[2.5.20] Hellbringer

[Riceaxe]

:hell2:Hellbringer:hell:



Hellbringers main role currently is supporting, initating teamfights and weaken the enemy team, with his slow, magic dmg and -magic armor.

Hellbringer has seen less and less play after the nerf to his Life Void from 10/20/30/40% damage healed to 15/20/25/30% and the nerf to his death boil from 150/210/280/360 to 125/180/245/320 the latest buffs were a starting str buff from 16 to 17 and his death boil manacost got reduced from 100/130/160/190 to 100/120/140/160.
Over the time Hellbringer got weaker.
Before his Death Boil nerf he has seen way more play because he was a reliable pick with a strong skill for harassment.

The Problem with Hellbringer:
The current environment changed the game and it got speeded up with many new strong, fast but completely different heros.
Games take less time compared to the past, fights last less long but happen more often.

How does Hellbringer fit in here. Hellbringer is an intelligence hero with good str gain but lacks agility -> attack speed and armor which limits his dps a lot.
his very quick casttimes on his spells allow him to attack quiet often with his good base dmg but low attack speed.

How to make viable again:
Hellbringer doesn´t need huge buffs to become viable in public and seen more often in competitive.
This would be my proposals of how to make Hellbringer a bit more viable again.

Dps: His damage is mediocre because only 1 of his the basic skills does damage

His first spell unholy shackles: It is one of the worst skills slows of the game being not stronger than other slows dealing no damage and being a single target spell, though it can be tough against autoattack carries especially melee´s because of slow and -50 attack speed.

His Ult: Malphas is used as an initiate, interrupt/counter to other heros with channeling abilities. But it could be a lot more paying off the high cooldown.

My Proposals:
Alternative 1: increase his starting agility to at least 15 and his agi-gain to at least 1,5
Alternative 2: revert the nerf to his death boil or let it deal 100/200/300/400 magic dmg
Alternative 3: let death boil deal the damage over 4 seconds insted of 8 ticking every 0.5 insted of 1 seconds. + a small buff to agi/agigain or armor
Alternative 4: give his unholy shackles an AOE effect pulling them together like torturers agonizing bonds to make to more attraktive to lvl it early on and synergizing with his third and second ability as well as with other AOE spells and increase its manacosts.
Alternative 5: Rework his Unholy Shackles to something else. All his abilities are AOE or Multitarget spells his unholy shackles doesn´t synergize with his other abilities besides malphas which he can summon only every 165 seconds currently.

5.1.: Unholy shackles: everytime 2 times the target suffers magic damage for the next 10 seconds it gets ministuned for 0,05 0,1 0,15 0,2 seconds and suffers 5/10/15/20 true dmg

5.2.: unholy shackles: nuke with cone radius like wretched hags ult. with 700range and a 70° degree cone.

possible effect 1: pulls targets 100/150/200/250 units towards hellbringer and slowing them by 10/15/20/25% for 5 seconds. manacost increase.

possible effect 2: 1 "unholy shackle" spawns at each hero hit slowing them by 15/20/25/30% for 8 seconds or until they get destroyed. Unholy shackles take 1 hit to destroy.

possible effect 3: slows targets by 10/15/20/25% and dealing 100/150/200/250 magic dmg.

5.3.: Hellground: Enemy´s in the targeted ~300/333/366/400 AOE are slowed by 10/15/20/25%. Hellground lasts for 10 seconds. 15-20sec cd

5.3.1: Targets affected by Hellground take double damage from deathboil, Immolate and Fire Breath and Summon Malphas.
5.3.2: Hellground deals 10/20/30/40 magic dmg per second.

Alternative 6: boost his ms by 5 or 10 to 300 or 305 and small buff to armor/agi/agi-gain
Alternative 7: give him a Staff of the Master effect boosting his ult

7.1.: movement speed buff to malphas to 350-400, lower cd
7.2.: permanent Malphas until he gets summoned again or dies
7.3.: 2 malphases with lower dmg, the second with 0,1-0,5 sec delay after the first is summoned.
7.4.: Malphas gets the 1,0 - 1,8 of the dmg, movement speed(bootsboost included) and 1-2x hp-pool of hellbringer (not sure about the numbers and the attack speed)

I think there should be a Staff of the Master effect for Hellbringer anyway.


Conclusion


I hope I was able to give some good proposals of how we could bring Hellbringer back to his old popularity. Feedback and constructive criticism are very appreciated. Point out your issues and suggestions I will edit the discussion as required.

[Ekamo]

Approved.

Remember that if you are going to discuss his suggestions, the why's are much more important than the what's.
Stay on topic, be civil, follow the rules.

[Urith]

He was borderline before the totally uncalled for death boil nerf. Also his other abilities should be more impactful, they seem close to useless on the first couple of ranks.

I'd suggest longer range and bigger aoe on the life leech + magic armor reduction spell. And his slow scaling less over ranks but still have the same slow % on rank 4, that means a more noticeable slow on the first couple of levels.

[`11411181]

"his very quick casttimes on his spells"

I'm just going to politely put it out there that Hellbringer's cast times on all his spells are 1 second each. They are some of the worst in the game.

[Tupimus]

"his very quick casttimes on his spells"

I'm just going to politely put it out there that Hellbringer's cast times on all his spells are 1 second each. They are some of the worst in the game.

Oh, you. Technicalities and all, yes. Although he surely meant cast points, which really are obnoxiously low for all his spells.

[Antimodus]

his dot was slightly too strong at the first two levels of the ability. 150 damage for 100 mana is the kind of efficiency you'll find on a level 2 skill. There aren't many harass skills that are that mana-efficient from level 1. I'd be fine with it if they nerfed only the first 1/2 levels of it.

Anyway, as it is now, he's not that strong with levels, and lacks a 1 point wonder to make him really work as a hard support/roamer. Also gets countered quite hard by Monarch's ult, tho at least Monarch is no longer FP/FB material.

[Balls`n`Nuts]

Sotm effect might be handy, Dont know if it will be picked up as much in competitive.
Personally i think he scales quite well and he was OP before.
Minor stat adjustment to strength might be worth taking a look at.

[ShAdOw_LaNcE]

Hellbringer is very niche, and is picked mainly for his ult, so I'm gonna focus on that. Either lower the CD on that, or increase it's effects. Right now, the scaling sucks. All that improves is Malphas' damage and HP, and that's pretty bad. I would like to see either a buff to his ult in damage and stun time as it scales, or something to make Malphas more influential. He's so damn slow that it's almost impossible to get a hero kill with him, and even when he does get a firebreath/auto attack off the damage is just so underwhelming for a 165 second ult cooldown.

Level 1, it's great. Stuns both lane partners with it's giant AOE, and 100 damage while low is still something at that stage of the game. However, by level 3, you just pop it for the ONE SECOND stun. If you're going against a hard carry, Malphas won't even be able to TOUCH them, and will go down in like 3 secs against most hard carries. In my opinion, make it stun longer and maybe a bit of damage. I see nothing wrong with +.5sec stun/LVL and +100dmg/LVL.

[Deledhel]

It's kinda sad to see him struggle after his golden era (S2 hero etc) cause it really shows the design/balance incompetence taking over HoN....


Hellbringer had some niches (tanky int, pita solo to lane against, level1 kongor strat, strong harassing support) and they took all of them away. Now he is just an ulti on a stick (READ: strong initiator for people with 1 finger on each hand). Over the course of the nerfs and the release of new heroes Hellbringer just can't compete with what he's got. Right now he is a weak support, a mediocre short lane solo (to solo vs 1 guy only), and there are more rewarding initiators with higher skill caps.

[`11411181]

Make Q good enough to want to put him in a dual-lane, and you have a viable hero again.

[DaBoolz]

Hallo,
i like Riceaxes ideas (Shadow_lance too). I would like to see a revert of the ners too. But his best idea is the SotM (the stats-gain would suit HB pretty well). I dislike what he thinks it should do:

7.2 What to do with Malfas all time? Farm?
7.3 Four Malfas with refresher would be gg for the enemies base and i think its always somethink special to see a double-malfas, i dont want it to become something ordinary. And isnt it like this in Dota? S2 wants and needs differentiation - this wont happen.
7.1 Nice but not worth a SotM efect, imho. But that inspired me to:

Slow aura for Malfas!!! Maybe radius 350 and 10%

[Riceaxe]

I updated the initial post. I came up with some new ideas regarding the Sotm effect and his unholy shackles. I also wanted to make a poll: Where would you place hellbringer in his current state: too strong, borderline, too weak

[Rocko]

His cast ranges are god awful. He can turn into a psuedo tank, but that's if you're doing well and have good team composition. After you drop malphas, you have to practically sit in everyone's face to get off anything worthwhile.

I'd like to see his support spells buffed in cast range. This would allow him to follow up his ult usefully. Without warranting him to walk into a beat down. If he can't even get off his single target slow on a dps, or a safe toss on life void on a few target heroes, then we have a hero who is good for only one thing. And I think everybody agrees niche heroes aren't great - and rarely picked up.

His ultimate is still arguably one of the best in the game. At lvl 3 Malphas can sit in the face of supports, who has a free mock at this point, and screw around with their positioning (obviously you don't want to sit around taking a beating from that thing for long). Ugh his ult is amazing...there's no need to even bring it up.

I feel like he's died off due to the meta. Where safer heroes, safer play, stale line ups, etc etc etc, are the norm. And HB isn't a safe hero if he has to be in the entire teams face to get off a decent cast or two.

He was a much safer pick when life void absorbed enough damage and death boil did enough that he could heal back the crap loads of damage he took to drop the spells in the first place (assuming also your team was quick enough to stack on damage as well). Now he goes down like a house of cards - and that doesn't cut it in HoN 2.X

[Rosgath]

To those of you who don't know, HB is actually a DotA port and his Aghanim's Scepter (STOM) effect actually causes him to summon 2 Malphi. It's a strong pickup on him and I believe generally considered better than resto stone as it provides him some survivability which Resto stone does not. I believe porting his Staff effect would make him really powerful especially if Malphas Auras stacked (the majority of the damage done by Malphas is actually the passive damage he adds. The flame breath and autos are spiffy, but most heroes can out run Malphas meaning those usually end up being moderate to minor.)

[Lariatoooo]

Only the ulti is ported

[Riceaxe]

Lariatoooo is right. Hellbringer has the Ult of Warlock. The Shadow Word got swaped to Voodoo Jester and got AOE added (mojo). Hellbringer has Unholy shackles which is far worse than the Fatal Bounds of Warlock:
Bonds several enemy units together, causing 20% of the damage dealt to any of them to be partially felt by the others. Lasts 25 seconds.
Level 1 - Bonds 3 units together.
Level 2 - Bonds 4 units together.
Level 3 - Bonds 5 units together.
Level 4 - Bonds 6 units together.
Damage type: Hp remove
Mana Cost: 120
Cooldown: 25 seconds

Hellbringers third ability Life Void is also a completly different skill to Warlocks Unheaval which is a very strong channeling slow spell.

Hellbringers Ult is different too.
The Dota Ult gives malph 320/340/360 movement speed. Also it has a stonger passive insted of "fire breath" which gives the Ult 40% chance to deal almost double dmg in a 300AOE.

but keep in mind that Hellbringer is not Warlock and we are talking about HoN not Dota.
What do you guys think of the idea I added as Sotm effect?
7.4.: Malphas gets the 1,0 - 1,8 of the dmg, movement speed(bootsboost included) and 1-2x hp-pool of hellbringer (not sure about the numbers and the attack speed)

And what is your opionion about Unholy Shackles? Do you think it should be reworked, changed or given an AOE effect?

[Rocko]

Why does Unholy Shackles need buffing? 5 Full seconds of -ms/as isn't enough? These numbers are static and don't decrease over time. Which I always thought made it really strong. You literally cripple someone completely if it isn't purged/removed.

[Wei2SMITHIE]

I think HellBringer lacks versatility these days.

he's known as a strong solo, but simply can't solo anymore. So we see him support but he has no real supporting abilities.

Focusing on the semi-support aspect, I'd like to see his deathboil heal allies if targeted, also a small MS buff would be nice.

[Blaity]

I agree the nerf was totally unjustified. Especially considering all the recent heros released/patched and the way the current meta-game is taking place even if the nerf was reversed he definately would not be OP in any way.

[Ritualst]

I understand the problems with his skills, but as someone mentioned before it's the pathethic cast range that makes him useless.

If he could cast slow and his aoe from 600 range that would be something that would make him way more usefull. Nowdays he needs to be almost in the center of the battlefield making him die almost instantly even before he can cast anything else outside of his ult.

[Mist_au]

I think he would be solid if they removed the nerf on deathboil and added a little bit more AOE to life void, or mabye heal allies for a percentage of the damage the enemies take if they are both inside the life void cast, could be OP but its something S2 should look at. Would definetely make him fill a support role if this would occur.

[Urith]

Maybe the SotM effect could be some kind of huge aura that is big enough to not just walk away from, forcing the enemy team to either deal with malphas or let the aura stay on them instead of just ignoring him entirely after he gets summoned. I don't like the idea of his ulti just getting used because of the tiny stun. Maybe a -20% damage done debuff to every enemy hero within 2000 range? (Same mechanic Succubus' damage reduction works, it reduces magical damage done as well as physical damage done)

[DaBoolz]

My second idea for SotM efect: Give Malphas Pharao's Hellfire just with a bigger radius.
(like my slow aura idea it forces the enemy team to react on the already casted Malphas)

[Urith]

My second idea for SotM efect: Give Malphas Pharao's Hellfire just with an bigger radius.
(like my slow aura idea it forces the enemy team to react on the already casted Malphas)

I'd support anything that makes Malphas worth more than a tiny AoE stun.

[Thuriner]

I'd support anything that makes Malphas worth more than a tiny AoE stun.

The AoE of the stun is probably (one of) the highest in game. Also the cast range is very high.

I'd suggest changes all over the board.


Unholy Shackles:
The slow is really weak early and later in the game where most heroes has their means of escape.
I'd suggest it to also affect casters with a scaling -Cast speed debuff (20 / 30 / 40 / 50 comes to mind).
Also, a static 15 seconds cooldown is pretty long for such a weak single target ability, so perhaps a scaling cooldown would fit in (like 16 / 14 / 12 / 10 seconds).

Death Boil:
This ability is changed from being one of the best lvl 1 harass spells to perhaps the weakest in game.
Changing the ticks from happening every second to every half second would make it harder for anyone to heal in between the ticks.
With the tick change I'd also suggest a static 3 second duration (being 5 ticks with half a second to wait before the first tick) with the starting tick scaling to like 5 / 20 / 35 / 50.
This will have the damage output be 125 / 200 / 275 / 350 (from 125 / 180 / 245 / 320) over 3 seconds.
Having the cooldown scale like the suggestion for Unholy Shackles will prove the ability better paired with Life Void (16 / 14 / 12 / 10 seconds).

Life Void:
I feel the ability is quite strong as it is. A change could be for it to work on Malphas too (working with the buff suggested for Summon Malphas).

Summon Malphas:
I feel Malphas lacks the utility he's meant to have. A suggestion could be for him to absorb 30 / 40 / 50 % of the damage dealt to Hellbringer, but at the same time having the Maximum HP and HP Regeneration scale with the level of Hellbringer (from the level of the ultimate) - The suggestion could be {200+100*Level} as HP and {10+1*Level} as HP Regeneration (Being 800 HP/16 HP Reg at level 6, 1300 HP/21 HP Reg at level 11, 1800 HP/26 HP Reg at level 16, and 2700 HP/35 HP Reg at level 25).

Other than the suggestions in the spoiler, I'd like to say that his tankiness scales really bad against all the bursting enemies. His role is easily overlooked by other heroes doing it much better.

[Urith]

The AoE of the stun is probably (one of) the highest in game. Also the cast range is very high.

I'd suggest changes all over the board.


I know the range of the stun is huge, I was talking about the duration of the stun. The stun might be good, but I would like to see Malphas being more than what he is today. Even at the early levels his auto attacks are close to useless, this is because of the long attack animation, low attackspeed, low movement speed and the low attack damage (considering the three other factors I mentioned). His damage over time cloak & auto attack dot is barely worth mentioning. The breath also scales ridiculously bad, to the point whether you aren't sure whether the breath hit or not. The enemy needs some kind of reason to not just ignore him entirely.

[Lethe]

they killed off a lot of his potential when they nerfed boil, especially when compounded with his base armor and str gain nerfs.

But at least S2 made death boil more mana-friendly recently. That's a step in a good direction

[Skyve]

Why does Unholy Shackles need buffing? 5 Full seconds of -ms/as isn't enough? These numbers are static and don't decrease over time. Which I always thought made it really strong. You literally cripple someone completely if it isn't purged/removed.

It is decent, but primarily after you put more points into it. I could also see the manacost getting reduced to 60 on all levels, making it "friendlier" for a support hero mana pool to work with (if him being used as a support is what we want out of the hero).
I wonder if the -AS part of the ability is only severely underrated or really too weak to have a noticeable impact. Maybe that is something that could also be looked at. Overall it is a much stronger ability than most people want to give it credit for, but with only 1 point in it it isn't exactly one of the strongest slows in the game.

[Urith]

It is decent, but primarily after you put more points into it. I could also see the manacost getting reduced to 60 on all levels, making it "friendlier" for a support hero mana pool to work with (if him being used as a support is what we want out of the hero).
I wonder if the -AS part of the ability is only severely underrated or really too weak to have a noticeable impact. Maybe that is something that could also be looked at. Overall it is a much stronger ability than most people want to give it credit for, but with only 1 point in it it isn't exactly one of the strongest slows in the game.


When life drain takes priority (+ magic armor reduction) over a slow you know it scales badly and has barely any uses other than maybe chasing a single hero down, it won't do much when the team fight has erupted. It needs to either scale better, affect more units, have a longer duration or add something more than a petty single target slow (a 0,15 sec stun every 1 sec for example 2/3/4/5 stuns per rank). The attack speed slow doesn't scale well at all and I see no reason why it shouldn't be % based instead of point based.

[Gorb]

I would like to remind people of Ekamo's opening post:


Remember that if you are going to discuss his suggestions, the why's are much more important than the what's.
Stay on topic, be civil, follow the rules.
Please avoid posting outright suggestions and instead debate the specifics of why certain abilities may need improvements (regardless of what the improvements) may be.

[MadPsycho]

Original Hellbringer was god-tier because of the combination of Life Void and Barbed Armor. Barbed Armor used to reflect 100% of the damage, and combine that with the 40% lifesteal from Life Void Hellbringer was damn near immortal. The combo was too strong, and I suspect it was one of the reasons that Barbed Armor got dropped down to dealing 80% damage. Life Void was also too strong considering it has a large AoE. Reducing the numbers of Life Void was the right way to go. Both those changes directly reduced Hellbringer's survivability.

Then they went and nerfed his Death Boil to hell and back. It was definitely strong in the laning phase as a harass, perhaps too strong. When S2 realized they nerfed it too much they cut back on its mana cost. It's in more or less a decent place where it is. Could be better, but I think Unholy Shackles needs the most work. Giving Hellbringer reason to pick up Unholy Shackles over Life Void or even Death Boil would go a long way to balancing the hero, giving him some decent ability as a roaming ganker. I think that would be a step in the right direction since his Death Boil is nowhere near the lane controlling tool that it was. An alternative to this would be to up the bounces on his Death Boil, giving him back his harassing ability in lane.

[colondee]

I agree fully. Please improve Q and make his abilities work a little faster so that he can be viable in a quick-paced game against snowballing enemies. Something should be boosted about this hero for sure. Even the ultimate is situational and not very useful for pubs except for pushing.

[Synchronize]

i like how your proposals fit to 'Hellbringer doesn´t need huge buffs to become viable in public and seen more often in competitive.'

however right now hellbringer only brings hell to his owner.

[LoLPlaya_]

The second least played hero in the game.

[Hsssh]

From what i remember he never was "popular". After all he is not a carry, does not have some high damage nukes and requires some micro with Malphas. All these traits are not liked by usual pub player.

[Skyve]

Just a wild idea:

What if his Life Void was 30% on all levels?

It used to be 50% on all of them way, way back, which obviously was too much. Since then it has been nerfed to require multiple points into it to scale the health gain up, maxing out at 40% for a while, and after the last nerfs it went down to 30% max.
With his DoT nerfed now however, I think upping it again might not create the same problems as before (since there's overall less health for him to gain, and less harass to come out).

What this also would do would be to free up skill points, because lvl1 Live Void would be enough to decently sustain his health in lane for a while. With that he can max his Q early on, which should enable him to be a bit more active and aggressive.

That at least should return him to being a viable solo hero. Shouldn't affect his supporting too much though.

[`11411181]

misread since no quote. my bad.

[KingIsRey]

30% at all levels of Life Void will be too much since it is usuable on enemy creeps. HB will sustain his HP too well then as you can use lvl 1 Life Void on enemy creeps at tower or just before your lane ally nukes a creep wave to heal massive amounts (which I feel he can already do fair enough with current 15% at lvl 1). The need for added levels to Life Void is acceptable as every level increases the debuff duration and increases the minus magic armor debuff.

Q/Unholy shackles should be the one-point skill wonder. Maybe a buff to 30% mvsp slow at lvl 1 so HB can actually set up kills in-lane like PR and Glacius can. You can walk off a 20% mvsp slow.

[embrance]

Death Boil In my opinion is too short in duration.What I mean:Its Death..BOIL.I would keep the ticks as they are or even extend them to a higher duration of time.So for example if it lasts 10 seconds,make it 15.This will essentialy negate HP reg in a teamfight and possibly kill a fleeing hero.At level 4 it would do about...400 or so damage,but it iwll need TIME t get to this number.So it could be an interesting experiment.

As for his utli,I would rather have it be target and then target a hero and that hero would be in a constant Taunty effect a la Legionaire and forced to fight Maphas.
So keep the stun and forced ONE opponent to fight Maphas.
SOTM effect:Make Maphas permanent and add some buff across the board.More HP,Mana,Damage etc.
He dies too easily.

[foxmindedguy]

I second Skyve's idea, I think it's worth a try.

Although before all else, they should plainly reduce his cast times and see how he feels in the SBT. As giving him the Torturer treatment would not hurt.

[Ekamo]

30% at all levels of Life Void will be too much since it is usuable on enemy creeps. HB will sustain his HP too well then as you can use lvl 1 Life Void on enemy creeps at tower or just before your lane ally nukes a creep wave to heal massive amounts (which I feel he can already do fair enough with current 15% at lvl 1). The need for added levels to Life Void is acceptable as every level increases the debuff duration and increases the minus magic armor debuff.

Q/Unholy shackles should be the one-point skill wonder. Maybe a buff to 30% mvsp slow at lvl 1 so HB can actually set up kills in-lane like PR and Glacius can. You can walk off a 20% mvsp slow.

Remember, it was once 50%, and that was then considered "OK" (not really).

[`11411181]

It was never considered ok by anyone at any level of play, ever.

[man_guy]

I think what he meant by "OK" was S2 was ok with it since it sat that way for so long.

[`11411181]

More like they were busy with implementing a myriad of other more important things.

[Ekamo]

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

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