Stop Underestimating Non-Rightclicking Carries
When someone says “position once carry” most players immediately assume something along the lines of Phantom Assassin: right-click heavy, late-game oriented character with a lot of physical damage coming from right-clicks. Some might also consider heroes like Outworld Destroyer or, depending on the patch, Silencer, with their pure damage attack modifiers. However, very few players will think of heroes like Leshrac or Pugna and that’s something we would like to talk about.
Adjusting to the new realities
We can’t talk about late-game magic damage potential without touching upon one of our most favourite topic: Armor and Armor Scaling. For twenty numerical patches, from 7.07 to 7.27 this mechanic was being heavily modified, but in the end it returned to almost the same exact spot it was in the old days: every point of armor is still 6% extra EHP against physical damage, but now you get one point of armor for every six agility instead of every seven.
This seemingly trivial change, as well as significant periodic increases to Agility growth on agility heroes resulted in a very noticeable increase in late-game Armor values. For example, over the same period Terrorblade’s Agility gain went from 3.2 to 4.4, and the latter change is a very recent nerf from 4.8.
In terms of armor, it means that a late-game level 25 Terrorblade with no items whatsoever went from having around 14 armor in the old days to almost 29 currently. This corresponds to ~85% extra EHP against physical damage against ~175% respectively. Naturally, the difference is even more pronounced on a six-slotted Terrorblade, given how Terrorblade typically builds agility. Getting through this with physical damage alone can be quite problematic.
A different approach
Whether armor is currently inflated, especially on several select heroes, is a topic of its own, but there is another semi-recent change worth keeping in mind: spell amplification. While the effects of spell amp are not immediately apparent, they do contribute quite heavily to the outgoing damage even in the later portions of the game.
Considering how magic resistance remains mostly static, while armor tends to increase considerably over the course of the game, it should come as no surprise that when attacking the same target you frequently have mages out-DPSing physical cores. At least in situations where the target in question is the enemy agility carry.
From our own experiments, heroes like Leshrac and Pugna with just Kaya and Sange, when attacking a ~40 armor dummy target are not significantly behind a Phantom Assassin with the regular 6-slotted build of Power Treads, Battlefury, Desolator, BKB, Skadi and Satanic. In fact, they can be ahead of her when Decrepify from Pugna or Nihilism from Leshrac are applied, and there is also potential Veil of Discord to consider.
Potential counterpoints
Black King Bar is the most iconic Dota 2 item and whole metas have been based around it. Valve tried to address it with the introduction of Status Resistance but after a bit of experimentation it is perfectly clear now that nothing beats full Spell Immunity. For most core heroes it is their second or third slot in any given game.
That naturally goes against the previous ideas: while Spell Immunity does not provide 100% Magic Damage resistance, most Magic Damage effects do not go through BKB and that means there is a very strong counterplay to magic burst.
We believe this is a correct understanding of the situation, as is the understanding that Ghost Sceptre and other Ethereal Form options can be considered the BKB against physical damage. Naturally, Ethereal form does not provide the bearer with the Immunity against most negative effects, but it is also much easier to get early on.
There is no doubt there is more counterplay against late-game magic DPS, however the damage factor typically does not require as much investment into items, so on a Magic-DPS hero you can have more utility and more survivability. Right now the game is well balanced around both magic and physical damage sources and their interaction.
For that reason we urge everyone to keep an open mind when it comes to the late game scaling of magic-based characters. They might be harder to execute well and their itemization and gameplay might be considerably more complex, compared to a typical right-clicking cores, however their peaks are as potent and are as scary as even the hardest of physical carries.
What do you think of non-rightclicking cores in the later stages of the game? Would you trust Leshrac or Necrophos to carry the game in the 50+ minute match? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Wtf!! Lesh pos 1?? "Said every SEA player ever"
And get auto report..
You will get 9 reports if you pick pugna pos 1
Leshrac Gigachad hero
I have been playing pos 1 Enigma over the last couple of months, and have found some success. An important thing to consider is that your pos 2 and/or 3 should be frontliners that deal physical damage so there is a balance of both magical and physical damage.
It is the mixed damage that carries the game. Magic damage dealers are usually on the squishier side and a stacked PA can kill 2-3 of these while her BKB 6 seconds is ongoing... Without taking much damage back from any of them. In the very late game, you need "through BKB" effects just due to this reason... Abyssal Blade for example. A stunned PA with BKB on isn't as intimidating.
Show me a magic damage pos 1 that could scale like a PA, Troll or Medusa with divine rapier(s). Able to blow up a single target in one series of spell-casts (equivalent to one dagger + blink from PA), or steadily hit the entire enemy team for 400+ damage per .5 seconds(like Dusa). And that’s why magic pos 1s will never be fully popular in pubs. Hybrid carries may still see viability without getting flamed and reported, but I can’t see it for pure magic-reliant dps. Similar to having something like Spirit Breaker pos 1, you will be “on a timer” to end the game, before at a certain point you’re just raw outscaled by the enemy pos 1, and from there you hope that your team coordination makes up for the difference in power levels
Please stop giving overconfident people bad ideas because they will ruin game for other 4 people in their team...
Next time you write article like this you should back it up with 20 games statistic showing that it really works... (at least 40% + win rate with pugna pos1)
Another bad article, just retire.
Position 1 Enigma deals percentage magical damage based on max hp with midnight pulse. It pierces spell immunity, meaning it will always scale. The only way that damage can be reduced is by purchasing magic resistance items. Moreover, blackhole itself does pure damage; 200 damage per second for 4 seconds. With aghanim's scepter, an extra 5% of max hp is dealt as dps. I've been documenting my games as position 1 Enigma. Here is a list of them below:
6165308154, 6165939860, 6165981279, 6166834959, 6166926865
6167132382, 6167351195, 6171228458, 6173808699, 6177409395
6181034647, 6186697726, 6187296957, 6191373248, 6191739527
6192609633, 6223093904, 6233304262, 6234374476, 6234553325
6235968096, 6248577282, 6251938769, 6254019813, 6260523568
6265578961, 6268814004, 6270121775, 6271808743, 6271877694
6281301829, 6284802302, 6292248826, 6298497083, 6298549071
6301436363, 6326959364, 6331031625
@ET
Tinker can, if sent to pos1 to dodge an unfavorable mid matchup. I personally see magic pos1's as heores who can theoretically dish out tons of damage, but usually tend to build mostly tank because they need a crapton of items to stay relevant as a DPS. Pango and Timber are first that come to mind from that area. Timber is pretty self-explanatory, while Pango deals most of his damage through his ult and spamming W with aghs and a few attack modifiers (all of those are magical).
A big problem with the magic vs physical pos 1 battle is that ethereal form - which is used to counteract getting bursted just becomes a non factor as long as nullifier exists
The reason right clicking carries are so important and the usual pick is objectives. Lesh and pugna can kill heroes but can't keep pace with a right clicker when it comes to killing rosh or destroying towers past 30ish minutes. There are pos 2's and 3's that can make up the difference but you lose out on potentially game changing utility. I do like lesh or Pugna as niche pos 1's if the game is open for the pick but it's just a lot more reliable to run them 2. Overall good article (but it really should have mentioned the objective taking problem it's kind of important).
Lmaooo please don’t give noobs any ideas, following any suggestions in this article (Pugna pos 1?!) will lose you mmr
@Turbo Virgin
"Lesh and Pugna cant keep pace with a right clicker when it comesto destroying towers"
Wtf did I just read
You know what their spells do right?
https://leaguesofgames.com/blog/new-dota-2-battle-pass-aghanim-s-labyrinth-is-here-dragon-s-blood-mirana-persona-drow-ranger-arcana-and-experimental-controller-support
Bsj, speed, quojva > dotabuff articles
I guess ill go try psychical carry pugna next game double moonshard daedalus and mjolnir
timbersaw pos 2 forever
Leshrac sure in the right game. Pugna, no, just no. You left out the queen of mixed damage though, Death Prophet. Agh's DP is completely capable of carrying games especially if the other team has strength heroes and/or only mediocre burst. Even BKB is very limited utility vs DP as Exorcism is physical and it doesn't stop damage from an existing Spirit Siphon.
intel heroes you could argue for a true pos 1 is Lesh, NP, and probably the old OD. Would be nice to have a right-click mid like TA or Lina tho.
The amount of spelling and grammer mistakes makes one question how this site collects thousands of dollars a month, but can't have an editor read over their blog.
Personally, I think that the main problem of balancing the attributes of heroes is strength (after all, if we remember earlier, even high-level heroes could rarely have 2k + hp). For some heroes, for example, BB has a gain of only 2.9, and I will remind you that this hero needs to be in the center of a fight and often run after the enemy and experience the effect of exhaustion, which is too much in dota (so you can not talk about the back at all), but at the same time WR has a strength gain of 3.0 per level, while having in fact invulnerability from physical damage, high mobility and, in principle, being a hero of a long-range battle, Tinker has 2.5 strength per level (and this is a little more than Lifestealer, who, even if has a built-in BKB, but he is an extremely contact hero) at the same time has a matrix that protects him from any type of damage (or rather, giving him an unbreakable blink) and in addition gives 50% resistance to effects. In short, the author, I liked your article and would like to see the analysis of the attribute of power
Just trying to counter a https://www.dotabuff.com/players/193144360 who recommended Enigma in comments above.
I am a level 30 Enigma myself; you can't consider him at all in this argument since MP and BH are extremely high CD spells, and they are also limited as AOE. In regular ganks in which there is heavy movement, you can only rely on Malefice (not a heavy damage or disable) and Edilons which only scale in damage after level 20.
I could have agreed though for Enigma as a number 1 pick for this case only if Necronomicon existed. RIP!
And not to forget, he is paper hero to quickly die off the hands of any burst damage magic or physical enemy.
Right click carries are just reliable since they dont require much positioning and they dont become useless in fights after they cast their spells or the enemy presses bkb.
Thank you for your response @ῤℌoℇṅἰX. I will go through each of your points with my own points.
-"MP and BH are extremely high CD spells, and they are also limited as AOE."
I will not consider cooldown reduction below.
At max level, midnight pulse's cooldown is 35 seconds, whilst it's uptime is 12 seconds; more than 1/3 of it's cd. The radius of midnight pulse is rather large, and will deal a decent amount of damage to multiple enemy heroes. For blackhole, at max level its cooldown is 160 seconds.
-"In regular ganks in which there is heavy movement"
Why would you be ganking as a pos 1 Enigma? Your objective is to farm.
-"you can only rely on Malefice (not a heavy damage or disable) and Edilons which only scale in damage after level 20."
In every game as pos 1 Enigma, I purchase helm of the dominator (HOTD) to build into helm of the overlord (HOTO). If I really need to fight without blackhole, I have my HOTD/HOTO creep with malefice, my eidolons and my hero; enough to deal sufficient damage in the early/mid game.
-"I could have agreed though for Enigma as a number 1 pick for this case only if Necronomicon existed. RIP!"
As I said above, HOTD and HOTO are suitable alternatives to necronomicon.
-"And not to forget, he is paper hero to quickly die off the hands of any burst damage magic or physical enemy."
There are many position 1's that are 'paper'. For example, Leshrac and Pugna (magical) or Weaver and Phantom Assassin (physical). I don't see a problem with Enigma being 'paper' too.
I don't mind Magical pos 1 if there's already mid physical based hero or a carry heroes like morph, ta, sf or any typical carries and if offlane also right click based then i would even suggest pos 1 magic based hero to balance out team.