Pub Tier List 6.83
Three weeks have passed since the introduction of the 6.83 changes into Dota 2 and it is time for another pub tier list, in which we will discuss what heroes and why are stronger or weaker than they were in 6.82.
To be perfectly fair, most of the changes did not impact the hero standings - the 6.82c patch was a well-balanced patch focused around mid-late game and not a lot has changed - the game is still very much farm based with a strong comeback potential and certain mechanics which prevent mindless pushing strategies from being as effective as they were last summer.
That said, there were a lot of smaller changes, which, while looking unimpressive on paper, did influence the Win Rate on certain heroes by a rather large amount.
Without further ado, Pub Tier List 6.83:
Tier 1: Pub Stompers (56%+)
Omniknight, 
Abaddon, 
Necrophos
These three heroes have been in the Pub Stompers section for quite a while now and the general reasoning behind the very impressive Win Rate on the first two has not changed a lot - both Omniknight and Abaddon are extremely hard to kill themselves and they also provide a lot of saves for their teammates.
To be honest, we were expecting a bigger impact of the 
Diffusal Blade not being an Unique Attack Modifier on the Omniknight's Win Rate. But as it stands, there was only around 0.5% decrease in it, which is not at all representative of anything.
Necrophos, while sounding very similar on paper, is in fact very different from the first two heroes. The biggest difference is that Necrophos is primarily a carry. Not necessarily your typical auto-attacking type, but a carry nonetheless. He can be played in the support role, but he only has one disable at his disposal - his ultimate with a really long cooldown and his healing capabilities are not at all impressive. If your team needs a support to finish up your lineup, there are better alternatives.
Without items the hero can be bursted very quickly, especially considering miniscule range on the Death Pulse and extremely slow projectiles, which will force the hero to be in the middle of the action, where any half-decent opponents will try to focus him.
Given at least some farm, however, the hero transforms into a very potent ganker/tank/damage dealer who can punish a single mistake from an opponent extremely hard - having no buyback past 45 minutes mark on your carry can lose you the game.
Given the high Win Rate, the heroes are also quite popular. In general, any hero that relies on healing and/or regeneration can be easily countered with 
Ancient Apparition, and these three heroes are not an exception.
According to the "matchups" tab on both Abaddon and Omniknight, 
Razor is also a good counter to both - he is extremely hard to burst down due to high Strength gain and mobility, while the tides of battle slowly turn in his favor the longer it lasts. At some point the heals will get irrelevant and 
Guardian Angel will wear off.
Interestingly, 
Sniper and 
Drow Ranger are also among the best matchups against all three heroes in the Pub Stompers section. It could be the superior range and high damage output what makes these generally sub-optimal heroes effective against them.
Given the random nature of the lower brackets which are included in the sample I would personally avoid drawing conclusions regarding the Sniper - the hero is really popular among newer players and to be perfectly fair it is a lot easier to play a semi-decent Sniper, than a semi-decent Omniknight.
Drow Ranger, however, has a really strong silence at her disposal, which might contribute to her matchup statistics and from what I have personally witnessed the skill is often overlooked even in my ~4.5k bracket.
Tier 2: Pub Winners (52%-56%)
Wraith King, 
Juggernaut, 
Crystal Maiden, 
Zeus, 
Spectre, 
Silencer, 
Centaur Warrunner, 
Troll Warlord, 
Warlock, 
Lich, 
Vengeful Spirit, 
Undying, 
Riki, 
Earthshaker, 
Spirit Breaker, 
Medusa, 
Slardar, 
Ogre Magi, 
Witch Doctor
Juggernaut: my initial expectation of the +6 Agility buff was much lower, than it turned out to be in practice. To be fair, while the laning stage got a lot easier, I personally have never experienced problems farming as Juggernaut, and assumed that this buff will have the most impact in terms of +1 armor derived from the said Agility buff.
And that is where I was very wrong - the hero experienced an almost 4% increase in Win Rate in the transition, and given he already had a rather high one, it can be considered a rather impressive bump. Top that with an increased popularity of the hero among pro players hence a multitude of new interesting builds and VODs and you get a really strong, well-rounded carry with a decent potential from excellent crits, amazing healing ward and 1.4 BAT.
Crystal Maiden: a 2.6% increase in Win Rate solely from an increased utility of her ultimate, which can be channeled from half-a-screen away and still do its dirty job. Crystal Maiden suddenly became a lot more relevant, though not quite to a point where she is consistently picked in the competitive scene.
The weird part about the hero, in my opinion, is her ability to jungle starting at level 1 and her crazy amount of soft crowd control that would have transitioned into a terribly overpowered aggressive support, if it wasn't for her ridiculous movement speed and early-game mana issues. The way she is now, she is a bit awkward to play - you never know what skills to get and in what order - they are all excellent in a very underwhelming body (statswise).
Troll Warlord: one of the most impressive Win Rate changes in the 6.82c - 6.83 transition - 3.89%. It was a collaborative effort of bug fixes and max AS cap increase. Since Troll Warlord had no issues reaching that 500 IAS previously, the latter is a huge buff. And extra +34 AS on first hit with 
Fervor is certainly not minuscule by any means.
Tier 3: Average Pubbers (49%-52%)
Dazzle, 
Treant Protector, 
Venomancer, 
Luna, 
Axe, 
Ursa, 
Mirana, Sniper, 
Slark, 
Chaos Knight, 
Clockwerk, 
Disruptor, 
Viper, 
Tidehunter, 
Enigma, 
Phoenix, 
Phantom Assassin, 
Jakiro, 
Faceless Void, Drow Ranger, 
Shadow Fiend, 
Night Stalker, 
Brewmaster, 
Shadow Shaman, 
Pudge, Ancient Apparition, 
Bloodseeker, 
Lion
Chaos Knight: a major increase in Win Rate from some really strong early game buffs. it seems it is the time to wipe the dust off all the 
Io players, since the combo has never been this potent since the huge Wisp nerfs post TI3.
It is often said that Chaos Knight is among the strongest late-game carries - after all his damage output scales extremely well with levels and items. It might not necessarily be the case, since all of the illusion-based heroes have received a nerf, but if you see a lineup that has very little AoE or no natural 
Mjollnir carriers, the hero can be extremely strong.
Tidehunter: one of the big losers in this patch and another case where I was wrong - 5 MS and 70 Damage do matter.
To be fair, since 
Refresher Orb is such a common item on the hero, he has essentially lost 140 damage on his ultimate, which can mean all the difference between a support with crucial disable on the opposite team dying or surviving. At the same time, his scary presence is persistent and his ability to crowd control in a huge AoE is not a single bit less potent.
Jakiro: the pushing capabilities of this hero came not only from the damage he could deal to the towers, but also from the AS decrease it provided, making your wave survive a lot longer. With the damage aspect heavily nerfed, the hero got a lot less potent in taking T1 towers, where he could essentially dive for 1 tower hit to get the debuff on it. That resulted in an almost 2% Win Rate decrease.
This change was primarily focused on the competitive scene, where the hero has been prioritized for quite a while now. Since he is still one of the heroes that are rather difficult to play, his Pub Win Rate is in no way representative of his actual strength in capable hands. Yes, he is a weaker pusher now, but there is a lot of other utility the hero can provide, given proper setup and skill.
Tier 4: Pub Losers (46%-49%)
Elder Titan, 
Phantom Lancer, 
Keeper of the Light, 
Bristleback, 
Leshrac, 
Tiny, 
Techies, 
Sand King, 
Dark Seer, 
Lina, 
Weaver, Razor, 
Beastmaster, 
Gyrocopter, 
Lycan, 
Windranger, 
Death Prophet, 
Storm Spirit, 
Meepo, 
Dragon Knight
Techies: Techies is a very peculiar hero - he is both extremely over- and underpowered. After a very strong nerf to his Stasis Trap, there was a compensation due and it came in a form of increased damage on Land Mine. A very significant damage increase of 75 at level 1.
This resulted in a Win Rate increase of almost 3%, which couldn't go unnoticed, since, personally, I was a big fan of the hero when he was played in the competitive setups back in Dota 1.
It is really hard to tell whether the hero belongs to the category of heroes that are hard or easy to play, but one thing is almost certain - public matchmaking players are not in any way representative of the potential of the hero.
Death Prophet: not long ago the hero was featured in our pub stompers section and look where she is now. Patch after patch the hero was hit with nerf hammer, much akin to Lina, which gets buffed patch after patch.
Was the nerf deserved, given her current abysmal Win Rate of 46.53%?. I really feel like it was, since the hero was and still is quite strong in the competitive scene and higher level public matchmaking. You just have to care about the positioning a lot more that you previously had to.
Razor: For some reason, even without the nerfs, the hero has lost slightly over 1% Win Rate. No direct counters to the hero have received significant buffs, so it must be the case of people adjusting and learning to play against the hero, rather than patch effect.
Elder Titan: a very minor damage nerf on Ancestral Spirit and various bug fixes have resulted in a surprising drop of slightly over 2%. Given that the majority of players did not utilize many of the bugs that have been used by the pros and the bugs themselves were not terribly overpowered, there is almost no reason for this change.
Interestingly, the "matchup" tab for the hero features Techies as the biggest nemesis of Elder Titan, but even given a significant buff on Techies it is still really hard to link these two pieces of information.
Tier 5: Pub Throwers (41%-46%)
Huskar, 
Nyx Assassin, 
Queen of Pain, 
Timbersaw, 
Kunkka, 
Templar Assassin, 
Doom, 
Pugna, 
Skywrath Mage, 
Batrider, 
Lifestealer, 
Magnus, 
Anti-Mage, 
Bane, [missing hero: outworld-devourer], 
Naga Siren, 
Invoker, 
Legion Commander, 
Clinkz, 
Terrorblade, 
Tusk, 
Rubick, 
Morphling, 
Ember Spirit, 
Visage, 
Earth Spirit, 
Oracle, 
Enchantress, 
Tinker, 
Broodmother, 
Puck, 
Nature's Prophet
Queen of Pain: one of the most discussed heroes on reddit has finally been given a buff which was not completely out of place. It resulted in a decent Win Rate gain of 2.67%, compared to 6.82c. The Win Rate is not at all impressive, but the hero has gained a lot of utility and became a lot better against certain heroes, such as Anti-Mage, Meepo, Rubick and especially Visage.
She can also neglect the effects of 
Pipe of Insight, which in most sitauations rendered the hero almost completely useless.
Oracle: people are playing the hero wrong. Completely wrong. The fact that 
Dagon is even featured on the hero page makes me want to cringe heavily.
Oracle is a support hero. A hard support hero with a really strong early game burst and a decent amount of really strong disables. The pure fact that he can render an enemy carry useless and make him take 50% increased physical and pure damage should be enough to make him viable. Add to it the ability to make your carry an unstoppable force for 9 seconds and a very strong purge which actually holds the targets in place and you get a terribly overpowered hero, which suffers from the inability of public matchmaking players to process information in a proper manner.
His 1.4 BAT is also terribly imbalanced. Get to a lane with a decent amount of regeneration items and you can harass pretty much everyone out of it - for each of their hits, you can put out two (not exactly, but you get the idea). It is not there to make you a carry, it is there for you to make your lane partner a carry. A terribly overfarmed safelaning carry.
Tier 6: Repick Heroes (<41%)
Shadow Demon, 
Alchemist, 
Chen, Io, 
Lone Druid
Chen: I have a friend who is consistently featured in the Top 100 for Chen. When we were discussing the changes to the hero in 6.83 he said that the hero is now terribly overpowered, since having 2 creeps at level 3 can make a lot of difference. For one, you will farm a lot faster - you can even stack one camp with one of your creeps to be later taken with Wildkin, while you farm the other camps with your second creep.
You can gank more effectively - stun+slow is a really strong combination. You can singlehandedly win Mid Lane for your partner with a harpy, while you effectively jungle. The implications of these changes are a lot bigger than people unfamiliar with hero assume.
And the +15% HP on Granite Golem is a must in later stages of the game.
Alchemist: I really do not know why this hero is so low in Win Rate. He might not be the strongest of carries, but given there is no Ancient Apparition on the enemy team he can be rather hard to deal with.
Add to it the fact that you can effectively build him to hit six times in a second by a 30 minute mark and you get a ravaging monster on your hands.
Seriously, though, the hero does require some sort of a buff and it has to be not to the gold gains from Goblins Greed, which is rather irrelevant in the current patch.
I... don't... know...
@eD #!nstinct™
How in hell are you supposed to free farm your jungle for an ENTIRE 15 minutes without being carried by the rest of your team?
Where are Sven and Bounty Hunter?
How can you outright forget them (especially Bounty Hunter, who got a HUGE buff for Track...)!?
Abaddon is one of the best supports I have come to appreciate, together with Wraith King and Phoenix. They just absorb so much damage for the team and win the fights for their team! :)
stuck in 3k mmr pub games is hell everyday...
The reason Razor counters Omniknight is his passive, Unstable Current. While Omni does not have any targeted spells to trigger it, his teammates usually do. The purge removes both Guardian Angel and repel, which means that not Omni is the problem, but the four other players on his team.
@eD #!nstinct™ maybe in normal skill games but the higher the skill level the worse alchemist is. I just insta pick AA as soon i see something like Alchemist Abaddon or Dazzle. I don't remember losing any games against an alchemist since i know how to deal with him.
Alche win rate is terribly low because most of people who used him never get stun at the first place and he can't survive most of the ganks which caused him to be underfarmed even with that goblin greeds.
Sadly the majority of these heroes are so low due to the inability of people to play them properly. Medusa i low on the lists??? I mean really. Out carrying Medusa is ridiculously hard.