[Hero Wars Guide]You Know? The Helios Great Nerf Incident

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An unfortunate event that befell Helios

Up until early 2022, during the peak of Rufus Dante‘s popularity, Helios shone as a counter to Dante!
However, at present, Helios has suffered a significant reduction in his ability to counter Dante (commonly known as a “nerf”).
What exactly happened to Helios? Let me explain step by step.

Helios is a wizard who excels in countering physical teams.
His unique skill allows him to counterattack with magical attacks against critical hits.
By nature, Dante does not have a critical hit status.
However, it is almost a standard strategy to pair Dante with Sebastian for defense.
Consequently, Dante often attacks with critical support from Sebastian, making Helios an effective counter in such situations.

As mentioned earlier, Helios serves as a counter to the Dante and Sebastian pair, but in the 2021 environment, it was not practical. This was because the prevailing strategy was to include Isaac, who hard-counters magical attacks, in the team lineup alongside Dante and Sebastian!
In this popular Dante + Isaac + Sebastian setup of 2021, Isaac’s presence made him a hard counter to Helios, limiting his role in battles.
However, this configuration declined in popularity due to its vulnerability to Heidi or Iris.
Subsequently, when Rufus Dante gained popularity as a counter to Heidi and Iris, he was unable to effectively counter Helios (since Helios is a mage himself and cannot directly defeat Rufus, finding a way to counter him required careful consideration of the mechanics).
- As a result, it became a common practice to use Helios to defeat Dante (or more precisely, for Sebastian to support Dante with critical hits).

The incident occurred on a fall day in 2022. Suddenly, a correction was made: “Helios’ critical counter against Dante’s spear throw from the air no longer inflicts damage.”
By the way, this event is not a guaranteed occurrence. It may or may not happen.
This correction was made without any prior announcement, and to this day, there is no official statement regarding whether it was intentional or a bug (commonly known as a “silent correction”).
After this correction, Helios lost his status as a counter to Dante + Sebastian. He now functions as a less useful mage who simply wins or loses battles!
It’s worth noting that he is not particularly weak except against Dante.

This is a verification video by xjr on the post-nerf Helios.

The Helios incident also significantly impacted Helios’s ranking on the Tier List.
The 2022-2023 environment was crucial for determining the effectiveness of characters against Dante and Ishmael, the two strongest heroes!
For example, Mushy and Shroom, who appeared in 2023, are excellent tanks in their own right, but their demand is limited.
This is because Mushy and Shroom are most adept at countering K’arkh. However, in the current environment, dealing with K’arkh is not as crucial (well, tanks are relatively stat-dependent and challenging to use unless you have a certain number of skins).
Looking back at Helios’s actual tier list rankings, they are as follows.

[Hero Wars Guide]Tier List 2021(on PvP)

[Hero Wars Guide]Tier List 2022(on PvP)

[Hero Wars Guide]Tier List 2023(on PvP)

Due to the Helios nerf, Amira has become the preferred critical counter instead of Helios.
The demand for Helios in situations like “Should I raise Helios?” has been replaced by Amira.
Consequently, there are rumors suggesting that this incident is the work of Amira’s supporters.

Since the official intention behind this significant nerfing of Helios remains unclear, he is currently an underappreciated hero.
Some people might think that it’s just a matter of not being able to consistently win against Dante, right? However, this one factor completely changes whether we use Helios or not. From a player’s perspective, it’s a crucial aspect.
We are eagerly waiting to see what the officials will think and do about this matter.

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