Abathur - more interactive, more risk-reward, rework idea

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Let’s talk real. Not salty, just stating facts - every QM has an Abathur. If you’re playing a support, the chances of the enemy team having an Abathur are even higher. It just gets old.

Is it even possible to rework a hero like that?

My only idea is to reduce his casting range for the hat. Instead of being global like it is now, he should at least have to get somewhat closer to the action.

And then balance the hero around that change.

Give him the ability to teleport more frequently or set up “base stations,” satellites, or other forms of transportation - anything that would make his gameplay more interactive and introduce more “risk-reward” situations.

If you think this would make him too weak, balance the “hat” ability around these changes. Increase its damage, add more features, or, for example, if heroes move out of his casting range but are still close to each other, allow Symbiote to jump from one host to another.

Anything that makes his gameplay more interactive could improve Abathur, even enabling buffs that previously seemed unimaginable or too dangerous for a hero like him.

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I guess your problem with hat range is that he can afk under tower and usually have 100% uptime (never dies). It’s argued that such a playstyle is anyway not really reaching full aba potential…

I can see how fights could eventually get out of hat range, and force aba to relocate/ make the battle 5v4 for a few moments, but it wouldn’t change much, if any early game teamfights. It wouldn’t change any objective, since they’re all static. I feel it would only be a nerf to an aba that’s behind (a few towers down), while imo he’s already awful in losing games and feels too good in winning games.

I’d say the unfun mechanics are the 13-16 locust talents, attack speed on 4, and maybe mule on 7 (although mule is probably more of a skill check on enemy, wouldn’t say it’s OP)

I’d rather aba locusts get a mechanic similar to zagara buffing minions talent on 1: locusts could be stronger while he’s near, and weaker while he’s away (the minions don’t necessarily need a visual effect to know that aba is near though, I think that would be too big a nerf).

I’d go as far as make the locusts a little stronger (20% better than now?) while in close proximity (aba shouldn’t sit behind his own gate) but a lot weaker (50%? 30%? current stats) when aba is away; basically remove the landmine - teleport- spawn 3 locusts - B combo (or he sits there and dies for tower, i guess). Locust stats could ‘scale’ with distance, so it doesn’t instantly go from strong locusts to weak locusts.

And remove attack speed hat/ tie it to carapace shield at least, so poor AA heroes can finally be balanced without being broken with aba. If they removed old tass shield (and that lifesteal talent no one talks about, which was unique) they can dump the attack speed hat too.

Edit: I am surprised, given zarya gets a sort of shield-spam build, and medivh gets a ‘healing talent’ (reabsorbtion) why they didn’t give aba a healing/armor talent on carapace too (or a sort of ‘carapace build’). Or, he could be a ‘jack of all trades’, and have talents where he loses something and gains something else (like collosus smash changing hero stats). He could very well lean harder into hat and lose on locusts, lean into mines and lose hat power and so on.

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Even that is a good suggestion. Basically, anything that would force Abathur to be at least a little closer in order to gain substantial benefits.

Because, you yourself said that losing forts and keeps generally weakens Abathur (meaning that a team that has pushed the enemy back on the map only makes things even worse for him). At that point, he’s somewhat more exposed, but gets no benefit from that exposure - he’s just forced to be like that. By adding benefits tied to Abathur’s proximity, that would no longer affect him in the same way - his main advantage would be dynamic positioning rather than safely sitting around towers/forts.

So, whether your team has towers and forts wouldn’t impact him as much, because he would organize his positioning based on the benefits of proximity.

And finally, I’d emphasize that balance shouldn’t mean forcing Abathur to sit in a bush near an objective, but rather having an optimal distance that introduces additional variables into his decision-making.

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