posted by Stache

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Midlaners likely to rise or fall in popularity

Supports likely to rise or fall in popularity

as long as earth spirit doesn't enter CM i will be content with 6.84 — Peter Dager (@ppdDota) April 27, 2015

Offlaners likely to rise or fall in popularity

Overall there are a lot of great ideas in 6.84. My only big fear is that #TI5 qualifier games may be decided by bugs or obv broken mechanics — Nahaz (@NahazDota) April 28, 2015

Carries likely to rise or fall in popularity

You might already familiar with the patchnotes for the upcoming 6.84 update , but in case you are not, we gathered the most important changes for you . This time, we don't simply present cold hard facts, but speculate a bit on how the patch will influence the metagame. Let's see what will change with each role!The first thing any patch summary has gotten into is the reduction in creep gold (6.25 and 7 per cent respectively) and the hero value increase (10 per cent per kill plus up to an additional 20 per cent for high value targets). Most have been quick to summize that this should mean more incentive for supports to roam in an attempt to look for fresh blood as there is a bigger bounty!The place they'll be looking to fullfill this vampiric need is the mid-lane and this is something that's going to have a dinousaur extinguishing meteor type of impact. Added pressure in the midlane should also mean a switch in what is popular mid:Heroes will be more likely to die and lose gold (even if they survive, they'll be missing last hits.)Mid-heroes will be earning less gold because the creeps are less valuable.Many heroes that are currently popular as mid heroes, have no escape or survivability.The first two points will directly affect carries looking to farm such as Sniper Shadow Fiend and Troll Warlord . With greater bounties for hero kills, midlaners to will be more encouraged to roam early as well. Furthermore, sitting in lane farming creeps for a long time will have a lesser payout due to the decreased creep value. All punishing the afore mentioned carry style midlaners who take longer to come online, and are weaker roamers.The third point will reduce the popularity of an even larger group of heroes. You can add heroes such as Lina Zeus and pre-six Storm Spirit to the list of Sniper, Shadow Fiend and Troll Warlord likely to decrease in popularity because none of them have escapes or are particularly durable.Finally, this patch, which already promotes midgame fighting due to the reduces creep bounties and increased hero bounties, has removed some of the comeback mechanic by decreasing the team gold difference bonus by 25 per cent and the team XP difference by 40 per cent. The comeback mechanic was perhaps one of the greatest reasons for midgame passivity, because losing one fight could lose you your lead.The patch also facilitates pushing a bit more by decreasing tower armor and nearly doubling team bounties for barracks. Lastly, if you buy back into the game, you will now earn 60 per cent less gold, even from hero kills. All these changes mean, heroes such as Sniper will decrease even further in popularity as a big gold swing through solid highground defence will be less likely.Subsequently, when it comes to the midlane we will see more survivable laners, such as Dragon Knight Viper and Brewmaster , and heroes with better escape, such as Queen of Pain and Puck . These heroes are more likely to survive the now more frequently roaming supports, are generally stronger midgame fighters, gankers and pushers as well, further bolstering their popularity.Aghanims for everyone!No less than 10(!) heroes received an Aghanims Scepter upgrade! Out of the 110 heroes in the game, only 36 remain without an Aghanims Upgrade!The change in midlaners will in turn have a big effect on the popularity of supports.If we do see a rise of these tanky midlaners, there will likely be a decrease in bursty supports, because the supports won't be able to get them low as easily. Furthermore, supports with strong level one and two abilities will see a rise in play, while greedy supports will decrease.Powerful level one abilities will make those early ganks successful. Greedy supports, who need more levels, won't be able to succeed as well in those early ganks. We will, therefore, likely see a decrease in the popularity of heroes such as Lion Ancient Apparition and Zeus , because there are better early gankers.Additionally, their item build up might take too long. Blink Daggers might not arrive before more midgame oriented heroes, such as Queen of Pain, Puck, Dragon Knight or Viper as opposed to Sniper or Troll, are ready to fight. A Hand of Midas Ancient Apparition, will be of little benefit if you don't have the time to farm Aghanims Scepter, before teams are knocking on your tier three towers.Also keep an eye on how supports' spells scale.Kurtis ' Aui_2000 ' Ling said on stream Lina might end up being one of his favourite supports in the upcoming patch.While the burning hot witch barely got hit with the nerf stick, she might have some issues. Her ult isn't particularly amazing at level 6 (450 single target magic damage versus 950 at level 16), but gets insane at higher levels. Furthermore, she also really wants levels for her other spells.She will still be increadibly strong, particularly if roaming with a reliable stun, but may not be as good at insta-gibbing heroes by herself as she is now. The fact that Aghanims no longer extends the range shouldn't matter in situations where she sets up her stun correctly because she'll be in closer anyways. It might have some slight impact if opposing heroes have less health than the amount of damage Laguna blade does to begin with.Finally, this whole Aghanims Scepter business. It's hard to say how much of an impact Alchemist 's Aghanims sharing will have.A lot of people have hyped heroes such as Lone Druid Weaver and Outworld Devourer , but it's unlikely the ultimate upgrades on these heroes will make a big impact.Many of these heroes NEED other items more than this (damage and mobility primarily), to increase their farming speed and damage output. Meaning that even if these items turn out as good as they are hyped to be, most of these heroes wouldn't want to pick it up until fourth or fifth at the earliest (by which point many games will have already been decided).So the real question becomes, who can afford to pick these new abilities up early, and the answer is supports because they don't need other big items more in many cases. Some of these Aghanims upgrades play right into the big midgame teamfights we're likely to see more of (provided the supports can actually farm them in time).The upgrades on Wraith King and Naga Siren are excellent examples here. Both heroes benefit from the extra stats with small mana pools and in a support role don't need damage items etc.Finally, defensive supports might also see a bump in popularity. If a team does want to play one of the more gankable midlaners such as Sniper or Shadow Fiend, they will almost certainly need a defensive support to keep that core alive, whether it is an Earthshaker or Dazzle It's difficult to say what will happen in the offlane. Certainly some of the new Aghanims upgrades affect offlaners such as Centaur Warrunner and potentially the rare offlane Morphling , as these are heroes that benefit more from health and mana to stay alive in early fights than damage for farming purposes. Axe , one of the most popular offlaners, was nerfed big time, not only because of the changes to him directly, but also because the new "break" mechanic will mean Counter Helix is disabled more frequently. Don't expect him to dissapear completely though, as he's know for being a strong midgame fighter.Offlaners that are big on pick-offs might also see less play as the window between your level 6 and the start of teamfighting will be smaller, because midlaners and supports will be looking to fight.The best example here is perhaps Clockwerk . You won't want to hook into a Dragon Knight or Viper nearly as much as a Sniper.Furthermore, because midlaners with an escape will be more popular due to to added pressure mid, other midlaners, such as Puck and Queen of Pain, also won't be great targets for easy picksoffs. What will we see is more strong teamfighters, such as as Timbersaw Phoenix and Dark Seer We will likely also see an end to poor (off)laners. Given that teams will want supports with strong early ganking abilities, it not only puts more pressure on the midlane but also the offlane. These loners will therefore also want to be durable or have an escape.While never tremendously popular as offlaners, heroes such as Zeus, Spirit Breaker , Earthshaker or Troll Warlord won't be found there again, due to their lack of survivability.Some of the previously most popular carries were weakened big time through their own abilities, their items or the new mechanics. Sniper and Troll Warlord will decline without question. Mask of Madness provides 13 per cent less movement speed, making it easier to catch these guys, both heroes had their ultimates weakened in addition to some other abilities.Despite the massive amount of buffs this patch in general, few carries received significant polishing. More midgame fighting and the decline of the afore mentioned heroes will mean fewer Skadis (too expensive for midgame fighting and more difficult to farm due to decreased creep bounties) and hence less kiting. It is doubtful, however, that it will be enough to popularize cores such as Lifestealer , Wraith King or Alchemist What will be interesting to see is if, which for six seconds will instantly cast all target spells back at the caster, will make these melee-carries viable enough. Being insta-hexed, stunned or slowed back as a support yourself will mean that kiting those carries is going to be a lot harder, or will allow the enemy 2-5 position heroes to do a lot more work.Radiance heroes received a buff through the addition of a 17 per cent miss chance. This will increase the popularity of heroes that naturally like to build it, such as Spectre and Naga Siren , as it will allow them to fight more effectively early on, as well as possibly forcing enemy carries to build MKB/BKB later into the game.This is not just because it will allow them to manfight better but a big part of this is helping your team stay alive as well. If it takes the enemy carry two or three extra last hits to take down that supports due to the miss chance, that might be enough for that support to get off another spell and turn the fight.There likely will be a rise in the popularity of "unusual" carries because of item additions. Leshrac is a prime example here with the addition of the, which reduces cooldowns by 25 per cent and lets heroes steal 25 per cent against heroes and five per cent of their magic damage as lifesteal! Other examples are Necrophos and Death Prophet All of these heroes do large amounts of damage through Area of Effect spells, meaning they will lifesteal a lot of health making them really hard to kill. A level four Death Pulse hitting two heroes and four creeps, for example, would heal for 158 in addition to the regular 130 heal every 3.75 seconds with the Octarine Core! Slark will remain tremendously popular due to his ability to fight midgame and he benefits greatly from, which will apply the new break mechanic disabling many passives, and, increasing attack speed by 120, allow Slark to steal stats more quickly with Essence Shift.The new Vladimir's Offering is really quite strong, and might become a frequent pickup on supports. Because it now provides 10 per cent lifesteal for ranged heroes this might mean a slight increase in the frequency of ranged carries, as well as further increasing the item's viability, whereas it previously was only picked up by supports when a lineup was full of melee carries.A further buff to many ranged carries is the all the added evasion in general. With Hex no longer disabling evasion and the addition of Radiance miss and(30% evasion), Monkey King bar is the only real answer to a large amount of evasion now available. Ranged heroes that naturally like to build MKB's, such as Gyrocopter Weaver and Mirana will therefore rise in popularity.Finally, because greedy, Blink Dagger building, supports will decline, it might increase split-pushing. It's going to be a lot harder to catch that Lycan Nature's Prophet or Tinker , if you only have one hero with blink as opposed to two or three.Do you agree with Stache? What do you see happening differently?