Defiler in 1.12c

[Leek]

Yak I don't know what you did to Defiler, but hes about a billion times stronger then he used to be.

Str heroes can't go anywhere near him, Devouring plague is doing stupid amounts of damage. Basically means no mana or HP if you lane VS him. The range is also way way too long.

I don't know what it is, but since 1.12c every time Defiler is in a game, he can't be touched. He cannot be killed with Devouring Plague and it stops people from going anywhere near him.

[DarkNemesis]

First of all Leek, have you heard of dispells? I would recommend looking into that if not.

Second, Defiler use to be ridiculously weak in earlier versions, yes, Yak made him stronger, not a problem. Defiler, imo, is one of those situational heroes, along with Dryad, Assassin, and Gravel. In other words, they tend to be almost overpowered against certain heroes while normal to slightly inferior against others. For instance, Defiler is nuts against Gravel (at least if Gravel is str-based), and trash against the INf, at least in my experiences. Obviously situational heroes aren't nearly as "even" as say, your standard troop killer or tank.

Oh btw, what hero were you? I assume you were playing against the defiler, right? This will able me to help you better, if at all.

Moving on,

Defiler, in my experience, has the most trouble against DPS heroes. Why? Because they still can do huge amounts of dmg without Int/Mana. Also, I consider the mana steal to be far more deadly than the life drain part, since you can pop a healing salve. Also, the ratio is far worse when it comes to the mana drain. If your an int hero you easily stand against this, however, though the health drain could hinder you alot. Tanks are probably the worst against him. My suggestions:

1.) If your a class that is naturally weak, stay away!
2.) If your an INt hero that is having trouble handling the crippling effects of plague, buy some str or Hp.
3.) Use dispells! use dispells! and use dispells! They're cheap and help, alot.
4.) If you can't follow through with the first rule then suggest rethinking your hero build. I.E. putting points into direct counters for defiler. As I said before, DPS heroes are his worst enemy, and many Tanks actually make decent if not good DPS heroes. Alexander, Bane, Gravel, Tyrant, all work quite well with a dmg focus. Gravel in particular can be quite deadly with a crumble+earthquake focus. Tyrant has numerous slows, Bane has encouragement and charge, Alexander also has a good stun and is...well....Alexander.

Defiler is not overpowered, you just need to think differently, that's all. Hope this helped. In any event, good luck!

[DarnYak]

I didn't touch devouring plague.

DarnYak

[Reaper]

Pro tip: dispell things that suck

If you need too, buy the staff of dispell, or just be DW and you win.

[Sparda963]

I went up against someone playing him last night, and I couldnt do shit to him. If another hero came in the lane to help me, he just plagued us both and then boom we were oom and useless. The range is incredibly long on it as well, like i couldn't even seem him a lot of times and i was getting it cast on me.

As for dispelling, the cd on that skill is really low apparently, and i was going through WoN's like mad, i had 30 and used them in under 5 min, that expensive as hell.

[Perhaps]

I'd like to start with confirming that Defiler isn't different. In fact Defiler has been pretty much the same since he was introduced with the exception of some range decreases on his moves and talents.

Sparda is right about plague's, but if you stay on top of it, Devouring plague won't be on you too long if you cooldown the moment it gets cast, then the moment your staff cools down again which is a little bit of duration of devouring plague. Two Staffs can keep up with it, though it is kind of menacing to have to spend 1440 gold between two, which is enough for their team to buy a mercinary to make up for the "lost skill".

Divine Wizard requires more than one point into his ability to keep up with it, unless you one point the dispel and get a Staff of Negation. But in anycase, you shouldn't have to always get a certain hero. -_-

Another thing you can do is just simple mob Defiler and keep him kicked down. Defiler actually has low survivability at the start. Granted doing such a thing in a map as vast as Storm Wail, bleh.

[Leek]

Alright Dark Nemesis, no need to be an asshat. I know what a dispel is, and the fact that his Cooldown on Devouring Plague is shorter then the CD on dispels means something.

You are right about str heroes not being able to go anywhere near Defiler. I think this is something of an issue, there are a LOT of strength heroes in Eota and one skil basically making these heroes useless is imbalanced. However you can note that for Int heroes plague does the same thing to their mana.

The fact is when a skill makes a hero so strong that to even lane against them is guaranteed to kill you, something is wrong. This might be because its a % based skill (The only one in Eota?) and that just doesn't scale properly with the numbers used.

Defiler and or Devouring Plague aren't the only imbalances in Eota but its the most obvious one if you actually play a game with him. Its more noticable in -ap games because the UD side doesn't get rolled by the opposing creep/elf heroes.

[Discombobulator]

I don't like the idea of devouring plague being counterable. You can't counter nukes like lunge or demoralizing blow, why should you be able to counter a dot spell that doesn't really do any damage, on the long run?

[Perhaps]

You can counter Lunge and Demoralizing blow, don't let them get range on you, or at least they have to take a lot more damage just to do it before they land it on you. Devouring Plague gets a long duration, and massive range (that can literally get longer than an unzoomed screen's worth) at high levels. And it's not really weak, 30 seconds is you taking 30% your max health's worth of damage and losing your max mana's worth of mana. Also don't forget that the Defiler that life and mana you lose is mana Defiler gains. So when you're considering Longevity vs Longevity you no long consider damage alone, Healing done and damage done become one in the same, in the case of longevity we're not talking about 1% every second we're talking about 2% every second.

Here's a possibility... Change the dynamics of Devouring Plague by having it channeling doing 1.8% life drain and mana drain for like 4 second for the first level, while applying a buff that only does .4% life drain and mana drain that lasts 8 seconds. So the bulk of its damage could be taken out by interrupt, however it wouldn't be fully counterable by interrupt dispel after would be required as well, if you think it would be worth it. These aren't the exact number, just an idea to get damage proportions/difference between the buff and the channeling. To further clarify, the buff would be applied at the start of the channeling so the buff and channeling would be going at the same time, and when the channeling stops, gets interrupted, or finishes the buff will still keep going unless dispelled.

[DarkNemesis]

Against the defiler, Divine Wizard is more than a match. Not only he can handle the mana drain, he, as others have stated, has spellshift? Though it requires at least 2 points to even in order not have to constantly buy wands. Dread Shaman is also difficult to kill. Discombabulator also made a good point, Dot spells already have a disadvantage, why punish them further? I did a single game last night just to see how he would fair. I had a hell of a time trying to kill Alexander, though him, Rue, and both archers couldn't really touch me. It was a canceling out game, so to speak.

If you really want to talk about his op skills, Leek, you might want to check Exhaustion. I usually level Plague, Pestilence, and Exhaustion evenly and have found that skill to be really effective against mobs and Tanks. The periodic stun is insane. In may ways, I consider exhaustion to be a more effective skill than Plague, at least at higher levels. Plague doesn't hit that hard. Though the mana drain is quite effective, I admit. The only place I agree with you is that the cast length may be a bit too long, a little shorter wouldn't hurt, I guess.

[Tehw00tz]

I'd like to start with confirming that Defiler isn't different. In fact Defiler has been pretty much the same since he was introduced with the exception of some range decreases on his moves and talents.

Actually you are wrong, Yak added a small AoE to his bouncing plague attack, I forgot what it is called.