Jailbreak - T4 items for Melee Enjoyers

[BossBaragon]

Credits to Deadlock Graphic Designer! Big thanks.

I've noticed many characters have absolutely no safety when it comes to Melees, except for characters with long reliable stuns and etc. Of course, that's part of the game- but I think having a "safe" melee option like this can allow certain characters who may like to Melee but have no safety to at least try it; this can include assassins like Calico who may want to give in a quick Heavy Melee before leaving. This is also a nice way for non-melee characters to try their hand at building more melee stuff.

Jailbreak doesn't punish those who parry- its objective is purely to forgive people who were parried, and only once. Instead, to discourage overly cowardly playstyle, Jailbreak grants you more non-ability melee damage when it's on cooldown- higher risk, higher reward. The cooldown refund can also be quite useful.

 

[Fred_]

Ayo thanks for using DGD.

Regarding the item, I really like the idea of adding different parry effects without completely disregarding parries in general. The double duration makes the item pretty balanced but I think otherwise the item feels a tad weak. Personally I would decrease the cooldown from 90 seconds to maybe 20-30 seconds? (Even that feels a bit long imo)

 

[BossBaragon]

Thank you, DGD is really awesome!

I honestly wasn't sure what kind of cooldown to give it. It's something I feel should be kinda tested to an extent. In my mind I didn't want people to be able to have a "freebie" every few seconds and wanted to encourage people to use their melees *even* once the cooldown went off, hence the additional damage when off cooldown. Though in the same case yeah, it can feel a bit "weak" to buy a T4 item that only forgives you every 90s. I'm not sure myself and I'm def not a pro!

Also kinda forgot to add the movement speed bonus but it'd likely just be a little 25%, though that's not important.

 

[Rosgath]

View attachment 67022

Credits to Deadlock Graphic Designer! Big thanks.

I've noticed many characters have absolutely no safety when it comes to Melees, except for characters with long reliable stuns and etc. Of course, that's part of the game- but I think having a "safe" melee option like this can allow certain characters who may like to Melee but have no safety to at least try it; this can include assassins like Calico who may want to give in a quick Heavy Melee before leaving. This is also a nice way for non-melee characters to try their hand at building more melee stuff.

Jailbreak doesn't punish those who parry- its objective is purely to forgive people who were parried, and only once. Instead, to discourage overly cowardly playstyle, Jailbreak grants you more non-ability melee damage when it's on cooldown- higher risk, higher reward. The cooldown refund can also be quite useful.

So I like the item concept. Melee does need to have some way to itemize into securing their melee hits. I'm not a fan of it only being available to heroes who expressly have melee damage abilities.

That said, I would be VERY concerned with this combined with Debuff Remover, since ALL of those debuffs could just be instantly cleared with a Debuff Remover and you could intentionally get hit with a parry just so that you could then follow up with a bunch of melee abilities (Such as Bashdown or Leaping Slash) so that you can start to work on the CD again. Not to mention that those effects would trigger things like Reactive Barrier so getting parried would actually end up being beneficial to you, not just an overall neutral.

I do agree with Fred_ though. It should probably have more like a 45s Cd, and have the Cooldown reduction on successful melee hits be more like 1s for light and 2s for heavy.

 

[Grokerdul]

I really like the idea, the numbers would probably have to be tweaked but I would love an item that would let you punch without worrying about getting parry-instakilled in a team fight.

 

[BossBaragon]

So I like the item concept. Melee does need to have some way to itemize into securing their melee hits. I'm not a fan of it only being available to heroes who expressly have melee damage abilities.

That said, I would be VERY concerned with this combined with Debuff Remover, since ALL of those debuffs could just be instantly cleared with a Debuff Remover and you could intentionally get hit with a parry just so that you could then follow up with a bunch of melee abilities (Such as Bashdown or Leaping Slash) so that you can start to work on the CD again. Not to mention that those effects would trigger things like Reactive Barrier so getting parried would actually end up being beneficial to you, not just an overall neutral.

I do agree with Fred_ though. It should probably have more like a 45s Cd, and have the Cooldown reduction on successful melee hits be more like 1s for light and 2s for heavy.

I can kinda agree with 45s. 90s is kinda long. Though likely it should keep a very similar cooldown reduction to 4s/2s, because if you use this in a teamfight, you very likely won't even get moer than 3-4 melees. An 8s reduction for four risky melees just seem not worth the risk.

Also the idea here is that it grants Melee Damage specifically to non-ability Melees, so that Jailbreak acts as two side of the same coin- it grants you safety, but also encourages and rewards you to take risks.

And WELL, similar to Fury Trance, the idea is that because it's not just a debuff (it grants movement speed to escape or come back in if needed), you can't just "remove it". The likely intended behavior is that it would be an effect called "Jailbreak", which isn't considered a debuff- meaning it won't be affected by Debuff Remover or any Debuff Resistance. Its duration classification would be the same as Doorman's ult- unaffected by increases as well.

I really like the idea, the numbers would probably have to be tweaked but I would love an item that would let you punch without worrying about getting parry-instakilled in a team fight.

Agreed! It's hard to know numbers in advance without imagining it for a while, but I think it works.