Pizza's Dota 2 Restandardization thoughts

-------------------------------------Pizza's Dota 2 Restandardization thoughts----------------------

------------------------------------------Truestrike/Accuracy---------------------------------------

I'm a big fan of the small, intricate abilities of dota that can have a massive effect on gameplay.
One of these is the "1-hit" truestrike of various abilities such as (but not limited to) Silver Edge, Enchant Totem, etc.

I think more of these on-hit truestrike effects can be incorporated into the game, pulling certain heroes and items into soft-counter territory instead of focusing so much on hard counters (Requiring MKB vs PA for example).

Abilities that I think should have "1-hit" true strike: Infernal Blade, Shadow Blade, Moment of Courage, and specifically a remake of Solar Crest.

[Solar Crest]
(New) On usage -- instead of 35% accuracy on the target -- grants 1-hit of of 100% accuracy/truestrike to all units that attack it, each unit can only benefit once per cast of Solar Crest.

------------------------------------------Intelligence as an Attribute-------------------------------

There are a couple trends in dota 2 lately with 7.00 and 7.06 specifically.
Back in the 6.8X patches Intelligence had spell amplification added to it.
And in various patches since, mana per point of intelligence has been lowered, while amplification has been increased.
Another thing that happened (7.06) was a rebalance to health regen scaling, and I'd like to see the same for mana regen scaling.

[[Intelligence Redone]]
-Regen per point increased from .04 to .06 <-- SCRATCH THIS PART
-Amplification increased from 1% per 14 to 1% per 12
-Max Mana per point decreased from 11 mana to 10 mana
-Max Base Mana increased by 25 (100 base mana, see past patches for reference)

[[Scrapping Mana Regen change after contemplation]]

I think the better plan, is that various INT heroes should actually have better stat gain in their specialty. Heroes like Pudge have over 3.0 strength gain, and many other strength heroes like Doom and Centaur, also follow this.

Let's take Queen of Pain as an example. Following the above changes, she goes from 471 mana at 6 to 460 mana at 6. Now what if we increased her int gain from 2.5 to 3.5? That's 5 extra physical attack and 50 extra mana at level 6! But wait, it's really only 39 bonus mana because of the max mana changes (471 -> 460 -> 510). Oh and she still doesn't have enough mana for level 1 usage of all 4 skills, so she is still required manage her skill points and mana pool correctly.

How many other Int heroes could be buffed in their INT with this? Overall this still increases INT based regen when INT heroes simply have more INT. I would also like to see higher INT on various early game items, and more alternative items for INT heroes.

[[------------End of New Thoughts---------------------]]

//*This overall change might require a significant tweak to all heroes and their default mana regen rates (similar to hp regen rates in 7.06), as well a chance in how INT base + gain on Primary Attribute heroes works.

I would like to see more INT heroes with strong INT stat gain in the 3.2-3.5+ range, that aren't just heroes like Invoker or Pugna. Especially with a 20% nerf to mana per int, many INT based heroes might need slightly better stats.
*//

---"But what about % mana regen items?!"---
//*
Mana Regen items would probably need to be nerfed/adjusted across the board.
I think the key thing would be to keep higher cost % regen items relatively the same (Bloodstone, Eul's, Guinsoo's)
while keeping easy access early items a bit more fair, e.g. Sobi/Sage's Mask might be nerfed to 25% regen from 50% or be remade to be a flat .5 regen. Generally speaking, I'm looking at component items being nerfed and final items staying relatively the same.
*//
---"But WHY?"---

I want to see intelligence heroes as a true stat based build in the future. Large INT items are limited, and the purpose of building INT is currently more for mana pool than regen or damage. This would functionally allow INT to be more useful, and mana regen to be focused more inside that int, instead of outside of it -- as there are many heroes that like INT but aren't akin to building a ton of regen.

----Double Dipping of INT vs Amp----

I really think this should be removed. There are a few abilities that scale doubly off INT or MANA and then get SPELL AMP on top.
Namely Silencer, Outworld Devourer, and Skywrath. I'm not claiming this is Overpowered, but that it's an intricacy I disagree with occurring, and it's also visually shown incorrectly. It's like Cleave scaling off spell damage or grant spell lifesteal, it's just ... questionable design for me.

------------------------------------------------Break as an Effect--------------------------------------
Like the idea for truestrike above, I think more small instances of BREAK should exist in Dota

The primary essence of "Sheepstick" was to reduce a target to a harmless critter in Wc3 dota, but the functionality of
BREAK being added to the game also removed it from the Hex effect. I think the issue is mostly *how strong* break really is.

Hex originally granted what we now call Break, Disarm, Silence, and Mute. I think this is fair to put back into the items/skills that grant this effect, but we must also look at what break removes. Maybe, and this is a big maybe, Maybe only certain passives should truly "Break" and others shouldn't.

Story Time: I think one of my most painful experiences with Break was playing Huskar, not someone you usually think of getting it against. I usually think of Halberd to remove his attack/speed, but break does an almost better job at removing both his offensive AND defensive strengths. Losing upwards of 200-300 attack speed and losing a massive magic resist value at the same time leaves him naked and useless.

Why do I bring this up? I think the Attack Speed portion of Huskar should not be able to be broken. Similarly, I think many Ultimate passives should not be broken, such as PA's Critical (Coup De Grace), as that also is countered by plenty of other aspects readily available. I think Break should be focused towards specific, especially defensive aspects of heroes ("but break is supposed to remove all passives!" -- yes, but some passives have multiple aspects that make or break a hero too much).

Heroes like Riki, breaking him should make him unable to fade/invis, but not remove his backstab. If you are Hexed(updated) or Silver Edged, you already are already affected by an offensive debuff, either by disarm or damage reduction.

Breaking Axe makes sense to remove his "offensive" value. Some ultimates are /already/ not affected by break, either in part or in whole. Such as Abaddon, who's ultimate will not /passively/ turn on if he is broken, but can actively be used. Or Wraith King, who's ultimate is too much of a core aspect of his hero.

Increasing the frequency of BREAK I think is good for the long term health of the game, as there's just too few applications of it right now, which causes some heroes (bristle back, timbersaw, etc) to require direct balance touch ups, instead of offering the softer counter-picks or item pick ups, some of which used to exist in the past.

--------------------------------------------------Roots and Force Staff----------------------------------
I love the change to root from 7.00!!!!!

It's actually what inspired me to believe dota had design space to still grow and perfect itself in 2017.

Force Staff still bugs me, but I don't see a solution to its commonality on ranged carries and various supports,
it's just a weird nuance of dota post 7.00 where heroes can't jump, blink, etc, but can force staff while rooted.

I have no solution or even true opinion other than it's weird and it bugs me.

----------------------------------------------------Invisibility---------------------------------------
Two heroes have "true invisibility" allowing them to cast spells without breaking it (Riki and Treant)

All other forms of invisibility breaks on doing any action.

I suggest making this more explicit, or even calling it something different, and possibly applying it to other situations.

Specifically, I think certain items should not break any invisibility source, such as wards and tp scrolls, allowing supports to use invisibility runes, glimmer, or shadow blade to escape or get into less safe warding spots.

Using healing/consumables might also be fair

I question other standardizations, but these would be the first I'd like to see tried/tested.

----------------------------------------------------Wards/Ward units--------------------------
New wards/ward units seem to have a form of standardization as "Number of Hits to Kill" and I would like to see more of this.

As a support, I think one of the most frustrating things about killing wards is having garbage attack damage and having to hit the ward 3 times. I think it should be a hit value on all ward units, instead of HP. Making observer and sentry wards a default 2 hit kill would make it easier to judge time it takes to deward a location, similar to how wards had 100% accuracy placed on them.

Similarly, non-support ward units I believe should have a more "functional" usage. Venomancer is one hero that comes to mind. I think his Plague Wards should be hit based (and all wards, period, of course), having 1/2/3/4 (or 1/2/2/3) hits guarantees a similar, but more predictable laning phase as well as push capacity with the hero. *Since they become hit based, their HP doesn't require scaling in any significant manner.

I question further the aspect of how Zeus's Aghanim's Scepter works. It has a distinct melee vs ranged hit value. I question if this is a good thing that should be applied to all/most wards or the opposite and that it should be entirely removed.

I DO however like the idea of having wards take less damage from creeps, and likely treating towers as "heroes" for ward damage. Such as Plague Wards above having 10 "hp" and towers/heroes always dealing 2 damage while creeps always deal 1 damage. This I definitely can see being applied universally.

--------------------------------------------------Denies------------------------------------------
There are currently 3 spells that allow you to deny an ally, and various spells that allow you to deny self, including an 1 item.

I feel like there should be a given value to denying, and a predictable reason you are allowed to do so.

I do not have a direct idea of how to standardize this, but will update this post as I come up with one.

Update - I think the removal of Ally Denies would be a healthy aspect to the game. There are only 3 spells that allow this anyway, removing the Deny aspect from 2 of these spells is not game breaking. The last spell being the Ultimate "Doom" I think is a problem with how the spell /currently/ works, which I have personal design position on to begin with.

------------------------------------------------Doom (Spell)----------------------------------------
I wasn't planning on making blatant balance aspects here, but I will for the sake of the above argument.
The spell Doom has always been relatively strong, and ridiculously long lasting. I have the (strong) opinion that Doom's Aghanim's
should be incorporated like Pudge's, into his default kit. However, I think the default timer should be gutted.

Doom (Remake)
The spell Doom now grants Silence, Mute, and Break.
Cooldown rescaled: 150 / 135 / 120
Debuff Duration: 3.1/4.1/5.1 seconds
As long as Doom (hero) is within 1000 range of the target, Doom (spell) does not begin to count down. However, if the "leash" distance is broken at all, the spell will start counting down and cannot be stopped.
The damage of Doom per tick is unchanged, minimum damage of Doom (spell) is 4/5/6 Ticks of damage, occurring .1 seconds after placing the debuff, and lasting until the final .1 tick mark.