Hamster's Terrorblade rework (less push, less nerf, more fun ^^)

Hey guys,
Here's my idea on a good way to rebalance Terrorblade, and I think it's really needed to rebalance him seeing what the hero has become :)
Problem with TB is that he's kind of an anti-fun Lycan-like pushing hero, and because of that style of play being pretty overpowered on an illusion hero he got a huge series of nerfs that make him almost unplayable right now...

Thing is, only his push is OP. So I decided to remove his pushing ability completely and instead revert most of his nerfs, as well as make something decent out of Reflection and Sunder (which really suck right now), to make him playable as either a flashfarming hard carry or a ganker/snowballer.

I think that when you remove the push you can turn what is currently a pretty lame rat hero into a really fun carry.

So here's my new Terrorblade:

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Main change : Conjure Image illusions can no longer damage buildings. Illusions are instantly destroyed when hitting buildings, exactly like when hitting Roshan.
(this way just like Tinker he can still flashfarm lanes but he can no longer threaten towers. This huge nerf is balanced by a big series of buffs).

Stats and stat gains are the same as the current Terrorblade.
Cast point of every spell buffed to 0.3 sec (from 0.5 sec)
No longer has bonus base HP regen.

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Q : Reflection

Terrorblade brings forth an invulnerable dark reflection of the targeted enemy Hero. The enemy Hero is slowed and attacked by the reflection.
The slow starts out weak and increases with the distance travelled by the enemy hero since the spell was cast. Each time the target unit moves 350 units, the slow increases by one tick.

Slow cannot be dispelled by normal dispels. However becoming magic immune will remove it.

Pierces spell immunity : no
Cast Range: 350
Move Speed Slow: 15/30/45/60/70/80/85% (same at all levels of the skill, slow increases with distance traveled)
Attack Speed Slow: 10/30/50/70/90/110/130 (same at all levels of the skill, slow increases with distance traveled)
Distance travelled for each tick of the slow : 350
Illusion Damage Dealt: 40/50/60/70%
Duration: 3/4/5/7
Cooldown: 22/18/14/10
Mana cost: 50


Notes:
- Same as currrent Reflection except that the slow scales with distance travelled, making it less of an instant kill skill in lane but making it way better later in the game especially against high mobility heroes
- Duration increased from 2.5/3.5/4.5/5.5 to 3/4/5/7 to have a big benefit in skilling it instead of putting one value point in it.
- Cast range increased from 275 to 350


W : Conjure image

Creates an illusion of Terrorblade under his control.
Number of Illusions: 1
Illusion damage dealt: 30/40/50/60%
Illusion damage taken: 300%
Duration: 32
Cooldown: 16
Mana cost: 50/60/70/80

Notes:
Same as current Conjure Image except that
- the illusion damage taken nerf was reverted from 425% to the original 300%
- The mana cost was reduced to 50 at lower levels to make jungling with TB more viable
- Cast point is now 0.3 sec making it way more convenient to use

E : Sunder

Severs the life from both Terrorblade and a target unit, exchanging a percentage of both units' current health. This skill can be cast on both heroes and creeps.

Sunder cannot reduce the target's health below 15%.
When using this skill on a creep, Terrorblade cannot gain more health than the creep's maximum hit points.

Below the maximum level of Sunder, only a fraction of the life totals is exchanged.

Mini-stuns on impact. The life swap goes through magic immunity but the mini-stun does not.

Pierces spell immunity : partially
Cast Range: 325
Minimum Health: 15%
Exchange fraction: 50/65/80/100%
Cooldown 85/70/55/40
Mana cost: 80/60/40/20

Notes :
- Terrorblade and the target only exchange their life totals completely at level 4. At lower levels they exchange only a fraction of them. For example at level 1 since they exchange only 50% of their life totals both heroes end up at the same health, equal to the average of their initial HP.
- At level 4 the effect is essentially the same as the current Sunder
- However the use of this skill is no longer limited to turning ganks and teamfights around. It can also be used in lane to counter harassment a bit like Brain Sap. AND it can also be used on creeps to heal up, making it a very good jungling skill.


R : Metamorphosis

Terrorblade transforms into a powerful Demon with a ranged attack.

Transformation Time: 0.35
Attack Damage Bonus: 50/75/100
Attack Range: 550
Base Attack Time: 1.6
Duration: 50
Cooldown 140/130/120
Mana cost: 125/75/25

Notes:
- Move speed loss removed
- At max level, cooldown lowered (20 seconds is a big deal, reduces downtime from 90 to 70 secs) and damage increased a bit compared to the current skill

Aghanim's Scepter

Terrorblade gains a new ability : Vision of the Abyss

R' : Vision of the Abyss

Terrorblade instantly materializes himself next to the target enemy hero. Out of sheer horror, the target is rendered unable to act and is stunned for 1 second.

The stun is blocked by magic immunity and by Linken's Sphere. However, Terrorblade will still be moved next to the hero.

Cast range : 1000
Pierces spell immunity : partially
Cooldown : 45 seconds
Mana cost : 100

Using his deep knowledge of the hells of Foulfell, Terrorblade takes the worst fear of his unfortunate victim and turns it into reality : that the Demon Marauder has come for him, and that escape is no longer an option.

Notes :
- Can only be cast on enemy heroes. This skill can only be used for initiation not for escape.

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He's no longer a pushing carry, since his Conjure Image illusions can no longer damage towers. His Manta Style illusions can still hit towers though and he deals natively a lot of DPS so he can still push towers but not much better than any other physical damage carry. But the main idea is that he can still clear lane creeps and flashfarm extremely fast with illusions but he can no longer rat and threaten towers.

Metamorphosis is now his ultimate and Sunder is his E. I think it's the most logical way because Meta is really an ultimate in how it works...and Sunder is not that good so making it a basic skill and allowing to have it at low levels allows to give it a lot of utility besides simply swapping HP when you get ganked.

Also with the rebalanced Reflection, both Sunder and Reflection are no longer "useless" skills that are not even worth skilling. Conjure image and Meta are still the "core" of the hero because that's where the DPS comes from but now he has two utility skills that he can skill if the situation demands it. You can't give him another DPS steroid because Conjure image and Meta are already the best DPS steroids in the game (TB has the highest DPS potential of all heroes). His other skills NEED to be utility stuff.

Terrorblade can now jungle really well, since he can heal himself off big jungle creeps with Sunder (while damaging them), and his illusions now have the pre-nerf survivability. It's still balanced because he's a fairly passive jungler and if you go jungle you'll have low levels of reflection making you a so-so ganker (still decent once you hit 6). TB jungle is really greedy but he farms jungle extremely fast and has tons of sustain so it's now legit.

There are now essentially two ways of playing him, the first is the traditionnal "farming carry" where you go safe lane or jungle with manta/skadi and stuff, where you focus on spamming illusions to flash farm lanes and jungle. And the other way is to play him as a ganker/snowballer by rushing Aghanim's Scepter and likely also an Armlet of Mordiggian. His Aghs is more or less a new take on the good old blink-armlet-dagon TB, except that the stun from Aghs gives a reliable initiation to land Sunder without getting interrupted. It's still not perfect because the hero can be baiting and if he's got a teammate near him he can kill you. Also even if you're not going for Sunder shenanigans his Aghs is still a good item for initiating in general.

Hope you enjoy!
H.

-7 levels on Reflection?
-won't Sunder be too strong of a spell for a non-ultimate?
-skill builds? i have a dillemma since all skills are strong

The slow doesn't increase with levels of the skill, it increases with the distance travelled by the target hero. Slow goes up one tick whenever the target hero travels 350 units. Like if you travel 3*350 units, you get the 3rd level of the slow.

Like when you run away with a demonic image of yourself constantly stabbing you in the back, you get exhausted at some point :D



I just interverted Sunder and Metamorphosis.
My Sunder level 4 is exactly the same as the current Sunder level 3. I just made the skill better in the early game (for laning / junglng)
Since now he doesn't have Meta in lane I thought a sustain skill is a nice buff to him.



That's the whole point! You can max Reflection if you want to go for kills in lane. You can max Sunder if you're facing heavy harassment and/or against heroes who want to go aggressive and dive you. Also max Sunder if you're jungling. And you can max Conjure image if you want to go for Naga style AFK farming. All should work.
Both Sunder and Reflection are meant as utility skills, if you don't need them there's also the option of taking stats instead. But at least I wanted to make them good so that the stats build isn't the "default" build.

ahh, well thought, good sir!

but imo the Reflection distance needs some buff. some big buff. 180, perhaps? 350 is just too much.

I think 350 is already pretty good. 350 is the distance you travel in one second on a 300 MS hero with plain boots, right? So if the guy walks away for only 2 seconds...he's already at 50% slow. For 4 seconds? He's at 75%. The slow never goes down...and the skill lasts for 7 seconds at max level.
Besides, mobility skills make that go up wayyyy faster. If Anti-Mage blinks out, that's 1150 distance covered instantly, and he gets 3 ticks immediately.

I agree with the general idea of the remake, it sounds much better than the current hero. I think some of the values need tweaking - I actually think the Reflection is possibly too strong atm, I'd maybe decrease those scaling values somewhat, maybe start with a higher base but make the climb slower.

Sunder I think you've tried to be careful with - the cooldown is the only thing stopping this from being OP at low levels, again I'd maybe scale those values a little lower, although this would be a play testing issue rather than a "OMG OP".

I'd be happy to see his ult maybe a touch more powerful to compensate.

Basically I'm +1 for any changes that stops illusions damaging towers - this guy can still push with the changes, just not lamo-rat.

Thanks for comments guys,

To Sando :

Reflection OP? Well...sure I buffed it pretty hard compared to the current Reflection especially with the 7 second duration, but the current reflection is pretty garbage honestly and nobody even skills it. Is the 95% slow the OP part? I don't think it's that bad, it just slows to minimum 100 move speed, actually for a hero at 400 movespeed a 95% slow is the same as a 75% slow since both put the hero at 100 MS. The current Reflection is already a 60% slow that lasts 5.5 seconds.
If something is OP about it it's the 7 second duration...but as a comparison Naga's Ensnare is like a 100% slow that lasts 5 seconds AND it has a much better cast range, and people still don't even skill it on carry Naga. I don't think my version of Reflection is even close to Ensnare level on the OP-ness scale. Besides for the skill to be good you really need to put 4 skill points in it because unless you have the full duration you'll never get to the higher slow ticks anyways. The skill is pretty bad with only 1 point in it it's only good if you max it.
I just wanted the skill to actually be useful past 20 minutes especially to deal with evasive heroes, unlike the current reflection which is essentially only useful during the laning stage but still not good enough to max it first. I think the terrible cast range makes the new one balanced.


Sunder...it's not just about the cooldown it's also about the percentage in terms of balance. Like at level 1 it only exchanges half of the life totals so if an enemy hero almost kills you at a rune spot and you sunder him you'll just both end up at half HP, you can't really turn around first blood attempts with it you can only avoid feeding. You need 4 skill points in it for it to be as good as the current Sunder...that you get at level 6 now anyways.


Essentially I'm pretty mad that right now the build on TB is : max Conjure Image and Metamorphosis, don't even skill your two other skills take stats instead, and go push towers. So I really wanted to make Reflection and Sunder good, and honestly I don't even think I overdid it since yes they're really good but you need to max the skills for that not just 1 value point.


Making his ult more powerful...I don't see how I can do that without it being OP. Terrorblade is already the highest DPS hero in the game, you can't buff the damage or the BAT even slightly otherwise it's broken as hell (since illusions will get it too). Only thing you can do is e.g make it give bonus HP, but I don't really think it fits the hero, for me he's supposed to ba squishy at hell in exchange of having an almost-broken skillset. I gave it 20 seconds of cooldown (120 instead of 140), it's already a big deal, again a better cooldown means it's up permanently so I can't do that.

If you ask me, this hero is more enjoyable than the original one. Turning Sunder into a sustaining skill is a good idea since he can get harassed in lane quite badly, as well as increasing his jungling potential. The rework on Reflection are also very good, it will punish anyone with high mobility. I can see you are being very careful reworking this hero. Well done.

also can i just say that the new build will be Armlet of Mordiggian+dagon+ Aghanim's Scepter now? lol

^
Replace Agh with blink dagger, troll build will remains the same.