Li Li Rework Idea

General Discussion
1

Trait- Fast Feet: Taking damage increases Li Li’s movespeed by 15% for 1 second, and reduces her cooldowns by 1 second (cooldown reduction cannot occur more than once per second).
[I’m increasing the movespeed slightly because HotS has gotten way more mobile over the years. I’m also making the cooldown reduction flat rather than just sped up because I think that will let her respond quicker.]

Q- Healing Brew: Heal the lowest health ally in range (prioritizing heroes). When healing an ally, Li Li is also healed for a small amount. If Li Li heals herself, she instead heals that small amount to all allies in a small area around her (about the size of Mistweaver, maybe less). 4 second cooldown.
[This is my main change to her base kit. I personally love how all her abilities are auto-target, but that is a drawback on her healing. Good healing is all about knowing who to heal and when, but Li Li can’t do that. This change is meant to not eliminate that weakness, but reduce to be more manageable. And since Li Li’s designed to get hit, this let’s her at least still help her allies a bit when she’s forced to heal herself.]

W- Cloud Serpent: [No change.]

E- Blinding Wind: [No change.]

R1- Jug of 1,000 Cups: [No change.]

R2- Water Dragon: Summoms a Water Dragon that after a delay hits the nearest enemy hero and all other heroes nearby, damaging them and slowing them by 70% for 4 seconds. 45 second cooldown. Also, passively increases the amount of healing from Cloud Serpent’s attacks by 50%.
[I love the thematics of taking Dragon with full Serpent build, so I’m just adding a tiny passive heal increase here to make up for loss of larger heals from Jug and other potential talents.

~Level 1~
Free Drinks: [No change.]

Mana Serpent: Cloud Serpent’s attacks also restores a small amount of mana to allied hero.
[Since Li Li’s level 1 talents are basically abount mana management, here’s a simple one for Cloud Serpent. It also gives the fairly rare ability in HotS to restore other hero’s mana.]

Winds of Adventure: Increases the duration of Fast Feet to 2 seconds, and Li Li gains 100% increased mana regeneration while it’s active. Also, hitting an enemy with Blind Wind triggers Fast Feet.
[I liked the passive regen aspect of this talent, but it was a little too clunky before, so I added the Blinding Wind trigger to let Li Li play more aggressively with it. Also, renamed it to reflect Winds addition.

~Level 4~
Let’s Go: Activate to heal allied hero and make them Unstoppable for 1 second (note this can be used on Li Li herself). 50 second cooldown, cooldown is affected by Fast Feet.
[I’ve moved this to level 4 just because it fits better here with my other talent changes. I’ve also removed the no self-targeting because I think that restriction is unnecessary, and increased the cooldown to compensate.]

Watchserpent: Cloud Serpent’s duration is increased by 0.5 seconds whenever it damages an enemy hero. Also, the Cloud Serpent can attack stealthed enemies and reveal them (but not break their stealth for mechanical purposes) for 1 second.
[I reduced the duration increase because this will now synergize with the Lightning Serpent talent. I also added the pseudo reveal- and rename- just because I wanted a little counter stealth option.]

Hindering Winds: [No change.]

~Level 7~
The Good Stuff: [No change.]

Lightning Serpent: Cloud Serpent’s attacks bounce to two additional targets (prioritizing heroes) for 50% effectiveness (this includes all on-hit effects).
[This is the cornerstone of Serpent Build, so I’ve removed the hero only restriction and allowed it to synergize with all of Serpent talents.]

Surging Winds: Li Li gains 10% Spell Power for 10 seconds for each enemy hit by Blinding Wind.
[I moved this talent here and simplified it to fit better with other changes.]

~Level 13~
Pick Me Up: [Moved, no changes.]

Blessing of Yu’lon: Cloud Serpent’s attacks heal its ally for an addition 1% of their max health.
[Moved, and healing amount reduced because Lightning Serpent synergy.]

Gale Force: [No changes.]

~Level 16~
Two For One: Healing Brew now targets two allies, but the amount healed is reduced to 80%
[Moved because I’m making level 16 the multitarget tier. And I decided to reduce the amount healed instead of increasing the cooldown because I feel that’s a better fit for her spam kit.]

Serpent Sidekick: Using Cloud Serpent on an ally also gives one to Li Li.
[Just reviving an old personal favorite talent to fit the multitarget theme.]

Mass Vortex: [Moved, no changes.]

~Level 20~
[No changes here. These are all fine picks.]

3 Likes
2

I will go through this in more etail later as I’m off to work right now
But I am already guessing I’m going ot have a lot to disagree with on the sheer. Metric that you didn’t make any baseline changes to Serpent.

3

Might work.

Generally speaking I like the idea that you put emphasis on Serpent.

One weakness of the ability however is its low throughput. It’s a supplemental ability. Right now Jugs can offset a moderate amount of damage and it’s an essential (critical) part of the toolkit. Water Dragon is a nice “win more” ability, although it itself can throw (team becomes overconfident and the little girl has no tools to keep them alive).
Also, on Level 1 I seem to be missing the free Blinding Wind shot, which is quite important for both functions it does.

Overall, I think that Q needs some serious buffs, maybe for Q build only. It’s sitting at 45% winrate and it’s in strong competition for the lowest throughput heal if not winning it by a substantial margin. I think the only thing keeping it somewhat alive is the level 16 talent - it’s a obscenely high power spike.

Mana regen is a cool idea with a caveat. I find that the Serpent Build’s main use is to keep it running on the frontline, ideally forever. However, it doesn’t just make sense on Sonya, who with an additional Abathur hat becomes literal invincible, but Illidan, Tracer. They don’t have mana.
And Li Li runs out of mana anyway.
Giving mana to Li Li (too) could alleviate it, although smells a bit like Rehgar W build.

4

That Two for One buff would work nicely, the current one is somehow clunky because it increases the cooldown. I don’t want a longer Q cooldown in late game, even if it means healing two teammates. I’d take the 20% healing reduction in exchange.

Also, very nicely formatted and thought out rework post, with reasonable and believable changes. That’s rare on the forums!

1 Like
5

you didn’t make any baseline changes to Serpent.

I thought about making Lightning Serpent baseline, and even making it bounce for 100%, but I honestly thought that could be too much. I feel like people underestimate how strong Cloud Serpent can be. I agree baseline it’s pretty weak- as most of baseline Li Li is weak in general- but the talents stack up a lot. I did purposely design it to be a late game build.

6

Unfortunately hots heroes have weak kits compared to other mobas as we don’t want soloing here

7

You see I get that it’s potent, the problem. Isn’t it’s power rather it’s the fact that it dosne’t feel powerful in spite of being the only part of her kit that is actively controlled by her. Which is why I am determined to add something like utility that adds more power to her but requires more skill and thought process behind it, like Increasing healing intake to the target etc etc.

1 Like
8

I can agree with that, and would support more utility focused change. That said, I’m personally a fan of “pet characters”, so I love Cloud Serpent as just a little auto turret.

9

Lulu for the nexus to have a pet like lili but different From Lili in every other way.