[2.5.10] Harkon's Blade

[[NU]Tomate]

OK, here’s the stats
Cost: 4775
+35 int
+27 dmg
+10 atk speed
+150% MR

Orb effect: Changes the attack to magic damage. Also reduces the magic armor of the target by 5? (pretty sure its 5, its just not on the website and am not in game as I write this. Cost 75 mana per attack.

The item is simply virtually never used. For an INT based hero, it would end up giving 62 damage, 10 atk speed, 150% MR…

Compared to the now infamous shield breaker:
Cost: 4600
+70 damage
-6 physical armor…

You can see that something is wrong in multiple aspects.
A: The build up of Harkon Blades is MUCH harder than shield breaker.
B: Shield breaker cost nothing to use.
C: it isn’t stat dependant for the full outcome.

For Harkon’s blade to see some action, 3 things much come true:
A: An int hero that really needs more DPS over more CC
B: Not being against a team stacked with + magic armor
C: Not having a natural carrier of a sol’s bulwark on your team to provide you with a ‘free’ -4 physical armor.

What this means is that Harkon’s competes with HellFlower (71DMG, 30 atk speed, a CC attached to it) and shield breaker and Totem (best disable on an item). The draw backs are that you need to activate / deactivate it due to the outrageous mana cost, you need to be careful about your attack speed as it can drain your mana extremely fast, magic damage output is often outdated late game that you might as well be better with – physical armor to help your teammates tear a carry up than – magic armor.

Overall, the item is a very mediocre, subpar item that is hard countered by a shrunken head, must be activated for unobvious reasons and cost an outrageous amount of mana for unobvious reason.

Please discuss, below is my own discussion of what the problem / possible solutions are:

Problem fix: The orb effect is active at all time, cost 0 mana, applies to single target click spells (think of how shield breaker works for Nomad, Drunken Master…) This pretty much helps every single target spell in the game, helps int carries that just all disappeared, reposition the item with its comparable morph attack items…

[[TECH]YawningAngel]

Approved.

[Anakha]

"Overall, the item is a very mediocre, subpar item that is hard countered by a shrunken head, must be activated for unobvious reasons and cost an outrageous amount of mana for unobvious reason."

It's also a super shieldbreaker that gives absurd amounts of effective damage. I don't think you understand quite how batshit insane this item potentially is.

[[PDNO]frtzarn]

Agreeing with Anakha here (as per usual). Harkons is one of the best lategame damage options, and lategame is is unquestionably better than SB (may need MacroHard to back me up with mathcraft here). SB is very good when people have low physical armor, but lategame people have 20+ physical armor, which harkons TOTALLY IGNORES, making it essentially true damage. Even with a shamans, harkon's still crushes.

It is a situational item and should remain situational, as I love the item but do not want to see it every game.

[[GM]Cyber_Kun]

This item is important for countering heavy armor teams and other specific situations. It might not be common, but I would not call it weak or anything like that.

[lolb0t]

Agreeing with Anakha here (as per usual). Harkons is one of the best lategame damage options, and lategame is is unquestionably better than SB (may need MacroHard to back me up with mathcraft here). SB is very good when people have low physical armor, but lategame people have 20+ physical armor, which harkons TOTALLY IGNORES, making it essentially true damage. Even with a shamans, harkon's still crushes.

It is a situational item and should remain situational, as I love the item but do not want to see it every game.

there is no lategame any more. the average game goes on for about 30 minutes.


the 1st time i've seen a comp game go for over an hour in last 5 months was today in tdm vs lions. and even then nobody bothered with any late game items, even selling sheep sticks and buying behemoth heart for survivability against burst


this item needs to be tweaked to be made far far earlier in the game, since the meta game has progressed so much to quicker bursts and quicker tower pushing

[Deva]

^Same as Cyber_Kun

The item is totally viable when countering heavy armor teams, or as a last item in late game when the vestments on the opponents are gone and the bkb's have low charges. Only thing I would like to see is a decrease of the manacost per attack, maybe 60 instead of 75? Else the item is fine (even for Agility carries)

[skeloperch]

Only thing it really needs is a reduction on the mana cost. I don't wanna pay 75 mana for that orb when I could have FWS (which is better in almost every single conceivable way, seeing as how it allows you to kite some to hell and back). I think it needs an average damage of 3::1 mana damage ratio the entire game for it to be worthwhile, as it does have an incredibly niche use, competes with other modifiers, and is hard as hell to build up, requiring a hefty 2.7k to be dropped to buy it.

[Lethe]

The item is fine. But late-game high dps heroes are obsolete. Which makes Harkon's even rarer than it was before.

[[DDDz]Devourawr]

I'm going against the current here and in going to say its UP. With the super easy Shieldbreaker, and Bulwark, you can have minus 10 armour on a target 20 minutes into the game, provided they are picked up by two different heroes on the same team.

With every single hero ever having Vestments as a core item, Harkons just can't deal enough for the horrific price tag attatched and the ferocious mana costs per attack. You basically have to have a Nullstone/Axe/Totem alongside this item in order to actually use it effectively.

Agreeing with what someone said above me, S2 is still trying to for a tankier, early type of carry metagame, meaning that by the time you have this item the opposing teams Kraken/Ra/Tremble/Zephyr is just going to be too powerful to stop. Games end at 30 minutes but are essentially over 15 minutes into the game.

[LordTroll]

The item itself is awesome. However, the only gripe I have with it is the high cost on each attack, it's quite taxing on agility carries (which it can work great on, don't be silly and say it's only potentially good on ints).

Though at the same time it needs to have some cost, because - magic armor is much stronger than - armor lategame. So, I'd propose lowering it from 75 to 35-40 mana per attack. Still will be felt, won't allow carries to farm with it, but they'll also be allowed to use their skills without being afraid of running dry fast (think The Dark Lady).

[Doracahl]

Wrong.

Everyone is basing their statements on pure opinion when it really is about situation. While late game people have around 20 armor and around 9 magic armor doesn't mean it's "batshit" crazy. It merely means most people don't bother stacking magic armor because it wouldn't make sense.

Like someone said early, Shruken Hard counters the item completely.

Unlike a shield breaker, where all you have to do is get more armor, harkon's would have to be turned off during a shrunken which would basically reduce the dps to crap of whoever was wielding it (more than likely)

[Orchest]

there is no lategame any more. the average game goes on for about 30 minutes.


the 1st time i've seen a comp game go for over an hour in last 5 months was today in tdm vs lions. and even then nobody bothered with any late game items, even selling sheep sticks and buying behemoth heart for survivability against burst


this item needs to be tweaked to be made far far earlier in the game, since the meta game has progressed so much to quicker bursts and quicker tower pushing

Check Hellbourne's inventories and armour stats in that game - no Shrunkens, I think a single MV, no one sitting on less than 20 armour, most heroes sitting at 25-35 armour with the PR buff.

And what was in Valk's inventory?

Shieldbreaker.

Now, far be it from me to accuse pro-players of making bad decisions, but Shieldbreaker against a team that has PR is already pretty questionable - keeping it lategame when for 2350 gold you could swap it for a Harkons, and trade 43dmg/-6 armour for straight up -30ish armour is ****ing insane (and we were consistantly looking at 3-4k hp heroes, so the EHP difference is a huge deal). Throw in two Ghost Scepters and it's a done deal.

It's also not like at this stage of the game you can just do the "I'll buy a 400 gold item to boost my MA out of the Really Bad Zone where armour coefficients are worst for damage taken..." because your slots are maxed out and you're trading a huge investment for it...

Basically it's incredibly strong within its niche... If anything, FWS is still the thing holding it back because superlategame FWS is still better on the whole, with the big exceptions of Ghost Scepters and pure damage output (as opposed to applied damage output, EHP and so on)... If there'd been a Harkons in that game around the time that the teamfight happened before HB top and Legion bot went (above the Kong pit) it could very well have gone differently - Valk survived most of the fight, but was outputting pitiful damage because her SB was useless - no other single item swap out could have had that impact...

[Doracahl]

I'm referring to him stating that it is getting a buildup change. He's wrong.

Harkon's auto-deactivates to use no mana when attacking a target it wont affect as magic damage. -16 armour at an absolute minimum is a huge deal for a dps item (since harkon's is -5ma onhit). If you can't see that, I really really feel sorry for you.

where are you getting this -16 armor from? Harkon's is -5

[Anakha]

where are you getting this -16 armor from? Harkon's is -5

If you read my post carefully, you'll notice that I stated that harkon's is -5. Therefore, I must be referring to something else! Something else indeed...let's look closer...
"While late game people have around 20 armor and around 9 magic armor"

9-5=4
20-4=16
-16 armour.

[Doracahl]

If you read my post carefully, you'll notice that I stated that harkon's is -5. Therefore, I must be referring to something else! Something else indeed...let's look closer...
"While late game people have around 20 armor and around 9 magic armor"

9-5=4
20-4=16
-16 armour.

ok, basically you are assuming too much.

If you are going to assume it's "late game" you have to hold everything else constant. If players are going to be at the high armors then they need to have at -least- 15 with shamans on top of that, mostly only agi heroes have the 20+ armor in a long game.

so 15 - 5 = 10 (harkons)
or 20 - 6 = 14 (shield breaker)

You can't just stack the numbers in a biased manner to prove your point-- Also your selective quoting on my 9 armor (should of also said 10) was to just show there no need to stack it since they would just get a shrunken and cancel it out entirely , as well as leading back to OP's point, they wouldn't need to stack it in the first place because no one gets Harkon's anyways

[[IaF]Skyve]

"Overall, the item is a very mediocre, subpar item that is hard countered by a shrunken head, must be activated for unobvious reasons and cost an outrageous amount of mana for unobvious reason."

It's also a super shieldbreaker that gives absurd amounts of effective damage. I don't think you understand quite how batshit insane this item potentially is.

Exactly. Harkon's is basically the strongest lategame dps item - ignoring the enemies' armor an only getting reduced by magic armor makes a gigantic difference, especially lategame against most agi heroes and teams that stack armor (Plague, Keeper, Hammer).

@those people talking about armor:
Vestments are often sold on many heroes during the lategame. Sol's and RotT are usually existent on most teams, providing a total of +8 armor as an aura (RotT, Abyssal, Nome's don't stack).

Most heroes that you will need the bonus damage from Harkon's against will have items like Plated Graves, Barbed Armor or a high agi-growth. The situation where a hero you attack has low armor occurs usually against underfarmed support heroes - where the difference of Harkon's vs SB doesn't matter most of the time because your damage shoulde be easily enough anyways.

[Anakha]

ok, basically you are assuming too much.

If you are going to assume it's "late game" you have to hold everything else constant. If players are going to be at the high armors then they need to have at -least- 15 with shamans on top of that, mostly only agi heroes have the 20+ armor in a long game.

so 15 - 5 = 10 (harkons)
or 20 - 6 = 14 (shield breaker)

You can't just stack the numbers in a biased manner to prove your point-- Also your selective quoting on my 9 armor (should of also said 10) was to just show there no need to stack it since they would just get a shrunken and cancel it out entirely , as well as leading back to OP's point, they wouldn't need to stack it in the first place because no one gets Harkon's anyways

I'm assuming EXACTLY the numbers you stated. Harkon's IS a 3rd/4th slot lategame item; assuming otherwise is like assuming Riftshards will be the first damage item for a carry (and before someone attempts to correct me, Shroud is Gladiator's first damage item).

Nothing I said there was "selective quoting" or "stacking numbers in a biased manner". You stated that heroes likely have 20 p-armour and 9 m-armour. 10.5 m-armour is still 9.5+5= -14.5 armour.

If you're going to attempt to split hairs and say that agility carries will have shaman's, you're delusional. Tank carries will have shaman's, and even then, they stack armour to a much higher degree than agility carries (15 m-armour to 30 p-armour with buffs), and are just as susceptible.

***** please.

[[TECH]YawningAngel]

I didn't realise the fact that this item makes you do a metric shitton of damage was in question. Can we discuss what's interesting, which is why nobody gets it?

[Anakha]

Sure. Nobody gets it, because the HoN competitive scene for the most part is a cesspool of uncreative circlejerkers that are unable to think outside of the box or think critically about item acquisitions (see: tdm vs lions)
They are mostly led like sheep by the few innovators within the scene, which the sheep then follow blindly since they all play against each other constantly and thus have trouble developing any kind of distinctly different playstyle, since they all get sucked into trying to copy the "best" strat at any given time.

Or it just has an extremely difficult buildup with an Acolyte Staff and an overall INT primary, which makes it undesirable for most people as a stat stick.