Hero Discussion #10 - Io

Io, the Guardian Wisp. Tiny's best friend. The hero that tore about a TI, and has been torn apart since. Overpowered, underpowered, circling free...this half a hero is seriously weird.

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First up a few stats:

110th Most Popular Hero (i.e. almost the least popular hero in the game)
Overall 38% pub win rate.
Bottoms out at 32% Under 2K, rising to just over 50% at 5K MMR.

What does this tell us?

First of all, that it's not an easy hero to play. One of the hardest 'support' heroes to play, and also incredibly reliant on your team to be effective. Generally you need at least one friend on your team in control of a partner hero you can work around.

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Ok, so what do I need to know about it?

There a lot of misunderstandings and misplays around Io, so lets try and clear some of them up:

- Io is one of the most level and item depend support heroes around. It may have almost no impact on its own, but he also struggles to get anything done without items.

- Seriously, let it get some basic items like Bottle and Urn of Shadows as a minimum. Good Ios will help with Wards/Courier etc, but they're NOT a #5 on most teams.

- Io is basically a battery of health and mana for its Tether partner, granting them 1.5x whatever it gets in regen - including Arcane Boots, Mekansm and consumables.

- Io gives you bonus attack speed and damage resistance under Tether and Overcharge.

- Io can Relocate you anywhere on the map if you're tethered to it. It'll return to its original point 12 seconds later, with anyone currently tethered to it.

- Io is very slow moving without Tether, try not break it unnecessarily as the cooldown is longer than you might think.

- It has terrible base armour, and can easily be killed by creeps, don't leave it to get hit.

- So, it's role becomes boosting your health, mana, attack speed and damage resistance - letting you do more damage, and stay alive. It can only do this for ONE person at a time.

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Discussion:

- What do you think can be done to boost Io's popularity in general play?

- Is it possible to balance Io for both competitive and pub play?

- Have you ever actually played him? If not, why not?

- What is your usual Io build?

- Is Io competitive without a strength partner like Tiny or Chaos Knight?

Better information to players.

People (and this includes 4Ks) need to understand that

- Wisp is only viable if you're queuing with a friend. Picking Wisp in solo queue is literally autolose.

- Wisp is only viable if you have a functioning microphone, and intend to regularily use it to communicate and coordinate with your partner.

Failure to understand that is the reason for the (generally deserved) reputation of Wisp as a griefing hero - not only because of cliff trolling, but also because of the classic solo queue first pick wisp ruining games.




He *is* actually balanced around both competitive and pub play.

He doesn't have the issue in pubs that Chen has. He's about coordinating with only one player, not your entire team. Which is doable if you play with the same friend.




I have. In a 2-stack, played like 10 games. Was pretty interesting to see firsthand how he works, although following one guy around the entire game gets a bit annoying at times.




Either I rush Guardian Greaves if I have gold and my team is push-oriented, or go Urn of Shadows/ Arcane Boots into cheap survivability items like Ghost Scepter and Glimmer Cape otherwise.
Surviving as wisp is the most important thing, since smart players know that you should always focus the Wisp, not his partner.





Yes, definitely. Wisp is a good partner to essentially any snowballing carry, also any ratting carry. Both really beneft from the global presence.
The only carries who don't go well with Wisp are the AFK farming ones. But he works with all others.

Morphling (Eblade first item)
Sven
Legion Commander
Clinkz
Troll Warlord
Luna
Templar Assassin
Riki
Ursa
outworld devourer
Slark
Silencer
Leshrac
Bristleback

Those are all pretty solid Io partners from what I've seen.

I used to play a lot of Io and I think my winrate is 69%, should check I'm not sure. It used to be at a certain moment.

I played him togheter with friends and it was absulote beast. I have done the Io Medusa combo where the medusa gets a Divine Rapier. Io just synergizes way to good than.

I played him mostly in dual mids, before it got popular :) I would go mid, harrash, stack camps (cut trees with theter to do dubble stacks), control runes and ganking side lanes.

I also combined him a lot when we had a furion oflane. Than I would be mid or safe lane but if I came oflane to gank it would always end up in kills. Giving a furion that extra attackspeed, ms and mana/hp regen is so strong. Riki was also good, before tricks of the trade became his ult.

However, my build has changed a lot in times. There used to be a time I would acutaually buy a Eul's Scepter of Divinity on Io, but that was before Guardian Greaves came into the game. Now I actually like to buy mobility and survivability items as Force Staff, Ghost Scepter and Glimmer Cape, after the usual healing items.

1) It might not be a good idea - if Io is easy enough for general people to play him, he is either broken or he lost his identity as a difficult to play high skill ceiling high reward character

2) Yes, but that would require a lot of changing that I don't think it's worth.

3) Yes.

4) Bottle > Urn > Arcane Boots > Mek > other stuff like glimmer solar crest lotus orb etc etc.

5) Maybe Bristleback? I know people sometimes pair him with Agi carries too, like Morphling Jugg and PA