yes, but the benefit is so tiny.
“minimal risk” is higher than the “minuscule reward”.
Not really, for example body soaking where both teams are at lvl 9 and attempting to win the same objective is a massive benefit.
In addition you’re also missing the aspect that the enemy team wants to catch you out of base, which means that, as an attentive Abathur, you may actually peel an enemy away from an important objective.
if you’re not at least slightly ahead in exp playing with abathur and a half-decent team you’re doing it wrong.
I would also note that hat soaking in this situation will make you hit level 10 far faster than body soaking, and not risk the enemy peeling off 1 person to kill you, getting the enemy team a chance to hit level 10.
if they ever take out exp globes, I will change my stance on body-soaking back to it being valuable. But exp globes have made body soaking pretty much worthless in that the downside is almost always far worse than the upside.
To the point where unless you’re an abathur main/play abathur a lot, just not bodysoaking is the right choice.
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You’re suggesting that under all circumstances you’re going to be ahead? This is being a bit unrealistic and not noticing the nuance in key moments.
For example you stated that your allies might need Abathur’s hat.
To top it off Abathur can double soak with hat instead of single soak, cutting off even 15 seconds to get to level 10 can make all the difference.
This is my experience over ~500 Abathur games, about 100 of those with exp globes.
With exp globes, there isn’t a reasonable reason to body-soak for “nuance in key moments”.
You should always be ahead in exp. Which eliminates almost all “who hits 10/13/16/etc first” scenarios.
after my first ~10 games, where I was getting used to globes, I’ve found that the only games i’ve not been ahead in exp (slightly or massively) have been my team getting stomped from early game.
abathur can easily ~2.5x lane soak currently, without bodysoak.
With proper micro you can soak all 3 lanes without bodysoaking currently.
Given the limited range on regen globes, and your passive locust push, the amount of micro required to ensure you’re soaking the lane is the same or higher than the amount of exp you’ll miss by hatting allied heroes in my experience.
True, though the pushing locust still helps a tiny bit in making the wave move forward.
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Under what circumstances? I find myself ahead of experienced 500ish
game Abathurs all the time in experience.
This is the point that’s most important.
It’s only a small amount. Hence the risk is small, but the benefit is huge because you’re timing it properly. To me your posts just seem to underlay a lack of nuanced understanding on the subject.
In fact you’re giving me very generalist answers to a very nuanced position.
Your answers are only undercutting your argument.
Arsenal Synergy is kind of like the Locked & Loaded for Tracer. It introduces a rythm minigame, albeit one even more restrictive. Only if you hit your timing perfectly the damage increase is worthwhile on the long run. What happens if you don’t? Your attack will be on painful seconds of extra cooldown which reduces your DPS considerably and could easily cost your life.
On paper Arsenal Synergy provides you with:
(83x3+83x1.25x2.5)x1.04^20 /3 ~ 371.3dps at level 20
For comparison your untalented Repeater Cannon hits for 333dps, so only 11.5% extra damage.
This is a bit unimpressive and you’re right. If you time it right your phase bomb hits as fast as a Repeater blast so rather than 3 seconds we talk about 2. This is when Weapon Synergy becomes a seeming juggernaut dealing 67% more dps than baseline. This is better than Mobile Offense’s 35% or a fully quested Advanced Targeting (it gives flat damage so it scales worse with time, still provides a good 33% at level 20). So if you are godly with timing and has the ping of heavens you can get some nasty early game advantage but miss even one switch and your DPS drops to a mere 11% boost.
Yet the talent couldn’t be any more ironically named. Weapon Synergy does NOT synergizes with other talents much, at all. First off, Warp Warfare and other attack speed boosts only result in missed damage, exaggerating this issue. Even damage bonuses don’t stack well. It does raise your Reaper hits quite a bit yet the buffed Phase Bomb only gets from 250% to 285-290% damage. You’ll barely feel it, I guarantee you. Of course Weapon Synergy also doesn’t work well with Fenix’ percentage damage talent. It’s quite awful in general.
The big winner of all this is shockingly the one you’d think scales the worst. Target Acquired offers a flat damage bonus which is to my knowledge does get increased by damage multipliers. So the 60 damage is 75 for phase bomb and the 35-40% damage bonuses also apply. Furthermore your attack speed benefits translate perfectly. Mobile Offense needs you to move between each attack so when your attack speed approaches Tychus (3.85 at level 20 IIRC) you’ll not be moving around for every attack and miss the damage bonus. Meanwhile your flat bonus damage doesn’t drop.
So yeah, if you look at the numbers, the plasma build’s level 1 talent is the best for late game.
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Not to mention as shown in the vid above, Mobile Offense doesn’t work. It doesn’t apply the bonus damage correctly even if you stutter step between each attack.
Making Target Acquired more and more the only rational choice on that tier.
(picking Arsenal Synergy - if you don’t force yourself to use 3 autos between each Phase Bomb, you have no level 1 talent at all, and in some late game situations getting off even a few Repeater autos can be very risky)
This is if you are assuming the enemy hero is the only enemy around. One important thing you neglected here, if you are really to compare this combo vs straight repeater damage, is that the bomb splashes. If it hits more than one target, the gain in damage goes up significantly vs the single-target repeater. Each additional target that gets hit by the bomb increases the damage/second boost by about 56.8 percent points. So, if the bomb hits just two targets instead of one, the damage increase goes from 11.36% to 68.16%, and with more targets it goes up a lot more. Granted, the splash damage is not on the original target, but it is still more damage that you are doing overall, which could help clear a minion wave, monsters, or hit other heroes in the area. This is even more so with the larger splash area that the talent provides. Just some things to consider in judging this talent.
Just tested this in try mode and this is incorrect. The 60 dmg bonus is the same for bomb as well, not 75.
I think the problem people are having is trying to apply it to the repeater cannon. You really can’t expect to consistently move between each shot without slowing the fire rate, especially when the fire rate is boosted. The real use, to me, of mobile offense would be to boost the phase bomb, which is easy to do. But, of course, it is a boost only to hero damage, which lessens its desirability.
Maybe they should make it so the damage boost lasts for a bit, like how Cassia’s move armor lasts for about 0.5 seconds after she stops moving. With that you wouldn’t need to move as often, as moving once could possibly boost more than one shot, rather than having to move for every single shot.
Or, in a fantasy world, make him able to keep attacking while moving like Tracer and Dva. Talk about OP! 
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This thread makes me think about this one:
https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/fe4n68/noob_trap_talents_in_hots_responding_to_az/
It’s the exact subject, if you want to learn more about it.
I like your suggestions overall, a small time buff to make Mobile Defense stay for a second after stopping may help. Kind of like a reverse Oracle which has the effects persist even after began to move as Tass.
As for the other, yes. It’d be an immense buff and quality of life change if move&shoot would be implemented to certain heroes. I figure Tychus would become a literal “Fat Tracer” and it could also well fit Fenix, ofc. Then again we know this would never happen because that’s what makes those heroes “unique”.
As for the other, yes. It’d be an immense buff and quality of life change if move&shoot would be implemented to certain heroes
If you want a light version of move & shoot, always take Target Acquired on lv4. Once you laser someone you don’t even have to click on the enemy, Fenix will automatically chase & shoot them (with Repeater) and they can’t escape since they are applied a slow + you get a stacking 40% speed boost.
Of course, they could escape it by moving inside your laser circle but almost nobody ever does that.