For about several patches other heroes that have weak talents or kits have gotten the love that they deserve, yet she remains untouched, and have the same godawful talents that she always had. The unusual thing is she was released not too long ago, yet even somebody like Nova has better talent diversity than she does.
Her talents suck, her heroics suck, and her level 20 upgrades are some of the worst in the game. Her level 1 base kit is awesome, but that’s about it, and it explains why her talents are garbage - to make up for the fact that she has one of the best level 1 dueling potentials in the game.
What really needs to be fixed is how her overall kit is nothing more than an overly binary flowchart of “did you hit your Q?”. If yes, you are golden. If no, you are screwed. Her talents does nothing to solve that, and if anything, it exacerbates that problem because half of her talents require her to hit the Q.
Nitpicking, but my flowchart looks the other way around
Still, that’s how some heroes are. Missing chains as KT puts you at a significant disadvantage. Or Nova losing her stacks. Or Ana healing zero.
Yes you’re right, missing chains on KT or snipe on Nova puts you at a disadvantage. But if you miss a snipe on Nova you only lose stacks, and if you miss chain on KT you miss 8 seconds of burst window.
Missing a Q on Orphea results in you:
-losing mobility
-losing self-heal
-losing damage
-wasting mana
-losing CDR
-losing % damage (if you took the talent)
If missing a snipe puts you at a disadvantage, missing a shadow waltz puts you on death’s door.
I agree, the ultimate is wonderful. However:
-it’s laughably easy to dodge, and the skillshot is very awkward (it’s perpendicular)
-and if you DO hit it, it’s only a 0.5 second stun and the damage is neglegible.
Compare that to Mephisto’s durance of hate. 2.5 second root, more damage, more range, and lesser cooldown. And it’s still not as picked as consume souls.
Or Ring of frost, a THREE second root duration, which is STILL not as picked as water elemental.
This goes to show how bad her ults are. Her better heroic is a worse version of an inferior heroic from other mages.
Mobility - yes
Self heal - reduced, not denied
Damage - duh, applies to the others as well (no combo for KT)
Mana - same for others
CDR - true, but it’s out worse than losing 5 snipe stacks? Debatable
More damage - ye
The point is - if you play a hero that’s designed around hitting a skill shot, then missing said skill shot should put you at a reasonable disadvantage. That’s the whole concept. Your other abilities still do things, but yes, you are missing some benefits. Should talents help with that? I’m not sure. I know that Nova has talents to gain stacks faster - maybe they can do something similar with Orphea.
Last but not least, I’m always against any changes to Orphea because she is just that much fun to play as. Or at least don’t touch the early talents.
I have level 36 with Orphea with a decent win rate. You’re right she’s definitely fun.
But from my experience playing her there seems to be a significant noticeable difference between “playing her against normal pub teams” vs “playing her against very well coordinated teams”, moreso than any other hero in the game. She’s relatively close ranged, and having a combination of both “close range” and “skillshot reliant” and “low base HP” are things that don’t work well together against good players.
Chromie and Nova can miss 80% of all the Q’s, which yes is never ideal, but can still deal respectable damage from other sources and can have enough utility to do other things. On top of that their Q ranges are very long, so if you miss your Q, back off until it’s off cooldown.
Miss a Q on Orphea? You’re knee-deep in their team and you have no escape or self sustain. You get stunned and die. Your only hope of surviving is trying to finish somebody off with an E + W, which probably wouldn’t happen. A good team can just wait till you miss a Q and then go ham on you - it’s as simple as that.
I’m just gonna have to disagree here. I like her talents, I think there is a lot of versatility. I will agree about the ults. The best thing crushing jaws has going for it is that it clumps everyone up. Eternal feast is just… Not good.
To be fair her level 1 talents (except obviously growing nightmare, which is the worst talent in the game) are very good. That’s about it.
Mind devourer (her best level 7 talent) is a worse version of Mephisto’s level 1 quest.
Fright (her best level 4 talent) only adds a 25% slow for like 0.5 seconds, but you take that because her other two level 4 choices are way too situational or bad.
Determination (her best level 13 talent) is a worse version of Ming’s spell armor, that she gets at level 1.
Her level 16 talents are okay but nothing to write home about. % damage from Q is not as good as autoattack % damage that other heroes have access to.
And finally her level 20 talents. Her best option is only spell power increase that other mages can get at level 13 or 16. A 60% increase in spell damage only in prolonged fights. Not very impressive.
Get the theme? All of Orphea’s best talents are worse versions of talents from other mages that they get from earlier levels (or that they don’t pick).
There is a difference between a close range mage and hugging the enemy tank. Orphea Q has the same range as Jaina Q and you don’t see her kissing the frontline. Plus, cone of cold and chomp have comparable range as well.
Backbiter. One of the coolest talents ever
But you can still get stacks with your other abilities? Granted, slower.
Other mages have no self heal at all.
Maybe. Because as you said, Orphea’s base kit is already so packed that they cannot put too much oomph in every talent.
I do hope I don’t come off as condescending because I definitely don’t want to be, but I think you are being a bit overdramatic.
I’m not with you at 100%: yes, her playstyle is heavily tied to her Q, but her talents get you at last a couple of viable choices here and there that can improve a lot your survability/damange output in different scenarios.
Imho, her basic kit is so strong that talents should be focused on giving more utilities than actual flat buffs and that’s is already there in some form (but it could be done better indeed).
As I said in other similar topics, I think that the only real buff she needs is +10% windup on all skill to compensate the +10% increased movement speed given to everyone sometimes ago: that was an inderect nerf to her, especially to both her ultis, and I don’t think that she deserved that.
both orphea’s heroics are very good, like huge AoE denial/dmg and an AoE stun
imo if her talents tree needs a rework it’s a very small one, she has a good builds diversity
I agree that hitting with her Q plays a huge part in her playstyle but it’s not all of it. I mean it’s like if Maiev misses a tether, Valeera being revealed, Qhira misses a E, any hero that doesn’t land any key skillshot mostly, except Orphea’s Q is already on a 6 secs cd which is very short
I played her to level 74 so far and while i’m mostly going for Q-build, almost all of her talents have a use. Her heroics are both quite usefull.
As for her percent-damage one has to take into account that this is bound to a spammable AoE ability not a single target basic attack.
The only talents i actually find lacking is the 3 stacks on W hits. I see what it is intended for, but simply find it a bitblame for such a late talent.
I also never pick Ancestral, but thats a personal thing as i like the Q-options finishing potential more.
what ? i mostly always play her Q, Q, W (not quest), …, W, …, …
Abyssal Symbiosis is so strong eventhough I sometimes go for the other options I quasi always take it
her only talent i find lackluster would be the Growing Nightmare at 1
Do her talents as a whole really suck? It is more like she has one talent per row so strong you have to be stupid not to take it.
Also her heroics aren’t bad.
My main gripe with her is that her level 7 quests come too late into play considering one is an infinite quest and the other one is long to stack.
They should be put at level 1 and nerfed if the needs arises to.
I feel her playstyle is to make hits in order to gain extra stuff to do. She is short to midrange. Any hero can be ganked when stunned and swarmed. If they aren’t able to kill her before the stun wears off, she can most likely escape and heal.
Back bite is a great one for making hits and running at the same time with the added bonus of healing.
I feel that if all talents are to cover some sort of weakness to the point where they have no weakness, that would also kill talent diversity, because we will choose the best to cover weaknesses.
Talents need to compete for a playstyle.
I recall a hero got a talent swap with an other and it literally killed the point of going for a certain playstyle. It became one or the other not a combination of the two.
I never ask for reworks for any hero. I only ask for reverts. I don’t recall seeing any rework where it didn’t flat out ruin the hero.
