Picture by ESL
Understanding skilled scene meta and the explanations behind explicit picks is necessary for each single Dota participant. It doesn’t matter whether or not you might be Herald or Immortal — there’s a lot to be taught from the perfect gamers on this planet and there’s a lot to debate with regards to their preferences. At the moment we’re going to take a look at the ESL One Berlin hero meta.
That is in all probability irrelevant for many gamers, however an fascinating piece of trivia nonetheless. After months of Dire domination, we’re seeing a shift in direction of Radiant. The disparity isn’t as pronounced because it was beforehand, however one of many Factions nonetheless enjoys a 55%+ win fee.
Maybe it has one thing to do with the digital camera angle, possibly it’s a results of third Roshan having Aghanim’s Scepter on Radiant throughout daytime, or possibly it’s the impartial camp placement. We gained’t know till we play extra on the map.
The decide order can be in a little bit of a flux state. Originally of the event, the second decide was closely prioritised. Double decide within the first section and absolutely the final decide of the draft have been thought-about a greater choice, till Medusa grew to become too apparent of an OP hero.
The shift occurred across the third day of the Group Stage and the primary decide remained the extra widespread choice till the top of the event.
There may be an apparent overpowered hero within the sport, however Medusa isn’t the one hero value being attentive to. Lich, Beastmaster and Alchemist are additionally borderline overpowered within the present patch.
Lich is just too good of a help. His Frost Protect is likely one of the strongest harm mitigation instruments, scaling very properly into the late sport, and incessantly warranting a [item-nullifier] buy from the enemy by itself. Frost Blast is a lane dominating means that stays related damage- and utilitywise.
Beastmaster is just method too good for a way versatile the hero is. You may play the default Zoo Beastmaster and profit from excessive tempo and the power to have Vladmir’s Providing aura in your workforce early on. It’s nonetheless one of many strongest teamfight auras within the sport, however it’s getting laborious to construct it on cores.
You should purchase Aghanim’s Scepter to counter phantasm or Zoo heroes from the enemy. With this type of construct, Beastmaster’s sustained harm output and heal are excessive, making for good teamfight presence.
You may even go full auras, with gadgets like Crimson Guard and Pipe of Perception, should you don’t want further harm out of your offlane. All three builds work they usually work properly relying on the scenario, making Beastmaster method too good of a personality.
Lastly, there’s Alchemist, who enormously advantages from having a completely huge map to farm. Discovering Alchemist bought lots more durable, therefore disrupting his timing is near not possible. It means he will get to completely make the most of his Greevil’s Greed for the primary 15+ minutes of the sport, leading to doubtlessly unbeatable merchandise timings. The hero may be very sturdy late sport as properly, as not solely can he construct all the required gadgets sooner than most heroes within the sport, he may help his workforce with quite a lot of highly effective freebies.
There are a number of different heroes who will not be fairly as overpowered as those we mentioned beforehand, however who’ve been constantly good all through the event. We’re speaking about Pangolier, Terrorblade, Underlord and Keeper of the Mild.
The demonic duo of Terrorblade and Underlord are fairly boring to debate. The previous is just a strong, farming carry with good DPS within the late sport. He has few dangerous matchups and scales each by way of teamfight harm and constructing harm.
The latter is the perfect aura service within the sport with an excellent built-in aura of his personal and world mobility for his workforce. We are able to perceive some complaints from professional gamers about how taking part in offlane is a bit boring within the new patch. Underlord being the de facto most dependable third place says lots.
Pangolier is a little more fascinating although. Regardless of the nerfs in 7.33, the hero retained his means to stunlock opponents for a really lengthy time period. The hero misplaced 0.3 seconds of stun on every Rolling Thunder hit, however since good Pangolier gamers hit their targets a number of instances per struggle, it’s nonetheless extraordinarily disruptive. It’s a hero that can pressure an early BKB from the enemy carry, and a hero who can then safely disengage more often than not.
KotL now gaining access to a robust blind and repositioning instrument for the laning stage made him a related help as soon as once more. On high of it, he enhances quite a lot of meta heroes: Medusa can profit from further mana and decrease Mystic Snake cooldown, heroes like Storm and Ember Spirit can go on a rampage with further sources and even Terrorblade doesn’t thoughts having extra Metamorphosis makes use of in a sport.
The hero is a bit iffy with regards to pubs, requiring an excessive amount of coordination throughout the laning stage, in order to not spoil the lane pushing it too laborious. His Recall can be not as potent in a pub surroundings as it may be in a professional sport. Therefore we don’t really feel just like the hero wants any nerfs, not like each different hero we mentioned beforehand.
Lastly, there are a number of heroes who underperformed throughout the Main. Most notably, Muerta had a ~30% winrate throughout 29 video games. Granted, a few of these video games have been very misguided place three Muertas by Staff SMG, however even eradicating them from the equation leaves the hero severely missing by way of winrate stats. Which is stunning, contemplating the hero’s harm output and scaling is theoretically overwhelming.
Different heroes who may be thought-about overrated are Ursa and Tiny. Ursa appears like a found out hero. Get Nullifier, apply to Ursa, ignore them for the remainder of the struggle. Having a right away and steady dispel for the bear makes him a really ignorable risk.
Tiny is a bit bizarre, because the hero can completely pop off from the mid lane. An early Blink Dagger could make him oppressive to play towards for helps, whereas his late sport is supported by the Aghanim’s Scepter and Tree Volley. Nonetheless if the hero is shut down throughout the laning stage or if his first couple of ganks fail, he can shortly develop into irrelevant as a core, leading to a really excessive danger and average reward character who ought to in all probability be ignored in your pubs for now.
The Main bought a little bit too formulaic by the Grand Finals, it feels. The chaos of the primary couple of days was gone and gamers settled on what appears like one of the best ways to play Dota proper now: tanky heroes with numerous auras to help them.
Whether or not it’s really the one solution to play remains to be questionable, nonetheless. Possibly different overpowered approaches merely haven’t been found but. As soon as Medusa will get nerfed, we’d like to return and consider our pointers for the patch, however for now simply ban or decide the hero, if you wish to win.