Balance Dump

[TRYTROUSERS]

the main issue with dota 2 is the delay. once they sort that out i think it will be a lot better. they have to understand that wc3 netcode was put into place when broadband still wasnt so common in the usa. forcing delay on the client is outdated. if your connection sucks its your fault. this SAME thing kills modern warfare and iwnet, because the overall latency is a lobby is balanced around the shittiest guys connection. i am used to reacting to things with 50ms or below ping, I do not want to play with "fake" 300 ping nor should I have to.

the voice acting is actually really cool. one time when i trashcanned this furion with ursa, he said something like "ill sharpen my claws on your trees bark prophet". it's a nice touch.

[skeloperch]

Yeah, it's like when I broke my controller in a fit of rage while playing a fighting game, so I had to learn to use the keyboard for computer-based fighting games. I learned how to quarter-circle like a boss, and then I went to go try Hisoutensoku, and there is a forced latency, so all of my quick reflexes cause me to fail quarter circles. That's what it feels like transitioning from HoN to DOTA2.

Anyways, I've been tinkering around with some ideas for a hero lately. I need some balancing help with the ulti on this guy http://dream.heroesofnewerth.com/hero/skeloperch/Filius%20Pristis/ . The rates on the SotM ulti are pretty stellar; especially at lower hp percentages.

[Boss_Panda]

I just wanted to say that I am SICK of people complaining about Gemini. The ONLY thing ANYONE ever says is that Gemini is OP because of the disjoints, and SO hard to kill. The REAL problem with Gemini, is that you don't have to spec ANY abilities on this hero, in order to HAVE ABILITIES. I don't understand why this hero's ult form has MAX level skills when they dont SPEC ANY levels in the skill in the first place. Its NOT that the hero has SO much hp from the stat spec, its the fact that the hero STILL gains ABILITIES to DAMAGE and STUN as WELL as gaining the STATS from the level ups. In ESSENCE the hero is gaining NEARLY 2 levels every ONE level gained. Which means that at level 6, with only ONE point in her main form W, she has the stats and abilities in ult form of a hero that is level TEN! How Ridiculous is this? However, if the Ult form did NOT have the abilities that were speced instead of stats, this hero would NOT be OP, it would be JUST another hero. I wonder how the stat change will ACTUALLY effect that hero tomorrow...probably not very much at all..

[PzKw]

the main issue with dota 2 is the delay. once they sort that out i think it will be a lot better. they have to understand that wc3 netcode was put into place when broadband still wasnt so common in the usa. forcing delay on the client is outdated. if your connection sucks its your fault. this SAME thing kills modern warfare and iwnet, because the overall latency is a lobby is balanced around the shittiest guys connection. i am used to reacting to things with 50ms or below ping, I do not want to play with "fake" 300 ping nor should I have to.

the voice acting is actually really cool. one time when i trashcanned this furion with ursa, he said something like "ill sharpen my claws on your trees bark prophet". it's a nice touch.
They haven't forced the delay in the client, it's a common misnomer. The delay is caused by the fact that they're essentially using an FPS engine for an RTS game. Since you are not your character in the traditional FPS sense (you are your cursor, and direct your character which exists on the server - interpolation etc doesn't really happen in the way you'd be used to in Source games AFAIK), the engine is not well set up to handle it. They're working to double the rate that the server works **** out AFAIK or something like that, but the be brutally honest, I think the engine is going to stay somewhat awkward without a big overhaul.

[changlingbob]

They haven't forced the delay in the client, it's a common misnomer. The delay is caused by the fact that they're essentially using an FPS engine for an RTS game. Since you are not your character in the traditional FPS sense (you are your cursor, and direct your character which exists on the server - interpolation etc doesn't really happen in the way you'd be used to in Source games AFAIK), the engine is not well set up to handle it. They're working to double the rate that the server works **** out AFAIK or something like that, but the be brutally honest, I think the engine is going to stay somewhat awkward without a big overhaul.

Source being awkward? How unusual.

Incidentally, Hammer is the worst thing to edit things in.

[Dragunovis]

amun ra needs a drastic nerf or rework, much too op and easy to use

[tobbe628]

Moon Queen :moon:
Armor increased by 1
Strenght gain increased by 0.2
Intellegence Gain increased by 0.2
Base Strenght increased by 2
Base Agility increased by 2
Attack Range increased from 330 to 450
Base Damage increased by 2
Moon Beam Stun Increased from 0.6 to 1.2

Succubus
Base Strenght increased by 3
Base Intelligence increased by 3
Base Agility Increased by 3
Move Speed increased by 5

Empath
Illusory Well Damage increased to 70 from 50
Synergy now gives 5 Health per second on rank 4, aswell as 0.3 of MaxHealth per second.

Mage Bane
Mana Combustion now drains 60 mana at rank 4 instead of 60, Damage done is now dealt as magic damage.
Flash Range reduced by 50
Flash Cooldown increased by 2
Mana Rift now stuns for 0.5 seconds.

BlackSmith
Fireball damage increased from 75/125/175/275 to 100/175/225/300
Frenzy from 15% move speed at rank 4 to 17%
Flaming Hammer now 35% Move speed reduction at rank 4.

Night hound
Base Damage increased by 3
Base Strenght increased by 2

Dampeer
Base Strenght increased by 2
Base Agility increased by 2
Base Intellegence increased by 2

Bombadier
Base Strenght increased by 2
Base Agility increased by 2
Base Intellegence increased by 2

A few more need's nerfs buffs but i took those who i think needs the most buffs and 1 nerf heh. but i also thinks gemeni valk amunra and such needs nerfs aswell but im not bad for those anyway

[XFlame]

Increasing STR/INT/AGI gains by 0.2 means they'll end up with +5 extra attribute when they're level 25, which equals to 95 health, 65 mana or 0.70 armor. Do you really think that's going to solve anything?

[Hsssh]

Nice joke on Bomb getting bigger int.

[PzKw]

Moon Queen :moon:
Armor increased by 1
Strenght gain increased by 0.2
Intellegence Gain increased by 0.2
Base Strenght increased by 2
Base Agility increased by 2
Attack Range increased from 330 to 450
Base Damage increased by 2
Moon Beam Stun Increased from 0.6 to 1.2

What is this. I don't even.

[changlingbob]

I'm really beginning to get annoyed by suggestions in the balance forum. I'm guilty of throwing out suggestions as well, but entire posts that are nothing but 'here's what I'd do', with no discussions of the reasons, aims and implications of such a change are useless posts.

[Tedde]

This is called balance dump for a reason.

[changlingbob]

This is called balance dump for a reason.

Its been in other places as well. The frostfield plate thread has a bunch of people going 'just change the buildup' or 'change the atkspd to this'. The geomancer thread is all 'superior stun' this and 'more damage' that. The neutral camp thread is all people providing their suggestion to change it; I will admit that I did this as well, but only in trying to frame the current problem, why my suggestion might solve it, things to be wary of with my selected method, and some knock-on effects.

[Tedde]

Well, I can't blame them. You can't change a hero without suggesting a way to change it.

[changlingbob]

Right, but you can explain why you're suggesting those changes, what they'll do, how they'll be effective and why they're needed. I can give you my suggestion for, say, how I would change Moraxus' ulti, but without the context of why I think its a necessary change, why I think its a useful change, why I think its the correct change (or at least worth testing), I might was well be pooping out a dream hero.

[Tedde]

I know, I know. But explaining things is hard )

[changlingbob]

People don't even bother to read when you do!

[Tedde]

That too :(

[Imjelly]

Also about 90% of people don't give a **** abour your suggestion, because they've got their own suggestion to harp on about

Really helps to have one of these :frostburn: under your name

EDIT: Forgot obligatory suggestion, my apologies

Lord Salforis :lord::
The Undying now silences
Mors Certissima doesn't heal anymore, because that's dumb
Lifetap now gives max movement speed
Dark Lord's Presence damage no longer spreads across multiple units, constant 40 true damage aura
Int gain from +2.0 to +3.4

[XFlame]

Frostfield now requires 10 Mark of the Novices instead of 1 Acolytes. For easier buildup.

See, I can do this too!

[Imjelly]

Frostfield now requires 10 Mark of the Novices instead of 1 Acolytes. For easier buildup.

See, I can do this too!

get out :balp:

[skeloperch]

How do you even have room for 10 marks of the novice? C'mon man, you're not even trying.

Thoughts on Grave Keeper thus far?

[Tedde]

Grave Keeper is a cool blob that doesn't afraid of anything. He is well done imo.

[skeloperch]

I like his skins, but hate the cap on W and E. You should be able to hold 2/3 corpses for E, because one corpse is way too little for what it provides. His Q is really strong, though, and his ulti is pretty damned weak. He has little burst, no escape mechanism, no ehp, and is a sub-par support, pusher, and ganker. Kinda borked design.

[Lethe]

corpse spell done right -> pit lord's expulsion

[Brannock]

gravekeeper probably the weakest hero we've seen from S2 on release in years.

[skeloperch]

gravekeeper probably the weakest hero we've seen from S2 on release in years.

Even weaker than Salforis?

[Lethe]

his early game is decent.

Certainly not worth your hard-earned $ imo

[Jeffbelittle]

This shadowblade hero =/...

[skeloperch]

This shadowblade hero =/...

I love him. So fun to play with an early HotbL.

[Reldnahc]

I love Gravekeeper. How can you not?

ZOMBIE POCARYPSE!!!!!!!

[GregerMoek]

Gravekeeper should be able to stack up creeps for his third skill rather than only have one at a time. 1/2/3/4 corpses stacked up IMO would be good.

[Zilrax]

It's incredibly annoying how his E was designed. Why even bother making it a charge system if all he gets is one charge? But he has a lot of forced mechanics and weird design moves that this hero kinda makes me throw up my hands in irritation. Honestly in the end, the only thing I can say he can do well is backdoor.

Needs corpses for everything and if no one is dumb enough to stand around by the creep wave, he has to hope his ult will get enough corpses out to get much mileage out of corpse explosion. The cap on that things damage also feels kinda weird.

Q is kinda meh. It does it's job but it really isn't anything special beyond the lack of cast time. I've screwed over a few devourers trying to ult me with that things speed.

He's honestly just weird. I can't figure out what he was designed to do. Gank? There's many way more effective gankers. Carry? Not with a 1 charge E he isn't. Push? That makes a bit more sense given corpse explosion is creep dependent and his ult can mash towers up pretty effectively, if there's nothing to distract their tiny attention spans since they operate off the rather derpy lane creep AI.

His reliance on corpses combined with a sort of confused skillset really makes me doubt he's going to see any real use without some readjustment in an area or two. Or dropping some of the corpse gimmicks.

[changlingbob]

New hero nothing but forced synergy and patches to work around the fact that the forced synergy doesn't actually mechanically work.

[WiLd_LiF3]

This is my 4th Attempt to try and get this thread through.


I'm going to start this post off with a question. "If people get insta-gibbed by Monkey King pre-nerf, and complain, then why don't they complain when Pebbles does so?"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyber_Kun
2.8 agi growth per level. Q allowing two attacks in AoE. The general mobilty on R. These are things that make him into a semi-carry.

Me: You still don't get the point that a lot of heroes do his job better and have a STRONGER lane presence. Monkey King can't compete with a Nomad or Tremble in his current state. The Old combo damage would give him a chance. Also, Succubus just shits on him. Monkey King will always lose to a decent Succubus due to her unorthodox lane capability.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote:
Originally Posted by skeloperch
Don't forget that Pebbles will always be tankier/have more damage, because Pebbles. Really, Pebbles is probably just as OP as Midas, it's just that people are used to him. No hero should have 900 burst at 8 and also hit that hard.

Also, I think that the argument that MK scales harder than Pebbles is a joke. MK has to build mana, EHP, and damage. Pebbles doesn't need much mana past Blood Chalice, doesn't need EHP since he already has a shitton, and only need attack speed, which is ludicrously easy to get.

Me:Wonderful points. Pebbles being a STR hero, gives him an advantage, and him building frostfield plate often is pretty much a dead give away Monkey King is falling behind even the oldest of heros.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's look at the hero I liken to Monkey King the most in terms of damage output (Pre-Nerf), laning, and skill usage: Pebbles.

:pebb: Pebbles (At level 8, maxed out Q and W) does somewhere in the order of 900 damage, plus an auto attack that deals at least 80+. Effectively, this kills most people instantly.

:monk: Monkey King (At level 8, maxed out W and E) does somewhere in the order of 900+ damage, and a sub-par auto attack. The combo being used is "W+Shift E+Shift W".

Both Combos deal the same damage approximately, and are used in the same way with two abilities, while Monkey Kings take a little bit more time to input.

In a lane between Pebbles and Monkey King, pre-nerf, it was about who could land the combo first. Pebbles has the advantage with a ranged stun. Each combo cost almost the same amount of mana, (Pebbles costing 40 more, but with a 2 second stun).

This leads me back to my question, why was Monkey King's combo reworked when it did the same damage as Pebbles combo? He's an agility hero that did a combo, Fayde is like this aswell.

Monkey King's combo was fun to watch, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjkyAjyxZSQ (Skip ahead to 1.02)

TL;DR

Monkey King's Combo did the same as most other heros combos like Pebbles, Dampeer, and Fayde. So please, reinstate the combo, it was fun to watch. If you still don't agree with the damage, then nerf the damage on the combo, don't just utterly remove it. Thank you.

[Anakha]

They did nerf the damage, and made the combo work as it was originally intended. That combo is a glitch, required frame-perfect timing and an exploit of the game engine and is never coming back. EVER.

Deal with it.

[GregerMoek]

While I wouldn't mind a buff to MK I don't want a bug-combo to be the way to play him most effectively.

Go to bed. Also MK probably has one of the highest bursts at level 1, 2 and 3. No lane presence? Oh you're just playing him bad.

The thing nowadays is that sure, Zephyr will pwn him 1v1 in a solo lane, Succubus does too, but guess what, these heroes pwns everything 1v1 nearly.

"Bringing back the combo" would be stupid and retarded, buffing the damage on the INTENDED COMBO I wouldn't mind. But to change back mechanics in order to make more or less a glitch the best thing would be silly.

[changlingbob]

Someone with harder carry potential than pebbles, dampeer and fayde does not get the levels of burst that those heroes get, precisely because they are gankers who snowball if doing well, and not carries.

Carries don't get gank-level burst early, because then they would be able to gank and then use that money on items they scale hard with, rather than on just whatever can help them gank harder (cf: demonic on pebbles: he doesn't scale with it, but it boosts his damage output a little).

Now I think about it, I've found the problem with Drunken Master guys.

E: and no, you definitely don't get the bugged version back, because that was a ****ing bug.

[PzKw]

I'd comment on the new hero, except I'm not paying for him. This is the general reason I don't comment on EA heroes.

[Zilrax]

I've commented on him. There has been dissension from one person. But I'm still waiting for him to explain why his position is correct.

[changlingbob]

I've commented on him. There has been dissension from one person. But I'm still waiting for him to explain why his position is correct.

Fortunately the people in this forum are well renowned for explaining the reasoning of their positions and putting forward good arguments towards

nope, can't finish with a straight face

[Imjelly]

As cool as the ulti looks, it's really underwhelming
they can block each other off if they're chasing and anyone with ghost marchers can walk past them
His corpse explosion is really situational as well, it's only really effective in the laning phase if you're versing melee heroes.

[Zilrax]

Okay so we're in agreement then. I also got the dissenting opinion. I can see where he's coming from and we both agree he is kinda underwhelming. We just disagree whether he's okay or bad.

We'll see how things go. first thing is first though. they need to make the ult's corpses not fugging invisible!

[dandylion]

Can a mod send this kid (WiLD_LiF3) back to GD where he belongs?

In other news, I find Grave Keeper rather underwhelming. His early laning is phenomenal with the right partner, but as soon as lanes break he seems underwhelming.

Also, Artesia seems to taper off so quickly in terms of damage output and it makes me sad :(

[Reldnahc]

Can a mod send this kid (WiLD_LiF3) back to GD where he belongs?

In other news, I find Grave Keeper rather underwhelming. His early laning is phenomenal with the right partner, but as soon as lanes break he seems underwhelming.

Also, Artesia seems to taper off so quickly in terms of damage output and it makes me sad :(

Artesia damage output is actually incredibly strong throughout the game, I would only say it tapers off around 45 minutes.

I'd say the problem with Gravekeeper is Corpse Explosion honestly. You're forced to synergize Q and E for the corpses they leave since his ults' zombies don't provided instant gratification corpses. If you don't force synergize those two spells you either have to catch them humping a creep wave for a while or do no damage whatsoever.

[Skyve]

Artesia's damage output gets higher until she reaches lvl14 afaik (every level of Q increases it obviously. The damage of W increases with each level of Q and E and with each level of W, and every level of E increases the damage output again), so I don't believe she tapers off quickly.

[WiLd_LiF3]

Aww, it's a fake account? How sad. I was going to laugh because he's in that clan, I knew some people from that clan, they were pretty much the worst HoN players I had ever met. There's just something funny about watching somebody playing Wretched Hag blink into 5 enemies and start *****ing when she dies without getting a kill. Multiple times, nonetheless.

I highly doubt any of the 1800+'s in the clan would do that, you must be thinking of yourself.

[foxmindedguy]

Can a mod send this kid (WiLD_LiF3) back to GD where he belongs?

In other news, I find Grave Keeper rather underwhelming. His early laning is phenomenal with the right partner, but as soon as lanes break he seems underwhelming.

Also, Artesia seems to taper off so quickly in terms of damage output and it makes me sad :(

I am sorry to say but you are so wrong on both accounts. Neither Grave Keeper, nor Artesia are bad outside of the lanning phase.

My team constantly runs Artesia mid and our designated mid never gets short of 10 kills and mostly carrying the games. You just need to find the right build for her along with the right team comp. :D

[Ekamo]

Never thought I would have to moderate Balance Dump but this was just...

I don't care how WRONG someone is, keep the flaming down.
And if everyone on the forum is telling you otherwise than what you think is right, maybe you should reconsider what they are saying? (not saying the majority is always right though)

Dump will dump though, please continue.

[dandylion]

I am sorry to say but you are so wrong on both accounts. Neither Grave Keeper, nor Artesia are bad outside of the lanning phase.

My team constantly runs Artesia mid and our designated mid never gets short of 10 kills and mostly carrying the games. You just need to find the right build for her along with the right team comp. :D

I'm just not particularly fond of her forced synergy between W and Q (in the same sense as DM) where you have to channel before jumping into combat to arrive at your maximum potential. Every time I've played Artesia, I've gotten a high number of kills and assists, but in team fights feel like a useless lump. It's incredibly difficult to aim an arcane missile with so many targets around for the missile to track. Once you place the ultimate too, if the fight moves away from it, it's best potential is wasted. It's not uncommon for a fight to shift around as it goes on, and it just feels rather limiting.

In terms of Grave Keeper, my experience is purely anecdotal, but once lanes broke, in all 3 games I've played with him (both on and off my team) he's struggled to stay relevant.

[PzKw]

I just fine Artesia's entire E kind of pointless and forced. Like... Why couldn't she have a real skill there instead of a derp version of Witchcraft?

I pretty much get the hero apart from that but... It's just... The ability literally should read "Herp Derp. Makes all your other abilities work betterer! JAJAJA!"

[skeloperch]

I just fine Artesia's entire E kind of pointless and forced. Like... Why couldn't she have a real skill there instead of a derp version of Witchcraft?

I pretty much get the hero apart from that but... It's just... The ability literally should read "Herp Derp. Makes all your other abilities work betterer! JAJAJA!"

It is nothing like Witch Craft. It's more akin to CD's E, in the fact that it helps you deal more damage passively, than it is to Defiler's passive. It doesn't reduce cooldowns, help with mana costs, or improve movement speed.

[WiLd_LiF3]

Gravekeeper is just fun to play, he's not a hero to play if your wearing your tryhard panties.

[GregerMoek]

It is nothing like Witch Craft. It's more akin to CD's E, in the fact that it helps you deal more damage passively, than it is to Defiler's passive. It doesn't reduce cooldowns, help with mana costs, or improve movement speed.

It's more like Witchcraft in the sense that it actually does something to all of your abilities rather than just be a passive that affects attackers or whatever you may say about CD's.

I have nothing against Artesia's W however.

[xXLoadingXx]

GO FK URSELF S2GAMES U SCRUB RETARDED COMPANY...


GO ALL BURN IN HELL U GUYS ARE THE WORST COMPANY EVER, Y UR GUYS DONT GO TO THE DEVIL AND DRINK HIS CUM WITH UR PARENTS U SHIIT RETARDED COMPANY!!!

DOTA 2 IS COMIN TO FK UR SHIIIIIT GAME U RETARDED CUNTS !!!

**** s2 GAMES _|_ _)_

[xXLoadingXx]

Retarded company u guys ll fail when dota2 come's u bunch of virgins nerd's...

S2 games is the worst comepany ever!!! **** heroes of newerth worst game ever!!!!

[Glibber`]

ok


4char

[Anakha]

Someone got beaten by Gemini.

[Tedde]

I'm glad the devil is not real ^^

[pechkin]

It's more like Witchcraft in the sense that it actually does something to all of your abilities rather than just be a passive that affects attackers or whatever you may say about CD's.

I have nothing against Artesia's W however.
its like tb passive, you are both wrong.

[Anakha]

Get on IRC, Tedde! ;o

[GregerMoek]

its like tb passive, you are both wrong.

Learn to read.

[R0XAS]

^ like your sig

Ontopic: What do people think about Sil atm?

[Benny0]

Same thing as before, hard carries shouldn't have two escape mechs both as good as hers.

[Reldnahc]

She's in a more tolerable place, but still broken design wise.

[SirVH]

about 18 out of 20 games played today, there was a Monarch in my team or on oposite. Something's clealy wrong about that hero.

[Brannock]

shadowblade a very limited hero. pitiful burst damage, no cc, scales pretty dang well but good luck getting there.

agi build almost entirely unviable (especially since damage drain on W applies no matter what your primary stat is). str build is okay, but usually only go that if you're having a bad game. int build is aces with hellflower and a high-leveled support :witc: :hell: to drain off.

not very remarkable imo, even though he has the capacity to carry harder than anyone in the entire game.

[Hsssh]

Same thing as before, hard carries shouldn't have two escape mechs both as good as hers.

Lets be honest here, her grapple is one of worst escapes, it's ok only when you can grapple yourself over hill.

[Cyber_Kun]

What? 1200 range escape is bad? Even with the delay, it is 1200 bloody range.

[Hsssh]

You can't get over trees.

[Benny0]

And valk can only leap in the direction she's facing.

Knowing where you can tree grapple to to escape, and even moreso, positioning yourself so you CAN tree grapple to escape are both very very important skills.

[skeloperch]

The main inhibiting factor of Silly Hat is that both of her escapes are delayed, and need proper fore-thought. Why pick a hero that requires thinking when you can pick Valkyrie and have a 0 second cast time blink that gives you extra attack speed and movespeed?

[Zilrax]

Sil isn't on the same level of retarded as Valk. they are stupid in their own separate ways.

As for Shadowblade, treat him like Dark Lady really. They are roughly in a similar area except rather than the synergy with runed he has the synergy with harkons. And he's about 3 times as sturdy. And effectively ranged.

But hence the issue. He won't get used because he's like Dark Lady.

[Glibber`]

I don't like shadowblade... probably because of his attack animation.

[XFlame]

Which is related to balance...how, exactly?

[Zilrax]

It has to do with their overall attack time. It is actually relevant. And even if it wasn't, Balance Dump.

[Anakha]

Grapple can also take you over cliffs as well.

[Hsssh]

Why exactly Shadow won't be used because he is like TDL?


Grapple can also take you over cliffs as well.

Obviously, but when you compare it to stuff like blinks and leaps it is rather mediocre. Even charges usually are better than her grapple if you want to gtfo.

[Anakha]

Because she has shadow swap as well.

[Tedde]

Well, I'm on irc now =O

[Anakha]

* Looking up irc.s2games.com
* Connecting to irc.s2games.com (209.133.9.76) port 6667...
* Connection failed. Error: Connection timed out

[Tedde]

Yeah, there are only ~10 people in the #hon channel. Something is fluxed up.

[Anakha]

Well, what server are you connected to? Post the IP: port here.

EDIT: nvm, irc.s2games.com isnt resolving, but irc.chattingaway.com is.

Also, you're still not on!

[Tedde]

lightning.de.eu.chattingaway.com

6667

Is this what you mean?

[Zilrax]

No one wants to play a hard carry when you can derp to victory with heroes relevant the whole game through. That's pretty much it right there.

Anyways, yeah the irc has net split to hell. I can see Tedde and Gregor only.

[Glibber`]

Which is related to balance...how, exactly?

I mean the animation/attack time/back swing/projectile speed or however you call it, bat? It's too slow for my likings.

Shadow obviously needs farm, and sure he has his ranged ability, but even then.

Only played and seen him a few times though.

Seems pretty weak early game and a bit helpless+requires at least some farm to become effective.

Comparing that to all the early and midgame powerhouses there are, he feels underwhelming. Can't blame that on him though.

[Brannock]

Balance Dump?

Balance Dump.

I used to really like Nome, I liked his ideas on the game and I loved his early hero designs. :noma: is an one-note hero, but a surprisingly robust design that offers a deceptively high skill ceiling. :emer: is a hero with a "derp" gameplay that actually ALSO has a high skill ceiling regarding positioning, timing, and clever trap placement to abuse his +25 range on most heroes.

Then we have :amun: :trem: :mida: :gemi: and urghhhh. Every last iota of goodwill I had towards Nome dissipated after having to deal with :gemi: for months. So glad about this balance patch coming this week.

[Zilrax]

Gemini... is a DivA hero. Just so you know who to blame.

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=371247

See for yourself.

[PzKw]

At Tremble, I realised it was never going to work out between us.

[GregerMoek]

Aw, always painful to see a relationship end. :(

[Hsssh]

Midas just has too big numbers on some of his spells, other than that i wouldn't say that he is on same derp level like Tremeble or Ra.

[GregerMoek]

While the heal is a nice little feature on him, I don't like it.

And actually I've ran some funky lolstrats like SR, Martyr, DS and Midas for quadheal lolz.

[skeloperch]

I still don't see Tremble as all that good of a hero, no matter what anyone says. He's a melee hero who relies on invis, has no ranged spells, and has no gap closers. He requires a bit of items to be useful compared to other single-target-melee-monsters (Ghost Marchers + HotbL + Sol's/SB, compared to Pred's Steam Boots + Insanitarious). Sure, he's hard as balls to kill, but so is Armadon.

Besides, him, Ra, and Legio are gonna die on Friday. HotbL nerf RIP Legio.

[Anakha]

HotbL nerf RIP Legio.

Actually, HotBL got slightly buffed for his main usage. :)

[Hsssh]

What is considered main usage of HotBL?

[Zilrax]

Survivability.

However in Legionaries instance, it helps him tank creeps in the jungle better and in the lanes etc. That's what he means.

[Hsssh]

So problem with HotBL was that it gave too much survivability and now it's better at giving survivability? I should probably rewrite my question so i don't get such smart answers anymore.

Is ability to tank creeps without much troubles is considered main usage of HotBL?

[XFlame]

Martyr
- Sacrificial Lamb reworked. Now gives allies increased movespeed and attack speed based on how low Martyr is
* 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8 Movespeed per 1% missing and 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8 attack speed per 1% missing. Radius of 500

Ty China.

[changlingbob]

So problem with HotBL was that it gave too much survivability and now it's better at giving survivability? I should probably rewrite my question so i don't get such smart answers anymore.

Is ability to tank creeps without much troubles is considered main usage of HotBL?

Its now better at giving survivability vs creeps, but worse vs heroes from what I gather.

[Zerazar]

I really dislike their way of 'fixing' HotBL. It seems to warp its effectiveness really badly. The chance based model had about the same effectiveness in most scenarios, the charge based model is just all over the place.

A simple number tweak would have done it justice. It was just a simple matter of giving too much for completing the item.

[Hsssh]

The chance based model had about the same effectiveness in most scenarios, the charge based model is just all over the place.

Care to show your calculations?

[Skyve]

Is ability to tank creeps without much troubles is considered main usage of HotBL?

For Legio? Kinda is.

[Tedde]

Now that you gank mb earlygame, his helm charges will dissipate and your autos will surely deal some ****ing damage.

[dandylion]

I really dislike their way of 'fixing' HotBL. It seems to warp its effectiveness really badly. The chance based model had about the same effectiveness in most scenarios, the charge based model is just all over the place.

A simple number tweak would have done it justice. It was just a simple matter of giving too much for completing the item.

The charge based model allows you to focus a HotBL hero down, preventing them from regaining charges over a small period of time. It gives it less effectiveness in drawn out stand-groundish team fights, and maintains it's effectiveness in short dives or small skirmishes. I see it as a positive change overall.

[Zerazar]

Care to show your calculations?

Maybe I should have been a bit more explicit. I haven't done any calculations, it's just an offhand gut feeling. Normally I'd be ashamed but it's the balance dump thread.

Before, when 1 guy was attacking, 70% of the attacks would have 40 damage blocked. Same for 2, 3 or a billion. The mitigation was fairly constant. (I know it was stronger against many small attacks and worse against few big attacks, but that seems like a minor discrepancy compared to now).
Now, it's insane against creeps, great in 1v1 situations, good in small skirmishes and bad as balls in team fights. I'm not saying it wasn't intended, or that it doesn't affect gameplay in a certain way. I'm just saying I prefered the constant chance based model.

You can block a hero attack every 2 seconds, or 0.5 block/second. This means that the new model is more effective only when you get hit by less than 0.7 attacks/second. That is when disregarding the stored charges, which is obviously a relevant factor.

[Anakha]

i.e. it's a ****ing nerf. hotbl against creeps was already insane and negated most/all damage. so there's no change there (except you cant endlessly tank a tower and 2 creep waves).

The chance based model effectively gave anywhere up to 500 raw hp in early teamfights. No wonder you prefer it, it was ****ING RETARDEDLY OP.

[Tee_Pee]

I just have to wonder... still nothing on Deadwood? Please tell me a rework (And nerf) is still being planned. As much as I don't want to sound like a raging kid, his stun+ulti two-button insta-gib combo is just retarded.

[Anakha]

Martyr
- Sacrificial Lamb reworked. Now gives allies increased movespeed and attack speed based on how low Martyr is
* 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8 Movespeed per 1% missing and 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8 attack speed per 1% missing. Radius of 500

Ty China.

Excuse me? I take offence to that.

[Zilrax]

You know, we should totally do a Martyr Salf lane or something.

[Zerazar]

i.e. it's a ****ing nerf. hotbl against creeps was already insane and negated most/all damage. so there's no change there (except you cant endlessly tank a tower and 2 creep waves).

The chance based model effectively gave anywhere up to 500 raw hp in early teamfights. No wonder you prefer it, it was ****ING RETARDEDLY OP.

Are you having a bad day?

I very clearly stated that it needed its numbers changed. The item can be balanced without being charge based.

There's really no need to be that assumptuous and offensive.

[Zilrax]

I was there. Trust me, it's better this way. Still probably going to be picked up most of the time, just it won't be quite as supreme survivability+++

[Zilrax]

Pot, kettle, etc.

Here, have a link. **** knows no one ever goes and tries and find their own knowledge.

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showpost.php?p=14340534&postcount=68

[XFlame]

Excuse me? I take offence to that.
Haha, oh wow, I thought it was impossible to mistype entire names.

[pechkin]

they changed the numbers actually, its 30 block now.

[Reldnahc]

Random Electrician nerf. :/ Love the Martyr change though.

[Benny0]

Nice to know every three months we're going to get minor balance changes to 90% of the game.

lol.

I'm frustrated. The changes are good around the board, they really are. But they're small, and they took 3 months to get here.

This is just frustrating. I want to stick to this game over Dota2, I really, really do, but S2 is not convincing me very well.

[XFlame]

So it's not just me then thinking that the amount of changes was abysmal. They pretended like this would be the holy grail of balance, and it was just a generic way-overdue patch. No Moraxus/BH buffs, no anti-invis nerf, and the few buffs that were there could have bee brought in weeks ago.

But I'm raging a little this evening thanks to playing Dead Space and my inability to be any decent at it.

[Hsssh]

It's stupid to hope that every hero will be changed because you think that they need changes.

[china]

Kongor
- Gold received for getting the last hit on Kongor normalized from 300-400 to 350

Towers
- Gold received for getting the last hit on Towers normalized from 452-470,502-520,552-570,602-620 to 460,510,560,610

Structure Gold (Meatball/Huts)
- Gold received for getting the last hit on a Structure normalized from 102-120 to 110

huehue.

wen u do creeps too? :")

[Benny0]

It's stupid to hope that every hero will be changed because you think that they need changes.

A significant portion of the cast needs changes. Many of these changes are more than +/-1 to a stat or two. Unfortunately, the majority of this patch was just that. Oh well, get ready to wait four months for another balance patch, they seem to be getting further and further apart.

EDIT: Like, have you seen the latest DotA patch? That's what I expect from 3 months of wait, not this.

[Hsssh]

A significant portion of the cast needs changes.

Sure, there are only 5 heroes that are good, everything else is either OP or UP, same for items.

[AY9]

So i see you guys made the hero from absolute op to worthless trash. I doubt you guys even know the definition of "balance." When gemini splits into 2 dogs, they have the same movement speed as the main dog, so I assumed you guys are obviously forcing gemini to buy steamboots.... until I see that the dogs that are split do NOT get the extra movement speed from the main one. So you are forcing Gemini to buy boots, yet making the item completely useless. Good job S2!

[GregerMoek]

Yeah gemini is definately trash, no.

[Brannock]

If anything the nerf didn't go far enough. We'll have to see though.

[Lethe]

So i see you guys made the hero from absolute op to worthless trash. I doubt you guys even know the definition of "balance." When gemini splits into 2 dogs, they have the same movement speed as the main dog, so I assumed you guys are obviously forcing gemini to buy steamboots.... until I see that the dogs that are split do NOT get the extra movement speed from the main one. So you are forcing Gemini to buy boots, yet making the item completely useless. Good job S2!

if you tested it you would know the MS is actually changed, even if it is displayed as 300.

[Ekamo]

huehue.

wen u do creeps too? :")

Was already changed ;)

[Salem1]

EDIT: Like, have you seen the latest DotA patch? That's what I expect from 3 months of wait, not this.

I just went and checked it and wow. S2's balance patches are way too small already but comparing it to good old DotA - it's a joke. I swear, if only Dota2 itself and its pitifully small hero pool wasn't such fail compared to HoN... playing that game would be much more exciting because things actually change. S2 may have the better game but Icefrog totally kicks S2 Balance's ass at maintaining his.

[Reldnahc]

A significant portion of the cast needs changes. Many of these changes are more than +/-1 to a stat or two. Unfortunately, the majority of this patch was just that. Oh well, get ready to wait four months for another balance patch, they seem to be getting further and further apart.

EDIT: Like, have you seen the latest DotA patch? That's what I expect from 3 months of wait, not this.

Except the DotA patch was about a 9 month wait.

[china]

Was already changed ;)

nanana, to a static amount like I wanted.

static tower gold
kongor gold.
creep gold.
no rune spawns twice.
no camp spawns twice.

g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g.

[Glibber`]

No camps spawn twice, that's not per se your idea ^^


Anyway did that get through? Hadn't seen it in the notes.

[changlingbob]

nanana, to a static amount like I wanted.

static tower gold
kongor gold.
creep gold.
no rune spawns twice.
no camp spawns twice.

g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g.

So you want to normalise damage as well? And miss chance could be a flat DR instead. Should probably make crit just a passive damage increase as well just in case.

[XFlame]

So I finally decided to stop being a cheap bastard and got a new monitor. Went from a 19" 1280x1024 to a 22" 1920x1080. Dat difference :drool:

To keep this on topic, would it be possible to fix BH by merely changing numbers?

[Brannock]

So you want to normalise damage as well? And miss chance could be a flat DR instead. Should probably make crit just a passive damage increase as well just in case.

This is a shitty strawman btw.

HoN has been moving towards getting rid of a lot of unnecessary RNG stuff - there's no good reason that creep gold should be random, same for bounty rewards on neuts/Kongor/towers, or tower damage. No opinion on runes/spawns, but I don't think it's a bad change.

Miss chance, crit chance aren't unnecessary RNG.

[changlingbob]

I have my own opinions on these, which are neither here nor there. With regard to creep gold, I'm informed that the reason it isn't a flat amount each creep is so that you can't tell exactly how much gold a hero has based on their CS, to avoid knowing exactly when they can pick up an item. I don't know whether this is actually important or not, but...

Runes are a good change, creep spawns need some RNG balancing, but I have the niggling feeling that 'can't spawn twice in a row' is not it, as mitigating for what creeps you get is part of the skill of jungling. Crit is obviously dumb to not have rng in general, although there are both timer'd crits and charge crits in the game already. Various people's definitions of unnecessary RNG are different.

Guilty of strawmaning, I should've explained instead.

[PzKw]

Random creep spawns are the only non-deterministic thing about jungling apart from enemy action, which you can get around with wards. From a player's perspective, I would hate to see jungling become even more of an AFKrice with less need for adaptive thought, changes of plans etc.

[Glibber`]

Pfff, I would not mind the uphill miss chance to be a flat damage reduction.


Or maybe make the hellbourne mid creeps easier to block. That's not just me is it? >.>

[PzKw]

SR so stronk.

Ranged HotBL needs a nerf badly. Badly badly. Badly.

(Edit: Ranged heroes have always been better at making distance, and knocking charges off them in much harder since they're better able to control how many heroes are in attack range. Average block on ranged heroes was nerfed for good reason, and I really don't like the buff to ranged HotBL. It's unecessary, and in the current environment, was questionable anyway. HotBL remained a reasonably decent pick up on a lot of ranged heroes, and it's hard to see why it was necessary to give it such a large buff. I really vehemently disagree with this change.)

[Anakha]

It's easy enough to change now though. And tbh, having an overpowered ranged hotbl for a while will actually get people to explore a few other problematic areas which need attention but have been overshadowed for quite a while.

[Hsssh]

It's easy enough to change now though.Pretty much this. Not it's 10 times easier to adjust Helms efficiency than it was before so we can expect faster and better tweaks.

Also, didn't CD get slight nerf to his conduit due to fear that he might be very boss with new helm?

[PzKw]

A ranged tank carry meta is going to be an order of magnitude more disgusting than the last one if it happens.

[GregerMoek]

Helm all the things!

[Brannock]

Balance Dump? Balance Dump.

New HotBL favors ranged heroes more the melee now, considering A. it blocks 30 for ranged, up from 20 before B. ranged heroes have a much easier time kiting damage to regenerate charges, and so can squeeze extra effectiveness out of HotBL that melee heroes who are getting focused cannot.

Preliminary guesses at newly favored heroes considering nerfs to HotBL, Shieldbreaker, and Bulwark. I don't think the game will shift out of tanky dps just yet, but be in a temporary transition phase as people move from melee HotBL to ranged tankiness focused on mobility to away from tanky DPS as a whole. I also fully expect to be wrong, just wanted to stir up some discourse:

:mast: Rapidfire drains HotBL, great utility, global red shield replaces lost mitigation.
:arac: Ranged HotBL. Can't run from her, built in magic armor/debuff cleanse, utterly destroys semis and carries via -aspd and ult. Vulnerable to physical burst though (:dead: :noma: :drun:).
:corr: Ranged HotBL. Purge on single targets makes it very difficult to lock him down. Conduit removes any drawback for slotting in HotBL in his build.
:mart: Multiple mitigation options for keeping ranged carries alive, AOE speed boost, amazing lane bully in 2s lanes.
:defi: Ranged HotBL. Remember 2 years ago? May have laning issues though.
:succ: Call it a hunch, but she functions well as a disabler to hold people the **** down, and the -damage% debuff plays heavily into keeping people alive. Oops, can't execute :corr: if your :pyro: is doing 40% less damage on his Blazing Strike.
:soulr: Ranged HotBL. Swings teamfights via heals and life degen. Has laning issues.
:arma: Now unquestionably holds the niche of most balanced survivability:damage ratio in the game. Functions perfectly fine without HotBL. Innate -armor debuff makes up for slightly nerfed red Bulwark. May actually have gotten an advantage with slightly nerfed blue Bulwark. Disincentivizing Shieldbreaker helps his case vs certain spike physical damagers. Difficult to lane, needs farm.
:pand: Innate -armor debuff, also see :succ: re: holding people the **** down to kill them. Strong in lane.
:flux: Ranged HotBL, could end up as a bully with all his push/pull and beefiness. There is zero reason to focus a HotBL Flux, which means he's free to drop flat 70% slows on people, tabcom them all over the place, and suck them into huge aoe ults. What little damage he has scales with STR. If someone can figure out how to lane him he'll be overbearing.

Yes? No? Why?

[PzKw]

Playing Windrunner really highlights to me all of the problems I had with Aluna on release. Aluna really is a shitty pale version of Windrunner, all the originality and interesting bits gutted to make way for easier but less rewarding versions of her spells.

For instance, Shackleshot is one of the most genuinely interesting disables in the genre, but Lightning is not interesting - it's very bland with a counterintuitive mechanic tied to it, and random AS added as an afterthought to tie the hero together since she'd suck without it. The reverse chain scaling thing is a huge gimick, since you have no real control over the chain, you're throwing it out on a wing and a prayer - the scaling isn't integral to the concept of the ability and it doesn't feel intuitive to use - it never has. The only real selling point of the ability was that it was an instant cast stun, and that lategame it can have a huge total stun time. Shackleshot is just so intuitive and the stun mechanic is fundamental to the concept that it shows up Lightning to be the gimicky trash that it is.

I think only Staccato is comparably unique and interesting as a disable, but Rhapsody has tonnes of problems with her execution that make it very hard to actually enjoy her. Dance Floor in particular is awkward and backwards.

Windrunner just ties together exceedingly well, and her abilities feel like they follow an intuitive skill:reward ratio in a way Aluna's just don't. Comparing Powershot to Power Throw is like comparing an Alfa Romeo to a Toyota, sure the Toyota is easier to use and basically fulfills the same function, but it has none of the finesse or elegance in the design. That's actually an apt analogy for the entire heroes.

Now don't get me wrong. Windrunner is overpowered, but she's overpowered in an extremely comfortable way since the entire concept of DotA has checks in place to stop a hero like her from taking over a game. She gives a team huge amounts of control over the flow of a game, but at no point do you suddenly go "Oh ****, Windrunner's going to come and threeshot me because we let her farm an early core." No, she gets a Force Staff, and then starts working either on some damage, or other utility items for the team, all the while moderating the tempo and flow of the game to suit her team. A comparison to Aluna just doesn't do her justice, because Aluna sort of brings some control to a game, but HoN is just so schizophrenic, and Aluna is designed to continuously trade space for time for her eventual hardcarry. It's just so samey, because the hard carry capability is so redundant in ranged heroes.

I just. I... I don't know... Why is HoN so poor in heroes who bring things to the game that aren't based around big numbers and are viable by virtue of a well executed concept? I just don't understand why this is seen as a desirable design direction, though I have always suspected it's because the design team is basically riddled with players who have a player's perspective. Windrunner doesn't immediately look like an extremely viable hero - only Powershot appears to be a solid ability - Windrun appears to be a substandard escape/chase ability below the par of every other mobility spell Windwalks to Blinks, Shackleshot does no damage, and could be considered an unreliable skillshot, and her ultimate is finicky and difficult to use with enemy presence (her ultimate is her weakest design point). It's the synergy between the skills that informs her unique play style, with the solid numbers only a secondary factor. It's the elegance of her design that ties together four (three really) skills with little to no paper synergy to produce a hero with almost flawless synergy, and we've never seen this quality of design from S2.

:(

[changlingbob]

S2 doesn't seem to understand that synergy is different from inherently tying the core abilities of a hero together. Unfortunately, I've only played dota 2, so I haven't played with Ember Spirit (for the sake of picking one of dota's newest heroes), but I've not played gravekeeper either, so this should be a fair comparison!

Xin has a stun/dot that hits three targets at random within 400 units; an aoe nuke that does an attack on every target in the area (more to heroes, less to creeps); a shield that does aoe damage until enough damage is done to break it*; and an ult that, ooh, a variety of stuff, but by the looks of things it places gadgets that he can teleport between to detonate for damage.

Gravekeeper has a single target nuke with a stun that drops a corpse; blow up a maximum of six corpses in an aoe for some damage; picking up a corpse lets you throw it to add a slow and damage to your next autoattack; and summon a bunch of zombies, some that explode and some that autoattack but ignore block, and they all leave corpses when they die.

While both of these might have synergy, gravekeeper's synergy is forced onto him by mechanics, and xin's is due to the fact that he can large amounts of aoe damage relatively safely. And if we go back, artesia has forced synergy on her spells, shadowblade is built of a forced idea, salforis's Q is useless except for in forced synergenic purposes, gemini is an abomination. While some heroes are good (and as you note, rhapsody would be one of them if everything other than staccato and potentially her ult wasn't problematic), most of them have this niggling idea that a hero only has synergy if one ability directly buffs another.


*Oh hey, its like what moraxus' ulti should be

[man_guy]

New HotBL favors ranged heroes more the melee now, considering A. it blocks 30 for ranged, up from 20 beforeIt blocks 20 (look at the popup). It just doesn't have the tooltip for ranged.

[Yudi]

Jeraziah
- Protective Charm and Sol's Blessing no longer gives assists.

are you ****ing kidding me??

[GregerMoek]

Haha, I went 4-2-4 as Jeraziah in a game where I assisted with at least 20 kills just because I ulted, charmed and ran away!

[Alten]

S2 doesn't seem to understand that synergy is different from inherently tying the core abilities of a hero together. Unfortunately, I've only played dota 2, so I haven't played with Ember Spirit (for the sake of picking one of dota's newest heroes), but I've not played gravekeeper either, so this should be a fair comparison!

Xin has a stun/dot that hits three targets at random within 400 units; an aoe nuke that does an attack on every target in the area (more to heroes, less to creeps); a shield that does aoe damage until enough damage is done to break it*; and an ult that, ooh, a variety of stuff, but by the looks of things it places gadgets that he can teleport between to detonate for damage.

Gravekeeper has a single target nuke with a stun that drops a corpse; blow up a maximum of six corpses in an aoe for some damage; picking up a corpse lets you throw it to add a slow and damage to your next autoattack; and summon a bunch of zombies, some that explode and some that autoattack but ignore block, and they all leave corpses when they die.

While both of these might have synergy, gravekeeper's synergy is forced onto him by mechanics, and xin's is due to the fact that he can large amounts of aoe damage relatively safely. And if we go back, artesia has forced synergy on her spells, shadowblade is built of a forced idea, salforis's Q is useless except for in forced synergenic purposes, gemini is an abomination. While some heroes are good (and as you note, rhapsody would be one of them if everything other than staccato and potentially her ult wasn't problematic), most of them have this niggling idea that a hero only has synergy if one ability directly buffs another.


*Oh hey, its like what moraxus' ulti should be





By that logic, Pebbles, Devo, Vindicator, etc. (all heroes from dota) all have forced synergy, since their abilities rely so much on one another. Many more heroes in DotA could be considered as such, what with the likes of Invoker, Ursa, etc.


Forced synergy isn't necessarily a bad mechanic. It provokes more thoughtful and skillful use of abilities as a resource and integration of resource investment. It only becomes bad if a hero is substantially weaker than his counterparts by lacking self-reliant abilities.

[Anakha]

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showpost.php?p=14839938&postcount=10

Apparently ranged block is 20, ninja change!

[N`Hydrolisk]

Sand Wraith getting dumped on. What the ****?

[PzKw]

By that logic, Pebbles, Devo, Vindicator, etc. (all heroes from dota) all have forced synergy, since their abilities rely so much on one another. Many more heroes in DotA could be considered as such, what with the likes of Invoker, Ursa, etc.


Forced synergy isn't necessarily a bad mechanic. It provokes more thoughtful and skillful use of abilities as a resource and integration of resource investment. It only becomes bad if a hero is substantially weaker than his counterparts by lacking self-reliant abilities.
Forced synergy isn't an inherrently bad design tool, the problem is that to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail, and S2 seems to see nails everywhere.

[Ekamo]

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showpost.php?p=14839938&postcount=10

Apparently ranged block is 20, ninja change!

Ninja indeed! I had no idea about this. Have to rethink a lot of things now.

[PzKw]

It's 20, I tested it on release.

*Feels chuffed*

[Hsssh]

Lets not forget that big problem with HotBL was owner staying alive and healing himself or getting healed. Asides of SR no ranged hero can heal himself consistently and healing ranged hero with healers is usually less effective when zephyr isn't going down from burst in 2 seconds anyway.

CD might become a trouble but he was always a trouble with HotBL.

[Alten]

Is anyone else noticing how strong fayde's third skill is? It's amazing that it hasn't received much regard, as of late.

[Anakha]

Fayde has an aoe slow that goes through magic immunity, and a level 1 stun that's better than the single-target one Andromeda had nerfed. She also completely owns a Magebane that is skilling into his orb early on.

She's a liability waiting to happen.

[PzKw]

Has anyone lately considered how atrociously uselss Clinx is?

[Anakha]

Who?

[PzKw]

Bone Fletcher, a DotA hero. He is the most abysmally useless hero ever. Pretty much anything he does, at least 2 heroes do better, as well as doing other things. He was the most recent addition to the DotA 2 pool, and in the 12 games I've seen him in, he's lost 11.

Literally anything he can do either Drow, BH or Invoker can do substantially better. Invoker in particular replicates 2 of his abilities in one, stronger ability. The other team had a farmed Clinx in my most recent game, and we'd drawn it out to 60 minutes with a strong gank and stall draft. Due to split pushing by a Tinker, we were forced to leave someone to defend. We left THD (who had some solid farm with a Rod of Atos and Hex), and he was ambushed by the Clinx near our bot tower - Clinx, despite having nearly 20k items got solo'd by our THD, who at the best of times is a mediocre dual lane support.

There is nothing good at all that I can say about Clinx. He's an outmoded, ancient, BAD design. Someone needs to send a memo to Hans2 that Clinx is ****, and then remake the abomination.

People whinge about power creep and so on in HoN, but HoN has nothing that can compare to the uselessness of heroes like Clinx. He is utterly obsolete.

[Anakha]

Oh, shitty DotA hero. lol.

[PzKw]

Tl;dr
A carry who can't carry and can't do anything else.

[Skyve]

Didn't he have something like +20/30/40/50 autoattack damage with his searing arrows?
In theory he's a decent early physical damage ganker that pays for that potential with a slightly weakened carry potential.
The +90% AS or whatever it is is pretty good too, the only skill that I'd see changed would be the ultimate. If that was something that either improves ganking potential or carry potential he should be completely fine, especially if it's something that off-sets his weakness of not being able to use attack modifiers.

[changlingbob]

To me, and I could be wildly wrong, Clinkz is a midgame hero; without items, he's got +50 damage from arrows, 110% +attack speed, and 4% of a creep's hp in damage (44 from almost all the big creeps in the hard camp). That's a hypothetical 10 wex, 8.5 exort alacrity, and at the expense of sounding particularly stupid, means invoker hasn't cast something else. At level 6, that's admittedly only 4 seconds of attack speed. At level six he can easily have treads, wraithband and change, and have 57 base damage.

The problem with him in dota 2 is likely to be at least partly due to lack of aggression, and everyone picking the hardest carry they can and then wondering why they lost, which is not to say that he isn't at the low end of the power scale.

[changlingbob]

By that logic, Pebbles, Devo, Vindicator, etc. (all heroes from dota) all have forced synergy, since their abilities rely so much on one another. Many more heroes in DotA could be considered as such, what with the likes of Invoker, Ursa, etc.


Forced synergy isn't necessarily a bad mechanic. It provokes more thoughtful and skillful use of abilities as a resource and integration of resource investment. It only becomes bad if a hero is substantially weaker than his counterparts by lacking self-reliant abilities.

I knew someone would bring this up, so lets have a look!

Pebbles was not designed to reference one ability on another, a bug-as-feature meant it did. Devo doesn't have abilities referencing each other. Vindicator doesn't have abilities referencing each other. Ursa doesn't have abilities referencing each other. These last two have very strong synergy between skills, but synergy isn't the problem.

Lets examine invoker; obviously all of his spells rely on each other, right? Well, actually, tornado and EMP combo pretty well, and cold snap and both forge spirits and alacrity do as well. ... oh, you meant quas, wex, extort and invoke? Those aren't invoker's spells, they're the method of casting said spells, which is slightly more complex than pressing Q due to having lots of them.

The correct counter-examples are defiler's power in death, doctor repulsor's electric frenzy, chipper's tar toss (and by extension bat rider's sticky napalm), flux in his entirety, and so forth. The thing is that in moderation and without beating on a single, not-actually-good concept, forced synergy is ok.

Despite the correct combo for chipper being tar toss, fire everything (and bat rider is sticky napalm ALL THE THINGS, then just kill them), the hero isn't cf above gravekeeper with corpses. DR's passive encourages casting lots, but doesn't have above-average impact on how the hero plays. Power in death is basically a non-ability that scales your other abilities as though you had extra skill points, which is great on one hero, because this genre (and games in general) thrive on exceptions; there are no tanks (except legionnaire).

Flux then is the one you should base your counterpoint on. The problem is, he's quite good. He a hero that pushes and pulls heroes. That's his gimmick, but for being almost everything he does, its well done; polarity swap affects his non-pull ability in an intuitive way, and polarity swap in itself is an interesting decision point in the game, and makes him a 6 skill hero, rather than being 'stack corpses, fire/explode corpses, summon corpses', or 'use skillshot buff (get charges), fire multiple skillshots (get more charges), duplicate skillshot shots (and charges), fire charges for more, consistent damage than skillshots that can't miss' or monkey king.

The problem isn't a hero being themed, having inter-skill synergy, or a gimmick, as every hero tends towards at least one of those things. The problem is forcing each of these things down the hero's throat until we have, eg, midas; three large aoe nukes, two large aoe stuns, and a blink, and a heal all because of the desperate requirement of synergy and the theme.

E: I wish my dissertation was this easy to write.

[PzKw]

Alacrity

http://media.playdota.com/hero/118/skill-8.jpg

Ability Type: Active
Targeting Type: Unit
Ability Hotkey: Z

Skill invokes if Kael has 2 Wex and 1 Exort instances. Invoker infuses an ally with an immense surge of energy, increasing their attack speed to a maximum of 80% based on Wex and damage up to 80 based on Exort for 9 seconds.


http://media.playdota.com/site/stable.jpg

Mana Cost
Cooldown
Casting range
Area of Effect
Duration
Allowed Targets
Effects



100
15
650
N/A
9 seconds
Allied Units
Gives damage and attack speed

Notes

• Effect of Wex level:
• - bonus speed of attack: 20% / 30% / 40% / 50% / 60% / 70% / 80%
• Effect of Exort level:
• - bonus damage: 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80



Strafe

http://media.playdota.com/hero/15/skill-0.jpg

Ability Type: Active
Targeting Type: N/A
Ability Hotkey: T

Fire a large number of arrows in a short time period. Lasts 4/6/8/10 seconds.


http://media.playdota.com/site/stable.jpg

Level
Mana Cost
Cooldown
Casting range
Area of Effect
Duration
Allowed Targets
Effects



1
90
60
N/A
N/A
4 seconds
Self
110% increased attack speed.



2
90
50
N/A
N/A
6 seconds
Self
110% increased attack speed.



3
90
40
N/A
N/A
8 seconds
Self
110% increased attack speed.



4
90
30
N/A
N/A
10 seconds
Self
110% increased attack speed.

Notes

• Bone Fletcher will get an animation on him for the duration of the spell, showing that it's currently active.




Searing Arrows

http://media.playdota.com/hero/15/skill-1.gif

Ability Type: Active
Targeting Type: Unit
Ability Hotkey: R

Increases the damage of the Hero's attack by adding fire.


http://media.playdota.com/site/stable.jpg

Level
Mana Cost
Cooldown
Casting range
Area of Effect
Duration
Allowed Targets
Effects



1
8
0
600
N/A
N/A
Enemy units and structures
20 bonus damage



2
8
0
600
N/A
N/A
Enemy units and structures
30 bonus damage



3
8
0
600
N/A
N/A
Enemy units and structures
40 bonus damage



4
8
0
600
N/A
N/A
Enemy units and structures
50 bonus damage

Notes

• Searing Arrows is an orb effect. non buff placer.
• Searing Arrows deal damage to structures.
• The damage is directly added to Clinkz' attack damage, as physical damage.

[PzKw]

How do you possibly argue that Alacrity isn't better than Searing Arrows and Strafe? Strafe has a 1 minute cooldown at level 1. Seriously, what the ****? Ghost Walk is inferior to Windwalk, but Invoker comes with a suite of disables, nukes and utility spells as well. The only spell that isn't directly comparable is Clinx's ulti, but it's mediocre to trash.

At the other end of things, BH does the burst damage out of invis better than Clinx and Drow does the "all game ranged damage input" thing better than Clinx.

[Skyve]

Ghost Walk isn't really inferior to Windwalk, it's really just different.


and Drow does the "all game ranged damage input" thing better than Clinx.

She really should only be better at some point after lvl11, and even then, she can't burst, while Clinx can get in some damage quickly.

[GregerMoek]

If she picks up Genjuro! Oh wait)))

[PzKw]

Ghost Walk isn't really inferior to Windwalk, it's really just different.



She really should only be better at some point after lvl11, and even then, she can't burst, while Clinx can get in some damage quickly.
Clinx has no time on target, and no ability to disrupt spell chains. Being able to output damage is of no use if your target is able to outposition you, or if you are disabled. What your carry is capable of before level 11 is far less relevant than what he's capable of after level 11 (and higher), because prior to that any carry (in DotA) is everyone else's *****. Clinx might do more damage than Drow before level 11, but neither of them can do enough damage for it to be relevant compared to spell damages until midgame (15 minutes and up in the current mode of thinking). Drow brings more to the table before then through her better orb (which is also better for carrying), aura for sustained team DPS and worlds more useful active ability.

The only thing Clinx has on Drow is his escape, but it's a cold day in hell when you don't see high level DotA teams rolling early truesight anyway just for the huge amound of counterwarding and counter smoke work they need do, and smoke makes all but the most sick escapes pretty feeble.

Edit: And Ghost Walk is inferior to practically everything. It's an invis that tells the other team when you're near them, and for most of the game, slows you down. You can't use it offensively because it requires you to put yourself in a position where the inevitable truesight high level players will have will get you killed instantly.

[Mediocre]

I dont want to be a party pooper but why do you guys discuss the viability of Clinx in a HoN forum? Already tierd of discussing all of the heroes in HoN?
:/

[Brannock]

It's Clinkz. PzKw got a Dota2 invite and has been having fun. ;)

If you want to talk about HoN heroes, selfquote but it's a good starting point IMO:


Balance Dump? Balance Dump.

New HotBL favors ranged heroes more the melee now, considering A. it blocks 30 for ranged, up from 20 before B. ranged heroes have a much easier time kiting damage to regenerate charges, and so can squeeze extra effectiveness out of HotBL that melee heroes who are getting focused cannot.

Preliminary guesses at newly favored heroes considering nerfs to HotBL, Shieldbreaker, and Bulwark. I don't think the game will shift out of tanky dps just yet, but be in a temporary transition phase as people move from melee HotBL to ranged tankiness focused on mobility to away from tanky DPS as a whole. I also fully expect to be wrong, just wanted to stir up some discourse:

:mast: Rapidfire drains HotBL, great utility, global red shield replaces lost mitigation.
:arac: Ranged HotBL. Can't run from her, built in magic armor/debuff cleanse, utterly destroys semis and carries via -aspd and ult. Vulnerable to physical burst though (:dead: :noma: :drun:).
:corr: Ranged HotBL. Purge on single targets makes it very difficult to lock him down. Conduit removes any drawback for slotting in HotBL in his build.
:mart: Multiple mitigation options for keeping ranged carries alive, AOE speed boost, amazing lane bully in 2s lanes.
:defi: Ranged HotBL. Remember 2 years ago? May have laning issues though.
:succ: Call it a hunch, but she functions well as a disabler to hold people the **** down, and the -damage% debuff plays heavily into keeping people alive. Oops, can't execute :corr: if your :pyro: is doing 40% less damage on his Blazing Strike.
:soulr: Ranged HotBL. Swings teamfights via heals and life degen. Has laning issues.
:arma: Now unquestionably holds the niche of most balanced survivability:damage ratio in the game. Functions perfectly fine without HotBL. Innate -armor debuff makes up for slightly nerfed red Bulwark. May actually have gotten an advantage with slightly nerfed blue Bulwark. Disincentivizing Shieldbreaker helps his case vs certain spike physical damagers. Difficult to lane, needs farm.
:pand: Innate -armor debuff, also see :succ: re: holding people the **** down to kill them. Strong in lane.
:flux: Ranged HotBL, could end up as a bully with all his push/pull and beefiness. There is zero reason to focus a HotBL Flux, which means he's free to drop flat 70% slows on people, tabcom them all over the place, and suck them into huge aoe ults. What little damage he has scales with STR. If someone can figure out how to lane him he'll be overbearing.

Yes? No? Why?

Since that post I've discovered that A. Ranged HotBL blocks 20 damage, not 30 B. HotBL is utter trash in teamfights. So a few opinions of mine will have changed since.

I still think there's room for "ranged tank" in the meta though, and all the heroes I listed are still valid in that meta and have options to help support that style - especially :mast: and :mart:.

While writing that post yesterday I was tempted to include :fayd: but decided not to. I see that a couple of other people think :fayd: is about to explode onto the scene. Honestly I don't really see it - she needs levels but doesn't really mid very well anymore (except against certain matchups, where she utterly destroys) and in a trilane where she can abuse her long long stun she won't be getting the farm she needs. Pebbles trilane worked because an early Portal Key on Pebbles is absolutely devastating, you could see something like that with :fayd:.

[Lethe]

You can't really compare alacrity with strafe. Most invoker's don't even max out exort until later in the game.

Clinkz isn't a good hero, however it doesn't help that many people play him like absolute crap. He actually has quite a high skill cap that isn't immediately obvious.

Back on topic, the hotbl change does a lot for ranged heroes who need the hp, but don't want to be a target of focus. If anything, due to hotbl's consistency, it is actually a buff on ranged heroes.

[skeloperch]

Every ****ing game there has been a Clinkz. EVERY ****ING GAME!

Why pick Clinkz, Russian pubbies? Don't you still love Invoker and Bounty Hunter? Why not play Furion? Tiny? Anyone but Clinkz? asdf I'm tired of Clinkz. I wish he was never ported. He's more useless than Bloodseeker is, and he didn't even get buffed in the last upwards balancing patch. I mean, his Searing Arrows have an amazing mana::damage ratio, but Strafe doesn't, Skeleton Walk is kinda crappy, and Death Pact is lulz. Seriously, if you want a ranged agility carry that auto attacks something to death, and will get invisibility at one point or another, pick Drow. If you want an 'archer' that is actually really good, pick Wind Runner, whom by the way is batshit OP.

Sigh. I just don't know anymore. It's apparent from DOTA2 that HoN has superior balancing. Even LoL has superior balancing. The only thing that keeps me playing is my love for Invoker and Broodmother. Nothing else. If they were removed or nerfed, which is inevitable, then I would quit playing altogether. Still waiting for Abaddon and Pandaren, ValvE.

[Launders]

Every single time I get a clinkz on my team they instapick BH/Slardar, and everytime I get a BM on my team they go Mask of Madness :/

[GregerMoek]

Seriously DotArds... Calm the **** down.

We do not care about a skeleton who thinks he can fire arrows. LOL HE HAS FIRE ARROW TOO!

I want more balanced sex-appeal. Okay thanks.

[Alten]

I knew someone would bring this up, so lets have a look!

Pebbles was not designed to reference one ability on another, a bug-as-feature meant it did. Devo doesn't have abilities referencing each other. Vindicator doesn't have abilities referencing each other. Ursa doesn't have abilities referencing each other. These last two have very strong synergy between skills, but synergy isn't the problem.

Lets examine invoker; obviously all of his spells rely on each other, right? Well, actually, tornado and EMP combo pretty well, and cold snap and both forge spirits and alacrity do as well. ... oh, you meant quas, wex, extort and invoke? Those aren't invoker's spells, they're the method of casting said spells, which is slightly more complex than pressing Q due to having lots of them.

The correct counter-examples are defiler's power in death, doctor repulsor's electric frenzy, chipper's tar toss (and by extension bat rider's sticky napalm), flux in his entirety, and so forth. The thing is that in moderation and without beating on a single, not-actually-good concept, forced synergy is ok.

Despite the correct combo for chipper being tar toss, fire everything (and bat rider is sticky napalm ALL THE THINGS, then just kill them), the hero isn't cf above gravekeeper with corpses. DR's passive encourages casting lots, but doesn't have above-average impact on how the hero plays. Power in death is basically a non-ability that scales your other abilities as though you had extra skill points, which is great on one hero, because this genre (and games in general) thrive on exceptions; there are no tanks (except legionnaire).

Flux then is the one you should base your counterpoint on. The problem is, he's quite good. He a hero that pushes and pulls heroes. That's his gimmick, but for being almost everything he does, its well done; polarity swap affects his non-pull ability in an intuitive way, and polarity swap in itself is an interesting decision point in the game, and makes him a 6 skill hero, rather than being 'stack corpses, fire/explode corpses, summon corpses', or 'use skillshot buff (get charges), fire multiple skillshots (get more charges), duplicate skillshot shots (and charges), fire charges for more, consistent damage than skillshots that can't miss' or monkey king.

The problem isn't a hero being themed, having inter-skill synergy, or a gimmick, as every hero tends towards at least one of those things. The problem is forcing each of these things down the hero's throat until we have, eg, midas; three large aoe nukes, two large aoe stuns, and a blink, and a heal all because of the desperate requirement of synergy and the theme.

E: I wish my dissertation was this easy to write.


I was intentionally mentioning only dota heroes/dota ports as generalization across the entire genre, and as to how we disambiguate the issues we perceive, as such. While you make some good points, I only intended in my post to point out that forced synergy is present in many heroes to the point of being noticeable only in a biased mindset. It really comes down to the definition of forced synergy, which can have wide differences in its effect with little change in its application.

I myself view forced synergy as an intentional combination of several abilities and potential passive effects of these abilities to result in an exponential increase in the power level of a hero; this is evidenced in the examples you made previously in your post, and how those heroes were obviously improved drastically by having the option (and in extension, requirement). This extends to the varying degrees of forced synergy, and anyone can observe blatant oversynergy in the degree of comprehensively lowering instead of enhancing a hero.

This is, perhaps, evidenced in Flux, as you pointed out earlier. However, I myself love Flux far too much to admit anything malignant in his aspect and execution. So.... There you go.

[Hsssh]

I myself love Flux

Who doesn't?

[skeloperch]

Who doesn't?

I don't when I'm fighting him. Whenever he's on the enemy team, he always lands 70% snares, pushes me into the worst situations, and saves allies globally. Whenever he's on my team, he pulls people out of my ultis as Tempest, or he pushes them out of my ulti as Devo, and only gets the minimum slow.

[SirVH]

^ that's so true. It happens with me too.

[PzKw]

Holy ****, too many trailer park parents are letting their cracker spawn on computers:

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=p&b=ffffff&n=666666&r=2y&u=heroesofnewerth.com&&u=dota2.com&u=leagueoflegends.com&u=playdota.com&
Estimated percentage of global pageviews on heroesofnewerth.com:
Pageviews Change 7 day 0.000465 +66% http://www.alexa.com/images/arrows/up_arrow.gif 1 month 0.000363 -33% http://www.alexa.com/images/arrows/down_arrow.gif 3 month 0.000463 -23.5% http://www.alexa.com/images/arrows/down_arrow.gif

[Brannock]

Genjuro: Is this item actually worthwhile or just a pub item like Assassin's Shroud?

Recall, too, that Helm of the Black Legion once upon a time was viewed as a "pub" item.

[Anakha]

Genjuro's good for the simple fact that it forces severe counters, and has a lot of damage and slow attached to it. 70 (assuming agi primary) + 125 + autoattack damage is nothing to sneeze at.

[Alten]

Genjuro has too much compacted utility to be considered bad. In some circumstances, it even works as a rush luxury. It's like the hellflower of agi heroes, except that it provides more survivability and helps those agi heroes to fulfill their role more effectively by giving them a greater timewindow to output their damage. It also has numerous other benefits which are not hard to figure out, but I'm too tired to be arsed to include them here.

[Alten]

Holy ****, too many trailer park parents are letting their cracker spawn on computers:

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=p&b=ffffff&n=666666&r=2y&u=heroesofnewerth.com&&u=dota2.com&u=leagueoflegends.com&u=playdota.com&
Estimated percentage of global pageviews on heroesofnewerth.com:
Pageviews Change 7 day 0.000465 +66% http://www.alexa.com/images/arrows/up_arrow.gif 1 month 0.000363 -33% http://www.alexa.com/images/arrows/down_arrow.gif 3 month 0.000463 -23.5% http://www.alexa.com/images/arrows/down_arrow.gif


I can honestly say the the LoL forums are the most abominable forums I've ever had the misfortune to wander through. Close contenders are the FPS forums.

[JoOKie]

^lol as if the HoN forums are even half-decent.

[skeloperch]

I would honestly say I enjoy /b/ more than I enjoy LoL forums, and that's saying something.

Also, what the hell is up with Riot and resourcless champions? Do you know how dumb it is fighting someone with no repercussion for spamming? Seriously. **** Vlad, **** Mordekaiser, and **** Kennen.

[Anakha]

@jookie: Non-sequitur. Nobody's debating the fact that the HoN forums are trash (but let's be honest here, it's mostly General Discussion with a smattering of c&c), but the LoL forums are worse.

[Dominare]

It's [Genjuro] like the hellflower of agi heroes

Except that hellflower can't be countered. :)

[GregerMoek]

Can be, by preemptive use of magic immunity or similar effects.

Genjuro's speedbost and damage is hard to counter. One feature, although quite important feature, can be countered with other items with proper positioning/timing. Not the biggest of deals in my opinion.

Not saying Hellflower is worse, just saying that "Genjuro can be countered" is only half right in my eyes.

[XFlame]

Given the nature of this comment, I'll just drop this here instead of in the Salforis thread:
It'd make more sense for Life Tap to apply its slow on the first target you'd hit as it should allow him to close the gap with the added ms, while at the same being able to stick to the target after you've hit someone and you lose the bonus ms.

[Mediocre]

You cant rly compare the dota2 site to the others tbh. The dota2 site is only updated once per week with information since the game is in closed beta. No reason to come back to the site once you've read it.

The dota2 reddit-subforum is, on the other hand, much more active than the HoN one.

The retail dota2 site will probably be as popular as LoLs.

[GregerMoek]

I don't think so at all, LoL will be more popular than DotA2 for a long time.

[Alten]

I'm starting to think Soulstealer is an indicator of balance in HoN as Antarctica is an indicator to the state of Earth.

/balance dump

[Dominare]

Can be, by preemptive use of magic immunity or similar effects.

That isn't really the same thing.

You use item A -> I use item B - that's a counter

I am scared that you might be about to use item A -> I use item B - that is not

[GregerMoek]

A way to deal with a problem isn't a counter? Oh right.

[Ekamo]

http://honcast.com/live/

[XFlame]

So, Berzerker.

[pechkin]

whats with the "kill a hero, get a skill cd reset"?

[GregerMoek]

Same as Nomad has.

[pechkin]

Same as Nomad has.

and how does that justify anything?

[Hsssh]

I hate on kill effects. Helps you win more when you are winning while being a sandbag when you are already losing. Somewhat balanced only when both teams are on similar level of power.

[Skyve]

I hate on kill effects. Helps you win more when you are winning while being a sandbag when you are already losing. Somewhat balanced only when both teams are on similar level of power.

In MtG you'd call that a "Win-More". They are in general bad cards, because you'd rather draw something that helps you win, instead of getting something that requires you to win to be effective.

[Hsssh]

Finished watching it. Who is coming up with all this "gives vision" crap?

[Zilrax]

It's basically Bounty Hunters thing. Without the extra gold anyways.

[PzKw]

In MtG you'd call that a "Win-More". They are in general bad cards, because you'd rather draw something that helps you win, instead of getting something that requires you to win to be effective.
The basic concept of carries that I've considered healthy is that they're "Win-More" heroes. Basic gist is that if you can maintain winning conditions for a while, they more efficiently use those conditions, but if you start losing they become "Lose-More" heroes who can't effectively contribute...

[Hsssh]

I think we have different understanding of term "Win-More". I, and i guess Skyve, have in mind such mechanics that are relevant only when it doesn't matter anymore.

Extreme example incoming, would carry be "healty" and "good" if he could only carry when enemy team had lost all their rax? He would allow to enforce your dominance but at this point what does it matter?

Carries usually help "win more" by getting stronger to the point that they can kill enemies. On kill effects require you being able to kill them in the first place, if you can kill enemy heroes then it's highly likely that you are winning already so this effect is rather trivial and pointless. I expect this hero to be another snowballer who'll be very hard to stop if he gets good early game.

[changlingbob]

From when the ability names were revealed:

12:55 < changlingbob> ok, berzerker predictions:
12:56 < changlingbob> q is a nuke that may also have an imobilize or a stun on it
12:56 < changlingbob> w is some kind of strength steal that will be modified multiple times over the next n patches
12:56 < changlingbob> mark for death will be gondar's track, but without the gold gain
12:56 < changlingbob> carnage will be a self buff
12:56 < changlingbob> probably a strength multiplier
12:56 < changlingbob> based on W's existance
12:57 < changlingbob> chain spike will probably scale off of strength for the same reason
12:57 < changlingbob> because ugh

So I missed on Q scaling off of strength, but R is straight out of LoL given it scales off max health (the worst mechanic, especially on a strength hero) and grants tenacity.

And here I was thinking I was being facetious.

[Hsssh]

Well it depends on numbers but in general i agree that it's a bad idea to directly scale heroe's dps potential from his survivability.

[changlingbob]

Ursa scales off max health in dota, but is also agility, so he doesn't get damage from his health and damage from the strength giving him that health. Plus the thing you just said.

[Haruhi_sos]

Anyone played Berzerker in sbt? Would carnage remove the +30% damage taken if you activate Elder parasite while keep the +100 attack speed?

[PzKw]

Ursa scales off max health in dota, but is also agility, so he doesn't get damage from his health and damage from the strength giving him that health. Plus the thing you just said.
Doesn't Ursa scale off remaining health? Checking. Was correct.

[Hsssh]

Well lets look at the good part- he doesn't have mobility stuff and unless his Q mini stuns can't stop tps when we'll be running the **** away from him.

[changlingbob]

Doesn't Ursa scale off remaining health? Checking. Was correct.

A fair point; scaling off max health is even worse!

[Mediocre]

A fair point; scaling off max health is even worse!

Then again, ursas orb makes him do just fine with only str/health items.

... lets not forget the AS boost aswell.


The only thing that rly bothers me about this berzerker is the non-ultimate true vision he gets from ''track''. The other abilities could be balanced around numbers.... even tho I dubt they (ever) will be.

[Skyve]

The basic concept of carries that I've considered healthy is that they're "Win-More" heroes. Basic gist is that if you can maintain winning conditions for a while, they more efficiently use those conditions, but if you start losing they become "Lose-More" heroes who can't effectively contribute...

Carries aren't "Win-More" heroes. They are "win conditions". They allow you to win the game if certain parameters are met. They don't even require you to be winning - usually they just need a specific key item (which in my opinion too often seems to be a Shrunken Head) to be able to "sweep the board" and put you into a favorable spot.

[Brannock]

Finished watching it. Who is coming up with all this "gives vision" crap?

The same person who designed :phar: :doct: :pest: :bloo: :andr: :corr: :thun: ... Wait, wrong game.

[SirVH]

My 2 cents: berzerker will be the most broken hero on hon history.

And as we want to get away from the carry tank meta, what do we got? FML.

[Zilrax]

I think he could just as easily be the worst. But then, it all comes down to numbers now doesn't it.

People were all yelling Grave gonna be OP too and look how that turned out. So I will wait and see.

Though I do agree, getting stronger off hp has always been pretty stupid. But then I recently saw something stupider that Berzerker...

[WiLd_LiF3]

My 2 cents: berzerker will be the most broken hero on hon history.

And as we want to get away from the carry tank meta, what do we got? FML.

He will not be as Broken as Gemini was. That hero was make a sub-account, play him 100%. Gain 200-300 MMR in a day with god win/loss and KD.

[WiLd_LiF3]

Well anyway guys, I have something to say.

When Monkey King uses the shift combo (Shift W (click) + Shift E+ Shift W (Click)), why doesn't he do the 300 Wan Jin Slam damage like he used too?

The broken part of the combo was the 250+250+125.

Now that it's 250+125+63. A small buff of adding the Shift combo back like it used too with the CURRENT damage would make him a bit better.

Currently he does 588 damage with a level 8 combo shift queue combo. I'm pretty sure that the rock only hits once now, not twice like it used too.

If they added the secondary Rock damage again, it would be 738 at level 8.

This would make him a lot more viable then he currently is. He kills squishy heros (like ANY OTHER HERO) but the tanky carry meta just shits on him.

Edit: Level 8 Monkey King Vs Level 8 Witch Slayer (663 Health without items). Monkey King doesn't kill the Witch in One hit. Now Witch is a very squishy hero, and if he can't do it then the change suggested should be implemented. (He lives with around 70 HP Btw)

[SirVH]

I think he could just as easily be the worst. But then, it all comes down to numbers now doesn't it.

Reveal + bonus speed + stealing damage from people around + the bonuses from his ultimate + stack hp. Unless he got the worst stats on the game he will be totally op.

[Hsssh]

The same person who designed :phar: :doct: :pest: :bloo: :andr: :corr: :thun: ... Wait, wrong game.

Doesn't mean that it's a good thing if it's already in the game made by some other people. What i'm trying to say is that maybe we have already enough "gives vision" skills? Like Monarch had it too, Midas still has it.

[R0XAS]

Do you think Beserker will have really low stat gains and high base stats or the other way around?

Peoples thoughts on Maliken atm?

[GregerMoek]

Reveal + bonus speed + stealing damage from people around + the bonuses from his ultimate + stack hp. Unless he got the worst stats on the game he will be totally op.

There are many many many heroes that can look OP if you put it like that.

Tundra:

Super starting stats, summonable fws pet and clearvision everywhere and you can teleport to it too with post haste. Superior stun that doesn't afraid of anything, short cd too. Shards that can provide vision, damage against anything except invul targets and HUGE aoe and range. Charge that scales on your damage and grants +as and a slow.

Now Tundra is probably a tiny bit OP but still.


Edit: FIRST ON PAGE 100

[PzKw]

Carries aren't "Win-More" heroes. They are "win conditions". They allow you to win the game if certain parameters are met. They don't even require you to be winning - usually they just need a specific key item (which in my opinion too often seems to be a Shrunken Head) to be able to "sweep the board" and put you into a favorable spot.

This is an antiquated view, since both teams run carries one doesn't win if a single condition is met and they scale relative to each other. There are two issues at play that I don't like, the first is that carries are too capable of creating the favourable conditions for their farm (they're too strong in lane and too gank resilient), and secondly, too many mechanisms exist to isolate carries from the game, so that a losing team will not necessarily have a carry losing to the bulk of the enemy team.

The bottom line is that the most reliable counter to a carry is out outcarrying them. I can't remember the last time I saw a high level team man up against another high level team and try to draft a team that didn't have a carry component to the strat. I question if it's viable at all anymore.

(also, you can create win conditions without carries...)

[GregerMoek]

At DHW there were many teams (mostly LION) who picked lineups without a real carry.

There was a game where they went Midas+Pebs+Nymph+Magmus+Glacius I think and won pretty hard. Perhaps the main thing was that they outclassed their opponents but still.

Then we have the famous Rea vs EZ, but EZ had Defiler so I guess she's a carry, but that was against a Magebane+Tort and I'm not really sure that Defiler should outcarry them. Their linups however were less gank-oriented and just team-clash oriented I suppose.

[SirVH]

Tundra:


I guess Tundra was a bad example since I think he's overpowered.

[Mediocre]

Page 100 and still going strong.

[Skyve]

This is an antiquated view, since both teams run carries one doesn't win if a single condition is met and they scale relative to each other.

So? I didn't say they would win 100% guaranteed. I said they were a "Win-Condition" and that they can put you into a favorable spot once they reach a certain point. That doesn't mean though that they can't be "handled" or that there aren't other possible "Win-Conditions".


The bottom line is that the most reliable counter to a carry is out outcarrying them. I can't remember the last time I saw a high level team man up against another high level team and try to draft a team that didn't have a carry component to the strat. I question if it's viable at all anymore.

MSI vs EG, Bombardier, Tempest and so on on MSI's side, no carry. Game lasted ~40 minutes.

[Anakha]

50 if you set your posts per page to not suck.

[Mediocre]

50 if you set your posts per page to not suck.

"balance dump"

Aren't they all trash?

[Zilrax]

Nope. Sometimes you find diamonds in the rough.

Anyways, so we know Berzerker, as well as Gravekeeper are both Buro heroes essentially. So let's see how it goes. I'm still remembering Dampeer and Shadowblade so...

[XFlame]

Buro made Flux and Revenant. Even if he also made Tremble, Gemini, EW, Ra and Monkey King, you'd still have not enough reason to dislike him.

[Zilrax]

I like Flux and Revenant. But that doesn't absolve him of not making such great things later. I'm not gonna go rabid on him, but I just chuckle when I see people swoon for Buro.

I still prefer Fielding's array thus far. Only one that makes me cringe a little is Chipper, but that's one out of 7 as opposed to 4 out of 6.

To each their own though. At least it's not DivA.

[Brannock]

I guess :emer: isn't actually all that strong, judging from Fnatic's performance with her.

[GregerMoek]

Not all too weak either, remember when Trixi played him and completely raped magebane at DHW

[changlingbob]

EW is another hero that covers all their own weaknesses; regardless of whether they're actually good or not, as long as they're good enough they'll see more play than any other hero in the roster.

[changlingbob]

Also, hello dump thread:

Ra thread was important to have as he breaks fundamentals of how a hero should function, and does very little but break said fundamentals. That so many people were posting that he was fine with literally no justification is reason enough to shut the thread because it was a waste of time trying to get anyone to even read it.

That said, there needs to be a discussion about Amun Ra somewhere internally within S2 that addresses the points raised (or with people who can handle reading an argument of more than one line without pooping out crap, unnecessary suggestions), because it's one of the most important balance issues in the game now, if only to avoid any more heroes like him accidentally getting spawned.

[pechkin]

EW is another hero that covers all their own weaknesses; regardless of whether they're actually good or not, as long as they're good enough they'll see more play than any other hero in the roster.

no aoe.

[Anakha]

traps are 320 damage in an aoe, and deniable so you get the effect instantly.

[china]

Best thread to ever happen in Balance Discussion.

Feel free to paypal me at bouyuu@gmail.com.

[Ekamo]

Best thread to ever happen in Balance Discussion.

Feel free to paypal me at bouyuu@gmail.com.

Who are you troll?
Get out.

[GregerMoek]

Best thread to ever happen in Balance Discussion.

Feel free to paypal me at bouyuu@gmail.com.

Tried to steal the last post on page 100? :O'

:para: :para: :para: :para: :para:

[R0XAS]

58% would rather eat their spouse than their feet. No love for sexy sexy wife? :(

[Zilrax]

Nuh uh. Too much love for sexy sexy wife.

[Reldnahc]

You eat your foot and eat out the wife. Duh.

[GregerMoek]

Seriouly it doesn't say what kind of foot it is, hence why I chose that.

[XFlame]

Why not eat her foot?

[R0XAS]

^ Genius...

[Salem1]

I don't think creating a topic for this will be approved so I'll list the heroes I believe are the most glaringly overpowered here and explain why. When combined with similar heroes and especially when combined with similar heroes and other targets you need your team to focus before they can do anything, heroes that aren't necessarily as overpowered or even overpowered at all (such as PR/Slither/Tort), the ridiculousness of these heroes becomes the most clearly apparent. What will you do when you have the choice of spending it all trying to kill an insanely survivable dps-tank, the other dps-tank or one of the two heroes who just need to blow their cooldowns on your team in order to provide a massive team fight swing?

:drun: - The problem here is not any one aspect but that he has it all. I think the nullstone effect on the ultimate is what completes the package however, without it you could actually disable him. Let's take an example; what's Bombardier gonna do against DM? his single target spells are negated and he's got a 6 second CD disjoint to jump out of your aoe. Dampeer? Succubus? Monarch? Pollywog? Martyr? PR? Andro? DS? VJ? the list goes on. If he had to farm a shrunken first he'd still be strong but you could do something about him rather than being powerless as he takes half hp off your carry, pushes him into the middle of the enemy team and he's dead 0,5 second later. It's not like you can outlane him either - he can form some of the deadliest lanes in the game. As it is now this hero completely lacks a weakness and is very strong all game.

:trem: - Simply too survivable. If the MS when in terror mounds is decreased, the damage reduction on Q was decreased a little, he got less armour and impale's slow was decreased so he can't pretty much immobilize you with it he wouldn't be so ridiculously survivable and mobile. He can solo 1-2 supports without a problem because he is so fast and takes so little damage while slowing them to a crawl whether with himself or shudder if he gets disabled. I don't have a problem with his laning, he can shine there because he isn't really a carry compared to other heroes, but he's so ridiculously good otherwise.

:krak: - It's not that Kraken kills you and there's nothing you can do about it like with DM or Tremble, it's that he's a bulky strength hero with good offense and an escape that doubles as a nuke and a dispositioner at the same time. That skill, especially combined with his slow and toughness, makes Kraken very hard to gank which combined with his good last hitting means that he can quickly become one of those tanky dps heroes that requires a huge investment to kill, still probably won't die and deals a lot of damage all the while. This hero is simply too solid and I maintain that his E is the main cause of this.

:zeph: - Perhaps the essence of a dps tank, Zephyr is very survivable while being very deadly, once again requiring a massive investment to get rid of while you can't ignore him. His arguable main counter, Arachna, still needs support to kill him after he has his first survivability item and offers much less to a team fight than Zephyr does. Additionally, Zephyr isn't bad in lane when paired with a support - such as DS or Martyr. This means that again, the hero isn't really weak anywhere.

:pred: - Predator is another dps tank. Much like Tremble, there is usually no escape from him when he latches on to you thanks to his leap that slows, movement speed buff, magic immunity and frostbrand. Predator doesn't really need to farm dps items before he starts wrecking because of the armour debuff on his ultimate and carnivorous - he is simply a hero that is strong all game but gets stronger the longer the game goes on, having one of the best things you can have in the game (magic immunity) and the skill set to make the most of it. This aspect makes him tough to gank when he's jungling, especially if he's carrying a tp, as Predator's magic immunity lasts for 3 seconds and then 3,75 seconds on level 2 - easily affording him time to teleport away as the channel is 3 seconds. Both his dps and survival scale with your own survivability increases against the damage of his teammates.

:amun: - Scaling flash farm, massive aoe damage, stun and slow with boosts to movement and attack speed. Literally all this hero needs is a modicum of mobility, so ghost marchers, and then to stack strength until he runs out of slots. His own skill set gives him an edge in movement and attack speed so he doesn't need to farm that, thus dedicating his top-tier farming that he never needs to return to fountain for to increase his survivability that also directly increases his damage, which is aoe. His Q is not hard to land except against fast heroes and if you're caught by it, the best that'll happen is that you get out at red hp, Ra ready to repeat the combo in 9 seconds. Like the other dps tanks he can do this from the laning phase and onward - he is never weak. This means that like the other dps tanks he is viable early on and can even be deadly in lane with the right supports, quickly outscaling heroes that aren't dps tanks themselves and requiring massive burst like :pebb: :fayd: :damp: along with at least one more hero to kill him when he's got HotBL, especially if he also has his ultimate.

:arma: - Simply put, spine burst's mana cost is too low and the hero is too survivable. You don't even need a mana item early on - just use your whole pool and then go back and heal with your massive movement speed, and it's a rare occurance in which you need to empty your mana anyway. I personally get null stone on him after hotbl, with just a manatube you won't run out of mana and when you complete the null stone you can spam your spells practically forever. If you almost kill Armadon he's gonna run away - you are neither likely to catch him nor kill him if you do because of Armordillo. He can take a ridiculous amount of punishment, he's unescapable, he requires a team to kill him, he spins out of control with just some easy farm, he practically scales with survivability and he's got the movement speed to escape. All key points of the dreaded dps tank.

:ramp: - Rampage is too good all game. He's got excellent last hitting and good denying due to bonus damage, horned strike gives him bonus movement speed making him hard to catch up with coupled with his already good movement speed and he forces you to stay together - which is not only easier said than done but is suicide when Rampage's team also includes heroes such as PR, Slither etc. that punish you for staying together. He can easily get survivability to require a large investment - though not as frustratingly large as the true dps tanks - to kill. He can destroy and clean up teams very effectively with massive physical damage, also having a ridiculously long disable time no matter if he gets disabled while doing his ulti or not. This hero along with Nomad and DM possesses the ability to deal insane amounts of physical damage continuously throughout a fight while also being very good in other regards (ie. disabling), unlike say Predator or Armadon. Rampage is also one of the strongest gankers around.

:noma:
:tort:#
:valk:#
:plag:#
:mida:
:mage:
:silh:
:mona:
:poll:#

I can't be bothered to explain these, I've written so much already, but I'm listing them anyway. Heroes marked with a # are heroes that probably won't ever be nerfed because ''they are perfectly balanced''.




Faulty arguments against these heroes being overpowered:

1. ''You can counter them.'' You can counter nuclear missiles too, it doesn't mean a nuclear war is no problem because you can ''just counter them''. Even so, that these heroes need such specific counters or they'll faceroll your team with nothing you can do about it is a problem even if they ''can'' be countered - it's a conceot which in Pokemon is called ''centralisation'' which is as it sounds, when the game becomes centralised around certain heroes and their counters leading to stale, boring gameplay.