Infiltrator

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Infiltrator

#1 Post by BustroQuick »

I realize that the Infiltrator has been a subject that probably rivals Rune Shell in the balance forum as far as popularity goes, and I'd like to bring it up here because she's still infamous as one of the most imbalanced heroes in EotA.

I'd like to blame that on Blitz.

She essentially gets free reign of the map with this spell active; she's extremely fast, invisible (meaning nothing targets her) and it can be kept up indefinitely given you don't break it through casting another spell. It lets her set up Attack of Opportunity without being any danger (though this is arguably more effective in the early game when people haven't bought detection amulets yet) and even if she is detected, she can simply run out of harm's way unless the opponent has massive damage output and a snaring capability.

I understand it's integral to her character, being an Infiltrator (she's supposed to infiltrate), though it's no secret that Infiltrators in public games often cause new players to never come back to the map because of the slaughter that typically ensues.

My proposal? Lower the duration to say, 15 seconds. Her setup time will diminish, meaning in skilled hands she'll still be effective, though will not be able to immediately use the ability again afterward, causing her to rely on alternate means of escape. Elusive Flair could use some love.

My two cents.

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Re: Infiltrator

#2 Post by Casval »

I don't know if it's because I've been playing too many public games, but I generally find her to be fairly balanced.

AoO and Explosives depend on invisibility, which makes her fairly easily countered. Malicious Escape is good, but not really worth leveling since Blitz is just as good for escaping most situations due to the +movespeed and ability to move through units. Smoke Cloud is amazing, but because the stun is random and costs crystal, it's not a guaranteed setup for AoO.

Once people start buying Amulets though, I think her dramatically reduced effectiveness is balanced out with her incredible ability to stay alive.

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Re: Infiltrator

#3 Post by Perhaps »

What I'd think would make her nicer, that would make AoO more forgiving for both the infiltrator and victim, would be a weaker but shorter cooldown version of AoO.

I disagree that her blink is totally useless, I would consider it a one point wonder. Blink 'n' AoO is a nice combination really. But as far as wanting to get players to use it more, shorter cooldown and more range per level would be nice.

As far as mines go, they're pretty preventable. While on mines, a crazy idea I have would be giving infiltrator the option to turn a mine into a grenade type item that would go into her inventory. The way you would use it, is you would first left click to "activate" which the item would be replaced by "activated grenade" and there would be a certain duration before it blows up, the "activated grenade" you can left click and click to location to throw it to a location, it could blow up on the way, or land to the point and blow up some time after depending on your timing! The grenade item would only do a fraction (anywhere from 20% to 80%) of mine's damage.
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Re: Infiltrator

#4 Post by Mills »

I think I posted something about Blitz a long time ago on ModForge, so I can't really remember what I said back then. However, I must agree that something needs to be done about the skill. Although it is easily countered, it is a big turn away for alot of new players.

Some changes I've been thinking about since I started writing this:
-Cooldown doesn't start until invisibility is broken
-Reduced % of experience for invisible heroes
-Duration reduced and/or cooldown increased

Also I've been thinking it might be best to completely get rid of the skill. My hopes is that this would accomplish both making her a more difficult hero to play and also making Escape a more reasonable skill to level. It *should* make the infiltrator a more challenging hero to play, mostly because it is much harder to land an AoO while visible than it is invisible. Also Escape should become more useful because you will actually be using it to escape, instead of just relying on Blitz.

If we take that route however it leaves the question of what to replace Blitz with? Personally I would enjoy seeing blink being moved over to the innate slot and a completely knew spell being given to her. To me she already has 2 great sieging skills (Smoke Cloud and Sabotage), a nuke (AoO), survivability (Escape), and questionable AoE (Mines). Giving her something like a mass buff or dispel would most likely make her to strong of a hero with such a wide variety of skills, so I was thinking something to help her AoE/PKing (keep in mind AoO won't be as easy to use). The only idea I have at the moment is a throwable grenade which does minor damage AoE and an AoE disorient (think Rue's Fear). This would both help her set up AoOs and be able to blow up mines instantly maybe?

Also perhaps, I don't think it's so much as blink being useless as much as it is blitz being considerably better.

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Re: Infiltrator

#5 Post by Perhaps »

I never said it was useless, I said it was a one point wonder.

Unless if you let Blitz cooldown most of the way before doing AoO, AoO will cooldown a good amount before you get Blitz again. If you want to be more aggressive with AoO in the current you want to mix both Blink and Blitz. Yes Blitz is better given it makes you hidden, giving you the element of surprise whenever, considering AoO is as simply countered as them targeting/locking on to you.

Infiltrator could definitely survive not having Blitz, given she currently has blink, concussion, nets, and support of other heroes to land it. Though, on the flip side, she'd lose a lot of her "infiltrator" feel without it.
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Re: Infiltrator

#6 Post by Reaper »

I very much like the -% experience for invisible heroes, and I think a lesser duration would be fair.

The grenade abillity would be fitting as well.
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Re: Infiltrator

#7 Post by Dekar »

I think she has enough trouble not falling behind in levels when played offensively. Personal experience nerf is a bad idea.
What about removing Blitz, moving Blink to Innate and change it to:

Blink. Gives high physical and magical defense as well as zero collision for 4-8 seconds.
And a 40 crystal talent for invisbility during that time when not attacking.

Could that help?
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Re: Infiltrator

#8 Post by Perhaps »

Blitz could be kept, but made to be a skill you put into. Levels would add more speed, longer duration, shorter cooldown, slight damage, with maybe a % chance to re-Blitz on attacking? >_>
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Re: Infiltrator

#9 Post by DarnYak »

I just realized I never posted in this thread, sorry.

I'm planning to play with many of the changes listed for 1.12e (the balance testing versions) - I don't think she's terribly overpowered at the moment, but she's ruthless against newbies and somewhat ineffective against good players.

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Re: Infiltrator

#10 Post by Elreth »

I really havent seen any significant problem with her besides the fact that people who play her poorly can really drag down their team. I don't think i've ever seen an infi (besides myself) dominate the match in any bot games. Swashy? Yes loads of times. Fenris? A few times. Never the infi. Even when I play her it isnt a guarenteed slaughter. Part of that could be the slightly above average lag the bot provides which makes her AoO rather luck based but I think it is more that the player base is just much larger and much more informed.

In fact the move that seems to be the most popular is mines which is occasionally used p well, so it is strange to me that the focus of this is on her invis. Granted it is admirable to focus balance on the worst case scenario but in my experience in actual games she dies about as often as any other hero due to her low life and availability of stuns and see invis. (Meaning sometimes 10 times, sometimes not at all and anywhere in between which is normal for all heroes and she hits every value with a close enough frequency).

That said I would take a close look at her invis when hit talent. One match I played I got dozens of kills but they were still winning through ob advantage/spawn towers/or something. I wasnt really focused on the pushing/defending. I resolved this by killing every one of their outposts and obs with melee attacks/sabo while their towers and spawn towers etc were all still alive, sometimes with multiple heroes attacking me. I just hit hp pot as needed and the little spawns kept attacking me and making me invis for like 80% of the time. In fact I think the 1 dmg spawn towers might have contributed to this as well. To be fair though I was item whored out pretty extremely.

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Re: Infiltrator

#11 Post by Luftwaffles »

I'm not going to write a mega post about this cause I've already written two, so I'll jot down some quick thoughts.

- Blitz is ridiculous; it essentially favors turtling and laziness, two things you don't want on PKrs (look at Fenris, his goal is to TP smack dad in the middle of everyone so he can Howl). Reducing its duration to 5-8 seconds (with talents) would be awesome since it gives you the quick burst of speed you need, the no collision but puts the stress on you to actually do something with it. It would probably also passively increase the levels of all Infs in game because they wouldn't just be turtle hiding everywhere.
- Explosives are underrated and very powerful. Although they effect allied units, you can easily place them behind enemy lines with the Invis cloak talent and at Level 3+ they do a ton of damage. I'm not saying nerf them, I'm just pointing out she can farm units in addition to heroes (and she can get heroes with Explosives too).
- At the moment, she doesn't have much incentive to get more then a point or two in Escape. I'm not saying people don't do it and I'm not saying really successful awesome Infs don't get points in it. All I say is generally Smoke Cloud and AoO are super awesome, and Explosives are very good. She needs the blink but getting to the upper levels of Blink isn't really that important.
- Sabotage is like, a siegers dream. She can pick off low HP heroes with AoO but she's not guaranteed a kill there; with Sabo, anything under 1000/1500/2000/2500 health gets shredded a part and you just wait 60 seconds to rinse and repeat. This makes the Inf really diverse but also a pain in the ass since you can't really cancel her Sabo and worst of all she can invis into towers with it.
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