Hero Series - Lineup Trends Week 2

Altenberg runs the numbers after week 2 so you don’t have to. Check out last week’s Lineup Trends!

We are now two weeks into the Hero Series format and some things are starting to come into focus just a little bit. I expect things to solidify even more after our week 3 games. But for now, the Hero Series meta-game is still being dominated by Hunter, Paladin and Priest with Rogue, Warlock and to a lesser degree Warrior hanging in there as viable 4th classes. In fact, the Hunter and Priest numbers actually went up compared to Week 1. Interestingly, while Druid was the least used class in Week 1, it’s usage more than doubled in Week 2. Could we be seeing the beginnings of the Druid class coming back to life?  Warrior, Shaman and Rogue all saw their usage slip just a little in Week 2 compared to Week 1. Like last week we had 96 qualifying lineups and 31 of them were unique. The same four lineups that were the most popular in Week 1, remained the four most popular lineups in Week 2, so this article will serve to update the performance of each one.

Week 2 Popular Lineups
Lineup #1 – Hunter, Paladin, Priest, Rogue








Week 2 Stats
23 Lineups, 13-10 (57%)
Hunter Bans: 4-2 (67%)
Paladin Bans: 7-4 (64%)
Priest Bans: 1-4 (20%)
Rogue Bans: 1-0 (100%)

Total Season Stats
42 Lineups, 24-18 (57%)
Hunter Bans: 6-3 (67%)
Paladin Bans: 11-6 (65%)
Priest Bans: 5-6 (45%)
Rogue Bans: 2-3 (40%)

This lineup has now established itself as the definite favorite after being in a tie last with the lineup below in Week 1. And not only has it established itself as the favorite, it now has the top win-rate on the season overall. With stats on 42 matches we now have a pretty good read on the performance of this lineup, as well as which bans are most effective. As you can, banning Hunter has been the least effective way to counter this lineup, with Paladin bans being a close second. The best way to counter this lineup is to ban Priest or Rogue.  

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Lineup #2 – Hunter, Paladin, Priest, Warlock








Week 2 Stats
17 Lineups, 10-7 (59%)
Hunter Ban: 4-1 (80%)
Paladin Ban: 3-4 (43%)
Priest Ban: 3-2 (60%)
Warlock Ban: 0-0 (0%)

Total Season Stats
36 Lineups, 19-17 (53%)
Hunter Ban: 6-4 (60%)
Paladin Ban: 5-8 (38%)
Priest Ban: 6-5 (55%)
Warlock Ban: 0-1 (0%)

This lineup was not quite as popular in Week 2 as it was in Week 1, but the good news is that its performance improved by a lot. So much so that it now has a winning record on the season. Since we now have data on 36 matches with this lineup, it’s pretty safe to say that it is an effective lineup, even if it’s not quite as good as Lineup #1. Interestingly the swap from Rogue to Warlock does seem to impact the ban data significantly.  While banning Paladin in Lineup #1 does not seem to be working consistently, banning Paladin in this lineup is the best way to beat it. So far only 1 person has chosen to ban Warlock, and it worked out well, but there just isn’t enough ban data on the Warlock ban to draw any conclusions yet.  While banning Priest is effective for Lineup #1 above, it does not seem quite as effective in this lineup. Banning Hunter is clearly the least effective option.

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Lineup #3 – Hunter, Paladin, Priest, Warrior








Week 2 Stats
7 Lineups, 4-3 (57%)
Hunter Ban: 3-1 (75%)
Paladin Ban: 0-1 (0%)
Priest Ban: 0-0 (0%)
Warrior Ban: 1-1 (50%)

Total Season Stats
17 Lineups, 8-9 (47%)
Hunter Ban: 4-3 (57%)
Paladin Ban: 0-3 (0%)
Priest Ban: 0-2 (0%)
Warrior Ban: 4-1 (80%)

This lineup saw a slight decline in usage compared to Week 1, but also saw an improvement in performance. The improvement wasn’t enough to give it a positive win-rate on the season, but it does look a little more respectable. I’d like to see a little more data before making a definitive judgement on this lineup.  Basically, it has had one bad week and one week good, so I’m not sure what we have exactly. That said, banning Paladin or Priest seems to be shutting this lineup down, which is leading me to speculate that Warrior may be more of a liability than a help, especially considering that the lineup has a significantly higher win-rate when Warrior is banned (which looks like a mistake when trying to counter this).

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Lineup #4 – Hunter, Paladin, Rogue, Warlock








Week 2 Stats
5 Lineups, 1-4 (20%)
Hunter Ban: 0-1 (0%)
Paladin Ban: 0-3 (0%)
Rogue Ban: 0-0 (0%)
Warlock Ban: 1-0 (100%)

Total Season Stats
12 Lineups, 5-7 (42%)
Hunter Ban: 2-2 (50%)
Paladin Ban: 2-5 (29%)
Rogue Ban: 0-0 (0%)
Warlock Ban: 1-0 (100%)

I almost removed this one from the list since it’s usage not only went down compared to Week 1, but it was not very high to begin with (brought only 5 times in Week 2). But I included it anyway, because its performance was completely opposite of Week 1. It went from a winning record the first week to a losing record the 2nd. Again, we’re dealing with a small sample size, but after two weeks and 12 matches, this lineup is really struggling. Opponents have figured out that if you ban Paladin, there’s not much this lineup can do.

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Week 2 Class Breakdown

The class breakdown of Week 1 in Hero Series continues to look very similar to the current ladder meta. The top three classes were Hunter, Paladin and Priest by a landslide with Rogue and Warlock next in line. Rogue leapfrogged Warlock. Warrior saw a little bit of representation and then Mage, Shaman and Druid were complete after-thoughts showing very fringe representation. If you can believe it, Hunter and Paladin actually saw their usage increase compared to Week 1.  While Druid saw its usage double, it still remains in last place as far as popularity goes. There were 96 qualified lineups in Week 2, and here are the nine classes ranked in order of most popular to least popular after Week 2, followed by their popularity for the season on the whole:

Week 2 Popularity

1. Hunter, 91 Lineups (95%)
2. Paladin, 82 Lineups (85%)
3. Priest, 65 Lineups (68%)
4. Rogue, 46 Lineups (48%)
5. Warlock, 41 Lineups (43%)
6. Warrior, 20 Lineups (21%)
7. Mage, 15 Lineups (16%)
8. Shaman, 13 Lineups (14%)
9. Druid, 11 Lineups (11%)

Total Season Popularity

1. Hunter, 181 Lineups (94%)
2. Paladin, 162 Lineups (84%)
3. Priest, 133 Lineups (68%)
4. Rogue, 90 Lineups (47%)
5. Warlock, 89 Lineups (46%)
6. Warrior, 47 Lineups (24%)
7. Mage, 24 Lineups (13%)
8. Shaman, 23 Lineups (12%)
9. Druid, 16 Lineups (8%)

The two tables below show class win rates in matches and overall games from Week 2 as well as the season on the whole, sorted in order of match win rate. Take Shaman for example, this table is showing how many matches and games every lineup that had Shaman in it won and lost. Lineups that included Shaman won 54% of their matches in Week 2, and 56% on the overall season, out-pacing all other classes through two weeks. Keep in mind however, that Shaman has only been used in 23 matches so far this season and has a much, much smaller sample size than Hunter, Paladin or Priest (used over 5 times as often).

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Conclusion

It should come as no surprise that the top four lineups from Week 1 held steady as the top four lineups in Week 2. This meta appears to be solved, so unless the player-base is willing to mix it up for the sake of keeping our opponents guessing, we’ll probably continue to see the same two or three lineups remain popular.  But who knows, perhaps we should be working Shaman into the mix a little more, because that win-rate is hawt.  It’s kind of shocking how poorly Mage is performing. While Mage does suffer from a small sample size, it seems like it could be slowly entering the “unplayable” realm based on it’s stats as an overall class.

Until next week, good luck and have fun!

-Altenberg

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