Portal potential
To start this article about Medivh I want to immediately talk about Zeratul. Zeratul has a lot of things going for him, but what makes him so powerful is Blink. Everyone understands that Blink is one of the best abilities in the game. It defines Zeratul and allows him to do things other heroes just aren't capable of doing. It's uses are straight forward--chase enemies, escape danger.
And when Zeratul hits level 13, blink gets even better thanks to the Wormhole talent. With Wormhole, Zeratul can engage in hit and run tactics, juke enemies, and otherwise be an extremely slippery. It's a must have talent.
Now imagine you could have Wormhole as early as level 1. Only...
- The blink range is twice as long
- You can blink back and forth in the same locations for 6 seconds (9 when talented)
- Allies can blink with you if they choose as many times as you want.
Hyperbole aside, the inherent power level of Portal is really insane. It's a skill testing ability that can either get your killed often or provide an invaluable tool for your allies. The first couple games as Medivh can be overwhelming and a lot of it has to do with Portal. It's a wierd feeling knowing how much you could be doing but not understanding how to do it.
Proper Portal Procedure
There are really three ways to use Portal effectively. Past that, you get into fancy territory that requires a more advanced understanding of the hero, his talents, and his matchups. Master these three first and you will see a significant increase in your Medivh winrate:
- Escape Portal
The most intuitive use of Portal is the easiest to pull off. By placing Portals at max distance, you or an ally can cover a large distance, instantly coming out of harms way. This is the easiest Portal move to pull off. Just place the portal in front of a fleeing ally, and place the exit as far as possible from all the things trying to kill them.Mechanical difficulty: 4/10
Situational Awareness needed: 4/10
Impact 8/10
Aside from the enemy team typing "zzz" immediately afterwards, everyone loves an escape portal. Thankfully, it's pretty easy for Medivh to place some perfect portals to aid his allies escape. Just be sure to Force of Will your target first, as they are usually just seconds away from taking massive amounts of damage.
- Flanking Portal
A team fight starts and you place a portal exit behind enemy lines. Your roid-raged Sonya, with murderous intent, takes the portal and starts killing whatever was on the other side. You join her and cast a timely Force of Will, negating tons of damage and pro-longing her killing spree. Who needs Leap when you can take a portal?
Mechanical difficulty: 6/10
Situational Awareness needed: 5/10
Impact: 7/10
It's actually pretty hard to place a useful Flanking Portal without putting your self in danger first. On top of this, it takes your allies to understand the aggressive nature of the portal lest a squishy plops themselves right in the middle of the enemy DPS just because they wanted to be cool and use the portal.
- Poke Portal
A weak hero retreats behind their wall to recover their Health from the fountain or perhaps Hearthstone back to safety. Suddenly a portal appears out of nowhere (Medivh doesn't need vision to cast the exit) and spell slinging Medivh appears out of nowhere. One instant Arcane Rift and auto attack later, he's gone. The portal looms ominously, demanding the attention of the enemy team.
"What else might sprout from the unknown to slightly pester us?" they ask themselves. This will happen roughly every 13 seconds.
Mechanical difficulty: 9/10
Situational Awareness needed: 8/10
Impact: ???
The Poke Portal is the most difficult technique to pull off and, if you do it wrong, it can be disastrous. A couple misclicks or a late Force of Will will cause an aggressive Medivh to either takes loads of necessary damage (possibly even die) without causing any significant damage or harass. It's difficult to get the hang of and aiming Arcane Rift is difficult when you are trying to leave the portal as soon as you entered it.
But if you manage to pull it off, Medivh can start dishing out very solid damage numbers and ensure kills that would of otherwise been impossible. Medivh has a lot of the tools to be an incredible ganking hero and proper Portal usage is at the center of it all.
Portal Insanity
Check out the above clip from @FollowGrubby's youtube channel. The whole video is a fun watch, but the moment starting at the 22 seconds is the most relevant to this discussion.
Madness. Medivh's Portal scales with player skill and mechanics more than most any other ability. In the same way that a master Zeratul player makes Blink seem so powerful (Remember when Zuna first popularized Wormhole or when Glaurung first started using Vorpal blade?), the same can be said about Medivh and his portal's.
If you look at this Reddit Thread it appears as though we already have a viable candidate for the Medivh presidency. In the original post you can find a link to a good example of the "Poke Portal" used almost constantly. Thanks to "The Master's Touch" talent (Hit 35 Arcane Rifts without dying and the damage is increased by 100 + cooldown reduction increased by 1) this style of play enjoy a pretty massive power spike that can be reached earlier than most powerful questions.
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