[2.5.8] Lord Salforis

[[iAPM]DaPPa]

Lord Salforis
- Cast Time of Life Tap removed

I've been playing a fair bit of Salf lately, and the removal of his Life-Tap cast delay was much needed, it's allowed him to do what he's truely designed to do, but I feel it's too spammable in the laning phase with a chalice

The return on HP early game when you max life tap is amazing in-lane, and the manacost is so easy to deal with, I've been running with a 0-4-4 build on him and playing an aggressive lane and it's been very effective.

Mors Certissima is just awful tbh, it's well designed but the manacost is too high for it to be useful early-game (considering salfs tiny manapool), some people will argue that it is balanced with strict mana management in mind but I still think dropping it for Life Tap and his passive is viable.

To make Q viable early game it needs either:
1. Slight reduction/rescale of its mana cost.
2. Removal of the post heal.
3. Or a combination of the above with a damage tweak to balance.

It hits hard but a lot of other heroes have access to that damage without the cost (and post regen), personally I think it just needs a slight mana cost reduction, especially in the earlier levels.

Another thing about Mors Certissima is mid-late game its usefulness drops off, depending on how you play salf, you're usually chasing with lifetap and putting out auto-damage. I don't find myself using it very much at all and it's a shame because it's awesome.

If his Q is buffed then he will be a bit too strong, his Life Tap needs to be addressed, if anything the mana cost needs increasing by a little bit, it's just far too spammable.

His passive and ultimate are fine, others may disagree though.

[[eR]Ekamo]

Approved.

Would LS be balanced with 4 good abilities instead of just 3?
You tell me.

[Skyve]

Well, he would be pretty great as an int hero with +4 int per level so he can spam his low cooldown spells.

Ofc that wouldn't really work that well with his Lifetap and his 3rd skill, but at the moment the low cooldowns on his spells seem pretty useless because he can't really take advantage of that.

[[iAPM]DaPPa]

Exactly, it's not about him having 4 good abilities, it's about there being a point in taking Mors Certissima (MC) early on, currently he just doesn't have the manapool to utilise it properly, he should have a choice between a W+E zoning build in the lane, or a Q + W burst damage build.

I don't think lowering the manacost of his Q would imbalance him, with or without a change to MC he still needs his life tap addressing as I feel he's already pretty strong, but balance isn't about having one weak ability to cancel out one OP ability.

Currently life-tap is too easy to spam with the manacost, and MC is the exact opposite, if Life-Tap costs a little more mana, and MC costs a little less, he could go from there.

Don't get me wrong, he doesn't need anymore drastic changes (the removal of LT cast time was huge), I just believe a slight tweak to his mana usage on Q and W would put him in a great place.

One last thing, I don't really see his passive as a good ability, at the minute his life tap is what makes him beast, the passive just complements an aggressive zoning playstyle and allows him to deal damage while chasing & waiting for his lifetap to refresh.

[COFRANCESCO]

Make Life Tap cost 40 mana at all levels and MC cost 90/100/110/120 mana. His stat gains kinda suck and should be increased a little.

[[iAPM]DaPPa]

His life tap is already way too cheap for what it does, life tap needs +10 on all levels, 90-120 mana on MC looks good.

[FirstToStand]

His life tap is already way too cheap for what it does, life tap needs +10 on all levels, 90-120 mana on MC looks good.

Life Tap should not be changed.

The problem with Mors is that it doesn't synergize with Presence at all. Life Tap on the other hand has amazing synergy with Presence:

Extra MS and reliable slow to keep up with a fleeing hero
Healing which translates into more time alive for Presence to deal damage
Low mana cost means Life Tap is consistently available, and no mana for Presence

His ult is the "silver bullet" he offers the team, and it combos with Mors. However, consider:

They both heavily tax Salf's already small mana pool
Undying is on a long cooldown
Mors has no synergy with Presence, and getting Mors and Life Tap is not possible with Salf's small mana pool

Life Tap and Presence will always be the standard for Salf, even if Mors is buffed. The problem is a FUNDAMENTAL one, not an issue with numbers. Nerfing Life Tap mana cost is simply a nerf to Salf's early game - something which is not only unnecessary, but it undoes the brand new buff to Life Tap for no reason. It's a bad idea.

A GOOD idea would be to add an additional effect to Mors which is relevant to late game.

[[iAPM]DaPPa]

Mors isn't supposed to scale into the late game, life tap is.

Fundamental problems can still be changed, and numbers can change anything, if someone wants to take MC over life tap early on in a burst strat, then they should be able too, if you go up against someone like valk or hag, you literally have NOTHING against them, being able to upkeep a fair MC output on them will improve his versatility depending on the heroes he is facing.

Although MC is designed to be what you use to finish heroes off with, after you've engaged them and chased them to the tower life tapping along the way, you're supposed to pop MC to prevent a dangerous dive.

The problem is nobody can use MC early game because of Salfs tiny mana pool and its high cost, which is why reducing its manacost slightly could give people the option to level it over LT or his passive.

Take note you're always going to want at least one level in Life Tap and the passive, the player should be able to choose where to dump the rest of his points and each of them being viable.

That's just my opinion anyway, I just don't see a point in MC if it can't be used early game, as it sucks late game, it has a tiny window of usefulness in mid game but if you fall into the habit of using it a lot you'll find yourself without the mana to Life Tap or use the Undying.

[[VvJ]Terranigma]

Another thing about Mors Certissima is mid-late game its usefulness drops off, depending on how you play salf, you're usually chasing with lifetap and putting out auto-damage. I don't find myself using it very much at all and it's a shame because it's awesome.

That really depens on your build. I usually play Salforis as a meele-caster and use Life Tap as a cheap self-heal and therefore I usually go for 4-1-4 during the laning phase and do fine. There are several reasons why I go this build:

1) Mors has a very low cooldown which means that you can frequently use this skill, in case your got enough mana.
2) Mors is a great farming tool. A level 4 Mors kills a whole creep wave with one hit, and having a decent farm is never bad.
3) Life Tap doesn't scale that well. There life gained only increases from 70% to 100% percent and the extra damage only increases for 20 every level. That isn't bad, but not enough for me to put more than one point into it early on. Life Tap starts to get really useful when you can a decent auto-attack and enough mana to frequently use that skill, and that simply isn't the case early on. Therefore I primarily use it to chase down enemies, for the neat +damage buff and the self-heal. Therefore I think that a MC-build is possibly; you'll still rely on the passive + Life Tap early on, but when Mors hits level 4 it deals some nice damage - especially in teamfights where you can hit than more just one target - and is a great farming tool. Maxing Life Tap early on doesn't really pay off well I think. The best thing about a maxed Life Tap is the reduced cooldown, the 100% self-heal and +120 instead of +60 damage is neat, but no must-have.

There I max. Mors first and go for caster-items, which means;
1) Ring of the Teacher
2) Grave Locket
3) Phase Boots
4) Spellshards

That are the basic items I get with Salforis, and I doing fine with it. Especially Spellshards can significantly boost your damage-output because all of Salforis' activateable skills deal magic damage and it helps a bit to cope with the mana problems. Still, I agree that Mors should be boosted in some way. Personally, I wouldn't increase the damage but either lower the post heal or decrease the mana costs even though that might cause some problems. Mors has a 4 second (!) cooldown at level 4; I think lowering the mana costs would be enough. It might be worth consideration, though, to link the post heal to the acutal damage healed. That means post heal should heal a %-amount based on the post-mitigation damage of Mors. A good amount of damage is already reduced to the magic armor and than another 100 hp would be healed at level 4. I think that's a bit off. I think healing 25% of the actual post-mitigation damage would be better.


Overall I agree; the removal of the casting time of Life Tap was a significant boost. Together with Phase Boots, you can easily chase down most heroes.

[Skyve]

Overall I believe that the best thing that could happen to Salf would still be to get one to two new skills to make him simply more "focused", and less confused about his identity.

His aura and Lifetap go really well together, so do Mors Certissima and his ultimate, but between the two sets of skills there doesn't seem to be much going on, and the latter two would be really nice on a Pugna-esque hero with a banish skill.
That way they also wouldn't have to increase his stat gains. Although his statgain really is only low because Nome read the criticism that all his heroes had such high statgains, so he randomly decided that Salf's statgains would be below average...

[Ripoff]

My problem with salforis is his Q obviously, but its that Q is a spell designed to finish heroes. But it contradicts itself because of its horrible range and cast animation.

[[iAPM]DaPPa]

Nerfing Life Tap mana cost is simply a nerf to Salf's early game - something which is not only unnecessary, but it undoes the brand new buff to Life Tap for no reason. It's a bad idea.

A GOOD idea would be to add an additional effect to Mors which is relevant to late game.

Nerfing the manacost of lifetap isn't going to "undo" his last buff at all, they are two completely different things, you need to think about what you are saying before you call others peoples well thought out ideas "bad" - instead of just suggesting "that he has another effect or something like that maybe a laser?"

That really depens on your build. I usually play Salforis as a meele-caster and use Life Tap as a cheap self-heal and therefore I usually go for 4-1-4 during the laning phase and do fine

If you want to play him as a melee caster then that is your choice, just remember that your choice to build him like that shouldn't affect his balance.

Salf truely shines when you build a combination of mobility, damage, and surviveability, I have been completely wrecking lanes & teams consistently with this approach.

If you want to play a caster pick a caster, fair enough salf is a semi-caster and has a fairly decent int gain compared to other melee strength heroes - but we're talking about his core abilities, not *if they're OP when you buy spellshards and a shed load of mana regen so you can spam it late game*

There's also nothing really wrong with the way the hero is designed, there are no fundamental issues, there's nothing wrong with Q and R synergising seperately to W and E.

I think when it boils down to it S2 will see how the pro's play him and listen to their balance suggestions, as us running around in pubs with noobs picking up spellshards or riftshards on him isn't really balanced.

[Skyve]

The heal from Q should probably scale with the damage the target took.
The way it is now, getting from 25% magic damage reduction to 50% causes the skill to deal 170 (25% reduction) vs 80 damage (50% reduction). Without the heal the effective damage is 270 (25% reduction) vs 180 (50% reduction). Dealing 80 damage with a skill that costs you 140 mana seems kinda rediculous.

[Apostate]

I personally think that having Q the way it is is fine. There is a specific time slot in the game where it is incredibly destructive, and it doesn't need to be viable when you don't have the right items yet.

[FirstToStand]

Nerfing the manacost of lifetap isn't going to "undo" his last buff at all, they are two completely different things, you need to think about what you are saying before you call others peoples well thought out ideas "bad" - instead of just suggesting "that he has another effect or something like that maybe a laser?

I'm sure it took a lot of effort to suggest increasing Life Tap's mana cost. I wouldn't want you to go overboard and throw out some numbers, that would be asking too much. But great planning, that was really well thought out.

Sarcasm aside, all you did was rant about you own opinion, and ended your post by pullng a strawman argument out of your ass to discredit me. You never engaged my line of reasoning, you ignored it and spewed your own paltry propoganda.

No, numbers can't change everything. Yes, Life Tap syngergy with Presence really is too good to pass up in favor of a lackluster nuke that heals the target. No, Salforis isn't defenseless against Hag and Valkerie with Life Tap. Yes, a nerf to Life Tap's mana cost would be effectively reverting Salforis to his pre-patch state.

You think you're some kind of Salforis pro, but you've shown us nothing besides poor arguments.

[Anakha]

Considering your entire post was a verbose "nou", you're hardly better.

[FirstToStand]

Considering your entire post was a verbose "nou", you're hardly better.

I'm allowed to defend myself against bullshit. I've seen you do the same and more in different threads, so your "point" is as hollow as Dappa's reasoning.

[Anakha]

But you didn't. You accused him of not engaging your line of thought, but you're making blind assertions yourself.
This in particular: "Yes, a nerf to Life Tap's mana cost would be effectively reverting Salforis to his pre-patch state."

[[Loli]N`Hydrolisk]

Life Tap (LT) is good as it is, now that it has been modified to have an instant cast time. The very low mana cost is also good as it is.

Because it is spammable on account of two factors: low cooldown and low mana cost, it allows LS to stay on top of enemies with the bonus movement speed and the health-swing (lifesteal). (Prior to the animation buff, a significant amount of time/positioning potential was lost in simply casting LT which I hope to show is extremely important to LS.)

In turn, the above two abilities allow LS to finish off targets with MC when they get too far away/are ripe for the kill or apply consistent damage with Presence (of the Dark Lord) and through chasing.

Due to these qualities, LT should be core to any of LS' skill builds of which consists primarily of max MC and LT or max LT and Presence.

Thus, increasing the mana cost on LT will ruin the synergy between it, MC, and Presence. In other words, nerfing LT, a single skill, nerfs LS as a whole.

-

With that said, MC should be buffed because of as of now, it deals a lot less net damage than its cost makes one think/expect/hope.

Some ideas for buffing MC include:
increasing cast range as Ripoff implied
changing the heal to heal an amount proportional to the damage dealt as Skyve suggested
increase the time it takes to heal the amount returned full.

The first change makes MC a nastier finisher.

The second change would make the net damage dealt more sensible, specifically when the enemy stacks magic armour or has natural damage reduction (Sand Wraith, Martyr, and Armadon come to mind).

The third change would make MC a better nuke in general, since the heal-buff from MC does not stack with itself. I.e. if you keep spamming MC on the same target every time the cooldown finishes, the buff will keep refreshing, and the target never heals the full amount from a single MC. This change would also make using MC as a finisher much less riskier, since you have a wider window of opportunity to kill survivors of MC before they fully heal.

Personally, I think the second or third changes (or even both, though this would probably be too much) would be in LS' best interests, considering that he is meant to be a counter to healers and tanky Heroes.

-

Last interesting issue:

Does anyone else think that using LT refreshes the cooldown for your auto-attack? I swear it does. VERY beneficial/noticeable in the early game, when LS' attack cooldown is so high.

[GregerMoek]

Yes, make Mors Certissima a spin-off from Invokers Sunstrike and give it global range with longer cooldown.

I personally don't think that the lifetap change was needed and only making Mors Certissima not useless would be the best thing to do. HENCE I CAN'T REALLY VOTE FOR ANYTHING IN THE LOLPOLL.


Moreover, to above post.

Thus, increasing the mana cost on LT will ruin the synergy between it, MC, and Presence. In other words, nerfing LT, a single skill, nerfs LS as a whole.

WOW TIL!

Seriously, isn't this -always- the case? I mean if I nerf Arachna's webbed shot, a single skill, it nerfs Arachna as a whole.

If I nerf Flint Beastwood's range, a single skill, it nerfs Flint Beastwood as a whole.

Also, how does Life Tap synergise at all with Mors Certissima?

Life Tap 8
Presence 8