Dota in July 2014

July 2014 marks the end of the 2013/14 competitive Dota 2 season, culminating with The International. In this post I will go through the stats for the month, with graphs and other interesting tidbits. This includes both the pro scene and the pub scene. For pros I rely on datDota, but focus on highlighting trends and changes from previous months. For pubs I compare my data with my data from the previous month, and will go through the changes in pick rate for every hero, and present them to you with a short explanation with the biggest gainers/losers for the month.

Pros – Landscape and Tidbits

Out of the 180 professional games played this month, 172 of them were part of The International. The other 8 games were at the start of the month in SEA for the DotaTalk DatBet Championship. The 180 games is down heavily from last month’s 440. While other games were played, datDota only counts games they consider to be at the professional level. Data for complete picks are available on datDota, or in the monthly image from Anasteria. Anasteria always cuts off a lot lower than datDota, often resulting him in having a skewering amount of low tier games in his lists.

– There were 18 heroes this month that were a Top Pick (over 40% P/B)

– Promoted to Top Pick this month: Void, Skywrath, Tinker, Shadow Shaman, Earthshaker, Nature’s Prophet, Enigma, Wraith King.

– This is the first time that Faceless Void, Skywrath Mage, Tinker and Earthshaker have been a Top Pick (Data only includes the past 19 months.)

– This is Enigma’s 2nd Top Pick, the last being way back in December 2012.

– Demoted from Top Pick this month: Invoker, Treant, Enchantress, Rubick, Shadow Demon.

The rise and fall of Treant Protector as a popular pick, illustrated using his P/B %

– Tinker was predominately banned, with about 4 bans for every pick. Lycan was 7 bans per pick.

– 6 heroes were neither banned nor picked this month: Huskar, Spirit Breaker, Bloodseeker, Phantom Lancer, Keeper of the Light, Crystal Maiden.

– Lycan returns to being the most contested hero in the pool, which brings an end to the 9 month streak of having a different #1 hero each month, which started in October with Naga Siren.

The year in P/B % for the last three #1 heroes.

– The above graph also nicely illustrates the fall Batrider had this month, dropping to 56%

– You can also see the exact point Lycan shot up; I wrote an article here at the end of his massive boost in March. It would seem that it March really was the month to boost Lycan into the scene for a long time, going on five months now.

Pubs – Winners and Losers

Last Month, we saw a massive shift in pick rates for heroes with a recently released Immortal as well as a boost for popular heroes at The Summit. The following table is the list of heroes who are being picked more in all pub games for July.

– Skywrath, Void and Razor lead the charge, likely as a result of their similar shift in the pro scene. Or as I joked last month; “Pubbers have a bad case of Mono”.

– Other popular TI4 heroes were bumped up a notch, with Earthshaker gaining ground as he asserts his position as the most popular support hero for pubs.

– Phoenix, Terrorblade and Ember Spirit have been dropping in popularity ever since the major 6.80 nerfs, however Ember managed to gain in popularity this month, after a few months of heavy drops.

– Tinker appeared in about 6% of pubs 2 months ago, this month he appeared in 13% as he continues to rise (17th most popular hero this month).

– Brewmaster always turns up as a big winner in the actual % graph. He’s an incredibly unpopular hero who gains strongly, who is now 18% more popular than last month. Interesting to see Meepo in there too.

– Ever since Counter Helix was changed to PRD, Axe has been dropping every month. Where as all the Immortal heroes increased in pick rate last month, it appeared that the Immortal just canceled out most of Axe’s decline. His pub win rate also took a hit, and is this months biggest pick rate loser. He will continue to fall steadily unless he is buffed next month. Rightfully so too, I don’t bother with him much anymore. His early jungling, cutting, and lane dominance all took a heavy hit

– Popular Pub heroes like Invoker and Pudge fell as people flocked to TI4 heroes.

– Many heroes who received an immortal last month also dropped, which is just a fallout from the surge last month.

– Ultra-Unpopular heroes fell this month; the 9 least popular pub heroes all fell slightly. Such as Beastmaster, Chen and Visage.

– Terrorblade (-9%) and Phoenix also continue to fall (as reasoned when I spoke about Ember Spirit)

– Finally, Treant and Dark Seer lost some players. Probably as neither hero was as popular at TI4 as they’ve been in the past.

Summary

A massive drop in pro scene games as caused by TI4, while there was a similar amount of pub games this month as last month. A massive surge in pro heroes in the middle of a patch suggests to me the patch is still breathing, and the big pro gainers this month should be mostly left alone to see how the scene deals with them over time. Although it is evident that some heroes need to be changed as they are continuing their long term trends of being very (un)popular, such as Huskar, Medusa, Lycan, and Doom.

I intend to do a similar article to this each month, so keep an eye out for that. In the mean time I’ve linked my previous two articles below. Additionally, instead of referencing Darude – Sandstorm over and over, here’s a fairly solid song with a similar ‘Dota 2 connected name’; Pheonix – Lisztomania.

For non-noob Dota 2 tips, follow @ZotaTips

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Previous Feature – What I think Ice Frog should do after TI4, and I’m not talking about simple hero buffs/nerfs.

Previous Stat Article – Analysis of Anti-Mage, and how his pub win rate hit an all time low of 40.6%, and what could be the best way to help prevent this.

 

What IceFrog Should Do Post TI4

Dota 2 has essentially fully established itself as a game. It has achieved what it set out to be; to be a practical successor to Dota 1 that keeps the game the same, but improves it across the board while acting as a foundation for the long term future of the game. The graphics, interface, learning tools, community tools and business model are all vastly superior to the original Dota. But now that these have all started to solidify, what should Ice Frog do to Dota now? Here’s a few things I think he should do, from someone who has spent an ungodly amount of time on this game.

Standardize Interactions

As the remaining heroes finish porting from Dota 1, Ice Frog should re-evaluate the game in order to create a nice polish. He’s already doing it, slowly, but Dota is much more similar to English than Spanish, which is the problem. English as a language is a mess of inconsistencies and randomness, with rules that are broken all too frequently and pronunciation that is all over the place. It makes sense that it’s like this, as the game has evolved over the years, but it would be nice to get across the board standardizations by reducing the number of irregularities.

Example: Heaven Halberd’s Disarm is not removed by Lifestealer’s Rage. It is removed by BKB, Repel, and Blade Fury. This is the only Item effect in the game that BKB dispels, but Rage doesn’t.

Sure, these irregularities have an effect on balance, but they tend to be rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Some polishing up of interactions would be nice, and make it easier for a larger amount of people to know the interactions, without much of a downside.

Scaling Consistency

Like with the irregularities of spell/items interactions, such as the Magic Immunity dispel above, there are some spells that break the nature of consistency. Worst of all, it seems to be for no good reason.

Example: The Mana Cost on Diabolic Edict is 95/120/135/155. This means that per level, the mana cost increases by 25/15/20.

While the majority of skills in the game have a consistent increment, such as Lightning Storm’s Mana Cost of 90/100/110/120, which increases by 10 per level, some skills break it basically just for the sake of it. It honestly just looks very sloppy, and looks like bad game design. Why does Waveform have an inconsistent 140/155/160/165 scaling (15/5/5)? Or Thunder Clap with 90/105/130/150 (15/25/20)?

The point is that it’s an ever so small part of the game that has such a minimal effect on game balance, that probably should just be fixed. They stand out like a sore thumb every time I play, and make Dota 2 look very unpolished to the keen observer.

One of the few inconsistencies that people have noticed, and perhaps one of the few that should stay.

Simplify

There are many things in Dota 2 that are unnecessarily complicated, including the irregularities. But you can easily simplify skills by removing some of the rather unnecessary quirks that the spells have.

Example: Why is Caustic Finale a UAM?

We saw with both Huskar and Ursa, that making some skills no longer been a UAM (orb) isn’t exactly groundbreaking. It buffed the heroes, but a new normal was achieved and nothing game breaking resulted in the change. What is gained from having so many UAM in the game, especially ones that result in less of a change than removing Fury Swipes did? Caustic should have gone out the door a long time ago.

Example: Return damage scales with Base Damage of 16/18/20/22 and a strength % of 26/34/42/50

Is it so critical to Centaur to have Base Damage that adds 2 per levels? What’s wrong with a nice and simple static base damage (of say 18 or 20), and leave the scaling of the skill entirely to the strength percentage? Knowing how skills scale per level is important to playing the game, and simplifying some of it wouldn’t harm anyone.

Stop and Fix the Unintended

I often get the feeling that Ice Frog changes something – and while it reduces the original problem – it then unintentionally results in something else. So when Crystal Maiden lost her 5 base intelligence over 2 patches, I imagined this was to nerf her ability to cast Frostbite and Crystal Nova in early game roaming scenarios. Of course, this then resulted in having the 200/400/600 mana to use Freezing Field considerably harder to achieve. Which I feel unintentionally nerfed Crystal Maiden in an area she was fine for. Another example is when they tried to stop unintended pulls (such as Radiant pulling to their Mid Lane) which also resulted in the camps being much harder to stack.

Or my personal favorite, when in 6.78/9 he made it so Doom’s ultimate now muted 10 more passive skills. This happens to be the only 10 skills that the only other mute in the entire game doesn’t disable (Duel). I believe this is a perfect example of how many inconsistencies discussed above were added to the game in the first place, because a hero was changed and it unintentionally resulted in annoying inconsistencies for something else. In this case it’s the Mute game mechanic. Unless of course, he actually wanted to further complicate the game by having a Strong Mute and a Weak Mute, which seems a tad tedious; surely Mutes should disable the same thing and just balance around it. Humorously enough, some of this is actually bugged, resulting in it (not)muting a few skills it shouldn’t; such as Feast. This is where it becomes ultra-tedious to learn the game mechanics.

Frozen Tears from a hero ignored at TI4

Bizarre, 6.82 and The Future

Some parts of the game I still have trouble fathoming. So Exorcism not only stops when Death Prophet dies, but doesn’t start again when she respawns with Aegis. Whereas Eye of the Storm remains active the entire reincarnation time. Razor is dead, respawning in a few seconds, and the lightning keeps on zapping while being available for his next life. If you want to nerf Razor, start with this silly mechanic. Which leads me onto 6.82…

If there is any hero in the game that needs nerfing, start off by seeing if it can be done while at the same time making the game more flush. My Razor example is something that springs to mind for me. I think this is a good mantra for the future. I’m not saying that every hero should be the same, I’m saying that the game should come with more logic. That you shouldn’t have to remember a endless list of oddities. If you’ve managed to make it this far, you may have gone “well I didn’t know that” in regards to an irregularity or interaction that I mentioned. Which is a good illustration of what I’m trying to communicate.

I like Dota 2, I have thousands of games and hours of it. Maybe this post sounds like somewhat small scale whinging, but I can’t help but notice a very clear lack of polish in the game design. It’s constructive criticism. However, since Dota 2 is continually attempting to improve itself, there is no reason that it can’t be addressed. And addressing issues I’ve mentioned is the primary thing I think Ice Frog should do now, along (of course) with the regular version changes that he does. There are some other issues I have, like how there’s an abundance of carries with a critical strike skill. Overall he does a very good job, but occasionally he falters.

 

Off-topic, but I’ve recently created a Twitter account focusing solely on Dota 2 tips and other helpful advice – aiming to help players with more advanced mechanics and tips. If you are interested in tip based tweets (including relevant mechanics) feel free to follow @ZotaTips here.

Winners and Losers of TI4

Now that The International 2014 has started to wind down, I thought it would be a good idea to report on some of the winners and losers from TI4. Obviously Newbee came out with first place, but across this massive event there were a sleuth of heroes, items, people and more who gained and lost valuable real estate in the Dota 2 scene. I thought it take a quick moment to mention a few of them.

Winner: Skywrath Mage

Although being added to Captain’s Mode in April 2013, Dragonus spread his wings and flew into our faces at TI4. Skywrath has never been a top pick in the pro-scene, until now. My articles consider a 40% or more Pick/Ban rate a top pick, with about 15-20 heroes achieving this each month. So far this month Skywrath has had a 65% BP rate, which means he’s on set to be a top pick for the first time in competitive Dota 2. This is well up from the 12% PB rate from June, as Skywrath burst onto our screens and gained valuable real estate. This is now also spilling over to the pub scene, where Skywrath shot up in popularity going from being in around 9% of pub games, to 13%.

Faceless Void is in a similar situation. While he didn’t receive a pub surge, Void is also on track to be a top pick for the first time in competitive Dota 2. My complete data goes back to December 2012, while my partial data and memory goes back to TI1. Neither have found Faceless Void to be a top pro scene pick; interesting to see the hero pool change so drastically for TI4. Razor has been popular before – a top pick in September 2013 – but also received a TI surge, as can be seen below.

Three heroes Pick-Ban % over the past few months

 

Loser: Jakiro

While it makes sense to me that a hero like Spirit Breaker or Huskar is mostly ignored for the competition, I find Jakiro’s situation the most interesting. Jakiro was given the time of day, being picked 9 times during the tournament. Unfortunately for him, he only won 1 of these 9 games. Drafted by a variety of teams, and generally strong in the ‘Deathball meta’, teams struggled to make Jakiro work. The only win comes from Newbee, while losses came across the board – including by Vici to Cloud 9 on the main stage.

Sand King also had an utterly brutal tournament, to the point where he should probably abdicate. The King went 6-17 resulting in a 26% win rate. For the record, Crystal Maiden wasn’t too surprising; she had a 2% PB rate in June.

Winner: EG

While EG placed third, they are a winner in my books. Overall China was a clear winner for the tournament, but EG was the only team that really stood up to the eastern dominance. They took home over a million dollars, and was the only western team to take a series off an eastern team at the main event. EG knocked Team DK to the losers bracket in a fast 2-0 series. EG and Cloud 9 also managed to win one game in the series that knocked them out of the event.

Newbee are also winners, but not just because they placed first. They managed to come back after a mediocre group stage performance, to start dominating in the bubble bracket and main event. I can only imagine how crazy some fans would be if NaVi followed the same underdog story. LGD gaming – the Chinese qualifying team – also managed a similar story, 10th in the group stages resulting in a 5/6th finish, beating the direct invite IG at the main event.

Winner: Hot_Bid

I’ve watched a number of Hot_Bid interviews before TI4, but this event really brought him into the mainstream. With him doing official interviews for Valve, he got some widespread exposure and some quality interviews. His interviews are available on the official Dota 2 YouTube, and include quality moments with people like Chuan, EnternalEnvy, Blitz, and Valve’s Erik Johnson.

Purge also improved his position, with well spoken and received work on the Noob Stream. Purge is increasing his nice niche of becoming a friendly face with a soothing voice that newer players can look to for guidance. If TI brought in players, then they are already familiar with Purge, which will bode very well for his Dota 2 content. The entire noob stream, and the other casters who worked on it, also got bumped up a notch.

Loser: Zyori

Valve didn’t care about Zyori for TI, which is very interesting judging they invited some people who are incredibly less known than Zyori. I wonder how he’s faring behind the scenes at BTS, especially since they are getting awfully chummy with Basskip and a few others of late. Zyori hasn’t had to best of runs, and still has to put up with what I would describe as an onslaught of idiots making sniffing jokes. Although the ‘snubbing’ makes him lose ground overall, he still did manage to put out some interesting content.

He had a video speaking to a bunch of VIPs as well as an interview Heyoka from LiquidDota. It wasn’t the highest production value, but it had some interesting insights. Available to view on their YouTube.

Winner: Valve + eSports

Obvious winners here. But the 10 million dollar tournament really makes a statement about the scene and increases the likelihood of mainstream media noticing it. Valve also managed to pocket around 30 million dollars from compendiums, which when you minus what it would have cost to stage the event, are still earning some nice profits. Which additionally comes in hand with more Dota 2 success that the tournament brings in.

Autographs are also likely to be a nice boost in revenue for all the personalities that were invited to the event. They got some direct Valve money for working the event, and able to get a bit more via fans.

And Then Some

While not an all inclusive list, I highlighted some key areas – feel free to discuss/think about who your biggest winners/losers are for the event. The English speaking community acted a tad Diretide 2013 for some parts of the tournament, and there was some drama around DK’s draft. There was also a rather long list of issues with the format and production of the event. Valve is a company that attempts to learn from their mistakes, so the chances are they can improve the factors that are within their control. Which hopefully means, TI 2015 will be even better.

Off-topic, but I’ve recently created a Twitter account focusing solely on Dota 2 tips and other helpful advice. If you are interested in tip based tweets (including relevant mechanics) feel free to follow @ZotaTips here.

Anti-Mage Win Rate Hits All Time Low

Two months ago I wrote an article discussing the trends of pub Anti-Mage, specifically that his win rate is in a very steady downward spiral. Two months ago AM’s win rate was hanging around 41.6%. For the first half of July, his pub win rate has dropped again, this time to 40.6%. From the data I have available to me, 40.6% is about the lowest win rate AM has had in the last 2 years. If may be off a few 0.1%, but it’s essentially his all time low. His win-rate is still dropping, a very clear downward trend. But why is this the case?

Itemization

Itemization is a big part of a hero, so I’m going to compare the changes in build rate from 6.80 to 6.81 (and 6.81b) in order to see how people are building AM differently in the last 2 months. He’s dropped 1 raw percent, and itemization is going to show us some valuable information. Keep in mind these are items Anti-Mage finishes the game with.

The same trend is observed as last time I ran the numbers, that Battle Fury is constantly being built more and more. This time the other items don’t move too much, whereas Battle Fury moves more than twice as anything else. Battle Fury had a 40.5% build rate in 6.76, and it increases every patch. Although I did use a different data source last time causing some discrepancy in the exact numbers, the trend is still the same.

We now have two trends: Battle Fury’s build rate on AM is increasing over time, and AM’s win rate is dropping over time. This doesn’t bode very well considering that a large percent of the Dota population are very firmly of the idea that Battle Fury is the way to build the hero. There’s a couple of routes we can go with this knowledge.

Correlation and Causation

The first is the knee-jerk reaction to say that just because the two trends are happening at the same time, doesn’t mean one is causing the other. Which is entirely logical, so lets add in 2 more potential causes: changes in Anti-Mage’s pick rate, and changes in all heroes pick rate.

I record and analyze the difference in heroes pick rates on a month to month basis, so I have that data directly available to me. My post on last month’s changes (June), can be viewed here. Anti-Mage increased 0.66 raw percent in June, and decreased 0.22 raw percent in May. For comparison a notable change in May was that Ember Spirit went down 7.22 raw percent. So basically Anti-Mage’s pick rate goes up and down slightly each month. Thus far this month it is up about 0.28 percent, but is starting to go down again.

I don’t see anything too drastic here, some heroes get massive surges in pick-rates, but Anti-Mage is not one of these heroes. So what about a surge in other pick rates?

Increase In Counters

Tinker and PA have both surged in pick rate recently; AM is good against Tinker, but bad against PA. So I was going to run the pick rate numbers on all 107 heroes, and then see if the average hero now counters Anti-Mage more than before, but I realized I don’t have to. You see, there’s a very basic Dota principle that I think some people seem to forget. Specifically, if the enemy has heroes that your hero matches up badly against, then you should build your hero very differently. Anti-Mage has a terrible 32% win rate against Bloodseeker, which is well below what it should be. If you’re an Anti-Mage against a Bloodseeker, then you might want to go items that allow you to survive his early ganks.

Even if people are playing Anti-Mage counters more than before, it’s technically somewhat irrelevant. Because if Anti-Mage is getting countered more now than before, why is he building more Battle Furies? Why would a hero who is getting countered more, be going greedier builds? You would think that if a hero is getting countered more, the most logical thing to do would be to build safer, not rushing more of a farming item that gives virtually no survivability. Which is likely to result in you dying over and over again to their strong early + mid game presence.

Stubbornness

Which leads me to thinking that the true cause of Anti-Mage’s declining win-rate is player’s overwhelming stubbornness. That is, people are becoming more and more convinced that there is only one way to build the hero, which explains the constant rise in Battle Furies. And even if they are heavily countered, they still build in the same greedy way. I assume they go “if I wanted a carry that came online earlier, I wouldn’t have picked AM“. Since Anti-Mage is going worse, they instead should be going “I should build in a way that makes me come online earlier, because of the way the game is going” even though it’s not what they originally intended to do.

Time and Place

Personally, I feel like the meta is moving away from having heroes that AFK farm for long periods of time. The meta (as well as players) seem to punish players that attempt to abandon their team in order to farm more than every before. Even if they attempt to get other trades, their lack of ability to join team fights in the early and mid game is devastating for their team. And since pubs generally don’t have a well composed team, going full out farm mode is likely to cause crossroads with the other players on your team. Maybe without them even realizing, instead blaming it on the hero, instead of the way you chose to play the hero.

Which leaves me with very simple advice for Anti-Mages. Yes, Battle Fury on Anti-Mage speeds up your farm incredibly. But by building that item you are committing your entire team to a playstyle that they are probably not suited for. This is not a pro-game; where everyone is on the same page, with a cohesive game plan and strategy. (Not to mention there are very strict timing windows for these sorts of items.) This is a pub, and the stats seem to show that going greedy is not working out for Anti-Mages. Whether it be because going greedy against heroes that counter AM more than before is a bad idea, or just because doing so in a pub is bad idea. It doesn’t matter, the end result of a declining win rate is the same. It is being stubborn, and resisting the natural change the game has over time.

I’ll keep my eye on his trends, and post again in a few months. But in the mean time, maybe rethink what you know about the hero? You should think of one thing every time you see an Anti-Mage pick, including when you pick it. That is 40.6%. His win rate from my sample is exactly what you should be thinking. 40.6 per cent; the magic number.

Batrider’s Mediocre Pub Winrate and You

Batrider, despite all his success in the pro scene, has had a very consistent low winrate for pubs. Currently it hovers around a 45% winrate, which is not that fancy. Let me explain some ideas that you might disagree with off the bat, but bare with me here.

The Blink Dagger

The entire purpose of Blink Dagger on Batrider is to that it allows you to get effective pick-offs against the enemy team. Chuck a force staff into the mix, and it becomes an incredible repositioning tool where you can jump in and pull out. We know this, but what offset does this cause? If you’ve read a project I’ve been working on called ZTC, you’ll be familiar with my theory that nothing is really innate, and instead every game you chose a path to build a hero. For example, by rushing Blink Dagger on Batrider you emphasis the initiation characteristic for your hero. The problem is that we have come to the point in the game, where people are only familiar with this one Batrider path; an emphasis on Initiation by rushing Blink into Force. Batrider no longer has any popular alternate builds. Which is interesting, cause not only did it never used to be this way, but the hero can do multiple things really well. Initiation is simply one of them.

Two Years Ago

Two and a half years ago in a Reddit discussion on Batrider, the very top comment in the thread contained this:

Item wise, I just go bottle -> boots -> hood/vit -> treads/manaboots (depends on needs of team) -> blink. Order can be switched around a bit, and he is a very flexible hero. Blink isn’t always necessary, especially if you have another initiator like clock, but as a luxury item is outstanding.

The top comment contains the idea that Blink Dagger is amazing, but isn’t always necessary. Which is something that Batriders seem to forget as time goes on, as heroes change and the meta shifts; that heroes are versatile. I tend to find that there is only 2 core items in the game, BoTs on Tinker, and boots on everyone. As incredible as Blink + Force is on Batrider, as successful as it has been in the pro-scene, it is not the only way to play the hero.

Breaking it Down

If you break it down, the Blink/Force build is entirely about Flaming Lasso. The problem is that the hero is more than one ability, and like every hero in the entire game, they can have success by emphasizing different parts of the hero. I think this is where his winrate problem stems from, the fact that people don’t understand the nature of heroes and builds. Blink Batrider relies on team co-ordination above any other. He generally needs to heavily coordinate with his team in order to get a successful pick off. Which is something that doesn’t really exist in pubs. In the pros, where everyone is on the same page, and people actually know and trust each other, this works wonders. It’s logical that his bad winrate stems from people being unable to reach the full potential of the build, because of the massive difference between pubs and pros.

What Else Can You Do?

Even if you disagree, you should try building Batrider rushing a different item. Firefly does an insane amount of damage, and it can easily do over 100 damage per second. While the turn rate slow is actually unmatched by anything else in the game. Having the tankiness to deal out consistent slow and damage is a viable option. One of my alternate builds is to get a fast Mekanism, I can easily get it under 10 minutes and it is one of those items that has a very high impact when you have it that early – and is great and making your teammates do better.

Suddenly you have great team heals, and are able to an incredible amount of damage, since you have considerably more EHP. I still get a Blink Dagger, because it is a strong item on him, but I recognize that the hero is more than one thing. I get it eventually, later in the game. In fact in the 2 and a half years old Purge Plays video below, he gets Vanguard > Pipe > Blink. A much more teamfight orientated build, which was very popular back then. You tank up in order to let your massive magical damage and turn rate slow destroy in a fight, and then later on get some initiation items. His Lich had a Mek this game, and he also briefly explains his thoughts about blink in relation to tank items.

A Good Dota-er Never Forgets

The Blink build works great in certain environments, but I often think it’s not the best for pubs. Be more versatile with your early game Batrider items, and sure there will be a lot of haters, I’ve been flamed so many times over the years for doing things that were different, but now they are considered normal. Because Dota trends change massively every year. Dragon Knight was never a mid in pubs until people did it in the pro scene, and now sidelane DK is something I rarely ever see, but is a long way from terrible. Be more flexible, have an open mind. Dota trends and builds change every year, Batrider Mek is a perfectly fine path to take, especially if your team has people already emphasizing initiation. Just some food for thought.

[Pub Trends] June Pick Rate Shifts

Here lies the changes in pub pick rates for the June 2014. If you are interested in the pick rate shift from last month, click here.

Landscape

The Summit and ESL One LAN were the two major tournaments this month. The TI4 Immortals were released at the very end of last month, and the TI compendium 10 Hero and Daily Hero challenges are currently active. 6.81b came out a week into the month. These are all potential factors that have influenced hero pick rate changes.

Method

The June pick rates have been compared to those of the previous month, May 2014. Months are sometimes drawn a few hours beforehand. I also use both raw percentage and actual percentage. A hero who goes from 4% pick rate to 2% pick rate has only gone down 2% raw percentage. But he has gone down 50% actual percentage, as that hero is now only in half the games he was previously. Both raw and actual percentages are useful in seeing shifts in pick rates.

Biggest Winners

Gains less than 1.5 not shown

Heroes with recently released immortals seem to be the biggest winner of this month, alongside heroes who had a surge in pro scene picks such as PA, Tinker and Faceless Void. Tinker happens to have both a surge in pro scene play and an immortal, and has skyrocketed by 5.46% raw percent. Juggernaut has neither however, and still managed to a solid gain (very low tier in pro scene). Off the back of a 0.5% gain last month, Juggernaut seems to be the surprise this month, perhaps pubbers noticed the effects from the 6.81b changes, such as to his BAT (1.5 -> 1.4).

Gains less than 15% not shown

While fairly similar, you’ll notice that comparatively Skywrath Mage and Brewmaster have been increasing in popularity this month. Both are very unpopular heroes in pubs, but have been seeing steady gains of late. SM had a steady month but primarily saw massive gains over the past week, which suggest to me his increase in pro-scene play is the likely cause here. Monkey see, monkey do.

Apparently ‘обезьяна’ is Russian for monkey, but doesn’t look humorous enough for some comedic english-russian hybrid sentence stating how pubbers like to copy pro players. ‘Mono’ is the Spanish equivalent though, so I guess perhaps “Dota players have a bad case of Mono”. Ok, that was bad.

Biggest Losers

Losses less than 1% not shown

Pudge and Invoker took huge hits this month, most likely as people flocked to the shiny new things (Immortal/Pro-scene heroes). It would appear that the players who like the pick Pudge and Invoker, are also the players that chase after the latest shiny thing. The rest of the drops appear to be fallout of the 6.81 changes, as last month they were the shiny new thing. SF and LS are at the lower end of the spectrum, but are still interesting to note.

Losses less than 10% not shown

The 6.80 trifecta of Phoenix, Terrorblade and Ember Spirit are all still dropping rapidly as time ticks on. Their recent nerfs hit them hard and have been dropping ever since as they quickly become towards the bottom end of the hero list. All three heroes dropped significantly last month as well.

Overall the month’s changes seems to be controlled by pro-scene picks and immortal heroes, with some fallout from the 6.81 and 6.81b patches. On the bright side, that’s a lot less Pudge and Invoker.

 

[Pub Trends] 6.81b Win Rate Changes

With 6.81b out for almost a week, I did the data mining to see the effects it’s had on heroes. If you are looking for the change in pick rates for the patch, click here.

Method

The 6.81b win rates have been compared to the entire win rates for 6.81. Although the last week of 6.81 would have been most optimal, I was unable to obtain this data. It’s also important to note the change in pick rates during the period, as linked above, are a contributing factor to the change in win rates. Just like the buffs/nerfs are.

Biggest Winners

Mild gains across the board for the buffed heroes. Enigmas 8 -> 11 seconds on Midnight Pulse proved fruitful towards his winrate. While Omni’s constant degen aura buffs have bumped him up a notch to the second highest win rate of the patch at 56.79%, behind only Necrophos’ 59.24%.

Most notably however would have to be Tinker, a hero who received no changes in 6.81b. However if you read my pick rate article, you’ll know that Tinker’s pick rate went through the roof recently – most likely due to Immortals. It would appear that this has had a substantially positive effect on his win rate. My hypothesis to this has a couple of stages. Basically the more someone plays Dota 2, the better they are. While the more they play, the more likely they are to have a Compendium, and thus a Tinker Immortal. This would cause the TI Immortals to have a bigger effect on high tier games, than very low tier games, since a higher proportion of good players have Immortals than really new and bad ones. It thus makes sense that Tinker is being played more by a player base that is skewed more towards better players. This would cause the win rate of the hero to go up, as these players will be better at effectively itemizing and utilizing the hero.

Thus I conclude that Tinker has gone up in win rate, due to the influx of Immortal Tinkers, which has caused the average Tinker player to be better at the game than before.

Biggest Losers

Pudge is the odd one out here, since the other 5 heroes were nerfed. Pudge is probably also effected by the Immortals, but in the inverse of Tinker. However the bigger factor is that the Rot bug was recently fixed, which for a large part of the patch boosted Pudge’s win rate.

Overall Tinker’s win rate shift is probably most curious, and something I will continue to watch. I do however doubt that a bug has caused a surge in win rate, my Immortal hypothesis makes sense to me. Especially considering Tinker is more skill oriented (including mechanical skills like fast finger-work), than other immortal heroes. He also has a tendency to be chronically misunderstood at ultra low levels of the game – where there shouldn’t be a compendium in sight.

[Pub Trends] 6.81b Pick Rate Changes

6.81b has been out for just less than a week now, so I decided to run the numbers on the shift in pick rates for pub heroes. If you are looking for the change in win rates during this period, click here. If you are interested in the pick rate shift from April to May, click here.

Landscape

The Summit LAN has been played during 6.81b, while the TI 2014 immortals were released just a few days before the patch. Chest 58 and 59 were also released a few days ago, with full sets for AM, PA, VS, Luna, Mirana, PL, Riki, BS and the rare sets of Venomancer and Lone Druid. The compendium 10 Hero and Daily Hero challenges are currently active. These are all potential factors that have influenced hero pick rate changes.

Method

The 6.81b pick rates have been compared to those of the previous month, May 2014. I also use both raw percentage and actual percentage. A hero who goes from 4% pick rate to 2% pick rate has only gone down 2% raw percentage. But he has gone down 50% actual percentage, as that hero is now only in half the games he was previously. Both raw and actual percentages are useful in seeing shifts in pick rates.

Biggest Winners

You will notice that increase in pick rates are mostly dominated by heroes with the recently released Immortal items with Tinker coming out in front by far. However both Doom and PA increased. Doom was nerfed with the mana cost on Devour, while PA received a 100 -> 130 attack speed increase on Blink Strike in the patch. She also happened to rise 2.29 raw % from April > May, as she is increasingly becoming a very popular Pub hero. The 2 immortals not pictured are Warlock and Axe. Warlock gained 0.54%, while Axe didn’t move. Axe decreased in pick rate in May as well, going down -2.48%, so perhaps the Immortal just countered the heroes declining pick rate.

The actual % is very similar, but Tinker again is the hero to note. Tinker was in 73% more games in 6.81b than he was in May. That is an incredible increase in play, especially as this was high before Tinker was picked up in quite a few games at The Summit LAN. Pubbers have really latched onto Tinker since the Immortal came out, and most likely in higher tier games. You would assume that the more someone plays Dota, the better they are at the game, and the more likely they are to buy a compendium. It thus stands to reason that the pubs that are hit hardest by token Immortal picks would be higher tier games. So while Tinker is a 73% increase across the board, you can presume that this is higher in environments that have a high amount of compendium players, which is probably high tier. This is of course assuming that better players are still swayed to pick a hero based on a recently released Immortal.

Biggest Losers

There were some major losses this patch, including NAR’Vi’s 1 win to 7 losses at The Summit LAN.

Their performance perhaps gives us insight into how TI Qualifier teams will fare at the main event, while the hero losses gives us rather exciting news. Invoker and Pudge dropped significantly since the patch hit. Two stereotypical pub heroes dropped down, with Snipers gains actually overtaking Invoker causing Sniper to become the 2nd most picked pub hero for the patch. I guess the average pubber is not only a Pudge and Invoker picker, but quickly swayed into shiny new things, such as Immortals. I’m skeptical that the rise in mids such as Tinker and Storm have made these two frequent mid heroes drop in pick-rate; I doubt that different mid match-ups would have that significant of an impact on pick rates. To be fair though, Invoker did receive a few nerfs in 6.81b. However the timing of his pick rate change coincides with the Imortals, and not the patch.

Lich and KotL receive the fall out of the recent Aghs buffs, while Ursa and Huskar have the same with their UAM/Orb removal buff.

I also included Ember and Terror, who were under my threshold to include, but conveniently were the next two heroes. They both felt the fallout of the major nerfs 6.81 brought them – dropping ridiculous amounts – and it’s interesting to see that they are still falling as the days tick by.

Terrorblade’s -14.77% drop means that Terrorblade is currently half as popular than what he was in April. Ember Spirit – although not pictured – is also picked half as much when compared to April.

PA = EG.RTZ + IF

Outside Immortals, the most statistically significant surge in pub pick rate would have to be Phantom Assassin. As said, PA has been increasing over the past few fortnights, but she also happens to be rising in the pro-scene. Arteezy played PA 4 times at The Summit LAN, EG won all these games (overall they went 11 wins to 6 losses). This includes 2 wins in the Grand Final. The only other PA pick was a loss when played by Fnatic. Enternal Envy has also been toying around with the hero in recent weeks.

This is where PA’s pub pick rate over the last week is amazing. She has shot up like no other, and continues to rise. While today’s data is only partially complete; a trend can still be observed. She went from being in 16.5% of games on the 3rd, to 21.9% thus far today. That’s a consistent upwards trend, and is a hero to keep your eye on. She’s on track to be the next Sniper or Mirana.

Bounty Hunter’s Massive New Bloom Shift

Last week I crunched the numbers on AM’s itemization, and came to the conclusion that the greedier an Anti-Mage is, the more likely he is to lose. With Battle Fury frequently being a bad choice. This time I am looking at Bounty Hunter’s infamous Battle Fury. The item is widely hated by a large amount of players, and was removed from the recommended items in the New Bloom update. This hugely changed how pub players are itemizing the hero. Note this analysis does not include any 6.81b data.

Win Rate and Items

Bounty Hunter has had a slowly dropping win rate of the past few patches. Dota Version wise, he has been mostly untouched, with just 3 tweaks to Track. The small change in win rate is a tricky factor to find the cause of. I would assume though it’s primarily a result of item changes and hero popularity shifts. The massive decrease in Ember Spirit picks could have had a negative effect on Bounty. As far as items go however, things are very drastic.

As you can see, 6.80 Bounty Hunters had a Battle Fury when the ancient exploded in 38.1% of games. For comparison Desolator had the 43.03% pickup rate, and Battle Fury on Anti-Mage in the same patch had 60.45%. After the New Bloom update this plummeted to only 23%, which is a massive change for pubs. The likely cause is the New Bloom update reworking recommended items. It removed Battle Fury, and now the core Items are Drums and Desolator. Both of which got a boost to their build rate as BF dropped. Additionally Sange and Yasha was removed from the recommended items, and halved in build rate as a result. A few other items were also removed, as can be seen below.

 

The old suggested (left) next to the current (right)

With Urn of Shadows now being listed in the Early Game section instead of Situational, the build rate also went up from about 4% to 12%. While Drums also got moved – to Core – also resulted in a big change. The issue however, is that Bounty Hunter isn’t winning more than before. The likely conclusion is that a massive decrease in Battle Fury on Bounty has had no impact on his win rate. 38% to 23% is a massive decline in build rate, but his win rate actually went down ever so slightly. Why would this be the case? If Battle Fury is as bad as people say it is, then his win rate should have gone up a fair bit since heaps of people are getting it less.

Breaking Things Down

It’s important to break things down in Dota, to understand why something is the way it is. Battle Fury for example gives you 3 things; Sustainability, Damage, and Creep Clearing. The faster Creep Clearing gives an increased farming ability and is why people didn’t like the item on Bounty. People focused solely on the passive cleave that Battle Fury gives, and justified that because the hero is primarily played as a ganking roamer, he has no need for a farming item. This makes sense. But I assume the flaw with this justification is that Bounty Hunters never got Battle Fury to farm, they got it because it was a very convenient all in one package that gave them the regeneration they needed to keep roaming, alongside a respectable 65 damage. Being recommended as core helps as well, but that was the primary reason it was in Core items to begin with. It’s not because of the Jinada rework which occured years and years ago.

The Battle Fury pickup didn’t drastically weaken his early game. A rushed BF or Midas often gives you better farm, at the cost of an better early game. A Lifestealer who rushes Midas has less lane presence and kill potential than one who rushes Phase Boots. But this never seemed to be the case with Bounty; it wasn’t brown boot into BF, it was an eventual BF.

Both in 6.80 and 6.81 it would appear that most Bounties are getting the same thing. They get primarily Damage and Sustainability. Whether the regen is through Battle Fury, Urn, or Vlads, and the Damage through Deso, Mkb, or Battle Fury appears to be mostly irrelevant. They are getting the same thing anyway, they’re just doing it in slightly different ways. There are difference between the items you get, but they are not statistically relevant in the large picture. A large part of the items are still very similar; damage and sustain. There’s no cleave, but there’s Corruption, which does a different thing, but an item is more than the passive/active. They are also likely to be playing the hero the same way, as a ganking roamer. They’re not suddenly getting Mobility items over a Battle Fury, they’re just using alternate items to achieve a very similar outcome.

At the End

Personally I prefer a Bottle, which isn’t suggested for some reason. I think in your average pub Bounty can do more than he can in the pro scene, and thus shouldn’t get a Dagon. I think that a Bottle and some stats, into a damage item and perhaps a BKB is a very solid way to build the hero. Perhaps chuck some utility with a Vlad or Orchid in there somewhere.

From a Statistical stand point though, you would assume if Battle Fury is terrible on Bounty, a massive decrease in the item’s popularity would cause a surge in win rate. But it didn’t. I can thus primarily conclude that although widely seen as not optimal, Battle Fury on Bounty seems to end up doing almost the exact same thing as another item. If you want Damage and Regeneration on Bounty, how you get it is statistically irrelevant to the outcome of your game. I would assume that the more important aspects in playing Bounty, are doing things like moving around the map effectively, and getting frequent high impact Tracks off.

Statistically though, going Battle Fury on Bounty Hunter in a Pub, puts you in no worse of a position than buying the items you would otherwise buy.

 

 

Quick Rundown Analysis of 6.81b

6.81B Version Changelog just came out, so I thought I’d give a quick rundown of what the changes mean.

Ancient Apparition

Ice Vortex slow decreased from 18/22/26/30% to 15/20/25/30%

I actually don’t think this matters too much. From what I’ve seen, a large amount of AAs max it first anyway, so it just makes him ever so slightly weaker early on.

Batrider

Sticky Napalm bonus damage is now halved against non-hero units

This is huge. One of Batrider’s biggest strengths was his ability to catch up on farm; a catch-up + back-up plan if he got zoned out of the offlane. With a simple level 2, he could easy clear stacked camps with a 1-0-1 build, doing as much damage with Napalm as Firefly with simply 2 stacks. This massively hurts the rate at which he can get his core up, which will most likely delay his early game impact and his Blink. To be fair though, he can does a heap of damage.

Bounty Hunter

Shadow Walk duration increased from 15/20/25/30 to 20/25/30/35

With a cooldown of 15 seconds, this means Bounty Hunter can keep in permanent invis at level 1 much easier. Level 1 has a 1 second fade time, which made it a tad awkward being permanently invis when the cooldown and duration were both 15. It also makes it much easier to abuse the fade time bonus damage ‘bug’, as you can get the bonus damage both at the end and start of every invis, and then repeat. Much more legroom than before.

Doom

Devour manacost rescaled from 60/50/40/30 to 60

Devour was always too cheap, and now it’s a bit better off. This primarily means that Dooms have to be very good with mana management, as using a Scorched Earth, Shockwave, or another creep ability will have a much bigger impact on their Devour efficiency than before.

Drow Ranger

Gust knockback duration increased from 0.5 to 0.6/0.7/0.8/0.9

In 6.80 it was a 0.2 duration, then in was buffed to 0.5, and now it is buffed again. It’s essentially now a 0.9 second stun at max level, which is also likely to look really awkward. Cause they’re moving the same distance as before, just much much slower. I imagine it looks like they’re falling in slow-mo.

Earthshaker

Turn rate improved from 0.6 to 0.9

Echo Slam’s Initial Damage, Echo Search, Echo Damage AOE increased from 525, 550, 500 to 575, 575, 575

Fixing silly values is something IF has been doing for a while now, and Echo Slam has it this patch. As for the Turn Rate, it means ES now turns much faster. He’s actually now has the 6th fastest Turn Rate in the game. Remember how much better Void was when he got his buffed last patch? Playing ES just got a whole lot smoother, and helps counter the nerfs to creep-blocking with fissure.

Elder Titan

Echo Stomp damage increased from 80/85/90/95 to 80/90/100/110

Echo Stomp is actually a tad silly in the sense that it does the damage twice. At max level it will do 110 magical damage, and then do 110 physical damage. From memory it’s because the Spirit stomps as well, for magical damage. If you have no Spirit out at the time, then one is quickly summoned on top of you just for the stomp.  Effectively Stomp got 30 more damage overall though.

Enigma

Midnight Pulse duration increased from 8 to 11

What’s this, like the 8th Midnight Pulse buff in a row?

Invoker

Forged Spirits 33% magic resistance removed

Cold Snap damage reworked from the initial and secondary proc damage of 60/30 to 7xQuasLevel per proc

Deafening Blast’s Disarm is now dispelled when Magic Immunity is applied

I hate this hero, but this is a step in the right direction. The problem however is that Deafening Blast’s Disarm is probably still not Purgable. So say you’re a Slark, Invoker can just Blast your smoke cloud and it can’t be purged. So you are disarmed for a fairly long while. Hopefully next patch it will be purgable. Keep in mind though that his other skills, such as Ice Wall, still isn’t dispelled by magic immunity. Which is unfortunate.

Juggernaut

Omnislash damage per slash rescaled from 175-250 to 200-225

Base Attack Time improved from 1.5 to 1.4

Omnislash is basically the same, just a tad less RNG. As for his BAT, it was 1.6, then last patch it was improved to 1.5, and now it’s improved again. Of course, this means Jugg now has the fastest BAT in Dota 2. Although technically he is 2nd, since Alchemist gets a faster one under Chemical Rage.

Leshrac

Pulse Nova damage increased from 66/100/144 to 80/120/160 (Scepter from 100/150/200 to 100/160/220)

Leshrac used to be played occasionally as a solo mid, such as by Darer a few years back. I feel like a buff to his ulti is more of a buff to core Leshrac, since his other skills as really good to level up.

Lina

Light Strike Array stun duration increased from 1.6 to 1.6/1.7/1.8/1.9

Attack Range jokes aside, this is also a minor but noticeable buff. Keep in mind that Lina was a bottom tier hero in the pro scene last month, but she is pretty good at what she does, and now has more room to combo with at later levels.

Lycan

Howl duration decreased from 12 to 10

Howl bonus damage reduced from 20/30/40/50 to 14/26/38/50

Mirana

Sacred Arrow minimum stun duration decreased from 0.5 to 0.01 (maximum duration is still 5 seconds growing linearly)

Sacred Arrow minimum damage reduced by 40 (maximum damage is still 190/280/370/460 growing linearly)

Two heroes that are top of the Pro and Pub scene at the moment, in different ways. Lycans who had the Token Howl point is now not as potent, while Mirana is less stupid at point blank range. I feel like you shouldn’t nerf Lycan in a way that punishes the new token build, since having it in the game adds to his skill build order versatility. Mirana’s changes however are long overdue, and that’s coming from someone with over 300 pub games as her. For clarity, her arrow now has an extra 40 bonus damage (based on distance), and the base damage was nerfed by 40 as a result.

Ogre Magi

Multicast’s passive manacost penalty on Fireblast reduced from 30/70/110 to 20/40/60

Bloodlust can now be cast on Magic Immune allies

Quite a few players have been maxing Ignite first recently, and these changes probably won’t effect that. So his early game skill builds are still very versatile. It does however buff his mid and late game much more, and makes Blood actually useful later on. Also try and keep in mind that with level 3 Fireblast now costing 50 less mana, it makes it easier to use again (late into a fight), when Unrefined Fireblast has drained more of your mana.

Omniknight

Degen Aura slow increased from 7/14/21/28% to 10/18/26/34%

Omniknight and Ogre actually both have really good pub winrates, yet have basically never been picked in the Pro scene. I doubt this change does anything incredible for Omni, just makes him more annoying.

Phantom Assassin

Phantom Strike bonus attack speed increased from 100 to 130

Queen of Pain

Shadow Strike cast range increased from 435 to 450/475/500/525

PA is another buff to an outcast hero. Pros have been slightly experimenting with her lately, and technically this is a big increase to her Phantom Strike. QoP buffs are actually quite huge though. QoP’s attack range is 550, which means at later levels she can use dagger almost as far as she can right click. It’s also larger than Scream’s 475 aoe, which is something to keep in mind while chasing with that 4 second dagger cooldown.

Riki

Smoke Screen cooldown reduced from 13 to 11

Skywrath Mage

Ancient Seal damage amplification increased from 18/24/30/36% to 30/35/40/45%

Riki is a minor tweak, to an already strong skill. Skywrath however has a massive buff. He moves really fast, with solid int growth, and now a crazy 30% amp with just 1 level of the skill. Sky isn’t as level reliant now, and I honestly expect him to be seen more.

Slardar

Bash bonus damage increased from 40/60/80/100 to 60/80/100/120

Treant Protector

Leech Seed damage per pulse decreased from 24/36/48/60 to 15/30/45/60

Treant got the nerfs his needed, his First Blood capacity was insanely high before. Slardar got a strong, but apparently irrelevant one. In 6.80 he recieved “Bash damage increased from 40/50/60/70 to 40/60/80/100”, and I did the numbers a few weeks into the patch and found something scary. His pub winrate changed 0.03% from the change. Basically nothing. It took me massively off guard when I saw it, but it happened. Perhaps this buff will do more, but I still remember how amazed I was when his last buff didn’t do much for him pubwise.

Tusk

Snowball cooldown reduced from 21 to 21/20/19/18

Walrus Punch cooldown reduced from 30/24/18 to 25/20/15

Undying

Intelligence growth increased from 2.0 to 2.5

Undying is obviously a solid buff, Tusk is however a tad more interesting. Since his rework his pub win rate plummeted, but it has been steadily rising up ever since. I expect these new changes to really help Tusk later on in the game, that is if he can help his crippling mana problems.

Windranger

Focus Fire manacost decreased from 150 to 75/100/125

Zeus

Lightning Bolt vision and truesight duration increased from 3 to 4.5

Lightning Bolt search area of effect increased from 250 to 325

Focus Fire is one of the most underrated skills in the game, primarily because everyone believes all her other skills are more worth the skill points. With these changes however, I disagree. I think it is fairly solid to get an early level of Focus Fire, and at least have a level of it by 10. It’s honestly much better than people give it credit. Zeus however just dewards better. Generally you needed two bolts to deward a ward, with the increased duration you should easily be able to kill the ward with the vision of just one.

Mjollnir

Recipe cost increased from 600 to 900

Static Charge duration decreased from 20 to 15

I actually think that’s a tad of an over nerf, but a lot of noobs didn’t even know about it before it became OP. So perhaps this was IF plan all along, at least now a heap more people are aware of it. It was something a lot of people ignored 2 years ago, and while it’s not as strong as it was a few months ago, it’s at least more known.