Spellshards buff

[SomaZ]

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/images/items/Item_SpellShards.jpg

A 4.6k item that is countered by a 400 gold item. Only ever picked up on heroes like Dampeer and Midas. I'd like to see this item buffed to be more viable on more heroes. The gold you spend on it is definitely not worth the benefits it gives when you compare it to other items (like Hellflower).

Old spellshards:
+ 17 damage
+ 10 attack speed
+ 6 intelligence
+ 75% mana regeneration
3/6/9% reduced cooldowns
2/4/6 magic armor penetration

I propose we make this item a bit more focused on cooldown reduction (since 3% per level is laughable) and give an overall boost.

New spellshards:
+ 20/23/26 damage (+3 per level)
+ 12/14/16 attack speed (+2 per level)
+ 7/8/9 intelligence (+1 per level)
+ 85/95/105% mana regeneration (+10% per level)
5/10/15% reduced cooldowns (+2% per level)
2/4/6 magic armor penetration

The sum of all the bonuses apart from cooldown reduction and magic armor penetration (the +damage/attack speed/int/mana regen) is roughly 380 per level, which, for a 1000 recipe is not that much. 2 magic armor penetration per level is roughly 160 gold so that's 540 gold total (540/1000). Then there's the cooldown reduction but hey: There must be SOME benefit in completing this item, no?
Hope you agree, the item is very lack-luster and waaay too situational. I think that this buff might not be enough but it's a start.

[Rosgath]

I would tend to agree with all the changes except the CD reductions. You don't purchase Spellshards for the CD reduction and it's really just icing on the cake. As is the fact that the recipe doesn't actually increase the stats over an arcana is kinda lame considering the high cost of the item itself. It IS designed to help gankers prolong their effectiveness later in the game, but it currently has some pretty steep competition with items like Codex and SoTM (hero specific). I feel like giving it at the very least more mana regeneration would make it kind of the "regen" option of the above with SotM being the survivability one and Codex being the extra spell one (for things like nullstone).

[SomaZ]

You don't purchase Spellshards for the CD reduction and it's really just icing on the cake.It better have icing because the cake is pretty crappy.

[SomaZ]

Bump.

[MushidoZ]

I would have to agree with Somaz, and I like the suggestions, but would however like to mention I actually use that item quite often (so I might be biased?). I usually build this with bombardier and revenant, which are two characters I play quite often. Also, I tend to like the effect this item gives when I fight against devourer.

My personal suggestion to the item, however, would be a bit different. I read on the forum that the magic armor ignore happened "after" other penalties to magic armor occured. I would like to propose the mechanic be changed to "Before" they occur. In that sense, someone with Harkon Blade would apply the -5 to magic armor after 6 of the enemy's magic armor has been ignored.

This would incendentally make Harkon Blade a stronger pick (so no need to buff it, as suggested on some topics I read), and would make this (also) expensive item much more effective on some characters (namely Revenant here... biased again!)

[zstarkey42]

Spellshards is actually core in other heros, like TB or Artesia, or even Pebbles but I agree it needs a buff.
I would like to see its recipe price down, to say 500g. The stats alone aren't too bad and you usually get this for the magic penetration anyway. This item should either get a price reduction or increase the magic pierce to say, 3/5/7 instead and the cooldown reduction to 4/8/12% maybe?

[Token]

Definitely needs a buff, good changes

[Wyverex]

Definitely needs a buff, but what you're proposing is just too huge a buff.
I'd be fine with recipe cost reduced from 1000 to 900 and/or a +2 Int per level

[Zarothe]

Item is crap needs these buffs and more! It is highly situational, probably even more so than SotM.

[zstarkey42]

I'd go with cooldown reuduction. It's what makes the item unique but the effects are negligble. This would be hard to balance properly tho as it could easily make certain heros broken with it as the game obviously was designed for heros to have relatively static cooldowns.

Another thing would be boosting to magic pierce by 3/6/9. This way, the player will have a choice of keeping it at lv 2 or upgrading it to lv 3 if the enemies are building vestments and shamans. As of now, the item is mostly countered by vestments alone which are extremly cheap.