Invoker after 6.86f - Shanghai’s Standpoint
6.86 has been out for almost 3 months and quite a few adjustments have been made already. A variety of reworked heroes were addressed in tweak patches and all seemed set for the Shanghai Major after 6.86e. However, just a few days prior to the beginning of the groupstage, Valve introduced a new 6.86f, solely addressing 
Invoker and his 
Deafening Blast.
- Deafening Blast's knockback is no longer a hard disable (affected units can cast abilities and items)
- Deafening Blast's disarm portion rebalanced to keep same overall effectiveness as before (it previously applied disarm only after the knockback disable, numbers rescaled to keep same overall duration where they cannot attack)
- Increased disarm duration from 1/1.5/2/2.5/3/3.5/4/4.5 to 1.25/2/2.75/3.5/4.25/5/5.75/6.5 (source: Dota2Wiki)
In order to understand what these changes really mean, Virtus.pro has put together a little video to provide visual aid.
As shown, defensive items such as 
Black King Bar can be used to prevent a “full combo” to burst you down. The much dreaded Chaos Meteor Deafening Blast combination has made Invoker a terrifying pub hero for quite some time and it allowed the hero to be a natural opponent to heroes such as 
Anti-Mage, 
Queen of Pain or other heroes with innate escape abilities. Now, these heroes will be able to escape, or even launch counter-attacks with stuns or silences to disrupt the Invoker’s spell flow.
It is arguably a big nerf that many were conflicted about whether or not it was appropriate. So close to the Major, the question arose how this would affect the meta and the teams.
The first two days of the Shanghai Major are now over and we’ve already seen quite a bit of Invoker. He has in fact been contested in all but one of the 24 games so far. That alone shows the viability of the hero still. He may have a winrate of only 50%, but it’s still an incredibly versatile hero as 
Vici Gaming has shown. They’ve played him both mid and in the safelane and Elephant.Super！’s Quas Wex approach is still very much viable.
The standard Exort approach is the more dominant though, but the Meteor/Deafening Blast combination is not as prevalent and rarely has been. Most Invoker’s so far opted for a Hand of Midas, VG’s Super in fact went back for a Midas after building an 
Orchid Malevolence first. The hero thrives with levels and is far from being a combo pick-off machine, although it certainly helps when you can burst one opponent down immediately.
A Pub Nerf
So what did 6.86f address really? It certainly helped decrease Invoker’s pub value. For weeks, he’s been the most picked hero in pubs and was still able to field a winrate of over 50% across multiple skill brackets. The aggressive approach to find opponents out of position with a 
Eul's Scepter of Divinity has always been a very pub centric one and only found its competitive place in a few games. The coordination in professional games doesn’t usually allow for such solo pick-offs, at least not with the Exort build. It was also a fairly easy combination to learn, yet very powerful and difficult to counter. You would usually require a teammate to interrupt Invoker from successfully executing his combo, otherwise the kill would've been clean.
The timing of the patch certainly seems to suggest that Valve had the pub scene in mind when implementing the nerf. A meaningful impact for the professional meta would not be implemented so close to the beginning of it and the pros have shown that they still value the hero highly.
For the pub scene, it could be a healthy change of pace after weeks of Invoker. His pickrate has yet to be affected, but that is besides the point. He has always been a popular hero and should be, and he seems much more balanced now as well.
Headline Image by K-Pax
oil up
Malignant Cancer
"usually doesn't allow for such solo pick offs"
EE kappa
Worst hero ever.
When will the next patch come out
^ after Majors. 6.87
thx volvo
BTW IMBA
Why does Invoker has Chen picture in the first paragraph
Some time i wanna win with invopicker's :D
OD nerf for sure after Shanghai.
fakkkk you valve!!!!
ka'el will be worst hero ever!!!
I would have also expected a nerf to Pudge. Sooner the better.
Gg invoker
RIP Invoker
In time, on point, wp Dotabuff, nice article, keep going !
cold snap and EMP also need nerf
Goodbye Euls + Sunstrike + Chaos Meteor + Deafening blast combo :(
Fucking valve sucks ass
sad :3
Лучшебы пофиксели арка
Finally! Invoker is nerfed hahhahahh
WTF what a big nerf! This is a fuc_king joke! Now you wont be able to kill qop, weaver, AM, phantom lancer...
They added bigger mana cost for blast, and now its useless - that movie showed everything - why do you want to knock back enemies, when they can kill you during these weak moonwalk slides? Horrible, Invoker is going back to be useless hero.
@Smallboobslover
normal skill problems
go qw and wreck faces with orchid
well u still can kill others, huh? Maybe u will just get stunned or something. So now pool of killable heroes is so less.
ss + meteor + cold snap
GOOD RIDENCE!
fuuuck, back blast
invo is pretty balanced tbh. but fucking OD is the real pub cancer on this patch tbh
About time! To all those whining crybabies - so you say that 1 skill change can determine hero with 9 skills? Seriously? You are so weak at Invo that you can play only with Deafening Blast, and can't without? Hahaha thats so sad...
Fact is, Invoker wast too OP what you could see in stats. Same goes for Omni and Spectre. Keep in mind thou, we are talking only about pub here. As u can see, PROS are PROS and they are able to use invoker even when Blast is nerfed. Learn other skills/combos on invo. Playing only one hero who has 9 skills is just for noobs.
OD? 51,26% winrate - seriously cancer? :|
6.86g when
Neeeeeeeeeerrrfffff
That's why:
Oh no now you will just have to use one of his 9 other OP spells. Hero is probably in a good spot now.
@wujacszek Deafening Blast affect other 9 skills. Why? Because it's like a linked skill to many combos. Almost all combos of Invoker require the deafening blast to make fully usage to its extend.
sometimes the updates quite bullshit, just the reasons is to balance the pub pick rate
@wujaszek that nerf on the deafening blast was a big change for invoker. Why? Because of the hard disable from deafening blast, heroes with bkb can't pop their bkb and also you can execute a full combo that can burst down an enemy. Yes there are 9 skills but that 8 other skills can be easily countered by defensive items such as bkb or heroes with skills that will help them escape. Did you get the point of this nerf?
So now invoker is more usefull as an early snowball machine, like clinkz. With hight burst dmg from exort, or speed atack from wex, the 10 skills become neglected by the actual plays.
WIth this patch when invoker can use the skills then? He became more a support killer than a fighter in the core scene. Sad story.... Eul for invoker is only good against silence skills or items, so bkb can be saved for better moments.
Guys, As i see, theres no difference at all . You can fvck 1 of their support at back in a pub game or a hero that doesnt have any escape ability. So eul, EQ type invoker is still usefull . Can contribute a tons of damage with a gank by SS. Burst hero, and guys its not just eul+SS+meteor+DB= Dead . You can also do eul+IW+SS+invoke+Meteor=Dead for a hero doesnt have any escape ability again. For a hero who does a tons of dame with you , like Clinkz,AM, what ever. You got a mate guys, rely with your team mates. Dont be a solo queue literally .
OMG its realy? Dont touсh Invoker!! Its verry good balanced hero! Why you want spoil everything? Valve is turning in Wargaming...
when i am learning to play invoker and this came out T_T
Good Job Valve.Keep up the good work there. Now no more "like a boss" combo crush.
i see all of people saying he has 9 other spells, but for the most part you still need deaf blast. I am an invo player and i hate that they did this nerf, but i can't chnage it so yea im learning other ways to get kills that dont require deaf blast, now i primarily use it to cause enemy physical damagers to not attack... but once enemy gets bkb invo is useless, thats why i let them waste bkb on my team then i jum in with my combos.