Mekkatorque (Supporting by Proxy) by oculuswindow

Wow, thanks for taking the time to do such a thorough review of the hero! I think that some of your critiques are legitimate, and I’ve been thinking about ways to either revise his kit or talent options to address them. The worst offender is Mekk being, as you put it, the “buff *****”. I agree that him being 100% utility makes him not fun to play. I suppose that I’d liken that playstyle to an Abathur symbiote build, but without the impact of Stab and Spikeburst. It wouldn’t necessarily be fun to act as, say, an attack speed buff for Butcher, and have no other way to impact the game. Plus, as you said, there are no ways to make any plays yourself with that play style, which can also not be so fun. My biggest concern is that his kit would encourage abstaining from every fight, which isn’t exactly in the spirit of any MOBA. Currently, I’m trying to remedy that by giving Mekk talent options that’ll encourage building around one invention, and having such builds give more agency to the Mekk player.

For instance, I’ve tried to make talents that can support a X-21 warrior build, that has Mekk and X-21 acting on each other symbiotically. There are talents available that can make X-21 a relatively impactful damage dealer and peeler with silences. Granted, you could assign X-21 to any hero, but assigning it to Mekk would better improve it’s survivability with Mekk’s AA repairs, and a shorter Nullify cooldown. This would hopefully encourage Mekk to join team fights, and give Mekk more impact on the outcome of those fights. That said, Mekk himself would only be AAing X-21 during that fight and spamming Nullify, so while that play style might be more impactful, it might not be any more fun.

TL;DR, Mekk’s playstyle not being active enough is my primary concern with the kit at the moment, and I’m working on ways to remedy that. If I stick with the AA heavy playstyle that has Mekk smacking his inventions to keep them alive, then that playstyle has to be fun, and needs to at least feel like it's interactive and engaging for the player.

Regarding the kit being too busy, I can respect that, but I’m satisfied with the breadth. I don’t think that Mekk decisions would be as simple as, “Assign Mechanostrider to the DPS every time,” mainly because the inventions are not good enough without building around them. Sure, you could assign Mechanostrider to the DPS, which would encourage picking For Gnomeregan, Battle Saddle, Battlestrider, and Roadrunner if DPS is AA heavy. But maybe the enemy comp is tank heavy with healers for sustain, and you need to add more pressure to focus down their support. In that case, Mekk can talent toward a Boom Mod Mechanostrider build, not assigning Mechano to anyone at all and instead using it for DPS of his own. Either way, if you talent in those directions, it’ll render X-21 and Jeeves relatively moot. He seems busy upfront, but he has to pick a direction and stick to it to have any sort of impact.

The problem with that, IMO, is that you’re left with two less than desirable Basic Abilities once you’ve talented to support only one. But, while that might make games too one directional for Mekk on an individual basis, there would be a ton of variation across games. One match might have Mekk filling the role of tank with an X-21 Steam Armor Build, and another might have him doing some mid-game ganking with a Boom Mod Mechanostrider build with Alarm-o-Bots for scouting. That game-to-game flexibility is what’s core to his concept, and it’s what would hopefully make him more desirable than TLV, for instance. I originally considered making him multiclass because of this, and likened him to Varian. Part of the reason why I geared his talents toward “sacrificing” two Basic Abilities in favor of supporting another was because of his level of flexibility in comparison to Varian. Varian can make use of all his Abilities whether he goes tank or assassin. I wanted to make Mekk more flexible on a game-to-game basis than Varian, but consequentially couldn’t give his kit as much stability without him being OP. But perhaps there are other ways to go about that, such as having his trait provide the flexibility in gearing toward an invention, and basing his QWE off of the selected invention, as you mentioned. I’ll think about that, and maybe there’s a way to pursue that without blowing up his kit with too many options.

Thanks for the kind comment! Just added a list of talents that should make him even crazier. Tried to support a X-21 bruiser build that has Mekk single-mindedly healing X-21 and little else (for those macro newbs), among other potential builds.