ARROGANCE, NERDRAGE, TL;DR POSTS, ETC & occasional helpfulness!

Here are my suggestions for what I think should be priority for the next patch not dealing with connectivity and all.  Just sort of, doable stuff.

Bug fixes

  • On click skills, you often get frozen afterwards and have to give a move order to fix it.  This is an old bug since b1 that needs fixed..
  • When trying to move away, it seems it tries to attack-move and has your demigod turn around 180degrees to attack, which can get you killed since you were trying to flee.
    • There is a related bug to this where your demigod will hit targets besides what you're chasing when doing attack move.  Very annoying resulting in losing kills a lot, just like the other one makes you die a lot when you shouldn't have.
  • Deep freeze and mass charm do not work like they are supposed to, and would work poorly if they did.  More detail at this link
  • When you cap both valor flags(+30% health/dmg for minions), and then lose one, you lose the bonus for both and can never get a single bonus again.
  • Fix nightwalkers not being able to hit moving targets.  Pretty much all but spirits seem to have this problem, but spirits somewhat too, it just seems particularly bad with nightwalkers..
  • Favor.. obviously.
  • The 6500 gold helmet says -25% cost aura, but it's -35% on the buff.  If it's -25%, it should be cheaper(like 5500).  If it stays -35% it needs to actually say that.  Testing ingame it seems like -35% to me.
  • Things that say "instant" still make you stop if you use them while giving an attack order on someone moving.
  • Fixed pathing.  Demigods sometimes get stuck on corners(especially on exile near crystal). Minions often do.

Balance
These aren't all nessisarily overpowered things, or underpowered, but in some cases skills aren't really worth additional points for lvling and such, or just things to add more variance.

In General

  • Rework +atk-speed% and +move-speed% multipliers.  +20% +15% +15% should be a 42.2% increase, not 50%
  • Chat should make a sound when there is a new message from someone.
  • Text needs a black outline or transculent black background so it can be read on light colored backdrops.
  • Skills should list AoE size in tooltip.. among other things.  There is too much hidden information, like in compost.  This isn't newb friendly!  We shouldn't have to look in lua's to see how things work!
  • In the same spirit as the above, you should be able to see a buildings armor and DPS, minion armor and dps, when you click on them, not only their health!
  • Should respawn in the mode you died in for TB/QoT.
  • Arranged teams on pantheon with seperate rankings(if you have a team of 3 people, it should not save your stats in the same place stats for people that go alone are in.)
  • Heal on priests and DPS on other idols is slightly too good with the reduced cost.  Cost is good being cheap, they're just too good for the cost now.
  • Stop it with the 3% and 1% chance stuff.  This is pure randomness.  Nothing should be under 15% chance(except evasion).  And not only that, these 1% and 3% chance things equate to uselessness.  Like 1% chance for 300 health shield is basically only reducing damage by THREE per hit.
  • Fix resetting camera on death :/
  • Armor reduction debuffs should not effect buildings (IE QoT ground spikes current gives like a 250% damage bonus because it puts buildings into negative)
  • Change gold upgrade to 3/7/12
  • Add increased range to the tower offensive citadel upgrade as a sort of counter to regulas +range allowing him to outrange them.  Action/reaction type things are good.  Right now this upgrade isn't that great, anyways.

Unclean Beast

  • Make spit not able to target buildings like bite.  (For reference.. lvl4 spit is 164dps(if you use it as often as it recharges, on two buildings.)
    • Uproot is 133 dps.  Even if you only maintain 1 target with spit it's still 115dps which is nearly as much as the building-only Uproot.  Granted, not counting compost, but this is 4 skill points invested vs. 4 skill points invested.
    • However, if you really want to argue and include compost.. then the DPS per skill point is nearly HALF compared to spit.

Regulas

  • Snipe should do 1/4th damage to buildings.  Really, it shouldn't even be able to target them, but it doesn't make as much sense as spit and bite not being able to.. so maybe damage reduction is better.  Building sniping is just a bit too good.
  • Mines should have a (longer?  Seems like there is a small delay now, or that's just the animation) delay before they arm.  1350 damage is fine as a mine, not as a hand grenade.

Rook

  • Increase base armor from 240 to 340.
  • I'd prefer boulder roll to stun longer against moving targets, or ones casting.  There should be an invisible "Is Casting, Is Attacking, Is Moving" buff added for "If isMoving" type triggering abilities.. would be nice to use for modding later, along with improving skills in the game itself or new skills that are added.
  • Towers should have their health reduced about 25%. So around 1.2k at lvl1, 2k at lvl 4.  Maybe have spells do 30% reduced damage to them.  They're too hard to kill effectively with autoattacks when they have 2850hp, they require anti-building skills or things like fireball.  Tower spamming has become the predominate rook role.  Or make them fixed at 1500 but gain citadel upgrades instead of improve with levels, so more levels is just more towers.
    • A minimum range between them of like 10 yards wouldn't hurt too..

Queen of Thorns

  • Change Uproot to 3 levels. 500/1000/1500 damage.  Add "When a building effected by Uproot is destroyed, 1/2/4 Shamblers are created.  You can have a maximum of 2/2/4 Shamblers"(from 500/1000/1500/2000 dmg)  Increase cast time to 1.0 second from 0.5.
  • Increase compost damage bonus to 1500 at lvl3 for Uproot to make up for the 500 damage drop on Uproot since it's 3 levels instead of 4.
  • Change recharge time on Brambles to 12/12/7/7 seconds.(from 7)
  • Increase damage in open form maybe?
  • Add a wider damage line to Shamblers.  I seem to always see those spikes pass through something but they not take damage..
  • Reduce cast time on spike wave to 0.3 from 0.4

Sedna

  • Change rechange recharge time on Heal to 12/12/7/7 seconds.(from 7). Increase mana cost to 400/600/800/1000
    • Also, I think sedna's dispell might be removing the debuff that priests give after they heal that makes them unhealable by priests temporarily.  Not exactly sure though, but if it does, that's bad.
  • Change Silence duration to 2/3.5/5(from 3/4/5).  Increase Silence cooldown to 20 seconds from 15.
  • Reduce Inner Grace to 6/12/18 HPS
    • The lvl 1 inner grace with lvl 1 healing wind giving 22 HPS is a bit too good early game.  Giving 18 would be a bit better.
  • Lower her base HPS increase per level.
    • This would help focus builds.  She can get 100HP pretty easily and quickly.. which nearly negates lvl4 spit damage.  That's not a bad thing really, but it does show how really high her HPS can get.  1/3rd the HPS heart of life gives but without getting interupted and no cooldown..  ACTUALLY it's the same HPS heart of life gives if you average over the 30 seconds. ^^

Erebus

  • Change debuff time on Bite to 2/2/2/3 seconds(from3).  Change to 250/450/650/800 life steal.  Really, you should be able to do it by moving and continue to attack otherwise.  Right now there is sort of a delay thing after it.. I don't know really.
    • I think a lot think bite needs to be nerfed more, but it's not like erebus was that great with the 650dmg bite.  People are thinking it's overpowered now mostly because AI and new players don't understand armor, while the beta testers did.  They don't understand they're getting F'd up largely from armor going into negative values so there is a huge damge increase.  The formula for armor goes crazy in negative values..  Simple counter is having more tan 800 armor.
  • Change Mass Charm to 1/1.5/2/2.5 stun from 1/1.5/2/3 with it's AoE range at 10/10/15/15.
  • Disable all skills for 2 or 3 seconds when Mistform ends.  Change damage on Mistform to 50/85/120/155 from 50/75/100/125.  (Patchnotes said damage was increased by 25, but it wasn't except the first level I beleive?  It was 25/75/100/125 i think but i'm not possitive.  Just manacost got fixed.. and it's really weak now.  Or am I mistaken? I could swear lvl4 dmg was 125 before)
    • Or maybe it should be 50/100/150 damage instead.  Cut out one of the middle levels.
  • Reduce health per level back down to 135 from 145.(well, was 137, but 135 is rounder)
  • Increase mana cost on Bats. Change distance to 15/20/25
    • Also there is a huge problem with bats being able to cross areas on crucible.  It makes Erebus so much better on that map.  Bats shouldn't be able to cross things just like boulder roll can't.  If you try to bats across something you should just get stopped on the edge, or the skill fail.
  • Make Vampiric Aura its own skill with level 8 and 15 requirement for 5%/10% life steal aura.
  • Have Poison Blood give health regen even while using Mist Form.  Could sort of open up a minion build with Erebus then with this change and the added damage on Mistform, without improving the assassin playstyle build.
  • Redo Army of Night.  It's pretty bad and won't be good just by buffing it's stats. :/  You don't need life leach on them when they're created so easily.  It's certainly not worth 7 skill points now, which is how it needs to be looked at.
    • It'd be better if this was changed to a corpse explosion type thing.  "When a Nightwalker is created, 150 damage is done in 6 AoE around the exploited corpse".  So it'd sort of be like disease.  This could make interesting combinations..

Oak

  • Surge of Faith seems messed up.  Seems like you get WAY more than +10% movespeed and attack speed.  OR more likely it's just imagination of having the two together?.. That weapon just swings like mad, and you can't escape his crazy movespeed.  Maybe changes to how +atk speed and movespeed stacks will fix it though.  This is the main thing making him beastly good now IMO.  Could use a reduction to 7/11/15% IAS/IMS still.
  • Increase cooldown to 45 seconds from 35 on level 1 Shield.(Right now it's sort of something you just put a single point in some cases.  This'll encourage spending 2 points on it when it's used just as a quick-save.)  Using Shield should disable all item abilities during its duration.  (Using penitance and last stand with it on is fine, but shielding, then healing yourself to full health with no one able to do anything about it, or using Heart of Life, is well.. pretty killer.  I guess this is arguable, and a huge nerf to him, but he is currently very powerful and this is one reason why.)
  • While Last Stand is active, damage against buildings should be reduced by 50%
    • tbh I've won a ton of games "abusing" this.. 2-3 "runs" of this(get a flag, lock it, then after I die I can use tele scroll to get right back there to suicide run again).  It is a viable strategy that shouldn't be done away with completely, but it is too powerful of one now.  Especially powerful on fortress too.

Torch Bearer

  • Increase cast time on Frost Nova to 1.0 sec from 0.9sec.
  • Rain of Ice aoe is like twice as big as the cursor..  I think it should be the size the cursor is.  I mean, you should be able to move out from it by the time you see it cast till when it hits the ground at least if you're near the edge, but the aoe is so massive that it's pretty impossible to miss with.

Items
I don't really think anythink is too overpowered or anything now, but theres tons of redundant useless items.  These are items that I think need to be COMPLETELY replaced with all new stats, not even attempt to play with thier cost or +stats, because there are just other items doing their job right that make these useless.

  • Duelist's Cuirass - redundant. Nimoth and Slayer's Wraps is SOO much better, even if it's two slots they're worth 2 slots.
  • Doomspite Grips - redundant. Girdle of the giants might be twice as much, but way better.
  • Footmans Sabatons - Not worth an item spot.  I'll get that much more health and mana from 2 level ups anyways.  Getting a Scaled Helm and Banded Armor is WAY better.  While 80% more gold, than infinitely more useful until you sell them later on.
  • Vinling Helmet - redundant.  3% chance for 350 manais effectively 10 mana each time you're hit.  You'll gain  moremana from some good mps, or one of the mana on hit items.  The helm, planer, that's 1k cheaper has a 70% mps bonus.  While it somewhat combines 2 items in one, it's better to have the two better items.
  • Unbreakable boots - Redundant.  Nimoth and Vlemish ftw.
  • Desperate Boots - Just meh.  Not just the expensive cost.. but if you're under 30%, you'll just get killed by a skill anyways which evasion doesn't effect.
  • Ring of Ancients - Redundant.  Better ways to get +dmg, + armor.  Sure I'll need 2 items, but they'll be 2 much more cost effective ones.
  • Twig of Life - Just bad.   I can resummon for 100% heal, free!

Yeah, most of these are sort of dual purpose items. Thing is, I've never had an issue with just selling something to buy better.  An item doing something simular to two items, but half as good, just prooves to not be good. The only way to make them good would e to make them overpowered.
And some suggestions for items replacing these would be stuff like.  Don't really expect this sort of stuff soon, but I'll add it. :/:

  • An item the reduces cast times by 20% or something.  Things like fireball sort of get left behind because of the cast time because you can do more damage in 1 second with normal attacks than the fireball.  So a faster cast time item would be cool and very useful for fireball and hammer.
  • More aura items.  Aren't the only ones the +4mps on vlemish and the -25% cost on the 6.5k helm, well and bracelet of rage?  Why not some +armor and +damage aura items that aren't so expensive as bracelet of rage?  Like a 2500 cost armor that is +400 armor to everything, Demigods, minions, or creeps.  Doesn't need to be better on generals, it'd simply work better for them..  Giving minotaurs +400 armor wouldn't overpower them one bit.  +dmg to all though, maybe.. would need to resict an aura like that to demigods and minions.
  • A better version of Warlords Punisher that has a faster cast time(like 0.5sec), 15 sec recharge, which'll drain more mana from a single target only and costs more.
  • An item that gives your minions life steal which heal you instead of themselves. (IE all minions attacks steal 3 health.  So they do 3 more damage per hit and you gain 3 life per hit.)
  • An item that reduces your damage by, say 30%, but minions gain +15 damage, which isn't very expensive.  Like ~2500 area.  So if you have 10 minions, and you do 300 damage, it'd be an equal trade if they attack 50% slower than you.  It'd be something good only if you focus on minions.
  • Items which have bonus effects if you have a minotaur, siege archers, or priest.  You gain a different effect for each you have..  Or maybe having the item buffs those particular units, or gives them abilities.

These items with just some balance issues:

  • Bulwark - imo should be rebalanced as an 8000 cost item.  If I had 16000, I just would not buy this when I need killing power.  Stats as an 8000 cost item I'd say would be +750 health, +10 health per second, +750 armor, damage reduced by 15%.
  • Warlords Punisher - Just not good enough.  Should be 15 second cooldown and maybe 1.0 second cast.
  • Forest Band - Should heal you some small amount for every minion healed this way.
  • Bracelet of Rage - the +300 ontop of +50 seems like a bit much.  Maybe it should be +200 for with a 30 second cooldown instead of 45 sec cooldown.
  • Cloak of Elfenkind - Should have a 0.5 sec cast time
  • Cloak of flames - Weak pre-buff lvl 1 ring of fire with a 4x longer cooldown is awful.
  • Heart of Life - Should have a 1.5 second cast time so it's used out of battle(the if hit isn't really enough to prevent this.  You can still not be hit from having a movespeed advantage, or teleing away), not while you're running away.  Cooldown should be a bit longer.  It should also take longer to restore the 3k/3k.
  • Mageslayer - Lower IAS to 15% from 25%.  IAS stacks are so powerful, and 25% is a lot for a 8k item that has life steal and +dmg.   It'd still be great reduced to 15% IAS.
  • Ashkandor - Change IAS to 20% from 25%.
  • All Father Ring - Change IAS to 25% from 30%  Last two both because stacking ias is so dominant with passive builds.  And passive attacking outshining the use of skills(why use fireball when you're doing 1000dps?) is bad.  Bulwark reworking should keep people from being able to tank too well compared to the reduced passive attack effectiveness.

Comments (Page 2)
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on Apr 22, 2009

Yep.  In beta he wasn't a strong demigod but he had a lot of controlling possibilities.  He was hard to kill with mist(which you'd just put 1 point in for the low MPS, which was 'fixed', but now mist is just weak), but you could screw with people until allies showed up.

 

And I've used minion builds before.  They don't work except against ai.

on Apr 22, 2009

What I said is multiplicative. I'll explain my formula.
2 - (1 * 0.80 * 0.85 * 0.85) = 1.422

What is being done is you have +20% attack speed, and then you're adding 15% to what is LEFT, then 15% what again is left.

With your formula you can never reach double attack speed with bonuses less than +100% (which is totally unintuitive, gameplay-wise.  consider 2x+95% attack speed bonuses), and the results of values in excess +100% make no sense at all.  If you want to have a diminishing returns formula you need some come up with something better than an asymptotic limit - they scale very poorly.  Logs generally create a more desirable curve.

on Apr 22, 2009

As for bite, I think all that needs to happen is an increase in cooldown by a few seconds.  The real problem is that you can do it many times in one fight, no?

on Apr 22, 2009

zzSleeper

What I said is multiplicative. I'll explain my formula.
2 - (1 * 0.80 * 0.85 * 0.85) = 1.422

What is being done is you have +20% attack speed, and then you're adding 15% to what is LEFT, then 15% what again is left.
With your formula you can never reach double attack speed with bonuses less than +100% (which is totally unintuitive, gameplay-wise.  consider 2x+95% attack speed bonuses), and the results of values in excess +100% make no sense at all.  If you want to have a diminishing returns formula you need some come up with something better than an asymptotic limit - they scale very poorly.  Logs generally create a more desirable curve.

But nothing has more than 30%.. and 30%+20% =

2 - (1 * 0.70 * 0.80) = 1.44

So.. not much off from the 42.2 using 15+15+20%. 

Isn't a few +atk speed items be better than tons of smaller bonus ones better anyways?

And getting double attack speed is not good IMO. In fact I wish attack speeds where slower, then juking would play a bigger role than it currently does.

zzSleeper
As for bite, I think all that needs to happen is an increase in cooldown by a few seconds.  The real problem is that you can do it many times in one fight, no?

7 sec cooldown skills is good for gameplay because they require quick input in the middle of fights, rather than dumping and auto attacking.  So no thanks to this..

on Apr 23, 2009

Added:

  • Also there is a huge problem with bats being able to cross areas on crucible.  It makes Erebus so much better on that map.  Bats shouldn't be able to cross things just like boulder roll can't.  If you try to bats across something you should just get stopped on the edge, or the skill fail.

While backdooring is fine, when you have both warpstone and bats in crucible you can warpstone in, and then have bats to exit if you get more than you can handle.  It's also annoying when fighting erebus on crucible how he'll cross between the celliry flag and artifact shop flag.

I don't have really any issue with 30 range on bats, it just should not be able to cross gaps.

on Apr 23, 2009

Played a game last night Vs the best Oak player I've ever encountered. 

Level wise game ended with both of us at level 12.

After this game, I really felt like Erebus is fine as is, and does not need a nerf!  Seriously after that game I walked away thinking Erebus was not overpowered at the slightlest.

I'm begining to think that it might be an issue were Vs unskilled players Erebus feels very strong, but Vs other strong/skilled players he's actually pretty balanced.

Of course... more testing needs to be done.

on Apr 23, 2009

That's because Oak is just as good, if not better, than Erebus.  But they're surely the two best.

Surge of faith is crazy good.  It says 10/15/20% more move and attack speed. I look in the lua and it shows that.  But.. it just FEELS like so much more.   Is it multiplying differently from how items do or something?  Is it multiplying after items?  I don't know.  Myabe it just needs to be 7/11/15%.  I surge of faith when no movespeed items, and people who where outrunning me I can catch easily.. especially with penitance slowing.

I'm begining to think that it might be an issue were Vs unskilled players Erebus feels very strong, but Vs other strong/skilled players he's actually pretty balanced.

This is what I've been saying.. Erebus seems so good largely because ai and newbies don't buy armor.  Capping armor to 0 may fix this, though I find it really fun to negative people and be doing more than 2x dmg.

But even still, he is too good.  He has to be the weakest killing wise, or at least not too strong, simply because he has so much controlling options.  He has a free warpstone that has 2x the range and half the cooldown.  He has immortality as long as you have mana.  You must either nerf these(which I'd prefer not.  I like him being the "control" demigod), or make him not quite so deadly.

The nerfs I've suggested to Erebus are not drastic.  The nerfs I've all suggested are very minor and only noticable on higher level of play, I think.   The only major change would be bats not being able to cross gaps, which is simply bull that it can.

 

I've been playing lots of 2v2 games with only good players.  These suggestions aren't based off AI pantheon games.

on Apr 23, 2009

Hm it actually seems that instant skills only stop your movement when you've given an attack order.  That's an odd bug.

on Apr 23, 2009

Demigods' pathing is absolutely horrible. I often get stuck on corners, and as the unclean beast, if I use venom spit on somebody and then right click him, I will NOT move at all. So what I have to do is move first, then attack again. It's ridiculous.

on Apr 23, 2009

Hm I dont get stuck on corenrs much, but my minoins do all the time.  I'll put fixing pathing on list of bug fixes though, as that is important..

on Apr 24, 2009

Added

  • "Change gold upgrade to 3/7/12"

People keep thinking these are commulative.  They aren't so they aren't worth it.

Right now the first upgrade is easily worth it, paying off in like 13 minutes for yourself, this obviously cut down a lot with more players.  The next upgrade takes like 4x longer to pay off. Even divided by 5, that's a lot.

The last upgrade you should never get, right now, because the game will end before all your teamates in a team of 5 get a payoff from it, let alone yourself.

The war rank requirement for the last factors into it needing to be ~12 as well.

Also added

  • Using Shield should disable all item abilities during its duration.  (Using penitance and last stand with it on is fine, but shielding, then healing yourself to full health with no one able to do anything about it, or using Heart of Life, is well.. pretty killer.  I guess this is arguable, and a huge nerf to him, but he is currently very powerful and this is one reason why.)

Not sure what others will feel about this.  But I've found Oak better and better, pretty unstoppable, with this.  You shield, then heart of life, and you'll get at least 60% of the effect.

Maybe increasing heart of life to taking 15 seconds and having a 1.5sec cast will fix this, but you can also use a 3000 health heal potion while shielded, which makes it so strong.

I'm on the fence with the whole thing.

on Apr 24, 2009

Wow, amazing.  I ... agree with around 95% of this!

We also need more mana steal/mana burn effects.  Definitely, though, get rid of this 1-3% proc rate crap.  It's worthless.

on Apr 24, 2009

Well I suggested buffing the one mana burn activatable, and adding another one that's more effective for single target.

I do think the 15% chance for 100 mana steal gloves should be buffed to 25% or something, or be cheaper, though.  I've used them before and wasn't crazy about.

I hopefully in the future that at least 3 demigods will get new skills added with manaburning effects.  But these are suggestions for things that could be added to the next gameplay patch.

 

We asked for getting rid of the 1-3% stuff for day0 patch but sadly they didn't.  They fixed most pressing issues we wanted though.

on Apr 24, 2009

Added:

  • Towers should have their health reduced about 33%. So 1k at lvl1 instead of 1500.  Maybe have spells do 30% reduced damage to them as a tradeoff so just auto attacks take them down faster.  They're too hard to kill effectively with autoattacks, they require anti-building skills or things like fireball.  Tower spamming has become the predominate rook role.  Or make them fixed at 1500 but gain citadel upgrades instead of improve with levels, so move levels is just more towers.

A tower rook is practically nessisary on exile, and is extremely strong on crucible, not to mention in general.  Placing 4+towers at the choke points is so powerful.  Not just the towers, but then the rook sitting there, suing his building suck on his own towers to heal, so if you come close you get smashed.

A minimum distance between towers of like 15-20yards might fix this, but even still 2850 life towers clumped at a choke point is annoying.  On maps with only 1 or 2 important choke points (crucible and exile) it's TOO strong.

 

And ZephyrTR, what is the 5% you don't agree with?

on Apr 25, 2009

Added suggesting 5% ias reduction on ashkandor, all father ring, 10% reduction on mageslayer.

Mageslayer is a ridiculous item now for 8k, especially on regulas.  It's probably the reason why some people say regulas is overpowered, really.

The minor reductions on the other two are to lessen the effects of IAS stacking.  Getting mageslayer with ashkandor is so insane, currently, for example.

Really ashkandor would be better if it was changed around a ton.  A better version of mageslayer just makes getting them both so good for DPS and life steal.  Luckily they aren't quite as bad as in beta with the life steal nerfs.

 

I also made some misc edits.. Like how Silence should be a 20 second cooldown.  Rightnow you can have it up 1/3rd of the time.  It's extremely powerful, especially since it also works as an instan aoe interupt.  Even at 20 second cooldown it'll be a great skill, just not so godly like it is now.

And that heal needs greatly increased manacost when maxed.  Sedna is really just as good as Oak late game right now.  It just doesn't seem that way because only a few know how to play her right.

Also added for regulas:

  • Mines should have a (longer?  Seems like there is a small delay now, or that's just the animation) delay before they arm.  1350 damage is fine as a mine, not as a hand grenade.
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