[2.6.11] Dr Repulsor

[MikeTAR]

In a nut shell DR Repulsor is a hero that was once very popular since his release. He went from being a top tier competitive pick to an afterthought and is now seen on rare occasions in public play.

I would like to start by addressing the Pros and Cons of the hero then step in to his viability compared to other heroes with similar roles and later discuss how indirect nerfs to the hero need to result in some sort of buff or change to make the hero more viable.

The good!

• Has an farming skill / nuke.
• Single target disable.
• Passive that gives increased attack damage and a small aoe slow.
• Very mobile through use of Ludicrous speed.

The heroes’ biggest strength in my opinion is the ability to jump and kill an enemy target in the blink of an eye through use of his ultimate.

The bad!

• Is completely dependent on items to be effective through the game.
• Being intel based low armour, he is very vulnerable to physical damage.
• Having 290 ms he requires his ultimate to effectively out run ganks and chase
• Is purely mana dependent to be effective.
• Is nearly completely countered by silences, mana burn and magic immunity

With the above in mind DR fits the roll of a mid-game carry. Other intel heroes which fit this role that come to mind are Pyro, Hag and Torturer.

The key difference between DR and these other intel mid-game carry’s is that DR requires items to boost his ability’s to make him scale throughout the game.

For me this makes DR less attractive to pick over other heroes who fit a similar role as these other heroes don’t require farm to be as effective. A good example would be a level 16 hag or pyro with steam boots and a grave locket can still supply heavy amounts of damage through raw burst and aoe, whereas DR as this stage of the game (same items) is very limited to what he can do.

So what makes DR a mid-game carry? This comes from his 3^rd ability and his ultimate ludicrous speed. Both skills are heavily dependent on two core things.

Mana Pool – to spam his 1^st and 2^nd abilities to proc the 3^rd ability
But most importantly Mana Regen so he can stay mobile

The only way to improve a heroes mana pool and regen is through leveling, but most importantly items. Since DR is limited to intel style items, this makes the hero very repetitive to play as there isn’t much versatility in his item build.

With that said, let’s take a look at common items.

Laning Phase - Steam Boots / Bottle /Chalice
Stat item – Grave locket
Defensive item - Null Stone / Shrunken head / Frost plate
Offensive item - Hell Flower / Kuldra’s Sheep Stick / Harkons
Utility item – Storm Spirit / Ring of Sorcery

Nearly all of the above mentioned items have been nerfed which leads me to believe that DR has been indirectly nerfed because of these item changes.

Kuldra’s Sheep Stick disable was nerfed from 3.5 to 2.5 seconds
Hellflowers mana cost incraeased from 100 – 200, Cast range reduced 900 – 800
Nullstone Mana Regen nerfed from 200% to 150%
Ring of Sorcery mana cost 20-40 (cost increase on pickled brain)
Storm Spirit now perplexes you after usage stops DR from flying away after self-usage + cost increase

These items nerfs have somewhat “kicked DR while he was already down” and reduce the effectiveness of his mid game while making him less viable late game.

To conclude my thread I would like to know the forums opinion the following

The balance community’s thoughts on Doctor Repulsor in his current state.
Have these in-direct nerfs affected him that much?

If you agree with me that he needs a buff, what changes / buffs can compensate for this?

Thanks for reading

[[TECH]Gorb]

Approved.

[[IaF]Skyve]

Being intel based low armour, he is very vulnerable to physical damage.

He has one of the highest base armour values out of all heroes (Nighthound, Monkey King and Pandamonium have more, Rampage, Pestilence and Accursed should be a bit higher, but he's on par with Jeraziah).

Also imo the problem with DR is more that you HAVE to solo him because you really want to get that ultimate, but he is just too vulnerable during the early stages to make that a "safe" option, and the comp scene simply prefers safe picks.

[foxmindedguy]

I still don't know why a single target stun (with the generic 1 / 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 seconds duration) that does no damage HAS to slow Doctor Repulsor for 3 seconds.

[[LIE]B4NNH4MM3R]

I am really impressed by you drawing the conclusion of the indirect nerf, and to be quite frank i agree with you.
The items you mention are all items that are commonly picked up on DR, and there are not a lot more items to choose from, without doctor scaling worse than he would with these items.
I agree that Doctor needs some sort of buff.
It is hard to come up with a buff that does not make him OP, but at the same time removes some of his dependancy on these nerfed items.
And i think this is something the guys over at balancing should DEFINITELY look into.
For now i think Doctor Repulsor should be allowed a couple of small buffs (Manacost, stat values that sort of stuff), untill someone at balancing manages to come up with a balanced Rework/Buff.

Again, impressed by your conclusions on the indirect nerf.

[Niqhtmare]

I was thinking, maybe reduce the manacost of the ultimate and make the slow on Electric Frenzy last longer (maybe 0.8 or 1.0 seconds would be better?). Dr Repulsor used to be a hard carry who got to that stage by snowballing but now with all these itemnerfs he struggles to get the snowball rolling. I think what he needs is something to help him snowball better.

[Jezu]

Doctor Repulsor is still a strong hero. He has been indirectly nerfed a lot, but it does not make him underpowered.

I never see anybody aside from me picking DR though, but people ban DR against me quite often, and I don't think they would do that if they thought the hero is not that strong.

Doctor can be a midgame carry, but doesn't HAVE to be. He is a devastating lategame force with a very strong midgame, but he is dependent on a good early game.

I posted a rather big post about Doctor earlier, so for now, long story short: Remove the self-slow, or reduce it, and DR is completely fine.

Any other buffs would easily make him overpowered.

[TheWikedEnd]

Interestingly, Storm Spirit, due to having mana boots available, is much more viable. Maybe DR's problem lies with items, rather than the hero?

[[SBT]Puuhis]

Interestingly, Storm Spirit, due to having mana boots available, is much more viable. Maybe DR's problem lies with items, rather than the hero?

Storm spirit's passive also does more damage and dota has bloodstone.

[[IaF]Skyve]

Interestingly, Storm Spirit, due to having mana boots available, is much more viable. Maybe DR's problem lies with items, rather than the hero?

And how exactly do you account his viability to mana boots?

[Tay_z0nday]

I agree with Fox he got the worse Stun of the world of Newerth...
Fayde is an aoe doing 280damage and stunning for 2.5 sec while Doctor one is just terrible...
On another notes his ult is freaking great so this is why his stun blow...

Mana ring is good only if you goes jungle and never cast your ult...
It's great to farm beside that I dont get the point...
Remember that his first spell got 4 cd and doesnt cost much like defiler while doing a good amont of damage

I beleive We should revert his passive to the time like the old beta...
Where he could miss a last hit on a creep and yet having his passive ready...

I dont think that buffing his stun is a good idea tough...
That might make him op...

[sharbarachu]

No CD blink hero. Innately broken and annoying as **** to play against. Just terrible hero design in general makes this one of those heroes that's either grossly over powered, or total garbage. A lot of dota heroes are like this, but the game itself places many counter heroes and relies on you picking properly instead of generalized balance. HoN doesn't really do this, so these types of carry-over heroes will never fit well without some adjustments.

Would like to see some things limit his power (low CD on his ult), while enhancing some other aspects of him. Would stabilize the hero into being more playable on a regular basis.

[Fen__]

The good!

• Has an farming skill / nuke.
• Single target disable.
• Passive that gives increased attack damage and a small aoe slow.
• Very mobile through use of Ludicrous speed.

- unlimited by cd disjoint ability
- great ganking effectivness
- significant carry potential scaling well from early to mid game
- great last hitting mechanism for a solo lane (3rd ability) + very good attack animation
- 1 of best escape mechanism not limited by cd

- free initiation mechanism that doesnt require exceptional positioning

The bad!

• Is completely dependent on items to be effective through the game.
• Being intel based low armour, he is very vulnerable to physical damage.
• Having 290 ms he requires his ultimate to effectively out run ganks and chase
• Is purely mana dependent to be effective.
• Is nearly completely countered by silences, mana burn and magic immunity

Mentioned above problems concern probably around 90% of heroes and are very general.
- Every single carry requires items to reach their potential, at the same time dr with just 1 item (hellflower) becomes very dangerous capable of soloing almost any other hero with similar farm which makes him less item dependant than others i would say (like maliken)
- Like mentioned before his armor is actually pretty decent.

- Yes movement speed is low but thats being recompenstated by ultimate in a very effective way
- Mana dependancy is a lot lower than other heroes. Many combo/nuker heroes got mana barely enough to use their combo once after which they become pretty defenseless (pyro, witchslayer, pebbels), but doctor is quite opposite. He got big base mana pool and reasonably cheap skills allowing to multiply use of them during 1 fight, ultimate is very mana consuming but if your using it for the 3rd skill procs (short teleports) it actually becomes quite cheap.

With the above in mind DR fits the roll of a mid-game carry. Other intel heroes which fit this role that come to mind are Pyro, Hag and Torturer.

The key difference between DR and these other intel mid-game carry’s is that DR requires items to boost his ability’s to make him scale throughout the game.

Well mentioned by you heroes requires items to achieve their mid-game carry potential as well. Hag without items is just a burst hero with very little to offer beside that, pyro is same story. I could agree on torturer that even without too many items he still posses a brute force, but thats how torturer works - good in doing everything.

The only way to improve a heroes mana pool and regen is through leveling, but most importantly items. Since DR is limited to intel style items, this makes the hero very repetitive to play as there isn’t much versatility in his item build.

The fact that DR is forced to buy int items is best that could happen to him. Int based items are superior to standart carry items.
The most obvious is hellflower increasing dmg by around 70, attack speed for about 30 and giving you 1 of best debuffs on top of that. Obviously agility heroes can get them too but they get only a bit over half of the potential dmg.
Second item sheepstick: i like to compare it to geo bane, both give similar hp and dmg increase. The difference is in activation lvl where in most scenarios i would prefer miniaturisation for 2.5s than 2 ilussions
Thrid item harkons: Harkons is a league at its own. Early and mid game power of this item are kinda low but late game is unmatched. The power of this item is so great that it becomes a very tempting choice even for agility heroes and guess what DR benefits from harkons significantly more couz of the all +int.

These items nerfs have somewhat “kicked DR while he was already down” and reduce the effectiveness of his mid game while making him less viable late game.

People stopped picking DR before mentioned above item changes so I would say that there is no connection between both. At the same time i would say that the item nerfs arent as big of a problem on DR than they are for many other int heroes.




In my opinion DR is still 1 of best late game carries in the pool. Utility and synergy of int based carry items on DR is so great that he has no problems in scaling into late game. At the same time hes very powerfull ganker throught the game with or without teammates assitance. He posses great initiation capabilities backed with great escape/disjoint mechanism making him less risky while performing such a role than many other picks. Hes farming potential is insane nad hes a strong 1v1 hero letting him get great snowballing potential that scales all the way to late game. On top of that from lvl 6 hes very hard to gank. All of that gives to a correctly played DR, DL/MB effect which requires a lot of enemy team resources to stop DR from owning the game.



P.S. Balance arguments based on how often we see a hero on comp scene are worthless.

[Hubaris]

Any hero that has a full on invincibility is going to be hard to balance. As for mana issues; the problem lies with people leveling the Ultimate at 11 and 16 before they have sufficient mana and regen (think Torturer). The cost for invincibility goes up each level, although the move cost stays the same.

He does require a solo lane in most cases, although Jungle Doctor is viable (read: you can DO it, to what extent... meh).

The removal of Sacrifical/Blood hit him hard and the nerf to the mana regeneration on Nullstone did it as well. Does the hero need a buff though to compensate for these factos? A hero who can easily become unkillable with a large enough mana pool due to full on invincibility? Not in my opinion.

He requires tons of farm and for a good reason. He can carry through sheer mobility, pushing and teamfight presence; very hard might I add. Hes able to output large amounts of damage and slow while being safe to play in the hands of a skilled player.

Don't touch Doctor because his downsides (slow on stun) are there for a reason; to make his vulnerability at levels 1-5 apparent as he gains a lot of momentum later on.

[foxmindedguy]

I dont think that buffing his stun is a good idea tough...
That might make him op...

What? Removing his slowing (punishing) himself for applying a non-damaging, 1-2.5 second single-target stun? I don't think it will make him OP, but will definitely improve his quality of life in the early game.

[Hubaris]

Yea but does he need that early buff? He can have such a monstrous impact later that it becomes negligible. Its one of the interesting ways he scales.

[MikeTAR]

A lot of responses in this thread seem to be pretty far off the point I was trying to make

My key points are

He is completely countered by silence, enemy magic immunity and just having no mana
He is totally item dependent
His core items are limited
Core Items were nerfed

This make’s the hero viability a bit too situational, even in public play and this is evident.

Rather than simply say he doesn’t need a buff and point out some basic things I forgot to cover, I want to hear how you think we can make the hero more viable.

Rather than suggest a buff or nerf, I’d like to remind you that balance is also about change.

This isn’t a suggestion, just an example of what change can be. What if DR had a way to increase his mana regen based on how much he has just used? thus removing his need for same item dependability.

DR is sort of forced to build the same. If the game requires DR to buy a shrunken head 1^st in order to survive mid-game the heroes power is basically capped until he can get some decent mana regen and get another item to compensate for the lack of mana pool and regen.

While the hero is extremely strong on paper, he can be severely week in most real time scenarios.

[``fagatron]

Storm Spirit now perplexes you after usage stops DR from flying away after self-usage + cost increase

no

The cost for the ultimate goes up significantly with each level.

no

[Hubaris]

Although its not explicit that it drains less, by travelling slower you actually have a chance to regenerate while flying; not to mention more invincibility frames.

Yes the cost is the same, but to maximize invulnerability it goes up and thats the strongest point about it.

I'll change that statement though to imply mana usage.

[[f13]`11411181]

"He is completely countered by silence, enemy magic immunity and just having no mana"

1) what heavy spellcaster isnt
2) it's called hellflower
3) refer to both 1 and 2