Fellow forum-mates, I know that this is a very delicate subject, and by no means I want to start a 'flame-war' of sorts by trying to discuss it. Keep this topic clean and let's try to understand why Luck should be in, or out of this game.

Understand that by Luck, I don't mean things like using Devourer's Hook to catch someone inside the FoG, without really knowing where they were. Thats not the Luck I will be talking about. I will call this, healthy-luck, or situational-luck.

The Luck that I will be talking about is the one that is implemented into the game on purpose, written into the game-code. For example, Legionnaire's Whirling Blade, which is purposefully created to have a chance of working every time the Hero is attacked. I will call this by Luck, with capital L.


Comming from DotA, HoN is, I believe, aimed to be a very competitive game, with entire clans training to get better with every hero, studying opposing strategies and maximizing their own abilities, much like a soccer team, or a basketball team.
Players will play many hours just to reach that state fo "uncounscious though", were you play by instinct, reflexivelly knowing what to do in each moment of a match.

And here is were Luck, with capital L, may ruin the competitive aspect of the game.

You can't train your Luck. You can't control it, and neither your opponent's Luck. You just play and pray for it to work in your favor.
Sometimes, you get Lucky, and those % work brilliantly for you, allowing you for almost impossible Double Taps, or very, very close escapes. Right, those may result in "fun" moments, but and when the inverse happens? When you lose games because that 20% didn't really worked 1 time out of 4? When you trusted your skills and they failed you, not because you lacked training, but because "dices" just didn't went well for you on that match?
Things like these break the competitive aspect of the game, basically because your ability as player can't be trusted anymore, neither by yourself.

If we analise other competitive games (not really eletronic games, but games in general) searching for Luck Properties, we won't find any, really.
For example, imagine if the basket, on a basketball game, had a 20% chance of exploding the ball before it went through it, effectivelly denying a point that would be made, for sure, if the Luck wan't purposefully added to that basket.

Another example would be a soccer game were the ball had 25% chance of evasion. Even in very easy defenses, goal-keepers would miss it and a point would be made.

Ok, getting back to eletronic games. People might say that since we can't fully simulate real sittuations in eletronic games, we need to add Luck to it, for example, to simulate a hero that is very nimble and hard to hit.
That's not true. There are several sollutions that could be implemented that doesn't add artificial Luck to the game.

For example, for Starcraft 2, developers are removing the 30% miss chance for elevated terrain. Instead of it, they are simply letting units on higher ground fire without being revealed by the FoG.
See, we still have an advantage from being at higher ground, but without any artificially generated Luck involved. Players won't need to pray for their opponents to miss, or pray for a hit when in lower ground.

There are several other examples, even in HoN, of what could be made to avoid artificial Luck.

We all know a hero that's called Puppet Master. His third skill, called Whiplash, makes him release more damage in every fifth attack he makes. That's a skill that adds ZERO artificial Luck to the game. It could easilly be made as a chance of 20% to release a powerful attack, but it wasn't, and it is more reliable the way they made it.

Now, look at Scout, for example. He has a skill, Improve Dexterity, that gives him a chance (I don't really remember the exact numbers, but I think it is something like 15% or 20%) to deliver critical damage. This skill adds artificially generated Luck to the game, which is bad for competitive game-play. Why not make it like Puppet Master's Whiplash? Improved Dexterity could easilly be done as a skill that let's Scout deliver more damage every fifth attack he makes. More reliable, less frustrating.

Another example would be Legionnarie's Whirling Blade. If I'm not mistaken, it has a 20% chance of going of. Why not make it go of every fifth attack? It would make it more reliable, more predictable. You would be able to think about strategies that didn't count on a chance to really work.

I've already seen people state that abilities like Whirling Blade would be overpowered if they went of every fifth attack for sure. That's a wrong way of thinking.
Right, every fifth might be too strong, but then make it go every 6, or even every 8 attacks. It doesn't matter, it could be balanced without allowing Luck to interfere with competitive gameplay.

Even evasion can be balanced this way. Wingbow could make you avoid every third attack, instead of giving you a 30% chance.

Now I want to read what you guys think about it.
Also, I would really like, if possible, to read what S2 things about this subject. If they support artificial Luck, or if they would want to remove it.

Thanks for reading through all of this.