T3 Rebuttal Upgrade: Phalanx

[Rosgath]

So I heard you wanted a Rebuttal Upgrade, and these ideas just keep coming and if I don't put them down and get them out into the universe they keep bouncing around my head until I do, so here it is: Phalanx!

This is a T3 upgrade to Rebuttal. It has some modestly increased stats along with further additional resist vs. heavy melee attacks specifically.

The biggest addition, however, is the active effect. This can be used as a double parry, (if you really need to) but it also allows you to parry for your allies. Particularly handy if your friend is getting beat down by someone like a Mo and Krill, but you are too far away to help! Of note, it has particular synergy with Counterspell, allowing you to spend 2 item slots and a fairly extensive Item Cooldown to perform an AoE Counterspell. Powerful, but pricey.

This last point is why the active specifically mentions Cooldowns. If you fail to parry an enemy on ANY of the protected allies, your parry goes on CD like normal. You ALSO trigger your Counterspell Cooldown if you have the item and it is off cooldown, so keep that in mind.

Overall, I think it's a pretty cool concept and it has the potential to be a very powerful team tool, though it's costly both in slots, active item spots, and actual soul investment.

 

[nathanieljbrill]

That's a good idea.

 

[artoriarts]

We had very similar ideas lol
I think you're a little too worried about counterbalancing yours though - Kinda weird parallel to draw but like Guardian Ward/Divine Barrier are also defensive actives and have much broader use cases than this, which only defends against melees, or singular spells if you double your investment to get counterspell, and those are on a 45 second cooldown at most, half that if you're targeting teammates. I don't think it would be unjust to make the cooldown on this as low as like 20 seconds to give it parity with Counterspell, or at the very least no longer than 40s.

 

[Rosgath]

I set the cooldown at being so long because the item can effectively be used as a way to have NO parry Cooldown, even on a failed parry for a short while. Having that up too often completely shuts down melee builds. If you whiff your Parry, you can then immediately reactivate this to parry again, on top of the reduced CD to parries the item already grants.

Add to that the fact that it doesnt just allow you to parry one person, but for EVERYONE around you. You could easily be parrying more than one hit, and given the fact that rebuttal doesnt just heal you on parry, it also REFLECTS the damage back on the attacker it could be used to do a lot of damage to someone. The fact that it can be combined with Counterspell to potentially completely nullify multiple big effects or even to save people from big effects (for instance, you could combine Counterspell with Phalanx to get your ENTIRE TEAM out of a Dynamo or Lash ult) means that the cooldown needs to be prohibitively long.

I started the Cooldown to match Healing Nova, another item with a ton of potential, and bumped it up a bit due to the item synergy.

 

[artoriarts]

True enough. I was a little too hasty and forgot to make my whole point - I don't think the balance issue really is your item and more just how busted parries are lol.

 

[minimanc]

I think a better more fluid design would be widening the diameter of your own parry.
"Summon a phalanx around you to extend the range of your parry."
This could solve a myriad of your issues. It would be easier to protect someone with your own parry and even be easier to steal rejuv. To keep the counterspell synergy you could make it so everyone within the radius of your parry gains the benefits of your parry.
This would mean the cooldown wouldn't need to be as long since it is most likely not going to be team wide. It would also not need to be an active since it overwrites your own parry like couterspell.

 

[Rosgath]

I think a better more fluid design would be widening the diameter of your own parry.
"Summon a phalanx around you to extend the range of your parry."
This could solve a myriad of your issues. It would be easier to protect someone with your own parry and even be easier to steal rejuv. To keep the counterspell synergy you could make it so everyone within the radius of your parry gains the benefits of your parry.
This would mean the cooldown wouldn't need to be as long since it is most likely not going to be team wide. It would also not need to be an active since it overwrites your own parry like couterspell.

Expanding the range of the parry is an idea, but not really the direction I want to go with this.

The item being an active is a very intentional choice, and something I consider a core part of balancing this item. Its easy to forget that parrying for a teammate also provides the Rebuttal effect for that parry, which will boost your ally's damage by 30% for 6s along with healing them and dealing damage to the enemy and it can be used to protect an otherwise defenseless ally (such as someone who has been hit by rabbit Hex or Sleep dagger). Add to all of that the fact that it doesnt force your ally into a parry animation, so they can be using different abilities, items, or even just dashing) and its actually pretty strong. It also comes with the advantage that it can be used to circumvent your own Parry CD against a melee hero and get you the space you need to escape.

The ability to combo with Counterspell is great, but I only increased the CD of Phalanx by about 10-15s to account for that.