How many targets do shamblers hit on average? In a creep wave or against a minion swarm how likely are they to strike multiple targets inadvertently? Bear in mind creeps do significant damage and eliminating them does give you a meaningful advantage.

UB is a pure melee character and is at the top end on DPS. It's not necessarily a good thing to bring everyone else up to those damage levels.

Is it good to promote a build which essentially involves nothing be right clicking? Isn't the biggest issue with Shamblers not that they're too weak, but that you have to skip every other worthwhile ability to get them to that point, regardless of how effective they are in the end?

Both summoning systems have drawbacks. It can take a surprisingly long time to cap out on nightwalkers if there's a lot of damage flying around, and late game they do go down pretty quickly when everyone's AoE is up to par (not to say that shamblers don't bite the dust a lot too, but I think that's largely because they spawn with improperly low health).

Should the character really be built with maxing every single minion ability in mind? For EB to max out nightwalkers he needs Coven, Conversion Aura, Bite, and Mist (for the health regen), and yet pretty much no minion swarm build maxes all of those. It's not a bad thing that there's not a compelling reason to get every single minion enhancing point.

Rather than seeing Compost and Entourage buffed to make them more effective in conjunction with Shamblers, I'd rather see them buffed to be more useful regardless. For example Inspiring Presence would always be welcome on a team even if you didn't have the minions they affect.

I wouldn't complain if I got just 1 Yeti as Sedna. 1 Yeti is one Yeti. If nothing else I'd use it to push towers. Send the yeti to attack, it draws tower damage. You hit. Wait a second... that's just what an Assassin Erebus does!

Shamblers are one of the better minions if someone decides to contest you in a creep lane, and certainly beats other minion builds (Except spirits which can't get hit by Shamblers I think). They can't chase though.

Nope.

Magnificient Presense.

Nice try ^^;

Even Oak has Morale.

Edit:

Occulus also has the lightning-bolt thing and since that is a passive that is always active I think it pretty easily falls in the category of buffing minion damage.

Horn of the Yeti: +7/14/21 damage and +300/600/900 health.

Magnificant Presence simply gives additional health and attack speed. That doesn't change the fact that Sedna's single active summoning ability combines the effects of Erebus' two skill lines. Same goes for Ball lightning.

• re: Shambler AOE
  • Shambler's ability to AOE isn't worth much. Against minions and creeps it does do some damage, however it doesn't actually accomplish anything.
  • Vs Creeps
    • The QoT (along with TB,Ooze UB) is best suited to killing off creeps. Ground Spikes alone can usually destroy a creep wave, it that fails she has an AOE autoattack to finish the job. Having Minions that also AOE doesn't change that, except that if you focus on maxing her Shamblers you actually slow down her ability to kill creeps because you give up Ground Spikes.
  • Vs Sedna Minions
    • If are fightning Yetis, you have already won because Yetis are even worse than Shamblers (build wise). They have tons of HP and are realtively cheap to summon/resummon. Attacking them is a waste of time, the Sedna should be your target. Especially since they heal very quickly with Senda's healing aura.
  • Vs Erebus Minions
    • With the speed advantage that Lord Erebus being in combat with Lord Erebus means being in melee range of him and his pack. They are all on the QoT. With her low hp, her Shamblers aren't going to make a meaingful difference before she is either fleeing or dead.

• UB Melee Character as a balance
  • I would say that the UB is the best short ranged character. Ooze & Spit both require the UB to be close to attacking, but not necessarily autoattacking. The UB's advantages also come from the vast health pool available, high armor, and high speed. The QoT has none of these. Early game Frost TB can be made into a high damage auto-attacker, but it still isn't comparable to the UB. He is a glass cannon that lacks the fortitude of the UB. QoT builds don't use Shambler Specific builds because the damage isn't good. By increasing the damage you still fail to increase her survivability, but at least make them moderately useful. The amusing part is that even with these enhanced version of Shambler specific skills, no one is going to use them because they are STILL bad! The level 15 build does outdamage the level 15 UB, but only if the UB hasn't spent any money (ever) or used 5 skill points. If you want to claim the new level 15 QoT with Shambler build is good as a equipmentless level 10 UB, then I will not disagree. Otherwise I'm not sure what you are specifically unhappy with.

• UB as a Measuring Stick
  • I chose to use the UB because he is a top tier demigod. He has everything, offense and defense. He however, can be argued to not be the best of the top tier demigods. He does (in my opinion) have a solid claim for second. If the QoT is worse than him in both offense and defenses, and we only increase her offense to be somewhat comparable (see argument about level 15 QoT being as effective as a level 10 UB), then she is still not better than the UB because she still lacks defense.

• Shambler builds being boring
  • I'm not disagreeing with Shambler builds being boring. They do involve a large amount of Shambler micro. You also have to use mulch and desparately run around when anything comes close because you don't have extra health from shield. You are still very weak, you just have a slightly better army with you. The point is that the Shamblers are still too weak, even with you specialize in them. If Shamblers aren't viable even when all your skill points are spent on them, doesn't that make the skills nonviable? The modifications I had in mind wasn't to make UberShamblers, but to make different routes of having useable Shamblers. Taking either Compost or Entourage should be enough, however neither skill is good enough. Heck, neither skill even remotely compares against Morale. They are both that bad. If someone wants to go all out and get both skills that is fine, but that just means they have two bad skill lines.
  • I've heard that Tower Rook builds are also boring. Does that mean we should also remove Tower Rooks?

• re: End of HorseStrangler's argument
  • As I read the end of HorseStrangler's argument again, it now seems that he is suggesting that the skills are flawed because they aren't useful. Not because the damage buff they provide is too large. I have to admit I get confused when half the people in here rage about the damage being too much and the other half about the skill being useless.

• Generals using a skill slot (hotkey 1-4) for passive skills
  • For the QoT this doesn't really count because she switches forms. She has 6 skills available to her when compared to the 4 that all assassins have.

• re:lifekatana
  • When you are posting your build that you said you would so I can see how you manage to make Shamblers worthwhile? I have never seen Shamblers provide a useful battlefield presence in game. I've also provided calculations to demonstrate the usefulness of Nightwalkers over Shamblers. I'd like more than 2 lines of text to demonstrate why my thoughts are invalid.

• Shamblers are one of the better minions if someone decides to contest you in a creep lane, and certainly beats other minion builds (Except spirits which can't get hit by Shamblers I think). They can't chase though.
  • Er, what? As I read this it seems to suggest that Shamblers are really good. That being the case where are all the top level QoT's using a Shambler build. Or is this only when compared against Yetis and Ball Lightninings? Otherwise I'm not sure what you are saying.
    

All this being said, given this entire page of feedback, would the following solution be useful

1. Compost is rewritten to provide buff or debuff auras depending on the level of Compost (detailed suggestions are provided in the previous pages).
2. Entourage is boosted to be comparable to Morale.

So, I'm trying not to be argumentative here, if I come across that way I appologize. I'm just trying to accurately understand everyone's positions.

1. When the QoT has Ground Spikes, she can kill all of the creeps by herself. She doesn't need minions. When she doesn't have Ground Spikes, the Shamblers do help out, but don't do as good of job. I'm not sure this is supporting the usefulness of Shamblers.

2. Which minion builds are you referring to as being weak to the QoT Shambler Build? The possibilities are:

• Sedna
  • Yetis are a really bad skill line, correct? If so, it doesn't matter how they fare.
• Oak
  
  • The Oak has spirits which Shamblers are ineffective against and the Oak can easily gain life off of the Shamblers (as noted in your own post).
• Occulus
  • His is still being revamped I'm not certain that we can balance against him fairly, so I will not address him. His ball lightnings are really bad also.
• Lord Erebus
  • The most effective minion build, and the only one left. Are you claiming that Nightwalker builds are weak to the QoT?
    

Lord Erebus The most effective minion build, and the only one left. Are you claiming that Nightwalker builds are weak to the QoT?

Yes

"

1. When the QoT has Ground Spikes, she can kill all of the creeps by herself. She doesn't need minions. When she doesn't have Ground Spikes, the Shamblers do help out, but don't do as good of job. I'm not sure this is supporting the usefulness of Shamblers."

Don't need Spikes when you have cleave. The only time you Wave/Spike a creep wave if is you're pushing a tower.

So, I've been really busy with my real work for the past few weeks and haven't gotten much modding time in. To get back into the hang of things I've been working on updating this mod instead of the Uberfix (which is much more complicated).

The major changes that I made that people most disagreed and why are:

• Uproot: Was too powerful when a Rook was playing
• Tribute: Was just too powerful
• Compost: Was too powerful
• Entourage: Was too powerful

I believe I have (or have a plan) to fix all of these complaints.

• Uproot
  • I changed damage and cost to match the TB's Ring of Fire. The only difference is that the QoT isn't in the center of the ring, instead it is the targetted tower that is the center of the effect.
  • I'm working on making a better damage visual effect for the Violent Siege AOE.
• Tribute
  • I'm changing it to add a new type of melee based Shambler.
  • I'm mostly done with it, I just need to finish touching up the texture and working out any animation bugs.
• Entourage
  • I provided math to demonstrate that my buffs were not overpowered.
  • I might increase the effect, but I'm holding off on that.
• Compost
  • After much pondering I've come up with the following revamped form of Compost
  • 1 point is added to the counter for every kill (as original)
  • 5 points are added to the counter for a demigod kill (up from 1)
  • The counter is decremented every 7 seconds (as original)
  • The counter limit is increased to 50 (up from 9 (I think)).
  • Every 3 points of the counter adds a new buff rank.
  • The buff ranks have been completely replaced.
    1. Rank 1: 5% Movement Buff to Self and Allies
    2. Rank 2: 10% Movement Buff to Self and Allies. -3% Movement Debuff to Enemies
    3. Rank 3: 15% Movement Buff and 5% Attack Speed Buff to Self and Allies. -5% Movement Debuff to Enemies
    4. Rank 4: 15% Movement Buff and 10% Attack Speed Buff to Self and Allies. -7% Movement Debuff and - 3% Attack Speed Debuff to Enemies
    5. Rank 5: 15% Movement Buff and 15% Attack Speed Buff to Self and Allies. -7% Movement Debuff and - 5% Attack Speed Debuff to Enemies

Formatting issues are messing this up, but you get the general idea. Compost continues to level up until it has three levels of buffs/debuffs in movement speed, attack speed, health regen, mana regen, armor, weapon damage. The order is something still up undetermined. The values for these abilities are taken from the various buffs that are given to TB, UB, and Sedna. I'll go into the math later, but it isn't as unfair as it seems. The tricky part is to coordinate the required level of the counter necessary to maintain the buff level you want. Plus this is horribly outrageous.

So one of the arguments proposed by LO (and others most likely) is that I'm making too drastic of changes. I'm willing to entertain this idea, so instead of my overly complicated versions, how about something a little simpler.

Compost

Each level of compost adds 500 maxhealth, 10 health regen, and 5 mana regen to the queen. It also adds 125 maxhealth and 2 health regen to shamblers. With the six levels of compost, this would max out at 3000 maxhealth, 60 health regen, 30 mana regen for the queen, 750 maxhealth and 12 health regen for the shamblers. Note that this would not actually give them the extra health, it would just allow them to exceed their normal health. When the buff wears off, their health is reduced to maxhealth if is is over maxhealth.

Ground Spikes

Armor reduction converted to damage increase. Instead of removing 375/750/1125/1500 armor it causes all damage inflicted to increase by 5%/10%/15%/20% (Oak's Penitence is 7%/10%/13%/16%). This reduces the massive (possibly unintended) anti-tower effect of the armor reduction versions. It also increases its use against Demigods, especially those that stack armor. There is also the possibility of adding an interrupt or Slow effect to it, but I'm more hesitant about these changes.

RE: LO

If you are willing, I'd like to get your help to create a number of QoT Balance mods. I think there are lots of different ways to go with it, so variety is (in my opinion) the way to go.

RE: LO RE: Compost

You are mostly correct. The one caveat I have to add is that she would not gain the additional health from the Compost Boost. It would only increase her maxhealth, not her current health. That being said your sigil observation is correct, and intended.

Level 10 QoT (standard load out as specified above) with 4695 Health, 4695 MaxHealth, and 19 Health Regen

With Max Compost (3 ranks + 3 levels from kills), 4695 Health, 7695 MaxHealth, and 79 Health Regen.

With Sigil (+50% health) 8542 Health, 11542 MaxHealth, and 79 Health Regen.

With Priest (reinforcement Heal) or Monk 10%, 1154 Heal per 8 seconds

With Priest (reinforcement Heal and Healing Wind) or Bishop 15%, 1731 Health per 8 seconds.

With Shield IV 1450 every 7 seconds

With Mulch Shambler 1500 every 7 seconds

Of course, this build is 1 Summon Shambler, 1 Mulch Shambler, 3 Compost, 4 Bramble Shield, which uses up 9 points. Which leaves you with no real damage abilities. You'll only get auto attack and minions.

Sure she has health at the level of a citadel for 30 seconds, but she also only does the damage of a citadel.

RE: Ground Spikes

It has a .5 cast time which is useful for an interrupt. I could see swapping it for a slow effect without much problem.

She will suffer a damage loss when converting from removing Armor to +% damage. However, I think that it will make things less expert biased and more friendly to team play. I think that negative armor was an oversight on the GPG and wasn't intended.

RE: Spike Wave

I don't like the idea of Spike wave as an interrupt. It has a relatively short cast time of .4, but it still has to travel towards the target. It feels a lot slower than boulder roll. There should, however, be reason to purchase the higher levels of Spike Wave. Adding on increasing stun length in addition to an increase in slow duration sounds reasonable.