Rod of Atos Seems Underrated

Haha well, it's always interesting to see when things get OP. Personally I think there's too many BS mobility aids in the game and would love to see a bit more good old fashioned positional play. 6K item though, really? I wouldn't pay that for it - not when you can get a 3.5 second Hex which stops them using any abilities, attacks etc for less. Can't purge or BKB when you're a chicken.

+rep you worthless cyka.

People, why not Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan Rods? =(

I always liked to think Atos was Athos.

I completely agree with that. Right now there's just too much mobility abuse and there's no counter to it whatsoever.
Silence sucks in this game, since there's like 6 ways to purge it already...steadily rising with lotus orb, greaves and such. And it doesn't even disable mobility items...honestly I don't understand why Blink Dagger hasn't yet been nerfed to be completely un-viable as an escape item. For me blink should get disabled whenever any spell or active item is cast on you, regardless of whether you take damage or not.
And hard diasables are not only pretty rare and require you to pick specific heroes...but they don't counter mobility more than they counter everything else really.
So yes mobility needs a hard counter, and it needs to be available to every hero so yes make an item that does it.



But making a Sange and Yasha upgrade (with a bit more strength and agility) would give stats that make sense on carries, which Scythe of Vyse does not. Besides Icefrog seems to be making it pretty clear that he doesn't want carries to buy sheeps anymore, since sheep no longer disables evasion since this patch so it's no longer an alternative to buying a Monkey King Bar.

The thing is, if you make an item that forbids displacement completely (besides walking)...it's going to be really really good. so just buffing Atos like this makes a 3K gold hard counter to mobility... Anti-Mage and Morphling are now complete garbage tier, and other unwanted casualties :)
That's why at least I wanted to make it really expensive.

6K gold IS worth buying...it would be actually a core item on the "chasing" carries like Sven, Lifestealer, Spectre...so they can't get kited by mobility abuse anymore.

But then you can give the Vanguard treatment to Rod of Atos : make a 5K upgrade to Atos with a recipe or something that gives a TON of INT (like 45 INT) and has the active of rod of Catos. Maybe even make it undispellable like Heaven's Halberd...but Black King Bar should purge it otherwise it's horribly OP.

Bristleback is really good with it. I did the math.

30 x 13 = 390
390 / 35 = 11

11 extra quills / goo plus another quil from the 350 HP he gets. To top it off you get a 60% slow plus 48% slow of of that, so basically theres no running from him.

I also like it on Terrorblade, Elder Titan, and (veno-style mid semi-carry) Phoenix. I never get it on supports. I think its pretty bad on most supports except Skywrath Mage.

I disagree that mobility compensates for positioning. Like maybe at lower tier to mid tier games, but those are games where positioning isn't really considered a thing anyway. You reach the point as skill levels where mobility is inclusive in positioning, and positioning becomes of upmost importance. Mobility if anything allows for greater punishment of poor positioning.

I can agree with the idea of making Atos disable blink, because it's the kind of buff the item actually needs. But not to the idea of a 6k item that disables all forms of mobility. I think that's an awful step for the game that direct nerfs a lot of the higher skilled aspects that mobility ads to the game past a certain point of play.

If you really hate mobility aids, just directly nerf the aids a little. Don't introduce an item that ****s the aids, and a large portion of the hero pool who in quite a few cases need buffin rather than nerfing.

Abusing the game that is dota like a cheap streetwalker is not high skill play. It is what it is, game abuse. You can't blame people for wanting to win but then there's literally nothing to look up to.

Abusing the hell out of the imbalance that is mobility items and mobility skills is as much high skill play as picking Void every game in the Void patch or picking Troll every game in the Troll patch. You think the high MMR brackets are about skilled play? They're all about ultra-tryhard game abuse and hero spamming. That's why there are balance patches.

Anti-Mage and Morphling are the only mobility heroes that I see needing a small buff. And even then, you can't buff them beyond convenience stuff because they could be OP in good hands.

But just look at what you're nerfing :

- Blink Dagger. Needs a heavy nerf because it's just way too good as an escape item.

- Force Staff. Needs a small nerf because casting it on allies defensively from a high distance is way too good.

- Io, Relocate : Needs a significant nerf because to this day there is literally no counter to defensive relocate...since Wisp can channel it out of danger from an insane range and then just Tether to the guy.

- Meepo, Poof. Meepo is OP, I don't think I need to explain why. Instant escape with 1.5 second cast time? Needs a significant nerf.

- Queen of Pain : literally first pick material in every game

- Earth Spirit : Rolling Boulder. Does nerfing Ebola Spirit need an explanation?

- Ember Spirit : Activate Fire Remnant = instant escape with 0 cast time. Say what you want about the hero being underpowered, his 0 cast time escape is horribly broken. Buff other things about him if you want just nerf this.

- Magnus : Skewer. Honestly...This hero is just way too good. Who knew that giving a 1200 range native Blink to an initiator was a good idea? Could use a nerf.

- Mirana, Leap. The skill is balanced but arrow clearly isn't. So to compensate?

- Phantom Lancer, Doppelganger : Say hello to the most abusable 600 range blink disjoint dispel in the game. Needs a nerf, badly.

- Slark, Pounce. A blink, a nuke, and a 3.5 second disable at level 1? All in one skill? Yeah, sure...Needs a hard counter, badly.

- Storm Spirit, Ball Lightning. Does this even need an explanation? Infinite blink with a low cast point and lowered mana cost. And has the potential to deal 1500+ AOE magic damage. How is that balanced? Yeah, it's not. Needs a hard counter, since low mobility carries can do literally nothing against that.

- Tusk, Snowball : Offensive Snowball is fine but defensive snowball is OP, and abused in literally every pub and competitive game ever seen. 4 second Eul's Scepter of Divinity castable on teammates with hardly any cooldown? Yeah, sure...needs a major nerf. Could make it so that that units under the debuff from rod of Xatos can no longer enter the snowball for example.
This hero is only picked because he's a walking Euls. I'm not even kidding.

- Vengeful Spirit, Nether Swap. Defensive swap abuse could use a nerf as well, since offensive swap is countered by linkens and lotus but defensive swap has no counter to this day.


So as long as you agree with nerfing all that stuff...buff Anti-Mage and Morphling a tad bit and then you're set.

Is this a Kyfoid-style troll post I see from Hamster or is he actually serious? "Hey, that hero is not a 280 ms punching bag, let's nerf the **** out of them!"

You kinda forgot a few...

Like, Timbersaw has a mobility spell, Sand King has a mobility spell, Puck has one, Chen has one, Kotl has one (Or spells that cause you too move by means other than actual movement), Kunkka has one ect ect.

There are a lot of 'mobility' spells in this game, and an item that blocks all of them is just stupid.

But let's go through the ones you mentioned and why I either think or don't think they should nerfed in that sense. Also your usage of the term blink is so loose that I kinda chuckled a bit;

Io -> I mean Io has gotten a lot worse just because of stuff that's moved into the hero pool and play-styles adapting to it. Defensive relocate is strong yeah, but the hero is weaker. And nerfing spells for the sake of it rather than to make the hero worse/more fair is silly.

Meepo -> 1.5s is a long time in DOTA, and the hero is just a pub-stompy hero as is. And given the game is not usually balanced around pubs, I'll say you don't need to nerf it just for the sake of that. Like, you'll make him an even worse competitive pick if you do.

Blink on QOP; Well yeah, QoP is a first pick hero, but your item wouldn't change that. She's a first pick hero because she is an extremely versatile hero and can lane anywhere, and do every role in the game but the 5 position. Your item doesn't change her early-mid game strength, you just make it easier to pick-off late game - Late game pick-offs are usually as a result of burst or chain stunning, neither of which your item changes. So I don't get why you think your suggested items makes a difference there? It doesn't even stop her being able to initate.

Earth Spirit - I mean, I agree that ES needs to be nerfed more, but again. A late game item doesn't really counter a mid-game hero to that extent it makes it hugely worse. The fact that you keep him from using say Geomagnetic Grip to grab something is probably more important than Rolling Boulder, assuming your item still works like that.

Ember Spirit - What's the suggested cast range on this item? Because otherwise Ember Spirit will still probably give no *****, because he can just dodge it and still chuck out SoF's.

Magnus - I mean, I guess you can call the hero too good? I think he's just in a comfortable place right now, and don't think he hugely needs nerfing. Also again, the cast range matters, because otherwise he just does the exact same thing in the late game. I guess it prevents the cheeky blink Skewer to isolate a target in the late game, but otherwise again I don't think it changes much.

Mirana - She's just underwhelming at the moment, because she's really dependant on getting stuff done (And she can't be used too much or people get used to her). I wouldn't want to see her nerfed anymore as a result of that. Plus again, does it really change that much given she's never picked as a core anymore?

Phantom Lancer -> I agree that PL's Doppleganger is ******** right now, but I don't think this works as a nerf to it. Because again hero who has a lot of mid-game potential, and can probably reach a point where he doesn't even need the escape that much.

Slark - Or you just change the scaling on the disable so it's not such a good level 1 skill? Like, if your objection to the skill is how good it is at low levels, why the feth would a late game counter to it mean anything? Like, I don't get the logic at work there .

Storm Spirit - I mean, I don't have the same level of hatred for the hero that you do, but I'd agree to a minor nerf to the hero. Not to destroy the hero entirely after X period of time which you propose, that is never the right way to nerf a hero. And again, mid-game snowballer trying to counter it with a late game item. And depending on the cast range, SS can probably just go up to the hero who has the item, disable him, and threaten to kill him, if not actually kill him.

Tusk - Again I agree, but that's because the heroes mana costs and cooldowns are too low. Like, his skills are amazing, but happen to be both low cooldown, and give him noooo mana issues ever. But I think you have to hurt the hero more by direct nerfs to his skills, not indirect nerfs in the form of late game items.

Vengeful Spirit - I guess? But the heroes already been hurt a lot by meta shifts and the nerfs to Wave of Terror. I think this is just a case of my sense of balance about the hero being different to yours.

So yeah, even in the cases where the heroes are ones I think are ********, I think there's better ways to go about nerfing them. And I think your proposed item just doesn't work in the way you think it does in a lot of cases, unless you've got people rushing it as a first item. (Which probably won't happen). And for the sake of item slots, I think you'll still see people just build sheep stick.

Honestly Hamster, I think you need to be a little more objective about these kinds of suggestions, or at least step back from your strong opinions on the subject a little. Because this read a lot like salt sorry to say. I get why you have legitimate concerns about a lot of these, but it still feels like salt on certain things. Like Storm Spirit. I'm not trying to be offensive or anything, it's just every time I have these discussions with you it doesn't feel like you are trying to be objective about it.

Hamster I have a solution for you. Its called a stun.