In the first of this five part series, we take a look at the top 5 mid heroes in pubs from the first month of Dota 2 patch 7.33.
Dota 2 patch 7.33 came in like a wrecking ball, and it was such a huge wrecking ball that Miley Cyrus would probably write a song about it if she decided to do another one with the same name. The patch changed absolutely everything, with the most prominent change being the map. It was something that was necessary, considering the map hadn’t been altered in ages.
With new a huge new patch comes a new meta, and with a new meta come new heroes that start dominating games. A big change the now governs hero picks is the introduction of a fourth category of heroes – Universal. Here, we take a look at which mid heroes have surged to the top amidst the chaos in the constantly evolving meta around Dota 2 patch 7.33.
The heroes have been picked as the best performing ones from the Divine and Immortal brackets. This data is as per Dotabuff and has been analyzed for the past one month, so it well and truly reflects the games from patch 7.33 only. The choice of heroes has been made from a combination of high pick rate and high win rate heroes.
Void Spirit (Pick rate: 17.29%, Win rate: 49.79%)
It’s surprising that Void Spirit has a lower than average win rate in pubs, as he is the third most picked hero in professional games on Dota 2 patch 7.33 and has a win rate of 53% (300 picks, 159 wins). Void Spirit was switched from an Intelligence hero to a Universal hero, and his itemization completely changed. Instead of going magic damage heavy, the hero now builds into right click items like Echo Sabre, Desolator and Daedalus. Echo Sabre’s upgrade, Harpoon, has been a massive boost for Void Spirit as he is one of the heroes that makes the best use of it. And because he is now a Universal hero, his laning is much superior than it was before. The base damage for all Universal heroes was nerfed in patch 7.33c, but the damage gain per level is still higher than it was before. Additionally, now he can get a starting item like a Bracer to give him some tankability in lane, which will also add to his damage, which wasn’t the case before patch 7.33. That has been a boost not just for Void Spirit, but for all Universal heroes.
Queen of Pain (Pick rate: 13.46%, Win rate: 51.05%)
Queen of Pain had just one change to her in patch 7.33, an improvement to her Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade.
Basically, what this means is if Queen of Pain had an Aghanim’s Scepter and there were two enemy heroes affected by Shadow Strike, when the debuff ended, they would emit a Scream of Pain damaging each other. With the change from patch 7.33, now they are also damaged by the scream they emit! In this scenario, each hero now takes an additional 300 magic damage! This is exactly why Scepter is now the second or third item made on QoP, and according to Dotabuff, was the most purchased item on the hero in the last week.
Other than the Scepter buff, QoP is also a very snowballing hero, and the current meta does tend to sway in that direction. The team that takes the lead and gets control of all the new objectives on the map like Wisdom Runes, Tormentors and Lotus Pools tends to win the game (who’d have thought?!). Queen of Pain is perfectly suited to accomplish that, which makes her a decent pick this meta. She has the highest pick rate after Void Spirit at the highest rung of Dota 2 pubs for patch 7.33.
Windranger (Pick rate: 9.85%, Win rate: 54.63%)
Like Void Spirit, Windranger’s rise to prominence has been due to her now being a Universal hero. As an Intelligence right clicker, items like Manta Style were never made on Windranger previously. Even though Dragon Lance was made in certain situations for the additional range, it never provided her with any damage. Now with all those equations changing and many more items being viable, Windranger has become an option as a core hero in any of the three roles. But based on professional games, she really suffers from the safe lane role if she doesn’t get an insane start to the game. The position that tends to suit her most is the mid lane, where she has the highest win rate.
Tinker (Pick rate: 9.07%, Win rate: 54.07%)
It’s really difficult to pinpoint why Tinker has such a high pick rate and win rate this meta, considering he didn’t really receive any massive buffs when patch 7.33 braced the game. It could be due to the fact that with a bigger map, the hero can be more elusive. Additionally, with heroes like Bounty Hunter and Batrider in the meta, they can go on hero finding quests and have Tinker teleport onto them to ambush unsuspecting heroes.
The best use of Tinker after the release of Dota 2 patch 7.33 was demonstrated by 9Pandas’ Gleb “kiyotaka” Ziryanov in their Berlin Major game against Tundra Esports. He pretty much turned the game 1 vs 5 with a resounding Tinker performance, and had the hero banned against him in all the remaining games he played in the tournament.
Clinkz (Pick rate: 2.91%, Win rate: 55.94%)
Clinkz is mostly being played as a position 4 hero, but not exclusively. When the hero is played in the mid lane, it has one of the highest win rates in top tier in pubs. Clinkz has been changed a lot of times in the last few years. In his previous iteration, he was a farming hero based around Burning Barrage. In his current iteration, he is back to being an assassin, which was his original role since the Dota 1 days, but he is significantly stronger now. With Skeleton Walk now providing the skeleton archers, Clinkz can start his shenanigans from level 6. And playing from the mid lane, he can hit level 6 much quicker than four of the enemy heroes, and start making moves on the maps to get early kills. And now that Death Pact is a basic ability, a point in it can help in lane for survivability and getting last hits.
The skill build for mid Clinkz is to max out Tar Bomb and Death Pact, with one point in Srafe at level 5 if there is a good chance for early rotations. The first item has to be Solar Crest, as it increases the damage from not only Clinkz, but also the skeleton archers. The second item can be Desolator or Orchid Malevolence, depending on the game.
Honorable Mentions
Huskar (Pick rate: 4.35%, Win rate: 53.66%)
Meepo (Pick rate: 2.91%, Win rate: 55.94%)
