I've been tinkering around with some ideas recently, trying to figure out if they work.
I was actually expecting total failure here, and that is what I started with. My first ideas were to play a silly 'fireball' build for TB, just to see if it could go somewhere: This build is rank 4 fireball, rank 3 Fire Aura, and 3 points in Enhanced Attributes.
As expected, it wasn't very good. Why? As much as a fireball based kiting strategy was somewhat effective (fire aura 3 gives you +15% move speed, and since fireball is your only spell, you need almost no mana regen effects) you just didn't pull your weight in 3v3 combats. Unless your allies were primarily auto attacking (Where the +15% attack speed shines) you were contributing fairly minor damage.
However, obviously you have those 3 points in enhanced attributes which could easily go somewhere else... So here's what I do:
A 3/7 Ice/Fire split. I used Staff of Renewal for this strat.
This is a fireball kite build, that also has the full 'control' suite from ice if needed (Good for 2v2 or 3v3's). I call it "Torch Support" because while you are kiting, any allies nearby can close faster, and attack faster. You also do pretty well just standing in the back and firing between fireballs.
The choice for Fire Aura is going to be, I know, the most controversial part of this build. Afterall, TB in firemode can't shoot on the run. That is true, but he can FIREBALL on the run. Also, if he outspeeds the opponent you can 'move past' them to get in extra shots. If absolutely necessary you can shift to ice and go that route. That said, your friends and allies nearby ARE going to be able to chase... and chase well. The fire aura's bonus to speed is greater than the ice aura's penalty, and it also increases attack speed making it ideal for an ally to auto attack a runner.
Weaknesses: First and foremost is the complete lack of AoE. This is something that TB players will likely find appalling. It's what he DOES afterall, right? Well, I don't really disagree, so you may find getting a point in Fire Nova instead of Deep freeze to be more worth it, though it depends on the game (opponents getting early priests for instance).
Itemization is where I like this build. Since you are even more mana efficient than most TB builds, you can often get away with the most minor of mana regen effects, and since you rely on the trim sexy little fireball for damage (not rain of ice) you also tend to be able to go into 'overdrive' and start laying down freezes and nova's as fast as possible. Great in 3v3 combats where group stuns, and interrupts are almost always stronger than generic damage.
Thoughts for modification: Try the anklet for super mobility. This is one of the few play strategies where movement can be greater than HP (kiting). You could also use the Heaven's wrath to mitigate out the lack of AoE (And it's normal goodness).
Good build.
I have to argue that what your build does, this Ice build does better. You raise interesting points about permafrost vs Fire Aura, I will look into your build with a few play tests and come back with more input. To me it is a pain to switch into frost to get a interupt or stun off (even though it's always worth it) and loose the aura you have in the other tree. Your build will also have a bad lull after level 10 (which many TB builds actually experience) But unlike many other tb builds, your lull will pretty much last the rest of the game. This basically means if you arent winning by level 10, you will have a hard time getting the upper hand with your itemization and skill point placement.
1 Rain of Ice
2 Permafrost
3 Deep Freeze
4 Rain of Ice 2
5 Frost Nova
6 Permafrost 2
7 Rain of Ice 3
8 Perfafrost 3
9 Save
10 Rain of Ice 4 and Frost Nova 2
at 15 you get Frost Nova 3 and the upgrade to Rain of Ice. In between 11 - 14 you can up Deep Freeze to 4 for spike damage
Edit: Fire build is the weakest tree. The spike damage it provides is primarily single target, and is only viable when there is a player for each available lane of creeps (3v3 in cataract) Once 4 players are in the game, only 1 has to have an ability based counter to make fireball completely useless. AoE is what TB is for, to not use this to its fullest is... your hurting your team more than your aura's and fireball can make up for. Even the fire based AoE is just not enough, either of them. Circle of fire doesn't kill giants end game, DG's don't stand in it, you have it centered around your self (small AoE range to). Your spike damage AoE is only good against creeps, even when you max it at 15, it is not enough to counter act heals/bramble shield on multiple demigods. Ice and true-hybrids are the only viable builds with TB. If you are winning with a fire main build, your opponents are just not good enough. Learn to play Ice, all of your future teams will appreciate you much more.
I did try the build and it was interesting. It worked decent enough but going against a Sedna or QoT would be fairly tough. I did like the concept for early game though. I never ran out of mana which was nice. Although I do agree with alvaro on certain points that the build has a very hard time. I do disagree that fire TBs are worthless though. Even though I'm mainly an ice/hybrid TB, I've seen a few good fire TBs.
Ice TB is better then Fire TB in all situations, 1v1, 2v2, etc
So yeah, that is pretty much what I consider the 'normal' ice build, whereas the 'normal' hybrid takes fireball for four points, and takes less permafrost/nova.
I honestly will not claim that the build I have up here is 'better' because I haven't played it enough to really note a trend. The all ice build is very effective, and I have played it fairly extensively. The real thing I notice about it though, is that it requires significantly more mana regeneration effects, and also has less 1v1 dps.
I'm game to try out mine s'more, and see how it feels though, and I hope maybe if a few other people do, we can compare notes. There is a lot of thought involved in when exactly you should switch to ice mode in combat. Fleeing sedna? Probably better to Deep Freeze a heal and chase than to try and get in a finishing fireball. Unclean beast? Yeah tricky all around there.
Disagree. 2v2 and above.... fireball can be a big factor for damage + range. I get the benefits of ice or mixed, but still go fire ftw. Might be a fun 1v1 if you are interested (pretty sure you've got the edge on me in 1v1 though, but I'm game).
I recon you never played against a half decent Fire TB.
1) Fireball is not spike damage, it's pretty much constant 150+ dps
2) Spike damage is Fireball + CoF + Fire Nova + Fireball. 5 Seconds, ~3500 damage (and yes a level 15 Fire TB is the fastest Giant killer)
3) Fireball is countered by, let's see.... Penitence, and.... Penitence. Oh and also Penitence counters Fireball. Of all 3 demigods that have interrupts that can be used as counters (Pounce, Deep Freeze and Pentience) the only real counter to Fireball is Penitence. And yet, Fireball will have a shorter cooldown and the second one will go thru. So yes, Oak is the best counter to FireTB, 1 out of 8.
4) And then you learn to fake cast
ice vs fire, ice would always win..
you make it sound like you're good at TB, unfortunatly you aren't
foreshadowed... we should try a 2v2 (noting my post indicating i didn't think fire v ice would win 1v1). 2v2 though, I think fire has it. We could have a game to decide
I think a 2v2 match would be fun w u tb ice + another v me tb fire + another. what do you think?
ummm...sure...set up a game whenever
It can be interrupted it is not dps at all.
Also ice will beat fire if he interrupts the fireballs most times, especially because it's fires only ranged damage.
n/m
Fire TB is ok. Ice seems to work better under most circumstances but its not like fire is actually outright bad (the way Sedna Yetis are just terrible).
fireball is mana efficient and long range. its a fantastic harrassing spell. its also great at finishing runners. it plays out almost identically to Venom Spit in most circumstances.
circle of fire is much maligned but its very effective as a group support spell on certain maps. it is a bit contextual though, but under the right circumstances its very effective. other times it does almost nothing though so its understandably not too popular.
fire nova is great at creep clearing and reasonably good at adding burst damage against DG's. its very high mana cost though, which prevents it from really being super strong.
the fire aura is always underestimated. people tend to forget that it also benefits your team-mates. granting attack and run speed to your allies is very strong. if only they would fix the Fire mode auto-attacks it would be incredibly strong for TB himself as well.
Fire torch bearer suffers from:
Fireball is only useful as harassment, and when an opponent team has sedna / QoT it trully becomes useless
FireAura does not net kills, not because the ability isn't good, but because Fire TB can't chase and shoot
Fire TB can't chase and shoot, making it useless for chasing, harassing, and even support in group fights
Fire TB has to be in the middle of the fight casting his AoE's
Fire TB has no means of escape
Fire torch bearer has great damage, in that:
Nobody will fight in a circle of fire before level 10
Fire nova insta kills creep waves
Playing a fire build sacrifices to many benefits of the torch bearer. Just not being able to run and shoot is enough to make him unplayable. Add that to his limited AoE functionality AGAINST OPPOSING DG and you have a squishy fiery gold mine.
Why is everyone forgetting the synergy Fire TB gets from his skills.
1) Fire aura enables you to play with no speed item beside Wand of Speed
2) One of the best level 15 skills (IMO), Inspirational Flame enables you to play with a single, cheap helm.
3) Almost all of Fire TB damage comes from abilities, so he doesn't need damage items.
This enables Fire TB to concentrate heavily on HP/Amor without sacrificing anything else. 4 armors is the way I play Fire TB and IMO that is the way it should be played. It can deliver both burst and sustained damage while being able to take some too.
People belittle CoF too much. It delivers the damage right where it's needed, around the objective you're fighting for, be it a flag, tower or a Demigod. Sure people move out of it, but you get few potshots while they do, and you still end up clreaing up the reinforcements.
True, AA bug is a big problem, but you can work around it early game by switching to ice, and late game you just have to learn to live without it (untill it's fixed that is).
The biggest problem I see with Fire TBs is that everyone seems to get Fire Nova at level 5. While clearing a creep wave in 0,5s is nice, it's utter waste. Nova justs costs too much to be used that early.
but
ur bad
The problem with circle of flame is that the opponent gets to decide how it will effect them. If they can take the damage, they can decide to enter or stay in the circle, if they can't, they move away.
And I think the mana boost for inspirational flame is actually moot in many cases. By that point you had to use whatever mana regen you used, and only at the very end of the game would you be able to seel perhaps one mana source to buy something else. It isn't like the inspirational flame effect was a growing cumulative thing. I'd rather use more mana efficient spells, than try to get more sources of mana, for TB especially.
Ehm, ok
Though I only remember playing against you once, in a game where you dropped after 5 minutes.
Not to mention that interrupting with Deep Freeze also puts a cooldown increase on it.
In my experience a Fire TB can beat an Ice TB if Fire has Staff of Renewal and Ice doesn't, but that's only in a 1v1. In larger battles Ice abilities become much more useful.
Deep freeze will have no effect on a fireball, other than interrupting it, unless the fireball user has significantly shortened cooldowns, or deep freeze is high level. The increase in cooldown time is 'temporary', which is ridiculously counter intuitive. That is, the time for fireball to cooldown will change from 7, to 10 seconds. However, when deep freeze wears off, the extra 3 seconds added onto it, will then be removed. Since it lasts 5 seconds, the timer for fireball will count thusly: 10-9-8-7-6-2-1, the exact same 7 second countdown it woulda had without the deep freeze.
zech is right. This tooltip needs to be edited.
So, after playing this for a while, I have changed it slightly. I now do:
and then the rest same as before. Basically, Deep freeze alone isn't often worth switching forms for, though frost nova is. Adding fire nova gives me the OPTION of a bit more damage if I need it. Mainly though it heals up the weakness this build has against groups of creeps. No AoE whatsoever is a huge liability in this game, and I decided I didn't want to live without it.
Oh yeah forgot about that....they should've made it not remove the extra time when it wears off; most stuff's cooldown is longer than 5,6,7 seconds anyway so it doesn't really do crap.
Shouldn't it be adding ~9 seconds to a 7-second cooldown though (ignoring that it goes away after it wears off)? IIRC level 1 says it "increases target's cooldown times by 130%" which implies it's adding the full 100% before the 30%. If it really does add 130% and not just 30% then using it just prior to when the cooldown ends should bring it back up to 9, effectively preventing it from being used for the 5-second duration of the debuff.
This is correct. The buff does need at least rewording, or possibly new functionality (I don't believe that it does) but the skill does work as you described. Lets say your opponent nails you with a FireBall, and 6 seconds afterwards he attempts to cast circle of fire. You Deep Freeze his CoF, which when any interrupt occurs the cooldown triggers. There is 7 second cooldown on fire ball and 10 second on Circle of fire. Deep Freeze understands that Fireball has been cast 6 seconds ago, so the cooldown time of 7 seconds will be increased by 130% which is roughly 9 seconds. What this means for you, is that Fire Ball is not usable for 10 seconds, and Circle of Fire is not usable for 23 seconds. This effect wears off when deep freeze ends.
Effectively, the ability prevents any previously cast abilities from being recast for the duration of deep freeze. This is good in many situations, but best against characters with long cool downs (oak shield). Say his shield is refreshed and you deep freeze his AoE, then his shield is not usable for 7 seconds (because of deep freeze and the last time he used shield was a minute or so ago) you can burst him down before his protection becomes available.
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