Broodmother is Back
Image by Welkynd
A couple of weeks ago, when doing one of our top tier posts, we sighed with relief that while a lot of cheese heroes are in the meta right now, Broodmother isn’t. Well, someone had to go ahead and buff the hero and here we are. Broodmother — yet another very powerful cheese pick to destroy pubs with.
universal = broken
The header statement is kind of true for most Universal heroes who get to and want to right-click their opponents. Because of how most defensive and utility items are built, Universal heroes get to have both the survivability and the DPS for the later portions of the game.
Because of it, the current meta is heavily Universal-focused and we won’t be surprised if the 0.7 damage per stat will be reverted back to 0.6 in the future. It is not particularly healthy for the game that a lot of heroes get to hit for 300+ damage per attack, while having very high survivability and utility.
Moreover, because the current meta revolves around Universal heroes, their complements and counters are trending as well. Heroes like 
Magnus can amplify already ridiculous base damage of Universal heroes with Empower, while on the opposite side we have heroes like 
Underlord and 
Timbersaw, who get to cut into Universal enemy stats and their DPS. It is also one of the reasons why 
Aghanim's Scepter 
Morphling is gaining popularity.
Broodmother is a Universal hero and as such she is similarly broken by default. It just took players a little bit longer to realise that.
false sense of security
Broodmother starts off the game extremely weak and her base damage and base HP are well below average. Even her Strength gain is pretty low, making her a surprisingly tame lane opponent initially.
However, as most Universal heroes, she gets to buy 
Bracers and 
Wraith Bands to make sure she gets to survive through the start of the game. Between the extra stats and Armor, she can turn from a squishy spider into arachnophobia-inducing nightmare in just a couple of minutes and it is important not to miss this metamorphosis when laning against her.
Players have to realise that Broomother gets 4.3 Base Damage per level, 2.4 AS per level and even a simple 
Magic Wand gives her +6 Attack Damage. She also has the highest base Attack Speed in the game and most our readers should be aware that it is as important as Attack Damage when calculating DPS.
If you are trading with Broodmother in lane, come level five, with just a couple of trinkets, she will probably have an edge in a straight 1v1, unless you are playing heroes like 
Ursa, 
Troll Warlord or 
Monkey King. That is without pressing the most broken ability in her kit.
no counterplay
What does Ursa, Monkey King, Magnus and even 
Bloodseeker have in common? Well, they are rather strong late-game DPS characters with powerful buffs. They are also the best candidates to build 
Nullifier against and are part of the reason 
Shadow Demon is so popular right now. Continuous dispel effects can completely destroy the DPS of these heroes, since they heavily rely on buffs to deal damage.
Even simple dispels can be somewhat problematic to play around for these characters and better players and teams know and abuse that fact. If you look at the professional meta, there is a sharp rise in popularity for Shadow Demon and Oracle, while Enchantress is still a highly contested pick. What does it have to do with Broodmother? Well, for some reason Insatiable Hunger is an undispellable buff.
It is essentially a transformation ability, much like 
Sven’s God’s Strength or 
Terrorblade’s Metamorphosis. The only difference is that it has a ridiculous 56% uptime (64% with Shard) and a relatively low cooldown. It is not an ability the enemy gets to “wait out” and “play away” from.
This ability provides +70% Base Attack Damage, which, as discussed previously, is absolutely massive on a Universal hero. It also gives a 100% lifesteal to the hero, as if she was lacking sustain. And later on it can even reduce Broodmother’s BAT to 1.4, making her comparable to 
Juggernaut in terms of attack swiftness.
The hero gets to be extremely damaging to the enemy, while potentially building a full inventory of survivability items and farming a good chunk of the map with her Spiderlings. Better players also block out the enemy camp spawns with their Spiderites, if they have no intention of farming them up.
Closing thoughts
The end result is pretty straightforward. Broodmother is yet another broken Universal hero that does require some micro, but isn’t too hard to utilize effectively. Her winrate is rapidly rising in most skill brackets, as more and more players figure out that she can be played in a very tanky fashion without making her any less threatening DPS-wise.
The most popular and successful build for the hero involves getting 
Harpoon and 
Manta Style, into 
Black King Bar or 
Linken's Sphere as needed.
To deal with her, we would strongly suggest picking supports with AoE slows that won’t die to the Spiderling onslaught. Heroes like 
Lich and 
Ancient Apparition are rather good at surviving and turning on the hero ever since 
Orchid Malevolence stopped being a priority for Broodmother.
Core-wise, most illusion-based heroes should be fine, but there is also a case to be made in favor of Troll Warlord who surprisingly does not suffer from Nullifier and gets to keep his DPS intact, while having comparable lifesteal and blinding options with his ultimate and Whirling Axes respectively.
What are your thoughts on this new development and do you want to give Broodmother a try? Share your thoughts and perhaps your frustrations in the comment section below.
I haven't seen brood played as carry in pro matches but it'd be nice if they experimented with it. Also, Lycan carry has been popping off recently.
zoo heroes is back hope they will dominate the game in this patch...
You haven't seen brood played as carry in pro matches? Do you mean position 1? Otherwise just watch DreamLeague Season 20. It is all over the place!
I still prefer brood in the offlane, but it seems it can be played in mid again as well.
I am wondering why Aghanim's isn't a thing for her anymore? As it gives stats and the ability is still insane in my opinion.
KawaiiSocks what do you think?
How about a hero.... that is a cup where you mix your protein?
Universal heroes are right now the equivalent of picking "gun" in rock-paper-scissors when you were eight - nobody on the playground thought you were funny or clever picking the "everything" option. Ah well, OSFrog sometimes gives and OSFrog sometimes takes away.
Haven't seen her recently, but it's because there are many stronger heroes on low rating. On Brood you need to do at least some effort.
I've seen a brood on my low rating, which just demolished 1v5 on the 7th minute. Perhaps, that isn't the best thing to have a hero which has a possibility of winning the game solo before the 10-minute mark
I played against a bm mid and it was awful 4 me. I just got wiped and the game was lost by 20 min mark.
I'm a little confused about this article going on and on about how OP BM is, when this very website shows her winrate significantly below 50%.
Though to be fair I don't watch very many pro-matches; maybe its different in the main meta.
@GonSAga I like aghs, the reason you don't get it is because there are better stat items and you only have 6 slots. Like is spending 4200 gold and taking a slot for the web trap ability worth giving up a skadi? Or a daedalus? Or butterfly? Thats the question