[2.5.9] Mystic Vestments

[[GM]Cyber_Kun]

Recently one of main survivability items, HotBL, was nerfed in an attempt to solve problems of “tanky” metagame yet one of its companion items that was seen (and still is) on every tanky hero wasn’t touched. This item was mentioned multiple times here and there but I believe we never had whole topic dedicated to it so here we go.

I’ll try to divide this into smaller sub-topics.

• How many necessary items do we need?

With recent popularity of tanky heroes we also saw rise of “bursty” heroes who have enough burst to kill even them, scary thing is that some of those tanks also have lots of burst. Anyway as a result every hero (from Glacius to EW and Zephyr) in the game started picking up Mystic Vestments. And why wouldn’t they when it gives +5ma for 400 gold?

There are lots of items that are considered OP or too efficient. Some are considered to be “healthy” for the game and about some I won’t talk here. I think it’s rather obvious that Vestments became one of those “too efficient” items.

When game has too many of those then variety in item builds is minimal. For example at this point we can almost consider boots, tp stone and vestments as core for every hero. That leaves us with only 3 item slots. 3 item slots to show that you are initiator/support/carry/whatever and that you are different from another hero of the same role.

So the question here is, do we really want vestments to become core for every hero like boots are? If yes then won’t item diversity, which is already minimal, become nonexistent with time?

• Spellshards vs Vestments, -6 vs +5

Item that created lots of hate upon its release and yet still hasn’t become popular or even consistent pick up on any other hero than TB (and even on him it is arguable). Personally I don’t have problems with one item being counter to another. What I don’t like is that -6 item costs 4.5k while +5 costs 400. Obviously shards give other stats like some damage and regen but they are minimal and nobody would ever buy it for them. So yeah, we got 10x cheaper item that counters mid-late game item.

Sad part is that you don’t even buy vestments to counter shards. You buy it because it’s insanely efficient item and it just so happens that it counters shards at the same time. So are we content that this cheap item is making 4.5k worth item bad pick up? Or is this item in general bad idea so it doesn’t matter that it is not viable?

• MA vs burst, egg vs chicken

Often we see people mentioning that only vestments are keeping magic damage dealers somewhat in check. So it looks like vestments being cheap item is good thing but on the other hand would magic damage dealers require so much burst if every damn hero wouldn’t run around with vestments? Frankly I don’t care what came first, damage or armor but problem is rather obvious: ganker(s) must be able (at least in theory) to punch thru vestments and sometimes even HotBL. As a result every hero is forced to buy vestments when enemy team got active ganker, otherwise you have no chance of surviving them.

In theory this looks like perfect circle, on one side you stack survivability on another damage. Sadly we don’t play in vacuum. I already mentioned that we are getting too many “core” items on every hero but there are other problems too. For starters creeps can’t buy vestments, if someone can kill hero with vestments then it’s highly likely that they can blow up whole creep wave in half a second. As a result they become not only good gankers but good farmers/pushers too. Carries can’t farm slower than gankers so they are given tools to blow up creep waves too. This is what we have now- creep waves exploding in every lane. You might think that this helps pushing, it does, but only when you are pushing against tower. Now try to push that tower with Midas defending it, you’ll just both keep killing creep waves in one second and unless someone comes to help tower dive him you can forget about this tower. Or try pushing base towers, creeps usually can’t even get close enough to give you vision of the hill.
Another problem that I’m not 100% sure about is defensive shields like Focus Buffer, Barrier idol or Accursed’s shield. They absorb flat damage; your vestments do not allow them to absorb more. So with flat damage for nukers growing Barrier Idol doesn’t become better item, contrary, it becomes worse because it can’t absorb enough to warrant its cost. Thou as I said I might be wrong here, haven’t fully tested this.

Obviously if we nerf only vestments then nukers will be left unchecked so I’d think that both have to receive some changers. Or are we happy with how things are blowing up now?

• Where can we go?

If you disagree with me then you are probably already writing response with lots of nice words. But if you agree then what changes could be made to this item? I think firstly we’d have to consider at what cost this item would be only efficient, not too efficient. Secondly at what cost it wouldn’t be lolcounter to Spellshards? Maybe amount of armor it gives should be lowered instead? And finally how it would affect headdress and barrier idol.

^^^^

All of the above is orgnaly done by Hssh, but he managed to get banned and I am posting for him.

My op-ion however. Spellshards is a stupid item and should be removed and not be considered in this discussion. Besides that, Vestments does give too much blood magic armor. Increase price to the 550-600 range or decrease the armor.

[[TLn]nom]

How do you nerf vest without also nerfing the damage output of many heroes at the same time?

While this may be an issue -- I agree that it's silly for us to have a lot of "mandatory" items -- fixing this would be a nightmare on wheels.

You couldn't simply raise the price of the vest without touching the output of the major burst heroes.

Outlining a problem is one thing.. What's the solution?

[MrBigPlays]

Too strong, since everyone gets it anyways.

This is why I never play tb beyond 1700 bracket.

Maybe make the vetaments only +3 magic armor

but still +10 when its full shamans

[TRYTROUSERS]

it really does seem like item choice has been removed from the game sometimes. it's always

boots, vest, power supply

and then some combinaton of helm and bkb based on what role your hero fills. to me the problem is more than just one item, but the fact that heros are designed to do more damage with less items in general, meaning that heros are almost required to tank up immediately to last in any teamfight. however i definitely agree that vestments is too good for what its cost, and often find that the full headress is almost never worth it because of this.

maybe it's time to consider removing the vestments and simply making people have to pay the full 2300 gold if they want to hard counter a hero like tb.

[Brannock]

Vestments in Dota2 is 550g, same price as a Chain Mail. Something to think about. Minor price difference, but costs you a TP stone and puts some support back 1 or 2 minutes in getting a vest.

Personally I get vest every game that I go past 1250 HP. It's just so insanely efficient for what it does.

With 5.5 armor and 1250 health you block 24.81% damage and have 1662 effective health.
With 10.5 armor and 1250 health you block 38.65% damage and have 2037 effective health.

400g for 400~ effective health, and it gets MORE effective the more raw health you have past 1250 health.

[[BCL]Dantronx]

How about lower Mystic Vestments to +3 magic armor and make another item (like Bulwark'Sol) to another item magic armor like +6? or something like that

[[CAT]Horizon]

I think what hon needs in terms of vestments is options. As it stands, there are a handful of items that can be used to "tank" magic damage, but as far as magic armor goes it's pretty much vestments and it's upgrades (shamans->barrier) defense-wise. Barrier doesn't stack and pretty much means everyone else on the team with shamans is pretty only truly much benefiting from the regen. On other hand, the only way casters have of amplifying their magic damage is through harkons, spellshards and hellflower, barring sotm in this discussion.

Physical armor itself has a wide variety of options (plated greaves, demonic breastplate, ring of the teacher, sol's, barbed armor, shieldbreaker etc...). On top of that, the mechanic for negative magic armor is different, and while this isn't an often achieved case for magic armor is different it can happen (hellbringer + blacksmith).

I'm sure it's an overly ambitious proposal, but I'd suggest a way to bring vestments into balance overall would be to align the magic armor mechanic with the physical one and create more items that have +/- magic armor. Give people options, why does vestments have to be the only choice as far as magic armor?

[[LsE]Benny0]

+ magic armor is a necessary thing; without it, many supports would never have a chance at living for more than a second. The problem is, if it was notably more expensive, they'd never be able to buy it. Don't get me wrong, the item gives you far, far, far more than you pay for, but so does Void Talisman.

I've noticed in Dota, Cloak costs 550. Could we consider at least a small price raise like that?

[[ScBr]MadPsycho]

You mention Mystic Vestments as being one of the core tanky items along with HotBL. However, while HotBL is useful against every lineup, in that the pure health will increase staying power in fights and that all heroes have an autoattack, but Mystic Vestments are useless against a physical damage team, or at the very least a team that deals limited amounts of magic damage. Mystic Vestments is obviously core against certain heroes, but it is not an item that has the all around effectiveness of HotBL. Just like how Void Talisman would be useless against a team that relies primarily on magic damage, Mystic Vestments is useless against a team that relies solely on physical damage.

My point is that Mystic Vestments is picked up as a response item and it is not always core. Yes, most of the time heroes will consider it as core to counter in part the other team, but it is not universally useful. For that reason what it offers is a good thing, and the only significant change that should be considered is a price increase. Also consider that by nerfing Mystic Vestments, any hero that relies on heavy magic damage will become that much more effective. Traditionally those heroes have their peak in the early or mid game which is exactly why Mystic Vestments needs to be affordable for every hero, or else a high magic damage dealing hero such as Thunderbringer, Pyromancer, or Witch Slayer will have much greater ease in dominating the game.

[man_guy]

Given how few of the in-game guides written by S2 have this and Power Supply, I don't think they really know how ridiculous the item is.

[pewpewstar]

Two things.

If vestments were nerfed that's comparatively buffing (burst) magic damage; I think we can all agree that's a bad thing. However I do agree it's too cost efficient, so between -MA and cost, I'd be looking at a cost increase as far as nerfs go unless the problematic heroes' magic damage gets toned down.

Also, if you're a hard support there's already enough pressure on inventory space. If your inventory looks like:

boots, TP, vestments, power supply, sight ward, reveal ward

Where's the choice?

[[E]Ahimtar]

my idea is that it should become some sort of aura, so one guy in team would buy it and it wont take inventory slot of every other one. oh and the price would be higher, of course.
but its a bit weird... so probably just make it +4 MA (similar change as to sols) and maybe increase the cost to 500.

[Nictuku]

Vestments should be built into your boots, so you think twice before picking it up. The plus side is that it's one item slot for essentially two items.

[lolb0t]

Mystic vestments have always been a great pickup against a magic heavy team, against pyro, TB, and zephyr.
funnily they only come effective if ur HP is above 1000, i cannot rememmber though if its a linear graph from microhard, or it goes down as your hp goes up.

the game now moves to bursty style. nerfing magic vestments would just lead to more heroes solo bursting your team mates, leading to more frustration.


The fix is nerfing bursty heroes rather than mystic vestments.


I propose a reducement of 20 less magic damage per spell for heroes with more than 1 aoe nuke/spell


i know this contradicts your statement that vests are OP, i say a lot of heros that S2 balanced are OP for current metagame, and need to be kept in check by magical armor AT LEAST.

Even better the burst value of certain heroes reduced, so vests are not a 100% requirement on your hero.

[Maester96]

Add vestment into striders for support boots )

[Mediocre]

Well formulated OP, covers pretty much every aspect.


Mystic vestments are cheap compared to how much magic dmg it neglects. This we can all agree on.
The price comes with the sacrifice of an item slot (pretty much), which is a pretty big deal actually. The item is, however, still worth buying in most games on most heroes. Why is that?

It is because it has become a necessity against all the magical burst damage in this game. You pretty much HAVE to buy it against popular (god tier?) heroes like zephy/midas to not evaporate instantly.

It is a complex issue (cause and action)

[Decretium]

Don't nerf Vests when u're introducing Ra, Midas etcetc spamming magic dmg heroes.

[[SACR]Matthias]

Problem is you need a strong Vestments to help people survive vs heroes like Fayde. Worst thing you could do is lower its Magic Armor without lowering burst damage of those instagib-heroes.

But it is true that Vestments are very cheap for what they offer. I personally think a price of 500 gold would put them in the right spot.

[[MFeS]TDA101]

If you nerf magic vest. You need to decrease the shaman's cost to balance the overall nerf.

The problem with item diversity is that it also depends on hero diversity.

Heroes are just dealing way too much magic damage on a single hero.

Long gone are DS+PESTI lanes with

Is cheap survivability the issue or effortless burst?

Witch Slayer was a standard burst nuker years ago yet Vestiments wouldn't be that effect since a large majority of his skillset was damage from other heroes or auto attacks.

Also are you trying to punish supports or farmers with this nerf or both?

Keep in mind that even with vestiments supports still die extremely fast because health is required to make usage of the mitigation.

So Boot/Vest/Power Supply is about the same as Boot/Bracer/Power supply for any hard support in terms of HP.

[GregerMoek]

Because a nerf must mean price nerf.