[2.6.14] Soulstealer Soulburst

[MacroHard]

Use this thread for HOW it works:
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?442417

Use this thread in balance discussion forum to discuss its ramifications.

GO!

[Ekamo]

Approved.

Macro covered all bases mechanics-wise, so I strongly suggest that you read that prior to engaging in this discussion. What has been gained and what has been lost from this change? Is this desirable for the game?

Forum rules apply as always.

[foxmindedguy]

I personally think it is awesome that S2 is going more towards Predictability of damage outcomes (and removing randomness). Ahem, adhere to my signature for normalizing Flint next :D

[Hubaris]

I feel that against a coordinated team, the Killzone burst isn't too reliable (although its still there in its new 1500 damage from); so the chnages overall bolster his teamfight damage and really solidify him as a spellcasting/damage carry. His now reliable Soul Burst grants the slow and damage reduction at a more consistent rate, giving him a great followup potential and setting up more hands/causing havoc.

I felt originally that it just turned into another AOE spell, but its really not the case.

The Solid Number + Souls is very nice and helps a hero who relies heavily on a mechanic which can totally cripple the hero.

Overall a great change.

[zstarkey42]

No more loloneshots at point-blank range - if that's what made the hero fun to you then too bad... Seems like a good change to me. It's good that he can at least deal some meaningful damage to everyone in fights now.

[Doomhammar]

Its funny the amount of retards that turn up in threads like these lol

You seem to be one of them. If you have no real constructive criticism just don't post.

Normalization was good for the ult. Formerly you could hope and get that perfect ult where everyone in the middle of the Soulburst and kill everything or enemies just walked a bit and it was a fart. Now you can actually deal reliable damage with ultimate instead of it being roll of the dice. I can see no point for reversing this change, as consistency has been the S2's direction of balance.

[ElementUser]

The thing that I (as well as the other S2) didn't like about the old ult was that if you're a few pixels off of the enemy unit when you're in close range (say, between 0-200 range), you deal drastically less damage that isn't consistent and the mathematical function decays extremely rapidly between a few pixels/units, as shown by MacroHard's old ult graph: http://i.imgur.com/V5pFD.png

Now if you're a few pixels off, you deal less damage - but at a reasonable rate of change as distance increases. The mathematical function does not decay as rapidly and thus, you don't lose like 500+ damage if you're off by like, 50 units (or to put it in perspective, a few pixels)

[MacroHard]

After looking at those graphs again... Its a nerf. It needs to be reversed.
SS is one of those few carries who is squishy and and has no escape. This ulti was the one great things about him and now its been normalized.

Now, a level 3 ulti can't cause that massive damage that it used to do before. What's more importing? Killing two people out of 5 with your ulti or just get 4 outta 5 to half health?

We could not find a single replay at the competitive level where a Soulstealer got the 2400 damage off. Not one. The proximity required was a near impossibility considering the long cast time. All of the times where a Soulstealer killed somebody instantly with his ult, that we observed, were within the very-close-but-not-quite ~1400 damage zone. I would be baffled and impressed if you can find a replay even at low-tier levels where a Soulstealer hit not one but TWO heroes with 2400 as you claim. =)

The damage is significantly higher between 50 and 600 range... the range where most ults occur. We also decided to nerf the ability beyond 600 range; we felt this ability should reward positioning and not deal 300+ damage at 800 range.

That being said, the biggest balance change is that the ult is now only 80% reliable on souls, with 20% of the damage being fixed. This further (slightly) reduces Soulstealer's dependency on max souls.

The biggest balance question:
"Have we buffed him too much?" :scou:

[TheEnigma]

I'm in a game right now.. With SS. Even made a PK because shroud didn't really make much sense (though I now have both a Genjuro and a PK).

I'm up against Hag, EW, Silo etc.

NOT ONCE have I been able to ONE SHOT them. Not one of them.

====

Just jumped in between a teamfight. Melted. Couldn't even survive the ulti cast time lol

===

The thing is, you guys have given the hero no escape, no nothing, but you nerfed his ulti. Or as you like to say NORMALIZED his ulti.
Point is, he now has the potential to deal max 1500 dmg instead of 2400. A pyromancer can deal 1150 with ZERO SKILL. More than 1500 if you add his stun and wave.

[foxmindedguy]

I'm in a game right now.. With SS. Even made a PK because shroud didn't really make much sense (though I now have both a Genjuro and a PK).

I'm up against Hag, EW, Silo etc.

NOT ONCE have I been able to ONE SHOT them. Not one of them.

====

Just jumped in between a teamfight. Melted. Couldn't even survive the ulti cast time lol

===

The thing is, you guys have given the hero no escape, no nothing, but you nerfed his ulti. Or as you like to say NORMALIZED his ulti.
Point is, he now has the potential to deal max 1500 dmg instead of 2400. A pyromancer can deal 1150 with ZERO SKILL. More than 1500 if you add his stun and wave.

Pyromancer deals 1150 to one person. Soulstealer can do more to entire teams, just put Flux and Riftwalker in your team.

[Food]

Normalization at distance was good, but the cap on damage at the centre I feel was not really warranted. Seeing as the 2400 damage in the "rape circle" was seldom seen, why remove it? It doesn't seem a big enough dilemma to warrant a removal. Removing all elements of luck makes games rather formulaic and doesn't promote HoN as an exciting spectator sport. In competitive play a well placed ultimate is hardly ever seen, so this is a buff, but it feels likethis change is shifting the emphasis from his ultimate towards his other skillsets.

I feel like Soulstealer does need a few buffs to compensate for his lowered damage on his ultimate at close range. I'm not one qualified to speculate on what those buffs should be; but perhaps a buff to the number of souls available, or the reduction of the mana costs on his razes back down to 75, or even just a tweak to strength gain and base strength coupled with a slight movement speed buff, heck maybe even another 10 - 15 damage on his razes.

[Seveah]

If I fail to single-shot even a single hero, I'm done. Enough's enough.

The point of the game isn't to one-shot anybody by standing next to them. You're contributing far more to your team by dealing 1500 aoe damage than you are by dealing 2400 single target damage, and here's the important part, that wasn't guaranteed to hit. If you die because you brought 4 out of 5 heroes to half health, then your team wasn't backing you up to round out and finish off the fight. You don't win 1v4 or 1v5.

[MacroHard]

Couldn't even survive the ulti cast time lol

To be fair this complaint has zero to do with the mechanics change.

[TheEnigma]

^ That wasn't guaranteed to hit for 2400. It did more than enough damage.Remember, 1500 is Magic Damage, not superior or anything.

[ElementUser]

^ That wasn't guaranteed to hit for 2400. It did more than enough damage.Remember, 1500 is Magic Damage, not superior or anything.

Read his post again - if you couldn't even survive before you finish casting your ult, then it means that the ult never even got to do any damage. This implies that the mechanics change had 0 influence on that situation.

[Ekamo]

The thing that I (as well as the other S2) didn't like about the old ult was that if you're a few pixels off of the enemy unit when you're in close range (say, between 0-200 range), you deal drastically less damage that isn't consistent and the mathematical function decays extremely rapidly between a few pixels/units, as shown by MacroHard's old ult graph: http://i.imgur.com/V5pFD.png

Now if you're a few pixels off, you deal less damage - but at a reasonable rate of change as distance increases. The mathematical function does not decay as rapidly and thus, you don't lose like 500+ damage if you're off by like, 50 units (or to put it in perspective, a few pixels)I don't really think anyone is opposed to this specific aspect, since this in fact, a great change.

What can be argued though is if the direction that was taken with the damage was the correct one to go.
The way I see it:
I would have wanted Soulstealer to retain his extremely strong ultimate at very close range while still going through with the overall mechanics changes on this skill. Having this type of ultimate shapes his (and his team's) entire playstyle, and promotes several positive things:


More focus on perfect positioning, since it improves a more active playstyle rather than "I'll just put it somewhere in the vicinity of the opposing hero and he'll take pretty much the same damage as a perfect ultimate anyway". It should be rewarding to focus on your positioning, and the same way, very penalizing when you don't perform well. Even if you don't hit this "perfect spot" the majority of the times there should still be a possibility of doing so, because that creates an incentive to land it more carefully (!), and thus promotes the following as well:
Creates more options in terms of item pickups. As much as Assassins Shroud is not core on him by any means, I think it should stay as a viable alternative to PK, if not for anything else but for versatility's sake. This has been not yet been tested competitively though since the introduction of Genjuro so now we will never now just how good it would have been. The unit-walking aspect could also be attained by using Energizer or even possibly by future heroes having such a skill, and now that option is removed. Reducing effectiveness of "rape circle" will effectively make Assassins Shroud pretty much (even more) useless in comparison to Portal Key and will thus reduce options provided for the hero.
Makes him a powerful combo in certain line-ups, Tempest comes to mind here among several other heroes. The more he can capitalize on comboing with certain heroes, the more it promotes active and mindful picking as well as good teamwork. Even though he stills greatly benefits from having a Tempest on his team, he can now deal high damages to several enemy heroes with only minor help from the tons of AoE slows and stuns there are in the game.


I can definitely see where MacroHard and ElementUser (among others) are coming from from when they overall perceive these as positive changes. It makes it less of an anomaly in terms of what a skill in this game should be able damage, and it makes it a more effective skill when you land a "good" (note: Not supergood) ultimate, and as such promoting a little more careful positioning of the skill in the ranges somewhere in between melee range and 600 range. What it does not do though - and I cannot stress this enough - it does not reward exact placement of the skill, and as such creates a disincentive to acquire any type of unitwalking, to have communication between you and a teammate to carefully set it up, and to be able to do balls to the walls plays where a slight misjudgment might be extremely detrimental for you and your team, but where a perfect play might win you the game.

Furthermore, looking at this objectively without the design in mind I think it's pretty safe to say that this was a buff. The question we should be asking ourselves though is: Was that needed since he was already picked up in the competitive scene successfully (tDM) and if it was, at the expense of the previous mechanics of the ulti?

[Antimodus]

We could just add 900 (or whatever) magic damage in like 125/150 AOE on top of the existing formula to maintain that killzone. I don't play SS myself, but I always thought this feature of his ult was badass.

TBH from just looking at the damage/range graphs, as far as I can tell, for most practical purposes the ult has been overall buffed. I mean aside from the supernuking of one hero with invis thing.

[Omega]

We could just add 900 (or whatever) magic damage in like 125/150 AOE on top of the existing formula to maintain that killzone. I don't play SS myself, but I always thought this feature of his ult was badass.


24 AOE, actually. ;) Seems unnecessary, and would complicate things without reason.

[greenman101]

Huge buff to his mid game - maybe too much of a buff if he gets a decent exp lead over the enemy. However, this is a nerf to his late game. While attaining the 2400 damage mega ult seemed unrealistic, I feel like 1800-2000 damage was doable and happened often to at least ONE hero. Would be nice if we can get that back to some degree so that a late game Ra or other fed Str hero with a bunch of health items can be shut down. Right now, this seems borderline OP with a Tempest in the mid game but very weak in the later game. Any hero with a heart can pretty much just ignore the ult.

I realize that some people are like "omg he does 1500 damage to the entire team its already OP" but those people need to keep in mind that you can't even effectively utilize the ult on this hero without buying a 2150g or 3300g item. No other hero in the game suffers from this handicap and it is only fitting that the ult is game defining under the circumstances.

[Reldnahc]

Huge buff to his mid game - maybe too much of a buff if he gets a decent exp lead over the enemy. However, this is a nerf to his late game. While attaining the 2400 damage mega ult seemed unrealistic, I feel like 1800-2000 damage was doable and happened often to at least ONE hero. Would be nice if we can get that back to some degree so that a late game Ra or other fed Str hero with a bunch of health items can be shut down. Right now, this seems borderline OP with a Tempest in the mid game but very weak in the later game. Any hero with a heart can pretty much just ignore the ult.

I realize that some people are like "omg he does 1500 damage to the entire team its already OP" but those people need to keep in mind that you can't even effectively utilize the ult on this hero without buying a 2150g or 3300g item. No other hero in the game suffers from this handicap and it is only fitting that the ult is game defining under the circumstances.

Magmus
Behemoth
Tempest

I like this change overall. I always felt the old version had some wonky mechanics that are touched up in this change.

[Ekamo]

Magmus
Behemoth
Tempest

I like this change overall. I always felt the old version had some wonky mechanics that are touched up in this change.

I don't think the "wonky mechanics" change are under debate. It is more the damage curve that is relevant to this discussion.
Do you agree with that change as well?

[Otaking]

Just jumped in between a teamfight. Melted. Couldn't even survive the ulti cast time lol


Clearly you're at fault. Noobs tend to PK ult whenever they get their PK (no BKB yet). You can still PK ult w/o BKB, but you have to do it after the enemy used all their disables or silences (not spells, cause only disables, stuns silences etc, will stop your ultimate).

Assuming you got your PK at a time <15min, you shouldn't even need your ultimate to deal massive dmg in team fights. Your 3 hands will do 900dmg, 675 after armor reduction. Most heroes on the enemy team, if not raping, should have AT MOST just a bit over 1k hp.

I'm done here.

[`11411181]

"We could not find a single replay at the competitive level where a Soulstealer got the 2400 damage off. Not one."

The kicker for this is that nobody builds Shroud competitively, and thus you're purposefully setting yourself up to fail in order to justify damage changes that are in no way related to fixing the damage discrepancies from the soul torrent mechanic.

[Gorb]

If people built Shroud competitively, would we see Soul Burst being used as a single-target instadeath nuke?

Furthermore, in that situation, would such a heavy-hitting ability be regarded as balanced?

[khaz]

If players built shroud at the competitive level, they would get hard countered by a sentry ward, bound eye and/or dust. The whole point of blink is the surprise factor; even if the enemy team knows you have it, determining where you might initiate from is not an easy process. If you are farming well enough to buy the shroud in one go then that surprise element could help but only for that first team fight. There's a reason invis heroes (Aside from Fayde sometimes and a rare Scout) are rarely seen at the competitive level. I understand though that Chinese DotA teams made Nevermore+Lothars at one point a very popular and workable strat and would build their teams around it?

I like the greater reliability of the ulti and positioning reward but it doesn't change the fact that SS is fundamentally still weak as hell in the survivability stakes and his shtick of being the "best farmer in the game" seems to have been used as a template for a whole string of new heroes over the last year. Personally, the one fear factor still available to him - the maximum damage ulti - has now been taken away and even at my tmm range - 1650 to 1800 - you don't see him.

I'm primarily a support player and on the rare occasion I have seen him, he's the easiest among ranged carries to handle.

tl;dr
Skill - buffed (just)
Hero - doesn't address his weaknesses, damage output was never something Soulstealer players had to worry about. They still don't but that motivating factor of MAXDMGULTIZOMG is now gone.
Overall - a slight nerf to a hero who is so irrelevant to the current meta (And apparently to the gameplay in general) that he desperately needs some help.

One more thought; i'm not sure better positioning = better reward in this case. Slight damage nerfs usually results in safer/defensive play in my experience. Time will tell if this true but personally, Soulstealer is usually played on the right side of aggressive because of his awesome damage capabilities; i'm unconvinced this ulti change will result in better/offensive play.

Edit: the hell, my paragraph seperations disappeared?

[TheEnigma]

Oh I'm sorry. I was under the impression that HoN is for the 100k people that play it online, rather than the few dozen competitive players.

My bad. Do whatever you please S2. Shroud is a bad item competitively. Remove it. Remove Genjuro too since that comes from shroud. But oh wait.. Wasn't it added only recently? Or did the comp-scene ​not exist back then?

[Gorb]

Balance from the top-down (i.e. from the competitive level downwards) tends to improve the state of balance for all players *

* more than it would balancing for the general scene and allowing changes to filter upwards.

[TheEnigma]

Shouldn't top be the greater number? That means US, the 100k people online right now.

[SmurfinBird]

Shouldn't top be the greater number? That means US, the 100k people online right now.

The top should be those that use the game to the maximum effectiveness. Balancing from the public games would make it imbalanced for the competitive scene, therefore devaluing HoN as an e-sport and causing less interest in prospect players and players aspiring to master the game. The competitive meta shapes the main player pool's decisions.

Either way, this is derailing the thread. Please stick to SoulStealer, we shouldn't be going into how one skill is causing the whole damn game to be balanced from the wrong point. This is just a random general complaint.

EDIT: PK > Shroud, Khaz

[khaz]

Nah, logistically that would be impossible because gameplay changes roughly every ~100th MMR (15, 16, 17 etc.) group or so. Plus, the most consistent level of play and best players are always at the top allowing for a better insight into meta, strats and balancing. Balancing shouldn't be done any either way.

Edit: ninja'd by smurfinbird who pk'd in front of me!

[Gorb]

@TheEnigma: No.

It is a measure of quality, not quantity. This has been answered already, however, so if you wish to start a thread about balance intent and the nature of balancing for competitive level games (with examples and experience if necessary), feel free to do so. As SmurfinBird has said, this is getting too off-topic.

[GregerMoek]

tl;dr
Skill - buffed (just)
Hero - doesn't address his weaknesses, damage output was never something Soulstealer players had to worry about. They still don't but that motivating factor of MAXDMGULTIZOMG is now gone.
Overall - a slight nerf to a hero who is so irrelevant to the current meta (And apparently to the gameplay in general) that he desperately needs some help.

One more thought; i'm not sure better positioning = better reward in this case. Slight damage nerfs usually results in safer/defensive play in my experience. Time will tell if this true but personally, Soulstealer is usually played on the right side of aggressive because of his awesome damage capabilities; i'm unconvinced this ulti change will result in better/offensive play.

Edit: the hell, my paragraph seperations disappeared?

Point being, you never had to be afraid of "maxdmgult" because it was near IMPOSSIBLE to land on any player that didn't have their hands disabled for 2mins.
The damage is BUFFED between 50-600 yards. YOu will never ever ever stand 50 yards from a hero and get off an ultimate. The only real situation being a long stun, you having GHost Marchers activated when porting in with your PK and then pressing ult. This of course meaning that the target has no disabling allies nearby which also means that all this fuss with perfect positioning was not needed anyways since a single target will always get killed easily with SS+disabling ally.
More "fun facts"
- SS close to never goes for Ghost Marchers
- SS close to never goes Shroud
- Energizer is rarely built

Sum of above, no unitwalking. Unit collision prevents any type of below 50 range ulti to hit.

I really don't see how people keep using this "omg max ult is gone!"-argument, because it was always gone. I have never seen the 2400 damage ultimate happen and neither have you, you have seen people get one-shot but that was 1600 damage ultimates at best.

[LoLPlaya_]

I'm pretty sure TheEnigma is a troll. I mean he blamed the change for not being able to channel the ulti and he also said that S2 should balance the game around casual players. I'm sure he is one of the people who would want Swift or BH nerfed, cuz they be just super-good.

As for the actual change, I don't know. I'm a pub player and I tend to build Shroud -> Genjuro on him. Of course when I did the biggest plays with SS(Annihilation baby), I used PK, but you generally pick up Shroud/Genjuro for more than just your ultimate. Two-shotting weak supports with meer autoattacks is a sexy thing. However, it was good to know that you can(at least theoritacally) do 2400 damage to one single unit. Even pubs knew that and this is a reason why SS had that fear factor attached to him.

Then again, I'm not sure whether this changes anything when it comes to the power of SS in the pub scene. Shroud is still pretty much viable on him, his farming potential remained intact. The only thing this might change is that he will be picked up more regularly in the competitive scene and let's face it, that is never a bad thing!

[zstarkey42]

Some people are just butthurt their favourite hero is not able to insta oneshot people in pubs anymore. QQQQQQQQQQ
I don't think that was ever good for the game. His change seems to make him a little better for teamfights even though the damage loss is still a bit steep outside the 300 radius. At least he damages everyone around him now, I always hated the random torrent mechanics.

[Ekamo]

Point being, you never had to be afraid of "maxdmgult" because it was near IMPOSSIBLE to land on any player that didn't have their hands disabled for 2mins.
The damage is BUFFED between 50-600 yards. YOu will never ever ever stand 50 yards from a hero and get off an ultimate. The only real situation being a long stun, you having GHost Marchers activated when porting in with your PK and then pressing ult. This of course meaning that the target has no disabling allies nearby which also means that all this fuss with perfect positioning was not needed anyways since a single target will always get killed easily with SS+disabling ally.
More "fun facts"
- SS close to never goes for Ghost Marchers
- SS close to never goes Shroud
- Energizer is rarely built

Sum of above, no unitwalking. Unit collision prevents any type of below 50 range ulti to hit.

I really don't see how people keep using this "omg max ult is gone!"-argument, because it was always gone. I have never seen the 2400 damage ultimate happen and neither have you, you have seen people get one-shot but that was 1600 damage ultimates at best.
I would never contend that this wasn't a buff, because I'm most certain it was.
Was he in need of that though?

What I really think should be debated is the design direction of this change, and if this was the best way to go with it.


- SS close to never goes for Ghost Marchers
- SS close to never goes Shroud
- Energizer is rarely built
Let me address this:
First of all, SS never goes for Ghost Marchers simply because it is vastly inferior on him due to other reasons. So that is out of the question.
Secondly, Energizer has never been viable since its introduction into the game, and as such it poses a completely different problem.
Lastly and most importantly, SS has not been picked up a lot competitively (even if some) since the introduction of Genjuro's, and because of that it was really hard to assess the true power of Shroud on him. If there had been a large sample of competitive games where no Shroud into Genjuro's was seen, then I could definitely understand your case.

As of now though, I think it is a faulty premise to say that the new ulti is better design-wise than the old one because with the old one you could never hit max damage. I would say it was definitely possible, and probably a semi-common occurrence as well whenever he was picked up in semi-competitive games. But it was never given the chance to be tried out in competitive games, and therefore it is clear that your argument is not telling the whole truth.

I really don't see how people keep using this "omg max ult is gone!"-argument, because it was always gone. I have never seen the 2400 damage ultimate happen and neither have you, you have seen people get one-shot but that was 1600 damage ultimates at best.
I would disagree that it was always gone, and could link several Youtube videos where it in fact, does occur. I have seen it happen regularly whenever Shroud is picked up in combination with good teamplay, and I would probably even more if Energizer was viable in its own right. I do agree that more often than not, it did not hit that 2400 damage, but I still think it is very important that it should be a very real possibility.

Why?

Because simply by the possibility of a really high nuke existing it creates some really important incentives, which I outlined more extensively in my earlier post
Basically:



By making a distinction between a really good and a good ultimate, you put more focus on skillful and active play
More viable alternatives in terms of item pickups which in due turn creates a more dynamic and interesting game
Making proper teamwork and aware picking even more key since then Soulstealer can't hit high damaging ultimates on his own, something which he can now


I am not discussing the balance implications of the change (at least not now), instead I am trying to focus on the really poor design decisions that were made when this change was implemented.
Do you disagree with this?

[GregerMoek]

If you have a link of the 2400 damage ult going off, please link it.

Any game replay or VoD or whatever.

My point was that unless SS has unitwalking, the max ult can not happen. It is simply impossible due to collision size and pathing (collision size being 25 if I'm informed correctly). Max ult was at 24 range at best, because of the star-shape it had. The items I listed are items that SS usualy won't go, meaning collision size will be an issue.

I never claimed to like the change but it is not a nerf.

[Ekamo]

If you have a link of the 2400 damage ult going off, please link it.

Any game replay or VoD or whatever.


I never claimed to like the change but it is not a nerf.

Literally the first thing that popped up on a Youtube search: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQAICM9m154

There is teamwork involved. There is unitwalking involved (which could easily be traded for Energizer on a teamfight if that was good enough to warrant pickup). Why are these requirements a bad thing?


My point was that unless SS has unitwalking, the max ult can not happen. It is simply impossible due to collision size and pathing (collision size being 25 if I'm informed correctly). Max ult was at 24 range at best, because of the star-shape it had.
I never claimed differently.
Actually, I said this was a good thing that , because it increases the viability of a whole other set of items which in due turn makes the game more dynamic.


The items I listed are items that SS usualy won't go, meaning collision size will be an issue.
And I attempted to explain why this was not a fair judgement.


I never claimed to like the change but it is not a nerf.
I didn't claim differently.

[khaz]

Point being, you never had to be afraid of "maxdmgult" because it was near IMPOSSIBLE to land on any player that didn't have their hands disabled for 2mins.
The damage is BUFFED between 50-600 yards. YOu will never ever ever stand 50 yards from a hero and get off an ultimate. The only real situation being a long stun, you having GHost Marchers activated when porting in with your PK and then pressing ult. This of course meaning that the target has no disabling allies nearby which also means that all this fuss with perfect positioning was not needed anyways since a single target will always get killed easily with SS+disabling ally.
More "fun facts"
- SS close to never goes for Ghost Marchers
- SS close to never goes Shroud
- Energizer is rarely built

Sum of above, no unitwalking. Unit collision prevents any type of below 50 range ulti to hit.

I really don't see how people keep using this "omg max ult is gone!"-argument, because it was always gone. I have never seen the 2400 damage ultimate happen and neither have you, you have seen people get one-shot but that was 1600 damage ultimates at best.

In regard to the "omg max ult" argument, its more of a psychological factor than anything. Yes, it was a freak occurence but prior to this change a fully souled up SS provides a solid mental edge. Kinda like how Behe and Tempest ultis have the same effect. We need more heroes with strong mental edge abilities like that, it provides an added dimension to the game.

The rest of your points are all valid (Debatable but valid :)) but it remains that this ulti change does nothing to address SS's other weaknesses. And i'm still worried that there are now several heroes that farm almost as well (Or just as well) as him. It was the one thing Soulstealer still had till he almost vanished overnight because a bunch of heroes replaced him and more importantly, took his strengths but none of his weaknesses.

When the competitive scene was still picking up SS I remember very often many players picked up shrunken head before blink. The build up definitely helped as +10 str made him reasonably tanky with a vestments for added effect but clearly the game/metas changed beyond the hero's adaptability to keep up.

[SmurfinBird]

I disagree with your conclusion point Ekamo. The consistency changes where required to stop the strange angular unreliability killzones and safezones in the ultimates previous version. I do appreciate that you may not referring to this part of the change and instead the inner circle of 2400 damage.

Here inlies an issue. What makes SoulStealer a hero that should be chosen to have this extra "bonus" over another hero? Has the most recent balance change occurred in a nerf large enough to the functioning of the overall hero that deserves a bonus damage for landing one of his high-risk skills? If so, are there other heroes in that balance state? (Blitz?)

Are we doing this to cling on to the old mechanics, or for the betterment of the game as a whole?

I would like to see a video of this landed. It must be within 24 range of the hero, which hero models in HoN are something around that so your hero model should overlap. I assume this can't be a one shot as perspective may skew distance measurement. Preferably have this in a real game scenario.

Another few questions: Does this increase the skill cap or the learning curve? It must be a hard thing to explain that there's this inner circle if you're ontop of a hero (inside of it even) that does huge burst. A question I would ask as a new player would be why? Why is that in the game, does he require it? Doesn't this imbalance him, are there no better changes to make to this hero to increase the reward if that's the aim of the change?

I definitely understand both perspectives, I believe well-played teamfights/ganks should be a lot of reward for achieving something like pulling the perfect SoulStealer ultimate from the previous iteration, but there are far too many questions we need to ask of the reasons behind the change in order to choose one over the other. The new ultimate is a buff, but more consistent than the old version. If we think it's too much, shouldn't we just nerf the new mechanic instead of throwing it out altogether?

[GregerMoek]

Literally the first thing that popped up on a Youtube search: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQAICM9m154

There is teamwork involved. There is unitwalking involved (which could easily be traded for Energizer on a teamfight if that was good enough to warrant pickup). Why are these requirements a bad thing?





One thing about the video, all of the other team had 1600hp or less, meaning this will still be possible, also meaning there's no proof it was the 2400ult, it is proof that it was past 1500, however. I actually was not aware that Tempest ult made units lose their collision size to allies (You still need UW to go through them, but without this feature they would never be sitting on top of each other in the ult).

If I had a say in the change, I'd probably make the damage curve steeper past 50 range, I have no problem what so ever with the 50-600 change because that was the area where the results were most unreliable, because of how the ultimate used to behave in this interval. More or less I did not like how the angle, which you of course can control the same way as Demon Hands except that there is a longer cast time on the ultimate. Moreover, it wasn't completely obvious how this star-shaped damage area looked or anything, compared to how for example Silhouette's Death Lotus shows which angle the nuke is in so that you can aim it, and also it is instant cast.

Before this change, a hero that stood close to 150 units away could recieve as much damage as a target standing 450 units away. Someone who stood 200 units away could take as much damage as someone standing 950 units away, while the guy next to him takes the same damage as the 150 units away guy.

I did not like the change entirely, however stating that it is a complete nerf is misleading, as some others do. There is currently only one spell and situation that can allow this old team-wide one-shot (at 2400 nuke damage) to happen unless Someone catches an entire team with Ghost Marchers or Energizer active and deciding to stand on the same spot while also being stunned.


tl;dr if I was omnipotent I'd buff the damage when closer to 50units, otherwise kind of leave it as changed. Kaleidoscopic AoE nukes are lame (in my opinion). Mix between old and new could be coolish.


Regarding people who whine about SS having weaknesses, get over it. It used to be part of hero design to let heroes have weaknesses, they can't be all Silhouettes. Sometimes removing a hero's weakness is the worst change possible. Why should we adress SS's weaknesses when they were just about as weak before when he was picked? It was his strengths that were nerfed (mana cost on QWE, some stats etc, aura on Kong etc).

[Ekamo]

I've said it before, and I will say it again. I love the fact that the old mechanics where removed, where the unreliability of the angles simply were not justified. HOWEVER, I do have problems with the damage curve.

They are two distinctly different things, and if you are not sure about what this means yet, read this (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?442417) again.


Another few questions: Does this increase the skill cap or the learning curve? It must be a hard thing to explain that there's this inner circle if you're ontop of a hero (inside of it even) that does huge burst. A question I would ask as a new player would be why? Why is that in the game, does he require it? Doesn't this imbalance him, are there no better changes to make to this hero to increase the reward if that's the aim of the change?
If we are just going to judge by damage curves, the previous one was easier to explain to a new player than this (disregarding wonky mechanics). Then it was just, "Place yourself as close as humanly possible to the target and they will take extremely high damage". Now you have to add an extra sentence stating that unitwalking will not help, and is thus virtually useless (compared to PK) in conjunction with ultimate.


One thing about the video, all of the other team had 1600hp or less, meaning this will still be possible, also meaning there's no proof it was the 2400ult, it is proof that it was past 1500, however. I actually was not aware that Tempest ult made units lose their collision size to allies (You still need UW to go through them, but without this feature they would never be sitting on top of each other in the ult).
Basing my argument off this picture, provided by MacroHard, I would say that most likely he is dealing 2400 damage in the video, but definitely more than 1500 damage. You are saying it isn't possible, I'm saying it is with a proper set-up, and that it should be like that for very specific reasons.

http://i.imgur.com/8XBip.png

Even if the likelihood of you hitting a full 2400 damage ulti is not the greatest, there is a definite potential for huge damage at very close range (40 or closer), significantly higher than 1500 which is the current maximum. And this is something which due to the reasons I stated in my earlier posts very desirable.
I base this off the following graph:

http://i.imgur.com/v7Yjb.png


Regarding people who whine about SS having weaknesses, get over it. It used to be part of hero design to let heroes have weaknesses, they can't be all Silhouettes. Sometimes removing a hero's weakness is the worst change possible. Why should we adress SS's weaknesses when they were just about as weak before when he was picked? It was his strengths that were nerfed (mana cost on QWE, some stats etc, aura on Kong etc).
Agreed completely.

[`11411181]

He's not talking about clinging to the old mechanics because the new one doesn't have the instagib ultimate. He has a problem with what I alluded to in my post as well:

damage changes that are in no way related to fixing the damage discrepancies from the soul torrent mechanic (and debuff).

There is zero justification for changing the max damage on SS's ult, or the damage dealt per distance demarcation points. It would be trivial to create an affector? 24 or 50 units in radius at pbaoe that does 2400 damage. Why was this not preserved? Instead, we get a damage compensation for mediocre ultimates landed on targets between 50-600 range targets.
There are 3 very distinct design decisions made with this change:
- Removal of soul torrent mechanic
- Debuff AoE to match the damage AoE (700 to 1250?)
- Removal of the pointblank critical damage point, with a resulting compensation to landing mediocre ultimates.

The first 2, nobody has a problem with. The third has no basis for reasoning, here or internally.

[Fen__]

When looking at ultimate only, I have to admit that the changes made by S2 are suprisingly good. I like the attempts to remove luck factor + increasing reward for player awarness and clearmind during a teamfight when you have to make fast decission where to place the ultimate.

Overall change for sure increase the teamfight potential of SS, but at the same time I have to agree with somebody who stated before that lack of 2k + burst potential is a nerf to SS late game, and because of that i would like to see some small change to ultimate increasing the debuff power when staying very close to SS. I would say that a 5-10-15% increase of SS current debuff power in 150 radius around him could somewhat nulify the effect of ultimate cap and wont unbalance him at the same time.

P.S. I doubt that none of SoulStealers landed over 1.5k ultimate in comp scene. Maybe it wasnt 2.4k but for sure there was a lot of over 1.5k dmg attempts.

[khaz]

Regarding people who whine about SS having weaknesses, get over it. It used to be part of hero design to let heroes have weaknesses, they can't be all Silhouettes. Sometimes removing a hero's weakness is the worst change possible. Why should we adress SS's weaknesses when they were just about as weak before when he was picked? It was his strengths that were nerfed (mana cost on QWE, some stats etc, aura on Kong etc).

A hero nerfed is usually done so for valid reasons and SS was still picked up post his mana cost nerf/stats/aura. That all changed when those nerfs were invalidated with a particular trend of heavy farming heroes and meta games where he has zero purpose. Normally most heroes of SS's capabilities make their way back into a meta at some point but there hasn't even been a whiff of this happening. He's a particularly specialised hero which struggles to adapt to the game atm. Lets see if this ulti changes his presence at all, the patch hasn't been out long at all.

[`11411181]

^ incorrect, he has been seen a bit by very particular teams (haxxeren mostly championing this with tdM/coL) albeit mostly in scrims and the ddos'd comp game where he was about to go off the chain in a solo mid role.

I think people get too hung up about meta considerations and railroad themselves away from, or into, possibilities for all the wrong reasons.

[khaz]

^ incorrect, he has been seen a bit by very particular teams (haxxeren mostly championing this with tdM/coL) albeit mostly in scrims and the ddos'd comp game where he was about to go off the chain in a solo mid role.

I think people get too hung up about meta considerations and railroad themselves away from, or into, possibilities for all the wrong reasons.

Hmm, haven't seen those scrims but glad to see the top teams are trying him out. I suppose getting hung up on metas can limit your views sometimes but SS seems to be particularly affected the last what...8 months? He went from god tier > top tier > almost gone. But in general, all of S2's patches for hero balance have been very positive throughout the summer. There seems to be a purpose and direction behind them so hopefully its leading up to a major revamp of the whole game. I haven't felt this positive about the game since the peak of open beta. :)

All the recent changes leading to HoN 3.0 + HoN Tour?

[`11411181]

No, just certain factions within s2 winning the small battles, one at a time. Marketing overblows the importance of half the stuff that happens with respect to that (see: community patch).

[Gorb]

Pretty sure this is done now as well, for better or worse. Archived.