[2.6.10] Pebbles

[foxmindedguy]

Well the two reasons I am skeptical about nerfing Pebbles's ability to chuck targets onto himself are:
(1) We will start to see null-stone abusers like Valkyrie, Bubbles, Wretched Hag, Emerald Warden (even Magebane) more than right now. These heroes do not need an indirect buff, whatsoever.
(2) If it is settled here that "Pebbles shouldn't be able to wombo combo Nullstoned targets because it defeats the purpose of buying nullstone, which is to avoid ganks", then Witch Slayer, Succubus, Fayde (although her damage is less, especially at earlier levels, and the much-needed Codex for solo ganks does get negated by nullstone) and Deadwood gank mechanisms should all be reassessed. I fear follow-up questions like "Why does Witch Slayer mana drain pop nullstone?", "Why does Fayde Shadow-Cripple not get absorbed by nullstone?", "Why does Succubus's Smite absorb nullstone or Deadwood's log throw for that matter?" would ensue.

[Skyve]

How does Warden "abuse" Nullstones? And a single hero that possibly overshadows a whole category of heroes shouldn't be taken as the sole reason the heroes you mentioned are "kept in check".

(2) If it is settled here that "Pebbles shouldn't be able to wombo combo Nullstoned targets because it defeats the purpose of buying nullstone, which is to avoid ganks", then Witch Slayer, Succubus, Fayde (although her damage is less, especially at earlier levels, and the much-needed Codex for solo ganks does get negated by nullstone) and Deadwood gank mechanisms should all be reassessed. I fear follow-up questions like "Why does Witch Slayer mana drain pop nullstone?", "Why does Fayde Shadow-Cripple not get absorbed by nullstone?", "Why does Succubus's Smite absorb nullstone or Deadwood's log throw for that matter?" would ensue.

Why would that ensue? Unlike Pebbles, all those heroes do have decently cooldowns on key abilities to their kill potential, and they aren't problematic at the moment, nerfing pebbles won't somehow magically make them stronger (safe for in relation to Pebbles).

[[eR]Ekamo]

(2) If it is settled here that "Pebbles shouldn't be able to wombo combo Nullstoned targets because it defeats the purpose of buying nullstone, which is to avoid ganks", then Witch Slayer, Succubus, Fayde (although her damage is less, especially at earlier levels, and the much-needed Codex for solo ganks does get negated by nullstone) and Deadwood gank mechanisms should all be reassessed. I fear follow-up questions like "Why does Witch Slayer mana drain pop nullstone?", "Why does Fayde Shadow-Cripple not get absorbed by nullstone?", "Why does Succubus's Smite absorb nullstone or Deadwood's log throw for that matter?" would ensue.

There is distinct difference though. They actually have to waste a skill to do that, while Pebbles completely ignores the fact that the Nullstone is even there. It's like it didn't even exist, something which is very inconsistent with the fact that it blocks it otherwise. There is no extra skill involved in bypassing the Nullstone, no tough decision making. It simply is a matter of knowing the existence of this mechanic and then proceed to ignore the fact that Nullstone even exists.

[Iuchiban]

No.
That is the exact point of half my post. Please learn how the mechanics work before spouting off posts like that.

What I meant is that heroes with already purchased Nullstone got too much hit points to get nuked down... Please don't 'learn' me 11311181 Oo -.-'
Recently I had a game when our Pebbles at lvl 8/9 couldn't nuke down Bombadier around these levels with Steamboots and Vestment (plus maybe some random totems). Don't magnify (google translate ;D) Pebbles, he is not that supa dupa epic hero. He got burst and great stun as I told, but jeez... He is in HoN since forever... and got nerf nowadays.

[Hubaris]

He is not a supa dupa epic hero? He has some of the best utility and damage with Stun and Chuck. His stun cannot be dispelled (in a sense), he can hit towers, deny allies, reverse toss people to your team, has insane attack damage (adding to his burst), and many more fun things.

Just for fun. Assume Bombadier is the same level as Pebbles.

WARNING INCOMING OFFTOPIC MATHCRAFT

Health Base: (18 + 1.9*8) * 19 = 630.8 HP
Health With Treads and Minors = 630 + 190 [Treads] + 19*4 [Minors filling leftover slots] = 896.8 HP
Magic Armor = ~38% reduction.

Pebbles deals 920 Magic Damage at level 8 now ( Taken from: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...-Ramifications ) and 564 with Vestments.

896 - 564 = 332 HP Remaining.

Then we take into account his 2 autos during the combo; ~85 Damage each.

332 - 170 = 162!

Huzzah Bomb Lives... only due to Steamboots.

But all of this (minus the AA's) is done in an AoE and can be used in many different ways. Almost every other hero who is underleveled (this is before Enlarge) is going to be squashed, if Pebbles just had 1 More level on him... Bomb most likely would have died.

OT Though: Chucking a target onto yourself just makes no sense and it provides this hero with already ample burst a stun and utility with a hard counter to Nullstone users, an item which is supposed to stop instagib situations. He can just pretend the target has no Null and trololo all over their purchase. No skill gets absorbed and 4k goes down the drain. His numbers (despite my moaning) are fine, but that one mechanic just strikes me as weird.

[Zestiwafflez]

Another point worth bringing up is how Stalagmites makes the target zone dangerous for 2.0 seconds, Tort and Pyro have similar skills but are only dangerous on initial cast, pebs has a longer stun that can be walked into tenths of a second after the first rocks hit.

[[DRD]Ultimate]

The thing with the Chuck there is that the mechanics has been there for ages and he easily SCREWS himself over if he picks up a Shrunken Head and the enemy team has a Nullstone in likely both heroes would have it mid/late game. You should also factor in that picking up Nullstone gives +190 Health and Pebbles stalagmites was nerfed by 40 damage (stun) and 80 damage (stun/chuck combo). If you were to add in making Chuck unusable on yourself and the enemy team if they were to have a Nullstone that would severely damage Pebbles damage output as most of his damage output is the combo and 1-2 auto attacks.

[foxmindedguy]

There is distinct difference though. They actually have to waste a skill to do that, while Pebbles completely ignores the fact that the Nullstone is even there. It's like it didn't even exist, something which is very inconsistent with the fact that it blocks it otherwise. There is no extra skill involved in bypassing the Nullstone, no tough decision making. It simply is a matter of knowing the existence of this mechanic and then proceed to ignore the fact that Nullstone even exists.

My question to you then is this. Let's say Armadon has Nullstone and Balphagore doesn't.
Currently you can't chuck Balphagore onto Armadon, but do you want the opposite to also hold true? Or do you simply want to gimp chucking on self mechanic?

[[TECH]Gorb]

@Ultimate: * 20 damage, 40 from the combo.

I don't get why people are doubling something that is explicitly stated in the notes as 280 damage down from 300. I could be missing something incredibly obvious, however.

Also, "let's not fix it because it's been around forever" is a really bad argument. Please, please, please don't use it in future.

[foxmindedguy]

The thing with the Chuck there is that the mechanics has been there for ages and he easily SCREWS himself over if he picks up a Shrunken Head and the enemy team has a Nullstone in likely both heroes would have it mid/late game. You should also factor in that picking up Nullstone gives +190 Health and Pebbles stalagmites was nerfed by 40 damage (stun) and 80 damage (stun/chuck combo). If you were to add in making Chuck unusable on yourself and the enemy team if they were to have a Nullstone that would severely damage Pebbles damage output as most of his damage output is the combo and 1-2 auto attacks.

Only true if you pop Shrunken Head before chucking. Usually the ganking skill-item activation order is Portal Key -> Q -> W -> Shruken Head (to run away without getting disabled) -> or even TP stone.

[KeY533]

First of all, I think it's usefull that Pebbles can combo Heroes which bought a nullstone because like someone said before it would be a indirect buff to those many heroes which are getting a nullstone at the moment in the competitive scene. And using chuck on himself can be usefull on some situations for an example if you got a haste rune and you chuck someone at yourself while being close to a tower you can run into the tower and stun him afterwards because early game your damage from your combo won't be that high anyways. But my point is, I think pebbles stunduration is the biggest problem, maybe they should make his stunduration scale with levels or lower it to 1 second or maybe just 1.5 seconds (without lowering the damage from his combo) because his aoe stun is pretty easy to hit and in most situations it's undodgeable.

[man_guy]

The thing with the Chuck there is that the mechanics has been there for ages and he easily SCREWS himself over if he picks up a Shrunken Head and the enemy team has a Nullstone in likely both heroes would have it mid/late game.

Both abilities are instant cast, he only needs to pop Shrunken after he combos.

[[STLI]Tupimus]

@Ultimate: * 20 damage, 40 from the combo.

I don't get why people are doubling something that is explicitly stated in the notes as 280 damage down from 300. I could be missing something incredibly obvious, however.

Also, "let's not fix it because it's been around forever" is a really bad argument. Please, please, please don't use it in future.

Because the combo is about doubling Stalagmites damage with Chuck.

I don't really care for nerfing the damage, as I'd rather see the blanket stun nerfed (it really is a perfect example of a blanket stun).

[[TECH]Gorb]

So you lose 20 damage from Stalagmites normally and you lose 40 from the combo.

Am I missing something here?

So I'm missing something indeed. So you're losing 40/80 if and only if you combo the two. Which still does a horrendous amount of Magic Damage considering that 40/80 is pre-mitigation (on average resulting in a ~25% decrease), which takes it to 30/60 less than the previous (post-mitigation) amount.

Animation-cancelling into attack also grants you a good 60 - 80 damage (by the time you have max combo) in one hit. If your opponent survives that, odds are the extra attack it would've taken to kill them is relatively superfluous and you'd need to be chasing them anyway.

I suppose I can't even count situational purchases like Shrunken or Vestments, even though said items should be bought reliably by a large range of heroes especially when the game features a Pebbles.

[Dynn]

i think pebs is fine as it is, wards counter ganks, theres a lot of things that stop a pebs from snowballing, if you are getting pissed on by a solo pebs, the player would do the same with any hero he is familar with, if your team is retarded, blame your luck not the hero, also pebs is almost useless if it doesnt get a decent amount of farm (anything less then 180), thats the downside to counter 900 damage combo

now for some simple logic

if you solo lane against a pebbles, stay outta range, get a vestment first, buy your own ward if needed to see incoming ganks, harrass hard if you are range (easiest lane against pebs)
if you dual lane against pebs and support, if you are ranged, harrass, if you are carry, farm early vestment, if you have dual melee, you/your team are retarded, again a lane ward to keep track where the support is, pebs gets lvl 8 @ 10 min if your lane dont die, thats enough for a proper carry player to get steamboots and vestment if the dual lane know what they should do (depends on ganks and luck factor)
if you suicide against pebs and support, lane is lost, stay outta sight and get as much exp as you can, prays your team do something, again lane ward to keep track of support

seriously spending 100gold and a little logic to ensure you dont die is WORTH IT
the main issue here should be people dont understand the difference between playing passive and defensive
supports should be keeping spells to stop pebs from doing the additional chuck damage that should be the thing stopping the combo not a nullstone
in addition, pyro and ws can get a push book to counter nullstone in a solo gank since pebs require a pk to properly get the combo off

[[DPSM]Scarth]

In my humble opinion Pebbles should not have been changed.

[man_guy]

How is he losing 40 / 80 dmg and not 20 / 40?

[[TECH]Gorb]

The combo doubles Stalagmite's damage, according to Tupimus (and probably everyone else, I wasn't aware of the specifics of the combo).

Regardless, it's less than 100 pre-mitigation damage on a hero that has ~1100 burst at level 16 (pre-mitigation, I think).

[[STLI]Tupimus]

The combo doubles Stalagmite's damage, according to Tupimus (and probably everyone else, I wasn't aware of the specifics of the combo).

Regardless, it's less than 100 pre-mitigation damage on a hero that has ~1100 burst at level 16 (pre-mitigation, I think).

It's a leftover from the Wc3 engine, where the Thrown target essentially entered the Avalanched zone again, thus taking the damage another time. And it's 20/40. From 900 to 860.

[[Mana]Farosarg]

It is hardly an unreasonable thing for Nullstone to actually work against Chuck because as is, when playing against Pebbles it just won't be built unless there is some really good reason for it. Meaning the almost 5k will just be spent on other items which might or might not be better. The Nullstone not being an option against a mechanic that probably should be blocked by Nullstone kinda defeats the purpose of why items like that exist in the first place. And it is hardly a buff for heroes that "abuse" the item considering that there are actually other survivability options and Nullstone still being counterable by using other things to waste the charge.

Seriously what's this sudden Nullstone hate anyway? Did it plan genocide and hired goons for it or something?