[Remake] Keeper of the Light's Ultimate

[kitchen]

But the books are what makes it cool!

[Mooga1337]

Originally Posted by GodlyKha

In This Post:

A KotL-is-my-favorite-hero (one of the three in existence) gets butthurt when someone suggests how to fix him so 99% of the dota players might actually consider picking him instead of forgetting that he exists entirely, and do away with a hero who was constructed out of filler skills that were rejected on other heroes.

Its funnier when people do it for drow ranger though, the whole "OMG drow is fine y change her wtf! Marksmanship is a godly skill, wats wrong with you?"

'Fix' him? Not my favorite, one of my favorite. He's fine, don't 'fix' what isn't broken. And your ability just doesn't fit in DotA in general. Things that shouldn't be touched when it comes to abilities are gold, experience, and inventories. Or if they are, it should be more elaborate or well thought out than this. The only ability I can think of when it comes to this rule is Goblin's Greed, and that doesn't hurt anything because it's just a farming passive.

KotL is a good hero with a niche, if you don't like it then you don't have to pick him. Inb4 remake Chen so more people pick him.

[GodlyKha]

Originally Posted by Mooga1337

Things that shouldn't be touched when it comes to abilities are gold, experience, and inventories.

You're really going to have to back that up with some reasoning, not a simple hands-off prohibition. Because Goblins Greed is not the only skill or item or effect to mess with 'gold, experience & inventories'.

Track also gives gold. Hand of Midas gives both gold and experience. All summoning skills and necronomicon use gold and experience as drawbacks. Spirit Bear gives inventory slots. Devour gives gold. Dark Ritual pretty directly messes with experience. Divided We Stand gives inventory slots.

There is no intrinsic reason for an "Ability creating an item" to be off-limits. However, as it is something not done yet, it should be done meaningfully and to a conservative extent. Which is exactly what this ultimate does; it actually matters that we are using items here, because the ability would be impossible otherwise. The skills only have room to be on items, you can't just add them to allies. You can't let them be droppable or stealable otherwise.

'Fix' him? Not my favorite, one of my favorite. He's fine, don't 'fix' what isn't broken.

And that is your biased problem here. I have already elaborated on why KotL is broken and needs to be fixed in the OP. You have not offered any counterarguments, merely stated that he's your favorite and don't want him touched. He's also one of the least used, most repicked heroes that does not scale beyond level 7, suffers from being helplessly impotent and a cheesy-one-trick-pony. He has become obsolete in a metagame that is no longer restricted by mana concerns, due to the addition of items like soul ring, arcane boots, magic stick, and a whole swath of early game regen/int affixes. Nobody even maxes up first brilliance aura on CM, once considered her 'broken' skill. KotL has become totally unused- nobody wants a CM-like wardbitch who can do nothing lategame, yet steals their farm and pushes their lane anyways.


KotL is broken, no matter how much you like him. You are biased to the contrary. He is not even the most broken hero. I could post a thread in DC about how Drow Ranger needs to be remade, and since 99% of the posters would ignore it, about half of whats left would be the disproportionately represented "Drow Ranger Fanclub", people that somehow irrationally want the worst hero in the game to not be remade because shes "fine as is" with a +45 agility boost ultimate on a hero with 45 less base agility. And I know this, since I've done exactly that before. This is the same case.

[3qual]

Ok,

There is absolutly no doubt about the
"world destorying" design error in SF.
Its so bad when one thinks about it...
Feels like Recall and Blinding Light would have an
additional and shared cooldown.
The only benefit is that you can move while using illuminate.
But this is infact absolutly minimal as the spell itself actually relies
on "everything stays at place".

(drow is also on my eyes as simply calculations with
other hereos make think wtf)

about first suggestion level:
I am very splitted about item creation in dota.
On one hand it doesnt feel like it would be in place.
Forgive me if i cant find the right words to cover it,
but simply said "it doesnt feel right".
(on the other hand i have wonderd why
alchemist cant make potions
for his allies from the early dotas on)

Now about your specific stuff:
Permanent + unlimited use is too hard i guess
even if it drops, especially as it only last for 60 seconds on the enemie or ground

the push skill is imo too crazy, you set numbers way too high.
2/2/2 would be ok, as the number of books increases to max of 6 creeps.
With a pull2push it would be a total overrun.

The free TP breaks alot of stuff that when we sum it up its in the end an
infinite and permanent TP'scroll with the power to summon alot of creeps
and heal you btw... This seems so broken that i cant fairly belive you suggested it
(enlight me if i missread somthing)

Bottomline:
Nice idea, but mb too much away from kotl.
If the numbers are more balanced it could be a nice thing on an absolutly new hero.
Kotl feels like an altillery, i would like him to keep this feeling.

greets

[GodlyKha]

Originally Posted by 3qual

-snipsnip-

Hey thanks, that's some great detailed feedback, you brought up a lot of the same issues I was even thinking of as I was debating how to improve this suggestion.

I definitely have the same apprehension about tapping item creation as a design space in dota. It is certainly not something we should see a lot of, the UI and clumsiness and inventory restrictions (particularly in dota 1) make it something we should avoid in general. I would probably T-Down any straight up item recipe suggestion that had a spellbook for that very same reason, adding too much complexity and all. But I think these same rules are made to be broken, there should always be a single outlier that does something unique that violates those same boundaries, just in moderation, in a meaningful way. Like how Meepo has more than 1 hero- you wouldn't want to see another hero doing that too introduced, or another minelayer, or another Meat Hooker, or another permanently invisible hero. And definitely not see items that give those same things. So I figure that if its just 1 hero, doing item creation as his unique mechanic for an ultimate, and only in moderation (3 items total and only at level 16), and actually doing it in a way that only items could do (droppable/stealable), then its justifiable. But you're totally right that its something to be wary of.

Yeah I've been going back and forth on the balance situation. Is having the unlimited use, 3-for-your-team book that gives TP scroll equivalents overpowered? Or would it seem useless to pubs who wouldn't even let you put it in their inventory, and people wind up thinking the hero sucks? Even if he's still good organized, if he fails the pub test, its a problem already. On one hand I keep thinking that having those 12x creeps, 600 heals and teleporting all around the map would be hideously overpowered like you say, and faceroll right into a base at level 16 or whatnot.

But on the other hand, I try to look at it from the viewpoint of- would a pubber really want this item that he knows puts him down 1 inventory slot and is risky and backfiring if he dies? And can't save him anyway, since unlike a TP it doesn't work while being hit, and takes longer? If we saw it put in as is, half the people in pubs would probably immediately think its overpowered as all hell, and the other half would think its a huge nerf. I don't know which would be right.

Its something really tricky to balance, I think I'd seriously need to see this in game and play around with it with a few teams before I had a good idea whether its too strong, weak or alright. I've tried to put intentional safeguards to keep this from either being too strong or too weak. It gives this huge pushing power, but none of it is combat-useful, so it won't help your team win a clash other than setup. So for as good as the pushing is, you'd still need to win the actual battle, something kotl *isn't* good at. And beyond that, theres the intentional swinginess of being stealable on death and the resurrections directly canceling each other out; if you fail the push, and they get your books, they'll stop it immediately and even counterpush right away. And on the other hand, by making it a TP-scroll 3rd option (TP vs travels vs book), it gives players a reason to hang onto it and not chuck it no matter how useless the other 2 spells end up on them. So I try to keep it from being too strong or too weak, but I'm not sure where it will wind up without testing.


One thought I had, along the lines of your 2/2/2 scaling idea with the resurrection, is that the spells themselves could be kept constant, all three of them, and the increased levels just make the more copies. Readjusting all the numbers to be balanced again, I'm not sure how much of a heal would be too strong or if a 3 second combat-disabled teleport is alright at level 6. And maybe another thought is giving the book itself attributes, like the +5/10/15% magic damage dealt by the holder I was talking about with Chakra Magic (or both of them). Heck, theres one way of making KotL keep his artillery role; let illuminate get strong from maxing out chakra and enscribe, via the +% damage suggestion






So yeah, if anyone has any ideas, what other kinds of attributes might make sense if you pegged them to the spellbook as an item? Right now I'm still leaning towards 'no-stat-bonuses-just-spells', but maybe you could tone down the effects of the spells themselves and give the book some extra stats like +INT or +all stats or +magic damage %

[fullmetal_ne0]

1. some hero wont have skill slots left (nevermore, techies, morph,etc)
2. ezalor will be more squishy as ever.
3. not sure if everything is codeable
4. i just loled at this one.

-----

i had better ideas but nobdy gave a fuck. haha
i dont want to reiterate it here so ill just give the link http://www.playdota.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1034217
tell me its illegal and ill delete this segment

[GodlyKha]

Originally Posted by fullmetal_ne0

1. some hero wont have skill slots left (nevermore, techies, morph,etc)

It does not use skill slots, it uses a WC3 spellbook.

2. ezalor will be more squishy as ever.

Thats quite intentional.

3. not sure if everything is codeable

It is.

[fullmetal_ne0]

^ if ezalor will be a walking gold mine now, how much more on this one

[Bernoully]

Forgive me if I missed out some points, there were a whole lot to read and I can only remember so much from one-shot reading 4 pages of thread. So here I go:

What if the 3 skills in the Enscribe spellbook were single use? That might help:

- not making this book item potentially OP for later balancing
- there's still incentive for enemies to take the book: only that they won't know which spells are still in there. All 3 skills intact? Or only Journey left?
- encourages strategic usage and precise timing at different phases of the game. Imagine conversations like "I used up my Light, use yours"
- enemies have to watch out for which spellbook skills have been used by certain heroes, but then again teammates can switch books
- at any time should the hero feels the book is useless (or Ezalor conjures up a new one), he can dump it off or put onto a teammate who wants to keep it for situational use
- encourages the Ezalor player to manage his books, knowing who to give it to can turn the tides

Like you said, mechanics are the basis here. Things like CD for Enscribe and the 3 skills can be easily adjusted as needed.

Thematically, a book written by Ezalor is kind of out. I suggest modifying Enscribe so that it becomes Shining Sigil (inspired by Tuskarr's Frozen Sigil, but here it is an item and not a creep). Accessing that shining orb of light created by Ezalor, heroes can use 3 one-shot skills. As a plus, it still matches his lore from Dota 2: a Fundamental of Light from the earliest beginnings, whose nemesis is CK.

All the changes I have noted are also Dota 1-friendly. What do you think?


PS. to everyone who oppose losing skills such as Blinding Light and Recall, many heroes have their skills removed and replaced throughout the history of Dota, mourn not

[bigolet]

i praise the effort put into this, but this could not be balanced in any way. Also the inventory is already super restrictive, so generating items out of the blue is a no-no. Maybe if the book gave himself two extra slots? That I would like to see...

[kit333]

pls don't touch my favourite hero pls.
https://dotabuff.com/matches/37006611
/thread

[GodlyKha]

Originally Posted by kit333

pls don't touch my favourite hero pls.
https://dotabuff.com/matches/37006611
/thread

Valuable input.