Heroes Who Could Use a Nerf
A couple of weeks ago I talked about heroes who could use a buff, but today, after the conclusion of the Bali Major, it is time to talk about heroes who desperately need a nerf. They are probably not going to surprise anyone, as they were the biggest meta trendsetters of the tournament with some of the highest win probabilities.
Broodmother
Universal hero with high farming potential, good late game scaling, built-in damage, mobility and scouting is simply too good. There are no two ways about it: the hero must be “weaker” numbers-wise to make up for how strong she is in terms of her overall design.
Perhaps Insatiable Hunger could be dispellable, like most buffs of this type are. Or maybe the hero could lose some movement speed, so that she has to rely on Silken Bola to chase her targets and not just max out stats for extra damage and tankiness.
Perhaps Universal heroes as a concept need another look: it still feels like 0.7 damage per stat is way too good in the later portions of the game, with many Universal heroes dominating the meta in all core positions.
It is the reason why we won’t even consider 
Morphling to be one of the heroes who could use a nerf. Him stealing 40% of enemy Universal hero attributes and still only winning ~50% of his high level games is very telling of how problematic Universal heroes are and Broodmother is definitely the most problematic of them all.
Medusa
Medusa is still a bit too good for one simple reason: unless you counter the hero during the draft stage, she will get away with the game. Sure, she has some issues in the ultra-late, but when she gets to hit her 
Manta Style + one major item timing pre-minute twenty, she is unstoppable.
Maybe Stone Gaze could cost a little bit more mana, so that it is more of a trade-off between different types of survivability. The activation duration on it could also be tweaked. Right now attacking Medusa feels like a very bad play and that’s what makes her such a strong carry.
Increasing the duration necessary to turn enemy heroes to stone could go a long way, without once again tweaking the numbers on her Mana Shield. The hero is not dealing too much damage and she doesn’t even necessarily feel “too tanky”. She just feels tanky, with an extremely powerful punishment if you don’t get through her double HP bar in time.
This is where I feel the problem lies with the hero, so hopefully we will see some changes in the future.
Clockwerk
I’ve touched on the hero last week, but some players might have missed the memo. Clockwerk is currently one of the strongest position five supports to lane with a ranged core. He has very high mobility, strong aggressive potential and scales exceptionally well.
The hero also provides a ton of scouting. It is very important on the bigger map, but it also provides tactical advantages in a fight. Having the ability to start the fight by jumping backline cannot be underestimated.
Finally, the hero is very flexible and can function with pretty much any build, making him a very versatile support. Depending on the situation, he can go for any of the top tier defensive support items, or he can go aggressive with items like 
Blade Mail, 
Spirit Vessel or even 
Orchid Malevolence.
The hero is underperforming in pubs, but I feel like it is temporary. The Bali Major really showcased how and when to play Clockwerk and soon he can become a problem. High adaptability coupled with high peak power make for a very explosive combination.
Closing thoughts
It is safe to say that the current meta revolves around a handful of heroes, who are strictly better than the rest. Of those, several stand out even more and can be considered overpowered. It also looks like they won’t meta-out with some smart counter-pick, so it is unlikely we will see huge meta shifts without direct Valve intervention.
That said, 7.33 was a very big patch and it will definitely take time to balance it out properly. Moreover, while the pro meta is very much set in stone, the pub meta is still somewhat fluid, with many viable heroes and just a handful of very bad ones.
All in all we do hope to see a couple of patches before the upcoming big tournaments, but we also feel like they should be primarily focused on the professional scene, rather than pubs. Do you agree with us? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
How about "grab ally" on an already broken hero, ability needs to be removed.
I'd like to see a change to universal heroes where their highest attribute grants 0.8 damage and the other two grant 0.5. That would give them the 1.8 damage from an iron branch rather than the 2.1 they get now.
More importantly though it'd encourage universal heroes to focus on one stat more than the others, bringing them more in line with other heroes.
Legion Commander?
Honorable mention: Vanguard when you get vanguard even against 2 magic heroes you are immortal...
By "grab ally" are you referring to Tombstone?
dont u fucking dare touch my clockwerk
Clock doesn't need to be nerfed he's underpowered
Clock is unemployed why you want to hurt him. He is only taking side hustles but he do it perfectly.
Good job pointing out Medusal
Last I looked, Legion Commander has 6 heroes that she doesn't have a >50% win rate against and many of them are 55%+
She's extremely popular for a reason and she's not universal. Part of her strength might be her scaling or her new QOL changes, but she's definitely a dominating force in most brackets.
Clockwerk is meh, real cancer is Legion Commander.
I like the first two but mentioning Clock not mentioning Undying seems a little off
warlock
Nobody here talking about Timbersaw? His only weakness was Magic damage, but now with the LVL 20 Magic resistance talent + Pipe + Passive Base Magic resistance increase from Intelligence, puts the hero around ~60% magic resistance. Very OSFROG.
Almost every hero is broken if it’s in the right hand. It all depends on the way they play and the line up of heroes in their own team and opponent’s team – even Lion and Crystal Maiden can be broken if it’s in the right hand. 🤷🏻♂️
Some combos are indeed too difficult to handle, they need to build the right item to break the play, or some they’re just totally unstoppable due to lacking of the right hero in the line up against them or simply lacking the right items to break their play.
Medusa is just one easy example of how easily a hero can be broken in pubs, it’s fast farming, its lane presence is strong due to its Mystic Snake, and its upgrade with Aghanim Scepter is OP and can be a real pain during team fights.
Timbersaw is annoying in the laning phase through midgame if you don’t have its counter in your line up, but by midgame once your team can complete a Silver Edge + Spirit Vessel + Basher or SoV, its threat is minimized to its mere annoyance in team fights which it can be killed easily once focused down with Silver Edge – the fact remains that Timber is not a hero that can fast finish anyone.
Warlock’s Upheaval requires some good strategy play to break it, and don’t forget, bring detection too.
Clockwerk is easily countered with Force Staff and how to position yourself if you’re a squishy Support or ranger Core, like Sniper or Drow Ranger. Playing against heroes like Clockwerk or Pudge dewarding is important, and always remember to hide before team fights, don’t show in map until Clockwerk has no choice but to target someone else, preferably a tank – “baiting play” is part of the plan then.
Every hero has its counter, just need to figure it out – either by itemization or by some change of strategy into the play.
Indeed it’s much easier if we can decide our picks during draft, but in pubs, some ignorant players are there just to play a hero they want and don’t really care about winning or to counter pick anything during drafting stage.
Often the main reason of frustration is the attitude of some ignorant teammates, and not the OPness of any enemy hero. In fact, playing against the OPness of any enemy hero and going through the process of figuring out the strategy as a team is the fun part (provided you have a good team).
Everything has its counter in DotA, we just need to figure it out.
^of course almost every hero is broken in crusader when in the right hands, but we talking about actual dota
medusa mana shield untouched?
А что clockwerk сделал? Вроде сбалансированный
Clockwerk is not overpowered by a long shot, every range core gets a hurricane pike and lots of slows is very meta atm. Ontop of that clock got his stat's reduced in order to become a universal hero so he lost a ton of hp from str in order to get more right click damage which is pointless on him.