercussions. Whether it is characters in SSBB, weapons or add-ons in FPS games, or the plethora of advantages a certain race can have in RTS games, players all say certain things are overpowered. They may not agree on what is OP, but they all see imbalances in their favorite games. In the context of MOBA games however, there are types and degrees of op-ness (oh penis?)

My own standards:
A) What this hero counters
B) # and ability of other heroes to counter said hero
C) # and ability of other heroes to combo with said hero
D) Strengths and Weaknesses and their validity in-game

Strengths and weaknesses is the trade-off every hero takes when being assigned his role. In other words, high dps agility heroes trade damage in exchange for low hp and lack of nuking power. They may have high burst dmg potential, and can genocide teams later on, but it is typically dependent on their farm.

This is category is the source of most imbalances, however, they are easy to fix and are a bit more glaring. These heroes are identified quickly in competitive play and banned/fp accordingly. It is obvious to most players when a hero has too good of base stats or their combination of skills is too powerful. Again, this is the most obvious and common source of imbalances, however, every patch typically changes the list of heroes whose stats do not scale out with the rest of the game. Since this category is pretty simple (boring) I will not expend more energy on the subject.

E) Input (Effort) vs Output - This is a stupid argument, because MOBA games are not as much effort-intensive as they are experience/strat-intensive, but still valid. This is really more of a % chance of success equation

2) There ARE overpowered heroes! The statement that HoN is a team game consisting of 5 heroes or that there are counters (heroes/strats) to every hero is completely true! Unfortunately those statements are misleading and irrelevant.

3) Because of #1, most continuously overpowered heroes (patches nerf or change them but they still are effective) are heroes consisting of uniquely powerful abilities that other heroes/items cannot achieve, at least not in the effectiveness and range that said abilities can. These abilities typically give them better strengths vs weaknesses (especially when their ability is INVALUABLE) and combo incredibly well with a multitude of heroes. They also have very noticeable affects on the metagame (but we’ll go over that later)

DotA example: Dark Seer is a DotA hero who has a very unique ability called vacuum. Essentially, this skill takes all enemies within a radius and instantly sucks them into the middle, doing damage. While the dmg, cd, and radius can be easily assessed and categorized, the ability to force enemies together on a single spot cannot be- it is “invaluable” While this hero is very good for other reasons, the most important and relevant imbalance of this hero is this one ability. This hero has good “strength vs weaknesses” and combos incredibly well with the plethora of AOE nukers making him overpowered.

Note: The main reason this skill is overpowered is both its unique capabilities and its place as a normal ability, NOT an ultimate. This means that the ability has a low cd, low mana cost, and the advantage that it poses can be spammed throughout the game.

HoN example: Accursed is an incredibly good support due to the combination of his abilities and his role. Accursed (should) play a heavy support hero who can give both heals and preventative dmg shield/nukes at a very low cd. This by itself is respectable but not necessarily OP. What DOES make him OP though, is his ultimate, which not only makes him invulnerable but heals him if he takes dmg. “So what? Just don’t hit him when he pops his ulti and kill him afterwards” This sounds like a great idea but when you work in his role as support into the equation, it doesn’t work out that way. First of all, due to massive amounts of AOE damage flying around, it isn’t realistic to NOT hit the accursed during teamfights, so he’s going to heal up whether you like it or not. Second, support heroes are traditionally squishy because they provide the carry with a huge advantage and typically have low cd abilities that make they carry stronger throughout teamfights. However, Accursed, with both his base stats and his ultimate, is a tank that lasts a long time (usually last or 2nd to last to die) in teamfights. Due to his low cd abilities, he is constantly healing/shielding other heroes in the fight, extending the battle much longer than it should. For this reason, he combos well with carries that benefit from long, drawn out team fights, and counters nukers/disablers very well making him overpowered.

These heroes/abilities hold a special challenge when developers try to balance them out. The only ways to attempt to balance these heroes is to change their stats or dmg/cds which have little effect on their unique abilties (nerf vacuums dmg or range, its still incredibly powerful skill) but nerf it too much and the hero becomes obviously useless, rendering the hero's unique play mute due to its lack of competitive viability.

4) HoN is an incredibly complex game consisting of millions of variables, the influential being the most obvious- hero, lanes, items etc. This means that there are different aspects on how a hero is overpowered or not.