Reworking Valeera

General Discussion
1

Hi
I imagine I dont need to explain why Valeera could use a rework so here’s what I was aiming for.
First I wanted to try and make her less frustrating to fight. She now starts at 4 combo points and most of her more bursty talents have been messed with or removed. Hopefully making interactions with he more be actual like fights rather then instant death.
To compensate her abilities and talents are dramatically more flexible, she can build to be less reliant on stealth, she doesn’t instantly become worthless if you miss a Q, and blade flurry has been adjusted to have a purpose.

Then, her stealthed ability changes in particular are strange so here’s my thought process on them.
Valeera no longer gains teleporting with ambush and cheap shot range if she’s been stealth for 3 seconds. Instead she gets a new ability replacing garrote that instantly gives her the ability to teleport at the cost of a lot of energy. The time it takes her to get at energy back is only slightly more then the old waiting system would have been. Now you have the option to vanish and then instantly teleport to your target with the trade off of having less energy as you start your attack. You also still have access to your teleport even if your under constant attack. Basically being seen no longer destroys all of your usefulness.
Sinister Strike got a similar change so that not only can you more reliably use it as an escape, and your not punished nearly as hard for missing.

Finally, her talents got a complete overhaul. She just had so many that either didn’t work very well or railroaded her in to a very specific playstyle when the rest of her kit wants her to be picking the right tool for the job.

Valeera
Basic attack damage increased from 79 to 90
Valeera now how 4 combo points

Trait
Vanish
Cooldown: 8
Vanish from sight, becoming Stealthed, gaining 20% Movement Speed and access to new Abilities. For the first second, Valeera is Unrevealable and can pass through other units. Remaining stationary for at least 1.5 seconds while Stealthed grants Invisible.

Q1
Sinister Strike
Costs 20 Energy, Cooldown: 1 second
Dash forward, hitting all enemies in a line for 110 damage. If Sinister Strike hits a Hero, Valeera stops dashing immediately.
Each time Sinister Strike fails to hit a hero, its energy cost is increased by 20 for 3 seconds. This stacks.

Awards 1 Combo Point.
(now always a 1 second cooldown but gains a ramping cost if you miss and was 25 energy)

Q2
Ambush
Costs 10 Energy, Cooldown: 1 second
Ambush an enemy, dealing 130 damage and reducing their Armor by 15 for 5 seconds.

Awards 1 Combo Point.

W1
Blade Flurry
Costs 30 Energy, Cooldown: 4 seconds
Deal 125 damage in an area around Valeera. If Blade Flurry hits 2 or more heroes, it’s cooldown is reduced to 1 second.

Awards 1 Combo Point per enemy Hero hit.
(was 130 damage and 40 energy. now has sinister strikes old cooldown reset mechanic)

W2
Cheap Shot
Costs 10 Energy, Cooldown: 1 second
Deal 30 damage to an enemy, Stun them for 0.75 seconds, and Blind them for 1.5 seconds once Cheap Shot’s Stun expires.
(no longer awards a combo point baseline)

E1
Eviscerate
Costs 25 Energy, Cooldown: 1 second
Consumes all Combo Points.

Eviscerate an enemy, dealing increased damage per Combo Point.

1 Point: 75
2 Points: 150
3 Points: 225
4 points: 300
(damage per combo point reduced from 85 to 75)

E2
Shadow Step
Costs 40 Energy, Cooldown: 10 seconds.
Ambush and Cheap Shot gain 100% increased range and cause Valeera to teleport to the target when used.
Movement breaks the invisibility and returns you to stealth.
(Does not award a combo point)

R1
Smoke Bomb
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Create a cloud of smoke. While in the smoke, Valeera is Unrevealable, can pass through other units, and gains 60 Armor, reducing damage taken by 60%. Valeera can continue to attack and use Abilities without being revealed. Lasts 5 seconds.
Using this Ability does not break Stealth.

R2
Cloak of Shadows
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Valeera is enveloped in a Cloak of Shadows, which immediately removes all damage over time effects from her. For 1.5 seconds, she becomes Unstoppable and gains 75 Spell Armor, reducing Ability Damage taken by 75%.
Additionally, taking damage does not unstealth Valeera during Cloak of Shadows.

Talents

-Level 1

Crippling Poison
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Activate to make Valeera’s next damaging Ability and subsequent Abilities within 4 seconds Slow targets by 20% for 4 seconds.
Activating Crippling Poison does not break Stealth.

Combat Readiness
Each Combo Point spent grants 75 Armor against the next enemy Hero Basic Attack, reducing its damage by 75%. Stores up to 3 charges.

Wound Poison
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Activate to make Valeera’s next damaging Ability and subsequent Abilities within 4 seconds reduce enemy healing received by 40% for 4 seconds.
Activating Wound Poison does not break Stealth.

Subtlety
Activating Shadow Step allows you to move while invisible for the next 2 seconds.

-Level 4

Sap
Costs 15 Energy, Cooldown: 6 seconds
Sap the target, putting them to sleep for 1.5 seconds.
Can only be used while stealthed and can use Sap without being revealed.
Passive: Cheap Shot now awards 1 combo point.

Garrote
Activate to make your next Ambush or Cheap Shot cost 20 more energy silence their target for 1.5 seconds.

Seal Fate
Eviscerate no longer costs energy and when it consumes 3 or more combo points, stun the target for 1 second.

-Level 7

Fatal Finesse
Each enemy hero hit by blade flurry refunds 15 energy
❢ Quest: Each time Blade Flurry damages an enemy Hero, its damage increases by 6, up to 60.

Outlaw
Basic attacks dead 15% more damage and generate a combo point with every 3rd attack against heroes.

Initiative
Ambush and Cheap Shot grant 20% Movement Speed for 3 seconds and award 1 additional Combo Point.

-level 13

Vigor
Increase your maximum combo points by 2 and maximum energy by 30. Generating a combo point grants Valeera 6 armor for 2 seconds stacking up to 30 Armor.

Thistle Tea
Eviscerate and Shadow Step regenerate 20 energy over 3 seconds and heal Valeera for 300 over 4 seconds.

Cold Blood
Teleporting with Ambush or Cheap Shot causes Valeera to not generate energy for 2 seconds but all energy costs are reduced to 0 for those 2 seconds.

-Level 16

Storm of Steel
Sinister strike increases the damage your next blade flurry by 20% stacking twice and blade flurry increases the damage by 15% of your next Sinister Strike for each hero hit.

Slice and Dice
Eviscerating an enemy with at least 3 Combo Points grants 150% Attack Speed. Lasts 3 seconds or 5 Basic Attacks.
Passive: Basic Attacks restore 3 Energy.
(was 3 quick basic attacks)

Assassinate
If no other enemy Heroes are within 4 range of the victim, Ambush and Cheap Shot deal 65% additional damage and Ambush reduces the target’s Armor by an additional 10 and Cheap Shot blinds for an additional 2.5 seconds.

-Level 20

Shadow Dance
Smoke Bomb’s area is increased by 15%, casts Vanish and Shadow Step for free. Additionally, Ambush and Cheap Shot now hit every enemy inside of smoke bomb.

Dash
Whenever Valeera uses Cloak of Shadows or Vanish, she gains 60% movement speed decaying over 2 seconds.
(requires Cloak of Shadows)

Enveloping Shadows
Whenever Valeera uses Vanish, she also gains Cloak of Shadows.
(this can now be taken with out Cloak of Shadows)

Killing Spree
Enemy takedowns refresh Vanish, grant 20 energy, and increase Valeera’s damage by 20% for 10 seconds.

6 Likes
2

Not saying valeera doesn’t need a rework but if you want to remove the frustrating parts and allow interactions :

  • simply remove any form of silence (be it Garrote spell, or what you propose as a talent)
  • same for Unrevealable, stealth is already a good mechanic, you don’t need to make it stronger
  • rework/delete both ult, being immune/untargetable = no interaction… so things like your 20 Enveloping Shadows while you’re saying you want here to be interactive is contradictory
  • Basic attack from 79 to whoping 90 is probably too much
    now : 79(+4% per level) 2 attacks per sec, lvl 1 dps : 164.3, lvl 10 dps : 233.9, lvl 20 dps : 346.2
    then : 90(+4% per level) 2 attacks per sec, lvl 1 dps : 187.2, lvl 10 dps : 266.4, lvl 20 dps : 394.4
    that ways above Greymane/Samura/Maiev which are way more reliant on their autos…
    As long as Valeera has 2 attacks per second, it quite hard to balance her autos damage for early game (so no up to this value) and lowering the % per level would make her fall faster for late game, so the actual number seems good enough

If you remove the unilateral gameplay of wow rogue that she embodies and only go towards more offensive/utility for her team, you could imagine using Ult linked to some of wow talent like Assa poison bomb or Shuriken tornado as a dmg/slow for example, or taking a peek at Secret Technique (an ult that would use combo point, with a “huge” cd that reset by 1 sec for each spent combo point) you could target someone but clones would be dashing towards the target and hitting other target would do reduced damage. Aoe is what she lacks, defensive/uninteracitvy is what needs to go

3

The development of the game has stopped years ago. Not sure why you invest the time to write an 10 page essay about an rework which will never arrive.

4

I’m very confident Waterlong is aware that Hots is in maintenance mode and doesn’t need to be reminded.

I only dabble with an occasional game on Valeera, but I’d rather read a “10-page essay” on this topic, than another 5000-word essay on why mirror games in ARAM are akin to a war crime.

6 Likes
5

I feel like your not taking talents in to account.
Current valeera has way more AA damage then my proposed version with Hemorrhage at 4, reaching over 350 dps at level 10 with AAs (and this is with out mutilate or slice and dice at 7). Mine also doesnt even get a damage talent until 7 while current valeera gets damage talents with massive numbers at 4 and 7.

If anything her damage is overall lower then it was.

And then with all the extra evasion I gave her, a lot of that is an attempt to make her feel better to play and make her less useless when enemies start to group up in the late game.

1 Like
6

The discussion boards are for discussions. Maybe you’d have an easier time asking why you come around here despite thinking people are ‘zombies’ that don’t want to discuss things when given the chance to discuss something.

Even when the game was ‘alive’, rework topics that veer too heavily into specifics don’t see much activity. It’s almost like some sort of passion-project game also gets people that have passions that manifest themselves in investing their time into something they value about just one outcome.

3 Likes
7

I’m still trying to figure out why you invest the time to troll the forums for a dead game every day.

3 Likes
8

I love a good valeera rework. It is forbidden for this game to go into maintenance mode until it happens.

Of all the changes, ^^ this (or something similar) needs to happen. When you play a rogue in wow your spells are gaited by energy…not cooldowns. This change would also indirectly provide an uptick to energy regen talents (currently underperforming). The stacking component sounds too harsh imo, but instead the 3s window should be longer. Ultimately, allowing some mobility really increases the skill requirement of valeera, but you dont want her dashing around too much like a melee tracer.

Be bold. Make it 5. Without the right talents, building 5 combo points actually takes a while forcing valeera to be exposed for a long time to try get that “burst”. There’s counterplay in this change and i like it. I personally think most of her damage should come from evis and for balance reasons, gut the rest.

Im intrigued by the idea, but ultimately i kind of like the existing mechanic as is. See my comment below:

Mid-fight CC sounds like a great alternative fight strategy. I love it and current valeera kind of discourages that option. However, I think it’s worth noting that your change to sinister strike kind of accomplishes this. You spend large energy to “teleport” allowing you to quickly stealth and CC mid fight.

Interesting, but probably still too much overlap with SS since it too can be spammed. Imo they should tie soft CC to blade flurry to give it some more identity. Maybe have level 1 talent row devoted to 3 choices of poison. Bladeflurry increases the potency of that poison by 50%?

Love it. Valeera came into the game before sleep was a mechanic in the game. Sap sounds great because sleep has a high utility factor but a surprisingly low salt factor (unlike silence that generates ample salt). I’d even suggest increasing the duration and making it a level 10 heroic option.

I could keep going because i do love talking about valeera, but that will do for now.

6 Likes
9

Hey thanks and honestly id love to talk about it more : p

I was thinking more sinister strike for single target and blade furry for team fights. Kinda like you how pick between your stealth abilities.
In my head I picture you smoke bomb for some survivability and then you blade flurry → evis, blade flurry → evis, blade flurry → evis over and over which I think would be really fun.

I can also see a world where blade flurry is some kinda cc or utility and id be happy with that.

3 Likes
10

I have not played Valeera in forever, but I saw the patch and then saw Valeera rework so figured I would give my input. Used to be a decent Valeera main though I doubt I still am in NA Masters/GM for my credentials.

Baseline:

  • I like the sinister strike stuff being capped by energy instead
  • I like the bladeflurry reduction in cooldown as well
  • 15% armor reduce baseline seems a little strong, but I guess she is losing a lot of damage

Level 1 Talents:

  • Subtlety is kind of trash imo because it’s not fun to play against, granted it would feel really good for valeera where sometimes it can be hard to get that engage off that you need

Level 4 Talents:

  • I like sap because I used to do that in WoW a lot, but it is also kind of meme when competeting with garrote
  • Garrote is the best talent on this tier hands down

Level 7 Talents:

  • Fatal Finesse refunding 15 energy per hero hit is a little strong, if you always hit 2 or more heroes then combined with the cd reduction, she will get heavy AoE damage
  • Outlaw is okay as a talent, but valeera’s problem as an auto attacker is that it is hard for her to auto attack which is why the auto attack talents are barely picked despite pumping damage
  • Initiative I think is a really good talent for fitting into your rework and fits her new playstyle

Level 13 Talents:

  • Thistle Tea is just straight trash when compared to vigor? Don’t know why you would ever pick thistle compared to Vigor
  • Cold blood is giga broken?

Level 16 Talents:

  • Slice and Dice is bad because of the reasons kind of stated above in that Valeera sucks as an auto attacker
  • I don’t know between Storm of Steel and Assassinate, I would have to play them to test how they feel, but I believe Assassinate would be picked a majority of the time.

Level 20:

  • Dash is kind of meh
  • Killing Spree is interesting, but not sure it really fits valeera’s role
  • Enveloping Shadows I think would be picked like 80% of the time although Shadow Dance may have it’s niche uses

Here is probably what my talents would look like under this rework:

1/2/3
2
3
Smoke Bomb
3
1 or 3 leaning more towards 3
3

4 Likes
11

heh, am afraid this isnt a rework from the patch. my bad if i baited you. didnt really to post this on almost the same day. thanks for the honest review tho : p

The idea with the AA stuff was to take take it along side Seal fate at 4. The stun would make it much easier to get all the Slice and Dice autos. Then your only more auto and any ability from doing another stun with evis.

12

Oh for sure. I see the dream.

I often find myself wondering why Illidan’s “battered assault” and zeratul’s cleave build (builds that gain bonuses if you hit 2+ targets) are so engaging but valeera’s Blade Flurry is considered “lacking in identity”.

I think the answer to that question is that illidan and zera have great mobility so positioning yourself in such a way that you hit 2 targets is a challenging (but achievable) minigame.

Live version of Valeera would not waste a sinister strike to position herself to maximise BF’s functionality hence its lack of identity. Your proposed changes to SS helps bridge that gap, but is it enough to make BF interesting?

1 Like
13

I think the other thing that stops BF from being used like that is just how expensive it is. 40 energy is a ton and it also means you cant use one of your CC openers or you wont have enough energy to evis.

With Illi and Zera tho, there’s basically nothing to lose other then you’ve just taken a different talent build.

Edit: theres also very little reward for Valeera to go for bigger BFs. Illi and Zera have massive incentives while Val just gets an extra combo point.
BF also does less damage then Q in Q build and you dont have enough energy to cast BF in Garrote build. Then in Ambush build your actively disincentivised to go for AOE Bfs.

3 Likes
14

Yes! Lack of incentive. Good point. This is also amplified by the fact that you only have a max of 3 combo points. Talents like Seal Fate granting bonus combo points mean any extra points from BF are likely to exceed the max number of points.

This further strengthens the argument to increase the combo point cap.

3 Likes
15

Oh yeah that to. Its so easy to be even more inefficient with an attack that’s not really efficient in the first place.

16

Valeera already is a trash hero and everyone wants to make her worse :frowning:

Leave my Valeera alone. Yeah shes great in QM, but any amount of attention to her and she is easily shut down.

Pro Valeeras are harder to deal with thats true, but there are way more annoying heroes imo

17

If anything, I’m worried I may have over buffed her.

1 Like
18

Val is fine as is…had a better game than her as Murky the other day, she’s balanced on skill

19

gj beating her as murky. Thats a matchup in her favor.

her kits a mess and she kinda suck tho and this is coming from someone whos level 80 something on her.

1 Like
20

I would accept any type of rework that would move her away from aa/energy talents towards blossoming out her role as a shutdown/mugging hero. Even expanding upon her abilities outside of stealth.

2 Likes