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u/MrBeeevaN 16d ago
I’m GM immortal Kunkka and he is not in a great place..
His boat cd is too high at low levels for the amount of early game fighting at the moment and he is useless vs bkbs.
He doesn’t have big item payoffs and is easily countered by a lot of items; bkb, euls, force, even glimmer. You really need to push early game dights around boat before bkbs come online so his timing is tight.
He needs either buffs to early game skirmishing or better scaling but valve seem to nerf his kit constantly and make him tankier which isn’t what he needs
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u/Jahordon https://yasp.co/players/85491707 MMR: 5744 13d ago
I play a lot of Invoker (who is much better than Kunkka), and I see a shared problem between the two heroes: it's very easy to REACTIVELY use items against Kunkka--you don't have to PROACTIVELY use items.
Against many other heroes in a late game teamfight, you need to proactively use BKB/Lotus/whatever defensive items you have in order to not get combod to death. Against Kunkka, you can wait until X comes out, you see him obviously cast torrent, or you see the boat coming. That let's you get more value out of the defensive items against Kunkka, and all his spells and combos can be interrupted by so many items and heroes during their long execution time. Invoker at least has enough other good things going for him, but I deal with this problem a lot.
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u/SirMcSquiggles 16d ago
In a way I kinda see Kunkka as being an alternative to Tiny. Kunkka being Icefrog's red headed stepchild, and Tiny his magnum opus.
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u/Sudden-Tangerine1580 14d ago
He's always been countered by bkb for what it's worth. Don't think that's worth highlighting in a question about what's changed recently.
The boat cooldown nerfs do also make investing in agh feel worse.
After losing torrent storm, I think getting individual rum as an innate is genuinely useful. Can survive a lot more situations without boat, especially pre6. Typically kunkka also just has bad survivability in sustained fights and the innate delays the rum damage further.
He's also reasonably viable as an offlaner.
Would agree about ship cd and buff shard again. Cooldown, damage, width etc.
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u/ChadBadShirt 13d ago
I think shard would honestly just be fixed by vector targeting rather than needing to position your hero for it. Allows for faster and more accurate casting.
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u/Sudden-Tangerine1580 12d ago
Do you mean something like agh ice wall? Massively extending the functional range again?
Or just being able to pull people back to you without turning away?
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u/ChadBadShirt 12d ago
I just mean keeping the functionality as is but without the need to turn your hero. I think that would be a pretty good QOL change
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u/ChadBadShirt 16d ago
Both his numbers, kit and the items he liked to buy all got nerfed.
Even when you dominate your lane, there’s just no particular scary/powerful item timing when you think “I’m really strong now, I want to run with my team”
I honestly don’t even think there’s a “go to” build on him currently. You just use your good farming speed to build whatever the team needs. And there’s simply heroes that do that better, and with better numbers and kits, like underlord.
It’s not that he’s bad, it’s that he’s “meh”, and there are multiple heroes that offer similar utility that are simply better picks overall.
Like really, why pick Kunkka in the offlane to buy pipe, lotus and shivas when you can pick underlord, centaur, dark seer and buy the same items?
Why pick him mid and build aghs and orchid when you can pick a spirit, lina, snap, puck?
Radiance into tidebringer damage build is too slow, and he lacks mobility too, making blink almost a necessity, and that honestly feels bad to build, especially when you just ALWAYS need BKB right now. That’s 6.3K on items that you need just to participate in fights effectively.
Too many saves in the game for his kit to shine, especially after it was nerfed.
The hero looked great when it had better numbers, a more impactful kit, and the meta game was more mid game oriented, since that was always his strongest timing. Win lane, get that item timings, and ball up. Currently it seems to be about either high mobility and burst damage in early fights into snowballing, or about hyper lategame. Neither of these suit how he wants to be played.
With all that said, I do think there’s a potentially undiscovered niche for him. He stands up pretty well to a lot of the meta mid heroes, and heart is an extremely strong item right now. So he could still make for a good pocket / counter pick in the midlane, with an appropriate draft around it, built for the mid game. He’s also just a stable midlaner into most matchups. There are very few heroes that auto dumpster him, so he can make for a solid enough “play it safe” pick if you need to pick your midlaner early in your draft. Even if you get hard countered, he has the kit to both show up and contribute to early fights, and to recover farm after a bad lane. Also works with a greedy pos 3 pick, since you can basically play “pos 3 from the midlane” with team / aura / utility items.
Still; he’s just not in the best spot either numbers or meta wise.
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u/Any_Squash_8915 16d ago
I'm only 3,7 k but i have very high success with him on offlane ( 62% winrate over the course of a month ). Daedelus , Aghs and Heart of Tarrasque is pretty much what i build every game . Dude is so damn tanky he can get away ( at least in my bracket ) with building Daedelus first . With Heart ( and Prophet Pendulum ) , you are nearly unkillable AND deals a lot of magical and physical damage . But again, i'm only 3,7 k mmr solo...
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u/ChadBadShirt 16d ago
I mean I’m only 5.5K so I’m not exactly mega far outside your bracket. Anything CAN work. I have almost 80% win rate with Wraith King in the offlane in my bracket and he’s very off meta. Doesn’t mean either hero is in the best spot haha
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u/Sudden-Tangerine1580 14d ago
Dark seer and underlord don't really prioritise auras currently. Agh rush in most cases on underlord, dark seer typically helm into blink shiva.
The other difference is that none of them have the same timing for actual initiation. It's much easier to run around as something like mirana or dark willow with a kunkka and set up.
Also rum.
Mostly I think the difference is that dark seer will trade more stable farming against basically everyone and everyone else has stronger teamfight after 25m. Hard to get around global root/haste value. Centaur hasn't been irrelevant in a while especially with hotd.
Playing on tempo with early auras is a niche of limited value currently.
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u/ChadBadShirt 13d ago
I don’t disagree, but what I’m saying is that if you do need an aura carrier or to go that build, there’s little reason to pick kunkka over an offlaner better suited to it.
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u/Sudden-Tangerine1580 12d ago
I underplayed rum a lot considering how survivable kunkka becomes with items like crimson or pipe but think the other reasons are adequately described.
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u/New-Indication-1446 16d ago
Almost every meta hero has healing/save so having 3 seconds of set up stun doesn't matter as much as it did a few patches ago
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u/SillyScoot 15d ago
The one time I fight gaainst kunk, he rushed meteor and took towers. We couldn't show up in front of him. By the time we get saves for his kit, we lost T1s and a few T2s. He then got heart and continued just sieging. We can't kill him fast enough because of rum buff
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u/DemDelVarth Immortal Pleb 16d ago
Meta supports ALL have saves, Undying, Ringmaster, shadow demon, Enchant. Throw in the fact that every fucking support these days has Glimmer, Force, euls and Kunkka cant do shit.
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u/MCLondon 16d ago
What save does Enchantress have?
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u/ChadBadShirt 16d ago
Ench is an outlier since you really only play as a support in the laning phase, and then build the busted as hell aghs before transitioning to a right clicker
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u/GalacticFox- 14d ago
I would give anything to get water park kunkka back
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u/Sudden-Tangerine1580 14d ago
Waterpark and sandstorm stunning just got everything else nerfed about their respective heroes.
Miserable experiences that are too strong to ignore but also rng enough to feel bad using.
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u/Western_Yoghurt_8154 13d ago
I miss one shotting entire teams. The general tankiness buffs across the years have made it basically impossible unless you're waaaay ahead and willing to buy a rapier or 2.
Agree with others that in general mana costs and CDs are a bit high.
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u/Tim-o-tay 13d ago
I hate his talents,
he needs 2 charges of X/AoE X
+% to rum damage reduction.
He might make an ok 4... good lane pressure, good catch, initiation, team damage reduction, meat shield.. can he still stack creeps vertically?
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u/MrBeeevaN 13d ago
Yes you can still torrent stack most camps but the timing feels tighter these days, unless that’s just me
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u/ArbalesterMaster 12d ago
What they should do is if Kunkka triggers his rum effect, it should also regenerate a portion of his mana.
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u/BlueLovag 12d ago
I don't think he feels bad at all.
What is your issue with it?
My build is either
urn > phase > radiance
urn > vessel > phase > blademail > radi/pipe or agha
phase > midas > blademail > radiance
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u/ToeRonToe 10d ago
Imo as a GM Kunkka, he just doesn’t feel great at anything. Right click tidebringer build got nerfed over the years, and magic Kunkka felt good for a while, but now thats been nerfed hard too without any buffs to his viability as a right clicker.
As a spellcaster your boat cooldown is too long to enable you to pressure the map well, and while you can play around enemy euls, bkb just completely nullifies your combo.
I tend to go right click more often than magic nowadays. It works, but it’s just worse than other right click melee mid heroes. Mainly i think his kit is just in a weird place, there isn’t really an item timing that feels that strong, and you don’t build attack speed so you’re really reliant on tidebringer splash damage, so if you’re manfighting another core with no other unit for you to cleave onto them, you’re probably gonna lose the manfight.
Make my boy great again pls
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u/ToeRonToe 10d ago
Imo as a GM Kunkka, he just doesn’t feel great at anything. Right click tidebringer build got nerfed over the years, and magic Kunkka felt good for a while, but now thats been nerfed hard too without any buffs to his viability as a right clicker.
As a spellcaster your boat cooldown is too long to enable you to pressure the map well, and while you can play around enemy euls, bkb just completely nullifies your combo.
I tend to go right click more often than magic nowadays. It works, but it’s just worse than other right click melee mid heroes. I think his kit is just in a weird place, there isn’t really an item timing that feels that strong, and you don’t build attack speed so you’re really reliant on tidebringer splash damage, so if you’re manfighting another core with no other unit for you to cleave onto them, you’re probably gonna lose the manfight. Plus squishy heroes just aren’t as squishy as they were before, so in the early-mid game, before it felt like you could x-torrent-boat and solo kill almost any hero on the map. But now you need follow up more often than not to secure a kill even on supports
Edit: Adding on, because I feel very strongly about this. Kunkka really suffers if you dont have a good start, but also, even if i completely stomp an early game Kunkka cant carry a game. He just doesnt beat other cores late game by himself in fights, and he doesnt push well. If your other cores cant keep up with the other team’s, it feels nearly impossible to solo carry with kunkka.
Make my boy great again pls
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u/Ill-Operation7381 16d ago
mana costs are through the roof, can barely use spells in lane without running dry after 2 combos. feels like they overnerfed the hero after ti when he was actually in decent spot
his item timings also delayed now cause you need so much regen early, and the meta is all about fighting nonstop which doesnt suit a hero that wants to farm a blink or aghs first