io - Keeping you Alive since 05 and now with Special Guest Winter Wyvern!

Question: Why do i never see io in pubs? yet banned in pro's consistently?

reason: i tethered Leshrac and he survived through a QoP Ult, an SK ult AND a freaking NECRO ULT all with just a tether and overcharge. how is that not broken?

Question: Why isnt Winter a first pick/first ban ? she is hotly contested in second phase but not first pick/ban as of yet? why is this and what can make it change to one?

What tweak would make Winter OP?
WHy no io people?

Because people are scared of the play style you need for wisp. He requires a kind of self sacrificial play style, since he mostly sticks close to his carry. And a lot of pubbers would rather go and do their own thing. He also requires coordination, which isn't something you find in abundance in solo que

Wyvern: while she has a set of useful skills, I think most pro teams prefer to get hotly contested carries such as Queen of Pain, Leshrac, and Gyrocopter

Because Io benefit's from co-ordination, and clear, correct decision making. Like, I've messed around with Io, and a lot of the hero comes down to decisive decision making that is followed by your team. Like, you need 3 people who are there stopping TP's when you relocate Tiny in to base race, you need to know the rest of your team is getting either out of a fight when you save someone, or ready to go in when it's just a slight re-position.

He's is a crazy powerful hero however when you have those things, because the heroes abilities are all nuts. As is the heroes ability to scale; he's one of the best scaling supports in the game, but at the same time is game-winning with next to no farm.

EDIT; something to talk about regarding this;
A badly played Io is actually a liability when he goes for relocate plays, which he should because it's one of the best aspects of the hero. Because it can lose you team-fights you should win, or feed kills that shouldn't have happened, or even just taking someone away from where they should be. And that's actually game crippling.

And Wyvern has started being first picked/first banned. If you look at pro tendancies in and around ESLOne she's gotten a lot ore focus as a first stage hero, because she's among the top supports in the hero pool right now. (Up there with ES, Naga Siren and arguably Lion. I don't include Io because it's a strat and a hero that will almost always be usable regardless of patch unless he gets like a major direct nerf, even if Wyvern has made Io pairings worse).

And that means she'll start getting that priority in pubs pretty soon.

io REQUIRES teamwork, otherwise he is just one of the worst supports in dota. He also needs very good positioning because of tether, much more than most other supports

And Winter Wyvern is best against strong physical damage dealers, she isn't exactly a jack of all trades. In your game, although she was good against Axe and Legion Commander, her Cold Embrace would just help Queen of Pain, Necrophos and Sand King kill more easily.