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Thread for discussing Ravenor and his possible impact on the game.
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I think Ravenor is very well executed. What he gets with good lane power is offset by the fact that he does not have great team fight initiation. He is initation dependent enough that he can't initiate a fight by himself as the likes of Maliken, but he makes up for it by being more solid in the lane than a lot of carries.
His magic / physical meshed damage can be helpful for the "tankbusting" in a meta that is really tank heavy right now. Vestments and the likes can hurt his DPS a lot, but there's never a guarantee to completely nerf his damage without major items.
IMHO, he's a good addition.
I'm unclear on the original design intent, and whether they consciously chose to make charged hammer into a hero or not.
Well they are making heroes into items like Genjuro, so why can;t the reverse be true? :3
Man thathas magic immunity? Why did they make Shrunken Head into a hero @_@
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While I understand there are a limited number of original effects that are obvious, Ravenor takes the signature active and passive effects off charged hammer. I can't believe it's just a coincidence...
I can definitely see the Charged Hammer influences on the hero, I'm just not sure why that matters or why that's relevant to a balance discussion. The design intent was, as far as I could tell, to make a hero who uses carry mechanics (attack speed steroids, +damage) to deliver magical damage rather than physical.
Whether that was successful is still up in the air I think. Before the bugfix Ravenor seemed like a very threatening hero who could deliver mass amounts of magical damage very, very quickly then ramp up into a hero who got 120 bonus magical damage per hit. After the bugfix he's still the same, but losing that extra bonus damage from his W pushed him over the boundary from "terrifying" into just kinda another hero who nukes for a good amount.
At least he doesn't have a shield or escape mechanism.
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Bluntly speaking he feels like another snowballer who'll roll enemy team if he gets good early game while will be below average in "hard game" where enemy team will start picking up headress and Shrunken.
Well,
I play him as a ganker in early game, mid game he is a jungler. Late game he shows up and acts like a hard carry and really works. Charged hammer is a slot waste for your item pack because you alredy get full charges after Q W E'ing... Check out my guide for Ravenor but NEVER ever forget to watch replays for proof.
I kinda wish his 3 was a passive and allowed for him to jungle
With his Q being as fast as it is he also feels very dependant ob set-ups, making him better in a dual lane. In a solo lane he kinda seems to lack a proper sturdiness.
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Well I use his E as a jungling ability. Has 75 manacost since Ravenor's mana regen is great for a STR heroOriginally Posted by Skyve
I kinda wish his 3 was a passive and allowed for him to jungle
With his Q being as fast as it is he also feels very dependant ob set-ups, making him better in a dual lane. In a solo lane he kinda seems to lack a proper sturdiness.Try jungling with it you wont regret.
The only problem I have (speculation of course) is that he has carry potential. New meta: every hero has burst damage and carry potential along with escape mechanism and farm ability. I remember the old heroes (oh yea the ones they ported) where they were either balanced in all areas or really strong in some and really weak in others. You would buy items to either enhance the strengths or to compensate for weakness.
Well the charged hammer speculation isnt really valid until his skill is maxed really which let it bounce to 4 targets, at first this skills is nothing like it and not good for farming.
I feel like my original post failed to really specify my balance speculation for Ravenor. I'm worried he won't be able to do any job well enough to warrant him a valid pick over other heroes. IE I wouldn't be surprised if I saw some minor buffs.
terrible hero design imo
Issue 1- Ball Lightning
I'm going to compare 'Ball Lightning' with Valkyrie's 'Javelin'
In the recent rework of Javelin we have seen, the arguments made in the youtube interview was that they did not want level 1 javelins to achieve the same effect as level 4 javelins with regards to the maximum stun time.
I would apply the same argument stated then to current S2's flawed argument with regards to the 500 movespeed on ball lightning to prevent Ravenor from being a strong initiator and snowball hero with 120 charges if he is in the battle long enough.
The 500 movespeed might be justified at level 1 to prevent him from being too strong early game.
But in midgame - lategame, ball lightning becomes a joke. You've got to be an idiot to get hit by ball lightning unless you are snared/stunned.
Currently there is no incentive to level up ball lightning since the stun and projectile speed is the same at all levels. So why put points into it since level 1 is sufficient to gain the movement benefits which i'm pretty sure is the main point of the skill and not the damage factor.
Suggested rework
Increase Ball lightning projectile speed to increase throughout levels 1-4 so that level 4 is significantly faster;
OR
Make it as fast as Maliken's sword throw with the same initial hitbox since it does not return like sword throw nor is the aoe stun practical for the purposes of calling it an aoe stun. (in most situations the enemy hero keeps a safe distance from his allies after being hit by the ball)
Issue 2 - Power Underwhelming
The other thing is how his ultimate is too charge reliant and feels like a shittier version of drunken master's 'Drunk charges'
The speed at which charges deteriorate, the 8 second timer before deterioration starts and the speed at which charges are gained is just terrible.
The point being that his ultimate is far from useful. since in most fights, you probably only see 50-90 charges. (from my experience anyway playing with 1800s/high 1700s not on this account)
Suggested rework
Reworking charges gained from level 1-3 to scale with the skill;
AND/OR
Keeping the same maximum charges at 60 but instead cause each charge to give more than +1 to attack damage and movement speed scaling from levels 1-3;
AND/OR
Vary each charge to separately boost attack damage and movement speed with different values;
AND/OR
Similar to deadwood's clearcutting ability, add in a slow/stun resist component
As he is, he feels like a shitty nightstalker with no snares or defensive capabilities with a very terribly watered down 'night mode', the maximum capacity of which is theoretically attainable but practically unfeasible
Last edited by Gekikara; 06-18-2012 at 01:21 PM.
I feel this guy is absolutely correct, he's pointed out Ravenor's flaws quite nicely
The only thing I feel is flawed about Ravenor is his Storm Blades, they're somewhat worthless in the sense that they do so little damage that you almost always have to have help to get a kill without items, if the burst was increased so that Ravenor's Storm Blades could do more then half their hp...
ball lightning is a disaster :/ i always try using it at 300-500 units range to have a chance to hit... but it's overall good ability compared to feedback, which is near useless
projectile of ball lightning should fly a bit faster, that's for sure, also ultimate needs some sort of serious tweak
I'm starting to think that Ravenor is pretty much completely useless without a very good farm/kill spree early game(or both), his Q is useless mid to late game, and so is his Storm Blades, which honestly does not offer much burst, his ultimate is also useless as pointed out it doesn't gain charges nearly fast enough.
He's fun as hell, but very weak.
The hero is supposed to be "the carry that counters armour" yet this heros carry capablity is extremely limited. His QWE are all conditional as to wether they actually do anything and his ult does not provide enough of a steroid to make this character a threat. This hero can suffer some mad mana issues and for a carry is rather lacking late game. Lets cover the skills.
Q - Mana expensive with levels and difficult to hit with no real scaling with levels. Puts ravenor in the thick of things and will almost always be used to attack an enemy position. Suggestions? Speed up with more levels, lower mana costs, additional crowd control?
W - As a melee hero getting off two auto attacks is actually quite tough, any hero that isnt stunned will most likely use some CC and prevent this skill even being used. The 50 attack speed buff isnt enough, the spell hits creeps more often on the lane and has a low range for finding new targets. The cooldown is high for such a weak spell. This is also Ravenors main source of damage. Suggestions? Cooldown decrease, longer duration, more attack speed.
E - This spell triggers when the hero is auto attacked. It doesnt work when spells hit ravenor. Its damage is puny and has a high cooldown between attacks meaning that its unlikely to actually affect more than a few auto attacks. This spell does early game pewpew where spells are king and auto attacks are slow it is terrible later on. Suggestions? Lower cooldown/higher damage, work when harmed by any source of damage, splash damage, lower mana cost and cooldown.
R - The only thing keeping Ravenor in combat, the only thing that actually even appears carry about this hero. But dont be decieved. Movement speed for chasing helps him stay in the fight and is the best aspect of this skill. Longer chases leave him out of breath as he has no means to damage outside of close range for keeping this spell up. This skill is a mighty weak steroid for a carry and doesnt let him do too much extra damage. Relatively speaking Ravenor attacks quite slowly and has no way to garantee charges on this passive. Suggestions? Magic pen, Attack speed, debuff resistance, better charge duration. Ultimately this skill could actually work if the rest of the set wasnt so bad.
Conclusion
Ravenor is an early game nuker with conditional, yet average damage nukes. This hero is ment to carry but doesnt really have any strong steroids. This hero is useless if he isnt constantly in the thick of things.
Building and playing Ravenor.
The hero needs CC resistance, survivability (a lot) and attack speed so that he is actually dangerous at auto attacking past mid game. This means he will need a shrunk and he needs one asap. Mana regen is an issue and needs to be addressed. The character really wants to grab some attack speed as well. But wait this heroe's skill set is early game. This doesnt translate into a workable playstyle as the Hero will either be focused on farming neglicting his strongest period to become a mediocre carry or a ganker where his unreliable spells means unreliable ganks meaning a lot of wasted time and poor farm. This heros magic damage is bad and tanks build magic defense and hp early anyway rendering the concept of this hero as being an armour breaker as just a poor choice where armour stacking only happens mid, late game at this heroes disadvantage. Cannot carry, meh ganker.
So why pick this hero?
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