LC: Which OP is she?

So, I've finally gotten away from the bots and into regular matches and what I've come to discover is that Legion Commander is starting to look like a pubstomper. I went to dotabuff and sure enough she's the 7th most popular hero in 6.86 so far.

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2055591199
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2055510358

In these two matches, I played with and against a Legion Commander, in both matches she manages to reach 150-200+ Duel damage. Granted in that one I lost, we had arguably the worst line up for dealing with an LC, which was compounded by an offlane Shadow Fiend feeding her some early duel damage and an easy Blade Mail.

But the way I see it this; LC is starting become a sort of SF-like pub hero, in that she can very easily win her lane via getting a Bottle or a Soul Ring and then spamming Overwhelming Odds. Then she has the ultimate snowballing skill Duel, and it's because of this, she can be a very rare breed of hero, in that she has the scaling of a carry and yet she's relatively item independent (that lc in my loss had just a Blink Dagger and a Blade Mail for a large part of the match and you could make the case that she can outcarry anyone with just an armlet).

But, does this make her over-powered? Or is she simply over-picked? I look forward to you guys making your case.

She is a strong ganker/snowball her/rightclick carry. That is like the best combination to win a pub. A carry that can farm fast, dominates lane, can fight early, hits hard, ganks well and snowballs totaly out of control. She isn't op but she is probably the best snowball carry in the game. Previously those heroes were Phantom Assassin, Riki, Troll Warlord, Faceless Void,.. but those heroes aren't that good anymore so now we have Legion Commander.

It's really easy to win with her in pubs cuz you will gank succesfully and you will get the bonus damage with eaz. And in comparison with other gankers scales legion better in the late game instead of falling off.

Woman with balls = overpowered.

Hero is ****, extremely dependent on team(since she can't even solo kill a support at full HP) and extremely dependent on good start because she has zero comeback. Might work in organized teams as a situational pick, but in pubs she is really only working when your team is way better than the enemy team.

Very situational. If you can win ez duels and get lots of damage, she can become almost unstoppable in the midgame and still dangerous later too. She can also have zero impact, lose lanes for the team if she AFK jungles (many do), give damage away, and generally suck.

Quite dependent on a good start, she has good synergy with a large number of heroes, and the free buff/heal is also very useful.

I'd say she's probably OP at lower levels - people wandering around alone with low health is easy damage. She can struggle a lot more against co-ordinated teams, 5 manning and games where she lacks opportunities for easy pick offs.

The only place where she's OP is low priority. Because she gets stronger when people feed XD

But seriously, yes her laning stage is incredibly good (pretty much Axe level with her buffed passive), yes she doesn't need a lot of farm and can snowball hard, but the hero has issues to compensate : extremely limited teamfight presence and lack of any comeback potential.

She's completely playable now that there's no longer a Winter Wyvern in every game though. However she's extremely weak against teams that 5-man all the time in the early-mid game, so she's a situational pick at best.

Personally I see her as a counterpick to split push, because that's where she really shines : hunting down AM's, Furions, Nagas, Embers, Slarks, and the occasional but rare Terablyats.

Well...you always need a teammate to help setting up kills in the early game... Lion, Witch Doctor, Sky.....
But even after she has tremendous amounts of duel damage she only has one stun with a 50 second cooldown making it way to easy to kite her if she hasn't a good team with her. Force staffing your ally away from a duel, E-blade, Decripify or if she does not have magic immunity a simple stun will completely nullify her impact. For me she is kind of a Ursa who needs a bit of time to come online, has a bit more utility (purge) but still suffers the main weakness: Kiteability.
Ps:This is why I usually pick up a Refrersher Orb in the late game.

Almost every carry who is in meta now can solo kill enemy heroes if they get the opportunity. LC can't.

Also ethereal form does not work in Duel, that'd be too easy.

Force staff doesn't affect dueling units. Ethereal however does - the wiki clearly says it and I've seen it in action.

Ethereal Blade is actually the ultimate LC counter. It's a good thing it's an expensive item that's only decent on a few select heroes in the game, otherwise LC would be unplayable.

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1628724957

Ethereal Blade is a really nice pickup to stop LC's from getting proper duels off, I saved Leshrac in a key fight this one time because I eblade'd him when he was about to get dueled and picked off.


As for the subject of this, LC is not really overpowered unlike the current Faceless Void, who jumps from 43% win to 55% win from 1k to 5k, LC is pretty consistent, and probably a bit overpicked depending on where you are. 3k area is the LC infestation since core players who don't get to play cores always try to screw over their teams by playing junglers, and LC is the one people choose because they want to go ganking.

LC is more like Sand King rather than a pubstomper, has incredible laning potential in the right drafts, can exploit stupid players very well, has a very specific timing window, does not play well from behind, and gets owned late game, often with or without momentum. Pick her against the right opponents (Anti-Mage, Melee Mids, Ember, Slark, Bristleback) and she'll wreck em. Pick her against the wrong heroes (Riki, Oracle, Skywrath, Sand King, Chaos Knight) then she'll probably get owned.