Gravekeeper Speculation

[[IaF]Skyve]

On the other hand, having corpses available (which you can generate) and dealing damage out of them is the basic path to Gravekeeper

That's one of his skills... which, as already stated is bad and too reliant on corpses, but other than that, none of his skills are heavily reliant on each other. They actually for the most part don't really need it other (3rd skill afaik throws a corpse you can pick up again, the other two skills just do whatever they do anyways).

It's fairly obvious that Valkyrie's skills can be complemented with great potential, but the effects have nothing to do with each other; you have a blink, a long range stun-nuke and a PBAoE nuke. They work great together, yes, but they're not mechanically made better by using them in conjunction.

You have a long range stun that requires you to travel great distance quickly if you hit with it from a long range to take advantage of the stun -> Leap, because otherwise you will lose a lot of the stun time trying to walk to your stunned target.
You have a huge AoE nuke that deals more damage if you are standing on someone... that you probably just leaped onto, if you didn't come out of invisibility.
If you did come out of invisibility, you will still have your leap and arrow ready after you bursted an enemy, preventing him from getting away from you.

In the end, Valkyrie's skills synergize in such a way that they cover all their possible weaknesses.
So yes, Valkyrie's abilities are mechanically made to be better when used in conjuntion, because her abilities can make her damage potential guaranteed. I didn't even touch on the subject that her Javelin gives vision so you can't juke her Call.

[GregerMoek]

But but, you can just stun and burst down! That feature balances all the things!

[Lethe]

apparently I'm the only person he thinks gravekeeper is terrible.

He has a decent laning phase, in fact he can crush most melee mids, but once that breaks down and pushes and ganks start becoming more frequent he just feeds.

[[IaF]Skyve]

He should be able to contribute to pushes though.
The thing about him that sucks for pushing at the moment is that his creepwaveclearing ability can only clear creepwaves once they are dead. Which is just as stupid as it sounds.

It would probably be better if his 3rd didn't require corpses, and instead just generated them so you can always have 3 corpses to use readily, but it still wouldn't allow him to skill up his nuke.

[changlingbob]

Just because all skills work together doesn't make it any more or less forced...

By that measure Valk completely horrible and forced too. The only skill on Gravekeeper that isn't good/functional without his other skills (well, primarily the ultimate really) is his 2nd skill. The other three skills are perfectly fine working on their own.

If valk did extra damage with call of the valkyrie on someone who is arrow stunned; if leap increased the aoe of call of the valkyrie; if valk's ultimate made arrow home.

Valk is problematic for reasons that aren't about forced synergy. Valkyrie has synergy between her skills, through the fact that her skills are synergenic, not because one skill is specifically designed to buff her other skills.

Edit:

In the end, Valkyrie's skills synergize in such a way that they cover all their possible weaknesses.

Yes, this is exactly the problem with valkyrie, not forced synergy.

[[IaF]Skyve]

If valk did extra damage with call of the valkyrie on someone who is arrow stunned; if leap increased the aoe of call of the valkyrie; if valk's ultimate made arrow home.

None of Gravekeepers abilities interact that way with each other.

[dandylion]

apparently I'm the only person he thinks gravekeeper is terrible.

He has a decent laning phase, in fact he can crush most melee mids, but once that breaks down and pushes and ganks start becoming more frequent he just feeds.

I feel the same way, no worries.

[LordTroll]

If valk did extra damage with call of the valkyrie on someone who is arrow stunned; if leap increased the aoe of call of the valkyrie; if valk's ultimate made arrow home.

Valk is problematic for reasons that aren't about forced synergy. Valkyrie has synergy between her skills, through the fact that her skills are synergenic, not because one skill is specifically designed to buff her other skills.

Edit:
Yes, this is exactly the problem with valkyrie, not forced synergy.

Thanks for adding up on my points.

@ Skyve

Are you STILL not getting it? We're trying to get across that Gravekeeper's skills boost and complement each other based on the very mechanics of the skills. He even used more concrete examples of what Valkyrie would be like with forced synergy.

Her skills have synergy, yeah, but that's because they are so versatile, no mechanic on Valkyrie makes her skills "boost" each other, like Gravekeeper.
Yeah, he can use his stun with independency from his other skills, but it doesn't mean it wasn't closely made so that it benefited both his corpse explosion and passive by leaving a body. All this attention to trying to get the hero to fully combine his skills is probably what made him turn out to be mediocre.

@ Lethe

You seemed to miss that I'm implying Gravekeeper is a impractical and unreliable hero due to too much emphasis on skills working together. To be honest it's what really kills him, if they bothered to make 1 skill that would prove to simply be reliable without trying to make it synergize with all his others, resulting in something way more useful (even a AoE stun, who cares), he could actually have relevance throughout any balanced game.

[changlingbob]

None of Gravekeepers abilities interact that way with each other.

Yeah, Q pooping out corpses for you to blow up with W or pick up with E doesn't count.

[Connect]

I tried him a few games tonight, and I must say he feels awfully subpar to me.

Especially the ultimate. It has like a 5 minute cooldown, and taking into consideration the randomness of the zombies, probably does less damage then KoTF's minions, which are a 30 second cooldown, and doesn't have an insane mana cost.

[[HiW]SNiLD]

I have now played 6 games with Grave Keeper and it seems that the starting stats (str/agi) are really low. You are forced to buy your inventory full of :MinorTotem: and :GuardianRing: to just survive basic attacks from any hero.

The stats don't scale well either (too much int, too low str/agi) so you just have to keep filling your inventory with items that give you health and armor. Usually even that doesn't help so you're better off buying :GraveLocket: to atleast reduce your resurrection time (you WILL die A LOT if the enemies realize that you can be two-shot).

I've never had any mana problems with him no matter what I build. Which makes me think I might go for :Codex: on him. :S

[GregerMoek]

Is codex an overall mana loss if you factor in the use?

[[Hmlk]Kripke]

He's an absolute glass cannon. However, his strong offensive skills (low mana-cost stun and annoying passive) allow him to do moderately well provided he positions himself correctly. Stuns in combination with your ult can do an amazing amount of damage, too, often allowing for a max damage zombie explosion. These instances are few and far apart, and of course there is the occasional rampage making your life miserable, but with great care and well-timed stuns he can be pretty rewarding.

[man_guy]

Is codex an overall mana loss if you factor in the use?

Codex 1's int covers more than the activation cost.

[COFRANCESCO]

In my opinion he's an overall decent hero, but his skill set seems like it's built around "What ifs". He is not underpowered at all, just too situational from my experience.

The builds I've have successful with him are tanky or carry builds. Getting a headress and helm or a shroud and rifshards.

I feel as if his team fight presence is lacking as he has 1 single target spell, a passive that requires him to run around picking up corpses, an aoe nuke that requires perfect circumstances to do decent damage and a hectic ultimate that won't focus one target or do noticeable damage to many targets.

Some small changes that I think will make him a more versatile pickup are:

1. Reduce the cooldown for charges on his stun slightly.

2. Increase the range on his corpse explosion.

3. Make his passive able to store 1/1/1/2 corpses or generate a corpse every 8-10 seconds. (He uses imaginary corpses for his stun so might as well.)

4. Make his ultimate give priority to the targets that are closer to the center of your targeting circle.

5. Give up some int gain for str gain.

[Alten]

I suppose if he had the capability to keep heroes locked down for long enough to efficiently utilize all his potential damage along with a more universally effective ultimate, there would be no more complaints. Perhaps, for instance, a slow on the exploding zombies of his ultimate.

[Iuchiban]

I love the idea about stacking corpses on 3rd skill. I had so many situations that I got only 1 extra shot from 3rd skill because there weren't any corpses around and I really didn't want to go melee with a target to pick up thrown ones. I would say that stacking 1/2/3/4 corpses with levels on skill would be great.

And last thing: Second skill - hmm is there any way to implement some kind of corpse counter ? So I actually know for how much I'll nuke? There is no way to count corpses during team fights and I had so many situations that I nuked enemies for zero or even 90.....

[[IaF]Skyve]

And last thing: Second skill - hmm is there any way to implement some kind of corpse counter ? So I actually know for how much I'll nuke? There is no way to count corpses during team fights and I had so many situations that I nuked enemies for zero or even 90.....

Which is why I'd like for the ability to have a larger AoE that counts corpses for the ability. That would also make it possible/easy to display corpses. Simply make it a 600-900 AoE around the hero that counts corpses, and then deal damage inside the ability AoE only.

[Darkpyon]

So basically you are trying to say that if we were using your logic, any possible skill that could ever be invented is already in the game...

You have totally missed the point. What I'm saying is that all of Gravekeeper's skills are already in the game, they have just been added a condition. Unlike any other hero, there's nothing that makes him stand out among the masses.

For example the first skill, Corpse Toss, could've been made so that it targets ground instead of being a targeted 100% hit spell. This way there would've been more uses for Corpse Explosion since you could stack corpses where you want. If they had thought the concept out before pushing him in the game, they could've done a lot of really cool things with him.

[NixioN]

I remember Dirge in DotA. He was a pathetic early nuker - at best. Then he got remade into a powerful pusher/tank.

I believe this will happen to Gravekeeper. He's just terrible, and while his Corpse Explosion is the key-team-fight asset, you just need to be really brain damaged to stay into a pile of corpses. This is the kind of hero that ownes the club only if the other team has 1350 bracket players or something... He can't carry! No skill to help him scale that (% of Int damage etc. ) - ( If you mean by carry - even Polly can carry with Da3monic and Savage Mace etc).

'Tune' him up, or he'll stay untouched right there with poor old Tundra and Soul Reaper.