Facets Need Buff – DOTABUFF

The facet mechanic is very interesting, but it will take a while before it develops into what we feel Valve envisions. Currently, most heroes have a “weak” and “strong” trait, as opposed to having two different stat options. Today we’re going to look at some of the worst examples of this and share our thoughts on why they’re underpowered.

This one is pretty straightforward to explain: Kinetic Fence is a fun-looking skill, but it doesn’t fit every hero’s kit. Two fences can be used to block an enemy’s escape and there are definitely creative ways to use them, but the effect remains below the standard, circular limit.

Interaction Wall thunder damage in a small AoE and using the relative slow can be an interesting buff and fix an otherwise weak feature. We’re still not sure when exactly the Fence will be better than the Barrier, but it would be an interesting experiment.

This is perhaps one of the weakest virtual reality skills, but it is difficult to use in non-integrated shibs. Opportunity cost of loss Solar Bind is also very high, in our opinion. Perhaps having access to both spells, at different power levels would be the solution.

There were quite a few underperforming KotLs that performed well during the TI qualifiers that took the Recall feature. We wouldn’t say it was the most impressive, but it’s a KotL switch between the many positions in the Captain Process. Having pro-only and pub-only features isn’t a bad idea by nature, so maybe it’s okay this part doesn’t work well in pubs.

This is just stupid, to be honest. LD is easily one of the most broken heroes in mid level pubs and the reason for this is the ability to survive multiple ganks, while dealing a lot of damage to both heroes and buildings. Insufferable eliminates the survivability factor and makes the Lone Druid an unreliable glass cannon.

This part needs a rework or creative buffs, because we don’t really know how it should work. Maybe the idea is to make Sylla the main source of ranged damage, but with an attribute gain of 1.8 / 2 / 2 this is a very questionable idea, even for a Universal hero.

The so-called “support” facet of the hero is amazing. -20% Status Resistance sounds interesting, but actually making it work in a hectic team fight is very difficult, especially for a support hero who doesn’t have Illusion survivability.

Core Naga definitely prefers to have the Armor effect from Rip Tide, as it is his main source of free game economy for manacost and team damage. Perhaps relying more on the migration ability from Naga Flood with more AoE on Flood and increased Cast Range on Ensnare would be a way to make Naga work as a support. For now, though, just skip this feature altogether.

Not much to say about this one. It was overcrowded and truth be told, we’re fine with it. The “Random AoE crowd control” mechanic is not particularly fun to play with.

Honestly, this part has to be considered, but we hope that all Sand King changes will come with Aghanim’s work of some kind. The hero is constantly fluctuating between being too powerful and not being relevant and we hope Valve gets the balance right. Currently playing Sandshroud SK – actually decent.

There are two reasons for this huge difference between the sides: not only is Plague Carrier a bad form, but Patient Zero is also very good. We don’t really know what the big idea is about Plague Carrier, to be honest.

The only sensible way to use it is to play Veno core and use moving wards to farm quickly and efficiently. Building into a Bloodthorn and getting +50 extra magic damage on every ward attack is a neat idea, but for now why not just play any normal heroes with high survivability, farming speed and late game power?

It’s the “newbie” facet that sounds good on paper. People are used to having more MS and Range is not a thing, but the lost flexibility is noticeable. It’s very difficult to get good surprises, it’s impossible to prioritize the enemies in the background and it can’t be used as a tutorial for the hero – Visage is a small character first and foremost.

In our opinion this feature is unnecessary. It doesn’t work for beginners, it doesn’t teach newbies anything important about a hero or a micro in general and the only thing that can be “fixed” is by actually increasing the amounts on the Standard bonuses. Brute force balance isn’t how Valve usually works, so hopefully we’ll see some sort of reworking of Visage’s features.

This one is cool on paper and we believe that on a slower meter it can work as it is. At the moment, however, it takes too much time to get off the ground and be useful. It also doesn’t contribute to Arcana development, which is a shame.

Perhaps a small number adjustment can make it a useful aspect of the hero: the ability to fight a team is there and with the right setup this part can cause more damage than usual. Focus Fire. It’s slow and conditional make it very unreliable at the moment, but keep an eye out.

“Where’s the Time Zone and RRP?” some of you may ask. This is a great conversation starter and may be a topic for next week. For now we will show that they are not as bad as people think they are. At least in terms of Win rate statistics.

Today we focus on Facets with a negative win rate difference >5% compared to others. They are so undeniably weak that they can’t even be considered a “state”. These are the ones we hope to see abused or perhaps reworked.

What are your thoughts on this list? Do you feel that players are bad at using some of these “bad” Features and how can you fix them? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.