[2.5.9] Pestilence

[foxmindedguy]

The hero is almost never seen in the competitive scene solely because there are other more safer heroes out there. Sure Pestilence is a highly mobile hero, who gets relevantly tanky and dishes out good sustained damage, but the hero really does not have much going for him at the moment.

Simply put: heroes like Kraken, Amun RA and even Cthuluphant provide more utility along with safer way to reach an effective peak.

I mean everyone admits that a stun that deals only 200 physical damage at max level really is a joke now a days. Considering other heroes deal average nuke is around 280-300.

I am aware of the fact that his ultimate reduces armor, which makes his W hit harder than 200, but really it is an ultimate for a reason.

Another major issue with Pestilence is the purge-ability and disjoint-ability of the ultimate. Invisible-reliant heroes like Magmus (W), Valkyrie (E), Fayde (R), Nomad (E) can simply disjoint (http://youtu.be/yHP8wp6Ucps) the swarms by activating the skill mentioned in brackets with them before the swarms reach them. Secondly, other heroes that typically do get Shroud (say Arachna) can purge his ultimate off by simply pushing W.

Therefore, in my personal opinion, I think for Pestilence to get back on the scene, it is imperative to increase the damage on impale. And make his swarms unable to be disjointed. Purge-ability should remain on it.

Additionally the 10% increased damage taken should be removed all together. Other heroes like Pandamonium have had their drawbacks removed, it is time the former servant of Moon Queen get the same treatment.

What say you?

EDIT#1: One of the sentences was incomplete. :(
EDIT#2: I love Ekamo for realz. Dunno why I got angry at him for a minor overlook :D. Anyway put a link on the most confusing line in this post, to better demonstrate what I wanted to say.

[YawningAngel]

Approved.

[Brannock]

Accurate assessment, inaccurate premises and conclusions.

Pestilence was formerly the paragon of balance (though still not picked that often). The game has moved past him. This isn't a good thing, and neither is buffing Pestilence to match the current level of power creep.

Nerf other heroes back down to Pestilence's level. Note that this won't make the game less fun: playing an aggressive Pestilence is still one of the most fun experiences in this game, same as 2 years ago.

[NakedMouse]

Accurate assessment, inaccurate premises and conclusions.

Pestilence was formerly the paragon of balance (though still not picked that often). The game has moved past him. This isn't a good thing, and neither is buffing Pestilence to match the current level of power creep.

Nerf other heroes back down to Pestilence's level. Note that this won't make the game less fun: playing an aggressive Pestilence is still one of the most fun experiences in this game, same as 2 years ago.

Well this gets to the heart of it though, doesn't it? Most people seem to agree that we've seen a major power creep go on since retail release, and while it has been slow, it is now so pervasive that it would undoubtedly be easier to buff underpowered heroes up to the current level we're at (however you want to define it). Powercreep is almost a natural process because its easy to say "X hero is UP: lets buff him". Nerfing is more difficult unless a hero is drastically OP. However, I think, and again most people seem to agree, that we shouldn't just embrace powercreep this way; we should strive to return the games balance to the point it was at before.

The problem with this is that I haven't seen a willingness on S2's part to make the sweeping nerfs that would be required to do this sort of thing. I'm not sure I blame them. It's gotten bad enough that if what needs to be done in order to fix it were actually done, the game would be in a sort of "balance upheaval" for a while...and that is probably not an attractive option for S2. It would take multiple balance patches and major changes to a lot of heroes. S2 is more comfortable with smaller adjustments. In general, that's the right idea. Balance is a fine art, easy to get wrong. If you're sculpting a statue, you use a chisel, not a jackhammer. Right now though, the chisel may not quite be enough to do what I think needs to be done.

I think we should avoid buffing Pestilence. Sure he's not picked a lot competitively, but he's still a great hero. For now, I think we should keep him as is to be a monument for appropriate balance.

[LordTroll]

I concur with your suggestions.

250 damage on max level stun and the code to make the ult undisjointable like WS and Pyro's ult is imperative to bring him back into the game.

[Omega]

I'm surprised Fox would defend pestilence. Maybe festilence, but pestilence?

Joking aside: Pestilence's dota counterpart (Slardar) was an absolute powerhouse, and pestilence used to be the same here.

Could we at least go the route of minor changes, and bring pestilence into line with slardar (I know that this is not generally an acceptable solution) in terms of his ultimate.


Fox has it right, stop the disjoint on pest's ult. It was an instant application in a similar game (which also had many fewer disjoints), therefore it could not be dodged.

[Mediocre]

I personally think Pestilence is fine.

Great stun on short cool-down, great mobility, %-based bash (loads better than chronos) and a ultimate that is on the edge of being imbalanced (-15 armor, true vision, 10 sec cooldown).

He might have suffered some from power-creep, but I just think teams needs to rediscover him again.

If any buff were to be made, I would rescale his sprint to something along the lines of slardar: 20/27/33/40%, although slardar takes 15% extra dmg instead of 10%...

But as I said, I dont really think he needs it.

EDIT: I dont see any harm of making his ulti instant applied tho.

[LuckyStrike`]

powercreep, used to be one of the best heroes in game, saw it a lot in the old days, even in dota, now he is rarely picked :S

[MarkMasters]

I don;t think he is bad either, 1 of the best stuns ingame (since it slows after the stun duration as well). pest is just like pred or something, with some farm he is unstopable....sure there are some heroes these days that roflpwn much, but a good pestilence will still pwn a good ra

[Ekamo]

EDIT:
I'm an ass, and a lazy one at that.

For what people who is wondering what the fuzz was about:



I first closed the thread because I assumed Lethe's initial statement was true. Re-opened per foxminded's request, after he proved me wrong with his video.

I deleted all the posts related to the topic so we can avoid further discussion about the current mechanics of it.


impactstealth="true"

plz don't make stuff up.


What REALLY bugs me and why I was so sure I was right, I knew this change had taken place.


0.1.28:
Swarm reveals target even if it goes invisible before the projectile impacts.


Zz obligated to post now.

The issue with swarm was mentioned a long time ago, and it should have been addressed as such:

0.1.28:
Swarm reveals target even if it goes invisible before the projectile impacts.

so regardless of whether that is the case or not now, this may be an oversight related to a bug. Anyway gj to fox for being as tenacious as he was.




0.1.28:
Swarm reveals target even if it goes invisible before the projectile impacts

Well, this is true for heroes like Madman, Scout, Revenant, Keeper, Night Hound and even Valkyrie (if she doesn't leap).

The issue is that other invisible spells have built-in disjoint attached to them. Magmus (W), Fayde (R), Nomad (E) are some examples. Valkyrie R does not have a disjoint but she can simply push E when she sees the slow projectile of swarms approaching her.


ah. Silly oversight on my part. I thought they coded it to specifically override disjoint.

The Answer:

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=390549
EDIT # 2:
Adding a poll.

[ElementUser]

Fox has it right, stop the disjoint on pest's ult. It was an instant application in a similar game (which also had many fewer disjoints), therefore it could not be dodged.

It could easily be done.

[Lethe]

W also has an 8 sec cooldown and a slow afterwards to boost. That is what makes it a threat. Even in the nerfed state, chalice still solves Pest's problem, where in dota Slardar doesn't have this luxury, and as such has very high mana management issues. I cannot agree with your argument here. The damage on W is not the selling point.

JoshP also recommended removing the damage penalty on Q, and that is something I am very, very against. Such a high degree of mobility has to come with a price. In fact, that's the whole reason Slardar had his sprint rebalanced a 2nd time.

Summary:
Q: I'm fine with a rebalance, but would not sign off on a straight buff.
W: Disagree.
E: There is a cd on this skill which doesn't need to be there, period.

[MadPsycho]

For a stun that deals 200 physical damage but a magical stun, I've also felt that Impale was underwhelming. Making the stun for impale physical would be a nice change that would allow pestilence to better fill that physical damage niche.

[GregerMoek]

Mind you, he still fills a Physical Damage niche and he's good at it, that's why we've seen him on occation with moderate to decent success.

Making his stun physical would be a wicked buff as he already has a bash that is physical in effect and the skill is already good with such a short cooldown.

[MadPsycho]

Yes, I realize that it would be a substantial buff, in that it would go through Shrunken Head and other magic immune skills. It would be dangerous to make such a change though on a hero that has the potential to carry. The cooldown on his passive really reduced his ability to carry though.

[Reldnahc]

The standards of the older days haven't received a balance change in months, yet they are falling off. The problem isn't with the heroes themselves, but the massive power creep.

I'm a much bigger fan of the time when having a drawback on a skill wasn't considered a hero potential killing aspect. When using a skill took careful planning rather than mash it everytime it is off cooldown with no regards whatsoever.

Old mechanics like high mana costs, high cooldowns, negative side effects, and others used to make skill design strong are no longer found in a lot of newer heroes being pumped out. I think a lot of Buro's designs are fantastic because they take into account these aspects and are considered underpowered often times. Some other designs are very parasitic to the health of the game.

Just my musings. Personally I would rather see others get nerfed than Pesti buffed because I feel that if Pesti is buffed, it will truly mean that this game is not what it once was.

[Archernar]

I agree, a minor buff to Pest is fine.

Firstly: I remember the passive stun to be magical. Was that changed or do people tell wrong things here?

Secondly: Q bringing such high mobility 'should have a price' --> look at Aluna, Wildsoul... Wildsoul was buffed, having his W instant. Still, i think the 10% more dmg shouldn't be removed, drawbacks are really rare nowadays in the game.

The buff on the Ult making it undodgeable wouldn't be such a big buff. I really think that would be a nice thing, since purging it still remains as an option and there are enough possibilities to purge it easily. His W could be 250 dmg, would synergize with the ult and would still be less than 300magic damage which is pretty often seen on other heroes.

Overall Pesti is a hero i really like and played successfully often, he can devastate any agi very easily if he goes lvl 11 early but with an elec or anyone with nullfire, his ult becomes rather useless. So just a little buff doesn't seem out of place, but not a big one since he can be powerful enough even now.

[rancewong]

The standards of the older days haven't received a balance change in months, yet they are falling off. The problem isn't with the heroes themselves, but the massive power creep.

I'm a much bigger fan of the time when having a drawback on a skill wasn't considered a hero potential killing aspect. When using a skill took careful planning rather than mash it everytime it is off cooldown with no regards whatsoever.

Old mechanics like high mana costs, high cooldowns, negative side effects, and others used to make skill design strong are no longer found in a lot of newer heroes being pumped out. I think a lot of Buro's designs are fantastic because they take into account these aspects and are considered underpowered often times. Some other designs are very parasitic to the health of the game.

Just my musings. Personally I would rather see others get nerfed than Pesti buffed because I feel that if Pesti is buffed, it will truly mean that this game is not what it once was.

^ This
Power creep + hero design problem not Pesti. He's fine.

[TRYTROUSERS]

lets buff a hero thats already retarded because s2 won't balance kraken or make ra or zephyr hard to play. i always thought his ultimate was too much, it's basically "i hit a button so your carry isnt allowed to play"- the only difference is now kraken has an ult that does the same thing to multiple people, and essentially roots them in place.

[Qweret]

The hero is almost never seen in the competitive scene solely because there are other more safer heroes out there. Sure Pestilence is a highly mobile hero, who gets relevantly tanky and dishes out good sustained damage, but the hero really does not have much going for him at the moment.

Did you just said what great positive aspects he has, and then say that he has not much?


Anyway, he is not the Burst Damage Hero, and so he has a harder time when farming, but from midgame on, he is a threat to those Heroes you mentioned(Zephyr,Ra,Kraken). Especially Ra gets hit hard by the -Armor.

He is an initiator and also a Carry, together with a Ganker and Anti-Carry.
He has Damage(not burst, but he has it with his ultimate), he has increasing movespeed, he has a physical nuke with magical stun with inbuilt slow and he has a Bash that is incredibly strong when getting some attackspeed.

No no, don't buff him and make this Killer-Hero a Burst-Killler-Killer-Hero.

[Fen__]

Sure Pestilence is a highly mobile hero, who gets relevantly tanky and dishes out good sustained damage, but the hero really does not have much going for him at the moment.

So you give him 3 very strong advantages and say that he doesnt have much going for him atm ? :) Btw you forgot to mention: great cc skil and a free basher.



I mean everyone admits that a stun that deals only 200 physical damage at max level really is a joke now a days. Considering other heroes deal average nuke is around 280-300.

Would you prefer moreaxe stun because it ads 250 magic dmg ? The fact is that pesti got 1 of best stuns in the game. Great splash radius and 2,5 second (?!?!?!?!?) stun. Thats way more imporant than a magic/physical dmg aspect


Another major issue with Pestilence is the purge-ability and disjoint-ability of the ultimate. Invisible-reliant heroes like Magmus (W), Valkyrie (E), Fayde (R), Nomad (E) can simply disjoint (http://youtu.be/yHP8wp6Ucps) the swarms by activating the skill mentioned in brackets with them before the swarms reach them. Secondly, other heroes that typically do get Shroud (say Arachna) can purge his ultimate off by simply pushing W.

There are tons of skills that can be disjointed and are much more pinfull for caster, check gauntlet/plague rider. The fact is that pesti ult, shouldnt be considered as an ultimate. It got very low cooldown, its power sure, can be great but i would say its nothing anywhere near lets say tempest/bomb/pyro/w-e heavy nuke ultimate. + Would you want to waste a magmus stun or a valk leap just to avoid pesti ult when in a second you can get cought by pk/enemy team.


What say you?

I say you got some problem with farming on a heroes that arent instant gibbing creep wave in a 1 second :)

In my oppinion pestilence is exactly in the same place as madman is. Both are incredibly strong heroes, bouth can carry and gank extremly well, and both are considered by a lot of people as a bit underpowered only because of the fact that they arent picke in competitive or even pub games. The fact is that both pesti and madman could outcarry a valk or cd and at the same time have bigger impact on early/mid the only prob is that competitive players forgot bout them.

Not sure if its only my oppinion but HoN competitive sceen is a bit *****-like. They continue to pick only those heroes which were checked during many trounament games and are well known. They are running away from trying anything new unless smb will try them first with a great success. Look how long glad/panda/parasite/midas/new fa/maliken/madman had to wait till people noticed how strong of a heroes they are. After MSI tryed them everyone was like OMFG THAT POWER !? and as it always is, after some time heroes just get forgotten again. Most of heroes mentioned by me stopped being used just like that, without any nerfes, big changes anything. Just got forgotten, farewall panda - ultimate fun/strenght/watch comp hero ;(((((

LEAVE PESTI ALONE.

LEAVE HIM ALONE I SAY !

[dandylion]

Personally of the mind that Pesti is just fine. He's always an asset to the team, and still beats the pants off of a Moraxus pick. I don't put him in the same class as Kraken/Cthulu as he plays very differently. His AOE stun still has one of the shortest cooldowns in the game compared to others.

[lolb0t]

with a nerf to kongor, huge nerf to pesti.

i feel the stun damage should be liften to 260, and i still do not get the magic damage on top of chance to stun opponent for 1 second. make the hero physical a chance of 70 physical instead of magic damage for the passive ? or make the stun fully physical, since it does so little damage

or make it proc like chronos, random chance to proc, then guaranteed proc on 5th hit at level 4. would make it worth picking it up at all.

[Tomate]

Pestilence is UP compared to the new generation of heroes... I am very unsure as to what to do regarding this... very hard to say where S2 want to take this game.

Pestilence in the kind of hero I would put in the same box as Puppet Master, Pyromancer, Witch Slayer... and the list goes on.

They're all good heroes that can shine and be playable (not outrageously UP) but aren't considered the 'Best' options to pick.

[GregerMoek]

Fun thing, he's so good at what he does (reducing armor) that he still is a worthy pick in some situations. UP perhaps but not unviable at all.

[Pestilence]

I'm not underpowered, as said earlier the new generation of heroes are just overpowered. Simply because a hero doesnt have a huge farming mechanism or a WTFLOLBBQ burst combo does not mean he is underpowered, overlooked yes but not underpowered.

Although i agree with the "panda got his weaknesses fixed why do i have +10% dmg taken".

[`rnz`]

I hate this " X Y hero is fine, he just doesn't fit in the current metagame..." comments. That means he is NOT viable anymore. Although on second thought buffing him just because we have massive amounts of retarded s2 hero sounds weird as well. Especially since he has been a huge dpsmonsteromagad still if he survives the first 25 minutes with a solid (250-300) gpm.
On third thought: buffing pest now would be a disaster. The "damage" part of the game is now centered on massive armor degeneration. Adding any kind of buff to pest (e.g. changing back his Gore to physical dmg) with his additional -16 armor would result in a terrible raping monster.

[Qweret]

I hate this " X Y hero is fine, he just doesn't fit in the current metagame..." comments. That means he is NOT viable anymore. Although on second thought buffing him just because we have massive amounts of retarded s2 hero sounds weird as well. Especially since he has been a huge dpsmonsteromagad still if he survives the first 25 minutes with a solid (250-300) gpm.
On third thought: buffing pest now would be a disaster. The "damage" part of the game is now centered on massive armor degeneration. Adding any kind of buff to pest (e.g. changing back his Gore to physical dmg) with his additional -16 armor would result in a terrible raping monster.



Heroes, that doesnt fit the current metagame, are heroes that still give you loads of other strategies and possibilities to create an effective lineup and surprise the enemy maybe.
In your opinion, if i understand your "not viable" right, more than 40 Heroes are not viable anymore. Removing them and have the pure mainstream-playstyle is for sure a solution, but for sure one of the worst. Buffing every Hero or rework him to fit the metagame results in 2 things:
1. We have over 90 similar Heroes
2. The metagame won't change anymore at all

So again, Pestilence is good, he is strong, he is not that typical easy burst-damage Hero. He is still viable for other strategies. Let him farm with 300gpm and he will destroy you.
He has a stun/slow/nuke
He has a movespeed buff for chasing and escaping
He has a passive bash, that lets him own even hardcarries in the lategame.
He has an ult, that forces to focus 1 target and kill it in a few seconds, further he counters invisible Heroes and Shroud/Genjuro.

I agree to fix his ult, so it doesn't disjoint anymore.


Further Pestilence is more of a counterpick to some Heroes. If those Heroes, that he counters, would be more in the spotlight of this meta, he would be a top pick.

[Tupimus]

What really is the cause of Pestilence's problems is that his early laning is crap. He can't take control of the lane at 1; his stun only starts being decent as a stun at level 3. And honestly, what good is a strength melee that can't assume early control?

[Archernar]

Just do the minor tweak about his ult and he'll be fine. I agree that he's powerful and getting his W-dmg to 250 wouldn't make him a extreme killer. Plus it's the stun part that's important about his W, so to highten his dmg a little bit would help him.

[Anakha]

Accurate assessment, inaccurate premises and conclusions.

Pestilence was formerly the paragon of balance (though still not picked that often). The game has moved past him. This isn't a good thing, and neither is buffing Pestilence to match the current level of power creep.

Nerf other heroes back down to Pestilence's level. Note that this won't make the game less fun: playing an aggressive Pestilence is still one of the most fun experiences in this game, same as 2 years ago.

echo

[BaconOfHope]

Nerf Midas, Kraken, Ra, Zephyr, Monarch. Do not buff Pesti.

But do give him a better alt avatar. :)

[Fen__]

Tip: stop watching honcast and streams as only correct way that you can play hon.

Pesti is awesome hero, he was awesome before and bulwark + new shieldbreaker just made him stronger. He got nice agility gain, as a strenght hero he gains more from sh than most of other carrys. He can counter ton of enemy picks, do huge dmg, have great initiation, 520 movement speed and on top of that free bash. He is 1 of stronger heroes, its just that players are to dumb to use it since no one in comp games are picking him(or maybe because hes a bit boring?). Im pretty sure that with equal farm he can destroy sil+ra+fa and at the same time bring a lot of presence to the teamfighting aspect.

Btw think bout his synergy with a second carry/semi carry (fa/valk/sil) when he uses ulti.

Pesti is fine, its players who need to start thinking instead of acting like a copycats.

[Am]

Pesti is still an amazing hero. Excellent initiation, great mobility, incredibly tanky, still counters invis heroes (it's not like it's that simple to disjoint that low cooldown ult in a teamfight), and incredible CC (a slow AND a stun on one skill, with a very low cooldown?). He is fine the way he is.

[Ahimtar]

make ult undisjointable (or just make the projectile really quick). and maybe reduce the bonus dmg on his flight. just a small buff.
competitive players should make better use of him, in lower brackets he is quite okay imo. and also he pwns <1400 as there is infinite number of scouts and nighthounds ^^

[PowerBro]

Pestilence suffers of powercreeping... There are just that many safer, easier, as powerful picks around, would they be RA, Zeph, Chutlu, Kraken, Drunken who all fill a similar role but with an easier time.

The 10% extra damage taken while using flight really hurts this hero. Removing it will be another powercreeping... but it feels like it is necessary due to the new heroes that are slightly more powerful than the previous 1s all the time.

[Leebo]

If they would just uncap the bash he would instantly become a top pick in the game.

[Skyve]

Nerf Midas, Kraken, Ra, Zephyr, Monarch. Do not buff Pesti.

But do give him a better alt avatar. :)

No point in nerfing Monarch - she does in no way restrict or limit the use of Pestilence.

However other heroes that offer similar things that he does or promote unfavourable laning for him (he's best used in a dual lane - there's better heroes to take advantage of a trilane and much better solos due to his limited range) need some nerfs.
One thing you can't forget is that pestilence carries by being a strong anti-carry primarily (because it's hard for most carries to out dps him). With no need for real hardcarries there's also not too much need for heroes that counter them.

[Fen__]

You cant say that pesti is a good cary only in terms of being anticarry. This hero with sb got supports on 2 hits. Without ultimate its still 3-4 hits + you got bash and 520 movement speed. Hes great hero, got all advantages of mele heroes (bash,high hp, higher base dmg) and at the same time he got 520 movement speed to make sure he wont be kited and a great/versitile ultimate which makes him a complete 1v1 beast.

In my oppinion pesti is top tier carry with great teamfight presence and capable to fight even against sil or fa because of his flight and bash.

[china]

DotA upped the -armor on his ultimate for a reason. +armor is easy to come by. thus, it's lackluster.

any other changes are probably unnecessary, considering the amount of tank this guy can get, while sacrificing very little in damage output/control.

[Leebo]

DotA upped the -armor on his ultimate for a reason. +armor is easy to come by. thus, it's lackluster.

any other changes are probably unnecessary, considering the amount of tank this guy can get, while sacrificing very little in damage output/control.

Isn't his bash also uncapped?

[FistingTim3]

I feel like pestilence has a close to perfect concept as a hero, his numbers just need a little tweaking. I'm thinking a +1 starting armor buff could be good for him. While this isn't a huge buff, it makes solo pestilence more viable, which can lead to interesting agressive -armor strats.

[MisterLahey]

As a long time Pestilence picker, I APPROVE of this message.

Make it so you can't disjoint swarm and change bash dmg to physical.

[Lethe]

Isn't his bash also uncapped?

they capped all bashes early in HoN's beta because they were worried about permabash or some lame crap like that.

balance for competitive play my ass.

[Brannock]

Capped bash is a good thing, permabash is stupid as **** balance considerations aside. I'd rather permabash be removed from the game and the hero rebalanced than have permabash in the game.

[Juicenewton]

Pestilence is completely fine at the moment, the -armor no longer affecting kongor change was a HUGE nerf to him though.

If they changed it so that his -armor still worked but sol's / deso / etc. didnt i think he would be a top pick

[Bohrain]

Tip: stop watching honcast and streams as only correct way that you can play hon.

Pesti is awesome hero, he was awesome before and bulwark + new shieldbreaker just made him stronger. He got nice agility gain, as a strenght hero he gains more from sh than most of other carrys. He can counter ton of enemy picks, do huge dmg, have great initiation, 520 movement speed and on top of that free bash. He is 1 of stronger heroes, its just that players are to dumb to use it since no one in comp games are picking him(or maybe because hes a bit boring?). Im pretty sure that with equal farm he can destroy sil+ra+fa and at the same time bring a lot of presence to the teamfighting aspect.

Btw think bout his synergy with a second carry/semi carry (fa/valk/sil) when he uses ulti.

Pesti is fine, its players who need to start thinking instead of acting like a copycats.

Actually I think that new Shieldbreaker and Bulwark actually made him kinda worse. One of Pesti's perks is the ability to bring huge armor reduction on the table. Now that everyone and their mother builds either a Shieldbreaker or Bulwark, there is one reason less to pick Pesti.
And as said, the no armor reduction on Kongor change really hurt his viability.
Pestilence simply needs some form of buff to compensate the armor reduction inflation that has been going around.

[foxmindedguy]

Capped bash is a good thing, permabash is stupid as **** balance considerations aside. I'd rather permabash be removed from the game and the hero rebalanced than have permabash in the game.

Just curious, would you also favor a cap on mini-stuns (Flint Hollowpoint Shots or Savage Mace proccing)?

[lolb0t]

Actually I think that new Shieldbreaker and Bulwark actually made him kinda worse. One of Pesti's perks is the ability to bring huge armor reduction on the table. Now that everyone and their mother builds either a Shieldbreaker or Bulwark, there is one reason less to pick Pesti.
And as said, the no armor reduction on Kongor change really hurt his viability.
Pestilence simply needs some form of buff to compensate the armor reduction inflation that has been going around.

pretty much this. he is now a glorified initiator with 200 physical damage while being magic stun (double rofl) and cannot take advantage of his passive because it's magic damage and does not work with his ultimate.

any initiator now can do pesti's job but better, and any carry can build a shielbreaker and carry harder than pesti


a victim of power creep, and suffers same fate as arachna, but sometimes still more useful due to having a aoe stun


i could see his passive working as physical damage, or a slight increase in his stun damage to bring him up to scratch with other initiators

or make ir physical stun that works through shrunken but still does 200 damage)

[GregerMoek]

You claim that Pestilence is the victim of power creep and then suggest buffs to him(quite heavy ones at that), do you realize that that's almost the same as promoting power creep in the first place?

Pestilence has been picked up although rarely so, he still is better than anyone at his niche, or at least he does the job good enough to be considered picked up by competitive drafters. I'd not want to buff Pestilence that much, if even at all, because I see usefulness in the hero even with the newest generations of powerhouses.

[lolb0t]

http://i40.tinypic.com/34xkgoj.png

there you go thats for dreamhack

nasl pesti got 1 win i remember and 1 loss i think.

4 picks in 5 months in honcast covered matches. that is some good niche

nobody wants big buffs, just some minor adjustments

plus power creep induced by s2 is here to stay so might as well bring the rest of heroes up to date with the new metagame

[GregerMoek]

Because making his stun physical isn't a minor adjustment.

And the mentality that you've already lost when you haven't isn't really a good one. :)

[OJPhoenix]

Pestilence is indeed a great hero like many have said, but I have always wondered he isn't quite the anti-Shrunken hero he feels like he out to be. By this I mean I've always thought his Impale(W) and or Gore(E) ought to be Physical. Yes being able to reduce the Armor of someone under shrunken while the team gives it their all with attacks to take them out because their magic cannot is effective, but other heroes are not blocked by Shrunken: Panda and Gauntlet come to mind, why not Pestilence?

The amazing Physical outlet and amplifier cannot stun targets affected by Shrunken. A Physical hero should not be countered by Shrunken, not completely anyway, at least let one of his stuns be Physical, I'm looking particularly at Impale(W) though I wouldn't have thought Gore(W) being Physical would have made a huge impact but instead add to his niche while being countered entirely by a Void Talisman.

[GregerMoek]

FYI, Gore's stun is Physical with magic damage, Impale's stun is Magical with Physical damage.

He has decent ways to stun both physical immune and magical immune targets, although Gore perhaps isn't that reliable.

ANother thing, 2.5sec AoE stun on 8 seconds cooldown. Pretty bad! (wait, no)

[OJPhoenix]

I know that Impale is Magic with Physical damage, but I still don't see anything in the Gore tooltip to indicate that the Bashing property is Physical, it only says that the damage is Magic, thus I thought the entire ability was Magical. Is it quite simply because its an on attack impact? I feel like I've missed something here that makes it clearly a Physical effect despite doing Magic damage :/

And don't get me wrong I agree his stun is actually amazing, I just always thought it would make more sense if he was purely Physical and wasn't interrupted by Shrunken Head and instead got completely counted by Void Talisman, by that's my thoughts.

[Decretium]

Pesti is so perfectly balanced.. damn guys.

[frtzarn]

Power creep, read the Soulstealer thread. It is essentially the same argument. Other heroes are too good at stunning/semicarrying/whatever, and they jsut outshine poor pesti (who is still awesome)

[ThaThickNess]

pretty much this. he is now a glorified initiator with 200 physical damage while being magic stun (double rofl) and cannot take advantage of his passive because it's magic damage and does not work with his ultimate.

any initiator now can do pesti's job but better, and any carry can build a shielbreaker and carry harder than pesti


a victim of power creep, and suffers same fate as arachna, but sometimes still more useful due to having a aoe stun


i could see his passive working as physical damage, or a slight increase in his stun damage to bring him up to scratch with other initiators

or make ir physical stun that works through shrunken but still does 200 damage)

As a Pestilence fanboy, I think I can see something very wrong with what the people here are focusing on about the hero. Let me say first: it's true that due to the current metagame, there are builds you can buy which will allow many initiators and carries to perform Pestilence's job effectively.

But, in my opinion, one of the biggest strengths of Pestilence is overall speed.

What do I mean by overall speed?

First of all, Pestilence's ult at lvl 1 reduces a hero's armor by 5 - almost instantaneously - for thirty seconds. If you have a Shieldbreaker lvl 1, you must hit the enemy twice before you're even close to a lvl 1 Pesti ult, and even then, you have to worry about chasing/running/staying alive/etc. AND, you better have a relatively high attack speed if you want to drain Armor like Pesti ult. Also, Pesti can do this at lvl 6, but how many carries farm SB by lvl 6? Pesti's ult at lvl 1 is HUGE, far superior to SB and Sol's. That's lvl 1 after all, at lvl 3 you're talking about an almost instantaneous -15 armor.

Second of all, Pesti ult's little extra effect of clear vision around the target is a huge bonus. If a couple heroes can disjoint this, fine. I have another one in 10 seconds. This is another huge factor of his ult. While teams are setting up for a teamfight, Pesti can be spamming his ult to anyone in sight safely, since the range on it is a decent 700. Think about this. This means Pesti can give MULTIPLE enemies a -15 armor for 30 seconds, every 10 seconds.

Third, Pesti's Flight. At lvl 4, Pesti's speed is extremely close to the speed of a Haste rune. If someone decides to build Ghost Marchers, you have a free, mini-Haste rune every 45 seconds. IMO, 'nuff said. But basically kiting and juking is now a joke to you. For a good player, you don't even need PK to initiate. A Pesti with SH is great initiator without having to waste money on initiate items. He can always focus on damage. This means that Pesti can initiate well EARLY. He can do it extra hard or extra safe, by buying carry-focus or tank-focus items straight off the bat.

Last thing. This is a team game. Talking about Pesti purely in terms of 1v1 carry is stupid IMO. Think about a Monkey King+ Jera + Pesti combo. Jera charms MK, Pesti ults a target from long range, MK goes for target like he's on crack cocaine cause he's MK, good-bye target. This can be done lvl 6 without heavy carry items.
If an enemy hero is leaving your lane, ult that sucker and watch him. If he's thinking about ganking, then he better be ready to go into action with a -5 armor, or wait the ult out and possibly losing his chance to gank, thus wasting time. With vision, he can get ganked himself if he's not careful.

Anyway, there are tons of things Pesti is useful for. He does not need a buff. Disjointing his ult is fair IMO, since he has another in 10 secs and since his ult is really an incredible ult. If there were absolutely no way to remove his ult, I really think it would be OP. Besides, all of the hero skills that disjoint Pest ult have a longer cooldown than his ult. Sounds pretty fair to me. I'm not gonna mention his stun, it's a great stun. When looking at the hero's overall speed and utility, he has enough damage going on for him.

[lolb0t]

As a Pestilence fanboy

For a good player, you don't even need PK to initiate. A Pesti with SH is great initiator [U]without having to waste money on initiate items.

i'm sorry, what did you just say?

sigh

[Anakha]

" If you have a Shieldbreaker lvl 1, you must hit the enemy twice before you're even close to a lvl 1 Pesti ult"

????

[ThaThickNess]

" If you have a Shieldbreaker lvl 1, you must hit the enemy twice before you're even close to a lvl 1 Pesti ult"

????
SB lvl 1 = -2 armor per hit.
2 hits = -4 armor.
Pesti ult lvl 1 = -5 armor

[ThaThickNess]

i'm sorry, what did you just say?

sigh

Pesti's speed is incredible for initiating, no? I've used it plenty of times to initiate. I simply said PK isn't necessary to initiate with Pestilence.

[Emiya]

My favorite strategy is to just stack attackspeed with a SB3 so I can apply -24 armor in just 4 hits. Get on our level

[GregerMoek]

SB lvl 1 = -2 armor per hit.
2 hits = -4 armor.
Pesti ult lvl 1 = -5 armor

You have no idea how Shieldbreaker works, do you?

Shieldbreaker rank 1 reduces the target's armor by -2. Not -2 per hit.
Are you even for real? Is this something in LoL that you just think works the same over here or what?

Don't come here and post dumb things you have no clue about please. The only thing that builds up per hit on an item is Frostburn and Icebrand slows.

[lolb0t]

Pesti's speed is incredible for initiating, no? I've used it plenty of times to initiate. I simply said PK isn't necessary to initiate with Pestilence.

1st you have to close the distance, and you also take 10% extra damage, so if someone stuns you 1st, you die even faster.

proper initiation in a team standoff requires a way of quickly closing the distance, simply having extra movespeed doesn't make a hero an initiator. by your logic any hero with striders is an initiator too

[ThaThickNess]

You have no idea how Shieldbreaker works, do you?

Shieldbreaker rank 1 reduces the target's armor by -2. Not -2 per hit.
Are you even for real? Is this something in LoL that you just think works the same over here or what?

Don't come here and post dumb things you have no clue about please. The only thing that builds up per hit on an item is Frostburn and Icebrand slows.
No I thought I read somewhere that Shieldbreaker stacks like Icebrand slow, with a timer on each application of the effect. But thinking about it carefully, that would be very op. Sorry about the mistake, but that only makes my argument for Pestilence better.

[ThaThickNess]

1st you have to close the distance, and you also take 10% extra damage, so if someone stuns you 1st, you die even faster.

proper initiation in a team standoff requires a way of quickly closing the distance, simply having extra movespeed doesn't make a hero an initiator. otherwise it becomes a gank
That's why I said Pesti needs SH, which also helps his dmg output.

[lolb0t]

i think you shouldn't post anymore, you will embarass yourself further

[ThaThickNess]

i think you shouldn't post anymore, you will embarass yourself further

With haste rune speed and magic immunity you're gonna catch someone in a teamfight. Let me know if I'm wrong and I'll admit it. I don't really care if I embarrass myself on the forum of a video game lmfao.

[Anakha]

No I thought I read somewhere that Shieldbreaker stacks like Icebrand slow, with a timer on each application of the effect. But thinking about it carefully, that would be very op. Sorry about the mistake, but that only makes my argument for Pestilence better.

"I thought"

Until you know, don't post.

[foxmindedguy]

No I thought I read somewhere that Shieldbreaker stacks like Icebrand slow, with a timer on each application of the effect. But thinking about it carefully, that would be very op. Sorry about the mistake, but that only makes my argument for Pestilence better.

Black Cleaver in LOL armor reduction per auto-attack stacks. Not the same for HON's Shield Breaker.

[NitroS]

"I thought"

Until you know, don't post.
posts like this again contribute nothing to the balance discussion how are these posts never getting touched?

Pestilence like many other dota heroes are falling behind there dota counterparts. In dota slardar was a lot stronger then there hon counter part before they got changed and still got buffed. SLardar now has 8/12/16 armour reduction at each level. The hero is fine with a few small changes such as these or a rescale of his flight ability to make it more viable with lower points in the skill. i dont understand why heroes like this cant just get small changes each patch until they get it right. instead of ignoring it.

[lolb0t]

posts like this again contribute nothing to the balance discussion how are these posts never getting touched?

because here comes someone suggesting balance changes (or none rather) without having basic understanding of game mechanics and how items work, and then proceeds to argue that others simply don't know how to play pestilence properly.

[GregerMoek]

posts like this again contribute nothing to the balance discussion how are these posts never getting touched?

Pestilence like many other dota heroes are falling behind there dota counterparts. In dota slardar was a lot stronger then there hon counter part before they got changed and still got buffed. SLardar now has 8/12/16 armour reduction at each level. The hero is fine with a few small changes such as these or a rescale of his flight ability to make it more viable with lower points in the skill. i dont understand why heroes like this cant just get small changes each patch until they get it right. instead of ignoring it.

Because the hero is fine even without changes.

If a hero isn't picked up in every game every single tournament, it must must be underpowered?

Pestilence was used pretty often before, to be fair that was mostly before the nerf to -armor not affecting Kongor but that isn't the point of picking Pestilence anyways. He is still a useful hero and he hasn't been changed since beta as far as I know, he's balanced. Other heroes are overpowered, nerf those instead of keeping buffing everything all the time.

Also why do you want to make Flight more "viable" with lower points in the skill? You don't produce anything useful with your post when you just state "this hero is worse than in dota, this is how I would buff him".
Explain why his buffs are needed and don't come and say "another game has a similar hero but better" because another game is another game and it should be obvious to anyone with decent brain capacity to understand that the two games are fairly different by now.

Your suggestions contributes nothing, your spost contributes nothing.

[OJPhoenix]

Quite the debate going on here... Shooting people down for misunderstanding in a thoroughly unconstructive manner is, well unconstructive, yes it would be better if everyone trying to argue balance understood all the ins and outs of the mechanics but everyone still has an opinion and what not.

Anyway, he is right, Pestilence is far more effective than :Shieldbreaker: early but that's the point of the hero, how does this help determine if he's balanced or not?

Is discussion for a possibly inclusion of a Staff of the Master effect a valid Balance Discussion? Not that he needs it, but if it was a valid discussion I would put forward the idea that an upgrade would allow his Ult to affect more than 1 target with a single cast, either by "bouncing" to additional targets like Chain Lightning, affecting everyone within range of the unit at the time of cast, or "spreading" to nearby units over the duration of the debuff. Even allow it to be undisjointable?

Maybe Pestilence just needs a bit of attention, that if there was a minor tweak to him, or a decent alt avatar, people would notice him again. Even if all they did was increase his Stun damage up to 225 for example...

Agree with [WAM]GregerMoek ^ completely, lower levels of Flight being more viable would be interesting, a rescaling with the same end result: 16/24/32/40 % Movement Speed boost. A rescale on any of Pestilence's skill would probably be good, his skills feel like they all need to be upgraded to actually be effective. Lord Salforis' Life Tap is a good example of a skill that is good at level 1 but is still worth upgrading, not that I think Pesti would do well with that much emphasis on the lower level but still something closer would be to his benefit without actually changing the overall hero.

(Off Topic, must say I've always like your sig ^^)

[LongDonSilva]

or a decent alt avatar

off topic, but ladybird rocks, one of the best textures in the game on the shiney wings.

[Pineapple]

make his ulti un-disjointable and nerf all those retardedly strong S2 heroes such as nomad..

[`rnz`]

A rescale on his flight would be acceptable.

[ghoulverin]

nomad can easily be the easiest hero to kill. he doesnt need a nerf. but we are off topic. pesti is fine, if he got picked 2-3 times in a row and pawn tanks in the current meta-game ppl would understand how usefull he is. and he can farm in a 2v1 lane which is often the case. ppl just forgot about him. let him rape some cthulu's or zephyr's or kraken's in 2-3 comp matches and ppl will remember and ask for nerf instead ;-))

[Zahnfleisch]

Stop drawing the wrong conclusions from competitive gaming. Pesti is (and always was) a strong pick, if the player knows what he is doing.

I'll go even further and say that most heroes can be played effectively if played by an experienced player combined with the right team setup.

@ ThaThickNess:

Pk is just too good on pesti to not pick it up. Sure you will catch one hero if you pop your sh and charge, but with pk you will catch 3-5 heroes unawares and have more time on your sh.

There is just no comparison!

[ne_v_ah]

That's why I said Pesti needs SH, which also helps his dmg output.Which means, he needs to spend 3900 gold in order to get proper midgame initiation. No and no, a portal key, is as much core as it can get on pestilence.

[Anakha]

People said that about Soulstealer too.

[OJPhoenix]

:pest:
Some numerical examples for scaling ideas like suggested in my previous post for Pestilence's abilities:

Flight:
16/24/32/40% Movement Speed

Impale:
110/140/170/200 Physical Damage
1.6/1.9/2.2/2.5 second stun

Gore:
16/19/22/25% Chance to activate
46/54/62/70 bonus Magic Damage

All final numbers are exactly the way they are now but lower levels are much more impressive allowing pestilence to spread his leveling a bit more without too great a loss, more quickly becoming the presence his team expects from him.

Pestilence is a Ganker/Initiator Hero with no capacity for farming, thus by increasing the speed of his effectiveness, that is having stronger abilities at lower levels, his capacity to fulfil his role is empowered to increase his ability to farm from it and acquire his core item(s) :Portalkey:

[Asian_Jello]

Very nice suggestion I'm behind this 100%

[ReM1MR]

I think pestie isnt viable, because he needs too many items, to be affective. And if you do not get a good start with him, it is hard to recover.

[Skyve]

I think pestie isnt viable, because he needs too many items, to be affective. And if you do not get a good start with him, it is hard to recover.

All he needs to be effective is either aPK or a good lane partner. Too bad his best lane partner (andro) is unuseable because there's too much focus on heroes with 600 range.

[Anakha]

DS says hi.

[ShenziLaRue]

I really see no point in increasing the damage on his W considering it has a decent stun duration with a slow i feel it is plenty powerful and late game most stuns are for the stun not the dmg.

But i do agree with making the ultimate undisjointable.

Small suggestion from me would be making his E +physical dmg so it synergizes with his ulti a tad more.

[Skyve]

DS says hi.

Andro would still be a better partner for laning, because she works better with less leves. DS imo takes more effort to secure kills with.

[Fen__]

If a hero isn't picked up in every game every single tournament, it must must be underpowered?

Pestilence was used pretty often before, to be fair that was mostly before the nerf to -armor not affecting Kongor but that isn't the point of picking Pestilence anyways. He is still a useful hero and he hasn't been changed since beta as far as I know, he's balanced. Other heroes are overpowered, nerf those instead of keeping buffing everything all the time.

+1


+ stop that comparission of sb to pestilence ult. Although the -armor factor is higher on ult, sb gives you tons of +dmg which make your overall dps uncomparibly better in early game.

Pesti needs no buffs.

1. Free, high landing rate bash
2. Great low cooldown, high duration + range stun
3. Good stat gains
4. 520 movespeed with steamboots taking away only mele hero dissadvantage away from him
5. Ult with multiply purposes making him insane dpser and at the same time contributing a lot to teamfight potential
6. Good lanning presence couz of great aoe stun and primary strength attribute
7. Great dps/usefullness of hero with few items (similar to maliken)
8. Not that bad farming potential as most stated, low cd/cost (reasonable) aoe stun helps a lot
9. Great early game presence and even stronger late game
10. Can serve multiply roles, initiator, tank, ganker, carry (very versitile)
11. 1 of best antycarry potentials, and i would say best antytank potential in the game.

Hes just a great hero in most of lineups. Get jera in the team, charm pesti with pk and hew ill destroy enemy team.

+ stop that crap: if a hero isnt picked competitively = hes weak...

[lolb0t]

simply listing and describing his skills is not discussion.

you can do that for any hero

scout:

fast invis.

300 attack speed with low cooldown

2 long duration silences

steroid crits that can take down any hero in a flurry

long range ultimate nuke

blah blah blah

i can go on and on.

[Fen__]

simply listing and describing his skills is not discussion.

you can do that for any hero

scout:

fast invis.

300 attack speed with low cooldown

2 long duration silences

steroid crits that can take down any hero in a flurry

long range ultimate nuke

blah blah blah

i can go on and on.

Didnt described his skills, but advantages that he brings to the team when looking at 1v1 and 5v5. That was pure anlysis of his potential and usefullness.

2x silence scout ? wtf

300 attack speed but only on 3-4 hits

Pretty low dmg nuke when looking at the fact its ultimate and got forever cast speed.

You failed even to troll properly :/

[Hezmir]

I'd like to point out that Pesti q skill, that gives him movement speed makes him take more dmg. Draconis, on the other hand, has low cd, low mana sprint, same movement speed bonus afaik (40%) but isntead of making him take more dmg, it's leaving trail of fire... I love Pesti as a hero, but cmon, don't hate on him that much. Enought o say is that pesti needs the sprint to catch up, Draconis is sort of ranged hero...

[GregerMoek]

Draconis' sprint also lasts for like 25 seconds right?

Your comparison is like saying that Predator should also be able to leap to allies because NH can.

[Skyve]

Draconis' sprint also lasts for like 25 seconds right?

Your comparison is like saying that Predator should also be able to leap to allies because NH can.

To be fair though, Draconis' Sprint is a pretty rediculous skill. 60 mana for 300 damage and 40% MS :/

[LordTroll]

To be fair though, Draconis' Sprint is a pretty rediculous skill. 60 mana for 300 damage and 40% MS :/
Yeah.
Even without the damage it would be ridiculous considering its low cost and cooldown. I cringe when I compare it to Pestilence's Sprint, with a much higher cooldown, which also makes you take more damage.

[PowerBro]

+1


+ stop that comparission of sb to pestilence ult. Although the -armor factor is higher on ult, sb gives you tons of +dmg which make your overall dps uncomparibly better in early game.

Pesti needs no buffs.

1. Free, high landing rate bash
2. Great low cooldown, high duration + range stun
3. Good stat gains
4. 520 movespeed with steamboots taking away only mele hero dissadvantage away from him
5. Ult with multiply purposes making him insane dpser and at the same time contributing a lot to teamfight potential
6. Good lanning presence couz of great aoe stun and primary strength attribute
7. Great dps/usefullness of hero with few items (similar to maliken)
8. Not that bad farming potential as most stated, low cd/cost (reasonable) aoe stun helps a lot
9. Great early game presence and even stronger late game
10. Can serve multiply roles, initiator, tank, ganker, carry (very versitile)
11. 1 of best antycarry potentials, and i would say best antytank potential in the game.

Hes just a great hero in most of lineups. Get jera in the team, charm pesti with pk and hew ill destroy enemy team.

+ stop that crap: if a hero isnt picked competitively = hes weak...


OK, let's destroy your arguements the way you destroyed them for scout:

1. Free, high landing rate bash (This spell has a cooldown, doesn't scale well with attack speed (unlike crits with no cooldown)).
2. Great low cooldown, high duration + range stun (This spell has very low damage, 200 damage at level 4 is fairly weak)
3. Good stat gains
4. 520 movespeed with steamboots taking away only mele hero dissadvantage away from him (This forces him to take 10% extra damage, doesn't prevent slows or stuns).
5. Ult with multiply purposes making him insane dpser and at the same time contributing a lot to teamfight potential (This spell is single target and deals 0 damage and doesn't work on Kongor)
6. Good lanning presence couz of great aoe stun and primary strength attribute (This hero is melee and his stun has no range, making it very hard to initiate on anyone).
7. Great dps/usefullness of hero with few items (similar to maliken) (Actually, this hero requires quite a bit of items, he cannot DPS without first a portal key, making it long before he actually gets to his full potential).
8. Not that bad farming potential as most stated, low cd/cost (reasonable) aoe stun helps a lot (Hope you're kidding... that's as valid of a farming mechanism as Andro's -armor is).
9. Great early game presence and even stronger late game (Melee, no real way to close the game, how is this hero seriously having a strong early game presence... talk to me about Hammerstorm, Chutlu for strong presence).
10. Can serve multiply roles, initiator, tank, ganker, carry (very versitile)
11. 1 of best antycarry potentials, and i would say best antytank potential in the game. (Sure, but he cannot fill any of those roles as well as other carries).


Nice trolling... but you failed kiddo, Pestilence isn't that bad, but he certainly isn't as good as other heroes that are available in the game as of lately.

[GregerMoek]

He's better than any hero when it comes to reducing enemy armor reliably. DS can do it but the window of opportunity is much less with his ultimate.

His stun would be wicked with more damage. To be fair the one with a PBAOE stun doesn't need to initiate in a lane, the stun can be used as a follow-up disable and there's good chance that it'll be used twice in a fight.

Maybe he isn't the best hero in the pool, but he's better than you make him appear and probably the best in his armor negating niche.

Part of farming is to prevent damage done to you and Andromeda's aurora is used to enhance farm quite often in any real game.

Trashing someone's points about a hero means I guess that you want Pestilence to have buffs, which he certainly does not need even if Dota seems to love keeping heroes on par with broken ones instead of the other way around. Just look at heroes like Invoker and Furion and it should immediately invalidate anything that comes of that game.

[ne_v_ah]

Even with a good babysitter Pestilence's laning phase is still somewhat average. Players tend to think that hes very strong during the lane phase, just because he has a stun in melee range. Many if not all new S2 melee semicarries does it better.

Another problem I se with Pestilence, is that his skillset is pointed towards a semicarry (and I think it should be left that way), but due to his stun, hes played for most part only as an initiator. And he is played like that, because of the current metagame. Magic damage is higher while, the games are shorter.
So, while I consider :Steamboots:, :chal: and :Portalkey: being core, the meta has made many to consider :HelmOfTheBlackLegio to be core aswell(which in most cases delays his :Portalkey: by about 2000 gold. In other words, he has finished his :Portalkey:, when agility carries has finished :Nullstone: or :RunedAxe:). What we now have is a Pestilence using 4 items, which doesnt really do any damage, but rather help him to survive a bit longer. It's important to remember that he turns a bit tankier, but hes not a strong tank just because hes equipped with :HelmOfTheBlackLegio. Hes now the essence of hit and run initiation with some added control. But honestly there are heroes, which can do that better and with other features.

Now I still think Pestilence is borderline and that other heroes has to be brought down a notch and the meta change somewhat, for Pesti to become more popular. But when I thought what could help this hero: a small jump that is perhaps targetable, tied to the activation of Flight. This might of course be insanely overpowered, but its my thought. Im just gonna end by saying, its the current S2 heroes and the meta being as it is, that has left Pesti to what he is now.

[Fen__]

1. Free, high landing rate bash (This spell has a cooldown, doesn't scale well with attack speed (unlike crits with no cooldown)).

Comparing crits to bash is pretty dumb since they server different purposes. Bash is a disabling ability crit are about increasing dmg. While crits serve their purpose of increasing dmg greatly, bash is a great cc tool. Bash duration 1s, cooldown 2s, that means that your a.speed scaling with about 50% effectivness (btw, if skill doesnt scale GREAT with attack speed that means its garbage ? Damn madman ult is so useless :/)


2. Great low cooldown, high duration + range stun (This spell has very low damage, 200 damage at level 4 is fairly weak).

So do you prefer a 260 dmg single stun moa or a 1.75s stun from andromeda, rather than 200 physical dmg which you can easly land on 2-3 targets (400-600 overall dmg) + 2s slow after it? The aoe part and duration is what makes pestilence stun 1 of best in the game


4. 520 movespeed with steamboots taking away only mele hero dissadvantage away from him (This forces him to take 10% extra damage, doesn't prevent slows or stuns).

10% extra dmg in many situations is almost unnoticable. If a teamfight wont finish with you being below 10% your hp, that means that with or without amplified dmg fight would look exactly the same.

I never said that pestilence gives slow resistant and got no idea why you even mentioned it if only slow immunity got war beast + with flight pestilence still gets more movement speed than others even with aplied slow (there arent many heroes having viable, over 40% ms slow which last at least 3s)

Why are you talking bout preventing stuns ? Only magic/stun immune hero is probably predator (not talking bout nullstone effect/dissjointing skills). Do you belive that Pestilence wont be a good hero untill he gets best of each hero?


5. Ult with multiply purposes making him insane dpser and at the same time contributing a lot to teamfight potential (This spell is single target and deals 0 damage and doesn't work on Kongor)

Yes its a single target spell but it affects your whole team, by using it you amplify dmg of even 5 people. I belive that its way better this way than if you could apply it on 2 targets but your team wouldnt get the benefits of it + the cooldown is really low only 10s

Vindicator ultimate does 0 dmg and doesnt work on kongor as well. Is it a trash skill ? Tempest ult does minimal dmg and doesnt work on kongor as well, guess thats a useless skill as well.

Hon is not only bout nuke dmg.


6. Good lanning presence couz of great aoe stun and primary strength attribute (This hero is melee and his stun has no range, making it very hard to initiate on anyone).

This stun got very decent range (350). Catching enemy mele hero is a no prob and when combining it with even lvl 1 flight you can catch enemy range hero with ease as well. Another story is that people like you dont understand that during lanning phase you can get initiation and counter initiation lineup. Pair him up with ds, enemys will initiate on him while pestilence can easly double stun them and thx to bonus movement speed make sure nobody will run away while ds just heals himself back.

I didnt said pestilence is best lanning hero, but that hes decent. With andro he can be rly dangerous at lvl 2+, although needs easy lane couz of the pursuit style/potential


7. Great dps/usefullness of hero with few items (similar to maliken) (Actually, this hero requires quite a bit of items, he cannot DPS without first a portal key, making it long before he actually gets to his full potential).

Actually this hero with only sh and his ultimate can kill almost any autoattacking carry with same farm + got great teamfighting presence. (supports are a matter of 2-4 hits)


8. Not that bad farming potential as most stated, low cd/cost (reasonable) aoe stun helps a lot (Hope you're kidding... that's as valid of a farming mechanism as Andro's -armor is).

Not rly, compare pestilence to mb/chronos/scout/nomad/nh/predator

They got nothing compared to him, what makes his stun reasonably fine when farming or pushing lanes. Ofc its nothing compared to flashfarming heroes, but thats a matter of them being broken.


9. Great early game presence and even stronger late game (Melee, no real way to close the game, how is this hero seriously having a strong early game presence... talk to me about Hammerstorm, Chutlu for strong presence).

Btw early game doesnt end at lvl 5 when you get trashed on lane and start to afk in jungle. Why would you compare early game of pesti to hammer and ctulu when in most cases they are different. + pestilence initiation role is higly dependant on pk, so if you wont take that into consideration than you can say as well that pebbels is a useless hero couz he cant get to anyone while trying to use combo. Btw late game for hammer and ctulu almost doesnt exist opposite to pestilence.


11. 1 of best antycarry potentials, and i would say best antytank potential in the game. (Sure, but he cannot fill any of those roles as well as other carries).

Why not ? Give me some inteligent argument because simply -15 armor is a great carry potential for me and pesti got more (bash/ms/stat gain) + i want to see an example of hero who is better at killing high hp/armor/dr tanks maybe beside predator (only that comes to my mind is silhuette but still wouldnt call her better, just on par)

Less calling others kiddos more using brain cells.

Btw i wouldnt say that pestilence needs hotbl. Unless you lost your lane hard and got outfarmed/outlvled, steamboots + mightyblade is enough in terms of early game survivability. At the same time they give him some portion of dmg and blade can be used to form later sh which makes him rly dangerous.

[PowerBro]

Man, I was gonna try to answer you in a real way... than I realized it would just lower me to your level of refusing anyone else' points, but pretending that the hero is fine.

Anyway, the issue pestilence suffers is a 2 way thing.
Either A:
-Too many heroes are way too strong as of now and Pestilence is balanced
Either B:
-About 1/3 of the pool is balanced and everything else is too weak to different degrees of weakness.

[GregerMoek]

And yet he is sometimes picked, must be so damn bad right?

[lolb0t]

and yet, he is only been picked 4 times in last 6 months in comp play. must be pretty bad for comp play

[Fen__]

and yet WB got picked probably less than 10 times during whole hon competitive history. He must be worthless :/

[GregerMoek]

and yet, he is only been picked 4 times in last 6 months in comp play. must be pretty bad for comp play

I'm guessing you think Hag is underpowered too? Or Master of Arms, or Scout, or Andromeda, or Voodoo Jester, or perhaps Flux? Nomad? Martyr? Gauntlet? Pyromancer?

There are lots of more or less balanced heroes that has just not been picked because of trends, not only power but trends.

At first Cthulufant wasn't picked for a long while, now he's picked up despite seemingly no big changes to him, same went with the new iteration of Kraken. He wasn't picked up untill someone discovered him during a big event, after that he exploded into the scene. Does this mean Kraken was underpowered before he was discovered?

No it doesn't.

[PowerBro]

I agree greger... but at the same time, pestilence is a hero that was tried and played a LOT. It isn't like he just appeared in a flash or disappeared in a flash... Pestilence was 1 of the go to carry in the early stages of HoN.

He died because of powercreep and metagame change... and the weird part is that he should be a great pick in the new metagame but really isn't. His ultimate should destroy tanks, but somehow there seem to be something missing to him.

Is pestilence absolute trash? NO, does he need a small modification to get to par with other carries, YES or the other carries need a nerf to get to par with pesti.

Anyway, honestly, I have fun with the current metagame so I don't really care as I feel there are more heroes 'balanced' lately than before.

[Skyve]

I agree greger... but at the same time, pestilence is a hero that was tried and played a LOT. It isn't like he just appeared in a flash or disappeared in a flash... Pestilence was 1 of the go to carry in the early stages of HoN.

Same can be said for Wildsoul... never picked, suddenly god tier. Even though he was an old DotA hero.

[Fen__]

Tbh all arguments based on:

This hero is picked often so hes op !
Nobody is picking this one so its useless and underpowered !

Are completly invalid and are free of any constructive arguments :/ If you want to refer so much to competitive picks than wriet why the hero isnt pick competitively, because saying that hero isnt bad but "he lacks" sth is pretty meaningless.

Like we said multiply times before, our hon competitive comunity is carebear based thats why we dont see many heroes. Basically its only MSI, in the past Dirty Minds and couple of single players who tend to pick unpopular heroes and look for different strategies. Rest is just a copycat society :)

[regin1]

Pesti is pretty much fine as is he just seems kinda weak since he has no ability to flash farm waves which is so common in newer heroes and cant get huge gpm easily.

But with any damage items at all which seem to be skipped over for helm and pk he can do huge damage for very little money.

Try playing him with steamboots insanitarius and shrunken head as core items and you will see what i mean.

At most buff his intel gain so he can skip over spending money on mana items as he is now he can never use his stun to help farm or be effective in a long battle due to his tiny mana pool as he is you are forced to buy at least a powersupply and a locket if you want to use his stun and flight to their full potential.

[lolb0t]

thing is, what he does, magmus and pebbles do it much better. as previously said he is a victim of power creep, but S2 are not willing to sacrifice their newer heroes for longer games, so it's better to slowly bring up those heroes that have fallen behind.

SImply look at arachna. she has not been seen in comp play for a year, and now she slowly geting buffs, like starting strats as well as dogkeiser mentioning her aura isw getting reworked into something useful.

This is what i would like to see happen to pesti, a small tweak here and there to bring her up a little bit in line with new heroes.

There is a number of people on this forum clutching at straws and opposed to any change, probably due to S2 previous handling of balancing issues (slither comes to mind). If we actually brainstorm and come up with decent ideas and argue our points well, there is no reason why they couldn't at least make an effort to try some proposed changes in SBT client and say how that goes in podcasts or whatever.


The general consensus is to scale the hero so he is more viable earlier, and let's leave it up to S2 to dig through all the suggestions or come up with their own tweak

[Brannock]

and yet WB got picked probably less than 10 times during whole hon competitive history. He must be worthless :/

Warbeast has been picked more than ten times. You were clearly exaggerating though.

A lot of Warbeast's lack of popularity has to do with teams being unwilling to mix up lanes to the point that they can put a carry in the jungle. It takes a lot of protection and screening to get a Warbeast jungle to go off vs aggressive gankers. Compared to a Tempest or Ophelia jungle, which don't get nearly the amount of attention that a Warbeast jungle does - part of this has to do with Tempest and Ophelia being able to stun to escape and protect themselves and Warbeast not being able to.

He isn't really comparable to Pestilence at all. It's been only recently that we've returned to a dual lane meta, which is where Pestilence excels in (he's unpickable in trilane meta). Give it some time and some nerfs to all of the abusive heroes (:amun: :mida: etc) and we might see him get picked.

[FootLoveMan]

(he's unpickable in trilane meta).

What's so impossible about trilaning a Pestilence? A fast PK on Pestilence will turn the game into your favour immediately - similar to Pebbles who has been trilaned alot.

[lolb0t]

because most heroes that are picked have pseudo blink or extra form of survival via heals or other ways (eg zephyr, magebane, tremble, cthulu), and his damage and overall skill combos do not do enough damage to put him over picking pebbles or magmus or midas

[Brannock]

Not to mention that Pebbles has a ranged stun and ranged nuke, while Pestilence's stun is melee AOE. There's zero reason to ever pick Pestilence over Pebbles in a trilane, let alone other heroes.

IMO.

[Ekamo]

Not to mention that Pebbles has a ranged stun and ranged nuke, while Pestilence's stun is melee AOE. There's zero reason to ever pick Pestilence over Pebbles in a trilane, let alone other heroes.

IMO.

Disagree strongly :P

A Pestilence that is allowed to free farm can do a lot, even though not burst down any hero under 1000 hp on himself. He is one of the most effective and spammable initiators there are after a PK, while still having some decent semi-carry ability. He synergizes extremely well with -armor lineups, which is what really separates him from other "similar" heroes. To be honest, I don't see why a comparison between Pebbles and Pestilence is needed in the first place anyway; they both have their own niches and are in no way replacing one another when looking for a specific hero role in your team.

Also, Pestilence was in fact picked up a couple of times (even though not as much as Pebbles) during the trilane meta with usually great success.

[SirVH]

You can't compare Pest with Pebbles >_>

[Stickyrolls]

Might sound crazy but I would like to either see flight bonus damage removed or make flight toggable. Let me explain the latter: You turn flight on to get in closing range (before you have pk) stun, auto attacks and turn off...now while it's turned off it is still running it's time down. For instance you turn it off with 15 seconds left, turn back on 10 seconds later and have 5 seconds left of flight time. I think the problem with pest is that due to the negative nature of flight he can't do his job as well as a magmus and escape with out a pk. If he doesn't do well early and get his items in a timely manner he usually has a bad game where a mag or behe will be much more useful. I know that he is different then these heroes due to his ability to carry but still I think flight hurts way to much.

[Fen__]

thing is, what he does, magmus and pebbles do it much better.

Pebbels cant do what pesti does in much better way.

1. landing peb stun on more than 2 targets vs thinking players or without previous initiation is almost impossible
2. pestilence stun last a lot longer
3. thx to pestilence low cooldown stun you can cast it twice during teamfight while its impossible on peb

Pestilence initiation is superior to pebbels and weaker to magmus mostly because of the aoe dmg ultimate. Beside that after actually burning down your skills pestilence continues to be a very dangerous hero while peb and magmus are arguably a bit useless before the skills cooldown.




Might sound crazy but I would like to either see flight bonus damage removed or make flight toggable. Let me explain the latter: You turn flight on to get in closing range (before you have pk) stun, auto attacks and turn off...now while it's turned off it is still running it's time down. For instance you turn it off with 15 seconds left, turn back on 10 seconds later and have 5 seconds left of flight time. I think the problem with pest is that due to the negative nature of flight he can't do his job as well as a magmus and escape with out a pk. If he doesn't do well early and get his items in a timely manner he usually has a bad game where a mag or behe will be much more useful. I know that he is different then these heroes due to his ability to carry but still I think flight hurts way to much.

I dont rly see reason for such a change. Flight lasts long enough to help you in w/e you want to do (catch up and kill enemy/run away thx to speed advantage).

The bonus dmg on pestilence flight is only 10% thats almost unnoticable. In physical dmg scenarios i would risk saying that pesti will survive even more than magmus thx to higher agility - physical damage reduction especially when taking into consideration the core sh build.

I belive that only valid argument about pestilence being underpowered is the lack of flash farming skills, but thats not rly such a big deal as most think because:

1. There are a lot of heroes who cant flash farm neither and they are still arguably weaker than pestilence
2. Flashfarming is a problem in itself, its rather bout other heroes that shouldnt be able to do it than about pestilence who should
3. Thx to teamfight oriented pestilence nature he will focus more on fighting vs heroes and getting earlier wins rather than "afking" in jungle/lane where flash farm comes into play.

[Brannock]

http://www.own3d.tv/live/240314/NoVa_-_FnaticRaidCall

Pestilence picked by [fray]. Laned solo sidelane vs. Electrician.

[R0XAS]

Farmed Pesti so strong lol

[XFlame]

http://www.own3d.tv/live/240314/NoVa_-_FnaticRaidCall

Pestilence picked by [fray]. Laned solo sidelane vs. Electrician.
How did that work out for them?

[Leebo]

Pestilence needs to be a bit tanky before he can effectively blink initiate in pubs. He needs to go helm/vestments at least before blink. Pubs dont follow up on initiation immediately meaning a blink only pest will die 9/10 times he blinks in to stun. This is why people don't like playing him and why he fails a lot of the time in pubs. Most of the time if you try and explain this people start screaming about how pest needs to go blink first and rage out.....

He be used effectively in comp games with an early blink because initiation is immediately followed by teammates jumping in. You can afford to go straight for blink if you know you wont be taking a barrage of nukes following your initiation because your teammates are lagging.

TLDR - If people would build pest a bit tanky before blink they would like him more.

[Ogrim]

All he needs to be effective is either aPK or a good lane partner. Too bad his best lane partner (andro) is unuseable because there's too much focus on heroes with 600 range.

I can't agree with this honestly.

There are several heroes in the game that basicly "PK as close to as many heroes as possible" to start a team fight and throw out a stun of sorts. The problem for pesti is the following:

1- He is a initiator first an foremost, but other heroes can do the same job with less farm, or get the equal amount of farm and do it better. Lego or moraxus for example, are going to be able to be stronger when they get that pk initiation at around 15-20 minutes.

2- Other heroes don't necessarily need the shrunken head to perform the pk in and stun, but pesti really needs it at this point in the meta game. Again this goes to the issue of other heroes doing his job easier or better.

3- when you pick pesti on a comp team, you almost always except too much or too little from him and it hurts the team. This is a big one as far as i'm concerned. Pesti is either picked simply for the pk stun, and then becomes too weak or takes farm away etc (not talking about steamroll games), or pesti is expected not only to initiate and gank, but is also expected to perform a semi-carry role which he is more than capable of. Thing is he is not the best farmer, and require a lot of time to turn himself into the dangerous hero he can be. At this point, there are many other heroes that can farm so much faster than him and perform any of the jobs he is capable of doing just as good if not better, that picking pesti seems to put a strain on the rest of your team, rather than making your team strong. Comp teams that pick him end up bending over backwards just to make the pesti viable all game long.

throw in the kongor related nerf to his ulti combined with the many other forms of lowering armor in the game now and the lack of invis heroes in comp play, and he just ends up being a hero that you look at and say "pesti would be good, but wait this other hero would be better" almost every time. I don't think i'm wrong on that...

[Fen__]

1- He is a initiator first an foremost, but other heroes can do the same job with less farm, or get the equal amount of farm and do it better. Lego or moraxus for example, are going to be able to be stronger when they get that pk initiation at around 15-20 minutes.

Moreaxus is far weaker initiator. Radius in his stun makes it more pebbels like than magmus, while pestilence got no problems to stun 3 or more targets. Valid argument could be that Moreaxus after stun can provide some aoe burst with his ultimate, but usually that dmg is very low since he its easy to drop his ultimate with 1-2 autoattacks. At the same time pesti stun got 50% lower cd.

Beside initiation moreaxe have very small to offer while pestilence got very good dps thx to stats/ultimate/items that you build on him, cant be kitted because of flight, and he can spam his bash making enemy carry life misserable.



2- Other heroes don't necessarily need the shrunken head to perform the pk in and stun, but pesti really needs it at this point in the meta game. Again this goes to the issue of other heroes doing his job easier or better.

Pesti doesnt need sh to pk and stun as well. The only reason why pesti is making a sh is because other heroes after initiation are either useless or just die(mag/hammer/moreaxe/behe), while pestilence can still perform as a semi/hard carry and offer a lot to his team.


Pesti is either picked simply for the pk stun, and then becomes too weak or takes farm away etc (not talking about steamroll games), or pesti is expected not only to initiate and gank, but is also expected to perform a semi-carry role which he is more than capable of. Thing is he is not the best farmer, and require a lot of time to turn himself into the dangerous hero he can be. At this point, there are many other heroes that can farm so much faster than him and perform any of the jobs he is capable of doing just as good if not better, that picking pesti seems to put a strain on the rest of your team, rather than making your team strong. Comp teams that pick him end up bending over backwards just to make the pesti viable all game long.

1. Cant get the "or takes farm away" part
2. Pesti is never picked only for pk stun as hes very good carry hero
3. Only thing that pesti needs to become dangerous is 1 sh, or sb/bulwark. Yes hes not the best farmer but 350 gpm on him > 450 gpm on ra/zephyr
4. How picking pesti can be a strain on the rest of team if hes moderatly usefull during lanning phase and becomes very dangerous around lvl 11 ?
5. Most of games that i watched with pesti was about his team winning early-mid (big part of it was always pestilence performance) and than either finishing the win or starting to throw by stupid plays (farewall old Dirty Minds)
6. Pesti is viable during whole game beacuse of his skillset. Team doesnt need to force the game in a way pestilence needs, he can adapt to almost any situation since he is counter to int nukers/strenght tanks/and agi carrys + offer great initiation tool.

[Ogrim]

Moreaxus is far weaker initiator. Radius in his stun makes it more pebbels like than magmus, while pestilence got no problems to stun 3 or more targets. Valid argument could be that Moreaxus after stun can provide some aoe burst with his ultimate, but usually that dmg is very low since he its easy to drop his ultimate with 1-2 autoattacks. At the same time pesti stun got 50% lower cd.

Beside initiation moreaxe have very small to offer while pestilence got very good dps thx to stats/ultimate/items that you build on him, cant be kitted because of flight, and he can spam his bash making enemy carry life misserable.




Pesti doesnt need sh to pk and stun as well. The only reason why pesti is making a sh is because other heroes after initiation are either useless or just die(mag/hammer/moreaxe/behe), while pestilence can still perform as a semi/hard carry and offer a lot to his team.



1. Cant get the "or takes farm away" part
2. Pesti is never picked only for pk stun as hes very good carry hero
3. Only thing that pesti needs to become dangerous is 1 sh, or sb/bulwark. Yes hes not the best farmer but 350 gpm on him > 450 gpm on ra/zephyr
4. How picking pesti can be a strain on the rest of team if hes moderatly usefull during lanning phase and becomes very dangerous around lvl 11 ?
5. Most of games that i watched with pesti was about his team winning early-mid (big part of it was always pestilence performance) and than either finishing the win or starting to throw by stupid plays (farewall old Dirty Minds)
6. Pesti is viable during whole game beacuse of his skillset. Team doesnt need to force the game in a way pestilence needs, he can adapt to almost any situation since he is counter to int nukers/strenght tanks/and agi carrys + offer great initiation tool.

your missing the point. If moraxus pk's in with his ulti up he can survive without other items early game easily between his shield and axe throws.

Presti is going to pk in early without survival items cause he rushed the pk, stun, ulti someone, and they auto attack at best and hopefully not die. You are entitled to your opinion but i disagree with it it early game. Late game pest is obviously the stronger initiator, but again a big problem with pesti is how difficult it is to get high gpm with him.

I disagree with most of your points because you are viewing it one way and I think i am viewing it in a different way that is more realistic.

[FatCrabby]

This hero has a 2.5 second AOE stun with a cooldown of 8 SECONDS? wait.. what?
i play this guy all the time, I know im squishy when i bink in so I stun, ult someone, then basically back out. Then 5 seconds later I stun someone again.

[Anakha]

Pestilence is not foremost an initiator, kids. Portal Key allows him to 'initiate', but you never realistically want him doing that except as a followup, same as Maliken.

[Fen__]

Pestilence is not foremost an initiator, kids. Portal Key allows him to 'initiate', but you never realistically want him doing that except as a followup, same as Maliken.

As one said before because of the very long 2.5s stun, Pesti can easily blink in, stun and than move back (because of his 520 movement speed with steamboots) and come back to fight when his team emerge.

[Anakha]

What an absolute waste. All that does is give them advance warning that you're around, as well as the ability to actually decimate you. If they even space out remotely, you're overexposed, and they will kill you. Or even worse for you, they stun you, run back and you've lost your opportunity completely. 2.5sec is not a "very long stun".
Tempest's ultimate is a "very long stun", and even that would be stupid to do in that situation. Stuns are only as valuable as the damage differential they allow you to inflict.

[Fen__]

First of all: tempest isnt a stun but easy to cancel channeling making it last a lot shorter than a 2.5s stun in most scenarios.

Second: stunning opponents and moving back lets your team cast their nukes and get easy pickup than follow up or land some skills on important enemy hero and than focus opponents attention letting you wait a moment so that you can come back when some disables/burst was already used. Yes it may sound strange but thats very valid strategy since pestilence can dish out tones of physical dmg when not stunned.

Btw show me longer duration stun with resonably big radius Oo

Anyway thats off topic, the fact is that pesti can be a good initiatior(never said best, just good) and because of how other prestilence skills look like, even after "wasting" 2k gold on pk he can still be a verry viable carry hero if build properly.

Strong and versitile hero but not broken like some s2 creations because of his lack of efficient aoe farming tool. I higly doubt that any changes should be made to him, maybe beside some pwnage alt avatar addon, like Flaming Pestilence ?!?#?*!# (that would be manlly)

[Anakha]

If your team is able to cast their nukes (read: chain stuns), then why the **** would you move away? You'd HIT them to put in more damage. If you're in a bad position where you could die, then unless your team has Portal Keys as well, you're well out of position.

You're misrepresenting your circumstances horrifically. Tempest's ultimate IS a stun, whether it is channelling or not is irrelevant. Tempest's ultimate IS a very long stun relative to Pestilence's, being near twice the duration at any point and whatnot. Exaggeration is bad, mk?

[Hat_Truck]

Accurate assessment, inaccurate premises and conclusions.

Pestilence was formerly the paragon of balance (though still not picked that often). The game has moved past him. This isn't a good thing, and neither is buffing Pestilence to match the current level of power creep.

Nerf other heroes back down to Pestilence's level. Note that this won't make the game less fun: playing an aggressive Pestilence is still one of the most fun experiences in this game, same as 2 years ago.

The fact that Pestilence is now considered underpowered speaks volumes about the ever decaying balance of this game.

[Zhinkk]

Kinda off topic but pestilence needs a intelligence buff imo. Even late game he needs some source mana regen for his stun. 15 base intel with 1.5 gain. How about 20 intel with 2.0 gain like lord?

[Mediocre]

Kinda off topic but pestilence needs a intelligence buff imo. Even late game he needs some source mana regen for his stun. 15 base intel with 1.5 gain. How about 20 intel with 2.0 gain like lord?

Then you would need to increase the mana-cost for his stun, which is relativly low for its effectivness.

[Dragoneit]

Maybe if he get his bash likes rampage one (with cd not by % or maybe like cronos) we will see him more often... But Im not sure if it will be an exaggerated buff

[GregerMoek]

I think we see him enough to say that he's fine.

[PowerBro]

Moreaxus is far weaker initiator. Radius in his stun makes it more pebbels like than magmus, while pestilence got no problems to stun 3 or more targets. Valid argument could be that Moreaxus after stun can provide some aoe burst with his ultimate, but usually that dmg is very low since he its easy to drop his ultimate with 1-2 autoattacks. At the same time pesti stun got 50% lower cd.


Am sorry, I stopped there... Pestilence stunning 3 or more people with his stun?

Seriously? When did that happen? That just never happen in a game where you don't face 5 melees all smacking an armadon.

[Ekamo]

Am sorry, I stopped there... Pestilence stunning 3 or more people with his stun?

Seriously? When did that happen? That just never happen in a game where you don't face 5 melees all smacking an armadon.

This happens all the time, it is not uncommon at any level of play. Well, if you factor in PK into the equation, which is a given.

[Ogrim]

i think the core issue with pesti going form perfectly balanced to underpowered imho, is power creep in the forum of farming potential.

Pestie just takes to long to get the items he needs to be as effective as other heroes. Thats just how i feel about it. You basically have to treat him like a hard carry when you play with him in terms of providing him farm.

[Farosarg]

i think the core issue with pesti going form perfectly balanced to underpowered imho, is power creep in the forum of farming potential.

Pestie just takes to long to get the items he needs to be as effective as other heroes. Thats just how i feel about it. You basically have to treat him like a hard carry when you play with him in terms of providing him farm.

Especially true for the laning phase but also in general. The bad thing is, come midgame he doesn't have the luxury to sit in one lane to farm which often leads to him rushing the Portal Key as soon as possible and neglecting pretty much all forms of survivability.

Now I think some form of powercreep was necessary to move the game towards the more entertaining and active game like it is now, arguably maybe too much, but the powercreep has to stop eventually and the heroes left behind need to be brought up to speed so to say.

[regin1]

The damage on his stun could afford to be buffed slightly, but i think the main problem is with alot of the old dota heroes they have totaly garbage intel/gain.

Meaning you need more than just a powersupply to be able to even use your stun effectivly in a prolonged fight.

For example pestilence at level 7 has 312 mana cthuluphant has 390 and as they go up in levels this gap only widens. For a hero with a 8 seconds cd stun to only be able to cast it twice along with his other spell and then be totaly out of mana at lv 7 is ok but the fact he has 1.5 intel gain means hes stuck with no manapool for the duration of the game.

[lolbreeze]

The issue is the complete disregard for mana management that many S2 designs can get away with, not the hero itself. His mana isn't that bad if you use it conservatively seeing how his stun is one of the cheapest AoE stuns in the game, it's just that he can't liberally spam his abilities (other than his ultimate) to farm while many other heroes can. He also has a drawback to his mobility skill which shouldn't be a big deal (if dozens of other heroes didn't have mobility skills that doubled as nukes or stuns and had no drawbacks). I feel like the patch in which they made -armor no longer affect Kongor because of Sol's Bulwark weakened Pestilence more so than other heroes with some smaller -armor abilities since it was such a huge part of the hero. It's not just some aura or a neat thing on top of a nuke/scouting ability/whatever but a hero-defining ultimate which was rendered impotent by both that change and Sol's Bulwark being implemented in general.

[Xinlitik]

In the era of no-drawback heroes, the +damage on Flight seems unnecessarily punitive. Maybe if it were -20/15/10/5% damage dealt instead... at least then pesti could initiate without being mince meat. He is really not a beefy hero, and with the need for a fairly expensive core (PK + SH), he has trouble rushing tanky items like some other str heroes.

[Orchest]

The hero also has utility problems in that he offers almost none to a team.

I wouldn't mind seeing his ultimate changed so it gives you the enemy unit's vision for the duration, rather than vision around the enemy.

This would allow you to see nearby enemy invis heroes, traps and wards. It's a nuanced and situational change, which is the sort of change that most suits a mostly well balanced hero like pesti...

[BladeOne]

I am aware of the fact that his ultimate reduces armor, which makes his W hit harder than 200, but really it is an ultimate for a reason.

Please elaborate on this...
I don't know how you got a frostburn icon LOLOLLOLOOL

[china]

Pestilence's Ult, but instead affecting a line/aoe like Weaver's Swarm.

Sounds incredibly S2, but at the same time I'm aroused.

[D0ri]

Any reasoning as to why Pesti's ult no longer reduces Kongor's armor? As far as I know, minus armor working on Kongor was taken away in an effort to make Kongor stronger and more of a risk. I say, let Pesti's ult reduce Kongor's armor again, even if it's just 50%.
This gives him another unique niche. As far as I'm concerned, that would give you an incentive to pick Pesti over other hero's such as Cthulu or Kraken, without breaking any other part of his gameplay.

[Malefication]

Sure it would be hilarious if we got to see the -armor strats with pesti, andro and SS again. I miss them. BUT Pestilence doesn't need any kinds of buffs, and while we're at it, we only saw -armor strats on the Hellbourne side for a reason. Making Pesti's -armor affect Kongor is an indirect buff to Hellbourne as well, which isn't needed.


While we're at it 2: It sure would be nice with reasoning rather than just saying "should buff his ult -8 -12 -16".

[Znuffle]

I don't really see why its needed to get more dmg on impale..
Impale have only 8 sec CD and stuns for 2.5 u gonna tell me that this is called? Weak?!
I do not approve of the impale dmg change.. ( but tho think that it needs to cost a slightly less mana. )

The swarm for that matter is just to easy to get rid of... Either they should reduse CD from 10 to 8 or the more OP way.. Make it unable to be dispelled..

Great thread BTW..

[A_DeAd_EnD]

I concur with your suggestions.

250 damage on max level stun and the code to make the ult undisjointable like WS and Pyro's ult is imperative to bring him back into the game.

I think u r right. Just a little increase at his second skill's damage and an undisjointable ulti would make him good enough. But i think his second skill should be scalled so it ends at 260 or 280 physical damage, because heroes usually have a lot of armor at high levels. And i know that his skill would synergise at a powerful way with his ulti but just look at nomad's 2nd and 3rd skill. Enough said.

[MikeTAR]

Pestilence's Ult, but instead affecting a line/aoe like Weaver's Swarm.

Sounds incredibly S2, but at the same time I'm aroused.

So you think givnig him an over powered version of Desham's uilti will make him more "balanced"