Everything aspect of the hero is rated on a 1-5* scale.
Weapon: (*) Another midline automatic weapon for the DUD pile. Armor calculations ensure his weapon is only going to tickle enemies at most.
Defense: (***) He’s basically got Ryker’s defensive stats. Not super squishy but he can’t take a beating either.
Bronze: (***) This had the ability to be a game-changer but its largely been a disappointment. As an AI, Wesson often won’t get this skill off until 40+ seconds into the game. Several times I’ve seen Wesson finally fire this off only to have it immediately Sterilized anyway. If you pilot Wesson (which you shouldn’t, he hits like a wet napkin) you can fire this off as early as 20 seconds with perfect aim, but the short (8s) duration will leave you underwhelmed, often your heroes are reloading, moving from cover to cover, or are stunned/staggered themselves - and all the enemy has to do is stay in cover or roll around and they will usually be fine. Meanwhile Nightingale has her Mark on a flat 15-second cooldown and hers gives each member of your team 15% more crit chance and thousands of DPS, even if they aren’t shooting the marked target - and her skill lasts 10 seconds. The reduced max HP is only useful if the target is already close to full health.
Silver: (**) Guaranteed damage on the entire enemy team, and the damage is better than most similar skills (Bladestorm/Clean Sweep/Corruption) but only if the enemy is out of cover. What makes this skill poor is its longish cooldown (30s) and conditional bonus damage. If the damage was more consistent or the cooldown lower this skill might have been good as I think teamwide damage + stagger is often underrated.
Gold: (*) This is Oracle’s “Target Down” all over again. A conditional bonus effect tied to a long cooldown skill that is unlikely to ever make a difference in your games. Sometimes RNG might throw you a bone and burn up 2 spots on a limited cover row like the Frontline of Atrium - forcing 2 enemies to bunch up and be vulnerable to other ground effects - but the RNG nature, average damage, and long cooldown on Rolling Thunder make it impossible to utilize as part of a broader team strategy.
Platinum: (*) The bonus is a weaker version of Ronin’s Plat. While Ronin’s Plat could at least let you build a bonus team out of weaker gold/silver - this bonus is strictly limited to UAF/UAFA. Depending on your heroes that may make the bonus more or less limiting, but probably more. The reality is that running a UAF team for the kind of health bonus that Heimlock or Phalanx gives is pointless and the terrible DPS of this hero isn’t going to be redeemed by a modest damage bonus under the condition you run an awkward energy-heavy lineup in a metagame filled with mech DPS.
Conclusion: (**) A weak hero. His only niche is as a Marking hero that makes it possible for bots to focus down a hero that is on a Mandrake + Multi-Healer team - but possible doesn’t mean probable, you’re better off with Nightingale throwing out marks every 15 seconds with a big DPS boost and getting lucky with a gap in enemy healing (most enemy heals aren’t ready by the first mark anyway) than you are waiting until the 40 second mark for Wesson to try his luck with a shorter Mark with a heal blocker but no damage bonus.
You are EXTREMELY wrong and should not comment until you have him full strength.
Wesson is a grea addition to Hero Hunters. I have him LvL 73, 10 Star, 2 Plat Bars, and maxed.
He is not over powered or under powered. His DPS is good, fun to play, and abilities are very useful.
He is one you must pay attention too on offense and defense. He is a welcome addition to the game.
DEVS did a great job in bringing in someone strong, fun to play, and useful in any line-up. He is versatile in any group, but stronger with UAF or UAFA. He also can be killed quick without the right support group or lack of attention.
I am really happy with him and congrats to HHG for a well thought out Hero to help make the game fun.
Sorry, but I’m siding with Sogui on this one. For those who don’t have him 10* plat 2, go duel your alliance. Set the default to platinum and play away. He becomes either 7 or 8* at the default platinum setting. I posted a very abbreviated version of Sogui’s post, but his analysis is much more detailed and frankly spot on. Wesson is underwhelming and not worth a spot in my line-up. YMMV. I’m just glad we didn’t have another game breaker, but he needs to be tuned a little hotter to make him viable.
Yea I dueled him with plats too to get a sense of how badly his abilities scale (hint: badly).
He’s a one-trick pony with his bronze skill but that trick lasts 8 seconds assuming nobody bothers to just kill him or interrupt the cast or just sterilize it - then its not difficult to just wait it out. Piloting him is a bad idea because it means your real DPS are sitting there shooting cover and wasting their potential, but if you don’t pilot him you can bet if he survives long enough to mark something it’s probably the enemy razorback.
I have a pretty straightforward philosophy about good PVP heroes. If they don’t contribute anything for the first 30 seconds, they’re dead weight. Wesson sits there tickling enemies with a pea shooter for the first 30 seconds while everyone else is pumping out clutch heals, critical crowd control, or lethal damage… then Wesson steps up and does a weaker+slower version of bladestorm before doing a mark + healblock for 8 seconds.
If I had a way to be 100% sure my Panzer or Dogface was fully-loaded when Wesson did his mark, and I was 100% sure Wesson would mark the right enemy, I might still be able to justify using him, but as it stands thats simply not realistic - my DPS will unload the moment I switch to Wesson and will be near empty by the time he finishing marking.
I certainly agree he’s not overpowered, maybe its refreshing that HHG finally got another release without a broken PVP hero - but this review is a frank assessment that points out that Wesson simply brings too much dead weight along with his bronze skill to justify using him outside of a UAF bonus tournament.
That’s unfortunately to hear. His bronze seemed really powerful, almost game breaking in fact. Being able to make your entire team focus a single hero, marking them, heal blocking, AND reducing their hp? And if they are killed then Death Mark refreshes? I guess having really pathetic atk and a long CD can make any ability crap. You said switching to him just to mark, then back to a better DPS doesn’t really work either huh?
I am surprised his platinum isn’t a little better too. At first it seemed really limited, but then I thought about the current meta. Nightengale and Panzer are both UAF/Airborne so pairing them with Wesson seems like a no brainer. You could then play with the last two spots and have non-UAF heroes, or go all out and have Butters and Halloway or Hivemind. I guess if the bonus isn’t much it’s not really worth going for just to include second and third tier heroes in your line up.
It’s definitely a win. I would so much prefer devs introduce a modest (even underpowered) hero and then increase their power if needed later than release gamebreakers every month. This way, the whole PvP scene isn’t chasing their tails trying to get competitive while the whales splash out cash for an auto-win lineup until the rest of the game catches up.
I’ve been playing PvP now both in Tournament and in free play with Col Wesson at 8 star platinum and I like him, for sure not OP but absolutely a nice alternative in most lineups. I still need 80 more skill points to max all skills, so I hope he gets even better tonight when all skills are maxed.
I don’t use Dogface much so I haven’t fully explored the notion of trying to time his Mark with Dogface’s skills. When I have attempted it its just so awkward trying to manage the cooldowns of two heroes when you can just use Nightingale and have her pop out a 10 second mark every 15 seconds.
I also have a couple teams that focus on big consistent DPS that would synergize with his mark a little better but frankly putting him on those teams requires me to cut another DPS or Healer that is just too important to lose. His terrible weapon DPS is an absolute deal-breaker for me. I’ve spoken with Omni about this issue before, he says they are aware of it, but I was hoping to see it fixed this update - but we got nothing.
It simply boils down to the fact that every game this dude does nothing for 30 seconds, there’s just too much momentum at stake to justify that kind of dead weight.
Edit: I agree with the sentiment that another OP hero would have been bad for the game, but this metagame is already quite stale and adding a hero who doesn’t even nudge the meta is disappointing since we didn’t get a Role Warfare update either.
I ran several more matches using him and fighting against him. I specifically tried a stall team against him with minimal dps and tons of heals and shields. If the fight goes long and cover becomes scarce, he can get dangerous, but that’s just so situational. I think even if his guns were tuned to do something above a tickle, say on par with Oracle or Cinder, I’d be more inclined to use him. The CO for M4RC has Wesson at 10* platinum 2, and likes him, so maybe he’s more balanced at the extreme end of the bell curve. I can’t speak to that.
Whoever said in another thread that his bronze skill sounds OP has officially lost it. There’s nothing OP about this skill or any other skills. My Wesson 6* Gold isn’t much more useful than Oro in PVP but I’ll continue experiment until I find a team that suits him.
