Dark Willow and Pangolier — Definitely not Carries
Dota 7.07 introduced two new heroes and they’ve been around for almost a week now, giving us some ground for discussion and statistics to back it up. New introductions to Dota 2 hero roster have always been unpredictable — most of the time the heroes on release were either obnoxiously overpowered or very weak and 7.07 isn’t a complete exception to this rule.
Pangolier — not a carry
Pangolier started off incredibly weak and the trend continued for the whole week, with the hero barely reaching 40% win rate even after the 7.07b buffs. Part of it is the amount of new mechanics the hero introduces and the associated interest from the community, who have no clear idea how to play the hero quite yet. Part of it is the objective weakness of the hero, even in very capable hands.
The big problem the hero is currently facing is the lack of identity. Many have wrongly assumed that position one carry is the best fit for the hero, but it is definitely not the case and the hero had the most success in the offlane, with an almost 41% winrate — a major improvement over 34% in the safelane and 37.5% in mid.
The hero has respectable stat growth and decent flash farming abilities, coupled with a potentially potent passive, but he will become outclassed by most conventional carries in the late game, both in terms of DPS and survivability. The damage on Swashbuckle is static and capped 108 per hit at max level with the appropriate talent choice at level 20, which makes for some poor scaling.
One of the ways to solve the problem is status effects and attack modifiers and the hero absolutely loves both of these things, with four guaranteed hits on each targets in the Swashbuckle AoE. However, not all of them work completely, with both Basher/Abyssal Blade and Maelstrom/Mjollnir having innate cooldowns, which prevent multiple procs within a single cast.
The Low-Risk Solution
Poor DPS-scaling from abilities and the general skillset of the hero make for a very strong brawler in the mid-game and the offlane position coupled with a tanky frontliner role is probably the strongest combination for the hero at the moment.
Essentially, as Pangolier you want to become a type of hero who is very hard to kill and impossible to ignore, with damage not being the biggest priority.
Applying status effect can also be worthwhile. With almost guaranteed procs of Maim/Lesser Maim on any target in Swashbuckle, Sange and Yasha or Heaven’s Halberd can both be excellent early game choices, complementing the tankiness provided by the Shield Crash.
Diffusal Blade can be an excellent source of damage coupled with a very potent slow, while Basher is still a great addition for extra control in the late game.
mski.iceiceice playing Pangolier in Captain’s Draft 4.0 Minor
Going this route will not make Pangolier a flashy carry with high solo kill potential and ability to carry the game, but in reality, nothing truly will — the hero can’t carry games and the games won with a carry build by the hero would most likely be won regardless, with any other core hero instead of Pangolier.
This mindset of going for a tanky frontliner, disrupting enemy initiations and not allowing the enemy team to execute their lineup, all while enabling teammates, is a low-risk solution that has surprisingly high payoff, potentially making Pangolier one of the most interesting offlane heroes.
Dark Willow — Supercharging the Support Role
The second half of the Dueling Fates update is a lot more potent. Dark Willow is nowhere near the levels of broken Winter Wyvern was when she was released, however in the right hands and in the right position, she can be a force to be reckoned with.
Her position is easily identifiable — she is a support. All the players who attempt to make her a mid hero should answer one simple question — what is the opportunity cost? Does Dark Willow, even given enough farm and space, have the potential to outclass Queen of Pain, Shadow Fiend or even tempo-mids, such as Zeus? The answer to all these questions is a definite “No” and this is backed up by the stats, where the hero’s worst winrate is when she is played in mid — 47%, compared to the average of almost 51% when played in other lanes.
With that settled, it is time to answer what exactly makes Dark Willow a strong support.
The hero has three disables, with two of them having ridiculous durations when they work — Cursed Crown is a 3.5 second AoE stun with a 12 second cooldown, while Terrorize is a 5 second AoE fear, which, for all intents and purposes, is a hard disable minus the catch part.
Despite multiple ways to counterplay against these abilities and a massive effect delay on Crown, these two spells on their own are often enough to justify the hero pick, but apart from bringing a lot of very potent utility, Dark Willow also brings damage to the table.
Bedlam would be a fine ultimate on its own on most heroes, with its ridiculous damage. At level 3 of the ability, it deals 880 damage/second for a total of 4 seconds. Naturally, there are limitations, but this ability outclasses many regular ultimates, and it is only a half of it.
Bramble Maze is an equally potent ability which is usually maxed out first due to cooldown reduction it receives with levels and extra damage. There is nothing particularly powerful about the ability, but it is a very strong area denial that doubles as a very strong counter against mobile heroes.
Finally, there is Shadow Realm. Most of the abilities on the hero wouldn’t work half as well, if it wasn’t for a built-in escape and survivability tool of the hero. Becoming untargetable essentially combines the benefits Linken’s Sphere and Ghost Scepter on a support, allowing her to continue living and dishing out damage and provide utility even when not careful with positioning.
7.07b has already introduced some nerfs to the hero and her win rate has already started dipping. Unlike Pangolier, however, she sits at a respectable 48% and that is with second overall popularity and almost 23% of matches being played in the mid lane, where she is evidently the weakest.
Closing Thoughts
Dota 2 became even more exciting with the new update. It will probably take at least a month for the dust to settle and for the meta to stabilize, with many changes and additions completely disrupting the status quo.
Both new heroes are a good fit for the game, and despite having a clear winner in this duel of new characters, they have potential of filling their own niches. It will take time to make them fully balanced and to restore the almost-perfect state of 7.06f, but it will be time spent exploring hundreds of new possibilities in a game that never stops surprising.
Personally, I think Dark Willow is played optimally as a farming core in a duo offlane. She can definitely support but getting levels so that Shadow Realm has a large early game impact (essentially disrupting the enemy carry's farm in the laning stage) and items like Blink allows you to make plays and even act as the primary initiator in games where your team is lacking.
Currently won all seven games I have played this role.
Both sucks
I understand the concept that you can utilize your sample size to reflect "real world" extrapolations based up win rate; however, you are ignoring the fact that even still players on your team don't really understand what the hero is doing with her casts and her aggressive posture.
As time goes on you should expect to see her win rate with many mid matchups to be considerably more interesting than your claim that 48% is abysmal. Currently your logic could be extended to Templar Assassin and therefore, nobody should ever play that hero in any role lane or way at all because her win rate is such garbage.
Logically, we can all acknowledge that she is currently weak, by she is by no means a bad mid when her pick is appropriate. Your absolutist discussion in this blog post is very reddit 2k.
This blogpost was way uneducated, one of the worst reads yet.
I would disagree what dark willow is a bad mid hero. Her magic damage output is extremely high, she can solo kill most of the heroes on lvl 6, good in lane when played right and really hard to gank, great farm disruptor and has an enormous teamfight impact even when underfarmed.
Don't be dissuaded friends - Willow can most definitely dominate in a core position. Stop misusing statistics KawaiiSocks.
I think you need to not make definitive statements less than a month after release.
Yeah, I usually take the blog posts with a grain of salt since the writers aren't exactly the most reliable.
Dark Willow might not be a carry, but she's really strong in mid when played by the right hands. Early level advantage makes her a strong ganker, and her real show-time starts after she gets blink dagger. It's the first time that a support who needs early game level advantages goes to mid in data history. I good DW player can dominate mid game and thus gives the hard carry much space to farm up, who then will take over and end the game.
This author only played 7 games with dark willow, 6 of them as support role in safe lane (and another 1 in jungle???). He only made the argument that DW is not good as a mid hero by the numbers. As someone mentioned above, there are plenty of mid heroes that does not have a good win rate. I believe as time goes, more and more players will realize that DW is not a bad mid hero.
Side note to anyone wanting to try something stupid that will end with toxicity:
Invis is not broken by rolling thunder hits. You can cast items and spells while in the ball, so just shadowblade and be a menace.
Pangolier - she?
Oh stats show willow isn't a mid. There boys, we got our answer. I'm still going to play her mid tho.
>:)
Pangolier not a hero 4Head
Just to provide a little pushback for everyone who doesn't like the stats based argument:
All numbers are based on 7.07b.
This is a game of stats, where a hero that wins 40 or less percent of its games is considered downright awful, with a few notable exceptions. A hero that wins somewhere within the range of 56-60% is considered frustratingly untouchable, with no exceptions. This means there is a roughly 20 point scale that almost all heroes fall under.
The current spread is 35% to 57%, making it a 22 point scale, but for the purposes of this example I'm keeping the scale as a 40% WR gets 0/20 points, a 60% gets all 20 points. I know it's a little confusing, but bear with me.
Looking at this way:
Lone Druid currently gets roughly -4/20
Pangolier sits at 2
Pugna gets a 5
Dark Willow gets a 7
(Here's where it gets interesting)
Phoenix gets 8
Venomancer almost gets a 10
Techies gets a 10 (50% winrate)
Beastmaster gets a 12
Elder Titan get s a 13
Underlord gets a 15
Spectre gets a 17 (currently sitting in 1st with 57% winrate)
Taking into account other heroes' winrates is important when considering the overall power of a hero. Right now, 75% of heroes in Dota are putting out better numbers than Dark Willow. Meepo, Enchantress, Death Prophet, Techies, Leshrac, as of this writing, all of them are posting better numbers. Sure, some of that you can attribute to people not knowing the hero well enough to understand the limitations, but why is it so bold to think that maybe it's the wrong lane for her? She places 77th in winrates for mid, but posts a 53% winrate when roaming (2nd highest winrate of 18 heroes Dotabuff has enough stats for roaming). Right now, only 18 heroes have an overall winrate of 53%.
When she moves from mid to roaming, she gains a whopping 6% winrate. And all of her damage comes from skills that need NO farm! Why tie up your mid with her when she does better in other areas, when you know there are 76 other heroes that will do better in mid than her?
(keep in mind these are all pub stats, and there are some stupid winrate numbers for lanes due to very specific niche lane situations. Hence, Visage holds top spot for mid right now. What...)
Well Brock Hall shows us how education matter ROFL
Don't get me wrong, I understand the value of placing heroes in weird situations, and heroes definitely have multiple possible lanes (bristle, timbersaw for a time, sniper, centaur for a time). Back in the day I would run Weaver mid if it was against a Pudge (oh noes you hooked me whatever will I do?). But that was an outlier, and that's the direction I see this going as well: her mid viability will be about as much as old bane: possible, but...wasteful in most situations.
i think brock is a nub just like author
How exactly do you play dark willow as a core? Yes you'll probably stomp mid, just like how people do when they play any burst heavy support as a mid. But how exactly do you scale? Her only damage ability is bedlam, people. And if you're trying to get a lot of farm and levels, playing her like an offlane pugna will give her more than what she needs.
I haven't tried DW mid. But playing her as roaming is amazing. Almost always win the lanes because of nukes and catch and I can play pos 5 poor support and have amazing impact on the game without ever going near fights. With the stun cast range nerf this became a little less possible but still her other skills allow you to stay far from fight except bedlam which as a support I use only if we are chasing or I am solo killing. I would say she is a bit like skywrath mage, can win mid but playing pos 5 or roaming has almost as much impact without the risk of losing the late game to accidental death due to bad position.
My argument against mid DW is firstly she does not scale like TA does. Secondly the few games I had an enemy DW mid, she owned early but fell off as soon as the mid game fights started. She is an easy pick off unless you outclass your opponents by a large amount which the matchmaking system does not usually allow. Maybe if you are amazing at playing her mid she might be good like carry IO. HE can win games but you don't see it very often probably because it is extremely easy to punish.
- From the diary of a 3k scrub
herp a derp im a 5k mmr player on dotabuff i can bash any other player whose mmr is lower than mine without making an argument at all and people will still agree with me
It's very easy to see why Willow a bad mid: She doesn't scale outside of her abilities. She has no ability or anything that's good lategame. Once you are 18, that's it. That's your damage. Till the end of the game. In addition to that she is also a horrible farmer, so pos 2 is even harder. You are supposed to actually farm there to an extend. And you'll probably be a glass-cannon for all time as well, with your "escape" being something you probably want to use offensively and is only working against enemies without any AoE anyway.
Pretty much all mids are expected to do more. To scale more. Take Queen. Lower than normal BAT, good auto attack range and blink. Excellent abilities to have late-game and allows for solid scaling. Also farms well.
Then Puck. His lack of lategame presence is definitely a thing, and in part why he's played in the offlane quite a bit as well. However, he farms well and with Aghs gets a strong tool against magic immunity. Generally solid enough at snowballing and so on. (Again, Willow doesn't farm well at all, and her major damage tool has a 40sec cooldown on lvl1 now. Good luck.)
If you look at Willow, you should be able to easily see why she's such a great support. Yes, as a support you can't use Bedlam too well. That's true. Solo killing is much harder. But once Willow is a bit more known, Bedlam will be weaker anyway. It's like Jugger Ult. A lot of her early success was really people just not knowing that you shouldn't just go close to her without a plan. Just as it was with Arc Warden and Flux, which is countered by a third of the hero pool.
I see a lot of mid willow players here.
Please keep doing it. I'll keep winning my lane all the time.
Honestly you only lose mid to Dark Willow if you never played against the hero. Otherwise she's really not as strong as the stubborn mid DW on the comments are trying to say.
Can't even see how you could ever die to her ult mid if you have ANY notion of positioning... her stun takes 4 seconds and the maze is dodgeable. She can't get near you unless you're out of position.
u need 2 have pango in lane with a mega support for like 20 min. Only giving him farm as if he is void or AM
yesterday vs dark willow mid with invoker mid, pretty ez game with DW dead in pretty much 1 combo XDD
I'm 5-2 with mid DW this article is BS
People need to stop comparing mid DW to QoP or TA, of course she's not that type of mid, she's more like an ES or Magnus. Going mid doesn't mean you're a pos 2; she can get a fast Veil or Blink to help her reach her spikes faster, as she doesn't scale for the late game at all.
@World's Greatest Mom ™
In the case of ES, the amount of useful items he can get to bolster his late game damage and utility is quite high, and giving him the farm priority will pay off in the late game.
Magnus can farm very well too, which he needs in order to grab that refresher orb to put out two very powerful RPs.
Puck is elusive enough to make the most use out of a blink, euls, aghs, and dagon in some cases. Hex too.
DW doesn't have any way to bolster that late game dmg. Her ultimate either sends people away (it's nice but it isn't a teamfight ult) or does a hard set amount of damage that falls off. You're right that she falls off, and there are certainly teams out there that aim for that early game, but we already have tons of those kinds of heroes that will do that job better. TA is one of them. SS, Viper, Huskar. I'd choose any of them over DW for an early game mid situation.
Dark Willow makes a good offlane. He has escape, stun and a nuke. not to mention his paiful ulti..
And Pangolier is just meh..
too "paper", damage output isn't the best early and late making him a very mid game hero...
=/
dark willow is just cancer as position 4, pangolier is just nice when enemy have him
I don't like Pangolier and its personality is poor I guess. They took it from Zoro legend too. However, I think dark willow that has a great potential for pro games
@Geshtapo
It's a muskateer, note the French accent. Muskateers are not just a group of three or four fabled vigilantes either, it is just a soldier who carried a musket.
These same people that think that dark willow is a core are most likely the same people that played heroes in the jungle in the last patch and this one.
WOW, using wr on new heroes that no1 understand, srsly ?
Can we recall the day arcwarden was trash nerfed, and earned ~+10% wr ? Simply cause that nerf to the underground of trash also completely deleted the shitty way zet was played
Can you make a post about 7.07b please?
I think dark willow has potential for a farming offlaner, either solo or dual lane. As long as they don't counter you with multiple aoe stuns that don't need targets you can pick up easy support kills all day. Dark Willow plus one can burn down a support in about 3 seconds and her bramble maze prevents escape and intervention from the carry.
She's weak af, buff please
@マテリス
How would you nerf her capabilities to play mid then? She seems pretty hobbled in mid already yet people still try.
well, to make it more mid oriented, while also nerfing her, you'd probably want to remove the not detectable part of her second spell; so she simply get 360 magic damage buff for one attack.
Less strong, but faster burst.
However if it was implented, then she'd need to throw bedlam instead of having it roaming in circle arround her, she is quite squishy, so removing the none detectable part means she cann't use bedlam anymore
And since all mid need some sort of wave clear, you'd give bramble maze aoe damage when triggered, for 310 (but physical) dealing significantly less to hero, but allowing to clean a creep wave quite easily.
Alternatively, you could give bedlam immolation statue (instead of attacking) but reducing damage. It's low cd allow its usage for farming, and on the other hand you'd nerf her damage.
Anyway, no reason to remove the concept of this hero; it's cool as it is, she just need some tweak on value so she doesn't remain OP for absolutely no reason.
Sorry I meant how would you nerf her so people stop playing her mid?
I guess it's a moot point since if people really are hard set to play where she isn't that great then there's not much you can do
For everyone here saying that she is a strong mid laner i am going to put out a simple answer.
What does she offer to you in late game as a mid laner? Something more then any other mid laner out there?
No she does not. Why?
Puck outclasses her when it comes to control and his dmg even tho it's lower it is still high enough to compare them. Queen of Pain just stricly gives you way more dmg from and huge survivability, although she is probably the closest in comparison.
Invoker gives you more of everything but weaker early game.
Any potentional right clicker is almost allways better in late game.
Dark willow is a strong hero in the early lane dominance and mid game power if she wins the lane decisivly. The longer the game goes however she will become a very weak character. I can see her working in the mid lane if used with a support who can fill her job come late game (such as mirana or monkey king). But i do believe that she is way stronger played as a support as you do not require items to do the same job.
I think the article is not worded correctly yet in my eyes it is correctly said. She is not a strong mid hero. That does not mean she is a weak midlaner.
Bane is a insane mid laner, yet he is a weak mid hero. That goes the same way. Both are really strong on a lane but later on they are too weak to be worth the mid lane in the begging of the game. Unless that is your gameplan and you plan on switching role mid game to allow the pos 4 support to carry.
90% of those who are commenting that DW should be played mid are those who run 5 greedy core lineups with a jungler every game. They just simply don't understand what a good support can bring to the table, and what is really expected from a mid hero throughout the game. I give you a hint; solo killing heroes a couple of times is not gonna cut it most games.
Lion, Bane, WD, Pugna can also dominate midlane pretty easily in many lineups. Even Lich with the insane exp denial. But is it worth it for the TEAM? Most of the time not. Time to wake up ninjapickers, DotA is a TEAM game.
I carried a game with Pangolier.
hm 880 damage with kaya is a good mid hero
I'm pretty sure DW should be played as Support in early and mid game, then transitioning into hard carry when the late game is prolonged too much, thanks to her lv25 talent.
Disagree, about pangolier is not a carry. He can alao do carry job in late game too. With radiance, shiva, octarine and mjornir. He is almost impossible to kill. Those item is expensive? Fear not he is as fast as anti mage or even better at farming. He is just like ember but more venerable with a moderate damage but faster spamable, killing enemy slowly and split push just like naga. That's how to play him as a carry.
And even if he is not a right click hero, that doesn't mean he can't carry. Stop play him as a right clicker then you will be able to carry as pangolier.