Heroes of the Storm Maiev

[Lorebot 1]

1 hour ago, xevex said:

I would say Blade Dance should be considered situational cuz i doubt it will yield more dmg then Pin Down may have quest but the actual dmg increase affects your dmg every time while the other option only affects your dmg while in melee range, Maiev might be resilient for an assassin but i doubt she can just melee 3 people without getting rekt. Nurok from Team Liquid agrees. 

Also pls fix your Bonds of Corruption reasoning because it doesnt provide any burst dmg buffs. Its a physical armor debuff. Translation: Heroic Basic attacks only. No spell dmg, no burst dmg. (unless youre playing fully stacked Butcher) 

This is also a good reason to switch up Dehaka who i dont see much synergy with Cassia whos Charged Strikes can deal great deal of dmg with Bonds of Corruption and if Maiev takes Naisha's Memento you have 2 heroes basic attacking the whole team for 3 seconds with a 25% bonus dmg not to mention Ball Lightning has synergy with Umbral Bind too.

Also Shadow Orb: Shadow Strike can not be wasted like you say in the description unlike Bonds of Corruption which only lowers physical armor Shadow Orb: Shadow Strike lowers both spell and physical armor.

Note that the tooltip for Blade Dance specifically states the aoe damage is physical damage, thus it becomes enhanced by Bonds of Corruption's physical armor reduction on pulled enemies. It also benefits from the 35% increased physical damage buff given by Armored Assault. So you get bonus damage when pulling enemies or when Blinking into them, and it's not gated behind a quest that's sometimes impossible to complete if the enemy team positions properly to counter you.

[Erathis 53]

2 hours ago, Maxkitty said:

What do you think about her winrate? Do you think it's high because people don't yet know how to play against her? Is it because she may be overpowered? Or is it a bit of both? 

More importantly, do you think she is a bit overpowered right now? I'm guessing she will be nerfed a bit but I'm certainly hoping it's within fair limits. And after playing her she feels very impactful.

Obviously I'm not him but I might as well add my two cents as well.

From what I've seen from high level streams (Psalm has been loving her and putting up big numbers) plus my own experience with her (just an average player), I'd say it's a bit of both.  Maiev punishes players incredibly hard for clumping and moving in groups.  Since this is more or less the default comp/action, she's getting really high numbers right now (spamming fan of knives into 2+ heroes is stupid strong).  When people learn to draft loose or split comps against her (Abathur being the poster child for that and easily Maeiv's biggest counter alongside blind/dodge heroes) she'll lose quite a bit of her extreme edge.

On the other hand I do think it's also a bit of overtuning too.  She just hits so hard with both attacks and abilities, has amazing wave clear, and isn't squishy at all (especially with two evasions).  I fully expect her to get hit with a few nerfs.  That said they have been quite restrained with nerfing Hanzo overall recently so hopefully Maeiv gets similarly light nerfs over a few patches rather than getting the bat.

Regarding general Talent discussion, I've found the last three to be pretty set in stone.  Shadow Armor + Armored Assault + Huntress is just super good.  Her earlier talents have a bit more debate to them but not alot IMO.  Her stacking talents at 1 and 4 are simply not happening from my experience.  Hitting 3+ with Fan?  Getting extra tethers?  Enemy Players should be making sure that never happens (never mind often enough to stack these) or you're winning that game anyway, talent or no talent.  Most other options have at least some reason to look at them.

Edited February 7, 2018 by TSRD

[xevex 41]

1 hour ago, Lorebot said:

Note that the tooltip for Blade Dance specifically states the aoe damage is physical damage, thus it becomes enhanced by Bonds of Corruption's physical armor reduction on pulled enemies. It also benefits from the 35% increased physical damage buff given by Armored Assault. So you get bonus damage when pulling enemies or when Blinking into them, and it's not gated behind a quest that's sometimes impossible to complete if the enemy team positions properly to

I know but you will obviously want to make a comp with maiev that works with her which makes the quest incredibly easy. For example: 1 Dragonqueen into Umbral Bind into Wing Buffet into Fan of Knives. If you pull 4 heroes you have your quest done. 
Blade Dance also does nothing for you if a low hp enemy is retreating. While Pin Down makes Fan of Knives a pretty good midrange finisher. And you are not limited by being in melee range sometimes Blade Dance doesnt hit anything, sometimes it hits one hero. If it hits 3 youre will most likely die soon.

On the topic of if shes OP or not? Well her kit is OP, she is also equally hard. 

Edited February 7, 2018 by xevex

[ArusVicious 156]

4 minutes ago, xevex said:

I know but you will obviously want to make a comp with maiev that works with her which makes the quest incredibly easy. For example: 1 Dragonqueen into Umbral Bind into Wing Buffet into Fan of Knives. If you pull 4 heroes you have your quest done. 
Blade Dance also does nothing for you if a low hp enemy is retreating. While Pin Down makes Fan of Knives a pretty good midrange finisher. And you are not limited by being in melee range sometimes Blade Dance doesnt hit anything, sometimes it hits one hero. If it hits 3 youre will most likely die soon.

On the topic of if shes OP or not? Well her kit is OP, she is also equally hard. 

We can always have different opinions about the talents. I personally disagree but I completely respect your opinion.

[xevex 41]

53 minutes ago, Maxkitty said:

We can always have different opinions about the talents. I personally disagree but I completely respect your opinion.

Well im not exactly arguing that Blade Dance is worse talent just saying that the dmg is a lot of time situational. When you gank someone you will target someone squishy and they will immediately retreat you may manage to get a tether on them and get some hits bonus hit with the talent but youll get more bonus dmg with Pin Down it isnt melee. The problem is that it is a "not recommended" talent when a pro player is recommending it.

Edited February 7, 2018 by xevex

[ArusVicious 156]

1 hour ago, xevex said:

The problem is that it is a "not recommended" talent when a pro player is recommending it.

Again, this is that pro player's opinion, and it's just one person. Also, Maiev hasn't been out for more than a day, so trust me he could be overvaluing it. But in pro levels of play how likely is it that you will complete the quest? Pro players would certainly not be dumb enough to stack for a Maiev. And sure it doesn't require you to be in melee but when you dive into the enemy team you will almost always be in melee anyways.

Also don't be concerned about catching fleeing enemies. Maiev already has so many anti escape tools that there aren't many ways you can escape one that's focused on you.

[ArusVicious 156]

@Oxygen or any other moderator who might be able to take a look into this... 

"Naisha's Memento competes directly with Bonds of Justice with regards to increasing Maiev's area of effect damage. In late-game situations, and particularly with the Level 16 and 20 Talents Armored Assault and Shadow Orb: Huntress, Naisha's Memento is likely to provide more overall damage. As such, it may be a better choice on some of the more late-game oriented Maps such as Cursed Hollow, Garden of Terror, and Infernal Shrines."

This discussion of Naisha's as a talent is absolutely not describing it as situational. What is being said here is that Bonds of Justice is better for early game maps but Naisha's is better for late game situations. And yet, Bonds of Justice is the only talent listed as 'recommended'. The usefulness of Naisha's from my experience and from others is not one to be underestimated. And this is why, especially because of this description, I think it should be changed from situational to recommended. There aren't many scenarios where a good player can go wrong with this talent.

Edited February 7, 2018 by Maxkitty

[Lorebot 1]

the nerf bat has landed...

https://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/21508378#heroes

Maiev

Stats

• Basic Attack Damage reduced from 162 to 150
• Base Maximum Health increased from 2150 to 2236
• Health Regeneration increased from 4.48 to 4.66

Abilities

• Fan of Knives (Q)
  • Damage decreased from 180 to 170
• Vault of the Wardens (D)
  • No longer grants passive Armor

Talents

• Level 1
  • Naisha’s Memento (Active)
    • Bounces no longer deal bonus damage
• Level 16
  • Armored Assault (Passive)
    • Physical Damage bonus decreased from 35 to 25%
    • Now activates if Maiev has any amount of bonus Armor

[ArusVicious 156]

Even after her nerf she's basically the new Garrosh. Banned in every single game. I really hope she doesn't get destroyed because of that, but I also hope Blizzard does something about that. Not being able to play a single game with her in ranked isn't very fun.

[Lorebot 1]

Well, at least it's giving Hanzo more play time. Before Maiev he was the one that was impossible to play in ranked.

[xevex 41]

On 2/11/2018 at 11:13 AM, Maxkitty said:

Even after her nerf she's basically the new Garrosh. Banned in every single game. I really hope she doesn't get destroyed because of that, but I also hope Blizzard does something about that. Not being able to play a single game with her in ranked isn't very fun.

Thats a little sad. Shes ridiculously easy to counter. Johanna can insta blind her which makes her Umbral Bind a useless ability. Ana can sleep her for the full duration of her Umbral Bind. Garosh/Junkrat/Alarak can displace her, its hard to displace someone when youre the one who gets displaced. Then you have hard CC and a ton of other counters for her. I seriously dont see a reason to first ban hero or second ban her.

What happend to Garrosh will most likely happen to Maiev? 
Why? People have no brains. Most heroes are not that hard to counter but people are just too stupid to even think of a way to counter on their own. 

For example pre-nerf Garrosh with his pull. Ana can sleep him very easily since hes a stationary target when pulling. But who does that? Even though its a pretty easy counter. Its just that majority of the playerbase is stupid and lazy. How many people actually let the target sleep instead of instantly waking them up for example? 

Umbral
bind can be missplayed by your team if you playing against Maiev. Very easily. 
Mosh Pit, Tormented Souls, Divine Storm, Twilight Dream, Furnace Blast, Poison Nova. 
On one hand the Maiev team is getting an opportunity because you are clustered together on the other hand they are too, otherwise there wont be any focus fire.

Edited February 13, 2018 by xevex

[ArusVicious 156]

1 hour ago, xevex said:

Thats a little sad. Shes ridiculously easy to counter. Johanna can insta blind her which makes her Umbral Bind a useless ability. Ana can sleep her for the full duration of her Umbral Bind. Garosh/Junkrat/Alarak can displace her, its hard to displace someone when youre the one who gets displaced. Then you have hard CC and a ton of other counters for her. I seriously dont see a reason to first ban hero or second ban her.

Yeah, and it sucks to not be able to play her in drafting games. She's an incredibly fun hero that can be countered but is also very powerful in skilled hands. She's just a liability when she's not in skilled hands. Like Alarak. Maybe in time the bans will start to shrink as people learn how to play against her but as of now people are just refusing to learn how to play against her and are banning her instantly. It's really sad. I hope it stops soon otherwise chances are Blizzard will react by nerfing her more which might just make her weak.

[xevex 41]

6 hours ago, Maxkitty said:

Yeah, and it sucks to not be able to play her in drafting games. She's an incredibly fun hero that can be countered but is also very powerful in skilled hands. She's just a liability when she's not in skilled hands. Like Alarak. Maybe in time the bans will start to shrink as people learn how to play against her but as of now people are just refusing to learn how to play against her and are banning her instantly. It's really sad. I hope it stops soon otherwise chances are Blizzard will react by nerfing her more which might just make her weak.

Its really sad that the playerbase is so dumb. I never had problems with Garrosh and never understood why would anyone ban him. 
If i get thrown its because i overextended or my positioning sucked. The combo was never really the problem. Its just people are too stupid to even think of a way to play around that. The best hope for us right now is that some pros gonna misuses Maievs Umbral Bind and suddenly stupid sheeps will understand shes not even ban worthy. 

But as u say, in a good hands shes a menace, just like Genji or Alarak. But Maiev have more counters then Genji.

[Mefi 4]

I think Maiev is in a good spot now. Relatively easy to deal with if countered (although she still has outplay potential in her trait and W) and managable vs random composition.
People usually believe the first thing they hear, so even after nerf they think that Maiev has to be banned 24/7, but I think people will just play her less, since she requires a bit more of a thought and she'll stay as she is.
I personally wouldn't ban maiev, because first I know that hardly anyone can play her really well and second I have a bit of knowledge  on how to deal with her kit, so I'd rather ban relentless 'ETCC' or another hero that is already established in skilled players' hands like genji/hanzo.
 

[Valhalen 1,484]

17 hours ago, Mefi said:

I think Maiev is in a good spot now. Relatively easy to deal with if countered (although she still has outplay potential in her trait and W) and managable vs random composition.
People usually believe the first thing they hear, so even after nerf they think that Maiev has to be banned 24/7, but I think people will just play her less, since she requires a bit more of a thought and she'll stay as she is.
I personally wouldn't ban maiev, because first I know that hardly anyone can play her really well and second I have a bit of knowledge  on how to deal with her kit, so I'd rather ban relentless 'ETCC' or another hero that is already established in skilled players' hands like genji/hanzo.

The nerf balanced her, instead of completely destroying her gameplay. She is very team dependant, so where her niche is.

I just hope they don't give her the Garrosh treatment in the future. I barely see Maiev on QM anymore, though. I maining the shit out her, however.

[Mefi 4]

Whether she'll get nerfed to the ground depends on how solid her initial design is. Garrosh for example was too good in many areas (hard to kite, decent damage, cc which punishes even slight mistakes and very resilient, especially with support), now he's got his niche as a supportive tank which helps some tanks engaging and is able to peel his backline and that's fine.

My favourite example of a poorly designed hero is Chen. Don't get me wrong, he's cool and I somehow enjoy playing him in QM, because people these days don't even know what he's capable of or they simply lack a proper team composition.
His kit is what you would expect rather from assassin, but instead of high damage, he's got high HP pool and regen/damage mitigation via evade/channeled abilities.
He can never be too good with his current state, because of numerous hard CC sources these days and his poor crowd control effects are outclassed by almost every single tank. But any more numbers(i.e. damage) on his kit and he wouldn't care about his main weaknesses at all, because he would be just an ultra beefy assassin, which is very hard to deal with.

My point is, sometimes you can't balance heroes just by numbers. If they would nerf Maiev even more at this point, then it'd mean there is some serious design flaw with her kit and she'll need rework, but I doubt it would happen.
I think she's in a similiar spot as Zeratul. A ganking assassin, which also has a very useful utility in teamfights.

Edited February 14, 2018 by Mefi

[Valhalen 1,484]

On 05/02/2018 at 3:35 PM, Valhalen said:

Does anyone know if the bouncing damage from Naisha's Memento affects the refreshing of Shadow Armor? @Oxygen, my dude?

Let me make another question related to Naisha's Memento: does the bounces affect the recharge of Shadow Orb: Huntress?

Edited February 19, 2018 by Valhalen

[ArusVicious 156]

On 2/19/2018 at 7:02 AM, Valhalen said:

Let me make another question related to Naisha's Memento: does the bounces affect the recharge of Shadow Orb: Huntress?

This is actually a good question. I'd suggest maybe going into try mode against TLV to test it. If it does then that makes the talent all the more viable for late game matches, even when it's already a powerhouse talent when combined with the other AA talents. 

[ArusVicious 156]

The nerfbat has hit again, but I believe Maiev to still be a powerful hero, probably still prime tier. Her massive utility, mobility, survivalability (still hard to kill) and damage is awesome to any comp and even with the reduced Q damage it is still a very powerful ability. Still expecting her to pull in many picks and bans and hold a winrate above 50%.

Edited February 21, 2018 by Maxkitty

[Trensicourt 5]

I disagree and I would put Maiev in core tier. She doesn't have the survivability to justify her one trick playstyle anymore. Today, I played against Maiev twice and we just destroyed them. Not sure if it because of the nerf but I am definitely less afraid than before.

[ArusVicious 156]

10 hours ago, Trensicourt said:

I disagree and I would put Maiev in core tier. She doesn't have the survivability to justify her one trick playstyle anymore. Today, I played against Maiev twice and we just destroyed them. Not sure if it because of the nerf but I am definitely less afraid than before.

Thing is though, with a high skill cap, there is a large difference between a good Maiev and a bad one. You probably just got a bad one but I believe her kit to be powerful amongst high levels.

[Valhalen 1,484]

I'm gonna just leave this here:

 

[ArusVicious 156]

Hey @Oxygen, I feel like the talent recommendations are a little out of date and aren't very 'on par' with the talent build advised. Also, as time has gone by I see more people taking up a Fan of Knives build. Right now I'm seeing an extreme 50/50 diversity between the knives build and the physical build.

Basically I think it would be nice to update discussions and talent suggestions, considering Maiev has seen much more gameplay and people have adapted to different builds.

[ArusVicious 156]

I've seen many people choosing Elune's Wrath over Bonds of Corruption even with the physical build. I've played with it and find much more success with it in most games. It might be very situational and only impactful in teamfights, but Maiev is ALWAYS meant to be in all teamfights anyways, so it really isn't a dead talent. It severely increases the punishment Fan of Knives can do if the enemy mispositions for even a split second, and being relatively easy to hit at least 2 heroes with it, it makes the talent quite impactful. In fact, what makes it so powerful is that it alone is about 50% of the damage of Fan of Knives and it becomes super powerful when you can get many resets. 

Another thing that might make Elune's Wrath better than Bonds of Corruption is that it is much more consistent. Bonds can also be thwarted by not triggering the pull, which significantly devalues the strategy of "holding" the tether. Also, by now, many people know how to avoid being pulled by not running out of the tether. It wouldn't be easy to successfully pull enemies in master leagues either. In addition, lots of times, pulling an enemy with the Bonds talent won't matter too much, because chances are, if the enemy is caught in a dangerous position and pulled while your allies are with you, they will most likely die due to follow-up burst damage. Also, do note that the armor reduction is only physical and enhances only AA's and Blade Dance damage. 

I would like to see these talent choices updated. It's been a month since this was last updated and since then things have changed. Many talents deserve status changes and their discussions should be updated. I would also think that Elune's Wrath should be considered situational, at least, and possibly even recommended alongside Bonds due to it's consistency in teamfights that Maiev would obviously want to be part of. 

[Valhalen 1,484]

8 hours ago, Maxkitty said:

I've seen many people choosing Elune's Wrath over Bonds of Corruption even with the physical build. I've played with it and find much more success with it in most games. It might be very situational and only impactful in teamfights, but Maiev is ALWAYS meant to be in all teamfights anyways, so it really isn't a dead talent. It severely increases the punishment Fan of Knives can do if the enemy mispositions for even a split second, and being relatively easy to hit at least 2 heroes with it, it makes the talent quite impactful. In fact, what makes it so powerful is that it alone is about 50% of the damage of Fan of Knives and it becomes super powerful when you can get many resets. 

Another thing that might make Elune's Wrath better than Bonds of Corruption is that it is much more consistent. Bonds can also be thwarted by not triggering the pull, which significantly devalues the strategy of "holding" the tether. Also, by now, many people know how to avoid being pulled by not running out of the tether. It wouldn't be easy to successfully pull enemies in master leagues either. In addition, lots of times, pulling an enemy with the Bonds talent won't matter too much, because chances are, if the enemy is caught in a dangerous position and pulled while your allies are with you, they will most likely die due to follow-up burst damage. Also, do note that the armor reduction is only physical and enhances only AA's and Blade Dance damage. 

I would like to see these talent choices updated. It's been a month since this was last updated and since then things have changed. Many talents deserve status changes and their discussions should be updated. I would also think that Elune's Wrath should be considered situational, at least, and possibly even recommended alongside Bonds due to it's consistency in teamfights that Maiev would obviously want to be part of. 

You bring some valid points, but I think there are more things to consider. In an oriented team and with the right composition, Bonds of Corruption is vastly superior, because it will enhance the damage of the entire team due its armor debuff; if you have another Hero that can consistent basic attacks, it is a great option (and with a Physical Damage build for Maiev, you should ideally have another one). Plus, oriented teams will know when to follow up properly so you can pull enemy Heroes with Umbral Bind.

Elune's Wrath, on the other hand, is much more situational, because it requires you to hit at least two targets with Fan of Knives, which is not always guaranteed. Plus, the stars from this talent are counted as Spell Damage, which counters the idea of a Physical-oriented build; plus its damage is not that great when compared with a debuff that will affect the entire team damage output.

I can see Elune's Wrath being very useful in a Fan of Knives oriented build, such as this one, where you can maximize its damage potential. This is an incredibly powerful build if you have Ana with Nano Boost in your team.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Valhalen