The heart definitely needs to be nerfed.

Every hero uses consumables.

Nonsense.  You need to find out the reason behind why everyone uses it - and do not use other abilities.  Say Bite was left completely alone but every other ability was given a significant buff such that no one uses Bite anymore because everything else is simply BETTER. 

Ideally people should have the options of whether to go Bite or not not because it's his best ability but because it fulfills a purpose that you're aiming for in your build (I want an ability to heal me, I want an ability to buff my minions, I want an ability that deals ranged damage, I want an ability that stuns people)

Again, look at Torchbearer.  Not a single ability is mandated in every build, not because it's just "too good" but because everything does a certain thing well in different ways.

For my part, I agree with the original poster.  I think that there are too many people playing the weaker demigods (in my opinion the weaker demigods are UB, Rook and QoT) who are being killed a lot by Erebus that are mostly upset by this. I think that instead of nerfing Erebus, those three other demigods should have been improved, since I think that Erebus was very much on-par with the other demigods.  I don't feel weaker than Erebus at all when I'm playing Regulus, Oak, Sedna, or TB.

This is a bad comparison.  For four points, TB can get a 1050 damage fireball.  Let's compare it to bite:

Fireball does more damage, has a very long range, and has a faster cooldown.  Bite steals health and has a three second snare/armor debuff.  In my personal opinion, fireball is far better than bite.  It's true that you can spend five more points to further increase fireball's damage, but remember that you're getting an entirely second ability.

900 damage plus 900 heal is not 1800 effective damage.  It is very good 1 v 1, where Erebus is likely to be getting attacked and have a lower health.  But in group combat (most combat) where Erebus is not being attacked, the ability is just doing a flat 900 damage, which is less than other characters' damage.

Furthermore, bite is the shortest-ranged ability in the game, and this means that it can't be used nearly as often as other abilities.  TB, UB, QoT, Oak, and Regulus all have longer-ranged, high-damage abilities which allows them to attack from safety.  Only Pounce and Hammer Slam rival the range of Bite, and each has its own advantages.

As for the Bite debuff, I agree that it is good, but Oak's ability pretty much applies the same debuffs, but it can be cast at a longer range and the debuffs last much longer.  I don't really think the debuffs are problematic.

But I can sympathize with some complaints.  I do agree that the combination of bats and bite might be too powerful, and I think the best solution might be to increase the casting time of the bats ability.  I also feel that stun in general is too powerful, and Erebus has the longest stun in the game.  (Though changing it to an AoE interrupt, as someone suggested above, would make it useless).  Further, I think that mist should be replaced with a completely different ability.  As it stands, you get your full use out of it by putting in only a single point, and it's kind of a boring ability that reduces strategy.

But none of my complaints justify nerfing bite.

People really should read this post!!!

I think it's the best post I've read outlining the Erebus issues and Bite.

I personally think the proper fix would have been to reduce the snare effect so that rank 1 it has very little snare or none at all and as you improve BITE it gains more and more snare effect up to what we currently have.

This would make Erebus less of a "Trap" early game in which Erebus gets close to you bites you, wait for cool down, bites you again and then when you try to flee you can't.  I really think that is why bite might be a little over powered in it's current form.

Erebus already requires you to get, armor, life regen, mana regen and weapon damage along with more expensive minion gear (if going a minion build, which I personally think is optimal). 

Increasing bite's mana cost will only moves the slider over to make him more dependant on mana potions and/or helmets.

Decreasing bites damage, eh will see how it turns out but personally I don't think it was needed. 

The armor reduction was so small I doubt it'll be an issue at all.

With the current nerf, it'll still be very hard to get away from Erebus and for any but good players he will most likely kill other demigod early game.

-Jara

Picking up at least 1 level bite at the start of the game is due to it being Erebus's only offensive attack.  This is just how he is currently designed. This nerf will not change that in any way shape or form -- bite will still be my first power every game.

Mist is a great avoidance tactic but does little damage and is more for pushing/hiding.

Charm is a great way to stop abilities (hammer, potion use etc).  It's a nice O' shit button but it's more useful mid/late game.

All his other abilities are passive ones that don't improve his skills just his minions.

THAT is why Bite is always chosen as his first power choice and unless he's redesigned it will always be the first choice. 

Personally I'm not sure that is such a huge design flaw that it warrants a total redesign.  Some games I take more levels of bite but others I stop at 1 or 2 ranks.  It really depends on how you plan on playing him in that particular game.

-Jara

I'd also like to point out that each demigod has around 8 skills to choose from and you have to pick 3-4 depending on how high they scale. As pointed out earlier, bite is erebus's most usefull move (and pointed out above, his other skills aren't so usefull starting out). Although the statement "all erebus builds include bite" is impossible to support, I will go along with the hypothesis for a moment. It fails when relating to erebus's relative power compared to other demigods. I'm comfortable playing 2 demigods currently; I've tried the others out, but enjoy The Rook, and Queen of Thorns the most. Both of these DG's have abilities that i will always take, regardless of my build. QoT should and will always have Bramble shield, and The Rook will always have structural transfer. Does this mean these abilities are powerfull, too powerfull, or just usefull? I assume the latter.

If there is anything positive to be gained out of this type of thinking, it is that the skills which are not taken consistantly should be looked at. And this certainly leads to the point of this entire thread, which is: its too early for nerfs and buffs. (especially when [some] people still can't connect to each other in lobby's, you can't change your name, you can't play with friends in skirmish or pantheon, your demigod freezes up when using abilities, your demigod doesnt chase people down at full speed when attempting to auto-attack, >>>when a game ends you get booted to the lobby instead of back to the room<<<, ETC!!!)

Are you implying minions do something besides kill things? I would really like to use my minions to cap a flag, but they don't. If you are not going to use a general to fight, then what is the purpose?

The change to bite will take few games to get used to but then I'm sure everyone will be back on the forums STILL crying about how OP Erebus is.  I honestly don't think this will change the way I play him. I play this game as it's meant to be played, AS A TEAM, so it was more important for me to use bite to snare and lower the armor of my targets, which it still does, just at an added mana cost. ;/ (which is I think the only stupid thing they did.)

We'll see how things turn out, if anything this will weed out all the FotM followers, and take the heat of us people that actually like to play Erebus.

So to all the forums babies out there! Keep on crying because I'm hungry, and your tears taste like candy.

Minions are not bite.  If you're implying that bite is supposed to slow them for the minions to deal damage to enemy heroes then I suppose that's a valid point - and that ability is unchanged because the nerf isn't affecting the movespeed debuff.

Well, I'm just trying to figure out how you came to what I think is a crazy conclusion. You seem to want erebus players to not always take bite. His only real offense aside from this is minions, and his defense sucks. You also state that you think he shouldn't be killing ppl. So I have to wonder, what am I supposed to do with my minions besides kill you that is going to make you happy? Tell you what, why don't we all just start losing to everyone else so that eveyone can walk around thinking they are the best at DG and all other demis but their's suck.

The way I'm reading this, he's saying that the minions should have a larger hand in killing people and Erebus shouldn't be doing it himself with bite.

To put it another way, the General shouldn't be getting kills - the minions should.

At which point, I'm sure disagreement will ensue.

funny that adding minions to my dps is how i do kill. bite gives me the lasting power to actually get the kill and the added debuff to make minions do some actual damage.

Only Slaughter is won by killing enemy Demigods, and no one plays it.  Most people seem to forget this.

Generals are for pushing.  Assassins are for killing enemy Demigods.  At least, that's how it's supposed to be.

UB is basically the assassin version of erebus in the sense he is forced into one play-style centered around spit to be good. Personally only agree that rook and QoT are weak.

As for the comparison bite still wins for a few reason.

- In the time it takes you to cast fireball the other demi can walk up to you and be in melee range by the end of the cast so the range isn't always applicable. Unlike DoTA ranged hero's don't stay at range for very long, as it's very easy to close the distance.

- The cooldown is 7 seconds for both of them, except bite is instant so it's already faster.

- Bite helps keep them in range for a second on to follow while fireball simply does damage.

- Until the nerf they're very close in terms of mana cost and in many cases erebus only needs the mana for bite, while TB needs a large amount of mana to cast anything but fireball.

- The 1800 damage only doesn't occur when you're in a team fight situation and your team-mate is close to dieing as any smart group will target erebus due to the fact erebus is only killable in a group situatiion in most cases.

Combined with mist and bat swarm he can dodge long range abilties. (all but penitence can be mist dodged) While at the same time counter any range advantages. So bite is already better but combined with his other abilties he becomes far, far too strong.

After recently facing a half-decent erebus as oak i'm actually kind of worried the nerf isn't bad enough.. He can still elminate any tactic of statving him of bite targets by using bat swarm.

iv said it before ill say it again if erebus was so op then why is he ranked 4th? there is no exscuse you can give for that question that can make any sense. the fact of the matter is pantheon stats DO matter, it takes all the variables an puts the demigods against eachother stat wise.not to mention pantheon stats no matter how non specific they might be is more proof than what the ppl who have been crying for a nerf have.

now do i think bite needed a nerf? yes a slight one. i even suggested to brad maybe increase the cooldown by 2-3 secs and removing some of the movement reduction seeing how that was what everyone was crying about. but apparantly gpg didnt read any of the nerf threads an jus saw the topic called nerf bite because this current nerf makes no sense imo.

i feel like im just repeating myself so ill end my post, thanks again for reading.

The instant cast of bite is beneficial, the range of fireball is too. I dont see how this justifies one being better than the other

point taken

adjusted for fairness

This has been said before but I will repeat it again, Erebus has a smaller mana pool (780 @1, 2509 @20) than Torch Bearer (1100 @1, 3950 @20). Therefore, Erebus must consume a higher percentage of his mana per move (which cost[ed] roughtly equal to TB as you said, pre-adjustment) compared to TB. Also

Wait, I thought you were saying the nerf was good? I guess we're in agreement now. horay!

OK...this is completely wrong. All oaks take sheild, is it OP? All QOT take bramble sheild, is it OP? Some skills are a given for any build, and that argument is irrelavent to whether or not he is OP, which according to statistics he isn't. Some skills are inherantly better than other for given situations. The oaks sheild is way, way better than erebus' mist form at first level. The sheild does not need a nerf because of this. Not every demigod will have equally good skills at every level, or level perfectly the same. This is a given.

The erebus nerf remains foolish. He is not dominating all others, or even most others. There was no reason for it.

I just got home from school and read through these forums and wanted to start off by saying that this is probably one of the most constructive forum threads for any game I have ever played, I don’t agree with everyone, but on the whole each point made is clearly well thought out.
I know that people like to, rather than refer to statistics, compare skills between demigods to argue for or against how over powered an ability is, or is not. So today I thought I would inject something that I think is relevant to this discussion and I will do so with an example. What follows is a comparison of Erebus’s post nerf bite, to another move in the game (both at their top rank), and I think it really brings the importance of context home, that being we can not gain much insight through pure 1 to 1 comparison of skills, we must consider how, when, and why skills are used.

Erebus Bite: 0800mana, 775dmg, 00775healing, 00008range, 30% snare, -700armor,
Unknown:    0250mana, 750dmg, 02250healing, 05000range, damage aoe,
Disparity:     -550mana, -25dmg, +1475healing, +4992range,

Cleary this unknown ability is a great deal stronger, people are in the habit of counting the total healing and damage possible, and if we ignore the aoe assuming only one target is hit, this move causes a 3000hp swing. As we can see the snare, armor debuff, and extra 25 damage are the only advantages bite has over this move. But guess what, this is a move from the lowest ranked demigod in pantheon, the QoT mulch ability. Now I don’t mean to imply her move is overpowered, rather that comparisons like this are not as useful, accurate, or objective as some believe. Just something to think about...

All Oaks don't.  If they did, yes, it would be unbalanced.

Yes, Bramble Shield is currently unbalanced.

You're confused.  I'm not saying they are overpowered, I am saying they are unbalanced.  You're obsessed with OP or not, I only care for internal balance.  All abilities should be viable and no ability should be necessary all the time.  Cross Demigod balance has NOTHING - I repeat - NOTHING to do with it.

What makes you the authority to give such a definitive answer? So far all I see from you are absolutes and no supporting evidence. Other posters making other points have also made supporting arguments. If you want people to agree with you, you will have to convince them.

That's true. Only the good Oaks take it.

For all abilities to be viable and equal in all opportunities, they should just make every demigod exactly the same. lrn2metagame

I have no clue how you came to this conclusion.

Again, look at Torchbearer.  Internally balanced - there are numerous builds that all take different skillsets and no one skill is always taken (Full fire, full ice, ice with fireball, fire with ice rain, mostly ice with fireball and fire nova, half and half, etc)

It's interesting that no one responds to this point in the five times I have made it.

No. You are the one who is confused. Internal balance means nothing if a demigod is over or underpowered compared to others. That is why you first  look at skills in relation to others and then internally balance. Doing it the other way is pure nonsense, because you end up nerfing an extremely important skill on a demigod who is ranked in the middle.

Saying "All oaks don't take sheild", while technically true is lke saying all UBs don't take spit. I'm sure some don't. But your point is irrelavent. Some skills are basically mandatory to take. Towers/hammer slam for rook, fireball for torch bearer, snipe for regulas.

Cross demigod balance has everything to do with it. Because by balancing internally first, you take the risk of throwing off cross demigod balance even more, which will probably happen.

 Also, I'm not obsessed with OP. I never said any demigod was/is OP. I'm concerned with balance. Nerfing an important ability for a demigod who is in the middle of the pack does absolutely nothing to balance the game.

So, in essence, I'm still completely right, and people continue to get off track. I will once again sum things up.

Erebus is middle of the pack in pantheon. He is receiveing a nerf. This is stupid, because ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (NO MATTER HOW POWERFUL ANY OF HIS ABILITIES ARE) the end result is that half the demigods are doing worse than him and half are doing better. This makes no sense.

Has the nerf gone through yet? I don't think it has, but I was playing against OrexxerO earlier today, and he thought it did. The damage was still as high as always though. I thought it would have been updated with the last patch, but it looks like it hasn't. Although OrexxerO was scared of the prospect of me with an even stronger bite then the one I had in our match... makes me feel warm inside.

Speaking of OrexxerO, holy shit, Rook is freaking insane! I wouldn't call for a nerf, but damn... that stun of his is almost too good. I don't know how I'll be taking on good rooks after the nerf. It's really quite insane how powerful they can get.

Of course it does, because they are 2 different processes.  Once something is internally balanced you can measure it against the rest and adjust everything at once accordingly.

You risk doing that any time you touch anything.  Tweak, then watch.  Give it time.

You can't trust the stats we're seeing right now.  At all.  You have no idea who is "middle of the pack"

Again, this kind of process is incremental.  People flipping out over the first and only thing they touch is just idiotic.

Lol that was a new build I have been using. Makes it much easier to be more agressive with the Rook. Although its just a bit more challenging to land Hammer Slam on people and aim the Bolder Roll correctly but yeah if done correctly its painful.

Very good game dude. Even though I lost =(