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The original was posted on /r/dota2 by /u/PsychicFoxWithSpoons on 2023-11-06 18:49:44.

I don’t know if this is even okay to say, really, because the hero is doing so well right now and I almost wanna just shut the fuck up and let him be good. But as I’ve been examining the hero and playing him (pos 4 and mid), it’s hard to get past the glaring issues.

Let’s start with the biggest one: Quas and Exort orbs don’t affect Ghost Walk, Forge Spirit, or Alacrity. It would be one thing if some feature of those spells was modified by spell amplification or spell lifesteal. But to have no effect at all means that you’re never going to actually make a meaningful choice on which orbs to use to cast the spell, which was supposed to be the most exciting and interesting part of the rework.

3 out of 10 spells being completely unaffected is one thing, but 5 more spells (cold snap, tornado, shard emp, ice wall, deafening blast) are control-focused and deal mostly negligible damage, meaning Exort and Quas are low-value and Wex is extra-high-value. Even with the level 25 talent, Exort orbs only grant 42% additional spell damage.

I did the math so you don’t have to; against a target dummy with 25% magic resistance, with level 25 talent and Aghanim’s Scepter, Cold Snap deals 120 extra damage, Ice Wall (with the 50 dps talent) does 401 extra damage, Tornado does 129 extra damage, EMP does 119 extra damage, and Deafening Blast does 107 extra damage.

Spell lifesteal is calculated post-mitigation, so I’m sure I don’t have to explain how useless it is to use Quas orbs for any of Invoker’s spells. The math would just clutter up the page, but to give you an idea of it, Ice Wall with the 50 dps talent is the most damaging spell from the ones I listed, and it heals for 650 HP (50 hp/s) per target per full duration 13.5s wall if you go full Quas. Genuinely, it would be better to just do Exort for the extra 400 damage (30 dps). But you know what’s even better than that? Having your 13.5s ice wall on an 11s cd!

OKAY, you say. So 8 out of Invoker’s 11 spells are always best on Wex. What about Sunstrike? Meteor? CATACYLSM? I want to turn the fight by suddenly healing to full HP when I mash those blue orbs and drop a fat cata meteor emp on the Chronosphere. Well, sir, you’re a fucking idiot, but let’s do the math. Sunstrike heals for 264 with 3 Quas orbs, and deals 231 extra damage with 3 Exort orbs. It’s not like 550 pure damage is insufficient or anything. Meteor and Cataclysm are trickier to discuss because of the way they target, but an unmoving target dummy took about 500 extra damage from meteor and 462 extra damage with the Cata. These numbers are not great, and that’s at the absolute limit of what the orbs can actually do for you.

OKAY FINE, you say. So what if Quas and Exort suck? Just use Wex and wait for cold toad to nerf Wex and buff the other two. Well, that gets to the heart of it, really. It’s fucking annoying to invoke a spell and then mash W. It is also not good for my hands. I understand that the meme of Invoker being carpal tunnel simulator must be kept alive, but any good Invoker will tell you that the hero already required a great deal of buttonmashing to get the benefits of stacking each orb. Imagine doing the following refresher combo where () means inputs that can be theoretically removed and brackets means optionally choosing between maximum damage and minimum cooldown: EEEDFQWEREE(E)D(EEE)R Alt-D [refresh] {WWW or EEE}F Alt-D QQEWWWD etc. etc…my fingers got tired just writing that out. Even if Icefrog added spell amplification bonuses for the 3 non-damaging spells and balanced Q/W/E (or changed the spell bonuses they gave) to all be worth using, it would still be annoying and stupid. I don’t like calling for reverts, and I promise you that I’ve lain awake at night thinking about how the bonuses could be altered or fixed. I just don’t see it as possible.

Fundamentally, hitting 3 extra buttons every time you go to cast a spell SUCKS. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.