Travakh
10-06-2009, 07:22 PM
WIP 10/6/09
<Picture of panda doing something silly>
Panda is a quintessential team battle and control hero. All of his damage and spells are physical, his damage is inflicted in an aoe on demand, and he has a stun plus two single target disables. This hero is neither for the faint of heart or for the less experienced player, because his playstyle requires timing and high amounts of map and battle awareness.
His strengths are his scaling damage (Flurry and FaceSmash both scale with base/attack damage extremely well) and his ability to lockdown priority targets and control fights because nothing he does is affected by magic immunity.
His weaknesses are his difficulty to play, large battle presence (he will likely be the first targetted in many team battles), and critical lack of mana to fuel his 4 activated abilities in the early game, as well as not-very-good tankability.
--
Stats
STR: 23/+2.5
AGI: 17/+1.7
INT: 15/+1.8
Low starting int and low growths overall mean you'll need a decent investment in early stat items to be at all useful in lane and early fights.
--
Skills
Flurry:
<picture of flurry graphical effect>
40 mana/charge, 1/2/3/4 charges stored on 4 second cooldown per charge. Flurry is an independently triggered damage instance (meaning crit/lifesteal/etc dont work) that inflicts your attack damage +15/30/45/60% base damage in a 150 aoe in front of you, then moves you and all affected units a distance of 100 in the direction you're facing. Flurry is your scaling damage-on-demand skill that allows you to manipulate fights to your advantage - you can push heroes out and away from fights, you can quickly clear waves of creeps, and you can deal heavy frontloaded damage within a short timeframe. The difficulty of this skill is quickly casting it repeatedly (mashing Q stalls it and doesn't consume all charges quickly) and making sure you're facing the right direction, as otherwise you can flurry into air and do nothing but burn mana.
Flick:
<picture of flick>
75 mana on 24/22/20/18sec cooldown. Flick repositions an enemy within 200 range to flip them behind you. They will land after roughly a second, at which time they are debuffed with -3/4/5/6 armor and a -20/30/40/50% slow which fades over 6 seconds. This skill is first and foremost a *disable*, and is built to stop runners and chain with the other two skills. The -armor and ms is a bonus but don't use it randomly - this attack stops channeling spells and goes through immunity without a sweat.
Cannonball:
<picture of cannonball>
95/110/125/140 mana on 14 second cooldown. Cannonball launches you into the air for about a second and lands you at any point within the 600 cast range, dealing 75/125/175/225 physical damage to all enemies in a 400 radius and stunning the ones within 200 for .75/1.25/1.75/2.25 seconds. If you miss and fail to hit anyone you're stunned yourself for 1.5 seconds. This spell is very hard to initiate with and is best used after an allied initiation or immediately after your flick, because it's not very difficult to see it coming and dodge. On the other hand it's an aoe stun and personal reposition, which gives it superb utility for team battles and blazing escapes. The combo here is to use it immediately after your flick; flick an enemy then cannonball right behind you; the flick slow will ensure that the cannonball will hit, and upon landing the stun you can wail away or ult the target at your pleasure.
Face Smash:
<picture of face smash>
100/200/300 mana on 100sec cd. You channel for 4.5 seconds on an enemy within 100 range - for the duration of the channel the target is completely disabled and you inflict one pulse of damage each second for your attack damage plus 33/66/100% additional base damage. This is NOT a hard hitting ult - it's actually inferior to devourer's ult for damage until later on in the game. This is instead a hard disable that is broken in ganks (flicking someone and immediately facesmashing them on landing is roughly 6 seconds of disable) and can handily lock down priority targets in team fights. The scaling damage is simply a bonus, but this skill is first and foremost a channeled disable and should be treated as such. Unlike flurry attack modifiers do in fact work during face smash.
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Skillbuild
Flurry
Cannonball
Flick
Flurry
Flurry
Face Smash
Flurry
Cannonball
Cannonball
Cannonball
Face Smash
Flick
Flick
Flick
Stats
Face Smash
Stats to 25
Why: One level in flick and cannonball make them functional as positioning tools, but flick's levelled effects don't do much in lane, and cannonball's mana cost increases as it's leveled. Flurry on the other hand gives Panda spike damage in lane; very easy combination is to flick someone behind you then flurry them four times to push them closer to your tower or to an allied hero. This also does quite good damage; each flurry will inflict roughly 150 physical damage in the laning stage, leading to 600 on-demand damage by level 7. Face Smash is levelled ASAP, but keep in mind the duration of the disable remains the same at all levels.
--
Items
Start with: 2 circlets 2 branches one set of tangos
why: stats are key, 6 stats is a generic loadout, will be built into bracers and a power supply, buy battery at sideshop
Build into: 2 bracers int steamboots power supply bottle, Insanitarius, Shrunken Head
why: very generic 15 minute loadout. Steamboots taken over enhanced marchers because of int swappable to str, +base damage improvement (enhanced yields no additional base damage), panda has zero problem chasing and positioning, bottle keeps mana levels topped off
Insanitarius has superb damage yield on panda, 25 str and 31 damage = +56 damage to all attacks, 56+15 bonus damage to flurry hits, 56+25 bonus damage to each swing of your ult. Item is CORE on panda. Shrunken Head should be taken afterwards in order to be able to fully channel your ultimate. This completes your core build.
Build Option 1: Shieldbreaker
Inadvisable if new to the hero because it yields no hp and requires careful use of insanitarius; armor reduction makes all hits hit that much harder though, superb damage
Build Path 2: Frostwolf skull
No more hp or mana issues. Slows on hit allowing easier time in terms of landing flurry hits. +stats contribute to base damage boost, so item yields 25+15 bonus on flurry and 25+25 bonus on each swing of ult, making it more damaging than first glance
Luxury items: Heart, Symbol of Rage, Daemonic Breastplate, Riftshards
Heart is obvious, symbol of rage and heart both give large boosts to base damage, demonic breastplate offers additional armor reduction, critstick has 59% chance of at least 1 proc during the ult and will eat enemies alive.
Alternative items: Frostfield plate, Totem of Kuldra, Puzzlebox, Portal Key
For team battle pandas these items all have superb yields. Cannonball+frostfield activation can rout a position, totem allows piss easy flurry strikes, puzzlebox has good yields on panda (activate immediately before facesmashing someone, have puzzlebox minions beat on the target). Portal Key allows additional positioning shenanigans.
Items to avoid: Runed Axe, Geometer's Bane, Savage Mace, Mock of Brilliance, Harkon's Blade, Eldar Parasite
Runed axe's utility is cleave but your flurries already cleave, meaning there's almost no improvement to farming from the battle fury. Images do nothing because most of your team battle damage is from activations of flurry. MKB and radiance do not improve base damage, radiance does not improve your farm significantly. Panda does not have the mana to sustain Harkon's Blade. Panda has minimal damage improvement from increased attack speed (he scales better with raw +str), making eldar parasite a not very good item
--
In-game Strategy
Unlike other gankers and carries panda's battling ability is quite complex and detailed - Panda is very strong all-game with several skill combinations that can be used to rout enemies.
In the early game it's best that you lane with a partner, because a flick and cannonball can easily set up kills for you. Lane as you would with any melee hero, use Flurry to pick up last hits that you miss. You can't afford to try to randomly cannonball, so instead wait for them to close range, then execute a quick flick followed by however many flurries you have available to push them behind your creep line. Being able to push someone that far guarantees a good number of hits while they run and will pick up an easy kill if you're laning with any direct damage.
From the moment you get your bottle you need to begin roaming ASAP to take advantage of your hero. In this case the combination is simple - cannonball on someone and immediately flick-facesmash them, and you have 4 seconds of leisure while your teammates kill whoever you've facesmashed. You can use flurry in a pinch to clear creep waves and neutral camps in the downtime while your ult isn't up, but your ult is too good - always gank whenever it's up.
Press the advantage in team battles. You should not be initiating fights, the stun radius on your cannonball is too short. What you should be doing is locking down priority targets - enemy carries or CC. Once your team initiates cannonball your target and flick-facesmash them to disable them. Mop up by using flick-flurry to stop runners and kill people.
WIP
<Picture of panda doing something silly>
Panda is a quintessential team battle and control hero. All of his damage and spells are physical, his damage is inflicted in an aoe on demand, and he has a stun plus two single target disables. This hero is neither for the faint of heart or for the less experienced player, because his playstyle requires timing and high amounts of map and battle awareness.
His strengths are his scaling damage (Flurry and FaceSmash both scale with base/attack damage extremely well) and his ability to lockdown priority targets and control fights because nothing he does is affected by magic immunity.
His weaknesses are his difficulty to play, large battle presence (he will likely be the first targetted in many team battles), and critical lack of mana to fuel his 4 activated abilities in the early game, as well as not-very-good tankability.
--
Stats
STR: 23/+2.5
AGI: 17/+1.7
INT: 15/+1.8
Low starting int and low growths overall mean you'll need a decent investment in early stat items to be at all useful in lane and early fights.
--
Skills
Flurry:
<picture of flurry graphical effect>
40 mana/charge, 1/2/3/4 charges stored on 4 second cooldown per charge. Flurry is an independently triggered damage instance (meaning crit/lifesteal/etc dont work) that inflicts your attack damage +15/30/45/60% base damage in a 150 aoe in front of you, then moves you and all affected units a distance of 100 in the direction you're facing. Flurry is your scaling damage-on-demand skill that allows you to manipulate fights to your advantage - you can push heroes out and away from fights, you can quickly clear waves of creeps, and you can deal heavy frontloaded damage within a short timeframe. The difficulty of this skill is quickly casting it repeatedly (mashing Q stalls it and doesn't consume all charges quickly) and making sure you're facing the right direction, as otherwise you can flurry into air and do nothing but burn mana.
Flick:
<picture of flick>
75 mana on 24/22/20/18sec cooldown. Flick repositions an enemy within 200 range to flip them behind you. They will land after roughly a second, at which time they are debuffed with -3/4/5/6 armor and a -20/30/40/50% slow which fades over 6 seconds. This skill is first and foremost a *disable*, and is built to stop runners and chain with the other two skills. The -armor and ms is a bonus but don't use it randomly - this attack stops channeling spells and goes through immunity without a sweat.
Cannonball:
<picture of cannonball>
95/110/125/140 mana on 14 second cooldown. Cannonball launches you into the air for about a second and lands you at any point within the 600 cast range, dealing 75/125/175/225 physical damage to all enemies in a 400 radius and stunning the ones within 200 for .75/1.25/1.75/2.25 seconds. If you miss and fail to hit anyone you're stunned yourself for 1.5 seconds. This spell is very hard to initiate with and is best used after an allied initiation or immediately after your flick, because it's not very difficult to see it coming and dodge. On the other hand it's an aoe stun and personal reposition, which gives it superb utility for team battles and blazing escapes. The combo here is to use it immediately after your flick; flick an enemy then cannonball right behind you; the flick slow will ensure that the cannonball will hit, and upon landing the stun you can wail away or ult the target at your pleasure.
Face Smash:
<picture of face smash>
100/200/300 mana on 100sec cd. You channel for 4.5 seconds on an enemy within 100 range - for the duration of the channel the target is completely disabled and you inflict one pulse of damage each second for your attack damage plus 33/66/100% additional base damage. This is NOT a hard hitting ult - it's actually inferior to devourer's ult for damage until later on in the game. This is instead a hard disable that is broken in ganks (flicking someone and immediately facesmashing them on landing is roughly 6 seconds of disable) and can handily lock down priority targets in team fights. The scaling damage is simply a bonus, but this skill is first and foremost a channeled disable and should be treated as such. Unlike flurry attack modifiers do in fact work during face smash.
--
Skillbuild
Flurry
Cannonball
Flick
Flurry
Flurry
Face Smash
Flurry
Cannonball
Cannonball
Cannonball
Face Smash
Flick
Flick
Flick
Stats
Face Smash
Stats to 25
Why: One level in flick and cannonball make them functional as positioning tools, but flick's levelled effects don't do much in lane, and cannonball's mana cost increases as it's leveled. Flurry on the other hand gives Panda spike damage in lane; very easy combination is to flick someone behind you then flurry them four times to push them closer to your tower or to an allied hero. This also does quite good damage; each flurry will inflict roughly 150 physical damage in the laning stage, leading to 600 on-demand damage by level 7. Face Smash is levelled ASAP, but keep in mind the duration of the disable remains the same at all levels.
--
Items
Start with: 2 circlets 2 branches one set of tangos
why: stats are key, 6 stats is a generic loadout, will be built into bracers and a power supply, buy battery at sideshop
Build into: 2 bracers int steamboots power supply bottle, Insanitarius, Shrunken Head
why: very generic 15 minute loadout. Steamboots taken over enhanced marchers because of int swappable to str, +base damage improvement (enhanced yields no additional base damage), panda has zero problem chasing and positioning, bottle keeps mana levels topped off
Insanitarius has superb damage yield on panda, 25 str and 31 damage = +56 damage to all attacks, 56+15 bonus damage to flurry hits, 56+25 bonus damage to each swing of your ult. Item is CORE on panda. Shrunken Head should be taken afterwards in order to be able to fully channel your ultimate. This completes your core build.
Build Option 1: Shieldbreaker
Inadvisable if new to the hero because it yields no hp and requires careful use of insanitarius; armor reduction makes all hits hit that much harder though, superb damage
Build Path 2: Frostwolf skull
No more hp or mana issues. Slows on hit allowing easier time in terms of landing flurry hits. +stats contribute to base damage boost, so item yields 25+15 bonus on flurry and 25+25 bonus on each swing of ult, making it more damaging than first glance
Luxury items: Heart, Symbol of Rage, Daemonic Breastplate, Riftshards
Heart is obvious, symbol of rage and heart both give large boosts to base damage, demonic breastplate offers additional armor reduction, critstick has 59% chance of at least 1 proc during the ult and will eat enemies alive.
Alternative items: Frostfield plate, Totem of Kuldra, Puzzlebox, Portal Key
For team battle pandas these items all have superb yields. Cannonball+frostfield activation can rout a position, totem allows piss easy flurry strikes, puzzlebox has good yields on panda (activate immediately before facesmashing someone, have puzzlebox minions beat on the target). Portal Key allows additional positioning shenanigans.
Items to avoid: Runed Axe, Geometer's Bane, Savage Mace, Mock of Brilliance, Harkon's Blade, Eldar Parasite
Runed axe's utility is cleave but your flurries already cleave, meaning there's almost no improvement to farming from the battle fury. Images do nothing because most of your team battle damage is from activations of flurry. MKB and radiance do not improve base damage, radiance does not improve your farm significantly. Panda does not have the mana to sustain Harkon's Blade. Panda has minimal damage improvement from increased attack speed (he scales better with raw +str), making eldar parasite a not very good item
--
In-game Strategy
Unlike other gankers and carries panda's battling ability is quite complex and detailed - Panda is very strong all-game with several skill combinations that can be used to rout enemies.
In the early game it's best that you lane with a partner, because a flick and cannonball can easily set up kills for you. Lane as you would with any melee hero, use Flurry to pick up last hits that you miss. You can't afford to try to randomly cannonball, so instead wait for them to close range, then execute a quick flick followed by however many flurries you have available to push them behind your creep line. Being able to push someone that far guarantees a good number of hits while they run and will pick up an easy kill if you're laning with any direct damage.
From the moment you get your bottle you need to begin roaming ASAP to take advantage of your hero. In this case the combination is simple - cannonball on someone and immediately flick-facesmash them, and you have 4 seconds of leisure while your teammates kill whoever you've facesmashed. You can use flurry in a pinch to clear creep waves and neutral camps in the downtime while your ult isn't up, but your ult is too good - always gank whenever it's up.
Press the advantage in team battles. You should not be initiating fights, the stun radius on your cannonball is too short. What you should be doing is locking down priority targets - enemy carries or CC. Once your team initiates cannonball your target and flick-facesmash them to disable them. Mop up by using flick-flurry to stop runners and kill people.
WIP