For starters, I play a hybrid TB.
More and more matches I'm dealing with seem to have oaks. Last match I played, the other team had Oak, Sedna, QoT, and Rook. Our team consisted of me (TB), Regulus, QoT, and UB. At the start, UB and I had some pretty good caps. The QoT was sheilding us periodically, and the Reg was, well, doing his thing. (I really don't like having reg players on my team, no offense to the good ones. Most just don't play a team game, and it seems like that DG slot would be better filled. =/) Anyway, I didn't see but fleeting glimpses of the Oak for the first 6 levels or so. It was just the QoT and Sedna running around together capping flags with mad shielding/heals (so they're basically unkillable). Rook was pushing one lane at a time, though I kept making him switch via harrassment. By level 7, Oak showed up with QoT and Sedna, making for one hell of a team. They just weren't killable. About 3 of us would focus on one of them only for them to be shielded and instantly healed. They literally tore down all our defenses to our base by me reaching level 8 (I was the first, being a primarily AoE TB, besides Fireball). We managed to run them off (probably because they were all oom). Then the Oak came back shortly after all beefed up and the same level as me. Two of my teammates were dead (not to be mean, but yeah, my team wasn't the best team), so Regulus and I tried to get Oak down, which should've been pathetically easy. When he was at 200 health, he pulled off that oh-so-overpowered Invincible+HoL combo, which made me furious enough, but after that, the guy had a health pot. By the time we exhausted his health 3 times (took 2 crystal hugs for me), the Sedna and QoT are back, which is just around the time that my teammates respawn. Then, the rook is bashing in from another lane. After thoroughly raping us a bit more, they add giants in to the mix. We weren't outleveled or anything, but it felt like facing opponents a good 5 levels above me.
I know that was a pretty big wall of text, but someone please tell me something I could've done in that situation. All of them weren't killable alone, much less in the zerg they had. There probably wasn't anything I could do, considering nearly all of my team liked to wander off on their own.
TLDR: Oak+Sedna+QoT together=Overpowered against nearly anything.
Oak + Sedna is usually a big enough problem, because getting a kill on them while together is nigh impossible if they both stack hp correctly, what with shield and heals going off left right and center if things go wrong, you have two almost instant cast interrupts as well, which also have high burst damage. Throw in double priest idols and oh boy you're never going to get that kill.
Now we bring in QoT which adds in yet another source of defense with shields and oh look MORE PRIESTS, oh and a debuff that drastically increases the effectiveness of auto attacks (which both Sedna and Oak use a lot) and you've got one of the strongest teams in the game I would like to think.
I don't really see how this could be balanced though if it was seen as overpowered by other people, because each of the 3 Demigods really don't outshine the other 5 when not played together.
EDIT : Also while I realise that if they're all together at the same time they can be out-warscored by nabbing flags, but Catas and Giants only serve to feed Oak and QoT more gold and levels with Groundspikes and Surge of Faith mincing them, and if they are sticking together they can also easily push an entire lane of your towers down with Groundspikes/autoattack faster than you can push into theirs, which gives them access to your flags.
Thanks for clearing things up, I wrote it a little shoddy, I know. As I thought when I started playing DG (about a week ago, haha), I knew the balancing problems wouldn't be DG vs DG, but rather team combinations. As you said, it can't really be balanced without gimping any of the DGs individually.
I do believe they were all using the summon>sell>buy>summon some more "strategy" (if you can call it that), which needs to be fixed. The whole Oak using Shield>HoL also needs to be fixed. (Make it remove all effects and be immune to everything for that period of time, including buffs and heals)
EDIT: Actually, someone has said to include "Diminishing returns" similar to WoW. This could actually fix this sort of matchup. Making shields/heals become less useful if used in succession within X amount of time would help this greatly.
They're going to nerf HoL so that the cooldown is doubled and it can only be bought at the artifact shop. That should help a bit.
EDIT: Here's the link with the HoL nerf: http://forums.demigodthegame.com/355935
I think when one go up against them, the best you can do is force them to retreat. Chances are, these people also use cloak of night which will teleport out of problems even if you manage to burst -> stun -> chase.
There was once that I was up against this kind of team, but luckily I had my LAN buddy around and both of us were TB. 1 ice 1 fire (pure). We just burst the hell out of them and force them to retreat quickly.
Basically we were able to kill off 1 "life" and go for the 2nd life the moment it engage, and they usually panic a little when they see their HP drop that fast (the most obvious response is them moving back to heal a little which make the battle predictable for you). Ring of fire near tower also keep them from engaging us at times that we don't want to risk a fight (because they know the burst will hurt even more in RoF), so in a sense we basically control every battle that was encountered. It started with them pushing us around, end with us spanking their butt red.
Though it could be the players that mattered, but one thing for sure, DPS without burst will not kill them. Another key is that burst being AoE, and they would need to take turn to get full heal (and also possibility of wasting heal on someone who just got shield/etc ).
HoL generally doesn't have a problem, as you have to run back to use it. It's when it's combined with Oak's shield that it seems rediculously imbalanced, because Oak can just pop it in battle.
There is a problem with HoL aside with oak. The problem being on most maps and with most team setup, a team with HoL will beat a team without HoL almost purely because of HoL.
That means HoL is the center of that game.
HoL + shield is just icing on the cake.
HoL is more money now; double cooldown, and at artifact shop. I think they fix the minion cast "loophole" in the upcomming patch too.
I would'nt try to kill Oak in that situation; in order for it to work, they all have to stay together. Split up and capture flags (maybe even ther flags in their home portals) and kill minions. If 2 or three come up on one of you, run, they have to split up to stop you all. It's like fighting superman; you can't win, but one of his vulnerabilites is that he can't be in more than one place at a time.
Don't kill Oak, if Last Stand isn't "tip off" enough for you.
An assassin like Torchbearer can easily wipe out Oak's entire army while he is knocking down buildings. Then with no minions and a few fireballs in his proverbial he should be legging it.
I know you want your gold and XP as payment for defending the base and flags while you teammates are farming the lanes and enemy towers but sometimes a kill is just not viable.
Strip him of minions, drive him off and then go find your pusher to gang bang the assassin trying to do the same to him.
If your teammates are unable to penetrate the enemy defences boot them and try the AI as a teammate, at least it will try.
If your team has a TB the enemy Oak isn't gonna keep his spirits around when the TB is there unless he's kinda stupid or is REALLY REALLY desperate for DPS, because usually the TB can swat them down pretty fast.
And only the 900g priests will die to a max level Rain of Ice or Fire Nova, and that's only if he has no +minion health items. The other idol levels will all survive. And a good general isn't usually gonna sit in a Circle of Fire while they and their minions get toasted.
Shield+HOL is overrated
Of course Fire Torch and Regulus will have problems with it because you HAVE NO STUN. If you are in Ice mode you stop HoL with deep freeze or frost nova (preferably frost nova, as that will also eat away his shield time and slow him)
Trick to fighting a team with a healer is to attack BOTH of them. Wait for a heal on one teammate then focus fire on the one that didn't get healed. The stronger DPS guy of your team should attack the healer as to make her heal herself than her ally first. You can also interrupt heals and mess up cooldowns with deep freeze. This is why Ice TB is so much better for teamplay than Fire.
Throw in QoT and you are in a 3v2 situation so you really shouldn't have a chance to win anyway. It sounds like your team was just outgeared.
Funny they need to "nerf" one of the easiest to counter items in game instead of allowing it to be interrupted even when oak is shielded (I know it interupts ok for the QoT when she is shielded)...
The easiest to counter item? cmon give me a break... HoL is just OP the worse thing that can happen to u is that u must retreat to your tower zone, use it and go back completely full and in 30 seconds the item is up again... easy to counter...
Any regulus can easily kill off a HoL. Just shoot them, placing a tracking bug as they run. DO NOT SNIPE IMMEDIATELY. Wait for the health to start regening, then snipe. If they wait out the duration on tracking bug, you can make a last-ditch effort by sniping as it's about to wear off.
UB effectively forces it into a fairly long 'cooldown' period with spit, during which they cannot activate it due to constant damage. These 10 seconds should be all you need to nail someone whose HP is vastly reduced due to their missing 4k's worth of health items.
Furthermore, any DG with Heaven's Wrath finds an easy counter to HoL .
Anyone who counter HoL usually have HoL themselves to try to tip the balance of battle. While a whole other battle was fought to keep HoL advantageous. DemiHoL much?
Then again, I really don't care HoL is meta or not. If it is there, I use it, so simple.
However, I think people should at least acknowledge that HoL is practically the heart of a body called demigod.
It is ok, HoL will always be with us within our heart May it rest in peace in artifact shop.
*then demigod 1.1 came out... "HoL - regen 99999 hp for 15 seconds and can't be interrupted"
The problem of this item is not that is uncounterable, is that is too good for the price, thats OP, of course is not an I win button but it can turn the tides alone easily just because allows the pusher keep pushing non stop with little breaks while the non HoL player usually must go back to base or take some time healing and loosing mana while the HoL player is completely full of HP and mana every 30 seconds, is just hilarious.
I play Sedna as my main demigod and from my experience the most powerful weapon the torchbearer has against sedna is deep freeze in combination with focus fire from your team.
Sedna's power comes from her abilities and passive health regen from healing wind, inner grace and idol priests. This makes her very hard to wear down as a TB since a fireball or rain of ice will be healed in a few seconds by her regen.
I hardly ever find myself having to back off vs TBs 1vs1. Usually I just activate a wand of speed, pounce the tb, back off regen my health and repeat that, wearing the TB's hp down. Usually Tbs just stand at the back casting their abilities on me, i regenthe health lost in seconds and they just pretty much wasted their mana.
So what you need to do is work with your team to focus fire her and her team then she will be forced to heal. Heal has a 7 sec cooldown so you need to count that in your head and just before heal comes up use deep freeze, it'll make her unable to heal for a further 10 secs, 15-17 in total and if pounce was on cooldown she won't be able to use that either. It really screws her up. Also she when she is about to heal she will stop moving and stand still to cast, you can try using frost nova/deep freeze to interrupt that, it is a 0.5 sec cast and with lag it isn't too reliable.
Now if you combine that with other stuns like foul grasps, frost nova and slows, aoe to kill her idol priests, she is going to be in alot of trouble. Just try to work with your team to pull off stun/interrupt combinations, when a team is doing that, sedna is under alot of pressure.
When it comes to dealing with oaks shield, it has a 35 sec cooldown, abuse that! Work with your team to focus fire with all your interrupts/slows, force him to use his shield on your terms. All of your cooldowns will be up before his shield is again, so then just focus fire again and he won't have it to use.
Finally shield + hol is not overpowered. All it does is provide him with around 2k health and mana every 30 secs. It just stands out alot so you notice it. If you compare it to other things like potions, idol priests, sedna's healing winds, it really is quite mediocre. If it was noticable how much healing sedna outputs, I'm sure people wouldbe whining about that.
What? I'm pretty sure this was confirmed for not stopping HoL, stuns and interrupts don't stop it.
Sedna/QoT/Oak/Rook teams are very hard to beat if they all focus on hp and they play smart. The stun mirco you need to interupt shield/heal is very micro-intensive compared to the mirco needed to apply these powers. It's a magnitude of 10 harder to pull off.
If you have a regulus and a fire TB (and most TB are fire, bc it's easier) you wont have any stuns from these two. Also the only interupts that can reliably interrupt heal are Pestilence and Deep Freeze, because they are instant and they have good range. A good sedna will back off to heal, so you can not interrupt her easily.
I play a Hybrid TB. RoI, Fireball, and Fire Nova are my early spells of choice. Around level 13ish, I toss a point into Deep Freeze, but I'm guessing I should toss it in earlier against this team. I'm just so used to being able to interrupt in WoW, where there's a cast bar. It's tough to judge when an opposing player is casting something important, especially in massive battles with all DGs+Dozens of creeps in one spot.
You answered the question for yourself. A team that works together is going to beat individuals most of the time.
I think one of the best options for your team would have been to go on offense. If 3 of the opponents are killing your base, gank the 4th solo player and then proceed to tearing down *their* towers. Don't let them put you into a defensive position, put them into one instead.
If they drop back to defend, retreat as a team and attack a different spot. Anytime they attack your base, go attack theirs.
Well
Well see, there wasn't really a way we could go on offense. We would've had to go through 4+ towers, where as they were demolishing our Cit. I guess the game was over when the characters were selected. =/
Interrupts do not stop HoL through shield. I've pounced on a Shield+HoL Oak often enough to find that out. I don't personally know if any of the 4 stuns in the game work stop it.
I'll add that UB's foul grasp doesn't work. I've tried, all it does is make me look like an idiot as I'm stuck in the skill animation for 2 seconds while Oak runs around and UB turns every which-way in an attempt to follow him.
Mass Charm and Foul Grasp certainly don't.
It doesn't.
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