Michael "Torte de Lini" Cohen is known for his popular Dota 2 guides: Standard Hero Builds. His guides are trusted both by the community, pro players, and Valve. Each week leading up to The International 10, Michael will be providing game tips, player updates, and tournament analysis. Stay tuned, only with SteelSeries.
Torte de Lini’s listicles strikes again, hopefully the last time before patch 7.30. That said, we need to sit down in a safe circle and talk about five Dota items that need to be buffed. Granted, there are some items on here that you really don’t give two snots about but they need some love, too, and even the cob-webbed forgotten doll in the toy store needs a brush or two with the feather duster.
Wind Waker
In theory, this item is really cool and we’re seeing a lot of late-game magic heroes pick it up as a “well I have nothing really left to buy,” that said it clashes a bit with Arcane Blink with has a more all-around better active item and Wind Waker’s cost scares more casters who can get this far in the game to consider picking it up. I think it needs a sale on its price and a check on its life-saving active component to be more well-rounded for more situations rather than a displacement for 2.5 seconds. With Nullifier on the board, it pulls down Wind Waker’s overall value.
At being one of the most expensive items in the game, Wind Waker stands out as being a nostalgic reminder that the Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker was on the Wii U and will very likely not be released on Nintendo Switch!
Helm of the Dominator/Overlord
With the extinction of Necromonicon, you would think Helm of the Dominator and the new Overlord would come out to play but the reality is that Helm of the Dominator offers a mish-mash of stats and most creeps just get trounced by todays meta. Helm of the Overlord is just an ungrateful son’s inheritance to better all-around stats for absolutely no purpose. Support heroes are not seeking for an all-around attribute item at 6000 gold and carries are going to focus more on themselves than the niche utility of a very strong neutral creep. This can definitely be revised and revisited because it frankly doesn’t suit anyone’s black tie event, let alone a Dota match.
Anyone who buys this item is signaling to the enemy team that its wabbit season and they should consider getting a refund. What a boring item that really could use more direction!
Falcon Blade
At its initial launch, Falcon Blade was finding a demand for early-game carries that needed that extra mana, like Clinkz and Weaver, to maneuver the map to become relatively obsolete due to couriers being able to provide clarities whenever they need it and a lot of other items like Soul Ring, Ring of Basilius or even Diffusal Blade providing just enough extra mana-pool or regen to ferry these mana-hungry carries to the mid-game. Falcon offers a lot, but isn’t special or valuable in one ideal area or another. It needs a better direction and perhaps even integration to a mid-game item to give it a utility and value that some heroes would naturally buy into it.
Mage Slayer
When this item came out, it looked very appealing: an offensive item for mid-laners and carries that can effectively reduce the growing late-game killing capabilities of magic heroes. That said, due to the cost and the natural logic of: “why don’t I simply just go kill those fragile casters?”, this item fell to wayside and never picked itself up. Even for heroes like Phantom Lancer, who had the time and day to buy a Hood of Defiance just simply doesn’t care to buy for Mage Slayer. He can simply just buff himself to outlive big casted abilities and overtake the enemies before their family can cash the life insurance policy!
Dagon
This item is the Biff of all items. No one likes it, it’s kinda cheesy and let’s be honest, all the noobs pick it up way too late for absolutely no purpose but to try and shortcut a game that’s gonna last 40+ minutes anyways. Instead of jogging in place with your FitBit, just do the laps and play the game right. That said, Dagon is a deeply forgotten item that offers absolutely nothing in value: its stats suck, its activation tickles due to neutral items buffing everyone and their momma with incredible health and the number of heroes that can utilize this item is shrinking fast. I am not sure there is anything we can do about Dagon at this point but it does need a revisit, rework or flat-out removal.
The days of Dagon are behind us. No more Pugna Dagon, Bounty Hunter Dagon, Nyx Assassin Dagon. The only one who remains is Tinker Dagon and it’s still the most annoying thing out there. All that said, an item for one hero is not an item but an extension of that hero so let’s open up that board for this item and have it fixed.
Hopefully this is the last of 7.29d era as we are wrapping up Nemestice event with the expectancy of a 7.30 patch reveal! If 7.30 comes, you can trust that I will be here, once more, to feed you an expert opinion you can then parrot to your friends for glory and admiration!.
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