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To begin, I am just going to present and do some primitive calculations on buffs and nerfs to Sand Wraith (SW).
Buff vs. Nerfs: 12, 12
Net Change: None
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Net Changes (not later reverted or otherwise):
Buffs vs. Nerfs: 10, 10
Net Change: None
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Changes I consider insignificant or sensible or acceptable:
Buffs vs. Nerfs: 6, 2
Net Change: 4 buffs
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Changes I find to be significant or questionable or debatable:
Buffs vs. Nerfs: 4, 8
Net Change: 4 nerfs
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What follows is a rudimentary analysis on the individual "significant" changes to Sand Wraith, just to show why I think they were significant.
I will rate buffs and nerfs with either a 1 or a 2, depending on how significant I find them to be.
ANALYSIS:
Deserted range check for people being alone lowered from 400 to 300 (Buff)
Honestly, I think this change is so minor I should put it in the first category. Nonetheless, 100 units is 100 units: with this, change, even in the lane filled with creeps, it is often possible to procure Deserted with SW's autoattacks when defending against an in-lane engagement.
Verdict: buff, 1
Damage type of Dissipate changed from True to Magic damage. (Nerf)
This change is definitely significant. Unlike True damage, Magic damage is a multitude of factors: base magic armour, Mystic Vestments, Shaman's Headdress, Barrier Idol, even Magebane's Flash buff. It is even affected by Blacksmith's Flaming Hammer and Hellbringer's Life Void, albeit positively. Ultimately, it was a hard-hitting nerf
Verdict: nerf, 2
Desert's curse buff lowered from 4s to 3s when off the sand path. (Nerf)
I don't think this is a very significant nerf. Assuming 400 movespeed (easily attainable with boots and speed buff from Desert's Curse (DC)), one can now only move through unpassable terrain a distance of from 1600 to 1200.
Verdict: nerf, 1
Desert's Curse linger time lowered from 7 seconds to 3 seconds (Nerf)
4 seconds was shaved off of DC's linger time. FOUR. SECONDS. Almost 60% change! However, maybe 7 seconds was too much, especially considering that they later upgraded the speed up/slow down of DC. However, I think I can still clasify this as a significant nerf.
Verdict: nerf, 2
Dissipate range reduced from 1000 to 700 AoE (Nerf)
This was a nerf both to SW's anti-Portal Key (PK) capabilities and his damage output through Dissipate.
Verdict: nerf, 1
Dissipate damage reduction and damage return lowered from 5/10/15/20% to 4/8/12/16% (Nerf)
Again, a significant change. Assuming 1500 HP, this ability, at level 4, used to provide 300 additional HP and 300 damage total. Now, it only provides 240 additional HP and 240 damage. Dissipate was nerfed by one fifth, or 20%. This is even after the True to Magic nerf, which already resulted in 25% less outputted damage. So, in reality, it used to deal 225 damage post-mitigation and it dropped to 180 damage post-mitigation. The damage reflected is now almost negligible, as even one or two casts of Thunderbringer's Chain Lightning can deal more damage in a teamfight. And unlike Thunderbringer, SW must actually DIE to cause this amount of damage with 1500 HP.
Verdict: nerf, 1
Mirage duration from 5/6/7 to 4/4.5/5 seconds (Nerf)
This change really ripped away at SW's capabilities at all stages of the game. Even before the change, Sand Wraith's illusions would never really get that many hits as in as one might imagine because of their initial summoned state of standing around and lack of animation cancelling (unless the enemies are disabled for over 1 second).
Verdict: nerf, 2
Mirage cooldown from 120 to 120/100/80 seconds (Buff)
These was a significant numbers buff. However, in considering the previous duration change to Mirage, how effective really was this buff in total? Did Sand Wraith even really need it?
Verdict: buff, 2
Orbs (including Nullfire) no longer propagate to illusions (Nerf)
Considering that Nullfire was once a great pickup on SW because he could drain the mana of all 5 enemies at once and deal extra damage too, this has been a significant nerf.
Verdict: nerf, 2
HotBL blocking mechanism nerfed (Nerf)
This change affects Sand Wraith because it reduces his survivability in the early game and makes him much more prone to ganks. This is rather hard-hitting considering that even before, any flash gank could decimate SW since his only escape, DC, must be cast through unpassable terrain and does not even allow him to move instantly through said terrain: he still has to manually run through the terrain, meaning time given to enemies to allow them to beat him to death/stun-lock him to death. Unlike Magebane or Dark Lady's blink or pseudo-blink, it does not allow him to instantly reposition into favourable territory. Forunately, it allows him to jungle more safely, as creeps deal much less damage.
Verdict: nerf, 1
Desert's Curse manacost from 130/140/150/160 to 120 (Buff)
I was tempted to put this in the "insignificant" section since it was a change I considered to be long needed. However, it definitely is important since it allows him to spam DC more often and earlier on and still have the mana to cast Mirage when needed.
Verdict: buff, 1
Desert's Curse Movespeed Slow/Speed from 5/9/14/18% to 8/12/16/20% (Buff)
A good change to DC: it now slows more, allowing teammates to catch up to enemies faster, and speeds up SW more, allowing him to escape/chase faster.
Verdict: buff, 1
Buff vs. Nerf points: 5, 12
Net Change: nerf, 7
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Now, I am going to rant.
It feels as though since time immemorial, SW has been getting weaker and weaker. It has been nerf after nerf, either direct or indirect, with basically one (possibly) significant buff: Mirage's cooldown. Even then, I say possibly because in exchange for that buff, the duration of Mirage has been reduced by almost 30%. Perhaps those 2 seconds lost are insignificant, as, afterall, they only constituated 1 or 2 more auto attacks on behalf of the illusion. However, considering that Mock is often considered to be a core item on SW, those 2 seconds add up another 80 damage from Mock, meaning a 40% difference in damage. Additionally, illusions trigger Deserted; all the more reason for why one would want another 2 seconds on the ultimate.
Next, SW's Dissipate. This has been hit especially hard over time. If the nerf from True damage to Magic damage had not been enough, its radius was later reduced to 700 from 1000. The change basically killed Deserted's Portal Key-killing capabilities. And then, even after that, there was another nerf to Deserted: it's (considering level 4) 4% reduction in effective damage reflection. All of these changes basically killed Deserted's damage output, and to a lesser (but still significant) extent, its utility. The way that SW carried was basically sealed off.
I would like to think that those changes above have been enough to reduce SW to a more reasonable level. And that the changes stopped there. But they didn't.
Asides from the above changes, there has also been the removal of orb (plus Nullfire)-illusion propagation and the recent HotBL change (which prompted me to post this thread).
So now, with the illusion nerf AND the Dissipate nerf AND the Mirage nerf, SW's main methods of damage output have been reduced to shadows of themslves. At this point, all of SW's methods of damage output (Mirage, Deserted, Dissipate, autoattacks) have been made negligible. Even his survivability, found in Dissipate, was nerfed.
With HotBL's change, now SW doesn't even have his survivability from a core item to boast about.
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SW is perhaps one of the easiest hard carries to gank because his escape is not instant.
All of his previous survivability options have been nerfed.
His main methods of damage output have been nerfed.
What is there left to be said about Sand Wraith? What can he do now that differentiates him from other Heroes? He is mediocre to negligible at ganking (far outclassed by proper gankers), he is mediocre at tanking and dealing damage through survival (Armadon, Ra, Zephyr, Gemini to a lesser extent after his nerfs, even Martyr, all say hi), he really can't farm quickly, and his teamfight capabilities have been crushed (Mirage duration nerf, Dissipate nerf).
SW used to be a terrible force, that, when given time, could decimate the opposition. People feared him. Nowadays, even when given freefarm, he is still outclassed by many Heroes. He is laughed at, and I have seen many call him a shitty pick. It really bothers me that a lot of people see him as ****-tier.
Is he just a Hero that needs time for people to "rediscover" him? I highly doubt that. SW, in his present state, feels like a shell.
Maybe I'm just playing him wrong. Maybe he just has a new build that I have been blind toward. If so, please enlighten me.
But it really feels like Sand Wraith is only a shadow of his former self. A very feeble shadow, which other Heroes stamp around upon.
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SUGGESTIONS:
In light of the recent HotBL nerf, which many considered to be SW's survivability core, I'd like to see a review of SW's survivability through Dissipate. I'd really like to see the numbers reverted.
Also, in light of the change to orb/Nullfire-illusion propagation change, a buff should be applied to Mirage. Revert the duration nerf, please.
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Lastly, purely opinion-based:
Please do not turn SW into a ganker. This is the last thing I want. I want to see SW return to being a high-tier (or at least reasonably strong) hard carry Hero, something that people fear giving freefarm to. These days, when I face an enemy Sand Wraith, I think to myself, "ignore him and focus on the others." Not like a Magebane, where I even itemize to counter him (Hellflower/Sheepstick), in addition to plotting ganks against. I want to make him scary again. Not necessarily first-introduction-of-SW scary, but just scary enough so that people actually have to think twice in considering whether or not they should care to gank SW.
Last edited by N`Hydrolisk; 02-03-2012 at 12:55 PM.
While I agree that SW started out incredible and has been steadily nerfed since, I'm not so sure this is a bad thing. Do we really want a hero that does nothing for half an hour and then stomps entire teams face first into the ground? S2 seem fairly clear that they don't like tank carries picking up a HotBL and trolling with it, and he's simply too fragile to rush mock as things stand, so I can only suggest that he needs to be partially remade into some sort of semicarry based around deserted and an early nullfire blade. I doubt S2 are willing to indulge in the about-face that would be necessary to return him to his old role, since they seem intent on the slow death of the traditional hard carry.
Credit to Devious`, with thanks to AvunaOs for my last signature
Exactly, the answer is no.Originally Posted by YawningAngel
Rework him into a ganker(?).
The entire point of the hero is just a pile of bad design.
twitch.tv/puuhis
Milestones: The first post on 400th page in balance dump
I agree with YawningAngel, buffing a would-be tanky carry in that aspect seems like a bad idea and something that made the metagame rather dumbed down for the last few months. It's easy to guarantee that, if SW was in a more powered state (pre-nerf Dissipation), he would be seeing a hell of a lot of appearance in the tank metagame.
His concept, ever since Dota, has always been rather boring. Building a carry to be as tanky as possible and destroy everything that way, with minimal DPS taken into consideration for items, always made for a passive and frankly obnoxious to play carry.
It would be a very good bet to try to change him into a more typical carry, who actually focuses on trying to deal DPS directly. I'm sure he can be given interesting reworks to make it a worthwhile makeover.
This hero is like Bloodhunter to me.
The hero design sucks and no matter what you do to balance it, it will stay that way.
I'm not going to comment on the hero more as reworks and suggestions don't belong here but that is the only thing I can see being done to him.
Game Masters are not S2 Games employees. My posts in no way represent the view of S2 Games or any of its staff.
The forums are NOT for reporting players. If you wish to report a player, please use the in-game R.A.P. Function.
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"All they do is expound their store of knowledge. They excite themselves with their ranting; their disapproval swells them with a feeling of importance and sick victory, they thrive on spoiling the pleasure and trashing the creativity of others."
The Minister shares her opinion of critics. ~ Kino's Journey
I see no reason besides appeal to the group of people who want to see a "fresh, exciting, ACTION PACKED AKSFJPAIFHPAOIJLOL METAGAME" to change or rework Sand Wraith into a ganker. It's extremely unfair and selfish to want to rip this Hero's heart out and convert it into a ganker - playing the farm game and hard carrying is its own game of strategy that other players just have to deal with through ganking/outcarrying/out-team building or otherwise out-strategizing.
S2 has stated several times now that the game they want to see is a game in which all strategies are on equal ground or can be all utilized effectively. Considering this, there is absolutely NO valid reason to convert Sand Wraith into a ganker. Not even "fun;" I find turtling for 30 minutes and farming and dodging ganks and spotting for opportunities to kill and gank extremely fun, thank you very much.
Boringness/Funness has no place in the world of balance. No argument here.His concept, ever since Dota, has always been rather boring. Building a carry to be as tanky as possible and destroy everything that way, with minimal DPS taken into consideration for items, always made for a passive and frankly obnoxious to play carry.
It would be a very good bet to try to change him into a more typical carry, who actually focuses on trying to deal DPS directly. I'm sure he can be given interesting reworks to make it a worthwhile makeover.
Building all survivability in HoN is almost the only way to go because of nerfs of both direct and indirect nature. An extremely hard-hitting change was the global illusion nerf, which KILLED the Geometer-Nullfire combo, a set of items that would, in most games, be considered over more tanky items because Dissipate used to be enough to handle survivability with fewer survivability items.
I do. But as I have said, he doesn't have to be reverted back to a 1v5 Hero. Just to be put on the same tier as other hard carries like Maliken (health manipulation based), Dark Lady (DPS based), Magebane (mobility based), and even Scout (invisibility-burst based).Do we really want a hero that does nothing for half an hour and then stomps entire teams face first into the ground?
No.Exactly, the answer is no.
Rework him into a ganker(?).
The entire point of the hero is just a pile of bad design.
Please elaborate on how exactly the hero design sucks.The hero design sucks and no matter what you do to balance it, it will stay that way.
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I am going to fiercely defend Sand Wraith's traditional hard carry role to the death, since I'm not a fan of the ADHD-inducing metagame with which the world seems to be obsessed, there is probably going to be no one else vocal about the issue, and I don't want to have to go to DotA 2 filled with shitty out-dated mechanics and ****ing absurd programmed delay just to play a Hero and role that I like.
He is a hard carry that attacks the entire team. He then a skill that deals a crapton of damage if you are alone, or a skill that deals a small but large radius AoE damage.
This ends up putting him in a stupid position. No other carry attacks the team like he does. This means, when he is useful, he is attacking the entire enemy team. Unlike Thunderbringer, this damage is not a static amount. It gets stronger over time. This position of a scaling damage entire team makes him insanely hard to balance in any manner. They attempted to do this by removing a fair amount of his scaling and giving him a better early game. The problem with that is the design on the ult and his passive true damage means they can't do much or that will be in full effect.
If they lower the radius on his ult, or change it to something less retarded scaling wise he might be a good addition. The problem with that is his other two passives so they should be changed to accompany that. This all ends up being a rework.
Game Masters are not S2 Games employees. My posts in no way represent the view of S2 Games or any of its staff.
The forums are NOT for reporting players. If you wish to report a player, please use the in-game R.A.P. Function.
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"All they do is expound their store of knowledge. They excite themselves with their ranting; their disapproval swells them with a feeling of importance and sick victory, they thrive on spoiling the pleasure and trashing the creativity of others."
The Minister shares her opinion of critics. ~ Kino's Journey
His concept being boring was a very small part of my text, and OBVIOUSLY not a argument, just a personal statement. Nitpicking that was rather ironic since your entire rants have a strong degree of subjectivity and taste-related comebacks.
I doubt you have decent reading comprehension at all; I basically said exactly what you did, that he could be made a more traditional carry (read DPS carry).
The concept of being a TANK carry is what leads to slow, passive and what I deemed as "boring" gameplay, not the fact that a hero can farm for a long time and deal a lot of DPS by more common means. The whole point of claiming it is boring, is because S2 is CLEARLY trying to steer away from passive gameplay, which is how he has to be played at the moment.
However, they have introduced numerous heroes that have such incredible innate AoE magic damage (RA, zephyr, midas, kraken) that they can focus on getting survivability items from start to finish also creating so called Tank-carries.
So why is it not acceptable to have a hero in the game that does the exact opposite: have enough innate tankiness to focus on damage items from start to finish? Also creating a tank-carry.
- Units with Desert's curse (or whatever the 1st ability was named) on them now receive double damage from Dissipate.
- If SW teleports to enemy hero with his ultimate, Desert's curse will be applied to target.
- +truedamage will always be applied to SW's attacks if target has the curse, no matter if the target is alone or not.
While I would like to see SW as a carry his ultimate would suit a ganker much better as you guys have said, but it would probably need a complete rework on all his other skills...
Just a random pubscrubs 2 cents.
I want the old sand wraith back. He was the first hero I ever played and he is my favorite carry. He has been nerfed repeatedly and it makes me feel bad knowing that many people want to change him into ganker which this game is already full of. In short, please don't say rework him because you would be taking someone else's favorite hero and changing it completely. He just needs a few number buffs and he should be ok again.
He can't be viable without being broken, said it once ill say it again.
While "tank carries" might be boring, I personally don't think he's even near heroes like Kraken, Zephyr, Ra and other heroes in early game power.
I will be honest and say I like the ticking bomb concept, mostly because in Sand Wraith's case this bomb can be prevented from even exploding within reasonable borders.
I want this hero to be as powerful lategame as he was.
I don't want this hero to be good at all early game.
While this hero requires passive play, or more correctly requires shitloads of farm, he also forces the other team to be active and aggressive. Unlike other "tank carries" that only require a few kills to totally snowball and force the other team to dodge and farm up, this one barely gets anywhere with just a few kills in the start and will never force the other team to just sit back and take the hit in the face, this because the hero isn't good even with medium farm, he is only good with good farm.
Yes, we all want shorter games and whatnot, I tend to like variation though.
What this hero can't do at all:
Stop a push
Escape from ganks unless he sees them coming in advance
Farm with abilities
What he needs to deal with strategies like pushes and "gank" lineups:
A team that is totally built around him that can both stop pushes and manage fairly well 4v5
I wouldn't mind -at all- to give so called "stallers" less power in order to prevent Sand Wraith to be more viable. But I would still like SW's end game power to be brought back on an absolute scale. The 'staller' nerf would be enough to make him almost never see light again anyways.
His early game power beyond last hitting I wouldn't mind nerfed even more as long as he gets as good lategame as he used to be. Adding some kind of forced synergy between skills to make them more or less useless before everything is maxed or whatnot. Like if the slow don't allow you to terrainwalk untill dissipate is maxed. Dissipate not dealing damage untill deserter is maxed and whatever.
There are few heroes that are as team dependant as Sand Wraith. He works well with AoE lineups because he punishes people that "desert" the others in terms of range. Surprisingly AoE lineups also work decently 4v5. However, picking a decent AoE lineup and at the same time have a decent laning phase with a Sand Wraith in your lane is gonna be hard unless you have a very protective lane.
I dunno, most of you just hate this hero because I guess you think that he's a "sit farm for 30min and win" hero. However this hero is one of the few heroes that can be stopped before he actually gets his farm.
I would rather see his early game nerfed and lategame reverted(not buffed). Instead of early game buffed and lategame nerfed. Why? It'll force teams to act when they have the chance, because Sand Wraith will be useless and defenseless in the early stages, moreover he is so farm dependant that not even early game kills and levels will make him hard to kill or hard to deal with untill he has that big item (mock or Heart or whatever). That is, big items with big components. It will force more or less a clever draft from both teams and it already requires some effort to fit SW into a lineup that works for him.
There are few heroes that can be denied success as hard as this hero, I don't see that as a bad feature at all, I'd like to preserve it, make it more defined and bring back his lategame glory.
Stats are like women in bikinis, they are interesting to look at however they don't show you everything.
OT, but the "world" isn't obsessed with it, the developers are. And to be perfectly honest, almost the whole playerbase probably agrees that a ganking metagame > farming 50 minutes. As far as I can see, you just want your favorite hero to be better, which isn't really a good starting point for a balance thread.
What people are saying is entirely correct, SW with the skillset he has now is practically impossible to balance. He is a decent hero even in his current state, if you just manage to get to lategame and get farmed by then. Buffing him again will just make him an instaban or instapick in competitive games, just like he was at some point. There will be no middle ground with the current ulti.
Because we need more gankers right.
We need more "s2 gankers".
Yes, definately.
Give him blink and stun
Hero will be fun
Also a couple of nukes
And a way to deal with jukes
Let us all post in poem-form
Because ganking is the only viable norm
Ganking
Ganking
Monkey King
The idea about ganking games
Is to lower the time frames
Someone said it takes too long
To end a game against a carry
Gankers were meant to deal with this all along
A carry should also gank, not be able to parry
Last edited by GregerMoek; 01-30-2012 at 02:48 PM.
Stats are like women in bikinis, they are interesting to look at however they don't show you everything.
I've been playing sand wraith almost 2 years now (see 50% of all games sand wraith) and quite frankyl i love him to death. He's the only hero I could use to drag myself from 750 twice back into the 1500s mmr range after horrible lose streaks with balpha and geomancer.
I loved his mana cost buff and his speed buff on curse it made him much easier to play with and much more reliable early on in team fights.
That being said I still find him unable to out carry other hard / semi carrys to well.
all hard carrys as i can tell have on demand damage and passive crit / steroid to scale them extremely hard damage wise late game
sand wraith on the other hand has desertered which is pretty good damage early and mid game, but falls of late game and is canceled almost entirely during team fights and tower pushes with tons of creeps. It also scales with attack speed but sand wraiths attack speed and agil gain are subpar ( hes no mad man or mage bane).
then there is is second ability dissipate which gives terrible damage return after reduction and can't stop the damage of another end game carry. the time when scout and warbeast are critting upwards of 600-1k damage before mit and magebane and madman are at 2-2.5 attack speed permenantly.
These two problems also lead into problems when trying to fight in a lane.
sand wraith cant scare you off a lane the way mage, pred, scout, chronos etc can. if I go as sandwraith to try and contest a lane vs another one of these carrys I will quite frankly have my @$$ handed to me they do to much damage, are to mobile, or both. These carrys get ll the damage when and where they want sand wrait has to try to drag fights into the forest, river etc to get fights in his favor and even then a stray creep / ally can ruin his advantage.
I like the idea of desert curse triggering deserted as long as they are debuffed. I'm trying tot hink of other ideas myself. Sand isn't hopeless I've won plenty of games with him he just doesn't quite measure up
Do you want to live forever?
The world is not enough.
" I was given powers to save the world but in the end I found myself at its center. I became the beast."
Just another hero with a crappy hero design followed by dying over and over again to Power Creep.
Why Pick SW when I can pick Gemini. Why Pick SW when I can pick Nomad. Or Tremble. Or Ra. Or Zephyr. Or Magebane. Or even shadowblade. Or Monkey King.
He can use his "q" ability like once, if lucky, twice, but if he does it more than once he won't have mana for his ultimate. The only item that is picked up that gives him any intellect is the 450 int item when building a nullfire blade or simple +stats items like blessed orb.
He will always either be shi* tier, like now, or retarded 1v5 tier. It's impossible to balance a hero that can attack your whole team at once as anything but maybe a support hero lol.
So having a game where all heroes are the same(gankers) is more fun than a game with depth, strategy etc?
You're either illiterate or just completely ignored what he said to post what you wanted to say.
You're like an eager 14 year old boy ignoring the current youtube video shown and just waiting to show your friends the one you think for sure they'll roll on the floor laughing.
Balancing Sand Wraith with his current skillset is as impossible as Balancing Engineer when he had his turret.
He's not saying get rid of all strategy and hero types, he's saying this hard carry has a dumb skillset to balance around. And he's right.
I don't care whether they have to remake him entirely or not, although I did like the 'let him farm for long enough and you are ****ed' concept.
He handicaps his given lane so much that you are almost better off just soloing instead.
Sand Wraith won't be that much of a force anyways late game to bother sacrifice the early game phase.
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