Picture by ESL
Understanding skilled scene meta and the explanations behind specific picks is essential for each single Dota participant. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re Herald or Immortal — there’s a lot to be taught from one of the best gamers on the planet and there’s a lot to debate on the subject of their preferences. Right now 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 attention-grabbing 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 charge.
Maybe it has one thing to do with the digital camera angle, perhaps it’s a results of third Roshan having Aghanim’s Scepter on Radiant throughout daytime, or perhaps it’s the impartial camp placement. We received’t know till we play extra on the map.
The choose order can be in a little bit of a flux state. In the beginning of the match, the second choose was closely prioritised. Double choose within the first part and absolutely the final choose of the draft have been thought-about a greater choice, till Medusa turned too apparent of an OP hero.
The shift occurred across the third day of the Group Stage and the primary choose remained the extra well-liked choice till the tip of the match.
There may be an apparent overpowered hero within the recreation, 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 Defend is among the strongest harm mitigation instruments, scaling very properly into the late recreation, and incessantly warranting a [item-nullifier] buy from the enemy by itself. Frost Blast is a lane dominating potential that stays related damage- and utilitywise.
Beastmaster is solely method too good for the way versatile the hero is. You possibly can play the default Zoo Beastmaster and profit from excessive tempo and the flexibility to have Vladmir’s Providing aura to your crew early on. It’s nonetheless one of many strongest teamfight auras within the recreation, however it’s getting arduous 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 possibly can even go full auras, with objects like Crimson Guard and Pipe of Perception, for those who don’t want further harm out of your offlane. All three builds work and so they work properly relying on the scenario, making Beastmaster method too good of a personality.
Lastly, there’s Alchemist, who significantly advantages from having a completely large map to farm. Discovering Alchemist received rather a lot tougher, therefore disrupting his timing is near not possible. It means he will get to totally make the most of his Greevil’s Greed for the primary 15+ minutes of the sport, leading to probably unbeatable merchandise timings. The hero may be very robust late recreation as properly, as not solely can he construct all the mandatory objects sooner than most heroes within the recreation, he can even help his crew with quite a lot of highly effective freebies.
There are a number of different heroes who aren’t fairly as overpowered as those we mentioned beforehand, however who’ve been constantly good all through the match. We’re speaking about Pangolier, Terrorblade, Underlord and Keeper of the Mild.
The demonic duo of Terrorblade and Underlors are fairly boring to debate. The previous is solely a stable, farming carry with good DPS within the late recreation. He has few unhealthy matchups and scales each when it comes to teamfight harm and constructing harm.
The latter is one of the best aura service within the recreation with a great built-in aura of his personal and world mobility for his crew. We will 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 rather a lot.
Pangolier is a little more attention-grabbing although. Regardless of the nerfs in 7.33, the hero retained his potential to stunlock opponents for a really lengthy time frame. 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 getting access to a powerful blind and repositioning software for the laning stage made him a related help as soon as once more. On prime 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 assets and even Terrorblade doesn’t thoughts having extra Metamorphosis makes use of in a recreation.
The hero is a bit iffy on the subject of pubs, requiring quite a lot of coordination in the course of the laning stage, in order to not damage the lane pushing it too arduous. His Recall can be not as potent in a pub surroundings as it may be in a professional recreation. 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 in the course of 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 Group SMG, however even eradicating them from the equation leaves the hero severely missing when it comes to winrate stats. Which is shocking, contemplating the hero’s harm output and scaling is theoretically overwhelming.
Different heroes who could be thought-about overrated are Ursa and Tiny. Ursa seems like a discovered 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 in opposition to for helps, whereas his late recreation is supported by the Aghanim’s Scepter and Tree Volley. Nonetheless if the hero is shut down in the course of the laning stage or if his first couple of ganks fail, his can rapidly change 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 received just a little too formulaic by the Grand Finals, it feels. The chaos of the primary couple of days was gone and gamers settled on what seems like one of the simplest ways to play Dota proper now: tanky heroes with numerous auras to help them.
Whether or not it’s actually the one method to play remains to be questionable, nevertheless. 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 tips for the patch, however for now simply ban or choose the hero, if you wish to win.