[REMAKE] Huskar, the Sacred Warrior

[MR-President]

Comments below the suggestion.

Huskar

Huskar is unique in being one of the few strength heroes with a regular ranged physical attack, giving him the advantages of a ranged hero and the survivability of a strength hero. Although he is a powerful force at all stages, Huskar is especially dangerous early in the game. His Burning Blood causes his attacks to burn enemies and he gets more attack speed and damage the more injured he is, and in this state he can quickly decimate any foe. Huskar can find his life quickly drained away by his enemies, and must be careful to balance harassment and defense. Due to his Burning Blood, Huskar is at his most deadly when he is injured, but even when he is about to die, Death's Rage kicks in and extends his life and provides him with enormous resistance to damage. Combined with his natural healing spell, Inner Vitality, he is a force to be reckoned with. His powerful Life Break ability emphasizes this suicidal fighting style, causing immense damage to both the target and Huskar himself. However, while Huskar increases in power the more damage he takes, it is unlikely that his unlucky target can say the same.


The Trolls of the Darkspear tribe, long since exiled from their ancestral lands in Stranglethorn Vale, are considered by many to be the most savage race of creatures to ever grace the battlefield. This reputation is well earned by their Sentinel representative Huskar, who's abilities revolve around shortening his own lifespan to spear his foes to burning pieces. Considered a blessed martyr by his people, the Sacred Warrior is not afraid of death, and will even run towards it willingly, sometimes desperately, in an ultimate act, in order to bring the Undead Scourge to an end.

INNER VITALITY

BURNING BLOOD

DEATH'S RAGE

LIFE BREAK

==========================================

March 19th:

- Increased Death's Rage cooldown from 60/45/30/15 seconds to 60/50/40/30 seconds, decreased damage reduction from 50% to 35% and rescaled the health restored from 20% to 10%/15%/20%/25%.

- Nerfed Inner Vitality's regen rate from (Percentage of lost health) divided by 2.5/2/1.5/1 to (Percentage of lost health) divided by 2.75/2.25/1.75/1.25.

- Reduced the attack speed gain from each stack of Burning blood from 3%/6%/9%/12% to 2%/4%/6%/8% and the duration of the damage over time from 4 seconds to 3.

Comments:

Huskar is a hero finding himself in a very particular situation. He is a 1v1 monster, which makes him very powerful in pubs lacking teamwork, but he is very weak in organized and competitive play because he needs to get to low HP to start dishing out real damage, but when he finally gets to low HP, disables/stuns will kill him before he has the chance to deal his damage.

Firsty I inverted Huskar's starting Strength and Agility. They both have the same growth per level, but he currently has 2 more Agility than Strength. By giving him 20 starting strength and 18 starting Agility instead of the other way around, Huskar gains +2 base damage and +38 additional HP, a minor buff to his early game.

Now, onward to his skills.

I find Inner Vitality's scaling to be lacking. Most of the time, Huskar will find himself with less than 40% HP, but Inner Vitality doesn't add anything below that. My suggestion is to rescale the attribute-based regeneration based on how much health he has lost. So the lower the HP, the higher the regeneration and viceversa.

I'll explain the formula.

Let's say Huskar is down to 20% HP. That means he is missing 80% of his health. Now, that means that with Level 1 Vitality he will regain 80/2.75 = 29% of his main attribute + 2 hp. With level 2 vitality this becomes 80/2.25 = 35% of his main attribute + 4 hp. With level 3 it becomes 80/1.75 = 46% of his main attribute + 6 hp, and finally at level 4 it becomes 80/1.25 = 64% of his main attribute + 8 HP.

This proposed system works better for Huskar on low HP and worse when he has high HP, which is how it's supposed to work.

Now, moving on to the second skill. As mentioned before, Huskar needs something to help him survive, but how do you do that when the rest of his abilities give damage ? I combined Burning Spears and Berserker's Blood (both the effects and the names) and came up with Burning Blood. The Burning Spear effect becomes passive, doesn't cost Huskar HP to use and is now a buff placer, not an orb effect anymore, so Huskar can use Helm of the Dominator without any restrictions. Now obviously combining 2 DPS increasing skills calls for nerfs on the effects, so I reduced the number of damage and AS increasing stacks from 14 to 10, increased the health loss requirement from 7% to 8%, reduced the attack speed bonus from 3%/6%/9%/12% per stack to 2%/4%/6%/8%, reduced the burning DPS to 3/6/9/12 and its duration from 6 seconds to 3.

With the merging of Burning Spears and Berserker's Blood, room has been made for the ability that would make him viable in competitive: Death's Rage.

This ability, combined with the improved regeneration from Inner Vitality, gives Huskar the survivability he needs to dish out his damage instead of getting nuked to death after he uses Life Break. You can think of Death's Rage as his own personal Shallow Grave, except it gives him 10%/15%/20%/25% health and 35% damage reduction to all instances of damage (NOTE: not to HP removal). It also removes whatever debuffs he was suffering from, the same debuffs removed by Tidehunter's Kraken Shell, so this does not include Doom or Rupture.

Life Break is left untouched, but it now synergizes better with his playstyle thanks to the tweaked abilites.

Basically, with this remake, Huskar does less damage, which makes him weaker in pubs, but gives him more survivability, thus making him more viable in organized games.

As always, remember that numbers can be changed. Focus on the concept.

Thanks for reading !

[MassBalance]

This seems kind of imba 6 secs of damage reduction is huge.
But i do like the combination of the burning spear and burnign blood spells. But that does take Leech Life off teh table for him, which would be a major nerf.

[MR-President]

Originally Posted by MassBalance

This seems kind of imba 6 secs of damage reduction is huge.
But i do like the combination of the burning spear and burnign blood spells. But that does take Leech Life off teh table for him, which would be a major nerf.

No, I already stated that the burning damage over time becomes only a buff placer, not an orb, and thus is stackable with the lifesteal orb, which is not a buff placer. And changed Death Rage's duration to 5 seconds.

[slence]

I am confuse with burning blood, is this passive?? Not orb walking anymore?

[silly_me]

This seems very overpowered.
So.. If he is missing 80% hp his spear (which is passive) would do 12x10=120 dps for 4 sec.

[bentinata]

the 3rd skill is so IMBA, HP back to 20% every 15s?
too much buff

[MR-President]

Originally Posted by slence

I am confuse with burning blood, is this passive?? Not orb walking anymore?

Yes, this is now a passive and the burning spear effect is no longer an orb, but a buff placer (think Venomancer's Poison Sting). You will still deal the DPS but can also use Helm of the Dominator, since Orb effects without buff placers stack with simple buff placers.
Unfortunately that means no orbwalk for Huskar, which is a nerf.

Originally Posted by silly_me

This seems very overpowered.
So.. If he is missing 80% hp his spear (which is passive) would do 12x10=120 dps for 4 sec.

That's not how it works. Obviously it would be too overpowered. The DPS dealt by the spear is passive and it isn't affected by the number of stacks. Even if he had 10 stacks, those spears will still deal only 12 DPS.

Originally Posted by bentinata

the 3rd skill is so IMBA, HP back to 20% every 15s?
too much buff

Increased Death's Rage cooldown from 60/45/30/15 seconds to 60/50/40/30 seconds. 15 seconds was indeed too low.

[CSDT]

IMBALANCED.
Huskar is a freaking pub stomper. In many games I played, Huskar would have gotten an ULTRAKILL if my Dragon Knight, Sven or Skeleton King did not show up to bolt it.

[Nanaya Shiki]

No orb-walking skill mean he would be very weak at laning phase, and even when chasing.
Honestly, I only pay attention to Death's Rage. Does he die after 5s duration?

[MR-President]

Originally Posted by Nanaya Shiki

No orb-walking skill mean he would be very weak at laning phase, and even when chasing.
Honestly, I only pay attention to Death's Rage. Does he die after 5s duration?

He doesn't die at the end of the duration. As for the lack of orb walking making him a weaker laner, think of it this way. He applies the DoT every single time he attacks and it doesn't require him to lose 15 HP for it. Think of Venomancer's Poison Sting. He's not orb walking, but is still one of the best harassers out there.

As a side note, I reduced the damage reduction given by Death's Rage from 50% to 35%.

[Senyu]

I like the fact your aware of huskar being a pub hero only and want to make him less pub stomp and more viable in competitive.

Inner Vitality: T-up on this, thought I recommended changing casting range to 550. That seems to be the only t-up I ever got on my huskar suggestions.

Burning Blood: Interesting how you combined the two, they always gave me trouble in figuring out how to keep them in some form. From what I got in comments the 12 dps doesnt stack right? If so seems little lackluster as its like veno's passive tossed into burning blood but I can give on it. Originally Burning Spears was my biggest issue with lifesteal because I don't think a natural orb effect should be replaced but since this isn't an orb effect anymore I guess I can't complain.

Death's Rage:The current numbers seem balanced and I loved the idea. Does really help Huskar survive his suicide playstyle and defines him more. My question does it immediately take effect or does it have a delay similar to Skeleton's Kings ult? And if it is immediate, then does the damage that would have killed him bleed into his new found life or does the rest of the would be taken damage disappear?


All in all I like it. Much better version than any of my huskar suggestions which exploded in fiery flame hate.

[silly_me]

Lets take a serious look at this compared to current Huskar.

I didn't read your wall of text but you pretty much have to read mine. Muhaha :P I will use colors to make you feel happy (+ I am bored).

Inner Vitality: Compared to current, this one is stronger when hp ranged from 0-80% while current is stronger at 80-100% (at exactly 40% both are the same). I like the concept of making it scale linearly but I would prefer the numbers slightly reduced.

Burning Spear and Berserker's Blood: Both merged into the same ability. Berserker's Blood was nerfed slightly. Burning Spear now does 12x4=48 at the cost of no life and is passive while the current does 16x6=96 at the cost 15 hp and is a orb effect. In my opinion the new passive Burning Spear (also merged with Berserker's Blood) is stronger then the old. Sure it doesn't give as much lane control as the orb, but then you have to remember that you also get the same amount of levels of Berserker's Blood.

Life Break: Only change I can see is "Upon recieving the fatal damage instance, Huskar's current health is set to 20% of his max health." Although I am almost certain this is a mistake, as it says the same on Death's Rage.

Death's Rage: Now to the interesting part. I will review this taking into account that so far you have buffed Inner Vitality (slightly) and Buffed Burning Spear as well as merging Burning Spear and Berserker's Blood making it even stronger in the early game (while slightly nerfing Berserker's Blood.
I actually really like the spell. I don't want this ability to be nerfed. Rather rescaled to not only decrease the cooldown as this encourages many to skill stats instead. The regained health should be something like 10/15/20/25%. Although if the current numbers are kept this is like a wtf imba 5'th ability, which makes the hero completely broken.

Conclusion: I really like the new spell. And I do not wish to see it nerfed (more then what I suggested). But if this was ever to be implemented his other skills must be seriously nerfed. I would like to see a nerf on Inner Vitality and Burning Blood. Ulti should be kept the same.

[MR-President]

Originally Posted by Senyu

I like the fact your aware of huskar being a pub hero only and want to make him less pub stomp and more viable in competitive.

Inner Vitality: T-up on this, thought I recommended changing casting range to 550. That seems to be the only t-up I ever got on my huskar suggestions.

Burning Blood: Interesting how you combined the two, they always gave me trouble in figuring out how to keep them in some form. From what I got in comments the 12 dps doesnt stack right? If so seems little lackluster as its like veno's passive tossed into burning blood but I can give on it. Originally Burning Spears was my biggest issue with lifesteal because I don't think a natural orb effect should be replaced but since this isn't an orb effect anymore I guess I can't complain.

Death's Rage:The current numbers seem balanced and I loved the idea. Does really help Huskar survive his suicide playstyle and defines him more. My question does it immediately take effect or does it have a delay similar to Skeleton's Kings ult? And if it is immediate, then does the damage that would have killed him bleed into his new found life or does the rest of the would be taken damage disappear?


All in all I like it. Much better version than any of my huskar suggestions which exploded in fiery flame hate.

Thanks for reviewing my suggestion. I also looked at your suggestions, they are not that bad actually, it's just that they mostly stray too far from the bonuses the existing Huskar gives and people have hard trouble accepting change. I tried to keep as much of the old Huskar as I could, while solving his major two problems: the need for lifesteal that means cancelling his orb effect and the double edge of having insane damage output only at low health, which is the cause of why he is stomping pubs and sucks balls in competitive.

To answer your questions:

@Inner Vitality: I don't think a minor casting range increase would provide any real benefits. Most of the time Huskar uses it on himself, or when he casts it on an ally, he does that before or after the battle. I could add the extra range, but it's not really needed. The regeneration rescale seems sufficient to me.

@Burning Blood: I stated in the notes below the skill description that the damage over time from each spear stacks indefinately just like the current Burning Spears. When I reffered to the Venomancer comparison, I was comparing the ability to harass without the need of orb walking. Though if needed, the stacking damage effect can be removed if it is too overpowered, which I don't think it is.

@Death's Rage: The skill triggers instantly. It's like a Void Backtrack dodging the instance of damage that would kill Huskar, then his health is immediately set to 20% and he gains the damage reduction buff. All the damage dealt by the killing blow is nullified. He doesn't die and reincarnate with 20% health.

Hope this clears things out.

Originally Posted by silly_me

Lets take a serious look at this compared to current Huskar.

I didn't read your wall of text but you pretty much have to read mine. Muhaha :P I will use colors to make you feel happy (+ I am bored).

All right, let's do this. Always enjoying a good read, thank you very much.

Originally Posted by silly_me

Inner Vitality: Compared to current, this one is stronger when hp ranged from 0-80% while current is stronger at 80-100% (at exactly 40% both are the same). I like the concept of making it scale linearly but I would prefer the numbers slightly reduced.

True, true, I buffed this skill, maybe you are right and it;s too much. Rescaled the numbers the health percentage lost is divided to from 2.5/2/1.5/1 to 2.75/2.25/1.75/1.25. It's still stronger than the current one overall, but by not as much.

Originally Posted by silly_me

Burning Spear and Berserker's Blood: Both merged into the same ability. Berserker's Blood was nerfed slightly. Burning Spear now does 12x4=48 at the cost of no life and is passive while the current does 16x6=96 at the cost 15 hp and is a orb effect. In my opinion the new passive Burning Spear (also merged with Berserker's Blood) is stronger then the old. Sure it doesn't give as much lane control as the orb, but then you have to remember that you also get the same amount of levels of Berserker's Blood.

Yes, I guess the numbers need some further tweaking. I realized that combining to mega DPS skills need big nerfs to both aspects. I reduced the attack speed bonus per stack from 3%/6%/9%/12% to 2%/4%/6%/8% and the duration of the burning effect from 4 seconds to 3.

Originally Posted by silly_me

Life Break: Only change I can see is "Upon recieving the fatal damage instance, Huskar's current health is set to 20% of his max health." Although I am almost certain this is a mistake, as it says the same on Death's Rage.

Well spotted ! It's indeed a failed copy/paste when I wrote the suggestion. Damn me !

Originally Posted by silly_me

Death's Rage: Now to the interesting part. I will review this taking into account that so far you have buffed Inner Vitality (slightly) and Buffed Burning Spear as well as merging Burning Spear and Berserker's Blood making it even stronger in the early game (while slightly nerfing Berserker's Blood.
I actually really like the spell. I don't want this ability to be nerfed. Rather rescaled to not only decrease the cooldown as this encourages many to skill stats instead. The regained health should be something like 10/15/20/25%. Although if the current numbers are kept this is like a wtf imba 5'th ability, which makes the hero completely broken.

Well, I'm glad you like the skill concept. And I will give it the scaling, it's a good suggestion to encourage people not getting stats over it.

Originally Posted by silly_me

Conclusion: I really like the new spell. And I do not wish to see it nerfed (more then what I suggested). But if this was ever to be implemented his other skills must be seriously nerfed. I would like to see a nerf on Inner Vitality and Burning Blood. Ulti should be kept the same.

Thanks for your constructive feedback. Your suggestions made sense and I made some nerfs. Hopefully this balances things out.

[FleshTRNDstone]

I'm not sure about the Burning Spear, Berserker's Blood combining.
Simply too many powerful effect crammed into a single skill, sam reason why Dwarven Sniper remakes who combine Headshot and Take Aim are generally frowned upon.
Also, there are so few Orb-walker heroes already...

The near death skill seem nice, but I'd much rather save it for a new different hero.

Your version of IV is very interesting, and would benefit Husk when low on HP obviously, but current is very useful at casting just before going into combat, even with FULL health..

[MR-President]

Originally Posted by FleshTRNDstone

I'm not sure about the Burning Spear, Berserker's Blood combining.
Simply too many powerful effect crammed into a single skill, sam reason why Dwarven Sniper remakes who combine Headshot and Take Aim are generally frowned upon.
Also, there are so few Orb-walker heroes already...

The near death skill seem nice, but I'd much rather save it for a new different hero.

Your version of IV is very interesting, and would benefit Husk when low on HP obviously, but current is very useful at casting just before going into combat, even with FULL health..

I am well aware that combining two damage increasing skills into one require large nerfs. I already reduced the burning spear effect's damage to less than half of how it is now (16 damage x 6 seconds = 96 damage versus 12 damage x 3 seconds = 36 damage). The number of stacks that give damage and attack speed are reduced from 14 to 10 and the attack speed bonus per stack are reduced from 3%/6%/9%/12% to 2%/4%/6%/8%. Currently he gets 164% attack speed and +112 damage at the full 14 stacks. With this suggestion he only gets 80% attack speed and +80 damage at the full 10 stacks.

Keep in mind that he still needs to be dangerous at low HP. I don't want to nerf this skill any further as it already reduces his damage output by half. The best I can do is make the burning spear effect not stack with itself anymore, but I really think it's uncalled for.

And why have an orb effect when it's commonly agreed that it's almost useless on him and they get lifesteal over it anyway ?

Think about it this way: his damage output is decreased by almost half. Will he still be an ultimate pubstomper ? No. Maybe he will still stomp pubs, but I can guarantee you that he won't do it so easily anymore.

And on the other hand, making him more survivable will make him viable in competitive gaming. Isn't is what we all want ? Instead of having a hero overpowered in pubs and trash in competitive, he is now decent in pubs and decent for organized games as a mid/late game carry/ganker/tank.

[Senyu]

^all i wanted. Heroes shouldn't only shine in pubs. That just bad design.

[MR-President]

Originally Posted by Senyu

^all i wanted. Heroes shouldn't only shine in pubs. That just bad design.

I agree man. I hate seeing Huskar having such a flawed concept.

[hujy12]

I always wanted Huskar to be something like this. I think you may want to change his 3rd skill a bit, like make it that if it failed to get a hero kill in 10 sec your hp will drop back to 0/1, so Huskar cannot simply get hit by creeps while low on health to get a huge portion of his health back.

[MR-President]

Originally Posted by hujy12

I always wanted Huskar to be something like this. I think you may want to change his 3rd skill a bit, like make it that if it failed to get a hero kill in 10 sec your hp will drop back to 0/1, so Huskar cannot simply get hit by creeps while low on health to get a huge portion of his health back.

That's unneeded IMO. If a Huskar lets himself get "killed" by creeps (with no enemies nearby) just to get to 25% HP, he's most likely a noob. And even if he does that, enemies have a full 25 second window to catch him with his pants down. A good Huskar will always use Inner Vitality when his health drops dangerously low (if he didn't skill it yet, he would just avoid getting hit). That's the point of Death's Rage, to help him survive. If he manages to stay alive, props to him. No need to punish him with by reducing his health to 1.

[JJE92]

I must say, I haven't thought much about the effect of the removal of his Burning Spears yet, but in general, I really love the idea of Death's Rage. It suits is suicidal playstyle so much, negates to some extent nuking counters and thus might make him more viable.
I'll think about the other skills, I'm not sure about some things, I'll be posting again as soon as I have more ideas