Earthkin Defender Banner is pretty cool but kind of a meh

[Tarkus the dog]

Any Dota2 players in the chat? Maybe some other MOBAs or similar games with a similar mechanic?

You ever had the experience of lanning against Undying? Or maybe you had him as your support?

Remember that one team fight in the enemy ancients highground? Your Mars and Bane decide to smoke the enemy Spectre only to run into a highground Tombstone and get completely obliterated. Even your pos 2 Sniper showed up to the fight only to find himself auto-attack that thing for the entirety of it since nobody else bothered to. Yep, it was a disaster.

What the hell am I talking about, 95% of the people reading this might ask? Tombstone is a 85-70 second ability that summons an inanimate object ( very similar to earthkin defender's banner ). If you ignore it a huge fight, zombies spawn on top of you, slow you and you slowly die to them. It's stationary. You don't have to fight next to it - You can just go around it. But if your enemies are standing on top of it or there's something important there and you wanna kill them, you better make sure to destroy the tombstone. If you ignore it entirely, you probably lose the fight. The Tombstone takes anywhere from 5-7 basic attacks to destroy ( depending on the level of the ability ). Later in the game, ( if Undying reaches level 25 ), it can take 13 attacks, but at that point your carry sits on a lot of attack speed so it's not an issue. So early game, two people focusing the tombstone is enough to destroy it in time -- Call it equivalent to a single round in NWN. One person focusing it, maybe two rounds -- Probably enough time for somebody to be dead on your team, so not very ideal. Three rounds if the poor lad is a support.

But imagine of the enemy carry walks up, bonks it twice, and the thing dies. Undying makes his best "Why are we still here, just to suffer" expression and rage breaks his items. That's how I feel about ED's Banner. Not one bit fun.

(Nerdy Dota2 Talk Skip Button:) Earthkin Defender's Banner is a dope Snuggybear ability that, unfortunately, is really not that worth it to take ( or more accurately, to invest into ). You'll probably take it on a support ED sure, since you're supporting anyway and have nothing better to take, but there's very little incentive to do this on your average ED build. First you need to get your CHA to 13, meaning no shield dwarves allowed and less AB for your character, second you need to invest 2 normal ED feats and one epic. Third, this thing is not crit immune. I mean, it's a Banner? Shouldn't it be crit immune? One flurry ( 1-3 seconds ), from any melee is all it takes to destroy it -- Or 3 seconds from an archer. Kind of demotivating. Your best bet using this thing is hoping that the enemy doesn't know what it does, and if they do, then it's just not a worthy investment.

"What the Hell, Nik, this isn't Dota2??? Go away with your game-breaking mechanics." Okay, you make an interesting point. Still, wouldn't it be nice if the ED players had more incentive to pick the feat? Yes, it's pretty strong, but it's meant to be strong. It costs a solid investment to get it, it's stationary on a solid cooldown. Why not make it a little bit more tanky, or at the very least tankier but less powerful?

Please let me know what you think. Any developer insight also always welcome.

[Bunnysmack]

While it does sound like the ability's banner needs some more HP or DR based on what you just said, I will play devil's advocate and point out that just about every inanimate object in the game is vulnerable to crits. They are immune to sneak attacks, but crits are fair game. This is true even for giant nodes of granite. Does critting inanimate objects make sense as a conceptual theme? Eh...Maybe not, but it is a trait that is uniform to the rest of the game's mechanics.

[Tarkus the dog]

While it does sound like the ability's banner needs some more HP or DR based on what you just said, I will play devil's advocate and point out that just about every inanimate object in the game is vulnerable to crits. They are immune to sneak attacks, but crits are fair game. This is true even for giant nodes of granite. Does critting inanimate objects make sense as a conceptual theme? Eh...Maybe not, but it is a trait that is uniform to the rest of the game's mechanics.

Good to know this, thanks.

[Bunnysmack]

You're welcome. I learned this out of desperation when trying to mine ore on my first ever Arelith character: A Rogue. This was prior to the introduction of mining pickaxe and gem hammer, and though his blades struggled a lot at it, rapier crits helped get some progress at smashing the coal nodes.

[Good Character]

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth for some reason. I think all of its weaknesses compiled together make it unsatisfying to use.

1. EKD is built on high ability scores unrelated to CHA.
2. It's stationary but also destructible.
3. It's got physical immunity but also only has 100 HP.
4. It's stationary but also has a relatively long cooldown (in comparison to a Valiant Knight's Rallying Cry, which is nearly the same in bonuses).
5. It requires 3 feats.

Banner should be based around Leadership rather than CHA. The cooldown should be able to be reduced with the EKD full plate and/or the Banner should last 30 seconds and the CD be 1 minute.

[The Magical Space Papa]

Banner needs to have a higher radius or ekd needs a new ability on par with banner and needs to not be behind a charisma req, shield dwarves can't be standard bearers? This ability is amazing and could just work more as something similar to spirited charge to give it a kill potential and add ab to fights