TuxedoPrimo
New member
Curse, Post-rework
Ever since Curse got its active changed to remove all active buffs, the item has, for good reason, been perma-bought in most games. However, when the item is bought by 4/6 of the enemy team (which seems to be a fairly common occurrence), it leads to getting chain-cursed by 3-4 people in a row, so roughly 6-10 seconds of straight Curse in most cases (assuming you even live that long) and just effectively removes the Cursed character from the game. As a player who encounters this exact scenario frequently, I personally think this is just entirely unfun and super unhealthy for the game & its itemization.
Idea: Per-person cooldown similar to Silencer
To disincentivize spamming Curse, I believe the item needs a per-person cooldown similar to Silencer with its on-hit silence effect where there's a short window that you aren't able to reapply silence. Applying this same mechanic to Curse would prevent it from being spammed on one character and giving a more viable counterplay via Unstoppable so the affected player doesn't necessarily require a hard skill-check to dodge Curse (Curse's orb isn't super visually distinct and doesn't have any super detectable sound effects as it travels towards the player).
The gameplay scenario is the player gets cursed, (maybe) lives, and is able to cast Unstoppable during the short cooldown period to prevent a chain-curse.
How this buffs using other CC options alongside Curse
This change indirectly makes other CC like Knockdown, Vortex Web, or Capacitor a better option when one of your teammates already has Curse because those items don't share the same cooldown. Of course, the cooldown would only apply given that hero is actually Cursed so if the player dodges Curse by using an ability, Counterspell, or Unstoppable, the cooldown would not apply.
Noteworthy issues and Balance
An issue with this change is that Unstoppable gets indirectly buffed and would likely become must-buy for carry heroes. To compensate, the duration of Unstoppable's active buff might need to be shortened and Curse's active effect be lengthened (no more than 0.5 seconds each). But the feel of the durations for both active items would likely need tuned by community feedback.
Here's a few more bullet points:
Ever since Curse got its active changed to remove all active buffs, the item has, for good reason, been perma-bought in most games. However, when the item is bought by 4/6 of the enemy team (which seems to be a fairly common occurrence), it leads to getting chain-cursed by 3-4 people in a row, so roughly 6-10 seconds of straight Curse in most cases (assuming you even live that long) and just effectively removes the Cursed character from the game. As a player who encounters this exact scenario frequently, I personally think this is just entirely unfun and super unhealthy for the game & its itemization.
Idea: Per-person cooldown similar to Silencer
To disincentivize spamming Curse, I believe the item needs a per-person cooldown similar to Silencer with its on-hit silence effect where there's a short window that you aren't able to reapply silence. Applying this same mechanic to Curse would prevent it from being spammed on one character and giving a more viable counterplay via Unstoppable so the affected player doesn't necessarily require a hard skill-check to dodge Curse (Curse's orb isn't super visually distinct and doesn't have any super detectable sound effects as it travels towards the player).
The gameplay scenario is the player gets cursed, (maybe) lives, and is able to cast Unstoppable during the short cooldown period to prevent a chain-curse.
How this buffs using other CC options alongside Curse
This change indirectly makes other CC like Knockdown, Vortex Web, or Capacitor a better option when one of your teammates already has Curse because those items don't share the same cooldown. Of course, the cooldown would only apply given that hero is actually Cursed so if the player dodges Curse by using an ability, Counterspell, or Unstoppable, the cooldown would not apply.
Noteworthy issues and Balance
An issue with this change is that Unstoppable gets indirectly buffed and would likely become must-buy for carry heroes. To compensate, the duration of Unstoppable's active buff might need to be shortened and Curse's active effect be lengthened (no more than 0.5 seconds each). But the feel of the durations for both active items would likely need tuned by community feedback.
Here's a few more bullet points:
- Curse's per-person cooldown should begin at the endof the Curse effect to not make debuff reduction items too overpowered against it.
- Making it apply at the start would incentivize stacking debuff reduction because it double dips on the cooldown by directly shortening the debuff's effect and indirectly making the cooldown longer as the effect ends sooner (AKA OP).
- This primarily affects items like Blood Tribute which have insane debuff reduction.
- Curse cannot be reapplied while already Cursed.
- Grey Talon's trap does not proc the Curse cooldown and is treated as a separate effect (this indirectly buffs his traps in my opinion).
- Buffs buying Superior Duration to increase Curse's duration.
- Already a good strategy currently in-game but would be made more important by the cooldown change.
- Allies casting Divine Barrier on a Cursed teammate to dispel the Curse effect should immediately start Curse's per-person cooldown.
