Heart of Life as it stands is a brutal item. I use it on every demigod, even Sedna (who theoretically shouldn't need it that much). I have a relatively simple idea to make it more balanced: require that the user be near a friendly tower (of light/darkness). This can be visually justified by having the health stone "channel" energy through a chain of towers. This will make it more of a midgame item, since in the late game most towers are gone; it will make it harder to sustain pushes into enemy territory; and it will help balance the "HoL plus shield" tactic.
No one has yet ot come up with a justifyable nerf for anything in the game so far.
HoL is fine as is, you take any dmg at all even from self dmging abilities and it's effect stops entirely. I tihnk the only nerf you'll see for HoL is an increase to it's cooldown. Bump it up from 30seconds to 45-60 and it won't seem as broken... I too use it whenver the chance presents itself.
a 1.5sec cast time would make it easily interruptable, and increasing the duration(so less per second) would make it more likely to stop from taking damage.
I would disagree with increasing cost though, because good ability items is more of what the game needs, not +stats spreadsheet stuff!
Good ability items are good for gameplay.
Really, the game needs a whole nother page of consumable, but the number of armor items and such are fine.
I wouldn't mind seeing the HoL nerfed. It's kind of a must buy/no brainer item atm and makes forcing a full out retreat next to impossible if you haven't got an oak or an erebus on your side to chase.
i think it doesn't need any dramatic adjustments at all. its mostly fine. simply increasing the cooldown and/or increasing the channelling time would be enough to make the item a bit more balanced.
Heh, here i was going to make a thread about how imba HoL was and i found a thread right out of the bat:)
Its a must have item. And really, why make musthave items?
shield + Hol is OP, fix it NOAW.
You just have to be aware of what items are being used by your opponents. If you know they have HoL, don't give them a chance to use it. Any sort of range or additional damage attack can be the bane of HoL. The problem for most people seems to be the lack of situational awareness...
NATfcltatr, you can't prevent Oak from using the HoL for the duration of his shield...
How about you just fix the damn item? It heals a #@% ton more than it says it does.
Must have items are better when they are activatable, when you only have 3.
I've played games where I kept having to sell warpstone, or consumables, and stuff, to switch things around. Like one time I warpstone in, captured flag, locked it.
Well then I died, and still needed flag lock, I needed my bracelet of rage, so I had to sell my warp stone to get a tele-to-building scroll to tele to the flag I locked, since warpstone wouldn't get me there fast enough.
This is depth.
I couldn't of had HoL in that game. I needed flag lock. I needed warp. Am I going to give up bracelet of rage for it? No
So HoL isn't THAT imba. Like I said, 1.5sec activation and have it take 15 seconds to restore(200 health/mana a sec instead of 300). What the game needs is more stuff like HoL. More good activatable items and consumables.
A lot of the activatables aren't good enough. And really could use a whole nother page of consumables.
well okay, maybe not exactly a musthave item for every DG.
But for my UB, its musthave to be most effective on my ganking.
The only nerf to this I could agree to would be an extended duration keeping the same total, so basically less hp/mana per second restored but lasts longer.
Giving it a 1.5 second activation is actually a pretty big nerf, since one of the common uses is to start running and hit it so that you can't get hit to interrupt the effect. Bit with an activation time the DG would need to stand still which means by the time he starts running any ranged can already hit it and break the effect, so the HoL would end up being an item mostly to reduce downtime with very limited in-combat use.
I used to buy it all the time, but on some maps it's just not needed, I'd rather just save for Mage Slayer or something else just as game changing.
I think there may be a way too good synergy with Oak's shield but I'm not willing to cry 'nerf' as personally I haven't seen it abused yet (I am on light side )
Another thing with the 1.5 sec activation is using it with shield up. I'd help cut down on how much you get healed. With a 1.5sec cast, and increasing how long it takes to heal to 15 secs, then you'd only get a 800health/mana using it right after shield instead of the nearly 2000/2000 you can get while shield is up now. HoL is part of oaks imbalance issues right now.
Also, why shold you be able to just wand of speed to get out of range, heart of life, then turn around and kill someone? I think this is too strong. You should be have to be considerably out of range before you HoL.
gogo bottle that refills full mana/hp every 30 sec without channeling time .
costs about 3 hero kills and some creeps and you never need to worry about mana/hp regen again .
usable if you have 5% more movement speed then the other guy to turn and kill him , with erebus you can get chased then bat swarm/bite 4 secs after to kill your opponent , with rook you can tear down approx 2 towers a min with just this item .
no sir why would we ever need to nerf this item
/sarcasm off
1 :channeling make it a channeling effect
2: raise price to 7250
3:raise the cd to 1 min
1-2 of these suggestions and it will "only" be core on 3-4 heroes
Well, at the same time, it uses 2 consumable slots of the 3 you have to get that combo, and if the length of the effect was substantially lengthened then you retreating this way to heal up will forfeit the ground since it's actually a retreat and you couldn't turn right around to get back into the fight.
But, an activation delay is a good way to make HoL used primarily out-of-combat, if that's the direction GPG wants to take.
I was more pointing out the effect an activation delay would have on it
4: fix it, because it heals way more mana/hp than it says.
Umm.. wow. I wouldn't even use it then.
I said something very important in another thread. But I forgot which. The jist of it that activatable abliity items should be powerful. You only have 3 spots.
You know what goes in the same spot as HoL? Tele to building scrolls, potions, warp stone, bracelet of rage, wand of speed etc..
If you want to use more than one activatable ability item, that means you can only pack 1 consumable. That means no using building tele, capping a portal, and locking the flag.
On one game of crucible i kept having to sell my warp stone to buy warp scrolls and vice versa to back door efffctively enough to win a very close game. I couldn't even consider using HoL.
What is needed more than a HoL nerf(yes, it does need some sort of nerf which isn't increased cost) is another page of consumables.
I don't think it needs nerfing - I used to buy it all of the time when I first started, but not so much anymore. That $4000 could be spend else where if you can live without it.
The fact that it stops healing if you get hit is nerf enough, sure you can sheild yourself and use it - but a team player can sheild anyone on the team so they can use it.
Anyhow... it is definitely no game breaker..
If there were multiple items like the Heart of Life I wouldnt mind it. Then you would have to choose which one you used. My problem with the item is if they use it, you have to use it.
I don't like being forced to buy an item just because someone else is using it. I try to play without it but its just too much stacked against you if the enemy uses it...
This is basically what I said in another thread.
Good activatable items are good. Wand of speed, heart of life, warp stone, tele scroll, potions so on..
The problem is so many of the activatables are bad that you don't have to choose as much.
You only have 2 spots for this. Often you want a tele scroll in one of those, maybe a potion. How are you going to work in that flag lock for back dooring? So on..
That's why I think HoL is only slightly too good. The price is fine, the 3000 health/mana heal is fine. It's just a bit too easy to use when things are still heated.
Later in the game it takes up a slot that could be used by an artifact though, it's pretty unlikely that you will have the heart of life on you above level 15 - there are much better items.
Because many of the artifacts have click to use abilities, they don't take up your normal armor spots.
Right. So if you want bracelet of rage you only have room for 2 activatables..
I'd just love if the HoL was broken into two items: One for health and one for mana.
I also agree that after lvl 15, your better off with something else, but the problem is being low level and having full health and mana between every fight.
Afterthought: Why not just make it give the same health/mana but double or triple the duration?
I wouldn't really use one that's seperate, even if they where cheaper, since there is only 3 slots..
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
