Balance Discussions right now are...

[SyyRaaaN]

First of all im currently wondering what the point is to do minor balancing when the hero pool currently consists of 43 (?) heroes. In this small pool it is obvious that balance discussions are useless since there will be alot more heroes to come, making some heroes weaker and obsolete.
Heroes are only imbalanced in a relative way (beeing better than all the other heroes in the pool) and since the pool is so small there isnt enough counters for other heroes. So ofcourse some heroes in this will not be on par with others. So the torturer imbalanced thread is really not intresting. Right now people tend to pick 4 agility heroes in the team and ofcourse he will for ever rape them in early game. Same goes for Lina. And besides Lina/Pryromancer and Torutrer/Leshrac, Zeus/Thunderbringer are our only heavy nukers? Ofcourse they all are imbalanced in this

Another thing that annoys me in this forum is the followin argument to point out that a hero is either fine or balanced: "Its a straight port from dota, thus its balanced". This a complete bullshit statement because as i pointed out, the heropool is much smaller. As an example: Zeus is much better in this game, Krobelus is much better because some of their natural enemies arent existant in the game. Where is Pugna? Tinker is missing aswell. And ofcourse every agility hero is useless. They cant counter a push here, there is no glyph and the games end at 30 minute mark. Thus its better to discuss the current metagame wich is leaning towards fast push making carries kinda underpowered. The correct way to change this is not by buffing every carry, but to change the metagame to somewhat slower so that the games end on averege at 45 mins mark rather than 30-35. This can be done with adding glyph or tp-scroll for protecting buildings.

Another thing is that every battlefury carry is much better than their dota equivalent. This is true for Yurnero/Swiftblade and some others. This is because battlefury is much more powerful than its dota replica. So all the Yurnero/Swiftblade OP-rants should imo discuss the new battlefury.


So what needs to be done?

First of all, add the glyph and magic stick and see what happens.

[FiNGERS]

Glyph of Fortification is coming. Runed Axe isn't THAT much more powerful than Battlefury, it gives 40% cleave isntead of 35%. Give the devs some time to create/finish some more content. Rumor has it the game will release with ~50 heroes, so I can only imagine it will be sooner than people think. Content first, balance later.

[JustAnothe2]

First of all im currently wondering what the point is to do minor balancing when the hero pool currently consists of 43 (?) heroes. In this small pool it is obvious that balance discussions are useless since there will be alot more heroes to come, making some heroes weaker and obsolete.
Heroes are only imbalanced in a relative way (beeing better than all the other heroes in the pool) and since the pool is so small there isnt enough counters for other heroes. So ofcourse some heroes in this will not be on par with others. So the torturer imbalanced thread is really not intresting. Right now people tend to pick 4 agility heroes in the team and ofcourse he will for ever rape them in early game. Same goes for Lina. And besides Lina/Pryromancer and Torutrer/Leshrac, Zeus/Thunderbringer are our only heavy nukers? Ofcourse they all are imbalanced in this

Another thing that annoys me in this forum is the followin argument to point out that a hero is either fine or balanced: "Its a straight port from dota, thus its balanced". This a complete bullshit statement because as i pointed out, the heropool is much smaller. As an example: Zeus is much better in this game, Krobelus is much better because some of their natural enemies arent existant in the game. Where is Pugna? Tinker is missing aswell. And ofcourse every agility hero is useless. They cant counter a push here, there is no glyph and the games end at 30 minute mark. Thus its better to discuss the current metagame wich is leaning towards fast push making carries kinda underpowered. The correct way to change this is not by buffing every carry, but to change the metagame to somewhat slower so that the games end on averege at 45 mins mark rather than 30-35. This can be done with adding glyph or tp-scroll for protecting buildings.

Another thing is that every battlefury carry is much better than their dota equivalent. This is true for Yurnero/Swiftblade and some others. This is because battlefury is much more powerful than its dota replica. So all the Yurnero/Swiftblade OP-rants should imo discuss the new battlefury.


So what needs to be done?

First of all, add the glyph and magic stick and see what happens.

Without many tower taking down heroes, agility heroes are better in here. My lesh thread was solely based on inhouses i played where people could ward and play.

[Mugenrider]

Glyph of Fortification is coming. Runed Axe isn't THAT much more powerful than Battlefury, it gives 40% cleave isntead of 35%. Give the devs some time to create/finish some more content. Rumor has it the game will release with ~50 heroes, so I can only imagine it will be sooner than people think. Content first, balance later.
Really? The game is going to be commercially released with only 50 heroes? Aww, I was hoping it would at least catch up a bit more to DotA first.

[_Archangel_]

Disagree with a lot of this post.


So the torturer imbalanced thread is really not intresting. Right now people tend to pick 4 agility heroes in the team and ofcourse he will for ever rape them in early game. Same goes for Lina. And besides Lina/Pryromancer and Torutrer/Leshrac, Zeus/Thunderbringer are our only heavy nukers? Ofcourse they all are imbalanced in thisPeople tending to pick four agility heroes in one team is not something we will be seeing in competitive play. Your judging of these "imbalanced" heroes comes from the fact that they are amazingly effective against retarded players who pick four agility carries. Also, just because Thunder Bringer, Pyromancer and Torturer are the only nukers in the game doesn't make them overpowered. They are still low-HP heroes with no escape mechanism that die very fast if you gank them. Lina and Leshrac are almost never picked in DotA at the moment. Pyromancer and Torturer are not imbalanced; Torturer is even weaker than Leshrac due to the fact that he can't take down buildings with Edict like he can in DotA.


Zeus is much better in this game, Krobelus is much better because some of their natural enemies arent existant in the game.I admit that Thunder Bringer is significantly more flexible than his DotA counterpart, who is a very powerful hero, but it is due to his faster attack and cast animations as well as the fact that his ultimate hits invisible units, not because he lacks counters - so Thunder Bringer could take a nerf or two.

Krobelus took a hard movespeed nerf in DotA; Defiler has not received this nerf and is therefore still in a state of imbalance. Again, it's not because she's lacking a counter. To counter Defiler you just have to pit some strong lane control against her, and gank her hard and often to shut down her farm.


The correct way to change this is not by buffing every carry, but to change the metagame to somewhat slower so that the games end on averege at 45 mins mark rather than 30-35. This can be done with adding glyph or tp-scroll for protecting buildings.Who are you to say what the correct and incorrect balance method is? FYI Icefrog's balance efforts are in buffing lategame carries (Introduction of Quelling Blade, Poor Man's Shield, buffs to Terrorblade, Antimage and Troll Warlord among others). If the metagame slows down I would be pissed off. No rice-fests please.


Another thing is that every battlefury carry is much better than their dota equivalent. This is true for Yurnero/Swiftblade and some others. This is because battlefury is much more powerful than its dota replica. So all the Yurnero/Swiftblade OP-rants should imo discuss the new battlefury.There are almost no Battlefury carriers in competitive DotA. Admiral maybe. Juggernaut maybe. And even those heroes usually have better items to get. Also, 5% extra cleave does not make Runed Axe significantly better than Battlefury.

[Darkstrand]

Dang there are already that many heroes?

**** I need to learn to count, and fast..

[SyyRaaaN]

Disagree with a lot of this post.

People tending to pick four agility heroes in one team is not something we will be seeing in competitive play. Your judging of these "imbalanced" heroes comes from the fact that they are amazingly effective against retarded players who pick four agility carries. Also, just because Thunder Bringer, Pyromancer and Torturer are the only nukers in the game doesn't make them overpowered. They are still low-HP heroes with no escape mechanism that die very fast if you gank them. Lina and Leshrac are almost never picked in DotA at the moment. Pyromancer and Torturer are not imbalanced; Torturer is even weaker than Leshrac due to the fact that he can't take down buildings with Edict like he can in DotA.

I admit that Thunder Bringer is significantly more flexible than his DotA counterpart, who is a very powerful hero, but it is due to his faster attack and cast animations as well as the fact that his ultimate hits invisible units, not because he lacks counters - so Thunder Bringer could take a nerf or two.

Krobelus took a hard movespeed nerf in DotA; Defiler has not received this nerf and is therefore still in a state of imbalance. Again, it's not because she's lacking a counter. To counter Defiler you just have to pit some strong lane control against her, and gank her hard and often to shut down her farm.

Who are you to say what the correct and incorrect balance method is? FYI Icefrog's balance efforts are in buffing lategame carries (Introduction of Quelling Blade, Poor Man's Shield, buffs to Terrorblade, Antimage and Troll Warlord among others). If the metagame slows down I would be pissed off. No rice-fests please.

There are almost no Battlefury carriers in competitive DotA. Admiral maybe. Juggernaut maybe. Also, 5% extra cleave does not make Runed Axe significantly better than Battlefury.

You make the epic mistake of discussion hero balances in HoN by comparing them to their dota counterparts. And FYI where did i talk about dota balance? No i didnt. I mentioned some differences and what makes some of the heroes seem tougher here although they are almost identical to their dota counterparts (some attack animation differeces witch is a big deal but not everything)

If we would play a 5on5 cw in HoN currently, lesh, lina and zeus would be top picks (and so i can be clear with you, i know lesh and lina is out of the main stream picking). My point is that with this small heropool, with no glyph agility heroes will be underpowered. The problem is not the heroes themselves but rather the metagame is flawed. The game ends to fast for them to be useful, this is a fact for HoN but not necessarly dota (since there we got glyph). But as we all know glyph will be added, thus end of that discussion. Lets se how it will affect the useless agi heroes of HoN.


Another wierd argument you make is that ur statement about ganking Lina, and Lesh as this would be their weaknesses cause they have no escapemechanism. Thats the weakness of every hero without an escape mechanism. Lina and Lesh are ganker heroes and not the main target for ganks, they are even more than gankers, they are potent wardhoes + roamers. They are not overpowered in HoN because of their late game skills (thus needs to be ganked often), but rather because this game emphasises early game push and ganks.

Defiler is ofcourse more dangerous here than her 6.59D counterpart because there are less heavy nukers/stunners in the game. Thats a truism, you cant argue against that. Ofcourse she is vurnarable to ganks, but then again, i argue that she is more overpowered in HoN than in Dota 6.59D currently because of 2 reasons:

*The hero itself is to powerful
*Compared to Dota she has less natural enemies. Lion is not here, Tinker is not here. There are less heroes that can solo her in HoN compared to dota. how is that not an advantage for Defilier?

And as i stated before, a hero with no escape (and is a carry) is best countered by ganks ofcourse, thats a truism but still it does not make my point invalid: That she is stronger because of the current hero pool.


And now u and others talk about the new battle fury as if it is 5% extra cleave? Battlefury in dota has cleave aoe of 225. In HoN its 300 radius, thats a difference. And once again. HoN is currently not Dota. Period. Dota has 95 heroes HoN has 43.

[JustAnothe2]

You make the epic mistake of discussion hero balances in HoN by comparing them to their dota counterparts. And FYI where did i talk about dota balance? No i didnt. I mentioned some differences and what makes some of the heroes seem tougher here although they are almost identical to their dota counterparts (some attack animation differeces witch is a big deal but not everything)

If we would play a 5on5 cw in HoN currently, lesh, lina and zeus would be top picks (and so i can be clear with you, i know lesh and lina is out of the main stream picking). My point is that with this small heropool, with no glyph agility heroes will be underpowered. The problem is not the heroes themselves but rather the metagame is flawed. The game ends to fast for them to be useful, this is a fact for HoN but not necessarly dota (since there we got glyph). But as we all know glyph will be added, thus end of that discussion. Lets se how it will affect the useless agi heroes of HoN.


Another wierd argument you make is that ur statement about ganking Lina, and Lesh as this would be their weaknesses cause they have no escapemechanism. Thats the weakness of every hero without an escape mechanism. Lina and Lesh are ganker heroes and not the main target for ganks, they are even more than gankers, they are potent wardhoes + roamers. They are not overpowered in HoN because of their late game skills (thus needs to be ganked often), but rather because this game emphasises early game push and ganks.

Defiler is ofcourse more dangerous here than her 6.59D counterpart because there are less heavy nukers/stunners in the game. Thats a truism, you cant argue against that. Ofcourse she is vurnarable to ganks, but then again, i argue that she is more overpowered in HoN than in Dota 6.59D currently because of 2 reasons:

*The hero itself is to powerful
*Compared to Dota she has less natural enemies. Lion is not here, Tinker is not here. There are less heroes that can solo her in HoN compared to dota. how is that not an advantage for Defilier?

And as i stated before, a hero with no escape (and is a carry) is best countered by ganks ofcourse, thats a truism but still it does not make my point invalid: That she is stronger because of the current hero pool.


And now u and others talk about the new battle fury as if it is 5% extra cleave? Battlefury in dota has cleave aoe of 225. In HoN its 300 radius, thats a difference. And once again. HoN is currently not Dota. Period. Dota has 95 heroes HoN has 43.
agi heroes will actually be useful once glyph is added. They are already op because there are no things that do extra damage to towers(so the games take longer), and less aoe crap.

[_Archangel_]

You make the epic mistake of discussion hero balances in HoN by comparing them to their dota counterparts. And FYI where did i talk about dota balance? No i didnt. I mentioned some differences and what makes some of the heroes seem tougher here although they are almost identical to their dota counterparts (some attack animation differeces witch is a big deal but not everything)

Direct DotA ports should be compared to their DotA counterparts. Their balance issues are similar.

If we would play a 5on5 cw in HoN currently, lesh, lina and zeus would be top picks (and so i can be clear with you, i know lesh and lina is out of the main stream picking). My point is that with this small heropool, with no glyph agility heroes will be underpowered. The problem is not the heroes themselves but rather the metagame is flawed. The game ends to fast for them to be useful, this is a fact for HoN but not necessarly dota (since there we got glyph). But as we all know glyph will be added, thus end of that discussion. Lets se how it will affect the useless agi heroes of HoN.

Yes, the hero pool is small. But I disagree that Torturer and Pyro would be top picks. There's still heroes like Pollywog and Electrician to pick over them; they are far stronger gankers to due to excellent disables. If the metagame is flawed, it will be fixed. The game is still in beta.

Another wierd argument you make is that ur statement about ganking Lina, and Lesh as this would be their weaknesses cause they have no escapemechanism. Thats the weakness of every hero without an escape mechanism. Lina and Lesh are ganker heroes and not the main target for ganks, they are even more than gankers, they are potent wardhoes + roamers. They are not overpowered in HoN because of their late game skills (thus needs to be ganked often), but rather because this game emphasises early game push and ganks.

Ok, not only when ganking them but in teamfights they are focused down very fast due to their low survivability. Also, if you miss a stun you're going to miss a gank. There are more reliable picks than them (As mentioned above, Pollywog and Electrician, as well as Behemoth. Heck, even Pharoah. Even Clockwerk is seen more often than Leshrac at the moment.)

Defiler is ofcourse more dangerous here than her 6.59D counterpart because there are less heavy nukers/stunners in the game. Thats a truism, you cant argue against that. Ofcourse she is vurnarable to ganks, but then again, i argue that she is more overpowered in HoN than in Dota 6.59D currently because of 2 reasons:

*The hero itself is to powerful
*Compared to Dota she has less natural enemies. Lion is not here, Tinker is not here. There are less heroes that can solo her in HoN compared to dota. how is that not an advantage for Defilier?

And as i stated before, a hero with no escape (and is a carry) is best countered by ganks ofcourse, thats a truism but still it does not make my point invalid: That she is stronger because of the current hero pool.

Here you raise a good point. You're right, there are less heroes that can solo effectively against her. That doesn't mean there are none though; Soulstealer and Zeus will do fine against her. More solo-capable heroes will hopefully be added.

And now u and others talk about the new battle fury as if it is 5% extra cleave? Battlefury in dota has cleave aoe of 225. In HoN its 300 radius, thats a difference. And once again. HoN is currently not Dota. Period. Dota has 95 heroes HoN has 43.

I don't believe an extra 75 radius helps significantly with farming OR teamfights. Furthermore even in HoN there aren't many Runed Axe carriers (And please don't count heroes like Jereziah, Predator, Scout and Hammerstorm).

Hmm.

[FuzzyWuzzy]

You make the epic mistake of discussion hero balances in HoN by comparing them to their dota counterparts.

Lol what? HoN is strictly based on Dota, when they add Glyph, Stick, and a better creep AI, it will be almost the same game.

The same balance issues for HoN have been raised for Dota, Krobelus was consequently nerfed, the other nerfs in 6.60+ were for heroes not currently in HoN.

P.S. If S2 really want to start distributing the game with 50 heroes (as I recall in a different thread), there is no real point in balancing HoN imo. We will see even less diversity in hero picks than Dota, where we had 15-20 heroes picked out of 90 at some point.

[SyyRaaaN]

You make the epic mistake of discussion hero balances in HoN by comparing them to their dota counterparts. And FYI where did i talk about dota balance? No i didnt. I mentioned some differences and what makes some of the heroes seem tougher here although they are almost identical to their dota counterparts (some attack animation differeces witch is a big deal but not everything)

Direct DotA ports should be compared to their DotA counterparts. Their balance issues are similar.

Thats where i beg to differ. Because a hero in dota has to be compared to the heroes in the dota pool. A hero in HoN needs to be compared to the heries in the HoN pool. The issues can be very different imo.

If we would play a 5on5 cw in HoN currently, lesh, lina and zeus would be top picks (and so i can be clear with you, i know lesh and lina is out of the main stream picking). My point is that with this small heropool, with no glyph agility heroes will be underpowered. The problem is not the heroes themselves but rather the metagame is flawed. The game ends to fast for them to be useful, this is a fact for HoN but not necessarly dota (since there we got glyph). But as we all know glyph will be added, thus end of that discussion. Lets se how it will affect the useless agi heroes of HoN.

Yes, the hero pool is small. But I disagree that Torturer and Pyro would be top picks. There's still heroes like Pollywog and Electrician to pick over them; they are far stronger gankers to due to excellent disables. If the metagame is flawed, it will be fixed. The game is still in beta.

Imho they are all good picks. And yea, flaws will be fixed and Glyph is to be added! Will be intersting. No towersiege abilities + Glyph = Lets se what happens :P.

Another wierd argument you make is that ur statement about ganking Lina, and Lesh as this would be their weaknesses cause they have no escapemechanism. Thats the weakness of every hero without an escape mechanism. Lina and Lesh are ganker heroes and not the main target for ganks, they are even more than gankers, they are potent wardhoes + roamers. They are not overpowered in HoN because of their late game skills (thus needs to be ganked often), but rather because this game emphasises early game push and ganks.

Ok, not only when ganking them but in teamfights they are focused down very fast due to their low survivability. Also, if you miss a stun you're going to miss a gank. There are more reliable picks than them (As mentioned above, Pollywog and Electrician, as well as Behemoth. Heck, even Pharoah. Even Clockwerk is seen more often than Leshrac at the moment.)

You are right. But if we play a competent game, Pyro and Lesh will have stunners in the lanes that they gank (or the ones they lane in). Lina + Electrician is nice lane ? Lesh + Sven is still ok. Imo lina is a better laner than soloer. How succesful she will be in the lane / ganks debends on the team surrounding her. Lesh is more competent solo but faces the same problem that u mention. But if we have stunner / slower on the lanes, he is a potent ganker still. One of the best in HoN.

Defiler is ofcourse more dangerous here than her 6.59D counterpart because there are less heavy nukers/stunners in the game. Thats a truism, you cant argue against that. Ofcourse she is vurnarable to ganks, but then again, i argue that she is more overpowered in HoN than in Dota 6.59D currently because of 2 reasons:

*The hero itself is to powerful
*Compared to Dota she has less natural enemies. Lion is not here, Tinker is not here. There are less heroes that can solo her in HoN compared to dota. how is that not an advantage for Defilier?

And as i stated before, a hero with no escape (and is a carry) is best countered by ganks ofcourse, thats a truism but still it does not make my point invalid: That she is stronger because of the current hero pool.

Here you raise a good point. You're right, there are less heroes that can solo effectively against her. That doesn't mean there are none though; Soulstealer and Zeus will do fine against her. More solo-capable heroes will hopefully be added.

Hope so too. I also miss lengthy reliable stuns e g Beastmasters ultimate and all the Impale based skills.

And now u and others talk about the new battle fury as if it is 5% extra cleave? Battlefury in dota has cleave aoe of 225. In HoN its 300 radius, thats a difference. And once again. HoN is currently not Dota. Period. Dota has 95 heroes HoN has 43.

I don't believe an extra 75 radius helps significantly with farming OR teamfights. Furthermore even in HoN there aren't many Runed Axe carriers (And please don't count heroes like Jereziah, Predator, Scout and Hammerstorm).

I beg to differ. I believe the AOE of the Battlefury here has a significant impact on teamfights. In dota you dont really have to be aware of it. But here you have to position urself so that u actually dont get hit. Imo it has a precense in fights (witch is good ofcourse, we dont want sucky items in the game).

And ofcourse im not counting strength heroes with crappy dps. But on most of the agility dps its a viable option now for fast dps with an easy buildup. Its strong but not quite as strong as nullifier blade. In a pro-game Battlefurys splash is less viable, in the pubsters i bet this difference has an impact.

The 75 radius is actually quite a buff, may seem to be not much. But in relative numbers its a 33% percent increase.

[Ikara89]

I'd like to thank Syyraaan for his great post. The small hero pool makes some heros better than other because there is no counter (or not many) against them. For me it's difficult to discuss balance without the dota heros in the game. I get the point, that HoN should be a new game, but when they does implement dota heros, they should take them all and then they should make new heros, cause otherwise it will take a LONG period until they are balanced. Dota is not balanced atm, but it's much better balanced then HoN will be within the next year, when the go on and on to implement new heros, who destroy the Dota balance. When we now make the game balanced as it is, finally with the new patch it wont be balanced anymore.

Another problem is that there are to many people who have to learn to play. I know this is not easy and i support them where I can, but they usally pick agi heros and go for dmg items. Ofc for them are the nukers overpowered, bacause they die very fast. So they go to the balance forum and write, that the nukers are to strong. But if the nerv the nukers, the agi heros will get to strong and the balance will be destroyed. Everybody has to play agi then and go for dmg items, because those players think only those should be buffed. I see a lot of those treads by now, where some people say thunderbringers nuke is too strong. But his nuke is allready heavy nerved in compairison to dota, because of the missing pure dmg.

I apollogize for my bad english.

Greetings Ikara

[uranows]

Ok, so you all get the reliable truth "The small hero pool makes some heros better than other because there is no counter (or not many) against them". Thanks Ikara.

Syran, it is a new game, but you can't deny that we WILL get into the same issues as dota because 70% of the heroes are identical, even with minor differences as cast animations.

50 heroes is more than enough to make the game competitive and balanced. EVEN IF we campare it to dota. Come on guys, some of you play competitive dota. Good heroes as lane controller/carriers/support/etc you will count less than 50 or around that in dota. We are almost there, we SHOULD think about balance now.

Defiler is not that GOD you are mentioning... there ARE good stunners and disablers in HoN that could easily cancel her. The new hero Electrician is just an example. And in HoN his ult is Magical Damage which is easily countered with a Shaman Headdress (Hood of Defiance), right?

Yes, 33% percent more for battlefury DOES matter in team fights. You could easily take any ranged well positioned with your splash damage. And it DOES NOT matter for farming because the distance between melee and ranged creeps is fine for 225. But it is not a big deal, there are better items to do with dps heroes.

Nice topic btw.

[SyyRaaaN]

Ok, so you all get the reliable truth "The small hero pool makes some heros better than other because there is no counter (or not many) against them". Thanks Ikara.

Syran, it is a new game, but you can't deny that we WILL get into the same issues as dota because 70% of the heroes are identical, even with minor differences as cast animations.

50 heroes is more than enough to make the game competitive and balanced. EVEN IF we campare it to dota. Come on guys, some of you play competitive dota. Good heroes as lane controller/carriers/support/etc you will count less than 50 or around that in dota. We are almost there, we SHOULD think about balance now.

Defiler is not that GOD you are mentioning... there ARE good stunners and disablers in HoN that could easily cancel her. The new hero Electrician is just an example. And in HoN his ult is Magical Damage which is easily countered with a Shaman Headdress (Hood of Defiance), right?

Yes, 33% percent more for battlefury DOES matter in team fights. You could easily take any ranged well positioned with your splash damage. And it DOES NOT matter for farming because the distance between melee and ranged creeps is fine for 225. But it is not a big deal, there are better items to do with dps heroes.

Nice topic btw.

I hope they dont decide to ship this game with 50 heroes. They should make more ports so they reach 70-75 good heroes.

But if you are right, and they will release it with 50 heroes, they yeah, hero balance discussions are relevant with this current pool as our reference. We cant make exact 6.59D dota ports in a hero pool that consists of 44 heroes (witch of 30 or so is the same) because it causes problems. For instance Mirana is often named as the architype of the balanced hero. Here in HoN, an exact replica of that hero can be utterly broken because the lack of some heroes (tinker, the good tiny, lion, Bane elemental) and so on. For instance i would consider Mirana much weaker vs the Warlock replica since she is a great diffusal / manta carry. As we know Diffusal doesnt instant gib his ultimate. On the other hand, diffusal / manta has been heavily buffed. Mirana can farm it with ease. This can mean that Mirana here will be broken because of the buffed Manta. My point is simply that we need to look on the balance issues out of a HoN perspective rather than out of a Dota perspective.

I might aswell add that Dota heroes can sometimes be balanced in Dota but would be broken if they were ported right in. A good example of this would be Tiny/Pebbels i think. In Dota toss seeks its target since 6.5X, here it doesnt. In Dota avalanche + toss does more damage when combined. Here that effect has moved to his ultimate resulting in less damage. How would an exact Tiny port be in HoN? I think he would be broken (allthough i state in another post that this is what should be done because i feel this Pebbeles is a bit flawed so we can balance him from there).

Lets add 6.59D Tinker and take a look. No ultimates that goes through BKB in thisone, fairly balanced in 6.59D (ok ok BKB rearm got nerfed but still if we compare 6.59D balance with HoN). In Dota we had Rexxar, Rooftrellan, Fiends grip, Doom and so on that goes through bkb. Here we have 0. HoN is different. I bet if 6.59D tinker gets into the game with refreshable BKB with the current hero pool he would kick more ass than in Dota. Thus we are not running into the same issues in HoN as we do in Dota although 70% of the heroes are the same! We have unique problems! Besides, my post was targeted towards zombie chorus that sings "ITS A DOTA PORT THUS THE HERO IS BALANCED" :)

As for Krobelus i will still say she is a monster. There is no Glyph, there is no way to defend towers and alot of her natural enemies are gooooooooone! Like old tiny!


Imho only about 10-20 heroes are useless in clan war dota (6.59D) and probably less in 6.61.


*Battlefury nerfed to 225! I win :D

[Vinthian]

Just hope they fill in all those empty spots in the AP roster before they release. Then we will have a balanced roster of heroes.

[hackman5000]

Nice thread BTW.

I totally agree about people saying "it was balanced in DotA it's balanced here". DotA (and by extension HoN), is a giant game of rock/paper/scissors. Against clinkz, BH, SA, Weaver, you had invis counters like slardar and tree. Against high dps glass cannon agi heroes like troll, pa, viper, you have tank heroes and stuns, such as centaur, leo, sven, maybe even ES. Against tanks and agi heroes you also had burst dmg heroes earlygame like zeus, tinker, lesh.

So far in this game some of the "categories" don't have as many counters as they did in DotA. There may be more Rocks than Scissors, which of course means Scissors will get beaten more often, and maybe be less balanced (and make Rock look overpowered). With the removal of truesight from Tree's eyes, pestilence is the most effective counter to invis heroes, which quite frankly seem rampant in HoN. Defiler is strong as she was in DotA, but some of the burst dmg heroes that kept her down in DotA like NA or even Necrolyte aren't around yet. Not to mention the slight differences in game/skill functionality HoN has to DotA (eg: tiny's stun/toss, some missing neut camps, phase boots, devourer's hook).

Even a few ported heroes were tweaked enough to totally change their gameplay role. Jereziah almost has a splashing version of Accursed's melee proc, making him from a support hero in dota to a pseudo-carry or at least more offensive hero in HoN. Kraken lost his autowin ult and creep immunity for a weird Dark Portal ult and charge, bringing him from a support ult on a stick to a more offense-oriented hero. It's hard to argue the balance of ports when some of them don't even play the same.

This kind of also brings me to another question. How long is HoN going to play off DotA? Are they going to bring it up to date with the 6.61 patch (minus the hero pool) and then go their own way? or continue to grab DotA content? Right now we are of course missing some fairly key changes, such as the 6.60 item changes (aganimh's for one), and glyphs. You can argue that unless they copy it exactly there won't be balance, but that's already out the window because tweaked and new heroes are skewing the pool from what DotA was.

I assume they will do what DotA usually did. Add a few heroes (or get to a pool they like), then tweak and balance that pool before adding more heroes.

Anyways that's my 2 cents.