My Techies rework ideas

As I moan about this so much, seemed time to come up with some proposals for improvement. Thing is, I quite like the idea behind a hero who can restrict enemy movement, get map control, deny resources etc via planted munitions. The problem I have is the "insta-death" implementation of it all.

So...say herro to THE NEW TECHIES:


Basics:

Movespeed: 290
Damage: 35-40
Strength: 19 + 2.1 per level
Agility: 14 + 1.4 per level
Intelligence: 22 + 2.9 per level
Armour: 6

Napalm Mines:

Techies plant a mine containing napalm, a sticky fire that burns heroes and reduces their turn rate.

Damage Type: Magical
Initial Damage: 20/30/40/50
Burn Damage Per Second: 30/45/60/75
Turn Rate Slow: 50%/50%/50%/50%
Burn Duration: 5/6/7/8
AOE: 450
AOE Duration: 4/5/6/7
Mana Cost: 100/120/140/160
CD: 20/16/12/8

* Destroys trees in the area effected. Only 1 instance of napalm damage can effect an enemy at a time. Going into another area of napalm will refresh the burn duration.

When triggered, any enemy unit in the AOE will be hit for the initial damage, and will then suffer burn damage for the duration time, even if they leave the area immediately. The duration is reset for every second the enemy unit is in the area, and will only begin to countdown when they are not in an area effected by napalm. When napalm mines are triggered, your team gains vision of the area effected for the AOE duration.

Toxic Mines:

Techies plant a mine full of noxious smoke and toxins that slows and silences enemy units.

Movement Slow: 20%/25%/30%/35%
Attack Miss Chance: 30%/35%/40%/45%
Effect Duration: 3/3.5/4/4.5
AOE: 300/330/360/390
Mana Cost: 80/100/120/140
CD: 16/14/12/10

* Any enemy units effected are silenced and invisible units revealed while in the AOE. When toxic mines are triggered, your team gains vision of the area effected for the AOE duration.

Effect lingers for 1 second after leaving the AOE.

Rocket Jump:

Firing at their own feet with their rocket launcher, the techies propel themselves through the air. Damages both themselves and nearby enemy units at both the start and end points.

Leap range: 400/500/600/700
Damage: 50/75/100/125 (Physical)
Damage AOE: 200
Mana Cost: 70/80/90/100
CD: 25/22/19/16

* Can be used to pass terrain such as cliffs, does not disjoint projectiles. Rocket jump will propel Techies forward in the direction they are currently facing.

Light the Fuse:

Attempting to trigger their entire munitions supply in one go, the Techies make a suicidal attack on the enemy team. When the ability is activated, a 5 second countdown is started and a noise played similiar to Alchemist's concotion.

Damage: 500/700/900 (Physical)
AOE: 400/500/600 (centered around techies)
Mana Cost: 50
Cooldown: 120/100/80

Damage is applied to Techies themselves (can be used to deny), and all enemy units in the AOE. If Techies are killed before the countdown expires, it will continue and still blow up in their corpse location. Cannot be silenced, purged or stopped in any way once activated. Techies cannot protect themselves from the damage using Eul's/Ghost Scepter etc.

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What do you think guys? OP? UP? Fun!? Would you play them? I've tried to still make them an effective hero with the same core strengths, with more emphasis on utility and less on insta-death. They still have big damage potential, but are a little more reliant on help from their team or cunning placement to get kills.

I don't get it, you're staying with the "planting invisible mines" concept but instead these mines deal damage over time and slow/silence instead of instant damage or instant stun? Isn't that a heavy nerf to the current one?

Besides, can't you just TP out, or BKB, when you get hit by napalm mines? The skill looks extremely easy to counter and I don't think this skill can ever kill anyone remotely competent.
Damage over time is easily countered by TP scrolls. Like when Phoenix or Venomancer ults you, you just TP out, right? Here it's the exact same except that you're half the map away from any enemy hero so you have absolutely zero risk.

The toxic mines really feel like an underpowered version of stasis trap. Stasis gives you 4 second stun and instead you give us a 5 second 35% slow (bleh) and a miss chance easily countered by BKB/MKB. Very weak skill.

His ulti is really, really weak. The current suicide deals 1150 AOE physical damage and the skill is *worthless* past 25 minutes. Physical damage nukes are very weak because they are countered by high armor AND by high HP so they really drop off. This is not an ultimate, it's very weak even in non-ult standards.

Giving him a blink-like ability is pretty interesting, but this skill deals no damage (125 physical is really zero). What are you going for here? Escape is nice but it doesn't give you game impact :)

Essentially the hero feels completely underpowered. Since he has no scaling skills, I think he drops off really hard, if he ever does anything in the first place.

Aren't you making an absurdly over-nerfed version of Techies as a form of vengeance? I think the current one is useless enough already.

You watered them down.
The only skill i would want here is toxic mines to replace suicide squad, attack!.

Before remaking a hero, please explain in this thread the FUNDAMENTALS of:
WHY- a hero is broken
HOW- a hero is broken
WHAT- can be done to fix
WHAT- you did to fix the hero.

The way i see is a watered down version of hero that doesnt fit well in any role.
He is the new Bloodseeker, worse, he cant even be played as a carry in some drafts.
You want him for utility? For what exactly?

I need some explanation where you are going with this.

It's quite fun to play because techies will not becomes useless in late game because his Q and W can be a great help in both teamfights and base defense (large aoe, making it harder for enemy team to sweep the mine). Basically everyone can say good bye to 5v4 game when techies is picked.

Fun. But he doesn't need any rework. He just needs a few buffs to be playful.

This isn't revenge...but I am trying to knock the rough edges off and give them a slightly different skillset. You'll notice I also gave them a pretty significant increase in move speed, and some more right click damage and strength gain.

The idea is that you can achieve massive annoyance value instead of insta-kills - you only need to plant 1, cheaper, Napalm Mine to cause pretty significant damage. If you're smart, you can assume because of the decreased turn rate that heroes will continue to run forward to get out of the AOE...potentially onto another one. Combines with Toxic Mines to make them stay in the AOE longer.

You'll also be able to effect a much larger area with fewer mines - waaay more team fight potential, as other heroes will be effected if they enter the area. Basically there's not much point stacking them anymore, you want to spread them around.

Sure, people can TP out of the area...but that's still pretty annoying to have to return to base...and if you have no TP or it's on CD...remember too that Blink Dagger will be disabled by the damage.

Was thinking about even a mute or purge on the Toxic mines too, or it could pierce spell immunity.

Rocket Jump - could adjust the damage amount/type. Basically it's to give them an initiation skill for Light the Fuse, an escape for laning, and a way of slipping past enemy vision to access unseen areas.

Ultimately the figures here are guidelines to the approx effect - by all means they could be tweaked as necessary.



WHY - insta-kills from level 1 to 25.
HOW - see above. Huge burst damage potential with minimal action on your part.
WHAT - remove insta-kills while adapting/changing other skills to compensate - see my post.

Maybe you can add a mute effect to enemy heroes who caught by the light the fuse.

He doesnt have any initiation skill for his suicide.
Hence the fact that someone died form techies at level prolly deserves it.
They picked tiny techies: you are as screwed as a jugg and CM lane, i dont see anyone complaining about that.

Huge burst damage on techies part? It takes a level of time, preparedness on behalf of techies to plant, position and bait mines. More so deward, smoke and counterpush another lane for his *real lane*.
Minimal action? Sando please.....dont be that guy

Removing instakills? we will stack 6 instead of 2 and get away with it because of less mana cost. Techies is the ultimate hero in terms of map awareness.


Why a hero is broken- because he can one shot you? after you gave him 10 mins to plant one spot?
He aint your traditional carry and thats your grudge that not being a carry he kills you? trench tier warlock kills all hard carries want to nerf him?

Why do you think he needs a rework? because he encourages 2 hour yawn fests? boohoo, get a gem, necro and make him fell useless. More so than that, dont let him get aghs!!!


What i feel here, is that you want him to go kaboom and literally let the enemy get off for 80% of remaining HP even early game.

You died for science for christsake!

A learned guy once said that dota is not balanced around pubs. Look at what happened at DAC with Techies.

Just look.

He doesnt need a nerf, he needs a buff. you can reduce damage but he needs a cooldown buff.


Please dont let your bias take over you.... i want the old sando back, ever so composed and ever so resolute.

At first I thought this was underpowered, but after you explained the concept I think I quite like it! One thing though, I think you could replace the ultimate with a "Big Bertha" sort of mine. A land mine that is huge and cannot be stacked (because that's just how you like your mines). These are so dangerous that the cool down can be set very long (30-40 seconds maybe) and even techies themselves can activate and take damage from that mine. I think it's a fun way to implement the suicide concept while making the spell not completely centred around self-damage.


EDIT:
Also, I do prefer the stasis trap over the toxic mine. It has better synergy with the napalm mine since it keeps them there for 4 seconds and deals 75*4 = 300 damage, not including time spent in the AoE after the stun.

Glad to see that your hatred of techies brought out the creativity in you. You are now unofficially one of us!

Nice try :). He does have an initiation now, and it's not necessarily suicide anymore - he can have enough HP to survive. Plus, I was hoping someone could spot what a pain in the **** this hero could be to kill. He's tougher, much more mobile and can deny himself without having to be next to an enemy hero, on a 5 second timer you can's top once he's activated it.

Jugg/CM? Please...this is so easy to avoid with the right hero. Basically almost any mobility skill will get you out of this, or you could, y'know not be within the fairly limited range of Frost bite while Jugg is nearby. Tiny/Techies? Um...

This techies CAN still get kills, but this setup required is more considered than "STACK LOTS OF MINES". Spread them around, put them in places where you think they'll try to run to escape...combine with Toxic mines. The enemy can and will react - the mindgames here are much more interesting. You could even make it so you couldn't heal while being damaged by Napalm.



I think it may take a bit of time for people to realise what this new techies could do - on paper they look weaker, but what you have is a more interesting and rounded hero. They could be a great offlaner for starters - tougher, faster, an escape skill, can block creep camps and make it very difficult for supports to get at them. Also, actually has a reasonable right click early on now.

Toxic mines - seem unpopular, may need some tweaking, could do all sorts to make them a bit more powerful in various ways.

Hero is still very good against roamers and junglers, with lots of anti-push. And Napalm mines can still be very lethal with any kind of stun from your team - hell I'd gladly put a mini-stun on Rocket Jump to break TPs. I'd rather keep Light the Fuse somewhat as it is...or Rocket Jump makes less sense...but would definitely consider making it pure damage, adding a stun, silence whatever.

Thanks for all the feedback, keep it coming!