Simple Balance Maeve

[HellFrozenRain6]

The 9 lives talent would be much stronger than people think. Having your clence heal and two Prowls every 10 seconds is pretty good.

The pounce change is giving maeve a true movment skill. Every champ with moement skill can pass through enemies with it expept Maeve.

If i run down a hallway wirh Andro Lex Zhin and i run into a team of people i can dash through them and run into thier back field which causes some of thosw peoplento have to turn around to come chase.

With maeve inhave no choice but to turn around as i can run through people with prowl and pounce will hit them.

The ability to pounce through people and the increased distance will help meave more than the 400 damage.

When a Maeve is pouncing its for damage reduction not the damage.

I really like your ideas - i think Maeve needs some serious change/buff to be at least somewhat competitive, mainly concerning her speed. There are two things however, that im having issues with:

1.) Having two charges on an improved pounce together with a reduced cooldown of 9 lives already sounds a lot better than risking your life for as little as 400 melee damage. But what i really hate about her right now is the absolutely abysmal speed of prowl, and giving her the option to use it more often doesnt fix that. I know some people may disagree when i say this, but considering how incredibly low 800 dps is (with the new pounce), she needs to be a lot faster to compensate or else she will become kind of an even worse version of Evie. That some players lack the necessary skill to hit her at full speed shouldnt be used as a counterargument, since Maeve already takes a long time to kill enemies herself.

2.) The other thing im worried about are the developers. Tbh im new to the forum, so i'm not quite sure how much they care about it but as far as im concerned they will never even come close to the idea of ever rebalancing Maeve at all or even listen to what a minority of the community has to say about her state. This may sound pessimistic, but I just dont know how much sense it makes to create a threat like this other than to dream about how Paladins should but never will be.

[Shadowpuppy]

I really like your ideas - i think Maeve needs some serious change/buff to be at least somewhat competitive, mainly concerning her speed. There are two things however, that im having issues with:

1.) Having two charges on an improved pounce together with a reduced cooldown of 9 lives already sounds a lot better than risking your life for as little as 400 melee damage. But what i really hate about her right now is the absolutely abysmal speed of prowl, and giving her the option to use it more often doesnt fix that. I know some people may disagree when i say this, but considering how incredibly low 800 dps is (with the new pounce), she needs to be a lot faster to compensate or else she will become kind of an even worse version of Evie. That some players lack the necessary skill to hit her at full speed shouldnt be used as a counterargument, since Maeve already takes a long time to kill enemies herself.

2.) The other thing im worried about are the developers. Tbh im new to the forum, so i'm not quite sure how much they care about it but as far as im concerned they will never even come close to the idea of ever rebalancing Maeve at all or even listen to what a minority of the community has to say about her state. This may sound pessimistic, but I just dont know how much sense it makes to create a threat like this other than to dream about how Paladins should but never will be.

I understand your concerns and i do believe that prowl should have a speed increase. But after alot of thinking i have decided to make these post about balance as simplistic as possible in the hopes that they are something that can be an option. If we change to much in a single pass it can break more than it fixes.

Achieve some positive change and then adjust from that point forward.
I also hope that if i can continue to create quality balance ideas like this one that it may catch the attention of the developers to at least read my post and the comments of the users reading them for even just a platform for ideas they can use to create improvements.

I also spend allot of time thinking about how my changes would effect the player base. As you can see i added no extra speed to maeve because that is what weaker players have issues with dealing with. This was intentional and there is a card that i use in every maeve load out to increase the speed so its not like you cannot improve it at the cost of loadout points.

Ill be posting a aBarik post soon let me know what you think of those ideas

[SakkeEU]

I still think it's not worth to give up a pounce reset for more prowl. Prowl doesn't save you life, if you need it to reach cover you are probably going to die anyway.
Don't get me wrong, I love bonus-malus talents, but Maeve is so weak that I don't see why she has to be one of the few champions to have one. Even if you drop 9live cd to 10s she still only going to get mobility from it, there's no damage or invulnerability in Maeve's kit.

[Shadowpuppy]

I still think it's not worth to give up a pounce reset for more prowl. Prowl doesn't save you life, if you need it to reach cover you are probably going to die anyway.
Don't get me wrong, I love bonus-malus talents, but Maeve is so weak that I don't see why she has to be one of the few champions to have one. Even if you drop 9live cd to 10s she still only going to get mobility from it, there's no damage or invulnerability in Maeve's kit.

She doesnt need damage invulnerabiliy, she needs more movement options as she can shoot high damage from any range.

More prowl will give her the ability to get to ideal spots more often as well as chase down fleeing targets more often
which is what prowl is really for. People use it as an escape but thats what pounce is. Powl is as the name implies a hunting skill that allows you to run in way up in the air killing people not expecting you to be flying in from that angle.

Your just using prowl wrong, it can be and escape if you buff the speed of prowl by 50 percent which i run to make the skill both more effective at escape as well as attacking

[HellFrozenRain6]

[...] as well as chase down fleeing targets more often
which is what prowl is really for. People use it as an escape but thats what pounce is. Powl is as the name implies a hunting skill that allows you to run in way up in the air killing people not expecting you to be flying in from that angle.
[...]

Except if chasing down fleeing opponents is supposed to be the case, then Maeve either needs to be able to shoot while in prowl (a very nice change imo) or she simply needs to be faster - even with a max speed build I get outrun by all kinds of other champions all the time, if they are only slightly further away (not to mention what a nightmare it is to kill Cardio Victor).
Using Prowl to jump up high can work, but its very predictable, slower than pounce and the advantage it gives you is minimal. Besides, Prowl is exceptionally loud, so expecting the enemy not to know where you are can be the very last thing you do before greeting your respawn timer.

[Shadowpuppy]

If you run 50 percent increase prowl speed there is no one out running you. That just silly.
They know im coming for sure i didnt say you where sneaking up on them. You have to be creative with your routes and your timing.

Misdirection is important to, running by a door way to be seen on purpose to double jump back over the door way is a good way to start a prowl attack.. Kinessa looking one way and she hears you coming and before she knows whats up your already there on some long route as the speed increase makes you cover ground fast.

But you are right, normal prowl speed is not so great, it will get you to high ground. But even level 3 prowl speed makes it quit usable

[SakkeEU]

She doesnt need damage invulnerabiliy, she needs more movement options as she can shoot high damage from any range.

More prowl will give her the ability to get to ideal spots more often as well as chase down fleeing targets more often
which is what prowl is really for. People use it as an escape but thats what pounce is. Powl is as the name implies a hunting skill that allows you to run in way up in the air killing people not expecting you to be flying in from that angle.

Your just using prowl wrong, it can be and escape if you buff the speed of prowl by 50 percent which i run to make the skill both more effective at escape as well as attacking

I know prowl is useful to get in position. I also know that 9lives is used when you want to keep fighting, and fighting with pounce not ready is a big NO.
You can totally remove the CD from prowl if you want, it doesn't change the fact that pounce is the combat skill and you need it ready if you want to fight, dive or chase someone.

[Shadowpuppy]

I know prowl is useful to get in position. I also know that 9lives is used when you want to keep fighting, and fighting with pounce not ready is a big NO.
You can totally remove the CD from prowl if you want, it doesn't change the fact that pounce is the combat skill and you need it ready if you want to fight, dive or chase someone.

Pouce is needed to fight or chase someone, wow you dont play maeve or you have no idea about how to play her.
You dont need any of her skills to kill people. You can kill a kinessa from across the map if you know how to shoulder peak. The skills are used to get an advantage but they are not required for any action. If a skill is required then the champ needs a base kit buff. Which if maeve got she would be OP.

Why are you arguing over that one part of my post when the other part has a double pounce option. Like seriously double pounce with a third from 9 lives, how much more pounce do you think you need. Though my changes would take the damage out, it would have way more utility to get you in and out of things.

[CrazyLasagna]

I have decided to start doing threads on balance based around two ideas.

Simplicity
Testing

I see allot of threads with these crazy balance ideas of altering the entire meta to balance a class or fix the whole game in wide sweeping changes to do so. These threads are not realistic as Hi Rez is not going to alter the entire meta based on some persons rant on these forums. I will be posting ideas on balance one champ at a time with the goal of providing simple fixes that maintain the champions current play style and does not require alterations of the entire kit to implement. The goal is to provide solutions that are simplistic as well as easy to implement so that the words on this page have a shot being looked at.

I will call my post Simple Balance " Champion Name "

What is the issue with Maeve currently? No Burst, cannot compete with burst flanks.
I find that after playing a bunch of matches in the last week that Maeve has a hard time dealing with anything that has burst. I could hit an Andro first he could turn around, and start shooting, i hit my second shot and he could kill me before i hit my third. This is not a complaint but a fact.

This is why Damage reduction is the only way that Maeve can exist currently.
The buff to 9 lives helped but thats a 20 second skill so its not exactly a strong counter to burst damage.

So based on the principles about simplicity how can we improve without breaking?

I thought about increasing her attack speed but i think that would break her quite quickly.
The real issue is that maeve is a distance flank. She does not want to fight Andro or Lex up close but she has no real options for creating distance as her Pounce is short distance and its super easy to shoot a maeve in prowl.


Remove the damage on pounce from the base kit.

Double the range of Pounce
Add a range extending card for Pounce


Remove Street Justice is not fun for anyone, remove it
Replace with Pounce has two charges

Replace Pounce reset legendary with
9 lives no longer resets Pounce and cool down is reduced by 10 seconds

Now we have a three legendary cards
Pounce
9 Lives
Prowl

I believe that this would give her the ability to create distance when needed as well as offer some fun flanking options for the smart player. I do not think any of these would break her or the game and would only increase the fun of playing her.


These changes will give Maeve more movement without adding the speed that people have issues dealing with. Pounce is pretty much garbage for damage, its to easy to hit to allow very much damage.

Some of the pounce cards would need to be changed to activation rather than hit, did not sound like an issue to me but feel free to correct me. I am sure i have not thought of everything.

See, Maeve is, in my opinion, one of the most balanced champions in the entire game. All three of her legendaries are viable, she is not extremely overpowered in any tier nor is or completely useless, and she isn't absolute cancer *cough cough lex.* I think the other flanks need to be brought down to Maeve's powerlevel rather than Maeve being brought up in powerlevel to match other flanks.

[SakkeEU]

Why are you arguing over that one part of my post when the other part has a double pounce option. Like seriously double pounce with a third from 9 lives, how much more pounce do you think you need. Though my changes would take the damage out, it would have way more utility to get you in and out of things.

Because I don't want to trade a bad talent for a useless one. Besides, I'm not arguing I'm trying to give a feedback but you are so incredibly butthurt over these ideas that's impossible. I suggest you to write an email directly to Evil Mojo next time since it's clear by now that you are not here to have a discussion.

The skills are used to get an advantage but they are not required for any action. If a skill is required then the champ needs a base kit buff. Which if maeve got she would be OP.

This is not CoD, this is an hero shooter, champions are balanced over their abilities.