Miko could use a boost. A small one

  • The across the board support nerfs that came with the addition of Azreal were pretty great. They did however kill Miko. Sure she can still duel and her Stasis is solid CC but now that she lacks her God tier self sustain she has fallen from her powerhouse play style. That was a good call by NT, forcing Miko to target her allies with Chain Heal instead of spamming it on herself. Assuming NT keeps this change I have thought of some changes, ability/mod reworks, that could make her a viable solo healer.

    • Regenerator - Her on hit healing for either herself or an ally forces her to actively fight to heal effectively, just like Azreal. This is fine but considering her self heal on Chain Heal has been halved her passive could fix her new weakness. These changes could either be reworks for the ability itself or mods to change how the passive works.

    Pulse - Regenerator now heals in a small aoe around Miko. Meaning it will ALWAYS heal herself and nearby allies. Since Regenerator heals the lowest health ally nearby, Miko can't choose to heal herself with her passive unless she is alone.

    Double - Regenerator always heals Miko and one other ally. This would effectively double the healing and keep her self healing consistent.

    Simple Buff - Increase the heal of Regenerator. Plain and simple. If she heals more on hit she can heal low health allies and herself faster but she still relies on dueling skill.

    • Kinetic Barrier - This ability has been a joke. Sure you can block key abilities, Supers, and block for turning in cells but overall the barrier has too little health and isn't active long enough to feel like an ability worth casting.

    Invulerable Barrier - The barrier is now indestructible. This forces your opponents to come to you giving Miko an edge against ranged heroes. This would also punish an opponent Zero since he would have to enter the barrier to heal any allies fighting within.

    Healing Barrier - Allies within the barrier receive healing per second. This healing would last as long as the barrier does and would likely be very low. Paired with the rest of her healing it would be enough to just have another source of healing even if it is a small addition.

    Shield Barrier - Allies within the barrier when it is activated get a small shield. This would aid in Miko's dueling as well as enable her to increase her tiny health pool. Depending on shield health this could QUICKLY become op so I specified small shields.

    Overall I think Miko is still a great hero but just she doesn't have the staying power of the rest of cast to function as a solo healer.

  • @thetruepilliger

    +1 to all this. Good ideas.

    Honestly, they could also just make 1 of a number of different mods a part of her permanent passive kit. Making either the infusion or replication mods permanent would boost healing either in bulk or over time in a fight. I hesitate to say it, but the adrenaline mod seems to basically be mandatory for her survivability, so as an alternative they could just build adrenaline into her kit as a passive, which would do nothing to boost healing directly, but would add survivability and free a mod slot.

    Just ideas, but bottom line I agree, and I think a lot of players agree, Miko needs a small targeted buff.

  • @thetruepilliger Respectfully I disagree mostly. I honestly think she's fine as she is now. You just gotta be more careful with her but that makes perfect sense, at least to me, since supports generally should be squishy by design. It should be giving the team incentive to protect their healer better, not sacrifice overall team damage to have 2 healers.

    But yeah let me try explain myself a bit better by going through your ideas...

    Regenerator is a perfectly suitable passive. Also weaknesses are not a bad thing. Too many weaknesses or not enough weaknesses definitely are bad things coughMakutuReworkcough. Point is, the passive allows her and allies to benefit from being in melee with enemies. But that's not the problem with your suggestions...

    Pulse- This is just trying to make Miko a 2nd Kulev. It doesn't match her overall kit design and takes away from her unique style of healing, not totally and it would be super useful but still, no, it compromises what makes Miko Miko.

    Double- This one is much more suitable but it effectively counteracts the point of nerfing her healing in the first place. They did it for a reason, a very good one.

    Simple Buff- Also suitable suggestion but when you're talking about passives, buffs can easily become too good. I'd say it should be considered but VERY carefully.

    Kinetic Shield has always been amazing from what I can tell. I have a couple of friends who were Miko mains before they started expanding their fighter pool (i.e. The fighters they are comfortable playing with). In their hands, I've seen countless Toil and Trouble casts completely nullified and Buttercup hooks thwarted, only to name a few examples. In the right hands, Miko's barrier is a huge dome of "lolnope, at least you tried". It doesn't matter how long it lasts when you time it right and that's a nice skill some Miko mains have and it should be respected, not made less impressive. If low shield health really is that big a deal for you, there's the Fortified mod if the enemies are killing it or the Enduring mod if you need it to be active longer. Now on to the Barrier ideas...

    Invulnerable Barrier- I think this is a great idea for a mod. It will feel significant. However probably not suitable for a basic mod. If they eventually do dual-slot mods, I reckon this would be perfect for that.

    Healing Barrier- Sort of suitable for the kit and on brand with the other Kinetic Shield mods but those typically make sense because they are defensive utility rather than outright more healing. Personally I feel it would be better if it increased healing received by like 5/10% or something for allies within the shield.

    Shield Barrier- There's already a suitable version of this, it's called Embolden. The shield within a shield thing is a messy idea and it's like trying to make her shield into a much better version of Good Omen. I'm sorry but that is not a good idea. No offense.

    But yes, overall she is still a great fighter but I believe she does have the ability to function as a very good solo healer, just play smart, coordinate and parry. I'd say save her for playing with a stack or good randoms unless you know how to pick your fights very well. Also I know it's really good but don't rely or feel you have to rely on Adrenalin. Pick mods that suit your play and play to suit your mods. Experiment more. There's a lot of right answers with mod builds.

  • @b4nj4x7581 said in Miko could use a boost. A small one:

    Healing Barrier

    Many newbies put a barrier on the team when they gather on the spot to heal them. And I did that too. It happens intuitively. Because the shield is green and her skills are supposed to heal. I believe a healing shield is the right idea. As a weak passive ability, and increased by the module.

  • @Commander-Brand Respectfully I disagree but I acknowledge your point about intuition.

  • @b4nj4x7581 I think we are going to have "agree to disagree." From my experience in solo queue and stacking as well as playing plenty of time on every hero, Miko is currently the worst hero in the game. By far.

    To best describe this I should start with who she should be compared with. The other supports.

    -Kulev- Despite being a ranged hero Kulev is a solid duelist. Forcing a melee hero to fight on his Scared Ground, healing himself while damaging his opponent, makes the duel a battle of attrition where the challenger has to beat Kulev quickly or his constant healing and DPS will win him the day. Throw in his Good Omen shield to give himself super armor inbetween parrying as well as marking the target with Curse for bonus damage and you've got an absolute UNIT of a hero. Miko has to actively land successful basic attacks (BA) to use her passive, Kulev doesn't have that restriction. Miko cannot gain super armor meaning she has to evade or parry to avoid damage/continue BA'ing. Chain Heal provides less protection than Good Omen so even though it heals her Kulev can absorb more damage with a well timed shield. The only edge Miko has in comparison to Kulev is that she has a stun on her base kit (this will be a reoccuring theme) but even Kulev has here beat in the crowd control (CC) department because he has Bamboozle which can be used to one shot or just give Kulev a reprieve from fighting for a few seconds. Kulev is stacked compared to Miko.

    -Zerocool- One of my least played heroes but I've played enough to confirm that between the two burst healers, Miko and Zero, Zerocool is the best choice. Good escape, can create impassable terrain that he can still shoot or heal through, and access to some of the best mods in the game that give him self sustain as well as increasing his mobility. Miko has better self sustain than Zero, true, but now only barely. Dual Bus allows Zero to heal for a solid amount especially when his Defrag is also active. He can give himself 30% increased move speed on demand and reduce his stamina recharge rate. But like Kulev, Zero's lack of cc is his weakness compared to Miko. He can't cancel channeled abilities and cannot interrupt combos unless he performs a parry. Zero needs to peels to function which was previously Miko's strength. She could stand her ground and sustain through tons of damage. She simply cannot do that anymore.

    -Azreal- The support that showwd Miko how it is done. He out duels her, has better self sustain, has the second best escape in the game, has one super that deals big time damage and another that can wipe an entire team with an environmental kill. How does he out duel her? He attacks absurdly fast. The only BA that can be easily parried is his final animation and even that one is quick. Not mention every attack applies damage over time (DOT) while simultaneously healing him. Those last two bits are important. Even while being struck by hitstun he is damaging and healing. Reminds you of anyone? Kulev. So not only does he have constant self sustain, DOT, but he also can apply hitstun. If that doesn't sell that he is the better of two melee supports allow me to continue. Miko can reset her BA combo through Stasis. Technically she can do it with any ability but Stasis is the fastest. Problem there is that if you use Stasis to reset a combo instead of cancel a key ability (Death Spiral, Balde Dance, Ride the Lightning, Toil and Trouble (while Maeve is airborne), Bamboozle, Life Force, Yank, Barge, Surge, whatever the name is of Mekko's dps Super) you will condemn yourself and your allies to suffering from one or multiple of those abilities. Azreal doesn't have that concern and his ability, Void Wave, can be used to reset his combo with two charges. Similarly to Daemon's Shuriken reset and everyone knows getting locked in that is DEVESTATING. Kinetic Barrier doesn't even block Void Wave and using an evade to dodge it is honestly a win for Azreal. Miko combos quickly on only one animation so the rest are easy to parry. Miko again only outperforms a support because she has a stun. Portal gives himself and his team MASSIVE mobility, the only ability to escape a Cage that isn't a bug. I personally use it to portal to health stations and then immediately return through the portal so I can snag some burst healing and additional passive healing. Who needs burst healing when you can control EVERY SINGLE health station where ever a fight is taking place?

    Blocking abilities with Kinetic Barrier would be a good argument IF those heroes and abilities were popular. Toil and Trouble is the easiest ability to dodge in the game. Buttercup is rarely played so blocking Yank isn't a necessary skill to learn at the moment. Not to mention my point with Kinetic Barrier being bad is it's base design. Too weak and too short. Your suggestion for fixing that is to take mods making a terrible ability, arguably the worst ability in the game, become mediocre isn't a good suggestion because now you are investing mod(s) that could be filled by her actual good mods. She needs a buff or change to the ability, not a change in build. Trust me, I've tried those mods and they cause more harm than good.

    The issue with Regenerator is simple. You don't choose who it heals unless you aren't near any allies. Imagine this: you are in a team fight and are currently dueling a Daemon. No one has died but everyone is hurting. Everytime the Daemon starts a combo on you you either parry, evade, or stun him before he deals too much damage. You throw a Chain Heal to your team when it is off cooldown. You strike the Daemon with a good number of BA's but you are noticing that whenever you Chain Heal an ally you don't receive the second heal. You are also realizing that you haven't received any healing from Regenerator. This is because your team is taking to much damage so your abilities are prioritizing their health pool over your own. This is her fatal flaw. Casting Chain Heal on yourself will only result in less healing for the team and you can't control your paasive. All you can do is abandon your team so it isn't a full wipe, fight close enough to a health station so you don't need to rely on your kit, or bring a second support to keep yourself healthy. These nerfs were supposed to punish double support, which they did, but they also converted Miko into a hero that is only viable when she has another support baby sitting her.

    I stand by what I said when I started this post. NT had the right idea nerfing her self sustain. What they didn't comprehend was that they were also making her the worst hero in the game. I like Miko but I can't think of a single reason to play her other than quests or if I haven't played her in a while and simply want to play a match or two of her. She lost her identity to Azreal and NEEDS something to bring her out of this hole.