Murloc's Shadow Dance . IMBA ?

[Loveless24]

lets see

It is an active/passive skill

The passive works with the active skill perfectly

Lets see again

Passive skill - When out of hostile units' site. The murloc will have 30/35/40% Bonus Movement Speed, and 2/3/4% health regeneration.

2% regeneration is same with tarrasque now. Although HoT has more regen than Shadow Dance because of the bonus Strength. But HoT cannot do the regen during Fight

And PLUS the insane movement speed gain 30% for level 1, while out of sight. Can get you into your base quickly if you want to buy something that is not sold in secret shops


This passive Skill Synergizes with the Active one

Lets see

Active - Murloc will become Invisible even if attacking or using spell, but only lasts for 5 seconds.

Lets see how it synergizes with the passive

If active is activated. The passive will be activated too. Since the murloc is invisible the passive will trigger in 0.6 seconds. So health will regenerate and will gain movespeed, WHILE ATTACKING AND CASTING SPELLS



do you think this is imba ?

feel free to say your words

[googleson78]

The passive numbers need to be tweaked a little I agree, but the active is soo easy to counter, because of the fact that there's that obvious dust cloud above his head saying :
CAST DUST!

[Devius]

Murloc is one of the weakest heroes now. Not the worst for pubstomping, though.
Shadow Dance would be really cool on almost every hero except Murloc.

And one more note: it is contered completely by dust, gem, wards and track-like skills.

[clan_iraq]

Hes extremely weak as an overall hero. His skills are mostly balanced. Shadow Dance among them. 5.5 seconds of invisible attacking is nothing if you can't do diddly DPS. Sure, Shadow Dance would be broken on lets say Juggernaut with his high agility and +35% critical strike. However, Slark suffers because he has low natural stats and only mediocre burst damage- this is what prevents shadow dance from being "broken".

Take for instance Omnislash. At level 3 with agnahims, he gets 4 seconds of invincible attacks. Thats even better than invisible, which can be countered. And not only that- it adds in massive damage from blink strikes. Yet it is apples unto oranges; he must aim it away from creeps, it has a longer cooldown, and no control. Shadow Dance is balanced because its relatively minor effect has a shorter cooldown, a longer duration, more control, but remains counterable and packs much, much, much less damage.

Murloc is weak right now, mostly because of his low stats. But also remember- while Shadow Dance is strong compared to your "Average Skill", Dark Pact, Pounce, and Essence Shift are all subpar. Dark Pact is a 300 damage aoe nuke that deals half back to you- magnus gets this with a huuuge range and no damage to himself. Ensnare makes pounce look like bullocks- 3.5 seconds vs 5 seconds, requires aiming & melee range vs long castable? Hell, even the CD is shorter. Essence Shift is nice, but it is no fury swipes. He has a pathetic 4.6 stats / level. Sniper has 7.2 stats / level, same as treant. Only alchemist and meepo come close. Meepo is another good example of this kind of balancing. He has 3 relatively weak skills balanced by his very strong ultimate- Earthbind, Poof & Geostrike are all extremely subpar skills on their own, but when you get four of each of them, they are stronger than average. Murloc has 3 relatively weak skills balanced by his one strong ultimate, very much alike to Stealth Assassin in his roles and balancing.


The problem is more that at the moment, Murloc is hindered by artificially low stats. With only 4.6 stats/level, hes utterly pathetic. Essence Shift is no reason to have stats this low- centaur would blow chunks if he had 36 less strength from his levels. Murloc IS imbalanced- he is too weak. And hence he needs a stats buff.

[Bovver]

Originally Posted by clan_iraq

Hes extremely weak as an overall hero. His skills are mostly balanced. Shadow Dance among them. 5.5 seconds of invisible attacking is nothing if you can't do diddly DPS. Sure, Shadow Dance would be broken on lets say Juggernaut with his high agility and +35% critical strike. However, Slark suffers because he has low natural stats and only mediocre burst damage- this is what prevents shadow dance from being "broken".

Take for instance Omnislash. At level 3 with agnahims, he gets 4 seconds of invincible attacks. Thats even better than invisible, which can be countered. And not only that- it adds in massive damage from blink strikes. Yet it is apples unto oranges; he must aim it away from creeps, it has a longer cooldown, and no control. Shadow Dance is balanced because its relatively minor effect has a shorter cooldown, a longer duration, more control, but remains counterable and packs much, much, much less damage.

Murloc is weak right now, mostly because of his low stats. But also remember- while Shadow Dance is strong compared to your "Average Skill", Dark Pact, Pounce, and Essence Shift are all subpar. Dark Pact is a 300 damage aoe nuke that deals half back to you- magnus gets this with a huuuge range and no damage to himself. Ensnare makes pounce look like bullocks- 3.5 seconds vs 5 seconds, requires aiming & melee range vs long castable? Hell, even the CD is shorter. Essence Shift is nice, but it is no fury swipes. He has a pathetic 4.6 stats / level. Sniper has 7.2 stats / level, same as treant. Only alchemist and meepo come close. Meepo is another good example of this kind of balancing. He has 3 relatively weak skills balanced by his very strong ultimate- Earthbind, Poof & Geostrike are all extremely subpar skills on their own, but when you get four of each of them, they are stronger than average. Murloc has 3 relatively weak skills balanced by his one strong ultimate, very much alike to Stealth Assassin in his roles and balancing.


The problem is more that at the moment, Murloc is hindered by artificially low stats. With only 4.6 stats/level, hes utterly pathetic. Essence Shift is no reason to have stats this low- centaur would blow chunks if he had 36 less strength from his levels. Murloc IS imbalanced- he is too weak. And hence he needs a stats buff.

exactly
I think he will need a small buff or tweak in the future.

[4saken.Infinity]

Originally Posted by clan_iraq

OP should read it

As usual, I agree with him. Murloc is weak, not even close to imba. I get the rush to start one of the "x is imba" thread, to be recognized as a proper troll and shit but at least stay reasonably close to your claim -_-

[poor_newb]

the passive regen needs to go

[FruitLord]

The passive regen is the only thing that prevents him from fountain hugging the whole game. The poor little murloc needs a buff if anything. I would say a slight buff to his int so mana isn't as much of a problem early on for him.

[khojsiab]

Originally Posted by googleson78

The passive numbers need to be tweaked a little I agree, but the active is soo easy to counter, because of the fact that there's that obvious dust cloud above his head saying :
CAST DUST!

The thing is that Dark Pact will remove dust so dust is quite useless against Slark.

His ulti isn't what is..."imba" about him, it's the fact that dust won't work against him. And I think the only track-like skills that will work is Amplify Dmg by Slardar.

Slark could use some buffs but his Dark Pact shouln't take away Dust...It can still take away Track and stuff I don't care just not Dust plz.

And yea...His passive regen is y he isn't so underlvled since he is as frail as Pugna...Which is y Pugna has a Drain.

[clan_iraq]

The passive regen was well thought out.
Without it, he would be (as said above) cycling to the fountain and back every 30 seconds, with his paper thin HP, sacrificial nuke and melee range. Yet his paper thin HP and the fact that the regeneration is disabled in the open also serve to prevent him from becoming an effective tank, where the regeneration would have been broken (old heart).

The thing is that Dark Pact will remove dust so dust is quite useless against Slark.

It is extremely intentional that dark pact can remove revealing debuffs (amp not being removed atm is a bug). The reason behind this is that it makes him into a credible threat- without this, he is a 1000 hp melee agility hero that is completely utterly countered by a 90 gold item. He would have no means of approaching anyone without the debuff removal.

Look at SA for example. He is an invisible hero, sure, but his smoke cloud is absolutely crux to the hero- even though he can pop out of the shadows and stab people in the shins, he would be way too easy to counter if you could just throw a stun in his face, cast dust, and beat him down. Due to smoke screen, you might be able to dust him but he'll be able to run away.

Murloc fits a very close niche. If he was easy to track or amp or dust, you would completely shut him down for 90 gold a pop, or 25 mana. It nullifies his regeneration and ultimate and makes him utterly useless for the duration- that is why dark pact can remove it, to give him a chance.

Hes already a weak hero with a weak niche in the metagame; Dark Pact's debuff removal is one of his few saving graces to make him playable.

[teStud0]

Some of his problems IMO:

--For a "gank" hero, his skills have pretty long cooldowns (10 sec Pact, 15 sec Pounce and 14.5 sec on Shadow Dance). And with his mana pool it's really a pain to effectively use all his skills.

--Low STR gain <-> Uber hp regen = bad balancing IMO. More STR and less regen would be better

--Pounce range is badly scaled (400/500/600/700), and latch range is practically melee (110 AoE)

--Essence shift is also badly scaled. A 60 second duration with an infinite stat stealing seems gay.

[khojsiab]

Originally Posted by clan_iraq

It is extremely intentional that dark pact can remove revealing debuffs (amp not being removed atm is a bug). The reason behind this is that it makes him into a credible threat- without this, he is a 1000 hp melee agility hero that is completely utterly countered by a 90 gold item. He would have no means of approaching anyone without the debuff removal.

Look at SA for example. He is an invisible hero, sure, but his smoke cloud is absolutely crux to the hero- even though he can pop out of the shadows and stab people in the shins, he would be way too easy to counter if you could just throw a stun in his face, cast dust, and beat him down. Due to smoke screen, you might be able to dust him but he'll be able to run away.

Murloc fits a very close niche. If he was easy to track or amp or dust, you would completely shut him down for 90 gold a pop, or 25 mana. It nullifies his regeneration and ultimate and makes him utterly useless for the duration- that is why dark pact can remove it, to give him a chance.

Hes already a weak hero with a weak niche in the metagame; Dark Pact's debuff removal is one of his few saving graces to make him playable.

It's very good that Dark Pact removes debuffs but imo it should NOT remove Dust. I think it should remove Amp Dmg and Track and stuff since they can be recasted but not Dust. Dust should still work on Murloc.

Originally Posted by teStud0

Some of his problems IMO:

--For a "gank" hero, his skills have pretty long cooldowns (10 sec Pact, 15 sec Pounce and 14.5 sec on Shadow Dance). And with his mana pool it's really a pain to effectively use all his skills.

Pact cd is good, 10 isn't bad and the same goes to Shadow Dance. However, I agree that the Pounce cd should improve.

--Low STR gain <-> Uber hp regen = bad balancing IMO. More STR and less regen would be better

I don't know about this one. The regen helps his early game a lot which he depends on like other carries/semi-carries. I know more Str will help him in ganking and stuff but I like the 2% regen on the first lvl.

Yea I know he's a ganker but still he can do the carry part.

--Pounce range is badly scaled (400/500/600/700), and latch range is practically melee (110 AoE)

Agreed.

--Essence shift is also badly scaled. A 60 second duration with an infinite stat stealing seems gay IMO.

Essence shift is fine to me.

[clan_iraq]

It's very good that Dark Pact removes debuffs but imo it should NOT remove Dust. I think it should remove Amp Dmg and Track and stuff since they can be recasted but not Dust. Dust should still work on Murloc.

No, it really shouldn't. Murloc is the only hero in dota who really *relies* upon his invisibility as a combat skill. SA uses it just to position himself and lay down smoke screens- he is never really meant to just attack people out of his invisibility, otherwise he gets blasted to smithereens by spells. Bounty Hunter is not meant to engage in straight combat at all, but rather to spy, recon and gank with allies. TA uses it merely to hide, as does roof who adds on top of it initiation, which mirana throws in too. Clinkz does not fight invisible, but counts upon it to position himself and to be used as an escape- likewise broodmother, and NA uses it just to position himself and again, sneak up on people.

The only hero close to murloc is really weaver. And weaver too retains a way to dispel dust from himself, so that hes not completely shut down by it. The issue is, even if you dust any of the other invisibility heroes, they are still fairly useful. Slark is not. Slark really *relies* upon invisibility, so countering him shouldn't be as easy as a 90 gold item. If you want to shell out for wards, they can be counter warded or gemmed or just evaded- gem can be ganked. But dust is fairly unstoppable, and that is why dark pact needs to be able to remove it

[teStud0]

Originally Posted by khojsiab

Pact cd is good, 10 isn't bad and the same goes to Shadow Dance. However, I agree that the Pounce cd should improve.

All good nukes have >10 sec in terms of cd (Lucent Beam, Void, Spirit Lance etc.)

Originally Posted by khojsiab

I don't know about this one. The regen helps his early game a lot which he depends on like other carries/semi-carries. I know more Str will help him in ganking and stuff but I like the 2% regen on the first lvl.

Then more STR gain to 2% regen on all levels. Seems fair to me.

I have an idea on Pounce. Rather than latching the nearest target within 110 AoE make it the first unit that he attacks within a second. Makes it not hitting creeps unintentionally and more newb friendly without OPing it.

[Bloodmage]

Not imba at all. I haven't seen him in pubs AT ALL since 6.65

Edit: I like ^this person's suggestion for pounce

[4saken.Infinity]

Or make it acquire heroes only, ignore creeps in the aoe o.0 The jump is also an escape mechanism and the idea of attaching to someone one hit after a jump is just \(=_=)/ and as for the buff, give him back the pounce that keeps blinkers in place and a bit more int.

[teStud0]

Originally Posted by 4saken.Infinity

Or make it acquire heroes only, ignore creeps in the aoe o.0

That's like saying Elune's Arrow shouldn't hit enemy creeps/neutrals

Originally Posted by 4saken.Infinity

The jump is also an escape mechanism and the idea of attaching to someone one hit after a jump is just \(=_=)/

Wut? You can still "pounce" (move forward) and not hit anyone so I really don't get your point.

[Robert K]

My thoughts.

Low int (Balanced imo):
Perfectly acceptable because he has low manacost skills, can be a problem against manaburners, but that just gives us counters for him, to keep his use in balance.

Low str (Balanced imo):
He is a roaming hero who can be used to set up ganks, hence he should be going to a fight either against few nukes/disables, or jumping into a fight with a teammate who can nuke/disable, so that he can take down an enemy hero, and get away if played properly, or else get nuked to hell if you don't think your actions through.

Low agi (Needs buff imo):
His agi needs a buff for reasons I will talk about alongside propsed changes to Essence Shift


Ulti passive (Balanced imo):
The movement speed and regen work great with his low strength, allowing him greater choice of targets (he can run to a different lane fast enough to gank, if a better target presents itself), and he can get most of his hp back in the meantime, as long as he doesn't slip up and get killed during a gank

Ulti active (Balanced imo):
5.5 seconds of freedom to attack without targeted spells or physical attacks being able to respond: I think this part is fine, if he gets enough dps this can be a real problem, at least to the extent that wards or a gem becomes part of a counter strategy (dark pact should be able to remove dust as well as track etc imo)

Dark Pact (Balanced imo):
Anyone saying dark pact is bad obviously isn't factoring in 2 things, 1 later on it's great to be able to just nuke a neutral camp while waiting for something to happen, considering how quick you get the hp back, and 2 - I'm going to make an assumption here, because I haven't been able to test this yet and my reading of Slarks moves has made me consider the following possibility: Someone sends a stun or disable towards you, you use dark pact, stun hits, dark pact pulses the stun away.
(This is assuming the debuff works on stuns etc)
This is an excellent move for dealing with the likes of SK or Sven, who could stun you and pound on you till you're close to dying (Then stun you again because of their relatively low stun cd's). And the obvious countering of BH's ulti, and others like it, amp damage etc.
One question I have is does it counter dooms ulti? (I don't have the means to play and test this out atm)
I think it shouldn't be able to, if it can.


Pounce (Needs change):
The duration is fine if you ask me, after all nagas net holds for 5 seconds, but doesn't move naga any closer, she either has to come in from behind, or else walk forward wasting a few seconds to attack, but slark gets jumped within attacking range.

Damage should be removed and a 0.01 sec ministun, as well as 1 damage, or whatever the minimum is so as to disable blink dagger (unless ministun does this already) should be added, because it's an aiming move that combines the speed of a hook with the character aiming that SF uses to aim shadowraze, and would give more meaning to it other then either a good way to jump a low hp hero into danger, or a slightly complicated way to stop a running enemy.

Leash needs a smaller range, and I believe this should be done in a scaled by level manner.
It's a great lvl 1 initiator in top lane as scourge, mid, or bot as sentinel because of the 3.5s lvl 1 area lock, which still leaves room for a hero to dodge attacks by running round creeps etc, and obviously it would be unbalanced at that point if it kept them right where you were, or even within about 150-200 range, in a early fight, however it's not strong enough later on, when it can really make a huge difference if they can outrun you for a second or two before they hit the limit, which stops essence shift from doing what I assume the synergy between the two skills is supposed to be:
Build up damage while they are unable to get away by taking their hp and boosting your attack damage, then pound them as they run with high damage to hp ratio hits.
It's a minor change which would definitely help the synergy, and obviously increase the value of choosing essence over pounce over stats/pact, instead of essence max, lvl 1 pounce for the trap, and lvl 1 pact for the debuff.



Essence shift (Needs change):
I have 3 possible changes:
Change one: Make it an orb, make it last less duration, and make it steal 5 out of their primary stat, and add 5 to agility, in which case buff his agility gain also, but only slightly.
Change two: Buff his starting agility, and his agility gain, make it give 1 to str, 2 to agi, and take 3 off their str.
Change three: Make pounce boost attack speed immensely for a set (very small 2-4 hits, or 2 or so seconds maybe) number of hits/duration, and make the gain 4, and the str stat lose 2, and the primary stat lose 1.

I personally would like to see change 3, just because of the synergy and power and damage/danger rating (i.e. from oh no it's slark to GET IT OFF ME GET IT OFF ME) it gives him to balance his low hp level and str gain.

Normally I would tidy this up/read it through for grammar, spelling, and overall flow, but I have been procrastinating for a few hours and I really need to drop something off, so I give my apologies for not doing so in place,

Robert K signing off.



Quick edit:
I highly disapprove of this idea, because this type of move would lose most of the fun of using it, if it were dumbed down to make it noob friendly.

Originally Posted by teStud0

I have an idea on Pounce. Rather than latching the nearest target within 110 AoE make it the first unit that he attacks within a second. Makes it not hitting creeps unintentionally and more newb friendly without OPing it.

[teStud0]

Originally Posted by Robert K

I highly disapprove of this idea, because this type of move would lose most of the fun of using it, if it were dumbed down to make it noob friendly.

GL using Pounce in ganking w/ nearby creeps then. Yea and fun < practical

[kleuhu]

I play a lot of Slark these days and my take on this:

- Dark Pact: is VERY powerful, especially since its stealth buff in 6.66 (now removes all stuns). I reported to Ice a couple of incoherencies (Amp Damage, Hex not dispelled) and will see if they eventually turn out to be counters to the skill.
Still, the stun removing ability is godly, and while all this is justified due to Slark frailness, for me DP should not be buffed anymore.

- Pounce: the skill is ok. I also don't like at all the change proposed by testud0 (sorry dude), simply because I want to keep the skill execution short (not requiring to land an attack - something maybe not even possible in a chase when you are barely in range).
Scaling of the skill is a bit iffy, but I understand that giving it more damage may make the Pounce DP combo a bit too powerful, and I rarely have had a range problem. Maybe a slight cd buff (16 -> 14) is in order.

One thing I'd like to see buffed though to make Pounce usage easier is the hero turning speed. It's just so frustrating when you right click to change the orientation of the hero, hit 'e' and end up Pouncing in a retarded direction because your hero hadn't completed its rotation.

- Essence Shift: a very hard to balance skill as it can very easily make Slark over the top. The long duration is quite essential to Slark's concept (gank, then benefit from stolen agi for some time), so I wouldn't change that.

Just fix the morphed heroes behavior

- Shadow Dance: nothing to say here. The skill seems a bit powerful, but Slark would feel quite useless without it. Maybe slightly tweak some numbers - lowering a bit the regen while keeping it quite high (1.5%/2.25%/3%?).
The high speed is quite vital to Slark's concept, so don't touch it (or if you do it can't happen without a decent Slark's stat buff). The high ms is the reason Slark's can't have an equivalent to other heroes stat gain, it makes him able to spend very little time in empty zones of the map, and thus to level quite fast. It's not rare to outlevel everyone without even being fed with Slark.

which brings us to

- general stats: I wouldn't refuse a slight buff to str, of course, on another hand he doesn't really have any mana problem so int is ok, np with agi either. Keep in mind that once again he will usually outlevel other heroes, so you can't really give him a 6.4 total stat gain, now 4.6 is weak, maybe find a middle ground....

Something I'd really really want to see buffed though is his base armor. His base armor is strangely low for such a frail hero, and makes laning a choir vs agressive ranged heroes.


-------------------


tl, dr:
* Buffs: turning speed for easier Pounce, lower cd Pounce, improved str stat, improve base armor.
* Nerfs: slightly tone down Shadow Dance's regen rate
* bugfixes: ES vs morphed heroes. Check DP coherency (doesn't dispell Amp Damage while it does dispell Track & Dust etc etc).