Two simple and effective Mortred tweaks

[MR-President]

First suggestion: Blur

• Current Blur
• Suggested Blur

The Phantom Assassin becomes hard to see by blurring her body and disappearing from the minimap when near enemy heroes. Some enemy attacks miss.

Level 1 - 20% dodge.
Level 2 - 25% dodge.
Level 3 - 30% dodge.
Level 4 - 35% dodge.

Pros:
- Can dodge attacks that have buff placers (like Viper/Drow slows)
- Simple and straightforward ability

Cons:
- Doesn't stack with Butterfly and discourages Mortred from buying it.
- Gets hard countered by Monkey King Bar.

The Phantom Assassin becomes hard to see by blurring her body and disappearing from the minimap when near enemy heroes. Some enemy attacks will do no damage to Mortred.

Level 1 - 20% dodge.
Level 2 - 25% dodge.
Level 3 - 30% dodge.
Level 4 - 35% dodge.

Pros:
- The dodge mechanic is changed from hardcoded evasion to damage block (works like Vanguard or Poor Man's Shield, on proc it will block 9999999 damage).
- Stacks with the Butterfly and Mortred can finally use it to its full potential.
- Does not get countered by Monkey King Bar.

Cons:
- Cannot dodge attacks that have buff placers (like Viper/Drow slows, the damage will be blocked but the slow/debuff is still applied).
- In a similar fashion to Tidehunter's Kraken Shell, there will be some stacking issues with Vanguard or Poor Man's Shield, but it's not that much of a big deal.

Second suggestion: Coup de Grâce

• Current Coup de Grâce
• Suggested Coup de Grâce

Mortred has refined her hero-killing skills to a high degree.

Level 1 - 15% chance to 2.5x critical.
Level 2 - 15% chance to 3.25x critical.
Level 3 - 15% chance to 4x critical.

Pros:
- Directly benefits from raw damage items.
- Easy ability to understand.

Cons:
- Doesn't stack with Buriza.
- Boring and overused effect.

Mortred has refined her hero-killing skills to a high degree.

Level 1 - 15% chance to strike with 150% increased damage.
Level 2 - 15% chance to strike with 225% increased damage.
Level 3 - 15% chance to strike with 300% increased damage.

Pros:
- Synergizes with Buriza for a chance to deal insane criticals (the bonus damage gets amplified by crit).
- Easy ability to understand.
- Gets rid of the overused Critical Strike ability.

Cons:
- Does not directly benefit from raw damage items.

Comments:

The Blur suggestion allows Mortred to make full use of Butterfly. The damage and attack speed works really well on her, but the fact that she has to buy a Talisman of Evasion and get nothing from it basically forces her to not buy Butterfly.

The Coup de Grâce suggestion works like Viper's Nethertoxin. Has a 15% chance to increase her damage before she completes the attack. This allows her to buy and make use of Buriza, another redundant item on her. The synergy with the more reliable Buriza critical is obvious. Say Mort has 150 base damage. With the proc to deal 300% bonus damage, that damage becomes 150x4 = 600 damage + whatever bonus raw damage she has (let's say she only has 81 bonus raw damage from Buriza). If she has a Buriza and it procs on the same attack as Coup de Grâce, the damage becomes 600+81 x 2.5x = 1702 damage. Of course, the chance of both bonuses procing on the same attack is only about 5%, but hey, it's there !

Tl;dr

- no change in skill bonuses, only the mechanics.
- Blur suggestion allows her to use Butterfly to its full power.
- Coup de Grâce suggestion allows her to use Buriza to its full power.

[silly_me]

Blur suggested many times before, and I agree, this should be implemented.

As for the % bonus dmg, T-down. It would be such a small chance to get both crits, but when you do, the effect would be too devastating. In other words, the fights would become far to random. Also, would the PRD still be applied for the new ultimate, and would it actually stack correctly with other crits? Btw, the chance for both crits to proc in the same hit is only 3%, if not taking PRD into account.

[MR-President]

In my suggestion, Coup de Grâce still uses PRD. As for too imba ? We already have Kunkka that does pretty much the same thing in an AoE (Lothar's+crit+splash with a 25% chance to succeed), so why can't Mort have this effect which only works on one target and has a mere 3-5% chance ?

[silly_me]

First off, I calculated with wrong numbers (20% instead of 25%), correct value is 3.75%. I never said it was op. Just that it would be too unreliable. You would basically one shot people with a 3.75% chance. And why would you compare it to Kunkka? Kunkka just have a normal crit with Buriza, not a 300% increased one, rather compare it to Earthshaker.

As for Coup de Grâce still using PRD. Is this even possible, without major coding? Would the PRD be reset for both if one of the crits triggers as for all other crits?

All this doesn't matter anyway. Being able to double crit would never make it into the game. It is just too random. I am almost sure others will agree to this.

(Going to bed now, got a stupid 8 hours test in the morning)

[juleocesar]

T-Up on blur.....I agree that the fact of not acquiring Butterfly due to the incompatibiliy with it's evasion sucks a bit. I want that this should be implemented, specially as it doesn't blocks spells (like Void backtrack)

T-Down on Coup De Grace, is more like a nerf for me. IMO, it's really hard to get critical strike with buriza + bonus damage from this suggestion (and also, it only affects base damage, as you said that doesn't increases raw damage as critical does)

[Subotai]

T-null on blur... I can't decide which would be better, and for now I find it quite good.

T-Down on CdG, because now she would need agi, and the particularity of PA is to actually not need it, and go straight for damage, lifesteal and bkb, since she gets AS with phantom strike and raw damage is cheaper than agi.

Overall your suggestions is only about : allowing her to buy the typical carry items, butter and buriza.
I think mort is extremely fine as she is and the fact she needs different items than the other carries is cool.

different builds are possible on her, so no need for these changes

[Darkmeplez]

T-up on Blur.
T-down on Coup de Grâce.

[Fongus]

T-up on Blur, it has been suggested many times nad it's still a good idea.

For the ultimate, T-down on the current suggesiton. It's just a critical strike that stack with buriza...

Here is what i thought her ultimate should be :
15% to increase damage by 40/70/100% for 3 sec.
( numbers can be changed ).

[kittyjoker]

Your suggestion might as well be "make all Evasion stack, remove True Strike, make all criticals stack". Because all heroes with skills like these have these problems. I don't think this is the way to go about it, but I wouldn't mind if they stacked with diminishing returns on all heroes. With the DotA 2 engine this should be even easier.

[BorisPeace-]

Am I the only one who sees both as a nerf to Mortred which she doesn't need?

[N1ceB0at]

T-Down

New physical backtrack? I prefer a simple evasion counterd by MKB. If this skill stacks with BKB will be very strong

No for the second sugestion, reminds Sven's ultimate


The only reason PA is underpick is her horrible Lane Control and as Heavy Carrier is less effective than Void(Chronosphere) or Magina(Better Early/Mid Game) and also the current metagame.

[Lanther]

T-Down on new Coup de Grace.This new one also has problems by stacking with Buriza(you don't improve the raw damage of it) and,more importantly,in DotA 1 it will replenish Double Damage(or get ridden by it),so this would nerf her potential.

On DotA 2 with less limited engine I think it could be good.

[Shines]

T-UP for Blur
T-Down for CDG, it seen like a nerf for me, better make it an active skill.

[Sasho1233]

Pros:
- The dodge mechanic is changed from hardcoded evasion to triggered heal (works like Void's Backtrack, but only dodges physical attacks).

This part is uncodeable. Or at least it will not work properly, as we can't differentiate physical attacks from nukes. You'll end up with Backtrack, and we already have that skill.

[MR-President]

Originally Posted by Sasho1233

This part is uncodeable. Or at least it will not work properly, as we can't differentiate physical attacks from nukes. You'll end up with Backtrack, and we already have that skill.

I didn't know about this Warcraft III engine limitation.

BUT, it can be coded in a very easy way.

Make Blur an ability based on damage block.

Level 1 - 20% chance to block 99999999 damage.
Level 2 - 25% chance to block 99999999 damage.
Level 3 - 30% chance to block 99999999 damage.
Level 4 - 35% chance to block 99999999 damage.

She takes 1 damage when this triggers, but it's a negligible side effect. Works well with Vanguard or Poor Man's Shield if you skill Blur after you buy one of these items (source: http://www.playdota.com/mechanics/Item_Passive_Stacking).

Even if it would make Poor Man's Shield and Vanguard rather tabu items for Mortred, I think the advantage of having Butterfly greatly surpasses the benefit of an extra damage block.

[SuperCookie]

Allright, you should debaff her alittle, if her abillities will be stuckable with items>_>

[Sasho1233]

Originally Posted by MR-President

I didn't know about this Warcraft III engine limitation.

BUT, it can be coded in a very easy way.

Make Blur an ability based on damage block.

Level 1 - 20% chance to block 99999999 damage.
Level 2 - 25% chance to block 99999999 damage.
Level 3 - 30% chance to block 99999999 damage.
Level 4 - 35% chance to block 99999999 damage.

She takes 1 damage when this triggers, but it's a negligible side effect. Works well with Vanguard or Poor Man's Shield if you skill Blur after you buy one of these items (source: http://www.playdota.com/mechanics/Item_Passive_Stacking).

Even if it would make Poor Man's Shield and Vanguard rather tabu items for Mortred, I think the advantage of having Butterfly greatly surpasses the benefit of an extra damage block.

You're on to something here. This can actually work. It will not block buffs from attacks but being able to get Butterfly a good alternative.

To nitpick:
The maximum amounts of damage in the ladder skills are 99999, not 99999999

[juleocesar]

Originally Posted by MR-President

I didn't know about this Warcraft III engine limitation.

BUT, it can be coded in a very easy way.

Make Blur an ability based on damage block.

Level 1 - 20% chance to block 99999999 damage.
Level 2 - 25% chance to block 99999999 damage.
Level 3 - 30% chance to block 99999999 damage.
Level 4 - 35% chance to block 99999999 damage.

She takes 1 damage when this triggers, but it's a negligible side effect. Works well with Vanguard or Poor Man's Shield if you skill Blur after you buy one of these items (source: http://www.playdota.com/mechanics/Item_Passive_Stacking).

Even if it would make Poor Man's Shield and Vanguard rather tabu items for Mortred, I think the advantage of having Butterfly greatly surpasses the benefit of an extra damage block.

It's totally codeable. You can use the same mechanism of Stout Shield, Vanguard, or Poor Man shield, with a chance to block with 9999999 damage, but with this mechanism, it's better Mortred doesn't buy damage block itens. because they don't stack properly.

About damage block stacking, they work separately. But, Poor Man shield part will make mortred passive really useless, because the damage block from poor man shield is 100%, overriding in most part of other damage blocks... (because there isn't possible to get two damage blocks at time). But there are question about priority, too. If the priority of Mortred damage block is highier than the poor man shield, it will be checked first. But, if it doesn't procs, the poor man shield will block damage normally.