Oak`s shield ability after the new update

Nothing changed with his shield since early beta.

its still bull though. an demigod should ALWAYS risk dieing.

Well, suppose that is one of the perks of being invulnerable.

well until the new update you were able to stun him, now ...this is way I made this topic

The point is that Oak is the only demigod who can waltz up to a flag and lock it without even the possibility of being interrupted. He even has time to tp away without even the possibility of being killed. THAT is a huge problem. He is the only demigod who can do that, and having an Oak on either team that realizes this ability is game-breaking. The only time I'd say this would NOT make the game imbalanced is if both teams have an Oak doing this nonsense.

 

He should be stunnable when shielded, even if just to disallow this flag-locking tactic. That's my opinion. Anyone agree?

the point is that you could always stun him up until he bought level 3 shield.  Nothing has changed.  I get your point, alter, but the OP indicates a change took place.  No change took place.  its the same as always and the op simply didn't notice.

Yeah, I noticed that the OP thinks there was a change and I ignored that point because it's wrong. Maybe I should just start a new topic addressing my point? I didn't think it was derailing but if people will focus on his mistake then I'll start a new topic. This has bugged me for a long time too.

 

EDIT: Yeah, I'm making a topic about it.

I don't agree with Alter, I just don't find this overpowered. Haven't bothered me very much what I can remember. Killing Oaks with lvl 3 shield is not impossible. I recently played a game with 2 Oaks (both with lvl 3 shield), they both died 1-3 times or so each. (I can add that Sednas where also present so :P)

 

I stuned an oak with lvl 2 shield or 1 i don`t know really he was lvl 4 and the stun didn`t work, and I was always able to stun oak even on max lvl before the patch(I remeber this beucase many ppl raged when stuned by TB)

Silence, Mass Charm, Frost Nova, and even Foul Grasp if there's only one person there. Protecting flag locks is hardly unique to oak. Hell, Erebus can just stun, lock, mist, stun, teleport as much as he wants, or just stun, lock, mist, stun lock if he's spec'd for it.

Its part of the oak gameplay, and he cant lock a flag and teleport out anymore since the flaglock is now 2 sec cast. so its either lock or teleport out.

And Im quite sure DAs displace works to interupt him as well.

Also you could get some manadrain items in order to get him below 600 mana when he cant use his shield anymore

you can let sedna use silence on him before he casts his shield.

Basically do anything you usualy do in order to kill an Erebus with batswarm.

HorseStrangler, what's unique to him is that he can lock flags without being interrupted if he has level 3 shield. That's too huge an advantage for a DG to have over all others.

Sevenix, you're right about the TP'ing thing. One or the other. At least now he has to make a choice. But what manadrain item is going to get him below 600 when he runs at a flag with full mana? All he needs is that 600 to shield and lock. Yes, Sedna can silence. So this is still balanced if you have to have a certain DG on your team to prevent him from using this super-deadly mechanic? If he's the only DG that requires 2 or more DG's to stop from flag-locking, I say that's a tad imbalanced.

Rank 1 Silence, rank 4 Mass Charm, and rank 3 Frost Nova do the same thing, as does rank 1 Foul Grasp if there's only one person with an interrupt in range.

He's not. If you like we can do a series of 1v1s, we'll start at the appropriate level to get the necessary skills and you can try to interrupt me, and then we can concede before 5 minutes if you like. You will not be able to stop me as Sedna, TB, EB, Oak, or UB.

At least with EB there are windows during which to stun him back and gank him. Oak has one window during which you can get him to prevent him from locking. You have to KNOW he's coming to your flag. You have to tp there before he comes out of the mist, and probably TP with a friend to double-stun and/or scare him off. If you don't get there before he does, then he shields and locks, and runs. That's it. Done. So you have to be able to predict him. I don't think it's quite that bad with EB.

Yep this makes games with Oak extremely dull, as once he reachs lvl7 he is pretty much unkillable. He can get into any fight, and time his shield so when he gets low hp he can just shield, attack one last more time and tele out.

In cataract it's even worse since all he has to do is walk happily past double towers towards a portal:

-if noone notices, just cap the portal, lock and tele/get out,

-if anyone notices and comes/teles in, just fight for a while, shield and tele out.

No other demigod has this kind of impunity, or is able to do anything similar until very late game (lvl7 is fairly early mind you). Any other demigod faces almost certain death if he dares to capture a portal alone and enemy team notices and comes to prevent it.

I used to think shield extremely long cast delay (35 secs) sorta balanced things out, but it's getting highly abused lately.

Inmunity to stuns could be delayed until lvl4 shield, or maybe increase the shield cast time 0.5, that way you'd have a small chance to stun him before shield came, but that would probably change the whole shield mechanics too much.

When? You have to pre-emptively interrupt his mass charm, I assume? Even then if you don't have friends he'll just cast in your face since your interrupt has been used, or he'll just Mist until it's off cooldown and try again, assuming you got it in the first place. A good EB will cast charm, interrupt, wait a second, and then cast again, or he'll just fight you since if you're any other DG than UB you your interrupt is also your primary damage skill and you won't stand a chance without a major level/item advantage. Sedna doesn't fight so well when she can't pounce because she's waiting on an interrupt that she'll probably miss anyway.

Not Erebus, and even Sedna with rank 2 silence can just laugh off an attack as she tp's home safely.

*blinks* You're right about Silence, Charm, Nova. I never see people use them for this anymore and I'd forgotten the possibility IS there. I don't understand your example for Grasp. Could you explain it?

1v1's won't be necessary, You've proved you're right. I'm wrong. I feel stupid for not realizing your other examples. I haven't played other DG's in so long other than UB and I don't see people flag-locking with those skills anymore.

Thanks for calmly explaining it to me. Sorry if I sounded very aggressive.

It's a two-part effect. When you cast Foul Grasp you stun the enemy for 2 seconds. This effect deals no damage. You also begin channeling a life drain effect for two seconds, during which you cannot autoattack or move. However, you can interrupt the effect with abilities, so things like cap locks, ooze, blade of the serpent, potions, gadgets, etc. can be used. This will stop the channeling health drain, but generally people only get rank 1 grasp anyway and that's not the part of the effect with which they're concerned.

 

I mean seriously, three out of four generals can caplock safely. One out of 5 assassins can, and even rook can do it against a single player or a few tightly packed ones. Granted the assassins don't get this safety until level 15, but it's still there. I just think that people are getting all up in arms about Oak because his is the simplest and most commonly used, but the real problem is the locks themselves.

Why, after all this time, is a single cap lock still a death sentence? Why is a 30 minute long game being decided in two seconds?

I am the last person you should apologize to for being rude, and I should have articulated my point better in the first place anyway.

Oh, you're saying a UB can cast things while Grasping someone?

 

What do you propose to do with locks to solve their problem? Do away with them altogether?

Nah, you just grasp the person who wants to interrupt you and then cast during grasp. The stun on you ends and the stun on them doesn't. I use this to get gadget heals off and to get gadget finishers on oaks waiting until the last second to shield.

I don't think people would like my idea for this very much. I would either make it only work on flags that don't belong to either team at the start of the game, add a key or dispel item of some sort, make a cap lock just disable the effects of the locked flag (possibly allow casting on neutral/enemy controlled flags with this change), or something equally drastic.

I probably am just spamming saying this all over the place but:

I say Universal Gadgets should remove cap locks. Why shouldnt cap locks have a counter? And those damn things are supposed to be universal.

Gadgets are already one of the absolute best items in the game. The only thing that really keeps them in check is the fact that everyone needs locks, TPs, and sigils. I'd much rather see a new item added if it's going to be an item solution, because I think the fun part of gadgets is the surprise, they'd become tedious if everyone had one at all times they way they do sigils.

Well, for one, I don't see why they should damage enemies. 650 dmg at the start of the game? Eh.

I think think they should stay how they are. I think they need to do a check to see what 'friendly' they are targeting. 2,000 is great for towers but I feel it should do a percentage to players. I also think it shouldnt dmg enemies, rather apply some sort of debuff that I cant think of right now.

And a new item just for dispelling locks would be stupid. That would cause the same problem as the only reason people would carry UGs around all the time would be to dispell locks if they did.

And I dont see the problem of carrying them around. You have 3 slots, so pick what you need. Maybe one person carries locks, one has gadgets.

There'd be a much greater tradeoff to it than using a gadget for that purpose. Gadgets are already amazing and yet they're not used much for that reason.