After his much awaited release as the newest Dota 2 hero towards the end of August 2024, Ringmaster has been on a downward trajectory in pubs.
Ringmaster was touted to the Dota 2 community at TI12 in 2023. But it took nearly a year since his reveal for the hero to brace the game in August 2024. When the hero was released, he didn’t seem anything like what most would have expected. There was no connection to Puppet Master from Heroes of Newarth. However, Ringmaster seemed interesting in his own right.
In the first few days, there was a good amount of interest in the hero. Ringmaster’s first week in pubs showed a good amount of experimentation in different roles, including the mid role. Even though it was clear Ringmaster was primarily a support, he saw some interest in the mid lane and offlane as a core.
But that was a week since his release. It has now been two months and a week since Ringmaster entered the fray. Is he still as interesting a choice in pubs as he was back then? Sadly, it seems like the circus has left the two without its newest member. Ringmaster’s numbers have plummeted, especially since the release of Dota 2 patch 7.37d. Right now, he is 79th in popularity in pubs according to Dotabuff, and only has a win rate of 47.3%, which is well below average. So why has this happened over the course of two months?
(taken from Dotabuff)
Ringmaster Nerfs
Ringmaster was never like Monkey King or Hoodwink, who were insanely overpowered on their release. He was slightly better than most of the heroes, as should be the case with a new hero. But less than a week after his release, he got hit with his first set of nerfs in Dota 2 patch 7.37c. That brought him down a notch, and those were fair nerfs as his win rate was on the rise as players figured out the best way to play him.
But then came the nerfs in Dota 2 patch 7.37d, which was a massive blow to Ringmaster. Three of his four spells were nerfed, and even though the Wheel of Wonder max set-up duration was reduced, the nerfs were much more significant. The steep drop off a cliff in the win rate chart above depicts this after the release of patch 7.37d. After his win rate fell, the pick rate started to decline too.
(taken from Liquipedia Dota 2)
Lack of Facets and Aghanim’s Scepter Upgrade
The other issue with Ringmaster is, he has no facets or Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade. Scepter is not that important a factor for a support, but having no facets when other heroes have at least two is a big detriment. It is understandable for a new hero to not have facets right away, but two months is enough time to get him a couple of placeholder facets, which can be replaced later if required. With other heroes being tweaked through their facets, there is more impetus to try them out and experiment with them rather than to try a hero who has no facet options.
Lack of Flexibility
Dota 2 was crying out for a new support hero, and IceFrog and Valve gave us exactly that with Ringmaster. The issue is, however, there is very little flexibility to the hero. Look at all other recent heroes – Muerta, Primal Beast, Marci, Dawnbreaker Hoodwink – all of them can be played in multiple roles, which is what keeps them fresh in pubs (in professional games, one role tends to be more popular in a lot of cases). With Ringmaster, his mid win rate in the first week was abysmal, which is why he has no mid presence in pubs now. The only core possibility is as a position 3, and even for that, you need to dominate the lane, farm stacks with Taming the Beasts and hit your item timings perfectly to have a strong impact. Wheel of Wonder is not an ability like Pulverize or Ravage with which you can be an impactful initiator just with a Blink Dagger and Black King Bar (BKB) if you have had a rough game.
All in all, the excitement around Ringmaster’s much awaited release was short lasted. It didn’t help that TI13 came right after his release, which took attention away from him, as Ringmaster did not feature in the fight for the Aegis. IceFrog and Valve need to readopt the policy of letting new heroes be strong for a while after their release. And also in the new age of facets, it would help if newly released heroes arrived with two facets. Hopefully, Dota 2 patch 7.38 will be released soon and Cogliostro Kettle, the Ringmaster, will get some well deserved buffs.
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