Today, lets spin the Roulette wheel!

[Einstein]

Today's review is over an intelligence hero that has one of the lowest dps in the game, while still being relatively squishy. To counter this some people build him with super-heated mantle first. Hopefully today's review will lead us into tomorrow's review.

 

What is your opinion on the mighty Roulette Jackson?

 

1)Is he balanced vs Intel heroes? Vs Agi Heroes? Vs Strength Heroes?

 

2)Do you feel he does too little or too much damage?

 

3)Which is better: Tanky Roulette, or Intel Roulette?

 

and finally

 

4)At what point in the game do you feel Roulette is the strongest?

[heimdallr]

I play jackson a lot....fun to play SKIP THE WALL OF TEXT IF YOU WANT AND TO TO LAST PARAGRAPH

 

I generally start with treasure and googles since his early income is like nothing....early farm is hard After that I can either go impact dial or straight shard depending on enemy composition....I play pubs so I go dial if i feel i can get kills for cash or if the armor that dial gives would help me vs early agi agression.

 

why do I say this? to answer your first question: once he has his blink combined with the E+Q combo and some intel to scale the Q damage he is deadly against most intel characters and agi characters early game to mid game. Period. Any squishy character that cannot negate his damage or interrupt the beam(stun or getting away somehow) is as good as dead and this is where jackson may get his most cash via kills/assists: mid early game.

 

As for pairing ina fight for a lane so to speak where enemies have a support partner or a team you just bring equal numers but the key is to position yourself to E as many as them as possible, making emphasis on stunners or silencers so you get them before they silence/stun you....this area of effect means that mid early game your power in teamfights will escalare exponentially as you fight more enemies....you even get more shields due to aoe spelldamage of ulti + link.

 

His weak point offensively then? str heroes that go strenght (not those early critical / dps str....I mean str heroes that get str itema early. Those you have no chance again solo. And its good IMO that you are not good vs every char ina single window of oportunity in time. Its good you cant kill everything that moves even at your strongest.

 

As for items I follow with ihan and nitro. So During this window they give combined about 1000 HP and enough intel for damage and the active of ihan gives sustain so yeah. The blink item of your choice and this 3 items make you tanky yet damaging. and the slow added to your Q is just cool to help in teamfights.

 

Does it do too much damage? IMO NOT. At the very early game you will do just about nothing. When you buy ihan you still slowly get stacks. During the building of nitro and the time you finish it is the only moment where you truly start being good cause you do good damage AND you survive . This is crucial cause you must go in the middle of the enemy team(or right next to the enemy if you are solo fighting) and the shields you get from your passive heroic won´t cut it. Also you do lots of damage with a Q of full duration but it will only kill 1 enemy at most. Jackson is designed as a teamfighter and if played to kill a single person using his full combo he must recharge the spells to do it again. His aa is worthless and his W though good to counter aa agi carries at this stage still demands you jump in nexxt to them and take the blows.

 

Also, after this stage is where teamfights happen the most and counter items are abundant or spell resist items are bought if they see you as a threat.

 

As for your third question, Tanky roulette shines the most as full support with organized teams(premade/IH). After the items I said earlier which I consider core, you buy tanky items in the cooldown reduction area. Chilling artifact, Khoral, Spell buffer(nice active too). They boost your teams performance tremendously, make you tanky and allow you to use Q and E twice per battle sometimes. Also you will still do some minor damage from nitro and the ihan stacks once you sell it and the slow of nitro + your skills make you a disabling machine vs enemy team.

 

Intel jackson on the other hand will go gravity edge asap for the enourmus damage added to Q, followed by whatever you need that gives intel. It could be parallax, yamato reactor, and maybe organic for some life sustain and tankyness. As for this build you will basically be a reactive jackson instead of an initiator. You are squishy even with organic so if enemies stun you while in mid of a combo you are pretty much dead. However this build shines while waiting for enemies to have already engaged your team and are commited to the fight. THEN you blink to perfect positioning, ulti, link and beam a squishy. You will get lots of shields from this and likely a kill on the squishy. Then the shields will be up long enough to , hopefully run away. You may want to have both warpshard AND dial to basically have a means of escape. THis is kind of a do or die build. It all comes down to you doing your stuff and to kill fast before the silence wears off. The rest is to get away alive and let your team finish them(easy if you pulled 3-4 of them with R and then silenced all with E.

 

question 4 was already answered.

 

So to summarize:

1) Yes I think its balanced overall

2) early too little, midgame very good damage, late game falls off

3) depends on what your team needs: burst as a reactive jackson to damage a lot and kill a particular hero. Tanky if your team needs a tank with lots of "aura" items and your own disables instead of damage output.

4) definitelly mid early game vs all except tanky heroes.

Edited February 4, 2014 by heimdallr

[ginosaji]

Jackson is very, very strong as an initiator. He just needs to be tanky enough to get his skills off and then tank a little more. He doesn't need to be as tanky as STR heroes. If the enemy is focusing the jackson after he's initiated one of a few things happened: He initiated incorrectly and his team left him for dead, his team is bad, or the other team is bad and are focusing down key targets as the enemy team focuses a hero that already cast all his spells(the jackson that is).

[atomheartman]

Im agree that he falls a bit in late game but still very good hero and strong in mid game.

I think that buying SHM or rushing Warp shard is a bad choice.

 

My build

Treasure

Googles

flaregun (optional)

Impact dial

Now you ready for some sweet ganks.

 

Then i look at how its going and...

Korhal/Ihan

Chilling/Buffer/Warp-shard

[Straighter]

i agree with atomheartman i normally use the same build.

rushing shard will put u behind too far.

i never get flaregun tho.

 

usually i play this way:

treasure>goggles>dial>korhal>ihan/chilling/carapace

after i feel like im tanky enough ill get shard ... dial + shard give u really nice mobility

 

jackson is overall a nice support with good initiation and best counter initiation (if u have shard) in the whole game ... problem is that he doesnt combo as well as brine f.e.

i would describe him as "master of teamfights" :} as he can silence + stun your whole team if u are not carefull.

[Einstein]

Does Gravity Edge reduce the overall amount of shields you give yourself as roulette?

[Jaysi]

Does Gravity Edge reduce the overall amount of shields you give yourself as roulette?

 

I'm pretty sure the way it works now, it just adds like 20% of the total spell damage as true damage. So it is no longer converted from spell into true at all. I doubt he gets shields from the true damage added on though.

[Straighter]

passive sais: whenever he deals spell damage 15% of damage dealt is converted into shields, so in theory the true damage should count too

[Moo]

passive sais: whenever he deals spell damage 15% of damage dealt is converted into shields, so in theory the true damage should count too

You just contradicted yourself lol. It gives shields based off of spell damage, and the damage from grav is true damage, not spell.

[heimdallr]

To reinforce the answers on gravity edge others gave I will elaborate.

Gravity edge gives huge intel. The intel boosts spell damage as explained in the skills tooltip hovering your mouse over them. That extra damage IS spell damage so does give shields according to jackson´s heroic passive.

 

However, the UNIQUE of gravity also ADDS 20% of whatever spell damage you would do as true damage. So if you would do 100 spell damage you will now do 100 spell damage AND 20 true damage. The 100 spell damage will generate shields. The 20 true damage will not generate shields because it is not spell damage.

Does Gravity Edge reduce the overall amount of shields you give yourself as roulette?

 

In previous versions of the item it would TURN 20% of your spell damage into true damage. Taking the above example 100 spell damage would become 80 spell damage and 20 true damage. Comparing to the 100 spell damage going partially to shield generation now only 80 spell damage will generate shields.

BUT....the NEW item changed how the mechanic works. Currently gravity edge says it ADDS 20% of the initial damage as true damage. So your shield generating potential will only increase due to the extra intelligence, but not reduced in any way as the true damage added does not "take away" from the spell damage done.

 

I hope this clarifies it for everyone in doubt.

[John]

In a proper game go tank with auras with fortify build.

 

Aura items and fortify will make you extremely tanky and really annoying for the enemy team with that aoe silence + passive and ulti.

 

He really destroys melee heroes and is underplayed, I'm expecting him to get picked more frequent in the future.