[2.6.13] Silhouette

[zedz123]

In today's current meta, Silhouette is seen as one of the, if not, the strongest heroes in Heroes of Newerth. She is frequently picked/banned in competitive games and is also very popular in pub. This is due to the fact that Silhouette is an unbelievably safe pick due to her in built escape mechanisms and damage passive. Let's go through her skillset and how it allows her to remain relevant at all stages of the game.

Death Lotus is a 280 magic damage skill-shot nuke which also does DoT that allows her to flash farm, kill the enemy and proc her passive. This skill remains useful from the start of the game to the end

Tree Grapple not only acts as an escape mechanism but can also simultaneously stun more than one enemy for a maximum for a 2.5 seconds making Silhouette extremely hard to kill during the laning phase and a very strong ganker mid game when picking up a Portal Key.

One skill point in Relentless Salvo allows her to easily out harass about 95% of the hero pool. The attack speed proc also makes it a powerful skill late game as Silhouette does not have to build attack speed items and can opt for straight damage and survivability items (ie. sheildbreaker, nullstone).

Silhouette's Ult is also a ridiculously powerful skill throughout the game. It allows players to put themselves in dangerous positions and know that with one button click they can immediately be back in their fountain. As the game lingers on pick offs become more valuable and this skill allows her to be able to pick off important heroes in seconds.

Other things to note about this hero is that she is extremely versatile in how she lanes. She can tri-lane, dual lane, mid, suicide lane with success. This is due to the strength of her passive combined with 600 range preventing supports from harming her. Even when she is shutdown from her lane, with the use of her death lotus, she is able to farm a stacked jungle efficiently and become relevant in the game again.

Although Silhouette did recently receive a nerf to tree grapple reducing her farming ability, she still remains an extremely strong and safe pick and something should be done to bring her down to the strength of other ranged carries. Let's compare her to FA, Flint, MoA, SS, and CD.

FA: Strong lane presence due to her stun and skeletons, but no escape mechanism and squishy. Can farm very fast once she has later levels w/ passive.
Flint: Has lane presence due to nuke but slow, no escape mech, extremely squishy and has to build for both attack speed and damage. Can carry very hard late game w/ good farm.
MoA: Strong lane presence, can farm well with DoT and can carry/support well. No reliable escape mech and is squishy. Cant carry has hard as other ranged carries.
SS: Strong lane presence, can flash farm very quickly. Easily shut down, squishy and 0 escape mechanisms.
CD: Strong lane presence, powerful skill set allows him to focus on building survivability. Can't carry has hard as other carries, considered anti-carry at times.

Silhouette can also out-harass a slither who is considered to have one of the stronger laning presences due to his strong passive. However unlike Silhouette, slither only has 500 range.

I know it is discouraged to suggest changes but I think these are viable and will get the ball moving in conversation:

Range nerf: with 500-550 range, her laning presence will be nerfed while she will still be able to carry hard (arguably not as hard) with the use of her passive.
Tree Grapple nerf: Allow Silhouette to only pull the tree towards her and not jump to her, would reduce her escape potential while keeping the stun.
Death Lotus nerf: Change it so the DoT does not affect creeps reducing her ability to farm with the skill while still keeping it dangerous.

Thanks for reading :)

[Gorb]

Approved!

Moderator's note:
This thread will be heavily moderated, so anyone derailing from the established Balance Forum rules (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?393760-Balance-Forum-Rules) will have to face the consequences.

Keep it serious, and keep it civil.

[triplej]

If I understand correctly, you want to nerf a hero that not only has been nerfed thrice, but you want it to be done in such a way so as to ensure that she's never picked ever again? Not only that, but the standard to which you think ranged carries should adhere is that of mediocre heroes?

Not every hero needs to be viable; let sleeping orcs lie and accept the fact that we've progressed past the 'see you in an hour' meta. Silhouette is in a fine place right now.

[Bob_Sagtits]

If I understand correctly, you want to nerf a hero that not only has been nerfed thrice, but you want it to be done in such a way so as to ensure that she's never picked ever again? Not only that, but the standard to which you think ranged carries should adhere is that of mediocre heroes?

Not every hero needs to be viable; let sleeping orcs lie and accept the fact that we've progressed past the 'see you in an hour' meta. Silhouette is in a fine place right now.So all ranged carries should have a stun, 2 escape mechanisms, and a nuke with the ability to flash farm with to not be considered mediocore?

[GregerMoek]

"This hero has been nerfed, meaning that automatically the hero is balanced and does not need more nerfs" <-- lol'd

Of course she should be brought down to the level of other ranged carries, she already has her niche in mega burst and being super hard to kill. Many many have brought up the range issue but yeah, if she got a nerf to range she could actually get some other nerfs reverted (such as Salvo nerfs).

She's currently the least risky pick in the game, this shows because during BP era she was always first pick first ban (meaning she fits EVERYWHERE) and now she's either first ban or instalock (if not second banned).

[Elman1]

If I understand correctly, you want to nerf a hero that not only has been nerfed thrice, but you want it to be done in such a way so as to ensure that she's never picked ever again? Not only that, but the standard to which you think ranged carries should adhere is that of mediocre heroes?

Not every hero needs to be viable; let sleeping orcs lie and accept the fact that we've progressed past the 'see you in an hour' meta. Silhouette is in a fine place right now.

"Mediocre heroes". "See you in an hour meta". Do you really think 600 range toolbox semicarries are healthy to the game? If so, maybe we should give every support hero Prophet's stats and attack animation, and increased late game potential. Why should supports be "mediocre" in the late game?

On topic: I don't see any reason why Silhouette needs to have 600 range.

[zstarkey42]

She is easily one of the strongest picks of the game. "Not every hero needs to be viable" is the dumbest thing I've heard. We get that you people don't want to see your favourite picks getting nerfed. By that train of thought it's fine to have overpowered heros because, hey, someone needs to be in bottom tier. There's nothing wrong in having situational heros that fill their own niche as well as other heros that fit well in more lineups - leaving certain heros borderline overpowered and underpowered is another thing. That's probably against every rule balance-wise. She was nerfed 3 times and is still OP. That's why you nerf her again for the 4th time until she's in par with other heros of her role. There's been quite a few heros that got hit by the nerf bat more than 3-4 times and are still borderline OP. Number of nerfs is an irrelevant parameter.

Anyway, I don't see why she needs to have 600 range for starters. She can already lane anywhere and outharass almost everyone else due to that passive. The safety she gets from that range, 2 escapes, a lineup stun and the ilusion switch makes no sense. The hero has basically no flaws other than being squishy. Her stun is very reliable with a PK and her item builds allow her to abuse the already high damage without items as well as her strong farming ability (hello Nullstone). I'm pretty sure she would still be a strong pick if she had 550 range or even less. The difference is she would probably need team support at some stages of the game, which is to be expected. It makes no sense for a hero to be strong at all points of the game especially as a carry. They nerfed Valk because she had considerable burst, mobility, utility and damage but refuse to nerf Silhouete when she has much better carry potential, safety and utility. Logic?

[GeneralNoob9]

Death Lotus nerf: Change it so the DoT does not affect creeps reducing her ability to farm with the skill while still keeping it dangerous.

Sorry, but NO.

That would be the biggest nerf to her and I doubt anyone would ever pick her again.(atleast i wouldn't, all i do is farm so) Just because you're getting raped by a few silhouettes doesn't mean she should be nerfed. Besides she's already received a nerf to her farming ability, why add one that would make her useless? If you really wanted to nerf her farming ability it wouldn't be taking away death lotus for farming unless you reduced its damage to a % on creeps.

Hellflower rapes silhouette, kuldra does a good job of that too.

[zstarkey42]

Death Lotus nerf: Change it so the DoT does not affect creeps reducing her ability to farm with the skill while still keeping it dangerous.

Sorry, but NO.

That would be the biggest nerf to her and I doubt anyone would ever pick her again.(atleast i wouldn't, all i do is farm so) Just because you're getting raped by a few silhouettes doesn't mean she should be nerfed. Besides she's already received a nerf to her farming ability, why add one that would make her useless? If you really wanted to nerf her farming ability it wouldn't be taking away death lotus for farming unless you reduced its damage to a % on creeps.

Hellflower rapes silhouette, kuldra does a good job of that too.

Please tell me a list of heros that aren't countered by sheepstick (5.7k gold item). Ironically, she is also much less prone to getting hexed due to her range, ilusion and the fact she abuses Nullstone like no other and usually builds it in 20 mins.

[triplej]

We get that you people don't want to see your favourite picks getting nerfed. By that train of thought it's fine to have overpowered heros because, hey, someone needs to be in bottom tier.

I do enjoy playing Silhouette from time to time; however, I would mostly like to avoid another situation like that of Gemini/Drunken Master...Silhouette's first iteration was overpowered; she warped the game around her by being a headache to lane against and being overly rewarding to play. As she is now, she's just strong. And yes, someone needs to be bottom tier.


"This hero has been nerfed, meaning that automatically the hero is balanced and does not need more nerfs" <-- lol'd

I definitely didn't say that, as I don't believe it's true. Don't put words in my mouth.


So all ranged carries should have a stun, 2 escape mechanisms, and a nuke with the ability to flash farm with to not be considered mediocore?

And I didn't say that either. It was hard to convey what I meant when I said mediocre heroes without awkward wording, but I meant 'everyone OP listed but Nevermore'.

Take a look at the top hard carry picks right now; (Draconis), Silhouette, TDL, and Magebane. They all have some way of obtaining farm quickly, a kit (usually containing a steroid) that allows them to take part in early skirmishes, and a way to cover medium to long distances quickly (whether that to be get away or get close). That is what a carry needs to be viable in this push focused aggressive metagame. Take away Silhouette's ability to grapple to trees and reduce her range, and she becomes another Nevermore - possibly worse, because Nevermore has better farming tools - in other words, 'not quite good enough'. I'm of the opinion that the more viable heroes this game has, the better.

[PopCokeSoda]

I'm of the opinion that the more viable heroes this game has, the better.

And I'm of the opinion that having a 2.5 sec AOE stun on a hardcarry is beyond ridiculous. Nerf her stun and she's ok. Dunno why MQ's buff to 1 second single target stun was deemed op and having a 600 range hardcarry performing longer stuns than almost any other hero in the game isn't looked at. Funny how she started with it being physical and overriding sh. God, some of S2's ideas are really mindboggling.

Also, another point to make is that since she was so OP and her nerfs weren't drastic she was very eagerly played by almost everyone and now the majority of players plays her better on average than other heroes. This also might be a case in point of her seemingly very OP. Don't make the same mistake as with DM or Gemini, as in nerfing her too much.

[Bob_Sagtits]

Heroes are suppose to have strengths and weaknesses, it's why we choose hero a over hero b because that certain hero's strength either works well with your team or counters another hero. But silo LITERALLY has no weaknesses, the only flaws she has is because of the person that's playing her and not the hero herself. Unlike Magebane or tdl is she can't be shutdown, only time you will see a silo with no farm is if the entire team is being decimated or the person playing her is a complete dunce. The idea of a hard carry is that for a shitty early game they're a monster late game, but silo is just a monster at lvl 1 alllllllll the way to 25.

[GeneralNoob9]

Please tell me a list of heros that aren't countered by sheepstick (5.7k gold item). Ironically, she is also much less prone to getting hexed due to her range, ilusion and the fact she abuses Nullstone like no other and usually builds it in 20 mins.
You can farm a nullstone below 20 minutes with heroes like tdl, fa, magebane(not saying its an item to get on him but still not hard to do) if left to free farm. Silhouette isn't the only one. IF you want to nerf her, it shouldn't be her farming abilities. Drunken isn't countered by kuldra is he? I don't play him but I think his ult does something that prevents single targets? Nerf her ult and she would be fine imo. Don't drop her any further, she should stay strong.

[Hsssh]

Nullstone is stronger item on Silhouette than on any of those carries, that was his main point.

[triplej]

Heroes are suppose to have strengths and weaknesses, it's why we choose hero a over hero b because that certain hero's strength either works well with your team or counters another hero. But silo LITERALLY has no weaknesses, the only flaws she has is because of the person that's playing her and not the hero herself. Unlike Magebane or tdl is she can't be shutdown, only time you will see a silo with no farm is if the entire team is being decimated or the person playing her is a complete dunce. The idea of a hard carry is that for a shitty early game they're a monster late game, but silo is just a monster at lvl 1 alllllllll the way to 25.

Funny, I've seen Silhouettes get shut down early both in scrims and in tournament matches, and you're not about to tell me Era is a weak player.

The idea that a hard carry is supposed to be bad early game is an outdated one: every FotM carry can, with the help a support, have a good chance of killing their lane opponents level 2.

[Bob_Sagtits]

Nah im just telling you he could've played 10x better.

[GeneralNoob9]

Nullstone is stronger item on Silhouette than on any of those carries, that was his main point.
And? They can get other items in the same time. Not a big deal, nullstone is still a situational pick up on ALL heroes. I don't see people getting nullstone on silhouettes every game. I only get it on her because of the mana regeneration, not because of the nullstone effect unless I'm against a panda with a bkb or something.

[Elman1]

The idea that a hard carry is supposed to be bad early game is an outdated one

You can't be serious.

[triplej]

You can't be serious.

I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.

wait, what?

[Bazzoro]

Silhouette feels like playing roulette as the casino, instead of the player. The odds are always in your favor.
I am, frankly, doubting whether she is OP or just the strongest hero out there.

[Antimodus]

Just because you're getting raped by a few silhouettes doesn't mean she should be nerfed.

Wow, haven't heard that line of defense being used before, for just about every OP hero ever created.

Oh wait, actually I did. Funny thing is, it was also said when Sil was just released with an even more retardedly broken passive and a physical stun. People in that thread were actually trying to argue she was UP with a weak midgame. What a joke.

My opinion: Nerf range to something between 500 to 550 and see what it does. Best range for such a hero is 500 or less. If she's found to be too weak after the nerf, buff her QWER skills back up. Ursa is a nice hero concept but there's a reason he's melee in dota.

Notice how range 550+ carries in the game (the ones with actual strong AA steroids), like [SS PM Vindi Flint] are ALL without any escape moves. You think this is a coincidence? The only other example I of such a ahero with an escape would be Draconis, and 1) he's still relatively new 2) not nearly as strong an offender as Silhouette is.

E: Guess there's also Wildsoul with his movespeed buff. Still high MS is not in the same ballpark as instant teleport+disjoint and a 1200 range leap that line stuns.

[sharbarachu]

Stupidly overpowered hero. Range nerf would really be the most appropriate thing without touching the skills. 500 range would reduce the heroes laning power and late game scaling, both of which are needed given below.

Right now it has 2 escapes, a magmus-style stun, ridiculous farming potential, a stupid passive that makes it impossible to trade blows, and all of its abilities steroid its passive to the point where people are killed almost instantly by a sil with no damage items.

[MikeTAR]

I'd have to be honest and say due to this heroes high skill cap, she's on nerf away from being the next dumpster tier hero...

[Reldnahc]

I'd have to be honest and say due to this heroes high skill cap, she's on nerf away from being the next dumpster tier hero...

Just like :tund: and :ophe: and other high skill cap heroes, their difficulty should make them immune to nerfs because of possible consequences from the public scene.

Silhouette ruined Diva's great design track record in my opinion. So much forced synergy on every skill to work with Relentless Salvo, so many unnecessary additions to skills that make the skills incredibly strong, and sitting pretty at the top of the hero range charts made one power creeped monstrosity that oveshadows many other heroes.

Silhouette is a lot like Madman in beta. Madman in beta was fantastic at all stages of the game, he was threatening in lane, a powerful ganker, and could carry with the best of them. Sound familiar? Silhouette is another repeat of the mistake that was Madman. Madman had his stun removed and Stalk is well balanced for the time being on a needle. Silhouette is simply a repetition of history, but instead of Stalk being the pushing point of the hero being strong, it is her range. Honestly, her skillset wouldn't seem so threatening if you wasn't able to stack on Salvo, the crux of her skillset, from an ungodly range. Tweak that and a lot of her problems could become more manageable.

[Shatterz]

IMO its ridiculous that a hardcarry is so strong in every stage of the game in almost every set-up. She can solo, suicide, dual-lane, tri-lane, mid. A hero that can do everything, while being a carry as well, should not have one of the best last-hit abilities on 600 range along with a 2,5sec stun and 2 escapes.

IMO reduce her range or reduce the scaling on various skills to make them weaker early game(shorter range on grapple/reduced stun/less salvo damage comes to mind). Sil's early game is way too strong for a carry that fits in everywhere

[Doomhammar]

Silhouette feels like playing roulette as the casino, instead of the player. The odds are always in your favor.
I am, frankly, doubting whether she is OP or just the strongest hero out there.

The house always wins.

Silhouette could be the strongest of all as she has quite reliable stun.
Right now she has following "Attributes":
Strong lane presence (600 range + passive)
Escape mechanics (2)
Very reliable stun
Ability to AoE farm
Great carry potential
Burst (Nuke + Fast attacks via passive)

I can't come up with anything else, but Silho just has maybe too much utility and potential in every way.
Something I can't quite understand though is why does Tree grapple give movement speed, it's not logical and it too is kind of silly. There are many ways to start nerfing her, and possibly the "best" would be to either nerf her stun (Ganking aspect) or escape abilites.

[MikeTAR]

After reading what the OP said I thought I’d give a detailed response as I play this hero a lot and am a huge fan.

To start I think this could have been better written, all you’ve really done is tell us what the hero is capable of and threw in some words such as “ridiculously powerful” and “out harass 95% of the hero pool” for a balance point you should also list the heroes weaker aspects rather then compare her to other heroes who have different skill sets and point out there weakness’s comparing to Sil’s strengths.

As I said before the hero has a very high skill cap which is relative to her effectiveness in-game as other higher skilled players know how to play against her which in return make her balanced under = skilled circumstances.

Death Lotus – While you claim it to be an over powered farming skill, it is in fact her only farming skill. To compare this to the heroes you mentioned above each of these also have a skill for farming. E,g Flints flare or Forsakens volley or SS demon hands.

Please also note that Death Lotus only applies the DoT damage in melee range which puts Sill in an unsafe position when trying to use it offensively on heroes. To use this skill at range, as you said it is a skill shot but also keep in mind it has a very small aoe. The other heroes you listed above have secondary skills on their nukes and majority of them have large aoe. Flints flare can slow and give vision, CD’s feel the burn surronds him and gives vision, FA’s volley is an aoe disable whereas sill only applies a simple 280 magic damage if it hits.

Compared to other carries she can’t jungle stacks until she has at least has a sustainer, whispering helm or support to help her nuke the stacks. Her faming skill forces her to take damage and her mana pool and HP pool is relatively low early in the game.

Tree Grapple – the nerf to this skill was very much needed as it allowed her to take Ancient stacks very early on with little or no support from the team. There are few heroes which can take ancients from as early as level 7-9 such as FA and Draconis.

You claim it to be an OP escape mechanism, but in fact it’s not a reliable escape mechanism for many reasons.



The enemy can see where you’ve tree grappled too. With a bit of brain power from the opposing team you can easily have 2 heroes charge sill from the front and on hero come from the back to gank this hero, Compared to other heroes with escape mechanisms e.g hag blink, magmus surge, valk leap or w/e they have the ability port in to tree cover or over tree-lines whereas sill cannot.




It has a cast time and the actual tree grapple has a travel time before you can leap. So this doe’s leave a small window for gankers to CC the target she can successfully leap away.


Touching on the stunning aspect of this skill it is very hard to land unless the target is already immobile. The stun can only become somewhat reliable once you’ve acquired a portal key, even so you’re forcing yourself to be next to a hero or in the middle of a team fight which once again increases the risk of death for the hero.

In a 1v1 scenario it can only be effectively used for gaining extra MS to harass and trade hits or to leap towards the target to kill.

Your suggestion to nerf the tree grapple would be totally unfair to the Sil in my opinion as it would severely nerf her chasing potential. This hero already lacks the ability to chase down targets and this is due to her long attack range.

Relentless Salvo – It is the skill which makes her a carry. Just like Madmans Crit, Flints Hollow Shell, Fa’s Skeletons, SS’s passive, CD’s conduit or w/e.

It has a 10/8/6/4 second scaling on it which pretty much can somewhat already balanced in terms of her laning potential. To max this skill in the laning phase your putting no levels in to the 1st skill therefore you’re limiting the heroes early burst damage out-put which can effect her early killing potential. Yes it is strong for harassing, but keep in mind if you’re harassing you’re not hitting creaps.

Moving later in to the game the max damage out put on this skill is 60 at level 4. But keep in mind you have to hit that target every 3 seconds to keep the stacks up and it can only proc every 4 seconds.

Compare this to other range heroes “carry abilities”

SS – 60+ damage is static assuming you don’t die or don’t level 2nd skill
FA – 210+ damage (assuming 6 skeletons) and has the ability to store these and release at will.
Flint – 40% chance to deal 50 bonus damage and min stun.. on top of hug range.
CD – steals 200 damage and last 13 seonds (assuming full charge)

In my humble opinion these skills are more reliable and if not more powerful then Salvo (maybe with the exception of SS)

Shadow – this skill is without a doubt her best ability so I will agree with you here. However you only stated its usefulness for escaping which is only really relevant at level 3. In lower levels this skill can only be used for small jukes or applying tower pressure. It gives her the ability to split push which a majority of the heroes in this game can’t achieve as safely as Sil can. However split pushing is still a strategy, like most strategies there is a counter. To counter split pushing all you have to do is take towers early on and take advantage of this heroes in-ability to turtle and defend.

Being an item dependant hero all you have to do is shut the hero down early by gaining map control. This is the obvious and best solution and works on against any hard-carry. A good reference of this would be TDM vs Fntc where Era’s sill failed twice due to TDM’s aggressive playstyle.

To be fair to the OP the hero is unique which is probably due to her popularity. She is more exciting to play then most other range carrys lets be honest, but I don’t think she is over powered like she used to be.

if anything the only balance change I see suitable would be a small range nerf. Other than that the hero is fine.

[Death_Rattle]

I agree with Reldnahc, she just needs a bit of tweaking. I would say reducing her range to anywhere between 450-550 would be a good start and certainly would make it much easier to balance her other skills if need be.

[Martym]

There's a reason why Slither has not 600 range, he would be an imba-harasser. Meanwhile Sil can harass as much but with 600 range and a stun/espace + some burst.

Yeah, she definitely need a range reduction to 500 >_<

[Muteny]

Let's reduce her range to 250 and make it so when she attacks her next attack does half damage that should make you all happy then we can nerf the next hero that becomes flavor of the month and we can keep doing that till ever hero is sand wraith status

[Quillenator]

It's obviously a problem if she is most banned/picked in competitive and has as many threads and posts screaming bloody murder about her being too strong. As the previous 10~ posts have mention, her range is the problem, change that and even some of the old nerfs may need to be reverted. S2 seems afraid about making changes often because the competitive scene will have a fit, but I think they need to start pushing these changes out much more frequently. I for one cannot accept her having a high skill cap as a good enough reason to let her be, the community is getting better whether anyone will admit it or not and is taking advantage of easy wins do to this hero being much too strong throughout all phases of the game.

[TaroEld]

I think a range nerf would indeed be the best solution. She can keep her ridiculous skillset and carry as usual, but won't be such a powerhouse in laning phase.

[Shatterz]

Reduce the range to 450-500 and see what happens after it.

[HWACHA]

im all for 525 attack range

[DGen]

My biggest issue is probably with the stun. Madman was ridicoulus when he had a stun, so it was turned into a slow. I honestly think that would fix many of the issues with sil, turning that ridicoulus 2.5 sec stun into a slow instead. Most stuns with a damage component range from 1-2 seconds, and those are heroes like pyro, witch, hammer and behe (ie not ranged agi carries). When stunning for more than 2 seconds they are usually either an ult, or difficult to land or otherwise situational. Silhuettes stun is just one of her escape mechanisms, so she does not suffer from using tree grapple offensively, and it simply should not stun for 2.5 seconds in that case. A small range nerf and changing the stun into something else would probably fix her.

[Rordarok]

Either change W to a slow or nerf her Attack Range to 525.

[Reimu]

Either change W to a slow or nerf her Attack Range to 525.

Do both and buff Salvo to compensate.

Salvo is a really strong passive yes, but it's really only amazingly strong since it's combined with a 600 range and an unnecessarily strong stun (that in turn has too good synergy with PK). Take away the stun and cut her range and there is more justification of Salvo being stronger. I had a lengthy post in mind how Salvo will continue to be a scapegoat ability people complain about because of her stun and Ultimate but I could never really word it right so you'll all have to deal with this instead, sorry.

[TaeYeon]

I don't get how you can say she has a "ridiculous 2.5 second stun" as casual as you do. Did we all forget it's not the easiest task to execute compared to your Madman, Behe and Pyromancer? You can buy a Portal Key to make it easier, but then the hero needs to invest in a 2k+ gold item in order to use her stun.

I don't think Silhouette is as overpowered as people want her to be. We've seen this "flavor of the month" thing since the beginning of HoN with everyone crying until the hero gets nerfed to dumpster. In many cases of flavor of the month it's not really been the hero itself, rather it's the stubborn competitors that are too afraid to develop a counter for the current meta (I believe Fly was the only one with the balls to truly accomplish this). The results have always been a trash-tier hero once S2 had to force a shift and make people realize there's counters.

If a nerf truly is needed in S2's eyes, I would agree on looking at her range, and maybe revert some previous nerfs to compensate. But I still believe we have to stop having this "[flavor of the month hero] is too OP, nerf nerf nerf!" mentality and start looking for counters to the meta when we get situations like these. Hard carry strats are often countered by playing really aggressive with alot of gankers and/or pushers. We even see competitive teams first-picking Dark Ladies. You know they're running with a hard carry before you even made your first pick, you should have the easiest time countering their start if you execute your draft and strategy well enough. But noooo these competitive teams are too afraid to try anything new so they pick their own hard carry strat only with a weaker carry.

[Antimodus]

Did we all forget it's not the easiest task to execute compared to your Madman, Behe and Pyromancer? You can buy a Portal Key to make it easier, but then the hero needs to invest in a 2k+ gold item in order to use her stun.

Pyro needs to invest in the same 2k+ gold item to make his stun "usable" past the laning/ganking phase as well, and his stun doesn't double as an escape mechanism. It also has retarded cast time and can be dodged much easier than a PK line stun from sil. He's also not a hard carry. Madman doesn't have a stun. Behe is an initiator, stun is all he does. Are you seriously arguing a ranged hardcarry is supposed to be as good as heroes like Behe in crowd control? what is this I don't even



I don't think Silhouette is as overpowered as people want her to be. We've seen this "flavor of the month" thing since the beginning of HoN with everyone crying until the hero gets nerfed to dumpster.

Sil has been one of top 3 picks (if not outright #1) as far as ranged carries are concerned -- pretty much since the hero came out until now, and through 3 or 4 consecutive nerfs. Draw your own conclusions, but this is hardly "flavor of the month" as you call it.

The only heroes I can think of that really got "nerfed to dumpster" are sand wraith and drunken master. Most of them end up just being balanced. or maybe what you call "dumpster" I call a balanced pick with both strengths and weaknesses. You know heroes like MQ or SR or witch slayer or ophelia. I don't know. What are silhouette's weaknesses again? "Takes skill" is not a weakness.

[Quillenator]

Drop the "flavor of the month" argument, its getting old, or at least be accurate by saying "flavor of the last several months". Silo is a problem since release because of her effectiveness early game with 600 range and such a good stun. Something needs to be done, I would rather see the range get a nerf instead of the stun.

[Tay_z0nday]

Reduce range to 475-500 instead of nerfing her spell...
I also DOnt get why her stun lockdown for 2.5 sec while having a huge aoe not like ws graveyard...!
It's a blink that even does dmg...
Definitly the best stun of the game that work well everywhere...

I believe her stun should get nerf to 1 sec to let her being able to cancel Tp...
Or We could also increase her stun mana cost to 140 like any other heroes...
Like that she wouldnt be able to spam her Grip to escape early game...

[TaeYeon]

Pyro needs to invest in the same 2k+ gold item to make his stun "usable" past the laning/ganking phase as well, and his stun doesn't double as an escape mechanism. It also has retarded cast time and can be dodged much easier than a PK line stun from sil. He's also not a hard carry. Madman doesn't have a stun. Behe is an initiator, stun is all he does. Are you seriously arguing a ranged hardcarry is supposed to be as good as heroes like Behe in crowd control? what is this I don't even
I was referring to previous post comparing Silhouette's stun to Madman when he had one. You can drop your Pyromancer argument, he's stun is not dependent at all on the PK it's just something that fits and compliments his whole theme. Silhouette is another story it only compliments her stun. Pyro's stun might be a skill-shot similar to Silhouette (you even said yourself "skill is not a weakness"), but the difference being Pyro doesn't need to go out of position to use his. Forsaken Archer has a 2.5 second immobilize that deals 80 more damage, and guess what? Yeah she doesn't need to go out of position to use hers. Puppet Master has even more powerful CC's and I'd consider him on par if not a better hero to fill the "hard carry" role. Guess what? He also doesn't need to position himself in a dangerous position to pull his stuff off.

Say all you want about tree grapple doubling as an escape mechanism. It's dependant on trees, which means you're not gonna go in a straight line to safety and it might not take you very far. Probably most useful to juke up/down cliffs. It also has a long cast time and a travel time, and you can't leap behind or in trees. I'd say it doesn't really compete with the likes of Valkyrie, Magebane or Dark Lady at all. Tree Grapple won't really be a problem at all with a well executed gank with proper disables. Her only true, good "escape mechanism" would be her ultimate I'll concur to that, but even it has to be set up beforehand and only truly shines at split-push. If you're gonna set it up for a team fight you're trading your carry potential for an escape mech. Why would you charge into battle in the first place thinking you might lose and need to escape? It doesn't make any sense. Silhouette isn't so much of a "hard carry" as you want her to be, not compared to Chronos, Dark Lady or Magebane, especially if you're gonna trade your ult, your only scaling ability for an escape.

I just don't get how all of you can sit there and say so casually "she has a 2.5 second that doubles as an escape mechanism". That's oversimplifying a complex subject.


Sil has been one of top 3 picks (if not outright #1) as far as ranged carries are concerned -- pretty much since the hero came out until now, and through 3 or 4 consecutive nerfs. Draw your own conclusions, but this is hardly "flavor of the month" as you call it.
Wrong. Silhouette was not popular until N0tail started using her mid. Then her Grapple got nerfed from physical to magical, her Shadow nerfed on duration and scaleability, and her Salvo on both Damage and cooldown. Since then she was barely touched before teams like tdM decided to run her as a side-lane mid-game carry, which is pretty damn recent. To say "she's been a top pick pretty much since release till now" would be a shameful overexaggeration.


The only heroes I can think of that really got "nerfed to dumpster" are sand wraith and drunken master. Most of them end up just being balanced. or maybe what you call "dumpster" I call a balanced pick with both strengths and weaknesses. You know heroes like MQ or SR or witch slayer or ophelia. I don't know. What are silhouette's weaknesses again? "Takes skill" is not a weakness.
Then you need to think again. Examples would be the Slither-era with Trixi, Forsaken Archer before she was brought back up again, Thunderbringer, Balphagore, Rhapsody (countering push-starts was the issue, not Rhapsody/Balph), Monarch, Hellbringer (he's now reverted and not even touched because META moved on and he was never the real issue) and Midas.

It really isn't the heroes that are the problem most of the time. Popular =/= overpowered. The problem lies with a competitive scene that don't have the balls to try anything unorthodox and come up with counters to certain playstyles. Then people start picking them up more frequently in pubs, bads start crying on the forums, and S2 sees no other choice than to nerf the hero never to be seen again for the scene to come to reason and move on. I could go on and say that Valkyrie has "600 range, a farming mechanism, a 5 second stun, burst, two escape mechanism and a carry steriod". Isn't this how you're describing Silhouette? See it's more complicated than that. For the matter I'd even argue Valkyrie's Leap is a way better escape than Grapple, wheras Silhouette's ult beats Valk's, but then again Valk's also works for her team.

[SirVH]

The problem lies with a competitive scene that don't have the balls to try anything unorthodox and come up with counters to certain playstyles. Then people start picking them up more frequently in pubs, bads start crying on the forums, and S2 sees no other choice than to nerf the hero never to be seen again for the scene to come to reason and move on.
There's exactly 111,000 players online right now. I'll be happy if our comp scene have like 100 players. Yeah, let's balance the game for 100 people instead of God knows how many.

[antCB]

After reading what the OP said I thought I’d give a detailed response as I play this hero a lot and am a huge fan.

To start I think this could have been better written, all you’ve really done is tell us what the hero is capable of and threw in some words such as “ridiculously powerful” and “out harass 95% of the hero pool” for a balance point you should also list the heroes weaker aspects rather then compare her to other heroes who have different skill sets and point out there weakness’s comparing to Sil’s strengths.

As I said before the hero has a very high skill cap which is relative to her effectiveness in-game as other higher skilled players know how to play against her which in return make her balanced under = skilled circumstances.



I'm a 1.55k~1.6k mmr casual player, and I STRONGLY disagree. I had the chance to play with Sill a few months ago, and for the first time I can remember, I stomped a guy mid (poor SS) and all that knowing that I'm not a good player, but not considering myself crap though. I also think she isn't really the only "OP" hero in HoN, I consider magebane to be a much annoying easy mode hero, with high magic armor due to passive, mana burn and the ridiculous flash(aka the cooldown is too small)...

IMHO high skill cap heroes, are heroes like tundra, Ophelia and perhaps War Beast, all of these due to the needed high apm and micro a player needs to have to succeed with them. Although I really love to play with Tundra, I reckon I can't micro all that well, and I haven't really needed the "microing" potential this hero has, cause on my tier usually knowing how to use tundras abilities is good enough (aka axes, rush, ult, leaving the pets to 2nd plan).

1 hero that I also think is a bit stronk is MK, but if it is nerfed it won't really do nothing, the abilities burn the mana pretty fast... But it is an awesome and funny hero to play with.

PS: IT should have it's initial range nerfed, and could gain more with bumping up relentless salvo(just an idea)

[zstarkey42]

I'd rather have them balancing heros/items for high level play than to suit most pubs that can't figure how to counter said heros. Silhouete is very strong not only on comp play but in any rank bracket if played right. That's usually a sign of imbalance.

[TaeYeon]

It's been stated by S2 that this game is balanced around top tier play and is completely necessary to even have a competitive scene. If you disagree you may leave the balance forums right now and move over to suggestions or even move over to LoL.

[Shatterz]

TLDR: Sil is extremly strong in (almost) every line-up, in any lane, with any partner, during any time of the game, while also being a pretty good carry. IMO thats a sign of inbalance.

[TaeYeon]

Personally, I've seen her lost probably more than won lately on HonCast, although I haven't watched every single game. What frustrates me the most is everyone buying PKs on her, which I'm all against.

Other than that she's gotten more popular in pubs, I really don't get what all the fuss is about.

[girard`]

Sil was getting strong on HoNCast because half of the time teams were letting her freefarm solo short lanes while engaging in teamfights. You can't let a hero do that...remember Era's streak of Dark Lady success? Same idea. Any carry solo farming short lane is insane. You have to take the lane away from her.

Sure she is a little TOO strong, but that's more because of the fact that she has an attack modifier (of sorts), AOE (with nuke), a stun, a mini-port, and an illusion ultimate with insta-port. She has too much all around, imo. She needs to be severely locked down to outplay her. A decent amount of CC is required.

[Artic]

My biggest issue is probably with the stun. Madman was ridicoulus when he had a stun, so it was turned into a slow.

You're remembering wrong, MM was never seen in competitive when he had the stun, the slow was a buff. People whined it was a nerf to a useless hero until he they saw he was getting picked up in competitive games.

[Elman1]

Sure she is a little TOO strong, but that's more because of the fact that she has an attack modifier (of sorts), AOE (with nuke), a stun, a mini-port, and an illusion ultimate with insta-port. She has too much all around, imo. She needs to be severely locked down to outplay her. A decent amount of CC is required.

So she's a little too strong because she has too many features, and your balance suggestion is outplaying her?

[_theEnemy_]

Even though silhouette is picked a lot in competitive play, the hero's win percentage isn't that high at all. In fact, in most of the DreamHoN games I've watched recently the team with Silhouette almost always ends up losing.

Nonetheless, I do agree she needs a nerf, but not a significant one, and many of these suggestions are quite ridiculous. Sil's range shouldnt be nerfed to ~500 because that would completely destroy her laning presence, and laning presence is something she DOES need. Silhouette's lategame carry potential pales in comparison to traditional hardcarries (TDL, Magebane, to name a few). Silhouette's problem lies in the fact that she has such good laning presence and can completely dominate her lane. Then, she can sit in the jungle and farm stacks for 400+ GPM with only a sustainer. A carry hero like Silhouette shouldn't have so much early game presence.

Therefore, I think her relentless salvo needs a small nerf to fix her laning presence while keeping the hero relevant. Perhaps instead of Relentless Salvo doing 3/6/9/12 extra damage and stacking up to 5 times, make it 1/4/7/10 extra damage and stacking up to 6 times. Also, I do agree that her tree grapple is too powerful functioning both as a powerful stun and a semi-reliable escape mechanism.

[Shatterz]

Even though silhouette is picked a lot in competitive play, the hero's win percentage isn't that high at all. In fact, in most of the DreamHoN games I've watched recently the team with Silhouette almost always ends up losing.

Nonetheless, I do agree she needs a nerf, but not a significant one, and many of these suggestions are quite ridiculous. Sil's range shouldnt be nerfed to ~500 because that would completely destroy her laning presence, and laning presence is something she DOES need. Silhouette's lategame carry potential pales in comparison to traditional hardcarries (TDL, Magebane, to name a few). Silhouette's problem lies in the fact that she has such good laning presence and can completely dominate her lane. Then, she can sit in the jungle and farm stacks for 400+ GPM with only a sustainer. A carry hero like Silhouette shouldn't have so much early game presence.

Therefore, I think her relentless salvo needs a small nerf to fix her laning presence while keeping the hero relevant. Perhaps instead of Relentless Salvo doing 3/6/9/12 extra damage and stacking up to 5 times, make it 1/4/7/10 extra damage and stacking up to 6 times. Also, I do agree that her tree grapple is too powerful functioning both as a powerful stun and a semi-reliable escape mechanism.

So slither has no laning presence because he has 500 range?
Her damage, as a ranged carry with various steroids(stacking +damage, extra attacks after using skills, extra illusion) should not be able to exceed that of a support. carrys actually SHOULD require some sort of support to do well in the lane(assuming all players are on the same skill level). ATM sil wins the harass battle versus almost any hero available in the game, while being a hardcarry with 3 steroids, a farming skill and 2 escapes and a 2,5 second stun.

[MikeTAR]

So slither has no laning presence because he has 500 range?
Her damage, as a ranged carry with various steroids(stacking +damage, extra attacks after using skills, extra illusion) should not be able to exceed that of a support. carrys actually SHOULD require some sort of support to do well in the lane(assuming all players are on the same skill level). ATM sil wins the harass battle versus almost any hero available in the game, while being a hardcarry with 3 steroids, a farming skill and 2 escapes and a 2,5 second stun.

Slither has plenty of lane presence are you kidding me? He has more solo suicide presence then Sill will ever have.

[Shatterz]

Slither has plenty of lane presence are you kidding me? He has more solo suicide presence then Sill will ever have.

Thank you sherlock. Now read my post again. I am stating that giving sil 500 range instead of 600 would not destroy her laning presence at all, it would just make it more even comparing to other heroes. I am giving slither as an example with 500 range, while he can still harras like a beast.

[TaeYeon]

I don't get it. Silhouette is no match for a farmed Dark Lady or Magebane. I wouldn't label her as a hard-carry at all. Wretched Hag could dominate just as well through early-mid-(late).

Just watched CM vs DDOS on HonCast last night and saw a Silhouette getting PK at 34mins with only a Nullstone (huge facepalm) doing ****. Lost that game - FA won. She must be way below 50% win ratio in the competitive matches I've watched lately.

[Antimodus]

are there some publicly available hero win% stats from tournaments and comp level scrims?
Though such stats need a sample size of like 50+ per hero at least to really be worth anything due to variance.

[Darkstar_X]

I don't understand, shes not dominating pubs, shes not even posting a positive record against competitive teams, yet people want a nerf. If you say there isn't enough data to support showing she isn't losing too much to be considered OP then she certainty cant have enough data to say she actually needs a nerf.

[Rkey]

Add a max range to when she can swap to her illu maybe? I think the annoying part is how she can solo push safely with her "global blink".

[Shatterz]

I don't get it. Silhouette is no match for a farmed Dark Lady or Magebane. I wouldn't label her as a hard-carry at all. Wretched Hag could dominate just as well through early-mid-(late).

Just watched CM vs DDOS on HonCast last night and saw a Silhouette getting PK at 34mins with only a Nullstone (huge facepalm) doing ****. Lost that game - FA won. She must be way below 50% win ratio in the competitive matches I've watched lately.

How is sil not a match for TDL or MB? She farms way easyer, has way more lane presence, has a stun and 2 escapes, and, especialyl lategame, can push very well without being in any dangers thanks to her ult. Sure, if TDL and sil have the same farm, TDL is likely to win it. Point is, sil gets farmed unless you shut her down completely, which is very hard thanks to her strong early game.


(http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/member.php?3887354-Darkstar_X)
Sil is pretty much dominating pubs, at least around the 1700-1800mmr level.

again, sil has to many advantages WITHOUT DISADVANTAGES.
She he has strong early game thanks to a great harras, a stun that server as an escape as well. She got a creepwave clearing skill on a low cooldown, while also having 3 different steriods(+damage on auto attacks, stacking....Extra attack speed for a few attacks after using a skill....A illusion of herself) and getting another escape on level 6.
Mid game she can farm the jungle with pretty much no risk of death thanks to 2 escapes, she can push 2 lanes at once. She is also getting pretty farmed from her strong early game. At this point sil has a nullstone(almost every time) which allows her to spam her skills into infinity.
Late game she is a beast thanks to her steriods, escapes and her very strong overal game.

And she does all that, while fitting in almost any line-up, in almost every lane.
This hero is a valkery 2.0

[_theEnemy_]

So slither has no laning presence because he has 500 range?
Her damage, as a ranged carry with various steroids(stacking +damage, extra attacks after using skills, extra illusion) should not be able to exceed that of a support. carrys actually SHOULD require some sort of support to do well in the lane(assuming all players are on the same skill level). ATM sil wins the harass battle versus almost any hero available in the game, while being a hardcarry with 3 steroids, a farming skill and 2 escapes and a 2,5 second stun.

Alright my statement was a bit exaggerated, but slither's laning presence DOES pale in comparison to other 600 ranged supports because of his lower range. Nowadays you rarely seeing a slither babysit because 600 range supports are so much better at it. The problem with nerfing Silhouette's range is that it gimps her throughout the entire game in many different aspects, and it would amount to too much of a nerf. There's no reason to nerf Silhouette's lategame ability by reducing her range. The main problems with Silhouette that need to be addressed is how powerful she is in lane, how quickly she can farm even if she gets shut down in lane, and her Tree Grapple which is too powerful.

[Shatterz]

IMO, nerf her range to 500. If its to much of a nerf, we can buff her again. A hero as powerfull as sil wont cease to excist because of a range nerf from 600 to 500.


Alright my statement was a bit exaggerated, but slither's laning presence DOES pale in comparison to other 600 ranged supports because of his lower range. Nowadays you rarely seeing a slither babysit because 600 range supports are so much better at it. The problem with nerfing Silhouette's range is that it gimps her throughout the entire game in many different aspects, and it would amount to too much of a nerf. There's no reason to nerf Silhouette's lategame ability by reducing her range. The main problems with Silhouette that need to be addressed is how powerful she is in lane, how quickly she can farm even if she gets shut down in lane, and her Tree Grapple which is too powerful.

I dont agree with the range nerf being to much, but indeed, these are the main problems sil has ATM

[suddenfs]

This thread for real? "No weaknesses" "Very reliable stun"
To make the stun reliable you need to buy a 2150 gold item. That's quite a bit of investment on that stun. Otherwise its a situational stun and with smart positioning you can avoid it. The reason Sil is not OP is because you need to actually pay attention to use her skills effectively, not just Q-click R-click free kills.

Hope she doesn't get even more nerfs as it would be a waste of a really good hero design.

[Antimodus]

The hero is completly fine and she is not op at all. Her first skill her second skill her ulti it all requires skills so if you don't know to play her then don't cry for nerrfs...I really do not understand you people you lost 1 game or 2 to some hero then you try to play it and you fail and you say op..Is mk op too? I still hear people saying: He combo me to death!

No. I have lost countless games to well-played heroes that I'm terrible with myself. It doesn't make me run to the forum and whine they are all OP. I complained Monarch was OP even though being primarily a support player, that hero was getting me lots of free wins. Pretty much whatever I wrote there as nerf suggestions to Monarch got implemented a month or two later. Check the archives if you want.

You also do not see a thread complaining that Gladiator, Tundra or Ophelia are OP. and believe me those heroes stomp their share of games, by players who actually know what they're doing with said heroes. and almost all other players in any bracket before 1700s are absolutely terrible with them, because these heroes need some micro and/or foresight. And yet...why are we never seeing OP whines about them?

here's one theory, the balanced "high skill cap" heroes require this high skill to do anything decent at all. The OP ones are effective when played at a basic level and ON TOP OF THAT get to "outplay" everything else in the game when you know how.

[Antimodus]

Sill is very item dependent, she needs survivability, and a lot she can be focused down in a matter of seconds with a silence..


The only autoattack carries that are not absolutely destroyed by silence+focusfire are a decked out sand wraith, chronos, and wildsoul in ult form. Leaving these aside as anomalies, other auto-attack based carries are all easy targets when silenced. So you can't list that as a relative disadvantage. Even the near-untouchable DR turns into easy food when you apply hellflower on him.
It's not any easier to kill a Silhouette like that than it is to kill say Valk or any other ranged AGI (to speak nothing of INTs like puppet master) in the same manner.
In fact having an illusion ult she's a natural fit for geometer's (even more so than other range carries, rivaled only by Flint), so on a relative scale Sil is less susceptible to chain lockdown than lots of other carries, if anything.

In these late game situations where each team is trying to find an opening to pull a 3-4 second assassination on the other team's carry, attempting this on what turns out as Sil's ult is basically gg right there. Tell me, what other carry has that kind of advantage?

But apparently if Sil doesn't tick a 10/10 in some category it's called a "disadvantage" when it comes to her. Yea she's less tanky than Sand wraith - OMG! see, Sil has weaknesses!

[Puuhis]

attack range to 300, buff passive
The idea of a hero being one of the best laners, one of the hardest carries and one of the best farmers is just absurd. This would make the hero a lot more interesting and nerf her laning potential but reward his endgame more.
Its quite obvious that one of the aspects should be removed/nerfed to the ground.

[Elman1]

I don't understand, shes not dominating pubs, shes not even posting a positive record against competitive teams, yet people want a nerf. If you say there isn't enough data to support showing she isn't losing too much to be considered OP then she certainty cant have enough data to say she actually needs a nerf.

She's a terrible hero design. A ranged carry hero who can do everything. I don't want her nerfed, I want her reworked or removed from the game, because she can't possibly be balanced in a satisfying way when she has so much utility.

She's the same as shitty toolbox heroes like Monkey King or Valkyrie. They're popular because they can do everything and so playing them is really fun, but they're miserable to play against, even if they're not overpowered per se.

[Raina_]

She's a terrible hero design. A ranged carry hero who can do everything. I don't want her nerfed, I want her reworked or removed from the game, because she can't possibly be balanced in a satisfying way when she has so much utility.

She's the same as shitty toolbox heroes like Monkey King or Valkyrie. They're popular because they can do everything and so playing them is really fun, but they're miserable to play against, even if they're not overpowered per se.

Agreed Monkey is annoying to play against. Actually Valk is a great hybrid hero; her skill set is not a completely killer or support but is viable to go semi carry or semi support. Looking at Sil, she does have quite the utility, but suffers from just as many stuff as other heroes. She's probably the most viable agi ranged carry in this meta. Would'nt say she's op.

[Farosarg]

I don't understand, shes not dominating pubs, shes not even posting a positive record against competitive teams, yet people want a nerf. If you say there isn't enough data to support showing she isn't losing too much to be considered OP then she certainty cant have enough data to say she actually needs a nerf.

Gonna quote this one because it brings my point up the best. When balancing heroes and especially the designs, it's not always the matter of just nerfing or buffing. With designs like Silhuette where you have tons of advantages and strengths like her passive, a stun and an escape, coupled with a generally good base hero without weaknesses, the problem in balance comes up where it's all about the relative strengths of the hero. Silhuette has her kit nerfed over and over because of all her strenghts and lack of weaknesses, thus completely ruining the skills, making her non-issue and thus not worth playing.

Now instead of just constantly nerfing her big strengths from the kit, we give her a weakness, similar to what other heroes with strong kits have (Soul Reaper, Vindicator, Flint, Slither, Corrupted Disciple, Moon Queen, Midas) that gives something for the opponents to use against her and lets her original design to stay strong in the other areas, or even buffed. Thus the range-nerf idea. (For numbers I'd like to point out that Corrupted Disciple runs around with 475 range).

Advantages for the range change:

-Gives her a weakness, reduces her power on lane, makes her more vulnerable and not fit to any lineup she's wanted in. Forces more commitment towards her pick.
-Allows her to be buffed in the other areas.
-Makes her more gear-dependant. Needs a survivability item more often and pushes her tilting-phase later. Again more commitment towards the pick.
-Makes her more skill-dependant. She's that somewhat already but she can also be really rewarding.
-Allows for several buffs on her skills.

Disadvantages for the range change:

-Makes her current iteration potentially weak. She'll need buffs on several areas to compensate.
-Makes her more geardependant and potentially forces her build into set build with atleast 1 big defensive item.
-Makes her more skill-dependant. With the use of the ultimate micro, hitting lotus during early levels and tree-grapple, she isn't amongst the most approachable heroes. Nerfing her range would be enhancing that prospect.
-Makes her less flexible when it comes to laning, making her potentially unviable pick in lineups she'd otherwise shine in.

Range-change worth doing? Don't know about that. Worth considering? Absolutely!

[Antimodus]

Thanks Farosarg for what is IMO very level-headed and objective analysis/summary.

[Ekamo]

I just want to clear the discussion about Relentless Salvo and making it an attack modifier. I have no inside information about this, but it wouldn't take a genius to realize that this will never happen. S2 has explicitly made clear with their actions, when they removed all the attack modifiers on the likes of Slither and Accursed that they want NO ATTACK MODIFIERS on heroes innately. A hero need to have an orb (Vindicator, Arachna) or build items to get that.

Keep this in mind, any further discussions about this will be a waste of time and will as such be deleted.

Carry on :)

[`blackbird`]

They should just make her starting attack range like 450 and have her passive add +25 range on each level, sort of like templar assassin in dota. I'm not sure if people still max her passive first now but it'd make it so that they'd have to do it if they want a good range.

[Lucozade]

the signature of silhoutte is based on the burst damage she got on early game and mid game, however it doesnt really scales well late game since u only have a magical stun and a +12 damage buff, she have nerfed at least 3~4 times, and she is very squishy compare to other carry late game, i think shes doing fine recently.
Moreover hisult has only 15 sec at lv 6, not much to do on it.

In mid compare to other blink heros its hard for here to get rune control, and his mana pool is extremley low compare toother hero +1.7 per lv whichi makes nullstone viable for her, however nullstone also got nerfed so she depends on item so much to be good..
well balanced i think

[girard`]

They should just make her starting attack range like 450 and have her passive add +25 range on each level, sort of like templar assassin in dota. I'm not sure if people still max her passive first now but it'd make it so that they'd have to do it if they want a good range.

AKA Flux.

[zstarkey42]

You don't need to destroy her. A simple nerf to 550 range OR smaller stun duration would make her laning alright while keeping her lategame potential.

[Liv_Tyler]

In today's current meta, Silhouette is seen as one of the, if not, the strongest heroes in Heroes of Newerth. She is frequently picked/banned in competitive games and is also very popular in pub. This is due to the fact that Silhouette is an unbelievably safe pick due to her in built escape mechanisms and damage passive. Let's go through her skillset and how it allows her to remain relevant at all stages of the game.

Death Lotus is a 280 magic damage skill-shot nuke which also does DoT that allows her to flash farm, kill the enemy and proc her passive. This skill remains useful from the start of the game to the end

Tree Grapple not only acts as an escape mechanism but can also simultaneously stun more than one enemy for a maximum for a 2.5 seconds making Silhouette extremely hard to kill during the laning phase and a very strong ganker mid game when picking up a Portal Key.

One skill point in Relentless Salvo allows her to easily out harass about 95% of the hero pool. The attack speed proc also makes it a powerful skill late game as Silhouette does not have to build attack speed items and can opt for straight damage and survivability items (ie. sheildbreaker, nullstone).

Silhouette's Ult is also a ridiculously powerful skill throughout the game. It allows players to put themselves in dangerous positions and know that with one button click they can immediately be back in their fountain. As the game lingers on pick offs become more valuable and this skill allows her to be able to pick off important heroes in seconds.

Other things to note about this hero is that she is extremely versatile in how she lanes. She can tri-lane, dual lane, mid, suicide lane with success. This is due to the strength of her passive combined with 600 range preventing supports from harming her. Even when she is shutdown from her lane, with the use of her death lotus, she is able to farm a stacked jungle efficiently and become relevant in the game again.

Although Silhouette did recently receive a nerf to tree grapple reducing her farming ability, she still remains an extremely strong and safe pick and something should be done to bring her down to the strength of other ranged carries. Let's compare her to FA, Flint, MoA, SS, and CD.

FA: Strong lane presence due to her stun and skeletons, but no escape mechanism and squishy. Can farm very fast once she has later levels w/ passive.
Flint: Has lane presence due to nuke but slow, no escape mech, extremely squishy and has to build for both attack speed and damage. Can carry very hard late game w/ good farm.
MoA: Strong lane presence, can farm well with DoT and can carry/support well. No reliable escape mech and is squishy. Cant carry has hard as other ranged carries.
SS: Strong lane presence, can flash farm very quickly. Easily shut down, squishy and 0 escape mechanisms.
CD: Strong lane presence, powerful skill set allows him to focus on building survivability. Can't carry has hard as other carries, considered anti-carry at times.

Silhouette can also out-harass a slither who is considered to have one of the stronger laning presences due to his strong passive. However unlike Silhouette, slither only has 500 range.

I know it is discouraged to suggest changes but I think these are viable and will get the ball moving in conversation:

Range nerf: with 500-550 range, her laning presence will be nerfed while she will still be able to carry hard (arguably not as hard) with the use of her passive.
Tree Grapple nerf: Allow Silhouette to only pull the tree towards her and not jump to her, would reduce her escape potential while keeping the stun.
Death Lotus nerf: Change it so the DoT does not affect creeps reducing her ability to farm with the skill while still keeping it dangerous.

Thanks for reading :)

Could not agree more with everything you have written. Siluette is BY FAR THE MOST OVERPOWERED hero at the moment which is why she is picked in 99,5 % of all matchmaking games and banned/picked on competetive play.

[lortaku]

MoA: Strong lane presence, can farm well with DoT and can carry/support well. No reliable escape mech and is squishy. Cant carry has hard as other ranged carries.

Just wanted to mention that MoA's ultimate allows you to escape pretty well using shield, or speed burst. It also works on other heroes as well. Not only that his red Q also knocks an enemy back, also useful for escaping.

I think a good enough nerf is a range nerf. Her other skills seem fine. Her nukes aren't as reliable (as in they have a decent chance to miss) as other carries' nukes, but her laning presence is just too strong, making her snowball into a monster late game. The range nerf is all that is needed imo.

[Shatterz]

the signature of silhoutte is based on the burst damage she got on early game and mid game, however it doesnt really scales well late game since u only have a magical stun and a +12 damage buff, she have nerfed at least 3~4 times, and she is very squishy compare to other carry late game, i think shes doing fine recently.
Moreover hisult has only 15 sec at lv 6, not much to do on it.

In mid compare to other blink heros its hard for here to get rune control, and his mana pool is extremley low compare toother hero +1.7 per lv whichi makes nullstone viable for her, however nullstone also got nerfed so she depends on item so much to be good..
well balanced i think

1: Hag has no single steriod, besides being ranged with 600 range and good mobility. Still she can carry pretty wel. You dont need steriods to carry, if you have good mobility.
2: Sil has, besides the +damage that STACKS, also extra attack speed afters using skills and an ultimate that scales with her items and levels. So yes, her 3 steriods combined with one of the best escapes out of any fight/gank, combined with another strong escape that also acts as a stun with a huge duration, the ability to farm both the jungle and clear creepwaves non-stop once she has a sustainer and lategame being one of the best split-pushers in the game.

All of that, without any downside. She has good MS, good animation, strong damage, fits in every line-up, in almost every lane.
The problem is not per se that her current skills are too strong, but she doesnt come with any downsides during any phase of the game. She can do everything, everywhere at any time, and she is strong at it as well, without disadvantages.

TLDR: Valk 2.0 She does too much of everything without disadvantages while being able to carry.

[Raina_]

1: Hag has no single steriod, besides being ranged with 600 range and good mobility. Still she can carry pretty wel. You dont need steriods to carry, if you have good mobility.

Sorry but i disagree. The normal Agi, Str carry have some inbuilt steroid (Ias, Damage, Survivability, Orb) skill, in which, conjunction with the appropriate items boost their carry potential, usually scaling abilities. Yes, Hag can carry as well but Int carries and/or tanky dps heroes work very differently to the usual carries. So it's not that profitable to compare Sil and Hag.

[Example27]

It seems most of you have agreed that Silhouette's range should be reduced which is quite reasonable considering her Relentless Salvo. The reduced stun duration on the Tree Grapple could be looked into as well, but it's quite a skill shot and doesn't have such a huge width so I am not sure if it should be tempered with if the her attack range is reduced.

[Lucozade]

I Think it is fair enough to be 600 range as a ranged carry, by far flint, moa, ew have even a more insane range which can harass the others out. the stun is 2 second which is reasonable, in late game a single stun cannot do really much on any thing there should be more bigger issue we should concern on, since there is more than 41 hero with range higher 500

[Antimodus]

People in this thread are also forgetting to mention tree grapple giving her some +100 MS while being attached, just for extra lulz.

the point is that a hero with a vanish-like passive and 600 range can simply dish out too many autoattacks in a short period of time, in too many scenarios. Now you can argue that pyromancer does this as well, but there are two main differences - the IAS burst is lesser, and he can't reposition himself as much as silhouette so at least you have the option of getting away from him easily, or you jump on him and he drops with no escape. Repositioning without blinks takes more time and if done defensively you aren't going to be attacking anything while running away. Imagine on the other hand if a hero like wretched hag had pyro's or sil's passive +IAS. That would make her totally broken.

It's not the individual skills that Sil has are too strong themselves, they just work too well together. It's a case where the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.

As for flint, moa, EW they all have no self displacement skills. EW doesn't even have autoattack-boosting abilities at all (except his silence shot which can be considered as one additional free autoattack). MoA's rapidfire mode is 550 range and doesn't provide additional dps (2x faster attacks for 1/2 as much damage) aside from procs.

Flint has admittedly strong scaling (probably the strongest ranged carry with a full itemset), it's just that it is way more risky to bank on a flint reaching a full item set, he is about as vulnerable as a soulstealer, and without the early power farming to bounce back from a bad start. Sil on the other hand has power farming capability and is a harder target to gank. AND she's almost tied with Flint in how strong she gets with full gear.

[``fagatron]

As for flint, moa, EW they all have no self displacement skills. EW doesn't even have autoattack-boosting abilities at all. Gawain lvl. 2 or 3 give her a boost when her health is low, like 40 IAS and 40 damage or something; the info is not readily available anywhere because S2 games sucks at tooltips. MoA's rapidfire mode is 550 range and doesn't provide additional dps (2x faster attacks for 1/2 as much damage) aside from procs. Actually it gives 400% IAS, which does result in deeper deeps.


----

[`blackbird`]

Doesn't change the fact that those 3 heros farm slower, have no instant escape like silo, or a really easy to use aoe stun. Moa can compare in terms of aoe damage, but it's the escape that make silo stand out among ranged carries.

[Shatterz]

Nerf her early game or nerf her escapes(both ulti and grapple). She simply gets away far to easy.

[Emiya]

----
Lol. At first I thought Antimodus typed the bolded too. Made him seem a bit schizophrenic.

But yeah, Silo is still a bit too strong. I don't necessarily think she should be heavily nerfed, and I actually like it that she is stronger than EW/Flint since her skill ceiling is much higher, but a slight nerf to her survivability would probably put her in a good place.

[GrasshopperG]

If you make her switch positions skill from her ult like a pk or booboo, can only switch if you havent been attacked in the last 3/5 seconds

[dabbe`]

I mean sure, a nerf on Silhouette wouldn't be that devestating, but don't you think you're overreacting just a bit when you want to nerf her so hard that she will never get picked again? Sounds a bit crazy to me.

[zstarkey42]

Well imo the 2 main flaws with Silhouete are the stupid strong laning phase via Salvo and a 2.5 sec AOE stun... both put into a hard carry skillset. I think a small nerf to both of these would put her in place. I'm pretty sure she would still be a strong laner with 550 range especially considering she has a) a gap closer+stun b) her salvo procs and c) her death lotus to harass. As for her grapple, I don't see why she needs to have one of the longest aoe stuns of the game. Either reduce the duration to 2 seconds keeping the same duration at every level to compensate for it, or just remove the stun from the reeling skill.

[girard`]

I do feel this is becoming a flame-war as there have been five pages of bashing eachother's opinions and ideas to change Silhouette. I think S2 gets the idea...we think she has too much of everything.

[Skyve]

Just something I wrote in regards to Tree Grapple no longer affecting neutrals:

I feel like this change is completely pointless and barely affects the hero in terms of the reason why she gets picked up so much in comp.
Silhouette is a ranged hardcarry with great innate harass potential. Which is one problem. 1v1 she is capable of winning a lot of lanes, since she is able to trade auto-attacks better than a large number of heroes. This capability is further augmented by her having 600 range - since 600 range heroes in general have a bigger window of opportunity to harass other heroes with their auto-attacks already. Basically I feel like her passive would be better placed on a hero that has actual problems rightclicking enemy heroes in lane, so making each hit count more would be "justified".
What her 600 range also allows for her to do is stand in a more "safe" position while lasthitting, making it that much more difficult to gank her, compared to a hero with less range, who would have to expose itself more often to be able to farm. What makes that even worse, Silhouette does have an escape mechanism, further increasing her safety.
To add on top of that, Silhouette has a high innate damage potential. This is problematic due to her also existing, rather strong, carrying potential. Normally you pick a hardcarry and sacrifice at least some part of early game potential. Picking Silhouette doesn't really do that. She performs great during all stages of the game. Her innate damage potential is even so high, that for a hero that DOES hardcarry, she can basically pick up 10-12k worth of non (primary)-damage items without any actual noticeable loss in effectiveness.
Nullstone into Portalkey/Shrunken/Geometer's Bane (counting Geometer's Bane as a slightly defensive item here, due to the nature of the activateable portion of it, although it's more of a hybrid).
This wouldn't be that big of an issue, but due to the other 2 points above, which basically mean that she is likely to win her lane, or at least be somewhat even, this results in Silhouette having too much going for her.
Ignoring her farming capability and the additional safety/utility from her utlimate for now, as I don't believe it to be too problematic on the grand scheme of things.
The conclusion I would draw from the above would be to reduce Silhouettes attack range, forcing her to expose herself more, and relying more on her passive to "break even" in harass, instead of it granting dominance.

[Dominare]

What her 600 range also allows for her to do is stand in a more "safe" position while lasthitting, making it that much more difficult to gank her, compared to a hero with less range, who would have to expose itself more often to be able to farm. What makes that even worse, Silhouette does have an escape mechanism, further increasing her safety.

This is essentially the exact same example I used over in the attack ranges thread, so no big surprise that I agree with it. There is only one other hero in HoN that has both 600 range and an extremely potent escape, and that's Valkyrie. As you're all well aware, she's been somewhat popular as well, but doesn't carry nearly as hard as Sil can.

[foxmindedguy]

Just something I wrote in regards to Tree Grapple no longer affecting neutrals:

I feel like this change is completely pointless and barely affects the hero in terms of the reason why she gets picked up so much in comp.

I would rather have preferred Tree Grappling only affecting neutrals, but that might be over-kill. I am not a big fan of a ranged carry with amazing pew pew steroids, combined with 2 escapes, up to 1800 range line stun (that conveniently gives her movement speed too) and a nuke that is passively a mini-mock.

The only way I see her getting balanced is either massive number nerfs or a rework.

[Skyve]

You can't make any "massive" number nerfs to Silhouette at this point anymore, considering she has to compete with the likes of FA and Draconis.

[foxmindedguy]

You can't make any "massive" number nerfs to Silhouette at this point anymore, considering she has to compete with the likes of FA and Draconis.

OK agreed, FA and Draconis do have a very high relative power, but why can't we nerf all three?

[`blackbird`]

What is the typical skill build for silo? Is it still maxing salvo then lotus or lv 1 passive max lotus then passive?


Maybe make her tree a scaling stun time as well? So her early game stun presence isn't that great? Maybe scaling movement speed as well? Decrease the range at which the rope can be thrown? Make her more gankable at early levels so she can be shut down from the start, preventing her from getting fat from the start?

Lv 1 tree: +25ms, .5 second stun
Lv 2 tree: +50ms, 1 second stun
Lv 3 tree: +75ms, 1.5 second stun
Lv 4 tree: +100ms, 2 second stun

[Skyve]

What is the typical skill build for silo? Is it still maxing salvo then lotus or lv 1 passive max lotus then passive?


Maybe make her tree a scaling stun time as well? So her early game stun presence isn't that great? Maybe scaling movement speed as well? Decrease the range at which the rope can be thrown? Make her more gankable at early levels so she can be shut down from the start, preventing her from getting fat from the start?

Lv 1 tree: +25ms, .5 second stun
Lv 2 tree: +50ms, 1 second stun
Lv 3 tree: +75ms, 1.5 second stun
Lv 4 tree: +100ms, 2 second stun

Last time I saw her played it was maxing Q then E, but usually you see E maxed first. As for the stun: The duration already scales with levels with standard 1 +0.5/lvl.

[`blackbird`]

Last time I saw her played it was maxing Q then E, but usually you see E maxed first. As for the stun: The duration already scales with levels with standard 1 +0.5/lvl.

I saw that after I checked the hero page but 2.5 aoe seems a bit much seeing as most other stuns only last ~2 seconds. Although I'll admit hers is much more situational and needs much better positioning.

[Alten]

The easiest, perhaps most logical way to balance her is in decreasing her general utility while buffing her damage if the nerf proves too significant. This has been the (general) consistent conclusion drawn by almost every reasonable individual since Silhouette had first been perceived as overpowered.

Continued discussion on the matter is pointless. It has been justified several times now with examples of existing heroes where powerful abilities have been tempered with noticeable limitations and drawbacks (SS, MM, Andro, etc.); justified with general logic; justified by a majority's agreement; and justified in other ways that would simply be redundant to list further.

[Theburned]

I think the biggest issue with her is being able to instant swap with her illusion who can stand pretty much anywhere on the map, making her close to ungankable. A minor nerf which would do a lot, have the swap have around 2000-3000 range, so that you can't use it to teleport back to base whenever you are getting ganked.

[Elman1]

You can't make any "massive" number nerfs to Silhouette at this point anymore, considering she has to compete with the likes of FA and Draconis.

This is a terrible argument. Those heroes are broken too, but this is the Silhouette thread and not the 600 range carries with retarded farming abilities thread. Let's discuss how to balance the hero at hand.

[Dominare]

Let's discuss how to balance the hero at hand.

You can't 'balance' any given thing without examining other things with similar properties. That's what balance *means*.

[Elman1]

You can't 'balance' any given thing without examining other things with similar properties. That's what balance *means*.

He wasn't comparing Silhouette to the average carry, he was comparing her to other top tier common competitive picks. Nerfing overpowered heroes is easier than buffing every other hero so they can compete with the overpowered ones.

[Dominare]

Nerfing overpowered heroes is easier than buffing every other hero so they can compete with the overpowered ones.

No argument there :)

[LordTroll]

^ Not only that, it also doesn't make the balance of the game a huge mess by constantly increasing the power level across the board. Hell, I don't want every hero to be a Silh or Valk.

[Darkstar_X]

Any change to Sil without a sweeping change would be pointless. She isn't dominating any level of play, low or high. Shes a safe competitive pick, but competing with others for her slot. Each role really only has about 3 competitors. For example look at the roles as demonstrated by: Pebbles, Tundra, Nymphora, Magebane, Moraxus. There are actually very few heroes that compete with each of them for their role, in fact, its about the same amount as there are competing for ranged carry. To balance a hero, you have to look at those in the same environment, in the same role. There's a difference between "ranged carries are too strong" and "Silhouette is too strong compared to other competitive ranged carries" which seems to be lost amongst people here.

[Hermione]

Well having 2 Strong escapes, and having a damage passive + attack speed steroid that works off all her other skills (including 2 uses of tree grapple, and multiple illusion swaps) makes her incredibly strong.

Alot of carries like flint, and mq don't have any escapes, let alone 2 escapes, let alone 2 STRONG escapes like silh. Tree grapple has some pretty awesome range, and bar chain disabling a silh farming alone she will just swap out her ulti illusion and keep farming somewhere else...

***Maybe make the cooldown on her ultimate a little longer so she can't just ult/farm/swap with impunity late game? That way she won't have her ult for a teamfight.***

[Psionic]

Alright, time to sit down and talk about this. Do I think she needs a change? I'll get to that in a moment

First off, we all know Silhouette is an extremely mobile, hard to gank hero due to good escapes and decent stat gain (at least as far as ranged AGI goes) as well as her exit stun, assuming it is used. Her ultimate escape requires good micro and quick reaction in the case of being jumped by a gank squad. But with practice, this becomes an extremely effective escape, similar to that of an ophelia's judgement, only personal. However, does this set of tools make her too powerful? I don't believe so, honestly. That's one of the perks of the hero that makes her pickworthy. She is an extremely safe unit for farming and survivability when played right, where dealing with it is always possible but difficult, comparable to ganking a hero with a blink effect.

Now, about her farming. She does have very strong early-midgame farming due to her strong lane presence and Death Lotus farming ability. Ultimately, it is very comparable to a Draconis or FA if not arguably weaker. Silhouette, however, has the safer jungle / lane farm with the ability to quickly pull herself out of harm's way. Does this not make her superior to these heroes for such reasons? Well... No. I will get to it as to WHY, but for now, we have her nailed as a strong farming, very hard to gank, and excellent harassing hero in lane.

Where this all culminates is where she fits into a teamfight. She fairs well in most teamfights, with her stun, high nuke damage, and very very high AA damage. But what, exactly, besides damage, does she add to a teamfight? She has only one mechanic, besides items with teamfight abilities, which is her tree grapple. Despite being her one and only real teamfight ability, it SHINES. In stun duration and damage, it rivals the length of Moraxus's stun, and the AOE can be an extreme area, longer than tempest's ultimate stun from end to end. There's a reason why this hero usually builds into a Portal Key, and this is why. Here is where I must say, Yes, Silhouette needs a nerf, but I honestly think they had it wrong when they nerfed tree grapple the first time. More explaining!

She is MADE for maneuverability and DPS. That is her calling card and her main strength, the basis of the hero creation. In essence, she should be compared to a nuker / carry, like Pyromancer. Pyromancer has a strong nuke, an AOE stun, and other cool gadgets that make Pyromancer that maniac we all love. The big difference is that Silhouette has better DPS, and more escapes. Does that make it the problem? No! Nerfing her farming ability will NOT address the issue that she can primary initiate as well as a Moraxus or a Pyromancer with her grapple. The simple problem is she can do too much with ONE ability, and I think I've singled out the ability that I'm harping on so clearly everyone can see it.

Why. Does the tree grapple need to have a 2.5 second stun at level four. It deals 220 damage, works as an escape and a powerful nuke, AND it procs relentless salvo. The issue isn't that she farms well, or that she is hard to gank, it's that she can do both these things and still remain a large asset in a teamfight with either a initiation or secondary stun that is extremely helpful in assisting a team to win the fight past damage output. There's a reason why Magebane doesn't have a huge, two second stun on his mana rift, and it's the same. exact. reason. She cannot be that DPS oriented, and still remain such an extreme teamfight asset. That's the issue you have to hit. Not 2.5 seconds. MAYBE one second. In all honestly, it should be Madman's barrel roll + a ministun. That's my two pages and 39c

[herro`kiti]

This is a terrible argument. Those heroes are broken too, but this is the Silhouette thread and not the 600 range carries with retarded farming abilities thread. Let's discuss how to balance the hero at hand.

Wait wait, are you trying to say Silhouette ISN'T a 600 range carry with retarded farming ability?


That said though... I do get tired of seeing complaints about her, she's gotten nothing but nerfs since release and still "wah wah nerf sil"

[Antimodus]

Wait wait, are you trying to say Silhouette ISN'T a 600 range carry with retarded farming ability?

I think what he was trying to say that this thread is about balancing one hero, not balancing of all of the "600 range carry with retarded farming ability" category. Just because there are other OP heroes in this class doesn't justify Silhouette being one as well.



That said though... I do get tired of seeing complaints about her, she's gotten nothing but nerfs since release and still "wah wah nerf sil"

I do not understand the logic behind such arguments.
Are you saying we should judge whether a hero is currently balanced or not based on how many consequential buffs or nerfs it received in the past?

Disclaimer: not saying this is a direct parallel, just pointing out the logical flaw with an example
If I came out with a hero that has a 2k damage global nuke, then nerfed it to 1900, 1800, 1700 damage, would it surprise you anyone is "still whining" after it received "nothing but nerfs"?


What happened with Sil: Released at a batshit insane OP level of power, got nerfed down to just ordinary level of OP. Some people don't even see it as a problem now because there are other equally broken picks for the role such as FA and drac.

[sharbarachu]

I don't think Sil, Drac, and Fa are on the same level, as many people keep comparing them. Fa/Drac may have 600 range, yes, and Fa/Drac may be good flash farmers (even better); however, their steroids, in conjunction with their other abilities, make a MUCH less threatening carry.

A farmed Draconis/FA can be powerful, but against an organized team, it's never a "gg too farmed" if just the carry has taken off. Heroes like magebane and silhouette are different. If all the farm is put on them, and their teammates are not totally getting stomped, they will be a game ender. We've seen it time and time again in comp matches.

Bottom line: Silhouette is a highly mobile hero that will more often than not outshine FA/Drac even with less items. Draconis/FA can be locked down, kited, and juked to an extent, especially with the aid of teammates. Silhouette does not have this issue, and for that alone, there NEEDS to be a bigger gap in farming/laning potential from Sil to these other 600 range hard carries.

[koosnad]

What happened with Sil: Released at a batshit insane OP level of power, got nerfed down to just ordinary level of OP. Some people don't even see it as a problem now because there are other equally broken picks for the role such as FA and drac.

Lulz So the top 3 picked ranged carries are all broken? Not sure about this guy. All this is becoming is a bunch of pubs raging for getting wrecked by a good hero.


A farmed Draconis/FA can be powerful, but against an organized team, it's never a "gg too farmed" if just the carry has taken off.

See what happens when a draco decides to press R after SH and Savage.

editted the quote, muh bad

[triplej]

Lulz So the top 3 picked ranged carries are all broken? Not sure about this guy.

That's what Antimodus does, man. Don't take away his shtick.



All this is becoming is a bunch of pubs raging for getting wrecked by a good hero.


That's all it was from the beginning.

[Antimodus]

koosnad, don't misquote - I didn't write what's in your second quote. sharbarachu did.

triplej, perhaps you should read your own signature and think about it. I also don't think the "noobs getting wrecked by X hero" line of arguments is still impressing anyone. You COULD simply state this hero is well balanced, if that's your opinion, and leave it at that.

[Wei2SMITHIE]

Just something I wrote in regards to Tree Grapple no longer affecting neutrals:

I feel like this change is completely pointless and barely affects the hero in terms of the reason why she gets picked up so much in comp.
.

The change was actually bigger then you think. Seriously before you could easily rack up a 500gpm from rotating the jungle then farming the nearest lane, but it literally takes double the time to take out a neutral camp.

Not only this but you can't take stacked ancients solo with out loosing all your hp or mana.

Trust me this change severly changed her farming potential.

[GregerMoek]

I'm pretty sure the time is not doubled. Just because one of two nukes are gone doesn't mean that half the damage is gone.

[TheRiSenDeAd]

Silhouette feels like playing roulette as the casino, instead of the player. The odds are always in your favor.
I am, frankly, doubting whether she is OP or just the strongest hero out there.

You watch people play her, Bads play her horribly ... but when in the hands of a pro ... Good game.

[GregerMoek]

Shame we only have like 12 pros in HoN. No good games ever.

[Pewe`]

Change [Relentless Salvo]
Stacks per level (2/3/4/5) instead of 5 at level 1. This will nerf her early game a bit.
That'll make you reconsider your skillbuild as you usually max 1st spell first nowadays.
:)

[Antimodus]

I am, frankly, doubting whether she is OP or just the strongest hero out there.

What does that even mean?
is the game so well balanced that even "the strongest" hero (not against something specific, but a universal "strongest") is not OP? That'd mean the balance work for this game is done, pretty much...

[LukDeRiff]

So since everybody seems to give their 2 cents in this one, I won't hold back.

The problem with silhouette (sil) is that she is too good in too many situations in comparison to other carries. I am not going to start to list of her pros and cons since every one and their mother has already done that.

One thing that a lot of people do not see is that if you have a "Master of all trades" hero like sil you have to be very careful to not to turn her into "dumpster of all trades" hero. She is too good in too many situations, well what happens if she is only mediocre in those situations ? Exactly she will not be good enough overall.

I am not saying that you can not balance her by just making number changes (truth is you can balance everything by putting the right numbers on it) but that would be very difficult since you are always walking the very thin line in between being either way too strong or way too weak.

So I would narrow down the situations that she is good in to a healthier amount and then let her excel in those.


One last thing I want to add is that they should let tree grapple stun creeps again. At least in my opinion that would not add that much more to her overall strength and having it not stun creeps is terrible from design point of view.

[Antimodus]

+1 to this, there's a similar balance problem with other hero designs as well, where either they are viable and nigh unstoppable or completely useless with no middle ground. Sand wraith's the classic example, though the reasons for him being a problem are completely different, the situation is similar.

They need to decide if this hero is supposed to be good at semi carrying or hard carrying and balance it appropriately. Right now it's as strong as a semi-carry in the early game and strong as a hard carry late game. Why pick one or the other when you can have both, right? seems legit. There are few other carries with this strong a power curve over the course of the game, maybe madman. But he has his limitations. Sil doesn't have any appreciable weaknesses at all.

[Salem1]

I'm making this post because over the last few days I've learned to play Silhouette. I've otherwise got 27% Corrupted Disciple, another ranged carry. The difference between them in power level is almost comical to me as a long-standing user of CD. I barely even know where to begin about why you shouldn't ever play CD if Silhouette isn't picked yet, when I played CD again I felt like I was gimped. No escapes, no stun, no gap closer, no self-dispel, no illusion he can swap places with the uses of which are infinite, no 600 range (the 600 range vs CD's 475 is one of the big dealbreakers to me for several reasons), no salvo-harass in lane, no flash farming, no relative freedom of item choice and no shoehorning into what you practically must build, no doing stuff like dodging Rampage's charge by clicking a button and getting away, no ability to fit in any lane except imo a suicide lane, no hard carrying, no killing an enemy carry with shrunken/null stone/debuff removal, no burst damage in the same way, no getting in and out of a fight instead of deciding whether you're going in or not, no restriction to keep near a particular hero in order to do what you're meant to do, no being outkited, no need to get shrunken head just because the enemy team includes a Slither......

After playing her I'm quite demoralised about the whole balance in HoN, with people claiming heroes like Silhouette are balanced and S2's extremely slow, small-scale balancing. And this is her when she's nerfed? it's a joke.

But it's not only CD which is a gimped character in comparison, more heroes are gimped and not just in comparison to Silhouette. I think Silhouette remaining overpowered is but one of the imbalances, it would be wrong to think she is the only source of ranged carry imbalance. There are more factors at work than just her, more factors than just the disparity between heroes performing the same role. Silhouette is the best ranged carry because she handles the factors the others have to deal with in an overpowered way, ie. she is not only strong on paper - she is probably even stronger in practice when you realize the possibilities.

But with heroes like Plague Rider, Magmus etc. remaining at large, you can as I said hardly place the sole blame on Silhouette. She is just part of the OP-armada. I dearly wish S2 does something about Silhouette and the rest of them but if you look at what's been accomplished so far... sigh...



Just wanted to express myself after yesterday's furthering the conclusion I already had by actually playing Silhouette myself.

[koosnad]

So in lieu of all these ridiculous posts, and seeing as my last response was just me trolling, I'll post something a little more serious.

All I see here is a bunch of cry baby whining because someone's favorite hero isn't as strong as someone like Sil. If we take a look at the top carries in the meta right now, (Sil, Draco, MB, TDL) They all have two things in common which is Escapability, and farming ability, and decent early game presence. Everyone's been annoyed by a MB blinking in and draining your mana laning phase, draco's long range and passive, sil's long range and passive, and TDL, really?

Nothing Sil does right now can be considered a HARD COUNTER to anything that any of these other heroes do. If we look at other carries such as CD, yes he might not be as strong, but it's not to say he can't scale well into the late game and it's ridiculous to say that he can't possibly keep up with sil late game. To begin with he has an ability that costs only 50 mana that can completely counter her damage output in his conduit, so in a 1v1 situation theres no contest. He can't flash farm as well as these other carries, but his tide can easily take out half a creep wave and help you finish off the rest if timed properly. He is THE FASTEST hero in the game with his Passive and combined with phase boots it's really just no contest.

At the end of the day, there will always be heroes that are stronger than others, asking a developer to make EVERYTHING completely balanced is something that's not gonna happen, and you're just wasting your breath.

I will say that I would like to see other heroes BUFFED so that we can see a bigger variety of heroes in the pro scene, but just because the hero is strong in the pub scene doesnt mean that the heroees OP. I've seen teams with Sil lose, with MB lose, with TDL lose, and with Draco even. It all boils down to knowing how to handle the situation you're in.

[Salem1]

Nothing Sil does right now can be considered a HARD COUNTER to anything that any of these other heroes do. If we look at other carries such as CD, yes he might not be as strong, but it's not to say he can't scale well into the late game and it's ridiculous to say that he can't possibly keep up with sil late game. To begin with he has an ability that costs only 50 mana that can completely counter her damage output in his conduit, so in a 1v1 situation theres no contest. He can't flash farm as well as these other carries, but his tide can easily take out half a creep wave and help you finish off the rest if timed properly. He is THE FASTEST hero in the game with his Passive and combined with phase boots it's really just no contest.

At the end of the day, there will always be heroes that are stronger than others, asking a developer to make EVERYTHING completely balanced is something that's not gonna happen, and you're just wasting your breath.

I will say that I would like to see other heroes BUFFED so that we can see a bigger variety of heroes in the pro scene, but just because the hero is strong in the pub scene doesnt mean that the heroees OP. I've seen teams with Sil lose, with MB lose, with TDL lose, and with Draco even. It all boils down to knowing how to handle the situation you're in.

Silh doesn't stand a chance against CD 1v1? she's got an ability that instantly removes conduit from herself, she's got another one that she can use to get out of its range and two very common pickups on her (geos and null stone) both counter it (on an off-topic sidenote he's not the fastest hero in the game neither by burst nor sustained movement).

You basically seem to be saying that Silhouette etc. being overpowered is fine and we're all just crying that the game isn't balanced. That's what it seemed like until the last paragraph. Wanting to see a bigger variety of heroes picked is the same goal I have, that you see this as ranting because X isn't as strong as Y is just immature, people use the examples they're most familiar with and comparing two heroes with the same role happens to be a valid comparison.

That's the only reason why I used CD for the comparison, I don't want either of them to be stronger than the other but Silhouette clearly being so is why I posted here. Is it wrong to express that opinion in Silhouette's own balance thread? I don't think so. I don't mind anymore that this hero is overpowered since I started playing it now and can thus abuse it while it lasts but I would much rather see things equalised than kept as they are.

[Antimodus]

To begin with he has an ability that costs only 50 mana that can completely counter her damage output in his conduit, so in a 1v1 situation theres no contest.

How can you write something like this, do you expect it to be taken seriously?

[Lucozade]

well dont really thinks its that strong in current metagame, gunblade , dragconis, even ew can nuke him down easily, ew even has a superior heal and silence stopping him to use any of his skills gunblade no need to mention just hit him ass pain dragconis with the magic damage given all newly s2 designed after the free to play system cames out just shows silhoutte is a well designed hero, it has already constantly got nerfed with different things apply on different patch.
I dont really want to see a silhoutte that no ones gonna use anymore just similar to gemini


even a well farmed mq queen can easily takes off all his illusion with a few autos

[Darkstar_X]

The problem isn't Sil, as seen this last dreamhack summer championship. When the 4 big carries aren't available, teams go carry-less. Its not a problem of them being too strong per say, its that without them, carries are so incredibly weak since the gameplay has gradually gotten faster that carries are simply not good. It wasn't uncommon to see lineups like bubbles, ophillia, moraxus, pollywog, glacius and opt to win with a push. Simply nerfing the only viable carries will remove the strat of pouring all farm into them from viability more than it would give rise to them being replaced by new ones. If you want more viable carries, the only real solution is buffing the others at this point.

[Tomate]

The problem with silhouette is the design... The hero was designed to be able to do too many things... Her salvo includes a double attack on spell cast, her stun includes a possible escape mechanism, her ultimate is both a damage amp and an escape mechanism, her nuke also has a damaging aura while active... All of those just creates so many potentially unbalanced things that the hero becomes incredibly hard to balance...

[GregerMoek]

^Not to forget that she has long attack range (600) and has 'normal' movement speed (300) and decent starting armour. Making her a super good laner.

[Malefication]

When the 4 big carries aren't available, teams go carry-less.
One game. Give me one game where there hasn't been a carry.

[Antimodus]

Even if there were a few examples of 0 carry lineups, is that supposed to be a problem? This discussion is kinda off-topic though.

[IceHism]

Even if there were a few examples of 0 carry lineups, is that supposed to be a problem? This discussion is kinda off-topic though.

Yes, it's a problem because now a whole hero archetype isn't getting used.

HoN has this problem, except it concerns the other 60 heroes in the hero pool who aren't used.

[Antimodus]

so if there's a lineup with 0 pushers or 0 roamers or 0 gankers, is that a problem too?

of course if no one ever plays a lineup that has carries in it, it's a problem. But having 0 carry lineups that are viable is not, IMO.

[LordTroll]

Yes, it's a problem because now a whole hero archetype isn't getting used.

HoN has this problem, except it concerns the other 60 heroes in the hero pool who aren't used.

That's a really stupid argument.

There's niche and counter strategies that leave out several hero archetypes out of the equation, but that is only good as it allows for more variety, and original, exotic compositions. Far more interesting to see these being viable in the right circumstances than the exact same strat every game.

[Ouker]

I think the biggest problem with Silhouette is how easily she can farm in dangerous circumnstances and then just R away to her clone.
Maybe make it so "Like a Ninja" has a range of, say, 2500? That way she can't just port back to base, and might actually still be in dangerous territory after doing it.
Or make her get cast-time on the ability if it goes beyond a certain range. Even a short time would work, like 0.5 secs more for each 1000 after 2000 range. That would make Silhouettes consider carefully if they really want to go balls deep with their farming.
Her signature thing is the amount of burst she throws up and her overall mobility in combat. Don't remove those perks!

[Grounos]

Hello.

I think if silh's range would be nerfed to 550 from 600 would solve alot of issues and still keep the hero as she is suposed to be from what i've experienced and would not hurt her to much.

by nerfin her range abit it makes it easier to harass her early game preventing some of her lane farmin abit easier with another ranged hero or forcing her to move closer to a melee target to harass endangering her a little bit more than usually and would not hurt her flash farmin abilities with the blades later on as the game goes on, but i am no expert this is what i merely thought about for a few weeks other than that the hero is fine ultimate is a bit silly makes her wander around with almost unkillable unless caught of guard with a hellflower before she can shrunk up and gtfo :P i am support player mainly been between 1770-1850 past months and had no major issues with the hero in general.

big love /nick.

[Tomate]

Silhouette is the next generation of Valkyrie... It's a very safe pick, carries pretty hard, has 2 escape mechanisms, is more of a right click hero than valk and less of a nuking hero... She's a very safe bet to any line up... She can safely farm in a lane and compete with the enemy's hard carry late game, she can be in a more complicated scenario and like a 1on1 against most suicide heroes and still dominate, she is just amazingly good.

[Orchest]

I need to test it, but I'm close to certain that silo can actually outcarry everyone else in the game in a traditional hard carry sense except for the mythical 12 item Wildsoul. It's micro intensive, but I don't think anyone has an answer to her dodges and mobility with ulti and geobane. In a team setting people rely on the Everything Counter (lockdown with an instant disable leading), this counters everything in the game and is the only counter to her insane mobility, similar to magebane, but without all the liabilities you accept with a fragile melee hero in laning.

[pewpewstar]

Interesting, how would you go about testing it?

[Whiz]

Sil is stilled in the debate of balance after all those nerfs lol. It's a design problem not the numbers ultimately. Rework please.

[juma0601]

By doing these changes you will not only nerf silhouette but also make her unballanced so that nobody will pick her, because she has lost 3 advantages where only 1 remain, the ultimate. not a good idea...

[Elman1]

By doing these changes you will not only nerf silhouette but also make her unballanced so that nobody will pick her, because she has lost 3 advantages where only 1 remain, the ultimate. not a good idea...

Yeah because Silhouette not getting picked would be a bad thing.

[IceHism]

That's a really stupid argument.

There's niche and counter strategies that leave out several hero archetypes out of the equation, but that is only good as it allows for more variety, and original, exotic compositions. Far more interesting to see these being viable in the right circumstances than the exact same strat every game.

Like what, i need some examples.
You can be a carry without hurrdurr right click auto attack btw. (see old soul reaper/necrolyte)

[ItWas_Luck]

silh does not need to be nerfed imo, nerfing her again would probably make her not viable in low level games and people asking for a rework i dont really understand this, she is one of the most fun, dynamic heroes to play why is this an issue? why do we need another worthless s2 hero if your concerned about other ranged carries not being as strong as her look to buff them instead of nerfing her plz.

[Nemesis10549]

Nerf on sil is not needed. But if U really wanna nerf her, perhaps lower her DoT from 'q' and stun duration from grapple , nt anything else. Dunno why ppl are always crying nerf the fun heroes, nerf the ninja heroes. Mk (though nt nerfed) is not a ninja anymore. Not as fun as he was earlier. Don't want to see this ninja get nerfed .

[Elman1]

Dunno why ppl are always crying nerf the fun heroes

People's idea of "fun" is a hero that can do everything without relying on teammates. A hero that can lane anywhere, gank, farm and carry regardless of their teammates. Valk was enough, we don't need that to be their new design philosophy.

[Antimodus]

is it somehow supposed to be a good thing, when a hero is self-sufficient out of the box, lanes anywhere, outharasses supports at level 2, if sent mid, at least ties it against the strongest mid heroes available.
It then gets to carry status (not a "semi" anything, straight out a carry) with just phase boots + null stone, and then proceeds to farm luxury items at a rate of 600+ gpm occasionally taking breaks to kick everyone's ass. How is that supposed to make the game "fun" for anyone?

I suppose it's nice and relaxing when the carry on my team is a drac or sil and the only thing I need to do to help them stomp the game is ward a bit and stack some camps and ancients. They can farm/control lane anywhere they want, farm neuts EZ, even gank non-escaping heroes with minimal or no help.

Playing against one is just a PITA though. They need to be kept down and beat down all throughout the game, even though they're not actually any weaker than other heroes early game. Losing significantly against them at any point is almost as penalizing as if it were against a Magebane or a TDL. How is that supposed to be fun again?

Having carries with an overpowered early game seems to me as a compromise that was made in order to eliminate the "protect ricing carry for 50min" boredom fest, since when both teams played this way they had no reason to even fight each other before their carry reached >9k power level. That design goal is (apparently) more important than having this class of heroes fairly balanced against other heroes.

I see it more as a necessary evil than a nice or fun thing in itself.

[Elman1]

If that was true HoN wouldn't have a boring farming metagame and DotA 2 would.

It's not necessary at all.

[Whiz]

I want to see some Fully farmed carry vs Another Fully farmed carry battle it out which decides the game ^ and every other hero is like a creep. That's epic fight and entertaining to watch imo rather than one sided stomps. Yes the first one has less action and lots farming bur hey.

[Nemesis10549]

If U wanna see that, U play dota. Hon and dota are 2 different games. S2 wants to make this game action-packed and intense. And if U think sil is so self-sufficient, why is it that she has such a low win percent, heck even in competitive games I've seen here lose more often than win ? She's not good as U make her to be.

[Antimodus]

If that was true HoN wouldn't have a boring farming metagame and DotA 2 would.

Because dota has a lot of counters to this strategy and carries in general. Well thought out or not, you decide. A few random examples,
- Lich's (PR) shield spell slows melee attackers when they hit it by 30%(!)
- Heavenly Halberd is an item that provides a 3 second disarm active (4.5 seconds vs ranged)
- Bane (Succubus) for instance just received a huge buff to enfeeble - lowers base attack damage by 120% at max level and works through BKB, also BKB doesn't remove this debuff on use
- As of latest patch, BKB cannot be sold, so the cost to refresh it back to 10 seconds doubled.
- Pugna (no HoN equivalent) has a void talisman effect castable on allies and enemies
- You can actually gank warded forests with smoke of deceit
- Doombringer has an ult that silences/perplexes/DoT's a single target for approximately 10 hours
- Blade mail (barbed armor) has 100% damage return
- Necrolyte (SR) is stronger in dota, and there's Huskar, both have %HP based single target ults that demolish carries.
- most importantly perhaps, is that ranged carries are far less effective, because they cannot kite enemy targets while running away from them due to turning rates being FAR slower than in HoN. You simply can't afford the time it takes to turn around, attack and turn back again.



I want to see some Fully farmed carry vs Another Fully farmed carry battle it out which decides the game ^ and every other hero is like a creep. That's epic fight and entertaining to watch imo rather than one sided stomps. Yes the first one has less action and lots farming bur hey.

These situations are just painful for me to watch, it's basically a cop-out design wise for what is supposed to be a 5v5 game all throughout. A lame way to force the game to come to an end, even if both teams seek to avoid confrontation for some reason. It's necessary for this to happen sometimes, but by far not the preferred resolution to the game, or by any means an interesting one, the way I see it.

[PrimalAPE]

it's 2 easy for this hero to have high GPM and XPM. It works in lane, and mid. Most noobs will lane with it because it's much easier having a babysitter. Harassing in lane with this lulzhero is easy, and any decent player can solo bot and really keep the opposing enemy in lane from getting close to creeps. The amount of APM needed to have a high GPM and XPM with this hero is cheesy low. Also too easy to push towers with.

This hero needs a rework because it's way to easy to play, farm, and outcarry. A nerf will only make it bad, so it needs reworked.

-APE

[Nemesis10549]

it's 2 easy for this hero to have high GPM and XPM. It works in lane, and mid. Most noobs will lane with it because it's much easier having a babysitter. Harassing in lane with this lulzhero is easy, and any decent player can solo bot and really keep the opposing enemy in lane from getting close to creeps. The amount of APM needed to have a high GPM and XPM with this hero is cheesy low. Also too easy to push towers with.

This hero needs a rework because it's way to easy to play, farm, and outcarry. A nerf will only make it bad, so it needs reworked.

-APE

since U are so desparate for a rework, U either suck with her or U get stomped by her too often. She doesn't need a rework. U don't have to go and keep prophesizing reworks on the fun heroes. And by fun heroes I mean unique and not op. U can remove extra damage from passive if U care about harass too much, remove damage from her stun if U think her 'w' has too much in 1 skill , U can remove the burst from her 'q' active too if U think she has too much burst early game. If U do all this 3 at the same time, she will never be picked in competetive games though but that won't still stop me from picking her and enjoying this "fun" hero.

[Elman1]

What the **** is unique about Silhouette? She's a poorly designed s2 toolbox hero, nothing interesting about her and she adds nothing new to the game. Nuke/stun/escape/illusion ult, big whoop.

She's really fun to play because she's a toolbox, but that also makes her miserable to play against (Oh hey we're 5vs1ing her and she has 10% HP and we're hitting her so she can't PK away eithe--OH WAIT SHE'S GONE)

[Antimodus]

she is not too different from Morphling in dota, both have some big escape/survival mechs, an illusion they can port into, and are generally a huge PITA to play against.

At least Morphling has 350 attack range though.

[PopCokeSoda]

she is not too different from Morphling in dota, both have some big escape/survival mechs, an illusion they can port into, and are generally a huge PITA to play against.
At least Morphling has 350 attack range though.

That pretty sums up the problem with silhouette, this discussion and what needs to be changed. 350 range might be a tad too drastic for a hero without morphlings survivability, but tone it down to 550 and see where it takes us.

[zstarkey42]

People are grossly overreacting. Having escapes and overal manuverability is good on a carry... It makes them reliable. The issue with Silhouete is that she combines said versatility with her 600 range (which is the overal maximum for 99% of the heropool), turning her into a powerhorse during the laning phase. Her stun is not the easiest to land and requires a PK in most situations to be effective, something that is not ideal for a carry. She does not carry super wtfhax hard like MB or Dark Lady. Again, it's her range that makes her still a threat later on despite having overal low damage (salvo is not the best scaling skill...). Just nerf her range to 500-550 or so and she's fine. She will still be able to outharass a lot of people, but you at least have a better chance of shutting her down or gank her due to this limitation.

Other ranged carries like MQ, CD, MOA, etc have tradeoffs between their steroids, nukes and utility with attack range. Silhouette doesen't and that's her main problem IMO. Valk has a similar issue but she is also a much weaker carry in terms of damage than Silhouette.

[Antimodus]

I don't see how salvo is in any way weaker damage-wise, then say magebane's steroids - low BAT and mana combust.

salvo is actually 2 steroids in one, there's a stacking damage bonus and 2 scout-vanish-style attacks upon use of another skill with a 4 sec cd.
Additional 2 rapidfire attacks every 4 sec (or maybe 5-6s, it depends on how efficiently you manage to trigger it) is not worse than the improved BAT (do the math - with say 250 attack speed, a reasonable ballpark number, his lower BAT would improve attack CD from 0.7s to 0.6s, that's 1 extra attack every 4 seconds).

Salvo damage bonus is same as mana combust after like 3 attacks and actually rivals it with additional attacks.

and that is without considering any damage output from her ulti at all.

[zstarkey42]

And you forget the fact that you're not going to always be spamming skills to proc salvo during teamfights when one of the glaring flaws of MB is that both his attack speed and damage are passive and thus present 100% of the time (until someone runs out of mana and flat out explodes with his ult that is). There are times you need to save your illusion or tree grapple to escape. I didn't say her steroid was weak, it is quite good, in fact it's probably one of the best for ranged carries but her damage is still outrivaled by other options (sup draconis?) which also have tons of burst to add. What makes it imbalanced is her range, which more often than not is able to quickly finish off escaping people entering fog with her mini-flurry. Those 2 instant attacks are just overkill on a hero with extreme kiting and range. Not to mention it maker her able to outharass supports in lane which I think it's pretty retarded.

[Elman1]

Also I find it funny that you're comparing her to Magebane and TDL, as if those weren't overly viable at the moment. Go ahead, compare her to Draconis too, I'll wait.

This hard carry madness isn't going to end before they revert the sheepstick and hellflower nerf that was unnecessary, uncalled for and ridiculous. Either that or they nerf Shrunken Head: yes, Shrunken is meant to be OP but so were Sheepstick and Hellflower because they could counter it; that's not the case anymore.

[Antimodus]

yes, I've mentioned an attack range nerf as the best option in Silhouette threads for a long time now, but for some reason they focused on nerfing her QWER instead. It'd make way more sense if attack range was to drop to either 550 or 500, and then have her QWER buffed repeatedly until competitors deem her a viable or at least situational pick again. At 600 range and the way salvo works hero can't be viable without also being complete bullshit to play against.
It's seriously a joke that soulstealer has 500 range and this one has 600 range.

[zstarkey42]

It's funny because neither HF or Sheep are particulary effective against Silhouete since she always has a nullstone up and her illusion/common geometers pickup can easily bait any kind of single target disables to add. That's a reason why most of the time people don't even get SH on her and would rather go for damage items instead.

And yes I did compare her to Draconis as well. :) Now suddently this thread is about nerfing every ranged carry in existance since they are all too 'overly viable'.

Back to topic please.

Also, SS has 500 range because he has wider range (and damage) on his nukes. He also comes with a free shieldbreaker as passives so it makes sense for him to be 500.

[Antimodus]

yes, and sil's attack steroids are at least in the same class as him so why the 600 range? on a hero that also has mobility moves? really now



Now suddently this thread is about nerfing every ranged carry in existance since they are all too 'overly viable'.

Actually this is a real and relevant problem. A few unusually strong heroes in a category emerge and now none of them can be nerfed, they justify each other's overpoweredness. Hero A's thread: why nerf him when B,C and D are just as strong. Hero B's thread: if you nerf him he will be overshadowed by A,C and D. etc.

[zstarkey42]

I'm saying it makes sense for him to be 500 on a balanced point of view. And that it makes no sense for Silh to have 600. Which means her range should be nerfed, not the other way around. Apologies if that wasn't clear enough. Balance dictates it's usually better nerfing a hero when he's stronger than buffing all other alternatives and risk turning them into equally broken picks. Look at what happens in Dota when they keep their "don't nerf, only buff" motto. A hero's measure of power is not linear nor black and white and thus difficult to establish balance in this kind of games, which means the less heros/items you mess around with the better.

[Alten]

Silhouette is overpowered because she is reliable. If you want to make a meaningful nerf upon her, conceptualise something that decreases her reliability while still allowing her to maintain some useful function/extingency power.

[Tomate]

This is exactly what a range nerf does Alten... It keeps 100% of her farming potential and 100% of her escape mechanisms, but it does reduce quite a bit her reliability in 1v1 lanes especially... She is just TOO good right now.

[LordTroll]

If she had range like Moon Queen or maybe slightly higher, she could even have her old, higher numbers on the Salvo passive.

[Nemesis10549]

Seems like nerfing her range is the general consensus here. I partially agree with it but I would have to point out that if sil's range is indeed nerfed, then either she'd have to be buffed in some other way( say she gets her old salvo back) or the other heroes in the same category (read: Draconis) need to be nerfed alongside too.
.
EDIT:- and I don't think Increasing mana cost on his flight is a nerf, once Draco gets a sustainer, he won't care about mana anyway, what I'm asking for is a significant numbers nerf on him.

[Asharda]

I don't think anyone would really be against pre-nerf Salvo or, dare I say it, an uncapped Salvo if her range was significantly reduced. 500 range is around the range you're looking at pre-nerf Salvo, because it's possible to be able to trade hits with her as a support cleanly. If you're looking at getting into the 400 range (think old Succubus), then her lane presence is completely gone - but an uncapped Salvo at this point really does increase her kill potential significantly with any sort of uptime.
I think of the good points of Silhouette and I think of the stuff like the abuse of the +100ms (or PK) to pull a tree and stun someone next to her, and nail out 4 attacks (at admittedly significant risk to herself), as well as combat tricks like swapping between illusions midfight to dodge nukes and such - and a lower range preserves those things, while taking away from some of the other perks of the hero to make her less "unfair". Subjective term, but an important one.

[LordTroll]

Most importantly, it's a good first step in ending the plague of ranged carries being able to stand hit for hit with supports early game and even come out on top while ALSO having either strong nukes / stuns and immobilizes or both, one of the most ridiculous things in this game.

[Darkstar_X]

If Death Lotus is a "Strong Nuke" what is a weak one, cause it seems like it is one of the weakest there is.

[Hsssh]

If Death Lotus is a "Strong Nuke" what is a weak one, cause it seems like it is one of the weakest there is.

It does passive damage. Almost everyone uses PK to initiate with 2.5 second stun, do couple of auto attacks then Q. At this point Q does around 340-400 damage, thats above average damage for regular nuke. Yes, if used randomly without set up then its not as strong but you really shouldn't just throw it out randomly.

[Darkstar_X]

In order to do that, you have to give up position, trading position for damage is very regular. For example, look at Dr. Rep. If you don't combine how his skills interact, they are very weak as well. Pebbles does several hundred more damage by going into melee instead of casting from range. It doesn't seem like Death Lotus does more than others.

[Hubaris]

Death Lotus deals a lot of damage on a hero who is meant to be a scaling carry, with long range or short range uses.

Having Pebbles-like burst damage on a scaling hero is the problem.

[Hsssh]

In order to do that, you have to give up position, trading position for damage is very regular. For example, look at Dr. Rep. If you don't combine how his skills interact, they are very weak as well. Pebbles does several hundred more damage by going into melee instead of casting from range. It doesn't seem like Death Lotus does more than others.

I don't remember anyone saying that Pebbles has average nuke and you bringing him up kinda enforces the point that Sil has above average burst.

[LordTroll]

The pure nuke damage of Death Lotus itself is quite high no matter how you put it for something that also has farm utility and is piss easy to hit with, AND it hits people all around too.

[Duplexity]

Lmao, i'm done, have fun.

[Hsssh]

Sure she has powerful spells, so does many other carries, sure she has a good ultimate, so do MANY other carries, not to mention it is really not that difficult to kill her in the early-mid game. Really it only requires two stacking stuns to do so

Stacked stuns is universal counter to everything.


Oh, i'll also mention the duration for level 1 image on silhouette is pretty short, if she is using it for an escape mechanism that means at max the team fight has to last for like <10 seconds assuming she gave it enough distance to be safely away from the fight. What team fight is that quick?

Have you seen any competitive games? Longer team fights happened only when everyone was running two tanks in their line up. That is unless you count in time when 3 heroes are chasing last one for 5 seconds to complete genocide as a "team fight".

[zstarkey42]

Silhouette doesn't need a nerf.

If S2 really needs to see why this isn't the case, I just don't understand. I'm going to say for the sake of being able to analyze a hero properly, you're going to have to be around 1750+ MMR and if you ask even a few people in that bracket, this hero is REALLY not overpowered. Sure she has powerful spells, so does many other carries, sure she has a good ultimate, so do MANY other carries, not to mention it is really not that difficult to kill her in the early-mid game. Really it only requires two stacking stuns to do so, I can only speak from my experience but when I have seen many many silhouette players in the 1500-1600, everyone played her so poorly and honestly they were never the game changing factor in the game. She only becomes a force to be reckoned with if she has a solid team and support behind her.

Silhouette is one of the most fun, versatile and strong carries because of the spells she has, just like other characters in the game. I don't know how some of you can refer to silhouette as the most powerful carriy when there are so many equivalent carries to choose from. TDL, Draconis, Wildsoul, Soulstealer, FA whom I think are all just as good as her. The damage output prior to silhouette getting items is horribly poor even with salvo, not to mention her base damage is quite bad. Silh has been shutdown in many comp games and TMM games from my own experience, its not difficult for me to see methods to deal with silhouette.

Oh, i'll also mention the duration for level 1 image on silhouette is pretty short, if she is using it for an escape mechanism that means at max the team fight has to last for like <10 seconds assuming she gave it enough distance to be safely away from the fight. What team fight is that quick?

You're defending the things nobody's complaining about. For a hero with all her advantages in escapes and mobility it makes no sense to have such a strong laning presence. Silhouete does no damage witouth items? What are you smoking really? Lotus and Salvo hits alone are enough to burst down to half or less any other hero during the laning phase and that's not even counting if a stun is landed. And the whole mmr argument is not really a factor, there are a ton of higher ranked players that don't have a clue about the game's balance at all. Saying soulstealer is 'as good as her' kind of proves my point.

[Farosarg]

Not to mention that the discussion here has not been solely about nerfing Silhuette (in relative terms) but actually allowing her to keep or increase one or a few of her strengths while giving her a weakness as a trade-off, to make the hero more interesting pick and more of a specialized hero rather than just a very generalized toolbox-hero like what we have been having way too often in this game.

[DarkAgonizer]

she has been nerfed in every possible way since she appeared
I think other carries need buff like in Dota, nerfs are not the way to go with that hero anymore
simple as that

[PrestonLee]

yes, I've mentioned an attack range nerf as the best option in Silhouette threads for a long time now, but for some reason they focused on nerfing her QWER instead. It'd make way more sense if attack range was to drop to either 550 or 500, and then have her QWER buffed repeatedly until competitors deem her a viable or at least situational pick again. At 600 range and the way salvo works hero can't be viable without also being complete bullshit to play against.
It's seriously a joke that soulstealer has 500 range and this one has 600 range.This^ I completely agree that this would fix her up nicely and justify all the utility and burst potential she has. This should've been the fix to her all along, not any of the other nerfs.

[Fiat]

350 Attack range like Morphling.

[Duplexity]

You're defending the things nobody's complaining about. For a hero with all her advantages in escapes and mobility it makes no sense to have such a strong laning presence. Silhouete does no damage witouth items? What are you smoking really? Lotus and Salvo hits alone are enough to burst down to half or less any other hero during the laning phase and that's not even counting if a stun is landed. And the whole mmr argument is not really a factor, there are a ton of higher ranked players that don't have a clue about the game's balance at all. Saying soulstealer is 'as good as her' kind of proves my point.

I'm going to tell you why in your bracket Silhouette is such an easy hero to play. It is because almost nobody has proper positioning just allowing her laning presence to be THAT much stronger. Silhouettes base damage, hp and starting armor is low, what makes her a difficult target to kill? Nothing, just stack one or two stuns, and you'll have a solid kill right there. The only times where she would have a strong laning presence is if the opposing laners are bad or if Silhouette has a good support.

Silhouette isn't even going to be harassing you in the lane, or more accurately, she should not be. This is because if she is planning to carry, harassing -> Missing CK, decreased GPM. Even if you get harassed out of lane by Silhouette, effectively she has lost a good portion of the creeps she was supposed to gain thus not filling her role.

People with higher MMR generally have a better understanding of how the hero works and what are its positives and negatives, unfortunately generally people in the lower tier just watch Honcast and competitive commentaries without having a practical understanding of how to counter the hero, that is why I said what I said. SS is comparable to Silhouette just because he has high power in the early mid, much more than silhouette actually, but also the chance to output immense amounts of damage transitioning to the late. If silhouette needs a nerf this heavily, I wonder why she is not picked in almost every game?

If you look at almost every carry, they all have a form of "nuke" whether its magic or increased attack damage (Mana burn or TDL) and each of them are pretty significant.

The point I'm getting to, is that you are not seeing the flaws in her build. If you said she needed a nerf before she got nerfed THREE times, I would agree because she was much too powerful then, but now its just dumb to nerf her again, especially when there are so many other mobile and powerful carries out there. When it comes down to it, its about how well you play with the hero and the game overall.

[Hubaris]

Nukes that provide 'increased attack damage' as you put it are called steroids and are supposed to scale lategame while being poor early on. Dark Blades for example provides a silence yes, but has a pitiful damage buff early and costs a ton of mana.

Both Dark Blades/Charging Strikes are Steroids which scale with Damage or IAS.

Salvo requires no farm to be deadly (2 quick autos is roughly 120 pre-mitigation damage), but still scales horrendously well (those same autos will be doing 200+ midgame and 300+ lategame easily). In addition, it triggers off of her already preexisting nukes (Lotus, Grapple) and can be chained to have virtually no downtime while having max IAS for a short duration. Coupled with 600 range, this can ensure she wastes no time while having burst up and can generally hit whoever she wants.

Additionally, the amount of nerfs on a hero isn't important, but the quality of the nerfs.

If we had a hero with a 3000 damage ultimate at 6, that was nerfed to 2000, then nerfed to 1000, then nerfed to 800, would the fact that having 4 nerfs on it warrant no more?



If you said she needed a nerf before she got nerfed THREE times, I would agree because she was much too powerful then, but now its just dumb to nerf her again


By your logic, our imaginary hero who was nerfed FOUR times doesn't need a nerf because it is still dumb to nerf her again.

EDIT: And this is hardly touching on her safety, mobility, scaling and overall usefulness in almost any lineup.

[Duplexity]

Why would you even let Silhouette get so out of hand in the first place to build up enough items for damage? And even though Salvo does scale, it is not nearly as effective with a low damage silhouette. The only way silhouette gets off with auto-attacking all game is if the team is not coordinated enough to capitalize on a low hp, low armor hero. It doesn't require a lot of heroes to kill Silhouette.

If you build her skills focused on Salvo, your nuke potential will suffer until 15-20 minutes in the game and vice versa if you build death lotus/tree grapple your autoattack damage will suffer. You don't get the best of both worlds when you're playing Silhouette until the mid-late game which at that point, your own carry should be able to hold their own against her.

And you read what I said about the three nerfs completely wrong. I thought it was implied that most nerfs are supposed to be good and in this case, they were...the past three times. I feel in my opinion that by this third time, ANY hero would already become balanced, at the very least balanced enough to make her a fair hero to play against. Like I stated before, I think this is the case with silhouette.

I'm not quite sure if I can agree with you when you say that Dark Blades is a pitiful damage buff early-mid game, if you are efficient at farming, get any decent damage dealing item, runed axe or even treads/phase, coupled with Dark Blades, you're going to be able to see a pretty ridiculous damage output with that + charging strikes not to mention a potentially fight changing skill with the silence.

Once again I am going to emphasize the counter-picks you make for Silhouette, positioning and team coordination. No matter how deadly her spells are, the fact is to use most of her spells, she is going to have to get out of position. Tree grapple, even death lotus if you want to get maximum damage output, you are going to have to be near the fight which is going to be the time where your team can capitalize on her positioning. In mid game to late, every carry in that game is going to have high damage output, not only silhouette, if they don't, they simply do not know how to farm well or the other team succeeded in shutting down that carry from farming. In that respect I think Silhouette is fine as is, because she is easy to shutdown before she gets her items, and if you are unable to do so, you just weren't able to adapt to the hero that you're playing against. That's her biggest downfall in my opinion, and that is what makes her a much less significant force particularly in the laning phase as long as you and your partner are able to play better than she does.

[Cyber_Kun]

What counters does Silhouette have to deal with that any OTHER hard carry has to deal with? No escape mechanism, Tree Grapple. Low starting damage, Salvo. No innate farming skills, Death Lotus.

Just because a hero can be burst down does not make bursting down a hero a valid counter. That is the counter to every bloody hero in the game so acting otherwise is dumb. She does have low starting health and average armor, but unless you can burst her down, she will auto attack and win every time. I can't think of any hero in the game that can go 1v1 against her early game and not get ruined if she doesn't automatically die. In the middle of the game she has so much innate damage that all she needs is a Nullstone to carry. Hell, her carry skill of Salvo gives her increased damage in the start to allow her to dominate early game, and then double attacks to dominate late game.

The only weaknesses she has is low health and armor, but her strength of innate abilities allows her to go Nullstone and remove that weakness. It should be noted that low health and armor is not the same as having a weak early game, she has too much burst and damage for that to be true.

At this point I am 100% willing to say, anyone for any reason that things this hero is fine/balanced is wrong and should not be listened to.

[zstarkey42]

I'm going to tell you why in your bracket Silhouette is such an easy hero to play. It is because almost nobody has proper positioning just allowing her laning presence to be THAT much stronger. Silhouettes base damage, hp and starting armor is low, what makes her a difficult target to kill? Nothing, just stack one or two stuns, and you'll have a solid kill right there. The only times where she would have a strong laning presence is if the opposing laners are bad or if Silhouette has a good support.


I have never ever seen any Silhouete become a factor in games I've played if that's what you're wondering about, barring very rare occurences (mostly smurfs that would faceroll with any other hero). It's not very hard to figure how a competent player combined with a hero like that can influence the game. But fine, don't take my word on it since I'm a 1600 pub, instead read the dozens of replies from 1700 and 1800 people in this thread and talk to them instead.


People with higher MMR generally have a better understanding of how the hero works and what are its positives and negatives, unfortunately generally people in the lower tier just watch Honcast and competitive commentaries without having a practical understanding of how to counter the hero, that is why I said what I said. SS is comparable to Silhouette just because he has high power in the early mid, much more than silhouette actually, but also the chance to output immense amounts of damage transitioning to the late. If silhouette needs a nerf this heavily, I wonder why she is not picked in almost every game?


If only that was true. Take your time to read some input in this forum and take a look at people's rank or stats and you'll have some fun.

As for the forum rules:
5. PLAYER SKILL IS IRRELEVANT
Player skill, or more specific, any types of in-game stats are useless indicators towards how well you understand balance. The value of one’s opinion is completely determined by the insight provided through their posts, not PSR/MMR. Calling out people for their stats is strictly prohibited within the confines of the balance forum. If you are losing an argument, do not resort to attacking the player (ad hominem), improve your argument instead.

Back on topic, I couldn't care less about honcast games since I rarely watch them. I don't think I ever posted a topic about competitive play in this forum, ever, if that's what you're wondering. If you do watch competitive play often, though, is SS a regular ban or pick then? Is Silhouette ever not picked or banned? Somthing tells if they were in the same levels of power the outcome would be different.



The point I'm getting to, is that you are not seeing the flaws in her build. If you said she needed a nerf before she got nerfed THREE times, I would agree because she was much too powerful then, but now its just dumb to nerf her again, especially when there are so many other mobile and powerful carries out there. When it comes down to it, its about how well you play with the hero and the game overall.

I do know about her flaws. She is obviously not a killer laner like FA or a retarded farmer like Drac. Silence + focus fire drops down any kind of carry. We all know that. I'm not saying she is stupidly overpowered. I'm not saying she has no weaknesses like a lot of people in this thread seem to imply, maybe you're misunderstanding that. All I'm saying is, compared to other ranged carries in this game she comes out on top in most aspects. Having 600 range, escapes, decent nukes, good farming potential, a stun, various escapes and ability to actually 'carry' games big time is something almost no other hero in the game has. Look at MQ, CD, Valk, EW, FA, MoA, Flint... each and every hero of these trades off range for steroids, nukes for range, escapes for damage or carry ability else for mobility, utility for damage or escapes, w/e. Silhouete has it all in one package. It only takes some insight into game balance to figure there's something wrong in here. A hero does not have to win every game to be overpowered.

[Duplexity]

Well I'll start right off the bat with apologizing for not reading about the player skill. Rest assured I won't mention it again.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I have won countless times against silhouette with intel based heroes with ease. For example using pyro, only using the dragon wave, force all the regen on silhouette, force her back, I'm just considering the 1v1 scenario you mentioned.

It seems as if I did misunderstand what you were saying about her weaknesses, I read too many posts about people complaining about her being stupidly overpowered and got frustrated and posted without reading the rest of the pages.

In regards to your last comment that Silh is superior to many other ranged carries, I wouldn't disagree, but on that note there are at least 3 other ranged carries that can fulfill the same role as Silhouette with an equal level of effectiveness. FA, Drac or SS. Because I think this is the case, I only see it fair to either nerf all the heroes which are equally powerful, or have a separate tier for the more powerful characters. On that note...I think there should be separate tiers and at the same time, I think Silhouette is balanced in comparison to the other heroes that are in her tier. This is what makes a game entertaining in banning/picking/counterpicking because someone is more powerful and it would be an element of the game that should not be changed.

I still think that various heroes with equal farm as Silhouette will have a very good chance against each other in the long run.

[Bennsean]

I can't think of any hero in the game that can go 1v1 against her early game and not get ruined if she doesn't automatically die.I do believe a competent Wildsoul can actualy beat her.

Anyway, Im sorry for this but I dont know any other way to say this. I do believe we have to accept the fact that she will stay the way she is and we will continue to be owned may it be laning phase or simply losing a game. She is a signature S2 hero and they are very proud/happy with her design. She is here, together with others, to replace old Dota ports, which they intend to do with every hero, which is sad because many have great designs. Atleast this is what I believe and stand by my words.

[Antimodus]

well there is some truth to this, judging by the nuances... thus far, whenever S2 representatives were asked about this hero - especially in its more OP state, closer to release - they were always quick to dismiss it and say there was nothing wrong.

She was also released in the peak of the "get frostwolf to win" ranged carry meta, which seemed like an absurd decision as well. (unless the secret plan was to make it more apparent to everyone that FWS should be nerfed on ranged attackers).

S2 sure loves their ranged carries, generally speaking.
I think a point not many players are considering in balance is that heroes have these broken fast turn rates on every hero compared to dota standards. Late game, it benefits ranged carries more than anyone else. That's why ranged carries can't hard carry in dota. Every time they are forced to turn and walk away from something, they lose a lot of dps time.

Silhouette TL;DR
1. Take Ursa (melee) and Morphling (350 range)
2. mix and match their abilities to create a new hero
3. Give it 600 range, cuz ninja
4. ???
5. Prophet

[Asharda]

(unless the secret plan was to make it more apparent to everyone that FWS should be nerfed on ranged attackers).

lolnope

[Warhippo]

Just undo the nerfs she got on her tree grapple and q and lower her attack range to 550 or 500. Like someone said, SS should not have 500 attack range if this ***** has 600

[ImCantPlay]

Just undo the nerfs she got on her tree grapple and q and lower her attack range to 550 or 500. Like someone said, SS should not have 500 attack range if this ***** has 600

I don't see why any nerfs have to be undone for this hero to have 500 attack range? that wouldn't nerf her, it'd make her even stronger against some heroes while weakening her against others. Why would that half-full/half-empty effect be desirable when she's currently too strong against everything? why does Silhouette need any buff to sit at 500 range, what makes the hero deserve that?

[Malefication]

I don't see why any nerfs have to be undone for this hero to have 500 attack range? that wouldn't nerf her, it'd make her even stronger against some heroes while weakening her against others. Why would that half-full/half-empty effect be desirable when she's currently too strong against everything? why does Silhouette need any buff to sit at 500 range, what makes the hero deserve that?
How does 500 range make Silhouette stronger?

[Farosarg]

I don't see why any nerfs have to be undone for this hero to have 500 attack range? that wouldn't nerf her, it'd make her even stronger against some heroes while weakening her against others. Why would that half-full/half-empty effect be desirable when she's currently too strong against everything? why does Silhouette need any buff to sit at 500 range, what makes the hero deserve that?

Currently too strong against everything? Debatable. The point is that this way she'd actually have counters and weaknesses to allow her keep a fun kit that she already has without it being nerfed to nothingness. Heck. I wouldn't mind her being stronger if she actually had good and legit counterpicks that aren't just chain-cc.

[Antimodus]

How does 500 range make Silhouette stronger?

No idea, it's a strict nerf, since you can attack anyone from any range up to your max.
If range was changed to 500, they'd at minimum need to buff salvo, since it'd be harder to put stacks on a target than before, so that would lower the "payoff" from the stacking aspect of the skill a lot.



I wouldn't mind her being stronger if she actually had good and legit counterpicks that aren't just chain-cc.

Chain cc isn't really what I would call a counterpick. A counterpick is supposed to be better against the "countered" thing than against other things. I don't see how PWP for instance has an easier time against Sil than say FA or other ranged carries or any other non tanked heroes in general. Esp. those that don't have all these escape mechs.
WS might be the closest thing to a counterpick simply because drain counters nullstone or her ult, and even with WS one tiny mistake and he gets taken out in an instant.

[soitcause]

I do believe a competent Wildsoul can actualy beat her.

Anyway, Im sorry for this but I dont know any other way to say this. I do believe we have to accept the fact that she will stay the way she is and we will continue to be owned may it be laning phase or simply losing a game. She is a signature S2 hero and they are very proud/happy with her design. She is here, together with others, to replace old Dota ports, which they intend to do with every hero, which is sad because many have great designs. Atleast this is what I believe and stand by my words.

Also Plague Rider.

Just because she's good against common solo heroes doesn't mean that there aren't heroes that destroy her 1v1.

[ImCantPlay]

@Malefication: I wasn't clear enough, what I meant was that if she is buffed in return for her range being nerfed down to 500 range she will arguably become stronger against heroes that are at or below that range. Take a melee hero with a gap closer - if her skill set would become stronger she would arguably just be buffed against that hero, as the hero would be unlikely to spend time at any point other than beyond her attack range or in melee range.

@Farosarg (multiquote refusing to work): I disagree with her being ''nerfed to nothingness'' by being reduced to 500 range without being buffed in return, because I think her skill set is so good that she would still be a strong pick. I think any claims of her being a bad hero if such a nerf would be done is due to either 1) not being able to faceroll the hero pool with her anymore making her ''worthless'' because now playing her is actually a bit more of a challenge or 2) Waaaaaaaah Draconis farms faster/Magmus does more AoE damage/Hag escapes better (ie. comparing her to heroes that are also on the very strong or overpowered side). I also disagree with basing the game on counterpicks since 1) you usually can't counterpick in AP and you never can in SD, the two most popular modes, and because I dislike hard counter ''pick X to win against heroes A S and D''-design because just like a hero being overpowered does, it lessens the amount that player skill/input matters.

@Antimodus: I wouldn't campaign for such a change making it harder to put stacks on a target than before (I know it would be), I would for good publicity call it riskier than before, ie. it would increase Silhouette's risk vs reward factor. You might actually have to think about when and where to go in to some degree if her attack range was 500 or less instead of sitting back at what's with a few exceptions max range, out-trading most heroes in the game while coming with multiple unique abilities that they do not have. I argue that her skill set is strong enough to still compete effectively with other ranged carries if her range is reduced to 500 or less, she doesn't need buffs to her skill set in return for not being overpowered.

When we're done with Silhouette we can move on to other heroes who also trade too little for their advantages and then we might be able to eliminate the norm that a hero is not worth picking unless it's basically overpowered.

[Shatterz]

problem is, that she does to well in every stage of the game. A hard-carry with 600 range, a passive steroid that is godly from level 1, a solid escape that can be used as a offensive stun. And even if you manage to stop her farm early game, she is still going to be usefull in teamfights with that AOE stun and strong damage on 600 range.

[Alten]

My last post in this thread was a lampshade on the fact that we're moving nowhere here; I'll say it more directly in this one. Everyone is stating the same thing, over and over again. Everyone gets the point; can we just lock the thread before more balance platitudes and "back-pat" conclusions are typed out?

All of these points were reached in the last Sil discussion. This has been discussed to death; we are accomplishing nothing by stating simple logical conclusions or digging up old posts in spent threads, discussions, and commentaries.

[Farosarg]

Chain cc isn't really what I would call a counterpick. A counterpick is supposed to be better against the "countered" thing than against other things. I don't see how PWP for instance has an easier time against Sil than say FA or other ranged carries or any other non tanked heroes in general. Esp. those that don't have all these escape mechs.
WS might be the closest thing to a counterpick simply because drain counters nullstone or her ult, and even with WS one tiny mistake and he gets taken out in an instant.

This was obviously my point. That's what it really boils down to, considering how strong she is all through the game that you are just forced to pick lockdown line-ups instead of anything you might actually want to run. Which is pretty much why I really like how Morphling got nerfed pretty intensely.

[Ekamo]

My last post in this thread was a lampshade on the fact that we're moving nowhere here; I'll say it more directly in this one. Everyone is stating the same thing, over and over again. Everyone gets the point; can we just lock the thread before more balance platitudes and "back-pat" conclusions are typed out?

All of these points were reached in the last Sil discussion. This has been discussed to death; we are accomplishing nothing by stating simple logical conclusions or digging up old posts in spent threads, discussions, and commentaries.

Wise words.

Thread closed.