Countering Troll Warlord

Thosw ho can rip down his attack speed or damage... I'd like Razor, he could probably wreck him. All he has to do is suck his damage and voila!

Let's break the Hero down completely to analyse exactly what is so overpowered and possibilities to fix it:

Thesis
There are numerous ways to balance Troll.
1) Reduce his damage - require him to build damage items, not just tank. Result: Nerfs his early game. Lategame is also nerfed hard. Probably kicks him out of the hard carry club.
2) Reduce his speed - a Troll with BoTs and SnY reaches a passive 510 movespeed. A Lone Druid with Manta and BoTs (in Bear form) reaches roughly the same with the bear at 515. So that doesn't seem like the problem.
3) Reduce his survivability - won't have too much effect. He'll still build tanky. However, he is *too* tanky at early stages, eg the lane.
4) Nerf his lane. This must be done and can probably be tied in with #1 and #3.

I shall take the angle of #1 as it seems the most logical choice, however buff his lategame survivability to keep him at a similar effectiveness. Require him to build a Daedalus. As it is, he takes 1 damage item and is off the scales in DPS. The only other carry who can do this is Terrorblade. And Terrorblade is nowhere near as tanky and nowhere near as good early-game. That said, we should keep Troll's lategame the same as it is. It's only early-midgame he comes online too early.

STR: 17 + 2.2 (Suggested: 17 + 2.4)
AGI: 21 + 2.75 (Suggested: 21 + 2.5)
INT: 13 + 15

Base damage (including stats): 38-56 -47- (Suggested: 35-47 -41-)
Speed: 300

Suggestion: Reduce base damage and AGI growth. Perhaps increase Strength to compensate.
Result: Lane nerfed. Damage nerfed. Survivability increased.

Berserker's Rage
Gives 15 bonus damage, 100 bonus HP, 3 bonus armour, 1.55 BAT time, 10% chance to bash for 0.8/1.2/1.6/2 seconds with 20/30/40/50 bonus damage.

As you can see, value points in this are crazy. He gets a lot from just one skill point. Suggestion: Remove the bonus HP. The armour remains. Reduce bonus damage to 6/9/12/15. Increase BAT bonus to 1.7/1.65/1.6/1.55.
Result: Lane nerfed considerably. Once that ends, he's roughly the same when Q is maxed.

Whirling Axes
This skill seems fine to me, with the exception of the Blind. Rescale it to 30/40/50/60%, cause 7 second 60% blind at level 1 is ******ed...

Fervor
Grants 16/22/28/34 bonus attack speed when hitting the same target with a maximum of 4 stacks. Results in an extra 64/88/112/136 attack speed.
Since you hit them once and get the first bonus, you're basically walking around with 16/22/28/34 free attack speed and as a result the skill stacks up really quickly. Again, a single value point is ridiculous...
Suggestion: Increase Fervor stack count and reduce the attack speed per stack.
Result: Nerfs his target switching. Value point is still good but it isn't as good as it was. Generally, if you get a Hero with no value point skills then their early game is trash. Troll's early game shouldn't be trash - nerfed from now, yes, but not trash.
Suggestion #2: Increase the scaling of the skill, perhaps to 10/18/26/34.
Result: Nerfs value points. Lategame remains the same.
Using #1 and #2 together might work.

Battle Trance
As it is, perhaps make it only 50% as effective on allies. Otherwise, it's pretty fine. Perhaps make it grant bonuses as a percentage of Troll's attack speed? This again nerfs his early-game when combined with the other changes.

Now let's look at his changelog.

6.82
Reduced Whirling Axes (Ranged) cooldown from 20 to 20/19/18/17.
Increased acquisition range from 600 to 800.

6.81
Reduced Whirling Axes (Melee) cast point from 0.2 to 0.

6.80
Fervor
Rescaled attack speed bonus per stack from 20 on each level to 16/22/28/34.
Rescaled max stacks cap from 2/3/4/5 to 4 on each level.

As we can see he has a recent history of buffs. Although it's not there as it was a bug fix, Fervor stack count being 1 too slow was also a huge buff.

As I see it, the problem is Fervor. Most of the other buffs were small, but the 6.80 buff to Fervor was HUGE. It rescaled the attack speed from 40/60/80/100 to the current 64/88/112/136. That's a LOT. Hence, I can accept nerfing Fervor back down.

Feel free to copypaste this mini-essay and add your own thoughts.

You dunces do know that troll warlord start with 1 armor in normal form?


I have told you all what can be done. There is no point in crying on fervor being OP.

His BAT scales better with more AS. Rescale BAT

Since you bring up that cast point issue, my theory on troll was that he would be a hero that did everything fast. Now i dont see you all complaining about abaddon's curse of the avernus providing him bonus attack speed even before he attacks.
Clearly, you dont realize that fervor is not characteristic of being OP.


What you hate is that he hits hard because of his berserkers rage.
Heres what he gets at level 1
A small bash
Improved BAT
10 movespeed
3 armor
100 hp
+15 damage.


Here is my submission to you on what can happen: you want his lane nerfed? We take out his bonus damage from berserkers rage and give him a small start in increasing agi(3) for last hitting.

You want to nerf fervor? Forget it all but 1% of the possibility thay i might consider it.

But as i close this final comment that i will have in this thread, I submit that i shall give due consideration to what terathiel said on how whirling axes could be tweaked(mind you, it will be a tweak if ever).

And as a gesture to you lot, let me make some custom games to see what if i tweaked fervor as well. Its not in the way you all suggested but i am sure you will like it if it gets the seal of approval.

Till then, i am considering this closed

This is a theorycraft on Troll Warlord and how long or far the thread goes for does not need your approval. Your ideas does not mean threads over so take your head out your ***, people can theorycraft all they want if it reaches a coherent thought-process. Take your farce out of here.

edit: Since it also seems to me you're stroking your ego, why should anyone listen to someone that can barely get out of 500mmr? Unless of course that has changed?

lol the only person who can close threads is a MOD or the OP


you are neither

respect the rules.

It's not about the rules, Kyfoid's thinking is that his thoughts are final.

Back to the topic, one thing I'd like to see nerfed is the attack range on Troll. If that ranged is lowered he won't be able to force out and 1v1 currently all offlane heroes (maybe except techies). Another thing is to remove the bonus hp and/or reduce the bonus armor just so he's more susceptible to harass and not be somewhat tanky.

I second the nerf of Fervor. I had one game where I picked Undying against a troll trilane. After stealing some str at lvl 3 (troll lvl2) we tried to kill the enemys 2v3. My Tombstone was perfectly placed but troll killed it alone before 3 zombies spawned. We won that game but trolls early presence is just too much.

Let me clarify, i intended to say that i wont participate in nerf discussions. If someone contributes to countering troll as is, using some hero combos, i do want to participate. It is a countering TW thread isnt it? Not a nerf TW one i believe.

What i wished to say was that nerf discussions are closed on my end.

Clearly i was misunderstood and no one even had the impartiality to even question me back before they paraded on about how big a troll i am.

It seems i troll without even meaning to. this one was unintentional. My apologies to smuggels and any dotaforean offended.

Edited spolier

That's fine, it means you don't even answer any posts about nerfs and simply reply to the OP. You don't need to call people dunces or make a cry for attention along the way.

Back on topic...I think there is some bleed over from his ult into Fervor - that initial boost of attack speed lets him get those stacks up sooner, and hence make it more powerful.

I think any nerfs need to be carefully targeted (as always) so they don't damage the overall design of the hero, and what makes him unique:

1) Ability to switch between ranged/melee modes
2) Massive built in AS
3) Good across game stages