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Since people were basing their opinions so much of the initial post in the old thread, which took people off-track, I decided to close it and try this again. A discussion about Rampage IS needed, and the old one was the only "decent" (trust me, the majority is much worse) thread I've gotten in a long time about him.
Never mind that though, let's start from scratch.
First of all, it is expected from YOU if you post in a thread, that you read, or at least skim through the previous posts. This is covered in Balance Rules which is also expected from YOU to have read, and be aware of its contents.
A post I posted in old thread that was virtually ignored, which was evident by people's posts.
A pubstomp hero like Rampage + Lenient Moderating = Total Mayhem.Originally Posted by Ekamo
Therefore, I will use the approach of extreme moderating in this thread. If you start to complain about over-censoring due to my actions in this specific thread, than my job is well done. Any unacceptable behavior will result in warning/infraction.
Be informed.
Be focused.
Be concise but still always make sure you go through the "why's" more than the "what's".
Rampage is the topic of discussion in this thread, NOTHING else.
Last edited by Ekamo; 03-14-2012 at 07:47 PM.
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i think hes very close to being balanced. Hes a strong initiator-carry, but in order to initiate he has to get pretty out of position. Against heroes with fast stuns he usually falls apart as a hero since he will just be really out of position after coming out of his charge. Overall I think this makes him an interesting niche pick of a initiator-carry who can shine against teams with a low amount of stuns.
But the thing that worries me about him is his power once he picks up shrunken. At that point he suddenly becomes a really strong and hard to stop carry with large damage and strong disables. Lots of typical shrunken head counter heroes such as tempest, kraken, and panda have trouble countering his shrunken because rampage is so mobile and tanky. Only tundra comes to mind as a strong counter hero once rampage gets his shrunken. I'd really like to see his strength gain slightly reduced so that his mid-late game is not so unstoppable once he picks up his shrunken.
Honestly I think it's just the play style everyone has with him.
Most people don't sit back and reserve his skills waiting for that chance to shut down the enemy carry or whatever, he's usually already up front bashing **** around. And at that point, if you play him as such, you have a hero who fills only one role, anti-carry. and he doesn't do it nearly as well as others like CD.
Further more, having melee range disables makes positioning a nightmare, especially if fights get spread out, or there's lots of slows and disables around.
If you want to win a tournament, why would you take a hero that fills only one role - because you can't just charge around the map at the comp. level.
If we see more creative builds from him maybe.
Until then, his positioning to enable him to shutdown is mediocre - Tablet, PK, FFP (which is still regarded as **** for an item) may help bridge the gap, but even then...
I know this is a bit much considering how Ring of Sorc is very common, but I feel like he needs two things. Mana cost and CD on Ult to be reduced. The Ult is not that strong considering that it is a stun that gets counted by any of the common picks in competitive play.
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"All they do is expound their store of knowledge. They excite themselves with their ranting; their disapproval swells them with a feeling of importance and sick victory, they thrive on spoiling the pleasure and trashing the creativity of others."
The Minister shares her opinion of critics. ~ Kino's Journey
i would disagree with any problem on his mana costs. Rampage does not spam his spells at all, except maybe occasionally casting his might of the herd to harass an enemy hero. Power supply is also a common pickup on him adding even more mana. He has no problem casting all of his spells in a fight. Lowering his mana costs won't really help him at all.
Feel free to read my signature if you plan on suggesting any changes to rampage.
In balance, the burden of proof is on you to show your suggestion a) does what you say it will do, b) won't disrupt balance elsewhere, and c) isn't retarded beyond belief. Until you show these three things, the last may be assumed.
Rampage has long disables and high physical damage output when left unaddressed. Once he is countered, however (which isn't that hard), he is one of the most useless heroes in the game. I think this is what makes him such a nuisance in pub-level games but unseen in higher level play.
What rampage mainly contributes to a teamfight/skirmish is a long, single-target disable on a key hero. While this could potentially be extremely effective, rampage's disable is too easily countered by other disables, stuns, CC's, items (nullstone, stormspirit, pushtab). After this, rampage becomes almost useless contributing nothing but autoattacks (ones that he might not even get off due to being disabled, stunned or kited).
Rampage is built to be a hero who can travel around the map early game with his charge and gank. However, many of his gank attempts are easily countered by wards and common sense predictions. Any unsuccessful gank leaves Rampage underleveld and underfarmed.
In order for Rampage to be effective in teamfights, he needs a shrunken head. Rampage has lackluster farming ability, and this also means he would have to forgo the ganking phase to farm one (or snowball, which is pretty hard due to reasons mentioned above). Even if rampage does obtain a SH, its likely that the enemies have items like nullstone, stormspirit, and ToC that would still significantly hinder rampage's capabilities.
As much as I like Rampage's design, I think he needs a rework if he wants to be considered at higher levels and less complained about at lower ones.
Last edited by _theEnemy_; 03-14-2012 at 09:08 PM.
I think Rampage has what I call "EW Syndrome." He's a strong pub stomper because he has a low skill cap. It takes less skill for his maximum potential to be used and I think it is a problem when a hero's skill cap plateaus so early such that a 1600 player can have the same effect playing him as a 1900 player.
Or he could just be a pub stomper who's easily countered that pubs often neglect like most invis heroes, bh, etc. which explains why he's not picked up, but I believe it to be the former.
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See, despite EW being easy-mode skillwise (W and R have no probable chance of failure, even if W doesnt hit anything, you've gained information), she's ridiculously dependant on positioning and abusing trap deny, to a much greater extent than any other hero in the game.
I think the comparison to EW for Rampage is a bit flawed there.
Rampage is fairly monodimensional in how he approaches fights, but he does threaten people in a fairly unique way (charge has a lot of practical use against certain heroes, besides the actual impact). Strength and weakness in one, but it's more his options in chaining his bashes that really hamstring him.
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One of the suggestions I saw floating around ages ago was to make his bash charge-based, and have a small mana cost on activation (press E, next hit bashes). This would be tied in with a debuff on bashed targets, disallowing bash on them for 2-3sec.
It means you can time your bashes to be on heroes in lane, rather than mindlessly demolishing creeps because you have to, and slightly improves his teamfight presence against multiple people.
IIRC, Spiritbreaker bashes people he passes through when he charges. I think this is slightly overkill (although does promote charging in teamfights, which is a plus) - and the charge-mechanic on bash would allow him to replicate that in a lesser and more discrete form.
Let me spell it out plain for you
Angry people complain about the things I do
I'm not changing direction, I'm stepping my game up
Maintaining my name, the same way I came up.
Truth is, I thought it mattered
I thought that music mattered.
But does it? Bollocks!
Not compared to how people matter.
I think for Rampage, one has to really define his role. If his role is roaming ganker + anti-carry. Then these features should be emphasised.
I would reduce the mana cost of his charge so that he CAN spam it for rapid movement around the map, reduce the damage to balance, increase the push back and increase the reveal/sight post-charge. This increases his utility as a strong ganker. Maybe even toy with the possibility of allowing him to aim allied/neutral creeps. Most displacements affect allied/neutral creeps.
I would also significantly increase the radius of Might of the Herd considering it only lasts 4-5 seconds to allow provide him with a more team enhancing aspect.
I would also increase the duration of his ultimate. A 3.5 second disable is not unique and one has to consider that in competitive play most of the 3.5 seconds is travel time rather than damage taken time. Even if one has to reduce the damage of the ultimate to compensate. Alternatively, introduce a disorient (stun or slow) aspect at the end of the travel. This all of course to enhance an anti-carry role.
Hahaha just had a hilarious thought. Allow him to take an ally for a ride during his charge! A nymphora type aspect but that is in jest...
Last edited by Vascariz; 03-14-2012 at 11:09 PM.
I actually only have one problem with this hero: It is really, really damned hard to deny him farm. His passive stun makes it, simply put, impossible to deny a creep he is trying to last hit. From level 1, he hits at around 100-120 damage or so (too lazy to see exact numbers), and honestly? This is ridiculous. No hero can deny a creep that he is last hitting well.
I understand harass is an option, but his babysitter is doing the same, and he's not particularly squishy in lane.
If it was possible to deny him farm, I'd consider him in a much better place as a pubstomper.
Considering he needs to be roaming to gank and therefore away from the lane frequently I do not see any reason to reduce his last hit capability.
Yes I believe rampage is one of the unique picks in that he does not work well with a lot of team line-ups thus reducing his effectiveness as other hero choices can do what he does + more.
Although when ramp is configured into the correct lineup he can be very effective.
Rampage Balance Discusion
In my view his major drawbacks are:
-no aoe capability what so ever
-Limited carry potential compared to other str semi carries
-Hero effectiveness is governed by 3 key components: Map Vision/Awareness/Team Communication, thus the higher level of play the less usefull he becomes
-Nullstone heavily reduces his effectiveness when picked up on key targets
his major pros are:
-Excellent ganking potential
-Heavy auto attacking damage aiding in early farm
-Can force enemy team into dangerous positions when he kidnaps somebody
-3 types of channelling spell cancellation
He is definately one of the more annoying heros to vs because at the end of the day even the best of us stop paying attention to the map at certain times when distracted, thus everyone can relate to being ninja charged by him.
Please visit my thread if your tired of not having any pants http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=401955
Game awareness and map control counter this hero.
He has to leave farm and xp in order to gank at low levels (which he should), and with proper vision and positioning most of his ganks shouldn't be effective.
If you play him as a farmer carry, you're doing it wrong. He gets outcarried so badly by about half of the hero pool (unless he pulls off a lot of ganks succesfully).
People are just bad when they say rampage is op, because he just isn't.
He needs a lot of succesful ganks to be anywhere near good, but good players (yes, good ones) will see him incoming miles ahead, either by game sense (rampage just died or was very low returning to base? Expect him to charge someone) or with vision and communication as well.
Map awareness and control will shut his ganks down, so you only need to deal with him in the lane. And he's just not thát good. If you're really having trouble with him try picking slither or silhouette and lane against him. There, you just denied AND his ganks AND his farm (which he sucks at tbh).
1v1 hes powerful, undoubtedly, but when you add additional enemy players to the fray hes a liability compared to other heroes of his type. While he can completely disable one opponent, it also takes him much longer to kill them than the other high success rate one-hero-killer type gankers, which makes him more prone to failure.
Hes not a strong semi-carry relatively in addition to being a subpar gank hero, even without map awareness. Another thing is that its almost universally known what strategy a rampage is going to use in a fight. He has very few unique ways to use his abilities to win mind games with opponents, which means that even in games hes doing well, it doesn't take much though between the team to come up with an effective strategy against him, which puts him in the unenviable position of being overly team dependent as a ganker.
I've always felt that his knockbacks hurt as much as they help him, because moving to position yourself in a way where the knockback doesn't move the enemy hero closer to safety in a team fight isn't appealing even with his ult.
Proper warding and positioning make this hero a non-issue enough, not even counting items. I really don't see what the problem is and if anything he could use a mana cost buff. Personally I miss his RNG passive stun since at least then he could stack attackspeed and actually semi-carry.
He could be a strong pick if invis heroes were viable...but yeah.
Last edited by Good_Apollo; 03-15-2012 at 12:41 AM.
I think that is the issue people are getting at. That in higher/competitive levels he brings little to the table.
Hence my suggestions to increase his ganking/roaming abilities, add an AoE component to his slow skill and increase the duration of his anti-carry ult.
Reducing the cooldown for his charge will also assist with the nullstone issue.
All this while balancing the damage etc to not increase his 1 v 1 capabilities which make him a pubstomper.
An alternative suggestion would be to add an AoE component to his charge which triggers on land despite nullstone.
Last edited by Vascariz; 03-15-2012 at 01:01 AM.
Strong ganking arises from a good laning phase. Just saying. Ganks don't have to start at level 1, and there is plenty of reason to get at least level 7 on Rampage before really going at it.
I think it's more like what roles he actually fills and how well he fills them, compared to other heroes.
As a ganker/roamer I'd say he's on par or a bit better than Hammerstorm, but what he gets on single-target damage and locking he lacks on the aoe/utility. He however adds more aggressive pressure than Hammerstorm since he can achieve solo-kills.
As a Carry he doesn't really shine except in 1v1. His damage doesn't scale well late-game and so he starts to taper off a lot faster compared to other carries. He can also be kited reasonably well. So he wouldn't be picked for that.
Anti-carry for his really long physical disable is his more significant role and I'd say he's on par with Panda on that. Both have their strengths for the role, Panda has the small aoe presence while Rampage has his mobility. Both are countered the same way in teamfigths and with somewhat similar builds they can fill their role effectively.
I don't think that people have experimented with different itembuilds enough on him of late. I think there would be many ways for him to work his roles better as he doesn't really struggle with farm either, being able to do Ancients and hard-camps early on and usually able to get a kill or two on the side.
Also since he's been absent from the competitive games we haven't seen many line-ups built around him either but I think he could be an effective pick in a game built around gaining map-control via aggression or even early game pushing. Could also fit as secondary carry in a hard-carry lineup picked against other hard carry.
I wouldn't be changing him yet because I think he has a lot of potential that people haven't tried out, both when it comes to line-ups and his item-builds when focusing one of his roles.
Well he was picked up when his passive did RIDICULOUS damage at lvl 1, but ye barring that he's just not all that since his strenght lies in roaming at low level.
@Benny0, besides perhaps moving beyond the laning phase (in which ganks occur a lot sometimes though) so people are more scattered around the map and missing heros are less obvious, that's not how you should play rampage.
If you want a tanky melee stunner, there are tons of better heros to have in your lane. Magmus, hammer and elec are a few. They bring much more to the table, and are WAY, WAY better to spend farm on.
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