We've been deceived, all of us....

I've been remaining silent for a while ever since I hit the nail on the head in my effort to express the inferiority complex problem of the intelligence class on the "25% bonus to intel item" thread, that, as for now I don't identify the problem as having to do with items.

Toxicity you say? Don't hate the player, hate the game.

But obviously no game designer is going to come out and say it when there is no apparent hope of taking a step in the right direction.

This and always has been a philosophical problem

We've been deceived by our natural tendency of overlooking significant subtleties and redundancies for the sake of establishing a foundation to the Holy Trinity that achieves the Pinnacle of both Unique experience and Balance of each.

I will lay out the proper design conceptology first, and explain after

Strength Stat: (+ % Weapon Damage) (+Life Pool & Life Regeneration)
Agility Stat: (+ Armor) (+Attack Speed & Movement Speed)
Intel Stat: (+ % Spell Damage and Bonus % Spell Damage at additional Mana Cost) (+ Damage Value Spell Block & + Mana Pool)

(All stats have the same effect on any hero anyways)

Notice how I've taken mana regeneration for intel stat bonus out, but this is proper because spell casting has always been a special element that ought to root from a special means of achieving it (Mana Potion) and also because there could be a creative opportunity in an option put in to the game of getting the original mana regeneration effect back if the ability of "Putting away weapon" existed in the game that had a hefty cooldown cost.

Looking at the Agility stat you will notice that NOTHING has been changed at all, while strength lost its % magic resist effect. When you consider the armor and attack speed bonuses for the agility class, not attack speed nor armor have any synergy with each other, and neither does attack speed or armor synergy with the class naturally such as chance to proc or life pool. That's because this synergy Element is not suppose to be going on in ANY class. That is why I replaced % magic resist with % attack damage. What is not realized on the Subtle Level is that the life regeneration from strength bonus is THE FORM OF RESISTANCE against pure damage. Strength already has its defensive element with out us really even thinking about it. This would have been more obvious had intel not been receiving additional mana regen from the intel stat due to it being "special". Then the argument would have been made that % increased weapon damage and % increased spell damage for strength and intel are too similar, but this would have also been ruled out by the lack of mana regen AND the additional bonus % magic damage at additional mana cost had it been properly designed. Intel would simply be representing a heavier blow, founded by a non carry or core element, an item.... Mana Potion.

This also as broad and complex as it sounds, completely solves the blade mail problem.

It also will seem to flip new issues over to the strength class as opposed to the intel class, however, people with common sense will realize that the issue is really a matter of item diversity and progressive item building.

We simply don't see an Item that gives both Strength and Magic Resist, or even Damage and Magic Resist.

It's also worth noting that any intel hero who is not carry or, core, or nuker would find his significance in initially rushing dagon.

Throwing on this additional point while the thread is up here

Then the pessimists will say something like "But you're not talking about dota"

And this is where my biggest point comes relative to the actual game

You can't legitimately have more then 1 squishy intel support on your team unless you have any tandem combination of the 3 following heroes, Abaddon(Scepter), Brewmaster or Underlord rushing the following...

1. 2x Javelin(They Stack) in to echo saber and then on to MKB + Mjolllnir completion to first draw the attention to their(Tandem)selves

2. Each rushing afterwards either of the aoe block items Pipe or Crimson guard depending on the enemy team comp, in to Arcane boots, Mech, Guardian Greaves ending with Radiance for luxury.

This shows that with out these heroes, squishy intel supports are damning the push potential of the team or even sparking the consideration of coming out of tower range to take objectives like roshan. No blade mail viability, no bonus for playing the catcher role well by sacrificing your own gold to upgrade your own towers to promote a catcher role.... NO NOTHING. Putting an element in the game like a single locked in support hero who would be the only one who can use his gold to upgrade towers would be good for both concept and limiting the amount of tower upgrading so that the game doesn't become too defensive and games actually finish in a decent amount of time

With movement speed also being significant to the concept overall as naturally faster heroes who have passive movement speed effects like Abaddon will draw the attention better, and faster squishy casters like Pugna will play their support role more effectively as MS is more useful in effective ward setting.

Conclusion: Having the vast majority of intel picks be dictated by both what the enemy picks AND your ally picks, including also how well your ally starts or does is very restricting and limiting. And shaming to composition diversity.

So, got the new 7.20 update...

Saw phase boots are now dive boots promoting melee strength heroes

Saw that stat growth function remains the same with life pool + magic resist percentage synergy

I said.... "Nope."

And shut my game back down until next major patch, hopefully dota 3

Stupidity is Infinite or my life is simply not long enough to witness the extent of it....

Pretty sure this new wave wisdom of "Do what you can't do" is the stupidest thing I've ever heard

Good way for us to set the example for them so that they can keep milking

There was another hero to add to the concept that "support with out support of the support is not support" concept

Tide Hunter (getting the items aforementioned)

On this thread I think it would also be good to bring up the "why is blade mail an intel item" problem.

Even though blade mail can have a huge impact on the game, its active ability is not guaranteed effective.

If you get blademail + ghost scepter together, the amped damage to self should work with return damage to make blademail have more potential, but even then it is still the same concept that becomes a victim to timing, chance and luck....

I'm not sure if the right idea is to combine these two items in to a "ghost mail" that upon death at any time with the item equipped would allow the hero to utilize its mana as a life pool form, or keep the hero alive but stationary for a period of time with an ethereal look, allowing for the casting of skills to spend off the remaining mana that may have not been spent.

But I will say that I feel like some items just function too similarly in an active fashion with out having a passive element to them for the sake of establishing identity, role and uniqueness.

Imagine if you died with ghost scepter equipped and you never activated it...
And upon death you went in to your ghost spiritual form for the duration..
Perhaps slowed movement like decrepify(as it is decrepify when considered closely) movement but at least a period of time to cast off what ever mana was left in the pool upon dying.

Then finally die out after the duration of the ghost form is over

Adding one more point real quick...

Despite the procing of javalins with echo saber in order to draw attention as a durable hero for the sake of support...

Ethereal blade has to be a critical item since it does the following

-Enhances armor with agility added, aligning with the durable role
-Nukes the target
-Disables his weapon

If you don't call this a win-win for the sake of supporting the support without shooting your own self in the foot then I don't know how you would begin to argue against it.

It's time to bump this thread back to the top and continue on with how we have been deceived by this garbage game design that continues to this day.

First of all, if the game were to be properly addressed in "their poor perception of balance" as it currently is then the intelligence class would be capable of using their mana as a shield that "blocks" damage in one way or another.

The core role is superior in the agility and strength class, not just because strength receives percentage magic resist naturally, but also because armor increases physical resistance on a curve (as far as I know) giving agility heroes a head start on being good at tanking physical damage.

Because of these strong natural defensive elements, it implies that the intelligence class should at least be able to use their mana pool consistently as a shield against all damage forms, but is this really what we want and what dota has come to?

If we conclude that it really isn't what we want then we have to revise our understanding of the game entirely....

1. Be honest and value integrity

EVERY HERO IS A SPELL CASTER SO EVERY HERO SHOULD ALSO BE A WARRIOR

take away percentage magic damage resistance from the strength class, it's absolute nonsense because we already have cloak in the game providing a percentage based magic resistance to synergy with the higher life pools of strength heroes.

Add an increasing percentage of damage for strength growth and only allow critical hits to be double damage max, but crit damage is what strength heroes should be trying to attain because of it.

The life regenerating aspect of strength along with higher life pool is already a concept that effectively addresses the nuking aspect of the spell casting intelligence class as is. Buff it if necessary.

note: the bonus percentage damage should not make the strength class negate the countering capability of the agility class to the strength class due to percentage damage reduction from armor being on a curve which makes all the more armor reduction to the strength class increasingly more effective in terms of physical damage... however... going beyond 0 armor and in to negative territory should be on an inverse curve in terms of physical damage amplification.

Since this effectively makes the strength class a "complete warrior" like the agility class, then last but not least is the intelligence class.

Since the intelligence class should not be excluded from being a decent warrior like the other classes and every class is already a spell caster then this brings us back to our "mana shield" problem and rather than a mana shield we could simply have the core damage output be pure damage. Bonus damage from items like a claymore should be classified as "physical damage". Unfortunately since all classes need the same effect, then this means that greater intelligence should mean a greater percentage conversion of basic attack damage in to pure damage. For the other classes to get a similar effectiveness in out put they will have to go all stat in order to also attain the bonus damage points that would also be part of the total percentage.

Then the thing about percentage increase of magic damage output from intelligence is that there needs to be additional mana damage costs that go along with this percentage and the percentage growth of the damage needs to be low because nuking needs to stay nuking and not become carrying and should be more effectively early game and fall off, only really due to the greater life regen that will come with increasing all stats and because some strength heroes may have simply have slotted a cloak.

As the intelligence class starts to fall off in their spell damage significance from the early game, they can still stay in the game with higher percentage pure damage basic attacks.