Ardan Should Not Be a Captain

Or more accurately, in my opinion he should not be primarily encouraged to be played as a Captain, the same way someone like Tony is a bruiser and tank first, and a captain second.

Ardan is probably my most played hero, he was my first main, and the first hero I really got excited about releasing way back in the day. His kit was so confusing I had to ask my older brother to explain how he worked. The issue with captain Ardan is not that it doesn’t work or can’t be balanced, it’s proven to be one of the most reliable and staple picks in the entire history of the game. Captain Ardan fails from a solely gameplay perspective, and here is why.

Ardan’s entire kit is based around his Vengeance, every ability has some interaction with it. Vengeance is the only thing that gives Ardan a “fighting skill cap”, which is a phrase which here means: The amount of potential skill that goes into fighting enemy heroes. Most captains have a very low fighting skill cap, the likes of catherine or Phinn are not at all exciting to duel with even when built as damage dealers, because they were not designed to do so. Ardan is different. Approaching a fight with WP Ardan is just as mechanically demanding as Rona or Blackfeather, and has a similar potential for skilled play. The problem is that all of this is lost when Ardan is played as a captain, as his kit is essentially reduced to 2 abilities. The cool interactions and combos are meaningless when a blood for blood bast 6m is nothing more than a short gap closer. To quote the common complaint of the Blackfeather rework, he’s using half a kit. Except in Ardan’s case it’s far less than that.

There is nothing wrong with captain Ardan, but why encourage Ardan to be played in his least interesting form. Tank or WP Ardan is so fun and exciting, they utilize his entire kit and still offer the same potential to help your team with clutch saves, while still taking full advantage of the rest of his kit. Just as an anecdote, I was playing top lane tank Ardan yesterday with a Pulsewave, Aftershock, utility build. At one point my mage was fleeing after a push being pursued by 3 enemies. I was able to Vanguard in just in time, bfb killing one enemy, crucible block a stun, then use the vengence from my teammate taking damage to get 2 back to back bfb before ulting for a 4th quickly turning around the fight. i’m not trying to flex, just to highlight how much more interesting it is when you can skillfully combo your abilities around your B while still protecting the team.

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As THE Ardan Jungle main with 1783 overall and 1265 5v5 Ranked games played as only Ardan, i can confirm that Jungle Ardan makes more sense than Support Ardan.
His gap-closing B and disengaging/engaging A or C makes him a really good ganking hero.
Also his durability in fights and critting down carrys makes him a really threat to those who dont bother to buy defensive items. Ive been thinking about making a tutorial or guide on how to play him properly, explaining his different build paths etc.

You can check my stats if youre interested of how i play my Jungle Ardan to the max potential.
https://vgpro.gg/players/Utkucannn

Im currently on 58,3 % Winrate on 216 games this season, but i think this WR number will go up with the nextpatch. Also 90% of my games are SoloQ, with a consistent duo partner i think my WR would be much higher. But i like the challenge that soloQ gives me :slight_smile:

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Well I agree with you, but the point I’m trying to make is not really about power level. Captain Ardan is equally strong more often than not (with the upcoming changes damage Ardan may be dead which is what inspired this post). But about how the different playstyles utilize his kit. i’m not so much saying playing damage dealing Ardan is or is not good (though it is right now), just that it should be encouraged by the devs to be his primary build path, even if at this moment it happened to be terrible.

I understand but i think they wont “change” him into a jungle hero, which is fine. As for new players its one of the easiest (Captain)heroes to learn.

You’re right, but I’d just like to point out they don’t have to make him a Jungler, just push him towards damage dealing paths. More often than not damage ardan is not even played in the jungle anyway.

No, I just won’t accept that. The situation with Bf and Ardan is different, ardan, according to you plays with half the kit because 1 of his abilities is “just” a gap closer, and his passive? Okey, roam ardan doesn’t use vengeance, and? The fact that he still regains and can freely use his abilities makes him have a passive also, his B is still extremely useful for support ardan as a mobility ability and a tool to easily apply items like AP. BF (WP) played with only half his kit because you couldn’t use your B as it punished you more than helped, and you played with basically no passive, even if he had no energy he couldn’t use freely his abilities due to the long cooldown and high costs before the buffs.

Because it’s extremely interesting to fight a WP ardan whose only damaging ability is a long range undodgeable point and click dash. I don’t see the mechanics requirement to play him, it’s just spam the B wherever possible dealing 40% of a carry’s health with just one B. WP ardan is based on 1 single ability, vengeance is just the cooldown, his ult is solely used for refreshing his B, and so is his A.

The difference between tank ardan and support ardan is? Other than the fact that he doesn’t babysit mid the entire match.

From your anecdote, the only difference between support ardan and the non-support ardan you want is just the damage.

I don’t agree, I’m one of those who think Ardan should be a captain, though I also think that he should be viable as a non-captain hero.

Edit: before anyone decides to quote me on the Bf part, discussing that part will leave to us repeating ourselves time and time again like in the past BF discussions.

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Exactly. I would even add SC or TB to that list, if the player decides to build that. Captain Ardan utilizes his entire kit. I would argue CP Ardan uses more of it’s kit than WP to your point of just spamming B.

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I dont agree with you, i would say his autoattacks are more important, it depends on what kind of a build you play: High Crit or High Autoattack Dmg build with atk speed items. Also it takes more then just pressing B to play Ardan WP/Jungle properly.

I’m talking from the EU perspective, they usually buy a crit build (I think) and try to kill you using their B as many times as possible. Of course you are going to use your AA, but the core of it it’s still the B spam.

But in higher elo people already know Ardans B threat and buying an husk makes it extremely hard for ardan because you cant “oneshot” enemies anymore. I just wanted to point out that Ardan is not an point and click hero by any means, sure in lower elo ppl dont know about how to respond to different heroes and their playstyles or even their build so it makes ardan look really simple and op but i assure you the higher elo u get the harder it gets to play him.

Carries don’t usually buy SH, their main defensive item is reflex block, also when facing a SH they just activate it with the B and retreat until it ends. It isn’t hard to play him actually, and he is op right now (rip HellsDevil), at least here in EU (idk about other regions).

You’re gonna try and tell me this and then say One punch Ardan does use the whole kit? Jungle Ardan is far more boring, it’s literally just punch until the enemy dies, use B whenever it’s available. I’d go into this more but @Guest_78 has already said everything that needs saying.

The problem with Ardan is that his vengeance is OP. They need to nerf the amount he can gain relative to the amount he uses, whether it be in the form of pure numbers or even change which abilities give him vengeance and which use it.

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@Guest_78 Well thats what im talking about if ppl dont react to the enemy threats/build (buying an husk) its not ardans fault if he gets fed. Also i hate the idea that carries go full dmg, because most of the time they are with their duo partner etc. In my opinion brawlers should always outdmg carries because the carries have a clear range advantage.

@MacAulay they already nerfed his vengeance in the upcoming patch but i think it wont affect much my playstyle.

That doesn’t change the fact that his B is a click and point undodgeable long-ranged dash ability. Even if they buy SH he isn’t interesting to play against at all. The main argument was that he uses his kit more than support ardan so he is more interesting, but that’s just false. Support ardan uses his kit a lot more than WP ardan, who just uses his other abilities to refresh the B cooldown.

WP ardan is dead in update 3.10

People can have different opinions, thats fine. If you want to see my Ardan in action, so i can show you that i use my whole kit of abilities and not just for refreshing my B, u can add me ingame (Utkucannn) i would love to show my Ardan to you :slight_smile:

Just checked patch notes, you’re right. I like these changes, although I think @Guest_78 is right, WP Ardan is gonna be a lot less meta in 3.10.

I dont think so been playing him since years, many patches have come and i always found a way to play him most effectively, sure the most known way to play him could be dead but i wouldnt call him a dead hero by any means.

He isn’t going to be meta at all. The changes were done to kill wp ardan (it was said by Sonata), if he is I would be surprised.

Just because you played him differently doesn’t change the fact that his main play style is the other one.

Yeah we will see, im gonna reply in this thread or create a new one, when the patch is out and i can give my opinion on the new Ardan. Till then imma hop in ranked and enjoy the last hours of (soon dead?) Ardan :slight_smile: See you on the Rise brothers!

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