Heroes of the Storm Build Guides
Dr. Boom
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Dr. Boom's base appearance is his iconic appearance, with plate armor and hood. He also has a jetpack equipped, similar to the one from his Blastmaster Boom card art in Hearthstone.
Additionally, while he has Shields active from his Blast Shield ability, his armor bulks up and deploys a mask, again matching the appearance of his Blastmaster Boom card art. Finally, when Dr. Boom activates his Heroic ability, Boomship Deployment, he deploys in the mech he uses in the card art of Dr. Boom, Mad Genius. |
Blastmaster Boom
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If you'd let me, I'd like to give an in-depth critique of this moveset, to suggest where I think it needs some improvements, and what those improvements might look like.
Sooo, the good:
Omega is an excellent mechanic. I'm always fond of mechanics that reward the player for not just 'going ham' and using their abilities the moment they come up, and I think this lets Dr. Boom play around getting the most value for each move, as well as letting Dr. Boom's abilities have a lot more individual power without overpowering him as a whole. The choice of 'which do I open with' becomes a big focus, as well as 'should I pop this now or wait 2 seconds to get even more value?' It's a really solid core mechanic for an energy-based character that opens up the door to a lot of interesting design.
The bad:
Tooooooo much text too much text too much text. You should always try to sum up things succinctly, and I think you have summarised these abilities into as few words as possible... but most of these abilities could easily be reduced down in complexity to something more straightforward. I partially want to point in the direction of Boomship Deployment as the reason why some of these abilities are a bit bloated, but I'll get to that after I go through the basic abilities.
One quick way to fix this problem would be to format Omega effects as just
"Omega: <effect>" or "Omega Bonus: <effect>"
Though that does come with the requirement that all Omega effects be as simple as possible.
Trait (D): Boom Bots
While I don't judge characters based on lore, it would be impossible to include Dr. Boom as a character without including some kind of explosive, and Boom Bots are a fair approach. That said, the dev team as been avoiding adding new summoners to the game due to their lopsided effectiveness and tendency towards boring gameplans. That mostly applies to summons who are auto-attack focused, but Boom Bots still represent a few issues.
Firstly, they're an element that Dr. Boom can't hope to take advantage of as a result of his own skills. He can mash abilities can get some 4-6 of them out onto the field, at which point all he can do is hope that no one kills them. They give him extra damage, but whether or not it pays off has nothing to do with the player controlling Boom, just the opponent. Then there's the issue with some characters (Valeera, Illidan, Artanis, Sonya) who have no way to avoid the damage because of the fact they explode on death, giving point-blank characters no counterplay.
I imagine this ability was largely designed as a sieging tool, but as it is, I feel it wouldn't be that fun to play as or against, either feeling completely unimpactful, too impactful, or just annoying when the Boom Bots absorb skillshots.
I don't really have a suggestion for this one, except maybe to rethink it into something activatable.
Q: Zap Cannon
This one definitely suffers from the Wordiness problem, but on top of that, it's also sort of useless when used outside of Omega. An piercing bonus is a perfectly natural fit for the Omega concept, but only if the base ability is already effective. Unfortunately, I think you put the horse before the carriage a bit with this ability, since its only real purpose seems to be for gaining energy, and that adds a significant amount of wordiness to the move. If it had a longer cooldown and a bigger effect, I think it'd be going in the right direction.
W: Blast Shield
I have mixed thoughts on this one because I actually really like the concept. Mash W to live... but don't mash it unecessarily or you'll waste all your energy. I had a similar concept for a Matt Horner moveset (only there he was a Support providing shields to the entire team). It also has natural synergy with Boom Bots, where, like Anub'arak, a low cooldown shield has the side effect of creating a summon.
On the other hand, it only takes 2 seconds to regain all the energy lost, meaning Boom can spam the Omega version with virtually no loss in shields. In turn you seem to have addressed this by having the Omega version add in some extra penalties, mitigating that potential issue. However, all of this simply adds more rules text to an ability already full of rules text, suggesting the ability might need to be rebuilt from the ground up.
I don't have any suggestions for this one, but I think if you found a simplified way to implement this, you could even justify the Omega effect being a second of Unstoppable.
E: Jetpack Blast
This one is probably the ability I have the least problem with. A lot of the extra text comes from a mix of flavor and the potentially unecessary self-stun. The Omega Effect is a good fit, bringing with it a big engage tool that can only be used so many times due to the need to be at full energy for it to work. It's why the Omega effect has such an interesting cadence. You can have a character with three exceptionally powerful basic abilities... but they only get to choose one, or they're forced to use them sparingly.
That said, this ability does have a bit of an issue visa-vis its cooldown and cost. Boom has a lot of low-cooldown abilities, and I think that's fairly logical for a non-mana character, as the tension should come more from managing resources, not cooldowns. But with that said, I think it's only helped to support the idea that Boom's abilities are largely only there to build energy for his Heroic.
Speaking of...
R: Boomship Deployment
I... don't care for this ability. The global movement part is fine. The support from above at level 10 is theroetically fine. The fact that Omega effects become enrergy-agonistic is fine (actually it's more than fine, a heroic or talent that gives you unlimited access to Omegas is a perfect fit). But making it a Tracer-like effect where it's available from the start but requires charging is something that I think has been more harm than good in terms of the cohesion of the moveset.
I don't think the move itself is bad, but I do think too much focus has been shifted onto the heroic rather than on the depth that the fascinating Omega mechanic could bring. It and Boom Bots are both things I think would be fine under the right conditions, but I don't think a chargable heroic is the right condition for this particular ability.
I probably forgot a lot of the things I meant to say along the way - there were a lot of things I wanted to tackle - but if I had to suggest one thing, I think it'd benefit Dr. Boom to be redesigned as a Tank, with his Omega abilities being his primary Playmaking and Playbreaking tools. A lot of tank abilities are really impactful by necessity, but that often leaves them with long cooldowns or the like. Omega as a concept lets you keep the really big moves that a Tank is wanting for, without sacrificing moment-to-moment ability usage.
First, about the general wordiness/amount of text, I see where you're coming from, especially for HotS. Blizzard has definitely tended toward more simple abilities for the game, doubly so with lighter word counts since you can see the abilities in action which clears up any vagueness in wording. For me, though, I think it's fair for abilities to have a couple more moving parts, as long as it doesn't hit a critical mass where it's unreasonable for players to keep track of everything going on. Personally, I don't feel that Dr. Boom has hit that point and so I'm quite fine with his word count/number of effects (I think it's around the level of recent character releases for SMITE). Also another thing to consider, like I said abilities in HotS can be seen in action, clearing up any vagueness of how they look or work. Since everything I have is in concept and not concrete, I think more wording to help visualize ability flavor and clarify all effects is important. All that said, I still appreciate your perspective, and I think that the suggestion to make Omega effect wording more to-the-point is probably a good change.
Trait: Boom Bots
For Boom Bots, they're basically essential for Dr. Boom in terms of both lore and flavor. He's well known for explosives, but his usage of Boom Bots is as iconic to him as structures are to Probius. As for the summoner part, I definitely didn't want Dr. Boom to be a summoner and wanted Boom Bots to act more like an active zoning tool similar to Nazeebo's toads, as a trade-off for giving up Omega effects.
They're definitely lower-skill for Dr. Boom and I can try to think of some way to make them more engaging (perhaps through further updated talent builds), but I hope that the decision making of "do I only use Omegas for big power spikes or do I spam for Boom Bots to zone my enemies" would be appealing, plus the positioning required to make sure the Boom Bots actually do a good job of discouraging an enemy approach instead of just being walked around.
As for the sieging tool comment, that wasn't actually my intended goal. I'm very mindful of Blizzard's choice to move away from siege heroes because their overall game plan is inherently uninteractive, but as it turns out some things slip through and I didn't think about how this would be the strongest usage of Boom Bots (as stated before, I hoped for them to zone enemy heroes). Spamming summon healthbars is also a frustrating thing I try to avoid and messed up on here; I hoped it would add more counterplay for the enemies but it created a different problem instead.
Moving forward, I think I would like to make them more like Nazeebo's toads as reasonably avoidable projectiles who are primarily strong for zoning. This would mean a removal of healthbars, probably reworking their pathing, and maybe reducing their structure damage (so they don't become oppressive when used to siege). I'll also need to think about power balance, since a lot of non-Omega effects are intentionally weak or underwhelming (as you noted later) because they needed to be balanced with the extra power Boom Bots provide. I might make the Boom Bots weaker overall, or completely overhaul their trigger condition to not be tied to ability casts/spamming.
Q: Zap Cannon
I'm very wary of increasing Zap Cannon's effect and cooldown because I wanted it to be Dr. Boom's #1 spam ability. Constant usage of it for pressure and dueling was intended to be the primary motivator to not just use Omega effects exclusively.
For possible changes, if I hold the overall cooldown/power level similar, I'm thinking about making the pierce baseline and moving one of the empowered talent effects to the Omega effect instead (either the damage pulse or the reflecting off of walls sound like good options to me). Otherwise, since Blast Shield is still spammable, a longer cooldown + bigger effect rework like you suggested is on the table and I'll think about it.
W: Blast Shield
The Omega effect isn't quite as bad as you saw since it also doubles the Power cost and has a cooldown increase; this means 3 seconds to cast the ability again, and 4 to do so with full Power. Still, I think I've turned on how different Blast Shield's Omega effect is from its regular effect, and I want to overhaul it to be much closer in usage, similar to the other 2 abilities.
For possible changes, as stated above I expect to make the Omega effect of Blast Shield much more like the regular version in usage, including cooldown/cost/power level. For what the Omega effect actually does, I'm really tied to having Blast Shield's Omega effect include a blast. It just feels like a funny and fitting lore element for Dr. Boom to think that "Blast Shields" are literally shields that blast things. As for the Unstoppable you suggested, I might tie it to the explosion effect that I'm really set on, as a delayed Unstoppable element once Dr. Boom's shields are down.
E: Jetpack Blast
I'm really not sure of what you think I should change if anything, but considering the overall changes I plan to make to the rest of the kit I think Jetpack Blast will need to be tweaked. Still not sure what they'll look like, though.
R: Boomship Deployment
First and foremost, I'm pretty much in full agreement with all the problems you've raised about the chargeable heroic system. For my original design ideas, I wanted to pack Dr. Boom with elements that made him interesting/different from a base mechanic perspective, from the unique resource to the Omega effects to the Boom Bot spam and finally the chargeable heroic. My idea was for his basic abilities to be very simple in usage so that they could sit on top of all these different components players need to think about without distracting.
Overall, I think that the charge system probably was one step too far in taking away from the basic abilities. I expect to remove the charge system and move to a more normal heroic, and with that element gone the basic abilities could be fleshed out a little more. This'll be especially true if I go through with the Boom Bot change I listed as a possibility earlier, removing their trigger from ability spam. Hopefully that would leave room for each basic ability more satisfying to use on its own, instead of suffering being weaker since its tied to so many other effects through the kit.
On the last comment about redesigning Dr. Boom as a tank, I was very averse to the idea initially but I'm more unsure on it now. Dr. Boom is best represented by mayhem and explosions, and I thought that the Bruiser role fit this identity perfectly since it encouraged him to always be fighting and in the thick of things, but didn't force him to be focused on peeling and protecting teammates. However, I could see the zoning I'd like Boom to have work on a Tank, and the "mayhem and explosions" theme could work for a Tank disrupting enemies just as well as a Bruiser disrupting enemies. Not sure what I will end up deciding with this, but I appreciate the suggestion.
Wordiness
The 'too much text' problem is mostly a case of every ability having to be cross-referenced with up to three other mechanics. Boom Bots, Boomship, and Omega, and when Omega Effects can in turn influence Boomship, things tend to get multiplicative. I think that, if you retain the Boomship, the Boomship should be a containment site for all of its non-talent charge-up rules. ie. "Boomship gains 1% charge for every X ability damage Dr. Boom deals and for every Y damage Dr. Boom takes." I think it's acceptable to have a single ability be on the verbose side, as long as it means the other abilities can remain simple (see: Deathwing).
Additionally, I think you'd benefit from including some of your ability details in subscript. I use it for a lot of my movesets to describe mechanics that would otherwise not be a part of the rules text, but would instead be made evident by using the ability. "Additionally, the Boom Bot generated by this ability appears at Dr. Boom’s final location, not his casting location" is a perfect example of something you could cut from the ability's 'official' description, as it would be evident from a single cast.
Trait
I absolutely agree that Boom Bots simply must be a core part of Boom's identity, and there are lots of ways one could approach them, and it's arguably a bit more interesting and fitting in with his chaotic nature if Boom is just spreading the madness. As it stands, I feel like most implementations of Boom Bots would resemble something in Gazlowe's kit (which with both being Goblins is thematically appropriate), either being a delayed CC tool or area denial.
In terms of a rework, I don't really have any set ideas, but one that's coming to mind is to switch it and Boom's W around, with Boom gaining shields on ability use instead of Bots, and Bots instead being an ability. How to make Boom Bots still be unique (as HotS does at least try to avoid overlap on abilities) is a bit trickier. Though if you go with the 'Boom as a Tank' concept, you'd probably need to give them some knockback to ensure he can peel. That said, you really don't need to make him a Tank, as Bruiser is still a perfectly acceptable role with the current kit.
Zap Cannon
Spammable abilities on a character more built around energy than cooldowns are logical, can't fault you there and I think making it pierce baseline is exactly the right move. On that note, I have an off-the-cuff suggestion for its Omega Effect: Make the Omega Effect Dr. Boom's level 1 talent.
One could add a Slow, one might add extra Boomship charge, another could be Lifesteal, and one might even be an infinitely stacking quest.
Blast Shield
I already gave a suggestion on this above, even though I do still have to compliment the potential elegance of a spammable shield ability in a moveset that inherently punishes spammed abilities.
That said, I think the means of avoiding Omega-version spam is something of a bandaid solution, one that arguably makes the Omega version the worse version of the ability. That said, I don't really have any other good solutions at the moment other than maybe suggesting Boom's energy regeneration be lowered to 10, and just removing the 'costs 10 more each cast' thing. (though in turn, more talents that increase energy gain would become necessary, and his other abilities might need a discount, so it's all an awkward balancing act).
Jetpack Blast
I did want to re-touch on this one a bit, as there is one issue that comes to mind, and it's that the ability's Omega Effect makes it a bit too similar to Blaze's Jet Propulsion. It's not the worst thing, especially since Boom can keep using the ability over and over to limited effect afterwards, making it distinct. Personally my suggestion is just to make it a bit of a 'jump' move, so Boom launches into the air and slams down onto the target location, letting him go over terrain. Of course, an escape tool that good with such a low cooldown would need something to balance it, so I'd say that you could mutate the current self-stun into a .75 second warmup time when cast in its non-Omega form, giving enemies ample time to disrupt him.
Boomship
While I do stand by my original stance that Boomship created problems for the moveset, I do think there's space for it to be kept as-is, as long as the charge-related text is quarantined to the heroic. But a more traditional heroic is probably the right move to make to ensure the moment-to-moment Dr. Boom can be as explosive as possible. The only other thing I have to say about Boom's heroics is that free Omega abilities for X seconds is such a strong fit for the character. Even just a heroic that just reads "For 13 seconds, Dr. Boom's energy recharge rate is doubled, and his abilities always activate their Omega Effects" would be a fun toy to play with. A stun every 4 seconds isn't that unreasonable when it comes to Heroics.
Dr. Boom as a Tank
Honestly I can't say either way here. From a top-down perspective, Boom seems so obviously a Bruiser, being a sturdy mech-user who loves explosives - mixing survivability and damage is a staple of Bruisers, after all. But from a bottom-up perspective, Tanks tend to have extremely powerful playmaking tools, but as a trade-off they tend to have long cooldowns, which in turn tends to create a perception that Tanks are boring, and Omega gets around that problem in such an elegant way that it'd almost be a crime not to take advantage of that.
Though for Boom to be an effective Tank, he'd absolutely need more than just Jetpack Blast as a peeling tool, which is why I suggest ability Boom Bots have some kind of knockback or small stun, as Jetpack Blast alone would be inefficient for the job of protecting his team. Perhaps Boom Bots could pull enemies to their epicentre when they explode, though that seems a bit weird, even for Goblin Engineering. Then again... Grav-O-Bomb exists.
I don't really have any answers here. I think if you can find a way for Boom to have a simple but effective way to peel using non-Omega abilities (that isn't too disruptive when spammed) then you have the makings of a great Tank. But otherwise I recommend continuing on course with making him a Bruiser.
I really hope to see Dr. Boom again once he's updated, and maybe I'll give that a (shorter) review too.