[2.5.14] Vindicator

[Ekamo]

:vind: Vindicator
- Sage's Lore Removed
- New Ability: Brain Drain
* The Vindicator unleashes forgotten lore from within The Book, damaging enemies and absorbing some Intelligence
* Target a position to deal 50/100/150/200 Magic Damage. For each enemy hero hit, the Vindicator steals 3 Intelligence for 25/30/35/40 seconds
- Glyph of Silence Reworked
* Inscribed into the binding of The Book, the Glyph of Silence lashes out at nearby enemies that attack Vindicator while granting greatly increased Attack Speed
* Passively grants 10/20/30/40 Attack Speed. Enemies that attack you are Silenced for .5/1/1.5/2 seconds

Now the latest changes has had the chance to settle a little more, what are your concerns about the hero? Try to discuss it with an open mind, even though I am fully aware this was a very controversial change for many people.

Make sure you are fully aware of the contents of the Balance Rules (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=393760) since they will be heavily enforced in this thread. All rage-posts and one-liners will be deleted and infracted, no questions asked.

[Vascariz]

I think it depends largely on how you characterise Vindicator - Carry or Anti-Gank/Babysitter.

Brain Drain and Glyph's definitely support his carry abilities.

Brain provides a source of farming and burst damage. Also increases his auto-attack damage.

Glyph provides an indirect evasion mechanism. It discourages enemies from auto-attacking you, only leaving you exposed to spells. As such if you grab a BKB or combine with your ultimate, this really gives you quite well-rounded protection/uninterrupted chance to auto-attack down an enemy. Also a nice boost in a 1 v 1 situation.

Unfortunately, it reduces your utility as a support/anti-gank. You can't chip away at people's mana or force them to cast spells in order to babysit your carry in the lane. You can't protect your carry from being jumped on and chain-cast on. Instead you are almost encouraging them to attack your partner in the lane instead of you!

It almost begs for an item/skill that allows Vindi to force enemies to attack him!

I'd be interested to hear people's experiences of using him as a carry.

[Sherwood]

I'm concerned with the mixed messages this hero sends out about how to itemise.

Brain Drain's rank 4 short cooldown implies stacking regen to allow spamage. The buff however says that you should tank up so you can survive and benefit the most from the buff.

Glyph of Silence's silence passive requires you to be attacked to silence them. This also suggests you should tank up.

The passive from Glyph of Silence and Master's Incantation however says you should go pure carry-int.

Some could say the flexibility in item builds is a good thing. I don't as it causes uncertainty and confusion. At least he's not considered a pure support now.


Unlike other carries, he seems to have a ramp-up time for dealing damage (Maliken is an exception). The more times he can spam Brain Drain the more damage his auto attacks do over a period of 45 seconds (assuming he maintains the same number of heroes hit).

Aside from his global silence ultimate, he brings very little in terms of reliable Team-Play. Puppet Master could be considered a safer choice for the role of 'Int-carry'. However Vindicator has the advantage of his global silence being able to pierce through spell immunity (channeled heroes are countered globably [ignoring nullstones]).

The silence proc of Glyph of Silence seems incredibly niche. Most spell-cast dependant heroes will barely have a moment to auto attack. Their auto attacks will be low in damage or have a short range. They wouldn't have to auto attack the focus nuke target. Hard Carries who would attack Vindicator would rarely need to use their activating abilities or will obliterate Vindicator.
It's the spell dependant auto attack heroes where this spell really affects them. There could be a danger that as a result aside from the attack speed, this ability would be very niche.


One last concern is Vindicator's generous tools for last hitting enemy creeps and lane harassment. He is able to orb attack enemy heroes for bonus auto attack damage or use it to help last hit enemy creeps with the bonus damage. He also can use brain drain to potentially last hit an enemy creep and harass the enemy hero (and then gain an int buff which further assists with his last hitting and harassing). Brain Drain in comparison to other aoe damage abilities does less damage per cast and is cheaper.


In summery, I have concerns about the new Vindicator. He is possibly too good in the lane phase but lack-luster in comparison to other heroes in team fight phase (there are more consistent and reliable heroes to prefer). Balancing one or the other can have a negative effect.


(Brain Drain's Int Gain, Scaing Orb attack and Attack Speed passive does yell Vindicator is ideally a carry of sorts. There is no other intelligence hero with the quantity of abilities of this nature [selfish buffs])



With regards to actually playing him; he is still much like the old Carry Vindicator. Just with better last hitting power and you not leveling only Masters Incantation and Stats in till the game turns into roamfest. Brain Drain lets him flash farm lanes slightly better and gives him a sporting chance early game at killing neutral creeps. Early game however in skirmishes you lack the mana regen to maintain orb attacks and spamming Brain Drain (encourages smart use and timing of Brain Drain and not leaving the orb attack on auto cast always during early game).

[Vascariz]

I'm concerned with the mixed messages this hero sends out about how to itemise.



I agree.

Although I don't think it encourages a tanky build.

Glyph actually suggests you should not be tanky. It's providing a disincentive to those who attack you.

Also a lot of pure carries rely on spells as slows, disables or finishers. Also a lot of spell based escape mechanism. So for Vindi it provides an escape window of two seconds in a fight with a carry or means you have those 2 seconds after their last hit in which they won't be able to cast to escape. Also prevents pure carries casting spell damage nukes on you unless they stop attacking you for 2 seconds (while you are wailing on them with your carry build).

For example, going toe to toe against anti-mage means they will have to wait 2 seconds to blink if the going gets tough. Or Puppet can't jump out and puppeteer, wail on you, puppet show, wail on you, ult then switch to the ult.

Also the improved attack speed will boost his ability to stand toe to toe against another carry.

[Sherwood]

So you believe he's a different sort of Anti-Carry?

They did add Gunblade which is a very strange 'anti carry'. An absorption shield that scales with his agility. Passive that causes him to sting in close range.

I wouldn't oppose more anti-carries that aren't just I steal damage/I slow your attacks/Use your damage against your team.

Thanks, I'd bare that strategy in mind when I'm playing him against those type of heroes.

[GregerMoek]

Note to people that might misunderstand me: I am not saying the current Vindicator is UNDERPOWERED.

With that out of the way, I feel the change was bad mostly from a strategic drafting point of view. Sure, now one has to take how powerful intsteal is in the laning phase, as you all should know less int means less max mana which in some cases means that early on you can reduce an opponent's mana below the cost of a spell early on (Pebbles, Hammerstorm are examples of good victims).

Some people from S2 claimed that the change was because the hero was boring and a PITA to go up against. I would claim that there are several heroes that are just as annoying to go up against so I think this was just a visual reason. I'll hold my conspiracy theories to myself in this regard however.

The thing with the current passive that I don't like is that it's disabled when Vindicator is stunned, making it only effective against certain heroes that semi relies on spells to deal any damage at all, a Valkyrie, Ra or whatever can just stun, pop all spells and then start auto attacking. Before someone sticks their head in and claims that this was the case before; it wasn't. Before, it was an aura, and like other auras (Torturer's ultimate for example) it got canceled when you get silenced (which includes hexes due to the nature of Hexes). This is not the case now, you can be silenced and still silence someone with your passive as Vindicator while stuns disables it completely.

Moreover, this change was a total focus shift for Vindicator's skillset (as the intelligent reader will realize) from E to W. W was pretty much only a bonus skill before, now it's the skill that defines the hero. What this means, in essence, is that Vindicator is now a glasscannon with an initiation ult rather than a team fight disruptor with decent auto attacks.

Another thing which I just think added to the personality of the hero in itself was the passive int steal, one of those signature features that didn't do too much but was a nice bonus. Sadly it got removed, I guess someone played midwars too much against him and decided to balance with that in mind.

Repeating again for those who might not quite understand, the current hero might be OP or UP, I am not stating either. The change however, is bad. The change is bad, not the hero. Right, good to get that out of the way.


Due to the focus shift, this hero is also picked for different reasons than before, he's now picked when you want a decent enough glasscannon that has a strong ultimate, kind of like a Chronos. Decently similar to an Arachna too, without slows but instead having a silence. People might bring up that this change makes him more of a carry, well I'd say he always was someone you wanted to pool gold into to make him really useful.

What he did before was to punish bad picking, positioning and laning. Some of the key aspects in HoN. Sure, to a degree he does this now too, but he has been mainstreamed into something more... dare I say it? Versatile, bland, I don't even know what.

The interesting thing is, if the supposed reason for the rework was to make this hero more fun or interesting, why are they removing the importance of proper positioning from him? What is more fun? Someone that needs to stand in the fight to be effective or someone who can skirt around outside the pattle and throw books at people?
What is more fun, an active laner that punishes bad lane setups(more than currently) or someone who mindlessly farms with the new farming tool?
The former shape of Vindicator -had- to stand in the middle of it to gain max potential out of his aura, how is this more boring than someone who stands on the edges of the battlefield and pewpews at people? Perhaps for someone who likes to go pure, retarded, damage builds and got sad because they had to stand in the middle of fights before and died because of it.

The question is, what does the new Vindicator bring that is interesting in terms of picking, laning and gameplay compared to the old one? I don't really get it. I honestly don't get it. Please, someone explain why this hero is more fun than the other, please someone explain why this hero is more interesting.

On the good side, his ultimate will always be a good one if it stays as it does, and I assume it will.


So all in all, buff to Q and huge, mega nerf to W that resulted in a complete change of focus.

Former Vindicator was good at something and bad at other things to balance it out. Good at disrupting team clashes and bad at farming and moving around, something he needed to do in order to stay effective in a fight (as opposed to some would claim, just has to "stand" there. Which is misleading to say unless you've never ever played a game of HoN before with a team fight in it).
Former Vindicator had a clear purpose and defined strengths and weaknesses. Current Vindicator sure has weaknesses too, but they are much less binary in effect and less defined because of that. He's been mainstreamed into a glasscannon.

Rework was a huge meh.

ON a balance side of things, cooldown on Q is very short. Vindicator's damage comes online earlier than before. Somewhat fixed the issue of people thinking he's not a hero worth investing gold in.

Interesting Sidenote, in all the games I've seen "pros" play this hero, if the older Vindicator was used their strategy would have worked almost just as well. Nymph+Vindi lane against Glac+Pebbles mid? That would -certainly- work before too. Moreover, it's saddening to see some of the competitors not even realize that the passive is disabled during stuns. I am not doubting their skill when it comes to play the game, but if someone who's in the top tiers of play doesn't even care to test things out in practise mode, then I don't really know what their feedback is worth.


Totally unrelated to balance: Brain Drain is such a stupid name, why couldn't they keep the old name?

[Vascariz]

The thing with the current passive that I don't like is that it's disabled when Vindicator is stunned, making it only effective against certain heroes that semi relies on spells to deal any damage at all, a Valkyrie, Ra or whatever can just stun, pop all spells and then start auto attacking. Before someone sticks their head in and claims that this was the case before; it wasn't. Before, it was an aura, and like other auras (Torturer's ultimate for example) it got canceled when you get silenced (which includes hexes due to the nature of Hexes). This is not the case now, you can be silenced and still silence someone with your passive as Vindicator while stuns disables it completely.


I always just thought this was a bug!

Stuns are so prevalent in competitive play especially against a carry that it seems counter-intuitive so have the passive work in that way.

Is it just stuns or does it include disables like Puppet Show/morph?

[GregerMoek]

Only stuns as far as I know. Not all auras, but some auras, behaves in the way Torturer's ult works (or former Vindicator), I messed up and made it sound like all did.

Anyways, current passive is only stopped by stuns as far as I know, I've tried with hex and that doesn't disable it.

[Rosgath]

I feel like the new :vind: is half-assed mostly due to his new passive.

Brain Drain (ugh really s2? worst name ever. Even worse than Beardulon) is nifty and is a good farming tool which is really necessary for any carry, but by rolling his int steal in with his nuke he now has no way to build up damage before he engages his enemies. The fact that it steals int is ONLY useful early game and even then I'm not entirely confident in it's strength. If he gained even SOME int when he hit creeps it would be infinitely more useful. I would suggest it steals X int per hero, Y int per creep/non-player target, and has Z cap of int steal per cast. Since the permanent int-steal was taken away and was his strongest scaling function before, this would help bring a happy medium between the new int steal and the old one.

His new passive is just bad. Seriously, who thought of silencing on auto-attacks? Silence doesn't stop someone from auto-attacking. A slow like plague rider's armor slows and prevents the enemy from closing for more auto attacks. :arma:'s armadillo reduces damage taken from all sources. These are examples of good passive defensive mechanics. They respond directly to the offending incident. New glyph of Silence does not. His old aura was situational but useful in almost all cases. The only heroes who didn't distinctly feel :vind:'s aura were heroes who only had 1 or 2 spells anyway and relied so heavily on autos that casting wasn't a problem. His new passive is even MORE situational and from what I've seen, doesn't even fulfill the intended role. If I'm a carry, I'm gonna attack :vind: anyway. The silence isn't that powerful against me. If I'm a ganker/support I'm going to unload all/most of my spells before I start autoing so the silence still does nothing. The only redeeming function of his new passive is that it gives him AS, which while it is something that :vind: was seriously lacking, it is nowhere near as strong as other AS buffs that your standard carry gets. If his passive was a strong defensive function I could understand it giving as much as it does, but as it stands the bonus AS doesn't compensate him sufficiently.

[Vascariz]

If I'm a carry, I'm gonna attack :vind: anyway. The silence isn't that powerful against me.

If I was in a teamfight or 1 v 1 against a decently-farmed carry-built Vindi, his passive would make me think twice.

Especially in a team fight where it means that I cannot use any spells in the team fight and it boosts his AS.

I think maybe you are visualising Vindi as still a squishy support build rather than carry build? I can imagine if he was babysat by a Monarch or DS that it would definitely be a strong disincentive.



If I'm a ganker/support I'm going to unload all/most of my spells before I start autoing so the silence still does nothing.

Very true. But it means you are assuming you can kill him with your first barrage of spells. If you fail to, you can autoattack for cooldown - 2 seconds which may be enough for him to escape/live.

Finally, still can't believe that his passive is being countered by a stun.

[Zilrax]

It doesn't stop spells at all anyways. It's only truly functional as anything but an attack speed buff against right click carries and Fayde Ult. Most other people will otherwise just blow everything before hand. It basically just changes the order of operation of staggering spells to blowing it all. Both ends with a very dead glass cannon.

As for carries thinking twice, it depends. Flint flares then shoots. FA immobilizes, ults and autos. Scout flurries out of invis and just keeps at it, likely having silenced you before hand if he's any good. Arachna ults but she can only orb once, but the duration of it is 3 seconds to the silences 2 seconds, so it only slightly hinders her. And the list goes on.

The stun shutdown on top of E's issues just makes it even sillier but even if it was impossible to stop, it'd be still fairly weak as anything but an attack speed boost until there's a hero who needs to land x auto attacks to be able to cast.

[Hsssh]

If I was in a teamfight or 1 v 1 against a decently-farmed carry-built Vindi, his passive would make me think twice.

With what heroes you're going to auto attack between using spells? Now i remember only Gauntlet who'd maybe want to open up with infernal, Fayde going out of her ulti and some gankers with sheepstick but they can alter their combos with only slight power difference. And nobody is stopping them from focusing on other targets in team fight.


Very true. But it means you are assuming you can kill him with your first barrage of spells. If you fail to, you can autoattack for cooldown - 2 seconds which may be enough for him to escape/live.

Please, even tanks are gankable and Vindi doesn't have great str/str gain, zero mobility skills and nothing that allows him to reduce incoming damage. Before changes he was one of easiest heroes to gank and now arguably he is even easier to gank.


I am not doubting their skill when it comes to play the game, but if someone who's in the top tiers of play doesn't even care to test things out in practise mode, then I don't really know what their feedback is worth.

In before China comes in writing examples from Basketball and how competitive players have their own playstyle.

[painkiller`]

I'm concerned with the mixed messages this hero sends out about how to itemise.

This, and pretty much this.

I want to start by saying that the old :vind: was never meant to be a support. That's like saying :pupp: can be played as support because he has two disables. No. :vind: was always meant to carry.

With that out of the way, the way one built old-vindi was purely defensive items early-mid and only then int-heavy items. No offensive items like Hellflower that offer no survivability unless his core-defense and disable items like Kuldra were done. This has also been the trend for most int-carries who are based around lasting a fight and carrying through consistent and prolonged damage (:defi::soulr::tort:), like :vind: was supposed to do due to int stolen through the course of a match and surviving through a combination of his aura and items. (:pupp: is the only int-hero that is meant to be built around damage that I can think of, but then again :pupp: is an anomaly in many cases.)

So what was old-vindi? A squishy carry with no active disables (except his ultimate) who had the most powerful orb (damage-wise) which became more powerful as the game went on. His aura and Q wrecked casters early but this was balanced by the fact that he was so fragile early on (and continued to be so unless farmed, something he wasn't good at).

What is the new-vindi? A squishy carry with no active disables that becomes significant the longer fights last due to his active intsteal. He is also very mana-heavy because both his steroids need mana to sustain. No longer affects any hero's efficiency signficantly (except maybe :doct:).

To me, the new vindi seems a contradiction of concepts because here we want him to last longer in fights so that he can put out more damage but we want int-heavy rather than defensive items on him so that he can put out the damage we need him to, keeping him squishy and vulnerable. (Not to mention he still has trouble staying in fights because of his atrocious movespeed, but we'll let that one go for now.)

I don't understand what the goal was for the new vindi, because I don't think he does anything right anymore. Just another victim of "there are other heroes who do what he does, but better and more efficiently".

[Vascariz]

With what heroes you're going to auto attack between using spells?

Any hard carry or semi-carry that's not spell combo based? Madman, predator, puppet master, Valkyrie (exc the stun issue), anti mage, Kraken, arachna etc all heroes who have powerful spells and who auto attack for their main damage...

I'm not saying its the best ability but that given though it does prove annoying and disruptive. Doesn't really matter if you can auto attack a squishy Vindi in 3 hits but does matter on a decently farmed carry Vindi.



Please, even tanks are gankable and Vindi doesn't have great str/str gain, zero mobility skills and nothing that allows him to reduce incoming damage. Before changes he was one of easiest heroes to gank and now arguably he is even easier to gank.


Yes all heroes are gankable but not every bank is successfully, not every tank kills in the first output of spells and definitely not all encounters are ganks. Are you trying to deny you've never seen a stun/slow/disable auto attack auto attack auto attack stun/slow/disable?

Yes there are pebble-esque no auto attack ganks but there are plenty of other type of ganks/encounters too...


Anyway not sure why the hostility. Trying to present a holistic view on the hero rather than cherry picking a few examples.

[Tensler]

I have been noticing that people in this thread have assumed that they will manage to blow their load of spells before autoattacking where as other skills on the skillset are preventitive of this, I am of course reffering to vindicators ultimate.

Now the choice becomes ignore vindi for silence duration so you can cast spells after or try and tear him down with autoattacks and risk never casting spells?

Still i agree the third skill is not paticularly good espically since it doesnt work when stunned. I also beleive this skill might be better if it also caused silence when "touch" type spells are used on him to provide utilty. Currently this is just AS really.

[HonStinks]

Any hard carry or semi-carry that's not spell combo based? Madman, predator, puppet master, Valkyrie (exc the stun issue), anti mage, Kraken, arachna etc all heroes who have powerful spells and who auto attack for their main damage... Madman stalks and barrel rolls, then activates his ult before attacking once, predator can activate his skin which to my knowledge blocks the silence and then he can do whatever he wants, puppet master can put one of his disables on vindi, use his ult and attack that until the first disable ends and then use the other disable and start autoattacking vindi, valk leaps next to him, uses his nuke and stun, then autoattacks, or throws the spear, then jumps in attacks and nukes, antimage could have some real problems but his autoattacks hurt enough that he doesn't need to ult really, kraken charges, throws his **** and ult and then starts autoattacking, and arachna throws her spider and starts autoattacking.

Not to sound like a douchebag but that silence isn't really stopping anyone.

[painkiller`]

Not to sound like a douchebag but that silence isn't really stopping anyone.

That's not entirely true. The way I see it, that silence stops every hyper mobile carry there is, like :doct::mage::drun: etc. simply because they need to make a decision about attacking :vind: because they will not be able to move around for the next 2 seconds after that.

But that just makes the skill even more niche than it already was.

[Vascariz]

Firstly for madman he will barrel once and have his ult up but will not be able to stalk or barrel again.
Valk can stun leap nuke then auto attack but once again if that first arrow misses she won't be able to follow up with another stun in the fight or leap or nuke again.

With pred unsure if he can activate skin after silenced. If he can't then once that skin runs out can't skin again or leap again.

As I stated if Vindi goes down in a few auto attacks then it's useless but if he manages to survive then it's a pain. E.g. a support like nymph, jere or DS.

All I'm sayin is that it's not the best skill but it has it's potential.

[Antimodus]

Firstly for madman he will barrel once and have his ult up but will not be able to stalk or barrel again.
Valk can stun leap nuke then auto attack but once again if that first arrow misses she won't be able to follow up with another stun in the fight or leap or nuke again.

With pred unsure if he can activate skin after silenced. If he can't then once that skin runs out can't skin again or leap again.

As I stated if Vindi goes down in a few auto attacks then it's useless but if he manages to survive then it's a pain. E.g. a support like nymph, jere or DS.

All I'm sayin is that it's not the best skill but it has it's potential.
You realize this only applies as long as they are sitting there focusing vindi with autos, and expires only 2 seconds after they switch targets, disengage or kite? Imagine a hammerstorm attack walking you with galvanize, he has like say 1.1 sec attack cooldown, so he just has to delay one of his attacks for 0.9 sec still kiting you, throw another stun and continue attacking.

Also if they put their skillset on cd nuking vindi and then autoing him, there is something deeply wrong if 290 base ms, **** armor, no escape no damage reduction bad STR vindi isn't dead by the time their spells are off cd again (yes even including magebane). Either they didn't focus him with enough people or they should have taken down a different target first, which btw Vindi's new E does absolutely nothing against. Tl;Dr it's easy to focus Vindi down, and it's easy to focus his teammates down first since his E does nothing to help them anymore

[PowerBro]

The hero lacks in virtually every aspect that makes a hero a good pick.

-No burst
-No mobility
-No disable

The hero is meant to deal damage 'over time' by spamming his Brain Drain and auto attacking with his orb. How will the hero do damage over time when he is susceptible to burst, cannot keep up with his target (lack of mobility and disable).

Also, there is the issue of leveling him up. Common strategies want him to level up his Brain Drain first combined with either of Orb or his passive. Leveling up his passive will reduce his potential damage until he is level 14 or so (orb level 3) and leveling up his orb will make him susceptible to any source of damage until he is level 13 or so.

Overall, as a carry, in the early levels, the hero just cannot compete with an FA who offers a disable and great burst from 6+, cannot compete with a Valk who can escape and run and burst for 810 magic damage at level 9 BUT he has a great utility in team fights but limited damage output early game.

Sure, late game, with treads, sheep stick and either a null stone or hell flower or what ever, the hero can become a huge issue to deal with but prior to this, he virtually is crappy.

[Hsssh]

Now the choice becomes ignore vindi for silence duration so you can cast spells after or try and tear him down with autoattacks and risk never casting spells?

Silence doesn't stack as far as i know. Ulti silences for 3/4/5 so most heroes will be able to get out 1-3 auto attacks without any additional harm. Also, after he casted his ultimate why you'd even bother attacking him?


Firstly for madman he will barrel once and have his ult up but will not be able to stalk or barrel again.

About what we are talking exactly? Are we assume that vindicator will be able to survive for ~6(or 10+ for barrel roll) seconds against farmed madman..?


With pred unsure if he can activate skin after silenced. If he can't then once that skin runs out can't skin again or leap again.

Leap ~10 second cd, skin 15. Again, how Vindicator is going to survive for that long against farmed predator?


The way I see it, that silence stops every hyper mobile carry there is, like :doct::mage::drun: etc. simply because they need to make a decision about attacking :vind: because they will not be able to move around for the next 2 seconds after that.

Problem is that before these hyper active carries couldn't perform well when Vindi was in aura range, now they can't do all their jumping around only if they are auto attacking Vindi.


Here is the thing that, i think, lots of posters don't understand:

With old aura vindi was very disruptive in team fights if he managed to stay alive so it made sense to build him tanky and you'd get slight damage increase from int steal and orb anyway. Furthermore due to powerful ultimate enemy team would always try to focus you down before you managed to cast it so again building tanky helped here. His ulti had long cd but even without it he could pull his weight due to being tanky and constantly silencing enemy team with his aura. Vindi was not defined by his orb or Q, he was defined by his ultimate and aura.

Whats happening now: ultimate says that you still want to build tanky because you'll be priority target before you cast it. New passive and Q says that you want to do lots of auto attacking so better build up that damage. You can't do both.

If you build tanky then you are walking ultimate, once its down you'll be ignored because your damage is will be subpar and other heroes in your team will definitely be doing more damage than you.

If you build damage then you are glass cannon, you'll have to stay at safe distance so you don't get killed before casting ultimate and then try to auto attack people down with your awesome 290 movement speed and zero mobility skills.

So here is the problem with his passive silence on auto attacks, if you build tanky you'll get your ulti off and then you'll be ignored till other, superior, damage dealers are eliminated first because a) you do mediocre damage b) you have no stuns or slows or silence until your ulti is available again. If you build damage then you are slow glass cannon and someone like madman or other carry will destroy you in 3 seconds once they get their hands on you so again, your passive silence will do nothing. Keep in mind that Vindicator is one of easiest heroes to get onto and stay onto.

I think Vindicator was analyzed 5000 times on this forum and IRC but someone at S2 knows better what made him "thick" and did this "clever" rework.

His current version will be viable only if numbers are too high on Q and E(for attack speed).

[Orly2001]

Dota 2Silencer.

[painkiller`]

Problem is that before these hyper active carries couldn't perform well when Vindi was in aura range, now they can't do all their jumping around only if they are auto attacking Vindi.

That's the problem. Before, they had to aim :vind: if they wanted to get something done for the rest of the fight, so he was a genuine threat. Now he isn't. Ignore him and all you have to deal with is his autoattack+orb damage which can be avoided if you position properly.

:vind: gets kited like no other ranged carry does. Sound stupid to you? It's because it is.



Here is the thing that, i think, lots of posters don't understand:

With old aura vindi was very disruptive in team fights if he managed to stay alive so it made sense to build him tanky and you'd get slight damage increase from int steal and orb anyway. Furthermore due to powerful ultimate enemy team would always try to focus you down before you managed to cast it so again building tanky helped here. His ulti had long cd but even without it he could pull his weight due to being tanky and constantly silencing enemy team with his aura. Vindi was not defined by his orb or Q, he was defined by his ultimate and aura.

Not completely true. His orb came into play mid-late game. Constant autoattack + 70+ true damage. Plus :vind: has pretty good agi gain for an int hero (it's higher than :pupp: and :doct:, for reference), so he would attack pretty fast later on.


I think Vindicator was analyzed 5000 times on this forum and IRC but someone at S2 knows better what made him "thick" and did this "clever" rework.

His current version will be viable only if numbers are too high on Q and E(for attack speed).

I think making his Q intsteal scale (steal more int per hero with levels) as well as making his orb more powerful is what will make him viable. Either that, or just completely revert him to what he was. I mean, you don't see :ramp: getting reworked because he's a niche ganker/carry and annoying to play against, do you? If a hero is annoying, spend a ban to remove him from the pool (iLx/Fnatic used to ban :vind: during their :pand: trilane days). If you don't want to play BP, then prepare to get countered.

[Fat_Bear]

I don't understand what the goal was for the new vindi, because I don't think he does anything right anymore. Just another victim of "there are other heroes who do what he does, but better and more efficiently".

This sums up the new :vind: so perfectly. His lack of mobility, survivability, and now any form of disable makes him inferior to many other choices. He is choosing bologna over sirloin; you may still like bologna every now and then but hot damn that sirloin is just so much better.



Problem is that before these hyper active carries couldn't perform well when Vindi was in aura range, now they can't do all their jumping around only if they are auto attacking Vindi.


Here is the thing that, i think, lots of posters don't understand:

With old aura vindi was very disruptive in team fights if he managed to stay alive so it made sense to build him tanky and you'd get slight damage increase from int steal and orb anyway. Furthermore due to powerful ultimate enemy team would always try to focus you down before you managed to cast it so again building tanky helped here. His ulti had long cd but even without it he could pull his weight due to being tanky and constantly silencing enemy team with his aura. Vindi was not defined by his orb or Q, he was defined by his ultimate and aura.


I always viewed old :vind: only real weakness as his early squishiness and his overall inability to farm. Even though he had no form of slow/stun/snare he was defined by his aura and ultimate, which made him invaluable at any phase of the game. Those skills made the hero and kept him useful enough until he could acquire a farm and really start pumping out some damage to go with what was probably the strongest aura in the game and one of the stronger ults in HoN as well.

I've played :vind: forever. When I was a total scrub, his Q and late-game (w/ farm) made him very fun for me. When I improved he became even more enjoyable for his timing and positioning on E and R.

He was a support-ish hero that always had the potential to turn into a carry. Yet even if he never became that carry he was still useful. In this regard he was very unique and even though old :vind: wasn't perfect, I think we've lost a very enjoyable and useful hero with these new changes.

[ElementUser]

There are tons of ways to work around his new (bad) E:

- Nuke him down (you're not building tanky? Then you die from spells)
- Ignore him (can be done safely early-mid game, especially if he doesn't have ult up)
- Use active spells THEN attack Vindicator
- Attack Vindicator while you have his ult's silence on such that the net duration doesn't actually change
- Make sure you have the initiating advantage later on; if your positioning/initiation is better than theirs, then Vindicator won't be a problem. Just make sure that Vindicator gets initiated on every time if you can. If he stays back then your team should be able to have the ability to kill them 5v4 (hopefully).
- The silence is only 2 seconds long at max level. It's really not that long if you know how to manage your spells when you autoattack Vindicator even if you're someone like Madman.

He might seem more pubstompy now because there are still people who didn't adapt to his changes yet. He lost a ton of presence by not having a silence aura and frankly, not many people knew how to play old Vind properly (as a hard carry). So now since he is "forced" to be played as a hard carry, some people are thinking he is better (because he's actually being played the way he's supposed to be played) when he is most likely not better.

[HonStinks]

You know, with a quick glance at the herodex, there are 101 heroes in the game, from which roughly 35+ are carries, vindicator included, so is it really necessary to keep vindicator as one? More importantly, does he have to be this generic piece of **** carry that can barely function in a game where everyone has more toys than him?

I don't claim to know what this game needs as far as heroes goes, but I'm pretty sure its not gonna miss one carry, so if you are gonna remake a hero, remake it into something that the game isn't over saturated with already.

Next they are probably going to turn him into a semi-carry ganker with a slow, stun and dash.

[foxmindedguy]

Either my previous post was deleted or my internet was acting up. Either way, I am going to repeat my point on Vindicator in a slightly longer (less precise manner), since redundancy is prefer here.

First of all, I want to iterate my impression of overall Vindicator change. He is not that under-powered, as some people are making him out to be. He still does disrupt initiations (or make counter-initiating difficult) with his ultimate, so the niche is still there. However, they took out the skill combo disabling part of him. Which was what defined him, but not entirely.

Basically, what I am trying to say here is that Vindicator is still a good hero. However, the developers went all hell on his E. I mean sure it was very frustrating to go against him and be unable to combo your skills, but now his E doesn't give him anything with great consistency, except for the attack speed.

Permanent Intelligence Steal was taken out?
- Why? It could have been kept on his E as well, as the temporary stealing on his Q. I do not see a reason, why this was scrapped off.

Before heroes were silenced for up to 3.5 seconds for using spells around him, now heroes are silenced for up to 2 seconds for attacking just him?
- Once again, nerf to every aspect of the spell from duration to silence conditions. I personally feel if they up the silence amount to 3.5 seconds and make the silence proc if enemy heroes attack anything within 700-800 radius of Vindicator, he would be a lot better than he is now.

Before aura was disabled if Vindicator was silenced, now it is disabled when Vindicator is stunned?
- Once again, why in the world was this changed? Absolutely no reason comes to mind, other than make him more convenient to take down.

[PlayeroJ]

You realize this only applies as long as they are sitting there focusing vindi with autos, and expires only 2 seconds after they switch targets, disengage or kite? Imagine a hammerstorm attack walking you with galvanize, he has like say 1.1 sec attack cooldown, so he just has to delay one of his attacks for 0.9 sec still kiting you, throw another stun and continue attacking.

Also if they put their skillset on cd nuking vindi and then autoing him, there is something deeply wrong if 290 base ms, **** armor, no escape no damage reduction bad STR vindi isn't dead by the time their spells are off cd again (yes even including magebane). Either they didn't focus him with enough people or they should have taken down a different target first, which btw Vindi's new E does absolutely nothing against. Tl;Dr it's easy to focus Vindi down, and it's easy to focus his teammates down first since his E does nothing to help them anymore

THANK YOU. This was the most lazy re-design I've ever seen S2 attempt in HoN. There's absolutely no reason for vindi's stats and terrible movement speed anymore. Considering he's not an un-ignorable silence stick now, these aspects of vindicator make him a terrible pick for sure.

[umadubad`]

Since he gravitates towards carrying now, he NEEDS to get a boost to his ms. With 290 ms, no escapes, slows or stuns, he should be buffed to 300 at least. Also, his third skill needs something extra added in. How about whenever a spell is casted on him, the caster's castspeed is reduced by 25/50/75/100. Right now, he is way too easy to nuke down outside his ult.

[Vascariz]

You realize this only applies as long as they are sitting there focusing vindi with autos, and expires only 2 seconds after they switch targets, disengage or kite? Imagine a hammerstorm attack walking you with galvanize, he has like say 1.1 sec attack cooldown, so he just has to delay one of his attacks for 0.9 sec still kiting you, throw another stun and continue attacking.

Also if they put their skillset on cd nuking vindi and then autoing him, there is something deeply wrong if 290 base ms, **** armor, no escape no damage reduction bad STR vindi isn't dead by the time their spells are off cd again (yes even including magebane). Either they didn't focus him with enough people or they should have taken down a different target first, which btw Vindi's new E does absolutely nothing against. Tl;Dr it's easy to focus Vindi down, and it's easy to focus his teammates down first since his E does nothing to help them anymore

Yes once again, if you built yourself as a Vindi carry, is it bad that they ate focusing another hero in your team? That was the bloody point of my posts. That it makes people think TWICE about focusing Vindi with auto attacks. Not that they would never but just makes them think twice.

And once again yes it means people have to kite Vindi to avoid having their spells locked out. But against a Vindi carry those second or two used each spell cool down to kite are valuable. Combine this with a bkb and his ultimate, feel free to kite a farmed carry Vindi but your is going to suffer.


PLEASE for the love of his realize I'm not saying its an awesome ability but that I
Can understand the logic behind it and how it encourages a carry play.

I definitely think it needs to be fixed to be touch based so attacks after a stun trigger the silence and AS.

[Vascariz]

Also once again people are presenting a farmed hard carry vs a squishy support looking Vindi. I've seen farmed Vindi just ripping into hard carry hps. Nothin I posted relates to a low farm support Vindi buying wards the whole game.

[ElementUser]

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showpost.php?p=14990317&postcount=2


With the Vindicator rework, the design team had a couple of goals.

1. Make the hero less "annoying"

2. Keep his relative strength

3. Make him more active


In his previous form, Vindicator had two specific issues, obviously with his Q and E abilities.

His Q, Sage's Lore, was incredibly strong in the laning phase and had the potential to completely shut out certain heroes but had little to no effect on others. As the game went on, this ability became almost useless in most situations.

His E, Glyph of Silence, had a similar effect. This ability rendered some heroes almost useless without Vindicator having to do anything at all. In the same tone, it had almost no effect on other heroes.

From the point of view of the Vindicator, this promoted a bit of a boring, passive playstyle, especially as the game went on. For the opponents, Vindicator was extremely frustrating to play against, oftentimes without providing any sort of indication of what's happening.

As for his role, he went from being used almost exclusively as a counter to being a full fledged INT carry. He could perform this role in the past but only very late game due to the Intellect stealing mechanic on his old Glyph.

In his new version, he reaches that point much earlier in the game. The passive attack speed bonus helps greatly here and the new Brain Drain ability steals 3 Int per target hit. Keep in mind that this ability is on a 6 second cooldown at level 4 and deals 200 damage. This spell alone makes him a lot more active throughout the game as well and he can use it to farm as well, again making him more effective earlier.

His new Glyph has been the target of a lot of discussion, simply because the previous version has such a large effect on gameplay. The new version is much less annoying to play against and forces your enemy to think about how they need to play against you. Heroes like Fayde, Wretched Hag and Flint Beastwood have to adjust their playstyle to be able to play effectively against the new Vindicator. In addition, since he scales earlier, he's a bigger threat and thus a focus for the enemy team, which silences them.

So in the end, those goals were achieved: he's less annoying to play against, he retained his relative strength and he's more active.

Official S2 response

[Good_Apollo]

S2 removed the parts of Vindicator that made him a viable counter and strategic pick with these changes. Now he really is just a blander hero that still can't figure out what he's supposed to do for his team.

A huge step back, IMO.

[GregerMoek]

I still don't see how he is more active, at all. THere's no reasoning to why he is more active, at all.

Typical trashcan response as always from an overpositive someone who can't see the bigger picture or even understand why it was a bad rework. Someone who would say yes to basically any change.

Yes, his damage output comes online faster but he offers much less beyond that to a team.

"The new version is much less annoying to play against and forces your enemy to think about how they need to play against you. "

Typical **** again, the same could be said about the former hero and drafting. But we all know that S2 hates strategical picking anyways, outpicking a team is I guess not considered skillful.

I would even say that the former Vindicator was more active than the current, why? Because he had to be in the middle of the fights compared to this current glasscannon.

[Vascariz]

As many have pointed out the limitations of the ult mean it doesn't greatly affect Fayde or Wretched Hag who do not rely on auto attacks at all. Only Flint may not be able to pull off his ult or cast flare as he does rely on auto attacks.

[Ekamo]

As many have pointed out the limitations of the ult mean it doesn't greatly affect Fayde or Wretched Hag who do not rely on auto attacks at all. Only Flint may not be able to pull off his ult or cast flare as he does rely on auto attacks.

I hate to detract the discussion, but how is Fayde NOT dependent on landing at least one auto-attack during her combo? Very specific to that hero, but I just wanted to clarify that.

[Dominare]

I have to wonder how many of these posts contain personal experience and how many contain pure theorycraft. Personally, I really like the change to his Q - if not the name - but am among those underwhelmed with the new E/passive for many of the previously stated reasons. It's a long way from being useless, but I don't feel like its close to a good replacement for what he lost either.

I think if it was upgraded from silence-on-attack to silence-on-damage we'd be approaching the right result... but perhaps then he'd be OP? Tricky.

[Hsssh]

Common sense is not working so lets try another approach.


Also once again people are presenting a farmed hard carry vs a squishy support looking Vindi. I've seen farmed Vindi just ripping into hard carry hps. Nothin I posted relates to a low farm support Vindi buying wards the whole game.

Whats your build for hard carry Vindicator?


I still don't see how he is more active, at all. THere's no reasoning to why he is more active, at all.

Pressing Q takes more skill than pressing right mouse button.

[HonStinks]

I still don't see how he is more active, at all. THere's no reasoning to why he is more active, at all.

Typical trashcan response as always from an overpositive someone who can't see the bigger picture or even understand why it was a bad rework. Someone who would say yes to basically any change.

Yes, his damage output comes online faster but he offers much less beyond that to a team.

"The new version is much less annoying to play against and forces your enemy to think about how they need to play against you. "

Typical **** again, the same could be said about the former hero and drafting. But we all know that S2 hates strategical picking anyways, outpicking a team is I guess not considered skillful.

I would even say that the former Vindicator was more active than the current, why? Because he had to be in the middle of the fights compared to this current glasscannon.But but but he has a 6 second cooldown nuke (with shitty damage and a gimmick that has a lot of "ifs" attached to its effectiveness), ergo he is very active.

I would argue his damage doesn't come online faster, because you need to keep stacking the buff which never happens unless you are in a stalemate camping situation outside one of the enemy bases. If there is a fight, it doesn't last long enough for you to cast the damn spell more than twice, maybe three times at best, and even then you get maybe +9 (*1.6) damage per cast if you are lucky.

I guess you could say his damage comes online faster if you go glaives + stats, bypassing Q and E for the most part because they aren't very good, especially E.


EDIT:

I would again like to point out, months in the making. Months, as in roughly 20+ work days per month, and around 8 work hours per day. You took your sweet time to make this so it makes you wonder, what was the process like. What exactly happens in the SBT? Is it full of sheep who dare not to speak against ideas that they think are bad OR is it this dictatorship where you can speak your mind all you want but your word has no worth and at the end of the day, one S2 guy makes the changes he feels are good or which he likes?

The reception for this remake is almost entirely negative and its backed up with good points by a lot of people, so in what part of the process was this received so positively that you decided to go with this version? I'm assuming there were more than one version, right?

[Vascariz]

I hate to detract the discussion, but how is Fayde NOT dependent on landing at least one auto-attack during her combo? Very specific to that hero, but I just wanted to clarify that.

My bad that was my mistake!

[Vascariz]

I have to wonder how many of these posts contain personal experience and how many contain pure theorycraft.

Yeah some people enjoy being aggressive.



I think if it was upgraded from silence-on-attack to silence-on-damage we'd be approaching the right result... but perhaps then he'd be OP? Tricky.

Well it was originally silence on cast in aura range. So going to silence-on-damage is actually more restrictive than it was in some ways. Vindi can't just stand around in aura range but has to in the midst of the battle and taking damage to be effective.

So i may not be such an OP change. May need the duration adjusted accordingly or only trigger once every x.

Also, no poll option for "heading in right direction but need further tweaks"

[Suture]

Madman stalks and barrel rolls, then activates his ult before attacking once, predator can activate his skin which to my knowledge blocks the silence and then he can do whatever he wants, puppet master can put one of his disables on vindi, use his ult and attack that until the first disable ends and then use the other disable and start autoattacking vindi, valk leaps next to him, uses his nuke and stun, then autoattacks, or throws the spear, then jumps in attacks and nukes, antimage could have some real problems but his autoattacks hurt enough that he doesn't need to ult really, kraken charges, throws his **** and ult and then starts autoattacking, and arachna throws her spider and starts autoattacking.

Not to sound like a douchebag but that silence isn't really stopping anyone.

Bit of sidetrack, but please never play puppet like that.. You get close, throw the ulti at the enemy then use puppet show right after the ulti. It will make him attack the ulti and effecively kill himself, if you position yourself right.

[painkiller`]

I would again like to point out, months in the making. Months, as in roughly 20+ work days per month, and around 8 work hours per day. You took your sweet time to make this so it makes you wonder, what was the process like. What exactly happens in the SBT? Is it full of sheep who dare not to speak against ideas that they think are bad OR is it this dictatorship where you can speak your mind all you want but your word has no worth and at the end of the day, one S2 guy makes the changes he feels are good or which he likes?

The reception for this remake is almost entirely negative and its backed up with good points by a lot of people, so in what part of the process was this received so positively that you decided to go with this version? I'm assuming there were more than one version, right?

This will probably get deleted because of off-topic-ness, but the thing is that we forum-dwellers make up a VERY small minority of the community. I've become more confident over time that this game has gone from being skillful to noob-friendly simply because that attracts more people (especially after Xander's comments on the recent Honcast podcast, I'm positive this is the case). It's probably written on their whiteboards in big bold letters — "What would a noob do?". Now, if you look at this rework from that point of view, :vind: fits right into S2's mould as a hero that is linear — easy to play as and play against. :vind: has now become an S2 hero.

I also doubt this rework involved competitive players. The only competitive player I've seen use :vind: was Kiwikid, and that was a long time ago. Considering no team figured how to lane this hero (which has been given as the biggest downside of :vind:) over 2 years, and THIS is the result of the rework, I sincerely doubt any competitive player asked for OR had anything to do with it (and the fact that Nova said that he might be too strong in the laning phase tells me players were like him were not involved).

If we consider balance to be a result of synergy in skills and how they interact with the rest of the game, old-:vind: was a much more balanced/useful hero than this new one. Old :vind: even had the potential to bring some sanity to the fast hyper-gank-fest that HoN has been since open beta, but our competitive players are ... well, my sig.

So, at the end of all that, my point is that there IS no point in discussing the new :vind: because he is now what he is and I am pretty sure he isn't going to change. Maybe number tweaks, but that's the maximum. But that won't do anything since his very concept is now broken. Removing him from the pool will probably be the best as that will open up a slot for a more useful hero.

/rant

[GregerMoek]

I hate to detract the discussion, but how is Fayde NOT dependent on landing at least one auto-attack during her combo? Very specific to that hero, but I just wanted to clarify that.

Yeah because she has to start with her ult.

Sure, if you feel the great need to start from stealth Fayde gets a small problem, I would like to point out thought that it's decently viable to start up with stun, cull and then finish with ult. Sometimes that's even favourable. It's a small cripple but not a complete counter at all. But I guess you have a point since not even all competitors are capable of thinking outside the box.

[GregerMoek]

Yes, fine. If you are sologanking something she might have troubles, something Fayde does on occation. However, I would say that most solo ganks in competitive games are done by overleveled/farmed heroes (such as an early PK Pebbles). Other than that I see few ganks that doesn't have some kind of backup unless on supports. One would think that the opposing team likes to defend their Vindicator.

But this is all situational, my main point was that sure you might counter that 225-525 damage followed up by a stun instantly but instead pushing the stun 2 seconds away. Or force Fayde to act somewhat differently. I see it as unlikely that a Fayde would sologank a Vindicator either way, considering he's often one of those who gets pooled gold and also because of that often under extra protection.


I personally think that the old Aura was even more annoying for a DR than the new passive. I might be missing something though, but a hero with a 2.5second stun has time to get combo off+ some auto attacks without getting silenced. Sure his chasing might be crippled beyond that but the same could be said about Hag in that case.



I agree though that he's one of the heroes most annoyed by the passive compared to others.

There are of course situations where the new passive beats the old aura, but I find those very rare in general and the new passive can be dealt with easier because more heroes has a stun instead of a silence/hex

[Rosgath]

I don't understand why people feel that his passive HAS to silence his opponents.

Silence on casting is bad design because in order to be effective it has to be a decently long silence, but then it hard counters chain casting heroes.

Silence on Auto-attack is even worse because your retaliating to something with a disable that doesn't prevent them from attacking again anyway.

Silence is just a bad reactive function and THAT is what the problem here is. I've posted in the other threads on this, but I think the only way for S2 to get what they want (a hero that doesn't auto counter combo heroes) and for the game to get what it needs (a hero that players can enjoy playing but isn't overly powerful in it's niche and terrible outside of that niche) is to make his passive an aura again and, instead of silencing, INCREASE THE CD OF SPELLS CAST IN THE AURA. This effectively does the same thing the old aura did, but doesn't prevent them from comboing in the first place while forcing the players to think about how they use their skills. It won't stop :vind: from getting insta-gibbed, but it may stop them from killing him and his lanemate, or they may only get his lanemate and not him. On top of that the game has a bunch of abilities that lower CD's, but NONE that increase CD's (with the possible exception of balphs ult, but technically you're trading a better ult for a longer CD so I don't feel that counts).

[GregerMoek]

Thing is, he wasn't overly powerful in his niche unless the enemy picked like when they pick Burger King meals (this combo+this combo+more combo = awesome combocombo in the combo oh, and add some extra heroes with only passives and let them lane against Vindi!)

[Anakha]

And now I wish to address the s2 response here (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showpost.php?p=14990317&postcount=2).

1. Make the hero less "annoying".

For who? If Sage's Lore was actually worth skilling (which it currently wasn't post-level 1 nerfs), then this would be somewhat valid, but as it stands - Vindicator spent more mana himself for a very negligible mana loss on the people he's casting it on.
Silencer was amazing as a defensive tri-lane support, for the simple fact that he could simply reduce the trilane supports to mere autoattacks with almost zero real burst kill potential; in recent memory, this was one of his main pick functions, to be able to shut down lanes from level 1, or put them on an even footing farm-wise.

If this is in reference to Glyph, then it's a very dangerous assumption. Do you find Witch Slayer "annoying" too, because he can disable you for so long? Vindicator is hardly the first hero or last one to be able to severely restrict the movement and flow of other heroes he is close to, and for a negligible cost.

2. Keep his relative strength

Vindicator's relative strength was complete garbage outside of his old Glyph and ult, as soon as level 1 Sage's Lore got nerfed. The hero almost instantly went from situational to complete trash except in very niche situations, and as we saw, this still wasn't enough to justify his existence.

Make no mistake here, Glaives are a terrible ability for early laning harass now (too much mana, not enough effect, puts you in very bad positions) and this whole meandering Glaives-stats build as a solo mid for farm is literally 9 years dead from a relic of a level of balance in a time long past. Glaives in lane took a further hit by Hatchet getting the ability to throw and CK, meaning there is little to no reason for a melee hero to stay next to the creep wave or in relative safety when against a Vindicator. This combined with Lore nerfs mean that Vindicator has no real way to control a lane, which ironically enough is what made him viable to take for his situational strengths in the first place.

3. Make him more active

Apparently using Lore to bleed out people before a potential teamfight, or when they were silenced to inflict maximum damage and mana loss was not considered "active", or positioning yourself correctly to still influence a fight with E, without getting stunned mindlessly and having the aura turn off was not "active" in the slightest either.
Instead, we get a 200 damage nuke on a low cooldown that you just mindlessly spam at anything, including creeps - like every other hero it seems nowadays.
"But it steals INT!?!?!" Sure, and to get any measurable level of INT - you have to hit multiple heroes multiple casts, likelihood? Very little, and this cuts into your potential DPS that you're doing it for.
So in essence, Q is a trap for teamfights as soon as you hit any respectable level of dps.
E on the other hand, has now been completely gutted in order to cause havoc on a different style of hero - one that attacks in between chaining spells. Given how few of these heroes there are, relative to the ones that old Glyph pseudo-countered - this is clearly a large departure from point 2 (keep his relative strength). Having said that, it gains 40aspd (not insignificant), but ultimately you're putting 4 points into a skill that gives you nothing discernible apart from that. Needless to say, aspd does not scale linearly and your other skills do much more for you early on, so this skill basically took a nerf on the level of Sand Wraith's Dissipate. Doctor Repulsor will cry at new Vindicator's aura, the rest are inconvenienced minorly, but last I checked, DR struggled vs Vindicator anyway - so a net change of meh there.

"His Q, Sage's Lore, was incredibly strong in the laning phase and had the potential to completely shut out certain heroes but had little to no effect on others. As the game went on, this ability became almost useless in most situations."
This is called counterpicking a lane. Vindicator, like Silencer, thrived off being able to control a lane from level 1, before a kill lane like Mag/Pyro could simply pull an IG leafblower on him from level 3. This also required the heroes themselves to stay in the lane, and allow themselves to be hit. If anything, heroes like a Magmus were encouraged to roam a fair bit and control runes for their mid, leaving the Vindicator to **** on the remaining suicide laner for a little bit (no harder), then arrive back in force with a pain train.
If the Vindicator failed to establish lane control from level 1, he would simply die over and over and over and over again from well-executed ganks. He was slow, prone to creep abuse, and has low base agi and armour as well. Clever play outplayed a Vindicator before level 1 Lore nerf. After that nerf, you could safely ignore level 1 Lore, Chalice up for instant mana and then double stun the Vindicator and kill him. Chalice mana nerf to 100 did negate that for a few heroes like Magmus and Hammer early on (had to have 40 mana left to chalice then stun) but for heroes like Pyromancer, this had little effect.

"His E, Glyph of Silence, had a similar effect. This ability rendered some heroes almost useless without Vindicator having to do anything at all. In the same tone, it had almost no effect on other heroes."
<censored>. Vindicator not having to do anything at all? Perfect positioning (and let's stress the word perfect here), despite having his aura turn off while stunned, not working on fogged targets and being incredibly glass cannon himself - counts as "not having to do anything"?
Who honestly thinks that having to anticipate and out-think the entire enemy team wanting to gun for him first and foremost every single teamfight somehow wasn't a big deal?
<censored>

"From the point of view of the Vindicator, this promoted a bit of a boring, passive playstyle, especially as the game went on."

Only to those who don't know the intricacies of what's happening.

"For the opponents, Vindicator was extremely frustrating to play against, oftentimes without providing any sort of indication of what's happening."

How is it not completely obvious what is going on if you are silenced, unless you're completely clueless (in which case, you dont know wtf is going on anyway)? Or even better, if you wanted to make it REALLY obvious, you could place a buff on heroes when they are in range of Glyph, or make the silence icon BIGGER in general.

"As for his role, he went from being used almost exclusively as a counter to being a full fledged INT carry. He could perform this role in the past but only very late game due to the Intellect stealing mechanic on his old Glyph."
No, he went from being a counterpick that could control a lane pre-Lore nerf, to a hero that you may as well have run as a carry, because he was dependant on levels and couldn't do much more than that with his pathetic laning phase other than carry. So people stuck him in a solo mid (safest lane due to uphill advantage, wards and fog cover) and went Glaives-stats or Glaives-aura if they planned on teamfighting midgame. And let's not forget, he was pathetic at it. He was less active in a lane than a ricing Medusa, and that takes some effort.

"In his new version, he reaches that point much earlier in the game. The passive attack speed bonus helps greatly here and the new Brain Drain ability steals 3 Int per target hit. Keep in mind that this ability is on a 6 second cooldown at level 4 and deals 200 damage. This spell alone makes him a lot more active throughout the game as well and he can use it to farm as well, again making him more effective earlier."

Except it takes at least 15 cast hits of level 4 drain to even get close to a reasonable amount of INT which he could build up on old Glyph by winning midgame teamfights or being present in ganks. 15 cast hits is at least a minimum of 3 hits of the WHOLE team over 18 seconds. A realistic assessment is hitting 3 at most per cast, and at that - it's taking 30 seconds. If anything, that's a nerf in INT gained - and it's interrupting his dps for a mediocre nuke.
Its only benefit is that it hits creeps for him, giving him an ability to flashfarm waves. Hey, sounds familiar...

"The new version is much less annoying to play against and forces your enemy to think about how they need to play against you. Heroes like Fayde, Wretched Hag and Flint Beastwood have to adjust their playstyle to be able to play effectively against the new Vindicator. In addition, since he scales earlier, he's a bigger threat and thus a focus for the enemy team, which silences them."

As opposed to the old one? What? The new one basically promotes all those combo gankers, which HoN encourages and proliferates in the same vein as a Pebbles, to basically jump on the Vindicator asap before he clicks his ultimate and combo stun him to death.
We've already discussed the scaling earlier - which isn't realistic unless you're skilling into less useful skills - which affects your gameplay very negatively until then. As for being a bigger focus, he already was the BIGGEST focus on a team. He disrupts gameplay and game flow by simply smashing R in teamfights, and that aspect hasn't changed. Only now, there's a reasonable chance of killing him beforehand, whereas before that wasn't the case. So nowadays, he builds the same (tanky), stands in the same places (where he can safely hit people, and not get stomped on - only now he clicks Drain on people every 6 seconds instead of Lore on people every 15 seconds.

More active? No. More important to focus? No. Easier to carry with? No. Easier to impact games meaningfully with? No. Easier to control a lane with, like he was intended?

Easier to focus? Yes. Easier to farm with? Yes. Easier to play? Yes. Easier to understand? Yes.

This hero is now a generic ranged carry with an aoe nuke, a passive with meaningless tacked-on "utility", a scaling autoattack orb and one decent skill.

A mere shadow of his old self.

EDIT: you know what, **** you cunts.

[Sherwood]

By making Vindicator a more interesting hero to actively play and less of hard counter to 60% (imaginary statistic) of the hero pool, they've made him a less desirable hero in a team setup sense.

It's gone from humans not wanting to play him to team not wanting to have him.
His Ultimate is very good as it's the only silence that goes through Shrunken Head, but it means more often or not you'd prefer having a Puppet Master. Vindicator is pretty much an auto attacky version of Soul Reaper minus the pushing power (ability comparison, not actual carry power).

On the plus side, he is no longer wrongly thought of being a support.

I *like* the new Vindicator, but I don't like feeling unwanted because I am not quite the hero my team had desired.

[Ogrim]

honestly, i think the best thing they can do at this point is to just revert the E change and keep the Q change.

[Orchest]

Reposted from reception thread:


Originally Posted by foxmindedguy
Err... You do need to realize that HON needs to make the game somewhat catered towards the general public. Regardless of whatever they claim about their balancing formula (being completely based on competitive insight), a major chunk of money they make is still amateur people.

This is not the LOL approach, this is a smart business approach. In LOL even a lame steamer gets more views than the toppest HON player? Why? Because catering to the needs of the masses is equally (if not more) important than listening to the competitive insight.

S2 can claim all they want about them only taking professional view into consideration, the voice of the masses does affect them.

Vindicator was a disabler, which made the game bland and boring. People want constant action, thus a good change. Now all we need is to work out a few kinks in the hero.

There are two distinct points in your post. The first: HoN needs to be balanced to suit lower tier players. The second: Vindicator was a disabler and disablers make the game bland and boring. I'm going to pretend the second one was actually that Vindicator as a hero made the game bland and boring, since trying to argue that disables (and therefore disablers) make the game bland and boring is a little tricky, since disables are pretty much what drives action in the game (effects on the opponent which negate their freedom of action are necessary to execute your own plans - in their absence, the friction of the two plans' interplay makes for unworkably messy interraction and people avoid it in favour of easier courses of action like farming carries).

Back to the first. Whether or not this is the case (because fundamentally I think that having a balanced low level game is an excellent idea, so long as the impact it has on high level is minimal) is slightly irrelevant, because underpowered or unplayably niche heroes at a low level don't matter since you don't have to pick them, and if they aren't picked, they don't influence the game. Since having the other team pick an underpowered hero benefits you, and you don't need to pick that hero, your enjoyment of the game should never be impinged on by the presence of underpowered heroes so long as the pool of viable (ie. high pub tier) heroes is larger than the number of picks (or picks+bans). The actual issue at hand is that the determinants for pub viability do not align to a healthy spread of unique capabilities for high level play - Vindicator, for example, has always been hamstrung in pub play by a very high reliance on co-ordination and teamwork (no stronk pub heroes have this because the entire point of pubs is that it lacks these). In a team setting, old Vindicator was known to be viable, and even gamebreaking in the right drafts, but was never NEVER known to be a game altering hero in pubs.

Further on the case of Vindicator, he's not seeing comp play at the moment because he can't keep up with the pace of the early-midgame compared to any of the carries or semicarries, and offers no utility as a hard or secondary support (he plays 3 or higher priority in high level DotA as a rule). S2's solution was to reduce his farm requirements to carry, because apparently pubs enjoy carrying, and right now comp play is based primarily around what impact you have with a small core, and how efficiently and effectively you can turn the resources you get from that early-mid impact into something mid and late game. The fact that Vindicator wasn't good in this environment is not grounds for forever removing the unique capabilities he brought to the game (anti-comboing, for those not getting what we're talking about).

I'm not going to pretend for a second that old Vindicator/Silencer doesn't have elements in his design that we would probably class as problems on a release hero, but as we've always argued on this forum, those were outweighed by the amount of good that just his passive alone brought to the game in terms of strategic choice. At length we've discussed it several times on IRC, and ultimately we come to the conclusion every time that his Orb is a horrid skill that should only be left as is because of nostalgia value (for reference, giving pretty much the same skill to a hero with a better skillset for carrying, better mobility, better stats and none of the limitations of it being an orb - Shadowblade, still results in mediocre outcomes). Vindicator's orb was at odds with EVERY part of the hero - even with the improbable reality of huge amounts of farm he was a shitty carry because he couldn't generate time on target, and yet he operated quite well with his other abilities, except for the (pub) retards who insisted on building Treads-Midas into Hellflower then came to the balance forum to whinge and complain about his vulnerabilities.

So let's link that back - old Vindi was not what pubs wanted. Players want things that are not good for the game as a whole, because they have a very limited perspective on the game based around what's happening right now. Altering design to give players what they want right now is not healthy in the long run, and in this specific case has culled a unique capability from the game and pushed another hero into being made of the same bland and samey crap that generates win conditions by producing large and easily comparable numbers,

Now let's talk about the second point - that old Vindicator's design encouraged boring games (because if you knew how to play Vindicator properly, and were playing with a team, he was an incredibly interesting hero to play as).

Let's analyse this for a second, because there is a kernal of truth - Vindicator is a hero who has traditionally favoured heavily defensive strategies, but it's not because of his aura. In a given draft, Vindicator is usually picked up to add a stall element, that's primarily because of the huge potential for counter-initiation his ult offers right through the midgame. His aura's disruption played a part in this, but was hugely secondary compared to the big "STOP - HAMMERTIME" his ult offers in a defensive fight near rax. Essentially, in a proper team game team fight, his ultimate is the biggest midgame get out of jail free card for a team in HoN (in DotA, that dubious title goes to Ravage). When you pick Vindi for this huge (and intact) capability, you pick him for the sheer amount of aversion it creates to offensive teamfights midgame - "No, **** you, you're going to need way more of a lead on us to make this work." You then synergise this with a team who can exploit the longer game.

Now, I'm not going straight out and saying this is good or bad, because it's a bit of both, what I am saying is that the Vindicator rework missed the point.

People have always found the disruption of aura annoying, and we've always commented that it makes the hero hard (not impossible, but hard) to balance conventionally - and it's true that a properly played Vindicator can viciously counter some heroes but these are actually a good thing, since you need picks that are focussed on altering enemy freedom of action to have a healthy drafting phase, and internal control mechanisms already made Vindicator achieving this in a way that mattered require a very high degree of relative skill (but it wasn't a skillshot so people didn't really perceive it as such). People always found his CotS annoying, and it was true that against some heroes it couldn't be directly countered, just as Aura couldn't be directly countered. But I'll quote Anakha to demonstrate why this is really a healthy thing for the game as a whole, for reference, he's talking about the interraction between Hammerstorm and CotS:



Originally Posted by Anakha
2 second stun at level 1. The world is your playground.
Shaping the game so that everyone can use the same tactics to counter everyone is just arse lazy design. S2 is slowly reducing the diversity of their game rather than growing it or developing it - a hero like Vindicator who forced people to alter their tactics was a good thing in this respect - having elements like this that actually change the ruleset to force a significantly different game to emerge are really good as long as they have commensurate weaknesses that you can exploit with the different tactics. In Vindicator's case, CotS and Aura were impossible to conventionally counter for many heroes, but the innate fragility of the hero allowed robust options to counter it in other ways. In the example given, Hammerstorm CANNOT conventionally lane against a Vindicator, but if the Hammerstorm does not attempt to conventionally lane against the Vindicator and his team shifts their tactics to ganking the Vindicator, the weakness/strength relationship is reversed since the relative strengths/weaknesses of the two sets of capabilities are brought to bare on different points of the sets. (As a side note, the unchanged ultimate doesn't follow this pattern, since the only counters are item based (due to global range and targetting scheme), and since the fundamental purpose of drafting for the ultimate is because you want a slower game yourself, it plays into a really stupid cycle).

This sort of thing is really healthy. Every day on several of the subforums, people complain that the tactical repertoire of the entire HoN community is too small. Yet this is only partially a reflection on the players - since the tools they're being given to shape strategy and tactics are becoming more and more similar, the fact that their playstyles remain very similar should come as little surprise. This is something that DotA has always done better, and that's something that's been emphasised on this forum by a few people since closed beta.

So, in essence on your last point, CotS and Aura might seem bland and boring if you're trying to play Vindicator as Silhouette or Magebane, but they're actually the opposite of bland or boring if you're viewing the game as a team game anywhere from the mid to the high levels. Ultimately what is bland and boring is releasing dozens of heroes that offer similar capabilities, resulting in similar capabilities being in every game, and every game forcing similar gameplay styles and tactics as a result.

This final point distinctly reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend once about potato chips and the word original. Growing up, my friend (and myself, but it's his observation) had always thought the word original had meant plain or boring - most similar to everything else, because on every mass marketed consumable "Original Flavour" meant the one that isn't based on other flavours, and which isn't marketted based on a gimicky name (eg. Original chips, original icecream, original Fisherman's Friends vs. BBQ chips, Phish Food icecream). It wasn't until he (we) got older and became interested in the art, music and, most interestingly, Scotch that he came to view the word original in a more complete and actual sense - while original does mean the master copy from which all other variants are based, in any artform, an original is the prime work of creation (as opposed to copying, appriopriating or modifying) which is more different and unique than any subsequent products. In other words, the original is the opposite of bland or boring - the more original something is, the less it's like things you've seen before, and therefore, intuitively, the less bland and boring it should seem to you.

This relates to the current situation as follows: When Guinsoo and Icefrog developped DotA, the elements they added were each "originals" in their own right - a hero like Silencer or Ophelia is not readily comparable to anything else. The elements that S2 have added are more like variations on a theme who all do similar things in similar or only slightly different ways - they are defined by how people will use them (carry, support blah blah blah). This is also abundantly clear with items - S2 will never have the creative spark to put an item as original as Smoke into HoN to achieve the great things that Icefrog did with it. The Vindicator rework is so shocking because it is them unmaking a work of creative insight to put something samey in place of it - like pulling down an innovative restaurant to put a McDonalds in, or washing the paint off a priceless painting so you can print a movie poster onto it. The effect of making elements in a game more similar is more profound, since the game is based on how you play it, and the relative difference of the elements informs how differently you can play it - by changing the low level elements, you have a greatly multiplied effect on the high level ones. HoN already suffers from a dirge of original and viable capabilities - changes like this ultimately have a very profound and largely negative impact on the scope for original play.

That's bad.

[Rosgath]

That's bad.

I cut most of your post because well.. . . it was a lot of text and was a short essay. I did read the whole thing though and it did bring up a really huge point. S2 changed a hero who had a very original playstyle to one who now has a generic playstyle. Previously, :vind: was a carry who WANTED to participate in teamfights specifically because that's how he'd get all his damage. You built with a decent amount of survivability then had him hang out with the team so that when you did kill people he got the bonus int and could play a viable carry. His new skillset has turned him into a farmbot just like all the other carries except he doesn't even have team presence anymore excluding his ultimate.

I don't think the incarnation of his old aura was good design, as I've said before. I know having good positioning and staying alive on a hero who's so fragile as :vind: is tough, but the aura was excessively powerful against certain heroes. It did next to nothing against one shot wonder heroes like MQ, DW, and Swift but, those were the exception to the rule. Most heroes would need to cast multiple times to be effect and even against heroes who didn't rely on casting those spells in quick succession where still affected by his aura. I feel like the aura itself was decently balanced, but poorly implemented as it prevent heroes like Midas from even playing effectively. I do feel that the change in this aura was at least to a certain extent because S2 was tired of designing heroes that would never get played BECAUSE of the aura, but that's a personal opinion and has little to do with what I think on the balance concerns of the change.
I don't think I'd be as frustrated by this change if he still stole int from enemies on death. At least then he would still be encouraged to play a little differently from a normal carry.

I never considered that Master's Incantation was the source of the problem with his skill build, but as i look at it more it makes more sense. It never really meshed very well with his Q nor his ultimate. It was the odd man out there. The fact that S2 opted to change his entire playstyle to work around this skill seems kinda dumb really as you already had 3 skills that had decent (though far from excellent) synergy.

[GregerMoek]

The thing is, good drafting and/or item pickups can deal with Vindicator. Hellflower is a very popular pickup and worked wonders against a Vindicator, silencing the silencer is funnily the way to deal with him.

Also, as the point with Hammerstorm was, you could actually adress him early game to become just another level 8 with no items and barely any effect on the game except for ult. If you decided to actually adress it, that is, if you're playing like normal against the old Vindicator you're going to get shat on. It's like playing normal 1v1 against a Devourer, you'll get hooked like a bau5 if you play normally against him.

Also, since you mentioned it. I'm pretty sure you're right when you're saying that S2 got mad when all their heroes are combo heroes and that they would be "countered" by this little beauty, you also claimed they'd never be picked with Vindicator in the game. Well, look at Midas, look at MK, look at Silhouette. Look at Pandamonium and Pebbles, Chipper... It isn't really that simple to just pick a Vindicator and win as people make it out to be, you have to plan ahead to pick a Vindicator in terms of laning(one of his sometimes weakest phases). The fact that not many competitors picked Vindicator even during the Midas' main popularity period is proof of this.

[Antimodus]

To put it simply emphasis in this game has been steadily moving from 'tactical' to 'rapidfire button mashing' or 'twitch' type skills. Case in point: heroes like Nomad and MK.
I guess old Vindi kind of got in the way of that.

What I don't understand is why didn't they just delete the hero. His new version doesn't add much of anything to the game, why not delete and give his ult to some completely new hero, perhaps one that's not a carry, since this is a superb support ult. This new Vindi's QE skills have "bland" and "generic" written all over them.

[Vascariz]

This new Vindi's QE skills have "bland" and "generic" written all over them.

I would dispute the silence on attack has is bland or generic. However, as noted it does not work cohesively with the rest of his spells, with his base stats or his playstyle.

I'm more of the opinion it needs further re-working rather than being abandoned. Something between the current silence on attack and the silence on cast aura.

I'm thinking silence on damage taken by Vindicator is the more appropriate route. Meaning the enemy heroes can chain cast their spells if properly positioned to avoid Vindicator but target other members of his team. They are completely locked out of the fight because they cast a spell nearby.

Also means Vindi truly has to be in the middle of the fight, not hiding out in the fringes, for the full benefit of the skill.

I hope this is not taken as a suggestion but as a general comment on where the old and new abilities sit in relation to each other and his impact in a team fight.

[aeowulf]

I was starting to wonder if I was arguing out of bias, but with Anakha posted, I feel somewhat vindicated in my defense of the old Vindicator.

Vindicator was not a hard counter to any hero that I can think of, most of the hate can be blamed squarely on that lazy and indifferent players who failed to adjust.

Players that stood next to each other, players that didn't pick up low mana cost counters to sages, players that made bad lane compositions, players that didn't buy power supply after they knew they had an aggressive Vindicator in the lane, and players that thought the only option to a level 1 sage's lore was to cast a spell rather than lose 50 mana are the reason Vindicator was hated.

Sage's was an annoying mechanic? Invisibility is an annoying mechanic that provides ludicrous survivability when un-countered seeing that it is always coupled with a speed boost, does that mean S2 should remove all forms of invisibility because players are too lazy to buy dust or revelation wards? I don't think so.

That being said, I wouldn't have minded a proper rework of the hero. As much as I loved playing old Vindicator, he was a niche pick to most players. S2 dropped the ball with this rework, they had an opportunity to give an iconic hero their own twist, but instead chose to churn out another bland carry-themed rework (Kraken and KotF welcome your new boring mechanic reworked-brethren).

[Antimodus]

this latest sheepstick nerf is another nail in the coffin for this guy.

[da_fume]

Delicious posts from Anakha and Orchest, too bad they will be ignored by the powers that be. This change was completely unnecessary.

[Rosgath]

The thing is, good drafting and/or item pickups can deal with Vindicator. Hellflower is a very popular pickup and worked wonders against a Vindicator, silencing the silencer is funnily the way to deal with him.

Also, as the point with Hammerstorm was, you could actually adress him early game to become just another level 8 with no items and barely any effect on the game except for ult. If you decided to actually adress it, that is, if you're playing like normal against the old Vindicator you're going to get shat on. It's like playing normal 1v1 against a Devourer, you'll get hooked like a bau5 if you play normally against him.

Also, since you mentioned it. I'm pretty sure you're right when you're saying that S2 got mad when all their heroes are combo heroes and that they would be "countered" by this little beauty, you also claimed they'd never be picked with Vindicator in the game. Well, look at Midas, look at MK, look at Silhouette. Look at Pandamonium and Pebbles, Chipper... It isn't really that simple to just pick a Vindicator and win as people make it out to be, you have to plan ahead to pick a Vindicator in terms of laning(one of his sometimes weakest phases). The fact that not many competitors picked Vindicator even during the Midas' main popularity period is proof of this.

I know you can't play new :vind: like old :vind:. His whole playstyle has changed. And to address the issue in your last paragraph, the reason :vind: still wasn't picked even when Midas was crazy popular is because :vind: wasn't strong enough outside of countering a combo hero to justify taking him as a pick before. His Sage's Lore is actually countered early by picking up mana potions (much like BH who's countered by a 135 gold consumable, :vind:'s early game is countered by a 50 gold consumable. Pub's just didn't realize it) so the only real reasons you'd take him would be his aura to counter chain casters and his ult to break up initiations. Since there are other ways to break up initiations without requiring a hero to be virtually worthless outside of that you didn't need to ban or pick him all that often specifically because he was, at least in competitive play, just an aura stick. Not to mention that most combo heroes are still counterable with BKB.


I was starting to wonder if I was arguing out of bias, but with Anakha posted, I feel somewhat vindicated in my defense of the old Vindicator.

Vindicator was not a hard counter to any hero that I can think of, most of the hate can be blamed squarely on that lazy and indifferent players who failed to adjust.

Players that stood next to each other, players that didn't pick up low mana cost counters to sages, players that made bad lane compositions, players that didn't buy power supply after they knew they had an aggressive Vindicator in the lane, and players that thought the only option to a level 1 sage's lore was to cast a spell rather than lose 50 mana are the reason Vindicator was hated.

Sage's was an annoying mechanic? Invisibility is an annoying mechanic that provides ludicrous survivability when un-countered seeing that it is always coupled with a speed boost, does that mean S2 should remove all forms of invisibility because players are too lazy to buy dust or revelation wards? I don't think so.

That being said, I wouldn't have minded a proper rework of the hero. As much as I loved playing old Vindicator, he was a niche pick to most players. S2 dropped the ball with this rework, they had an opportunity to give an iconic hero their own twist, but instead chose to churn out another bland carry-themed rework (Kraken and KotF welcome your new boring mechanic reworked-brethren).

The only thing I'm gonna say here is that Invis is not ALWAYS accompanied by a large speed boost. NH does not have a large speed boost with his ult, but he does have a pseudo-blink. Other than that I have no issues with your statement

[GregerMoek]

I'm pretty sure that not only one pot would help, moreover. If competitors were to pick a Blood Hunter they wouldn't go sologanking with it (sologanking barely happens) making the "TP counters BH" example kinda lame. It's like saying TP counters Slither or any hero with no stun/ministun.

Okay so you lore a target, target uses spell (let's say it's Pebbles) which cuts mana pool in half. Then uses a pot which lasts for 15 seconds and restores in total 100 mana. Spell costs 120 mana and it's likely that at least 5 mana got drained before he used his spell. If he chose to not use spell on a level 3 Lore he'll lose 91 mana and around 140 hp (reductions). Lore has 15 seconds cooldown.

You'll have to buy more than one pot. It's like saying Magebane is countered by a Pot or that every hero that can harrass in the game is countered by a health pot.

[painkiller`]

I know you can't play new :vind: like old :vind:. His whole playstyle has changed. And to address the issue in your last paragraph, the reason :vind: still wasn't picked even when Midas was crazy popular is because :vind: wasn't strong enough outside of countering a combo hero to justify taking him as a pick before.

Do you even know why :mida: became "crazy popular"? I'll give you a hint; it wasn't because he could combo-nuke heroes down, and look at why he isn't picked anymore. Once you've figured it out, think about why :vind:'s existence didn't matter towards that cause.


His Sage's Lore is actually countered early by picking up mana potions (much like BH who's countered by a 135 gold consumable, :vind:'s early game is countered by a 50 gold consumable. Pub's just didn't realize it) so the only real reasons you'd take him would be his aura to counter chain casters and his ult to break up initiations.

Lol. Ok.

Except that mana pots restore less than you lost, and you cannot keep ferrying yourself mana pots AND staying out of harass range so that they can tick for their full value against a team that knows what's up.

And those two things that you just pointed out, his Q and E, were there so that he wouldn't be completely useless early-mid game while he's building himself up for late game. Yes, old-:vind: was a mid-late game hero unless played as a support (a role he was terrible at anyway).


Since there are other ways to break up initiations without requiring a hero to be virtually worthless outside of that you didn't need to ban or pick him all that often specifically because he was, at least in competitive play, just an aura stick. Not to mention that most combo heroes are still counterable with BKB.

Except that for heroes like :temp:, :vind: WAS banned for a long time before competitors realised that heroes like :phar: and :hell: could do the same thing without needing as much farm as him to remain relevant as the game went on. Then :hell: suffered the same "how do we lane a hero without escapes" during the hyper gank meta, and "not enough lane presence" in the tanky meta with the death boil nerf, which is why you don't see him anymore either. He has the same "walking ultimate" syndrome because he's also played purely as support instead of a semi-tanky-carry.

And how do you know what he was in competitive play when he saw none? And and BKB is not a counter for combo heroes because the whole point of a combo-hero is to take you out before you can react. That's why you still get mystic vestments against :pebb: even if you're gettig BKB afterwards.

/cluestick

[Rosgath]

Do you even know why :mida: became "crazy popular"? I'll give you a hint; it wasn't because he could combo-nuke heroes down, and look at why he isn't picked anymore. Once you've figured it out, think about why :vind:'s existence didn't matter towards that cause.



Lol. Ok.

Except that mana pots restore less than you lost, and you cannot keep ferrying yourself mana pots AND staying out of harass range so that they can tick for their full value against a team that knows what's up.

And those two things that you just pointed out, his Q and E, were there so that he wouldn't be completely useless early-mid game while he's building himself up for late game. Yes, old-:vind: was a mid-late game hero unless played as a support (a role he was terrible at anyway).



Except that for heroes like :temp:, :vind: WAS banned for a long time before competitors realised that heroes like :phar: and :hell: could do the same thing without needing as much farm as him to remain relevant as the game went on. Then :hell: suffered the same "how do we lane a hero without escapes" during the hyper gank meta, and "not enough lane presence" in the tanky meta with the death boil nerf, which is why you don't see him anymore either. He has the same "walking ultimate" syndrome because he's also played purely as support instead of a semi-tanky-carry.

And how do you know what he was in competitive play when he saw none? And and BKB is not a counter for combo heroes because the whole point of a combo-hero is to take you out before you can react. That's why you still get mystic vestments against :pebb: even if you're gettig BKB afterwards.

/cluestick

Ok I'm sorry I just have to address the glaring flaws in your post.

1.) Yes I know that Midas was not picked for his burst damage. He was picked because he had a.)healing, b.) respectable damage c.) disables and d.) mobility all without sacrificing any of the above categories. He's a jack of all trades hero much like MoA, but he didn't suffer any penalties for his versatility. Sure, :vind: only countered Midas' ability to disable and to deal respectable damage and not his ability to heal way too much AND have a crap ton of mobility, but those aren't the only reasons people didn't pick up :vind: to counter Midas. I stated why in a previous post, but apparently you only read what you want to read.

2.)For rank 1 and 2 of sage's lore a mana pot did restore more mana than was burned (assuming you didn't panic cast to get rid of :vind:'s burn and spend more than would've been burned anyway). A good player (one who's obviously higher rated than you) also knows how to cover their mana pot and still stay in XP range, even against someone who had such long range harassment like :vind:.

3.) Your referring to way back when the meta was AoE teamfight right? with :temp:? Tempest is still banned because his ultimate is pretty much universally broken, he has about as much pushing power as keeper, and he has probably the most annoying stun in game. Notice how :vind: wasn't banned nearly as often as temp? That's because you counter picked :vind: by not picking combo heroes. Simple as that.

4.) He did see some competitive play, but not very much. Try not to overgeneralize.

Edit: This is the last time I'll post in response to this stuff. It's getting off-topic.

[Anakha]

"He was picked because he had a.)healing, b.) respectable damage c.) disables and d.) mobility all without sacrificing any of the above categories."

Nope, nope, nope, and nope. Nice try.

[painkiller`]

...

The problem is we're both on the same side of the fence but you don't understand why you're on this side of the fence. Like Anakha just pointed out, you're wrong.

And the reason this is NOT off-topic is because we're trying to establish WHY the old :vind: was good so that the higher up people at S2 see it because apparently they haven't managed to, or have grasped the wrong idea ... much like you.

[china]

I would again like to point out, months in the making. Months, as in roughly 20+ work days per month, and around 8 work hours per day. You took your sweet time to make this so it makes you wonder, what was the process like. What exactly happens in the SBT? Is it full of sheep who dare not to speak against ideas that they think are bad OR is it this dictatorship where you can speak your mind all you want but your word has no worth and at the end of the day, one S2 guy makes the changes he feels are good or which he likes?

The reception for this remake is almost entirely negative and its backed up with good points by a lot of people, so in what part of the process was this received so positively that you decided to go with this version? I'm assuming there were more than one version, right?

Before pretty much giving up on spoonfeeding S2 feedback and balance input, I told Nome the Vindicator remake was garbage, had a terrible premise/purpose, and was pretty much one-dimensional trash.

I remember that I was one of maybe 3 people in a 3-4 page thread that thought that, and I think I was one of the first to just say: "You're doing this because you want to make it easier for your heroes to match-up against him."

I'm glad some of you think he's garbage too. S2, I hope you're reading this. Design process is pretty much balls-in-mouth-feet-in-air. Get good, pls.

[Tyrannate]

Vindicator is a fine hero. People will find a reason to complain about everything new.

I mean, look at how pathetic the whining is and was.

"Salforis is trash"
"Cthuluphant is just a weak Magmus"
"Magebane is garbage"
"Geomancer shouldn't have been created"
"Draconis is just a weak Forsaken Archer"

I don't know if it's hip and acceptable to be negative, even when you turn out to be utterly wrong in the end. It seems like the only people considered dumbasses are the ones who are optimistic about something fresh. But really, the true dumbasses are the ones who constantly suppress anything unproven: conformists, dimwits, heard-dwellers, who are afraid to try anything new until some adventurous pro decides to champion a strategy or hero and makes it work. You'll be considered wise on this forum if follow popular opinion, to call everything "garbage" until proven wrong, and recant later. In my eyes, those people - not the optimists - are the truly foolish. Animals.

[GregerMoek]

We never claimed that the new hero is UNBALANCED, but there's no denying he's less unique now. Is it?

[GregerMoek]

Enlighten us then why the rework was awesome, cool and made the hero provide more to the drafting stage of the game while also being just as impactful as before? ;);)

Sometimes there is a reason why an opinion is popular. ^^ I'm not denying that the new hero can be powerful even in this concept, that is not the reason for whining about it. It's that we're removing a big drafting element and in essence making the picking phase a bit more bland. :-D

It is also very fun to play carries, get farmed and beat on someone with big auto attacks, does that mean that we should change every single hero to an auto attacker that can farm? Because everyone loves high auto attack crits. :D

This hero went from unique to less unique and from a disruptor to a glasscannon with strong ult. Why is this a good move, oh positive one? :)

Oh and yeah, being positive for the sake of being positive is awesome! <(^_^)>

[aeowulf]

Don't troll balance discussion Tyrannate, especially when you are bad at it.

As far as concerns for the reworked vindicator, hes even more vulnerable than before with very little upshot aside from a normalized early game.

Hes still the slowest hero in the game without a control mechanic or speed boost.

His Q is much easier to use, but a low cooldown, low damage aoe skill is going to be inherently worse in teamfights than a higher dmg, higher CD skill. (The proponents of the new spammable Q: assume you're not dead, not controlled, not out of range, not having to delay the cast for any reason and not otherwise unable to use it to maximum effect during an entire team fight) Make it stronger and more difficult to use. Its not a hard concept.

His E is rough. Passive bonuses are boring, and they usually either give a fantastic effect (40 attack speed is alright, nothing amazing) or a nice side bonus (His current one is not nice at all) with a decent effect. For making the hero more 'active', you sure made his E even less skill based than before. (Explanation! :Prior to the change positioning yourself to achieve maximum effect with E wasn't difficult, but it factored in, and now his E requires zero thought as opposed to a little.)

Edit: Also I like how 16% of the playerbase actually likes new Vindicator and finds him 'interesting', I'd imagine this is 16% with most played Flint, Warbeast, and Magebane

[Rosgath]

Vindicator is a fine hero. People will find a reason to complain about everything new.

I mean, look at how pathetic the whining is and was.

"Salforis is trash"
"Cthuluphant is just a weak Magmus"
"Magebane is garbage"
"Geomancer shouldn't have been created"
"Draconis is just a weak Forsaken Archer"

I don't know if it's hip and acceptable to be negative, even when you turn out to be utterly wrong in the end. It seems like the only people considered dumbasses are the ones who are optimistic about something fresh. But really, the true dumbasses are the ones who constantly suppress anything unproven: conformists, dimwits, heard-dwellers, who are afraid to try anything new until some adventurous pro decides to champion a strategy or hero and makes it work. You'll be considered wise on this forum if follow popular opinion, to call everything "garbage" until proven wrong, and recant later. In my eyes, those people - not the optimists - are the truly foolish. Animals.

Just to prove to you that we're not being negative, I'll list both pros and cons of the new :vind: in comparison to the old :vind:

Old Vindicator
~~Pros~~
-Strong early game lane presence
-Powerful defensive aura that remains relevant throughout the majority of the game
-Strong, if difficult to use effectively, scaling function through permanently stealing int
-Gamebreakingly powerful ultimate
~~Cons~~
-Slow. STUPID slow. He is the ONLY hero in game with less than 300 MS with no mobility enhancing abilities or mobility impairing abilities.
-His first skill tapers off quickly against the majority of the hero pool and only remains relevant against certain specific heroes (Devo).
-Provided little outside of his aura and ultimate if he couldn't steal large amounts of int and had no viable way to farm quickly.
New Vindicator
~~Pros~~
-New brain drain is much more powerful as a skill throughout the game as it still provides the ability to limit an enemies mana pool to a minor extent and provides much more damage later in the game.
-His new first skill provides a great farming tool, allowing him to clear stacked jungle neutrals which he couldn't effectively do before
-New passive gives him much needed AS. Arguably a large reason that was holding :vind: from being considered a more mainstream hard carry before the change.
~~Cons~~
-His new passive silence is abysmal. It's even more niche and it's not even as strong as it was before in the smaller niche that it fills now
-Due to the loss of any strong defensive functions, he's now gank bait in most situations.
-His Brain Drain doesn't allow him to build damage outside of engaging enemy heroes. This leaves him especially vulnerable to ganks as he can't even fight back effectively even if his opponents don't disable him to death.
-His new Brain Drain also doesn't grant nearly as much damage to his attacks as his old int steal did in a live fire situation. Theoretically he can get enormous bonus damage, but it's not logistically feasible.
-New :vind: plays very much like a generic carry. The old :vind: had a unique playstyle which, sadly, was disposed of in favor of an easier more well known playstyle.

Clear enough for ya?

[BlackDrag]

This problem is on a much larger scale. It seems like s2 has decided to turn StarCraft2 type of a game into some sort of Street Fighter button masher (because obviously it is fun). With every new addition/change to hero pool, the game gets dumbed down more and more. In every game there is a TONKY DPS ( :cthu::arma::zeph::amun::tort: ) that does not need and damage items in order to make damage (bs concept that only could possibly work on heroes like :defi::soulr:), a semi-carry semi-ganker with semi-escape semi-mechanism hybrid-pr0-1337 :silh::monk::valk::fayd::drun::noma::emer: and ofc a sidekick :glac:/:mona:/:plag: because landing big semisemitonky skillshots is hard. Situational picks are "boring", no one deserves getting handled for firstpicking some cheesy ****, right? It all comes down to the brainless buttonmashing: you mash 2 buttons to instagib creepwaves, you mash same buttons to instagib heroes, you just keep on mashing them in order to farm the same crap every single game, :Shieldbreaker: if semi semi semi, :SolsBulwark::HelmOfTheBlackLegio if t0nk, :TabletOfCommand: if support and :MysticVestments: on everything. Every new addition to the hero pool should also have the secondary effect MS boost on some skill, because movespeed is totally not the part of balance, some heroes are faster than the others just for lulz. This is just totally wrong, the game should not be balanced in this way, i hope you guys will agree.
TL;DR Counterpick heroes are good, semigankersemicarrysemitonksemisupport hybrids are not.

P.S. That is my personal opinion based on the experience of playing nublics and watching streams.

[pewpewstar]

Now an epitome of a walking ultimate hero, nothing to see here. There are better nukers, better autoattack ranged carries and better disrupters.

[sho_Opao]

I remember that I was one of maybe 3 people in a 3-4 page thread that thought that, and I think I was one of the first to just say: "You're doing this because you want to make it easier for your heroes to match-up against him."


THIS. SO MUCH THIS. For a while, I was fighting against that Vindi rework...there was NO NEED TO CHANGE HIM EXCEPT FOR THIS PARTICULAR REASON. People just want their heroes to have as chill a time laning as possible.

[GregerMoek]

Yeah, most important phase of the game should be chill! :P

[PlayeroJ]

Before pretty much giving up on spoonfeeding S2 feedback and balance input, I told Nome the Vindicator remake was garbage, had a terrible premise/purpose, and was pretty much one-dimensional trash.

I remember that I was one of maybe 3 people in a 3-4 page thread that thought that, and I think I was one of the first to just say: "You're doing this because you want to make it easier for your heroes to match-up against him."

I'm glad some of you think he's garbage too. S2, I hope you're reading this. Design process is pretty much balls-in-mouth-feet-in-air. Get good, pls.

Respect. Much respect -_-

edit: I cried after vindi reworks. repeal them nao!1

[Ninaran]

Was there any reason from competitive point of view, to rework Vindicator?

I don't really think so, the only reason seems to be "Anti-Fun".

This isn't LoL.

[OJPhoenix]

:vind: feels a lot more balanced than he did before, his old Q and E were way way too effective at what they did. Not to mention they were useless in other situations, mostly Q outside of the laning phase entirely.

That part of the change pleases me. However I feel he has been left a bit underpowered. His carrying capacity should be about right, being left mostly the same without the potential for endless INT steal but at least now he can farm a bit and gets +40 attack speed.

Still, he is a carry with minimal farm, mana dependancy, low movement speed, absolutely no way to chase opponents down and almost no means to escape opponents. I'd need to actually take a look at the list of heroes to see if there is another carry who lacks as much as Vindicator does. Wouldn't be a problem if he made up for it by being thoroughly amazing at something, but he isn't any more.

Had a quick look at the list and these 2 stood out a bit by being close but
:bloo: Bloodhunter has base 320 movement speed and can ult someone chasing him
:souls: Soulstealer hits like an absolute truck done right
No carry has slow movespeed no chasing and no escaping capacity without something to show for it, except Vindi; that says something to me. (probably missed something though)

[smurfberrys]

Was there any reason from competitive point of view, to rework Vindicator?

I don't really think so, the only reason seems to be "Anti-Fun".

This isn't LoL.

That's exactly what I was reminded of when I read the reasoning behind the rework.

Vindi hardly ruined pubs either.

[PrestonLee]

this change was horrible, you basically took out every single reason to even pick vindicator except his global ult.

no more mana drain, no more situational silence aura countering (new passive silence is garbage, seems like whatever idiot designed it just completely randomly threw it together without thought), no more scaling int steal per kill to encourage being active in ganks/team fights early on for a big payoff later game.

in my opinion the old vindi's most appealing trait was that he could play a more supportive role throughout the entire early/mid game phase and get big by stealing int from ganks/teamfights, then turn into a monster later even with supportive/defensive pickups, just by how much extra Int he would have by endgame.

Now you just made him into another trash ranged farm-dependant semicarry, oh but he has an aoe farming tool to farm with now. Cool! no just kidding, he's a piece of trash that's even more situational now than he was before. Pretty one-dimensional trash design that can't even do a decent support job anymore, seems like he was made to cater dumb scrub morons who have no idea about the more delicate intricacies that make this game interesting (..oh wait, that includes the retards who made the change in the first place).

I am disappoint s2, I am disappoint.

[AtheistGod]

His E seems near useless now. The best part of Vindicator was the effect his silences had on team fights. Sure his Q is more reliable overall and actually useful for team fights, but the impact of Vindicator is completely gone. At this point grabbing E over stats seems like something you'd only want to do when you are winning so heavily that all you care about is damage. He was already the squishiest hero in the game, then you remove his only defensive ability?

I don't think the Q change was bad. Being a low cooldown nuke is much more reliable throughout the game. It's weaker in the laning phase and can't shut heroes down, but actually being worth casting in team fights and past the 20 minute mark outweighs that.

The change vindicator deserved in an attempt to get him to see more play was to increase his movespeed. Making it so he doesn't get outrun by almost every hero on top of no disables or escape tools would have made him better without doing too much nor removing what he is.

[Jonasies]

That's exactly what I was reminded of when I read the reasoning behind the rework.

Vindi hardly ruined pubs either.

The mana-drain crippled alot of heroes in the laning phase while barely affecting others. That skill required some rework imo.

However, the rest of his skills didnt!


I would have been satisfied if they just made his mana-drain stop when the enemy runs oom like Silencer. :<

[Aiden311]

change vindi back to how he was, he has been spoilt!!! i played a game with this hero not knowing he had been changed, and he has been nuferd late game big style, where i wud usaly have alot of int and be dealing massive dmg. now he is just a lame hero with nothing..... not worth playing him ever again, cos his Q still is only usfull up to say lvl 10 max...

[PetriFemboy]

I miss the Sage Lore and the previous usage of his passive.

Lack of Sage Lore resulted in:
1) Now no one beside Witch Slayer and Mage Bane can drain someone's mana.
2) Despite the usage of Brain Drain as a last hitter both on creeps and heroes, the hero can't babysit a lane mate, his abilities to harass had decrease noticeably.
3) Brain Drain encourages to play Vindi as a tank since he'll rarely be among many heroes otherwise, yet at the same time he requires a lot of mana so it's crucial for him to both strength busting and intelligence busting items.
4) His passive doesn't dis-encourage enemies from casting their spells in his range, but rather focus them on him before they decide to auto-attack.
5) His second and third spell encourage him to be played as a carry, while he's first spell encourages to play as tank, and in the end his fourth spell encourages to play as support.

I have a feeling that he's a blend of few heroes: Balphagore, Armadon, Electrician, Valkyrie . Balphagore since he HAS to be always in the middle of fights due to his Brain Drain. Armadon because the use of his Brain Drain shows effects after some time. Electrician, since he's useless without mana that he constantly drains. And finally Valkyrie since he's ulti can be use mostly in the same way that's why he has to stay alive all the time.

The impression it gives makes current Vindicator the most difficult hero among all, since he isn't considered by people as carry, played as tank, he loses all his usefulness, play as support doesn't synchronizes with his skills, and as a ganker or pusher he's not doing a great job.

My idea:
1) Give him back the Sage Lore
2) Rework 3rd spell to an activatable one, which would punish every hero or unit within 1000 range for 0.5/1/1.5/2 times the mana cost of spell casted in form of mixed damage to their health pool. With 25s cd and 20s of duration.
3) Rework 4th spell to have two functions, as a passive it silences enemy for 0.25 (break channeling)/1/2 seconds, within 1000 range when the enemy will cast a spell and as activatable it would silence the enemy for up to 4 seconds as a global spell to both skills and items, but have him have unchangeable cooldown of 120s. Also activating the spell would lose it's passive while under cooldown.

[changlingbob]

I'm posting so my signature is visible again.

[BiggiansOwns]

I played the new Vindi only a few times. I feel like he should still have some way of retaining int gain like he used to. Perhaps when a hero dies near him he only gains 1 or 2 int and doesnt steal any from the fallen enemy. at least this way he can have reliable damage later on if the game is going well...

[LordTroll]

I'm posting so my signature is visible again.
I quoted your signature in other forums btw. )

[Fat_Bear]

And now I wish to address the s2 response here (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showpost.php?p=14990317&postcount=2).

1. Make the hero less "annoying".

For who? If Sage's Lore was actually worth skilling (which it currently wasn't post-level 1 nerfs), then this would be somewhat valid, but as it stands - Vindicator spent more mana himself for a very negligible mana loss on the people he's casting it on.
Silencer was amazing as a defensive tri-lane support, for the simple fact that he could simply reduce the trilane supports to mere autoattacks with almost zero real burst kill potential; in recent memory, this was one of his main pick functions, to be able to shut down lanes from level 1, or put them on an even footing farm-wise.

If this is in reference to Glyph, then it's a very dangerous assumption. Do you find Witch Slayer "annoying" too, because he can disable you for so long? Vindicator is hardly the first hero or last one to be able to severely restrict the movement and flow of other heroes he is close to, and for a negligible cost.

2. Keep his relative strength

Vindicator's relative strength was complete garbage outside of his old Glyph and ult, as soon as level 1 Sage's Lore got nerfed. The hero almost instantly went from situational to complete trash except in very niche situations, and as we saw, this still wasn't enough to justify his existence.

Make no mistake here, Glaives are a terrible ability for early laning harass now (too much mana, not enough effect, puts you in very bad positions) and this whole meandering Glaives-stats build as a solo mid for farm is literally 9 years dead from a relic of a level of balance in a time long past. Glaives in lane took a further hit by Hatchet getting the ability to throw and CK, meaning there is little to no reason for a melee hero to stay next to the creep wave or in relative safety when against a Vindicator. This combined with Lore nerfs mean that Vindicator has no real way to control a lane, which ironically enough is what made him viable to take for his situational strengths in the first place.

3. Make him more active

Apparently using Lore to bleed out people before a potential teamfight, or when they were silenced to inflict maximum damage and mana loss was not considered "active", or positioning yourself correctly to still influence a fight with E, without getting stunned mindlessly and having the aura turn off was not "active" in the slightest either.
Instead, we get a 200 damage nuke on a low cooldown that you just mindlessly spam at anything, including creeps - like every other hero it seems nowadays.
"But it steals INT!?!?!" Sure, and to get any measurable level of INT - you have to hit multiple heroes multiple casts, likelihood? Very little, and this cuts into your potential DPS that you're doing it for.
So in essence, Q is a trap for teamfights as soon as you hit any respectable level of dps.
E on the other hand, has now been completely gutted in order to cause havoc on a different style of hero - one that attacks in between chaining spells. Given how few of these heroes there are, relative to the ones that old Glyph pseudo-countered - this is clearly a large departure from point 2 (keep his relative strength). Having said that, it gains 40aspd (not insignificant), but ultimately you're putting 4 points into a skill that gives you nothing discernible apart from that. Needless to say, aspd does not scale linearly and your other skills do much more for you early on, so this skill basically took a nerf on the level of Sand Wraith's Dissipate. Doctor Repulsor will cry at new Vindicator's aura, the rest are inconvenienced minorly, but last I checked, DR struggled vs Vindicator anyway - so a net change of meh there.

"His Q, Sage's Lore, was incredibly strong in the laning phase and had the potential to completely shut out certain heroes but had little to no effect on others. As the game went on, this ability became almost useless in most situations."
This is called counterpicking a lane. Vindicator, like Silencer, thrived off being able to control a lane from level 1, before a kill lane like Mag/Pyro could simply pull an IG leafblower on him from level 3. This also required the heroes themselves to stay in the lane, and allow themselves to be hit. If anything, heroes like a Magmus were encouraged to roam a fair bit and control runes for their mid, leaving the Vindicator to **** on the remaining suicide laner for a little bit (no harder), then arrive back in force with a pain train.
If the Vindicator failed to establish lane control from level 1, he would simply die over and over and over and over again from well-executed ganks. He was slow, prone to creep abuse, and has low base agi and armour as well. Clever play outplayed a Vindicator before level 1 Lore nerf. After that nerf, you could safely ignore level 1 Lore, Chalice up for instant mana and then double stun the Vindicator and kill him. Chalice mana nerf to 100 did negate that for a few heroes like Magmus and Hammer early on (had to have 40 mana left to chalice then stun) but for heroes like Pyromancer, this had little effect.

"His E, Glyph of Silence, had a similar effect. This ability rendered some heroes almost useless without Vindicator having to do anything at all. In the same tone, it had almost no effect on other heroes."
<censored>. Vindicator not having to do anything at all? Perfect positioning (and let's stress the word perfect here), despite having his aura turn off while stunned, not working on fogged targets and being incredibly glass cannon himself - counts as "not having to do anything"?
Who honestly thinks that having to anticipate and out-think the entire enemy team wanting to gun for him first and foremost every single teamfight somehow wasn't a big deal?
<censored>

"From the point of view of the Vindicator, this promoted a bit of a boring, passive playstyle, especially as the game went on."

Only to those who don't know the intricacies of what's happening.

"For the opponents, Vindicator was extremely frustrating to play against, oftentimes without providing any sort of indication of what's happening."

How is it not completely obvious what is going on if you are silenced, unless you're completely clueless (in which case, you dont know wtf is going on anyway)? Or even better, if you wanted to make it REALLY obvious, you could place a buff on heroes when they are in range of Glyph, or make the silence icon BIGGER in general.

"As for his role, he went from being used almost exclusively as a counter to being a full fledged INT carry. He could perform this role in the past but only very late game due to the Intellect stealing mechanic on his old Glyph."
No, he went from being a counterpick that could control a lane pre-Lore nerf, to a hero that you may as well have run as a carry, because he was dependant on levels and couldn't do much more than that with his pathetic laning phase other than carry. So people stuck him in a solo mid (safest lane due to uphill advantage, wards and fog cover) and went Glaives-stats or Glaives-aura if they planned on teamfighting midgame. And let's not forget, he was pathetic at it. He was less active in a lane than a ricing Medusa, and that takes some effort.

"In his new version, he reaches that point much earlier in the game. The passive attack speed bonus helps greatly here and the new Brain Drain ability steals 3 Int per target hit. Keep in mind that this ability is on a 6 second cooldown at level 4 and deals 200 damage. This spell alone makes him a lot more active throughout the game as well and he can use it to farm as well, again making him more effective earlier."

Except it takes at least 15 cast hits of level 4 drain to even get close to a reasonable amount of INT which he could build up on old Glyph by winning midgame teamfights or being present in ganks. 15 cast hits is at least a minimum of 3 hits of the WHOLE team over 18 seconds. A realistic assessment is hitting 3 at most per cast, and at that - it's taking 30 seconds. If anything, that's a nerf in INT gained - and it's interrupting his dps for a mediocre nuke.
Its only benefit is that it hits creeps for him, giving him an ability to flashfarm waves. Hey, sounds familiar...

"The new version is much less annoying to play against and forces your enemy to think about how they need to play against you. Heroes like Fayde, Wretched Hag and Flint Beastwood have to adjust their playstyle to be able to play effectively against the new Vindicator. In addition, since he scales earlier, he's a bigger threat and thus a focus for the enemy team, which silences them."

As opposed to the old one? What? The new one basically promotes all those combo gankers, which HoN encourages and proliferates in the same vein as a Pebbles, to basically jump on the Vindicator asap before he clicks his ultimate and combo stun him to death.
We've already discussed the scaling earlier - which isn't realistic unless you're skilling into less useful skills - which affects your gameplay very negatively until then. As for being a bigger focus, he already was the BIGGEST focus on a team. He disrupts gameplay and game flow by simply smashing R in teamfights, and that aspect hasn't changed. Only now, there's a reasonable chance of killing him beforehand, whereas before that wasn't the case. So nowadays, he builds the same (tanky), stands in the same places (where he can safely hit people, and not get stomped on - only now he clicks Drain on people every 6 seconds instead of Lore on people every 15 seconds.

More active? No. More important to focus? No. Easier to carry with? No. Easier to impact games meaningfully with? No. Easier to control a lane with, like he was intended?

Easier to focus? Yes. Easier to farm with? Yes. Easier to play? Yes. Easier to understand? Yes.

This hero is now a generic ranged carry with an aoe nuke, a passive with meaningless tacked-on "utility", a scaling autoattack orb and one decent skill.

A mere shadow of his old self.

EDIT: you know what, **** you cunts.

Gospel.

[PrestonLee]

Gospel.missed that post, Amen.

[OJPhoenix]

New Vindicator isn't exactly good, can't deny this.

However I really wish people would stop posting any of the following things: "they ruined him, he was worth something before now he's useless, bring back old vindicator"

Why?
This is a Balance Discussion thread.

Any discussion or mention of how his previous version's were good and that reverting Vindicator is practically pointless because old Vindicator was NOT balanced, xanderK outlined this quite clearly for all that didn't realise this.

We are supposed to be discussing whether or not the NEW Vindicator is balanced.
Frankly he is much closer to being balanced than previously due to its ridiculousness. However I don't think the result is balanced, Vindicator is underpowered.

Therefor we ought to be discussing where Vindicator lacks in balance and in what areas he could do with a benefit to rectify the manner, without ranting about his destruction and asking for reverts.

So to that end I'll repeat myself and some the ideas that others have mentioned:
- No carry has slow movespeed, no chasing and next to no escaping capacity without something to show for it, except Vindi; that says something.
- He almost entirely lost his capacity to disrupt his opponent's. The significant power drop in this role of his has been crushed, overly so. By leaving his Ultimate and Passive to include silence mechanisms imply to me that disruption is still some part of Vindicator's point, problem is he's now actually lacking in this area now.
- The loss of disruption has equally resulted in a loss of support that he provided as a result which was also his lane presence, he lacks that as well.

I would really like to see a return to the disruption style of Vindicator, it was too powerful before but I like the ideas that it had with it and could well provide interesting gameplay.

[aeowulf]

Any discussion or mention of how his previous version's were good and that reverting Vindicator is practically pointless because old Vindicator was NOT balanced, xanderK outlined this quite clearly for all that didn't realise this.


XanderK was only the messenger, and that message got picked apart like nothing else.

If he wasn't balanced before, hes definitely not balanced now. He has less of a presence than before, just a more clearly defined role (Which is probably the least important factor in balancing heroes). S2's logic was shaky at best, and their solution was an atrocity that flew in the face of their 'vision' of the new Vindicator.

Being a long range harass threat early was one of the few things keeping people from tearing old vindicator apart. Now that Sage's and Glyph have been neutered, I can picture people adapting and dominating this hero. Know that for all the hate it incurred, Sage's Lore was a well-nuanced skill, it added to his survivability just like glyph did. You could use Sage's semi-offensively, attempting to bait an attack or early mana usage, you could hang far back and use it defensively, attempting to void the enemy mana pool a bit before you waded in. You could also use one casting to near maximum effectiveness by chaining the cast with a Glyph proc and/or Final Chapter.

I still compare old Vindi to 'pubstomp' heroes, and I'll explain why. The enemy has multiple options to deal with the 'annoying' factor of Vindicator, but usually chooses to do nothing, just like in the cases of many other pubstomp heroes. The biggest difference is that Vindicator isn't a hero that nets easy early game kills, so hes not going to be picked as a 'pubstomper'. So the popularity of Vindicator wasn't going to be very high regardless of how good a situational pick he might be.

That being said, a majority of people aren't going to pick him. That means that -anything- he does will be seen as 'annoying' by his opponents that have no idea about Vindi's frailty or lack of mobility. In short, the same people that don't know much about HoN's heroes aside from their 45% played Flint Beastwood. I'm aware this rant really doesn't matter since S2 is pretty stubborn about things, but I felt it needed to be said. Hell, if this blew up any worse they'd probably start some of their famous 'creative story sessions' to excuse themselves of any culpability.

That being said S2 should do this with the 'New Vindicator':

-Increase the damage, cooldown and int gain (If S2 doesn't put int gain back on his E) of Q. Squishy heroes that have to spam spells to be effective suck, plain and simple.

-Put either an effective silence or mana drain on E to retain some of the uniqueness S2 had thoroughly gutted, while making him a more 'active and involved' hero.

[ElementUser]

However I really wish people would stop posting any of the following things: "they ruined him, he was worth something before now he's useless, bring back old vindicator"

Why?
This is a Balance Discussion thread.

Any discussion or mention of how his previous version's were good and that reverting Vindicator is practically pointless because old Vindicator was NOT balanced, xanderK outlined this quite clearly for all that didn't realise this.

We are supposed to be discussing whether or not the NEW Vindicator is balanced.

Is it wrong to compare old Fayde with new Fayde, old Kraken with new Kraken and old hero "x" with old hero "y"? Nope, that was what was done before.

You're only telling people not to compare because there was a "drastic" change of 2 of his skills while the other heroes didn't undergo such drastic changes. If you cannot compare with their older versions, then you have to compare with other heroes - and frankly Vindicator's only advantage now is his ultimate compared to other heroes that fulfill the carry role.

[Spahrep]

And now I wish to address the s2 response here (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showpost.php?p=14990317&postcount=2).

1. Make the hero less "annoying".

For who? If Sage's Lore was actually worth skilling (which it currently wasn't post-level 1 nerfs), then this would be somewhat valid, but as it stands - Vindicator spent more mana himself for a very negligible mana loss on the people he's casting it on.
Silencer was amazing as a defensive tri-lane support, for the simple fact that he could simply reduce the trilane supports to mere autoattacks with almost zero real burst kill potential; in recent memory, this was one of his main pick functions, to be able to shut down lanes from level 1, or put them on an even footing farm-wise.

If this is in reference to Glyph, then it's a very dangerous assumption. Do you find Witch Slayer "annoying" too, because he can disable you for so long? Vindicator is hardly the first hero or last one to be able to severely restrict the movement and flow of other heroes he is close to, and for a negligible cost.

2. Keep his relative strength

Vindicator's relative strength was complete garbage outside of his old Glyph and ult, as soon as level 1 Sage's Lore got nerfed. The hero almost instantly went from situational to complete trash except in very niche situations, and as we saw, this still wasn't enough to justify his existence.

Make no mistake here, Glaives are a terrible ability for early laning harass now (too much mana, not enough effect, puts you in very bad positions) and this whole meandering Glaives-stats build as a solo mid for farm is literally 9 years dead from a relic of a level of balance in a time long past. Glaives in lane took a further hit by Hatchet getting the ability to throw and CK, meaning there is little to no reason for a melee hero to stay next to the creep wave or in relative safety when against a Vindicator. This combined with Lore nerfs mean that Vindicator has no real way to control a lane, which ironically enough is what made him viable to take for his situational strengths in the first place.

3. Make him more active

Apparently using Lore to bleed out people before a potential teamfight, or when they were silenced to inflict maximum damage and mana loss was not considered "active", or positioning yourself correctly to still influence a fight with E, without getting stunned mindlessly and having the aura turn off was not "active" in the slightest either.
Instead, we get a 200 damage nuke on a low cooldown that you just mindlessly spam at anything, including creeps - like every other hero it seems nowadays.
"But it steals INT!?!?!" Sure, and to get any measurable level of INT - you have to hit multiple heroes multiple casts, likelihood? Very little, and this cuts into your potential DPS that you're doing it for.
So in essence, Q is a trap for teamfights as soon as you hit any respectable level of dps.
E on the other hand, has now been completely gutted in order to cause havoc on a different style of hero - one that attacks in between chaining spells. Given how few of these heroes there are, relative to the ones that old Glyph pseudo-countered - this is clearly a large departure from point 2 (keep his relative strength). Having said that, it gains 40aspd (not insignificant), but ultimately you're putting 4 points into a skill that gives you nothing discernible apart from that. Needless to say, aspd does not scale linearly and your other skills do much more for you early on, so this skill basically took a nerf on the level of Sand Wraith's Dissipate. Doctor Repulsor will cry at new Vindicator's aura, the rest are inconvenienced minorly, but last I checked, DR struggled vs Vindicator anyway - so a net change of meh there.

"His Q, Sage's Lore, was incredibly strong in the laning phase and had the potential to completely shut out certain heroes but had little to no effect on others. As the game went on, this ability became almost useless in most situations."
This is called counterpicking a lane. Vindicator, like Silencer, thrived off being able to control a lane from level 1, before a kill lane like Mag/Pyro could simply pull an IG leafblower on him from level 3. This also required the heroes themselves to stay in the lane, and allow themselves to be hit. If anything, heroes like a Magmus were encouraged to roam a fair bit and control runes for their mid, leaving the Vindicator to **** on the remaining suicide laner for a little bit (no harder), then arrive back in force with a pain train.
If the Vindicator failed to establish lane control from level 1, he would simply die over and over and over and over again from well-executed ganks. He was slow, prone to creep abuse, and has low base agi and armour as well. Clever play outplayed a Vindicator before level 1 Lore nerf. After that nerf, you could safely ignore level 1 Lore, Chalice up for instant mana and then double stun the Vindicator and kill him. Chalice mana nerf to 100 did negate that for a few heroes like Magmus and Hammer early on (had to have 40 mana left to chalice then stun) but for heroes like Pyromancer, this had little effect.

"His E, Glyph of Silence, had a similar effect. This ability rendered some heroes almost useless without Vindicator having to do anything at all. In the same tone, it had almost no effect on other heroes."
<censored>. Vindicator not having to do anything at all? Perfect positioning (and let's stress the word perfect here), despite having his aura turn off while stunned, not working on fogged targets and being incredibly glass cannon himself - counts as "not having to do anything"?
Who honestly thinks that having to anticipate and out-think the entire enemy team wanting to gun for him first and foremost every single teamfight somehow wasn't a big deal?
<censored>

"From the point of view of the Vindicator, this promoted a bit of a boring, passive playstyle, especially as the game went on."

Only to those who don't know the intricacies of what's happening.

"For the opponents, Vindicator was extremely frustrating to play against, oftentimes without providing any sort of indication of what's happening."

How is it not completely obvious what is going on if you are silenced, unless you're completely clueless (in which case, you dont know wtf is going on anyway)? Or even better, if you wanted to make it REALLY obvious, you could place a buff on heroes when they are in range of Glyph, or make the silence icon BIGGER in general.

"As for his role, he went from being used almost exclusively as a counter to being a full fledged INT carry. He could perform this role in the past but only very late game due to the Intellect stealing mechanic on his old Glyph."
No, he went from being a counterpick that could control a lane pre-Lore nerf, to a hero that you may as well have run as a carry, because he was dependant on levels and couldn't do much more than that with his pathetic laning phase other than carry. So people stuck him in a solo mid (safest lane due to uphill advantage, wards and fog cover) and went Glaives-stats or Glaives-aura if they planned on teamfighting midgame. And let's not forget, he was pathetic at it. He was less active in a lane than a ricing Medusa, and that takes some effort.

"In his new version, he reaches that point much earlier in the game. The passive attack speed bonus helps greatly here and the new Brain Drain ability steals 3 Int per target hit. Keep in mind that this ability is on a 6 second cooldown at level 4 and deals 200 damage. This spell alone makes him a lot more active throughout the game as well and he can use it to farm as well, again making him more effective earlier."

Except it takes at least 15 cast hits of level 4 drain to even get close to a reasonable amount of INT which he could build up on old Glyph by winning midgame teamfights or being present in ganks. 15 cast hits is at least a minimum of 3 hits of the WHOLE team over 18 seconds. A realistic assessment is hitting 3 at most per cast, and at that - it's taking 30 seconds. If anything, that's a nerf in INT gained - and it's interrupting his dps for a mediocre nuke.
Its only benefit is that it hits creeps for him, giving him an ability to flashfarm waves. Hey, sounds familiar...

"The new version is much less annoying to play against and forces your enemy to think about how they need to play against you. Heroes like Fayde, Wretched Hag and Flint Beastwood have to adjust their playstyle to be able to play effectively against the new Vindicator. In addition, since he scales earlier, he's a bigger threat and thus a focus for the enemy team, which silences them."

As opposed to the old one? What? The new one basically promotes all those combo gankers, which HoN encourages and proliferates in the same vein as a Pebbles, to basically jump on the Vindicator asap before he clicks his ultimate and combo stun him to death.
We've already discussed the scaling earlier - which isn't realistic unless you're skilling into less useful skills - which affects your gameplay very negatively until then. As for being a bigger focus, he already was the BIGGEST focus on a team. He disrupts gameplay and game flow by simply smashing R in teamfights, and that aspect hasn't changed. Only now, there's a reasonable chance of killing him beforehand, whereas before that wasn't the case. So nowadays, he builds the same (tanky), stands in the same places (where he can safely hit people, and not get stomped on - only now he clicks Drain on people every 6 seconds instead of Lore on people every 15 seconds.

More active? No. More important to focus? No. Easier to carry with? No. Easier to impact games meaningfully with? No. Easier to control a lane with, like he was intended?

Easier to focus? Yes. Easier to farm with? Yes. Easier to play? Yes. Easier to understand? Yes.

This hero is now a generic ranged carry with an aoe nuke, a passive with meaningless tacked-on "utility", a scaling autoattack orb and one decent skill.

A mere shadow of his old self.

EDIT: you know what, **** you cunts.

QFT: This is exactly what i was thinking.
I think its apparent whoever wrote that for xander didnt play a lot of vindicator or have a true idea of how the hero played and progressed.

[OJPhoenix]

Quite right the problem with comparing the new and old version is because of how different they are: They were not balanced abilities, they weren't even good design abilities because of how drastically their effectiveness could change.

The new Vindicator is far from where he should be, but that doesn't mean the old one was any good either.

Comparing him to other heroes is a better way to do so. Every single other carry the game has, comes with a better overall result than Vindicator, he just doesn't meet the expectations any more.

He needs something to show for all of his drawbacks, or some of them need to be removed. I would much rather see a return of his control methods, to a lesser extent than before, than see some of his drawbacks removed.

Brain Drain is feels almost about right, but it doesn't help his early game much due to the inability to afford casting it too much. An extra debuff effect wouldn't go amiss: something that causes opponent's to be penalized if they cast a spell, such as a slow, more int steal (possibly even permanent) or his trademark silence. it has so much potential to return vindicator's punishment and power drain ways with such a simple, yet effective choice based debuff. it should beneficial enough to make a vindi want to be able to use it at the right moment, but only detrimental enough to the opponent that they are simply inconvenienced briefly or minorly.

Glyph of Silence though needs a lot more work, I like the idea they had with it but its just so infective at staving of his opponent's spells when it matters. I like the idea of the defence mechanism only being triggered when Vindicator is on the receiving end, but that is about all. I wouldn't mind seeing an enemy get silenced for hurting Vindicator in any way at all, or perhaps that could even rank up with each level, adding to the list of things that will trigger his reaction on you. Doing so would prevent combo heroes from destroying Vindicator but it wouldn't prevent them from doing so on you're allies.

If your opponents go for your allies instead of you this should result in one or more of a few things: if you were able to get Brain Drain off before hand this could assist matters or even halt them if a silence stops a combo; allow you to use Master's Incantation to make them hurt; and theres always Final Chapter for saving allies. Still it wouldn't go amiss if Vindicator's glyph also had an activation effect that could silence all nearby enemies for a short duration but at the cost of deactivating your own passive while it's on cooldown.

Such things would achieve the results that S2 supposedly wants to create for him, they have good intentions (I hope), from the things pointed out in explanation, but they didn't actually succeed at much more than destroying old Vindicator.

Sorry that devolved into a lot of suggestion but I actually do plan to go through with suggestion ideas along those lines, but such drastic changes would require discussion first. Besides where else is balance discussion going to go when the hero is deemed unbalanced: suggestions on how to balance the hero.

[Rosgath]

Sorry that devolved into a lot of suggestion but I actually do plan to go through with suggestion ideas along those lines, but such drastic changes would require discussion first. Besides where else is balance discussion going to go when the hero is deemed unbalanced: suggestions on how to balance the hero.

Suggestions go hand in hand with balance. If we can't suggest alternatives to the current imbalances then what's the point of us finding the imbalances?

I think the problem here is that S2 wanted to change the synergy between :vind:'s skills but, they didn't establish a sufficient NEW synergy to compensate.

His old skills were all based around preventing his opponents from casting and capitalizing on when they didn't/couldn't cast. This is why Sage's Lore still did damage even if the opponent didn't have any mana, unlike Silencer from DotA. He also had 2 ways to lay down decent duration Silences to allow him to further capitalize on his Q.
The problem with this is, Q did absolutely nothing for Master's Incantation (W). His ultimate, his E, and his Q all had good synergy, but he's a carry and only 2 of his skills worked towards that.

His new skills are based around getting him farm and allowing him to maximize his W.
The problems I see with the new :vind: are as follows;
His new Q (brain drain) either doesn't build int fast enough, or doesn't allow him to build int outside of engaging enemy heroes. This prevents him from having the same lethal impact other carries get. No matter how much farm he gets, he'll never be able to gank someone with the raw amount of damage he can do and if he can't even gank people with raw damage, how's he supposed to provide good damage in a team fight?
His new passive is atrocious. The passive effect itself doesn't have ANY synergy with his other skills and the bonus AS only has indirect synergy with his W at best. It no longer works with any of his skill set at ALL.
His ultimate is still a support ultimate, but since :vind: was reworked AWAY from his old synergy with silences it no longer has any place on this hero. It should either be removed or it too needs to be reworked.

The problem I think that has plagued :vind: and will continue to do so is that he has too many skills that don't work together. They seem more like a random mish-mash of skills rather than an organized theme for him.

Edit: Moved my suggestion to suggestion post.
Link to my suggestion: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?p=15005400#post15005400

[Antimodus]

Quite right the problem with comparing the new and old version is because of how different they are: They were not balanced abilities, they weren't even good design abilities because of how drastically their effectiveness could change.

Can you please explain why this is a design problem, instead of simply claiming it as an obvious truism? I've seen this said over and over, by many people, but not one of them ever explained, as if it is supposed to be trivial/obvious. I don't see why. There are many abilities which have drastically different effectiveness in different situations. That's what makes the game interesting strategically. Otherwise it would all be a bunch of samey <generic aoe with generic damage numbers and soft cc>, single target stuns and a bunch of boring and interchangeable passives.

[Rosgath]

Can you please explain why this is a design problem, instead of simply claiming it as an obvious truism? I've seen this said over and over, by many people, but not one of them ever explained, as if it is supposed to be trivial/obvious. I don't see why. There are many abilities which have drastically different effectiveness in different situations. That's what makes the game interesting strategically. Otherwise it would all be a bunch of samey <generic aoe with generic damage numbers and soft cc> and bunch of barely noticeable passives.

You mean it would be LoL? :)

I think the point he's trying to get across is that a skill that has too MUCH variation in effectiveness is poorly designed.

Example ability: AoE nuke, deals 100 damage in a small AoE, but if the enemy has less than 50 mana it deals 500 damage.

That is WAY too much variation in a skill's effectiveness. You don't deal hardly any damage if the appropriate trigger isn't on, but if it is it's so powerful to be considered OP.

Edit: To be clear, I don't agree with the argument that an ability with too much circumstantial variation is not well designed. There are a number of good examples of well designed abilities that are very circumstantial. This post is only an attempt at clarifying the logic on the argument

[china]

Suggestions go hand in hand with balance. If we can't suggest alternatives to the current imbalances then what's the point of us finding the imbalances?


You make it seem as if 'current imbalances' means the same to everyone.

Balance discussion should be an attempt to find what IS imbalanced.

If every other post contained a suggestion like yours, good luck in finding meaningful discussion, as a branch branches, branches, and branches.

[Rosgath]

You make it seem as if 'current imbalances' means the same to everyone.

Balance discussion should be an attempt to find what IS imbalanced.

If every other post contained a suggestion like yours, good luck in finding meaningful discussion, as a branch branches, branches, and branches.

Fair enough. I'll move my suggestion to the suggestion forums and post a link to it here for reference.

[Zilrax]

Fair enough. I'll move my suggestion to the suggestion forums and post a link to it here for reference.

FINALLY. Someone finally takes the time and effort. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Anyways, Vindicator as is we've pretty will picked him to death. He's the incarnation of the walking ultimate now. Use it and toss him away. I've no doubt he's far more deadly laning against pubs now, but let's face it. Pubs don't handle aggression very well. Most aggresively played heroes will pick them apart irrelevant of who's doing it if played well.

I don't really get what they were doing here. Especially with the many incarnations that rework went through, why did this one get picked over any of the others? I just don't get it...

[ElementUser]

Second last iteration of Vindicator Rework had a charge-based E aura silence based on how many spellcasts he did.

It was something like 0.05/0.1/0.15/0.2 seconds per charge. Each Q and R spellcast gave something like 4 charges. Each W (autocast or manual cast) gave 1 charge. Each charge lasted for something like 4 seconds, individually timed & independent of each other. Oh and that E passive in the 2nd last iteration also gave attack speed like this one (forgot numbers), also based on charges.

That one had a better concept than this final iteration, IMO. Design change? Yes, ok. Does the design change fit in the game? Not right now, many heroes overshadow Vindicator.

I wish this one was picked for his E. Oh well, S2 scrapped this for reasons unknown to me (it was actually in SBT for a long time, changed it at the last minute & then the version retail sees today got testing for something like 2 weeks to a month and then officially got released)

[Antimodus]

That is WAY too much variation in a skill's effectiveness. You don't deal hardly any damage if the appropriate trigger isn't on, but if it is it's so powerful to be considered OP.
You could argue like that about all kinds of other things in the game.
- WS mana drain. He has no other real use for it, most of the time, apart from breaking null stones. This ability can make him win at mid lane (if he goes there at all) against specific heroes in 1v1 and largely useless outside of that. Remake?
- MQ ult is completely hit or miss depending on all kinds of detail, e.g. you come up to a jungler and press R+Q, if he's fighting wild hunters you just did 1500 magic damage that's practically unavoidable, if he's fighting something else, you'll probably need to rely on luck. In a teamfight, for instance, against a few specific heroes (Keeper, GK), it will do practically nothing.

- Bubbles Take Cover autocast specifically makes nomad's harassment tool 100% ineffective.
- all kind of abilities, like DSham heal and SS ult, have the potential to cause insane damage if a very specific condition is met. That doesn't make them OP, it makes them interesting.
- Legionnaire's taunt instantly broken when he gets cycloned (should the entire initiation capability of legionnaire depend so heavily on the other team not having a guy with a cyclone stick....?)
- Jeraziah's buffs being completely game breaking in one instance, and removed like nothing with electrician or parasite or nullfire blade in another. Isn't that a bit too all-or-nothing as well?

When your design ideals are something that can't go too wrong no matter what happens but can't be too powerful in specific instances, you get LoL heroes like Emerald Warden.

[PrestonLee]

Honestly, if you want the "New Vindicator" to be viable, just throw the int-steal per kill back on him and it will synergize incredibly well with his new skillset. Lower the int gained to 1 if you have to. This will make him scale into late game much better, give him more variety in how to approach his early game (he'll again be able to choose between support ganker or carry), and just give him more of an incentive to pick over other heroes. He'll become overpowered in mid-wars once again, but honestly who gives a crap about that?

But really though, new concept is horrible. Dumbing down a complex hero because he made the game 'not fun' is the most retarded thing I've ever heard, HoN is becoming even more one-dimensional with every change like this you guys make. I really can't understand why you'd think dumbing down the game is a good approach to take.

[Fairlight_Ex]

^Because Vindicator was absolutely one of the most annoying heroes in the game to face, and all he had to do was stand there. That's without even considering how irritating it was to lane against him. I don't mind having a silence/int-steal based hero, but not when he makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a stick during every team fight.

I think it would have been better to make his aura activatable, and give it a duration, manacost, cooldown, etc... while his ult could have been reworked into gaining charges that make the aura global on cast or something to that effect. Obviously the numbers here need some tweaking, but the idea of him freaking just standing there and turning the tides of a team fight really needed to be addressed. He was not broken, and he wasn't OP - he was simply a pain in the neck.

[Draegnar]

^ there is a whole bunch of extreme heroes that are frustrating to play against at least vindicator was easily ganked and comparatively weak. Good :magm: players yeah its more involved than vindi but i'd also say he has a bigger effect, same issue with good behe players it doesn't matter how much you ward if you didn't bring tundra he is going to find a place to ult pkey from.

As far as i can see the rework has reduced him from a niche hero to a bad hero, you can buy identical carry items on shadowblade and be just as effective but with a more robust skill set for carrying with, obviously vindi's ult is fantastic so that aside.

[PlayeroJ]

^Because Vindicator was absolutely one of the most annoying heroes in the game to face, and all he had to do was stand there.

One thing that should be cleared up about Vindicator's old glyph is that it wasn't completely passive like let's say withering presence. Vindicator is a squishy and slow hero with no escape mechanisms, so positioning yourself to actually be that annoying is something vindicator does actively. He is squishy, slow and has no escape mechanisms largely because if not that third ability would have been bat **** OP on him.

Now the third ability went from potentially devastating to completely useless, and we STILL have a squishy and slow hero...

[Rosgath]

^Because Vindicator was absolutely one of the most annoying heroes in the game to face, and all he had to do was stand there. That's without even considering how irritating it was to lane against him. I don't mind having a silence/int-steal based hero, but not when he makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a stick during every team fight.

I think it would have been better to make his aura activatable, and give it a duration, manacost, cooldown, etc... while his ult could have been reworked into gaining charges that make the aura global on cast or something to that effect. Obviously the numbers here need some tweaking, but the idea of him freaking just standing there and turning the tides of a team fight really needed to be addressed. He was not broken, and he wasn't OP - he was simply a pain in the neck.

It should be said that just because a hero was "annoying to play against" doesn't warrant a change to the hero. If you NEVER got frustrated when playing against a particular hero then there's 1 of 2 conclusions we can come to. 1.) Your playstyle and the heroes you play naturally counter that hero or 2.) that hero is UP. By the same token, if you are ALWAYS frustrated when playing against the hero the same 2 above conclusions can be drawn in reverse.

Also to those of you who quote xanderK at me, I hate to tell you this but just because he's from S2 does not automatically make him right. He's more likely to be right, yes, but as we can tell from the largely negative reception of the :vind: rework they have a large potential to be wrong.

[PlayeroJ]

By the way the poll needs to include a new option:

"Not only did I think that any changes were unwarranted, I thought the changes implemented constitute the most half-assed hero change in all of HoN to date".

The reasons for changing Vindicator were terrible.
The thought they put into the changes were terrible.
The changes implemented to Vindicator were terrible.

The worst part is that looking at the patch notes it really doesn't look like there was a sincere effort in balancing Vindicator at all. How on earth they could gut his third ability and not re-visit his stats and movement speed is beyond me - it's like they just wanted to gut the third ability and get on with it...

[GregerMoek]

Well, if they wanted a glasscannon they got one.

[OJPhoenix]

"The reasons for changing Vindicator were terrible"

"Can you please explain why this is a design problem, instead of simply claiming it as an obvious truism?"


You could argue like that about all kinds of other things in the game.
- WS mana drain. He has no other real use for it, most of the time, apart from breaking null stones. This ability can make him win at mid lane (if he goes there at all) against specific heroes in 1v1 and largely useless outside of that. Remake?
- MQ ult is completely hit or miss depending on all kinds of detail, e.g. you come up to a jungler and press R+Q, if he's fighting wild hunters you just did 1500 magic damage that's practically unavoidable, if he's fighting something else, you'll probably need to rely on luck. In a teamfight, for instance, against a few specific heroes (Keeper, GK), it will do practically nothing.

- Bubbles Take Cover autocast specifically makes nomad's harassment tool 100% ineffective.
- all kind of abilities, like DSham heal and SS ult, have the potential to cause insane damage if a very specific condition is met. That doesn't make them OP, it makes them interesting.
- Legionnaire's taunt instantly broken when he gets cycloned (should the entire initiation capability of legionnaire depend so heavily on the other team not having a guy with a cyclone stick....?)
- Jeraziah's buffs being completely game breaking in one instance, and removed like nothing with electrician or parasite or nullfire blade in another. Isn't that a bit too all-or-nothing as well?

When your design ideals are something that can't go too wrong no matter what happens but can't be too powerful in specific instances, you get LoL heroes like Emerald Warden.

Going to respond to all of this at the same time:

Annoying and almost ridiculously variant in effectiveness

Sage's Lore
Early Game:
- win's against heroes with low mana pools and or high costs
- fails against the opposite

Mid Game:
- needs heroes to start running low on mana before its worth casting, mana pools are getting bigger

Late Game:
- not even sure this is worth casting unless someone has actually run out of mana

no ability should have such a high effectiveness in certain scenarios while being completely useless the rest of the time, while decreasing in effectiveness as the game goes on... thus bad design

effectiveness should either plateau or increase, and be variant based on the situation at hand, having multiple levels of effectiveness, not just success or failure.

Moon Queen's Ultimate:
more effective when you can be sure who its going to hit, but that doesn't mean it can't work when you might hit unwanted targets, it has lowered effectiveness as opposed to practically useless. Even then, the difference is quite big, but at least the "ideal scenario" isn't difficult to achieve, unlike draining someone's mana pool...

Glyph of Silence was similar;
- breaks combo heroes
- practically no effect on auto attack heroes

its not like vindicator has to even earn this combo breaking power, he just needs to stand around looking fabulous. yeah i've heard people talk about you need proper positioning and all, but it never occured to me before reading this thread that vindicator might have to think long and hard about where he stands in a fight to make sure he's doing things right... but anyway, still its automatic, which considerably heavy impact, very little effort is required to make use of his controlling power and it shouldn't work like that. its one thing to protect yourself from certain things, its another thing to automatically shut down heroes just by standing around... theoretically, a vindicator could disconnect, and be manuevered to a nearby hidden location and still be incredibly effective...

the difference between these abilities and others is that all abilities have scenarios where they are going to be more effective, and some more so than others, but vindicator's abilities are so effective and what they do, they automatically win scenarios because of it, and conversely they aren't just less effectiveness the rest of the time, they're as good as useless. that's way too big of a distance.

[GregerMoek]

Today I learned that every ability has 5 sec or less cooldown lategame.
Today I learned that making an enemy use an ability to dodge a drain is bad lategame.
Today I learned that passive abilities are bad for the game.
Today I learned that simply standing in the middle of a team fight makes you invincible and survive all burst, even as a squishy, slow-moving hero.

Today I learned that Shrunken Head does not exist later in the game, or Hellfower, or Sheepstick.

Today I learned that team fights are static and doesn't move around as the fight continues and that Vindicator's former aura had infinite range.

Jeraziah against an Electrician+Gauntlet+Engineer will not do wonders either. Means bad design right?

Engineer against a Defiler/FA theoretically will only have his ult up for 1 second max and turret for the same time.

You're making it sound like VIndicator will have 3k hp, 30 armor and 15.5 magic armor along with a Shrunken Head, Nullstone and Void Talisman. While the other team has nothing, no Shrunken, no Sheepstick, no Hellflower.

[aeowulf]

The problem with this no late game effectiveness angle is that it does have some late game effectiveness.

Its like people are imagining a scenario where everyone is farmed so they aren't mana dependent [There is a reason everyone buys Soul Chalice, RoSorc, and Power Supply (Partially)], everyone is at full mana, and Vindicator doesn't know how to play.

Sage's + level 3 ult is dropping at least about 150 mana and 300 from every hero hit in a good-sized AE. Doesn't sound like much, but some heroes still burn through mana like candy (S2 has rescaled enough mana costs down), and a well used lore at one point could've been the difference between someone getting off a clutch leap/stun/ult or just standing there like buh.

[GregerMoek]

Yes, that's also a good thing to point out. Once something is silenced by his aura or ultimate your Sage's Lore will be effective for at least 3.5 seconds.

[OJPhoenix]

so my attempts to have a serious discussion about vindicator outlining why myself and some of my friends feel that he didn't make a good hero (and by good I don't mean effectiveness, I mean a good useful and balanced pickup) and I'm met with sarcastic remarks about how I'm clearly just some idiot who has no idea how this game works at all.

i really think that vindicator wasn't right before, he did his job well he did but i don't think it was done right.

i see the new vindicator as an opportunity to revive him as an interesting and effective decision maker, and i have made a suggestion to start by tweaking 2 of his abilities, didn't want to suggest everything I had in mind all at once

[`11411181]

so my attempts to have a serious discussion about vindicator outlining why myself and some of my friends feel that he didn't make a good hero (and by good I don't mean effectiveness, I mean a good useful and balanced pickup) and I'm met with sarcastic remarks about how I'm clearly just some idiot who has no idea how this game works at all.

i really think that vindicator wasn't right before, he did his job well he did but i don't think it was done right.

i see the new vindicator as an opportunity to revive him as an interesting and effective decision maker, and i have made a suggestion to start by tweaking 2 of his abilities, didn't want to suggest everything I had in mind all at once

People treat you like an idiot for a few reasons.
Not only do you use generalized subjective terminology which detracts from any point you make (that line where you compare effective as a trait in opposition to useful, which is wrong on so many levels), BUT when someone called you on it (Antimodus, in this example) you just repeated your exact same line of reasoning he already debunked (as though that validates it further).

You have not provided any solid foundation for thinking otherwise, other than a half-assed extension of the truism "mana has different levels of usefulness at each stage of the game", because from reading your posts - this is founded in some erroneous assumption that if you're not draining them dry, the spell is not worth casting because you won't get the full damage off.

This lends itself well to the failure to recognize the importance of a Lore that was capable of forcing spells before they were intended, else copping 400 damage + mana loss that can set them all back collectively - which is a benefit beyond a simple number attached to a skill.

Quite frankly, the above combined with this veiled touting of useless reworks to skills makes anyone capable of rational thought believe you're an idiot. They are hardly mistaken in this belief.

tl;dr ubadcuzupostbad

[Orchest]

ITT:
General consensus is formed that change degraded strategic and tactical diversity.
Arguments against this are refuted categorically and comprehensively.
Same arguments are reposted verbatim.
Rage etc.

[painkiller`]

I went on a :vind: binge the past 3-4 days or so and I want to say a few things even if they might oppose some people (even myself from earlier in this thread, I don't know). These are my observations so they should be taken as such:

+ :vind:'s skill build is no longer situational. It's almost always the same (max out Q and E, taking R when you can and then W into stats). The only deviation is if you see an opening to go aggressive in your lane (against melee heroes or weak laners) where you can go Q + W and really keep them back (see next point), but this rarely happens because nobody will intentionally pick weak laners.

+ The nuke is no longer spam-worthy because you lose lane control since it now hits creeps too. However, this makes :vind: a solid mid-laner because he can pretty much stand at the creep wave and Q + W the enemy into a situation where he can't even come close to :vind: without risk of dying. The further you push the enemy from creeps, the more viable Q-ing becomes every chance it's up. He's a monster laner against all heroes now.

+ He's now more vulnerable to ganks during laning than he was before. Early on, almost all damage comes from spells because autoattacks don't do ****, and he can't do anything to stop that. (Funny fact: new :vind: REALLY screws up average :souls: players because they usually right-click to first face the enemy before they use a demon hand. The moment they do that, they get silenced and can't nuke for 1/2s. Lol.)

+ :vind:'s overall damage is definitely lower now, and he has no incentive to be in fights since his ultimate is global and his int-steal unreliable, i.e. he is better off getting int items for his W than trying to steal it from enemies during fights. That means he's better off farming and pressing R when he needs to. Once he has a pushstick+sheep/hellflower, he actually becomes a factor and fights start lasting long enough that his intsteal matters.

----

I think the attack speed on his E is too powerful early on, and doesn't really make a difference later on since :vind: isn't a good chaser/disabler. He'll always find himself out of position unless his team specialises in keeping the enemy close. So I have two ideas for his W and E, and I'd like if someone could give me a balance point of view on them:

Master's Incantation: Make this do 40/60/80/100% true damage based off his int. This will at least make :vind: be a factor early on since whatever little bit of int he has will do something, but his average 2.5 int gain won't break him since he only gets 5 damage per level (2.5 reduced by armour, 2.5 untouched by it). And he won't need a lot of farm because his E (see next point), but WILL snowball quickly if allowed to farm up.

Glyph of Silence: Remove the silence from it. It literally does nothing for him anymore. Instead, make it steal int and increase attack speed based on how much int he has. With proper numbers, it'll be much less powerful during laning but turn :vind: into a uniquely powerful int-carry later on who hits hard and fast. Of course, if you build him purely with int items, he remains squishy but hits like a truck. If you build him tanky, he takes longer to take off but again, like all carries, he eventually will.

-----

I think we can all agree that :vind: has become a generic ranged carry who isn't going back to what he was. At least the ideas above will make him a powerful one who, while not necessarily countering any specific lineup, will shine against turtle strats (where he is allowed to farm up), gank-strats (where he can steal a lot of ints by being in fights) or tanky strats (since his damage isn't reduced by armour of any kind, and he does a significant amount of it). I think line-up dependence is important for heroes.

Edit: I also wish I could change my vote in the poll from C to B, but alas.

[PrestonLee]

+ :vind:'s skill build is no longer situational. It's almost always the same (max out Q and E, taking R when you can and then W into stats). The only deviation is if you see an opening to go aggressive in your lane (against melee heroes or weak laners) where you can go Q + W and really keep them back (see next point), but this rarely happens because nobody will intentionally pick weak laners.I disagree, I think Q + W is the default to go now. Keep in mind that the int steal adds up, while also adding int to your int pool allowing you to have more mana to use W. Also, using W on the enemy hero does not attract creep wave aggro so you're free harass with it. The int-steal on the Q early coupled with the big damage from W equates to massive harassment potential.

I wouldn't even bother with E anymore, there's almost never a time it's worth skilling against anyone decent; in order to take full advantage of the silence's limited use you have to dump 3-4 points into it for the 1.5-2 second silence early as anything less is quite useless (at least you get your tacked on attack speed, but again you get no decent damage until your W is leveled).

Maybe skilling E is decent right now as people aren't used to/aware of how it works yet, but people will eventually adapt and the silence will be negligable as in order to bypass it you just don't auto attack until your skills are on cooldown.

-

With that said, I really think E needs more of an incentive to skill up; there really isn't a point in skilling it anymore except as a 'luxury' tacked on bonus skill that happens to give you some 'perks' later. You just don't need attack speed early on when your W isn't even leveled because your attack is going to be crap anyway (especially when you attract aggro since your orb will go on cooldown when not leveled), and honestly anyone NOT STUPID will just blow their skills before attacking you.

the window of opportunity where the silence is useful is way too limited, as far as I can tell the only times the silence becomes practical is vs a Fayde (who's ultimate requires you to auto attack Vindi), Magebane (melee hero that requires being up in your face attacking to do damage; silencing Magebane when he's auto attacking you gives your team an opportunity to counter-gank whenever he's on you), Monkey King's Q-auto-Q-auto, and possibly Rampage (not sure if Rampage gets silenced when charging). For any other hero the silence is just basically an annoyance and just requires adjusting play to counter (don't auto attack two seconds before you need to use skills).

I really think the activation for the silence needs to be widened to include at least single-target spells directed on Vindi as well; this will make it at least a bit more useful. It'll still be no where near the amount of usefulness that the old aura gave, but it'll be much more reliable in helping Vindi stay alive in situations where heroes specifically focus on him and want to burst him down. Keep in mind that the duration of silence has been dramatically lowered from 3.5 to 2, so it really won't be as 'annoying' as it used to be, and it still only effects heroes that are actually targeting him.

..I also honestly could care less about the extra attack speed he gets and wouldn't mind if it just disappeared, I facepalm on it as it seems like a really half-assed way to make a useless more skill worth leveling. If you really must tack on some 'extra stuff' to make it useful, you could scale the extra attack speed (ex. +20/30/40/50% of his int stat in +attack speed) to make it more in line with his int stat theme instead of just tacking a set amount on. Another suggestion would be to consider giving him a slight movement speed boost (+5/10/15/20 movespeed lingering for 1 second) when attacking with orb to promote a more aggressive auto-attack carry style play, as his abysmal movement speed has always been one of his big weaknesses that makes him prone to feeding, I'd prefer seeing that over attack speed. I don't really want to get too much into random suggestions though so I'll end that train of thought there.


+ :vind:'s overall damage is definitely lower now, and he has no incentive to be in fights since his ultimate is global and his int-steal unreliable, i.e. he is better off getting int items for his W than trying to steal it from enemies during fights. That means he's better off farming and pressing R when he needs to. Once he has a pushstick+sheep/hellflower, he actually becomes a factor and fights start lasting long enough that his intsteal matters.definitely agree with above bolded, and these points are my main gripe with the new Vindicator; one of the supposed reasons for his change was to 'make him more active', but this change really did the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of that; it made him turn into an EXTREMELY passive carry hero that concentrates on farming the entire early game, with his only strength being punishing people who get cocky on him and over-extend. He really has no incentive at all to be 'more active' anymore especially with the passive int gained per kill gone.

-

summary - E really needs to be re-examined and looked at again, the way it was approached was really half-assed and is currently borderline USELESS except for some really thoughtless indirect counters (you can't honestly say you wanted to SPECIFICALLY make Vindi counter Fayde's ultimate etc.) and the obvious tacked on attack speed bonus.

Definitely give it back int-steal per kill (but make it steal only 1 per kill) to at least encourage skilling it as a one-point wonder, ON TOP of encouraging being more active early on (obviously encouraging actually being in team fights to gain more intelligence, setting him up to have more carry potential as the game goes on).

..and I'd really suggest at least making the silence trigger on single-target spells directed at Vindi as well as it would give the silence more use; the fact is Vindi is still INCREDIBLY squishy as hell with no escape mechanism, if people focus even a few single-target spells at Vindi he's going to disintegrate whether or not they get silenced.


I don't post on Balance forums much anymore as in general I think it's a complete waste of time when it seems the balance team has NO IDEA how to actually balance this game anyway, but I really feel you took a really bad direction in terms of changing Vindi and you need to fix your sh1t or lose even more respect from your community.

[Reldnahc]

I always felt old vindi was a toxic mess and whether or not the current iteration is up to par, I'm glad we don't have to deal with the abomination that was the previous.

[OJPhoenix]

Well whatever, the guys who posted above me (painkiller` & PrestonLee) have it about right. I just wanted too see less discussion that implied "give back old vindi" because I seriously doubt S2 would and even if it was a possibility I'd think its a stupid idea. My opinion doesn't matter though because apparently I'm either completely wrong about old Vindicator or too stupid to know what I'm talking about, but likely it seems both.

[Orchest]

No, you're just not providing any actual arguments either way, just asserting stuff.

[aeowulf]

Don't make it personal guys. OJ, I assume you're talking about Greg, he was sarcastic, but he never insulted you directly.

Since I already gave my opinion on the new variation of the hero, I'd like to quickly point out my gripe with this conversation: I believe its important to have a hero pool with multiple skill and item builds, in game strategies, and various new mechanics to learn. Everyone dislikes certain heroes on the enemy team, but just because they dislike how the hero is played doesn't mean they need to be reworked (I can't stand Storm Spirit/Repulsor but the hero is unique and I rather see a new hero than a rework that removes his defining characteristics).

So when I see people post half a line about how they hated old vindicator, its annoying. There is no substance to that, why would you even post to say 'A YUP' when there is a poll topside.

[ImmaYeti]

Seems to me the numbers speak for themselves. This was a horrible change as far as public opinion is concerned. Almost everyone, 90/107 of people who had an opinion on the matter so far, are not happy with this change. The goal now isn't to continue discussing how this was a bad change, That has already been decided, labeled, shelved and gotten back out to pass around again, but to find someway to resolve the issues that people have with this change.


I wish this one was picked for his E. Oh well, S2 scrapped this for reasons unknown to me (it was actually in SBT for a long time, changed it at the last minute & then the version retail sees today got testing for something like 2 weeks to a month and then officially got released)
Awe yes, Just like the government. People don't like them much these days either.

Also. Why offer a indifferent option on the poll? Most of the time we just call these people Non-Voters. Except that they did vote, and who really knows why? This may just be the jaded me talking but, I honestly expect s2 to ignore the public on this based on the fact that they have "100,000" players and only 90 of them disliked this change when asked. What I see is that only 17 people liked this change, and I expect that 2-3 of those votes are the same people that initiated the change in the first place. What is it going to take to get someone who can make a decision realize this wasn't a good one? If I could get a response as to who we could send emails to the revert or revise this change the community would be appreciative.

[Rosgath]

Seems to me the numbers speak for themselves. This was a horrible change as far as public opinion is concerned. Almost everyone, 90/107 of people who had an opinion on the matter so far, are not happy with this change. The goal now isn't to continue discussing how this was a bad change, That has already been decided, labeled, shelved and gotten back out to pass around again, but to find someway to resolve the issues that people have with this change.


Awe yes, Just like the government. People don't like them much these days either.

Also. Why offer a indifferent option on the poll? Most of the time we just call these people Non-Voters. Except that they did vote, and who really knows why? This may just be the jaded me talking but, I honestly expect s2 to ignore the public on this based on the fact that they have "100,000" players and only 90 of them disliked this change when asked. What I see is that only 17 people liked this change, and I expect that 2-3 of those votes are the same people that initiated the change in the first place. What is it going to take to get someone who can make a decision realize this wasn't a good one? If I could get a response as to who we could send emails to the revert or revise this change the community would be appreciative.

What you don't realize is that in most online games only maybe half the player base even read the forums at all. Of that ~50%, only maybe a tenth to a quarter of those will post or even go so far as to vote. This statistic also favors the lower percentage of 10%. That means that statistically speaking each vote here is worth roughly 20 people out of the whole player base (assuming a percentage base). Any remaining non-voters are assumed to be indifferent and just want to play the game and don't really care about changes in the first place.

So assuming each vote is worth the voice of about 20 people, about 2100 people actually spoke up on the topic and of that 1800 didn't like the :vind: change. That still only adds up to about 2% of the player base for total votes, but the fact that the overwhelming majority thought the change was bad it's fairly safe to assume most of the playerbase thinks the change is bad.

Edit: Just an FYI, my statistics are polled from MMORPGS (WoW, Everquest, Guild Wars) and are all estimates. I would assume in a game where your active attention is required for more of the actual game time you'd see an even lower percentage of the player base even visit the forums.

[ImmaYeti]

that and the fact that the forums are not multilingual and the numbers i threw up for player base are.

[Cyber_Kun]

Rosgath (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/member.php?u=794915), even if everyone but five people like the change, it is still a bad change balance and design wise.

[Orchest]

Correct solution to Vindi problem was as fol:

Q: Rescale range to 550/600/650/700 (to centre of aoe).
Rescale aoe to 100/200/300/400.
Now works on hero owned creeps.

W: Cooldown to 1/0/0/0.
Either: damage to 40/60/80/100%int OR add secondary damage mechanism based on difference between Vindi's remaining mana pool and target's.

E: Only affects targets who have been damaged by Vindi or had a status effect placed on them in the last 4 seconds.

R: 2/3/4/5 (SotM effect, additionally places Q on all targets of ulti).


Congrats. Vindi's capability is retained, perceived problems with passively being able to anal fist combos by "just standing there" solved, ability to BBQspam low mana heroes from early levels without any risk solved, arguably the worst ability in the game (W) solved. Ultimate gains negligible SotM effect to make hero "sexy" for pubs to pick.

Overall balance of the hero retained. Q stronger at 3-4 weaker before, now counters creep based errors, especially Oph. Situational nerf to E offset by buff to W. Playstyle now more depedant on retaining iniitive with other abilities for E to provide capability.

[Ahimtar]

1) Now no one beside Witch Slayer and Mage Bane can drain someone's mana.
i am a bit late, but you forgot fayde and electrician :)

[Orchest]

And every hero with Nullire or Puzzlebox. That statement definitely needs another condition.

[SQ_Walrus]

Remakes of old heroes annoys the hell out of me. If you have new ideas put them on a new hero instead.

[ReckeD]

I feel that vindi is now a sup-par carry/support with little/nothing to offer team fights with the exception of a well timed ulti on a looong CD.
With no gank and even less survivability hes lackluster at best and when compared to other carry/support options the math just doesnt seem to add up to me.

my 2c.

(ps. if you could discuss what role you see vindicator falling into it would be much appreciated because as he stands I have nfi what hes there for. Yes i'm a noob)

edit: removed rage

[KawaiChan]

* Passively grants 10/20/30/40 Attack Speed. Enemies that attack you are Silenced for .5/1/1.5/2 seconds

If we change it to:

Passively grants 10/20/30/40 Attack Speed and Movement Speed. Enemies that attack you are Silenced for 1/1.5/2.8/3.5 seconds. The silence is removed if attack another hero beside Vindicator.

To OP or not?

[Rosgath]

If we change it to:

Passively grants 10/20/30/40 Attack Speed and Movement Speed. Enemies that attack you are Silenced for 1/1.5/2.8/3.5 seconds. The silence is removed if attack another hero beside Vindicator.

To OP or not?

This doesn't really address a new issue I came across. Because he no longer gets permanent int gain and his Q doesn't steal enough int to offset this loss, his orb isn't really worth getting anymore. It overrides attack modifiers and only adds a small amount of true damage. In most cases you'd probably be better off with a harkons or FWS as one provides more damage late game and the other gives him at least some presence other than global ult. I've found that he's MORE effective by forgoing Master's Incantation all together and picking up a crap ton of attack speed. Problem is this really defeats the purpose of his whole basic skill set as his carry functionality is kinda based around his orb.

All together, if I'm looking to pick up a ranged carry every other hero who fills that role does so better. Puppet, Aluna, and Grave all have higher base damage than :vind: does (though if :vind: steals int from 2 people he has higher than aluna and grave, though grave has his defiling touch. He has more than puppet too after stealing int, but puppet also has crit to offset this) and they all come with disables of some form. Flint is probably closest to the current :vind: in skillset, but flint does much better as he has extra long range, slow, and micro stuns.

Oh hey, just thought of another way to rework his current skillset.
Glyph silence changed to work like flint's hollow points but with silence and slow instead.
Master's Incantation does say, 100% additional bonus damage to targets who are silenced.

Eh, I feel like we've beaten this horse to death a couple hundred times already. Obviously S2 doesn't give a crap about :vind: and probably hasn't for a long ass time.

[MadPsycho]

Vindicator is now a walking ultimate. Since he no longer disrupts a teamfight by just being there, there is no incentive to attack him. He also will not be dishing out nearly the amount of damage as before the change, as his passive no longer boosts his intelligence. Bottom line, he has such a drastically reduced presence in teamfights that he is no longer worth picking.

Pros:
Orb gets better as the game goes on.
Global silence.
AoE int drain.
Passive that boosts attack speed.
Incentive to not attack him.

Cons:
Low movespeed (290)
No escape
Killed easily by chain casting
Long ultimate cooldown
Silence only triggered if attacked
AoE nuke deals moderate damage


Eh, I feel like we've beaten this horse to death a couple hundred times already. Obviously S2 doesn't give a crap about http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/images/smilies/heroes/vindicator.png and probably hasn't for a long ass time.

S2 definitely cares about Vindi. Heroes like Chipper, panda, ra, monkey king, etc. all rely heavily on chain casting. And guess who was the counter to that chain casting...

[Wiwefak]

Vindicator was one o my top 5 heroes. I always picked him to counter pebbles/midas or some other chain nuker. But now he is useless. He lacks any escape mechanism. No slow,stun. Slow move speed. I remember i could easily escape a chain caster because of the aura, but now they come use all their nukes and then autoattack me do death. 290 move speed isnt helping alot.

[Isis]

The "old" vindicator definitely needed a remake. His skillset was simply too punishing against some heroes, and completely worthless against others. For example, being the best counter to tempest and pebbles in the game was just stupid. His curse of silence was stupidly good against heroes with high mana cost high cooldown abilities, while being useless against heroes like armadon. Panda was completely unplayable against vindicator. Vindicator was either an incredible boon on your team (when he gets tanky, against the right heroes), or he fed all game to predator and ended up with steamboots and bracers. Heroes like that are incredibly bad for the game, because they make more games won or lost in the picking phase. Ideally, you could be able to pick a couple supports and gankers, maybe a carry, maybe a couple of semi carries, and it shouldn't matter TOO much which ones you pick. You should win or lose based on how you play. Vindicator being a walking pebbles disabler did nothing for the game.

That said, I do not like how they remade him. The third skill is really "meh", as most heroes won't be attacking you while they nuke you down anyways. They're obviously trying to push him into carrying, which he's "ok" at now, but still isn't nearly as good as many other carries out there. He honestly just feels really generic, and he's probably underpowered.

[PopCokeSoda]

Justified remake. Vindicator is currently one of the best (if not the best) solo mid heroes. He's viable competitively and will destroy the current dual-mid fancy. Mark my words.

EDIT: So as to not make anyone think I'm being sarcastic, judging by the tone of this discussion - he destroys any melee hero mid, probably any agility semi-carry. The spamability on his Q is imbalanced as of now and will probably not be addressed anytime soon. I am yet to lose mid playing vindi, but haven't faced pollywog yet, and I think it may be a difficult matchup. His E helps extremely well with lasthitting, just because you have better attackspeed and can dish out more lasthits than your opponent, even an agility hero. All those monkey kings, pebbles', deadwoods, devourers can go **** themselves. Especially devourer, since if he doesnt shift-queue ulti after hook, he is auto-silenced, since the hero automatically tries to auto-attack after a succesfull hook. Pretty hilarious.
I am >1800, seeing as it could matter when discussing balance.

[ElementUser]

Especially devourer, since if he doesnt shift-queue ulti after hook, he is auto-silenced, since the hero automatically tries to auto-attack after a succesfull hook. Pretty hilarious.

Good Devourer's will instantly order a move command right after Q is cast and will probably toggle W when he sees the hook connect, so this point is moot if you meet a player that knows what they're doing. And what if Devourer does attack you? As long as he toggled W before then he can always keep up with you.

Anyway, so what about his mid/late-game (other than his ultimate)? His autoattack can only get so strong with the new mechanics and there are many heroes that are better if you want a DPS hero. So his function is still mainly his walking ultimate and MAYBE to beat solo mid.

[PopCokeSoda]

The devourer aspect was just a situational anecdote.
His auto-attack is arguably the strongest orb there is. It's fun to have sb or lifeleech, but his orb is true damage! All this armor-heavy meta we are in is countered. It's beautiful, he melts zephyr, legionaire, balphagore, armadon... Int carries are the best carries, because they can use disable items with added damage advantage and vindicator can use disable items with an even greater bonus damage advantage. If he had an escape he would be retardedly op.

Also, what "new mechanic" are you talking about? I'm not big on mechanics, I just play the game and see what happens.
Winning mid is enough for winning the game a fair ammount of time. Having a proactive silence in teamfights can net you an important kill and the fight is 4v5 after it wears off. He really is extremely strong.

[ElementUser]

New mech means no more AoE silence aura

[PopCokeSoda]

New mech means no more AoE silence aura
I thought there's some kind of a new mechanic conerning his W. My point still stands then.

[ElementUser]

Well in any case, until I see Vindicator used in comp play successfully I won't believe that he's a good hero, simply because he's a mere shadow of his former self IMO. We'll see.

[`11411181]

I am >1800, seeing as it could matter when discussing balance.
It doesn't.

[KawaiChan]

New mech means no more AoE silence auraAnd it doesn't seem like they are gonna change it back anytime soon (tm) :rolleyes:. So I was thinking, if they are not going change it why not tweak it a little bit?. The problem with the skill is the punishment given for attacking Vindi is very weak. It defeats it's purpose of preventing people on focusing Vindi in a team fight. lets increased the silence duration a bit. And to balance it out we need to add some sort of new mechanic for the enemy hero to remove the silence if they need to. So that where my idea is coming from, the silence will be removed if they attack another hero beside Vindi.

[Rosgath]

And it doesn't seem like they are gonna change it back anytime soon (tm) :rolleyes:. So I was thinking, if they are not going change it why not tweak it a little bit?. The problem with the skill is the punishment given for attacking Vindi is very weak. It defeats it's purpose of preventing people on focusing Vindi in a team fight. lets increased the silence duration a bit. And to balance it out we need to add some sort of new mechanic for the enemy hero to remove the silence if they need to. So that where my idea is coming from, the silence will be removed if they attack another hero beside Vindi.

Honestly you don't have to justify improving the silence that :vind: passive currently applies. It doesn't work if he's stunned and consider TDL. She gets +80% base damage (that includes initial damage so it's always more than just raw stats) though it is physical it actually applies to the attack damage itself so she works wonders with Riftshards and she silences for 2.5 seconds each time SHE attacks her enemy. Considering she gets 75 bonus attack speed from charge and has a 3.1 agi gain she can MUCH more easily get perma-silence on people than :vind: passive can.

:vind:'s passive reciprocates a silence on a hero who can barely survive 2 or 3 decent hits even with steamboots on str. Considering it's defensive and is disabled while he's stunned it's the least they could do. .75 second silence per rank should've been done in the first place, not .5 .

While I don't like the fact that :vind: lost all of his originality in the remake, I can live with it as long as the numbers are brought more in line with what OTHER carries get. EVERY other hero who has an attack modifier built into them ALWAYS wants to use it. :vind:'s orb doesn't scale well enough now that he doesn't permanently steal int. His Q doesn't steal enough to make up for it either.

Don't get me wrong, I've played him solo vs a double mid and he is unrivaled there. I mean, seriously he shits all over double mids. I could see him being really effective against tri-lanes with a good support like plague too, but right now he's just underpowered in general. His first item pretty much HAS to be tablet or he will always die to anyone, but he also needs a lot of farm and AS is strong on him so alchemist bones is pretty much core. But if he goes alch bones then he's screwed for another 4 to 5 minutes while he gets his tablet.

He has NO justification for having a low MS. Flint has slows, micro stuns, and high range. :vind: has none of those and his defensive function doesn't even stop his opponents from auto-attacking him in the first place.

Edit: Also, :vind: has a ridiculously low primary stat gain for a hard carry. The only hard carry that has lower primary stat gain than he does is Pred. FA has equal primary stat gain, but in both the previous cases their stats are naturally stronger than int for a carry and both those heroes start with higher primary stat than :vind: does.

[Killroy]

Would it hurt to much to makes his ulti apply the old sage lore during its time? So 7 secs of silence and burning 40 mana and life per second? It is just a little buff and doesn't remove this great skill completely.

[Ritualst]

I agree that it wasn't good hero remake. His passive +int from death was what made him so strong and fun to play (it's hard to play a squishy hero who has anoying ability of silencing that is focused every fight). Nowdays ... I don't really like playing him anymore ...

[`Krigsbest]

I don't get why they would nerf this old one. I mean what has he done to you man? Now all he is is a early laner still without survivability.
It's like what they did to Chronos but worse in that case like "hey let's remove half his strength gain, yea sounds normal."

[ElementUser]

I don't get why they would nerf this old one. I mean what has he done to you man? Now all he is is a early laner still without survivability.
It's like what they did to Chronos but worse in that case like "hey let's remove half his strength gain, yea sounds normal."

See china's post:


Before pretty much giving up on spoonfeeding S2 feedback and balance input, I told Nome the Vindicator remake was garbage, had a terrible premise/purpose, and was pretty much one-dimensional trash.

I remember that I was one of maybe 3 people in a 3-4 page thread that thought that, and I think I was one of the first to just say: "You're doing this because you want to make it easier for your heroes to match-up against him."

I'm glad some of you think he's garbage too. S2, I hope you're reading this. Design process is pretty much balls-in-mouth-feet-in-air. Get good, pls.

[tailSPACE]

why not make his glaives(from E passive) silence whoever they strike? long live old nortrom! while lowering the cooldown on his Q while retaining the same dmg/mana cost?

[KawaiChan]

why not make his glaives(from E passive) silence whoever they strike? long live old nortrom! while lowering the cooldown on his Q while retaining the same dmg/mana cost?Just NO. You don't want to gets perma-silence by him don't you? Just let only TDL has that skill. Lets not add another one.

[tailSPACE]

Just NO. You don't want to gets perma-silence by him don't you? Just let only TDL has that skill. Lets not add another one.

that was pretty much the case before, only now he can only perma silence ONE target, instead of everyone casting a frickin' spell. also it'd give us another counter to that ****ing magebane.

[Rosgath]

that was pretty much the case before, only now he can only perma silence ONE target, instead of everyone casting a frickin' spell. also it'd give us another counter to that ****ing magebane.

Fayde is a hard enough counter to :mage: as is. "o hai magebane! I can deplete your ENTIRE mana pool and practically kill you with ONE spell. O, and it's not my ultimate"

Anyway on topic, I don't think giving 2 carries an identical (or nearly so) effect is a good decision. Originality is important when you have 100+ heroes and making his orb silence on hit isn't very original. I still stand by reworking the aura to increase CD's of people who cast in it and maybe reduce cast speed (though reducing cast speed isn't all that original, it does need SOME immediate effect to improve :vind:'s own survivability besides the original effect of increasing CDs).

[`Krigsbest]

Also another thing , his Twin Fangs actually have a cast time and can be interrupted, it ain't instant like other stuners have.
Recent game I was in, first i tried to get away with it but no, magmus stun was faster, tried to get away 2nd time but no, sil's stun was instant.
Heard the sound both times but there's a cast time. Gemini's trash, will never play the hero again.

[Awares]

I disagree with the change and would like to see it reverted, but...

The new Vindicator is my favorite carry to play now. He's pretty fun. Just putting it out there.

[Rosgath]

I disagree with the change and would like to see it reverted, but...

The new Vindicator is my favorite carry to play now. He's pretty fun. Just putting it out there.

You realize you just stated that your current favorite hero is arguably the MOST GENERIC ranged carry in game right? If you like :vind: I strongly suggest playing aluna or Puppet Master instead. Aluna has global presence if you can learn to aim her stick and she has a MS boost, More powerful AS boost, a powerful farming nuke, a stun, and more base MS than :vind:. The only thing you currently get by picking :vind: over aluna is the fact that he can use a global silence instead of global damage.

Also, the change should NOT be reverted. The old aura was a design concept along the lines of the entire Emerald Warden hero. Too much for too little effort. Don't get me wrong positioning on :vind: is/was critical if you wanted to survive a team fight and for the aura to be strong but, after that he was kind of a beast against certain heroes.

On another topic, I've been trying to think of ways to use the current incarnation of :vind: with some tweaks to make him work. Change passive to this (maybe);

Glyph of the Fumbling Mind (name a WIP):
Whenever enemies deal damage to :vind: they have their Movespeed reduced by 15/20/25/30 and all enemies within 700 units of :vind: have their Cast speed reduced by 15/20/25/30. Stacks twice. 5 second duration, refreshing with each stack. Passively increases AS by 10/20/30/40.

AND change his ultimate with this:
Activation remains as is but also passively increases the RADIUS of Brain Drain by 100/200/300 units.

By increasing the radius with ranks of :vind:'s ult he gets increasingly more likely to hit more enemy heroes with it making it more powerful in teamfights (it also effectively gives him more range on it allowing him to harass them and maybe build a bit of damage earlier). It doesn't do an exceptional amount of damage so I see no reason why it couldn't have an exceptionally large radius with some help from another skill.

[oxman]

76% said the new Vindicator is not good, the old should be their (with a rework maybe, but not this one)
So S2 ?
MAKE VINDICATOR BACK !

[FurryTuna]

He's not as bad as people are making him out to be. They have just shifted his role from being passive to a more aggressive and better late-game Vindicator.

According to S2, the thing that defined Vindicator was his W and his R. And he still has that, and it is not impossible (or even that hard) to win games as him. So please, just try to adjust and comment after you have played like 50+ games as him.

[Antimodus]

I have no idea how you could seriously think Vindi had his late game buffed with this change. Honestly.
The only thing that was buffed is his farming capability.
his scaling into the late game as a hard carry was nerfed quite strongly.

A 350+ gpm Vindi late game used to be something scary, now it's just like a 400 gpm <insert any ranged carry>, really. His ult is still quite the game breaker though.

[KawaiChan]

He's not as bad as people are making him out to be.


Are you talking about this (http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/hero_use.php?sort=winpct)?


better late-game Vindicator.

Tell me how his new brain drain is better then his old permanent INT steal?


According to S2, the thing that defined Vindicator was his W and his R.

Says who? show me the post or link. And this matter is debatable. Are you saying that the old INT steal is not what defined who he is?


it is not impossible (or even that hard) to win games as him. So please, just try to adjust and comment after you have played like 50+ games as him.

Show us proof that you are owning with him for that 50 games or you are just talk.And who says that it is impossible to win the game with? That is not the issue. The issue is that the remake is making him to become more generic and boring carries.

Forgive me if I sound rude, but that just show how frustrated I am with the changes. Its been more that a month already and we need an official S2 statement on this.

[FurryTuna]

Are you talking about this (http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/hero_use.php?sort=winpct)?

That doesn't tell me anything. You are also suggesting a buff for Shadowblade, Salforis, Flux, Master of Arms, Silhouette, Tremble, Puppet Master, Berzerker, Revenant, Electrician, Monarch, Swiftblade, Legionnaire, Pebbles, Flint, Pyromancer, Gauntlet, Monkey King, Kraken, Bubbles, Tundra, Gravekeeper, Voodoo Jester, Valkyrie etc. Because they all have less than 50% win ratio.


Tell me how his new brain drain is better then his old permanent INT steal?

Why is Brain Drain being compared with his Glyph? Brain Drain should be compared with Sage's Lore. Sage's Lore didn't use to steal INT, Brain Drain does. Sage Lore was also either very useful or very useless early game and completely useless late-game in almost all cases. Brain Drain on the other hand is not.

Also, the analogy that Glyph used to give permanent int steal while now Glyph doesn't but brain drain does (while Sage's Lore didn't used to), so therefore Brain Drain is more closely linked to Glyph and not Sage's Lore is understandable. So let's talk about it, Permanent INT steal was good only if you could get the assists or kills. Brain Drain is good in the case of a stalemate (where there is a lot of poking back and forth) before a team-fight breaks, regardless of Vindicator's performance (kills and assists) prior to this engagement.


Says who? Show me the post or link. And this matter is debatable. Are you saying that the old INT steal is not what defined who he is?

This was in SBT discussion and I shouldn't have brought it up, but I think it is good if the community knows the thought process behind the reworks. Hopefully, someone else in SBT can back me up here.


Show us proof that you are owning with him for that 50 games or you are just talk.And who says that it is impossible to win the game with? That is not the issue. The issue is that the remake is making him to become more generic and boring carries.

If you are going to make balancing decisions based on my performance, then that's awesome. I suck with Flint Beastwood and Flux as well. Please buff the **** out of them because no matter what build I go on them, I just can't seem to snag a win for my team.


Forgive me if I sound rude, but that just show how frustrated I am with the changes. Its been more that a month already and we need an official S2 statement on this.

HON is deviating from its predecessor. If you wish to play Nortrom, then either play DOTA or wait for DOTA 2 open beta. I heard it will be free, so no worries. There is little to no chance that Vindicator rework will be reverted. So there is no point in flogging a dead-horse, your only other option then is to actually try to learn him. He is no longer the same 'I burn all your mana in lane' hero, you actually need to adapt a different play-style with him. After which, you will realize that he ain't as bad as people make him out to be.

Wasn't he picked up recently (as in, in the past month or so) in a competitive game?

[KawaiChan]

He's not as bad as people are making him out to be.




Are you talking about this (http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/hero_use.php?sort=winpct)?






That doesn't tell me anything.


Ok then, let me give you easy summary version of that statistic page. Based on the last time I check (GMT 04:13 PM), this is what current Vindi ranking on hero usage and win percentage.

Hero usage ranking : 37/104 (Used: 47,901) Vindi was used quite a lot in this pass 7 days.
Win percentage ranking : 99/104 (Win:19,162 Lose: 25,045) Bottom 5 win percentage.

Now I let you decide what this tells you.

Also I hope you notice what is the standing for the current pool for this thread.




You are also suggesting a buff for Shadowblade, Salforis, Flux, Master of Arms, Silhouette, Tremble, Puppet Master, Berzerker, Revenant, Electrician, Monarch, Swiftblade, Legionnaire, Pebbles, Flint, Pyromancer, Gauntlet, Monkey King, Kraken, Bubbles, Tundra, Gravekeeper, Voodoo Jester, Valkyrie etc. Because they all have less than 50% win ratio.


Huh? When did I suggest a buff for that mentioned hero? Please don't tell lies.






better late-game Vindicator




Tell me how his new brain drain is better then his old permanent INT steal?






Why is Brain Drain being compared with his Glyph? Brain Drain should be compared with Sage's Lore. Sage's Lore didn't use to steal INT, Brain Drain does. Sage Lore was also either very useful or very useless early game and completely useless late-game in almost all cases. Brain Drain on the other hand is not.

Also, the analogy that Glyph used to give permanent int steal while now Glyph doesn't but brain drain does (while Sage's Lore didn't used to), so therefore Brain Drain is more closely linked to Glyph and not Sage's Lore is understandable. So let's talk about it, Permanent INT steal was good only if you could get the assists or kills. Brain Drain is good in the case of a stalemate (where there is a lot of poking back and forth) before a team-fight breaks, regardless of Vindicator's performance (kills and assists) prior to this engagement.


It's seem that I have confused you my question so lets me rephrase it so that you will understand. Tell me how his new brain drain INT Steal mechanic is better then his old permanent INT steal mechanic? And thrust me, this have been debate before in other (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?400236-2-5-14-Vindicator-rework&p=15088122#post15088122) thread in GD and it's quite obvious which one is better so I will not go into this matter anymore.







According to S2, the thing that defined Vindicator was his W and his R.




Says who? show me the post or link. And this matter is debatable. Are you saying that the old INT steal is not what defined who he is?






This was in SBT discussion and I shouldn't have brought it up, but I think it is good if the community knows the thought process behind the reworks. Hopefully, someone else in SBT can back me up here.


Ok. If that was your reason then I wont per-sue you anymore on this matter. But just let me leave this post from china regarding Vindi rework for reference.



Before pretty much giving up on spoonfeeding S2 feedback and balance input, I told Nome the Vindicator remake was garbage, had a terrible premise/purpose, and was pretty much one-dimensional trash.

I remember that I was one of maybe 3 people in a 3-4 page thread that thought that, and I think I was one of the first to just say: "You're doing this because you want to make it easier for your heroes to match-up against him."

I'm glad some of you think he's garbage too. S2, I hope you're reading this. Design process is pretty much balls-in-mouth-feet-in-air. Get good, pls.






it is not impossible (or even that hard) to win games as him. So please, just try to adjust and comment after you have played like 50+ games as him.




Show us proof that you are owning with him for that 50 games or you are just talk.And who says that it is impossible to win the game with? That is not the issue. The issue is that the remake is making him to become more generic and boring carries.






If you are going to make balancing decisions based on my performance, then that's awesome. I suck with Flint Beastwood and Flux as well. Please buff the **** out of them because no matter what build I go on them, I just can't seem to snag a win for my team.


Then you are just all talk. Why bother making that first statement if you are not even owning with him for 50+ game. And no. I never even ask him to be buffed. My only gripe is the changes is making him more boring and generic. Thats all.



There is little to no chance that Vindicator rework will be reverted. So there is no point in flogging a dead-horse, your only other option then is to actually try to learn him. He is no longer the same 'I burn all your mana in lane' hero, you actually need to adapt a different play-style with him.

I know. Please refer to my previous (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?403703-2-5-14-Vindicator&p=15057874&viewfull=1#post15057874) post regarding this matter. :)



Wasn't he picked up recently (as in, in the past month or so) in a competitive game?.

Yeah I saw that games. If I was not mistaken it was team Fanatic, exactly 1 day after the Vindi patch. Also just recently there was a team that was picking Vindi on the It'sGosu Invitational Final I think. I forgot who picking him so correct me on this. And surprisingly both team that were picking Vindi lost. He did Ok in the game but he just don't offer much for the team except for his silence. So why bother picking him when there is a lot more carries that can do much better job then him? I cannot even comprehend why you still call him that good.

[FurryTuna]

He did Ok in the game but he just don't offer much for the team except for his silence. So why bother picking him when there is a lot more carries that can do much better job th(a)n him? I cannot even comprehend why you still call him that good.

Um... Vindicator, pre-remake, also didn't offer much for his team except for the silence. Also the passive on his glyph was a little too disabling, (same reason why Pebbles didn't take on Tiny's passive of stun locking his hitters).

I can tell you the design logic between a shift from a passive permanent INT steal to an activatible temporary INT steal. It is simple, really:
- Previously Vindicator, possessing little to no killing potential early game, acquired INT from killing or assisting enemies. This is quite different from Devourer's case, who actually gets rewarded an added STR attribute point because he is actually a factor in said frags. Vindicator was being awarded free-stats for just being nearby (he doesn't have any damage or real disable to gank).
- Now Vindicator is more like CD, he doesn't get permanent damage (int in vindi's case) but because he is not a big contributor in enemy killings early on, there is no unjustifiable permanent INT steal.

Hope that helps.

[Rosgath]

Um... Vindicator, pre-remake, also didn't offer much for his team except for the silence. Also the passive on his glyph was a little too disabling, (same reason why Pebbles didn't take on Tiny's passive of stun locking his hitters).

I can tell you the design logic between a shift from a passive permanent INT steal to an activatible temporary INT steal. It is simple, really:
- Previously Vindicator, possessing little to no killing potential early game, acquired INT from killing or assisting enemies. This is quite different from Devourer's case, who actually gets rewarded an added STR attribute point because he is actually a factor in said frags. Vindicator was being awarded free-stats for just being nearby (he doesn't have any damage or real disable to gank).
- Now Vindicator is more like CD, he doesn't get permanent damage (int in vindi's case) but because he is not a big contributor in enemy killings early on, there is no unjustifiable permanent INT steal.

Hope that helps.

You relate :vind: to :corr: but you fail to point out the fact that the value of what :vind: steals is FAR LOWER than that of what CD gains. I dare you to tell me that :vind: can steal int from the entire team too. We've already discussed that point and established that it is logistically infeasible to assume you will steal more than 15-20 int during a teamfight. Either the CD is too long or it doesn't cover large enough an area to consistently hit enough enemies to build int or doesn't steal enough int per target to have a decent impact.

Also, CD is a semi-carry NOT a hard carry. :vind: is more similar to :chro: than he is to :corr:.

The perma-int steal was there because it was his CARRY FUNCTION. By participating in ganks/teamfights (even if he didn't contribute much) he had something to really gain. No other carry is strongly encouraged to participate in the game early in such a manner which gave him a unique playstyle. We also have yet to hear any kind of justification as to why his building permanent int steal was removed in favor of Passive AS.

[Spahrep]

85% dissaproval rate, and i would agree.

Honestly i tired playing him after the changes. Now maybe i was just too accustomed to the old vidi, i think i still have like 15%+ played as vindicator. I tried the new one several times before I gave up. His surviveability is even less than before. His old aura made it hard to combo him, allowing him to try and walk away, seeing as walking is his only escape mechanism. So you need to get him survive items, but this genraly doesnt go the best with trying to stockpile +int. You need to stockpile +int now as his aura now doesnt give you the huge int boost that gave him a late game carry. And for those crazy people that say he can get more int, please, show me a decent game or two where this happens. In theorycraft is one thing, in reality is another.

There are 1001 small changes that could have been made, but this one shot overhaul has failed. Why not put charges on his aura silence? Why not tweak the numbers on his mana drain? Modify his stats? Modify the numbers on any ability, play with aura ranges.

IMHO the new vindi is far worse off than the old.

[FurryTuna]

Design-wise? No, he is made better. However, he does need number adjustments and tiny tweaks.

Instead of grunting angrily and demanding the impossible, I see potential in the rework but would want to push for a feasible one that will make him more accommodating for competitors' liking.

[MadaraStv]

I don't get people who say "He can counter and escape so many carrys because they relly on autoattacks and can't use a spell afterwards for 2 sec to stop or finish him". Do you people even know how that scales? You don't get 2 sec on lvl 1... No you get those tiny 2 sec (mostly) at level 14. Before that? 0.5-1-1.5 ? No difference at all early game... His old skill was what made him a carry. He couldn't get nuked by Pebbles,Pyro,Doc or about 50% of the remaining hero pool. Stopping channeling around him was vital too - best Tempest counter. I didn't really care much about the int gain but the 3.25 sec aura silence on cast was his most powerfull tool. Now my top-played hero is useless to me and so is my guide.

[PopCokeSoda]

Great rework. Finally vindi is viable carry, great mid hero and fun to play. That aura required 0 skill, for a massive presence.

[KawaiChan]

Um... Vindicator, pre-remake, also didn't offer much for his team except for the silence. Also the passive on his glyph was a little too disabling, (same reason why Pebbles didn't take on Tiny's passive of stun locking his hitters).

It's funny to see when your 1st statement is contradicting with your 2nd statement. I got one word for you. "Harassment".



- Previously Vindicator, possessing little to no killing potential early game, acquired INT from killing or assisting enemies.


Do you wanna know why they remove the sage lore? Because It is that powerful. I usually got a blood-lust by lvl 3 with old Vindi (lvl 2 lore and 1 in aura). How? Timing. You don't Brainlessly spam the skill to harrast your opponent. Bait them to cast first with your positioning and counter attack with your lore as soon their skill is on CD. After that keep spamming the sage lore. Usually they will be half HP and out of mana after the second cast and and cannot use the health pot because of the DOT. This is the time when I usually dive in for the kill. Most people don't realize this but Vindi has a really good base damage on his auto attack and it really helps to get the kills. This is how you get the INT steal from the old Vindi.


Vindicator was being awarded free-stats for just being nearby (he doesn't have any damage or real disable to gank).

You do realize that the old Vindi need the enemy hero to be visible when dieing to steal his INT right? He also squishy and his aura radius is quite small.What does this mean? He need to be in a perfect position during a team fight and not just being nearby to steal INT. So your statement is really arguable. Also why do you use Vindi to GANK? why not pick better hero at ganking like Polly or Fayde?



- Now Vindicator is more like CD, he doesn't get permanent damage (int in vindi's case) but because he is not a big contributor in enemy killings early on, there is no unjustifiable permanent INT steal.

I don't know about you but on my typical game with the old Vindi I usually got stat like this:5/3/25 and of course with a blood lust. How do I get so many assist? The sages lore and the final chapter. So in my case he is a BIG CONTRIBUTOR in enemy killings early on. In one game I even manage to get around 80+ INT steal (40 assist+Kills).


Design-wise? No, he is made better. However, he does need number adjustments and tiny tweaks.

Instead of grunting angrily and demanding the impossible, I see potential in the rework but would want to push for a feasible one that will make him more accommodating for competitors' liking.

Explain to me:How is silencing enemy who attack you for 0.5/1/1.5/2 second on a squishy hero like Vindi is a Better Design-Wise?

[FurryTuna]

Explain to me:How is silencing enemy who attack you for 0.5/1/1.5/2 second on a squishy hero like Vindi is a Better Design-Wise?

OK that part is definitely a nerf, but for the right reasons. As I have mentioned earlier HON did not port Tiny's ability to passively stun his hitters because it was too disabling. What I meant from the statement was that Vindicator previously required to be having a good game or a very long game in order to become a hard-carry. Games typically don't drag too much, hence all the complain about "BUFF SW or Chronos or Flint etc". So the INT steal design is good, but if they change the numbers from say 3 INT to something like 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 INT per hero, you will agree that he will become a better carry faster.

[`Krigsbest]

Imo just remove his third skill and replace it with either a blink or an assassin's shroud ability.
What does it even do nowadays? Silence upon auto attack?
You know in most cases, heroes First land their nukes and Then auto attack which makes it....useless.

[Theburned]

Imo just remove his third skill and replace it with either a blink or an assassin's shroud ability.
What does it even do nowadays? Silence upon auto attack?
You know in most cases, heroes First land their nukes and Then auto attack which makes it....useless.

well it pretty much makes you use your ability before you hit him with the shroud/genjuro attack... but that is pretty much it. I failed once really hard, can't remember what hero it was, but ended up auto attacking him while I was actually trying to be able to cast a spell to kill him.

[KaitosHyral]

In my opinion, the old Vindicator is WAY better in general. Should have nerfed the CD and mana cost of his first skill, because the current one is pretty weak. His passive rework was one of the most horrible changes I've ever seen on HoN, because it previously could shut down heroes like Panda, Pebbles and Behemoth, now it shut down heroes like Fayde, who can't combo out of an auto attack from ulti.

[Yugoloth]

The new skills are fine, except for his E. It only useful effect is to give some extra attack speed. But that "attack me and you are going to be silenced for 2 seconds" is really useless. Dampeer, monkey king and that kind of combo heroes can pwn him really, really fast. His new E also gives him no presence in teamfights. At least that is my point of view.

[J4yzah]

Personally I believe that S2 should've left Vindicator alone, although Sage's Lore may have been overpowered early game and quite easily did an insane amount of damage. Perhaps the mana cost for that move should have been upped a little. but other than that I feel the nerf was not necessary. Vindicator held individuality in HoN with his mana drain as it was so powerful on mana but not too overwhelming on health.

All in all, more mana cost on sage's lore was needed and perhaps a slightly longer cooldown on the third ability (i forget it's name, the passive throw thing) but thats it.

[Alten]

Personally I believe that S2 should've left Vindicator alone, although Sage's Lore may have been overpowered early game and quite easily did an insane amount of damage. Perhaps the mana cost for that move should have been upped a little. but other than that I feel the nerf was not necessary. Vindicator held individuality in HoN with his mana drain as it was so powerful on mana but not too overwhelming on health.

All in all, more mana cost on sage's lore was needed and perhaps a slightly longer cooldown on the third ability (i forget it's name, the passive throw thing) but thats it.


They were trying to "change" him, not nerf him.

[foxmindedguy]

New Vindicator concept is fine, numbers on the other hand.

[HWACHA]

removing his aura and making it silence on attack completely ruined him

his aura is what made him uniqiue apart from being a walking ulti.

[Ekamo]

New Vindicator concept is fine, numbers on the other hand.

Considering the majority of the past 175 posts has said otherwise, I'm curious, exactly what are you basing your opinion that the new concept is "fine" off?

[Antimodus]

Design-wise? No, he is made better. However, he does need number adjustments and tiny tweaks.

Design-wise, he was made terrible. Look, no need to actually back up my argument with anything. It's great.



Instead of grunting angrily and demanding the impossible

Why is it impossible? because you said so? because somebody over at S2 is too butthurt to admit their Vindi rework was a colossal failure?
Maybe. Or they can just get over themselves, and revert.

[Gorb]

Is S2 too "butthurt" to admit their rework was a "failure"?

Or is the "elite" "balance" community too "butthurt" to admit that their suggestions weren't taken on board? Hrmmmm.

NB: all subjective and/or exaggerated terms placed in quotes as to not detract from the main point at hand. It is reasonable to assume that a reversion to the previous Vindicator is "impossible" because S2 are likely to never do it, given their stated reasons for reworking Vindicator.

It is, possibly, more reasonable to assume a secondary rework would eventually come through the pipes, but I doubt it considering the amount of time invested in reworking Vindi the first time around.

[zstarkey42]

While I haven't played Vindi many times in total I can't help to notice his rework was quite bad imo. I'm not even sure what his role is anymore - some kind of int carry with an annoying ultimate? I liked him a lot before he was changed because his design and role was rather unique: he started as a lane support that could either be extremly sucessful against some lineups or completly useless against others (mainly heros with low mana cost skills). Then as mid game approaches and teamfights became more often he filled the niche of shutting down combo-based heros with his aura, gathering int from assists/kills and then evolving into a decent lategame carry with the acumulated int with a team-fight winner ultimate. I don't see what was so wrong with that, it made him a situational pick but extremly effective against some lineups. This is how most heros to be ... designed to be effective in their role not a jack-of-all-trades with stuns/slows/support/escape etc we're all tired to see and add nothing to the tactical depht of the game when there's so many safe picks.

After his rework I see him as some subpar carry with a mediocre farming skill that takes more farm to be effective than other carries that can't permanently 'farm' his damage with assists/kills anymore and has a close to useless passive that makes him 100x times as likely to get bursted down and die... and lose gold... which isn't very practical considering he's nothing but a carry now with no escape that already takes large amounts of gold to be effective in the first case. Sure he can carry a little harder with the aspd boost on his passive, but 40 isn't much and it doesen't make much sense to add aspd on the hero on a thematic point of view, though this is just a minor concern.

To me, his rework completly got rid of his unique role, even if situational, and turned him into a below average carry (cause there's much better INT carries out there with escapes, team synergy and more useful disables) that can't even farm up or survive very well to reach his carry status. Not only he lost all his uniqueness he also doesen't seem as useful as before. Failures like this make me wonder which other heros are going to get butchered next by future remakes.

[Antimodus]

The relevant criticism has been laid out in great detail by Anakha's quoted post, and china's post earlier in the thread. All I've seen from the opposite side of the argument is an assertion that old Vindi was "anti-fun" (while apparently it is fun to get MK-facerolled or Sil-huehued). Basically, "new design is good because old design was bad". Why is it bad?
1. "not fun".
2. greatly variable effectiveness on skills is bad [there are lots of examples of this with other heroes by the way, but apparently it was only really a problem when it comes to Vindi]

That's about as much depth as I could find.
The short version of it: we want to play LoL and Vindi was getting in the way.

Better delete this hero than leave him in this neutered state. Watching his icon in the hero pool is "anti-fun" for me.

[SirVH]

I would not use the word "anti-fun". Seriously, Vindy could shutdown nearly any lane in a few Sage Lores. Unless the enemy hero had a low mana cost skill, old Sage Lore was kinda of a auto win lane.

[Antimodus]

SL was nerfed and made largely ineffective at level 1. Then chalice was introduced. That's not enough?

Plague rider's extinguish is kinda auto win lane, pretty much against anything. Why aren't we reworking PR?

Also my complaint is mostly that they butchered Last Word (Glyph) and turned it into useless junk. Like, a worse skill than Accursed's Sear.

[SirVH]

Plague rider's extinguish is kinda auto win lane, pretty much against anything. Why aren't we reworking PR?
I ask myself the same question everytime I face a PR on my lane. One being OP doesn't mean the other should be.

[_T_o_x_i_c_]

pls devs give old passive of vindi and mana damagin skill
he is too crap now , late game can no longer be any affected if he join the team or not , for many times i played him he is now outside of teamfights , because he gets wrecked in 3 hits even on lvl 25 without being able to scratch an enemy back, not even talking damagin it

[_T_o_x_i_c_]

Better delete this hero than leave him in this neutered state. Watching his icon in the hero pool is "anti-fun" for me.

god bless him !!!
+ over 9000


quote of old screen i cant post here somehow

" -vindi damn enemy has got -12 INT now !
-teammate : you make them stupid )))) "

[DrPeckers]

After his rework I see him as some subpar carry with a mediocre farming skill that takes more farm to be effective than other carries that can't permanently 'farm' his damage with assists/kills anymore and has a close to useless passive that makes him 100x times as likely to get bursted down and die... and lose gold... which isn't very practical considering he's nothing but a carry now with no escape that already takes large amounts of gold to be effective in the first case. Sure he can carry a little harder with the aspd boost on his passive, but 40 isn't much and it doesn't make much sense to add aspd on the hero on a thematic point of view, though this is just a minor concern.

I agree fully with this except I would go further and say Vindicator is not even a carry. While he does have several scaling abilities, he does not have a good farming skill or an escape mechanic so he does not have all of the neccesary attributes of a carry. This places his rework in as hard a position to balance as the original because to make the rework viable would require massively Overpowering his scaling abilities.

Compare Brain Drain to any other similar "Farming Skill" on an int hero like Pyro, Defiler, or Soul Reaper. Their farming skills do around 300 magic damage, while Vindi's does 200. This is a huge difference as it almost doubles the time it would take Vindi to clear a Creep Wave compared to other heroes since Melee Creeps have a base of 550 hp. In fact, most Support Heroes can clear out creep waves faster than Vindi. But, this makes sense since Brain Drain's main purpose is to be a steroid skill not a farming skill, so increasing its magic damage would make it very OP. Consequently, the current version of Vindicator cannot support a farming skill which it needs to Carry.

Clearly, Vindicator does not have an escape mechanism. Glyph of Silence does nothing to prevent Vindi from being ganked since enemies will always lead with their nukes, and if Vindi has to use his ult to escape a gank, the enemy can almost consider that a minor victory since Vindi's ult will be down for the next team fight. Moreover, Vindi has one of the worst base movement speeds in the game, so even if he ults, there is still a very good chance he will die to the gank since he will not be able to outrun his gankers. Add to the fact he is rather squishy with a 1.7 strength gain, and you have a carry that requires his team to babysit him well into mid game for him to be able to compete at all with other carries. Without a rework of his skills, the current version of Vindicator requires a massive boost to his base ms and str gain to be a safe enough pick for teams to bet that he will carry them to victory, but again, those buffs would place Vindicator squarely in the OP category.

In conclusion, Vindicator in his current version is no more of a carry due to his scaling skills than Armadon is a tank due to his tanking skills. With the complete lack of any support options outside of his ult and the extreme risk in allowing him to carry, the rework did not place Vindicator in a position where he could be more easily balanced than his previous version.

I am in favor of the old Vindicator being brought back, but seeing as S2 appears to be staunchly against this solution, I can see no way of fixing Vindicator with number tweaks so another rework will have to be made. Next time, S2 should not try and make Vindicator a carry because he just is not a carry, and instead focus more on the support and counter-initiation role of the original.

[Clewteris]

Here is my problem with the new vindicator. Almost every hero in the game has some sort of spam-able (in theory) way of helping the team defensibly. This is achieved either through some sort of CC on the enemy or a buff on the team. There are only six heroes that I can think of that do not fit into this category. They are Blood Hunter, corrupted Disciple, (new) Vindicator, Defiler, Legionnaire, and War Beast. However because of this on the other five heroes, they have some sort of balance that offsets this help. Lego and WB are both excellent farmers and junglers, allowing them to surpass the need to help the team defend. In addition Legos taunt allows him to purposely initiate/sac himself for the team. Personally I think that WB needs a buff too but that's not the point. BH and def, although not having team def both have amazing silence that is spam-able allowing them to offset the need for defense (also Def ult which is just so powerful for both OF Def and Pushing). CD does not have any of this, but the combination of his ult and Corrupted Conduit allows him to have amazing amounts of damage, leading to him carrying really well. Old vindi was still in with these six heroes but, because of his passive, fell into the defiler/BH category, in addition because of the int gain he was able to carry really well as well. One possible fix would be to reduce the Cd of his ult and make it a large AOE similar to Jere's ult, giving him better CC in a team fight. Right now because of the high CD he just doesn't have any helpful team defense. Another possibility would be to change his passive back but just have him gain instead of steal. Not sure. Just my thoughts
Clewteris

[_T_o_x_i_c_]

wall


vindi was late game dis abler , meaning the more u fight vs him the weaker INT heroes gets or other lose they ability to fight
this is real witch hunter or magebane and this was the uniqueness of whole game , vindi was "last man standing"
now he is something i want to get my refund back , because hes so crap as **** ... no !!! because he lost his unique ability

remove all his skills and leave just one , INT suck , its only what makes him vindicator

[_Lateralus_]

The hero is just generally underwhelming, not fun to play, immobile, no farming mechanism, the list goes on.

[Epidemilk]

Old aura should not come back, he made too many heroes cry just by existing. Sage's Lore caused more than its share of misery as well.

But he's still squishy and slow, with his unique strengths gone. SOME kind of buff would be nice.

[Fen__]

Old aura should not come back, he made too many heroes cry just by existing. Sage's Lore caused more than its share of misery as well.


This is typical argument of a newbie player who doesnt know how to counter some mechanics.


The fact was that vindicator aura was disabled when you cced him so any of heroes who got greatly countered by vindis aura could just buy hellflower and destroy him in matter of seconds (combo/snowballing heroes like peb/mk can usually buy hf without bigger probs and it synergises with them very well so its not a item/gold loss).


Yes aura was great but at the same time if you disabled vindi than he was turning into 0 burst/0 cc/0 escape mechanism hero with low speed and no dmg in early-mid stages of the game.


Sage lore wasnt as good as most stated as well. First of all it counter only reasonable small group of heroes. Many of heroes had some sort of cheap abilities. Another story is that even though sage lore was strong in early game ability, it didnt provide any sort of burst or cc making vindi exceptionally weak lanning partner. Most of decent lane combos controlled by skilled players could kill vindi or his lanning mate without any problem due to mentioned before problem. And if you picked some hard carry getting countered complelty by vindi like chronos, than its your prob that you take risky pick.


Current vindicator offers nothing beside his ultimate. His carry/farming potential is weaker than most of other carries/semi-carries like revenant or valk (mentioned just a random average carry potential heroes that poped to my head) unless you are analyzing hellflower + sheepstick + behemoths heart + strong armor item late game scenario which wont happen in 99% of matchups.

[Farosarg]

And the arguments from Fen_ only show how 100%-0% the skills were. Either they were simply just way too powerful or just completely useless, which is a problematic design. Also the "just disable him" argument is kinda weak considering how it works just as well for all the other heroes. Sure you can jump him, disable him down and kill him, which meant that he ended up having to build tanky without any kind of farming skill. I don't see S2 bringing the old design back either, considering how almost desperately they wanted to get rid of it. If they are going to do anything, it's going to be based on current one so I don't much see any further reason to keep discussing the old one.

[teabaggedd]

I remember the old vindicator. It was certainly viable

[`11411181]

And the arguments from Fen_ only show how 100%-0% the skills were. Either they were simply just way too powerful or just completely useless, which is a problematic design. Also the "just disable him" argument is kinda weak considering how it works just as well for all the other heroes. Sure you can jump him, disable him down and kill him, which meant that he ended up having to build tanky without any kind of farming skill. I don't see S2 bringing the old design back either, considering how almost desperately they wanted to get rid of it. If they are going to do anything, it's going to be based on current one so I don't much see any further reason to keep discussing the old one.

You're basically saying that situationally useful skills being worth acquiring for their own merits is a 'problem', which is an incredibly broad generalization. Yet the exact issue with hero design in HoN is perceived to be a lack of uniqueness in actual use and end-effect of skills - but you're saying that having unique skills worth picking for are problem design.
Can't have your cake and eat it, and there's a reason people joke about 's2 heroes having 2 nukes, stun, slow, escape mech/shield' - because they're very consciously aware of this and design their new heroes to appeal to this flawed perception to make money.

[Reldnahc]

You're basically saying that situationally useful skills being worth acquiring for their own merits is a 'problem', which is an incredibly broad generalization. Yet the exact issue with hero design in HoN is perceived to be a lack of uniqueness in actual use and end-effect of skills - but you're saying that having unique skills worth picking for are problem design.
Can't have your cake and eat it, and there's a reason people joke about 's2 heroes having 2 nukes, stun, slow, escape mech/shield' - because they're very consciously aware of this and design their new heroes to appeal to this flawed perception to make money.

The problem was with the degree of how situational they were. Pestilence's ult is situationally great against invis heroes but is still good enough in general to warrant use. Sage's Lored hammered heroes like Pebbles and Swiftblade but was a complete joke to Armadon. You basically didn't even bothering leveling up the skill at all that game and ignored it completely. I can't help but draw parallels of this to another hero who's been criticized design wise for wanting to ignore skills, Gemini, but that is another can of worms. That's how situational his skills were, you either maxed them as soon as possible or ignored them until 22-25.

Vindicator was unique of course, but was his uniqueness healthy? He was either pitiful or powerful in every game he was in, very rarely was there a middle ground. I always felt like Vindicator had this polarizing design that forced more problems than it did to solve and the attempt to break "combo" heroes and be an annoyance could have been handled in a much better fashion. New Vindicator of course doesn't intend at all to fulfill what all old Vindi could, but I don't think he deserves all the hate he has gotten. Just a few small tweaks and I feel he'll be in a good spot. But of course new Vindicator replaced old's spot, so I can understand where the frustration is coming from.

[`11411181]

Truthfully, Pestilence's ult is 80% the -armour debuff and 20% sight in terms of usefulness - even in the context of being against an invisibility hero. 'still good enough in general' is a gross understatement as to how good that skill is.
To draw the same comparison to Sage's Lore - Lore was a potential 400 damage nuke; that is not bad or worth skipping (unless you were terribad). Lore did hammer certain heroes in lane, yes. That is the point of the skill - it is supposed to force a no-win situation at Vindicator's leisure.
Is that inherently wrong?
We see this situation played out every single HoN game ever in much subtler ways - it's called opportunity cost. Attack the Moraxus who's spamming axes on me constantly, or go after the Flint in the back of the teamfight? Pre-emptively stun the Wretched Hag TPing to the tower, or suffer the consequences of her blinking onto you uncontested? It's no different to "cast a spell now, or lose x amount of hp and mana". There are only 2 reasons people had a problem with Lore - and both are to do with misconceptions about what is 'fair' and sacrosanct, and what is not.
Firstly, the variable effectiveness. I personally haven't seen any warranted objections to 'it smashes some heroes but doesn't for others', other than that being somehow self-evident. Are we supposed to start crying because stunning a level 1 Empath with 2 minor totems takes off more relative health than stunning a Blacksmith with 2 minor totems? No? Then draw the exact same parallel from HP to mana costs and pool, and suddenly 'oh no, too variable in effectiveness - must remove!' Lore's effectiveness simply functions on a different axis of effectiveness to pretty much everything else in the game, and this somehow scares people!
"But Anakha, there are some heroes that it simply doesn't work against! Why bother picking him if it doesn't work against every hero reasonably well?!"
Pebbles' combo doesn't work too well against high HP heroes with magic armour - should I not pick Pebbles now?
"But Anakha, there are also other heroes that Vindicator makes useless in lane! How is this even fair?"
Arachna rapes melee heroes in lane with her slow orb, should we nerf Arachna too? There is a distinct difference between losing and 'unfairness'.
A lot of these heroes Lore raped in lane also had other things going for them - namely different laning options. See: Hammerstorm example. You can apply this to a broad range of heroes that Vindicator craps all over. PzKw's post explains that fine.
Secondly, the other issue that people have with Lore is that at some point, somewhere, people suddenly thought that laning was meant to be a place of relative safety. I only really see this objection from bad players, mostly after they cry when the enemy team does something unexpected and tri-lanes against them and they have their Jeraziah/Accursed lanes **** on to high heaven. I'm willing to bet that this is a hangover from LoL players transitioning their expectations over to HoN in terms of relative lane pace - and it shits me to high heaven.

Lore cops a lot of criticism for forcing a decision where you don't profit in any proper use of, and having to make a bad choice meant that people who couldn't adapt got shafted. Hard counters to certain aspects of the game are necessary to act as a proof against any potential overwhelming superiority within those elements, and Vindicator just happened to embody several of them in one convenient package.
And let's be honest with ourselves here - Lore wasn't removed because it was overpowered. Level 1 numbers of the skill pre-remake were hilariously garbage, resulting in him not being able to control a lane worth a damn before kill lanes could **** all over him - which Lore is specifically intended to counter. Lore was removed because it functioned on an axis that people weren't used to, and it was SCARY to them.

As for Aura, I can make a lot of the same arguments that I did for Lore - but I think it's damning enough that Nome only designed the Vindicator rework so his heroes would matchup in a lane against him better. Aura provided a method to slow down teamfights with his ultimate and give a naturally fragile hero some indirect survivability, and with proper CC management and positioning, could easily be worked around. Lore, Aura and ult also worked together quite nicely in the sense the last 2 enabled the first.

As a hero on the whole, his presence within the pool also meant a lot of healthy things would happen in terms of drafting. Implied threat of picking is often just as good as actually picking the hero - so these cases where picking him meant he was mediocre in his element should realistically happen very little of the time. You'd only pick the hero if he's good - and our Lockpick tests before it was released showed that his potential presence went a long way to forcing some very interesting decision-making, which is exactly what Lockpick was intended to achieve.

So in answer:
Was he perfect? No.
Was he healthy to the game as he was? Yes.
Could it have been done better? Sure, in theory.
Was it worth scrapping the entire lot just because people could pick at one 'flaw'? No.
Does this remake even come within 1/100th of the depth that old Vindicator gave to the game? lolno.

New Vindicator can be summed up as a Shadowblade that has even MORE trouble carrying than Shadowblade or even old Vindicator did - but still has his global silence ult - and realistically, that will be the only reason he'll ever be of worth to a game.

[pewpewstar]

Was he healthy to the game as he was? Yes.
Does this remake even come within 1/100th of the depth that old Vindicator gave to the game? lolno.

Personally I'm a total sucker for metabalance or balance in drafting/team composition - hero counters, counter-counters, niche picks to counter popular picks/combos/strats, counterbecause****you, switching up lanes to combat a possible counter, all that sort of jazz. It's just a good layer of mindgames with various levels of risk/reward involved, as well as applying at different stages of the game (lanes/lanes breakdown/teamfights/stalling etc.). I also think this provides a context to analyse a hero in, rather than in a vacuum.

With regards to Vindicator, he might've countered some heroes too hard but that was counterbalanced by his pronounced weaknesses. He needed a reasonable farm to be not a walking bag of ult and liability, especially for a hero that couldn't nuke creeps for a quick GPM boost.

At the same time I believe he was beneficial to the game because of the metabalance considerations in interacting with enemy heroes and making them react accordingly. Pity we never got to see him used in a role beyond ward***** before the remake kicked in.

This takes me to my question, what were they trying to achieve with the remake? What was the goal and what was the strategy employed to meet that goal? What I can remember was that he was 'annoying*' but this does not at all take into consideration the role and impact he had in the game or any design problems he had, which I would think about first if a hero were to be remade.

Sad thing for me is that even if reverted, he'd be a nonentity because I feel the game has moved beyond cute counters and whatnot ;p

*extremely short version.

[Hsssh]

He was either pitiful or powerful in every game he was in

Tbh i don't remember him ever being powerful after these changes:


Level 1 numbers of the skill pre-remake were hilariously garbage, resulting in him not being able to control a lane worth a damn before kill lanes could **** all over him - which Lore is specifically intended to counter. Lore was removed because it functioned on an axis that people weren't used to, and it was SCARY to them.

Before that, yes. Back in beta he was ***** to fight in lane but even then i would have preferred to go against him instead of Slither or Plague Rider.

But after changes that made Q garbage at level 1? He became just a counter to pick to tempest that usually failed at countering him(and teams stopped banning/picking him completely even when Tempest was in play) or was used few times as surprise pick akin to legendary NH mid.

Lets look at level 1 numbers thanks to wonderful Cyber's thread, 7sec duration with 7 mana drain per second. Whooping 49mana drained, you know what happened usually in pub play when somebody casted level 1 Lore? After 3sec Pebbles would use his stun on creeps, Hammer would throw his stun at **** knows what and so on. Where i'm going with this is that main problem wasn't Vindicator himself, problem was people not being aware how Vindicator works and in general everyone wanting to play their hero how they play it every time instead of trying to adjust to new threats. Repulsor or Pandamonium players never bought Shrunken Head/Nullstone(till MSI started doing it) because Panda really needs runed clever or portal key. Every Chipper player to this day still wants to buy PK and unload all rockets in someone's face instead of trying to use his long range capabilities and sadly S2 is trying to preserve this unload everything in face gameplay.

I could go on with more examples. Thing is, old Vindicator never performed when opponents weren't bad and it was possible to make him rather low threat with aggressive early ganking or in general buying Shrunken heads or Nullstones.

And no, i didn't like old Vindicator much but i could see a direction and idea behind.

Sure, maybe what he brought to the table was not good and game is better without these capabilities but lets not pretend that he was some godlike and unfair hero that was 100% against some heroes and 0% at others.

[Ynuuyasha]

you know what.. all what old vindicator needed was a slight movement speed buff from 290 to 300 ms
damn i cant believe how can s2 destroy one of the most unique and situational heroes in the game.
while we got so many lame ass ranged carries like flint, emerald forsaken archer and list goes on.

srsly your attempt to change this hero failed hard. we want the old vindicator back!!

[zstarkey42]

Tbh i don't remember him ever being powerful after these changes:
Sure, maybe what he brought to the table was not good and game is better without these capabilities but lets not pretend that he was some godlike and unfair hero that was 100% against some heroes and 0% at others.

I have to agree with this. Why is that everyone says he used to be such a hit or miss hero? Isn't that what balancing should be about? I'd rather have a set of situational/niche heros that perform well for a general role but fall lackluster in others instead of the usual generalists with damage, escapes, cc, utility and what else. Old Vindicator was the prime example of being a true specialist at a few things at the expense of others; of course his extremist nature made him a situational pick, though if people haven't noticed already this game highly revolves around countering (preferably hard-countering) enemy tactics to render them useless. Nobody complains when you pickup items like Null/Shrunken/PK to completely counter some heros or why you avoid getting out of position for certain abilities to be useless against you (so unfair for the attacker right?)

I'm not sure what was wrong with his old aura. That I know any silence/CC stopped it from triggering and that alone already made it POSSIBLE to potentially counter his so called MASSIVE presence (hellflower anyone?). He was basically a hero that would either shutdown some lanes hard, or be almost useless against others (even then his ability to orb walk still made him useful in laning phase against everything). His passive allowed him to actually accumulate some damage throughout the game by participating in fights due to his mediocre farming ability so that he could potentially carry later on if needed. His old Q actually synergized with his ultimate, being able to deal some aoe damage in teamfights after silencing. I don't see what was wrong with him at all.

His current iteration is horrible. His passive is trash and there are barely no heros in game where it comes of any practical use. His farming ability, while boosted, is still rather weak for a supposed carry, which needs a ton of expensive items to do his job (sheep, hf, null), farms slower than most INT carries (aluna, pyro, dr, ...) and is arguably the hardest to keep alive (he lacks any reliable CC or escape to prevent ganks, combined with his low move speed). Don't tell me you're going to use his ultimate to escape a gank; chances are you'll still die if you do that and even if you don't you already blew it for the next teamfight resulting in a win-win scenario for the enemy team.

[Rosgath]

Guess I gotta come back to this discussion.

His old aura silenced ANYONE who he could see and who was within 700 units of him for a 1/1.75/2.5/3.25 seconds. At max rank this mean that heroes like Midas and MK could not function as long as old :vind: was alive. His aura protected his allies as well as himself making it extremely difficult to justify picking certain heroes in the competitive scene as they were so heavily countered by :vind:'s aura that anywhere that he was automatically made it a losing situation for these kinds of heroes. All he had to do was carry TPs and any mid that was combo dependent would lose mid as all of his ganks would be unsuccessful (if he ganks :vind:'s lane he loses because a good :vind: will have strong positioning to protect his lanemate and himself with his aura. If he ganks the other lane :vind: TP's in and it's the same situation all over again only worse). :vind: wouldn't even need to really farm all that much gold as carrying TP's would eventually pay off with enough turned around ganks to give him a lot of damage through passive bonus int.

The biggest complaint people had about old :vind: was his aura. Skills SHOULD be situational. The problem was that :vind: effectively countered an entire genre of heroes just by getting his aura. Not particular heroes, but an entire group of them. And it wasn't soft countered either, it was a hard counter. I for one do not think the old :vind: should return. I loved him, but I admit he was not conducive to the overall health of the game.

By the same token, the new :vind: is so horribly underpowered that he should not even be in game as is. The ONLY situation where he is even marginally powerful is Mid wars, and even then he's really not that great a pick as he has no disables. Let's compare his Old skillset (as a whole) to his new skill set (same as above)

Old skills
1. Mana burn, but could be reduced by enemy casting a spell. Most heroes could make this largely ineffective after level 3 or 4 making it's only true strength levels 1 and 2. His Aura and ultimate worked well with this as they both prevented enemies from casting and allowed him to keep up his burn and deal the most amount of damage with this skill.

2.) Same skill as before but had better synergy with his aura as it PERMANENTLY stole int.

3.) Incredibly strong against particular hero setups and allowed him to scale as long as he was around enemy hero deaths.

4.) Works well with his first skill and is powerful counter-initiation as people who DO initiate get screwed.

Overall: His first skill synergizes with his ultimate and his aura as well as makes him decently strong early game. His orb was stronger as he had more int to use it with.

New Skills
1.) More powerful as a farming tool mid-late game, but doesn't really allow him to flash farm like other carries get to. He never gets sufficient AOE damage to farm as quickly as other carries. The CD is too long and the damage too low to be of consequence. It does allow him to build more int early on, but late game it actually steals less int (fewer engagements) and overall moving int steal to this skill was an extremely poor decision.

2.) Same as before but now it scales with his first skill instead of his passive. Problem is, his first skill doesn't every build up much int so this skill was nerfed due to loss of synergy.

3.) The passive friggen terrible and rarely ever does much. I've seen it save :vind: a few times, but overall it's terribly weak and doesn't really work with the rest of his skillset anymore. The bonus AS allows him to make more use of his second skill, but without as much int the orb isn't actually worth picking up over other attack modifiers.

4.) Same as before but now it no longer has synergy with ANY of :vind:'s other skills. Before the ult was already out of place as :vind: always has been a carry (people played him as a psuedo support, but he's always been a carry) but now the ult has no buisness being on him at all. He doesn't get any extra bonuses for his opponents being silenced so there's no reason for him to have a massive CD AOE silence.

Overall: :vind: took a big hit to the nerf bat, but not in raw numbers. The nerf that he took was the fact that his skills no longer have any direction and do not work together at all. The previous remake was actually so bad that I quit HoN for 3 months. I really enjoy the game, but I don't think I've ever seen a worse decision done by a group of developers.

What's really sad is that S2 stands by the remake. They refuse to own up to the fact that it was a mistake. If they had or if the will in the near future then it's reparable but as is I still will never respect S2 as I once did.

[GregerMoek]

Yeah, Vindicator countered so many heroes. In other news, combocasting heroes have yet to be picked up despite this game changing nerf that makes them oh so viable.

[changlingbob]

[1:34:48 PM] cbob: i remember all of those times that vindicator got picked in the competitive scene
[1:35:01 PM] cbob: and how big of an impact silencer makes in the current dota competitive metagame
[1:35:09 PM] cbob: which is to say
[1:35:10 PM] cbob: not at all

pzkw later pointed out that aL pick up silencer as a surprise pick every so often in dota 2; but if he was such a big deal that we have to gut him, then he would have shown up, and silencer still would show up, more than once in a blue moon.

[Fen__]

Most of people who cried bout old sage lore or silence aura where those newbies who couldnt adapt their picks/playstyle/item buildups to current situation.


Even though sh countered vindi aura completly they still refused to do it and prefered to lose and cry that its because of vindis OPness.


Thats the main prob of old vindicator - community was to braindead to adapt to situations and modify their acts according to scenario, instead they prefered a brainless games where you always do same lane combos and buy exactly the same items no matter what.


Its funny that s2 makes a lockpick to increase the ammount of strategy in the game + force new hero pickups, while they nerfed to ground hero who was doing the job on its own...

[Farosarg]

[1:34:48 PM] cbob: i remember all of those times that vindicator got picked in the competitive scene
[1:35:01 PM] cbob: and how big of an impact silencer makes in the current dota competitive metagame
[1:35:09 PM] cbob: which is to say
[1:35:10 PM] cbob: not at all

pzkw later pointed out that aL pick up silencer as a surprise pick every so often in dota 2; but if he was such a big deal that we have to gut him, then he would have shown up, and silencer still would show up, more than once in a blue moon.

Still, what do you expect when with such a powerful ultimate and aura the hero needed to have maybe too big weaknesses. Squishy, low movement speed, no disables, no nukes, no farming ability. And yet there were counters readily available against him. Can't say I ever enjoyed him much in regular pub play, always forced to stay without farm with everyone else picking picking carries.

Though the point about situational picks is a good one and there maybe should be more hard-counters in the game, especially with this huge a heropool.