Here my ideas to make Highlander a strong hero instead of weak one because all heroes need to be strong for balancing
HIGHLANDER
- Health points has been increased to 130 HP ( from 125 HP)
- Stamina has been increased to 140 (from 120)
- Running speed has been increased to 7m/s (from 5.5m/s)
DEFENSIVE FORM
New moveset
Pommel Strike
- Backward + guard break (600ms) (unblockable)
- Guaranteed light attack after a successful pommel strike and allow you to enter in Offensive Form after the light attack
Bear Claw
- Forward dodge + Light Attack = Top Light
- (Undodgable) (600ms) (without Superior Block) (not enhanced)
- Deal 15 damages
Donn Cúailnge charge
- Forward dodge + guard break = Kick
- (500ms) (Unblockable)
- Guaranteed a Light attack finisher on a successful hit (Allow you to enter in Offensive Form after Light Attack)
Sleight of hand
- Side dodge + heavy attack
- (600ms)
- Deal 15 damages
Light Attacks
- Second light attack is now enhanced
- Uninterruptible Stance on second Light Attack [Removed]
- New animations for the second light attack
Heavy Attacks
- Top heavy attack opener speed has been reduced to 900ms (from 1000ms)
- Side heavy attack opener speed has been reduced to 833ms (from 1000ms)
- Heavy attack finishers speed has been increase to 700ms (from 600ms)
- Heavy attack finishers Uninterruptible Stance start at 400ms (from 300ms)
- New animations
Celtic Curse
- Celtic Curse cancel into Offensive Form has been removed, replaced by a Charging Top Heavy Attack (Unblockable) (900 - 1300ms) hard feintable
- Charging Top Heavy Attack deal 30 damages
- Left side attack speed has been reduced to 600ms (from 700)
- Top Heavy Attack can be hard feint
- Guard Break vulnerability window has been reduce to 400ms (from 500ms)
- The range of Celtic Curse has been slightly increased
- New animations
Sprint Attack
- First attack speed has been reduced to 666ms (from 900ms) and second attack speed to 700ms (from 1000ms)
Zone Attack
- Allows you to enter in Offensive Form after the first attack
- First attack speed has been reduced to 600ms (from 800ms), Second 633ms (from 900ms), Third 633ms (from 900ms)
- New animations
OFFENSIVE FORM
New moveset
Sneaky blade
- Side dodge + release heavy attack
- (800ms) (Unblockable) (hard feintable) (20 damages)
- Can be chain with Heavy attack finisher in Defensive Form
- Don't keep you in Offensive Form
- Reduced back dodge recoveries to 800ms (from 1000ms)
Enhanced Light
- Top light speed has been reduced to 466ms (from 500ms)
Balor's Might
- Hard feint window has been increased to 466ms (from 400ms)
Fomorian Kick
- The range of the kick has been slightly increased
- Neutral Kick can be hard feint but keep you in Offensive Form
- Can be cancel into Balor's Might
- The tracking of the kick has been slightly increased
- The Input delay to throw Balor's Might after missing your Kick has been decreased by 100ms
- Kick cancel into Caber Toss [Removed]
- Side dodge + Fomorian kick [Removed]
Caber Toss
- The neutral Caber Toss delay input to start has been reduced to 100ms (from 400ms)
That's it folks, I've removed a lot of unhealthy things, made changes and added some good tools to be able to deal with every heroes. Thanks for reading all of this and thanks for your feedbacks too.
[Updated / 09 / October / 2020]
Not a monster, just improved tools and a new one who will help him without being too strong. If you are talking about the Kick+Grab, it's very easy to counter except when you are OOS but it's not OP.Originally Posted by Ligatius Go to original post
the kick into grab mixup though effective is not really healthy imo (and i am playing highlander). It is in fact quite cheap, so that one would like to use the other parts of the tool kit to mix things up a little, but that is seldomly needed, the timing to defend from it is quite nasty for most people. I would really appreciate if he got other decent options to work with rather than a cancerous kick-grab mixup.
anyhow I found a lot of good and needed suggestestions there. I agree that he needs either more stamina or less stamina costs as he gets OOS way too quick. He needs more health, yes and he needs more running speed.
Generally speaking highlander is way too slow for the game right now, and therefore is bad at anti-ganking, defending against feint-baits due to slow *** start attack start ups and late very late hyper armor and has naturally issues with people sticking in his face especially when they have bash offense as they can bully him and tear him down without him being able to get access to his kick and quicker attacks himself.
In the following I am providing some thoughts on some of the listed points (not all of them):
Undodgeable property and pommelstrike softfeint on top celtic curse doesnt make sense in my eyes. If they are dodging/dodge attacking already you go for a hyper armor trade, which is nasty, if they are in neutral they cannot afford to go for a deflect as the pommel strike could come out and they cannot dodge early as they are about to get punished by a celtic curse anti dodge slam. Sounds quite cancerous to me as the situation forces the opponent has to stick in the situation and probably eat the pommelstrike or block the top heavy. That is too easy. I dont want that. Doesn't sound like fun to fight against.
Sprint attack - you have my blessings <3
Feint timing increase on balor's might - good one. Currently it is not a believable feint and hence does nothing. Any idea btw how we could actually give the softfeint into OF light from BM any purpose btw? It doesn't have the range and comes from the same side which could be easily blocked.
Light attacks - that's a given. It is so clear that those improvements have to be made.
Heavy attacks - sounds like solid suggestions. But I am not sure on the fast flow after a finisher though. I understand what you did there, as some max punishes are unsafe when using a finisher. But there need to be some gaps after which you know the sequence would be over. But on the other hand we have black prior, lawbringer, and warlord to name a few who are able to infinitely extent their chains by one linking move. So maybe that is the right move here as otherwise highlander would be left out again.
Zone attack - any improvements to the zone attack would be welcome. Would be nice if it wasn't only quicker but als would benefit from cent's treatment which made him able to switch targets in between strikes thus going a different direction with it that the previous opponent. I could imagine that to be quite useful on him in 1vX scenarios.
Fomorian kick - how is a softfeint to balor's might supposed to work technically? would also look goofy to balor's might softfeint into kick softeint into balor's might. I could image you would be aiming here to catch dodge attackers that react to the kick startup. Maybe if that would be thing then it would have to be made so that you release your heavy on kick startup that would trigger the softfeint and as a result cancel offensive stance. Guess that could work in a way.
Offensive Form - immune to GB on dodge? Could you elaborate more on that suggestion? Why you think that is needed or healthy even?
I think in general some links between the moves in OF could be polished a little more since they are a bit lack luster and a bit too long to respond. A little more responsive would help a bit more to actually set yourself up and react on what your opponent is going to do.
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I also think his forward movement / tracking on normal heavies needs to be improved a bit. So often in teamfights I find myself in second line throwing out something that should have connected for other characters but not for highlander who should have quite a reach with that long sword. It is especially terrible once one team mate is even slightly in the path then highlander never ever gets to the target because is too delicate and afraid to bumb into a friend -_-
@ Klingentaenz3r
Undodgeable property and pommelstrike softfeint on top celtic curse doesnt make sense in my eyes. If they are dodging/dodge attacking already you go for a hyper armor trade, which is nasty, if they are in neutral they cannot afford to go for a deflect as the pommel strike could come out and they cannot dodge early as they are about to get punished by a celtic curse anti dodge slam. Sounds quite cancerous to me as the situation forces the opponent has to stick in the situation and probably eat the pommelstrike or block the top heavy. That is too easy. I dont want that. Doesn't sound like fun to fight against.
You're right, I will remove this then. In my mind, it was a good tool for anti-gank and mind game but in 1v1 it's probably unfair. We can already use it on Heavy attacks so it can probably work with Heavy attacks only.
Heavy attacks - sounds like solid suggestions. But I am not sure on the fast flow after a finisher though. I understand what you did there, as some max punishes are unsafe when using a finisher. But there need to be some gaps after which you know the sequence would be over. But on the other hand we have black prior, lawbringer, and warlord to name a few who are able to infinitely extent their chains by one linking move. So maybe that is the right move here as otherwise highlander would be left out again.
Are you talking about Offensive Form after Heavy attacks finisher?
Fomorian kick - how is a softfeint to balor's might supposed to work technically? would also look goofy to balor's might softfeint into kick softeint into balor's might. I could image you would be aiming here to catch dodge attackers that react to the kick startup. Maybe if that would be thing then it would have to be made so that you release your heavy on kick startup that would trigger the softfeint and as a result cancel offensive stance. Guess that could work in a way.
I was not thinking about an infinite softfeint but another tool that forces an enemy player to react after a dodge, they will have time to parry but you can feint Balor's Might and guard break or parry if the ennemy don't feint. Fomorian kick into Balor's Might cannot continue with another softfeint.
Offensive Form - immune to GB on dodge? Could you elaborate more on that suggestion? Why you think that is needed or healthy even?
Since the latest patches, Highlander is vulnerable to guard break on everything in Offensive Form and this is one more brake on his best tool, already that he's rather easy to punish. Immune to guard break on dodge will help him to be more aggressive and less punishable. But we can't really know if it's too strong when we can't test it.
I also think his forward movement / tracking on normal heavies needs to be improved a bit. So often in teamfights I find myself in second line throwing out something that should have connected for other characters but not for highlander who should have quite a reach with that long sword. It is especially terrible once one team mate is even slightly in the path then highlander never ever gets to the target because is too delicate and afraid to bumb into a friend
Totally agree with that.
The reality is, the game is developing (gets faster and fights more fluent and attack oriented, while inputs get more smooth forgiving and without too much recoveries to make things more equally fair and less potentially one-sided) and some heroes such as Highlander are yet left mechanically behind and need updates or even reworks to get on par.Originally Posted by Sweaty_Sock Go to original post
It also does not make sense to have a hero revolve around one single tiny part of his kit while the other half is not usable and outright frustrating while the working part can be frustrating for the guy on the receiving end. Some part of his kit is too strong while the rest is quite terrible. It takes a lot of patience and skill to make it work and the demands on the player outclassing the other entirely in order to win are getting higher and higher as the game develops. And that only goes for duels. In all other modes he is weak because of all his mechanical flaws.
If you don't know or believe me/us just have a look at what the competitive scene has to say about HL. I'll mark some of the outstanding downsides he has.
Duels: OK - but has to be more defensive
"+ 400ms dodge recovery in offensive form allows for excellent turtling, and can cancel recovery into kick or light as very powerful dodge attacks, for excellent defence.
+ Can option select with backwalk superior block lights whilst being unparriable if baited, and chain HA to prevent whiff punishes
+ Offensive Stance lights are OK pressure tools, but have poor tracking against backdodges
+ High light parry punish and scary OOS pressure with kick/toss mix-up"
"- Difficulty entering OS, as backstep lights are punishable by fast bashes or forward dodge to light
- Other than low damage OS lights, has no offence, as every option can be rolled with stamina
- No dodge attack when in defensive stance, and 600ms light openers are terrible
- Extremely polarised match-ups, especially against characters with good dodge attacks that can negate his kick mix-up."
Brawls -Weak - Role: Damage Output
"+ High damage unblockables to punish recoveries
+ OS lights are good at interrupting, although have poor range
+ 400ms dodges keeps him safe if in Offensive Stance
+ Fast, high damage HA heavy finishers for trading if he can bait interrupt attempts"
"- Toothless if forced into defensive stance, superior lights are still easy parries if aimed at a different target.
- Struggles against opponents with short or cancelable recoveries"
Dominion -Weak Role Ganker/Mid
"+ Target swapped OS heavies do long range damage in team fights
+ Usable gank with Caber Toss confirmed on blockstun
+ Good feat selection"
"- Poor 1v1 kill potential against turtling opponents, poor 1vX, and useless in defensive stance
- Atrocious rotation speed"
Unhealthy Aspects:
"• Spear Storm does huge damage and is very hard to avoid
• Turtling playstyle is very unhealthy, with 40 damage dodge attacks
• Most polarised match-ups in the game"
That cannot stay that way. There has to be changes! And just that I point out the weaknesses more I am not blind to his strengths and how they should also be looked at closely.
Pretty decent most. Most i'm neutral on or agree with. Not sure about making some things GB invulnerable though. Overall I think you nailed most of defensive form's issues. It's really just too slow overall. I've sometimes thought that he might also benefit from at least one extra way to enter offensive form from his normal form. But i'm not sure if that's needed or how to do that personally. So I don't feel comfortable giving suggestions.
As far as offensive form goes I don't think it needs to be better defensively. So making his dodges better in anyway is a no go for me. I also don't think his kick into toss mix up really needs to be improved. Not sure if this was the "main" mix up Ubi intended to have or if they intended OF to even have a main mix up. But I think it serves as a good enough tool to use on someone who's OOS. And something to occasionally throw out there. Really the only defensive buff I can think of for OF that I would be fine with is giving good range to his OF lights. As in my untrained view of Highlander i've always looked at his OF lights as a way to poke. Not just to interrupt mix ups but also to mess with someone who's trying to look for a specific mix up/attack. Giving it some range means you can sort of test the waters and poke someone on occasion.
I think we can improve the range/tracking on Caber toss some in order to make the unblockable heavy soft feint into it better. And just make the raw move better. I've often thought about ways to sort of add in his taunt to have some sort of meaningful gameplay to his kit. Currently the taunt functions as sort of a bait on people who are just waiting for an animation. But that's less effective in higher brackets. The big brain play with it at those levels is using it to hide your guard switch change. What if we tried to replicate that same effect for his unblockables too? Something like making them hide the beginning portion of all animations? We could also try to add it into his soft feint options some how. Like instead of heavy soft feint into toss what if you could soft feint the heavy into the taunt to bait a reaction out of the opponent? Unsure how useful that would really be. I just think the taunt could be used a bit more without strictly turning it into a buff of some kind to his kit in a direct manner.
It's also quite a popular suggestion to introduce a new move into his OF. But idk what could possibly be put there that would be meaningful. Overall I sit in the camp that thinks most of what HL needs is minor tweaks to numbers instead of a grand rework. So the devs revisiting HL to me would be largely numerical changes, maybe a new way to enter OF from defensive form, and then maybe some way to make taunt functionally more interesting and useful to his kit without it being just a stat buff like speed/recovery increases.