A few weeks ago I talked about heroes that could use a buff, but today, after the Bali Major is over, it’s time to talk about heroes that desperately need a nerf. They probably won’t surprise anyone, as they were the tournament’s biggest meta trends with some of the highest win probabilities.
Universal hero with high farming potential, good endgame scaling, built-in damage, mobility and questing is just too good. There are no two ways about it: the hero needs to be “weaker” in terms of numbers to make up for how strong she is in terms of her overall design.
maybe Insatiable hunger it can be distributed, as most fans of this type are. Or maybe the hero might lose some movement speed, so it needs to be backed up Silk ball to pursue her goals and not just max out stats for extra damage and finesse.
Perhaps Universal heroes as a concept need another look: it still seems like 0.7 damage per stat is too good in the late game, with many Universal heroes dominating the meta in all key positions.
That’s why we won’t even consider it 
Morphing to be one of the heroes that can use a nerf. Him stealing 40% of Universal enemy hero’s attributes and still only winning ~50% of his top tier games shows how problematic Universal heroes are and Broodmother is definitely the most problematic of them all.
Medusa is still a bit good for one simple reason: if you don’t counter the hero during the draft phase, she will escape the game. Of course, she has some problems in the end, but when she manages to hit it 
Manta Style + time a main item before minute twenty, she is unstoppable.
maybe Seeing the stone it might cost a bit more mana so it’s more of a trade off between different types of survivability. The duration of activation in it can also be changed. At the moment, attacking Medusa feels like a very bad game, and that’s what makes it such a strong hold.
Increasing the duration needed to turn enemy heroes to stone can go a long way, without changing the numbers on her Mana Shield once again. The hero isn’t taking too much damage, nor does it necessarily feel “too painful”. She just feels painful, with an extremely powerful penalty if you don’t get past her double HP bar in time.
This is where I think the problem lies with the hero, so hopefully we’ll see some changes in the future.
I touched on the hero last week, but some players may have missed the mark. Clockwerk is currently one of the strongest positions of five per lane supports with a stretched core. It has very high mobility, strong aggressive potential and weighs extremely well.
The hero also provides a ton of scouting. It is very important on the larger map, but also provides tactical advantages in a fight. Having the ability to start the fight by jumping into the backline cannot be understated.
Finally, the hero is very flexible and can work with almost any build, making him a very versatile support. Depending on the situation, he can go for any of the higher level defensive support items, or he can go aggressive with items like 
Blade Mail, 
Spiritual vessel or even 
Malice orchid.
The hero is performing poorly in the pub, but it seems to me that it is temporary. Bali Major really showed how and when to play Clockwerk and he could soon become a problem. High adaptability coupled with high peak power make for a very explosive combination.
It’s safe to say that the current meta revolves around a handful of heroes who are strictly better than the rest. Of them, some stand out even more and can be considered overpowered. It also looks like they won’t go through with a smart counter-pick, so we’re unlikely to see major meta changes without Valve’s direct intervention.
That said, 7.33 was a very large patch and it will definitely take time to balance it properly. Additionally, while the pro meta is very disappointing, the pub meta is still somewhat fluid, with many viable heroes and only a handful of very bad ones.
Overall, we hope to see some patches before the next big tournaments, but we also feel that they should be mainly focused on the pro scene, rather than the drinking. Do you agree with us? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
