What We Can Learn from ESL Birmingham
ESL Birmingham gave us a quick glimpse of things to come in the upcoming DPC tournament. With a fair format, prolonged group stage and lower stakes, we have seen a lot of new and interesting strategies and hero picks. Today we would like to have a look at what might stay and what might go, given the recent 7.22c patch.
Sven is here to stay
Sven shouldn’t surprise anyone as a top pick of the tournament and will probably continue to be dominant in the professional scene and in pubs. The hero lanes well, farms fast and scales just enough to be at his absolute peak around the time the game ends.
The average match duration was around 38 minutes, which is around 2.5 minutes longer than in the previous patch, generally allowing Sven to become six-slotted and have enough of an advantage to kill most other core heroes within the BKB-window.
It should be great news for most pub players, since the hero is quite straightforward to play. Max Great Cleave, hit jungle creeps for ~10 minutes, rotate for defenses, and then destroy the map with the economic advantage.
Troll Warlord is overrated in both pubs and pro-play
Sub 50% win rate in pubs and sub 40% win rate in the professional scene make Troll Warlord one of the most overrated heroes in the current meta, given his popularity in both cases. Players have learned how to deal with the hero.
Moreover, the hero doesn’t really do much in terms of abilities. Slow, Root and Blind are good effects, but their teamfight impact is heavily outclassed by disables. Troll auto-attacks really well, but this meta calls for either much faster farming capabilities or higher independent teamfight presence.
The whole dynamic absolutely changes when Troll is paired with Magnus, but even then it isn’t an ultimate combination. Given the nerfs to Whirling Axes in 7.22c the hero is now even slightly worse and there are more reliable and consistent position one options in the game.
Warlock and Shadow Shaman are always worth considering
Shadow Shaman needs no introductions or explanations. The hero has two really strong disables, offers great pushing power and has considerable damage output when played as a position four hero with maxed Ether Shock. The hero is successful in both competitive and pub scenes, though the starting 10 AS reduction might hurt him quite a bit—the malus for having sub-hundred AS is quite large.
Warlock is slightly newer, when it comes to the competitive scene and high level pubs. Longer average game time and harder pushes means there is now more reason to pick greedier core heroes, who don’t necessarily dominate their lane, but can become absolute monsters in the later stages. That generally calls for defensive supports and while Warlock is far from his 7.17 days with constant Shadow Word spam, he still ensures the safety of his carry decently well.
Given how sometimes teams are bringing three heroes to a lane, frequently forcing the enemy team to respond in kind, the changed Fatal Bonds are also much better as a lane pressuring tool, dealing chip damage and disincentivizing the enemy to play aggressively.
Chen might still be strong
In our patch overview we highlighted how we couldn’t even guess how well the reworked hero is going to turn out and given almost 75% win rate during ESL Birmingham, we now know he turned out pretty well.
But then Valve decided to go on and change the hero once again, taking away the extra damage aura from Divine Favor, while increasing the regeneration by one at all levels. That means that once again, we have no clue whether the hero is going to be better or worse.
On one hand extra regeneration can really help with sustain in lane. On the other hand, the extra damage was frequently a deciding factor during the last hits and denies. The hero definitely got slightly less aggressive and more defensive, but we don’t know whether he’s gotten better or worse overall. Though his trends page doesn’t show much of a change after 7.22c was released.
Closing Thoughts
Dota is a constantly evolving game and things that were true yesterday are not necessarily going to be true tomorrow. More importantly, sometimes things change without external output—players simply learn to deal with certain things, discover new things or try out old templates with the new rules of the game and might find them surprisingly effective.
This blog serves as a guideline for what over performs and under performs the most in the current meta, but it is by no means a definitive answer to what any given player should play in any given game. Be prepared, be knowledgeable, but most importantly, be creative.
First lmao
I think people are sleeping on Shadow Demon who got a few picks at Birmingham. I saw (I think) Fly play the traditional Shadow Poison build, but Puppey neglected it entirely, maxing out Disruption and Soul Catcher first. Shadow Poison can deal some eye catching damage but people overlook that getting the stacks up is rarely guaranteed. Even assuming you can safely get to to 5-6 stacks in the heat of a fight, it's still not an especially efficient skill when you consider how long it takes and how much mana you use.
Why go for slow unreliable damage when you can deal a massive 40% of current health instantly on a disrupted target by level 7? Shadow poison still has a use as a scouting and stack farming tool but I think when people realise his true strength lies elsewhere he's going to blow up pretty quickly.
Chen after patch .c is dead I think :(
Chen is fine. Your lane just isnt super auto won with damage and super heals
With the change to shadow word, warlock shouldn't be played aggressively anymore, Maxing Shadow word and two points on Upheaval will ensure a kill at level 6, while before 6 it's also preventing your core certain death after healing him with SW, slowing the pursuer.
Works wonder with a simple fog positioning and a shadow amulet.
@KawaiiSocks
Judging from the patch notes, I expected a larger increase in game time. To me, that feels like a fairly short increase, one that could be chalked up to just a handful of stupid long stalled or particularly messy games that don't represent a realistic expectation of match length. With that in mind, can you talk a little about the significance of a 2.5 min avg increase in match time? Does that amount of time significantly alter the pool of heroes that will do well in this patch, or does that cut just a few out and add a few in? OORRRRRR is this a backwards way of looking at the situation?
How long is it until Naga becomes top tier first phase ban carry?
350% hp damage illusions compared to 550% a few patches ago. New riptide gives her a way easier and faster creep clearing ability which isn’t mana dependent. So now she can also fight way easier than old radiance build.
Naga illusions last as long as CK illusions, are only a little less tanks, and are way shorter cool down compared to 150 sec ult.
Only thing that beats her is mass aoe damage, so no Sven and no magic damage spam,earthshaker etc and she is hard to lockdown and kill. Also has perfect tea fight set up spell that can be used to escape or reset. If used to reset with Aghs it also doubles as a fountain level heal.
@Murranji
As long as Naga's ultimate doesn't help her to deal damage,she won't be tier 1 carry.This hero should be reworked.
Chen is even better now. Less noob friendly though. Dmg boost is moved to creeps, but the amout is doubled. So on lvl 5 you are able to kill almost anyone solo or just with minimal help.
Warlock wisp are OP
@Zireael~
I mean...she is getting picks and bans though. And what exactly do you mean by 'doesn't help her to deal damage'? I'd say it's a good setup for stuns or illusions to come in, but I'm guessing you have a different angle?
@MM.Ugh Brock Hall uh... no Brock, I think he's saying that she's being left there the same fashion as Void, Chrono as his SS does exactly better than hers in regard of your criteria mentioned above, but still won't make him top tier first ban carry.
It's not easy for illusion carries to become tier 1 because illusions 1. get cleared too easily before you have enough items 2. Does not deal enough damage before you have enough items. Exceptions being PL who can just generate illusions immediately after they are cleared and gets a peak after getting diffusal, and TB whose illusions are ranged and have much higher damage early on due to metamorph. And in the current meta every lineup will have some AOEs (otherwise they get fked by other picks first ie. brood) so it's not that easy to sneak in a naga.
I think naga is fine though. She's still got strong scaling, has a teamfight ulti, and actually farms fast now, so she would be situationally op. I feel like giving buffs to naga could easily make her too strong, especiallly with her ~53% winrate in pubs now.
@lex recommend chen build pls? And what creeps to take thx
@Yami Yugi
I'm really just saying it's a fantastic positioning tool for your entire team to take advantage of, and that can be a great setup for a lot of damage. Comparing naga to void is another conversation entirely but has it's possibilities for interest. My guess was that he was suggesting that the ulti does damage or somehow allows naga to apply damage, even if it is only her. Maybe allow items and illusions to do damage? It's something to chew on for sure.
@Yami Yugi dota plus says to max warlocks 2nd, but what about maxing his 1st, and then ulting lvl6 and doing 2nd. This seems like it could do some good damage. I'm going to try it, but thoughts.!???
@Teleninja but then you're completely useless during the downtime with no golem
I think naga wont make it to S tier just because naga needs time to get strong. So it can be easily countered with meta hero like shaman so the naga couldn't farm freely.