Clinkz - idea how to make him shine again

[Mecenas Kaszewiak]

7.23 change has nice idea to it but adding attack speed aspect to Skeleton Walk slown down Clinkz's power spike. I understand that in 7.22 stacking agi and taking all talents that buffed ultimate was a bit too op as they literally did all the work for you and barely anyone could outdamage Clinkz so it needed change. Adding Death Pact allowing you to scale and ult based on overall not only base damage is nice idea to make Clinkz ganking hero that actually scales into late game but because of it you need all 3 basic abilities leveled up in order to gank.

Searing Arrows are 100% necessary for laning stage as they allow you to secure your last hits early with Clinkz's weak damage. Death Pact helps you to secure range creeps/buff your HP in order to gank and Skeleton Walk you want to max asap for your first rotation. So theoretically you want to max W and Q during laning stage however you would like to have E maxed when you'll start roaming.

Also adding Attack speed to Skeleton Walk made it way harder to splitpush as whenever you want to push a tower you are risking not having invis for enemy rotation.

What I think would be good is removing attack speed from Skeleton Walk and add second ability "Strafe" to the ultimate in similar fashion it's done with Dark Willow where she gets two abilities when she levels up ultimate. This will make players max Arrows and Death Pact first leaving Skeleton Walk on 1st level early. Strafe will scale better into late game fitting that Death Pact/Ult scaling idea.

For now Clinkz has <50% winrate overall in all brackets. This buff will make him a solid carry option considering he is good vs some meta heroes at the moment.

[Chilli Dog Dave]

clinkz is crap for the same reason riki is.
his invisibility is to much of a crutch to be useful in higher tier games beyond ratting, which if you climb high enough is a hell of alot harder.
unless you buff searing to 500 bonus damage per shot and pact gives you invincility he's going to suck no matter what because at the core of his design he's a noob stomper not a pro romper.

[Mecenas Kaszewiak]

Originally posted by Chilli Dog Dave:

clinkz is crap for the same reason riki is.
his invisibility is to much of a crutch to be useful in higher tier games beyond ratting, which if you climb high enough is a hell of alot harder.
unless you buff searing to 500 bonus damage per shot and pact gives you invincility he's going to suck no matter what because at the core of his design he's a noob stomper not a pro romper.

Riki is actually top 10 carry in highest tier at the moment with positive winrate. The reason why is that he is finally tanky due to his starting stats and finally good laning stage. He is also very mobile and elusive. Previous version of Riki had invis but was pathetic during laning phase and was rather played as scouting pos 4 that could scale to become 4th core.

About Clinkz - before they gave him Skeleton Army it was ganking/tower pushing core that was insanely strong in pubs because people were not coordinated and he could get a lot of solo kills but he was crap in pro games as you mentioned. They tried to give him some teamfighting presence with Skeleton Army but what ended to happen was that people started to stack agi and build aghs so they summoned as many Skeletons - used Diffusal on key target and waited for Skeletons to kill it. This made Clinkz teamfighter but killed his identity of a solo assassin a bit.

Addition of attack speed buff to Skeleton Walk made Clinkz pushing potential dead because if you want to push tower with your attack speed buff you might not be able to run away. Many people ignore how huge is Skeleton Walk's speed buff and think only about Stealth here. In 7.22 I used to build Yasha & Kaya a lot on Clinkz for agi + I never had to send any potions to regen my mana thanks to reduced costs. Maxed Skeleton Walk + Yasha is actually almost hasted speed.

Addition of Strafe even without evasion aspect would be quality of life change and will make Clinkz fulfill his role of ganking/tower pushing core. He might be finally pub and pro scene viable.