Scout (Vanish)

[SimpleFear]

The cooldown of this ability is too short, even(especially) at the start of the round.
Being able to vanish wait 15 seconds, get the attack bonus, and then immediately vanish again with the attack bonus seems imba early game imho.

As well, imho, vanish gives the scout too much escapability. Perhaps give it a 1 second cast time since he gets such a large boost in movement speed anyways...

Another option I've toyed with is making the scout a glass cannon with very little health and armor. (greatly reduce his current hp and armor)


I'm not on the boat with people who think scout is incredibly imba, but I do believe he needs some tweaking.

[Ryno2112]

nah I think it's fine. the ms isn't so great, just means wards aren't so amazing with him. Which makes sense cuz he's a scout with wards. I like scout's vanish the way it is now.

[BleBla]

ms too high and the cost of mana i think it could be more

[dxbydt]

Increase it's cd, although the ms boost on vanish does seem overpowered, since he doesn't have track to boost ms anymore it's kind necessary. IMO the whole changing of ult and shruken was a huge mistake. Gondar was fine.

[Unnatural]

Increase it's cd, although the ms boost on vanish does seem overpowered, since he doesn't have track to boost ms anymore it's kind necessary. IMO the whole changing of ult and shruken was a huge mistake. Gondar was fine.

I agree with this completely. They should just make him back into gondar, and then add a sniper. Problems solved.

I believe the reasoning, which imo isnt very sound, was that BH wasn't very good for team fights, so they tried to add more utility. In the process they added too much utility, and made him a bit op. Although, like every other hero, he does have his counters.

[zzSleeper]

What they really need to do is remove how it passes through hero skills like marchers does. See http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=4066

[Urizen]

Perhaps make it so the CD does not count down while stealthed?

this stops him from stealthing till cd is up, popping out for a quick combo and restealthing to safely chase

[Krowser]

Can anyone take a look at this?


Exemple: Pestilence (Slardar) - Sprint.


70 mana
give or take, max movespeed
you take 10% extra damage
ca dure assez longtemps, le cooldown est moyennement long (Lasts kinda long, the cd is about 20 secs longer)


Scout (Gondar) - Windwalk


50 mana
give or take, max movespeed
invisible
backstab bonus when you decloak
duration = cooldown
you DONT take 10% extra damage

[Sabre]

I think that the easiest change to windwalking skills in general (stalk and vanish and assasin's shroud) is the fact that they let you dodge skills like hammerstorm's stun, which really feels like you're getting far more bang for your 50-60 mana.

[Gourry1]

The only problems I can see (besides the obvious spell dodging bugs) are the movespeed bonus at Vanish being too high, and the low mana cost, making it spammable at really low levels. Also, se can be permanently invisible at lv1, should be rescaled so that it started from Vanish lv3.

[KatyPerry]

Dodging targeted Nukes through WindWalk is called "Skill" and not considered as a bug. It IS a bug though that Vanish let's you counter Hook and other spells that shouldn't be negated through invisibility.

Other than that -> maybe nerf his MS a little bit during Vanish but besides that Scout is an okay hero for pubs.

[IntErlIdEr]

I believe that this skills needs much tweaking. I dare not say exactly what should be changed, but one thing is for sure: an experient Scout can be the single asset a team needs to win, independently of the experience and proficiency of the enemies.

~IntEr

[KatyPerry]

Scout sucks and the only thing that he's good for is stealing the kills away from you. His Ultimate has a nice slow, but that's it. And picking Scout just for the wards would be... stupid.

Vanish costs way too much mana early on and does crappy damage.

[Bahamut]

Scout sucks and the only thing that he's good for is stealing the kills away from you. His Ultimate has a nice slow, but that's it. And picking Scout just for the wards would be... stupid.

Vanish costs way too much mana early on and does crappy damage.

i acutally pick scout only for the wards. They're free, see invi, have big LoS, and they're invisible

[KatyPerry]

Really? I would just pick a useful hero and buy wards instead.

[raiz265]

afaik the scout in HoN is similar to the scoutish class in Savage 2, thats why its the way it is.
never played the game, but recently saw a movie of it :o

[Kietharr]

Silence/stun/hex him while he is visible and focus fire him. Scout is only a good hero against teams that aren't working together. If all you do is run out into lanes and kill creeps the entire game you're just making yourselves victims. If he's ganking you repeatedly start going together in bigger groups and start pushing towers, if they go into a group to defend against you consider yourselves lucky because in the actual teamfight they'll be a man down. Scout is really only a good team player once he has items, before then all he's good at doing in teamfights is chasing and killing weakened heroes.

[NooN1]

Too much MS and not enough Cooldown. Mana seems okay to me.

[furu]

More mana cost and its just fine imo. Its just stupid that he hardly lose any mana while "spamming" it.

[Blessed2]

make him appear if hes damaged/stuned in stealth, lower speed to 10% movement - fixed.

[Frog100]

If a scout on your lane does that to you just deny everything and laugh at him mid game when he has boots and a wraith band

[Invoker1]

okay, lets get this straight-
being stealthy requires you to move cautiously, and carefully.
try to sprint through a building like the scout without being noticed.
invis should give no movespeed bonus, hell, it should reduce it, but that wouldn't be very useful for scouting.

i swear this hero was based off the scout in team fortress 2. he run up to people, BONK!'s them on the head with his baseball bat, flies off walls and when you think you're finally safe, he whips out the sand man and clocks you in the head with a baseball.

[Sw4n]

uh why wouldnt he have an awesome escape mech when he has 0 hp and does 0 damage

[willtsay]

fine as is maybe make ms buff match with track

[Suffer]

I agree with Frog. The lack of kills and denies you can do with Scout leave him broke for most of the game. I beg so hard to get a solo lane so I can just outlevel to ulti, just to steal real early hero kills and regain all the money I lost.

I think Scout is the easiest counter of the stealth heroes. Madman has two escapes. Night Hound can silence and run if necessary.

[Twotall88]

ive played him and i have suggested (through a game play report) that these actions should be taken.

1. double his ult cool down
2. halve the ms bonus to vanish
3. make him become visible when casting ult under vanish
4. up his mana costs (though this may make him too weak)

he is not that hard to get lvl'ed/kills if lane'ed properly.
if you are getting recked by ranged hang back and still get the xp and or switch up lanes

i did a game were i essentially went 24-2 only because i controlled runes and got good ganks (how a hero like that is supposed to do it) i only have 5 creep kills and 1 deny at like 15 min and had plenty of gold from a team full of int heroes.

though madman almost single handedly over threw our outrageous lead in kills

[Twotall88]

the only reason he is hard to counter with vanish is because of the massive ms bonus and if you control runes with a bottle he doesnt have a problem with life and mana (if you use the right items)

[Techies]

Decrease ms gain from 25% to 20%

Increase mana cost on vanish and make it level better.

Level1: 50 mana cost 10 secs
level2: 65 mana cost 15 secs
level3: 80 mana cost 20 secs
level4: 95 mana cost 25 secs.

[Tyrando]

okay, lets get this straight-
being stealthy requires you to move cautiously, and carefully.
try to sprint through a building like the scout without being noticed.
invis should give no movespeed bonus, hell, it should reduce it, but that wouldn't be very useful for scouting.

i swear this hero was based off the scout in team fortress 2. he run up to people, BONK!'s them on the head with his baseball bat, flies off walls and when you think you're finally safe, he whips out the sand man and clocks you in the head with a baseball.

LMFAO, Epic.

[Evilite]

I like the post that compares Pestilence's sprint to scout's windwalk. What gives? I think Pestilence's sprint should make him go INSANELY fast and scout's windwalk should not make him go any faster than normal. That would be fair. Who can honestly look at pestilence and scout side by side and say they are equally balanced? Give me a break.

[Tyrando]

I like the post that compares Pestilence's sprint to scout's windwalk. What gives? I think Pestilence's sprint should make him go INSANELY fast and scout's windwalk should not make him go any faster than normal. That would be fair. Who can honestly look at pestilence and scout side by side and say they are equally balanced? Give me a break.


I believe that was the point he intended to get across, the fact that Vanish is Way better than Sprint.

[Kietharr]

Scout is also much frailer than Pestilence and does not have a good AoE stun and a -armor/vision debuff. You can't pick a single skill out of the hero and call it an imbalance when stacked against another given skill, hell if this is the case then Behemoth is an OP hero because fissure is better than hammer throw.

[Pentt]

I like the post that compares Pestilence's sprint to scout's windwalk. What gives? I think Pestilence's sprint should make him go INSANELY fast and scout's windwalk should not make him go any faster than normal. That would be fair. Who can honestly look at pestilence and scout side by side and say they are equally balanced? Give me a break.

Yeah let's just forget the fact that Pestilence's ult can negate a scout for an entire game. :rolleyes:

[Karmashock]

The one thing I don't like is that the ability seems to give him immunity from ranged attacks fired BEFORE he started vanishing. This is true of ALL invisibility effects and it's wrong. That is if I shoot at him, he runs away, projectile follows him, and he vanishes... he avoids damage/status effect/whatever. This includes most targeted spell abilities... such as the beetle's swarm ability... sure, swarm keeps him visible IF it hits him before he vanishes. But if I cast it on him before but he vanishes during the the travel time... the little bastard is safe.


That aspect needs to be fixed.

[Tenebrae]

Silence/stun/hex him while he is visible and focus fire him. Scout is only a good hero against teams that aren't working together. If all you do is run out into lanes and kill creeps the entire game you're just making yourselves victims. If he's ganking you repeatedly start going together in bigger groups and start pushing towers, if they go into a group to defend against you consider yourselves lucky because in the actual teamfight they'll be a man down. Scout is really only a good team player once he has items, before then all he's good at doing in teamfights is chasing and killing weakened heroes.

Agreed, completely.

[GrayyF0x]

think that lower 10% of ms its fine... and like others has said... increase cooldown and finish QQ

[GaIactic]

make him appear if hes damaged/stuned in stealth, lower speed to 10% movement - fixed.

NOT fixed. In fact, that's the worst suggestion in this thread. What stealther ever comes out of stealth just cuz they took damage? Scout isn't even all that OP compared to some other stealth classes and you're trying to make him the easiest countered stealther in the game? Just get a radiance and he can't escape?

^_-;

[GaIactic]

I like the post that compares Pestilence's sprint to scout's windwalk. What gives? I think Pestilence's sprint should make him go INSANELY fast and scout's windwalk should not make him go any faster than normal. That would be fair. Who can honestly look at pestilence and scout side by side and say they are equally balanced? Give me a break.

Give me Pestilence vs Scout and I will win. If played right end-game Pestilence is one of the best heroes in the entire game, while Scout isn't even in the top 10.

Scout ain't ****. People are *****ing about him because they are BAD. He gets a lot of kills by last-hitting with his ult and or Dagon, and he gets more kills by baddie pubs simply refusing to spend the gold on wards/dust/gems even tho they lose much more gold by getting ganked while they are solo farming neutrals in a forest full of scout wards.

Why the hell is everyone *****ing about his fast escape? The guy takes damage like an absolute *****, a team focusing him can take him down before 1 sheep/stun/berserker's call ends. And if he doesn't take damage like a *****, that means he stacked hp items and he DEALS damage like a *****.

If you've ever played vs a good Clinkz in DOTA before, you don't ***** about a Scout. Scout is nowhere near as scary as a good Clinkz. Hell, even a good Sniper with a Lothar's was a much better "stealthie".

^_-;

[chobbo]

make the cooldown start AFTER he comes out of stealth, not after he's used the skill while he's in stealth. fixt.

[willtsay]

The one thing I don't like is that the ability seems to give him immunity from ranged attacks fired BEFORE he started vanishing. This is true of ALL invisibility effects and it's wrong. That is if I shoot at him, he runs away, projectile follows him, and he vanishes... he avoids damage/status effect/whatever. This includes most targeted spell abilities... such as the beetle's swarm ability... sure, swarm keeps him visible IF it hits him before he vanishes. But if I cast it on him before but he vanishes during the the travel time... the little bastard is safe.


That aspect needs to be fixed.

im ok with it if he manages to dodge things like storm bolt or w.e its called/ things that take time to travel, however in the case of pestilence, the swarming effect should only be cosmetic, the debuff should take place immediately, as compared with pestilences counterpart, slardar, where his amplify damage, based off of faerie fire, immediately goes onto the target XO

edit: the max track ever gave was 20% , so imo his ms buff should scale as 5, 10, 15, 20% per level, i think cooldowns/damage as 1, he doesnt have shuriken, with its 10 second cooldown, you could cast it a couple times, if not three times in a large chase, he too could do the "double back stab" thing -> thats 240 damage right there + shuriken, run after then , shuriken again, and basckstab again that amounts to nearly 1000 damage XP. so his damage is relatively balanced imho.

[Blessed2]

NOT fixed. In fact, that's the worst suggestion in this thread. What stealther ever comes out of stealth just cuz they took damage? Scout isn't even all that OP compared to some other stealth classes and you're trying to make him the easiest countered stealther in the game? Just get a radiance and he can't escape?

^_-;

hell hound appears if you stun him while hes cloaked, and thats his ultimate. so there is one. as for damage, maybe not, but come on. if a stealthier got cloaked he should be dragged out of stealth.

[GaIactic]

hell hound appears if you stun him while hes cloaked, and thats his ultimate. so there is one. as for damage, maybe not, but come on. if a stealthier got cloaked he should be dragged out of stealth.

The stunned part is fine, the unstealthing on DAMAGE part was ridiculous.

As for Night Hound, if you stunned him "while he's cloaked" that means you were able to see him. Also, you can't compare a passive, INFINATELY LASTING ability with one that costs mana and is limited.

^_-;

[Persiatic]

I totally agree with OP

[_Archangel_]

The common (Incorrect) belief that Scout is a strong hero arises from the fact that people can go 30-0 with him because the other team is too retarded to get Dust.

In competitive play, Scout would be well-balanced. Invis is a decent ganking skill, Electric Eye is a sub-par Warding skill (Much inferior to Keeper of the Forest's), passive is just a crit/evasion and adds little to the hero itself - I admit his ultimate is a strong skill, but all it's merely a strong nuke/finisher and also a strong ganking tool. And remember that it's his ULTIMATE. It's SUPPOSED to be strong. Its strength is about similar in strength to Pyromancer's ultimate, given that his ultimate has a far inferior casting range, higher mana cost and longer cooldown and no slow (But remember that it can instagib weak heroes early-mid game, and that he has two other nukes to go with it). Even so, I can think of many ultimates that are far more powerful and gamebreaking than his. Defiler's ultimate, Thunder Bringer's ultimate and Hell Bringer's ultimate come to mind.

Also remember that Scout has little to no lane control, being a melee hero with no disable.

He can't gank nearly as well as Nerubian Assassin in DotA, and can't carry nearly as well as Defiler. He's a carry/gank hybrid, and even PotM would outshine him and fulfil this role better.

I hope that this helps you guys take the every aspect of the whole hero into account when considering Scout's balance.

[tef]

i know that team will be prepared to face a scout.. but
- he can go invi too fast
- his movement speed is high
- if u can run away he as a cannon like sniper on dota..
too much bonus..
he is like gondar plus sniper..

my opinion

[Techies]

Decrease ms gain from 25% to 20%

Increase mana cost on vanish and make it level better.

Level1: 50 mana cost 10 secs
level2: 65 mana cost 15 secs
level3: 80 mana cost 20 secs
level4: 95 mana cost 25 secs.

After reading a suggestion to scale ms I changed my mind.

level1: 50 mana cost. Lasts 15 secs. Ms gain 10%
level2: 65 mana cost. Lasts 20 secs. Ms gain 10%
level3: 80 mana cost. Lasts 25 secs. Ms gain 15%
level4: 95 mana cost. Lasts 30 secs. Ms gain 20%

This won't render him totally usless and he must actually spend points in vanish to take full advantage of it.

[NerdRocket]

scouts a mediocre carry anyway :/

[tef]

i can't understand why invi hero must be so fast.. it's hard to use dust or other things.. in dota the only one is nerubian weaver, and for 4 sec.
Riki, gondar etc on top of that, have a low base movement speed

[Darkshine1]

Doesn't really matter. Scout's essentially worthless. Bring some wards or bring Pestilence and he becomes obsolete. I love picking Pesti in pubs when the opposing team has a Scout, since once I get a Swarm on him, he's never getting away.

[Wrathmont]

Scout is only good for stealing kills against very uncoordinated teams or new players. Put him against anything else and hes usable pretty much only for wards and sniping people for afar. Have a pestilence on the other team and he becomes outright laughable.

[Karmashock]

I used the scout the other day successfully... against ok players... not dota pros or whatever but people that typically are not bothered by the scout.

My tactic was to only focus on casters or wounded heroes that were none the less going to escape.

I generally used my ult to initiate the attack, stealthed, and then started hitting them.

It was most effective against enemy casters that were retreating from a battle. I don't think I turned the tide of any battle. I did keep wards up along the river especially by the river passages and rune locations... which might have helped the team avoid losses. But for most of the game I just ran from one abandoned lane to another to free farm until I thought someone might come to pop me... then I'd stealth and move to another. I pushed the lanes until something started happening or I saw a caster I could kill... then I'd stealth and end him.


The scout isn't useless. He just can't stand against powerful melee units. Pit him against spelled units... especially with a shrunken head and he's pretty powerful.