First off I would like to say I absolutely love Shang’s inclusion in the game and enjoy what his kit is designed to do but think the execution is incredibly off the mark.
So Shang as a character is a front line support hero who switches stances with his white skill essentially giving his white skill the option of being used in three ways. His green which is his default, that heals himself and the team for half the amount with his basics along with granting him armor and upon switching to it gives the team a shield. His red stance gives himself attack speed and a lesser amount to the team on top of increasing his basic damage and finally his blue stance gives himself increased energy generation and reality along with giving all allies 50 energy per basic attack.
Now if we stop here this kit is amazing and not simply because of how overloaded it clearly is that comes part and parcel with power creep. It gives him amazing versatility the likes of which is unmatched by any other support hero and incredibly high compared to the majority of other heroes. It also has no control whatsoever (outside of the disk with Mulan) which is quite honestly a breath of fresh air. The only heroes off the top of my head that match that are Joy and L&R. It also allows him to be amazing in non auto modes such as Invasion, War offense, CW, etc.
This is the case until his Red and Purple skills. Purple gives half of the armor, reality, basic damage of the stance he is currently in to his team and then Red gives a quarter of those stats of the stances his isnt in to his team along with having his green stance activation give hardy to his team. These two skills move Shang from a versatile hero who can work to counter differing teams to one who has no tradeoffs and becomes in essence a glorified stat stick or for those of you not as game savvy something or someone who is strong only because of numbers instead of strategic execution.
The problem therein lies that these incredibly uninspired skills creates is that it gets rid of or at least lowers the skill ceiling that the hero had going for him. Even with a hero as controversial as Randall there is at least a tiny bit of strategy on who to have him target, and while Shang’s skill cieling isnt destroyed entirely it does incredibly trivialize what remains of said ceiling. On top of this his Red skill only augments his green stance making that one more often than not the defacto go to.
What are your guy’s thoughts on this? Am I completely off the mark or do you share these sentiments. Please by all means let’s have a discussion about this.