1st ty

Segundo!

Kisias

Finally, Nature’s Prophet received a significant nerf in 7.01 and no longer has access to the previous best talent in the game. This makes his level 25 a lot less scary.

But is it as good as +6 treants?

4th again ...

5x ty

"Finally, Nature’s Prophet received a significant nerf in 7.01 and no longer has access to the previous best talent in the game. This makes his level 25 a lot less scary."
+6 Treants LUL

Jokes aside, it was one of, if not THE worst lvl 25 talent of all heroes. The change to x2 hp/dmg for treants made it so much better. Still doesnt change how badly people play him though.

as I wrote earlier - Arc Warden must be rebuilded. Now this is just a bigger creep- weak, no escape mechanics, all his spells are countered by using brain, his 25lvl passives are just a jokes. ~100 dmg more from sparks in late game? Really? His ult CD is so long- now you must think - do you need clone next to you or sent it to clean a wave. Horrible - this hero has a potencial.

Phantom lancer is really a cancer in pubs- it's impossible to win game with him after he buy diffusal blade. Tried to fight him with bristle- no chances - maximum needles on him and nothing- no mana... no nothing...

Nice Furion jokes, m8

+6 Treants.. Kappa lul

But is it as good as +6 treants?

You should have said something about poor Arc Warden :/

The nature prophet joke at the end got me, nice one xD

Windrunner - repick. Man it's hard being ginger waifu. I'll still play her though. But he's right. Unless i go mid with her, game is lost

MK winrate isn't high because people don't understand his potential yet
Back when arc was broken he had an even lower winrate than MK does right now but it was still universally agreed that he was OP

Now look at poor arc, hope MK gets nerfed to shit like him too

huskar, arc warden needs rework, huskar is unable to win any 1v1 matchups and becomes a very big nuisance with heroes like dazzle oracle which allow huskar immunity to death makes him dumb but the hero is unable to shine in solo pub matches very weak, mostly kills himself in the process of killing a hero. Arc warden has very less survivability the evasion of ranged attacks only has made his magnetic field fairly weak and only suitable in pushing, and the huge nerf of not being able to use consumables makes the hero lose its strength

Thanks for amazing article!

This patch exceptionally favorers early to mid game teamfight or ganker oriented heroes. Games are generally not that long for some heroes like Anti mage, Naga and Medusa to realize their full potential.

@End

I think you are hinting that people universally agree that MK is OP, but that's not the case. Take a look back to the article regarding him earlier on this website and you'll see a rather spirited conversation from both sides of the coin. There are a healthy number of ways to counter him currently (destroy trees, flying vision, medium time stuns, heck just get a dragon lance or have any means of escape), and it's clear that people are using those methods to deal with him. His winrate hovers near the middle in large part due to the fact that he fits into many kinds of drafts, rather than building a draft that relies on his success. That is to say, he does well if his team does well. So I cannot agree that he is universally considered OP.

Second, I disagree that people do not understand his potential. I believe that a month's time is more than enough for the community to understand the large majority of any hero's potential.

Third, as this article states, winrate is a single aspect of a larger picture. Winrate is determined by how often a hero is picked and wins, NOT on how often it SHOULD be picked and wins. Lower MMR tiers are often (correctly) disregarded for these stats as they cannot be considered reputable sources of educated or skilled players. This is why Io is considered strong and Bloodseeker is not.

Without any other data we can assume nothing except that as time goes on, the ability of the community to learn how to play him will probably grow as fast as their ability to learn to counter him. Therefore we should expect the opposing actions to cancel each other out, and on the whole his winrate will stay the same. Something unusual (discovery of an exploit or wombo combo) or planned (balance change) must happen to significantly alter his winrate. Some changes have already been made to him, some of them I considered significant, but he remains both pickable and counterable. I consider that a well balanced hero.

What do you mean about natures prophet? He is basically the same. Shouldn't it in theory be the same? I mean double stats or double amount should be same right?

As for all heroes, I think the thing that surprises me is how far Invoker, Beastmaster, and Timber fell. I've always felt that Invoker should be balanced as if he were three situational heroes, only able to be one for any given game. I wouldn't call this a wish fulfilled, but I do think that he was perhaps a tad to simple to be successful with even though he is arguably the hardest hero to learn.

Beastmaster is simple-ish and has never been all that exciting to watch. So long as there is a similar hero that is good to pick, I'm happy. Not all heroes have to be exciting to watch to create a good game, so it is a bit sad to see him go.

Timber has never felt like that much of a threat to me. Just kind of a less offensive, yet tankier, storm spirit. Annoying but not scary.

Honestly, despite the huge shakeup of tier lists and hero changes, I feel like the hardest part of the patch has been the changes to the map. Warding is frustrating, jungling is clunky, and I keep getting just a little bit lost. Sigh. It'll get better I know.

MK can:
-roam earlier uncontested better than a riki or BH for a whopping 0 mana cost (realistically who can cut down trees efficiently at lvl1)
-lane better than even ursa at trading hits (depends on player)
-gank better than almost any hero in the game with high mobility, a strong slow that lasts a long time, a long range high damage stun that lasts 2 seconds
-scales like a fucking GOD with a low cd ult that decimates in teamfights

so basically MK can be a better riki, bh, ursa, spirit breaker, earth shaker, and any generic carry

all these massive qualities and flexibility (no other hero is more flexibile at fitting so many roles) and his ONLY weakness is having a low hp pool, which isn't a weakness if he can get 4 hits on 1 target

yeah sure perfectly balanced OSfrog

+6 treants is just bad. One sprout cannot even summon the maximum number of treants once you get that talent, and even if so, the treants are extremely weak late game because:
1. The treant's stats dont scale up with each skill point, just the number of treants you can summon. So they are good early game and pushing, but just plain horrible late.
2. Since the bounty increase, you are basically giving farm to the enemy team. More treants? More farm for their carry.

The hp/dmg increase at least made them scale for the late game. They become really tanky, almost as good as mega creeps health-wise.

who is that skeleton in the picture?

^^+6 treants is just a meme

quite sad that only few people appreciate arc warden. he's really good, man. :))

Yes im fully aware its a meme i religiously watch bulldong's stream. It's my bad I didnt realize the blog ending had a more sarcastic tone to it until today.

Such analysts on dotabuff... Pff, yeah, of course. Nice briste, lc and sven in "avoid" section. I hope "+6 treants is the best talent" is a joke.

@ End

You seem to be disregarding most of the counters I listed save for cutting down trees. There are a few ways to cut down trees at level 1, but for the most part MK isn't getting tree hopping at level 1. Keep in mind that he isn't invisible either, but one does have to be wary to see him.

He is good at trading hits or manfighting 1v1, unless you are a kiting hero like windranger, mirana, weaver, drow, troll (whirling axes blind), DP, Invoker, etc.

I disagree that he is a better ganker than, say, pudge, but I think ganking strength is situational most of the time. Seeing as he is a core, it's fairly easy to call MIA and play safe. And he isn't invisible, so it's possible to see it coming.

He has a strong stun time...if it's leveled up, but it always is two right clicks. And it's high cooldown.

His slow is strong...if it is set up and you hit it. Again, it's possible to anticipate it.

He can decimate in fights....if he survives. He has to be in the middle of the fight and he is glassy. But I wouldn't agree that he scales amazingly.

This is not to say that his skills can't be effective, but proper coordination is required both to be effective with him and to be effective against him. As I stated before, a month's time is more than enough time for the community to get used to him, and by this time they have learned the vast majority of his secrets. And he sits near 50 after all this time.

yeah sure if you're a moron who can only play pos1 monkey sure he's easy to counter

fact of the matter is he can roam better than anyone at lvl1, he can lane better than almost any hero because of his retarded passive and "melee" range and even with all this he still scales

watch zai play roaming monkey and tell me how any other hero can compete with that

also the 1 month argument is retarded, 1 month is nothing and i still regularly play with monkey kings who have only played 1-2 games as the hero

maybe a handful of people have learnt him properly (like ana 34-0 lul) otherwise most people still don't have a clue

also winrate doesn't mean anything either, when arc was broken his winrate was less than 50% even in VHS, and currently underlord and abadon aren't that OP even if they have a high winrate

broodmother trash

Why is a 2k MMR sub 50% winrate scrub talking so much about stats given in the +5k MMR bracket? What have we come to? Is this the result of an attempt to promote free speech in society? Does no one care about anything anymore? What is life? Are we even here for a purpose? Am I digressing too far? Is any of this better than +6 treants?

All of the heroes I mentioned will still counter him no matter what core position he plays, as they will still mitigate his opportunities to do damage. I never said he had to be carry, but I do think he should be a core. Sometimes that could call for position 1, but the hero is definitely flexible on laning.

As I have said before, I don't necessarily agree that he is the best lvl 1 roamer in the game. Situationally he should be considered among the best, but it depends on what he levels first and who he is playing against. I think he is much stronger around lvl 4 when he has the option to go for a little more stun or a little more jingu, but it's hard to go without a point in each skill.

Personally I think that it isn't too difficult to deny him the chance to build stacks of his passive, and in a ganking situation most of the escape heroes I mentioned would still retain a moderate to healthy chance of surviving, even with a stun. I think if you are farming in his lane without dying, you are gaining ground on him.

I wouldn't call him the best scaler in the game, as he is very much not a late game carry. Most of the items that he should be buying are early midgame items like basher and echo, and while he does fine with a shadowblade, all of these items begin to lose their bite past the 40 min mark. Opposing heroes will possibly have the late game items bla bla bla it's a common thing to fall off due to poor scaling items. Point is he needs to stay ahead and keep the pressure on, preventing those late game items from being purchased. A team that sticks together should be able to keep him from stopping item progression.

It's fine that he has some strengths. He should. All heroes should. But I think it is clear that the hero also has some obvious weaknesses, and I truly think neither outweighs the other too much. He can put out a lot of damage, but he has to put it out fast, because he isn't going to survive long.

I wouldn't say that winrate means nothing, but it certainly doesn't mean everything. Winrate is the effect and only gives small allusions to the causes. It takes more digging to get answers, which is what we are doing here. We discuss, we experiment, we discover, we learn. Hopefully we improve.

Incidentally, @loser, that's the same reason many people here are commenting. A good discussion is a great way to test your understanding of the game, which translates to better play in the field. If you'd like to improve your game, perhaps you'd like to join in on the discussion and challenge or defend some of the theories presented here. It really helps me plan my drafting and building, and it is far more hands on than just reading the blog post, as informative as it may be.

@ KawaiiSocks

I'd like to hear your thoughts on some of the other heroes in the winner category, particularly on Weaver, Silencer, and Treant. Weaver has seen popularity in the past, and Treant was a flavor of the month a couple times, but Silencer never has quite had a great time. What do you think is giving these heroes an edge?

You can't counter roaming MK at lvl1 and he just gets stronger from there
The hero needs a mana cost and higher cooldown on his tree jump otherwise he's the best roamer in the game among other things.

Seriously who else can give roaming highground vision at lvl1 with virtually no risk of dying?

Can't say about the rest, but Beastmaster, Brood, Timbersaw, Ench and possibly Furion have such poor winrates primarily because the players, who play them are terrible in pubs.

I climbed out of 2k dumpster to 4k trash by playing almost exclusively solo offlane and I'd destroy games with some of these "situational" or "repick" heroes.

Brood is actually way stronger than she was in 6.88 IMO, just the average pub randomer doesn't know how to play her at all.

Ench can dumpster melee dual-lanes still.

Timbersaw is unstoppable, if you just know what you're doing.

Beastmaster is a solid hero, you just need to assign 2 control groups: 1 for your scouting bird and 1 for your archer necro, alongside 3 buttons to select heroes and summons, just hero and just boars.

5 buttons and you win games.

Most pub Timbers don't max reactive armor and build useless BMs. Most pub Enchs don't use summons on the lane. Most pub Broods build useless Vlads (a joke build in 90% of cases). Most pub Beastmasters don't even know wtf their hero does.

I am a very bad NP players and still somehow have 50%+ winrate on him over a span of 80+ games.

This is all true in 4k at least. That's why people lose playing these heroes, not because the heroes are bad.

Brood will never ever have good winrate outside of minority of broodpickers like me, because of nature of that hero. Same applies to various Arc Wardens and Meepos (both insanely strong heroes in hands of a person, who knows how to play them).

I'd overhaul/rework talents for some of the heroes, which I know very well.

Timbersaw is OK, but level 25 strength bonus is a joke. Timber doesn't need strength, but either raw HP or regen. Needs to be something like +10 reactive armor max stacks or something.

Furion needs a talent, which would reduce the treant bountry at level 15 or so. Would fix most of his current issues (you can't build aghs since 6.88, because you just feed summons).

Brood needs a better 10 level talent option instead of 10 Agility. It's a joke. If you build Midas, you'd always go bonus exp -> cd reduction, as it amplifies the Midas insanely (even more EXP from Midas and reduced cd). And it's the most viable go-to build on her now. You just have no alternative as +10 Agi is a total joke.

Beastmaster needs more damage on his Wild Axes +175 lvl 25 talent for it to be viable. They need to scale it up to +250 dmg, then it'd be very viable, as you'd get strong AOE physical long range nuke in the late game. Would've been so great.

Ench needs something like a +80 or +90 GPM bonus at lvl 10, as she has a severe problem with being greedy and being a bad farmer. You need a ton of items, but you just farm really slow and are forced to go Midas or commit very aggressive plays for her to remain viable in this meta. I don't like it.

"Current meta frequently allows for a roaming 3.5 position support" what does it means? Sorry for my bad english...

Russian Translate.

"некоторых трайлейнов"
может лучше написать "триплы". 1 раз слышу выражение "трайлейн".

@mr_acewhite

There are positions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Where 1 is the carry and 5 are the supports, this is the farm priority as welll, aka position 1, gets more farm than the position 5 (the support).
So position 3.5 is offlane/roaming, farming more than supports.

Try playing ultity WindRanger, i have like 70% winrate if i go offlane and get and early ather lens.

So many +6 Treants memes the Bulldog would be proud of what the community has become

Ty for for the memes I r8 8/8
+6 Treants OP

When you are moving up in mmr after 7.00 and all your heroes are in situational avoid and repick

Ostarion looks SO FU%&ING AWESOME like skeletong king, now he looks like a stupid mass of nasal goo with a stupid retarded face.. damn i hate so much the new desing, would be great to have the old model

Bring back Skeleton King

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=834791379
BEST WK GUIDE FROM RUSSIA, LIKE IT

Yeah playiong qop especiallyin my mega lowskill level is hard. The herop is diffcult as well so i cant reallyimprovewith her.sadtimes

If people played skywraith like me.. don't because that would mean he has to be nerfed hard.