Decency
11-13-2009, 10:38 PM
Puppet Master and Arachna were both used by the winning team of the HoNLeague tournament. Nymph has been used many times by various teams. Madman, Maliken, The Dark Lady, new Magebane: the same. Predator/Scout/Zephyr are not used. Panda and Kraken have not been used well, yet, that I've seen.
In my opinion the majority of the new heroes are poorly designed. The majority of them are also carries, even the non-agility heroes, which makes the pool of 57 heroes incredibly carry heavy. This is VERY ANNOYING, even more so because the top carries (excluding Sand Wraith) are all new.
They also have very obvious playstyles, which really kills their versatility as you're forced to build towards that combo.
Puppet: I farm. Then, I have 1 on my whiplash, I use my ultimate and attack it. You die. Woooooooo. His ridiculously long lasting disables make him semi-interesting.
Arachna: I slow things and run pubs. That's about it. The only reason I'm good is my attack animation.
Maliken: I throw my sword dealing ridiculous amounts of damage and slowing everything, and I can teleport to it if I want to. Or: I have low life and get a 300 heal from a creep wave. This hero has a solid design, but his sword is what makes him so strong because it lets him do well early game. With it being almost a requirement now to stack ancients (that's for another thread... every 2 minutes please), he also has an innate AoE attack, making him even more strong in competitive play.
Dark Lady: I farm a Runed Axe, then press q, e and either 1-hit a creep wave or silence an aoe. My ultimate works backwards and is pretty much just a slow. The person I'm ganking doesn't really need to know where his allies are, they're coming to him and unless he has terrible map awareness he knows where to run. It should remove vision from allies of the area that it's used on, so you can work in a "cover of darkness."
Madman: Well designed and probably the most balanced S2 carry. His issues with mana lategame makes him balanced, where Maliken and TDL have no such problems and can build otherwise.
Nymph: Woah S2 made a support hero. But they still gave it a DPS skill for some reason... Fear Nymphs 50 damage autoattack!
Magebane: Cool change in my opinion, but tone down Mantra (less AoE?) and he should be less dominant.
Panda: Anti-carry carry. He can disable the enemy carry for like 15 seconds, even through BKB. This is interesting.
Kraken: His ultimate is broken, but I really haven't seen him used well at high levels. People say he can't lane? Either way, with a portal key he can turn any fight into a 5v(1,2,3) by blinking in and grabbing people.
Predator: I have no idea why this hero doesn't do well, on paper he's very good. My guess is the very limited AoE of his ultimate or his clunkiness.
Zephyr: I think a 6 year old could literally play this hero: Kill these neutral guys for a while. Run away if the other team comes. Then buy this item and chase people.
Scout: Delete me, I'm worse than useless because I teach new players to do all the wrong things.
I didn't play DotA, so this analysis is purely from my experience with these heroes in HoN, where I find the DotA ported heroes to be far more interesting and versatile. This thread is intended to be almost as much about design as it is balance, and what could be done to improve both.
In my opinion the majority of the new heroes are poorly designed. The majority of them are also carries, even the non-agility heroes, which makes the pool of 57 heroes incredibly carry heavy. This is VERY ANNOYING, even more so because the top carries (excluding Sand Wraith) are all new.
They also have very obvious playstyles, which really kills their versatility as you're forced to build towards that combo.
Puppet: I farm. Then, I have 1 on my whiplash, I use my ultimate and attack it. You die. Woooooooo. His ridiculously long lasting disables make him semi-interesting.
Arachna: I slow things and run pubs. That's about it. The only reason I'm good is my attack animation.
Maliken: I throw my sword dealing ridiculous amounts of damage and slowing everything, and I can teleport to it if I want to. Or: I have low life and get a 300 heal from a creep wave. This hero has a solid design, but his sword is what makes him so strong because it lets him do well early game. With it being almost a requirement now to stack ancients (that's for another thread... every 2 minutes please), he also has an innate AoE attack, making him even more strong in competitive play.
Dark Lady: I farm a Runed Axe, then press q, e and either 1-hit a creep wave or silence an aoe. My ultimate works backwards and is pretty much just a slow. The person I'm ganking doesn't really need to know where his allies are, they're coming to him and unless he has terrible map awareness he knows where to run. It should remove vision from allies of the area that it's used on, so you can work in a "cover of darkness."
Madman: Well designed and probably the most balanced S2 carry. His issues with mana lategame makes him balanced, where Maliken and TDL have no such problems and can build otherwise.
Nymph: Woah S2 made a support hero. But they still gave it a DPS skill for some reason... Fear Nymphs 50 damage autoattack!
Magebane: Cool change in my opinion, but tone down Mantra (less AoE?) and he should be less dominant.
Panda: Anti-carry carry. He can disable the enemy carry for like 15 seconds, even through BKB. This is interesting.
Kraken: His ultimate is broken, but I really haven't seen him used well at high levels. People say he can't lane? Either way, with a portal key he can turn any fight into a 5v(1,2,3) by blinking in and grabbing people.
Predator: I have no idea why this hero doesn't do well, on paper he's very good. My guess is the very limited AoE of his ultimate or his clunkiness.
Zephyr: I think a 6 year old could literally play this hero: Kill these neutral guys for a while. Run away if the other team comes. Then buy this item and chase people.
Scout: Delete me, I'm worse than useless because I teach new players to do all the wrong things.
I didn't play DotA, so this analysis is purely from my experience with these heroes in HoN, where I find the DotA ported heroes to be far more interesting and versatile. This thread is intended to be almost as much about design as it is balance, and what could be done to improve both.