In the fourth of this five-part series, we take a look at the five best carry heroes in pubs from the early part of Dota 2 patch 7.29.
Image: DemIIsaK
Dota 2 patch 7.29 is now well etched into the community. Released nearly two months ago, it brought with it a lot of changes to heroes, items, changes to the map and of course, Dawnbreaker. It took some time for the dust to settle, but after it did, certain heroes stood out as the ones defining the meta.
We already took a look at the five best offlaners, mid heroes and hard supports of patch 7.29 in pubs. Here, we look at which carries have been performing well in top tier pubs. The beautiful thing about the current meta is the fact that multiple carries are viable and there aren’t just a few that are completely broken, like Lycan when patches 7.25 and 7.26 were in play or Sven during patch 7.27.
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 7.29 only. The choice of heroes has been made from a combination of high pick rate and high win rate heroes.
1) Ursa (Pick rate: 14.14%, Win rate: 54.24%)
Although Ursa was one of the heroes affected by the Abyssal Blade nerf, he did get a massive new weapon in his arsenal – his new Aghanim’s Shard. The Shard, which applies Enrage for 1 second on using Earthshock, is a great way to ensure Ursa does not get countered right away with a disable when he jumps in to initiate. Also, he can save his ultimate for later on in the fight. Being one of the earliest Roshan taking heroes in the game, he can get to the second Roshan relatively early in the game and secure that Shard as well.
For the last few patches, the Battlefury build has been the only one going around on Ursa. But with patch 7.29, an alternative Diffusal Blade into Aghanim’s Shard has gotten traction, which gives the hero another direction and allows him to be picked up as a position 2 hero and fight early when playing with a mid carry like Medusa, Morphling or Templar Assassin. Ursa has one of the highest pick rates as well as win rates of all carries in top tier pubs for the 7.29 patch.
2) Faceless Void (Pick rate: 13.28%, Win rate: 53.28%)
Faceless Void went totally out of contention for just one patch (patch 7.28), but he’s back with a bang! Like Ursa, his Shard is a major reason for the return to popularity. Just like Ursa, Void has quite a high pick rate as well as win rate. The additional 400 Time Walk distance from the Aghanim’s Shard (which was 200 before) takes the distance from 650 to 1050, which is a whopping 61.54% increase in the range, giving Void a bigger selection in the angle of approach. Also with the Reverse Time Walk, he can always fake an initiation and make the enemy team react hastily with incorrect usage of abilities and items.
The new +300 health talent (which he had before as well) is a major boost for Faceless Void. For most other heroes, the 300 HP is just that; but for Void, when initiated on, it can be the difference between full HP and death, depending on whether he can get Time Walk off.
The buffs to Time Dilation are quite nice as well. Based on them, Undying’s Dooyoung “Dubu” Kim played a lot of position 5 Faceless Void successfully in the early days of the patch in high level pubs.
3) Slark (Pick rate: 11.74%, Win rate: 52.43%)
Want to guess what the reason for Slark’s rise to popularity might be? That’s right, it is his new Aghanim’s Shard. Seems like a bit of a trend, doesn’t it?! Unlike Ursa and Faceless Void though, in Slark’s case, it is solely his Aghanim’s Shard. It gives him a new ability, Depth Shroud, which is basically 3 seconds of Shadow Dance in a certain AoE. Slark has a level 25 talent that grants him an additional second to the 4.5 seconds of Shadow Dance. Imagine having that for multiple targets for 3 seconds, for just 1400 gold! Granted heroes lose the effect when they move out of the AoE, but it can be a strong tool when Slark is going toe-to-toe with the opposition carry, or anyone who can fight back against him. It can also be used to save an ally in trouble. As it makes heroes untargetable, it can be used to channel spells or teleportation scrolls without getting interrupted (unless the enemy team has a ground-targetable channeling disable). Depth Shroud has an interesting interaction with Duel. Duel is a spell that cannot be dispelled, but stops if Depth Shroud is cast on the target because Legion Commander has no target to hit!
4) Riki (Pick rate: 3.62%, Win rate: 53.19%)
Riki’s rise in popularity is not due to any one particular reason, but due to small buffs to all his skills as well as his Aghanim’s Shard. Each one of his four skills (five, if Sleeping Dart is considered) either received a direct buff or a buff through a talent. Although he doesn’t have the highest of pick rates, his win rate is a good deal above average.
5) Luna (Pick Rate: 11.62%, Win rate: 52.75%)
It has been a while since Luna was a strong meta carry, but it seems inspired by the release of Dragon's Blood, Selemene has finally blessed the Moon Rider. Even though Luna did receive a few buffs, the primary reason for her rise to popularity has been because of an items change – the buff to Manta Style. The main reason carries build Manta Style is because it gives them a dispel, and they also end up using it for farming. In Luna’s case, it could be said farming is probably the primary reason for making it. Luna makes the best use of the Manta illusions for farming thanks to Moon Glaives, and that ability has received a major boost with the advent of the recent patch. Patch 7.29 not only reduced the incoming damage for illusions from 400% to 300% for ranged heroes, it also reduced the cooldown from 45 seconds to 30 seconds, which is huge! Basically, in the time when Luna could send four Manta illusions, she can now send six Manta illusions. It’s a 50% increase in the Manta illusion farming rate! This change has made Luna one of the fastest farmers in the game, making her a strong carry in the current meta. The build typically is to go for a Mask of Madness (after Power Treads) followed by Manta Style, after which the build can vary depending on the state of the game. There are times when players go for Dragon Lance before the Manta Style, but again, that depends on how the game is going and at what pace the team is planning on playing the game.
Honorable Mentions
Wraith King (Pick Rate: 14.24% , Win rate: 51.32%)
Medusa (Pick Rate: 12.33%, Win rate: 50.61%)
Chaos Knight (Pick Rate: 1.84%, Win rate: 57.03%)
