This is probably the most excited I’ve ever been to do a Tier List! Patch 1.5 remedied the toxicity of narrow hero selections and pushed us into a meta for the melees. This toppling of top-tier picks has caused plenty of fluctuation. Some of the moves may seem surprising, but every hero has their place.
Getting There
15 (-1) SAW wasn’t good last patch. He’s even worse this patch. Oh, your team has a guy who stands still to spin up his gun? Great! My team has a chick in magitek armor who wins if she lands on immobile targets. SAW isn’t viable. Quit playing him, EdTheShred!
14 (-13) Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It feels great to see Skaarf down this low after what he did to spoil the game experience. I haven’t seen him much since the patch. It was so annoying to get sniped from outside vision range and lose a third of your maximum health thanks the ridiculous percentage health numbers attached to his perk.
Not bad
13 (-1) So much potential, but she’s just so buggy. (HA!) Ok, just kidding, she’s just bad. Her old redeeming factor was that her munions stopped the initial Spitfire from Skaarf, so if you had a Petal you could almost jungle at level one. Now that the game is caterpillar free it doesn’t have room for any more bugs.
12 (+1) Instant-speed disruption has become high on the priority list ever since Big Red Button has been deleting entire teams. However, Glaive can’t pick the distance he travels with Afterburn, and therefore can guarantee his own safety, but not the safety of his team. Is he a jungle carry, jungle support, or laner? None of the above? He’s somehow still better than Petal.
Decent-ish
11 (-1) Knock knock. Who’s there? Catherine. Catherine who? Knock knock. Who’s there? Catherine. Catherine who? Knock knock. Who’s there. Ardan. Ardan who? Ardan ya glad I didn’t say Catherine? Catherine is better than Ardan is almost every way, especially in the Joule meta. Ardan sets the stage for a team fight, but team fights are over with a jump and laser. He’s still a top-tier support, but not high on the list due to his inability to enable wins.
10 (-1) House of Batiatus ran Adagio support in their first round against Kollab in the ESL Vainglory Cup Series #8. It was amazing to see Adagio empowering a Krul’s auto attacks and watching him go to work. Sometimes a little bit of heal goes a long way. Adagio isn’t a good laner currently, but his support skills are amazing.
Pretty Good
9 (+0) Welcome doge! I’m not sold on this pup yet. Fortress gives the enemy team 150 gold each time he uses his ultimate, his dogs die easily, his movement speed boost is negligible, and his “support” role just means that he buys Fountains and hopes for the best.
8 (-5) The nerfs to Koshka didn’t delete her like I had hoped, but definitely moved her out of favor. She isn’t the durable beast that dominates the early jungle, and with jungle minions dealing more damage, Koshka feels worse than ever. She doesn’t quite feel like a carry, but she definitely doesn’t have the tools necessary to be a support.
The Hotness
7 (+0) Taka has a hard time finding a spot in the meta when every team is stacking Fountains. Clearly, Taka is the best assassin in the game. His heroic perk is a bustling rocket of explosive potential, but the game is full of overpowered heroes. It seems sad that 100% critical strike chance and 30% lifesteal isn’t enough to push him above the average hero.
6 (-2) Ringo isn’t getting any better, but the competition is definitely improving. Still lacking area damage, can still lose lane to some heroes, and then doesn’t out-scale many of his lane opponents. This guy will continue to slip unless he gets some love or he finds a way to jump over walls.
Simply Amazing
5 (+6) Stop. I know what you’re going to say. There are two reasons why Catherine spiked so much this patch. The first, because she is a great counter to Joule by turning off her leap and ultimate with a point-and-click stun. The second reason is because she’s a great ally to Joule by using that same point-and-click stun to setup an easy jump or laser for her ally Joule. If you see two Joules in every game Catherine becomes a good selection.
4 (+1) If Joule lane is ushering in melee meta, then Krul is a butterfly hatching from his cocoon. He matches up very well against Koshka, Joule, and WP Vox. If everyone gets to six items then Krul gets to really take over. Now that Skaarf and Koshka aren’t closing out games in the first few minutes, beware of this undead ticking time bomb.
Pinnacle of Awesome
3 (-1) Vox is no longer the crystal-wielding mage he was drawn up to be. Weapon power Vox has seen action in the highest tiers and ranked game play. Now that he’s more prominently built as a weapon carry he is still a solid carry and lane threat. He farms well, and he has more scaling than a fire-breathing dragon. While he’s not the top, he’s certainly not out.
2 (+4) This sleeper showed up in some ESL games and took the EU tournament by storm. She’s solidified her spot as a crystal power laner, but those are in low demand when Joule can outperform in every way. Celeste has very high sustained damage when her spells are landing and fights are long (thanks, Fountain), but doesn’t play well when she gets stunned and deleted.
Vainglorious
1 (+7) Two of the largest jumps (no pun intended) in Tier Listory has moved Joule from dead last place two lists ago to first place in this iteration of Ady’s Tier List! Her crowd control is more reliable, her damage is insane, and moving her from jungle to lane has been the biggest difference. No one beats her in lane. SEMC is probably looking at Book of Eulogies thanks to Joule. RIP book.