Devouring Plague concerns

[AlienFromBeyond]

The cooldown on this is ridiculous. There's absolutely no way to keep up with it even with a maxed dispel. And due to its % nature, it's easy to deal with at low levels with heals but even a maxed heal with tons of stat to power it will find it hard to resist since it'll get stronger than the heal can. That's if you can cast it that is, which will be hard because you'll be wasting mana dispelling only for it to get back on you soon after.

[Dark_Nemesis]

Totally agree here. The mana lost is probably the worst of all though, with TC, I can easily heal through plague, no a huge problem there, it's the mana that really trashes you.

The witch doctor is also ridiculously (probably too) good against the harpy, casting plague/ult/pestilence=death....

Just a side note, but rather insane.

[Lo5er]

I think the cooldown is low because there are several items that allow you to negate the debuff, not sure about the name, but there's an amulet you can buy for 720g that can dispel all of the Defiler's debuffs. [wand of negation/scroll of negation/as well as a whole mess of "cleansing" spells]

If the cooldown wasn't so short a single player could easily dispel all of his spells which would essentially mean a single spell/item/person could completely counter a hero which wouldn't be very fair or fun.

[Dark_Nemesis]

This is a common argument, and in all respects, holds up, don't get me wrong. But for whatever reason, I have noticed people tend to largely ignore item dispells. I may be due to the fact that they simply aren't a common item, thus people simply forget to buy them (I'm guilty here). Too, with all the chaos of battle and other slots to be filled, they may get replaced with armor, stat increasers, mana regen, heals, summons, etc. Too, while dispells are really cheap for occasional use, after having to use them every 20 seconds can quickly make a dent on your gold stash that normally might be going towards your hero or the team. In a different sense, this is another plus in the Defiler's part, yes, you are getting rid of his nasty plagues, but really, with a +2 mana regen helm, who really looses? he can just recast it and virtually stay in battle forever, while your enemy is spending literally hundreds of coins just to stay alive.

And lets not forget his instant disease nuke that can't be dispelled.

[Elreth]

He's raped by DS. Cleansing totem just trashes his debuffs and mass regen counters his chain nuke. The only thing he has against him is plague and a well placed skyfury totem will handle even that.

[Luftwaffles]

Yeah but you shouldn't have to pick DS every game just to play against him. I agree the cooldown is a bit low and upping it would be nice.

[aegir ravenking]

DS and naga have nothing to fear from the Defiler. Still the rest of the heroes get annoyed and weakened early then have the choice of being neutered in either the wallet or mana/HP from mid game on.

Best thing I know of to do to him if either of those heroes aren't available is to avoid or gang rape him.

[AlienFromBeyond]

And you don't think that's a problem?

[aegir ravenking]

Being that the next version isn't supposed to be out till May, I figured I would just tell everyone my solutions.

[Dark_Nemesis]

Yak undoubtedly meant May of this year: 2009, though he said at it best. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if it were indeed May of next year X_x. Hopefully, though, we'll see d around mid August?

[Reaper]

If the cooldown was increased, the spell would be so easily countered it would lose a lot of its effectiveness. I would instead decrease the life/mana per second

[Dark_Nemesis]

Yea, argeed.

[Tehw00tz]

Use health potions when devouring plague is on you. Defiler loses health. It actually balances it out nicely even though it's a bug.

[DarnYak]

That doesn't work

DarnYak

[Tehw00tz]

When did you fix that?

[DarnYak]

I didn't, it never worked. There was a related bug, and that's only if an AI controlled hero uses a potion specifically in response to devouring plague damage.

DarnYak

[Tehw00tz]

Well making potions damage him would be great.

[Dark_Nemesis]

You mean stupid and utterly ridiculous, right?

I haven't heard Yak specifically mention anything about nerfing plague yet...

so Yak, can we expect it to be nerfed for c5 or d? Even if its just the mana part, the health dot actually isn't too bad, about right imo. The mana is what really 'kills' you...

[DarnYak]

There's a post somewhere about how i want to redesign plague. Just nerfing it isn't an option - its really not that strong, its just extremely annoying and frustrating. My general plan was to make it transfer to other units after x seconds or something, but I never settled on the details. Either way, it'll be in d, not c5.

DarnYak

[Tehw00tz]

You mean stupid and utterly ridiculous, right?

I haven't heard Yak specifically mention anything about nerfing plague yet...

so Yak, can we expect it to be nerfed for c5 or d? Even if its just the mana part, the health dot actually isn't too bad, about right imo. The mana is what really 'kills' you...

Do you have any reasons why it would be stupid and utterly ridiculous?

[GeneralFunk]

You mean stupid and utterly ridiculous, right?

I haven't heard Yak specifically mention anything about nerfing plague yet...

so Yak, can we expect it to be nerfed for c5 or d? Even if its just the mana part, the health dot actually isn't too bad, about right imo. The mana is what really 'kills' you...

Do you have any reasons why it would be stupid and utterly ridiculous?

Because it's along the lines of what I would suggest?! Bahahaha! That's right! Get lumped into the likes of me bitch!

Really though... With all the suggestions I give, people whine about what kind of learning curve it would allegedly cause. Wouldn't something like that be kind of hard to know or come across? I can't say there's something too wrong about it damaging since potions cost money... But then there's the early on factor how messed up it'd be.

[Tehw00tz]

I wouldn't ignore your suggestion if it was actually good however.