User blog comment:Lesdin/Maria, the Astral Keeper/@comment-3391671-20160901013800/@comment-27802145-20160902202949

Before I address your criticism on the kit, I feel the need to say that it's quite amusing how most of your points were identical to those of Green's, preliminarily anyway.

I'm not suggesting that the onus is on you to read every other comment on the blog before analysing, but it does quite make for a bother having to repeatedly explain the quirks and intentions of Maria's kit, not that I am at no fault of course. Maybe I really should make an intentions catalogue in a different tab for each concept.

""The cooldown was intentionally made short. I wanted there to be an emphasis placed on the health cost, rather than the actual cooldown of the ability.""
 * The attack speed growth is obscenely low to provide a basis for the gameplay paradigm of Maria. While she is predictable, she is also supposed to be very damaging and nimble, as can be seen from the rest of her kit. The minor attack speed growth also adds to the thematic repercussions of wielding a long sword and a pistol, rather than just two twinswords.
 * The cooldown scales with Quickening to further incentivize the ranking of Quickstep, rather than the other two damaging abilities. This has Maria forced to choose between mobility/dodging capacity and damage, consequently delaying the ideal gameplay fantasy phase of Maria. A gimmicky way of confining Maria's power, but I believe it works. As for the cooldown, even with no ranks in Quickstep, Quickening still has a cooldown of 6, no need to worry of it not functioning properly (the cooldown is 6 - Quickstep's rank).
 * The recharge time can simply be done through a custom label, though in the format I'd created you could simply type in w/e parameters you wanted, and it would still work.
 * Again, the exponential scaling on W is to delay the ideal gameplay fantasy phase of Maria. Attaining her maximum damage potential requires time, and comes with more than the usual amounts of consequence if not prioritized early, further adding to the opportunity costs Maria has to consider whilst maintaining a certain playstyle.
 * The E/R mutual exclusivity is just there for mostly thematic purposes. I could've added in two E abilities, but I felt that it would just bloat her. She functions perfectly fine as is anyway.
 * The E is indeed powerful, and is also supposed to be. This is why it is only available while she has low attack speed, and is visually wielding a pistol. There are visual queues made to warn against Maria, along with statistical debuffs. In a way, she could be seen as dealing Juggernaut tiers of damage, but instead of being easily kitable she is predictable, and instead of being beefy she is capable of boosting her survivability by just not getting hit via I/Q.
 * You've stated yourself that the scaling is obscenely high, which is there to indeed incentivize a full or near full AD build. This consequently means that with 40% of her max health gone, she has to be 60% or under to use this ultimate, which also has a delay for the preliminary activation, during which she gains no defensive buffs, and is stationary. The bonus damage is also afflicted over time, in addition to being able to be dodged, and DoTs, unless stated otherwise, do not stack as a rule of thumb. And well, as for the cooldown:

- Lesdin

""So the health cost is the prize of the ability more than the cooldown. Alright *takes note* This then means that Bloodbath is just Maria's way of saying "Too late. You didn't kill me early enough in this teamfight." I still worry that 40% is a lot of health, especially since she has no innate sustain, but that's just part of her kit as you've reiterated.""

- Green

Though I may have disagreed with your points, they had carried meaning, and I thank you for taking the time to do what you did. I hope my counter-arguements were able to proficiently supply you with the way I was trying to go with Maria. She is indeed unique, and her numbers probably do come out as very obscene to those who are seeing her for the first time.