Spectre popularity and heroes with passives

I think the reasons that were stated by all of you, specially the explanation of Cuttleboss, are on to why this is: the shift on the heroes most used on the meta (her counters being less efficient) and the introduction of new items changed a lot of mechanics that make space for Spectre to be effective now.

However, I see many people saying "dotabuff doesn't care about competitive", as if that's an argument, but indeed it doesn't and that's not an explanation to anything: the quote I chose expressely refers to 5k+ skill bracket, on pub games. So that's what is under discussion here, not Spectre's power in competitive. But this is saying something already, since I've been reading everyone on this site lately saying that you have to be at least 5k for people to consider you're good at the game, and most people are bellow, and bla bla. So when we say that she has a high winrate in that skill bracket, we're not talking about scrubs playing, so we have to assume they do have some degree of coordination and knowleadge. From this, we can assume also that there's some reason why the hero's popularity rose.

On a different angle, @Hamster, you acuse the article of being "full of false information", but then you say a lot of stuff that is not related to it at all - since, and this should be obvious if you read it, the article is about picking rates and winrates in pubs that are registered on the site. "Spectre is in such a good place right now that she has a 4% pick/ban rate in competitive" - well, we're not talking about competitive, the author does say she is such a good place in pubs, not in competitive. If you want to stress the importance you give to competitive on the real power of a certain hero, that's another thing, and a perfect legit one, but not what I wanted to discuss here and what the article is about.

Also the very overpowered item that you complained about should be overpowered in every skill bracket, according to your words, since you said "heroes with passives are now literally unplayable": but then you have this hero with a strong passive being very strong in pubs (and btw I stopped counting how many Enchantresss and Bristlebacks and the like I've been seeing in the competitive games of the last weeks, but that's another story). Now the hero might have been nerfed, without a doubt: but it still rose on pubs, more than before, after this patch (this isn't false info, these are numbers that are registered that you can't really accuse of being partial). So maybe it's another good example on how dota is too complex a game to make large assumpations based on a single change when other mechanics may determine that, despite a buff, the hero is actually in a better place now?

What mostly happens in competitive right now is, in my opinion, that players tend to go safe picks that they know are efficient, instead of picks of higher risk, since they are playing professionally and they want to win probably more than to just "have fun" playing. The meta right now seems to be centered around a very strong laning phase, so picking this hero, which is very weak at that stage is very, very risky, and you would have to make sure that your lineup is prepared for it and that the other team doesn't counter it too hard. But in pubs players are still a bit more free in their picks, so you get to see funky heroes rising and falling as the patches come.

I don't know enough of Invoker at all to comment on him =/ except that he's almost in every single competitive game I've been watching, so even I know he's very strong atm. One day I will take the time to study the hero - when he's less fashion again :D

What had changed? Spectre was always a very good pub hero at any level, because even at 5k teams consist of 5 random people with no guarantee that they will cooperate whatsoever. Pubs are pubs.

At high MMR, players have better individual skill, but their coordination is exactly the same as it is at 1K MMR : zero.

Solo queue pubs are uncoordinated, and getting higher in MMR changes absolutely nothing about that.

The only coordinated games you ever see in pubs are either 5-stacking with friends, or playing captain's mode and getting massively lucky with your teammates.

There's a difference between a hero being strong because people are bad at countering him (and if there's a Bristleback doing super well in a pro match and nobody buys Silver Edge against him it qualifies just as well as Riki owning scrub tiers because nobody buys detection honestly) - and a hero bring strong because his skills are really good, his core items are really good and he's more or less good against everything and he can be first stage picked both in competitive and in pubs ( Invoker, outworld devourer, Dazzle, Death Prophet or whatever hero with >70% pick/ban rate in competitive right now).

And even then Silver Edge is an extremely common item in pubs, again, whatever the MMR (just look at Slahser's videos buying it on Silencer, Tiny, SF or OD in the 6K bracket), so I stand by my point that Spectre got massively nerfed and didn't gain anything from this patch. Her winrate was always sitting around 59% in pubs, and I think my explanation that you need *coordination* to time pushes when her ult is down and pubs are completely uncoordinated whatever the MMR stands.

And about the article having false information, the "decline" of Gyrocopter or Invoker made me facepalm, since in pubs they're also picked in every game ever and they're turing into patch abuse heroes.

So even if you talk purely about pubs, the false information is that Spectre gained anything from this patch (she didn't), that Invoker got nerfed and will see less play to make space for heroes he's good against (he wasn't, hero is still broken, when you give 4 free levels of XP to a hero there's something really wrong), and that Gyrocopter is declining (he's still picked a lot in pubs). And don't get me started on the "slow fade" of Windranger, a hero who actually got slightly buffed this patch.

Independently of that, I think the article got Medusa's problems completely wrong. The big issue of Dusa isn't mana burn, mana burn is a soft counter to Dusa at most. Ths big issue of Dusa is split push. If you're facing mana burn as Dusa, buy BKB, problem solved. If you're facing Embers, Slarks, Arc Wardens, Furions, AM's and Lone Druids constantly pushing out lanes and ratting your base, no matter how much farm you have, you lost. Dusa is meh right now because it's a rat patch, you need carries that can get pickoffs these days and Dusa just can't do that.
Actually maybe I could make another thread on Dusa. I still think the hero can be a solid situational pick against teamfight and burst damage oriented lineups or even deathball lineups if you have proper initiators in your team, but she still gets completely rekt by rat dota. She's kind of a teamfight specialist, a one-trick pony that wins pretty much any teamfight and has sick counterpush, but can't do anything else and is really, really slow. Luckily some mobility items like upgraded boots of travel or Blink Dagger help (partially) fix those issues.

Medusa is in my eyes one of the better carries to play in pubs. Because manaburn heroes aren't that popular (except Invoker. Also manaburn can be countered. But the best part of dusa is that she is tanky, and tanky heroes own because they always get focussed. She farms decently if you go a proper build and you are likely to win as long if you don't buy a linken's phere!!!! With a Yasha you can farm pretty fast for your skadi. Even a drum is a great item on Medusa. Also a proper Medusa player can fight early, Mystic Snake is an amazing nuke and you have a really good slow of 50%!

I think if I would rate the best pub carries at this moment, for me, it would be:

1 Juggernaut
2 Wraith King
3 Spectre
4 Chaos Knight
5 Anti-Mage
6 Medusa
7 Terrorblade
8 Luna
9 Troll Warlord
10 Sven

I didn't mentioned Gyrocopter because I don't like the hero and I don't know how good he actually is this patch. Everytime I play him I find him weak at farming and scaling (but that is probably my fault and not Gyro's). But he is probably still a good carry.

I wouldn't be surprised to see spectre picked in comp after BadMan's shenanigans...