Here is some food for thought regarding this feature request. The W-formation (in reverse, it is an M-formation) has a large, large weakness to splash damage attackers like Khaghan, Evelyn, Grimm, Scarlett and Buddy.
I found this while playing through season 2 maps, where enemies use the W-formation. If you target the enemy in the middle with a special skill that has splash damage, they can hit every single enemy.
To give a visual example, if I target the middle with Ramming Pulverizer, the bolded are the ones who take the damage and get the def- ailment:
V-formation: ¯ -_- ¯
inverted V-formation: _ -¯- _
W-formation: ¯-¯-¯
That’s right. The W-formation has a pretty clear weakness in this case; the game considers all enemies to be next to the middle. Hence, specials that hit “nearby enemies” means that in this formation, all the heroes will be hurt if the middle is targeted.
This is pretty important in terms of balance… and I think it provides an answer to a common question I see asked in this thread: “is adding alternate formations really that difficult?” It may not be difficult in terms of just implementing it, but I think I’ve illustrated a challenge in terms of game balance. It is pretty clear that already good heroes such as Evelyn and Gravemaker, would just become even better against the W-formation, unless the way splash damage rules work or what is considered a “nearby enemy” is modified.
I still voted for this feature because I do think it would add more strategic value to defending, and I do like the idea of making wars more interesting. Inverted V would shake things up for sure. But as it stands the W formation would not be very viable, so it’s something to consider for the devs who read through these feature requests.