Artanis Patch Rework and Comments

General Discussion
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Hello Everyone!

I’m a main Artanis Player (Level 190, playing him for the past 4 years) and I think it is very nice that he has had some rework after almost a year. The leader of all protoss should not be so easily forgotten!

I’d like to share my opinion on the pros and cons of the rework, then end with some overall conclusions.

Hopefully there are some Art players out there that can share their point of view, and in the best of cases perhaps this gets enough views to draw the attention of devs to this post!

May 6th, 2020 Patch Pros :

The patch reworks emphasize a focus on Heroes, since the changes in Lvl 1 talents activate with enemy hero attacks.

Protector of Auir talent:

It does allow for one to become increasingly strong. I have been able to get him up to 50% extra damage in basic attacks in late game which becomes really painful to enemy heroes. It does imply a lot of risk since it only stacks up with basic attacks. Given that Artanis does not have escape means nor CC beyond Supression Pulse, he’s very prone to be rooted while trying to follow this quest. It is a risk, but it is part of the fun though.

Reactive Parry:

It was modified to be activated upon unleashing twin blades on a enemy hero. It has augmented the number of stacks up which is great, but it is tricky in a situation with many minions around, since one can mis-click a minion instead of a hero and then… welp, no armour and easy target. However, I see it more as part of the challenge.

Chrono Surge:
Merging the two Prism abilities in level 7 talents was a nice addition. However, the prism speed attack downgrade from 75% to 40% does affect a lot the late game builds. Though, it is nice to have the slow-down quality to it, which I believe was not as attractive separatedly.

Downsides of the Patch:

  • The deletion of the marsksman quest was a big hit to Artanis. I understand from the note patches that it was a talent rarely selected. I’ve played some 1500 games with Artanis and I’ve come across several players who criticize me selecting that talent (it was my favorite pick) over amateur opponent or reactive parry.

The thing is, that completing that quest really made Artanis a slicing machine! And it made Art a lane cleaner by default. I was often the best Xp contributor while completing the quest (+0.1 basic attack per minion killed, +0.5 per takedown. When reaching +40 basic attack, a new trait of +40% speed attack for 3 seconds was added, with cooldown of 30 seconds).

When selecting the Chrono Surge of +75% speed attack, the >+40 basic attacks of the quest, +40% speed attack whew! Artanis could become a slicing machine for a few seconds. Combined with the Graviton Vortex that made Prism reusable within a few seconds again, made Artanis an awesome duelist.

And just as an extra comment, whenever some buff like Morales’ Stim Drone was applied to him he could become deadlier than the Dragon Knight!

With the following build, I had no match 1v1 by level 20 with the following build:
Lvl 1: Seasoned Marsksman
Lvl 4: Shield (either is great)
Lvl 7: Chrono Surge
Lvl 10: Purifier Beam (Extra awesome stress in duels).
Lvl 13: Graviton Vortex.
Lvl 16: Blades of a Templar.
Lvl 20: Plasma Burn.

Only Butcher and Varian (with their quests completed) were the ones that could not be killed 1v1, mainly due to the stun/silencing and parry, respectively.

Conclusion:

While the new talent Protector of Auir does allow for a huge amount of damage to be added, it has a heavy impact on damage burst that was offered by the Seasoned Marskman quest.

I would very much like to see the basic attack speed to come back. Perhaps upon attaining 25% extra damage a new ability to temporarily increase the attack speed. Or a gradual speed attack alongside the attack damage increase in Protector of Aiur would be awesome.

Since I am sharing my wishlist, I want to say and ask our nice Developers that Artanis is the only Bruiser that has no permanent healing on his own. This puts him in great disadvantage against almost every other tank/bruiser.

I think it would be so nice if he could have healing added to basic attacks, or to make it more personalized to his protoss character, for some percentage of the damage received by the Shield Overload turned into HP. Oh, that would be a dream come true and would put Artanis so much back in the map (There are very few players that have a high-level Artanis).

Oh and just to finish, one Sinatra (Artanis) in tuxedo and fedora skin would be awesome. I really was hoping for some such during the underground gangs event last year. So well, I will be much more active in requesting for Artanis skins in the future. Poor Art has not gotten a single one in years!

Artanis is such an important character in the Starcraft Universe, I believe he has been somewhat forgotten in comparisson to all other chararcters in HotS.

Thanks for reading this far! Hopefully you have some insight or comments about all this.

En Taro Adun
tpb. Fujur

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But does the new Protecter of Auir does more damage than the old Marksman talent?

Alarak laughs in protoss

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The new taIent can add as much.

On long games that reached lvl 23 or lvl 25 I had been able to get over +60 damage on basics with seasoned marksman, which resulted on about 500 damage per basic hit.

In the few days since the patch, I have been able to have a +50% damage increase with Protector of Auir which has gotten me somewhere around 460 damage per basic hit by lvl 23.

So they are about the same in terms of damage. The difference is that the new talent can only be pursued through attack of enemy heroes, not minions. That makes it more risky, but faster in a way since you don’t have to wait for new waves of minions. It also allows you to stay more in the front lines and encourages team fights.

BUT the new quest has no extra speed updgrade! So I would say that puts it into disadvantage (although it does have a cool flashy name…).

Finally as for Alarak… Yeah, Tal’darim kinda still are protoss. So let’s go with Leader of all Daelaam Protoss!

Thanks for your comment!

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Seasoned Marksman is an old Quest design, back when HoTs went over board with quest talents. Though the new talent that replaces it seems much easier to stack… than killing minions or getting hero kills.

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I’m not sure I understand. You could have aggressively laned, even without Marksman, and acheived the same result no?

Marksman took a long time to complete, and once completed, the attack speed buff couldn’t be optimized because Art has no way of sticking to his targets.

Since you now have “Protector of Auir”, why would you still want SM?

When solo laning against another bruiser, you should reliably get tons of stacks.

Also, you can forget healing lol. They are never going to give self heal to a hero who has shields.

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At level 20, it adds significantly more damage because it scales.

Every 10 attacks adds adds 2.43 damage (at 20). So every 10% is 24.3 extra damage.

Using this calculation, every 10% you obtains (20, 30, 40, 50, 60) will add 24.3 damage by end game.

10% = 24.3 damage
20% = 48.6 damage
30% = 72.9 damage
40% = 97.2 damage
50% = 121.5 damage
60% = 145.8 damage

Most games are between 30% - 50%.
Over 50% is generally considered an exceptional game.

This means you are hitting somewhere between 72.9 damage and 121.5 damage at lvl 20.

To compare, old Seasoned Marksman generally hit between 30-50 damage. To put it roughly you’re gaining nearly twice the damage from before.

The key difference here however is that SM requires constant farming and Protector requires constant brawling.

This means that Protector is better simply because it’s more relevant towards winning objectives.

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It is true that the Quest has been with Art right from its creation some 5 years ago. And it is very generic, so it was good to freshen it up. However Falstad still has it, and may I add, it also has that sweet healing-on basics talent that can be added. Zul’jin has it too.

The new talent stacks +0.1% on landed basic attack to enemy heroes and +1% on takedown, so it has narrowed it down to just heroes and nothing from minions… which is not so cool for a Bruiser that should be getting xp from lanes too!.

Anyways! I think that the sole fact that Artanis got some attention makes it worth! Hopefully, it goes on and makes him stronger and better balanced.

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This is actually what makes it a better talent.

Amateur Opponent will always be better against minions.

SM was a talent to fight heroes … but had to be farmed by Minions.

Do you see the contradiction there? The hero-fighting talent now stacks against heroes. That’s why the new protector is so much better.

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Thank you for the comment phaseshifter!

Regarding the first point

Nope. You didn’t get any damage bonus with Reactive Parry or Amateur opponent with minion kills or hero kills.

Damn it took a lot of time to complete. As for the attack speed buff, yeah, it took a lot of practice and it is mostly useful in duels or where one gets in a fight pit. For me it was more something as a secret weapon, because for a moment it made him quite deadly, all the more if combined with chrono surge which made a +75% (surge) +40% (SM) speed attack. That also made the Shield overload to go back much quicker.

To get the basic speed bonus every 30 seconds. I mean, they are much alike. Perhaps it is one thing in exchange of the other. The new approach does change the way to use Art and reinforces his front-liner role. So perhaps that’s a price to pay.

True that!

:broken_heart: well, it may be. Sonya is simmilar and has two ways of heal through attack. Most bruisers do, take Varian for another example. He has the parry and then the heal on basic attack. And so on. Perhaps Fenix is the only one that doesn’t recover HP, but his shield comes back up so fast it is almost the same. Or DeathWing, just take him for a flight and his armour (Permanent shield/HP) goes back.

One can hope though! Thanks for your comment Phaseshifter!

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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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