Heroes Who Could Use a Rework
We talked recently about the power level of incoming new heroes and their impact on the game. It’s worth mentioning though that many of Dota’s original heroes have evolved with the game and been rebalanced or reworked to fit into 2021 Dota. Take Weaver for example who has gone from a slippery carry hero to a multi-faceted ganking support. Icefrog and crew have especially used talents, the Aghanim’s items and reimagining the occasional skill to breathe new life into many classic heroes.
Many others have struggled to adapt to capitalize on new items and a more mobility focused playstyle. Here are a couple heroes that could potentially use a bit of that imaginative magic to revamp their role and expand their possibilities in Dota.
Omniknight
Omniknight has consistently been near the top of the win rate charts which proves the strength of his niche. Being able to save important heroes, sustain in tough lanes and provide damage mitigation to the game is a powerful ability kit. That being said, the hero has mostly remained a very small part of the meta and his pick rate remains extremely low despite his undeniable strength.
To me this indicates that Omniknight is a mostly unfun hero to play. In Dota, few things are more fun than winning so when a high win rate hero is being ignored there must be other issues, especially when that hero is easy to play. In fact, throughout all of the TI qualifiers and main event, Omniknight was only played once. Additionally, it should be stated that many other save-heroes have been prioritized over this same time period.
Despite Icefrog’s best efforts to push the hero a bit in the direction of a carry-esque fighter, Omniknight remains one of the most supportive heroes in the game. Most of his utility is exclusively being used to help others and Degen aura is one of the worst abilities in the game. When looking at other saving heroes we see that each has some other niche they can also fill. Abaddon for example helps push and can save himself meanwhile Oracle can initiate or nuke for kills. Picking Omniknight feels like essentially tethering yourself to allies without any of the fun mechanics from Io.
It also seems pretty clear that no amount of push towards the right-click narrative will make that playstyle work so perhaps it’s time to change gears. What if Omniknight leaned into the supportive theme harder. His entire kit revolves around being near teammates so reinforce that further. Heroes like Tusk and Marci have very cool supportive utility that encourages playing with allies to unlock their potential. What if Omniknight received a paired benefit from Heavenly Grace like Marci’s Sidekick? What if Degen Aura passively buffed allied movement speed as well or scaled based on the amount of allies around you?
Sniper
Sniper is another hero that has been essentially the same hero since Dota 1. A long range damage threat with no escape mechanism means that players must approach the game in a very one dimensional manner. There was a short period of time when Sniper felt oppressive in the support role with an overpowered Aghanim’s Scepter stun but that was quickly squashed to force the hero back into irrelevance.
In the current meta, Sniper feels like a hero without much purpose. Despite having a few good matchups the over abundance of gap-closing heroes makes positioning safely almost impossible. The best that most Snipers can hope for is to hold highground against an overly aggressive team and punish their dive into the base.
Support Sniper was definitely an interesting idea but two of the hero’s skills are exclusively right-click related and this pigeonholes his highest value into being a damage dealer. Icefrog has tried recently to give the hero a bit more mobility with his Aghanim’s Shard grenade but it doesn’t really provide much escape. When thinking about long-range, stationary damage dealers there are more versatile options so it might be time to think about a retooling. What if instead of the annoying but low-value Headshot passive Sniper instead had some sort of trap or rooting mechanic that allowed him to watch out for flanks while interacting with Shrapnel?
Icefrog has already successfully reworked several heroes to keep pace with the development in Dota 2 so there is no question that positive changes are possible. What other heroes do you think need to be looked at to make them more fun or viable again?
Insightul article with nice ideas.
"Think, Icefrog, think!"
Now that the meme is out of the way, I'd like to say that the reasoning used to call for a rework of Omniknight is similar to the reasoning Riot used to rework a couple of their own hipster characters back in 2014, Karma and Xerath--characters that were loved by the people who actually played them, but with pick rates so low that people would even forget they existed. In my opinion, both reworks resulted in a loss of diversity rather than a gain. Karma went from being a unique but surprisingly powerful support that could sometimes be a midlaner to a cookie-cutter mage that was filling the same role in the game as other mages like Lux, and even had her lore retconned. Even her appearance was completely redone to fit in with the rest of the LoL cast. (I guess three modestly dressed female humanoids was just too many for Riot...) Xerath preserved his aesthetic and lore identity but had his mechanical identity completely stripped and replaced with something chimeric. And in his case, his pick rates didn't even improve long-term.
I'm talking about my experiences with that other, inferior MOBA to explain that low pick rates shouldn't necessarily be a justification for a rework, especially when the reason isn't that hero's objective strength in the meta. In fact, I believe having some popular and some unpopular heroes actually increases the perceived diversity of a MOBA: you have several "normal" games where you deal with the flavor-of-the-month characters, and then occasionally--suddenly--someone pulls his hipster trump card out of the closet, and that particular game feels a bit more refreshing. You can't have that experience if all of your characters have similar pick rates--every game becomes a "normal" game by default, unless one of the teams intentionally breaks the meta for kicks.
On the other hand, it seems like Icefrog is loth to destroy the identities of DOTA 2 characters, so maybe a rework wouldn't be so bad in his hands.
I don't think sniper needs a rework. It's fine to have a couple easy low skill heroes that aren't competitively viable but people still have fun playing them.
I have a 3 wins 8 losses record on Omniknight recently. I hope IceFrog or VALVe check my recent matches :D
Idk why you mention that the hero is good but not fun so it's not pick much, then mention how in TI he was only picked once. TIs team play for $$$ so no one gives a shit about fun if the hero has 'undeniable strength'. Heroes that are need rework are those whose kit become useless with the addition of Neutral Item, like Silencer is useless once a flicker / mino horn / witchbane drops.
Zeus, Pudge, Dazzle and Huskar too.
@BohrInGame
OR just screw neutrals. In fact!!!!: Screw neutrals out of the game, and remove ALL talents that add extra functionality to heroes. Shard and Aghs is enough feature creep for heroes, and all this functionality could be moved to entirely new heroes. Nothing but various numbers boosts accompanied by little icons that specifically indicate what type of boon was selected when you click on the hero--no more requiring everyone to hover over the talent tree to figure it out. Picked movespeed for level 10? You get a boot icon next to your portrait. Extra agility? Blade of alacrity. Extra attack range? Gimme a bow.
But make owning both outposts give you gold as well as xp. Make that thing WORTH it.
I’d really rather not have any heroes reworked, it’s what keeps the charm of Dota in Dota: older heroes with simple kits. I think Sniper is very fun to play and can infact still dominate games.
If this game goes down the league way of reworking every old hero to become unrecognizable, people will QUIT. So please please if frog ever reads this stuff, don’t rework older heroes, unless it’s tiny changes within the kit which are enough to make them feel fresh. Thanks.
Bloodseeker desperately needs a re-work. The hero feels so bad right now.
"To me this indicates that Omniknight is a mostly unfun hero to play."
You can always pick pos 5 like Lion, Rubick, Grimstroke, feed nonstop, lose. Sure it's fun. Or you can pick Omni and win effortlessly. It's up to you.
Precisamos de heróis simples para jogadores novatos
Remove the active component from Take Aim, combine it with Headshot, tweak the numbers, then give him a new ability that gives him more agency (this ability could even be his concussive grenade, then rework the shard). We call this the Riki or Necrophos treatment -- combining a passive with an existing ability to make space for another. I also personally liked the old Take Aim active that doubled the range bonus for a single attack; it was really nice mid as it was a free power rune deny against anybody that refused to shove the wave and 50/50.
Back in 2016 Omniknight was so good. They definitely should consider reworking him that’s for sure.
Maybe they just remove the passive part of Headshot, and leave it integrated in the active part of Take Aim. I think the drawback of only having it available when active would mitigate the benefit of not having to level up two abilities.
furion could need some rework
he's the lowest winrate in every bracket
almost ALL of his spells beside TP are outdated in a nudota perspective where towers are stongers, teamfights deadliers, tp scroll being in a free slot etcetc
Maybe they could make the disarming grenade a normal skill for sniper and merge/remove the headshot skill?
Recently, experimented with omni he definitly needs rework to be fun, he was always boring hero, but at least he was super good supp, now he's not even that good. Need to rework at least 1 skill of E and R and to add stun in arsenal.
Sniper doesnt need to change, I think its important to have some easy heroes for newcomers. Omniknight though I think need some rework so he can be more versatile
Repel was better all around. Right now omni has 2 dispellable buffs, and existence of witchbane with nullifier is making his strength questionable. Also by picking omni, team may potentially lack cc, and it's easy to kite GA, even easier than bkb.
IMO there are some heroes who don't need a rework but are lagging behind the overall power creep. For example Lone Druid or Ancient Apparition. AA has not received any noticeable changes other than chilling touch(which is worse now). It's too difficult to land a good ice blast since everyone is dashing through the map at blazing speed. And usually, there are not more than 2 heroes that need to get their healing reduced, which is a job for spirit vessel. Also most Tinkers build Shiva's and Bane has got a new healing reduction component to Enfeeble, thus AA's healing cancelling kit stopped being unique.
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
Nature Prophet needs to be reworked to where he can't just teleport all over the map and piss off players.
Dota has this problem, that most spellcasters are in a very bad position right now. Omniknight is just another case of this. Power creep is very noticeable, to the point, that these type of heroes are borderline unplayable. Carries(and not only them) got so many possibilities to completely ignore/mitigate most of the magic damage/cc/heals it's absurd. Items like satanic, manta, nullifier, skadi, sange and yasha give you so much value on top of stats they already provide. Heroes like omniknight, pugna, oracle, crystal maiden, death prophet, witch doctor etc... are useless after game hits 30 minute mark and are completely reliant on their team to carry, because by this time most of their skills don't do anything and are easily countered.
Techies needs a different approach imo. In a techies game, only the player picking it is having fun,IF that, his teammates, his enemies are having none of it. In most situations it feels like an hour long or more trap with a random outcome. During a dota day, 2-3 games in and you get a techies game...how likely is it for one to queue for another after a bombing ordeal?
I would say that Sniper definitely needs a rework
For example,make his first ability Shrapnel affect towers also
And Headshot pierces magic immunity and has a 20% chance to ministun and disarm (it still does physical damage) and the knockback distance stays the same
Assassinate does Physical Damage and pierces magic immunity and stuns the target unit for 1 second
I am willing to come up with more suggestions for heroes that need to reworked