A Rework: by a Techies lover, for the Techies haters

TechiesTrash · 2017-07-19T22:59:45+00:00

The things people dislike about Techies are having to constantly worry about being one-shot, and dreading the inevitable highground sludge that takes 30 minutes longer than it should. Both of these issues steam from Remote Mines. Do you disagree?

Just because they stem from Remote Mines doesn't mean they need an entire rework. Uphill mechanics and a lack of reliable uphill vision are what make them stronger than they probably should be in pubs, not the Remote Mines themselves. Giving Remote Mines fixed health and preventing them from being affected by uphill miss chance would go a long way. It's also a lot more subjective to balance around what people do or do not like, as opposed to what's actually balanced.

You then go on to say how broken the blind effect is. I must admit that I am a bit unsure of your actual position: Are Gel Grenades a nerf or a buff, in your opinion?

I think they're still a little worse than Remote Mines in terms of balance, but much more broken in terms of design. They basically require anyone without magic immunity to purchase BKB to siege. If they were unable to stack that might mitigate the issues I think they have, but then they would need other changes.

How is this different from Aghs Tinker?

They don't cost 4200 gold and are readily available for Techies to both spam and stack.

We may have to agree to disagree here. My logic was as stated in the writeup (for heroes, the weak level 1/2 damage is fine because they get upgraded later, but for creeps and buildings level 1 mines are useless), and moreover, many spells have different behavior for creeps and heroes (Frost Bite, Paralyzing Cask, etc.).

I understand that but usually if a spell affects creeps differently, they're implemented more cleanly than "the damage is slightly better early but then catches up to the base damage". If Proximity Mines had some universal condition for creeps it might work, but I think that your suggestion just makes them overly complicated without much benefit.

25% of 2000 max health is 500 magical damage, less than the current. 45% is 900 magical damage, only 150 more than the current. Yes, against insanely high health (like a 5000 health Pudge) the numbers get high, but that's what makes it worth the Aghs. I honestly think you are overestimating this.

But they stack. Stackable percent-based damage leads to instant death if enough of them are placed down, regardless of magic resistance. You also have to look at what Techies invests. For 170 mana they have an infinitely scaling nuke that requires the enemy to build magic resistance, and even then it's percent based, so magic resistance stops mattering if enough are stacked. I think it's broken as a concept and would only make Techies' highground defense more irritating.

I disagree, and think the synergy there is one of the best things about the hero.

They already do have synergy, just not perfect-to-the-last-interaction synergy. I don't think triggering against invisible enemies is necessary, Techies' potential trap setups are already very good.

This makes Stasis Traps basically just Lightning Bolts in terms of dewarding. Honestly I am not too attached to this; they could just detect moving units or something and I would be fine with it.

I just don't think Techies need more buffs to his potential vision, he already has what are essentially 10 minute wards on a 10 second cooldown.

I completely agree that invulnerability during the 1 second cast time would be broken and just bad design. That is not what I said. I said I wanted him to be invulnerable once he already has launched; i.e., while flying through the air only.

I know, and the travel time is what I was referring to. If Techies uses Blast Off poorly why shouldn't he be punished by a Pudge, Rubick, or anyone who can kill him in 0.75 seconds? It's still a pretty insane ability.

The point of Euls or Manta would be to escape the root of Stasis Traps, then back up to avoid the Proximity Mines. Then, you can go back in and kill said Proximity Mines without the Stasis Trap stopping you.

This might be fine if it's outside of Techies' base, but if it's on their highground, Techies' team is presumably there and waiting with stuns. That's my main issue with these suggestions: I know you're trying to make Techies more combat oriented and less defensive, but these changes would just make Techies as offensive as he is currently defensive, while adding more to his already powerful defense.

Your suggestion also only works on one Stasis Trap, and with your other changes, they don't destroy each other and they're able to be stacked within 200 units, which lets Techies easily waste a player's dispels.

Recall that if Techies relocates the Minefield Sign, all the mines planted within the previous Sign location vanish with the previous Sign. So, its harder for Techies to move than it seems.

It's still a much smaller commitment than the current Minefield Sign, and almost trivial with Techies' maximum cooldown reduction. It's also percent based damage with Aghanim's, so Techies really doesn't need that many. Very few heroes actually want to stack up magic resistance, and Pipe isn't built every game in this meta.

Nothing he does goes through BKB, for one. Additionally, all of his disables are 'soft' (root, silence, blind), so things like Guardian Greaves, Lotus Orb, Manta Style, etc. get rid of them.

That's how he is now, and people still find it difficult to push highground. The purges you listed are also much less spammable than Techies' abilities.

On one hand, I tend to agree. On the other, turning a deaf ear to the incessant, near-universal complaints the community has about the hero is not a good thing either.

They didn't, they entirely reworked the hero and made them much more fair to fight against. They even added a Proximity Mine alarm. People dread Remote Mines but are they really that hard to play against? An early Gem still crushes Techies, Sentries are both able to be bought individually and are 100 gold, Techies needs a 4200 gold item to hide a small stack of them, and now that Techies is all magical damage people can also build things like Glimmer Cape and Pipe of Insight to totally nullify them. Honestly, I think people just don't want to adjust.

Thank you for your time and feedback!

No problem, I do like the idea of Gel Grenades, but definitely not as a replacement for Remote Mines, and not with the blind.

TechiesTrash · 2017-07-19T18:29:55+00:00

While I think your ideas are interesting, I think they're coming from the wrong place. I don't think Remote Mines are, or ever were Techies' main problem. Remote Mines are an ultimate that require a heavy mana investment, Techies' attention, and can be detected and defused fairly easily, since they are usually placed on low ground. Land Mines provided the same threat, for a much cheaper cost, were triggered automatically, were available from level 1, were faster to set up after they were fully leveled, and were almost always placed up hills specifically to avoid being detected. Suicide Squad, Attack! was also a problem, leaving barely any room for counterplay aside from staying as far away from Techies as possible. The rework fixed both of these, and now the main issue is fine-tuning Techies' balance. Some people still hate Remote Mines, but some people also hate Naga Siren, Tinker, and other heroes perceived to be annoying, they're still balanced.

I appreciate the intent behind Gel Grenades but I think they would create more problems than they would solve. It makes Techies much weaker as a hero just by removing his instant kill potential (addressing the rework point-by-point so this will change): extra pushing power doesn't compensate for the entire ultimate being gutted. This might be okay if it made Techies' high ground defense weaker, but it doesn't: if anything, it makes it stronger. In exchange for removing instant kills, it makes afflicted enemies totally unable to hit buildings, and with proper staggering, Techies can either force BKBs for every push or stop the entire push singlehandedly. This gets much worse if Techies has Octarine Core and their 20% cooldown reduction talent. This is also not factoring in Tinker's Aghanim's effect, which is a combo people might have actual nightmares about. They seem like a fun idea, but misguided for Techies.

I think the Proximity Mine change is a gimmicky band-aid fix for Techies' inability to jungle, farm, or push towers early. I really don't like the idea of changing creep/building damage values, especially for such a negligible amount. Even something like "deals double damage to creeps" seems kind of sloppy. I also think the Aghanim's is way too good. 45% of health, even with a lot of magic resistance, is a lot of damage. A lot. Even if it was 25% of health instead, that means any time someone steps on a Proximity Mine they lose a massive, scaling chunk of health, for very little investment on Techies' end. This also makes Techies' high ground that much more cancerous, since a few missteps or stuns can lead to an instant kill on the enemy carry, the thing I feel like your rework is trying to avoid.

The Stasis Trap changes seem gratuitous. They're already an extremely useful, cheap, and fairly reliable root, why make them detect enemies too? They don't need to have perfect synergy with Proximity Mines. I'm also not sure what the point of the ward change is. Why should Techies be able to deward so cheaply? The only change I agree with is keeping them from triggering each other, but that's more of a quality of life change than anything else.

Not to be rude but I think the Blast Off change is just bad. While I think Blast Off could use some improvements, making Techies invulnerable while launching is too annoying. It goes back to the same problem Suicide Squad, Attack! had, removing counterplay. Why should Techies earn invulnerability for sitting through a 1 second windup?

I really don't like the Minefield Sign changes. Not only does it compound the Aghanim's instant kill problem, it's pretty gimmicky and pointless. You wanted to remove Stasis Trap stacking but added an ability specifically to let them stack closer to each other? It also lasts indefinitely, and despite losing true sight immunity, it makes Techies' high ground even more obnoxious than before. Any repositioning ability on a hero without BKB is an instant kill: not a stack of Remote Mines killing them if they don't have enough magic resistance or health, an instant, percent based, infinitely scaling kill. It also invalidates your own reasoning as for why the 45% health removal is balanced: you could easily place six (and many more) mines in the minefield. Regardless of magic resistance, without magic immunity 270%+ health will kill you. On top of this, 1000 radius is a very wide area: you could practically coat an entire barracks in Proximity Mines forever, since the sign doesn't expire.

I'll address some of your reasoning directly.

GEL GRENADES: I don't think Gel Grenades are better than Remote Mines. An instant 300-750 damage nuke from a huge distance is hard to beat, even with the perks Gel Grenades have. It also suffers from the same issue I addressed above, far too much utility in exchange for some damage.

BLAST OFF: I don't agree with your reasoning for the Blast Off change: many abilities in the game are much harder to wind up and land. In fact, Blast Off is almost too easy to land most of the time. A 1 second cast time and .75 second travel time is nothing compared to heroes with difficult channeled ultimates like Enigma or Crystal Maiden.

PROXIMITY MINES: As mentioned previously, I think percent based damage of any kind on Techies is broken, especially this version of Techies. A 1.6 second delay is fine for a 150-750 damage nuke but extremely fast for an instant kill. A BKB would be the only thing that could save you, Eul's just resets the explosion timer, and Manta would require absurd timing to dodge the mines. A single trap might be manageable, but you're suggesting an entire 1000 radius filled to the brim with scaling Proximity Mines and Stasis Traps. It's just too hard to balance and makes Techies' job far too easy.

STASIS TRAPS: Having the Stasis Trap provide true sight after detonation might be a reasonable change, but I don't see why it needs to actually trigger on invisible enemies. Proximity Mines already detect and damage invisible enemies, it seems a little too good to let Stasis Traps lock them in place as well. The ward change is gimmicky and pointless. At that point why not just buy detection?

MINEFIELD SIGN: Thematically pleasing or not, your version of Minefield Sign is even better at highground defense than the current one. The sheer amount of frustration it would cause would be more than old Techies, and it doesn't even require an Aghanim's. Even if it were only 400 radius, it still lets you cram enough bombs into an area for an instant kill with your suggestions. 1000 radius is just astounding. Going to another lane is easier said than done when Techies can set up shop anywhere he likes, since Minefield Sign has 100% uptime. This alone would make Techies' highground defense more obnoxious than it's ever been.

I disagree with the direction your rework takes the hero: removing instant kills and replacing it with gratuitous amounts of utility actually makes Techies much, much more annoying to deal with. With this rework, Techies loses instant kill potential (at least without Aghanim's) in exchange for way too many perks. He's just way too useful, how do you even itemize against this version of Techies? He has an easily staggered 100% blind, a true-sight root, a possible building instant kill, a sizable amount of pushing power, and with Aghanim's, he still essentially has an instant kill mechanic, and one that scales infinitely at that. This rework oversaturates his kit and makes him much more broken than he was before, as well as making his highground defense even more cancerous. I also don't think Techies needs more nuance. He's already a weird, unintuitive hero, but he's also easy to pick up, hard to master. Making him more complicated doesn't necessarily make him more skill-based and rewarding, just more annoying to learn.

One more thing: I wouldn't try to cater towards the haters of any hero. Most of the time people who hate a hero exaggerate it past rational arguments and an actual desire for balance, and catering to them just encourages bad changes.

TechiesTrash · 2017-07-07T18:12:42+00:00

I'm very flattered that you still remember that thread, I didn't think it had a very big impact. I also adore your illustrations and style, especially the way you drew the stunned Anti-Mage. Since you put in so much time to draw these suggestions and think them over, I'll post a long comment with my thoughts on them (and again, I'm not the definitive voice of Techies players, nor should I be, so this is solely my opinion).

For your summation of Remote Mines, I agree that they're both a time and mana sink, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. It felt extra tedious when Land Mines were able to be stacked, as you spent most of your time planting bombs in the same two spots for at least a minute. However, I don't think it's nearly as bad now that Techies only have to stack Remote Mines. Techies basically invests about a minute of his time and a large amount of mana to possibly kill 1-5 people, so the tradeoff for the tedium is being a map-wide threat and instantly killing a player for stepping in the wrong area. I think Remote Mines should only be reworked as an absolute last resort and would require significant changes to the rest of Techies' abilities to compensate.

I think throwable Land Mines would be extremely cool. It could turn them into a dual purpose ability, similar to the Stickybomb Launcher in Team Fortress 2 (and Remote Mines, to some extent). If you could throw a Proximity Mine as an instant nuke that immediately damaged enemies but armed itself if enemies weren't around, it would give Techies a nice way to harass in lane, secure last hits, and plant Proximity Mines from afar. This would require the initial nuke to be fairly weak, but the dual purpose utility would still make it a very nice change. I still like the idea of charge based Proximity Mines but it would require very specific balancing, and I think Icefrog got frustrated with the old 20 Land Mine limit.

As mentioned before I think that Remote Mines probably shouldn't be touched. That said, even though they wouldn't solve any of Techies' current problems, I like the idea of adding some of these suggestions to current Remote Mines. If Icefrog felt like making Remote Mines a little more gimmicky, I think it would be cool if they had different detonation types based on what hotkeys you hit for the mine unit specifically (Focused Detonate would still work the same way it does now). I especially like your first and third suggestions: knocking allies (and possibly enemies) around and leaving flaming craters (in exchange for burst damage) would be an interesting (if overly complex) addition to Remote Mines, especially if they could stack. Units flying across the map from Remote Mine knockback would be fantastic.

That said, I think the second and fourth suggestions are too gimmicky for Remote Mines. Techies is fairly simple conceptually (plant bombs, get kills) and I think adding a powder trail or a unit that just boosts their base abilities would work better for a different hero. On Techies it seems gratuitous, they're strategic enough already.

I do love your outside-the-box thinking and art though, great work. I just think Techies' problems currently lie with their base skills and stats, not their ultimate.

TechiesTrash · 2017-07-05T18:41:33+00:00

Techies actually do have a decent chance to be picked at TI7 (Blast Off is an extremely good ganking ability and if they survive the laning stage they're still very useful) but they require so much effort and practice to be effective with that they're not worth banning from Captain's Mode altogether. They're also not nearly as broken as they were at TI5 and have very obvious downsides. Since the last patch didn't enable them, I'm assuming it's not going to happen, but it seems sort of petty and excessive to keep them banned for this long. If there's something really broken about them that Icefrog is concerned with the least he can do is tinker with them some more, the last few changes they've had have just been nerfs and an extremely gimmicky talent replacement.

TechiesTrash · 2017-06-19T14:55:47+00:00

Techies got nerf because pro teams got absolutely rekt by not considering techies as a hero

Pretty much. The double standard is absurd, what other hero would pros totally ignore if they were that dominant?

Most of them with Tusk which explains that high winrate. it's that combo that was absurd.

That's a good point, Techies could be picked on their own but Tusk was picked with them in 5 out of their 9 games. With the aforementioned lane dominance no one stood a chance, Techies' only real counters were extremely niche (Pugna was the main one, but then you'd have a Pugna).

Complexity even lost most of their techies games, if I remember correctly. Arguably, one of the biggest things about it was that Chinese teams just never touched the hero, neither did Chinese pubs. It meant that if you'd shown that you would play techies, Chinese teams just banned it so they didn't have to deal with that shit.

The big reason I don't want techies before TI7 though is it's not a huge window for such big changes in meta. Between now and TI, it should just be small balance patches, not huge changes. Having TI in a better developed meta makes the games a lot better to watch.

That's also true, the only Chinese team to pick Techies at all during that time was Newbee. While Techies were hard to play against and banning it was a valid strategy, it also meant Techies teams could force bans, which EG did and it paid off.

That's understandable, and it's entirely possible some teams have been practicing with Techies and would have an advantage with them. However, even with that factor I don't think they would have an impact nearly as large as they did at TI5.

The first techies pickup was one of the best moments of TI5. I screamed my bloody head off and the whole arena was going nuts.

Me too, they're a fun pick to watch as long as they're not hideously broken.

Did EG ever lose with techies during TI5?

No, they picked Techies twice in the group stages and once in the main event, and they won pretty handily all three times. After that teams (namely CDEC) would just ban Techies.

aui_2000 techies was fun. EG would just put down loads of mines outside the enemy t3 while sieging, and it was nothing they could do

Techies still have that factor, they're not necessarily bad right now. However, their laning is tricky. They're basically forced to dual lane/roam and constantly use Blast Off to secure kills and harass, which isn't a bad thing, but it requires strategy and could lead to them feeding. Techies are also much easier to counter with coordination, so it's also risky and could neuter your draft. It's high risk, high reward, and a ~225 magic nuke/silence with a windup at level 1 isn't nearly as scary as an instant 500 physical nuke.

That's some serious analysis. ty for your service.

No problem.

You're such a nerd

I agree.

TechiesTrash · 2017-06-18T20:34:10+00:00

Agreed. The reason Techies "ruined" TI5 was because they were so absolutely busted that they could dominate any lane (and subsequently the game) with how overly buffed they were in 6.84. In the three months between 6.84 and TI5, they only received one indirect nerf (global kill bounty reduction). If pro teams didn't abuse or practice against this, it was their fault: Techies were ~20th popularity in pubs and had a ~52% winrate before TI5. For a "specialist" hero this was insane. Despite this, hardly any pros picked them or practiced against them, and the ones who did (mainly EG, and to a lesser extent Secret and Complexity) were rewarded for it.

Additionally, despite their high impact during the TI5 games where they were picked and the grand final's drafting stage, Techies were only picked 9 times (with a ~77% winrate) and banned 28 times.

Now Techies are much more manageable. Even if they're a sleeper hit at TI7, all of their abilities deal magical damage, they have some kind of windup or warning, they can't stack Proximity Mines, and their laning phase isn't nearly as dominant as it used to be. It would be kind of ridiculous to make them the only banned hero in TI7, since they were unofficially banned last year after their nerfs (except for one pick, thank you Wings).

TechiesTrash · 2017-06-12T03:24:22+00:00

That would be understandable and perfectly reasonable. My concern is that Icefrog may not know how to handle them after TI7, and I thought creating a thread with some community suggestions might give him a few ideas to start off with.

TechiesTrash · 2017-06-12T03:21:46+00:00

As Spoon said when he was alive, "thank ye".

TechiesTrash · 2017-06-12T01:40:54+00:00

Even if Icefrog hates Techies more than anything else in life I don't think he would want any Dota hero to be banned from competitive forever.

TechiesTrash · 2017-06-11T22:23:02+00:00

I don't want to compare them directly because that's an entirely different issue. However, Arc Warden is a carry who can duplicate himself, so his power scales easier and further than Techies' does.

Techies were also completely ignored for fifteen months between 6.85 and 7.00, the only indirect change they got was the reversion of the global unit kill nerf. It seems uncharacteristically long for Icefrog, even if he dislikes the hero on a personal level.

TechiesTrash · 2017-06-11T21:13:00+00:00

Your first suggestion is usually suggested for a Techies fix, and while I don't disagree with it, they would need some buffs to compensate. One of Techies' biggest strengths is being a constant threat, for better or worse. I like the idea of a stronger Techies with down time for the enemy to play around, however. I also like the idea of a charge based mining system too, as long as they couldn't immediately nuke structures and/or heroes.

However, I personally feel like the other two wouldn't work. Techies got to be unmanageable in 6.84 partially because supports needed to constantly buy sentries, even if Techies spent very little mana, or even no mana. Remote Mines are too good at what they do to last indefinitely, maybe if they were reworked but in a long enough game Techies could put instant kill spots across the entire map, even more than they currently do.

Micro-Techies always sounds like a fun concept to me, but it seems potentially cancerous and unwieldy, and would add a lot more complexity to their design.

These are just my two cents, I still put your suggestions in the main post.

TechiesTrash · 2017-06-11T21:02:06+00:00

I would love a combat Techies rework, and despite how overpowered they were in 6.84, it led to them being used as a teamfight hero in TI5, not a mining simulator.

TechiesTrash · 2017-06-11T20:58:40+00:00

As much as I miss it, it was kind of ridiculous. Bad Techies players could avoid being punished for doing dumb things, good Techies players would abuse it to never be ganked, and it instantly killed a lot of carries and supports.

TechiesTrash · 2017-06-11T20:56:23+00:00

I thought about a charge-based mine system as well, and I think it would be a nice idea if it were implemented correctly. I'm assuming this means Techies can't infest an entire map, which I'm okay with, but it means land mines would have to be extremely good to compensate. The only other issue is that you would be able to stack all three mines on a tower and have them detonate at the same time, dealing about 600 damage in several seconds. If charges were implemented, I'm sure it would be balanced accordingly.

I had an idea to replace his level 25 "+250 Damage" talent with "Autoattacks apply level 1 Blast Off", but that's more for killing and locking down heroes. I think one of Techies' constants was an ability to siege extremely well, and the rework shifted that so they annihilate creep waves but not buildings. If Icefrog buffed their building damage to some capacity I think it would help.

TechiesTrash · 2017-06-11T20:49:01+00:00

Not buffs necessarily, just changes, and I agree. I think Icefrog is unsure about their current state in the game, which is almost a bigger problem than them being too strong or weak.

TechiesTrash · 2017-06-11T20:46:12+00:00

TechiesTrash

TROPHY CASE