Let's Make Patch Notes - Hunters/ADCs

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I decided to make a subsection of RazeMage's thread because it was getting a bit too big and a little out of control.

This one is for discussing Hunter/ADC balance only.

Before you say anything about a nerf or a buff please give a reason!!!

Don't just say to nerf her slow or something, say why. We are NOT HiRez, we do NOT give changes without explaining ourselves first.

Here is what we have so far.

1. Goals.

: Prevent him from harassing and waveclearing at once by level 4.

: Reduce his general survivability.

: ???

: Improve her laning phase, making it easier to carry to late game.

: Weaken his early game and improve his late game.

: ???

: Make his ultimate feel more impactful on a game.

2. Reasons.

: His harass was blatantly broken, and his waveclear is the best of any hunters, all from ranking one ability. Something has to go.

: Anhur has too much utility and survivability in one package. He needs to be more vulnerable for a god who deals damage on the same level as .

: ???

: Laning was too weak, even for a hyper carry.

: Weaken his early game and improve his late game.

: ???

: His ultimate is just too underwhelming and needs something to make it more like, well, an ultimate. Make players feel like they want to use it.

3. How? (Generally speaking)

Ah Muzen Cab

Anhur

The main problem is that Anhur is extremely powerful early game despite having comparable damage to in the late game, who is supposed to be the only ADC hyper carry right now. We can go two ways about this: Nerf his late game, making him deal less damage, or nerf his early game, making him more of a hyper carry. This post concerns the possibilities of the former.

Anhur's laning phase has two components: His general durability and his kill potential.

's durability is complicated, and it is tied into all of his abilities:

The bodyblocking and slow on his Shifting Sands
The knockback on his Impale.
The leap on his Disperse.
The CC-immunity of Desert Fury.
His amount of health/defenses in the early game, aka his base stats.

In my eyes, he simply has too much options, providing a huge barrier to killing him. We can tweak his abilities in various ways. We can reduce the effectiveness of his CC, we can reduce the amount of his CC by raising or modifying cooldowns, and we can change his ultimate's Cc-immunity.

The second part of Anhur's strong early game is his kill potential. This is also complex.

His passive, Enfeeble, allows him to deal near-true damage to targets.
His pillar-stun combo, while difficult to do, gives him a huge amount of kill potential if done right. Remember, skillcaps/floors should have nothing to do with balance.
His burst, mainly on his Desert Fury. On the first level alone, it can deal 240 damage + 120% of his physical power (Cupid deals 220 + 100%). If Anhur expends all of his abilities in the pillar-stun-bodyblock-ultimate combo, he has even more kill potential than Cupid himself.
His starting amount of power, which ties in with the point above. He starts with 40 + 2.5 per level, making him have 52.5 power at level 5.

This section can also be addressed through multiple ways. You can decrease his starting stats, you could reduce the impact of his CC, you can reduce the amount of his CC, or tweak the base numbers and/or contributions on his abilities.

Specifics: Base Stats (HiFromBuddha)

Passive Changes

Specifics: Impale

Specifics: Disperse

: Increase the cooldown of his , either to a flat number or simply increasing the numbers from 17-13 to 18-14.

Artemis

: Her Laning Phase is weak due to two reasons: Her ineffective traps and poor waveclear make her overly reliant on her support. The latter makes her too easily harassed by hard pushers like or .

Her traps are her primary defensive measure besides the support; improve her traps to improve her survivability. The traps' weaknesses have two components: the difficulty of snaring someone in these traps, and the underwhelming consequences of stepping into a trap.

Artemis' waveclear has two components: her basic attacks, and her . The latter is easier to buff, either by simple damage numbers or radii or something else. The former is more complex, and can be approached from multiple angles. You can buff her passive, buff her steroid, or buff her base stats. Buffing her power would allow her to simply deal more damage, while buffing her attack speed would allow her to stack her passive faster and "push" the minion wave easier. Pushing the minion wave forces them into a tighter group, making it easier to hit the entire wave with one .

What should NOT be touched: Her late game. It is already strong enough, the problem is getting there. If you are buffing her late game, there better be a good reason.

Artemis Specifics: Traps

Artemis Specifics: Basics

Cupid (LONG READ AHEAD)

: There are two main ideas for this one.

The first seeks to preserve his early game strength while slightly weakening it, by reducing the impact of his abilities.

The second is bringing his late game closer to other hunters. by either buffing his utility or damage. I would argue for the former.

HiFromBuddha has also suggested another kind of change closer to a total rework: Making him more like other ADCs by making his early game rather weak and his late game very strong.

Cupid Specifics: Lovestruck + Heart Bomb

Cupid's passive with is what makes his early game so strong. 30% bonus damage in a time where base damage is king is a recipe for a LOT of damage. Let me put it this way: With a 30% buff, Cupid's had more contributions than Anhur's : 260% versus 120%.

The passive has two problems: Early game, where it is easy to stack the passives, it is too strong. Late game, where stacking it is too difficult, it is too weak.

Heart Bomb has a similar problem. Late game, the damage it deals was fine, the problem was it paled in comparison to plain ol' basic attacks, making it a virtually useless skill, since you would rarely get a stun.

My solution is to reduce his damage early game and increase his utility late game, while not significantly affecting his late damage damage numbers.

My Proposed Solution

Hi From Buddha also had a specific change in mind:

HiFromBuddha's Proposal

Cupid Specifics: Share the Love

Cupid Specifics: Flutter

Cupid Specifics: Field of Love

Neith

Xbalanque

Making patch notes is like a crossword puzzle. You need something to start with rather than randomly guessing. See those blank spots with ???. We need to fill them up, starting with goals and reasons, before determining the how.

Remember, not everyone has to be changed! Some gods are perfectly fine. If you feel that a god doesn't need a change or feel like he/she needs a different one, then say so, and list your reasons.

I'll fill in with posts with specifics on the how's. I will also edit this post to incorporate any other suggestions. Keep in mind that this ^ post is more about general stuff.

Renowned (112)
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Artemis:
Increase Entangling Vines's radius, as right now its a little too small to actually trap people with, and is easily avoidable.
While her 2 is active her basic attacks can pierce through enemy gods and minions, dealing reduced damage based on how many it has pierced.

Xbalanque:
Enemies take extra damage while the ult is active. If he gets an assist from using his ult he gets a stack from his passive.

Memorable (12)
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Honestly, I would prefer to be an early-game damage-based carry, like , and here's how I plan to do it:

New 2: some kind of reliable waveclear, that doesn't do much to gods.

There. Done. I can reminiscence on what type of waveclear it is (maybe some type of high-radius level 1 HoG that only affects lane minions, ha!), but this simple change will do two things:

Switch him from support carry to damage carry.
Match his earlygame harass/kill potential with 's, maybe higher.

The reason being: his old 2 was useless, he had the lowest waveclear of all the carries, and he's based around earlygame, where can do so much better, and still be a factor in teamfights. He honestly needs this.

Prominent (33)
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Artemis Specifics: Traps

Which and how many of these changes are acceptable?

Renowned (112)
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whoa... apparently, in competitive, has been picked more than .

Wut.

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Artemis Specifics: Basics

Renowned (112)
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Artemis Specifics:

Utility Increase:

1. Now applies on-hit effects. Not sure if this includes crit chance. (RazeMage)

Renowned (112)
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Tal, to be honest, I think there aren't any fundamental changes we need to Cupid's kit. His waveclear is better than Artemis' with more harass and more sustain. His healing is also an important part of his kit and his early game strength, since no other hunter could regen mana like that. (Seriously, his heal is FAR from useless. At max rank, all three hearts give 330 + 75% as healing, or 396 + 90% with all passive stacks.)

Sasquatch, I don't think Xbal's change is a good idea, not only because he already has a basic attack steroid, but because his ultimate can get assist from across the map, making it pretty much guaranteed that he'll be getting stacks.

Edit: Yeah, before the nerf, Cupid was pretty strong due to his ability to destroy any other hunter with an escape (read: Anhur, Apollo, Neith) and being able to do literally everything during the laning phase. He could poke, burst, passively clear, had a very safe time due to his dash, could outsustain other pokers, could poke down burst laners, could outburst sustain laners, etc etc.

Renowned (112)
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I'll fill in Cupid's specifics after dinner. Then I'll work on Xbal's.

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I think the best way to go with 's ult is allow true sight to all enemy gods for the duration of the darkness. Fitting for his lore as a hunter, and also synergizes well with the self-buff from it.

Or we could simply increase the duration of the self-buff to last through the stun as well and also make Xbalanque CC immune for the duration of the darkness.

Other alternatives: enemies that are stunned by his ultimate lose a certain amount of phys protection, enemies that are stunned become "targets" and gains a small direct penetration buff against them and also has true sight of them for a duration (similar to Bounty Hunter from Dota 2's Track).

Things we don't want to do with his ult:

Make it deal direct damage. This is simply diluting its real purpose and will be spammed constantly. Plus, a global ult that deals damage is just too.. LoL.

Make the stun unavoidable. A global CC would simply be too overpowered and would eliminate the "chance" aspect of it. You take quantity over quality.

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Memorable (13)
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Let's Make Patch Notes - Hunters/ADCs

Poll Question:

Before you say anything about a nerf or a buff please give a reason!!!

1. Goals.

2. Reasons.

3. How? (Generally speaking)

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