The Great Hero Review: Creeps
Posted: August 23rd, 2011, 2:59 pm
Bane:
- Dragonfear: Not terrible but probably not what it should be, primarily an unreliable interrupt
- Caustic Breath: Strong
- Encouragement: Stronger than Mass Haste but shorter duration, but it also can heal. However, I'm not sure if it's enough of a heal, and the skill overall doesn't seem that popular, so I'm not sure what to say about this skill
- Acid Sheath: Can do decent damage and nerfs spawns fairly hard after the initial hit, but doesn't seem that popular. Mana cost might be too high
- Charge: Fairly shitty. Range is too low (or maybe just is at low levels), stun is good but bane often gets trapped behind enemy lines. Plus bane isn't as strong in the melee field as intended. People have wanted it to be point targetable for a while but at that point this is practicly Dash. I'm planning on adding a knockback effect to the charge so that he clears a path through spawns.
- Storm of Malice: Not instant damage but solid damage if uninterrupted, espeicaly when the armor reduction is factored in
Scarab:
- Celestial Restoration: Helpful
- Smite: This was always intended to be a nuke primarily focused on dropping high health heroes..but it never really worked out well. Currently I suspect damage might be a little low and mana cost too high, but not too far out of line regardless
- Life Wave: Good AoE heal, also a nuke with talents
- Nightmare: Strong AoE spell, sadly this is acutaly a placeholder that never got replaced
- Armored Carapace: Strong defense, but needs upgrading to have an active
- Apotheosis: Strong
Gravel:
- War Club: Strong ability, but kind of shitty since it's one of those things you generally always want up, makes me feel it should just be built in and give him a new inniate
- Rockslide: Great
- Heart of the Mountain: Strong buff, not so fun
- Earthquake: Great...for lagging everyone. This spell has to go for that reason alone, plus it sucks
- Crumble: Pretty harsh debuff when combined with grav's high melee damage, but it's boring as fuck. And it's sort of just the negative of HotM. Want to replace
- Rockslide: No scaling but it looks too awesome. A bit absurd against buildings, but overall strong
Treant:
- Eat Tree: Should be given scaling
- Grasping Tree: Great
- Taunting Tree: Considering all the bitching in a recent game I know at least some people think its OP, I'm as of yet undecided
- Reviving Tree: Kind of amazing in theory, not so much in practice. Would like to revamp, possibly making it his Ult
- Dispelling Tree: Dispels gotta go
- Pixie Tree: Animation is screwed up (I can't help it), no scaling, not that interesting, does decent damage though
Dryad:
- Sentinel: Very useful
- Gale: Always feels a little too weak to me, but never bad
- Tangleweed: Good but no scaling
- Cure Wounds: Great
- Reverse Magic: Dispels gotta go
- Mana Surge: Mixed feelings, it certainly can do great damage but kind of hard or rare to pull off, and attenative enemies can avoid it completely
Dread Shaman:
- Extra Attack: Good, but passive
- Mass Regeneration: Great
- Totems: Good, but I think some of them need ranged casting placement so effective use doesn't require him to walk behind enemy lines or similar stupid shit. Health might also be a little too high. Earthbind is kind of insane.
- Expunge: Not just a dispel, also a legacy spell that's been on my replace list forever. Strong, but needs to go. Oddly would be more usable if I could make it not automatically dispel everything
- Shared Pain: A mess, does too much damage, but it's also on the wrong hero (a ranged unit who can self heal). I've wanted to move this to a new hero for a long time, the question is where
- Ancestial Fury: This feels too much like a utility spell and not an ultimate. Might be a great inniate.
Arcane Mistress:
- Aura of Undeath: Not bad but not amazing. Passive is the problem
- Infernal Binding: Strong
- Mind Fog: Strong...worse Candle/Kedge. Kind of annoying but not the type of annoying that I feel is necessary to remove because it can be managed. Cooldown and/or duration probably a bit too high
- Haunt: Amazing vs structures, but has no use otherwise (and is probably disfavored as a result). Considering toning down its effectiveness in exchange for giving it some sort of effect against non-structures as well
- Black Arrow: Almost a passive but not quite. I do wonder if it needs some sort of buff though
- Wail: Great
Master of the Hunt:
- Search: Useful but at the same time it's not Sentinel or Sentry Owls, so it feels lacking in comparision
- Lunge: Strong, but I'm thinking of making it spawn targetable for an auto kill or triple damage. I also want to give it a small "leap" range
- Hamstring: Slow's always good, crit is alwyas good, yet I have the impression this spell is disfavored
- Dire Howl: Chance to miss, life steal, and increased melee damage... but doesn't seem enough
- Dream Run: Very very useful
- Wolf Pack: I like the concept, hate the skill, gonna revamp it somehow - possibly give him temporary familiars but I'm undecided
Icespinner:
- Create Web: Great
- Ice Lance: Great
- Frost Spire: Great
- Chill Sacrifice: Talent makes it interesting, but baseline it's in the same probelm area as Mana Rush, offering little by itself. Not sure what I want to do with it
- Brain Freeze: Should be fairly decent, pretty annoying to fight against, but I'm not sure how popular it is
- Blizzard: Not bad, just outdated. I think I'll revamp this with the same fundimental spell, but with a bit more added in
Harpy: I can't play this hero for shit so I'm practicly guessing here
- Raptor: Evade is useful, life steal attack can help her recover general damage from spawns being annoying bitches, could probably be improved a bit more
- Swoop: Decent, but overnerfed? I have no idea
- Blade Rain: Terrible graphic, tends to get her killed isnce its short range, it can do decent damage but i'm not sure anyone takes it
- Blind: Insane miss rate, but does anyone take it? Another possibly good but boring spell that could use additions
- Backlash: Seems after a long streak of it being overpowered its happily in a acceptable spot now
- Chaos Rift: Great
DarnYak
- Dragonfear: Not terrible but probably not what it should be, primarily an unreliable interrupt
- Caustic Breath: Strong
- Encouragement: Stronger than Mass Haste but shorter duration, but it also can heal. However, I'm not sure if it's enough of a heal, and the skill overall doesn't seem that popular, so I'm not sure what to say about this skill
- Acid Sheath: Can do decent damage and nerfs spawns fairly hard after the initial hit, but doesn't seem that popular. Mana cost might be too high
- Charge: Fairly shitty. Range is too low (or maybe just is at low levels), stun is good but bane often gets trapped behind enemy lines. Plus bane isn't as strong in the melee field as intended. People have wanted it to be point targetable for a while but at that point this is practicly Dash. I'm planning on adding a knockback effect to the charge so that he clears a path through spawns.
- Storm of Malice: Not instant damage but solid damage if uninterrupted, espeicaly when the armor reduction is factored in
Scarab:
- Celestial Restoration: Helpful
- Smite: This was always intended to be a nuke primarily focused on dropping high health heroes..but it never really worked out well. Currently I suspect damage might be a little low and mana cost too high, but not too far out of line regardless
- Life Wave: Good AoE heal, also a nuke with talents
- Nightmare: Strong AoE spell, sadly this is acutaly a placeholder that never got replaced
- Armored Carapace: Strong defense, but needs upgrading to have an active
- Apotheosis: Strong
Gravel:
- War Club: Strong ability, but kind of shitty since it's one of those things you generally always want up, makes me feel it should just be built in and give him a new inniate
- Rockslide: Great
- Heart of the Mountain: Strong buff, not so fun
- Earthquake: Great...for lagging everyone. This spell has to go for that reason alone, plus it sucks
- Crumble: Pretty harsh debuff when combined with grav's high melee damage, but it's boring as fuck. And it's sort of just the negative of HotM. Want to replace
- Rockslide: No scaling but it looks too awesome. A bit absurd against buildings, but overall strong
Treant:
- Eat Tree: Should be given scaling
- Grasping Tree: Great
- Taunting Tree: Considering all the bitching in a recent game I know at least some people think its OP, I'm as of yet undecided
- Reviving Tree: Kind of amazing in theory, not so much in practice. Would like to revamp, possibly making it his Ult
- Dispelling Tree: Dispels gotta go
- Pixie Tree: Animation is screwed up (I can't help it), no scaling, not that interesting, does decent damage though
Dryad:
- Sentinel: Very useful
- Gale: Always feels a little too weak to me, but never bad
- Tangleweed: Good but no scaling
- Cure Wounds: Great
- Reverse Magic: Dispels gotta go
- Mana Surge: Mixed feelings, it certainly can do great damage but kind of hard or rare to pull off, and attenative enemies can avoid it completely
Dread Shaman:
- Extra Attack: Good, but passive
- Mass Regeneration: Great
- Totems: Good, but I think some of them need ranged casting placement so effective use doesn't require him to walk behind enemy lines or similar stupid shit. Health might also be a little too high. Earthbind is kind of insane.
- Expunge: Not just a dispel, also a legacy spell that's been on my replace list forever. Strong, but needs to go. Oddly would be more usable if I could make it not automatically dispel everything
- Shared Pain: A mess, does too much damage, but it's also on the wrong hero (a ranged unit who can self heal). I've wanted to move this to a new hero for a long time, the question is where
- Ancestial Fury: This feels too much like a utility spell and not an ultimate. Might be a great inniate.
Arcane Mistress:
- Aura of Undeath: Not bad but not amazing. Passive is the problem
- Infernal Binding: Strong
- Mind Fog: Strong...worse Candle/Kedge. Kind of annoying but not the type of annoying that I feel is necessary to remove because it can be managed. Cooldown and/or duration probably a bit too high
- Haunt: Amazing vs structures, but has no use otherwise (and is probably disfavored as a result). Considering toning down its effectiveness in exchange for giving it some sort of effect against non-structures as well
- Black Arrow: Almost a passive but not quite. I do wonder if it needs some sort of buff though
- Wail: Great
Master of the Hunt:
- Search: Useful but at the same time it's not Sentinel or Sentry Owls, so it feels lacking in comparision
- Lunge: Strong, but I'm thinking of making it spawn targetable for an auto kill or triple damage. I also want to give it a small "leap" range
- Hamstring: Slow's always good, crit is alwyas good, yet I have the impression this spell is disfavored
- Dire Howl: Chance to miss, life steal, and increased melee damage... but doesn't seem enough
- Dream Run: Very very useful
- Wolf Pack: I like the concept, hate the skill, gonna revamp it somehow - possibly give him temporary familiars but I'm undecided
Icespinner:
- Create Web: Great
- Ice Lance: Great
- Frost Spire: Great
- Chill Sacrifice: Talent makes it interesting, but baseline it's in the same probelm area as Mana Rush, offering little by itself. Not sure what I want to do with it
- Brain Freeze: Should be fairly decent, pretty annoying to fight against, but I'm not sure how popular it is
- Blizzard: Not bad, just outdated. I think I'll revamp this with the same fundimental spell, but with a bit more added in
Harpy: I can't play this hero for shit so I'm practicly guessing here
- Raptor: Evade is useful, life steal attack can help her recover general damage from spawns being annoying bitches, could probably be improved a bit more
- Swoop: Decent, but overnerfed? I have no idea
- Blade Rain: Terrible graphic, tends to get her killed isnce its short range, it can do decent damage but i'm not sure anyone takes it
- Blind: Insane miss rate, but does anyone take it? Another possibly good but boring spell that could use additions
- Backlash: Seems after a long streak of it being overpowered its happily in a acceptable spot now
- Chaos Rift: Great
DarnYak