Flint Beastwood [2.5.18]

[FurryTuna]

Flint Beastwood has slowly diminished from the competitive scene and there are several reasons for that. I will try by best to list all of the heroes short-comings and explain why having the longest range is not enough in this new meta:

(1) Flint has one of the slowest movement speed in the game (Devourer is the only other hero that is slower than Flint). This games him highly susceptible to ganks and there is really nothing he can do when he sees a disable soon to come his way.

(2) On top of being one of the slowest ranged carry, Flint is also very very squishy. Among the popular range carry pick-ups right now, Flint is near the bottom of the barrel when it comes to starting health pool, health pool increase rate per level and starting armor. All these things again make him an easy target for ganks.

(3) Although he has one of the best attack animations, he can not take advantage of that perk due to him having the worst early game damage. What good is having the second fastest projectile in-game (first being Engineer) when the attack damage is minuscule. He can not contest last-hitting against any other range or melee hero and has to rely on his unreliable chance based hollow-point shells to be able to get any denies or creep kills.

(4) Due to him having minuscule attack damage in the beginning of the game (36 at level one), he really has no harassing potential early on. Range carries are suppose to be stronger in lane than melee carries but Iron Buckler makes his harass damage to be 16, which is not noticeable at all. I mean you can literally be pew-pewing at a Zephyr or Blood Hunter or Kraken or any Melee hero mid and they can simply ignore you and continue farming. You can't contest last-hitting, you can't even scare them away with harass, seems like he doesn't have much going for him in the early game.

(5) For being so useless early game, Flint really doesn't have extra-ordinary scaling into the late game. While other carries can afford to build some form of survivability and still dish out mad damage, Flint can only be considered a threat if he goes full-on attack damage. Going full-damage on such a squishy hero means that he is very easy to be taken out, if the opponents play their game correctly.

(6) For being so squishy and having the worst movement speed with no escape abilities, Flint really has no real utility for the team. His only-reliable slow has been nerfed to make it have an almost negligible impact and his mini-stuns are very unreliable (getting one or two off really will not make that much of a difference, since the duration of the stuns is like 0.2 seconds). He does have a reliable mini-stun ultimate, but the skill takes roughly 2 seconds to be effective (1.7 seconds cast time + ~0.3 seconds projectile travel time)..

(7) His steroid skill scales with attack speed, and even if you get a lot of said attribute, he does not seem to deal enough damage. Basically his steroid skill is more of a disruptive skill than a real-carrying skill.

(8) Finally, most of his damage is single-targeted which is a very big reason why he is not a good contender for carrying at the moment. He does not have the potential to deal 1200, 1400 or 2400 damage to 3+ heroes with his ultimate (MQ, FA & Soulstealer respectively).

(9) Finally because of this tanky meta that we are in, Flint Beastwood really can not drop heroes fast-enough. He can not afford to opt for full-on damage builds because doing so would mean, he will die within the first 2 seconds of the fight against smart teams. Neither does he become a threat if he opts for partial survivability and partial damage.

So all in all, there is no real reason for picking Flint over any other popular range carry at the moment. The hero might be good in absolute terms, but balance is achieved through relativity and right now Flint's power is completely useless in relation to other popular picks.

This, however, is my opinion and reasoning for why the hero is not picked at all in recent tournaments, you are free to digress constructively. But if you do acknowledge Flint to have been completely overshadowed, then the question becomes how to bring him back? Does he needs his mini-stun proc'cing to become more reliable? Does he need to be made for innately tankier or more innately agile? Should he be given insane damage scaling or a better way of scaling other than attack speed for a chance based flat damage boost?

What does Flint need to become a real Beast and not just by name?

PS: DOGKaiser said in a podcast (like 3+ months ago) that he was wary of the hard-carries not being able to carry situation. He said, on the matter, that he didn't know how long the average length of the competitive game lasted, so he couldn't adjust the power-level of said hard-carries accordingly.

However, he promised on the podcast, that he would make heroes like Flint, SW, Chronos etc become relevant quicker, once he got enough information (observations). Unfortunately, more than 3 months have passed, and we see absolutely 0 changes towards these forgotten souls.

Aside from balance discussion there is a suggestion flying around to increase his reliability, check it out by clicking here (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?422689-Hollow-Point-Shell) if you are interested.

[Gorb]

Approved.

Remember to constructively agree and/or disagree with respect to the subforum rules. I'm interested in seeing how people agree (or disagree) with this.

[man_guy]

Games don't last long enough for him to be relevant. The same can be said for every other hard carry that doesn't see play.

[Benny0]

You've basically pointed out all of the downsides Flint has, while mentioning a single perk (fast attacks).

Flint is a hard carry with 810 range. The reason he is so flimsy and slow is because of this. Most hard carries have survival mechanics, just because if they didn't, they wouldn't be able to live, as most hard carries are melee. If he was tanky on top of being 810 range, it would be absolutely ridiculous.

As for his early game, at level 6, he has 225 + 355 damage of burst. Very few other heroes can boast this sort of burst, and certainly fewer can do this damage from as far away as Flint can. Explosive Flare is such a powerful all around skill it is ridiculous. It pushes lanes, slows, gives vision, does good damage, has a huge radius, gives Flint easy last hits on towers, can farm, and is piss easy to hit with. Flint has a perfectly good early game entirely because of this skill.

This is not the metagame for Flint, but this doesn't mean he needs buffs.

[MoMoBling]

I'd say a buff in his starting strength and perhaps strenght gain would do, buffing him to much will put him in an imbalanced state.
He's just not the kind of hero you'd want in this meta game, that + the fact that he's not the best hero at the moment puts him in a rough spot.

You also have to consider the fact that frostwolf (previously core on flint) was heavily nerfed for ranged and especially ranged agi heroes, it is pretty much the only item that boosts your damage aswell as giving survivability (the slow was huge with flints range).
Perhaps just introducing a similar item (obviously a little less powerful) will do?

[Rosgath]

You've basically pointed out all of the downsides Flint has, while mentioning a single perk (fast attacks).

Flint is a hard carry with 810 range. The reason he is so flimsy and slow is because of this. Most hard carries have survival mechanics, just because if they didn't, they wouldn't be able to live, as most hard carries are melee. If he was tanky on top of being 810 range, it would be absolutely ridiculous.

As for his early game, at level 6, he has 225 + 355 damage of burst. Very few other heroes can boast this sort of burst, and certainly fewer can do this damage from as far away as Flint can. Explosive Flare is such a powerful all around skill it is ridiculous. It pushes lanes, slows, gives vision, does good damage, has a huge radius, gives Flint easy last hits on towers, can farm, and is piss easy to hit with. Flint has a perfectly good early game entirely because of this skill.

This is not the metagame for Flint, but this doesn't mean he needs buffs.

^this right here

Also your first point is entirely wrong. Flint's micro stuns and his Flare allow him to slow his enemies down making it harder for them to close. This means he actually can get away from people. The SLOWEST hero in game is :vind: bar none. EVERY single other hero in game has either a way to impeded his enemies progress or a way to expedite their retreat. :vind: has neither of these and has the same base MS that flint does. On top of that his ranged nuke can't hit towers (to help him get the last hits on those), doesn't deal as much damage (shorter CD isn't really that great considering it's generally weak) and doesn't grant vision.

Try playing Flint more as a semi-carry than a hard carry. He has enough nuke damage to pass as one anyway.

[painkiller`]

(1) Flint has one of the slowest movement speed in the game (Devourer is the only other hero that is slower than Flint). This games him highly susceptible to ganks and there is really nothing he can do when he sees a disable soon to come his way.

(2) On top of being one of the slowest ranged carry, Flint is also very very squishy. Among the popular range carry pick-ups right now, Flint is near the bottom of the barrel when it comes to starting health pool, health pool increase rate per level and starting armor. All these things again make him an easy target for ganks.

Both low survivability and low mobility are to balance a 800+ range hard carry that scales really, really well with items into late game.


(3) Although he has one of the best attack animations, he can not take advantage of that perk due to him having the worst early game damage. What good is having the second fastest projectile in-game (first being Engineer) when the attack damage is minuscule. He can not contest last-hitting against any other range or melee hero and has to rely on his unreliable chance based hollow-point shells to be able to get any denies or creep kills.

His animation is the best in the game. Damage problem can be solved with stat items early game, and with 2.9 agi gain it's not a problem once he gets a few levels.


(4) Due to him having minuscule attack damage in the beginning of the game (36 at level one), he really has no harassing potential early on. Range carries are suppose to be stronger in lane than melee carries but Iron Buckler makes his harass damage to be 16, which is not noticeable at all. I mean you can literally be pew-pewing at a Zephyr or Blood Hunter or Kraken or any Melee hero mid and they can simply ignore you and continue farming. You can't contest last-hitting, you can't even scare them away with harass, seems like he doesn't have much going for him in the early game.

Who said "ranged carries are supposed to be stronger in lane than melee carries", except for the logical range benefit? And even then, just because he doesn't hit for a lot doesn't mean he doesn't hit. The melee heroes you are taking as examples either have self-regeneration capabilities or are ridiculously tanky (:zeph: is both), both balancing factors considering they're melee and they NEED to be able to withstand harass from heroes like :flin:. Otherwise you might as well remove melee hero viability.

(That said, take examples like :pebb::dead: who aren't tanky or have any regenerating skills, and with constant harass you can easily push them out of the lane. But do you focus on harassing or last hits as a hard carry? If "flint can't harass" is a problem for you, I really don't know why your thread got approved.)


(5) For being so useless early game, Flint really doesn't have extra-ordinary scaling into the late game. While other carries can afford to build some form of survivability and still dish out mad damage, Flint can only be considered a threat if he goes full-on attack damage. Going full-damage on such a squishy hero means that he is very easy to be taken out, if the opponents play their game correctly.

:flin: has ~600 damage burst at level 6, all from 600+ range. I won't say that's a useless early game. On top of that, a :flin: with a few cores (Shield Breaker, Geometer's Bane) can eat up most heroes mid game. As you keep adding items to him, his effectiveness goes on increasing as he can disrupt heroes like few others with his constant ministuns. If you go Frostwolf, it's even worse since you're slowing them. Sure, you aren't doing a lot of damage, but you're doing a decent amount of consistent damage and slow. It's a tradeoff between damage or utility; I think it's a good thing that he is meant to make that decision depending on the team he has and he's going up against rather than have a single item build that works against any lineup (cough:drun::monk:cough).


(6) For being so squishy and having the worst movement speed with no escape abilities, Flint really has no real utility for the team. His only-reliable slow has been nerfed to make it have an almost negligible impact and his mini-stuns are very unreliable (getting one or two off really will not make that much of a difference, since the duration of the stuns is like 0.2 seconds). He does have a reliable mini-stun ultimate, but the skill takes roughly 2 seconds to be effective (1.7 seconds cast time + ~0.3 seconds projectile travel time)..

Wrong. Just, simply, wrong.


(7) His steroid skill scales with attack speed, and even if you get a lot of said attribute, he does not seem to deal enough damage. Basically his steroid skill is more of a disruptive skill than a real-carrying skill.

Seem to? How about you get some numbers to back up your claim? Anecdotal (and that too perceived) evidence is useless and best not argued around.


(8) Finally, most of his damage is single-targeted which is a very big reason why he is not a good contender for carrying at the moment. He does not have the potential to deal 1200, 1400 or 2400 damage to 3+ heroes with his ultimate (MQ, FA & Soulstealer respectively).

Every hard carry is single target (primarily), simply because their damage scales with items and levels. The AoE carries are semi-carries who carry by out-farming and out-leveling the other team. Put a :flin: against any of them with equal levels and equal farm and :flin: will outcarry by a mile. Get your concepts straight.


(9) Finally because of this tanky meta that we are in, Flint Beastwood really can not drop heroes fast-enough. He can not afford to opt for full-on damage builds because doing so would mean, he will die within the first 2 seconds of the fight against smart teams. Neither does he become a threat if he opts for partial survivability and partial damage.

The problem isn't with :flin:; the problem is with tanky heroes who can blink or in general close the gap between themselves and ranged heroes (like :krak:'s charge) which is what screws :flin: over. His range is his survivability, which is why when :flin: was popular in the competitive scene you saw heroes like :mali: picked up who could close that gap. Now, since every hero has some sort of blink, :flin:'s advantage isn't that much of an advantage. Where the problem lies, I'll let the others decide.

[Bob_Sagtits]

Flints problem is that hes outclassed by other heroes. Theres no reason to pick him over say sil or valk.

[TheShiny]

i think he would be alot better competetive or lets say 'teambased' then he would ever be solo. Sure he can do well in solo, as for KS and bla bla but you really need a great team that let him stay in the back and do his sick damages from a nice range for him to really play his role right.

[FurryTuna]

i think he would be alot better competetive or lets say 'teambased' then he would ever be solo. Sure he can do well in solo, as for KS and bla bla but you really need a great team that let him stay in the back and do his sick damages from a nice range for him to really play his role right.

The problem is, like many people said, the blink roster has been increased and is used more frequently. The Krakens and the Amun-RAs can easily run past Flint's team and whack him like 2 times, making him fall on the ground saying "HAAALPPP MEH!!!". Flint needs some help to be able to stay relevant with all the power-creeping that is going on. Either that or take away distance closing spells from most of the heroes, ESPECIALLY STRENGTH HEROES.

[FurryTuna]

Both low survivability and low mobility are to balance a 800+ range hard carry that scales really, really well with items into late game.

What late game? Currently, the games are pretty much over when some "superheroes" get Helm of the Black Legion. I also am completely oblivious to your idea of him scaling enough to outcarry say a Magebane or a Silhouette or any other popular carries used currently.


His animation is the best in the game. Damage problem can be solved with stat items early game, and with 2.9 agi gain it's not a problem once he gets a few levels.

Even if you get a punch dagger or two duck boots and a pretender's crown, you still can't compete against Logger Hatchet Melee heroes or Range heroes with similar items. Of course, your hollow-point shells might be able to get you a few last hits, but you can't predict when your mini-stun will proc. So last-hitting with Flint, early on, is not skill dependent but chance dependent.


Who said "ranged carries are supposed to be stronger in lane than melee carries", except for the logical range benefit? And even then, just because he doesn't hit for a lot doesn't mean he doesn't hit. The melee heroes you are taking as examples either have self-regeneration capabilities or are ridiculously tanky (:zeph: is both), both balancing factors considering they're melee and they NEED to be able to withstand harass from heroes like :flin:. Otherwise you might as well remove melee hero viability.

(That said, take examples like :pebb::dead: who aren't tanky or have any regenerating skills, and with constant harass you can easily push them out of the lane. But do you focus on harassing or last hits as a hard carry? If "flint can't harass" is a problem for you, I really don't know why your thread got approved.)

You can certainly not last-hit against a Pebbles or a Deadwood, although you could harass them to a certain degree. And your criticism that "Flint can't harass" issue is shitty for thread opening is completely grudge-based. I have mentioned in the very first paragraph of the opening post that I am attempting to justify why Flint is not picked. "Flint can't harass" is one of the many reasons I listed and, therefore, should not be taken by itself for thread opening consideration.

Basically the idea was to show his weakness in all points of the game, which is true. Currently, at every time-frame of the game, there is a hero that can perform better than Flint. He does not have an seeming edge anywhere, hence the outclassed claim.

With that said, LEARN TO DEBUNK PROPERLY. What gave you the implication that out of the 810 words I wrote, those 3 words were the entire point of the argument. Where in the world has me or the moderator said that Flint can't harass is the ONLY reason why this thread was opened. I was simply highlighting his weaknesses and my intention to do so have been mentioned in the second line.


Every hard carry is single target (primarily), simply because their damage scales with items and levels. The AoE carries are semi-carries who carry by out-farming and out-leveling the other team. Put a :flin: against any of them with equal levels and equal farm and :flin: will outcarry by a mile. Get your concepts straight.

Moon Queen, Maliken, Puppet Master and Gladiator are not considered hard-carries anymore by your definition. All of said heroes scale incredibly well with damage and do almost all of their damage through auto-attacks, but heh a late game Gladiator one-shotting the opponent's entire-team with one whip is a semi-carry. A Maliken who gets 100% to 30% cleave is also a semi-carry, cuz AOE spells. NP


The problem isn't with :flin:; the problem is with tanky heroes who can blink or in general close the gap between themselves and ranged heroes (like :krak:'s charge) which is what screws :flin: over. His range is his survivability, which is why when :flin: was popular in the competitive scene you saw heroes like :mali: picked up who could close that gap. Now, since every hero has some sort of blink, :flin:'s advantage isn't that much of an advantage. Where the problem lies, I'll let the others decide.

Yes, I agree that is perhaps the largest part of the problem (but we can not consider this to be the only factor, otherwise we will have Omitted Variable Bias). With that said, let me quote my second line of the opening post to you: "I will try (m)y best to list all of the hero's short-comings and explain why having the longest range is not enough in this new meta".

PS: I agree with the other things you said, but please learn to leave your biases behind when posting in the balance forum. :D

[Salem1]

My problem with Flint is that he's good in theory but in practice he has one severe problem in every phase of the game because of one root problem:

1) One of the lowest base damages in the game for last hitting. I'll leave it at that, everyone knows why 36 - 42 base damage on a ranged hero without a spammable nuke is really poor against mr. melee who hits for 65-70+ and is immune to auto attacks and ranged heroes with more minimum damage than your maximum damage. Not saying you can't manage anyway, especially vs some heroes, but it's a great disadvantage - imagine if another ranged agi carry like CD got nerfed with 10 less base damage, it'd be (or at least be perceived to be) the end of the hero. You do have the second-fastest animation in the game but that can be worked around by the enemy simply timing his last hits which is something they do anyway.

2) Because he has no farm after the laning phase unless you're just much better at last hitting than your enemy, he doesn't deny or whatever it'll not only take him a while to get a solid carry item, it'll mean that he will need to farm instead of help and if he does help he won't be able to do more than Q+R whereas the enemy :fors: does Q+R and then murders things with auto attacks that do much more damage than Flint's. But at least Flint does have Q+R.

3) He has no real nor sustainable flash farming and so he cannot quickly come back from a bad early or even mid game like some other carries can. He's not alone in this, he's just one of the heroes most susceptible to it, especially as he is also easy to kill if you can catch him farming compared to other carries with some manner of escaping. Due to this lack of farm he will transition from Q+R into Q+R+auto attacks that would've hurt 5 levels ago. And if you picked this guy for carrying (which you do since he sucks otherwise) then being able to pick off supports in the late game isn't impressive, he needs to be a threat to the enemy carry which he won't be - even supports won't really care.

And this is all traceable to his base damage. Even Soulstealer has just 1 less min and max damage. I'd say either just buff his base damage or buff it and remove some/that damage from W.


PS. Flint still won't see the world outside of the hero roster because there are many heroes that are much too OP for him to handle. Teams comprised of heroes that are OP and just get worse when combined with other OP heroes like :tort::krak::magm::YouGetThePoint: won't care whether he has 10 more base damage or not but it'll at least let him lane.

[Bob_Sagtits]

Tbh you could make a thread called half of the hero pool since they all suffer from the same thing flint does - the top tier heroes are to good as jack-of-all-trades. And to steal sentence from a favorite website of mine, tvtropes- Power Creep also tends to lead a game beyond it's pre-defined limits, with one of two results: it will becomes a competition of mindless speed, or of predictable slow strategies.

[Salem1]

Tbh you could make a thread called half of the hero pool since they all suffer from the same thing flint does - the top tier heroes are to good as jack-of-all-trades.

Completely agree, it's the real problem and I noted it in the last part of my post as well. Nerf the OP heroes first and buff heroes like Flint if they need it after that. S2's balance team seems to be onto this, but what few changes they do are insignificant for the most part like adding and subtracting a few straws on a camel's back, and the pace they do them at is slower than a near-paralyzed sloth.

[Rosgath]

Completely agree, it's the real problem and I noted it in the last part of my post as well. Nerf the OP heroes first and buff heroes like Flint if they need it after that. S2's balance team seems to be onto this, but what few changes they do are insignificant for the most part like adding and subtracting a few straws on a camel's back, and the pace they do them at is slower than a near-paralyzed sloth.

Are you gonna sit there with a straight face and tell me :vind: really needed to be nerfed into the ground?

Well, apart from that anyway I do tend to agree with you.

[Salem1]

Are you gonna sit there with a straight face and tell me :vind: really needed to be nerfed into the ground?

Just to reply to this message, I think Vindicator was trash (in public games) before the nerf and he got even worse with it. You probably wouldn't be able to find someone who looked down on Vindicator more than me. At least now he's nerfed so that no ''I'm so good that I can play him'' picks him and feeds despite my warnings not to pick him even if it was nice when the enemy team did it so you got a free kill every time he got back to lane and a free win overall.

Sorry for the off-topicing but I wanted to reply.

[Thepathan]

Just to reply to this message, I think Vindicator was trash (in public games) before the nerf and he got even worse with it. You probably wouldn't be able to find someone who looked down on Vindicator more than me. At least now he's nerfed so that no ''I'm so good that I can play him'' picks him and feeds despite my warnings not to pick him even if it was nice when the enemy team did it so you got a free kill every time he got back to lane and a free win overall.

Sorry for the off-topicing but I wanted to reply.

Just a point here, Vind's first skill is a considerable buff. Pre-nerf it was crap in team fights where everyone was spamming anyway. I would agree that the change to his third (when hitting vindi) is a bit disappointing. Apart from that, he's always been picked, will be picked for his ult.

@ Flint - Keep him as he is.

[lvl7bidoof]

A stupid port which was a joke in DotA is also a joke in HoN?

You don't say

[eszence]

Someone in GD posted a list of balance changes he wanted implemented, and his flint change stood out to me, i don't remember his name and the thread has been deleted, but it was something like this:
Add a use and cd feature into hollow shell, if you use it your next autoattack will proc hollowpoint shell, but then it goes into cd and u loose your chance to proc anymore while it is in cd. when the spell is not on cd it continues as normal. This could make him get the extra dmg for a ck once in a while, or stun in the right time for interrupting a tp or tempest ultimate instead of autoattacking and praying every time, with the downside that u won't proc it again for the next [x] seconds.

[FurryTuna]

That was me, but the post got deleted because someone claimed that I was bumping the thread through my sub-account 'freakybear'. I wish there was a way mods could see if I actually have a sub-account with the name of 'freakybear'. Completely a different individual than me, that fellow.

[Batchman]

flint's huge range is good in theory, but in game with half of heroes having pseudo blink (or huge range disables) is nothing to be proud of ... also having attacks reveal you in the fog does not help, why was this mechanic even introduced into hon (seeing projectiles should be enough)?

his ms is not a problem, but his farming ability is, any other range carry can farm much more faster/recover from early crap

[Apolon94]

I think Flint is really good at the moment. If anything buff his base speed/damage, else from that nothing. As others said, games are faster, so all hard-carries don't have much time to actually farm, but I still don't think that turtle/hard-carry based teams are impossible, they are only harder to accomplish.

[painkiller`]

What late game? Currently, the games are pretty much over when some "superheroes" get Helm of the Black Legion. I also am completely oblivious to your idea of him scaling enough to outcarry say a Magebane or a Silhouette or any other popular carries used currently.

Nobody uses :arac: anymore, maybe we should buff :arac: again? +3.0 str gain, yeah? After all, carries in HoN in 2012 are pretty much heroes that are innately tanky or can be built tanky.

Also, just because games are over before heroes like :flin: can reach their peak doesn't make the hero weak/broken/imbalanced/whatever. It means the game isn't balanced to allow all strategies to play out equally. It's a fault of the environment the hero is put in, not the hero itself.


Even if you get a punch dagger or two duck boots and a pretender's crown, you still can't compete against Logger Hatchet Melee heroes or Range heroes with similar items. Of course, your hollow-point shells might be able to get you a few last hits, but you can't predict when your mini-stun will proc. So last-hitting with Flint, early on, is not skill dependent but chance dependent.

I'm guessing you're also the kind to not go Soulscream rings because they don't build into anything late game and whatever farm you do get is better put into straight out late-game items?


You can certainly not last-hit against a Pebbles or a Deadwood, although you could harass them to a certain degree. And your criticism that "Flint can't harass" issue is shitty for thread opening is completely grudge-based. I have mentioned in the very first paragraph of the opening post that I am attempting to justify why Flint is not picked. "Flint can't harass" is one of the many reasons I listed and, therefore, should not be taken by itself for thread opening consideration.

Basically the idea was to show his weakness in all points of the game, which is true. Currently, at every time-frame of the game, there is a hero that can perform better than Flint. He does not have an seeming edge anywhere, hence the outclassed claim.

With that said, LEARN TO DEBUNK PROPERLY. What gave you the implication that out of the 810 words I wrote, those 3 words were the entire point of the argument. Where in the world has me or the moderator said that Flint can't harass is the ONLY reason why this thread was opened. I was simply highlighting his weaknesses and my intention to do so have been mentioned in the second line.

Your "reasons" for why :flin: isn't picked ("at every time-frame of the game, there is a hero that can perform better than Flint") can be applied to 70% of the hero pool. They aren't unique to :flin: alone. Squishy, low damage, no recovery-ability, low mobility. I tried to tell you that these aren't :flin:'s WEAKNESSES but what keep him BALANCED. The reason they look like weaknesses is because monstrosities like :silh::krak: exist. Your balance gripe is misplaced. I don't need to debunk anything because your premise is flawed.

(I don't hold a grudge against you; I don't know you or anything about you. I'm just taking your arguments at face-value and I think they're stupid. Look past YOUR thinking that I hold a grudge and maybe you'll see what I mean.)


Moon Queen, Maliken, Puppet Master and Gladiator are not considered hard-carries anymore by your definition. All of said heroes scale incredibly well with damage and do almost all of their damage through auto-attacks, but heh a late game Gladiator one-shotting the opponent's entire-team with one whip is a semi-carry. A Maliken who gets 100% to 30% cleave is also a semi-carry, cuz AOE spells. NP

None of those heroes are hard carries, no. MQ/Gladiator/Puppet all carry by having more items than the other carry. Equally farmed, and having equally farmed and proper lineups, they will NOT be able to carry against someone like :flin:. Maliken is the exception simply because his ultimate gives him AoE presence, but even then, you wouldn't clump up against him if you have a brain, and he can only focus one hero at a time because autoattacks only hit one hero at a time. Ergo, hard carries (who are carries because their autoattacks scale into late game) are primarily single target. Make sense?

(And :glad: one shotting enemy teams? Lol. If that's true, why don't we see :glad: picked? Sounds pretty strong to me? Stop watching Youtube clips of pubby :glad:s. Those gimmicks don't work against half a brain.)


Yes, I agree that is perhaps the largest part of the problem (but we can not consider this to be the only factor, otherwise we will have Omitted Variable Bias). With that said, let me quote my second line of the opening post to you: "I will try (m)y best to list all of the hero's short-comings and explain why having the longest range is not enough in this new meta".

PS: I agree with the other things you said, but please learn to leave your biases behind when posting in the balance forum. :D

My problem is that you're not arguing about "Why does :krak: have a charge for positioning when he has a AoE attacked and non-channeling tempest ultimate?", but you're saying "Why doesn't :flin: do 50-60 base damage and have 900 HP at level 6 that will help him carry faster?". You're just adding to the powercreep instead of fixing the game in general.


Edit: On a sidenote, my anger is probably misdirected. This from PrestonLee sums up pretty much what I want to say:


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.

It's just annoying to see people who don't see how ****ed up the balance of this game is and when they do, they're trying to "fix" the wrong things. Yes, S2 doesn't need to listen to this, but it also means that the members of the community with the initiative to fix the balance are incapable of doing it. Kinda like how our countries are led by people who have the initiative to run for office but are incapable of actually doing any "fixing".

[Apolon94]

Only difference is that MQ and PM actually are hard-carries. But yes, FB is MQ's hard counter, that's why you don't pick her against him. And no, equally farmed totally doesn't make sense. FB with only SH or GB is a joke, while Gladiator with AS or MQ with SH would be already really scary.

[Meatball]

op is right.
buff dis bad man nao.

[FurryTuna]

Painkiller`: Dude, if you look at all the other threads. This has been brought up like a thousand times now. "Y is not weak, all the Xs are too strong". While such a statement is true, there is no way in hell S2 would take charge out of Kraken, or Amun RA, or half-the-strength of Zephyr's gust. Why I say this? Because Valkyrie has been sitting on the OP semi-carry throne for almost forever now and just because she was like that in DOTA, they must not bring her down to balance-villa.

So what do they do? They try to bring the game up to her level, and their efforts result in complete chaos.

[flox44]

Back when Frostwolf Skull was OP and the go to Attack Mod in every situation Flint was by far the best Skull carrier in the game. After taking quite a few hits Skull put Ranged carries back in line. After the skull nerf is when Flint dropped down to standard Hard Cary status. He doesn't fit the current tanky meta well because he lacks a kiting/avoidance mechanism. He dishes out good right click DPS, and flare is an awesome skill early game, but with Frostburn and Skull no longer being the faceroll build it was Flint's power level took a hit as well.

In the current meta of Tanky DPS and push flint just doesn't do as well compared to heroes that spread their damage out, compared to the trilane meta where he could feed off of squishy supports and farm mostly undisturbed to get god-mode untouchable Frostwolf/Geos combo.

I personally think he's fine as is now, possibly a bit to much INT growth, but his skill are crazy inefficient, but still surprisingly spammable.

[Rosgath]

Edit: On a sidenote, my anger is probably misdirected. This from PrestonLee sums up pretty much what I want to say:



It's just annoying to see people who don't see how ****ed up the balance of this game is and when they do, they're trying to "fix" the wrong things. Yes, S2 doesn't need to listen to this, but it also means that the members of the community with the initiative to fix the balance are incapable of doing it. Kinda like how our countries are led by people who have the initiative to run for office but are incapable of actually doing any "fixing".

Just thought I'd respond to this. Part of the reason why S2 is more nervous about nerfing the majority of the hero pool (not just because all those changes at once would be a balance nightmare) is because people naturally take buffs (positive changes) better than nerfs (negativechanges). When was the last time you liked taking a pay cut? Sure if that pay cut came with a reduced cost on EVERYTHING else sufficient that it wouldn't make much of a difference to your purchasing power overall it wouldn't actually hurt you, but you'd still complain about the pay cut amirite?

Also, S2 wants a shorter game. Generally speaking, 50 minute farmfests are boring and are part of what make this style of game prohibitive from newer/more casual players. The casual gamer market is far larger than the more hardcore market. You want a good example? look at the Wii. Sold better than either the Xbox360 or the PS3 even though both the Xbox and the PS3 were more powerful and the PS3 had a larger base following.

Anyway on topic FB is still one of the stronger hard carries in game. This game does not support hard-carries though so all of this class of hero will feel underpowered compared to the rest of the hero pool.

[Ignition]

The problem is, like many people said, the blink roster has been increased and is used more frequently. The Krakens and the Amun-RAs can easily run past Flint's team and whack him like 2 times, making him fall on the ground saying "HAAALPPP MEH!!!". Flint needs some help to be able to stay relevant with all the power-creeping that is going on. Either that or take away distance closing spells from most of the heroes, ESPECIALLY STRENGTH HEROES.
That only happens when you have bad positioning or bad teamwork, besides, if you are playing against ra with no disables you have already lost.

[salokin]

Completely disagree with this thread. Flint is one of my most played, and he is in a VERY good spot. The trouble with him, however, is that noobs play him the way they would play any other carry with escapes and feed mercilessly. Your thesis tends to be 'He's too slow and too weak with no escapes to be viable', and that just instantly sends a message that you don't understand Flint's strengths.

1) YOU HAVE 810 RANGE, USE IT! If I had a nickel for every flint who thought he could run into the center of a team fight like some farmed TDL and kill everyone, I could probably buy another account. You're slow with no escapes for a REASON, because you have amazing range and damage from afar. Stay the **** back and dps.

2) You don't need high starting damage. After you buy + agi items (you are, right?), you should have around 44 low end. With a near perfect attack animation (hit point + projectile speed), last hitting shouldn't be nearly as difficult as you are making it out to be. ALSO, you need to play AGRESSIVE against melee heroes and pretty much ANY hero with a lower projectile range (mq, DR, hag, etc). You can literally harass one of these heroes out of lane in the first minute if you just focus on harassing and play up slightly. Your hollow point shells + auto attacks is absolutely devastating to any of these heroes who are susceptible to harass, and one of the biggest mistakes I see these flints make when I play a pebbles or DR is that they NEVER harass.

3) HIGH NUKING/PUSHING/GANKING - at level 6, you arguably deal the most amount of carry damage in the game. In fact, one flare + ult usually kills every support and agi carry in the game barring any sort of bracers/str treads/mystics. Moreover, you are virtually GUARANTEED tower kills from your nuke. You should have amazing early game GPM through this. Moreover, Flint is an AWESOME ganker, with an aoe slow and again, really good finishing ability. Don't sit mid and farm all game, that's not your role. You must be smart as to when to farm and when it's better to gank a lane and push the outer towers.

4) LOCKDOWN/HARD CARRY - Easily the best hard carry with innate lock down capabilities and great steroids. While DM/Rampage have single target disables, they aren't spammable. Flint, however, has a nearly 1/2 chance to proc a .2s ministun on every auto attack coupled with higher damage. Anyone whose ever played a melee hero against flint knows how god damn annoying it is to try and kill a flint (or anyone for that matter) when he's just auto attacking you. However, this ties back into my first point, where you need to use your RANGE to your advantage and just turret with your hollow point shells. Couple that with a Savage and the enemy looks like they are playing on dialup with how much stutter they go through with constant mini stuns. So very, very effective.

The ONLY thing I think flint should have buffed is his ult giving XP. It was like this in DOTA, but for whatever reason they don't have it in HON (did they at some point and they nerf it? I forget). Anyway, given how important his ult is for getting kills virtually all game, I think it's very important to incorporate the XP after ult kills since I do tend to find myself falling behind on levels mid game due to the handful of kills I get from ult.

[Bob_Sagtits]

Im sure most of us here is talking about the comp scene not pub games.

[Lnatic]

Ok so Flint is not OP he is perfectly balanced.
QQ about his damage all you want and learn to last hit, his damage is low 'cause of his range it would be pretty retarded for him to have a 50-60 damage early on.
Also keep in mind that he is a hard carry, he is not supposed to do anything early game except farm and pick up kills.
Q/R combo is pretty strong if you go mid against a squishy hero, but i wouldn't recommend him going mid for guys like you who QQ just 'cause they don't know how to last hit with a Flint.
GG

[FurryTuna]

His damage is low 'cause of his range it would be pretty retarded for him to have a 50-60 damage early on.

He DOES NOT have 810 range at level 1. The base is 570, lower than the typical 600 range carries. Unless you mean by level 7ish (if Flint maxes his E first), in which case, he does have "50-60" damage, but other people have higher numbers. So dunno wtf you are talking about.


Also keep in mind that he is a hard carry, he is not supposed to do anything early game except farm and pick up kills

Except he can not farm reliably. To compete for last hits, he needs to rely on his hollow-point shells, which is A DESIGN FLAW for a hard-carry. Get this through your thick head, ICEFROG is not the GOD OF BALANCE. Valkyrie is the biggest prove of his in-capability to achieve balance.

PS: And scaling? What imba-scaling numbers are we talking here? His max base damage at level 25 is a mere 131. You could add [50 + (2 / 5)] to it, which makes it 151.
Compare this to Arachna's 189.44 or MQ's 179.01 or Maliken's 174 or SS's 178. Hope that helps!

[Bob_Sagtits]

How is that a design flaw? Are you saying you want flint, a hard carry to be able to farm well since the beginning? I personally think he's working as intended and pretty closed to balanced.

[Cyber_Kun]

Painkiller, Trust in the Force and whatnot.

This hero is fine and people will always say otherwise. Just looking at FurryTunas post, let me counter his points.

570 range is still quite good, and in no means does it make him have a weakness. Heroes with 500 range or less do suffer, but 570 isn't even an extra auto-attack from a 600 range hero. Flint also has horrible damage due to his amazing attack animation. While it has huge wind up, the fact that the bullet travels near instantly means that a good Flint will be able to get lasthits by being more accurate. If he is getting outdone by a Deadwood, he still has Flare and Hollowpoint to abuse on Deadwood and kick him out of lane. Then again, it isn't perfect but considering he is a carry it shouldn't be. For the farm reliably, he does? You do know that being in lane against a Flint at level 6-7 means will take 650 damage repeatedly and few heroes can handle that. He wins his lane at that point.

The scaling itself? It is the huge range with how disruptive Hollowpoint can be. It is the closest thing we have to Perma-Bash in this game and it is at a stupid range. Mini-stuns to screw with movement, and biggest of all it screws with attack animations of enemy heroes. His scaling is the range and Hollowpoint. If he hit like MQ or Arachna, well it would be GG.

[FurryTuna]

Even if I agree to what you are saying, although I think carries like Chronos, MQ, Puppet, Maliken, Arachna, Magebane etc have insane farming potential early-on, the fact still remains that Flint is completely outshined at the moment. The game simply does not last long enough for him to be dishing out mad-damages and even then he is highly susceptible of being taken out.

The risk-reward factor simply does not swing in his favor. Perhaps if you have a Jeraziah on your team, I could see how he could work, but then you could still pick heroes that will outperform him in that situation.

[Lariatoooo]

If games last enough for mb to shine, they certain last enough for flint

[Doomhammar]

Funny thing about Flint is that even if he is at his maximum range, there will always be someone with blink or pseudo-blink to come and play with him. In example MK can just come and instagib him with his "balanced" Vaultslam combo. Another problem I have with him is that even if he is his maximum range just about anyone can outrun him because he has no real speed to chase anyone. Flint is almost like SW in this regard, he can do almost nothing at early game but can become a beast if let farmed.

[Lnatic]

The game simply does not last long enough for him to be dishing out mad-damages and even then he is highly susceptible of being taken out.

Umm It wont last long 'cause people cc just cause they have a 10/30 team k/d score, also for farming you can use Flare.
Stop being annoying how he's weak or how he is op he is perfectly balanced.


In example MK can just come and instagib him with his "balanced" Vaultslam combo. Another problem I have with him is that even if he is his maximum range just about anyone can outrun him because he has no real speed to chase anyone.

Get :assassinsshroud:/:genjuro:?

Being targeted by huge magic damage dealers? :shrunkenhead::nullstone:

Somebody still escaping from you? :icebrand:/:frostwolfsskull:

Lack of early game farm? :alchemistbones:

C'mon there are so many combinations stop trolling please ... all you need to do is think while playing and it's gg ...
The only problem I find playing all hard carries is that your team (in the <1600 bracket) always cc's and never let's the carries shine, not to mention blame you for being useless/only steal and how you farm all game. But isn't that the role of a hard carry? To farm and take kills so he can rape effectively ?
But that's my opinion i guess..

[Tempestrix]

I will try by best to list all of the heroes short-comings and explain why having the longest range is not enough in this new meta

I doubt I'm the only one who read that as "the meta has shifted against my favowite hewo and that makes him UP, buff plz"

The second sentence of your amazingly well thought out 810-word post shows you to be nothing more than a proponent of power-creep and the exact reason why balance in this game is so shot right now.

1) longest range hero in the game is the slowest. coincidence?
2) hard-carry is squishy. buff his survivability, now we have another tanky carry to ruin balance with! :D
3) best attack anim, low early game damage. by definition as a hard carry he scales with items, buffing his natural damage will unbalance him. of course he can't last-hit against a melee hero with a hatchet, learn lane control and try again.
4) tanky heroes don't take a lot of aa-harass? buff dmg plz
5) squishy hero is very easy to take out if opponents play correctly? how about your team plays correctly and protects your squishy ass. (hon is a 5v5 team game btw)
6) hardcarries need utility!
7) delicious anecdote, dessert now?
8) cherrypicking 3 heroes who have POTENTIALLY strong ultimates isn't helping your case.
9) meta is against you. your point?

[iambests005]

A higher base damage would help him a lot

[Bob_Sagtits]

A higher base damage would help a lot of heroes yet not implemented for obvious reasons

[FurryTuna]

I doubt I'm the only one who read that as "the meta has shifted against my favowite hewo and that makes him UP, buff plz"

The second sentence of your amazingly well thought out 810-word post shows you to be nothing more than a proponent of power-creep and the exact reason why balance in this game is so shot right now.

1) longest range hero in the game is the slowest. coincidence?

Flint range is 810,
Kraken charge range is 800,
Fayde stun range is 800,
Maliken sword throw range is 1200,
Behemoth fissure range is 1200,
Myrmidon Kelp range is 1000 and his charge is 850 range,
Gauntlet Grapple range is 800,
Ctuluphant's trample range is 800,
Wrath of Pharoah is 3000 range,
Golden Salve + Lion's Pride is 1000 & 800 range respectively,
Dig is 1000 range.

Coincidence?


2) hard-carry is squishy. buff his survivability, now we have another tanky carry to ruin balance with! :D

Why are all the other cool kids having survivability, a plethora of better utilities, early-game stats and better steroid skill? Racism against orcs?


3) best attack anim, low early game damage. by definition as a hard carry he scales with items, buffing his natural damage will unbalance him. of course he can't last-hit against a melee hero with a hatchet, learn lane control and try again.

Learn last-hitting against any pro 600 range carry in lane. Oh wait, you can't because having 2000 projectile speed doesn't matter if you can anticipate creep health variations and your attack projectile speed in advance. Pros do it all the time, and Flint's who have a good creep score against say a Valk or a Silhouette or MoA or any other range carry for that matter is either due to ping issues or perhaps the 'competitive player' sucks at last-hitting.

I mean seriously it doesn't make sense, assuming you know that the creep is taking damage at a certain rate, you also know it takes x seconds for your projectile to reach the creep, if you are doing more damage than a hero with better projectile speed. All you have to do is launch your attack a little earlier when his hp bar is outside of Flint's last-hitting range and in yours. Of course, this is excluding other variables, like human error and whatever else have you.


4) tanky heroes don't take a lot of aa-harass? buff dmg plz

Either buff damage scaling on hard-carries or nerf the tankiness of tanky heroes OR buff the damage output of tanky heroes. Being able to take 10x more damage than squishy carries as well as do almost equal damage to them with respectively less damaging items is logically unfair.


5) squishy hero is very easy to take out if opponents play correctly? how about your team plays correctly and protects your squishy ass. (hon is a 5v5 team game btw)

How do you stop distance closers? How do you stop initiators? Problem is, Flint can't afford to go for survivability because his damage + scaling is so piss poor that he needs to rely on all-out damage items to stay relevant with other carries.


6) hardcarries need utility!
Chronos: One of the most game-breaking utility holder. Bash + Superior Magic ultimate.
Maliken: 6 second slow and Superior Magic fear.
Moon Queen: Reliable stun every 6 seconds.
Hammerstorm: Although people don't consider him a hard-carry in HON. But he can be played as one. His scaling with strength items is insane (only issue is he gets kited, which has been reduced with the FWS nerf), along with passive cleave for AOE damage.
Arachna: Perma-slow

Hard-carries who are suffering more than the aforementioned in the current meta: Flint, SW, Warbeast.. Why, they don't provide much assistance to the team early-on.


7) delicious anecdote, dessert now?

Was tasty. You jelly?


8) cherrypicking 3 heroes who have POTENTIALLY strong ultimates isn't helping your case.

How many examples do you need? You know there are not a lot of hard-carries, HON has a limited roster.


9) meta is against you. your point?

OK so if this meta stays in this game forever, we will just leave Flint being over-shadowed? Meta does not change naturally, it changes with changes to items, heroes, how XP is shared etc etc. Right now, picking 5 tanky heroes and no hard-carry = insta-win. Flint, along with other hard-carries (excluding Magebane), see very little play because ending the game before they become relevant is very easy. Tanks are too strong, sol is too strong, pushing towers and tower-diving is easy etc etc.

Hope I can explain my point better with these food for thought:
Although on paper Flint looks like a Beast carry with his 810 range and the potential to perma-stun-lock someone provided you have a certain attack speed, but then why does he not see comp-play anymore?
If he is soooo good, why is he not being picked or banned when hard-cash is on the line? Are the competitive drafters stupid?
Is Dwarven Sniper a regular pick in DOTA Tourneys, a game that is more catered towards ricing, which is better for hard-carries than HON?

Whatever reason you provide for Flint Beastwood or Dwarven Sniper not being regular picks in their respective games, the main question then is what should be done about it? Of course, you could be among those people who like to see the same handful heroes every game. OR you could be among those, who wants to make every strategy, every role, every hero of the game viable and, therefore, constantly strive to seek out why a certain hero or strategy or hero role is not working anymore.

[GregerMoek]

You're not really providing any striking arguments to why he needs buffs though, you're one of those guys who loves buffing upwards instead of nerfing the currently OP pack of heroes I guess?

Flint has been used in his current shape, what made him less picked over all was the FWS nerf, still doesn't mean it totally gutted Flint to garbage tier.

Are you seriously suggesting Arachna will be picked before Flint Beastwood? lol'd a great deal there. Hero hasn't seen play in years.


Dwarven Sniper's slow is also a great deal worse than Flint's. Of the ones you listed, does any of them have a massive-range nuke with low cooldown that bullies anything out of a lane? A big AoE slow nuke to ensure lasthits on towers and so on?

[FurryTuna]

I do agree with you that S2 could tone the plethora of other semi-carries and tanks down to make Flint relevant. As I have mentioned in my opening post that Flint is good in absolute terms but severely lacking in relative terms at the moment.

Do you seriously think S2 will be willing to nerf these semi-carries (which are many in number)? Or do you think it would be easier to push the hard-carries up to the power level of the game (hard carries are fewer than semi-carries, at the moment)?

I am indifferent about which ever route they choose, because ultimately the game is balanced around relativity. You could achieve it by nerfing X heroes or buffing Y heroes. If you are afraid of the risk of "power-creeping", which is mostly achieved through keep buffing different heroes, then you are implying no trust in DogKaiser. I am, in no way, digressing from your suggestion since I do not care how Flint, along with other unpopular hard-carries, are brought back into the light.

My job was simply to highlight his possible weaknesses, not to weight them. I have seen everyone agree here that he is over-shadowed at the moment. Now comesthe real task (on which I see differentiated views): "nerf X many heroes to bring them to Flint level"

If you believe in the quoted idea, then please be my guest and start pointing out who who to nerf and how to nerf them. Because simply stating that "Flint is not underpowered, other people are too strong" brings absolutely nothing of value to the table. Flint is relatively weaker than other heroes, you can say it one way or the other (sure stating it differently will induce different remedial actions), it doesn't change the fact that something needs to be done about it. If we want to be productive, we need to make use of this platform to either start identifying all the problematic heroes for hard-carries survival and, furthermore, suggest proper nerfs to them so they are not rendered useless yet hard-carries could breathe well in the game.

Either that or simply buff the currently underwhelming heroes.

[`11411181]

"that Flint is good in absolute terms"

aaaaaaaaaaaand we're done here. moving along.

[FurryTuna]

"that Flint is good in absolute terms"

aaaaaaaaaaaand we're done here. moving along.

What are you trying to say, Anakha?

Flint is not even good in theory? This is what I meant when I said absolute term, although I might be wrong in using this terminology to mean what I was trying to mean :(

[Tempestrix]

What are you trying to say, Anakha?

What he's saying is that you have admitted on numerous occasions that Flint himself is not the issue. Therefore, attempting to remedy his under-representation by buffing him is simply reinforcing the power creep that has brought balance in this game to the current state (which itself is what has caused this problem).

You seem reasonable enough, step back and think again on what power creep actually is, then you'll agree.

If we really want balance in this game fixed we need to be willing to accept that drastic changes have to be made. Even if that means nerfing half the hero pool.

[FurryTuna]

If we really want balance in this game fixed we need to be willing to accept that drastic changes have to be made. Even if that means nerfing half the hero pool.

I see that and match it with:


stating that "Flint is not underpowered, other people are too strong" brings absolutely nothing of value to the table. Flint is relatively weaker than other heroes, you can say it one way or the other (sure stating it differently will induce different remedial actions), it doesn't change the fact that something needs to be done about it.

Now I raise by:


If we want to be productive, we need to make use of this platform to start identifying all the problematic heroes for hard-carries survival and, furthermore, suggest proper nerfs to them so they are not rendered useless yet hard-carries could breathe well in the game.

[Tempestrix]

If we want to be productive, we need to make use of this platform to either start identifying all the problematic heroes for hard-carries survival and, furthermore, suggest proper nerfs to them so they are not rendered useless yet hard-carries could breathe well in the game.

Ok, so we've ended up agreeing that Flint isn't the problem and we should be dealing with the cause.

Would you also agree then that this thread should be closed and new threads created around the heroes responsible for the problem?

Moving on now, nothing further to see here.

[Cazabubu]

i agree with this post :flin: needs a bit higher movement speed and a highers strength gain per level and i would definantly play him again.

Edit:and higher base damage ofcourse.

:devo:

[Lnatic]

Good God increasing Flints str gain and his movement speed would make him so much stronger, also adding more damage? Are you insane? So what he can last hit every creep and give you insta win? That's not the point of Flint, you can't make it easier for a hard carry cause if you do the game would be unbalanced (e.g. give chronos range ? pretty retarded)
SO NO Flint is fine as he is.

[Skinsword]

I think building shroud or genjuro on him is a good idea.

You get a psuedo escape mechanism, movement speed boost, additional damage/attack speed, and a whole bunch of other stuff that addresses some of the issues you bought up.

[Lariatoooo]

Or you get a GeoBane

[Rosgath]

Or you get a GeoBane

^ this

It also comes with more health and a disjoint.

[janoosch]

Hay ,
for my opinion flint is good as he is did you ever play him only mid ? he the best carry in hon .... and i think its ok if hes a bit squishi and has a low basedmg cuz if u farm the same like other carrys u just outcarryd the even if u got the sam stuff cuz his passive abillitys :) so... flint is fine how he is

[Ultimate]

Flint Beastwood at the moment with Level 4 Dead Eye has a whoppin' 810 range which is very powerful as it allows him to position himself at very back of a team fight. His flare gives a large AoE clearvision while also providing a very powerful 32% slow with 300 damage DoT over 2 seconds. His hollowpoint shells which is a very powerful steroids also with no cooldown can cancel a channeling spell, allow him to keep up with an enemy (don't forget his slow) and deal a decent amount of burst damage and best of all this ability scales with late game.

Incresaing his attack damage would be over the top powerful buff as he already has high range, this would only give him the ability to harass from afar, farm from afar and also effectively win the lane from afar.

Increasing his strength or strength gain would also make him overpowered as he is a glass cannon hero.

Increasing his movement speed would also be very powerful buff as it allows him to close in on his enemy even further even with a pseudo-slow/stun and a 32% AoE movement slow.

If anything they should nerf his Flare into 3 Sub-Abilities as they provide Damage, Slow and Vision.
Red Flare
32% slow

Blue Flare
300 damage over 2 seconds

Yellow Flare
Gives clear vision in the area for 5 seconds.

[Lnatic]

Flint Beastwood at the moment with Level 4 Dead Eye has a whoppin' 810 range which is very powerful as it allows him to position himself at very back of a team fight. His flare gives a large AoE clearvision while also providing a very powerful 32% slow with 300 damage DoT over 2 seconds. His hollowpoint shells which is a very powerful steroids also with no cooldown can cancel a channeling spell, allow him to keep up with an enemy (don't forget his slow) and deal a decent amount of burst damage and best of all this ability scales with late game.

Incresaing his attack damage would be over the top powerful buff as he already has high range, this would only give him the ability to harass from afar, farm from afar and also effectively win the lane from afar.

Increasing his strength or strength gain would also make him overpowered as he is a glass cannon hero.

Increasing his movement speed would also be very powerful buff as it allows him to close in on his enemy even further even with a pseudo-slow/stun and a 32% AoE movement slow.

If anything they should nerf his Flare into 3 Sub-Abilities as they provide Damage, Slow and Vision.
Red Flare
32% slow

Blue Flare
300 damage over 2 seconds

Yellow Flare
Gives clear vision in the area for 5 seconds.

I actually find this idea to be really good.

[KingIsRey]

You want to seperate the nuke from the slow? That is a serious nerf, and if you have been reading the thread its implied that FB is not in need of a nerf.

[Lnatic]

Maybe not separate it ... but down it for a bit ... Flint mid vs any squishy hero (tb,arachna,fa) can kill you with a few autos + Q,R.
And besides I said it was a good idea not that it should be done.
And the fact that that kid can't last hit with Flint means that he should practice it on public games not QQ on the forums how his base damage is low, everything is how it is for a reason.

[FurryTuna]

Lnatic stop being a troll, I have mentioned several times and in my initial post that I was attempting to highlight all the possible reasons why he has diminished from the competitive scene. OR rarely picked in DOTA since his inception.

As for FB mid v FA mid, you really are dumb. FA will **** on FB any day (unless of course, you don't know how to land crippling volleys).

Your argument that FB base damage is there for a reason is perhaps the most retarded thing one could ever say. It's like saying Gemini was perfectly balanced before or Amun-RA or Zephyr or Tremble because their skills and numbers on those skills were there for a reason.

Furthermore, agreeing to nerf flare and then saying FB skills and numbers are fine as they are for a reason is both contradictory and shows your intellectual level.

Flint has low base damage, he can't last hit AT EARLIER LEVELS against most ranged and melee carries. That can be considered one reason why he is not picked. Does that mean S2 should buff his early base damage, nerf his opponent's base damage or do nothing; is up to them. But if you ever studied statistics, you would know that when you are trying to explain something it is best to consider all variables into play in order to avoid Omitted Variable Bias. Of course, you can test for their significance after (going in further detail of Stat101 is irrelevant).

[Antimodus]

IIRC when Flint was introduced they gave him buffed base damage (like maybe 5 or 10 higher than what he had in dota - I don't remember). Because of his sick animation, he'd out-ck anything not involving a melee hatchet hero. Then it got nerfed, and here we are.

Flint is a hard carry, if he's able to go to a lane and get all the ck's against most of the pool without even having a support by him, then something is ****ed up balance wise. Silhouette and PM passives / base damage also took nerfs for similar reasons. It's retarded when hard carries can outharass supports at level 2.

[Tomate]

I disagree with OP as far as why Flint isn't picked. Was his slow overnerfed? Maybe but the main issue of flint is that games are much more fast face with tones of bursting heroes blasting enemies in 2 to 3 spells which are mostly reliable from minute 15 to 30. It is during this moment that flint cannot compete. Most teams run carry less line-ups counting on heroes such as Kraken, Chutlu, Hag and Valk to take them into the late game. All of these heroes are much more potent in team fights than Flint early on.

Flint virtually still becomes the hardest carry in the game on the very late game with equal farm. The issue is that you never get to this point anymore without having flint's team being at a massive disavantage due to his little effectiveness during the first few teamfights.

If Flint's early game is to be improved, it will need to rebalance his late game which can be completely broken once he reach that 20k worth of items (FWS, GEO, Boots, Savage Mace kind of build, maybe add in a shrunken head).

I say leave him be, if late game line ups show up again at some point in the metagame, Flint will start to appear again. He cannot compete with FA on the early / mid game but he sure can take over her in the late game.

[FurryTuna]

I disagree with OP as far as why Flint isn't picked. Was his slow overnerfed? Maybe but the main issue of flint is that games are much more fast face with tones of bursting heroes blasting enemies in 2 to 3 spells which are mostly reliable from minute 15 to 30. It is during this moment that flint cannot compete. Most teams run carry less line-ups counting on heroes such as Kraken, Chutlu, Hag and Valk to take them into the late game. All of these heroes are much more potent in team fights than Flint early on.

Flint virtually still becomes the hardest carry in the game on the very late game with equal farm. The issue is that you never get to this point anymore without having flint's team being at a massive disavantage due to his little effectiveness during the first few teamfights.

If Flint's early game is to be improved, it will need to rebalance his late game which can be completely broken once he reach that 20k worth of items (FWS, GEO, Boots, Savage Mace kind of build, maybe add in a shrunken head).

I say leave him be, if late game line ups show up again at some point in the metagame, Flint will start to appear again. He cannot compete with FA on the early / mid game but he sure can take over her in the late game.

Well, DOGKaiser, said in a podcast (like 3+ months ago) that he was vary of hard-carries being overshadowed because the average game doesn't really extend too much. He said back then that he will adjust the power-level of Flint and SW and Chronos etc accordingly to the average length of the competitive game, he just needed more information.

Unfortunately, he has like a lot more than 30 observations (or 50 observations) and can apply Central Limit Theorem to the sample and run his statistics, but I don't think he knows his statistics. So we will never know, when he actually does get a clue as to how long the average length of the games are, and when these hard-carries will be adjusted.

[CrimsonAdder]

I really don't understand where this guy got the idea that Flint has difficulty last-hitting. Ever leveled hollowpoint bullets at lvl 1? Every other attack will do 60+ damage and hit almost instantaneously. Get a ring of the teacher asap after... Good luck losing against a reasonable lane opposition.

[Xinlitik]

In the current meta that really takes the emphasis off late game, would it not be reasonable to buff his early/mid while nerfing his late? His early game is definitely needed as a counterbalance because he is a total beast late game, but that point is kind of irrelevant. Perhaps he could gain some survivability and attack damage in exchange for things like a CD on mini stun procs or a scaling damage on his range (ie 100% dmg at 600 range, 90% at 700, 80% at 800).

[Tomate]

Xinlitik, if we buff his early game in exchange for the late game, we just reduce possible strategies for future metagame.

Having every hero fitting the current metagame is a way to ensure that the metagame will never evolve. Flint is a hard late game carry that becomes virtually unstoppable on the super late game. There isn't much more scary than a 25k gold farmed flint running around with: Treads, Geo, FWS, Savage, XX, XX (XX being either shrunken or rift or wingbow or even genjuro). A such Flint will out carry any FA, Valk and what not with the same farm supposing similar positioning / rest of team farm and coordination.

Moving flint from this very late game carry to a ok all game hero just cuts the opportunity of having another super fun hero around.

[foxmindedguy]

I don't think the problem is so much with Flint. I think the problem lies with Valkyrie and the new FA etc. However, as I am sure, S2 is stubborn to never admit that Valkyrie was an issue in the first place, I think Flint should receive stat adjustments (as promised by DOGKaiser).

[skeloperch]

I don't think the problem is so much with Flint. I think the problem lies with Valkyrie and the new FA etc. However, as I am sure, S2 is stubborn to never admit that Valkyrie was an issue in the first place, I think Flint should receive stat adjustments (as promised by DOGKaiser).
No one wants to admit Valkyrie/PotM is op. Just go talk to anyone in DOTA2 and just about half of them think she's under powered/balanced. It's like no one can land her skill shot or something.


Either way, Flint is fine. I hate him with a burning passion, and don't mind if he stays balanced. He's better than CD is, and CD is mostly balanced as is. Does anyone remember the reign of FWS carries?

[the_guy117]

Flint used to be insane when he first came out. I feel like it was power creep more than anything that destroyed flint.

[LordTroll]

Ok, so we've ended up agreeing that Flint isn't the problem and we should be dealing with the cause.

Would you also agree then that this thread should be closed and new threads created around the heroes responsible for the problem?

Moving on now, nothing further to see here.

3 people agree on something balance related;

close thread, as veredict is obviously reached.

[Brannock]

3 people agree on something balance related;

close thread, as veredict is obviously reached.

Did you have something you wanted to contribute to the thread before it got closed?

[LordTroll]

Did you have something you wanted to contribute to the thread before it got closed?

I just think there are small tweaks that can be made, like some guy suggested, putting hollowpoint bullets on a cooldown after a sure proc, a la Rampage, with a special condition to lower said cooldown, like making each attack lower its cooldown, to give him a bit more reliable utility, while not making him terrible late game due to the CD being reduced by every attack performed, which should work well with the high attack speed he will eventually reach.

As in, I honestly don't think the hero is bad, it's just not as safe as say a Silhouette, who can carry very hard and packs very reliable utility of her own throughout the entire game. A small change like that will make him slightly more strategic. I like it.

Or just buff his Movespeed to like 310 if you think he needs to be more risk-free like a Silhouette or Valkyrie. With either of these buffs (individually applied) he won't become godlike even with nerfs across the board to tanky heroes, just more attractive as a strong hard-carry, like the previously mentioned heroes.

[FurryTuna]

I just think there are small tweaks that can be made, like some guy suggested, putting hollowpoint bullets on a cooldown after a sure proc, a la Rampage, with a special condition to lower said cooldown, like making each attack lower its cooldown, to give him a bit more reliable utility, while not making him terrible late game due to the CD being reduced by every attack performed, which should work well with the high attack speed he will eventually reach.

You mean this suggestion? (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?422689-Hollow-Point-Shell)

[LordTroll]

Redundant question, is it not?

[_T_o_x_i_c_]

flint need hp nerv or more speed nerf , u cant get close to it u cant run away how the hell is someone supose to take him down , no batt surprise possible

[Tomate]

Flint cannot compete with the more popular options as far as ranged carries that exist currently. The question is should we all buff the ranged carries to the levels of Valk, FA, Silhouette or should we bring those down?

God knows what will happen in the end, I just have a feeling that S2 cannot, internally, decide what is balanced. They do not have a clear vision of what level of power a hero should have. I feel like Flint is in a good spot as far as strength vs weaknesses balance, the issue is that I don't see the weaknesses in the heroes like Valk, Sil and FA... So, in the end, I always end up picking those instead of Flint.

[skeloperch]

Flint cannot compete with the more popular options as far as ranged carries that exist currently. The question is should we all buff the ranged carries to the levels of Valk, FA, Silhouette or should we bring those down?

God knows what will happen in the end, I just have a feeling that S2 cannot, internally, decide what is balanced. They do not have a clear vision of what level of power a hero should have. I feel like Flint is in a good spot as far as strength vs weaknesses balance, the issue is that I don't see the weaknesses in the heroes like Valk, Sil and FA... So, in the end, I always end up picking those instead of Flint.

The problem is that he CAN compete with them. Flint is subject to not being flavor of the month, not power creep. He's still well above the curve in terms of relative power.

[`11411181]

Last time we saw a pure flint vs sil game competitively, the flint had 400gpm 30min in and still couldn't compete with a 300gpm sil. Team composition was mostly the same, only that sil could just illusion swap and grapple away, whereas the flint had no recourse for when his team couldn't screen him - and that's the main difference. It's not possible enough currently to screen a flint effectively enough to make him pay off dividends.

[Tupimus]

Last time we saw a pure flint vs sil game competitively, the flint had 400gpm 30min in and still couldn't compete with a 300gpm sil. Team composition was mostly the same, only that sil could just illusion swap and grapple away, whereas the flint had no recourse for when his team couldn't screen him - and that's the main difference. It's not possible enough currently to screen a flint effectively enough to make him pay off dividends.

I don't see how this is a fault of Flint as a hero and not Silhouette.

[`11411181]

I don't see how this is a fault of Flint as a hero and not Silhouette.

I didn't say it wasn't Silhouette, just stating it as it was.

[foxmindedguy]

Last time we saw a pure flint vs sil game competitively, the flint had 400gpm 30min in and still couldn't compete with a 300gpm sil. Team composition was mostly the same, only that sil could just illusion swap and grapple away, whereas the flint had no recourse for when his team couldn't screen him - and that's the main difference. It's not possible enough currently to screen a flint effectively enough to make him pay off dividends.

This is why I respect him. When he is not putting up one-liners, he makes such clear and concise points.

100% with him on this one. :D

Down with those semi-carries (and well, most of the sturdy heroes as well) :D

[Dominare]

As others have said, Flint is fine as a hero, he just doesn't do well in short games and thus has no place in the current meta. If you want a ranged carry with 25% longer range than everyone else then you have to expect him to have some pretty glaring weaknesses to make up for it. As others have said, his flare is all-round an amazing skill, his hollowpoints make him a great chaser lategame (he'll have +ms from geo) and forget about channeling spells while he's around. Then you've got his ult, allowing him to lasthit heroes with impunity and pick up the gold. Oh, and let's not forget you can't ever deny a tower he's killing (from beyond its attack range) without taking him out first...

[`11411181]

This is why I respect him. When he is not putting up one-liners, he makes such clear and concise points.

100% with him on this one. :D

Down with those semi-carries (and well, most of the sturdy heroes as well) :D

You respect me because I managed to causally agree with one point in your tidal wave of biased vomit? Get out.

[foxmindedguy]

You respect me because I managed to causally agree with one point in your tidal wave of biased vomit? Get out.

And what exactly is my tidal wave biased towards (or against)?

While we do have a lot of disagreement, you tend to be able to reason through your point of view. The fact that you mostly don't choose to do so makes you one of the biggest dicks. Knowing stuff is appreciated but being a douche bag about it is both, unproductive and repulsive.

[`11411181]

How is that question even ****ing relevant?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_assertion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_assertion)

I want you to read this very carefully. And then re-read it. Perhaps even print out a copy and staple it to your toilet door so you read it every single time, or make a printscreen of it your desktop. It gets really frustrating even bothering to metaphorically fart in your general direction, because even coming close to addressing half the eristic vomit you spew would require a patience and mental fortitude that I (and everyone else that shuns even mentioning what you post in passing seriously) quite frankly don't get paid enough to possess.

I'm a douchebag about certain things because somehow it seems that because I'm a more recognizable face upon these forums, that somehow I'm magically obligated to give twice the effort when posting in response to something that my 13 year old sister could recognize as stupid with merely 120 seconds of critical thought.
No, those stupid posts are still stupid, regardless of what I post.
No, they will not be any less stupid even if I decide to respond and critically assess them.
No, I will not give you a 1000-word essay as to how or why you somehow invoked at least 4 different logical fallacies within 2 sentences and why that's wrong, as much as that may impress me for all the wrong reasons.
No, I don't care about shitty trivial eristic arguments to the effect of stating that 99% != 100%, as though that's even ****ing relevant to the topic.
Yes, I will respond to posts that call for it, that are made with a decent effort to be logically consistent and state what they think/believe with attention to why.
No, I will not respond to post that just resort to relativistic bullshit that can't be argued upon, used as a crutch fallback by bad posters who only wish to have their delusions validated by like-minded people.
Yes, most of this only applies to an ever widening section of people who flow in here just to post trash and be told that they're still important because they paid $30 2 years ago or bought gold coins. **** that.

Yes, underneath it all I'm actually a reasonable person and no, I don't have time for answerly plainly retarded **** when I've likely put in about 20000x the thought and refinement into the opinions I have, only to have it dismissed by some half-wit telling me to play the hero 200 times before I can have a proper opinion or to have them repeat the same **** ad nauseum until it disgusts me to even look at the replies and the complete lack of effort put through them.
Yet you somehow still have the gall to call me out for my dismissive one-liners.
No, you're the one that's being unproductive and repulsive with shitposts from here to every other thread starting with F. Get ****ed. They can infraction me for all I care, because you and everyone else in f=13 who posts like you do will get the same treatment, until you lift your standards above being a mouthbreather.

[foxmindedguy]

No, you're the one that's being unproductive and repulsive with shitposts from here to every other thread starting with F. Get ****ed. They can infraction me for all I care, because you and everyone else in f=13 who posts like you do will get the same treatment, until you lift your standards above being a mouthbreather.

F? Oh you have been reading my general discussion threads...

My list adding OCD for F has nothing to do with my judgement on the inferred heroes. Had it been so, I would not be calling out for Fayde nerfs or Forsaken Archer's nerfs. Instead, I'd be wasting my time trying to convince people that they are bat-**** under-powered.

Just because a person has a hobby (or a condition) doesn't make them unable to think critically. I have mostly stated the reasons why I think heroes are in need of a nerf or a buff or should be left untouched, which gives other people the chance to debunk it and sprout further debate (if need be). THAT IS WHAT BALANCE DISCUSSION FORUMS ARE FOR.

You, on the other hand, down-right bash on (and ridicule) the people who do not agree with you. Such hostility is drying up the forums. I could kindly ask you to stop being a plague, but then how would you exert your life frustrations onto here. Therefore continue speaking whatever you wish.

My verdict is that either buff Flint to become relevant earlier on or nerf the others to Flint's power level. If you don't agree with me, then go **** yourself for all I care.

[Hsssh]

Personally i don't remember Anakha bashing me(or it was very "weak bashing" that i don't even remember it) and i have disagreed with him plenty. PzkW also disagrees with him on few occasions and i haven't seen them getting into bashing either. I could give you few more examples where certain people have disagreed with Anakha and he didn't start bashing them but whatever, that is not the point, point is that you are posting **** and that is why Anakha bashes you and majority of older posters of this sub forum either ignore you completely or laugh from your posts in IRC.


I have mostly stated the reasons why I think heroes are in need of a nerf or a buff or should be left untouched, which gives other people the chance to debunk it and sprout further debate (if need be). THAT IS WHAT BALANCE DISCUSSION FORUMS ARE FOR.


My verdict is that either buff Flint to become relevant earlier on or nerf the others to Flint's power level. If you don't agree with me, then go **** yourself for all I care.

Oh my.

[`11411181]

F? Oh you have been reading my general discussion threads...

My list adding OCD for F has nothing to do with my judgement on the inferred heroes. Had it been so, I would not be calling out for Fayde nerfs or Forsaken Archer's nerfs. Instead, I'd be wasting my time trying to convince people that they are bat-**** under-powered.

Just because a person has a hobby (or a condition) doesn't make them unable to think critically. I have mostly stated the reasons why I think heroes are in need of a nerf or a buff or should be left untouched, which gives other people the chance to debunk it and sprout further debate (if need be). THAT IS WHAT BALANCE DISCUSSION FORUMS ARE FOR.

You, on the other hand, down-right bash on (and ridicule) the people who do not agree with you. Such hostility is drying up the forums. I could kindly ask you to stop being a plague, but then how would you exert your life frustrations onto here. Therefore continue speaking whatever you wish.

My verdict is that either buff Flint to become relevant earlier on or nerf the others to Flint's power level. If you don't agree with me, then go **** yourself for all I care.
Not only did you manage to deflect that into some random stupid personal tangent, you completely missed the ****ing point as per usual. I'm done, forever.

[foxmindedguy]

Not only did you manage to deflect that into some random stupid personal tangent, you completely missed the ****ing point as per usual. I'm done, forever.


Thank ****ing GOD.. You won't be missed at all (by the majority).

[foxmindedguy]

^^^^^^ soo ture this guy must suck with flint dont understand he is one of the best carrys out ther if played by skilled player

The problem is, being the best carry out there (potentially) in HON is not enough, especially in this current meta. Practicality is what matters. How often do you see Flint be on the winning side (even in trilane setups, Flint was picked but more often than not he would lose)?

What incentive do competitive people have to pick such a risky squishy carry in hopes of extending the game past 45-50 minutes (wherein Flint is not ganked much and has had decent hero kills along with creep kills), when they can pick an FA or Valkyrie or Silhouette and almost guarantee to end the game around 30 minute mark?

[Gorb]

Why are we talking about Fayde in a Flint Beastwood thread? Or Anakha, for that matter.

Thread cleared up; if you want to debate this in a vaguely civil manner, please restart it in the Balance Dump. I am not copying it over on the grounds that there is too much bad blood that has translated into forum posts which would colour the restarted debate in a negative manner.

Also, <3 Skyve.

[Dominare]

The problem is, being the best carry out there (potentially) in HON is not enough, especially in this current meta.

That's the thing about the metagame though: it is transient. Just because a hero is perhaps not viable right this second, does not mean they need balancing. Armadon was a complete joke pick for a couple of years, but recently you started seeing him all the time because the meta shifted to one which suited him. This is not a Bad Thing(tm) and doesn't need "fixing" - it actually adds depth to a game to have heroes, units, whatever that aren't necessarily considered viable, because it allows creative teams and players to innovate with them. Anyone who followed competitive Brood War even a little will know how often that kind of thing happened, and how infrequent balance patches were. They did alright, afaik.

tl:dr just because a hero isn't being picked this month doesn't mean they need buffs

[Alten]

Brood War balance was practically a miracle. Blizzard themselves' admitted to such, in fact. They're having a hard time balancing SC2 while keeping it fun because it deviates from Brood War in so many ways. Well, that, and because it's difficult to balance three different factions at singular periods if you're releasing expansion packs at two-three year intervals that specifically focus on a particular faction's improvement.

[Easy_Lee]

While stronger than many ranged carries, such as moon queen, flint does have some problems in the current meta. He's not really good at any one thing a ranged carry needs to do, besides harassing. One of the earliest posters said the game doesn't last long enough for him to be relevant, and that's true. However, even if it did he would still not be as relevant as some other ranged carries. Silhouette will always do more burst and have better escape than flint, and corrupted disciple will always be harder to kill and do higher damage over time than flint. Since there are ranged carries who outfarm him too, such as soulstealer and archer, you really need a very specific reason to pick flint.

He needs some rebalancing, as do over half of the heroes on the roster.

[Pineapple]

Both low survivability and low mobility are to balance a 800+ range hard carry that scales really, really well with items into late game.



His animation is the best in the game. Damage problem can be solved with stat items early game, and with 2.9 agi gain it's not a problem once he gets a few levels.



Who said "ranged carries are supposed to be stronger in lane than melee carries", except for the logical range benefit? And even then, just because he doesn't hit for a lot doesn't mean he doesn't hit. The melee heroes you are taking as examples either have self-regeneration capabilities or are ridiculously tanky (:zeph: is both), both balancing factors considering they're melee and they NEED to be able to withstand harass from heroes like :flin:. Otherwise you might as well remove melee hero viability.

(That said, take examples like :pebb::dead: who aren't tanky or have any regenerating skills, and with constant harass you can easily push them out of the lane. But do you focus on harassing or last hits as a hard carry? If "flint can't harass" is a problem for you, I really don't know why your thread got approved.)



:flin: has ~600 damage burst at level 6, all from 600+ range. I won't say that's a useless early game. On top of that, a :flin: with a few cores (Shield Breaker, Geometer's Bane) can eat up most heroes mid game. As you keep adding items to him, his effectiveness goes on increasing as he can disrupt heroes like few others with his constant ministuns. If you go Frostwolf, it's even worse since you're slowing them. Sure, you aren't doing a lot of damage, but you're doing a decent amount of consistent damage and slow. It's a tradeoff between damage or utility; I think it's a good thing that he is meant to make that decision depending on the team he has and he's going up against rather than have a single item build that works against any lineup (cough:drun::monk:cough).



Wrong. Just, simply, wrong.



Seem to? How about you get some numbers to back up your claim? Anecdotal (and that too perceived) evidence is useless and best not argued around.



Every hard carry is single target (primarily), simply because their damage scales with items and levels. The AoE carries are semi-carries who carry by out-farming and out-leveling the other team. Put a :flin: against any of them with equal levels and equal farm and :flin: will outcarry by a mile. Get your concepts straight.



The problem isn't with :flin:; the problem is with tanky heroes who can blink or in general close the gap between themselves and ranged heroes (like :krak:'s charge) which is what screws :flin: over. His range is his survivability, which is why when :flin: was popular in the competitive scene you saw heroes like :mali: picked up who could close that gap. Now, since every hero has some sort of blink, :flin:'s advantage isn't that much of an advantage. Where the problem lies, I'll let the others decide.

^this <3

flint is fine.. its those ridiculously strong str melee carries thats an issue

[foxmindedguy]

Nobody uses :arac: anymore, maybe we should buff :arac: again? +3.0 str gain, yeah? After all, carries in HoN in 2012 are pretty much heroes that are innately tanky or can be built tanky.

If no one uses Arachna anymore and you are not seeing the meta-game to shift any time soon to favor her (which I don't even know what it would be), then she does need tweeks. And you see them happening, first the nerf on the duration of her carapace got semi-reverted going from 6 seconds to 3 seconds to 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 seconds.


I'm guessing you're also the kind to not go Soulscream rings because they don't build into anything late game and whatever farm you do get is better put into straight out late-game items?

You are trying to disprove my points by predicting that I am a noob. Er... Not logical whatsoever. Try to debunk the points I have posted, do not try to win arguments by e-peening (or whatever you kids call it nowadays).


Also, just because games are over before heroes like :flin: can reach their peak doesn't make the hero weak/broken/imbalanced/whatever. It means the game isn't balanced to allow all strategies to play out equally. It's a fault of the environment the hero is put in, not the hero itself.

You are talking about Flint's potential here but contradict yourself in the statement below:


(And :glad: one shotting enemy teams? Lol. If that's true, why don't we see :glad: picked? Sounds pretty strong to me? Stop watching Youtube clips of pubby :glad:s. Those gimmicks don't work against half a brain.)

So therefore I ask you: If Gladiator can't one-shot people, is it the fault of the environment or the limitations of the hero? As far as I know, Gladiator has the potential to one-shot people. The reason you don't see him get picked is the same reason you don't see Flint get picked: Reaching their potential is not feasible. Any team with half a brain knows how to not get one-shotted by Gladiator, similarly any team with half a brain knows how to prevent Flint from becoming a Beast.


It's just annoying to see people who don't see how ****ed up the balance of this game is and when they do, they're trying to "fix" the wrong things. Yes, S2 doesn't need to listen to this, but it also means that the members of the community with the initiative to fix the balance are incapable of doing it. Kinda like how our countries are led by people who have the initiative to run for office but are incapable of actually doing any "fixing".

I do see how ****ed up the balance of the game is, but when you know that the developers wish to continue on this path, then your only other option is power-creeping. Ideally I would want DOGKaiser to completely gut off Kraken's Charge, Cthuluphant's Charge, Amun-Ra's Charge, Legionnaire Charge, Predator's Leap and Tundra's Charge (because their DOTA counterparts do not have a gap-closer {I know Cthu & Amun-RA do not have said comparables}); but I know this expectation is not realistic.

[LordTroll]

Gladiator is a whole different issue... He's never guaranteed to 1 shot teams, he needs a lucky crit to proc when he attacks OUT of shroud, WITH his passive ready. Quite some conditions that overall make him unreliable for that purpose. This isn't to say Gladiator needs to be built with the all-or-nothing items, of course.

[foxmindedguy]

Gladiator is a whole different issue... He's never guaranteed to 1 shot teams, he needs a lucky crit to proc when he attacks OUT of shroud, WITH his passive ready. Quite some conditions that overall make him unreliable for that purpose. This isn't to say Gladiator needs to be built with the all-or-nothing items, of course.

Isn't Flint also in the same luck-based boat? If he is very unlucky and gets absolutely no mini-stuns, then he hasn't been the disruptive orc that makes him a monster.

[PlayeroJ]

Isn't Flint also in the same luck-based boat? If he is very unlucky and gets absolutely no mini-stuns, then he hasn't been the disruptive orc that makes him a monster.

No, it's pretty plainly different. The more auto-attacks Flint lands the closer he is going to 35% of his attacks having the ministun vs Glad who has a MASSIVE increase in output if he manages to crit coming out of shroud. Glad is going to be attacking out of his shroud far less often Flint is going to be landing his autos, making it far more luck based. Did I mention the difference is pretty huge too?

[foxmindedguy]

No, it's pretty plainly different. The more auto-attacks Flint lands the closer he is going to 35% of his attacks having the ministun vs Glad who has a MASSIVE increase in output if he manages to crit coming out of shroud. Glad is going to be attacking out of his shroud far less often Flint is going to be landing his autos, making it far more luck based. Did I mention the difference is pretty huge too?

Yeah, the difference is also that one crit out of shroud can pretty much annihilate an unprepared team. Flint, on the other hand, does not only need that one magic mini-stun. In order to stay disruptive he needs to be pulling out hollow-point shells as often as he can...

So yeah, they are very different, but I feel the magnitude of luck required on the heroes to reach their peak purpose is not miles apart.

[Malefication]

Did I miss the patch where they nerfed Flint to the ground so he now needs to be buffed?

[GregerMoek]

So much mad in here, need more smileys!

Wouldn't mind seeing Flint buffed though, because I enjoyed playing him when he was somewhat OP. I don't think he needs it though, if some certain heroes gets their rightful nerfs/changes (looking at you Silhouette)

[foxmindedguy]

Moderator, close this thread please.

Flint got +2 Strength. I can't say as of now, how big or small of a help it was for Flint. But we need to sit back a while to see where the lackluster troll goes from here.

[Gorb]

Locked by request.