Least favorite hero to face and why?

Earthshaker. Fissure is absolute ********, if I told you that's a 1400 range Storm Hammer with low cooldown that disables pathing for 8 seconds...nice skill Icefrog. And remember when ES was a bad hero? Of course you don't, he was always a good pick. So why did he get buffed directly and indirectly IN EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE 10 LAST PATCHES?????
The last patch being the worst. He now 100% reliably gets his blink at 15-20 minute mark with the gold changes (100 more assist gold = wtf). The Clarity buffs make Fissure ultra-spmmable in the early game. The hero now has literally no mana issues whatsoever by abusing clarities and mangoes, and has a guaranteed blink timing. Literally first phase picked in every competitive game these days. Seriously...**** this hero.

Also Techies, but only if he's in my team. When he's in the enemy team I don't care, ez game ez life. But when he's in my team I'm stuck with playing 4 vs 6 dota with this gold sponge taking all my farm to do nothing with it. And sadly the only way to deal with Techies in your team is to leave at the loading screen when he gets picked, otherwise you're ****ed.
(playing with Techies in my game is always playing against Techies for me, regardless of his affiliation)

For Sando
https://twitter.com/Aui_2000/status/614966605638819840

I dont think he needs a massive nerf though, no heroes in the game do. (just one skill called lightning storm)
Just something to take of some of the edge. I would like it if they dont kill the offlane for him though, makes the hero more flexible and the game more complex and thats a good thing IMO.


EG's brilliant strat to defeat secret at TI5, remove techies from the game. Brilliant! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Well I really don't see how you could nerf offlane shakira...since he has nothing that makes him an offlaner in the first place except the fact that a #3 position suits the hero perfectly. Of course he should still offlane.

Actually all the hero's skills are fine, except Fissure which IMO needs a major nerf. The skill was probably balanced in 6.80-ish times where the hero had severe mana issues and a late blink timing. But now, with the Clarity buffs (ES is literally the best clarity abuser in the game), and the bounty runes for his Bottle, and mangoes...the hero doesn't even have mana issues. So Fissure should be less spammable in early game (him having 2 fissures at level 1 for first blood is pretty broken). And 125 mana cost at level 1? Skill is better than stuns like Wraithfire Blast in every way so why does it cost less? Personally I'd say
- Fissure manacost rescaled from 125/140/155/170 to 145/155/165/175
(level 1 Fissure spam and clarity abuse nerfed in early game, and no more double Fissure at runespots)
- Fissure cooldown increased from 15 to 20 seconds
(again, skil is better that Storm Hammer in every way so should have significantly higher cooldown, no more double fissure in teamfights)

Now that Aftershock can be countered by Silver Edge, I think a significant fissure nerf balances out the hero.

I can't stand playing against Razor. Call it a quirk, but someone about him just wrecks my style

I have a love hate relationship with Ursa. Like, he makes every game I play against him much more intense because of the kiting I have to do for ours cores. Like I enjoy it, and hate it at the same time.

Silencer annoys me, because I never have enough farm to deal with him (Because I wind up playing 6 position support usually, so yeah), and thus I just have this window of time where I'm useless in every fight.

As for the ES part; I can see him just getting a nerf to his starting INT and a slight increase in Fissure cost. Like, the hero having mana issues again in the early game would be enough, since it indirectly hurts both support ES and offlane ES. That or make Fissure's duration scale a little so like 5/6/7/8.

Lol thanks Hamster - tbh this hero is useless most games outside of ridiculous combos like Tiny/ Tusk etc, where he's basically an auto-kill early game. Have to agree, I'm always more pleased to see him on the opposition than on my team - most Techies seem to have a manual they work from about mine placement, so they're generally quite easy to counter/avoid. Just have to put up with them drawing the game out.

As for Shaker, I love this hero, but would agree the recent item changes to Clarity and addition of Enchanted Mango have done quite a lot for him. I don't think he needs a major nerf, just a slight one to level 1 Fissure - the damage and stun time is insignificant compared to that 8 second blockage.

I'd go with a mana cost increase for it (changed his base int doesn't really change anything as consumables restore the same amount regardless), and a reduction in the blockage time.

Say 140/150/160/170 mana cost, and blockage time 5/6/7/8 should do it. Increasing the CD could start seriously damaging his impact later on, and he's a fun hero who I'd like to see stay in the meta.

Generally the rule for playing against him is to have at least an offlaner (pref a mid too) who can easily bypass the Fissure wall, do that and he'll really struggle to get assists and have impact.

Well sure, you can pick a blinking hero that he can't fissureblock, but then Fissure is still a 1400 range instant Storm Hammer with no projectile, so he can still stun you at any time from a billion range and you can't disjoint it or dodge it in any way. That's the big problem : even if you forget the block it's still arguably the best stun in the game because of the absurd range and instant disable.

He's literally first pick material since he fits every lineup and has no real counters. Heavy disablers like Doom don't even work since he always sits in the trees to (counter)initiate. The closest thing to a counter would be anti-blink initiators like Spectre or Silencer...but he deals with Silencer by buying Euls or Lotus Orb which he can do easily since in this patch supports get free cash, and Spectre is still a mass illusion hero and can be vulnerable to an Aghs Echo Slam.
Or you can try out ultra-long range initiators who can disable him like Clockwerk or Storm Spirit...well he'll just buy a forcestaff against Clock...and Storm counters almost every hero in the game so :)

I mean, I'm still at a loss on how to effectively deal with a well played ES really. Apparently competitive players are too, seing how BigdaddyNotail's ES carries his team every game.

I mean, NoTail's Earthshaker has been doing that for months. It's nothing to do with the buffs the hero has had in the last few patches, he is just that good on the hero, and has been for a very very long time. There was a game back when he was on Secret where he held high ground 1v5 off of his ES plays alone. But then again, you can say the same of his Io - (Remember the Fnatic Days where NoTail and Era had like an 85% winrate on Io- Tiny). It's also like Puppey's junglers, his Kotl, or Kuro's Rubick, or basically any signiture hero for the top pro supports, and even just pro-players in general. They can and do carry games by themselves, because they are that good on a given hero that they put in a disproportionate amount of work.

Like, the best way to deal with ES is playstyle, not counter-picks. Like, I think the last game of ESLOne showed it well enough, with PPD (Who likewise plays a great ES, probably second best in the competitive scene) not being able to swing the game, because Secret never let him get the big Echo Slam to truly shift the games momentum back to EG's favor. Like, back when he was just a support pick-up, he was a hero that had to get stuff done early or else he fell behind severely, and the same is kind of true now. Easier blink timings helps (I will never bemoan that patch change however. Supports getting more gold was a good thing, and makes more of the support pool viable)

Realitically however, if the hero becomes viewed as that OP, rather than just being a solid hero, and that unplayable against, he'll just get higher priority attention in bans.

Oh, and I'm fairly sure unless you nerf the hero into the utter ground he will still be justifiable as a 1-2 pick-up. Much like Batrider was for like 3 years or more.

Techies has gotten be my least favorite hero both in using and going up against worst hero in dota if i may say so myself who agrees with me?

^^ A LOT of people.