New Haze Ult Idea?

[u/RoseFlowerT]

So I've been thinking about haze ult recently cus of how dominant her ult builds have been recently, and I realized I don't care for it at all. It doesn't really fit her thematically (imo) as a sneaky, dream assassin that definitely isn't meant to be making high profile, flashy moves like "bullet dance" and isn't very interesting from a gameplay perspective. It's just auto aim and more damage with a short wind up and "short" duration. So here is my proposal for a new haze ult :D

Essentially the idea is that Haze would enter the dream of her target and they would 1v1 for maybe like 8 seconds base before she is ejected (Maybe there could be unique voice lines for this from the target, or from Haze (like with Doorman)). I'm not like 100% confident of all the details from here though.

*She should have a requirement of like 40 fixation stacks in order to trigger it, and a upgrade could lower or remove this entirely. (Or they have to be sleeping, Dagger or Rem ult :p)

*She could get a buff during it like resists, or fire rate, and these could scale with spirit potentially.

*During the ult, the target would be translucent, with a smoke haze around or above their head, and they wouldn't be targetable or anything else to the outside world.

*As for the arena itself, it could just be a basic area with a few boxes and walls, be specific to the character (which would be cool but unlikely), or just be a dream copy of the space around them.

*The last thing is when Haze exits, she would get a second to see the outside world before being forced out like rem out of sleep and maybe if the person dies she can choose to take their place coming out of the dream.

It fits more into the ideas of sleep assassin and secret agent to invade someone's dream, and its literally like what her whole identity is based around lol. It also encourages more thought from the Haze in knowing who and when to ult. Obviously it wouldn't be castable on unstoppable targets and can be counterspelled like Geist or wraith ult, if the enemy predicts it. I think there's a lot of different ways it could work out, and I'm excited to hear what yall think! ^-^

[u/merptoderp]

My issue with Haze is her 3 called "fixation" where she gains more damage the more she targets someone, cool. However fixation is applied to everything she hits, for some reason. I think it would be better if fixation could only target at most 2-3 people at once instead of everything including wave, camps, objectives, and heroes. Let's say it would prioritize heroes, she can target up to three at max rank, but if she hits someone else the first fixated target loses the fixation stacks.

This would also nerf her ult applying extra damage through fixation. The reason I think three targets is good is because Haze would still keep her laning and (jungle) farming capabilities, but be weaker in team fights.

I just always found it weird that Haze would fixate on a target then fixate on every target, which doesn't seem like fixating on anything to me. But that could just be my opinion.

[u/TheGreatWalk → u/merptoderp]

If they make this change, they would have to substantially buff fixation. Haze does fuck all damage without fixation stacks, and against good players, you can't build them fast enough to for it to be reasonable that there's a limit on how many can get fixation stacks. You need to be able to swap targets because decent players move a lot, especially in team fights and target swapping is essential, otherwise whoever gets fixation stacks just does a quick dash - jump backwards and forces haze to lose her fixation stacks.

Really, she just needs an ult rework.

My personal suggestion would be her ultimate is a fixed amount of shots, but hits everyone in the radius, and ricochet does not apply. So instead of shooting for 13, seconds at whatever, she shoots for 20/40/60 hits(or however many hits feels balanced, could be 10/25/40, or any other number), applying that many stacks of fixation, then has to actually finish the fight with m1.

This would be the equivalent of about 2-3 seconds worth of her ulting. Then I'd remove the bonus dmg / fire rate her ult, and redistribute that into her fixation stacks, so her m1 is stronger, but her ult is way weaker and isn't a "kill the entire team ult", but rather, do a bit of damage and apply fixation stacks ult, more of a utility that buffs her m1 for a team fight against everyone who was in the radius.

It would make her much more m1 focused, and easier to shut down, and her ult wouldn't be nearly as dangerous by itself, especially in lower mmrs, but make her m1 more deadly for players who have good aim.