General DiscussionWhy doesn't Warlock get more love?

hes weak to ganks and has no comeback mechanism.
he can only 5 man deathball or something which isnt that viable when youre fighting massive spam (slave, splinter blast, etc that kind of stuff)
usually his team just get split pushed to death

by the way theres no way you skip 1 level of fatal bonds if u are mid.

I think it's the same reason people don't put shadow shaman mid anymore. Those pusher heroes can still do their pushing duties without being given any farm, and you can give farm to somebody who can put it to a much better use. For example, you can still use warlock to support your trilane, while also having him push @ around 10 minutes in. But at the same time you have a mid Shadow Fiend, Storm or QoP, all who are dangerous/mobile semicarries/carries. If you put Warlock mid, you're really wasting potential for that lane most of the time. In fact, you can have shadow demon and warlock supporting your Lycan, with broodmother offlane and DP/Lesh mid.

But if you're playing a heavy push strat obviously it's viable, unless game goes past 30 minutes and you're screwed.

In which case I wonder why you're not putting Death Prophet mid. Or Leshrac.

I don't have enough mana to spam fatal bonds and shadow word so prefer to just get stats and shadow word. Works fine for me but I'll keep it in mind for higher mmr.

He is surprisingly tanky with stats and shadow word - quite hard to burst him down before helps arrives. Sure he doesn't have an escape mechanism but hard to kill without it being at least a 1 for 1

Split-push isn't that much of an issue because you can always take a fight of any equal numbers with golems. If they run to another lane without killing them then they will lose a tower at least.

Sven - his pushing ability is secondary to his team fight ability.

And he needs farm for aghs and more levels in ulti so is pretty terrible in a trilane

Imo mid is the best place for him if he is a core. Otherwise the max upheaval build and wards is the way to go.

well, fatal bonds is what makes warlock an extremely strong laner. in my opinion you spam fatal bonds every wave, while using shadow word on yourself only when needed (since it is more efficient that way)
bottle is also good on him i believe.

Ah I prefer shadow word - they do about the same amount of damage but it has a shorter cooldown and requires less mana at lower levels. The heal wins it for me. I can see the benefit In a point to ensure you finish someone off though.

PS Sven I'd prefer warlock over DP when we need some tankiness.

As for the goat you could pretty much use that argument for any other hero in the game except maybe blyatcyka

with level 1 fatal bond the most common/easiest to attain scenario is 1 bonded hero + 1 range creep + 1 melee creep
range creep + melee creep total hp = 850 hp, 25% of which is 212.5.
note that it translates to slightly lesser than 212 pure (depending on the armor of the hero)

heal is equal to 121 pure at level 1.

shadow word works really well maxed honestly. i played it a few times before on mid as well, its really strong.

He is like Viper. Wins his lane most of the time, but if he loses, he is done for. No way to come back into the game. And even if he wins his lane, he is dependant on a huge cooldown.

121 pure for 75% of the mana and 64% of the cooldown - the "real game" effective dps is pretty similar between the two. am sure you can get away with either - i just like the heal of shadow word as a backup - buys you time in ganks and means you need to worry less about regen. fatal bonds is nice in that it shows you where the hero is though i guess.

am at 85% this patch if you ignore the games where my team wouldn't let me mid...

i think you are right sam - it is the cooldown that means he isn't seen in pro games which means that pubs won't try it because it isn't "meta". i also don't think he'd be so great if people woudl deviate from their cookie-cutter builds and picked up more diffusals...