LogFAQs > #963454009

Thanks, all. My condition's annoying when it happens (the cure is literally worse than the disease, and attacks are preventable if I was a bit more diligent in my routines) but I'm mostly better now and have a scheduled doctor appointment coming up anyways. Anyways:

89 - Dark Willow (ranged Intelligence)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/7/7/AAAACbAADB6l.jpg
Basic Abilities: Bramble Maze, Shadow Realm, Cursed Crown, Bedlam, Terrorize
Shard Ability: Upgrades Cursed Crown to spawn 4 brambles from Bramble Maze around the target when the debuff is removed in any way. The stun triggers one second earlier, also.
Scepter Ability: Upgrades Shadow Realm to no longer cancel Mireska's untargetable status on attacks; the magical damage from attacking from the Realm still ramps up as normal.
Notable 7.31 changes: Generally nerfed all-around; Shadow Realm now has a fade time, Bedlam's damage and rotation speed reduced at all levels, Bedlam damage talent reduced, Attack speed talent at 25 lowered from +110 to +100, Cursed Crown no longer has a lowered cooldown from shard, Bramble Maze brambles deal less damage at early levels but slightly more at level 4, and, as one of the only other positives, being rooted by Bramble Maze puts True Sight on the victim while they're rooted.

Dark Willow's a bit more engaging than other, similar heroes with equal squish/blast/CC. Unlike Shadow Shaman, she doesn't have to constantly put herself in harm's way to put out her CC. Unlike Lion, she doesn't have any method of self-sustain to spam her CC. Unlike Leshrac, most of her damage comes from some calculated forethought. Yes, that hint I gave yesterday was about Mireska's autoattack build, which was also recently nerfed (again;) Shadow Realm gives her next attack a huge magical attack damage buff on her next attack, and, as such, she's one of very few heroes that gets a ton of mileage out of the neutral items Grove Bow or Enchanted Quiver. However, if she picks up a Scepter, she won't cancel out of Shadow Realm by attacking, so she gets to remain untargetable, and short of a few exceptions to already in-flight abilities that don't strike invisible but still can strike her, or well-placed AoE damage, she basically gets to duel someone 1v1 for free.

This comes at an obvious cost, though; her kit and stats (apart from her attack speed) are very much support-based. She *can* be a potent midlaner, but it's awfully finicky to do that when almost all of her damage gets neutered by BKB. Meanwhile, on the support end, all of her CC has some glaring flaws - Terrorize has a long windup period, and she can't use it during Bedlam, nor use Bedlam during its cast and retrieval time, since Jex is used for both of them. Bramble Maze's root and damage only trigger if you step in the big obvious thorns, and beefier targets can just tank some of the brambles to clear a path if a fight is going to go south. Cursed Crown, while a huge AoE stun, has a terrible cast range for her frailty and is dispellable during its long activation period, and the thorns it spawns, if sharded, can be dodged by the simple expedience of "walk between them," as they'll always spawn in the cardinal directions.

I've seen some crazy Willow plays, but her combination of methodical premeditation mixed with general AoE mayhem, but general frailty and slow movement, plus her extreme late game autoattack magic damage monster, is just a playstyle that doesn't suit me in the slightest. Plus her accent is... whatever the hell that thing is.

Next hero hint: you all knew invisibility abuse was going to come into play at some point.