I'm also working on the auto-mulching feature. It is proving to be trickier than I had imagined. However, I should have it figured out soon (or I give up and go back to doing something complete different).

So, download the mod and tell us what awesome things YETI's should do for the next mod.

Tip: Sedna's Yetis are very powerful and durable minions. 

*Falls out of chair*

I think them being smaller so they didn't have so much trouble running around plus being less mana would help them.

Keke, oops

If anyone is interested in testing it I'm on Vent now looking for people for game.

Part of the current resolution for the QoT Mod was to make changes that aren't completely different from what the abilities are now and are not different than other abilities. Given the backlash from other more unique changes I made in the Focus Mod, it seems that the people do not like the idea of unique changes. In order to get any official changes made, we'd need to get a solid proportion of the current online community supporting it. We'd also need to have relatively small changes instead of massive ones.

So to address Hedgie's points.

ODG -> Original Demigod (aka Demigod version 1.21 - current version.)

1. Bramble Shield

• Mana Efficiencies for the shield were set to scale better than in ODG
• Shield 3 removes debuffs from target
• Shield 4 removes debuffs from target. Also if the target is the caster then the QoT gains a 3 second debuff immunity displayed by the purple shield effect.

At Shield IV the QoT is somewhat immune to spit.

Scenario I

• QoT Shields up and enters combat with Spit UB.
• Beast waits 3 seconds for purple shield to go away. During this period of time the Shield loses 3 seconds worth of Autoattack damage.
• Beast Spits and QoT reshields. Her shield is refreshed to full and she completely neutralizes the spit.
• End result: QoT loses 2 shields worth of mana and has a fresh shield, no health loss. UB loses 1 Spit worth of mana and takes 3 seconds worth of Autoattack damage.

Scenario II

• Qot doesn't shield up and enters combat with Spit UB.
• Beast spits and QoT shields.
• End result: QoT loses 1 shield worth of mana. UB loses 1 Spit worth of mana.

Note

• QoT has to switch forms if she wants to use her offensive abilities and defensive abilities. Switching takes deactivates her abilities for some time (2 seconds).
• Ooze UB has no real problems with this. The Ooze Debuff is removed, but refreshed on 1 tick intervals (I think).

Conclusion

QoT is much more mana based. She can continually cycle her shield, but once her mana is gone she is back to the same QoT as in ODG.

Another issue is the QoT's ability to portal lock. If she goes for a portal she shields and can capture it without any issues. She can then reshield and teleport out without problem either.

2. Ground Spikes

Ground Spikes is too good against Towers and Creeps because they lack armor. I believe that negative armor was not taken into account when balancing abilities. Actually, now that I think about it. It may be possible to leave armor reduction against Demigods and use damage increases against nonDemigods. That's a thought.

The numbers chosen for Ground Spike damage increase corresponds to the average Demigod Armor by level. The net damage increase when only considering autoattack damage is roughly the same between versions of Ground Spikes. The problem comes from Ability damage which is now boosted. It also makes it so that QoT with any Burst damage Demigod is much more serious. However, to counter this, comparing the damage from two Spike Damage Demigods versus the damage from QoT + Spike damage, the two Spike Damage Demigods would produce more damage.

I'm not sure what "Meanwhile, against say, UB + Oak, it is instantly countered with a shield." means in this context.

3. Spike Wave

The abilities are actually very different. The important part is that Spike Wave does not have a stun. It merely interrupts. Not only does it not have a stun, but the spikewave has to travel the distance to intercept your target before the interrupt activates. This results requiring the QoT to predict well in advance when a target is going to use an ability, to only interrupt long casting time abilities, or to be very, very close to their target.

LO wants the QoT to have an interrupt. That essentially forces the interrupt to be on Spike Wave or Ground Spikes. I've got mixed feelings, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

4. Uproot

Uproot is still very troublesome. My current re-emplement is to have it be more like Ice Rain than Spit (as it is now). A range 20 AOE that deals extra damage versus enemy towers and heals allied towers. This would also be more useful in balancing the AOE. Thoughts?

Haven't looked at the buff code in detail, but if it works at all like the buffs in FA, it should be relatively easy to insure that armor doesn't go negative from a buff.  You could likely even do this for creeps only, if you want to keep the possibility of negative armor for demigods.

Ground Spikes

I agree with hedgehog that implementing Ground Spikes like this is unnecessarily effective against enemy Demigods, and turns it into a mass-effect Penitence, which is extremely unfair to Oak (and anyone caught in its AoE).  Curtail negative armor and stay with its original functionality.

Bramble Shield

From the perspective of a primarily UB/DA player trying to kill QoT, Bramble Shield is definitely not anything close to useless until way later in the game (20-25m+ with high gold income, really), and even then it has its moments.  It could be kept useful longer without making it ridiculously powerful by slightly reducing mana cost at the higher levels.

Debuff removal is not good.  This is not shield.  It doesn't have the long cooldown, and it lasts a hell of a lot longer.  If mana cost is further reduced (which would be fine), there is absolutely no way it would be even remotely balanced with even debuff removal, nevermind temp immunity.

Let me hammer this home: Shield (any level) has FIVE TIMES the cooldown, lasts 1/5th as long, and has the same cost and max range.  That's roughly 1/25th the value of BS IV if both remove debuffs.  Yes, it provides invulnerability, but as anyone who is paying attention will switch targets once shield goes on, you could argue that-- practically speaking-- BS IV is actually going to absorb a lot more damage in any scenario where the target doesn't have 2+ high-damage demigods slamming into them, delivering certain, imminent death.  And even then, it can be recast or even cast on another demigod within roughly 5 seconds.  Just make it more economical.

Also remember that part of the perceived problem with Bramble Shield is actually a problem with so many of the game's items - there's just so much health to stack that 1450hp can seem like not very much at all.  I think this needs to be addressed if you're going to do a full rebalance of all of the Demigods individually, as it affects each one differently.

Spike Wave

SW III has a 15-second cooldown, instead of 10s at the other levels.  I'd suggest limiting the interrupt to level III only, because of this.  SW's velocity is not low enough for that to be a serious disadvantage - it can still hit any target in range in 1.5 seconds, which is better than some other demigods' interrupts (*cough*DA*cough*), and does good damage, and slows.  An interrupt is fine, just not a 10-second-cooldown interrupt.

Uproot

Whatever you do, keep it single-target or small-AoE.  Keep its primary effect to structures.  Definitely do not go with large AoE that can also hit non-structures without Violent Siege - QoT does not need to be turned directly into TB.

• re: 3 second debuff immunity insufficient to block teleport/flag lock

Thanks for the heads up.

• Compost's side effects on Uproot are trivial and readily dismissed and ignored in my mind.

• Uproot is a problem. If Uproot is kept as a anti-tower ability, then it has to be useful against towers and it has to compete with Ground Spikes. I'm not sure what a good solution is to this. All of the ideas I've come up with have seemingly been insufficient.

• Shield III & IV. Shield is Lord Orion's baby, so I'm not sure I can offer reasonable defense against it. How would the removal of the 3 second anti-debuff work out to satisfy things. This would leave the debuff removal as per Oak, Sedna, and Oculus.

As for the values of Heal versus Shield. The following should illuminate the issues.

Sedna Heal

• Heals: 600,900,1200,1500
• Cost: 375,500,625,750
• Efficiency: 1.60 1.80 1.92 2.00

Qot Shield (original)

• Absorb: 700,950,1200,1450
• Cost: 400,560,720,840
• Efficiency: 1.75 1.70 1.67 1.73

Qot Shield revised

• Absorb: 700,1100,1500,1900
• Cost: 400,560,720,880
• Efficiency: 1.75 1.96 2.08 2.16

• re: Compost & Entourage
  • I'm not really sure. What do you think about the current ones?

Part of the problem with me balancing is that I'm not ultra-pro. I'm middling average. Hence my unlimited harassment when it comes to figuring out things. I should also probably try to play more with better players instead of the noob pickup games I tend to end up playing.

While I agree with the spirit of your analysis, I don't know how well I like your semantics. Heal and Bramble Shield are both abilities that extend a Demigods life and do so by providing a buffer of health/shield points. Your point that it is proactive versus retroactive I think is a more valid semantic approach.

I don't know how well the argument for shield being designed for a purpose will hold up. Given the code and the information about how Demigod was balanced, I don't see anything to support that idea. I'm not saying it isn't possible, I'm just unconvinced.

Heal synergizes very well with monks given that Sedna has the ability and she also has Healing Wind which buffs her monk healing by a good margin (5-7%).

I think the Shield graphic should vary in color based upon what rank of shield you are using. But that's just me and my desire to make things pretty. Your point is well founded.

Changing Shield to take damage after Armor is applied would require altering the basic combat mechanic (or creating a second type of shield ability). I'm not convinced that changes should be made at the mechanics level at this point. I find it reasonable that shielding is reduced before armor is applied, but that may be my conservative bent.

Uproot is problematic. What use can Uproot provide that can justify half the points of a level 10 QoT Build? I'm not sure. Your ideas sound reasonable.

Consider this more unique approach. Use the channeling idea, but reduce the cooldown. You'd have an initial startup casting time then you start draining the tower, but you could interrupt to do something else and then return to draining. Possibly even provide mana and hp to the QoT. In other words have structural transfer but without a large cooldown. The damage would be balanced to approximately autoattack damage. In other words it would be the equivalent of a Regulus autoattacking a tower with a tower-only life steal item.

re: Sedna

Well, I'll have you know that my Sedna is pretty bad.

re: Sedna Synergize

To clarify my current (potentially invalid stance) I consider Heal to synergize with Priests because of the following argument. Heal is only available with Sedna. Sedna is built to outlast her opponents, not outdamage. Sedna gets Healing Wind which increases her regen and increases the Heals provided by Priests. The large health regeneration and heal pool available to Sedna allows her to absorb the Ability damage from other Demigods and then force the fight into autoattacks. At that point she has superior health regen, superior healing, and the Heal spell. The weakness of Heals slow cast and recharge are covered by the high regen and priest healing. She also then has silence which can interrupt or remove other Demigod abilities which also allows her to take advantage of her higher health regen/priest/heal. Lastly, Autoattack damage is mitigated by armor which gives her an additional advantage when the fight is reduced to autoattacks.

Re: Bramble Shield

So, what more useful things do I know.

Demigod v1.0 Bramble Shield stats

Absorption 600, 800, 1000, 1200
Energy cost 400, 560, 720, 840
Efficiency 1.5, 1.43, 1.39, 1.43

Other changes from 1.0 to 1.21 are:

• Duration dropped from 60 to 30
• Cooldown dropped from 15 to 7

I'll go look at the beta boards. But I can already tell that's not going to be any fun. Although I'll admit I had forgotten they were still here.

re: Heal as a buffer

Again we have semantic problems, I see health in general as a buffer. Shield is just another type of health. Again though, it is a semantic argument and not important.

re:Uproot

Lord Orion liked the idea of Uproot providing range increases to the QoT autoattack (in addition to the normal skill). How do you feel about that?

Updated re:Beta Boards

So I browsed the last 20 pages of the Beta Feedback Thread. It contains a whole lot of no real content. I found a few mentions of the QoT. But the only thing that people were talking about was Uproot. Their opinions on it varied, but no numbers were given. Unless you can give me a better reference, I'm considering it a waste of time. Amusingly enough I found a post talking about Lord Erebus suiciding via drinking own Poisoned Blood potion and the various positions on it. That made me laugh.

Sedna has the lowest armor for melee characters and has the lowest hp out of most of the characters (which is really the only way to balance her, though I still think she should get a slight armor/level bonus to help her deal with end-game creeplanes better). Her regen isn't also that great compared to Narmoths ring on a UB. Then he is getting something like 70 hps between the ring, other items, and lifesteal. Because of the auto-attack debuff of Ooze (and it killing Sedna's creepwave), that negates a lot of UB's incoming damage. Really, Heal just allows UB to Ooze himself to death. 

That said, having Counter Heal helps a ton, though that has its own issues, as we have previously discussed. 

Bramble shield has always had a 7 second cooldown, I don't know what you mean. 

I'm against Uproot copying Sniper Scope because it homogenizes. There should be a unique way to "fix" that skill without stealing good parts from other demigods, though concepts (like Strut Trans) can be modified. 

---

Balance really needs to combined with various different things:

Demigods:

- Demigod skills, and knowing how the game proceeds as you level

- How much a demigod gains in their attributes on level up, and their initial level up

- General/Assassin 

Favor Items:

- Most favor items are simply too situational or inferior to Blood in average cases. Blood's power comes as mostly a "sum" and less of it being crazy good. 

   A) 800 cannot be purchased at the shop with a single item slot until late-game (Unbrekables + Banded achieved 1000 but costs two slots and 2k) 

   Monks, HP flag, and Sigil spam all benefit from Blood more than other items

   C) All generals must go Cloak, Ring of Divine Might, or Blood. Cloak provides an escape mechanism and mana for offensive skills to overcome the hp advantage someone else has. Ring encourages different builds. The most common case, Blood, occurs because

     i) I am laned against an Assassin. This assassin will probably be supported by a monk

     ii) Because he is monk supported and was able to purchase his first 1k on himself, he will have more mana and hp than me without even having to pick a favor item

    iii) I must go Blood to be able to compete or else I will fall behind in WS because I will be unable to hold flags and we will lag getting currency 

    iv) He knows I will probably go Blood, so he has blood as well to counter because he doesn't want to item iii to occur to himself. 

Items:

- Most items are either cost ineffective, or have useless benefits (Vinling helmet, Theugist cap). The cost of items also punishes the losing team because most of the 3k range items cost too much. 

Mechanics:

- Monks need to be reworked. I think that their natural damage needs to be reduced, or they should heal smaller amounts while "in combat" (taking damage from autoattack from minions, creeps or demigods adds an invisible debuff that expires in 2 seconds. If this debuff is active while you are healed, the amount you are healed is halved). This invites flavor and variety in the game, because a general who goes Banded + Scaled Helm might win a first engagement, but on second engagement, the person with the monk will be back at full hp and the other person won't be yet. 

- Locks should have a counter to them, even if it isn't cost-effective (though in some ways it is... if someone locks and then walks away, if you break the lost with a 500 gold item, they are forced to spend 250 porting on you to keep it). 

- Towers should scale slightly better (gain small hp and regen bonuses each war rank) 

Map:

Catracact:

   - The HP flag on Cataract needs to be replaced with a debilitating flag (which helps Regulus a ton, nerfs monks and sigils and blood) 

   - Mana flag needs to be replaced with a Mana-Per-Second flag because of how that flag is rotated

   - Gold flags need to be on the same side of the map (behind hp). 

Crucible:

   - Crucible needs to be more protected from backdoors

   - Gold flag shouldn't double your gps income

Prison:   

   - Prison is hard to balance because of the nature of the map... 

Exile: 

   - There are so many terrible things about this map I have a hard time coming up with them all...

Levi:

   - One of the most balanced maps, in terms of relative demigod strength (Regulus is very useful, for example). It does have other issues, however. 

Zikk: 

   - Also pretty balanced, though the front towers needs to be moved back slightly so that demolishers and Regulus can't shoot at them while protected by their own tower. 

   - However, the demigod disparity is pretty bad. Queen and Sedna are both extreme liabilities on this map because of the huge gold income which allows people to get very strong very fast and break through their supporting capabilities. 

Citadel Upgrades:

-  All of them provide diminishing returns at increased cost. Though it has to be balanced with alternate modes like High Towers or Fortress, a lot of the tower upgrades could be reworked. In general, I think that the cost should remain the same or only very slightly increase (or returns should diminish). Currency 3 is going to be less useful than 1 even if they provided the exact same benefits because the time spent after Cur 3 is much shorter than Cur 1. 

- XP could be improved slightly (15-30-45). It's worth getting in 4v4s and 5v5s when you share lanes but 3v3 and 2v2 it is very much debatable. 

- Catchup mechanisms could be built into the Citadel (eg, Death Penalty reduces the cost of ALL citadel upgrades by a small amount each time someone on your team dies). 

The game released 1.02 IIRC. Bramble has not been buffed in retail versions of the game.

The balance changes have been:

- Nerf to Bite

- Removal of Horn of Battle (then put back in later)

- Reworking of some of the inconsequential Favor Items and also reduction in price for some of the items (Duelist)

- DF being slightly recoded

---

I wasn't saying that Healing Wind II is underpowered or anything. I think that Oak, Sedna and Rook are the three best balanced demigods. They each have their weakness, which is also their strength {Oak starts weak but ends strong, Sedna has high regen but poor damage and AoE, Rook can hold one place extremely well but can't move around the map well}. They have multiple useful skill trees, though also a few that could be improved or their scale could be improved (Soul Power II and III, for example).

Erebus has a plethora of useful skill trees and potential builds, but he doesn't have a "weakness" persay. He tends to be the second or third best at "everything", rather than the best at any one thing. Like Mario. Erebus could be taken back a few small notches for the sake of Regulus, TB, DA and Rook because the nature of his skills (appearing from nowhere and raping you while healing), but against UB, Sedna, and Oak he isn't this crazy powerhouse. I don't see him as particularly OP, just a little strong against weaker characters.

I was simply saying how a typical battle in a lane works against a monk-supported UB, versus the scenario you depicted. Sedna (and Rook) are really the only demigods who can hold back a UB (Occulus can do decently well because he can rape monks and cure spit from level 10-14 assuming Uberfix but once he gets Acclimation...) for a large portion of the game.

However, since the UB is usually mana-side and doesn't buy Currency, I end up losing most "equal" 1v1 fights since I am 1-3 levels behind and roughly 2000-2500 gold (kills, tower deaths {300} and flag caps {25}) behind. Later on, when levels are typically equal and 2k gold is a smaller portion of your game-investment, I can fight a UB out of a creep lane just fine.

---

Though I believe that a lot of Demigod is VERY balanced, if you want to make the gameplay more VARIED ... (multiple item and skill builds become balanced and there is a sense of urgency and adapting to counter other builds, as opposed to now there are usually 1-3 well-established builds that are proven the "best" in a wide variety of situations and any deviatition is usually swapping the order of a few key skills. Item builds are very very bland with 90% of builds sharing 3 or 4 different items throughout the course of the game (though the order you get them may be different). Unbreakable Boots is an item that can and should be used for every demigod and every build, regardless of who they are and what build they are. Even pure-minion builds should get it, though not prioritized.

... then we have to make more drastic changes, espiecially to game mechanics. If we simply just want to maintain the status quo (HP stacking ftw) then the changes can be very small and related to small +/-5% changes here and there.

Yes, in 2v2 conflicts shield and heal can actually be useful. In 3v3 pileups, it is not nearly as useful since dealing damage >>>>> healing in those engagements. This is a problem all defensive demigods have. If an Erebus Mists, it becomes a 3v2. If an Oak shields someone else, he becomes the new target. (before you guys bring those two up). 

Also, QoT's percieved weakness is not her inability to hold flags or push lanes (except against those with massive AoE) once Giants come out (she does flounder a lot in the WS 7-9 range). She is simply crippled because of her ineptitude in portal conflicts, which is what this game comes down to so often. She is not this "late-game" liability that you portray her, or we have different views of what lategame are. 

Ground Spikes makes demigods melt, especially in conjunction with Oak or Erebus. Shield is extremely strong early game. Queen does struggle in the mid-game but once giants are out and certainly early game she does just fine. Making Shield cheaper mana wise along with a re-working of her "useless" skills, along with a shift in game mechanics (portal rushes, sigil spam and chain locks) and itemization is more what Queen needs, rather than buffing her bread'n'butter skills. 

Queen already has several escape mechanisms when confronted with "gank" demigods. Mulch, Cloak of Night, Shield and Spike Wave. Also, with the exception of Erebus these "gank" teams all share their snares/ganking skills with their interrupt. Oak can either penitence and catch you or he can't. If he does, then you can port out, for example. If he doesn't you can just walk away.