Of all the facets that were introduced to the game in Dota 2 patch 7.36, Tiny’s Crash Landing is one of the strongest, and has made him a formidable mid hero.
Image: MikeAzevedo on DeviantArt
Facets were introduced to the game in Dota 2 patch 7.36 along with innate abilities. There are lot of good ones, and many that don’t get picked because they need a sizable buff. But then there are a few that because of which the hero actually feels broken. One such facet is Tiny’s Crash Landing, which has made him a very formidable hero in the mid lane after the release of patch 7.36.
Crash Landing
So what exactly does Crash Landing do? It increases Toss damage, with the increase in the damage increasing with Toss level! Basically, the landing damage of Toss is increased by 25%/30%/35%/40% as the skill level of Toss goes up. This means that every enemy unit at the location of the landing is impacted by this bonus damage. It also reduces the movement speed and attack speed of all affected enemies, which is just the cherry on top of a heavy damage dealing cake.
Toss by itself has 320 damage at level 4. Also, each level of Grow increases Toss damage by 100/250/400 damage. The increase in Toss damage is only for the base Toss damage, not the added damage that Grow provides to the skill.
Toss Damage
Heroes have an innate base magic resistance of 25%, which increases by 1% for every 10 intelligence. Here’s a look at the Toss damage numbers without and with Crash Landing.
The attention might first go to the increase in Toss damage at level 4 with maxed out Grow. That is a significant increase of 17.8% damage, which in absolute damage terms is an increase from 540 to 636 after the 25% reduction. However, that is not the number that makes the Stone Giant a terror from the mid lane.
While playing from the mid lane with Crash Landing, the skill build is 1-4-1-1 at level 7, which is maxed out Toss and one level in the other three skills. At level 7, with Crash Landing, the damage is 411, which is insane that early on in the game! This is a 30.5% increase in damage because of the facet.
As long as Tiny has a decent lane and makes rotations to the side lane at level 7, he can dish out a lot of damage with Toss. Toss by itself is 411 damage, Avalanche and Toss is 471 damage and if Tiny can get the Ava-Toss combo on a hero, which does 100% more Avalanche damage, the total damage increases to 531. Level 7 for a mid laner is around the 8-10 minute mark of the game, when side laners are level 4 or level 5. Most heroes at that level are toast against so much damage, which can be increased further with Tree Throw. All this damage is not just good for ganking, but also for farming. Farming stacks (not ancients) is extremely easy and efficient with the Ava-Toss combo, and all you need is a Bottle and Soul Ring for mana.
At level 18, this combo damage increases to 1191, which might not be too high in the mid game, especially with teams having itemized around the magic damage. But by that time, Tiny can pivot to a hybrid damage build with the Ava-Toss combo doing magic damage and the Stone Giant hurling huge right clicks with a tree trunk in his hand. And that’s the other great thing about Tiny – there are a lot of different ways to itemize with the hero as the game goes on. He can transition to the right click role, get an Aghanim’s Scepter and keep dealing burst damage with Tree Volley or move to a position 3 role where he goes in first to Toss an enemy hero out of position.
The success of the mid Tiny with the Crash Landing facet does depend on how well you rotate in the early game. According to Dotabuff, Tiny is currently the 2nd most popular hero in pubs (1st is always Pudge) with a win rate of 51.92%. For Divine and Immortal brackets in the mid lane, that goes up to 54.54%! This facet is bound to be nerfed in the next patch, may it be a balance patch or Dota 2 patch 7.37. But till then, mid Tiny is a good way of scoring a few wins. Even after the likely nerf, as long as the concept does not change, this will continue to be the more popular facet on Tiny because of the potential it offers to have a strong early game and snowball off it.
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