Rebuttal --> ?? --> Counter Spell upgrade

bonkusDonkus

New member
Disclaimer, I know there are a bunch of other posts on this same topic. To be fair, of the recent ones, this is a different solution than what they think. Also those threads are old enough that I feel if I comment on them it simply will not be seen.

I really like Rebuttal, I really like Counter Spell.
I think Rebuttal's greatest weakness is that it is a cheap item that you may consider carrying the whole game if there are multiple melee builds on the other team. The -2s Parry cooldown is just so useful and honestly can be worth a slot into the late game if you are a squishy character and facing down a Billy and Abrams and whatnot.
I think it makes a lot of sense for Rebuttal to build into Counterspell. They both heal on a successful parry, pretty much the only change to counterspell would be giving that heal on successful melee parry, and the -2s cooldown for normal parry.
Now, this would likely make counterspell far too strong, having an 800 gold early buy in, makes it only a 2400 investment later. I know there has been a lot of discussion about whether counterspell on its own is too strong or not. It does often seem like the #1 anti cc, anti burst option. I won't necessarily argue one way or the other about base counterspell, but I do think it would be too strong with an 800 souls component.

My suggestion is a middle item, between Rebuttal and Counter Spell, lets call it Psyonic Repulsion or something (name obviously changeable)

Psyonic Repulsion 3200 Souls:
-2s Parry Cooldown
+75 Health
Passive:
On a successful Parry of a melee strike, heal yourself for the damage parried + 50, return the damage dealt, gain +50% melee damage (the rebuttal passive)
20 second cooldown:
Your next parry has the ability to reduce a spells power, you gain 50% damage reduction and +75% debuff reduction against the source of the parry
On a successful spell parry you heal for 150.

Yes this means no more parrying lash ult (no I am not a lash main), it still remains as a great option against a lot of things, but is no long a complete denial of stuns or massive burst. This feels probably fair for a 3200 item, maybe a bit on the weak side but it could be buffed.

Thus Counterspell, as is, is moved to 6400 souls.
Will it be a little weak for 6400 souls? Maybe, probably a little. It could be buffed by dropping the cooldown to 15 seconds, increasing the heal (maybe equal to the damage blocked, just like rebuttal), or making it return some of the damage.

Will this make rebuttal itself too good? Also maybe, but this does feel like the best option.
With the addition of Billy and Drifter who both somewhat build melee, it feels like it is not unlikely to have 3 hybrid melee builds on the enemy team. Holding rebuttal is going to feel pretty mandatory and pretty bad.
 
I've always been of the opinion that part of what balances Rebuttal's amazing scaling is the fact that it does not upgrade into anything.

Because it's VERY easy to forget that Rebuttal is the only T1 item that can still put out damage and healing numbers similar to T3 and T4 items late game. All other T1 items add some decent scaling, but they all of something that does the same thing but better in higher tiers of items. Rebuttal is unique in that it is the best at it's job in the entire item pool. It reflects 100% of the damage from a melee hit, then ALSO heals you for half the damage dealt AND increases your own melee damage by 50%.

Rebutting a melee heavy hero late game can be a health swing of like, 1k+ on just 1 parry! It's ridiculous value for a T1 item. It also has NO CD. It's situational, but there is no other single T1 item that can compare to it in terms of raw value (assuming you actually get Rebuttal parries).

In order for Rebuttal to be a valid choice for putting into an upgrade path, you would have to change the values on it to no longer scale with the attack being parried. Otherwise, it's just flat out too much value for what you spend on it. It would become the new Fortitude. And remember, you don't NEED rebuttal to parry those melee heroes. It just makes your parries better.

I can see a valid argument for making Counterspell a T4 item, though. It is currently the only T3 item that can counter ultimates, which makes it a very cheap investment for how strong it can be. I don't think it should be, but I can understand why others might think so.
 
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