Bringing Back Elder Titan

Okay so a hero I've really been loving lately is Elder Titan. Other things aside some of the huge perks of having a ET are:

1. Huge AoE disables
2. Gigantic Physical and Magical Damage
3. Alot of extra dmaage output from Natural Order

Now typically the build we're looking at here are the standard Strength support items, Soul Ring Tranquil Boots, Mekansm, etc. Now from what I'm seeing here, Elder Titan does have a very good presence in his small amount of games, currently boasting a ~55% winrate (according to Dotabuff). He holds the most strength in the sub-3K bracket, probably because he is one of those heroes that only people who love him use him, so they are good with him and people dont know how to play against him.

What I'm proposing here is a right-click based Titan. Something like Armlet of Mordiggian, Blade Mail, Assault Cuirass, Daedalus, etc. Now what makes this so good is that with Natural Order he removes 100% of enemy bonus armor and magic resist. So all armor from armor items, agility items, and passives like Dragon Blood are removed. This increases damage output significantly. Think about it. For every armor removed you are reducing enemy effective HP by 6%.

He could be played in pretty much any lane, thanks to his natural tankiness, long range last hitting ability, and disables. In the late game he can gain 100+ damage at anygiven moment just by throwing his Spirit into a crowd. He can also disable this same crowd. That would force enemies to play away from each other, effectively increasing the effectiveness of heroes in this meta that go for lone targets such as Slark, Spectre, Bounty Hunter, and Legion Commander.

Now looking at his downsides, I'd say at the low bracket, teamwork and knowledge of allies is required. Alot of people arent quite sure how the "sleep" mechanic works. Now a lot 0f this will be reduced when playing a carry build since you will be the one doing tha damage. Teamwork wont be as much of an issue at higher brackets. I can;t even find another reason why this hero isnt good. I mean, 3 of 4 abilites pierce BKB (to a degree). Which is better than nothing. Weaker yes, but they still work.

So what do you guys think of a viability of Elder Titan in the meta? I dont see whats holding him back.

Elder has problems of sustain HP early on, as well as kitability, vanguard + basher should as they are very good in solving these two problems

Dont forget bkb, he just needs it

Also with have things like echo sabre and sange yasha who are good for melee rightclick carrys

ET is super good this patch as a support. I am waiting for people to use him with early max natural order and rekt enemies.
Go offlane with two clarities and make arcane boots and euls. He is in a good place individually. Problem is with his place in drafts

Alright Blubbles, let me first clear up this misconception about Natural Order. It does not remove bonus armor, it removes the base armor the hero has, and any additional armor they gain from agility. This means its really good against heroes like Anti-Mage, Morphling, and Terrorblade and less effective (though still like minus 10ish armor) against heroes like Lifestealer, Dragon Knight, and Axe who will probably be relying on armor items or abilities.

Alright, now lets examine him.
The good: Quite possibly the best teamfight hero between the disable and massive aoe damage. Is an excellent counterinitiator, can disrupt enemies with his stomps, if you have a hero with a skillshot, he can use his stomp to set it up.
The bad: Has no lane environment, is a terrible ganker, and his abilities are very sluggish and imprecise.

So, the reason why no one runs Elder Titan in competitive is because he's one of the most overspecialized heroes in the game. His only real use is in clashes, he can't gank, and he is countered by mobile heroes that can avoid getting stomped or earth splittered. He has the Warlock issue, except Warlock is good at laning.
And now on that note I will challenge your idea that he can lane anywhere. Send him mid against a real mid hero, like QoP, Kunkka (this patch it seems), or Storm, you will get severely out last hit and harassed, and you can't kill the enemy mid either without them overextending. Send him solo offlane and you are at risk of getting dived (since your stun takes 1.5 seconds), you have no sustain for getting zoned, and if the carry is alone you will not be able to contest their farm in a meaningful way. Plus all the nerfs to spirit many patches ago have ruined his ability to grab last hits and harass with it, not unless you run up to your target and punch them with the bonus damage. He can be run in a dual offlane, and he can be a support (though not in a trilane due to his level dependence) if your team is okay with having a melee support that can't gank.
The brief time that ET was picked after his spirit/offlane nerfs it was because of Euls being awesome and a glitch that let him follow-spirit stomp people, in other words, he was a not-terrible ganker.

Now, on the subject of the right click Titan. I don't really buy it, and the main reasons are:
1. Your hero is easy to kite, especially if you did not get some sick earth splitter combo.
2. He grants the damage via debuff, meaning you can combo it with a real right click hero like Sven, DK, or Terrorblade, so you're getting double returns. It's why people stopped safelaning Slardar.
3. Having this hero in the front lines severely limits his ability to get a good stomp off. If you're right in the thick of battle, you're a lot more likely to get hit by a stun and your stomp will not be successful.

Now, as for my thoughts on ET, I find him good as a support if your team can afford to have a melee support. His teamfight skills are insane, so if you fight often, you can win your team fights with just 1 point in stun and spirit and maxed aura. It's the build I've been using lately and it's working wonders. If you can use your stun to set up a combo with allies that's even better. Titan has the uncanny ability to make everyone on the enemy team very squishy in teamfights, and his counter initiation skills against a team that overcommits is really quite godly, and you don't need an armlet to do that, he can do it with just a soul ring. Things like Euls and Aether serve him better for fighting and killing, and if you really want to expand the area of Natural Order, you can get a BKB, walk into the fight with your illusion and watch the enemies tumble.

But in low bracket solo queue games, you can do whatever. It's unlikely you'll get punished for the poor laning or lack of ganking prowess, and he still shines bright in teamfights, the environment that is greatly loved by pub players.

If you want to play carry Titan, at lest build him right.

Silver Edge into Echo Sabre into Desolator. Walk up to people, get the double shadowblyat proc, and kill them in 3 hits. If you can, proc the Astral Spirit on jungle camps before starting your gank.

The reason why I'm not picking ET is because he's a bit too setup dependent for Echo Stomp. Spirit is so incredibly easy to juke.

They fixed double shadowblade.

patch link?

ET just needs the laning phase to become more passive. More passive lane means that he is less awful as a support because he can just stack pull and zone, and get some farm in the process.

Half the heroes who aren't viable currently aren't viable because the game is hyper aggressive at the moment. ET suffers a lot because he just doesn't do anything early on.

If Lich hadn't been nerfed, Lich-ET offlanes would've probably been semi decent.

That's ignoring the fact a lot of his naturally good match-ups don't turn up at the moment.

No patch link, but I've tested it in lobbies and it hasn't been double-tapping.