Do you think Zeus is OP?

So, I've been playing Zeus lately, and he seems to be pretty OP, getting easy kills+farm for his items. This causes him to get very OP very quickly, usually having super mana and hp regen, and high attack by the mid-game. Do YOU think Zeus is OP because of this? Or is Zeus secretly lacking in some way that counters his quick levelling?

Zeus is a very good nuker in sustained fights. If the fights are short brawls Zeus usually doesn't do all that much. Zeus is also very weak against ganking heroes, because he's so squishy. Legion Commander, Nyx Assassin and Bounty Hunter usually ruin his day.

Zeus is the mid-lane riki so to speak. Destroying unorganized teams and countering most of the invis stuff that is lurking around there. Looking at you Riki.

Just to put it out there, Zeus was indirectly buffed this patch with Aether Lens and Veil of Discord.

6.86 Zeus can do a lot of work with some really cheap items like Ghost Scepter, Blink Dagger/ Force Staff, and lens + veil.

Zeus was clearly not OP in the previous patches. But I do think he's pretty legit this patch, not as a mid hero, but as a (semi)support.

He's still as easy to counter though. Just buy a pipe or something.

Zeus is still a snowball hero, needs momentum to really be dangerous. My reaction to him is pretty much the same as Wind. If I get a decently timed Pipe, he's a miserable god. If he gains momentum, he can be quite hard to deal with. Though I personally hate him, since I love to play Sand King, I find he's strong but not overpowered, just Zeus games are really one sided, kind of like Pudge and Kunkka games.

Without Bloodstone, he can't farm at a decent rate. If your team is has some initiation, he is easy to jump on and kill, especially when dewarding. In terms of mid-laning, he can't lose without a gank, but he also doesn't win many matchups either.

However, with the removal of magic resistance from Aether Lens, I think he may become a bigger menace than I thought. After all, he is one of a handful of heroes where 8% spell boost is noticeable, and Veil is one of the most buffed items of the patch. If a disproportionate number of supports don't have 15% magic resistance, then Zeus is actually quite a bit more dangerous (though iF I'm against a Zeus, I always go casual cloak) since he is a lot more likely to kill supports.


Keep in mind that Zeus is the only hero where your team skipping Pipe is not optional however, this doesn't even apply to Charles and SK, Zeus's damage is just that dangerous. I think that's why he's so powerful in pubs especially, since pretty much every player has to adapt their item builds if Zeus is on the enemy team. If Zeus manages to feed off the dude(s) who didn't buy BKB or a casual cloak/glimmer/hood/pipe, that can still lose you the game.

Who's Charles? XD

Leshrac is Charles.

In original Magic The Gathering, the story went that Leshrac was named because the writer had problems coming up with names, so he asked for help from a friend/advisor named Charles and ultimately decided to anagram Charles' name.

So I've been calling Leshrac Charles.

Well, beeter than the usual radioactive manpony, rainbow centaur etc.

Why do you still need to ask that? Cuttles has used this name for like 3 months now, didn't he? Or did I just imagine him to do that?

Tsts, I forgot, what's wrong with that?
Besides, a guy whose name only appears on four old Ice Age cards, none of them being even remotely playable...even a former MTG player like myself had no idea about that :)


Back on topic, Zeus' farming speed doesn't matter since his scaling with items is super poor anyways. The big strength of the hero is how much he can do with little farm, and also the fact that he doesn't even need a lot of levels, essentially all he needs is level 11 because his passive literally makes the hero. Bloodstone, aghs/refresher or whatever, if you ask me that's just some wasted farm. Much better to buy a forcestaff, lens, veil, ghost or other 2K gold cost-effective items.

But yeah countering Zeus actually requires some effort because you need to go out of your way to buy the right items. Yes, your mid Death prophet should rush a pipe against Zeus and not buy a Euls just to get 2-shotted, but try explaining that to the typical publord.