Is Maar to Strong?

[Hanedog]

I really appreciate where the dev's are going with Maar and the last patch. My main remaining concern is the Destroyer Aura. I have offered suggested changes in sequential order from my top idea to my bottom

 

A) Destroyer Aura

• Option 1: decrease aura duration from 15 to 10 - having the ability to place a high damage spell on a creep wave before the wave gets to a location, leave and have it still be there long enough to kill all creeps is much too strong IMO
  
• Option 2: decrease aura dmg output from 40/60/80/100 (+20% INT) to 30/40/50/60 (+20% INT) - when combining the current spell duration with 40 (+20% INT) at level 1, Maar is capable of greater than 700 damage at LVL 1 spell! This scales far to strongly into late game.
  
• Option 3: decrease dmg slightly to 30/50/70/90 but ALSO decrease spell diameter
  

My issue with Destroyer Aura is that it grants Maar far too much dmg output and sustain. It allows him to chase down enemies extremely easily once he gets a movement boost item combined with his already high base unit movement speed or with Nitrogen. He can have the aura cast on him for 15 seconds, dealing anywhere from 800-3000 dmg while still being able to AA, SAP and slow. The aura also makes lane sustain extremely easy and turtling even easier. Against most average or better Maars, it is extremely difficult to push on a tower being guarded by said Maar.

 

Between Destroyer Aura, SAP for heal, Frost wave and shield, all of which can be cast in a matter of seconds, he makes most towers impenetrable. I realize there is a learning curve to playing him but the payoffs are much greater with him than other heroes.

 

Looking at Maar's description on the Heroes wiki page, which I am assuming tries to remain somewhat accurate, it states the following:

Maar is a situational caster carry/support with insane late game damage potential from the low cooldowns on his damage skills. He suffers mana problems until late game, but also farms very easily throughout due to his AoE pressence. Keep your distance and shoot double Red fireballs, and maintain a double Red + Blue aura around yourself at all times for the kiting and escape it offers. Maar fails without a frontline loaded with crowdcontrol to keep enemies from diving him - heroes such as jackson, lord zyrkhan, and micro make for excellent allies. Run 0/3/3 talents, taking health, armor, cooldown, energy regen, and movespeed.

 

I have problems with the areas I have highlighted in text. If the design for Maar was to have these issues, then the design has failed. I don't ever remember running into a Maar that didn't have orbs at the ready with backup mana to spare. Also, Maar is dangerous after level 2, NOT late game. And Maar is fine without a frontline. He has plenty of shield, a slow and a high dmg AOE and distance AOE. He also has a heal. I'm not sure how he struggles with keeping heroes from diving on him?

Edited March 5, 2014 by Hanedog

[Yaldi]

How does destroyer aura give sustain?

[rubicante]

I think Maar is fine, but if you wanted to balance his lane control just remove the ability to drop auras. If he had to actually surround creep himself he wouldn't be so easy to faceroll.

[BlackXioN]

I think your complaining about the wrong aspect of maar. He damage output is good dont get me wrong but his true strength is in his teleport. I do not think his damage shoud be nurfed at all, it has already been nurfed plenty in past patches.

[John]

Yes

[Hanedog]

I look at sustain from two aspects - the ability to keep heroes from harassing you which conversely is the same as being able to soak up dmg. Maar just seems too hard to push on. His teleport is strong and that has been looked at and I think, fairly dealt with, but I still have issue with Maar's ability to drop an aura that lasts longer than an Egon aura heal (for example) and does much more damage.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Hanedog

[BlackXioN]

If you IH much people dont complain about his damage, they complain about his teleport, just saying brother. I'm not really interested if some pub stomper went 30-1 with him, you can do that with any hero.

[Hanedog]

Well then, problem solved... And not all heroes can go 30-1 ;) Try it with Egon...

[BlackXioN]

AA Egon OP

[Moo]

Well then, problem solved... And not all heroes can go 30-1 ;) Try it with Egon...

Lol, so easy to get huge kill scores in pubs it isn't even funny. My friend went all int items and an energy saber on zeratul, then went 42-6. If you build stars/cerebro/int items/energy saber on egon, I bet you that you can carry with him easily in pubs.

[MOTHER]

Cut duration of auras by half if they are dropped. That's all he really needs at this point.

[Doom]

Lol, so easy to get huge kill scores in pubs it isn't even funny. My friend went all int items and an energy saber on zeratul, then went 42-6. If you build stars/cerebro/int items/energy saber on egon, I bet you that you can carry with him easily in pubs.

 

No, sadly, you cannot. You can get a lot of kills, but then douchebag aa heroes on the other team get explosive and split push. Egon doesn't have the items to kill, chase and survive the burst of heroes like Nova, Boros, Shadow, Zeratul, etc. You sort of choose two of those, and pray for the rq's to come.

[ANARCHY]

wow this just plain silly

 

maar basically always goes short or mid lane

 

mid lane basically never ever has a melee hero in it

if your in lane vs maar and your a ranged hero destruction aura has little to no effect on you

if your melee you pick a different lane

 

short lane he cant push or side ganks occur

if maar is even slightly out of position almost any aa hero can kill him in 3-5 hits, he has low hp and no resistance so he needs to stay quite ranged

so he's just tower hugging anyway which means you can deny him every single creep and zone him out thus making him useless for the first 45 mins of the game as hes still lvl 10 while your lvl 18

 

his destruction aura lasts a long time and sure it deals a sizeable amount of dmg over that time but compare that to any aa hero and its about the same amount of dmg

think about it;

100+20%int (assuming 300 int) = 160 dmg per second

 

aa hero base dmg around lvl 16 which is when maar would have around 300 int;

250 + would have max wep speed by then too

= 500 dmg per second

 

and hear you are crying about a measly 160 dmg per second...

if maar decides he wants to chase you turn around and aa him to death its not like hes a tank...

Edited March 6, 2014 by ANARCHY

[taznkid]

wow this just plain silly

 

maar basically always goes short or mid lane

 

mid lane basically never ever has a melee hero in it

if your in lane vs maar and your a ranged hero destruction aura has little to no effect on you

if your melee you pick a different lane

 

short lane he cant push or side ganks occur

if maar is even slightly out of position almost any aa hero can kill him in 3-5 hits, he has low hp and no resistance so he needs to stay quite ranged

so he's just tower hugging anyway which means you can deny him every single creep and zone him out thus making him useless for the first 45 mins of the game as hes still lvl 10 while your lvl 18

 

his destruction aura lasts a long time and sure it deals a sizeable amount of dmg over that time but compare that to any aa hero and its about the same amount of dmg

think about it;

100+20%int (assuming 300 int) = 160 dmg per second

 

aa hero base dmg around lvl 16 which is when maar would have around 300 int;

250 + would have max wep speed by then too

= 500 dmg per second

 

and hear you are crying about a measly 160 dmg per second...

if maar decides he wants to chase you turn around and aa him to death its not like hes a tank...

Is this Maar we are talking about?

 

1. Destruction Aura covers a very large area, and even if you are ranged, can make creeping difficult, since you are fighting very close to your tower, which makes last hitting a bit more difficult.

 

2. Maar requires very few intelligence items to do a large amount of damage, allowing him to get survivability items like Electric Mantle and Darksteel Titan. Plus his passive DOES help out his survivability. You cannot simply "turn around and attack him to death", as generally 1 sap from Maar will take like half the health of a squishy carry like Nova (and even tankier heroes). The point with Maar is that HE is the one to do the kiting, running around casting annoying spells until you suddenly realize that you are the prey, not the predator.

 

3. Your calculations comparing Destruction Aura to a carry does not include the fact that:

A. Destruction Aura can hit multiple heroes and does continuous damage even while Maar is on the move, whereas a carry has to stop and attack, reposition, etc. and only hits one hero at a time.

B. Resistances

 

Having said that...Maar requires quite a bit of farm to be effective, so Destruction Aura is kind of a must, he has a high skill cap, and even those that play him well can often be caught out of position with the wrong spells on hand or simply not enough time to cast. Maar is fine the way he is in my opinion. I say this as someone who has played him for a reasonable period of time.

[ANARCHY]

3. Your calculations comparing Destruction Aura to a carry does not include the fact that:

A. Destruction Aura can hit multiple heroes and does continuous damage even while Maar is on the move, whereas a carry has to stop and attack, reposition, etc. and only hits one hero at a time.

B. Resistances

 

Having said that...Maar requires quite a bit of farm to be effective, so Destruction Aura is kind of a must, he has a high skill cap, and even those that play him well can often be caught out of position with the wrong spells on hand or simply not enough time to cast. Maar is fine the way he is in my opinion. I say this as someone who has played him for a reasonable period of time.

 

can hit multiple heroes at once = aa hero buys explosive retrofit

can dmg enemies while moving = aa hero buys shadowmourne

 

it was just a rough guide i agree with your last sentence thats why i agree he is in a good place destruction aura doesnt need a nerf

[MOTHER]

The problem with the skill is the it is an almost zero risk and very high reward skill during the laning phase and that's just bad design and ought to be looked into IMO.

 

A combination of these could solve this 'problem':

 

Reduce AoE of Auras in general.

 

Reduce aura duration or AoE when dropped.

 

Reduce dropping range to 0 (maar has to be exactly on top of the spot he wants to drop the aura at)

 

Remove dropping auras altogether. (a bit extreme but it is an option)

[BlackXioN]

Is this Maar we are talking about?

 

1. Destruction Aura covers a very large area, and even if you are ranged, can make creeping difficult, since you are fighting very close to your tower, which makes last hitting a bit more difficult.

 

2. Maar requires very few intelligence items to do a large amount of damage, allowing him to get survivability items like Electric Mantle and Darksteel Titan. Plus his passive DOES help out his survivability. You cannot simply "turn around and attack him to death", as generally 1 sap from Maar will take like half the health of a squishy carry like Nova (and even tankier heroes). The point with Maar is that HE is the one to do the kiting, running around casting annoying spells until you suddenly realize that you are the prey, not the predator.

 

3. Your calculations comparing Destruction Aura to a carry does not include the fact that:

A. Destruction Aura can hit multiple heroes and does continuous damage even while Maar is on the move, whereas a carry has to stop and attack, reposition, etc. and only hits one hero at a time.

B. Resistances

 

Having said that...Maar requires quite a bit of farm to be effective, so Destruction Aura is kind of a must, he has a high skill cap, and even those that play him well can often be caught out of position with the wrong spells on hand or simply not enough time to cast. Maar is fine the way he is in my opinion. I say this as someone who has played him for a reasonable period of time.

 

Are you serious have you even played maar? His sap even with grav edge and nitro does not sap half of novas health and literally does nothing to tanks, where as an AA hero like nova can melt tank and 2 shot any AA late game with right items. . Zera and ling can insta kill a squishy hero but we are complaining about a hero who takes skill and time to kill you not .5 sec. I will say his sap used to insta pop heros, it does no where near that now. Maars problem is his TELEPORT not his DAMAGE.

Edited March 6, 2014 by BlackXioN

[Hanedog]

Everyone's panties are getting in a bundle for no reason. You are all on the same side BlackXioN. Did you even finish reading his comments. And I'm not sure why you don't think Sap is incapable of taking half life- of course it is.... I guess I'm fine with him staying the way he is. Another reason for my complaining may be due to the fact that IN PUBS (yes I know this doesn't mean much to you IH'ers), Maar can farm up and nub kill so quickly that he ends up being able to push on most heroes without feeling the threat because of SAP/Slow and HUGE AOE's.

 

A quick addition to your 3rd point tazn:

3. Your calculations comparing Destruction Aura to a carry does not include the fact that:

A. Destruction Aura can hit multiple heroes and does continuous damage even while Maar is on the move, whereas a carry has to stop and attack, reposition, etc. and only hits one hero at a time.

B. Resistances

C. Aura can be cast allowing Maar to continue adding spell dmg to the foray. This means that his dmg output with the right key combinations can be astronomically high. Add a single item like Nitrogen to that and you end up with a v2.0 Queen Falling Raddish Ulti with a mega-sized aoe slow....

 

 

But all in all I guess I'm fine with where he is at. I may not like how easy it is for Maar to aura the entire battlefield and stay out of the fight but I'll live. Really just wanted to get a feel for where others, including IH'ers, thought he was.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Hanedog

[herman]

I really don't see his destruction aura being a problem. Every other mid hero has a no risk AOE spell. I think Maar is in a good spot except his Ulti still is not quite right, but much better though. The only thing I find annoying is his relative spammability of frostwave, if you are playing a squishier caster or agi, Maar can almost "slow lock" you with frostwave. This is definetly not OP at all but it is annoying.

[atomheartman]

This is like wave of zombies who cry neeeeeerf.

It looks like you want to create grey copy of the game where all heroes useless as egon.

 

Red aura is a treat for squishy heroes like rancor without health talent. Strength of maar:

Teleport

Spamming frostwave, as mentioned before, it seems a bit strong, maar is a master of chasing people.

Everything other is ok. He is one of the best supports in the game with high damage potntial. But good teamwork still counters maar.

Most op thing in the game is clever mind and teamwork,

Stop nerfing every aspect of the game till it will go to the grave.

Im bad in all that super duper balancing thing but dont forget the main goal of the aos - fun. Many good stuff was deleted or nerfed like old LordZ, dagger, beacons, consumable teleport, item with aoe 300 dmg active and now we miss it. Heh remember time when rancor had aoe cloak - that was fun as hell.

Edited March 6, 2014 by atomheartman

[Hanedog]

Lol atom. I say banana, you say bonana. My suggestion was to nerf his aura dmg output but you say nerf his frost wave. I don't really care what gets nerfed but my main point was that he can turtle for dayz mid and never feel pressure. And I never asked for him to be nerfed to the uselessness of Egon because I already know Egon is useless. I'm just stating Egon is a healer whose AOE heal heals less and has a much smaller radius... Wasn't trying to balance them.

 

I also know that this game used to be more fun because each hero had a high-octane ability that could change the fight in some unique way. Now everything is being brought to a more slow-paced, visually appealing game. I was just stating Maar's combination of skills and dmg output with said skills seems extremely high. I also am pointing out that his AOE heal is just as strong as Egon's which doesn't seem right because it is indestructible AND has a larger radii

 

And your arguments are being made against a guy who pubs and has already made that very clear and admitted that I'm probably wrong.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Hanedog

[taznkid]

Meh Frost Waves are fairly difficult to land in succession imo...about the Destruction Aura though, was it True Damage or Spell Damage? I can't remember; just wondering since if it is True Damage, then it wouldn't proc Nitrogen Retrofit slow right?

[SourDiesel]

Meh Frost Waves are fairly difficult to land in succession imo...about the Destruction Aura though, was it True Damage or Spell Damage? I can't remember; just wondering since if it is True Damage, then it wouldn't proc Nitrogen Retrofit slow right?

 

It's spell damage and does proc Nitro, which is a good thing, because the damage on the aura is nothing to write home about unless someone is stupid enough to just sit inside of it. In the late game, destruction aura remains tremendously valuable because the 20% slow on Nitro can really control enemy movement across choke points or around towers (either pushing or defending).