Why Is Omniknight So Bad?
Image by Crowntail
Once in a new moon, a new meta rises from the ashes. From this new meta, some heroes float to the top and others sink to the bottom. In this current meta, some wacky things have floated to the top that no one predicted. 
Sniper support, 
Weaver support, 
Luna offlane, and other combinations unseen in the history of Dota.
One hero that sunk to the bottom of the current meta is 
Omniknight. In examining why Omniknight has fallen so low, we’ll learn about this current meta, what’s strong, and why it’s strong so you can start winning your pub games.
Ominknight’s pick and win rate
In the Dotabuff meta page, every hero’s win rate is tracked from the last month.
Across every skill bracket, Omniknight has a under 49% win rate. In Divine/Immortal games he’s at 43.92% win rate.
At the latest major tournament, ESL One Birmingham 2020 - Online, Omniknight is one of three heroes who remain unpicked. The other two are 
Dark Seer and 
Pudge.
Successful heroes’ pick and win rate
Let’s look at some heroes doing well and picked often to compare against Omniknight.
Pub games
In the Divine/Immortal bracket in the offlane role, the top heroes are:
Lycan
Visage
Venomancer
Lone Druid
EnigmaESL One Birmingham 2020 - Online
The most picked heroes at ESL One Birmingham 2020 - Online so far have been:
Earthshaker - 97 matches, 54.64% win rate.
Queen of Pain - 85 matches, 55.29% win rate.
Ember Spirit - 67 matches, 53.73% win rate.
Dragon Knight - 66 matches, 51.52% win rate.
Beastmaster - 66 matches, 48.48% win rate.
Rubick - 65 matches, 44.62% win rate.
Bane - 62 matches, 54.84% win rate.
Nature's Prophet - 62 matches, 48.39% win rate.
Phoenix - 61 matches, 57.38% win rate.
Why Omniknight fails and other heroes succeed
New map objectives
Do you find yourself looking at the game clock more often? You should, new objectives have made moving across the map and being aware of the time more important than ever.
Every 10 minutes, Outposts give experience which can lead to a snowballing effect when one team gets all the experience and the other gets none.
Every five minutes, Bounty Runes spawn and the gold gain adds up. A team that collects all the bounty runes, or gets most of them, will have a significant advantage that becomes harder to claw back from.
Collecting Bounty Runes means your supports will be able to buy Sentry Wards which reduces your vision, item timings will arrive faster, and the cost of teleport scrolls can be negated.
These objectives mean heroes with high mobility can impact the game more than those with low mobility. This is a reason why heroes like Queen of Pain, Nature’s Prophet, Ember Spirit, and Phoenix are popular in the current meta. They’re able to travel large distances with their abilities.
Omniknight is a slow hero with a poor cast range. He has to walk from place to place. This is useful if you’re protecting one core and walking down a lane, but in this meta, moving across the map to collect objectives is what gives your team advantages that can snowball.
Towers are harder to push
Towers were buffed in recent patches. A slight buff can make all the difference when it comes to a game like Dota and this slight buff has led to a return of push type heroes.
Heroes that are doing well in the offlane like Luna, Lycan, Enigma, Beastmaster, Venomancer, Lone Druid, and Visage all have some kind of pushing ability. Either summons or auras, these heroes are known for their ability to push well.
When you kill towers, the map opens up more. This lets you move around easier while making it more difficult for the enemy. This movement leads to easier objective taking.
When you can teleport to your mid tier one tower or move unobstructed across enemy territory because of their lack of towers, you can collect Bounties or claim Shrines easier.
This all leads back to how collecting objectives helps you win the game.
Omniknight’s strength is protecting his team. This is useful when the meta involves fighting or surviving, but this meta is about movement and objectives. Omniknight’s toolkit doesn’t involve objective taking.
Games are ending faster
The average game length at ESL One Birmingham 2020 - Online has been 35 minutes 23 seconds.
At ESL One Los Angeles, the average game length was 34 minutes 37 seconds.
In January, the games were slightly longer.
At DreamLeague Season 13, the average game length was 40 minutes 40 seconds.
At WePlay! Bukovel Minor 2020, it was 39 minutes 28 seconds.
What does this mean? When games are ending faster, each objective increases in importance.
It also means that the teams that collect more objectives, gain an almost insurmountable advantage and by 35 minutes, they can end the game easily.
Omniknight is too slow to walk across the map when people are meeting at objectives every five and 10 minutes. This means that teams with heroes that can meet at objectives more often will have an advantage in collecting them, which provides the entire team additive advantages over the course of the game.
Final thoughts
The name of the game in this meta is speed. You need to react faster than your enemies and collect as many objectives as you can. Heroes like Queen of Pain, Ember Spirit, and Nature’s Prophet excel at this. Omniknight is slow.
You also want to push towers faster so the map opens up more for your team. Heroes like Beastmaster, Enigma, and Venomancer excel at this. Omniknight isn’t exceptional in this area.
Games are ending faster so each objective increases in importance. When Omniknight is sitting in lane collecting his gold and experience, he’s not helping gain team objectives. By 20 or 30 minutes, Omniknight might have a few items, but if the enemy team was running around the map, then they would have slightly more than their opponents.
A good experiment might be to rush Blink Dagger or Boots of Travel on Omniknight. A 15 minute Blink Dagger or Boots of Travel on Omniknight might be all the difference that’s needed to even the imbalance of his immobility. Someone try this and report back in the comments!
Was one of my favored pick when combined with PA. Now he's healer creep with some chrono/duel protection
lovely article, thanks for noticing this hero, since he has a very low pick rate, i think he needs an ability rework so he gets a global aura ability instead of his degen aura that can make him a rather useful-situational hero atleast, similar to how CM' aura is. Liked to ask if you can also write an article about how weak Lifestealer became after the 7.23 changes. thanks
He was seldom picked in the pro scene all along anyway. Even back when his pub winrate was above 50%..
1) as a support he is greedy (needs both farm and levels)
2) as an offlaner he doesnt contribute much
He currently is where riki was.. neither here nor there
I've got 808 games with Omniknight, and although he used to be fantastic, now he kinda just sucks with all the nerfs he has gotten over the past six months. His spells say he's decent at fighting but that's a total lie unless you take a core role and thus tons of farm, and get two decent items: which he never does. 99% of my games with him have been as a pure support, either pos 4 or 5.
I think Purification's cast range needs to be buffed back to 700 (from its current 400), this would make a big difference in all phases of the game. Omni isn't super item dependent to play his role, but being below average at farming creeps/neutrals really doesn't help him play much of any role other than a support role.
If they buffed his ultimate to give him +60/120/180 bonus damage while it's active, I think we'd see him be much more useful - even if just a little bit.
Omnis winrate just keeps getting pulled down further by the idiots who think he's a support when in fact he's exclusively an offlaner.
I played a game as him yesterday. We won but barely. I picked him 5th after the other team already had picked Treant, Natures Prophet, Weaver, and Spirit Breaker. Omniknight was an obvious counter to them. Then they last picked a Slardar.
Even after rushing and Aghs to make Omniknights ultimate global it was a tough win and this was vs an almost Q
100% physical damage team. I was surprised how hard it was to win vs when I used to play him several years ago.
He needs some speed or buffs on range or reworks. I like the global aura idea or purification range in increase.
I don't play a lot of this hero, so excuse me if I'm wrong, but aren't Omni's level 20 talents really bad?
+3 mana regen or -10% degen aura? Why would you want either of these at level 20?
What if they gave him like a very small AOE Heavenly's Grace or something instead?
@mllcg are you actually insinuating that Riki is bad? Are you insane?
I remember omni mid !
hey make topic about sven next
@Pooh_Hates_Transphobes I couldnt disagree more. In fact I think that the whole premise of this article is that Omni should be played as an offlaner, which is wrong in my opinion. I think Omni should be played as a 4pos alongside a ranged offlaner like weaver WR or clinz. In the lane, Omni can soak up some damage while bullying the enemy support, not unlike an ogre would. Later on, greaves and aghs make it a very powerful asset in any team. Wind lace and any neutral item that gives cast range/movespeed are very important, but I think the reason the hero is so bad is because it is played incorrectly.
But im a scrub, its just my opinion
@godfin reading comprehension is lost in you
He's saying about how Riki WAS... USED TO BE. A weak core, an even weaker support.
Long live offlane omniknight!
@godfin *WAS.
"Omniknight : its not enough that Im slow. I need everybody (enemy) slow"
But its not bad. Not everybody should have high mobility or we will end up like LoL where everyone has gap closer.
tried to complete a win with Omni for my Cavern Crawl quest........but after 3-4 straight losses, called it quits and used a netherswap wand to swap with a different hero....
absolutely horrendous omni, this patch..!!
Omniknight has the highest all time winrate in the game, just go to heroes-winrate and change month to all time on dotabuff. I wonder why that is.
Зашёл специально глянуть, у меня на омнике винрейт 53% и все игры в основном за последние полгода. Но Я его пикал в основном под какого то хард керри типо алхимика или хускара, заходило довольно неплохо. Но в целом, соглашусь, чтобы быть успешным сапом или тройкой ему нужен Рэпел)) а так, Я считаю Аббадона аналогичным и более сильным героем на любой позиции.
bring back repel on omni!
because i hate this hero
IMO, he needs the following changes:
Base Strength reduced by 2 (So he can't be too tanky in the early stage as a support)
Base Intellegence increased by 3 (Obviously better mana pool)
Base Movement speed increased by 10 (To be more active on the map)
And Talent re-tweaks that look something like this perhaps:
Level 10
1) +2 Mana Regen
2) +100 Purification Damage Radius
Level 15
1) +125 Cast Range
2) - 3 Second Purification Cooldown
Level 20
1) +250 Degen Aura Radius
2) Heavenly Grace also provides 2.5 Second Magic Immunity (Mostly to save allies from high-magic burst)
Level 25
1) -6.5 Second Heavenly Grace Cooldown
2) +180 Purification Heal/Damage
All these changes will make him fit better into the current meta and means he can be played as a POS 4 yay! Even Abaddon is faster and more reliable than him at the moment!
Reading this just after being beaten from io - omniknight duo offlane combo be like, wut?
Necrophos is slow and yet he enjoys a 53% winrate.
they ruined the hero when they changed repel to heavenly grace
How about they bring back magic immunity and replace it to STR bonus. Or give his Aghs upgrade Status Resistance.
The only fun omni build nowdays is radiance. Without his old ulti and repel this hero sux.
Omni should has lvl 10 talent that +300 Purification cast Range so at least he can be play as support. still suck anyway.
make his ult just a lower cooldown 9 sec aura of Heavenly Grace's buff and give him something interesting for W
press of for omni knight we must pray for his revival