Minion thoughts

Ultimately my thought for Sedna and QoT is that any recast in the field is bad and should be avoided... they should have a way to avoid this if they are careful. (cast minions at base, and don't lose them)

I already use a QoT hybrid build, and shamblers 1 is my 1st skill. Because they are ranged, you can keep them alive if you are careful.

So on QoT, my opinion is not so much the mana cost, but rather the shambler minion buff skills. Ptarth and I looked at what morale gives you when minions and idols are maxed out on QoT. Compost and Entourage doesn't hold a candle to that. Look at CrazyTown and QoTLop mod for some solid shambler numbers on entourage and compost.

Sedna has a different problem, her Yeti's aren't ranged so they can't avoid damage. She does have healing wind monk idol heals however. My opinion is that a higher base life to Yetis in addition to properly scaling damage would be the way to go, so survivability comes from healing wind monks.

eg: Sedna's opening minion build could be

Yeti
Healing Wind
Save
Yeti II
Mag Presence +  Healing Wind II
Choice of Heal 1 / Pounce 1 / Silence
Yeti III
Counter Healing
Save
Yeti IV, Mag II

Occs minions are disposable, I agree with a low cast cost on these because they expire.

This is side-stepping the main difference between the aura minions and the summoned minions:  the aura minions are comparatively too powerful at all levels of the skill, made far worse by the lack of mana cost.  Oak can begin harassing towers at Ward II.  Yetis and Ball Lightning can't even beat Structure Defense I regen at level IV.

You're also ignoring the ridiculous cost spreads at each level.  I should not cost almost as much as II, because it is around 1/3rd as powerful at best, AND needs to be cast twice as often.  The same with III -> IV.  III should not cost almost as much as IV, because it's less than half as powerful per cast.

Yetis and Ball Lightning would have to be made far too tough to be viable without the constant need to recast at any level.  Unlike Shamblers, you cannot keep them away from towers 100%, so they are absolutely going to die no matter how tough you make them (within reason).

As for minion power, compare to what?
Level 1 Rook will kill a tower if you ignore him.
QoT at level 4 with GSII can take down a tower far faster then oak can.

Etc...

I guess I am saying that mana on QoT shamblers is not an issue for me (so shouldn't be an issue for anyone) because I am careful with my shamblers. That is a problem that doesn't need to be fixed. What needs to be fixed for QoT minions is compost and entourage, because they are terribly bad compared to morale.

So this brings up the next point

Why make Sedna play spammy when you can simply change each level of Yeti health to 400 from 300, that extra tower blast a level makes all the difference with healing wind. It gives you enough time to decide when it's time to pull back. (eg: An enemy shows up)

I guess I am advocating 3 styles of minion gameplay.

Disposable: LE and Oak
Quality with Cost: Sedna and QoT
Hybrid- Disposable with Cost: Occ

Shamblers, Yetis, and Balls should do the same relative damage as similar levels of Crawlers and Spirits, how you use them is what the difference is.

QoT- Stand off
Sedna- Attack into the thick of it and then withdraw to heal up, repeat.
Oak- Dispose on towers (Rook is a tower hehe)
LE- Harass low AoE DGs, distract creeps, dispose on towers
Occ: Fire and let them do their thing... if you use them right then it should be like Occ's other theme, the enemy should have to withdraw before you are out of mana.

One tower hit is NOTHING, even when the towers aren't hitting all Yetis at once (and they always do).  I really don't think you've attempted Oc or Sedna minion builds enough if you don't think their minion summon costs aren't a problem, especially I-III.  I've done lots of boosting of Sedna's Yetis to no real effect, at least not until you get to IV when it's actually efficient to re-summon them.  It's really stupid that you should have to put 4 points into a skill before it becomes even remotely useful.

Also, you're way off-base about the health - Yetis need armor way more than they need health, so the regen bonus actually matters.  Otherwise even at HW II, it takes over a minute for a level III-IV Yeti to regen.  Yet even at III, they can already survive multiple AoE ability nukes, while 15 seconds of tower damage kills them.  Armor and regen is what they need.

Even still, they SHOULD be killable.  You SHOULD have to resummon them if an AA or AoE DG focuses on them.  Otherwise, in trying to make them effective and survivable enough, you risk making them too durable to be reliably killed by anything at level IV.  However, their mana cost at earlier levels should reflect this greater killability and slower summoning rate.

This is so wrong, oh my god.  By the time you have had 50 nightwalkers as Erb, with Conversion I or II, FOR FREE, or a similar amount of Spirits with Ward I or II for maybe ~1-2k mana, Oc would have had to cast Summon Ball Lightning I and II about 60 times, for around 30,000 mana and 5 minutes of non-stop cooldown time.  Of course, that's impossible.  You won't have regenerated half that amount in that period of time unless you never left the health stone.  Nevermind that Ball Lightning I and II are weaker in every way than Nightwalkers or Spirits at any level.

I still don't believe for a moment that Shamblers are viable in a competitive game until you get at least III, and III is 'out of line' from a mana-cost perspective, making it by far the best Summon III in the game for so many reasons (ranged AoE unit, cheap cost, etc).  If you have a replay of a multiplayer game in which you used Summon Shambler I and II to any real effect, then by all means post it.

Mminion Sedna builds don't rely on Yetis. Inner Grace, Magnificent Presense, Healing Wind, and Morale along with Siege Demolishers. 

Yes.  Because Yetis are worthless.  This is not cool.

I think Shamblers are pretty worthless too, but at least they don't die non-stop, and they do AE damage to creeps.  They're just the best of the terrible, over-expensive minions.

To be clear, I support most or all of LO's boosts to Shamblers / Entourage, and think Yetis and Ball Lightning need similar boosts.  But even with those boosts, level I and II (and III for BL/Yetis) mana costs need to come down.  Shamblers maybe less so, because they're not total meatshields.

If you're having trouble understanding the usefulness gap between Shamblers and Yetis/BL, just think about how worthless minos (and even higher level minos) are compared to demolishers.  Then imagine that basic minos cost 500+ mana apiece to summon.

Of course, if you could maintain 3-10 free minos just by being near dying creeps or minions, then suddenly they don't seem so bad.

Give ball lightning there level 15 ability at rank 1 of summoning ball lightning and reduce their mana cost.

Give Yeti's wild swings at rank 1 of Horn of Yeti and reduce their mana cost.

Miriyaka,

Well to clarify, I mean around the same damage for max number of minions.
eg: 4 shamblers / yetis + idols should have the potential to do the same total damage as 10 night crawlers or ghosts + idols.

If you mean 4 shamblers / yetis + idols should do more total DPS then 10 spirits / crawlers + idols, that's not a good starting place. The baseline should be for the current minions that work... they've already been nerfed officially.

If Yetis and shamblers can do around 120 damage, that is a little higher then 10 crawlers, but when you factor in moral, the extra damage is a little higher for the crawlers + idols.

As well, you must consider that every trip to the base ensures full minions for sedna / QoT. So, They will always be at full battle potential when fresh. The cost of this is that it is a punishment to be careless with their minions and have to recast in the field.

Right now, Yetis, compost, and entourage are worthless and no amount of mana reduction on the minion casts will make people put points in those skills. Those should be addressed first. (get those units to 120-130 damage)[I went with 120 in Crazy Town 4]

Morale and idols are pretty much quadruple as effective as those skills.

Oh, and I'll just put this idea out there to think what people think because I am thinking about it for the next version of crazy town.

Ball Lighting.

Armor mitigation never made much sense to me on ball lightning. Just exactly how would armor mitigate lightning in one form, but not another.

I was thinking around 2/3 unmitigated damage potential compared to Crazy Town Yeti / Shamblers (which brings things in line with crawlers / ghosts)

So, damage of 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 unmitigated.

There might be some consequences of this that are unworkable. eg: You face QoT + Occ... damned if you do and damned if you don't. (Stack armor to overcome ground spikes leaving you less life against Occ's Ball in your face, or stack life and get harmed by the spike multiplier)

I want  to give my thoughts on DA balance. I don't profess to have ever been a teir 1 player knowing all the DG perfectly, but I do (or at least did) know DA better than most people in the game. I will say this though about the other DG, I don't think there has to be an interrupt for every DG to be viable. Manna reductions and other tweaks could go allot further than just slapping on an interrupt somewhere.

 Ok first thing DA needs for balance is an upgrade in speed. I don't think anyone disputes this. And if its the only thing that gets changed I would be happy to accept it. 

WA is an ok skill but its final upgrade is quite simply one of the worst skills in the game. This proposal above could work but if it were put into effect with re-targeting i would like to see it follow more along the lines of Chain lightning jumping to the next closest target within a range until the strikes are complete.

Negative, I don't know what everyone's love for EoM with DA is. I honestly don't see it, and i have played allot of games with DA. You basically get the item to be able to spam Spine early in the game that’s it, super waste later on. You don't spam WS cause that will get you killed by always just throwing your body into places, you don't spam swap for the same reason. Maybe you could use it for killing creep waves with WA but still not worth it imo. That leaves Spine. A favor item that does not address DA's main needs while really only boosting 1 power is not a viable favor item imo. I believe tower rook benefits much more than DA from EoM, and lowering the cool down would just make it that much better for him. And the argument that you only need 1 helm with this build is a moot point as I only use 1 helm on DA when playing with anklet, so manna really is not the biggest issue DA needs to address through a favor item imo.

This is an interesting idea but until some things are fixed it will not balance DA at any point of the game. Protecting your speed bonus is a nice thing as at lvl 3 synergy you would basically take the slow out of pent, and halve the slow from mines. The problem i have with this is that the evade line is pretty much broken imo. 3 points in you get less damage mitigation than scalemail gives in armor at the beginning of the game, and to add insult scalemail is better because armor is guaranteed mitigation, evade is random. To add a weak buff to a worthless stat line does not make a balance to me.

Now if the evade line was boosted to 10/20/30% i might go for it. If the evade cap was lifted i would for sure go for it. To make evade legit i think one of or a combination of if not all of these things need to happen.

1. Lift the cap (must happen)

2. double the stats of Desperate boots OR remove the 30% hp clause

3. Switch cloak of elfinkind's armor upgrade to an HP upgrade

Combine those things with the 10/20/30% and DA will become not just viable late game like he is now but he will be awesome late game. All of those things might not be needed for balance to be achieved but if you want to use the evade stat line to balance DA some of those things need to happen. Evade needs to be able to deliver at least the same amount of insane mitigation that armor already affords when stacked up late game, maybe a little more because it is random.

The biggest thing that bothers me when people talk about fixing DA is they try to find ways to make him able to hold a solo lane in the beginning just as if he were UB. DA is not UB get over it. I would much rather see DA get boosts in speed and maybe finding a way to fix the evade line, so he can have enhances to the things he does well already that are different than other characters. Diversity is fun not total balance as that just makes every character the same.

Actually, the slow cap that matches evasion + speed means he cannot be slowed below 1.15x speed when both are at III.  It basically makes his ability-based speed completely immune to slows (but does nothing for item speed increases).  It's a pretty big buff against any DGs with a big snare, and means you never have to worry about being totally locked down.

While I agree that evasion needs an overhaul, it's a big change, and you might have a hard time getting enough consensus on it.

LO: I'm not really discussing the power of summoned minions at level IV vs maxed out free minions (other than that BL and Yetis are currently trash at any level).  I think IV mana costs are appropriate, and that it's possible to boost those minions enough that being able to summon 4 of them at once with decent stats is well worth ~1000 mana.

The main issue is I and II being horribly expensive for what you get compared to the free minions.  450-550 mana to summon one minion that's no better than one of the 3-4 that LE and Oak get at level I.  Likewise, II costing 625-750 for two minions that are each pretty much equal to one, maybe one and a half of the 5-6 free minions the others get at II.  III still needs a cost reduction because of the comparative lack of increase compared to II, and then IV is fine because it's an excellent one-shot total refresh (assuming the minions have been boosted enough to be worthwhile).

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say 20/40/60/80 damage - is that at each of the 4 levels?  20 damage at level I, for one Ball Lightning, is totally irrelevant.  That's less than it has now, I think, and armorimmune or not, that's ~12dps on a unit with half the HP of a basic minotaur.  Conversely, 80 damage at IV times 4 == 230 armor immune dps, which is a bit much, and waaaaaaay too much of an increase over I and II (especially if you're implying that I and II should not be cheaper).  Ball Lightning need a total overhaul, not a little one or two stat boost.  They also need to be a slightly cheaper summon than other minions until Explosive End enters the equation, because they have to be re-summoned every 20 seconds no matter what (this should be at least 30 seconds, but still).

That would make BL horribly overpowered.  While they need to be boosted, they don't need to be made more powerful than any other skill at their level.

Re: Yetis, I think some AE damage at all levels (with the relative amount increasing with each level) + re-appropriating Wild Swings into an ROF+speed increase could work.  They still need more health, armor, and regen more than they need damage, though.

Honestly - if I had to make a call, I'd simply leave it as giving reg an interrupt.  He's the weakest out of qot/occ and that would be a huge help and make him less of a liability late game.  Occ - sure, no int.  Qot.. its a little more arguable, but sure... no int.  Can live with that.  But reg... he really should have 1. 

You are assuming that this will hit its target 100% of the time and I would give it barely 30% to hit its target. The range of explosive damage is pathetically small.

If your that worried about it being op reduce the damage of all balls to 200 on explosion but give oculus access to more balls at level 15.

BL can detonate on towers basically 99% of the time, and even as small as the radius is, melee demigods would not be able to kill them without taking damage.

Doing more than 4 units is problematic, but it would be possible to increase explosion damage at higher levels, I guess.  Still needs a cost reduction at low levels, period.  The actual BL themselves are useless until they die, which is really stupid.  If you want them to be nothing but mobile bombs, why not just make their melee attack a suicide weapon?

Why do all minions have to be used for doing dps types of damage.  Making ball lightning do explode damage at level 1 would make them unique to all demigods minions and far more useful then there current format.

If this puts oculus in tier 1 I would be very suprised but it would be a pleasant suprise.

Access to more exploding balls?  

Seriously though, good idea.  I'm not sure more AoE damage is what our boy Occ really needs, but BL would be a unique way to deliver it.  Of course if BL actually did what its tooltip said as in the increase attack rate of nearby allies, his balls wouldn't suck quite as bad as they do maybe.  Guess thats a big list of things that don't actually work properly on Occ though.

GPG developer #1: "How do we not make Occulus's minions suck as bad as the other two summonable minions?"

GPG developer #2: "Make them die after 20 seconds?"

GPG developer #1: "Brilliant!  I'm off to write the code!"

GPG developer #2: "Wait!  I was... ummm... kidding.  Oh well..."

Also, new idea for DA that I am putting in the next version of Crazy Town

Interrupt moves to warp strike, and swap does a skill cancel without causing cooldown. eg: It will block the teleport out, but it won't cause cooldown on the teleport scroll so you can try again right after... then you get interrupted with warp strike.

That doesn't strike me as a particularly needed change.  Swap is already an ok interrupt.

If anything, both of those skills need a +5 range boost at each level (well, III and IV for WS).  This would give both a small advantage over Spine, without just upping the damage or giving them radical new functionality (which isn't really needed).

It would also make Swap usable as something more than just an interrupt, and would make a Swap+WS DA a serious threat anywhere near his tower clusters.

Shadow Swap doesn't need a range boost, except, maybe, level 1. But that would be solved by making demon speed better. 

You've got a bit of a failure in logic there: Swap's only improvement by level is range.  And the mana cost goes up sharply.  So if you increase level I range, you have to increase all other levels.

I actually agree that it's ok at level III, but bumping it by +5 at III is not going to upset any kind of delicate balance, and it still won't outrange e.g. Batswarm III.  It's a skill that's only really used for interrupting right now, and I can't tell you when I've ever bothered taking more than level I for that very reason.

I'm also going to argue that Demon's Speed doesn't really need a boost, especially if you use Elusiveness to implement a slow cap at its level (at +5, 10, 15% of base speed - quite effective against slower, snare-reliant demigods).  And even if you boost Demon's Speed to twice its current amounts, that won't make up a 5 unit ability range difference.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Don't change swap. It's fine and there is no better feeling than swapping a shield-porting oak for a gank.

Well, do you ever pick Swap II or III?  I don't, but maybe there's something about it that I'm missing.

Always. Especially late game when base speeds are so high and most have treads. The extra range is a must imo. If you want to increase the range further i wouldn't mind but it is kind of ridiculous if you are getting swapped out of the fog (not sure what the range of fog is to block sight). If you want to increase the range of swap 1 to level 3 I would hate to be a rook (or any dg really) early game getting swapped into the range of the gold flag towers whilst holding a lane on cata (especially if they are on high) - ouch. Swap pen. and gank - repeat at your leisure.

Altering base speed is a much better idea than this.

many many many DA players take the later levels of swap because the range is very suprising.

Ok, fair enough.  And I wasn't suggesting a range flattening at 25 for all levels, just bumping each level up 5, to 20,25,30.  That's still inside normal vision range at III, same as Batswarm.

Would you actually want to increase Demon's Speed even with his base at 6.3?