Medivh Help? :D

General Discussion
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Hey guys. I need to learn Medivh and the intricacies of him, and I was wondering if you could help.

Any tips, tricks, builds, advice you have with Medivh? Post here.
Thanks!
(Cain Ephraim don’t bully me)

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I like medivh and I feel I do well with him.
But he is a miserable QM hero.
I end up getting top damage as him in half the games I play, and I’m not one to bring up score chart often since it’s not always a great indicator of who’s doing their job or what’s happening but man…

Also more often than not you’ll get matched against an abathur and that starts to get frustrating.
You can’t play passively as Medivh or count on your team to use portal, you have to be on point with protects and use portals yourself for finishing off anyone with low health.
Get that q quest done early. Poke at every opportunity but don’t overextend unless your cooldowns are ready. You can easily close gaps with raven form then drop q’s freely before shielding yourself and dropping a portal. Try to be in the lane where the opponents are thickest or with the tanks/bruisers who don’t mind letting you stack on them.

For saving teammates, using portals reactively isn’t always the best call because it can end up getting ignored a lot, I’ve seen a lot of people who ignore portals dropped right on top of them in favor of just running away. Pretend it’s like a skillshot and slightly lead you teammate if they ignore portal the first few times.

Medivh is a hero that really benefits from above average game awareness but also demands some good mechanical skill otherwise his strengths will just go to waste. You can’t be afraid to operate on your own or go deep and single out enemy heroes, he’s a very potent duelist if you get his quest done and take Mystic Assault at level 7. You can easily take down a number of heroes who underestimate you and think they can 1v1 just because they’re an assassin and you’re a support.

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when i play with friend, we love hide somewhere and gank the medivh and see the quest is lost :blush:

then i tag some heart at the floor, and we do it all the game, so he never end the quest, this is funny :blush:

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Welp, I’m not Karabars, but still play him.

So, you need to learn how to not die. Really. At least don’t die before you finish your quest. Medivh really needs it, on 16 lvl he will get a lot of value from bonus CDR.

Next - Medivh is good vs burst, ya know. He’s good vs such heroes, what like to catch someone and put him away from his own team (Garrosh, Stitches). Like, first pick Garrosh - be free to pick Medivh. I do it all time and win, because Garrosh becomes useless. He can’t use his combo, because you use your shield on allie and portal - that’s all.

You need to hit your Q all time. Missing it will cause some troubles. I mean - for example on 16 lvl you will have two talents for Q: more dmg or CDR for ults. I prefer to take Stasis Ult with CDR and spam it 24/7 during fight. It’s really powerfull combo.

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You need to complete your quest.

I have been top siege damage and top hero damage with Medivh in a game.
Not dieing and losing the stacks on that quest is difficult, but it is important.
The Q ability is very important and it is actually impressively strong.
If you’re in trouble bubble and portal away. Learn to use your portals and shield to your advantage. Tell team mates to use your portals for power plays and getaways.

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Abuse your raven form like crazy, flying around the map and keeping your team informed of the enemy’s location. This is IMMENSELY helpful as it can help your team set up a gank, react quickly to a play, or come up with a better play on your end.

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Medivh is a really fun hero with a high skill cap, whose power grows with the higher skill and coordination of your team.

Medivh has four main jobs as a support for the team:

  1. Finish masters touch quest ASAP, and supply hero damage when it is safe
  2. Provide vision for your team
  3. Protect your team from the most dangerous enemy abilities (Pyroblast, Garrosh throw, Genji dragonblade, etc.)
  4. “The X Factor” - Things that are unique to Medivh like aggressive portal engages and retreats, boss steals and wombo setups with leyline, playing mind games with the enemy team.

The way to play Medivh effectively is to reflect on the team compositions and consider what abilities and mobility both teams have. This will determine exactly how aggressive or defensive you need to be.

For example if the enemy team consists of Nazeebo, Johanna, Leoric, Jaina, Whitemane - you can be hyper aggressive because there is little to no chance you will be disrupted when entering/exiting your portal and they are all slow heroes with low mobility.

If the enemy team is ETC, Imperius, Alarak, Lucio, Greymane - they you need to be extremely careful because you can easily get knocked away from your portal, stunned, silenced, and killed in an instant.

Regarding your abilities:

Arcane Rift - It is extremely important that you hit a hero almost every time you use it. Fortunately it has a fairly wide area of effect. If you have the option you want to prioritize large, slow targets for completing masters touch (think Azmodan, Blaze, Zarya). Once you finish masters touch you can actually put out a large amount of damage.

Force of Will - You will need to anticipate both what enemy abilities require protection and who the target will be. In general you can protect whoever seems to be the focus, but if there are abilities like Pyroblast, Temporal Loop, or Kelthuzad, you need to be mindful of these as well.

Portal - Similar to Force of Will, knowing the enemies capabilities will largely determine how and when you can portal. The most common cases are against dangerous enemies like a Garrosh throw and Stitches hook (save your ally), and with a dive hero like Diablo or Butcher (portal near them so they can escape if needed). One important thing about portal is that the enemy team does not know where the portal goes unless they see the exit, so try to hide the exit by portaling through walls/terrain or into bushes if you can. Otherwise, a simple retreat portal is often best until you become really skilled with it.

Poly Bomb - Your secondary heroic. Ideal for maps with very tight engagements (Infernal shrines, Cursed Hollow), or against specific dive heroes that must be shut down (Genji, Tracer, Kerrigan). With such a short cooldown feel free to use it liberally.

Ley Line Seal - Your primary heroic. Useful as both an offensive tool (setup wombos like VP) and a defensive tool (disengage like gust). Enables you to steal a camp from the enemy because it does not lock the capture point. There is a slight delay in cast time, so it takes a lot of practice to make sure you get the right angle to hit the enemy team. I try to be either directly behind the enemy team or behind at a ~45% angle when I use it, because it moves slowly and the normal enemy reaction is to run away.

Regarding talent builds, as usual I have two builds I recommend for either coordinated or uncoordinated play.

A: For large maps, uncoordinated and unsupported teams (Offensive)
1-Raven’s Intellect
4-Dust of Appearance
7-Mystic Assault
10-Poly or Ley Line
13-Enduring Will
16-Arcane Charge
20-Heroic upgrade or Guardian of Tirisfal

B: For small maps, coordinated and well supported teams (Defensive)
1-Raven’s Intellect
4-Dust of Appearance
7-Arcane Explosion
10-Poly or Ley Line
13-Circle of Protection
16-Stable Portal
20-Heroic upgrade

There are of course other talent options you can choose, I simply listed what I prefer based on my own play style.

My best advice would be to just get out there and play a bunch of QM games with him. You’ll quickly learn his strengths, weaknesses, and limitations. And don’t feel too bad if you play a great game and still lose - that is inevitable since again his power level is highly dependent on the skill of your teammates. Good luck.

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The simplest advice I can give on Medivh is focus on playing him as a Support - largely forget about his Q.

Learn to time your W’s well and focus on setting up great Portals that your team can utilize. (Hold space while Portaling)

Once you get his Support-side down, then focus on throwing his Q into the mix. Portal-sniping will be easier than ever.

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Avoid Zeratul D:

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I see where you’re coming from but I honestly don’t think it takes that many games to get used to force of will or dropping portals.
Mastering them is a whole 'nother thing, but to do that you’ll need to be very efficient with Medivh and making full use of his kit, damage and all.
Not dealing damage means the enemy can largely ignore you. Playing too passively and just dropping escape portals everywhere isn’t going to help your team win objectives and it’s just bad habits all around. Q quest is essential for making you a threat and it also means you won’t be afraid to die any more - not saying you should ever let yourself die but aiming for a no-death game means you’ll be passing up on any risk/reward plays and that can cost you in the long run.

I think it’d be best to just dive into the deep end and just get used to Medivh as a whole, rather than training either his defensive or aggressive aspects.

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I’m not saying don’t use his Q, I’m simply saying don’t focus on completing the quest, just poke when it is safe to do so.

I disagree with your suggestion of “diving in the deep end.” There are two sides to Medivh and I believe the most important side is his Support role. Of course damage matters, but his Support utility is what makes him such a strong Hero. This is why I suggest focusing on his Support-side first, instead of selfishly setting up Portals and W’ing yourself to Q everything you can. You should learn to Support your team before you mix in aggression - as with any Support/Healer.

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That’s precisely what I suggested. Learning Medivh means balancing out when to setup for chase or when to get ready for counter initiation. Focusing on just his defensive aspects isn’t a good way to train with him, it’s really easy to develop bad habits in this game.
A “selfish” portal can still be a big benefit for your team as long as you’re providing pressure against enemy heroes who are low health or just against their backline in general. I never said every portal you dropped had to be for yourself or that you had to w yourself in order to be aggressive with your q poking but that’s the point of learning. While playing Medivh they’ll gradually start recognizing when and where placing a portal will have the most value and at what distance to keep themselves in order to poke safely without having to blow cooldowns.

A good support knows that you don’t necessarily need to be shielding to provide support, teamfight presence and pressure are just as important as preventing damage or providing escapes.

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But it also depends on the enemies. If its an instant delete comp, you simply just cant fully engage, and missing the damage bonus is going to be far less significant. Sure, it will help if you have it. But if it puts a massive break on you and you cant fully help your team because you want to preserve your quest, that can backfire to your team and you become counter productive.

In draft this means you made a draft mistake (because you should have recognised the danger earlier), but in QM this is very normal to happen.

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I would say try to tackle things one at a time.

  1. try to be a good scout watch minimap check where the ennemies might be try to never be late.
  2. try to land Qs, complete quest and maximise damage.
  3. try to improve your shielding and portal game
  4. try doing every step at the same time.
    Playing medivh is like having to shoulder the tank support and dps role all at once and switching role in a split moment especially in QM fiesta.