[2.5.14] Defiler

[NakedMouse]

Defiler, once seen quite a bit in competitive play, is now almost entirely absent from the competitive scene. Furthermore, she hasn't been changed much in recent patches, her only balance changes being as follows:


2.5.8:
Starting Agility from 14 to 16
Base Armor from 0.96 to 1.74 (After Agility)
Grave Silence radius from 200/275/350/350 to 250/300/350/350

These are not insignificant changes, but they aren't earth-shattering either. She gets a bit more starting survivability, which is nice, but not much else.

Some pros and cons I see with picking Defiler:

PROS:
- Spammable, AOE, high damage nuke. Helps her establish early lane control and is great for pushing a lane.
- Huge AOE silence, 6 seconds at max level. Gives her great teamfight presence.
- One of the best pushing ultimates in the game.
- If she has enough items to survive during the ult, she can output HUGE amounts of damage. Since the ult is physical, she can even put serious damage on a carry with Shrunken Head on.

CONS:
- Almost certainly requires a 1v1 lane, to establish early levels. Cannot survive a 2v1 suicide lane.
- Also has a fairly high item requirement. Must build survival items because she needs to be alive for her ultimate to do damage.
- No escape mechanism, and starts off being very squishy, which makes her susceptible to early ganks. This same syndrome is often cited as a reason that we no longer see Soul Stealer picked up.
- No hard disable, which limits her ganking effectiveness compared to other mid solos.

So basically, she's a good pusher with some serious teamfight power, but NEEDS levels and farm to be effective. If she doesn't get that, she loses most of her effectiveness. She isn't the only hero that has a condition like this, but it's exaggerated with her to the point where there is simply no recovery from a bad start. This makes her a risky pick from the get-go.

Sol's Bulwark should have been a serious buff to her game, since we're basically guaranteed nowadays to see one on both teams. However, unless I'm recalling incorrectly, it doesn't seem to have helped her all that much.

One reason for this is that other heroes do what she does, but better. Torturer, for instance, does just about everything Defiler does but has a solid stun to go with it, and the argument can be made that he is a more effective pusher since Impalement is on a much lower cool down than Defiler's ultimate. Impalement also doubles as a solid anti-gank mechanism in combination with his stun. Pollywog has great pushing power, coupled with solid disables and excellent ganking potential. His ult doesn't die when he dies either, so he doesn't have to worry about building tank items. Either of these heroes are a more attractive option than Defiler. They're also more versatile in terms of the line-ups they can fit into, since they won't be crippled if they have to function in a side lane.

I'm not really saying that Defiler is underpowered. I've seen her work quite well in pubs, for what that's worth. Her ultimate is strong and her silence is probably one of the more underestimated spells in the game. In addition, it seems like she would work well in a tanky/push metagame like we seem to have these days. I think that's the reason that S2 is reluctant to give her anything but minor buffs.

But she seems to be very dependent on the lineup of your team, almost to the point of requiring that a team be built around her. Heals are probably a must, for instance, and since her ult moves very slowly she needs her team to provide crowd control or it won't do anything.

It also probably doesn't help that one of her go-to items in Dota isn't considered very good in HoN. That item being Sac Stone.

So the discussion I would like to see is this: is Defiler underpowered, or is she merely a sleeping giant? Or has she simply been eclipsed by other heroes in the pool?

Thanks in advance, and I hope this generates some meaningful discussion.

P.S.: In the spirit of full disclosure, Defiler is one of my favorite heroes. Just so you know where I'm coming from.

[Ekamo]

Approved.

[dandylion]

My biggest complaint about Defiler is that her early attack damage blows, and her projectile speed is less than could be desired.

She's also outshined by other tanky-persistent damage dealers right now, who don't have to work as hard to become tanky. Her lack of escapes (silence is a pretty weak "escape" if it were to be argued) also makes her less attractive than the Magebane's/Ra's/Zephyr's of the world with their blink, stun/cliffwalking, displacement/slow respectively. She's just not as "safe" in the lineup.

Using her as a push fiend is kind of out of style too it would seem. She seems to have gone kind of the same way as Soul Reaper right now. I remember both Death Prophet and Necrolyte as the go-to int persistent semi-carries back in the day. Don't see much of that anymore.

[Reldnahc]

The only thing I dislike is how easy it is to kite her ult. Changing that could remove a lot of her team dependance and forcing lineups around her.

Also her and Keeper have perfect synergy btw.

[too`smithie]

I think what makes defiler ineffective, is that she’s been around so long pubs and competitive players know, that if you don’t aim her 1st or 2nd in team fight, her ultimate will tear through the team. If she continues to get ganked or caught out the hero can become dead weight.

We probably don’t see her much in competitive play purely because of teams stacking armour, plated, sols, etc etc, these all reduce the effects of her ultimate heavily. Her ultimate is also what I like to call unreliable damage unless you are able to be in close and auto attack a target.

How ever

I think she makes a great solo mid. A couple mana potions and a bottle allows you to effectively creap and harass at the same time while keeping the lane pushed up applying pressure to the tower. I like the fact that she needs a team of heroes to revolve around her, much like SS or Gladiator. These heroes are unique in their own right and require great team co-ordination to be effective.

You’ve argued that having no CC makes her ineffective as a ganker. This hero isn’t designed to gank, she’s designed to team fight.. Her wave is low cooldown, spamable for a reason, nuking creap waves and harassing heroes. Her silence is most effective in team fights hence why it’s aoe and not single target.

Her 3rd skill is actually well thought out , lowering the cooldown of her spells and increasing her movement speed. The ms increase allows you to move in and out of fights frequently which lessens her chance of getting caught in aoe damage.

The only suitable buff I could think of for defiler would be a SOTM upgrade to help push her mid game dominance a little further.

In conclusion, defiler is well synergized and has a unique playstyle/roll in certain team line ups. She is strong but a risky pick and this more than likely why she isn’t picked more.

ProTip: Defilers ghost can attack engineers energy field tower and kill it in a second.

[GregerMoek]

I will say what I say about many heroes that has been used and just aren't used any longer, they are balanced/fine. Other heroes are just OP/more in the comfort zone.

[Vascariz]

I will say what I say about many heroes that has been used and just aren't used any longer, they are balanced/fine. Other heroes are just OP/more in the comfort zone.

I find such a comment meaningless.

Balance is all relative. It all depends where you put the base line. Either the current competitive heroes are OP or the weaker heroes are underpowered. Doesn't really matter, each hero still has to be examined on their merits and balanced.

[Farosarg]

I believe she is fairly balanced, however she is weaker than what she used to be. There are so many heroes available after all those new heroes that will rip her a new one before she can properly use her ultimate early-game and people know very well how you can beat her late. Her build-trends have also changed quite a bit and she no longer sees the builds that people probably should be using to survive current meta.

Also, Torturer will do her job and lot better since using ultimate properly to push will mean it'll be on cooldown in the coming teamfight that the opponents will often initiate (as we saw in the last few games she was used) or can end up dealing a ton less damage in teamfights compared to what she needs to be doing or in worst cases ends up killing herself with it if facing a well-farmed hero with Barbed..

[Vascariz]

Using her as a push fiend is kind of out of style too it would seem. She seems to have gone kind of the same way as Soul Reaper right now. I remember both Death Prophet and Necrolyte as the go-to int persistent semi-carries back in the day. Don't see much of that anymore.

I agree their low survivability is the key reason why. Back in the day a defensive silence or a Soul Reaper judgement heal with a few tank items helped greatly in keeping you alive. But these are no longer sufficient to keep them alive.

Any tweaks for Soul Reaper or Defiler should be aimed at survivability and team benefit. Their mechanics are fine.

[Anakha]

I find such a comment meaningless.

Balance is all relative. It all depends where you put the base line. Either the current competitive heroes are OP or the weaker heroes are underpowered. Doesn't really matter, each hero still has to be examined on their merits and balanced.

Most of these heroes still win games in the absence of better options, so the logical conclusion is that the top-tier is too good. There's nothing mechanically wrong with their ability to win games before them.

[Orly2001]

Sacrificial stone could use buffs, Bloodstone was good on Prophet and Storm Spirit in DotA. It should be effective on Defiler and Dr.

[Vascariz]

Sacrificial stone could use buffs, Bloodstone was good on Prophet and Storm Spirit in DotA. It should be effective on Defiler and Dr.

Problem with buffing an item is that it will also benefit the heroes picked in preference of Defiler and Soul Reaper like Torturer.

[Orly2001]

Problem with buffing an item is that it will also benefit the heroes picked in preference of Defiler and Soul Reaper like Torturer.

Torturer is very powerfull compared to his DotA counterpart. I think he still needs nerfs. He's way more then FOTM.

[smurfberrys]

I find such a comment meaningless.

Balance is all relative. It all depends where you put the base line. Either the current competitive heroes are OP or the weaker heroes are underpowered. Doesn't really matter, each hero still has to be examined on their merits and balanced.

That's what he said... That the current competitive heroes are OP/fit the metagame. His stance on Defiler is that buffing all the old heroes would be power creep.

[FxyO]

vanguard nerf punished her unfairly.

[Anakha]

vanguard nerf punished her unfairly.

Correction: Hotbl change was a buff to most ranged heroes that wanted to keep at arm's length at all times.

[NakedMouse]

So what should be done to make her viable? Nerf a few of the alternatives? Buff an item she might be likely to use?

I too am of the mindset that we should avoid buffing a hero just because we believe said hero is weak compared to alternatives...but what's the solution then? Are all balance discussions of potentially underpowered heroes irrelevant until their overpowered counterparts get nerfed?

Are there maybe some small buffs that could bring her up to speed?

[Glibber`]

I'd rather see other heros nerfed than heros buffed to be on par with the rest -.-

And there is nothing wrong with heros requiring a certain setup to work, that just adds depth to the game imho.

Defiler is a great pusher, she has great teamfight potential.. but is she lacking the power to do so early/mid on?

Imo the influx of heros that can do everything (and sometimes even better then the pure role heros) killed of some of the older heros, like this one. Lacking an escape and stun (and inbuilt tankyness) = not fit in the meta.

[GregerMoek]

I find such a comment meaningless.

Balance is all relative. It all depends where you put the base line. Either the current competitive heroes are OP or the weaker heroes are underpowered. Doesn't really matter, each hero still has to be examined on their merits and balanced.

So if we take a look at the most used words to describe a hero's balance.

Overpowered
Balanced
Underpowered

You're saying we should instead change this to

Balanced
Underpowered
More underpowered

It doesn't make sense at all to do this.

All I'm saying is, Defiler is in the "Balanced" bracket. OP heroes are used in competitive because competitive players wants to win, I guess this is news?
Even so, she is used on rare occation (although not the past month as far as I've seen) and she doesn't need much to be relevant in competitive games. The thing is, she's currently not in the comfort zone of competitive players and she's not overpowered, so why pick her?

Oh unless you prefer that we say the top picks are always the definition of Balance, I guess when Silhouette was first introduced we should have just buffed everything to her level instead of nerfing her?

[Lariatoooo]

2 cents from a baddie.
I think defiler is fine,maybe some strenght in the beginning, but a hero needs to have some weaknesses.
Def is the stronger team fighter in the game imho, & a sick pusher, even without ultimate.
Don't look at wich heroes are used by competitors like if they are the holy bible, tons of heroes are considered trash & never picked, & suddenly one pick them & they become op(mostly because the previous are forgotten), so....(this means the game is kinda well balanced, but is another point).
It think that she benefits more from frostwolf or kuldra then hotbl or sacstone(even if reworked, unless clearly broken).
btw when EZ or Eg used defiler, they did fine .

[pewpewstar]

And there is nothing wrong with heros requiring a certain setup to work, that just adds depth to the game imho.

Totally agree with this but I guess this is the game state now - too many generalists, specialists neglected.

[Ogrim]

defilers problem is that she has to mid because of how piss poor her early game atk damage is and she has a terrible atk animation. Combine that with melee heroes going mid or melee heroes in a 1v1 side lane against her using a hatchet, and she is just a liability. Oh, and she has no escape mech at all, and is an int carry that builds tanky. And did i mention one of the best items on here, being storm spirit, was just bent over a chair, beaten, abused, reamed and defiled so hard that i was inclined to call social services?

Yea, not the best time to be defiler.


Thats just how i see it though

[MadPsycho]

It seems to me that Defiler is often played as a solo mid hero, with much the same role as a Pollywog Priest. Their nuke is more or less the same, they are relatively fragile with low movespeeds, and their ults are both strong pushing tools. Polly is a often considered a safer pick because of his two disables which give him another way to gain rune control. With no blink or rapid movement ability, both Defiler and Polly are reliant on either help camping the runes or pushing the lane at the right time to force the enemy hero back into their tower. Defiler can't fall back on a disable if things get tricky though.

So what exactly needs to get buffed, if anything?

Late game she has a powerful AoE silence and an ultimate that I would say has some distinct advantages over Polly's ultimate in that it can move. It is also only as easy to eliminate as Defiler herself is, while Polly's wards are fairly easy focused and even farmed. That means that Defiler is 'fine' late game, or at least she doesn't need any buffs that would overly affect her late game. That leads me to conclude that it is her early game laning ability that needs adjustment.

1. Changing how the movement speed was increased by Power in Death would give her faster early game results, while keeping her late game ability the same. With no escape mechanism, and no way to turn a gank until level 6, running is the only option that Defiler has to survive in most cases.
2. Buffing her nuke so that she has an easier time pushing lanes to gain rune control. I'm not a huge fan of this option, since I feel that the mana cost for her nuke is already more than fair once her passive is maxed.
3. Buffing her attack. She doesn't have the fastest projectile on the block, that's for sure. Her base damage also isn't anything special, but with a 600 range it's to be expected. As the hero database on the forums is currently down, I can't quote any numbers.

[Launders]

i think a decent increase to her base damage would go a long way.

[pewpewstar]

^ why is that? I mean increased base damage is nice on anyone but it hardly alleviates her weaknesses while not really augmenting her strengths, either.

[Launders]

^ why is that? I mean increased base damage is nice on anyone but it hardly alleviates her weaknesses while not really augmenting her strengths, either.

Its a subtle buff, it helps her early laning, considering you wouldn't go more than one point into the passive until level 8. I think her skills and their numbers are solid, and thus if I were to buff anything it'd be stats.

[Alten]

The issue really turns to the question of why Defiler should be picked over Tort or Hag or Aluna.

[triplej]

So if we take a look at the most used words to describe a hero's balance.

Overpowered
Balanced
Underpowered

You're saying we should instead change this to

Balanced
Underpowered
More underpowered

It doesn't make sense at all to do this.

All I'm saying is, Defiler is in the "Balanced" bracket. OP heroes are used in competitive because competitive players wants to win, I guess this is news?
Even so, she is used on rare occation (although not the past month as far as I've seen) and she doesn't need much to be relevant in competitive games. The thing is, she's currently not in the comfort zone of competitive players and she's not overpowered, so why pick her?

Oh unless you prefer that we say the top picks are always the definition of Balance, I guess when Silhouette was first introduced we should have just buffed everything to her level instead of nerfing her?

Nerfs are fine, but only in the case of some aspect of the hero being obviously imbalanced (see: Silly Hat, Dark Seer). Nerfing for the sake of nerfing (making it so that OU heroes are on the same power level as UU heroes) stagnates the game and is a terrible idea.

[GregerMoek]

Why is it a terrible idea though? If heroes has been fine before, something must have changed that made the heroes bad. Introduction of new heroes is one of the factors that can be part of the reason, which means that the newer heroes should be nerfed down to balanced level instead of buffing upwards.

The only reasonable reason to buff upwards is if a hero that previously was used and nowadays isn't is if it has become underused because of playstyle shifts (not meta shiftS). Example to clarify this is Arachna who doesn't farm well and gets ganked kind of easy, before she was according to many just used because people didn't gank or farm as effectively making her relative impact bigger. Kind of like playing her with lesser skilled people which can make her effective while on "pro" level she isn't because people know how easy it might be to deal with her.

Oh and another reason can be overnerfing something, which obviously is more of a balance correction than a change.

Defiler balance is in my opinion just a kind of "meta-shift" reason that she's not picked rather than a playstyle shift. That plus more powerful heroes that needs to be toned down (Tort).

[Tay_z0nday]

Her ult is really strong if the target is not moving sadly it's complete garbage if they choose to not fight you...
I think they should simply buff her ult movement speed and see what happen...

[Bohrain]

Defiler suffers from the same problem as Krobellus in DotA, both are essentially outclassed by Torturer/Leshrac and to some extend Polly/Rhasta.
All the aforementioned heroes are somewhat farm dependent intelligence heroes, who can push towers and be a major teamfight nuisance, but all of them lack survivability. The problem is that Defiler's only disable is a silence, although possible the best in game but still generally less useful than Tort's AoE stun or the various disables that Polly can throw up. Her ultimate is inferior to Tort's Impalement because she needs more levels and in my opinion inferior to Polly's ulti too, because Polly can leave the wards attacking while Defi has to risk her life with positioning.

I'd think about taking Polly and Tort down to Defi's level rather than buffing Defiler.

[Tensler]

She will sturggle 1vs1 as she wont be able to last hit as effectively and anywhere else she is too vulnerable to prosper. She does seem to be one of those heroes that have been around with a crappy auto attack when that was balanced but now she offers virtually nothing ontop of other heroes and cannot last hit worth a damn. Making her auto attack strong so she can actually aquire early game farm may be all thats needed to fix her, although making her ultimate a bit faster could help her massively as well.

[PowerBro]

Defiler is an OK pick, the problem is what she brings to the table if she doesn't get the levels / farm required.

If placed against say a pebbles / Nymph or a pebbles / glacius mid, she will suffer a lot. If she has a bad start, she will offer very little to the team for a while.

The issue is that over time, there are a lot of options that became safer and offer as much if not more to the team. Before the new tank fashion, it was heroes like her that were considered tanks. Now a day, she can be tanky but cannot compete with the armadons, RA, zeph of this world.

Also, 1 of the biggest issue of this hero compared to the Torturer, RA, Zeph, Armadon is the dependency to the ultimate. If the ultimate is down, the hero has very limited potential.

My suggestion to make the hero viable is a drastic cooldown reduction to the ultimate once SotM is acquired. I believe it is currently lasting 30 seconds. I would put the cooldown to 45-50 seconds once SotM is acquired instead of 100.

Also, there are a few items that used to be core on the hero that got nerfed: Storm Spirit, Sac Stone, Null Stone, Sheep Stick.

S2 definitely nerfed CC / tanky items for int heroes. You cannot expect heroes such as Defiler to see much action when such a thing occured.

EDIT:
I forgot to add this part: Her Ultimate should always be as strong as the ultimate when the passive is maxed. The passive should reduce the ultimate by 5 seconds, starting at 120 seconds with level 0 passive down to 100 when the passive is maxed. Otherwise, even once level 6, the ultimate really isn't that strong. So, ultimate cooldown would be: 120/120/120, 65/65/65 with SotM, passive removes 5 seconds per level.

[Glibber`]

I wouldn't mind nerfing torturer a bit, not sure about polly though (besides hex being useful throughout the game, he doesn't scale and snowball like some others, and q isn't thát strong later on + tongue is channeled).

[Orchest]

The issue really turns to the question of why Defiler should be picked over Tort or Hag or Aluna.

If you've ever tried to lane a Hag against a Defiler, you'd know a situation where you'd take Defiler over Hag.

Aluna is a fair point, but you'd pick Defiler over her to push early and mid harder.

Tort and Poly are pickles though, because they're mostly better at all the things Defiler is good at and also better at others. I guess Defiler's spam is safer and better by being cheaper and comparable or longer/less situational range, but that's it.

[PowerBro]

If you've ever tried to lane a Hag against a Defiler, you'd know a situation where you'd take Defiler over Hag.

Aluna is a fair point, but you'd pick Defiler over her to push early and mid harder.

Tort and Poly are pickles though, because they're mostly better at all the things Defiler is good at and also better at others. I guess Defiler's spam is safer and better by being cheaper and comparable or longer/less situational range, but that's it.

And if you lane a Hag against a Defiler, if you lose the rune battle 1on1, you are a pretty bad Hag. If any roaming occurs at level 4 / 5, which 1 of the 2 has more chance of getting killed by the roamers?

Hag is a much safer pick even 1on1 mid compared to Defiler. Defiler should have the upper hand as far as farming but hag should in no way get bullied out of lane and start to get an edge once roamers show up and she starts refilling her bottle.

[Launders]

What about being able to prematurely end the ult (should you choose to; most likely by pressing R a second time) and reap the benefits of the heal?

[Orchest]

You're now comparing the two heroes to roamers, which is a reflection of the metagame.

Defiler slams Hag six ways to Sunday in a lane. Damage and attack point are comparable. In laning, the main comparison is a pbaoe nuke to a cone aoe nuke. Hag has to leave the lane or get support to compete because Defiler eats her so hard. Hag has better rune controle, but her getting a bottle to exploit it early enough to matter is contingent on Defiler not exploiting her advantages earlier.

How do we know this? A year ago the matchup wasn't uncommon in high level play, and Hag ultimately fell out of favour due to her trash lane control followed by linear damage output in the early mid which couldn't keep up with tank carries. Defiler eats Hag solo mid.

[da_fume]

IRT hag vs defiler mid, if defiler plays it right she should at least have a 50% chance to grab the rune by pushing the lane at the correct time and camping a rune spawn. Sometimes the hag isn't even willing to sacrifice the xp/gold loss by contesting the rune at all (i.e. hag is 100g away from bottle with 33% hp) so by pushing correctly you can completely secure the rune without camping a spawn.

[bakaxy]

Reduce Wave of Death CD by 1 second, and buff Power in Death's movement speed increase to 4%/8%/12%/16%, additionally increase the reduction of manacosts for Wave of Death by +5% on every level (10/15/20/25).

And maybe give her 1 or 2 additional ghosts on lvl 3 ult.

The rest could stay the same.

I also think it could be great to make the ult togglable to control the healing effect, as someone else suggested.

[PowerBro]

You're now comparing the two heroes to roamers, which is a reflection of the metagame.

Defiler slams Hag six ways to Sunday in a lane. Damage and attack point are comparable. In laning, the main comparison is a pbaoe nuke to a cone aoe nuke. Hag has to leave the lane or get support to compete because Defiler eats her so hard. Hag has better rune controle, but her getting a bottle to exploit it early enough to matter is contingent on Defiler not exploiting her advantages earlier.

How do we know this? A year ago the matchup wasn't uncommon in high level play, and Hag ultimately fell out of favour due to her trash lane control followed by linear damage output in the early mid which couldn't keep up with tank carries. Defiler eats Hag solo mid.

And 1 year ago, the metagame wasn't encouraging ganks nearly as much, wards of rev could be bought at 0 minutes into the game, junglers were not popular, burst heroes were not nearly used as much, Panda was a valid pick, madman was seeing action, FA was a bad hero.

[Arilou]

Would it be too overpowered to actually make Defiler ultimate heal her at the same time instead of at the end? Could nerf the heal a bit but overall would give her that 'tankyness' this meta is filled with.

[`11411181]

Krob has her spirits healing per attack as a scepter upgrade (sotm upgrade) in dota2; if that was to be implemented here, I think it'd need to be similar.


And 1 year ago, the metagame wasn't encouraging ganks nearly as much, wards of rev could be bought at 0 minutes into the game, junglers were not popular, burst heroes were not nearly used as much, Panda was a valid pick, madman was seeing action, FA was a bad hero.

I don't think you really understand the circumstances you're trying to represent there as well as you think you do.

[Balls`n`Nuts]

So what Defiler is not being picked up as much in competitive gaming, there is 101 heroes in hon, 80 of them are not seeing any competitive action from time to time.
Then all of the sudden a new hero comes along, this is providing the needed synergy in return we see other heroes entering the scene for a while.
I am in big favor of nerfing other heroes compared to buffing Defiler.
Defiler smacks other heroes in the mouth mid + with right gear she is powerful early/middle/late game i.e. No need for Nerf

[Ekamo]

Closing all threads regarding heroes that were given relevant changes in the recent balance patch.

For further discussion about the changes and their implications, I suggest you take a look at the Patch Reception thread (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?425742-Community-Patch-Reception).