Two Features to stabilize Probius

General Discussion
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Its a great character concept, the pick rate doesn’t make sense for them as devs. I know they’ve stated in the past, that they are fine with certain characters not being balanced for HL/ super situational/ one tricks. cool.

But this one doesn’t make sense. Win rates aren’t everything; when you have a counter play character that only a small % of the pop specs in.

I also understand; that while he is fun to play, he is not the most fun to play against, and i suspect that is the real reason.

But i think a lot of that changes when you don’t always see the Triple charge (W) build… and maybe a few gameplay friendly tweaks centered around it.

Easy changes, meant to stabilize.

XP globe/ gazlow scrap mechanic for recovering CD on his pylons.

– “Pylon drops a “crystal” recovering it lowers Pylon cd by 3s.”

Too many heroes can easily DPS them down. The problem isn’t that it defends against his set up/ current threat.
The problem is there is too much time in between him being able to do anything… it’s fair when he’s set up; but his set up time is not respectably recovered after successful pressure.

T1 - Echo pulse - added baseline: deals 25% dmg on return trip. The talent can increase this to 100%.

It scales well with its natural T3, so no additional buff is likely needed.

T3- Rift shock (E) - Adjusted functionality : No longer universally increases dmg dealt by Probius to hit targets. Instead increases dmg dealt to hit targets, by his other by base abilities and basic attack (but by a larger %).

Eg: hit targets take 45% increased dmg from Cannons, Basic attack, and Pulse (Q).

there is potential to create more flex with T1’s and heroic with a little more tuning.

Having a baseline version of echo pulse, also keeps the lost power with T1 (W) strong and more friendly.

That’s all.

Echo pulse baseline
Scrap for pylon
Rift shock doesn’t work for Triple charge blow up dmg, Or Pylon ( R ). but more pylon uptime mid fight.

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I agree, he suffers from the same problem as Gaz’s turrets, they are just too easily destroyable even when placed in difficult to reach locations, and their cooldown is very high.

He still works as a niche pick with a fairly high winrate when picked, but he will never be a common pick.

If there was some way to decrease Pylon cd’s, say by warp rift explosions (or even AA’s), it would increase his damage potential in average games.

Also, it would be nice if like in Starcraft he had more team utility like granting armor to everyone inside his field of influence. He does have a team shielding talent but it’s not that strong.

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And i don’t think he should be a common pick, but i think thier balance of what that means is way off… and in every instance it might not even be worth thier time.

But this is an easy one, and they’ve constantly missed the easy ones for 5 years… while they reinvent themselves with hero design.

the problem with that is the T1 triple charge and its impact on gameplay and pick rate. - even in its current state.

it makes more problems for them. the baseline scrap is the way to go. and it gives you room to deal with already existing problems in the (W) build.

4

You can’t really stabilise Probius with these conditions. All that he had going for himself was the speed at which he is able to clear a minion wave, more than often at such efficiency that a an enemy hero with less wave clear would get overwhelmed if they don’t have someone helping.

Now he doesn’t function at all because of how squishy he is and you can easily deny him from soaking the globes altogether. He can only take a little bit of beating before he is completely out of commission.

Best possible scenario is that the enemy does not allow you to approach the globes, but you manage to zone him out just the same with your turrets and warp rifts by placing them within your minion wave.

At that point why even pick him in the first place? His team fight potential is reliant on heavy snowballs and defensive game play situations. Can’t justify picking him on the one or two maps that he was good on either.

5

The globe issue has become a large problem for a lot of characters, he is far from alone in that…

They’re going to need a General patch to address that. Even if it’s just touches to basic attack and hp pool.

That was not the point of this post. I’m pointing out problems that have existed with probius for a long time; not the newest game wide problems that have been created.

Those are acceptable conditions for a character. They are not so unique, that they make a character too situational. It’s how they operate in those conditions.

snowballing , yes and no. He has to have leverage to set-up, Yes.
But that can come by your own success in smaller brawl situations; if your team enables you to function around the Obj.

He has to have some front line “body zoning”, but again not a wildly out of the box concept.

I do believe baseline Scrap on Pylons would go along way in aiding this.

But there are other principles inherent in his kit, and the point is to exploit those. He will always be able to clear a wave on base kit (W) dmg.

What he defaults too in his current state… and what he can potentially do, or has done on other patches is different.

It’s like xul wombo/counter melee potential vs his current similar situation. Thou he is not as worse off with globe changes… the double solo soak dummies try to run is always highly problematic when the other teams drafts a ganker. And while he functions in the 4… its like you said, Why? when ammo is gone and better wombo/ counter melee assist exists.

6

The XP change has hurt almost all non melee heroes to some degree. I am hoping it just goes away. That aside I don’t consider Probius to be in too bad of place, he’s my highest win rate hero and I would hate to see Blizzard rework him completely. The proposed changes are solid though so I wouldn’t say no to any of them.

Baseline Echo Pulse would be huge. That is my go-to talent at level 1 and it’s not for the damage it does. The main benefit of that talent is that it gives you a second change to detonate your warp rifts. Being able to take one of the other talents at 1 and still have flexible detonations would be a considerable buff.

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