Speusippus

Join Date 01/2004

Yet Another Imbalance Post. But Maybe Slightly More Interesting Than Usual?

Here's some evidence that UB is OP in some sense.

I usually play as Oak. But I suck as Oak. I am simply not that quick of a thinker, or that much of a multitasker. And Oak requires both.

As an experiment, I decided to try UB for a while. I made a build which I didn't really mean to take seriously. I was just trying a minimalist experiment. The build concentrates on Spit, Inner Beast, Stats, and Plague.

With this build, I only need to know one hotkey--'1' for spit.

And after a small number of games in MP, I'm prepared to conjecture: I'm much better with this than I ever was with Oak. I don't die. My team wins. I even get in a few kills every now and then if my opponent gets greedy.

Okay, you might think, that just means I've found out that whatever style of play I want to have, it turns out the style that actually works best for me is spit-and-run UB. But is this really just a difference of "style"? The difference doesn't seem to be style, but rather, the simple fact that it's much easier to run a character which only uses one hotkey and one basic tactic.

I would think that a balanced game would "punish" (so to speak) such a character. Ease of use should correlate with difficulty in winning. But that does not seem to be the case. I've found it fairly easy to win lanes and lives in combat with spit-and-run UB. I'm going to start trying Ooze UB as well. That will require that I remember 2 hotkeys IIRC. And I'll always be using them in the same order, in the same situations. I predict (I'll report on the accuracy of this) that that, too, will turn out to be much easier than Oak.

To reiterate, the argument is this. UB is much easier to control than many other characters, in terms of number of hotkeys and number of needed tactics. But UB is not harder to win with. But if a character is easier to control, it should be harder to win with it. In other words, conversely, if a character is harder to control, mastery of that character's controls should lead to easier victories than those you get with easier-to-control characters. Therefore, there is a balance issue with UB. It should be nerfed in some way such that less coordinated and quick players can not win easily with it just because it's easy to control.

Make any sense to anyone?

demigod

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i dont think he should be nerfed at all, running and spitting all the time might prove effective in some fights

but to say that unclean beast is unbalanced cuz hes too easy to use is hilarious

ur not really using the full potential of the character... (like with oak)

i mean dont u get vile grasp? stun intterupt life drain?

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To reiterate, the argument is this. UB is much easier to control than many other characters, in terms of number of hotkeys and number of needed tactics.

I remember there was a pretty big debate on IRC pre-release about the very same thing

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Quoting Tiny4Ever,

reply 1

i dont think he should be nerfed at all, running and spitting all the time might prove effective in some fights

but to say that unclean beast is unbalanced cuz hes too easy to use is hilarious

ur not really using the full potential of the character... (like with oak)

i mean dont u get vile grasp? stun intterupt life drain?

Seriously, not having foul grasp is fail.

Other than that I don't have much to say honestly, I don't have too many problems with spit beasts - even playing as regulus, though it is annoying as all hell.

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LoL lane vs my Sedna and u will see how much of a joke spit and run tactic is

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But if a character is easier to control, it should be harder to win with it against people with experience in managing tougher characters

With that addendum, I would be more likely to agree with you. The question then becomes, were your opponents any good? There's not much to be gleaned from the circumstantial evidence you're offering.

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If you're getting kills without Foul Grasp (outside of 2v1s or the occasional fluke), your opponents are so new at the game that no reasonable conclusions can be drawn. Honestly, that's just ridiculous, and if I ended up in that game, I would hit you on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

And for that matter, you only rarely kill a general 1v1 in the game without at least three buttons (venom, ooze, foul grasp), as they all have pretty good defenses against spit.

Edit: And it's entirely possible you're a born assassin type player. I can play all four assassins and Erebus well, but I'm very mediocre with Queen, Sedna, or Oak. I just don't jive with their playstyle.

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I've played a few games in the last couple days that have made me start to wonder if UB's spit is a little off. A high level spit does seem to do an awful lot of damage for a demigod who can be so fast that he's virtually impossible to catch and kill. I actually died once or twice one game (mid game too) simply because I did not expect spit to do THAT much damage that fast and by the time I realized it was it was too late. Yes, that is my fault and I won't argue that but it does illustrate just how dangerous spit really is.

Hit and Run is a valid tactic and I don't really have a problem with it. What I'm beginning to question is the "Hit" part of that tactic with UB's spit being as powerful as it can be while he also excels so well at the "Run" part of the equation. Factor in the fact that after a while and some equipment upgrades he can also still be extremely strong in the DPS and melee department as well.

-dolynick

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Half the demigods in the game are 1-trick ponies, really, so it's not like you need to be aware of a lot of hotkeys, and be aware of the best situation to use certain abilities. Rook is just a tower spammer, Queen is a shieldbot, Sedna is a healer with a powerful burst melee attack, and of course UB with his spit-and-run.

I think the problem with Unclean Beast is that he has 1 ability that is obsolete(Bestial Wrath), and 1 ability that a lot of people don't use(Ooze).

Bestial Wrath is not a good use of mana right now seeing as it only lasts 7 seconds, and your enemy can just run away for a bit once they see you use it. In 7 Seconds, you are only going to be able to get 3 or 4 attacks off normally. In early game, an average attack from UB will probably do around 150 damage, so an increase of 25% at level 1 means you will get likely get something in between 150-250 extra damage from it, and that sure isn't worth 550 mana.

Ooze seems like quite a good ability actually, I think the health cost scares a lot of people off for some reason which is rather strange seeing as you're doing more damage to your opponent from it AND you're decreasing their attack for no mana as well.

Spit could use a slight nerf too, an increase of recharge from 7 to 10, a decrease of range of 66%, and 2 spits shouldn't stack.

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I don't know why two spits should not stack. Two snipes would stack, two sedna bites would stack, two hammer slams would stack... I think you see where I'm going with that.

Spit kills not because it is OP, but because it takes less skill to use than it takes to decipher just what that green cloud around your DG actually means to your survival.

If you auto-attack, you see dmg numbers. If you nuke (TB fireball) you see dmg numbers. When you cover someone in the bacterial bile of the UB, they just lose life like a weak HoL running in reverse.

I don't recall seeing numbers overhead for the dmg someone takes from spit. It isn't the recharge time or the distance, or the stackage. It is that it is probably the most hard-to-decipher damage there is and it comes from one of the most picked skills.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

I would think that a balanced game would "punish" (so to speak) such a character. Ease of use should correlate with difficulty in winning. But that does not seem to be the case.

If this were true, every skilled player who wanted to win would eventually have to pick Oak once they reached a certain level of skill and their opponents started doing the same.

It should, however, be true that varied and difficult characters should have more options to win than the one-dimensional ones. For example by having several more viable builds to counter the opponent.

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Not to burst your bubble or anything but, this is simply your style. Generally speaking with sin chars its either hit and run, or ambush and chase... and i'd say if you are only using spit then you probably don't realize just how much power UB really has. Oak can be just as powerful, you just don't know how to play him. Any character can dominate a lane if set up and played properly. Its easy to be good at UB, but hard to Dominate. He has a lot of good tools that can be exploited easily, but good players know how to counter UB's just as easily. If you play against a competitive Oak player attempting to spit and run, he will wipe the floor with you.

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Quoting Busdude,

reply 8

I would suggest decreasing Bestial Wrath's mana cost by 100 at every level, and changing the duration and recharge from 7 and 15, to 10 and 20. It should also switch cast times with Venom Spit meaning BW gets 0.3 and VS gets 0.5

Spit could use a slight nerf too, an increase of recharge from 7 to 10, a decrease of range of 66%, and 2 spits shouldn't stack.

A gigantic cast time increase (66%), a gigantic cooldown increase (~42%), a gigantic range decrease (66%), and making two UBs unable to team up effectively (a shit idea for Pantheon or Skirmish, where you can't coordinate your team ahead of time) is not a "slight nerf," it's a ridiculous nerf. Edit (more polite): This isn't a good idea, and it is not how to correctly balance a game.

The cooldown change would be especially ridiculous as 7 seconds is the standardized cooldown for single target damage abilities. Snipe is higher, but that's because it's special.

Also, spit doesn't need a nerf at all. The crying about this ability is one of the more ridiculous things I've seen regarding balance recently. It's a DOT. Do one of the billion things that ameloriate or completely counter it while it's going. Every demigod in the game can just click one button and remove it if they so choose.

Edit: And Orb of Defiance removes it too. I was refering to the favor item when I said every DG had a counter. So now every DG has at least two counters, and maybe more. I thought so, I've just never needed to counter spit so badly, but for whoever does, yet another hard counter. And as a bonus, it is almost as good as Nimoth Chest Armor in terms of passive effective. It's also good against Regulus snipes, which is why I have used it for.

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I play erebus.

I've had my turn with the nerf stick, and I look forward to seeing some of the other classes "get theirs"

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Quoting Sly_Squash,

reply 13

I play erebus.

I've had my turn with the nerf stick, and I look forward to seeing some of the other classes "get theirs"

Personally see erebus getting another tweak before any other demigod outside of maybe rook's towers.

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Quoting WickedDemiurge,

reply 12

Quoting Busdude,
reply 8
I would suggest decreasing Bestial Wrath's mana cost by 100 at every level, and changing the duration and recharge from 7 and 15, to 10 and 20. It should also switch cast times with Venom Spit meaning BW gets 0.3 and VS gets 0.5

Spit could use a slight nerf too, an increase of recharge from 7 to 10, a decrease of range of 66%, and 2 spits shouldn't stack.

A gigantic cast time increase (66%), a gigantic cooldown increase (~42%), a gigantic range decrease (66%), and making two UBs unable to team up effectively (a shit idea for Pantheon or Skirmish, where you can't coordinate your team ahead of time) is not a "slight nerf," it's a ridiculous nerf. Edit (more polite): This isn't a good idea, and it is not how to correctly balance a game.

The cooldown change would be especially ridiculous as 7 seconds is the standardized cooldown for single target damage abilities. Snipe is higher, but that's because it's special.

Also, spit doesn't need a nerf at all. The crying about this ability is one of the more ridiculous things I've seen regarding balance recently. It's a DOT. Do one of the billion things that ameloriate or completely counter it while it's going. Every demigod in the game can just click one button and remove it if they so choose.

Edit: And Orb of Defiance removes it too. I was refering to the favor item when I said every DG had a counter. So now every DG has at least two counters, and maybe more. I thought so, I've just never needed to counter spit so badly, but for whoever does, yet another hard counter. And as a bonus, it is almost as good as Nimoth Chest Armor in terms of passive effective. It's also good against Regulus snipes, which is why I have used it for.

It's not a massive nerf at all, 60% looks like a lot but when you have tiny numbers to start with, it's nothing. Also I worded it wrong I meant to say spit's range should be 66% of what it is now. How is a spit with a 10 second recharge and shorter range a massive nerf? Also an increase from 0.3 seconds to 0.5 seconds is hardly noticeable, 0.5 second cast time is still very hard to interrupt especially with latency issues. Spit is only marginally overpowered, and could use a bit toning down because I'm suggesting buffs to a couple of his other skills which would compensate for it.

I myself have not had any problems with spit stacks since I've had nearly no games where the opposing team had more than 1 UB, but there was some thread where someone said he and 2 friends took 3 beasts and were able to kill anything by all spitting on it. Nothing urgent, just sounded kind of lame.

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Seriously, not having foul grasp is fail.

UB is painful to fight but the best way to beat him is to crush the UB mid-game, both early and late game hes pretty tough. If you let the UB kill you early game 3+ times and then let him stack up lategame you deserve to lose against a UB.

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