Artillery Speculation

[Keris]

Saw this guy couple time in my match. Nice cheap buff, Slow passive build in, got awesome piercing and escape skill, and need a good positioning to be effective.

What are guys thinking about this hero? is he good? borderline? or just another unpolished hero? the session start right now.

[Ekamo]

Sure, approved, why not?

[moshonkel]

Saw this guy couple time in my match. Nice cheap buff, Slow passive build in, got awesome piercing and escape skill, and need a good positioning to be effective.

What are guys thinking about this hero? is he good? borderline? or just another unpolished hero? the session start right now.



Couple of things.

1. Can kill kongor from outside pit with his q
2. Possibly strongest antipusher/turtler in game
3. Possibly the first hero with doombringer as good and not too risky luxury item, especially when you are behind.


Personal opinion: The hero will get nerfed

[Hsssh]

I dislike him because Q scales so well, applies physical slow and has absurd range. Then we have buff which costs 10mp, has cd of 10 and lasts 8 seconds. Sure you have to stay in area but with below average positioning that isn't that hard. On the other hand if you are mid it's rather easy to stay in "bunker" all the time and win lane.

[Khrato]

Why he would be nerfed? Its easy, SO EASY to counter. Why? Every PK user can easy stop channel of LRM. After that, while he has got CD on Bunkers Down and LRM he is with 295 speed so he have to use his ulti. Okey, he is out of fight atm so whats up now? CD on Q - he is *****. CD on E - range 550 - he is *****. Ulti used to run away - he is even more useless cuz' he cannot stun any1. Only poor 7% slow per CHARGE = hit.

If thats your point of OP - lets nerf magmus! Using pk will stop his ulti. Lets nerf silhouete so she wouldnt use tree graple. Why we shouldn't nerf more char with escape mechanism cuz' they've got escape mechanism? Lets go for another one! Nerf to flint cuz' he have builded in little stun with range 810! Lets nerf another skill of flint, did u ever saw CD and range of his ulti? unbelievable!

[Cyber_Kun]

Khrato, all your examples of heroes that we should nerf are in fact OP so yeah.

This hero is stupid. 1500 range rape. It applies the PHYSICAL SLOW and deals enough damage that you should never auto-attack in all but the most rare cases. LRM needs to have static damage, no scaling, and then have the slow be applied a lot slower.

[rancewong]

Considering LRM is arguably better than FA's ult (lower CD, spammable Mana cost, longer range, phys.slow, gd scaling, turning..).
I don't think it is anywhere near the line of balance.

[Beroya]

The hero lacks any form of survivability, and even though LRM scales, it doesn't do it nearly as well as similar skills (DL's charge and MQ's bounces are the first to come to mind). It doesn't apply attack modifiers and cannot proc anything that would boost its damage (like crit). It forces a player to stand still for 4.25 seconds unless they want to lose some of the missiles, and they're notoriously easy to dodge since they have a limited range and don't completely lock a target down. Due to their pseudo-scaling, the time when it would be OP (early game) is the time they're the easiest to dodge (no ranks in slow).

With all that said, it's still nice damage, so long as the opposition doesn't get armor and/or your team gets armor reductions. It becomes better than autoattacking as soon as you start hitting more than one target consistently. Hitting one is 120% attack damage + 60 per second, so 300 attack damage at 1.4 attacks per second is effectively the same thing. Or 200 damage at 1.5 attacks per second.

[Khrato]

Cyber_Kun, in fact yeah - heroes are OP but tell me, how many people know how to play flint/silhou (Didn't see even 1 good silhou i last months. - even in comp matches)
But if you are going to meet realy good player of this chars, you are done.

Silhou is hard char, that demands a lot of brain with tactical skills.
Comparing to Artillery. Lack of survivalibity, LRM with realy low damage and slow, realy slow reaction to every change of destination that LRM will be thrown. Okey 1500 range. Do you know how many times devo took my while I was throwing LRM to save tower? How many times I did get Valkyrie's Javelin? Artillery is throwing LRM? lets hit him by Flint's ultimate = 0.2 sec stun. The main thing = LRM is channeling skill and comparing to FA's ulti is mistake cuz' after boost she can also run away or use autoattacks. Another thing, stacking slow? 7% per one hit and that is IMO only good and realy helpful ability. If they will nerf this - I will never take Artillery again cuz' it will be useless char.

[Nine_Cloak]

Khrato, all your examples of heroes that we should nerf are in fact OP so yeah.

I find this comment to be highly out of place, being on the balance forums and especially coming from a game master. The heroes that he mentioned are all in a sweetspot for balance, hence they haven't been touched in forever. Notably, Magmus is competitively picked and banned a bit too often; the point still stands. People saying that there's nothing you can do about LRM are mistaken, because there's plenty you can do. Artillery has very little to offer if you take him out of his LRM/Bunker Down. The question is really: "Is taking Artillery out of his LRM/Bunker Down too difficult?" and I would say the answer is no.


This hero is stupid. 1500 range rape. It applies the PHYSICAL SLOW and deals enough damage that you should never auto-attack in all but the most rare cases. LRM needs to have static damage, no scaling, and then have the slow be applied a lot slower.


In response to the bolded part, I'd like to say that LRM replacing Artillery's autoattack is very clearly intended, and is a unique aspect of the hero that fits both his theme and his hero design. In response to the underlined part, I would like to point out what you suggest is undermining the former sentence. If the carrying aspect of the hero was limited to his Bunker Down, there would be a very ugly headbutting between him and Flint Beastwood as far as roles go. What use is Artillery if all he can do is be Flint Beastwood for 6 seconds or less if he's forced out of Bunker Down?

Having a hero be that niche is not fun. S2 very clearly agrees with me on that one, considering Vindicator's recent remake.

[Fromundaman]

I've been playing this hero a lot. One of the more interesting EA heroes to come out recently. Artillery is balanced in my opinion, but will probably never see the light of competitive play.

Pros:
-Good from beginning to end.
-Bunker down is amazing for last hitting and harassing in laning phase.
-LRM has ridiculous range, does good damage and slows a LOT late game when you've leveled his passive.
-He farms somewhat easily.
-Has a stun/pseudo-escape.
-AMAZING attack animation (I don't actually like the visual too much, but the cast time is great.)
-Scales well into late game.

Con:
-Incredibly squishy
-A character without a REAL escape mechanism?! Blasphemy! (I will get into his ult in a minute.)
-His ult isn't very good. Now yes, it can serve as both a stun and an escape, but it's only meh at both. First off, it has a really long cooldown. Secondly, this escape mechanism really only works in small fights or if they are all trying to gank you while bunched up. It also requires that none of them have some sort of displacement of cliffwalking ability, since characters like Valkery, MB, SW, anyone with PK or tablet, WB, hag, etc. will catch up to and kill you even if you do hit them with the stun.
As a stun, it's pretty decent, but it clashes with his other abilities and theme. If you use your ult in a teamfight, you have effectively pushed your slow hero out of the fight and you find yourself having to reposition yourself during the battle. If for any reason you already had a bunker down placed, you just pushed yourself out of that as well. All this on top of a ridiculous cooldown makes it a meh skill, and very underwhelming compared to his other skills. I have even found myself skipping it entirely to level the other skills a few times.
-Pretty terrible as a mid against a competent opponent IMO due to his very low MS and lack of escape, especially early game.
-While he racks up a lot of assists, LRM tend to set up kills for others moreso than getting kills himself, which along with his squishiness tends to limit his ability to become a late game carry. On the plus side, he makes for a solid semi-carry who can still help support and set up for the hard carry.
-Very vulnerable while casting LRM. Flanking him will destroy him.

All in all, I feel he makes for a very good semi-carry.
Also, auto-attacks late game > LRM for orb effects and all. That being said, LRM is still good, but should be used more for softening them up pre-fight or to stop runners.

[KingIsRey]

I feel LRM is too powerful at its current state as a primary [Q] spell because of the scaling. He can match a VJ Spirit Ward ult (all 3 when at an equally appropriate level ex: lvl 16 Voodoo Jester vs lvl 16 Artillery) in damage (which as a Voodoo Jester player I feel is a strong dps ult), yet it has longer range 1500 vs 1000 (VJ's 300 cast range + 700 for Spirit Ward) and also applies the stacking slow along with pierce properies.
*Have test data to support such speculation

[Fromundaman]

I feel LRM is too powerful at its current state as a primary [Q] spell because of the scaling. He can match a VJ Spirit Ward ult (all 3 when at an equally appropriate level ex: lvl 16 Voodoo Jester vs lvl 16 Artillery) in damage (which as a Voodoo Jester player I feel is a strong dps ult), yet it has longer range 1500 vs 1000 (VJ's 300 cast range + 700 for Spirit Ward) and also applies the stacking slow along with pierce properies.
*Have test data to support such speculation

That's really not a fair comparison. VJ's ult should never be used without Cursed, which makes it's DPS WAAAAY higher.
That being said, LRM shouldn't be used without bunker down, which makes it's DPS higher as well.

HOWEVER, if you are matching VJ's ult in damage on LRM, then depending on the items you have to boost that damage (Frostburn seems to be common. Still experimenting with other items, but Frostburn's slow + passive are nasty together), it's often better to just bunker down + auto-attack rather than using LRM unless the opposing team are immobilized and clumped together (for example in Kraken or Tempests' ult) or at full range (in which case it's pretty easy to escape and should be used more to harass.

[PrestonLee]

Some things:
*The people who are saying that Artillery is balanced because he is incredibly squishy have no idea about basic positioning skills; you're saying he's squishy but you completely neglect that he has a 1500 range nuke and 800 modified range with Bunker down. When placed safely in the back of any decent team positioning composition, it's going to be incredibly hard for that blink Pebbles to get through to you and kill you, let's not even talk about other heroes.

*The people who are saying that Artillery is balanced because it's hard to aim his LRM have no idea about basic teamplay skills; you get an allied AoE stun and it's a 100% gauranteed hit to apply slow and in turn get all your missiles to hit. After that there's nothing stopping you from just raping them since your 35% AoE slow is physical and cannot be avoided.

*The people who are saying that Artillery's LRM damage output is negligable are just plain building him wrong (keep building those Frostburns on him, then stating that his damage is fine lul); if you build the right items on him his damage output with LRM is f***ing ridiculous.

-

I don't want to go into too much detail but this hero is blatantly overpowered at the moment, however it's just numbers (and they obviously aren't going to be changed til after he gets out of EA).. a few tweaks and he will be easily put into balanced.

A few things, if you want to keep his 35% physical slow into play, then you REALLY need to lower the damage on LRM. It's just horribly overpowered in combination with allied AoE CC chain stuns. basically you get a team of 3-4 AoE stuns, have Artillery stack damage and stay in the VERY back and throw out LRM when that Magmus+Witch+Tempest does their thing, obliterate all squishies, then you proceed to run *a little bit* closer to the action, bunker down and finish off whatever is left as they are now slow-fuked by a 35% physical slow and you can freely shoot and finish off with Bunker down+auto attacks, use your ulti to stun and reposition yourself if needed. Especially in combination with a Tempest and/or Kraken based team in particular; the synergy between the two is just monstrous with pretty much every single one of Tempest's/Kraken's skills, and a well-placed ult is pretty much a gauranteed GG whether or not you actually break Tempest's channel; mind you both Tempest and Kraken are considered top-tier picks at the moment.

Some suggestions:
First, if you want to keep this hero's AoE damage output monstrous like that, have the scaling % damage output of LRM only apply when bunker down is activated. You might think this is negligable but it has some applications in that if you bunker down for the increased damage on your LRM, then in turn you will not be able to use bunker down as a follow up for cleaning up with auto attacks as the cooldown on it will come up. Basically, you'll have two options, 1. use LRM as an AoE slowing utility without the damage, and then proceed to clean up with bunker-down+auto attacks, or 2. Use LRM as a damage source, and giving up the follow up range. Currently the LRM damage is potentially absurd with the right pickups even without bunker down, and you don't need to activate it to get big damage out of LRM and then just finish off with bunkerdown+auto attacks.

Second, Artillery's movement speed should be decreased (say by 30%) when within the range of Bunker down to give it a thematic approach to it, while also limiting the use of it and making it more strategical. It shouldn't be just a 'ACTIVATE whenever I want to attack' kind of skill (whoever came up with this idea has down syndrome when it comes to developing interesting skills), but rather a 'I need more firepower right now, and I'm willing to risk my mobility for it' kind of skill. To make up for his lack of mobility though he should get some kind of survivability buff (I don't know, -15/20/25/30% damage taken? go wild, that was just an example), again to go with the thematic approach of "bunkering down." As it stands it's currently just a "I press E when I want to attack" skill which is completely uninteresting and for the most part brainless.

-

That's my opinion/input on it anyway. I personally think the hero is stupid broken and if you aren't capable of understanding why then you need to get better at the game. I'm quite sure anyone experienced at a high level of play in this game will tell you he's broken; feel free to prove me wrong if you play in the 1800's+ and disagree with me, I'm quite interested in those opinions of higher level players. I didn't even mention the part where he's able to use LRM to easily flashfarm as a carry with the right pickups, which just adds more reasons as to why he's currently broken.

[Cyber_Kun]

I find this comment to be highly out of place, being on the balance forums and especially coming from a game master. The heroes that he mentioned are all in a sweetspot for balance, hence they haven't been touched in forever.

You do know Helm of the Black Legion, correct? It was considered balanced forever but it was not. It got balanced. Magmus will have his at some point.



On what should be done to him? Hell if I know. He has huge design problems and removing the OP from LRM and the physical slow will make him a useless hero.

[KingIsRey]

That's really not a fair comparison. VJ's ult should never be used without Cursed, which makes it's DPS WAAAAY higher.
That being said, LRM shouldn't be used without bunker down, which makes it's DPS higher as well.

HOWEVER, if you are matching VJ's ult in damage on LRM, then depending on the items you have to boost that damage (Frostburn seems to be common. Still experimenting with other items, but Frostburn's slow + passive are nasty together), it's often better to just bunker down + auto-attack rather than using LRM unless the opposing team are immobilized and clumped together (for example in Kraken or Tempests' ult) or at full range (in which case it's pretty easy to escape and should be used more to harass.

Its actually very fair because Cursed Ground is its own spell in its self and has NO direct effect on Spirit Ward unlike Bunker Down and the passive slow Artillery has which both directly effect it (increased damage potential and applies slow properties). Also, it doesn't matter if you get more damage from normal attks, point im arguing is that LRM is still very powerful with its scaling based on attk damage and as a semi carry he WILL grab damage items. But, if you say so, its adding insult to injury that he has such a powerful channeling spell and can still deal better damage w/o it.

lvl 4 LMR scaling vs VJ Spirit Ward (lvl 7 Artillery and up)
Spirit Ward lvl 1: 200 dps
*Notice LMR shoots 4 missiles per second, somissiles only need 50 damage each to match 200 dps from Spirit Ward. Bunker Down obviously helps in increasing attk damage, thus increasing damage potential on LRM.

So, in theory (and testing) missile damage should go as such: 15 (static damage from LRM) + 35 (lvl 4 LRM scaling) = 50, 4 missiles makesit 200 dps

If you divide 35 by .31 (scaling) you get roughly 113 which is what Artillery's attk damage must be to satisfy the theory. Artillery with Ghost Marchers and 2 Soulscream Rings already has 95-99 attk damage at lvl 7, not counting what you can get from Bunker for bonus damage as you start gainingmore levels. His LRM can easily match the ult of Voodoo Jester.


Lvl 4 LRM vs lvl 2 Spirit Ward (tested at lvl 11 Artillery and up)
Spirit Ward lvl 2: 300 dps
300 dps = 4 missiles at 75 damage each, -> 15 +60 from scaling
60 divided by .31 (scaling from lvl 4 LRM) = 194 attk damage required, not including Bunker Down bonus damage


lvl 4 LRM vs lvl 3 Spirit Ward (tested at lvl 16 and up Artillery)
Spirit Ward lvl 3: 400 dps
400 dps = 4 missiles at 100 damage each -> 15 + 85 fromscaling
85 divided by .31 (scaling from lvl 4 LRM) = 274 attk damage required, not including bonus damage from Bunker.

Its fairly easy for Artillery to reach those required damage quotas to match Voodoo's Spirit Ward.
The static damage suggestion would be a fair change to keep easrly game power on LRM but not have it scale into late-game.

[Fromundaman]

Now don't get me wrong, I am NOT a good player. I don't claim to be better than mediocre, so I could be wrong on quite a few things (As it seems I am).

@Kingisrey: Wow, that's considerably less than I thought it needed...






Some suggestions:
First, if you want to keep this hero's AoE damage output monstrous like that, have the scaling % damage output of LRM only apply when bunker down is activated. You might think this is negligable but it has some applications in that if you bunker down for the increased damage on your LRM, then in turn you will not be able to use bunker down as a follow up for cleaning up with auto attacks as the cooldown on it will come up. Basically, you'll have two options, 1. use LRM as an AoE slowing utility without the damage, and then proceed to clean up with bunker-down+auto attacks, or 2. Use LRM as a damage source, and giving up the follow up range. Currently the LRM damage is potentially absurd with the right pickups even without bunker down, and you don't need to activate it to get big damage out of LRM and then just finish off with bunkerdown+auto attacks.

Second, Artillery's movement speed should be decreased (say by 30%) when within the range of Bunker down to give it a thematic approach to it, while also limiting the use of it and making it more strategical. It shouldn't be just a 'ACTIVATE whenever I want to attack' kind of skill (whoever came up with this idea has down syndrome when it comes to developing interesting skills), but rather a 'I need more firepower right now, and I'm willing to risk my mobility for it' kind of skill. To make up for his lack of mobility though he should get some kind of survivability buff (I don't know, -15/20/25/30% damage taken? go wild, that was just an example), again to go with the thematic approach of "bunkering down." As it stands it's currently just a "I press E when I want to attack" skill which is completely uninteresting and for the most part brainless.



Those are EXCELLENT ideas. S2 please look at these, especially the 2nd.


Out of curiosity, what offensive items would you get with him? FB and shroud seemed like decent mid game pickups IMO. Maybe SB? DB?

[KingIsRey]

How are those "excellent" ideas? PrestonLee agrees about the great scaling on LRM but hardly nerfs it with Suggestion 1. People already pair Bunker Down with LRM for best results in almost every occasion since Bunker Down has a 350 radius. Then, suggestion 2 is potentially a backfire buff to Artillery since he suggests adding damage reduction properties to an agility hero. We'll have another tanky dps in our hands.

[PrestonLee]

you obviously didn't read all of #1, and #2 is just trying to actually synergiZe it with the name it was given. Right now it might as well just be called "Power Up" because you get no drawbacks except having to stay in range of the circle (okay, yes this is a limitation but you usually press that E when you're in range to finish them off anyway). If you exit the circle nothing happens and you only wasted 10 mana, and you can just reenter the circle, again no real drawbacks.

Either way, yes they are just suggestions and I see a lot of different ways to fix him (make lrm damage like aluna's power throw decreasing damage as it goes through more targets, and limiting artillery's movement to be stuck in bunker down's circle unless he deactivates it as two more examples) it's just those first two were the ones I felt made the most sense to me to make things interesting without changing his current form too much. You're free to dislike it if you want, I'm personally indifferent to your opinion.

The only point I wanted to make was this hero was a big pile of rushed crap (like most recent heroes, gunblade, blitz, even kinesis) and was just released without even getting polished and I'm not sure why S2 has such low standards in balance/hero concepts nowadays (it's sad because they have potential to be so much more interesting, but they just aren't). Artillery in particular is an overpowered piece of crap on top of being unpolished. But again that's just my opinion :p

[Nine_Cloak]

You do know Helm of the Black Legion, correct? It was considered balanced forever but it was not. It got balanced. Magmus will have his at some point.

I know that it's considered an un-viable item now to the point where the Strategy forums concluded that you're just better off getting Iron Shield or skipping it entirely. If that's your idea of "balanced", I don't know if it's possible to argue with you or your mentality. You can backpedal your earlier statement if you like, but saying Flint Beastwood is OP has really hurt your standing here.


On what should be done to him? Hell if I know. He has huge design problems and removing the OP from LRM and the physical slow will make him a useless hero.

Offering something new and competitively viable does not equal a design problem. The only problem I have with LRM is that it's re-aimable so quickly. If we were on the suggestion forums, I would say a cooldown added to the re-aim would be a smart move. But, then again, it's only a 4 second channel. We'll see if the thread can come up with anything later, but I don't think throwing around sentences like "this hero is stupid!" or distasteful things like "1500 range rape" are needed or even wanted.

[`11411181]

I know that it's considered an un-viable item now to the point where the Strategy forums concluded that you're just better off getting Iron Shield or skipping it entirely. If that's your idea of "balanced", I don't know if it's possible to argue with you or your mentality. You can backpedal your earlier statement if you like, but saying Flint Beastwood is OP has really hurt your standing here.
He's referring to the time where old OP hotbl/vanguard sat in the same position it did for a very very VERY long time, and was considered bloodhunter-tier in terms of item worth.
You're either ignorant of this, or not wanting to debate the underlying point he made in fear of looking stupid - and trying to deflect.


Offering something new and competitively viable does not equal a design problem. The only problem I have with LRM is that it's re-aimable so quickly. If we were on the suggestion forums, I would say a cooldown added to the re-aim would be a smart move. But, then again, it's only a 4 second channel. We'll see if the thread can come up with anything later, but I don't think throwing around sentences like "this hero is stupid!" or distasteful things like "1500 range rape" are needed or even wanted.

As for offering anything new, he doesn't. He just offers long range on a relatively immobile platform, with an aoe damage and slow - only his biggest range poke is through a spell instead of his boosted autoattack range. The hero is designed in such a way that he almost completely overlaps Flint in capability, the same way that Draconis overlaps Forsaken Archer. A monkey could see this.

[Nine_Cloak]

He's referring to the time where old OP hotbl/vanguard sat in the same position it did for a very very VERY long time, and was considered bloodhunter-tier in terms of item worth.
You're either ignorant of this, or not wanting to debate the underlying point he made in fear of looking stupid - and trying to deflect.

I'm referring to the time where he neglected to mention that it is no longer a viable item for a good majority of heroes, even those it was considered core on. I appreciate the armchair psych.


As for offering anything new, he doesn't. He just offers long range on a relatively immobile platform, with an aoe damage and slow - only his biggest range poke is through a spell instead of his boosted autoattack range. The hero is designed in such a way that he almost completely overlaps Flint in capability, the same way that Draconis overlaps Forsaken Archer. A monkey could see this.


A carry who's attack damage carries over to a spell which is his bread and butter is something unprecedented in HoN. If we're going to list spells out in the blandest way possible, I think even a monkey would realize that it sounds like everything's been done.

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?410091-Artillery-Pre-Release-Discussion-Thread&p=15041731&viewfull=1#post15041731 is the thread I made regarding the same point you bring up at the end of your post.


As I've explained to a few people already, I think Artillery fits fine with the lore. Nor do I have a problem with the fact that this is the third agility hero in a row, as I love agility heroes and know that there was lots of empty space in the agility hero pool. I actually have no idea why either of those are such big issues to people when there's a much, much larger problem with Artillery.

So far, Artillery's role has not been stated by S2. In the teaser, it advertises him as "a ranged agility hero" and in the spotlight it advertises him as "a ranged agility machine". Inititally I had figured he'd be an agility ganker/support much like Blitz, but after seeing the spotlight and the summary of the video...

Artillery is a ranged, agility hero that excels in long-range combat. With Bunker down, his attack range exceeds a tower's reach. Long Range Missiles (LRM) scale with base damage, and do not propagate orb effects or attack modifiers, so items that increase base attack damage provide the most bang for Artillery.

Ghost Marchers are the boots of choice for this construction, providing needed maneuverability as well as bonus damage. Since Bunker Down's mana cost is so little, and LRM is somewhat cheap, a Blood Chalice or Power Supply can provide all the mana necessary, letting Artillery focus on his offensive front. Fragmentation shells do not count as an orb effect, yet provide a potent slow, so Frostwolf Skull is not suggested, though Geometer's Bane is a great pickup for both damage and survivability. Savage Mace, Wingbow, and a Nullstone all work great with Artillery's play style. Charged Hammer greatly increases Artillery's damage output, but since LRM doesn't proc the lightning, it may not be as efficient as other weapons when doing damage.

...Which, sounds to me, like a ranged agility carry. Again, no issue with that whatsoever. Ranged agility carries are fun for me to play and can do plenty of work, especially with a cooperative team.

My issue with Artillery is this; if Artillery is a ranged agility carry that outranges towers and specializes in long-rage combat, coming equipped with both a long range slow and a medium range aoe stun, what reason is there to pick the already outshined :flin:? As a few of you know, there is a balance discussion going on for Flint Beastwood in the balance forums right now. It's very clear he is no longer the crowned king of ranged carries, nor has he been picked competitively since JoshP was playing the game. It seems like this hero would've (and could've) been a simple remake for Flint Beastwood, and now all we have is two heroes in the same pool that butt into each other. Not in a good way.

I am aware that it states clearly that his Q does not carry orb effects, but I don't think that's enough to stop the rest of the hero from being a carry. Even if he were only a semicarry (which is a longshot), it's very likely he'd have much more of an impact in any game played by players of equal skill than Flint Beastwood.

I personally am all for Artillery being a hero itself, and I am an avid supporter of HoN distancing itself from DotA by remaking heroes like they did with Rampage and Vindicator, but before I blitz my way to the suggestion forums I am curious to see if S2 foresaw this and what their opinion on the matter is.

I was buried by being thrown into the pre-release discussion thread before I got more than 2 responses. I'm well aware he outshines Flint, but that's not what this artillery speculation thread is about.

[Reldnahc]

A carry who's attack damage carries over to a spell which is his bread and butter is something unprecedented in HoN. If we're going to list spells out in the blandest way possible, I think even a monkey would realize that it sounds like everything's been done.


:monk:

Artillery is bland and broken and he shares a common abbreviation with Artesia. Not a fan at all of the hero.

[`11411181]

I'm referring to the time where he neglected to mention that it is no longer a viable item for a good majority of heroes, even those it was considered core on. I appreciate the armchair psych.

Um.....right. I don't think we're talking about the same game here anymore, but that's ok - f=13 allows anyone to express their opinion.



A carry who's attack damage carries over to a spell which is his bread and butter is something unprecedented in HoN.


Type: PhysicalRange: 300
Radius: 200
Cast Time: 1.0 Seconds
Mana Cost: 90
Cooldown: 15.0 / 13.0 / 11.0 / 9.0 Seconds
Required Level: 1 / 3 / 5 / 7

Activation

Deals 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 plus Attack Damage to affected enemies per Dash.

Yeah, you're clueless. This isn't worth anyone's time replying to.

[PionusMan]

I think that he is balanced/ close to balanced.
Here is the thing with LRM. It takes skill and practice to use effectivly. And a slight amount of luck. For the luck part; if the server you are playing on is at all slow, it will start to significantly impact your ability to use LRM. This is because of a variable delay on the server and as a result requires a little luck in leading with LRMs. Now, if you are fortunate enough to be able to use LRMs on a team that is stun-locked, this isn't a problem. Also, because LRM scales of attack damage, you will need to focus build those over survivability items to get the ABSOLUTE most out it as EARLY as possible, if that is what you want to do. This trade-off could work, but would make you oh so squishy. Id agree that if you can hit multiple people for the full duration of the spell, that you will potentially do OP amounts of damage. However, How often is those situations going to arise? They need specific team composition to set up and luck. At lower skill levels, that might be asking for too much.

Bunker down seems fine. It needed to trigger mana batteries through.

I actually think is ult is under powered. I would suggest that either the cool down for the ult is lowered, the mana cost lowered, range increased, or area of effect increased. the first to would probably have a bigger effect than the last two ideas.

[KingIsRey]

@PionusMan Frost Burn, Geometer's +Frostwolf, Nullstone all don't sacrifice power for survivability. Also, that "specific team composition" is as basic as having Magmus or another initiator like Pharoah in the team. Initiator is an important role and crucial to competitive teams making the good LRM situation ideal, and since this game is balanced in respect to competitive play then lower bracket difficulties or situations don't hold much weight.

[PionusMan]

@PionusMan Frost Burn, Geometer's +Frostwolf, Nullstone all don't sacrifice power for survivability. Also, that "specific team composition" is as basic as having Magmus or another initiator like Pharoah in the team. Initiator is an important role and crucial to competitive teams making the good LRM situation ideal, and since this game is balanced in respect to competitive play then lower bracket difficulties or situations don't hold much weight.

I would agree that those items do provide survivability. However, I guess my point was that to get the MOST benifit as EARLY as possible, you would probably have to build items like Shieldbreaker, Savage Mace, Riftshards, or another VERY high damage boost item. Of course you are unlikely to rush this items on him. he needs items like nullstone or assasins shroud for the survivability aspect.

I would agree that Magmus or Pharoah would make your LRMs more potent. In higher level games, better team compositiion is usually a given. This is why the potentially could be OP. However, I wouldn't mind them staying the same. That way, artillery might actually be one of the newer heros to receive competitive play. It seems that in competitive play (at least in games I watched), that the hero pool of heros actually used is relatively small (like only 1/3 of heros are used competitively, but don't take that figure to the bank). It would be nice if that hero pool was expanded. Also, If you are among the high skill levels, then you probably have the skill and team coordination to take advantage of artillery's weaknesses.

I guess it would be nice to have some of the pros comment on this forum and what their opinion is.

[KingIsRey]

With just Ghost Marchers and 2x Soulscream Ring Artillery reaches about 100 attk damage at lvl 7, enough to squeeze out 180+ dps with lvl 4 LRM. Thats already very strong, rivaling Swiftblade's Blade Frenzy, but anything beyond this starts becoming insanely OP. They should introduce static damage to retain LRM early game power but reduce its late-game power. Its the scaling, scaling spells tend to be broken S2 knows this :I The scaling is my only concern as this is speculation and Artillery has not been in play long enough to merit any big suggestions.

[SomethingOdd]

He does too much damage with LRM, so make it only scale with base damage, and make it so bunker down gives the bonus to LRM, It'd make him not increadibly overpowered with items like doombringer, and other damage items. We've determined that's he OP and this is the best way I think to nerf him without becoming trash tier.

[Skyve]

He does too much damage with LRM, so make it only scale with base damage, and make it so bunker down gives the bonus to LRM, It'd make him not increadibly overpowered with items like doombringer, and other damage items. We've determined that's he OP and this is the best way I think to nerf him without becoming trash tier.

I honestly do like that LRM allows him to scale somewhat better with pure damage items. If you make it only base damage he will have to get agility items, and the attack speed on those in general means that his auto-attacks will be better than LRM faster.

I also originally though that Geometer's Bane was in his reccomended build because Bunker Down works with illusions, and got pretty disappointed with the result (not entirely sure if tje base damage increase works, the range doesn't).

Overall he seems interesting, the comparison to Swiftblade somewhat makes sense (you even use a similar set of skills to get the most out of it). For competitive play I could see him used as a dual lane (sidelane) picked with the intent of completely pushing any opposition out of the lane by utilizing any stun/slow combos and LRM.

His skillbuild seems to be pretty flexible. I'd often even consider only getting one level in LRM as it only triples in the damage scaling but doesn't increase the fixed base damage of 240 over the duration of the skill, and since the slow gets pretty strong and has the potential to give you more hits overall, both, with regular attacks and LRM and with Bunker Down giving you more range and damage, leveling up LRM only seems really viable in a situation where you know you will hit the majority of your rocktes (so basically in a non-solo situation).

Overall I actually like the hero much more than I thougjt I would. His ultimate still feels more generic than it should be. It also alleviates the weakness of the hero which is somewhat of a negative in my book.

[SomethingOdd]

Ok, the ulti doesn't fit in with his other skills very well, maybe that should be changed, but the question now, is how?

[Skyve]

Ok, the ulti doesn't fit in with his other skills very well, maybe that should be changed, but the question now, is how?

It's not that it doesn't fit in (guarantees almost 3 seconds of rockets to hit, maybe more). It's more problematic because it fits too well - creates distance for a hero that needs it and gives a reliable stun to a hero with a swiftblade-like early damage skill.

Overall his skillset/early potential could be compared to giving swiftblade a reliable slow and stun, which is quite possibly the reason why so many people think him OP - because he does everything he needs himself, which makes him 'easy'.

Similar to how Gunblade is designed - he has one skill that gives him bonus damage while in melee range, and then 3 skills that cover every potential weakness that could come from that.

[KingIsRey]

Artillery's ult is quite similar to MoA's Acid/green Q spell (the one that causes knockback) and Tablet in that regard, yet is not limited like those two. It truly does fit too well as a defensive stun/ Tablet boost, and an easy aoe stun for an ult on a (semi) carry doesn't look well balanced atm.
PS. I am relating this aoe stun in regards to Gladiator's skill-based Call to Arms and Geomancer's Crystal Field.

[TripleSeize]

I agree with PrestonLee on some points. I believe "bunker down" should have some sort of cost. Bunker down only costs 10 mana so it's pretty much like arachna's slow, use it every single time it's off CD. To those of you who say LRM is not very good, get a savage mace and/or a shieldbreaker or firebrand/geometer's. Any of those items or all of those items will result in LRM completely raping everyone. Late game however, I tend to use LRM less and less, because bunker down + auto attacks (when combined with his passive slow and even better when paired with frostburn/frostwolf) will do all the work you need to do. I only use LRM mid and late game to blast away a wave of creeps for quick farm (and I don't see why using over 100 mana to destroy one creep wave is OP, when any other carry can get an item like mock/runed cleaver to do it in less time with less mana used), or in a large fight where the enemy heroes are grouped together tightly.

The reason LRM is not overpowered is because any wrong choice of positioning on your part prior to channeling will result in your death, and any hero that wants to pk beside you or use a tablet on you will also make your LRM worthless.

The ult can make his positioning in a fight awkward, and late game is pretty worthless insofar as damage. I've noticed that even early game, a combination of ult and then LRM will usually NOT be enough to take out an enemy hero, and for that reason I usually save it for a large group of enemies (which is rare), or to escape (usually the best use for it). I don't use the ult as often as I could for those reasons.

I think Art would be more balanced if:
A) LRM's damage percentile were slightly lowered
Maybe B) LRM could not be used to take out enemy creep seige weapons (ballista/cannon)
C) Bunker down cost more mana, so that instead of spamming E when the cd was off, you actually had to use smart planning to decide when and where to use it.

[Beroya]

I totally wouldn't mind swapping the ultimate and LRM. It'd allow more liberal use of its defensive mechanic and it would justify LRM's damage scaling. It'd also justify a shorter cooldown on the stun.

[shmoo]

Moon called Artillery the hardest carry in the game.

I cant really say that he is op or anything. Go mid with him against Devourer, u will call for cc15...

Being a static target due to the skills while not having something useful as Tempest makes him so dependent from positioning...

Btw Flint has still more range with his passive without being a static target. But can he really solo Kongor with his LRM?

I think his farming abillity is fine, though I think more of it as a pushing ability as I understand something else by static farm.

My opinion: He is balanced.

[PrestonLee]

Moon called Artillery the hardest carry in the game.

I cant really say that he is op or anything. Go mid with him against Devourer, u will call for cc15...

Being a static target due to the skills while not having something useful as Tempest makes him so dependent from positioning...

Btw Flint has still more range with his passive without being a static target. But can he really solo Kongor with his LRM?

I think his farming abillity is fine, though I think more of it as a pushing ability as I understand something else by static farm.

My opinion: He is balanced.This is so freaking lol. Vs a devo you just max bunker down first (1/2/4 skill build) and completely harass him out of the lane. He'll never even have a chance. Again, the people who think he is balanced really REALLY lack basics of this game. :/

I've actually started playing him now (decided to use my last 500 gold on him) and I'm finding he's WAAAAY too versatile, you can play him like a support the whole game but then you get later game he just takes over with any sort of teamplay (stuns) just by how monstrously overpowered his lrm is with some damage pickups. oR you can just play him like a hardcarry and get supported by your team and just win the game by spamming Q in the back. Either way.

Still completely under the opinion that lrm's scaling is broken. And yes, he is currently the hardest carry in the game if you play him right. It's just if you suck then of course you're gonna feed cuz he's squishy, doesn't change that he has a 1500 range retargetable line aoe attack that's capable of doing like 500 damage TO ALL TARGETS per second Rofl :/

Edit:

I think Art would be more balanced if:
A) LRM's damage percentile were slightly lowered
Maybe B) LRM could not be used to take out enemy creep seige weapons (ballista/cannon)
C) Bunker down cost more mana, so that instead of spamming E when the cd was off, you actually had to use smart planning to decide when and where to use it.I agree with these, like I said in my first post I think just changing some numbers will balance him out nicely. lowering the damage scaling a bit and actually making bunker down cost a significant amount of mana (not freaking static 10, maybe 10/20/30/40 (tel:10/20/30/40)) to use would probably put him into acceptable just off that IMHO. Still unpolished, but at least acceptable balance-wise IMO.

[Keris]

how about creating 2 different situation with his ult, which consist of long range and short range activation (like engineer keg).

Long range: Ult does more damage, less stun duration, artillery doesn't get pushed back.
Short range: Ult does less damage, more stun duration, artillery get a pushback (just like engineer keg, but has more minimum range).

This will make artillery able to choose what are he gonna do with his ult.

I think LRM is quite ok since the enemy need to ate most of the missile in order to get maximum damage, which is why your partner need to stun the target, and any target that stunned/disabled is obv an easy target to everyone not just artilery. I just hate the aoe slow which is very annoying.

@Preston: So does cthulu, midas, and ra. But yeah LRM is a beast once you got enough dmg + dat bunker down. Perhaps this skill needs a tweak, but don't just hit the nerf like what they did on gemini.

[_BIGboss_]

Lol artilery it's ok to me

[KingIsRey]

I would say Artillery, when played well, has the tools to be a go to, reliable carry due to LRM scaling. Most importantly, though, is that passive 35% stacking slow. Passive slow on a ranged carry? Come on, Artillery is gonna kite all day by pimping that Geometer's + Frostwolf combo (which provides plenty survivability). Remeber how unbalanced ranged carries/FWS were pre FWS nerf(s)...

Also, it's not like Artillery will have a difficult time with positioning or is he completely dependent on it. LRM has long 1500 range (ex: lvl 1 FB Money Shot), longer than Portal Key and, say, Devourer's hook; he can practically snipe of enemy Portal Key. Yet, as been said, Artillery can also deal consistent damage w/o LRM.
Now, compare this to Voodoo Jester who only has 1000 range combined (300 cast range, + 700 on Spirit Ward) on his Spirit Ward which is his main form of DPS. As a VJ player, take my word for it: He is in trouble if he doesn't have good positioning. Ultimately, Artillery has a safeguard in the form of the ult to jump out of situations, and its not like an aoe stun is ever a bad thing.

Also, FB doesn't gain base damage from his passive compared to Artillery's Bunker. Artillery can admirably keep on pressure from 800 range and LRM in comparison to FB.

[LordTroll]

I honestly do like that LRM allows him to scale somewhat better with pure damage items. If you make it only base damage he will have to get agility items, and the attack speed on those in general means that his auto-attacks will be better than LRM faster.


How is that even a remotely negative aspect for the change? It gives him depth.

Many of you like to mathcraft on where his Q will become worse than autoattacks with enough attack speed, but you forget that his Q damages EVERYONE that comes in the AoE with no damage mitigation per effected unit. In a decent scenario, he can be DPS'ing 2-3 heroes at same time in a fight, which is huuuuge. It's many times more effective than simply auto-attacking 1, as AoE'ing multiple enemies with a scaling spell is no joke. I actually LIKE that LRM is less effective than auto-attacks, it forces the hero to make a choice. Do I want to focus down 1 hero, or do I want to gun down several heroes of the enemy team?

At the moment building him is quite weird comparing to other agility carries. You want pure damage, and when you're auto-attacking it feels mediocre because many neglect attack speed in order to have a super powerful Q. It's counter-intuitive for a carry.

So I'm all for making is Q bonus damage based on base damage. It makes building him with items more traditionally, and it makes him a solid carry with or without Q, as well as the arguments I gave before. Right now, nobody really wants to build him with something like a Wingbow when you can get a Savage Mace and feel so deadly. :3

[MadPsycho]

LRM is definitely the problem. Amazing harassing ability. Reducing his turn rate while firing would go a long ways to balancing. As it stands it's an easy skill to spam and with the physical slow it makes it difficult to run into stunning range to stop the channel if you don't have a blink. I think the idea that it should replace his autoattack is a good one. Too much utility at lower levels though.

[NG_Beholder]

How is that even a remotely negative aspect for the change? It gives him depth.

Many of you like to mathcraft on where his Q will become worse than autoattacks with enough attack speed, but you forget that his Q damages EVERYONE that comes in the AoE with no damage mitigation per effected unit. In a decent scenario, he can be DPS'ing 2-3 heroes at same time in a fight, which is huuuuge. It's many times more effective than simply auto-attacking 1, as AoE'ing multiple enemies with a scaling spell is no joke. I actually LIKE that LRM is less effective than auto-attacks, it forces the hero to make a choice. Do I want to focus down 1 hero, or do I want to gun down several heroes of the enemy team?

At the moment building him is quite weird comparing to other agility carries. You want pure damage, and when you're auto-attacking it feels mediocre because many neglect attack speed in order to have a super powerful Q. It's counter-intuitive for a carry.

So I'm all for making is Q bonus damage based on base damage. It makes building him with items more traditionally, and it makes him a solid carry with or without Q, as well as the arguments I gave before. Right now, nobody really wants to build him with something like a Wingbow when you can get a Savage Mace and feel so deadly. :3

Do you remember old FA's Split Shot? There was no sense to level it up before lvl 17 or so, despite that skill wasn't channeling, could reliably hit several heroes, could apply FWS/Shieldbreaker AM onto entire enemy team, could proc SM, and all of that for only 30% of auto-attack damage. Nerf LRM and you'll receive a completely garbage version of Flint Beastwood.

[`11411181]

And was also 65? % of all damage at max level.
Making it scale off base damage won't gut the skill, but it will restrict his item choices in terms of abusing LRM effectively. Base damage is increased by stacking primary attribute.

[Tomate]

Am actually curious to see this hero once he becomes available to everyone. He seems to be fairly strong with LRM and his ultimate but bunker seems somewhat MEH.

The issue really is to close the gap with this hero when he is using LRM. I played against 1 guy that had Phase Boots and Frost Burn and he could stay WAY back in teamfights, using LRM and laughing and coming into the fight to kite us all day. Once we see more of this hero, we should have a better idea as to where he stands.

[CrimsonAdder]

And was also 65? % of all damage at max level.
Making it scale off base damage won't gut the skill, but it will restrict his item choices in terms of abusing LRM effectively. Base damage is increased by stacking primary attribute.

Yeah. And that sounds interesting to me!

[Skyve]

How is that even a remotely negative aspect for the change? It gives him depth.

Removing possibilities doesn't add depth.

[CrimsonAdder]

Removing possibilities doesn't add depth.
It ADDS possibility in both deciding either to auto-attack or use LRM (do I want to be a normal carry that can focus down 1 enemy with both attack speed and damage, or do I need to make use of LRM to DPS several enemies / finish off someone?) and makes his item choices far more diverse.

Any Artillery atm tries to be as much damage based as possible, ignoring agility and attackspeed. It's a rather obnoxious way of building a carry in my opinion. YEAH, you can do usual builds on him, but his LRM won't be even close to as effective as it can be, it really demolishes house with pure damage and people don't want to abdicate off that.

[Master_One]

ridiculous, hes not op.

he is easy 2 kill as flint or moa.

also talking about lmr, don tell me everybody of u hits all the rockets everytime. thats just ridiculous.

[Skyve]

It ADDS possibility in both deciding either to auto-attack or use LRM (do I want to be a normal carry that can focus down 1 enemy with both attack speed and damage, or do I need to make use of LRM to DPS several enemies / finish off someone?) and makes his item choices far more diverse.

Currently you have the option to only build damage (which primarily benefits your LRM) OR build agility, which scales well with Bunker Down.

If you make his LRM only scale with base damage, then there is no more "OR" - thus LESS possibilities, less options, less depth.

[CrimsonAdder]

If you make his LRM only scale with base damage, then there is no more "OR" - thus LESS possibilities, less options, less depth.
I disagree, because I doubt Artillery can rely only on Agility based items late game even with LRM being based on base damage.
A mix of agility items like Wingbow/Genjuro/Geometers Bane and Savage Mace / crit stick or so would allow him to be effective all game with an intuitive item build.

[KingIsRey]

I am clocking a lvl 16 Artillery with Ghost Marchers, 2x Soulscream Ring, and Geometer's at 296-301 DPS with LRM (including Bunker Down bonus).
Add in Genjuro, and that jumps to 394-399.
All this talk about "options" and "depth" is pure bs, with the base damage bonus on Bunker Down Artillery can build agility like other ranged agility carries and still get great damage out of LRM. I am wondering how many of you saying that Artillery can't do both are actually claculating.
***Yes I am testing before I post such things. Feel free to recreate my tests:

-Lvl 16 Artillery vs Voodoo Jester's lvl 2 (300 DPS) and lvl 3 (400 DPS) Spirit Ward for damage perspective. [I feel VJ ult is a good ult in terms of DPS, a common spell like LRM should not be able to match a ult]

-My tests are done in a slow-mo enviroment to clock LRM and Spirit Ward at the closest beginning start time (I start them at same time)

-Use two lvl 1 Pebbles as target dummies since they have almost no start armor (and around 600 HP). Guesstimate (not a word, I kno) the percent error between the time of deaths between the two lvl1 Pebbles. [Both Pebbles die in about 2 seconds time]

-When calculating LRM with Genjuro added, I gave both Pebbles 2x Axe of the Malphai to boost their HP to 1556. The purpose of this was to test if Artillery's LRM really is capable of dealing around 1600 total damage with the 4 secs of channeling the 400 DPS LRM. [Artillery knocks out his Pebbles on par with Voodoo Jester]

[Sharpryno]

Except you have to be an idiot to get hit my more than half of his missiles.

[KingIsRey]

Its not a 1v1 match, and he does have a stun

[Fromundaman]

Except you have to be an idiot to get hit my more than half of his missiles.

Tell me, how do you usually determine your character choice? I usually base mine off of what the team has selected. If I see an artillery, I'm going Tempest, or at the very least someone with an AoE stun. In team fights, most of his missiles should be hitting if the team is even slightly competent.

[KingIsRey]

The missiles don't even have decay on piercing to additional targets like Aluna's Power Throw (10% reduction per target hit) and Forsaken Archer's Piercing Arrows (another 10% per target hit).

[PrestonLee]

The missiles don't even have decay on piercing to additional targets like Aluna's Power Throw (10% reduction per target hit) and Forsaken Archer's Piercing Arrows (another 10% per target hit).^I think this is pretty much all that needs to happen to make him 'acceptable'

we can argue about the physical slow, bunker down, the ulti or wahtever but the only thing that is really broken and needs attention is the damage not diminishing as it hits multiple targets. just doing this alone will likely balance the damage output quite nicely and make it still very viable but just not broken

[colondee]

Maybe strong in good setups where players play together. Not so strong if nobody covers you. It is good when you can stand behind and channel your damage. Does not have such strong early game presence as Forsaken Archer or Flint... comparing LRM to FA ultimate is silly, because FA has immobilize+skeletons, flint has nuke, Artillery is extremely lategame compared even to Flint. What I like about Artillery is pseudo-initiation and slow so she can somehow support other heroes too (and I think she should) instead of stupidly farming the jungle. The range is suited against heroes, not against creepcamps, because you get long range instead of high effectivity and low range, low range and high damage is better against creepcamps at least in midgame forward when heroes have a lot of mana to spam. Artillery needs items for its Q to be really effective, so she is far more farm-dependent WHILE being a bad farmer without items - so she should get assists and kills instead.

[KingIsRey]

The only thing I compared about LRM and FA ult is the damage reduction upon piercing to additional targets which is a big bonus for LRM when considering the possibility of high DPS on several enemies. Not sure why they decided to place that 60% reduction versus creeps when they coulda just implemented the 10% reduction per enemy to limit the power on farming creep waves and nerf LRM's DPS versus several pinned down heroes.

[Tomate]

I actually look forward to playing this hero myself... I did not buy the early access but he seems fairly OP in his current form. Closing the gap on this hero is a very painful process. It almost is impossible to get the jump on him as he has his ultimate to create a gap and LRM is SUCH a long range spell.

[PrestonLee]

ridiculous, hes not op.

he is easy 2 kill as flint or moa.

also talking about lmr, don tell me everybody of u hits all the rockets everytime. thats just ridiculous.Let's take a quick example here: Solo Artillery+Tempest, Kraken Mid, Pebbles+Glacius lane

Pebbles initiate, Kraken ulti, Glacius slows, squishy Artillery 1000 units away from teamfight shooting LRM doing 400 AoE DPS to all targets hit, oh and slowing everyone by 35% as well. oh yeah, there's a Tempest too.

Or gank situations:
Pebbles initiate, Artillery LRM. ???
Glacius initiate, Artillery LRM. ????
Tempest Stun, Artillery LRM, Tempest Meteor. ?????
Tempest ult, Artillery LRM. ??????? ..Tempest meteor, Artillery ult.
Kraken Torrent, Target it now slowed and negative armored, Artillery LRM. (Kraken charge into tree, ult. Artillery ult.) ????????
Cthulu/Magmus/Torturer/Demented/Chipper/Engineer/Flux/Chronos blah blah blah combo. LRM. ????????

SUPER EASY TO KILL ARTILLERY FROM 800-1500 RANGE AWAY! SUPER EASY TO DODGE LRM!!

Yeah, no.

But again the only thing broken about it is the scaling on LRM, if the damage just worked like FA's ult or Aluna's Power throw it would be just fine. Either that or it should do a little more set damage that does more per level, but have less actual scaling on it. Hero would still be very uninteresting and lame, but at least not broken.

[God`]

Let's take a quick example here: Solo Artillery+Tempest, Kraken Mid, Pebbles+Glacius lane

Pebbles initiate, Kraken ulti, Glacius slows, squishy Artillery 1000 units away from teamfight shooting LRM doing 400 AoE DPS to all targets hit, oh and slowing everyone by 35% as well. oh yeah, there's a Tempest too.

Or gank situations:
Pebbles initiate, Artillery LRM. ???
Glacius initiate, Artillery LRM. ????
Tempest Stun, Artillery LRM, Tempest Meteor. ?????
Tempest ult, Artillery LRM. ??????? ..Tempest meteor, Artillery ult.
Kraken Torrent, Target it now slowed and negative armored, Artillery LRM. (Kraken charge into tree, ult. Artillery ult.) ????????
Cthulu/Magmus/Torturer/Demented/Chipper/Engineer/Flux/Chronos blah blah blah combo. LRM. ????????

SUPER EASY TO KILL ARTILLERY FROM 800-1500 RANGE AWAY! SUPER EASY TO DODGE LRM!!

Yeah, no.

But again the only thing broken about it is the scaling on LRM, if the damage just worked like FA's ult or Aluna's Power throw it would be just fine. Either that or it should do a little more set damage that does more per level, but have less actual scaling on it. Hero would still be very uninteresting and lame, but at least not broken.

What youre saying is the hero is broken against players with no brain, same can be said for every other hero in the game :)

[Hsssh]

How exactly brains helps to avoid basic combo of opening stun->LRM? Like i guess if you have brains you never get stunned by Magmus?

This is same excuse that people are giving to Valkyrie arrows or Midas QW combo(when he was just released) while semi decent players usually do these skills after opening, reliable stuns from teammates and enemy hero has 0 chance of dodging them.

[iNsania]

I am clocking a lvl 16 Artillery with Ghost Marchers, 2x Soulscream Ring, and Geometer's at 296-301 DPS with LRM (including Bunker Down bonus).
Add in Genjuro, and that jumps to 394-399.
All this talk about "options" and "depth" is pure bs, with the base damage bonus on Bunker Down Artillery can build agility like other ranged agility carries and still get great damage out of LRM. I am wondering how many of you saying that Artillery can't do both are actually claculating.
***Yes I am testing before I post such things. Feel free to recreate my tests:

-Lvl 16 Artillery vs Voodoo Jester's lvl 2 (300 DPS) and lvl 3 (400 DPS) Spirit Ward for damage perspective. [I feel VJ ult is a good ult in terms of DPS, a common spell like LRM should not be able to match a ult]

-My tests are done in a slow-mo enviroment to clock LRM and Spirit Ward at the closest beginning start time (I start them at same time)

-Use two lvl 1 Pebbles as target dummies since they have almost no start armor (and around 600 HP). Guesstimate (not a word, I kno) the percent error between the time of deaths between the two lvl1 Pebbles. [Both Pebbles die in about 2 seconds time]

-When calculating LRM with Genjuro added, I gave both Pebbles 2x Axe of the Malphai to boost their HP to 1556. The purpose of this was to test if Artillery's LRM really is capable of dealing around 1600 total damage with the 4 secs of channeling the 400 DPS LRM. [Artillery knocks out his Pebbles on par with Voodoo Jester]


Man idk if you actually understnad this but this is what defines a support and a carry. LRM scales with farm, during THE ENTIRE early game the spirit ward will be FAR more effective than what artillery will be. At some point in the game, having that scaling ability SHOULD surpass the damage output of a support, VJ, therefore comparing like u are and saying that LRM is "op" is way off. If you want to compare it to something, it's like looking at darkladys "Q", ehh yeah if you give tdl 5x doombringers then her dps will be higher then vj's ult. Yeah.... but getting to that point? She's going to struggle becuase of reasons X and Y whilst VJ is very potent early game as well with a stun etc. (not getting into details i think you get the point).

How you should compare this, if you want to say that the hero does too much damage, compare him to a dark lady with the same items, they are filling the same role afterall. You simply cannot compare a carry to a support in that way. (sorry about this turning into a rant, wasn't my intention).

Anyways, I personally havn't played the hero enough to get a good grasp of him however I can agree that the range on LRM is kinda ridiculous, especially in a midlane situation where you can just spamm it due to bottle+runecontrol becomes very easy. Can't really give any feedback except for that.

[Gorb]

Pebbles initiate, Kraken ulti, Glacius slows, squishy Artillery 1000 units away from teamfight shooting LRM doing 400 AoE DPS to all targets hit, oh and slowing everyone by 35% as well. oh yeah, there's a Tempest too.
I am intrigued, in this hypothetical situation, what the Legionnaire, Behemoth, Voodoo Jester and "insert two heroes specifically designed to counter that lineup here" are doing?

This is why you shouldn't arbitrarily introduce heroes into a theorycraft situation just to support your argument better.

I'm also not convinced that LRM does 400 points of damage per second (which is what DPS means). At all.

[PrestonLee]

I am intrigued, in this hypothetical situation, what the Legionnaire, Behemoth, Voodoo Jester and "insert two heroes specifically designed to counter that lineup here" are doing?

This is why you shouldn't arbitrarily introduce heroes into a theorycraft situation just to support your argument better.

I'm also not convinced that LRM does 400 points of damage per second (which is what DPS means). At all.that was obvious, the legionnaire, voodoo jester, and behemoth are busy dying to lrm after they initiated on the kraken/glacius/pebbles and then got caught by the tempest counter-initiation, while artillery ults and bunker downs and finishes whatever didn't die right after from 800 range away.

Also, who said you couldn't just throw artillery into the Lego+behe+voodoo lineup and have him completely trash people there? Armadon/Cthulhu+demented lineup? The list goes on, he doesn't even need to win his lane to be effective to his team, he can feed the entire Laning phase and still come out of it with a 35% aoe slow and an aoe stun, stay in the back, and by mid/end-game still come out with over the top dps. I don't know about you but when a hero with aoe damage scaling to this degree can do that, it seems pretty broken to me.

Lrm 400 dps = genjuro, riftshards, savage mace, insert two other luxuries here (for arguments sake shrunken+Geos). Of course you can theory craft tons of counter-lineups, but artillery is so flexible he can fit in just about any lineup because of his beyond retarded 800 range+35% base damage, 35% slow and 1500 range nuke. lrm isn't the only thing he has up his sleeve, it's just the most broken thing he has that completely pushes him way over the top.

Maybe my argument wasn't the best to prove my point, but your one counter-situation was far from disproving how effective artillery is as a whole with a decent team. I guess only time will prove who's being delusional, but as he gets out of EA soon, I think it's about time for the noobs to start crying about this hero non-stop since soon the masses will be able to play him and not just EA buying bad scrubs who only look for the in-game advantage and consider him "balanced" because they feed with him. :p

Edit: oh lord, mid wars mode comes out the day artillery gets off EA, hahahahahaha, I can't wait for the QQ honestly hahahahahahahahahaha

[Tomate]

I actually look forward to playing this hero... I've seen a few good players with Artillery doing absolutely retarded things. Seems like the range on LRM is so absurd and the slow, once stacked 5 times, almost ensure you will land the entire duration of the spell on your target.

[Gorb]

@PrestonLee: I don't think you understand what Damage Per Second means. Artillery himself may do 400 damage per hit (with more than one attack per second), but LRM will only deal X% of that.

Furthermore, to get an Artillery to that stage you kinda have to be winning the game. gl hf with the laning phase where he dies to anything, especially in Mid Wars.

That said, I wouldn't mind a range reduction on LRM, and the numbers of the damage scaling strike me as odd (31%, really?).

[KingIsRey]

Man idk if you actually understnad this but this is what defines a support and a carry. LRM scales with farm, during THE ENTIRE early game the spirit ward will be FAR more effective than what artillery will be. At some point in the game, having that scaling ability SHOULD surpass the damage output of a support, VJ, therefore comparing like u are and saying that LRM is "op" is way off. If you want to compare it to something, it's like looking at darkladys "Q", ehh yeah if you give tdl 5x doombringers then her dps will be higher then vj's ult. Yeah.... but getting to that point? She's going to struggle becuase of reasons X and Y whilst VJ is very potent early game as well with a stun etc. (not getting into details i think you get the point).

How you should compare this, if you want to say that the hero does too much damage, compare him to a dark lady with the same items, they are filling the same role afterall. You simply cannot compare a carry to a support in that way. (sorry about this turning into a rant, wasn't my intention).

Anyways, I personally havn't played the hero enough to get a good grasp of him however I can agree that the range on LRM is kinda ridiculous, especially in a midlane situation where you can just spamm it due to bottle+runecontrol becomes very easy. Can't really give any feedback except for that.
A selection from Post 16

lvl 4 LMR scaling vs VJ Spirit Ward (lvl 7 Artillery and up)
Spirit Ward lvl 1: 200 dps
*Notice LMR shoots 4 missiles per second, somissiles only need 50 damage each to match 200 dps from Spirit Ward. Bunker Down obviously helps in increasing attk damage, thus increasing damage potential on LRM.

So, in theory (and testing) missile damage should go as such: 15 (static damage from LRM) + 35 (lvl 4 LRM scaling) = 50, 4 missiles makesit 200 dps

If you divide 35 by .31 (scaling) you get roughly 113 which is what Artillery's attk damage must be to satisfy the theory. Artillery with Ghost Marchers and 2 Soulscream Rings already has 95-99 attk damage at lvl 7, not counting what you can get from Bunker for bonus damage as you start gainingmore levels. His LRM can easily match the ult of Voodoo Jester.

...

The static damage suggestion would be a fair change to keep easrly game power on LRM but not have it scale into late-game.
Quick summarize, Lvl 1 Spirit Ward is not "FAR" more effective than LRM, which sports longer range, similar damage potential, the ability to have the passive slow added to it, and pierce ability for hitting multiple targets. If you don't like the VJ comparison, try comparing LRM to SB Blade Frenzy which has its max potential in the early game yet does not scale into late like LRM. That has more of a comparison than DL Dark Blades.
Artillery will not need 5x Doombringers for great damage on LRM because he will get enough power from grabbing usual ranged agility carry pickups like Geometers and Genjuro.

[NotARecluse]

the comparison to VJ's spirit ward certainly is eye opener


you might think why would you ever wanna pick a VJ over a artillery? well.... i guess artillery doesnt have cursed ground which is kinda like a death sentence for a carry

and VJ can be support / ward ***** and have 0 items and still do lots of damage with his lvl16 ulti, where as a artillery cannot be support / ward ***** and have 0 items and do as much damage at lvl16 as a VJ can


on the other hand artillery has that killer ultimate. 500 aoe damage? holy...

also i guess that right there could be the main saving grace for artilleries balance compared to VJ, the fact that VJ can "be support" and end up outdamaging a lategame artillery that is also being support. so in the end, VJ does have a strength that artillery doesnt have because if artillery DID do everything -better- than VJ in every possible way, that would be imbalanced... but i dont think thats the case



on the topic of support ultimates.... to tell the truth ive always thought that these support ultimates like glacious and voodoo jesters ultimate should have like a cooldown of 10 seconds or something. now wouldnt that be hilarious. a glacious spamming 10 second cooldown ultimates i mean it wouldnt even really be THAAAT strong it would just make glacious a bit more stronger vs that 500 GPM heart/rift/savage/symbol/wingbow madman but still the madman would be better

[Yugoloth]

Artillery is really funny in midwars. Just stay back, spam that PEW PEW PEW Q skill, and you get assists. With assists you get the money. With the money you get the power. And with the power you get the women. Uhm.. Wait. That was scarface. Anyway, this hero is just fine. Just be sure to ban him in midwars or pick him first. He is squishy, his "escape mechanism" have a 50 sec cooldown, so its ok.

[MushidoZ]

Here is my view of the hero.

Artillery's skills and the combo is "fine" (freaking strong, but there are way worse heroes out there in my opinion). HOWEVER, I fear that hero is absolutely broken only because of his farming potential.

My personal suggestion to make him fair and balanced would be to lower his damage to creeps with the LRM. Reduce his damage to creeps (by a lot, not just a minor change), and he will have a harder time getting gold.. and therefore a harder time obliterating the lane he's in, and then kill the stacks to get his money on items that make him broken late game. That is the same problem Midas has...

[KingIsRey]

LRM does 60% damage to non-hero units, ie. creeps. As a channeling DPS spell, though, that is why that 60% don't look like it matter (cuz it doesn't)

[ImmaYeti]

You do know Helm of the Black Legion, correct? It was considered balanced forever but it was not. It got balanced. Magmus will have his at some point.



That's actually an incorrect statement. Black Legion Helm WAS balanced to the game we were playing before it needed to be patched. What is balanced currently was not necessarily balanced previously and vise-verse is also true. It has to be looked at in the present to see if balance is maintained. Every item and every hero affect the game in different ways with their strength and weaknesses changing whenever Anything changes in the game. Should turtleing, as an example, become the meta-game due to it being slighter UP in its effectiveness for Winning, some heroes previously under powered or balanced may become too strong in the present and have to be re-balanced.

Now with that out of the way. Strengths and weaknesses of Artillery as I see them.
Strengths
Long range(due to abilities)
Good damage(not leading the pack but def throwing up big numbers)
High dmg ult with some ability to keep you at long range, plays to his strengths
Decent ability to chase with slow.
Great team fight/ laning presence
Great ability to farm gold and defend pushes.
Not mana dependant

Weaknesses
Low hp pool.
Needs survivability, Needs damage items more.
Requires some control from teammates to be most effective.
Little ability to escape an engagement.
Always tries to semi-carry.
Countered by shrunken which is a common pick-up
Weak to initiation.
Farm dependant.
weak to ganks.

[Hsssh]

That's actually an incorrect statement. Black Legion Helm WAS balanced to the game we were playing before it needed to be patched. What is balanced currently was not necessarily balanced previously and vise-verse is also true.

HotBL was, in some situations, giving more EHP than Behemoths heart. Let me spell it out for you- early game survivability item was directly competing and sometimes winning against late game survivability item.

Also what made "HotBL" imbalanced? Most of heroes that can or could abuse it were in the game for a very long time and nobody used them, you know why? Because other aspects of the game were even more broken and in general competitive scene is ran by mechanically capable idiots who need 1 year to figure out anything.


Weaknesses
Little ability to escape an engagement.
Always tries to semi-carry.
Countered by shrunken which is a common pick-up
Weak to initiation.
weak to ganks.

2 seconds stun with knocback doesn't sound like "little ability to escape an engagement".
Lets not even argue if he is a semi or hard carry but why being semi-carry is considered a "weakness"?
Why he is countered by Shrunken Head? Last time i played his LRM did physical damage and his slow was physical, only his ulti is magic damage. Or was it changed recently? Also, Shrunken Head is not even a common pick up.
Who isn't weak to initiation? Pre nerfs SW?
LRM and bunker down allows him to have good position in lane, at level 6 he gets 2sec stun. Sure we can call that "weak to ganks" but then probably every second hero is weak to ganks.

[Antimodus]

Low hp pool.
Needs survivability, Needs damage items more.

You just described all AGI carries in the pool (except like, Zephyr)

If you can afford itemizing only for survivability, or only for damage, and still have both scale well enough to outcarry everything, it means you're looking at a hero like pre-nerf sandwraith, release silhouette, or release gemini. read: OP as f***.

"tanky dps" heroes can focus only on survivability, but their damage has somewhat limited scaling.

[LordTroll]

The funny thing about the old Hotbl was that some people suggested dismantling it late game and just use the beastheart to build a Behemoth Heart, when in fact having the 2 items gave you so much more survivability. (or just HoTBL and anything else that gave you huge HP)

[Hsssh]

I remember certain idiot saying that he would take power supply over hotbl late(when all slots are filled with premium items) game.

[man_guy]

I remember certain idiot saying that he would take power supply over hotbl late(when all slots are filled with premium items) game.

HOTBL only provides survival. Power Supply / Mana Battery is the absolute cheapest item that extends a hero's mana pool.

[Megamikez]

Dev hooks him while he uses Q = dead

[Hsssh]

HOTBL only provides survival. Power Supply / Mana Battery is the absolute cheapest item that extends a hero's mana pool.

I was about to write herp derp response to this point but,

How many heroes have mana problems late game? There are arguably ~4 heroes that do not reach point where additional mana is redundant to them.
How many heroes with lots of mana intensive or short cd spells do not buy some big Int item like Sheep, mana ring or hellflower?

[Tomate]

Way to sidetrack from the conversation about Artillery... I read the last few posts and was like meh, not bothering here... Where are the mods when we need them.

[Ekamo]

They are closing the thread. :)

The report button is there for a reason though you know.

Oh well,
Thread closed.