Board 8 > A ranking topic: Isq rates Dota heroes for fun and time-killing.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Bear in mind when Dota 2 was new, a bunch of heroes weren't in it. It was a simpler time. One without Techies.

109 - Earth Spirit (melee Strength)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/3/1/AAAACbAAC3HP.jpg
Base Abilities: Boulder Smash, Rolling Boulder, Geomagnetic Grip, Place Stone Remnant, Magnetize
Shard Ability: Upgrades Place Stone Remnant to turn them into mini-wards with ground vision in an area around them, while also raising the max charges of stored remnants.
Scepter Ability: New ability "Enchant Remnant" which, when cast on a hero, turns them into a Stone Remnant with all the properties thereof. After a few moments, the hero breaks free of their stone shell, dealing magical damage to enemies in the area around them. Can also be cast on a Remnant to make it deal its damage. This has a very low cooldown if used in this way.

Okay, I may be misattributing my prior hint to JerAx, who sticks out in my head as uploading video after video of Earth Spirit in both WC3 Dota and Dota 2 when he was added to the game, before I'd ever heard of him joining one of the EU teams of no consequence and making a name of himself over a few years.

So let's talk Earth Spirit, aka Kaolin - one of the consistently low win rate heroes by a country mile, but also extremely fun and versatile... if he gets going. The "Spirit" heroes (Void, Storm, Ember, Earth) are all defined by some common themes. The first, poor base stats (with some solid growths.) The second, extreme mobility. The third, an ability to create at least one or more "remnants" of themselves which they interact with in various ways. So let's talk his abilities. Earth Spirit's are... kinda nutty in what he can accomplish.

At its basics:
Boulder Smash knocks back a target away from Kaolin and deals damage.
Rolling Boulder deals damage in a line and moves Kaolin, and stuns a hero if he collides.
Geomagnetic Grip pulls a Stone Remnant towards Kaolin.
Place Stone Remnant drops a Stone Remnant on the ground where selected.
Magnetize places a DoT debuff on enemies around Kaolin.

Ah, but the beauty of Earth Spirit comes with how he interacts with the remnants. Boulder Smash a remnant? The range on the knockback is hugely increased, bonus damage is dealt, and a slow applied. Run over a remnant in Rolling Boulder? The speed and distance gone more than doubles, as does the stun duration. Have someone get hit by the remnant from Geomagnetic grip? They're damage and silenced. An enemy is near a remnant while Magnetized? The debuff refreshes and echoes onto nearby targets.

So why is he this low? A few reasons, one of which is numerical - his base stats, again, are in the dumpster. If he takes any form of harass, he's going to need to feed money into his regeneration budget. If he does that, he won't have enough to feed into his manapool budget, which he needs to spam all his spells, because his right click attack is kinda bad early. His ability to weave in and out of combat, shared with his fellow Spirits, is available earlier but comes out with a notable delay, and if he's trying to escape with it, can be blocked by the simple expediency of "walk in front of the boulder to eat the stun before he can run over a remnant." Earth Spirit is very frequently relegated to support because of his on-paper utility, even though he can pull off almost any role but a hard carry, even though he's at his best as a roaming ganker, but he can't gank midlane early because towers will absolutely murder him, so he can attempt to be a ganking midlaner instead, but he can't farm midlane without being harassed out of it early, and...

Egh. Anyway, apart from his base stats, his kit takes a *lot* of practice to get used to, and even when you're "good" at him, there's still enormous screwup potential. Miss your Boulder initiation? You probably sailed right past your initial target and whiffed the fight entirely, or worse, into a lurking carry in the backline. Manual dexterity not ideal doing this? As you sailed past, you probably missed your opportunity to drop and grip a remnant to silence a prime target or Boulder Smash them back to your team, and the prime target counterinitiates onto your team. Clock the wrong target on dynamic entry? Their point-click support stuns and murders you before you get to spread Magnetize and wreak havoc. If you're trying to soften them up with some long range damage from Boulder Smash, it is way easier to miss than you would think, and going back to manual dexterity, the Grip -> Smash -> Roll combo requires either a lot of timing or luck to hit with all three without dropping another remnant during, which have long cooldowns on their own.

I really do love playing Earth Spirit, but I'm garbage at him, just like a typical pick-up-and-player - missing Boulder Smashes left and right, failing at trigonometry as I caromed completely out of a teamfight. The rare allied or enemy one that performs well is like a unicorn and it's always amazing to spot, like someone who willingly sails through a teamfight while punting a low health ally to safety, or someone who manages to silence your whole team in one ultimate with Magnetize's properties of spreading debuffs, but mostly, he's going to be a great, giant, rolling liability, a victim of overnerfing. If only he had a bit more damage, or the targetting on Smash were a bit less finicky, or the range on Geomagnetic Grip a bit higher, or Enchant Remnant the default ultimate with a BKB-piercing Magnetize being the Scepter...

Could be worse, though. He could be release-style Kaolin, where Geomagnetic Grip was the stunning ability and had double the range, at instant cast speed. Or Earth Spirit when talents were new, where he gained a huge autoattack buff at level 10. He's got great potential still, but the effort to output ratio just isn't worth it.

Next hero hint: *another* prime candidate for the "how did you screw this teamfight up so badly?" award; has a face, at the expense of something else.

Hey, I was right-ish! Only took me guessing vaguely lol.

I could never play Earth Spirit. Ember and Storm were doable, but I always choked with Earth.

So the next one isnt Faceless, but can screw up a team fightOracle? Earthshaker?

ES crossed my mind as a possibility but I didn't want to throw out too many guesses. Definitely a hero I love watching when played by someone who's good at him and who I hate watching otherwise.

Gonna guess Naga for this one, whose face comes at the expense of feet... or something.

I believe heroes like Chen and Meepo can be played by mediocre players and still do well
Of course they are super hard to master but the micro management is not THAT insane

But I could never understand Earth Spirit. I could never play it. I always did 0 damage and was completely useless

Isquen posted...

Next hero hint: *another* prime candidate for the "how did you screw this teamfight up so badly?" award; has a face, at the expense of something else.

If it's not Naga like NB said, it's Magnus
How many times we missed skills because of his ultimate :|

I like how you specifically had to put "has a face" after the potential to screw up teamfights.

LazyKenny posted...

I like how you specifically had to put "has a face" after the potential to screw up teamfights.

Putting Faceless Void is cheating with just *how* often Chrono will dick up a fight in one way or another.

Yup, you all saw it coming.

108 Naga Siren (melee Agility)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/2/7/AAAACbAAC3Z7.jpg
Basic Abilities: Mirror Image, Ensnare, Rip Tide, Song of the Siren
Shard Ability: Upgrades Song of the Siren to heal allies by 5% of their max health per second in the area of effect while active.
Scepter Ability: Upgrades Ensnare to increase its cast range and pierce Spell Immunity.

> Top is Missing!

Another of the illusion heroes, Naga is one of the most whatever heroes to exist, as none of her spells, at current, do direct damage. Despite this, she has been played at every role at one point or another, and has been a meta-changer every so often simply because of how certain items interact with her illusions. Once upon a time, she would rush Radiance, sit in her base, and send one of each of her illusions up a lane while she farted around in the jungle, starving basically everyone on her team from doing anything, and if anyone ever had the temerity to try to gank her, she would just Song of the Siren and teleport away.

She can still do that, and she is amongst one of the most reviled (and yet least-banned) heroes in the game. Her early game is almost nonexistent; support Naga's base damage is necessarily weak so Mirror Image doesn't slaughter level 1, and she can not put out any harass damage from a distance without shoving the wave. (She's at least okay at stacking neutral camps with her Mirror Images.) Carry Naga is vulnerable to magic-heavy harass, and has a similar problem of wave-shoving early. Both of them have a potent gank tool in Ensnare, but with it doing nothing but rooting, it's a bit iffy.

Once mid-game starts carry Naga basically hides in the forest looking for opportunities to farm, and that is just boring as sin. Illusions proccing Rip Tide gives her some impressive clear, but the illusions are too frail to take down Ancient stacks early, especially if a Dragon spawned in them for cleave. Nevertheless, trying to solo-gank her with a roaming support or offlane is folly a lucky Naga with heavy points in Rip Tide can shred lone heroes if she gets lucky, and if things go south, she can just Song and teleport away. She won't show her face for twenty minutes when she has some decent items up and B O R I N G.

I don't have much else to say about her. She's effective and boring as shit, with a shrill voice. Don't you mean compelling?
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/2/8/AAAACbAAC3Z8.png

Okay, I lied. No. Fuck her ultimate.

Song of the Siren is a potent initiation and disengage tool, but I can't count high enough to quantify the amount of times I've seen a bad song absolutely screw her own team more than the enemy's. See, it makes non-spell-immune enemies immobile (but invulnerable) and has a fairly long cast time to stop singing it if she wants to cut it short. And yet they always start casting it when there's a Tidehunter on her own team, who had just used Ravage. Or an Enigma with a perfect Black Hole. Or if she got piled on in a teamfight and tried to vamoose while the rest of her team was murdering the backline. It gives her a unique identity as an illusion-reliant generalist hero that can initiate fights if you have no one else capable of doing so, but eventually, every Naga, no matter how good, will screw up something royally for her allies. She strikes a solid mix of infuriating to go against, infuriating to have on your team, infuriatingly-weak early game, and just a general pain in the ass.

Next hero hint: ...Kinda like our next hero, who everyone saw coming.

107 Techies (ranged Intelligence)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/1/9/AAAACbAAC35D.jpg
Base Abilities: Proximity Mines, Stasis Trap, Blast Off!, Minefield Sign, Area Detonate, Remote Mines
Shard Ability: Upgrades Blast Off! To deal more damage and also stun enemies in the area of effect.
Scepter Ability: Upgrades Minefield Sign to provide undetectable invisibility in an area around it; also increases the cast range of Proximity Mines, Stasis Trap, and Remote Mines; also increases the damage of Remote Mines.

Hoo boy. Here we go.

Echoing Naga, Techies is infuriating to go against, infuriating to have on your team, infuriatingly-weak early game, and just a general pain in the ass. League players should recognize Techies as Teemo's precursor, except where Teemo works off blinds and DoT traps and autoattacks, Techies is all about his traps to the expense of all else for most of the game. It requires a bunch of mental math to play him effectively, and you better damn believe you will get flamed regardless of how well or poorly you're doing. Muting all chat is a must, and for good reason.

Techies is extremely interesting, though; the sheer threat of one existing in a game turns the entire pick/ban phase on its head. A great Techies will turn entire areas of the map into a horror game as you creep about, hoping not to explode with only a slight beep as warning. A bad Techies will still randomly explode your backline when you aren't paying attention. Games with a Techies in it are either 20 minute curbstomps or 60 minute slogfests; if a Techies is in the game, the game itself is literally a ticking time bomb to victory, and I'll explain why later.

First off, let's point out that elephant in the room: their base damage, attack speed, and projectile speed are garbage, as are their manacosts and cooldowns, simply because even the threat of their base abilities causes psychological damage. Let's go over them now:

Proximity Mines - 3 charges, heavy AoE magic damage after both an arming delay and a detonation delay (about 2 seconds to arm, beep and reveal of the mine, 1.6 seconds to explode.) Can be attacked while visible to destroy them for 25 gold, but has true invisibility (wards won't spot them after vanishing) while primed. Can not (initially) be stacked on top of one another.
Stasis Trap - large AoE root when detonated with a long cast time.
Blast Off - long cast time, large cast range, large AoE magical burst that hurts Techies for 50% of their max health and silences in the area when they land, or stuns with a Shard.
Remote Mines - long cast time but stackable invisible mines; can be selected to detonate individually, or targetted with Area Detonate to blow a large area of them up all at once after a very short delay.

At level 1, three proximity mines will clear a wave in its entirety. At level 6, a proximity mine and remote mine will do the same. Techies can flash farm if the need arises, providing the mines aren't manually detonated by someone scouting it out with the audio cue or a sentry ward. As such, if played with a competent solo laner, Techies will fuck off to a jungle somewhere and turn it into his personal bunker, clearing it out every minute and keeping his health at a 35% or less "butter zone" to kill himself with Blast Off if he gets ganked, or switch it up to gank a lane with Blast Off with its impressive cast range if his constant mana consumption runs near dry.

Techies requires a whole lot of forethought of where a fight is going to break out and mining it, preferably where the mines won't be detected until it's too late. Any scrub can Remote Mine under their own tower if they expect an incoming push or deny an uphill with a stack of Remote Mines and a Stasis Trap to ensure capture, but Remote Mines are potent enough to delete entire teams of clumped heroes outright if they're stacked enough.

Once a Techies gets rolling and gets a Euls and a Scepter, they can actually begin teamfighting on their own, or even being a roaming ganker. Blast Off in to silence, drop a proximity mine, Cyclone your target (removing the Silence, but details,) cast a remote mine or stasis trap, and immediately detonate on the landing. Or Euls and meteor hammer. Or something. Techies can flash farm items quite well and remains a threat even when they have a low level, their abilities are *that scary.*

And there's the problem - Techies tends to be really low level throughout a game in common play, unless played as a Core or a Mid, which no one in their right mind in a pub would allow. If they get rolling, eventually their talents will pick up some of the slack, shoring up their Mana Regeneration or their cooldown limiters on Proximity Mines, adding extra Blast Off damage, or their dreaded level 25 talents - +252 damage (48 less than a Divine Rapier, with no dropping it on death) or the "Mines are now mobile" talent.

Yes, you get to slowly reposition your traps. This means you can adjust the location of your Remote Mine traps, or gather all the Proximity Mines you have placed that haven't tripped in the game yet, and start slowly marching them at buildings, even though they only deal 30% damage. Enemy creeps or towers will not assault them, so if repositioning properly, theoretically a large enough stack of proximity mines (780 magic damage at max, remember, reduced by both the building penalty and building Magic Resistance,) a salvo will flat-out destroy a tower. Or a barracks. Or the ancient (though that's pushing it.)

Alternatively, a savvy Techies can shore up their awful agility growth with some other attack speed or utility, such as a Hurricane Pike, to put the damage talent to good use, and slowly push the uphill with their impressive attack range (because by this point, their awful base damage will have had 25 levels of good intelligence growth to back up the +252, also.)

These are, of course, neglecting the rest of the heroes of the game; if a Techies has certain allies on their team that requires the 60 minutes of farming to come online, the game's all over but the "gg ez pls report techies" you'll hear if you didn't mute the allchat. It's a selfish pick, it's a fun pick, but it's a polarizing pick that takes way too long to come online and is completely useless if a support or core is willing to make themselves suffer a bit to stop your diabolically slow plans, or if the enemy team is capable of fast-pushing before you can set up a good deterrent, or if a Blast Off gank goes awry, or... yeah. They're the only reason Techies is as low as they are - if they came online way faster, they wouldn't add such an interesting and infuriating twist to the game.

Next hero hint: a much less interesting pick, and an unfortunate victim of power creep despite their competitive showing.

I find Techies entertaining to watch on the rare occasion they pop up but ultimately I think the game would arguably be better if they weren't in it. Deserved low placement.

Techies is the worst

I'm not ashamed to admit that back when I actually played DotA, way back in the DotA 1 days, I was a Techies main and my #1 question in the DotA 2 beta was "when is Techies coming over?"

Dota 1 Techies was bullshit of a different flavor with its instant damage mines that could be stacked, and still did their damage when destroyed. Also, point-blank nearly instant cast suicide for physical damage. Also, stasis trap stunned instead.

Edit:
Nanis23 posted...

Techies is the worst

No, that would be either Tinker or an easterner on Ember Spirit.

106 - Beastmaster (melee Strength)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/1/2/AAAACbAAC4KI.jpg
Basic Abilities: Wild Axes, Call of the Wild - Boar, Call of the Wild - Hawk, Inner Beast, Primal Roar
Shard Ability: Upgrades Call of the Wild - Hawk to provide a Dive Bomb ability, which reveals the hawk before it dives at the targetted location, stunning and damaging enemies in the area.
Scepter Ability: Upgrades Wild Axes to have 0 cooldown.

Also known as "how to make a loincloth-clad barbarian one of the most boring heroes in existence."

Karroch (ne Rexxar) is the polar opposite of Techies. Effective from the get-go at level 1, BM (not that one, the other one. No, not that one either, the third one) is a versatile ball of stats that is capable of and has performed any role well at least once in Dota's history. He is also known as "how to make a loincloth-clad barbarian one of the most boring heroes in existence." Changes to the map, items, and how his kit works have adjusted how he works in general, so let's take a quick look before we all fall asleep.

Wild Axes throws a pair of long distance projectiles in a boomeranging arc. The damage isn't impressive, but it applies a damage amplification debuff on struck targets. The boar summon has a potent ranged slow, and at higher levels, some decent damage. The hawk summon that levels with it sends the bird off to hover over an area like an observer ward, providing flying vision around it. Inner Beast is an aura that improves all allied heroes and summoned units attack speed. And, the ultimate; a short cooldown, long-range point-click stun that pierces magic immunity and knocks away and slows every enemy in the AoE between BM and the target.

Beastmaster was at his most interesting (but still pretty boring) when Axes dealt more damage on their own and he had a free lane if on the Dire side, when the Ancients and hard camp were near the T1 tower. Also, the Hawk could be repositioned after casting. As it stands now, all he can do is be a boring, basic aurabitch that provides some map info (still stronger than it sounds) and can destroy a bunch of trees at once (also helpful for scouting people who juke in trees, or fucking over Monkey King in particular.) He gets out-carried as a core, out-supported by "standard" supports, and neutered by a Linken's Sphere or Lotus Orb; he does, however, excel at the midgame and as a ganker and oh no I'm bored now.

I promise they'll get more interesting later.

Hint for next hero: another "screws your team just as frequently" hero, except not with their ultimate, despite their competitive showing.

Apologies for the slowness, but this one's fitting for the weather outside.

105 - Tusk (melee Strength)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/8/1/AAAACbAAC4nV.jpg
Basic Abilities: Ice Shards, Snowball, Tag Team, Walrus Punch
Shard Ability: Upgrades Ice Shards to extend the edges of the "u" shape it spawns and pulse damage inside the barrier every second
Scepter Ability: New ability "Walrus Kick" which stuns a targetted unit, knocks them away from Tusk and damaging them; think Muradin from HotS or Lee Sin from League, except without collateral damage from any enemies in between.

My bias is showing again. Despite the listed stats above, Tusk is almost exclusively played as a support ganker, and he requires a good handle of travel speed of his abilities, which I don't have. Going over each of them to explain why I personally rate Tusk is so low regardless of his good competitive showing:

Ice Shards is a slow, long-range ground target and extremely finicky. The projectile needs to pass through a target to damage it; it once used to create its barrier on collision with a hero - now, it does it at the location, plus whatever wizardry wraps it around the terrain. Always fun when it pushes an ally up a cliff by mistake.

Snowball has an extremely nerfed range from years past, due to its ability to surprise a target from fog and deal a heavy stun with a dogpile. As a result, it's typically used more for a save on allies, since Tusk can pull them into the snowball to dodge almost everything but a Black Hole or Chronosphere, although there's always the problem of launching that ally with you directly into a target.

Tag Team used to be an ability called "Frozen Sigil" which was busted as hell; it was a mobile, durable, flying summon that caused a huge slow underneath it. Now, it's still really good, adding physical damage to every attack on an enemy in an area around Tusk, while still providing a slow. It works rather well in the gank squad meta, but requires Tusk to be in the thick of it.

Walrus Punch isn't flashy, but it gets the job done. An on-demand melee-range critical hit that stuns and slows the target.

These are all pretty potent used in conjunction, but they suck as a solo queuer. Really, a lot of it is that Tusk's stats are at odds for his playstyle. He's supposed to be a roaming ganker, but he chugs mana like nobody's business and his base durability and damage are kinda bad for someone who's supposed to be in your face and sticking there until you're dead. Point-blank Ice Shards will often backfire on you, and choreographing Snowball can lead to you sailing unwittingly to your doom, such as directly into the path of a Ravaging Tidehunter. Tag Team is potent, but you don't get a whole lot out of it alone, and it's not up nearly as often as you want it to be. Lastly, while Walrus Kick is desirable just for how much damage it deals plus the repositioning, a scepter is a tall order for someone with unsafe flash-farm capabilities, and the damage output from shard is too anemic to help do anything but stop people from blinking through your wall for more than half a second. If Tusk gets behind, he really won't be able to catch up, so he's forced to... you know, snowball. Which he can't do on his own.

A level 25 Tusk with Walrus Punch chances on normal autoattacks *is* rather hilarious, however. Suddenly you have a mini Phantom Assassin on your hand with a lower crit chance. Good luck getting there before the end of game, though.

Next hero hint: Another snowballer/pubstomper, except instead of focusing on ganking, this one thrives more on survival to the expense of all else.

A Tusky-Tusky

Tusk rules for his VO alone.

J, sure.

I find-uh his accentda annoyeeng aftor a while.

104 - Slark (melee Agility)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/5/9/AAAACbAAC5RL.jpg
Base Abilities: Dark Pact, Pounce, Essence Shift, Shadow Dance
Shard Ability: New ability "Depth Shroud," which puts a Shadow Dance cloud on the ground that allies can sit under to gain true invisibility and the effects of Shadow Dance's passives. This shroud also stacks with Slark's own Shadow Dance.
Scepter Ability: Upgrades Pounce to have two charges and launch Slark farther forward.

I've struggled to write something about this guy all day. He's one of my much-disliked playstyles (melee ganker,) and I like playing him, but I suck at him, and I absolutely hate going against him while acknowledging his myriad weaknesses, but oh man does he have some potent abilities.

That "Escape 3" above is not a joke, and should probably be moved up more. Unless a Slark is hard-countered by a Bloodseeker's Thirst, dodging into a treeline for half a second will turn him into Sonic and regenerate him an inch from death. Slark will be doing this a lot, as those base stats are in the garbage bin; he's expected to use Essence Shift to be a sort of hit-and-run opportunist, deleting a support and anticipating any incoming stuns to purge off with Dark Pact.

Dark Pact is a silly ability - while it hurts Slark as well, it provides a Strong Dispel during the duration, a few pulses of Slark-centered damage over time (so it shreds through instance-based defense buffs like Refraction shields on TA, but doesn't deal enough to reduce Infused Raindrops charges.) Good predictive use of this ability means that if a Slark ever dies with a BKB, it's entirely their own fault.

Pounce and Essence Shift with their lockdown and stat theft means Slark is played as an opportunist-carry, only picking fights with someone he knows he can take. He won't be farming anything on his own early due to his garbage stat bases, attack swing windup, and general harassability, but has survivability limited only by his manapool once Shadow Dance comes online and usually an extra 1k gold worth of agility and corresponding damage/attack speed/armor just by poking someone who got into melee range with him. Shadow Dance itself means even if Slark is hugely behind, he's going to still be useful as a ward-spotter, since the buff from it goes away when the enemy team has vision of him.

Unfortunately, he's often played as a core, which he *can* do if your team lacks sufficient lockdown or timing to use it on him, but there are much, much better options for both safelane and offlane Slarks, but I feel he's best as a 3, and perhaps this is why I suck so bad at him. I can't turn my brain off long enough to get a cheeky support kill while the entire enemy team is defending it and get away before the ult buff wears off... or I show that I picked Slark too early and suddenly I have to contend with a Zeus and a Bloodseeker and a Shadow Shaman all lusting for fishsticks.

Also, I'll yeet myself into orbit with Pounce too often, which earns reports. Because, you know, everyone does perfect play at average level. Stupid cockney-accented fish. If you're going to be a ganker-carry with lockdown, I'm going to echo an earlier write-up and *just pick Spiritbreaker.*

Next hero hint: a game-changing (for good or ill) ultimate does not make for an interesting hero otherwise, even if they are in my highest win-rate heroes and had a huge showing after the International this year.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/7/2/AAGQPmAAC5RY.jpg
Slark was my favorite for awhile

He's just another snowballer, but when he falls behind he falls REALLY behind.

Work sucks and everything is terrible.

103 - Magnus (melee Strength)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/2/1/AAAACbAAC53p.jpg
Base Abilities: Shockwave, Empower, Skewer, Reverse Polarity
Shard Ability: New ability "Horn Toss" which forcibly flings a small area in front of Magnus over behind them, while dealing 200 damage and slowing them completely for 1.25 seconds
Scepter Ability: Upgrades Shockwave to fire two additional shockwaves at a 30-degree angle from the original; all shockwaves will boomerang from their end point, returning and dealing 75% damage, while pulling a second time.

I know having Maggie this low is a disgustingly wrong take, especially after his showing at the International this year - but much like a rash of Nature's Prophets when Alliance took TI4, Magnus is the poster child for this year's "front runner nerf now pls" hero, and ate a small one directly afterwards (in that Horn Toss no longer stunned.) I just *really* don't like him for some reason. He plays like an intelligence support but has the stat base of a strength ganker, yet the nuking and disabling power of an intelligence carry, yet can turn an agility or strength melee carry into a monster. It's quite silly. He should be up my alley and yet isn't. And here's why I show such distaste:

Shockwave: As a Magnus, it never feels like it's going to do what the AoE pretends it is, and pushes the wave unwittingly. Against a Magnus, it'll be yanking you into danger left and right, plus with a sizeable slow, and Maggie will be chowing down Mangos to spam it at will with its low cooldown, high damage, and ability to avoid the creepwave if he has competent aim.
Empower: Unimpressive-feeling on Magnus himself, but has real power when thrown on a fast-hitting melee like a Phantom Assassin or a Juggernaut. 85% (when talented) damage bonus plus Cleave is absurd, and it's juuuust subtle enough of a visual effect on the buff to remain unpurged except by accident.
Skewer: I SHOWED YOU MY FOUNTAIN PLEASE RESPOND. This spell in conjunction with Horn Toss and Reverse Polarity makes pushing uphill against Magnus a nightmare, especially if he goes for a Refresher orb, because it's like a better version of Earth Spirit's Rolling Boulder, in that its "stun" carries enemies for the ride, and isn't stopped by one person. And yet, with the initial delay, it's very easy to launch yourself through a fight by mistake.
Horn Toss: This ability had to be nerfed recently it was so good, and after its nerf, it's still really good. For 1400 gold, Maggy had a second stun/nuke on a wide angle repositioning tool. Now, it's a 1400 gold second nuke/slow on a wide angle repositioning tool that also can't be Blink Daggered away from (since it deals its damage at the start of the spell, rather than on landing.)
Reverse Polarity: the range on this ultimate is absolutely insane. It is also, when talented, the longest "fire and forget" AoE stun duration in the game, and still pretty potent without it. Compare to other, similar abilities - unlike War Stomp, Slithereen Crush, and Aftershock, it has longer range. Unlike Ravage, the stun pierces spell immunity. Unlike Black Hole, the disable is frontloaded so Mag can freely scoot elsewhere..

It's all very effective, but I just can't shake my distaste for him. Maybe it's how ugly he is (a woolly rhino-centaur that looks to constantly be in need of a shower?) and how low-impact he feels even when his abilities are almost all ridiculously game-changing. At least Lifestealer has a "Jesus that's horrifying" appeal. Maybe it's because allied Magnuses will try to harass with Shockwave spam and succeed in doing nothing but charging enemy Magic Wands and pushing the wave. Maybe it's instead all the terrible Maggies that whiff RPs in failure videos, or the ones that yank stuff *out* of Chronosphere/Cataclysm with RP/Shockwave only to get slaughtered for it, or the ones that think they're the carry and refuse to Empower anyone but themselves, et cetera et cetera. Who knows? If I want to play an "all AoE all the time" hero I'd pick Leshrac instead.

Next hero hint: how to make a potential global threat be a complete nonissue for a half hour.

I haven't played dota for 5 years, this topic made me reinstall but there are a lot of new features it seems

handsomeboy2012 posted...

I haven't played dota for 5 years, this topic made me reinstall but there are a lot of new features it seems

The biggest things i can think of that have occurred in five years:
1.) Level cap increased to 30; ultimate is upgraded at 6/12/18 instead of 6/11/16. Leveling stats is also capped, and they give +2 Str+Int+Agi rather than +3, both to accommodate more levels and...
2.) Unique talent trees for heroes, where each decision becomes available at level 10/15/20/25. Usually provides upgrades that complement the hero playstyles (with some exceptions, cough Crystal Maiden 200 attack speed at L20,) and the decisions *not* picked become available at levels 27-30 from the bottom up.
3.) Aghanim's Shard and Scepter. Shard is new within two years; Scepter upgrades have mostly changed and become part of core builds for certain heroes. Roshan can drop consumable versions the more often in a match he dies, but it's not 100% guaranteed. Also, scepters can be consumed with a recipe to free up the item slot (don't do this with an allied Alchemist.)
4.) Couriers are free and personal. They level as you do, gaining speed, then flight, then speed burst, then shield.
5.) Observer wards are free to purchase, but worth a lot of money if killed by the first person to detect them.
6.) Sentry wards are only 50 gold and offer true sight but not vision in the same area as an observer ward, and offer no bounty when killed.
7.) Neutral items exist and can start dropping within a certain time frame until your team has five of them. It's also possible to steal the enemy's if they aren't paying attention and had a full inventory. These items can be teleported to (and retrieved from) a team's "neutral stash" in the base. Stolen neutrals have a "drop in fountain" option also.
8.) Inventory expanded from 6 slots to 6 slots with one active neutral item slot and three backpack slots. Moving an item from the backpack incurs a 6 second cooldown on it unless near a shop. Neutral items can only go in the backpack or the neutral item slot.
9.) New heroes, though I forget the time frame: after Underlord (the last "old" hero ported over) we received Earth Spirit, Monkey King, Dark Willow, Grimstroke, Mars, Void Spirit, Hoodwink, Snapfire, Dawnbreaker, and Marci.

Personal couriers and free wards sound awesome, finally dont have to spend minutes arguing who should shell out a little gold or how the support should do everything lol

Aw, Magnus is a bit of a disappointing drop. I love most of the big teamfight ulti heroes. I really like his design, too, myself.

Even I was tired of seeing him at the last TI, though, so I get it. Horn Toss nerf was definitely needed.

102 Spectre (melee Agility)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/2/6/AAAACbAAC6Nm.jpg
Base Abilities: Spectral Dagger, Desolate, Dispersion, Reality, Haunt
Shard Ability: Upgrades Dispersion to automatically fire a free Spectral Dagger at a nearby enemy hero when Dispersion absorbs 300 damage, with a cooldown of seven seconds.
Scepter Ability: New Ability Shadow Step which casts a single-target Haunt illusion on a visible enemy hero, which also hits them with a Spectral Dagger. Scepter can Reality to this Haunt as normal.

Hey, so what if we took a hero with a clear identity of make sure she has no early game and you win but then make her require more items to come online? Because that's what has happened to Spectre.

Spectre is traditionally a safelane carry identified by her terrible base stats but amazing passives and frightening global presence when she comes online, yet it takes an extremely long time for that to happen. Every time she becomes a useful pick, one of her core items gets nerfed, or she needs to pick up another one, but she has soo many different items to pick from. Radiance is one of her big core items but requires a huge money commitment 3800 cash up front for a relic is no joke before you even get the recipe, but there's so many other items you can pick. Diffusal blade for a bit of mana drain on Haunt, plus extra chasing power; Blade Mail if Dispersion isn't doing enough or your enemy is a jackass who counterpicked you as a Viper or Nyx; Agh's Scepter if you want to constantly annoy a position 5 that isn't a Lion or Shadow Shaman; Manta Style if she keeps getting crippling debuffs in the middle of a big teamfight; BKB if there's a lot of stuns being thrown around during a big teamfight and oh no I've run out of space in my backpack and wallet.

One thing I can't comprehend is why, specifically, she has so many talents revolving around Spectral Dagger. The damage on it is crappy until talented, but you can't talent damage until 15; she can't spam it both due to manacost and cooldown, but there's a talent to lower its cooldown at 10; it gives some decent movespeed change that pierces BKB and also provides Spectre with free pathing and escapes, but the significant speed change isn't provided until 20, and then both her Shard and Scepter provide additional Spectral Dagger synergy, but she very much needs to max Dispersion early to not immediately melt to the fifty inevitable ganks coming her way, but she needs to max Desolate to manage a pickoff during Haunt, and *fart noises.*

Spectre is actually one of my favorite carries to play. It's very satisfying to escape from the five man deathball just by throwing a dagger into the trees and fleeing up a cliff, but even failing a gank against a Spectre is a successful one, since she absolutely needs a bunch of cash to even compete with many easier hard carries, and her base durability and damage gets shredded through the simple expedience of picking up a Silver Edge, if you ever get the drop on her. Desolate is useless in heavy teamfight games, as you'll seldom be able to get any picks with it (though I'll concede that it's nifty that the pure damage from it goes through even if you miss, which is handy so MKB/Mjollnir are *also* not core items, and your haunts benefit too.) Dispersion will occasionally lead to some cheeky kills, especially if you go extra hard into it as a tank-Spectre, but if you're going that hard, why not pick a better dedicated tank, like Bristle, Centaur, or Axe, and come online earlier without being expected to win the game for your entire team at the 60 minute mark?

She's got some potential in heavy global or massive teamfight ultimate comps the amount of time I see her run with a Zeus, Ancient Apparition, Treant, Enigma, Tidehunter, or Silencer far outstrip times when she's picked at random, but then you're just playing PvE for 90% of the game, dodging ganks until everyone's ultimate is up and that's just no fun. Psychological damage may win games but it isn't very satisfying there are better melee carries, better tanks, better global threats, better support-deleters, and better/less punishing gank escapers. Pick one of those instead of being a generalist at all of those (at best) 30 minutes into the game - at least until Radiance is good again.

Next hero hint: Pardon me while, so soon after Magnus, I fume against another actually good, but ugly hero, this time an Intelligence flavor.

Welp, Spectre was gonna be my guess based on the hint but I completely forgot to put it in my post. She's easily one of my favorite carries but your points against her are valid so I understand the drop here.

As for the next one... I dunno, there's a lot of ugly Dota heroes. Dazzle, maybe?

Spoiler for later: no.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/5/2/AAAACbAAC6Ss.jpg

Lesh

Lich

Big props for guessing four-lettered L names.

102 - Lion (ranged Intelligence)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/3/3/AAAACbAAC6oR.jpg
Basic Abilities: Earth Spike, Hex, Mana Drain, Finger of Death
Shard Ability: Upgrades Mana Drain to target two other random units, while making Lion spell immune while channeling it.
Scepter Ability: Upgrades Finger of Death to splash in an AoE around the primary target for full damage; cooldown decreased and damage increased.

I hate this guy and it feels wrong to win with him.

Of what I've posted thus far, Lion is probably the first hero that can be considered "newbie friendly." His abilities are straightforward, powerful, and self-sustaining - Earth Spike for line damage and a stun, Hex for a second point-click disable, Mana Drain for a channeled slow that is basically free until vision is broken, and Finger of Death: fire at someone, they eat a heavy a nuke, making the spell more powerful if a hero dies to it (or in a close window of being struck by it.) Such a kit, along with his bad base movespeed, durability, and attack range, is intended to teach a newcomer how a support plays.

Lion, unfortunately, teaches terrible habits on top of good rookie practice, however. Earth Spike's range is longer than it appears, as it can be ground-targetted and hits a bit of distance beyond the endpoint, but nothing other than experience will ever tell you that. If you target Earth Spike directly on a unit, it's all too easy for a hero to juke to the side and have it whiff completely. If you aren't move-canceling your cast animations, Earth Spike has a long wind-down also. Common sense dictates harassing in lane with an Earth Spike to Mana Drain combo, but newbie Lions will do this to the exclusion of all else, failing to take into account another lane enemy with a disable, or enemy Magic Wands, or an already out-of-mana enemy not caring that you're giving them the succ and slaps your flabby unarmored gut with a giga-critical.

Lion also teaches you to be extremely selfish, which is not good practice to have if you're being the support. He doesn't need any items beyond the usual suspects - Smokes of Deceit, Sentry Wards, buffing items like Glimmer Cape or movement items like Force Staff, yet Lions will almost invariably go for a Blink Dagger rush. Why? Because of Hex's cast point of "basically freaking instant." And this is another bad habit of Lion - use the dagger to Blink into a squishy enemy out of position to chain disable to try and farm a Finger of Death kill/stack, only to run out of steam halfway through. So how to fix this? Getting the autoattack damage talent at level 10... which is bad practice for support when the movespeed talent is much more useful, even if the damage one is more gold efficient, as Lion's autoattacks are supposed to supplement his kit's damage, not supplant it.

More accurately for the scenario is Lion will blink in, instant cast his hex, and get immediately murdered by not reading the minimap and realizing the other four heroes out of vision are waiting for him to do it again. Bye, whore!

The last nail in support Lion's coffin is his ult actively encourages kill-stealing, since it increases in damage the more often something dies within a moment of getting struck by it... which then gives the bad habit of taking the "gain health from a Finger of Death stack" talent at 15 or "increase the stack damage by an extra 20 per stack" talent at 20 when the other two options are much more support-oriented, especially if Lion picks up a Shard to improve Mana Drain by making it triplecast to yack it back out at a teammate. But do they ever do that? Nooo...

Lion can be played pretty effectively as a semi-core as well, though, by doubling down on the selfish talent picks and item choices - Lion's scepter upgrade is *stupidly* good at snowballing, but he's like any other gank-vulnerable core - if their snowball doesn't get going, they're going to be a sitting duck if ever stunned or silenced, or worse, he winds up nuking his own team against a Lotus Orb, which is a common item choice against him.

I won't deny that Lion is extremely effective but my distaste for how most of them usually play - and my utter boredom when I play him too - threw him a lot lower than he probably deserves, but my list, my rules, I suppose. I will forever take pleasure in murdering the hell out of his ugly arse if he even dares to show his face and missed his Earth Spike.

Next hero hint - getting spoiled by build inflexibility when I, personally, perform terribly at both of the non-griefing options.

I love Lion. My buddy and I would play Shaman/Lion combo and the lockdown let us melt our way into an easy win more often than not lol

I was considering putting Shaman down low, too, but he's got some fun tricks about him and requires a different mindset to play despite having the same identity of "easy-to-pick-up, has two hard disables and one soft disable" - ward traps, in this case - in their kit.

100 - Lone Druid (ranged Agility) (aka Sylla)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/8/0/AAAACbAAC7WU.jpg
Basic Abilities: Summon Spirit Bear, Spirit Link, Savage Roar, True Form
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/8/1/AAAACbAAC7WV.jpg
Spirit Bear Abilities: Return, Demolish, Entangling Claws, Savage Roar
Shard Ability: Improves Savage Roar to provide a "Rabid" buff to allies in an area around Sylla and his bear, improving their attack speed.
Scepter Ability: Improves Summon Spirit Bear to allow it to attack any distance from Sylla, and the bear no longer dies if Sylla does.

This one was a bit difficult to write, and I'll chalk *this* guy's position this low based on my own experience - I don't think I've ever willingly played him in Dota 2 beyond trying to clear out Cavern Crawl in Turbo mode, yet I sourly remember when he was another International front-runner.

So, Sylla+bear: this whole guy's shtick is that the bear itself counts as a hero, and as such, most tend to run Sylla one of two ways - focusing on itemizing the bear (by far the most common method of playing him) or focusing on itemizing the hero. As such, he's a bit more user-friendly than Meepo was, but there are some problems with going too far in one direction.

If you're focusing as main-body Sylla, you're going to have an extremely rough early game. The bear is far from useless; a lucky entangle will get you an occasional kill, but if you don't focus on leveling it a bunch early for durability, Sylla himself is going to have a bit of a problem when it comes to getting ganked, *especially* if the bear dies and leaves a fat bounty to his killer, a 120 second cooldown from the last summoning time, and a 20% health chunk. Also, the bear will die if Sylla dies. Savage Roar will help to mitigate these, since it makes enemies scurry away from both Sylla and his bear back to their fountain, but it doesn't last very long unless you're actively leveling it, and given the potency of both Spirit Link and Savage Roar, he very much needs to hit level 12 in a hurry to max them all out (ignoring True Form) bear/spirit link/roar to give him the safety to farm further, which kind of puts him into a rough spot with his base stats. Building this way also will need to pick up a Shard to provide the Rabid buff, until eventually at some point, Sylla will be able to attack quickly enough to offset his personal poor base damage to use on-hit items (read: Maelstrom->Mjollnir, MKB, Diffusal Blade, Desolator, or some combination) or try to buff up his own stats to not immediately drop dead outside of True Form. It can work both as a hero killer that transitions to a building killer when he gains the Bear's Demolish buff during True Form, but your bear will be nothing but an aggro drawing 200 gold chunk of lard that occasionally heals Sylla a bit through the Spirit Link lifesteal. Yes, it can work, but it takes a *very* long time to get off the ground when there are so many better range-carry options with more effective kiting.

So let's move on to bear-focus Sylla - since the bear itself does not gain any benefit from stats themselves and gains a flat 5 damage for every level from Sylla, it gets an easier selection of items to work worth. It can either double down on the heavy damage mauler and try to slay towers by going for a flat damage build to coincide with its built-in Demolish, or focus heavily on attack speed to try and fish for Entangle procs, which usually spells doom for any squishy hero if it pulls it off. Most items that work well on Sylla will work equally well on his bear (except for Power Treads as a boot choice) but this is, again, not without its downsides. Again, having the bear die is a costly 120 second cooldown, and given that Sylla himself is made of paper, it frequently will be dead if Sylla himself isn't careful. Also, if the bear dies? Sylla is now useless for the resummoning period. Have fun with that.

A lot of Sylla's problems revolve around "can the bear take this" and if not, how heavily he gets punished for it. He plays a bit oddly for a carry because he's at his most effective at the midgame and piss-weak early, pushing way more than he murders people, and while he has the frightening potential to be the only lategame hero in with 12 item slots filled (and then some, if we count consumable Moon Shards on both Sylla and his bear, and consumable shard for Sylla, and consumable Scepter, and neutrals) games will typically never last that long, even with a Techies, Sniper, and Venomancer all on one team to stall the shit out of it.

As far as "disregard gameplay, hit face" goes, you could do worse, I guess, but when your offensive 12 items get countered by a single Ghost Scepter, it's time to rethink most of your game plan, doubly so if you wind up killing yourself because someone picked a Lich and you suck at micro.

Next hero hint: Disregard gameplay, hit face, except this time with a nuke for an ultimate.

I can imagine that probably was a difficult one to write, because LD is a pretty boring hero despite the interesting concept.

Anti-Mage next, maybe?

99 - Lifestealer (melee Strength)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/7/2/AAAACbAAC7l0.jpg
Basic Abilities: Rage, Feast, Ghoul Frenzy, Infest
Shard Ability: "New" ability "Open Wounds," which massively slows an enemy hero and causes all damage dealt to that target to steal life (including spells.) The target will take 2% of their maximum health every attack.
Scepter Ability: Upgrades Infest to lower its cooldown, improve its cast range, and allow it to target enemy heroes. Lifestealer's regeneration is doubled if inside an enemy hero, and he will attack the target once every 1.25 seconds from the inside. He will automatically burst out after five seconds if used in this way.

How to make one of the most badass-looking (despite the hideousness) heroes the avatar of Boring But Effective - Step One: Pick N'aix.

It's really quite peculiar to me how little LS has changed over the years. He's always been a potent autoattacker - and I am very much remembering the Dota 1 days of the mass gauntlet start - despite the stat growths, and he typically winds up a tanky monster that eats other tanky monsters. This is in part due to his passives - Feast giving personal lifesteal and percentage max health damage (calculated independently of one another) and Ghoul Frenzy's bonus attack speed and slow-on-hit. He crutches very hard on these passives, which turn him into a "turn off brain, hit face" hero *very* early in the game - about the only cerebral thing you'll be doing is pressing Rage to dodge an incoming stun/purge a dispellable debuff/self-haste further. And that's *all he does* until 6, where he gets to leap into a jungle or lane creep, use its abilities, heal while inside it, and, oh - EXPLODE IT IN A FOUNTAIN OF GORE.

Between this gigantic blood shower and one of the best taunts in the game, N'aix reeks of style, but he lacks *substance.* I want to be able to press more buttons than "Rage on occasion" and "explode every other minute" - hell, even Wraith King has more APM with summoning skeletons. Part of this was because of the shift of Open Wounds from active basic ability to the shard ability, and part of this was shuffling around some of the bonuses it provided to his passives, but I really don't have much to say about him beyond "hits very hard, tanky through passives, neutered if hit by Break, can't autoattack beyond Infesting, has a great escape if Infest is ready."

Except for. Y'know. His taunt is amazing.

Next hero hint: Useless on their own, completely broken in combination with a select few other heroes.

Think I agree with all your shit tier heroes, except I love me some KotL and LD. It's been 4-5 years since i regularly played Dota 2 (that one big map change killed the game for me), but my top 5 heroes from a history of playing WC3 and Dota 2:

1) Luna
2) Rhasta
3) Phantom Assassin
4) Treant Protector
5) Dark Seer

Isquen posted...

can't autoattack beyond Infesting

Damnit, meant to post "if disarmed or the enemy goes Ethereal" but I somehow forgot.

BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

1) Luna
2) Rhasta
3) Phantom Assassin
4) Treant Protector
5) Dark Seer

They won't be on my top 10, unfortunately. At least one of these is coming up within the next 10, also.

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!

Update, now that I'm a couple dozen heroes deep!

Remaining:
Strength
Abaddon, Alchemist, Axe, Brewmaster, Bristleback, Centaur Warrunner, Chaos Knight, Clockwerk, Dawnbreaker, Doom, Dragon Knight, Earthshaker, Elder Titan, Kunkka, Legion Commander, Lycan, Marci, Mars, Phoenix, Pudge, Sand King, Slardar, Snapfire, Spiritbreaker, Sven, Tidehunter, Timbersaw, Tiny, Treant Protector, Undying, Wraith King

Agility
Anti-Mage, Arc Warden, Bounty Hunter, Clinkz, Drow Ranger, Ember Spirit, Faceless Void, Gyrocopter, Hoodwink, Juggernaut, Luna, Medusa, Mirana, Monkey King, Morphling, Nyx Assassin, Pangolier, Phantom Assassin, Phantom Lancer, Razor, Riki, Shadow Fiend, Sniper, Templar Assassin, Ursa, Vengeful Spirit, Venomancer, Viper, Weaver

Intelligence
Ancient Apparition, Bane, Batrider, Crystal Maiden, Dark Seer, Dark Willow, Dazzle, Death Prophet, Disruptor, Enchantress, Enigma, Grimstroke, Invoker, Jakiro, Leshrac, Lich, Lina, Nature's Prophet, Necrophos, Ogre Magi, Oracle, Outworld Destroyer, Puck, Pugna, Queen of Pain, Rubick, Shadow Demon, Shadow Shaman, Silencer, Skywrath Mage, Storm Spirit, Void Spirit, Warlock, Windranger, Winter Wyvern, Witch Doctor, Zeus

I just noticed I accidentally misnumbered Lion. Oh well!

97 - Arc Warden (ranged Agility) (aka Zet)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/5/7/AAAACbAAC8WB.jpg
Basic Abilities: Flux, Magnetic Field, Spark Wraith, Tempest Double
Shard Ability: Improves Magnetic Field to provide cause it to push enemies back from the area on cast, provide Zet and his allies 40% magic resistance while in the field, and slow enemies that re-enter the field.
Scepter Ability: Improves Spark Wraith by making it re-cast itself for free where it collided the first time with an enemy on a three second delay.

Here we have a poster child for "occasionally the role ratings are stupid." Zet does not have 3 escape. Zet does not, in fact, have any escape, beyond having no business being in a straight up fight until it can vastly overpower an enemy. In fact, on paper, Zet's abilities and stats, before it obtains its ultimate, are ganking-support geared, cutting off escape routes with Spark Wraith, having a potent slow and DoT in Flux, and flummoxing ranged retaliation with Magnetic Field.

In practice, Warden will frequently be given a solo lane or midlane and rush a Midas. Why? Because of Tempest Double. Tempest Double is the only Illusion/Clone ability in the game that also gets to use items on top of abilities, and as such, most of Arc Warden's gameplay acts like a cross between a Nature's Prophet and a Terrorblade - obtaining a Hand of Midas and Boots of Travel, farming the jungle or an overly-pushed lane with the main body while Tempest Double teleports, using Midas on the double only to cheat the cooldown, and pushing down towers with Magnetic Field/deleting a support that got too cocky trying to farm the double's bounty. It's simple and formulaic for a hero that supposedly requires micro - despite a bunch of better item choices, like Gleipnir, Silver Edge, Hurricane Pike...

I honestly really love Zet's visual design and abilities, but I've got him so low I absolutely haaaaate the expectations pubs will have for you if you aren't a one-trick pony. Good Zets will starve their entire team to the exclusion of all else and then whine (and get whined at) if the main hero gets picked off and the game gets lost. It's a shame, really - his abilities, growths, and popular item choices have all the potential to be a support first transitioning to a carry, but he's always regarded as position 1, maybe 2 at best.

At least he can't cheese the game with a rapier any longer. And good riddance to *that* rush.

Next hero hint: how the removal of a core item turned a hero from "was once dead last" to the low-end of this enjoyment list.

Almost guessed Arc Warden there. I agree his design is real cool but he's definitely not among my favorites. The gimmick seems like it'd be interesting on paper but really never seems to be in practice.

Don't have much of a strong thought for the next hint... Hm...

May as well mention the item in question is Necronomicon.

96 - Lycan (melee Strength)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/3/AAAACbAAC8nx.jpg
Basic Abilities: Summon Wolves, Howl, Feral Impulse, Shapeshift
Shard Ability: Improves Summon Wolves to randomly spawn an uncontrollable wolf during every creepwave that travels with them. These wolves will give Lycan money if they last hit, and have the same Cripple ability level 4 summoned wolves do (8 DPS/60% attack speed slow for 4 seconds) except this can hit towers.
Scepter Ability: New ability "Wolf Bite" which, when cast, applies Shapeshift to an ally. Lycan and this ally gain 30% lifesteal, and will heal each other with this lifesteal if Lycan is within a moderate distance of the bitten ally.

"Lycan worst hero" was a common joke on an older forum I frequented, and I legitimately believed it once upon a time; of course, some of his moderate jump in rankings probably comes from Helm of the Overlord at the expense of Necronomicon - though I suppose a game that somehow got to 60:00 tier 5 neutral items, one of which summons three sets of the bastards, is an auto-win, but if a Lycan didn't end the game by that point, he's probably doing something wrong. But I digress.

Anyways, Lycan! He's another autoattacker melee, but with more of a focus on jungling, pushing, and ganking, rather than being a straight teamfighter carry. He's slightly micro reliant, as Summon Wolves, despite Lycan's voice line boasting, need some armor to not immediately get focused down; almost all of his early game revolves around kiting them around and buffing them up with auras, debuffing attackers with Howl, and taking advantage of Feral Impulse's nutty regeneration buff when maxed out.

Once Lycan hits level 6, the fun begins. Shapeshift gives a whole slew of buffs while active - extra night vision, maximum movespeed, critical strike chance, and bonus health, and most importantly, slow immunity... to ALL units under Lycan's control. Helm of the Dominator is a huge pickup for him, which synergizes quite well with Lycan usually farming a Vladimir's Offering, another potent item that gives Lycan and his units basically everything he wants. From there, it's a matter of preference on the next item choice. BKB is a common pickup since, despite slow immunity, stuns and disarms will wreck his day in Shapeshift.

Despite fun interactions between Lycan and his units, plus synergies that arise from Wolves (both summoned and shard-spawned) getting to benefit from Howl, I've mostly got Lycan this low because of quibbles of how summoned wolves target things. Shift+Queueing attack commands have to be unit-targeted with them, since maintaining their invisibility will take priority over a queued attack-move command. His build, despite a bunch of autoattack-buff items, is also fairly inflexible: Max wolves, value point of howl early, max Feral Impulse, Shapeshift when available. Talent for wolf damage and buy shard after 20:00 for free pushing power, talent for Feral Impulse to cause Lycan+unit's bonus damage to grow to 69% at max level (Nice.) Watch for a teamfight to break out and delete a tower, then scurry away, or run invisible wolves at the backline to Howl and nom on a support while you chase down a low-health hero. Start joining teamfights after BKB and eat face. Try not to fall asleep. Send dominated Ancient from Helm of the Overlord at enemy base. Still try not to fall asleep. Buy a scepter and bite your Marci or Ursa. Oh no.

Fun fact, Lycan's my highest win rate hero in Dota 2 (with more than 10 games, because I have 100% WR with Magnus and Arc Warden both,) but if I wanted to zip around at sonic speed all the time, I'd play Dark Seer and look the part. At least with Seer I have some nuke capability - Lycan's offense gets neutered by the simple of expedience of "become un-hittable" items, and counterpicked badly by anything that can burst down wolves through physical or pure damage, or are able to completely ignore physical damage, or able to protect buildings before shard, or deal most of their damage through bonus attack damage instead of stats so Howl doesn't affect it as hard, or using a long lockdown ultimate on him like Fiend's Grip, or... huh, that's a lot of niche situationals. Y'know, maybe I should play Lycan a bit more. Maybe if the jungle gets buffed again. Lord knows he causes a saltstorm when he wins.

Next hero hint: someone who ironically gets absolutely dumpstered by Lycan, that is similarly useful in jungle situations, and one of my favorite heroes but is, y'know, a jungler in 2022.

Lycan was my 2nd favorite bungler, Im not sure why removing Necronomicon made him better for you though, maybe Im misreading it.

I didnt play at all last year but Ive heard jingling in general is way worse, so uh, Ursa?

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Im not sure why removing Necronomicon made him better for you though, maybe Im misreading it.

Mostly because I got better at utilizing Helm of the Dominator/Overlord instead, and given Vladimir's is a core item on him that builds into Overlord, it's handy too.

Oh shit.

https://twitter.com/DOTA2/status/1494833975092813827?cxt=HHwWhoC9uZLl274pAAAA

Postponing writeups for a few days until patch hits and I get to look over the notes. If a jungle change goes through (or some talent picks swapped,) I expect I might move my next pick a bit, which was originally going to be Enchantress.

Oh lord. From a glance at changes while I'm on a short break:

New hero: Primal Beast (Charge-up stun, trample AoE attack, Outrage self-buff based on the amount it's been hit, ultimate is "grab target hero and repeatedly slam into ground mini-stunning and damaging everything around it.")

Jungle has a bunch of new units, and jungle camps will use their abilities more frequently (Doom/Chen/Enchantress/Lifestealer buff.) Stats reshuffled.

Techies had proximity mines changed to their ult, remote mines and stasis traps removed, a new sticky bomb ability, a taser ability, and some stat changes.

Wait, what's the functional change to proxy's being Ulti besides delaying when they can set their first mines?