Doorman balancing for bells

[BenDash1]

I've seen some discussion about Doorman's bells, and I wanted to add my thoughts to it as a Doorman main. One of the core complaints people have is that his bells are (were) too powerful with the balance patch, and needed to be toned down. With the latest hotfix, the devs listened and reverted the changes, which I don't feel is the correct solution. Doorman's bells were hard to deal with in lane, but once people started farming, they leveled out. Instead, I feel that the change should have been this:

T2: Bells gain 75 explosion damage + increased spirit scaling -> T2: Bell gains 65-75 explosion damage (balance dependent) + 1 charge.

T3: Bells apply continuous slow, lifetime is increased, +1charge -> Bells apply continuous slow, lifetime is increased, spirit scaling is increased (balance dependent).

In this situation, It makes Doorman's bells more dependent on investment in order to reach their full potential, while still being able to deal high amounts of damage at the end of the game. You can't easily rush them in lane and make your lane enemies suffer, which is what most people were complaining about. Furthermore, at the end of the game, most people will buy spirit res/spellbreaker/curse, which will help to balance out his damage. Impact Damage has always been a weak part of his bells, because they don't apply the debuffs central to the design of his bells. Finally, this hotfix also buffed global hp, which also helps to balance out the bells.

 

[BRADLOCK]

As a doorman main, I'm definitely quite unhappy with how they managed the nerf. Obviously the damage had to be toned down, but now we're back to before where hitting perfect bells feels incredibly inconsistent and the T2 & T3 upgrades feel insanely underwhelming compared to the other abilities again. The Bell is just an awkward ability and I think Doorman actually wants to be a support character, but he's only given the tools to be a pick character.

So in my humble opinion, I'd love to see some sort of beneficial effect added to the Bell T3 upgrade, so when hitting allies you apply a movement speed bonus or shielding. Going into a more offensive direction, the T3 upgrade could also be some sort of pulling mechanism like a mini Vortex Web that makes it easier to hit your carts. I definitely dislike treating the bell as a boring damage ability and hope the devs can come up with something that feels more interesting, because the way the Bell works now is worse than before the initial patch.

 

[Shnobz]

The Bell without impact damage was so fun. It felt strong, like a real spirit nuke. With it, Doorman felt like a mage. And it worked well with Mystic Reverb, which is incredibly fun item.
Reverted Bell with impact damage is simply not reliable. It works for combos, but as itself it usually hits like a wet noodle. And Mystic Reverb procs from Impact damage, which is a smaller part of damage, which feels lame.

I understand that New Bell was kinda overtuned. But it was way more fun to use. It could be balanced, especially considered T3 being lame and could be reworked as a part of balancing.
Reverting the Bell was a rushed and wrong decision.

 

[_Nar]

They reverted Bell buff back to its old impact/damage values, but did not revert the nerf to his time between charges. Bell feels worse than it's ever been, with the exception of the T3 upgrade, which gives it actually pretty solid utility. On paper this is probably fine for balance (don't get me wrong, a 45% continuous slow is pretty strong), but in practice I find Doorman already has so much utility in his kit that I'd rather just have a solid poking/clearing tool rather than a 4th utility skill. The impact damage on his Bell always felt like the most awkward part of his kit to me personally, and I was happy to see it gone.

I'd honestly like to see them just decrease the Bell radius (it was way too easy to hit) and scaling a little, but keep all the damage in the explosion again.

 

[ReportingBugs]

I've seen some discussion about Doorman's bells, and I wanted to add my thoughts to it as a Doorman main. One of the core complaints people have is that his bells are (were) too powerful with the balance patch, and needed to be toned down. With the latest hotfix, the devs listened and reverted the changes, which I don't feel is the correct solution. Doorman's bells were hard to deal with in lane, but once people started farming, they leveled out. Instead, I feel that the change should have been this:

T2: Bells gain 75 explosion damage + increased spirit scaling -> T2: Bell gains 65-75 explosion damage (balance dependent) + 1 charge.

T3: Bells apply continuous slow, lifetime is increased, +1charge -> Bells apply continuous slow, lifetime is increased, spirit scaling is increased (balance dependent).

In this situation, It makes Doorman's bells more dependent on investment in order to reach their full potential, while still being able to deal high amounts of damage at the end of the game. You can't easily rush them in lane and make your lane enemies suffer, which is what most people were complaining about. Furthermore, at the end of the game, most people will buy spirit res/spellbreaker/curse, which will help to balance out his damage. Impact Damage has always been a weak part of his bells, because they don't apply the debuffs central to the design of his bells. Finally, this hotfix also buffed global hp, which also helps to balance out the bells.

This should be posted privately! Private forums exist so that current feedback is individual and not interfered by the community. This actually hurts the development of Deadlock!

This is a common error (to be fair, it isn't particularly clear, even I am guilty of it).