ctrl command override to share wards, to prevent warding in ur fountain .__.
or to prevent let's say, "a sentry ward" going on cooldown because you tried to click the ground but clicked on an ally hero with full slots instead
goes over "the big 5 nerfs" that he thinks will effect the choices of most players, but doesn't actually think they're that "huge" of a nerf themselves.
this includes bat/invoker/naga/ember/lycan
also talks about the slight nerfs to more recently common heroes like "AA, cent, dazzle, visage"
i.e. chilling touch further AS reduction, cent's mana cost for stomp 145 flat at all levels, dazzle no longer interrupts (huge deal imo), until the appropriate level where it has the stun, and visage's nuke cd rescaled.
goes over some heroes he think he'll be seeing in the competitive scene, or heroes that'll get more picks due to the recent buffs
i.e. disruptor, kunkka, lina/lion, void, tide, pugna, razor
void's increased turnrate, kunkka's, lina's and lion's ulti buffs, tide's dmg reduction to 60% and now affecting ancients, pugna's down time for netherward almost negligible at lvl 4, and razor's str gain increase
all in all this is just the basics of what he talks about
i'll explain why the patch was nicely done, and it doesn't matter about what you(sam) "think" about how gabe can balance the game better, for every patch thats out, there will be individuals such as you @sam complaining about things that they dont like in their perception, which is fine, but you can't satisfy everyone in the world.
Now, every patch is being carefully analzyed through great time and analysis from bugs/reports from professional dota players, as well as public complaints, you guys make it seem that it's so easy to balance a game such as dota, it's not, its extremely difficult and they're doing an amazing job at it.
The reason why:
1. ember, I was concerned that they nerf his 2nd skill in terms of CD, which will basically turn the hero into a useless hero, I'm glad they didn't, they understand what makes the hero special, hence they nerf his skills elsewhere, now the chain/SOF is slightly nerfed, its still unoticable in late game obvs, but early game will have minor impact, you can't just completely shut down a hero, last patch they completely shut down earth spirit, made him practically unplayable, they realized that its not a good way of re-balancing heros.
2. Tb early game is extremely squishy, yes he can push towers as fast as lycan, pbly faster in some cases, but the hero itself has immense HP/regen problems early laning phase, GIVEN proper harrase heros, obvs not a free farming tb protect by 2 against a solo offlaner etc, its your own problem if you let your self be in those situations. Clearly, these problems arise in 90% of pub games, hence the hero is considered "OP" in most player's percetion. When TB was out in CM in dota 1, as he was much stronger of a hero, with all the different skills, he was completely shut down in the competitive scene, TB was so easy to counter, when TB was picked, opposing team can easily pick morph into QOP which makes TB a worthless hero all the way around
Anyways, list goes on, u guys are complaining because you are suffering in pubs from phx/ember/tb/lycan etc tryhard pickers, since no one really understands how to deal with them, unfortunately, not much can be done with this, you just need to get better individually to have a slightly greater impact in every game. If an enemy team picks TB, if you don't pick some sort of counter to him, then the game is pretty much over, a good ember will completely crush a TB, hence "counter", etc
tl/dr pubs will never be satisfied, changes are mostly made for the competitive scene/TI4, where the games are played for millions.
the main goal of every balance is to introduce as much heros as possible into the competitive scene, and they're doing just that, the vs buff is doing just that.
this ti4 will be incredibly versatile and fun to watch as there are so much more lineups than previously where DK/iG just picked morph every game and won every game
hailrake wraith king > all and icefrog buffs him slightly lel
i mean lich/abaddon/wraith king are already strong in pubs in all brackets so yea there's no logic involved.
as for tb/ember, what MK said - you need to counter him specifically or get wrecked. thankfully it seems a majority of tb pickers i run across instalock that hero so nobody else can pick him
@M_K_1001 that's a huge balancing issue that comes up in every single multiplayer game, do you balance around the masses or the competitive elite? Wow has never gotten the balance between pvp and pve right (even worse between 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 arena vs battlegrounds they can't even do it), should valve try to balance things out for the majority of customers or so their yearly champion events can be perceived as more fair? I personally don't give a shit about the pro scene and the pro scene will be fine not matter who the heroes are. If you balance around the average pub player that's the majority of the playerbase and keeps the customers most happy.
TB nerf is good, you can't go 212 and get guaranteed win your lane with him as easily now. I do find it really odd some of the heroes are getting buffs like Lich who is clearly amazing already.
Okay, just to clarify. I'm not saying that Lycan, Terrorblade, Ember, etc. don't deserve nerfs. I also don't think that the game can be perfectly balanced. My problem is the inconsistency as to whom he chooses to buff and nerf is quite erratic both regarding pub/comp and popularity/opness of hero.
Lycan wasn't nerfed too much. Yes 300 HP is a thing and it is a big deal but the real nerf was in Necronomicon, which I think was well deserved as a deterrent to purchasing it, especially now that his carry power is even weaker. However, Mirana, for instance, is one of the top heroes both regards to pub winrate, pub popularity, and comp popularity (not sure about comp win rate), yet she gets… a vision nerf on her arrow. Batrider was buffed in the last patch, even aside from the Blink Dagger buff, yet he was still in the meta post TI3 nerfs – why buff him instead of the unpicked heroes? And so he became top pick again, which they nerfed again, which really shows their different treatment of different heroes erratically.
"Now, every patch is being carefully analzyed through great time and analysis from bugs/reports from professional dota players, as well as public complaints, you guys make it seem that it's so easy to balance a game such as dota, it's not, its extremely difficult and they're doing an amazing job at it."
The supposed analysis is modifying their playstyle in order to win games in the new patch. They don't analyse it to DECIDE on the changes. And no it's not difficult to do better than buffing Mana Void AOE as a method to make Anti-Mage remotely viable again in any game.
"1. ember, I was concerned that they nerf his 2nd skill in terms of CD, which will basically turn the hero into a useless hero, I'm glad they didn't, they understand what makes the hero special, hence they nerf his skills elsewhere, now the chain/SOF is slightly nerfed, its still unoticable in late game obvs, but early game will have minor impact, you can't just completely shut down a hero, last patch they completely shut down earth spirit, made him practically unplayable, they realized that its not a good way of re-balancing heros."
Good, I didn't have a problem with Ember. I think the nerf was well done. Also, if Earth Spirit is unplayable why didn't they rework him this patch, like they did Broodmother?
"Tb early game is extremely squishy, yes he can push towers as fast as lycan, pbly faster in some cases, but the hero itself has immense HP/regen problems early laning phase, GIVEN proper harrase heros, obvs not a free farming tb protect by 2 against a solo offlaner etc, its your own problem if you let your self be in those situations. Clearly, these problems arise in 90% of pub games, hence the hero is considered "OP" in most player's percetion. When TB was out in CM in dota 1, as he was much stronger of a hero, with all the different skills, he was completely shut down in the competitive scene, TB was so easy to counter, when TB was picked, opposing team can easily pick morph into QOP which makes TB a worthless hero all the way around"
Not trying to be offensive, but what's your point here?
"Anyways, list goes on, u guys are complaining because you are suffering in pubs from phx/ember/tb/lycan etc tryhard pickers,"
…no I'm not. What do you think I'm complaining about? That they're not nerfed enough? How did you get that idea? I don't necessarily think the nerfs are stupid (some still are, like Mirana and Ancient Apparition).
"tl/dr pubs will never be satisfied, changes are mostly made for the competitive scene/TI4, where the games are played for millions."
Not trying to be offensive again, but seriously, you don't really have an idea of what I'm talking about. I'm talking about his INCONSISTENCY of treatment both to popular/op heroes of public games and competitive games. If he buffed and nerfed solely on competitive games, that makes a lot of sense. If he buffed and nerfed taking into consideration both (e.g. the Spirit Breaker nerf) that kind of makes sense although it's a bit weird. But he's not even consistent regarding that. Necrolyte and Spirit Breaker can be contrasted easily: both are very good in pubs and very bad in competitive, so they should have somewhat similar balance changes, right? Nope, Bara's nerfed to hell and Necro's buffed slightly. Alchemist (pre big nerf) and Nyx Assassin can also be contrasted: both top picks in competitive and decent in pubs. Alchemist gets nerfed to oblivion while Nyx gets even what can be considered a buff with regards to impale's longer casting range.
I just can't decipher any pattern in what he's trying to do. Lycan's OP, he needs to be nerfed. The nerf might not be very good but at least Icefrog is trying… but shit like Mirana's "800 to 650 vision" on arrow is… are you really trying to nerf this guy? Or are you just being biased because Mirana gives exciting games? The treatment of the top competitive picks are just so massively different. Timbersaw, Naga, Alchemist became nerfed instantly when they became top picks. Crystal Maiden was a first tier support for a long time when suddenly Icefrog hated ice her and made her unpicked, similar to Visage (even though Visage is still picked). What about Rubick, Lifestealer, etc. who have always been top picks? cd nerf on rage gogogo oh he's still first tier carry? lol watevs. oh Naga's back? UNACCEPTABLE FUCK THIS FISH
Stopped reading after first two paragraph that you wrote , you clearly have zero reading comprehension and does not understand Dota to the slightest bit.
"What is consistency?" "What are the changed based on?" Do you find the problem with your two questions ? I don't even want to bother composing another wall of text to explain.
icefrog think hes making balance but hes not hes buffing heros that already stomping pub (ursa) and nerfing heros that is not very good in pubs and the nerf on op heros isnt enough they will still be op i mostly heros are still borken : S
To me it seems like Icefrog is balancing based on the competitive scene. Why would he go and buff Ursa, Lich, Venge, etc? So that pros may play them more.
Then why isn't he nerfing Mirana/Invoker/other top picks more? And why did he nerf Spirit Breaker before, when he was dominating pubs?
No offense but I really don't think people get my point. It's not oh noes he nerfed my fav hero or wtf tb still op in pubs. It's that he's ERRATIC. I've given plenty of examples in the OP, of which the only possible unjustified point is Dazzle not being nerfed much.
i've watched a couple guides
and i think he's like a 5.5kish + mmr player
srsly no youtube in china? WTF
some things he talks about:
ctrl command override to share wards, to prevent warding in ur fountain .__.
or to prevent let's say, "a sentry ward" going on cooldown because you tried to click the ground but clicked on an ally hero with full slots instead
goes over "the big 5 nerfs" that he thinks will effect the choices of most players, but doesn't actually think they're that "huge" of a nerf themselves.
this includes bat/invoker/naga/ember/lycan
also talks about the slight nerfs to more recently common heroes like "AA, cent, dazzle, visage"
i.e. chilling touch further AS reduction, cent's mana cost for stomp 145 flat at all levels, dazzle no longer interrupts (huge deal imo), until the appropriate level where it has the stun, and visage's nuke cd rescaled.
goes over some heroes he think he'll be seeing in the competitive scene, or heroes that'll get more picks due to the recent buffs
i.e. disruptor, kunkka, lina/lion, void, tide, pugna, razor
void's increased turnrate, kunkka's, lina's and lion's ulti buffs, tide's dmg reduction to 60% and now affecting ancients, pugna's down time for netherward almost negligible at lvl 4, and razor's str gain increase
all in all this is just the basics of what he talks about
precisely what the above post said (by mac)
i'll explain why the patch was nicely done, and it doesn't matter about what you(sam) "think" about how gabe can balance the game better, for every patch thats out, there will be individuals such as you @sam complaining about things that they dont like in their perception, which is fine, but you can't satisfy everyone in the world.
Now, every patch is being carefully analzyed through great time and analysis from bugs/reports from professional dota players, as well as public complaints, you guys make it seem that it's so easy to balance a game such as dota, it's not, its extremely difficult and they're doing an amazing job at it.
The reason why:
1. ember, I was concerned that they nerf his 2nd skill in terms of CD, which will basically turn the hero into a useless hero, I'm glad they didn't, they understand what makes the hero special, hence they nerf his skills elsewhere, now the chain/SOF is slightly nerfed, its still unoticable in late game obvs, but early game will have minor impact, you can't just completely shut down a hero, last patch they completely shut down earth spirit, made him practically unplayable, they realized that its not a good way of re-balancing heros.
2. Tb early game is extremely squishy, yes he can push towers as fast as lycan, pbly faster in some cases, but the hero itself has immense HP/regen problems early laning phase, GIVEN proper harrase heros, obvs not a free farming tb protect by 2 against a solo offlaner etc, its your own problem if you let your self be in those situations. Clearly, these problems arise in 90% of pub games, hence the hero is considered "OP" in most player's percetion. When TB was out in CM in dota 1, as he was much stronger of a hero, with all the different skills, he was completely shut down in the competitive scene, TB was so easy to counter, when TB was picked, opposing team can easily pick morph into QOP which makes TB a worthless hero all the way around
Anyways, list goes on, u guys are complaining because you are suffering in pubs from phx/ember/tb/lycan etc tryhard pickers, since no one really understands how to deal with them, unfortunately, not much can be done with this, you just need to get better individually to have a slightly greater impact in every game. If an enemy team picks TB, if you don't pick some sort of counter to him, then the game is pretty much over, a good ember will completely crush a TB, hence "counter", etc
tl/dr pubs will never be satisfied, changes are mostly made for the competitive scene/TI4, where the games are played for millions.
@Sam
You were expecting to make these heroes useless?
I'm surprised about the venge buff. Venge is already top10 popularity with 54% win rate.
Nope. Don't make them useless. Make them weaker.
the main goal of every balance is to introduce as much heros as possible into the competitive scene, and they're doing just that, the vs buff is doing just that.
this ti4 will be incredibly versatile and fun to watch as there are so much more lineups than previously where DK/iG just picked morph every game and won every game
hailrake wraith king > all and icefrog buffs him slightly lel
i mean lich/abaddon/wraith king are already strong in pubs in all brackets so yea there's no logic involved.
as for tb/ember, what MK said - you need to counter him specifically or get wrecked. thankfully it seems a majority of tb pickers i run across instalock that hero so nobody else can pick him
@M_K_1001 that's a huge balancing issue that comes up in every single multiplayer game, do you balance around the masses or the competitive elite? Wow has never gotten the balance between pvp and pve right (even worse between 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 arena vs battlegrounds they can't even do it), should valve try to balance things out for the majority of customers or so their yearly champion events can be perceived as more fair? I personally don't give a shit about the pro scene and the pro scene will be fine not matter who the heroes are. If you balance around the average pub player that's the majority of the playerbase and keeps the customers most happy.
TB nerf is good, you can't go 212 and get guaranteed win your lane with him as easily now. I do find it really odd some of the heroes are getting buffs like Lich who is clearly amazing already.
Okay, just to clarify. I'm not saying that Lycan, Terrorblade, Ember, etc. don't deserve nerfs. I also don't think that the game can be perfectly balanced. My problem is the inconsistency as to whom he chooses to buff and nerf is quite erratic both regarding pub/comp and popularity/opness of hero.
Lycan wasn't nerfed too much. Yes 300 HP is a thing and it is a big deal but the real nerf was in Necronomicon, which I think was well deserved as a deterrent to purchasing it, especially now that his carry power is even weaker. However, Mirana, for instance, is one of the top heroes both regards to pub winrate, pub popularity, and comp popularity (not sure about comp win rate), yet she gets… a vision nerf on her arrow. Batrider was buffed in the last patch, even aside from the Blink Dagger buff, yet he was still in the meta post TI3 nerfs – why buff him instead of the unpicked heroes? And so he became top pick again, which they nerfed again, which really shows their different treatment of different heroes erratically.
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I mean, how does he justify it. I think he just says what effects these have on the hero but not how these changes make sense. Which is what my topic is about. (Also yeah, the Dazzle nerf is probably more significant that I said it to be in competitive than in pubs.)
Okay, now.
"Now, every patch is being carefully analzyed through great time and analysis from bugs/reports from professional dota players, as well as public complaints, you guys make it seem that it's so easy to balance a game such as dota, it's not, its extremely difficult and they're doing an amazing job at it."
The supposed analysis is modifying their playstyle in order to win games in the new patch. They don't analyse it to DECIDE on the changes. And no it's not difficult to do better than buffing Mana Void AOE as a method to make Anti-Mage remotely viable again in any game.
"1. ember, I was concerned that they nerf his 2nd skill in terms of CD, which will basically turn the hero into a useless hero, I'm glad they didn't, they understand what makes the hero special, hence they nerf his skills elsewhere, now the chain/SOF is slightly nerfed, its still unoticable in late game obvs, but early game will have minor impact, you can't just completely shut down a hero, last patch they completely shut down earth spirit, made him practically unplayable, they realized that its not a good way of re-balancing heros."
Good, I didn't have a problem with Ember. I think the nerf was well done. Also, if Earth Spirit is unplayable why didn't they rework him this patch, like they did Broodmother?
"Tb early game is extremely squishy, yes he can push towers as fast as lycan, pbly faster in some cases, but the hero itself has immense HP/regen problems early laning phase, GIVEN proper harrase heros, obvs not a free farming tb protect by 2 against a solo offlaner etc, its your own problem if you let your self be in those situations. Clearly, these problems arise in 90% of pub games, hence the hero is considered "OP" in most player's percetion. When TB was out in CM in dota 1, as he was much stronger of a hero, with all the different skills, he was completely shut down in the competitive scene, TB was so easy to counter, when TB was picked, opposing team can easily pick morph into QOP which makes TB a worthless hero all the way around"
Not trying to be offensive, but what's your point here?
"Anyways, list goes on, u guys are complaining because you are suffering in pubs from phx/ember/tb/lycan etc tryhard pickers,"
…no I'm not. What do you think I'm complaining about? That they're not nerfed enough? How did you get that idea? I don't necessarily think the nerfs are stupid (some still are, like Mirana and Ancient Apparition).
"tl/dr pubs will never be satisfied, changes are mostly made for the competitive scene/TI4, where the games are played for millions."
Not trying to be offensive again, but seriously, you don't really have an idea of what I'm talking about. I'm talking about his INCONSISTENCY of treatment both to popular/op heroes of public games and competitive games. If he buffed and nerfed solely on competitive games, that makes a lot of sense. If he buffed and nerfed taking into consideration both (e.g. the Spirit Breaker nerf) that kind of makes sense although it's a bit weird. But he's not even consistent regarding that. Necrolyte and Spirit Breaker can be contrasted easily: both are very good in pubs and very bad in competitive, so they should have somewhat similar balance changes, right? Nope, Bara's nerfed to hell and Necro's buffed slightly. Alchemist (pre big nerf) and Nyx Assassin can also be contrasted: both top picks in competitive and decent in pubs. Alchemist gets nerfed to oblivion while Nyx gets even what can be considered a buff with regards to impale's longer casting range.
I just can't decipher any pattern in what he's trying to do. Lycan's OP, he needs to be nerfed. The nerf might not be very good but at least Icefrog is trying… but shit like Mirana's "800 to 650 vision" on arrow is… are you really trying to nerf this guy? Or are you just being biased because Mirana gives exciting games? The treatment of the top competitive picks are just so massively different. Timbersaw, Naga, Alchemist became nerfed instantly when they became top picks. Crystal Maiden was a first tier support for a long time when suddenly Icefrog hated ice her and made her unpicked, similar to Visage (even though Visage is still picked). What about Rubick, Lifestealer, etc. who have always been top picks? cd nerf on rage gogogo oh he's still first tier carry? lol watevs. oh Naga's back? UNACCEPTABLE FUCK THIS FISH
Stopped reading after first two paragraph that you wrote , you clearly have zero reading comprehension and does not understand Dota to the slightest bit.
"What is consistency?" "What are the changed based on?" Do you find the problem with your two questions ? I don't even want to bother composing another wall of text to explain.
your problem is that you didn't even read my earlier posts ggwp
blah blah blah
icefrog is terrible at balancing the game. end of.
me too
icefrog think hes making balance but hes not hes buffing heros that already stomping pub (ursa) and nerfing heros that is not very good in pubs and the nerf on op heros isnt enough they will still be op i mostly heros are still borken : S
To me it seems like Icefrog is balancing based on the competitive scene. Why would he go and buff Ursa, Lich, Venge, etc? So that pros may play them more.
That's all I can think of....
Then why isn't he nerfing Mirana/Invoker/other top picks more? And why did he nerf Spirit Breaker before, when he was dominating pubs?
No offense but I really don't think people get my point. It's not oh noes he nerfed my fav hero or wtf tb still op in pubs. It's that he's ERRATIC. I've given plenty of examples in the OP, of which the only possible unjustified point is Dazzle not being nerfed much.
You think aghanim on pudge should be nerfed because has 70% winrate in over 2 mil matches?