u/Brief-Pop-2511

Was at Great Adventure today and it was rough. Park was slammed, most coasters were down to one train, and it was hot enough that someone passed out in a queue I was in. I did an hour in standby for El Toro and then another 40 minutes in the front row line (the ride even went down at one point), and as I was finally loading, someone cut straight into the front row queue — they had been in the second row line and just slid over. The op did call security on them, but they were still let on the ride. I don’t know what happened after that. Earlier in the day I also saw a whole group hop a switchback to link up with their friends.

So, PSA for anyone who needs to hear it: Being with a group does not give you the right to cut. If your group is in the second row queue and you jump into the front row queue at the station, that’s cutting. If you hop a switchback to catch up with your party, that’s cutting. It doesn’t matter how short the skip is or how much you wanted that specific row.

Having a Flash Pass does not give you the right to cut beyond what the pass actually buys you. The pass gets you into the Flash Pass line, which merges with standby at the station — that’s the deal you paid for. It does not entitle you to switch queues, jump rows, or treat any other line in the park as optional.

And if you see someone do it: tell a ride op. They genuinely cannot see most of the queue from the station, and they do act on it — the op today called security on the people who cut in front of me. Even when the outcome isn’t perfect, staying quiet is what makes cutters think it’s fine.

Everyone in that line stood in the same heat you did. Act like it.

(Separate gripe for the park: why is El Toro on one train on what was clearly the busiest day of the season? Throw us a bone.)

Edit: Want to be clear — the ride ops were hustling today and doing a great job in tough conditions. You could see them working their tails off. This post is about guest behavior, not the people running the rides. They’ve got enough to deal with.

TL;DR: Same patch that nuked Chen into 41.99% buffed Mal'Ganis to 56.82% over 2,374 games per HeroesProfile, despite him being in a perfectly fine spot before the patch. Will of Tichondrius was moved to level 1 and reworked into an infinite-scaling damage quest with no cap, Necrotic Embrace now benefits double from Vampiric Touch (doubling the W self heal), and Vampiric Aura got buffed and moved to level 4. The rework was unnecessary and the result is overtuned.

Mal'Ganis has been my bread and butter for a long time. He's one of a few self sustain heroes I play daily, and I'm telling you right now this rework is broken. The kicker is that Mal'Ganis didn't need any of this. He was a balanced, viable tank pick before the patch with a healthy talent tree and clear identity. There was no problem the rework was solving. They just decided to redesign him anyway and overshot massively.

My build, for context

Before the rework I was running:

Level 1: Time to Feed Level 4: Fueled by Torment Level 7: Spreading Plague Level 10: Carrion Swarm Level 13: Blood Rush Level 16: Plague Bats Level 20: Seeker Swarm

A sustain build that leans into Vampiric Touch and Spreading Plague to drag fights into messy extended brawls where Mal'Ganis thrives. Not the Will of Tichondrius burst stun build, the slow grind one. It still functions great, which is part of the problem. The old builds didn't need help. The new W1 quest is so absurd that even the existing strong builds look modest next to it.

What the patch did

Will of Tichondrius was moved from level 7 to level 1 and completely reworked. It's now an infinite-scaling damage quest. Hit heroes with Fel Claws to gain 0.5 damage per hit, with bonus damage if you catch 4 heroes in the first two swipes. At 40 stacks, Fel Claws starts stealing 4% of enemy max health and the stun gets longer. There is no upper cap on the damage scaling. You just keep stacking forever.

On top of that, Necrotic Embrace was changed to benefit double from Vampiric Touch, which means the W self heal is doubled. The 25 Armor it used to provide was swapped for 15 Spell Armor and a damage buff. On paper that looks like a wash, but in practice the doubled sustain plus the W damage buff feeds directly into the Will of Tichondrius quest because you're stacking faster while taking less damage.

Vampiric Aura got moved from level 1 to level 4, with self healing buffed from 30% to 40% and ally healing from 15% to 20%. The talent that used to be a level 1 pick is now a level 4 talent that's strictly stronger than it was before. Fueled by Torment got moved to level 7 and now adds a 25% slow on Necrotic Embrace, which is just another quality of life buff piled on.

So to recap, in a single patch a hero who didn't need changes got: an infinite-scaling damage quest at level 1, doubled W self heal, a stronger Vampiric Aura at a later tier, and a slow tacked onto Fueled by Torment. Every change was a buff or a sidegrade dressed up as a tradeoff.

The numbers back it up

56.82% win rate over 2,374 games. 22.13% popularity. 13.61% pick rate. 8.52% ban rate. The top builds on HeroesProfile are clustered around 54 to 59% win rate, with the highest sitting at 59.42%. He's not a niche pick anymore, he's a coin flip toward winning the moment he gets drafted.

The bigger picture

This is the part that actually frustrates me. I play a lot of self sustain heroes. Alarak, Mal'Ganis, Chen, Butcher, Twin Blades Varian, Azmodan demon build. It's the playstyle I love. And the same balance team that just buffed Mal'Ganis into 56.82% with an uncapped damage quest also gutted Chen to 41.99% and called it a rework.

Chen pre-patch had a high healing ceiling that required you to land basic attacks on brew-soaked targets in melee range while taking damage. Skill expression, real tradeoffs. Mal'Ganis right now has an uncapped damage quest stapled to a tank with double W sustain. There is no version of "good design" where both of these decisions came from the same team in the same patch. Either Chen was tuned correctly and Mal'Ganis is broken, or Mal'Ganis is the new baseline for self sustain and Chen needs a serious revert. You can't have both.

Mal'Ganis didn't need to be touched. He's now overtuned. Chen didn't need to lose his identity. He's now bottom of the barrel. The inconsistency is the actual problem.

TL;DR: The patch swapped Eye of the Tiger from level 1 to level 4, gutting the AA sustain build that could out-heal a dedicated healer in a good game. Combined with nerfs to Elusive Brawler's movement speed, Breath of Fire's burst, Keg Smash's brew cost, and Wandering Keg's cooldown, Chen is sitting at 41.99% win rate over 2,553 games per HeroesProfile, the lowest of any hero this season. The changes need to be reverted.

I've been a Chen main for years and this patch genuinely makes me angry. There was a great thread on this about a month ago that flagged most of these concerns ahead of time, including a prediction that the W quest would be nerfed because it was obviously the dominant level 1 pick. It still hasn't been touched. So here we are with the data to back everything up.

My build, for context

Level 1: Eye of the Tiger Level 4: Accumulating Flame Level 7: Elusive Brawler Level 10: Storm, Earth, Fire Level 13: A Touch of Honey Level 16: Combo Strikes Level 20: Elemental Conduit

A full AA-focused build built around constantly pressuring brew-soaked targets. And here's the thing: in a good game, my self-healing from Eye of the Tiger was outpacing what a dedicated healer hero brings to the team. Not comparable to. Actually outpacing. That's how much sustained value the talent generated when you consistently landed basic attacks on soaked targets. A genuinely high healing ceiling that rewarded good play, and it's completely gone now.

What the patch did

The core change is simple. Eye of the Tiger and Accumulating Flame were swapped between levels 1 and 4. That one decision killed the playstyle. You now lose three full levels of passive healing during the laning phase, exactly when an offlaner needs it most. And at level 4 it competes with Withering Flames and Pressure Point, so even when you do take it you've had to sacrifice real options. The early sustain that made Chen a credible duelist is gone, and the talent has been quietly downgraded by virtue of the new tier alone.

Elusive Brawler's movement speed was cut from 30% to 20%. That speed was crucial for staying on targets and generating the basic attacks Eye of the Tiger needs to function. Less healing, less mobility to generate the healing. The nerfs compound each other in the worst possible way.

Keg Smash now costs 40 brew instead of 30, which means tighter brew management and less flexibility to stay aggressive. Breath of Fire being made free cast also breaks Brewmaster's Balance flow, which was already niche and is now even more awkward. You're being squeezed on multiple ends at once.

And on top of all that, Wandering Keg went from 50 to 60 seconds and Breath of Fire's initial damage was gutted from 85 to 40. The duration was extended to compensate, but Chen isn't a DoT hero. He's a brawler. Trading upfront impact for slow burn doesn't suit how he plays.

It's not just the AA build

The Flying Kick build is also essentially dead. Chen has lost multiple viable paths at once. The patch appears to be pushing him toward a different identity entirely, ranged keg toss into DoT stacking, forgoing solo laning for skirmishes to ignite as many heroes as possible. That playstyle might work in theory, but it's a completely different hero, and players who've mained Chen for years didn't sign up for that.

The numbers back it up

41.99% win rate over 2,553 games. The lowest of any hero this season. This isn't a skill expression issue or a meta problem. The tools that made him functional were taken away all at once. The devs clearly thought Eye of the Tiger was overtuned at level 1, but bumping it to 4 and forcing Accumulating Flame at 1 dismantles the identity of the AA sustain build without replacing it with anything meaningful for offlane players.

Chen deserves better than this. Revert the talent swap, or at minimum give us something at level 1 that replaces the sustain we lost.