This is another one for the "game balance" and "game design" department and it is in regards to the skill mist.
First off, it's a very interesting skill. I like it. I don't want it nerfed or anything like that unless absolutely necessary. However, I encountered the use of it in a game last night on the map Exile that was nearly gamebreaking.
First the scenario:
It was a 4v4 on exile. It was a 46 minute long match (give or take) that was fairly tight up until the last 5 to 10 minutes. Basically, we were all at level 20 or within a few levels of it and both sides had giants going with my side dominating towards the latter part. I was working a Regulus along with our Sedna on a final push. We were held at bay by their Reg and Torchbearer. Between their giants, pults, mines, and flame aoe's it was kind of a stalemate. What I noticed after a while was that our giants never made any forward progress to help us in our push.
So, I took a stroll back to our base and found their Erebus in a PERMANENT mist state at the critical choke point where essentially nothing could pass. The gist of it was that between their reinforcements and his constantly respawning Nightwalkers a "front" was created right over his mist. Our reinforcements would fight there, get the aoe dot, die, and respawn new Nightwalkers.
It was quite ingenious and worked well.
So, I thought, "at 125 man per second, he can't stay in mist forever". Well, I was wrong. When dps'ing down his creep waves (that never seemed to end - partly because his 3 other team-mates were free to handle flag capping and stemming our assault) I thought I'd just camp him for a bit and nail him when he came out of mist. To my surprise he remained mainly in mist the rest of the game. Only leaving it to push forward bit by bit to our citadel. However, his mist "up-time" was well over 95% of his gameplay at this point.
For all it's seeming cheapness, it won the game. Gratz. Kudos to that guy. We lost. Thought I felt like I wasted 46 minutes of my life to 10 minutes of Mist abuse, it wasn't the end of the world.
But it got me thinking - "how the hell did that guy stay in Mist so long?" I've dabbled at Erebus and I know at low levels w/ low mana regen you can't stay in mist long at all.
So I figured I'd test it out and ran a couple of test games where I played the comp and started at level 20 w/ 25,000 gold and high gold regen. I wanted to see what you had to buy to get the high mana regen rates to sustain mist. I found that it wasn't that hard.
Basically it goes like this:
1.) Mist cost is 125 mana per second, while in mist.
2.) Erebus at level 20 (no gear) base mana regen: 7.77 per second (unbuffed)
so approx net cost of mist at this level is 118 mana per second
3.) With these items (all non artifacts) - less than 15K gold (Hungarling, Vlemish, Plenor, Plate visor, and Vinling helm),
112.12 mana per second.
approx net cost of mist is now 13 mana per second and you are sitting at 6884 mana. You can now live in mist for 8 minutes and 48 seconds if you start with a full mana bar.
4.) Drop the el cheapo plate visor and switch to Cloak of Flames (a 9400 gold exchange) and you now have 145.85 mana per second regen plus 7934 total mana.
This will cost you about 23,000 gold total and only 20,300 if you get the price reduction favor item. 23,000 gold by level 20 is not that much as most games people are usually getting 30000 to 40000 gold per game at a minimum, and that's without hitting level 20.
At this point, Erebus can become unkillable at a moment's notice, indefinitely, with a nasty AOE effect. If you camp him, you stand to waste a lot of time. If you don't he just moves on to his next choke point, flag cap, or portal cap, with virtual impunity.
So I gotta ask: Is this intended?
The only down side of this is that you now have now slots for +health or +speed except for favor slot. However, you can counter both of those w/ a speed wand and heart of life trinket (not to mention never ending bite, bats, and stun).
Now, if this is not intended here are a few fixes I can think of:
1.) With each pulse, the mana cost grows so that after a period of time, it well exceeds any theoretical mana regen state, forcing Erebus to leave mist and open himself up to attack.
2.) Erebus can be "shocked out of mist" after a 20 seconds or so of mist by any DG with a stun ability as well a consumable made available at the shop for DG's that don't have a stun.
3.) Erebus can be targeted in mist if you drop the "see invis" ward.
4.) Cut down or eliminate mana regen in mist state.
===============
As a side note, I was able to win a game on Cataract vs AI using mist only when pairing it w/ full buffs to Nightwalkers and Vampiric Aura. All I had to do was mist where the enemy's reinforcements tracked and use my Nightwalkers to take down towers. Then all I did was upgrade to priests and camped his citadel in mist. This took down both of his lanes of reinforcements and supplied me w/ never ending Nightwalkers.
I did not put one point into bite, bats, or charm. My only activateable skill was mist. That's it. Granted, this was only vs. Easy AI and we started at level 20 but oddly enough the AI wasn't too bad that game. It never died and actually managed to cap my portals a couple of times (of course I had to recap them). But once I was able to get his reinforcement lanes choked w/ mist, all my reinforcements overwhelmed his base.
This kind of mirrored what happened to me originally on exile.
An interesting way to win, at any rate
Anyhow, I just wanted to this write-up for several reasons.
1.) Ask the basic questions: Are the devs aware of this? and... Is this working as intended?
2.) If it's working at intended, I'd like to give Erebus players a head's up as to what's achievable with mist and mana regen that's not too hard to obtain in this game. On the flip side, if you see an Erebus player who seems to never have to leave mist, then he probably doesn't have to. You'll have to warn your team mates and adjust to that.
Finally, if this is working as intended, I have to ask "what kind of game design allows one character out of 8 to remain invulnerable indefinitely?"
I am sure it wasn't intended. Number crunching to find tricks like that is usually why pros are pros. You can call it dirty and cheap, but most people say that is strategy.
Of course, this will be nerfed, because this is actually too good.
Please try erebus, normal build and then this proposed build.
Then come back here and tell me that this supposed "imba" build performe better that the classic one.
We can arrange a match and ill show you hands down that classic erebus owns "mist build" 100% of the time.
The screenshot you provided show really nothing, your team was clearly better, with or without you in mist build.
Proof is the other team erebus that died the most, when erebus is one of the most easy to survive with.
Really we are talking about nothing imho.
hmm most people use mist as a last resort anyone who uses it as a attack skill tends to die againist me
What's stopping someone from simply capping the portals in your base while you're wasting your time in mist form and leaving your team down a man?
I've never personally played a game where erebus did this but I could see it being a problem.
Easy solution though - Give mist a max duration.. 30 seconds or even 1 minute or something.. Increase the duration per level by 10 seconds maybe.
Putting some one in a spot where you're invulnerable indefinitely I can't imagine fits too well into the overall balance of the game.
I also agree that making erebus visible with see invis style items is a good plan - even with a max duration, it makes goggles more useful, and provides an interesting counter to the ability.
if they have a dps reg with crit items that doesn't matter
Actually, I think you are missing the point. This isn't about a "mist build" this is about how w/ just 4 helms you can essentially become invulnerable for the rest of the game as long as you are careful while providing some interesting tactical feats w/ mist.
The game I linked w/ a scoreboard screenshot was the class "bite/bats/charm/mist" build from what I've seen. It was just a test of survivability in a low health / high mana regen state. As you can see from my assists I was very involved on the front lines but I had no problems staying alive. People were asking for me to try the max mana regen in PvP, so I did. That's all the screenie was about.
I don't mind arguing the tactical limitations of mist itself, even if you can make it everlasting. However, it's kind of annoying for so many people to post in the thread without REALLY reading the OP and all the discussion that has followed.
Mist itself is not going to win most even a plurality of games. Erebus seems to be a character where all 4 of his skills are immensely useful (unlike some other DG's, I have found). But let's go back to the original question, "Is misted intended to be a permanent state at the will of a player as long as he stacks enough mana regen?"
Let me also restate what I think is key about all of this and that is by excessively stacking mana, normally you are trading off some survivability b/c you are not filling slots w/ stam and speed. However, w/ Erebus the opposite seems to be true once a critical level of mana regen is reached. Should it be that way as a design feature? That's the question.
What's stopping me from leaving mist form whenever I want and capping their portals?
Since is so easily achivable, i assume is intended and it was seen by the devs long before retail.
You are trading of everything else!
you are immobile and you do no damage to other dg nor to buildings and minor damage to creeps so you are not helping your team to achive victory.
If teams are matched you are going to lose, so no, i don't think is a design flaw at all because it provides no imbalance.
And if you concentrate your efforts on nightwalkers you can do the same with any other general, just stand behind you towers and micro your army, from level 1 with no helm required.
I wonder how this tactic would be affected by a longer cooldown on Mist? As it is, Erebus can leave Mist whenever there's no immediate danger to gulp potions, capture flags, etc, without much risk -- after 10 seconds or so he can enter Mist again. If he had to wait for more like 30 to 45 seconds, it would force him to leave the area if it was dangerous, instead of just setting up shop in one place indefinitely. I think the infinite Mist thing is a cool tactic to enable, as long as there's a serious tradeoff for it; it sounds like right now there might not be enough of one (just going by what Eternal_Silence reports).
For comparison, the only other invulnerability effects in the game, Shield and Orb of Defiance, have a 35 second cooldown.
Yeah except that while shielded oak can do the same as when he is not shielded, in mist you are immobile and no other abilities can de performed.
As I've mentioned many times in Erebus threads, his problem was never so much bite (which was fine as it was, and only required you get some health/armor items) but it was MIST. I've suggested #3 before, and will do so again. Just make him visible with a ward, that will completely change mist and add a certain amount of fear of staying in it too long, or at least a pleasant surprise when he starts getting killed while misting around. He should also be effected by AoE (QoT and TB). That is the easiest and most effective fix.
Thanks for writing such a great post.
He doesn't really turn invisible...he turn in to mist. Literally. You can already see the mist. You just can't hurt him. Because. He. Is. Mist.
simple fix is to make mist cost a % of mana instead of a set amount making it better at lower levels and to avoid this. I've never had problems with this because we end the game before vamp can get enough items to keep mist up long enough to matter. He usually runs out of mana and gets smashed shortly after.
If the see invis wards let you attack him it wouldn't be a problem, but they are completely useless.
Erebus and misting is definitely one of the more irritating features of Demigod. A state of perpetual invulnerability that can't be countered is lame enough. With the ability to keep creepwaves permanently back at little to NO risk... Irritating.
GPG/SD, if by chance you read this post, please consider re-balancing the skill. The OP had some great suggestions on balancing. I personally think that the mist should give him invisibility and damage reduction of 66.66666 percent(giving the erebus's team time to come to his rescue if need be, 66 percent arbitrarily chosen). That means a stubborn aoe team would be able to flush erebus out... eventually. Also, it would reward the teams that have the foresight to pack observer totems.
Turning Mist into an invisible spell is a poor choice of balance. It renders the skill completely useless, and is insulting to the Erebus player. No skill should be completely negated by an item, much less something as passive as simply dropping a totem.
And to futher comment on the mist build I mentioned in a previous post; although it did work and we won the game, it was a slow victory. A lot of momentum was lost by me not actively fighting. Had I done a traditional bite build, we could have finished the game much quicker.
Nerf or not, in the end, pro players are not likely to make any builds based on mist alone, so in the end it doesnt really matter. It will still function as an evasion spell in a pinch (if taken at all)
Maybe adding in some after-effects of using mist. How about level 3 mist gives you 3.5 seconds of invis after you deactivate the spell. The mist still stays, but you get a head start for running away. Having a skill like this is insulting to everyone else. its a bit like "nyah nyah here I AM! Look at me, I'm erebus and I can hit one button and screw up your entire pushing game without any effort and you can't do anything about it. Get back to me after I finish reading the funnies in the newspaper"
Sorry, I'm just used to dota where you can't leave your computer, take a dump, and come back while in enemy territory.
There are no words to express how wrong VyperXXX is...
Straight up.
No words, or you just cant find them?
UB spit.
Err, what? The question was whether or not Erebus was imbalanced. Insisting that they have characters who are inherently more effective than your teams somewhat negates the point
Yeah. Pretty much. The invisibility idea is not only totally unnecessary, but it just flat out doesn't make sense.
Oh I could find them Mr. VyperXXX, I was just being polite.
Enough of that.
Invulnerability & invincibility that cannot be countered is a gross imbalance that you wouldn't find in any established competitive game. Which, unfortunately, Demigod is not just yet. The problem is that the devs have a lot of respect for the community and work hard to change the game based on their feedback. So, if you have no experience with the balance of competitive games--kindly keep your mouth shut or at least add an addendum to your posts that you're just a casual gamer who has little to no idea what he's talking about.
There you go "VyperXXX."
This is probably an oversight by the dev. But the benefits of an infinite mist seem to be offset by the negatives, such as you being unable to push lanes. Still, this could be fixed by having a time limit on how long Erebus can remain in mist form if it's really that much of a problem. I've never faced this dilemma, so I don't know how troublesome it can actually be.
Good point.
You have still failed to say anything relevant to the topic. All I can really interpret here is that you are angry after losing to a misting Erebus.
It has been well established already that upgraded creeps do not die to Mist. Furthermore, a TB can greatly impact the usefulness of night walkers, especially if he is not a new player and can play a Fire/Ice hybrid with reasonable competence.
You have to think a little harder than "me grog smash little man with sword" " agghh, little man in da ground aagghhh!!!"
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