Who should get Cunning talent, really?

[MOTHER]

Cunning recently got a sexy ninja buff, increasing the bonus spell damage to 8% from 5. So who really benefits enough from this talent now to warrant putting a point in it over others?

 

I think if Gravity Edge or Ancient Rune are core items (you gotta rush them) on your hero, you should probably get it. More specifically, I've experimented with it on the following heroes and it's really great.

 

Queen (every ling procs and strengthens her early game presence even more, though I do think she'll benefit more from another utility talent)

 

Raynor (with damage amp and the huge scaling its too good)

 

Egon (not like his early game needs any help)

 

Immortal (get it with might and fury because his AA procs it as well as his ult passive)

 

Stukov (ridiculous early game with or without it)

 

Cow (every single skill benefits from Cunning)

Edited April 21, 2014 by Jessika

[DavidChan]

duno, i still think other talents are slightly better

[MrGrim]

I've noticed a lot more people in the league and in recent tourney going for pendant first since wealth was nerfed with lost treasure being 900. They seem to skip miner's on heroes all together so now with wealth being less prevalent cunning might get popular on every int hero that wealth used to be. I could see a ton of 1-3-2 builds or even 2-2-2. Prodigy is nice and it might be the one to compare cunning to and see whats better.

[Doom]

Muhr, the only ones that I feel you should get it are the non-tanky, non-aa heroes. No matter what, you will get the m.s. and the hp talents, that leaves you with only four for everything else. Extra energy is also a solid pick on most, so that's three. Extra weapon damage helps last-hitting, and for heroes with like 60 weapon damage including items and base stats, it's nearly mandatory. Anything even slightly dps-y you want weapon speed talent on. Tanks want extra armor and zeal. Basically, in a tryhard game, I would only get this talent on Vergil. That somboii doesn't need aa dps ever, and doesn't need high defense. With cd bug on charges, he doesn't profit from cd talent. With his high movement speed when low and two blinks, one might even argue he needs no movement speed. The only talents I ever know for certain that I'm going to get on him are +hp and +mana for more tank tank and spam spam. It COULD also be good on Maar, Cow (i sometimes get it 2-1-3 with wealth to buy +25 wd item and threeshot fools with my w+e), Queen (her AA is irrelevant), unix (same as queen) but usually there are better alternatives.

Edited April 21, 2014 by Doom

[Indo]

Get it on raynor? Naaaahhh better 2-2-2 weapondmg+speed health armor and movespeed cdr. + pendant and you are fine. That was my standart build for him long ago and still proved worth doing when you want to hardcore dominate your lane

[TaxHaven]

Buff it to 11% and it will be more useful

 

I am guessing it was buffed for use on Raynor

[Midknight]

I'd say it's good on heroes that get high base damage but low or inconvenient scaling on spell damage. For instance, if you only get 10% Int scaling on a particular source of spell damage, a good 8% bonus is a nice way to power it up since you can't rely on boosting that stat. Take Akasha, for instance. He probably won't build a ton of Int so he's not going to go far above the base damage for his field effect. But put Cunning on him and it's 8% stronger right out of the gate. Another good case would probably be Immortal. He gets scaling from shields but they're kind of hard to maintain now. The 8% bonus lets him do more with less.

[Yaldi]

Toxi