In my last article, I looked at the calculations behind comeback gold first introduced in 6.82. I found that when the game is relatively even, the winning team isn’t making more gold than the previous patch. However, the winning team makes much less gold for kills than the losing team, and that gives losing teams with the right draft the ability to delay the game until the point where their lineups overwhelm their opponents.

Because a team with a gold advantage makes less on their kills than a losing team, any hero whose strengths lie in their ability to farm extra gold will lower their team’s chance to gain gold even though they are just trying to be as effective as the previous patch.

In the case of Doom and Nature’s Prophet, who were both picked heavily even into the TI4 Grand Finals, their win rate was nerfed by the comeback mechanic because the two heroes gain advantage from farming abnormally fast. To make matters worse for them, they were also nerfed in the regular way, with their skills getting weaker.

In 6.82, Doom’s ultimate ability Doom stopped disabling passives without an Aghanim’s Scepter, and his cast point increased from 0.3 seconds to 0.5 seconds. His 6.81 win rate of 55.1% at 729 games and the 4th most played hero in the pro scene reduced to a 47.1% win rate at 240 games in 6.82 and a 48.3% in 180 games in 6.83. The nerf to the hero was significant when using Doom as a counter to Slark, but the nerf isn’t significant enough to justify a 7-8% win rate decrease, since the hero had more uses than countering Slark.

Nature’s Prophet’s treants got a magic resistance reduction from 20% to 0% in addition to the comeback gold integration. He had a 53.3% win rate in 6.81 at 677 games as the 7th most picked hero, and by 6.82 he had a 47.5% win rate at 314 games. In 6.83 he’s all but forgotten at a 43.8% win rate in 64 games.

A notable addition to this is Alchemist. His win rate in 6.81 was 49.6% at 137 games, 43.2% in 6.82 in 44 games, and 60% in 6.83 at 20 games. His Acid Spray received slightly reduced damage to creeps and neutrals as of 6.82, and in 6.83 he received a further buff to Greevil's Greed. In 6.83 he was played mainly as a way to reduce the armor of his opponents with Acid Spray and an Assault Cuirass — not to farm rapidly — so those numbers might be misleading in addition to the sample size being relatively small.

The guaranteed way to solve this “issue” is to remove the comeback system, but that may be too drastic of a response. I see value in removing it because it moderately affects heroes like Nature’s Prophet and Doom, but like I mentioned in my previous article, I think the bigger issue comes down to the losing team being able to abuse buyback with much more value than the winning team.

To be able to abuse buyback on a losing team, you need a hero who has low cooldown abilities and items and can preferably re-initiate immediately after your death.

The hero who perfectly fits this equation is Storm Spirit. After Storm dies in a base defense he can immediately buy back and use Ball Lightning from fountain, dealing massive area of effect damage and then clean up the stragglers.

Storm had a terrible 40.4% win rate in the pro scene in 6.81 at 156 games, but jumped massively to 47.0% in 6.82 and finally 50.3% in 6.83 at 453 games (as of 09/04/2015). He did receive a buff to his turn rate in 6.83, and some of his popular counters such as Doom were phased out of the meta, but I think that increase in win rate is due to the comeback gold.

Upon dying, Storm can Ball from the fountain with full mana and fly around securing kills on everyone that is half dead, netting him a huge increase in net worth that delays the game. With that increase in net worth, the hero becomes more mobile and for longer with each life, in addition to collecting more low cooldown items like Scythe of Vyse to add to his Orchid.

Another hero who was initially popular due to the comeback mechanic was Medusa. She was virtually unpicked during 6.81 with only 10 games registered at 30% Win Rate, but during 6.82 she shot up to a 58.7% win rate at 189 games, though she did get some slight buffs.

Her win rate dropped off in 6.83 down to 45.8% at 251 games (as of 09/04/2015), but I think that was as a result of the increased popularity of single target physical cores like Juggernaut, Troll Warlord, and Sniper. While Medusa’s ultimate Stone Gaze counters melee carries like Juggernaut and Troll, once it’s on cooldown Medusa is largely a tank with area of effect damage which single target cores can beat easily with equal items and no distractions. Medusa was able to abuse the meta in a favorable way, but the metagame adjusted to make her less useful.

The last hero I want to examine is Zeus. He received a buff in 6.82 that increased his Static Field range from 1000 to 1200 which has interrupted many Blink Daggers, but that doesn’t account for a win rate of 36.8% in 38 games during 6.81, and his 6.82 win rate of 56.8% in 199 games. His 6.83 has reduced to a 51.1% in 399 (as of 09/04/2015), but the hero obviously has huge increases in viability in the new patch.

His strengths lie in huge teamfight contribution, both in area of effect and single-target damage, and also by disabling Blink Daggers at the start of the fight with his ultimate, Thundergod’s Wrath.

The hero also scales incredibly well with items, unlike most spell-heavy heroes, since you can have two global, super-charged ultimates with Aghanim’s Scepter and Refresher Orb, and because Static Field does damage based percentage of health, which will remain relevant always. If you buy back and turtle the defense, Zeus scales very well with items.

While there have been some extreme changes in hero viability due to the comeback gold change, I think it’s a bit too soon to demand that it gets removed entirely. However, it’s important to remember that buffs and nerfs in the future have to be done with the comeback gold decision in mind.

It’s obvious that heroes like Doom, Nature’s Prophet, and to a lesser extent Alchemist were negatively affected by the comeback change, and heroes like Storm, Zeus, and Medusa were buffed from it, so balance changes in the next patch should be done with expectations of comeback gold staying for good, or by making the gamble of buying back less of an obvious choice for a losing team.

Kevin “Purge” Godec is a Dota 2 streamer, interviewer, personality and author of the “Welcome to Dota 2, You Suck” guide. You can follow him on Twitter or check out his stream.

Sources: http://www.datdota.com/heroes.php

6.82: http://www.dota2.com/rekindlingsoul/

6.83: http://www.dota2.com/shiftingsnows/