[2.5.9] Elder Parasite

[[BRO]Bohrain]

Been discussed from time to time, but thought I'd make a thread.
First of all, let's have a quick overview of Elder Parasite.
- grants passively 17% lifesteal on attack, considered as Attack Modifier
- buildup is Hungry Spirit (900g) and recipe cost (1000g)
- when activated, grants Crazed effect (+20 movespeed, +100 attack speed and +15 damage taken, lasts for 12 seconds)

In comparison to other items, it is somewhat outclassed by these two:
- Whispering Helm (grants more lifesteal and has better buildup)
- Insanitarius (as a high risk, high reward item, str heroes benefit more from this item, because it grants more survivability and a generous amount of damage)

The general idea on the item is clear, it gives you LOADS of attack speed and in return makes you squishier. However, it is rarely worth buying, because added squishiness for 12 seconds is too undesirable compared in comparison to alternative methods of damage dealing. The damage taken was nerfed from +20 to +15, but it didn't really affect anything, since you are still shat on if you get stunned while being Crazed.

In order to be more viable, EP needs to be buffed in some way or another, while still retaining the aspect of high risk/reward for reasonable price.
Discuss.

[[TECH]YawningAngel]

Especially true considering that Lifesteal is now an orb, meaning this item precludes you getting a Shieldbreaker and thus doesn't even offer as much of a damage premium as it should.

Approved.

[dandylion]

Not going to lie, just about any time I see this item being picked up, I berate the player that picked it up, because 99% of the time, it's the worst thing you could do to yourself. At every point of the game, allowing bonus damage to be dealt to yourself is a big fat target that says "I'm ready to die". If the effect could be cancelled on demand (activateable with a cooldown maybe) , it wouldn't be as bad, but could make the item easily abused on certain heroes.

[foxmindedguy]

Hm... How about splitting the buff and the debuff part of the item. So purging yourself could actually get rid of the 15% damage taken, but not the added movement and attack speed?

[Antimodus]

+100 AS and +x% MS with no drawbacks for 1900, sounds legit.

[[tSPC]Kireaktron]

Making it so you can cancel the effect would help a lot. It still competes with shieldbraker etc, which might just be a too big a of a hurdle no matter what you do with the item (within reason).

[Antimodus]

the real benefit of EP is in the +AS/+MS active, not the life-steal modifier. besides, only the life-stealing part of the item is competing with shieldbreaker. not to mention sb applies a debuff for 3 seconds and you can toggle modifiers. The two items actually complement one another very well.

besides SB is usually seen on ranged carries, and EP on melee shrunken head users.

[Sesshoumaru]

What about making the item like this:

You use it and get the crazed effect which does this:

+100 AS
+20% MS
(Just the buffs, i don't know if i forgot something about it)

And then, when the crazed effect ends, you get this for XX seconds:

+20% Damage taken
-10% Movement speed

This way, it makes an useful item for some stages of the game (Where the teamfights only last a couple of seconds because everything explodes very fast) but it will make a bad item for long fights because the debuff would make you very vulnerable once crazed wears off.

Edit: It will also make the item more hard to use, because you will have to know when to use it to not gimp you.

[Antimodus]

excuse me, what's the reason we need to power up this item to godmode level? Simply because it is not picked up isn't a good enough reason. Explain why the game needs this item / lifesteal in general to be a strong choice. All I see is more me, me, me from carry players who forget this game is supposed to be an actual 5v5 match.

[too`smithie]

My main concern with elder parasite is it’s only really viable on heroes that would need to increase there chances or procing an ability or item.. E.g chronos/pesti bash,Sill salvo, nh backstab, flint, brutilzer, saveage. etc.

Other things to consider with elder parasite
-The hero viability of this item is limited and the majority of them aren’t tanky enough
-It’s an attack modifier.
-Gives no stats, damage, mana or hp
-The 15% extra damage taken when activated scales in the wrong direction later in the game.
-Hyper Stone is similar in price and makes demonic breast plate charged hammer

In my personaly opinion elder parasite is only effective in the early stages of the game later on it’s better off being sold or another orb effect being purchasd to work in conjuction with its attack speed bonuses.

We’ve seen Elder Parastie in competative play once or twice, an honourable mention would be AngrieTesties Chronos when he was a member of clan 5. In this particular case shield breaker was purchased later in the game

Some suitable changes in my opinion to make elder parasite more viable
-The item is no longer an attack modifier (possible nerf to the life steal in this case)
-Completely removing the damage taken when activated (small nerf to the duration and CD)
-Changing the build up to give some small stat bonuses (putting more emphasis on it’s early game viability)

Here are some unique changes to the recipie and cost which I’ve thought of
-Sell cost 1500 – 1900g, enabling you to sell it for no real loss
-Being able to split the item so you can re-utilize hungry spirit

[[LsE]Benny0]

I'm sick of this item being called bad. No, you can't get it on a Flint, or any squishy agi hard carry. Chronos is an exception because of ulti.

This item works well as a farming item and is incredible early on. People need to remember, if this item gives a 15% damage amp, the only time this would've made a difference, if you had 1000 hp (which admittedly isn't much, and this number does get larger, if you got away with 150 hp, EP would've maybe (only maybe) killed you.

It amplifies the damage half of what it does in dota, and people are still acting like it's the full 30% amp.

Incredibly underrated item. If 15% is too high, what % is reasonable? You can't possibly think it needs to go to 0%.

[too`smithie]

I'm sick of this item being called bad. No, you can't get it on a Flint, or any squishy agi hard carry. Chronos is an exception because of ulti.

This item works well as a farming item and is incredible early on. People need to remember, if this item gives a 15% damage amp, the only time this would've made a difference, if you had 1000 hp (which admittedly isn't much, and this number does get larger, if you got away with 150 hp, EP would've maybe (only maybe) killed you.

It amplifies the damage half of what it does in dota, and people are still acting like it's the full 30% amp.

Incredibly underrated item. If 15% is too high, what % is reasonable? You can't possibly think it needs to go to 0%.

No one here is calling the item bad.

The item is under-rated in some cases only. The fact is that it’s subpar to pretty much to every other orb effect available.

You’re statement is partially correct, 15% isn’t high and your right the more hp you get the less that number becomes on the scale of things, but you also fail to mention that as the game goes on hero damage increases.

Can you explain to me logic behind investing 1900g in to elder parasite to increase farm (I assume you mean neutral farm) when I can spend the same amount of gold on Alchemist bones? Or even buy whispering helm which will allow me to farm the bush, and dominant a creep to stack ancients for me?

Also you can buy it on Flint? It’s actually logical to do so with his mass range pretty much reducing his chances of taking extra damage when it’s activated and increasing the change to proc his hollow point shell?

Making the damage taken to 0% upon activation was one suggestion to make the item more viable. Can you suggest something better?

[[PORK]JoOKie]

Personally I think it's just a trash item especially with all these bursty heroes. I also think there's nothing wrong with having items that are just plain bad. It serves its purpose as a joke item pretty well

Then again this sorta goes against the balancing agenda.

[[ScBr]MadPsycho]

I really don't like the item. Against any sort of crowd control, turning on Elder Parasite is the same as digging your own grave. Even if farmed out with a Shrunken Head as well, I can't think of an instance where Elder Parasite would be the next best option.

[Alten]

There is no point in attempting to buff a situational item; it is situational for a reason, and its existence offers interesting dynamics to certain heroes that can exploit it. We do NOT need another universal hyper-damage pick-up to augment the dozens of heroes with the potential to exploit it in the same manner as Shieldbreaker. There are several heroes, such as Maliken or Chronos, that EP can be considered situationally viable on; there is no good reason to buff the item for its own sake.

[GregerMoek]

Remove from the game or buff heavily with some kind of upgrade.
I hate this item more than anything because it more or less ruins games.

Got a fairly decent TDL/Madman/Chronos/Flint/Pred/NH on your team with a sudden good killing spree? OH NOW WHAT IS HE DOING?! BUYING ELDER PARASITE AND THEN LOSING THE GAME?! ****. Yes this has happened in tournament games too, on TDL and Madman.

A horrible horrible sight.

Ragepost aside, I would rather se it reduce armor of some type by a set amount or remove Attack Modify status on the lifesteal. Or give it some kind of upgrade.

Main issues as I see it.

Debuff makes you squish as a mofo. Even scales backwards.
Attack Modify
Build-up isn't the greatest, even if it's rather easy to get anyways.
Heroes that picks it up are often squishy already (And don't say that Chronos' rewind balances that out)


Positives with the item.

Cheap AS and MS
Good farming item
Good when noone is attacking you.
Good if you have some kind of counter on your attacks (Curse of Ages) or a scaling thing or proc per attack (Carnivorous/Hollowpoint/Bash/Chain Lightning)

[[ScBr]MadPsycho]

There are several heroes, such as Maliken or Chronos, that EP can be considered situationally viable on; there is no good reason to buff the item for its own sake.

Situationally when? Describe one situation that is even somewhat plausible where this item would be a valid pickup. The biggest reason why this item used to be so great on Chronos was because Chronos had a percent based stun. With the introduction of cooldowns to the bashes, stacking attackspeed to lock down a hero using a passive bash is no longer viable.

[[LsE]Benny0]

No one here is calling the item bad.

The item is under-rated in some cases only. The fact is that it’s subpar to pretty much to every other orb effect available.

You’re statement is partially correct, 15% isn’t high and your right the more hp you get the less that number becomes on the scale of things, but you also fail to mention that as the game goes on hero damage increases.

Can you explain to me logic behind investing 1900g in to elder parasite to increase farm (I assume you mean neutral farm) when I can spend the same amount of gold on Alchemist bones? Or even buy whispering helm which will allow me to farm the bush, and dominant a creep to stack ancients for me?

Also you can buy it on Flint? It’s actually logical to do so with his mass range pretty much reducing his chances of taking extra damage when it’s activated and increasing the change to proc his hollow point shell?

Making the damage taken to 0% upon activation was one suggestion to make the item more viable. Can you suggest something better?

Alch bones and Whispering helm don't give you 20% movespeed and 100 attack speed.

Whatever, this item just needs to get buffed to 4 second stun Nymph tier before people will admit that 20% ms and 100as with high uptime, and yes, a downside of 15% damage amp, is a good thing. Why not make it slow on hit too, and increase the lifesteal during active. Maybe reduce some armor on hit? Or just lower the cost so it can get picked up even faster?

I can't fathom why people can't see how huge this 20% ms and 100 as is. It nearly doubles your bloody attack speed early on.

[[nist]AgentOrange]

What about making the item like this:

You use it and get the crazed effect which does this:

+100 AS
+20% MS
(Just the buffs, i don't know if i forgot something about it)

And then, when the crazed effect ends, you get this for XX seconds:

+20% Damage taken
-10% Movement speed

This way, it makes an useful item for some stages of the game (Where the teamfights only last a couple of seconds because everything explodes very fast) but it will make a bad item for long fights because the debuff would make you very vulnerable once crazed wears off.

Edit: It will also make the item more hard to use, because you will have to know when to use it to not gimp you.

I really like this idea, but maybe just tweaked a bit!

[[TGCH]OtherPlayers]

Personally the only time that I ever really pick this up is on ramp, and then it's more for the +20 move speed. There is nothing quite like being ramp with elder+phase boots+stormspirit and being able to maintain a higher average move speed then war beast does (18 of 25 seconds or 72% of the time at max move speed as opposed to war beast's 16/40 or only 40% of the time). Plus since you usually end up getting a shrunken anyways you don't need to worry about being stunned that often.