[STR-Neutral] Goliath the Guardian Golem

[Anti-Xenophobe]

Stats are way too strange: 33 strength but 10 intelligence? He doesn't even have enough max mana for a rampart rush, and the only thing you can do is auto-attack and last-hit.

[NHP54]

Originally Posted by Anti-Xenophobe

Stats are way too strange: 33 strength but 10 intelligence? He doesn't even have enough max mana for a rampart rush, and the only thing you can do is auto-attack and last-hit.

The numbers are in the process of being modified.

[Mystique-]

It may help if you put all the information under the Notes in spoilers - its really an immense amount of detailed information to peruse through; by temporarily hiding it may be beneficial to most people reading it who just want to get a basic understanding of the hero. To people who want to fully understand the inner mechanics of this hero, the information will still be available.

Anyways, random questions/suggestions again:

Are Defender/Avenger buffs purgable?[I think they should be, just so this hero still has counters for balance purposes.]

For the Sanctuary stone story: You may want to clarify that the stone divides physical damage source towards allied heroes.

I also think you should specifically mention some ideal items, instead of just hinting at them - essentially: mana items and tanking items. [items that come to my mind are: bottle, bloodstone, shivas, a/c, scepter[if applicable] , blademail etc. What do you think?

[Ali Radicali]

This is just a small comment:

Why can't Goliath put a lifeline buff on himself? Just like abaddon, Omniknight and Shadow Priest can respectively Shield, Repel and Grave themselves, Goliath should be able to cast this buff on himself. And if you truly want him to be a support hero, then you'd design him in such a way that although he can buff himself, it's not worth it compared to buffing his allies.

Currently, the hero is far too much like Roofie in that he's a hard carry pretending to be a support hero. The Defender/Avenger buffs and his naturally high stats make him much scarier as a carry than as a true support hero.

[Rathman55]

Glad to see someone agrees with me. I really want to T-up this idea. But it still needs some tweaking.

[Captain Planet]

After two pages of reviews and no one has picked this out?

Starting HP currently is 560, should by 758
Starting MP currently is 225, should be 156

Starting health = (Strength*19) + 150
Starting mana = (Int*13)

[NHP54]

Originally Posted by Leak-

It may help if you put all the information under the Notes in spoilers - its really an immense amount of detailed information to peruse through; by temporarily hiding it may be beneficial to most people reading it who just want to get a basic understanding of the hero. To people who want to fully understand the inner mechanics of this hero, the information will still be available.

Anyways, random questions/suggestions again:

Are Defender/Avenger buffs purgable?[I think they should be, just so this hero still has counters for balance purposes.]

For the Sanctuary stone story: You may want to clarify that the stone divides physical damage source towards allied heroes.

I also think you should specifically mention some ideal items, instead of just hinting at them - essentially: mana items and tanking items. [items that come to my mind are: bottle, bloodstone, shivas, a/c, scepter[if applicable] , blademail etc. What do you think?

- The spoiler notes have been added to clean up space.

- I will make it so you can Avenger buffs off.

- Fixed.

- I will get around to that stuff eventually. I just wanted to post this sooner rather than later.

Originally Posted by Ali Radicali

This is just a small comment:

Why can't Goliath put a lifeline buff on himself? Just like abaddon, Omniknight and Shadow Priest can respectively Shield, Repel and Grave themselves, Goliath should be able to cast this buff on himself. And if you truly want him to be a support hero, then you'd design him in such a way that although he can buff himself, it's not worth it compared to buffing his allies.

Currently, the hero is far too much like Roofie in that he's a hard carry pretending to be a support hero. The Defender/Avenger buffs and his naturally high stats make him much scarier as a carry than as a true support hero.

I have explained already that, though it may be handcuffing options away from people, I think forcing people to be supportive with these moves would then force players to concentrate on Goliath's other aspects as well. The point is that I have played with very selfish players who are naturally reluctant to help others, even during the course of a DotA game. An LoA can just use the shield on themselves and whatnot.

My reasoning is that if Goliath has this aspect that eliminates the possibility of being selfish with the supportive spells, then it will allow people to learn the unappreciated support role. I am, of course, referring to ground zero in this case. Better players will naturally use the spells properly, but I believe a majority of the heroes in DotA should first be accessible at the lowest level first.

As for the hero's identity, I am trying to make Goliath more of a hybrid hero.

Originally Posted by The_Juggernaut

After two pages of reviews and no one has picked this out?

Starting HP currently is 560, should by 758
Starting MP currently is 225, should be 156

Starting health = (Strength*19) + 150
Starting mana = (Int*13)

I am still playing around with the numbers, so I didn't bother to calculate the numbers out exactly yet. I am still contemplating how to distribute the stats.

[flint_marqus07]

hello!this is probably my first comment on suggestions area.i apologize if theirs some details i miss.so here's my opinion.^_^

lol we have almost the same post layout dude! ^_^

wow i like how the 1st and second skill synergizes together..

and hmmm id say that ULTI stone is pretty imba protection but anyways it has that HP to balance it with.

Body guard, amazing passive one..^_^

btw im a bit of a newbie in making hero suggestions,oh one more thing, is he a bit of a mana dependent for an STR hero?? hmm...maybe i overlooked something but i think with STR mana users he's in-line with raigor or omniknight...

[Xishko]

Rush:Give yourself some magic resistance once you enter the charge that will last for 30 sec or so.

Passive:Switch attack speed and armour bonus between def and avenge bufs.
Also make that armour aura and not just bonus armor for yourself.

Ult:I think it would be better if the stones just stand where you place them.
If they get depleted they could recharge at rate of 0.5 per sec or so.
Massive aoe purge should be cast upon placing of the stone and it's destruction.
You should be able to place 1 stone at lvl 1,2 at lvl 2 and 3 at lvl 3.

Forgot Hp scale:lvl 1 200, lvl 2 350,lvl 3 500.
With no armor it is just a stone

[Ali Radicali]

Originally Posted by NHP54

I have explained already that, though it may be handcuffing options away from people, I think forcing people to be supportive with these moves would then force players to concentrate on Goliath's other aspects as well. The point is that I have played with very selfish players who are naturally reluctant to help others, even during the course of a DotA game. An LoA can just use the shield on themselves and whatnot.

My reasoning is that if Goliath has this aspect that eliminates the possibility of being selfish with the supportive spells, then it will allow people to learn the unappreciated support role. I am, of course, referring to ground zero in this case. Better players will naturally use the spells properly, but I believe a majority of the heroes in DotA should first be accessible at the lowest level first.

If you make the hero naturally supportive, then any player with half a brain will simply use this skill on his allies. If you make the skill not work on this hero, then all the retards who don't understand how to support simply won't bother learning the skill, since it's "OMG useless skill". Since he's a carry with these stats and Avenger/Defender buffs, you can't even blame them for it.

Originally Posted by NHP54

As for the hero's identity, I am trying to make Goliath more of a hybrid hero.

If you want Goliath to be a tank/support hybrid, I most strongly suggest you change his stats and the defender/avenger buffs, since these make him into a hard carry.

What I'd recommend is the following:

Stats:
Strength - 25 + 2.5
Agility - 14 +1.5
Intelligence - 18 + 2
Starting HP/MP: 625/234
Armor: 5 (3 base)


Lifeline:
Remove the shallow Grave mini-effect IMO, and allow Goliath as a target.


Bodyguard:

Instead of giving just Goliath the bonuses, have Goliath provide his team with auras. You could keep the condition the same but I'd like the aura effects to be a bit different. For example, you could have Defender give +1 armor and +3 hp/sec regen auras (per instance of <40% hero, Goliath included) and avenger give +10% AS and +10% damage auras per instance of an allied death.

This would force the enemy to focus Goliath, since he's buffing his team massively just by being present. Since drawing focus-fire is what a tank is meant to do, this suits Goliath just fine.


Sanctuary Stone:
The duration is unnecessarily long. IMO a shorter duration and cooldown would be much better. Since the spell only stops physical damage, the chance of the stone "going off" is not that high anyway, so you'd often miss out on the cleansing blast. By the way, 1200 AoE is insanely huge.

[teStud0]

The overall theme and skillset is nice (although it seems that some of the buffs/debuffs are uncodable.. I'm no mech dude though. )

I generally agree with Ali's "tweaks". His changes improves the hybrid role which you are going with.

[GoreToffel]

Looking forward to play him...

Like the point about Bodyguard that in a teambattle enemies will have to decide whether to focus you, although you won't be doing much, when you stormed in, and placed your two ther spells, or to take down others first and therefore have to deal with you dishing out more and more damage.

But he will probably have a hard time laning and remain situational, just like ogre magi, or something.

[Mystique-]

Originally Posted by Ali Radicali

Bodyguard:

Instead of giving just Goliath the bonuses, have Goliath provide his team with auras. You could keep the condition the same but I'd like the aura effects to be a bit different. For example, you could have Defender give +1 armor and +3 hp/sec regen auras (per instance of <40% hero, Goliath included) and avenger give +10% AS and +10% damage auras per instance of an allied death.

This would force the enemy to focus Goliath, since he's buffing his team massively just by being present. Since drawing focus-fire is what a tank is meant to do, this suits Goliath just fine.


Sanctuary Stone:
The duration is unnecessarily long. IMO a shorter duration and cooldown would be much better. Since the spell only stops physical damage, the chance of the stone "going off" is not that high anyway, so you'd often miss out on the cleansing blast. By the way, 1200 AoE is insanely huge.

With regards to the 2 skill changes you mentioned:

• Bodyguard: Yeah, I agree with Ali on this one. The bonus armor and regen seem like perfect bonuses for a Defense aura. How would it scale though, without providing too many "defender" benefits? This may bring complications with aura stacking with other heroes' auras etc
  • Yeah, I suggested something similar to this for Avenger buff: attack speed and attack damage. Since this is an aura now, I guess its less similar to huskar's berserker's blood.
• Sanctuary Stone: Yeah, maybe shortening the duration to increase the chances of the cleansing blast going off will help. Also, the 1200 AOE does seem large . Why not make cleansing burst AOE consistent with the protection AOE:? Specifically, 800 AOE.

[NHP54]

Originally Posted by flint_marqus07

hello!this is probably my first comment on suggestions area.i apologize if theirs some details i miss.so here's my opinion.^_^

lol we have almost the same post layout dude! ^_^

wow i like how the 1st and second skill synergizes together..

and hmmm id say that ULTI stone is pretty imba protection but anyways it has that HP to balance it with.

Body guard, amazing passive one..^_^

btw im a bit of a newbie in making hero suggestions,oh one more thing, is he a bit of a mana dependent for an STR hero?? hmm...maybe i overlooked something but i think with STR mana users he's in-line with raigor or omniknight...

My intention was to make Goliath beefy with a low mana pool on purpose.

Originally Posted by Xishko

Rush:Give yourself some magic resistance once you enter the charge that will last for 30 sec or so.

Passive:Switch attack speed and armour bonus between def and avenge bufs.
Also make that armour aura and not just bonus armor for yourself.

Ult:I think it would be better if the stones just stand where you place them.
If they get depleted they could recharge at rate of 0.5 per sec or so.
Massive aoe purge should be cast upon placing of the stone and it's destruction.
You should be able to place 1 stone at lvl 1,2 at lvl 2 and 3 at lvl 3.

Forgot Hp scale:lvl 1 200, lvl 2 350,lvl 3 500.
With no armor it is just a stone

- Why would Goliath gain magic resistance in rush? If it wasn't clear already, the move has a weakness in the sense that the charge is only as fast as Goliath + 100, which means the rush could be slower or faster depending on the circumstance.
- I am confused at your stone idea.

Originally Posted by Ali Radicali

If you make the hero naturally supportive, then any player with half a brain will simply use this skill on his allies. If you make the skill not work on this hero, then all the retards who don't understand how to support simply won't bother learning the skill, since it's "OMG useless skill". Since he's a carry with these stats and Avenger/Defender buffs, you can't even blame them for it.


If you want Goliath to be a tank/support hybrid, I most strongly suggest you change his stats and the defender/avenger buffs, since these make him into a hard carry.

What I'd recommend is the following:

Stats:
Strength - 25 + 2.5
Agility - 14 +1.5
Intelligence - 18 + 2
Starting HP/MP: 625/234
Armor: 5 (3 base)


Lifeline:
Remove the shallow Grave mini-effect IMO, and allow Goliath as a target.


Bodyguard:

Instead of giving just Goliath the bonuses, have Goliath provide his team with auras. You could keep the condition the same but I'd like the aura effects to be a bit different. For example, you could have Defender give +1 armor and +3 hp/sec regen auras (per instance of <40% hero, Goliath included) and avenger give +10% AS and +10% damage auras per instance of an allied death.

This would force the enemy to focus Goliath, since he's buffing his team massively just by being present. Since drawing focus-fire is what a tank is meant to do, this suits Goliath just fine.


Sanctuary Stone:
The duration is unnecessarily long. IMO a shorter duration and cooldown would be much better. Since the spell only stops physical damage, the chance of the stone "going off" is not that high anyway, so you'd often miss out on the cleansing blast. By the way, 1200 AoE is insanely huge.

I agree with a majority of your ideas, though I will meet you just halfway at the Lifeline thing.

Originally Posted by GoreToffel

Looking forward to play him...

Like the point about Bodyguard that in a teambattle enemies will have to decide whether to focus you, although you won't be doing much, when you stormed in, and placed your two ther spells, or to take down others first and therefore have to deal with you dishing out more and more damage.

But he will probably have a hard time laning and remain situational, just like ogre magi, or something.

Any hero with a disable move usually does at least above average in the laning phase.

Originally Posted by Leak-

With regards to the 2 skill changes you mentioned:

• Bodyguard: Yeah, I agree with Ali on this one. The bonus armor and regen seem like perfect bonuses for a Defense aura. How would it scale though, without providing too many "defender" benefits? This may bring complications with aura stacking with other heroes' auras etc
  • Yeah, I suggested something similar to this for Avenger buff: attack speed and attack damage. Since this is an aura now, I guess its less similar to huskar's berserker's blood.
• Sanctuary Stone: Yeah, maybe shortening the duration to increase the chances of the cleansing blast going off will help. Also, the 1200 AOE does seem large . Why not make cleansing burst AOE consistent with the protection AOE:? Specifically, 800 AOE.

Good suggestions, like always. I will try to find a good balance for all of the ideas. Please let me know about the numbers.

[Mystique-]

About the Lifeline blocking the fatal physical damage: I don't think its possible

http://www.playdota.com/forums/17118...shallow-grave/

Sorry for the confusion!

[NHP54]

Originally Posted by Leak-

About the Lifeline blocking the fatal physical damage: I don't think its possible

http://www.playdota.com/forums/17118...shallow-grave/

Sorry for the confusion!

No problem. Simple fix.

Anyway, here is a sample Bodyguard aura idea:

Bodyguard
Whenever an ally hero within 1,200 AoE falls to or below 40% HP, Goliath gains a Defender buff. Each Defender buff emits a 600 AoE hero aura that grants bonus armor and extra HP regeneration per second. In addition, if an ally hero dies within 1,200 AoE of Goliath, then an Avenger buff is received. Each Avenger buff provides a 600 AoE hero aura that provides movement speed and damage for 30 seconds. Goliath may have up to 4 of each buff type.

Level 1 - +2 Armor and +2 HP Regen per Defender buff /// +5 Movement Speed and +10 Damage per Avenger buff.
Level 2 - +3 Armor and +3 HP Regen per Defender buff /// +10 Movement Speed and +15 Damage per Avenger buff.
Level 3 - +4 Armor and +3 HP Regen per Defender buff /// +15 Movement Speed and +20 Damage per Avenger buff.
Level 4 - +5 Armor and +5 HP Regen per Defender buff /// +20 Movement Speed and +25 Damage per Avenger buff.

[Mystique-]

Hm, a conflicting thought just came up. I'll just speak my thoughts! Tell me what you think:

In most(and by most, i mean a LOT) battles, spells are the main source of damage. Do you think that spells being the primary damage source significantly cripples the defensive power of Sanctuary Stone? With all these spells flying around, and not much physical damage being dealt, will the stone just stand like a useless spire?

That being said, I still think that Stone is fine as it is. An ultimate should not provide universal benefits that have no weaknesses at all; all ultimates should only be effective in certain situations[ ex: ES's ult is only effective with lots of units around]. Stone is effective most when battles revolve around dishing out physical damage; it also has a really handy bonus that effectively purges all debuffs. However, it's weakness is that it can't block spell damage as well: and spell damage is, like I said before, the primary output of damage in team-mates. That way, its balanced. And we all know everybody likes balanced spells

So that's why I think Sanctuary Stone should stay as only blocking physical damage: it may not be effective in all teambattles this way, but its situational. In the situations that Stone is helpful - it is REALLY useful: lots of damage block followed by a wave that purges debuffs.

What do you think?

[Mystique-]

Originally Posted by NHP54

Anyway, here is a sample Bodyguard aura idea:

Bodyguard
Whenever an ally hero within 1,200 AoE falls to or below 40% HP, Goliath gains a Defender buff. Each Defender buff emits a 600 AoE hero aura that grants bonus armor and extra HP regeneration per second. In addition, if an ally hero dies within 1,200 AoE of Goliath, then an Avenger buff is received. Each Avenger buff provides a 600 AoE hero aura that provides movement speed and damage for 30 seconds. Goliath may have up to 4 of each buff type.

Level 1 - +2 Armor and +2 HP Regen per Defender buff /// +5 Movement Speed and +10 Damage per Avenger buff.
Level 2 - +3 Armor and +3 HP Regen per Defender buff /// +10 Movement Speed and +15 Damage per Avenger buff.
Level 3 - +4 Armor and +3 HP Regen per Defender buff /// +15 Movement Speed and +20 Damage per Avenger buff.
Level 4 - +5 Armor and +5 HP Regen per Defender buff /// +20 Movement Speed and +25 Damage per Avenger buff.

That is an ELEGANT spell. Matches with Goliath's theme better in my opinion; and is still unique .

So essentially:
Defender aura: provides bonus armor and regen [fits defense well]
Avenger aura: provides bonus movement speed and damage [fits vengeance well]
There should be no problem in Defender/Avenger aura stacking with other auras right? Like armor,damage auras etc

I think the health requirement for this to actviate defender's aura should be lowered though; maybe to 30% Even 20% maybe. It makes sense for such auras to only activate in dire situations - a lot heroes[low hp intel/agi heroes] don't have much health, and they easily go below 40% HP. Reckless granting so many bonuses[ that become exponentially more powerful when stacked] may generate many balance issues. But that's just what I think..

[Ali Radicali]

I think the armor on the new defender aura is too high. Remember, in any given battle you'll probably have multiple instances of the aura. IMO 0.5/1/1.5/2 armor per instance is sufficient. If your whole team is down to 40% that still translates to +10 armor to the team. That's twice as much as Assault o.O. By contrast, the avenger aura seems a bit too weak, considering it only activates on a hero's death. Lastly, it might be best if each allied death placed an avenger buff rather than an aura, since it would allow Guardian to die first and still grant his allies a benefit for it. If Avenger works with an Aura, killing Guardian first would mean Avenger would do nothing.

[1bAt0]

My only problem here is that this hero relies too much on team battles that it becomes more and more useless with less players involved. His skill set's usefulness is at optimal capacity when in a 5v5 team battle and relies too much on conditions (referring to Bodyguard) that makes (calculated) risks on your ally's part since it requires either <40% ally HP or they are dying near Goliath. But on the upside, Bodyguard favors finishing the enemy off when it can't be done by dead allies otherwise.

The ultimate is good but broken. Since it only works on allies, it's optimal capacity works only when 1 allied hero gets to benefit from it which is not good for Bodyguard (theoretically speaking of course). I would suggest though to shorten its duration time to maybe 5/7/9 seconds or less (since team clashes seldom ends for more than 10 seconds or so, let alone 20 seconds) while increasing the stone's HP and/or damage absorption aura.

Lastly, I wont gonna consider him as a tank because Bodyguard relies much on certain conditions and he probably not gonna last long anyway since 3 (1 being risky--Bodyguard) of his spells don't benefit much of his tanking capabilities. But he IS a good Initiator and a supporter at best.

My 2 cents.