Buff Me: Balancing For Underplayed Pub Heroes
The top 10 least picked heroes in Dota 2
Dota tends to get balanced around the professional meta, but now it’s also time to take a closer look into the failed heroes of the pub meta. In the past, when it came to which heroes to balance, look no further than the pick/ban rate of heroes at premier tournaments. Patch 6.87c nerfed the top 3 most contested heroes of the Manila qualifiers and 6 out of the top 11. Then patch 6.88 came after the Manila Major, where 24 out of 25 of the heroes who were unpicked received some sort of buff. What about the forgotten heroes of pubs? How does Valve begin to balance in that context?
“Is This Hero Good?”
Balancing around competitive play preserves Dota’s integrity as an esport. But that doesn’t always matter when it comes to pub players. Take Shadow Demon, for instance: he’s one of the top supports in competitive play, but is in the bottom third of played heroes in pubs. His hero design may be functionally sound enough to succeed in the field test of pro tournaments, but something must be lacking if casual players aren’t catching on.
Shadow Demon currently the 82nd most popular hero
Hero design is part “how it works” and also “how it feels.” Pubs tend to follow in the footsteps of professional meta, which is not always the case. Chen will always remain one of the least picked heroes in Dota 2, regardless of where he fits in the meta and how many ancient creeps he can control. Batrider is another such example of a hero who is great in professional play, but under performs amid the clumsy execution of pub players.
The strength and effectiveness of heroes are enough to carry them into the professional meta, but it’s not enough for pubs. The lack of interest in heroes like Shadow Demon is simply that they aren’t that fun to play. The design of Shadow Poison is delayed gratification, not doing any perceivable damage until there are enough stacks, and the sound that accompanies it is a bang on a sheet of aluminum. For pub players, good heroes don’t always become popular heroes.
“Is This Hero Fun To Play?”
Whether a hero is good may be the only requirement for pros, but whether it’s fun to play is one that also matters for pub players. Razor is one of the most boring heroes to play, and watch, yet pros couldn’t care less. Pubs, however, will continue to pass on Abaddon, who has been a predictable, top 5 hero in win rate, and a bottom 30 hero in popularity. Omniknight, the perennial king of pubs, will never be first picked or banned in pubs.
The factors of heroes being good to play and being fun to play aren’t always discrete. They’re in a fine balance. The numbers of turn rate, move speed, and BAT are constantly tweaked for competitive balance, and those affect how it feels to control that hero in the game. The base attack speed, and animation, of Juggernaut and Anti-Mage makes them two of the more fun carries to last hit with in lane. The same quality also makes playing Omniknight a chore to last hit with.
But a hero being “fun to play” is why players disproportionately pick heroes who aren’t as good as their popularity. It’s not always about winning. It’s why when your team needs a support for its final slot, that last player instead goes with Legion Commander, who is a losing hero (<50% win rate), but she’s the third most picked hero this month. The top two most picked heroes, Pudge and Phantom Assassin, are currently 23rd and 29th in win rate, respectively. Both of these heroes are barely picked by pros, and that’s fine.
Buffing Outside The Box
Overwhelmingly the focus on balancing underplayed heroes is on making that hero stronger, rather than more desirable to play. Over time, these incremental tweaks, Valve’s typical number tweaking, can overcome a threshold where a hero becomes part of the meta, as was the case with Windranger, Juggernaut, and Drow Ranger. But there are other avenues that Valve has taken to buff heroes.
One is the addition of Aghanim’s Scepter buffs that isn’t just about “make this ultimate do more damage” and instead provides novel interactions. Batrider’s Scepter upgrade allows him to Lasso two heroes, a satisfying interaction that also happens to create a 5v3 situation for your team. Nyx Assassin’s upgrades changed him from a ganking hero to a defensive nuisance. Tinker’s Scepter created new ways of stalling the game by another twenty minutes. Mirana became the most picked and banned hero of the TI6 main event. And Sand King’s upgrade went from a “do more damage” buff to increasing the range of Burrow Strike adding Caustic Finale to it, which this Rampage clip couldn’t have happened without.
The other method of buffing heroes is a rework. Invoker was a special case of a minor rework—unlocking a 360 Deafening Blast—but it renewed enthusiasm in the hero at a time when he was waning in popularity. Riki is now a pesky, viable support instead of low-MMR pub stomper. Even a change like removing the UAM for spells like Clinkz’s Searing Arrows opened up new interesting item builds.
There are heroes that are just as outdated as they are underpowered. Necrophos has watched the world pass him by ever since the introduction of Glimmer Cape. Treant Protector players spend too much of their time trying to neither be seen nor heard. The global aspect of Living Armor even encourages this behavior. Enchantress remained the same, while buffs to Int spell damage and the introduction of Echo Sabre gave everyone tools to deal with her. And Pugna still can’t heal from his ultimate while using BKB.
The reason to buff heroes in these alternative ways is that sometimes it’s not enough to tweak numbers to base stats, stat gain, move speed, spell damage, turn rate, or base attack speed. It takes too long—small changes over a series of patches—and some of these heroes can’t afford the time. When was the last time Treant Protector viable in any meta?
And the other reason is that sometimes no amount of number tweaking will change how pubs feel about that hero, unless that hero becomes overpowered (Can Chen ever be popular?). Heroes can become stale, and it won’t matter if they get +5 movement speed next patch. It’s the new that can bring back heroes who have withered away in irrelevancy. New items, new upgrades, new skills. Fortunately, this does happen in Dota, every so often.
first blood!
second blood
Third blood
Fourth Blood
Erm, there's a typo I think here:
"Omniknight, the perennial king of pubs, will never be first picked or banned in pubs."
Shouldn't it be "first picked or banned /by pros/"?
Chen, forever least picked..
The Problem is, no one wants to play and train the hero´s... who will train Chen ? Earth Spirit ? they are so difficult and it need much train... then u play pub matches and get flamed because u fail sometimes... but the flamer cant do it better
Chen must be popular.... :(
low-MMR pub stomper is what Pudge is. A nightmare for me.
no blood :(
No talk about io 😕
I just want 6.86 Arc Warden back. Without the Rapier-ratting-stategy-thingy of course
ur mom's blood
Patching around pub dota is stupid
It's barely even dota there, it's just a deathmatch fest of kids' favourite heroes
no brewmaster
Playing shadow demon is fun.
You can solo kill enemy terrorblade if he solo pushes
I came here to read a comment but, 1ST BLOOD, 2ND BLOOD, 3RD BLOOD, then what next? DOMINATING? :3
17TH BLOOD
BLOODSEEKAH
these heroes are unfamous because all of these require various micro control skills, so yeah included me dont even give a touch on these heroes XAXAXA
at least only happen on high mmr pubs, never on below 4ks
Shadow Demon isn't fun to play? What?
WAT! These are my favorite heroes (except for leshrac) just because they are challenging to play :D
51 chen, 34 io, 34 earth spirit, 32 visage, 44 LD and 25 brew games (mostly ranked too!)
sniper and treant are so unplayable these days
I mean, there's a clear theme amongst the underpicked heroes in that they're difficult to play. 7 of the 10 heroes in the least picked require some form of multi-character control, IO and Earth Spirit are notoriously difficult for newer players and Lesh is just too squishy for most people I assume.
I'd be curious to see how those numbers change as you go into the higher MMRs.
Omniknight can be first pick or ban in >3k..
Why not use omniknihgt to < 2k brackets
arc needs buff roflmao
Notice it,s mainly micro/ summon based heroes it is not a case of underpowered heroes in pub level it is a case of under skilled players. Also, the remaining heroes the are not micro are know to have a high skill cap.
"When was the last time Treant Protector viable in any meta?" He has a 53% winrate in pubs so I would say he's fairly viable in that particular meta.
I wish Icefrog read this.
'Razor is one of the most boring heroes to play.'
Ouch. Speak for yourself :(
Dota should be balanced for pro play only.
#restInWisperinos
Arc Warden does NOT need a buff. He has infinite salve/mango after lvl 6....
Leshrac's survivability early is one of the worst. Cast point for lightning makes not sense to me... WAY too slow.
They should revive Lycan, like, honestly, this hero's been dead for ages.
Btw, Brew was once the fp-material and then nerf happened (Ulti cast time from 0,2 to 0,6 or 0,85 , something like that).
Lesh's got cucked three times: Glimmer Cape, Hero nerfs and Octarine nerfs. Don't think he will be on the radars of pro players unless there is a cool combo/abuse discovered (why not picking the old SD+ Lesh combo, though(inb4: nerfs)).
As for the other heroes in this list, they are just micro-intensive , there aren't a lot of people actually fond of it.
BUFF LESHRAC AND BREW
Top 3 least picked heroes are as such in pubs because supporting is a mixed bag in pubs. Playing support in pubs means entrusting victory to your teammates, which is risky and very unsatisfying.
The micro heroes are tough because it takes effort to play them, i.e., fast hand/clicks and camera/mouse movement. They also need team coordination to survive. Coordination is rare in pubs.
plz buff broodmother next patch! :D
the fuck auto play video
I mean, I'm not a good player, but I'm capable of learning these heroes -- but except for LD, I don't like playing them.
Also, I'm a huge fan of the way Dota is balanced around the pro games, and I wouldn't change that.
You talk about about underplayed heroes and not about lycan.
In your next post, talk about lycan and his nicheness.
How is the most busted ass thing in this game the least played?
I don't think its just because of the micro managing of heroes/summons here.
I don't see Meepo or Naga :/
44th blood !
buff bear!!
Those heroes are really hard to use, I prefer enchantress to chen because it's just hard to become support with many creep.
These least played heroes are too complicated to play in today's Dota compared to other heroes. Chen, LD, Brood, Visage and Beastmaster are too hard to control with their summoned units. Same Brewmaster. Earth Spirit and Io are VERY strong heroes, but they need a lot of effort to be played correctly.
Leshrac is just AP carry, there is no place for those in Dota.
So the problem is really in Dota core mechanics. Too many unbalanced heroes and bad unit control realisation.
pudge is allways fun for me
Broodmother doesn't need any buffs, thanks :)