r/DotA2•
Akr1d

Riki is kind of insane this patch. Where's the complaints?

Usually this sub-reddit is pretty good about whining about certain heroes. I'm mystified why I haven't seen much complaints about Riki. The dude has a 55% winrate at 9th most played in this patch. Sure that's skewed by low-tier matchmaking, of which Riki has always been a star in, but with him being at times first ban material quite often in pro Dota surely it's time to take notice.

When you look at what he got on paper, it seems obvious. Combining his agi damage modifier with his stealth makes him infinitely better, the added ultimate is a whooole new ability better, and diffusal blade continues to be buffed for non-illusion based heroes. His level 2 roaming ability is all of a sudden easily on-par if not better than bounty hunter, which he can then transition to easy gold and levels, which he can then transition into either massive damage (diff 2, s&y) or massive utility (atos, euls) for his team.

Oddly enough, I think adding a 2 second cooldown to diffusal blade purge is what put him over the top. Spamming self-cast to diffuse dust no longer has the chance to use more charges than you wanted to. This makes him only counterable by sentries, and anyone who has ever played support realizes that stuff is way more expensive than dust. On top of that, his blink-strike reposiitioning often requires more than one sentry to be dropped to kill him. That's usually 200 gold down the drain for a ~400 gold kill. Not great. On top of that, you'll need a casual sentry down in every lane if you want to keep your cores safe from errant ganks. Your life as a support becomes countering the bastard rather than playing the game. If you don't succeed, all of a sudden he'll be hitting you for a 3rd of your health per hit - and all that while making you poor as dirt.

You can't really itemize against him outside of a force staff and maybe a ghost scepter if you're a support. Even for carries, nothing really is good against him. If you buy an orchid solely for a support Riki - who's just going to purge off the silence anyway with his diffusal blade - you've basically lost the game. He's not really match-up specific either in that his smoke cloud simultaneously counters heroes that rely on physical damage, magical damage, and mobility to get by.

His ulti lets him get out of usually impossible situations. If he gets caught out stalking an enemy, he can easily pop ulti and wait 5 seconds for his own teammates to come and counter-engage. In a fighting meta where it's best to have all players ready for a teamfight at all times, 5 seconds is plenty of time to converge. When you're the team that's behind on farm and don't want to take a teamfight, you basically have to leave him be for fear of being counter-engaged.

I'm sure he'll get nerfed more in the fall patch, but I'm kind of disappointed I have to wait that long. He saps my will to live when I play against him. It's just not fun or fair.

Posted Aug 29, 2016, 11:22 PM UTC

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