Pandora's Box [Now need upgrades for more debuffs]

[Ryuusan]

Pandora's Box
Cost: 2190/2690/3190
Item Type: Single Target Enemy Heroes
Mana Cost: 60
Range: 500

NOTE: Please rate the active/passive of the item rather than the buildup/stats, as it is the core of my idea. The buildup/stats I chose because I wasn't creative enough to think of a better setup. Heck, we could even get rid of the recipe and make it a basic item almost equivalent to mana battery, but instead of health/mp it does debuffs (and starts with 0 charges) for maybe 600 gold.

Buildup:
Helm of the Victim 950
Ring of the Teacher: 500
Major Totem: 540
Mana battery: 200
Total: 2190
*Optional recipe: 500
Look further below for explanation

Icon for Pandora's Box: A purple/black box opened with poison rolling out (like smoke I guess), across the top there will be three dots, and on the bottom there will be three dots. Each dot corresponds to a debuff and it's position in the 'menu' (top left, top middle, top right, etc).

The dots will have different colors that will show the level of the debuff (number of charges) that it has:

Black - 0 Charges
Red - 1 Charge
Yellow - 2 Charges
Green - 3 Charges

Stats:

+6 armor
+3 Health Regeneration
+0.65/+.7/+.75 Mana Regeneration
+4/6/8 Strength
+4/6/8 Intelligence
+4/6/8 Agility
Pandora's Box (Active)
Hungry Box (Passive)

Pandora's Box
Pandora's Box initially holds one charge of each of the following effects:

• Blind (next 1/3/5 auto-attacks will miss 100%)
• Silence (no spells, 2/3/4 seconds)

Upgrades to previous debuffs plus:

• Perplexed (no item use, 2/3/4 seconds)
• Slow (reduce movespeed by 10/20/30%, 4 seconds)

Upgrades to previous debuffs plus:

• Immobile (stuck in place, can still attack/use skills, 1/1.5/2 seconds)
• Terror (disrupts channeling, makes run around .5/1/1.5 seconds)

Using a debuff will cost 60 mana.

Pandora's box has a cooldown of 4 seconds (ie, can only use one debuff per 4 seconds). When debuff is applied, 'Pandora's Box' will also be added.

Pandora's Box
Hero is target-immune from Pandora's Box for 20 seconds. (ie: After the hero has been debuffed, it cannot be targeted to be debuffed again until 20 seconds later)

Hungry Box
Every time user is stunned, slowed, or debuffed (non-aura only) by an enemy hero, one charge is gained (max of three charges per debuff).

Charges have NOTHING to do with the upgrade on Pandora's Box via recipe. Ie, the highest level debuffs in the #/#/# are regarding the charges, not the upgrade level of the item. WHEN Pandora's Box is used, ALL CHARGES DISAPPEAR FROM THAT DEBUFF.

Charges are added with the following priority:
1. 'Empty' boxes (debuffs with 0 charges) gain charges first.
2. The debuff with the lowest number of charges gains next charge.

Priority of debuffs (will gain charges first if tied in charges with another):

1. Blind
2. Perplexed
3. Silence
4. Slow
5. Immobile
6. Terror

* Buying recipe will add 1 charge to each debuff, unlock the next level of debuffs, and increase the passive stats. Buying more recipes after fully upgraded will still increase charges, but will not increase stats further.

If possible I'd also like to have each debuff have it's own 'recharge' cooldown as well---After 3 minutes of being 'blank' (0 charges), that specific debuff will gain one charge. Recharge cooldown is not applied to debuffs with charges.

Concept:
I had no idea what would make a decent buildup, so I decided to just 'upgrade' the power supply recipe, while adding some armor/regen in to make it have a rather good buildup for any support hero. Feel free to suggest your own.

I decided against putting more mana regen items because I feel like even though I made the buildup rather good, I'm against trying to make the item viable for every hero/situation. Giving supports more disables is bad enough, giving them both more disables and the mana to use EVERYTHING at their disposal is game breaking.

The item is meant for supports as an alternative disable item than sheepstick or hex. It could also make a good item for gankers as it has many uses. Once again, the buildup isn't very well thought out -- I'd like suggestions on how to make a better one. I feel right now that it is too cheap for what it does (in comparison to the active of sheepstick at 5.7k gold anyways) .

I was contemplating letting Hungry Box work with any debuffs (non-aura) so that one could just go into jungle and build up charges via the neutrals, but I'm not so sure how abusable that would be so I made it hero-only.

With 400 range the user would have to be pretty close to the enemy hero. I hope by keeping the range short, the item doesn't become too OP and it'll let an enemy hero get away if they position themselves correctly. Conversely, in a gank you can position yourself well and get off a lot of the debuffs on the unsuspecting target, given you have decent initiation.

Item Usage Mechanism:
When clicked/hot-keyed, your inventory will change into pictures of the six debuffs. The hotkeys for your items will correspond with the hotkey you would press to use the item in that slot, and you would use it as you would a sheepstick/hex. When a debuff is used, the box the debuff would be in becomes a blank/grey box.

After clicking on Pandora's Box, moving your character or pressing any key that isn't one of your six inventory hot keys gets rid of the Debuff inventory overlay.

eg:

1. Press Hotkey for Pandora's Box
2. Press hotkey for top right inventory slot (Blind)
3. Click on enemy hero
4. ???
5. Profit.

Musings:
Other possible debuffs:

-Cursed (+40 damage, +30% damage taken, 2/3/4 seconds)
-Betrayal (puppetshow basically, 1.5/2/2.5 seconds, non-lethal)
-Poisoned (Prevents all regeneration (hp/mana), 3/4/5 seconds)

Thanks for reading. All of the above is open to change, I just wanted to throw my idea out there.

Does anyone know the lore well enough to come up with a person/thing equivalent to Pandora in Newerth?

I feel like if I had to change the name right now to make the name more relevant, I would change it to "Glyph of the Sages."

My previous idea of a consumable Pandora's Box is on my second post now.

Changelog:
2/23/11 - Thread posted
2/24/11 - Clarified Immobile, Added description on stacking debuffs.
2/28/11 - replaced the ministun with terror
3/8/11 - Reworked item into being non-consumable. Added recipe, stats, put in a passive; Moved previous ideas to second post.
3/9/11 - Lowered some of the debuff numbers.
3/11/11 - Added cooldown so that a single hero can't be targeted by Pandora's box more than once in 20 seconds.
4/18/11 - Attempted to come up with a better buildup, changed stats, and made upgrading necessary for all debuffs.
5/30/11 - Realized that the wording for how charges work wasn't clear, clarified it.

[majkzor]

sounds nice, like your idea!

[`kEv]

Too strong,

get this on all 5 heros and u have CC only (like 15 sec stuck on ground)

[Ryuusan]

Consumable Pandora's Box
Cost: 900
Item Type: Consumable, target enemy heroes
Mana Cost: 50
Range: 400
Item is able to be shared.

Concept:
Pandora's Box is an item that holds one charge of each of the following effects:
- silence (no spells, 2 seconds)
- terror (disrupts channeling, makes run around ~1 second)
- perplexed (no item use, 2 seconds)
- slow (reduce movespeed by 30%, 7 seconds)
- immobile/rooted (stuck in place, can still attack/use skills, 3 seconds)
- blind (next auto-attack will miss 100%)

All debuffs stack with each other. Debuff of the same type do not stack (ie; no double blinding/ perplexing while still perplexed/etc). 1 second cooldown on use.

Basically, it'll be a support item that will help assist in a fight. Obviously numbers/debuffs are subject to change, but for the cost (which has to be high for it to not be unbalanced) it better be worth it.

Ideally, I want it to have 6 debuffs because of the mechanism I want the item to be used with. But obviously it has to be good enough for someone to want to spend the money on the item while not being OP either, so reducing the cost and reducing the number of debuffs is no big deal.

With 400 range the user would have to be pretty close to the enemy hero so if one doesn't have other support items to allow you to keep within range, the item is useless. I hope by keeping the range short, the item doesn't become too OP and it'll let a hero get away if they position themselves correctly. Conversely, in a gank you can position yourself well and get off a lot of the debuffs on the unsuspecting target, given you have decent initiation.

As to why it's sharable, I figure it helps justify the cost a little.

Item Usage Mechanism:
When clicked/hot-keyed, your inventory will change into pictures of the six debuffs. The hotkeys for your items will correspond with the hotkey you would press to use the item in that slot, and you would use it as you would a sheepstick/hex. When a debuff is used, the box the debuff would be in becomes a blank/grey box. When all debuffs are used, the item is destroyed.

After clicking on Pandora's Box, moving your character or pressing any key that isn't one of your six inventory hot keys gets rid of the Debuff inventory overlay.

eg:
1. Press Hotkey for Pandora's Box
2. Press hotkey for top right inventory slot (Blind)
3. Click on enemy hero
4. ???
5. Profit.

Musings:
I understand that an item like this will probably not be worth it given the cost. But ideally one would easily make back all of the gold from successful use. I don't believe the item is overpowered, simply because of the gold cost and relatively low times on the debuffs.


Original post:

Too strong,

get this on all 5 heros and u have CC only (like 15 sec stuck on ground)

This could be easily fixed by adding a cooldown in shop, or coding it so that each team can only have 1-2 of the item at any given time. Even if there wasn't a cooldown, keep in mind that each person with the item would have had to shell out a good chunk of gold in order to get the one kill (4500 gold if the item were 900g, even 1800g for 2 boxes). Not really sure it would be worth it unless it was late late game and the carry bought one for everyone to use.

I also want immobilize to work as if you were stuck by FA's volley. You can still do skills/attack (given they're in range), you just can't move.

[BlazingTurd]

How about you make it random? Fits more with the pandora theme in my eyes.. You cast it on someone and one of 5 effects happens, you dont know which one. Also add terror to your debuffs

Edit: And in that way you could make it permanent(not consumable), viable and less of a game changing item.. It'll be in style with the current 2.5k costing CC items. With just a tad little more RNG.

[Ryuusan]

How about you make it random? Fits more with the pandora theme in my eyes.. You cast it on someone and one of 5 effects happens, you dont know which one. Also add terror to your debuffs

Edit: And in that way you could make it permanent(not consumable), viable and less of a game changing item.. It'll be in style with the current 2.5k costing CC items. With just a tad little more RNG.

I feel like adding more RNG into the game is the wrong approach. I like the idea of it being more random ties in with the item theme, but I'm sure none of the competitive players would go for something like that.

I do feel like a more permanent version of the item would be more worthwhile, but I'm not sure on how to make it balanced without making it too similar to hexstick or sheepstick. Like I said, RNG is something I would like to stay away from. (Otherwise I would make blind 50% chance to miss for 5 seconds).

I wanted to change the ministun to terror, but I felt like adding another 2-3 second disable would make the item more on the OP side. That being said, I have no problems about doing the change, but I feel the majority of people wouldn't like that (unless I up the gold cost).

Thank you for your input.

[gblessmurder]

tweek the times make the item cost 1.5k add in terror make the skills choosable make the cooldown long like 40 seconds perhaps AND this debuff can only affect one hero per minute. intentionally longer than the cd. imo this makes this a support based item and would be relatively balanced

[Ryuusan]

tweek the times make the item cost 1.5k add in terror make the skills choosable make the cooldown long like 40 seconds perhaps AND this debuff can only affect one hero per minute. intentionally longer than the cd. imo this makes this a support based item and would be relatively balanced

What do you mean by 'make the skills choosable'? They already are.

I could add in terror/replace ministun, I'm just not sure on the balance.

Making the cooldown that long I feel would make the item useless. Who would want to use blind when you have to wait another 40 seconds to use something more damaging?

Stacking debuffs in a row (ie when one wears off immediate put another) is something I'm considering nerfing. But I'm not sure of a good balance yet.

Overall 1.5k is too much for a consumable item. Unless you're proposing making it permanent (then your other ideas would make more sense), then I'll consider it.

I'm a little busy right now so i can't flesh out my ideas well enough, but I have a pretty good idea of how to make this item a pretty awesome one. I just need to figure out a good buildup for it. I'll re-edit my OP with the description of the item later.

[[SoUP]Swaggler]

I can't picture ever spending 900 on a consumable.

[Ryuusan]

I've reworked my item. Tell me what you guys think!

Is there any way to edit a poll once made? (Maybe even delete it/make a new one)

[[YMM]ZyV]

Nice concept but still too good and too much versatile imho.
Good luck.

[Ryuusan]

Nice concept but still too good and too much versatile imho.
Good luck.

Thank you. Do you have any suggestions on how I can nerf it a little? For example, would it be better to increase the recipe cost, lower stats, or nerf the ability of the item?

I'd really like to keep 6 debuffs attached to the item, but I don't want to make the debuffs useless as a consequence of having too much utility. Do you think I should decrease the number debuffs and just make the remaining stronger/stay the same? Or should I just tweak the numbers on the debuffs themselves?

Any input is welcome.

[RazgrizDemon]

i think this is op just because give to someone like with slayer for instance and ur screwed and maybe make the recipe cost a bit more

and get rid of blind and replace with poisoned i think would tone it down a bit

[Ryuusan]

i think this is op just because give to someone like with slayer for instance and ur screwed and maybe make the recipe cost a bit more

and get rid of blind and replace with poisoned i think would tone it down a bit

I do agree that the item may need a couple nerfs, but I was under the impression that blind was one of the more situational/useless debuffs and would only be super useful during midgame. Assuming that the person you use it on is the dps machine, by lategame I would figure they would blow through 1/3/5 auto attack rather fast and in the early phase you probably won't be able to store enough charges to make them blind for more than 3 attacks. While three attacks is a bit of damage at any point in the game, i think it is less detrimental than some of the other debuffs and is more of a defensive type of effect rather than offensive like most of the others. Blind could also be used as a soft counter to Empath's ult.

tldr; instead of blind i would probably switch out some other debuff, but that's interesting that you suggest that. I'll keep it as is for now at the moment.

I'll take your input under more consideration though, maybe I haven't thought it through well enough.

I thought about it a little more and was thinking that maybe I could add a cooldown on the targeted enemy hero on when he can be affected by Pandora's Box again. That way there will be more thought required than just spamming all the debuffs on one hero for a sure kill. Would 30 seconds be good or is that too much/little?

Thank you for your input.

[Adastraa]

Hmn... I've mainly read about your active/passive portion of your item, since that was the part you said you wanted comments on, and briefly skimmed the opinions other people have added. I'd have to agree on the majority regarding how this item does seem to be a bit overpowered.

I'm not that great of a HoN player, so I don't know how great my opinions/suggestions might be, but I think the major problem making this item over-powered is the high choices of debuffs available. In my opinion, you could possibly rate the debuffs depending on how "strong" they are. Such as silencing being stronger than slow, etc. Then, have 6 different levels of the Pandora's Box (upgradable by purchasing an item, similar to repurchasing recipes). This way, you keep the original idea of having Pandora's Box be a box filled with different type of debuffs, but not as op as having -all- of them at once.

Now, the reason why I said that you should upgrade the level of Pandora's Box by purchasing an item, is because it then allows you the opportunity to decompose your Pandora's Box, such that you can take off a level in order to get back a debuff on a previous level.

Example:
- Level 1: Slow, Level 2: Blind, Level 3: Silenced.
- Purchasing Pandora's Box -> Level 1 debuff, Slow.
- Purchasing an item to upgrade Pandora's Box -> Gains Blind, loses Slow.
- Decomposing that item from Pandora's Box -> Regains Slow, loses Blind.

I'm not sure how well that idea may work, but... yeah.

On a side-note, I think your original build-up for Pandora's Box requires too many items. You may want to adjust it so that it only requires 3 items to build up or something, so that players don't just have a bunch of stuff in their stash that they don't have Inventory slots to use.

Edit: Kind of re-thought of my idea and figured it wouldn't work too well... People will have their stashes stuffed up, etc. etc.

[[GaY]BackdoorHomo]

make it random and I think its fine

either that or no stuns(just slow/buffs ect)

[Ryuusan]

Hmn... I've mainly read about your active/passive portion of your item, since that was the part you said you wanted comments on, and briefly skimmed the opinions other people have added. I'd have to agree on the majority regarding how this item does seem to be a bit overpowered.

I'm not that great of a HoN player, so I don't know how great my opinions/suggestions might be, but I think the major problem making this item over-powered is the high choices of debuffs available. In my opinion, you could possibly rate the debuffs depending on how "strong" they are. Such as silencing being stronger than slow, etc. Then, have 6 different levels of the Pandora's Box (upgradable by purchasing an item, similar to repurchasing recipes). This way, you keep the original idea of having Pandora's Box be a box filled with different type of debuffs, but not as op as having -all- of them at once.

Now, the reason why I said that you should upgrade the level of Pandora's Box by purchasing an item, is because it then allows you the opportunity to decompose your Pandora's Box, such that you can take off a level in order to get back a debuff on a previous level.

Example:
- Level 1: Slow, Level 2: Blind, Level 3: Silenced.
- Purchasing Pandora's Box -> Level 1 debuff, Slow.
- Purchasing an item to upgrade Pandora's Box -> Gains Blind, loses Slow.
- Decomposing that item from Pandora's Box -> Regains Slow, loses Blind.

I'm not sure how well that idea may work, but... yeah.

On a side-note, I think your original build-up for Pandora's Box requires too many items. You may want to adjust it so that it only requires 3 items to build up or something, so that players don't just have a bunch of stuff in their stash that they don't have Inventory slots to use.

Edit: Kind of re-thought of my idea and figured it wouldn't work too well... People will have their stashes stuffed up, etc. etc.

I like your idea. I don't quite like how you would lose debuffs, but it seems like a reasonable way to deal with the item. I feel like I would need to buff each of the times of the debuffs/reduce cooldowns in response for losing the high utility of the item.

I do agree that less items for the recipe would be good, but I'm not sure what items would still be a decent buildup while still keeping the item in the 2.5k-3.5k range. I don't really want to give the item too much utility (mana regen/survivability) to compensate for the cheap cost and higher utility than hex. I feel then the idea would be way too similar to Storm Spirit/Eul's, and I think less people would find it as unique as I tried to make it.

Thank you for interesting feedback. I'll see what I can do with it.

@as for the post above. I've previously stated that I really do not want the item to add any more RNG into the game, and making it random would do so. Also, making the item random would make it worse/less reliable than Storm Spirit or Tablet. And to get rid of stuns I would have the make the item much cheaper and it wouldn't be have as high utility as I would like. I'm not quite against removing all the stuns, but I'd like to keep them if I can.

[AlphaXXXL]

Great idea, good luck : )

[GeesLe]

great item concept. the only problem i have with this item is how low the cooldown is. make it go to 14-20 second and i think its viable

[Ryuusan]

I've reworked the item to include Adastraa's suggestion. I didn't quite implement it as a big a nerf as they suggested (add AND remove), but I think it makes the item a little less OP, while adding a little strategy in (don't upgrade and get charges on the 2/4 debuffs you have faster).

As always, please comment on how you believe I could make the item more viable, especially regarding the item buildup. Thanks.