July 21, 2017

Happiness, Vol 1.: A Freya Rant

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Freya  |  Rant  |  Nerf  |  Fatalis
Right now, I just straight up do NOT suggest even touching Freya. I'm not even going to make an effort to play her until she's fixed.

That's maybe an overreaction, depending on who you ask, but to me, Fatalis was a 100% core item on her. The only other god where it is 100% core is Kali (oh and sure, Bakasura too, happy Bernardo?). But for Kali, she got an arguably BETTER version of Fatalis in Hastened Katana...yes, it loses a bit of early function from its 10 pen that was taken away, but it added 25 physical power, went back DOWN in price, and so...yay for Kali?

But see, Kali has some really nice things going for her. Besides sticking to enemies with the new Hastened Katana, she has:
  • A leap / escape...she can jump over walls or use it to catch up to fleeing enemies. Freya does not have a movement ability.

  • A stun, after which Kali can continue slashing away. Freya can interrupt with Banish, a smaller AOE but at distance, BUT she can't damage them while they're hanging up there...

  • An ult that makes her IMMEDIATELY unkillable (*edit* thanks Devampi for pointing out the inaccuracy) for the duration (up to 5 seconds). Freya's ult (when she reaches her peak) makes her so she can't be targeted anymore, but any incoming damage or damage that was already ticking still applies. So Kali ults, she doesn't die. Freya ults...yup, I've died in the air before.

  • A passive that gives her increased damage and a 15% heal (Assists) or 80% heal (Kills) when her target dies. Um... Freya has 15% lifesteal in her passive...but Kali ALSO gets a limited duration lifesteal through her Lash.
The things Freya has going for her are higher potential DPS at full build with magical damage, and range on her attacks...AS LONG AS HER Pulse IS ACTIVE. When her Pulse is down, she's mostly screwed...yes, she could activate Irradiate separately, but that lowers her DPS while she's got range, and then with just Irradiate she now has to be CLOSE like Kali in order to keep dealing damage (which at this point is also below Kali's potential DPS). If she did the normal thing and activated both Pulse and Irradiate at around the same time, she has very low DPS with just her basics, again only at close range.

Oh, and if we look at objectives...Physical power and physical damage has a drastic step up on magical damage...they can only be attacked by basic attacks, and physical basics scale at 100%, whereas magical basics scale at...20%. Oh, and do Pulse and Irradiate provide extra tower damage? Nope.

Was Kali considered S-Tier before the patch? No...great late hyper carry. Like Freya. But wait. Now Freya has only a 4 second window to stick to gods, then she has to wait for 30 seconds to do that again. And separately, you drop the penetration from her item as well, AND you drop the attack speed on Demonic Grip (oh thanks for the 5 power though, her AMAZING scaling is going to take advantage of that for sure!).

So...pretty obvious nerf to magical Fatalis. Guess Freya was considered S/S+ tier, right? No? Well then WHY DID YOU NERF HER? Oh, I get it, you had to nerf Fatalis/ Hastened Ring because a bunch of other magical gods were also abusing it, right? Saw it all the time on Chronos and Sol and Poseidon, right? Wait, no? Varied use? More on troll/pubstomp builds? Got it...even though you say your main focus is a good balance for Conquest, you really want to make sure those Duel and Arena modes are fairer, right?

But wait again...you say that Hastened Ring might actually be BETTER now on a god like Chronos and Poseidon? That they make better use of the added power, because their abilities scale better, they're not solely basic attack reliant, and a quick burst and out is perfectly fine for them?

Hi-Rez, you want to do it the right way? No CD on the "Haste" effect, which you're SOOOO smart at renaming from "Fatalis." New and improved! If you want to drop the early pressure Freya could get, drop the pen. If you want to avoid other magical gods from taking advantage, drop the power, or don't (cuz what do you care)...but GET F-ING RID OF THAT CD.

And if you don't like these other options by themselves...how about bump the price back up? Changing from 2,150 gold (made Freya S Tier at the beginning of S4) to 2,600 gold and doing NOTHING else dropped Freya from OP status.

Seriously...there are tons of options...BETTER options...than what actually happened.

HR, if you honestly like where Hastened Ring is, then I'm expecting a nice little buff for Freya in the next patch. I have ideas for that too, if you are interested. Thank you in advance.

Technotoad...give me a rant comic on this or something, lol.