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Devouring Plague

Posted: September 21st, 2009, 9:40 am
by Rockness
Firstly, let me say that I love the Defiler, he is in my top 3 favorite heroes to play, except I won't play him anymore because the plague is unreasonable plain & simple. It's to the point I won't even fight one, I'd rather not play. Even with a dispel it's either sit in the lane with no mana, abandon it or spend half your time traveling to heal, well there's always kill him, but not every hero is suited for that.

There are a number of solutions that I feel would remedy the situation:

1. Min/Max: Change it so the plague will cease to drain once the targets hp/mp is below 25% or so, maybe even add a talent to lower it more.

2. Proximity: Change it to an active buff on Defiler which drains heros in a radius around him (say 1000), this way you can escape from it.

3. Nerf: Increase the cooldown, lower the duration, lower the range.

That's all for now, please leave feedback.
Flames will be disregarded, so don't bother.

Re: Devouring Plague

Posted: September 21st, 2009, 10:50 am
by Laser_Wolf
I like the proximity idea, but it should be larger than 1000, say around 3000?

Re: Devouring Plague

Posted: September 21st, 2009, 2:40 pm
by Lunargent
I'd be so much happier with Devouring Plague if it only drained health and no mana. Also, make it non fatal.

This would slow down the Stormhammer Defiler incredibly, and make it not such a pain to fight against the Defiler in your lane, because I absolutely hate it.

Re: Devouring Plague

Posted: September 21st, 2009, 3:00 pm
by Reaper
It is pretty easily countered if you can't deal with it. There are plenty of dispells/potions/healing skills to counter it already

Giving it an aoe would be too strong, making it only health/non lethal is too huge a nerf and would riddle him pretty useless. I think it's pretty good the way it is, maybe lengthen the cooldown a tiny bit.

Edit: For the record I like the proximity idea, but it would be pretty rape against multiple heroes

Re: Devouring Plague

Posted: September 21st, 2009, 6:50 pm
by RSOG
I'd be strongly against removing the mana drain from Devouring Plague. That's really what the spell is about to me - the health is just a bonus.

Making it so it can't kill would also suck.

I'd like to see it drain more as the target gets more wounded. I've always thought of diseases as preying on the weak and wounded. Someone with near-full HP should suffer very little drain (in health or mana) but someone near to death should be picked off quickly.

Possibly drain 1% hp/mp per second for each 33% HP the target is missing (50% health receives a 1.5% drain), with a minimum of 0.2% (talented: 0.3%, 0.4%, 0.5%), and be removed instantly if the target gets a tick while at 100% health.

It would make the spell more situational (cast on heroes at low HP) rather than a spell that the defiler simply casts every time it comes back from cooldown.

Re: Devouring Plague

Posted: September 24th, 2009, 4:15 pm
by Rockness
I got a couple more ideas after reading the replies:

1. Proximity: make the plague an aoe but remove the mana component, this way it would be like an active aura on defiler that drains nearby heroes. The duration should be roughly 50% of the cooldown, so as to make timing a factor in choosing when to use it. It would have plenty of uses both offensively & defensively rather than just tossing it on any/every hero willy nilly. Plus it would have good synergy with blight, just turn it on, start channeling & heal away.

It's a pretty significant change to the skill, so I doubt it will be met with approval, no harm in throwing the idea out there though.

2. Dispel: If when dispelled some of the lost hp/mp were restored it would be much less of a nuisance to counter a Defiler. After all, dispelling a disease is like a cure, right? There should be some benefit to dispelling something other than adversely affecting your enemy, even if it is just losing a little less. Anyways I don't really wanna get into the whole buff vs. dispel semantics so that's all about that for now.
RSOG wrote:Possibly drain 1% hp/mp per second for each 33% HP the target is missing (50% health receives a 1.5% drain), with a minimum of 0.2% (talented: 0.3%, 0.4%, 0.5%), and be removed instantly if the target gets a tick while at 100% health.

It would make the spell more situational (cast on heroes at low HP) rather than a spell that the defiler simply casts every time it comes back from cooldown.
I like this idea.
Reaper wrote:It is pretty easily countered if you can't deal with it. There are plenty of dispells/potions/healing skills to counter it already
Turning it off does not equal countering it. More like cutting one's losses.

[Reaper] Easy on the triple posting please

Re: Devouring Plague

Posted: September 24th, 2009, 5:25 pm
by Reaper
If the mana drain is taken away, defiler will be trash

And if it isn't clear, I am strongly against changing DP in any way suggested so far, much less at all

Re: Devouring Plague

Posted: September 25th, 2009, 1:21 am
by Discombobulator
Only change to plague I would support is making it more skill dependant. Currently, high level plague is just point&click (&forget) for the defiler, and dispell is all the target has to do.

It would be cool if it worked best at specific % of HP, or had an effect that depends on how long it's channeled (0-3 secs), or synergize under specific conditions with his other skills, or anything else that would differentiate a trained noob from a pro defiler.

Re: Devouring Plague

Posted: September 25th, 2009, 1:41 am
by Dekar
^this

Re: Devouring Plague

Posted: September 25th, 2009, 11:28 am
by Lunargent
So you're suggesting something like if the target is also subject to Frailty and is then hit with Devouring Plague, it could have a synergistic effect of further lowering the target's Strength over time, in addition to the HP loss, for a truly nasty plague.

Re: Devouring Plague

Posted: September 25th, 2009, 1:36 pm
by Reaper
Pro defilers never die

Re: Devouring Plague

Posted: September 25th, 2009, 1:39 pm
by Dark_Nemesis
So true if you're like me and stack str.

Re: Devouring Plague

Posted: September 25th, 2009, 1:43 pm
by Reaper
No, that is called compensating for lack of survival ability