[2.5.10] Harkon's Blade

[HeLLgEiST]

Love harkons but it's buildup versus reward is far too situational. Most of the time its more beneficial just to grab a sheep. I'd like to see the buildup become a bit easier or the mana cost removed or reduced by 75%.

[too`smithie]

The item is only fitting for hard carry’s if you think about it’s price and the fact it’s an orb effect to increase damage. The draw backs certainly out way the benefits in my opinion.

From experience I used to buy it on DR, but I buy it less now as I find it just takes my mana way too quickly, same for puppet, scout, madman (insert hard carry here)

What also makes harkons subpar is that heroes have 5.5 magic armour, for 400g you can add vestments that’s +5, not only that but headdress / idols adds + 10 magic armour. Not to mention BKB.

Can I also mention that this item is the only counter to void talisman.

To balance harkons out and make it attractive I would start by doing the following.

1) Increasing the cost of vestments to 650 - 700
2) Reduce the mana cost to 25.
3) Increasing the –magic armour to 6
4) Increase the damage from 27 to 30 or 35.

Reasons.
1) To cheap for its benefits heroes have 9.5 magic armour from a 400g investment. Players will buy for the sake of it.
2) As an example if you throw 10 auto attacks in a fight you’ve lost 750 mana. Where as if it cost 25 mana you would lose 250 mana.
-750 mana is a huge loss for non intel heroes.
3) Harkons is a late game item due to its build up. Tanks in this meta will easily have over 15 magic armour. -5 is hardly effective to counter.
4) As above 27 damage is not that huge on a hard carry, hence why shield breaker is more common.


Just my 2cents.

[[eR]Ekamo]

Try linking it instead. No one will bother looking through tons of matches to find the right one.

This.

[[SBT]Rkey]

Remove true strike from Savage mace, add true strike to harkon's.

- Will increase the viability of wingbow
- Will hardly affect the effectivity/pickup rate of savage mace
- Will make harkon's viable

Huge and awesome fix.

[NakedMouse]

The answer to this is a micro-buff like they did with Puppet Master back in the day, where it doesn't really matter that much but gets people to notice. I suggest a minor attack speed buff.

[[CTSW]AdobeFeeder9]

Lower manacost to something negligible (40 or so). Other than that, it is fine. Maybe...make it not orb effect (let it stack with other orbs), or make it lowest priority orb so you can activate it as you see fit.
Potentially super strong late game, and a logical counter to the increasing emphasis on armor that the metagame seems to be heading towards.

[ShenziLaRue]

I dunno about this item being bad in itself its just so hard to farm compared to shieldbreaker so maybe a different buildup?

I only go for it on puppet.

[[IaF]Skyve]

One problem with Harkon's is that it was designed because people were asking for an item that increases magic damage, but effectively it is a rightclick dps item.

[Stickyrolls]

It's obviously meant as a late game item, I think that's why the mana drain was attached to it in the first place. You usually have to get a sheep/hellflower to sustain it. The problem is that late game every hero that could have had the gold for a shrunken now has one. People are thinking about this the wrong way though, I would like to see it used as a spell amp damage item for NON carries late game. Say a middle pyro that has done well with ganks all game, has his sheep and pk and is now ready to effectively increase the damage of his burt. But this brings up another point, if you are getting it to amp your spell damage why not get shards for a LOT less.

I like the item, I really do but the fact of the nature of it being magic damage and thus doing 0 damage vs bkb makes it extremely situational or at worst a last item slot luxery item. Since there are so few situations where you want it it's hard to think of it when you are shopping for your next item, just doesn't come to mind.

Big misconception is that you have to get this on int heroes, I've seen this item used to great success on swift blade
TL;DR ok item heavily countered by shrunken head, like the idea of -magic armor being added to spells automatically similar to SB.

[Fen__]

1) Increasing the cost of vestments to 650 - 700
2) Reduce the mana cost to 25.
3) Increasing the –magic armour to 6
4) Increase the damage from 27 to 30 or 35.

Yes, that sounds like a balance. Lets nerf everything that is possible + give a uber buff and all will be fine !

Only prob with harkons is the mana cost, reduce it and it will be fine. It would be nice as well to make it toggalble if you want to use harkons on heroes only or creeps as well.

Only reason why comp players arent using harkons are their copy cat behaviours, like many stated before. I remember puppet before nerfs, everytime when i saw savage mace on puppet i was like WTF are they doing ? Hellflower is just superior to SM on int carry in every way (beside maybe countering nh smokebomb). Than finally somebody made a pm with hellflower and whole comp scene stopped taking savage mace(beside some srsly dumb in terms of item pickups) and mass purchuasing HF.

Its same story with harkons, unless smb will pick it up on decently farmed dr and 3hit people, nobody will take it in comp games :/

But i have to admit with 1 thing - 75 mana cost is hard nerfing this item, and thats main reason why we dont see it in mid game. Lowering to 40 is a much needed change which wont unbalance this item.

[PowerBro]

You guys almost talk like if everyone has 15 to 20 armor late game... Someone even mentioned: with plague's armor on, everyone has 20-25 armor... Yeah, and with DS's ultimate, they can all have 40...

In a ultra late game scenario, I would not even use Harkon as my modifier... I would use Symbol of rage which provides the very best ultra late game modifier... For both the active and the massive lifesteal once teamed up with crazy damage...

That said, I feel like Harkon could just not have a mana cost that it would actually have very little impact on its overall power. It would just be an orb like any other orb and I doubt this is what would all of a sudden make it appear in every game... It sure would give the item a way less annoying side and make it more enjoyable.

[Herbert_West]

Stop using ellipses like that, it looks stupid and makes reading harder. Just a tip.

Symbol of Rage is not the absolute end of discussion best attack modifier, and Harkon's would be absolutely batshit broken if there was no manacost. You're underrating the item way too much.

[PowerBro]

I guess we could add a 40 mana cost to FrostWolf, a 40 mana cost to Shield breaker, a 25 to any life steal to make it balanced...

This oviously is a troll comment. My point is that I believe the item is powerful but no where as broken as you guys make it sound to be, other wise, we would see this item, would it at least be in pubs games... which currently, I never see.

[Herbert_West]

Yes, and my point was that you're wrong.

[Anakha]

You guys almost talk like if everyone has 15 to 20 armor late game...

Protip: "late game" isn't when you decide to give up 15min in.

[[moo]Rayne_Mayne]

One problem with Harkon's is that it was designed because people were asking for an item that increases magic damage, but effectively it is a rightclick dps item.

See, this is what I always thought. I thought this was supposed to be another type of Carry item for those nukers who didnt scale that S2 decided needed to be relevent all game. Say for a Thunderbringer or Pyro. But spellshards seemed to take that Niche away.

I dont have any idea what this item is supposed to do. I see some people say it counters high armor teams but that seems like an odd role for this item. So right now who would ever use this item? An int hero that carries through autoattacks? But in that field its underwhelming because it adds 0 survivability and there are better DPS options out there.

And then there is also the issue of it competing against Guinsoo because of the staff in the recipe. And thats another reason why you wouldnt want to pick this up. 99% of the time if ur getting staff the disable will be the best way to go.

Overall i think this item needs a fairly large overhaul, or atleast re-imagining.

[Jeffbelittle]

Does Harkons and Spellshards stack?

[[CID]masterprtzl]

Heres the problem I see. For only a bit more you could have a kuldras. And as an Int carry, Kuldras still gives you DPS (not as much but still), it gives you more survivability in the +10 stats and gives you a hard CC. And similarly Harkons has to compete with Hellflower which is infinitely more buildable, possibly the most buildable DPS item in the game, and has an amp damage silence. There are other more useful items that your int carrys can be building.

Another problem is int carries and other super late game hard carry DPS aren't even being used commonly anymore. The tanky mid game bursty metagame has taken them out of the loop. The heroes harkons was super viable on aren't being used that much. Mainly puppet, who in my opinion needs a pretty big buff to be considered a viable carry again.

Does Harkons and Spellshards stack?

Pretty sure that they dont stack due to spellshards not bringing someone under 0 magic armor and Harkons is a debuff placed on the enemy. Spellshards would be calculated after that debuff.

[snapdoodle]

Pretty sure that they dont stack due to spellshards not bringing someone under 0 magic armor and Harkons is a debuff placed on the enemy. Spellshards would be calculated after that debuff.

it stacks but only in bringing the person down to 0 magic dmg. you can never go below 0 with spellshard.

[[TOPS]urban]

Does Harkons and Spellshards stack?

Sort of, harkons will take effect first, then spellshards.

Example
5.5 magic armor - 5 (harkons) = 0.5 -0.5 (spellshards) = 0
10.5 -5 (harkons) = 5.5 - 5.5 (spellshards 3) = 0
15.5 - 5 (harkons) = 10.5 - 6 (spellshards 3) = 4.5