Kunkka is absolutely Awful now and nerfed into the ground - ♥♥♥♥ - Please rework him already

[beers83]

Played a bunch of Turbo games today with him in the brand new 7.36 patch, and I immediately noticed Kunkka doesn't feel right. Hot take incoming, but this may be the worst Kunkka has ever felt to me in a LONG time.



What I noticed during my DotA session tonight:

- I felt less tanky overall throughout the entire game. Was dying quicker to enemy heroes in my Turbo games, with my usual tanky builds. It was a bit shocking to see Kunkka folding like a piece of wet tissue paper against Drow / Sniper when I'm six slotted. I suppose it'll take some time getting used to this, and I'll have to be more careful on approaching enemies within my melee range.

- X-marks felt worse to use in general. Teleporting with it to go back to fountain to regen full health / mana, defending other towers being pushed, or general X shenanigans all feel way more restricted now and sluggish. It's like they want you to go Boots of Travels or blink dagger to utilize the new X-Marks properly. The only time X-Marks felt "good" tonight was during one turbo match where I had Boots of Travel 2. Every other game where I didn't have Boots of Travel 2, X-Marks just felt annoying to use.

- Years and years of muscle memory on X-Marks for perfectly timed Ghost Ship combos were throwing me off. I used to count the X-Mark tick sound effects in my head, and time perfect Ghost Ships. Feels like this has been completely removed. You HAVE to cast X-Marks and then IMMEDIATELY do Ghost Ship. I really dislike how they removed the depth that X-Mark -> Ghost Ship had before. I suppose they want anyone to be able to do Ghost Ship into X now since no muscle memory or elaborate timing is required to "do it" with currently how it is. Also against opponents who have any status resistance, you can never combo X-Marks into Ghost Ship. I guess this was "intended" to add an option to completely counter and nullify the dreaded Kunkka combo.

- Now let's discuss the cool new innate abilities so many heroes got. Kunkka's "new" innate ability is literally a worse version of his Level 1 Tidebringer... It's almost like other heroes got cool and interesting innate abilities, whereas Kunkka purposely didn't get one because they either couldn't think of anything interesting for him, or because he has scepter and other things have to be bad for his Torrent Storm to exist.



Time to address the elephant in the room, I wish they never gave him that braindead scepter upgrade a while ago. I think them giving him that Torrent Storm ability was the day any interesting future for Kunkka regarding gameplay depth was immediately killed. Instead of them removing his aghs, and reworking Kunkka to be a more interesting hero with a brand new aghs that fits his creative style, they doubled down and want to nerf everything around Kunkka's entire kit for the sole purpose of keeping his mindless Torrent Storm aghs.

Please get rid of his Torrent Storm. Give him a new aghs that isn't mindless, that doesn't force the devs to overall limit Kunkka's entire kit because his current aghs is just snooze-fest designed with generic power.




Kunkka has so much potential to be a super fun, interestingly designed, and execution based hero with tons of depth and a high skill ceiling behind it. Ever since his Torrent Storm aghs was introduced, I saw the hero's skill ceiling plummeting, and now they're starting to slowly normalize and tone Kunkka down in all the unique aspects that he's had.


Here's some ideas that I think are cool and can be interesting to give Kunkka in the future, as someone who has poured two decades of time playing this hero since DotA 1:

- His shard is amazing. Make his shard his new scepter. Shard becoming scepter would make it become vector targeted for usage flexibility, have increased damage, and have it toggleable where you can choose to push enemies or allies. With this implementation it already has 10x more depth than his current aghs, and would be WAY more fun to use. You can also ride and surf the Tidal wave with Kunkka if you have auto-cast selected. Would be ton of fun using it as an escape to get up a cliff or make some jukes.

- Make his new shard instantly summon a small wooden post with a Tidehunter doll on it or a Treasure Chest right in front of where Kunkka is currently facing. (can be various different pirate-themed props) This can have a 45 second cooldown, and lasts 6 seconds before it disappears. What does this post do? It's basically an object similar to the training dummy doll in demo hero mode. Kunkka can right click it to activate his Tidebringer and splash enemies in radius behind it. Allies or enemies can also use it to attack or target it with spells. Think of the fun interesting ways you could use this for a bunch of different plays, it also synergies so well with Kunkka's abilities. I can write more on this ability if anyone wants me to elaborate.



Anyway, thanks for listening to my Kunkka rant. I know they added the new Grog Blossom facet that lets him dose allies in rum. Tried it one turbo game and it made me feel like this is more suited for support style Kunkka. And I generally wouldn't be opposed to trying more support Kunkka if it wasn't an instant-report and team yelling at me on the mic when ever I try to humor the idea for a possible POS 4 Kunkka pick. Support Kunkka just hasn't really worked ever since they massacred level 1 X-Marks the spot cooldown many years ago. I'm not sure how "useful" this new facet will be when his other facet seems more reliable as a mid or offlane player. Also in terms of his new damage buff to Tidebringer, I enjoy that they got rid of his old useless level 25 talent, however the current Tidebringer doesn't seem as strong late game after using it in multiple Turbo games. The power increase is slightly noticeable, but I don't think "right click physical damage dealer" Kunkka is coming back over the aghs spell Torrent Storm abusing style. And the fact that his other level 25 talent is still superior.


In closing, Kunkka feels overall worse in pretty much every aspect now. He's still doing the super boring "make aghs for Torrent Storm" with tanky items and not much has changed in terms of load out flexibility or new interesting meta play styles. I really hope they rework Kunkka in the future, remove his Torrent Storm, and make the hero fun to play like he once was. He's still my favorite hero in DotA, but the notion of what "Kunkka" has become in 2024 has been sorrowfully disappointing. And as long as he keeps his dreaded Torrent Storm, the future of a fun-style Kunkka looks grim, since he's forced to be balanced and designed around his one-dimensional Torrent Storm aghs.

[Ponyeater]

Not the only change that feels counter-productive and unnatural. Many buffs and nerfs that are unwarranted.
Shadow Shaman, already a top tier support, gets essentially free knock-off AEON'S DISK on top of everything.

Other underperforming heroes get slight nerfs or just nothing, see all the heroes that had their already innate ability become the "new" innate ability a la Medusa or Viper.

And the actives you can choose for the match are even weirder balanced. Some are outright buffs strengthening everything, other have the "take 2, lose 2 elsewhere" design.
Sometimes one choice is just straight up better in every metric.

See Silencer "Get immune to the game's most annoying status effect" or "lose 1 sec global ult and get 2 on one specific hero". Well okay then.

Haven't played Kunkka yet so I can't comment, but you're probably right.

[YONGSINNER]

Didn't read after "Turbo"

[ʍolɟ ǝɥʇ ǝsɹǝʌǝɹ]

Sounds like you are out of practice and are coping by blaming changes

[76561199692390501]

skill tissue

[beers83]

Smh