Conduit beam damage low and duration is too long.
Eris' new ability is VERY strong. I hope that other heroes can get basic abilities adjusted too.
Fireball is now underwhelming, maybe increase damage? so it's a tiny ball of death! (with a wind up?)
Gcafa11b4907244e89e92b867ab208799 is the good Shadow Backdoor example. If you're looking into that. Although way overkill since I didn't need to use my ult, you'll get the idea. I should have just done it as soon as I got ult.
Ignitor still seems fun, but does fall beyond Apocalytes in power now. I tried using them for long range building snipe, it doesn't work . So yeah, no reason to get Ignitors over Apocalytes now. Lava spitters seemed reasonable.
Ignitors might be more worthwhile if the damage scaled up with time as well as the AoE, but that might also make the long-range building sniping feasible. Because the end of the range is huge, I was sniping the mid shield battery from one of the front-line tower positions of the enemy team.
G0c9da2c789fd4c759b8637ad0b1222a4 has a visual bug. At 20:40, I have a Pyrosaur that activates flamethrower at the bottom of the stairs, and then walks up the stairs. The flame effect appears to be on a plane with the pyrosaur such that it is obscured by the ground until he finishes walking up the stairs. It is observable on the replay, I don't know if my opponent got confused about the damage source though. Another bug, later that game it said we lost our last shield battery when in fact we had only lost our 2nd last shield battery (did not check if that happens in the replay as well).
(1.1) - Camps felt more better tonight, partly from increased playtime. I also like the plate effect. It's a nice alternative to attacks that just required movement micro. Branching choices (or whatever the term is) with camps are cool, as they make those engagements less of an autopilot sort of thing. Well, when the mechanics are new, that holds. Maybe not once you're used to it, whatever the mechanic set.
Single Target Controls
(2.1) - Really still trying to work on getting that Hydros Heal working reliably, but I still have trouble targeting/getting it to trigger. I suspect it is just a lock step issue with brain-mouse delay.
Units
(3.1) - Actually was trying, both in bot games and human games to get to some of these unit changes, but didn't manage to get to them before the games ended. Even just the description of Fireball sounds good, though.
The single target controls feel a lot smoother with Purifiers, but I need to think of a better way to not get wrecked by all the huge damage million-range threats that every other unit can dodge. Purifiers still seem a little sluggish un-sieging, and there just isn't enough damage reduction to go around.
Didn't play the modified units in PVP, but did a bot game with each. Conduits felt underwhelming. Ignitors felt like they took a great deal of foresight to use effectively, since the shot takes a while to both develop and reach the front.
I haven't given any significant feedback for a few weeks due to vacation and obligations during playtests, so here's a mind-dump on the state of the game as viewed from my eyes.
I am having a lot of fun with the games, albeit with some caveats. I feel like between the gem fountains, titans, attacking with aspects or defending against them, I usually have something to do. I do like the changes to the camps, the "focus on a target" mechanic always just annoyed me because most of the time, I'd end up taking the hit not because I didn't want to micro the unit, but because it simply couldn't get out of the way in time. The pacing is good, I'm selecting my buildings with regular enough frequency to where I'm aware of their existence (making units, getting upgrades), but I don't have to baby sit them where macro is overwhelming and I feel I'm playing "whack-a-mole" with building production vs focusing on action in the field.
So what do I miss? For starters, a support role. This is the point where, if given the opportunity, I would love to talk endlessly. Hydros was originally my favorite and I would love to return to him - as a quick reminder, I love playing hard supports in Dota/Dota 2 and usually went for either medic or engineer in TF2. I love enabling others to be awesome instead of necessarily killing things myself. Right now, I don't feel such a role is feasible within the confines of the game.
Trading off high damage for this kind of role means you can't take down titans by yourself in a reasonable timeframe, nor does keeping your allies safe from the titans really matter after the first camp or two (you're just contributing less DPS than you would otherwise). It means you can't take down enemy gem/crystal nodes as quickly when you find them unprotected. It means you can't take down an aspect jugg in a reasonable window when you catch him out of position.
You can try to make this work by always staying near an ally, but the layout of the map seems to always put two allies who are next to each other at a disadvantage - it's better to space out. Sure, I could try to flank my opponent but full surrounds are harder to pull off than simply going in and killing them with sheer force. This could just be due to my skill ceiling.
What are the results of this dichotomy? Red seems to be the preferred squad - damage is solid, War Dance is a good replacement for boots, etc. It's a high priority for picks in most games. Blue feels like the gimmick/cheese team right now. You can do whacky things with Kingpins and Shadows (I'm proud of pointing out the Hydros ultimate/Shadow cheese to @Cycle weeks ago on Discord, and seeing it be a semi-regular thing now), but the tanky and support units feel clunky and ineffective. I always feel like I'm holding my team back when I pick blue - similarly, I'm never really worried when I run into blue's tanky units on the field. "Oh, it'll take forever to kill them...but who cares, they can't really do much to me?".
Part of this may be map-based: I felt like I could get Scuttle surrounds on opponents more easily in the last "major" map, and the most "open" areas are in/near the main base. So, it never feels like that ability is useful for getting an advantage, you can either tank when you're winning (in their base) or losing (in your base, likely outnumbered). Part of it may be the introduction of all these other units that have great AoE abilities. Why shield my allies from the masses of the opponents when I could just pick a set of units that decimates them if I land abilities properly? (I have landed Fireballs with Ignitors that gave me e-boners, despite the fact that some other people seem to not like 'em. At the very least, it's nice to dictate the positioning of the battle).
I feel like Green suffers from the same issue with the support weakness, but frankly I've not played enough either as or against Green to say. I could go on about this and posit what may be due to my own limitations or lack of will to put the burden on my teammates while I try and make support work, but I think I've gotten the crux of it across.
Treisk
Member, Administrator
Comments
Conduit beam damage low and duration is too long.
Eris' new ability is VERY strong. I hope that other heroes can get basic abilities adjusted too.
Fireball is now underwhelming, maybe increase damage? so it's a tiny ball of death! (with a wind up?)
That's it! :D
Gcafa11b4907244e89e92b867ab208799 is the good Shadow Backdoor example. If you're looking into that. Although way overkill since I didn't need to use my ult, you'll get the idea. I should have just done it as soon as I got ult.
Ignitor still seems fun, but does fall beyond Apocalytes in power now. I tried using them for long range building snipe, it doesn't work
. So yeah, no reason to get Ignitors over Apocalytes now. Lava spitters seemed reasonable.
Ignitors might be more worthwhile if the damage scaled up with time as well as the AoE, but that might also make the long-range building sniping feasible. Because the end of the range is huge, I was sniping the mid shield battery from one of the front-line tower positions of the enemy team.
G0c9da2c789fd4c759b8637ad0b1222a4 has a visual bug. At 20:40, I have a Pyrosaur that activates flamethrower at the bottom of the stairs, and then walks up the stairs. The flame effect appears to be on a plane with the pyrosaur such that it is obscured by the ground until he finishes walking up the stairs. It is observable on the replay, I don't know if my opponent got confused about the damage source though. Another bug, later that game it said we lost our last shield battery when in fact we had only lost our 2nd last shield battery (did not check if that happens in the replay as well).
Neutral Camps
(1.1) - Camps felt more better tonight, partly from increased playtime. I also like the plate effect. It's a nice alternative to attacks that just required movement micro. Branching choices (or whatever the term is) with camps are cool, as they make those engagements less of an autopilot sort of thing. Well, when the mechanics are new, that holds. Maybe not once you're used to it, whatever the mechanic set.
Single Target Controls
(2.1) - Really still trying to work on getting that Hydros Heal working reliably, but I still have trouble targeting/getting it to trigger. I suspect it is just a lock step issue with brain-mouse delay.
Units
(3.1) - Actually was trying, both in bot games and human games to get to some of these unit changes, but didn't manage to get to them before the games ended. Even just the description of Fireball sounds good, though.
The single target controls feel a lot smoother with Purifiers, but I need to think of a better way to not get wrecked by all the huge damage million-range threats that every other unit can dodge. Purifiers still seem a little sluggish un-sieging, and there just isn't enough damage reduction to go around.
Didn't play the modified units in PVP, but did a bot game with each. Conduits felt underwhelming. Ignitors felt like they took a great deal of foresight to use effectively, since the shot takes a while to both develop and reach the front.
I haven't given any significant feedback for a few weeks due to vacation and obligations during playtests, so here's a mind-dump on the state of the game as viewed from my eyes.
I am having a lot of fun with the games, albeit with some caveats. I feel like between the gem fountains, titans, attacking with aspects or defending against them, I usually have something to do. I do like the changes to the camps, the "focus on a target" mechanic always just annoyed me because most of the time, I'd end up taking the hit not because I didn't want to micro the unit, but because it simply couldn't get out of the way in time. The pacing is good, I'm selecting my buildings with regular enough frequency to where I'm aware of their existence (making units, getting upgrades), but I don't have to baby sit them where macro is overwhelming and I feel I'm playing "whack-a-mole" with building production vs focusing on action in the field.
So what do I miss? For starters, a support role. This is the point where, if given the opportunity, I would love to talk endlessly. Hydros was originally my favorite and I would love to return to him - as a quick reminder, I love playing hard supports in Dota/Dota 2 and usually went for either medic or engineer in TF2. I love enabling others to be awesome instead of necessarily killing things myself. Right now, I don't feel such a role is feasible within the confines of the game.
Trading off high damage for this kind of role means you can't take down titans by yourself in a reasonable timeframe, nor does keeping your allies safe from the titans really matter after the first camp or two (you're just contributing less DPS than you would otherwise). It means you can't take down enemy gem/crystal nodes as quickly when you find them unprotected. It means you can't take down an aspect jugg in a reasonable window when you catch him out of position.
You can try to make this work by always staying near an ally, but the layout of the map seems to always put two allies who are next to each other at a disadvantage - it's better to space out. Sure, I could try to flank my opponent but full surrounds are harder to pull off than simply going in and killing them with sheer force. This could just be due to my skill ceiling.
What are the results of this dichotomy? Red seems to be the preferred squad - damage is solid, War Dance is a good replacement for boots, etc. It's a high priority for picks in most games. Blue feels like the gimmick/cheese team right now. You can do whacky things with Kingpins and Shadows (I'm proud of pointing out the Hydros ultimate/Shadow cheese to @Cycle weeks ago on Discord, and seeing it be a semi-regular thing now), but the tanky and support units feel clunky and ineffective. I always feel like I'm holding my team back when I pick blue - similarly, I'm never really worried when I run into blue's tanky units on the field. "Oh, it'll take forever to kill them...but who cares, they can't really do much to me?".
Part of this may be map-based: I felt like I could get Scuttle surrounds on opponents more easily in the last "major" map, and the most "open" areas are in/near the main base. So, it never feels like that ability is useful for getting an advantage, you can either tank when you're winning (in their base) or losing (in your base, likely outnumbered). Part of it may be the introduction of all these other units that have great AoE abilities. Why shield my allies from the masses of the opponents when I could just pick a set of units that decimates them if I land abilities properly? (I have landed Fireballs with Ignitors that gave me e-boners, despite the fact that some other people seem to not like 'em. At the very least, it's nice to dictate the positioning of the battle).
I feel like Green suffers from the same issue with the support weakness, but frankly I've not played enough either as or against Green to say. I could go on about this and posit what may be due to my own limitations or lack of will to put the burden on my teammates while I try and make support work, but I think I've gotten the crux of it across.