[2.5.14] Patch Reception

[[oyk]AnthraxGod]

The only real nerf to vindicator was the removal of old glyph of silence

Sadly i approve of sages lore being removed mana drains shouldn't exist mana drains are inherently powerful and unfun to play against. yes unfun should be a valid argument this is still a game that a MAJORITY of the community plays for fun

LoL is proof that more people play these games for fun then to be competitive so the removal of very unfun things is good.

masters is still a solid very powerful attack

and back to glyph, the new glyph is trash you pretty much have to build hellflower to have enough regen to keep up using masters but you dont really want to build it because you have a bunch of attack speed from glyph so youl want sheep stick but you don't want that because your a hard carry with minimal support capability now. point is youl need more then just 100% mana regen espicially without the int steal wich made vindi into a hard carry in itself.

And speaking of unfun again combo heroes killing your whole team with portal key / amazing move speed over and over and over is unfun and vindicator was a solid counter to **** like pebbles and armadon now we got nothing to fight crap like this there is no other hero i know of that can counter combo as good as old vindicator so now (espicially in casual mode yes yes i know CM but people play it and combo heroes are very very popular since they can dominate)

all in all a solid attempt at mixing up an old hero minus the fact his third ability is now a steaming pile just change the third ability back and he can go back to being an ok semi support carry thing

also i would suggest the first ability be rethought into something else like a CC of some sort instead of this underpowered nuke

[cREATEK]

just my 2 cents,

Andromeda buff awsome.
Ra nerf not needed.
Vindi is useless atm, played him few games, he doesnt do anything anymore but autoattack with bad dmg. No escaped-mechanic, you just get raped or ignored in teamfights and all u do is autoattack. Unless 3rd skill is buffed he wont see competitive nor pub play.

[Anakha]

"yes unfun should be a valid argument this is still a game that a MAJORITY of the community plays for fun "

but it isnt. bl.

[[eR]Ekamo]

lol. What a terrible argument. This might have been thought through by 14 dudes for a while so thousands of people who liked the old vindicator are just wrong in even making a peep when they see a beloved original character deleted from the game and replaced with another humdrum carry garbage?

What an inane and contentless statement, the old vindicator must have gotten quite a few kills on you.

S'pose you could use your mod powers to delete this and *silence* me and the rest of the community that is irritated about this. It would be the most silencing that's going to happen for a while.

I dare say the majority of those thousands of members haven't put in any serious thought into WHY this change happened.
Disregarding that completely, I can say right now that Vindicator will most likely NEVER return back to his previous form, simply because of how badly designed S2 thinks he was. There is nothing that says though that there won't be several tweaks to this new design, and any input on this would be most valuable.

Why would you claim that I am mad at the old Vindicator? Why would you claim that I have any reason to "silence" the community? Hell, I am part of the community if anything.

[TheJohns]

So, how did you guys feel when you had to face a Vindicator and you weren't Swiftblade or Blood Hunter?

[[GM]Cyber_Kun]

The only objection I have is that DOGKaiser needed to find a middle ground for True-Strike / Mirage Strike Disparity.

Right now, it is a +20 buff to True Strike with a -80 nerf to Mirage strike.

Perhaps, Mirage Strike doing: 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 while True Strike doing: 100 / 145 / 190 / 235.

Current damage from Mirage Strike to True Strike. 100 to 200. 50% of the damage.

Your suggested numbers. 51.16%

Did you even think when you just said this? The hero is a much better place and he needs to be judged more if he needs a change.

For Vindicator himself? I understand why people might not like that it punishes combo heroes and not heroes that rely on less spam but the change itself is silly. They just changed him to some random carry that no one cares to focus. I would rather keep the Silence on the aura somehow, changing it isn't the biggest deal to me. Maybe make his Aura silence in a 800 radius for 1 second every 4/3.5/3/2.5 seconds? I don't know but silence on attack is useless in most cases and it defeats the purpose of having a Vindicator.

[Cyanotic]

Sadly i approve of sages lore being removed mana drains shouldn't exist mana drains are inherently powerful and unfun to play against. yes unfun should be a valid argument this is still a game that a MAJORITY of the community plays for fun

Such an arbitrary and inane argument. Having your mana drained is not fun? How about being killed by a two skill combo? How about being stunned? How about being killed by autoattacks? Is that fun?

Being silenced may not be 'fun', but if you can tell me what attribute of the game that contributes to your heroes death is fun then I will agree wholeheartedly.

[TTDhunter]

nomad's mirage strike damage being reduced is bs it ****s up his specialty(harassing) he goes mid because he is awesome at harassing and now WDF!

[GregerMoek]

Worst patch ever, yes even worse since Ra came to Newerth.




No but seriously, I don't like the rework and currently I am too butthurt to even give an objective observation.

Q is obviously better than the first skill, I don't get why they changed name though.
E is obviously tons worse, moreover it's disabled when Vindi is stunned.

More or less Vindi is now a glasscannon with niche ultimate rather than something disrupting in team fights that can turn into steady damage dealing. I personally don't like the focus shift from e -> w because after the change (OP or not) his importance in the drafting stage of the game won't ever be the same.

[samst]

Loving the new Q on Vindi, disliking his Glyph, the proc needs to happen to anyone that hits him (aoe effects or not) or it should be a little aoe silence effect, so that right click carries can be slightly hurtful to their team members if positioned badly.

it's pretty bad right now imo But yay for Brain Drain!

[[LsE]Benny0]

I am strongly with S2; Vindicator before was a terrible concept and so situationally broken or worthless that he did not belong in the game. And as I have said over and over and over again, if he was going to be broken against your lineup, he was banned, 100% of the time. What is the point of a niche pick when his niche is so narrow you can just ban him if he's going to be a problem?

E is weak as it is right now, Q is strong, and W is very strong. At least he doesn't instawin lanes anymore, and doesn't make heroes like Chipper worthless. I understand why having niche heroes is good, but Vindicator was stupid. He always was. Unfortunately, it'd be better just to have changed him into Obsidian Destroyer >_>

[[420]salokin]

I am strongly with S2; Vindicator before was a terrible concept and so situationally broken or worthless that he did not belong in the game. And as I have said over and over and over again, if he was going to be broken against your lineup, he was banned, 100% of the time. What is the point of a niche pick when his niche is so narrow you can just ban him if he's going to be a problem?

E is weak as it is right now, Q is strong, and W is very strong. At least he doesn't instawin lanes anymore, and doesn't make heroes like Chipper worthless. I understand why having niche heroes is good, but Vindicator was stupid. He always was. Unfortunately, it'd be better just to have changed him into Obsidian Destroyer >_>

I think this is a good analysis. Vindi was one of those heroes where he was either completely worthless ( due to the other team having no/not many combo heroes and strong spammable skills in lane) or completely broken to the point where it wasn't even a fun game (behemoth, pebbles, tb, etc). He needed a middle ground, because he was simply one buff or one nerf away from either being 100% ban/pick or completely worthless.

Assuming his new Q stacks with itself (short cooldown) or keeps the highest amount of charges and refreshes the time (e.g first time htis 5 players, + 15 int, second time hits only one player, but still keeps the 15 int but just refreshes the time) then it was an overall buff to this ability. His e, i think, needed to be changed, but not to this worthless state. Overall, I'd slightly change (not buff) his e and give him +5 or +10 ms, as he is just way to squishy with zero escape/survivability to be moving that slowly.

[Beroya]

Loved most of the changes, especially the kinesis, ra, and vindicator ones. Well, kinesis was more along the lines of bug fixes, but I digress.

I like the new playing style with vindicator compared to "stand there, hope you're ignored, hard counter 3/4's of the hero pool," though it appears the changes may have been too heavy-handed. The nerf to the passive makes it hilariously easy to avoid and Brain Drain has an unsustainably high cost per individual cast.

Maybe switching over to a charge-based silence on attack for E would work better. Or Q returning mana for each hero successfully hit, reducing the strain on Vindi's pool for multiple successful hits.

[Orchest]

HOW DARE A HERO HAVE USEFULNESS THAT WASN'T ABSOLUTE, AND WAS INSTEAD BASED AROUND AN INTELLIGENT ASSESSMENT OF THE GAME STATE.


HOW.
DARE.
HEROES.
BE.
DIFFERENT.


Horrible change. S2 is even starting to normalise old DotA heroes to fit their model for design (everyone balanced along the same axis, fewer total number of capabilities on offer from pool, specificity of picks unimportant).

HORRID change. Vindicator/Silencer's design has always had problems and not everyone liked him - it's not necessarily fun to play as or against him, but you know what? Motorcycles have always had design problems, and not everyone likes them (a very small minority of people do actually) - it's not necessarily fun to ride them, and it's not necessarily fun to ride on the same road as them.

But guess what S2 - just the same as an open air cabin is both the design problem that the majority of people hate in motorcycles (hence inherrent lack of safety etc), Vindicator's vulnerability matched with non-offensive utility was what people liked in him. The positives he could have brought to the game in the form of diversity of lineups and actual "meta-gaming" were immense.

And you ****ed them all; like a red haired man using a rat to wank. This change was wrong on the same level as that.

He'll see use now, but you've gutted pretty much everything worthwhile about him as a concept for the game. Congrats.

[[eR]Ekamo]

Not siding with anyone on the matter, but to be fair, Vindicator still has the same game-breaking ultimate as ever.

There will be a niche for him, just not as defined as it has been up to now. What it will be is still too early to tell though.

[foxmindedguy]

HOW DARE A HERO HAVE USEFULNESS THAT WASN'T ABSOLUTE, AND WAS INSTEAD BASED AROUND AN INTELLIGENT ASSESSMENT OF THE GAME STATE.


HOW.
DARE.
HEROES.
BE.
DIFFERENT.


Horrible change. S2 is even starting to normalise old DotA heroes to fit their model for design (everyone balanced along the same axis, fewer total number of capabilities on offer from pool, specificity of picks unimportant).

HORRID change. Vindicator/Silencer's design has always had problems and not everyone liked him - it's not necessarily fun to play as or against him, but you know what? Motorcycles have always had design problems, and not everyone likes them (a very small minority of people do actually) - it's not necessarily fun to ride them, and it's not necessarily fun to ride on the same road as them.

But guess what S2 - just the same as an open air cabin is both the design problem that the majority of people hate in motorcycles (hence inherrent lack of safety etc), Vindicator's vulnerability matched with non-offensive utility was what people liked in him. The positives he could have brought to the game in the form of diversity of lineups and actual "meta-gaming" were immense.

And you ****ed them all; like a red haired man using a rat to wank. This change was wrong on the same level as that.

He'll see use now, but you've gutted pretty much everything worthwhile about him as a concept for the game. Congrats.

Err... You do need to realize that HON needs to make the game somewhat catered towards the general public. Regardless of whatever they claim about their balancing formula (being completely based on competitive insight), a major chunk of money they make is still amateur people.

This is not the LOL approach, this is a smart business approach. In LOL even a lame steamer gets more views than the toppest HON player? Why? Because catering to the needs of the masses is equally (if not more) important than listening to the competitive insight.

S2 can claim all they want about them only taking professional view into consideration, the voice of the masses does affect them.

Vindicator was a disabler, which made the game bland and boring. People want constant action, thus a good change. Now all we need is to work out a few kinks in the hero.

[[GnJA]Good_Apollo]

I don't think S2 could have possibly understood the problems with Vindicator when the rework simply stripped him of his good aspects.

It's mind boggling. Also Andro buffs after what just seemed like very recent nerfs?

[EDIT] Surprised at the smart Ra nerf, however.

[[RCT]Reldnahc]

So much butthurt for the vindi changes, I thought they were fantastic and what the hero needed. E could still use some fine tuning, but he certainly fills the hard carry role quite effectively now. He has always been a perma ban or trash tier hero because of how he played against the entire pool. Not to mention he was in this weird meshed role that no one was exactly sure whether to carry or support on him. Just as long as his E isn't reverted I'm happy because that was an abomination that inhibited gameplay tremendously.

Ra changes were nice.

Andro buffs not too bad.

Rest of the changes were decent, nothing outrageous.

[Jeroz]

while we are at it, why not revert back to his previous iteration as well? Damn you S2 for removing that ulti, the reason why kraken is there in the first place. After that change he's useless now.

/sarcasm

seriously guys, give it time, it has not even been 24 hours. Try a different play style, treat as a new hero if you must. Just because he doesn't share the same strength/weakness as his previous form (which is what a REMAKE is suppose to do by the way) doesn't mean that he's completely worthless now. Sure there may need to be some tweaks down the line, but it's still too early to make the final call at the moment.

[kierensays]

Well, Vindi is pretty much useless now.
*sigh*
Sages lore was beautiful.