Dota 2 pub scrubs 10 season

Is Dota Ready For Chen?

Let’s face it: no one plays Chen. In the past 12 months, he’s picked at a 1.06% rate across all pub games. Compare this to the most popular hero Pudge, who you’re more likely to see on a factor of 33 times more in your game. Chen’s unpopularity is historic, even during ages when he was actually good in the meta. Dota 2 pub scrubs 10 season

Dedication from Snith, the player with the most Chen games played in the top 100 Player Rankings

While pub trends tend to follow the latest pro tends, Chen is one of the few heroes that’s quite stubborn to meta trends. His pick rate has remained stable, even after being the 4th most contested hero at PGL Bucharest and the 4th most banned hero at ESL One Katowice.

A History Of Buffs

Chen has been receiving buffs ever since patch 6.79, which then nerfed his Hand of Gold cooldown. Some of the most stark changes include three sub patches, from 7.06d-7.06f, that tweaked his Hand of Gold heal from 200/300/400 to 250/375/500. Then since 7.06, Holy Persuasion has had its cooldown reduced from 30/26/22/18 to 10 on each level and its mana cost reduced from 100/110/120/130 to 70/90/110/130.

Along with his recent movement speed boost, Chen became even more of a nightmare at earlier levels. The change to the gold bonus for stacking camps helped his development through the mid game. And in 7.07, he received a 20% XP talent at level 10, which was then buffed to 35% in 7.07c. This became the standard choice among pro Chen players.

Talents helped support heroes maintain relevancy into the mid and late game, when before their only recourse was dependent on items. Patch 7.07 was a turning point when it changed Holy Persuasion to allow sending back creeps. Holy Persuasion is often necessary as a level one skill, but it didn’t do anything for a minute after the initial creep spawn. Allowing Chen to send back lane creeps gives him the ability to mess with the creep equilibrium—crucial to any offlane.

If patch 7.07 wasn’t already enough, 7.07d gave non-trivial boosts to his base damage (+5) and movement speed (300 to 310), and patch 7.09 gave a bonus 15% gold bounty bonus to the hero that stacked the camp. This alone buffed support heroes who could clear camps, such as KOTL at ESL Katowice and Sand King at PGL Bucharest. But Chen is a beneficiary to this change as well, in both offlane and support roles.

Does It Matter?

How underrated does Chen have to be until pub players start picking him up? Or is it just that heroes that require controlling more than one unit will never be popular? The usual suspects of Visage, Arc Warden, Lone Druid, Meepo, Beastmaster, and Broodmother rest at the bottom of our pick rate charts. Even Lycan, who has a staggering 58% win rate in the 4-5k+ MMR bracket, is 99th in popularity.

There are some exceptions. Nature’s Prophet is still popular, but it may have more to do with how 60% of players play him as a jungle hero. Then there’s Enchantress, who is the closest analog to Chen and once picked in pro games when the other was already taken. She’s picked nearly 4 times as much as Chen in pub games. But in her case, she tends to transition to a late game damage dealer than a herdsman.

Chen, in his current form, may never be popular, no matter how popular he is in the competitive meta or how inherently strong he may be overall. There was one glimpse of hope, back when talents were introduced in 7.00. His level 15 talent at the time gave 25% spell amplification, opening up an alternate build as a spell caster. Granted, his skill kit didn’t have much synergy at all with the talent, which is why it was quickly replaced in 7.02. But it was an opportunity to refresh the hero, like how Ember Spirit had his magic damage build. What would Chen be without his creeps?