I agree with you so much on this one, a lot of the decisions they made seem to be really rash and they don’t make sense.
Due to the damage nerfs, of course you’d have to pick Sand Blast Quest or Dragon’s Breath Quest at level 1, Timewalker doesn’t seem like it should be taken instead of damage.
Andorhal Anomaly doesn’t make sense, what’s the point of laying out 3 traps if they all just detonate simultaneously?! There should be a way to individually detonate them. One suggestion I have is reducing the amount from 3 to 2, but assigning the key 1 for the first trap and key 2 for the second, D should always detonate the last one she created so that it still works as the player is used to.
The other 2 trap talents are ok at a glance, but the armor is the only one that makes sense after some playthroughs, the speed seems counter intuitive, since if you want to use it as an escape, you’d rather not be stuck for 2 seconds in one place. It makes it that you’d only use it for set up, but wouldn’t -20 armor be better since Chromie players can already time their shots?
Dragon’s Breath really took a dive this rework, they’ve made it so that getting hit by 2 still deals less damage than original DB, and that hitting 3 deals slightly above it, but the chances of that happening are slim, a root guarantees only 2 landing, the enemy literally has to walk in the direction of the breaths for all to hit. Which brings us to Mobius Loop, 1.5s per hero hit, per instance, highly unlikely to get maximum value because DB was more of a single target burst to begin with. My suggestion is they revert DB back to a single hit, slightly less damage is still better than 3 staggered hits, because at least when it hits, it hits hard.
SLOWING SANDS WAS SO TERRIBLY TUNED, instead of it being a zone of nope, it now slows enemies gradually when they enter the field, which removes a lot of the threat it had before. Not to mention, they heavily nerfed Slowing Sands, but then also buffed Temporal Loop (even though we know they want that 50-50 split when it comes to heroics) so of course people are going to pick Temporal so then they’ll have to either nerf Temporal or buff Slowing Sands, or do both, going back to our initial predicament. See what I mean by not making sense. I suggest just reverting Slowing Sands, no harm done for sure, or else, make the starting slow like 30-40% scaling up to 60-70%. I like the Temporal change tho.
The same can be said for her 13 talents, Gnome Speed is better because it has the least amount of limitations as to how to trigger it (all you have to do is cast Sand Blast) but gives a lot of value with movespeed, health and mana. Here and There would have contended with that amount of value if it didn’t have a range limit but because it does, why would you ever pick it over Gnome Speed? Time Out is also not as viable because it is single use on a very long cooldown, and given the fact you can self stasis with Time Trap. Just like the Heroics, you give a really good talent, then nerf the other two existing one, then come out next patch with a statement saying this talent is picked more than the others so you’re making adjustments, when in fact, just looking at it, you can already gauge the value difference.
16 talents were uninspired, they didn’t address the new Dragon’s Breath which would have been better IMO, and they didn’t adjust the talents, so you’d just pick the talent that gave you the most value, Chromie has less damage now, so of course you’d get Spell Power given the new clone passive now enables it more.
20 talents are where things get a bit interesting though, because after all those Chromie games, I find it hard to actually pick between CDR or Piercing Sands, which is a good thing, meaning the talents all have comparable value, it’s just a matter of, which one allows you to better adapt to your current match. I hate Slowing Sands’ upgrade but Temporal’s is nice.
I like the changes to Sand Blast and how it integrates with Basic Attacks as well as the Time Traps but the Dragon’s Breath change is really bad, otherwise, the rest I can live with (takes some getting used to though). Maybe one change to Sand Blast could be instead of colliding with minions, it passes through them, dealing 25% of the damage, only getting stopped by Mercs, Monsters, Structures or Heroes dealing the full damage. It would still make Piercing Sands a very enticing option at 20, but the difference wouldn’t be as much of a jump.
Another thing I’m realizing is Chromie becomes sort of like Probius where she has to set up her clones first to deal her maximum amount of damage output, which I don’t like, she always seemed to me more of an opportunistic hero, where if she catches someone off guard, she reaps amazing value for the team. Along the lines of “At the right place, at the right time,” which fits her lore and quirky character, as opposed to the “Having to set up, calm and collected play style” this rework brought in.