Rebuttal Rework Ideas (And counterspell a bit too)

[blazerburn013]

So, this is an idea that I think could be implemented in a few ways so I will discuss all of those, but first I need to say why I think rebuttal needs a rework. Rebuttal is a situational item; you will probably only buy it if people are punching you, and in that sense I believe it does too good of a job for being an 800 cost item. The biggest benefits being the parry cooldown reduction, the bonus damage, and the cheap price, some of which I will be addressing. There's a reason why people that buy it will keep for most if not all of a game usually, and I would expect that it is not the intention for 800 cost items, and I don't believe it should be! You want the player to sell them to buy or to upgrade it into more expensive items, so here are my proposals.

​

Option 1: The Counterspell Rework
My first proposition is to make rebuttal a T2 item that then builds into counterspell, which is now a T4 item. Now I don't think it's fair to move those up a tier and cost without some changes so let's get to those. Make it so rebuttal can parry melee abilities, and because of this, remove the ability for people to parry puddle punch without the item. This has the benefit of unifying melee abilities by not having only one that can be parried while still allowing people to parry puddle punch if they think it's a problem. I think the already great stats of rebuttal + being able to parry melee abilities + it now building into counterspell would make it still a good buy even if it costs more. Now the changes to counterspell, instead of getting spirit power when parrying something with counterspell, you will get the damage amp that comes with rebuttal, scaling with spirit. If that, with the rebuttal stats and abilities are not enough to warrant it being a T4, buffing the healing would I think the best option, either it's scaling or base amount. It just makes the most sense to me to have the two parry items build into each other, and it helps balance rebuttal.

​

Option 2: Splitting Rebuttal
This is very similar to the first option, but with splitting rebuttal into two items, a T1 and T2 item. The T1 item would have everything rebuttal has currently, but without the bonus damage. The T2, which builds from the T1 and into counterspell, would have the bonus damage, ability to parry melee abilities, and maybe some more stats, like more melee resist if it's needed. Another option would be to split the parry cd reduction between these two rebuttal items, -1 second for each. I think this option is a little worse than the first, as I view rebuttal as a similar item as the vests which are T2's, but it would allow for some more versatility.

​

Option 3: Buffing Rebuttal
If you don't want to do the counterspell rework at all, you can still make it a T2 with the changes in option 1. I personally think it would still be good in this state, but if you do want it to be a bit stronger, you could make it so that if you parry someone again while you have the damage amp buff, the bonus damage gets increased, maybe by 10 or 15%, rewarding someone more for getting consecutive parries, or just do some stat changes if you want to keep it simple, and not give the item too many things.

​

My goal with these would be to create something that allows you to counter melee, without just buying a T1 that I think does way too much. It would bring rebuttal in line with other counter green items, all of which are T2's. These obviously may need to be balanced in different ways, these were just my mock up ideas.

 

[Alexanduuh]

First of all, will parrying an enemy ability negate its cc or any buffs the user would receive ?
Second, will parrying enemy abilities grant the damage amp, imo it just be a little lower if its an enemy melee like 15%-20% for abilities

Option 1 : I only see puddle punch being parry-able is because its a literal fist that is just made of goo and that you can place it pretty much anywhere and the displacement is very strong. Counterspell being a 6400 item is understandable considering how much it can block, but making the effects scale of spirit would just be braindead imo. In most fights you can just press parry and block something ( 9/10 times it will happen ). So being able to gain a huge damage amp and ms for free just isn't healthy for strong spirit characters like Yamato or Infernus. The point of Counterspell is having the ability to block stuff, i believe why its healing and ms are so low is because of how easily it can be procced and your not buying the item for the healing or ms. So its current version encourages you to get value out of blocking stuff, while the 6400 one just encourages you to spam it to gain a damage amp and ms. ( sorry for the long respsone, i love this item )

Option 2 : I'm fine with making two versions of rebuttal. I think the 800 version should be . 12%, melee res , +25hp, and -1 parry cd, so the upgraded version feels more rewarding to buy instead of just being able to parry melee abilities.

Option 3 : Its not a bad change to make the item feel more unique and fun, but the stacking damage amp would happen so rarely i think just increasing the base damage amp to 40% would prob be better

 

[blazerburn013]

First of all, will parrying an enemy ability negate its cc or any buffs the user would receive ?
Second, will parrying enemy abilities grant the damage amp, imo it just be a little lower if its an enemy melee like 15%-20% for abilities

Option 1 : I only see puddle punch being parry-able is because its a literal fist that is just made of goo and that you can place it pretty much anywhere and the displacement is very strong. Counterspell being a 6400 item is understandable considering how much it can block, but making the effects scale of spirit would just be braindead imo. In most fights you can just press parry and block something ( 9/10 times it will happen ). So being able to gain a huge damage amp and ms for free just isn't healthy for strong spirit characters like Yamato or Infernus. The point of Counterspell is having the ability to block stuff, i believe why its healing and ms are so low is because of how easily it can be procced and your not buying the item for the healing or ms. So its current version encourages you to get value out of blocking stuff, while the 6400 one just encourages you to spam it to gain a damage amp and ms. ( sorry for the long respsone, i love this item )

Option 2 : I'm fine with making two versions of rebuttal. I think the 800 version should be . 12%, melee res , +25hp, and -1 parry cd, so the upgraded version feels more rewarding to buy instead of just being able to parry melee abilities.

Option 3 : Its not a bad change to make the item feel more unique and fun, but the stacking damage amp would happen so rarely i think just increasing the base damage amp to 40% would prob be better

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it :]

Your first question yes it would negate it, I know that's how it works with Viscous puddle punch so that's how I imagine it would
Second, the answer is yes, but I do agree with you, you did just give me the thought that instead of just a flat 30 it would give less if it's a light melee and more if it's a heavy melee. So maybe like 15 for light melee 30 for heavy. The biggest impact would be abilities cause most abilities are light melee until some are upgraded to heavy. (Although on second reading I think I'm suggesting the opposite of what you're saying kind of lol)

Option 1: I do totally get why it's parryable, my thought is just that if you make an item to parry melee abilities then you should only do that with the item if it's a problem for you (but I'm a viscous player so I'm biased). I do kind of agree with you, I mostly wanted to make sure that counterspell would not be bad by making it more expensive and to throw all my cards out on the table. The spirit scaling could definitely be a problem depending on how high it is, I imagine it would be pretty low, but yeah I could definitely do without it. As for just spamming it for the damage amp, I did get the thought that the damage amp (and maybe the other stats but probably not) would scale based on how much damage you block, thereby still encouraging the player to use it to block high damage. With the lower starting damage amp being lower to help encourage it.

Option 2: Yeah that's fair

Option 3: Mhm I probably agree, I just wasn't sure if it actually really any changes by making it T2 since I already think it kind of deserves to be and parrying melee abilities could already make it pretty repressive against some heroes specifically

 

[fightbaba]

I would like to add something as well.

I don't see Rebuttal as OP, but I think it's really good at few specific niche and it's very effective if the melee player is not aware of it's exsistance, sure maybe you keep an entire game but only if you buy it in the first place, which is not very often. this is the only item in the game that help with melee parrying in the game.

I think basic nerf will do just fine if you really wanted to nerf it, damage amp/melee resist/Parry Cooldown
but I do agree that it need something to upgrade to.

My opinion of Rework ideas.

Rebuttal to 1600 Rework : I think melee ability parry buff is really niche, like probably 5 more of them? Bebop 1, drifter 1 , caligo 2, that's all i could think of.

Counterspell rework to 6400 : same concerns as the first guy, this will become "press parry to damage amp" rather than "precise timing to counter attack" item
(also the damage proc on current rebuttal is a mutlipler like lucky shot, so It's could be OP late game.)
I think this will be a even more niche late game, because of price doubling, people can just get Eshift/Spellbreaker/Unstoppable at that point.

split Rebuttal item into 2 Tier : Personally I think 1 second is sort of nothing, since it's not enough time reduction for 2 heavy melee, I can see it buy it more as a melee resist item.
And I don't think it's unique enough to have 2 Tier, with an upgrade that just "reward oddly specific situation even more."
I think an upgrade should make parry useful in more situation rather than give bigger reward to same niche situation, either as a close range enchancement or anti close range item to keep with the theme.

here's some random idea (can even be T3/T4)

"using parry make your next heavy melee wind up faster for next few second"
"using parry make your next successful melee steal stamina"
"using parry when nearby enemys reduce every cooldown a bit."

but I'll be honest, this would also make T1 Rebuttal more common if it's there good upgrade path. and I'm not sure that's something most people want to see.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it :]

Your first question yes it would negate it, I know that's how it works with Viscous puddle punch so that's how I imagine it would
Second, the answer is yes, but I do agree with you, you did just give me the thought that instead of just a flat 30 it would give less if it's a light melee and more if it's a heavy melee. So maybe like 15 for light melee 30 for heavy. The biggest impact would be abilities cause most abilities are light melee until some are upgraded to heavy. (Although on second reading I think I'm suggesting the opposite of what you're saying kind of lol)

Option 1: I do totally get why it's parryable, my thought is just that if you make an item to parry melee abilities then you should only do that with the item if it's a problem for you (but I'm a viscous player so I'm biased). I do kind of agree with you, I mostly wanted to make sure that counterspell would not be bad by making it more expensive and to throw all my cards out on the table. The spirit scaling could definitely be a problem depending on how high it is, I imagine it would be pretty low, but yeah I could definitely do without it. As for just spamming it for the damage amp, I did get the thought that the damage amp (and maybe the other stats but probably not) would scale based on how much damage you block, thereby still encouraging the player to use it to block high damage. With the lower starting damage amp being lower to help encourage it.

Option 2: Yeah that's fair

Option 3: Mhm I probably agree, I just wasn't sure if it actually really any changes by making it T2 since I already think it kind of deserves to be and parrying melee abilities could already make it pretty repressive against some heroes specifically