Butcher Rework (WIP, posting talents later)

Hero and Skin Suggestions
1

Hitpoints: 2054 (+4% per level, down from 2154)
HP Regen: 4.28 (+4% per level, down from 4.49)
Basic Attack: 241 (+4% per level, up from 130 damage and 2.5% scaling per level), 0.8 attacks per second (down from 1.11 attacks per second), 1.5 range.

Developer Notes

Slightly lowering health to compensate for one of the baseline changes to trait and Brand (W), radically changing the style of his attacks from quick to STRONG and slow (which buffs Q’s auto-attack reset, allowing him to have respectable burst damage)

Default Mount
Z (Mount) – (4 sec cooldown)

It’s… just a default mount.

Fresh Meat
Trait (Passive):

Upon dying nearby enemy Heroes drop 5 Fresh Meat. Fresh Meat can be picked up to gain 2% bonus Attack Damage and bonus Attack Speed per Meat. The Butcher loses 10 Fresh Meat upon dying.
(!) Quest: Collect 50 Fresh Meat.
(!) Reward: Gain Enraged.

Enraged
Trait (Passive):

While below 50% of his maximum Health, taking damage causes The Butcher to become Enraged for 10 seconds, gaining 30% Attack Speed and 30 Armor, reducing damage taken by 30%.

Developer Notes

Meat doesn’t need to stack infinitely, and is nerfed slightly due to the increased strength of Butcher’s baseline kit. Enraged baseline is important cause it gives Butcher some innate safety.

Hamstring
Q (40 mana, 4 sec Cooldown)

Deal 110 (+4% per level) damage and Slow enemies by 50% fading over 2 seconds. The Butcher’s next Basic Attack will strike immediately.

Developer Notes

Unchanged, though it’s important to note how this interacts with his much higher individual Basic Attacks, as well as redesigned Butcher’s Brand.

Butcher’s Brand
W (60 mana, 16 sec Cooldown (up from 14 seconds)):

Deal 37 (+4% per level) damage to an enemy and Brand them for 3 seconds. The Butcher’s Basic Attacks against the Branded deal damage equal to 5% of their maximum health.

Basic Attacks against Branded Heroes heal Butcher for 5% of his maximum health and extend the duration of the Brand by 1 second.

Developer Notes

Butcher’s Brand should be a dangerous “run away or die” tool. As such, tying a source of threatening damage should make his engage even scarier (even to tanks), in the process nerfing some of his insane regeneration.

Ruthless Onslaught
E (50 mana, 15 sec Cooldown):

Charge at an enemy, becoming Unstoppable and gaining Movement Speed. If Butcher reaches the target, they are Stunned for 1 second and take 119 (+4% per level) damage.

Developer Notes

Unchanged. This is one of the few good aspects of current Butcher.

Furnace Blast
R1 (75 mana, 60 sec cooldown):

After a 3 second delay, fire explodes around The Butcher dealing 650 (+4% per level) damage to enemies, and Fearing them for 1 second.
Can be cast while using Ruthless Onslaught.

Developer Notes

Furnace Blast needs big buffs–making it deal much higher damage and fear should do the trick.

Lamb to the Slaughter
R2 (75 mana, 90 sec CD):

Throw a hitching post that attaches to the nearest enemy Hero after a 1 second delay. This deals 171 damage and causes the enemy to be chained to the post and Silenced for 3 seconds.

Developer Notes

Unchanged. Butcher’s ult is one of the best in the game, no changes needed. In fact, nerfs may be needed with some of these changes, but that’s an after-the-fact balancing change.

2 Likes
2

Well heres my 2 cents. Butcher is one of those heroes where he preys on lower ranked players while being to easily counterplayed at higher rankes.

I like that hes got a lot more power outside his stacks but i dont like the reduced scaling on his AA. It goes against his monstrous late game design. Not being to stack against minions might also be an issue sense in higher ranks, people just dont die as much and one of the few things you could do about that is soak lanes. I can understand not wanting him to play the soaking game but i feel there needs to be something outside kills to stack quest. Maybe 1 talents that offer alternatives or maybe getting stacks from camps.
I do like the new reward. Makes him a bit less reliant on brand to exist in a fight.

Yeah, this ones fine.

I dont like needing to be constantly attacking the brand target in order to get a worth while duration on the brand. The other aspect that makes butcher bad in higher ranks is how easy he is to peel off of people. You often only get around 2 or 3 auto attacks before you become about as useful as a tank with all his abilities on cooldown. Butcher needs a good brand to survive a fight. This ability is also extremely easy to out play in lane for similar reasons. Making his healing a bit more consistent would probably be the way to go. If it were up to me, id give butcher a small amount of baseline lifesteal that gets massively increased against branded enemies.

Im glad this is going unchanged. This is the best part of butcher. Even if it’s not a very powerful ability, its the best designed part of butcher.

This is a good change. Unsure if this is enough to dethrone lamb but this definitely helps. Im also glad you diddnt just give it more damage.

Im ok with this not seing major changes. This is the only reason butcher is even viable in higher ranks. (Not by much tho)

3

His AA is much slower with that power (though that plays into Hamstring resets)–but meat gives both damage AND AA speed.

Maybe.

Enraged Baseline should help out a bit–the main reason was to make Butcher threatening to tanks (where as currently, even if he’s stacked, a good tank can shut him down anyways). The main reason I lowered his OVERALL healing is because he’s a melee assassin, not a bruiser, and as such needs his stats at least skewed somewhat that direction.

OH, also,

I changed his AA scaling from 2.5% to 4%. That in combination with the fact that meat is no longer a flat added number but a multiplicative bonus makes it so that you’d be dealing ~800 damage an AA at level 20. Pretty scary still if I do say so, especially since he’d be attacking just as fast with full meat and have %damage, and baseline Enraged.

4

With just about as dangerous as Leo’s W. An inconvenience but hardly a game changer.

2% attack speed per meat?
Even at full stacks his AA speed is only 1.6, translating to 5 attacks in the span of one brand.
And while 25% max health damage in 3 seconds is nice 25% healing on a melee assassin isn’t so nice, especially with Butcher’s hitbox and his all-in nature.
Just realized I somehow skipped only the part where the brand’s duration is increased.
Honestly might be too powerful then, it only takes him like 3 kills of meat to be able to indefinitely upkeep a brand, which can make him a nightmare during the laning phase.

If minions no longer drop meat you can just simplify it to 1 meat and have that meat give 10% bonus.

A good attempt, but I’m really leaning for a rework that doesn’t just change his quest and brand, but instead shifts Butcher away from being Lambs on a stick.

5

This is so boring compared to the one we have right now.

This is NOT balanced, mate.

Buffing it won’t help. They need to delete LTTS, only then this will be playable.