Overvalued Concepts of the New Patch
It’s been almost a month since the release of the new patch, yet some players still cling to ideas that don’t work. They might sound interesting and exciting on paper, but regardless of the level of execution, most attempts to implement said ideas in practice are doomed to fail. Today we want to talk about some of the most tenacious bad ideas and argue against them, at least for the time being.
Luna’s Khanda Build
We get it: cooldowns on 
Lucent Beam and Khanda align nicely and allow for a lot of safe burst damage from afar, but looking at high level pubs, multiple region qualifiers and our own games, we feel like this trend needs to die. There are simply too many other things Luna needs to build to stay relevant as an actual carry.
Luna is a high contact hero who will eventually want to be pretty close to the enemy to utilize her ultimate. There is an argument to be made about her Agh’s Ultimate upgrade, but it falls into the same category as her Khanda build: there is maybe one game out of twenty where it is a good move, but for the most part playing efficient default will net better results.
It is impossible to ignore things like 
Mask of Madness and 
Manta Style on the hero and it is pretty hard to play Luna without 
Black King Bar. None of these items provide a whole lot of damage and as a result, her Khanda build is just not good enough to burst heroes down and it ends up being a waste of 5000 gold.
Phantom Assassin in general
Khanda might be a big one to blame when it comes to Phantom Assassin’s current Divine+ win rate, but we feel like the hero in general is simply too weak. At the time of writing, Phantom Assassin sits at a very uncomfortable ~38% win rate in the highest level bracket, making her one of the worst heroes to pick.
The game is seemingly too fast for the hero to flourish and if previously she always had a game as a 
Spectre counter with 
Fan of Knives, now she is simply outclassed by every single carry in the game by default. And her specialisation isn’t as necessary, as it was in the previous patch. All of the above on top of some pretty sizable direct nerfs to the hero.
Despite that, she is still picked in roughly 14% of all games, making the top20 most popular heroes this week. Yes, she is fun to play and her lower bracket win rate isn’t as abysmal, hovering around 45%. But at the end of the day, picking PA is a game-losing move that doesn’t make a lot of sense outside of a couple of very specific scenarios.
Ogre Magi Midas Rush
To be frank, that isn’t a new patch problem or an Ogre-only problem, but Ogre is the hero we’re seeing this mistake made on the most. Coming to the lane with casual 
Gloves of Haste is a blunder that is going to lose you the lane, give the enemy free farm and possibly even delay your 
Hand of Midas.
The worst part is that you don’t need it very early. In an ideal scenario, where the enemy has a very weak lane, getting Midas minute ~6 into the game will give you an extra use or two, compared to getting it after a successful laning stage. But the trade-off is way too big: even the weakest of lanes that itemises towards stats and something as basic as movement speed will be able to punish a Midas rush.
Expect to either die in lane, or be forced to go into the jungle. This means losing lane farm and ultimately losing gold and experience, while also leaving the lane to your opponent and freeing up their support to rotate. You might also lose your tower because of it and losing an Offlane tower early on is giving away too much map control to the enemy team. In a relatively fast-paced patch, losing offlane tower pre-minute 10 is more or less a death sentence in most competent lobbies.
Juggernaut’s Battle Fury
Juggernaut is a hero who is historically torn between two farming items: 
Battle Fury and 
Maelstrom. The last time the hero was relevant, the former was the main reason for his success: Battle Fury allowed Juggernaut to farm fast, scale late and deal a lot of physical damage, which stacked nicely with his resistance-ignoring lifesteal.
Right now the hero is all about Attack Speed: every single point of AS gives Juggernaut higher damage on 
Blade Fury and extra attacks in 
Omnislash. Hence the Maelstrom into Mjollnir progression makes a lot more sense for both farming and fighting. With his lower than average BAT, you end up with a very fast-hitting hero who can deal a respectable amount of damage with his abilities and right-click procs alone.
It doesn’t really leverage Juggernaut’s Crits, but that’s why the current meta is all about maxing out his first two spells for maximum sustain and utility. Some players even opt for attributes, as opposed to extra 
Blade Dance levels and we tend to agree with them.
Closing thoughts
What do you think of our selection of overvalued concepts of this patch? Do you agree with them, or do you think we are exaggerating how bad they are? Share your thoughts and maybe your own grievances in the comment section below. Together we can weed out the bad ideas and end up with an even better understanding of the current patch.
nerf pl!
PA is very strong, not "too weak". Even ignoring Khanda (which is actually not bad item on her if you play knives talents).
why mk is so shitty and valve doesnt want to buff him. Even with highest networth or kda u can still lose the game.
who the actual fuck things pa is a concept let alone valued in this patch?
AND WHO THE ACTUAL FUCK GOES BF JUGGER
this article is just "lets write something to post"
I think Glimmer Cape deserves some mentioned. I'm nearly blindly going Pavise->Solar Crest and that feels way smoother and more useful than going for Glimmer. Glimmer seems now an exclusive tech of CM/WD.
why are the commenters on this post so stupid? First comment is "nerf PL". PL isn't even good right now. Second comment claims PA is "very strong". PA has a 40% winrate. She's one of the worst heroes in the game. The third comment complains about Monkey King (who isnt even mentioned in the post) being able to lose the game even when he's ahead. Every hero can lose the game when they're ahead. That's DotA. You don't get carried by your net worth, you still need to play properly. The fourth comment asks "who the actual fuck things pa is a concept let alone valued in this patch?". That's answered both by the second comment and her pick rate, the latter being mentioned in the post itself. Who the actual fuck goes BF jugger? Uh, lots of people. Also, yknow: https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7539785727 - ILTW is going bfury on juggernaut.
Just four of the dumbest comments I've ever seen, all in a row.
I hate ogre pos 5 and 4 rushing midas in my rankeds
I'd pick brood here
Nah meepo busters are still there
@Big Mad Andy winrate dosen't mean anything in terms of strong/weak. Of course PA has weak winrate, she has 15% pick rate which means she is picked by a lot of noobs in low ranks who feed with her. If Meepo had PA's popularity he would also be 40% wr, but he is clearly broken now as well.
I don't even know why Khanda is an item to begin with. It's just kinda an item Valve must've just thought of, thinking "we need an upgrade for Phylactery, so let's just do this, and see what happens."
I wouldn't be surprised if it's gone when 7.36 eventually rolls around.
I wish you knew how BAT worked. You were so close in that one article but your conclusion went the exact opposite direction from your reasoning :(
Wow most commenters here have no reading comprehension
@pixelgoo The 15% pick rate might be an all ranks stat, but the winrate in the article is specifically from top bracket. That means, if anything, noobs are winning MORE games with PA than top tier players.
On another topic, I just don't get why it's so bad for Ogre to get a teamfight item before committing to the midas. Just get a rod of atos! Assuming it still can multicast on multiple heroes, you've got an incredible early game glepnir. A good teamfight will net you as much money as a midas proc will in the early game, and you can go back for it if you REALLY need it. I'm happy to see this being addressed here, it just seems so greedy.
Some of these comments made me lose a few wrinkles in my brain.
And I don’t have many to begin with.
I genuinely thinkg fury Jugg is not that bad. Yes, I am only an ancient player, and perhaps my opinion/judgement is off here. However, depending on team comps, fury feels so much better than Mjollnir. Although Maelstrom is quite a bit cheaper than fury, fury's build up just feels so much better, as it allows you to buy cornucopia first item after brown boots in really hard lanes or after treads in easy lanes. This means you regen easier when healing ward is on cd and you will always have enough mana to farm and fight, which often is a major issue when going maelstrom. Even if you get a Basi to help that, it still feels underwhelming and cloggs up a slot. About the team comps, if it's all about single pick-offs, Mjollnir is better, but for major 5v5 team fights, especially with an initiator offlane like Magnus, Enigma, Tide, Mars etc. the cleave of fury just feels so good. In addition, one of the most annoying parts about Omni is using it on the number 1 priority core, only to bounce off to a support, and they run out of jump range before they die. With fury, this happens less because sups simply die faster from the cleave, sometimes not even taking a direct hit from the Omni. In my opinion, unless you play against lots of evasion heroes like Wind Runner or Pa, fury simply feels better.
INTELLECTUALS
What does Dragon Knight do? His kit is such a mixed bag that it makes very little sense. He needs to be re-worked hard. I've been at this game for a long time now and I don't have any idea what you should do with DK. He is sort of tanky, but he is not, he has a great one target stun, but he doesn't have a good farming tool and the team fight presence is very meh. I would rather have Axe jump in the middle of the enemy and call all the attention on him or Tide with that Ravage going in than a DK, a supposedly tanky hero that has an ult that allows him to stand in the back and do damage. The kit just makes zero sense. He's just a dude that does some things in a mediocre way and does nothing particularly well. When practically any other hero can excel at something or in some match up. I just don't understand the hero and rarely see him and when he is in the game he usually doesn't do anything. He is such an iconic hero of the game that he should have some spot in the game, but currently he does not.
Just had an all high and mighty DK player yesterday in a game and he didn't do anything. He didn't do damage and could not tank a lick. Not saying I didn't suck in the game, but still DK isn't a hero at the moment... I didn't attack him either on his play. Just the hero. It is weird that he is just a mixed bag of mismatched abilities and they haven't done anything about it.
Dragon Knight is good at sieging towers early. Lvl 6 free Tier 1 towers push if you didn't lose your lane hard, and it's easy because you have free heath regen and armor.
you guys are overestimating avarage players... PA is by far the worst hero in dota right now, and yet I have had her in my team maybe 3 times in the last day
Battle Fury is actually a recommended item by ImmortalFaith for the Juggernaut.
who are these posts for. heralds?
Battle Fury vs Maelstrom is a tale as old as the game itself, at this point. I think it depends on whether you're in a more proactive role (Mael) versus a passive farming role (BF). But Juggernaut can usually fight pretty early on with his ult and healing ward, so Mael is often considered the better option, whereas BF is for a lane/jungle farming, more defensive Jugg.