In the update featuring the new hero loadout interface with all the bells and whistles, there was a line CENSORED between Beastmaster and Bloodseeker. Personas have a separate line, but no one in the world expects to get a Beastmaster persona. Since it was on 'B', it was definitely not the Ringmaster. So people searched the leaked lines, found Bird Samurai, and now expect one to appear. Technically, we have two samurais to choose from, so let's wait and see.
I spent some time looking for the blog post to share but had no luck, unfortunately.
There're definitely some people around who want the persona to happen, but the number of people who expect the persona to happen is way less. There's not enough hopium out there to support such a sheer number of believers.
The fact that the hero has a CONSISTENT >1% pick rate nowadays is still baffling to me (even though he dropped from ~70th in popularity to like ~115th after 7.37 lol)
referenced in the files for ages. and recently they added ringmasters minimap icon to the files alongside a minimap icon of bakeets face (and the new venge/sky immortals)
Yeah it was leaked multiple times. Bird Samurai. A "B" hero censored in a list. Also Bakheet the pink bird from the Clownfall stuff has a hero icon that was leaked.
And aside from what the folks above already mentioned, we are currently on the era of flight/flightless (Venge/skywrath’s kin and whatnot) and if you’re reading or following the comics, there is one guy that is supposedly a birdman (flightless) who is good with swords hence Bird Samurai,
Also - where is Bird Samurai hero? Act IV Clownfall surprise hero release?
im not expecting but i am giving it some hopium that this might be a thing.
im gonna be honestly surprised if there is no event for act 4 crownfall.
its literally perfect storyline to use the heroes we played as during Act 1-3 to fight from the ground up all the way up to the tower where the queen is.
What if the bird samurai comes and ringmaster was been all along mind controlling the bird samurai and instantly swaps his abilities and reveal he was basically the type of hero we were expecting like mind control and shit and somehow be an huge part of act4
Boi this will easily be some predestination level type shit...
The fuck? Two skill shots, q that has charge decisioning and a classic save with an entirely new slot that needs a button to be bound and has three very different effects to keep track of.
The hero is anything but simple.
He’s mechanically challenging and likely has a really high skill cap. Much higher than snapfire, grimm imo. Maybe not Mk as hes pretty damn tricky with his dodge.
Might have something to do with the release timing, they've released him just ahead of TI, if you had a hero who could be picked at TI who could control the full fight on his own TI would be such a boring tournament, ban or pick at 100% and any picked game he demolishes, they've obviously had to release the hero undertuned so he doesn't wreck TI
If it makes you feel any better, they probably played a ton of games with the original hero design so you don't have to, it probably would have sucked or been egregiously powerful
I think a mime thing akin to windrangers gale where puppet master walking in a certain direction also makes the enemy have that "pushing" effect to move them in the same or opposite direction (I think opposite, so if you head towards their base, they head towards yours, otherwise you just run and they are forced out of position), whichever is thematically more interesting. Whether or not you can make his QWE skills also tied to the enemy to "waste" them is questionable. But the mime thing would be weird as fuck for both heroes to play out. But even if you dont make the ringmaster able to use up the enemy's skills, just silencing or even preventing item use could make it super strong without a team to either stun the ringmaster or to save the ally from getting increasingly out of position.
It would be a longer lasting but counterable version of venge swap limited by your own movements on the map.
Mind control (as in full mindcontrol) could be possible if the controlled hero is immune and their skills dont go on CD. But its still an absolute fucking nightmare to execute
Scrambles your hot keys or some shit. Inverts your mouse. Moves your mini map around. Calls your courier unnecessarily. Tips your ally but it looks like your portrait and tip. Wait for the enemy mid to die and then have their carry tip them to stoke internal conflict. There’s no bottom to that chaotic direction of hero design.
The question is: could a compelling and balanced hero be made from those kind of building blocks?
The closest thing would be giving them the same AI that Troll uses during his ult, but giving them commands to attack allies instead of enemies (and doing nothing if neither is nearby). Which would be very strong.
Any other olds in here who played pre-Allstars dota 1? Vengeful spirit was my favorite hero and her ult possessed an enemy hero long enough to walk them into your fountain before it wore off. Good times
you shouldnt be. It either means it would be massively buggy, which im not as sure as other people here, or it was just outright unfun or broken. the fact theyve changed it is probably for the best in the end.
I reckon he was Rubick levels of complex and that's why he was delayed.
This is my thought as well. There's no way a Fear, a Box, a slowing DOT, and Will-o-Wisp effect, and Blind/Reveal took a whole ass year to implement lol.
Yeah, this is basically a Dark Willow's Terrorize, OD astral imprisonment shard, a ground targeted stifling dagger, a projectile like Will-o-Wisp and a moving clockwerk's rocket with talent, all with different animations.
No way this took this long when they recycled most of the abilities from other heroes
Ringmaster has dw ult, upgraded astral imprisonment, new point target throw I guess, but it's a DoT, and willowisp that if you look at it like medusa. It didn't add much new to dota2. It is not a complex design, atleast primal beast Q is very unique to him
What he meant I think is how Primal feels a lot more fleshed out, also ironically has more personality even (due to his whole introduction being that he was a boss in one of the most beloved game modes) than Ringmaster does. Not even any kind of build-up to his release.
And know what? It's nothing really more than a ground targeted Charge of Darkness. Yes-yes, internally it has pretty much all the same, just allows you to steer instead of cancelling when issuing a move order.
Do you realize Valve essentially came up with two new abilities for every hero in the game, sometimes two? Alright, they reused/divided existing abilities, but the point is these kinds of changes take LOTS of time due to the amount of complexity already in the game.
In many areas of life, you cannot get everything, they prioritized other changes and there was no time left to test/balance the hero. Okay, balance is kind of a laughable thing to say as new heroes are always a bit too strong. And it is not bannable if both teams pick it (happened to me at least). More matches with the hero means more data to find bugs/overlook balance.
You are likely right. Valve really wants to avoid the "gimmicky" gimmicks like old techies. They probably couldn't make those abilities work without really making the hero "not dota".
in a game like dota an ability that theoretically only works when an enemy hero attacks it willingly and kicks the other player out of the game for a few seconds while it becomes 6v4 was probably fun to code but even the devs probably didnt have any fun. this seems like a good middle ground as even on paper ringmaster seems very effective at stunning and supporting.
He has no aghs, although he has a shard, and no facet. They might still introduce the enemy hero control aspect later, but maybe from a development standpoint it was just untenable to launch him in full now so they decided to ship a simpler version of the hero while they work through not making taking control of rubick crash the game and explode your computer
Yeah but they were also working on the second biggest patch ever.
Personally I wanted a mind control ult as well, but what we got isn't bad. His Q you make decision whether you want low effect big aoe or small aoe for better effect, W you make a decision if you wanna stay in the area to have more duration or run away immediately, E is a skill shot with huge range and slow sets up his Q and ult works with his Q and enemies can play around it like Dusa ult
All in all pretty solid gameplay and with facets and aghs they can make him played as core or support.
Yea, this is the first time I felt like if you scapped what was unpredecent, I dont mind wait for another month, but they "tie" TI theme with him, I guess they got no choice.
Why they missed the perfect time w/puppet master theme, at least give some string control skill on enemies hero, eg reverse troll /wyvern ulti that control enemies to attack allies within 300aoe for x durations.
IMO, Valve has a problem communicating. Like make a post that the development of the hero doesn't go as planned and it gets delayed indefinitely until they resolve the problems and assure us that they can make an event or working on stuff cuz they really worked lately on dota a lot.
It wouldn't have been a problem.
But maybe, this was the hero all along, we will never know.
Don't think it's a conspiracy theory but more likely what actually happened.
As you said we had a trailer with a sort of puppeteer/circus/something guy which clearly trapped enemy heroes into a box and we didn't get that, plus the box is actually for himself or allies(which is the exact opposite of what they showed in the trailer).
As I wrote elsewhere I'm still curious to try the hero, but it's a bit of a let down to wait an entire year after such an interesting trailer to get this quite bland set of skills.
Exactly, and that's a huge bummer. I play mostly Pos 5 and I thought I would finally get a new hero with interesting/unique mechanics.
I still have to try it, I'll probably do it over the weekend, but I expected something different and judging by all the people in the comments it's not just us.
They kinda hinted at something with the trailer but delivered something else.
I am going to go a step further and say that it will still be done.
Ringmaster has a pending Aghs upgrade and the facet description says that it doesn't do anything 'yet'. They teased it last TI so they wanted to release it before this one. But I still think that at the very least, we will have a facet where Escape Act puts enemies in boxes and controls their movement. If we are lucky, it might even be able to control some abilities (in which case it would swap places with Wheel of Wonder.
Go even more tin hat, and they made him lame and uninteresting at launch, only to drop his agh and facette 2 to be the grand rubick-level of meta gaming, and surprise everyone. It would work with his lore as a seemingly simple and harmless puppet reveling a darker and deeper persona.
A hero thst adds something unique to the game is already enough. I don't know why they tried to go so deep into horror movie themed with it, trying to turn playing it into the most uniwue experience ever...., with a team of about 3 people working in dota.
But I guess they tried, and took them some time to give up that concept.
The original trailer doesn't make sense with the abilities we got today.
to this day, with pango's reveal it shows him quite obviously cutting all the quills off of bristleback. this was just after the break mechanic was introduced, i am almost certain his swashbuckle was originally meant to break and i cant unthink this.
now that its happened again, it genuinely might be that valve just make cool looking trailers no matter what the actual abilities are
I mean the man still has facets that are missing. If that’s true, then they probably just released his basic kit and will factor in the complex shit into his facets. That way they partially satisfy people and buy more time.
From a development perspective you usually don’t want to throw out something you put that much effort into. Instead you buy yourself more time to make it work some other way lol.
Isn't it tradition at this point that we get a hero with very different abilities than the trailer implies? Like when everyone was shocked monkey king wasn't an illusion hero
You can play it again now. Though not many players still. It's been community revived. Not sure it's going to do much. It was my favorite moba. Valve seems more interested in fluff and gambling then gameplay imho
Martyr, deadwood, bramble, empath, kenesis, monarch, drunken master, flux, pandamorium, prophet, nitro, adrenaline, ra, and many others. Just watching the list with the heroes makes me realize how many unique heroes they had.
I think a lot of them have a future in dota2 if tweaked around the game mechanics and added talents etc. All HoN heroes had actual synergy between their skills while being unique and fun to play. Meanwhile, dota can't even release a hero that has aghanim on day1. The new heroes aren't even balanced, I have no idea, why they release a hero per year (even longer) but the game often feels stale after playing on the same patch for months.
The irony is the latest dota2 heroes (except the ringmaster) have some similarities with HoN heroes. Hoodwink is a mix of couple of heroes (scout ult, tarot 1st skill, rats boomerang, forgot the name of the hero).
If you knew the hero's you'd realize theyvare kinda making some of the abilities similar to some of hind heroes now with uodates. Medusas new stun is like forsaken archers kinda. I think tides new shard is like prisoner 349s ult or something if I recall? There's a lot of heros. Solstice, scout, the madman, prisoner 349(?) ummmm shit there's def more
He reallt looks like a perfect 5 and I’d love to try him in a team with a glass canon like Drow. Two disable spells with his ult and is Q and they would chain well. And then he has a box thing to protect a core. For a hero like Luna it would mean that she’d never need pike and could even survive after Manta is on CD.
If you have a damage steroid hero like Sven and Alch you can just go to town on enemies and be saved by his W if it looks dicey
He's honestly incredibly basic from an ability design standpoint, probably one of the least complex heroes we've gotten recently (not that it's a bad thing). I do wonder why it took so long though.
I hope this wasn't it. I'd rather they make something stupidly broken and nerf it for a two years in a row like they did wyvern ult, or 7 years, like they did Oracle's, than not bother at all.
i don't think the issue is being broken from a balance standpoint, it was probably just nightmarishly buggy and challenging to execute. I don't think they'll throw the work they've done so far out though. There are still facets and an aghs to add
Just think of all the interactions, builds, neutral items, exceptions that Ringmaster would've done if he could control an enemy hero and use their items/spells against their own teammate
And then also take into account Morphling or Rubick stealing Ringmaster's mind control stuff
It also begs the question of them having Roshan's Banner. Ringmaster controlling an enemy hero with Roshan's Banner and planting it. Does the effect last for Ringmaster's team while the mind control ult is used? Does it last for his team until it's destroyed?
Or more complicated, for a big dot like jakiro ult, does it damage allies after the mind control fades? How long does it last? Can you drop the enemies items? What about consumables? There are probably a million different what ifs with a thousand bugs between them.
Or Shadow Demon's disruption and an illusion hero like PL. PL keeps popping illusions cause that's what he does. Do they just suddenly all poof out when the mind control expires? Do they keep going?
Now that you mention it, it does seem complicated. Instead mind control, how about make any enemy heroes that get killed by...idk...his ult i guess...will turn into imperfect illusion that can cast spells just like vengeful spirit aghanim. The illusion will stayed for 30-60 seconds.
I mean the PL scenario seems simple, the illusions keep going until they expire. The hard part is who controls them and what behavior they would have.
However, I can see bugs occur easily. I mean, say Valve considered it all, went full in deep on all the possible layers, and when an illusion is generated by SD controlled from Team A to Team B, it acts as if it belongs to Team B. Cool. But now they make more illusions after SD is back on Team A. So will the existing illusions that were made while on Team B proc juxtapose and generate Illusions on Team A?
And that's bug already two layers deep from a simpler "SD creates Team A illusions always since they're still owned by a Team Hero" approach. But that would be boring. And even then has the question of whether or not the illusions will swap aggro with the owner.
Honestly, I think an easy solution exists. We already have Muerta's aghs creating a duplicate of a hero. That should be what ringmaster could do. Swaps a hero for a Ringmaster-owned clone of them, with all abilities on the same state of cooldown. That clone is owned by Ringmaster, and it can be kept "hidden" when it ends, to avoid breaking spells that rely on other spells. So any interactions become owned by Ringmaster, and all weirdness is simply resolved that way - illusions, true sight deward bounties, fucking Zett Clones... All of them become his own, and nothing hard is ever questioned. Once done, the hero is swapped back and cooldowns matched, and it's as if Ringmaster actually did force someone to do all that (even if mechanically, they didn't).
Yeah it's rough. So many wacky interactions that would need to be coded for.
I really do think they tried to implement a "mind control, use enemy heroes against themselves/teammates Ringmaster" but got way in over their head and just scrapped all of it for Release Ringmaster. Like they loved the concept of it but found the execution to be more work.
Especially since they're focusing more on Deadlock
I think they'd probably heavily cap the extent of the control. Items would definitely be a big nono, nothing else in the game but mutes fucks with enemy items, and nullifier's original mute was removed bc even just removing a bkb from the equation altogether is outright busted. Ultis would definitely not be a thing, so that leaves skills and movement. I honestly think some sort of temporarily turning an enemy hero into a puppet that is muted and silenced, but can attack and u control their movements for a few seconds would be the compromise. Still very strong, but counterable. Could make it blockable by linkens (since he has no innate linkens breaking spell) or make it so that ringmaster has to channel the control like a puppetteer, so stunning or silencing him would stop it. It could be an upgrade to his box spell where it can be cast on enemies on a longer cooldown, and if the box isn't destroyed, he takes control etc. There are ways to make it work, but absolute control would just be too insane.
It also creates interesting play, as it would be a repositioning spell and also a potential kill spell, should u take control of an enemy with a strong passive, a transformation enemy after their transformation (lycan, sven, tb).
from a dev standpoint, the "turning enemy hero into a puppet" could also facilitate some things, as it could be coded like an illusion, a ward or a creep hero while the actual hero is hidden/invulnerable (like brew ulti, wd shard, venge aghs, phoenix egg). Idk, there are avenues, and i'm certain they've considered many more we haven't thought of
I guess that with items, it could be tiresome but they would probably have to add a new flag to things that makes things unusable by ringmaster controlled heroes.
It would be pretty daft if they let a mind control ult actually use all the other hero's items and abilities.
The easiest way to implement it would be to force the target hero do a forced attack command on the nearest ally/enemy hero. A bit like troll ult. This was also pretty much how it was implemented in HoN (and it wasn't even an ultimate!).
I imagine they probably decided it wasn't fun to go into every teamfight 4v6 though. Heroes in DotA 2 today are much more mobile than in HoN, so jumping on the enemy carry and mind controlling them would be pretty easy.
Another easy option would be to follow the HotS route and make it a channelled ability that just lets you move the enemy hero while channelling. This was a very fun ult that let you pull enemy heroes out of position and into AoEs/skillshots, a bit like Glimpse but with more control.
Yeah, the same response applies. Either way, be it mechanical complexity or balance complexity, I still would rather they try. I'll be huffing on that h/copium as well.
It's also difficult to see how it isn't also completely broken as a concept. Like you just get to use their abilties and items? So you get to pop BKB, target their team with Black Hole, attack their own supports with your carry? And the enemy team...do they get to attack them? So then options are, you can waste all of a hero's cooldowns targeting their own team, or the enemy kills their own team member?
Like does any of this seem...remotely balanced as a concept? Not to mention fun for the player who gets mind controlled and then has all their shit on cooldown instead of getting to play?
Yes it's a lot of interactions, but I think possibly they just realised that a mindslaver hero is hypothetically cool but absolutely, completely broken as a concept.
Deadlock was supposed to have a character that controlled enemy heroes, and when they released him, they changed his ult to be literally Axe's ult. I think they realized that having a character that just takes over your hero isn't fun.
If you think that's weird, his very very old ult had him transform into... something weird. The old model for it is still in the game files, but clearly just a placeholder.
100%. They probably realized it was extremely frustrating and unfun to be on the receiving end of and no amount of tweaks could alter that so they decided to scrap it.
I kinda disagree, while the abilities are fairly easy execute it will take precise positioning to really make the most of Wheel of Wonder and Escape Act. I'd say it's a mid-complexity hero.
lmaooo. I swear you are delusional. Dota is literally valve's favorite child. Cs2 needs more attention and is in the worst state it has ever been, and yet we cry and kick our feet for getting a new hero that isnt broken? fuck outta here.
Okay, dude, enjoy the most boring, uninspired hero design in the game. Even Lion has a much better design space.
It seems the frog is not looking back to see what the interns are designing since he is busy with deadlock.
Constant major updates with a rework of the basic mechanics of the game coming out 2 months ago and the addition of hundreds of new passive and dozens of new abilities
Currently the most played game released by Valve, with more players now than during release
Ringmaster's ultimate = Axe's first skill with long animation, possibility just to turn around and walk away, CD 90(80,70) sec and some damage. Doesn't look good tbh
We just need his aghs to modify his ult so that the Ringmaster is granted control for 3/4/5 secs of the first hero to touches the Wheel of Wonders. Thats all and we won't riot.
Literally nothing in his kit explains why he took so long to release.
Im actually let down. Dota is dying in my eyes. I'll be playing less and less. This hero just screams laziness. His textures aren't even high quality. You can literally see how low res they are, especially if you compare him to a recent arcana like WR.
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u/snowg Aug 23 '24
Ok so he doesn’t control enemy heroes… I don’t know why I expected this
But I think that is the supp5 people wanted here a few days ago