Holliday Ability Replacement - "Spring Spurs"

[FrostyTurtle]

Replacement for "Bounce Pad"

Ability - Holliday activates her Spring Spurs and bounces with her momentum, dealing damage in a small area of effect each time she lands. Increase move speed. Jump can be used while landing to increase her bounce height and damage on landing. This ability is channeled, like Vindicta flight, and can be cancelled at any time.​

Rationale behind the change

This would add a new and (in my opinion) fun mechanic that is not currently in use by an existing hero or item. Right now, the way you theoretically want to play around Holliday's ult is to either warp stone or majestic leap in, ult the target, and then use bounce pad to get out (or vice versa). The problem with this is that the ability combo, if used in an ideal situation, doesn't have a ton of counterplay.​

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My suggestion is to turn Holliday's combo into warpstone / majestic leap, lasso, and then bounce away with the stolen teammate with Spring Spurs, damaging them with each bounce. This gives the enemy team the ability to react to Holliday - using stuns, defensive support items, or simply shooting her as she bounces away.​

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In addition to a theoretically more fair gameplay loop, I believe this also sounds like a relatively fun mechanic that meshes well with her other basic abilities.​

• Powder keg - Now you can throw it and punch the keg downward as you're bouncing around.
• Crackshot - Landing head shots becomes a bit more difficult with this ability active, but quite a bit more rewarding.

Lastly, this change aligns much more with the clear influence for Holliday - Batrider from Dota. An ability that allows the hero to gain high ground, traverse the map in a unique way, and deal continuous damage to enemies around you.​

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Problems with this change

The main problem with this ability change would be the current map layout and the insides of buildings. Holliday would constantly hit the ceilings in certain buildings or areas of the map. Maybe a good solution would be allowing the ability to be switched-off when active.

Aside from the map issue, another problem could be landing headshots becoming extremely difficult when this ability is active, making it kind of a net negative for the hero instead of a useful tool.

Conclusion

A new mechanic, interesting gameplay with fair counterplay, and a homage to this character's original influence.

Feedback?

 

[npc_pigeon]

u could just make it so she could bunnyhop i guess, that's basically what this almost sounds like.

definitely sounds more interesting than the bounce pad, as i rarely ever see anyone use it's damage utility at all, just for getaways

 

[FrostyTurtle]

u could just make it so she could bunnyhop i guess, that's basically what this almost sounds like.

definitely sounds more interesting than the bounce pad, as i rarely ever see anyone use it's damage utility at all, just for getaways

Yes, this could also be implemented as a passive as well, akin to Viper's slide passive, whereby Holliday gets to bunny hop with correctly timed jumps.

 

[Mjpointek]

Bounce pad is a goated item. punching bombs straight down on enemies is already possible. I play her as much as possible and use it to go in and out, punching, and lassoing, it all flows together very well and is one of the highest skill ceiling kits in my opinion. I see everyone doing mainly gun builds and not using the bounce pads at all. i go for mainly spirit build and prioritize the barrels to lvl 3 and bounce pads lvl 3 first. If people aren't using the kit properly it’s their problem for not seeing the full potential. Bounce pads make the rest of the kit work well into the late game. The only thing this character needs is to change some damage off rip. As someone who plays her as much as possible getting one headshot and removing 1/3 of someones health off spawn seems so wrong but nice in the moment. The base damage should be closer to 75-80 dmg. This is one of the best characters valve has made yet in terms of potential, skill, and pure entertainment . If they change the move entirely I think they’ll be making a big mistake.

 

[bloodfrost27]

Holliday feedback

 

[LIV3FIRE]

I truly think they have holiday pretty dialed in. I know some people will disagree and call her OP. But remember the same thing has been said for every other hero in the game at first. The more people play and play around them they learn the counters, and all is well. I am hoping this is one of those situations.
Holiday is extremely vulnerable in the air. So far, I very rarely get hit with slowing hex, knockdown, etc... But I know that won't last long. Gamers will catch on.
Plus, I'm beginning to think that this tech is by design. If you think about it, she has custom animations for landing after jump pad. Which is really satisfying. And if u mix it in with a heavy melee, she still does the flip. Kind of a flip Punch down strike. which is one of the sickest moves in the game. IMO. Similar to calico.

They've clearly put a lot of work into it and must have thought it through. I like the Spurs idea, but not so sure enough to ask them to completely rework it.

Also, if they did. Which out of the four abilities, would you remove?

The true test will be when she's released to the main roster and how she will translate into the meta-at the competitive level.
(I think she is ready)