Just found this out while testing Gazlowe. I noticed his “Rock It Sock It” and “Frin’ Mah Lazorz” talents are not being buffed by spell power. I tested other heroes to see, if talents get buffed by SP at all, and found out that yes - they do. So “Frin’ Mah Lazorz” is bugged for now (oddly “Ark Reaktor” works fine and isn’t bugged), but what I also found out, is that shields do not get buffed by SP, while healing is, even healing that comes from talents.
After finding that out for talents, I also tested Lucio ult, as that is a skill and it might have been different. I kept spawning Tassadar until he chose to take lvl20 “Khala’s Gift” and thus I was able to check if SP has any effect on Lucio’s “Sound Barrier”. Well, it didn’t. By the way, speaking about Tassadar, SP doesn’t affect his shields either, but that’s at least understandable, since they’re percentage-based, and in HotS %-based numbers usually can’t be affected by buffs/debuffs. BUT.
But on the other hand %-based healing is also gets buffed by spell power. Healing like Alextrazsa’s Abundance or Lili’s “Blessings of Yu’lon” talent do benefit from SP. So flat shields and percentage shields are not affected by spell power, while healing, whether it’s %-based or flat, is affected.
So my question is:
Is that a bug, or is that intended? Should I report this?
If that’s not a bug, do you think that’s fair and why such strange balance design?
For me, I don’t get it and I don’t like it. To me the best example why this is unbalanced is Deckard and his level 4 talents “Potion of Shielding” and “Rejuvenation Potion”. While they seem to be of a similar power level, with spell power from lvl 1 “Field Study”, “Rejuvenation Potion” gets much stronger and to no surprise this talent has about 5% higher winrate on average.
Shielding is a flat number, you can’t increase it with anything far as I know.
As for Gazlowe, I don’t know why you think that’s a bug because the patch notes clearly say the Firin talent doesn’t benefit from any other talent that modifies his laser. That includes SP buffs.
The turrets own lasers are a separate instance of 125 dmg each scaling at 4% per level completely unrelated to his Deth lazor and cannot be buffed because the dev decided so.
Probably to stop multiple turrets from being able to deal obscene damage once put down.
Shields are static numbers. Healing is basically reverse dmg, and thus can be buffed by ability power.
Most ppl know these and are fine with it.
So imagine the function this way: when you heal, you inflict negative dmg (so you heal), you’re using your spell power, but when you shield, you just add a fixed number to their max hp.
isn’t a bug because while it’s spell damage it’s not an ability, it’s a talent. So say I take Capacitors and get 15% Spell Power. That wont affect my secondary laser dmg from turrets if i take Firin’ Mah Lazorz on 16.
Without commenting on Gaz (whom I main) I think not being able to buff shields is perfectly balanced, as Hoku said, among other reasons, because there is zero way to debuff a shield with things like Biotic Grenade.
And as someone said above, you can use it to buff heroes whose main weakness is supposed to be a small HP bar. That is a pretty big advantage to shields.
I don’t think that’s a good idea because it effective increases the potion’s total healing (leaving Super Healing Potion out of the equation). Potion of Shielding was practically the best and most consistent talent in the tier and buffing it will simply increase its pickrate beyond comprehension (unless Deckard needs a tune-up).
Ok, but what if spellpower comes as a buff from another hero? It doesn’t affect turret lasers too. How do you explain that?
Im saying that u’re right that SP doesn’t affect his turret dmg, but devs saying laser turrets are not being affected by talents is completely unrelated since SP is a stat, not a talent.
As for absurd damage, there is already plenty of much stronger combos in the game, much crazier ones. What this forced nerf does, it simply makes this talent underpowered, since it doesn’t combo with level 13 talents. As a result both “Ark Reaktor” and “Overklock” outscale lasers.
Turrets are summons, which follow diffirent rules. Spell power only directly affects gazlowe and not the summons. Just like healing on a hero only heals the hero itself.
But spell power does boost summon’s damage. Even those, that have actives, like Nazeebo’s Gargantuan Chromie’s Echoes Jaina’s Elemental, Kel’Thuzad’s Damned or Probiuses’ turrets.
I get your point. One note, though. I don’t accept Biotic Grenade argument cause there is plenty of methods to break shields in the game too, like Varian’s Shattering Throw or Lt. Morales’ EMP Grenade.
But I kinda get why devs don’t wanna buff shields, I am not sure I like it, but I get it.
From what I know, spell power is applied to almost any sort of spell damage. Take Kel’Thuzad far example. SP is applied 1.) Glacial Spike, which is a trait in a slot of a talent 2.) Armor of the Archlich, which is an active talent 3.) Chilling Touch which is a talent that affects auto-attacks. It’s not even an active or a passive. 4.) The Damned Return, which is an active-passive somewhat similar to Galowe’s laser turrets. Let’s take other heroes. Spell Power affects 5.) Qhira’s Grappling Hook, which is an active trait, not an ability 6.) Finally, watch this, SP affects Nazeebo’s Voodoo ritual, which is a PASSIVE TRAIT.
So as far as we can see, spell power affects all sorts of spell damage: traits, talents, even auto-attacks. I have no idea why you think SP only affects abilities. Where does this come from?
As far as I know SP doesn’t affect only passive damage over time effects, like Muradins’ Bronzebeard Rage and it doesn’t affect Gazlowe turret laser. That’s pretty much it.
And for example Nazeebo has a similar talent: Ring of Poison. These talent doesn’t buff Zombie damage, it’s a separate instance that happens when you use W, that’s not related to the zombie hits at all. Yet it’s affected by SP as well. How is turrets’ laser not being buffed fair when you think about it?
Actually, you don’t even need take Nazeebo into account. Galowe’s own talent Ark Reaktor is affected by spell power, yet mini-turrets have nothing to do with the explosion as mini-lasers have nothing to do with the main laser.
Dude, I just tested it. Even Valla’s Caltrops benefit from Spell Power!!!
I suspect its due to the way of the spell being applied.
As the lasers are talent generated, they might not be affected by the bonus, even if casted by the turret. The call is still your primary laser, and other turrets just use the ability aswel, but the spell for them is seperately executed.
Nazeebo’s gargantuan is a direct ability where the location is just decided by the summon.
As long as the turret AA is still scaling properly in spell damage, it can still be intended to work like that.
The turret laser could be compared to the braxis ultralisk/broodlord spawning units occasionaly. If you could spawn such ultralisk as ability, that one would get its spellboost aswel, as its a direct summon, but the summons of the ultralisk might not. Sure, its a complex mess, but it can be explained in a way that it makes sense.
(and note, i do agree that those lasers should get boosted by the spell power aswel. it makes it much easier to explain, which is a clear indication that the current system is confusing, if it was intended that way - which is something we probably will not get to know unless a dev responds to this)
Spell Power (like from the capacitor talent) could boost Turret Damage if it did Spell Damage instead of Basic Attack damage, but not the secondary lasers that come out of them if Firin Mah’ Lazorz is picked.
I’ve played the rework extensively and there’s no way to get anything to boost the lasers coming out from his Firin Mah’ Lazorz’ talent. Not even SP granted by others. It doesn’t benefit from anything.
As the lasers are talent generated, they might not be affected by the bonus, even if casted by the turret. The call is still your primary laser
This. I can’t find the patch note for some reason, but there was a text saying no talent modifier can boost the turret laser. That would include both ally and your own modifiers.
For example Varian can throw down Banner of Dalaran, it wont boost the turret lasers.
designer.
Designers are the ones making those calls.
Changes in design over time can also result in things that worked as intended years ago now being considered bugs/not intended.
(I don’t know if designers code all their stuff or not, but I know QA talks about design, not code, when how an ability works versus wording comes up).
Yeah, a decision by the game designer that the turret lasers cannot be Spell Power boosted.