Murky Rework Concept by cpt.haxray

Since only his trait is changed, and his normal abilities remain the same, I won't bother including them here. His trait now combines a slightly nerfed Living the Dream effect into it base(no longer provides the 5% starting ability power, but he can gain the same power over time). The reason for this is simple. Living the Dream is pretty much murky's best talent choice right now at level 4, and is practically part of what makes murky murky. Including it as part of his talent gives him more room for talent options, as well as focusing on the risk/reward. Sure, he can die a lot and come back fast, but hes going to be stronger on his first 'life' in a team fight than during his remainder.

Edit: It also encourages you to go after his egg even more, as it removes any damage bonus he obtained from Living the Dream.

Welcome to the real bulk of the changes, as everything done to make murky stronger is solely through his talents and the trait change. Starting with his level one talents.

Fishtank:
Every 5 seconds, reduce the damage taken from the next Hero Basic Attack by 50%. Stores up to 2 charges. Every 15 seconds, reduce the damage taken from the next ability by 50%.

Reasoning: Since murky's block has a special name, it only seems fair to make it standout among the rest. The reduce damage taken by abilities/spells should allow him a stronger fighting chance at surviving against heavy burst mages, which are common and generally tend to take him out at one shot. It only has one charge to avoid having him become TOO annoying to kill coupled with some of his other talents, and 15 seconds is a long time on murky.

Assault Egg: Heath and Sight range of Egg increased by 150%. When respawning, gain stealth for 2 seconds.

Reasoning: Assault egg was generally too risky and low reward, leaving it as his worst level 1 talent. What was originally meant to encourage him using the egg in a more aggressive way came with the downside that it was super easy to just track him to the egg and nuke it. Giving murky stealth for 2 seconds lets him not only hide where his egg is hidden, but allow it to push an aggressive egg murky a lot more than the original talent.

Lunchtime Bully: Enemy minions killed near you grant a stack of bribe. Use 20 stacks to bribe a Mercenary, instantly defeating them. Does not work on Bosses. Maximum of 100 stacks. If a camp is defeated entirely with Bribe, the camp respawns 50% faster, and Decreases the time it takes for his puffer to detonate by 0.1, up to a 1 second decrease.

Reasoning: Most heroes get a special effect on bribe, so why not murky? The name is based on the fact he apparently loves to eat his puffer. While offering less survivablity options than Assault egg and Fish Tank, it allows him to push much easier, and a one second difference in detonation time for his puffer is a big deal.

Slime Advantage: Your basic attack does 100% increased damage to slimed targets.

Reasoning: I want to encourage a murky to pick what kind of build hes going for early on, be it sustained damage with Slime, A strong pushing build, or the classic Puffer Combo. There for, he gets slime advantage at level 4 instead of level 7. This also allows him to support it with more slime talents down the line, instead of being a one off gimmick useful against double support comps and thats about it.

Compressed Air: Increases the radius of pufferfish by 50%. Deals 35% more damage to slimed targets.

Reasoning: Same as slime advantage, want to allow him to pick up the basic tools for his kit early on, either being burst, sustained, or pushing.

Tufferfish: Pufferfish take an additional attack before being disarmed. Deals 50% more damage to non-heroic targets. Deals only 25% more damage to structures.

Reasoning: Tufferfish was a super underwelming talent originally, but I didn't want to group it up with compressed air in fear of bringing back the pre-puffer nerf murky that easily. There for it is now connected to his pushing/lane build. While the damage boost is big and allows him to take camps pretty easily, as well as do a dent onto structures, he sacrifices his main damage sources for both his sustained and burst damage.

Hindering Slime: Increases slime slow amount from 20% to 30%

Reasoning: Same as it was at this tier, but due to slime advantage being an option earlier, allows a slime build to more easily include this into their kit.

Egg Frenzy: When murky's egg is killed, gain resistance, taking 25% reduced damage from all sources, and gain 20% ability power. This lasts until his egg is replaced.

Reasoning: A rather fun take on the berzerker talent for murky. Having such a talent proc off of losing his egg makes more sense for the hero's play style. Plus, it possibly rewards a high risk high reward play style for having a murky player continue fighting when his egg dies, or intentionally letting his egg die for the increased power, at the risk of being taken out and forced to sit through the full respawn timer.

Slimy Pufferfish: The pufferfish casts un-talented slime at its location when landed. This slime doesn't provide a movement speed debuff and does half damage.

Reasoning: A pretty big shot of power early on for his puffer build, but hear me out. Not only is it weaker than the current one, but murky deserves to be able to use his combo earlier, now that his octograb ultimate has been nerfed allowing heros an easier time to escape from it if in a good team. Plus it would be rather lop-sided if a burst damage murky could also take one of the slime talents this early on.

Fish Eat Fish: Your basic attack does 150% more damage to Minions and Mercenaries. Safety Bubble now heals you.

Reasoning: Outside of giving him another useful push talent, he can take a safety bubble heal way earlier than he could before. Of course, hes going to be sacrificing the chance for a nice power buff to his Slime and to one of the key parts of the puffer combo.

No changes done to his ultimates.

Bubble Breeze: Gain 20% Movement speed while in safety bubble, and reduce its cooldown by 5 seconds.

Reasoning:
Combines bubble breeze with Bubble machine. Bubble breeze formerly was a terrible pick at level 1, due to the other options it was up against. Including it alongside the cooldown reduction should not only give it more use, but allow both talents to not be so reliant on healing bubble in order to be worth it.

Slimy End: Slime is cast repeatedly every second at the location murky died until he respawns.

Reasoning: Makes slimy end a lot stronger of a talent pick, as well as giving murky a sort of tactical choice to when and where he dies, as he can use it as a makeshift zoning tool for his teammates. While it lasts longer with his egg down, murky would also be completely missing from the fight.

Blood For blood: Activate to deal 10% of the target enemy's hero max heath as damage and heal for twice that amount.
60 second cooldown.

Reasoning: Wouldn't make sense to have only 2 talents at a tier. Plus this gives murky a form of sustain/Single target damage outside of his basic abilities.

Continuous Slime: Decreases the cooldown of slime from 4 seconds to 3 seconds.

Reasoning: Due to the increased amount of slime related talents murky is able to pick up with this rework, it would be insane to let him have this talent any sooner.

Egg Shell: Murky is no longer revealed when his egg is killed.

Reasoning: A pretty strong survivablity boosting talent, but only gives any form of benefit if his egg dies. Useful for a high risk high reward build focused around Egg Frenzy, or if an enemy cloaked hero happens to have a field day with your egg.

Slimy Bubble: Enemies in a short range around you when you cast Safety Bubble will be slowed by 20%.

Reasoning: Adds some extra escape power, at the cost of not being able to pick the other talents at this tier.

Rewind: Activate to reset the cooldowns of your basic abilities.

Reasoning: Remains unchanged due to being the ultimate peak of pure burst power to his puffer combo.

Revenge of the Murlocs: March of the murloc's Murlocs travel farther and cling to targets 2 seconds longer. They now do full damage to buildings, and slow is increased by 50%.

Reasoning: I wanted March of the Murlocs to be a more viable pick, but didn't want to give such a powerful ultimate ability at level 10. As such, as his reward for sitting through having the inferior ult, he gets a massive spike in power at level 20 if he picks this talent.

And a Shark too!:
Increases the damage of Octo-Grab by 13700%(or so the description claims). Octograb no longer wears off when Murky is killed.

Reasoning: Gives murky back his old octo-grab, at the cost of taking Rewind or the other talent at this tier.

Bellowing Fish: Enemies caught in the pufferfish's explosion will be silenced for one second.

Reasoning: A REALLY strong lategame talent. Hopefully not too strong combined with the rest of his kit. Replaces bolt of the storm as it is rather meh on murky.

And thats pretty much it. Ill revise this with feedback from the comments, but keep in mind that this rework was intended to push him more as a glass cannon assassin. Has a potential for huge damage, but is also easy to take out. Also meant to allow a bigger diversity in build choices, allowing murky to go sustained damage, burst damage, or a mix of both. Even a dedicated push build is possible, at the cost of most of his combo/power.

I am well aware this is probably going to be overpowered, so please leave feedback in the comments. It pains me to see Murky in such a bad shape currently, and its thanks in part to an awful talent tree and newer heroes simply being able to cause him no end of grief.