Regarding Artanis' Current State

General Discussion
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I would say that about 90% of the still-existing pros agree that Artanis is arguably one of the worst Bruisers in the game since he has no crowd control and is easily shut down, much like how Chen was before his successful rework. When thinking of potential buffs that Artanis can get that would boost his power, I questioned myself many times, “Why does Artanis’ Trait only activate when below 75% health?” Was he ever a top tier hero at any point of his existence? Today, he’s widely regarded as a low tier for a good reason that I pointed out at the beginning of this paragraph. Chen, Leoric, and Thrall are considered contested picks for offlane duties. Artanis is a good duelist, but that’s really the only thing he’s good at if he isn’t contested, but the problem is, he’s outclassed in that niche by Imperius and many other heroes.

I know he has gotten a buff in the most recent patch, but he needs something more.

Ideas
  • Psionic Synergy becomes baseline, but its Armor potency reduced from 30 to 15.
    • Prism now reads as follows…
      • Fire a Phase Prism that deals 66 damage to the first Hero hit and swaps Artanis’ position with theirs. Artanis gains 15 (nerfed from 30) Armor for 3 seconds upon a successful swap. Can be used during Blade Dash.
    • In place of Psionic Synergy, add in a talent called Psionic Invigoration.
      • Hitting an enemy Hero with Phase Prism grants 25% Movement Speed to Artanis for 3 seconds.
  • [NEW LVL 20 TALENT] Lethal Alacrity
    • Increase Blade Dash’s speed by 40% and its range by 20%. Reactivate Blade Dash during flight to stop at your current position.
    • Gives Artanis a desperately needed escape he has been lacking since day one.
  • Plasma Burn now increases the health threshold for Shield Overload to activate from 75% to 90%
    • Or perhaps this could be baseline
6 Likes
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Was going to suggest exactly something like this to make him viable (and give him a reliable chase/escape tool). However it should happen before the end game, maybe at lv 7-13.

5 Likes
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I want to be careful with a talent like this because since Artanis has no innate escape, giving him a guaranteed escape that’s only accessible through a talent could really damage his talent diversity, making that talent a must pick until it either gets implemented baseline or it gets severely nerfed (which I believe is not the solution). I’m keeping that talent idea at Level 20 for now.

Implementing Psionic Synergy into his baseline kit can really help Artanis survive risky godswaps and help make E build a little more appealing.

1 Like
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Sad thing is, the dev’s “place” for him is basically being ghetto stitches, with poor man’s hooks using his dash.

1 Like
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50.18% winrate, looks fine to me. Bruisers aren’t supposed to be CC heavy anyway, that’s for Tanks.

And if the pros don’t pick him, well, that’s not our problem.

4 Likes
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The reason Artanis isn’t drafted at higher levels isn’t so much his survivability, but the fact that he is relatively one-dimensional, which is something your suggestions do not address. He brings almost no CC to the table, and he is easily kited and locked down. Giving him an escape, even late game, goes against the fantasy of an all in warrior, and makes him a lot less effective over all.

If I were to adjust his talents to make him more appealing to the competitive scene, here is what I would change:

Level 1 - Reactive Parry. Artanis gains 50 block for 1 second after activating Twin Blades that persists as long as Twin Blades is active.

This fixes the problem he has against ranged AA heroes that he has a hard time getting into melee range against, such as Raynor, Tychus, or Hammer. As long as W is active (he hasn’t hit anything yet), he has 50 block. He does need to hit things to do damage and manage his trait, so he won’t have incentive to just walk around with W up all the time, which was the issue when Cho had Unstoppable while channeling Q. He could just wander around freely while Gall murdered people.

Level 4) Psionic Synergy. Added functionality, hitting heroes with Phase Prism now slows the target by 35% for 4 seconds.

Baking in Warp Sickness at 4 gives him the extra CC he is currently missing, and makes the talent much more appealing compared to the trait talents. The armor can stay as it is.

Level 7) Warp Sickness. Removed and merged into Psionic Synergy at level 4.

Level 13) Graviton Vortex. Added functionality, successfully hitting an enemy hero with Phase Prism grants Artanis Unstoppable for 1 second.

This would actually address Artanis’ biggest issue at the moment, which is that he is all in, and when in, is pretty easy to shut down. A single stun or root can often mean death. Giving him a little protection when he first goes in gives him the ability to get his trait management rolling, and he can choose to use the time to position himself a little better. He can still be blinded or damaged, but he now has a window in which to make his stand. The CDR will make it such that he has incentive to stay in the fight, and since the self-cleanse relies on Phase Prism, it will reward skilled play rather than be too simple. It will also buff a wildly underpicked talent.

12 Likes
7

Lot of gms and ex pros actually said that he’s one of the worst hero in the game. Leonblack say he’s literally useless. Fan say after every buffs and patches changes that Artanis is ‘‘still Artanis’’ (more nice way to say not too good). Leonblack said ‘‘bad, almost decent’’ one day too.

I think the hero is fun and I actually almost made him to GM once but I do play him all the time and I actually do better with Thrall even if I play him way less.

The truth in my maybe pessimist opinion, is that Artanis is bad to okay in almost everything. Weak waveclear for a solo (and need specific talents), okay damage, okay toughness, okay CC (kinda a stiches hook that put you into troubles). His PVE single target is fine, but I noticed that some heroes like greymane or Thrall clear camps just as fast if not faster.

Swaps are pretty hard to land vs experienced players. It was before and it’s even harder with the new speed. I noticed that my team don’t alway get the kill too even with a nice swap, because either they don’t have CC, don’t have their CC ready or are just not good enough. Swap is a CC that is not easy to land and that put you in some dangerous position.

I think he was badly designed from the start, no charge baseline, no E while Q. I think blizzard wanted to do a very immobile hero bruiser but with high dmg. After all, Zealots in Starcraft were kinda slow but were doing high dmg (before the upgrades, anyway)

Blizzard definition:

Artanis is a tough Bruiser that deals high damage if the enemy team is unable to shut him down.

But I don’t think he’s very more tough than any other bruisers or deal especially more dmg.

I think his trait is good in long fight with substain dmg, but there are so many burst in this game. Most of the time his shield get deleted instantly.

He’s indeed a pretty scary duelist though. But it’s a team game, so :slight_smile:

He’s fun to play though. I like him a lot. I miss when he had triple strike (no +1 sec) and titan killer (7.5%) and nexus blade (+20% dmg overall) I think he was a pretty decent tanks busters< and could scare warriors away from charging into your backlines.

2 Likes
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Care to explain the following?

  1. Sonya
  2. Chen
  3. Imperius
  4. Dehaka
  5. Leoric
  6. Yrel
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Not really, because I have no idea what that’s supposed to be. Is it supposed to be a ranking of some sort, and if so, of what? Winrates? Popularity? Attractiveness? Cooking skill?

3 Likes
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What do they have in common you ask? Hard CC.

Sonya has Q and Leap
Chen has Keg Toss and both Heroics
Imperius has Q, W (partially), and Might of the Angiris
Dehaka has Q and Isolation
Leoric has Lvl 20 Entomb (often regarded as the best ability in the entire game at that point in time in a match)

If Artanis doesn’t have cc, then he needs something valuable to warrant him a better pick than these Bruisers. More survivability, less being able to be kited for days, and more bullying.

1 Like
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This belief is why people suck with him.
The “god swap” isn’t the only way to use it, and should in fact be the rarest swap you attempt.
Instead of hoping you somehow swap a squishy into your team, use it to peel divers off your team or dash swap to support an ally who is already fighting.

It’s not so much the lack of CC that is the problem.
It’s how much he is ruined by CC.
Blade Dash puts him in harms way.
Blade Dash is a chunk of his survival tool belt, especially against ranged opponents or blinds or roots.
Just make him unstoppable while Blade Dashing. It’s not like it can be used like an escape like Muradin’s jump or Anub’Arak’s burrow, so it doesn’t make him unkillable or anything.

If laning against Raynor for example, his ability to do anything (damage minions, hurt Raynor, drop the cooldown of his shields without taking massive damage) depends a lot on Blade Dash.
But if Raynor drops Penetrating Round right as you start it, it goes on cooldown and you hit nothing.
If you’re fighting Malfurion at all it’s practically a dead ability.

2 Likes
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I like the idea but the only problem would be that Q build would be the only one build to go

3 Likes
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Really cool idea!

Fixing -in theory- core weaknesses with single talents usually end up with overpicked talents (and thus with a less healthy talent tree).

Don’t make me laugh.

Sonya has Leap, yes, but hard CC locked behind a Heroic is not really hard CC and tho her Q is a stun, it’s extremely low duration, but fine, Sonya has hard CC.

Chen doesn’t. Keg Toss as hard CC?..

Leo has hard CC because if he picks a certain Heroic he can have a silence cage at lvl 20?!..

Artanis is a fine Hero. The reason why they [pros] don’t play him too much is because against competitive opponents swaps are usually just a trade which lead to little to nothing.
But he’s not a bad Hero and buffing/changing someone just because he’s the “worst” in his role is dumb because there’s always be a “worst”.

And btw the worst Bruiser is D.va (sidenote: I know, I know, even she can be viable, true, I didn’t say she can’t be, just that if we rank them, someone will end up in the bottom and that’s her).

Also… isn’t Sonya “out of meta” right now, more like Artanis who can get camps and Immortals quick so good on BoE and Hanamura?

5 Likes
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He is somewhat efficacious and used in lower leagues.
This is more than other heroes get.

1 Like
15

The Titan Killer nerfs were so unthoughtful. A hero like him with zero escapes and fully committed to every fight he chooses, needs all the boosts and help he can get. With the 2,5% Titan Killer he took down health pools fast.

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I was trying to design it such that it wouldn’t be so overpowered, it would be a must pick, and it would still compete with his single target DPS for his strongest maps. It would make him more reliable in a team fight, so while I could see it as a “must-pick” on certain maps and comps, and would make him more viable in the top tiers, there would still be reasons to pick other talents in other situations. On a map like Braxis, you would still most likely go with either Triple Strike or Phase Bulwark.

17

honestly, D.Va, despite her bruiser label, functions more as a specialist addition to her team, since she revolves around defensive matrix for support and her nuke. She doesn’t fill in the general function that most bruisers are expected to fill, and is honestly super squishy. (no sustain, can’t take camps, not really tanky outside of using nuke to replace her mech and can’t solo lane… just lacks most of the check marks for what a bruiser does)

1 Like
18

Want to fix Artanis? Easy.

#1. Give Blade Dash an additional charge, adjust talents as needed.

#2. Move Phase Bulwark where it interferes with less interesting talents.

#3. On Seasoned Marksman, make the attack speed active baseline.

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I remember seeing a rework thread once where the creator made a pretty interesting change where seasoned marksman was changed so instead of gaining the ability to activate it to increase attack speed on completion, you instead got the level 20 skill, zealot charge for completing it.

20

Just bring back release Artanis and then we can talk.

He was immortal monster…

1 Like