Pub Tier List 6.84 - Biggest Losers
Last time we have looked at the heroes who gained the most from the new patch. As we have figured out, in many cases it was not only the direct buffs to the heroes themselves, but also a multitude of different indirect improvements leading to very impressive Win Rate gains of up to ~6.5%.
Today we are looking at the lowest 3 tiers of our list in an attempt to find the "biggest Losers" of the patch and figure out the reasons behind their demise. While it might not look as interesting or as useful on paper, compared to analysing the "pub stomper" and "flavour of the month" heroes, we believe it to have a similar degree of importance.
Heroes in Dota 2 are surprisingly well-balanced by the fact that for every measure there is a counter measure in the pool. The "loser" heroes might not necessarily be the most versatile or have high unconditional utility, but there will be times when even the lowest Win Rate hero can be considered the best pick.
Tier 4: Pub Losers (46% - 49%)
Sand King, 
Weaver, 
Pugna, 
Windranger, 
Tiny, 
Ancient Apparition, 
Bristleback, 
Winter Wyvern, 
Huskar, 
Lion, 
Lina, 
Legion Commander, 
Death Prophet, 
Templar Assassin, 
Storm Spirit, 
Bounty Hunter, 
Faceless Void, 
Lifestealer, 
Kunkka, 
Axe, 
Queen of Pain, 
Sniper, 
Nyx Assassin
Seeing Sniper in the "biggest losers" section of the Blog Post is very unsurprising - not only did he receive a multitude of very noticeable nerfs, but he has also lost a bit of his relative relevance, compared to a lot of heroes which have been directly or indirectly buffed. In fact, the hero is the biggest loser of the whole patch with a ~7.7% decrease in Win Rate. Was it a little bit too much?
I really liked the hero even before his Shrapnel was buffed - it was a very strong spell with decent early game damage and an amazing slow. Adding charges to it seemed like a very good idea at the time - the hero was very undervalued and almost never picked in professional matches.
Currently, with yet another Shrapnel rebalance, I think the hero has reached a somewhat balanced state, where he is not as dominant in the middle lane, but has still retained most of his late-game strength.
Should the hero be picked and if so, in what circumstances? Personally, I still think he is annoyingly amazing at disabling blinks from across the screen and he is very good at holding highground - if played correctly he can delay enemy initiation/counterinitiation and push for a very long time. Time he can use to slowly turn into a serious problem.
That said, there are still a lot of counters to the hero in the current meta and even support now have ways to deal with the hero with the addition of 
Glimmer Cape. Hence, the only reasonable situation where one might think of picking Sniper, is if your team is capable of sustaining you long enough in the early game for you to become relevant (inability to flash-farm is a serious issue for the hero) and create a "wall of bodies" between you and the enemy in the late-game encounters.
Axe has been seeing a lot of play in the past several months and rightly so - the ability to disable through magic immunity on a very low cooldown is something which can not go unnoticed for too long. A multitude of small nerfs in the patch have resulted in a ~4.1% decrease in Win Rate - a lot more than we initially expected.
One of the biggest changes was the cast time increase on Berserkers Call - 0.1 s might not sound like a lot, but it makes disabling a blinked-in Axe a possibility for a lot more heroes, while the ones who were already capable of it find it easier to do so ( Lion, 
Shadow Shaman, 
Skywrath Mage etc.)
The changes to Counter Helix proccing on hit land, rather than hit initiation, might not seem a lot, but it certainly makes hero a lot weaker in chase/flee scenarios, where you cannot guarantee dealing damage. These scenarios are quite common, especially in the early game, where blink dagger is not purchased yet.
The decrease in the MS/AS buffs from Culling Blade is also heavily contributing to the aforementioned ~4.1%, amking it harder to "snowball" a fight.
Given the information above, one might assume that the hero is currently too weak to be played. This, however, is not true - the hero is weaker, but his ability to man fight and scare away supports is still there. Most importantly, he can still provide one of the strongest disables in the game - something that is generally only possible with the ultimate abilities.
As such, we believe the hero to remain quite popular with the professional players, while the pub crowd will have to come to terms with the fact that Axe is not necessarily the best damage dealer/late-game plan and try to abuse the more important aspect of his.
Lion did not lose as much as the other two heroes, only going down ~1.8% in Win Rate, but given how all of the Support heroes were substantially buffed, it is still substantial.
What is even more interesting, the hero received no nerfs or buffs in 6.84, showing how global changes have a very significant impact on heroes.
So why did he lose Win Rate exactly? We believe the main reason behind it is the fact that Lion does not benefit from the new items himself, while suffering from their presence in the game - 
Lotus Orb and Glimmer Cape heavily tamper with single target nukers as well as disablers. Additionally, with the reworked 
Arcane Boots, leaving a hero with no mana is substantially harder.
Finally, there is a problem of new metagame - not only does he get outclassed by other supports with their new toys, but he is also worse against AoE multi-core spread damage, since there is usually no "single target to focus" situation, which can win you the fight.
Is he a bad pick then? As with everything in Dota, it is very situational. He can still be a great addition to a team with low amount of disables and can still counter a lot of mobility heroes. Pub drafts are extremely volatile, so there will be a situation where Lion can be extremely good - you just have to pay attention.
Tier 5: Pub Throwers (41% -46%)
Timbersaw, 
Meepo, 
Clinkz, Skywrath Mage, 
Doom, 
Bane, 
Magnus, 
Invoker, 
Visage, 
Terrorblade, 
Broodmother, 
Anti-Mage, 
Nature's Prophet, 
Chen, 
Naga Siren, 
Enchantress, 
Rubick, 
Tinker, [missing hero: outworld-devourer], 
Ember Spirit, 
Earth Spirit, 
Puck, 
Shadow Demon, 
Morphling, 
Lone Druid
Earth Spirit was among the most hated heroes in Dota 2 and for good reasons - his early game burst made the game incredibly unfair for squishy supports. With a different scaling of damage on most of his abilities, as well as a bug fix, which prevented interruption of his escape in certain situations, the hero has lost ~3.5% Win Rate, currently sitting at 42.86%.
Given an already low Win Rate it might seem too harsh to nerf the hero, however, his skill cap is undeniably high and while he does not require multi-unit control, learning to play the hero was a very difficult task and I do genuinely feel pity for ES-spammers. Pity with a hint of malicious joy.
There isn't really a lot I can tell about the hero - I have never played him extensively to possess the required knowledge. But one thing is certain - high level public matchmaking players are definitely sighing in relief.
Morphling has only lost ~2.5% in Win Rate, however his only nerf was the added projectile to Adaptive Strike, which, in my opinion, could not have resulted in a very sizeable Win Rate decrease.
One of the big problems with the heroes could be the "awesomeness factor" on his 
Aghanim's Scepter upgrade - it does sound really strong on paper and leads to people tunnel-visioning on getting the upgrade, lowering their attentiveness to other items and general gameplay.
Additionally, I still feel people are trying to make Morphling a late-game core. They are not wrong by any means - the hero is amazing lategame, but with no ways of flash-farming he can and will be outfarmed by the enemy cores, making for a very one-sided match. While Sniper can defend the highground for his farm to catch-up, Morphling lacks this potential hence, in my opinion, should no be played in 1-2 positions.
Meepo nerfs are here. The very undeserved buff has finally been retracted and the hero now respawns as any other hero in the game. Not even the DPS increase on Geostrike can outweigh this balance fix.
Meepo falls into the category of heroes which are really hard to master and for some reasons people assume that they should be buffed because of it, while it is certainly not the case. The hero should not be stronger only because he is more difficult to play. I am not talking about high-risk high-reward heroes like 
Mirana and her Sacred Arrow, but rather about heroes like Invoker, Earth Spirit and Meepo, who got preferential treatment to make up for the inability of players to fully utilise their skillset. Luckily, this trend is finally gone.
Tier 6: Repick Heroes (<41%)
Io, 
Alchemist, 
Oracle, 
Batrider
Two of the above heroes, namely Io and Batrider are exactly the kind of heroes with a very high skill requirement which did not get preferential treatment. The result is they are both viable and contested professional picks while being close-to-useless in uncoordinated and low-level pubs.
There isn't really a lot to talk about here - both heroes, even after the slight nerfs in 6.84 a-c are still incredibly strong when coordinated properly and do not lack potential.
Alchemist, I believe, currently suffers from high popularity - he was overplayed by pretty much everyone and once the hype dies down (and some professional will play him in 4-5 position) he will probably climb a tier or two. Changes in meta can also make his life a lot easier - current one is too volatile and unstable (which is good) to make long-term plans with a very risky hero.
Finally, there is Oracle and his new ultimate. I do not understand where ~5.6% Win Rate decrease cam from - his ultimate is not necessarily worse - I would even argue that it is better in higher level matchmaking. It does have a longer cooldown and shorter length, but it still very much a Shallow Grave 2.0, albeit on a longer cooldown.
In every other aspect the hero was buffed. As well as the supports in general. I am at a loss here - I do play the hero occasionally and while the increased cd on ultimate does force you to take less fights, the hero is still an amazing support, who is not really hard to master. If you have any ideas as to why the Win Rate on this hero has decreased, do not hesitate to leave your opinion in the comment section below.
Closing Comments
The Ti5 Qualifiers are about to start and it is very unlikely that we will see extra patches any times soon. That said, there is still a lot of time for things to change in this patch - not all heroes have been experimented with by the professional players and the general public might be lacking necessary knowledge on how to approach certain heroes build/gameplay-wise.
Given how the patch is in its early days and how there were subtle changes introduced in 6.84c I would take this Tier list with a grain of slat- it provied a nice overview of the trends and changes, but a lot of conclusions you will have to derive for yourself - the meta in the region you are playing in might be different, you might have your own preferences or you might be high/low enough in the MMR spectrum for general statistics to be less relevant to your situation.
HoHo HaHa!
I suppose Necrophos need a little nerf for his ultimate? mayb increase in CD, 70 seconds is a bit too fast.
Also, Undying's tomb maybe need to hv a constant 1200 AOE but with 150/300/450/600 or lower HP scale... so the player need to determine the position of tomb more wisely to avoid quick destruction??
No nerfs for Lion? I'd say that the change on Hex no longer applying break is a rather substantial nerf. I think that might somewhat explain the reduced winrate he's no longer an 'easy' counter to PA or Void.
edit: And yes I completely read over you mentioning no nerfs/buffs outside of global. /facepalm
Unlike conventional supports Oracle lacks cc as means for survival. Instead he used to rely on False Promise. Now since the nerf he can't really cast it on himself anymore. The stealth was better for escaping but most of all the low cd meant that you could blow it on yourself and still save a teammate later on. Now it's a spell that needs to be saved for the right moment.
The bright side of the changes is that the Purifying Flames buff has increased the farming potential of the hero. This leads to quicker Force Staffs for surviving. Maybe Oracle has become a greedier support?
I love Lion and still play him often. Sadly he has been hit a bit by the changes to the game. He doesn't fair well against heroes like Undying. Still, he is arguably the best disabler in the game.
Pugna will always be my go-to pick no matter his winrate.
I really think the main reason sand king lost winrate is because so many people who don't know him at all played him once or twice because of their immortal. They think he's a lane support and stay in lane, which ofcourse doesn't help your game as much as the normal "stack-everything-until-you-have-blink-and-wreck-everyone" kind of sand king.
I see what you did there, hoho haha ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I think this is why oracle lost winrate
Oracle False Promise
No longer makes the target invisible
Before, a common strategy for Oracle was to turn yourself invisible while in fog, giving you enough time to gank someone. This was especially powerful with Orchid. Now, Oracle can't do that.
Oracle is not a support hero anymore, but people still play as if he was one. He's better when played as a mid or semi-carry.
The oracle ulti nerf was why his win rate sank so much. It's literally just shallow grave except you have to keep healing while they are in it. Dazzle can be a better oracle by pressing W.
@Matthias
Hex never blocked backtrack.
@matrice
Are you sure about that? You'd think it would've done given it applied break before 6.84 and that would disable the passive, I must've been extremely lucky with hexing and fingering, on voids, with Lion then.
hidden message... KawaiiSocks confirmed Illuminati
Oracle, oracle - wrong meta for this hero. He was stronk as by-stander and counter when the game was about one right clicker wiping an entire team - troll, jugger, sniper meta. Now he got directly nerfed (at least in those games where the invisbility would make a difference, e. g. normal skill) and keeps bunny hopping in teamfights while waiting on CD. Dazzle is a better choice for a support in a teamfight meta. Oracle mb only as situational pick and on pos 2/3, i guess.
G UNIT
earth spirit and ember spirit TT_TT
ho ho ha ha
Oracle's CD on his ult going up made a pretty big difference for him. Also the Dotabuff stats are mostly based upon sub 4k pubs, where the invisibility tends to be more effective than the new purging effect. AKA Good heroes for pros or high skill cap heroes (Wisp, Batrider, Invoker, Meepo, Earth Spirit) have low winrates because most pubs play them badly (with them on their team or themselves).
Sniper nerfed? nah just balanced mates. Long ago even before shrapnel became charge based i skiped shrapnel and opted for stats instead because i felt that sniper could use some health, armour and artack speed rather than a puny slow. I went with the same idea when shrapnel was charge based and it didnt effect my win rate at all. I still maintain a 80% winrate with sniper with over 80 games played on my main steam account and out of those 80 matches I skilled shrapnel just 1 time to test it.
STATS>SHRAPNEL
SNIPER IS STILL OP if played right (without shrapnel ofcourse)
Earth Spirit my signature hero and it was really nerfed a bit, in early game hes pretty weak. Though still powerful in mid and late game.
Alchemist has a low winrate because people in Low MMR have no idea how to build him
Going shit like Phase Shadow Blade Mjollnir then they wonder how they get insta killled in fights when they have 1.5k health and 4 armor 30 mins in
hahahohahoha
notice the bolded letters on the paragraph ^^
I love Lion to bits. I think the hero's major (and only) flaw as a support is his lack of a true "AOE" kind of disable that can ignore the blocking/reflecting rules of Linken's Sphere/Lotus Orb. Normally Linken's can be circumnavigated by using Mana Drain, but LO? It's effectively a 6-second BKB against Lion (unless you want to be disabled yourself) and that's why I see its addition as a factor for the decreased winrate.
That being said, I like the addition of Glimmer Cape, and hey, if you can't beat them, join them. It's a great item on Lion, not core, but great nonetheless.
Nice little hidden HoHoHaHa.
Still it seems like every time there's a new patch and you put up some post there is always one thing that makes me go "Is this guy stupid?". This time it was the Morphling part. Morph can't flash farm on the same level as an SF, Gyro, or Luna but he can still farm reasonably fast. Waveform is both a very solid nuke for clearing lanes and jungle while simultaneously letting you move around faster, plus if you morph a fair amount of agi his dps is quite good for the part of the game you are at, no matter what part that is. And once you get linken's you have the mana to use waveform rather liberally which accelerates things a bit. Plus you can farm very aggressively. And all you really need is a linkens eblade to start making things happen so it's not as if you have to wait until super late before hes useful. Plus hes got a pretty solid laning stage for a hard carry. Rather than say he shouldn't be played in a 1 or 2 role (hes still quite solid for both) id say that he can now also be played in a 3 or 4 role just as well.
Of course it's the change to Oracle's ulti which is why he has a winrate as low as omniknights lose rate. What makes no sense is why he would be nerfed, he already had only something like a 43% winrate in pubs alread, and he lacks any proper hard lockdown, or a silence. No professional team should consider picking him over any other support while the current nerfs remain in place.
At the moment its a shallow grave + worse repel for 8 seconds on a 40 second cooldown as an *ultimate*. Dazzle casts shallow grave every 15 seconds for a 5 sec duration and omni casts repel every 14 seconds for a 12 second duration, and both heroes actually come with an ultimate ability which swings teamfights massively in favour of their team unlike Oracle. The cooldown is now too long to use the spell for double healing as part of his healing combo since you can't afford to have it on cool down in case a fight breaks out.
As well as the huge cooldown nerf (even 40 seconds at level 16 is only a 'once per team fight' ability) the removal of invisibility massively screwed the utility of the spell and therefore hero. 9 seconds was long enough invis to run across the river and put a ward down on the enemy side without them seeing. You could save yourself or allies if you were ganked and set up a gank more easily.
Purifying flames buffs...hah. How can a slight mana cost and cooldown reduction on a spell which is entirely reliant on your other spells in order to achieve the desired effect be considered a buff. You still end up healing the enemy more than you damage them unless you dispell the heal (and there is now a 170 mana increase on Eul's active so that's another indirect nerf to the hero), the cooldown on Fortune's end is still the same so you can't cast it on an enemy hero more than you already would. Fate's Edict is still on a 12 second cooldown so you can't cast it on an allied hero more than you already would. If you are using it to farm neutral creeps faster then it means that you have an Oracle on your team and so your chances of winning are stacked 60% against you.
Icefrog nerfed the hero to shit. He has the lowest winrate and the least impact in a game. He desperately needs to undo the nerfs to the ultimate or dramatically increase the power of his other spells to make up for it.
People tend to forget dazzle w can be countered by DoT's, and if you've higher HP than the insta kill axe dunk you can't be dunked like dazzle. But high burst hero kill ultied people anyway, unlike dazzle grave who will absorb everything and stay at 1 hp :/.
well u can see the patch 6.84 brings the great changes to game all the carries are now in the list of losers and support have increased win rate.
great patch! it is funny how many people do not read patch notes (or at least do not care about them and sitll pick the same heroes as 6.83)
"grain of slat"
Oracle used to win with Slark, but they are not best friends now.
New oracle ult is shit how can a lot people not see that im like so confused
^ dude hell no new Oracle Ult is great. Now they can't stun, slow, or do anything to you. If you think invis is better than that you are obviously low level where nobody buys wards. Its basically Shallow Grave + BKB which IMO is great, plus it can heal you hella lot if you have healing items (Mek / Urn / etc.)
Lion lost it's winrate because of direct hex nerf, not because of some deep meta bullshit.
нихуя не понял
Oracles just a shit hero imo. Not that he can't be usefull, but 99.9% of the time there is just a better hero to pick.
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Where is Storm Spirit? ):