Dota 2: Top 3 most picked heroes in current meta and desired community changes

The top three heroes leading the current meta trend are Mirana, Nightstalker and Lycan. At divine/immortal rank, Mirana was picked 36.33% and won 53.74% this past week. Nightstalker is picked 30.43% and straight 53.55% at divine/immortal rank. Lycan was only picked 5.25% but won 56.05%. All these metrics are recorded for the week of September 23, 2019.

That makes these three heroes hot picks in the current meta. Mirana is quite popular recently but it is really popular now. Night Stalker wasn’t considered a top hero before but is now one of the top picks. Lycan has long been a hero that gamers need to learn to play and now have an extremely high win rate.

MIRANA

STRENGTH

Mirana is one of the most versatile and unique heroes in the game. She can play from position 1 to 5 and no items are forced to level up. There is no wrong way to build. The way up depends on the progress of the game. You can go to guardian greaves, dagon, or force staff or pipe of inisight, without fear of being watched by your teammates.

This variety gives it a big advantage over other heroes in the game – heroes that require the exact same items, like Clockwerk, mostly require a force staff. If you can adjust your build and position depending on the game, it will be difficult for the opponent to capture you. This explains Mirana’s high win rate.

Mirana also possesses strong teamfight moves. Her Ultimate allows the whole team to become invisible, which can be used to initiate combat or escape. In addition, if you can hit “Arrow” early in the game, the opponent can be stun for a long time, helping you to win a life in the laning phase or deal massive damage that the opponent can’t stand.

CHANGES THAT MAY HAPPEN

Mirana was nerfed a bit in the latest patch. The hero’s Arrow is too strong, so Valve has reduced the base damage and increased the bonus damage – which comes from Arrow’s long range. Mirana’s ultimate also increases manacost.

Valve has a hard time nerfing Mirana’s unique attributes, like the long range, which allows the hero to harass opponents during the laning phase from a safe distance, or the massive stun duration from the hero’s arrow. Maybe Mirana will have her stats like agility or intelligence changed.

By reducing agility or intelligence, Mirana becomes less agile and forces the hero’s playstyle to be either spell caster or hand attack. Reducing Mirana’s mobility could eliminate one of the hero’s strengths in the recent meta.

NIGHT STALKER

STRENGTH

Night Stalker is another versatile hero that can be played in many positions, usually 3 or 1, but other positions are no exception. NS has been buffed continuously lately and it has paid off.

In addition to his versatility, Night Stalker is one of the fastest and most resilient heroes in the game. At level 7 and at night, the hero can solo kill most of the heroes on the map. You can’t farm in the safe lane if the support is gone in the early and mid game – otherwise you’ll be hit and killed by NS.

With the new Aghanim’s Scepter for Night Stalker, this hero can farm fast and deal massive AoE damage in teamfight. Daylight used to be this hero’s weak point in the past, but now, with the new Aghanim’s Scepter, it’s become a strong point for NS to farm quickly.

With the small changes added up, along with the new Aghanim’s Scepter, Night Stalker was finally considered ‘overwhelming’.

CHANGES THAT MAY HAPPEN

Night Stalker is hard to kill, can be ganked, plays multiple positions, farm fast, is very strong early in the game, and has an extremely annoying silence AoE. Maybe valve will take some of the above from the Night Stalker?

Losing 1 or 2 armor can make the first 5 minutes of this hero’s game difficult. After the first 5 minutes, Night Stalker starts to work, but if the laning phase goes badly, the hero may not be able to solo kill other heroes on the first night or the second night.

In addition, Aghanim’s Scepter also needs to be nerfed. Hitting all opponents AoE seems too strong, maybe only the four closest standing pieces get hit. That will reduce Night Stalker’s fast farm potential and teamfight ability.

LYCAN

Lycan is always a draft based pick. With a pick rate of only 5.25% in divine/immortal ranks, that still holds true. Since it’s a match-based pick, the hero’s win rate will be higher than other easy-to-play heroes, like Viper, because Lycan can only be played by those who know the hero well.

Lycan is a hero who is good at split push and joins the teamfight in time. Recently, Agahnim’s Scepter buffed the hero to add wolves to the lane, making the lane push process even more effective.

The latest patch buffs the bonus scepter by 1 more wolf, and reduces the gold bounty again. The patch also reduced Lycan’s ultimate cooldown.

The Scepter bonus changes the game in favor of Lycan and his teammates. With each lane pushed, the team has more and more space. Lycan’s map becomes larger and teammates have more chances to farm and capture vision than opponents. Slowly, it makes a difference in networth, giving Lycan and the team a better chance of winning due to having more items.

Also, with the ultimate cooldown reduction, Lycan can join teamfight more often. It’s always great to carry a team in a teamfight because who doesn’t want to win as much teamfight as possible, right?

CHANGES THAT MAY HAPPEN

Since Lycan is still a match-based pick, but has such a high win rate, adding a bonus to Aghanim’s Scepter is probably unnecessary. 56.05% win rate in the past week is too high.

Valve just buffed Lycan’s ability in teamfight by lowering his ultimate cooldown, and increasing his farm ability with the Aghanim’s Scepter buff.

Since this hero becomes strong when farming and can join teamfight early thanks to the faster ult, early game nerf is probably the right thing to do. Having to wait longer to be strong, Lycan needs to farm more before feeling comfortable in combat.

This puts pressure on Lycan’s teammates. They were forced to create more space, and at the same time help the opponent more, because Lycan could not participate in teamfight without enough items and levels.

So, reducing base damage or initial strength can fix this insane 56.05% win rate.

According to dotabuff