Thoughts on Crypt Lord Rework? (Updated) August 2019

Competitive Multiplayer
42

Level 1 beetles are uterrly crap, they need an upgrade.
but well, the best idea I had some time ago was, to give them a synergie with spiked carrapace, like people already suggested.

Spiked carrapace gives 33%/66% and full magic immunity with level 3.
So you have to decied between level 3 beetles with better stats, or magic immunity on level 5, or both with level 6 for the cost of the ultimate.
In the end, they are slow, they dont have ranged attacks and the cryptlord doesnt have anythingelse to offer other than the betlees, so I think, this passive makes up for all this weaknesses.

1 Like
43

I think the goal should be to try to make him a viable first pick option, like pretty much all other heroes that summon units. He’s a long way off from that, and it’s not just because of the mighty DK.

Beetles need a lot more health at all levels OR better attack speed. They need more special abilities than just burrow at tier 2. A 10% chance to mini bash for 0.5 seconds (0.1s on hero) at tier 3 would be cool. Other ideas: spell immunity/resistant skin, baneling style suicide explosion, exhume corpses, lifesteal that heals CL. You can even increase their mana cost from 35 to 50, but make them stronger.

Impale and Carapace are obviously bad and need improvement. Impale needs another 1 second of duration at all levels, including against heroes, and removal of the 1 second of invulnerability (or just don’t send enemies in to the air if this is too difficult).

Carapace could heal CL equal to the damage reflected. It could provide resistant skin, spell block, or spell immunity. Or even magic/ranged damage reflection instead of just against melee. It could stun enemy melee attackers.

1 Like
44

I agree that the Crypt Lord needs buffs/work but I do NOT think he needs a major rework. I think he’s easier to fix than appearances would suggest.

The most important thing people need to realize is that it doesn’t matter what you do to CL as long as the DK remains overpowered. The healing on Death Coil and both aspects of Unholy Aura (healing/movespeed) are overpowered which is why at the pro level DK is the ONLY CHOICE for 1st hero.

A discussion about buffing CL is therefore automatically also a discussion about nerfing the DK:

Death Coil

Mana: 75 -> 90 (Grossly undercosted healing efficiency)
Cooldown: 6 -> 8sec (The low 6sec cooldown makes it too spammable)
Level 1: 100 dmg / 200 heal -> 120 dmg / 120 heal
Level 2: 200 dmg / 400 heal -> 240 dmg / 240 heal
Level 3: 300 dmg / 600 heal -> 360 dmg / 360 heal

Increasing the damage encourages its use as a KILL SPELL, not a friggen heal. The DK is not a damn priest. (The heal on levels 2 and 3 is still good enough to be worth casting and there would no longer be any overhealing wasted on Ghouls)

Unholy Aura

Level 1: 0.5 hp/sec, 10% move -> 2 + 4% dmg / 8% move
Level 2: 1.0 hp/sec, 20% move -> 3 + 7% dmg / 14% move
Level 3: 1.5 hp/sec, 30% move -> 4 + 10% dmg / 20% move

The healing component of Unholy Aura should be moved over to Devotion Aura on the Paladin and replaced with a damage buff component. The DK is a KILLER not a damn priest. (Oh by the way, such a damage component would make Ghouls dangerous AF) The move speed portion is just flat OP and needs to be nerfed. (Endurance Aura speed nerfed as well.)

Now on to the CL.

Impale

The invulnerability granted to targets and the unusability of it on rooted targets are BUGS and need to be fixed. THAT’S IT. Otherwise it’s a good ability.

Spiked Carapace

This ability only needs relatively minor tweaks to become good. The problem is that being only % based damage return makes it not very noticeable vs weak attackers like Footmen so as suggested elsewhere in this thread it needs a flat damage component added to the returned damage. Also, as mentioned the +armor doesn’t give it quite enough oomph.

Level 1: 15% return / 3 armor -> 3 + 10% return / 8% damage reduction
Level 2: 25% return / 5 armor -> 5 + 15% return / 14% damage reduction
Level 3: 35% return / 7 armor -> 7 + 20% return / 20% damage reduction

The % returned is calculated before the reduction. This kind of flat damage reduction is extremely powerful and would synergize well with his ult making him VERY hard to kill while the ult is active. Another poster in this thread suggested 55% damage reduction at level 3. That would be OP as hell and make the CL nearly unkillable.

Carrion Beetles

These are much easier to fix than I think people realize. First of all, trying to summon 6 of them is a pain in the ass so why should there be 6? Cut that number in half down to 3 at a time max. Now we can make each Beetle much stronger.

What about them feeding EXP by being dispelled? Well here’s the thing about that, all summons have one thing in common: they exist for only a limited duration. Carrion Beetles are permanent so guess what? THEY’RE NOT SUMMONS. Make them considered to be standard units that cannot be dispelled.

Also, someone else suggested in this thread that at level 3 they should be given a mini-bash of 10% chance for 0.5 stun / 0.1 hero stun which I think is a great idea! I’d also add +10 damage to that bash proc.

Since we’re making the Beetles much stronger their mana cost and cooldown need to be doubled so they can’t just be spammed right after they’re killed in combat with the enemy.

Mana: 30 -> 60
Cooldown: 6 -> 12sec
Level 1: Take current level 2 stats and put them here.
Level 2: Take current level 3 stats and put them here. (Can Burrow)
Level 3: Create new stats along the same progression as if there had been a level 4 version of Beetles. (10% mini-bash)

Mini-bash:
Chance: 10%
Duration: 0.5 sec creep / 0.1 sec hero
Damage bonus: +10

Carrion Beetles can be further made much more useful by nerfing Rod of Necromancy and tweaking Ritual Dagger. Currently Rod of Necromancy is a creeping crutch that makes Ghouls and Beetles totally obsolete for creeping in the early game. It should have 3 charges and summon only 1 skeleton that is somewhat tougher but is really just there to tank damage away from Ghouls / Beetles at the start of a fight with creeps. The summoned skeleton should not always be expected to survive the fight.

Ritual Dagger should be tweaked to have a more powerful effect but not usable on summons. Now that our Carrion Beetles are no longer summons they become much more valuable in how they interact with Ritual Dagger since they can be used in place of a Ghoul or an Acolyte.

Ultimate

This only needs minor “ease of use” number tweaks such as possibly lowering the mana cost and/or the cooldown as suggested by others in this thread. (Mana down to 120 and/or cooldown down to 150sec?) It’s actually a decent ult that makes the CL MUCH harder to kill while it’s active.

**Edit: Corrected the item name Sacrificial Dagger -> Ritual Dagger

2 Likes
45

I’ll drop everything I had or have in mind to upgrade the beetles or the cryptlord itself, or lets call it brainstorming:

-Beetles explodes like banelings upon death causing AoE damage
-Beetles get siege damage
-Beetles get spell damage reduction: 33%/66%/Full Spell Immunity (with spiked carrapace or with the levels so the passive gets somethingelse)
-Beetles on all levels have maximum speed (For Macroplays and Surrounds)
-Beetles have lifeleech attacks for themself or the cryptlord
-Beetles have mana and spells, for example: single target devour magic.
-Slowing- or debuffing attacks in general
-Beetles get an insane amount of HP but drastically decreased damage

-spiked carrapace offers HP regeneration per second
-spiked carrapace increases movement speed (kind of a synergie with impale)
-spiked carrapace gives synergies to impale and the bettles
-spiked carrapace now gets an additional mechanic and heals heals the most wounded unit(s) around the crytlord for an absolut value per autoattack (!)
-spiked carrapace drastically increases the strenght of the cryptlord (5/10/15)
-spiked carrapace, well, increases all of the cryptlords stats (5/10/15 … this comes in handy with the high manacost for impale)

-Impale gets an overhaul, drastically decreased damage and little decreased stun duration but also drastically decreased manacost (like 50) so it can be literally spammed. (!) So the cryptlord would become an even better alternative as third hero as undead and you could go for an impale/beetles build.
-Impale can’t be aborted anymore and always has the full range
-Impale can also target builds and deals bonusdamage to them

Thats it for now.

1 Like
46

let me guess. you are a human player that has problems to kill a lich ?

btw. compare death coil to healing wave. Healing wave doesnt overheal, hits multiple targets which is by far more usefull than singletarget healing, heals by far more than 600 damage and cost 90 mana with a 9 seconds cooldown.

long story short; I think deathcoil is literally perfectly fine with the cooldown that fits into alot of clutch timings to heal heros and units.
The decisionmaking for deathcoils and even the position of the DK makes him one of the most skillfull heros to use, no need nerfes.

2 Likes
47

You are aware that Holy light is already a lower cooldown, lower manacost, instant cast spell than Death Coil and you want to nerf Deathcoil to shit?

Its not DK OP. Its the entire UD units which have 0 natural regen outside of blight and unholy aura. Without DK you can’t go out on the map at all because your units lose HP and they do not recover it, so any time you creep or your opponent attacks you, you are already at a disadvantage. Unholy aura is the only way for UD to have any chance of keeping their units alive. Once the DK dies, the UD army is soon to follow because of less speed and healing.

The DK is not OP, its the fact that blizzard has designed UD so poorly that the entire race is dependant on one hero. Not even Human is so dependant on Brilliance Aura. Bloodmage works just fine with Paladin and MK aswell. Orc works just fine without Endurance Aura. And Nightelf has been doing just fine without any Aura for years.

1 Like
48

I agree that there is potential for replacing DK’s healing with CL beetles + sacrificial dagger. I think buffing sacrificial skull would also help in that regard. Giving it 2 charges for the same 50 gold doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. The blight patches are also contrary to DK’s style of play. Lowered cost on cannibalize and better options to manage corpses in tier 1 might also help. Giving the Crypt Lord a way of creating blight as part of one of his abilities may be an idea worth entertaining as well.

49

Let me guess, you’re a nobody who doesn’t know squat about me? I’m willing to play all 4 races but my preferences are as follows: 1. Orc, 2. Undead, 3. Human, 4. Night Elf.

You think I don’t know Healing Wave is OP? I know Healing Wave is OP as is Holy Light. They’re just not as OP as Death Coil. Why exactly do you think it is that Orc and Human often get those spells vs UD? They have to have them in order to keep pace OP Death Coil.

“Healing wave doesnt overheal, hits multiple targets which is by far more usefull than singletarget healing,”

Absolutely 100% WRONG. A large single target heal is WAYYYY better than an overly efficient mass heal. You don’t watch many pro replays on youtube do you. If you did there is something you would notice about them. You’d notice that about 90% of the time a pro level player loses their highest level hero in a fight if it’s level 4 or higher they concede the match. Often they’ll concede if their 2nd hero is around level 3+ and they lose it. Losing a leveled up hero = losing the match in a pro tournament. Being able to pump a 600 point heal into them to save them is JUST KILLER. This is a major reason that jackass Happy is considered “good”. He saves his Lich over and over with skillcoil allowing the Lich to continue sniping with orb of corruption + claws of attack and throwing out Frost Nova nukes wasting everything in its path.

The problem with healing wave is the healing progression of +85 per level is too high given that each level also increases the number of targets by +1. It should only increase by about +50 healing each level → 130, 180, 230 instead of 130, 215, 300. Healing Wave and Hex both act like “magnets” pulling level points away from Serpent Wards because they’re simply too good for it to be worth putting any points into Serpent Wards which is sad.

“The decisionmaking for deathcoils and even the position of the DK makes him one of the most skillfull heros to use, no need nerfes.”

No actually it makes the DK one of the most brainless heroes to play:

The link is set to that portion of the video that will get your rocks off watching Happy’s “skill” with Death Coil.

50

I’m aware of all that. Holy Ligh is OP as well. It’s just not as OP as Death Coil. Here’s why:

  1. Death Coil can be used to kill against 3 of the 4 races.
    (Massive difference)

  2. Death Coil can be used to steal creeps in the early game.
    (Also a big deal at the pro level)

Those 2 points right there are enough to make Death Coil MUCH better than Holy Light but I’ll keep going.

  1. Fiends are more powerful/better than Riflemen so saving them with a Death Coil heal gives more benefit to UD than saving a Rifleman with Holy Light does to HU.

  2. The +move speed aura of the DK combo’s with the healing on Death Coil to help save the target of the heal. Sometimes when a Pally throws out a heal the target of their heal just gets refocused down and killed anyway because it couldn’t get away whereas a unit that gets healed with Death Coil and kites with +10%-30% move speed is VERY hard to kill.

This is what I would do to Holy Light:

Mana Cost: 80
Cooldown: 7 sec
Level 1: 100 dmg / 150 heal
Level 2: 200 dmg / 300 heal
Level 3: 300 dmg / 450 heal

It would still be significantly more efficient for healing than Death Coil would (assuming my Death Coil changes were applied as well) which I think is thematically appropriate for the Paladin yet would not be OP anymore and it would no longer over-heal on Footmen.

This is what I propose for death Coil:

Mana Cost: 90
Cooldown: 8 sec
Level 1: 120 dmg / heal
Level 2: 240 dmg / heal
Level 3: 360 dmg / heal

It is still valuable for healing at level 2 and 3. It would no longer over-heal Ghouls. It’s an even better kill spell but this is counterbalanced by the higher mana cost and cooldown. An 8 sec cooldown is long enough to force a decision, do I save 1 of my high value units with a heal or do I try to assassinate 1 of the enemy heroes?

51

I’m not willing to read your stuff if you start with “you are a moron”.
Instead I flagged both of your posts.

Have fun with the rest of your day and come back if you are able to talk with respect and without emotional language again. bye

4 Likes
52

This is the correct move in dealing with that poster. He has been doing the same in another thread he started. If he doesnt agree with you he will insult you instead and gets emotional to the point he cant have an educated discussion.

53

Why would I care if you read my stuff?

The fact that you would say something like:

proves you have no understanding of game balance and are therefore highly unlikely to make productive suggestions for balance changes. A 600 point heal on a significantly lower cool down used on your 2nd hero is WAY BETTER than a 300 point heal on your 2nd hero that also bounces to other units since losing a hero in a fight often means losing the game at the pro level.

I only replied to your post for the sake of anyone else reading this thread.

54

I like how this guy created what amounts to a “nerf UD” post under the guise of buffing CL.

No, DK isn’t overpowered. The UD race is poorly designed, making what DK offers too critical to pass up. Fix the underlying problems, see if DK is too weak or too strong after the underlying problems are fixed, and then make adjustments to DK. We don’t start by nerfing a hero first, and then pushing through a paradigm shift. You wait to see how DK fits into the new world before you start changing it.

And UD is in such a conceptually shitty rut right now, that it’s not fair to call for nerfs.

ALSO: comparing Chain Heal unfavorably to Death Coil, while ignoring how cost effective and easy Orc single target OOC healing is? Bro.

1 Like
55

Yes it is and as long as the DK remains OP it’s pointless to discuss any changes to the Crypt Lord, it will still never be picked. Calling my post a “nerf UD” post is a gross simplification on your part and indicates a lack of attention to the discussion.

That’s great that Orc has good single target OOC healing. That’s not going to save your heroes in the middle of a major fight which is what determines who wins or loses the game at the pro level and is irrelevant to the discussion of Death Coil healing vs Healing Wave healing.

59

No one can argue that current undead is heavily reliant on DK.

This is because their heal item from shop is Terrible.

That’s part of the problem. Undead tier 3 melee (abom) is the most clunkiest tier 3 unit.

They are only good for disease cloud. They can’t fight they have bad turn rate and attack speed.

Cannibalize is also pretty useless as an ability unless your playing against AI??

I would suggest fixing dagger, Abom and cannibalize first.

1 Like
60

I don’t like the idea of overlapping abilities like giving carapace on beetles. It forces builds, and I didn’t like that they did it on DR, and I don’t like that Tinker has a useless passive that you must take second, either.

Honestly, Undead has no shortage of healing abilities. They have Stone Form, Cannibalize, Blight, 2 healing auras, Coil, burrow, and Statues. They need better ways of creating blight. Ritual Dagger was not needed. All they needed to do was buff Sacrificial Skull and maybe a couple abilities listed above. Give Skull 2 charges for 60 gold and create a corpse in the blight. Nerf Rod from 4 charges to 3. Just do those 2 things along with small buffs to DL & CL, and suddenly DK isn’t an auto-first pick.

As for CL, his beetles just aren’t very useful. Changing their damage type to siege might give them some utility, and gives Undead some desperately needed siege damage to deal with siege engine harass. Trying to make his 5 summons in to tanks doesn’t work very well since their stats are spread thin and are killed by dispel. If they’re not going to be fast and do a lot of damage, then it’s important to at least give them some decent abilities. I spent a lot of time testing with them in the editor, and found that the 32 collision on the lvl 3 beetles was also a major problem with using them.

Crypt Lord
Impale

  • Impaled enemies no longer have a 1 second invulnerability period.

Spiked Carapace
(Reworked)

  • Reduces all incoming damage by 10/20/30%. Deals 4/8/12 damage to enemy melee attackers.

Carrion Beetle

  • Carrion Beetle damage type changed from Normal to Siege.

  • Level 3 Beetle collision size reduced from 32 to 16.

  • Hit Points reduced from 170/330/490 to 170/310/450

  • Carrion Beetles have a new ability at all levels: Infest

  • Carrion Beetle level 3 has new ability: Lesser Bash

    Infest

    • Infests the targeted area with blight. The beetle is sacrificed.
      • Works similar to Detonate, but instead creates blight in a 300 AoE.

    Lesser Bash

    • 10% chance, 1 (0.5 on hero armor) second duration, Deals 15 damage.

Locust Swarm

  • Cooldown reduced from 180 to 160.

I really like the idea of giving the beetles the ability to create blight, since beetles are largely responsible for spreading disease to plants in nature.

1 Like
61

I like the idea of siege dmg on the beetle

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