Ability Bugs regarding new Shards, Scepters, and a few still existing Bugs for poor Rubick.

[BlueMageBrilly]

Ability name

Spell Steal

Description

Here's a few bugs I was able to dig up while experimenting with Rubick on Demo Mode, I have no match ID for any of these except Pudge's bug as I was just messing around in Demo mode. Pudge's bug does have a match ID I can provide, though.

To address that one first: Pudge's Shard is still usable by Rubick, but unless Pudge has a Shard himself when Dismember is stolen, then used on an ally, the "Eject" skill is grayed out. Even if Pudge obtains a shard while Rubick still has it, Eject will be grayed out until Dismember is stolen again. It seems to be using Pudge as a reference on the skill being learned or not, rather than Rubick having a shard.

If that worked, that's an image of Eject being grayed out in Demo Mode. Very easy to recreate, as you merely have to have a Shard, have Dismember, then eat an ally.

The rest of the bugs are things I found while testing the new interactions in Demo Mode, though I'm only listing the major bugs I could actually find. These are actually just a copy-paste from a reddit post I made a bit ago, but I've summarized all the buggy interactions.

Beast Master – New Ability:

Drums of Slom - BUG - Works as intended as far as the ability goes. But similar to other abilities with a sub ability that turns them off, even with Aghanim's Scepter, if another ability is stolen while the drums are going off, the drums will disappear as if replaced, leaving an empty spot. But the drum continues to beat until the timer runs out and still has its effect, regardless of if Rubick has it still or not. This is similar to Alchemist' Unstable Concoction ability, which not only instantly stuns Rubick if another spell is stolen while it's being charged, but replaces both spell slots with the latest spell steal if Rubick has Scepter, even if either Drums or Concoction were not the oldest spell.

Chen – BUG? – Scepter Gives controlled units the Matyrdom Ability

An extremely... strangely programmed interaction when Rubick is using his own Holy Persuasion. The interaction goes as followed:

If Rubick has Scepter and takes a creep from Chen who does NOT have Scepter, the creep will not have Matyrdom unless it stays under Rubick's control and Rubick drops then picks up his Scepter.

However, if either Rubick or Chen have Scepter and give the ability to the creep via Holy Persuasian, then the creep will gain the Matryrdom Ability even if stolen by the Rubick/Chen that does NOT have a Scepter; though for some reason it will lose its hotkey and require to be clicked in order to be used. This method can also be used on the small Golems if one isn't careful, but the golems themselves do not gain the ability unless directly affected by Holy Persuasion even if they split from one that was.

The strangest thing is that if the Rubick/Chen that did not have the Scepter suddenly gains one or picked theirs up, all creeps they control that had their skill from the enemy will gain a secondary Matryrdom with the proper hotkey. Since the creep dies instantly, this has no effect other than being a bit of an eyesore, but it does seem that Chen gets the short end of the stick if rushing Scepter is the plan.

Clockwork – BUG – Scepter Rework for Overclocking.

Overclock works as intended for Rubick even if the spell is lost, except for one ability. As long as the debuff is on Rubick, Battery Assault and Cogs both receive the added bonus effect even if the actual Overclock ability is replaced while the debuff is on. Hookshot should also work the same, but this is hard to judge through Demos. However, Rocket Flare having a shorter cooldown and shooting out multiple at once is completely ignored unless Rubick actually has the Overclock ability. It does not receive a cooldown reduction or shoot out multiple unless Rubick actively has the Overclock ability. Very strangely, this is not the case for Clockwerk himself, as dropping Scepter or backpacking it removes the ability, but all skills seem to retain their buffs until Overclocking runs out.

Enigma – BUG – Scepter & Shard Rework

Blackhole Scepter effect works as expected and pulls in enemies as it did before with the shard. Against a dummy target with Scepter and a maxed passive, it does about 2000 damage on Rubick while Enigma does around 1500; it seems the Health % is not affected by spell amp but the added damage is.

Malefice Shard spawning an Eidolon is sadly ineffective unless Rubick has both Demonic Conversion and Malefice. This requires Rubick to have both Scepter and Shard for it to work and if either spell is lost while Malefice is going off, the Eidolons will stop spawning, though none will despawn until their timer or health run out.

Hoodwink – BUG – Scepter & Shard swap and reworks

Hunters' Boomerang works as intended, however Decoy is riddled with bugs from spell location to how the clone reacts. Hoodwink's Decoy reacts well to Rubick; it cannot be stolen from but still allows Rubick to cast Spell Steal on it, unlike other clones which simply state that “This spell cannot be stolen.” This gives Rubick nothing but a stun to his face and no spell is stolen.

Now if Rubick copies Decoy itself, with Rubick not having Sharpshooter as well, the Rubick clone will uncontrollably run at the nearest enemy target. It is uncontrollable and seems to have phase walking as it goes through units. While the clone is running, Rubick does go invisible and the clone does send out a Bushwhack if attacked or hit by a single target spell as intended. It seems the clone itself obtains the Bushwhack skill, but it's oddly located AFTER Rubick's own ultimate, making it clearly a clone more than anything. Any spell Rubick has other than Decoy does appear on the illusion as intended, though.

But if Rubick has Sharpshooter AND Decoy, the clone acts as normal and begins charging its own shot. This is consistent even if either skill are lost, since the spells appear on the illusion itself. However, due to Rubick not having Sharpshooter in the same spot as Hoodwink, the spell oddly deletes one of the spell slots and Sharpshooter appears before Rubick's ultimate. Did not test how this would affect any other clone-based abilities Rubick could steal, though the clone does not attack so most would not work anyways.

Additionally one visual bug I found is that having the controlled Rubick clone selected until it pops can sometimes completely erase the skills of the next hero you click, though this is just a visual bug and clicking again will fix it. I couldn't figure out how to properly recreate it, as it seemed to just happen now and then, so I haven't a clue what was triggering it directly. I was unable to get a screen shot of it either, sorry to say.

Pugna – DEMO BUG –

As is the case with Lion's mana Drain, for some reason I cannot test Life Drain in Demo mode with enemy units. Allied units works fine, but enemy Lion/Pugna units I'm controlling through the Demo mode cannot use their bar vacuum abilities on any enemy units. Using it on allied units works fine, though.

New rework for Life Drain works as intended on Rubick, however, and both Rubick/Pugna can cast Life Drain on the opponent's Nether Ward if they have a Shard.

Queen of Pain – BUG – Scepter Rework

Much like Enigma's abilities, Queen of Pain's new Scepter does not send a Scream of Pain out once the Shadow Strike is reapplied or runs out unless Rubick actually has Scream of Pain as well. However, unlike Enigma, the Scream of Pain does still go through even if Shadow Strike itself is lost, as it most likely checks when initially applied. It does not scream if Rubick is dead, though.

Snapfire – BUG– New Shard interaction with cookies

Much like previous abilities, Snapfire's Shard looks to see if Rubick has Mortimer Kisses before applying the shard effect to the cookie. The check is done as the cookie itself is thrown, so the ultimate can be lost during the toss and still send a fireball after landing.

Spirit Breaker – Self-BUG? – New Ability Planar Pocket

Planar Pocket is strangely broken with Spirit Breaker's own abilities; notably if Rubick uses Planar Pocket and Spirit Breaker attempts to charge someone nearby, he doesn't charge anyone as if affected by a Linkens' Sphere. Rubick attempting to do the same with Charge of Darkness has the same effect. This is also the case for Nether Strike and both Rubick/SB can't target each other with SB's spells if the target has Planar Pocket going. Both spells simply stop as if they have a Linkens Sphere effect, as they do still go on cooldown.

Additionally, Spell Steal is not blocked at all by Planar Pocket, so Spirit Breaker cannot block Rubick from stealing a spell. The spell seems to work as intended with other spells, including Rubick's own.

Venomancer – Shard Rework and Talent movement & Void Spirit Shard Rework

Combining these two as their shards work as intended as long as Rubick has the spell, but it seems Rubick's spell amp for the damage just disappears if Rubick loses the skill before the damage can be applied. Latent Toxicity goes from 373 to just 300 on the Demo Dummy.

Viper – BUG? – New Scepter Ability

The new Nose Dive ability can be stolen and used like any other, but due to Rubick not having Corrosive Skin, it does not apply any poison upon landing. This is similar to other spells that have a passive as reference not properly applying them, but typically the stolen spell uses the original hero as reference for the passive's level as long as Rubick has the active one; such as Veno's ward ability giving Rubick the poison passive itself so the wards get the poison attack along with Rubick. The Nose Dive does seem to disarm them as intended, however.

That's about all I could find with the new Scepter/Shard interactions.

Example Match ID (and possibly Timestamp)

6715304554 - 32:46

[Pepsi91]

Issue still exists for Rubick - Queen of Pain aghanim scepter interaction. Match ID 7157933057