Prill

Join Date 04/2008

Team Dynamic Strategies or "Postulating ways to hinder your enemies before the game even starts"

Greetings fellow DGs,

In order to evolve a diverse and friendly multiplayer base for this highly community driven game, I am starting this post in the hopes that it will become a forum on many topics dealing with strategy not involved with the builds but with ability, DG choice, starting item countering.

Since playing from release I have noticed that many of the DGs whom many forum posters consider OP are in fact just poor match-ups. Here is an example:

Team 1: Team 2:

Regulus Unclean Beast

Oak Rook

Unclean beast Sedna

Now in this example just from the onset we can see that Team 2 has a definite advantage early game.

The Sedna on team 2 is both a devestating support DG as well as a devestating 1v1 depending on how their build is.

Essentially the ability of team 2 to stay in the field given all players of equal experience will be greater than that of Team 1.

Now what this forum should be about is suggesting ways of evening the balance of power in the Lobby rather than playing the DG you like the most. To that end this is my assessment of one of the supposed OP DGs.

With the given example above, if we were in a 3v3 game say cataract, if each DG was paired against the one across from it it would look like this.

Regulus vs Unclean Beast or Regulus < Unclean Beast

Oak Vs Rook Oak < Rook

Unclean Beast Vs Sedna Unclean Beast > Sedna

The change I would make would be to have Oak switch to a different DG to even the odds on the matchup. This is because Oak is a fairly weak early game DG without any support DGs on the team it makes Oak completely gimped in a battle of equal skill.

The supposed overpowered DG I mentioned above is the Unclean Beast, The only thing which makes his spit such a problem early game are players' inability to adjust their starting items to counter the strengths of a chosen DG.

Example:

Unclean Beast > Sedna

This is almost always the case early game if the sedna player doesnt spend money/favor points on lets say:

Blood of the Fallen

Monk resell

banded armor

2 combat mana pots.

With this starting item set up against an Unclean Beast of equal skill, Sedna becomes un killable without support.

Let me know your suggestions for Lobby team dynamics.

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

Here is another matchup which will even the odds.

Team 1: counter with Team 2:

Unclean Beast Rook

Sedna Sedna/Queen of thorns

Queen of Thorns Oak

This counter works because of Team 1s focus on 2 support type DGs. The rook on Team 2 will have the staying power to hold their own lain while either the sedna or Queen of thorns backs up the Oak until mid to late game Oak domination time.

Some people may argue that Sedna is just as much of a DPS DG as the Unclean beast so really the match up is flawed; but sedna will NEED to spend points in her support abilities in order to compete with anyone and that will take a while unless mistakes are made ingame.

Successfully updated karma reason!

So.... you are saying that the UB isn't overpowered, because in order to beat him the Sedna has to completely change her build and then the UB just can't win, but won't lose, while the UB has to do nothing to change his build?

See, that right there IS overpowered. A character shouldn't have to spend their favor item and starting build specifically to counter one enemy demigod.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Im seeing the match over all as to the best way for your team to counter the possible advantages in another team. The UB is powerful early game but is easily countered with equipment or even just by being QoT with shield or what not. Then just stick to that DG you are countering.

Successfully updated karma reason!

that's right, but give time to the players to learn the demigods, right now most people only play and know 2-3 As people will learn all 8 , matches will become more balanced.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Prill,

I think this is a great post idea, and there are matchups, all things being equal, that give a definite advantage to one team.

However, I don't see the two teams in your initial example as anything but even.

A better example might be -

UB QoT

Sedna vs. Oak

Oak Sedna

If both teams are evenly matched the team with UB will win.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Okay I'm sorry but when you say "1 vs 1" it's pretty ridiculous. You can't base an entire game off of "If Unclean beast faced Sedna on a completely blank map and Sedna had like no minions and there was no backup and Sedna had this specific build while UB has this specific one, and if both characters were somehow of exact equal skill and had no potions, items, etc...." there's an extreme amount of variables that can poke through the 1 vs 1 thoughtline you have pursued.

An Oak can easily kill off a tower rook with basic clerics and if he wants a siege archer for some extra punch, Unclean Beast can easily beat a mid/late game Sedna because abilities like ooze and post mortem down her minions fast, and there's no earthly way a good reg player will stand face to face with ANY demigod but himself, let alone Unclean Beast. There is absolutely no way you can even predict what team would win based on matchups. Demigods are completely and positively balanced.

However, before I die from all the pitchforks and gunshot wounds, let me say that some ABILITIES are unbalanced. Rook towers, late game reg, (when he has uber items) and some of Oak's abilities all deserve to be considered. Take Erebus for instance, he wasn't unbalanced, Bite was.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Late game reg is pretty balanced; really, he isn't that bad at all. He is really good, I will admit, but it's the range, really. Besides, he's so much crap early game he needs to be tough.

I mean, yeah, a level 20 fully equipped reg with an autoattack/mines build is going to be really powerful... but when are you ever going to see a Reg even hit 15 for shrapnel mines (without those, he can't get kills), let alone 20 and fully geared up?

Now, UB is pretty powerful, I'll admit. But it's not really that at any one stage he is overpowered; fully geared up mine regulus puts up a good fight in the late game, QoT can annoy him with shield early game, and his midgame is actually fairly balanced with Erebus. The thing is, he's just right by #1 at ALL stages of the game.

From the beginning, he gets spit. At level 4, he probably has spit 2 + ooze + inner beast or spit 2 + ooze 2, which kills all demigods from level 1-6 (well, maybe not 6.) At level 7, he's even more awesome. Basically, he just keeps getting REALLY, REALLY good level up abilities, and he can kill demigods so fast he can keep his HP and DPS high.

He also doesn't have any real weakness. Creeps? You buy ooze at level 2, you never have trouble with creeps. Mana? Buy the 100% mana sword (it also gives a good buff to weapons damage). Health? Orb of life, high level gear, just the fact he out damages everything so much. Speed? He has high speed, speed buff abilities, and speed debuff abilities. Towers? Spit and go. Demigods? They die. Fleeing demigods? Spit, high speed, speed debuffs. He's just got NO weakness at all, besides his low health (he even has good armor!), so you really really need to spike damage him to win, and he is the king of spike damage.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Milskidasith,

reply 7

Late game reg is pretty balanced; really, he isn't that bad at all. He is really good, I will admit, but it's the range, really. Besides, he's so much crap early game he needs to be tough.

I mean, yeah, a level 20 fully equipped reg with an autoattack/mines build is going to be really powerful... but when are you ever going to see a Reg even hit 15 for shrapnel mines (without those, he can't get kills), let alone 20 and fully geared up?

Now, UB is pretty powerful, I'll admit. But it's not really that at any one stage he is overpowered; fully geared up mine regulus puts up a good fight in the late game, QoT can annoy him with shield early game, and his midgame is actually fairly balanced with Erebus. The thing is, he's just right by #1 at ALL stages of the game.

From the beginning, he gets spit. At level 4, he probably has spit 2 + ooze + inner beast or spit 2 + ooze 2, which kills all demigods from level 1-6 (well, maybe not 6.) At level 7, he's even more awesome. Basically, he just keeps getting REALLY, REALLY good level up abilities, and he can kill demigods so fast he can keep his HP and DPS high.

He also doesn't have any real weakness. Creeps? You buy ooze at level 2, you never have trouble with creeps. Mana? Buy the 100% mana sword (it also gives a good buff to weapons damage). Health? Orb of life, high level gear, just the fact he out damages everything so much. Speed? He has high speed, speed buff abilities, and speed debuff abilities. Towers? Spit and go. Demigods? They die. Fleeing demigods? Spit, high speed, speed debuffs. He's just got NO weakness at all, besides his low health (he even has good armor!), so you really really need to spike damage him to win, and he is the king of spike damage.

UB is not overpowered at all. The mana sword is assuming you can deal enough damage to return to full mana at a 75% of your damage returning mana for only 10 seconds, and that your mana is actually high enough to last until the sword recharges, and take into consideration of what he is missing by taking the mana sword. (You honestly must not have tried using the sword before, TB and maybe Rook are really the only ones that can recharge mana to full as an assasin) He actually starts with lower health than other demigods, so I'm not sure what you mean, but any demigod can have high health with high level gear and the heart of life. (Heart of life doesn't work during a fight unless you aren't hitting him, and UB has some pretty low armor) High speed? Of course he has high speed, he has 2 abilities that give him higher speed, speed is his strong point. And saying UB has spike damage is completely wrong, all of his damaging abilities are dots. Because they are dots it may damage you but it gives you a window of time to kill UB with actual spike damage, which EVERY OTHER DEMIGOD HAS. UB can deal high damage but takes high damage as well. The problem is you are examing UB like he has no weakness, it's kind of like the reverse of movie critics, you are trying to examine only the positive elements while ignoring the weaknesses, the weaknesses that actually help you defeat him.

When you lose to UB don't think, "OMG UB IS SO OP IT IS COMPLETELY RIDiCULOUS!!!!!" think "How could I have beat that?" Basically in a fight with UB if you have some high health and regain you can totally destroy him because he wants you to have as low health as possible so his dots and abilties can kill you before you kill him, and since his strong point is killing other demigods you have now made him totally worthless for the remainder of the game. If all else fails, just ignore the fellow, he's not going to ninja your base like rook or QoT.

By the time players claim that something is overpowered and have filled the forums with hate threads try to think about your own character's strong points and how I can use them to penetrate his weaknesses.

Successfully updated karma reason!