[2.6.14] Riftwalker

[triplej]

I have seen some very strong Riftwalker play, and Tralfamadore has said on stream that he feels like she's a strong hero, but...what actually does she do? She's not a great laner when compared to almost any other support; her only viable harassment pushes the lane, she has no immobilize, and her slow has a short range, which is compounded by the fact that it's fairly weak until you hit someone multiple times. Cascade Event is fairly awkward and clunky, and seems like a skill solely meant to set up Magical Christmas Land ultimate stacks. Her ultimate, while strong, requires her to put herself in harms way, has a long channeling time, and stuns for the same amount of time as Sven's Q. Finally, her attack animation is terrible, and neither this nor her weak E are viable mechanisms to pick up extraneous farm.

Riftwalker feels to me like a knot of forced synergy, but her skills, which are individually weak, are also weak when used in combination with each other. Keeping this in mind, where does she fit? What makes her worth a pick over any other support?

[Ekamo]

Approved.

Riftwalker to me feels like an attempt to make a hero be able to do a lot of cool, and really unique, stuff when the skills are properly used in conjunction with one another. To some degree this is true with her, in my opinion, having one of the more unique skill-sets in the game. But mostly she simply falls flat when the high likelihood of only one of her three skill shots being slightly out of place occurs, mainly her Q and R since they are both needed to apply the (potential) disastrous damage E has. If everything works out perfectly though, she can deal 1110 (1310 at level 16) damage in an AoE as early as level 9, but this is over time and a commonly a very unrealistic scenario. This is considering she either needs additional CC or several levels into her W to be able to hold targets in place for full duration of E, and then that is only one target.

Of course she also has several utility benefits, mainly her long range initiation with Q and R and all the general havoc a well placed Q can cause. This is just as situational as the damage though. She is a very high risk, but also a high reward hero, which leads me to the following question:

If she is deemed to be underpowered, would a possible buff then most optimally be targeted at lowering the risk, or at increasing the reward? The questions OP asked at the end of his post are highly relevant to be able to provide a thorough response to this.
Make your case for either if you believe she could use a buff, and make it convincing.

Remember to work of other people's posts if they already covered what you're going to say. Sub-forum rules (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?393760-Balance-Forum-Rules) apply as always.
This is also relevant: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?419944-Riftwalker-Mechanics

[dandylion]

I feel like she's absolutely underwhelming in regular play. The payoff for landing everything perfectly is a good to great on the scale from crap to awesome, but the likelihood of it happening is not substantial without someone else paving the way in a team fight or gank. She just doesn't particularly accel at anything, and I see no reason why I'd pick her over any other hero to fill any of her potential roles.

With that being said, I'd only rate her just below balanced, now quite underpowered. Something like a buff to the cast range to her slow could go a long ways.

However, on a non-balance related side note she's a load of fun to play in mid wars :p

[Hubaris]

I actually find her to be borderline and fairly balanced for the most part. Very large amounts of damage (potential) and a strong displacement ability; without having to sacrifice a slot for a 'pull in' skill. Her major weakness lies in her W being fairly poor without stacks but being disastrous when applied in a 'perfect' scenario. The same can be said about her Q and E; both being very strong skills in their own right, but have massive potential when combined with other heroes.

As a standalone hero, she cannot function properly (much like Flux) but has the ability to (when in conjunction with others) cause some serious damage and displacement.

Pulling a team together with Q is extremely valuable when paired with something like Hammer or Magmus, and the E is just extra damage on top of it.

As for her Ultimate, it is quite strong (and has a Superior Stun attached to it); despite the downside of being channeled. Its range isn't the greatest for surprise initiation, but works excellently when paired with another true initiator (thats not to say she can't initiate, but its not always feasible).

Overall a very strong hero when paired with another hero, but a worse than average but not too awful hero when taken alone. Q is strong in its own right, despite the delay, and only gets better the more people you have to synergize with.

[Skinsword]

She has nice farming potential with her q-e combo. So if you play her as a pure support it is easy to afford wards. Her ult is a superior stun which will go through a carry's shrunken head. Her ult and skill set shines the most when there are other heroes with aoe potential that can capitalize on the massive near screen sized aoe superior stun as well the follow up cascade event. Otherwise she shines at defending and is relatively effective at early game ganking.

Her attack animation is piss poor as well as her starting damage. She has no survivability, which forces her to either build survivability or go for the "one and done" approach by blowing through all of her spells and then dying shortly afterwards from being hopelessly out of position as a squishy intelligence hero.

[GregerMoek]

The interesting (read hard) part is to figure out how this hero lanes. She's simply not the best dual laner, which every hero obviously can't be.
I think that she'll be better off as a solo laner actually, sure she's support in all guides almost but she needs EXP and a decent amount of gold to be effective, think Jeraziah solo, she's kind of the same even though she's not the most supportive.

I personally like how the hero works in a fight, what makes a real difference is how damn long range she has on her Vacuum-like ability. Since the ability will -always- pull targets to the centre of it (or that's what I think at leasT) it is a really useful tool. I think the range of the ability is what makes it good however, the delay makes it somewhat hard to land, even if the radius is not bad. I think it would promote some skillful, fast-reaction play if it was instant, but it probably would be OP then. Point being that since none of her skills are truly dependable, except the slow, you can't run her as an effective support in a lane, she might be able to be the farmer but there are simply not many combinations that she'd work with.

Her AoE "dot" deals fantastic damage and is good for farming, it will rarely tick for full damage though unless you have a Kraken, Electrician or maybe Tempest (long disables) to help her keep enemies in place. It is also good for sweeping creepwaves though.

Her ultimate is good, I see no problem with the delay currently, seeing that the stun is Superior magic, this ultimate will never be bad. She is a possible way to deal with Tempests in this regard as well as being a good companion of any type of AoE disable, Bubbles (what hero is NOT good with Tempest and Bubbles? :P)...

Yeah I think she's bad as support and shouldn't be played as such.

[zstarkey42]

She suffers mainly from the fact that there's a ton of heros that can initiate as well as her but are also strong laners, gankers, roamers or junglers. She can't do absolutely anything by herself and can barely finish off kills because of how unreliable her spells are. She is a support that doesen't even have great lane control or harass. She lacks that 'wonder' skill that allows her to initiate in lane witouth much risk like Magmus, Bubbles, etc. She is completly dependant on her ultimate to land the rest of her spells, and it is not very easy to land it either. In all, I think she has too high of a skillcap to be worth using consistently, and even when you DO pull off her combo sucessfuly she is not as disastrous as other initiators during a teamfight (compare her to a tempest or Magmus ultimate...)

There's just many other heros that do her job more reliably, with lower risk and sometimes higher reward... Her skills are really awkward by themselves and just don't work unless other teammates are around. She lacks any sort of reliable disable which hinders her laning presence. Also, her biggest selling point 'not requiring a pk to initiate' is not that amazing either; most other initiators can get one soon enough to fullfil their job.

I honestly found her to be a better 'counter-initiator' than anything. If your team gets jumped on, her ulti + Q is a great way to negate any enemy agression until your team recovers. This is because it's much easier to land your ultimate after the enemy team is clumped in jumping at your team. Still, she is just too situational to be worth picking regularly. It's not that she's bad, but no matter how unique they made her spells she is just a weaker redundant version of many other PK initiators that is much harder to use.

[Martym]

She has a hard time until 6, but then she's great, her ult can turn a teamfight, her E is good to farm and she can (theorically) help getting kills or avoiding death.

The only issue with her is that she has almost only skillshots, and therefore require some skills/foreseeing ability.

I find her fun to play, and lately I almost lost a game solely due to her (a chance her carry was not that good).

To me she's balanced even tho the laning phase can be a hard time.

[Antimodus]

I think she's somewhat similar to Hellbringer. I won't get into which hero's skillset is preferable in what situations, but only say Hellbringer hasn't seen any play for a very long time. Might imply this is not the most favorable meta for a hero like Riftwalker as well.

[Sultur]

I really like playing her and think she has a good "feeling" with her spell combination, but i agree on the point that her skills are pretty weak on its own but synergieze well together especially with other cc`s. Im not quite sure if this brings her in an up position. At all im a fan of heroes that specialice in some roles and arent "i can do everything fine"-machines like prophet to some degree.

So overall im fine with the fact that babysitting is not her strengh but for that she can rape a clash and fits especially well in lineups with great aoe-followups.
and btw she has really good farming capabilitys which brings her some more versatility if the game allows it (had good experiences in sololanes).

If there is something to fix mybe a little lower channel time for her ult would be nice or some duration buff for her slow (or mybe some attspd slow too?). I think as a singleltarget slow its a little weak, sure, if there is fast damage followup it can be huge but especially on the lane i feel that the timewindow is to little to really utilize its potential.

[sharbarachu]

This hero always feels weak and/or pointless. I wouldn't call it garbage, but there is just always a superior pick to fill its role. Any hero based around channeling time and requiring setup will always be a situational pick, and when they have nothing nice to really complement it, it's just sorta meh.

[Seveah]

I've been playing a bit of Riftwalker lately. The hero is quite fun to play and I plan on adding her to my regular hero rotation. I think one of the biggest flaws with her is her survivability compared to her role. As others before me have mentioned, she's a squishy INT hero that likes to teleport herself into the middle of a fight. This requires her to build survivability, which is fine, but until she has that survivability her role makes it difficult to have that survivability. "To get more gold I need a better sword. To get a better sword I need more gold." That's how i feel playing her.

THe other point of mention is her laning phase. Her slow, while powerful, is pretty lackluster. Later in the game it can be a very very powerful tool to stop someone from running/initiating. In the early game, however, her slow is just a touch weak. I think it's primarily the range that hurts it. If the range was increased a touch it would feel a lot more comfortable, especially considering that her pull seems like Rotten Grasp without an immobilize at that stage of the game.

Rift Burn is interesting... I usually level Rift Burn last unless I need it for some emergency situation. Until 6, Cascade Event and Shared Existence really feel like the way to go. The spell works well later in the game to push lanes or to combo out after ult/Cascade Event/Shared Existence, but in the early game there's really no reliable way to keep them in Rift Burn long enough for it to feel worth casting.

If you're going to buff her, be very very careful. My guess is that the wrong buff could very easily make her too strong, but I do feel she needs at least a little love.

[`11411181]

Item-less initiation skill on a hero that is item-dependant.

[Hubaris]

What makes that so interesting is the way the hero is, although she is item independent she can't really survive on her own without the help of a form of 'babysitter' (for the lack of a better word). Laning her with something like Magmus allows him to farm up his initiation and allows the lane's kill and danger potential to skyrocket significantly. Its an interesting symbiotic relationship to say the least.

(Compare this to say someone like Hellbringer who doesn't require farm to initiate, but can survive without the help of another in most cases).

[girard`]

Well put, I would agree that Riftwalker is an initiator that leans heavily on the shoulder of others on her team to allow her to be successful. Her ult puts her in harms way - since she's vulnerable as it is, she needs a solid foundation around her. I don't necessarily think it's just items to help her.

She's weird...I see her as a utility hero, but she's a utility that needs farm. Unlike, say a Pharaoh.

[Baer]

I feel like especially her Q (Cascade Event) is quite weak. Even on level 4 the slow provides no big radius and the heroes are back at their original place in about 0.5 seconds.
Maybe a bigger radius (300/350/400/450 or 325/350/375/400) might help her abit for early laning phase or even an additional slow going from 60%~ to back 100% MS.

I really like the hero and hope she will be revived soon.

[Rkey]

Lane her with :phar:. Either you get hellfire + shared existence, or you get mummies + her dot thing that I cannot recall the name of. Bloodlust machine.

After that the lane has huge killing potential with all of their synergy, :phar: maxes Hellfire and :rift: (she has no icon wtf D: ) keeps Q on level 1 and maxes the dot thing. Especially good if put on the long lane where the enemy generally don't get heroes that have escapes (perfect to show those prophet's who's boss). If you win the lane, you by lvl 6 have 2 strong heroes that need no portal key to initate and you can play super agressive. If you don't, well you still have 2 initiatoors that don't need a pk and you will have little trouble picking people off.

Other than that I don't really know.

[XFlame]

Strategy section (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/forumdisplay.php?9-Strategy) is this way.

[Dominare]

Personally, I think Riftwalker is one of the most well-designed and interesting heroes S2 has released in a long time. She's definitely not easy to play well (I sure as hell don't rate myself with her, fun though she is) but that ultimate is just insanely good. Comparisons with Hellbringer are pretty natural I think, since I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) those two are the only ones with AoE superior magic stuns, but in terms of her initiation she's a lot more like Behemoth. You blink in and skilldump and after that yeah, you probably die, but if your team was on the ball you've traded yourself for 4-5 enemies. Sure she doesn't have the lane presence Behe does (but then few heroes do!) but she doesn't need 2150g on a pkey either.

[EmptyOne]

I agree with you triplej, I think that her Q is weak, it got a area and is easy to avoid. It is only good if comboed with her ulti wich is also pretty hard to land if the other team got wards.

[Dominare]

I think that her Q is weak, it got a area and is easy to avoid. It is only good if comboed with her ulti

Or, you know, any of the other hundred stuns & slows in the game.

[FurryTuna]

I feel like if we were to compare her with someone, we would say she suffers from the Flux syndrome. Which means very high reliance on team to succeed.

Her skills might seem lackluster on their own, but if a team is built around her initiation/counter-initiation prowess, it is quite sweet. :D

[Psionic]

She is a highly synergy-based, high skill-cap hero which usually requires a strong AOE synergy to be built into to maximize effectiveness. HoNestly, I feel that with the right team composition, a Riftwalker-utilized AOE team can win later into a game where normal carry teams would find an edge.

She should NOT be ganking, except in circumstances when she has good backup, as her only consistently useful spell for catching heroes out is her slow, and even then, blinks make it very subpar.

In reply to the OP, making her more rewarding would make her MUCH more dangerous in a team that uses her well. I think that decreasing the risk is a bad choice, but it would be the lesser of two evils, as teams do not want risky, close games, but safer games. I think HoN needs more experiment before we come to any serious conclusions about this hero that, frankly, nobody has had the time to give a very thorough look over and playtest.

[Reimu]

Ah Riftwalker, one of the most powerful heroes in midwars. How I love thee there. But that's not really relevant in this thread so lets get down to things that are actually relevant.

I think I can just right away point out that personally, I think Riftwalker is in a good place as is right now. Could she be improved (be it by buffs or nerfs)? Probably, but I don't think she's in dire need of it at the moment and instead could use more exposure in general, she doesn't seem to be picked up that much imo. That said, I can make some input on her skillset and how I personally see her at the moment:

Cascade Event (Q) - I would say, aside from her ultimate, this is her signature ability. It pulls all enemy targets (only "bosses" are excluded) within the affected AoE to the center of the cast point after a 1.5 sec delay and deals some magic damage (260 at Lv4) . Rather straight forward in terms of how it functions, however there's more to it than that.
It has a 1200 cast range, which frankly put is quite amazing. During laning it can be used to harass with some clever uses without pushing the lane however due to its lengthy cooldown, it can not be spammed so instead it's often used where it matters more than just harass. An extra note regarding the long range is that due to the 1200 range and it's modest affected radius, it's often possible to cast the spell without giving enemy team charges on their battery, thus making it completely impossible for enemy team to tell it's been cast.
The pull also has a lingering time of 200ms, meaning that between 1.5sec to 1.7sec after it's cast, any non-magic immune targets will be pulled. It's not much but sometimes you manage to catch an extra target that runs in without you having planned for it. Nothing big but it deserves a mention as small things like it are often overlooked by some players. Oh and the pull doesn't pull targets over terrain, trees, buildings or similar (Fissure, Empath's wall etc).
Cooldown decreases with levels while mana cost remains the same which is a good thing, however 15sec still feels a bit lengthy at max level.

My verdict on this skill in general (considering the rest of her skillset as well): A very good skill. It has two "major" drawbacks in that it has a 1.5sec delay before it activates and it has a long CD which may make the damage seem rather weak but cast range, linger time and synergy with her ultimate in particular as well as several other heroes more than makes up for it. I personally think this skill is perfect for Riftwalker so I'll move on to the next skill!


Shared Existence (W) - I have very mixed feelings about this skill. In one way it's a very strong slow, but in another way it doesn't quite seem to fit in with the rest of Riftwalkers skillset. There's nothing special about the skill and it's incredibly straight forward; apply a 4sec slow that gets (much) stronger if target gets attacked from non-dot sources under its duration. There isn't much else to the skill unfortunately.
The cooldown decreases drastically with levels (from 20sec to 8sec) while mana cost remains the same at all levels which is good, at max rank it has an effective uptime of 50% at 75mana per cast. The slow is fairly strong even without target getting attacked at 35%, increasing by 7% up to a 70% total from attacks at Lv4 but even so it feels incredibly lackluster.

Overall verdict on this skill: Subpar. This is the only targeted skill Riftwalker has and it's single target to boot. Despite showing promise of an incredibly strong slow, the duration feels short and it's glaringly obvious that for this spell to truly shine, her allies MUST be attacking the target she casts this on, otherwise it despite a 35% slow always feels like the target gets away. It does have the advantage of a short cooldown at max level and a cheap mana cost but I wonder, would this skill become broken if it was AoE targeted like Cascade Event just with no delay and higher mana cost (and probably a weaker initial slow)? This isn't a suggestion per say, but I think this skill deserves the most discussion when it comes to talking about improving Riftwalker (regardless of a nerf/buff perspective).


Rift Burn (E) - Another skill that's a bit unique to Riftwalker, however she's hardly the first with a potent AoE spell that can deal a decent amount of damage if enemies stays inside it for the whole duration. It has a less effective radius than Cascade Event (300 vs 350, initial damage radius is even smaller than 300) and is often harder to get full potential out of than any of her other spells. Has a total potential magic damage of 400 at lv4. Cooldown is 15sec at all levels and mana cost goes up by 10 each level, starting at 100.
It has the same cast range Shared Existance does (600) which often means she doesn't cast this spell first, which also means it's more likely people get out of the AoE very fast which means that for the most part, this skill deals far from the potential 600 damage. However 200 damage is dealt upfront and often dealt to at least one or two targets if cast after a successful Cascade Event. Combines well with disables from teammates however!

Verdict: Good. It's certainly not as good as Cascade Event, but it's better than Shared Existance and adds to her burst. Cooldown and mana cost are a bit sketchy at Lv4 but the potential 600 magic damage is the trade-off I suppose and depending on her team it's either worth it or subpar. Never worthless as you can still at least get 200 damage out of it! Moving on..


Wormhole (R) - Riftwalkers second signature ability. This 2sec channeling ultimate comes with a decent chunk of magic damage and an incredibly powerful AoE stun, that also gets better with levels. It has the same cast range as Cascade Events which means it has the same advantages it does from it, adds 250-450 burst magic damage and a 2-2.5sec superior magic stun(!) on targets hit. It also packs the biggest AoE radius of Riftwalkers skills at 400!
With 1200 cast range this skill usually lets Riftwalker be in safe places when she casts it, all she needs is either a teammate to initiate, or some prediction skills (preferably with the aid of vision of course). Successful initations with this skill often leads to devastating results in Riftwalkers favor which is what makes or breaks Riftwalker.
The 2-2.5 sec stun attached to it often means team can follow up freely and unleash their skillset before enemy team can fight back, especially so since magic immunity or Void Talisman does not prevent the stun which keeps Riftwalker relevant at all stages of the game from the point she hits Lv6.
Cooldown decreases by 10sec with each level while mana cost increases by 50, however Wormhole has an incredibly short CD for what it does even at Lv1 at 90sec. When this skill was introduced I laughed pretty hard at the fact of how long Blitz ult at Lv1 and 2 were in comparison, because really, that was a good joke. ;)

Verdict: -Amazing-. While it certainly has the drawback of requiring good prediction skill in many cases, the risk vs reward from this skill is in my opinion, one of the best in the game. A good Wormhole changes everything, while a bad one... can also change everything but in a very bad way for your team. I want to say that this skill is much more superior than Tempests Elemental Void, but the two heroes play very differently and the rest of their skills truly set them apart and makes them good at different things.
This spell goes incredibly well with both Cascade Event and Rift Burn on its own, but it also goes well with practically any hero imaginable, and it also adds a good amount of burst damage to Riftwalker. If there is any spell on Riftwalker that may be considered OP, this is it. The short cooldown minimizes the penalty of a failed Wormhole while also keeping her presence active and consistent throughout a whole game.

With skills described and judged from my perspective, I want to say that Riftwalker is incredibly fun to play without feeling too weak or too strong. To me this is in the end, an important aspect when balancing a hero. Fun must be relevant.

To me she's no more item dependent than Andromeda, she can initiate and place herself in danger just like Andromeda, however in many cases, if you successfully throw out your spells, your death is well worth the death of multiple heroes on enemy team. Items on Riftwalker is gravy, and after the laning phase, she can often find a way to get gold if really needed as Cascade Event and Rift Burn makes it easy to farm. I don't however suggest doing it in anything but a public game as farm is generally better given to someone else.
If we do assume you get items, she can do well with nearly anything. Astrolabe, Barrier, Cyclone, Shrunken, Nome's, Kuldra's, Frostfield etc all work really well with her and she does not have much mana issues, main reason being because all her skills are on the cheaper side of the spectrum but they all also have decently long cooldowns. In teamfights only Shared Existance is seen cast more than once so her relevance in teamfights after initial use of Cascade Event, Rift Burn and Wormhole is minor unless farmed which in a way adds to her balance.


Her early game is soso, I don't find her attack animation to be horrible, but it's clearly not great either. However she sports a 600 attack range together with a 1200 range spell which to me makes up for it. She's for obvious reasons not a great babysitter but she does okay with stunners despite not having one of her own until Lv6+ and she definitely can gank and SHOULD coordinate ganks if her Ult is off CD which it often is.


This post became much much bigger than I expected, when I first planned to respond I didn't think I would have much to say since I find Riftwalker to be in a good place at the moment, perhaps too good thanks to Wormhole! So about that Shared Existence...

Edit: Fixed Rift Burns total damage number as per Ekamo's correction note. This goes to show how unlikely it is for Rift Burn to actually do full damage as I've never seen it do anywhere near 400, yet alone 600 :>

And while I'm at it with edits, I don't think comparing Riftwalker with Tempest is fair. Riftwalker fills a role to me that is much more similar to Magmus rather than Tempest, but if we really have to compare Rift with Temp, I should point out that Riftwalker has at least two uses of her ult for every tempest ult, 30sec from three at Lv3.

[Fiat]

I dont see why you would pick her over tempest. Rift can't gank, can't stun reliably, can't farm. Sure she can wipe waves out with her E but that should be gold going towards someone more item dependent. Will get out last-hit by any melee with hatchet and can't stun an enemy off the carry if she's babysitting. She can't really do anything besides sit on her hands until a teamfight rolls around and drop all of her spells.

Tempest with PK has a longer instantaneous aoe disable. He jungles like a boss, pops in for ganks, and pushes extremely well with elementals. Has a larger aoe dot that scales into lategame and takes out trees. In comparison, Rift doesn't contribute nearly as much to the team. Her best trait is being completely forgettable and jumping in for a clutch "LOL YOU GAIS HAVE A RIFTWULKER?" counter-initiation.

[zstarkey42]

That more or less summed up what I posted earlier in this thread.
The main problem with her is that she is 200% team dependent and has very poor lane control. She can't gank well, and can't even finish off enemies reliably because all of her skills are either very difficult to land and deal rather low damage witouth her ultimate and witouth the help of teammates. Her ultimate is relatively difficult to pull off and is most often used as counter initiation, and many other initiators are able to obtain similar results more reliably and can also gank/push/roam/jungle better, turning her into a redundant pick.

I really think they need to tweak her abilities so that they have an actual use outside her ultimate... this would allow her to gank better and setup kills in lane. For example, reducing the delay on her cascade (to make it more reliable) and increasing the initial slow on shared existence would be a good start. If she has reasonable lane presence and ganking potential, she would probably be picked more often because she's not absolutely restricted to a counter-initiation role (which isn't even as gamebreaking as many other picks such as Tempest).

[DrPeckers]

I love Riftwalker, but she does have some problems.

The first is that her E spell is useless outside farming, her ultimate, or a teammates stun. However, she is a hard support, so she should not be farming, and her ultimate only guarantees the inner radius on one enemy and two ticks of the larger radius, so she can not get the full potential out of the skill by herself. This makes the spell way to reliant on teammates, but if they do not have a long term stun or do not know how to chain stun, the spell is worthless.

The second and bigger problem is that the timing on her skills to combo them is completely off. Her Q has a 1.5 sec delay before landing, her ult has 2.0 second channel before landing, and landing her E's inner radius is reliant on having Q and R being near consecutive. So if she combos Q + shift R + shift E, there is a 0.5 second period where the enemies can spread 150 units causing the inner radius of E to miss. If she combos R + shift Q + wait for E, you waste 1.5 seconds of stun time and 2 ticks of the E waiting to land E's inner radius. If she combos R + shift E + Q, you completely give up the concept of landing the inner radius's damage in the first place. Considering she is a hero completely balanced around landing her christmas light combo, it would be nice if she could land it in the first place.

The best way I see of remedying this is to decrease the ult channel time to 1.5 seconds.

[Ekamo]

... Has a total potential magic damage of 400 at lvl4...
Great post overall, but this is wrong (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?419944-Riftwalker-Mechanics).

[Reimu]

Hah, my bad and updated the post to reflect that. Thanks Ekamo.

[MushidoZ]

"Max possible magic damage, including initial damage, is about 150/300/450/600"

Good damage, but it requires 6 seconds to deal it, and since it is magic damage, it is fairly easy to shut down with a 400 gold vestment (meh).

So, about riftwalker. I believe her case has been described already, she can be a relatively strong addition to a team but requires the rest of the team to be already "stacked". What I mean by that, is that people make the mistake of comparing her to tempest. In fact, Rift is probably the most shining when COMBINED with a character like tempest. I like to see riftwalker as a scepter upgrade to tempest or characters/teams that can pin down enemies for a seriously long time. She basically helps to set up that optimal ultimate, adds damage to it, and then improves its disable duration by porting on them and stunning (if not already done to initiate).

Riftwalker + tempest + flux are pretty savage when paired together, and I am sure other characters can easily be added to that combo to make it extremely powerful (geomancer or behemoth? glacius? forsaken archer?)

Because of that, I will say rift is NOT overpowered, nor is she underpowered. She is balanced at what she does, but what she does is not officially recognized as a role..

PS: As a solo hero, she fails hard, massive hard.

[Seveah]

I love Riftwalker, but she does have some problems.

The first is that her E spell is useless outside farming, her ultimate, or a teammates stun. However, she is a hard support, so she should not be farming, and her ultimate only guarantees the inner radius on one enemy and two ticks of the larger radius, so she can not get the full potential out of the skill by herself. This makes the spell way to reliant on teammates, but if they do not have a long term stun or do not know how to chain stun, the spell is worthless.

The second and bigger problem is that the timing on her skills to combo them is completely off. Her Q has a 1.5 sec delay before landing, her ult has 2.0 second channel before landing, and landing her E's inner radius is reliant on having Q and R being near consecutive. So if she combos Q + shift R + shift E, there is a 0.5 second period where the enemies can spread 150 units causing the inner radius of E to miss. If she combos R + shift Q + wait for E, you waste 1.5 seconds of stun time and 2 ticks of the E waiting to land E's inner radius. If she combos R + shift E + Q, you completely give up the concept of landing the inner radius's damage in the first place. Considering she is a hero completely balanced around landing her christmas light combo, it would be nice if she could land it in the first place.

The best way I see of remedying this is to decrease the ult channel time to 1.5 seconds.

Her combo is perfect. You don't use your Q before you use your R. Her ultimate has a 2.5 second stun attached to it. Ult in, drop Q; E, then use W on whichever target you want to die first. You can roflcombo the players you catch in your ult before they even have time to react.

That said, I wouldn't be opposed to shorter channel time on the ult.

[Coolcollo]

Her combo is perfect. You don't use your Q before you use your R. Her ultimate has a 2.5 second stun attached to it. Ult in, drop Q; E, then use W on whichever target you want to die first. You can roflcombo the players you catch in your ult before they even have time to react.

That said, I wouldn't be opposed to shorter channel time on the ult.

Riftwalker can be played similar to Magmus/Tempest in that Ability 1 -> Shift-Que Ability 2 -> Shift-Que Ability 3

Normally if you can catch enemies together without the Q, you simply ult -> E -> Q (This ensures that the highest possible damage ticks occur amongst the greatest number of targets).

Personally I like running a shift'd path for about 1s so I can shift my Q -> Ult -> E -> W (on the priority target).


The best way I see of remedying this is to decrease the ult channel time to 1.5 seconds

I could swear the channel time used to be 1.5, but that was broken as hell. Riftwalker isn't meant to be able to pull off her entire combo with 0 skill needed. If you time your abilities perfectly the enemy won't spread out. You have a team for a reason. In any case you are not Tempest. Rift plays a better role at counter initiation or setting up AOE-Hell. What I mean is if you've ever watched Riftwalker R -> Q with a Soulstealer on the team you know what happens.

Yes, I am implying that having skill means orchestrating your teammates actions so that the enemies become chain stunned inside of Riftwalker's E.


Protip: Try the combo with Restoration Stone. I'm sure you'll have 0 problems achieving maximum possible damage (minus ~2-3 ticks of maximum E potential perhaps).

tl;dr Riftwalker isn't underpowered. She simply requires proper positioning and teamwork to fully utilize.

[Kisame]

before i start i would ask you to read fully because i realy think im on to something and i think i feel as many others that posted here , thank you in advance.

in my opinion the remarks made here are correct there is no much reason to pick her instead of any other hero... another remark i found on the point was that she is a good solo lane i believe that if u make Riftwalker as a solo lane she should have an escape mechanism , she should solo lane because she need the level fast for her ulti to start making a diference , i believe this is possible by granting her that escape mechanism , in my opinion 1 possibility is to grant her more then a single target slow , maybe a unique passive that slow enemies when her skills hit , another is that her slow when casted on allies (or herself) makes them faster and beefier for example granting movespeed hp and armor while the hero casted on CANT auto attack in that time another good idea i have is since in the late game she is less usefull while opponent got more hp and magic armor i think that her slow should be swaped to while helping her escape also be usefull in the late game and the best unique idea imo is a long range area of effect grab that while Riftwalker use this skill she harsellf cant move yet use skills will help her in the supporting abilities will help her escape and use her skill and maximize their use, in my opinion 1 of my ideas should make her a more ballanced hero yet not over powered while still unique and synchronize well with herself , please give me your feedback , best feedback is changes by s2.
thanks :)

[herro`kiti]

She's an undiscovered powerhouse....some pro team is going to sweep a tournament with her and she will become FOTM, followed by a couple months of permabanhammer.

[SB7]

I don't believe she is underpowered - huge dmg potential with a superior magic stun, and doesn't technically need any farm to blow her load in a team fight. But definitely lacks in a lot of areas that probably does not make her overly viable - compared to other heroes that simply offer a lot more in other areas. Definitely requires a team to be built around her to really maximize potential; but do you want to build a team around a bad support/long channeling initiatior?

I think she needs a slight tweak to make her early game a bit more viable--w/o needing a perfect situation to pull off anything even moderately effective. I'm not exactly sure how to do it though. I have a feeling her fairly long cast times on every spell is critical for balance. I would focus on W or E. On W, adding the slow in a small aoe, like 200, or 300 for 2 secs with no stackable slow other than the singly targetted hero.
Or adding a small aoe slow on E - just enough to help her keep ppl near it early game, but not overkill. And reward for keeping them in longer. Maybe 5 or 10% initial, and a stacking 2-3% each tick with no slow on the final tick (when the slow is no longer applied). So if a hero enters the aoe after 4th tick, they will only receive a 2-3% slow at the 5th tick.
Another option, probably least viable, is to add a short stun to E. Even if it's just a half second, simply because it gives so much more utility than just being able to keep enemies in the rift burn longer.

To compensate, I'd slightly nerf the dmg on E and possibly increase the mana cost - particularly if a stun is added.

[Seveah]

I mentioned earlier that Shared Existence was neat, but seemed a little weak because of how the hero had to position herself in the early game. I notice that others are mentioning a lack of escape or reliable stun. Considering that the ability is called Shared Existence, it doesn't really live up to its name. A buff to this ability, followed by perhaps a nerf to other things to compensate, might be to give her bonus movespeed that scales like the slow she drops on the enemy. Starts off at a base % and increases for all damage taken by the target? It could even drain the amount of speed lost by the targeted hero to Riftwalker. This would give her an escape and/or a way to keep up with enemies that she just can't keep up with because of her lack of stun.

[Sitis]

I love Riftwalker, she has a special place amongst the game-breakers such as tempest and magmus.

Whatever I write here has already been written, so I will be content to say that I believe the only problem is shared existence. They hero has one of the best skill synergies, but w is too flat for what it does. Sure, it adds slow ticks, but Rift mainly uses the skill to slow the enemy so the teammates can catch up to him, so that slow tick is redundant. What I mean is that %70 slow is basically the same thing as %50 slow, %50 already slows enough. However, 4 seconds is short in my opinion. So basically, as said before, I also do believe that shared existence is very weak. But what could be done to improve the hero? Either add 1-2 seconds to the duration and remove the ticks entirely, or make Rift gain something from shared existence.

I believe that rift is not a 'cast spells die' hero. Catch a minimum of 2 people in your ulti, have a bracer and red boots, and you should be fine. If your team does not follow up, then that becomes a problem. But at level 6, with those 2 items, you usually manage to get out of the fight alive. For the later stages, it is true that you have a high risk of dying, but then again you should have a tablet to get out.

Now I think it is a common idea that rift needs items that can boost her survivability. How about adding an armor steal option on shared existence? You ulti in, stun, use your spells and slow an enemy. You steal armor for a short time from the slowed enemy, resulting in a little more survivability for you, and escape. The skill will still be fairly useless while laning, so it won't upset the balance much, but it will add a bit more synergy to her spells while also giving her a small counter to high defense opponents.

[Tomate]

The problem with RiftWalker is the delays... Everything she has take outrageous amount of time... and the fact that the enemy won't move...

Her displacement really need to be near instant... It's her bread and butter... Something like a 0.5 seconds CAST TIME... instant application.

As for her ultimate, I also believe it should be near instant (A certain cast time should still be present)... but in exchange for instant stuff... a nerf must be put in place... Something along the lines of
New casting range: 400/600/800 units (or maybe 500/700/900 or 400/700/1000)... would allow her ultimate to really gain in strength... If need be, look into the cooldown... move it from 90/80/70 to 150/120/90 for all I care... Even the radius might be nerfed to 300 or 350 units if the spell is still OK, or even a scaling 300/350/400 radius type of thing.

Her slow should also see a massive mana cost reduction... Probably somewhere in the 35/40/45/50 mana cost instead of that flat 75 which isn't justified.

If, after all this, she become OP, you can easily check into nerfing the damage on her Cascade or removing the superior magic stun, making it just a magic stun...

[zstarkey42]

I said it once and I'll say it again (in regards to your last post): Riftwalker is not going to be a strong pick because

a) her initiation and teamfight potential, while quite strong in the right hands, isn't gamebreaking like other picks of the same class (loltempest ult)
b) her skillshot unreliability is also outshadowed by many other popular picks. She does not have any derp point and click stun or otherwise easy way to setup kills in lane, gank or roam. Her skillshots, while hard to hit also offer no subtantial reward for the effort they take to line up (outside ultimate). She does not have a lolstun like magmus or behemoth for instance.
c) many other popular picks of the same role are also strong laners, roamers) or junglers. I guess this follows b). She is a crap laner and needs levels to be useful. While she may not need items to properly initiate she will most likely die if you don't get basic stuff (like a tablet to gtfo after casting your ultimate).

A fun hero, but she suffers both from the flux syndrome (complete reliance on teammates) and geomancer syndrome (unreliable). She also can't make use or abuse a PK to lineup any of her abilities. To sum it up she is completly outshadowed by almost every hero in her role and offers nothing substancial to justify her difficulty/unreliability either.

How to fix? Rework her slow spell. It doesen't slow much, it needs a bunch of hits to stack to become decent and even then it doesen't last very long either and costs a ton of mana for no apparent reason. Change that into a semi-decent spell (either higher initial slow or longer duration) and she will maybe be able to do something in a lane RELIABLY. She may also have a way to actually hit some of her damage on fleeing enemies because imo one of the most frustrating aspects of this hero is that she has virtually no way to secure kills against fleeing targets at all because all of her spells require someone to be standing like a duck to hit.

Funny enough, every other initiator I can think of does not have the outrageous delays she has for doing their stuff (mainly cause they abuse PKs in a way she can't) and are ALSO much more devastating once they land such spells. She has weak lane presence. She may not need a PK to initiate but she also misses out the insane benefits that other heros have with it, and she is also an incredibely fast farmer anyway, which doesen't need her gold for anything special either. This hero has so many contradictions I have no clue what S2 was thinking when they designed it.

[Asharda]

Anecdote, but I feel she's a lot stronger than we really give her credit for. W is actually really good for a slow, given how easy it is to just plop it on someone getting hit (creeps!) and just have them slow to a crawl (40% level 1 bad? ???) and the cooldown on level 4 is 8 seconds. Extra radius on E also could help potential early teamfight builds of 1-1-4-1, as opposed to maxing vacuum which is generally better atm.

[Antimodus]

yes, I've played against a skilled riftwalker player once. He was really good at synchronizing W with creep aggro. basically I'd trade a hit with him in the lane and then found myself instantly 40% slowed. It's a bit like with demented where the threat of healnuking someone keeps them from harassing you too aggressively.

[GregerMoek]

I wonder how OP the Cascade Event would be if it could pull through things like cliffs and ****.

[Hubaris]

Not as OP as Dark Seer is in DotA, with the Unstucks you can't permanently trap people but you can at least displace people from the rest of their team if they decide to fight near cliffs.

It would make for an interesting pull change, considering how most of the other pulls and pushes in the game work.

[GregerMoek]

Yeah you can't trap someone "uphill" but you would be able to soft-snipe people off ledges and stuff. While this would be rare even if it was possible it would be cool IMHO.
And well, Dark Seer in dota has lower range but near instant effect on the ability so they are quite different even if the effects are very similar. Rift is nowhere as "I'll-always-get-some-farm-and-exp-no-matter-what" as Dark Seer etc.

[Tomate]

Rift really needs delay reduction on both her ultimate and her pulling skill to be balanced...

The abilities, their damage, their cooldown and so on all fairly make sens, what doesn't is the delays present all over the place on her skills...

Her ultimate is meant to be a portal key + AoE stun effect but the delay around it make it risky. Even more risky with the delay present on her displacement. Fully comboing this hero is virtually a matter of luck more than skill.

So, my way of fixing this hero is a massive buff to the ultimate:
New ultimate: Channeling time: 0.75 seconds. Cooldown: 160 seconds. SotM upgrade: Instant Cast, cooldown: 40 seconds at all levels, deals an extra 100 damage at all levels.

For the pull, I would probably put a 0.5 seconds casting animation on the spell but a 0 delay. This would improve her laning phase drastically.

Overall, you would end up with a much more reliable hero on a long cooldown ultimate but a displacement skill that is much more easy to use so that the hero actually still has an easier laning phase and some impact on teamfights when her ultimate is down.

IF we leave her as his, I see very little future for the hero since she doesn't have a very good early game (level 1 to 5) and isn't exactly reliable in the late game (ultimate can hit nothing but thin air sometimes...).

[Dnakath]

I think the best change to her, would be to make the ult targetable on a hero. Target a hero OR ground (don't know if this is doable with the engine). If the hero is targeted, go with the current iteration but that hero will be the center of the stun.

Overall Rift isn't that bad of a hero. A few changes may be necessary, but I don't think cast time or channel reduction is the way to go. Her Q synergizes very well with her ult, but perhaps her Q skill should pull thru trees/cliffs a bit more.

Think aesthetic changes are really what are necessary here, and not so much cast time or delay changes.

[DarkAgonizer]

Her potential is yet to be untapped - of course she is team dependent there are combinations where she is quite powerful
Of course this hero is no easy mode but i think thats the way it has to be

[DrPeckers]

The problem with her lane presence is how weak Cascade Event is when compared with similar skills. Compare Q's damage + pull on a 1.5 sec delay to Glad's Pitfall, Deadwood's Grasp, or Engi's Keg and there is no comparison: Glad's Pitfall deals Damage + Stun followed by a Slow + Minus armor on a 2.0 second delay, Deadwood's Grasp deals damage + immobilize + minus armor and remains active over its entire 3.0 second duration on a 2.0 second delay, and Engi's keg deals damage+stuns+pushes on a 1.0 second delay. Enemies actually fear being hit by these three skills, but they will mostly just shrug off and walk away (in under a second) after being hit by Riftwalker's Q.

Of these three skills, Engi's keg is the best base line comparision of Cascade Events Relative power due to the the similarities of the two skills, their synergies within each heroes skillset, and the heroes similar roles. Engineer's Keg may be more powerful, but people hold that what makes Cascade Event so powerful is the synergies it has with Riftwalker's skill set. However, Engi's Keg has as much if not more synergy as Cascade Event due to the push push positioning his enemies into his turret, mines, and through his ult and the stun giveing him enough time to get in position to place his other skills. Cascade Event's synergies are rather minor in comparision as it only gives a chance to hit multiple people with E, pull escaping people back into her E, and effectively shortening the Window to land her ult to 1.5 second if used prior to the ult. And Keg does all of this on a shorter delay than Cascade Event! It is clear Riftwalker's Cascade Event needs a buff.

The first buff possibility is to shorten the delay time; however, I do not favor this option. For the skill to be balanced to the above skills and similar skills (like Tort's Chains), the Delay needs to be 0.5 seconds or less. A rather extreme buff. However, this buff does not significantly buff her laning presence since it does not give enemies a reason to fear being hit by it and it severely buffs her comboing ability, which does not need an extreme buff.

Instead I suggest, we make Cascade Event more like the already named Delay Skills and increase its delay time but give it additional effects. These additional effects could be anything from Slows to Stuns to Minus Magic Armor, but the one I suggest is a continued Vaccuum (similar to Kraken's ult) that keeps enemies in place for a short duration.

The continued Vacuum would greatly enhance Riftwalker's lance presence as it would create an intense fear in her enemies causing them to attempt to dodge her Q at all costs. Also, it would reduce her team reliance by creating better synergy between Q and E so that it would be easier to keep enemies trapped inside E. Finally, it would make her more reliable as it would hold enemies in place for her to get her E and W off easily in lane and Q could also be used to setup her ult to guarantee it would hit one or more enemies.

Would this buff make her op? It depends on the numbers. If the pull had a magnitude of 522 units or had a duration of 4+ seconds, no one would be able to escape it in time before Riftwalker lit them up like a christmas tree. On the other hand, if the pull had a magnitude of under 200 units or lasted under a second, it would not create big enough opportunities.

In conclusion, Riftwalker's laning problems stem from how weak Cascade Event is especially when compared with similar skills. To improve her, I suggest adding a continued vaccuum effect after the initial pull, but increasing the delay time on it.

[GregerMoek]

Wow, some of you are really overdoing it. I doubt she needs a lot of buffs, she's quite strong except for the laning phase. Unfortunately the laning phase currently is the only phase that matters, but this can't be fixed by simply buffing every "bad" laner.

Riftwalker is quite amazing and making her ultimate able to target an enemy is overkill in my eyes, the ultimate is one of her abilities that I personally don't think needs any buff at all, mainly because it's superior magic and has quite the decent AoE, she's like Flux like others mentioned in that she's a team fight hero that needs a team fight to truly shine.

She's not bad in lane, but she's not super awesome. I am fine with that, the main problem is, as I already mentioned, that the second phase of the game is the most important one by faaar (laning phase). Along with a few quality of life changes to some of her skills and I think she'll be fine.

[Alten]

I don't think it's wise to comment on Riftwalker at this stage. This forum could be stated as notorious for incorrectly labelling new heroes (*cough cough* Draconis, Rally, Gunblade *cough cough*)

[Tomate]

@Alten:
Yes, these boards been wrong... but they're usually more wrong over the first few days of release than after a few months...

Also, looking at a hero like Rift and the current metagame (Which been in place for 1 year or so now), we can quickly see that the metagame isn't favoring heroes like her. The thing is that she has no versatility early on as a support and cannot play a suicide role nor a mid role. So, where is she left to be? In the hard support role who often is underleveled and might have to roam before 6... which spells disaster for her.

[Alten]

@Alten:
Yes, these boards been wrong... but they're usually more wrong over the first few days of release than after a few months...

Also, looking at a hero like Rift and the current metagame (Which been in place for 1 year or so now), we can quickly see that the metagame isn't favoring heroes like her. The thing is that she has no versatility early on as a support and cannot play a suicide role nor a mid role. So, where is she left to be? In the hard support role who often is underleveled and might have to roam before 6... which spells disaster for her.

She's actually a consistently good pre-6 roamer, assuming the opposition doesn't have an escape mechanism. Magmus, Andromeda, Myrmidon, and Glacius -- considered traditionally the best roamers -- are good because they will guarantee significantly increasing the amount of damage exposure an opponent faces. In the laning phase, auto-attacks are the most significant damage contributors for ganks; disables are powerful, as such, simply because they increase the number of attacks landed.

Riftwalker's Q and W, cumulatively, allow more auto attacks than any of the roamers listed. Furthermore, a significant problem with roaming is that a savvy opponent will position themselves to escape any disable attempts by roamers; Q helps to alleviate this problem, providing a guarantee (if the team is coordinated), for instance, that your Torturer/Pebbles/whatever mid will land their stuns and be in a good position to deal their damage.

The reason why Monarch was such a powerful roamer (and a component as to why she was considered too powerful in general) was due to the fact that she had a reliable long-range disable and that she could slow enemies for a ridiculous amount of time with the cloud; Riftwalker emulates this, to an extent.


When she does get her 6, she completely prevents any offensive play on the part of the enemy. This is a rarity among supports. Furthermore, she is capable of complementing any reliable initiator to a hideous extent.

The thing about supports is that they must consistently provide a tangible advantage of utility to make up for their weaknesses in other areas and the hemorrhaging of their farm. The best supports -- Glacius, Nymphora, Aluna, etc. -- consistently do so; what people don't realise is that many of the newer supports also provide such, but with playing styles and conventions that deviate from the norm and curb their popularity. Eventually, Riftwalker and Pearl should be recognised for what they are and the gamebreaking effect they can have on games. There really are no "bad" supports right now, as all current supports fulfill the stipulation presented at the beginning of this paragraph; we simply have the traditional supports occupying a pre-conceived notion of reliability and thusly preventing experimentation.

[Felshatner]

I'd really like to see Cascade Event interrupt channels/ministun. I've seen moronic Devourer ults still channeling on the original target 250 units away. Poly tongues. VJ ults. It just doesn't make sense. Although the character is very difficult to play, it is uniquely satisfying when everything goes as planned. She's my current favorite character, in fact, even though the first few games were painful.

Also, she needs a skin or two. Just saying.

[Artic]

I'm not quite sure she needs a buff, she can gank any hero without an escape mechanism by using her slow on top of rift burn to make sure Cascade event hits. If Cascade event really needs a buff, I'd like it to issue a stop command to all affected units (the same way gladiator's w works).

[Tomate]

Meh, I just find that as a counter initiator, she is quite slow at reacting... if she puts both Cascade and the displacement first, it gives a huge hint to the other team that the ultimate is probably channeling in that area. If she doesn't and put cascade events afterward, the damage dealt by cascade will be minimal...

[`11411181]

Cascade Event is not Rift Burn, just FYI. Cascade Event is the vacuum; Rift Burn is the aoe damage tick.

[Av]

Riftwalker's skill set is comparable to Gladiator, with a few differences.

Their first skill is a long range, delayed, AoE skillshot, but Gladiator gets a stun, then a slow, and great damage. Rift gets decent damage, a tiny pull, and that's it. Shafted.

Second skill, both single target, semi-disable type skills. Glad gets incredible utility in Showdown, vs pathetic range and effect for Shared Existence. Shafted.

Third skill. Both AoE, straight damage abilities. Glad scales amazingly, is free, shorter cooldown, instant burst, and True Damage! Rift gets a non scaling, DoT that only deals magic damage, has lower range at higher levels, a troublesome positioning requirement for full damage, and costs mana. Shafted.

Ultimates. Both long range, delayed, AoE damage with a stun component. Glad sacrifices stealth and superior magic for a buff that turns half the damage your team takes into non lethal. Similar in other regards. These are the most closely balanced with each other, but to my mind are the wrong way around, as Glad is a carry, yet has a support flavour buff on his ultimate.

That aside, we can see some clear advantages in favour of gladiator here. Factor in his great attack animation, Strength primary, and priority on farm, and once again we see Rift getting the short end of the stick. I'm not going to make suggestions, and I realise they fulfil different roles, but does Rift do anything better than Gladiator? You decide.

[Anakron]

i think her greatest problem is with the ultimate. yes its great range and yes its superior, but guessing 2sec. in advance can be very challenging. you might say its the price she has to pay for the free portalkey. but i propose a different approach. make her ult somewhat similar to solstices ult. she can channel it for up to 2 seconds (or maybe 3), but if she presses R again it will go of prematurely but with less effect. maybe just start with a superior ministun. after 1sec. gain half dmg and stunduration from then on scaling smoothly to max dmg and stun after the full 2 sec. channel. i think this might mitigate some problems. she might even use her R as an escape then, wich might help her early game. (thoug i doubt it). this is of course not a complete balance, but i think changing her mechanic this way would be a really good benefit.

[GregerMoek]

If she has any problems it's NOT her ultimate. Follow ups anyone? Not to mention that abilities like Gladiator ultimate and even Gladiator pitfalls are landed often even in the competitive games he was seen(ages ago, but still applies) and Glad ult has a longer delay even. Follow up initiation to a Bubbles(popular pick) is almost a 100% chance to hit, just like many other delayed ultimates.

[bOOxO]

the range of her e is why she cant lane well. u can cast q from very far away but her e is half that range. so by the time you get close enough to cast it your opponent will already know youv casted q and will blatantly step to the side. the stacking slow is pathetic early on, its only 20% at level 1 for 4 seconds (35% at lvl 4). half the time youre casting your spells anyways so how on earth are you going to get enough auto attacks in 4 seconds to make it worthwhile anyways? unless you combo absolutely perfectly, trying to kill someone is like trying to hold onto a bar of soap in the shower.

the plus side is her ultamite has a very short cooldown (90/80/70) but thats about it. her ultamite isnt the problem, if u cast ulti first then rift burn & then q it works out great and is why i think shes pretty cool to play.

****

an idea for the rework of the slow is u could keep it a base 25% slow and at the end of the 4 seconds a stacked duration stun will effect for however many attacks were made. so each attack gives +time on the stun but not some OP length stun. something ike 1.5-2 seconds? that way she could have a place in the laning phase and people would know that adding stacks is worthwhile in the end.

but ya at the current standing the slow just doesnt mesh well with her abilities.

[Hubaris]

What I would prefer to see in conjunction with a small range buff on the cast on E, would be to make her W (Shared Existence) chain to another target and if either of the targets take damage a charge is added to both players. It will make the slow more potent as a Cascade Event and Rift Burn will then trigger twice as hard and cripple multiple players at once, helping her lane presence early and giving her something semi-decent to use if she wants to move around early and not just sit in lane. Combined with the massive AoE control she has and the fact she can pull whole groups of people together it becomes quite easy to apply the powerful slow now and justify its lack of damage and cooldown.

Her lack of presence by 6 is the biggest flaw, followed directly by not being able to lane anywhere safely and better than the alternatives.

Pumping her slow up will help her early on by giving her something semi-decent to work with in ganks and hopefully give her a place in a long lane and not a strict support. With its low cost and this now buffed splash, she could even play as a light roamer in conjunction with the AoE on Cascade/Burn as W is really a good one point wonder early on.

Thats not to say the skill is awful (its potentially devastating in a creepwave), but a single target slow that starts off quite bad and deals no damage is hard to justify when there are many better alternatives who can (counter)-initiate and have more reliable manners of doing so. Her alternatives shine better in lane and sometimes out of lane, and for a hero advertised as a item-less initiator/support she does it worse than many of the alternatives as her laning cripples her early game potential and gold gain/gold difference.

Her unreliability comes with great potential power though. I think only small changes are really required because after laning is over she becomes quite strong.

[Gorb]

Clearing up the old threads!

Baby steps are apparently the way to go with this hero! Pretty sure we've seen some of these, whether they're enough is another question entirely.

Archived!