đŸ§Ș Early Information on the February 2020 HOTM (Jean-François)

There is but its way up here:

Seems like most like him but in general many would like to test him at ~453 damage over 3 turns

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Thank you for copying/pasting this - the thread is sprawling and I haven’t been on the forums much during the holiday break. Many thanks :handshake:

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Where do u want to use your EHT? There is no seasonal event im Feb. afaik

Okay, so JF was finally nerded, oppss nerfed and become far less desirable.
Let just wish no “JF’s after buff” rants thread come next month.
Else, it will just show the ineffectiveness of those strongly advocate for JF’s nerfing.
Can’t blame SG for that.

No problem I almost wish half of the posts were split into the The Ridiculous Complaints thread

This topic is starting to look a lot like a dead horse but I haven’t gotten my hit in so excuse me while I beat it some more.

I was an advocate of nerfing JF but was well aware of the difficulty in finding the sweetspot for him. Since his release I have been of the opinion that JF was strong but not op on defence due to the fact that he deals no direct damage. The damage could be avoided, cleansed and players could actively use mana control to keep him at bay. His stats aren’t extremely tanky and with some good snipers he could be dispatched with very little effort. He was never a tank with his stats so a dangerous flank at best but no more so than many heroes that exist today. Unfortunately many people have a hard time looking beyond their own perspective and only concern themselves with how they will beat him when they face him on defence or how he will perform on their defence team. Ways in which I understand how people wouldn’t consider him OP in that mindset because I agree that he isn’t exactly game breaking on defence.

He was however seriously overpowered on offence. If you take away control from whoever faces JF you start to see the issue pre-nerf. Most defence teams do not contain cleansers and even if they do there is no guarantee that that the timing will be any good. Attackers can hold off on firing until after a cleanse, they can target cleansers with snipers etc etc. Any attacker with half a brain must realize that if JF pre-nerf were around that there is no way to counter him on defence because the counters that are available require proper timing and targeting. Without those you are basically at the mercy of JF with no counter. I would dare say that I would take JF in to every single raid I would ever go on in his previous state. Defence team win rates are allready pathetically low as things stand. Realeasing JF without a nerf would have broken the game because all of a sudden you have a one man army with no feasable defensive counter.

For this reason JF needed to get nerfed at the expense of his defensive credentials. Now he is no longer a one man steamroller that will eat any defence team with little to no resistance but at the same time he is no longer a top tier defensive hero.

I implore everyone to please consider that heroes aren’t only ever used on defence teams and that a heroes credentials shouldn’t only be judged based on their performance in that single aspect of the game. Every single argument against the nerf is talking about how it would be to face him on defence because that reflects on how he will do in your defence. JF is still an A+ offensive hero even if his defensive capabilities are now no longer top-tier. I for one don’t want the allready paltry defensive succes rate to be destroyed just so that JF can be one of the best defensive heroes in the game.

TL:DR : Not every hero in the entire game needs to be a world beater on defence. Please consider how a hero will perform when used on offence aswell before jumping to conclusions. JF is an offensive hero and still an A+ one at that.

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The Poll has no opportunity of chosing: wont pull for both of them, so I voted for Grave. However, I would go for Ursena with her instant damage, not Grave.

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Initial version of JF was clearly OP.

This version (2 turn burn) doesn’t have the obvious OP appeal. The secondary parts of the special appear to be undervalued by many of the posters claiming he is now under-powered. The flipping of defense debuffers is HUGE, the Ice buff is very helpful as well for placing him on defense.

I agree with @Impiousbe just above (post 1326), JF remains a tremendous attacking hero. At the top (where the biggest spenders tend to cluster) he will be a natural counter to Kunchen tanks, defense raid wins will decline and force new tanks. Elemental debuffers are less common on defense so will cause less of an impact on defense structures.

I would very much like them to put him in beta with a 3 turn burn at same rate (453 over three turns). It may prove extremely OP but I would like the beta testers to have a chance to experience it.

My experience with pure DoT is that is is frustrating. It is effective but it is less destructive than a big upfront hit, killing is important and the sooner the enemy dies the better from your point of view. That said a proper DoT done at fast speed to the entire team is intense. Since burns overwrite one another anyone with several burn heroes will need to choose between them, JF will pair poorly with GM, Azlar and Marjana.

JF shakes things up. Big Time.

Many of the top players have Kingston, he takes a small bit of the shine off JF.

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Mostly agree with your comment about JF v1.

JF v2 is a B hero and in the same league as Kadilen :grinning:

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Another option for him is to keep the damage over 4 turns but hit 3 only. Ppl are way too scared about AoE :smile:

Natalya doesn’t have the stats to pull off tank position like J.F. does. 679 defense means she’ll die to a blue stack or even neutral stack before she fires, so unlike J.F. (who also has defense up) means that she’s going to be a flank or wing if she ends up on a defense teams. Positions where she’ll either fire later (letting you prep a healer / HoT since she’s immune to cleansing) or where she may die before she can do anything.

L. Locke is average speed and ridiculously squishy. 665 defense + 1231 HP is worse than Kasshrek’s defense+HP and comparable to Captain of Diamonds defense + HP stats. The fact that her survivability is on par with 4* heroes is why she’s not a good defender. Not just because you can cleanse her DoT.

J.F. has 723 defense which is considerably higher than either of the above, and his ice defense buff saves him from having his weakness exploited. Considering that he’s likely to fire once in the tank position, usually not friendly for your healer or cleanser. As a flank he lasts significantly longer again because of his better defense, and his ice defense buff helps too in anyone hoping a 2-stack will take him down.

Cleansing his DoT is one thing, but it’s another to cleanse or heal it multiple times. You’re greatly overlooking that after the 2 turns are done for his burn, Jean is still not done.

It’s still the same as it was before, it just lasts for 2 turns.

Keep in mind that DoT scales with the attack stat of the hero, meaning troops can increase it and so can emblems. Considering that he has a very good 737 native attack stat, increasing it further via emblems makes J.F. a very powerful BBQ master (Boldtusk, plz give him your apron :wink: ).

At +17 with a max level mana troop, his burn damage skyrockets to 520 over 2 turns to all enemies when fighting him on defense. Now yes that’s a maxed up value, but at the level most players are, I wouldn’t be surprised to see 220+ per turn as the norm for diamond matches. In fact I fully expect that to be the norm, which is a total of 440 damage to all enemies in just 2 turns. That can put those 1400 HP heroes in sniper range very easily, so at that point it’s just a matter of picking your target and killing it quickly.

He’s still a great hero in my opinion and my experience playing with him in Beta, and I quite like the decision the designers made to reduce his burn duration rather than the damage rate. He’s going to be a very solid hero.

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No the order is debuff first which then turned into defense buff and then it got dispelled. So if Frida hit JF after he fire, JF will not get the elemental defense debuff, he will not have any defense buff either.

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I answered yesterday to a similar question (was about costumed Viv). Tbh, too many posts in here and it’s difficult for someone to find a useful post among them.

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I’m in the camp that JF needed to be nerfed and you’ve hit the points perfectly. Big takeaways:

He heavily hampers Kunchen and many of the E-Deff/Def down gang become significantly more manageable.
Lol @ Finley
He will be great for upcoming green Tanks (Telluria and Heimdall)

I have no GM and have Bk and Kage fighting for Barbarian emblems. I will happily pull for him, he seems pretty great in current form still.

Then it would surprisingly be an off topic or a joke poll as half of the comparisons were between the two of them


Good thing is that you wrote that you didn’t get what the poll were meaning, long story short:

  1. having the chances to get one if them who would you try to get?
  2. is Gravemaker so good that wouldn’t make you try to get JF?

“Won’t pull for both of them” means no vote. Thanks for your participation in my poll.

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Frida’s skill is elemental debuff it’s not a normal debuff, his +94% will turn into -54 first, and has nothing to do with his “New status ailments affecting defense will be replaced by +42% defense for 4 turns” because it’s elemental defense, and it gets removed after debuff.

It also apply with elemental defense


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Elemental defense down, and generic defense down ailments are protected by J.F.'s buff.

I covered it here:

And here too:

In the case of Evelyn / Frida / G. Panther etc. heroes, the defense increase gets dispelled by their skills too.

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I wish people would STOP focusing purely on him being on defence.

Instead consider JF (both now and pre-nerf) on the attacking side


How often do you see a cleanser on Defence with the smarts to hold the cleanse until a status effect is applied?
Rarely do you see them. Never does the AI hold a special to cleanse.
So all the arguments about cleansers just got debunked by looking at it from the other side


In offence JF is now balanced.
In defence JF is still a powerful flanker
 Not better than some specialists but better than most.

Link back to a fantastic explanation which needs to keep being bumped:

đŸ§Ș Early Information on the February 2020 HOTM (Jean-François) - #1363 by Impiousbe

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Also bumbling this response (click to read the rest of it:

Summary:

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