Artillery Speculation

[Keris]

Saw this guy couple time in my match. Nice cheap buff, Slow passive build in, got awesome piercing and escape skill, and need a good positioning to be effective.

What are guys thinking about this hero? is he good? borderline? or just another unpolished hero? the session start right now.

[[eR]Ekamo]

Sure, approved, why not?

[[umc]moshonkel]

Saw this guy couple time in my match. Nice cheap buff, Slow passive build in, got awesome piercing and escape skill, and need a good positioning to be effective.

What are guys thinking about this hero? is he good? borderline? or just another unpolished hero? the session start right now.

Couple of things.

1. Can kill kongor from outside pit with his q
2. Possibly strongest antipusher/turtler in game
3. Possibly the first hero with doombringer as good and not too risky luxury item, especially when you are behind.


Personal opinion: The hero will get nerfed

[[LsE]Hsssh]

I dislike him because Q scales so well, applies physical slow and has absurd range. Then we have buff which costs 10mp, has cd of 10 and lasts 8 seconds. Sure you have to stay in area but with below average positioning that isn't that hard. On the other hand if you are mid it's rather easy to stay in "bunker" all the time and win lane.

[Khrato]

Why he would be nerfed? Its easy, SO EASY to counter. Why? Every PK user can easy stop channel of LRM. After that, while he has got CD on Bunkers Down and LRM he is with 295 speed so he have to use his ulti. Okey, he is out of fight atm so whats up now? CD on Q - he is *****. CD on E - range 550 - he is *****. Ulti used to run away - he is even more useless cuz' he cannot stun any1. Only poor 7% slow per CHARGE = hit.

If thats your point of OP - lets nerf magmus! Using pk will stop his ulti. Lets nerf silhouete so she wouldnt use tree graple. Why we shouldn't nerf more char with escape mechanism cuz' they've got escape mechanism? Lets go for another one! Nerf to flint cuz' he have builded in little stun with range 810! Lets nerf another skill of flint, did u ever saw CD and range of his ulti? unbelievable!

[[GM]Cyber_Kun]

Khrato, all your examples of heroes that we should nerf are in fact OP so yeah.

This hero is stupid. 1500 range rape. It applies the PHYSICAL SLOW and deals enough damage that you should never auto-attack in all but the most rare cases. LRM needs to have static damage, no scaling, and then have the slow be applied a lot slower.

[rancewong]

Considering LRM is arguably better than FA's ult (lower CD, spammable Mana cost, longer range, phys.slow, gd scaling, turning..).
I don't think it is anywhere near the line of balance.

[Beroya]

The hero lacks any form of survivability, and even though LRM scales, it doesn't do it nearly as well as similar skills (DL's charge and MQ's bounces are the first to come to mind). It doesn't apply attack modifiers and cannot proc anything that would boost its damage (like crit). It forces a player to stand still for 4.25 seconds unless they want to lose some of the missiles, and they're notoriously easy to dodge since they have a limited range and don't completely lock a target down. Due to their pseudo-scaling, the time when it would be OP (early game) is the time they're the easiest to dodge (no ranks in slow).

With all that said, it's still nice damage, so long as the opposition doesn't get armor and/or your team gets armor reductions. It becomes better than autoattacking as soon as you start hitting more than one target consistently. Hitting one is 120% attack damage + 60 per second, so 300 attack damage at 1.4 attacks per second is effectively the same thing. Or 200 damage at 1.5 attacks per second.

[Khrato]

Cyber_Kun, in fact yeah - heroes are OP but tell me, how many people know how to play flint/silhou (Didn't see even 1 good silhou i last months. - even in comp matches)
But if you are going to meet realy good player of this chars, you are done.

Silhou is hard char, that demands a lot of brain with tactical skills.
Comparing to Artillery. Lack of survivalibity, LRM with realy low damage and slow, realy slow reaction to every change of destination that LRM will be thrown. Okey 1500 range. Do you know how many times devo took my while I was throwing LRM to save tower? How many times I did get Valkyrie's Javelin? Artillery is throwing LRM? lets hit him by Flint's ultimate = 0.2 sec stun. The main thing = LRM is channeling skill and comparing to FA's ulti is mistake cuz' after boost she can also run away or use autoattacks. Another thing, stacking slow? 7% per one hit and that is IMO only good and realy helpful ability. If they will nerf this - I will never take Artillery again cuz' it will be useless char.

[[SIRS]Nine_Cloak]

Khrato, all your examples of heroes that we should nerf are in fact OP so yeah.

I find this comment to be highly out of place, being on the balance forums and especially coming from a game master. The heroes that he mentioned are all in a sweetspot for balance, hence they haven't been touched in forever. Notably, Magmus is competitively picked and banned a bit too often; the point still stands. People saying that there's nothing you can do about LRM are mistaken, because there's plenty you can do. Artillery has very little to offer if you take him out of his LRM/Bunker Down. The question is really: "Is taking Artillery out of his LRM/Bunker Down too difficult?" and I would say the answer is no.

This hero is stupid. 1500 range rape. It applies the PHYSICAL SLOW and deals enough damage that you should never auto-attack in all but the most rare cases. LRM needs to have static damage, no scaling, and then have the slow be applied a lot slower.

In response to the bolded part, I'd like to say that LRM replacing Artillery's autoattack is very clearly intended, and is a unique aspect of the hero that fits both his theme and his hero design. In response to the underlined part, I would like to point out what you suggest is undermining the former sentence. If the carrying aspect of the hero was limited to his Bunker Down, there would be a very ugly headbutting between him and Flint Beastwood as far as roles go. What use is Artillery if all he can do is be Flint Beastwood for 6 seconds or less if he's forced out of Bunker Down?

Having a hero be that niche is not fun. S2 very clearly agrees with me on that one, considering Vindicator's recent remake.

[Fromundaman]

I've been playing this hero a lot. One of the more interesting EA heroes to come out recently. Artillery is balanced in my opinion, but will probably never see the light of competitive play.

Pros:
-Good from beginning to end.
-Bunker down is amazing for last hitting and harassing in laning phase.
-LRM has ridiculous range, does good damage and slows a LOT late game when you've leveled his passive.
-He farms somewhat easily.
-Has a stun/pseudo-escape.
-AMAZING attack animation (I don't actually like the visual too much, but the cast time is great.)
-Scales well into late game.

Con:
-Incredibly squishy
-A character without a REAL escape mechanism?! Blasphemy! (I will get into his ult in a minute.)
-His ult isn't very good. Now yes, it can serve as both a stun and an escape, but it's only meh at both. First off, it has a really long cooldown. Secondly, this escape mechanism really only works in small fights or if they are all trying to gank you while bunched up. It also requires that none of them have some sort of displacement of cliffwalking ability, since characters like Valkery, MB, SW, anyone with PK or tablet, WB, hag, etc. will catch up to and kill you even if you do hit them with the stun.
As a stun, it's pretty decent, but it clashes with his other abilities and theme. If you use your ult in a teamfight, you have effectively pushed your slow hero out of the fight and you find yourself having to reposition yourself during the battle. If for any reason you already had a bunker down placed, you just pushed yourself out of that as well. All this on top of a ridiculous cooldown makes it a meh skill, and very underwhelming compared to his other skills. I have even found myself skipping it entirely to level the other skills a few times.
-Pretty terrible as a mid against a competent opponent IMO due to his very low MS and lack of escape, especially early game.
-While he racks up a lot of assists, LRM tend to set up kills for others moreso than getting kills himself, which along with his squishiness tends to limit his ability to become a late game carry. On the plus side, he makes for a solid semi-carry who can still help support and set up for the hard carry.
-Very vulnerable while casting LRM. Flanking him will destroy him.

All in all, I feel he makes for a very good semi-carry.
Also, auto-attacks late game > LRM for orb effects and all. That being said, LRM is still good, but should be used more for softening them up pre-fight or to stop runners.

[KingIsRey]

I feel LRM is too powerful at its current state as a primary [Q] spell because of the scaling. He can match a VJ Spirit Ward ult (all 3 when at an equally appropriate level ex: lvl 16 Voodoo Jester vs lvl 16 Artillery) in damage (which as a Voodoo Jester player I feel is a strong dps ult), yet it has longer range 1500 vs 1000 (VJ's 300 cast range + 700 for Spirit Ward) and also applies the stacking slow along with pierce properies.
*Have test data to support such speculation

[Fromundaman]

I feel LRM is too powerful at its current state as a primary [Q] spell because of the scaling. He can match a VJ Spirit Ward ult (all 3 when at an equally appropriate level ex: lvl 16 Voodoo Jester vs lvl 16 Artillery) in damage (which as a Voodoo Jester player I feel is a strong dps ult), yet it has longer range 1500 vs 1000 (VJ's 300 cast range + 700 for Spirit Ward) and also applies the stacking slow along with pierce properies.
*Have test data to support such speculation

That's really not a fair comparison. VJ's ult should never be used without Cursed, which makes it's DPS WAAAAY higher.
That being said, LRM shouldn't be used without bunker down, which makes it's DPS higher as well.

HOWEVER, if you are matching VJ's ult in damage on LRM, then depending on the items you have to boost that damage (Frostburn seems to be common. Still experimenting with other items, but Frostburn's slow + passive are nasty together), it's often better to just bunker down + auto-attack rather than using LRM unless the opposing team are immobilized and clumped together (for example in Kraken or Tempests' ult) or at full range (in which case it's pretty easy to escape and should be used more to harass.

[PrestonLee]

Some things:
*The people who are saying that Artillery is balanced because he is incredibly squishy have no idea about basic positioning skills; you're saying he's squishy but you completely neglect that he has a 1500 range nuke and 800 modified range with Bunker down. When placed safely in the back of any decent team positioning composition, it's going to be incredibly hard for that blink Pebbles to get through to you and kill you, let's not even talk about other heroes.

*The people who are saying that Artillery is balanced because it's hard to aim his LRM have no idea about basic teamplay skills; you get an allied AoE stun and it's a 100% gauranteed hit to apply slow and in turn get all your missiles to hit. After that there's nothing stopping you from just raping them since your 35% AoE slow is physical and cannot be avoided.

*The people who are saying that Artillery's LRM damage output is negligable are just plain building him wrong (keep building those Frostburns on him, then stating that his damage is fine lul); if you build the right items on him his damage output with LRM is f***ing ridiculous.

-

I don't want to go into too much detail but this hero is blatantly overpowered at the moment, however it's just numbers (and they obviously aren't going to be changed til after he gets out of EA).. a few tweaks and he will be easily put into balanced.

A few things, if you want to keep his 35% physical slow into play, then you REALLY need to lower the damage on LRM. It's just horribly overpowered in combination with allied AoE CC chain stuns. basically you get a team of 3-4 AoE stuns, have Artillery stack damage and stay in the VERY back and throw out LRM when that Magmus+Witch+Tempest does their thing, obliterate all squishies, then you proceed to run *a little bit* closer to the action, bunker down and finish off whatever is left as they are now slow-fuked by a 35% physical slow and you can freely shoot and finish off with Bunker down+auto attacks, use your ulti to stun and reposition yourself if needed. Especially in combination with a Tempest and/or Kraken based team in particular; the synergy between the two is just monstrous with pretty much every single one of Tempest's/Kraken's skills, and a well-placed ult is pretty much a gauranteed GG whether or not you actually break Tempest's channel; mind you both Tempest and Kraken are considered top-tier picks at the moment.

Some suggestions:
First, if you want to keep this hero's AoE damage output monstrous like that, have the scaling % damage output of LRM only apply when bunker down is activated. You might think this is negligable but it has some applications in that if you bunker down for the increased damage on your LRM, then in turn you will not be able to use bunker down as a follow up for cleaning up with auto attacks as the cooldown on it will come up. Basically, you'll have two options, 1. use LRM as an AoE slowing utility without the damage, and then proceed to clean up with bunker-down+auto attacks, or 2. Use LRM as a damage source, and giving up the follow up range. Currently the LRM damage is potentially absurd with the right pickups even without bunker down, and you don't need to activate it to get big damage out of LRM and then just finish off with bunkerdown+auto attacks.

Second, Artillery's movement speed should be decreased (say by 30%) when within the range of Bunker down to give it a thematic approach to it, while also limiting the use of it and making it more strategical. It shouldn't be just a 'ACTIVATE whenever I want to attack' kind of skill (whoever came up with this idea has down syndrome when it comes to developing interesting skills), but rather a 'I need more firepower right now, and I'm willing to risk my mobility for it' kind of skill. To make up for his lack of mobility though he should get some kind of survivability buff (I don't know, -15/20/25/30% damage taken? go wild, that was just an example), again to go with the thematic approach of "bunkering down." As it stands it's currently just a "I press E when I want to attack" skill which is completely uninteresting and for the most part brainless.

-

That's my opinion/input on it anyway. I personally think the hero is stupid broken and if you aren't capable of understanding why then you need to get better at the game. I'm quite sure anyone experienced at a high level of play in this game will tell you he's broken; feel free to prove me wrong if you play in the 1800's+ and disagree with me, I'm quite interested in those opinions of higher level players. I didn't even mention the part where he's able to use LRM to easily flashfarm as a carry with the right pickups, which just adds more reasons as to why he's currently broken.

[[GM]Cyber_Kun]

I find this comment to be highly out of place, being on the balance forums and especially coming from a game master. The heroes that he mentioned are all in a sweetspot for balance, hence they haven't been touched in forever.

You do know Helm of the Black Legion, correct? It was considered balanced forever but it was not. It got balanced. Magmus will have his at some point.



On what should be done to him? Hell if I know. He has huge design problems and removing the OP from LRM and the physical slow will make him a useless hero.

[KingIsRey]

That's really not a fair comparison. VJ's ult should never be used without Cursed, which makes it's DPS WAAAAY higher.
That being said, LRM shouldn't be used without bunker down, which makes it's DPS higher as well.

HOWEVER, if you are matching VJ's ult in damage on LRM, then depending on the items you have to boost that damage (Frostburn seems to be common. Still experimenting with other items, but Frostburn's slow + passive are nasty together), it's often better to just bunker down + auto-attack rather than using LRM unless the opposing team are immobilized and clumped together (for example in Kraken or Tempests' ult) or at full range (in which case it's pretty easy to escape and should be used more to harass.

Its actually very fair because Cursed Ground is its own spell in its self and has NO direct effect on Spirit Ward unlike Bunker Down and the passive slow Artillery has which both directly effect it (increased damage potential and applies slow properties). Also, it doesn't matter if you get more damage from normal attks, point im arguing is that LRM is still very powerful with its scaling based on attk damage and as a semi carry he WILL grab damage items. But, if you say so, its adding insult to injury that he has such a powerful channeling spell and can still deal better damage w/o it.

lvl 4 LMR scaling vs VJ Spirit Ward (lvl 7 Artillery and up)
Spirit Ward lvl 1: 200 dps
*Notice LMR shoots 4 missiles per second, somissiles only need 50 damage each to match 200 dps from Spirit Ward. Bunker Down obviously helps in increasing attk damage, thus increasing damage potential on LRM.

So, in theory (and testing) missile damage should go as such: 15 (static damage from LRM) + 35 (lvl 4 LRM scaling) = 50, 4 missiles makesit 200 dps

If you divide 35 by .31 (scaling) you get roughly 113 which is what Artillery's attk damage must be to satisfy the theory. Artillery with Ghost Marchers and 2 Soulscream Rings already has 95-99 attk damage at lvl 7, not counting what you can get from Bunker for bonus damage as you start gainingmore levels. His LRM can easily match the ult of Voodoo Jester.


Lvl 4 LRM vs lvl 2 Spirit Ward (tested at lvl 11 Artillery and up)
Spirit Ward lvl 2: 300 dps
300 dps = 4 missiles at 75 damage each, -> 15 +60 from scaling
60 divided by .31 (scaling from lvl 4 LRM) = 194 attk damage required, not including Bunker Down bonus damage


lvl 4 LRM vs lvl 3 Spirit Ward (tested at lvl 16 and up Artillery)
Spirit Ward lvl 3: 400 dps
400 dps = 4 missiles at 100 damage each -> 15 + 85 fromscaling
85 divided by .31 (scaling from lvl 4 LRM) = 274 attk damage required, not including bonus damage from Bunker.

Its fairly easy for Artillery to reach those required damage quotas to match Voodoo's Spirit Ward.
The static damage suggestion would be a fair change to keep easrly game power on LRM but not have it scale into late-game.

[Fromundaman]

Now don't get me wrong, I am NOT a good player. I don't claim to be better than mediocre, so I could be wrong on quite a few things (As it seems I am).

@Kingisrey: Wow, that's considerably less than I thought it needed...

Some suggestions:
First, if you want to keep this hero's AoE damage output monstrous like that, have the scaling % damage output of LRM only apply when bunker down is activated. You might think this is negligable but it has some applications in that if you bunker down for the increased damage on your LRM, then in turn you will not be able to use bunker down as a follow up for cleaning up with auto attacks as the cooldown on it will come up. Basically, you'll have two options, 1. use LRM as an AoE slowing utility without the damage, and then proceed to clean up with bunker-down+auto attacks, or 2. Use LRM as a damage source, and giving up the follow up range. Currently the LRM damage is potentially absurd with the right pickups even without bunker down, and you don't need to activate it to get big damage out of LRM and then just finish off with bunkerdown+auto attacks.

Second, Artillery's movement speed should be decreased (say by 30%) when within the range of Bunker down to give it a thematic approach to it, while also limiting the use of it and making it more strategical. It shouldn't be just a 'ACTIVATE whenever I want to attack' kind of skill (whoever came up with this idea has down syndrome when it comes to developing interesting skills), but rather a 'I need more firepower right now, and I'm willing to risk my mobility for it' kind of skill. To make up for his lack of mobility though he should get some kind of survivability buff (I don't know, -15/20/25/30% damage taken? go wild, that was just an example), again to go with the thematic approach of "bunkering down." As it stands it's currently just a "I press E when I want to attack" skill which is completely uninteresting and for the most part brainless.

Those are EXCELLENT ideas. S2 please look at these, especially the 2nd.


Out of curiosity, what offensive items would you get with him? FB and shroud seemed like decent mid game pickups IMO. Maybe SB? DB?

[KingIsRey]

How are those "excellent" ideas? PrestonLee agrees about the great scaling on LRM but hardly nerfs it with Suggestion 1. People already pair Bunker Down with LRM for best results in almost every occasion since Bunker Down has a 350 radius. Then, suggestion 2 is potentially a backfire buff to Artillery since he suggests adding damage reduction properties to an agility hero. We'll have another tanky dps in our hands.

[PrestonLee]

you obviously didn't read all of #1, and #2 is just trying to actually synergiZe it with the name it was given. Right now it might as well just be called "Power Up" because you get no drawbacks except having to stay in range of the circle (okay, yes this is a limitation but you usually press that E when you're in range to finish them off anyway). If you exit the circle nothing happens and you only wasted 10 mana, and you can just reenter the circle, again no real drawbacks.

Either way, yes they are just suggestions and I see a lot of different ways to fix him (make lrm damage like aluna's power throw decreasing damage as it goes through more targets, and limiting artillery's movement to be stuck in bunker down's circle unless he deactivates it as two more examples) it's just those first two were the ones I felt made the most sense to me to make things interesting without changing his current form too much. You're free to dislike it if you want, I'm personally indifferent to your opinion.

The only point I wanted to make was this hero was a big pile of rushed crap (like most recent heroes, gunblade, blitz, even kinesis) and was just released without even getting polished and I'm not sure why S2 has such low standards in balance/hero concepts nowadays (it's sad because they have potential to be so much more interesting, but they just aren't). Artillery in particular is an overpowered piece of crap on top of being unpolished. But again that's just my opinion

[[SIRS]Nine_Cloak]

You do know Helm of the Black Legion, correct? It was considered balanced forever but it was not. It got balanced. Magmus will have his at some point.

I know that it's considered an un-viable item now to the point where the Strategy forums concluded that you're just better off getting Iron Shield or skipping it entirely. If that's your idea of "balanced", I don't know if it's possible to argue with you or your mentality. You can backpedal your earlier statement if you like, but saying Flint Beastwood is OP has really hurt your standing here.

On what should be done to him? Hell if I know. He has huge design problems and removing the OP from LRM and the physical slow will make him a useless hero.

Offering something new and competitively viable does not equal a design problem. The only problem I have with LRM is that it's re-aimable so quickly. If we were on the suggestion forums, I would say a cooldown added to the re-aim would be a smart move. But, then again, it's only a 4 second channel. We'll see if the thread can come up with anything later, but I don't think throwing around sentences like "this hero is stupid!" or distasteful things like "1500 range rape" are needed or even wanted.