Since currently Holgar's mead has the one use of being transmuted into other potions (making him a farm rather then a carry), I would suggest changing the potion he drops to have these stats:
10% dmg, 1% crit, 16% crit damage, 3% speed
instead of the current stats:
14% dmg, 2% crit, 20% crit damage, -1% hit
Currently the negative part of the potion (-1% hit) makes it so that no one ever actually uses it on Holgar, because the -1% hit far outweighs the positive stats it gains.
This way there is an actual incentive to use Holgar as a combat tower and actually have him drink his favorite mead :P instead of just transforming them into other potions to buff your shadow -_-.
The change to crit/speed is that one of holgars primary difficulties is his slow attack speed, and to reduce the need for potion transforming there need to be some actual incentive to use them on him.
Even with 3% attack speed, Holgar should still be heavily outdone by things like the shadow, but this will give some incentive to try and use him and his mead for more then as a farm.
Mead compared to other potions (at level 99, since they don't get bonus for levels) would be this:
4x Mead (New 40% dmg, 4% crit, 64% crit dmg, 12% speed)
Great Speed: 24% speed
Great Str: 36% dmg
Great Crit: 3.2% crit, 80% crit dmg (Why isn't this 4% crit/80% crit dmg, which 2x Potion of Crit <- blue ones give)
Even if meads would be almost twice as good as normal white potions at level 99, the comparable weakness of holgar, attack speed / range should compensate for using the 'superior' potions on Holgar instead of normal ones on another hero (Shadow's adaption bonus should outweigh this by several times anyhow).
In case the instant gain (instead of using potions on a level 99 tower) is to powerful I would suggest the same stats, but instead making a part of them like all other potions level based, this change is more aimed at a long term game where instead of transmuting 300 meads to use them on your shadow you at least have the options of actually using the mead potion (and not feel like an idiot for accidentally clicking one) on Holgar.
This should hopefully make Holgar a bit more powerful/viable without changing the balance on any other tower.
if you still wish to transform all your mead into crit potions for your shadow thats still possible, but this would give you an incentive not to.
Ontrose
Level: -
Rank: -
Well, that about the Crit Potions is quite interessant...
But about Mead Potions:
The way Holgar farms potions is an incredible strong early/mid game ability. The sheer amount that you can trade in, with a bit luck to water of Life, which increases drops even more, does make his ability STRONG.
If you buff Meads the way you suggest you can easy have 3 Carrys (With Iron man easy 4 Carrys).
I mean you suggested, that mean gives about every stat except luck.
If i think about the fact, that i had a couple hundrets of Meads in my inventory in a single game...
Better to just halve the Malus (0,5% miss/pot) or just skip the miss effect for Holgar or let holgar get immunity over time, so lets say... you can give him one mead/wave without malus. IF! there is even a need to change it all, which i do not see to be honest.
Yes they give a misschance, but early on, you can easy take 5 potions and not really feel it. If you get the Viking helmet or lucky pants you can take a few more if you feel like it. If you start with a hero which improves Lucky (Or that Skill wo your Wizard) you can drink a few without missing at all... In the long run you will miss of course. But i think its quite fine the way it is. Would be way TOO Overpowered if they would be like you suggested ^^
*edit:
Yeah i complained about shadow too. Hard or Softcap needed in my opinion and freeze all tower/item stats as soon as bonus wave starts ^^
Ontrose since mead only has an effect on Holgar and more or less no one uses Holgar as a carry, this change would only make people consider actually using mead on him (since mead doesn't work on non-Holgar heroes would make the weeding rings useless).
And honestly Holgar's range/attack speed makes him.. well bad.., I've had games where I went fully in to boost Holgar to the max, but with every potion / seelenreiser / demonblade given to him he only lasted to around 4000 seconds or so, while I've had games where I've spent much less time/potion on boosting a shadow/blofield or even a scarface/iron man and been more successful.
Except the mead (which no one uses on Holgar) he's just not all that good compared to the other options, the change to mead even if it sounds 'amazing' would only make Holgar stronger and nothing else, also when the wedding rings come into play all other potions start giving twice the effect, which will still make it even more tempting to transform mead into other potions to boost other heroes.
The only thing I might feel is op is that the beginning scaling would be to good (giving 100% potion effect at level 3-4 for example), but with a simple balancing on the % of stats given depending on level this would be solved.
Honestly even if you doubled meads current effect and removed the miss chance it would still be a 'bad' option compared to simply transforming the mead into other potions and use them on better heroes.
Miss chance while sounding like a 'okay' deterrent means that all future potions have less of an effect (due to percent of attacks hitting going down) so even drinking just 1 potion makes your Holgar weaker in the long run then not drinking it would have.
I say miss chance got to go no matter what, perhaps reducing the current stats to balance, but honestly even keeping the current stats and removing the miss chance, it will still be more efficient transforming the mead and using the resulting potion on better hero's. (this not even counting the wedding ring effect which makes normal potions even more worthwhile)
I think thematically miss chance really fits with mead. So my suggestion is to do all of the following:
slightly buff the stats mead gives
reduce the chance to miss
make chance to miss scale multiplicatively(this makes 100 pots with 1% to miss 1-(1-0.01)^100 = 63% chance to miss)
If this comes out as too big buff than reduce Holgars chance to find a mead bottle.
Ontrose
Level: -
Rank: -
Well,
dont meads work if "Viking Helmet" is equipped? Correct me if i am wrong, but it states "it does make the tower a viking" [meaning is right even if the words are wrong ^^). Which sounds to me as if they should be able to use the mead then.
Since i rarely use the potion i'm not sure though. Same goes if you swap Holgar later on. Does he lose the meads then?
About doubling the effect/let it scale: No. Simply it WOULD be too overpowered. It already is too strong, that you can farm 300+ more potions just by using a certain tower. Better buff his attack range or speed or whatever. But increasing an already strong ability does not make sense in my opinion.
I mean, face it: Holgar means at least 50 free potions before level 100. Its most likely double the amount of potions which drop regulary. Now remove the drawback what then? Or make it even stronger, what then? Holgar will get instantly from "bad lategame tower" to "everybody uses it on lategame cos you get 300+ potions for free with him!".
If you talk about balancing, better let luck counter more "miss" chance or reduce the misschance a BIT! like 0.5% instead of 1%.
If you make any such changes then fix the droprate to 1 potion/round like Dark Forge, just without the luck factor here and let the potion produced scale with levels. Add 2 more meads and be done with it, or even better just fix holgar itself and reduce the dropchance.
