Brass Curtain, a T4 Gun item (An upgrade to Split Shot + Burst Fire)

[blijebij]

Hi, I've been workshopping an idea for a while of an item that combines Burst Fire (T3) and Split Shot (T2).
My reasoning:

1. A lack of variety in T4 items that aid in gun debuffing playstyles. All the T4 items that give firerate are not very amazing for this job right now. As they are either too hero-specific (Healing Tempo, Spellslinger) or too specced into dealing damage and not usually worth it (Vampiric Burst, Shadow Weave, Spiritual Overflow). It's mostly just Ricochet that helps with this playstyle
2. Split shot is an active slot hog. For an item that is active for almost half of it's cooldown, it can be a huge pain to work around if you want to keep it into the late game. Especially if you are losing and need to buy a lot of counter-items.
3. Split shot doesn't build into anything. Therefore it also sees little use save for a few characters that benefit strongly from it (Paige, Vyper). An upgrade combining the two could see more creative use of the item.

The item idea:

• Make the Split Shot active buff a part of the Burst Fire buff. So when Burst Fire procs, you get the +5 multishot. This frees up an active slot.
• Increase the Burst Fire duration from 3.5s to 5s, putting it in-line with the Split Shot duration, and effectively increasing your overall firerate (as there is now only 2s of downtime with less fire-rate)
• (Option 1) Make the buff proc on neutrals/troops as well, keeping Split Shot's use as an effective farming and wave-clear tool.
• (Option 2) Increase the fire-rate buff by about 20%, the same amount as Swift Striker (since this item would effectively cost 1600 souls). This may be too powerful though

Potential problems with this idea:

• The synergy between split shot and express shot is lost (you may also view this as a good thing, as there is a bit of an over-reliance between the two)
• Might be too strong at clearing waves and farming, especially on characters that are already very good at that. (this is why i added the optional stats)
• May overshadow Ricochet (both for dealing damage and debuffing)

Let me know what you think!

 

[nathanieljbrill]

I like it!