Heroes Who Could Use a (Pro-Scene) Buff – DOTABUFF

We are rapidly approaching the end of this year’s competitive season, with many high-level tournaments starting very soon. The proximity of the EWC and TI means that it is highly unlikely we will get any sweeping balance changes, but that doesn’t mean some minor patch would be unwelcome. Today we would like to concentrate on some heroes who have been out of the spotlight for a very long time and who could use a small numbers buff to become a viable option at the highest level of play.

We genuinely don’t remember when was the last time the hero’s been a popular pro-scene pick. In a meta where Doom and Beastmaster are extremely popular flex picks, the absence of Grimstroke is doubly surprising. We don’t believe It means that the hero is currently in such a bad state, that even overwhelmingly powerful pairings for him don’t make up for his weakness.

We feel like the hero is simply a bit too clunky. The numbers on Stroke of Fate are exceptionally strong, but it has a very telegraphed and slow cast point, making it unreliable. That, in turn, means it is kind of iffy when it comes to the laning trades and even the anti-juking innate can’t help Grimstroke in lane. This is where we would like to see a small buff: simply reducing the wind-up animation from 0.6 to even 0.5 seconds could do wonders for the hero.

Grimstroke is also very level-hungry. All of his abilities are strong and scale well, but are very conditional in the early game. There is no easy fix for this and perhaps it is not something that needs fixing. That said, we firmly believe that maxing out Phantom’s Embrace could be a way to go.

It is an easily disjointable projectile, sure, but it is also undispellable, so in certain matchups it can be a game-changer. Heroes like Tidehunter and even Slark are not big fans of playing into it. And it also has the added benefit of punishing Status Resistance, as it can deal its Rend damage faster and refreshes the ability sooner. Again, simply increasing the projectile speed on both cast and return could make a huge difference for the hero’s viability.

Finally there is Ink Swell that somewhat recently lost its Strong Dispel functionality. We don’t think adding a powerful save back to the hero will make him more interesting, though. Grimstroke is a very aggressive support with an incredibly damaging kit. Perhaps leaning into that aspect with a different Shard, that buffs the damaging aspect of the hero, could be a way to carve out a niche for this character in the professional scene.

Juggernaut suffers from the same problems as Grimstroke, as far as the pro-scene is concerned. His abilities are too telegraphed and have too much counter-play potential. Practically any save item can negate his ultimate in the early game and he also suffers heavily from the recently added Shared Vision Obstruction mechanics.

The hero also has one of the worst stat gains across all heroes. This is where we would like to see at least some sort of a buff, because it is kind of weird that the hero’s default and most viable skill progression involves going for Attribute Boost whenever possible. The hero doesn’t deal damage fast enough to be an Assassin-type character and without the Healing Ward he also doesn’t tank too well, with the latter needing level 20 to have an actual impact against a well-coordinated team.

His innate also doesn’t gel with the hero, in our opinion. Something that could make the hero more survivable would probably be a better fit. The Heroes of Newerth version of Juggernaut also had a different skill, instead of Healing Ward, where there was a chance to Counter-Attack an enemy, on being attacked. As an Innate, it wouldn’t help the hero’s survivability, but it could make the hero a better late-game brawler.

Finally, and this is less of an opinion, and more of a theorycraft, but I’ve been toying with the idea of Radiance Juggernaut for a while now. It could be a decent farming tool for the hero, but most importantly, it is a good stepping stone for later progression into both Nullifier and Butterfly. It is on a midway point between Battle Fury and Mjollnir cost-wise and could be an interesting way to make the hero work against certain drafts.

It says a lot about the current state of Snapfire, when Tusk and Undying are some of the most popular picks and she is nowhere to be seen.The hero is very eclectic, to say the least, and it is hard to figure out how exactly to best utilize her.

On one hand, she wants to stand quite far away from the fight, safely channeling her ultimate. On the other hand, the rest of her kit is pretty close-quarters and is mostly about midgame brawling. The end result is something that doesn’t work too well in either case.

And it’s not like the hero is bad during the laning stage either. With her Innate and a selection of slows and stuns she can be an asset for the first several minutes of the game. It is the latter progression that is in question.

We can’t think of an elegant solution that would make the hero more viable, without interfering with her general design. Maybe we are just outright wrong and the hero is good as it is, just underexplored. That said the hero’s been barely touched in the last several high-profile tournaments and is far from being meta in pubs.

It is impossible to perfectly balance a game as complex as Dota, but there were patches and the International tournaments where more than 90% of all heroes were contested. Returning to such glory days would be welcome, both from a player and a spectator viewpoint.

Naturally, the game is very different nowadays and professional players are also a lot better at exploiting small weaknesses during the laning stage to snowball into an overwhelming midgame. It is probably the number one reason why a lot of heroes simply can’t be picked — their kit doesn’t come online until after the laning stage and at this point the game can already be over.

Maybe an economy overhaul somewhere down the line, after TI, could be considered. The last two mega-patches were either Hero-centric or Map-centric, so some changes to how the underlying economy behind the whole game works could flip the meta in a meaningful way.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Would you like to see the return of the rubber-banding and late-game carries? Or do you think Dota is in a good state economy-wise and balance changes should primarily concentrate on dealing with specific heroes? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.