Practical Synergy VS. Tactical Synergy

As far as I can tell, the title uses two terms that only I myself use. Let me elaborate.

Practical Synergy: Direct synergy, usually specified in a tooltip. A prime example we're all familiar with is Breath of Fire + Drunken Haze. Now the shared example:
Example - A Unit/Hero has two spells. One spell makes every nearby unit attack 2x faster and deal 1/2 attack damage. The other spell increases nearby units damage by 10%. If they are buffed by the first spell, it's 20%.

Tactical Synergy: Implied synergy, the kind that works well together but works by sharing a common variable (I can't describe it well, maybe the example will help.
Example - A Unit/Hero has two spells. One spell makes every nearby unit attack 2x faster and deal 1/2 attack damage. The Other spell makes nearby friendly units deal 5 extra attack damage.
Obviously, the latter works alright without the first spell. But with the first spell, the second spell is twice as effective (Same +damage, but they're attacking faster.).

Of course, in the context of these spells. the exact same thing was accomplished. That is, however, only because I was trying to make them the same for example purposes.

Obvious differences to me:
While Tactical Synergy requires more thought (IMO), it also requires more experience to be evident, and can easily conflict with other spells (Some other hero has Hardened Skin, for example).

On The other hand, Practical Synergy requires much less though but is easily isolated to the Hero, and is much easier to create. With Practical Synergy, you can throw together a bunch of abilities on a Hero and make them make others do more damage, and voila! A Good Hero(ish)!

My Question, now, is which do you prefer?
Which would you rather make, which would you rather play, which seems better in general?
If you couldn't tell from my slightly biased Pros & Cons section, I like Tactical Synergy.

In an old fashioned 4 skill set up, I've always felt that the thing you call "Practical Synergy" reduces the freedom of choice your player has. If two abilities in your pool obviously work splendidly together, why would you even bother looking at the third, right? You might as well remove that ability for early game.

Actually, a big mistake a hero design can have is that the hero has "two synergized" skills, one novelty skill and one ultimate slapped to it. Sometimes I think it might be better if you design a hero without any synergy in mind, and let the players create it themselves. You know, just make a cool hero with cool abilities to match.

Yea I agree with above.

When you design a Hero/Abilities specifically for one role, such as an Assassin with windwalk & backstab etc.
They fit together brilliantly, an even excel at a specific role but they become very one dimensional.

Breath of Fire + Drunken Haze are pretty much just only good vs AoE groups of units, which doesn't leave many play styles open.

I like Heroes who have more diverse spells like say the Alchemist.
1 Heal spell, 1 nuke spell, 1 attack speed spell.

How would you classify something like Engineering Upgrade? I guess that would align more towards Practical Synergy than Tactical Synergy, but it grants benefits to more than one skill.

That's not the defining quality. Practical Synergy is substantial, tangible, definite. Engineering Upgrade directly synergizes, so it falls under Practical.

If you used Practical Synergy to buff a stun Hero, it would be like: Now this hero does more damage to stunned units.

Tactical Synergy would be more: A stacking damage increase for each time a Hero hit a unit in a row without that unit moving (Works really well with stuns, but isn't... Tangible, so to speak).

I'd classify both of those examples as tactical, since the first one also works by sharing a common value, in this case the stun status (the stun buff, unlike the drunken haze buff in the BoF/DH combo, can be applied by multiple spells).

Not neccessarily. First of all, the third ability might work well together with one or both of the two combo abilities as well (this is more often the case with tactical synergies), second, provided the two combo abilities are decent individualy, getting only one of them along with the third ability might be preferable when the combo is manacost-prohibitive and the third ability is a low- to no-mana skill, lastly, the third ability could have a unique purpose (like healing or dispel or whatever) and might be strategicaly worth more despite the two-spell combo being stronger for it's cost at what it does.

These threads are just asking to start the epic discussions of old back up. All of those threads always end up being closed because people's opinions are radically diverse... Can't we just stop asking these questions? xD

:o But I missed the epic discussions of old, I wasn't here back when time was officially "old".

K, I think you're right though.

I'll tell you right now, though, I like synergy between multiple heroes more than synergy built into a single hero. That's just me, though.

The explicit synergies always feel forced to me. You have to put in more effort to make them work, and people are forced to get the two interlocking skills.

I find the implicit stuff to be the best because it puts more creativity into the hands of the players. Windwalk + bladestorm, divine shield + holy light, and spirit link + healing ward are good examples of spells working together.

Well, of course there are the exceptions, theoratical exceptions and practical exceptions. However, from my own experience, most heroes in AoS games always have two skills you want to level up, and one extra skill that's just there for looks. I'm not saying all heroes in all AOS games are like that, or even the majority, they're just...there.

Its an easy mistake to make, and it gets even easier if you use the thing the thread here calls "Practical Synergy"

So, yeah, I actually agree on what you say there, on some level.

In my nebulous journey through the rotten halls of this site i wandered across this thread.

Tactical Synergy is almost always better than Practical Synergy. TS accomplishes the same goals as PS, but is not restricted or limited by arteficial rules.

A good (and bad) example of TS would be in DotA (AAAGH, WHAT AM I DOING) No, but seriously. Spectre. She deals bonus damage if her target has no nearby allied units. This tactically syngergises with her Ult, Haunt, which allows her to easily get enemy heroes alone. This further synergises with her Dagger spell, which allows her to speed up and slows her enemies down, meaning they spend longer alone and thus take bonus damage more often.

However, both Haunt and Spectral Dagger, while synergising well with Desolate, can function fine on their own. Haunt can be very useful for moving around and joining fights, as well as sniping weakened enemy heroes as they flee. Dagger is your standard damage\debuff spell, and also doubles as a great escape ability.

Unfortunately, her third ability, Dispersion, sort of doesn't really fit in there. On the one hand, the ability to negate damage is very useful for a low HP assassin hero, but it doesn't really connect with any of her other abilities in any way. It's a nice spell, but it can't really be used in conjunction with other abilities for any advantage, so while DotA was ovbiously taking Spectre in the right direction, she falls short of the mark due to Dispersion.

Plus, arbitrarily stating that "Unit X deals more damage to Unit Y when Effect Z is applied, Why? Well because." Is stupid. In that respect Brewmaster does what i like to call 'good' Practical Synergy (nice name btw). Drenching units in Alcohol and then breathing fire at them, you would expect them to catch fire. It's intuitive, it makes sense. Having a unit that just suddenly deals bonus damage to any unit that is under the effect of X buff usually is not intuitive, you spend most of your time trying to work out if your target has the buff or not, and spend very little time playing the game.

I just wanted to highlight this part of your post because it makes a lot of sense. Truely, this is the part where great themes and art helps in the equation. Random variables X, Y and Z sound like crap, but when you turn them in to, lets say, "Summon bears spell" and "Drench in honney spell", it sounds a lot more reasonable. Your bears would, off course, deal more damage to enemies drenched in honey.

...That sounds like a fun ability. I should make a Brother Bear hero one of these days. Thanks, Pheonix.

Tactical synergy should be implicit on hero design.

I'd like heroes to both have, and practical synergy should be implemented correctly, the best synergy so far I made was my Burning Mage's FlameStrike + FireElemental, flame strike would do negative damage to the fire ellies , that was very nice, and was actually not my idea, but Linkmaster(24?)'s a guy that isn't among us anymore...

personally i would have to say my hero choices always depend on the game i am playing. In a Mellee type game i want a hero that can buff units I use in a large area (like auras). With games playing with only one hero like an AOS game i want one that can deal large amounts of damage in a short time to kill off other heroes. ( Like a stun + shadow strike combo) So for both Practical Synergy and Tactical Synergy, it all depends on the person playing and the game that they are playing. none in which is better or worse.