[2.5.8] Lord Salforis

[KingIsRey]

Having played Salforis some more, I think that he's on the cusp of being perfectly balanced.

At this point, he can dominate the majority of lane setups with impunity thanks to Life Tap and Presence. He can chase and run over Heroes with Life Tap and Presence, wreck wanna-be escapees with Mors and his ultimate, and use use ultimate on squishy enemies for a free buff and life insurance. He has great starting stats, and starting at level 3 with level 2 Life Tap, his ability to reverse aggression dramatically increases. At 5 with level 3 Life Tap, he's on the brink of unstoppable without some massive CC. Once maxed, Life Tap can be generously spammed to get kills, stay in lane, and chase.

The summary is that he is going to wreck face in the early and midgames. However, late game, he drops like a rock in effectiveness.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly why.

It is probably due to a mixture of reasons: none of his abilities scale (Life Tap does so half-heartedly), he has no hard crowd control, his only form of crowd control is a slow that he literally needs to be on top of for it to work (and it is tapering), the majority of his damage in teamfights is magical and can be cheaply countered, and his stat gains are rather mediocre (although I am only really thinking about agility). Also, being mana-drained really ****s him over, making Witch Slayer, Nullfire, and Magebane good counters to him (less so Nullfire). And, almost forgot: Mors does not heal based on damage done.

I think the fact that he drops off late game is a fair counter to how well he does early and midgame. However, I have a feeling he drops off a little too hard. Even Deadwood doesn't drop off as hard as Salforis does because he has an immobilize and a nuke-stun.

He is one of the few Heroes that has literally no form of hard crowd control; not even a ministun or silence. And his tapering slow is not exactly the most reliable.

Heroes like this include Armadon, Jeraziah, Accursed, Predator, Martyr, and Slither.

I daresay that all of them have a stronger impact on a game throughout on both a tactical and strategical level than Salforis. (Maybe I'm wrong.)

That's why I think Lord Salforis deserves a few minor buffs.

I'll leave this here for now to see what you all think of the above. I have some ideas for minor buffs, which I may share later.

He has a strong lane presence and strong early game/mid game, but I do not believe he tapers off late-game as badly as you presume. Salforis is melee caster so put effort into raising his mana and mana regen. Grab an item like :Nullstone: (my personal favorite) and he instantly solves his mana issues while still retaining a relatively strong defense. He is much better off when he has leeway to use his spells: he is melee caster and not a tank. He has two spells with superior magic damage to bypass magic immunity, pretty significant for a caster such as Salforis. With farm he can stand out in late-game.

I must agree Mors Certissima is not that great of a spell given that it is a tough skill shot to land, is costly, and has bugs agaisnt MA (and among several spells: Focus Buffer, maybe Fire Shield). But the initial nuke and low (4 sec) cd make up for it in how it allows Salforis to farm creep waves and neutrals much like Ra. Personally I use it mainly as a finisher when weak enemies are trying to outrun Presence of a Dark Lord and Life Tap spam. This way my enemies do not benefit from the heal factor side effect of Mors and the nuke is much easier to land.

With that 4 second cd, though, it will be too powerful to convert the damage to True damage or by removing the heal back effect on enemies. He'd have too much burst power. Salforis's other spells are good enough that he can deal with one not soo fitting spell, but one that still has alot of uses as a nuke. The Life Tap buff was very much needed, but no other buffs are neccessary.

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

~ Ekamo, post #2

[Imjelly]

Snip

Just because DW offers a stun doesn't make him viable late game, you don't need to think hard why LS tapers off hard, just think what happens in late game that makes DW/Ramp redundant

I don't understand why you want an already powerful early game to be potentially broken or give him some late game viability, do not buff him

[[GnJA]Good_Apollo]

Having played Salforis some more, I think that he's on the cusp of being perfectly balanced.

At this point, he can dominate the majority of lane setups with impunity thanks to Life Tap and Presence. He can chase and run over Heroes with Life Tap and Presence, wreck wanna-be escapees with Mors and his ultimate, and use use ultimate on squishy enemies for a free buff and life insurance. He has great starting stats, and starting at level 3 with level 2 Life Tap, his ability to reverse aggression dramatically increases. At 5 with level 3 Life Tap, he's on the brink of unstoppable without some massive CC. Once maxed, Life Tap can be generously spammed to get kills, stay in lane, and chase.

The summary is that he is going to wreck face in the early and midgames. However, late game, he drops like a rock in effectiveness.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly why.

It is probably due to a mixture of reasons: none of his abilities scale (Life Tap does so half-heartedly), he has no hard crowd control, his only form of crowd control is a slow that he literally needs to be on top of for it to work (and it is tapering), the majority of his damage in teamfights is magical and can be cheaply countered, and his stat gains are rather mediocre (although I am only really thinking about agility). Also, being mana-drained really ****s him over, making Witch Slayer, Nullfire, and Magebane good counters to him (less so Nullfire). And, almost forgot: Mors does not heal based on damage done.

I think the fact that he drops off late game is a fair counter to how well he does early and midgame. However, I have a feeling he drops off a little too hard. Even Deadwood doesn't drop off as hard as Salforis does because he has an immobilize and a nuke-stun.

He is one of the few Heroes that has literally no form of hard crowd control; not even a ministun or silence. And his tapering slow is not exactly the most reliable.

Heroes like this include Armadon, Jeraziah, Accursed, Predator, Martyr, and Slither.

I daresay that all of them have a stronger impact on a game throughout on both a tactical and strategical level than Salforis. (Maybe I'm wrong.)

That's why I think Lord Salforis deserves a few minor buffs.

I'll leave this here for now to see what you all think of the above. I have some ideas for minor buffs, which I may share later.

He farms fairly well and has great inherent survivability so his options later are to just keep putting out damage, preferably getting a Mock and a Hellflower or Sheepstick for utility.

I don't really get the people that buy Shieldbreaker and Savage Mace on him.

[[Loli]N`Hydrolisk]

He farms fairly well and has great inherent survivability so his options later are to just keep putting out damage, preferably getting a Mock and a Hellflower or Sheepstick for utility.

I don't really get the people that buy Shieldbreaker and Savage Mace on him.

My exact thoughts for how to counteract his late-game weaknesses via item builds.

[[9]regin1]

Lifetap is stupidly powerful mors is pretty useless and doesnt realy synergise with his balls deep play style that requires you to be in melee distance for more lifetaps/aura.

[[VGG]Glibber`]

I level stats over q, usually go nullstone into mock/fws (maybe sheep or hf depending on the team). No reason to build him tanky or dps (except for vests if facing heavy nukers), better to spend that money on stats and regen (mana).

His low lvl tower diving+massive hp swings make him as annoyable to lane against as a tremble or torturer (1on1). So far, in the 1600-1800 bracket, most people say *abuse* due to sitting on their faces with w and e >.>.

W is a bit too good imo, even though q is a bit bad and e gets less good the later the game goes. He is such an early/mid game powerhouse (inbuilt tankiness+minimock+low cd speedboost) that you shouldn't be starved from farm and kills (making it really easy to progress into late game powerhouse).


He's close to balanced, but I really feel that life tap could use a bit higher cd or mana cost. Maybe a bit of both.

And then make q a bit better in return.

[[iDmT]Wongster]

His ult will stop the heal from mors doesnt it? If so then the 2 of them synegize quite well

[[VGG]Glibber`]

The cast TIME, RANGE and COST on q are all terrible imho. Why would you stand still to cast q (which gives you less w) when you should be doing w/e?


But maybe q seems so bad because of w being so good >.>

[[IaF]Skyve]

The cast TIME, RANGE and COST on q are all terrible imho. Why would you stand still to cast q (which gives you less w) when you should be doing w/e?

But maybe q seems so bad because of w being so good >.>

Q is just on the wrong hero imo.

[Orly2001]

His Mid Lane Capability is through the roof. He replaced Nomad after .14 changes for sure.

Inbuilt Mini Mock with Regen (True Damage, mind you) is annoying enough. His Life Tap is just Godlike for ANY matchup. He has competetive potentional just as a good counter for Solo Heros while maintaining semi carry potentional is too much.

Nerf Life Tap, Buff Q.

[[GnJA]Good_Apollo]

Life tap is the only thing making Salf viable. A hero is allowed to have a weak spell if the rest of him works.

[[IaF]Skyve]

Life tap is the only thing making Salf viable. A hero is allowed to have a weak spell if the rest of him works.

Except he doesn't really have a weak skill. Q is incredibly strong. Just on the wrong hero.

(ie, if he had/has the mana to afford it, he can easily max Q and deal shittons of damage. Thank god we don't have a hero like Keeper of the Light...)

[[CHlP]Passthechips]

I've said it before and i'll say it again.

Mor Certisima:
- Reduce mana cost by 10-15.
- Change healing from straight 100 healed to 25% of the damage dealt healed.


I still dislike his passive.

[[GnJA]Good_Apollo]

Except he doesn't really have a weak skill. Q is incredibly strong. Just on the wrong hero.

(ie, if he had/has the mana to afford it, he can easily max Q and deal shittons of damage. Thank god we don't have a hero like Keeper of the Light...)

I don't think you can make a cut and dry statement like that when heroes like Magmus have their random ass spells but still maintain viability through their strong synergistic spells.

Salforis feels like the same case, but maybe it's more noticeable to players since their used to the 4-skill-forced-syngery heroes S2 normally puts out. Gravekeeper is pretty blacksheep in this respect as well. It's synergistic design gone wrong but ends up working EG: In theory Hammerstorm's spells work in perfect conjunction and yet most players rarely pick up or max his 2 passives over stats.

Efficiency is key here and Salforis simply has it even if stats are taken over Q. Don't fix what isn't broken.

[[IaF]Skyve]

I've said it before and i'll say it again.

Mor Certisima:
- Reduce mana cost by 10-15.
- Change healing from straight 100 healed to 25% of the damage dealt healed.


I still dislike his passive.

What I would like for the hero in general would be to remove the healing and damage/attackspeed from ult, and put ult and Q onto a different hero.

I don't get why the hero designed to work AGAINST healing has to also be the hero with the most selfhealing (and regeneration) in the game.

Also, like I have stated before, his Q and R synergize decently, but in terms of their function and purpose they are pretty unrelated to W and E, which again work pretty well together.

I don't think you can make a cut and dry statement like that when heroes like Magmus have their random ass spells but still maintain viability through their strong synergistic spells.

Salforis feels like the same case.

Sooooo... what is your point? I don't really see the relation to what I said.

[Urizen]

Why not move the MS buff from LS to MC, rescale the mana cost and increase the speed burst to compenstate for the cast time

[[GR]XFlame]

What I would like for the hero in general would be to remove the healing and damage/attackspeed from ult, and put ult and Q onto a different hero.

I don't get why the hero designed to work AGAINST healing has to also be the hero with the most selfhealing (and regeneration) in the game.

Because all of those abilities allow him to stand up against the fat heroes like Zeph and Ra that are in the middle of the action while he takes a ton of punishment. He can live through that punishment because of all the healing he does with W and E, while at the same time dealing substantial amounts of damage with Q, W and R.

[Draegnar]

as far as i'm concerned mors is a flash farming tool to allow him to scale better into late game, it is amazing for this purpose and opens up a great many regen possibilities - you can also use it early with a 4-1-1-1 build to dump repeated mors on an ulted target which does pretty huge damage for level 7, especially if you can get 3 off instead of 2.

I really think if you buffed mors he would just be imba and that would lead to a playstyle change which i really don't want, most heroes have a strong pair of abilities and a subjective one and i think mors is far from the worst.

[[VGG]Glibber`]

He has a whooping 416 mana at lvl 7, his ult cost 150, and mors lvl 4 cost 140 mana.

And you're probably going to cast tap as a gap closer, multiple times. Which cost 70 mana at lvl 1 (40 at lvl 4). ((especially since you're going to be standing still .20-30 seconds ~ casting q))


Mors is not a bad skill, it's just better to pick up w and e. Leveling w gives you almost half cd and manacost, and e gives you additional regen. The w/e build gives you insane staying/laning and chasing power (that is sustainable).


I really think w needs to be nerfed a bit. I don't think q needs to be buffed even, maybe slightly indirectly with a bit higher base or gain on int. Guess I was right (referring to post a bit up), q is underwhelming because of his other skills.
The skill itself is fine, just feels wrong on this hero (he has no mana, he has a mini mock, chasing abilities that want/require you to go melee, inbuilt tankiness).
Either forced synergy with his ult, or as a finishing move (seeing that when you leveled it early, and while using w and r you will probably have the mana for 1 q).. it just feels out of place.


edit: Forgot to mention, but: Absolutely nothing wrong with a hero/skill having drawbacks. But I'd love to see someone convince me of getting q at all early/mid game. Imho there's something wrong with the numbers.

[Draegnar]

totally in agreement with the poster above, you have to build specifically for a mors build and really it doesn't feel right for the character i've only gone it once every other game is the standard w,e build as that just feels like the character to me.