Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone (depending on where in the world you’re at). Fun little discussion I thought I’d bring up today on the topic of Damage Over Time/Turn abilities and if we could offer some solutions to make them more effective.
I love Lianna. She’s probably my favorite hero right now. And a big reason for that is because I feel like while Marjana and Sartana are good heroes, I feel as though they are less-useful because Damage Over Turn abilities do not seem to be making up for the balance cost of reducing their direct damage, before the DoT has expired.
I think there is a solution somewhere. And, I think it’s important to maybe start understand just how effective Azlar and Colen can be, in contrast. The Area of Effect fire DoT’s immediately put you on the defensive and in understanding that you are going to probably lose this fight if you let those DoT’s tick all the way down, unless you do something about it.
I don’t feel that way about Sartana and Marjana. I feel threatened a little by their nukes, but most of the time they won’t one-shot me… and losing one hero, as opposed to a fire dot from Colen or Azlar potentially destroying my team to the point of no return, isn’t nearly as devastating. Lianna, on the other hand is always a threat because her damage isn’t spread out over turns. Conclusively, how often does a Marjana or Sartana DoT even finish their count before the battle is over or the enemy is dead.
Anyway, I look forward to hearing your thoughts about this. And, if we could keep the discussion civil, I’d greatly appreciate.
To me burning damage should start strong and end weak, as the fire extinguish
Ex. 375 damage over 4 turn = 200 | 100 | 50 | 25
And poison damage ramp up as it run trough the body
Ex. 375 damage over 4 turn = 25 | 50 | 100 | 200
Decreasing the turn to increase the damage/round could partially solve the problem.
Hoping to pull a Lianna sooner or later, it kill heroes just fine even with attack debuff
Honestly i kinda like DoT heroes like Marjana or Sartana, and the reason is quite simple: that damage don’t give a ■■■■ about troops of defence buffs/attack debuffs.
You know the opponent take that damage no matter what (if they don’t cleanse it, but there are only 4 heroes that can do that).
So situationally you can have most outcome from Lianna or with Marjana, but still i don’t see DoT with a short stick.
Btw: i like @FraVit93 reverse poison/fire damage quite a lot.
It’s funny you bring this up as I’ve been, inadvertently, leveraging Marjana’s DOT special way more in the last week or so… However, it’s always a nail biter. Will it stick long enough ? Will it cause enough damage ? Will it get dispelled ? I love Marjana/Sartana, but it always feels like they’re very powerful, but just not quite enough. Say like Lianna as you’ve already mentioned… As for Azlar/Colen where their initial damage is less but higher DOT. I think once you develop a good strategy against them they become more of a chore, i.e. set up Richard’s special, hit Azlar/Colen hard to bring their HP down but get them fired up. Get hit by them, dispel then finish them off and out of the way…
Enter June’s (potentially ?) HOTM - Gravemaker with his very fast mana, “low” hit BUT strong nearly 300 damage in just 2 turns… Now that’s something I can get behind.
I’ve always thought 6 turns on DOT was way too long to begin with. They may have to decrease the number of DOT ticks to 5 or even 4 if they’re going to continue to introduce this new generation of heroes with faster mana and shorter DOT ticks. In short. I make the Marjana’s & Sartana’s of the world more desirable by shortening the DOT from 6 to 5 (at least) but keep the same total damage. I want to feel the same sense of urgency when I get hit by them the same as when I get hit by maxed Lad Lock. Gawd, how annoying is that ?
I like this idea, but if you’re going to do it this way, why not take a page from Gravemaker and simply have them do their DOT in fewer turns. This makes them a much more immediate, devastating threat.
This is how Lady Locke worked before they tuned her, and everyone hated it. It’s too easy to debuf these effects before they do any “real” damage.
Possibly, but I don’t see the strategic value to choose a delayed effect hero over a similarly powerful (or even slightly less powerful) direct damage hero if the certainty of a big hit in 4-5 turns is all they have going for them. (read: my team could be dead before the final tick of that DOT!)
The successful delayed damage heros all have something else going for them:
Azlar/Colen: hits EVERYONE
Natalya: Locks down mana
Morgan: life drain and def boost vs fire.
Maybe there’s a theme that Marjana/Kelile/Nashgar could reduce defense to red while the burn is going on? Or that Sartana reduces def to dark while the poison is ticking?
Are you guys really suggesting for marjana and sartana to get buffed? Lol
Ok defence I find the extremely effective, the 20% attack boost, making them one shot some 4 stars and if they don’t the DOT will get em, on attack they are great aswell
Getting hit by a level 80 Nat is pretty much a death sentence with the slow mana, especially a green hero. If you have a curing hero Azlar/Colen can be dealt with but Nat just ruins your day all day if she fires her special off. If they were to have her dot finish off any quicker she would be hella OP imho. People can try to tell yah a healer can nullify Nat but guess what color has all the good healers for the most part and any Nat user will almost always fire the first shot at any healer so…
One elegant solution I like is to have the first instance of damage happen immediately, rather than after one full turn. This would make the DoT more threatening, especially for heroes with no immediate damage like Natalya and Locke.
Yes, less rounds of DoT for more damage is also a option but I’m more for the cool/unique factor
If the poison damage could result underpowered a buff to the direct damage could solve the issue.
Rather than make it incurable, or increase in damage over time - poison should instead have an effect. And it could be different depending on the character but as poison courses through the veins perhaps it causes a steadily increasing blindness, or a defense debuff that grows over time.
To me there’s nothing wrong with the way the poison damage works just that it does not feel like a poison
