A Little Balance Problem (Specialization and Dueling)

The legendary triple post, I thought it was only a myth. :O

Well, If I put all my replies in one post it'd be five miles long and impossible to read.

And just you wait, I can do a quad post.

I know, I don't blame you, also you wouldn't dare.

Ok Im sorry, its 2 am in the mourning and I was at a lost for words to explain that. Ok so far you have only attacked my 1v1 and mid ganking thingy for freya. I just want to say that it isn't Freya that is a bad pick, she is top tier, but from my experiences, Mercury has a broken kit in general. The amount of damage that he does is just too much due to the fact that unlike freya he can crit and he doesn't have to aim, he just needs to get up to the god and punch them to death if they run, as you said he can just ult through the towers securing the kill or just use his one. Heck he can even just ult from tower to tower, meaning that if he was aware of the minimap, he could charge his ult and just boom to the other side, getting the kill. Mercury's skills don't need skills to use unlike Freya, which is why he is broken. I love playing Freya for her complexity as you have to know when to banish and when not to, when to swap to using the 1 after using her 2, when to stop auto attack the enemy god to chase after them and would the banish benefit the enemy team or your team. When the enemy is up in the air, it gives time for the other enemies to protect them, and considering Frey;a regular build a sobek flip, mercury dash or anything that can get her expose to a damage dealer will mean her death. You might say that hey mercury is just like that too, but mercury has more escape tools due to his 3 and his ultimate.

When I was talking about the ganking mid thing, because of the way people build freya, most people get her demonic grip as her 4th item. This doesn't mean her early game ganking is strong, by the time you reach this item, its probably mid game, where admittedly she is very strong in. Furthermore, because most Freya's require the cooldown shoes, therefore the demonic grip is her first penetration item, meaning that a voidstone on the mid can just negate the damage until demonic, meaning her early game is easy to counter. She gets banish at level 4, not earlier because she needs 2 skill points into her one to have early game clear. Mercury on the other hand gets pen tabi, heart seeker and qin sais. If the enemy jungler was able to counter jungle mercury, then we are talkinf about the players and not the gods themselves. Because around the time that freya gets qin sais, mercury aready would have heart seeker stacked up to at least 25, meaning that his mid game is pretty strong too as he deals too much damage from his abilities and his aas...

I'm tired so just one last thing is that Mercury is a physical god, meaning that he will benefit from crit damage. His 2 increases his attack speed and his one can crit. Freya can't crit.

Why Mercy is banned = can camp and crit from far range.....
I must say that bastard gets on my nerves when you see him 20 feet away crit you for half hp.
Lets just give the guy a sniper rife of crit next time :D

I think this here is the big deal breaker. Mercury, by nature of being a physical god, has the ability to inflict criticals. Criticals which can inflict 50% more damage through a Deathbringer and can occur very frequently through building a Rage or Malice. And as everyone has kindly pointed out, his Made You Look can crit, and has a stupidly large AoE for an assassin skill. He doesn't have to immediately jump into the fight, he just has to harass you until he crits, then your team swoops in for the kill.

Freya needs to rely on Polynomicon just to be able to match up to that kind of potential, and she still loses out to Deathbringer builds in terms of raw DPS. The recent nerf to Poly wasn't too kind to her either. Her 1+2 combo hits hard for a reason, and it's because it has to make up for her inability to crit. It's a similar reason why Chronos gets such ridiculous steroids from Accelerate, and Nu Wa gains double basic damage after her ultimate. Magic-based "hunters" need big steroids to make up for how magical basics are so weak.

Alright, to respond your earlier comment to me, aswell as to retract my statement that I wouldn't participate myself, I did ponder a little and here's my whizzle-waz.

First off, we assume that the skill of both team is completely equal and on par, the only difference is one team having Freya and one team having Mercury. Also both equally good, only with a different kit, this is truly the only way to measure them in literature.

- Why is Mercury far better than Freya in competitive play?
Mercury can clear jungles much faster in the first 5~10 levels. (We disregard one getting fat, equal teams remember). Because of this Mercury more quickly gains EXP and gold. And because of this he can put more pressure on lanes and potentially the mid camps.

- Why is Mercury far better than Freya in competitive play? (2)
Because Mercury can put more pressure due to a quicker jungle phase, he can also gank more. Where we assume that Mercury mostly ganks mid, his Special Delivery combined with the Damage over Time(DoT) of most top tier mids will ensure maximum damage. Where it's true that Freya's Banish is also a strong gank mechanic, it enables the enemy to prepare a tactical retreat and or possibly Aegis immideatly after dropping. (A well timed 1 hit can hit you before you land, as mentioned, but this is hard and potentially ult-wasting). Most notably is the fact that Banish does not enable DoT, only a potential free hit after Banish expires.
Mercury also has a stronger escape if things go south and a decent finisher if the enemy gets away. Freya has the better finisher, but lacks in her escapability.

- Why is Mercury far better than Freya in competitive play? (3)
Due to your jungler performing better than Freya and the better ganking potential, the entire team benefits. Since both teams are skilled equally, it won't snowball, but one team will clearly have the upper hand slowly and steady. The thing is, Freya indeed becomes a tear-a-part monster in late game, but your average compettive game never ever reaches that kind of late game. Most competitive ranked and/or tournament games end up with the most fed having about 4 to 5 items, sometimes even less. And since Mercury is better early game, as stated above, the Mercury team will win.

- Why is Mercury far better than Freya in competitive play? (4)
In terms of duelling, any clever Mercury will use his Special Delivery after Freya procs her 1-2 combination. The duration of Special Delivery is 1 second and when used after a pulse from Freya it takes out 2 of her 5 seconds. She then gets flinged, losing her another second. Meaning she only has 2 seconds of damage left, Mercury can easily eat this and do alot of damage. If Freya then decides to ult (she would probably kill him) Mercury can decide to ultimate out in time. If not, Freya most likely loses, or uses Banish, resetting the fight. Causing the rotation of both teams to complete.

My number 4 is a pretty weak arguement, but I still found it mentionable.

- Why is Mercury far better than Freya in casual play?
Eh, he isn't. I consider them on equal grounds. If a balanced game happens then the competitive standards given above apply, however, if you have a randomized game Freya's slower early game won't be as punishing aswell as late-game being more likely to occur.

I'll be putting my counterpoints as the same number as yours.

1: I disagree with Merc clearing faster. Not much else to say.

2: Like I said earlier, I believe Freya has an easier clear speed. We disagree on that matter, that's all there is to it.

Also, Freya's Banish is easier, not only because it is ranged, but because it has zero predictability. Not to mention you can beads out of Special Delivery, but you need the reaction time of a god to beads her Banish.

3: See 1.

4: I'm not sure if it's just the way I play Freya, but whenever I see a Mercury, I specifically don't use the combo until after he uses his dash. He has to get close to hit me anyway, and I would be better off with the slow. Also, this entire point is moot, since this post isn't about Freya vs Mercury, but Freya in comparison to Mercury.

5: N/A.

That could be an argument against Mercury, too. His damage is at its best late game, but early-mid it falls compared to Freya's. And this thread was about specializtion in dueling, rather than DPS, and if Freya gets the first Polynomicon hit, she wins due to the massive burst anyway.

His Deathbringer'd Made You Looks are one thing, but they're actually a drop on his damage* compared to his autos, at least late game.

*Since any Merc can basic attack three-four times it takes for him to use Made You Look, I still say that it isn't a factor in dueling.