Then and Now: Heroes Of Recent Past
Does knowing the history of Dota matter? Newcomers, whether player or spectator, will see the meta that is playing today, without the context of what happened before. There are no history books for the revolving door of heroes in and out of the meta. How much does it matter for a new player to reflect on the dominant eras of Bloodseeker, Storm Spirit, Leshrac, or Juggernaut? What about pre-nerf, pre-rework Death Prophet and Faceless Void? There was a time before Aether Lens, a now integral item, and a time after. For every player who complains about an Invoker pick, there’s a graying Dota veteran reminding him, “you should have seen 6.83 Sniper.” The meta of each International becomes indistinguishable from the one before it—all part in building a Dota almanac.
It takes hundreds of hours to reach any semblance of competency in the game, rising from fumbling around with hero skills to maybe executing them when you should. There's the Dota IQ that can only be attained from playing game after game, grasping the intersecting mechanics of different heroes and different skills. And for the ambitious, there's the studying of Dota at the professional level to learn from the best. The truth is that experience and knowledge, from both past and present, matters in a game with such a strict learning curve. Here’s an ode to recently passed heroes—gone, slightly forgotten, but still part of the game.
Winter Wyvern
Can anymore be said to mourn the passing of Winter Wyvern? It’s not often that a support hero, rather than a core, receives the kind of heavy handed nerfing that brought Winter Wyvern into rapid obscurity. It’s also rare that Valve nerfs the utility of the spell, Winter’s Curse, rather than the attributes—starting base stats, armor—of the hero or tinkering with the sliders on mana cost and cool down. Enough was enough, Valve said, and so Winter Wyvern dropped from being the 2nd highest picked hero (27 times) at the Shanghai Major to being picked 4 times at MDL and twice at Starladder.
Tusk
During the Frankfurt Major LAN Finals, Tusk had a 98% Pick and Ban rate. This dipped down to 29% at the Mars Dota League LAN Finals and 36% at the Starladder LAN Finals. Tusk is in the same field as Batrider—owning a skill set that is valuable enough to withstand a few nerf hammers from Valve. Batrider was still valuable and prioritized in drafts, despite Valve’s insistence on pushing him out of the meta. Like Batrider’s Flaming Lasso, Ice Shards and Snowball were unique skills that retained their utility and functionality in the face of nerfs in 6.85. It was only in 6.86 that Snowball’s utility was finally changed when Valve made it unable to help allies evade Black Hole and Chronosphere. Tusk today is a shadow of what he once was, plummeting from first tier pick to the fringes of the meta.
Slardar
“he was long mocked as being one of the worst carries in the game”
Slardar was an unfortunate victim of the meta changes in pace but more importantly with the addition of the offlane camp. It was a shame, since for a time he was long mocked as being one of the worst carries in the game, with poor flash farming potential. After a few buffs to Sprint and Slithereen Crush, he finally found a viable niche in the offlane. It was only for a brief moment that the map changes edged him out in favor of offlane heroes who can better farm the jungle, such as 
Lone Druid and 
Dark Seer. Slardar also had good synergy with Windranger, who also faced a similar fate in professional meta.
Windranger
Differences between WR's pick and winrates across all brackets from Nov 30th 2015 to now, February 6th 2016
Windranger received a series of incremental buffs from 6.81 to 6.84 that pushed her into the dangerous territory of being overpowered. This was the major sentiment among the community and in pubs, where Windranger was the #1 most picked hero. However, her stats didn’t support this notion, as she had less than a 50% win rate across all brackets and during the Frankfurt Major she only mustered a 34% winrate in 32 games. Still, in 6.86 she received a nerf to Shackle Shot, reducing its angle to latch and allowing heroes to disjoint the spell. Today, she is the 5th most picked hero overall in pubs, but the 21st hero picked in the 5k+ bracket. In the competitive scene, she started fading out during the Frankfurt Major already alongside Slardar's fading popularity, and has now disappeared completely. She was neither picked nor banned during the entirety of MDL, across 75 games.
Shadow Fiend
Compared to the previously mentioned heroes, Shadow Fiend has enjoyed a longer era of dominance ever since his buff to Shadowraze in 6.83 that increased its damage from 75/150/225/300 to 100/175/250/325. Most importantly however, a long prevailing bug was fixed that prevented his ultimate from dealing as much damage as it was supposed to. He benefited from farm metas, from push metas, and he was a comfort pick for nearly all professional mid players, who most likely had a competent Shadow Fiend in their wheelhouse of heroes. As a longtime favorite hero in the community—from old school legendary plays by Yaphets to Dendi’s two-hour, Dota 1 tutorial on how to play mid—Shadow Fiend’s popularity was a welcome one. He was highly favored in TI5 and at the Frankfurt Major LAN finals he had a 94% Pick + Ban rate. Then, recently, in Starladder he was picked twice and in MDL he was picked three times. In 6.86, Shadow Fiend not only received significant nerfs to his base armor (-1 to -2) and Shadowraze’s mana cost (75 to 90), he was nerfed against the jungle around him. With the addition of stacking magic resistance auras on creeps, Shadow Fiend’s strongest trait—his early-mid game flash farming—was hamstrung. If there was any consolation, it’s the addition of an Aghanim's Scepter upgrade that causes Requiem of Souls to heal himself. If there’s any hidden potential for this in the professional meta, we’ll find out at the Shanghai Major, if he gets picked at any significant rate.
The Next Patch
Inevitably, after the Shanghai Major, Valve will institute a new patch, overwriting the one before it, and our history and experience with it in the process. That’s how the game stays fresh and how it has persisted to be an enriching experience for over a decade. New players to Dota will only know what's happening now without the context of the past, but it's never too late to learn, to grow as the game grows, and reap the same rewards from the time that the community has invested in the game, patch after patch.
First :D
second
Incredible
Pls stop i have birthday
Who remembers the good ol' times Riki + invi ward walking the sentinel field like a ghost ?
Pepperidge farm remembers
"Heroes of the past", "heroes of the present," waiting for "hero of the future." Come soon, Pit Lord...
In the meantime, Currently the Enchanted Mango has a win rate of 34.38%. Together, we as a community, have the ability to fix this problem and end this horrific tragedy. Please help. It is our duty as gamers to give this item the respect it is due.
Haha. This is pretty cool.
The sniper/troll meta was just a year ago, doesn't need to be a veteran to remember it
@Greentoa123 obviously mango has a shitty winrate as dotabuff only counts items at the time the game ends afaik. So obviously, if you still have a mango at the end of a game instead of some late game item you are doing something wrong, thus your winrate being low is to be expected.
sf will be viable
I miss old pl :'(, much better to split or flash farm
@greentoa: That is still considered spam, even if you put a different comment before it. Consider this a warning (okay this sounds so much more serious than it's supposed to be)
mistake in ww para last line
27 times picked in shanghai major?
Amazing.
@eggs "...so Winter Wyvern dropped from being the 2nd highest picked hero (27 times) at the Shanghai Major..." The Frankfurt Major was the tournament
I hope they won't be retarded enough to nerf void just because the pros pick him quite alot,changing him from a hard carry menace to a trash initiator was enough
now we 're supposed to be making vlads and aghs on void lmao
last patch he was raping spec and dusa late game
Please Nerf Viper For He Is So Overpowered
Viper isn't overpowered, unless ur a Zues versing him in mid. He's just easy to play is all.
Otinnn
rip shadow fiend ~.~
I'm just glad lesh is gone... die rainbow goat die!
Anyone remember old meepo?
I remember old meepo and all those items taht used to work but done anymore on him... RiP Meepo
Echosalami 2 stronk
RIP Lycan 6.74, nevar forget
im always curious as to whether valve is patching things to make the game better or give the game novelty...
i actually am quite curious as to how much better the game has gotten over various builds. im also curious to see if the meta would keep being stale, were the game to go unpatched for a very long time. i suppose it certainly depends on the patch.
at the very least i have noticed that the game does not necessarily become increasingly balanced as a function of time in every case.
I want to go back to 6.49b
I started last August. All I remember: Bloodseeker, Storm Spirit, Techies and cancer Riki every game.
@Mogginho Same here :p
I remember of the PL cancer that was the thing the most wtf i ever seen
All im waiting for is Storm Spirit being playable again....
Agree, I miss the old PL, too.
Those illusion battles beetween PL and Shadow Demon were awesome :D
one thing i dont miss is bloodseeker being picked all the time on pubs
Storm though.......
How to get very high skill in dotabuff?
Storm spirit I miss the most BibleThump
also i liked the lycan patch so much, same for op storm meta , op lesh meta, those hereos are fun , hate sniper being op , hate current ld , and sf is love sf is life always .. he'll be back soon tho,
also current invoker is legit , hes kinda op but playing him needs skill , so ppl saying invoker pickers should ... , skillfull heroes like invoker or es being op is much much better than right click sniper or troll being op
Nowadays Osfrog just keeps nerfing the heroes that the plebs call "OP." I miss the old osfrog.
I really hate this current patch.
Void offlane.. Every fucking game Voker.. shitty Earth spirit and and and...
Waiting for next patch so hard T_T
The Swagfiend will always be my favorite hero... I always play Smoke Weed Everyday by Snoop Dogg whenever I play him hahaha! Hopefully valve will make SF's Presence of the Dark Lord be toggled to affect heroes only, similar to the Ring of Aquila and Wraith King's Vampiric Aura
>dota veteran
>6.83
u suck lol
The patches never balanced anything but its hard to make this game VERY balanced cause there are so many scenarios and osfrog isnt a god to do that . What he does instead is pull the game out of the stale zone . Im playing dota since 2008 and the game always felt fresh till recently .. it really kinda makes circles instead of going forward idk how to explain it but im sure other veterans can relate .
I remember when i played w3 and try that game called dota and silencer used to be like warlock (coz he was with his ultimate) a lot of funny suff like that as old scythe of vyse when u needed euls and oblivion staff.