Grim is both boring to play and to play against. Here are some changes I would make if I were Arkheron God to make playing against him a little less… grim, while keeping his identity as ‘futuristic science dude’.
Ultimate:
Grim’s current ult is currently a pause all interactions button. Most enemy teams just tuck their tails and run away to wait it out. I mean… what else can they do exactly?.. I propose changing his ultimate entirely to basically be Ryze ultimate from League of Legends. Grim aims a circle of about 5 meters in diameter to start a 2.5 second ish channel. At the start of this channel, a 5 meter circle is also placed at the player’s feet. At the end of the channel, every friendly unit in the circle at his feet gets teleported to the originally-aimed circle. This should also teleport friendly ‘pets’ including Strange Device’s turret. This would allow a way that Grim could cleverly reposition turrets, himself, and his team in fights and be far more interesting than the current ultimate imo. There would also be an interesting interaction where Grim could place his crown down before completing the teleport, allowing him to return to his starting location should he choose to do so. The only thing I think you’d have to hardcode to balance this new ultimate would be restricting Grim from placing his teleport destination into a storm. Teleporting your whole team from a beacon to a shrine to refill on consumes might prove to be problematic at certain beacon locations where the shrine is close enough to do so. I also think any items in the original circle should be teleported as well - see a vitality crown on the ground? Send it to your teammate on the other side of a beacon for a quick top up. This idea is just so interesting for so many reasons.
If you do not want to reinvent the wheel this hard… which I really think you should… I would instead propose making Grim’s ultimate size scale off of how many enemy players he hits with it. It’s current size can be for if he hits 3 players or more with it. 2 players should be 2/3 of the current size. 1 or less players = 1/3 of current size. At least then he would have to put some thought into it. Right now, there’s hardly any bad time to use Grim’s ult in a fight because of how brainlessly effective it is. No other ultimate gets that luxury.
Crown:
Most interesting part of the current kit in my opinion. The one thing I would change about this is the way the healing works. Base healing that also goes up even further when reaching lvl 3 attainable as quickly as you can double tap E is not good design imo. I think it could be far more interesting if the heal amount scaled with how far away you were when you returned to your original crown location. Double tap E - get a baby heal. Tap E and traverse 15 meters-ish - get max heal. Please I beg you make this character have to think a little bit and not just be handed stuff for pressing buttons as soon as they come off cooldown with no thought. This change would also go really, really well with the ultimate change proposed above - start ult teleport > place crown > take the teleport to the destination circle > go back to crown would guarantee the max heal assuming the teleport was placed far enough away. Reward proper cooldown management of these two abilities with this really fun and rewarding mechanic.
Amulet:
Love you Bonfire, but is there a single person that gets excited about this item? Even the person that designed this item probably looks back and is like… yeahhh… not my most captivating work. And you know, I’d hug that person for admitting that. I think the nature of the ability and what it does IS actually pretty on-brand for Grim, but I think it needs a little more to it. I think that you should add a bit to its base level 1 duration, and at level 3 it should silence enemies that pass through it for a rather short time instead of extending its duration. I’ve seen people propose that the item slow when enemies pass through it, but I think a silence is way more of Grim’s style.
Strange Device:
Pretty boring item to use and to play against but to me it kinda just is what it is. The only thing I can think of to make this weapon more interesting might be some kind of ramp-up walk speed/damage mechanic - at the start of the zapping, you are slow, and dealing less damage, but the farther you are into the ‘charge up’ of zapping, the more damage you are dealing and the faster you are walking maybe? Idk. This part of Grim’s kit is the least of his/my worries anyways. Moving on. (oh, and keep in mind the Turret would now be teleportable with his ultimate to reposition cleverly behind hiding foes, so that is probably enough of a buff to this weapon anyhow)
Charged Rings:
Talking particularly about charged M1s, non-charged M1’s on this item might as well not exist in its current state: The problem with this weapon to me is that there is no being bad at it, because there is no punishment for being bad at it. It is a thick projectile that is pretty generous in terms of landing it, and if you do miss with it, you get infinite chances to try again on a like 1 second cooldown. What little damage one might be lucky enough to land in between permanently spammable knockback stuns is often negated entirely by Grim spamming crown to get that HP back. Between that and his passive, it creates this gameplay loop where its like kinda like… ‘oh, that adc-ish character standing behind his team/a massive projectile shield spamming damage from range? Yeah, save him for last because if you try to dive him you’re legit just throwing’
- youre not gonna be able to hit him, 2) hes just gonna heal what you do hit anyways - so wait until he’s the last alive and then dogpile on him, he cant knock back all three of us at least… And I’m not sure Grim enjoyers get much of a kick out of that gameplay loop either.
There needs to be more of a window to punish a bad Grim in a 1v1-esque situation, and also a way for a good Grim to better outplay a 1v3 situation.
My change proposition is this: You know on Charged Ring’s reticle, how there are 3 little dashes above the dot?
What if Charged Rings had a mechanic where they had 3 ‘charges’ (get it?) specifically of the charged M1 shot, where if the user lands the shot, the charge is refunded. If the charge does not connect onto a target, one charge is depleted. Normal, non-charged m1 shots do not count toward the 3 charges. After using the 3 charges, Charged Rings are overheated, and neither normal M1 or charged M1 can be used for even just 2-3 seconds while they cool down. Upon cooling down, 3 more charges are available to him and the cycle repeats.
Getting knocked back from max range when you are not even trying to dive him - you just dared to be attempting to use a ranged weapon yourself within line of sight of an enemy with Charged Rings, is super annoying. This change would potentially deter Grim from using charged M1 shots at extremely far range, as it is easier to dodge from afar, and make him actually use the non-charged version in that situation more often. This would also make a world where in 1v1 situations, a Good grim still has the upper hand with 3 charges that refund when are successfully landed, while a bad Grim now has a window to be punished for being bad and missing. It is really not that hard to hit someone with charged m1s that is diving you. However, if the diver does manage to dodge dip and dive past 3 charged M1’s, now they at least have some kind of a window to get some hits in. This change would also encourage better crown management - anticipating ahead of time that you as the Grim item user might need to duck out of a fight if you miss your three charges for the duration of the overheat would be more rewarding and dissuade the ‘just double tap E’ healing method used today.
In regard to a good Grim having a better chance at a 1v3 as mentioned earlier, I think with this change there would be room for a compensation buff: If Charged Ring’s M2 ability is used while the weapon is overheated, give the M2 back its slow that you guys took away a few patches back. This combination of opening Grim to a tad more risk in 1v1s, while also providing SOME form of hope for self-peel in a 1v3 with the slow bouncing between multiple targets piling on you, I think would be way more healthy and interesting than the weapon’s current state. Also: make Transformed Grim say SUPAHCHARGED when using the overheated version of M2 since that line wouldn’t really fit with his new ultimate. That might be the most important part of this post.
Overall, I hope it is clear that I am not trying to make Grim ‘weaker’ here - just more interesting for both sides.
Thoughts? 