[2.5.8] Lord Salforis

[[TsGr]Isis]

So I've been having a large amount of success with Salforis after the lifetap buff. I jungle with him (he's extremely good at jungling thanks to lifetap), get a chalice and ring of the teacher ASAP, and put 0 points in the first ability. After your chalice and ring, you can use lifetap almost on cooldown, and the insane healing it gives, on top of the healing from your third ability, lets you jungle with zero downtime once you hit level 5. After you hit level 5, things really start to speed up, and once he hits 7 he's probably the best jungler in the game. I feel that mors is completely useless, because lord salforis simply can not afford to spend the mana on the nuke when lifetap deals more damage than it, heals you for 100% of the damage taken, gives you movespeed and a slow, AND scales well with damage.

Salforis is safe to gank with once you hit level 4-5. Lifetap will keep your life high so you can gank the side lane, and with presence and lifetap you can chase and kill most heroes with the help of your solo. It is VERY easy to kite a melee hero with lifetap and keep hitting them to regen your life, while they take damage from presence.

SNY is incredibly good on salforis, because it gives him health, a slow, more MS (scales really well with lifetap), and a little damage. With phaseboots and SNY, you solve his primary problem, which is mobility (no stuns, blinks, and 290 base MS make him pretty clunky even with LS). I find helm completely pointless to get on salforis because he has zero use of a lifetube while in the jungle, chalice lets him spam lifetap, letting him farm the jungle faster while healing himself more. Furthermore, once you have SNY, and you put all your points into stats instead of the nuke, you should be sitting at 1500, with a vestment thrown in and lifetap you will be tanky.

Salforis isn't without his weaknesses. If you don't get mobility items, he's extremely easy to get away from, especially if you have a blink. If you lock him down, he dies pretty quickly because he needs mobility items to be effective in ganks and fights. He's also VERY easy to gank in the jungle in between levels 1-4, as his regen from his abilities won't be enough to keep him at full health unless he spams tangos and potions. His first ability is completely worthless in my opinion, because if you focus on the 2nd and third abilities, which are easily better than the first, by the time you hit level 10 your first won't even be worth getting when you get stats which gives you health, damage and mana. He can scale very well with damage and his lifetap,as the more damage he gets, the more healing he receives.

[[ArG]InuYasha1988]

So I've been having a large amount of success with Salforis after the lifetap buff. I jungle with him (he's extremely good at jungling thanks to lifetap), get a chalice and ring of the teacher ASAP, and put 0 points in the first ability. After your chalice and ring, you can use lifetap almost on cooldown, and the insane healing it gives, on top of the healing from your third ability, lets you jungle with zero downtime once you hit level 5. After you hit level 5, things really start to speed up, and once he hits 7 he's probably the best jungler in the game. I feel that mors is completely useless, because lord salforis simply can not afford to spend the mana on the nuke when lifetap deals more damage than it, heals you for 100% of the damage taken, gives you movespeed and a slow, AND scales well with damage.

Salforis is safe to gank with once you hit level 4-5. Lifetap will keep your life high so you can gank the side lane, and with presence and lifetap you can chase and kill most heroes with the help of your solo. It is VERY easy to kite a melee hero with lifetap and keep hitting them to regen your life, while they take damage from presence.

SNY is incredibly good on salforis, because it gives him health, a slow, more MS (scales really well with lifetap), and a little damage. With phaseboots and SNY, you solve his primary problem, which is mobility (no stuns, blinks, and 290 base MS make him pretty clunky even with LS). I find helm completely pointless to get on salforis because he has zero use of a lifetube while in the jungle, chalice lets him spam lifetap, letting him farm the jungle faster while healing himself more. Furthermore, once you have SNY, and you put all your points into stats instead of the nuke, you should be sitting at 1500, with a vestment thrown in and lifetap you will be tanky.

Salforis isn't without his weaknesses. If you don't get mobility items, he's extremely easy to get away from, especially if you have a blink. If you lock him down, he dies pretty quickly because he needs mobility items to be effective in ganks and fights. He's also VERY easy to gank in the jungle in between levels 1-4, as his regen from his abilities won't be enough to keep him at full health unless he spams tangos and potions. His first ability is completely worthless in my opinion, because if you focus on the 2nd and third abilities, which are easily better than the first, by the time you hit level 10 your first won't even be worth getting when you get stats which gives you health, damage and mana. He can scale very well with damage and his lifetap,as the more damage he gets, the more healing he receives.

Well, actually it's all nice if you don't have a good team vs you. You can't play Salforis without his nuke.... except others are horrible. Vs a good team (Not a GREAT team) that knows what's your weakness... they will be always far from you and **** easy... the nuke is good to initiate (Then lifetap) or better using it vs an ultied target (your ulti lasts 10 secs... you can blast him for 720 without healing at all + lifetap = gg).

Buuuuuuuut it has that weakness about magic defense that makes it hit like 200 and heal 100... like no sense.. maybe making it superior magic will help.

And the aura troggle to affect heroes is a MUST.

[[NU]Tomate]

I really don't think much of the hero... I played a game against him where I've done virtually everything wrong (gave him first blood 1on1 mid, my team didn't back when we saw him go bottom to get him 2 more kills, well, overall, the hero had phase boots + hotBL + vestment something like 9 or 10 minutes in the game max)...

After that, it was a straight down to hell for this very farmed salforis... We kited him some times, mass disabled / bursted him down other team fights, slowed and ignored other teamfights... overall, the hero was just unable to have nearly as much impact as say a Kraken, a RA, a Zeph, a Rampage would have had with the same items 10 minutes into the game.

I only played 2 to 3 games with him myself but I cannot say that I felt the power of this hero. I always feel like the hero lacks in many aspects. His AoE nuke seems to be a joke, life tap is a semi powerful very single target spell, his ultimate is a cheap version of Doom that doesn't silence but prevents healing... his aura is such a small radius that playing against an enemy ranged hero pretty much means getting harassed to get regen...

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the hero is trash tier but unless someone prove me wrong, I feel like the hero is lacking in terms of overall potential as lifetap, put on any 'carry' would just be incredibly OP, the problem is this hero is no carry.

[Keris]

someone really need to look at 1st skill since the static heal-back and large mana making this skill pretty much fcked up. This skill is supposed to make salfo deal greater damage when his 2nd and 3rd skill become infective.

Undying already taken too much mana, spamming this skill to cover life tap+aura damage at mid/late game is not a good idea.

[[BRO]Megas_]

The heal from Q should probably scale with the damage the target took.

The fact that you get healed a static amount back is what makes what Skyve said true. The heal should be based on a % of the damage that was dealt to you.


I did some math about his Q and here it is


Lvl - Dmg - Heal - Total - %

1 - 120 - 40 - 80 - 33.3
2 - 200 - 60 - 140 - 30
3 - 280 - 80 - 200 - 28.5
4 - 360 - 100 - 260 - 27.7

% = Percentage of damage healed back


So, there is some difference of the % of health you get healed back on each level.
My proposition to normalize it would be this

"Target a position to blast it for {120,200,280,360} Magic Damage after a short delay.

Over the next 5 seconds, afflicted targets regain 25% of the damage done by the skill as health."

We would end up with something like this

Lvl - Dmg - Heal - Total - %

1 - 120 - 30 - 90 - 25
2 - 200 - 50 - 150 - 25
3 - 280 - 70 - 210 - 25
4 - 360 - 90 - 270 - 25

% = Percentage of damage healed back

Which is a 10 dmg buff on each level, but this will erase the problem that Skyve said.

[[VvJ]Terranigma]

Undying already taken too much mana, spamming this skill to cover life tap+aura damage at mid/late game is not a good idea.

Can't agree on that. I usually play Salforis as a nuker, means, I get +mana items early on to help with the mana-managment. Q is a great farming tool and by the time you've maxed it, you can speed up your farm dramastically. Grave Locket, Ring of the Teacher and later on 1-level Spellshards and you won't have a huge mana pool but more than enough to be able to toss out all your abilities during a teamfight.

Salforis isn't a carry and I won't play him as one. He's devasting during the early- and mid-game and that's the time were you should be most active in terms of chasing down enemies and ganking. Q really helps to do that and it isn't that hard to land a good hit during a teamfight - with Q, you can easily hit several enemies and that with a 4 cd cooldown. The mana are an issue but if you can get a solid mana-pool and mana-regeneration (and doing that isn't too difficult), having an AoE-nuke on a 4 cd cooldown isn't something I would like to miss.


I usually put one point in Lifetab because that's enough to slow and increase my movement speed (the +damage and +lifesteal are nice, but really not worth it investing too many points early on) and then start putting a few points in the Aura and then max Mors straight forward. Works great for me, and I don't see the big mana issues everyone's talking about. Salforis is neither a carry nor is he a tank - he's a nuker (all his abilites deal magic damage!) so I'd suggest giving it a try and playing him like one. Works out fine for me.

I've tried it several times just to ignore Mors but that's just too much damage output you vaste by not using this skill properly.

[HeLLgEiST]

Sadly i am going to put Lord Sal back on the backburner for now. Choosing him as a solo mid just doesn't seem to be netting wins. I have a feeling it has something to do with his lack of CC. Any hero with a stun can just run away from this guy and he can't burst down anyone quickly once the mid-late game hits. He doesn't make use of his farm as a mid hero should. If Mors had a slow on top of his lifetap i feel his ganking potential would increase exponentially and he would be a worth while mid hero. As it stand right now i'd rather have a pebbles, or a fayde, or a gauntlet, or a devo, or a kracken as my solo mid melee hero. And that's because all of those heros gank better due to their stuns.

[RagingGooz]

i think the way to play salforis isnt to gank but to sit at mid and keep pushing farming getting xp till mid tower dies. you carry a TP to counter gank but you dont look for ganks.

he should also let the rune control goto one of his teammates as well, someone in sidelane using bottle. he can help secure runes but i feel he shouldnt be looking for runes to gank.

the more he selfish at mid the more he can tank midgame. and i feel a ranged semi carry should be in his shortlane and some more stallers in long, like behe.

the meta behind his team and the way he plays mid has to be defensive and slow pace.

i dont play salf but the ones i seen mid the win are the ones that stayed mid with tp scroll and slowed the pace of the game down.

[[HLN]OJPhoenix]

I've been a fan of since he came out but he's always felt lacking somewhere, the cast time removal on Life Tap was a much needed buff but still...

What if The Dark Lord's Presence also gave Lord Salforis MANA?

Seriously, what if had a means to get back mana on his own somehow, The Dark Lord's Presence would probably be the best way to do it as its a passive ability that only operates under conditions (even though its easy).

EDIT:
Voted Perfect because I think the buff to Life Tap was indeed Perfect, but I still think as a whole needs more.

[Herbert_West]

His Q is still worse than stats, but just like old FA, the strength of other skills make him quite solid anyways. It would be ideal do have his Q actually worth picking up, but he's at least able to do stuff with great success with the buffed W.

[[ArG]InuYasha1988]

I¨don't think they will do something with this hero. This thread is open like 2 weeks ago and nothing changed. There are some really good ideas in this post like troggle the aura to make it damage only heroes, but i think admins didn't care about this hero anymore....

[[GoVn]w3wStarBoy]

1st skill need buff. May be it will deal mix damage (magic damage - true damage)

Now
Normal (25% magic resist)
Lvl - Magic Dmg - Damage Deal(-25%) - Heal - Total Hp lost - Transfer MagicD
1 - 120 - 90 - 40 - 50 - 66.6
2 - 200 - 150 - 60 - 90 - 120
3 - 280 - 210 - 80 - 130 - 173
4 - 360 - 270 - 100 - 170 - 226

Wick

With Headress (50% magic resist)
Lvl - Magic Dmg - Damage Deal(-50%) - Heal - Total Hp lost - Transfer MagicD
1 - 120 - 60 - 40 - 20 - 40
2 - 200 - 100 - 60 - 40 - 80
3 - 280 - 140 - 80 - 60 - 120
4 - 360 - 180 - 100 - 80 - 160

Never use 1st skill on tanky heroes

[[LC]Zejety]

^Wasn't mixed damage the worst kind of damage, getting reduced by both types of armor?

[[IaF]Skyve]

^Wasn't mixed damage the worst kind of damage, getting reduced by both types of armor?

Mixed damage basically means that half your damage is physical and half magical. Each part gets the respective reductions applied to it.
So if you use a skill against someone with 50% magic damage reduction and 10%physical damage reduction you'd have a 100 damage skill dealing 25 magic damage and 45physical damage, so it's a total of 70 damage being dealt. If yiu were dealing magic damage, you'd onky deal 50.

[Fen__]

Some serious prob that nobody mentioned is shaman heardress vs Q spell. While after nuke heal is a constant value, the dmg from Q spell is magic which means magic armor is weakening his nuke even more than it normally looks. With 40% magic damage Q does 260*0.6 but the heal stays static, making the nuke dmg pretty sad. I highly doubt that during regular teamfight you will cast more than 2 (maybe 3 max if the fight goes really long) nukes, and if so than in comparision to other nukers salf is pretty bad. I would make his heal a true dmg, that could help a lot and recompensate a bit fact that as a nuker he got only 1 nuking spell and dot ulti that lowers his burst potential compared to other burst heroes (ws/pyro).

[[BETA]Leebo]

Some serious prob that nobody mentioned is shaman heardress vs Q spell. While after nuke heal is a constant value, the dmg from Q spell is magic which means magic armor is weakening his nuke even more than it normally looks. With 40% magic damage Q does 260*0.6 but the heal stays static, making the nuke dmg pretty sad. I highly doubt that during regular teamfight you will cast more than 2 (maybe 3 max if the fight goes really long) nukes, and if so than in comparision to other nukers salf is pretty bad. I would make his heal a true dmg, that could help a lot and recompensate a bit fact that as a nuker he got only 1 nuking spell and dot ulti that lowers his burst potential compared to other burst heroes (ws/pyro).

4 second cooldown, 360 true damage AOE nuke. You sir are a balancing god.


On a more relevant note. I think Salforis is fine but he just doesn't fit the game right now. Without a stun or gap closer he just cant deal enough damage to get anyone down since every hero has an escape or stun these days. As someone mentioned...you can take him mid and its 100% free farm since he can't be pushed out of lane. The problem is that he can't do anything with all that farm that actually helps his team win.

I will pick him against predator but other than being a counter pick there are usually better options on the board.

[Fen__]

260 true dmg since you get healed, You sir are a pretty dumb troll.

[PowerBro]

Salforis is pretty failed... Overall not a bad hero in terms of raw power, but the outcome is that he doesn't offer real CC, his damage output is mediocre, his incapacity to be useful with farm... makes him just meh.

Unless I faced 0 good players with salforis or I just don't feel like this hero is good enough for the game.

[Tescrin]

What if we moved abilities around slightly. *Please read entire suggestion as a whole before starting a reply*

-Nerf the ult to no longer block regen
-Nerf Life Tap slight (5-10 mana)
-Buff Life Tap to turn off opponents regen for... 5 seconds?

Now; these seem arbitrary but:
-Adds a soft-synergy with his ult and life-tap.
-Adds a hard-synergy with life-tap and Mors
-Nerf to life tap prevents *quite* as easily being spammed with Mors, but works out in also nerfing the current optimal build slightly
Note: that turning off regen is basically a buff to life-tap's damage and so the added manacost is to even that out.

Again, notice that this significantly buffs MC in the early game and also forces intelligent use of the ult. (Lifetap, Ult, Mors, Lifetap probably being optimal.) For pubbers the ult is annoying, for competitive MC has no place in a build; seems like the best of both worlds.

With that, we could always nerf agility gain slightly in favor of int gain.

[[moo]Rayne_Mayne]

anyone that suggests not using MC or that MC is useless really should stop posting.

The nuke is very strong in the early game and Salf can easily use it to grab kills until well into the midgame. Suggesting that stats is better than MC is retarded. Playing Salf as a hard carry with his one autoattack scaling ability is complete clownshoes.

Salf is not a carry in any sense. Don't play him like one. The only reason you could call this hero underpowered is because he actually does require some help from his teammates to get that 100-0 KO that so many other broken S2 heroes can do alone. This doesnt mean salf is underpowered it just means salf is way more balanced.

Heroes that can easily and trivially gank any non str/"tanky" hero (i cringe at using the word tanky because of all the idiots on this forum screaming about 'tanky carries' while having absolutely no idea what they are talking) are broken. Salf is one of the more balanced S2 heroes added because he is very powerful but not a 1man show. He's counterable and he cant just ruin you and your team by himself.

Salf mid with a bottle/psupply and intelligent use of his mana can use MC for devastating effect on ganks/teamfights. Salf has very high dmg output at low levels and 2 MC's with almost any type of help from a teammate on a gank is enough to kill alot of heroes.

I would totally agree with changing the way the heal on MC works so that it is only a % instead of a static amount to counter act vestments/shamans, but buffing this hero much more than that seems dumb to me.