LogFAQs > #962715345

98 - Io (ranged Strength)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/0/1/AAAACbAAC73d.jpg
Basic Abilities: Tether, Spirits, Overcharge, Relocate
Shard Ability: Improves Tether to stun and damage enemies that pass over it. Improves movement speed bonus on the targeted ally.
Scepter Ability: Improves Spirits to become a permanent passive, which spaws a new Spirit every second, up to the maximum of 5.

Poor, poor Happy Fun Ball - notoriously weak on paper, simply because of how utterly bullshit the combos it can enable are. Wisp is notorious for being a hugely contested pick/ban in competitive and yet has a subpar win rate there, and its abilities have been so strong throughout the years that Wisp has mostly received nerfs since being ported over. First, it lost its stun on Tether, then it lost fine control over its spirit rotation, then its "Carry Wisp" build was nerfed into the ground shortly after the addition of talents. Despite all this, it's still a solid pick that you almost never see in pubs, because it requires a whole different mindset of how almost every other Strength hero in the game is played, even if Overcharge is no longer shooting yourself in the foot to save your ally.

Io's base stats are in the garbage bin and only show moderate-at-best improvement throughout the game by design, because the benefits both Overcharge and Tether provide to both its ally and itself are huge. On top of that, perfectly aiming spirits is a 5-hit combo totalling 200 AoE magic damage before reduction at level 1 - more than almost any other hero is capable of in the start of game, in as short of a time frame, drawback-free. Despite Spirits' offensive potential, however, Io typically wants to focus on Tether and Overcharge for the early game, solely because of how Tether interacts with their lane ally - providing a potent slow if the line is tripped, hasting the ally and matching Io's base movespeed to it, to the movespeed limit - so no Bloodseeker zoomies shenanigans, unfortunately, although it can keep pace with a charging allied Spiritbreaker for a while, as I found out last game.

Io's only really this low because of how useless it is in solo queue. Spirits are notoriously hard to hit, and more often than not Relocate is a waste of a levelup and leads to a death timer. It's the opposite of the selfish problem from heroes earlier - Io, played normally, is so selfless that if it isn't careful it's going to feed to save others, or worse, drag someone who can't handle getting dogpiled in a bad spot back to die with them.

I alluded to, in the previous post, one of Wisp's main strengths: it has broken open certain heroes, who can't otherwise function on their own in a competitive setting (Chaos Knight and Tiny are the two big ones, but there are others.) This has diminished over time due to Tether no longer having stun, but Tiny chucking Wisp into (or over) an enemy still has its uses to literally become a spirit bomb, and Overcharge itself is an amazing ability that covers for their sluggish attack speeds to start. Even outside of competitive, Io is able to make proc-on-hit heroes like Pangolier/Sniper/Juggernaut trigger their autos more often with it, or make nuke-combo heroes like Puck or Zeus get a significant boost to their combo damage, or provide a potent regeneration buff to whoever they're tethered to; it's a shame Wisp sucks so much without at least one prearranged teammate, because it's quite fun once you get beyond the base squish and awful base autoattack speed and damage.

Next hero hint: We now return you to your regularly scheduled "annoying-ass midlaner played by account-boosting one-trick ponies" hero selection. Now in agility flavor!