[2.5.18] Gemini

[[f13]zstarkey42]

Many would agree that Gemini used to be an incredibly strong hero prior to his nerfs that was very difficult to stop and avoid from snowballing through the early-mid game. Ever since the three consecutive nerfs hit him last month, he has been left in the dust by most people and not picked up very often at all (in fact he has been the least used hero in the game for 2 weeks now) with a relatively poor win rate as of now (43%).

Let us review exactly what was changed with this hero. As said before, there have been a total of 3 nerfs:
1. Fire and Ice now scale on 80/90/100 of Gemini’s attributes at levels 6-11-16 instead of 100% through all levels; 2. Fire and Ice no longer have 370/420/470 move speed regardless of Gemini’s base speed. They are now equal to Gemini’s; 3. Fire and Ice must both channel to recreate Gemini, as opposed to only one of them as before. This means while a single wolf is stunned or silenced he cannot recombine anymore.

What most people would agree is that he has lost his appeal and ability to stand out as he did before. It is no longer possible to stack cheap stat items with no build ups, skip boots and proceed to endlessly chase and towerdive people with very little farm at all. The stats nerf at levels 6-11 as well as the Fire and Ice move speed being tied to Gemini’s normal speed also hurt his chasing potential and made it mandatory to build items to remedy these holes (boots are required now, and so are items like frostburn, etc) while also making it slightly more fragile than before (due to 80-90-100% nerf on STR). However, I don’t think these nerfs were particulary bad: they fixed the incredible early game power of this hero, and contrary to popular belief, the hero still stands out well during mid-game if he gets some decent farm and knows how to optimize both Fire and Ice independently. These were mainly number nerfs (#1 and #2); they did not change much in the hero’s playability other than tone down his extremely aggressive play early on.

However, the 3^rd nerf was probably the most important one, which drastically changed his gameplay and survivability especially in teamfights. Anyone taking full advantage of the hero will always want to stay in ultimate form trough the game so that it can be recombined back to the main one for a pseudo-heal, and then back to ultimate to keep fightning on full potential, hopefully on full life with both forms again. Prior to the nerf, this strategy was very viable as long as you were not facing very heavy and AOE CC that would stun both wolves, in which case it required extra care by the player to avoid getting stunned by both Fire and Ice. This made countering the hero difficult as well as representing one of his main strengths. However, since the dual channel nerf, the number of effective counters to this has gone from a couple aoe CC heavy heros to pretty much anyone with a single target stun or silence. Even things like proc stuns in the likes of Flint or Pestilence are heavy counters to the recombine process. Items such as Brutalizer are even more aggravating since they’re part of a lot of AGI carries’ builds.
It feels that this hero in his current state does not offer as much as he should to his team. He is no longer a crazy snowball hero during early/mid game and he is also no longer as ‘durable’ as before during teamfights. Due to the fact he can not stack as many stats as before (since you need boots, and it’s not worth it simply stack cheap stats items since you have 1 less slot – plus those items usually don’t build into anything worthwhile for Gemini later on), he will also have a lower HP pool in both forms than before, which make it even harder for him to stay alive long enough to recombine. This is why I think Gemini needs some sort of buff to make up for it – a simple revert on the dual-channel nerf would probably set things straight for him. Being able to absorb large amounts of damage via his ultimate was one of the core features of this hero, especially since his Fire and Ice forms already limit him in so many things every other carry can take advantage of (activated items such as shrunken head, ghost marchers, attack modifiers, inability to use certain +damage or +HP oriented items).
Right now, it takes the right hands to play this hero well, especially to make the most out of his flexibility with Fire and Ice. However, since he can not snowball as crazy as before, it’s also less rewarding to have its performance significantly dropped against most heroes with a stun or silence. Remember, this is not exactly a hard carry; this hero shines the most during mid game, and his success during this stage is vital to his ability to be useful later on for his team (e.g. assume a semi-carry role). While it’s true this hero still has its share of individual strengths (good stats, a reliable escape, stuns, slows, decent chasing potential, a ‘free’ cleanse for most debuffs and a pseudo-heal by recombining) he needs the right balance of all of these to be effective due to his complex design. The hero is appallingly weak early game before he obtains his ultimate, and he does not rival a hard carry in terms of damage with equal farm in lategame either. This leaves him the mid-game to shine (levels 6-20), which he is so heavily reliant on to maintain his presence.

There is also the fact he has very little team synergy; most of his abilities don’t benefit anyone but himself. This is not Valkyrie/Emerald Warden/etc that comes with a bunch of helpful skills for a team while also being able to semi-carry. Gemini’s role is to simply take over the mid-game stage, while offering decent damage and not being quite as easy to take down. When you take out his niche like this, he is not left with much, which probably explains why he’s the least popular hero in the game right now.

TL;DR: Gemini’s nerfs were fine except for the dual-channel recombine. It was too much.

Discuss

[Lnatic]

Well yes Gemini was pretty OP at the time, but he can still be very strong, he has good nukes, a stun (yes it's a skillshot but is still pretty strong) and it also can help as a good escape ability. Also with his ulti you can outfarm any carry by sending one of them to woods and the other one to the lane and a lot of people don't do that with Gemini.
I wouldn't say he's been way too nerfed i think hes good as he is cause before when you saw a Gemini in the opposing team you would know it would usually be gg cause he was pretty brootal...
All in all i think hes very strong lategame, like every carry all he requires is to survive early and farm (which is pretty easy once you get your ulti up).
Also the dual channel reconbine is fine if you ask me it game him too much survability ...

[ninja_goat]

The only thing gemini needs is to shorten significantly the channeling time of the combination method and the wolf will become viable again.

She is trash as she is atm and one of the reasons is that the ulti is completely useless late game in terms of dmg and utility ...
You must be very very lucky to achieve a succesful combination after the nerfs took place.

[Lnatic]

The only thing gemini needs is to shorten significantly the channeling time of the combination method and the wolf will become viable again.

she is trash as she is atm and one of the reasons is that the ulti is completely useless late game in terms of dmg and utility ...
you must be very very lucky to achieve a succesful combination after the nerfs took place.

I would agree with you on the fact that his ulti is kinda useless lategame but he is definately not trash, hes a good hero to get yourself out of low mmr since people underestimate Gemini, a lot of people say hes ez but I wouldn't say so he does require a lot of skilled if you want to do combos with your ulti (which is very effective early-mid game) but if you compare her to a carry like Maliken she is pretty weak on a lategame scale since her abilities are mana demanding so unless you go mid and rush bottle/gank/rune control/get kills you can't carry as easily. Also I stated before her ulti is best used for FARMING 'cause if you farm frostwolf till min 20-25 it's gg in most of the <1650's.

[[YARG]Rosgath]

I think the recombine change was fine for Gem. The fact that her ult basically makes skill her third skill (the skill that's obviously designed as her carry steroid) completely worthless was a bad thing and not thoroughly thought out on S2's part. Have you tried setting up a proc-style gem since the nerfs? Try building more normal carry items like Savage and Nullfire. Of course, I'm not saying that THAT logic is good either. That depreciates originality in the hero pool. A carry that stacks only raw stats was kinda spiffy, but the numbers were just broken as hell.

I think the idea behind getting the heal on combining was not originally intended as a mid-combat get out of jail free card type thing. I think it was originally intended to allow gem to either return to farming immediately after a failed gank or to allow her to farm multiple sources simultaneously much like how SW's ult works.

[[GuoP]NitroS]

why does this hero have a passive that requires him to stay in normal form and discourages changing forms through his ult, doesnt make sense ultimate is well designed but the passive is just stupid.

this hero got overnerfed, i dont get kaiser sometimes he takes baby steps on heroes such as torturer then he just does huge drastic nerfs on heroes such as gemini? why didnt he just do 1 nerf at a time instead of 5 in one patch. in a team fight the hero suffers now due to the requirement of both dogs to combine.

[GregerMoek]

why does this hero have a passive that requires him to stay in normal form and discourages changing forms through his ult, doesnt make sense ultimate is well designed but the passive is just stupid.

this hero got overnerfed, i dont get kaiser sometimes he takes baby steps on heroes such as torturer then he just does huge drastic nerfs on heroes such as gemini? why didnt he just do 1 nerf at a time instead of 5 in one patch. in a team fight the hero suffers now due to the requirement of both dogs to combine.

Imagine how a Brutalizer would work with ultimate form if the passive worked on Fire and Ice. Sure Wildsoul can do this too in a way but he has to buy two Brutalizers to make it work.

[[SIRS]Nine_Cloak]

Imagine how a Brutalizer would work with ultimate form if the passive worked on Fire and Ice. Sure Wildsoul can do this too in a way but he has to buy two Brutalizers to make it work.

Uh, what?

In his single form he has two chances to proc it. Are you saying the separate procs could be annoying?

I doubt it'd be gamebreakingly bad, but then again -- I don't think it's a buff he needs either.

[Apostate]

I agree strongly that the recombination nerf is by far the most severe to her potential.

Another approach to making her a better hero is by considering how well she can solo mid. Soloing mid is essentially required with Gemini if you intend on playing her how she is best played, as a mid game powerhouse that transforms into a decent carry. If you get stats before your abilities like you should be doing on Gemini, she is a very weak mid hero. If you level her abilities, she's slightly better mid but still has little kill potential, EXCEPT now she's very fragile and can't fulfill her role post-level 6 at all.

Right now Gemini's abilities are artfully designed to have a sort of parallel with the abilities of the split wolves. Her breath and her leap split into mini breaths and mini leaps. As we all know, however, Gemini needs stats and durability much more than she needs normal-form magic damage.

One possible way to buff Gemini would be to rework her normal-form abilities to make her a stronger mid hero, so that before level 6 she isn't forced completely on the defensive. Compared to other mid-game powerhouses with late game, Gemini is essentially the worst in terms of laning, even if she's the best in survivability. While I have no ideas at present, I think that if she was given a lot more power to control her lane pre-level 6, she would be a better pick.

So:

-Revert change to merge

OR

-Give her better lane control for solo mid

[[SBT]Puuhis]

Play him/her(lol) the way he/she was supposed to be played, get proc items. Does any of you understand that with Nullfire blade he burns 72 mana with a single hit? That dog carries pretty damn hard.

[ninja_goat]

person: ''Play him/her(lol) the way he/she was supposed to be played, get proc items. Does any of you understand that with Nullfire blade he burns 72 mana with a single hit? That dog carries pretty damn hard''


Me: That's the item i build around lvl 16 since ulti is bad at this point of the game ...
But i can't agree that gemini carries as hard as u say (even with nullfire) because she lacks something really crucial that all the other hard carries have at this point A REAL ULTI !

magebane, CHRONOS (ohhh god that's an ULTI), Dark lady (if you know how to use it ...),draconis (late game his ulti is the real deal).

Having an ulti that provides me some extra utility that can be shut down so freaking easy (try to split farm against a fayde) ...
is not much of an ultimate to me. On the other hand we have Boris that does the exact same thing with 100% more efficiency

[starkey444]

Fire and Ice are not 'bad' after 16, thats actually around the time frame where your character peaks to its strongest. Even with a Nullfire and Brutalizer you still have way more combined damage with Fire and Ice than your main. The only reason you can not effectively 'hard carry' with fire and ice at lategame is because mostly every end-game carry item's strenght comes from
a) sheer attack
b) on-hit effects
c) proc effects

all which don't work with your ultimate form.

Why do people insist that his ultimate needs to be a omgwtf steroid that amplifies his damage lategame and turns him into a hard carry? Do Valk and Emerald have those? No, their ultimates are build into utility, which is the same deal as Gemini's. If you think for a minute all the advantages Fire and Ice give you from level 6-20 (chasing, strong damage, nukes, dual farming, extreme time efficiency, survival, debuff removal) you will see it outclasses a lot of generic steroid ultimates you see around. Lategame is called lategame for a reason. The game does not start there. And Gemini is much stronger than those generic hard carries from level 6+. Just because it's 'not as useful' in lategame does not mean it's useless, especially when you consider the insane farming/ganking/domination you can achieve with it earlier, and how it will reflect in your lategame GPM vs the other teams'. Again, this dog is not a hard carry. I was simply stating he was decent.

[ninja_goat]

valk and emerald warden are RANGED semi carries ...
in other words they can't be compared to gemini because they have completely different play styles.

Also he (sry guy from above) is not stronger than valk no matter how u try to justify it.
Besides i think we all see why he isn't a hard carry anymore after all these arguements that were posted in this thread so far.....
The fact that he has this kind of passive means that S2 tried to give him hard carry potential but at his current state this passive has no way to synergize with his ulti...

pre-nerf u were building stat items (with on hit effects) u initiated as a double wolf, u threw your combo, you absorbed some dmg and then recombine to take full advantage of your passive.

you can't do this anymore which means u are in no place to hard carry

[[eR]Ekamo]

Deleted a couple of irrelevant posts. Don't simply state your suggestions, explain them!

[Alten]

People don't like playing him because going for that proc build makes the ultimate awkward; that is, people don't like playing heroes with abilities that don't synergise. Microing an extra unit is also a significant deterrant to the /facepalm-worthy playerbase. Technically, Gemini benefits from his ult much in the same manner as tremble's holes and Boris; it allows for a significant boost to farming capabilities and allows a mid gemini to execute efficient and effective ganks. The heal component is also fairly useful.

As such, the case must be argued as to whether the ultimate is on par with other ultimates, in terms of the benefits it provides.

[[GnJA]Good_Apollo]

As of now it's better to get stats over ult and just play him as a straight carry with proc items. He's example of poor design on S2's part when they envision ways they think a hero should be played instead of ways the playerbase will abuse in order to maximize effect. His ult is an all or nothing design that pretty much means that no matter what S2 tries to do with it in its current form, people will either favor always being in ult or not getting it at all.

I think a rework on the ult is in order.

[Apostate]

As of now it's better to get stats over ult and just play him as a straight carry with proc items. He's example of poor design on S2's part when they envision ways they think a hero should be played instead of ways the playerbase will abuse in order to maximize effect. His ult is an all or nothing design that pretty much means that no matter what S2 tries to do with it in its current form, people will either favor always being in ult or not getting it at all.

I think a rework on the ult is in order.

I disagree. As has been stated before in previous threads, Gemini's ultimate and her normal form both have a purpose, they just are at different periods in the game. Her ultimate is her mid game strength, and then late game she switches into normal mode and becomes more of a traditional DPS carry. The ultimate form is much stronger early, but scales less. Not picking her ultimate would be like not getting Demon Hands on Soul Stealer, and just playing him as a "straight dps carry". Stat-heavy Fire and Ice are ridiculously powerful, and they were nerfed for good reason.

[Smurfina]

I disagree. As has been stated before in previous threads, Gemini's ultimate and her normal form both have a purpose, they just are at different periods in the game. Her ultimate is her mid game strength, and then late game she switches into normal mode and becomes more of a traditional DPS carry. The ultimate form is much stronger early, but scales less. Not picking her ultimate would be like not getting Demon Hands on Soul Stealer, and just playing him as a "straight dps carry". Stat-heavy Fire and Ice are ridiculously powerful, and they were nerfed for good reason.

Weren't you defending Gemini was balanced when he was out as I recall? Anyway I think he should have his merge cooldown start after the dogs merge, as this will allow him to receive other buffs. I think orbs/proc items should pass over to the wolves (would keep the 2x to proc theme) along with percentages of damage items, straight hp and maybe armour items.

Right now he's so restricted in how he can build if he wants to do well and it makes his main form terrible.

[TorZelan]

Weren't you defending Gemini was balanced when he was out as I recall? Anyway I think he should have his merge cooldown start after the dogs merge, as this will allow him to receive other buffs. I think orbs/proc items should pass over to the wolves (would keep the 2x to proc theme) along with percentages of damage items, straight hp and maybe armour items.

Right now he's so restricted in how he can build if he wants to do well and it makes his main form terrible.

I disagree with you here , here you just stated another way to nerf him , if they did this they would have 2 buff his ult massively since he would be even more trash than he is now, and adding the procs on to the ult form when u have 2k health is just op as well , so this defo won't happen.

[Apostate]

Weren't you defending Gemini was balanced when he was out as I recall? Anyway I think he should have his merge cooldown start after the dogs merge, as this will allow him to receive other buffs. I think orbs/proc items should pass over to the wolves (would keep the 2x to proc theme) along with percentages of damage items, straight hp and maybe armour items.

Right now he's so restricted in how he can build if he wants to do well and it makes his main form terrible.

That is incorrect. It was my position after her release that it was too early to rebalance Gemini; right after her release a lot of people were complaining that she was a poorly designed bad hero while others were complaining that she was completely off the roof broken. It was my position that it was possible that she wasn't broken, but only that people hadn't learned how to play against her yet. After another month, I agreed with the general consensus that she was too strong. She wasn't really that fantastic really even when he was overpowered, there have been much more overpowered heroes than Gemini. She was really disastrous in lower mmr games, because of the ease with which people could dominate once they mastered basic micro and just massed stat items. In higher games I understand she was a less severe problem, even if she was still considered nerf worthy.