LogFAQs > #965842369

Spoilers: sleep did permit it. Alas, I decided to have an allergic reaction to a medicine instead and nearly get hospitalized over the weekend and Monday. Wellp.

I'm gonna try and pick up the pace with these again, though I'm still in a sort of recovery, and SGDQ is coming up oh no.

74 - Tidehunter (melee Strength)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/5/8/AAAACbAADWE6.jpg
Basic Abilities: Gush, Kraken Shell, Anchor Smash, Ravage
Shard Ability: upgrades Anchor Smash with increased damage, lowered cooldown, and the ability to hit buildings.
Scepter Ability: upgrades Gush to give it ground-targeting capability, which sends a wave from Tidehunter to the target or the ground by the target. This wave acts like a non-sceptered Gush and provides ground vision of units hit for two seconds on top of its other debuffs.
7.31 changes: Kraken Shell damage rescaled (less damage block at earlier levels, more at later levels.) Damage bonus for Aghanim's Shard lowered by 15.

We're back into the beginner-friendly "simple yet effective" heroes, this time a big, dumb watermelon of an offlaner or position 4, though he can occasionally mix it up as a mid, safelane support, or nonissue jungling ganker. Tidehunter's job starts out simple and only really varies in what matchup he's against, since each of his abilities is situationally powerful. Gush is a single target heavy slow that damages and removes armor, and at level 4 (plus talents) it can get quite spammable for chasing. Kraken Shell gives flat incoming damage reduction from physical attacks, which largely makes Tide immune to creepwaves and massively helps his staying power when hunting for neutral items and camp stacking. Additionally, Kraken Shell will automatically strong-dispel Tide after a certain amount of damage is taken, removing almost every debuff in the game - including stuns, which lets him follow up with his claim to fame: Ravage. Push the ult button, receive a quick-casting wide radius stun as tentacles erupt outwards from him. Ravage is the largest area stun in the game, and the threat of one being cast is enough to change the flow of a game entirely.

For having nearly idiotproof engage (Sheever...) Tide is not without his faults, though. For a big, dumb strength hero, his damage without building specifically for it never gets beyond "subpar" or "plodding." His kit's effectiveness also all-but-guarantees that his stats are usually going to be in the dumpster, so he suffers greatly from stat-lowering manipulation (Slark, Silencer, OD, and Timbersaw all have a field day with him) or armor corruption (Lifestealer rips him apart, PA generally bullies him early and often on a lucky streak.) One of his tried and true builds, Blink Dagger to Refresher Orb, requires another source of mana to be able to pull off double Ravage even without having his intelligence lowered in any way. For a fat hero, though, this leaves him unable to do a whole lot beyond the brief window when his ultimate is up, since Kraken Shell can only take you so far without any further defensive items.

Additionally, because of the sheer range of his ultimate, it is one of the only ultimate stuns by design that does not pierce Black King Bar (Primal Beast now has the dishonor of the second one, although PB has it worse in that his area stun isn't even ABLE to target his primary target if they are magic immune.) Take Ravage away from Tide by doing this (or add Rubick to the game to possibly turn it against you) and all you have is a big, fat watermelon that occasionally tries to Anchor Smash and die. Otherwise, he builds for it, and you wind up with an inordinately fat melee strength carry that is a terror to run away from yet requires much more coddling than a traditional one, who that trades off single target damage for a gimmicky cleave that lets him jungle for free and occasionally gets to shrug off a stun. Even if Break screws Kraken Shell something fierce, which tends to be a habit for offlane strength fatties. We'll see more when Bristle, Timber, and Centaur get their turn in the spotlight.

(Until such a time, "I could eat your mom" seafood joke here.)

Next hero hint: the actual worst accent in the game.