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Physically, the Dire team is closer to the Roshan pit.

Historically, Dire wins longer games more often.

The perpetual changes to Roshan (directly and indirectly) in recent patches have curbed the perceived Dire Roshan advantage.

The number of games where Radiant controls the Aegis has been on the rise with these changes

Radiant’s winrate with Aegis advantage hasn’t been dropping.

Radiant has an Aegis advantage

The bars represent percent of total games in which Radiant or Dire controlled every Aegis in the game, which the blue section represents the percentage of games in which each team owned at least one Aegis during the course of the game. The winrates on top of the bars refer to how often the controlling team wins a game in which the opponent never holds an Aegis. The bars represent percent of total games in which Radiant or Dire controlled every Aegis in the game, which the blue section represents the percentage of games in which each team owned at least one Aegis during the course of the game. The winrates on top of the bars refer to how often the controlling team wins a game in which the opponent never holds an Aegis.

the ability to take control of an Aegis is steadily shifting away from the Dire side

We’d expect that the easier it is for Dire to control the Rosh pit, the lower their winrate with solo control would be and vice-versa.

post-Roshan conditions actually heavily favor Radiant

the pit is also farther away from the Radiant base and closer to the Dire base

Radiant has more time to respawn, retreat, and regroup before facing another engagement

Radiant is closer to their objectives or opponents’ side for warding, pushing, and general control

a Dire hero who buys back still needs to walk about 15 seconds (compared to Radiant’s 20 seconds) before reengaging if towers are down

Radiant has much more room for error in the Roshan pit in the late game, when it matters.

we expect it because Radiant winrate isn’t dropping as they get solo control of the Aegis more often

The balance used to be that Dire was more likely to secure an Aegis in proportion to how much less likely they were to take advantage from it. Now, however, game changes have torn control away from Dire without stripping Radiant of their Aegis advantage.

This shows every 6.84 game broken into which side controlled the Aegises, by how many, and who won. The leftmost collumn shows that Dire won about 2.5% of all 6.84 games by controlling a four-aegis advantage, while the "even" column shows that about 11% of all 6.84 games had equal Aegis control with Radiant winning about 2/3rds of those games. The right columns show how often each side wins while at a disadvantage, for example, about 2.5% of the patch's games saw Radiant win at a zero to one Aegis disadvantage. This shows every 6.84 game broken into which side controlled the Aegises, by how many, and who won. The leftmost collumn shows that Dire won about 2.5% of all 6.84 games by controlling a four-aegis advantage, while the "even" column shows that about 11% of all 6.84 games had equal Aegis control with Radiant winning about 2/3rds of those games. The right columns show how often each side wins while at a disadvantage, for example, about 2.5% of the patch's games saw Radiant win at a zero to one Aegis disadvantage.

Radiant wins more than twenty percent of games where Dire takes the only Aegis of the game

As the “Dire advantage” continues to come under attack, the Dire side is actually becoming victim to the “Dire burden” in which they must control Roshan or lose.

Special thanks to DatDota, from which I farmed all of my raw data.

The difference between Dire and Radiant are pretty stark when you stack them up against each other. Creep layout, distance to towers, lane creep marching patterns leading, lane-to-camp pulling patterns, and warding spots all mirror each other imperfectly, leading to no shortage of differences between the two sides. The most obvious difference has been one of the most regularly changing aspects of the game: the Roshan pit.Since Roshan first donned the Aegis in Dota 1 (he didn't always drop the belt buckle of immortality), he has recieved nothing but buffs which reduce the "Dire-side advantage" when it comes to pit control. But can we access how significant this advantage is in modern Dota?The first aspect of Roshan we need to look at is pretty basic: who controls Aegis more often? We’d expect this to be Dire for two reasons:This gives them more control of the region, allows them to reach the pit from base or ancients faster, and allows them to return to Rosh fights after buybacks more quickly. This is usually seen as an advantage.More minutes means more Roshan kills, and since Dire tends to take advantage in the late game we’d expect the team to claim more Aegises.A year ago, Dire controlled three Aegises for every one that Radiant claimed. Today, the number is just above 1.5 for every one by Radiant.But was that advantage actually worth curbing?Even though Dire is more likely to claim an Aegis, and nearly twice as likely to prevent their opponents from getting a single Aegis in a game, that isn’t inherently an advantage unless taking an Aegis actually contributes to a victory., while Dire control has been diminishing… butDire has a Roshan advantage, but. The latter advantage has grown in recent patches because of an overreaction to the prior.But, you wonder, we’ve already determined that Dire gets control of far more Aegises than Radiant. Clearly they have the advantage, right? Well, yes—Dire has an advantage when it comes to getting control of an Aegis. But Radiant has the much more important advantage of winning off the benefits of an Aegis.Changes to Roshan which make it more difficult for Dire to use their map advantage to take solo control of Aegis (meaning a game where their opponents never own an Aegis) have eaten away at Dire’s rate of solo control. Games which would have previously seen Dire owning every Aegis now see both teams owning at least one Aegis… but it doesn’t stop there. Games where Dire used to narrowly achieve split control of Aegis now become games where Radiant achieves solo control of Aegis.A similar trend has occurred in games with split Aegis control: Dire is controlling a smaller and smaller advantage and Radiant is securing increasingly common Aegis advantages.In short,On the surface, this seems like a good change: Dire shouldn’t solo control Aegis in 60% of games, we’d say. That’s an unfair advantage. But if you look at the solo control winrates you’ll notice a different trend: as Dire’s control of Roshan drops, their winrate with control rises. This is because they aren’t able to solo control Roshan in close games anymore.This is because as their control rate drops, the games where they still control Roshan are the games where they already had a notable advantage.However, Radiant’s winrate isn’t dropping as their solo control rate rises. The fact isFirst off, Radiant being farther from the pit is not a serious game disadvantage at the professional level. Think of it this way:, meaning that any teamfight at the Rosh pit is less likely to result in a successful push into Radiant’s base. If a Rosh fight goes wrong,and if it goes rightIn the late game, Radiant can more easily fall back to take Roshan after pushing into their opponents because it is closer to their opponents’ base and can more easily push after a team wipe in the Rosh pit for the same reason. It is safer for Radiant to slow siege with part of their team while one hero slays Roshan as well, because the team can remain relatively close while performing this tactic.Secondly, when it comes to late-game Aegis (and cheese), Dire’s advantage is reduced to the point of obsolescence. The walking distance from a tier 3 to Roshan about 6500 units for Dire side and about 8600 units for Radiant. But what this means is that. That advantage is not much of an advantage… showing up to a fight 15 seconds late is typically about as useful as showing up to a war naked and unarmed.Thirdly, because the Radiant jungle and safe lane are Roshan-adjacent, they are more likely to be within reacting distance in a close late-game. Even though the Dire base is closer to the Rosh pit, the Dire jungle is farther away. Mid and late game, when an extra life tends to make a bigger difference, heroes are more likely to be in their jungle or safelane than in their base.In short,Giving even a single Aegis to the Radiant side is devastating to the Dire winrate: 60% of games which both teams claim at least one Aegis go to Radiant.How do we know that Aegis is helping to cause the victories? We don’t, butThe reason Radiant is getting more solo control is because game mechanics have made it more difficult for Dire teams to take an Aegis without a significant advantage.The average number of Aegises claimed today is greater than the number claimed in 6.81 and prior patches.What this tells us is that Radiant is more likely to take an Aegis while closely matched to Dire, since we have a comparable number of Aegis claimed but Dire isn’t claiming as many while the teams are closely matched.In 6.84, Dire has only won five games where they didn’t take at least one Aegis*. Radiant, on the other hand, regularly wins games without claiming a single Aegis. In fact,. If both teams take at least one Aegis, but Dire takes two more than Radiant, Radiant is still more likely to win two Aegises behind.Games where Aegis is closely contested go heavily in favor of the Radiant side. If Dire doesn’t manage to claim the Aegis at least twice more than Radiant in a game, their chances of winning are heavily diminished.In order for Dire to truly take advantage from their position, they must heavily focus on the Rosh pit and ensure that they use tower position to take Aegis early and continue to use that advantage to build further advantage for each successive available Aegis. Because of the “favorable” position Dire has to the pit, failing to secure even a single Aegis can be indicative of disaster.And, of course, tell me your thoughts . Data includes every pro Dota 2 game starting with 6.80 and continuing until June 12th, 2015.