The Worst Hero in Dota?
Image by ChiZ
Silencer was the only hero that was completely ignored in the Upper Divisions of all DPC regions. The hero who received several notable buffs in the last several patches is still largely considered unplayable in the professional scene and we wanted to figure out why, while also discussing whether the hero should also be ignored in pubs.
What makes Silencer unique?
Most heroes, Silencer included, are defined by their ultimate. Global Silence is a pretty powerful skill on paper. It theoretically nullifies many powerful abilities, especially channeling ones and the way it counters things like Black Hole or Mortimer Kisses should not be underestimated.
It also used to be very annoying for the enemy supports to play against. While core heroes usually have Eul’s, Manta, BKB, Satanic, Lotus, or Greaves to deal with debuffs, supports, once again, should theoretically suffer from the ability: most of them are casters who rely on their crowd control to have an impact in a teamfight.
While it is still true, there are several problems. One of them is the game’s economy: even a position five hero should be able to build Eul’s or Lotus if deemed necessary. That’s not a huge problem, as it is an option and it has an associated opportunity cost, of not having Glimmer Cape, Force Staff, or some other support item.
The second problem is neutral items. Specifically, Tier 4 neutral items, that make Silencer irrelevant after the 37-minute mark. Flicker, Minotaur Horn, and Stormcrafter all apply a basic dispel when used. Your team will most likely have at least one of those. By this point your cores should definitely have a dispel on demand, therefore these neutral items can go to your supports, making Silencer close to useless, except for channeling spell interruption.
The other two basic abilities the hero has suffer from the same exact problem. They are low impact dispellable effects. Moreover, Arcane Curse even got nerfed in the last patch in terms of damage output, so not only do most heroes have an ability to dispel it, half of the meta heroes will simply outregen it.
Perhaps we are looking at the hero wrong? Perhaps the hero should not be thought of as a utility character, but rather as a DPS one and it is Glaives of Wisdom that define Silencer, not his other abilities.
Does the game support DPS Silencer?
Looking at the guides for Silencer, we can see that most dedicated players now typically play Silencer as a core, with Safelane Carry being the most popular archetype. Pub players are also decently successful in making Silencer work: the hero wins more than 50% of his games across all skill brackets. Does it mean DPS Silencer is good? We don’t think so.
Silencer can’t out-DPS or at least be an equal to most Agility Carries, given equal Net Worth. BKB hard-counters the hero’s DPS. Moreover, his Agility growth, while decent, is not even on the level of QoP or Puck. On a non-spell immune target the damage can be massive, being Pure it ignores all armor, but that will require initiating on and probably chain-stunning an enemy core, which needs quite a bit of coordination.
The other problem is the “given equal Net Worth” part. Silencer can’t farm and he can’t even build items to farm much faster. His Aghanim’s Shard does turn him into a poor man’s Luna, but why be a cheap Luna knock-off, when you can be an actual Luna. Or a hero that counters Luna, if the enemy team picked her. The Shard becomes available at minute 20, and by this point, a well-played Luna, or any flash farming hero for that matter, will have a one-and-a-half item advantage over Silencer.
So how does Silencer work?
There are only two options to make DPS Silencer work. One is to rely on the enemy team being incompetent: something you can’t do in the professional scene and something ill-advised for anyone playing at or above Legend. Enemy players will have BKBs. They will have dispels. They will know that focusing Silencer, regardless of whether he’s being played as a support or a core, is a good idea. And Silencer is far from being tanky.
The other option is dominating the lane and it is something Silencer can actually do pretty well. Glaives of Wisdom are really hard to trade into for one simple reason: Silencer won’t aggro creeps when attacking with Glaives through a separate command. Moreover, the intelligence steal, especially once the duration gets long enough, can make the lane very one-sided: you get access to your abilities, while the enemy doesn’t.
Is this ability to dominate the lane enough, though? Certainly not in the professional scene. Relying on a position one Silencer is an all-in tactic: to work, it assumes you win or break even in all three lanes and then you also need a pushing hero to translate this strong laning stage into an early map control or possibly a victory. We are not saying it is impossible to pull off, but why take the risk, when there are so many different equal or even better options.
In pubs, where a game can be “solo carried” by a single strong player with good decision-making Silencer can be more appealing. Silencer can be this lane dominating menace that snowballs completely out of control, though Clinkz is a far better option for this “lane dominance into map dominance” playstyle, both logically and statistically.
That said, in certain matchups it might not be wise to completely disregard Silencer: there are many heroes who suffer from Silencer in lane due to having high armor, but low HP pool. Moreover, as discussed previously, there are heroes who won’t be able to fully realize their potential because of the constant Global Silence threat. Finally, there is a pretty powerful 30% cooldown reduction talent, and a 14-second cooldown Scythe and a 53-second cooldown BKB both sound very nice.
Do you think Silencer is currently the least playable hero in Dota? Are there other reasons professionals players completely ignore him we forgot to mention, or some other redeeming qualities to play him in pubs? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
make glaives pierce spell immunity again :D
All you need to change is make Global Silence require a hard dispel.
That way only Bkb, Minotaur horn, can remove it. And requires others who have strong dispel abilities to have a bkb in order to dispel others like apotic shield, press the attack, heavenly grace, and grim ink swell shard.
Of my hero pool with 30+ games played I have the worst WR with him or all my heroes. Guess this article helps me understand why.
@xebenkeck BKB and Minotaur horn are not strong dispels.
Technically yes, those are Spell Immunity, but seeing as you cant cast bkb’s, or rage or blade fury on others there no way of telling if its a strong dispel. Thats why i called it a “hard” dispel.
A lot of strong dispels cant be used while you are stunned(ie if your abbadon and stunned you cant cast aphotic shield on yourself to strong dispel) just like how a bkb cant be used while stunned.
The only ones I know of that you can cast while stunned are Troll lvl 25 battle trance and Abbadon manually activating borrowed time.
Anyways buff silencer
Imo revert to his old , cancer , mana eating q would be a buff that would make him strong aggain.
I like the idea of Global Silence requiring a hard dispel to remove the silence, but that doesn't really put it inline with how other silences work...one idea would be to change the Last Word ending effect from a silence to a Mute, so the enemy can't use items to dispel the silence, but that seems pretty powerful, especially with the AOE Last Word Aghs.
Make that aghanims brings back his old aura
maybe the aghs upgrade could give all silencer's silencing skills becoming a hard dispel
He's got the 7th highest winrate in the game right now.
Certainly not the worst hero in the game. And the fact that people have BKB's etc. ruins just about all caster lives in the end game is just a fact and not just something Silencer has to deal with. However, Silencer is an extremely snow-bally hero... If you get a few good kills in the first minutes of the game, it is just over... You start dealing so much Pure damage that it is not even funny. And Last Word damage is also predicated by your intelligence. Just recently I had one game where I had 62 stolen int in a 26 minute game. Last Word was knocking off 50% of enemy hp pools etc. It was one of those games... But I have also played games where you go 1-15-7 and you have 8 stolen int to show for it at the end of the game... Silencer has absolutely no escape in him what-so-ever, so if you get jumped, you usually die. And the fact that the ult is so strong in a team fight, means you are going to get jumped. So positioning is key and the early game is so decisive that it may just be too volatile in a surrounding where everyone knows what is going on and what are the keys to victory. And there are other options that carry similar abilities in the game. Silencer is the ultimate high risk/high reward hero... And the risks can out weight the rewards if the enemy team knows what they are doing.
Still having fun with it in my shit tier pool... And will most likely continue to do so. And more articles like these and the fact that he is currently the last pick, means I will most likely have more fun with the hero after a patch or two...
Is this a new situation? A hero that has good winrates in pubs, but just isn't playable in the pro scene? If you buff the dude, even a little, he could be next OP hero out there that just ruin games in the pub scene while still be only marginally playable in the pros...
There is no problem with Silencer, people just don't know how to play that hero. That's all. People ruined too many games with my main hero and i can tell you this is one of the strongest heroes. :)
They should change silencer's aghs so that it mutes. It may be a little OP but atleast he'd be relevant again
2 Wraith bands would fit him well.
It is difficult to go up against snowballish hereos in pubs, maybe needs some rework to make him effective in both competitive play and pubs.
Anyone seen Jakiro lately? Has the Glacial Frog forgotten him?
I think his lackof disable makes him not that desireable as support. and while global is pretty strong spell, it's crazy long cooldown and the fact that it's the only skill that instanntly disabling opponent works against him. But anyway pros uses heroes they are comfortable with, like in the patch before OD support was something in pub, but barely anyone used it during the Singapore major.
What does redeeming mean?
@EMBRACE
What old aura are you talking about?
I'm still sad that the fact Silencer was losing his pierce-BKB Glaives, I hope we could see a midlane Silencer again. One of my favorite heroes.
by far the worst hero of dota in my opinion is pudge, to make efect he most not be seen in the map, so he cant help a lot in dual lanes, hes a 3llane hero.
Make glaives pierce bkb. that would bring the hero back to the meta.
global silence should mute enemy from using items.
Short summary: no.
Long summary: no.
Nature's Prophet has the worst win rate across all brackets except one (Divine/Immortal), where the hero has the second to worst win rate. Pretty strong case for NP being the worst hero in DOTA right now.
@The Ancient One
His 3rd skill used to be an aura that negatively affects enemies, where each enemy is silenced for X seconds after casting a spell. It's quite OP and is a nightmare for heroes that rely on casting skills in quick succession to be effective, e.g., Earthshaker, Puck, Lina, etc.
Source: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Silencer/Old_Abilities
Spam the mage slayer item with Daedalus u can take down pa or pl even in late game ... Currently i hv two ultra kill with silencer in this patch he is winning me matches
He's actually my fav hero, He's incredible strong with the right items. I dont think he works as a support. He's best played as a core, IMHO mid is his best. They probably should change something with his aghs where global silence is not dispellable and it goes thru spell immunity. That would make him a better core and maybe support.
>Does it mean DPS Silencer is good? We don’t think so.
Yes, it does, because statistics is more important than what you guys are imagining haha. Silencer is very powerful hero both as support and as carry.
Another cancer guide
Please make "Last word" mute the hero until he/she tries to make a shout (casts any spell) and got silenced.
It will be strong and synergy
Lvl 25 Silencer here. I agree that the hero is garbage with 7.29 but was ok with 7.28 . Most people do not know how to use Global Silence properly. In most cases you have to use it after the enemies popped off their bkb's for example. It still silences magic immune units.