Is he Competitive? [Electrician]

[HunteR_]

He's hardly used in higher end competitive matches.

Why?

[Krangry]

He's hardly used in higher end competitive matches.

Why?
Hes a weak hero that is easily countered by a number of things, has an incredibly hard time farming, and is utterly useless outside of a laning phase unless there is a jereziah in the game

[PoopyDesires]

He seems like he'd be seen more. Massive disable, amazing survivability, clears stuns at a whim. His slow/speed up ability is great and he's capable of handling focus fire.

He's a horrid farmer though.

[Glorify1]

Other melee heroes(mag, hammerstorm, panda) provide aoe disables, more utility, and late game carry/bigdamage.

It's not to say he sucks, he just doesn't get **** done as well as other heroes.

[china]

His mana shield is holding him back. His survivability is great without it, especially since he usually goes khadgars/vanguard. And since he already has Energy Absorption, which increases armor/magic armor, it's DOUBLE redundancy. The problem with that is you have GREAT defensive abilities but little offensive power, which causes him to largely be ignored except for the occasional disable he throws out which is then quickly interrupted.

Replace Mana Shield with something that...

1) Links the HP of a target ally with his MP. Everytime that ally loses HP, a portion of that is taken by his MP.

or

2) Reduces enemy offensive power.

or

3) Somehow otherwise centralizes some more focus on him. This could be in the form of a CC spell, a taunt, a debuffer, a nuke, etc.

TL;DR - He's so tanky he gets ignored. Legionnaire has taunt, he has nothing but a ticklish grapple that only gets interrupted.

[zhatan]

There is too much stuns for his only really useful ability, grip. Its also a single target, altho quite long. He can be in a few(very few) situations.

In pubs on the other hand he seems rather good, in "mid tier" games at least.

[Von_Moltke]

He's definitely competitive if you buy a BKB for him. In team fights you simply purge the enemy semi-carry (Predator, Hammerstorm, Pestilence etc) of any buffs, turn on your BKB then grip their damage source/carry and completely neutralize him for the fight. Alternatively, if the enemy hard carry/damage source has his own BKB, purge then grip him. Moreover, he is an amazing roamer.

Steamboots->Pipe->BKB as the core build, with Frostfield or Heart as Luxury.

He is hard to farm with, but not harder than most melee heroes.

[FuzzyWuzzy]

He does something only in lane.

So he is kinda like Swiftblade, after early game lanng rolls over, you can't do much with him.

[Von_Moltke]

He does something only in lane.

So he is kinda like Swiftblade, after early game lanng rolls over, you can't do much with him.

Yeah, you definitely can't roam and gank.

[Decency]

Usually he just goes in, purges and tries to grip someone and then does like 80 damage auto attacks until the end of the fight. If his team wins, woohoo. If they don't, he gets killed last... it just takes a while.


Hypothetical Solutions:

1.) Take away mana shield and give him some sort of built in BKB. He is slow as hell to farm it, he needs something.

2.) You could have him become much more of a mana-based hero by making Mana Shield remove mana from attackers, and by upping the % that Absorption takes (5-10-15-20% ?) AND giving it to the Electrician, to synergize with his mana shield. Remove the charges effect, however.

3.) Drastically lower the cooldown on the ultimate (to 6/3/0 seconds ?) and remove the movement speed effects, but give it a reasonably high mana cost. This would make him a very reactionary hero that takes a lot of game knowledge to play well, but would make him a viable pick against certain lineups.

4.) Or you could just make his ult purge Malphas and he'd have two heroes to counter-pick against. =p

Personally I'd like to see both 2 and 3 implemented. The changes fit with the hero's skills and make him more viable. The numbers are of course debatable.



Electrician:
- Static Grip's area damage now deals 30/45/60/75 Magic damage per second, increased from 30/40/50/60
- Energy Absorption now deals 40/75/115/150 True damage to nearby enemies, from 75/100/125/150 Magic damage
- Energy Absorption will now hit Magic Immune units
- Energy Absorption now returns 12/16/20/24 mana per charge, from 15/20/25/30

[Freshpro]

he suck, so no.

[pakoito]

The nuke is weak (more of a way to recover mana IMO), the grip is easily countered, shield isn't leveled till mid-to-late game and you'll deplet it in no time...that leaves us with the only true and real Electrician good skill: Cleansing Shot. Low attack range, low base damage, average stat gain...Not enough, just not enough. Pick Pollywog or Succubus instead.

The fix? add techies suicide skill instead of the mana shield :D

[Pyrate]

I can see him fitting in with rush strats for a team that wants to finish the game off early. His damage early on with his grip + energy ab is decent but his real strength is being able to be aggressive and dominate a lane.

Also, to those that say hes a terrible farmer, you do know grip does AoE damage, a 2-3 second grip and then energy ab kills an entire wave.

He stands up as a counter pick to a heavy debuff and/or stun team because of his purge, but also a great ganker and initiator against teams that are light on stuns

That said, hes not a pick you would go for straight away, more of a pick to try to catch the enemy off guard. While not a top pick he should always be in the back of the mind as an option

[nszero]

Its a common theme?. Armadon and electrician, both meant to be the tankiest, both fairly useless in competitive play?

I hope it's something that gets addressed and not with just more disables and more damage, i hope they get unique tank like abilities

[sr8]

he's a borderline roaming hero. Roaming heroes are very high risk in most cases, absolutely devastating under the right circumstances, otherwise near useless.

We see the same problem with Andromeda and Slither tbh.

[softcactus]

No offense, but really was this a serious question?

[ACatInTheHat]

Competes with KotF for being the most useless hero in the game.

[Cheese]

Reliable team fight damage ~= 0. You can't end the game with ganks, sooner or later you'll probably at least need to win a 5v4.

Heroes that get away with this shortcoming are generally holy terrors starting at Lv1, like babysitters and "real" roamers.

[evotech]

He is awesome as initiator with vind on the team, elec holds one, vind pops ulti, team bashes him to pulps

???

profit!

but its like that with most heroes + vind :P

[Archatype]

He is awesome as initiator with vind on the team, elec holds one, vind pops ulti, team bashes him to pulps

???

profit!

but its like that with most heroes + vind :P

Yes. Electrician is awesome for gank-banging people.

[Von_Moltke]

People think he's worthless because they don't build him with BKB. Whatever though!

[Schizofriend]

People think he's worthless because they don't build him with BKB. Whatever though!

The problem is that there are several things that are starting to interrupt channeling through magic immunity.

The most obvious being Pandamonium, but less obvious I believe all the charges and push abilities interrupt channeling. Magic immunity doesn't stop any of that.

[JoshP]

No farming ability

One disable that is useless because every lane has a stunner or ministunner in it

Accursed has his purge that also removes stuns and absorbs damage

[Norp]

It's clearly obvious Grip is strong, Energy absorb, and Purge. As a ganker he seems very viable, he can dive pretty easily, and stun pretty often, I think he just needs a different skill over mana shield and he could be excellent.

[sr8]

People think he's worthless because they don't build him with BKB. Whatever though!

this is downright false. You can throw bkb on Elec and it still won't make it a big difference, oh look, I can channel for 5 secs and tank. Even a pollywog with bkb or succubus with bkb does more then that, which is saying quite a bit.

And he's actually not that bad at farming. Can do 500 aoe damage to creeps in 5 seconds. There are plenty of worse farmers.

[china]

And he's actually not that bad at farming. Can do 500 aoe damage to creeps in 5 seconds. There are plenty of worse farmers.

This is true but..

In HoN you see waaaaay too many people using skills to farm. Last hitting is the way to farm, so essentially there's no excuse for non-AoE skillsets to equate to no money made. Carries farm the most, but heroes like Sand Wraith don't do it by spamming Sand Dagger, or w/e.

[Murs]

was he comp? yes

[sr8]

This is true but..

In HoN you see waaaaay too many people using skills to farm. Last hitting is the way to farm, so essentially there's no excuse for non-AoE skillsets to equate to no money made. Carries farm the most, but heroes like Sand Wraith don't do it by spamming Sand Dagger, or w/e.

Not really. The reason Elec is usually not the most farmed hero is not because he can't farm, but because he shouldn't be farming. Same reasoning as a Pyro that nukes down a lane instead of ganking.

Last hitting is indeed the way to farm, but it gets to a certain point that you want to blow away enemy creeps asap, and it is obvious that some heroes do this better then others.

I.e. don't you think a tDL, Maliken or Puppet Master will farm more then a Arachna or Chronos? It's almost guaranteed.

[Spankle]

He can farm fine his grip does damage in radius as does energy absorption electrician can easily clear a creep wave by himself and be nearly full mana afterwards.

That aside I agree he's not a competitive hero. He isn't horrible with the right item build but other heroes are better.

I agree with the comment about changing his mana shield there could be a much better ability in its place

[TDA101]

Farming can also happen in jungles where clearing neutrals is key.

This is where heroes like MQ shine.

He just doesn't have enough presence with team fights, awesome in ganks and early laning, but a 150 damage (although does true damage now, thank god) doesn't even hurt after a while.

[china]

I.e. don't you think a tDL, Maliken or Puppet Master will farm more then a Arachna or Chronos? It's almost guaranteed.

If they use ancient stacks, ofc.

I think Arachna and Chronos, with just last hitting, can keep pace otherwise. Depends on the player, TBH. How well one manages their time in and off lane, as well as in team fights. Loda does that well. Usually.

[TDA101]

I think Arachna and Chronos, with just last hitting, can keep pace otherwise. Depends on the player, TBH. How well one manages their time in and off lane, as well as in team fights. Loda does that well. Usually.

Electrician is not a carry, thus he will get very little hero kill gold.

Arachna's awesome damage let's you ensure a lot of creep kills early which make up for nil to none lame. High single target damage lets you auto attack things to death easily although this does push the lane.

Chronos with lifesteal can infinitely stay in the forest.

[iR_Sky]

If there's no jera there's never a point where I could condone picking him in a competition.

[jgreen464]

Because he has a move which is a great initiator and a great stun but is easilly countered and can't use it to initiate until very late in the game because his tanking ability doesn't show throw until he has a sac stone (or some other form of high mana regen) or a behemoth's heart.

Before that point he is merely a disabler with low AoE damage.

[Gedok]

People think he's worthless because they don't build him with BKB. Whatever though!

So are you suggesting Elec is good enough to farm BKB quickly?

[sr8]

If they use ancient stacks, ofc.

I think Arachna and Chronos, with just last hitting, can keep pace otherwise. Depends on the player, TBH. How well one manages their time in and off lane, as well as in team fights. Loda does that well. Usually.

Ancient stacks do play a key role, but it's hard to keep up with a DL who kills every creep wave she encounters in less then 2 seconds.

My point still stands, last hitting plays a HUGE role early/mid game, but eventually, it gets to the point where you want to kill waves ASAP. Funny you bring up Loda, have you ever seen him play morphling? Or Misery? Probably the most spam based morphling players I have ever seen.

Srsly, 300+ creeps with Arachna/hr is not easy, even if you get solo lane. With puppet master, DL, Zephyr, War beast etc, it is clockwork. It gets to the point where some carries (since they are the heroes most concerned with farm) are clearly better then others.

[Invisibo]

If he were just more capable of farming he would be competitive. Every hero is counterable but his are very exploitable and lack of farming removes any item counters he can get. Additionally beyond laning phase he becomes much less useful and later ignored completely due to his lack of farming.

[Von_Moltke]

So are you suggesting Elec is good enough to farm BKB quickly?

Yes, absolutely.

[SneezusCrist]

Purge is what holds him back, it's a lame ult for his character. He can disable & tank a bit and is great to lane w/ early but it gets to a point of so what if he's there, just finish him last because he wont be farmed and doing tons of damage. Change him up a bit so that he does some damage with his ult. Hell keep the electric shock bit but make it so everytime someone hits him w/ melee or he hits someone w/ melee the target is ministuned, move&attack slowed % + some damage bonus. Make it so he can axe his allies and they get a purge & m&a bonus % + some +hp/mana. Change it to an activated ability w/ a cooldown. Shield up, BKB, line in, pop ult, nuke/refresh + attacking away or hit allies.

[dYe]

in a teamfight he is probably the last hero i would bother focusing/killing. in almost every situation, too.

this is why he is bad

[china]

Ancient stacks do play a key role, but it's hard to keep up with a DL who kills every creep wave she encounters in less then 2 seconds.

My point still stands, last hitting plays a HUGE role early/mid game, but eventually, it gets to the point where you want to kill waves ASAP. Funny you bring up Loda, have you ever seen him play morphling? Or Misery? Probably the most spam based morphling players I have ever seen.

Srsly, 300+ creeps with Arachna/hr is not easy, even if you get solo lane. With puppet master, DL, Zephyr, War beast etc, it is clockwork. It gets to the point where some carries (since they are the heroes most concerned with farm) are clearly better then others.

Another key is time management, which players like Loda and Misery (IIRC) do well.

That's what seperates a good carry from a great carry - managing their time and movements properly. 300 cs sub 1h is doable with almost any hero, I'd say, if you can manage that time. (But if you're a glacius doing this, you're doing something wrong!)

Why are we talking about this anyways? lol. No point in arguing, TBH. I'll agree to slightly disagree :D

[Sansa]

Jeraziah always gets banned, so no.

[Kietharr]

Not really no. Stuns are too ubiquitous in higher level play for his ONE disable to make that much of a difference. Pollywog and Succubus both have a better disable game and are only marginally more mana intensive.

If they pick Jereziah MAYBE as a counterpick, MAYBE (but even less so) against hellbringer but otherwise absolutely not.

[jay`t]

he's only competitive because he kinda counterpicks jereziah... so i vote yes, but stillthink he's weak

[patchez]

To recap:
1. pretty useless in team fights with low dmg nukes/a disable that should get disrupted leaving him only with his purge
2. really poor farming ability ( this isn't a big issue because he doesn't really need items. More of a roamer and HoN gives assist gold which is nice.)
3. Accursed pretty much does everything he does but better


The old school mana shield that didnt go away when you had no mana was nice ( and imba), and would never think to get rid of that skill till now. I think if he had some kind of offensive move in regards to mana he could see competitive play. I.E. NA's mana drain, or Ezalors.

Or if they gave him magebanes aura when players use mana they take damage, I think if he had that skill you would see him in alot of games because of his survivability that aura is going to do alot of damage.

[SSformon]

he is pretty terrible endgame

[Flat_Head]

This is true but..

In HoN you see waaaaay too many people using skills to farm. Last hitting is the way to farm, so essentially there's no excuse for non-AoE skillsets to equate to no money made. Carries farm the most, but heroes like Sand Wraith don't do it by spamming Sand Dagger, or w/e.

well the thing is, when elec spams his farm skills, it costs him no mana if he does it right. mana shield does need to be gotten rid of or reworked though.

[WindRaven]

Change his ult to aoe purge, same effects, both allies and enemies. Suddenly, he's a powerful hero for teamfights, and hard counters a lot of aoe buffs and debuffs.