CROWD CONTROL or "CC" = Stun, Silence, Root, or Polymorph-like spells
Alright, so we all know there's some big problems with crowd control abilities in this game. Deep Freeze, Boulder, Silence, Mass Charm (LOL), and Mageslayer should cover this discussion.
Pretty much any team that doesn't have Rook+Ice TB in it is worthless. With warpstone, boulder, deep freeze you really don't have a chance in hell avoiding that 2k+ hammer and whatever x shatter the TB can pull off. Stuns in this game are ridiculously long, and they make it way too easy to deliver damage.
There are FEW 2v2 teams that can take on Rook+TB. When you add a third, fourth, or fifth player to the equation you don't really have a choice but to take this insanely powerful combination because of how much damage it brings and how little it takes for it to come "online". The combo starts once Rook gets Boulder, and TB gets Deep Freeze. This crap is possible from level 5. If you think this is bad, wait until around level 10 when they both have Warpstone, and longer duration on their stuns. The hammer is hitting for twice as much and there is nothing you can do but take it.
Generally the safest way to do this combo if you're fighting against good opponents is to initiate with Boulder. If it lands, TB warpstones forward, Deep Freezes and Rook warps to the fray and drops his hammer on your head while TB Rains you. You do not get a chance to react. If they miss the boulder and decide to go for it anyway, this is the only area where you MAY be able to get away.
You may say, use Erebus or Sedna to interrupt the combo. Well, hate to break it to you but Sedna would probably be the first target for the combo and you won't even get a chance to silence. Erebus? Rofl? Come on, you'd have to have precognition or extremely lucky to Bat Swarm in after the Deep Freeze and land a 1 sec cast AOE stun with lag.
Mageslayer, oh Mageslayer. You are 8k gold and give Demigods like Regulus and Unclean Beast the ability to rarely let you cast a spell, hinder your movement greatly, or practically removing you from a fight all together. This needs to be fixed.
To fix the blatant CC problems in this game, there are a few different ways of going about it.
1. Reduce crowd control spells duration
2. Add diminishing returns to the game so that you cannot be locked down by CC (If you do not understand what diminishing returns is, I can explain it in a later post)
3. Removing/severely limiting stuns from Assassins and giving a unique form of CC to each General. This would give Generals a large utility boost as people would be less inclined to run General-less teams.
Let's be honest, Rook doesn't need 3 seconds to Boulder you late game, the skill should top out at 2.
Erebus has the most worthless stun in the game. This combined with the fact he brings nothing to a competitive team comp and not working well with minions due to bat swarm not porting them with him makes him the most undesirable Demigod.
Ice TB is doing more damage than any Demigod in the game and has an incredibly powerful CC tool.
Sedna is the only realistic way to counter this extremely powerful combo, but her being the first target would make you have to run 2. I would suggest having her silence time cap out at 4 seconds if CC in the game was reduced, as you can still run if affected by it.
Finally Mageslayer. This should be (As suggest by Dalzk, I think?) a 0.40 second silence, not stun. I would also add that the cost be increased to 10k, and many artifacts costs lowered/stats adjusted as most you will never even think of getting in a game. As is stands Mageslayer is relatively easy to get, hoses any hero that needs to cast an ability, and costs 2k less than a Godplate.
That about sums up my post. My next should be on Generals so stay tuned.
