Salty rant, not really... My hopes for balance in 4.0

Vainglory Discussion Heroes, Builds, & Items
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My first hero is Kestrel.

Slumbering Husk literally destroys her when she takes the CP path and every other WP carry can overwhelm Kestrel when shes WP.

Next is Skye. Shes only viable in 3v3 when shes CP and her WP is the only thing she can accomplish in 5v5. O K I understand shes a high ceiling hero but (Ive been playing her for YEARS) but skill cant get you wins if every other new hero has a dash and can dash out of her A.

Adagio and Lyra. Health nerfs across the DEF item tree but they aren’t compensated for the previous nerfs to there healing ratios. Thats a change which is needed since the healing is straight garbage if the teammate have MW.

Koshkas B or Twirly Death nerf. Why? This wasnt a game changing feat so why was it changed. The nerf to her A also deals so little damage. I rather overdrive my ult for the 800 damage, low cooldown, and nice cp ratio than the A.

Kensei needs an update to the WP ratios on his perk, hes not dealing the correct amount of damage than other melee heros. I need like two sorrowblades for him to feel like how he was back in 3.5.

Delete BF from the game, End my suffering.

Anka. WHY does her B legit hit everyone including the intended hero. Im protecting my celeste but she gets marked and Anka teleports to her, uses her B on celeste and chunks my health as a roamer, then proceeds to use the perk to double kill us both.

Anka is still a problem even with the nerfs, and I have the feeling if they nerf her more, she wont be viable anymore. Like the Petal situation, buff too much, they become broken. Nerf too much, they become garbage. She’s supposed to pick off targets, not teamkill the whole enemy team.

Make it where her A still leaves a mark-

Anka teleports and uses up the dagger mark on the foe but it it leaves a victim mark (new debuff) on the hero that was marked with the teleport and they received increased damage from Ankas B and C. That eliminates the whole " I can kill your entire team" from Anka.

I mean that’s how I would change it but :neutral_face: idk.

Im done with my poorly written rant so :stuck_out_tongue:

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Also lower the 50% damage reduction on lane minions for Kestrels Glimmershots. Is legit the hardest thing to play CP kestrel in lane >_>

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^THIS is exactly what I’ve been saying for so long her splash damage is stupid and brain-dead. Literally just spam this shit in the lane and your gonna win trades against dumb people (aside from heavily armed tanks) Also the wave clear is stupid. I thought that’s why they nerfed Skye’s Suri-Strike damage back than CP Skye was broken but nope. With a Shatterglass still, you can do 1 Dance of Blades and basically kill every minion in a wave aside from the big one.

Dance of Blades needs to be heavily nerfed as it makes it stupidly easy for Anka to finish off enemies. I would STRONGLY recommend they remove the ability for each blade to pass through everything and instead have the blades impact on the first enemy it hits. This still preserves her high damage potential but allow supports to have some counterplay with body blocking. Make her B impact on the first target and a lot of Anka’s problems are solved immediately.

That’s basically Leblanc though with a Sigil of Malice plus Distortion and we all know how fun it is to deal with a Leblanc in the lane. Also Leblanc is actually more cancer since she’s a ranged Assassin with Crowd Control and god tier roaming potential. In fact, this just makes Anka even worse if this was the rework and if that ever happened I would definitely want a reversion.

Problem is balancing assassins are a lose-lose situation. You balance them too hard and you get nerfed Blackfeather, aka help me I wish I could Rose Offensive away from myself. Balance assassins to lightly and you have pre-nerf Blackfeather aka HAHA I can build support items and still 1v3 cause my execute deals true missing health damage. Or Anka. Their strong independent carries whose job role isn’t to work or synergize with a team.

Assassins are meant to jump onto your squishy carry and one-shot them early to mid game before team fighting starts they don’t really fit into a team dynamic. Like if you legit group up in a team fight, you can heavily counter an assassin so long as your team has not fed them super hard. And this is why they excel in randoms. The common Tier 8 brain can’t handle the pressure of an Assassin deleting them before they can even process electrical signals from their optical nerves. Plus lack of coordination and everyone wanting to be a damage dealer.

I admit I have a personal hatred of Assassins in general mainly cause of all the suffering they have caused me. I would rather they burn with the rest of Trostan and never see the light of day.

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They seriously need to change Lyra’s energy consumption she was already the most energy hungry hero but at least they’re solved late game once you get capacitor and rooks but now those don’t even provide any energy regen anymore.

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I thought about that same concept but then I got into how it is different from the other current assassins. Koshka, Reza, Taka all have the ability to lock on to a target while Ankas B is a skillshot (lesser form tho).

They all have guarantee hit abilities while Anka doesnt. Thats why I didnt want the body blocking aspect to effective her kit that drastically.

Imagine being in a team fight and you teleport onto the low health carry only to have your B fully blocked by a Phinn or the whole team because they are all huddled up. Kinda annoying.

I totally understand where you’re coming from about my “rework” and it makes sense. Its just hard to think of a way to balance her without nerfing her to the ground.

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I saw a post on reddit that ranged captain heros should opt for Scoutmaster 2000 instead of getting the rooks and plate combo wonbo together.

I understand that since rooks is more for the melee side if the captain pool.

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But super scout 2000 is straight doodoo, vision is won trough map control having more cams really isn’t helpful at all.

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I think they should have her B deal less damage to later targets when first impacting the first target, rather than only the first target.

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They force you to buy items like scountcam… as they removed energy regen from the new items, actually. So you are left with not building WT AND go scountcam and even then you will have energy problem SUPER easy. We are not talking here about spamming. Also they force the EVE on heroes like celeste as it’s super easy to run out of energy even with CW. It’s literally 4-5 skills and gg lol.
They just overdid it and removing energy regen from 99% of the support items is absurd, leaving you with exact item/items. Because I better have scountcam vs any of the new items, because the effect they give is nullified when I run out of energy and can’t do sh*t. Sorry for my language, but now to play a captain is boring as it never was - the impact is even lower than before, the cooldowns are so long you just do nothing and on top of that you run out of energy even with HC and supercam… without any spam. Well, pure fun.

If in the previous patch noone wanted to play captain, check it out now haha :slight_smile:

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This is the problem, you MUST get supercam. They don’t give you any choice not to! The other item is CW that now with the all the changes is not a ok support item, it’s for dmg dealers and NO other item gives energy regen! It’s CW, EVE, HC (that are not only not captain oriented as WT, but also gives you NOT enough energy/energy regen to use more than 3-4 abilities and then retreat for like 2m without using any to restore roflmao) and supercam!

tl:dr they force you to build supercam and that’s pure ugly. If you don’t need that much the added vision, touch luck as no energy = useless in fights. They remove the choice and diversity of the builds, they make an item a must buy.

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Ik it’s straight garbage for them to do that to a niche item but thats how it is. The flares and cams dont matter against a well coordinated teams and just like Nullwave gauntlet, its just horrible.

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Hmm… I can’t say whether I agree or disagree with others statements.

So, I’ll express my own desires then for what I want to see after 3.8 balance wise.

  • Phinn nerfs. Mainly to his damage I think. His tankiness is reasonable, but the damage he can deal is quite obnoxious at times.

  • Krul nerfs. I’ve been playing a good amount of 3v3 Ranked lately, and boy does this guy determine a good portion of matches from the get go. I normallt don’t jungle, but because other teammates decided to do the other roles, I took it up. I know Krul is strong, but goodness, if nobody counter builds him or he gets way ahead, the match is basically over. I’m in the mid tiers, so it’s reasonable that the skill level to play and counter Krul is lower. I’m at 2100+ Blitz and have a few hundred Battle Royale experience, so I guess I’m ok playing as Krul (despite not really liking him, kek).

  • Nerfs to Anka. She’s an assassin yes, but too good of an assassin.

  • Celeste buff, mainly to her wave clear power. I’ve played one match with her and it sucked. I barely got any farm rolling.

  • Nerf to Tension Bow just a little bit more, like the piercing values.

  • Slumbering Husk nerfs. Mainly to the stats it gives.

  • Aegis stats buffs, in constrast to Slumbering Husk.

Side note:

I’ve taken Skaarf mid lane a few times and he feels decent to play.

Compared to when I have picked Celeste and Varya, he feels much less stressful because of the high base range he has on his A and his relatively easy to land skill shots.

I build him as a chipping machine, going for Spellfire and Clockwork as the core. Then I build Broken Myth and Halcyon Chargers as the secondary core to enable more spam, better energy reserves and more damage (through the initial burst hits of the A and B as well as the damage over time).

For defence, I go Slumbering Husk. Then the last slot is either more damage or more defensedepending on the situation.

Personally, it’s fun to lead his skill shots and burn your opponent constantly so that they can’t regen as much health when out of Skaarg’s range.

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But keep in mind that Taka and Koskha are far more single target based and possess limited AOE.

And also Reza is also a pure skill shot assassin with both of his Scorcher and Netherform Detonator being skillshots which can be bodyblocked and look how well he does.

Anka already has insane mobility and gapclosers. It’s not hard for her to get onto a squishy. The changes I proposed to her B will make it a lot harder to play her but will seperate good Anka players from meta slaves who just spam one ability and still deal heavy damage. She will really have to pick her timing rather than just rip apart her enemies in lane with constant AOE unblockable damage from her B.

Would you rather suffer the same scenario you exactly outlined to us where you can do nothing to save your teammate from an Anka whole than proceeds to kill you as well? I would think not

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TL:DR at bottom.

I think there was a strategic decision to make actually having to return to base a thing, at least for cp heroes and their massive dmg potential against some wp heroes without a downside by endgame. In my opinion, it seems like the goal is to remove hero falloff as such a drastic strategic thing as it’s not fun to…just fall off by the end, and instead give wp more dmg potential throughout the game while attempting to also make cp more impactful without buffing the burst dmg advantage they usually have late game too much. The lower cooldowns give cp impact while taking away the impact of too much capt defense.

Now the energy was clearly overdone, but I also think the point was to again separate roles a bit more than they have been lately while not completely minimizing the ability to decide to play an off-brand role for the hero from the get go, which I think is a good thing, but it was overdone. Yes constant capt defense is annoying but having some ability to counter cp spam while not making the stats as attack oriented as cp items would have been better than almost completely dropping capt cooldown stats like a rock. They just needed some, but much less energy than cp heroes, not none.

Superscout is a design flaw that was more likely to be realized with many players giving consistent gameplay stats (and less likely but still should have been picked up on, imo, by someone with simple good intuition of things in a smaller group) because with map control & game learning, as mentioned, you kinda have enough cams throughout your team, and while I’d say give people 1 cam with better stats to achieve the strategic goal, that might rub some the wrong way, even if it’s just a little, and new players would be hurt.

Ultimately it just looks like the total strategy mechanics of the game: the items, heroes, everything needs to be put on a table somewhere and it needs to be confirmed whether these ideas even work together fully, cohesively, stats, everything, which is kinda what it seems like they’re doing now but obviously there are focused goals to address, and the prioritization of these goals before just making sure all the parts are working together is no different than putting a quick fix on a machine then wondering why a slightly damaged part is increasing damage to other parts, then realizing that not having everything working completely in sync screws the whole thing up. Of course the lack of difference in concept doesn’t mean it’s a different scenario: this is a game, not a machine, so once it’s out it needs to work, like a movie, and needs to be fixed in wholesale industry updates. Cue bigger problems about game development and the rigors needed to sustain it due to lack of industry standard on certain levels (and the difficulty of even having certain standards to due to how games are made and ip laws, and general lack of good, functional standard settings for society and options for people who don’t want to stay in them).

ANNYWAY TL:DR - Capt items need a little energy love back even if they don’t get cooldown love, items need to be syncronized better across the board for their purpose, the inbetween purpose items need to be appropriately weak while providing a great but niche purpose, while the items with awesome stats need to stay largely stat based and have broad generalized and mostly universally needed purposes beyond stats. SSW was a great invention.

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Not to be THAT GUY while discussing balance but, I personally have been an Ardan main for an extremely long time and he: A - Feels good to play just like any other time and B - Barely suffers from the energy item changes. Being a hero who doesn’t use energy is a huge asset in this game. Idris, Blackfeather (though he got nerfed I think? I don’t know, haven’t seen him in a while), and Ardan are all really powerful picks I would think of in a meta where energy regen is scarce. Hell, Taka has his free A when maxed unless I missed something. Lance is HARD but fun to play and very powerful.

I think the problem is the meta is shifting and people are adjusting very poorly. Maybe I’m wrong. Take it with a shaker full of salt.

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Ik the meta is shifting but heros like Lyra, Kestrel, or Rona havent seen the light of day outside of Casuals. Either the items or the heros kits need tuning.

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Lyra… you mean captain lyra, dont you? Because CP lyra is very strong right now.

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Blackfeather is shit. Not only he was already weak, but got nerfed hard, he even struggles to maintain a 45% win rate.

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So about Kestrel and Skye, both them are in a somewhat similar predicament.
Lets start with their CP versions. Both of them were used as junglers in 3v3 cause their wave clear in somewhat inefficient and both them are heavily item dependant as they have high ratios unlike most other CP junglers that depend on AS. In 5v5 the jungle simply doens’t have enough gold for them. Kestrel can atleast make it somewhat work with early game snowball potential. CP Skye however who is a lategame hypercarry has no hope as a jungler. Plus both of them are squishy and aren’t suitable for the relatively tanky jungle meta. So what’s the other position they are playable? That would be the mid lane. Even with their inefficient wave clear they were quite useable in mid lane atleast until 3.8, with the addition of an extra lane minion and the energy changes their wave clear is now even worse. So pretty their CP paths are extremely hard to pull off. The best solution would be to gear them towards midlane. Make their abilities clear minions better. For Skye it would best to give her CP ratio to her AAs to help her wave clear. Her cooldowns are too long to just waste them to clear minons

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As you said. Ofc someone like l3on vs t10 bronze players will make it work, he will make viable any hero, but this doesn’t put the hero in a balanced spot - just show how much afar is l3on in mechanical/game understanding play vs the enemy team.

Also you described a great problem - a lot of heroes are designed for 3vs3 and halcyon map (actually most, the new heroes are clearly designed for 5vs5 and sovereign map). That’s one big drawback when you transition your matured and great game that is 3vs3 (with all around 3vs3 with intention to stay like that) to 5vs5 because of other emerging MOBAs that are directly natively 5vs5 from the bottom to the top. They don’t suffer from that “designed for 3vs3” problem and while their target audience/gameplay is different - they are designed for 5vs5.

They should had give themself another year and change the heroes kits, the items and so on. Not slap some changes to the rations, remove skills and call the day. Doesn’t work like that.

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