I'm not saying Mecha-Goblin is bad and Grav-O-Bomb is always better, I'm saying if you focus your build around it your team needs to play almost entirely around you, or at least the fact they are going to lose teamfights (until 20). Likewise, you could probably get a really solid mass-wave pusher build for Sylvanas with Possession, but your team would have to play around the fact you are now much worse at safely disrupting the enemy team's burst/channeled spells, and likely have built to be much worse at teamfighting in general.
EDIT: Also, I can't be the only person who thought that Sylvanas's "if you go over the Q charge cap, the arrows shoot instantly" looked really cool and then immediately realized it was completely useless because the spell has no cast time and no cooldown. It seems like a really bad talent unless you frequently get stunned in large minion waves or blow up 10 minions at once.
I'm not saying Mecha-Goblin is bad and Grav-O-Bomb is always better, I'm saying if you focus your build around it your team needs to play almost entirely around you, or at least the fact they are going to lose teamfights (until 20). Likewise, you could probably get a really solid mass-wave pusher build for Sylvanas with Possession, but your team would have to play around the fact you are now much worse at safely disrupting the enemy team's burst/channeled spells, and likely have built to be much worse at teamfighting in general.
EDIT: Also, I can't be the only person who thought that Sylvanas's "if you go over the Q charge cap, the arrows shoot instantly" looked really cool and then immediately realized it was completely useless because the spell has no cast time and no cooldown. It seems like a really bad talent unless you frequently get stunned in large minion waves or blow up 10 minions at once.
And if you're already blowing up ten minions at once(which you absolutely can build for), there won't be anything for it to fire at.
So Fury of the Storm is super good on Sylvanas. Like, suuuuuper good. Just one hit with it is as much damage as the bonus damage to Deafening Blast(or as damaging as the entire ult on a minion wave). It doesn't have the potential increased silence, but it's up faaaar more frequently and you don't need pinpoint fucking aim to land it.
This is the type of shit that made them want to phase out generic talents to begin with. In sure Blizzard logic however, they just couldn't help themselves.
So Fury of the Storm is super good on Sylvanas. Like, suuuuuper good. Just one hit with it is as much damage as the bonus damage to Deafening Blast(or as damaging as the entire ult on a minion wave). It doesn't have the potential increased silence, but it's up faaaar more frequently and you don't need pinpoint fucking aim to land it.
This is the type of shit that made them want to phase out generic talents to begin with. In sure Blizzard logic however, they just couldn't help themselves.
yea, but the center of wailing arrow is basically an autokill on most ability heroes with a crazy 5 second silence along with that damage. land that on a healer and stuff goes bad for the other team.
I wish that damn ult arrow was more visually distinct; I don't know if I've ever consciously perceived it during a fight, just saw the (also pretty small) silence icon. The only ult I've had more trouble seeing is noticing Malfurion's healing ult if he's sitting in the bushes healing his team fully.
So Fury of the Storm is super good on Sylvanas. Like, suuuuuper good. Just one hit with it is as much damage as the bonus damage to Deafening Blast(or as damaging as the entire ult on a minion wave). It doesn't have the potential increased silence, but it's up faaaar more frequently and you don't need pinpoint fucking aim to land it.
This is the type of shit that made them want to phase out generic talents to begin with. In sure Blizzard logic however, they just couldn't help themselves.
yea, but the center of wailing arrow is basically an autokill on most ability heroes with a crazy 5 second silence along with that damage. land that on a healer and stuff goes bad for the other team.
That's a lot of ifs, though. I don't really like "If you can do it, then it's really good! Honest!" traits very much.
Sometimes I don't under why they even bother making two ultimates.
Wailing Arrow is so much better than Possession that the only reason to take the latter is if you feel bad for the other team.
The only time I see possession being good is if you can get the lvl 24 (right?) talent that lets her possess mercs. Then you could possess a boss or something and it's be crazy useful. But otherwise, yeah, it's complete crap before then. And I mean, how many games do you actually get that high where you are not either about to win or lose anyways?
Edit: And yeah, wailing arrow is kind of crazy nice. Even if you completely suck with it, it's not hard to do some decent damage with the explosion bit alone.
It's a level 20 talent, and it can't possess bosses. However, that upgrade is still pretty significant given how a slightly beefier siege giant can easily AFK push a keep if the enemy isn't on top of things.
I don't think possession is crap at the moment, I just think it really needs you to play her differently; it's by far the more specialist-y ult, and I think you could build a team around it. I don't see it being terribly useful in pub games, but I can certainly see why picking it up in a coordinated game.
If only she could clear mercs quickly; every Sylvanas I see clearing them does so extremely safely but extremely slowly.
So Fury of the Storm is super good on Sylvanas. Like, suuuuuper good. Just one hit with it is as much damage as the bonus damage to Deafening Blast(or as damaging as the entire ult on a minion wave). It doesn't have the potential increased silence, but it's up faaaar more frequently and you don't need pinpoint fucking aim to land it.
This is the type of shit that made them want to phase out generic talents to begin with. In sure Blizzard logic however, they just couldn't help themselves.
yea, but the center of wailing arrow is basically an autokill on most ability heroes with a crazy 5 second silence along with that damage. land that on a healer and stuff goes bad for the other team.
That's a lot of ifs, though. I don't really like "If you can do it, then it's really good! Honest!" traits very much.
The wording on the ult morph is not super clear: do they need to be dead center for the bonus damage AND increased silence duration?
Yes, they have to be dead center of the detonate. It's probably about as wide as Zeratul's melee range, if I were to make a comparison.
true, it's certainly not easy to land, but every time i've landed it on 1 or 2 people the fight basically ends. fury seems decent on her though especially if you don't go for a anti-creep build.
just had this game
barbed shot + unstable poison + splinter shot is hilarious. throw your dagger, mash q and once you kill the first thing everything explodes at once. very satisfying.
also if you happen to catch an enemy hero in their own wave late game you can nearly kill them, i did about 8-900 damage to an arthas from killing a creep wave under his feet.
sylvanus is pretty fun, gonna wear the q button off my kb playing her though.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited March 2015
Yeah, she is a slow merc killer but she's one of the few heroes that can do it without taking any damage. And honestly she's not *that* slow. Esp if you spec into the talent that lets her dagger ability drop armor (a creeping armor debuff? yes please!).
Either way, Black Arrow is just completely insane.
Illidan is pretty rigid as well, except that you've got dealers pick of ults, level 20 talents, and you can make an argument for Stoneskin if their highest HP hero is Malfurion.
Nah, Illidan is more fluid comparatively. Sure, there are a bunch of crap talents but IMO, there's definitely a choice depending on the enemy team comp: Lvl 1(shadow shield vs seasoned marksman), Lvl 13(Giant Killer vs Sixth Sense), Lvl 16(BfB or Stone Shield), Lvl 20. Both his ults are viable too.
Its hard to even make that kind of choice for the majority of the other heroes. I've only really strayed from one build on a small number of heroes and most of them are support
I don't think there's ever a situation I'd ever take marksman or giant killer. Marksman is theoretically good on Illidan, especially with Metamorphisis, but you have to give up shield to do it, and shield is a free 10% HP block every time it pops up, and in long fights it can pop up more than five times. Especially lategame, Illidan's limiting factor is how long he can safely hit the enemy, not how fast he can kill them, so Marksman would rarely offer any benefit. Giant Killer is interesting if you absolutely need to kill high HP heroes, but Illidan rarely needs to focus his fire on the most durable hero first, and those heroes can take imposing presence, which makes hitting them pretty suicidal.
Like, I've played with both of those talents, but there's just no situation I really find them that worth it; Illidan needs durability, and making evasion block 10% of your max HP and halve the enemies initial burst when you enter a fight are both huge compared to a decent DPS increase.
I disagree. In my experience with just defensive talents alone, Illidan's damage is lackluster. You need to be some sort of threat or you can be safely ignored, especially when teams these days often run double support. Also, taking Giant killer doesn't automatically mean that you have to focus the tank. It is still a considerable dps upgrade. Then again, YMMV
It's basically just Mecha-Goblin 2.0. You can do a lot of work with it, but you have to know your gameplan if you're going to do that; your team is just going to be straight up weaker in teamfights, but if you can play a coordinated game and delay, you'll get the equivalent of two or three regular heroes pushing lanes. The problem is that there aren't any maps built for Possession like Cursed Hollow is for Mecha Goblin, and while Gazlowe only needs to be unsafe in the brief period it takes to grab merc camps, Sylvanas probably wants to stay with the wave as long as possible to keep the death-wave growing.
Like, it's probably workable if you take what tower and minion destruction talents you can scrounge and if you let your team know your gameplan and to not expect to win fights, but that's a big if with pubs, who never seem to avoid fights.
Eh. I find Grav-O-Bomb to be not that great and the lvl 20 upgrade to Mecha-Goblin can wreck some face in late game team-fights and the initial skill makes you a goddamn machine at killing everything else. Gazlowe can practically solo your core if you aren't careful.
Grav-O-Bomb not that great? It can stunlock an entire enemy team if you place it right. It's incredible, it can turn teamfights around in an instant.
Ya while getting Gazlow to level 5 on free week, I often felt like a reliability in team fights. But as long as my ult was up, I knew I could bring some of the best aoe cc to turn that one.
It's basically just Mecha-Goblin 2.0. You can do a lot of work with it, but you have to know your gameplan if you're going to do that; your team is just going to be straight up weaker in teamfights, but if you can play a coordinated game and delay, you'll get the equivalent of two or three regular heroes pushing lanes. The problem is that there aren't any maps built for Possession like Cursed Hollow is for Mecha Goblin, and while Gazlowe only needs to be unsafe in the brief period it takes to grab merc camps, Sylvanas probably wants to stay with the wave as long as possible to keep the death-wave growing.
Like, it's probably workable if you take what tower and minion destruction talents you can scrounge and if you let your team know your gameplan and to not expect to win fights, but that's a big if with pubs, who never seem to avoid fights.
Eh. I find Grav-O-Bomb to be not that great and the lvl 20 upgrade to Mecha-Goblin can wreck some face in late game team-fights and the initial skill makes you a goddamn machine at killing everything else. Gazlowe can practically solo your core if you aren't careful.
Grav-O-Bomb not that great? It can stunlock an entire enemy team if you place it right. It's incredible, it can turn teamfights around in an instant.
Long cooldown, long setup and requires them to all bunch up nicely for you and for you to get the combo off. I've never found it terribly reliable.
I've never been competent with it, but i've seen gaz on or against my team just annihilate people with grav bomb. with the double timer bomb talent he basically kills anyone he hits. It's sort of hard to land on multiple people, but it wombos so hard. Even if you only grab one or two people you've basically killed those heroes by yourself. lot of value in that!
I've never been competent with it, but i've seen gaz on or against my team just annihilate people with grav bomb. with the double timer bomb talent he basically kills anyone he hits. It's sort of hard to land on multiple people, but it wombos so hard. Even if you only grab one or two people you've basically killed those heroes by yourself. lot of value in that!
I've never found this to be true.
Grab-o-Bomb is a skill that benefits from a high degree of team coordination and is hurt alot by the lack of that.
I think what he's saying is that if you land the combo on one or two heroes, they're going to be dead. Which is pretty true in a lot of cases regardless of team coordination. It's like pulling off the "cast stun, cast pull, pull, stun" Kerrigan combo will nearly guarantee any given assassin dies if she has teammates around; yeah, setup CC from your team helps, but you can still land it on your own and your team really has to screw up to not kill the guy that's at 20% HP and stunned.
I think what he's saying is that if you land the combo on one or two heroes, they're going to be dead. Which is pretty true in a lot of cases regardless of team coordination. It's like pulling off the "cast stun, cast pull, pull, stun" Kerrigan combo will nearly guarantee any given assassin dies if she has teammates around; yeah, setup CC from your team helps, but you can still land it on your own and your team really has to screw up to not kill the guy that's at 20% HP and stunned.
Neither bomb involved does near that much damage any time I've seen it done for, against or by me. It's more like the victims end up stunned at maybe half health and then they run away.
I've seen it land a ton of times where no one ends up dead afterwards.
Bomb-grav-bomb towards the end of the game, completely annihilating an entire enemy team in one swoop and opening a full 60 seconds of win window is about as cathartic as it gets.
I think what he's saying is that if you land the combo on one or two heroes, they're going to be dead. Which is pretty true in a lot of cases regardless of team coordination. It's like pulling off the "cast stun, cast pull, pull, stun" Kerrigan combo will nearly guarantee any given assassin dies if she has teammates around; yeah, setup CC from your team helps, but you can still land it on your own and your team really has to screw up to not kill the guy that's at 20% HP and stunned.
Neither bomb involved does near that much damage any time I've seen it done for, against or by me. It's more like the victims end up stunned at maybe half health and then they run away.
I've seen it land a ton of times where no one ends up dead afterwards.
Again, I do not believe you are interpreting what he said correctly.
Even without teamwork, if you land bomb-grav-bomb (or just grav-bomb), your team should be able to kill them really easily and they don't actually need to do anything. Gazlowe needs team help to finish heroes off, and it certainly helps if his allies use their CC to let the combo land, but I'm pretty sure what he's saying is that if you do land the combo, your team is going to kill those guys no matter how incompetent they are.
Can...you possess something that's been possessed? Would it get 20% more stats on top of the previous possession's stat bonus?
Could two Sylvanii fight over a minion until it became a juggernaut of destruction?
This sounds like a completely obvious scenario, that I bet never even occurred to internal testing.
On the other hand, it's something semi-famous in DotA 2 that they may have specifically worked to prevent. Still, it'd be pretty easy to test in a custom match.
As I understand it, his gun normally winds up 4 times. So rapid fire makes it wind up 6 times thus increasing dps by 50%? If that's true, why would you ever choose sizzlin attacks instead of rapid fire? The extra 2 wind ups is a trivial amount of time, and it's fully would up coming out of a Q or E anyway. Plus rapid fire would get off more Giant Killer procs.
I think what he's saying is that if you land the combo on one or two heroes, they're going to be dead. Which is pretty true in a lot of cases regardless of team coordination. It's like pulling off the "cast stun, cast pull, pull, stun" Kerrigan combo will nearly guarantee any given assassin dies if she has teammates around; yeah, setup CC from your team helps, but you can still land it on your own and your team really has to screw up to not kill the guy that's at 20% HP and stunned.
Neither bomb involved does near that much damage any time I've seen it done for, against or by me. It's more like the victims end up stunned at maybe half health and then they run away.
I've seen it land a ton of times where no one ends up dead afterwards.
Again, I do not believe you are interpreting what he said correctly.
Even without teamwork, if you land bomb-grav-bomb (or just grav-bomb), your team should be able to kill them really easily and they don't actually need to do anything. Gazlowe needs team help to finish heroes off, and it certainly helps if his allies use their CC to let the combo land, but I'm pretty sure what he's saying is that if you do land the combo, your team is going to kill those guys no matter how incompetent they are.
Yes milski, I understand that. As I've understood it since the beginning. It's what I keep talking about.
I'm saying it's not true at all. People will eat the stun and the damage and then just walk away cause it's not that bad.
Specialist team names: The Snowflakes, S.P.E.C.I.A.L., Episode of Clone High
I really like The Snowflakes, or Little Snowflakes.
I also like Super Siege Bros, though that kind of gives it away.
OK! I'm finally going to be able to play this game tonight.
I'm going to have to scrounge up the list of those that said they were interested in the Siege Only team.
I have no problem paying the $1K gold.
A Team can group up and play without the leader being there, right?
Since my play time windows are kind of narrow...
Yeah, I walk away from Grav Bomb all the time in pub games. Most pub Gazlowes aren't smart enough to lay down a stun bomb first, so as soon as the Grav Bomb detonation is over, nothing else happens and you just walk away.
Of course, I've also been on the receiving end of some truly fantastic gravity bombs that make me jealous of the timing and placement and how well the enemy team was able to capitalize on it.
Chucksteak, I would like to be in on the PA team, I like Candymancers!
Also, all of you wanting to join the All Specialist All Siege All The Time team, should add me (Veritas#1169) for an invite!
Had some great Hero League games last night with PAers. I initially thought Nova would be too risky to play, but we pretty much dominated. Squeaked out a win with 3% of our core remaining as well... glorious, that one.
Edit: I should note that it seems you can only invite people to a team if they are on your friends-list and are online.
Chucksteak, I would like to be in on the PA team, I like Candymancers!
Also, all of you wanting to join the All Specialist All Siege All The Time team, should add me (Veritas#1169) for an invite!
Had some great Hero League games last night with PAers. I initially thought Nova would be too risky to play, but we pretty much dominated. Squeaked out a win with 3% of our core remaining as well... glorious, that one.
Edit: I should note that it seems you can only invite people to a team if they are on your friends-list and are online.
Speaking of which, looks like you aren't on my friends list. What's your battletag?
Can...you possess something that's been possessed? Would it get 20% more stats on top of the previous possession's stat bonus?
Could two Sylvanii fight over a minion until it became a juggernaut of destruction?
Possession has a long enough cooldown that I'm not sure how possible this would even be to pull off. Seems like the minion would likely die before the cooldown came back. I mean, MAYBE if it was like, a siege minion who had to work through an entire lane of towers?
So that's 11, 2 over the team limit.
I think we can def make 2 teams, and put the people who have a lot of play time on both times.
i.e. I myself don't have a lot of play time so I'd only be in one.
How does that sound?
Anyone else interested post here or PM me.
I might get one started tonight if we can figure out a name.
If there are going to be two teams, I'll be on one. I'll have to grab a couple more specialists though, I only have Sylvannas now, and enough gold for 2 more. Probably going to grab Hammer and Nazeebo, or maybe Lost Vikings, but I would probably suck with them.
Can...you possess something that's been possessed? Would it get 20% more stats on top of the previous possession's stat bonus?
Could two Sylvanii fight over a minion until it became a juggernaut of destruction?
Possession has a long enough cooldown that I'm not sure how possible this would even be to pull off. Seems like the minion would likely die before the cooldown came back. I mean, MAYBE if it was like, a siege minion who had to work through an entire lane of towers?
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EDIT: Also, I can't be the only person who thought that Sylvanas's "if you go over the Q charge cap, the arrows shoot instantly" looked really cool and then immediately realized it was completely useless because the spell has no cast time and no cooldown. It seems like a really bad talent unless you frequently get stunned in large minion waves or blow up 10 minions at once.
And if you're already blowing up ten minions at once(which you absolutely can build for), there won't be anything for it to fire at.
This is the type of shit that made them want to phase out generic talents to begin with. In sure Blizzard logic however, they just couldn't help themselves.
yea, but the center of wailing arrow is basically an autokill on most ability heroes with a crazy 5 second silence along with that damage. land that on a healer and stuff goes bad for the other team.
That's a lot of ifs, though. I don't really like "If you can do it, then it's really good! Honest!" traits very much.
Yes, they have to be dead center of the detonate. It's probably about as wide as Zeratul's melee range, if I were to make a comparison.
The only time I see possession being good is if you can get the lvl 24 (right?) talent that lets her possess mercs. Then you could possess a boss or something and it's be crazy useful. But otherwise, yeah, it's complete crap before then. And I mean, how many games do you actually get that high where you are not either about to win or lose anyways?
Edit: And yeah, wailing arrow is kind of crazy nice. Even if you completely suck with it, it's not hard to do some decent damage with the explosion bit alone.
I don't think possession is crap at the moment, I just think it really needs you to play her differently; it's by far the more specialist-y ult, and I think you could build a team around it. I don't see it being terribly useful in pub games, but I can certainly see why picking it up in a coordinated game.
If only she could clear mercs quickly; every Sylvanas I see clearing them does so extremely safely but extremely slowly.
true, it's certainly not easy to land, but every time i've landed it on 1 or 2 people the fight basically ends. fury seems decent on her though especially if you don't go for a anti-creep build.
just had this game
barbed shot + unstable poison + splinter shot is hilarious. throw your dagger, mash q and once you kill the first thing everything explodes at once. very satisfying.
also if you happen to catch an enemy hero in their own wave late game you can nearly kill them, i did about 8-900 damage to an arthas from killing a creep wave under his feet.
sylvanus is pretty fun, gonna wear the q button off my kb playing her though.
Either way, Black Arrow is just completely insane.
If you take ranger's ambush and splinter shot you can clear most merc camps pretty fast. not as fast as gaz or zagara, but fast enough.
early game she's very slow though, yea. it is nice that her + anyone can take camps pretty fast with no risk though.
I disagree. In my experience with just defensive talents alone, Illidan's damage is lackluster. You need to be some sort of threat or you can be safely ignored, especially when teams these days often run double support. Also, taking Giant killer doesn't automatically mean that you have to focus the tank. It is still a considerable dps upgrade. Then again, YMMV
Streaming 8PST on weeknights
And you need the ult upgrade to possess those right?
Ya while getting Gazlow to level 5 on free week, I often felt like a reliability in team fights. But as long as my ult was up, I knew I could bring some of the best aoe cc to turn that one.
Long cooldown, long setup and requires them to all bunch up nicely for you and for you to get the combo off. I've never found it terribly reliable.
I've never found this to be true.
Grab-o-Bomb is a skill that benefits from a high degree of team coordination and is hurt alot by the lack of that.
Neither bomb involved does near that much damage any time I've seen it done for, against or by me. It's more like the victims end up stunned at maybe half health and then they run away.
I've seen it land a ton of times where no one ends up dead afterwards.
Could two Sylvanii fight over a minion until it became a juggernaut of destruction?
Again, I do not believe you are interpreting what he said correctly.
Even without teamwork, if you land bomb-grav-bomb (or just grav-bomb), your team should be able to kill them really easily and they don't actually need to do anything. Gazlowe needs team help to finish heroes off, and it certainly helps if his allies use their CC to let the combo land, but I'm pretty sure what he's saying is that if you do land the combo, your team is going to kill those guys no matter how incompetent they are.
This sounds like a completely obvious scenario, that I bet never even occurred to internal testing.
On the other hand, it's something semi-famous in DotA 2 that they may have specifically worked to prevent. Still, it'd be pretty easy to test in a custom match.
As I understand it, his gun normally winds up 4 times. So rapid fire makes it wind up 6 times thus increasing dps by 50%? If that's true, why would you ever choose sizzlin attacks instead of rapid fire? The extra 2 wind ups is a trivial amount of time, and it's fully would up coming out of a Q or E anyway. Plus rapid fire would get off more Giant Killer procs.
Yes milski, I understand that. As I've understood it since the beginning. It's what I keep talking about.
I'm saying it's not true at all. People will eat the stun and the damage and then just walk away cause it's not that bad.
I really like The Snowflakes, or Little Snowflakes.
I also like Super Siege Bros, though that kind of gives it away.
OK! I'm finally going to be able to play this game tonight.
I'm going to have to scrounge up the list of those that said they were interested in the Siege Only team.
I have no problem paying the $1K gold.
A Team can group up and play without the leader being there, right?
Since my play time windows are kind of narrow...
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
Of course, I've also been on the receiving end of some truly fantastic gravity bombs that make me jealous of the timing and placement and how well the enemy team was able to capitalize on it.
Also, all of you wanting to join the All Specialist All Siege All The Time team, should add me (Veritas#1169) for an invite!
Had some great Hero League games last night with PAers. I initially thought Nova would be too risky to play, but we pretty much dominated. Squeaked out a win with 3% of our core remaining as well... glorious, that one.
Edit: I should note that it seems you can only invite people to a team if they are on your friends-list and are online.
Speaking of which, looks like you aren't on my friends list. What's your battletag?
So this is the list of the specialist-only team that I gathered from the last few pages:
@Veritas
@MMMig
@So It goes
@SeGaTai
@Invictus
@Ciria
@kime
@This (Bludgeon in hots)
@Gnizmo
@The Escape Goat
@Cirira
So that's 11, 2 over the team limit.
I think we can def make 2 teams, and put the people who have a lot of play time on both times.
i.e. I myself don't have a lot of play time so I'd only be in one.
How does that sound?
Anyone else interested post here or PM me.
I might get one started tonight if we can figure out a name.
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
Possession has a long enough cooldown that I'm not sure how possible this would even be to pull off. Seems like the minion would likely die before the cooldown came back. I mean, MAYBE if it was like, a siege minion who had to work through an entire lane of towers?
If there are going to be two teams, I'll be on one. I'll have to grab a couple more specialists though, I only have Sylvannas now, and enough gold for 2 more. Probably going to grab Hammer and Nazeebo, or maybe Lost Vikings, but I would probably suck with them.
The cooldown is four seconds.