Analysis of the top tier Carry version 7.07

7.07 seems to have brought back mainstream carries like Anti-Mage, Morphling, and Medusa. The way to split the creeps and the XP bonus system makes it easier to overwhelm the opponent’s offlaner and deny. With the Shrine being moved deeper into the jungle, teams can no longer play actively in the enemy jungle like before.

We’ll take a look back at the carry role and the heroes that are booming in 7.07, including in pub and pro.

Every time a major balance update comes out, pub players will make great use of the strengths of one or two heroes. These heroes will be more popular and will often be nerfed in the next patch. With 7.07, one of those heroes was Anti-Mage.

In just one week, Anti-Mage increased its win rate from 49% to 55%, while its pick rate increased from 9% to 29%. Pub players find AM to be extremely strong, to say the least. With safelane now harder to compete with, Battle Fury a bit cheaper, and with the new talent, Anti-Mage becomes extremely powerful.

From there, the new talent is pushed to level 20. Additionally, Blink’s cooldown is reduced by one second at level 4, and the level 15 talent allows the Anti-Mage to choose to reduce Blink’s cooldown or add 15 Agility.

The hero was then nerfed and the win rate went back to 49%, but this AM is still in the top tier pick, depending on the draft. With heroes like Medusa and Storm Spirit growing in popularity, Anti-Mage is increasingly being picked based on the drafts of the two teams.

It’s been a while, Specter has a very high win rate (~55%) in pubs. Specter is hard to kill and doesn’t require team play. This hero’s split-push ability is very annoying and can join the teamfight at any time. Specter’s new talent makes the hero better than ever, and at level 25 you’ll probably kill yourself before you kill Specter.

Like other split push heroes, Specter can push on his own but can also help his teammates when needed, something that some other split-push heroes can’t do. Specter can pop up for kills and the Urn of Shadow item is becoming more and more popular in Specter builds, especially now that it can be upgraded to Spirit Vessel – an item with stats that help Specter more.

Specter is not very popular in pro games compared to pubg, because this hero doesn’t go with the party or help push towers. Even in pub, this hero is not picked much (only 7% pick rate), but once picked, this hero will definitely make a splash.

After the rework, Tiny became one of the weakest heroes in the game and needed to be buffed. Icefrog was forced to edit it, but they overstepped it and made Tiny too strong, so they had to nerf again. As of 7.07c, Tiny seems to be stable. The pub win rate doesn’t reflect that (46%) but the pros are already starting to like the hero. New ability that allows tiny to farm ancients much faster and earlier. Overall, this hero ’causes waves’ faster without Blink Dagger and has a lot of potential for ganking in lane. Tiny does not need to invest too much in defensive items thanks to the increased Status Resistance.

Tiny can handle most melee heroes well and can stand up against ranged carries on her own.

Chaos Knight became the top pick in the Europe and CIS meta after TI. This hero becomes too valuable during early attacks and lane push potential. Only a few carries have the ability to gank in the early lane like CK and the lack of ability to farm quickly can be made up for with Midas.

CK’s ability to deal physical damage with Phantasm is almost undisputed, and the hero is extremely difficult to kill once he has some defensive items.

Medusa and Razor are two popular heroes both in competitive and pub and effective at the moment. One reason they’re stronger is because of their flexible laning. These heroes can be played in any lane, mainly mid and safelane. This allows pros and pubs to have more flexibility in drafting, something other carries often cannot do.

Terrorblade is usually in the top carry. TB’s skill set makes it very difficult for the opponent to kill this hero if not coordinated or enough moves to lock his legs. In addition, with overwhelming push power will make TB a situational pick in the game. This hero doesn’t take too long to air – what makes TB stand out from the illusion heroes that often rely on Radiance and/or Octarine to shine.

The carries now take on quite a few roles. With the increased number of duplicate heroes that can go mid, carry/safelane heroes have to sacrifice quite a bit in the current pro meta. This is why we rarely see a hero who specializes only in safelane on the list of heroes that are picked a lot at events.

Source: dotabuff