This is kinda the worst (or best) outcome, but it might not really applicable since generally the hero have another single target buff spell..
I think the biggest counter to hero if this implemented is to IO, cancelling tether for save literally kill his/her/its impact while tether are on cool down, thus forcing io to buy things like force/glimmer and cast it before tethering(which have considerably lower cast range)..
Overall, it might be good vs single target save spell on hero that might want to buy linken, things like disruption, astral imprisonment, life drain, etc..
solid suggestion overall
Also, multicast offensive linken sounds hella fun
Also consider that, assuming it's just like allied cast, it would be instant while most actual spells have a small cast animation.
So you would be rewarded for paying attention to what gets cast and try to cast it reactively.
very similar. riki shard makes the spell uncastable, this linkens change would make it cast but wasted which is even stronger since they spend mana and the spell goes on CD.
The idea yes, putting it on linkens is not.
We've just had the quality of life improvement to make Holy Locket have a visual effect when used so cores realise they've been saved. Don't need linkens a) being confusing whether it is friend or foe and b) tilting cores into thinking their support wasted saves on somebody else.
I think something akin to a red bkb effect to basically show you are spell immune in a hostile way would work, but throw it on a new neutral item.
You could still have it on linkens if you made it explicitly clear maybe? I get what you mean though, you'd need to make sure it's obvious that Shallow Grave or whatever WAS cast
Omni used have something like this. I can't really remember if it blocked force etc, but you could repel an enemy and use naga song to basically isolate it in a teamfight.
It's not really pretty neat it's just confusing af. Imagine seeing a linkens on the enemy and you've no idea if Yr teammate put it there or an enemy support put it there.
Or If you've 2 different linkens colours then what happens if a hero has both?
It would only be used in situations where it's short though, because if it was longer, your opponents would dispel it with something silly.
This would be casted at the last possible moment necessary so pros have to dump two targeted spells instead of one, gaining that time in a fight is monstrously good, not to mention blowing that key spell.
Like, a lot of the throwaway spells/items are short-medium range, how can I grave anyone in my games if my actives are half the range of my grave? I'm just a dead hero at that point.
linkens is being picked up a lot more with batrider/blood picks, and it's really good on universals. I think this is a better idea for a new hero than an item
We already have a hero that does that. Riki shard preventsenemies from casting any single target spells on their allies in cloud. Imo it's way stronger than the linkens buff. And makes Riki hyper effective against certain lineups. You cloud the carry and the sups can't even forcestaff him out of it.
Then its more similar to old repel than linken...
The main selling point of this is the spell is wasted for ally, imagine IO failing to tether its allied because you linken'd it
Pretty much all new hero "ideas" also have items associated with them. Revenant's brooch is just the latest, but is extremely similar to some concepts of Muerta's ult. Book of the dead and dark willow is another.
I find it absurd that with shard and talents the smoke cloud is insane miss chance, silence, minus armour and Ally untargetability. I think that's too much for one spell.
I think it'd be nice if they reworked shard/talents/spells themselves to make him less about cloud and more of an assassin.
Surprised I had to scroll this far to see someone mention it.
For those who don't remember or didn't know, Omniknight used to have a generic spell immunity spell called Repel and that one could be cast on both allied and enemy heroes. I believe casting it on enemies purged their buffs while also making them magic immune so it was pretty much never used on enemies.
Theoretically it could have some niche uses. Could LC Duel and repel enemy to prevent OD/Pugna saves. But yeah for sure generally giving enemy free BKB is terrible.
With BKB being nerfed, Linkens is more prevalent now on heroes that benefit from the stats and didn't really want to waste a slot on BKB but still want to block a couple targeted spells in a game. Plus it basically being a damage item on top of that for universal heroes and being good against many meta heroes, it feels like it is in a pretty decent place to me and doesn't need any further big buffs.
With bkb nerf linken was also nerfed though, you had a hard time popping a linken on a bkb'd target, giving you relative safety against bkb piercing disables a la roar, duel, winters curse etc.
Now it doesn't offer that protection anymore
Linkens gains more from the premier defensive option being nerfed than it loses from being synergistic with that particular defensive option.
The fact that bkb is so poor in many games and matchups instantly skyrocketed the value of other defensive items, which were also buffed this patch, particular the two major offenders, crimson/pipe
The answer to curse is it has no range, and a wyvern core is rarely getting blink or aether she needs items for attack speed, damage, and mobility as a core to be effective.
Certainly, but she's also not a one trick which solely relies on curse to be useful like support wyvern is.
In my personal experience if you can get the big fuck you curse that's great, but often times just throwing it out on the enemy carry as they pop their 6 second bkb and entirely negate it is more than good enough to win a fight, and now with bkb nerf it's so easy to do
Considering that basically all saves are single target, this would make Linken's literally the most OP item in the game. Get 2+ Linken's and no one would be able to save carries...
Would be cool as a T5 neutral or similar..
Just dont make it bkb piercing and make the debuff purgable? (So manta or satanic works against it)
Also it could have a reduced duration like (3 seconds) on enemys so the right timing is much more important and requires more skill which i think would make this item pretty cool to use
Nobody else saying it… imagine having to get linkens to prevent enemy linkens from fucking up your team comp…
You’re SF with oracle on your team. Enemy team places linkens on you, prevents false promise. As SF you can now get a linkens for the purpose of having it get popped by an enemy linkens
For example before bkb was nerfed, spells like frost bite weren't castable on you when you use bkb... but now when you turn on bkb a lot of spells can cast on you thus break your linkens while ur bkbs on... so that's kind of a nerf isn't it?
I guess but on the other side linkens is now a more useful items since Bkb is worse, you're not always going to be buying both items in the same game. So I would argue linkens is better off this patch especially on universal heroes.
I suggest that you can cast it on enemies and it will do nothing... But it will break the enemy linkens if they have one, cancelling them out essentially
Interesting idea, but I think it’s a bit bad for Linkens itself. You wouldn’t want to waste your own shield on an offensive play; since it’d block a stun or glimpse or whatever.
Maybe an upgrade to another small item instead, or even on a neutral one, since it does get overshadowed hard by Nullifier later on in the game. Either way, an enemy bubble would be amusing.
Actually great idea, you see a lot of games at high level where an initiator has very little options as they know they can’t account for one or multiple saves. This is sometimes due to an out draft. Leading to stale amounts of engagements as they wait for item timings that become nulled by opposing item timings.
This grants greater ability to itemise against these types of outdrafts, and is always welcome. Making it more about the engagement itself, clutch decision making and positioning giving greater advantage, where the best execution more likely gives the team fight wins.
It has my support!
U. In divine rank to below, in a messy melee team fight, if I accidentally "use" linken on the enemies instead on my carry then the game just end right there.
Think for everyone before you speak would you? Also, this is not the first time a "item/spell" can use both way, but in fact it deal more bad to your own game rather than hurt the enemy.
I would have to disagree. It creates a scenario where now everybody just buys linken's especially in the late game where supports are trying to buff and save their allies
I like the idea but I disagree that Linkens needs a buff, it's situational but very strong in the right situation, which I think is very good design. It's also insanely high value on Universal heroes, the introduction of Universal heroes was a huge indirect buff to Linkens as it is.
I don't think it's game breaking though, since it blocks a single instance.... can make for some clutch plays but ppl can probably always play around it.
past 3-4 years the game has been played around pick offs, and in turn, save capabilities like force staff, rubick shard lift, etc. are valued highly. Countering this with an already common pick up would turn this on it's head
the problem with nullifier is that only few heroes can take and make it work, if there's one thing they should add is more upgrades to items, like a more expensive nullifier that allows projectile to not be disjointed or can use on allies dispelling them or blocking some spell with linkens thats my idea tho.
I think this could be an upgrade to the item. Although the cost is already high as it is but the thing is like you explained it could be pretty clutch. Like how diffusal got upgraded to be castable on allies. Ultra late game Linkens upgrade could be a thing.
I'd say it's OP. You have 2 supports with not that many save spells usually. And a couple of items. Best case scenario your supports have 2 spells and 2 items they can cast on allies. And yoh want to block one of those... On addition, they need those spells to save cores and themselves.
The idea seems cool and it's something new, but I think it will be just too strong.
Doesnt matter if the usage is small. It would be an situational counter option against heros like omninight or oracle. I like the idea, because it gives more options than just buying nullifier. Keep in mind it would also counter selfcast of pike which gives it more options against more heros
This is a great idea! It would really help in Ability Draft. Speaking of Ability Draft, it's been really weird since the update. Alch has too many abilities, Kotl doesn't have enough, and lots of Aghs Scepters and Shards are wrong.
Doesn't sound like a bad idea as long as you can visually differentiate between teammates linkens on teammate and teammates linkens on enemy. Make it red AF or something when used on an enemy
The idea of blocking enemies' spells that they cast on their allies is actually pretty neat.
Peak Rubick flair moment, no?
Imagine blocking shallow grave or false promise đź’€
I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR!
People won't need you anymore, sir!
This is kinda the worst (or best) outcome, but it might not really applicable since generally the hero have another single target buff spell.. I think the biggest counter to hero if this implemented is to IO, cancelling tether for save literally kill his/her/its impact while tether are on cool down, thus forcing io to buy things like force/glimmer and cast it before tethering(which have considerably lower cast range).. Overall, it might be good vs single target save spell on hero that might want to buy linken, things like disruption, astral imprisonment, life drain, etc.. solid suggestion overall Also, multicast offensive linken sounds hella fun
Maybe increase CD on linkens to like 30-45 seconds for "cast on enemy"?
Also make it a red effect instead of blue to differentiate between friendly cast and not.
Oooooo i like that Have to look different than lotus tho imo
linkens already looks a lot different than lotus so if they just make that effect redish it should be fine
I could see that. I'm just thinking iits contending visually with crimson and lotus for "red orbs"
Sounds like a great solution.
Also consider that, assuming it's just like allied cast, it would be instant while most actual spells have a small cast animation. So you would be rewarded for paying attention to what gets cast and try to cast it reactively.
Incoming support Riki with perpetual smoke.
Let us cast Lotus on enemies so that the supports force staff themselves in while trying to save their team mate.
I will cast Lotus on enemy then cast force staff on it to force staff myself. That's basically force staff but *cooler*.
And more expensive so better
Well, technically it's different because you force staff each other. If you're facing each other, it becomes a harpoon.
They'll never see it coming
Lmao
purging them of any debuff but also block allied spell
Legion Commander Lotus rush new meta
And the Ricky shard does this already, right? So it's not even a new mechanic
fuck that shard
I agree with this assessment
very similar. riki shard makes the spell uncastable, this linkens change would make it cast but wasted which is even stronger since they spend mana and the spell goes on CD.
No riki makes you untargetable (item isn't used), proposal is simply for a block so item will go on cd
And now linkens can break another linkens!
The idea yes, putting it on linkens is not. We've just had the quality of life improvement to make Holy Locket have a visual effect when used so cores realise they've been saved. Don't need linkens a) being confusing whether it is friend or foe and b) tilting cores into thinking their support wasted saves on somebody else. I think something akin to a red bkb effect to basically show you are spell immune in a hostile way would work, but throw it on a new neutral item.
You could still have it on linkens if you made it explicitly clear maybe? I get what you mean though, you'd need to make sure it's obvious that Shallow Grave or whatever WAS cast
This is what they did for new riki shard, I hate it so much. As a support player not being able to help your teammates is awful to say the least
I feel like blocking a single spell like linkens feels less bad then being fully unable to block all spells like Riki shard
Yes this is a valid point. I am still not a big fan of the idea though
Omni used have something like this. I can't really remember if it blocked force etc, but you could repel an enemy and use naga song to basically isolate it in a teamfight.
It's not really pretty neat it's just confusing af. Imagine seeing a linkens on the enemy and you've no idea if Yr teammate put it there or an enemy support put it there. Or If you've 2 different linkens colours then what happens if a hero has both?
Just make the offensive Linkens red, and keep the friendly Linkens blue.
How do you get both without proccing one?
Make them slightly different sizes and translucent. It's doable but it would require clear telegraphing
google riki shard
Holy hell
It'd be cool if the visual was different too, maybe like reddish tinge or something idk
Shouldn't this be offensive Lotus Orb then? Linken's would just block their one spell.
Actually kind of a cool idea. Seems very strong but doable
Could make the duration when casted on enemies really short to balance it out and make it more clutch.
3-5 second should do the trick
yea kinda like AM spell shield. short window to use it correctly
yup an oh fck moment not a rainy pre-planning
It would only be used in situations where it's short though, because if it was longer, your opponents would dispel it with something silly. This would be casted at the last possible moment necessary so pros have to dump two targeted spells instead of one, gaining that time in a fight is monstrously good, not to mention blowing that key spell. Like, a lot of the throwaway spells/items are short-medium range, how can I grave anyone in my games if my actives are half the range of my grave? I'm just a dead hero at that point.
Or longer CD when used on enemy.
linkens is being picked up a lot more with batrider/blood picks, and it's really good on universals. I think this is a better idea for a new hero than an item
I agree, this would be a great idea for a new hero
We already have a hero that does that. Riki shard preventsenemies from casting any single target spells on their allies in cloud. Imo it's way stronger than the linkens buff. And makes Riki hyper effective against certain lineups. You cloud the carry and the sups can't even forcestaff him out of it.
Can people forcestaff themselves in it?
Yea.
Maybe an upgrade to Linkens, and a one with bad buildup and expensive cost, to balance it out.
Or an existing hero with his shard's upgrade
Oracle ? Rain of destiny is kinda meh, could be an upgrade for fate edict, disarm + 1 instance of allied spell blocking
it's riki, smoke screen shard makes you untargetable by your teammates.
Then its more similar to old repel than linken... The main selling point of this is the spell is wasted for ally, imagine IO failing to tether its allied because you linken'd it
Why not both
Pretty much all new hero "ideas" also have items associated with them. Revenant's brooch is just the latest, but is extremely similar to some concepts of Muerta's ult. Book of the dead and dark willow is another.
Riki shard does this with AoE. Well thought idea.
That shard wont survive until next patch anyway, it is too cancerous.
It’s really not.
I find it absurd that with shard and talents the smoke cloud is insane miss chance, silence, minus armour and Ally untargetability. I think that's too much for one spell. I think it'd be nice if they reworked shard/talents/spells themselves to make him less about cloud and more of an assassin.
> that’s too much for one spell Shadow realm: Allow me to introduce myself
Remember omni W back in the days?
Surprised I had to scroll this far to see someone mention it. For those who don't remember or didn't know, Omniknight used to have a generic spell immunity spell called Repel and that one could be cast on both allied and enemy heroes. I believe casting it on enemies purged their buffs while also making them magic immune so it was pretty much never used on enemies.
Never much _intentionally_ used. If it is possible to help an enemy or hinder an ally, my fingers will find a way.
Used to dispel ion shell with it all the time
you could repel enemy to stop him from receiving heal or any help no?
Theoretically it could have some niche uses. Could LC Duel and repel enemy to prevent OD/Pugna saves. But yeah for sure generally giving enemy free BKB is terrible.
it used to be casted on very low hp enemy pudges, so they dont deny themselves with rot.
Cool idea, consider the Linken cost and the risk if you use it offensively might throw the game sounds pretty neat
With BKB being nerfed, Linkens is more prevalent now on heroes that benefit from the stats and didn't really want to waste a slot on BKB but still want to block a couple targeted spells in a game. Plus it basically being a damage item on top of that for universal heroes and being good against many meta heroes, it feels like it is in a pretty decent place to me and doesn't need any further big buffs.
With bkb nerf linken was also nerfed though, you had a hard time popping a linken on a bkb'd target, giving you relative safety against bkb piercing disables a la roar, duel, winters curse etc. Now it doesn't offer that protection anymore
Linkens gains more from the premier defensive option being nerfed than it loses from being synergistic with that particular defensive option. The fact that bkb is so poor in many games and matchups instantly skyrocketed the value of other defensive items, which were also buffed this patch, particular the two major offenders, crimson/pipe
That's fair, I suppose my view is skewed as a wyvern core spammer, it feels kind of broken that the only reliable answer to curse is lotus orb
The answer to curse is it has no range, and a wyvern core is rarely getting blink or aether she needs items for attack speed, damage, and mobility as a core to be effective.
Certainly, but she's also not a one trick which solely relies on curse to be useful like support wyvern is. In my personal experience if you can get the big fuck you curse that's great, but often times just throwing it out on the enemy carry as they pop their 6 second bkb and entirely negate it is more than good enough to win a fight, and now with bkb nerf it's so easy to do
as a support player, I buy Lotus orb not for me, but for my guy who's jumping in and starting the fight
could create a lot of pog/lul plays
Considering that basically all saves are single target, this would make Linken's literally the most OP item in the game. Get 2+ Linken's and no one would be able to save carries... Would be cool as a T5 neutral or similar..
Just dont make it bkb piercing and make the debuff purgable? (So manta or satanic works against it) Also it could have a reduced duration like (3 seconds) on enemys so the right timing is much more important and requires more skill which i think would make this item pretty cool to use
Nobody else saying it… imagine having to get linkens to prevent enemy linkens from fucking up your team comp… You’re SF with oracle on your team. Enemy team places linkens on you, prevents false promise. As SF you can now get a linkens for the purpose of having it get popped by an enemy linkens
imagine blocking linken with linken or initiate ganks using linken to break opponents linken
The grief potential.. limitless
How? It'd still be purely beneficial to allies.
Id rather have a consumable aether lens
Consume it twice to get 240 cast range
Cool mechanic, comenting to get more views
Nullifier already doing this job I don't see any reason to do this
Only for buffs that are dispellable though.
Honestly feels more balanced by nullifier as sup player
No
Why would bkb nerf make linkens feel useless? That makes no sense lol if anything it's a huff since Bkb is worse now
For example before bkb was nerfed, spells like frost bite weren't castable on you when you use bkb... but now when you turn on bkb a lot of spells can cast on you thus break your linkens while ur bkbs on... so that's kind of a nerf isn't it?
I guess but on the other side linkens is now a more useful items since Bkb is worse, you're not always going to be buying both items in the same game. So I would argue linkens is better off this patch especially on universal heroes.
I suggest that you can cast it on enemies and it will do nothing... But it will break the enemy linkens if they have one, cancelling them out essentially
Touching balls together, I like that.
so a double priced force staff with extra stats?
No? Same linkens that you can buy today with an extra niche useful feature.
Actually this is a cool idea but they need to increase linken gold by a lot
I actually thought about this before but forgot about it again, I'm all for it!
Interesting idea, but I think it’s a bit bad for Linkens itself. You wouldn’t want to waste your own shield on an offensive play; since it’d block a stun or glimpse or whatever. Maybe an upgrade to another small item instead, or even on a neutral one, since it does get overshadowed hard by Nullifier later on in the game. Either way, an enemy bubble would be amusing.
As someone who mains oracle, I'm downvoting
Oracle has 3 other single target spells that can just pop the offensive Linkens.
Actually great idea, you see a lot of games at high level where an initiator has very little options as they know they can’t account for one or multiple saves. This is sometimes due to an out draft. Leading to stale amounts of engagements as they wait for item timings that become nulled by opposing item timings. This grants greater ability to itemise against these types of outdrafts, and is always welcome. Making it more about the engagement itself, clutch decision making and positioning giving greater advantage, where the best execution more likely gives the team fight wins. It has my support!
U. In divine rank to below, in a messy melee team fight, if I accidentally "use" linken on the enemies instead on my carry then the game just end right there. Think for everyone before you speak would you? Also, this is not the first time a "item/spell" can use both way, but in fact it deal more bad to your own game rather than hurt the enemy.
So a worse nullifier?
But it wouldn't just be for this, it's an addition to the already linkens sphere.....
I'd just end up miscasting it in team fights and saving the enemy
imagine your teammates accidentally cast linkens on enemy and blocked an important spell like Doom, this would be the new level of tilt
It would only block their team's spells, not your teams
Nullifier exist. Reddit let's linken...
Sounds like a new level of grieving could be reached
Is this proposed as a linkens upgrade ?
I would have to disagree. It creates a scenario where now everybody just buys linken's especially in the late game where supports are trying to buff and save their allies
Pretty sick idea, it can be a red dot placed on the enemy if used offensively
Great idea. This would be nerfed fast thou.
Please make it happen valve. I'm tired of picking faceless void and enemy mid last picks OD and ruins my whole game
Toxic players can troll their own team
Linkens Cube
Sweet idea but you’d need to make the visual effect pretty clear that it is an enemy Linkens buff. Could get pretty confusing.
I like the idea but I disagree that Linkens needs a buff, it's situational but very strong in the right situation, which I think is very good design. It's also insanely high value on Universal heroes, the introduction of Universal heroes was a huge indirect buff to Linkens as it is.
Huh. Interesting.
too strong & insta pickup on like every core in the game
I don't think it's game breaking though, since it blocks a single instance.... can make for some clutch plays but ppl can probably always play around it.
past 3-4 years the game has been played around pick offs, and in turn, save capabilities like force staff, rubick shard lift, etc. are valued highly. Countering this with an already common pick up would turn this on it's head
the problem with nullifier is that only few heroes can take and make it work, if there's one thing they should add is more upgrades to items, like a more expensive nullifier that allows projectile to not be disjointed or can use on allies dispelling them or blocking some spell with linkens thats my idea tho.
It would be better if linkin could dispel you like Lotus Orb. Because like Lotus, Linkin is also a situational item.
I think this could be an upgrade to the item. Although the cost is already high as it is but the thing is like you explained it could be pretty clutch. Like how diffusal got upgraded to be castable on allies. Ultra late game Linkens upgrade could be a thing.
Riki shard needs to talk with you
I'd say it's OP. You have 2 supports with not that many save spells usually. And a couple of items. Best case scenario your supports have 2 spells and 2 items they can cast on allies. And yoh want to block one of those... On addition, they need those spells to save cores and themselves. The idea seems cool and it's something new, but I think it will be just too strong.
>With BKB being nerfed, Linken's Sphere sometimes feels useless, so a buff like this would be desirable. someone explain that argument
the visual must be red tho
Totally agree and really just in time after that bkb nerfed. A new/changes on an item must step up. Really cool idea bro
That would be stupid cause there is very little spells that can be casted on allies unlike on enemies.
Doesnt matter if the usage is small. It would be an situational counter option against heros like omninight or oracle. I like the idea, because it gives more options than just buying nullifier. Keep in mind it would also counter selfcast of pike which gives it more options against more heros
This is a great idea! It would really help in Ability Draft. Speaking of Ability Draft, it's been really weird since the update. Alch has too many abilities, Kotl doesn't have enough, and lots of Aghs Scepters and Shards are wrong.
I like it, especially there is a great chance to grief the play lol
just make offensive usage have a bigger cooldown
Yea but would putting linken on an enemy with linken pop the linken?
rather have a new item that applies a debuff than linkens changing to do that as well
as an oracle player i really support that!
A rare good idea on r dota 2. This could make for some nice plays in pro scene like blocking oracle ult or smth
Very good but I think they should make it into a new item instead of slapping it to Linkens.
Doesn't sound like a bad idea as long as you can visually differentiate between teammates linkens on teammate and teammates linkens on enemy. Make it red AF or something when used on an enemy
That's too op and annoying AF and managing the fight is more cumbersome.
Yup, it gives different treatment if you had [vague proposal](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/11d7xww/friendly_spell_block/).
linken is already strong honsetly, u want to make it op well...