Hello Everyone!
I’m a main Artanis Player (Level 190, playing him for the past 4 years) and I think it is very nice that he has had some rework after almost a year. The leader of all protoss should not be so easily forgotten!
I’d like to share my opinion on the pros and cons of the rework, then end with some overall conclusions.
Hopefully there are some Art players out there that can share their point of view, and in the best of cases perhaps this gets enough views to draw the attention of devs to this post!
May 6th, 2020 Patch Pros :
The patch reworks emphasize a focus on Heroes, since the changes in Lvl 1 talents activate with enemy hero attacks.
Protector of Auir talent:
It does allow for one to become increasingly strong. I have been able to get him up to 50% extra damage in basic attacks in late game which becomes really painful to enemy heroes. It does imply a lot of risk since it only stacks up with basic attacks. Given that Artanis does not have escape means nor CC beyond Supression Pulse, he’s very prone to be rooted while trying to follow this quest. It is a risk, but it is part of the fun though.
Reactive Parry:
It was modified to be activated upon unleashing twin blades on a enemy hero. It has augmented the number of stacks up which is great, but it is tricky in a situation with many minions around, since one can mis-click a minion instead of a hero and then… welp, no armour and easy target. However, I see it more as part of the challenge.
Chrono Surge:
Merging the two Prism abilities in level 7 talents was a nice addition. However, the prism speed attack downgrade from 75% to 40% does affect a lot the late game builds. Though, it is nice to have the slow-down quality to it, which I believe was not as attractive separatedly.
Downsides of the Patch:
- The deletion of the marsksman quest was a big hit to Artanis. I understand from the note patches that it was a talent rarely selected. I’ve played some 1500 games with Artanis and I’ve come across several players who criticize me selecting that talent (it was my favorite pick) over amateur opponent or reactive parry.
The thing is, that completing that quest really made Artanis a slicing machine! And it made Art a lane cleaner by default. I was often the best Xp contributor while completing the quest (+0.1 basic attack per minion killed, +0.5 per takedown. When reaching +40 basic attack, a new trait of +40% speed attack for 3 seconds was added, with cooldown of 30 seconds).
When selecting the Chrono Surge of +75% speed attack, the >+40 basic attacks of the quest, +40% speed attack whew! Artanis could become a slicing machine for a few seconds. Combined with the Graviton Vortex that made Prism reusable within a few seconds again, made Artanis an awesome duelist.
And just as an extra comment, whenever some buff like Morales’ Stim Drone was applied to him he could become deadlier than the Dragon Knight!
With the following build, I had no match 1v1 by level 20 with the following build:
Lvl 1: Seasoned Marsksman
Lvl 4: Shield (either is great)
Lvl 7: Chrono Surge
Lvl 10: Purifier Beam (Extra awesome stress in duels).
Lvl 13: Graviton Vortex.
Lvl 16: Blades of a Templar.
Lvl 20: Plasma Burn.
Only Butcher and Varian (with their quests completed) were the ones that could not be killed 1v1, mainly due to the stun/silencing and parry, respectively.
Conclusion:
While the new talent Protector of Auir does allow for a huge amount of damage to be added, it has a heavy impact on damage burst that was offered by the Seasoned Marskman quest.
I would very much like to see the basic attack speed to come back. Perhaps upon attaining 25% extra damage a new ability to temporarily increase the attack speed. Or a gradual speed attack alongside the attack damage increase in Protector of Aiur would be awesome.
Since I am sharing my wishlist, I want to say and ask our nice Developers that Artanis is the only Bruiser that has no permanent healing on his own. This puts him in great disadvantage against almost every other tank/bruiser.
I think it would be so nice if he could have healing added to basic attacks, or to make it more personalized to his protoss character, for some percentage of the damage received by the Shield Overload turned into HP. Oh, that would be a dream come true and would put Artanis so much back in the map (There are very few players that have a high-level Artanis).
Oh and just to finish, one Sinatra (Artanis) in tuxedo and fedora skin would be awesome. I really was hoping for some such during the underground gangs event last year. So well, I will be much more active in requesting for Artanis skins in the future. Poor Art has not gotten a single one in years!
Artanis is such an important character in the Starcraft Universe, I believe he has been somewhat forgotten in comparisson to all other chararcters in HotS.
Thanks for reading this far! Hopefully you have some insight or comments about all this.
En Taro Adun
tpb. Fujur
