[2.6.15] Monkey King

[Ekamo]

:monk: Monkey King
- Heavenly Vault can no longer be stopped mid vault
- Added an additional second in which the 2nd vault can be activated

What implications will this have change have on Monkey King's role? Where will it put him in terms of competitive viability? What (and more importantly why) should be the "next step" in making him reach a competitive state?

Remember, sub-forum rules (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?393760-Balance-Forum-Rules) apply as always. Failure of adherence to these will have repercussions.

[`11411181]

He should have an enforced internal cooldown on his second Vault.
Stops him cancelling the first Vault for an instant flip-back - letting him do his damage with no reasonable risk to himself.

The hero's potential is severely hurt by having a max-damage combo that is mostly point-and-click (or shift-queue) on a single target.

[Hubaris]

He still is difficult to target and has very good stat growth, so to say Pebbles is always better is probably wrong to an extent. He is much less safe now, as he can't flip back and remove himself from danger; but it does force more options upon him to survive. I think it may have been warranted mechanically, but balance wise he might need some help in another field to compensate somewhat.

[Rodah]

With this change, every aspect of the hero is gone. I can't see the hero being picked anymore as the utility of the hero as been reduced to nothing more than mere dust.

As far as competetive viability goes? I can't see him picked at all. We've seen Kookiez dominate with the hero recently, but from now on, I can't see that happening.

Why would you nerf the utility of the hero, when it is the burst damage that people are complaining about. Does the S2 staff really collect information before they make balance decisions? Not to flame, but I simply don't understand.

[CewlBro]

Please play him before you say he's done.
He is still as good as he was before aslong you knew how he works.
You can still jump around 900 Range to kick the enemy back, so the team can attack him.
Or he can still do a pretty good combo.

Vault, move around, Dash, walk and autoattack ( since you ahve 1 sec more ), and Vault him back again, Dash again, attack. You can do pretty nice positioning of you and your enemy in 1v1.

And that's not the only thing I found out.

[Rodah]

Please play him before you say he's done.
He is still as good as he was before aslong you knew how he works.

The thing is that with this change there is really no difference between a skilled MK player and a MK player. By being forced to go through the whole vault animation, ANY hero can avoid the second vault of MK.

People that have been having MK as their top played and knows all the dimensions of MK will recognize themselves in this.

[triplej]

The thing is that with this change there is really no difference between a skilled MK player and a MK player.

Untrue. Knowing when to vault and what to vault on to maximize the potential of HV in any give situation will still be huge. Has the skill cap of the hero gone down? Probably. I'm still willing to bet that Kookiez still plays a better MK than Juarez from Brazil, though.

As for competitive viability...now that he can't do as much damage in as short a period of time, his competitive viability will drop; that doesn't mean he's completely unusable, although he will remain a fringe pick.

[girard`]

I believe this changes his playstyle to a some extent, however I don't think this instantly gibs him as a hero. Of course, this is a nerf, but I think you can still be pretty successfuly with this hero. His stat-gain is huge still and he still has the high damage output. He's just....easier to deal with now. There will still be people out there who have no idea how to deal with him.

[triplej]

You still can do the Dmg in the same amount of time as you could before patch.
Already tested.
By me.

Forgive me if I don't take your word for it, as you can't make someone take double damage from Slam consistently.

[Doomhammar]

I think this is how it was intended to work in the first place. Now that you can't abuse Vault+Slam for very high damage early on he could be quite nicely balanced. This is going to need testing though.

Extra second on the vault will be quite handy, as you can more reliably get that second vault and as the time is not really restricted so tightly it might be much more possible to try out some " new comboes"

[zstarkey42]

Competitive viability? So because a hero is picked a handful of matches by a selected number of people he deserves a nerf? What about the wave of 20+ heros that are banned or picked almost every competitive match? Why don't they get nerfed as well? Oh wait they are balanced ™ and should never be stomped mid by a new hero. So we're doing game balance by favouritism now?

If MK really deserved a nerf (which I doubt he did), there were other ways of doing it. Removing the unique/skillful part of the hero is a horrible design decision and shows complete laziness by whoever is in charge of balancing in this game. You could have made his rock damage physical so the hero becomes more counterable with armor, or flast out reducing the second vault damage, but no... they erased part of the hero's potential turning it into a bland ganker with subpar damage. In all, the nerf turned MK into a low skillcap hero and that's bad for the game, not good... No offense but the game has enough noob-mode heros already.

--
P.S. Not a MK player.

[triplej]

Competitive viability? So because a hero is picked a handful of matches by a selected number of people he deserves a nerf? What about the wave of 20+ heros that are banned or picked almost every competitive match? Why don't they get nerfed as well? Oh wait they are balanced....

If MK really deserved a nerf (which I doubt he did), there were other ways of doing it. Removing the unique/skillful part of the hero is a horrible design decision and shows complete laziness by whoever is in charge of balancing in this game...they erased part of the hero's potential turning it into a bland ganker with subpar damage. In all, the nerf turned MK into a low skillcap hero and that's bad for the game, not good...

--
P.S. Not a MK player.

It shows. They didn't reduce the hero's potential - he still has amazing mobility. They just removed his ability to 75% a hero in one go at level 3. He still as skill-intensive as ever; perhaps moreso, as he doesn't have insane burst anymore.

Just because a hero is always picked or banned doesn't mean they're imbalanced - sometimes it does, but more often it simply means they're just the best hero in their particular category at that particular point in time.

[NinjaBubbles]

Its not about the damage... Or to be clearer, its about that they should just have nerfed the damage instead.

[Hubaris]

Its not about the damage... Or to be clearer, its about that they should just have nerfed the damage instead.

But by nerfing the damage, you pigeonhole his combo set. In order to achieve successful burst you are more or less forced to vault cancel to make up for the lost damage.

[Rodah]

Sorry.
You're not right.

You're one ignorant douchebag aren't you?
To say that he's just as good as he was before confirms this. To not being able to cancel the vault reduces his utility by alot.

People where whining because they got full-hp comboed by a lvl 5 MK, please tell me you can do that now.

[HermitofHON]

Honestly, Mk is like my top played hero and my favourite. But after playing him after the changes they made, hes probably going to be my least played hero. They really took the fun out of him. I agree they should of nerfed the damage instead of the utility. S2 just killed this hero. Hes mainly known for combos and combos only.

[NinjaBubbles]

But by nerfing the damage, you pigeonhole his combo set. In order to achieve successful burst you are more or less forced to vault cancel to make up for the lost damage.

What i mean is that its about the utility and positioning, not about the damage at all. The thing that people has been complaining about though, is the damage output ( wich actually is fairly low compared to other gankers, its just his cooldowns and utility that makes him so fun / great / " should be removed from the game " )...

[Fiat]

Not sure if he can really be compared to pebbles anymore. Lost burst capabilities and he's more about working around the mechanics of his skills. I think it'd be interesting if his ultimate got a buff in terms of cooldown reduction. I miss hearing the double "WAHOO-WAHOOs" from the combo but this hero needs to be jumping around yelling more often than he is.

[Elman1]

His combo was incredibly unfun to play against and it had to go. Some people are so obsessed with balance that they don't even think about the fun factor --and 5 players' frustration most definitely outweights a single MK's fun.

This is a great change mechanically, and if it makes him underpowered in some way he can easily be buffed to compensate.

[GregerMoek]

He is worse for people who shift-queue their way to win. Otherwise he got a buff.

[PrimalAPE]

Big nerf. High skillcap hero, turned into some lame mediocre water pistol.

People that think it was deserved, tbh are just haters and/or/usually badz.

RIP MK

[Grevier]

He's far from being an useless Hero, and if you people are so obsessed by Overpowerness you will eventually find another Hero to rely on, because that whats you really are talking about.
The additional second, with the vault fix addition, fixed in the first place something that MK should have not be able to do since beginning...
Many Heroes received many Nerfs such as TDL and Magebane in these weeks, still nobody said "They're trash now" and they still be picked, and if you will never see him in competitive again thats not an excuse to buff him back, or else like the 70% restant of the Hero pool should be (Buff Shadowblade/Swiftblade/Gunblade please...)
Did you ever played Vindicator or Gemini these days? Did you have won? There are many other Heroes that may still be more worse than Monkey King, but since his Autoattack is still strong as Attack Speed Level, and the Hero is far from being a Free Feed to the opponents, I cant see a valid reason to bring him back to what it was, an Hero capable of istantkilling any Hero in the game and after that being able to Blink out of the combat at the Godlike level of Magebane/Hag with just a Bottle and a pair of Boots...
You have mostly "Played" Monkey King, you dont know what feels to play "Against" him... it was just unfair, and it will probably still be...

(Sorry if I wrote something wrong, anyway I think I explained myself a bit clearly)

[pewpewstar]

I'll echo the sentiment that it removed a gimmicky/effortless combo that did too much damage for no reason.

Sure he's lost a lot of potential but I think it's good for the game.

[Abster]

now maybe 'pro' mk players will have to use their brains to gank instead of shift-queuing their combo as soon as they bottle a rune for a free gank. I dont see this as a bad thing. For the trolls - yes i am very butthurt about being raped by mk, and so are a lot of other people, but this hero just stinks so bad of S2 BS, its a good thing he got nerfed.

I think that the skill cap may have been lowered. But atleast the ez-mode factor in the 1500 games are gone =) In other words, the damage potential of the hero does not need a nerf, but the ease by which u can achieve that dmg does.. Well done S2!

EDIT - who cares about competitive play anyway? So many heros do not make it into competitive matches.. the HoN competitive scene is not getting any bigger, but the number of casual gamers i.e 1400 - 1700 is.

[DivineAlice]

now maybe 'pro' mk players will have to use their brains to gank instead of shift-queuing their combo as soon as they bottle a rune for a free gank. I dont see this as a bad thing.

Another ignorant idiot. You COULD NOT use shift-queuing for the combo for like 1 year. The animation cancellation yielded BADASS 63 dmg @ max lvl. Right now, the shift-queuing IS actually POSSIBLE (same results as doing it manually). Do not argue with this, these are the FACTS. Get skilled simply or accept that you are outplayed by much better players.

[DivineAlice]

At the beginning, you couldn't shift queue for the real combo. That was when the combo added 250 DAMAGE. not 63.
Ever since the nerf to 63 damage, you could shift cast it.
So I don't really know what you're trying to say, but you're wrong.

Exactly the opposite. At the beginning, you COULD shift + queue for the 250+250+125 combo (as far as I remember it was only possible with the alt avatar).

Then they changed it and you could do it MANUALLY.

Then the 1/2 of the previous application rework was introduced (shift queue WAS NOT working there, for some short time there was the BUG with the triple vault spam without entailing the slam cancellation).

Right know there is NO DIFFERENCE in the dmg dealt whether you shift- queue or not (250 + 125 dmg from the vaults).

All in all, you're the one who's wrong.

[Encaitor]

wtf?

At the beginning, you couldn't shift queue for the real combo. That was when the combo added 250 DAMAGE. not 63.
Ever since the nerf to 63 damage, you could shift cast it.
So I don't really know what you're trying to say, but you're wrong.Seriously can we get BS like this to stop?! They took away the ability shift queue MKs combo a long time ago. Here's a source for people complaining about "Just bottle up and shiftqueue a gank" http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?443832-Monkey-King-damage-combo&p=15263184&viewfull=1#post15263184

So, I hope that the shiftqueue bullshit dies down now...

[Antimodus]

Listen, it's very apparent to us here that you've been butt hurt by pro MK's. /snip

Call it butthurt if you really want.
What makes or breaks counter-plays to MK is split second twitch that belongs in an FPS or a fighting game, not in a strategy game. This game is supposed to be about strategy/tactics and not about your ability to aim your mouse at a flying monkey mid air.

I know there's obviously skill to the ordering and timing of the button smashing sequence on MK, it's just not the kind of thing I want to see this game being decided on. I guess the point of contention between us is what kind of skill (there are many different kinds of skills) should be empathized in a game like this.

Many people have lost awfully to some "pro" devourer players, and I hope you can agree there's a world of difference between a bad devourer and a "pro" one. But almost no one comes to the forums whining and asking to nerf that hero, why do you think that is? It's a serious question and I'd appreciate a straight answer.

[Abster]

the nerf is not about the damage (as sum1 so adequately put it- a badass 63 damage) as much as the chaos that mk can cause in a gank / team fight. Why should it be impossible to target him as soon as he comes out of the fog??

That is imbalanced, glad its gone - and to the people who say shift click is impossible - why would u care for that 63 dmg?? the point is that u can shiflt click and make it impossible for the opponnent to react to your spells. dont tell me you cant to that. i just tried it in garena, that does not have this patch in yet.

[nirphil]

The main issue with this patch is that Heavenly Vault can still be cancelled with [E]. Demonstration here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD8XZ...ature=youtu.be (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD8XZamAbYo&feature=youtu.be)

This means that the [W] [E] [W] combo is still, in fact, very possible. What this means is that instead of nerfing what was actually intended, the versatility of Heavenly Vault was hit dramatically. You may no longer initiate a second vault mid air. Instead, you must land before initiating your second vault, hurting a lot of Monkey King's more balanced combos (that do not make use of a third vault). Heavenly Vault can no longer be used like it could before (by itself, excluding all of Monkey King's other abilities). After this patch, Monkey King may no longer activate the second Heavenly Vault again at intermediate distances between 2 target points. The best example of this would be vaulting between 2 barracks in base. Whereas before, he could easily vault both barracks and continue in the same direction, he must now vault and land before initiating the second vault.

Implications:

Many other combos that do not utilize 3 applications of vault were actually nerfed. The extra second to use Vault does not add enough versatility to compensate for all the other situations in which it was hurt.

[W] [E] [W] was one of the only combos not affected by this change. (Players are forced to use this more than ever).

The main concern is whether or not applying 3 applications of Heavenly Vault was the main reason for this change. If this is the case, would it not be better to use another method to fix this issue? (Allow a maximum of 2 applications?). However, there still exists the possibility that the versatility of Heavenly Vault was too much to begin with and all the side effects were also intentional. Even so, is being able to cancel it intentional?
Just read what this guy has to say. He covers most of it.

If you go in melee range and use W and E DIRECTLY after, the Heavenly Vault is in fact cancelled thus doing the most damage. However, using the Shift-Queue method is no longer viable as the Wan Jin Slam won't hit the target at all. You will still be able to do the same amount of damage as before, but only by manually pressing the spells. Also you get another second for using the second Heavenly Vault which allows you to position yourself and your opponent better than before.

To conclude, the only thing that changed was that Heavenly Vault can no longer cancel itself whilst Wan Jin Slam can. Using W E W manually still does the same amount of damage but not by Shift-Queuing.

[Rkey]

Also, I'm pretty sure we will be seing more of these sort of combo's thanks to this (Me playing in training mode and my cpu has framedrops when recording etc. etc. excuses for bad performance but I hope you get the idea)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI--KO_4S-8

[PrimalAPE]

Call it butthurt if you really want.
What makes or breaks counter-plays to MK is split second twitch that belongs in an FPS or a fighting game, not in a strategy game. This game is supposed to be about strategy/tactics and not about your ability to aim your mouse at a flying monkey mid air.

I know there's obviously skill to the ordering and timing of the button smashing sequence on MK, it's just not the kind of thing I want to see this game being decided on. I guess the point of contention between us is what kind of skill (there are many different kinds of skills) should be empathized in a game like this.

Many people have lost awfully to some "pro" devourer players, and I hope you can agree there's a world of difference between a bad devourer and a "pro" one. But almost no one comes to the forums whining and asking to nerf that hero, why do you think that is? It's a serious question and I'd appreciate a straight answer.

Glad you brought up this up, first intelligent argument against MK pre 2.6.15.1. Your argument is weak in the sense that HoN, whether you like it or not, is a twitch based game.

Lets elaborate on what "twitch", in the gaming sense means, so that everyone in this thread understands what we're talking bout. It's mostly a term used in FPS games. Twitch has a direct correlation with reaction time. It's a persons ability to react to a situation in the smallest time frame possible. It's also a highly valued trait in the gaming community because it also correlates with a persons "skill". Watch this for an example of twitch based gameplay http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JC2dcnFNJo. This is an example of someone with good "twitch" based skill. Whilst it is possible that the person in that video was lucky, or did that accidentally, that was not the case. Twitch is a strength that players pickup when they start to learn a game inside and out from the core. They've experienced the scenario enough times, to be able to predict and act in the shortest time possible, to achieve optimal results.

Just because HoN isn't an FPS, doesn't mean it's not twitch based. How is running into a ganksquad of 2-3 not twitch based? If you don't act in a fast enough time - you're dead it's as simple as that. People that are slow, click, bad, will all have slow reaction times and that's a fact. The slower you are to react in this game, the worse you'll be. While some heroes, or setups might be forgiving, ultimately being a slow player in this game will be a disadvantage.

When MK would combo, yes it would be fast, and yes hard to click, the way it's supposed to be. MK could not combo unless in significant range. Anyone that understands how MK works could use proper positioning to avoid getting lept - it's not hard. There are plenty of ways, and plenty of times i've been interrupted in the middle of a combo, so please do not use this excuse. MK does not start jumping around wildly unless he's in range of an enemy, and if you do get caught on your own against an MK - that is you or your teams fault for lack of SS calls or wards. There are plenty of other heroes that will own you just as fast if you get caught alone, so why is MK a problem?

MK is best Mid. I would only play him mid. His speed gives massive advantage for rune control, and he needs high farm and leveling to be able to dominate the game. There are many other mid heroes that once they achieve high farm and levels, start to dominate, but the problem here is most people don't know how MK works, and when they get jumped end up getting owned hard, hence a good MK being able to snowball a game simply based on the fact that his opponents are clueless. Endgame, his combo damage is a non factor, and the only part that scales is his dash, hence why he needs an insane amount of +ATKDMG endgame to function, although he is weaker than a hardcarry endgame. MK was a hard hero to master it's taken me months upon months to learn - there's a reason it was given 5 stars.

Also, how is a PK pebbles or PK midas not twitch based? PK pebbles can snowball just as hard, and wipe out sidelanes just as fast or faster than MK, and still has a good endgame presence. PK midas is my second most favorite hero, and it's also low CD and twitch based...

And why would you for one second be an advocate against smart button choices? MK button hits were a skill based thing to master, and that was one of the factors that made it extremely hard for most people to play. His buttons need to be hit in a strategically thought out manner, and timed down to the T. This change, no matter what the devs claim is a nerf, crippling the hero for those with skill and the passion for playing it like I do. It never had a strong competitive presence, and was only played by the skilled. Now it won't have any competitive presence because it is now gimped.

[Reimu]

I'm unsure how to feel about the change, on one hand I can see why it was "removed" (but apparently still available somehow as shown by video links), but on the other hand, Shift-Queuing W-E-W now is retarded. Yes you never got the 63bonus damage as it was removed a long time ago, but you still hit your target with Vault, Slam then another Vault within 1second, which was the whole point; being fast.

Queuing the combo now means Slam misses (by a mile) and it also takes roughly twice as long to Vault the same target. If this is the intended result, then I must say Monkey King now feels incredibly clumsy and slow whenever you use Vault. Rather than increasing the time frame you can use a second Vault, how about speeding up the animation for it?
Some people here seems to claim it's Slam that suffers from this change but I honestly feel it's Vault since Vault is the slow skill that you made much much faster thanks to Slam, not the other way around.

That said, the change DOES make MK far more mistake-friendly and you can now do things at a more lenient pace which I suppose is good for lower level games but I really think this hurt him immensely at higher tiers because despite MK's good stat gains, his actual HP is fairly low and he's easily focused down, something this patch change made much easier as he can no longer unleash his skillset (note: not Combo since it doesn't exist anymore) on a target anywhere near as reliably or as fast as Pebbles can now.

I'm interested to see where things go with the findings of the video showing Vault&Slam still being usable in the old ways, even allowing for the extra damage, but I suspect that it will get fixed unless S2 deems Vault too slow without it and reverts their change.

Edit: Forgot to add that MK has to rely on his speed since he does not have a solid stun like Pebbles or Midas (with PK) do, removing part of his speed does add to him becoming more unreliable and vulnerable.

[triplej]

now maybe 'pro' mk players will have to use their brains to gank instead of shift-queuing their combo as soon as they bottle a rune for a free gank. I dont see this as a bad thing. For the trolls - yes i am very butthurt about being raped by mk, and so are a lot of other people, but this hero just stinks so bad of S2 BS, its a good thing he got nerfed.

I think that the skill cap may have been lowered. But atleast the ez-mode factor in the 1500 games are gone =) In other words, the damage potential of the hero does not need a nerf, but the ease by which u can achieve that dmg does.. Well done S2!

EDIT - who cares about competitive play anyway? So many heros do not make it into competitive matches.. the HoN competitive scene is not getting any bigger, but the number of casual gamers i.e 1400 - 1700 is.


TLDR;

Listen, it's very apparent to us here that you've been butt hurt by pro MK's. It's clear you don't understand how the shift-Q combo worked, it's also very clear that you don't understand the mechanics of MK. His combo is a set amount of damage, the only static part being his dash which is based on his autoattack damage range. Dash is how MK scales, and it's the only ability he has the scales, the other abilities being useless damage wise endgame. If you're continuously getting raped by MK's, you're just f*cking bad. Seriously L2****INGP. I'm not necessarily mad because I can't play MK anymore, but because a perfectly balanced hero which truly shines in the hands of a good player was taken and made very sh1tty for no other reason then whiners like you. Whiners ruin games, but then again the general population isn't very intelligent.

I feel like you guys need to reevaluate your definition of pro. Strangely enough, it actually means 'professional players' and not people who stomp you in your games, although I suppose they could be the same...I doubt Abster is seeing a comp player any time soon, though.

Who cares about competitive/high-leveled players? Quite a lot of people. There are several blurbs in the balance archives explaining what balancing toward low skilled players is incorrect, and while S2 has been doing so lately (Ra, Gemini, Drunken Master, Nomad, and now this), doing so does not create optimal situations.

[ExoProduct]

I'm unsure how to feel about the change, on one hand I can see why it was "removed" (but apparently still available somehow as shown by video links), but on the other hand, Shift-Queuing W-E-W now is retarded. Yes you never got the 63bonus damage as it was removed a long time ago, but you still hit your target with Vault, Slam then another Vault within 1second, which was the whole point; being fast.

Queuing the combo now means Slam misses (by a mile) and it also takes roughly twice as long to Vault the same target. If this is the intended result, then I must say Monkey King now feels incredibly clumsy and slow whenever you use Vault. Rather than increasing the time frame you can use a second Vault, how about speeding up the animation for it?
Some people here seems to claim it's Slam that suffers from this change but I honestly feel it's Vault since Vault is the slow skill that you made much much faster thanks to Slam, not the other way around.

That said, the change DOES make MK far more mistake-friendly and you can now do things at a more lenient pace which I suppose is good for lower level games but I really think this hurt him immensely at higher tiers because despite MK's good stat gains, his actual HP is fairly low and he's easily focused down, something this patch change made much easier as he can no longer unleash his skillset (note: not Combo since it doesn't exist anymore) on a target anywhere near as reliably or as fast as Pebbles can now.

I'm interested to see where things go with the findings of the video showing Vault&Slam still being usable in the old ways, even allowing for the extra damage, but I suspect that it will get fixed unless S2 deems Vault too slow without it and reverts their change.

Edit: Forgot to add that MK has to rely on his speed since he does not have a solid stun like Pebbles or Midas (with PK) do, removing part of his speed does add to him becoming more unreliable and vulnerable.


Did you try a dash after first vault, or are you stuck in the old mindset of MK? The new MK, I believe, will require skill with his dash to line up vaults.

[Reimu]

Did you try a dash after first vault, or are you stuck in the old mindset of MK? The new MK, I believe, will require skill with his dash to line up vaults.
No no it's just the actual Vault itself. When you've grown used to how speedy Vault is thanks to Slam, this new 'function' really makes you realize how slow Vault is on its own, even if you used it occasionally where combo wouldn't work out/escaping. Dash and Slam are still incredibly responsive and fast, Vault just doesn't feel like it mimics those two anymore.

[PrimalAPE]

Using W E W manually still does the same amount of damage but not by Shift-Queuing.

It doesn't work manually or using shift, just tested it. The MK in that video is the early access avatar, and it is bugged. It will get fixed.

So, for the record, vault cancel DOES NOT WORK anymore and is bugged on MK EA avatar.

[ExoProduct]

No no it's just the actual Vault itself. When you've grown used to how speedy Vault is thanks to Slam, this new 'function' really makes you realize how slow Vault is on its own, even if you used it occasionally where combo wouldn't work out/escaping. Dash and Slam are still incredibly responsive and fast, Vault just doesn't feel like it mimics those two anymore.


Ah, that's true. The vault itself does feel slow now that it's uncancellable (such an odd word). But I think the hero is still playable, it will just require different tactics.

[ExoProduct]

Let me help you leave this thread then. Just looking at your post history it is obvious you didn't play MK and are against the heroes favor - that's okay. But to come in here when you don't know how to play him, and merely speculate on what is good and what isn't is preposterous. Just leave the thread, let people that understand the hero be here, not haters.


Actually, after playing him I prefer the new MK as I believe it will lead to more creativity with the hero, which is always fun.

[Ub3rCookie]

I loved MK. The reason why was because his gameplay was fast and exciting, now every time I use Vault I feel like I'm playing in slow motion.. Also he was hard to hit because he was a monkey. Monkeys are tricky aren't they? Overall I'm not a fan of this nerf, MK has lost his uniqueness.

[KeY533]

I think it would've been better if they weaken his lategame with a longer cd on his first skill and weaker stats gain and on top of that reduce the damage from his former combo then ruining his fast and smooth gameplay. Most people will agree that MK was kinda overpowered but this is just the wrong way to balance him because now there is no real situation where he is better for the team then other ganker/carries some examples would be pebbles, fayde, deadwood, and even gauntlet or dampeer are probably much better now. Most of this heroes can potentially take down heroes by their own within a few seconds like MK but they didn't scale well into lategame. Mk was strong in all stages of the game from laning phase till end game but in my Opinion his early/mid game should be were he shines and his power should fade lategame (except he snowballed pretty hard). And this is how S2 should try to balance him because in his current state his early game can be still strong but he won't be able to one shot other Heroes the way he could before and mid game he is going to have a pretty hard time except the only thing he does is afk farming or ganking with some good disablers and late game he can't go toe to toe with other carries when they are equally farmed because his only strengths in lategame against other carries would be his good stats gain and his illusive dash.

[Elman1]

Your argument is weak in the sense that HoN, whether you like it or not, is a twitch based game.

It is, but for the most part almost nothing you do in HoN requires as much speed and precision as trying to stun a Monkey King that's doing his combo. It's just annoying and it clearly wasn't an intended mechanic. Much like Pebbles' combo wasn't intended either back in DotA: the difference is that Pebbles' isn't frustrating as hell to deal with, so they kept it.

Imagine if Pyro's ult was a ground-targetted skill and you could miss it if you missclicked. That's the level of twitch reactions we're talking about, and I don't think it has a place in a game like this. If a hero with 20HP is within your autoattack range he should die, not survive because he can leap around at 800ms so you can't click on him, and you can't ground-attack to target him either because there are creeps nearby.

[Splitter`]

In my opinion its a change in to a bad side ,because without hes combo he is nothing.. no fun anymore to play with him.. you can just.. maybe decrease hes dmg when he doing hes combo ,but.. this 1 second rly makes the gameplay bad. Proppably its a great change for those who hates mk,but still.. i think hes % in "most played heroes" will go down very fast. Hes combo is powerfull ,but as i said just decrease the dmg.. this is only 1 way to save this hero in my opinion.

And.. what can i say ,you actually can look at the.. hmm you can take even gauntlet ,he is doing more dmg then mk with hes combo.. it is more then annoying. MK's combo looks like nothing versus hes. I said what im thinking about decrease hes dmg on abilitys,thats all.


MK was the hero I had most fun with playing.
R.I.P. MK, say hello from me to old Vindi and Kraken in HoN heaven.

Agreed.

[Antimodus]

I think DR is comparable to MK in being annoying to fight against and retardedly mobile. Difference being the amount of farm required to activate faceroll mode, and the fact that when DR gets out of his ulti, you can actually click on him. Whether or not you actually hit him with whatever it was is another story (he can just ult again) but at least it's not down to your mouse accuracy to be able to fight him properly.

Of course there are all kinds of other twitch factors in this game, like say when you dodge a PK->stun with a blink, activate barrel roll or geometer's or lava surge at the right time, etc. I get that. There's obviously room for some twitch (a lot even) in this game. I'm not saying it's all bad. It's just that the heroes :monk::noma: specifically have crossed the line to the point where the twitch overtakes other gameplay factors. Yes, faking out skills/autos to bait nomad ult is fun and all but at some point it starts to feel more like a fighting game than a strategy game. Maybe it's intended I don't know. I am similarly annoyed with MK. I do not think he is actually overpowered, just annoying and out of place in this kind of game.

[PrimalAPE]

It is, but for the most part almost nothing you do in HoN requires as much speed and precision as trying to stun a Monkey King that's doing his combo. It's just annoying and it clearly wasn't an intended mechanic.

The difference between a noob MK and good one was so huge, anybody can tell. To pull off good moves with MK is skill whether it's shifting a combo or not. Noobs do not run around killing anything on MK, cause they can't faceroll on MK. Noob Mk players didn't know how to combo, how to play, or how to gear, and a newb MK is the easiest thing to own in this game.


I do not think he is actually overpowered,
Why nerf it then? It's clear from the majority of posts i've read about this issue, that all real MK players aren't going to even play the hero anymore, and I understand them. The hero was totally ruined cause of what? Being too hard to click? Boohoo? It was never OP, wasn't played at comp level barely, and started to lose some shine endgame, and only worked with good players so RIP to the King.

Haters will always hate. Especially those that get raped, and don't have any clue how to play MK (which is the majority of haters in this case). S2 just proved to me that giving noobs easy mode is more important then having an iconic fun hero with a high skillcap. Any gaming company that even mimics blizzards design choices in dumbing down content, and ruining heroes simply because of a massive influx of noobs that are crying, will never have any support from me.

S2 should have been proud of MK, it was the best thing they ever designed

[NinjaBubbles]

Playing against monkey king i never had a problem actually targeting him, and since u can actually target someone and click on the portrait i dont even see how that i relevant to balance...

[Elman1]

Why nerf it then? It's clear from the majority of posts i've read about this issue, that all real MK players aren't going to even play the hero anymore, and I understand them. The hero was totally ruined cause of what? Being too hard to click? Boohoo? It was never OP

Buff him then. It was an annoying mechanic that has no place in a game like HoN, and it was only fun for the one guy who was actually playing MK.

Doctor Repulsor is a good analogy as they both have annoying mobility and a high skill ceiling, and DR has a lot more freedom of movement since he's not limited by cooldowns, unit placement or basically anything but mana pool. DR even becomes invulnerable while he flies around, while MK doesn't. Yet somehow DR is still not nearly as annoying as MK is.

[BERALE]

Buff him then. It was an annoying mechanic that has no place in a game like HoN, and it was only fun for the one guy who was actually playing MK.

Doctor Repulsor is a good analogy as they both have annoying mobility and a high skill ceiling, and DR has a lot more freedom of movement since he's not limited by cooldowns, unit placement or basically anything but mana pool. DR even becomes invulnerable while he flies around, while MK doesn't. Yet somehow DR is still not nearly as annoying as MK is.
It's because alot of newbies got raped by a mk, they cant handle him so they are crying 24/7 MK OP MK OP

too bad those people are representing the community when it comes to balance changes

[Antimodus]

but a lot of newbies got raped by all kinds of other heroes, including ones that are quite comparable like pebbles and DR. why do you think they hate on MK specifically? wanna try actually thinking this through? or you'd rather prefer to continue to whine instead?

[PrimalAPE]

but a lot of newbies got raped by all kinds of other heroes, including ones that are quite comparable like pebbles and DR. why do you think they hate on MK specifically? wanna try actually thinking this through? or you'd rather prefer to continue to whine instead?

Random heroes that rape with burst: DW, Parasite, Pyro and MK

Anyone can press R on DW, and score a kill. Codex parasite is very easy to play. Pyro can mow down people just as fast. Basically, anyone can do insane burst with any of these heroes because they're point and click and straight forward. MK is not like that and this is where the problem lies. Only the good own with MK, the bads can't. They cry because others have the skill to play him, whereas they don't....jealousy breeds hatred. If haters understood what it takes to play him, and could actually do so themselves, nobody would be crying.

[Raina_]

I for one disagree with S2's decision. I don't find targetting MK hard. I have been dominated by MK several times and won many games against MK. If any, ANY hero gets an early advantage from kills or letting him free farm for 10 minutes, they're going to get fat aight. So the whiners should actually make it clear why MK is over powered.

[Ekamo]

This is the Balance Forums. Not General Discussion. Anything who does not read this post and does not act accordingly will receive an infraction. No exceptions

It is not Mechanics Forum either. If you want to know about the specific mechanics, I suggest you take that discussion to the Mechanics forum.

[PrimalAPE]

This is the Balance Forums. Not General Discussion. Anything who does not read this post and does not act accordingly will receive an infraction. No exceptions

It is not Mechanics Forum either. If you want to know about the specific mechanics, I suggest you take that discussion to the Mechanics forum.

We are talking about MK balance and the clear nerf he recieved, what are you referring to? The main MK thread in general got locked so we're talking here. It's fine.

[Adservio]

This is the Balance Forums. Not General Discussion. Anything who does not read this post and does not act accordingly will receive an infraction. No exceptions

It is not Mechanics Forum either. If you want to know about the specific mechanics, I suggest you take that discussion to the Mechanics forum.

There was a 7-8 page topic in General Discussion that was closed because the discussion belonged in Balance, now it's in balance, and people can't discuss freely?

What?

[Antimodus]

Yea
I've seen it happen a few times now, they close a GD thread that discusses a specific hero. Put a post there that says there's a balance forum for discussing it and close. They forget to mention balance forum has its own requirements for posting. When people try to continue the discussion they were having before, they get shot down for breaking the rules of balance discussion.

Admin decisions being kind of inconsistent with themselves.
Don't know why they insist of forcing general discussion material away from general discussion.

[PrimalAPE]

What I don't get is why they didn't reduce his damage

MK was also one of those heroes that if not played good, would cause your team to start yelling.

With this ill-thought nerf, bad players can play him now without the fear of getting called out, because the skillcap on MK was mostly removed, making it a noob friendly hero. If they did go the "reduce damage" nerf route, then MK would still need to be played the way it was (which not many people can do).

With this nerf, S2 gets less crying from bad players, and noobs get to play a hero that doesn't have much of a skillcap anymore, and is gimped. Get rid of pro MK's dominating, introduce the hero to the mass audience, aka noobs, this is the reason he was nerfed.

[Elman1]

I for one disagree with S2's decision. I don't find targetting MK hard. I have been dominated by MK several times and won many games against MK. If any, ANY hero gets an early advantage from kills or letting him free farm for 10 minutes, they're going to get fat aight. So the whiners should actually make it clear why MK is over powered.

I don't know about others, but I'm not claiming he was overpowered. He was just a major pain to deal with, and he was extremely frustrating to play against unlike any other hero in the game (Except maybe Silhouette and Valkyrie, but those at least you can actually target).

If you don't find him hard to target I don't know what to tell you. I had trouble clicking on him and I'm not exactly bad at using a mouse. Landing a skillshot on him is even harder.

[SS_Totenkopf]

im just laughing guys. your only argument against MK is that hes frustrating to play against? well ofc if you don't know how to counter him. imagine ur playing against scout/nh/fayde without eyes, rev wards, dust. u will get (!"extremely"! haha poor bastards smashing heads against keyboards) frustrated too. just learn how to counter him. buy some nullstones, get void talismans, learn how to position yourself in teamfights, predict a gank, get wards.. its not that hard. i wonder if you haters ever played MK and i really doubt it.
+ why didnt YOU pick monkey king when everything that you need is learn how to shiftqueue W+E? why didnt you tried to have some fun with him too?
dammit those whinny noobs.

+ i would really like to see some S2 statement WHY did they cripple him like this? what was the reason..

[NinjaBubbles]

Landing a skillshot on him is even harder. Thats a part of the balance? Imagine if all the heroes had 100 movement speed, dont u think ranged heroes with skillshots would be overpowered?

[Encaitor]

There was a 7-8 page topic in General Discussion that was closed because the discussion belonged in Balance, now it's in balance, and people can't discuss freely?

What?
4. BE INFORMED
The sole purpose of this forum is to provide insight through intelligent analysis. That means that if you came here angry or teary-eyed because a certain hero owned you in your last game, you will be warned.

It's been alot of these answers like fEEDOBEARs. They do not belong here. I've been monitoring this thread since it was created because I like the MK debate but lots of GD posts has moved here to Balance Discussion where they don't belong. This since they don't contribute to a discussion.

Hes useless now. Too slow for a "Monkey King".

[Abster]

so all the real good mk players will stop playing the hero because u cannot cancel a vault animation? Really??
Looks like most mk players just relied on the ridiculous speed of mk bouncing around to make those 'big plays'. Take it away, and you destroy everything the hero has to offer for them. So typical post-patch whining.

Glad that stupid mechanic is gone. Its about time.

[Elman1]

Thats a part of the balance? Imagine if all the heroes had 100 movement speed, dont u think ranged heroes with skillshots would be overpowered?

It's a bad gameplay mechanic and it wasn't even an intentional one, so I don't see the problem with removing it (And re-balancing the hero if need be).

[PrimalAPE]

It's a bad gameplay mechanic and it wasn't even an intentional one, so I don't see the problem with removing it (And re-balancing the hero if need be).

You're another obvious troll hater from your previous post history about MK. You don't know anything about the hero and are just spamming this thread with trash. gtfo. The only thing I know for sure, is that you would get owned by MK's and that's the reason you're here.

Now leave the balance discussion to people that are actually trying to fix the hero.

[`11411181]

Slow down there with the ad hominem, turbo. He's entitled to be vocal about his dislike of Monkey King's mechanical crap just the same as anyone else has the right to cry about why they didn't nerf the damage instead (when they actually did with this change - something people as a majority have missed entirely).

[girard`]

I'm not sure what people are asking S2 to do with this hero. It sounds like people want damage nerfed (which they pretty much did in this patch if you calculate the damage : time ratio). It also sounds like since he moves too quickly between his abilities that he's hard to play against - that gives him the dynamic that he has. Asking to rework the hero, in my opinion, is asking them to remove the hero completely. MK's entire design is based on mobility and burst.

[Pedent]

I wonder if anyone has actually like, played him ONCE since patch.

[Encaitor]

It's a bad gameplay mechanic and it wasn't even an intentional one, so I don't see the problem with removing it (And re-balancing the hero if need be).Please explain to me how it's a "bad gameplay mechanic"? "Wasn't even an intentional one" how do you know that for sure? Since MK has been out for close to one year with a fix to this "non intentional bad mechanic" we as players can only suppose that S2 left it as a intentional way of playing the hero.

[Ekamo]

We are talking about MK balance and the clear nerf he recieved, what are you referring to? The main MK thread in general got locked so we're talking here. It's fine.

There was a 7-8 page topic in General Discussion that was closed because the discussion belonged in Balance, now it's in balance, and people can't discuss freely?

What?
Yes, I think I have the audacity to ask people to follow the sub-forum rules. At least last time I checked, I was the head-moderator for this forum, so that should be within my powers to do so.

What is expected from people when they enter the domain of any sub-forum is that they follow the specific sub-forum rules. I even stated this in the second post in this thread, a post you should have read. Unless of course, you were in such a rush to share your very important opinion about how S2 completely fails as a company due to this change that you skipped till the end (which is against the rules actually.)

Yes, I do expect everyone, no matter what forum they were on the previous second or no matter who linked them here to follow the rules.

I suggest everyone who reads this post takes a look at them more closely this time, since the past two reminders apparently has not worked.

Reminder #3 (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?393760-Balance-Forum-Rules)

Reminder #4 (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?393760-Balance-Forum-Rules)

Reminder #5 (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?393760-Balance-Forum-Rules)

[Ekamo]

And yeah i have played him after patch. Not gonna comment on him though cus otherwise ekamo is just gonna ban me =(
I did not once say that you're not free to share your opinion. However, this has to be in accordance with the rules on this forum, something which most posters up to this point has failed to do in this thread.

Unless you have something important and constructive to say, saying nothing might contribute more to the discussion. Saying "Imma quit HoN after this change, gg S2", is not constructive nor important, yet that is how most of the posts has looked like in this thread.

Don't take me wrong though, I invite discussion.
That is what this forum is all about.
The discussion has to live up to a certain standard though.

[Elman1]

Please explain to me how it's a "bad gameplay mechanic"?

He was the only hero in the game to move so fast that he's literally hard to target. Dying because you couldn't click on an enemy is not fun.


"Wasn't even an intentional one" how do you know that for sure? Since MK has been out for close to one year with a fix to this "non intentional bad mechanic" we as players can only suppose that S2 left it as a intentional way of playing the hero.

Didn't this combo deal ridiculous amounts of damage back when MK was in EA? Either it was a bug like Pebbles' combo was back in DotA, or they intentionally made their first EA hero overpowered as hell. Personally I think it's the former.

It just seems like a terrible, unintuitive, unfun gameplay mechanic to me, and judging from this nerf it looks like S2 agrees. Can we please discuss how this affects MK's balance and whether he should be buffed, instead of asking S2 to revert a change that they clearly didn't make lightly? (As you said, they did leave it intentionally at first)

[Reldnahc]

Please explain to me how it's a "bad gameplay mechanic"? "Wasn't even an intentional one" how do you know that for sure? Since MK has been out for close to one year with a fix to this "non intentional bad mechanic" we as players can only suppose that S2 left it as a intentional way of playing the hero.

I'm not going to go digging it up, but Nome, the designer of the hero, said it was a bug but they kept it intentionally probably because it opened up doors on a hero that was all about skill combination usage. It went through several half attempted nerfs until finally it was removed.

I never even knew the "mechanic" still existed and always used E>W>W>second E, as the combo and used fast reflexes to ensure the combo as I felt that was how the hero was intended to be played. I'm sorry you learned to play the hero through what I always found to be a not very fluid mechanic and bad for the hero and the game.

[Tedde]

He was the only hero in the game that moves so fast he's literally actually hard to target. Dying because you couldn't click on an enemy is not fun.



Didn't this combo deal ridiculous amounts of damage back when MK was in EA? Either it was a bug like Pebbles' combo was back in DotA, or they intentionally made their first EA hero overpowered as ****. I'm thinking it was the former.

It just seems like a terrible, unintuitive, unfun gameplay mechanic to me. And judging from this nerf it looks like S2 thought the same thing.

Bringing fun into the discussion could be a slippery slope, as a lot of the things an enemy do to you could be considered unfun (dying, hard cc, etc).

Just because you thought it was hard to target him does not mean it wasn't a legitimate part of the hero (intended or not, it became a core part of the hero, no doubt). It was, and still is the way mk manages to survive in fights. The hero lost quite some nimbleness with this nerf, as he is more predictable now.
The hero is far from ruined, but the super quick flavor mk had is somewhat lost.

The timeframe needed for mk to deal his damage post patch is significantly larger, compared to pre patch, which is something to take into account as well (when I say significant I mean a few seconds, but those seconds give you plenty of reaction time).

The +1 second on the 2nd vault lets him do a new interesting combo that was previously hard to do, which is nice, but the number of combos removed does not really redeem that. (The combo revolves around you vaulting, dashing forward, and then vaulting on the target again, moving the target the same direction with vault twice.)

That is my take on the buff/nerf.



The damage loss is negligible.
The increase in predictiveness is damaging to the hero.
The core feel of the hero has been lost.
The damage output is now more spread out.


I do think the hero is still viable, it's just that he feels so sluggish compared to before, which is probably why a lot of people are upset.

[Elman1]

Bringing fun into the discussion could be a slippery slope, as a lot of the things an enemy do to you could be considered unfun (dying, hard cc, etc).

And yet that's a very important thing to consider when talking hero design and gameplay mechanics, which is exactly what you're going to be discussing if you're trying to second-guess S2's changes instead of talking about how these changes actually affect MK's balance.

[PrimalAPE]

I'm not going to go digging it up, but Nome, the designer of the hero, said it was a bug but they kept it intentionally probably because it opened up doors on a hero that was all about skill combination usage. It went through several half attempted nerfs until finally it was removed.

Yes they did keep it intentionally, and yes it did open doors to skill usage. The nerfs were always to do with damage, not mechanics or usage, why nerf vault canceling all of the sudden?


I never even knew the "mechanic" still existed and always used E>W>W>second E, as the combo and used fast reflexes to ensure the combo as I felt that was how the hero was intended to be played. I'm sorry you learned to play the hero through what I always found to be a not very fluid mechanic and bad for the hero and the game.

If you never knew the mechanic existed and you supposedly played MK, then you're bad. If you were using E>W>W, well that's what I was doing too as a noob MK, and it absolutely sucks, you're most likely missing your second rock stun...not optimal damage and CC time, and you're leaving yourself majorly opened to CC or getting owned with your pants down.

E>W>W, really? And you're trying to be taken serious or what?


which they pretty much did in this patch if you calculate the damage : time ratio

Yup. Would have mentioned it, but TBH couldn't be bothered trying to explain to the town folk here.
Pulling off any combos since the nerf will take longer to execute. time X damage = DPS. In this case more time taken (because of not being able to vault cancel) = less DPS.


Fact = Not only was the nerf mechanical in the case, but also a significant nerf to his damage.

[GregerMoek]

Excuse me, but your math is wrong. With your -excellent- piece of math, more time means more DPS. I'll let your brilliant psyche figure out how to calculate DPS for yourself however. Are you trying to be taken serious or what?

Moreover, if you ever played MK, you'd know you can use your E to vault on to targets, in fact it is such a common trick for even a non-experienced Monkey King that I'm unsure if you are just one of the big shift-queue warriors that recieved a great load of aching bowels after this change. In order to do this you actually have to E>W>W. If you never knew this existed and you supposedly played MK, then you're bad, beyond bad.

A good MK will know that sometimes the optimal damage and time is not the maximum damage and time, if you can't figure out what this means then I apologize yet again for your lack of understanding. In fact, sometimes it is far worse to try and run up to a target to get your first W off from melee range and actually less safe because you're leaving yourself majorly opened to CC or getting owned with your pants down. A shift-queue warrior is a predictable warrior.

[iSir`]

I think one point that should be mentioned is that it's not really MK's damage that is the problem, it's more like his overall ability. Witchslayer is said to be the jack of all trades, well, Monkey king is, well

The Monkey King of all trades. He has a bit of everything and in my opinion just a little bit too much of everything. Take a look at say pebbles, pyro and deadwood.

All three heroes have massive burst and can pretty much instagib most heroes if played correctly, however there is one difference between them and MK.

Pyro with PK, pk in , combo, gets kill. Now absolutely no way of escaping besides standard jukes and running.
Deadwood with PK, combo, gets kill. Does have the 3rd spell for escape but very easily stunned.. and has to be near trees as well. Deadwood is very easy to target (quite a large hero).
Pebbles with pk, combo, gets kill. Now absolutely no way of escaping besides standard jukes and running.

And then monkey king.

No pk required. Combo, gets kill. Has dash, slow, and vault to escape as well as good movement speed once ult's up.

Pebbles, Pyro and deadwood all have to basically remain still for a small period of time to land their combo, and then basically walk away.

Meanwhile MK can excellent amounts of damage but remain mobile and very hard to target unless you happen to have one of the few "can't fail" cc'ers, witch, polly, monarch etc.

I agree that only skilled MK's can do this, but the problem is it means all it takes is one reletively skilled MK playing against your average 1500-1600 player and the game becomes very borying for most players. Snowballing is a part of the game, but snowballing pyros, deadwoods and pebbles can be shutdown with decent communication and teamwork. However to stop a skilled MK player from geting at least 1 kill and getting way requires perfect teamwork and ninja reaction skills.

This is why most people complain, he has too much of everything, a high skill cap but once you hit that cap you are just too good. It ruins games. Hon is a team game and although I agree snowballing is a part, it should not be possible to snowball a game so easily once you master MK regardless of skill of the other team unless they are all excellent ninja's from the acedemy of Ninjasauras Biowarrriors.


***Please note*** This is just my opinion, i am just trying to give my view of why it's frustrating for us lesser skilled players to deal with MK (the old one).

[iWizard]

Well...
This nerf hurts quite bad. MK was my favorite hero to pubstomp mid (not saying im a pro MK), but after this nerf his gameplay started feeling very slow and the most frustrating thing the apm requirement is gone. (No I don't mean that infamous shift-queue) Good MK playing in 1700-1800 had an apm req. (something around 140-150 to be really good) it included good reaction to do a good combo on multiple heroes and ability to slam in the air was really decisive in situations, where enemies were clustered next to each other. Speed and reaction were those player-factors, which allowed MK to succeed in a team fight.

So what happened after nerf? You dont really need to be Kookiez to make a good situational decision about Heavenly Vault - +1 second made this hero much easier to play for noobs.

Now what will happen to all people who picked MK due to his burst damage - well they will probably stop picking him (i'm not picking him for mid anymore, only for sidelanes).

I partially agree with [SBTs]Tedde (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/member.php?90684-Tedde)



The damage loss is negligible. (No it's not! Like I said earlier in a teamfight an ability to slam during vault is crucial for dealing much more damage to clustered enemies)
The increase in predictiveness is damaging to the hero. (Yes, MK became too predictable - to target MK with ability/item (like single-target stun or hellflower), in the middle of his combo, required a lot of skill before the nerf)
The core feel of the hero has been lost. (Yes, gameplay changed and it feels frustrating/slow)
The damage output is now more spread out. (Yes, bye bye burst damage)



So as a conclusion:
This was a terrible idea to begin with. S2 made a bad and lazy decision, comparable only with DM nerfs. It was obviously influenced by a massive amount of WHINE from noobs who can't counter/outplay a decent MK player. They couldn't play that hero themselves since it required a decent amount of apm, reaction and map awareness. I think we will see nerfs for Nomad, Fayde and other burst heroes in the nearest future, because noobs will start whining about them being OP too.

The most frustrating part is: S2 continues to create trash-heroes for "early-access purposes", MK was the only great and really unique hero since early access was introduced (it's my opinion ofc). Look at Rally (Deadwood copy, with more utility), look at all those trash heroes like Shadowblade, Blitz, etc. Ofcourse a good player can pick Blitz/Shadowblade and be good with it, but it's really really rare. So instead of reworking their old "abortions" S2 keeps creating more and more of those and occasionally destroying really unique heroes with their "lazy patches".

[Abster]

I think one point that should be mentioned is that it's not really MK's damage that is the problem, it's more like his overall ability. Witchslayer is said to be the jack of all trades, well, Monkey king is, well

The Monkey King of all trades. He has a bit of everything and in my opinion just a little bit too much of everything. Take a look at say pebbles, pyro and deadwood.

All three heroes have massive burst and can pretty much instagib most heroes if played correctly, however there is one difference between them and MK.

Pyro with PK, pk in , combo, gets kill. Now absolutely no way of escaping besides standard jukes and running.
Deadwood with PK, combo, gets kill. Does have the 3rd spell for escape but very easily stunned.. and has to be near trees as well. Deadwood is very easy to target (quite a large hero).
Pebbles with pk, combo, gets kill. Now absolutely no way of escaping besides standard jukes and running.

And then monkey king.

No pk required. Combo, gets kill. Has dash, slow, and vault to escape as well as good movement speed once ult's up.

Pebbles, Pyro and deadwood all have to basically remain still for a small period of time to land their combo, and then basically walk away.

Meanwhile MK can excellent amounts of damage but remain mobile and very hard to target unless you happen to have one of the few "can't fail" cc'ers, witch, polly, monarch etc.

I agree that only skilled MK's can do this, but the problem is it means all it takes is one reletively skilled MK playing against your average 1500-1600 player and the game becomes very borying for most players. Snowballing is a part of the game, but snowballing pyros, deadwoods and pebbles can be shutdown with decent communication and teamwork. However to stop a skilled MK player from geting at least 1 kill and getting way requires perfect teamwork and ninja reaction skills.

This is why most people complain, he has too much of everything, a high skill cap but once you hit that cap you are just too good. It ruins games. Hon is a team game and although I agree snowballing is a part, it should not be possible to snowball a game so easily once you master MK regardless of skill of the other team unless they are all excellent ninja's from the acedemy of Ninjasauras Biowarrriors.


***Please note*** This is just my opinion, i am just trying to give my view of why it's frustrating for us lesser skilled players to deal with MK (the old one).

I fully agree with this, good post sir!

I personally don't think that a hero that is impossible to click on in fights has a place in an MOBA like this. Comes down to how many people agree, S2 sure does.
The escape mechanisms still exist for MK, but this change allows him to commit enough time to a gank / fight so that there is more danger of him dying.

Before this mk players reallly didnt have to bother about getting hit by targeted spells much. I really would like to see mk ganks now that he can die more easily.
I haven't played mk much. But i know what counters him (like so many pros suggest Nullstone and Void Talisman, believe it or not, is not viable early game, when mk is strongest), u can lane tanky heros mid, ward, take aoe stuns etc etc but he just has awesome escapes and utilities. Couple that with the unclickable-ness and damage burst and you have an OP hero.

[PrimalAPE]

Excuse me, but your math is wrong. With your -excellent- piece of math, more time means more DPS. I'll let your brilliant psyche figure out how to calculate DPS for yourself however. Are you trying to be taken serious or what?

Moreover, if you ever played MK, you'd know you can use your E to vault on to targets, in fact it is such a common trick for even a non-experienced Monkey King that I'm unsure if you are just one of the big shift-queue warriors that recieved a great load of aching bowels after this change. In order to do this you actually have to E>W>W. If you never knew this existed and you supposedly played MK, then you're bad, beyond bad.

A good MK will know that sometimes the optimal damage and time is not the maximum damage and time, if you can't figure out what this means then I apologize yet again for your lack of understanding. In fact, sometimes it is far worse to try and run up to a target to get your first W off from melee range and actually less safe because you're leaving yourself majorly opened to CC or getting owned with your pants down. A shift-queue warrior is a predictable warrior.


lol...didn't bother reading after bold. You're bad and don't even understand basic concepts.

Learn what DPS is and come back....LOL

More time taken to pull of combo (fixed damage) = Less damage per second. It's much harder to pull off a full combo now (too long, to clumsy, to open to CC), and much much easier to get CC'd and/or avoided/outhealed. God, learn how to at least partially troll right. Anyways you're ignored MK troll.



Couple that with the unclickable-ness and damage burst and you have an OP hero.


We've already established that he is NOT hard to click. Really, get a new computer or better internet, or think about quitting games. If MK was easy to target mid combo...how could he combo against any team with half a brain unless he had a shrunken? Think about that one long and hard.

Also lets make it clear that an MK combo does not 1 shot heroes unless there is a huge gear/level difference....and that it costs a hefty amount of mana almost 300 give or take...something which must always be taken into account before using any spells because MK's mana pool is small until he gets regen or mana capacity items. Having a bottle early game is at most, 2 full combo's and then a drained MK.

badZ R BAD....as I said before,
I haven't played mk much. you shouldn't be commenting anything about MK.

[wanG]

The hero is done. Sad that they nerfed an underpowered hero even more. MK was easily counterable, had low range (full combo required you to be in front of them), required alot of mana, and was useless unless higher leveled than others. There are countless other heros that you will die to if out of position. There are a lot of other heroes that you will die to if caught solo. There are a lot of heros that will snowball with early kills and levels. I wonder why choose MK to nerf? Probably because he actually required games and games and hours and hours of practice to be good with. The vast majority of players could not dominate with the hero, and could not use the combo, so they cry. Probably the same players that cry about getting 1 punched by deadwood after buying phase boots elder parasite savage mace.

[Gorb]

lol...didn't bother reading after bold. You're bad and don't even understand basic concepts.

Learn what DPS is and come back....LOL
He was using your definition of DPS.

You stated "time X damage = DPS" - you said that. Ergo he said "with your piece of math(s)" because the maths was yours. Which, as he pointed out, makes no sense.

Instead of ignoring people, insulting them and calling them bad, perhaps you should double-check your own posts in future before hitting the Submit button. Better still, cut out the insults entirely.

[Antimodus]

I don't get why admins insisted on closing the GD thread about MK and moving the discussion here. It reads more like a rage thread than a balance thread. In other words, GD material.

[Yefimovich]

It shows. They didn't reduce the hero's potential - he still has amazing mobility. They just removed his ability to 75% a hero in one go at level 3. He still as skill-intensive as ever; perhaps moreso, as he doesn't have insane burst anymore.


I agree fully!

I have hardly ever played MK in MM, played a few no stats and plenty in practice mode (call me a nuffy)

The mobility that he has I think is key, with enough farm (he hasnt lost his flash farm potential) he can still put out decent DPS.

[Kartious]

I personally feel after playing him quite a bit before and now after is that his presence is gone with team fights and ganks, they are just not as effective anymore as they used to be. His lane presence is still okay though in the mid due to harassment to get them low then zone in for the kill. Personally I liked his old combo for various reasons, it did decent damage along with locking the enemy player down and it was hella fun dang it! I have now tried different variants of the combo from the old to a newer form and to be honest... I felt like I died a little inside. Enemy players can now escape mid combo such as valk or chronos (anything with a stun or escape mechinic really) and the thrills of the before combo and now are gone... even in team fights now he is a lot easier to shut down due to the non canceling of the first vault making him easier to shut down. I hope he gets changed back so I can have good times with him again.



So as a conclusion:
This was a terrible idea to begin with. S2 made a bad and lazy decision, comparable only with DM nerfs. It was obviously influenced by a massive amount of WHINE from noobs who can't counter/outplay a decent MK player. They couldn't play that hero themselves since it required a decent amount of apm, reaction and map awareness. I think we will see nerfs for Nomad, Fayde and other burst heroes in the nearest future, because noobs will start whining about them being OP too.

The most frustrating part is: S2 continues to create trash-heroes for "early-access purposes", MK was the only great and really unique hero since early access was introduced (it's my opinion ofc). Look at Rally (Deadwood copy, with more utility), look at all those trash heroes like Shadowblade, Blitz, etc. Ofcourse a good player can pick Blitz/Shadowblade and be good with it, but it's really really rare. So instead of reworking their old "abortions" S2 keeps creating more and more of those and occasionally destroying really unique heroes with their "lazy patches".

Completely 100% agree with this

[RagingGooz]

I thought when mk was released and he had that glitch damage and it got nerfed. that mk would be useless.



what ended up happening from that again?

he still got played and was still very strong right?

Ha. these forums. these players

[KeY533]

It shows. They didn't reduce the hero's potential - he still has amazing mobility. They just removed his ability to 75% a hero in one go at level 3. He still as skill-intensive as ever; perhaps moreso, as he doesn't have insane burst anymore.

If you want to combo players at level 3 you only got one level in Heavenly Vault or skipped 1 level in dash. If you skipped skilling dash you actually cant combo the most heroes except they are trying to harass you in close combat range. And if you did skill all your spells once you can't deal 75% of his max Hp as damage at level 3 except you are autohitting him while he just makes nothing. My point is you can't even oneshot the most heroes with lvl 4 where you got 2 levels in Vault usually you can do now take around 75% of his HP if you hit him perfectly with your combo, dash and a couple of auto hits.


I thought when mk was released and he had that glitch damage and it got nerfed. that mk would be useless.



what ended up happening from that again?

he still got played and was still very strong right?

Ha. these forums. these players

I'm pretty sure that nobody or nearly nobody said that he won't be played ever again after that and most people was happy with that change because it was a glitch and not a part of the hero like canceling his second skill with his slam.

[Tedde]

I thought when mk was released and he had that glitch damage and it got nerfed. that mk would be useless.



what ended up happening from that again?

he still got played and was still very strong right?

Ha. these forums. these players

That logic does not work forever... If you nerf something time and again, it will become less and less viable.

[PrimalAPE]

He was using your definition of DPS.

You stated "time X damage = DPS" - you said that. Ergo he said "with your piece of math(s)" because the maths was yours. Which, as he pointed out, makes no sense.

Instead of ignoring people, insulting them and calling them bad, perhaps you should double-check your own posts in future before hitting the Submit button. Better still, cut out the insults entirely.

Lets twist the truth, act smart and play games! Anyone with half a brain got my point so it's fine. Also, trolls are trolls and I call it the way I see it. I'm not going to stand around and let bad players agree with a nerf based at reducing MK skillcap just because they COULDN'T MK. Every point i've said has been valid, nobody has challenged or debunked any of my statements. I stand here correct.

I'm sure if you were good at this game, and really liked a hero you might feel the same way.


Probably because he actually required games and games and hours and hours of practice to be good with. The vast majority of players could not dominate with the hero, and could not use the combo, so they cry. Probably the same players that cry about getting 1 punched by deadwood after buying phase boots elder parasite savage mace.

The vast majority of trolls that agree with the nerf have (themselves), stated that they didn't play or weren't good with the hero. Somebody that doesn't have enough experience with something should NOT be commenting on what they think should be changed about said item. There have been many MK players echoing their feeling for the hero, and the fact is, we all share the same view - the hero was ruined for no real reason other then crying.

At the end of all this, and the TRUTH, is that MK was never a top tier competitive hero (meaning it wasn't GOOD compared to other choices). Now nerfs and buffs should be based on top tier players and competitions, to encourage the use of weaker heroes through buffs, and discourage the use of strong/OP heroes through nerfs - this is usually how things are balanced. How does this nerf make any sense when it comes to Comp viability when MK was barely played?


Rest my case.

[Shuri]

the changes suck big time the extra seconds on vault doesnt matter the combo is to slow since u have to watch the full vault animation.
u cant like mentioned before lock down blinking heroes like u could every dummie can avoid or interrupt his "combo" now.
the combo isnt a combo anymore i just dont feel right. u guys could have serious just remove that 63 extra dmg from a perfect combo instead of ruining the only unique fun hero in this game.
i mean the canceling the vault with slam was not only to get those 63extra dmg it helped to position urself so u could do ur thing.
if a melee attacks a tower and u want to def it before the patch u could vault the tower cancel with slam right after so u hit the melee and finish ur combo.
now since ucant cancel u end up behind the melee then u have to turn around to hit the slam wich is kinda meh....
there a plentys of scenarios like this where u NEEDED to cancel vault so u end up in a good position and not miles away that extra second dont help it.
please s2 just remove the 63 dmg from a perfect combo pre patch and lets play mk the way he was ment to play.
throwing aboard the whole playstyle and fun that hero had is just sad!

[GregerMoek]

Yup. Would have mentioned it, but TBH couldn't be bothered trying to explain to the town folk here.
Pulling off any combos since the nerf will take longer to execute. time X damage = DPS. In this case more time taken (because of not being able to vault cancel) = less DPS.


Fact = Not only was the nerf mechanical in the case, but also a significant nerf to his damage.


lol...didn't bother reading after bold. You're bad and don't even understand basic concepts.

Learn what DPS is and come back....LOL

More time taken to pull of combo (fixed damage) = Less damage per second. It's much harder to pull off a full combo now (too long, to clumsy, to open to CC), and much much easier to get CC'd and/or avoided/outhealed. God, learn how to at least partially troll right. Anyways you're ignored MK troll.





Look at this guy, contradicting himself left and right. Moreover, the most depressing part is that he completely fails at the most simple piece of math in the HISTORY OF GAMING RELATED MATHEMATICS.

Cute way of dodging any type of simple logic and basic understanding by saying "didn't read after you owned me"(in other words), a concept that is hard for you to grasp I bet.

Sorry, tryhard, but your definition of how to calculate DPS is ****ed up, wrong, and hilarious. "Badz will be badz" haha, I'm quite sure you spend at least 10 minutes trying to figure out things like how to put a ball in a cup in your spare time, now that your shift-queue W-E-W won't work anymore (which probably took you more than three months to figure out).

Just in case you forgot your own way of calculating dps, here cometh another quote, mad, mad, frustrated monkey king player.




time X damage = DPS.



LOLOLOL YOU ACTUALLY WROTE THAT.

Furthermore, you are inable to read, this message proves it. Look at the messages you quoted, you don't read them. You saw one sentence and thought the whole message was about that, well that just shows how bad you are at anything related to forums, or anything at all for that matter. I clearly said "with YOUR definition of DPS, more time means more damage" which is an incredibly laughable, messed up and moronic thing to say (hint: you said it yourself). This just further proves that you're just another 12 year old who learned what shift-queue was and then thought it was skill.

Please let yourself enter education for people with special needs, I would deeply recommend it before you comment anywhere on any forum, because with your reading and mathematic skills you shouldn't be commenting anywhere, especially not here. You'll just confuse people that don't understand how misguided and bad you are. Young padawan and small son.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With that out of the way... (replying to your post in your own fashion, because you don't know anything else)

Funny way of ignoring my main points in my post about E-W-W. Just shows you that the only MK trick in the book you know is W-E-W.

Most of the people agree with you because that was also the only combo they knew themselves. That is actually a fact, if we use your definition of fact. Some people don't like it because it is one option gone from his way of combining skills, but MOST(most = not all, but the majority - in case you didn't know) hate it because their shift-queue is gone, don't kid anyone.

I've never stated what I actually think of the change myself, except that it was an obvious buff to W and another obvious nerf to it. Thing is, if the feature was not intended in the first place I'm sure S2 have been working for a while now to find a way to remove this unintended feature of the ability. They just didn't find time to implement it yet or maybe they had other things going for them at the time and let this feature stay since it wasn't affecting competitive HoN to a major degree, untill recently at least.

The thing about MK as a concept is that he has multiple ways to combo that are just forgotten when people learn one combo and uses that all the time instead of the myriad of possibilities in his skillset to create combos fit for each situation. Before the change, W-E-W was basically -the- combo. Effectively dumbing him down even if he has 'more options' with it. He will never use those options anyway if one option is always or next to always the most dominant option.

I played a lot of MK and I did use that combo a lot, it is fairly stupid to say though that anyone who can agree with the change must be a bad MK player. This is ENTIRELY a subjective opinion, not an opinion based on "skill". Not every skilled MK liked the combo, if you say that then you're just stupid beyond words. With one ISSUE with MK away (Not the fact that he was hard to kill, the fact that an unintended feature that limited his gameplay more than people say because of outperforming nearly every single other combo) one can look at buffing other, INTENDED PARTS of the hero.

[StylePro]

Definitely should have changed the damage and not the combo. MK WAS one of the favorites.

[BOXl]

I almost never used the standard " shift queue-combo " and never the less the hero is ruined for me now...

[Gorb]

// Moderator Hat on //


I don't get why admins insisted on closing the GD thread about MK and moving the discussion here. It reads more like a rage thread than a balance thread. In other words, GD material.Please take any reply to this post to PM.

It was the incorrect thread type for General Discussion. Thus, it was locked there. There was a balance change to MK in a recent patch, so discussion was started here. This is what the Balance Discussion subforum is for.

If you have an actual on-topic point to post, instead of posting something that would be better-directed through a PM, feel free to do so.


Lets twist the truth, act smart and play games! Anyone with half a brain got my point so it's fine. Also, trolls are trolls and I call it the way I see it. I'm not going to stand around and let bad players agree with a nerf based at reducing MK skillcap just because they COULDN'T MK. Every point i've said has been valid, nobody has challenged or debunked any of my statements. I stand here correct.

I'm sure if you were good at this game, and really liked a hero you might feel the same way.
Do not accuse other forumites of actions without evidence.
Do not imply other people are bad at the game simply to provoke an emotional reaction.
The truth is that you posted an incorrect formula and then called someone else out for incorrect mathematics.

Please bear the forum rules in mind while posting. You do not decide who trolls are. You participate in a civil discussion or you yourself are placed at the mercy of the moderators for disrupting conversation flow.

And yes, I do not delete posts on sight , sorry (assuming borderline conflict of beliefs. You are approaching outright textbook trolling, however). I feel I should explain how things are run so that when posts start disappearing (as they will, again, from now on, despite Ekamo's fantastic work so far) you cannot complain that I am being some kind of biased ninja policeman of sorts :)

// Moderator Hat off //

[LordTroll]

I almost never used the standard " shift queue-combo " and never the less the hero is ruined for me now...

If you didn't use the shift queue combo, the hero is exactly the same for you dumb ****, in fact it's better, you now have more time to vault the second time.

[Teddy]

I thought the Era of Monkey King was over until I actually practiced some in Practice Mode (duh) and found out that you still could combo, just that it was a tad harder. I'm still happy and this would be considered a slight buff when you learn how to combo. I am actually happy now that I understand how they "fixed" MK<3 S2 knows their stuff.

[LordTroll]

hurf durf not that anyone would manual-cancel instead of shift-queueing

What a mongoloid, clueless and trying to smart like a smartass. You do realize that BOTH methods relied on basically cancelling the animation of vault, thus forcing the animation to be fully completed negates both methods.

[Fiat]

No duh. Which is why "I almost never used the standard " shift queue-combo " and never the less the hero is ruined for me now..." is a perfectly appropriate phrase for someone who manual-cancels.

[Iuchiban]

I like the change of MK.
1 second added to second vault is so great, you can do LOAD of stuff between vaults. MK is still fun to play, (maybe not for smurfs, but smurfs are blue and stinks so who cares about them) and ofcourse will be pain in an arse to play against.

Still -> high mobility, good stat growth, good scalling with q

[iSir`]

^this


I personally feel after playing him quite a bit before and now after is that his presence is gone with team fights and ganks, they are just not as effective anymore as they used to be. His lane presence is still okay though in the mid due to harassment to get them low then zone in for the kill. Personally I liked his old combo for various reasons, it did decent damage along with locking the enemy player down and it was hella fun dang it! I have now tried different variants of the combo from the old to a newer form and to be honest... I felt like I died a little inside. Enemy players can now escape mid combo such as valk or chronos (anything with a stun or escape mechinic really) and the thrills of the before combo and now are gone... even in team fights now he is a lot easier to shut down due to the non canceling of the first vault making him easier to shut down. I hope he gets changed back so I can have good times with him again.



Completely 100% agree with this


Hon is a team based game, no hero should have a 100% chance of killing someone by mastering a combo without any chance of failing, and without other items.

MK has too much of everything, you don't need a pk, you already have dash.


The fact that you're basically complaining about not being able to kill Chronos or Valk show's the flaw in the attitude of a lot of MK players. Before this nerf, once you'd master his combo all you needed to do was get reletively close to any hero (again not hard with ghost marchers and dash and his ultimate) and if you've mastered the combo it's 100% free kill 1v1 situation.


Name another hero that can do that guarenteed with just ghost marchers and a bottle? There isn't one. Sure deadwood can, but he's slow and has to land his root in the first place. Pebbles and DW both rely heavily on PK, a 2150g item.

MK does the same damage and has better escape and late game without that 2150g...

Sorry, that's not balanced. No hero should have this "potential" power based on the ability master a few button combo and have decent reaction "twitch" timing.


Pebbles combo requires you to literally be on top of the person, which is very hard to do without a PK.
DWs ult has a CD so he's limited to how often he can free kill people.

Sorry what are the CD's on MKs abilties ? His Ultimate? Oh wait he doesn't have one, yet still puts out the similar amounts of damage while remaining mobile.

DW + Pebbles, spend 2150g on an item that allows them to use their spells efficiently. MK doesn't need this, so while other they spend lots of money on being able to use their combos on heroes. MK spends 2k on Sols B. which increases the damage of his combo which he's already free try on anyone who crosses his path with barely any risk unless it happens to be 3 heroes considering 1 will die anyway if he lands his pre-nerf combo correctly which you basically can't stop unless you happen to be a ninja.


He was too strong in the hands of a good player. That is a problem, it means the reward to skill cap ratio is not inline with the other heroes that have the same kind of concept in this game i.e pebbles etc.

Pebbles isn't hard, but you cannot run around instagibbing everyone in the universe and know you'll escape with marchers and a bottle. Countered by any kind of cc and a 400g item.

MK is countered by 2 heroes holding your hands at all time, ward all over the map and someone buying a SolB for the team.

[PrimalAPE]

Monkey king got a big nerf but there are two combos still yet in the game. You just gotta find them ;)

It doesn't matter. He can't cancel vault and that leaves him way to vulnerable when pulling off any combo. Not only was his offensive ability nerfed, but also his defensive escape methods (no dash mid vault). If you face any team that has experience with the past MK, you're just gonna get stomped. You cannot combo fast enough without the enemy moving and ruining your combo, or getting CC'd because you're stuck flying like a fairy in the air. He's too slow now, and speed was his strength against good teams.

Reduction in gameplay options with MK = skillcap nerf.

[Varane]

I think this nerf to Monkey King addresses entirely the wrong issue.

The reason MK was a great hero (borderline OP perhaps?) isn't solely because of his bursting ability. He can burst down underfarmed heroes with no armor or HP items easily enough, but a multitude of other heroes can as well. Competent players will rarely die to him mid unless outleveled/outplayed, and the usual protocols for ganker heroes going missing from lane are effective against him (miss call, rune ward).

I can't remember the last time a Monkey King took over the game via constant successful ganking in the 1700+ bracket. Anecdotal evidence, sure, but his burst damage is nothing insane in comparison to heroes like Pebbles, Pyromancer, Deadwood, etc.

The main problem is how well he scales into late game. The carry potential of other ganker-type heroes such as the ones mentioned above are far inferior. I would feel perfectly comfortable going into late-game with a snowballing Monkey King against traditional hard carries who aren't nearly as effective early game as MK.

The point of this overly-long explanation regarding what most people already know: Nerf MK's unnecessarily high agility gain, lower his base armor, and/or change his Q skill into a predetermined amount of damage rather than scaling with his attack damage. Any more nerfs to his perfectly acceptable burst potential as opposed to late-game scaling is going to ruin MK's niche in HoN as a viable mid-game physical-based ganker.

If the intention of S2 is to take Monkey King in the direction of a late-game carry who relies on being annoying to hit in a team-fight as his main source of survivability, then might as well remove the damage on his vault, give it 30 mana-cost, and up MK's agility to 3.5. There's no point having a hero who doesn't fulfill any purpose and instead tries to dabble in every role simultaneously (a favored design philosophy as of late?).

[PrimalAPE]

the usual protocols for ganker heroes going missing from lane are effectively against him (miss call, rune ward).
Truth.



The main problem is how well he scales into late game. The carry potential of other ganker-type heroes such as the ones mentioned above are far inferior.
Disagree. If he scaled less, his endgame presence would be useless. Also, the heroes you mentioned are not agility.


his Q skill into a predetermined amount of damage rather than scaling with his attack damage.
This would totally ruin any sort of endgame presence MK has, and would mean that he doesn't even have 1 static damage ability. He would pretty much just be a weak autoattack hero without any real threat to the enemy.

[Varane]

Disagree. If he scaled less, his endgame presence would be useless.
Something like 3.0 > 2.7 agility gain would make him useless? I'm not asking for MK to be bombarded with the nerf cannon Drunken Master-style, balance is done with a chisel.


This would totally ruin any sort of endgame presence MK has, and would mean that he doesn't even have 1 static damage ability. He would pretty much just be a weak autoattack hero without any real threat to the enemy.
Perhaps it's a tad too drastic, but there are always solutions. For example: 30/60/90/120 static damage + 40% attack damage. I think Monkey King with a savage mace AOE'ing through people dealing 300+ damage late-game is too much for a ganker hero who is intended to shine mid-game.

[PrimalAPE]

I think Monkey King with a savage mace AOE'ing through people dealing 300+ damage late-game is too much for a ganker hero who is intended to shine mid-game.

Even with over 300+ attack damage, MK is not invincible endgame. He is still easy enough to disable, and properly farmed hard carries hit harder. Regardless of whatever path an MK chooses, genjuro, null, shrunken....there is a way to counter any MK item build, and all it really takes is people that know how he works. If the enemy team has a hardcarry, the longer the game lasts the more likely MK will lose.

[Kartious]

Hon is a team based game, no hero should have a 100% chance of killing someone by mastering a combo without any chance of failing, and without other items.

Monkey king cannot 100% chance kill anyone unless they are half hp in lane or if your team mates in the lane help you gank. Which is the expectation of any ganker would have. Also well done you have established what sort of game this is... that is not relevent to the post.


MK has too much of everything, you don't need a pk, you already have dash.

Why would you need a pk? thats mainly a initiation item or with the execption of some a positioning item. To buy one as a escape mechanic is just idiotic.



The fact that you're basically complaining about not being able to kill Chronos or Valk show's the flaw in the attitude of a lot of MK players. Before this nerf, once you'd master his combo all you needed to do was get reletively close to any hero (again not hard with ghost marchers and dash and his ultimate) and if you've mastered the combo it's 100% free kill 1v1 situation.

Again MK cannot "free kill" someone at full HP on combo alone unless he is ahead of his game which any other ganker would do anyway. If they used thier escape mechanic to get away vs MK they are gone while many other gankers such as DW, Hag can stop them in their tracks and still garentee their kill, so they are not now OP? I am gathering that the fact you always say "100% free kill" is that you ignored wards or miss calls at around half HP and got owned. Any ganker that can basically dodge a ward and some team help can pretty much get a kill, thats just the enemy player being stupid unless MK randomly gets the ability to tower dive without taking barely any damage before level 10? because If thats ever happened I would like to see it.



Name another hero that can do that guarenteed with just ghost marchers and a bottle? There isn't one. Sure deadwood can, but he's slow and has to land his root in the first place. Pebbles and DW both rely heavily on PK, a 2150g item.

You pretty much just named two right there, there are also others such as Hag, Dev, Gaunt... I could go on. Pebbles stun isnt that hard to land with quite a generous AOE radious and range which in fact anyone caught in that combo along with their team mates will get a kill anyday. Deadwoods root also isnt hard to land if you have good perception and know the timings, oh I forgot he can also walk through trees with increased movement speed as well to an unfortunate unexpected player. Anyone that misses frequently with Deadwoods root is just bad and shouldnt play him.


MK does the same damage and has better escape and late game without that 2150g...

Really buying a portal key to escape ? no comment


Pebbles combo requires you to literally be on top of the person, which is very hard to do without a PK.
DWs ult has a CD so he's limited to how often he can free kill people.

Last time I checked His stun has around 600 range for his stun, thats not litually on top of them. I also love it how you can say "free kill people" because his ulti only has around a one minute - 1 minute 30 secs cool down which means any time he can go for a rune to gank he can do this "free kill" on a player.


Sorry what are the CD's on MKs abilties ? His Ultimate? Oh wait he doesn't have one, yet still puts out the similar amounts of damage while remaining mobile.

Last time I have checked he did have an ultimate and Im pretty sure you said earlier that he had one too so thats a bit of a contridiction.


DW + Pebbles, spend 2150g on an item that allows them to use their spells efficiently. MK doesn't need this, so while other they spend lots of money on being able to use their combos on heroes. MK spends 2k on Sols B. which increases the damage of his combo which he's already free try on anyone who crosses his path with barely any risk unless it happens to be 3 heroes considering 1 will die anyway if he lands his pre-nerf combo correctly which you basically can't stop unless you happen to be a ninja.

Have you seen a decent pebbles or deadwood with a portal key at around 15 minutes ? Not only they can gank and initiate extremely effciently they can also avoid can beat MK to runes and gank placements which gives reduced time for MK to call miss and the lane to react. Also a ganker such as deadwood or pebbles with a portal key MK wouldn't really stand a chance against them ganking him without a chance of him seeing them.


Overall I have never had problems against MK either in the mid or a side lane because I use common sense by looking at my mini map for the ward locations and actually reading miss calls. You maybe just got owned completely a few times against him I don't know, but any higher level player or someone with common sense wouldn't sturggle against MK.

[PrimalAPE]

Monkey king cannot 100% chance kill anyone unless they are half hp in lane or if your team mates in the lane help you gank.

This is the truth. MK cannot 100% -> 0% any hero at early game assuming similar level and items. If MK is snowballing, overgears and outlevels someone, then that's different and you would get 1 shot from any other farmed ganker like a PK pebbles or DW. Like i said earlier, anyone can play DW or pebbles, most couldn't MK and this is the reason for the lame nerf. Loads of noobs are choosing him now simply because he's not hard to play anymore, and is way more forgiving. Skilled players get shafted for noobs.

GJ S2

[Gorb]

Even with over 300+ attack damage, MK is not invincible endgame. He is still easy enough to disable, and properly farmed hard carries hit harder. Regardless of whatever path an MK chooses, genjuro, null, shrunken....there is a way to counter any MK item build, and all it really takes is people that know how he works. If the enemy team has a hardcarry, the longer the game lasts the more likely MK will lose.No hero is ever invincible, so your analogy is flawed.

How do you disable a Shrunken'd Monkey King, by the by? The only thing I can think of is a Physical Stun or Superior Magic Disable.

Additionally, every hard carry generally builds Shrunken (and/or Null? Not sure). I don't understand how "properly-farmed hard carries" hit harder and even if certain ones do, I fail to see how this is a problem as MK is effective during the middle phase of the game whereas the hard carry is not.

What you seem to be complaining about is that MK can't hit like a hard carry, despite not being a hard carry. This is what you called balance through design. Unless, of course, I am misunderstanding something.

I am not debating whether or not the nerf was justified however, or the application of the nerf (i.e. did it hit the right area). I just think you're making the hero out to be something that it is not.

[Sky`]

No hero is ever invincible, so your analogy is flawed.

How do you disable a Shrunken'd Monkey King, by the by? The only thing I can think of is a Physical Stun or Superior Magic Disable.

Additionally, every hard carry generally builds Shrunken (and/or Null? Not sure). I don't understand how "properly-farmed hard carries" hit harder and even if certain ones do, I fail to see how this is a problem as MK is effective during the middle phase of the game whereas the hard carry is not.

What you seem to be complaining about is that MK can't hit like a hard carry, despite not being a hard carry. This is what you called balance through design. Unless, of course, I am misunderstanding something.

I am not debating whether or not the nerf was justified however, or the application of the nerf (i.e. did it hit the right area). I just think you're making the hero out to be something that it is not.

Umm bubbles? Jereziah with charm and ulti? Jereziah with void stone and charm? Raphsody's ult? Doctor Repulsor while in ult form? Magmus in mid surge? Geomancer in mid Burrow?

Should I continue?

[Alten]

Umm bubbles? Jereziah with charm and ulti? Jereziah with void stone and charm? Raphsody's ult? Doctor Repulsor while in ult form? Magmus in mid surge? Geomancer in mid Burrow?

Should I continue?

Listing outliers that are effective against virtually everything and skills that are generally acknowledged as among the best escape mechanisms in the game does not serve to counter Gorb's point. A Nullfire Blade to purge Jereziah is also not unviable on a mk, if it is necessary.

If you really want to list those things, then maybe you should add every other hero in the game to MK's "now-UP" status.



To present my observations; I've never had a problem with MK in any game I've played against him. I don't play the hero -- I never have -- but I understand how he works and the countermeasures necessary against him. I've had him on the opposing game for at least several hundred games, and I can honestly say I've never seen him take off any better than a Pebbles or something (in the case of people on my team that do not know how to play against the hero). In every one of those games, he was never invincible, either; he always tapered off as the mid-game began to close, and his auto-damage, while often approaching respectable levels, did not outmeasure that of a hard-carry or supplemented by utility in the same fashion as a ranged semi-carry. The alacrity observed in his combo movements was not, either, particularly difficult to surmount; it was effective for the MK in delaying action against him, but it was always followed by him being stunlocked into submission (assuming no one was foolish enough to blow anything while he was hopping around).

tldr; I've never seen him as overpowered, post EA, even in the impressive instances where he managed to solo-kill several heroes at once or something. This is not a particularly valuable post; personal experiences are never particularly valuable, but this has been my observation of the hero in my bracket, and something must be said as to whether people in other brackets simply lack the cohesion or more readily display panic tactics which ultimately prove in the MK player's favour.

[spiritboy]

You can't have superior mobility/speed and extreme burst all in one hero, that equals overpowered.
I'm surprised they haven't nerfed this one earlier.

[Gorb]

Umm bubbles? Jereziah with charm and ulti? Jereziah with void stone and charm? Raphsody's ult? Doctor Repulsor while in ult form? Magmus in mid surge? Geomancer in mid Burrow?

Should I continue?
I think Alten explained my intended point quite nicely.

@PrimalApe: you should consider replying to counterarguments if you have any hope of your own arguments being taken seriously (i.e. not being deleted for all the reasons I have patiently explained to you while my Moderator Hat was on).

[BOXl]

What a mongoloid, clueless and trying to smart like a smartass. You do realize that BOTH methods relied on basically cancelling the animation of vault, thus forcing the animation to be fully completed negates both methods.

I referred to the combo itself, it wasnt even possible to shift-queue it so i dont know what you guys are talking about. However, it had a huge impact overall, and maximum damage isnt always =/= optimal damage as said before. I also find it very easy to execute, yet id rather use other comboes relying more so on positioning and pulling your enemys out of it. Anyway, no harm intended, im probably a way better monkey king player than you are.

[GregerMoek]

It is truly glorious to see people justifying their opinions with statements such as
"It made a huge impact"
"any good MK player did this"
"I'm a good MK"
"Easy to target"
"It was a big deal"
"Limits combos"
"This is bad"
"Monkey King is dead now, because he is worse"

Quality, quality posts. Nothing seeing past the "omg he was nurf, I r sad"

[EmptyOne]

There are still a very powerful combo in the game. You just gotta find it, it is closely as good as the nerfed one.

[DaMaDMaN]

Hey guys, I did some searching around for a new MK combo and this is what I found
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aaE1-tOvb8
what do you guys think of it?

[hekor]

Quite honestly, it does about the same damage as w-e-w combo. For those, who could skip animation, it does the same damage as our combo too.

There is also a combo where you slam (under enemy) - vault enemy - vault over slam that can do even more damage than classic combo, but is harder to proc in mass teamfights. Its a pitty they removed the old animation skipping combo w-e-w, you wont superb burst in 0.5s random ppl while hangin round enemys woods anymore, but MK can still offer the same bursts, sadly in longer time sequences. For those ppl, who rly master MKs skills, this is not that big of a deal. :)

Btw: Over 200 games with MK here :)

[Baddie01]

All i saw was mad nerds who got outplayed by a mk player and their only excuse was to complain at forums creating a post called "OMG MK OP NERF NERF". I say this, because ALMOST all players complaining about mks opness are 1500-1600. S2 gotta stop nerfing good heroes because of bad players who cant even counter a monkeyking strat.

in my opinion, mk needed a nerf on the second lvl of vault wich allowed you to kill soo easy almost any hero in early game. without having an almost sure good-start he would get a good nerf. Mk was fun because landing that combo was ****ing funny. If the problem was the dmg, so the nerf should have been in the dmg and not in the playing style wich has been there for almost half year

[Antimodus]

All i saw was mad nerds who got outplayed by a mk player and their only excuse was to complain at forums creating a post called "OMG MK OP NERF NERF".

The only mad nerds I can discern in this thread seem to be the MK public stompers who relied on WEW faceroll for dear life and can't straight up beat those supposed bad pubs any other way, so now they complain.

Sorry, it just felt necessary to reply GD quality drivel that's all over this thread with an equal-quality response. Since a serious discussion about it is out of the question.

[`11411181]

Hey guys, I did some searching around for a new MK combo and this is what I found
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aaE1-tOvb8
what do you guys think of it?

That's the combo I've seen the few decent players I know use sans the Q use - and one I personally don't have a problem with mechanics-wise.

[_theEnemy_]

It is truly glorious to see people justifying their opinions with statements such as
"It made a huge impact"
"any good MK player did this"
"I'm a good MK"
"Easy to target"
"It was a big deal"
"Limits combos"
"This is bad"
"Monkey King is dead now, because he is worse"

Quality, quality posts. Nothing seeing past the "omg he was nurf, I r sad"


The only mad nerds I can discern in this thread seem to be the MK public stompers who relied on WEW faceroll for dear life and can't straight up beat those supposed bad pubs any other way, so now they complain.

Sorry, it just felt necessary to reply GD quality drivel that's all over this thread with an equal-quality response. Since a serious discussion about it is out of the question.

Pretty much these. Anyone who thinks MK is completely trash/worthless now really doesn't understand the hero at all. Yeah, MK got nerfed overall with a slight damage decrease and reduced evasiveness/speed in teamfights. He can no longer stop heroes from blinking or leaping away. And yeah, without that speed he's a lot less fun to play, but MK is still a completely viable hero. He still has a lot of burst and mobility. His extra second on vault allows for much better use of the skill's repositioning. He can still farm extremely quickly. MK still performs well in every stage of the game.

Also, the skillcap on the hero wasn't nerfed at all. In fact, if anything, it was increased. Being able to do the WEW combo wasn't difficult at all and didn't make you a good MK just because you knew how to do it. The WEW combo was the hero's go-to skill combination in ganks and fights. Now, there's more skill combinations that the player has to choose from and determine which would be best in a situation. Now, the player has to learn to play more cautious, smarter and with better positioning since he can no longer rely as much on the hero's innate evasiveness to survive.

This was a big nerf on MK's speed and evasiveness in a fight which allowed him to stomp at lower levels of play, but wasn't as much of a problem at higher levels. He was compensated with the extra second of vault, but I don't think that was enough. I believe MK should be slightly (very slightly) buffed in his ability to perform in the middle lane. MK is a strong mid hero, but he can still get easily beaten by popular mid heroes (Torturer, pollywog, pyro, chipper, tundra to name a few).

[Psionic]

Am I *cough* REALLY the only one who thinks the nerf was on the wrong skill? Because Wan-Jin Slam still hits enemies who walk into it long after the activation time and recieve a stun. Why does an enemy who walks into a piece of crumbled rock get launched up into the air? The first person who answered the riddle with pebbles, get out, you're not funny. ._.

As I was continuing. Why? if the MK misses his Wan-Jin Slam he can vault an enemy back into it and STILL get instant damage and a stun out of it. That is ludicrous. That is why W+E+W was any better, because the enemy was out of the Wan-Jin Slam when it was used to cancel the vault but then, MAGICALLY. A second vault launched them back in, the Slam that had already finished as a pile of rock (for god knows what reason, stupid gadgetry) Stuns again, randomly, and you get hit by all four parts plus a fifth, the AOE section of the vault.

The vault was never a problem, and S2 Whiffed on this one. Wan-Jin Slam should have been the target of the nerf, where walking into a random rock laying on the ground should never hurt you. This was stupid even if it didn't have a major combo exploit tied onto it. It was just mechanically wrong.

[`11411181]

The rock explodes after a delay. Good try though.

[Psionic]

Err, no. The rock explodes after a delay, but if you miss the stun completely, then have someone pk in prior to the resolving effect but FAR after the first stun your hero will still be stunned twice, by the initiating stun, and then by the resolving stuns, despite the skill whiffing completely. Go test it. Have someone walk into it after cast.

And then, stop being ignorant. ._.

[Psionic]

And then I realize, words mean 1/1000th of a picture, and experience means everything.

So, Set MK and your chosen hero as follows, after you pick MK in practice mode (set spawn and self to hold position):

http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/p515/PsiChannel/2edc147e.png

Select both heroes, making sure MK is primary in the group. Then, click directly in front of him (This way --->), 1.5x melee attack range to be precise and then cast your Wan-Jin Slam immediately (to be sure of facing). The two heroes will converge, but when coming within a certain range of Wan-Jin slam, the chosen hero will, for NO REASON, be stunned and take this late set of damage, then a second set of damage for when the skill actually "Ends"

I will re-state. There is NO reason for this "bounce" damage and it is the ONLY reason for W+E+W's high-output of damage. Be informed.

[BOXl]

Yeah, the first impact of e lasts for a while, stumbled over it in one of my many games with him, u can e first even if it doesnt hit an enemy, and then quickly vault them back in so they get hit 2x times.

[Reimu]

If I recall correctly, there's been threads regarding Wan-Jin Slam and its lingering time before. People didn't know there was a lingering time on the initial activation on it and wondered if it was a bug but that's how the ability is coded. It does NOT mean any target is taking extra damage (the linger window is ONE hit, if you get hit right as it's placed or during the linger time doesn't matter, you'll only get hit once during this period), what it means is that targets that wander/get pushed into the initial Slam before it explodes again, are more likely to get hit by both.
This was most likely done to ensure MK was unlikely to fail his combo (which no one noticed often since when Vault was cancellable with slam, you took the first hit very fast, now people notice because Vault is SLOW) but also to make sure he poses SOME threat by placing it. What's the point of placing it if no one fears it, and with the lingering time and second activation, you SHOULD have to consider if it's worth getting hit by it or not.

There's nothing wrong with Slam in my opinion, the ability is straight forward, and since the visual on it is obvious, if you walk into it and get hit after it's placed that would be your fault, not MKs, even more so if you PK in on it (why would you even do that anyway?).

Edit: I don't even see why this is a cause of concern, in the most optimal situation, you take 300 magic damage (150 from each) and ~1sec stun (0.5 from each), are people really thinking this is "high" damage or OP in some way?

[LordTroll]

That's the combo I've seen the few decent players I know use sans the Q use - and one I personally don't have a problem with mechanics-wise.

What's the exact combo used in the video? Can't really get it, seems a lot like the shift queue you could do before the latest patch.

[Reldnahc]

What's the exact combo used in the video? Can't really get it, seems a lot like the shift queue you could do before the latest patch.

You get into melee range, E>W>W>second E explodes. You know, the combo I explained in my post a few pages back but good job putting it into video. I was ignorant that the combo I listed wasn't "the" combo and I didn't realize people were unaware of that combo. Could explain why so many people are angry about this change, ignorance.

[DaMaDMaN]

What's the exact combo used in the video? Can't really get it, seems a lot like the shift queue you could do before the latest patch.

The combo is q > e > w > q > w as fast as possible, Also there is a shift que way of doing it


Just alittle message to the people who think his skill cap has gone down well I beg to differ. I was also one of the mk players to use the W E W combo but after playing about 10 games of the nerfed mk, I feel like the character skill cap is still very high, Ill refer to the video I posted earlier. The combo in that video still takes VERY quick hands to do and good positioning, Although I will agree that it takes longer now since you have to land to activate next vault. What im trying to say is not ANYONE can pick up MK and do that combo in the shortest amount of time and get the max burst from it.

Then again it is just my opinion

[Qzie]

Im going the be straigt up honest about this. This "balance" change made me die a little inside, and here is why!

I completely agree with Rodah on the fact that S2 nerfed him in a wrong way.

The reason why MK was fun to play and usable was due to his high mobility and ability to get in and out of teamfights with ease, while also diving past towers to catch heroes off-guard.

But ...

What this change has implemented is a new Monkey King, with reduced mobility-wise capabilities, but with the "potential" burst being untouched.

How i would have nerfed him, and would have nerfed him if i had the chance would be like this...

The vault would only be allowed to hit heroes TWICE! [With vault lvl 4] The first initial doing 250 and the second doing 125, the bonus 63 psycial from the third "bugged" vault should not be allowed to be applied.


Agree or disagree with my statement, but i think it is very drastical to make a change like this without thinking of the consequences, i havent felt the same rush of playing MK after this "nerf"

[LordTroll]

You get into melee range, E>W>W>second E explodes. You know, the combo I explained in my post a few pages back but good job putting it into video. I was ignorant that the combo I listed wasn't "the" combo and I didn't realize people were unaware of that combo. Could explain why so many people are angry about this change, ignorance.

I also did that quite often but, what's causing me confusing is that in that video, the combo is being all done in like 1 second, which is weird because supposedly vault has to do the whole animation now...

[`11411181]

And then I realize, words mean 1/1000th of a picture, and experience means everything.

So, Set MK and your chosen hero as follows, after you pick MK in practice mode (set spawn and self to hold position):

http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/p515/PsiChannel/2edc147e.png

Select both heroes, making sure MK is primary in the group. Then, click directly in front of him (This way --->), 1.5x melee attack range to be precise and then cast your Wan-Jin Slam immediately (to be sure of facing). The two heroes will converge, but when coming within a certain range of Wan-Jin slam, the chosen hero will, for NO REASON, be stunned and take this late set of damage, then a second set of damage for when the skill actually "Ends"

I will re-state. There is NO reason for this "bounce" damage and it is the ONLY reason for W+E+W's high-output of damage. Be informed.

My apologies, the affector seems to linger a lot longer for some reason. You are correct.

[iSir`]

Im going the be straigt up honest about this. This "balance" change made me die a little inside, and here is why!

I completely agree with Rodah on the fact that S2 nerfed him in a wrong way.

The reason why MK was fun to play and usable was due to his high mobility and ability to get in and out of teamfights with ease, while also diving past towers to catch heroes off-guard.

But ...

What this change has implemented is a new Monkey King, with reduced mobility-wise capabilities, but with the "potential" burst being untouched.

How i would have nerfed him, and would have nerfed him if i had the chance would be like this...

The vault would only be allowed to hit heroes TWICE! [With vault lvl 4] The first initial doing 250 and the second doing 125, the bonus 63 psycial from the third "bugged" vault should not be allowed to be applied.


Agree or disagree with my statement, but i think it is very drastical to make a change like this without thinking of the consequences, i havent felt the same rush of playing MK after this "nerf"


The reason why MK was fun to play and usable was due to his high mobility and ability to get in and out of teamfights with ease, while also diving past towers to catch heroes off-guard.


Yes, because those seem like fair attributes an agility hero who scales reletively well in all stages of the game should have without requiring any farm at all and miminmal risk, maximum reward.

This is EXACTLY why he needed a nerf, you basically said why alll the try hard nerds are QQ'ing he got nerfed, because you can no longer roll your face across 3 keys and claim to tbe sportsmaster champion of Joto, 16 badges bro, besst in kanto bro.

[Psionic]

If I recall correctly, there's been threads regarding Wan-Jin Slam and its lingering time before. People didn't know there was a lingering time on the initial activation on it and wondered if it was a bug but that's how the ability is coded. It does NOT mean any target is taking extra damage (the linger window is ONE hit, if you get hit right as it's placed or during the linger time doesn't matter, you'll only get hit once during this period), what it means is that targets that wander/get pushed into the initial Slam before it explodes again, are more likely to get hit by both.

There's nothing wrong with Slam in my opinion, the ability is straight forward, and since the visual on it is obvious, if you walk into it and get hit after it's placed that would be your fault, not MKs, even more so if you PK in on it (why would you even do that anyway?)

With some snips here and there. I am not saying the linger effect is dealing extra damage, it's dealing damage that should never have happened, because the MK failed to hit his stun in the first place / cancelled his vault with it. The whole idea is that he's extremely mobile, high skill-cap hero, so why is he given a (ludicrously long) timing period in which a failed attack should be a hit? It's failed logic, period.

The point I was making the PK argument with was not the fact that PKing into the Wan-Jin Slam was smart, rather I was making a point that even if a hero is FULLY withdrawn and not even in the general facility of the stun when it is made and missed, it can still be FULLY utilized for 300 damage and a double stun despite failed placement, because rocks can do that.

There is a VERY effective use of placing a Wan-Jin Slam without a stupid, unnecessary mechanic being implemented to make the hero easier and less risky. It is a VERY effective quick-stall for heroes who have channel ulti. Drop this on a SS and move him out of position or stall him for upwards of 3 seconds. Drop this on a Tempest and push him out of prime position. You do NOT need linger-trashed stun mechanics to make this ability useful, it is already LOADED with utility, in being a good creep clearing, ledge leap-escaping, channel-killing, positional GODSEND of a skill. And to top it all off, now you think that a hero like MK, who already dominates lane, should have a mechanism to block off exit paths by having a STUN UPON ENTRY SKILL. As in. EW TYPE TRAP STUN ON ENTRY SKILL.

No. Stop thinking because it's not "OP" means it's not ridiculously good and overlooked as being extremely strong for countless purposes.

[HappyMuslim]

...it's dealing damage that should never have happened, because the MK failed to hit his stun in the first place...

You do NOT need linger-trashed stun mechanics to make this ability useful, it is already LOADED with utility, in being a good creep clearing, ledge leap-escaping, channel-killing, positional GODSEND of a skill. And to top it all off, now you think that a hero like MK, who already dominates lane, should have a mechanism to block off exit paths by having a STUN UPON ENTRY SKILL. As in. EW TYPE TRAP STUN ON ENTRY SKILL.

This "linger-trashed stun" adds to his skill cap, and you're language and attitude scream ignorance as well as arrogance.


No. Stop thinking because it's not "OP" means it's not ridiculously good and overlooked as being extremely strong for countless purposes.

It's not OP but it's ridiculously good... so it's... balanced?

Anyhow, I didn't have the patience to go through more than 4 pages of this thread, and although I agree that this new change SUCKS because I can't look cool with my shift-que, he is still incredibly strong and fun to play. Most of you are screaming bloody murder just because someone is holding a knife.

Furthermore, WEW ALWAYS lost it's viability after mid-game, and it was ALWAYS more viable to use one of his 10 other combos

And to compound on my last point, this hero now has a HIGHER skillcap because you can choose to use any combo, as opposed to a combo that was in every way alpha. In addition, for all of you novice MK players, you shouldn't be comboing one person anyways after the mid-game. You should be leaping two people, preferably throwing BOTH of them into the stun.

There is still a huge distinction between skilled MK players and noob ones which is quite evident in this thread - that is, skilled players will have the knowledge as well as innovation to munch on every hero in the game. Everyones stop crying, go into practice mode, and go learn one of the other 10 combos he has.

Just one example - throw down the stun, dash up to the hero, flick him back into the stun, dash back to the hero, wait for the second pulse, then flick them FURTHER back. Jesus, this hero is more fun than ever before, is much harder to use, and is much less face roll. Thank you S2!

[PrestonLee]

I just played this hero yesterday and completely raped the game, are people really complaining about the fixing of a broken combo? Lol

The change was great, you just have to use brain more now to get the most out of this hero and abuse his mobility and displacement rather than smashing the keyboard for max damage.. that's a good step in balancing this game imho. It got really annoying with all the stupid people face-rolling the keyboard and coming out with a kill despite being horrible.

As far as I know an early Bulwark and 4/4/1 is still retarded as hell for farming and ganking, nothing changed for me since I always thought relying on the WEW combo was stupid and less viable as the game goes on anyway. If you like insta-gib combos there's Pebbles for that.

[BOXl]

There is still a huge distinction between skilled MK players and noob ones which is quite evident in this thread - that is, skilled players will have the knowledge as well as innovation to munch on every hero in the game. Everyones stop crying, go into practice mode, and go learn one of the other 10 combos he has.

Just one example - throw down the stun, dash up to the hero, flick him back into the stun, dash back to the hero, wait for the second pulse, then flick them FURTHER back. Jesus, this hero is more fun than ever before, is much harder to use, and is much less face roll. Thank you S2!

Just that they removed most of the comboes, and the example u stated was possible to do before, it just took more skill. And i play(ed) mk 1800+

[Sire]

sure, nerf mk's combo, but keep pebble's and midas's combo fine. i mean mk's combo did alot more damage than pebbles's

[Hubaris]

sure, nerf mk's combo, but keep pebble's and midas's combo fine. i mean mk's combo did alot more damage than pebbles's

Pebbles has significant mana and mobility issues and fairly meh stat growth + starting armor whereas MK has none of that. Not to mention this change wasn't as much about the damage but the complete safety that the hero has when vault cancels itself and you return to a safe location. There was no risk/reward and there was no deciding what was most optimal for escape/damage and weighing those differences, it was mainly mindless. He is now a deeper hero because you have to rely on other forms of escape and damage utilization.

[BOXl]

How does mk not have mana problems? Idk, it just feels like that people that comments in this thread havent even played mk, saying that this nerf made him into a " deeper hero "...

Also pebbles is the hero thats has been picked/banned for the last... 2 years?

[Hubaris]

How does mk not have mana problems? Idk, it just feels like that people that comments in this thread havent even played mk, saying that this nerf made him into a " deeper hero "...

Compared to Pebbles who requires additional Intelligence to use his combo and can't actually perform a full combo early on without the extra stats. He also is locked into two skills which are both intensive; whereas MK doesn't have to use them both at the same time for effectiveness(es) sake.

[Antimodus]

biggest difference is the cooldown. Pebbles did PK QW? good, now has 15 sec cd on PK and 20 sec cd on stun. all he can do is run at normal speed and attack. How can you people compare this to MK with his WEW combo, who still had Q available (twice) and 12 seconds cooldown on the faceroll?

[TheR3alFueh]

I find it funny how people who do not play Monkey King, talk about how easy it is to play Monkey King. The worst 'fact' is that some of you are insulting people to prove your point, which I think is rather immature and just shows how you do not belong in a balance discussion. While I understand your frustration with the hero, or this particular change, I think if you want to get your point across you need to use proper arguments and not insults or "lolol ubad".

Anyways.

My take on the change is the fact that it's harder to catch people after the full combo. Earlier you could Q-W-E-W-E- then Q to get to the hero, however now you can not animation cancel W which leaves a gap between you and the enemy, at least when using Q-E-W-Q-W-E to get maximum damage in shortest duration (enemy is hit by everything. There are others combos as well, however most of these require proper positioning.

The problem with MK is however, while I admit he is a pub stomp hero, is that he does not fit into a category IMHO. He has everything but has nothing, the only thing he excels at is his mobility. If he is not fed or farmed his damage is somewhat mediocre and his crowd control can screw the teamfight over in favor for the enemy. I guess that's also why he's not that often picked in competitive games since he doesn't fulfill the ganker role as good as many other heroes do, or some of the other roles.

In 0-1750mmr games he is very easy to stomp with, but that is because he scales well if he is fed early, much better than let's say Pebbles. He can pick heroes off very fast and get away even faster, which is very hard to deal with in general but especially at that rating, since nobody actually does anything to stop a MK mid or call misses/ward properly. He is still very squishy and if you interrupt him in the middle of his combo he can't do much in the next ~10s. If you have a problem targeting him I suggest you practice on it. I think out of 800-1200games that I've played around 1770 my team has only been stomped 3-5 times by a MK.

It's funny though when I play Monkey King and get fed / farmed and people start yelling OP hero, when you can achieve the same with other heroes as EW/Valk/Fayde/Pebbles with that amount of farm. I find a fed EW more annoying to deal with than a fed MK, since you'll be kited forever while MK actually need to be in melee range.

My post probably didn't sum it up as I wanted to but whatever, I just found it funny to see people who have no clue about the hero being, butthurt insulting each other and yelling out "faceroll!".

Pebbles can btw successfully oneshot heroes at lvl 5 I think it is (if he is on top of them)? While MK does like 4-500dmg total, both combos require ~max mana on both heroes.

[Starlance]

You can't have superior mobility/speed and extreme burst all in one hero, that equals overpowered.
I'm surprised they haven't nerfed this one earlier.

what he said

Imo they should've just reduced his damages instead.
Let him have his foolish combos and speed but just make his damage more appropriate.
Quite disappointing nerf actually. Although after all he is an S2 hero.

[PrimalAPE]

Compared to Pebbles who requires additional Intelligence to use his combo and can't actually perform a full combo early on without the extra stats. He also is locked into two skills which are both intensive; whereas MK doesn't have to use them both at the same time for effectiveness(es) sake.
your argument doesn't even make sense. pebbles needs stats to do a full combo? so? MK needs a bottle to start working anyway and is extremely mana intensive. Where as pebbles is always played so that he can gear to fix his mana issues early game, MK only has a bottle.


Second don't even try comparing skills on an individual basis, 1 pebbles stun early game is much more effective then an early weaksauce dash, or early slam. Mk's real source of early damage is vault. Pebbles early source of damage is 2 skills which used in conjunction can pretty much almost 2 shot most heroes. Using all of Mk's spells on a full HP target will still leave it with more HP than if pebbles landed a combo, and landing a combo with pebbles is noob friendly. Pebbles doesn't really need items to do damage with his combo in the beginning, MK is very reliant on getting fed mid to start working, because his scaling DASH is the reason he will end up owning you, regardless of whether he combo's you or not. W>E>W didn't really do much damage on it's own anyways.


Did you really just say that pebbles has intense mana issues compared to MK? lol



whereas MK doesn't have to use them both at the same time for effectiveness(es) sake.


Mk needs to combo his skills or he's ineffective. These combos were more advanced than anything a pebbles had to do.

[Hubaris]

your argument doesn't even make sense. pebbles needs stats to do a full combo? so? MK needs a bottle to start working anyway and is extremely mana intensive. Where as pebbles is always played so that he can gear to fix his mana issues early game, MK only has a bottle.

Second don't even try comparing skills on an individual basis, 1 pebbles stun early game is much more effective then an early weaksauce dash, or early slam. Mk's real source of early damage is vault. Pebbles early source of damage is 2 skills which used in conjunction can pretty much almost 2 shot most heroes.

Did you really just say that pebbles has intense mana issues compared to MK? lol



Mk needs to combo his skills or he's ineffective. These combos were more advanced then anything a pebbles had to do.

Comparing skill cancels to Pebbles combo. Pebbles needs to do both at the same time or else he loses ~50%+ damage off of his skills; MK doesn't have that forced synergy inherent. He can viably use any of his 3 skills in any order he wants and generally achieve the same result. He has much more flexibility as he doesn't have to commit to all of his skills in one combo. Vault can be used for burst, but then you can choose to follow up with another or vault away to escape if something went sour.

And my argument makes sense. Pebbles physically cannot cast his two spells without additional intelligence, he does not have the mana pool to make this possible. MK can. And why can't you "gear to fix his mana issues early game" with MK as well, you don't just have to rely on bottle. Pebbles doesn't have the luxury of options that MK has; he needs mana items and can't just get by without them.

[Peepz]

im sure some1 has said this already but heres my 10 cents. imo mk wasnt nerfed at all, with the buff to the w spell u can now double vault the hero backwards witch is pretty huge, the combo im currently useing is in my opinoin better than the old 1. its :e -(hitting nothing, placed as long away fromt he enemy as possible while beeing just in range to q) q-w-q(queuing back to get on the other side of the hero to vault him back past the e spell again)-w.
with this combo ive easely moved the enemy hero into the mid tower, and in general it gives u alot of extra hits in aswell as getting urself and the enemy hero in a more advantageous position.

[BOXl]

double vaulting backwards was possible to do, now its just way easir.

[FunChuern]

Now the balance is just making monkey king more support hero than a skill-based hero. Mid vaulting is not an easy task as everyone thinks it is. Vault too fast then it's off, too late and you wont be able to vault. When I tried MK with no combo vault, it seemed like this hero is really choppy. It wasn't as smooth as it used to be. MK used to be a smooth, fast, killing machine hero. In, Vault, kill, out. Now, it's like hes cripppled or something. I don't think this balance was really necessary

[Sire]

Mk's full combo requires 290 mana to pull off, and doesnt do as much damage as pebbles's. also pebs has the utility of throwing teammates/enemies and a reliable 2 second stun, mk doesnt. If mk gets bad farm early on, mk doesnt really do well the rest of the game. pebs does bad early on, he has two good disables, high auto attack damage, and is strength with a really high str gain, so he wont die as quick. I mean, mk does have a ton of escape mechs, but thats besides the point.

[Strayreaper]

Ok, I finally read every post.

I believe the nerf to his W>E>W combo was justified, it had too little risk for the amount of damage it does. I don't play monkey king often, but the people that are upset about that nerf don't seem to me to be using anything other than the combo.

When I play him I often use E on top of them, auto attack until the leave the AOE, vault them back in so they take the second stun, and then vault again. He is even viable sidelane as his vaults pull a target towards your team mate and apply a slow, while doing a lot of damage.

I think that before the nerf MK excelled at all stages of the game except for late, where he was only just beneath hard carry status, and no hero should be like that. He was viable in mid lane or sidelane, had strong damage in mid game while having excellent mobility for ganking and then after he gets items he puts out lots of damage late game through his Q, which scales.

I do think that another option, instead of the nerf that did happen would be to simply remove the scaling damage from his Q, which would decrease his late game potential while keeping his early game and mobility the same as before.

It basically comes down to what his hero role is - he shouldn't be able to hit like a hard carry late game if he isn't one. If he is, then he shouldn't be able to dominate early and mid game with his combos.

[Sire]

I think that before the nerf MK excelled at all stages of the game except for late


wait wait wait... and pebs doesnt?

[BOXl]

Mk carries way harder than pebbles does, mostly because of his stat gain and mobility... Anyway, this is probably gonna be my last comment on this thread, they nerfed the wrong thing and mk is " mini reworked " into something most people find retarded.

[bleakfaith]

Mk's full combo requires 290 mana to pull off, and doesnt do as much damage as pebbles's. also pebs has the utility of throwing teammates/enemies and a reliable 2 second stun, mk doesnt. If mk gets bad farm early on, mk doesnt really do well the rest of the game. pebs does bad early on, he has two good disables, high auto attack damage, and is strength with a really high str gain, so he wont die as quick. I mean, mk does have a ton of escape mechs, but thats besides the point.

Would you quit comparing MK to Pebbles?
Pebbles is a ganker period.
MK is a ganker plus a carry, therefore he will NOT be as good as pebbles at ganking. Hard?

[Sire]

Would you quit comparing MK to Pebbles?
Pebbles is a ganker period.
MK is a ganker plus a carry, therefore he will NOT be as good as pebbles at ganking. Hard?

Pebbles cant carry? you must be playing the wrong hero. He has a huge ****ing auto attack damage, and is extremely tanky after getting levels. Mk has one scaling move, a lot of mobility, and is agility. Sure mk will carry harder but pebs always does well regardless if he does well early, simply because of his innate survivability and damage, and his q and e, both useful disables.

aight ill compare mk to damp. They both have a carry/scaling skill (dash and lifesteal) neither need a pk to do their combo, dampeer does more burst but mk has alot more mobility. Damp is usually played as a hard nuker considering his skills do heal him and do alot of damage. Mk's skills are mostly physical so -armor does synchronize with them, so he plays as a hard nuker too, but tends to turn into a carry lategame like dampeer since they're agility.

[FunChuern]

Like I said MK is all mobility and swift smooth movements. Come in and gank, then leave or chase someone down. Now the hero is choppy with the nerf skills.

MK can't carry easily late game. All his skills do a lot of damage only because of early game versus other heroes. Late game, he's all about items rather than using his skills.

[FurryTuna]

Like I said MK is all mobility and swift smooth movements. Come in and gank, then leave or chase someone down. Now the hero is choppy with the nerf skills.

MK can't carry easily late game. All his skills do a lot of damage only because of early game versus other heroes. Late game, he's all about items rather than using his skills.

Didn't you just provide the generic definition of semi-carry above?

[Strayreaper]

wait wait wait... and pebs doesnt?

If you read the bit right after that I also said he then goes on to be very strong late game. Pebbles falls off late game a lot more than monkey king. If you build pebbles around his combo so he always has mana to combo people early then you hinder his late game potential, if you build him for late game you will often be out of mana early game. Monkey king's late game build is tacked directly on to his early game items, so as well as not needing a portal key he gets a lot of extra gold because he doesn't have to change his earlier items as the game progresses, he just upgrades them.

I think he also has the potential to do better ganking side lanes. While pebbles almost guarantees a kill on one of the sidelane heroes, he can only do his combo once every 20 seconds, so if the second hero is not next to the first hero then pebbles requires help from his teams sidelane to do anything to the second hero. Monkey king, while not doing enough damage to completely kill the first hero by himself, is able to control the two opposing heroes far better than pebbles and can more often lead to double kills in the side lane.

I don't think this change to monkey king has trashed him. With the extra one second between vaults you can more effectively crowd control enemy heroes, making him a better ganker, or if not a better ganker, a different kind of ganker than he was previously. More crowd control, slightly less DPS.

[SirVH]

My 2 cents: played some matches with and against him. I really don't feel the nerf was enough, he's still stomping like he always did. I really think he really more nerfs or a change on direction.

He's still able to go in and out safely while deal insane damage. I think his mobility OR his damage should get nerfed. Having both on the same character is way too much and let's not forget that he actually scales.

[Warhippo]

If you read the bit right after that I also said he then goes on to be very strong late game. Pebbles falls off late game a lot more than monkey king. If you build pebbles around his combo so he always has mana to combo people early then you hinder his late game potential, if you build him for late game you will often be out of mana early game. Monkey king's late game build is tacked directly on to his early game items, so as well as not needing a portal key he gets a lot of extra gold because he doesn't have to change his earlier items as the game progresses, he just upgrades them.

I think he also has the potential to do better ganking side lanes. While pebbles almost guarantees a kill on one of the sidelane heroes, he can only do his combo once every 20 seconds, so if the second hero is not next to the first hero then pebbles requires help from his teams sidelane to do anything to the second hero. Monkey king, while not doing enough damage to completely kill the first hero by himself, is able to control the two opposing heroes far better than pebbles and can more often lead to double kills in the side lane.

I don't think this change to monkey king has trashed him. With the extra one second between vaults you can more effectively crowd control enemy heroes, making him a better ganker, or if not a better ganker, a different kind of ganker than he was previously. More crowd control, slightly less DPS.

If you have a chalice bottle, steamboots, and know how to steam swap, you wont have any mana problems. You usually get sols after pk anyway, how does that not go into his late game?

[Sandtrap]

I don't really see why a hero that wasn't anything else than a situational pick on the competitive scene needed a nerf to start with but IF a nerf (for god knows what reason, 1500s crying?) was required this was surely the worst way to do it. This change just makes the hero a lot more awkward and boring to play, nerfs should never make a hero tedious to play if there's any other way to go about it (and there surely was, I can think of a hundred other ways to nerf him). If I wanted a slow game with artifical delays/changes to make the game less smooth I'd just swap to dota 2 completely. I really felt like the patch changes have made a lot more sense in the last few months but this change was just horrible.

[GregerMoek]

Please list the 100 nerfs or changes that would fit the hero, else I don't believe you.

Moreover, taking away this widely known as unintended feature and buff another intended aspect of the hero leaves room for other buffs.
If you think he got tedious to play that's your opinion.

I won't say I think he needed a nerf more so than perhaps a re-focus. Before it was all about the damage when the hero concept gives much more room for clever comboing depending on situation for displacement/damage instead of derping around with fast fail-safe combos for burst.

MK is far from a slow hero and is quite possibly still the fastest hero in HoN when it comes to combining abilities, really does your posterior ache this much every time something goes in a way you don't like?

[Zabuza]

the only thing the MK change really did was broaden the horizon a bit on the hero instead of everyone doing the same combo over again he has more alternatives with the added second to the vault. And as far as competitive playing goes MK just doesnt provide "Team" enough to be a great comp hero m'afraid

[Sandtrap]

Please list the 100 nerfs or changes that would fit the hero, else I don't believe you.

I can't really be arsed to write every single possible change individually but they could've tampered with the damage or (in some cases) even the effects of any of his abilities, they could've changed his starting stats/gains (which are very high), reduced his base armor, even changing his base ms (wouldn't really suit the hero, but at least it'd be better than this nerf). I'm sure you realise that if I list every single number change individually that'd be a shitload of options? Basically they could've changed anything but the core functionality of the spells and it wouldn't affect the gameplay of mk as negatively as this nerf does, and hence fit him better.



Moreover, taking away this widely known as unintended feature and buff another intended aspect of the hero leaves room for other buffs.

Please link me to a post/thread where it's established that this was an unintended feature. Being able to cancel vault with slam was obviously purposly added, I don't see how a functionality like this could be added unintentionally at all.


If you think he got tedious to play that's your opinion.

There's not a single avid mk player who thinks that he's smoother or more fun to play after this change.


I won't say I think he needed a nerf more so than perhaps a re-focus. Before it was all about the damage when the hero concept gives much more room for clever comboing depending on situation for displacement/damage instead of derping around with fast fail-safe combos for burst.


This might be the case at a low level but good mk players (including myself) didn't just use the same combo over and over for some single target burst, a good mk player used his massive mobility to move around and distrupt as many heroes as possible in a teamfight while putting out as much damage as possible by hitting multiple targets with every spell. The ability to adapt depending on the situation has been heavily reduced by this change, not enhanced.


MK is far from a slow hero and is quite possibly still the fastest hero in HoN when it comes to combining abilities, really does your posterior ache this much every time something goes in a way you don't like?

When a change both lowers the skillcap and makes a hero less entertaining to play, yes it disgusts me. You'd see me crying just as much if they say (as an example) made hook or arrow a targetted ability, changes like these remove fun and flavor from the game for no apparent benefit (considering how many other options they had for nerfing him).





the only thing the MK change really did was broaden the horizon a bit on the hero instead of everyone doing the same combo over again he has more alternatives with the added second to the vault.

Being able to cancel the vault did add significantly more alternatives than another second to the vault, this change limits the options mk has in a fight, not the other way around.



And as far as competitive playing goes MK just doesnt provide "Team" enough to be a great comp hero m'afraid.

If he doesn't provide enough 'team' (baseless statement) then why was he nerfed/changed like this? Does this change add more 'team'? HoN should be balanced around competitive, not the strenght of the hero at a pub level (which didn't change much with this nerf, considering that most people didn't use the hero properly anyways).

[GregerMoek]

See, I can claim a bunch of things without backing it up if you can. I know many 'avid' MK players who are okay with the change.
It doesn't lower the skillcap, it lowers how safe it is to double vault something.

The only 'skill cap' it lowers is your finger skill and how fast you can be with either shift-queueing or doing it manually. Thing being, vault cancel relies on unbinding targets from a projectile, which was confirmed to be unintended but not considered an exploit once people started to use it (which was right when MK's super combo existed). People make mistakes, even S2 when they make abilities, look at Gemeni's old D while in ult form for example, Myrmidon's bugged Q or whatnot. Kraken Charge vs Gauntlet Hook mid-air and Gauntlet Hook vs Nymph ult etc.


Now one must realize that it's still possible to cancel vault with slam if you're super mega fast, isn't that raising the skillcap? :)

[Sandtrap]

See, I can claim a bunch of things without backing it up if you can. I know many 'avid' MK players who are okay with the change.
It doesn't lower the skillcap, it lowers how safe it is to double vault something.

Excluding the fact that I am an avid mk player, while you aren't, I have discussed this with several high rated/competitive mk players and not a single one is okay with the change. However since I'd be quite troublesome/even impossible to interview every single mk player above 1900 I'll just go with the fact that every single player who is playing at a decent level (1750, I'd love to put it higher but that simply makes the sample size too small), has mk in their most played and posted in this thread disagrees with the change. The only people who agree with it either doesn't play mk much or is at a lower rating (and if they could use mk at even close to his full potential they wouldn't be there). Yes someone who is 1500 can have as much insight about balance as someone at 1900, however they can't actually say how it feels to play the hero at this level/its full potential.

Obviously this isn't definitive proof, but it's far more basis than any of your claims have.



The only 'skill cap' it lowers is your finger skill and how fast you can be with either shift-queueing or doing it manually.

No, the old vault also gives you more options on what to do during/after your initial vault, and (incase you chose to cancel it) requires quicker decisionmaking.



Thing being, vault cancel relies on unbinding targets from a projectile, which was confirmed to be unintended but not considered an exploit once people started to use it (which was right when MK's super combo existed). People make mistakes, even S2 when they make abilities, look at Gemeni's old D while in ult form for example, Myrmidon's bugged Q or whatnot. Kraken Charge vs Gauntlet Hook mid-air and Gauntlet Hook vs Nymph ult etc.

I've seen this claim a lot so it might be true, but I'm still waiting for the link to a thread/post where this is established. I honestly don't see how this could be added by accident nor why it wasn't discovered/removed during the testing phase if that's the case. Also, even if it's an unintended feature, if it improves the gameplay of the hero it should stay.


Now one must realize that it's still possible to cancel vault with slam if you're super mega fast, isn't that raising the skillcap? :)

Has been fixed now afaik. Though even if it's still possible I don't really see why you'd consider this an increase in skillcap but not the "finger skill and speed" required for the previous functionality?

[Zigh]

why dont change the statat, dmg or cooldownskill instead of changing style of character :(

[GregerMoek]

Some simple Google and you find this thread (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?348913-Details-of-Monkey-King-s-Heavenly-Vault-Wan-Jin-Slam-combo) followed by responses like this (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?348913-Details-of-Monkey-King-s-Heavenly-Vault-Wan-Jin-Slam-combo&p=14455144&viewfull=1#post14455144) saying they will fix the 'exploit of game mechanics' but not in the near future.

Simple, right?

Also, Sandtrap, you have 98% SW played. According to the statistics you never even tried the hero. You're also at 1600 rating. Please use arguments with real basis in them, this is only amusing for others reading your posts, because they are getting more ridiculous by the minute.
If you use the "I have another account that is 2000 rated and 90% MK and I'm also said to be the best MK ever"-excuse then I'm actually gonna do that too.
But you are welcome to try again with your flawless arguments and made-up 'facts'. Do you know what a fact is, even?

Thing is, it is clear that you are an 'avid' MK player, but there's no real proof that you're even a good one. You might be one of those shift-queue warriors after all, in -fact- (a word you so love to use this brilliantly) I know you are one of those, you sound like them and that's proof enough. Only a shift-queue 1450 player would whine about this (See PrimalApe and other players in this thread). You fit more into that category than the well-reasoned ones that, while not entirely liking the change, are not against its direction. Moreover these players do not think the skillcap is lowered, I've stated several times why it isn't and some good players that play a lot of MK agree with me (again, proof is here in the thread if you bother to actually read it).

If you can't bring anything else than "here I discussed this, it's a fact, true story" then please try again. You're one of several to degrade this forum to General Discussion level, Zigh's post is a clear example of what you look like.

Someone asked me to give you a link with a definition of the word hearsay (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hearsay). Have a read.

[girard`]

This thread again?

[Sandtrap]

Some simple Google and you find this thread (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?348913-Details-of-Monkey-King-s-Heavenly-Vault-Wan-Jin-Slam-combo) followed by responses like this (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?348913-Details-of-Monkey-King-s-Heavenly-Vault-Wan-Jin-Slam-combo&p=14455144&viewfull=1#post14455144) saying they will fix the 'exploit of game mechanics' but not in the near future.

Simple, right?

From my interpretation this refers to the additional damage caused by the cancel, not the ability to cancel vault in the first place. Not that this even matters regarding the balance change, it was just curiosity from me and if you don't have any other basis for it I guess I didn't learn anything new.


Also, Sandtrap, you have 98% SW played. According to the statistics you never even tried the hero. You're also at 1600 rating. Please use arguments with real basis in them, this is only amusing for others reading your posts, because they are getting more ridiculous by the minute.
If you use the "I have another account that is 2000 rated and 90% MK and I'm also said to be the best MK ever"-excuse then I'm actually gonna do that too.
But you are welcome to try again with your flawless arguments and made-up 'facts'. Do you know what a fact is, even?

Thing is, it is clear that you are an 'avid' MK player, but there's no real proof that you're even a good one. You might be one of those shift-queue warriors after all, in -fact- (a word you so love to use this brilliantly) I know you are one of those, you sound like them and that's proof enough. Only a shift-queue 1450 player would whine about this (See PrimalApe and other players in this thread).

'Excluding the fact that I'm an avid mk player' is what I wrote, hence feel free to exclude that fact, I never used that as a basis for my argument. If you actually think I'm a 1450 player after looking at my stats (which are from pre comp.) I have to question your judgement thou;). I know what fact means, do you know what proof means?



You fit more into that category than the well-reasoned ones that, while not entirely liking the change, are not against its direction. Moreover these players do not think the skillcap is lowered, I've stated several times why it isn't and some good players that play a lot of MK agree with me (again, proof is here in the thread if you bother to actually read it).


Feel free to quote the posts of the good players that play a lot of mk and agree with this change since I can't find any (yes after reading this thread), I can quote the posts/players I'm refering to right now:

DivineAlice (1760, 20% mk): Didn't make any posts relevant for our discussion.

Ninjabubbles (1795, 7% mk):


Its not about the damage... Or to be clearer, its about that they should just have nerfed the damage instead.


What i mean is that its about the utility and positioning, not about the damage at all. The thing that people has been complaining about though, is the damage output ( wich actually is fairly low compared to other gankers, its just his cooldowns and utility that makes him so fun / great / " should be removed from the game " )...

Boxxxy (1835, 4% mk):


I almost never used the standard " shift queue-combo " and never the less the hero is ruined for me now...


I referred to the combo itself, it wasnt even possible to shift-queue it so i dont know what you guys are talking about. However, it had a huge impact overall, and maximum damage isnt always =/= optimal damage as said before. I also find it very easy to execute, yet id rather use other comboes relying more so on positioning and pulling your enemys out of it. Anyway, no harm intended, im probably a way better monkey king player than you are


double vaulting backwards was possible to do, now its just way easir.


just that they removed most of the comboes, and the example u stated was possible to do before, it just took more skill. And i play(ed) mk 1800+



How does mk not have mana problems? Idk, it just feels like that people that comments in this thread havent even played mk, saying that this nerf made him into a " deeper hero "...


Mk carries way harder than pebbles does, mostly because of his stat gain and mobility... Anyway, this is probably gonna be my last comment on this thread, they nerfed the wrong thing and mk is " mini reworked " into something most people find retarded.

Baddie01 (1825, 10% mk):


All i saw was mad nerds who got outplayed by a mk player and their only excuse was to complain at forums creating a post called "OMG MK OP NERF NERF". I say this, because ALMOST all players complaining about mks opness are 1500-1600. S2 gotta stop nerfing good heroes because of bad players who cant even counter a monkeyking strat.

in my opinion, mk needed a nerf on the second lvl of vault wich allowed you to kill soo easy almost any hero in early game. without having an almost sure good-start he would get a good nerf. Mk was fun because landing that combo was ****ing funny. If the problem was the dmg, so the nerf should have been in the dmg and not in the playing style wich has been there for almost half year

Ther3alFueh (1797, 16% mk): Post is somewhat related but doesn't really give an opinion about the change, it's on page 8 if you want to read it.



If you can't bring anything else than "here I discussed this, it's a fact, true story" then please try again.

This is exactly what you are doing. I admit that just the few 'high' ranked players in this thread is a somewhat weak basis (considering their low numbers) but you have no basis whatsoever for your statements.

[GregerMoek]

See, now your post got a lot better, this is more aligned with what we want to see in the balance discussion forum.


"This is exactly what you are doing", no it isn't. I'm not using anything of that to back up an opinion about the direction of the change.
What I was doing was to highlight how stupid it is to use not-shown sources for said information, you now performed better in this regard which I'm sure most people in here will be delighted to see.


Now to the actual change, as I have stated before I played MK a lot. Want my personal opinion on the change, again?
I used the combo a lot along with vault cancel in other situations, I do not entirely LIKE that it's not longer possible but I can see why it was removed and move on from there. So, I hope everyone caught that, I do not entirely like the change but I can see some sense in it if it wasn't an intended feature to be close to the single case of unbinding yourself from a projectile with your own skill in the entire game. I can somewhat see why they decided to remove it in that regard, consistency mixed with initial feelings about how the hero was used.

So what do I do when I see a change I don't like entirely but can somewhat see why the change happened? Well I sure as hell don't whine endlessly about it, if the change was impactful as **** then of course something else will have to be buffed to compensate. Now it might have seemed like I was -for- the change entirely in some of my posts and maybe it even looked like I liked it. In a way I did, in a way I didn't. I said that the majority of people who whine (not all, but the majority) about the change do it for the shift-queue stuff being gone (if you shift-queued double vault or anything else it canceled itself without effort). Of course they are not all the whiners, some are good MK players using this unbinding to their advantage, every player likes to take advantage of things intended or not and when one thing is removed of course it will affect the hero.


What I will say though is that people EXAGGERAGE shitloads about how major the nerf was and how dead MK now is. His concept is still there, most of his potential is still there, vaulting super-quick between buildings/gadjets/units is removed and some potential damage, along with some elusiveness coming with the vault-canceling. Yes, it does limit his potential in theory, in practice however it was almost always best to do stuff as quick as possible and most of you know that a way to do it as fast as possible was to vault-cancel one way or another. YEs, the nerf was a nerf but it's nowhere near the death of the hero if something else gets buffed to compensate in the future. I'm not entirely convinced it will have to be a big buff, or even if a buff is needed at all, but I won't deny the possibility and I believe that he might need more than just the 1sec between vaults buff.


I'm just tired of endless whine and backing it up with that "I can whine because I'm skill". Yes, we all realize this was a nerf in most areas. Some love the change because it nerfed MK. Big deal.


Just repeating in case you missed, I didn't like the change fully, but I can somewhat agree with it if it was unintended.

[Sandtrap]

See, now your post got a lot better, this is more aligned with what we want to see in the balance discussion forum.


The only real thing that changed from the post before that is that I copypasted a shitload of quotes over simply refering to them in a thread that you read through and refered to yourself. To me your entire post just seems to be an attempt to end a discussion where you feel like you 'screwed up' (not really the word I'm looking for, but it'll have to do) while still acting superior. If you don't want to talk about something you can just say that/not respond over writing something like this quote or spewing baseless insults like your previous post.


"This is exactly what you are doing", no it isn't. I'm not using anything of that to back up an opinion about the direction of the change.
What I was doing was to highlight how stupid it is to use not-shown sources for said information, you now performed better in this regard which I'm sure most people in here will be delighted to see.

"Moreover these players do not think the skillcap is lowered, I've stated several times why it isn't and some good players that play a lot of MK agree with me (again, proof is here in the thread if you bother to actually read it)."

"You might be one of those shift-queue warriors after all, in -fact- (a word you so love to use this brilliantly) I know you are one of those, you sound like them and that's proof enough."

"It doesn't lower the skillcap, it lowers how safe it is to double vault something."

Do I need to continue? Is this really not what you're doing at all?:P



What I will say though is that people EXAGGERAGE shitloads about how major the nerf was and how dead MK now is. His concept is still there, most of his potential is still there, vaulting super-quick between buildings/gadjets/units is removed and some potential damage, along with some elusiveness coming with the vault-canceling. Yes, it does limit his potential in theory, in practice however it was almost always best to do stuff as quick as possible and most of you know that a way to do it as fast as possible was to vault-cancel one way or another. YEs, the nerf was a nerf but it's nowhere near the death of the hero if something else gets buffed to compensate in the future. I'm not entirely convinced it will have to be a big buff, or even if a buff is needed at all, but I won't deny the possibility and I believe that he might need more than just the 1sec between vaults buff.


I wouldn't have 'that' many issues with a nerf of this magnitude if it simply was a number change (even though that'd be silly aswell), the issue is that it lowers the skillcap (your single target combo is still set in stone in most situations, you have less options in a teamfight, less reaction time is required) and (for most) the fun in playing the hero. That's simply taking the game in the wrong direction, entirely the opposite of what a patch is supposed to do.

[NotARecluse]

i noticed something about monkey king lastweek and have since been building him to reflect this idea

i realized that at lvl16, as MK in a teamfight you dash in , stun, dash again, then vault twice its so fast almost no one can touch you cause your constantly leaping around

i noticed after the double vault theres only a 1.5 second window before my dash is cooled down again and i do the combo again

so really im almost never attacking. that 1.5 second window is usually about movement, so all im doing is constantly dashing, vaulting, and slamming

so really MK never uses his autoattack. ive realized this so now i play the hero 100% tank (with mana regen). armor boots, heart, shrunken, and a nullstone probably as manaregen item of choice. once your lvl16 you never use your autoattacks because your always casting spells

so that means my "damage" item of choice is actually mock. actually fits this hero well because the mock increases his fash damage and does some aoe. no other damage item on MK really give you alot of benefit for its cost because your never attacking

[GregerMoek]

EDIT: to the post above, this is not strategy, moreover, if you don't use auto attacks as MK then yeah, I don't know what to say.

@ Sandtrap Good thing you realized yourself that you didn't change your **** at all, the posts you choose to quote were half-full of **** too that was not a fitting 'counter' to anything I said at all. I never mentioned anything about manacost, double vault backwards, MK carry ability, some claims about that the damage was a problem with the hero, someone ranting about players that claimed MK was OP before the change... Nothing related to what I said at all, except a select few that mentioned the so called 'skillcap' which I also mentioned, so that holds some credit I suppose.

Again, I was using your method in several posts where you simply say "I'm an avid (avid doesn't mean good, as a sidenote) MK player and I know best, I also spoke with my best friends about this and they agree of course" when you don't back it up anywhere that you are, in the same post, you claim that I'm NOT a MK player. You see where this is getting ridiculous, I dare hope. I even wrote it out for you. I guess it depends on your definition of "MK player" however, if an MK player is someone who plays 20% MK through all their accounts then no, I'm not an MK player, I like variation. I still play him a lot.

So, in response I choose to call you a shift-queue warrior. It's about as retarded as you were when you claimed, without no real backup, that I am not a MK player or just a bad one, based on that I call people out for posting **** and acting overly butthurt about a change, or at least more so than needed. You don't seem to understand things even when I write them out to you, however, so I guess I'll just leave it.

Do I need to continue? Where is this "screwing up" that you're talking about? That I forgot to express sacrasm with smileys or something?
Most people that see me post here knows that I usually focus on how bad someone's reasoning is or posting before actually bringing up my own opinions. This despite agreeing, partly agreeing, party disagreeing or disagreeing entirely.

-----------------------------------------------

So, in response to the actual response, when I say I don't like the change (entirely) my main issue is that it wasn't changed earlier if this was the direction they wanted to go. This because the 'old feature' that apparently wasn't intended is now rooted in people's minds as 'teh Golden Age' or whatnot.
I can however understand it, better late then never some could say. If the hero was like this from the start of course people would be used to what he was/is/should be like from the very start instead of trying a version on crack and then get disappointed when it's removed. This does not mean that I can't understand why people could potentially get annoyed when this actually happened several times with this specific hero, first off with the mega-damage combo, afterwards with other things and now finally this. I think the level of butthurt in this thread can only be matched with my own madness when Vindicator was reworked however, and I think I made my reasoning behind said butthurt look more decent than people in this thread do.

As HappyMuslim said, people are over-reacting.

[Sandtrap]

Looks like I hit the mark alright:P, mine, yours and pmuch every single post in this thread is mainly about opinions especially regarding the matter if this is a suitable nerf or not (if it's regarding the matter if he should be nerfed at all or not one could possibly provide some 'proof' by including mk picking and win ratio). Since that's incredibly obvious (because you can't actually 'prove' something like this, you could in theory 'prove' what the majority of the players think but the amount of work required would be astronomical) I obviously didn't complain about that and instead posted my opinion on the matter just like every other person, it's you who despite crying about it just keeps making opinionated posts while adding more and more insults and curses for every post to show how upset you are:).


@ Sandtrap Good thing you realized yourself that you didn't change your **** at all, the posts you choose to quote were half-full of **** too that was not a fitting 'counter' to anything I said at all. I never mentioned anything about manacost, double vault backwards, MK carry ability, some claims about that the damage was a problem with the hero, someone ranting about players that claimed MK was OP before the change... Nothing related to what I said at all, except a select few that mentioned the so called 'skillcap' which I also mentioned, so that holds some credit I suppose.

It wasn't supposed to 'counter' anything you said, I was merly providing a (weak, but considering that this matter is purely about opinion that's about as good as it gets) basis for the statement that I wrote here: "I'll just go with the fact that every single player who is playing at a decent level (1750, I'd love to put it higher but that simply makes the sample size too small), has mk in their most played and posted in this thread disagrees with the change.", however it also does (as you so nicely put it) 'counter' what you write here: "You fit more into that category than the well-reasoned ones that, while not entirely liking the change, are not against its direction. Moreover these players do not think the skillcap is lowered, I've stated several times why it isn't and some good players that play a lot of MK agree with me (again, proof is here in the thread if you bother to actually read it). " unless you have a very different opinion on how to establish if someone is 'good' (which also is about opinions:P).



Again, I was using your method in several posts where you simply say "I'm an avid (avid doesn't mean good, as a sidenote) MK player and I know best, I also spoke with my best friends about this and they agree of course" when you don't back it up anywhere that you are, in the same post, you claim that I'm NOT a MK player. You see where this is getting ridiculous, I dare hope. I even wrote it out for you. I guess it depends on your definition of "MK player" however, if an MK player is someone who plays 20% MK through all their accounts then no, I'm not an MK player, I like variation. I still play him a lot.

I was simply using 'avid' as a term for the players that filled the criteria I set up (1750 mmr, most played mk) to simplify things, I was hoping that this would be obvious to you when you read my posts but I suppose I should've made it more clear. I'm very aware of what avid means and could've used 'good' instead, but that's not entirely accurate either considering that players at a high rating but don't have mk in their most played could be just as good, it's simply less likely and more likely that they just want mk nerfed, hence I chose to use the word 'avid' instead and disregarded those posts. I suppose I could've used a more suitable word but in the end that's just semantics. By this criteria you aren't an 'avid' or if you prefer that I use a different word, a 'good' mk player.


So, in response I choose to call you a shift-queue warrior. It's about as retarded as you were when you claimed, without no real backup, that I am not a MK player or just a bad one, based on that I call people out for posting **** and acting overly butthurt about a change, or at least more so than needed. You don't seem to understand things even when I write them out to you, however, so I guess I'll just leave it.


So when you feel that someone is being stupid or silly you respond by being just as stupid and throwing insults? That seems like a good approach. And no, I didn't do that, the primary purpose of saying that you aren't an avid mk obviously isn't to act superior or to degrade you, while using a description like 'retarded shift-queue warrior' over other words is. How strongly someone feels about a change is once again about opinions, you are obviously allowed to think that someone is reacting too strongly, but that's your opinion;).


Do I need to continue? Where is this "screwing up" that you're talking about? That I forgot to express sacrasm with smileys or something?
Most people that see me post here knows that I usually focus on how bad someone's reasoning is or posting before actually bringing up my own opinions. This despite agreeing, partly agreeing, party disagreeing or disagreeing entirely.


Arguing over semantics or using master suppression techniques (that I had to google for the english word^^) instead of responding with solid arguments seems like a wonderful way of posting. I don't see how the fact that you do this repeatedly would make it any more acceptable or respected.

[GregerMoek]

I think it's fairly obvious that people who plays a hero a lot don't want their favourite thing changed in any way possible, look at how some competitors reacted to the Behemoth nerf for example. They had a glorious fit about how balanced his effective 8second disable at level one is.
I'm pointing out that saying things like "I'm a good/avid/supreme moon power/Scatman MK player and players like me agree with me" is not worth ****. Kids that once in their life had full access to the cookie-jar will cry when it's taken away however, I can understand the behaviour but not accept it.

Glad to see that you have almost nothing to disagree with in the last part of my post though. Master suppression techniques aside(LOL). I did actually respond to the small piece of worthwhile content to form a discussion from in your posts too.

[LordTroll]

So agree with GregerMoek. And I commend you for taking the time to reply to these people still... Anyone that knows how to play MK half decently think they're hot **** and entitled to discuss balance with irrational and biased drivel, gets so old.

[iSir`]

Monkey king is fine where is he is now. He's still strong, he just can't instagib people with only ghost marchers and escape without even breaking a sweat.

Poor MK players, got no go to cheap win hero anymore :(

Must be a hard day for you all.

If you're good at this hero, you'll still do fine. If you're not good, you'll complain about a reasonable nerf because you aren't good enough to adapt to the appropiate changes.

Also the whole "he wasn't picked in the comp scene" isn't really a good argument, picks in the comp scene are meta based as well as balance based so maybe MK just isn't good in the current meta?

He's still one of those heroes that makes the game generally less enjoyable when we are insulted with his presence, much like magebane and to a certain extent draconis.

[TaeYeon]

Sandtrap's CAI is very fitting with his attitude. +1 to GregerMoek for actually taking his time to deal with this guy.

"The hero is now useless, ask anyone pro/competitive they agree" and proceeding to hand pick the responses that favors your opinion is as far from "proof" as it gets. Do these people understand the concept of anecdotal evidence?

Rant aside, the change haven't stopped me from playing Monkey King. In fact even before the change I was unhappy with the way I always used Vault-canceling from muscle memory and began to force myself not to use it. Why? Because the combo, while fun, is unreliable. Aside from speed, you were often trading 63 physical damage at the expense of 150 magical from your Slam (secondary activation). And don't give me this "it is completely possible to hit both activations if you're skilled like me" bullshit. Yes, it was, and maybe you'd hit both more often than not, but it was still unreliable compared to other combos, and unreliability is not a desirable trait at high level play under any circumstances. The combo is really just a relic from the time it instagibbed everything.

MK may have lost some "smoothness" and versatility in moving extra quickly between units/buildings/gadgets, but it is by no means the end of the hero. I feel they gave him even more versatility in the extra second on his Vault, and made other combos like double Vaulting a unit in one direction more reliable, while removing some unreliability in his former combo.

[GRICK]

I am a 1400 pubtrash, but imho, I feel like the the patch pushed mk into a different direction; I personally use mk as mass crowd control to reposition the enemy team in my favor. Not so much a damage dealer and hard core ganker like pebbles. Mk still does have the damage and CD's to be used as a ganker but I feel like he is more team fight oriented now.

[Sandtrap]

Since this just turned into circular arguments without any real evidence possible I was just going to leave this thread alone but since so many people want me to respond I guess I will:).


So, in response to the actual response, when I say I don't like the change (entirely) my main issue is that it wasn't changed earlier if this was the direction they wanted to go. This because the 'old feature' that apparently wasn't intended is now rooted in people's minds as 'teh Golden Age' or whatnot.
I can however understand it, better late then never some could say. If the hero was like this from the start of course people would be used to what he was/is/should be like from the very start instead of trying a version on crack and then get disappointed when it's removed. This does not mean that I can't understand why people could potentially get annoyed when this actually happened several times with this specific hero, first off with the mega-damage combo, afterwards with other things and now finally this. I think the level of butthurt in this thread can only be matched with my own madness when Vindicator was reworked however, and I think I made my reasoning behind said butthurt look more decent than people in this thread do.



I think it's fairly obvious that people who plays a hero a lot don't want their favourite thing changed in any way possible, look at how some competitors reacted to the Behemoth nerf for example. They had a glorious fit about how balanced his effective 8second disable at level one is.
I'm pointing out that saying things like "I'm a good/avid/supreme moon power/Scatman MK player and players like me agree with me" is not worth ****. Kids that once in their life had full access to the cookie-jar will cry when it's taken away however, I can understand the behaviour but not accept it.

Glad to see that you have almost nothing to disagree with in the last part of my post though. Master suppression techniques aside(LOL). I did actually respond to the small piece of worthwhile content to form a discussion from in your posts too.

I suppose the term ad hominem might be more suitable than master suppression techniques, both apply to your way of posting.

It's obvious that people feel more strongly about getting something they had taken away over never having said thing (especially if they can't even imagine having it), it's completely normal for any human. I just don't see anything to discuss about this, and I already responded to your claims about the feature being unintended in earlier posts, hence I didn't bother writing a response for the last part.

To repeat myself about the feature being unintended: As far as I've seen this has not been confirmed by s2 (the link you posted can be perceived in different ways). Also, even if it was unintended removing a feature that made a hero more fun/interesting isn't the right way to go about it. How a feature was made is irrelevant if it has a positive impact on the game.


So agree with GregerMoek. And I commend you for taking the time to reply to these people still... Anyone that knows how to play MK half decently think they're hot **** and entitled to discuss balance with irrational and biased drivel, gets so old.

Sandtrap's CAI is very fitting with his attitude. +1 to GregerMoek for actually taking his time to deal with this guy.

"The hero is now useless, ask anyone pro/competitive they agree" and proceeding to hand pick the responses that favors your opinion is as far from "proof" as it gets. Do these people understand the concept of anecdotal evidence?

First of all, learn to read. I never said that the hero is useless now (since it had a very low pick ratio even before the change, it becoming a common pick on the competitive scene seems farfetched though).

Secondly, it's not possible to have any of the 'hard evidence' or 'proof' that you seem to want in this matter. If this change is good or if another change should've been made (assuming that the hero needed a change) is about opinions. It's impossible to 'prove' anything regarding this, all you can do is to discuss this based on your, and possibly other peoples, opinions (you could, in theory, 'prove' what the majority of the players think, but this isn't practically possible).

I would also like to point out that your hero, GregerMoek, didn't provide ANY evidence to support his claims regarding this either. You know why? Because they aren't any. Look at your own and any other posts regarding this matter, are you providing any 'proof'? No, so exactly why are you posting your opinions without a single shred of 'proof' while complaining the lack of it whenever a post disagrees with you?

What you could do is argue that this question, if it's a suitable change or not, doesn't belong in the balance forum (personally I think it fits better here than another forum, and is what half of this thread has been about, so if so it should've been locked long ago). However you can't expect to be provided 'hard evidence' regarding a question where the basis for all arguments or reasoning in the end comes down to opinion/interpretation.

[RagingGooz]

I dont play monkey king much but i actually think his late game got better due to the cd time forgiveness. Q becomes the most damaging skill at that point anyway, so more time to flip and slam and position is a blessing.


there is a long history of hon players misguaging a heroes true value.


DM might still be weaker because of stagger max bonus damage and therefore less max damage on the lunge. but the change to drunk charges wearing off in slower ticks means that you are drunk for longer now. also drinking takes 1.33 seconds as opposed to 2 seconds which is huge reduction in downtime. and also..mana cost did a get a bit better. and also a chalice change.

but the hero is still trash tier from god tier. and it was just a minor number tweak. the logic used to be. DM is really strong. now its. oh it takes too long to get DM core items. trash hero. but when stagger had 20 more bonus damage. oh then it was totally worth it to draft DM and farm his core.


old stagger 80 bonus ms and attack damage.

lunge does 100% of damage plus 80. so if your auto attack was 200 damage with stagger buff thats 280 lunge damage then 280 again.

now stagger gives 60 so the 200 now is 180. 180+ 80 = 260 so its 260 + 260


so at 560 to 520 damage nerf on lunge due to stagger nerf.

if the auto attack damage is greater before the stagger bonus. the nerf becomes smaller. so late game the stagger nerf has less impact.


in both cases though the pre stagger bonus is 120 auto attack or roughly DM at 25 minutes into the game having a decent game.


this was just a numbers tweak.yet it ruined the character apparently....mk players got a mechanics tweak and want just a numbers tweak.

the numbers tweak would erase something like 36 damage from the shift queue combo. which is almost the numbers nerf that DM recieved at DM at 25 mins into the game.

yet this wouldnt destroy mk...yet it destroyed dm?

[Sandtrap]

I dont play monkey king much but i actually think his late game got better due to the cd time forgiveness. Q becomes the most damaging skill at that point anyway, so more time to flip and slam and position is a blessing.


You have to spend more time in the air vaulting over autoattacking or dashing (the stuff that actually scales) since you can't cancel the vault, so I don't see it as a buff to the late game either. You rarely actually want to delay your second vault 2 seconds.



there is a long history of hon players misguaging a heroes true value.


DM might still be weaker because of stagger max bonus damage and therefore less max damage on the lunge. but the change to drunk charges wearing off in slower ticks means that you are drunk for longer now. also drinking takes 1.33 seconds as opposed to 2 seconds which is huge reduction in downtime. and also..mana cost did a get a bit better. and also a chalice change.

but the hero is still trash tier from god tier. and it was just a minor number tweak. the logic used to be. DM is really strong. now its. oh it takes too long to get DM core items. trash hero. but when stagger had 20 more bonus damage. oh then it was totally worth it to draft DM and farm his core.


old stagger 80 bonus ms and attack damage.

lunge does 100% of damage plus 80. so if your auto attack was 200 damage with stagger buff thats 280 lunge damage then 280 again.

now stagger gives 60 so the 200 now is 180. 180+ 80 = 260 so its 260 + 260


so at 560 to 520 damage nerf on lunge due to stagger nerf.

if the auto attack damage is greater before the stagger bonus. the nerf becomes smaller. so late game the stagger nerf has less impact.


in both cases though the pre stagger bonus is 120 auto attack or roughly DM at 25 minutes into the game having a decent game.


this was just a numbers tweak.yet it ruined the character apparently....mk players got a mechanics tweak and want just a numbers tweak.

the numbers tweak would erase something like 36 damage from the shift queue combo. which is almost the numbers nerf that DM recieved at DM at 25 mins into the game.

yet this wouldnt destroy mk...yet it destroyed dm?

(I don't play a lot of dm, and the patches were a long time ago, so forgive me if I forgot something)

What actually 'destroyed' the gameplay for drunken master wasn't mainly the number tweak to stagger, it was the nerf from 8 to 5 drunken charges/second, this made the hero a lot less smooth (just like the mk change) to play since you had to stop and drink a lot more often (I hope no one actually argues that being forced to watch your hero stand and channel for 2 seconds every 20 sec made him more fun to play?). S2 has since then reverted this change (not exactly the same numbers though) to reduce this boring aspect of the hero and he's now (imo) as fun to play as he was originally (even though I find the drink mechanic kinda stupid regardless). This is exactly the direction that I'd like to see the hero development/balancing take and where I think the change to mk went wrong.

Regarding his 'power' I don't think he ever was a god tier pick (constantly picked/banned) in competitive play even before the nerfs, he was picked up and did really well in just a few games if I remember correctly. I guess it wouldn't be surprising to see him picked up in a competitive setting in his current state, though personally I feel like there are better picks in most situations, both now and pre nerf.

[TaeYeon]

Secondly, it's not possible to have any of the 'hard evidence' or 'proof' that you seem to want in this matter. If this change is good or if another change should've been made (assuming that the hero needed a change) is about opinions. It's impossible to 'prove' anything regarding this, all you can do is to discuss this based on your, and possibly other peoples, opinions (you could, in theory, 'prove' what the majority of the players think, but this isn't practically possible).

I would also like to point out that your hero, GregerMoek, didn't provide ANY evidence to support his claims regarding this either. You know why? Because they aren't any. Look at your own and any other posts regarding this matter, are you providing any 'proof'? No, so exactly why are you posting your opinions without a single shred of 'proof' while complaining the lack of it whenever a post disagrees with you?
You're giving yourself the answer here: We're simply expressing opinions. You, on the other hand, clearly show in your posts that your opinions are facts and everyone else is totally wrong.

If you can't see it yourself, then this is what you wrote in a direct counter to GregerMoek who implied that your opinion on this matter was just your ... opinion:


If you think he got tedious to play that's your opinion.

There's not a single avid mk player who thinks that he's smoother or more fun to play after this change.

That does indeed look more like a statement than an opinion, so please don't talk now about how it's not possible for any of us to come up with proof.

There's actually a way of acquiring this sort of information, and yes it involves asking every qualified MK player out there - it's called statistics. It's widely used in science all over the world and by no means "practically impossible".

[Chime]

Dont get why he got a nerf. Was fine in my eyes, competitive players and players overall were just to lazy to buy armor. zzz

If you want a hero that cant instagib you then go play LoL. Nobody complains about Pebbles here.

[Sandtrap]

]You're giving yourself the answer here: We're simply expressing opinions. You, on the other hand, clearly show in your posts that your opinions are facts and everyone else is totally wrong.

If you can't see it yourself, then this is what you wrote in a direct counter to GregerMoek who implied that your opinion on this matter was just your ... opinion:

That does indeed look more like a statement than an opinion, so please don't talk now about how it's not possible for any of us to come up with proof.


As you can see from the context in that and my other posts I'm refering to the players that I call 'avid mk players' in this thread, and by the (arbitary) definition I used that statement does indeed hold true. It's also quite obvious from both the context of my posts and the matter at hand that definitive proof or statements regarding this is practically impossible (see below) and hence I can't possibly be refering to anything but opinions and my own experiences. I didn't think that clarifying something like this, that's completely obvious, would be necessary but I guess so.

Also, I'm the only one making comments that can be interpretated as statements? For example:



Moreover, taking away this widely known as unintended feature

Well, I believe this one indeed was intended to be a definite statement (despite not having definitive proof, which if anything is silly).



I know many 'avid' MK players who are okay with the change.


The only 'skill cap' it lowers is your finger skill

These? Not so much. Yet I didn't start to ***** about it. Why? Because I actually care about the content of the post and not about semantics. If you prefer to discuss that I'd argue that a forum like this (http://www.lingforum.com/) could be more suitable.


There's actually a way of acquiring this sort of information, and yes it involves asking every qualified MK player out there - it's called statistics. It's widely used in science all over the world and by no means "practically impossible".



Feel free to tell me how it'd be possible for me to ask every qualified MK player out there without both support from s2 and a massive amount of time used (clearly unproportionate to the gain), so yes for me and most posters here it's indeed practically impossible. If you could prove me wrong and give me the statistics for what all mk players feel about this change that'd be great!:)

[TaeYeon]

I can't be bothered with reading every post and opinion in this thread (moreso checking their stats to verify their "qualification"). But when you can't accept that someone implied your opinion was an opinion without responding with "every avid MK player thinks this or that", which in context very much was to be interpreted as a general assertion, people react.

However I think you're right in that we're now discussing semantics, so let me ask whether you truly believe a few posters in this thread represent the whole HoN community's opinion. Because they don't, it's anecdotal evidence, and I would not be so quick to call proof and facts on that basis if I were you.

We could use S2's help in order to collect the necessary information we need, but to call that practically impossible? I would not. You could even start a poll on these forums and that would probably be sufficient, because if you are so certain that your opinion is the most widely one, and you truly want to convince the other part, then you'd have no choice. I would probably say a vocal majority from the competitive players would be sufficient enough as well, but on the basis of a bunch of hand picked posters in this thread? That I do not recognize.

[Antimodus]

If you want a hero that cant instagib you then go play LoL. Nobody complains about Pebbles here.

Pebbles have several limitations that MK doesn't, this isn't the Pebbles thread and as you said, nobody was complaining about Pebbles. At least if we put Nymphora aside for the moment. People didn't seem to have an issue with an instagib hero, the problem was with a low CD instagib hero that has so much extra utility/mobility on him like say Midas pre-nerf or MK pre-nerf.

[Sandtrap]

I can't be bothered with reading every post and opinion in this thread (moreso checking their stats to verify their "qualification"). But when you can't accept that someone implied your opinion was an opinion without responding with "every avid MK player thinks this or that", which in context very much was to be interpreted as a general assertion, people react.

Read my previous post again. My posts may, taken out of context, have been interpreted as a general assertion, but so could any of gregermoeks posts aswell, yet no one is *****ing about that. It's also completely obvious if you look at all my posts and the context that I don't claim to provide any hard evidence regarding this (at best a very weak basis), I even told you to disregard the fact that I have discussed this with several competitiors, since I'm simply not going to go through the trouble of proving that.


However I think you're right in that we're now discussing semantics, so let me ask whether you truly believe a few posters in this thread represent the whole HoN community's opinion. Because they don't, it's anecdotal evidence, and I would not be so quick to call proof and facts on that basis if I were you.

No I don't, I think that anecdotal evidence is the best basis that you can get in regards to this matter without spending a disproportionate amount of time (and yes, anecdotal evidence is better than nothing at all). I however don't think or claim that anecdotal evidence is irrefutable proof.



We could use S2's help in order to collect the necessary information we need, but to call that practically impossible? I would not. You could even start a poll on these forums and that would probably be sufficient, because if you are so certain that your opinion is the most widely one, and you truly want to convince the other part, then you'd have no choice. I would probably say a vocal majority from the competitive players would be sufficient enough as well, but on the basis of a bunch of hand picked posters in this thread? That I do not recognize.

I'm not certain that my opinion is the most widely one, in an open poll I think most players would agree with the nerf just because they want mk nerfed, in what way is less important to them since they don't play the hero. I'm quite certain that my opinion is the most widely one if we'd limit the poll to players who play mk at a high level, but no I can't prove that, nor do I claim to be able to. Considering the activity on the competitiors forum having a poll there would give about as big of a sample size as the hand picked posts in this thread, so that's quite pointless aswell (excluding the fact that even competitors who don't play mk gladly would see the hero nerfed in any way, it's sadly quite few competitors who aren't biased regarding balance changes). Since it isn't possible for me to truly convince the other part without using up a completely disproportionate amount of time I didn't aim to truly convince anyone. I merly expressed my opinion regarding the change, just like everyone else in this thread, including gregermoek, and for this I shouldn't need to provide irrefutable evidence.

To put it in your words: If you truly want to convince me that it's not practically impossible to prove, you'd have to do it. Are you going to do that? No, even if we assume that it's possible it's simply too much work/time required for either of us to actually do that.

[GregerMoek]

Of course, if it's your most played hero then you're gonna be biased.
It's like taking away sweets from kids because you don't want them to eat too much unhealthy **** and they will cry regardless. Unless they are good kids of course.
Or parents who wants to clean up the mess after their kids played with Lego all day, and they have to put it away.

The parents who actually run the house knows better, despite not playing too much with Lego and not eating all of those sweets.

Simple really, basic principles.


Everything that hasn't been touched in a while must automatically be fine, right?

[Qzie]

Monkey king is fine where is he is now. He's still strong, he just can't instagib people with only ghost marchers and escape without even breaking a sweat.

Poor MK players, got no go to cheap win hero anymore :(

Must be a hard day for you all.

If you're good at this hero, you'll still do fine. If you're not good, you'll complain about a reasonable nerf because you aren't good enough to adapt to the appropiate changes.

Also the whole "he wasn't picked in the comp scene" isn't really a good argument, picks in the comp scene are meta based as well as balance based so maybe MK just isn't good in the current meta?

He's still one of those heroes that makes the game generally less enjoyable when we are insulted with his presence, much like magebane and to a certain extent draconis.


The problem is small son, MK's damage has not been nerfed yet, his combo has just become more slow, allowing idiots like you to own with him aswell -.-

[Zilrax]

From observing parties, the following:

[2:10:46 AM] Dayne Crawley: does this ******** sandtrap know what burden of proof means?
[2:10:51 AM] Dayne Crawley: like seriously
[2:11:53 AM] Dayne Crawley: if he's going to make an assertion away from the status quo (everything is fine), HE goddamn needs to come up with evidence, not lambast everyone pointing out he has none and think that somehow validates his drivel
[2:12:10 AM] Dayne Crawley: holy ****
[2:15:52 AM] Dayne Crawley: "I'm quite certain that my opinion is the most widely one if we'd limit the poll to players who play mk at a high level"
[2:15:56 AM] Dayne Crawley: AKA
[2:16:17 AM] Dayne Crawley: if I narrow the goalposts enough, eventually I'll be right

That is all for now.

[GregerMoek]

The problem is small son, MK's damage has not been nerfed yet, his combo has just become more slow, allowing idiots like you to own with him aswell -.-

Woooo, looks like someone is upset! Looks like someone has an aching posterior! Deep words of anger right there folks, right there.

[Chime]

Pebbles have several limitations that MK doesn't, this isn't the Pebbles thread and as you said, nobody was complaining about Pebbles. At least if we put Nymphora aside for the moment. People didn't seem to have an issue with an instagib hero, the problem was with a low CD instagib hero that has so much extra utility/mobility on him like say Midas pre-nerf or MK pre-nerf.

Pebbles has neraly just as much utility as MK had before this nerf, MK can slow, ministun and dash. Nice. But pebbles can for real stun and throw heroes. I dont get why Pebbles throw hasnt been abused yet by the pro players. I see people over and over again doing something like a behe/legio/geo/tempest pebbles combo. Just because you havent seen it doesnt mean it doesnt exist. Also, pebbles has a long range aoe stun. Thats always better than everything else mk has when t comes to single skills. And what does cooldown matter when youre ganking a single hero?A 8 sec differnece isnt that big if the hero is a ganker that kan spike someone to death.

[Strayreaper]

I would suggest that it would be a good idea to keep the discussion on topic and not letting this thread devolve into a personal piss-fight. It is likely that it will get cleaned up if the comments are not on topic. I know this is also not on topic but something needs to be done about the getting ever more personal attacks in the balance section.

[Sandberget]

Posting for sandtrap:


Of course, if it's your most played hero then you're gonna be biased.
It's like taking away sweets from kids because you don't want them to eat too much unhealthy **** and they will cry regardless. Unless they are good kids of course.
Or parents who wants to clean up the mess after their kids played with Lego all day, and they have to put it away.

The parents who actually run the house knows better, despite not playing too much with Lego and not eating all of those sweets.

Simple really, basic principles.


Everything that hasn't been touched in a while must automatically be fine, right?

I sadly managed to erase my entire post so I'll just rewrite it quickly, please excuse the (surely) numerous errors.

This isn't about if the hero should be nerfed or not, I agree entirely that people who don't play the hero can have just as much insight regarding that. However do you really think that people who don't play the hero understands how the change affects the gameplay and 'feel' of the hero as the ones who do? Using your comparasion (which I don't think is suitable considering the difference in mental capacity, a more appropriate comparasion could be two adults discussing what kind of food would be the healthiest for one of them): The adult might know better if the kid should be allowed to eat more candy or not, but the kid probably knows better what type of candy he/she prefers. Also, do you honestly feel that the hon community is objective regarding heroes they don't play? Since the changes to the hero affects them, regardless of if they play it or not, they don't have any more reason to be objective than the players playing it.


From observing parties, the following:

[2:10:46 AM] Dayne Crawley: does this ******** sandtrap know what burden of proof means?
[2:10:51 AM] Dayne Crawley: like seriously
[2:11:53 AM] Dayne Crawley: if he's going to make an assertion away from the status quo (everything is fine), HE goddamn needs to come up with evidence, not lambast everyone pointing out he has none and think that somehow validates his drivel
[2:12:10 AM] Dayne Crawley: holy ****
[2:15:52 AM] Dayne Crawley: "I'm quite certain that my opinion is the most widely one if we'd limit the poll to players who play mk at a high level"
[2:15:56 AM] Dayne Crawley: AKA
[2:16:17 AM] Dayne Crawley: if I narrow the goalposts enough, eventually I'll be right

That is all for now.

1.) Burden of proof doesn't prevent a party from expressing their opinion and doesn't apply if they don't try to 'prove' anything.
2.) Anecdotal evidence or reasoning can in some cases be enough to shift the burden of proof to the other party.
3.) Why do you feel that status quo should be after and not before this change?

Do you honestly don't think that the goalposts needs to be narrowed? If we had polls for every player regarding each individual hero and it's balance you don't think the result would be skewed or biased and that most heroes would end up 'needing' to be nerfed? How (or even if I guess) they should be narrowed is a different matter, please give me your opinion on that:).


I would suggest that it would be a good idea to keep the discussion on topic and not letting this thread devolve into a personal piss-fight. It is likely that it will get cleaned up if the comments are not on topic. I know this is also not on topic but something needs to be done about the getting ever more personal attacks in the balance section.

If the admins could clarify if opinions regarding the suitability of this nerf is on-topic or not that'd be great, I simply felt that this was more suitable than any other section (despite being unable to provide any 'evidence'). That the discussions in the last few posts have been a bit off-topic is quite obvious, but at least I've been keeping it civil.

[Major`Minus]

mk was fine how it was. Shouldnt change anything

[TaeYeon]

Read my previous post again. My posts may, taken out of context, have been interpreted as a general assertion, but so could any of gregermoeks posts aswell, yet no one is *****ing about that. It's also completely obvious if you look at all my posts and the context that I don't claim to provide any hard evidence regarding this (at best a very weak basis), I even told you to disregard the fact that I have discussed this with several competitiors, since I'm simply not going to go through the trouble of proving that.
Whatever you say, Sandtrap. I'm just happy that we both now can agree opinions are opinions, and let's leave them like that. A change for the better when I look at and interpret your previous posts.


No I don't, I think that anecdotal evidence is the best basis that you can get in regards to this matter without spending a disproportionate amount of time (and yes, anecdotal evidence is better than nothing at all). I however don't think or claim that anecdotal evidence is irrefutable proof.
Remeber how I said not to be so quick about this? Well that's at least how I feel. Whenever you gather any kind of statistics you need to spend time and effort to gather a respectable sample size. It's like when you roll a dice to check the probability of getting a combination of x and y, you'll just have to roll that dice a thousand times until the numbers converges to a final value. If you only rolled 10 times you end up with a misleading answer, and I'd say no answer is actually better than a misleading one. This is why I tend to stay away from anecdotal evidence as long as I can help it. You often end up drawing biased conclusions.


I'm not certain that my opinion is the most widely one, in an open poll I think most players would agree with the nerf just because they want mk nerfed, in what way is less important to them since they don't play the hero. I'm quite certain that my opinion is the most widely one if we'd limit the poll to players who play mk at a high level, but no I can't prove that, nor do I claim to be able to. Considering the activity on the competitiors forum having a poll there would give about as big of a sample size as the hand picked posts in this thread, so that's quite pointless aswell (excluding the fact that even competitors who don't play mk gladly would see the hero nerfed in any way, it's sadly quite few competitors who aren't biased regarding balance changes). Since it isn't possible for me to truly convince the other part without using up a completely disproportionate amount of time I didn't aim to truly convince anyone. I merly expressed my opinion regarding the change, just like everyone else in this thread, including gregermoek, and for this I shouldn't need to provide irrefutable evidence.
Sandtrap I am incredulous. I was actually going to correct you here, but given that you did so yourself in your most recent post (by Sandberget); are you actively trying to out-smart and twist your wording and opinions in each post to make it seem like you get the last word or something?

Like in your last post: No, we don't open a poll to ask whether MK needed this nerf/change or not. We open a poll asking specifically those who regularly play Monkey King whether they were OK with the change or not. Add a MMR requirement to that if you wish. I thought this was obvious?


To put it in your words: If you truly want to convince me that it's not practically impossible to prove, you'd have to do it. Are you going to do that? No, even if we assume that it's possible it's simply too much work/time required for either of us to actually do that.
This doesn't make sense to me. First of all I have no intention of trying to convince you that it's not practically impossible (although like I said why would a simple poll be...). If someone was to walk up to me on the street and told me the earth was flat, and I told them to prove it, and they told me that would take too much time/effort on their part, then proceed to say unless I prove it IS possible; they are right and I am wrong. No see that's not how things work. The part actively trying convince the other part is alone responsible to bring up the required evidence, not the other way around.

[Pewe`]

What I think should be changed :)

[Illusive Dash] Deals (110/115/120/125%) - This'll nerf his dmg output in the early stages but it'll increase his carry potential later on.

[Heavenly Vault] Decrease cast time to (0.2 or 0.3). - It'll make him swifty as he used to be :P

[Qzie]

Woooo, looks like someone is upset! Looks like someone has an aching posterior! Deep words of anger right there folks, right there.


Looks like we got a bad 1580 with ZERO insight.

I bet you want MK to stay this way because you are tierd of getting stomped by him in pubs...

I bet the only reason you follow the MK-balance tread is because you are afraid that MK might be reworked back into the hero he once was (with a slight nerf to his combo)


What would this mean?

You would start to see him in games again, and played in an effective and FUN manner.

What would this mean for you?

You would start to see smurf owning you hard because you have no fcking clue on how to play against the hero. While this is sad for you, its something you can learn from.. (not like you couldnt have been stomped by 10000 million other heroes anyway)



Personally i believe that the biggest reason for the rework on MK is players like this GregerMoek (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/member.php?1500382-GregerMoek), replying with little to no insight, ruining the game for others that loved the hero (well his animation timings, mobility etc) they way it was..




Conclusion:

I think they should have waited with a complete rework. S2 should have nerfed the vault damage, (made the second part magical, or just nerfed the psyical damage on the vault by a bit)


PS:
Keep in mind that you can still do the same damage as before with his combo, Its slightly harder yes, but this had the cost of removing the mobility of the hero (aka the fun part about the it)

[Antimodus]

I bet you want MK to stay this way because you are tierd of getting stomped by him in pubs...



Monkey King is ****ing useless now, 'nuff said.



mk was fine how it was. Shouldnt change anything

Quality insight right there

And finally:


Im tired of noobs who are replaying without any insight at all..

I am too.

But I think what you really mean to say is this.
There is one correct opinion - my opinion. Any post restating it without any comparative analysis (or anything pertaining to facts) is "insightful". Any post to the contrary is just a noob whine with zero insight. Seems legit.

[Strayreaper]

I think they should have waited with a complete rework. S2 should have nerfed the vault damage, (made the second part magical, or just nerfed the psyical damage on the vault by a bit)

Keep in mind that you can still do the same damage as before with his combo, Its slightly harder yes, but this had the cost of removing the mobility of the hero (aka the fun part about the it)

This was by absolutely no means a rework. They didn't change any of his skills in any big way. As you said, he does the same amount of damage at the cost of mobility, this means he is just as good in 1v1 situations as he was before, as long as the hero he is going against has no escape mechanism.

And that was a fairly big issue for me, before this change he could combo down heroes that had a blink before they could get away. A hero should not be able hit a blink hero with 6 instances of damage from abilities and some auto attacks before they can blink away when they only have one stun that hits twice for a short time.

The main issue though was not the damage. Plenty of heroes can combo down another hero in <5 seconds. The problem with monkey king is that he used to be able to go into a group of two or three heroes a snipe a kill or two and get back out of the situation with little danger to himself. His mobility​ was what was too strong. That is why it was nerfed. Now it is much harder to get a solo kill against 2 or more heroes.

[GregerMoek]

Looks like we got a bad 1580 with ZERO insight.

I bet you want MK to stay this way because you are tierd of getting stomped by him in pubs...

I bet the only reason you follow the MK-balance tread is because you are afraid that MK might be reworked back into the hero he once was (with a slight nerf to his combo)


What would this mean?

You would start to see him in games again, and played in an effective and FUN manner.

What would this mean for you?

You would start to see smurf owning you hard because you have no fcking clue on how to play against the hero. While this is sad for you, its something you can learn from.. (not like you couldnt have been stomped by 10000 million other heroes anyway)



Personally i believe that the biggest reason for the rework on MK is players like this GregerMoek (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/member.php?1500382-GregerMoek), replying with little to no insight, ruining the game for others that loved the hero (well his animation timings, mobility etc) they way it was..




Conclusion:

I think they should have waited with a complete rework. S2 should have nerfed the vault damage, (made the second part magical, or just nerfed the psyical damage on the vault by a bit)


PS:
Keep in mind that you can still do the same damage as before with his combo, Its slightly harder yes, but this had the cost of removing the mobility of the hero (aka the fun part about the it)


LOL, look at this tearful crybaby. Definitely mad and butthurt. If you actually bothered to read all the comments in this very thread, you'd know that I play MK myself and I didn't entirely like the change but I can man up and live with it, as well as understand the reasons behind the change, without crying a ****ing dumpster worth of baby-tears.

You are in fact so mind-blowingly stupid and retarded that you probably wouldn't even understand it if you read all the comments posted. You are simply mad and bad because you can't come up with anything solid except for "omg noobs can own with him". That sentence by the by CLEARLY shows that you are butthurt because you got owned by MK post-patch by a supposed "noob". It's laughable really, you accuse me of being mad because a MK owned me when it is clearly you that is mad for that very reason.

Have a read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

Although I guess you're simply too dumb to even be able to open that article. Moreover, even if you read it, I'm guessing you'd have a harder time understanding it than a pig would have to grow wings and fly off.


Stay mad, stay bad, stay butthurt. ;) Sorry to ruin your pitiful attempt to play this game. You amuse me and many others!

As someone who played him a lot before and after the change, I still think he is fun to play, maybe slightly less so but still fun and interesting to play. Definitely not unplayable (unless you're a shitcan). Learn to play, small son and pub-clown.

[LordTroll]

Honestly, I'm aware the only reason this thread is open is because it's sort of a quarantine thread for the GD whiners, but frankly this is becoming too ridiculous for a Balance thread. These people see no reason, which was kinda my hope in them coming here to debate with people that use the Balance forum often.

This thread is crazy, so lock me maybe?

[Strayreaper]

Honestly, I'm aware the only reason this thread is open is because it's sort of a quarantine thread for the GD whiners, but frankly this is becoming too ridiculous for a Balance thread. These people see no reason, which was kinda my hope in them coming here to debate with people that use the Balance forum often.

This thread is crazy, so lock me maybe?

I agree. Lots of opinion, not enough fact, too much flame/whining/calling others out.

[Doorgymguy]

I don't know if it works, but from what i've seen lately alot of mk's are maxing W then Q, If anyone can confirm it's half decent quote me, if so i'll leave it at that, As i said haven't tested.

[Ekamo]

The Lord of Trolls is correct. This thread has derailed enough. Unfortunately some people decided that they are not going to follow the rules, and that resulted in over 30 warnings/infractions from this thread solely. That sort of behavior is not tolerated on these forums, and I hope that is clear now to the people that received these warnings/infractions.

Thread closed.