Against the Meta — Support Edition

Image by MrScrake

7.37b did little to the overall idea of the current meta. We are still playing in an extremely tanky patch with a lot of healing and sustain. Dota being Dota, though, there are always ways to adapt and overcome. Sometimes they aren’t obvious, or they can be hard to pull off, but when played correctly they can work wonders for your win rate. So today we are going to have a look at some of the best heroes to play, if you want to deal with the most popular picks of the current patch.

Ancient Apparition

Bone Chill — Ancient Apparition’s abilities reduce the enemy’s Strength.

Apparition’s main weakness is his laning stage. Despite having some extra range on auto-attack and decent harassment tools, the hero is undeniably inferior to most other position five supports when it comes to early game skirmishes. Laning against currently popular heroes like Hoodwink can be a nightmare.

Laning stage isn’t the whole game, though. Surviving through it without feeding too much is possible and there are many things the hero provides in the early midgame that can completely turn the tides of battle. Most importantly, the hero deals with two of the biggest meta threats — Omniknight and Tinker. Turning off heals on a priority target, or on multiple targets in a teamfight is an effect that should not be underestimated in a Holy Locket meta.

That is not all, though. The hero also cuts into the enemy Strength attribute with his innate and with Ice Vortex spam it is possible to deal quite a bit of damage for free, while also scouting for your team. One underrated aspect of the Ice Blast with Ice Vortex, Cold Feet or Chilling Touch combo is that turning off heals also turns off HP gain from getting your Strength back, when leaving the Bone Chill Aspect Area of Effect. That is on top of Shattering enemy heroes below a percentage threshold with Ice Blast, which in the current meta usually means getting upwards of 400 Pure Damage. Highly conditional, but everything in Dota is.

Don’t forget about the hero’s Shard as well. It is a potentially screen-wide 1.7 second stun, available as early as level ten. In general, Ancient Apparition’s play style should revolve around being unseen and quite far away from the enemy, as his cast range on all of his abilities is incredibly high. For that reason, Solar Crest is a much better save item for him, compared to Glimmer Cape, unless you need to have a disengage tool versus some strong gap closers. And even then, Force Staff is typically better, with things like Aether Lens always worth considering.

Shadow Demon

Promulgate — Disseminate instantly removes a percentage of the opponent’s health for its duration.

This hero is very high in popularity in higher level brackets, but is criminally underpicked in average level pubs. This is the hero that makes Omniknight spammers weep, while also being quite decent against other meta heroes.

Demonic Purge is one of the strongest support ultimates in the game. It deals with a wide variety of barriers, destroys Eul’s Scepter of Divinity and slows the priority target to a crawl. It is as straightforward as it gets.

What isn’t straightforward is the hero’s laning stage. Shadow Demon is a killing support, with a very strong setup for a stun and high damage output. He does need some practice to consistently land Shadow Poison, though, and it requires active auto-attacking for the Shadow Demon’s innate to keep on stacking. Long trades are favourable for SD, but with limited attack range and average armor, it is easy to overcommit and feed.

Later on, the hero becomes less about Shadow Poison and a lot more about his Disseminate that can quickly take away 20% of the enemy’s current HP. Again, in a tanky meta it is an effect that will easily give you a ~500 HP burst, as long as you kill the target within the 6 second window. Though even when dispelled, it is a 10% current HP nuke, which should never be underestimated.

closing thoughts

There are many correct ways to play Dota and sometimes going off-meta will pay off. Understanding why and how certain heroes are strong, adapting to it and forcing adaptations from the enemy team is a big part of the game and while, in general, we advise against “weak” or unpopular heroes with low win rates, in some scenarios the problem isn’t the hero’s actual strength, but rather their familiarity to the general player base.

It is especially evident with supports — core players are typically accustomed to certain lanes and don’t always adapt in time, forcing trades and engagements they shouldn’t be forcing with heroes like Ancient Apparition, for example. Still, with some communication or just plain patience, there are definitely ways to make unconventional heroes work.

What are your thoughts on the pair we discussed today? Perhaps you think there are other underrated heroes to break the meta with? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.