Dota 2: Cores that thought strong but weren’t strong in 7.28

Last time, we talked about strong but not strong supports in 7.28. A point that may have been missed in the previous post is a big reason why those sports lost to the core – the main role is farming. This post won’t talk about that though, as we’ll be talking about overrated heroes in the current patch and why picking these heroes later in the draft isn’t a good idea in every game. .

OFFLANE THINKING STRONG BUT NOT STRONG: MARS

Mars is currently the 4th most popular hero at Divine rank and above, but the hero win rate at all ranks is below 48%. The hero’s win rate and popularity have increased significantly since the new patch came out, but it seems that players have found a way to counter this terrifying hero.

Mars’ new Shard and Scepter are both excellent. One is a very powerful tool for farming and lane pushing, making high ground confrontations with Mars extremely frustrating. The other item has terrifying late-game potential, both in terms of DPS as well as increased controllability.

Overall, in the last few patches, this hero has not weakened. Mars is still a reliable teamfight and lane suppressor. However, that alone is not enough.

The first big problem is that a lot of the popular position 1s these days don’t care about Mars in lane. Heroes like Monkey King and Ursa can dominate in lane, while other popular heroes like Juggernaut and Wraith King can easily survive.

The second problem is the lack of reliable lockdown and immunity-piercing. This has been around for a long time, but this time around, the current meta is almost all around mobile heroes. Connecting Arena of Blood and Spear of Mars to heroes like Puck or Void Spirit is very difficult. While the combo to get to carry position 1 is almost impossible at high rank, because players at this level know how to increase and use BKB effectively.

The last point, Mars is not reliable enough to overwhelm the lane as well as initiate teamfights. A lot of the problems Mars is facing is not due to design flaws, but to a tendency to play at high ranks. Mars can still be a strong hero for the time being, but there are certain heroes that need to be met – but these heroes are not very popular these days.

MID THINKING STRONG BUT NOT STRONG: SHADOW FIEND

Shadow Fiend is the iconic hero of Dota. From the early days, SF was used to determine who was the better mid player, thereby creating the global “SF 1v1 mid” truth. One thing we cannot deny is that Shadow Fiend requires good skills to promote.

Skill is something that gamers rank Divine and above are not lacking, but SF’s winning record is still not very good. Even when buffed in the laning phase and buffed with Aghanim’s Shard for laning, SF is still not strong.

So is it the trend of the game that affects that result? Is SF really strong, or is it because it doesn’t fit the meta of mobile heroes? The answer is yes and no.

Apparently SF has meta issues, and they’re pretty much the same as Mars: it’s hard for SF to tie their spells together. Even the Eul’s + requiem combo can be dodged by many popular heroes. And things don’t stop there.

The previous SF wasn’t very successful even when the meta started to change. Hero win rate at all ranks is lower than 50% for quite a long time. That is understandable at low rank because SF players don’t know how to play well. But at Devine rank and above, the low win rate shows a lot of weaknesses in this hero.

Like Mars, Shadow Fiend isn’t too weak to be unusable, but still weak enough to make the hero not an optimal choice in games. The article thinks the big problem that the hero is facing right now is the lack of idiosyncrasies.

Shadow Fiend lags behind other hand-to-hand DPS heroes, and the hero also falls short of most other magic heroes in terms of damage dealt. More importantly, while spell SF can be very powerful when it comes to damage, especially with new shards, the hero doesn’t offer as much support as other magic damage heroes. At least until SF gets the level 25 talent and Scythe, but by then it’s probably too late.

CARRY THINKING STRONG BUT NOT STRONG: PHANTOM ASSASSIN

This part does not need a lengthy explanation. Players who pick PA rarely win: they just want to hear the ‘bloody’ sound every time they crit. That’s probably the only reason this hero was picked. PA currently has a win rate of less than 46% at Divine rank and above.

Having the name PA on this list will definitely be opposed by some brothers in the community because you will think that Phantom Assassin is a strong hero. The reason for this thinking comes from a false sense of strength, about how this hero wins his game.

Losing to PA who farmed very well must say very uncomfortable. In games like that, especially when you’re a support that can’t keep up with Ghost Scepter, it doesn’t feel good at all. Of course, in games where you’re a hero that doesn’t deal much damage, has poor survivability, and a bad laning phase, we don’t want to talk about that match at all.

Phantom Assassin used to be very weak before patch 7.28. After that, the hero was nerfed and also buffed, but overall still not strong when playing independently. The hero can be boosted by effective buffs from her teammates, but her best companion, Magnus, is performing very poorly. PA can work well with armor debuffs in the team, but Slardar, Dazzle and Shadow Fiend are not strong right now. And even if it’s strong, Dota 2 still has better heroes to make good use of the armor reduction effect.

PA currently balances out in low-rank pubs, due to a misconception of ‘illusion power’ rather than the hero’s true strength. The article thinks it is best not to pick this hero if you play solo. And if you play in a party, it’s ok.

So what do readers think about the heroes mentioned above? Do you agree with the article or are there more ‘brilliant’ candidates than the names mentioned above? Please share your opinion in the comments section below the post.

According to dotabuff

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