Dota 2 treant protector rampage shoes

Buff Me: Balancing For Underplayed Pub Heroes

Dota tends to get balanced around the professional meta, but now it’s also time to take a closer look into the failed heroes of the pub meta. Dota 2 treant protector rampage shoes In the past, when it came to which heroes to balance, look no further than the pick/ban rate of heroes at premier tournaments. Patch 6.87c nerfed the top 3 most contested heroes of the Manila qualifiers and 6 out of the top 11. Then patch 6.88 came after the Manila Major, where 24 out of 25 of the heroes who were unpicked received some sort of buff. What about the forgotten heroes of pubs? How does Valve begin to balance in that context?

“Is This Hero Good?”

Balancing around competitive play preserves Dota’s integrity as an esport. But that doesn’t always matter when it comes to pub players. Take Shadow Demon, for instance: he’s one of the top supports in competitive play, but is in the bottom third of played heroes in pubs. His hero design may be functionally sound enough to succeed in the field test of pro tournaments, but something must be lacking if casual players aren’t catching on.

Shadow Demon currently the 82nd most popular hero

Hero design is part “how it works” and also “how it feels.” Pubs tend to follow in the footsteps of professional meta, which is not always the case. Chen will always remain one of the least picked heroes in Dota 2, regardless of where he fits in the meta and how many ancient creeps he can control. Batrider is another such example of a hero who is great in professional play, but under performs amid the clumsy execution of pub players.

The strength and effectiveness of heroes are enough to carry them into the professional meta, but it’s not enough for pubs. The lack of interest in heroes like Shadow Demon is simply that they aren’t that fun to play. The design of Shadow Poison is delayed gratification, not doing any perceivable damage until there are enough stacks, and the sound that accompanies it is a bang on a sheet of aluminum. For pub players, good heroes don’t always become popular heroes.

“Is This Hero Fun To Play?”

Whether a hero is good may be the only requirement for pros, but whether it’s fun to play is one that also matters for pub players. Razor is one of the most boring heroes to play, and watch, yet pros couldn’t care less. Pubs, however, will continue to pass on Abaddon, who has been a predictable, top 5 hero in win rate, and a bottom 30 hero in popularity. Omniknight, the perennial king of pubs, will never be first picked or banned in pubs.

The factors of heroes being good to play and being fun to play aren’t always discrete. They’re in a fine balance. The numbers of turn rate, move speed, and BAT are constantly tweaked for competitive balance, and those affect how it feels to control that hero in the game. The base attack speed, and animation, of Juggernaut and Anti-Mage makes them two of the more fun carries to last hit with in lane. The same quality also makes playing Omniknight a chore to last hit with.