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Vesuvius by Aspiring Musician

11 Votes

Vesuvius

By: Aspiring Musician
Last Updated: Aug 6, 2018
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Vesuvius

The Turned Monk

Vesuvius was born with a path of greatness looming over him. Son of Zeus; the King of Gods and a mortal woman, Vesuvius's life was destined for heroism and glory at every turn. Living with his mortal mother Alcmene, he lived a fairly standard life in a large city and enjoyed life as any young boy of the time. At age 9 he showed natural talent towards hand to hand combat, being on even footing after a few years with the most skilled combatants in his town. At age 13 his mother sent him to a temple of monks, in order to bolster his body and mind. Vesuvius quickly rose to the top of the monastery as his skills were unmatched for his age, however, so was his temper, as every fight he lost would light fire in his eyes and a burning in his chest. One day at the age of 18, now a seasoned martial artist, one of the masters of the temple grew ill. It quickly spread to other members, and within two weeks, he was the last survivor, most likely spared due to his demi-godly body. Vesuvius's fury was so vile, that it brought out Zeus's power, enveloping him in a thick, black smoke that now controlled most of his body. When he returned home, as a solid black skinned entity, his mother fled from him, as did the city goers. His rage unleashed, he devastated the town with his powers, killing and absorbing every city dweller. Upon snapping out of his anger he had realized what he had done, and had come to realize that Zeus's powers were to blame. He now travels on, the lone survivor of his anger; on a tirade against Zeus and any other god he deems responsible for his path.


COMPLEXITY
◆◆◆

CARRY
◆◆◇

SUPPORT
◇◇◇

NUKER
◆◆◆

INITIATOR
◆◇◇

DISABLER
◆◆◇


STR
22 + 3.0

AGI
15 + 2.1

INT
19 + 2.4

Base Damage: 52-58
Movement Speed: 305
Armor: 4
Vision: 1800/800
Attack Range: 150
Attack Animation: 0.3 + 0.5
Base Attack Time: 1.5
Base Magic Resistance: 25%
Turn Rate: 0.52

Aghs Upgrade: Spears fully pierce heroes and the range of each spear is increased to 8000, this also allows stacks to remain on multiple targets.

Primary Abilities

Q
Vile Abduction
Vesuvius absorbs an enemy hero into himself, and within 1 second can fire them into a direction, dealing damage to the hero and any enemy units that collide with it. Vesuvius is rooted during absorption, but may cast spells. Dashing while having an absorbed hero will throw the enemy hero the opposite direction at double the range. If a target has been previously absorbed in the past 3 seconds, they will be thrown 50% of the distance. Has Two Charges.
ABILITY
DAMAGE TYPE
PIERCES IMMUNITY?
: Target Unit
: Physical
: No
Bonus Damage
MANA
Replenish Time
: 70/140/210/280
: 80/90/100/110
: 24/20/16/12
Throw Range
Cast Range
: 450
: 325
Accounts of people disappearing into a thick dark smoke never to return are all too common when Vesuvius is near
W
Smoke Nimbus
Vesuvius hops onto a cloud of smoke, granting flying movement and vision for 1.3 seconds. If Vesuvius issues an attack command on an enemy hero within 500 units he will crash into the hero he chooses, dealing damage and shielding him from enemy targeted projectiles for 1.2 seconds. Has two charges.
ABILITY
DAMAGE TYPE
PIERCES IMMUNITY?
: No Target
: Physical
: Yes
Bonus Damage
MANA
Replenish Time
: 50/75/100/125
: 80/90/100/110
: 22/20/18/16
Borrowing and modifying his fathers cloud techniques have proved very valuable in the midst of battle
E
Demigod's Charge
Dash 650 units in a direction, colliding with an enemy will deal damage and apply a 0.5 second stun. Dashing while shielded by Smoke Nimbus will grant 5/10/15/25% evasion and 15% Magic Resist for 1.3 seconds. Has Two Charges.
ABILITY
DAMAGE TYPE
PIERCES IMMUNITY?
: Target Point
: Physical
: No
Bonus Damage
MANA
Replenish Time
: 55/110/165/220
: 45/60/75/90
: 20/18/16/14
Anger moves men faster than any magics, but magic certainly helps.

Ultimate Abilities

R
Spears of Entropy
Vesuvius hurls a spear created of dark smoke, travelling at 400/700/1000 units a second and 2000/3000/5000 distance. If Vesuvius connects 5 spears on the same enemy, they will instantly die. If Vesuvius misses a spear or hits a different enemy unit, the counter will be reset, and nothing will happen. Landing a spear will remove a quarter of the remaining cooldown from the charges on each of Vesuvius's abilities. If Vesuvius hits an enemy while they are under the effect of a stun, hex, or movement impairing ability, the duration of that CC will be halved by 50% of the max duration. Spears of Entropy will remain on enemies for 5 seconds from the last spear hit. Starts with 10 Charges.
ABILITY
DAMAGE TYPE
PIERCES IMMUNITY?
: Skill shot
: Pure
: Yes
Bonus Damage
MANA
Replenish Time
: N/A
: 45/60/75
: 15/12/9 sec. per charge, 0.6 sec. between throws.
Vesuvius's raw despisement manifests into volatile bolts, ending with devastation for those who stick around

Hero Talents

Hitting an enemy hero with a spear refreshes an additional 25% of all ability charges
25
For Every 2 enemies killed by Spears of Entropy, a permanent extra charge is added to Q W and E

Abilities Blocked by Smoke Nimbus's Shield reflect towards their owner, adding a stack of Spears of Entropy to their counter
20
Spears of Entropy Projectile Speed increased by 300 units

Smoke Nimbus duration increased by 0.7
15
Vile Abduction absorption duration increased by 0.4

+2.6 Mana Regen
10
20% XP Gain

Playing As Vesuvius

Vesuvius is a mechanically complex melee Strength hero, whose kits creativity has many many uses and nuances. His ultimate ability unlocks an unheard of level of pressure around the map, as he is easily able to jump to someone, absorb them, and throw them into his spears, or team, with ease. His kit revolves around quick paced decision making and fast movements, allowing skilled Vesuvius players to easily naviate around teamfights, and land spears on their targets. One of my favorite *theoretical* combos would be to q, throw a spear, then throw them into the spear, and then do it again for an easy two stacks of entropy.

Artwork

I claim no ownership for any of the pictures or content used for artwork.

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1
[-]
Aspiring Musician (2) | August 1, 2018 2:44am
Honestly at this moment I feel like his ult is currently... ok for now? I think I've touched it up enough and I really don't think the insta-kill is such an outlandish idea, as you do need to land 5 spears over 9+ seconds without missing and when you factor in the ult cast point ( which I havn't added in yet ) I think there is plenty of counterplay / ways to survive being caught out by him, even WITH factoring in two charges of Q W and E's. Also I feel like adding any more mechanics / any other weird thing to any of his abilities would over-saturate him with things that don't need to be there, as to me he looks okay on paper with maybe a few things being removed or shortened for clarity.

For now I believe he is in a decent condition for the upcoming contest, and unless something suddenly hits me, I'l probably just be doing stat growth / lore / Mana and Cooldown changes to him, as well as fixing up some grammar in some areas. Thanks for the feedback my dudes
1
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Mariza (1) | August 1, 2018 2:21am
Since the hero has an insta-kill, people will definitely die often.

Maybe reducing the respawn time/gold loss of heroes killed by the ultimate is one way of balancing it especially since deaths in the late game have a large impact on the direction the game is going.
1
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AttackHelicopter (1) | July 30, 2018 9:20pm
Ok so the hero is well made and thought, the only thing about the abilities is it has a lot of conditions to get the most out of it. However the only thing I can say that is bad about this hero is the fact it has an instant kill ability, yes you may argue it needs to have a specific condition but still in the hands of anyone good or lucky enough this thing is OP as all hell, you need to consider all players of the game when making an ability once something is OP on it's own and not because it was used to it's fullest extent it becomes broken. I say make it so it's not an insta kill but maybe you siphon all it's mana or they get a stun with a long duration but can be dispelled, any insta kill is something I won't want in a game like dota where even the most sh*ttiest of spells can be good in the hands of a good player.
1
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nickname222 (1) | July 28, 2018 2:52am
How would your ult work against aeon disk or grave and blademail? You have 7 tree talnets conected to skils. I am thinking only pugna has 6 and others heroes have less. I would change one or two maybe for example for additional mana or mana regen. As Rakkis157 said you should rework instant kill for something else their is no way to balance this.
1
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Aspiring Musician (2) | July 28, 2018 8:42am
Hi, I liked the idea of a mana regen talent, and his level 10 absorb talent seemed a little good for level 10. So I gave him +3 M Regen and moved his absorb talent to 15.

The insta-kill is really something I feel like I can work around to not make broken, especially since its what the entire kit was based around for me. I figured it would be an execute that dealt 100% of the targets hp as pure, which means it would go through Aeon and Grave. Blademail I suppose would just deal all of the damage to Vesuvius, so possibly just instantly killing him.

Thanks for your talent tree suggestion, feels better to me than just giving him a good int growth for a str hero.
2
[-]
Rakkis157 | July 27, 2018 11:05am
Started reading the hero and for a moment there I was confused on what a Vile Abduction has to do with an Aspiring Musician.

So, Spears of Entropy. The ability to instakill an enemy hero is a huge no in my books. Sure, it's on a skillshot, but the problem with skillshots is that they still work in melee range, and with enough stuns on your team you can simply slaughter 2 enemy heroes in 6 seconds, 4 in 12 seconds if you have Refresher. Black Hole and Chrono comes to mind since the debuff reduction should not work on those, and even without them, this hero has 2 mobility skills to let him better position himself to land his spears.

Ignoring that part of the skill, you mentioned a combo involving that skill and his Q. If you want to make that a combo you have to remove the speed scaling and +speed talent of the skill, because if the spear moves too fast it will be too far out of range to pull it off once, let alone twice.

Given how the mana cost increases, the range hardly matters since you are mostly going to be in the thick of things, and increasing the speed is a downgrade given how it locks you out of one of your combos, there still is no reason to level it past Level 1.

My suggestion is to axe the instakill portion of that ability and replace it with something else. Flat damage is not that good of an option, unfortunately, because that would just be swapping out one instakill with another. You could go with that if you reduce the number of charges or increase the amount of time between throws though.
1
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Aspiring Musician (2) | July 27, 2018 11:25am
Alright so this is going to be a little more difficult to deal with, since I conceptualized the hero around the idea for the ult. I do understand what you mean by the speed of the spears being an issue with the Q combo, but I feel like you could just Q and then throw the spear if you were quick enough. I do really really need to find out a way to make his ult scale meaningfully, as obviously I cant do very minor tweaks like damage lol. I think upgrading the speed will be very very nice in team fights and it certainly FEELS better to use in my mind.

Okay so, the part about things like bhole and chrono. When I considered this ultimate I hastily considered these two abilties, and I almost added something to stop this from being an extremely good synergy. However, unless the black hole or chrono catches five enemies, I feel like there is enough counter play to stop him from just chucking 10 spears at people, as throwing ten spears would take 6 seconds and throwing five would take 3 obviously. Personally, I feel like with orchid, hex, stuns in general, as well as just being able to walk in front of a thrown spear as well any other things im not considering right now, make it not an absurdly broken combo. If five enemies get caught in a chrono or black hole late game, most likely two or more heroes would die regardless of if its instant or not.

Anyways, thats my reasoning when it comes to balancing this ability. Whats funny is that it seems to be very polarizing with literally half of the people ive talked to thinking its broken, and the other half thinking it would need to be buffed because of the delay between spears and all the counterplay available to it. I really appreciate your comment and il definitely go over some things that would help, like maybe turning down the speed a little bit to enable easier juking or taking spears for people. Thanks once again.
1
[-]
Rakkis157 | July 27, 2018 12:06pm
Quoted:
Anyways, thats my reasoning when it comes to balancing this ability. Whats funny is that it seems to be very polarizing with literally half of the people ive talked to thinking its broken, and the other half thinking it would need to be buffed because of the delay between spears and all the counterplay available to it.


That's why there are some things that are just in general impossible to design around, instakill being one of them. They are just simply either too strong to the point of being absolutely broken, or too weak to the point of being near useless, and there is simply no way to tell which is which until you do some playtesting with them. Hence why my suggestion is to swap out the instakill portion of the skill to something easier to balance and scale.

BKB stops a lot of those counterplays, and if there is a Black Hole or Chronosphere up it is highly unlikely that someone can actually walk in between him and his target. Also if people walking in front of your spears do become a problem, unless I am understanding it incorrectly, your Aghs upgrade solves that issue for you.
2
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FangzofFuzzy (9) | July 27, 2018 7:51am
Interesting, I like the direction of giving each spell charges to allow a lot of versatility. Extremely short durations and windows of opportunity couples with the potential to spam spells non-stop isn't something we see much in DotA, and while some may dislike this type of playstyle, I do think it's nice to introduce more playstyles. Though, I do think the kit is very complex and overloaded with effects in order to make him creative but that's just my opinion that I prefer simpler concepts.

General tip for a bit more clarity. You could use 'CHARGE REPLENISH TIME' instead of cooldown to better indicate that the spell uses charges.

What does the stated range on Q mean? Cast range? Throw range? Both? Can E damage and stun multiple enemies?

A few questions on the W. Can you attack as well as cast spells and are you vulnerable during the 1.5 second cloud duration? Does the 850 unit thing mean you gain up to 850 attack range while on the cloud? What does crashing into the chosen enemy mean? Does it mean you dash to the target then deal damage?

Does landing a spear on a target refresh the 9 second duration for the previous spears? Why does Spears of Entropy's mana cost increase per level when the only other thing that increases is max charges? It feels fundamentally awkward and rather silly that I'm paying much more mana, 15x5 = 75 extra mana per level minimum to kill someone with equal strength. I'm not saying extra max charges is useless but to be frank, I wouldn't level this past 1 until I have enough mana. His mana pool is already horrendous for a hero so focused on combos. When all abilities are max level, 2 charges of each basic ability and 5 charges of the ult are used, it would cost a total of 1065 mana. At level 18, you only have a base 723 mana. And this doesn't even consider all the reduced cooldowns you get from landing spears and the remaining spear charges. So take these calculations how you will.

How does the level 20 Smoke Nimbus talent interact with the fact that before Aghanim's Scepter, adding a stack removes all other stacks from other targets? Or would this talent not work against an enemy who currently has no spears?
2
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Aspiring Musician (2) | July 27, 2018 8:35am
Holy smokes thanks for all that! Yes, my intention was definitely to make a more unique concept, what with the very tight timings on his abilities and the all charge spells system. Il be changing the cooldown to Charge Replenish Time when I can, thanks for that.

The Q Range is the Range they would be thrown, il edit it to clarify so thanks for that.

The W is worded pretty poorly, I plan on fixing that up in a moment. Yes you would be able to cast spells on the cloud and you are vulnerable as normal. 850 would be the theoretical max for the crashing into someone after issuing an auto attack on them. Yeah crashing was just a fancier word than dash, since you and nimbus would fly into the enemy together, figured it was a nice little flavor thing lol.

Alright so the ult. Landing a spear would refresh the entire 9 seconds stack timer. The mana cost is a bit of a dumb move on my part, il be fixing that up shortly as I kind of did the ult stats in a bit of hurry, I.E the mana cost and charges per level. I think im going to change the max charges to 10 at all levels and scale up the speed and distance so that you really feel the new levels of your ult, they should be valuable and right now they simply aren't. Yes his mana and int growth need to be sorted out somehow, since he certainly isnt intended to buy arcanes etc. I think im going to move his str growth down and sort of almost equalize his int and str almost, as my original intention for this hero was to be a strength hero who doesn't necessarily naturally bulk up, he was meant to be more nimble with almost active mitigation if you will.

The Smoke Nimbus would be a bit of an anomaly but my plan would be for it to not care about other spear stacks and just stack it on the target anyway, even if spears were on another hero already.

Sorry for this mega-poorly-formatted wall of text. But thank you so much for your input!
2
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FangzofFuzzy (9) | July 28, 2018 4:17am
Hm, so then what's the Q's initial cast range? I think a certain problem that could come with increasing the throw range per level is that sometimes maybe I just want to throw them a short distance in front of me. Unless of course I can specifically target where I want to throw them, then I think it's fine. However, I assume that's not possible due to the '50% throw range if eaten recently' clause. So that's something to consider. And I do think it might be better for W to just say dashing for clarity then, especially since the Q interacts with dashing.

Personally, I don’t feel his combos are that nuanced or have that many uses. You have 2 dashes but you would always only use them before or after Q since dashing during the abduction is usually detrimental. I get the point of this interaction is to stop abuse, but then why leave the option available? Also, you would always W then E since this combo puts you in range for the low-range stun and provides a boost to defense, whereas E then W doesn’t really provide anything special. Many uses? Eh, everything just helps him get in close to kill people and he doesn’t provide much else to his team. Nuanced? Eh, W’s wall literally asks E to dash through it. I think it’s a far more creative and interesting kit than most others, but I don’t agree that with some of the statements. Am I nit-picking too much? Yes, because I was expecting more. So, I’ll provide some suggestions that I think could give him more combo potential and make him shine even more:

Leave Vile Abduction’s cast range and throw range at a static 300. Dashing during Vile Abduction will throw the target in the opposite direction of the dash at double the throw range. What this means is that now normally, your catch potential is still there but not too strong, especially since you mainly want Q to reposition enemies to hit with R. But if you want to really throw someone far away from their team, you have the option now by dashing potentially away from your team and into danger, a fair trade-off. This still means you can’t exactly kidnap people easily like Lasso but is a more interesting solution where you also have more control.

Make Smoke Nimbus’ attack range 500 from 850 and make Demigod’s Charge range 750 from 400. Currently, I think W is just superior at first closing the gap because it not only gives the flying movement but also the large range attack jump. Meanwhile initiating with E currently doesn’t make sense because it’s range so short. By exchanging the ranges, now you actually have a choice when it comes to starting fights. Go for the more creative pathing with W first to follow up with the charge for survivability or go for the quick and safer disabling dash.

If Smoke Nimbus is cast within 1.5 seconds of stunning or killing a hero, it provides undetectable invisibility for its duration. This one is less nuanced than I’d like but is still pretty interesting. Yes, now it obviously makes dashing in with E before W far more enticing if you hit someone. But also, Vesuvius is like Necrophos in that he is great at securing last hits on heroes, so let’s also reward him for doing it with either a quick escape or an opportunity to keep going. This one I’m more on the fence about so doesn’t need to be considered as much, but I just want to put it out there.

Remove the damage from Smoke Nimbus. Add damage to Vile Abduction. W is currently a very overloaded spell. It gives mobility in the flying movement and a targeted dash, flying vision to scout and reveal targets to attack dash onto and creates a wall that can not only destroy spell projectiles but also give him bonus defenses. On top of that, it puts him in melee range for what is essentially a guaranteed R stack. Especially since you want to instantly kill that target with R anyways so their health doesn’t matter, does this spell also really need to damage the target? I’m not necessarily talking about balance, but more that does it need to conceptually be so crowded? If you do go ahead with the Vile Abduction changes earlier, then that means the spell has less scaling potential and more damage could be fitted in here, especially since I can assume the Q itself won’t damage the main target. Something like 70/140/210/280?
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