Here Comes Super Orchid

(courtesy of article.wn.com)

Perhaps one of the most, if not the most, eye-catching additions, Bloodthorn is now the most expensive item in the game at 7195 gold, not counting Dagon 5. Not only that, but in addition to Orchid’s regular active Silence, all ally attacks on the silenced target have True Strike and a 100% critical. It even works with creep attacks, for all that it’s worth. And all that with a measly 11 second cooldown.

It certainly sounds impressive. Is it really that good though?

Orchid’s main weakness is that it can be dispelled, and with a good number of ways at that. Besides various spells, we have Eul’s Scepter, Manta Style, Diffusal Blade, BKB, Lotus Orb, Guardian Greaves. Half of these items are even cheaper than Orchid.

Eul’s Scepter is perhaps the brightest example. With the current easy gold mechanics, even a support can afford one relatively early and completely counter an Orchid carrier. Obviously, the same goes with Bloodthorn, and by the time anyone saves up a bit more than 7k gold, every player on the field will most likely have enough for a counter item.

So, while the free Crits and True Strikes for everyone sound nice, it’s not easy to get the full duration out of it. You’d need another disable on top of the silence at least, but that defeats the purpose of silencing a target in the first place.

After a few games with and against Bloodthorn, I feel the traditional ways of damage amplification and True Strike still work better; I’d rather get MKB against a Phantom Assassin, for instance, since all she needs to be immune to Bloodthorn is her regular BKB plus a Manta (which is good on her anyway).

I strongly feel Orchid and Bloodthorn’s debuffs shouldn’t be so easy to get rid of.

One thought is to reduce the number of ways of purging a debuff. This seems unlikely, since the developers keep adding items and skills that have this element, and I’m not sure why. Eul’s Scepter is still very cheap for what it does. Lotus Orb and Greaves, both added in the same patch and both share the ability to remove buffs on activation. They’d still be fine items without that element.

That being said, perhaps the best way would be to simply make Orchid/Bloodthorn’s Silence less powerful (less duration, less amplification) but not purgeable. I’d go as far as saying, as the game is now, I’d prefer 0 damage amplification in return for having a reliable disable.