Artanis Patch Rework and Comments

I know. What I meant was that you said you were the best XP contributor on the team. But you would have had the same xp laning agressively without SM. (You might potentially have gotten a bit more with AO, since you have more opportunities to take and steal merc camps, but at the cost of AA damage)

But I can see how it would give you your shields back super fast.

I haven’t played Artanis as much as you did. But I usually picked “Warp Sickness” at level 7. I did it for two reasons mostly.

  1. It made it much more likely that my flips would result in a kill.
  2. If I was planning on picking “Purifier beam”, the slow prevented the target from just avoiding the damage by walking around.

Now that it’s fused with Chrono surge, it would allow you to both stick to the target, and get the extra attack speed (plus, it boosts your stacks of “Protector of Aiur”). It makes sense to me that they lowered the attack speed bonus, since your target is now slowed. If they had left it as is, it would have been a hidden buff.
(75% attack speed on a target that’s also slowed by 30% would be an insane increase of damage output)

If they ever gave Art self shields. You can bet that they would reduce your shields in exchange. Sonya does get shields. But she need to wait until Lvl 16 and 20 to get them. (That’s why she can get away with “Ignore pain” being so massive")
Either that, or he would only get it at Lvl 20. Which is kind of late.

Varian is kind of an exception, as he may become a tank instead of a bruiser. And he has very low CC, so the parry is a must for him (And he’s still not that good of a tank)

Fenix has a fast shield and no heal. But his HP underneath the shield is super tiny. Then again, that bastard has a teleport.

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Honestly im still hoping for amateur opponent baseline. As of right now my massive artanis winrate in plat/diamond was dependent on only picking him on hanamura and spending most of the game getting camps. It could be that his numbers were off and he’s in a place now but im skeptical. I rarely find a need to go for any talent other than ao at 1 because that was why i drafted him.

As for 7 that was a great change! I understand your concerns but generally q dmg was a mustpick on that tier with the slow used to sometimes help lazer (which is a horrible ult until 16 as it has very little synergy with his kit. If artanis had ways to keep people pinned down effectively he’d be overpowered but picking an ultimate that fits those requirements is a bit silly).

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I really dislike dash talents because they only get value when you’re blading through an entire team, and if there’s that many people on top of you and you’re not already dead then the enemy team can actively ignore you or have nothing to stop you so either way it’s not something that compensates for your weaknesses or plays into your strengths. And it’s best only when you pair it with templar’s zeal at 13.
I usually prefer Follow Through for the extra bit of burst it provides when combined with AO and now even Protector of Auir.

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Hmm perhaps i misspoke then.

In any case q talent at 7 was a mustpick for me because i generally use q to dash through 3-4 enemies in teamfights. And when you need to finish someone thats running away it was essential.

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I wouldn’t say it’s “essential” for getting kills. I’ve used dash to kill low enemies plenty of times without it.
I’ll give you that does provide some decentish burst, I just prefer upping his single target damage or providing more utility than trying to make him better at doing something that should be a mage’s job.

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Thanks for the feedback!

What I like about the design of Protector of Aiur vs. Seasoned Marksman is that Protector of Aiur motivates Artanis to do more of what his kit tells him to do, which is to brawl with enemy Heroes. His main source of mitigation is from fighting things, which is what this talent is telling him to do as much as possible. Seasoned Marksman was a bit more blurred in this motivation because it told Artnias to go push lanes in order to gain power, which conflicted a bit with the rest of his kit. Also, we felt that the Attack Speed portion of the Seasoned Marksman talent was a bit redundant since he has a couple other ways to get that bonus in other talents. Removing it allows us to focus his Level 1 talent better and to let the other talents shine more that allow him to gain that buff.

Also as a side note, it’s fairly unlikely we’ll add Healing to Artanis. In general, consistently generated shields or Armor mitigation + healing is an incredibly strong combination that can easily become overpowered, and it’s something we have to be very careful about. Putting both mechanics on one hero greatly increases the risk that situations can occur where they cannot be killed.

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Hi Ocek! Thanks for the comments! It is very useful insight.

First for the Math… You’re right on that a % that scales is better than a fixed amount of damage. I need to double check my replays to see the base damage at lvl 20. It may be as you say, about 240.

I was often able to get it over 300 and even 350 at times with SM. I agree that it is easier with POA.

Also it makes a clearer definition of roles. Amateur Oponent to soak XP and get camps like Shadowmere said.

The other role, as a front-liner and painbringer

This is so true. I had to change roles, first by heavy soaking during the first part of the game in order to become much stronger to fight enemies. It was a bit counter-intuitive.

One will just have to be mindful to prioritize heroes while soaking a lane so as to keep contributing XP.

I will need to play much more to make a comparison. I still have to play some 25-30min match to see how far I can go. I dream I may be able to get to 100% extra damage sometime.

I’ll let you know.

Thanks for the comments Ocek!

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Makes sense re: 1 - Protector of Aiur. What has me fretting a little is the reworked 1 - Reactive Parry.

I liked that I could activate Twin Blades in response to imminent CC/damage, e.g., Butcher charge. Also, a lot of AA heroes are ranged, and closing the gap is often non-trivial.

Overall, I’m happy with the changes but I think that Artanis is in need of a significant rework. He is stronger than he was, but still largely…inconsequential?

En route to a rework, though, one thing that would help is making 20 - Zealot Charge baseline. That talent fits so well with the rest of his kit (and lore), yet players do not often have the luxury of picking it because we are looking to scavenge any utility we possibly can instead.

It would also be nice if the reduction to +attack speed in 7 - Chrono Surge was lifted a bit, e.g., make it 50% IAS rather than 40%. 40% is just a bit punitive considering that you had to land a swap to begin with.

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Thank you for your comment AZJ!

I appreciate your feedback on the comment. I agree that Protector of Aiur does allow for a much more focused role on Artanis, as the Seasoned Marksman did require him to spend too much time on lanes oftentimes distracting from team fights or delaying the focus on map objectives.

The speed portion of Seasoned Marskman may be a bit redundant indeed, but I think speed is one of the main strengths of Artanis.

Chrono Surge did allow for faster attack (thus faster Shield recovery), but the ability has a big cooldown until level 13. Then Blades of a Templar do add a 30% to the base attack speed but until level 16 and at the cost of force of will, which is a big loss. A good balance could be achieved with the quest completion, to keep force of will for example.

I am sorry to hear Health recovery may be out of the plans. Art can be hard to kill if played skillfully. However since he lacks escape mechanisms, once his shields are down it is KO.

Unlike Sonya who can eventually escape with the ancient spear, or Leap. Or Varian who can use parry and get away. Or Thrall that can use WindFury to sprint away.

My best solution so far has been to combine the end of the dash with a prism launch for a long switch. Takes a lot of chance and practice, and it is a workaround. I understand that mantaining balance is a difficult thing.

I honestly think he could use a bit of help in recovering his base HP so as to not depend solely on regen globes and healing fountains though.

Thank you very much for the comment AZ! I will make sure to continue adapting to these new changes. I really like this character and appreciate that you guys drawed some attention to him! I’ll be back with feedback after more games.

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very good job on the latest patch; I’m loving all the changes a lot. and artanis especially is really coming into his own.

I honestly think he could use a bit of help in recovering his base HP so as to not depend solely on regen globes and healing fountains though.

fugget it. like he said, artanis is already a monster at surviving with his shielding.

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Hi Nemarra! Thanks for the comments.

Totally agreed!

I agree. It is such a useful talent. Unfortunately was moved last year to lvl 20. It used to be in lvl 16 and then it could be used in addition to the powerful upgrade to purifier beam on lvl 20. Or Plasma Burn which is imo awesome for CC and soaking/camping.

I wish it could be selected before to make Artanis more mobile and for him to be able to escape easier when targetted, and agree that goes quite in line with his twin blades kit.

Not to mention it has a high cooldown (12 seconds), so if you miss it is quite a loss. It takes considerable practice to master the prism, if one ever can say one has. Although those sweet switches combined with Dash, how satisfying they are.

I agree 50% would be more reasonable for the prism.

Let’s hope that this is the first one of many reworks. Every patch I cross my fingers to see Artanis getting some improvements. I’m glad that it has happened.

It is always nice to meet other Artanis players and learn from them!

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So does that mean his new lvl 1 talent is the new must pick for Artanis now.

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Hello Shadowmere!

Thank you for the comments!

This is impressive. I always try to play Art as a frontliner and picking on heroes with dash+prism, then doing heavy damage.

Honestly, I rarely pick Amateur Opponent because I feel it relegates him a lot to camps and lanes, and that a very simmilar approach to XP/pressuring with camps can be achieved through Seasoned Marskman and Now Protector Of Aiur by getting extra basic damage.

Still it is quite a challenge to achieve that 150% extra bonus through quests so as to be as effective against non-heroes and it takes a lot of time you can invest from the start.

I agree that the slow prism does comes together nicely with the beam. I initially preferred it to the chrono surge. However, since purifiear beam has a cooldown of 80 seconds it makes it much more spare.

Ofc, you can always swap heroes with the prism and have the slow make them an easier prey for your team to pick. Yet, I find it is more reliable to use the chorno surge to face an enemy 1v1 and take him down. Therefore is a bit the best of two worlds to slow and add attack speed. However I agree with Nemarra in that:

Prism has a long cooldown and it because it is a bit slow and short-ranged… it can be hard to land. For me it is easier to use in close combat. When I launch it combined with Blade Dash it is much more tricky.

As for the finishing dash

that is very nice, but I feel it that taking Solarite Reaper (lvl 7) and templar’s zeal (lvl 13) are a big sacrifice of the twin blades+prism combo. But certainly, it is nice to catch any escaping enemies and it must add quite some pressure in a crowd fight (if not rooted/stunned mid-dash!).

Thanks for the comments!

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No offense but marksmen talent was bad and only noobs used that. So is the protector of aiur thing. AA build artanis is not viable. Never was.

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I find the the quest to feel stronger for me. One problem I had with marksman was the fact you could only build it off of minions. The new quest allows the players to build stacks at any point they choose to duel. While the missing attack speed from marksman and the prism talent is a bit sad, I find the damage scaling to be really exciting. Now Blades of a Templar has a true synergy talent too. Overall I like the changes but I see why other Artanis players might be left feeling like the missing attack speed is frustrating.

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Not entirely, it will depend on the map and comp. It isn’t great if you end up against a comp with a lot of blinds or hard CC, and there are some maps where the whole point of drafting Artanis is to get an early snowball, like BoE or Hanamura. His PoA is very strong (and I may be having too much fun with it!), so unless you are racing something with a ton of health, or soloing hard stuff early, PoA is better overall.

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I love this comment. I said the same thing to a buddy yesterday.

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Its hard to justifiy it 100%, given how being a PVE God was one of his most defining traits due to Amateur opponent. You often picked art for his impact on things like immortals or Samurais, and taking this over amateur opponent removes that impact.

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It seems you are not very familiar with Artanis and how he works, no offense. AA builds were always underpar because his uptime is too low. The only place he gets high uptime is against other tanks and bruisers but he fares really bad against those because he lacks CC himself.

Artanis either goes a Q build or a W build for damage, or a D build for tank. AA talents have no room in his kit. Better remove them completely. Q is still his best damage build.

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Thans for the feedback here Moonshadow.

Could you tell me why AA is not viable? I ask because it is my main build for Art. Not exactly AA, but melee against other heroes.

The quest on SM and now POA did allow for increasingly heavy attack, coupled with the prism (that didn’t let your duel-enemy escape) it made it something quite deadly.

I’d like to know your thoughts on what are the strengths of other builds compared to it. Thanks!