Am i the only that thinks his B needs a late game buff? It’s early game is decent but late is trash. I went into practice mode and built all crucible and got 7737 health with phinn. I calculated that with that amount of health plus the fort he gives you already from his b you will only get 734 which is really low for the amount of health I have. That’s with full crucible too no other defense so the scaling would be much smaller in a real match.
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Phinn needed the help but not in his raw numbers. I like that you did some of the math on this, but Phinn’s Health total is far from the only thing to consider. Are you trying to give captains more fortified health? Who are you actually trying to buff with “Polite Company”. Let’s think this through…
Random selection here. Celeste goes up to 2028 health. Baron goes up to 2054. Joule goes up to 2487. Reim goes up to 2499. Rona goes up to 2563. That about covers your range of level 12 max healths. Generally speaking, the most health any of these will build is Journey Boots + Shiversteel in odd cases. Meaning that the max health we are looking at for a carry can be guesstimated to be around 3250.
734 is obviously more than good enough for a mere B ability, given that it is approaching the lower end of Lorelai’s “Water Wall” and noticeably surpasses the level 1 and 2 of Grace’s “Divine Intervetion”. Did I mention “Polite Company” works on allies in an AOE AND reveals stealthed heroes AND is a form of CC? (This is a terrific example btw, of why an “overloaded” kit is not necessarily OP. @Ikaika @TheInterpreter )
Phinn is not going to spam build crucible in a match unless he is trolling or really stupid. Is 734 an insignificant amount of fortified health compared to the likely 3250 maximum of a tankier carry? Remember, Carries rely on armor and shield stats + lifesteal to stay alive, not spamming raw health totals. This is a B ability on a 10 second cooldown, not an ult. Its roughly 1/3 to 1/5 of a carry’s health total suddenly fortified. Seems like a legit amount of health.
Lets assume Phinn does a normal build, not what I would expect from an Ardan in Blitz with a level 20 Rare talent. So this means something like Fountain, Crucible, Wartreads, Atlas, Echo, and Contraption. Because I’m testing this in 3v3 practice mode. This becomes a grand total of 1950 bonus health, 90 bonus shield, and 100 bonus armor. The fortified health as a result, is 290 base + (1950*0.06) + ((90+100)*0.2). Or 445 fortified health. Drop that on a team and thats up to 2225 fortified health generated on your team on a 10 second cooldown.
So at worst, its somewhere between 1/4 to 1/7 of a carry’s health bar. 2225 fortified is almost as much health as the full healthbar of a Celeste with Journey Boots. Clearly this is intended to be a teamfight ability used to create swing scenarios for your team. So if you were to use this on 4 tanky carries + Phinn, you are buffing Phinn as well as over half of a carry’s health bar in totality. On a 10 second cooldown. For perspective, Lorelai’s Water Wall does barely more than that as an ult.
A more perceptive person might look over my current comments and say something like “Wait Magmaw! Polite Company is a slow casting ability! You might not even have more than 1 ally nearby to buff with Polite Company! Why are you calculating a dream scenario for Phinn when most teams don’t stick by him to receive the health buff?”. You know what? They would be right, too, but these issues are not relevant. I will dissect each in brief detail I was mostly posting to comment on the numbers.
A. Polite Company is a slow casting ability. This is one of my main frustrations as a former Phinn main. It was literally never about the movespeed, thats what the less perceptive players think. When your A/B/C all cast slowly, its hard for you to contribute to a teamfight without a lot of help whether your allies are at your side or on the other half of the map. The reason the cast times are not reduced for any of Phinn’s abilities, is that it would legitimately make him over powered. He’s already super tanky. He has a really strong chain stun in an overall stellar CC kit. He has super strong initiations against all but the best reflex blockers, especially in 5v5. Slow cast times is actually a necessity for him to be balanced - you need a way to dodge his CC at least 1v1.
B. We need to consider both the minimum and maximum potentials of his ability. Worst case for Phinn is that he is using Polite Company solo. Obviously, that was never the intent. A better estimate of his typical usage is with 2 allies. With 1 ally he would be helping support lane or such, and his low cooldown Fort. Health would enable his laner to make a lot of trades. Additionally, teamfights are our primary concern. Even with 2 allies nearby, his B is usually strong enough to make a sizeable difference - timed correctly. I calculated for the full team buff because 1. It actually happens, and 2. If we are going to calculate maximum potential, we need to see what it looks like in practice.
So, I assume this doubles as a TL:DR, but is more a closing statement than anything. Phinn’s abilities are all dangerously close to OP, even if they don’t feel like it now. Buffing the numbers is doable to a small extent, but there are many areas that Phinn is actually quite strong in already, and in 5v5 its easy for him to set up chain CC - all but eliminating his biggest weakness in cast time. Buffing the numbers might not be needed at all. Don’t argue unless you actually read the rest of my post. Its folly to ask for hero buffs without thinking it all through.
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Get science’d lol ^^^
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