[2.2.0] Sand Wraith

[[S2]Dawnbringer]

uh, this definitely seems like the right way to go about it. the ult has always been what made sw so incredibly hard to balance, so nerfing that and making him a stronger ganker (ult cd reflects that as well as his slow) makes the most sense. he might need more adjustments but this is the right direction.

but nothing can really be said until we see him integrated into actual strategic setups. or not. patience...

But he is meant to farm his way to being a very, very hard carry. It seems a bit counter intuitive to that role to move him away from DPS.

[[CMAP]God`]

HE STILL IS THO. The ult is not whats making him on of the hardest carries in this game, its the dissipate. Only nubs build him DPS with silly items like savage mace and **** like that.

[skoshu]

But he is meant to farm his way to being a very, very hard carry. It seems a bit counter intuitive to that role to move him away from DPS.

roles shift. even all the internal testing done can't exactly foreshadow how the hero is going to be used in the future. he might have a place in midgame now with the right hero setup. who can know for sure?
eh, i dislike the concept of pure hard carries, so i won't be missing his old ult much. i'm biased that way.

[[PuR3]lucife3]

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I honestly feel like that would give him a much too big farming tool to warrant his lategame strength.

Heroes like TDL, Chronos, Magebane and Sand Wraith too, don't get easy creepwave clearing abilities.

agreed

[[NU]Tomate]

HE STILL IS THO. The ult is not whats making him on of the hardest carries in this game, its the dissipate. Only nubs build him DPS with silly items like savage mace and **** like that.

Actually, part of him being 1 of the hardest carry in the game was his ultimate...

His ultimate, once you had FWS and Mock, was a press R to rape all supports of the other team down to 50% hp or less and than teleport to kill 2 or 3 of the supports.

The other part was dissipate... now, they nerfed the percentage quite a bit but hey, let's see what comes out of this.

[[LsE]Hsssh]

By me.

For the record, I would've nuked this thread. You're offering suggestions after having seen the changes to SW. Have you played him yet? How many times? I think it's stupid, especially considering there's more said in ways of changing than in insight here. Worthless, IMO.

So can you close this crap already?

[[DRD]china]

So can you close this crap already?

I do what I want.

[Pogona]

HE STILL IS THO. The ult is not whats making him on of the hardest carries in this game, its the dissipate. Only nubs build him DPS with silly items like savage mace and **** like that.

MOSTLY right. But the ult gives him that ability to constantly be farming and still help the team when he needs to, which is a big deal when you probably have to farm for the first 30 or so minutes of the game.

That aspect of the ult got buffed with the lower cooldowns.

[[SBT]Puuhis]

Give him some time.

[[tGh]Kibuki]

with the lower cooldown on mirage and the dramatically decreased cost on curse along with a slight ms buff...we might start seeing more offensive SWs running around.

after playing him a couple times post patch, there's definitely a noticeable difference in his offensive presence with team coordination. now items that buff his mana a bit (power supply, nullfire blade) make a much more noticeable difference with the mana cost of ground and more consistent use of mirage. now i've only played a couple no stat games with him so that's hardly a true test, but i end up running with a helm of the black legion then just building dps items (firebrand, nullfire) that synergize with his newly buffed offensive playstyle. attack speed and per hit items might be the way to go now with AS synergizing with deserted and per hit items synergizing with the AS you're already trying to obtain.

though his tanking builds are still just as viable as before, it seems his offensive ability midgame and on has seen a bit of a steroid. feels a bit more active playing him now too

[Anakha]

phase into nullfire was always good on him, and I think that's the change that they were going for with this.

[Lethe]

I really dislike this change, mostly because illusions still cannot use nullfire.

Nerfing the ult duration, thus reducing his late-game strength but buffing his ganking power makes very little sense to me.

The reduction in ult cd is near meaningless since the majority of SW ults are used during team fights regardless. It might be only useful for cherrypicking a terrible support player who is away from all his teammates lategame (which obviously never happens).

Basically he has become a slightly better ganker but a far worse late-gamer, which imho is a terrible tradeoff.

[[S2]Dawnbringer]

^What I said basically.

Modifiers like nullfire on illusions enabled him to rape face. The nerf of the dissapate % also hit him hard and that still hasn't been reverted. tbh a lot of succesive nerfs hit his carry potential very hard. He had a relatively low agi gain because his skill set was potentially ridiculous. But he seems to be moving further and further away from the hard carry he used to be and towards something else.

[Anakha]

Which was the point of the changes. It's an attempt to preserve the theme of his skills atm, while gutting his skillset's carry potential in favour of more midgame presence through ganking.

[Lethe]

I get that, but the point is that the nerf to his late-game far outweighs his mid-game and early game buffs.

I don't get why they couldn't have just buffed curse as they did and then leave it like that.

The CD reduction on ult barely makes a difference. Before level 11 it obviously does nothing new, where as between level 11-16 you are looking at a 20 sec reduction, which is nice, but you generally don't need a teamfight ult on a hero like SW on a 100 sec cd, 120 sec will suffice. Sw and spec players don't ult whenever they can, they look for opportunities, and 120 sec cd is sufficient for that. I don't ever recall having issues ganking with SW's ult because of the CD when oportunity called.

Of course this problem is further emphasized after level 16. Yes, dissipate was OP before and deserved a nerf. So did FWS on SW (granted it was hilarious but cheap). Curse nerf wasn't necessary but it hurt the hero as a whole so w/e. But the nullfire nerf was overkill and more or less forced SW to one role (classic tank role). Now the duration reduction on SW lol. gg.

There is like no point to this hero now, just like geomancer. You go the standard hotbl mock build and the buffs might give you a slightly easier early game, but your late-game is definitely relatively weaker to SW before this change, not to mention other carries. You go a ganker route and you are left with a shitty ganker who can only cherrypick (and is also a bad farmer).

They could make it ok by reverting the nullfire nerf, or by removing all the changes outside of the curse change. We are left now with a hero who can't carry for ****, but whose ganking potential has increased by a marginal amount. 2% extra slow/boost, mana buff on curse that is almost completely negligible outside of early game, and a CD reduction on ult that is virtually pointless given the context of the hero.

This reminds me of what they did to Chronos.

[Anakha]

I'll be honest, i was in favour of this change but I can tell you right now that these changes were never intended to be absolute and done.

Buffing Curse and leaving the ultimate doesn't change how much of a hard carry he is with 7 second Mirage, in tandem with Dissipate. If anything, it's just an attempt to make him slot into carry mode a bit easier.

Nullfire on illusions, 99%, will never return.

Mirage nerfs were to address carry potential and return him to something closer to his original intended design: a global ganker with a true damage theme.

Q: slow/unitwalking linger time to 5sec (important for catching up)
W: 5/10/15/20 + 5 true damage per hit, with a 0.5/1/1.5/2% slow per hit up to a max of 5 stacks
E: damage reflect portion without the damage absorb, passive effect of discharging 5 stacks from W for 1/1.25/1.5/1.75sec stun
R: same

optimal skillbuild is 12131412224333s4, with options to ditch the early point in E for more outright damage and slow.

[[S2]Dawnbringer]

But there are better options for early, mid and now lategame than Sand Wraith.

EDIT: What I mean by that is that I feel there are likely to be better picks for roles Sand Wraith could potentially fill now. There are harder carries late game now that do better early and better gankers too. Sure you can gank globally at any given point (which is pretty significant) but his lategame was gutted repeatedly.

[Anakha]

First line. Read it. Bolded.

EDIT: again.

[ExiledTyrant]

I get that, but the point is that the nerf to his late-game far outweighs his mid-game and early game buffs.

I don't get why they couldn't have just buffed curse as they did and then leave it like that.

The CD reduction on ult barely makes a difference. Before level 11 it obviously does nothing new, where as between level 11-16 you are looking at a 20 sec reduction, which is nice, but you generally don't need a teamfight ult on a hero like SW on a 100 sec cd, 120 sec will suffice. Sw and spec players don't ult whenever they can, they look for opportunities, and 120 sec cd is sufficient for that. I don't ever recall having issues ganking with SW's ult because of the CD when oportunity called.

Of course this problem is further emphasized after level 16. Yes, dissipate was OP before and deserved a nerf. So did FWS on SW (granted it was hilarious but cheap). Curse nerf wasn't necessary but it hurt the hero as a whole so w/e. But the nullfire nerf was overkill and more or less forced SW to one role (classic tank role). Now the duration reduction on SW lol. gg.

There is like no point to this hero now, just like geomancer. You go the standard hotbl mock build and the buffs might give you a slightly easier early game, but your late-game is definitely relatively weaker to SW before this change, not to mention other carries. You go a ganker route and you are left with a shitty ganker who can only cherrypick (and is also a bad farmer).

They could make it ok by reverting the nullfire nerf, or by removing all the changes outside of the curse change. We are left now with a hero who can't carry for ****, but whose ganking potential has increased by a marginal amount. 2% extra slow/boost, mana buff on curse that is almost completely negligible outside of early game, and a CD reduction on ult that is virtually pointless given the context of the hero.

This reminds me of what they did to Chronos.

I think the real problem is these hobl + mock builds. Out right I'm going to say Mock sucks on sand wraith and is absolutely not worth it's weight in gold.

I have tested several builds with sand wraith and without a doubt hobl + barbed + charged hammer is the way to go. even with just barbed + t claw sand wraith is a presence in team fights and a damage dealer.

[[S2]Dawnbringer]

^Barbed + tclaw = 0 hp = Ignoring the usefulness of dissipate...

Building him tanky + mock (from my past experience before this patch) = a lot of team fight damage. Leave him alone and mock punished you, focus him and dissipate punished you. Although I feel he is a lot weaker than Spectre (an example in HoN where a hero hasn't powercrept), Spectre is ridiculously imbalanced in her own right. Mock doesn't just serve as team fight presence, it boosts his otherwise mediocre farm (in which he relies completely on last hits).