When it really boils down to it, they did literally change everything about him, however at the same time, they kinda had to. The only assassins with any sort of shield are ones gained from damage, tass has that at 4 now. They kept his wall, they kept his archon, they kept the slow, chaining beams so you can get it sooner, sure they removed his stasis but tbh can’t have an assassin with that much zoning potential and be safe too; it would be too frustrating otherwise.
Let’s also not forget that this can be changed, this is not the final iteration of tassadar (as I’m sure we’re all aware) and can be changed to what he needs to be in patches. Personally I feel like he stands still far too much for how much range he’s actually given. Stand still to cast his main damage spell, stand still to auto, stand still to use his oracle, stand still to cast blackhole. There are only so many two handed actions a mage should have, at some point he just becomes too clunky. He’s kind of like orphea except orphea was rewarded with burst and healing AND mobility when she was played right, tass is much more teamfight oriented and with that it’s far more dangerous for how squishy he is. He has talents to alleviate that and sure maybe his shock laser should still be clunky because its a massive chunk spell, but this seems like a case of square hole; round peg.
The talents themselves seem clunky and are supposedly help reduce the clunky as you go on, movement on Q hit, standing still for oracle giving spell armor, autos having further range or chaining, slowing heroes so they stay in your spells, but the real question here is “will that be enough to really make tassadar an assassin?” some say yes, me personally feel as if he should retain some parts of his old self for nostalgia factor or giving him a layer of depth with his kit. If he’s really a utility based mage, what makes him better than say a jaina? Probably the wall, but thats on a 21 second cooldown, is that worth it playing a less bursty mage who has a wall? It seems like the only time you ever want walls is when you’re comboing with another character that uses walls, namely pretty much diablo, even then a stun at midrange every 21 seconds is not great, a muradin can open up with a better stun or even a blaze, diablos more about the chunk and raw tankiness but it seems like you can just solve that by playing a jaina and some other stun tank.
The rework as a whole does not seem fluid enough IMO. I feel like if you’re going to make him a utility assassin, similar to probius, maiev, junk or syl, someone who’s entire existance is not based on killing but can provide other means of winning, then I believe tass might either need to have a more hybridized kit.
This isn’t saying he should have a shield that comes off cooldown and can heal people if they hit stuff because frankly we should steer away from that. But like Zarya or fenix, it’s not wrong to have a shield, it is however wrong to have a shield and at an extremely low cooldown with a lot of utility and damage to boot. Maybe he could have a shield that he could give to allies, but as a larger cooldown, maybe he could have a sort of “damage you support you” sort of mantra, something akin to Senna from LoL where she would shoot beams and give allies shields but damage enemies. Maybe shockray could enable by dealing a lower amount of damage but allies hit have a small shield, maybe psistorm could give buffs to allies to make him a support based assassin.
But needless to say, we do have quite a few mages that outshine whatever tass is going to do, imo. It would make more sense to have him simply select what he wants to do more in the composition without giving him as much raw support power as before but not as much damage as someone like Orphea.
But that’s just my opinion on him.
He chunks for a ton not gonna lie. Would not mind playing him in live.