COLOR SCHEME:
All balance suggestions in this thread are subjective opinions or complaints submitted by posters in this thread.
To highlight how strong others agree or disagree with these opinions I introduced the following color scheme:
Also, the balance suggestion format is to be interpreted like this (currently reformatting):
Status changes as discussion progresses. Check the update history at the bottom of this post to see which posts have been accounted for.
Read this first! (or at least skim over it)
On the whole the current cast of demigods is quite well balanced. A win is mostly decided by skill and less by the choice of your avatar.
Admittedly some builds seem downright overpowering - immortal Sednas for instance - but even those builds can be cracked ... and they usually have a harder time in other aspects of the game, like getting to the point where they are finally awe-inspiring.
I want to know what the experienced players think about the current state of balance (sorry newbs, but getting trashed by tower rooks and not having a clue how to beat them doesn't make rooks overpowered).
Also, I'm not looking for single-skill complaints - everyone knows by now that QoT's Tribute skill sucks (at level 15 at least) - but rather how the overall performance of a demigod skilling strategy compares to the rest of the game.
For example: Regulus has at least three skilling strategies one can pursue: Snipe, Mines, Angelic Fury.* Clever minelayers are quite feared for their incredible burst damage and can easily dominate careless players but they can be comfortably countered by competent generals. Strong build but not everpowering. * Snipers deliver unexpected kills from a great distance, frustrating many players that fall victim to him. Can't really be countered, but the skill depends on the target having low health in the first place which means that the snipes rely on the performance on your teammates or the carelessness of the opponent. * Angelic Fury - er, I played that in the beginning. Are there good builds out there?
Anyway, Regulus has several main paths he can pursue, several pretty strong ones but not so strong that he can't be beaten without the need of a balance patch. But are some of his skills so weak that they will never get picked at all? If so, how should the change happen?
Please post your opinions and suggestions and I'll do my best to summarize the general consensus (btw, the initial QoT summary is solely my perception of her. Additional opinions welcome).
Lord Erebus
Build Strategies:
Summary:
Balance Suggestions:
Oak
Queen of Thorns
Build strategies:
QoT fares bad with every build against every Demigod. Sure, at the beginning she has great staying power, comparable to tower rooks. But she will barely ever land a kill. Her dps and burst damage are low. Popping into open form for spikes/spike wave/uproot consumes much time. Theoretically a combo of ground spikes, spike wave and mulch could deal heavy burst damage, but the delay between form switching makes that unfeasable.
She has only two feasible ways of playing her: Support and Siege.
Balancing Suggestions:
Regulus
Rook
Sedna
Passive and active self-healing skills can make Sedna nearly immortal. Her Pounce deals good damage and doubles as an interrupt. Silence interrupts, too, and prevents skill usage alltogether for some time in a large area. One of the strongest - if not the strongest - demigods around when played correctly. In fact, her healing builds are so strong that every other build of hers that isn't a variation of that becomes obsolete.
Torch Bearer
Unclean Beast
ITEMS
Update history:
I think OAK is ok
UB = u guys wrote the write things
Queen = Yeah need some good late game skills, and with the shamblers also nice GJ
Sedna = Healing bug should be fixed, i cant say anything about yetis
Rook = The i dont think that structural transfer is good how it works, but im not a good rook player maybe u are right
Regulus = with the 100% Stun thing is rly cool, again GJ
TB = yeah the autofire bug should be fixed.
In the end i have to say rly good job and this post is great.
cheers
the reason is for this nerf is because the range of batswarm is double(30) that of cloak of the night(15) and warpstone(15)
ah good find. possibly 5.5? after swift anklet they would still be slower than UB and erebuses base movement speed.
other balance changes:
heaven's wrath is too good mid/late game for pushing, increase its cooldown by 30 seconds.
reduce cost of HoL, who uses it now?
slightly reduce blood of the fallen (750)
increase caplock cooldown slightly(2-5 secs)
fix all items in consumble artifact shop, reduce costs
rework vinling helmet and theurgist's cap
rework armor of vengence, platemail of the crusader, groffling warplate
reduce journeyman's treads movement speed proc to 40%
note: the main reason im putting these here is to see your opinion on the items listed, because this is a good thread!
That's exactly why it needs to stay as it is - if everyone could use this same ability but as a favour item, what would be the point of Erebus having it as an ability in the first place? I don't see a favour item granting the user Archers and a Trebuchet equal to that of Rooks, why should it be the case here?
I think it should stay the initial range of 20. There are very few counters to blinking, in order to kill Erebus you need to stun-lock or silence, which are pretty specific abilities. If you could use your own blink item to be nearly as fast as he was then in conjunction with a slow you'd actually be able to kill the bastard. As it stands bat swarm goes twice as far as the other two, and in conjunction with his high base move speed means you can't realistically chase.
another balance change: heaven's wrath is too good mid/late game for pushing, increase its cooldown by 30 seconds.
I have no idea what you're talking about...explain how 250 AoE damage is useful lategame. I always thought it was better as an early game item.
it is too easy to control the map with.
up until catas you can destroy whole creep wave pushes without having to be there. there is nothing wrong with the damage.
its also not because everyone else can get a blink ability, its because erebus can also get all 3 of them at the same time.
double post.
swift anklet is +15% movement speed
I just don't know what numbers it would need to get it to be used more frequently without being used by everyone all the time again.
Yes, true. However via a combination of Favour Items and purchased Items, any Demigod can exploit the benefits of playing said Demigod. That's actually why the items exist - to develop new and interesting strategies. I, personally, feel Batswarm is fine.
I agree. I still feel that HoL needed a significant price hike, however now - compared to other items of a similar value - it's never selected. I'll admit I was wrong, in that I thought it would still be used, however during any game where it becomes available, there are always better options in terms of items to select. 8k, and a set Mana amount, might make it slightly more appealing?
Huh?
Just some of my thoughts about main post:
Well 20 range is enought imo. More distance just let people use more bugs (jumping over wholes and corners on different maps).
Still I think Vampire is really too good. Bite shouldn't decrease movement speed (and for sure not 30% !!). It's just too easy for Vampire to tp to someone, bite him, and that person is certinatelly dead (with -30% speed everyone will catch you). Beside, why Vampire need that speed decrease, if he has batswarm and is 5% faster from the beggining than any other demigod ?
Just think about that - Vampire can hide and take off ALL his debuffs (mist), teleport when running away or chasing (batswarm), reduce movement speed by 30% (bite), reduce armor by 700 (bite), stun all enemies around (mass charm), got free minions even without putting single point in that ability, and still got skill to increase his hp recovery +20 hp every second. Isn't that just too much in single char ?
I don't think increasing Oak's attack power is the best solution here. Still, the bonus is max +10 dmg (so first soul power will give you max 30 dmg). Second it will be 50, third 70. It's good as it is now. +40 additional dmg (from lvl 2 and 3 of Soul Power) is like free passive bonus from gloves (3300 ones). That's surely worth considering.
QoT Tribute gives additional +4 gold / sec (not 2 like you wrote). That's a lot, but still, lvl 15 is definatelly too late. I think it should be avaliable from lvl 10, so it will make NOTICABLE change (especially in longer games).
Changing form really takes too much time. It should be faster a bit. Still I think open form shouldn't give you additional bonuses. Open form is like siege form, closed one is defensive. So you should use opened form just from time to time, when situation needs that, otherwise you should return to closed form to gain additional bonuses from it. That's ok imo.
Structural Transfer is great skill and I hope it won't be changed. Sure you can easly interrupt it, but that's how it should work imo. You can easly regen your hp with it (from your own tower), don't need to return to base. So it's usefull right now and really I can't agree it needs changes.
But I agree, Rook should have increased speed a bit. 5.4 is really slow comparing to other chars and their abilities (especially slowing ones). 5.6 should be ok here.
Well Sedna is a big "problem" IMO. People are saying Yeti's sux. The thing is, Sedna has SO MANY great skills, Yetis are just nothing comparing to them.
Your proposition of "nerfing heal" is really BUFFING it. I really think healing skill is a bit too good, same as Vampire's bite. Even now on Cataract, Sedna can heal EVERY 5 seconds (can make it even 3 sec on higher lvls with two -15% cooldown flags !!). That's just too frequent. Buffing heal from 1500 to 1800 will make Sedna even more almost impossible to kill than she is now ! I think Sedna's heal base cooldown should increase from 7 to 10 seconds (cooldown flags will decrease the 3s difference anyway) OR Sedna's healing cooldown shouldn't be decreased by -cooldown items/skills/flags (so it should always be 7 sec). Similar change could apply to Vampire's bite also.
Well just don't make Circle of Fire radius higher than 15. It will be to easy to kill towers without even being hitted once. Fireball is powerfull enought to do that. So if You really like to change CoF radius, it should be something like: 12/13/14/15. But that will make TB weaker, isn't it ? So maybe that shouldn't be changed at all ?
I don't think time of switching form should be reduced. It will be too easly to use 2 AoE skills and still use some other skills meantime.
Well the thing I know for sure, UB's 2s stun is good enought and it shouldn't be increased to 2.5s (on highest lvl). It will be too long. Beast is powerfull as it is now.
I think stacking hp on beast need change. Beast is the char which really don't need mana !! You just got enought basic mana to use 2x split and 1x stun. Enought to kill anyone. That's the reason why many ppl are using 5 hp items (sometimes 4 hp items + 1 speed). And we see beasts with 7.5k hp then. Beast attack is high enought to kill most of demigods without even using single skill !!Maybe Demigods need some limitation on hp you can stack ? Like basic hp on specific lvl * 70% ? It will give max 4700 hp for beast at lvl 10 (5848 hp at lvl 15), and make it more challenging to collect right gear (to not pass that limit).
BTW: Still I think we are just wasting out time, writing those propositions. You can't really think GPG will consider any of those changes ? Check how many topics were here about changes needs to be made. The biggest problem with that topics is, everyone writes their feelings about balancing. And, not hard to guess, everyone has their own opinion about things that need changes
-double post- forum go boom
Haha, I'll keep that in mind.
And you may call me Aroddo.
Ah, just because I said so doesn't mean that it's true. I just think it is. And I'm pretty damn sure I'm right.
Aw no, now you did it: You voiced my hidden fear.
Well, if I'm honest with myself then I do have to ask myself why Demigod doesn't seem to be embraced by the competetive gaming community. Is it because the game sucks? Or because GPG has a reputation for ignoring customer input? Or worse, because GPG has no reputation at all because their products are too insignificant for the esport community? Or is Blizzard simply too overpowering? Or is 3 months simply not enough time?
I honestly think that Demigod is a great game. And it's incredibly beautiful ... not just cool-graphics beautiful. It's a work of art. Paint the maps on linen and put them in a museum. Really, they are that beautiful.
But communication from GPG to us is abysmal. I honestly have no idea if anything we think has any influence on anything GPG does.
Ok, granted, GPG claims it's developing a clan-addon and two more demigods for free. And the game shipped with loads of connectivity issues and the pantheon database behaved erratic, so I acknowledge they have other priorities.
But still, I can't help but feeling ignored.
Don't let that stop you from posting suggestions,ok ?!
This is a benefit of the ability. Even with a Range of 20 he'll still be able to move over corners, however as the ability is both a surprise attack and an escape tool, you have to use it carefully otherwise you've robbed yourself of your best escape method. Lowering the range would limit it's usefullness greatly as any speed reducing ability applied before the swarm should allow the pursuers to catch Erebus, and believe me; swarming doesn't always save your life. Limiting the range would make the swarm a complete waste of an ability slot as it removes it's primary purpose; escaping.
He needs the Speed Decrease for his minions, as the debuff enable them to catch their target, otherwise the moment a Demigod of equal speed runs away the minions are useless as they won't catch their target to deal damage. Removing the speed decrease would limit the effectiveness of a minion build greatly, and force minion build Erebus' to stack Speed Plus effects other wise minions are only really good for stationary targets. Removing the slowing effect also makes the 'problem' your trying to solve greater because now instead of a slow effect debuff that the Erebus can only apply if close to you, you've now got a much faster Erebus and minion swarm with him permantly, and ruined an ability in the process.
Hardly. You're talking like every Erebus can teleport instantly across the map with a complete compliment of completely upgraded minions and then one shot a Demigod, tank down another, mist to remove debuffs, heal himself to full health with Bite, killing another, and teleport back to base to upgrade to priests before anyone knows what's what. This is not the case. I recommend you play Erebus and learn him, as it's obvious you've played against him more often than as him. You'll see why these changes are a bad idea - with the exception of the lowering the additional health buff for minions. Being as the minions are free, I see this as an acceptable alteration, however I would like to see their DPS upgraded to compensate for this.
you just answered your own question, games like starcraft, counterstrike, dota dont have amazing graphics, their primary focus is gameplay!
competitive people dont care for graphics at all, they just want to win games.
@ZehDon's wall of text:
ur post is riddled with your love of erebus
Sedna's current ownage build is "full," meaning there is no room to take Yetis without giving up something important. Therefore buffing Yetis would not represent a simple increase in Sedna effectiveness, rather it would hopefully make a second type of Sedna viable. But in all likelyhood unless Yetis get buffed to a ridiculous level, they still wont be used and on the whole Sedna will remain unchanged.
Sedna with Cooldown flag heals once per 5.95s, or 5.46/5.11/4.76s at levels 1-3 of Magnificent Presence, which almost no one has time to get until levels 15+. While those are nice cooldowns, its perfectly possible for a coordinated offense to outrun Heal, especially later in the game when spell-based DGs start being overwhelmed by autoattackers. Good Sedna builds that health stack don't have mana to spam heal that often for any extended period, anyways. Personally the prospect of nerfing its early power but increasing its late power seems exactly right to me, especially since everyone is crying for the High Priest nerf.
But a player could only get the 2.5s stun by investing two extra points in Grasp, which is fair.
You could make some goofy list like that for almost any DG. Oak can slow down enemies, amplify the damage dealt to a particular enemy, increase the attack speed of himself and his allies, increase the move speed of himself and his allies, interrupt, has two sources of direct damage, regenerate health and mana by killing creeps, passively increase his autoattack power, summon a horde of minions, can turn himself or an ally invincible for several seconds while removing negative effects. And if he ever dies, he gets up and smashes you!
So no, Erebus is fine. He has a unique set of strengths just like any other DG.
In my premade we refer to that item as the "noob cannon." Its completely terrible. Why in the world should we nerf it?
Honestly, it's just a matter of experience. True, in early game they easily hold lanes. But by now we have developed multiple strategies to deal with tower farms, the most basic one being to attack with creeps.
You're not the first to run into the tower problem.
Rook is very well balanced. His assassin build does work - it demands an unusual choice of items, though. Tower rook is simply straight forward and effective. Rook ninjas are based on tower rooks and are pretty devastating to the enemy base. Three distinct playing styles and all of them viable. I think Rook is the best designed Demigod.
re: heavean's wrath:
Okay, to what degree would we have to buff it for you to consider using it?
you can farm xp and gold on the other side of the map.
you can control the map, mainly 3v3 and 2v2 maps as they only have 2 portals that spawn creeps, you are taking 1 out of the equation.
it is not terrible. think of pushing strategies that you can make with it.
Only useful if for some reason you've got no other DG in that lane.
You can kill some stupid creeps and then watch as the DG with an actual favor item pushes you out of your lane. Its terrible.
Thats what almost all posts are about, aren't they ?
For me, people seems to ignore some facts, and just think about character they are playing the most. It's like with beast and it's easy hp stacking. You really don't need ANY personal skill to buy 5 +hp items and just chase others with your 7k+ hp build. It's easy to see in Pantheon, how hard is to fight against Beast + Vampire team. The truth is, imo Vampire is unkillable, and it's not a joke. If you meet good Vampire player, you just can't kill him. He can always tp out of battle (but he don't really need to !!). The only way you can kill Vampire is his own mistake (not getting out of the battle soon enought, not using mist when spited or tracked, being too greedy etc). I can't say that about any other demigod. Especially... because of Vampire. He can tp to any char, bite / stun... and it's done (especially in premade team). Vamp can even chase other Demigods through towers. Just jump the towers, and you won't get many hits - but still, you will regen all that by just 1 bite !!
Well thats of course my opinion, and I'm not saying Vampire is easy to play char. Still I think in right hands, it's just unkillable with all his abilities. Vampire just has no weaknesses.
So in my previous post I tried to say, in my opinion Vampire and Sedna (because of heal cooldown affected by flags etc) are a bit too good chars compaing to others. The weakest char for me seems to be QoT, because changing form takes so much time (without shield QoT just can't fight others). Not mentioning how annoying form changing is...
BTW: Yes, I don't play as a Vampire often, but I played many games with different chars and see some things which I don't like. I remember when GPG said they will nerf Vampire's bite from 900 to 700. People was just screaming here how unplayable this char will be. So they nerfed it to 775. And I think Vampire is just still too good. Cataract = bite every 5 sec. So you heal like with regular pot for free every 5 seconds, and doing dmg same time. Sure Vampire can't do 1000+ dmg like all others chars, but he really don't need that with his def decrease ability and survivability !!
BTW2: SoFFacet - if you really want to leave Vampire as it is, additionally buff Sedna (+300 hp heal), i'm sure, you are playing Vampire or Sedna (at least have both in your premade team). I know how those teams works. Even when you fight against good players, you just tp all same time to tower (Vent), Vampire batswarm to some player, bite, stun, Sedna uses his speed (fastest Demi in game) and that's it. There's no possibility to do anything about this, because of Vampire ability to jump and slow down 30% (or stun). Buffing Sedna is just ridiculous idea... unless you are a Sedna player (or you have one in your premade team of course). Saying about mana is funny a bit for me. I played Sedna many times, and really if you don't use silence (1 vs 1 situation), 2 mana helmets + unbreakable boots are enought for this char to handle any team fight (and after battle just tp to base to regen mana). Still, you can use mana favor item or mana potions (if you just ask others from your team to carry flag locks for you) and then mana is not a problem for you at all. Well, I can agree Vampire is balanced ONLY if you buff ALL other chars (excluding Sedna of course !!).Added: Oh what a surprise... I just checked your history, and you are a Sedna player 1500 heal + 200 dmg is not enought for you then
EDIT (new thought): I just can't understand how people who plays just with 1 (ONE) char all the time, can say what is balanced and what isn't ? You play one char all over again, so you just know one char. So what your opinion about any other chars means ? Is that what you heard or observed with your premade team while killing noobs ?
He's tough to kill but thats it. Besides that he doesn't do anything spectacular. He's a decent DG but honestly no better than 4th best in 2v2 scenerios (Sedna, Beast, Oak), and drops down even further in 3v3 (TB, Reg become viable).
As you went to the trouble of finding out yourself, I play Sedna because shes strong. As I said just now, I don't find Erebus (minus Horn gayness) to be very good, and he is one of the DGs that my premade uses least often.
See this is where your problem starts. For some reason you equate the power of the level 4 skill with the power of the skill in general, which is typical noob thinking. You don't just magically arrive at the late game. There is a lot of maneuvering that goes on before players start getting level 4 skills, and this maneuvering matters, which means the entire progression of a skill tree is important. This means that the heal change is not just some flat buff, its a calculated buff/nerf which hurts her early game (her current strength) and helps her late game (her weakness, if she has one). What you don't seem to realize is that Level 3 Heal giving 1350 Health is far more important/controversial than level 4 heal giving 1800.
Like I said, I would rather not use Erebus, hes not that good. But if I did have one on my team, I wouldn't rely on this too much. Good players don't fall for teleport ganks very often.
Again, this is noob thinking. You're aiming to have 2 mana helmets and/or mana favor item, and earlier you said "Sedna is the fastest DG in the game," which means you're getting Boots and/or Anklet + multiple levels of Grace. This is a completely terrible way to play Sedna, if you try it versus good players you will get dominated because you're so squishy. Sedna, like all melee DGs, is supposed to stack health and armor. Also, if you're not using Silence by level 11-12 you're probably playing wrong. So yes, a properly built Sedna has mana issues, and she only has enough gold to easily solve them if you feed her.
Edit: Maybe I should clarify, I personally do not have any problem with how Heal is right now, it seems fine to me. Changing it was Zech's idea, not mine. What I've been mainly objecting to is your original implication that Sedna's heal currently cools down too fast.
No, they are not. This is blatantly false. You do not speak for the people. It's obvious just from the replies in this thread that most people don't agree on what changes should be made. You are deciding which ones you agree with and using those as your suggestions.
My suggestion is: make one change at a time. Even with that suggestion, I know that the forum-goers would not agree to what the first change should be. There is no big "everyone agrees" suggestion.
Skills makes you fastest, I never said you need additional items. Sedna just IS the fastest Demigod in the game (+15% speed from skill). But i'm sure you know this already (and dunno why you are trying to hide this fact behind additional items). You don't need ANY additional item to be the fastest demigod.
Still talking with you is like talking to the wall. You are playing Sedna because it's strong, and same time you want to buff it, because i'm noob thinking guy. You don't know ANY other char, because you are play as a Sedna, but you talking how well all balanced is. You are playing mainly Beast/Vampire/Sedna (sometimes Oak) team, so you obviously don't see or just don't want to see the problems with game balance imo. Maybe you should play more, not me ? My suggestion is, play pantheon games, especially light side, and try to switch your Demigods (don't play Sedna all the time). Then just make conclusion before writing here again.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
