Lieu, 

Your arguments regarding Shield+HoL are quite convincing, nicely done. However, regarding Sedna items I have had quite a bit of success with Vlemish+Plenor (Boots etc can come later). The extra max mana from Plenor gives you about 3 extra spells for a major DG battle, and the extra regen really puts her spamability over the top. 

I forgot to say, the trick is getting a good mana pool. Just a vlemish is certainly not enough. Typically, you'd get a vlemish and unbreakable boots, which should bring it to around 4k mana or so. I just wanted to emphasize how efficient mana potions are for regen (never get a plenor for the regen).

- oops

Right but what youre saying is that you'd get Vlemish-->Boots, whereas right now I am convinced that Vlemish-->Plenor is the way to go (can get same number of mana pots either way). I take it you disagree, but imo Sedna doesn't need the +5h/s since she already has grace+banded, and the 600 hp isnt better than 775 mana. The 70% mregen is just gravy (pretty useful gravy, tho). 

Let's just please nerf heart of life it kills the late game in 3s. On large maps it's not as devastating as there are many lanes to cover and you can get around your opponent. But on Prison and Cataracts if I'm slightly ahead I just sit in front of your base and destroy your creeps and wear away your towers and walk 5 step back and full health/mana up. Same when I'm losing; my enemies are just sitting there healing as they destroy my towers. I get there and they unleash everything they have at me I run back to my crystal by the time I'm back they're full too. Give heart of life charges so that we can at least oom the offense and give us a way to fight back out of our base.

As more and more people are starting to understand this game, everyone gets a heart and it completely changes the game. I suppose you can't please everyone; but don't you guys think the game is more fun when you didn't have infinite mana and health?

The 600 hp would be our point of contention, then. I don't know what playstyle you adopt with your sedna, but on my 'team' we find that 600 hp is a colossal amount of health, especially given most of our healing comes from priests (percentage hp heal). Typically early-mid we would be looking for banded+scalemail+vlemish+nimoth+unbreakable boots, wand of speed, potions, teles and locks, depending on the exact situation. Naturally, you wouldn't use scalemail against an ability nuke team, you may need boots of speed, you need to counter specific builds, etc.

But I digress. What is relevant to this thread, however, is HoL. We went through the "HoL is uber must buy it asap" phase but now it's just not very useful anymore and enemies getting it pose no problems. Against a good team, competition gets really fierce and deaths are just outright rare. There isn't much gold to spare for anyone when the citadel needs attention and it takes a very valuable slot. Hence the view that HoL just isn't that good. I'm inclined to take the stance that anyone can deal with that item, they just need to play.

Actually Lieu, 'we' went through the exact same things as you (omgwtf-HoL phase and everything). My experience sounds very similar to yours, tho mostly from 2v2 Conquest on Cataract. Against competent opponents it is very difficult to score a kill. 

I play Sedna as a combat hero (from my experience she makes a rather poor minion master compared to other generals) so I maximize Pounce, Heal and Grace, later adding Presence and Silence. Items are usually Banded+Gauntlets to start, Vlemish when I can afford it, then Plenor, Scalemail, and teles/pots/etc. Scalemail and Banded get upgraded to Nimoth and UBBoots later on. From playing numerous matches against tough opponents this is very effective, and seems to be the way to go to me. I'm still learning though, so how important do you find that those priest minions are? I find that I already have such superior staying power that I don't think I need them (other heroes without Sedna's advantages might find otherwise, of course). 

I have this same problem as TB.  Oak is just nearly impossible to kill unless 2v1'd, and even then, it takes far longer than it should.

Priest minions? They are seriously uber. Sedna with healing wind* 2 can run around with a pair of high priests(rank 3 ones) than heal multiple demigods for 30% of their health bars (this is a typo in the code - supposed to be 20%, still awesome though).

Cheapo monks have their 10% base, sedna buffs this to 15%. Bishops start at 15% and go to 22%. Wave priests count as monks. All the different ranks of heals stack so for every general you can add a different priest idol to stack healing.

It's just so easy to pick up priests and they give so much. With two generals (inc. sedna) you can be healing for 50% of a health bar with priests every 10 seconds on multiple demigods for only a couple thousand gold.

At level 1 they are equivalent to roughly 20 hp/s and they scale rapidly from there. At level 5 getting inner grace 2 my partner nets around 70 hp per second overall... You should buy them.

* fixed

Lieu means healing wind 2 not inner grace 2.

I play sedna with lieu in a similar way to you it seems and I cannot state enough how amazing idol priests in combination with healing wind 2 are.

Typically my build goes like this: pounce -> healing wind -> inner grace -> pounce 2 -> healing wind 2 -> heal 1.

Where the rest of the points go depend on the match but I get a new rank of pounce when i can. I only tend to max inner grace once I have the rank of heal that I want, silence and max rank pounce, an extra 5 hp/s + 5% movement speed just isn't alot.  I get enough movement speed to escape and chase from just inner grace 1, boots of speed and wand of speed.

The great thing about idol priests, healing wind and inner grace is that it is mana free healing so my build focuses on getting alot of this. So at level 5 my monks are regulary healing for nearly as much as heal 1 does, I'm giving my teammates and myself a 24 hp/s aura, 34 hp/s for myself and it is all mana free!  I find that in the first 5 levels heal 1 doesn't heal for enough (people shouldn't be taking alot of damage this early anyway), is just too mana comsuming,and thus it means I can't pounce as much, which means that there are less chances to get kills and push people off lanes therefore also preventing damage.

With all this passive healing, it makes myself and my team very durable, you will find that your staying power increases by so much. Idol priests are your best friends, don't leave the crystal without them.

I'm not talking about sedna here or the healing ability of anyone else. Everyone compares to sedna's heal which is not comparable because she IS A SUPPORT DEMIGOD SHE IS MEANT TO DO THIS. So what if she can heal faster than oak with HOL i dont' care at all about that. I care that oak as a competent opponent with HOL and shield is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE TO KILL. Not that you can't stall him but short of a triple UB stun fest i don't think he will die at any time and even then if he's quick he could put up shield and wand of boots as soon as he sees the triple UB.

And sedna is meant for passive healing but at least sedna can be targetted and driven off and that passive healing is distributed. Sedna isn't meant to die or do damage in any significant form. Oak is oak is good for that auto attack and a DEDCENT survivability but he shines most for his death comback which is something YOU SHOULD NEED TO GET AS OAK. Shield is very common and so is HOL so given that even the 2 extra points that go into him being useful when he dies go into making him even better and when thats 7 to 10 spirits and an extra 5% healing per kill EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS. And if he can do both of these than he gains 2 skills instead of weighing pros and cons.

All i'm asking is to do some code change that stops HOL when your attack and shielded.

And for you who said just nerf HOL have you ever used HOL in any big games. You lose your health faster than can use HOL. I've seen my health go in 5 seconds and still get away. Plus you only get 3k and late game you have 6 or 7k it doens't replace the healing crystal. Mid game yes it does but early and late NO.

Just played a game with Oak using Shield + Wings of the Seraphim.  He was for all intents and purposes immortal.  It was pretty ridiculous.  We could have killed him if it was just a 2000 heal over 10 seconds (that couldn't be stopped/interrupted) but the combo of being invincible (dropping our DPS on him to zero) while he's still damaging us and healing just doesn't seem to have a counter.

I see no reason why you wouldn't just go for a team full of Oaks doing that.

If anyone knows a way to counter this feel free to share.

Lol as i said before they never die. Oak wings of the seraphim and HoL is pretty much 2 on 1 win no matter what. And i've seen double oak doing Shield HOL and Wings of the seraphim gives area. 2 Oaks with wings of seraphim with shield and hol is INVINCIBLE. So is 2 sednas but at least they don't dish out crazy damage.

Malice,

That style is very interesting, I hadn't thought of things quite that way before, and I'll give it a try. I just have some questions regarding items... do you start off with the level 1 monk idols right away? If so, does that weaken you early on against DGs that bought combat gear? You mentioned Boots of Speed... I find that I don't ever have room for them since I'm full with Vlemish+Plenor+Scalemail/Nimoth+Banded/UBBoots+Gauntlets/SlayersWraps. What do you leave out? And do you use the Anklet? (I do). 

Also, what DG do you usually pair up with? My partner usually uses Ooze Beast, tho we were considering trying Erebus tomorrow night. 

If a team stacks everything they have into one element you counter it and get your autowin.

Don't feed and build to counter autoattack then watch as they flail around doing little damage while having no demigod variation to cover their weaknesses, provide flexibility, add synergy or add more abilities. Any team with half a brain between them trounces all these Oak situations you describe.

Oak's own priests outheal a HoL; why aren't you complaining about that?

Well as far as pantheon goes, every dark demigod except queen has a stun (foul grasp, mass charm, frost nova). If he's attacking you while he's healing then he places himself within range of your stun. My mate tried this tactic and all it took was just to hold your stun ready and watch for his shield. If you try and time it right so that he's just clicked HoL/WotS before you hit the stun then he has to wait for them to cooldown while you finish him off. Most Oaks I've found who use that tactic don't bother with speed upgrades so they can't get away.

I very often use Wand of speed in combination with Invicibility. But i never used HoL, first because it´s OP, and second, as OAK you really need to get a crown spending you much more mana. Without more Mana reg you can forget OAK.

So the solution is, to double the HoL time from 10 to 20 secounds, and increase the costs to 7000. Also it should make you unable to move.

I used to use the swift anklet in combination with boots of speed for +25% movement, my consumable items were usually teleport scrolls, capture locks and mana potions.  The problem that I realised with this is that, I have alot of movement speed but I don't need it all the time, I only need to be fast when I'm chasing/running away.  So I decided to swap the anklet for the amulet of teleportation, and teleport scrolls for a wand of speed.  With free teleports, the wand of speed is paid for in 5 teleports, and the rest is money saved.  I still use the anklet on prison, it is too open and there isn't enough stuff to teleport to.

Sedna is best when she is with her teammates and the great thing about the amulet/wand of speed combo is that I'm very mobile,  the combination helps me be where I need to be, pretty much when i want. For example I can teleport in if someone needs help, to assist with a gank or if I see a flag being capped, I can teleport in on it to try and save it, if not lock it and run away.  You just have to watch you don't get caught out with stuff on cooldown.

The item I don't buy is gloves, and I only get boots of speed if wand of speed isn't enough.  I just find that gloves don't do enough, sedna's sustained damage is already so low.  I can't say i've used them much though, I'll try them out. I generally use pounce to catch people out and part of focus fire/burst.  I also never buy the plenor helm.  I don't need a huge mana pool or insane regen.  I just need *enough* to be able to use my abilities regulary. mana potions provide enough on demand regen, are more cost effective unless the game lasts a very long time and by the time I run out of them and mana, I'll have enough gold to go buy items, locks, upgrades etc. anyway.

Usually I buy idol monks, sell the idol and depending on who I'm up against scalemail + capture lock + mana potion or banded armour + mana potion.  Since idol selling is being changed in the next patch I'll probably still buy idol priests and a mana potion.  I try and use my superior health regen to my advantage in the early levels, I won't be able to go toe to toe with more damaging DGs, but I can run in, pounce and run out, wearing their hp down forcing them to back off or try and outlast their mana.

I usually pair up with Lieu, who plays oak.  Sedna + oak brings so much utility to the table, and we can support and work with the style of pretty much every other DG, they really provide such a back bone to a team and penitence + pounce is a lot of burst damage.  Ubs make great teammates as well, your healing keeps them up and you can use pounce, silence and foul grasp to really screw up your opponents.  Rooks are great too, you'll have so much pushing power. Not played with many QoTs but I hear sedna works well with her, so much defensive power there.  You'd obviously have alot of chasing power with erebus.

I'm not complaining about priests because at least ALL generals have them and assassins dish out enough damage that it negates their healing. But shield is like a 6 second stun to everything attacking you and then you get health with HoL. I wouldn't really complain about shield alone because oak is a general he doesn't dish out the damage like some of the assassins can but with the healing it's a bit overboard.

A) You guys are overlooking the mana it gives as well. Shield only costs 675 mana (correct me if i'm wrong on that) for the 6 second version and that isn't much. Easily with pelnors helm you can increase your max mana to over 3k as oak and that mana is just a drop in the bucket. Especially when you TOTALLY REJUVINATE your mana after you use the shield. And there are ways to decrease cooldown.

B ) Why are you people comparing to sedna. Big deal sedna can heal a lot. THATS THE POINT OF HER. Sedna and pretty much anyone is strong because if the sedna player is REALLY good they won't let anyone die. And sedna doesn't heal AoE if i'm correct. As sedna you may heal over 7000 every 30 seconds on ONE TARGET. While as torchbearer i can dish out 3000 burst damage in 5 seconds to A LARGE AREA. Thats every creep in the area DEAD. Plus if there are 3 demigods thats 9000 damage. Lets see sedna heal that.

C) Oak is already hard enough to kill on his own. I've played him a few times just to prove a point against computers and against humans online and HE NEVER DIES. It's almost impossible to kill him even WITHOUT shield and HoL it's just overkill to do that. And wings of seraphim just make it unfair. Even at level 20 wings of seraphim and HoL can heal half of oaks health every 35 seconds or so (and thats just wings of seraphims cooldown right there). Why just make him harder to kill.

D) Easy solution no one wants to admit to. Just add a line in code that breaks HoL when attacked even when shielded. Force oak to use shield to get OUT of battle and then make him heal out of battle. But healing alone in battle is insane. Yes potions can do this too but they have a casting time and can be interupted.

E) YES I KNOW SEDNA DOES THAT TOO i don't want to hear that crap anymore. (the healing in battle thing) I know what sedna can do. But thats 2 demigods. This is 1 demigod with a 4k item that is common with every demigod in almost every game online with a skill that is a very useful skill that is included in most builds anyway. So you aren't sacrificing anything to get this like people said at the begining. Now if you got a torchbearer and oak he'd still have the same ability/not dying skill at with sedna because oak is so durable in the first place but you deal SO MUCH MORE DAMAGE with a torchbearer on your side vs a sedna. Yet you still aren't sacrificing the durability. Maybe the torchbearer won't last as long but oak can cast shield on him too...

Xavior,

If you hadn't noticed the conversation Lieu Malice and I are having has nothing to do with you. Please mind your own business. 

Malice,

I've tried your monks+wind build, it seems really strong in 2v2s where my partner and I can control the pace of the game. If we can drag a battle out into several engagements then we invariably last longer because of the massive free healing over time.

However, in larger battles it seems to be less strong. With more DGs on the field health can dissapear faster, and its very easy to get ganked before your monks can work their magic. In one game in particular I had TB in my lane (Leviathan), which normally is easy since I can easily endure his spells and eventually chase him off with Pounce, but there was a really aware Regulus in the other lane who would always tack his snipe onto TB's fireball. It was very difficult. 

Still, 2v2 is what I care most about, and since it seems strong there I'll continue testing the build. 

Um...you realize this is his post, right?

Threads do not belong to the person who started them. When you create a thread you are putting your words out there to the public, like throwing someone to the lions.

Xavior, you don't seem to get the point that the shield+HoL trick is a small percentage of the total healing that goes on in the battlefield. This is just oak himself, nevermind other demigods helping each other. At the point of the game where it's actually worth it to use the shield+HoL trick, Oak's own healing sources are much better. That's just Oak healing himself. He is also healing everyone around him, other generals are healing Oak back, people are chugging potions and 50 hps from gear heals more than the HoL trick.

If shield+HoL is overpowered then Oak buying priests must be horrifically overpowered because they are far better.

Exactly, so telling him to mind his own business in his own thread only proves my point, as does your post. Also, if what you're talking about has little/nothing to do with the OP then it's called highjacking, which is frowned upon.

Im pretty sure thats why PMs exist.

Proves your point? You explicitly said is was his thread. I made the argument is was nobody's thread. That isn't proving a point. I never made an argument for hijacking being good.