Ye he is only played by like 0.5% of the playerbase and only 0.1% of those master him.
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and thats part of the reason y he needs a rework. even though if played right, can do amazing things. y should a hero that was designed and made to be played only be played by a small amount of ppl. nova has the same issue yet not as bad. its not to deskill probe, just make him more usable by more players.
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He’s a specialist and has retained that identity even after the removal of the category.
Hes a siege machine which is why he sucks at anything else unless you know how to usr him for zoning.
Hes in need of a rework its been a long time now with many others. However, theyre more likely to rework Malfurion and Raynor. It’s a hobby of theirs. The rule states that Raynor and/malfurion need to be reworked first before they cam rework any other hero. As we speak, Blizzard is probablu already working on Raynors and Malfurions rework and will release them soon so they can focus on them again afterwards. And along the way they will nerf Chen.
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I’m for sure not the best Probius player, but if you spent a couple of hours to play him, you can get some neat matches.
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That sounds exactly like a deskill .
If more players wants to use Probius , its on them to get good.
Others have managed it and are successfull with it.
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Whenever I play against Probius on TotSQ, and see enemy team doing boss and my team recklessly diving into boss area…
I know it’s a gg for the enemy.
Like really, he’s nowhere close to being real DPS but in his niche, he’s completely unrivalred.
Pretty much this. Perhaps cut the speed boost by half if he gets damaged, or he will be too hard to catch.
But overally he’s the perfect example of niche character, that’s actually best at his niche.
Even with rework, I think his current playstyle should remain an option. He should be versatile character who can be played as master zoner, but I’d like to see him having a support build.
It would be nice to have armor/mana regen options for allies who remain in his AoE as talents. Also stuff like buffing a cata into mini version of Alterac objective, or rebuilding a tower [not keep] would add a lot tactical options to this character. He’s all about being creative with his kit, so let’s just extend this.
Another part of the puzzle is that Probius was initially designed as a “Specialist”, back when that was a role.
He’s one of the Heroes that didn’t transition cleanly to the Assassin role. In a way, he’s a lot like Murky, in that they are very capable in the right hands, but require that the person play them differently.
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Probius does need some QoL changes.
For example; his pylons need to be more durable. I’d give them 20-40 armor baseline.
Other than that, cannons need a buff - they’re not even close to viable currently.
Solve those two issues and Probius will be in a decent place. Also, Null Gates is awesome but Pylon Overcharge imo is a big, stinking pile of meh. Takes too much fragile setup to go off. Probius’s kit should have built in CDR 9cooldown reduction) for it given how fragile and set up extensive the ulti is.
here ,
probius doesnt need buffs .
https://imgur.com/a/B4lHyrF
edit : i also ended up being MVP and we won the game. 
and another one !
https://imgur.com/a/q7dET99
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It sounds nothing like a deskill.
The issue is that players don’t want to play him. He’s just about the least popular hero in the game. iway was talking about making him more attractive to play, which doesn’t at all require deskilling.
I don’t think it would be anymore than it is with hammer or dva jetting away. Theirs are not interrupted by damage even though they are much more durable. They are still subject to cc, as would probius.
Right now he’s too fragile, particularly against divers. I’d call him a glass cannon, but he’s really more of a glass pea shooter.
I vote yes on a rework, since his kit is really only good for laning, not for being an assassin.
To be fair, a second talent tree pick that makes him easier (but is worse then his high skill pick) would be beneficial to the character in letting people have a basic idea of how he plays while still having some limited success.
Leave Probius alone. He doesn’t need to be another ez mode hero like Valla or Li-Ming.
I apologize for the bluntness, but the truth is none of the points brought up in this post - both by the author and those agreeing about the topic - are accurate. All said points are ones I’ve repeatedly seen brought up by players not even remotely attuned enough to playing Probius as to critic his play style.
I have played nearly 3000 games with Probius, and I can tell you that its’ potential and viability are grotesquely underestimated. Even the more popular minor buffs that I see people advocating, such as the uninterruptable Z, can heavily break aspects of how his strengths and weaknesses work.
There is no easy way to play or understand how to play Probius. His power and effectiveness are very well tuned to a variety of circumstances, but it requires lots of knowledge and good judgement to execute. People are desperate to have Blizzard altar it so as to make it effective even in a novices’ hands, but to make that assertion under the pretense that Probius is a completely ineffective character under all circumstances is unequivocally false.
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Probius just needs some
Minor tweaks. Not a rework to streamline him to become the next Raynor.
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What’s his best talent build in your experience?
Zagara wasn’t good. She wasn’t awful either, but she wasn’t “good”. Even if her winrate seems okay her kit was severely outdated and her niche as a pusher has been lost and overshadowed by more versatile but equally siege-capable heroes like Azmo and Syl. She needed some changes. Granted the changes they made to her was awful imo as it didn’t address any of her fundamental flaws; her “drop it and leave it” playstyle which makes buffing any of her numbers incredibly broken. I can rant about this again but this topic is about Probius so I digress.
While I’d be fine with a Probius rework, I think he simply needs some minor retalent adjustments to bring his niche back. I mean he’s supposed to be very good at zoning but Junkrat, Gazlowe, and Chromie do that better with less effort and they have reliable contributions within teams. One thing that might make him more viable is to reduce his damage output but reduce the time for him to set up. This could make him to be a more reliable zoner and damage dealer.
Side note, I saw a really interesting Probius rework concept in heroesfire that might be the way to go. Though that one has very big changes.
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I could go into an extremely long and detailed post on a number of different talent builds that I use for Probius; however, to list each build is to go into a very deep conversation as to how and why I use each spec, and I really don’t have the time or inclination to do that.
I will list the build that I find myself using the most often these days in quickmatch though. This build is what I consider the best ‘balanced’ build for the character, effective in the largest array of enemy character comps.
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Echo Pulse - This talent is the most diverse and complicated talent in Probius’s entire talent tree, and to fully explain why would once again take more typing than I wish to do. In my experience with Probius, I didn’t truly get this talent, until I’d played around ~800 games of Probius. Even then, I was still discovering small nuances and uses for it well into my ~2000 games played. The crux of understanding why this talent is good is first understand that the base Q ability Disruption Pulse is a very good ability by its own merits, without taking Warp Rift explosions into consideration. It’s minuscule cooldown and fairly long range make it an ideal poking tool that can be used in laning to quickly wear down opponents who don’t respect it, especially opponents that have no recovery healing abilities. Giving it the ability to come back opens up a slew of new options for its use, the best of which is the ability to have automatic delayed explosions for Warp rifts. You now have the options to Q and W in quick succession then walk away, no longer giving enemies the obvious broadcast that you will be staying close to your rift to detonate. Ultimately though, this talent’s full potential is not immediately reachable. It takes lots of practice.
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Photon Barrier - There are situations that warrant taking either of the other 2 talents, but I most often take the 40% spell armor. It makes Probius far more tankier of a character, and combats one of his greatest weaknesses.
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Cannon Defense - This talent tier I used to take Rift Shock the most, but ever since they buffed Cannon Defense many months ago, this is now by and large what I consider the most effective talent of this tier. I love using this in conjunction with Echo Pulse, especially when the enemy team has lots of meaty tanks that are walking around the front lines. It allows you to near infinitely keep a cannon between you and the enemy team, even if they are focusing your cannons down. I like Particle Accelerator, but due to an issue with Disruption Pulse (detailed in this post I made many months ago Probius Disruption Pulse Bug) I rarely pick it. If they fixed this issue, I would be picking Particle Accelerator much more often.
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Either ult can be taken. It depends on too many factors to make a clear decision. I can’t say there is a clear preference in any given spec, though obviously Null Gate isn’t going to serve uninitiated Probius players nearly as well.
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Shield Battery - I like Power Overwhelming a fair deal, but in general I find Shield Battery the superior choice. Aggressive Matrix is one of the few talents in Probius’s tree that I believe needs tweaking. It is a great talent, but I think it needs to be tweaked in a way that allows it to at least give Probius itself a minor benefit.
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Interference - Before they combined the two old talents (one that did knockback and the other that did -35% spellpower) into a single combined talent, I felt like this talent tier was a fairly balanced choice. I picked any of the old 4 talents in a fairly equal spread. With the combination of the two into one, I now feel Interference far overshadows Quantum Entanglement and Gravity Well. I don’t think the new Interference is overpowered, but I think the other two don’t quite compare a large majority of the time.
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I rarely ever pick Construct Additional Pylons. One of the things about Probius that may seem counter intuitive is you should nearly always be going somewhere on the map, or actively fighting in the spot you’re at. You should never be idling in a spot long enough to stack three pylons uncontested. I’m not saying it shouldn’t ever happen, but generally if you find yourself doing that often, you’re losing out a lot of efficiency and effectiveness with Probius. That said, given the build I’m listing, it’s an even toss up between Probius Loop and Null Gate permanence. I think Shoot 'Em Up is a solid talent, but I usually only ever give it consideration when going Warp Rift spec.
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Thanks for the write up. Would love to hear more on your thoughts on probius if you were ever to have time.
I wish I could take both the Q talents and the cannon talents as i really like them both.
Would like to know more on Null Gate as I quite dislike that heroic and think it should be changed as we already have Tass and Mei as wall building heroes
Nullgate is my go to. It’s clunky at times, but I prefer it just because of its flexibility to secure kills, flee, and adding another tool in his already great arsenal for zone control and directing the flow of battle.
I mean I’m not against a rework, but it all comes down to execution. And Blizzard’s track record with some of my favorite heroes has just been depressing. I don’t want to see another Gazlowe.
The are two issues with Probius:
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The game has changed around him. Having a sustained hero that never runs out of mana and has incredible wave clear mattered more in a version of the game where not every hero had AOE, self sustain options, slower movement speed, and mana tension was higher. He still has a place, but his strengths, simply aren’t as pronounced.
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His skill floor is considerably higher, but not exactly hard either. People just don’t want to put in the effort to learn how to play him. So they automatically somehow think he’s bad and make stupid comments in this thread like he can only siege, or that he needs uninterruptible Z, or that his pylons are easy to kill, or his set up takes too long. All of which are false. So he has a PR problem.
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