[2.1.10] Drunken Master

[[DRD]china]

Drunken Master really comes into his own when he is drunk, however he gains charges in only one of two ways, by using Drink or by being near an enemy hero's death. However, with Drink wearing off one charge every three seconds, and DM requiring at least 4 charges for his ult, and 2 for stagger and Lunge, he is left with a problem. Each skill uses up a drunk charge, so let's say he uses his ult at 4 charges, then stagger into lunge. Unless an enemy hero dies near him, he is greatly reduced in ability for the remainder of that fight. That's problem one with the drink mechanic.

Problem 2: Never being able to go below 4 charges, he is left with an effective 16 charges to wear off, and assuming he doesn't use stagger to boost his speed, he will go through those charges in 48 seconds. Having to stop and maintain the charges consistently stops DM, often at crucial moments.

Summary: Drunken Master's drunk charges wear off very quickly normally, and this is increased by any skill usage. The charge mechanic can often prevent drunken master from being where he needs to be, as he needs to maintain enough charges at all times, especially before going into a teamfight. I argue that a increase in time from 3 seconds is necessary for DM to be able to really shine, while still requiring him to maintain drunkenness.

I’d like to note that I’ve had little experience with Drunken Master myself, so I’ll merely be attaching a poll to the OP.

Let's focus on what may inhibit the hero unnecessarily, rather than what buffs it would take to bring the hero to his place. None of "my suggestion is better." The best basis for discussion here would be to analyze weakness comparatively with other heroes. We must identify both WHAT and WHY those problems are. The matter of solving the issue should be up to S2. That does not mean you can't off-handedly mention what could be done and why it should be done, but don't drive the direction of this thread off its tracks.

I'll be here with whip in hand.

Without further adieu:

Is Drunken Master balanced?

[[GR]XFlame]

He's pretty strong in the right hands. I've seen him as solo (Hanni ran him like that in a recent scrim), dual lane, even trilane (swindle during a stream). The strength of his Drink is countered by the fact that you need to stand still every now and then. Without it, he'd be a little too strong. Only thing I'd like to see changed is that his skills wouldn't use charges.

I voted BL.

[[DRD]china]

I've gotten better every game I've played as drunken. If you have a stunner in your lane, you can easily get a level 1 FB by pushing an enemy behind your creeps.

Posts like this will be deleted. They offer nothing.

[[IaF]Skyve]

Drunken kinda is a bit like Soul Reaper atm. He needs a couple levels (~lvl10-11) to be really effective, and you kinda do gain a bit too few drunk charges early on with his drink for it to be good enough, so you have to skill it up early on, which sucks, because it sets him back in terms of his other damaging skills.

[[RCT]Reldnahc]

In terms of what inhibits him, having to drink for full effectiveness of his skills and an initiation that isn't necessarily game changing. I feel as if his role of initiator comes about because he has to drink beforehand, so he accumulates charges before a team fight rather than during. You can't ignore the fact that he has a strong physical stun and much stronger version of Moraxus' shield(I don't say nullstone because his ult blocks Dev Hooks/Valk Arrows). I feel like he's in a good place right now.

[TRYTROUSERS]

The only thing I don't like about the hero is how gimp level one drunk is due to the duration. In order to do anything, you basically have to place two points in drunk before 5, which means your first two skills will be gimped when most other heros are walking around with a level 4 primary skill at level 7. This seems a little excessive to me and I can't really think of any hero who is balanced this way.

The other skills of the hero are fine/great, and he really can shine with farm late game.

[TheSadDad]

Posts like this will be deleted. They offer nothing.

Posts like this we be deleted. They offer nothing.

In all seriousness, Drunken has serious ganking potential, even with a level 1 stagger. Drink at level 1 and 2 is pretty much useless without nymph ( ) but other than that he is an extremely powerful hero. I see a lot of people build him with an icebrand; personally I think that is bad item choice. Chalice, phaseboots, sol's is all drunken needs by mid game to stay effective.

In my opinion, every level of drink should generate the charges of level 4 with scaling hp regen. This would be a nerf to his survivability, but a huge buff to his overall effectivness. also, he should be able to stack 30 charges (or maybe it should scale 20/25/30/35). Taking 2 seconds to drink doesnt seem like a lot until you have to stop in crucial ganks and drink to get the movespeed and damage off lunge.

[c0rrosive]

Drunk charges feel like Dampeer's essence mechanic slightly modified and mixed in with fayde's stances, giving him a fayde-dampeer syndrome ala S2; god how I love these 'unique' mechanics. I can tell they tried to make the management of these charges more skill based vs. dampeer's simply being a time sink, however this mechanic still just feels like a time sink.

If this hero was being tested out, I don't understand where along the lines of using drink for the hundredth time that nobody thought this was a really trivial mechanic. Seriously, I stopped playing this hero for a bit and tried out bubbles and I noticed myself accidentally using his silence for no reason because I was that used to periodically pressing W. Balance wise? I vote underpowered - I don't see any role he fits into that any other hero doesn't perform siginificantly better in.

[M72TheLaw]

Very strong hero, has a bunch of strengths mostly related to being hard to kill while dealing massive single target damage and having great farm.

Also has a few weaknesses, such as very low to no aoe damage and being melee and reliant on his mana pool, as well as requiring intelligent skill usage.

Balanced all around, don't touch my DM.

*Edit*

Also to refute a few of the posts above me, he is actually very good early game with:

Lunge - 1
Drink - 2
Stagger - Max

Also drink at level 2 easily handles his requirement of keeping it at 4 charges at all times when you have a chalice as well as overhealing the chalice degen and keeping you in lane. Even if not for the bonus's to lunge you should still get 2 into drink just to keep the laning phase dominated.

Once you play him a lot you get used to using drink at the correct times and its not an issue.

If you have a super good early game then buy Insani on him and suddenly 240 damage autos at level 12 as well as negating a lot of the degen from the item......gg?

[Tim]

I like to compare this guy to pandamonium, very similar play styles. Both heroes are pretty useful in the laning phase and are strong mid game.

From my experience with him is that he scales off a lot in the later stages of the game, but that's fine he's compensated for a strong mid game.

His E seems like a stupid skill, but oh well that's besides the point.

Anyways I say he's pretty balanced

[[IaF]Skyve]

His E synergizes well with his Q though, allowing him not only to catch up, but it also deals more damage if you had drunk charges (80 bonus damage iirc, which gives a total of 160 more damage dealt with Q).

[HonStinks]

The drinking mechanic is aggravating. It is aggravating because you need to do it all the time. It is aggravating because it chains you to a spot for a few seconds. It is aggravating because you need to do it to get the most out of your abilities. It is aggravating because the charges drain so fast when you are in combat.

Why not let him be able to move while drinking? Is it necessary that his moves eat up charges? Is it necessary that with drink charges he suddenly has 20x bonus effects for his abilities that make no logical sense (classic S2 hero design)?

[RocketMan05]

i think the drinking mechanic is too fiddly to manage early game for its effectiveness. from memory, i build him qewweeewwrr... so by level 10/11 i think he has the right "feel" to dm. by this i mean u need to take time to power/drink up at the right moment and its not overly cumbersome.

he has his mugs out all the time, so i would prefer:
drink 1
passively accumulates a drink charges every x seconds for a maximum of 2

drink 2
as perdrink 1, but becomes active to channel additional 6 drink charges and hp regen

drink 3/4 scale similar to current drink 2


this way getting a drink-buffed stagger is easier to do early on, and if you're not prepared late game you'll have to pick between stagger and lunge and you can't get off your buffed ult without activating drink.

[MadAtYou]

stun, slow, heals himself, nearly perma nullstone, blocks projectiles, attack speed buff, movespeed buff, damage buff, blink that nukes, skill applies attack modifiers, damage reduction
and good strength and int gain for some reason with 3.5 armor (decent).
obviously overpowered hero.

[Imjelly]

where to begin?
At the end of the day, he's a poor man's TDL or a mid game carry.

If built properly he can dish out a fair amount of damage (level 12+ insanitarius = 480ish physical damge off his lunge). He can be fairly tanky in teamfights with his ultimate and let's not forget perma-nullstone status for 6/8/10 seconds on a ridiculously low cd.

The problems, where to begin
- His drink ability: I get the idea S2 was trying to implement and there's enough complaints for me to warrant to not to repeat again. This does give him staying power in a lane though if levelled early and quickly but you give up a lower cd/damage on skills. Making you effectively weaker in the laning phase. The problem is that it's forced mechanic which is more of annoyance than a fun mechanic. You want to tag an incentive so people will constantly keep drinking. Either increase max charges to 30 or tie a crit chance or even both to allow him to have more of a "carry" feel if that's what S2 was aiming for in DM (30 drunk charges = 30% to do a crit? That's a really nice incentive)

- His combo: I've seen both cases. You either stagger then lunge or lunge than stagger. Stagger before lunge so you can get the maximum damage from your lunge ability the problem is, you have to now run to your opponent to apply your autoattacks. This is losing time on your stagger buff which increases damage + speed.
Then Lunge > Stagger, the idea being you knocked your opponent away, then you close the gap with stagger. So you don't maximize the damage from your lunge. While people might think this is just a variety of ways to combo with him, I find it awkward. Not to mention, even with his combo. If he tries to solo somone, anyone with an escape mechanism or TP can easily get away (after lunge just TP away). I don't really know how to address this issue, maybe instead of auto kicking them away after so much time, he launches them upwards (ala Pebbs toss) so you don't have to run after or waste a stagger to close the gap

Mid carry: I can see what the developers were trying to do with this character and try to make him a mid game carry with all those temporary buffs (ala TDL) Problem is there's several other RANGED carries which can do his job better and faster.

His ultimate: Although I think it's the most broke defensive skill in the game (perma-nullstone for 10 seconds on a 30 second cd? Okay) he suffers the Accursed ultimate syndrome which is "don't target him" and he doesn't have enough presence in team fights (like Acc) to warrant targetting him, outside his 1.5 second stun lunge. He's really a non-issue. Yes, I have taken his extra aspd into consideration

EDIT: That said, if you build around him, he has alot of potential to carry a game.

[[STLI]Doomhammar]

is weak and strong because of his drink ability. Even the drink gives nice regen and empowers his abilities, it binds the player to one spot for a while and forces him to level it with at least 2 points. Also the fact that if he starts drinking in vision, the enemy might be more cautious as they see getting prepared. His drink charging mechanic is very stupid indeed. DM has decent damage output and survivability IF he has enough drunk charges. I thought S2 had learned from their experience with Fayde and Dampeer.

Lets take a look at his abilities!

Lunge is very nice skill that scales with his damage and applies a decent slow with enough drunk charges, but it has bit too long CD to be effective early on, and if leveled early Stagger becomes bit useless. CD reduction to either Lunge or Stagger would be very nice.

Drink... The factor that keeps him weak when done in battle and strong if used right before. Maybe change to the amount healed by each drink charge to scale with levels and make all levels give 16 charges?

Stagger is the only real gap closer has. It gives very much needed speed and damage, but only if leveled straight away.

Untouchable is laughable. 6/8/10 second nullstone with 60/45/30 second cooldown, with 4 drunk charges 20/30/40% damage reduction and 25/50/75% attack speed. Very potent indeed. Propably only one of his skills that are actually somewhat balanced, but i don't understand the attackspeed part on it. It should be changed from attackspeed to 75% base damage, as he is very much based on it.

Overall needs some kind of rework to the Drink and drunk charge mechanic, some CD reduction to his basic abilities and maybe some CD increase to his ult would be justified.

[Ripoff]

is weak and strong because of his drink ability. Even the drink gives nice regen and empowers his abilities, it binds the player to one spot for a while and forces him to level it with at least 2 points. Also the fact that if he starts drinking in vision, the enemy might be more cautious as they see getting prepared. His drink charging mechanic is very stupid indeed. DM has decent damage output and survivability IF he has enough drunk charges. I thought S2 had learned from their experience with Fayde and Dampeer.

Lets take a look at his abilities!

Lunge is very nice skill that scales with his damage and applies a decent slow with enough drunk charges, but it has bit too long CD to be effective early on, and if leveled early Stagger becomes bit useless. CD reduction to either Lunge or Stagger would be very nice.

Drink... The factor that keeps him weak when done in battle and strong if used right before. Maybe change to the amount healed by each drink charge to scale with levels and make all levels give 16 charges?

Stagger is the only real gap closer has. It gives very much needed speed and damage, but only if leveled straight away.

Untouchable is laughable. 6/8/10 second nullstone with 60/45/30 second cooldown, with 4 drunk charges 20/30/40% damage reduction and 25/50/75% attack speed. Very potent indeed. Propably only one of his skills that are actually somewhat balanced, but i don't understand the attackspeed part on it. It should be changed from attackspeed to 75% base damage, as he is very much based on it.

Overall needs some kind of rework to the Drink and drunk charge mechanic, some CD reduction to his basic abilities and maybe some CD increase to his ult would be justified.

Having shieldbreaker and rank 3+75% more base damage from ult would make him 2 shot ANYONE, so yeah.

[[4l5]Gorgots]

does no1 remember the pro game (not sure who played him) but drunken master didn't even put a single point in drink until level 10 and he still totally dominated the early game/mid game.

from the way it looks to me is the point in drink is to give him that little bit more effectiveness in the early game and actually give him some much needed viability in late game the point of the game is to have heroes synergies as teams not individually. from the few games (about 10) i have personally played as drunken master i never got drink until the mid game and was still highly effective.

If you want to buff drink make it so his skills don't consume the drink buff. however as a counter to this, increase the effects of drink on the skills better. Make the base cooldown on lunge and stagger longer (without the drink buff) and lower the damage of both lunge and stagger (without the drink buff). this essentially forces the player to actually make use of the drink skill!

personally i totally avoid drink until the later levels because it has no bang for its buck early on! yes it could do with a small rework but to balance him out other skills are gonna have to take a negative hit as well!

[TRYTROUSERS]

I don't think the hero can rightly be called underpowered, as he has a lot of potential to be broken as he fits the tanky DPS template that a lot of the stronger melee heros have. There's also no question that a DM with items can hold his own late game, as he has a good mix of mobility attack speed and base damage buffs, plus one of the most rigged ultimates in the game (10s nullstone plus 40% dr on top of armor and everything). He also has the benefit of having a stun that goes through magic immunity, which makes him good in carry v carry wars.

I think that changing drunk to make it more user friendly would make the hero see a lot more play compared to the other common picks. Perhaps nerf the regen on early levels, but allow the player to channel for the fulll 16 charges with one point, so that it functions like the level 4 drunk without giving a ridiculous amount of regen.

[Jonasies]

I think he is, somewhat, fine. His ulti might need nerfs if his drink charges, or what not, gets buffed.

His ulti is so powerfull, and counters heroes like hard.
10 seconds constant null with 40% damage reduction (drink charges) and 75%AS buff at lvl16 with 30 sec CD is VERY, VERY powerfull.

He just laughs at Polly or TB who cant do ****.

(I also find it hard to see when his ulti is ON or wears OFF when he has drunk charges.)