Are Pangolier And Dark Willow Ready For Captain's Mode?
It generally takes a bit of time for heroes to make it into Captains Mode after release. Looking at the history of new heroes in Dota 2, it is evident how almost all of them have received some nerfs after entering the competitive domain and it is still a question how will Pangolier and Dark Willow fare in the professional environment.
The infamous Earth Spirit is still being nerfed patch after patch and the hero was enabled in Captains Mode in 6.86, released in December 2015. No one but the absolute best play the hero and he barely even reaches 50% in 5k+ games, albeit with a respectable pick rate of 12%.
The first iteration of Monkey King was quite overpowered on CM release, but no in the core role, but as a roaming support. Underlord has also been a priority pick for a couple of weeks after release, until he was nerfed enough to make him niche. Arc Warden had a very similar history, while Winter Wyvern was essentially a completely different hero and an extremely strong pick in pretty much any situation.
The fact is — no one will know how good or bad a hero is until someone plays it in a highly competitive environment and balancing a hero so that it is viable at the highest levels of pro-play while remaining playable in pubs might become problematic.
That makes the new additions especially interesting — for the most part they are not “numbers” heroes. Dark Willow creates an impassable maze that has high degree of potential counterplay and a ridiculous total amount of theoretical crowd control. Pangolier can essentially prevent the enemy from playing Dota by stunlocking them for prolonged periods of time. Things like this define these heroes, but they also make them quite problematic in theory.
Looking at Stats
When it comes to high level 5k+ pubs both heroes are quite impressive. Pangolier can currently boast a 48.31% win rate with a 12% pick rate, while Dark Willow is at 54.11% win rate and 6.7% pick rate.
Comparing these stats to what Earth Spirit or even Monkey King had at this point in their Dota 2 career shows that the newest two additions have a very clear advantage. They win more games, especially apparent when compared to Dark Willow, while being picked very frequently.
It raises an interesting question — what would happen if they were introduced to the professional scene in their current state? Are they simply more straightforward and pub players are more likely to win with them or are they quite strong on their own and would completely spiral out of control in a competitive environment?
It is impossible to give an objective answer to this question at this point. Given how successful the heroes are in pubs, there is a high chance they will be nerfed once professionals will have an incentive to play and explore them, since this trend has been persistent through the years. But the degree to which the heroes will need a nerf will remain a mystery until they are actually released.
Small Bits of Evidence
With all the information above in mind, there are still things worth mentioning. The Captains Draft 4.0 Minor allowed us to see a glimpse of what these heroes have in store.
Dark Willow was picked a total of three times. She was picked by Mineski twice, once as an offlane hero for iceiceice and once as a support for ninjaboogie. Mineski won both of these games with iceiceice showing stellar 12-0-14 performance in a match against Pain Gaming.
The interesting part is that the damage output for the hero was quite impressive both times. As a core, Dark Willow overtook supports by a huge margin, directly competing and winning against teammate Spectre, while still substantially losing to QoP. As a support, she directly competed with her offlane and second support in terms of damage output and was still responsible for almost 10% of the team damage.
Her crowd control values were also comparable to the allied Earthshaker in both games, with almost two minutes of total lockdown for both heroes in each game.
The sample size is incredibly small and it would be improper to make any kind of generalizations, however it is almost safe to say that the hero is on the stronger side of the Dota 2 spectrum. From her abilities alone, she has access to more crowd control and damage than most supports and while none of them are spell immunity-piercing or straightforward to use, in a coordinated team they will definitely have a very high impact.
Unfortunately, there is only a single professional game on Pangolier in the current pro circuit in a Complexity vs. OG series. Offlane Pangolier by Moo did not live up to the expectations, with very low amounts of damage and crowd control.
Closing Thoughts
Pangolier and Dark Willow are very interesting new additions to the world of Dota. They came with their own new mechanics and introduced a lot of variety to the regular Dota gameplay. Their balance, however, still remains questionable.
There were heroes who won more than 55% of their games and there still are, but it is a rare occasion for a newly introduced hero to be that successful this early in its lifecycle. As such, especially given the performance of Dark Willow during the Captains Draft Minor, it is almost safe to conclude that she is still some nerfs away from entering the professional play.
The case of Pangolier is not as clear, but there is no denying that he has an incredibly high skill ceiling and needs to be trained regularly to remain effective. There is a high chance that in this duo Pangolier is going to be the one making all the highlights if introduced to CM. He has a definite Earth Spirit vibe and there is a high chance there are going to be two players in the entire world who will single handedly force the nerf after nerf for the hero.
Well, Dark Willow is definitely FAR more straightforward than Pangoboy. Also, besides dealing high damage and providing huge if admittedly unreliable crowd control, she feels very survivable for a support. I think this is enough to explain her winrates and maybe guarantees future nerfs. A shame though, I like playing her.
In my personal experience (Scrub lord supreme), I've found pango to be way more intimidating than Willow. I've been very successful with the hero, but maybe fewer people can really utilize willow at my skill level.
I love how 1k MMR players a commenting like they know anything about this game 😂
i love how archon 1 players a commenting and criticizing someone else like they know anything about this game^
I love 2k MMR players commenting like they are really any better than 1k MMR players 😂
Toshi acc buyer
pango is definitely broken as fuck lol
I can't see why should i pick pango when I can pick shaker... Willow on the other hand is quite scary: High dps high disables high survavility.
I love how herald and archon both get frustrated with low skilled players they have in their team everytime.
Pango the mexican is an annoyance, i wish I could put him into eul's scepter when he tries to roll around!
I love how you guys despise each other and I love to watch the world burn.....
Pango was also played by OG Jerax in one game, as a roamer with N0tail carry kunkka
Author complains about earth spirit, while Spirit has a higher winrate than Morph and Prophet.
I counter: nef after nerf hes still not the worst in pubs.
46% winrate it not bad for pango.
Willow is quite easy to play, her low health is balanced with 4 skills to help her escape and high cast range.
Even in 2-3k we can chain-disable with a simple fear + crown combo.
And of course, her chain stun abilities becom more valuable, the better the teammates are.
fv[|< dark willow pickers
Terrible writing, needs a number of edits on grammar and spelling.
Omegalul
These legends rank players make me laugh every single time i came to comment section
There are a couple problems still wriggling around with Pangolier that leave him underwhelming:
1. Swashbuckle counts as four attacks on each enemy within the area of effect. This is actually nice for some items like diffusal or any item that steals health, but it doesn't work for any item that has a cooldown, like basher. People seem to be favoring mkb, diffusal, and radiance, but basher still comes up as a top item. I get having vanguard, but maybe it would be smarter to put that into a crimson guard instead of abyssal, or opting for pipe.
2. Swashbuckle has hardset damage values for the attacks. This means most damage items like butterfly or critstick are also left in the dust.
Both of these things keep him from being the carry one would assume him to be in most situations, which ultimately is fine because he can still put out a lot of utility with the spell and knock people around. It does seem like he needs to be tankier overall to encourage people to play him in the offlane and buy offlane utility items. Radiance is a good choice for sure, as is mkb, but it's still focusing on damage items for kills instead of trying to keep your team alive and being a nuisance.
Both are broken as fuck, specially pango
Basher makes swashbuckles a stun if you land it on one target, you won't always hit 5 targets. There's nothing wrong with swashbuckling a single target
@Brock Hall
Basher pretty much ensures a bash on the primary target. How often do you get to AoE people with Swashbuckle? What mmr are you playing at?
In defense of my thoughts:
Basher having a cooldown means that Swashbuckler chooses one unit among any units within the target area to bash then puts the item on cooldown. There is no chance of bashing two targets with one swash, and if it bashes a target you aren't intending to focus, you have to rely on auto attacks after the cooldown. This both reduces the number of opportunities to get 'the angle' and forces you to either actively reduce your optimal damage output during teamfights or 'spray and pray'. It can be nice for some extra catch, surely, but there are just so many other, better methods of adding catch to your team that the gold almost always seems better utilized on items that will make full use of swashbuckle or provide extra survivability.
If you do, however, find yourself with an extra slot in the late game, abyssal can be a pretty nice addition as it can bypass the proc necessity (especially if you have a blink so you aren't forced to swash in and accidentally bash a creep). But purchasing an early basher will not provide nearly as much potential utility as it will on, say, PA or Ursa.
Basher is a reliable stun with swashbuckles, you mostly going to swash one target especially on chases, you don't itemize for the "perfect case", you won't always hit everyone on a swash
It's like earthshaker nerf that alot of people claimed was a buff, yes now 5 man echo is stronger. But how often you hit 5 man echo?
ES was broken because 1 man echo was really strong, dealing alot of damage and having 0 cast point, allowing you to catch slippery heroes reliably. And now 1 man echo worth nothing outside of providing 1.5 second stuns, making your solo kill potential much weaker
The "best case" was buffed, yet the "non optimal case" was nerfed and that wad enough to drop the hero hard
Also pango have horrible right click, don't build right click on him. Also radiance I never got the point
You aren't auto attacking, your jib is disrupting teamfights with swash and thunder. You're like earth spirit. And you build around those abilities
Good fun here in comments,i just would like to say kawai doing a good work
I have 85% + win rate with pango in solo rankeds, all games 70%
Hei guys , I'll start off with Pango :
As a offlaner this hero is a monster after the recent buffs, was extremly weak before that.But now he can be build in so manny different ways to ensure victory for your team with no downside to it.For example you can build him as an Underlod with greeves,pipe,etc.... and still ofer your team the cc and damaged needed in team fights , but can also be build as a pure damage dealer depending on picks for example against illusion base heroes you can rush maelstrom + shivas , for low hp/int heroes you can get double javelin + diffusal blade rush, and so on ...Only downside to pango is any time of root, ensnare ....completly shuts you down from your ult and you just die.(FWY: other roles not work since you need alot of items to be effective)
As for Dark Willow:
As a 5 she's pretty average unless you get to the gold talent which enables you to get the stuff you need which is highly unlikely.
As a 4 can work but it's situational.
As a 3 and what i recommend she's extremtly survivable in the offlane with high kill potential if the enemy overstepps their position.
Most often the problem with her is that yes you can kill people alot, but if they is split pushing you don't push near as fast. Altough meteor hammer seems an alternative for her now, since the stats and mana regen + active are to good to pass.
I dont see pro's doing anything different with them for now as they are unless they wanna show of something that can possibly work but very unlikely to like Willow mid, good in theory not so good on a team level. We just have to wait and see how they want to roll with these 2 heroes and hopefully not impact to much pubs and decrease those winrates just because some pro's made it look good in a pro lvl match game.
@howtonoob6
It's not about hitting everyone, it's about having to intentionally ONLY hit one target. Your chance of bashing the intended hero is cut in half if there is even one creep. So why would you buy an item that either is wildly unreliable in teamfights or forces you to be useless during the fight? It's not like the vast majority of the time you're finding solo pickoffs; you're going to be teamfighting, so buy an item that will be useful regardless of situation.
You're right, you aren't auto attacking most of the time, so you should be grabbing items that will make the most of your swash or your rolling thunder, no matter if youre chasing or teamfighting. These items would be anything that doesn't have a cooldown or things that make you much tankier, like shivas, crimson, blademail, pipe, diffusal, mkb, vlads (although I wouldn't, it heals nicely early game but falls off fast). Radiance applies a miss chance while damaging, so it's similar to picking it up on Omni or Necro.
Again, you can purchase abyssal later in the game if you're really hurting for catch, but to me it's surprising that it is picked up as often as it is when there are much better items to fill your slots with.
well from the chat
I love how 2k can comment something on 1k like they know better
I love how 3k can comment something on 2k like they know better
well im adding, I love how 3k 4k can commend something on 3k 2k like they know better'
waiting for 6k daddy
@Northway
Contribute or get out. We all want to understand the game better and debate proves effective on presenting new ideas. It doesn't matter what skill level you are, if your ideas are effective then they have merit. So again I say, contribute or get out.
Did anyone bother to proofread this article? There are so many grammatical mistakes. It reads like foreign Deviantartist's blog post.
1k mmr spelling boys
i think both dark willow and pango deserve future nerfs before it. I like them, but pango too OP with 3 javelins
The quote 'Even my dog can get divine 5' seems appropriate now