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Ok, i want to hear your opinions when it comes to demented shaman. My biggest issue with him is builds. There are soo many builds people use on demented shaman, its really hard to pick out the best, and I am pretty stubborn about my.
I will go E->Q->E->Q->E->R in 90% of my DS games, because that will alow me to punish anyone who gets near the creeplane, and at lvl 7 will get me a stun on Q. Also this will allow me to go head to head with pretty much any hero ingame.
Items i go for, ring of the teacher, steamboots and after that i try to get nomes (bloodchalice if necessary)
I just do not understand people who do not want to get his ult at lvl 6. Honestly its one of the strongest ultimates in the game. I think as little as 5 armor is already 25% reduction in dmg. So if you cast the ult over yourself and the enemy after 5 seconds he will do ~25% less dmg to you while you will do 25% more dmg to him.
What would be the reason to skip such a strong ult?
A successful skillbuild for dsham relies heavily upon your situation.
For example, if you are in an offensive lane, you should build E - Q - Q - E - Q - R. This provides some excellent CC for your lane, and if you can get off a properly timed Q (i.e., right when your creeps are about to push forward), your E will do lots of damage to an enemy hero who subsequently gets surrounded by creeps. R amplifies the damage from these two abilities, and your autoattacks.
On the other hand, if you are against an offensive lane, you may want to consider going E - W - E - W - E - W. The slow isn't as useful in this case, when you need the added survivability that W provides. W also makes you a high priority target by making your autoattacks do more damage. This is good, since with W on you will have a significant increase in effective HP. Getting the ult in this case isn't as useful, as the slow tick-up in armor won't save you from a quick death, plus the majority of the enemies' damage is likely not physical in this early point in the game.
To answer your question OP, when facing an offensive lane or a gank, dsham's ult proves to not be very useful, due to the time it takes to gain any significant amount of armor. This is why you might consider not getting his ult at lvl 6, if you absolutely require his other abilities to stay alive. His ultimate is much more effective when you yourself are ganking, and even more useful just before a teamfight. Don't forget you can just cast it on your team beforehand to make yourselves much more resistant to a heavy physical damage team.
I also talk more about dsham in this thread: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...d.php?t=386752
Last edited by DrunkHON; 03-13-2012 at 12:42 PM.
An important thing to take into consideration is the cap of usefulness on Dshams stun. At rank one, it does 1 second 33% slow. Basically useless. Rank two it does 2 seconds 66% slow. Slightly better, but still not great. Rank three it does 3 seconds 66% slow AND a 1 second stun at the end of the duration. This is where it gets good. At rank four it just adds an extra 7 damage to the dot, which is basically useless. For this reason, I usually go E-W-Q-Q-Q-E-E-E-W-R-R-W-W-S-S-R.
The stun can help land some early kills, which are huge if you're supporting your carry. The ult is incredibly good, but the duration is very short on rank one which is why I usually put off getting it in favor of a better heal. The exception would be if you have a good push team (temp/tree) with a lot of minions who can benefit from the armor. Maxing the heal early lets you farm creep waves in an instant, which can really come in handy as you should be sacrificing most of your early game farm to you carry. Plus the 6 second cd will have your teammates worshipping you for constantly saving their asses.
I do E-Q-E-Q-Q-E-E-R-whatever for most lanes, rarely an exception.
I only do E-W-E-W-E-W-W-E in special cases where either there's a nasty lane, or I'm laning with a DM, Monkey King or Panda or something for the bonus damage W gives them (even then it's hard to give a plausible reason not to level stun+heal when laning with them).
people also seriously underestimate the benefits of a maxed heal early on:What would be the reason to skip such a strong ult?
- Healing Wave
Chains between the successively closest 3 / 3 / 4 / 5 targets, healing each for 80 / 100 / 120 / 140. Enemy units within a 180 radius of a healed target will take 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 Physical Damage per target.
The difference between a level 3 Healing Wave and Level 4 is potentially HUGE
Level 3 Healing Wave; 120x4 = 480 potential physical damage, 8 second cooldown
Level 4 Healing Wave; 140x5 = 700 potential physical damage, 6 second cooldown
^That's more damage than a facking Pyro ultimate, and on a 6 second cooldown lmao..
This is why I tend to laugh at the people who don't max heal first, they obviously have no idea how Demented Shaman works; yes his heal may push the lane, but when any enemy hero that was near the creep wave just disintegrates I'd say it was worth it
Level 3 Q is obviously for the stun. and I take ult at level 8 because yes it really is a monster ultimate.
tl;dr - difference between level 3 and level 4 Healing Wave is a potential 220 more damage on top of having a 6 second cooldown to spam it; I'd say leveling it over ulti is worth it as it allows you to be hyper aggressive, doing more damage and having less cooldown while also healing you for more. Ulti really is great and all, but it can wait 2 levels for the Stun on Q and big damage on E.
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FOR ALL THAT IS HOLY~!
Don't worry guys, Lodestone won't be getting picked up in competitive, your balance forum regulars have assured it in this Lodestone balance thread ;)
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?470528-Lodestone-First-Impressions&p=15618341&viewfull=1#post15618341
Dsham is my most played hero right now (ignore flint, played him at 1500), and for most lanes I go 3-1-1-2-1-3-3-3-4-4-2-2-2-1-5-4. However, he has one of the most situational builds out there, and I will readily modify it. And for anyone who's curious, I take 1 at 14 for the cooldown and the extra 49 damage. I've gotten many kills with Entangle, and that just makes it easier.
For my items, I go boots, Chalice, Striders. I don't usually get past that point what with always buying wards and counterwards, but if I do I'll probably go Tablet-Nomes-Stormspirit-(once)Sheepstick.
This isn't by any means a professional build, but it's the one that has been tried and true for me.
I love this hero and he is so stronk.
Skill build (my most common): e,q,e,q,q,r,e,e I then procede to max my w and picking up my ult whenever I can. I do not max my q until last because the difference between lvl 3 and 4 is that 4 only does extra damage.
Item build: RoT, steamboots (striders if hard game), warding and upgrading courier (cause I am often solo support), i then usually get nomes but a tablet is probably a better choice. I might then get a bulwark (if no one has), maybe a storm or SotM.
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Entwife
My general build is either of e,q,e,q/w^,e,q,e,r/q^,w/r^,w,r,w,w,q,s,r
^ indicates second build.
The final point in entangle is optional.
It depends on the other team as to whether I put a point in unbreakable. Note that even 1 point is enough to counter enemies relying on burst damage as the heal occurs after the burst which can keep someone alive where a healing wave prior may not.
Edit: As mentioned in previous posts, there is nothing wrong with getting the ult at lvl 6. However, there is generally more benefit from maxing heal and picking up the mini-stun from lvl 3 entangle during the laning phase as they tend to be more practical outside of team-fight situations.
Last edited by Hakomis; 03-14-2012 at 05:18 AM.
Hmmm as i tought. A lot of you guys are postponing the ult. I mean sure that heal is awesome at lvl 4, actually all dementeds skills get more and more badass with that 1 more lvl into it.
Level 3 Healing Wave; 120x4 = 480 potential physical damage, 8 second cooldown
Level 4 Healing Wave; 140x5 = 700 potential physical damage, 6 second cooldown
This is what really caught my eye. So i went and calculated the dmg from lvl 4 heal wave or ult+lvl 3 heal wave. And honestly i would still take ult over anything. Because armor when its still low it makes the biggest diference. 0 armor - 6 armor is a 26% dmg reduction. And a lvl 1 ultimate has a duration of 12 seconds.
Now if your a good demented shaman and ward like you should you should see most ganks incomming, so you should have at least 2 seconds to drop the ult on yourself and your teammate. But i guess the ult dmg increase is too subtle, and the heal does provide burst dmg.
Kinda went a little theory crafting, if your oponents are not complete dimwits and dont step into creepwaves so you can nuke them down with heals, a ult that was on them for 4-5 seconds will amplify your dmg by 20% or more. So if you slow+ult someone at lvl 6 will be entangled long enough for it to reach at least 4 ticks while you autoattack them with physical dmg. And those autoattacks start to hurt really bad.
But then again i do sometimes skip heal and go Q and E but only if im mid against a ranged.
The only place I would max heal over anything else is mid. This is because it can be funny when that Torturer with DD starts to dive you right past your creeps and you say "nuh-uh, go back to base with your 200 health, son".
Why u so OP, Healing Wave?!?!1?1!1?1
The problem with this is when anyone 'decent' and not a 'dimwit 'sees they've been hit by the Demented ulti, they will just back until the duration ends. At least from my perspective on it, Demented ulti works best when your skills are at lower cooldowns so you can use it spontaneously and go straight to being on the offensive. Imho the best way to use ult is when you go on the offensive OR the moment the enemy team commits to a gank/teamfight, you don't just spam it mindlessly as this just scares people away until your level 1 ult is gone; yes it's great for scaring people off or supporting from afar, but that's pretty much the limit of it early on when your other skills still have high cooldowns.Originally Posted by Pipin
Some more easy maths:
8 second cooldown = 4 heals within 24 seconds, 2 heals within 12 seconds
6 second cooldown = 5 heals within 24 seconds, 3 heals within 12 seconds
note especially the number of heals within 12 seconds (coincidentally the duration of level 1 ulti), this means you and/or whoever you're laning with early on can be much more aggressive and you will usually be able to get off that clutch heal to save the day as the timespan of a gank usually doesn't last very long, more often than not a gank will not last 16 seconds for you to get that third heal off with a level 3 healing wave.
In addition, assuming you're taking ulti at 6 and stun at level 5, this means at level 6 you're really working with a level 2 heal, which has a 10 second cooldown on top of only chaining to 3 targets, it really isn't dependable for using except as a heal at that stage. So all you're really banking on with ulti first is applying it and waiting ~5 seconds to apply your stun for big damage; that's good and all but for me I'd value being able to use heal more often/for more health which will allow me to be more aggressive in diving several heroes and coming out on top than banking on one target taking extra damage from entangle while running away.
So again, it's just my opinion but I really value the lower cooldown on heal along with higher burst a lot more than ulti as it allows you to play much more aggressively while remaining safe at the same time.
I'm not saying you're wrong, you also bring up good points and again as mentioned Demented Shaman's builds are EXTREMELY versatile and I tend to change up my build depending on situation a lot, in certain cases I WILL skill ulti asap at 6 (namely when big team fights are happening earlier than usual). But I'm just making a stand as to what I believe is efficient based on my experience with him, and I would like to think I can play a pretty damn mean Demented
tl;dr - the lower cooldowns and timing has a lot to do with why maxing heal is efficient and imho better for many/most on the fly situations rather than taking ulti first. Feel free to disagree though, no offense taken.
Last edited by PrestonLee; 03-14-2012 at 03:03 PM.
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FOR ALL THAT IS HOLY~!
Don't worry guys, Lodestone won't be getting picked up in competitive, your balance forum regulars have assured it in this Lodestone balance thread ;)
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?470528-Lodestone-First-Impressions&p=15618341&viewfull=1#post15618341
Yea but i still think that the lvl 6 ult can be used way more offensive/deffensive. The aoe is obviously large and easy to hit, so its almost a guarantee hit on at least 2 heroes, and thats seriously the bare minimum, and a terrible ult (unless theres just you and 1 more guy there).
But also its just as you said, its a great repellant. Just using the ult can turn the battle around without the battle ever happening.
And yes the 3 entangle lvl 2 heal, makes you a tad more vunerable, but i really like that you can play ultra agressive with it. Sure in a dangerous lane i would still probably go for lvl 3 heal.
But its just such a whomp when you throw that ult on half of the screen, people either back out, or suffer the consequences.
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