General DiscussionRandom question

Raw dps and scaling. Everything u mention is related to the power spike of the hero.

So heroes that scale well tend to be your pos 1. They also tend to be farm dependent which is usually one determinant of pos 1 heroes. Not necessarily agi gain, because there are a lot of heroes that u can play from pos 1 that aren't agi heroes.

Think about sven or safelane necro. Not always about right click either or bat, some abilities scale very well and warrant the farm priority.

The flip side is that heroes that don't need farm have abilitiEs that are somewhat stronger early game and allow them to remain relevant without farm. Think about your supports like winter wyvern.

Stat gain means nothing though. Heroes like Slark and Alch have some of the worst stat gains in the game.

That's fair. I guess in the long run, stat gain isn't THAT important.

And you can buy carry items on any hero, in that regard, all heroes are equal (six slotted).

Raw dps and scaling.

But that's my question though. Where does this come from? Even if it's not from Agi gain and Agi cores, Int heroes will have increasing damage from Int gain as well.

I understand why and how supports work, and why their power spikes are early in the game. The question really was directed towards cores and damage dealers, challenging what warrants a 250 Attack Speed Talent on Crystal Maiden or 250 Damage Talent on Techies.

Abilities, which give you constant mobility.
Abilities, which increase your DPS.

Talents matter way less.
Stat gain matters even less.

Any one of these (at least one must be DPS ability) warrants carry potential.

Many people are missing mobility, despite it being a super valueable thing for a hero in late game.
All blinks/teleports/movespeed boosts scale infinitely well (good no matter what).

Mobility enables faster farm, split-pushing and ability to initiate on a hero fast and kill fast.
If you look at carry heroes, most of them are either fast-moving or blink all around.

Luna has best base MS and runs very fast later in the game.
Slark is permahasted, when out of vision and has a pseudoblink.
AM has a blink.
PA has a DPS/blink ability as her W.
Lycan in ultimate is permahasted.
Alch in ulti is fast.
etc.

These are not coincidences, but reasons why these heroes are cores. Secondary reasons, but still.
Heroes, which are slow are either limited in their scaling or are forced to buy blink to keep up with fast cores.

Anything that gives u dps. That could be stats, Bat, abilities like god strength, phantasm.

You have secondary qualities that enable Dps don't forget. Which is maybe why Dps on supports like maiden don't make sense. Things that enable Dps = things like survivability mobility etc.

U can of course augment all this with items, that's where the question comes, can my hero farm it fast if given priority?

A level 25 right clicker Lich can win any game if the enemy team is underfarmed. But would that be the case? So there u have your answer.

abilities are the most important. some spells like shukuchi, berserk's blood, divided we stand make or break a hero and their entire stats and talents are made with these spells in mind. talents are not that important, but sometimes they can produce new playstyles (magic ember and sniper druid) if they are made too strong. stats are only important for supports because it helps them harass and be more relevant without items. this is why bane is super popular he has like a billion damage, high armor, high hp so its impossible to trade hits against him for most heroes. in this situation, stats are important. but cores buy items anyway so no one really cares if their stats are low. if they are high, then its just a small bonus that might allow you to change your item build.

Okay, so I guess it's something more like this:

1. Abilities
2. Talents
3. BAT/BA
4. Stats/Stat gain

In a more fun, less serious scenario, I imagined if literally any hero could be played as core/carry. Excluding professional and high MMR gameplay, especially considering how with 7.00 and 7.07 talents make heroes so flexible and variable. Your points are valid, hence not all heroes can realistically outfight other traditional carries, even if built that way. I intentionally left out mobility and tankiness out of the equation, since in pubs, I've often seen carry IO, Dazzle and the like.