Omniknight Underused and Overpowered?

I enjoy playing Omniknight but he is a hero that depends on coincidence and luck to be viable. Last game I played with him I got 1 kill but didn't die (and got the most assists) but that was mainly thanks to a great team.

Omniknight should never be played as a support. His carry potential is just too great. get phaseboots shadowblade and Vlads GG!

Omni has a few problems. He sounds great on paper, but just doesn't seem to pan out.

If you compare him to tide, both are melee support heroes with big AoE teamfight ults. Omni can really only play defensively, while Tide can play offensively or defensively. Tide also has better MS, HP, and turn rate, and faster casting animation. Omni can do okay in tri lane vs a melee carry. Look at his best matchups on dotabuff: Spec, Naix, PA, SK, and BH (Naix is the ONLY competitively viable carry there that would be seen in a tri lane). Worst matchups? All range (Omni's worst matchup according to win % is Drow). His heal bomb is obviously a big contributor here. making people commit to attacks, and constantly healing/nuking. I think his heal would be better if it affected multiple heroes, nuked multiple enemies, the nuke range was much bigger, and omni was ranged. Oh wait, that's necrolyte!

Necrolyte and Tide can also gank, where Omni cannot. I don't even want to say "In the current meta, smokes are popular" In this game, they are popular. Period. 100 gold for a possible kill, especially late game when respawn is over 60 seconds, is GAME changing. Omni can't make use of smokes, while a lot of other supports use them EXTREMELY well. In high tier games, supports spend a lot of time out of lane (Most don't even have a lane past a few minutes. You have to stay REALLY active), and get their gold/exp through ganks while the hard carry farms. Supports gain fast exp through ganks, enemies lose exp/gold through getting ganked, hard carry gets solo exp and free farm. Sounds good! Omni has to stay in lane to baby sit the carry. This means less EXP for your team (lack of ganks), less gold (lack of ganks), and the opponents farm is uninterrupted (lack of ganks), and the fact that your support has to stay glued to the hard carry, denying him additional exp as well.

His lane presence probably doesn't need to be touched on, but it's horrible. Beyond horrible. Also, it was already said, but SD is extremely powerful/popular, and counters Omni completely.

Another point to touch on would be his degen aura. I don't get it. Ever. Well, maybe late game. This is, again, where omni looks good on paper, but doesn't pan out. To make use of the aura, you have to get very close. You will get focused down quickly, and you will die. You're not going to heal yourself because you've most likely used it on someone else. Even if you save your heal for yourself to chase, it's not worth it. Can you think of any supports that can slow a hero by 28% or more, without having to be 300 range away? You're basically saving spells to save a support. As a player that plays almost exclusively support, I can say that I die a lot. A whole lot. It's not a bad thing to die as a support. In chess, you can't break into your opponents territory without making trades. You trade heroes. Our Omni for their Void, etc etc... Omni has to stay back, and spam. Go stats. Try it. You'll like it.

On a side note, Nyx and PL are very popular right now. Both counter Omni pretty hard. Also, I think Mek is a mistake on him. He already has a decent single target heal, and fantastic AoE heal through his ult, and has mana problems. Mek is for heroes that have TOO much mana, and need another spell to burn the rest of their mana during a teamfight to help contribute (Lich, old silencer (with passive), KotL, CM, etc), not strength heroes like Omni imo.

There's more, but... This is already a pretty long post.

Also, shadowblade on Omni doesn't work. He can't carry. He can't semi carry. Not in games with good players, at least.

I'm catching up on pro matches, and I saw that Omni was picked up in the Defense by Navi, I believe. It was put in combination with Clockwerk and most notably Batrider. Granted, Navi did lose that match, but Omni's Purification and Repel made a significant presence with Clock/Bat's initiation capabilities.

This is not said to spit in the face of everything that has been brought up, rather it might make good discussion.

You're certainly not spitting in anyone's face, haha. Purification doesn't really have the presence it should, because of it's obnoxious cooldown. Most teamfights are over within 3 seconds. Maybe not LITERALLY, but they are decided within 3 seconds of the commitment of the big AoE ults. You will most likely not have time for more than one purifcation.

I'm familiar with that game, as I observed it. Can you figure out why NaVi lost? Prophet/KotL is extremely strong, ESPECIALLY against Omni. Tobi pointed out how Repel will completely negate KotL blast on a target, and you can of course Q whomever gets lassoed by BR. However, look at their team composition. Too many people look at skills in a "X vs. Y" scenario. Look at the ENTIRE team, and play the teamfights out in your head. What is happening? Here is what I guessed would happen: Omniknight's ult is undoubtably one of the strongest in the game, if he hits all 5 heroes, vs a team with low magic damage (He counters Gyro INSANELY hard. So in that sense, I find people say "Gyro attacks are useless during Omni ult. GG." but I saw it playing out like this: KotL slows/stops pushes, Furion pushes faster by himself, than the entire radiant team. Tobi also said that PL relies on long pushes, at least a few waves, to build up momentum with illusions. KotL stops this. By split pushing, you effectively make it 100x harder for Omni to judge when to ult. NaVi had all the right tools to win as well. Huge kill lead, exp lead, first blood, and infinitely better 5v5 team fight. Fnatic played it extremely well, kudos to fnatic for the win and NaVi for changing up the picks a bit.

Yeah, Fnatic has been on a roll as of late. (Old) Navi likes their 5 man team fights, which is why Fnatic chose a split push/stall line-up. Also, Navi has been susceptible to backdoor due to their overcommitment in some aspects. Puppy even mentioned something of that problem in the Talk Dota #14, I believe. But who knows, I'm rather curious to see what the new blood will bring to the group.


but for the sake of the discussion, what would it take for Omni to have a valid presence in the pro scene? I imagine because of your comment that you have an issue with his Purification cooldown. Also, I took away from your recap that Omni is better when his ult is put to its maximum potential (ie 5 man push situations).

Yes, exactly. It's not so much that Omni is a bad hero, he's mediocre. He only works well in certain compositions, and against teams that cannot split push/ rely on a fair amount of late game. If you had a hero to force team fights, like a Chen or Furion, you can just push lanes in fast. This limits opposing farm, especially if you got NP to keep all lanes pressured. When a carry farms a lane, push it. Offensive wards, get all 3 smokes on cooldown, and you should have enough of an advantage to end. You also have to be very careful with your bans though. If you went Chen/Omni, make sure to ban AA. If you grab Omni/Furion, ban Disruptor. You talk about NaVi having a very reactive playstyle, and you're 100% correct. This is why Disruptor was such a strong pick up for iG vs NaVi (g3). Furions ability to push one lane, then immediately defend, is very powerful. The only thing is, you need A LOT of game knowledge (Which I don't have) to weigh out the decisions that iG had to make vs NaVi, and NaVi had to make vs Fnatic. They've played a lot of scrims with Omni lately vs Gyro and have had success. But they saved Omni for a last pick. If they had banned Furion, Fnatic may have known they're going for Omni and banned him (Leaving Fnatic with a superior team, still. NaVi's team was kind of tied together by Omni, counting on him to give them invincibility during gyros flak, then burst damage back).

Like I said, it's really hard to say. They have SOOOOO many factors to weigh in for picks and bans. Again, Omni can work with certain line ups. Look at Disruptor in that 3rd game with NaVi v iG. He really countered NP hard, and NaVi's TP's if he didn't glimpse NP. Does this make Disruptor top tier? No. He's good against certain line ups, and will be picked/banned accordingly, but he's situational. Same with Omni, but Omni really excels vs large AoE physical damage. Pick him as needed, which should be rarely.

EG.Demon is known for his Omniknight, especially to solo offlane. Just my $0.02.

Indeed, he has played solo long lane Omni a few times. I've never seen him do too well though. I'll check for some replays, but I think I've seen 2-3 games and he did very poorly both games. Definitely throw up some Match ID's if you find any. I'd be interested in seeing it done well.

Here is the game I was mentioning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYKNUSgwBFY