[Remake] Spell Shield -> Counter Spell (w/testmap)

[uo111]

Old:

Spell shield

Magina learns to protect himself with an anti-magic shield. Increases his resistance to magic damage.

Level 1 - Reduces magic damage by 26%
Level 2 - Reduces magic damage by 34%
Level 3 - Reduces magic damage by 42%
Level 4 - Reduces magic damage by 50%

Passive

Spell shield is a skill that has never really been all that useful to anti-mage. With his blink skill, casters aren't usually worried about wasting their attack spells on killing him, unless they know they can. Even without spell shield, blink makes it very hard to use simple damage spells to kill AM. AM fears disables much more then he fears magic damage. A spell block has been proposed many times before, but this has it's problems as well. For example, it doesn't work against aoe, it is still vulnerable to two spells from a hero, and it takes away from linkens. So I'm suggesting something fairly entirely different, that works much better for anti-mage as a whole.

Proposed:(Changes In Red)
Counter Spell

If an enemy cast a spell within 700 range of Magina, during the casting animation, before the cool down starts or the spell is cast, they will lose all of their remaining mana (meaning the spell will not cast), and then they will proceed to regenerate 20% of the mana that they had, every second, for 5 seconds. Additionally, while regenerating mana, mana void will only count the countered mana for 65% damage.

Level 1 - 20 second cooldown
Level 2 - 16 second cooldown
Level 3 - 12 second cooldown
Level 4 - 8 second cooldown

Cooldown: 20/16/12/8
Passive

Or, alternate leveling:

Level 1 - Enemy regains 50% mana every second for 2 seconds
Level 2 - Enemy regains 33% mana every second for 3 seconds
Level 3 - Enemy regains 25% mana every second for 4 seconds
Level 4 - Enemy regains 20% mana every second for 5 seconds

Cooldown: 10
Passive

The skills doesn't work properly against instant cast spells, such as ww, or any items, so it would have to be coded to not proc on them.

This remake has synergy with all of anti-mages skills. It is no longer something that does almost nothing for anti-mage, and it is now a team player.

Why is this remake needed?

Anti-mage is sub par. He can't take out casters, which is what he is meant to do, because he gets disabled. It's not just single target disables that take him out either. This skill would cause casters to think twice before casting, due to his ultimate. And with blink and mana break, a fast attacking AM can easily drain their mana as it is coming back to them. Also, it would make AM a viable choice to counter initiators, because of the fact that many have low mana pools, and rely on using nearly all of it before the enemy has a chance to do anything.

Balance

The skills biggest downfall would be the likes of euls or guinsoo's. Because the way that it is coded causes it not to effect instant cast spells, these two items would allow a caster to disable AM, and cast another spell, so they will have 2/5ths-3/5ths of their mana pool back before am can do anything. However, this is at least 3k spent to counter one skill, and with it's low cooldown, it should be able to be used at least twice or even three times in a team battle.

There has been some concern about the damage that mana void will do, so I reduced the damage by 35% of the countered mana.

Missing mana and damage calculation. What damage enemies would take from mana void lvl 3 from the mana that is countered.

500 countered mana * 1.1 * .75 *.65 = 268 damage
1000 countered mana *1.1 * .75 * .65 = 536 damage
1500 countered mana *1.1 * .75 * .65 = 804 damage
2000 countered mana *1.1 * .75 * .65 = 1072 damage

The test map (by the amazing dark.88) shows the basics of the spell. A couple things to read before playing it, 1) WW is not effected by the skill because it is instant cast, if implemented instant cast skills would have to be coded to not be effected .

[KingUther]

interesting concept. I would have thought it would be impossible to code but you seem to have done so which is nice. I think rather than reducing the cooldown per level though, it would be better off to make them lose say 25/50/75/100 % of mana and fully restore after 1/2/3/4 seconds, with a flat cooldown of roughly ten seconds. And even still 100% is quite a lot. A fast player could easily knock out a hero that has considerably more mana than health after they cast a single spell with Void and this skill.

Interesting concept, numbers need to be tweaked, holding my vote for now but leaning towards T-Up for concept.

[yami-joey]

Magina will lose his Spell Resistance, but still interestin skill

T-Up on concept

[pd.erMing]

cool skill. .insta mana void rampage =)

[Dynes]

Err, think of Harbinger.

[uo111]

^
Auto-cast orbs won't effect it I don't think.

Originally Posted by KingUther

interesting concept. I would have thought it would be impossible to code but you seem to have done so which is nice. I think rather than reducing the cooldown per level though, it would be better off to make them lose say 25/50/75/100 % of mana and fully restore after 1/2/3/4 seconds, with a flat cooldown of roughly ten seconds. And even still 100% is quite a lot. A fast player could easily knock out a hero that has considerably more mana than health after they cast a single spell with Void and this skill.

Interesting concept, numbers need to be tweaked, holding my vote for now but leaning towards T-Up for concept.

Well, if they don't lose 100% of their mana, then the spell will still cast. Which sorta kinda defeats the purpose.

I could do it to where the regain less mana over more time though.

Like

level 1 - Regains 50% mana every second for 2 seconds
level 2 - Regains 33% mana every second for 3 seconds
level 3 - Regains 25% mana every second for 4 seconds
level 4 - Regains 20% mana every second for 5 seconds

What you think?

glad yall like it

[kanzakill]

Originally Posted by uo111

level 1 - Regains 50% mana every second for 2 seconds
level 2 - Regains 33% mana every second for 3 seconds
level 3 - Regains 25% mana every second for 4 seconds
level 4 - Regains 20% mana every second for 5 seconds

What you think?

Whatever the numbers, this suggestion is worth a bump

[uo111]

Originally Posted by kanzakill

Whatever the numbers, this suggestion is worth a bump

Thx

Added in an alternate leveling.

[Thiede]

original suggestion

If an enemy cast a spell within 800 range of Magina, during the casting animation, before the cool down starts or the spell is cast, they will lose all of their remaining mana, and then they will proceed to regenerate 20% of the mana that they had, every second, for 5 seconds.

Level 1 - 20 second cooldown
Level 2 - 16 second cooldown
Level 3 - 12 second cooldown
Level 4 - 8 second cooldown

Cooldown: 20/16/12/8
Passive

Or, alternate leveling:

Level 1 - Enemy regains 50% mana every second for 2 seconds
Level 2 - Enemy regains 33% mana every second for 3 seconds
Level 3 - Enemy regains 25% mana every second for 4 seconds
Level 4 - Enemy regains 20% mana every second for 5 seconds

Cooldown: 10
Passive

It is quite interesting there was no mention of mana void, possible synergy and abuses with mana void in your original post. Keeping us guessing? Hmm...

Mana Void is still situational... but this time around, your main means of unlocking mana void would be this uo111 skill remake and so I think the first skill Mana Break becomes useless and needs a remake . Wow. What an irony.

Personally no problems with your remake but I can say there will be people who would oppose immediate use of mana void (+2000 damage). I'm surprised the reviews so far are positive. I know he is the anti-mage but this seems to take things to the extreme.

Irony no. 2: Notice that Nether Ward is ironically in concept really a combination of mana void with this skill? Only that you separated the damage part (mana void) into the ulti.

Finally I would like to say that your remake seems to make AM only have 2 skills. Mana Break is uneeded anymore. Mana Void is indirectly just part of this skill = an upgraded Nether Ward except that it empties mana pools first then slowly restores it. You are a clever bastard indeed. Congrats and respects.

Your remake is so clever I am still reeling from it's effects. A genius has instantly freed up 2 of AM's spells. You have bypassed mana break Truly, Deeply, Completely. I want to hear what's your replacement for Mana Break.

And quit the pretense, will you? We may as well combine mana void with this skill and make this his ulti then give us a new skill. Joking.

[Unnamed_]

you have 2 cooldowns in your suggestion.

Anyway, he is sub-par, but this is too much.Loose all your mana if you cast on him?A quick mana void after an attempt to disable him is death to most casters later in the game.

[Touchpad Demon]

This remake is simply awesome. I don't see how it will make his mana break useless, as mana break will stop the enemy's mana from coming back if his ulti doesn't kill. Note, though, that this skill will smack initiators to the point where you simply can't initiate against AM unless this skill is on cd. Still, this skill is so much better that the current one that it simply HAS to be implemented.
Also: noone will ever pick OD if AM is on the line up ^^

[SNOW37]

While I like the idea I think that losing all of your mana after one spell is too powerful. Even if the caster gains it back, in the first second after casting the hero is very weak to AM's ult. I think it should be changed so that each level increases the amount of mana lost per cast. That way it would completely fuck a hero up by casting a single spell.

Also I'm assuming spells with no mana cost and orb effect are not counted right?\

T-UP with a number change.

[JeanLucPicard]

Basically immediately after casting arc lightning Zeus would get killed by Mana Void??
Magina could kill him by staying in woods and waiting for him to cast...

[Dynes]

Harbinger can do manual cast...
I'll consider a t-up for it being an area debuff instead, though the numbers are a bit TOO imba right now.

[uo111]

@ Calanthe

...wtf? because you can draw obvious conclusions and see faint resemblances in skills that are nothing alike, you jump to conclusions that mana break is useless?

Mana break and this skill go together like bread and butter. This skill will drain them of mana, and until later mana break will be able to keep them from restoring any of their mana.

Anyways, there is so many ways to balance the skill. I could lower the aoe, mana void could be nerfed a bit, casters could take less damage from mana break while regenerating their mana, or their could be a cap on mana void, like 800 damage.(it takes a lot of mana to get to this, and lina/lion can do even more.) And their is also many ways to counter it, for example, two casters could easily disable him, causing this skill to have almost no effect whatsoever, and one of the most commonly bought intel items in the game, Guinsoo's, is an epic counter to this skill.

While I like the idea I think that losing all of your mana after one spell is too powerful. Even if the caster gains it back, in the first second after casting the hero is very weak to AM's ult. I think it should be changed so that each level increases the amount of mana lost per cast. That way it would completely fuck a hero up by casting a single spell.

The skill would be useless then, the whole point is to protect against disables, and possibly give AM some team presence. It has to drain 100% mana, other wise the current spell shield is better.

I'll consider a t-up for it being an area debuff instead, though the numbers are a bit TOO imba right now.

That would ruin some synergy with blink though.

I fixed it to do 35% less damage. The numbers are hardly imba, as getting 2000 mana vs this AM would be a retarded thing to do, it would never happen.(unless you are storm silencer or harbringer, but they shouldn't fight AM then.)

I also lowered the aoe by 300. Even though it was improbable before, am will now never be able to hide in forest waiting for a cast.

[Elle']

Somehow even though your's is a counter to my AM remake I fully support this T-up.

Off-topic:
Can any of you pls review my remake?

[Thiede]

Originally Posted by uo111

@ Calanthe

...wtf? because you can draw obvious conclusions and see faint resemblances in skills that are nothing alike, you jump to conclusions that mana break is useless?

Mana break and this skill go together like bread and butter. This skill will drain them of mana, and until later mana break will be able to keep them from restoring any of their mana.

Anyways, there is so many ways to balance the skill. I could lower the aoe, mana void could be nerfed a bit, casters could take less damage from mana break while regenerating their mana, or their could be a cap on mana void, like 800 damage.(it takes a lot of mana to get to this, and lina/lion can do even more.) And their is also many ways to counter it, for example, two casters could easily disable him, causing this skill to have almost no effect whatsoever, and one of the most commonly bought intel items in the game, Guinsoo's, is an epic counter to this skill.

That was all intended. But I saw good potential in your remake and hope you can think bigger perhaps? Why keep mana break? The 38.4 bonus physical damage does not scale to late game, and easily negated by armor especially from Shiva's or Mekansm. So assuming we take your remake of Spell Shield, leave all other stones undisturbed, what we have is a shift of power to AM's mana void but the Spell Resistance is gone. So what happens? His DPS sucks ball. His EHP sucks balls. Think bigger.

[uo111]

Originally Posted by Calanthe

That was all intended. But I saw good potential in your remake and hope you can think bigger perhaps? Why keep mana break? The 38.4 bonus physical damage does not scale to late game, and easily negated by armor especially from Shiva's or Mekansm. So assuming we take your remake of Spell Shield, leave all other stones undisturbed, what we have is a shift of power to AM's mana void but the Spell Resistance is gone. So what happens? His DPS sucks ball. His EHP sucks balls. Think bigger.

His blink will allow him to stay alive until he can get a vanguard. At which point he will have excellent survivability due to Counter spell, damage block, 300 extra hp and blink.

And his damage points is fine that way it is. He really isn't supposed to be a hard carry. He is supposed to kill casters and drain other heroes of their mana.

The only problems he has is the fact that he has a very narrow range of uses, and he can't kill casters because of disables, and that is what this suggestion tries to address.

He doesn't need to become a hard core carry to become useful.

[Dynes]

4/5/6/7% mana loss per cast when near AM is fine by me, not zeroing the mana, have mercy no?

[Thiede]

Ok, I think I understand your idea now.

Let's define Anti-Mage:
Not to be confused with the OP mageslayer of old times DotA, who was really an assassin of mages. Anti-Mage merely survives against mages and punishes spell casters.

You are one of those guys who think of making him the Anti-Mage.

Ok, you can do that but think about something: Anti-Mage would in theory counter one third of the heroes with some extent. Some significant extent at the very least. And add those hybrid STR AGI casters into there. Even if you have a decent Anti-Mage type hero in the game, it is going to go against this "mage-community": the many who play mages. Your remake could potentially counter the league/competitive heroes too, who also happen to contain many mages. Plus blink into there. We have very good survivability.

On the other hand, AM currently ironically counters everything that is not mage. Low mana heroes, heroes without or with less disables. It somehow seems, IMO, that it is easier to make the hero more carry. But both approaches are not wrong and they have their separate strengths.

Do you realize that there can never ever be a true Anti-mage? Think about it.