Bramble Shield versus Heal

what do you wanan tell us? sednas heal is better than bramble shield? of course, why not? comparing skills directly is somewhat useless because you have to consider the whole class with all its abilities.

if you just want to mention that qot is week, then well, against other dg at higher levels she is. but qot has significant other adventages which are extremly nice to win a game. dg killing is not all!

btw. the level 15 skill is not good. inf act at level 15 it is quite useless  because 1. she won't be mire than 1-2 sec under 30% (heal incomming)  or 2. she will die anyway ni a few seconds with or without the +50hps.

edit: qot has a bad reputation because most player try to play her like a dg killer in a shooter (like thex play any other dg). that's stupid.

shield is much better imho, you can easily shield your entire team before going into a fight, you can't do that with heal.

Yes exactly what i was going to say.

And Celmare aswell.

I havent played Sedna much and not at all online so i cant speak for her, but in my experience a team with a good QoT usually wins. The way i play she is not a dps'er, I dont expect to solo DG's maybe outlast and if they are stupid chase them down, but QoT is a great tank, and a greater support player.

Shielding my teammates gives them a psychological boost, when they go to check thier health it isnt going down, at all and alot of times that makes all the difference in matches. Victory isnt just about getting the kill sometimes its about getting the other guy to run away losing time and experience.

I'm sure i could scratch my head and really get into it but im sure someone better at the game will do that.

As for the stats, i think alot of that has to do with players choice. Its not because QoT is underpowered its because people dont know how to utilize the power she has.

a very good point i forgott.

first of all like others pointed out shield is WAAAAAAY better

no argue about it

second sedna got much better passive abilities like regen self and group and over all the speed which make her nearly immortal

thats what makes sedna much loved, self regen and speed, QOT has no escaping

anyway im pretty sure the main reason why QOT is not so much chosen amongst players is that she has too few abilities

QOT is playable only with the pet spec and with that she basically just autoattack and shield occasionally, thats really boring to play

You are comparing 1 skill on 1 Demigod to 1 skill on another Demigod, your statistics are meaningless.

Having played both Sedna and QoT and doing quite well with both I don't think Sedna is much better than QoT.  I think Sedna can become more out of control than QoT though if she is fed a lot.

As has been stated by Schobbo, shielding your team before they go into battle is a major +. Also I would like to point out that there is still a cast time on heal, while shielding is instant (small delay but meh). When I was playing Sedna, this casting time on the heal did cause some people to die due to snipe, TB fireball, etc.

I like playing QoT because she can mean the difference between succes and failure in battle, not only by shielding, but also by decreasing the armor (Ground spike) and slowing runners down. Although it's true that you have to switch between open/closed and you receive some downtime because of it, it does help in real combat situations.

As celmare stated, QoT does lack the attack power to completely devastate the HP of an enemy demigod, but I still believe she can contribute to a kill in many ways, from shielding to slowing the enemy down and decreasing his/her armor.

Anyways, hope this answer was good enough

Silvius

i think more or less everything is said. many good points here. the comparisions made is useless. you have allways to take the whole class in consideration what is very difficult. and that is still not enough, you also have to consider the strategie used to play with them. they are not dg killer and demigod does not need killing others to win the battle.

being able to level faster, destroy towers and creeps faster without dieing yourself together with cit upgrades is an euqally good strategie. just one of many things qot is damn good at.

hmm in my eyes QoT > Sedna, meh but thats just me.

i love shield a lot more, dont get me wrong heal is great and in many ways just better. but that being said i think the shield is just more viable sense it can be placed on players who are not damaged with out going to waste. i really think combo's with QoT may become more popular with time. Just played a few matchs with a TB / QoT combo and im not sure what the "pro's" think of that pair but i gotta say, it was super effective.

full health demigod with shield, then he gets damaged and is reshielded...heal is pwned

QoT's Bramble Shield:

1. actually decreases its damage absorbed per mana slightly if you level this skill! (1.75 -> 1.73). 
   
2. Highest level Bramble Shield costs 840(!) mana and absorbs less damage than Sedna's highest level Heal (which costs only 750 mana) heals.
3. Instant cast, unable to be interupted, cast it while running.
4. Effectively increases hp and resistance to burst damage.
5. Proactive rather than reactive, cast it before battle for an extra cooldown's worth of heals.

Sedna's Heal:

1. increases its health per mana considerably (1.6 -> 2).
2. it does remove negative effects (like Spit).
   
3. it does area damage.
4. enables a really good lvl15 special skill. 
   
5. teammates increase armor, giving them more advantage of Heal vs. Shield.
6. Cast time, interruptable.

I think QoT biggest weakness is shamblers, and a viable alternative skill tree after level 10.  Bramble shield and ground spikes are great, but after those are maxed it's all downhill.

how is this worse than sednas situation?

Sedna gains movement speed and a self-heal, and has two interrupts. 

Obviously Yetis are very stupidly implemented, but besides that I would say Sedna is fine.

I think one of the big problems with both QoT and Sedna is how ineffective healing/shielding becomes when you get into artifact territory.  1500 HP becomes a very small chunk of health compared to the potential damage someone maxed out on crit gear can do.  Essentially, when playing as Sedna or QoT, your team needs to end the game before it gets to that stage.

and what about the stuff qot gets? dmg skills and armore reduction and slows? it's not so somple.

As I've found already, Shield vs Heal usually winds up with Shield on top. However, I find that QoT vs Sedna is a hands down match in favor of Sedna.

I occassionally here people talk about how "powerful" QoT is and I'd love to see videos of her being played well. I play her frequently, but I can always pick out any other Demigod and do much better. She's easily my favorite character due to the playstyle, but I feel that she is really lacking... Shield is not really a problem.

as i said above. qot is not a dg killer. if you want to compair them as how good they can kill solo another dg you are doing it wrong. this is not the aim of the game! inf act you don't even need to kill a single dg to clearly win the game.

using shield intelligent (as mentioned above) you help your allies to survive. using groundspikes helps pushing enemys back, helps leveling faster then many other dgs, helps destroying towers faster. even the shamblers are better then the yetis and usually part of a qot build what yetis aren't, so you have additionally ranged minions to mciro arround. i allready can hurt with only my two priests other dgs at least so much that i get a significant advantege without receiving any dmg my self. with shamblers + priests it works even better.

the point is you will fail if your strategie is to kill dg, no matter if directly or as assistent. your mani aim should be fast leveling and tower destruction and of course surviving. sedna is share the surviving part but is inferior at leveling and tower destruction. on the other side she does better at 1vs1 fights not beccause of their dmg, but because of their selfhealing and interrupting.

qots roll is in mostly different strategie. as i said in a different thread: most people only see builds and dgs without considering the related strategie!

edit: please don't get me wrong. i do not deny that qot still needs some love. but many of the complains come from using her in a non fitting strategie.

While I think there are times when you can compare different things well, at times it doesn't, and I think it's both in the case of your post OP. And total number of games played? Or is that the number of wins per demi, or something else? If it is total number of games played, that doesn't say much about the charaters at all. I think people often make choices of demigod based on how likely they are to get kills, but that graph doesn't really say much.

Cel: saying she is not a demigod killer isnt' really a real reason imo. They should all be demigod killers, considering how much utility is gained from the gold and experience earned by killing, they all have to be able to do that. People don't particularly share the gold they get when they get kills, unless they happen to buy cit upgrades. While people have stated that they don't think the demis are one on one balanced, I think they definitely should be. Particularly if people want one on one maps/games.

they are all able to kill dgs. but why should they all be equally good at doing it 1vs1? qot is still one of the best assister, even better than sedna. this game is not arround dg killing. it is an important and usfull part, but it is not the only aspect of the game. in fact it is only one of many important tasks to win. and qot is one of the best at others.

These types of fanboy showdowns always amuse me. In the red corner, Cosmoe, who spends every waking moment raising the alarm about the underusage and underpowered-ness of his pet DG! In the blue corner, Celmare, who bristles at the very notion that QoT is relatively weak!  

My $.02: QoT is relatively weak, but not because of Bramble Shield. She's squishy, slow, her spells cost too much mana, and to top it all off her AA stinks. Also compared to Sedna she has no interrupts, no reduced-cooldown aura, and no super-priests. 

As for the direct Heal vs Shield comparison: I'm a bit surprised to see so many posters on the pro-shield side of the debate. Shield is slightly better early on, but above level 7 (Heal 3+4 vs Sheild 3+4), Heal is 2,384,951 times better because it purges negative effects. Yes, its that important. 

QoT could do with a buff. 

QFT

Heal also scales with mitigation, shield does not.

This man is correct.

For the support role, Sedna is plainly better than QoT.

For the "shielding your whole team before a battle" argument, don't forget that shields are only useful if a shielded demigod actually gets attacked. In other words, it is often a waste of mana to shield allies out of combat, only for it to expire, having absorbed 0 damage.

On that note, shields are also rarely worth their full mana cost, because they often expire before they collapse from damage! Heals, on the other hand, are ALWAYS worth their cost, so long as they're not used on a full-heath or near-full-health ally. Plus, you get more health-per-mana with heal than shield, AND shields have no armor! The net effect is that you will be seeing much, MUCH higher mana efficiency with heals than with shields.

As someone who has played both QoT and Sedna extensively on a premade team, I can say there is no reason to use QoT over Sedna. Sedna is faster, tougher, has better support abilities, has MUCH better survivablity, doesn't have to deal with form-changing (which, by the way, is an added hassile for QoT and does not net her any rewards for her trouble), and on top of it all, Sedna has a powerful attack with an interrupt!

Seriously, folks. Until QoT gets a huge buff, start playing as Sedna. You won't regret it.

If sedna's priests weren't healing for 1800 a pop you'd see QoT get more usage. Also if minion damage were affected by armor you'd see her grinding up LE minion builds with her shamblers, but currently as a whole QoT just lacks much synergy in her builds and runs OOM too quickly.

Of course I know that you cannot compare the strength of a Demigod based on only one of their skills, I just stated the facts which compare the increase in usefulness if you put further points into the two main active support skills.

Perhaps it is even intended that Shield is really strong in the beginning and gets more and more useless the more you skill it (as opposed to Heal), but I have yet to hear a good explanation for that.

To all who explained that the Shield is better than Heal (especially CelMare):

• Please post how often you play the QoT where you extensively Shield your teammates vs. how often you play Senda where you extensively Heal your teammates.
• Please post how often you get Shielded by a QoT in your team vs. the number how often you get Healed by a Sedna.

Maybe I'm even wrong and Shield is not intended to be a support skill, because it certainly isn't usually used as such now.