Movement speed and slows

[Spooky]

I think there is a need to balance little bit current mobility and available slows. There is no real counter to additional mobility expressed in high movement speed which some heroes have. Everyone know how hard is to kill heroes like Ling or Shadow. Advantage they have because of movement speed is ridiculous. U can't escape from them, and u can't catch them. U can't deal with them without completely locking them down. But amount of stuns are very limited. Slows in other hand are too weak. There is only one source of slow which is significant enough - Atom Smasher - but it duration is very short. In other words, movement speed in current meta is OP, because there are no tools to deal with. So in my opinion movement speed abilities need some significant nerf or we need more powerful slows.

 

In Dota 2, for example, differences between slowest and fastest hero aren't as significant as in AoS, but still there are much stronger slows with longer duration. There is almost impossible to simply run away if u get ganked. But in AoS its piece of cake. Please provide some tools to deal with such a high movement speed:

- create ability which removes positive buffs from target for some duration of time (it would be also great counter to Geneva ultimate)

- increase duration and effect of single target slows available in game. Greelus for example is completely underused - buff his Q, range and duration. Ability can provide 70% slow for 5 seconds, it doesn't have to deal any damage and it will make him much more viable

- bring back old Bio ultimate, which was dealing damage as long as target was moving (it would be great tool to deal with split pushing heroes like Nova or Shadow)

- besides there should be movement speed cap

 

Most abilities in AoS are simply damage dealers, nothing more. Most of them doesn't provide any significant utility which would force enemies to adjust they game play. Right now I can name only few, like Zera and Jackson ultimate which force enemies to be spread out, or Maar ultimate which create possibility to get ganked any time, anywhere.

[ANARCHY]

hmm i can agree that there is too much movement speed in the meta, however raising the amount of stuns / slows will probably make it worse

 

i already feel atom smasher is seriously overpowered, any burst caster or aa carry can grab an atom smasher and walk up to any enemy hero besides a tank and instantly lockdown for a kill with ease if they are but 1 unit from tower range

 

i would prefer to see slightly less movement on;

items, not much is required here, if someone wants to stack movement speed they will be inherently useless

heroes, like ling shade etc need a small nerf (shades passive should scale with lvl)

 

i would like to see FOE buffed to a slightly longer slow time

[Straighter]

i wouldnt add new stuns and slows, i would rather nerf lings and shadows movement speed a little because its too much imo....

[Ironsights]

I think team comp matters more, and there should NOT be more slow/stun items.

 

Stun items are OP anyway, and there are already good slow items (nitrofit, atomsmasher, FoE) not to mention disable items (taser, sword breaker)

 

IF you want stuns/slows, bring a hero that can do it, there are a lot of them. (micro, unix, penthos, etc)

 

not every hero should be able to do everything via items.

[thomulf]

As iron said there's so many slows/roots on heroes, not to mention that almost every hero can use either foe or nitro in a viable manner.

 

Many speed items were already toned down a little in the new item system, foe got buffed and will be again with the standardization.

 

Slows not stacking though sounds very bad to me (I'm referring to the standardization), I think that only allowing one strong slow instead of a combination of weaker ones will actually worse after whatever balancing goes on in between.

[Spooky]

Well, I'm also against powerful slows available to everyone through items. That is why I was suggesting buffing Greelus slow for instance. I would like to see more utility on heroes side, not on items side. FoE or Nitro isn't enough to catch up Shadow, Ling, Leo or Nova. Toxi, Greelus slows are too weak as well. The only viable slow is Tosh Q probably, but only against Shadow. For Ling ulti or Nova Vanish definitely not. Besides those heroes still can buy items like Arcbound or Phantom Menace and become even faster. There is no movement speed cap while strong movement speed buffs are available to everyone through items. At the same time those items fits more heroes which already has some built in movement speed buff mechanics. So its impossible to keep up with them. What I'm trying to suggest is to:

- reduce movement speed buff on items and on some heroes abilities (especially on ling ultimate and Nova vanish)

- put movement speed cap to prevent abusing those abilities even more (+50% would be great, Yomato Reactor potentially would break it)

- introduce some hero abilities which can put temporary movement speed buff on other hero (to make movement speed added value, not available to everyone through items)

- introduce some hero abilities with powerful anti-movement utility (to counter heroes with high movement speed)

 

Ling would be completely fine with his current skillset and damage output if he wouldn't have such a strong mobility. Its his mobility makes him so OP, as it is almost impossible to counter. Same with Shadow or Nova - its their mobility what makes them so strong split-pushers. Fact that there is lack of heroes which are capable of locking them down for long enough to make killing them possible. Garamond, MK, Queen - they all have strong split push. But still they are gank-able. But u can get your entire team to deal with split-pushing Shadow, Nova or Ling and still they are able to escape. In my opinion its retarded.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Spooky

[Einstein]

The problem isn't that they can get away, but mostly likely that your entire team was ganking one person. That is a quick way to lose towers.

The amount of speed a player can generate isn't the real problem either, its the amount of extra bonuses they get with movement speed items.

Cloaking, spell resist, health, weapon damage, more weapon damage, spell resistance, timescale (more movespeed + cdr), physical resistance/armor...etc.

So there is very little disadvantage, if not more advantage, to building speed into your builds.

There should be more movement speed potential for all heroes in the game, but it should come at a steeper cost.

[SmittyGFunk]

Where dem boots at yo? Lmao

[Spooky]

The problem isn't that they can get away, but mostly likely that your entire team was ganking one person. That is a quick way to lose towers.

Of course u shouldn't do that. But sending 1 hero to defend tower is very bad idea, because Shadow/Ling/Nova will simply tower dive and get a kill. If u send 2-3 heroes they will only scare split pusher and buy tower 1 minutes of time and that's all, u can't kill him. Problem is that its too easy to split push for such a heroes, because there is almost no risk involved at all. They can do it all game long even without good map control. They have too strong mobility in compare to available stuns, slows and lock downs. I;m saying there is lack of balance in this aspect of mechanics. There is almost no anti-mobility abilities. Slows are built in heroes are too weak, number of stuns are limited - and most of them doesn't even have instant cast which give some time to react. But imagine we would have hero like Disruptor from Dota 2 with his Glimpse and Kinetic Field - gg split pushers. Any hero caught by him in 1v2 or 1v3 situation would die. Presence of such hero on battle field would at least force them to have good map awareness. It would be end of no-brain split pushing.