Grimstroke Discussion (and Sofa's first impressions)

Hello one and all! Today is a good day since TWO NEW HEROES WERE ANNOUNCED. POGGERS.

One of which you can actually go play RIGHT NOW (but hold on finish reading this post first): Grimstroke!

Please check Grimstroke's page out for a full description of his abilities.

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Stroke of Fate is a ground targeted ability that deals damage and slows in a line. It appears to have slightly less range than Fissure and slightly more range than Venomous Gale. Its numbers are pretty crazy: it's a 50% AOE slow for 2 full seconds at level 1. Its damage increases per unit hit (with no known cap!), making it effective in de-pushing and killing spiderlings.
As a long range AOE slow it has the potential to make a great ganking tool (it's probably designed to be used that way due to its high cast time)

Phantom's Embrace is a unit-targeted silence. It creates a unit which latches on to the unit. It takes a meager 2-3 attacks to kill. Once killed, the silence is over. This means alone, the silence will last about 3 seconds (1.7 BAT x2, later with more agility will take less time) - with allies the silence won't last very long at all. However, if the unit ISN'T killed, it deals a hefty 180-360 magic damage.
This spell is sorta on the weak side to be honest. I can see it being used in conjunction with TP to escape. Maybe if people forget about it in a teamfight will its damage actually get off. Or when used with his ulti?

Ink Swell is a ally-only movement speed boost which silences but grants immunity to attacks. It also provides a damage aura which explodes after a while to stun and deal damage.
This ability has a crazy potential, especially in its use as a deterrent and on initiation. If it is placed on an ally with Blink Dagger it is possible to get a really good AOE stun if timed correctly. Its AOE is quite large (10 shy of Reverse Polarity) and the base stun is a good 1 second duration, enough to get key spells like Primal Split or a Midnight Pulse before Black Hole off for maximum AOE destruction. It can also be placed around a ranged carry like Drow Ranger to deter sticky melee heroes from beating them up AND be used as a save onto carries since it only silences but does not disarm.

Soulbind binds two enemy heroes together, allowing a replica of any unit-targeted spell cast by Grimstroke's allies on one hero to be casted on the second as well. Additionally, the two units cannot move more than 500 units away from each other (but they can freely move together in any direction they choose).
This ability has many creative usages in combination with other heroes; however, coordinated teams will still be able to run away together and the spell is rather pointless against solo targets.
Interesting support combinations that come to mind are: Bane (with all single-target abiltiies), Lich (Soul Bind and Chain Frost sound really good together), and Oracle.

That's it for me, feel free to contribute below!

• Stroke of Fate feels like a one-point-wonder ability. It gives so much value at just Level 1, allowing you to focus on maxing out Ink Swell instead.
• Phantom's Embrace is very weak on its own but as you said, in teamfights it will wreak havoc and when used in conjunction with other abilities (mostly disables).
• In my opinion, Ink Swell should be maxed out first for very high kill potential in lane.
• Should have mentioned Lina's Laguna Blade as well for Soulbind!

Oh I forgot to discuss his talents:

talents at level 10 are pretty good - I'd say the movement speed is extremely strong in the right hands... of course there's nothing wrong with picking the gold talent.

Cast range is important. I don't think spell amp would do too much tbh.

I'd say you need the +hits to kill phantom for the ability to actually do something in fights - especially since it's only 3 hits to kill and other people can help you kill it. The cast range on Q makes its cast range enormous though.

I don't think you should ever get to 25 but if you do Ink Swell radius is good, unless you're against megas or something and need the Q damage to clear creeps.

Ink Swell has so many stats that gain value with levels, *******.

That's definitely a 'MAX THIS FIRST' ability.

O.O ThreadofFate haven't seen you around in a while! Welcome back :D

Yea, you might be tempted to max Q cus damage and waveclear but max E is definitely the best option.

I think I went 2-1-2 into 2-1-4-1 and it was pretty... swell ;)

Well Grimstroke got his 1st nerf :D


"According to update, it seems Valve realized that Grimstroke was quite overpowered in the game which led the community to exploit his abilities in almost every game. As a result, the developers are here with a new update for the game which adds in some major changes to Grimstroke abilities including Stroke of Fate, Phantom’s Embrace, and Ink Swell."

Update:

Ability Changes

Stroke of Fate: reduced movement slow duration 2->1.5
Stroke of Fate: movement slow can now be dispelled
Stroke of Fate: reduced projectile vision radius (240->160)
Stroke of Fate: reduced projectile’s endpoint vision radius (300->160) and duration (3.34->2)
Stroke of Fate: fixed +600 range talent incorrectly updating the range preview
Phantom’s Embrace: reduced phantom unit’s vision range 400->200
Phantom’s Embrace: changed latch duration 4.0/4.5/5.0/5.5 -> 4.0/4.0/5.0/5.0
Phantom’s Embrace: if the target dies, the Phantom now flies back to caster to refresh the cooldown
Phantom’s Embrace: fixed a bug with +2 hits required talent only giving +1.3 hits (4 non-hero hits instead of 6)
Ink Swell: reduced bonus move speed 28/32/36/40->18/22/26/30
Ink Swell: damage and stun amounts now range from 0 to max, instead of from a base value to max
Ink Swell: ink tendril particle doesn’t display if the affected enemy unit is invisible
Soulbind: no longer sees through invisibility on leashed targets


Overall Changes

Reduced model scale 0.81->0.76
Fixed some tooltip values that didn’t updated with talent values
Added some tooltip notes

i came here to see how much people would hate ink swell but i see they've already fixed the issue haha