HCC - Zeiss, the Mantis

It is effective in battle. In case you missed it, you can end the dash early by casting another ability.

In the end, I don't agree that spells having similar purpose is bad as long as they are A) executed differently and B) have unique aspects that they bring to the table. We can argue about how big or important any differences they might have, but it's hard to reach a consensus when we have different opinions on these differences. What about nerfing her Int gain instead of simply nerfing the range?

Let me rephrase my comparison to Dispersion. Dispersion is absolutely boring and has absolutely 0 play potential involving both sides. Pray at least rewards constant aggression on her part while rewarding enemies who can lockdown or flank her. That's what I was getting at. In terms of interest, it's in between Dispersion and Bristleback. I personally don't think that's a bad design space.

As a carry, you're correct that you'll usually be facing the enemy. But realize one thing about her carry playstyle, she's not going to always be auto attacking whatever is closest like other carries due to her ultimate. So instead of just aimlessly dancing around targets waiting for your ult stacks to build up, Pray makes it so that if you choose to kite while continually facing your targets, you can take reduced damage while dealing damage without having to attack them. I hope that makes the playstyle I was going for more apparent.

I agree that critique should be harsh, but I also believe that feedback shouldn't be 90% critism with little in the way of suggestions for improvement. It's hard to not think of your original comment as straight up bashing when your only suggestion was for the ultimate.

Edit: Just to add on an argument to your design philosophy, I don't believe we have to take simplicity into consideration. Otherwise you might as well make Pounce and Leap a point target ability or Boulder Smash an actual unit target ability. Making certain abilities difficult to pull of in exchange for being stronger than their counterparts. This was personal my philosophy for both Pray and Skitter.

Yes, I did miss that. However, If that's the intended way to use it then you can have a sub-ability to cancel the dash. Still though, being able to accurately cancel an ability in a 0.5 second time window is very difficult considering ping. In order for the ability to actually be usable in practice it's better to have the ability be ground targeted to where you want to land. That method would not be subject to ping.

I don't think it brings a unique aspect. It's used to reposition yourself and it does so in a needlessly obnoxious way. To make an ability execute differently is okay, but making it difficult to control for the sole sake of making it difficult to control seems rather stupid to me. I suppose we're just gonna have to agree to disagree.

When flanking someone their positioning matters more than what way they're looking since turning around is trivial. The only way to exploit it is like you say through lockdown, but that aspect of gameplay is identical to Bristleback. In other words, it brings nothing unique to the hero. That's why I compared it to Bristleback. The concept of flanking is already intrinsic to the game itself. There is no need to integrate it into abilities as it comes per default with the game.

Using your argument, wouldn't it be better to have the damage reduction apply to the back?

Yes, I'm sorry. Bashing was not the intent. The intent was some back and forth discussion. Though I don't think discussion is fit for a message board / forum approach. It's awkward.

I would actually love for Pounce and Leap to be ground targeted so that I could actually aim the damn thing, like how Sonic Wave works. Boulder Smash can be aimed well enough as is. My design philosophy doesn't say to make abilities easy to use, but rather to not introduce needless mechanical details. Difficult abilities to use is fine unless they rely on ping, since that's outside of your control. Also, cant say that facing someone is difficult. Click on someone and the game does it for you.

If that's the case, I could reduce the travel speed as well. This also makes it less strong than you imagine it to be.

In the case of uniqueness, I was trying to put forth that Leap was unique in that it buffed her upon leaping, which you dismissed. The main argument I'm trying to make is that I'm trying to make the spell difficult to execute so that the payoff of actually executing is higher, as opposed to simple cast abilities. This solves both your A) complicated targeting and B) too strong like Ball Lightning argument. But if you can't see it as such, then that's fine.

You say turning around is trivial but I disagree that many aside from the top percentage of players can consistently keep turning to face targets that have just Blinked in and cast a spell on them. Hence the emphasis of a player's finesse for reducing damage. Also because of how Skitter is cast, you have to keep turning around to make the most of so sometimes you might be caught off guard and take more damage than usual. You say there's no need to integrate and reward flankers for something they already do, but I ask why not?

For my argument, maybe. But of course, that'd be overlapping with Bristleback. Making it face the front encourages her to keep facing her enemies, thus reducing her chances of directly backing out of a fight, and it also fits the theme so I don't see a problem. It also encourages her to really skirt around the edges of a fight to prevent exposing her actually squishy sides and back. Because Strength isn't her main attribute, she won't be as additionally tanky as BB so protecting those sides become more important than ever.

Back and forth discussion is always good. Concluding your initial points with 'very uninspired' however doesn't leave much in the way of a good taste in the mouth to want to continue, a reference for your future interactions.

So we agree that those no target dashes would feel better to use if they were easier to use. Well I would love if Boulder Smash was a proper unit target ability, but to each their own. I would also love if Shadowraze was point target that would not make him cast it at that location but would make him turn to that location upon casting. But these abilities and a few others are difficult, not necessarily for the sake of being difficult to control like you keep putting forth but so that they can be strong. Again, that is my intention. But if you can't see it, then agree to disgaree.

A slower travel speed (and the idea that harder is better) doesn't solve either the confusing targeting or the ball lightning. All it does is make it worse in combat, which is what I presume the ability is supposed to be for.

Granted, Timbersaw also can move about that far in 4 seconds, but that is with Aether Lens and talents AND he needs to actually target a tree, AND he is still slower. Here you can do it for the low low price of "w" turn 180 "e". And you are 2000 units away in 1.5 seconds, faster than storm spirit and you can do it at level 1. Since at level 7 he can do it every 4 seconds, how are you not expecting him to be flying around the map?
And making it target to the side shows how this is not what you want. No movement based ability should target in a weird way; sure, you have stuff like leap, etc. but they are straight forward. You can visualize the direction you are going easily. When you make an ability that should be for use in combat to skitter away from a melee unit (its only visible use) you shouldn't go flying away from them like a shorter cooldown, longer blink dagger. You should dance around them, just a bit out of reach.

Saying, "its supposed to be hard in combat" doesn't work because A) its not hard in movement and its practically or even fully impossible due to ping in combat, and B) it works much better if you used it purely as a movement ability; if you weren't allowed to use it in fights, the impact would be a lot smaller than if you weren't allowed to use it out of fights. Additionally, when you go so far so fast you lose the ability to make use of your q,d, or r: it just seems like a bad spell.


Saying, "The payoff is supposed to be good when done right" doesn't work because there is no "done right". There is, "didn't go flying off the screen by accident in combat" and there is "got to middle to do a gank in 6 seconds", but the latter is an unintended consequence of the huge distance and the first the result of an ability that doesn't do what it is supposed to. You do have spells like oracle's damage-heal that can go wrong. But this ability can't go right. Repositioning 400-450 units, which is what I would consider about the maximum you would ever want to move with it in a fight, is fairly hard; you have to press the button again within 0.2 seconds; if you're off by 0.1 seconds you literally moved nowhere or they're outside your ultimate range. And that for a really minor bonus, compared to the ultimate charges you could have lost while doing it if you mess up. Not to mention that he has to use (waste) his q to achieve this stop.

The ability is clearly meant to be used to skitter away a short distance quickly to escape a Sven; not as a way to hop around the map. But right now it is accomplishing just the opposite. I don't see the ability as working as-is.

If it had a 400ish range, it wouldn't have its glaring faults or its cheesy storm-spiriting, and would simply be a much better ability. While it still doesn't give that much (a little repositioning and, if you already have good positioning, a chance to get into cliffs), it can't go wrong and so you won't actually be afraid to use it. Also, it won't have storm-sprity cheesiness.

Good point on the ultimate thing, I forgot to realize this after making the ult radius smaller. I think 750 is still a good range. Let's agree to disagree on the rest of your points as the intended use behind the design decision might be different than what you envisioned it to be.