Banned Heroes and the Balance

[Edward]

Well, maybe it's supposed to be on the balance thread, but just a question:


When noobs want to nerf heroes such as Scout or Arachna, everyone will tell them that they are pub heroes and that games are balanced for the competitive scene.


And then I come here and see that the most banned heroes are Tempest and Jeraziah, because they are too strong.

So why aren't they getting a nerf? If it's supposed to be balanced for the competitive scene and the competitive scene thinks they're too strong, they should be nerfed, shouldn't they?

[Alhanalem]

No hero is "banned" or "for pubs." Only noobs kick people out for using heroes they don't know how to beat.

Scout killing you? Get an eye next time.

Jerry? use heroes with non-spell-like abilities or strong passives.

Tempest is pretty strong but he's also squishy if you can keep him down early.

Every hero has a weakness.

[scrubs32782]

All heroes have their strengths/weaknesses, but in a competitive game, most of these pro players can turn the tables too easily with them. They are banned, because those heroes make an unbalanced playing field. One solid tempest ult can seal the deal for the opposing team.

[Travakh]

The heroes that are banned in the metagame do get nerfed. Look at bristleback, which got backhanded over and over again into **** tier in dota. Or QoP which got pissed on

Give it a bit of time. Strong heroes in HoN are heroes with very good team battle presence and can either end a battle immediately in your favor (temp ult, panda running around ruining everyone's ****), or end it before it begins (behemoth ult).

[Alhanalem]

tempest is perfectly beatable. I've gone against them many times, some people don't know how to play them, others get ganged up on because of its reputation. People should know which heroes are the most popular and pick their hero based on what they think will be picked. Sure you can't always predict it but being unprepared for a likely pick is worse than picking a counter to a hero that ends up not getting picked.

It also depends a lot on the map and game setup.

[_Archangel_]

No hero is "banned" or "for pubs." Only noobs kick people out for using heroes they don't know how to beat.

Scout killing you? Get an eye next time.

Jerry? use heroes with non-spell-like abilities or strong passives.

Tempest is pretty strong but he's also squishy if you can keep him down early.

Every hero has a weakness.

OP is talking about competitive play, where heroes ARE banned, you silly boy.

rofl at your arguments for countering Jeraziah and Tempest. Look at it from a competitive point of view, when there's 2 organised teams both playing to win.

Heroes with non-spell-like abilities and strong passives", right. What the hell do you mean by non-spell-like abilities? How will strong passives help against Jeraziah? His ultimate, and the twenty-second magic immunity cast on a carry, is extremely gamebreaking and the only real way to counter it is a 3300 gold item (Nullfire Blade), or picking Electrician. Your team really has to go out of its way to win against a team with Jeraziah in it. Thus he is considered a pretty strong hero, and is banned often because teams would rather ban him than have a nightmare of a game trying to counter him.

Tempest: "Pretty squishy if you can keep him down early" applies for every single damn int hero. On the other hand Tempest will jungle 9 games out of 10, and in any competitive match he or an ally will Ward the entrance to his jungle so he becomes something of a waste of time to try to gank. Once he has a Portal Key, in teamfights, if you don't spread out, and have Wards on the cliffs he could possibly initiate from, you can guarantee that he will genocide your team. Spreading out isn't as easy as it sounds; it's very unrealistic to spread out in a fight because that makes it easy for your opponents to pick you off one by one and also makes it difficult to cast buffing spells like Astrolabe, Jeraziah's Ult, Barrier Idol etc. Warding the cliffs allows you to see him and avoid him, but unless you have some Blinks/longrange stuff to kill him with that's all you're gonna manage to do - run away. Thus Tempest is also a nightmare to counter and banned often.

[Weenoman]

This is where the cognative thought of the players who post here fail.

Just because tempest is "beatable" and jereziah is "beatable" doesn't mean they aren't imbalanced, how about we weigh usefulness over the course of a game. How much more useful is jereziah and tempest to the bottom tier heros? You might respond, "thats not fair, those are bottom tier heros, no one picks those", Oh wait. No one picks those.

gg

Some heros are just plain more useful over the course of a game than others, it doesn't matter that they're "beatable".

[dYe]

you are also forgetting that other aoe initiators in dota are not yet ported (mag, tide, etc)...so tempest is a bit op in that respect because he is the only one of those kind of heroes ported so far

[Edward]

you are also forgetting that other aoe initiators in dota are not yet ported (mag, tide, etc)...so tempest is a bit op in that respect because he is the only one of those kind of heroes ported so far

True, but Enigma was still banned/picked quite often on non-asian games (hehe)

[zhatan]

Since the AoE that actually sticks you in his ulti is bigger here, thats what makes him better here then in dota. Also, the lack of the other heroes makes him a more powerful pick. All in all Enigma is a really rare pick in dota these days, here he is an auto-ban.

Jera is another matter, but he is just OP. Throw kunkkas splash on omni and thats what you get(overfarm + group utility at its best). Another auto-ban. If you ever get to play these in a clanwar the other team made a serious misstake.

You might own them, but then it will be because you are alot better then your opponents. In a even game either one of these have a very high chance of deciding the outcome of the battle.

[Selvisk]

All heroes have their strengths/weaknesses, but in a competitive game, most of these pro players can turn the tables too easily with them. They are banned, because those heroes make an unbalanced playing field. One solid tempest ult can seal the deal for the opposing team.

SO reducing the cooldown of QoP's scream of pain slightly (or whatever its called) is a nerf?! :o

Imo scout and arachna aren't OP'ed at all! too easy to counter. Tempest is a strong hero, but not OP imo, allthough I agree Mr. OP jareziah needs a nerf ASAP. Sick support combined with the ability to deal a lot of damage is just pfff.. <- And on a STR hero? come on...

[uhhhahhhohah]

Counter to everything: Pharaoh and an agility hero with nullfire blade.

[Fenald]

SO reducing the cooldown of QoP's scream of pain slightly (or whatever its called) is a nerf?! :o

Imo scout and arachna aren't OP'ed at all! too easy to counter. Tempest is a strong hero, but not OP imo, allthough I agree Mr. OP jareziah needs a nerf ASAP. Sick support combined with the ability to deal a lot of damage is just pfff.. <- And on a STR hero? come on...
No QoPs (not hags) shadow strike used to slow fully at level 1.

[scrubs32782]

SO reducing the cooldown of QoP's scream of pain slightly (or whatever its called) is a nerf?! :o

Imo scout and arachna aren't OP'ed at all! too easy to counter. Tempest is a strong hero, but not OP imo, allthough I agree Mr. OP jareziah needs a nerf ASAP. Sick support combined with the ability to deal a lot of damage is just pfff.. <- And on a STR hero? come on...

I was specifically talking about tempest/jerry. Scout and Arachna are easily countered. Arachna is a solid lane harasser though.

[Edward]

I think some people are misunderstanding something: I don't think Scout and Arachna or Overpowered, I was just setting an example of what newbs think.

[weeD`SuFFo]

True, but Enigma was still banned/picked quite often on non-asian games (hehe)

It is never banned nowadays, and not even commonly picked (but still picked once in a while).
Also, what every pub is missing to counter tempest is observer wards. Not that hard to avoid having a tempest jump on 4-5 heroes. Stronger lanes to beat the two solo heroes is always good too.

[Volshok]

Most bans aren't based off the strength of the hero, but the strength of the player who could be playing it. Certain players had moments where they out shined the competition when playing a certain hero, and thus the hero was banned vs them. Some examples off the top of my head;

Vigoss: QoP
Merlini: Silencer/Zeus
Loda: Nevermore
Kuroky: Axe
Yamteh: Tinker

[Edward]

It is never banned nowadays, and not even commonly picked (but still picked once in a while).
Also, what every pub is missing to counter tempest is observer wards. Not that hard to avoid having a tempest jump on 4-5 heroes. Stronger lanes to beat the two solo heroes is always good too.


I haven't played DotA since 6.60... At least back on 6.59 he was still picked a lot. Last replays I saw Kunkka and Nevermore were the ultra top picks, IDK how it is now.


Also, what every pub is missing to counter tempest is observer wards.

Well, you get a max of 4 wards at a time and he can come from anywhere, even from the front, lol. And that would also stop you from getting other useful wards such as Kongor's and maybe a deffensive jungling ward (this, obviously, mid-late game, since early you need 2 on the runes).

[KARTlK]

Tempest is really really strong in semi-competitive.

The strongest heroes are just insta-banned in competitive games, nobody wants to lose to a hero that they think is too strong. Idk if they are actually too strong though. It's like banning new heroes.

[KARTlK]

You ward the jungle spots bro. You only need two.

[Edward]

You ward the jungle spots bro. You only need two.

What? Say you're pushing middle and they come from the ancient creeps or pushing the long lane and they come from the shop?

[Tanubis]

Keeper's a nice counter for Tempest. Eye up Tempest's forest good, every time ult comes up walk in on tempest's neutrals with invis and ult him down. Another nice one is Sand Wraith now she's out. That huge AOE dispersion doesn't do much, but it definately disables anyone from blinking in on her and firing off that huge ult (well, unless temp has BKB and Blink, triggers the BKB and waits the 3 seconds for dagger to cooldown before jumping, but that's expensive and shouldn't happen early).

[Sabre]

Banning heroes isn't about the fact that the heroes are somehow crazily unbalanced or too powerful, but they're just a pain in the ass to counter. Tempest and Jeraziah represent extremist heroes, who are focused very strongly on their roles and require very specialized counter tactics. Banning them is simply a way of avoiding them. The mechanism itself also exists to prevent overpowered heroes from being used in game between patches for when problems like Panda's flurry disjointing arise.

[rXp]

Hey if you don't want certain heroes you can activate the "veto" option.
You know... Every teams has the right to ban 5 heroes that they don't want the other team to take.(I think it's 5 not sure anymore... ^^)

[JewishNinja]

What? Say you're pushing middle and they come from the ancient creeps or pushing the long lane and they come from the shop?

The other guy meant warding the jungle spots so that creepspawns are prevented, thus messing up tempest's farm.

The introduction of sandwraith makes the blink initiators (tempest/magmus) a lot weaker since finally, you get at least a counter for that pesky blink dagger initiate.

[Volshok]

Silencer will help with that as well.

[Kietharr]

Yup, silencer hard counters ALL channels, especially considering his ult is on a lower cd than Tempest ult. Tempest has to get him in the AoE or he can't ult, period. Also counters behemoth ult and all of the combo heroes like Pyromancer and Lion.

Currently hellbringer is also a hard tempest counter. If they add Tidehunter that's another hard counter. Tempest wasn't exactly a first pick/ban in DotA for this reason, there were way more good counters to him while in this game only Hellbringer will counter him once he has BKB.