Dota 2
AGHANIM'S PATHFINDERS
Carter Nov 5, 2020 @ 5:19pm
Reviewing Older Shards
The new heroes are awesome (well done!) but it also highlights how weak or boring the shards are for the original heroes, which is a big compliment to the added content though still a diversity problem. I don't think I've seen a single Magnus, Tusk, Sniper, Weaver or Wyvern in my Pathfinder games which is funny cause besides Magnus they were the most cookie-cutter OP heroes.

Here are some of the shards I think could be buffed/changed or replaced with something more innovative/synergy with other shards:

MAGNUS:

Too Many Waves - I haven't tested in Pathfinders but in the original, casting on allies did not also give them a chance to cast shockwave on attack - could be OP with the Empowerment and Shock & Awe, so maybe lowering chance slightly if needed but would be a very good feeling combination if you landed it

Most of the skewer shards are weak


MARS:

Full Circle - Useless in my opinion, 98% of the time you are running in circles with mobs behind you - if you get surrounded it won't save you unless you also have the stun talent

Coliseum - Needs a rework or big buff of values, most arena usage is trapping as many mobs as possible and then running out so they follow into the walls - possibly add damage reduction in the arena for more incentive to stay in and possible usage with blademail against aghs/other bosses?

Most of the time I don't feel all that useful unless I have Phalanx and/or Stunning Rebuke

OMNIKNIGHT:

Condemnation - Feels super weak, don't think you could ever build Omni's base attack damage to useful levels with current values


SNAPFIRE:

Stopping Power: Perhaps Scatterblast stuns instead of knocking back? In general I've found knock back from this talent & QoP to be more disruptive to others rather than helpful

Sawed-Off, Auto-Cannon & Longer Barrels also feel very weak compared to her other shards but I suppose there has to be some weak ones in every kit


TUSK:

Icebreaker: Increase damage values

Ice Shard Extension: Trash, replace it

Snowball Blast: Feels good in the first round or two then it isn't noticeable


SLARK:

Brackish Bath: Very clunky to use, feels very bad to change an instant cast spell to one where you have to target - often costing yourself a heart or two. The fact that it is a delayed purge means you probably aren't saving anyone with it like you would with Press the Attack.

Fish Food: Needs a buff and more flavour. Perhaps changing it so there is synergy with Little Skippers, e.g a Slark-only bonus where receives attack speed bonus for all leashed units or causing all leashed enemies to have dark pact cast on them

Lucky Catch: Needs more synergy with other talents to be a tempting pick-up such as mentioned above in Fish Food or an increase in % chance

Hook, Line & Sinker: Same as Lucky Catch, needs more synergy - would only ever pick it up if I had a more meaningful Pounce

Apex Predator: Worst shard in the game? A good example of the power-creep difference is LC's Moment of Courage talent that has this same concept with 80%+ lifesteal, doesn't need to be activated and on like 0.8 cooldown

Really feels good when you hit the Broken Contract & Seaschool synergy, not so good when you don't (especially if you don't even get Smells Fishy which can carry earlier rounds hard). Overall some increased Pounce synergy will make him feel better to play no matter what shards you get.


SNIPER:

All shrapnel shards: Garbage

Assassinate shards: 95% of the time, useless and gimmicky - needs coordination with team to build up big game hunter stacks, requires lots of mana if on a low CD and pretty much useless against anything but bosses

TA:

Glass Shield: TA is squishy and pretty good dps, highly unlikely she is casting refraction on anyone but herself, and makes a instant self cast ability a point and click one which is very clunky

Latent Charge: Trash

Covert Devices: Really love this shard, especially in combination with Resurgence/Veiled Cuts + Shaded Echo, but it has no use on single target bosses which is a shame - maybe lower the chance and allow it to apply on all attacks as well as spills from TA?


URSA:

Relentless: So many other better choices. If you actually care about overpower stacks you likely went the physical build (which I think is like 10x worse than the earthshock/enrage route) and your 200 earthshock damage isn't killing anything especially in the later rounds and with 3 other heroes dpsing - useless against bosses also

Elusive: Garbage

Intimidating Roar: Useless - most Ursa's want to tank during enrage for blademail return damage and the effect doesn't even scale with minor upgrades to enrage duration like Protect the Cubs does if you wanted to go for a crowd control type utility


VIPER:

Snakebite: Feels like a ♥♥♥♥ version of contamination, replace it


WEAVER:

Beneficial Passing: Maybe a higher healing percentage? I feel like you would only ever take this if you had stars align with a high shukuchi damage value from minor talents along with Shukuchi Swarm & Bug Your Friends - but if you are stacking Shukuchi damage you probably went Reality Rips so you are missing one of the other necessary shards

Explosive Reality: Replace it


DISRUPTOR:

Perfect Storm: Replace it - you won't be casting Static Storm without your field off cooldown anyway, and field is almost always off cooldown in the later stages of the gam

Field of Dreams: Increase the critical strike chance or damage values

Maybe merge Mana Storm with the Critical Strike shard?


WINTER WYVERN:

A lot of the early balance changes on Wyvern in the original mode targeted Arctic Burn because Winter's Breath was just about the only source of multi-proj and extra source of on-hit effects in the mode - now we have SF, LC, PA etc. all having these mechanics on much lower or no cooldown

Perhaps lower the cooldown or extend the duration of Arctic Burn so Winter's Breath has more parity with SF's Injustice For All or LC's MoC shard

All splinter blast shards: Good in first maybe 3 stages, otherwise trash - I'd say most people don't cast or level splinter blast after the first couple of rounds - if there was a splinter blast stuns shard, that might warrant being picked up

Ice Cold Killing: Replace this entirely


QUEEN OF PAIN:

Fervent Assault: Replace this or buff its values so Stinging Lash becomes more enabled?

Resounding Wail & all the Sonic Wave shards: Sonic Wave is just straight up terrible, even more so compared to QoPs other spells - the mana cost is downright insane and so is the cooldown for the damage it does, but even if the cd were lower you wouldn't have the mana pool for it - the dagger, scream and blink shards & respective minor talents outshine the ultimate in every way. In pretty much all my QoP games I don't cast Sonic Wave even once; if you have the blink talents, you often don't even cast your scream or dagger as its far more mana efficient to just use blink & aim to reduce it's CD
Last edited by Carter; Nov 5, 2020 @ 5:53pm
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FRIDAY's shower water softener  [developer] Dec 5, 2020 @ 6:59am 
Hey Carter!

Appreciate the suggestions and I will definitely keep these in mind.

The way Valve made the original Labyrinth means that I can not touch the original heroes' abilities and shards. The only way for me to make changes to them would be to completely remake them from the ground up as new heroes.

This comes with 2 problems -
One is that it would take as much time as implementing a completely new hero while not yielding half as much perceived value.
Two is that the remade heroes won't be exactly the same as the old ones, and you know how upset people get when I make changes to the content they're used to.

So all in all it's definitely a possibility, though unless I can make sure it's what the community want over new heroes, changes to new heroes won't be very high on the priority list.

( I did added a new Tusk shard recently though )
romain Dec 8, 2020 @ 4:50am 
Hey Carter,

I completely agree with you about QoP shards for her ultimate; they're just bad and you're just barely using the ultimate due to the CD and the mana cost. I suppose removing the 3 existing shards would not bother anyone but then you still have to find new ones.

About Resounding Wail, I'm not a fan of that shard either but I've seen people using it quite well before (to block something in a corner for example) so I would probably keep it.

Fervent Assault is not that great but probably still better than any ultimate shard (few times I chose FA were probably when the 2 other choices were ultimate shards ^^')
But I really like the idea of buffing Fervent Assault to improve the synergy with Stinging Lash
Last edited by romain; Dec 8, 2020 @ 4:52am
Bohanon May 27, 2021 @ 1:13pm 
Some nice ideas, fun thread. Game creator makes a good point about old heroes so I'm just gonna throw in an idea for Tidehunter since he is my favorite. I think he needs a nuke dmg shard that helps early. How about a percentage chance to cast gush on attack? Would synergize well with anchor smash. Could be nerfed to half dmg gush or sends gush to furthest away target in 900 range or so. The randomized ranged gush would be a way to control doing too much splash gush damage around him. Just an idea I wanted to put into writing. Thanks.
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