Hero Discussion: Tidehunter

Back to DotA, friends!

Tidehunter has gone missing from from the pro scene a lot recently. He was played a lot at post ti4 tournaments, and then he got hit be a large nerf: the anchor smash damage being lowered, and the introduction of the Ancient Granite Golem (because it's so much harder to take stacks out).

What do you think and how would you play tide/run a tide lineup?

The nerfs to ancients farming hurt him a lot, since it meant that his Blink Dagger timing would be delayed, which in turn delayed his game impact, but there's a bigger flaw with the hero right now;

This is not a patch for the traditional big team-fight spells and the associated Wombo combo's, because there's a lot of frequent fighting. And Tide doesn't like that, Tide wants to basically use each ulti to secure an objective, but the issue is right now; Sure you can use Ravage to win one fight. But then it's down so long the enemy can attempt to take 2 or 3 in turn, and get 2 or 3 objectives from it.

He's still scary in the late game, it's just getting there is harder. Really I think he just wants a meta shift more than direct buffing.

Do you play Tide at all?

{Shameless bumping}

In pubs tide is still viable against a lot of lineups, because Ravage just messes up squishy heroes with high mobility.

In pro games I don't think he fits. As Sanvitch pointed out, pro games right now are about constant fights and pressure. Tide however doesn't do much when his ult is on cooldown. Even if one fight is won, the long cooldown will lose the next 1-2 fights probably.

No mention of the major nerf he got this patch...that there is finally a way to deal with Kraken Shell dispel, by buying Silver Edge?
He's no longer guaranteed to get Ravage off no mater what. Now with some coordination you can gang up on him, chainstun him and burst him down before he does.

i wouldnt call it major, silver edge isnt a common item, and it requires an extemely specific situation where he gets caught out, gets stunned, and wants to use ravage anyways. using ravage just to save yourself isnt worth it.

KR sums it up, he lost popularity around DAC since games became more high tempo fighting, the cooldown is too long for a lot of games.

Really tim...



Agreed with this.
Silver edge isnt the reason he's not viable. It's just a counter item like many others.

Never said silver edge made him un-viable...just said it's actually a first in dota that you can now focus Tide first at the beginning of a teamfight and lock him down. Before it was literally impossible, there was absolutely no point in initiating on Tide whatsoever because he'd simply purge off the stuns.

So before Tide was kind of like Abaddon...the guy who can just be in front like he doesn't care and be like "come at me"...now he can't do that anymore otherwise he gets jumped and chainstunned. It's actually a big change IMO.



Well, actually no, it's the only one. It's literally the only item in the game that reliably counters Tide, that's why it's a major change.
Silence him? He purges it off. Hex or abyssal him? he purges it off. Mass Black King Bars is the closest...but he'll just time ravage when BKB's are down, and when initiating he can stun before you can pop BKB...besides you need 5 freaking BKBs which you just don't have so it's only a partial counter.

I mean, you wouldn't see teams focusing Tide anyway at the start of fights. Not in competitive. You stun him once, and change focus immediately. You never tried to burst him down, you just delayed his entrance to the fight to the point where his Ravage's become less favorable due to the change in circumstances.

You also didn't see stands stand at front acting like 'come at me' - Tides would wait, and blink in and double ravage and win team-fights.

So sure, the introduction of Silver Edge will matter in that respect in pubs because you know no co-ordination. But it really means surprisingly little competitively.

What you could do is get an offlaner to buy Silver Edge, then make it his personal duty to stalk Tide.