A Farewell to 6.86

The most recent patch to leave us will left us as the most successful patch to date. While Invoker was in almost every pub, the pro scene was constantly evolving and it wasn't until the end when the most successful strategies were figured out. With that said, 6.87 will replace 6.86 as the most successful patch. As I write this, the open qualifiers are going on for TI 6 and they are some of the most exciting ever and here are a few reasons why.

1. Supports, the most under-appreciated role in Dota, continue to get buffed. At least in the pro-scene, the number of items a support accumulates over the course of a game has increased because of the low cost for getting wards, courier, and other early game essential items. The is also a boon to pubs but most teams can now truly get away with a single support. Earth Spirit, Bounty Hunter, and Enchantress are able to dominate games from the 4 position, if given the opportunity. Ice Frog's decision to open up this avenue of playing the game continues to keep it fresh.
2. Heroes are no longer getting beat down by the nerf stick. At least for heroes available in captains mode, heroes haven't been getting major changes to their stats, skills, or anything else Ice Frog can think of. This means that the relative power level of all heroes is about equal, with small exceptions. The flair that each region and team bring to the Dota continues to be expressed in new and exciting ways. Keep in mind that buffs and nerfs are mainly targeted at professional play.
3. The new items aren't game breaking, but they continue to increase the diversity of play-style and heroes. While Wind Lace pushes everyone toward drums, Raindrops, Bloodthrorn, Blightstone, Echo Saber, and Hurricane Pike all increase the viability of different heroes, play styles and open the game up for more decisions.
4. There are a lot of general strong heroes (Doom, QoP, Io, Chen, Enchantress, WD, Juggernaut, Vengeful Spirit, ES, Bounty Hunter, Natures Prophet, among others) and a lot of situationally very strong heroes (Slark, Slardar, Axe, Spectre, DK, Wind Ranger, Faceless Void, among others). This means drafting matters a lot and the team that can out draft their opponents has a significant advantage.
5. Finally, The terrain changes continue to try to balance dire and radiant. Again, this is geared toward pro play. I won't go into all the details but the big things to note are that radiant now have a better path behind the dire offlane tier one tower and there's a warding spot in the dire jungle similar to what the radiant have. Both changes give the Radiant some map advantage to offset the Roshan being on the dire side and the fact that radiant was more easily warded.

The Manila Major qualifiers just finished and Epicenter is right around the corner so let us bid farewell to 6.86: 6.86, you paved the way for a new dawn of Dota 2 greatness!

DOTA 2 fixes for upcoming patch 6.85

In my final TI post, I talked about how there are some specific fixes that could be done to heroes and the game to make it more balanced and fun. My ideas come from both professional observations and pub experiences. No one will argue that Leshrac needs a small nerf, I will argue that Lina does, and, beyond that, it gets gray... Well somethings are more gray than others so let me explain to you the things which are gray. The gray scale are things that aren't inherently "broken" or op, but still warp the game in some fashion or another. The closer to broken it is, the higher on the gray scale it is.

Roshan still favors the Dire, but only slightly. Yes, the map rearrange did good things for the rosh pit, but the dire still have the easier Rosh access and this is why CDEC and other teams favored picking dire. Sure, the radiant offlane is still a little better because of the large pull camp but that pales in comparison to Rosh. Roshan decides games, yet an offlaner may or may not. Roshan does warp the game, but the advantage it gives dire is a warp that could still use a little tweak. I think increasing the width of the Radiant ramp leading down into the river by the Pit and widening those path ways a little would go a long way into fixing this issue.
Gray Scale = 6

Lina needs a nerf. This hero is out of control. She's not leshrac level, but criminy, 950 pure damage with aghs at massive range and through BKB. Give me a break. This hero breaks carries and pushes heroes with low base strength, like Phantom Assassin, out of the meta. If a hero can't survive her damage, just don't even bother with picking it. To fix it, nerf the range more and nerf the damage slightly.
Gray Scale = 7

Supports have been seeing more love recently with the advent of better support oriented items. Glimmer Cape, Solar Crest and the like have allowed position 4 and some position 5 heroes to
increase their relevance in the game. This is at the professional level. At the pub level, it has created a position 3.5 and 6.5 where 1 hero always gets sacked. This has to stop. The position 5 has to be incentivised somehow. I don't know if it's through cooler, more flashy items or more gold for assists and less for kills or allowing them to buy tp scrolls at a discount. All I know is: no one wants to support and that fact destroys pubs.
Gray Scale = 9

People want to jungle in pubs, either let them or change it so it's not viable. Professional players don't jungle because it makes your lanes weak by putting only 1 support on the active field. Pub players don't care about this. They jungle every heroes that can hack it. I've seen Necro, Troll, Dusa, Jug, Ursa, BS, KotL, AM and more. To some degree, everyone should be free to pick what they want and be punished if they lose. However, for people to rationally and reasonably use a strategy, like jungling, it needs to reach a certain success rate because someone needs to rationalize how employing strategy A will lead to victory. Jungling is on the cusp of being just good enough for an all too large percentage of DOTA 2 population to think it's viable. This means that jungling needs to be adjusted such that it's either a little better or a little worse. Making it better would allow for a greater variety in strategies and give opponents opportunities to punish or get punished by it. My vote is for making it worse. Doing this in tandem with making supporting more fun would be a boon to pub games, thus increasing the user base and proving more revenue.
Gray Scale = 2

Leshrac is the single biggest hero offender when it comes to warping games. His ability to dominate any and every lane he sits in is like putting Sniper and Troll intro 1 hero. This is because his third skill, lightning storm. It is able to jump an extreme distance with a very fast projectile speed. Leshrac also leverages Bloodstone better than any hero (except possibly storm.) He was banned or picked in almost every game of TI.
Gray Scale = 10

Bloodstone is the most unbalanced item right now. It allows heroes like Leshrac and Storm to dominate a game because they can flash farm, respawn quickly, and participate in many of a team's kills. The previous change to bloodstone made the item cheaper and made the item build up more tolerable so that heroes like Zeus and Timbersaw could purchase it with lower risk. This allowed other heroes, however, to come online faster. Heroes like Lesh.  This item renders Antimage useless against a Leshrac in a straight up fight and he's the freaking ANTI-MAGE.
Gray Scale = 8

If bloodstone is the item creating the most broken heroes, then glimmer cape nerfs the most heroes. This item renders heroes like Lion, AA, and support lina useless. It's ability to reduce magical damage and render a target invisible at the low cost of 1950 gold. The item got a nerf (increased mana cost) after it was first released because of how abusive it was. It is still strong and needs to be brought down a peg. Maybe another bump up in mana cost, adding a recipe, and adding another item (blades of attack, ring of protection, quater staff) would add some balance. I especially like the latter 2 options because it makes it into more of a blademail for supports in terms of item cost.
Gray Scale = 5

Bounty Hunter has brought back dual laning mid. Lich used to fill this roll and Io will do it situationally. Bounty hunter, however, had a 90+% win rate at TI. This should raise many flags about the ability of this hero to warp the game. While EG dealt with well until upper bracket finals against CDEC, every other team feared the BH. He has built in comeback and get ahead mechanics which professional players easily leveraged into wins. I think that slight nerfs to the duration and cooldown of track would bring this hero back in balance with the rest of the filed. Keep in mind that it was the improvement to shuriken that brought this hero back into the pro scene, so slight nerfs might bump him down into the "better than situational" tier. This hero pushes dedicated junglers and heroes that rely on invis out of the meta.
Gray Scale = 7

Outside of these observations, here's a quick list and a gray scale number for heroes that could use a nerf:

• Bloodseeker - 4
• Spiritbreaker- 1
• Brood Mother - 3

What are you hoping gets buffed or nerfed next patch? Let me know in the comment section, I would love to hear from you.

The Internation 2015 Part 3: Looking to the Future

This is part three of my take on the International. Here's a link to my Internation Page where you can find parts 1 and 2 as well as my other TI posts.

The end of The Internation 5 signals the end to another great year in the DOTA 2 community. While many people will still be doing challenges on their compendium and trying to get some coins, the break between seasons will be short lived. Everyone, even the mighty Icefrog, will be getting their mind in gear for the next season of the great game created. In this blog post, you and I will be exploring what the future holds for DOTA 2. We won't be covering everything, so feel free to share what you think is important in the comments section.

The great player shuffle has already begun. Valve is driving teams toward stable rosters by offering direct invites to those teams. In professional sports, stable teams come about through trade deadlines, free agency, contracts, and other mechanisms to balance the needs of the player with the needs of the organization. Valve is incentivising teams to hold stable rosters through direct invites to major events, either to play or qualify. This year, teams like Summoners Rift had to try to make their way through the open qualifies if they wanted to make it into the closed qualifier because of roster changes that occurred after the deadline. September 1st is the next of these deadlines for the major fall tournament so teams are already shuffling around to make sure their rosters are rock solid for the event. In the short term, this seems crazy because TI just ended, yet teams are already kicking players and grabbing new ones. In the long run, well performing teams will try to keep their roster as stable as possible to try and avoid grinding through the qualifiers. This will translate into better DOTA.

For many casters, TI is a make it or break it moments. If a caster, like Maut, doesn't get invited for the biggest tournament in esports, then they have to grind for another year hoping that Valve send them the coveted message next year. For casters that do make it, this is a defining moment because their whole year of work has led up to this. It could be a confirmation of what they want to do or, in the case of Blitz, tip the scales back toward wants to be involved with DOTA on a professional level. A shuffle is also happening. Casters move up, move on, or move over depending on their TI experience or lack thereof. Notably, Zyori is leaving Beyond the Summit. This creates openings for new talent to rise to the top, as ODPixel did this year. It will be interesting to see, as Majors are added and the demand for talented and knowledgeable casters increases, if Valve will look to turn it into more of a commercial endeavor to attract more people and casters to the game.

The final thing we all have to look forward to is a new patch. Icefrog tends to fix things that are a problem in the professional scene and change things up to keep the game fresh. I expect that Leshrac, Gyro, Lina, and Bountyhunter will all get hit with the nerf stick because of their overperformance at TI. Other than those 4, most other heroes that were played seemed fairly balanced. It's the heroes that weren't played and who don't fit into a meta who need a small buff. I would chose Lonedruid, Weaver, Elder Titan, and Beastmaster as the heroes to get a small boost. At some point in the near future, I'll go more indepth with ideas for hero fixes and game balancing.

The most important thing we have to look forward to is more great DOTA. The game continues to evolve, regardless of who's casting, who's playing, and what heroes are overpowered. The Reborn Beta will soon become the client, and with it a new era of DOTA will emerge. It will harken back to it's roots as a custom game for Warcraft 3 and open up new opportunities for tournaments, events and fun.

Please tell me what you are most looking forward to in DOTA's future in the comment section and thanks for reading.

It's almost time for that new patch smell

Many people have hopes and dreams for the next patch and rounds of balances. The big ones that come to mind are:
- Reworking buybacks interaction with reliable gold, experience, and the comeback mechanics and
- Balancing some of pub stars: Troll, Juggernaut, Lion, Sniper, and Axe come quickly to mind.
Outside of those two things glaring straight at The International, DOTA2 is in a good place. The support hero pool is large and diverse. www.DOTABuff.com just ran a three part series highlighting 10 of the most viable supports you can pick (you can find part 3 here: http://www.dotabuff.com/blog/2015-04-02-introducing-top-tier-supports--part-3). To that list I would add the Ogre Magi, Treant Protector, and Sand King. There are only a few heroes considered unplayable (Sorry Kunkka). The mid lane is seeing a Rock- Paper-Scissors-Hammer-Blade-Scream… between Shadow Fiend, Sniper, Storm Spirit, your magic nuker of choice (usually Lina or Queen of Pain) and the maverick picks ( Ember Spirit, Brewmaster, Magnus, Viper, and even Artzeey on the Razor). With that said, there are still somethings that need fixing so here’s my wish list.
There are a few abilities that need to receive minor nerfs. Sniper’s shrapnel is crazy good at 50 mana and a 40 second recharge rate. Either the mana cost needs to increase enough to where you actually have to consider the cost of casting it, the recharge rate should be increased, or a combination of the 2. I don’t think it’s that far off from being viable but not overpowered. The other ability that stands out is Lion’s Impale. This spell is targeted so as long as you reach the cast point, the stun will land unless they are super far away. This leads to some stuns that are a bit on the questionable side. The solution here is to either have it remain targeted but once you cast it, it goes a fixed distance in the direction of the target or make it a skill shot but increase its range a little. The trend has been to make things more skill intensive; think Fissure for the Earth Shaker or Impale for Nyx.
A few heroes would really benefit from a bump because they are narrowly situational, they are a worse something else, or they are just unplayable. Visage best fits the narrowly situational pick because you almost never see him without a Drow or another pushing hero. Chen has pushed out almost every other pushing hero except for the Enigma. The buff to his abilities is a welcome change, however now the situation exists where Enchantress is a worse something else. Maybe she needs a rework to compete like buffing the damage her creeps have or increasing her healing effectiveness. Finally, the unplayable heroes: Kunka, Alchemist, Leshrac, Chaos Knight and Lifestealer just cannot be picked because they are situationally worse than everything else. A buff to these heroes would be welcome, especially Leshrac. He puts out a ton of damage, but has to compete with QoP, Lina, and Storm for the position of mid int. hero and he can’t. He’s also not a good support because he damage is reliant on being alive for the duration of a fight. A buff in either direction would be most welcome and I think it starts with Lightning Storm.
Hopefully the next patch freshens up the current meta, bringing new heroes to prominence and pushing down some of the current stars. What are your picks for heroes that need nerfs? Buffs? Let me know in the Comments.