[2.5.16] Soul Reaper

[Theburned]

only 2 things that I see the need for fix with this hero, it is movement speed and his judgement the projectiles are way to slow and easy to dodge for blinkers.
fixing those and it would be a nice hero, using soul reaper quite often. strong teamfight hero though he requires a shitload of farm, though he will be strong after 3700 gold imo, and then just grow stronger, over 7000 gold and he becomes very dangerous. he needs levels, though he has the slow issue, its the only thing and needing the speed of ghost marchers while only being able to get plated greaves/steamboots for survivability it will be lacked, he can get stormspirit though it just gives the ability to dodge a few things, and adds no tankiness besides this, its nice though after a judgement to stormspirit and use judgement again after coming down.
but really movement speed buff and projectile buff on judgement so that all these power houses cant just go ahead and dodge everything, also maybe a small cast time buff to ulti.

Edit: this hero would be greatly buffed with adding 10-15 movement speed to nomes wisdom too.

[[TK0]Vascariz]

Judgement combined with Inhumane nature is strong in the right situations that buffing either can cause some imbalanced flash farming. Even if its been said to be "boring", Inhumane nature is still a strong farming tool when used with Judgement.

However, such circumstances only exist in competitive play if Soul Reaper is left alone to farm in a lane and has leveled lvl 4 Judgment and lvl 4 Inhuman Nature which I think is a bad build. The aura is the real harassing tool in the lane, not Judgment. I can't see such a skill build and a Soul Reaper sitting in a lane alone in competitive play in the early game.

In the mid to late game, other heroes have much easier ways of clearing creep waves. Many games I've walked up to a creep wave without enemies nearby only to have an ally just jump on them and clear them instantly.

Ult is weak at level 1. Feel that the ult in general is not great as a single target, 1.5 second ult (even if it is superior stun).

Agreed and hence the buff I suggest in my OP.

[[TK0]Vascariz]

only 2 things that I see the need for fix with this hero, it is movement speed and his judgement the projectiles are way to slow and easy to dodge for blinkers.

but really movement speed buff and projectile buff on judgement so that all these power houses cant just go ahead and dodge everything, also maybe a small cast time buff to ulti.

Firstly, his projectiles are relatively low damage and are very short-range. It's easy to just stand outside of its range rather than trying to do some fancy dodging. I don't really think he needs his Judgment skill changed.

Secondly, I don't think buffing his movement speed is an appropriate fix. To me it is more appropriate to tweak the aura to increase, as my OP states, the HP suppression aspects without overpowering it. This improves his lane presence, adds to his playstyle and plays on his theme.

Buffing the aura won't solve is early game problems, & is late is strong enough

I actually agree with this sentiment. In that just playing with range or % aura won't balance the hero. Instead it really should be, as above, focused more on hp suppression and lane control without overpowering the skill.

Finally, Inhuman Nature should return mana for a hero kill. Only makes sense for a carry.

[calvic]

Judgements projectile speed really is atrocious, i play soul reaper a lot and I've seen several allies die before the lifesaving green ghost can reach them, or enemies getting away because they got 10 seconds to use their bottle before taking the damage.

the slow speed also makes some mechanics just silly ,it is hilarious to have a high move-speed ally initiate with 10 or so heals stacked behind them (a lvl 16 can do this with nothing but ghost marchers), but this also means that the spell can be dodged until the hero decides to stop. haven't gone through and tested all the other skills but as far as i know this is the only skill you can cast and have it hopelessly follow its target forever.

a buff here would be fairly safe too, i don't see faster judgement ghosts making the hero overpowered by any means

[[TK0]Vascariz]

True, I don't see it balancing Soul Reaper at all but rather see it as something unintentional. Seems more to do with making the animation look impressive rather than a balance/strategy issue?

Wouldn't it be interesting to have his skill actually play on that? As long as Judgment is travelling to its target, the target is slowed by x%. If the target is affected by Withering Presence, the target is slowed by an additionally y%. If the target leaves Withering Presence, it is stunned for 0.25 seconds. Hahaha, cast Judgment on a channeler then blink/tablet out of there! Bam channel interrupted :P... sigh... if only...

[Killroy]

Definitely agree on the faster projectiles. About the flash farming, in the current game I can't say that flash farming is that easily with SR. I used to play him a lot in dota but in HoN he just feels less strong because of all the other heroes.

[bully_1337]

To increase his survivability I would change his Aura-Skill in that way:

Lets say he skill aura with lvl2... The aura is still active like it was before but now a counter starts... lets say 60 sec... If the counter ends he get healed by that amount he did to the enemys or a percentage of it.. The counter starts again..

[[Zoff]DaBoolz]

Hello,
i think a lot of good ideas are in this thread. One pretty easy way to boost him would be a better attack-animation(maybe + start-Int), this would give him a better laning and buff his thrid ability.

BUT: S2 trys to differentiate from original dota so lets try to think in changing his spells little.

SR could collect charges for every creepkill (maybe up to 10) and when he uses his first spell he gains +"x"hp-heal/damage for every charge.

I prefer:
For every additional hero in range of his first spell it gains bonus damage/heal maybe in % of targets hp. This would give him an pretty awsome teamfight potential even in lategame. This way he would be forced to play with the team to show his potential which would be a contrast to all the ego-agi-carry-heros.
For example: SR and lanemate vs one enemy - he gains no bonus damage but a little more heal. He gets ganged alone vs five - he gets no bonus heal but high damage.

[Jlesaistu]

meh imo just making him like his dota counterpart would be nice....bonus mana from killing and ennemy and little buff to his dps aura.

but if S2 really want to make him diferent...i say you can simply boost the healign power of his nuke a little more, maybe reduce the mana cost a little and speed up projective speed, they are so slow than a fast heror can run all the map down to his pool withous ever being hit -_-

damage aura could use a buff, either damage up a little or make it lifesteal, what woudl help make SR a lot more tanky, what eh is supose to be.

[zajoman]

Instead of dealing magic damage with his aura...

It directly removes HP instead of dealing magic damage. If it did, it would prevent usage of PK.

F - Passive, instead of gaining mana back on deaths of units, instead gains mana back equal to a % of damage dealt to all enemy units. Syngergizes greatly with aura and judgement!

Yes, but also motivates players to simply auto-attack everything in their way, which in this complicated game isn't the ideal thing to do in the lane phase.

Sticking to analyzing the hero this time:

Here's a list of all the nerfs that happened to the style of hero (Defiler is in the exact same boat):

-Very weak ultimate at level 6. He pretty much gains a 100 to 150 damage nuke with a 1.5 second stun on a long cooldown. What do you want the hero to do with this.

-With similar farm to other heroes, is less of a problem to deal with (if disabled, his short cooldown heal doesn't matter, if he has say 15k worth of items, your carry with 15k worth of items should have no problem dropping him with some help.

I agree with these points. I often doubt if getting the ultimate at level 6 is a good idea or I'd be better off investing in something else. I've seen a few high level players omit the ultimate that early in the game. You don't have that finishing punch power (thanks mostly to the stun component), but rather a stronger presence over time.

Finally, Inhuman Nature should return mana for a hero kill. Only makes sense for a carry.

You mean it should return more than it does currently, right? Because it does - the flat amount. For any kill other than a building.

[zajoman]

And you also mentioned that you think it's a bad build to go max Q and max E, yet that seems to be the go-to build in most cases of competitive SR play, even if it's rare. I don't see anything wrong with it. Competitive teams usually can (or at least try hard to) provide a safe farming environment for their SR, where Q and E are most effective for blazing farm and hardcore pushing. I've been looking for SR high level replays since they added the replay functionality to the game, and have watched all or most competitive VODs with SR in them - yet it's still so little material to work from. That's definitely a proof that his usage is simply abysmal.

[[saxy]Foerdifuxx]

He's an outdated hero.
Maybe he needs a complete rework of his skills

[Encaitor]

What about buffing his Attack animation, maybe his aura a little bit for the first levels (lowering %dmg and add a static damage?) and buffing Inhuman nature for the first levels so it give something in the lines with: 24/48/48 and 200 on herokill/48, 400 on herokill ? So it is still giving a good amount of mana from creeps if u decide to get it 2 levels if u prio aura and it's really good for getting back mana from ult lategame and should solve ur manaproblems f u max it together with judgement. Thoughts ? (Sry for bad english)

[GregerMoek]

Something I don't like about current Soul Reaper is the kill command of his aura at 0.3 HP (if I'm informed correctly). While I tested how this worked in practise mode, basically any target that had 6 hpreg or more and wasn't above 4k in max health couldn't die from the aura alone, the HP simply lingered at 1. With this in mind (it can't be intended) I'd to the very least change the "kill" part of his aura to be adjusted to something like 1 or 2 HP.

[Tay_z0nday]

I think he should simply get a ms buff like tb should so he could be able to follow or escape...
Maybe set his ms to 310 and give him a better attack animation(do not increase dmg)...
By the way I think it's sad that I'm not even able to last hit when im alone versus creep
Also if you try to orb walk you often cancel your attack animation like tb...

[iambests005]

Gain mana from hero kill/assist can be a way to solve his mana problem

[g0dAr1es]

Something I don't like about current Soul Reaper is the kill command of his aura at 0.3 HP (if I'm informed correctly). While I tested how this worked in practise mode, basically any target that had 6 hpreg or more and wasn't above 4k in max health couldn't die from the aura alone, the HP simply lingered at 1. With this in mind (it can't be intended) I'd to the very least change the "kill" part of his aura to be adjusted to something like 1 or 2 HP.

I pretty sure the only hero with a "kill command" is legionare

[[SSBC]Balls`n`Nuts]

1) Increase the duration of the stun or make it inversely proportional to the amount of hp left (e.g. less % hp left [e.g. 90% left] the longer the stun [e.g. 3.5 secs] but higher % hp left [e.g. 60%] the shorter the stun [e.g. 1 second].

2) Deal the damage at the end of the stun and the damage is calculated at the end of the stun.

This encourages the use of the ultimate as an initiator and definitely much earlier than usual. The damage is calculated at the end of the stun duration to take into account damage dealt during the length of the stun. With regards to displacement effects like Stormspirit, the ultimate will trigger at the end of the displacement effect.

So the best finisher, should be used as initiator?
Cutting heroes hp in half is not enough?
The way i see it, he has some downsides but the ulti makes up for that pure and simple.

[[TK0]Vascariz]

So the best finisher, should be used as initiator?
Cutting heroes hp in half is not enough?
The way i see it, he has some downsides but the ulti makes up for that pure and simple.

Firstly, I dispute that it is the best finisher. I would argue that Magebane's and Legionnaire's ultimates are much better finishers in terms of % based finishers.

Magebane because it has an AoE component and it is much easier for Magebane to reduce someone's manapool than it is for Soul Reaper.

Legionnaire because it has a pure damage component in that it is instant death below a certain % of hp. As such, magic immunity or damage mitigation is of no use. And once again Legionnaire's abilities allow him to reduce someone's healthpool much faster than Soul Reaper can.

Further, I would argue that Pyromancer and Witch Slayer's ultimates are much better finishers for their guaranteed instant damage. Once again because it is much easier especially for Pyro to work down a hero's health pool than it is for Soul Reaper.

In terms of a team fight, Voodoo Jeseter's cursed ground is a much better finisher as it allows your team to contribute to the damage.

Anyway, I think you see my point.

Secondly, the rebuild of the ultimate you will see is to grant Soul Reaper greater utility. It's not a simple buff. The damage component is unchanged, only the application duration extended. Further, you will note when you are in a position to do a larger amount of damage, the stun duration is reduced.

[[TK0]Vascariz]

I pretty sure the only hero with a "kill command" is legionare

I guess his point is more that there are circumstances when a hero is on a handful of HP, within range of Withering Presence and should die, but doesn't. I myself have noticed this when chasing someone in the jungle. I just chalked it down to luck.