What's wrong with Orb Build Li Ming?

It’s the idea of “quality damage” or “effective damage” versus just numbers.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve found plenty of uses for high amounts of damage, but there’s arguments to be made for targeted damage too. Once a target starts to retreat, Orb built has a difficult time securing a kill, and Disintegrate doesn’t always do it. On the other hand, Calamity lets one point-and-click a kill target before they can start running off.

In terms of ‘quantity’ damage, there are better heroes like Lunara, Kael’Thas, or Hammer who just use pure damage to zone out enemies. Ming doesn’t do it badly with Orb Build, but her kill secure via close-range Calamity tends to be seen as more valuable than long-range raw damage.

I still wouldn’t pick it. After a while playing her, positioning just fills that spell armor from force armor, you know what I mean? I think force armor is fine, if you are not secure about being able to position or dodge things, pick it and have fun, but once you get really good with her you shouldn’t need it really. Even against alarak, I can easily blink out of his combo even after he pulled me in. This is also true to basically every hero in the game. You can just blink and dodge everything (EXCEPT COCOON, BLIZZARD PLEASE REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE).

Actually, he said the other day that Aether is a bad talent, like a couple days ago. I remember cause I said “well, at least your li ming took calamity” and he replied with “yeah, but he choose a pretty weird level 1”. His level 1 was Aether and the map was BoE just so you know.

I also remember the other day him saying something like “oh s***, this ming is a blinker”, like making fun because the guy took Aether.

It’s true, but you should be playing in a range that let’s you E in. Also, once you go up in ranks, you should get damaged no matter what. People will focus you, you will get AA’ed or hit by something, even if it’s a pretty small damage.

Like, sure, you can just sit back and have all the Es, but that doesn’t really contribute with anything. Aether doesn’t help you when it really matters.

Also let’s be real, if you are using your E to boost your Q damage and someone finds a good engage, your E is probably on cd now and you miss the damage, probably don’t get the kill and that can lead to a lost fight in just less than 3 seconds.

Gotta remember that it lasts 20 seconds. It is a long time. You can literally grab a globe on your way to the objective.

That’s the thing. I see that most mings keep spamming Q + W, but it is wrong. You should be spamming Qs and saving W + E for your full combo when someone gets CCed. Sure spamming Q + W will make you go oom (no matter what talents you take).

Like, in a stream or something? Because every time he picks Li Ming in his vids he pretty much exclusively goes Aether. He even made a point to mention that Aether is an amazing chasing talent because you can just E on your opponents every 3 seconds while they run and force them to fight you.

I’d appreciate a link if you have one.

Oh, I do agree, and I am pretty decent about dodging his combo in general, but the good Alaraks go with the CDR, and I don’t always have E up. Besides, I am a bruiser at heart, and sadly that shows in my Ming play!

No.

fundamentally, the problem is the range required to use the orb (especially past 16) renders missiles useless. Combined with little reason to ever teleport, it makes li ming a one-button hero that effectively becomes talentless if you are even in a position to use any of her other abilities.

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Orb build and ming in general is fantastic. 1000+ damage on 1, 2, and sometimes even 3 enemies each, every 4 seconds or so is devastating.

The problem is it takes a good amount of finesse and very precise aim to get that result. People treat her like another pick up and play type hero thinking that shes easy to play. On paper she is easy to play. Just press the buttons on cooldown to do the damage right?
What happens tho is if your not hitting with orb at max range and not hitting all 3 misiles every time she only does around 450 damage or so with her abilites which is low even for some tanks and healers.

As some who heals and plays ming sometimes, i can say that even her non teamfight, random damage pokes can be difficult to deal with if shes constantly hitting those max rango orbs on cooldown.

Honestly imo her biggest trap talent is her orb at 16. The range is far too long to work with other abilities and the dmg is mediocre vs either q talents. Even when i go for w at 4/7 i dont get this talent.

The w at 7 i only grab if im the only backline. At that point e is just for positioning/escape.

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I see a pretty decent number of pro games that use the level 1 teleport talent. It is not picked as often, but it is more common there than I would have thought without watching them myself.

It was in a stream yeah. It will be hard to find it :confused:

How often does Alarak has his combo up with the cdr at 1? I feel like you should have your E up before his combo. At least before his W.

Eh?

I mean I guess if you’re talking in the context of Calamity build, maybe you get hit because you have to get close to use it.
But for Orb build it’s very easy to make use of Aether for mobility, and for my Missile build I still find it extremely useful even when I’m planning to go in for Cannoneer, just because you can move in with it and still have another ready almost immediately to help you move out.
I do like Illusionist as an option for Orb build though, for the range increase on Teleport. Even better repositioning to make it harder to safely avoid max damage Orbs.

I almost always go Aether, and it allows me to just not even bother mounting. And it sure saves a heck of a lot of mana, if you use teleport as much as I do.

That’s why I think Aether is a great choice for Orb build.
I was just trying it, and it’s not as comfortable as Missile build to me, but I was still getting kills, multi-kills, the damage didn’t at all feel meaningless.
And that was in QM against a bunch of mobile assassins, or on maps I wouldn’t normally pick Orb (I wouldn’t purposely ever pick her on Infernal Shrines…)

:slight_smile:

I found that in the context of Calamity build you get hit because have to get close to use it. but not wrong here I thank for that.

Aether is my preferred talent at 1, but I also like to build tward AA ming with Charged Blast and Canooner esp since I prefer fireflies or diamond skin at 16, but at that point the only orb talent I might take is Zei’s, so then I don’t have an orb build at all XD

It depends on if he goes full CDR at 16, too. While the spell power is my preferred choice, I just find I have more room for error with Force Armor against him. And that is a good thing when I am playing her like an Artanis!

Battle mage, incoming!

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This has all been incredibly useful, guys. Thank you all! I’ve a lot to practice now… :stuck_out_tongue:

Ooops… Guilty! :raised_back_of_hand:t2:
Noted tho, don’t take Glass Canon with Orb Build. Ty!

Orb Build simply increases the damage of orbs, which requires you to constantly keep the enemy team at maximum or near maximum range to make the build useful in the first place. Staying that far back means you are giving the enemy team lots of time to avoid the orbs, heal off the damage, etc. This isn’t counting how useless it is against very aggressive teams that dive hard.

The typical meta build based around calamity gives you more guaranteed damage since you can combine Mirrorball boosted magic missiles, orb and a calamity teleport to do a ton of damage from mid range and close range. All that more guaranteed damage means more kills, more kills means more resets, more resets means MORE kills, enough kills means you can win the teamfight and can start dominating the map, winning obj, killing core, etc.

Orbs can deal lots of damage but they don’t confirm a lot kills. Players see the damage potential of orbs and get thirsty for huge damage from a safe range. I can understand orb build on some maps but I tend to look down on full orb Ming players these days.

Pretty much this on the dot. I like the term fake damage but I always called it trash stats. You rack them up without really getting impact from that damage. Stats earned in the garbage time of a match where none of the damage done is getting value.

Calamity and wave of force all the way! I wish Ming had more viable build options that just orb spam or calamity though.

It is impactful. Case solved

Effective damage either drives away people from the objective or kills them, but either way it puts you closer to their core.

Anything else is stat padding, while Orb Ming can have her uses on some maps, if the enemy team has 6 structures up while she has 120k damage, and your team has 0 structures left, she has been ineffective.

Damage doesn’t necessarily have to lead to kills but it has to drive enemies away from the fort, keep or objective you’re trying to capture or destroy.

If a player goes full Orb, they need a different finisher hero on the team though. And finishing kills is a much safer way to get a free pass to push down their forts than just putting enemies on 10% HP.

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