6.64 - The Visage remake proposal
Posted by The DS Prince on December 13th, 2009 | Visited 11869 times, 8 so far todaySMM and Asians, in particular, have been a huge waking-up to the Dota community about two weeks ago, and by now I believe you know one of the reasons: Visage the Necro’lic.
The reasons behind Visage’s recent success is not within the purview of this blog post (just refer to the below links if you missed the action), but behind the more obvious proposal by the frog to remake Visage and the discussion threads surrounding the issue, we need to remember that the frog remade Visage in 6.49 before, because he was perceived to be too hard to use by leaguers. Then shortly after in 6.52, he went into mainstream league, reasons given including his revenants’ map awareness (they had great vision range). Since then the frog tried to tweak his revenants so that they would not be good scouts, but the unintended effect had to be Visage keeping his bats with himself, thus massively strengthening Visage’s DPS, which lends itself to the DPSgeddon phenomenon today.
Today the remake proposal is because he is perceived to be too strong, but really is the problem just because of Visage alone?
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Behind the frog’s proposal lies an indirect admission that the Euro/US Dota leaguers have been giving themselves so much disproportionate attention, while grossly ignoring Asian perspectives at the same time. However last year’s ESWC which was held in the US itself already showed that Asian leaguers are not to be trifled with, at least on LAN. Due to the massive geographical chasm between the two blocs it is commonly assumed that what holds for Euro/US teams is not really so for Asians, vice versa. But when the Asian and the Euro/US blocs met this time, as before the latter had many things to learn from the Asians again.
Needless to say, by asking for feedback on a Visage remake the frog is admitting that he himself is also shocked by what happened in SMM, to say the least.
As some Asians would say, this is karma in the making, karma for ignoring an alternative perspective of Dota, and the hero so specially chosen for the karmic action was Visage, a hero specially regarded by Asians themselves. I’m not trying to bootlick Asian leaguers, but consider the fact that many Asians have always been tuned in to the action at the Euro/US side. Could the same be said of the Euro side? Perhaps, but not on the same level as what the Asians have been doing.
The Asians have a hidden gem of wisdom, and this is proven openly again for the second time. KKY says that Asians > Europe, and it was speculated for that reason that he left MYM (only to join BFB which nevertheless does consist of Asians too).
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By “remaking” Visage the Asian wonder, we can safely say that what the frog is looking for is to actually make the hero DPS-ly weaker while trying to pass it off as interesting at the same time. WE wonder, will the Dota community truly have a wake-up call or not? Will merely tweaking a favorite of the Asians really change anything? As the PD database for Visage says, he is after all, unusual. Something will happen over the next few weeks, I’m sure, but once again I’m thinking if it has to take another SMM or ESWC to test the wake-up call.
In the meantime, someone has taken up the Visage remake challenge in PD already.
Missed the action? Here’s the links:
- DS Visage remake discussion
- PD Visage remake thread by Icefrog
- KKY’s blog post that Asians > Europe
- Visage remake post by Heelz
December 13th, 2009 at 1:26 am
Shouldn’t the title be 6.65?
But yeh, Visage is way strong. He’s like a ranged version of Spectre with little helpers to increase his potential.
But he is hell boring to watch and play. That’s all I can say about that.
December 13th, 2009 at 1:35 am
6.64 is to indicate the current version of Dota which the blog post is based on. Things could become historically important
December 13th, 2009 at 4:51 am
All of Razor, Medusa, Visage and many other SMM heroes have been too much useful. I don’t think changing only Visage can do the stuff. I’m expecting a lot of changes in the next version.
By the way, who is Heelz? Any particular reason you referred to his post?
December 13th, 2009 at 6:44 am
6.65 is gonna be pretty interesting as a whole. I’m expecting some rather large changes to heroes and game play. I’m looking for a complete overhaul of Gravekeeper’s Cloak and perhaps some minor changes to his Revenants
December 13th, 2009 at 7:46 am
Razer and Medusa and definitely not as powerful as Visage. They are particularly strong in terms of lane control and turtling tactics, but they are easier to be dealt with than Visage. They dont have imba map awareness or DPS. They could use a little nerfing, but anything beyond that is not necessary
December 13th, 2009 at 9:37 am
to phoenix:
Nope, no particular reason naming names. It’s merely the thread starter that’s all.
December 13th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Visage CAN be countered by some heroes, such as Medusa, and Razor. Both can effectively beat him in a lane and during a teamfight. Euls and Purge both remove Chill. So while I can see the need to remove/remake cloak, Revenants are hardly an issue, they can be a liability for Visage.
December 14th, 2009 at 4:48 am
instead on focusing on making a single hero less useful
how about making other heroes more useful in leagues?
techies for instance? how about making him last well in late game?
just like how you did with nerubian weaver! he’s more useful now!
try to make things better than make things less.
December 14th, 2009 at 6:41 am
For me the only problem for Visage is his 1st skill and he is int but he doesnt need those mana. So why not make him agi?..
The hero (for me) that should be reworked is Luna. She is a strong hero but the orb effect items are just too annoying. They should rework her 3rd skill. That skill is not really that useful for me. Her eclipse also (for me) needs to be reworked. It should only hit heroes no creeps and has a higher cooldown. With that, now guides here would say she is a silly hero and she now can kill better without those orb effect things.
December 14th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
@shadow shaman
Luna is gank food and a typical pub hero. No point of remaking her.
@topic
It would be real nice to see visage being remake.
December 15th, 2009 at 8:34 am
About 2 years ago, when i was learning dota, visage was one of my favourite heroes. I was concerning the fact of a possible remake of him as a disaster!!
But now i think that a reamake wouldn’t be bad, because he is a bit boring to play. He actually has one active skill (a slow) and all he does is keep farming with his army. He is one of the best farmers in the game. I can easily achieve a Radi within 15 mins if i dont move from my lane.
If i have a look over visage, i find that he is a bizzare hero. His skills give him nothing permanent. His 3rd skill makes him harder to take down, though it cant make him as tough as a strength hero. His 2nd skill is perfect for lane control, but other than that, it does almost nothing. And his first skill is a small, long-durated slow, that sometimes is just not enough to let u do ur job!
And except from these facts, after having seen several hero remakes, i think that his skills have become a little “old-fashioned”, don’t you think???
December 15th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Obviously by his use in SMM his skills are NOT outdated.
December 21st, 2009 at 4:35 pm
I think he’s one of the most underrated heroes. Last night I played a game with him and rushed a heart. From then on I was an insane tank and added vanguard, treads, mekansm, skadi, and euls(for disable so I could micro revs over). Granted I was 3-4 lvls above the other team, it still took all 5 just to get me below 30% hp. And this is with the new nerfed HoT
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
remake visage? hmmm i think he is not so bad but there could be some changes of his second and reduce his third skill like 5% on first lvl… oh yeah and incrase the first spell a bit ^^
January 7th, 2010 at 5:05 am
Visage is way too boring………. all of his skills require no thinking and his stragety is non-existent =.= make him a more fun hero