It isn't the numerical stats that make a Hero powerful: its how difficult their skills are to use

PvP Pit
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Continuing the discussion from Role warfare my [rear end]:

Our boy’s statements aren’t unfounded: PvP in this game can get excessively frustrating, especially with the Healer meta dragging out matches to the time limit.

What I mean by the title of this topic is simply that some Heroes have skills that are far more effective than others with similar skills.

Take for example, Mandrake and his notorious [Survival Instincts]: by itself, invisibility along with a minor heal-per-second sounds easy enough to deal with. However, being that [Survival Instincts] is a Gold skill - a passive - makes it effectively a “get out of jail free” card, very much akin to the Spy’s Dead Ringer from TF2. I know I have said that statement before but, in my opinion, that’s what it feels like to fight a PvP or Gauntlet team that has a Gold Mandrake tagged along. Mandrake’s Gold requires no player input for it to be usable, and the skill is very much usable. Mandrake is part of the “boogeyman” faction after all: the Rangers.

Add Mandrake’s skill alongside Nightinggale’s insane burst/over-time healing skill and/or Heimlock’s chad level group healing and debuff-cleanser skills, and you have PvP team that is incredibly tedious to match up against. You can also have Flatline with her revival skills and Ifrit’s [Showtime] - plus the possibility of having this exact line-up on both sides - and you have a PvP match that might run down the match timer.

At the current build of the game, healing often outclasses sustained DPS, and burst DPS often outclasses healing. I might also add that group healing, specifically, often outclasses single target healing in terms of usefulness, in the case of the Virgin Operator versus Chad Heimlock/Matador/Combat Medic Nightingale.

Operator has the most powerful single target healing skill. However, in the case of the Chad Healers I mentioned, taking a few seconds to heal the entire team most definitely beats near instantly bringing a single ally back to full health.

To finalize, here is my list of Hero roles in the order of usefulness. I won’t put which Heroes fit in each role (because I don’t know which role each Hero may fit in, lol), but I think you guys can figure this out (or change the order, I don’t mind). Let’s go:

1. Tank Healers
2. Group Healers
3. Group Shielders
4a. Survivalists
4b. Buffers
5. Burst DPS
6. Sustained DPS
7. Single Healers
8. Single Shielders
9. Debuffers
10. Area Denial
…
159. Melee
…
241. Heal Blockers
…
445. f-ckin’ uhhh… Galante

Put me in a volcano.

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This seems like a good breakdown of actual, functional roles as opposed to “official” roles. It seems to me that many heroes belong to two major roles, or maybe alternate between two major roles.

For instance, between the skill dependency and long loading times Panzer is pure burst damage, no sustained dps.

Dogface, with his rapid fire and rapid reload, is both burst and sustained. He can reduce someone to almost dead with skills, and then remove the almost with basic attacks. Panzer needs someone else to close escrow if her burst damage doesn’t finish the job.

Maven is alternates between sustained dps and area denial, great for bounties and co-ops,but pretty disappointing in pvp.

Nightingale is sustained dps, either area or target healer, and moonlights in support. She probably doesn’t get much sleep working three jobs like that, even if one of them is part-time.

Moss and Keel are also healers with good basic attacks. Let’s ignore Keel’s debuff; whoever she’s shooting at certainly does.

Fortress is a sustained dps hero with a side line in standing around looking like Tranquilized Bane. Like Maven, he might be better at dps if he really focused on it, but short of demoting him to bronze (and her to green) I don’t have any ideas for how to make that happen.

And so on. Many, maybe even most, heroes do two major things. Sometimes they’re no good at one of the things, or one of the things is no use. More rarely they’re good at both and then they (usually Dogface) kill your entire team twice starting with Flatline while Ifrit does nature magic dances signifying nothing.

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