Energy Saber Balance

[ginosaji]

Energy saber is currently too strong on gank heroes with spammable skills, specifically Ling and Zera. Energy saber's intended purpose, as far as I'm aware, was to give INT heroes the ability to go INT/AA to supplement Physical damage out for the team and to have a back up plan if the burned all their spells.

 

The way it is now, Zera and Ling can get 100-140 weapon damage out of a 3000 mineral item, that also gives them cooldown and solves their energy problems. That's nearly double the damage/minerals of any other item in the game and is viable earlier in the game than other high damage items, so it's even stronger than twice as much damage/minerals.

[TaxHaven]

They could make we dmg increase scale with int if this is meant to be for casters.

 

Eg weapon damage gained for 80% int. This would make it a more late game item when casters have more int. Could also change this into a caster only item where it costs more but also gives like forty or fifty int with the unique as suggested.

[ginosaji]

Or you could make it scale half with energy half with INT.

[Moo]

Or you could make it scale half with energy half with INT.

That sounds good to me, I know what you're talking about with it on ling, I get it every game after bhm, and it is sooooo damn good.

[highdrater]

You bring up a good point that energy saber could possibly be reduced to +3 weapon damage per 100 energy (instead of 4) because its damage / cost ratio may be too high, but the ling & zera early game burst issue lies more within BHM than energy saber. For example you wouldnt notice any difference on zeras phase strike if you had bhm+contam shard vs bhm+energy saber at the 30 minute mark... but you would notice a huge difference if bhm wasn't there on either. In other words nerfing energy saber won't solve zera/ling early game burst.

 

Level 18 zera with BHM and energy saber (with stacks) as the only energy items in build will yield +118 weapon damage (2200 energy=88dmg+30basedmg) from energy saber alone. Mid game thats more around +90 dmg (1500 energy).

Nerfing to +3 weapon damage would yield +96 damage (2200 energy) level 18 and around +75 mid game (1500 energy). I think this might be a more reasonable number and I'm glad you pointed this out gino.

 

Another thing you should notice about burst heroes like ling, zera and boros is that they really shine in solo situations. Having team fights with support tank items like korhal/spell buffer lead for high spell and physical resist cutting off their abillity to insta-gib a hero like they usually do in one-on-one situations. Thats why these heroes always reign terror in pubs and only sometimes do well in coordinated games.

[ginosaji]

Ah, My Numbers Were Off... Yea, Zera Is fine. Its Bhm, Saber, And Parallax Together That MakeS Ling Too Strong. That And Ling's Abilities. Sorry For Formatting, My Phone Doesn't Like This Text Box.