Elven Batallion Heroes: Balance!

[Luftwaffles]

The ultimate thread of great justice for the Elven Batallion heroes. Come up with some posts for balance issues on the EB. These issues may simply need clarification (asking what others think, what the numbers are) or could be things you think are clearly overpowered or underpowered. Post some since we actually need to talk more about our game.

Keep on topic. Anything OT; my post, your post or any post is going to just get deleted by Reborn.

I'll start off with a hero El, myself and Holly have talked about a fair bit in our past few games.

Blazing Priest

Over the past few games, as an overall hero I've heard some comments on the BP being not so awesome. That isn't to say he can't be awesome given the right game, but in general he is either outclassed by more flexible siegers (the fact his ult is bugged doesn't help), that he's too slow to do much against nabbing inital obs and that he's not dispel-friendly.

Here's what I think of his skills anyway.

Blazing Hammer
P good as an innate. Passives are boring but it does it's job against towers, and the talent for it is alright.

Backfire
Kind of mostly blows. It has an upside against low HP casters and can be useful if you spam it and keep it levelled, but after about Level 30 I never notice it and it rarely kills after this point. I find putting points into Skellies and FotD to be more useful.

Flame of the Devout
A decent healing skill. Like all of his spells, it can be very frustrating to play vs. someone who maxes dispel. The long cooldown can be frustrating but it heals a fair bit.

Summon Phoenix or w/e
El doesn't believe me, but imo his best skill. As long as you stay on the push, or even better if you're levelled and clean up behind it you can wreck bases with Level 5/6 Phoenixes. They don't die easy to towers and unless you're playing vs. an active DS or Level 6 dispel it's hard to consistantly dispel them (though certainly not impossible). They do a ton of damage and can actually be used to farm you cash.

Kindle Faith
Great if the other team doesn't dispel.

Firestorm
A pretty good skill when it isn't broken. The range is great at Level 2 and the constant DPS is what you need on a push vs. towers.

Overall I think the BP is too heavily pushed against dispels. If a team has no dispels the BP suddenly becomes great and usually has a pretty okay game. WoNs are expensive when compared to things like mercs and it's harder to aim them when you factor in lag and microing your bases, repairing etc. However, if someone on the other team has dispel and levels up with the BP suddenly the BP blows- especially late game. Once dispel's cooldown is like 10-15s it becomes impossible to cast any of your spells with the dispeller on your lane.

Some good counters I've seen used (mostly by El) are maximizing early game pushes, when dispels aren't readily available and simply avoiding dispellers (it gets worse and worse though if there's more then one).

Anyway, that's to start. Post your own; relevant to mine or your own ideas. I'm not posting suggestions rather just pointing some things out, as long as y'all stay on topic you're free to do as you please.

[DarkNemesis]

I must say I had my doubts when first seeing this thread, and was dreading another Ion rant: all-the-elven-heroes-are-too-imba hype. But I guess I was wrong. Your points are valid and right on target. I too have many "issues" with BP. It's getting to the point whenever I view a replay or play a Bnet and see a BP running around, my first thought is NOOB. BP is probably the greatest seiger in EotA, and possibly the game will ever see. He has no equal in that regard. But as you stated, his flexibilty is so hampered other areas, several other str-based heroes easily outclass him. Bane and Prince Rue the first too that come mind. Plight is another good example, provided you gear and build him the right way.

I, to be honest, I don't know what to tell you, other than he needs a serious revamp. Most (if not all) of his skills are good, even awesome. Phoenixes are probably his best skill. And his innate is just ridiculous, even without the talent.

I think the skills need to be more flexible more than anything. Here are some thoughts:

Mix the effects of FotD with a dmg aspect, maybe like a holy version of Caustic Breath. So it damages units an AoE or heals others. Maybe a 75% instead of 100%? I know some of the wc3 heroes have abilities that work that way. Death coil from Arthas? Too, he (imo) needs a "Paladin" touch to him, aka: some better tanking ability, atm the only exceptional Tank on the elven side is Alexander. While the Creeps have 3 or 4 running around. I know Yak said the UD are suppose to get the next Tank, which is fine, but the elves should be looked at too.

A heal oriented towards heros would be fitting as well. Or some sort of buff. Maybe armor increase with a 5 HP per second regen for...20 seconds?

Backfire has a nice concept, but is lacking in potency. Maybe make it stronger and more versital.

Just some thoughts. In any event something needs to be done. Wouldn't it be nice to see a revamped BP for d! (Yak?)

[DarnYak]

BP has fixes incoming, probably will be split between d and e.

Nobody mention Inf, she has her own thread and will be the subject of heavy testing for e.

DarnYak

[Luftwaffles]

Could you elaborate on more of them?

I'm going to throw down the Divine Wizard next.

Portal
- My favourite innate, hands down one of the best innates in the game.
Holy Strike
- This skill is awesome, and the talent that adds damage to the center is nice.
Energy Drain
- A rare example of internal and intentional hero synergy in EotA. Holy Strike and Energy Drain are the DW's one-two and I don't often see DW's without at least one point in this skill.
Empower
- Although it is pretty good, Empower lacks the same attention Holy Strike and Energy Drain get for some players. I usually put a few points in Empower since it makes your hero stronger in general and buffs up Holy Strike, and the refund talent is p cool. However, I don't see this spell taken as often. People often ignore it to max Holy Strike/Energy Drain or go dispel instead.
Dispel
- A good situational spell. I always max it when playing against BP/IS or other debuff-heavy heroes. At Level 4+ the cooldown becomes very reasonable and all in all it's a spell that works out p good.
Vengeance
- A very good spell. It takes a bit of maneuvering to get it off but that's not necessarily unlike other ults that do a similar fuckload of damage.

In most pubs the DW is definitely one of EotA's top tier heroes. Against knowledgeable people I'd pin him as competent, but he can get pretty squishy- especially if the other team has a good long range disable (makes getting Vengeance off a bitch). Removing dispel from him in my opinion would tone down some of his usefulness but would conversely make other buff-heavy heroes a little stronger. I wouldn't mind seeing a bigger, more AoEish ult on him in the future if it meant turning Vengeance into a normal skill- but he is p great at the moment.

[DarnYak]

Could you elaborate on more of them?

Sure, here's the rough plan for BP:

Inniate is getting upgraded to an active/passive. Passive is current skill. Active is going to be a melee attack that applies a slightly changed version of backfire (it'll be a dot that gets refreshed every spellcast)

Backfire's getting replaced with radiance. I've described it before, but it ended up having like 6 abilities, so instead i'm just cutting it down to: +healing received, +str, +damage (quite possibly making his attack an aoe attack).

Pheonix Touch is actually OP as far as I'm concerned (at least levels 5/6), and nerfing it would gut the skill too much. Instead i'm going to make it longer cooldown, but summons multiples at once. Might make the summons more varied, so level 6 might summon 3 melees 3 archers 1 pheonix (for example)

Firestorm just needs to be bugfixed (I don't understand its current problems at all). Kindle Faith and FotD I'm not sure needs any changes, maybe slight buff to FotD at earlier levels.

DarnYak