I originally made these points in a reply to this thread before realizing that it would probably be more helpful to people to start a new thread on the topic. Essentially, these are my impressions of the UB as someone who plays him almost exclusively, and could serve as a guide for fellow Beast players, but more importantly should address why some people feel the Beast is "overpowered", and help them win against him, as well as investigating the balance issues from a standpoint that looks at the Beast's intended role in the game.
The main reasons people have problems playing against UB is that they tend to overestimate how dangerous he is in the early game, and often underestimate how dangerous he is in the midgame. Since you can't see the enemy UB's mana, if he spits on you twice at the start of the game you're only noticing that that's taken a toll on your HP, but what you can't see is that he's going to be out of mana after that pretty much 100% of the time, maybe he could get a third one in if he has a mana pot or helm, but after that he's a glass cannon with no more projectiles. There's no doubt that Spit is good early game, but the important thing to remember is that the Beast player wants you to run away once he's used it--that means you'll take 100% of the damage while he chills and cools down. The last thing a UB player wants is for you to charge in and take him on as soon as you get hit--that means he's probably going to have to "waste" damage by using his second Spit before the first one's duration is up. As far as I can tell, the UB's role is basically intended to be guerilla warfare, hit-and-run, scare tactics, and players tend to play into that by retreating just when it's to the Beast's advantage for them to do so. That is to say, in early game players tend to run as soon as Spit hits them, which is excellent for the mana-starved Beast. In mid games, players tend to try and run when they're at maybe 30% hp, which means the Beast can just Grasp you and then pull off a second Spit, which is gonna take down your HP faster than you usually expect, and almost always nets me a kill.
The thing to remember about fighting a Beast 1v1 is that he does good burst damage and good "finishing off" damage, but isn't a durable, sustainable fighter (like Oak or Rook). As a Beast I know that (before I've saved up for a Heart) my enemy could probably outlast me if he fully committed to the fight, but the thing that works out in the Beast's favor is that against most DG's, you can just run away as soon as the battle "turns against you". The thing about fighting a Beast is that the battle only really turns against you once you try to run. If a beast has used Spit and Grasp, he usually won't even have enough mana for another spell, one more at the most, meaning that many DGs could still end the battle in their favor if they didn't try to run. Battles tend to work out well for Beasts because the enemy decides to run when they feel they're getting too torn up by the Beast, but ironically that's usually just the point when sticking to their guns might have won them the duel, or at least made the Beast retreat and gained them the territory. I think the fact that you can't see the enemy DG's mana really works in the Beast's favor more than the other DGs, because his "burst damage" style of play can easily scare off enemies who're only able to compare his high HP to their own rapidly diminishing HP, without realizing they probably have 75% MP left and he's running on empty.
Personally, the balance changes that I'd be interested in seeing would be to reinforce the Beast's role as a hit-and-run fighter rather than a "tear your face off and never die due to lifesteal" melee fighter, which will probably be addressed at the same time as they resolve the "items are better than spells lategame" issue. The only thing I find... odd... about the Beast is that according to the thread where they detailed all the Demigod stats, UB has the highest Armor, which doesn't really fit the "glass cannon"(ish) role his Spit and Ooze give him. Personally, I view going into battle as UB as somewhat of a gamble (especially since I use Ooze fairly often) but the Beast gets a big advantage if the opponent doesn't realize how fast his resouces are being exhausted.
Essentially, what I can glean of the developer's intentions is that the UB should fill about the same role for Demigod as the Pyro does for TF2: high burst damage coupled with damage over time, but lower durability than the "heavier" classes (Oak, Rook, Heavy etc.) and less range and lower spot damage than the caster classes (Torchbearer, Regulus, Demoman, Sniper).
The way I see it, a fun Beast battle is one that's basically a "Race to 0 hp!" with the enemy taking damage from all the Beast's various wicked sources, but the Beast burning himself down with Ooze and getting hurt pretty rapidly as well. That type of fight is always exciting and feels like it could really go either way, which is why it's sad that it basically stops happening as soon as the Beast picks up an Ashkandor and hits Bestial Rage. In my opinion, the main problem is that with items being so much better than spells in the late game, the UB (in addition to being a great harasser and territory-holder) is also one of the best lategame damage dealers, as anyone who's fought a UB using Bestial Wrath and a bunch of artifacts can attest. Moreover, lategame lifesteal makes the Beast extremely survivable, when it seems like he's intended to be a bit more fragile than that.
It's good to see that so many people have feedback and help each other out with different builds and opinions, can't wait for the next few weeks once Stardock have sorted out the connection issues and are able to start ironing out the balance. Obviously, the point that I've made here reflect my own personal UB build, and don't cover the many other creative ones that people come up with. So let's give the devs a lot of good discussion to go mining through for ideas once they get around to it: what are your thoughts on the Beast's role in the game, both as it is now (in your build or your opponent's) and as it "should" to contribute to a balanced game?
It was with a QoT partner, I could not go anywhere near capping a flag to get rank 10 because with the armor debuff one crit and a couple melee attacks would literally take me out before I could spam for a heal.
This is somewhat of a moot point as I know my partner was feeding the UB to get him to that point(and we were against a premade), but we did not get rank 10 that game because they were able to dominate any attempt at quick flag grabs.
I play a lot of 2v2 and I have found UB and QoT to be quite a vicious combo with Queen focusing on shielding and debuffing for the UB.
Well, even with spit I never found post mortem super effective, but it served it's purpose.
I meant more along the lines of buying Plague and Post Mortem (I should probably specify that) because plague lets you *not* kill a melee creep after 30 seconds, while post mortem at least gives you a little bit of damage. (Also, having post mortem and a girdle of giants is really nice if you are getting pushed late-game. Nothing quite like cleaving 10 creeps at once and having a few of the ones that lived get blown up by the ones that didn't in a big chain reaction. ).
Plague, however, I hate. It's only useful against HoL users, and even then, spit builds have.... spit. It stops people from using HoL.
Definitely. Plague is almost completely useless as far as I'm concerned. UB has better skills to invest in. Stats, inner beast, anything is better.
Spit/Ooze beats Ooze easily from early game down to end game. I did some matches with Ooze UB and this is my result.
Spit/Ooze requires a mana item and doesn't have points in Diseased Claw or Attributes (from my experience with the build). With those factors considered, you then realize that Ooze UB will always be able to escape better (due to Claw) and that attributes and an extra health item make him a lot better at tanking. Setting up a good Spit/Ooze build is tough, and you are going to have to sacrafice something to do it, and that something will make it easier for foes to retreat and/or make you less able to tank the enemy.
Actually in my Ooze/Spit, I always have one point in Claws so that I can slow my target by 5%. All my other skill points willl be distrubited into Spit and Ooze evenly.
A Spit/Ooze works great, too, but there's something innately satisfying about never needing mana, and knowing that, barring cooldowns, you will always have that Foul Graps exactly when you need it.
You could say it's a "skill-less build, as in, run in, turn on ooze, and watch when to Foul Grasp, and... well, hell, you know, you're probably right. But I enjoy playing it and it works! So it's like a win/win for me.
Its great that Ooze needs less mana than Spit/Ooze but I just dont like losing my extra dps because of skipping out Spit. Ooze does 140 DPS per second at lvl 4 and Spit does 150 DPS per second at lvl 4. With both skills, you can do massive dps in such a short amount of time.
Doesn't spit stack with itself? I know it does on towers so it probably does on players too.
It does indeed stack with itself.
It doesnt exactly stack with itself. It just reapplies damage. You only have 1 Spit active at a time on a single opponent. So you don't want to use a second one until the first is used up.
It stacks with itself. I'm 100% sure for towers and 95% sure for players it stacks.
Err... what? Spit does 80 DPS at level 4, and Ooze does 70. At level 10, they have the DPS you mentioned.
Also, without attributes, you lose a pretty fair amount of DPS from autoattacks.So.... yeah, I'd say that with extra HP, extra autoattack damage, and never requiring mana, a pure Ooze UB has a fair shot at beating a hybrid UB.
Anecdotal evidence is worthless; I could easily say I've beaten many enemy Spit/Ooze UB's with pure Ooze (and I have!) but whether the build is stronger or I'm just a better player interferes too much. All I know is that with spit/ooze, I'm not getting points in passive skills, Spit is making most enemies fall back (making Ooze massively redundant) and I've got so few skill points in other skills I can't *actually* keep somebody around to kill them.
The stacked HP is not useless, however, and you can only stack so much of it if you skip mana items. It works out.
Again: I don't particularly care if I kill other Demigods or not. I care much more about not getting killed myself, and about driving other demigods away from my flags, towers, and lanes. Killing other demigods is overrated. That doesn't mean I don't end up with a lot of kills. I just don't make that the focus of my game. Kills come easily when you've outlevelled your opponent by controlling the lanes and dominating the map. Kills come easy when you fight smart and gang up on someone. Ooze doesn't particularly help either scenario.
Ooze doesn't help in ganging up on somebody or help in creeping? Dude, are you insane, or do you really just enjoy posting bullshit I can rip into so easily? Ooze is way better at creeping than spit is (obviously), and as for controlling a lane, it's pretty simple: Get ~3k gold in health items (not hard at all, that's easily obtainable just by creeping to level 6) and sit in the lane. That's really all there is to it. Nobody is going to be able to take the lane from you as long as you have that much HP, so yay, the lane is yours. There really isn't much else to it. As for ganging up on people.... 1400 damage over 10 seconds with a 40% enemy attack speed reduction and AoE, or 1500 damage over 10 seconds that can be cleansed with any anti debuffing method? Ooze pretty much strictly dominates spit in battles bigger than 1v1.
And as for kills: When have I stated kills are necessary? They aren't. But your scenario is worthless. You aren't going to be killing somebody with an Ooze/spit hybrid that skimped on the passive skills, because your enemies will simply outrun you. That's the beauty of an Ooze build: you hit somebody, you can keep chasing them until they are dead, and with your massive health even big tower clusters aren't much of a deterrant. It's not so much that I go looking for creeps more with Ooze than with spit, it's just that with Ooze, after one hit the enemy is guaranteed to die if I have the HP to make them die.
Your overly simplistic outlook is laughable:
"Get ~3k gold in health items (not hard at all, that's easily obtainable just by creeping to level 6) and sit in the lane. That's really all there is to it. Nobody is going to be able to take the lane from you as long as you have that much HP, so yay, the lane is yours."
I'll farm this out to the rest of the thread. Does anyone else really think that Demigod is this simple? Does anyone really think that you can easily just get 3K gold and from there on out you can sit in a lane? From there out on out, nobody is going to take the lane from you?
That's hilarious. I guess you found the magic 'I win!' button. Just slot Ooze and you'll never lose.
It isn't horribly inaccurate. Once UB breaks that HP threshold, especially early in the game as that poster pointed out is very easy to do via cheap HP items, it is going to take a multiple DG effort to get you out of that lane.
Early game, yes, having 3k in HP equipment is pretty much enough to hold a lane off against anything besides multiple attackers. Later... yeah, it takes more, obviously. But having 3k in HP items, Ooze, and abilities to increase your natural speed and decrease the opponents will let you keep the lane easily. There really isn't that much more to it; you just have to walk towards most squishies and they will run or die, and if a ranged character attacks you from in front of a tower, you stay near your side of the flag so they can't cap or harrass.
In all honestly, Demigod is really not super complicated (or even complicated at all) when you ask simple questions like "how do you hold a lane?" When you ask "how do you play well?" It gets more complicated, but holding a lane.... that's pretty simple, honestly. Keep the flag, get 25% damage on the creeps or more and stay in sight range of the creeps until they die, don't attack enemies in range of their towers, and buy the necessary equipment. It just so happens that for Ooze UB, all you need are HP items, and then you sit in the lane and make it so that if somebody wants to harrass, they have to get out of the range of their towers to do it. If you really wanted me to mention all those other factors in my post, I would have done it... but all of those other things happen to be things you want to do with everybody, and the only thing specific to Ooze UB is what gear you buy.
I mean, if I had asked you "well how does spit UB hold a lane?" I could have made the same post as you. "HA HA HA! You said you just spit on people to harrass and get your enemies to go away! Even though that's valid, it's simple so it must be wrong! Logical fallacies are fun!'
Facing muliple demigods will absolutely push you out of a lane. That should happen quite often against humans. Suggesting that 'the lane is yours' as if this isn't the norm in a multiplayer game is laughable.
I don't know what caliber of opponents that poster played against but they can't have been very good. Or he is used to large maps with 2 people on each team.
What I am saying is that not every DG takes two enemy DGs to force out of a lane in the early game, and it can be extremely effective in weakening opponents hold on an early game, and can result in your teammates getting some easy flag locks, or even kills.
This really is a funny argument, at level 10 :
Spit
Pro : 165 DPS, Range
Con : 950 Mana, Single Target, easily countered
Ooze
Pro : 140 DPS, No Mana cost, AoE, -40% Attack Debuff
Con : Melee range, -50HP/s
Spit cons can only be mitigated by item slotting for mana, is rubbish for creeps and multiple DG engagements.
Ooze pays for itself through by freeing item slot due to no mana requirements. -40% auto attack debuff will save you 50Hps/sec in itself. Your DPS in a creep wave or against multiple DGs is multiplied by the number you are facing.
How anyone can even argue against the stats alone on paper is really crazy.
Full Ooze build allows you to run Ooze non-stop. This is a more powerful effect.
Hybrid build sacrifices a lot of survivability, you have to run a mana item to stay in a lane, this may not sound a lot, but this can be a lot of HP.
Spit Hybrid can still be viable, but it is different to an Ooze build and even on paper simply not as powerful. You have the advantage of some range, but still 80% of your damage needs to be done in melee. If you have to enter melee to do most of your damage, then you have to ask the question why are you not bolstering your key strength with full melee skills and instead adding a range skill, which is still woefully inadequate against a range char.
The argument Ooze is weak against Reg, TB and QoT. Is equally applied to spit/hyrbid, you think you are gonna severly weaken these guys with a range skill of 165 DPS, when they out DPS you twice that much, with multiple range skills to back it up.
Funny argument
So basically, you are saying that my strategy will only lose to the enemy double-teaming me without any reinforcements?( all that does is open up a different (though possibly less valuable) lane to creep.)
I'll respond with "No shit, sherlock." If I'm getting double teamed, I'm not going to keep the lane. But if I'm getting double teamed without an ally, it means either my allies can push in another lane, or something is happening that is preventing my allies from helping me (or I am playing with like 4 demigods on cataract and my partner went to go buy items).
The thing is, it takes two people to kill me. The lane is mine. Nobody (singular!) can kick me out of the lane without a second buddy to help me out (though an already set up tower rook can deny me the lane, he cannot push me on his own because he won't have enough towers). The only way for me to lose a lane with an Ooze build is to have taken a lot of damage keeping enemies out of it, in which case I've probably creeped effectively and can lock it, safely teleport away, buy up new gear, and attack it again (unless there are rooks on the enemy team who set up a tower farm until the flag becomes unlocked.)
If it takes two demigods to push me out of a lane, I consider that pretty effective. So your argument is really pointless: If I get hit by two demigods and if I don't have an ally to help me and if it's not late enough in the game that I've geared up to where a 2v1 is feasible (against squishies, anyway) and if there is no way the 2v1 means that my team has an advantage somewhere else on the field, I guess you are right, and the 2v1 did push me out of the lane and I didn't help anybody. But until that happens, I'm still controlling the lane.
Outrun? One point is Dieased Claw is enough, most players when seeing their opponents using UBs tend to choose HP gear and ignore speed item. And if they are running away from you, you can still spit on them. One spit for opening attack and when they run away they will get another spit.
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