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Lina by FangzofFuzzy

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Lina

By:
Last Updated:

"Let's get a fire going!"

Design

Here’s a thought experiment: If you showed non-players Lina’s base kit, no names or animations, how many people would guess her theme is fire? When you strip it down, there really won’t be a lot. Fire is mostly represented and best distinguished from other elements through burning, and having all her actives be straight out nukes doesn’t communicate this well. Thematically, she is one the least well-expressed hero and mechanically, she also has one of the blandest kits.

So, a big focus of this rework is to make her feel fierier as well as feel more distinct from heroes with whom she has similar spells to. But I understand the concern of taking away her role as a burst nuker, so I do want to preserve part of that in this iteration with a little unique touch. I also want to dedicate a part of this to try making her right click build shine better. Here is the current Lina for reference, and any unmentioned numbers are assumed to remain the same.

Attack Animation: 0.6
BAT: 1.7

Primary Abilities

Dragon Slave

Launch a scorching heat wave in a line.

Enemies hit are revealed for 4 seconds, burning over the duration.

Ability: Target Point
Mana Cost: 90, 110, 130, 150
Cooldown: 8
Range: 750
Radius: 200
Damage: Magical
Total Damage: 100, 200, 300, 400

Light Strike Array

Summon a column of flames after 0.5 seconds.

Enemies hit are stunned, burning over the duration.

Ability: Target Area
Mana Cost: 90, 110, 130, 150
Cooldown: 8
Range: 600
Radius: 250
Damage: Magical
Stun: 1.6, 2, 2.4, 2.8
Total Damage: 120, 180, 240, 300

Fiery Soul

Casting spells increases her attack speed and reduces her base attack time for 10 seconds.

Additional casts refresh the duration and stack this effect up to 3 times.

Whenever she gains a stack, her move speed increases for 2 seconds.

Ability: Passive
Attack Speed per Stack: 30, 40, 50, 60
BAT Reduction per Stack: 0.1
Move Speed: 16, 24, 32, 40%

Notes

Ultimate Abilities

Laguna Blade

Concentrate her fire into lightning to strike an enemy.

The target and enemies around it will be Cauterized for 10 seconds.

Cauterized enemies instantly take half of the total damage from damage over time debuffs.

Aghanim’s Scepter: Becomes pure damage. Allows the damage and debuff to pierce spell immunity.

Ability: Target Unit
Mana Cost: 300, 450, 600
Cooldown: 70, 60, 50
Range: 600
Radius: 300
Damage: Magical
Damage: 300, 450, 600

Notes

Hero Talents

+1 Fiery Soul Max Stacks

30% Spell Amplification

100 Attack Range

-4s Dragon Slave Cooldown

75 Damage

150 Cast Range

20 Move Speed

90 Gold/Min

Discussion

So, the changes here aren’t too extreme. Dragon Slave and Light Strike Array are basically the same, just now they deal damage over time so she actually feels like a fire hero. As their damage isn’t instant anymore, their overall damage is higher to account for this, making her even more fearsome in some ways. Her Q in particular also provides vision over enemies it sets alight, making it easier for her to follow up with attacks and spells as well as letting her scout like Wave of Terror.
Laguna Blade still has its sizable nuke, but it trades some damage for a new debuff in Cauterize. Simply put, this mark turns damage over time spells partially into instant nukes. The inspiration for this is how her fire becomes so hot that it becomes lightning, like in Avatar the Last Airbender. This lets her synergize well with certain heroes and includes her 2 other changed actives, returning Lina to some of her bursting glory. This effect is deceptively strong as DoT sources generally deal more damage overall than other nukes since it is spread out, so making that damage come faster lets her catch enemies off guard and kill them sooner. It also counters dispels, so dispelling the debuffs won’t reduce the damage as much. As the debuff is applied around the primary enemy, good target selection becomes more important. Below are all DoT sources that can or cannot work with Cauterize:

Eligible Sources

In general, all sources that are applied as debuffs with fixed durations work

Battle Hunger
Cinder Brew
Infernal Blade
Elder Dragon Form
Burning Spear
Torrent
Icarus Dive
Fire Spirits
Nature's Guise
Leech Seed
Overgrowth with Aghanim’s
Eyes in the Forest
Wraithfire Blast
Flux
Searing Chains
Summon Spirit Bear Entangling Claws
Venomous Gale
Poison Sting
Poison Nova
Poison Attack
Corrosive Skin
Viper Strike
The Swarm
Cold Feet
Ice Blast
Flamebreak
Flaming Lasso
Frostbite
Bramble Maze
Spirit Siphon
Thunder Strike
Malefice
Phantom's Embrace
Dual Breath
Liquid Fire
Ignite
Shadow Strike
Shadow Word
Arctic Burn
Orb of Venom
Urn of Shadows
Spirit Vessel

Ineligible Sources

In general, sources that do not have fixed duration on the enemy itself do not work
Their linger duration do not count so will also not work

Ground-based:
Acid Spray
Sand Storm
Chakram
Avalanche
Shrapnel
Nethertoxin
Firefly
Static Storm
Midnight Pulse
Ice Wall
Macropyre
Mystic Flare
March of the Machines

Aura-based:
Primal Split Fire Permanent Immolation
Battery Assault
Scorched Earth
Sun Ray
Supernova
Rot
Epicenter
Flame Guard
Rocket Barrage
Blade Fury
Eye of the Storm
Dark Pact
Ion Shell
Bedlam
Exorcism
Ink Swell
Diabolic Edict
Pulse Nova
Frost Shield
Heartstopper Aura
Chaotic Offering Permanent Immolation
Radiance

Channelled:
Dismember
Fiend's Grip
Freezing Field
Black Hole
Life Drain
Shackles
Wildwing Ripper Tornado

Rupture will not work because it does not deal fixed damage

Special Cases

Firestorm wave damage will not work but its burn damage will
Similarly, Chaos Meteor contact damage will not work but its burn damage will

Maledict by itself deals damage over time which works but the 4 second bursts will not work

Magnetize and Poison Touch only work upon first application but will not work again upon refreshing
Similarly, Arcane Curse only works upon first application but will not work when the duration is added

Doom normally works but will no longer work with Aghanim's because it deals damage while the duration is paused
In contrast, Arcane Curse works because it does not deal damage while the duration is paused
All these changes as a whole give her more nuance in how the Slayer wants to start fights. Dragon Slave for the vision, LSA for the stun or ultimate to maximize the damage of her other spells. Now, let’s talk about her passive. I don’t think Fiery Soul needs changing, I just want to explore a different version of it. One with less innate attack speed but introduces a base attack time reduction to make her scale even better later in the game. The change to how the move speed works is such that it encourages spreading out spell casts to maximize how much extra movement you can make use of.
In terms of talents for this revamped Lina, the left side is great for facilitating her carry build while the right side is good for supporting and nuking. At level 25, bringing back the max stack talent is going to be fun with that spicy additional BAT reduction, but the added spell amplification with items like Dagon 5 and Ethereal Blade can help her 100-0 enemies once again. Overall, I hope I achieved my goals of making her abilities feel more like they set people on fire and giving her a unique gimmick among the roster.

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Lina by FangzofFuzzy

Lina

Lina

Rework

Design

Primary Abilities

Ultimate Abilities

Hero Talents

Discussion

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