[1.13d] Soul Binder

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BustroQuick
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[1.13d] Soul Binder

#1 Post by BustroQuick »

I'm not sure I agree with Soul Binder being able to cast spells from Decoy. I thought the spell was fine before, the buff may be a bit much.

That said, this post is mainly to start discussion. This has yet to become a huge issue so I'll refrain from doing a conclave post for the time being.

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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#2 Post by watermelon »

Only tested him in single player, seems kind of OP. Having Soul Entrap on the Decoy basically allows him to always have mana if there are corpses available.

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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#3 Post by Dekar »

Need to play him myself first but sounds pretty imba.
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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#4 Post by DarnYak »

Just making sure one thing's clear: Decoy's spells are (or at least should be - haven't verified) capped at the level of Decoy. So yea, I was able to spam incinerate a ton on decoy, but it was casting at level 2.

As for mana return, i'm not sure the extra cast of Entrap makes up for the cost of decoy itself.

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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#5 Post by Sparda963 »

early game the extra entrap doesn't make up for decoy cost, but later game it can make it up and a lot more if you have the talent for it and hit a good spot.
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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#6 Post by watermelon »

I feel that Decoy could become more bearable if its cooldown was longer than the duration of the decoy.

The decoy is also pretty hard to take down (especially with Mend) and it's hard to damage SB when he's always behind one. I think making the SB lost a portion of his health to cast Decoy might prevent him from spamming it too much but that seems like going against the spell's idea of letting him escape.

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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#7 Post by Dekar »

I tried a Immolation/Decoy/Mend build instead of my old Immolation/Mend/1 Decoy and it was incredibly overpowered.

On low levels you can harass with the normal attack as usual, with the added bonus of gaining an additional Entrap Souls cast to make up for the mana cost of Decoy.
Mid game decoy lasts longer than its cooldown, allowing you to stay invisible permanently while harassing the enemy a lot with reckless immolations or chasing them through waves. Chasing drains your mana though, as you have no nearby corpses to refill.
Level 6 Decoy + level 6 Immolation is extremly good to push, harass and siege while putting you at no risk. Chasing heroes over the whole map is no problem due to the duration and strength of the decoy. And if gets killed: just cast a new one.

The tooltips of Decoy and its banish skills need to be updated.
The banish skill did not, I repeat, did not teleport an enemy across 3/4 of stormwail into my mainbase, contrary to what the tooltip says. :(

The talent that absorbs corpses makes his mana management even easier than it now already is ( with entrap soul buff, decoy buff, and now this talent ). I remember getting around the cost of one level 6 Immolate back with level 1 of the talent, that should be around 100 mana.
I dont think its really needed as SB mana management was fine to me before all the buffs already, so my opinion is that its overpriced at 25 crystals and should be around 10 at most.

I couldnt test his ultimate with a large amount of corpses, sadly, but it looked fun and dealt damage to towers and the description reminded me of swirly orbs. :D
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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#8 Post by DarnYak »

Yea I'm currently leaning towards giving it a shorter (10-20s) duration and see how that pans out.
I remember getting around the cost of one level 6 Immolate back with level 1 of the talent, that should be around 100 mana.
my opinion is that its overpriced at 25 crystals and should be around 10 at most.
#1 Getting 100 mana back on the cast would take about 200 int, and I don't think that should be happening (easily). Although, something i forgot to consider is the mana cost reduction for repeated casts...
#2 A talent that negates the cost of the spell is overpriced at 25 crystal?

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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#9 Post by Dekar »

You have to stand near corpses to use it and it removes corpses for Entrap Souls:
-You can use it when sieging. Or you just cast 2x Entrap Souls with the help of your decoy and grab up to 16 corpses without any crystal cost. Corpses are close together when sieging anyway.
-You cant use it more than once when pushing because you will kill most enemies of the wave within 2 casts. Maybe if a tanky enemy hero is around you can cast a bit ontop of corpses, but Entrap Souls should be enough to keep your mana up.
-Cant use it when chasing enemy heroes due to a lack of corpses.

And getting mana was no problem after the Entrap Souls buff.



Maybe take Entrap Souls from Decoy but let it use the Soul Reaper talent? With 2 corpses for 25 crystals.
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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#10 Post by Mandein »

watermelon wrote: I think making the SB lost a portion of his health to cast Decoy might prevent him from spamming it too much but that seems like going against the spell's idea of letting him escape.
I think this is an interesting idea. Let the real SB lose 20ish% of his current health to make a decoy which has the health SB had before the cast.
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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#11 Post by Tehw00tz »

Give decoy a cost based on how much mana SB has so it can be used within reason.
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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#12 Post by Sparda963 »

I agree that using decoy to run in and spam the aoe fire is way to easy, effective, and fun. maybe make spells cast through your decoy cost more? that way your not doing perma decoys and spam firey death all over the place. would make the decoy more strategic instead of mandatory and brainless.
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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#13 Post by DarnYak »

Ok, I just checked and realized SB had a bug removing the corpse limit on entrap caused by the auto consume talent. Amazingly, this bug was introduced shortly after I fixed another bug causing the exact same effect introduced last version. So his infinite mana should be gone again.

As for Decoy itself, I'm tweaking its cooldown/duration this version. If its not enough I'll do more, I just don't want to overnerf it.

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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#14 Post by Dekar »

Just compare the potential decoy health per minute vs mend heal per minute. Mend is most likely still crap compared to it and doesnt teleport you around ( basically ).
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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#15 Post by Sparda963 »

DarnYak wrote:Ok, I just checked and realized SB had a bug removing the corpse limit on entrap caused by the auto consume talent. Amazingly, this bug was introduced shortly after I fixed another bug causing the exact same effect introduced last version. So his infinite mana should be gone again.

As for Decoy itself, I'm tweaking its cooldown/duration this version. If its not enough I'll do more, I just don't want to overnerf it.

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You overnerfed it. 0 mana gain is a bit harsh yak. *cry* anyway, yeah, you broke his mana gain in c5.
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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#16 Post by Sparda963 »

On a related note, due to above bug, i went with a no entrap soul build, it was amazing. 4 points into atk up, 1 into armor up, like 10 into strength, lvl 5 hp orb, lvl 4 evade armor, lvl 1 crit gloves. Needless to say i carried our whole team to a very amazing and brutal loss.
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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#17 Post by DarnYak »

I haven't heard any feedback from changes to clone giving it longer cd/shorter duration.

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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#18 Post by mianmian »

Doesn't seem as ridiculous now however a good SB should still almost never die. Soulstrike is complete garbage so there's absolutely no reason NOT to go Decoy/fiery explosion skill with 1-2 points in Mend+talent. His ult does ridiculous damage though, it's hilarious.
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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#19 Post by SuIIy »

Soulstrike is complete garbage so there's absolutely no reason NOT to go Decoy/fiery explosion skill with 1-2 points in Mend+talent. His ult does ridiculous damage though, it's hilarious.
Um....what? I'm not sure what your definition of a good spell is but...Soulstrike is a solid skill if upgraded correctly, particularly if you factor in the talent stun. Decoy, on the other hand, seems rather pointless after rank 1.

NOTE: His ultimate struck me as extremely strong for rank one and without massive amounts of int...just saying.

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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#20 Post by Sparda963 »

Soulstrike is garbage right now, you can do more dmg to a hero with incenerate then with soulstrike. On one game i was able to chain 3 soulstrikes together on a single target and still did crap dmg to it. its even worse if the enemy hero sees whats happening and just moves out of the very short range of the skill.
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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#21 Post by SuIIy »

On one game i was able to chain 3 soulstrikes together on a single target and still did crap dmg to it.
I have a really hard time believing this is the case unless they were all low ranks without some decent evoc/int.

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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#22 Post by BustroQuick »

DarnYak wrote:I haven't heard any feedback from changes to clone giving it longer cd/shorter duration.

DarnYak
I haven't seen a lot of people playing Soul Binder recently, so I feel like the mechanic still hasn't been fully explored.

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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#23 Post by SuIIy »

Did a 40 minute single to get the feel of some of his revamps. He seems very well balanced overall. The only complaints (possibly) are that Soulstrike is useless and Mend is somewhat of a weak spell beyond 1 point--or without the invested talents. I've also noticed SB becomes alot more powerful with the right type of gear: ie high armor and HP regen. While his primary skills are all evoc-based/int-based, the numbers are weak enough you can sacrifice slot space and gold towards a more tank-like build and still put out some hefty damage.

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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#24 Post by DarnYak »

mianmian wrote:Soulstrike is complete garbage so there's absolutely no reason NOT to go Decoy/fiery explosion skill with 1-2 points in Mend+talent
At level 6:

Soulstrike: 104 + 0.31 x Int over 8 seconds = 864 + 2.48 x Int total, 17s cd
Incinerate (perfect/max damage): 75% x (100 + 0.9 x Int) per 3 seconds, over 9s = 225 + 2.025 x Int, average of 15% bonus for repeated hits ~= 260 + 2.3 x Int
--- Taking it over the total cd of Soulstrike, 17s = roughly 6 casts, or double the above numbers = 500 + 4.025 x Int, average 37.5% bonus ~= 680 + 5.5 x Int

Obviously both are perfect numbers, Soulstrike can get interrupted/ranged. Incinerate can also be ranged (which can reset damage bonus stacks also) and has diminished damage from range in general (minimum would be 60% of totals above).

Mana costs:
Soulstrike: 200
Incinerate x3: 100 + 85 + 72 = 252
--- x6: 100 + 85 + 72 + 61 + 52 + 50 = 420

Granted Incinerate can have multiple uses of the auto consume corpse talent, so the numbers there would vary.

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Re: [1.13d] Soul Binder

#25 Post by watermelon »

Soul Strike can be very damaging, especially if you can invest in its talent. It's also scary if you have team support to help hold the target in place, like Aero. By itself, I thought it was balanced since it dealt high damage, but the target can interrupt it or run away.

However, with the Decoy revamp, you almost always have to take Decoy now since it's a really good skill for allowing you to avoid taking damage while messing with the enemy.
Incinerate + Decoy is good because it damages both spawns and heroes, while interrupting them at the same time. I think Incinerate also damages buildings.
In comparison, Soul Strike + Decoy makes you less useful since you can only target heroes.
Perhaps a mixed build of Incinerate & Soul Strike might be viable, but you also generally want at least one point in Mend for the sake of having a heal for yourself and the Decoy, which could result in an SB with weak skills.

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