[2.5.14] Defiler

[[GM]NakedMouse]

Defiler, once seen quite a bit in competitive play, is now almost entirely absent from the competitive scene. Furthermore, she hasn't been changed much in recent patches, her only balance changes being as follows:

2.5.8:
Starting Agility from 14 to 16
Base Armor from 0.96 to 1.74 (After Agility)
Grave Silence radius from 200/275/350/350 to 250/300/350/350

These are not insignificant changes, but they aren't earth-shattering either. She gets a bit more starting survivability, which is nice, but not much else.

Some pros and cons I see with picking Defiler:

PROS:
- Spammable, AOE, high damage nuke. Helps her establish early lane control and is great for pushing a lane.
- Huge AOE silence, 6 seconds at max level. Gives her great teamfight presence.
- One of the best pushing ultimates in the game.
- If she has enough items to survive during the ult, she can output HUGE amounts of damage. Since the ult is physical, she can even put serious damage on a carry with Shrunken Head on.

CONS:
- Almost certainly requires a 1v1 lane, to establish early levels. Cannot survive a 2v1 suicide lane.
- Also has a fairly high item requirement. Must build survival items because she needs to be alive for her ultimate to do damage.
- No escape mechanism, and starts off being very squishy, which makes her susceptible to early ganks. This same syndrome is often cited as a reason that we no longer see Soul Stealer picked up.
- No hard disable, which limits her ganking effectiveness compared to other mid solos.

So basically, she's a good pusher with some serious teamfight power, but NEEDS levels and farm to be effective. If she doesn't get that, she loses most of her effectiveness. She isn't the only hero that has a condition like this, but it's exaggerated with her to the point where there is simply no recovery from a bad start. This makes her a risky pick from the get-go.

Sol's Bulwark should have been a serious buff to her game, since we're basically guaranteed nowadays to see one on both teams. However, unless I'm recalling incorrectly, it doesn't seem to have helped her all that much.

One reason for this is that other heroes do what she does, but better. Torturer, for instance, does just about everything Defiler does but has a solid stun to go with it, and the argument can be made that he is a more effective pusher since Impalement is on a much lower cool down than Defiler's ultimate. Impalement also doubles as a solid anti-gank mechanism in combination with his stun. Pollywog has great pushing power, coupled with solid disables and excellent ganking potential. His ult doesn't die when he dies either, so he doesn't have to worry about building tank items. Either of these heroes are a more attractive option than Defiler. They're also more versatile in terms of the line-ups they can fit into, since they won't be crippled if they have to function in a side lane.

I'm not really saying that Defiler is underpowered. I've seen her work quite well in pubs, for what that's worth. Her ultimate is strong and her silence is probably one of the more underestimated spells in the game. In addition, it seems like she would work well in a tanky/push metagame like we seem to have these days. I think that's the reason that S2 is reluctant to give her anything but minor buffs.

But she seems to be very dependent on the lineup of your team, almost to the point of requiring that a team be built around her. Heals are probably a must, for instance, and since her ult moves very slowly she needs her team to provide crowd control or it won't do anything.

It also probably doesn't help that one of her go-to items in Dota isn't considered very good in HoN. That item being Sac Stone.

So the discussion I would like to see is this: is Defiler underpowered, or is she merely a sleeping giant? Or has she simply been eclipsed by other heroes in the pool?

Thanks in advance, and I hope this generates some meaningful discussion.

P.S.: In the spirit of full disclosure, Defiler is one of my favorite heroes. Just so you know where I'm coming from.

[[eR]Ekamo]

Approved.

[dandylion]

My biggest complaint about Defiler is that her early attack damage blows, and her projectile speed is less than could be desired.

She's also outshined by other tanky-persistent damage dealers right now, who don't have to work as hard to become tanky. Her lack of escapes (silence is a pretty weak "escape" if it were to be argued) also makes her less attractive than the Magebane's/Ra's/Zephyr's of the world with their blink, stun/cliffwalking, displacement/slow respectively. She's just not as "safe" in the lineup.

Using her as a push fiend is kind of out of style too it would seem. She seems to have gone kind of the same way as Soul Reaper right now. I remember both Death Prophet and Necrolyte as the go-to int persistent semi-carries back in the day. Don't see much of that anymore.

[[RCT]Reldnahc]

The only thing I dislike is how easy it is to kite her ult. Changing that could remove a lot of her team dependance and forcing lineups around her.

Also her and Keeper have perfect synergy btw.

[too`smithie]

I think what makes defiler ineffective, is that she’s been around so long pubs and competitive players know, that if you don’t aim her 1st or 2nd in team fight, her ultimate will tear through the team. If she continues to get ganked or caught out the hero can become dead weight.

We probably don’t see her much in competitive play purely because of teams stacking armour, plated, sols, etc etc, these all reduce the effects of her ultimate heavily. Her ultimate is also what I like to call unreliable damage unless you are able to be in close and auto attack a target.

How ever

I think she makes a great solo mid. A couple mana potions and a bottle allows you to effectively creap and harass at the same time while keeping the lane pushed up applying pressure to the tower. I like the fact that she needs a team of heroes to revolve around her, much like SS or Gladiator. These heroes are unique in their own right and require great team co-ordination to be effective.

You’ve argued that having no CC makes her ineffective as a ganker. This hero isn’t designed to gank, she’s designed to team fight.. Her wave is low cooldown, spamable for a reason, nuking creap waves and harassing heroes. Her silence is most effective in team fights hence why it’s aoe and not single target.

Her 3rd skill is actually well thought out , lowering the cooldown of her spells and increasing her movement speed. The ms increase allows you to move in and out of fights frequently which lessens her chance of getting caught in aoe damage.

The only suitable buff I could think of for defiler would be a SOTM upgrade to help push her mid game dominance a little further.

In conclusion, defiler is well synergized and has a unique playstyle/roll in certain team line ups. She is strong but a risky pick and this more than likely why she isn’t picked more.

ProTip: Defilers ghost can attack engineers energy field tower and kill it in a second.

[GregerMoek]

I will say what I say about many heroes that has been used and just aren't used any longer, they are balanced/fine. Other heroes are just OP/more in the comfort zone.

[[TK0]Vascariz]

I will say what I say about many heroes that has been used and just aren't used any longer, they are balanced/fine. Other heroes are just OP/more in the comfort zone.

I find such a comment meaningless.

Balance is all relative. It all depends where you put the base line. Either the current competitive heroes are OP or the weaker heroes are underpowered. Doesn't really matter, each hero still has to be examined on their merits and balanced.

[[Mana]Farosarg]

I believe she is fairly balanced, however she is weaker than what she used to be. There are so many heroes available after all those new heroes that will rip her a new one before she can properly use her ultimate early-game and people know very well how you can beat her late. Her build-trends have also changed quite a bit and she no longer sees the builds that people probably should be using to survive current meta.

Also, Torturer will do her job and lot better since using ultimate properly to push will mean it'll be on cooldown in the coming teamfight that the opponents will often initiate (as we saw in the last few games she was used) or can end up dealing a ton less damage in teamfights compared to what she needs to be doing or in worst cases ends up killing herself with it if facing a well-farmed hero with Barbed..

[[TK0]Vascariz]

Using her as a push fiend is kind of out of style too it would seem. She seems to have gone kind of the same way as Soul Reaper right now. I remember both Death Prophet and Necrolyte as the go-to int persistent semi-carries back in the day. Don't see much of that anymore.

I agree their low survivability is the key reason why. Back in the day a defensive silence or a Soul Reaper judgement heal with a few tank items helped greatly in keeping you alive. But these are no longer sufficient to keep them alive.

Any tweaks for Soul Reaper or Defiler should be aimed at survivability and team benefit. Their mechanics are fine.

[Anakha]

I find such a comment meaningless.

Balance is all relative. It all depends where you put the base line. Either the current competitive heroes are OP or the weaker heroes are underpowered. Doesn't really matter, each hero still has to be examined on their merits and balanced.

Most of these heroes still win games in the absence of better options, so the logical conclusion is that the top-tier is too good. There's nothing mechanically wrong with their ability to win games before them.

[Orly2001]

Sacrificial stone could use buffs, Bloodstone was good on Prophet and Storm Spirit in DotA. It should be effective on Defiler and Dr.

[[TK0]Vascariz]

Sacrificial stone could use buffs, Bloodstone was good on Prophet and Storm Spirit in DotA. It should be effective on Defiler and Dr.

Problem with buffing an item is that it will also benefit the heroes picked in preference of Defiler and Soul Reaper like Torturer.

[Orly2001]

Problem with buffing an item is that it will also benefit the heroes picked in preference of Defiler and Soul Reaper like Torturer.

Torturer is very powerfull compared to his DotA counterpart. I think he still needs nerfs. He's way more then FOTM.

[smurfberrys]

I find such a comment meaningless.

Balance is all relative. It all depends where you put the base line. Either the current competitive heroes are OP or the weaker heroes are underpowered. Doesn't really matter, each hero still has to be examined on their merits and balanced.

That's what he said... That the current competitive heroes are OP/fit the metagame. His stance on Defiler is that buffing all the old heroes would be power creep.

[FxyO]

vanguard nerf punished her unfairly.

[Anakha]

vanguard nerf punished her unfairly.

Correction: Hotbl change was a buff to most ranged heroes that wanted to keep at arm's length at all times.

[[GM]NakedMouse]

So what should be done to make her viable? Nerf a few of the alternatives? Buff an item she might be likely to use?

I too am of the mindset that we should avoid buffing a hero just because we believe said hero is weak compared to alternatives...but what's the solution then? Are all balance discussions of potentially underpowered heroes irrelevant until their overpowered counterparts get nerfed?

Are there maybe some small buffs that could bring her up to speed?

[[VGG]Glibber`]

I'd rather see other heros nerfed than heros buffed to be on par with the rest -.-

And there is nothing wrong with heros requiring a certain setup to work, that just adds depth to the game imho.

Defiler is a great pusher, she has great teamfight potential.. but is she lacking the power to do so early/mid on?

Imo the influx of heros that can do everything (and sometimes even better then the pure role heros) killed of some of the older heros, like this one. Lacking an escape and stun (and inbuilt tankyness) = not fit in the meta.

[GregerMoek]

I find such a comment meaningless.

Balance is all relative. It all depends where you put the base line. Either the current competitive heroes are OP or the weaker heroes are underpowered. Doesn't really matter, each hero still has to be examined on their merits and balanced.

So if we take a look at the most used words to describe a hero's balance.

Overpowered
Balanced
Underpowered

You're saying we should instead change this to

Balanced
Underpowered
More underpowered

It doesn't make sense at all to do this.

All I'm saying is, Defiler is in the "Balanced" bracket. OP heroes are used in competitive because competitive players wants to win, I guess this is news?
Even so, she is used on rare occation (although not the past month as far as I've seen) and she doesn't need much to be relevant in competitive games. The thing is, she's currently not in the comfort zone of competitive players and she's not overpowered, so why pick her?

Oh unless you prefer that we say the top picks are always the definition of Balance, I guess when Silhouette was first introduced we should have just buffed everything to her level instead of nerfing her?

[Lariatoooo]

2 cents from a baddie.
I think defiler is fine,maybe some strenght in the beginning, but a hero needs to have some weaknesses.
Def is the stronger team fighter in the game imho, & a sick pusher, even without ultimate.
Don't look at wich heroes are used by competitors like if they are the holy bible, tons of heroes are considered trash & never picked, & suddenly one pick them & they become op(mostly because the previous are forgotten), so....(this means the game is kinda well balanced, but is another point).
It think that she benefits more from frostwolf or kuldra then hotbl or sacstone(even if reworked, unless clearly broken).
btw when EZ or Eg used defiler, they did fine .