Infernal Resilience and its upgrade path

oscar2

New member
It is generally well known that Abrams passive is quite good and have a character defining aspect to it as percentile healing will remain as effective the hole game, in comparison to flat bonuses to regeneration, and in some amount max health bonuses


Infernal Resilience first and second upgrade is not impactful not thematic and not characteristic of Abrams as a hole


if we look at the description of Abrams

"Abrams has the bulk and sustain to lead from the front, often running into the middle of his foes and watching them scatter. If his enemies waste their fire on him, his backline teammates can lay out damage with impunity."

There is nothing in his current kit that truly encourages us to "Run into the middle of his foes" Siphon life's (1) area is to small to encourages us unless we specifically build a spirit build and take Improved Reach and Seismic impact (4) don't require him to be in the middle of his foes

This description fits Viscous better than Abrams as the Goo Ball allows him to disrupt the enemy team and survive focus fire.

With Infernal resilience you regenerate a portion of damage taken over the course of 20 seconds. The more damage received, the more value the passive will give you yet this value is accrued over time, when you are in a vulnerable state so it favors long drag out engagements when you have time to regenerate under the fight, running away and healing for 20 seconds under a fight or won the fight.

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The problem

the first upgrade

If we spectate top Abrams players or look at there builds we can observe that Extra Regen is quite frequent a item that gives us

+ 3 Health Regen​
+ 10% ammo​

for the price of 500 souls

in comparison, the first upgrade to Infernal Resilience gives us 1.5 Health Regen. The value of 1.5 Health Regen is moderate in the first minutes of the game but will quickly turn into a negligible amount after the laning phase. If we compare this to the first upgrades for the other passives in the game we can se that they typically enhances a defining aspect of the ability

  • haze and holidays passives allows you to slow or further slow a enemy, strengthening the duelist nature of haze and making it easier to hit consecutive headshots for Holiday
  • Infernus passive hampers the ability for afflicted enemies to return fire as a - 25% spirit damage, furthering and adding a new aspect to the debuff of his passive
  • Vyper lets you slide longer.

these abilities can be compared to items to yet are much more valuable to the respective hero and do not overshadow the ability

the second upgrade

There are, as far as i can tell only two heroes that have max health upgrades on there kit's: Abrams and Mo & Krill. While Mo have it intrinsically in his ult and gain 70 max Hp for kills or assist with his ult, Abrams get a static max Hp boost of 150 that cost 2 skill points. furthermore Max Hp is a core component of his character as he starts of with the most max hp and the most max hp bonus per level (or something like it)

The core component of Abrams suitability should not be max Hp it should be percentile Health regen






My suggestion - Making the upgrades unique and in theme
Instead of granting flat Health Regen and max health the ability could focus on resistances.
  • removing the +1 Health Regen of the core ability and replacing it with a small movement slow resist and debuff reduction would give the hero a specific feel


The first upgrade
  • + 2 Health Regen for each enemy hero within 20 meters
this might feel to strong but i would question how much better it would be, you won't recive the bonus if you are runing away to heal. The bonus will incentivice Abrams Players to be in the thick of the fight, and staying in the figth and not run away to heal

the second uppgrade

  • + 10 % melee, gun and spirit resist
we can actually compare resistances to max health as 150 extra max health is about 13% of Abrams final max health 1080 and 10% resistance to all damage types, the amount of damage Abrams could take would remain about the same. it might actually be worse when you take into account the % healing that Infernal resiliance grants and how max hp scales with Green items i dont know

But i know that it would help give Abrams a distinct feel,


a small final comment

i have removed a section comparing the regeneration of Infernal resiliance and Shiv's Bloodlettig and i am not sure that Infernal resiliance is anyway near as good as bloodletting but thats for a another time
 
The +150 health upgrade does work with his passive because 16% of it will be healed. That said, I have stopped putting any points into the passive until late game because the first upgrade is a waste of a point, and the second upgrade is only so-so. Of course the issue with improving his passive upgrade path is that Abrams is currently not a bad character and never has been.
 
The +150 health upgrade does work with his passive because 16% of it will be healed. That said, I have stopped putting any points into the passive until late game because the first upgrade is a waste of a point, and the second upgrade is only so-so. Of course the issue with improving his passive upgrade path is that Abrams is currently not a bad character and never has been.

The problem with balancing hero abilities is that they do not exist in a vacuum, and Abrams have a good kit with a big problem.

If you play spirit Abrams you must max Siphon Life as fast as possible as this is the only ability capable of dealing significant spirit damage in his kit. if you on the other hand play gun/melee you would always max Shoulder Charge first as the stun duration is important and the extra gun damage is extremely good, what makes gun Abrams good. I feel like that if you haven't max one of these abilities before 10k souls, you have ether miss-click a upgrade or are... actually insane... . The importance to max the ult is somewhat dependent on team coordination and the skill level of the lobby, but the upgrades are extremely good, all of them

in 500 games of playing Abrams there have only been 1 time when i felt that 150 extra max health was good, and it was after a brutal fight over mid were i needed to secure the crystal and i had more or less no health

For the game to be healthy, the upgrade path should depend on the unique situation that a hero find themselves in each match. Not set in stone

As insane as it may be i still do not think that my suggestion are upgrades (except debuff reduction that might be to strong)
  • a slight movement slow reduction resistance would give Abrams a more distinct feel like Bebops higher sprint speed

  • the numbers can be changed but i would question how much better 2 ph reg per enemy within 20 meters would be in comparison to a constant +2.5 hp reg. if this is to strong his intrinsic regen could be lowered

  • i forgot to mention that Extra Health for 500 souls do the same thing as the second upgrade... if my suggestion of small bonus resistances is to strong, the number could be changed or they could nerf his intrinsic stats a bit
the goal is not to make Abrams better but to make him more distinct and encourage him to have a play style more in accordance to his description
 
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