Gunblade Speculation

[TheMostHigh]

I suppose the post-mitigation really does make it. After a few games with him I noticed it does absorb quite a lot, like taking a Deadwood ultimate that only did about 100 damage to me. Probably because of about 12 armor, which isn't that much. I still think the MS is the better part of it.

[Synchronize]

because hero itself is unoriginal. what i find amusing is damage increase by staying closer rest of it is trash.

s2 should really hire a team of volunteers for hero designs espically ultimates. Passive ultimates, now a clone of facehug. Its out of original content

[PrestonLee]

balance-wise, shield has too much utility tacked on to it (as expected of a new s2 hero). I understand that it's supposed to be used to encourage positioning play with him, but +80 movement speed on a ranged hero is going overboard IMHO. numbers should be tweaked, shield absorption seems fine IMO, but the movement speed is a bit overboard for a 600 range hero, whether or not he does more damage the closer he is.

Hero concept is also all-around boring; like others are pointing out, he's just yet another agi range carry with a few perks (synergizing more with physical I suppose).

What he really needed was the ability to change to Melee form (thereby auto guaranteeing maximum amount of extra damage on his passive), and a tweak to his shield to give him less movement speed when utilizing range form, but keeping the same amount of movement speed boost when in Melee form. This could be temporary, similar to opposite of shadowblade's ranged form, or similar to wildsoul with cast time, or being able to switch much like maliken's sword forms or old fayde's stances.

either way, giving him a Melee or at least closer range option would make him a much more interesting hero and synergize very well with his ult and passive, and I'm pretty sure that's what we all wanted to see anyway; hero seems like his concept was unfinished and he was just released because deadline came up, pretty disappointing.

[Sherwood]

He is a ranged carry of some description. Can hard carry with farm, but so can many other heroes. His last hitting ability is very frustrating. probably because he is designed to be a melee and ranged hero so at 'close range' he has a melee attack animation and S2 forgot to change it for when he's not in melee range (so it's rubbish at range).

He has no control only a snare and no dis-jointing escape mechanism apart from 'run away with shield'. The thing is, you'll most likely use the shield for when you're being attacked and in the early game it breaks early. His ultimate provides a -armour debuff on the target and gets into close range to deal bonus damage. Sadly as he jumps into close range it leaves him vulnerable to be nuked by the enemy. Early game his shield won't do much. Once he gets shroud his usefulness sky rockets and the likely hood of dying in team fights is dramatically reduced. Means in till then he is pretty much feed in less he has a farm advantage.

I doubt he's quite hard ranged carry, but he certainly needs the farm/levels like one.

His counters are ganking him before he gets a shroud and a level/farm advantage. Also Puppet master. Puppet show forces him to attack the nearest of his allies (or voodoo puppet), usually close enough for him to deal bonus base damage.

Problem is, useful pick ups for him (Asassin's Shroud, Shield Breaker, Riftshards) don't help his absorption shield. He also can't solo gank in less with a shroud and level advantage. He seems to require mid, but will find it challenging with his lack-luster attack animation.

[Beroya]

The hero's fine. He's not as hard a carry as some other picks, but his utility make up for that. 51% physical AoE slow for 3 seconds, targeted stun, a speed boost that breaks 500 with just enhanced marchers, a damage shield that effectively gives health for agility, an attack steroid that passes onto illusions.

I've had a lot of success building shieldbreaker early. When combined with the ultimate, enemies are usually in the 0 to negative armor ranges clear through to level 16+. After that, survivability is usually the next thing to go for. Shrunken head for AoE magic or lots of disables, wingbow if more than two opponents are right click wonders. Most matches end at this point.

And yes, you can gank without a shroud. You have 515 movement speed for 6 seconds with just the shield.

[Draegnar]

this to me is the worst hero ever created, i think hes worse than raider when he netted and posthasted back to the well in dota. He looks dreadful, his animations are dreadful, he sounds dreadful and no matter how OP his skillset is i've never been in a game with one that performed even half as well as a brown/orange scoutpick i physically groan everytime hes picked.

I agree with whoever it was on the forums who compared him to master of arms the heroes can be played in the same way but i struggle to see how moa doesn't beat him out in every way.

i like PrestonLee's ideas above, a melee switch would be a great idea but maybe they felt that was a bit too troll warlord, it would have made the character much more fun and defined i think

[Keris]

After playing Gunblade, ill summary the problem i see with this hero

-Crippling Slug only last on early game, and only effective against squishies.
-lousy atk animation make his close range combat quite ineffective, despite his great passive.
-Need at least decent farm before able to gank.
-It's true you're able to gank other once GB reach lv 6. But the effective range, mana consumption, and cooldown make another same type of hero able to do this job better than u.
-The item choice for this hero is quite narrow, since he is the first squishy range hero who need to get close to be effective.
-90 Sec Lv 1 ult srsly. It's like a bassic skill with added cooldown as a nerf since it's his ult. Hell it's not feel as his ult at all.
-Once your shield gone at enemy shooting range. You also have a chance to get wipe out as well.

[[TGZ]stuvis]

Weird. Hard Carry that has superb early ganking/roaming skills.

This.
The hero makes no sense and goes straight to my own "remove if possible list"...

[[SIRS]Nine_Cloak]

I think the hero is in a sweetspot as far as balance goes. My 2 issues with him, as other people have stated in this thread already:

1. His shield and his passive want him to build Agility, but his ult benefits far more from :Shieldbreaker: and :Riftshards:, which is ominously familiar to Sand Wraith's currently discussed issue.

2. The fact that the blade part of Gunblade has been made almost entirely pointless in this hero is simply demoralizing. Different animations for being close enough to get the maximum benefit out of his passive would've been more than enough, yet nothing close was even done, and it's simply disappointing.

Other than that, I have no issues with the hero. I think we'll actually see him in comp play, too.

[man_guy]

1. His shield wants him to build Agility, but his passive and his ult benefit far more from :Shieldbreaker: and :Riftshards:, which is ominously familiar to Sand Wraith's currently discussed issue.

His passive goes off of base damage. You want to dump as much agility as you can on the hero in theory, I don't know about in practice.

[[SIRS]Nine_Cloak]

His passive goes off of base damage. You want to dump as much agility as you can on the hero in theory, I don't know about in practice.

Fixed it in my post. It's been a long night.

[Keris]

His passive goes off of base damage. You want to dump as much agility as you can on the hero in theory, I don't know about in practice.

The theory is to get many agility then get in as close as possible, but you actually will find many problem when you try to do that in real match, such as.
-The burst only last on mid game
-Shield easily wear of on full fight, leaving you and your small hp
-Atk animation is inefficient at close range. You need large atk spd to have a decent dps.
-Long ult cooldown while your ult is the only opener to get the maximum range
-This guy is actually shine at mid game, but have to get many item which make him viable on late game.

Later on you have to decide to either get base damage which make you glass cannon, or agi which also shield dependant and lack of dps.

[[CID]masterprtzl]

feels pretty balanced to me, the main thing that may need to be toned down a bit is his shield. Definitely in no way over powered.

He seems to be best mid game and tapers off a bit late game like any balanced semi carry. Hes not going to out carry a flint but he may be able to stand up to and be a bit more useful in team fights / roaming compared to flint. I really like the last few heroes S2 has released, Kinesis, Blitz and Gunblade have all been pretty well balanced on release.

[Vulcan]

I believe the hero is pretty well designed, the concept of his ultimate working with his passive is pretty nice actually, along with giving him the move speed bonus with the shield, but in my opinion there are a few changes that could be made for this hero.

First off, I honestly think the ultimate has a way (stress on the wayyyy) to high of a cool down on his ultimate for the single target 300 damage nuke that drops armor for a few seconds. This is actually one of the only things that need to be changed about him, his ultimate having a huge 60 second cool down at level 3 while Arachna's just sits at 30 seconds is just absurd. Either the damage his ultimate does be converted to physical and upped to 450, or have the cool down of the skill be reduced to 75/55/35, making it far more viable for a ganker/semi carry that he is.

Secondly, I think that his attack animation could be increased by about .05-.1 seconds

Lastly, seeing as he greatly focuses on high agility, with the base damage boost from the passive and the agility prominent shield, I think his strength per level should be decreased by .1 or .2 and his agility should be increased by .1-.3.

These are just the things that I have noticed, please take them into consideration.

[Skinsword]

After playing Gunblade, ill summary the problem i see with this hero

-Crippling Slug only last on early game, and only effective against squishies.
-lousy atk animation make his close range combat quite ineffective, despite his great passive.
-Need at least decent farm before able to gank.
-It's true you're able to gank other once GB reach lv 6. But the effective range, mana consumption, and cooldown make another same type of hero able to do this job better than u.
-The item choice for this hero is quite narrow, since he is the first squishy range hero who need to get close to be effective.
-90 Sec Lv 1 ult srsly. It's like a bassic skill with added cooldown as a nerf since it's his ult. Hell it's not feel as his ult at all.
-Once your shield gone at enemy shooting range. You also have a chance to get wipe out as well.

-Slugs is mainly used as a movement speed debuff so your auto attacks stay effective for longer. People don't complain about Flint's flare sucking because it isn't his main damage output, its just to assist autoattacks.
- I find GB's attack animation to be fine. I generally play melee heroes and GB's attack animation is pretty similar to that of many melee heroes. It also helps that his projectile is above average speed.
-GB does lag a bit mid game, but he shines during the laning phase and the endgame
-Compared to other gankers, like Fayde or pebbles, GB's mana consumption for an effective combo (r, q, w for movement boost) is similar to the examples I listed. He doesn't have the crazy AOE stuns nor the crazy burst damage they offer, but a correct combo generally nets a kill.
-I highly doubt that GB is squishy. He starts off with almost 3 or 4 armor, has a shield that gives him nearly 100 hp at level one, and has above average movement speed. If lethal range is picked up before level 6, he will be able to easily 1v1 most nonbursty melee characters easily with th help of his shield.
-Ult definitely needs reduced cooldown
-Thats why the shield is used to escape and Ghost marchers is used as the general movement speed buff.

[[RCT]IsmaelVera]

Can someone explain the reasoning why it is not a good idea to have this bad boy become melee when in close range? Someone in S2 did it, but I do not know who.

[Tyrannate]

Can someone explain the reasoning why it is not a good idea to have this bad boy become melee when in close range? Someone in S2 did it, but I do not know who.

S2 reasoning:

1) It would confuse new players
2) It would be hard to code
3) It would allow Gunblade the benefits of a ranged hero with the option of going melee for basher or other melee-exclusive benefits (i.e. balance reasons)

Honestly, I don't think any of the reasons are good. However I do like how the ability isn't all-or-nothing. In other words, it works at midrange too, and doesn't REQUIRE literally being in melee range to be effective.

Hes not going to out carry a flint

Gunblade is actually a harder carry than Flint by a fair margin. However, Flint has better range and doesn't require getting close to carry like Gunblade. It's really a tradeoff and both excel in certain situations. To say that Flint is a harder carry than Gunblade is incorrect.

[PrestonLee]

^agree with everything you said, except i wanted to point out that gunblade doesn't actually REQUIRE getting close to carry either. Yes, he does more damage up close, but people need to keep in mind that he still does 100% of his base damage at 600 range; it's not like when he's far from a target he's suddenly doing less than other heroes or anything..

Just wanted to throw that out, he doesn't actually NEEd to be close to the enemy to carry his team.. A hero with a genjuro+Geos+savage mace+shieldbreaker still has the damage of a hero with genjuro+Geos+savage mace+shieldbreaker whether or not he's up close.

[[S2]ElementUser]

2) It would be hard to code
3) It would allow Gunblade the benefits of a ranged hero with the option of going melee for basher or other melee-exclusive benefits (i.e. balance reasons)

2) is wrong, I did it in 2 minutes back when he made the announcement but never said anything. DivA lied (unintentionally ofc), sorry.
Also regarding 3), the animations would be made melee and he'd still be ranged, however I can make the hero actually melee at a certain range if I wanted to.

[Dr`Delicious]

Hero concept is also all-around boring; like others are pointing out, he's just yet another agi range carry with a few perks (synergizing more with physical I suppose).

What he really needed was the ability to change to Melee form (thereby auto guaranteeing maximum amount of extra damage on his passive), and a tweak to his shield to give him less movement speed when utilizing range form, but keeping the same amount of movement speed boost when in Melee form. This could be temporary, similar to opposite of shadowblade's ranged form, or similar to wildsoul with cast time, or being able to switch much like maliken's sword forms or old fayde's stances.

either way, giving him a Melee or at least closer range option would make him a much more interesting hero and synergize very well with his ult and passive, and I'm pretty sure that's what we all wanted to see anyway; hero seems like his concept was unfinished and he was just released because deadline came up, pretty disappointing.

Pretty much this, I love the hero's avatar and concept but I wish he were more exciting to play. Melee range toggle with swapped benefits would be really great.