From Hero to Zero: Supports
When people discuss the current state of the game, the highest amount of praise usually goes to the versatility and viability of the heroes in the meta. Even compared to the Manila and Shanghai Majors, the meta is much more diverse and it certainly shows even on a pub level. At the same time, there was a very interesting change which was almost completely underlooked—there might be no strongly defined core meta, but some of the recent support favorites have taken a very substantial hit to their popularity.
Less than half-a-year ago, heroes like 
Lion, 
Bane, 
Winter Wyvern and 
Disruptor have been a top priority for both professional teams and pub players. Currently, with the exception of Lion, these heroes are in the bottom half of the popularity list in public matchmaking. Similarly, these heroes have been quite unpopular during the International among the professionals, with Lion and Disruptor only reaching 16 picks each in the LAN stage of the event and a less than 15% contestion rate.
It raises an interesting question: why have the previous staples almost disappeared, despite such an open meta? None of them have received any major nerfs and the buffs to other support heroes in the most recent patches, with the exception of 
Shadow Demon, have been rather tame. Maybe there is a defined meta after all, only less restrictive and a lot more subtle?
Lion
This hero, played by pieliedie pretty much won the Shanghai Major. A set of very reliable disables coupled with a strong nuke made this hero a staple pick in the professional matches. Moreover, it has propelled him into the first popularity spot for conventional supports—something the hero didn’t give up to this day.
Consistency, versatility and reliability are the defining characteristics of the hero. While he does not excel as the lane harasser or a defensive hero to couple with a late-game carry, Lion, if played at least decently, will have an impact in 99% of the games, regardless of the team compositions.
He was also often picked as a way of dealing with illusions—both 
Hex and 
Mana Drain one-shot them, with the latter having a very low cooldown of only 4 seconds.
Despite all that, the hero was largely ignored during the International. There are several potential explanations for this trend and the truth probably hides in some combination of them.
Some of the most obvious ones are the hero’s greediness coupled with low lane pressure in the early levels. With low attack damage and no spammable nukes, the hero should be very conservative with his mana during the beginning of the laning stage. Against a popular offlane hero like 
Timbersaw Lion will do nothing for the first 3 or 4 minutes of the game—the damage from 
Earth Spike is not enough and even the supposedly strong Mana Drain is unlikely to have a major impact—heroes will either have a Mango or Magic Wand charges for a small burst of mana for a mobility spell or simply buy an Iron Talon and go jungle, if they ever feel threatened. Unless Lion can get early kills, he quickly starts falling off—he is very level dependent and can quickly turn into non-factor.
The introduction of the [missing item: infused-raindrop] also hurt the hero quite badly. 120 damage off a 600 damage nuke almost guarantees the survival of the focus target and gives it time to react. Without the ability to reliably erase a hero once in 160 seconds, Lion loses a lot of appeal.
Finally, while Lion is great at dealing with a small number of illusions, he does very little against an overwhelming horde of the popular 
Manta Style+ Shadow Demon+illusion hero combination. 2 or 3 illusions from an early game Naga will quickly get wiped out. 6 illusions (e.g. Terrorblade) will lose 33% of their force from the initial cast and one more illusion once Mana Drain will go off cooldown—50% of it will still be applying pressure to your objectives, while Lion himself has effectively spent half of his abilities. The latter trade provides little justification for a Lion pick against illusion heroes in the current meta.
Bane
The ultimate bully with good lane sustain and set up spell which does wonders against solo lanes. Good starting stats, useful abilities and a reliable Mirana helper was bound to be more popular, yet he was not. Once again, there is more to it than meets the eye.
While the hero offers great lane pressure, he is still consistently too weak to actually kill the target, unless there is a strong follow up. If there is decent follow up, then the offlaner still has the option to purchase an Iron Talon, as it allows him to jungle early on. The hero is too easily countered during the drafting stage, with many possibilities ranging from sending a dual lane to prevent 
Nightmare End combos, or picking a strong jungler in the first place. When the enemy gets a way to react, utility of this particular hero goes down by a huge margin.
Once again, the hero will also have problems being useful against illusions. With a set of strong single-target spells, Bane will be able to offer little against off-hands, no-contact sieges. Back in the day, he was frequently picked to counter Sven, Lifestealer and other similar heroes. Currently it is not an option, since the latter have greatly fallen out of favor.
Moreover, Bane is somewhat gold and experience dependent, without a natural way to get gold. The hero has no way of clearing stacks or outpushing the creepwave, making him relatively poor come mid game, unless his early game is a success.
Finally, the bully potential of the hero has been compromised with the re-emergence of Bounty Hunter and the introduction of roaming “support” Riki. These heroes frequently choose when to engage, offering higher versatility and can also usually provide slightly more damage. They might be less effective as harassers, but they have higher chances of actually netting a kill on the target and that aspect is subjectively more important.
Disruptor
The hero was re-introduced into the professional scene on the back of Slark’s popularity. Being one of the best heroes at dealing with high mobility targets, Disruptor has quickly gained fame during the Spring-Summer period. With decent laning presence and good matchups vs. many popular heroes, it was weird to see hero getting almost completely ignored during the biggest tournament of the year.
Invoking the regular “illusion” argument is less appropriate in case of Disruptor. The hero is not excellent at dealing with illusions, but he can have a strong impact against illusion-based heroes. He is a good follow-up to an initiation onto the enemy backlines and can frequently ensure extra kills with the help of 
Glimpse. Moreover, he can set up great surprise pick-off on split-pushing targets with the same spell and can even open up great opportunities for your team to split-push themselves.
What the hero does not offer, however, is reliable way of controlling the enemy or saving teammates. That makes him underwhelming in smaller skirmishes, since most of his kit revolves around decently long cooldowns with very specific impact.
All his spells also take some time to become effective—there is a delay on damage, on Glimpse and even on the 
Kinetic Field. This provides an opening for the enemy to react, which, once again, can be detrimental.
There’s also the increase in individual mechanical skill of players to consider. Disjointing Glimpse with Manta Style invoked awe a year ago, now it is everyday mechanic even in mid-level pubs.
Winter Wyvern
Winter Wyvern has been a staple pick for a very short period and quickly fell out of grace with the nerfs in the patch following her introduction to the Captain's Mode. Since then, she was a very on-and-off situational pick.
With the rise in the popularity of Beastmaster, however, the hero has gained some momentum—the strength of 
Winter's Curse against heroes with a multitude of summons became apparent, while 
Cold Embrace became a much stronger save in a meta filled with high physical damage heroes.
In a meta where illusion spam was once again a viable strategy, one would assume that the Wyvern would make a comeback. And to a certain degree she did—the hero was quite successful, when picked, but she was not picked too often.
The big problem was the opportunity cost of picking the hero—she just didn’t fare too well against the competition. While, on average, her power level was similar to the top support dogs of TI6, she didn’t have a pronounced utility in a certain aspect. She has a save, but it doesn’t save as well as Oracle’s 
False Promise or Shadow Demon’s 
Disruption. Her nuke is not as reliable, as the ones provided by other heroes, while her ultimate is extremely situational and in a category of its own.
All of this made the hero extremely niche. She was a niche pick for certain teams in certain lineups.
Closing Thoughts
Support heroes are the backbone of any lineup. Lately, the role has been receiving more and more appreciation from the Dota players and this trend is undeniably heartwarming.
With that said, the increase in appreciation did not necessarily lead to an increase in understanding of the role by the community. Supporting is a very delicate task which requires a lot of thought starting in the drafting stage. There will always be stronger and weaker heroes within a patch, but understanding these strengths and weakness is paramount to both getting the right hero and playing him well.
first
sosite hui
Talking about lion: "Despite all that, the hero was largely ignored during the International"
WTF is this guy smoking, how is 13th most picked hero during TI "ignored"
Talking about disruptor: "With decent laning presence and good matchups vs. many popular heroes, it was weird to see hero getting almost completely ignored during the biggest tournament of the year."
"Almost completely ignored", 6th most picked hero at TI and literally tied for most popular support pick along with Vengeful Spirit. I'm wondering if this author even watched TI this year. What a pointless article.
http://www.dotabuff.com/esports/leagues/4664/heroes
"Supporting is a very delicate task which requires a lot of thought starting in the drafting stage"
"Support heroes are the backbone of any lineup"
#SupportLife
Author specifically said at the lans, not the whole TI. Learn to read idiot
Hungry Like The Wolf that link is the entirety of main qualifiers as well, the numbers discussed here are all about LAN.
@hungry like the wolf: Like First Pick Mirana pointed out, the link you provided covers all the qualifiers for TI as well.
For just TI LAN, http://www.dotabuff.com/esports/events/126/picks this is the table you should refer to. You'll see only 16 picks and 8 bans for Lion
where is visage?
Since WW come to the scene Visage has loss his flight in pro tournament games. :( sad
Nyx Assasin 64% win rate , highest out of all heroes with 20+ matches played, not even mad thats amazing
Yet no article
11th and proud !
Still Dazzle !!!!
lol newbs
Get cancer and pie boobs
Why there is a Crystal Maiden instead of Winter Wyvern in the picture of Winter Wyvern section? o.O
Wait, Lion and Disruptor were fairly popular supports at TI6, why didn't my boys Visage or Treant Protector make the list?
@Quinkerros: I was about to say that. It truly bothers me a lot.
wtf , useless article... only lion infused raindrops is a good point.
Support role is dead. Dead.
@BlurryBob
Just cause you're awful at supporting doesn't mean the role is 'dead'.
Did anyone else come for the Visage image?
@Danergald I guess the thought behind that is since drow was big at this tournament, her automatic pair getting 0 picks emphasizes how much of a zero he's become in the eyes of pros.
winter wyvern is a top carry, and yeah, ama 0k
exactly one article before this one, lion is a counter to timber, in this one, lion isnt enough.. so...? this guys are not working together it seems..
misleading thumbnail :'(
@Quinkerros
This images comes from the comics highlighting ww. But you are right, its quite misleading
@Hungry Like The Wolf ahahahahaha fucking retard. counting all of qualifiers where low-tier teams that know nothing of the meta plays. nice statistics bro
Worst blog ever.
I feel like the author of this blog has very little understanding of dota. Most of his arguments are just bullshit.
Like: disruptors spells have a delay. This has and and always will be the case, but definitely isn´t the reason why he has fallen out of meta.
Or that Lion can "only" kill 2 illusions. This is amazing for a support. Taking out 2 illus immidately and then still having earth spike, a ground target spell that can stun all illus that are left if used correctly amd furthermore having the option of a late game ags to kill all illus / immidiatley reveal the real hero since the illus take way more damage.
Imo the winter wyvern argument was kind of pointless. Yes he is no longer op, but not every hero can be a top pick. The hero is in a good spot, maybe a few minor buffs are needed but that´s it. Heroes like Visage that got featrued on the thumbnail and have not been picked at all (correct me if δm wrong on that one) would have been more interesting to discuss.
Also lots of your arguments are very shallow. Like: " Bane is somewhat gold and experience dependent". Why should bane be gold or xp dependent ? He doesn´t have a strong ags and his skills don´t need an item like blink dagger to be effective. Obviously with items like ather lens he is stronger than without, but that accounts for every hero. Furthermore Bane is considered to be one of the strongest level 1 heroes with nightmare, so the xp argument also falls flat imo. Even his ult only scales in damage and he gets full utility at level 6.
Honstly this blog was so bad that I´m never going to read one again. Dotabuff is a great stats website, but the blog part is trash.
sam sosi hui, pidor
31st yaay boy
Visage needs to change the way he is played
when he summons familiars they should always follow him and you cant control them when you want to stun an are you just press the ability to stun from visage and one familir will be sent directly to the impact location when the familiar restores it automatically attempts to go back to visage... A very simple mechanic and it would make the hero famous most pub players would pick him considering he is good vs some current meta heroes...
GOTTA GO FAST
@enchanted mango, i disagree, cuz visage familiars are 2 summoned units and most be used as aditional units (how it is right now), is just uncomfortable the difference betwen the move speed of the hero and the familiars.. in other hand, and taking u idea.. there is no need for puck to use another button to teleport to ilussory orb, or IO using 2 secondary buttons to expand and compress his damaging balls (i dont remember the name of the ability)... they should be used like rubick telekinesis.. one button to trigger, and the same for the optional effect.. just IMO, IO could be a pub-star with that simple change.. sadly, volvo wont heard me.. ¿someone know how can i comunicate this ideas?
dat heroes
@Enchanted Mango I think you misunderstand Visage, him being simplified that much fundamentally changes the hero. Having the birds as their own entities allows you to juke enemies and position them to take towers or cut creep waves. Removing the mobility of the units entirely and having the chained to you would be a massive nerf to an already unpopular hero. Also the Familiars are extremely valuable, so if you have them stuck to you how are you supposed to keep them out of trouble so you don't lose them and have to wait an eternity. His birds need a buff, not a change.
What his familiars really need is either 1-2 more hitpoints against Heroes to give them more survivability against heroes like Weaver/Clinkz/PA/Mirana/Anyonewithgoodattackspeed or to give the familiars the ability to warp to Visage like Lone Druid bear. Visage is currently super strong, the reason why he isn't a pro pick is because he doesn't have the ability to TP around to help others or roam due to being anchored by his birds, and in this highly mobile meta that is a major weakness. Without his birds it's like you are only using half your hero, like Enchantress without Enchant or Lone Druid without his bear, so he is terrible at being mobile unlike every other support(Barring other creep based supports like Enchantress and Chen.) Another massive buff to familiars would be to give them greater vision(The birds are practically blind) but this would make them just a better BM hawk.
@Hungry Like The Wolf Those picks are mainly from the qualifiers, I'm pretty sure that the author is referring to the main event only.
@Urist McDragoslayer, i once was triying visage a lot, then, i face death prophet, exorcist kill my familiars in every fight feeding her to the infinite, after that, fuck visage.. he is strong, but have a terrible mobility (as u say) and extremely weak-feeders summoned units..
I spammed Crystal Maiden for 2 weeks. I got 69% winning rate
I have personally lost games because of badly timed WW ults used when other big team fight ults were used at the same time. When she was nerfed, her ult became more like Naga's at that point. Still very good, but very dangerous.
Just enjoy the blog and take what's important to you. Easy right? Stop howling like a baby. Try to learn from everything. Even if you called this blog is a trash. #neutral #sympathy
buff my visage!!!
You couldn't find a pic of Winter Wyvern? I guess Crystal Maiden is looking for her.