The Best Hero Is The Worst To Play
Omniknight has been the king of pubs for the past few patches. He’s the only hero with a 60%+ win rate in pubs, and he holds the top spot across all skill brackets. Yet, he’s currently the 47th most popular hero in 6.85b, with a 8.9% pick rate. To compare, you’ll see Shadow Fiend (28% pick rate), the 2nd most popular hero, more than 3 times as often as Omniknight. He isn’t alone here. There are heroes like Abaddon, Venomancer, and Lich—all with greater than 50% win rates but in the bottom half of picked heroes. Even success in pubs can’t transcend the simple fact that some heroes aren’t that fun to play.
No Love For Support Players
Run down the list of our most picked heroes this month and it’ll take 21 heroes before you see a support, Crystal Maiden. Earthshaker is the anomaly here as the 5th most popular hero, but he is also played in the offlane in 33% of games. But in the majority of All Pick scenarios, support players are relegated to second class citizens. The pick stage begins with a clamoring for the cores, until the remaining few are forced to field suggestions of “support please.”
Supports take most of the blame and rarely the glory (e.g. see the chat wheel categories for items and neutrals, which include bemoaning, passive-aggressive comments such as “We need wards.” and “Can anyone upgrade the courier?”). There are no 8k MMR highlights for ward placement or critical rotations. Playing a core is a fairly simple task for the general player, at least for the early game. There’s a loose rubric to follow. If you’re the carry, you hit creeps. If you’re the mid player, you hit creeps. If you’re the offlaner, you try to hit creeps, but it’s ok if you don’t. What is there to do for the non-creep hitting crowd? You can pull creeps and ward, meanwhile gauging where to rotate among all three lanes. Support players, however, are behind the scenes, pulling the strings that can change the tide of the game, whether by using timely Smoke of Deceits or setting up the jungle for their cores to succeed. It’s an interaction that goes unnoticed among the majority of Dota pub players, but at least in 4-5k and 5k+ MMR brackets, adhering closer to the professional meta, we do see Winter Wyvern and Dazzle entering the top 15 most picked.
Sounds That Feel Good (And Bad)
There’s a certain amount of satisfaction that we associate with various sounds in Dota: that ring from a creep kill, the whoosh from a healing salve, the splash from Kunkka’s Tidebringer. There’s an entire field of study, psychoacoustics, that examines this kind of interaction between how we feel in response to sound and music. It’s akin to a Pavlolvian response when we net a last hit. The game chimes our success, and we feel satisfied. Compare the auto attack sounds of Blademaster against Omniknight. One results in a pleasing slice and the other sounds like a thud from a roll of newspaper.
Sounds, and the result of those sounds, play integral parts in how Dota heroes feel. Dark Seer’s karate chop sounds like he’s initiating a pillow fight. When he kills a hero with an auto attack it’s an ironic satisfaction. Omniknight’s Guardian Angel sound is majestic, but the resulting effect is often incomprehensible. How much damage did you really prevent?
The fact is that Omniknight’s abilities are passive ones. Even defensive supports, such as Dazzle and Winter Wyvern, have active, offensive spells or they have core items with actives, such as Medallion, and Urn of Shadows. Aside from Purification, there is no immediate reward to casting any of his other spells. Degen Aura no discernible sound and has a negligible radius. And Repel is a preventative effect. It can enable your Storm Spirit teammate to engage with impunity, but afterwards, does the team congratulate you for that? No, that’s what you were supposed to do (“Can anyone cast Repel?”). There would be some joy in seeing Finger of Death do zero damage to a repelled target, but as of 6.71, the spell can no longer target magic immune units. Unlike other supports, Omniknight is tethered by obligation to his teammates. He is more priest than paladin, holy warrior.
Aesthetic Balance
Omniknight is notable in that he has been extremely successful in pubs for more than a year. He doesn’t need a balance change (non-existent in competitive play) but perhaps more of an aesthetics one. His impact is well documented in pubs, but he isn’t popular enough for that to create a ripple. Valve’s recent buffs to the cast point of Purification over 6.84 and 6.85 may have been part to improve the playability of the hero. But he could also use improvements in his model, cosmetics, and perhaps even an Arcana. How popular would Omniknight be if there was a German Shepherd puppy following him around?
i never lose solo mmr match making with this hero
Playing only sups and being blamed all the time for "failing" - mostly by people who are playing qop mid and asking for a gank after 10 minutes ... yeah, true story - i have a lot more (3,200 solo / 3,500 team mmr)
u are wrong
i like omni and he is fun and everything, i simply dont play him coz he is melee= cant deward
i never pick melee supports they suck
valve needs to fix this gamebreaking "feature"
Blademaster = Juggernaut
Thank you, finally, someone recognizes the hard work us omniknights pull.
Omni is great, but the average dota player is a retard or a child who only picks the flashy heroes. I enjoy playing as a badass paladin and saving my idiot teammates, so he's a good hero for me.
Pretty sure its just down to personal preference on playstyle not just some overall 'fun' rating. I prefer healing to killing and stopping the enemy from doing what they want feels better than just running around and killing everyone to me. However the most common mentality of gamers is obviously going to be to run and kill, which Omni doesn't do. In short, I love playing Omni. One of the most fun heroes.
Don't talk shit about my MMR printer, random blogger.
Omni = Chuck Norris
That's why he wins!
I love playing omni, even though being a support is a thankless job, nothing is more satisfying than saving the retard carry.
Sf is just so fun to play!!!! I pick support when i'm lagging hahaha
Omniknight is one of my fav heroes with highest winrates. Yes his gameplay is pretty boring, just hug your cores, keep them alive and time your GAs (sometimes tricky purifications) decently which most of the time turn the whole game.
Omni generally has no hard counters. Diffusal blade? Not that cheap to buy early, and still requires a VERY GOOD teamwork to execute effectively (imagine what happens if your DB carrier got focused and died first?). Doom? Doom counters everyone, so your own gameplay matters. Silencer? Get eul scepter. And what happens if a GA is casted during a freaking crowded battle? Most of the time you're simply fucked up.
Again, omni is boring to play but the beautiful part is final victory. Your choice.
EARTHSPIRIT is THE BEST!!!!
@pulse_
u know u can kill wards with tango or q. blade right?
but omni is fun to play?
I have a friend who plays Omni almost exclusively. He's a great hero (sans the degen aura radius, which should be more like 1200), but he's also a kill stealer, which makes him a support that gets yelled at more than usual. Two melee hero's are going at it 1v1? Purification! Kill stolen. Add to that he's the only support (besides dark seer, who some call a support) who's melee. Supports are supposed to hang back, carry aura's, and save the carries. Omni has support abilities, but, mechanically, works like a carry. An odd hero, for sure.
OMNI HIGH WINRATE BUT WHEN I PLAY HIM, I ALWAYS LOSE.
When people will start to use their brain instead of blindly following the "meta" in every patch because "I wanna win with overpicked heroes heroes, who cares about the skill?", this will be a better game.
A good idea for omni or any other healing players would be adding an allied-only 'save!' sound/animation that would be displayed if a healed hero gets reduced below the healed value within a 1-or-2-second time after it was heal. That would motivate healing a lot and also make players wanna play healers more.
Also, something similar for canceling/disjointing sells, especially with repel
Make guardian angel effect be all affected allies immune to all physical and magical damage and you will see every game omniknight first pick for pub game... first ban for pro gaming... :))))
The problem is most supports just have no real impact if their carry can't carry. They can 'sacrifice' and play 'servant' as much as they want but all of that is for nothing if your carry misses almost every last hit under no pressure, makes stupid plays and what not.
This experience is extremely undesirable. So naturally people will gravitate to playing carries. It is much better to have a bad support then a bad carry. Worse case, they don't buy wards/courier, attempt to take last hits and feed. A bad carry on the other hand wastes an entire lane of farm while giving the illusion of obtaining it. Playing carry is a degree of control. Even if you have a terrible game, it feels nowhere near as futile as watching your carry Phantom Assassin get excited about getting an Armlet at some 30 minutes with basically brown boots and little else.
The whole thing about AA giving vision and 6 million echo is pro scene. The average guy doesn't care because they might have given the exact same vision in a similar situation and had nothing happen. A common one is when a support ganks but the carry in lane doesn't react at all to their presence no matter how much or how little is said meaning the support has wasted their time and got nothing out of it through no fault of their own. A support can only open the glory door, the carry must walk through on their own and sometimes they won't no matter how much you push them.
Honestly, the game needs drastic changes that will never happen for support to stop being so much of a servant so the role is more desirable then to roughly 5% of players at best. Many play it out of obligation rather than will as well.
wtf omni is not fun to play? support is not fun to play? you do not take the glory? sounds absurd for me. imho if you specialize in playing support, you earn the most glory cause you are special. i followed SirActionSlacks guide and it just works perfectly
COMPLETELY TRUE!! Killing a hero with dark seer's auto attack makes me high as fk lol
Chi Long Qua the best paladin the world has ever seen.
Hail!!!
For you win mmr games you need to play supports. Late game supports like this one, danzle, abaddon, tide, dark seer and so on!
Some noobs are saying they cant deward with omniknight because he is mele! Buy a fucking quelling blade and deward noobs. That item is also good for destroy techies bombs and remotes!
have 70%+ winrate with omni, and I find it really fun to play -> ult -> heal ->death. The simple fact that ennemy can't touch your allies make it so joyfull. I really like it, and it is definitely my favorite hero.
Also heal + repel make you able to leave any chase by ennemy. That is so cool to see them raging !
нихуя не понял. ... 6л3а
73% over 114 games, one of my favorite heroes, idk why people see him as passive support, any support can be played as agressive one even if he does not have disable spells
I didn't like playing Omini, but i couldn't get out of the lower MMR, specially with full supports like CM (HC lower MMR= F* Idiots). Then i started playing Omini and i started winning because i let thouse idiots alive. So i started liking Omini, but he cant make a miracle happen, if your team has a good map control you have a good chance to win. Of all the late game supporter omini is the lest pick because it is defecalt to feel its difference, and easy to make mistake, for example Ogre is a Lot easyer and you can sea the nuke and stun, but if your team is not going well his impact will be smaller... Master Omini, dont go full sup, farm when possible, dont follow the idiots hc (find some one in the team that is not full idiot), and the most important: dont die (u will be focus, your team cant see your effect but the enemy team can), if u die the f*ing Idiots will die to.
Just pick razor ,,, his third can melt guardian angel
Omni is cancer ,he is boring to play against and even is boring for player himself
German Shepherd? How about..... A PUG FOLLOWING HIM AROUND?
sourfacePug
I didnt realize MMR went down to below like 1500 since you start at 3500. Ive gotten to about 2200 is my lowest then climbed back up to above 3k. All through elder titan actually - a very under rated hero who has a huge impact on games though it doesn't seem it.
I play Omni at ranked low 3k. He is weakest in the first 7min. Some carries know how potent you are and won't fight without you. But when you know you are making an impact is when the enemy Teams initiator (Doom, Legion or Spirit breaker) hold onto their spells through out the team fight just to kill you. It's frustrating, but on the other hand it means you are doing your job well.
Omniknight is my third most played hero :D http://www.dotabuff.com/players/104298007