Balance Dump

[china]

Post here reasonless drivel, QQs, rants, and passing thoughts regarding balance.

[ElementUser]

china is imbalanced

[Skyve]

I always get matched with bads that don't know how to pick a proper team.

Imbalanced :(

[china]

I think Fayde is really broken. I don't build codex on her and I still net 20 kills a game in 1800 pubs.

It gets to the point where their entire team does small neuts together.

[Skyve]

But Fayde is just a Pebbles that can't use Portal Key.

(Well, not as effectively)

[china]

I like Fayde a lot more. Treewalking... Treewalking. Invis... Invis.

Can't see me! Oh, and she destroys Magebane... All these Magebanes I've been seeing lately. Makes me mad.

[XFlame]

I think balancing for pubs is a terrible idea, and I think Deadwood needs a buff.

[kippetje]

elec and jera are superstrong right now but a lot of ppl dont realise this yet.

[Skyve]

I like Fayde a lot more. Treewalking... Treewalking. Invis... Invis.

Can't see me! Oh, and she destroys Magebane... All these Magebanes I've been seeing lately. Makes me mad.

One of my favourite heroes is still Tundra. So I CAN see you :D

[LegoPirate]

ew is the most annoying hero ever. whoever thought wolves were a good idea should be shot.

[Connect]

ew is the most annoying hero ever. whoever thought wolves were a good idea should be shot.
That would be Nome.

On another note. RA is really pissing me off. Every ****ing game I see this easy mode hero dominate.

[Reldnahc]

I thought this would be a thread of china taking a dump, I am disappointed.

[argnoferich]

Noxious cloud can't damage even creeps at level 4, let alone heroes, increase damage.

Midas obligates the whole other team to buy mystic vestiments because he has too much damage.

Either start increasing S2 heroes cast time for abilities or balance accordingly the old dota heroes cast times (Defiler, Succubus, Blacksmith i.e.) they take too much time to cast compared to the new heroes which could be one of the reasons they arent being picked.

Stop buffing Armadon, ty.

[foxmindedguy]

I think Fayde is really broken. I don't build codex on her and I still net 20 kills a game in 1800 pubs.

It gets to the point where their entire team does small neuts together.

1800 pubs still don't buy revelation wards, fortified bracers, mystics?

Yeah they deserve to jungle together then.

As for my QQ rant, I hate all the strength heroes with escape mechanisms. Kraken, Midas, Maliken, even Drunken Master. Why can't I kill them AAAHHH!!

[Lethe]

I pick Fayde when I see an enemy EW or MB and gank them mercilessly (yes I still rep codex hard).

I then ****-talk them in all-chat to drive down their morale.

[Anakha]

Lack of strategical diversity (as opposed to tactical diversity) drives such a plethora of bad habits and perceptions in this game. It's scary how bad it's gotten.

[Mediocre]

Midas is str, ranged and has an escape mechanism.

How many hero design "rules" were broken there?

[Skyve]

Midas is str, ranged and has an escape mechanism.

How many hero design "rules" were broken there?

He's only STR because he'd be too strong as an int hero (he'd gain 0.8 more attack damage on average per level).
His STR gain isn't exactly high for a strength hero. And still not the highest for non-strength heroes.

He's only above Ra for str gain per level for strength heroes.

Kraken is the STR hero with an escape mechanism where it might pose an issue.

[MadAtYou]

dm and mk are broken but dumpsters are bad so they look like they're bad
dumpsters get better so these broken ****s get balanced

[Octavia]

Rampage should be banned from being on the other team. Or at least, if he's on the other team I should get a free Nullstone.

[Ekamo]

Rampage should be banned from being on the other team. Or at least, if he's on the other team I should get a free Nullstone.

Rampage in anything that isn't an organized game is the most broken hero in the game. Only thing that counters him is teamwork and when you feel like the most skilled player in the world you don't want to rely on teammates.
Rampage > Pubstompers.

On a side note,
Am I the only one that gets annoyed to holy hell by almost all strength heroes?

:ramp::accu::elec::arma::jera::keep::legi::amun::r amp:

[Cyber_Kun]

People keep making bloody stickies that end up going above my balance thread.

God damn China being OP here.

[MadAtYou]

whenever i want to play some soulstealer in sd
there is a rampage

something most change

[Frogmunster]

Master of Arms Red shield is some f*cking bullshit, I tell you what

Other people should not be allowed to kill me in mid lane

Too many heroes are trash-tier

S2:s heroes have a tendency to be gimmicky as f*ck.

They completely ruined Engi with the mines ;_;

Playing SS and getting 6/5/21, is NOT ok, and this is everybodys fault but mine.

[Hsssh]

My team should get free wards when i'm not playing support.

[Bojangles15]

Why does the balance forum exist with the goal of balancing for top-tier players when no one that posts here is top tier?

[PRETENT10uS]

Why is Pollywog's Ultimate over twice as good as Rhasta's ultimate in DotA?

Really doesn't seem necessary.

[JoOKie]

Because the top-tier are the only ones who make use of _all_ the options you have. Just because a 1300 doesn't buy a ward or TP doesn't make BH uncounterable. They just don't know how to counter it.

[man_guy]

Why is Pollywog's Ultimate over twice as good as Rhasta's ultimate in DotA?

Really doesn't seem necessary.

Armor / damage types?

Lane pulling is just plain BS. Having to buy wards to stop is to the point of necessity and might as well just not exist.

[Benny0]

I hate conduit and everything it stands for. I'd rather face succubus with lowwer mana cost on smitten than conduit.

Rampage is just frustrating, Kraken is just frustrating. His ulti needs to get toned down a lot. 50% movement slow + suck in + aoe damage + large damage burst + stun is just too much utility for a skill on what, a 90 second cooldown? I realize it has downsides but still, it's crazy.

Also, screw S2 and giving heroes disjoints. It pisses me off.

[Zilrax]

On a side note,
Am I the only one that gets annoyed to holy hell by almost all strength heroes?

:ramp::accu::elec::arma::jera::keep::legi::amun::r amp:

Yes you are. I love all those heroes. Well, besides Ra.

I demand less panicking at pick time by making all str heroes combined! I want to play Jeraziah who can Legionaire taunt and Armadon spike while phys and magic immune with mock damage around me while running at max speed across the map with an flying meteor stun that heals everyone in a huge explosion, and explodes in damage around myself. Oh and can turn the entire map into creeps that assault towers.

I'll need to use my entire keyboard to control his hotkeys.

Course then S2 will do the same and just combine Flint and sil and I will still lose. Damn you S2!

So yes. S2 fusing two of the agi together is op. Nerf please.

[pewpewstar]

I'm speechless.

lol

[Shadeward]

Midas obligates the whole other team to buy mystic vestiments because he has too much damage.

I'm at a point where I pick up Mystic Vestments on every single hero. It's ridiculous how many nukers this game has.

[Gridlocked]

I wish people in the 1600 bracket would stop assuming that picking Phant means I am going to sit in the jungle and be useless. Hell sometimes I go to our short lane and pop in and out of THEIR jungle but noooo pick Phant "Lol why would you you bad hes trash". He is a good hero with a balanced place in teams, he isn't supposed to sit in the jungle for half an hour like your WS and appear to dump on the bads who didn't bother with you.

MoA red Ult needs a nerf. Having a guy being shielded by a guy whos farming half way across the map is bullcrap. Fair enough if Oph heals, shes a support but that stupid has-7-skills hero being able to give that is dumb.

Fayde players make me mad. They are either on my team and are trash or on the other team and facestomp everyone.

This game was better when disrupting the 1 opposing hard carrys farm with your support/gankers was a more viable tactic then having 3 semi-carries farming on your team with a ward *****.

EW Wolves are not balanced nor is neting a kill with them considered being skilled or "pwned fag" esp. after I just ruined your entire teams gank against 3 of us with one stun, one swap and a scouting aurora to let Beastwood ult your face off.

Geo and FWS should not be made out of S&Y so easily.

[Anakha]

i'm at a point where i pick up mystic vestments on every single hero. It's ridiculous how many nukers this game has.

this this this this this

[Zilrax]

Why I take Jeraziah honestly. Still should get them, but with so much front loaded damage flying around, Charm is worth it's weight in gold against fools who don't bother getting nullfire. Or in general really.

[Dawnbringer]

What is this I don't even...

Sad about change on Sand Wraith from hard hard carry :(

EDIT: Can we eat our Spouse's foot? Also, y u no approve my thread on Hellbourne vs. Legion jungle, its a valid point :(

[Zilrax]

Does that mean he's now Quicksand Wraith?

Meh, I never encountered a SW I couldn't beat if my team wasn't retarded. Though admittedly, I'm nowhere near the mmr that I'd have had to been to see it so either way.

[Alten]

S2 heroes depress me and simultaneously fill me with joy. Sometimes, I wish I could just inject myself with distilled endorphins and sit in a corner with a glee-coma until I have to go drone it up again outside. It'd be nice if that what was everyone did, actually; then I wouldn't have to deal with all of the idiots that brighten up my day with fires of fury and hate and stabbing (stabbing is an emotion, right?).

And why the hell would you people eat your spouse? Hmm.... A foot I can probably replace, with only the cost of pain, or my mate that I've pledged loyalty and companionship to, whose loss will be eternal in all meaning and existential extension of the word, and whom I depend upon for sanity and comfort in a horrible situation.... Hmm....

[MrBlack]

On another note. RA is really pissing me off. Every ****ing game I see this easy mode hero dominate.

This.

I'd also like Thunderclaw/Charged Hammer removed or reworked, and Savage Mace/Wingbow rebalanced so that there's actually a reason to get Wingbow.

[Anakha]

Charged Hammer is a delightfully undiscovered item, and there are plenty of reasons to pick up a Wingbow over Savage.

[SmurfinBird]

I think Fayde is really broken. I don't build codex on her and I still net 20 kills a game in 1800 pubs.

It gets to the point where their entire team does small neuts together.

I do this. Any sort of carry item dominates with her and the opposing team even in my bracket has no clue what the **** to do. I spend most of my time stalking the first person to buy an eye and just walk in the trees next to them till they go slightly too far away. Kill, tp out. Destroys any momentum of lanes, and she ganks brilliantly from tp'n to tower divers or just with a decent rune.
:fayd:

EDIT: Magic vestments is so damn core, I agree. I grab it when I'm mid, solo sidelane, dual lane, trilane... It's usually my first or second item vs any decent lineup. Depends if they skillshot more than nuke or vice versa as to if I am picking up boots first or not. This is really annoying late game too since sometimes it's more worth having the 400g worth than a shrunken if the team is more nuke than disable. 3900g for an item that is quite easy to bait and only lasts 5 seconds now means I keep beating teams by playing things like pyro and baiting out the shrunken only to pk back toward my team
T_T

[`Tape]

has anyone played some very long games with devo in them? wondering how that aura change has impacted him at all.

[GregerMoek]

I went mana ring, Refresher orb, Frostburn and Savage mace on swiftblade and still won, OP HERO.-

[MrBlack]

Charged Hammer is a delightfully undiscovered item, and there are plenty of reasons to pick up a Wingbow over Savage.

I mean the fact that picking up Wingbow is pretty redundant when the enemy carry can just buy Savage Mace (or most likely already has it) for cheaper.

[Anakha]

I mean the fact that picking up Wingbow is pretty redundant when the enemy carry can just buy Savage Mace (or most likely already has it) for cheaper.

Do you only buy Savage Mace for the truestrike?

[Skyve]

Do you only buy Savage Mace for the truestrike?

You know, if you asked whether he only bought Wingbow for its dodge ability, your reply would actually make sense.

[Anakha]

Considering any reasonable person would say no to the question I posed, the response would be "...then why would you buy Wingbow only for the evasion?"

Either way still works.

[skeloperch]

Valkyrie is OP. No hero should have a stun that long with that much nuking potential, amazing auto attacks, 2 escape mechanisms, and that much range.

There, I said it.

Also, Silly Hat, Wretched Hag, Repulsor, and Bubbles are OP. No ranged hero that has the potential to carry/semi-carry should have a built in escape mechanism and stun/slow.

[Skyve]

Tremble is OP. Testie has like 700 gpm in a non casual mode game with it. Just doesn't seem fair :O

Also Hag isn't OP, she only has a semi-decent slow, and no strong carry potential (for her it really just comes from being able to position herself rather well and having decent farming capabilities).
Bubbles too.

Rest, I can somewhat agree with :P

Especially Silhouette.

[GregerMoek]

Boots are OP, they are pretty much a must.

[Dawnbringer]

You know, if you asked whether he only bought Wingbow for its dodge ability, your reply would actually make sense.
Meh, if you wanted the evasion just get the snake bracelet.

Wingbow also grants 60 attack speed, which scales better than raw damage in certain measures. e.g. on a Hero with 200 damage, 100 AS is better than 100 damage (assuming they don't already have an AS increase through stat gain/other items). It is sort of relative.

[Zilrax]

Damn it, just fuse Savage Mace and Wingbow together! It's a bow that launches maces at the enemies faces! Damn straight that's a true strike now!

Hm. I seem to like fusing things together this week. Well. Guess I'll go all in.

Master of Tremboulleflint vs SoulKrahemus! Ultimate teleporting lane raping super carry vs the tankiest initiator to ever exist!

Who would win? Neither, neither can kill the other because they refuse to buy wards. That's the job of Glacius. Yeah, just Glacius. What?

[colondee]

Parasite is a stupid hero in my opinion. Get a codex, 2shot a hero, get lost. I think that all the design intentions behind him disappeared and were out of place since the beginning. Worse than Blood Hunter, no point in teamfights, slight pushing ability. IMHO useless junk.

[Vermillion_]

Fighting a 1900 drunken master with thunderbringer makes me incredibly sad :(.

[skeloperch]

Tremble is OP. Testie has like 700 gpm in a non casual mode game with it. Just doesn't seem fair :O

Also Hag isn't OP, she only has a semi-decent slow, and no strong carry potential (for her it really just comes from being able to position herself rather well and having decent farming capabilities).
Bubbles too.

Rest, I can somewhat agree with :P

Especially Silhouette.

I've hit 600 GPM (normal mode) as MQ before, and there is a video of a (tournament) MB getting 800+ GPM.

Hag's slow is 50%, and it is in an AoE because of her ultimate. A hero with an escape mechanism shouldn't have a stun/slow, which is why :myrm: :magm: and etc. are used competetively; they are broken.

The main problem with Bubbles is that he can not only easily get farm, but he puts that farm to good use. A Bubbles with a Hell Flower is probably the scariest thing outside of a fed Fayde. It's a horror movie, and Bubbles is the killer. He can't be killed, and he picks you off. One. By. One.

[JoeMartin]

Fayde is too good.
DM is too good.
EW is far too easy to play for the relative strength of the hero (wolves and silence being push button skills with ridiculous range is not okay, neither is gowain requiring no interaction on the part of the player aside from putting a skillpoint into it), though his numbers aren't necessarily too high.

Ra and Kraken are too good, but are really just an extension of the greater trending problem with strength tanks providing too much in the way of utility and damage while simultaneously being ridiculous to kill; their ability to face roll into (and out of) ridiculous situations with impunity while also being able to farm the jungle quickly and effectively with little personal sacrifice often causes them to snowball much harder than they should.

[PRETENT10uS]

Ra and Kraken are too good, but are really just an extension of the greater trending problem with strength tanks providing too much in the way of utility and damage while simultaneously being ridiculous to kill; their ability to face roll into (and out of) ridiculous situations with impunity while also being able to farm the jungle quickly and effectively with little personal sacrifice often causes them to snowball much harder than they should.
Agreed completely - LoL style tanky carry heroes are becoming an S2 'thing' though.

[Ekamo]

Is it allowed to use your spouse as bait to catch fish?

[triplej]

I feel as if the armor on Stone Skin should be nerfed/removed or that the skill should be on a longer cooldown. Armor has become a bit too easy to stack in recent months, and 12 free armor combined with his %based lifesteal puts him over the top very quickly.

Corrupted Disciple. The ability to run around the map with permanent 522 MS and apply a huge amount of -armor to targets (with an ult that not only boosts it's own damage but cannot be stopped) AND reduce the damage of an enemy to nil while boosting your own tremendously? Combine that with the stacking 15% slow from Frostburn (Frostbane combo nonwithstanding) and the easy -armor from Bulwark and I'm unsure as to how this hero has escaped the eye of the nerfgods for so long.

[SovietPower]

Can we please nerf Warden already. The fact that she wins 55% of games, highest of any hero, ones that come close are RA.... surprise indicates that she is a bit op.

Lets look
Silence+physical dmg scaling+safe range
Double Snare+2000 range+280 magic dmg+homing
2 Traps+vision+Melee root+melee skill disable
Nuke+Heal+Fog vision

IS this **** for real?

She shits on most melee heroes because you can't chase her into the fog cause she either drops her trap, spams her wolves or just simply jukes you with superior vision from ult. Ohh and if you catch up to her she just silence you and you sit there like and idiot.

She shits on most casters and supports cause she can silence them from safe range and again you sit there with a dick in your hand.

She scales just as well as any range carry in game

and OHH she is ridiculously easy to play, even scrubs **** on good player with her.

[Droideka88]

A Rant thread...awesome S2.

Here's my only rant.

Re-adjust Scout's, Nighthound's, Tremble's and Monkey's King base armor!! The base armors for those heroes are so ridiculously high and makes no aesthetic sense. If only those heroes had less base armor, my team would've been able to kill them sooner!!

[Zilrax]

Why does my Nyan Cat courier not play music?! I want to be able to play it instead of my hero. Run it around, just play the music just out of sight of the enemy, and annoy the hell out of everyone.

[changlingbob]

The only real problem with EW is that noone wants to buy vestments, as her wolves are merely an excellent harass skill (while also good for ksing juking heroes), and not the terrifying death skill everyone makes them out to be.

Also, if a rant is required, pretend I ranted here about balance appearing to be equivalent to what shows up in competitive games and/or what you got pubstomped by recently, instead of actually figuring out balance.

[Dawnbringer]

Fairly sure tinker's rockets would induce far more range than EW's wolves :3

[changlingbob]

Fairly sure tinker's rockets would induce far more range than EW's wolves :3

Tinker's rockets need sight to fire though, don't they?

[Dawnbringer]

They are also highly spammable and with post haste tinker becomes ridiculous.

I am actually kind of glad he isn't in HoN. The amount of rage he would create...

[Skyve]

Nah, I still think Furion would create much more rage.

I mean people were crying about Keeper and his minions, but Furion can still have double minions, and has a global teleport, which allows him to push any lane he wants at any time.

[changlingbob]

They are also highly spammable and with post haste tinker becomes ridiculous.

I am actually kind of glad he isn't in HoN. The amount of rage he would create...

I've really enjoyed watching tinker in the dota2 matches I've seen, but wouldn't want him in HoN.

[PzKw]

This forum needs a HotBL thread.

Badly.

[allbusiness]

This forum needs a HotBL thread.

Badly.



hobtl/vanguard imba in both games :O

[MKMaxthrotle]

ra is ridic
rampage is ridic
kraken is ridic
emereld warden is ridic
nomad is ridic
predater is ridic
parasite is ridic
fayde is ridic
armadon is ridic
myrmadon is ridic
zephr is ridic
flint is ridic
silet is ridic

[Benny0]

What the hell is the point of Charged Hammer?

It doesn't do damage to the targets you want it to because they probably have a shrunken head, and if you get it as a farming item early, you're even more of a glass cannon than a melee with Runed Axe, which at least has regen.

I can see exactly what the point is supposed to be but I feel it's lackluster in every way. if you want damage, pick up riftshards or savage mace. If you want farm, i'd say just go alch bones.

That said, you can farm VERY fast with Charged Hammer... and the buff is pretty nice, but ugh, i dunno.

[china]

Lego loves him some Charged Hammer.

[skeloperch]

Ra is fine
EW is under powered
Fayde is fine
FA is fine
Martyr is under powered
Tremble is the worst hero in game
Blood Hunter still sucks
Devourer was nerfed way harder than need be. BRING BACK HOOK BACK
Andro was nerfed too hard.
Valkyrie is the most broken hero in game
Soul Reaper needs a buff
Balphagore needs a rework
SW needs a rework
Hell Bringer is fine, he just kills a lane with harass
Ophelia is a little bit under powered because of one minion until level 5
Arachna is in need of a buff (or a rework)
MQ needs a buff (or rework)
SB is a bit underpowered
WH is over powered
MoA is fine
Slither is balanced
Tort is a balanced
Flint is OP
Legionnaire needs a rework or a massive overhauling of his skills
Succubus needs help
Armadon is broken
Moraxus is under powered
Myrmidon is stupid
Bubbles is broken
Predator is over powered
Wildsoul is silly and could probably use some reevaluating
TDL is under powered
Madman is underwhelming
Everyone forgot Maliken existed
Engineer is under powered, but extremely annoying.

[Mediocre]

Lego loves him some Charged Hammer.

"But at what cost!?!?"

[TRYTROUSERS]

Sign me up for the group of people who wants ra to get nerfed. That hero just doesn't belong in this game. I just don't feel like I did anything wrong when I lose to one. It's like yeah dude your godlike, now try doing that on a hero that doesn't get to annihilate creep waves every 10 seconds with a life tube. I remember when nome told me his balance was that you have to be twice as careful with your health, but his meteor is like a tenth of his health now. I didn't think you could make an easier with less of a skill curve than skeleton king, but there you go.

[Shadeward]

They are also highly spammable and with post haste tinker becomes ridiculous.

I am actually kind of glad he isn't in HoN. The amount of rage he would create...

They have a 25 second cooldown. That's not spammable.

Unless you mean he uses rockets, ults, returns to fountain because he's now short on mana, ults, tps to where he was, and then uses rockets. But that's not really spamming, is it?

Not to mention they don't slow.


Concerning Ra, I still don't understand how people can complain about him again. They nerfed Ra when they reworked shieldbreaker. USE. IT. He drops in 2 seconds.

[TRYTROUSERS]

Maybe if shield breaker applied to your whole team that would be a good point, but it doesn't so it isn't.

Spend 5500 gold on -6 armor? hey look chain mail is 550 gold and gives 5 armor. niggasup.

[Shadeward]

Maybe if shield breaker applied to your whole team that would be a good point, but it doesn't so it isn't.

Spend 5500 gold on -6 armor? hey look chain mail is 550 gold and gives 5 armor. niggasup.

Except no one ever buys armor on Ra until much later (if at all). And the shieldbreaker effect is a debuff on the enemy hero, so the -armor affects your whole team's right-click damage output. So what you said makes no sense.

Barbed armor is also extremely potent against him. I've been using Puzzlebox Pharaoh very effectively to counter Ra.

[TRYTROUSERS]

Except no one ever buys armor on Ra until much later (if at all). And the shieldbreaker effect is a debuff on the enemy hero, so the -armor affect your whole team's right-click damage output. So what you said makes no sense.

Barbed armor is also extremely potent against him. I've been using Puzzlebox Pharaoh very effectively to counter Ra.

"no one buys armor" really? on a hero who easily sits around 300 gpm buying a 550 gold item to completely offset a 5500 gold item that eats up your ord slot?

[Shadeward]

"no one buys armor" really? on a hero who easily sits around 300 gpm buying a 550 gold item to completely offset a 5500 gold item that eats up your ord slot?

I'm not the one playing Ra. I just have never seen people buy a Bulwark on him or Ringmail.

People always go HotBL and Headdress, before going either Mock or Heart. Even if he does buy the ringmail, it doesn't counter Shieldbreaker completely either, since his damage block no longer works for you when you attack him. It removes most of the armor debuff, but he's still taking more damage.

[Dawnbringer]

They have a 25 second cooldown. That's not spammable.

Unless you mean he uses rockets, ults, returns to fountain because he's now short on mana, ults, tps to where he was, and then uses rockets. But that's not really spamming, is it?

Not to mention they don't slow.


Concerning Ra, I still don't understand how people can complain about him again. They nerfed Ra when they reworked shieldbreaker. USE. IT. He drops in 2 seconds.
Except when you get Hex and Linken's resulting in an almost infinite mana pool.

EDIT: Midgame you should be able to get off 2 - 3 even depending on your items and farming is no issue for Tinker.

[Benny0]

Lego loves him some Charged Hammer.

God I'm so dumb, even this makes the item worth having in the game honestly.

Please for the love of god don't approve the thread I sent to you, it's a terrible premise, lol.

[china]

God I'm so dumb, even this makes the item worth having in the game honestly.

Please for the love of god don't approve the thread I sent to you, it's a terrible premise, lol.

It really is amazing with Terrify too.. my god.

[MKMaxthrotle]

It really is amazing with Terrify too.. my god.

Nerf Ra?????????+

A.yes
B.yes
C.yes
D. all above

[Blowme_up]

Ra and Kraken are too good, but are really just an extension of the greater trending problem with strength tanks providing too much in the way of utility and damage while simultaneously being ridiculous to kill; their ability to face roll into (and out of) ridiculous situations with impunity while also being able to farm the jungle quickly and effectively with little personal sacrifice often causes them to snowball much harder than they should.

Kraken is pretty beast right now but I wouldn't say he's "too" good. Still takes a little skill. Ra on the other hand; I'm so sick of this retarded easy-mode hero. I know his ult is considered passive, but the fact that it still goes off when silenced is beyond stupid. Lot of things need to be tweaked on him. I can't stand seeing terrible players do well with this hero just by running around in team fights and hitting W.

[VioletVail]

There will always be heroes that are skillless.

What do you expect in a game with the most possible amount of abilities is 4?

...

It isnt WoW with over 100 skills like a druid, scrubs being good at HoN is the nature of the game.

If you want a game where the gap between good and horribad is significant, try Starcraft 2 or WoW Arena

[pewpewstar]

I don't find Ra to be that bad - dodge QW, kill him last.

[Anakha]

If you want a game where the gap between good and horribad is significant, try Starcraft 2 or WoW Arena

hehehehehe

[PzKw]

Wait, the game has four abilities, so scrubs will always be good?

There aren't other factors, like mana to consider?

What? Taking one of them out won't make it more likely for a hero to be retardedly simple?

A hero who breaks convention shouldn't be easy?

Ok, I'm done.

Ra is ****ing stupid. We all know it.

[Zilrax]

Yup. And I don't even find him that great. But he forms the second syllable of Jeraziah, thus he is required to be ridiculous. It's from that syllable that he gains Protective Charm!

[SovietPower]

The only real problem with EW is that noone wants to buy vestments, as her wolves are merely an excellent harass skill (while also good for ksing juking heroes), and not the terrifying death skill everyone makes them out to be.

Also, if a rant is required, pretend I ranted here about balance appearing to be equivalent to what shows up in competitive games and/or what you got pubstomped by recently, instead of actually figuring out balance.

Did I ever say her wolves were the only problem? I am pretty sure its her entire skill-set that is the problem and not individual skill, if anything I think wolves are totally fine, it's everything else that isn't

[FoEva1000MMR]

Slither hasn't been cool since toxicity lost its slow.

[Zilrax]

Hipster Slither misses his slow.

[Anakha]

Did I ever say her wolves were the only problem? I am pretty sure its her entire skill-set that is the problem and not individual skill, if anything I think wolves are totally fine, it's everything else that isn't

Not all about you.

Also, lol. Wolves and her ult are what make EW so ridiculously derp because both of those abilities have absolutely zero reasonable probability of failure in any given situation you can think of.

[Machiavelli`]

About Charged Hammer..

Isn't it possible that S2's game design is killing the item? With all the bursty heroes that came out recently(:mida::amun::para::emer:), it is only natural for most of the heroes to buy a vestment, so that pretty much reduces the effects of CH.

I'm pretty sure Mjolnir was a common pick-up in the Dota 2 International, by heroes like Potm:valk:.

[Hsssh]

I can't figure out how Warden is a "bursty" hero, i see this mentioned many times and can't see these numbers that give him his huge burst potential. But i might be still drunk so whatever.

[Machiavelli`]

Drunk cause your neighbors are going to the Euros? eheheh

Anyway, I wasn't sure whether to mention him or not, but ultimately decided to do so. His first skill does about 200-300 damage even on early levels and it's quite spammable. The wolves do 240 on level 4, so that's roughly 500 magic damage on level 8. TB does around 650 that time around..

[Skyve]

Is it just me or does Tundra really rape melee heroes in middle?

I mean I usually support, so I don't usually play a ganker like Tundra, but I still managed to completely stomp Tremble, Pebbles and Electrician.

Also: His shards say they are "superior mixed damage". Now mixed damage means that it's half physical, half magical, but superior would indicate it goes through immunity. I always thought that only the physical part went though magic immunity, and only the magic part through physical immunity, but since it says "superior mixed damage" it would go through both?

[Shadeward]

Is it just me or does Tundra really rape melee heroes in middle?

I mean I usually support, so I don't usually play a ganker like Tundra, but I still managed to completely stomp Tremble, Pebbles and Electrician.

Also: His shards say they are "superior mixed damage". Now mixed damage means that it's half physical, half magical, but superior would indicate it goes through immunity. I always thought that only the physical part went though magic immunity, and only the magic part through physical immunity, but since it says "superior mixed damage" it would go through both?

Tundra is an exceptionnal solo hero, period. He's even better against melee because that means you can't dodge his viper pig to get last hits, meaning he can jump on you as soon as you walk in.

Then there's lvl 6 and runes.

[skeloperch]

Tundra is really good, you just need to be Korean to master him is all.

EW's Q is an auto attack that deals an extra 120 damage and silences. His wolves do 220 damage. His bird deals 100/200/300 damage. He has no carrying capacity, shitty early game, no escape mechanisms, no stuns, low movement speed, and a nerfed Techies' stasis trap.

I don't know why people say he's ungankable. Several gankers, and I mean several, can sneak up on him. :devo: :glad: :dead: and :bubb: are just a couple of the heroes that can escape his clearvision. Also, most of the time you're trying to look for people in the woods, your bird is in the opposite direction of where you want it to be.

I just think EW is trash tier and only madbads say he is OP.

[PzKw]

It's not even that he's OP. He's retarded easy. I know the devs think it's in a good way, but it's in a bad way.

[Twi_Sparkle]

Rampage should be banned from being on the other team. Or at least, if he's on the other team I should get a free Nullstone.

Scrub question: what the hell do you even do against a Rampage? I usually am playing some squishy support that can't do a damn thing other than attempt to get rid of his vision over the map, but whenever I'm up against a Rampage, they always somehow are a wizard and magically can see everyone and charge whenever. :(

[skeloperch]

Scrub question: what the hell do you even do against a Rampage? I usually am playing some squishy support that can't do a damn thing other than attempt to get rid of his vision over the map, but whenever I'm up against a Rampage, they always somehow are a wizard and magically can see everyone and charge whenever. :(

Some heroes are just meant to die by Rampage's hands. One thing you can do, however, is plan ahead. Playing :glad: ? Pitfall before he leaps, so he flies up into the air while stunned. Playing :phar: ? Put up mummies, deny one, and walk out of wall. Playing :glac:? You're ****ed.

But that's the beauty of Rampage. He kills one hero extremely hard, and then does nothing. If you get targetted, try pulling him away from your team so they don't have to put up with him while teamfighting. You're going down anyways, so you might as well make your last seconds count.

[Skyve]

Is anyone else thinking that Aluna's Deja Vu is either incredibly underpowered or "overpriced" in terms of cooldown and manacost?

I mean compared to Windrunners Windrunner which gives +50% MS and 100% dodge on lvl1, Deja Vu doesn't seem to do too much.
Windrunner also slows nearby enemies (8-30%) and lasts ~as long as Deja Vu.
Deja Vu does have the teleportation, but considering how it works, it just doesn't seem to justify Deja Vu being that much weaker in comparisong:

Deja Vu/Windrunner
Manacost: 100/100
Cooldown: 30/15
Duration: 3-4.5/2.75-5
Movementspeed: 25-40%/50%
Slow: only with ultimate/8-30%
Evasion: 0/100%
Unitwalking: yes/no
Disjoint/Teleport: yes/no

I feel like they should either reduce the manacost (to ~25-40), or reduce the cooldown to ~20, and maybe give her 100% evasion with her ultimate.

[Shadeward]

Is anyone else thinking that Aluna's Deja Vu is either incredibly underpowered or "overpriced" in terms of cooldown and manacost?

I mean compared to Windrunners Windrunner which gives +50% MS and 100% dodge on lvl1, Deja Vu doesn't seem to do too much.
Windrunner also slows nearby enemies (8-30%) and lasts ~as long as Deja Vu.
Deja Vu does have the teleportation, but considering how it works, it just doesn't seem to justify Deja Vu being that much weaker in comparisong:

Deja Vu/Windrunner
Manacost: 100/100
Cooldown: 30/15
Duration: 3-4.5/2.75-5
Movementspeed: 25-40%/50%
Slow: only with ultimate/8-30%
Evasion: 0/100%
Unitwalking: yes/no
Disjoint/Teleport: yes/no

I feel like they should either reduce the manacost (to ~25-40), or reduce the cooldown to ~20, and maybe give her 100% evasion with her ultimate.

I assume that was the price they felt Aluna had to pay to get a much more reliable stun with a buff.

Windrunner is 10 times the hero Aluna is though, that's why one is top tier, the other is garbage tier.

[Bojangles15]

I assume that was the price they felt Aluna had to pay to get a much more reliable stun with a buff.

Windrunner is 10 times the hero Aluna is though, that's why one is top tier, the other is garbage tier.

How is Aluna in any way garbage tier?

[Skyve]

Windrunner is 10 times the hero Aluna is though, that's why one is top tier, the other is garbage tier.Aluna isn't garbage tier. She isn't picked up much anymore now that the tri-lane era has died off, but she's still a solid hero.
Windrunner, interestingly enough, was used the opposite way Aluna was. Aluna usually was the tri-lane carry, Windrunner is usually used to go AGAINST a tri-lane, because of her high survivability (2.5 str gain per level, 1800 range farm nuke, strong escape mechanism).

At the moment, Aluna just feels like she's lacking that "something" that puts her onto a similar level that Valk is on (just comparing her for their similar uses sake, not because Valk is the epitome of balance).

[Shadeward]

How is Aluna in any way garbage tier?

Low burst damage, outshined in carry potential? She's hardly ever picked.


Aluna isn't garbage tier. She isn't picked up much anymore now that the tri-lane era has died off, but she's still a solid hero.
Windrunner, interestingly enough, was used the opposite way Aluna was. Aluna usually was the tri-lane carry, Windrunner is usually used to go AGAINST a tri-lane, because of her high survivability (2.5 str gain per level, 1800 range farm nuke, strong escape mechanism).

At the moment, Aluna just feels like she's lacking that "something" that puts her onto a similar level that Valk is on (just comparing her for their similar uses sake, not because Valk is the epitome of balance).

All heroes have something that makes them solid. Aluna just isn't great at anything. So other heroes get picked over her.

She's not exactly Bloodhunter/Balphagore garbage tier, but her and heroes like Arachna, Warbeast, Soul Reaper, etc. all fall victim to the almighty HoN power creep.

[PzKw]

Fairly. Not that I have the time.

[Gridlocked]

I have DotA 2. Jelly?

I have one pound of nuts.

You jelly?

[Zilrax]

Scrub question: what the hell do you even do against a Rampage? I usually am playing some squishy support that can't do a damn thing other than attempt to get rid of his vision over the map, but whenever I'm up against a Rampage, they always somehow are a wizard and magically can see everyone and charge whenever. :(

Okay, let's explain this properly. We've gotten this question a lot, and since you aren't raging, I'll answer.

First off, Rampage is fairly strong, but he's very linear. He can only do one thing which is, besides being melee, his biggest weakness.

Foremost, the best way to deal with Rampage is Wards. He takes the most obvious paths to you generally, and if you have warning, it's much easier to avoid his charge.

How do you avoid it? Well strictly speaking the only way is to either tp before he gets to you, which breaks the charge, to disjoint it when he leaps at you (takes practice and is hero specific), run back to the tower and hope he doesn't follow (Works best early game, later he'll dive you.), or group up with your team.

However, there is more that you can do. Void Talisman makes him completely unable to touch you. Flip it on when he gets close and he's helpless. Nullstone will stop his charge but is unfeasible for supports.

Stormspirit and Tablet warrant a special mention as well. Rampage's ult is broken if the distance between him and the guy he's grabbing exceeds a certain distance, to prevent him from buying a portal key, grabbing you and porting off. Tableting the guy who's been grabbed can break the charge. Stormspiriting yourself just before he lands his charge, or on him or the person who was grabbed can also save lives.

Rampage is also entirely melee. Send two ranged heroes against him and he'll have a lot of trouble early game.

All considered, one of the best ways to not be raped by Rampage though is don't solo queue, but that's a little harsh. The why being that Rampage destroys the unorganized, and that's the perfect description for most random pub teams.

[Twi_Sparkle]

Thanks for the tips. I tend to do a fair amount of solo queuing, and I'd have to agree with your last statement pretty strongly.

I'll give Stormspirit/Tablet/Void a shot!

More on topic, I haven't seen a good Soul Reaper in a long time. He must be underpowered. :drun:

[`G1deon]

Ra is kinda op in my opinion. And global stats says its around 54% of wins by Ra's.

And there is a thing thats makes me sad. Fkin heroes with 2 passives. Most of them incredibly easy and even if u bad dead blind no hands dog - u can get some kills. I'd like to see some reworks. Less passives = higher skill required, more games depends on players hands not on some rollface/1button stuff.

[BaconCPK]

Valkyrie is the most retarded hero ingame, nerf her already ktybai.

Also, ''No, she has a ''skillshot''.''

[GregerMoek]

There will always be heroes that are skillless.

What do you expect in a game with the most possible amount of abilities is 4?

...

It isnt WoW with over 100 skills like a druid, scrubs being good at HoN is the nature of the game.

If you want a game where the gap between good and horribad is significant, try Starcraft 2 or WoW Arena

LOL, WoW arena requires only the current OP setup and you'll win. The scrubs are better in WoW than they are in HoN because they use all those abilities when they levle. Moreover in area you don't use over 100 skills as ANY class.

The CC's are all balanced around one item which lolblizz is trying to balance the whole PvP game around.

DotA HoN requires more team coordination than WoW arena ever will.

As someone who was the third top rated in WoW arena season 3 before Warglaives (up to the point when Arena went downhill in terms of balance and everything else) WoW arena is far from harder than HoN.

I mean I played for maybe three years, was one of the best in my battle group. I've played HoN for maybe two years, given that I don't have any team to play with which some might claim does a lot, and I haven't even reached past 1820 rating in MMR. I personally don't believe that team crap, people can solo their way to their own level if they are good enough.

Having more buttons to mash =/= more skill needed.
Scrubs in WoW can win easier than scrubs in HoN. Mostly because the only type of positioning that matters in WoW is if you're behind a pillar or not when you're a healer along with if you're in range to heal and dispell.

In HoN you need to draft strategically and perhaps even hope to outpick your opponent. Then you need to perform well and in most cases you need to aim something, which isn't the case in WoW. You can play any setup and get to 2400 rating EASILY. There are more RNG stuff in WoW such as crits and skills like Frostbite or Blazing Speed. Almost all mastery things and random **** like that. A single macro and you can locate any nearby enemies easily unless they are stealthed. You play 3v3 (because 5v5 is just about 12345-setups atm). In HoN you need more communication because you often need to have some kind of coordination when loling up your spells, in WoW sure this is what you aim to do as well, but the lengths of CC and the non-progressing stats in a game pretty much makes every fight similar to something you've done before.

In WoW you visit arenajunkies if you're a scrub and read a guide for your class and team up with someone. Then you play arena as if you'd play PvE (YES players ARE predictable in WoW, there are pretty much only a few things people would consider doing in any situation, for example pop palabubble if it's off cd and they are going low while being silenced or stunned) up to about 2400 rating. At that level you need to think a bit, if you have the current OP setup you'll probably do fine. Not to mention that RMP has always and will always be good because Rogues and Mages pretty much always will be strong because of their ccs and utilities and they are able to reset fights pretty easily.

Basically, HoN is harder than WoW for many many reasons. The noobs in WoW are better than the noobs in HoN. Also WoW is one of the most unbalanced games in terms of PvP and the balance team are not even trying.

To sum it up, even if you have 100 skills in WoW you basically only need to use about 10 of them. As a mage for example you get far by only having
Frost Nova, Frostbolt, Ice Lance, Ice Block, Ice Barrier, Elemental, Blink, FFB, Deep Freeze, Evocation and Polymorph. Sure there are a few more to achieve perfection but mashing more buttons doesn't make it harder.

In WoW you need timing only once you learn the oh so hard combinations of 13-18 spells you might use in Arena as almost two thirds of your skills are spec dependant. In HoN you need timing, strategy, team setup, positioning, knowledge, item progression and map awareness and much more.


Could write an essay but you won't get the point anyways I suppose.

[changlingbob]

Did I ever say her wolves were the only problem? I am pretty sure its her entire skill-set that is the problem and not individual skill, if anything I think wolves are totally fine, it's everything else that isn't

I disagree! Funny how that works!

I'd argue that, due to the constant chipping of health and difficulty of getting away from wolves, the other three skills shine; if wolves were toned down, they'd still be strong, but not quite as rofltacular at the lower levels. Alternatively, people could learn that there's more to building items than following a specific guide, and sometimes you need to pick up a different item from normal.

[pewpewstar]

So I've been trying to post here and there on this forum, but I'm cracking. Kudos to those of you that manage to keep your sanity intact after being here for so long.

Maybe I should stop holding it in

[BlueTomorrow]

I don't like carries who can out-harass a support. Nomad for example, a pretty subpar hero BUT the fact that he slams the **** out of you during the laningphase without putting himself at risk (just sending that illu, hurpadurp) makes his design "broken" for all I know. Buff his stats or something so he becomes a more viable autoattack-carry, but tweak the concept of his earlygame. Swiftblade puts himself at risk when he spins into someone etc, which is why I think swift's earlygame is ok while nomad's isn't. Hella, even gladi (which, for the record, I find underwhelming) can whip your ranged ass away from the lane, with no cost. Poorly designed. Puppet master is a pain aswell, being able to harass from a safe distance and doing more damage to your supportass than you to him, but since he has no real "spells" I guess it's fine (still pisses me off tho:D, but I'm bad)

Soulreaper and Empath should recieve some minor buffs. Empath needs a bit more range for her ult imo.

Torturer: give her stun more castime again. Not as much as before, but more than now. If that ruins her, reverse her recent aoenerf .

Don't make str-heroes "unkillable". Some can stand their ground in the midlane np, get alot of ck and still have something really good to offer to the team (tree and kraken teamult, tree push) when they have escapemechanisms (kraken tsunami, tree invis) AND are "beefy" in general.

Buff Martyr, he has barely any potential at all without farm (or well, his Q and R are more than fine). Change Vindicator's concept. Make Blacksmith less dependant on "luck". Make vodoo's curse a debuff so it can be purged, and buff his heal a bit on low levels (either reverse the mananerf or make it heal slightly more). And IMO Monarchs Chrysalis should not tie her ally to the ground for four seconds, three is enough. Her ult giving movespeed might be a tad bit too much (tho I like it as it is).

BUFF nomes wisdom. It's like an upgrade for ring och the teacher now.. NERF Sol's Bulwark. Give it +-3 armor OR make it -5 without being able to toggle it.

[Anakha]

So I've been trying to post here and there on this forum, but I'm cracking. Kudos to those of you that manage to keep your sanity intact after being here for so long.

Maybe I should stop holding it in.

Sanity?

[BoggieMan]

Pebbles should deal 99 % less damage to my soulstealer

[Bojangles15]

I have no clue how to dodge Ra's meteor in the lane. I've tried running through, sideways, and backwards, but it always hits me. I'm simply at a loss. I had no problem before the recent aiming change, now it's simply undodgeable.

jkjkjk im just bad lol

[Anakha]

Depends where you are, relative to him. That's a judgment call though.

[Gridlocked]

Haven't had a chance to Monarch yet, can someone give me a quick balanced/unbalanced estimate of her abilities?

[Scrubs]

I can never win against hag

[skeloperch]

I can never win against hag

I know that feel, bro.

[Skyve]

I can never win against hag

Try Defiler. Defiler seems really amazing against her.

[skeloperch]

Try Defiler. Defiler seems really amazing against her.

Exact opposite really. I only really manage to beat her as Monkey King/Panda.

[Skyve]

Panda is great, true. Succubus/Warden shouldn't be too bad either.

Not sure how you would use Monkey against her unless you pick up a Hellflower.

Nomad seems better imo, since he has great harass, and his ult should rather easily be able to counter hers.

[YawningAngel]

LOL, WoW arena requires only the current OP setup and you'll win. The scrubs are better in WoW than they are in HoN because they use all those abilities when they levle. Moreover in area you don't use over 100 skills as ANY class.

The CC's are all balanced around one item which lolblizz is trying to balance the whole PvP game around.

DotA HoN requires more team coordination than WoW arena ever will.

As someone who was the third top rated in WoW arena season 3 before Warglaives (up to the point when Arena went downhill in terms of balance and everything else) WoW arena is far from harder than HoN.

I mean I played for maybe three years, was one of the best in my battle group. I've played HoN for maybe two years, given that I don't have any team to play with which some might claim does a lot, and I haven't even reached past 1820 rating in MMR. I personally don't believe that team crap, people can solo their way to their own level if they are good enough.

Having more buttons to mash =/= more skill needed.
Scrubs in WoW can win easier than scrubs in HoN. Mostly because the only type of positioning that matters in WoW is if you're behind a pillar or not when you're a healer along with if you're in range to heal and dispell.

In HoN you need to draft strategically and perhaps even hope to outpick your opponent. Then you need to perform well and in most cases you need to aim something, which isn't the case in WoW. You can play any setup and get to 2400 rating EASILY. There are more RNG stuff in WoW such as crits and skills like Frostbite or Blazing Speed. Almost all mastery things and random **** like that. A single macro and you can locate any nearby enemies easily unless they are stealthed. You play 3v3 (because 5v5 is just about 12345-setups atm). In HoN you need more communication because you often need to have some kind of coordination when loling up your spells, in WoW sure this is what you aim to do as well, but the lengths of CC and the non-progressing stats in a game pretty much makes every fight similar to something you've done before.

In WoW you visit arenajunkies if you're a scrub and read a guide for your class and team up with someone. Then you play arena as if you'd play PvE (YES players ARE predictable in WoW, there are pretty much only a few things people would consider doing in any situation, for example pop palabubble if it's off cd and they are going low while being silenced or stunned) up to about 2400 rating. At that level you need to think a bit, if you have the current OP setup you'll probably do fine. Not to mention that RMP has always and will always be good because Rogues and Mages pretty much always will be strong because of their ccs and utilities and they are able to reset fights pretty easily.

Basically, HoN is harder than WoW for many many reasons. The noobs in WoW are better than the noobs in HoN. Also WoW is one of the most unbalanced games in terms of PvP and the balance team are not even trying.

To sum it up, even if you have 100 skills in WoW you basically only need to use about 10 of them. As a mage for example you get far by only having
Frost Nova, Frostbolt, Ice Lance, Ice Block, Ice Barrier, Elemental, Blink, FFB, Deep Freeze, Evocation and Polymorph. Sure there are a few more to achieve perfection but mashing more buttons doesn't make it harder.

In WoW you need timing only once you learn the oh so hard combinations of 13-18 spells you might use in Arena as almost two thirds of your skills are spec dependant. In HoN you need timing, strategy, team setup, positioning, knowledge, item progression and map awareness and much more.


Could write an essay but you won't get the point anyways I suppose.
+1 Gladiator/Merciless Gladiator and all I did to get it was run Priest/Rogue with a crapton of good PvE gear on the rogue.

[Zilrax]

Sanity is op. Nerf plz.

[PzKw]

I can never win against hag
If hag loses in lane, she becomes a bit of a liability really, no presence indefinitely because she has to play so cautiously and use her blink defensively or get nailed to a cross.

Basically dominate her early, then just make sure she gets her nullstone/hex after your carries/semicarries get their core, and you're looking good for a win.

Also, early blinks on other hard gankers absolutely rape her, since she usually farms in isolation a bit further forward than other heroes. If, for example, a Tundra blinks in next to her, other heroes will be able to get forward fast enough to turn it into a chain stun and kill her every time.

Not that she's underpowered, just has well defined strengths and weaknesses.

[GregerMoek]

I hate that I love playing mostly hard carries. Buff plxx.

[DruMorgan]

I pick Fayde when I see an enemy EW or MB and gank them mercilessly (yes I still rep codex hard).

I then ****-talk them in all-chat to drive down their morale.


This.

[FoEva1000MMR]

I have no clue how to dodge Ra's meteor in the lane. I've tried running through, sideways, and backwards, but it always hits me. I'm simply at a loss. I had no problem before the recent aiming change, now it's simply undodgeable.

jkjkjk im just bad lol

It still has a minimum range it has to travel. Run towards Ra.

[FiskOgHon]

Armor / damage types?

Lane pulling is just plain BS. Having to buy wards to stop is to the point of necessity and might as well just not exist.
I actually kinda agree with this.


Charged Hammer is a delightfully undiscovered item, and there are plenty of reasons to pick up a Wingbow over Savage.
:ChargedHammer: <3 http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=344735

I feel that :ChargedHammer: :ramp: :zeph: :mart: :engi: are all underrated. And i am generally annoyed by the entire competitive scene sitting on the same bandwagon. Although it has improved imo.

[Anakha]

And the thing is, that Charged Hammer comparison only factored in the lightning strike on the initial attack target, not the bounce.

I personally think Savage Mace is overpowered as well (too gold efficient), so that's a very damning outlook on an item that everyone considered underpowered (except pubs who have it commonplace in their games and know the power of getting 4-5 lightning procs in a row)

[FiskOgHon]

Assuming the proc on SM is 35 damage on average, the item gains 29 damage, ministun and True Strike when it's assembled, which is indeed quite a lot.

Also, Charged Hammer + Harkon's on Puppet is pure win! Also empties your mana pool rather fast though.

[GregerMoek]

Charged Hammer deals like 600 damage per proc I guess (divided on to three targets) and the buff deals about the same. Pretty decent damage when one thinks about it. Before reductions that is ofcourse.

[Machiavelli`]

Why is Sacrificial Stone so unused? Is it underpowered, or is Nullstone too good?

[Ekamo]

Why is Sacrificial Stone so unused? Is it underpowered, or is Nullstone too good?

Underpowered because of lack of utility. The charge system is just garbage and needs a total overhaul.

[Scrubs]

icon of the goddess is also a terrible item ^

[GregerMoek]

I think the charges should focus more on the reduced ress timer. That part of the idea I like , kind of. The other bonuses are fine IMHO.

[Time`]

I feel Helm of the Black legion is extremely overpowered, especially on heroes such as Cthulu/kraken/Elec. High strength gain heroes with extra survival skills (charge/shields). I feel as if it has become a staple to have a hero with a helm on your team to soak up damage, and no other item fills this role nearly as well as a helm. It lets you push, farm, tank towers, and ignore hero auto attacks for the most part. It needs to be nerfed (for melee heroes at least, I feel going from 40-20 dmg block makes it much less op for ranged heroes)

[Alten]

Shrunken Head is imbalanced; provides most damage reduction per cost in almost all games, NERF IMIDITAUELY

[Antimodus]

Shrunken Head is imbalanced; provides most damage reduction per cost in almost all games, NERF IMIDITAUELY

SH has limited uptime. The rest of time it's just +190 HP for 3900 gold. Items are used for completely different purposes. bad comparison is bad.

[Lethe]

^Check sarcasm detector ASAP

[Imjelly]

you seriously thought an intelligent poster like Alten would spell "immediately" that way?

[Antimodus]

^Check sarcasm detector ASAP

I get that, his sarcasm was a way to make a point. As I see it (maybe I didn't get it right?), he was saying the HotBL OP argument is invalid because you could say the same thing about SH (reduction to absurdity), I disagree with that so I posted a reply

[Gridlocked]

I get that, his sarcasm was a way to make a point. As I see it (maybe I didn't get it right?), he was saying the HotBL OP argument is invalid because you could say the same thing about SH (reduction to absurdity), I disagree with that so I posted a reply

I think he was just being funny.

[Kumduh]

Maybe someone can shed some light on this for me.

Why does Glacius have such a low movement speed (290) when he has next to no armor and no escape mechanism? I played Kraken for the first time the other day in months and was absolutely astonished to find he had a whopping 310 movement speed. Is that really even necessary? He's a huge bulky sea creature that shouldn't even have legs, and he can surge away from danger which is ironic since he's supposed to be tanky. Glacius on the other hand can freaking float above the ground, so why is he so slow?

[Ekamo]

Maybe someone can shed some light on this for me.

Why does Glacius have such a low movement speed (290) when he has next to no armor and no escape mechanism? I played Kraken for the first time the other day in months and was absolutely astonished to find he had a whopping 310 movement speed. Is that really even necessary? He's a huge bulky sea creature that shouldn't even have legs, and he can surge away from danger which is ironic since he's supposed to be tanky. Glacius on the other hand can freaking float above the ground, so why is he so slow?

Balance.

Trust me, I would fear a 310 movement speed :glac: WAY MORE than a 320 movement speed :krak:.

[Benny0]

Sil really infuriates me.

I remember back when S2 was taking stuns off of hard carries, what in god's name convinced them that putting them back onto the hardiest range carry this game has, and combining it with an escape mech was a good idea?

They should just port Morphling, he basically has four escape mechs, S2 probably rather likes him.

[Alten]

I loved me some Morphling....

[man_guy]

Balance.

Trust me, I would fear a 310 movement speed :glac: WAY MORE than a 320 movement speed :krak:.

Glacius with 300 ms is Monarch. Hmmm.

[PzKw]

Question: Is S2 still hostages to competetive bias, or can we look at actually nerfing Silo properly yet?

I mean, when a predicate of a discussion on number of picks and bans is the possibility that a team might not be able to ban post nerf Silo, surely that's just a giveaway that there are some grotesque problems with the hero. The person who I spoke to about this knows who they are, and yes, putting the cart before the horse assuming that appeasing the comp scene would produce a good game was the reason I assessed those conversations to be a waste of time. A good, competetive game produces a good comp scene, not the other way around.

[Anakha]

Most comp players like Silhouette for the same reason most 1900's come out of the woodwork to nuthug Valkyrie (we all remember that thread in here).

As for releasing the captivity to competitive bias, I'm trying.

[pewpewstar]

But then who would they listen to? I've always been saying being good at a game is unrelated to having design/balance insight, but I realise alternatives could be far far worse.

[GregerMoek]

I thought they went against competitive bias when they nerfed Behemoth's early levels of Fissure, or at least that's what I think DOGKaiser said. Maybe I remember wrong.

[PzKw]

As I've always said, copy what Icefrog does, because it works. Every beta system they've set up has been botched, mismanaged, neglected.

You want to have very steep selection criteria, but, for example, playing ability should only be a relatively small part of it.

[changlingbob]

Question: Is S2 still hostages to competetive bias, or can we look at actually nerfing Silo properly yet?


Most comp players like Silhouette for the same reason most 1900's come out of the woodwork to nuthug Valkyrie (we all remember that thread in here).

Its kinda embarrassing the number of threads coming up saying 'buff $hero, he's not as good as valk/sil/whoever'', but we never have threads sensibly discussing nerfing those heroes down to the baseline. Of course, that then requires we know what 'baseline' means, and getting a discussion about which hero is the pinnacle of balance isn't exactly straightforward.

[UrienRakarth]

what about making a poll "which heroes are balanced so the rest should be balanced around them?"?

(double question mark ftw)

[PzKw]

These questions are one step too removed. First you work out what game you want, then you work out the things that you put in to make it.

S2 released a set of design principles about a year ago, and they've informed some of the worst decisions I've seen in the genre. Most of it wasn't well defined ("Make support heroes more fun."), and most of it belied some serious misunderstandings about what actually makes the game as a whole fun. The other enormous problem was that the statement primarily focussed on the direction they wanted to take the game in, with fairly little regard for where it came from, or what had been tried before. This in turn led to some decisions which had unintended consequences that vastly outweighed the intended ones - there was a lot of cane toad balance going on, and very little consideration for second and third order effects.

So what's the point?

Define the principles, then develop and balance from first principles at all times. It's the only way to get any value/results out of the process.

Edit: Oh, and pick good principles to work from.

[china]

But then who would they listen to? I've always been saying being good at a game is unrelated to having design/balance insight, but I realise alternatives could be far far worse.

They should obviously balance according to my opinion.

Because my opinion > all others, correct? :scou:

[Alten]

After much deliberation, I would say the answer to your question is 42.

42 is obviously the baseline of balance. I can't believe there are none among you whom have realized this.




On a more serious note.... We should look at the heroes who are picked occasionally in comp. play... like Nymphora, BS, Revenant, etc. Obviously, it is impossible to balance everything to the lowest echelon and impossible to balance everything to the highest echelon. If we examine these heroes, we can see that they are not powerhouses; at the same time, they all offer something unique. If balance is focused around this, then number values become an easily fixed issue. The OP heroes all offer "too much unique" in a single entity; the best way to balance is to nerf the utility of heroes to a similar level, and then to adjust number values accordingly. It is the problem with Sil, Krak, etc.; they offer too much utility in a single package, and no amount of value tweaks will resolve the issue they present effectively.

This process is what defined the balance of popular games like Starcraft, with almost all units being used and used effectively; Blizzard knew not to provide any one unit with too much utility and to give a defined role to each unit, and number tweaks from there provided for ideal balance to create a game that is still popular many years after its release.


But then, that is just a summary of my observations for balance.

[china]

nymphora is op tho.

[STFU`BEAR]

nymphora is op tho.
is she? or are you just being very asian :zeph:

[Alten]

maybe a little of both


IMMA FIRIN MAH LAZORS :nymp:

[china]

is she? or are you just being very asian :zeph:

china: allow her to tp with a hero at level 1.

nymph OP.

...dam. It's honestly just the 60 second CD I think. If it scaled from 120/100/80, I think it'd be fairer. If it was reverted back to herself at level 1, it'd be worthless.

[pewpewstar]

Define the principles, then develop and balance from first principles at all times. It's the only way to get any value/results out of the process.

Edit: Oh, and pick good principles to work from.

Totally agree. Remember when the support heroes thread degenerated into whether he/she has to 'sacrifice' or not?

I'm not saying the devs should share the exact same principles; just compatible (provided they are sound, of course). There's the goal, and they can fiddle with the strategy to meet the goal.

China: were you against :behe: fissure nerf?

[Alten]

Except that, there are far simpler design principles that they can use to great effect. They are trying to be trailblazers in the industry when, in all honesty, near-perfect balance policy has been developed by numerous other companies and individuals. The devs as a whole are imbalanced; they are inadvertantly choking the game to death with a mixture of bureaucratic tape and fear of reprisal from the playerbase.

[Hsssh]

They are trying to be trailblazers in the industry when, in all honesty, near-perfect balance policy has been developed by numerous other companies and individuals.

What dota game has "near-perfect" balance?

[XFlame]

I don't get why Gauntlet isn't being used in competitive play. Is it simply a case of 'there are better heroes out there'?

[Vermillion_]

Only reason I can think of is that maybe he's considered unreliable?

[Skyve]

I don't get why Gauntlet isn't being used in competitive play. Is it simply a case of 'there are better heroes out there'?

I guess to a degree it's just personal preference.



Only reason I can think of is that maybe he's considered unreliable?

He isn't really unreliable. Unlike Devo, his ultimate has a decent range, so even without a portal key, you can't really miss his hook once you're lvl6.

[Vermillion_]

Hmmm, then I got nothing unless people just don't like playing him. If my memory serves me well he was run for a while by Empr with scandal on him but that was just about the only player who picked him competitively.

[Antimodus]

Most comp players like Silhouette for the same reason most 1900's come out of the woodwork to nuthug Valkyrie (we all remember that thread in here).
The really funny thing IMO was how we've seen people (and even some high rated ones) arguing silhouette was UNDERPOWERED before her first nerf. I just wondered if they really believed that, or were they just trying to defend their newly-found pubstomp vehicle.
If the former, how could so many skilled players be this bad at evaluating the balance of a hero? it was unreal.

and yea, the Valk thread was legendary. Valk's balanced cuz Valk's balanced guise

[XFlame]

Hmmm, then I got nothing unless people just don't like playing him. If my memory serves me well he was run for a while by Empr with scandal on him but that was just about the only player who picked him competitively.
Fresh ran him a few times solo mid too, but didn't do all that well. I think it had more to do with him being unaccustomed to Gaunt more than anything else really.

[Vermillion_]

That wouldn't surprise me, Fresh tends to get given the hero's fly wants to test out more then anything.

[Hsssh]

The really funny thing IMO was how we've seen people (and even some high rated ones) arguing silhouette was UNDERPOWERED before her first nerf. I just wondered if they really believed that, or were they just trying to defend their newly-found pubstomp vehicle.
If the former, how could so many skilled players be this bad at evaluating the balance of a hero? it was unreal.

Comp players have good reaction times and very good mechanical skills, other than that majority of them are braindead, it's enough to look at few of their streams.

[PzKw]

Man. Valk.

I once wrote ten pages in one hit on what was wrong with PotM. There's a lot wrong with having a hero who does the things she does.

Sigh.

[KillMePlease]

:dead:Top 10# most derp heroes by KillMePlease
In the following order from least derpy to most derpy -

#10 - :legi: Legionaire

Ok, this guy is not your average, "press button blow up target hero", and I hate having to put him here as he was one of my favourite heroes, and probably still is, but let's face it, he's a derp hero. He is reasonably tanky but early game he will just tear through lane with that deadly AoE spin. Throughout mid-late game, he will just become tankier and tankier, and after he gets barbed armour he'll just be an AoE ball of death. But really, all your job is as Legion is to Terrifying Charge in, Taunt, Barbed Armour and then split someone in half with your ulti if you really feel like it.

#9 - :dead: Deadwood

Ok, well he isn't one of my favourites and there is some skill involved in placing his root but seriously? His Ult? Instant 1v1 win. Oh hey squishy hero, eat my 1k ulti, and now I shall proceed to clean up the mess with the tree I'm holding. In teamfights his sole purpose is to drop a root somewhere and then immediately eliminate an enemy hero from the fight by smacking them with his Ult. Ult derp.

#8 - :scou: Scout

Yes, he can be difficult to play, especially early game, but as long as you don't die, you're set. No, really, the best way of playing Scout? Watch a fight until some poor sod is on no health, walk up and put a knife in his back, or shoot him from a mile away, basking in his screams of terror as he notices the marksman target appear on his buff/debuff bar. Just gotta be good at kill stealing and you can be the team's late game hero!

#7 - :pyro: Pyromancer

If you don't have hopeless aim, you can fry your enemies and guarantee yourself some cooked meat. His dragonfire can be a ***** to land, but his Phoenix Wave is hard to miss and his Ult is just like, "MY POWER LEVEL IS OVER 9000". It is. The only problem he has is that he gets stomped on by anyone who gets a jump on him, but a bit of Ult can quickly change their mind.

#6 - :corr: Corrupted Disciple -

Playing Corrupted Disciple consists of 2 things - FEEL THE BURN and getting good items. Early game his FEEL THE BURN absolutely destroys squishy heroes if you time it perfectly and late game, it's just a matter of Overload, FEEL THE BURN and jetpack whilst on foot through your foes hurling electric charges at them. Any if it doesn't go to plan, you can probably just run away anyway, I mean, he ain't slow.

#5 - :moon: Moon Queen -

More like Moon *****?!? HAHA! No, seriously, her Ult is like, "OH CRAP I MIGHT DIE FIRIN MA LASER". Unless you're CD or some other hero who can teleport/sprint/charge away, then you're screwed if she decides she can't handle the pressure and ults you. And even if you somehow manage to survive the ult, then she can just drop her nuke stun on you anyway. Good luck 1v1'ing timid Moon Queens.

#4 - :swif: Swiftblade -

Swiftderp comes to mind. Early game his spin is like, "You can't touch me but I can touch you". I mean, if you're a caster you really can't do much except run away when he decides to go into helicopter mode. And not only that, his ult is like Moon Queen's. "Can't handle the pressure!" *Hammers on the R button*. Although it laughable when roflcopter's ult gets transferred onto Creeps.

#3 - :bloo: Blood Hunter -

This hero shits me. He ults you and you just have to stand there as the 5 man gank converges on you and tears you apart from all directions. And he is totally misleading, I mean, he is on low health and you think, "Hmm, well if I get close enough I can kill him with my nuke", and then one of your teammates Leeroy Jenkins it, dies and suddenly our blood hunting friend is back on full health. What a waste. And when he's near someone with half health he gets rockets? As if he ain't derp enough.

#2 - :emer: Emerald Warden -

Not quite the most derp, but very close. EW's hounds require you to do nothing but click the button and suddenly not only are you damaging enemies who aren't even in LoS, but it may even give EW a good idea where their enemies are. Then, his silence, which requires you to just pick a target and watch as they scream when their skillbar goes grey. Gawain does everything for him, healing him, damaging and slowing enemies, I mean, EW is like a General with an army, the General commands and the army does what he commands, and you don't even have to command Gawain, he just decides it's time to help and you get help.

And the most derp hero of them all - :ramp: Rampage

Ok, anyone who plays Rampage regularly deserves to be shot at first sight. I mean, he is probably the easiest hero in the game. He can herpaderp charge across the entire map, can stun an enemy with his head smashing abilities and can then chain them and give them a joyride before eating them. He requires absolutely no thinking whatsoever. And to go with it, he is quite tanky so he doesn't get taken down easily either.

These 10 heroes need to be made less derp.

Also, special mention to Predator and Flint Beastwood who just missed out. Predator, because his Leap looks retarded, he eats you and his stone-hide is just plain annoying. And Flint because his Ulti is just retarded, but is nothing compared to MQ/SB.

Anyone who plays those 12 heroes regularly should try better, less derp heroes such as - Hellbringer, Moraxus, Andromeda, Balphagore, Engineer, Tunda and Ophelia. Yes, I just listed some of the worst heroes in the game, but hey, at least they aren't OP and if someone does go well at them, they deserve a medal.
People who play Rampage, go 4-2 and call the other team gay after they concede because Magebane got fed should be taken 30,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean and pushed out without a parachute.
Or for those who cannot be bothered to go to such extremes, they should have their skin flayed, their eyes and tongue cut out, their ears ripped off, their toes and fingers cut off one by one, their hair burnt off and their heart cut out.
Or you can just call them "gay" back.

rant end/

[Dawnbringer]

KillMePlease.

Mean that seriously. Kill me please. I don't know wtf I just read. Some of the things you listed are so easily countered it isn't even funny. Some by common sense more than anything else. e.g. Oh look, I see a flying pink dot charging across the minimap towards me, maybe I should b to my tower before Rampage hits me. Or: Gee, Deadwood is really raping me with his ult, maybe I should buy a little armor to 1/2 the damage I take from his ult, that might be a good idea, heck I might even splurge on a void talisman!

Seriously...

[Vermillion_]

... China can you please delete that post it's giving me an aneurysm.

[Dawnbringer]

The saddest part is he even seems to have put effort into it. If only he had added some thought too...

[Vermillion_]

I know right, but I suspect he's new to this game so can't expect too much.

[Hsssh]

Obvious troll is obvious.

[Vermillion_]

I dno, he's got less then like 42 games played with 38% win ratio. So it could be legit

[Dawnbringer]

Fairly sure he thinks that he is being serious :/

You have no idea how many people post threads denouncing EW/Rampage/BH/Deadwood as op. I mean, look at SirVH's posts in the old Rampage thread. "Rampage is OP because he can stun someone for 8 seconds". Because you know, he isn't easily countered at all or anything. You could just get tablet/Storm spirit/Void talisman/Stun him/Have a decent sense of map awareness etc etc etc or anything could you?...

[PzKw]

Those heroes are all derp. He just named (most) of the heroes who take the least ability to be effective. They're not overpowered, they're just the examples of the heroes who are easiest to dominate tards with.

I don't think he's trolling at all, he's just really bad.

[Scrubs]

The heroes he mentioned are pretty weak. What we need to talk about is Valk and Wretched Hag.

Those heroes are way too damn good.

[Antimodus]

More like Moon *****?!? HAHA! No, seriously, her Ult is like, "OH CRAP I MIGHT DIE FIRIN MA LASER".

for some reason it made me burst out laughing as I was reading this. +1 internets to u good sir

[ElementUser]

Resurrected to contain all the QQ

[Anakha]

thanks.

[Ayevee]

I pored some cereal before checking to see if we had milk.

we didn't.

[Zilrax]

I hate when that happens. So I used orange juice. It was a bad idea.

And yay this is back. Where I get to make one useful post for every 5 things I type with orangutangs in my spanikopita.

[Shadeward]

The heroes he mentioned are pretty weak. What we need to talk about is Valk and Wretched Hag.

Those heroes are way too damn good.

Let's talk about Kraken, shall we?

Then maybe we can have a little chat about Midas.

[TRYTROUSERS]

Yeah I like that their "big fix" to the kraken problem was to take one armor away. hey guess what, you still lose if you're melee and he's on the other team. How is that good balance again? "Your melee, I have ult and charge, you lose even though you have shrunken, sorry"

[Vermillion_]

Hey c'mon that was a drastic change and it wasn't negated by the hp regen buff they gave melee's or anything like that.

[Anakha]

The -1 armour was intended to negate the +1hp/sec, not the other way around.

[Vermillion_]

Ah, makes sense. So can we expect further nerfs to Kraken in the near future?

[Anakha]

Not sure.

[PzKw]

The -1 armour was intended to negate the +1hp/sec, not the other way around.
-1 armour = -6% ehp
+1hp/s = 500% regen in lane without items

Disparity there?

[Benny0]

So glad to see this thread back.

Is it worth making a thread that's something like "Where should the baseline for heroes be, and who is there?" I've been thinking about it quite a lot recently, and since so many people are saying "Let's balance to Valk/Sil/Flint/MoA" we really need to get a better baseline.

Also, can we please give Flint his DotA nuke? I think this would be such a bloody good way to balance him, rather than giving him a 300 damage aoe nuke slow on a hard carry...

[TheJohns]

Remake Magebane. He's impossible to balance in his current situation.

[Shadeward]

Remake Magebane. He's impossible to balance in his current situation.

Stun -> burst -> bye bye

You should see the amount of effort it takes to take down a Morphling.

[Skyve]

Stun -> burst -> bye bye

You should see the amount of effort it takes to take down a Morphling.

Morphling only has 2 escape mechanisms, one ability that grants him unbelieveable amounts of health, and a stun. How could he be hard to kill? :P

[Shadeward]

Morphling only has 2 escape mechanisms, one ability that grants him unbelieveable amounts of health, and a stun. How could he be hard to kill? :P

I still remember when Morphling was the unanimous top carry, my team would always run a Morphling trilane or if the other team managed to get it before us, we'd always have Lion solo mid to bully him around mid game.

Most annoying hero ever.

[skeloperch]

Morphling only has 2 escape mechanisms, one ability that grants him unbelieveable amounts of health, and a stun. How could he be hard to kill? :P

He isn't hard to kill at all. You know who's hard to kill? Medusa.


Anyways, Benny0, I've been working on a rating system to use to gauge how powerful heroes are in relevance to the baseline. I've been juggling around :gaun: :mage: and :swif: as candidates for how heroes are balanced.


Anyways, why isn't Geomancer used? I still use him to great success in matches with 1800's. He has 2 stuns, a slow, and 3 nukes. His Q is an amazing ability that allows him to dominate dual lanes. You basically have to send a tri-lane against him if he has an ally because he will kill you if you don't. I mean, an early stun and slow is nothing to scoff at. There are only a couple of heroes who both have a stun and a slow during the laning phase (:pest: :drun: :blac: :witc: :fayd: :mora: :engi: :krak: and :gaun:), and only him, Pestilence, and Fayde have it in an AoE.

[Shadeward]

So glad to see this thread back.

Is it worth making a thread that's something like "Where should the baseline for heroes be, and who is there?" I've been thinking about it quite a lot recently, and since so many people are saying "Let's balance to Valk/Sil/Flint/MoA" we really need to get a better baseline.

Also, can we please give Flint his DotA nuke? I think this would be such a bloody good way to balance him, rather than giving him a 300 damage aoe nuke slow on a hard carry...

^What I've thought about Flint the entire time. Don't really have a problem with Valk since she's made of paper and her ultimate really isn't that strong, with very little reliable CC.

MoA, IMO, only needs longer CDs on his abilities. Was thinking of changing the global nature of his ult, but his numbers would probably need a tweak.

Silhouette on the other hand, she's a broken concept. What held Ursa back was the fact he was melee, and even with a blink, he still needed to chase you around. Sil just has too much damage output with too much survivability. Good thing she got nerfed repeatedly, she was such a stupidly OP hero when she came out.

[Anakha]

-1 armour = -6% ehp
+1hp/s = 500% regen in lane without items

Disparity there?

Not saying there isn't, just pointing out that's why it was done.


I thought they went against competitive bias when they nerfed Behemoth's early levels of Fissure, or at least that's what I think DOGKaiser said. Maybe I remember wrong.

For the record, they completely went against competitive "whining" for the Behemoth Fissure nerf, yes.
I was the person who originally seeded the idea of reducing Behemoth's Fissure wall duration (so you can blame me for that), but my plan was to only reduce it by a second at all levels, not the current iteration we see today.

[JoOKie]

He isn't hard to kill at all. You know who's hard to kill? Medusa.

Oh please. If medusa is hard to kill, then morphling is harder to kill.

[Anakha]

You're arguing about whether prevention is better than immunity. Seriously.

[rnz`]

would be so awesome if s2 would cut out ALL their heroes back til empath (including herself) yay

[Skyve]

would be so awesome if s2 would cut out ALL their heroes back til empath (including herself) yay

Why exactly?

[Anakha]

Because he needs an excuse for losing, and his is s2 heroes. Because he's a moron.

[MacroHard]

Rampage should be banned from being on the other team. Or at least, if he's on the other team I should get a free Nullstone.

A free Nullstone is too much. I think a free Void Talisman would be sufficient. At a bare minimum free Burge.

[Juke_Box]

I wish they would hurry up and make sandwraith a worthy pick. Right now I see no reason to pick him, and yet he has my favourite hero design, and fking "DESERT POWA!"

its such a tease damnit.

its like your favourite chocolate bar, laced with laxative.

[Gonzobrez]

Any idea why there is no way to get an assist out of Master of Arms ultimate ? since the assist change most buffs give you assists when your
protègè get kills under its influence: Demented, Jereziah, Martyr.
Kinda strange an ultimate (!) that potentialy turns around fights all over the map doesnt get any reward.
Would it give MoA to much gold due assists from his low cd ult ( throwing it into every fight at the map just to get credit ) ?
:mast:

[ElementUser]

For the record, they completely went against competitive "whining" for the Behemoth Fissure nerf, yes.
I was the person who originally seeded the idea of reducing Behemoth's Fissure wall duration (so you can blame me for that), but my plan was to only reduce it by a second at all levels, not the current iteration we see today.

Bad Anakha!

I blame you.

:blac:

*glare*

[fkgamer]

.... asda

[Antimodus]

just in: madman ult no longer purge-able.

- TDL next?
- does that seem balanced to you? wasn't the power of the buff balanced against the fact it originally WAS purge-able? hello power creep.

[LIKE_A_BOSS]

No more Wards of Revelation at the start of the game and only 2 Wards of Sight and Rev wards are now on cooldown.

china was right: game is run by monkeys

[XFlame]

Huge buff to Bound Eye I'd say, possible nerf incoming? And with that, invis heroes will get an easier time.

I wonder if the Balph buffs made him slightly more usable.

[Lethe]

ward changes combined with WB changes made me almost spit my coffee at my monitor.

time for HoN to feel the gayness that is being melted in 2 seconds by an unstoppable WB.

[MacroHard]

How was bound eye buffed?

[Ekamo]

No more Wards of Revelation at the start of the game and only 2 Wards of Sight and Rev wards are now on cooldown.

china was right: game is run by monkeys

This was actually very much approved by China, even though he was not coming up with this specific idea.

I would say that this was the coherent opinion from the competitors, much more so then from the developers.

[china]

This was actually very much approved by China, even though he was not coming up with this specific idea.

I would say that this was the coherent opinion from the competitors, much more so then from the developers.

But competitors would have rather had wards reverted to double stacks instead of single. S2 didn't want to, because S2ubborn.

I was the first to bring up the issue with single ward stacks when the change was initially made. It's silly and stupid. Stupid change only relevant because it counteracts another stupid change.

[Ekamo]

But competitors would have rather had wards reverted to double stacks instead of single. S2 didn't want to, because S2ubborn.

I was the first to bring up the issue with single ward stacks when the change was initially made. It's silly and stupid. Stupid change only relevant because it counteracts another stupid change.

There must also be drawn a line where to balance between competitors and casual play - and naturally you will disagree of where that line must be drawn since you an (ex) competitor.

One could also argue for the free courier change and the single ward stack game to do a lot of good for the game, but I know this is a discussion you have no intention to change your opinion on, so I am going to refrain from having it.

[Machiavelli`]

They basically buffed War Beast to death with the direct buffs and the reduced amount of wards in the early minutes. Now he'll have an excellent time farming, but of course the ward change did buff the other jungle heroes too, which is kind of "weird" considering the current metagame in comp HoN..

Also the Warbeast buff is an indirect buff to Void Talisman. An indirect buff to Void Talisman is also an indirect buff to Charged Hammer(it will still proc, even if your auto-attack does no damage when VT is active).

Genius, eh? )

[china]

There must also be drawn a line where to balance between competitors and casual play - and naturally you will disagree of where that line must be drawn since you an (ex) competitor.

One could also argue for the free courier change and the single ward stack game to do a lot of good for the game, but I know this is a discussion you have no intention to change your opinion on, so I am going to refrain from having it.

Competitors were pubs once, and became competitors because they learned what they needed to do to gain advantages or edges. Whether this be buying one courier, buying a full crow, or buying two crows within the first five minutes of the game, these are all perceived advantages. If it is shown that skipping courier and instead buying extra regen for lane, hoping to earn FB, then tping back to regen and buying a chicken was a viable strategy, then you can bet that people would do it.

In the end, you can argue that making wards entirely free, giving a crow at the onset of the game, or even more extremely, making items automatically pop into your inventory upon buying, as things which make the pub environment more fun or better.

But then you come to realize, you can't really measure the public environment as well as you can the competitive environment. People seem to forget the real scale of things - people above 1850 or 1900 MMR are in something like the top one percentile of the HoN community. Many of these are duplicate accounts smurfed up by competitors, and many of these are non-competing players who are by some measure good at the game. That means everyone else falls in the 1300-1800 bracket. There's no way to balance for that, because in the end, 1300-1400's suffer from different problems than 1500-1600's, who also suffer in a different way from 1700's-1800's.

LoL decided that TP scrolls were redundant. Should we implement the same functionality? Should we also remove boots, because in many ways that is redundant as well?

There are those who argue for balancing for the pub scene that don't realize their 1700 pub scene is far different from the 1400 pub scene. So which pubs are you going to balance for? This is why you balance for competitors. Their scene is more clearly defined, utilizes nearly all the tools available to them in an equivocally efficient way. No, they are not perfect, but in comparison to your 1300-1700, they are the best thing to go with.

Are you going to balance for 1-3 year olds, 3-6 year olds, 7-12 year olds, 13-18 year olds, or 19-38 year olds? Pubs are stuck in a stage of growth. Some will never grow out of it, while logically, most should learn from every game they play, casually or not. Then there's also the argument that those who play casually don't necessarily play to win. They play to have fun. That's the point of casual. And we said before, you can't balance around fun. You can design around it, but by redesigning things to work a certain way for an indefinite group, you are automatically infringing on proper balancing.

[china]

Lastly, why is ward buying such an issue? Is it because it's too difficult for pubs, and they feel like they must buy wards because (guess what?) other pubs are buying them? Indirectly or not, they're competing with other pubs who are playing a certain way which is advantageous in one facet or another. So they imitate what others are doing and groan "this isn't fun." But they forget some very important things:

You don't have to buy wards.
You don't have to gank.
You don't have to play as a team.
You don't have to pick a proper lineup.

You don't have to win. Inevitably, you have to do more and more of each of these things as you grow in MMR because you're competing against other players who have discovered certain elements that allow them to win, whether it be playing a hero exceptionally well or coordinating with friends.

My balance philosophy is far different from S2's. You never balance for pubs, because pubs value the idea of 'team' far less than competitors. How are you going to balance a 'team' game for people who don't play as a 'team'? Worse, for people who play as a team at largely varying extents?

[Zilrax]

By pulling out a virtual hot glue gun and a whip and some chains. "You will get along and play properly or I swear I will make you snuggle til you like! And it will burn. It will burn like only friendship can. And hot glue."

[Antimodus]

So they imitate what others are doing and groan "this isn't fun." But they forget some very important things:
(stuff)

This behavior is penetrating all brackets. I get counter-warded multiple times in low 1600s games, and players with what used to be 1700 quality laning against me, soon this tryhard4lyfe behavior will reach 1500s and lower. At some point we'll have situation where if u dont tryhard to the max you get thrown into the same pit with complete newbies. Then people who don't enjoy trying so hard every single game will slowly get fed up and leave.

I've seen it happen in Starcraft, it was a very gradual change that took years (like 7-10 years) but at some point the only players that were still active were those trying to make it into some form of comp play. If you weren't interested in that, you had almost nobody left to play with.

It seems to be happening here at an accelerated pace.

[Ekamo]

Really appreciate the post!

Though what I meant (and my fail English stopped me from saying) is that there needs to be a balance between DESIGN for casual players and BALANCE for competitive. I agree with you fully that the game shouldn't per say be balanced around casual even though some design changes might have small effects on the overall balance of the game.

You took it a little further then what my initial thought was since I think you know that I would not want any core elements from the game removed just to make it easier for pubs.

Supporting might not be what it has always been, and maybe even easier than before. But it is still a very skillful game inside the game to gain more map control than your opponents, and even though the tools to achieve that are easier nowadays for a support, that must also mean it is easier for the other team. And when it comes to it, this game is a game between players, played with the tools given more so than a game between tools played by players.

The mind games still exists and actually even more since now the support who wins their team the map advantage might actually be the one who outsmarted the other rather than the one that outgolded the other.

There is obviously a lot more depth to it, but I don't think it is only negative things coming from supports having an easier time, even though there may be some convincing, arguments that leads one to believe so. The changes advocates a slightly different play style, which absolutely different, might not only be different as in bad. It is pretty obvious that S2 has decided not to revert this change, both in tournament mode and what not. So I will just keep look at the bright side of it and try to adapt rather than wanting something that pretty much will never happen.

I agree very much on most things you say though, and I think you should post that in a place where more attention will be brought to it... let's say GD? :)

(btw, how do you make your name purple in forum with the shield? I bought it but nothing happens. Sad :pand:

[Zilrax]

Pft, my names still in a clan that hasn't been in existence since Beta. So trust me, it's a little buggy haha.

[china]

The mind games still exists and actually even more since now the support who wins their team the map advantage might actually be the one who outsmarted the other rather than the one that outgolded the other.


Funny how every single competitive supporter has said that the wards to single stacks have made supporting easier than ever before, not more difficult or complex.

Any competent support player will tell you, it's easy to support well.

[Ekamo]

Funny how every single competitive supporter has said that the wards to single stacks have made supporting easier than ever before, not more difficult or complex.

Any competent support player will tell you, it's easy to support well.

Did I say it was more difficult?

I am just saying that if the support game is easier for both sides, it doesn't make AS MUCH of a difference than if it only affected one side.
Still an effect though, which may or may not be a bad thing.

[china]

Did I say it was more difficult?

I am just saying that if the support game is easier for both sides, it doesn't make AS MUCH of a difference than if it only affected one side.
Still an effect though, which may or may not be a bad thing.

"The mind games still exists and actually even more" - Ekamo

[Ekamo]

"The mind games still exists and actually even more" - Ekamo.

Oh, ;)

It as specifically directed to the mind game aspect which IMO (I guess I have to add this then) has been more prevalent, even though other aspects of supporting such as gold management now is easier.

Maybe I am looking for the too obvious relationships when I am seeing
More money > More counterwards and wards > more thought process behind warding.

[BERALE]

rampage is super broken i mean cmon, he charges you, bash you, then drag you to hawaii

i think his horned strike shouldnt be used by cooldown, by percentage would be better.

[Anakha]

just in: madman ult no longer purge-able.

- TDL next?
- does that seem balanced to you? wasn't the power of the buff balanced against the fact it originally WAS purge-able? hello power creep.

Replace Madman ult with Hammerstorm ult. Effect? Negligible.

That Warbeast armour buff I was totally against, purely for how homo Lycan was with reliable jungling - but I was the minority of people/only one who didn't want it.
So you can blame the system for that one, since competitors/MSI have been wanting Warbeast buffed for a while now.

Also on Behemoth - he's an overall stronger hero, still the number 1 defensive trilane support by leaps and bounds, able to roam effectively still and has his active involvement in fights increased (1.5sec every 4sec) as well as a reason to level Enrage now.
Multitudes of win on every level right there.

[DarkAgonizer]

Increase Legi Taunt Radius with 100 units

[HungryGandhi]

Does anyone else miss the corpse damage addition to behemoth's ult? With the recent changes (level 1 fissure makes me want to cry) can we reconsider it's deletion?

[Antimodus]

Replace Madman ult with Hammerstorm ult. Effect? Negligible.

Yea, but Hammerstorm isn't really being used as a carry, but Madman is. There's a difference. It's easy to kite Hammerstorm. Madman? not so much.

[Frogmunster]

I have no idea why they thought that limiting the wards to two at the beginning was a good idea.

[Tedde]

Increase Legi Taunt Radius with 100 units
or reduce the cast time a tiny bit.

[Nic3Guy]

With this ward change I feel like tundra with his shiver(wich already was boderline to OP) is now obviously op.

Also increase the prize for an eye now, it have become much more powerful since rev wards got nerfed(well deserved, maby a bit to much thou imo. Since now you cant counter the "pull" camp until 1.30 into the game.. Thats just so lol). And the eye also increased strenght vs invis since revwards are nearly out of question to counter the invis heroes you need them to counterward. Maby dust will make a comeback thou..

inb4: tundra permabanned in competetive scene.

[LIKE_A_BOSS]

Can someone tell me what the limit on wards at the start of the game is supposed to improve? Because I don't see it. At all.