Your saying that we should play with skills primarily because they bothered to code and animate them? And this leads you to believe you have a better grasp on what the developers intended when making the game then the rest of us?

Im beginning to think you have a friend you play with who rapes you day in and day out with attributes and your just sick of it.

I am certain that the developers intended for you to choose to play each of the characters in whichever way you feel most comfortable. For me, when I play Regulus (and UB as well) Attributes are a large part of my strategy. I do this because it works for me. My Stats Reg rarely levels above level 12 as the game is over. If I dont go with stats, the game goes on much longer. To me, this means that my attribute regulus, with no activatables is more powerful in my hands then one with skills. I have played enough games with him, offline while testing the build and online to make sure it works and then competitively at a lan with other good players to know that my assumptins about my build matching my play style to be right.

Here is something your not going to like to hear, there will be MANY other players who will do the same. Does this mean they are wrong, of course not. If it works for them and they enjoy it, more power to them.

Now, a couple of those later lan games (5 on 5) lasted quite some time and after I was done with my passives I did start with mines. As you mentioned, getting to level 20 means you have more skills points them passive abilities to put it into. Are you now going to tell me that I am wrong and making the game less fun because I choose to get my activatable mid-late game as opposed to early? Are you also going to tell me that not taking activatables and hence not having to spend a dime on mana regeneration does not give me a strategic advantage over my oponents?

Im very sorry and while yuo have seemed to change your tone slightly from your first couploe posts you are still coming on here and trying to tell other people that the way they want to play the game they bought is wrong. If it isnt effective, thats one thing and people will find that out for themselves. I personally know my build is VERY effective. It requires a LOT of skill in judging when to do what and where to be. This is because, as you mentioned, I do not have an "I WIN" button like snipe to kill someone with when they get low on health.

In any case, Im done trying to defend a perfectly legitimate and effective way to play this game to someone who seems intent on forcing others to play the way they think the game should be played.

I'm defining it as "huge" because its Reg's single largest skill line (6 skills in the line, compared to 5 in AF and Snipe).  Your claim is that people using Reg's largest line in the most obvious way possible is not what the devs intended.  This doesnt make any sense to me.  Why would the devs not want people to use Reg's single largest skill line?

Your argument is now that the skills that the programmers spent the longest animating are necessarily what they intended people to use, and you also imply that we need to be using Reg exactly as your "logic" dictates that the devs wanted us to.  I find both these claims to be highly suspect.

You then start saying something about people not taking any active abilities.  Nobody is suggesting builds like this.  Enhanced attributes are almost always paired with AF.  This is an active ability that has the most impressive animation of any of Reg's ability (if you want to go that route).  People also usually have at least minimal points in Snipe as a long range finisher in this build, as well as some points in other trees.  They just often completely forgo mines and thats all that is almost always completely neglected.

Your final paragraph boils down to: "I want to play Reg a certain way.  I want the devs to FORCE everybody else to play Reg as I want to".  I dont agree with this either.

I believe some people are very confused about how the Regulus build works.

Basically the use of AF, Maim, and sniper scope, along with attribute bonuses, creates a very decent basic attack set of bonuses for Reg. So let's look at what this means and how they are using it successfully.

The Pros:

With AF+attribute bonuses you can quickly raise your damage to very high numbers.

With SS+Maim you can effectively track down and kill overextended DGs. Plus outranging towers.

The effects of AF+Attribute bonuses can be magnified by many items. (Crit/Attack Speed/Life Steal)

The Cons:

No burst damage.

No Team support functions (Stuns/heals/silence) NOTHING! Not even a long range snipe...

No "ability damage" leaves you very vulnerable to your opponents stacking armor.

So basically the attribute Reg. build is very effective against people who don't realize whats going on and are unorganized. In a team game this build falters. If your opponents don't overextended and feed you, you are useless. Without the expensive late game items you need to enter "God-Mode" A.K.A. right-click you die, you are not an asset to your team. It is very effective against inexperienced players, and the computer. I would imagine many of the people advocating it are playing in Skirmish/Pantheon. If you play a smart team, with will counter will any of several abilities to hold you down. They will also stack armor and pretty much laugh at you.

People fall in love with this build because it makes some big numbers in damage early, but Reg. has the age-old problem of low survivability, and it's too easy to burn him to oblivion, or just hold him down in the mid-game.

I dunno, hate it if you want, but it is far from imbalanced, you just need to learn how to fight it.

Chaosbrynn, no I don't get stomped by "attribute build" players even somewhat regularly. I can count the amount of attribute-stacking players I've come across on one hand, so in my personal experience it's not that popular to begin with, which I can understand. Please don't insinuate my opinions on 'EA' are similar to those who denounce global warming - its inflammatory and insulting.

I never made a claim the build is effective or ineffective, but in fact stated there's too little evidence to prove one way or the other. I'm stating a fear that were it effective enough it could become a cookie cutter RG or UB build which would have strengths that outweigh its required intelligence to implement. I'm not trying to attack your style of play, or was even addressing you where I didn't explicitely do so.  Players will always find a way to play a game relative to the resistance found and enjoyment granted.

The point of this thread wasn't to convince people not to use attributes, I thought, but to discuss how useful they are. My comments were more towards the devs and those selfless data farmers than joe-shmoe players like myself, because without data all we have is conjecture -- and that is exactly why I'm not attempting to draw any hard conclusions.

MasterSlone, your opinion seems to be it's a good newbstomp build, or for games where you expect it to be dragged out past 40 minutes. One could argue if you take the build you'd hamper your team from sealing the deal before 40 minutes, though, making it possibly an even less appealing build if your theory's right, but when playing alongside an Oak or Sedna, why isn't having a DPS machine a bad thing?  This is sort of apples n oranges, but rogues are partied with in WoW all the time specifically because their DPS output apologizes for their lack of party-oriented abilities. Could this build's implementation not be fully fleshed out?

I had come across a UB player who semeed to be stacking Attributes as well as damage gear and life steal.  I was higher level than he, had spent more gold than he (mostly on mana and defense) and had specced my Sedna for heals, silence and pounce. Even after what active abilities he had were silenced, I was unable, even with spamming full lvl pounce to deal damage that significantly outpace the life he was stealing from me. I wasn't in fear of getting killed since I had tons of mana to heal myself with and he had no way of denying me the ability to do so, but he had essentially turned a very strong offense into a defense. I never had had such a hard time killing someone whom I had previously been batting around for the majority of the match.

One could argue I didn't have enough attack power, but my high defense would have also reduced his effective damage and, thus, his effective life steal in the same manner, wouldn't it? This very well could be more of a problem with lifesteal! I don't mean to draw conclusions but that particular fight has stuck in my head, where I felt by all means I should've beaten this guy but instead stalemated.

Life Steal?  0.5 Attack speed?  Those sound like extremely late game stats.

In my experience, games tend to end long before that point.

But I could be mistaken and I'd really like to play against a passive Regulus once.  I tend to go towards the other extreme.  No AF at all.  Mine, Snipe, Scope as my first three points, Mark when it's available, and tracking device and 1 point in Maim just for a slight advantage.  I don't fight demigods 1v1, instead, I mainly creep farm and harass demigods on the other side of the map, making sure they never get into fights at full health.  The key part of my build is Heart of Life though.  No real mana issues once I get that.

On a fresh fight, I'm likely to lose, but that's rarely the case.  From pre-snipes, to covering flags with mines, marking them when they walk on it, then mining their escape route and sniping when they run, I barely have any time for autoattacks.

One good thing about passive builds is my mark would be useless though, unless you tried to use an item.  I love it when demigods kill themselves while using a teleport.

If I ever reach high levels in a game, I do end up dumping points in stat upgrades, since AF would just be a waste of points and mana at this point but I've never found it to be that useful.

How much gear does a passive build require to be effective though?

I usually only buy Banded Armor (550g), first helm (550g) with the starting gold, Vlemish Faceguard (1750g), Boots of Speed (1000g), and a Heart of Life (4250g) and find that's all I need to last me the rest of the game.  All later gold is pretty much used for citadel upgrades which ends the game before artifacts really make a difference.

400 is on the low side Zephyr. AF is mandatory for the build as far as Im concerned. No you dont need a lot of mana items. If you take the right favor item, you dont need any at all (God I wish Favor wasnt borked online. It is SO awesome when I get to play at the local LAN) and its what makes the build work so well. While everyone else is saving up for mana items, your going offense and right out of the gate doing 200 damage to demigods (well 190ish or so) at level 1. Games tend to end around level 12 as you consistently hove more offensive power then people are expecting. With that kind of damage and AF clearing waves becomes very easy so even if you cant manage to get that last shot off for a kill, you have a great way to farm. The only time ive taken this build to level 20 I was doing 630-680 damage to demigods (depending on their armor) with a .5 attack time and great lifesteal. It was completely and horrifyingly wrong, and I loved every minute of it

Auto Attack/Stat builds are strong late game when you can stack artifacts but they aren't as good against strong players early on because you lack any way to make good moves... if you do consistant damage every hit with no burst, enemies an easily judge your damage output and plan accordingly.  I do find it amusing that very late game that artifact stacking makes auto attacking much stronger than actually using skills, it would be cool if the game balance actually allowed for stats to adjust skill damage.

I was about to say... I would think that Regulus would be the most effective cat to use a stat build on.

But what to sacrifice then? Snipe? Mines? MotB? AF would seem to be virtually mandatory for such a build... I don't know if a Regulus lacking utility would be such a great guy to have on a team.

I don't know about most players, but either I or my opponents are not good enough to ever get to too late in the game. I don't get too far past level 10 before either my team or the opposing team has catas out and are about to clinch a win.

I think a lot of people don't use Regulus to his full potential. First, know your map and the win conditions to determine which build to go with for Regulus. I skip snipe entirely unless its a first to kill 20 map. In all other maps, I tend to take down more towers than DGs. Its all about the push.  I could care less if I win the kills aspect. I always max out my attributes line.

btw, I like having a full game. If you snipe kill too early, people leave. Once people commit to the game, mine them to death. 

Zephyr, I can see where you're coming from, but I do think I'd like to point out a major complication to the 'autoattack' character which, in my opinion, evens out the difficulty in playing the character (for that's what fosters skill: relative difficulty per point of effectiveness). Much like in the infamous DotA, builds that focus on Autoattacking tend to be extremely weak in the early game. That is to say, keep dumping those points into attack range, maim, and +stats, and you're bound to get killed by a heavy nuker such as TB. If you can survive and gather enough gold and experience to be effective at midgame, where this build supposedly shines, it is in and of itself a measure of your skill versus the nuke-carrying DG.

It's quite likely to be so. However, I stand by the opinion that activated skills lead to better lane control and thus an easier earlygame.

I think it highlights a game design flaw.  The lack of skill damage enhancing items is the culprit and it should be fixed. 

I'm going to be blunt here - I think it's an awful and uncreative build.  What really blows my mind is that if you dropped vengeance and either impedance bolt or tracking device (since you can't snipe anyway) you could max out mark of the betrayer to make your auto-attack inescapable or if you drop all thee you could max out mines and grab shrapnel.

The build is consciously avoiding complexity, and the game should be punishing you for it, but it's not and that needs to change.

Uh no, not at all.  Auto attack reg's main goal through most of the game is to support a player that can take more damage.  Pair up with something like an oak, sit back a bit, and grind away.  You dont have much burst damage, but you have superb damage over time.  Of course, people will be putting you high on their target list, but AA Reg's I know are almost always fast, so they just retreat while the Oak pounds on the chaser.  Eventually the chaser stops, and you go back to pounding.  So AA Reg is really going to be working with teammates if at all possible until leve 8-10 where you are getting Mageslayer and can then 1v1 better.

AA Reg is also a very strong finisher due to the combination of speed on most AA Regs, range, and damage over time that doesnt have a cooldown.  If you wind up low on life near an AA Reg, you are probably getting finished with a higher probability than any other DG except for maybe an UB.

AA Reg is also slightly better than a mine build very early in the game (e.g.one mine is not hard to go around), so it has that going for it too.

Complexity is not learning that you have to press 1 click, press 2 click or whatever to do damage.  Just because you have to press a number key and then wait for a cooldown in one build and you dont in the other isnt really true complexity.  The complexity of DG comes from working with your team, developing strategies for your team and the DGs used on both teams, understanding the necessary builds etc etc.  An AA Reg is just as complex in all the things that really make the game complex as the other DGs.