AoE Unit buffs, Dispells and Wards
Posted: May 22nd, 2009, 8:08 pm
Yak wanted a post about an issue, here's mine.
AoE Unit buffs are a large part of Eota, as are Wards. By wards I mean more then just serpent wards/DS totems and stuff like that. I mean all magical effects centered around a specific point.
These include but are not limited too.
Ebb
Divine Flame
Ice Spire (more a debuff ~~)
Banner
Dryad's Ult
Stumps
Taunting Treant
Grasping Treant
Now AoE unit buffs are very strong in themselves, especially with the size of pushes that happen in Eota.
AoE Buff
Mass Haste
HotM
Inner Fire
Banner Talent
AoE Debuff
Demo Blow
Crumble
Dire Howl
Blind
Dispells are the main "hard counter" to these spells. Most dispells have extremely long cool downs (unless at level 6), I think this is part to stop them from completly domination Wards and AoE buffs.
The main problem is that if the cooldown is too short dispells become too powerful, but if their too long no one likes getting them and they're only situationally usefull.
As it stands, AoE Unit buffs have some redundancy to this, being able to buff a lot more units so that the dispell AoE doesn't effect them all. Wards tend to have a lot of HP and can be hard to dispel.
To counter this I think that dispels should become stronger, but more restricted. Larger AoEs, larger damage to summoned units. Now how to restrict them I thought of dividing buffs and dispells into categories (mind/physical/elemental/nature as an example). Then dividing all buffs into these categories and giving them a value (skill level *X). To dispel a buff it would use up dispel value, so if you had 60 mind dispel value, you could dispel 10 buffs that have 6 mind value, or 60 with 1 value. Different dispells would have different values or effects. Some would only dispel mind debuffs, but would dispell al of them or a very large amout. Others would effect all types but have smaller dispel values. Wards would also have dispel values, a significantly larger number then debuffs. So you could dispel a ward and a few buffs, or a lot of buffs etc.
Now This might be overly complicated but I think it could be number crunched into a pretty good balance. Alternatively buffs and junk could simply divided into different categories and dispells changed to handle this. One example is Clairvoyance, it dispels mind-affecting debuffs? Which are what? There's no way to tell at the moment so I think the debuffs/buffs should be labled.
Now I'm not claiming this is the be all end all of solutions but just a single one. Hopefully with some discussion it can be enhanced to something even better, or just replaced completely.
AoE Unit buffs are a large part of Eota, as are Wards. By wards I mean more then just serpent wards/DS totems and stuff like that. I mean all magical effects centered around a specific point.
These include but are not limited too.
Ebb
Divine Flame
Ice Spire (more a debuff ~~)
Banner
Dryad's Ult
Stumps
Taunting Treant
Grasping Treant
Now AoE unit buffs are very strong in themselves, especially with the size of pushes that happen in Eota.
AoE Buff
Mass Haste
HotM
Inner Fire
Banner Talent
AoE Debuff
Demo Blow
Crumble
Dire Howl
Blind
Dispells are the main "hard counter" to these spells. Most dispells have extremely long cool downs (unless at level 6), I think this is part to stop them from completly domination Wards and AoE buffs.
The main problem is that if the cooldown is too short dispells become too powerful, but if their too long no one likes getting them and they're only situationally usefull.
As it stands, AoE Unit buffs have some redundancy to this, being able to buff a lot more units so that the dispell AoE doesn't effect them all. Wards tend to have a lot of HP and can be hard to dispel.
To counter this I think that dispels should become stronger, but more restricted. Larger AoEs, larger damage to summoned units. Now how to restrict them I thought of dividing buffs and dispells into categories (mind/physical/elemental/nature as an example). Then dividing all buffs into these categories and giving them a value (skill level *X). To dispel a buff it would use up dispel value, so if you had 60 mind dispel value, you could dispel 10 buffs that have 6 mind value, or 60 with 1 value. Different dispells would have different values or effects. Some would only dispel mind debuffs, but would dispell al of them or a very large amout. Others would effect all types but have smaller dispel values. Wards would also have dispel values, a significantly larger number then debuffs. So you could dispel a ward and a few buffs, or a lot of buffs etc.
Now This might be overly complicated but I think it could be number crunched into a pretty good balance. Alternatively buffs and junk could simply divided into different categories and dispells changed to handle this. One example is Clairvoyance, it dispels mind-affecting debuffs? Which are what? There's no way to tell at the moment so I think the debuffs/buffs should be labled.
Now I'm not claiming this is the be all end all of solutions but just a single one. Hopefully with some discussion it can be enhanced to something even better, or just replaced completely.